The Northeastern Junior College held a debate between philosophy and criminal justice majors over whether or not more gun control laws should be enacted. The “pro” side was for more legislation and the “con” side for no more legislation.

Let me do a run down of the article.

It opened with comments from the pro-legislation side. The opener, Venus Bukowski, went straight to the Sandy Hook shooting and showed images of one of the kids. Then said the lines of “no one is trying to make guns illegal”, and “both sides recognize we have a gun problem”.

Hold your horses, Venus. The emotional card is your go to? Not logic? And while you may not want to make guns illegal, there are many who do so it becomes a valid concern. The only gun problems I have right now are the lack of constitutional carry and not enough money to get a Scar 17s.

The goals of the pro-side was to have mandatory training before someone’s first firearm purchase, eliminate the magazine size ban, and that a law should hold provisions so that educational facilities can have properly trained faculty for protection. They also kept citing that according to Gun Violence Archive, there were 783 gun deaths this year due to accidents/negligence. (If you check out the site, the number is for total accidents, not deaths). Why lie like that? Another pro-side debater claimed that responsibility should be part of our right to own guns, and that current laws to deal with safety even though the constitution says “Well regulated militia”. His proposed “safety law” would be the mandatory training.

So they have some sense- they see the magazine bans are useless and that it is a good thing for educational facilities to have armed faculty. However, they shoot their argument in both feet by lying about a statistic and ignoring the Heller decision, which made it clear that citizens do not need to be in a militia to exorcise their right that the second amendment reflects upon).

The con-side of this said that more laws would infringe upon our rights, and there are many laws already in place. They denoted that more laws would call for too much money to enact/enforce and that gun safety should not originate from legislation. The opener also referred to Russia, Estonia, and four other countries were murder rates are higher than the rate in the USA. According the Brookings Institute and the NRA, anywhere from 3,000 to 16,000 gun control laws are in place. She also cited that in 2008, all firearm incidents hit the lowest it had been since 1993. “This matters because creating new gun laws did not lower gun violence,” she said. 

Using facts and logic? Perhaps the opposition here should have gone for that route.

Also note that later on the pro-side cited more than 4,000 gun related deaths this year. I checked it out, and the site lumps suicides in, of course.

The three judge panel ruled the con side had won the debate.

Now, I know the people in favor of more safety legislation believe they are doing what is best and do not want to revoke anyone’s right to own a firearm. I see it as being influenced heavily by emotions of fear and sadness. A little boy was shot to death by a psycho. No one likes or wants that to happen. But you cannot legislate away stupid. Besides, if all you want is for a few safety laws for mandatory training that say that “those that own guns previous to the safety law being enacted would not have to take the training and new purchasers only have to take the training once”, then why even refer to someone who lost his mind. Also, I assume they approve of a registration because how else would it be known if you are being grandfathered in.

And safety laws don’t exist??? One guy said that the only laws right now refer to manufacturing, buying and selling, and transportation. Perhaps he is ignorant of laws against brandishing, of gun free zone laws, of gun ban laws, and of all of the other restrictive laws in respect to firearms that come in the name of “public safety”. And a one-time training for just new owners isn’t even going to make a big enough difference to reduce accidental injuries to zero, which is a goal of theirs.

So, the gun supporters who are in favor of more legislation lost the debate, misspoke of death/accident statistics, used the emotion card immediately with images included, and want some more useless legislation. The good side is that they still supported teachers having guns and ridding their state of magazine bans.

The gun and true second amendment supporters said that more infringement is not good. They also said that instead of more laws, the current laws need to be better enforced. They were also already aware of the Heller decision and used it to rebuttal against the well regulated militia statement.

It is great to see pro-gun people having a debate about gun laws instead of seeing the normal anti-gun rhetoric. Because while some of the arguments brought up on the pro-side were flawed, they stood more ground on reasoning than saying guns are bad. I just don’t support more gun legislation unless it is freeing me of government placed burdens on my freedoms. A gun safety course like that is pretty useless. I support everyone going and getting training and firing their guns often for practice. But a one-time training course? I hardly learned anything at the hunter’s safety course from when I was about 12 years old. And it was a long time ago. Shooting the clay pigeons that day does not make me a well trained person with a shotgun. At this point, someone in favor of training might say that this means the courses should be more often then. But now we are back at “well regulated militia” and the Heller decision- and that is the end of that discussion.

Have a nice day, and I’ll leave you today with this thought,

It is up to me to continue my training with dedication, not legislation.

The videos and GIFs of Cora Segal (A.K.A. Trigglypuff) are going around social media like crazy.  If you don’t know much about this new species of Campus Butt-hurt, I ask you to take a couple of minutes and go read this great post at The Liberty Zone and then come back.

Chubby people has a long standing tradition of bonhomie and acceptance of everybody. From Saint Nick to John Candy, Fat people are beloved because we see the good things both in life and in people. Top Fat Boy in history? Good Old Buddha who is always represented with a smile on his face and full of wisdom. Yes, there has been fat assholes in history: Nero is reputed to be in the chunky side, Reichsminister of Aviation Hermann Göring was a Nazi prick and the North Korean Kims are certainly murdering jackasses. And our fav fat asshole of all times in the Gun Rights movement is Michael Moore, need I say more?

What about rotund women? You need not to go farther than every plump grandmother, full of love and good food who no matter how bad you screw up, she is ever-understanding and forgiving. Ask women anywhere and they will tell you that their best confidant and friend packs some extra pounds and she is the one that has the biggest shoulders and can make a tissue box appear from nowhere alongside the tub of ice cream when the heart is broken and needs mending.

We thought Rosie O’Donnell was and statistic anomaly. She has been the official Nasty Fat Broad, so full of hate that even her daughter despises her with a flavor not seen since Joan Crawford’d kids. But we also have seen the rise of Amy Schummer in acting/political hack, Melissa McCarthty as just unlimited mean actress and a couple of others that escape my mind now.  Cora Segal is the uncared child left to roam the wilds of academia of her own and as we have seen, acts like a feral pig at a roadside watermelon stand.

Dear Trigglypuff, you make me sad because Fat people are stronger and more balanced that. You are against “body-shaming” when that has been our source of strength for centuries.  We all survived the idiots poking fun at us and the bullying by the less illuminated… till we figured the laws of physics and that a lot of mass moving at speed impacting against a lower mass and forcing it into the unmovable object tends to end conflagrations rather quick. Some mean person tell us we are fat and we laugh and retort that there is more to love about us. We have a bigger humorous gravitational force and that is why people gather around us at parties and reunions. We have taken time to stop and smell the roses (instead of constantly running and spending time in the gym) so we have stories to tell for children an adults. It is gonna be the fat uncle or aunt sitting on the ground surrounded by kids, playing with them and not caring if our butts get wet. You don’t go to the crazy Crossfit addict for counsel, nobody does. He will only tell you to suck it up and flip the tractor tire. You go to a Vito Corleone or a Winston Churchill. We have the wisdom, the smarts and the love for our fellow human beings. Hurting words do not hurt, they just bounce off our generous adipose layer, our fatty armor. Learn to use it, you will live longer. Stop being an angry, useless bitch.

I had to add the best Fat Friendly move ever: The Replacements.

With the introduction of new writers, I decided that the blog’s front page needed to change. I know that a considerable amount of people check the blog with tablets or phones and I was afraid that a story may get lost in the avalanche.

So I tried the tiles and got called on it as smart-phone unfriendly. So, I figure a list style showing the last 10 post will be the best compromise. The long format only showed 5 and it took forever to load in some cases, not that I am saying the GFZ writers like to write long…nah.

OK, that’ll be all… carry on.

With all of this talk about Obama pushing for more expansion on smart guns I am surprised to see very little reflection on Colt’s attempt in the 90’s, which was recently covered by NPR.

Donald Zilkha, an investment banker who was not a gun owner, bought the company in the 90’s. He had a plan to lead Colt into being the first company to producing smart guns.

While the technology and reliability was the big concern, the engineers at Colt felt they could tackle that challenge.

However, the biggest problem was one that Zilkha admits that he had not considered. “I hadn’t totally fully understood the culture.” He found out that many gun owners were skeptical of a gun that required technology to work in a life or death situation. To overcome this and to reach everyone else, Zilkha planned to demonstrate the technology for the Wall Street Journal. The tech used was a bracelet that used a radio frequency from a wristband that the shooter must wear.

Then the second problem occured at the demostration- the gun did not fire when it should have. It made the front page of the WSJ, and the smart gun from Colt was dropped. Since then no big gun company has produced smart guns, at least not effectively.

So there is a history of unreliability and not big market for such a product. Manufacturers and dealers should not be forced to supply something, especially when their is no demand. I don’t care if people want smart guns for their home. That’s your freedom to make that decision. However, I, as well as millions of others, do not want smart guns in our houses. It’s the same reason as to why I do not want a low quality gun, I prefer to own something reliable.

So the next time you see someone wanting smart guns just remember that it is their choice to want one, but it is not anyone’s choice what you should own.

Have a nice day, everybody.

The media has been in a bit of a tizzy over the outrage directed at Target due to the announcement that Target stores will allow transgender people to use bathrooms and changing facilities of the gender they identify with.  This has prompted a boycott of target, which as of the time that I was writing this post, has over 1 million online signatures.  The media has been quick to condemn the outrage and boycott as overblown and trans-phobic.

The CBS out of Minnesota (Target is based in Minnesota) defended Target by saying “But there’s no evidence of dangerous predators pretending to be transgender in American bathrooms, even though Minnesota supporters of a bathroom ban say it’s true.”

I guess nobody at CBS Minnesota bothered to watch Fox News in Pennsylvania about the man taking pictures of a 10-year old girl in a bathroom stall or CBS Southern California dressed as a woman recording hours of video in a Macy’s.  Or any of the other cases of policy abuse that Breitbart News recorded.

But the point of this post isn’t to attack Target for its policy.  The point of this post is to point out the media and pop-culture reaction to two Target policies.

As many readers of this blog and the wider gun community know, Target allowed itself to be bulled by Bloomberg’s minions into releasing a statement that Target does not want guns carried in its stores, even when state law allows it.

“This is a complicated issue, but it boils down to a simple belief: Bringing firearms to Target creates an environment that is at odds with the family-friendly shopping and work experience we strive to create.”

*On a side note, I love the irony that allowing CCW in Target “creates an environment that is at odds with the family-friendly shopping” but allowing a man in the woman’s room does not.

The best estimates on the subject put the number of Transgendered individuals in the US at about 700,000 or 0.3% of the population.  The state of Florida has over 1.4 Million active state issued CCW permits, meaning that Florida ALONE has twice as many permit holders as there are total Transgenders in the US.  The average national rate of CCW is 5.2% of adults have permits, which is more than 17 times the percent of Transgenders in this country.

Shortly after that, the gun rights community opted to boycott Target.  That is progressiveness for you, Target has no qualms about turning away 12.8 Million potential customers because they are gun owners, but they are loathed to be seen as non-inclusive for 700,000 trans-people.  And of course the media was silent about the Target anti-gun backlash, and cheered on Bloomberg’s minions when they turned their sights on Kroger.

Fortunately for CCW permit holders, some important people were paying attention.  When the CEO of the largest supermarket chain in America was put in the spotlight, he decided that Kroger was going to follow whatever the local law said and put the burden of store policy on state legislatures.  That is how you don’t alienate a customer base.

Walmart seems to be taking a play out of the Kroger books on the trans issue.  Walmart is the largest retailer in America, and Target’s primary competitor.  When asked what Walmart’s transgender bathroom policy is, Walmart cracked open a family size container of STFU and started chugging.  Much to the disapproval of the media.  You don’t become the largest company in the world by revenue by being stupid.

Openly tell gun owners you wan’t them them as customers and the left will cheer you on.  Gun owners respond by not spending money where they are not welcome and all you hear is crickets.  Risk the safety of women and girls in your store to appease a tiny minority of people and you are a hero.  Refuse to hand over your money to that store and you are a bigot.

These policies aren’t about money, they are about virtue signaling.  Personally, I’ll take my cash to the same place that allows me to take my gun.

That should go double for the ladies.  I believe the best response to an up skirt camera flash is muzzle flash.

I found myself over the weekend being subjected to the ignorance that was a defense of magazine capacity bans.  Not feeling like getting into a protracted argument, I made a point that I shall repeat here, the quite effectively shut up my opponent.

Trying to stop shootings with magazine capacity bans is like trying to stop internet child pornography by restricting everybody’s bandwidth.   At the very best, you have slightly inconvenienced the person engaged in the criminal act, and you had to significantly interfere in the lives of millions of innocent people to accomplish that.

I watched Jurassic World again, now that it is on HBO.  You always get something more out of a movie or book the second time around.

There is a scene towards the end of the movie where Owen and the mercenaries security forces take the raptors against the Indominus Rex.  The Indominus says something in Dinosaur to the raptors and the raptors turn on the humans.

A bunch of people get eaten, Owen is facing off against one of the raptors, and then some human shoots the raptor with a rocket launcher and kills it.  Owen gets suddenly sad, and you are supposed to feel bad for the raptor getting vaporized.

It suddenly hit me WTF!!!

OK, Vincent D’onofrio’s character Fatty McStupidnbelligerent  may be an asshole, but the rest of these guys are ex-military who have been hired by a theme park to provide security for the guests.  These guys are probably regular working Joes who thought they got a good job in the private sector after getting out of the Army and have wives and kids and such.  Why should I feel bad for the cloned raptor instead of all the human are going to end up as dino shit in a Coasta Rican jungle?

Why the moral dubiousness?

Not, 30 seconds later, one of the other raptors tires to eat Owen’s girlfriend’s nephews.  Am I at this point still supposed to be sympathetic to Owen’s pet “six foot turkey?”  How can I root for Owen to score one with Ms. Orange-Hair PrissyPants if his raptor buddies end her status as an aunt?

Sure, blue comes to Owen’s rescue at the end when fighting the Indominus, but just how many of Owen’s human coworkers did just take out 15 minutes previous?

I’m all confused.  Jurassic Park was much less gray area on this subject: humans good (except Nedry), dinos bad.  Why is that so hard?

Fine, maybe the dinosaurs (except for the Indominus) aren’t malicious.  So what, that doesn’t mean that they are less likely to eat you.  Didn’t Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend learn that the hard way when he went to commune with the bears in Alaska?  Does a bear shit environmentalists in the woods?  Even Roy of Siegfried and Roy got nommed on by his tiger, and they trained together for years.

Don’t try an complicate the morality of the movie for me.  I like animals, but if I have to choose between the last lion on earth and some tourist on photo safari; pass the H&H.   I would love to see dinosaurs in real life.