Gun Free Zone

Where a Hispanic Catholic, and a Computer Geek write about Gun Rights, Self Defense and whatever else we can think about.

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Cuban Bass Boat

Oct 20, 2019 Miguel.GFZ 7 comments

So I look out my kitchen towards the back porch and I saw this:

From what I could see, it is made of 2x4s, Styrofoam blocks and has a trolling motor.
Well, it was probably the same principle they used to escape Cuba, might as well be used for more sporting enterprises.  And yes, they are using the wrong rods for fresh water fishing.

 

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An excerpt from History of the Chicken Sandwich War

Oct 20, 2019 J. Kb 4 comments

As the 21th century historian, Miguel Gonzales, noted: “Normal People just about had it.”

This attitude ran strong in the undercurrent of society in the latter part of the twenty-teens.  It was this attitude that elected Donald Trump to the Presidency.

The mentality of the Political Left, which was more of a fundamentalist secular religion than a political moment, prevented the victory of Donald Trump to be properly evaluated and the Political Left to engage in much-needed introspection.  As such, they continued to advance their attacks on popular culture in a way that drove the “normal people” to madness.

One arena for this fight was over chicken sandwiches.

A fast-food franchise specializing in pressure-fried chicken sandwiches and waffle fries saw rapid growth in America at this time.  Chick-Fil-A was known for good food, clean establishments, and a level of customer service unparalleled in the industry.

It was founded by a religious Christian named Samuel Truett Cathy, and his son, Dan Cathy was chief of operations and later CEO.  In 2012, during an interview on an obscure talk show and later in a regional religious newsletter affirmed his belief in marriage being between one man and one woman, as per his religious values.

This lead to the accusation that Chick-Fil-A as a corporation was “homophobic” and “bigoted.”  Chick-Fil-A restaurants became the targets of bizarre protests and vandalism by Political Leftist activists.

The act of eating a Chick-Fil-A sandwich became a thoughtcrime.

Late in 2019, the Left scored their first major victory.  Little did they know at the time it was a pyrrhic victory.

As reported by the BBC:

Reading Chick-fil-A outlet to close in LGBT rights row

Gay rights campaigners called for a boycott of Chick-fil-A, which opened its first branch at The Oracle shopping centre in Reading on 10 October.

A spokeswoman for the centre said “the right thing to do” was to not extend the restaurant’s lease beyond the “six-month pilot period”.

The Oracle said: “We always look to introduce new concepts for our customers, however, we have decided on this occasion that the right thing to do is to only allow Chick-Fil-A to trade with us for the initial six-month pilot period, and not to extend the lease any further.”

Protests by activists over the franchise’s support of a Christian athletic scholarship and a home for troubled teenagers forced the mall housing that Chick-Fil-A to end their lease.  This was a severe financial toll on the individuals who invested in the franchise in good faith.

Reading Pride said The Oracle’s decision was “good news”, adding the six-month period was a “reasonable request… to allow for re-settlement and notice for employees that have moved from other jobs”.

But the organisation said it would continue to campaign against the outlet until it left.

The capitulation of the mall and the closing of the franchise was insufficient for the activists.  Their ideology drove them to make those who participated in the franchise, and those who chose to eat at it, suffer and suffer mightily.

The great 20th Century author, George Orwell captured the prevailing attitude of the Left in his magnum opus, 1984.

Always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.

Having defeated the mall, the activists wanted the sensation of trampling on purveyors of chicken sandwiches for a further six months.

Soon after that, other Chick-Fil-A establishments were closed down.  Protests forced malls and property managers across the United States in terminate leases on existing restaurants or deny leases to new ones.

Previously in 2019, municipal airports had decided to deny leases to Chic-Fil-A.  this was predicated on the lie that since the franchise was closed on Sundays, it was unable to properly serve airport patrons.

After the victory in the UK, municipalities began openly discriminating against Chick-Fil-A for the corporation’s purported but nonexistent anti-LGBT bigotry.

New York City was the first to shut down Chick-Fil-A by denying franchises new or renewed Food Establishment Permits, claiming that the individual restaurants were discriminatory and that denying bigots operating licenses was just.

Once other cities began to do the same to appease the protests of the Leftist LGBT activists, things took a turn for the worse.

Leftist activists and partnered with Leftist politicians to create a legal protection racket.  Any business that operated and did not show sufficient deference to activist causes could be denied a license on specious charges of “discrimination.”

Business owners were bankrupted and their life savings were lost as they were forced to close by city government fiat or property manager cowardice.

Employees who were terminated were hounded from obtaining other employment because of their previous association with a discriminatory employer.

Very quickly, normal people just about had it.  In 2025, the violence began.

A protest against a bakery for not severely discounting wedding cakes for gay couples as a form of gay reparations was ended when the protesters came under fire.

That was the first shot of what history came to call The Chicken Sandwich War.

LGBT activists, who were once near orgasmic with the thrill of victory of stomping a small business owner into financial ruin, and their lackeys found themselves hiding for their lives.

The death toll from the war never amounted to more than a few thousand individuals.  Huge troop movements were unnecessary.  The Troubles of Northern Ireland provided a quality roadmap for early 21st century domestic warfare in relatively peaceful societies.

Most people did not want a war.  Americans largely avoided conflict.

Ironically this was the same attitude that caused the war in the first place, large business and small city governments capitulating to extremist activists rather than protecting the greater interests of a tolerant society.

People chose to invest in a franchise because it was a good financial decision, being part of a rapidly growing and profitable company.  The Left had turned this from a financial consideration to a moral one and assumed anyone associated with the business did so because they were bigots and driven by hatred.  The financial destruction of these franchise owners was part of their desired victory.

The activists were the squeakiest wheel of the days before the war.  When it was demonstrated that two normals – who had lost everything they had when their business was shut down at the behest of activists – with guns were a much greater threat to the cowards in business and government officials than a few hundred activists with posters, the destruction of business stopped.

The old adage goes “those who do not learn their history are doomed to repeat it.”

While this is true, it is not just necessary to know history, but the lessons of history, which is the goal of this work.

Capitulation to extremists activists does not make for a stable society.  Both businesses and governments need to understand that.

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Somethings should not be partisan but the Left has decided to make feminine hygiene hyper-partisan

Oct 20, 2019 J. Kb 7 comments

One of the hallmarks of modern politics is that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is partisan.

A refrain from Second Wave feminism of the 1960’s was “the personal is political.”  This is an extension of what the Soviet author, Boris Pasternak, said about the Soviet Union, “the private life is dead.”

Everything is made political, and then partisan, and then is used to beat the other side into submission.  The problem with this is that it makes it reduces problems into partisan talking points and makes it impossible to do good.

Yesterday was National Period Day.  I don’t care about that, there is a national day for everything.

What I do care about is how the radical Left used periods as a weapon in the worst way possible, rather than address a real issue in a meaningful way.

The first thing that jumped out at me was the number of complaints about the cost of feminine hygiene products.

By 2019, feminism has gone from Rosie the Riviter saying “We can do it!” to Helen Reddy singing “I am women, hear me roar” to women in Twitter saying that it’s not fair that they have to buy tampons and men don’t so the government should have to provide them for free.

https://twitter.com/LesleyHandel/status/1185610737584091137

I don’t need her blue lipstick and bangs to tell me that she’s single.

I’ve been doing this for more than a decade.  As the primary breadwinner of the family, I pay for what goes in the grocery cart every week, hygiene products included.  I have to buddies whose wives are both stay at home moms, so they are in the same boat and for about the same amount of time.

But in partisan, feminist politics, husbands who jut buy the things their wives need don’t exist and so this need to be turned into an attack on men.

The conversation (diatribe) on the cost of hygiene products usually shifts into how they are taxed as “luxury items” and not necessities, and how that is sexist and having a period is not a “luxury.”

Of course, a sitting member of Congress and the people at NPR have no idea how taxes work.  That shouldn’t surprise me.  Nither should the lying about this topic.

To paraphrase the words of Dean Wormer “ignorant, self-righteous, and angry is no way to go through life.”

First of all, we need to address some basic tax lingo.  Items are classified three ways, necessities, luxury items, and excise items.  In tax language “luxury” doesn’t mean luxury the way we use it to describe other items like “luxury cars.”  Luxury items are subject so excise or sin taxes, like alcohol and tobacco.

Also, there is no specific tax on feminine hygiene products.  As consumer goods, they are potentially subject to state taxes.  Some states, tax them, others don’t because of their status as luxury goods.  

Different taxes tax different items in different ways.  I have lived in two of the three states that tax groceries at the regular sales tax rate.

The Huffington Post published an article in which it listed other goods that most of us would consider necessities but the government classifies as luxuries.  These include soap, shampoo, toothpaste and toothbrushes, and diapers.

One way that this attack goes even further is to compare the taxes on tampons and Viagra.

That is because Viagra is a prescription medication and tampons are off the shelf consumer goods.  Those are classed differently.

There are two states, by the way, that tax prescription drugs.  I lived in one.  Most states tax non-prescription drugs.

So again, different items sold in different ways have different tax classifications.

As a Republican, I am all for lowering taxes, and I happy to entertain a conversation about needing to reclassify all hygiene products for tax-exempt status.  That includes, but is not limited to feminine hygiene products.

Rather than having a friendly conversation about what items should be tax-exempt, they have decided to make this into a partisan issue that is used as a cudgel against men.

I guess they have to do this because they need to push this in the direction of pandering with free shit.

Fuck me, a Democrat is pushing an equity act, that means its going to be fuck-ass expensive.

What does the H.R.1882 – Menstrual Equity For All Act of 2019 do?  It requires that free hygiene products be provided to all students in public schools, in all bathrooms in federal buildings, to covered by Medicaid, and that every private employer with more than 100 employees provide them for free to employees.

This is going to be very expensive.  Especially forcing it on private employers.

If there is a concern about “period poverty” – the new thought-terminating buzzword about the cost of hygiene products to poor people – I have a better solution.

Allow hygiene products to be purchased using EBT.  The Republicans have been chomping at the bit for EBT reform for years.

I’ll make this trade in a heartbeat, hygiene products – soap, shampoo, dental items, toilet paper, diapers, tampons, etc. – can be purchased with EBT and we remove items like soda and candy from EBT.

But the point isn’t to negotiate, it’s to make issues partisan and win everything.

Lastly, because it’s 2019, every third Tweet to this hashtag was a reminder that:

https://twitter.com/nayeonIuvbot/status/1185720636737576964

 

 

And:

Sometimes a Tweet manages to capture all this in one:

This is just Woke browbeating over the 0.4% of society that is trans/non-binary.

I know I could be a Republican Congressman and say “I agree, that it is difficult for poor women who struggle financially to buy the hygiene products that they need, I’m happy to add them and other hygiene products to the what can be purchased using existing EBT and WIC benefits.”

And that rather than it be acknowledged that I’m trying to do some good, I will be savaged by the Left for implying that only women have periods.

Something like this shouldn’t be corrosively partisan, but that is what the Left has done, and it is beyond stupid and ugly.

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Tulsi Gabbard asked a dumb question.

Oct 19, 2019 Miguel.GFZ 19 comments

A very informal count on my part shows about a 95% of respondents going with “Oh hell yes!”

However I encourage you t visit and laugh at the creative answers. Here are some examples:

 

Hat Tip Dan R.

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American basketball fans are trolling the NBA in epic fashion

Oct 19, 2019 J. Kb 3 comments

As seen on the Twitter:

Previously the NBA removed individual pro-Hong Kong protesters, but now they pro-Hong Kong people in the stands are measuring in the hundreds.

Hopefully, soon they will measure in the thousands.

The NBA can’t empty its stadiums of fans and it can’t broadcast these games in China with pro-Hong Kong messages in the seats.

The NBA might have decided it was more loyal to Chinese money than American values, but American fans are going to shame them into the dirt over that.

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