Apparently the newly elected Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said that Trump’s comments on Islam were “ignorant.”
Trump’s response was (and I’m not kidding here) “I’m not stupid” and then challenged the Mayor to compare IQ tests. Yes, Trump’s retort to the Mayor of London was what you would expect from a fat middle schooler facing a bully.
Prime Minister David Cameron called Trump’s statements on Muslims “divisive, stupid and wrong.”
Trump fired back at Cameron with “It looks like we’re not going to have a very good relationship. Who knows, I hope to have a good relationship with him but it sounds like he’s not willing to address the problem either.”
So I find it very disconcerting that Donald Trump would risk relations with the UK over what could be considered the pettiest of insults.
Obama has not endeared the US to the British after a series of gaffes. One would have hoped that our next president would be less of an ignoramus and try to repair our special relationship.
Trump, instead, has decided to make things worse, and he’s not even president yet. Why? Because he’s a narcissistic, childish, dunce. I don’t care how much money he made. He’s classless, and willing to risk America’s position on the world stage because he feels personally affronted.
So I commented on the article with “He’s not even elected yet and already souring foreign relations with one of our closest allies.”
What I got in return was a level of vitriol from Trump supporters that could dissolve steel.
I was told that I was a traitor and a terrorist supporter for defending Khan. I was called stupid, a troll, and told that I should kill myself.
But a good leader should respond to criticism with grace and dignity. Reagan and G.W. Bush were burned in effigy by Communists and Liberals respectively, and neither lost their poise and acted like petulant children.
But my favorite comment was this:
Wow. What a clear and rational justification to vote for Donald Trump. I have been completely convinced that he is head and shoulders above every other candidate for President since the beginning of the 2016 primaries.
Oh wait, no. That’s just the same insult and bulling tactic that Trump himself uses. Bobaloo really does aspire to be like Trump, using only “the best words” (what a fucking tragedy that clip is).
I don’t know what is worse, Trump or his supporters. What I can tell you is that they are making it harder and harder for me to ever come around on Trump, because I don’t want to associate myself with those assholes.
I am not the only blogger to feel this way. There are more and more of us every day to can’t handle the Trumper tactics.
One Halloween night, some years ago, a man came into the bedroom where my girlfriend and I were sleeping. He fled as soon as she began screaming. We never got a good look at him, though the police were able to pull fingerprints and arrest the intruder, a homeless man with a criminal record. It was a terrifying experience — the kind that makes you think long and hard about how to protect yourself.
I was told by the men in my life to buy a gun — that was the responsible thing to do. But after a lot of thought, I decided there was one principal reason I wouldn’t buy a handgun: I don’t want to live in fear. I know that sounds strange — a gun is supposed to bring peace of mind. But to keep a piece at your side is to look at the world through gunsights. It’s a profoundly anti-social posture. To me, carrying a handgun is an acknowledgement of weakness, not strength. It’s an admission that you’re out of ideas for how to deal with people, even those — especially those — who mean you harm. It’s a failure of imagination, a failure of wits and, in the case of open carry, a threat of violence to every passing person.
Nobody does. But somehow for Forrest Wilder (The author of the piece), preparing one self for a bad encounter with a criminal is living a state of perpetual fright. I still have not figured out how their minds can stretch over that oversimplification unless is heavily laced with a political stance. The same excuse could be made for First Aid kits, seat belts and airbags, smoke detectors and fire extinguishers but this apparently does not match the same requirements for being prepared in case of a crisis. I am almost willing to bet that Mr. Wilder’s smoke detectors might be malfunctioning and the only reason he wears seat belts is because he is afraid he might get a ticket.
“carrying a handgun is an acknowledgement of weakness.”
And our standard response is : Well, duh. I acknowledge that my physical condition is not prime to face a younger and stronger individual seeking to do me bodily harm or that my 110 pound-soaking-wet-wife is pretty much fodder for any male 15 to 65 who would like to beat the crap out of her and rape her or that no matter who you are, you are always reacting to an assault with a deadly weapon and you need something to not only even the circumstances but to succeed against the assault. The problem is that they do not see weakness the same way we do. For them, admitting that they do not want o get down and dirty is weakness according to a pseudo-moral stance: Nothing is ever solved with violence. That is the eternal unicorn that they ride to show how much mentally elevated they are from you. Of course, unicorns do not exist and we like to deal in reality which can be quite physically hurtful.
“It’s a failure of imagination, a failure of wits.”
And here we have the ultimate in self-deception. Do not take this sentence alone, but combine with the previous two. What we get is: You unimaginative rednecks! Your only answer is pew-pew! Bow to your Superiors who are smart and know better than you!
Now, anybody who spends over an hour doing a bit of research on a defensive life-style, has come across the following:
But even following these principles, we know sometimes avoiding a deadly force encounter might be inevitable. We train on both the principles and the use of the gun because our lives depend on it.
My fear is that Mr. Wilder firmly believes that he can eliminate any danger by saying something witty or deeply profound. Sort of like Hogwarts Safety Spells by Intelligentsia. That book can be found in the same shelf where you will find the truly effective Gun Free Zone signs. My experience has taught me that one of the few things that can come out of my mouth that may defuse a situation tends to be a heartfelt-sounding apology and a careful retreat. But I am willing to bet that Mr. Wilder thinks a witty remark will astound the attacker into submission… somehow I don’t see quoting Monty Python solving an active shooter incident or stopping a knife-wielding man from poking new holes in Mr. Wilder’s belt while he is still wearing it.
You know? He is free to follow his self-imposed course of what he thinks is a proper defense of life. But he can spare us from his tone of superiority and trying to tell others his way is better. He does not get to dictate how somebody else’s blood get spilled or even if.
I have not watched the full documentary. I may or may not do so. For those of you who don’t know, it is a documentary over gun violence in the U.S.A. It is supposed to represent both sides, and it is done by Katie Couric and Stephanie Soechtig.
I want to watch it to see how balanced the documentary is, but from the trailer and reviews it appears to be one-sided. For instance, the trailer opens with an interviewer asking “How do you feel about the fact that a person on the government’s terror watch list can’t board a plane but can buy a gun?”. Right away there is propaganda- or just misleading information- given. First, the terror watch list is known to be faulty. Second, boarding planes is not a right. Bearing arms is a right, and requires due process.
The show then points out that there are more FFL dealers/people than total of Starbucks and McDonalds in the U.S.A. I can’t figure out why this is such a terrifying number? I mean, let’s compare entire markets at least. About 247,000 fast food restaurants are in the U.S.A., while there are only 51,438 retail gun stores. However, the number of these stores do not matter. I just figured I would also quickly find larger numbers for the fun of it since the filmmaker did so.
The trailer doesn’t contain much else, other than a few quotes on how the film is fair on the topic.
According to Katie, the NRA only represents 5% of gun owners. There are about 5 to 6 million NRA members. Let’s go on and say that by their math, 120 million gun owners exist in the U.S.A. You don’t think that it is possible that many of those gun owners support the NRA? I am not a member, but I approve of a lot of what they do. While I am sure there are gun owners that think all gun sales should go through background checks, it is terribly misleading to think that only 5 percent of gun owners approve of the NRA.
This is all for today, and I will consider watching the full documentary. However, I will likely just go on about one or two topics from the film if I do. That way the blog does not become burdened or repetitious. Have a nice day.
Update: I missed J. Kb’s article in February that spoke of this film.
There you will find where he showed a list of official partners of the film. Everytown and quite a few others made the list. Thanks to the comment below for pointing this out.
Former president Bill Clinton was heckled again, while campaigning for his wife, about the 1994 crime bill and the issue of aggressive sentencing. Clinton defended his seminal piece of legislation by claiming that he had to pass the sentencing increase to get the assault weapons and magazine capacity bans to pass . He also claimed that it was the AWB that was responsible for the drop in violent crime after 1994. Lastly, Clinton went on to walk back the sentencing guidelines that his bill had and praised Obama for undoing part of his bill.
This is not the first time that either Clinton has had to denounce the 1994 crime bill. A few months ago both Bill and Hillary Clinton got into some political hot water over statements related to President Bill Clinton’s signing of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also know as the 1994 Clinton anti-crime bill. The issue started with Hillary Clinton being confronted by Black Lives Matter (#BLM) protesters about her defense of her husband’s signing of the anti-crime bill, and more specifically about her description of some of the criminals the bill targeted as “super predators.” After that, while on the campaign trail for his wife, Bill Clinton lost his temper with some #BLM hecklers, defending the anti-crime bill and saying that #BLM didn’t care about black lives when they were taken by black criminals.
When Bill Clinton lost his temper, he through out a word at the #BLM protesters that unfortunately was almost a generation away from being meaningful: crack. Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 and took office in 1993. This was the zenith of the “crack epidemic” that started the early 1980’s and peaked in 1993.
An enterprising YouTuber put together a compilation video of CBS news reports on the crack epidemic. It is almost 90 minutes long, and really gives you an insight into the national drug zeitgeist.
Associated with the crack epidemic was a spike in violent crime. Crime rates had been going up since the late 1960’s, but climbed to new heights between the mid 80’s and mid 90’s.
Let me reiterate. The higher sentences imposed for using and selling crack cocaine, a drug that heavily associated with black criminals, was fought for by black leaders to try and save the black community from the ravages of crack.
The problem Bill and Hillary are having is that they are facing a new generation of activists who have no concept of what the crack epidemic or the crime wave of the 90’s was like. A lot of these SJW types are younger than I am, and I was in the 4th grade when the Clinton crime bill was signed into law. They only know of this period in history from movies like Boyz n the Hood and Menace II Society. To them, crack is not a drug that destroyed whole communities, but a throw away punchline – e.g. “I can’t stop eating these french fries, I think they cooked them with crack.”
Mandatory minimum sentencing and three strikes laws were some of many legislative and policy changes that helped turn the tide on America’s crime problem. They were a reversal of policies put in place in the 1960’s and 1970’s that accelerated the rise in violent crime.
But as the often misattributed but highly accurate quote goes: “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.” Well the myth of mass incarceration is one of those often repeated lies.
What is troubling is how new policy is being created that directly undoes the progress made in the 1990’s. Well intentioned but ignorant people have been trying to fight the “school to prison pipeline.”
However, as schools adopt policies that limit expulsion and higher levels of student discipline schools have become more violent, with teachers coming under physical attack. What goes unsaid is how this policy affect the kids in these classrooms who do behave and have their educational opportunities cut short by the bad students.
In several majorUS cities, reductions in policing and arrests due to social activism have lead to crime waves known as the Ferguson Effect. To the point where a handful of these cities are responsible for the majority of all the murders in the US.
At the local level we have seen what reduced sentencing and inadequate policing has done to communities at an alarming rate. When Rudy Giuliani became mayor of New York City, he cracked on quality of life crimes – e.g. squeegee men, turnstile jumping, peeing in the street – in a policy known as broken windows policing. This was credited as helping reduce the violent crime and other maladies that was plaguing the city in the 80’s and 90’s. Mayor de Blasio, following the progressive dogma that being tough on crime is bad has stopped prosecuting quality of life crimes. For the first time since I was a baby, homeless men can piss in the middle of a busy NYC street and get away with it. As you can imagine, older New Yorkers, those who remember the bad old pre-Giuliani days, are concerned that these policies will lead to NYC having a pre-Giuliani murder rate as well.
America is watching in horrifyingly real time how progressive politicians, trying to make nice with the #BlackLivesMatter and Social Justice movement by denouncing and undoing the tough-on-crime polices put in place in the mid 90’s through early 2000’s, is resulting in a huge increase in violent crime and murder. The more the progressive media personalities and activists justify looting and arson because a racial grievances, the more real damage they allow to happen to minority communities with violent crime.
Now compare all of that with the other major act of the 1994 crime bill, the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act or Assault Weapon Ban (ABW). Notice in the first video posted, how many people in the audience applauded the ABW and the “ammunition clip limit.” As fast as Hillary is to denounce the 1994 crime bill as a mistake promises to amend federal law to be more lenient on criminals, she is in favor of bringing back the ABW.
In contrast to the other parts of the crime bill, just how effective was the AWB in reducing crime? Not. At. All. And with the surge in purchases of these types of rifles since 2008, reinstating the ban will do nothing to prevent more crime.
Even those to try to tie the end of the AWB to mass shootings can only come up a conclusion that is “tenuous” at best.
And what about the effectiveness of the Clinton’s beloved Brady Bill? Equally. Worthless.
But there has to be more gun control and the victims of gun violence need to be able to sue the gun makers because… progressive reasons!!!
The politicians, activists, and pundits on the left are simultaneously pushing against effective anti-crime legislation and for ineffective anti-gun legislation. Ignoring the ABW’s violation of civil rights, what they left wants is to do less of what worked and more of what didn’t.
These progressives will bring about more crime, more violence, and more death, in pursuit of Social Justice. They lack the historical understanding of what led to the crime peak of the 80’s and 90’s and what helped to end it. They don’t understand how minority leaders fought for safer streets in minority communities and how it will also be minrity communities that are the first to be destroyed by their new policies.
The greatest tragedy in all of this is that the old guard of the Left (as much as I disagree with them on many, many issues) should be using this as a teachable moment but it is failing. Bill tried but got shouted down and is on the path to surrendering to the #BLM/SJW movement.
More lives will be scarified on the alter of leftist, collectivist ideology because of this.
The Guardian has discovered that there are summer camps in the US where kids can develop the skills to participate in the fun and exciting sport of Practical Shooting. Or as the UK based newspaper puts it “Alternative summer camp: where children learn to shoot assault rifles.”
The article itself wasn’t that bad. It was pretty neutral on the politics and did go into how there were instructors and rules to make sure everybody was safe.
The article made a valiant attempt to be balanced, interviewing some pro-gun people from the camp as well as Ladd Everitt from the CSGV. It is Ladd’s comment that I want to focus on here.
“The lesson you are teaching children is that guns are the solutions to problems,” said Ladd Everitt, the director of communications for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. He said that his group is opposed to anyone under age 18 participating in practical shooting. “There are plenty of other healthy sports that don’t involve the risk of accidental injury that practical shooting does and don’t involve teaching violence.”
First of all, USPSA doesn’t teach “guns are the solutions to problems” any more than youth boxing, jiu jitsu, karate, or MMA teach that beating the crap out of someone is the solution to problems. But thanks for trying.
Where I really wanted take apart was the statement “There are plenty of other healthy sports that don’t involve the risk of accidental injury that practical shooting does.”
What about the fact that youth sports injuries are on the rise as coaches and parents become more competitive and push children from an early age to excel in a sport with the hopes of a college scholarship?
I tried to find out how many people per year are injured while participating in USPSA, and I couldn’t find any injury statistics. I also couldn’t find any records of any accidental shootings during a USPSA match either. Doing my best to find out how many accidental shootings occurred during sanctioned shooting competitions of all types yielded no results.
I’m not going to say that it never happened, but it seems to be so rare that there are no statistics for it.
Just going by the numbers, it seems that kids are a whole lot safer at the range than they are on the gridiron on soccer pitch.
That largely has to do with the contrasting cultures of the sports. In shooting, the coaches and RSOs are there to make sure everyone is being safe all the time.
In most other sports, the coaches are there telling the kids to hit harder, dig deeper, and push themselves to the breaking point for a win.
I have seen this one pop more than usual lately:
I decided to check the uses of firearms for Murder (8,124), Robbery (126,869) and Aggravated Assault (143,737) according to the FBI UCR for 2014. That would come to 278,730 “gun crimes” for the year
Now, for the sake of the argument, let’s say that each crime was committed with a different gun, no repeats. So we would have 278,730 firearms used in violent crimes for 2014, right? Now, using the NICS Checks as guideline for firearms sales, it shows that the month with fewer guns sold in 2014 was June with a total of 1,382,975 or an average of 345,748 per week or 46,099 per day.
The 278,730 “gun crimes” for the year represents barely six days of salesof the worst month in 2014. An if we use the dales numbers for the year, it comes just a tad over four and a half days of sales.
Now, why would gun manufacturers risk lengthy prison times for such a small reward? The answer is rather simple: They don’t.
But it is a good lie for the #Gunsense people to spread around as it confirm their bias.
Gun Control has never been good at math anyway.
UPDATE: I was polite enough to thank Jessica (@jschuh82), but she did not seem to appreciate both the note and the info:
Blocked!
I almost feel hurt…. but I am using a Glock NY Trigger for my feelings.
Dr. Marjorie Rosenthal worte an op-ed about a conversation she witnessed between a Pediatric Intern at the Yale-New Haven Hospital and some new parents.
“Your daughter’s physical exam is perfect,” the intern said. “She’s eating well, peeing and pooping well. I want to talk to you a little about how to help you keep her safe and healthy.”
Next came a standard discussion about the baby’s sleeping position and whether she’s got a car seat. Then, the next question:
“Do you have any guns in the home?”
Suddenly, the genial tone changed.
“I don’t think you should ask that question,” said the child’s father.
“Should I take that as a ‘yes’?” the intern pressed.
“I just don’t think you should ask.”
“Sir, we ask because we want to make sure that your baby is as safe as she can be, making sure you keep any guns locked up and away from her.”
“It’s none of your business.”
Dr. Rosenthal then goes on to bemoan how this conversation turned icy and it was all about the child’s safety and that asking parents about guns shouldn’t be political.
Well it is political. You know why? I’ll tell you.
Since this weekend of my Son’s 2nd birthday, I remember quite clearly what the doctors did and did not talk to us about. We had to watch a state mandated video in English and Spanish about shaken baby syndrome and why we shouldn’t shake our baby.
Our doctors did not ask if my guns were locked up.
Our doctors also did not ask if I put child safety latches on my kitchen cabinets or medicine cabinets to keep our baby about from household cleaners and medication, which is the cause of over 800,000 accidental poisonings per year in children under 2.
I was not asked if I had stairs in my home and if I put up baby gates around them to prevent my son from being one of the 100,000 children per year injured in a stair fall.
I was not asked if I had loose plastic bags around the house or how my child would sleep at night to reduce the risk that he would be one of the 20,000 children per year injured by accidental suffocation.
I wasn’t asked if I had electrical outlet covers or fire extinguishers in my home.
If I look at the CDC’s list of leading causes of injury deaths by age group unintentional firearm deaths don’t make an appearance until age 5, and it still ranks below suffocation, drowning, and fire/burns.
So, Dr. Rosenthal, if you are really interested in the safety of newborns under your care, do you ask about pools and tubs, pillows and plastic bags, chemicals and medication, or any of the other major causes of injury and death to infants and toddlers? Or do you just ask about guns?
If your answer is guns, then your motivations are 100% political. There is no other way to rationalize how you ignore ALL of the leading causes of injury and death for infants and toddlers to focus on the one politically controversial item.
If safety really was your goal, you would be better off asking parents if they have the detergent pods at home. Those little items are rapidly becoming a leading cause of injury to children because they look like gummy candy and the chemicals in them are highly concentrated.
But you are going to stick to the guns. This is the reason we don’t trust you on this issue.
