This is one of those subjects wherein who you were, and who you are, is important. I was a little boy. Years later, I became a parent. So, I know whereof I speak when it comes to boys and parents and guns.
The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers are the "Well organized" that Alito, Scalia and Thomas are protecting. The right to overthrow our government if they don't like gay folks getting married and whatnot. Back in the early 1950s the organized militias were all over the Sierra foothils in Northern California on maneuvers on all the mountain roads preparing for the Commies. Two of their spawn were arrested today for being a white supremacist transnational terrorist organization using Telegram to direct it's activities.
Ironies abound when it comes to the 2nd Amendment. When the Constitution was adopted and for many decades thereafter, a main function of the "well-regulated militia" was to police the enslaved and to hunt runaways. These days self-styled "militias" are usually overtly racist, and fear of Black people often motivates white people to arm themselves. A good history of this is Carol Anderson's THE SECOND: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021).
Sep 10·edited Sep 10Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
I would ban all private ownership of guns, except perhaps for shooting ranges, which could allow customers to use them while present but not leave the premises with them. In addition, as an animal rights advocate, I'd ban hunting. So being pretty extreme in the anti-gun department, I hope that my motives will not be questioned if I point out that this comment is nonsense, or maybe it's intended as a joke. "Well regulated" modifies "Militia," not "Arms."
Being ~indigenous~ makes it impossible to joke about weapons, including guns.
"...ban hunting."
For many, hunting is a way of life. That includes my kind. You will not find a Kroger supermarket or a Walmart full-service big box on a Rez. In the Mountain West and in some parts of the Northeast and South hunting for food still exists. Food for many bellies. Please don't confuse hunting with the sport of taking a trophy, i.e. primary motivation is a trophy, not the meat. There are 2exceptions, to trophy hunting, both involving feral hogs. The ones that have long been in the news, and the new ones that pose a bigger threat, are feral hogs from Canada. Wouldn't suggest eating their meat so if someone wants a trophy let it be of something that poses a danger and is a threat.
-Gun ranges. Not all are created equal. More and more include entertainment over practicing by offering small arm full automatic rentals both domestic-made and foreign-made by the hour. More and more are including the thrill of larger weapons, including, 50-caliber sniper rifles and 50-caliber machine guns to obliterate junk motor vehicles.
Over the years has grown into a family affair w/more than 2GENs of both genders. Others include tactical shooting ranges aping LE and mil shoot houses. Gun ranges are like other aspects of America's gun culture, it seduces the mind, body, and soul. Today's ranges feed the beast. Yes, you can still find some that seem more like Grand Daddy's Rod and Gun club however they are not where America's gunkweers flock. And in that flock includes mofos.
-When the 2nd US Constitution and later when the #2A became the law of the land my kind remained by law as "merciless Indian savages". All these years later my kind remains civilized whereas the actual merciless savages are all in plain sight. And they have used all sorts of weapons against my kind and those who are also excluded in the 2nd US Constitution.
-Will not surrender my weapons including guns as my ancestors did. Know well compliance means an early death whether by starvation or by violence. Am not alone in that way of thinking. My kind doesn't enlist in the military in the highest % of any group solely to escape Rez life. What we do is with purpose or else we don't do it at all.
-Mass shootings were foreseeable by sole proprietors. For the most part, America has avoided mass shootings by multiple shooters. Is that nightmare scenario that keeps those charged with the nation's internal security up at night. And that scenario includes figuring out how to keep LE at bay longer and at a greater distance to slaughter more. Eventually, they will figure it out. Mofos are a lot of things including slow learners.
Have written much on the subject of "banning" whatever that means. It ain't in the cards w/this SCOTUS. And by banning do you include a buyback or simply have a law that requires those families of weaponry and acessories that fall under the umbrella of weapons of war?
Have written the solution must follow the American way (1) sin tax as is done with A for alcohol, T for tobacco, but doesn't truly exist F for firearms. (2) I for insurance to include carrying a minimum of Xmillion for personal liability (3) laws that require mfg. to produce/install safety features on new weapons and supply same safety features for existing (as we do w/fixes to motor vehicles) (4) make mfg and dealers subject to liability regs, rulkes, and laws (5_) Q is for qualifying on every owned weapon much like happens in Japan, that includes re-qualifying (6) R is for registration as we do w/motor vehicles. Nothing in the Constitution forbids registering weapons.
As to that AR platform. It is not a weapon of war unless one buys a kit (it's cheap and easy to install and has a famous name) to convert it to full auto. The platform is not a hunting rifle, it's a hooman killah but can also be repurposed during a hunt. The best hunting rifles are bolt action. Few hunting rifles can dissuade or stop a large adult male bear from charging. Never ever recommend hunting in bear country alone. Always recommend one person do nothing else other than look out for adult males of females w/cubs while slinging an AR rifle 762x39mm ammo w/30round mags. Carrying a Nosler 28 (a bear rifle) is fine if you know you can drop a charging bear w/one shot. Easier said than done.
As long as it can hold a 30 to 100 round magazine the AR15 is a weapon of war regardless whether it's semi auto or full auto. Most modern militaries teach their riflemen that the use of aimed precision shots is much more effective than going for sheer volume-of-fire when engaging targets. It allows for ammunition conservation and generally yields more shots on target.
The more apt term should be rapid fire instead of semi or auto. My view is that removable magazines should be banned and no weapon should hold more than 3 rounds in the chamber as are regulated hunting guns in most states.
In combat anything can be a weapon of war from the mind, body, to repurposing a tool. You’d be hard pressed to find a nation state’s military that issues semi-auto rifles other than for sniping.
The law you referenced is often misstated and misunderstood. All it takes to own a full auto is a dealer’s license. They’re not difficult to apply for or to get. (It’s common knowledge and the proof is found in pop-up gun “shows” that proliferate in a zone across the southern border and extend east to FL. It’s not a coincidence and yes includes the gun running cottage industry of selling full autos earmarked for Mexico and beyond.)
Am far more concerned w/mil grade accessories than am of AK and AR platforms. Same w/the explosion of free tax stamps for suppressors.
But thanks for your primer on weaponry. Now that I think about it the only reason(s) am still here rather than in the ground is dumb luck.
"(1) sin tax as is done with A for alcohol, T for tobacco, but doesn't truly exist F for firearms"
Actually it was the National Firearms Act of 1934 which instituted a tax on machine guns like the Thompson submachine gun that effectively doubled the cost of purchasing a machine gun and essentially ended its use by criminals during Prohibition.
Conversion kits are legal. Installing them on a pistol or rifle is illegal. It’s only illegal when caught. 1934 is so 1934. You totally missed the point of ATF and sin taxes. There is no progressive sin tax on semiautos. There is on alcohol and tobacco. The entire point was plain, make ownership and use costly and burdened w/bureaucratic repetitive steps that vastly exceed the original purchase price and time to purchase in short order aka CoO cost of ownership. The 1934 Firearms Act did nothing of the sort. Indeed opened the door to the civ AK and AR platform. And no law on the books comes close to regulating ammo in any meaningful way. Same w/accessories. This is 2024, not 1934.
Sep 10·edited Sep 10Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Hunting for food should not exist in any place that can grow grains, nuts, fruits, and vegetables, which are all healthier and less expensive than meat. Since meat is not necessary for health (unless you're stranded in Antarctica or a comparable place), it's no more justifiable than trophy hunting.
Sep 10·edited Sep 10Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
As if the globe, including Turtle Island (North and South America) is one big year round garden and orchard. The idea you would compare hunting to sustain life with desecrating an animal (4legged, the feathered fliers, or swimmers/gills) is absurd. And most of all is insulting to all hunter/gatherers who never take more than they need and give back what isn't edible to the earth which guarantees a cycle of life will be fed. Chuckle when you talk about what's healthy. Free animals mistakenly called game are protein rich and very lean. They can't be compared to ranched or kept animals including fish farms. Jeez. We lived right for >20,000. Don't need a lecture on what to eat and not to from those whose history is one continuous linear line of killing any living thing because they can. My kind (indigenous and aboriginal) are the stewards of this Blue Marble and have been >20,000yrs. It's the so-called civilized people who have been raping, pillaging, and killing this Blue Marble. Thanks for reminding of few more reasons to support that.
Where I live in southeastern Mass., the white-tail deer herd is always on the verge of out of control. Since deer have no natural predators here, their numbers are kept in check by two means: (1) motor vehicles (an insurance adjuster told me a few years ago that about 3/4 of his calls involve deer-auto collisions), and (2) hunting. This year archery season runs from Oct. 7 to Nov. 30; shotgun season from Dec. 2 to Dec. 14; and "black powder" (primitive firearms) season from Dec. 16 to Dec. 31. A fair amount of the meat gets donated to the local food pantry and/or to the area's senior centers.
As is the issue framed by so many. The answer is the reintroduction of natural predators. Nature knows balance. Hoomans insist they know better than nature. Hoomans reject the lessons of the natural world until a crisis emerges. Then most say, wait a minute I have a better idea. At best it is a short-term one. Most times it creates another set of problems.
States w/hooved herds have long tried playing w/the hunting season and limits to no avail. But they do keep trying the same old same old. Deer in particular have learned. Now they realize a house/yard affords them a degree of protection plus good eats. More and more videos of homes on the periphery have become a haven for does w/fawns. Generations of them. And they will befriend hoomans and dogs. Elk cows are known to that as well.
Hoomans take short cuts when problem solving and it presents in their "solutions" while ignoring causations. And that is due to the causations more times than not start w/hoomans.
You're right that the deer have learned. Sometimes I think they can read the signs posted in areas where hunting is allowed: they say NO HUNTING WITHIN 500 FEET OF AN INHABITED DWELLING. And that is where the best gardens are.
Why should hunting for food be less justifiable than consuming chicken or beef raised on factory farms? An argument can certainly be made in support of not consuming meat, but I don't understand the distinction between hunting and letting someone else kill the animals.
Who said that hunting is less justifiable? Eating factory-farmed animals is less justifiable because it entails the lifelong torture of animals, not merely their killing.
The men in my family all hunted for food. I remember Saturday afternoon, the already dressed dinner in the kitchen. That was a different time, with a different mindset than we see now. Now it can be simply sport, not food. The real problem though, is that if you overkill the top predators in the wild, that forest suffers. The animals that feed on the vegetation, small trees, prosper, to the detriment of the wild forests we all love. Over kill the foraging animals is also harmful to our forests. With humans moving their homes into the woods now, wildlife are at risk to the loss of habitat. I have a feeling that you love the woods as much as I do. I hope you understand that this is where I am coming from.
My god. What has become of us? When did we stop caring? These tragedies can be avoided with so little effort. The damn war weapons should never be in a child’s hands. Or any civilian as a matter of fact. We are becoming the monsters we abhor.
Yes, absolutely! Kindergarteners brandishing sticks are indeed taken seriously. (Preschoolers who bite are taken seriously.) The Second Amendment doesn’t give us the right to arm ourselves with a switchblade or openly carry a sword in public.
For years, I've joked about spring being the season when the men come out with their long sticks (golf clubs, baseball bats, fishing rods) because of caveman DNA ... you don't leave the cave without a weapon.
I can back up what you said about little boys with the following story. My family sold some ground to an idealistic couple who were going to build a home powered by solar energy. (I don't think they had built so much as a bird house before this.) Everything would come from the sun. They would not be hostages to public utilities, etc. etc.
(When this all broke up, there were battles over custody of the VCR.)
Since this couple were both therapists (and I've been leery of the compassion industry ever since) some of their women clients came to live them. One woman was persuaded to have a baby by artificial insemination. The husband left his wife for Jesus. The wife teamed up with the single (by choice) mother.
Some time after the dust settled, the two women and the little boy (about three years old) came to visit us. One woman spoke at great length on how they were going to raise this lad to be a sensitive man -- so there would be no conventionally masculine toys like trucks or weaponry.
Meanwhile, the kid had wandered into the living room, so I followed... just to see what he was up to.
He had found a box of Legos -- and he was building a gun.
I agree it’s genetic in males. I made cookies with my son once when he was 3 or 4, and the only thing he wanted to make was a gun. I told him our country would be a lot better off if all guns were made of cookie dough, with cinnamon red hots for decoration.
Sep 10·edited Sep 10Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Exactly, Marjorie J. Birch! When a friend denied her two little boys toy guns they devised stick guns. I also remember in our early teens when the boys in my small town were all excited for a while over BB guns. I agree that the urge is undeniable but lean more toward the Freudian explanation for it. While the gun industry has made great efforts to enroll women, I think the visceral attraction is limited to boys and—excluding hunters of necessity—to those men who never outgrow it.
On of the assigned textbooks in my high school US History class in 1966-67 was the US Constitution with annotations and interpretations by its publisher the conservative Hoover Institution. The book's section on the Second Amendment stressed that it did not convey the absolute right for an individual to bear arms. The section cited nearly two centuries of Supreme Court decisions affirming that position.
As recently as 1980, a majority opinion, joined by then Chief Justice Warren
Burger and Justice William Rehnquist, ruled that the federal prohibition on
felons possessing firearms were constitutional. There are dozens of earlier Supreme Court decisions from almost every decade affirming this position.
After substantial lobbying by the NRA, more recent Supreme Courts have reversed two centuries of legal authority and unleashed this firearms fueled hell on the country. Cleary the damage to our constitution can be repaired by reversing the legalistic nonsense recent Supreme Courts have propagated, but the lives lost in the meantime cannot be restored. Time is of the essence.
Most of them don't give a damn about fetuses. They just want to keep women in their place. Otherwise, they would allow abortions of non-viable fetuses, but they're willing to allow women to die before they'd do that. They're pro-death, not pro-life.
It would be easier to overturn the Supreme Court's decisions in D.C. v. Heller (2008) and, especially, Bruen (2022), when the Court ruled that the right to carry a pistol in public was guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment. Before Heller, courts made no such assumption.
I do not think sensible gun laws will happen until the child or grandchild of a powerful Senator ... or even the President ... is slaughtered while attending school.
Sep 10·edited Sep 10Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Agree. The powerful senator would call for hopes and prayers. Actually, though, I don't know that Mrs. Scalia (about whom I know nothing) is a good example. I'd make your point by citing her late husband. She may have a mind (and a heart) of her own.
That's correct, but the Republican politicians on the Supreme Court, by cherry-picking historical facts, deliberately misread it. Historians have shown that Heller was wrong. And don't get me started on Bruen, which held that gun regulations violate the Constitution unless comparable ones existed in 1791. To not take into account the need for a regulation is an unheard of and deranged way to apply the Constitution. The Supreme Court upholds restrictions on free speech if they serve a "compelling" interest by the least restrictive means.
The "originalist" approach to the Second Amendment willfully ignores that the automatic weapons used today are almost nothing like the muskets used in 1791. They are so different that they ought to go by a different name. In fact, they do; we don't usually call an automatic weapon a "gun." The Second Amendment (according to the knowingly false interpretation the Court gave it in Heller) protects the right to bear "Arms." If guns are called "Arms," then, because automatic weapons are so different from guns, maybe we should call them "Legs." The Second Amendment does not protect the right to bear "Legs."
It's truly crazy, JD said he and Trump support the 2A even if we have to pay the price of occasional school shootings. Why should innocent kids stand between these maniacs and their arsenals.
That means that they support school shootings. If you support a policy, then you also support its inevitable and foreseeable consequences, even if you regret those consequences. Analogously, people who support the death penalty support executing innocent people, even if they regret that it happens.
It’s kind of amazing that an amendment that has the words “well regulated” within it has been interpreted to mean no regulation is permissible.
The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers are the "Well organized" that Alito, Scalia and Thomas are protecting. The right to overthrow our government if they don't like gay folks getting married and whatnot. Back in the early 1950s the organized militias were all over the Sierra foothils in Northern California on maneuvers on all the mountain roads preparing for the Commies. Two of their spawn were arrested today for being a white supremacist transnational terrorist organization using Telegram to direct it's activities.
I certainly understand Lucian's,point about guns.
Ironies abound when it comes to the 2nd Amendment. When the Constitution was adopted and for many decades thereafter, a main function of the "well-regulated militia" was to police the enslaved and to hunt runaways. These days self-styled "militias" are usually overtly racist, and fear of Black people often motivates white people to arm themselves. A good history of this is Carol Anderson's THE SECOND: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021).
I would ban all private ownership of guns, except perhaps for shooting ranges, which could allow customers to use them while present but not leave the premises with them. In addition, as an animal rights advocate, I'd ban hunting. So being pretty extreme in the anti-gun department, I hope that my motives will not be questioned if I point out that this comment is nonsense, or maybe it's intended as a joke. "Well regulated" modifies "Militia," not "Arms."
Being ~indigenous~ makes it impossible to joke about weapons, including guns.
"...ban hunting."
For many, hunting is a way of life. That includes my kind. You will not find a Kroger supermarket or a Walmart full-service big box on a Rez. In the Mountain West and in some parts of the Northeast and South hunting for food still exists. Food for many bellies. Please don't confuse hunting with the sport of taking a trophy, i.e. primary motivation is a trophy, not the meat. There are 2exceptions, to trophy hunting, both involving feral hogs. The ones that have long been in the news, and the new ones that pose a bigger threat, are feral hogs from Canada. Wouldn't suggest eating their meat so if someone wants a trophy let it be of something that poses a danger and is a threat.
-Gun ranges. Not all are created equal. More and more include entertainment over practicing by offering small arm full automatic rentals both domestic-made and foreign-made by the hour. More and more are including the thrill of larger weapons, including, 50-caliber sniper rifles and 50-caliber machine guns to obliterate junk motor vehicles.
Over the years has grown into a family affair w/more than 2GENs of both genders. Others include tactical shooting ranges aping LE and mil shoot houses. Gun ranges are like other aspects of America's gun culture, it seduces the mind, body, and soul. Today's ranges feed the beast. Yes, you can still find some that seem more like Grand Daddy's Rod and Gun club however they are not where America's gunkweers flock. And in that flock includes mofos.
-When the 2nd US Constitution and later when the #2A became the law of the land my kind remained by law as "merciless Indian savages". All these years later my kind remains civilized whereas the actual merciless savages are all in plain sight. And they have used all sorts of weapons against my kind and those who are also excluded in the 2nd US Constitution.
-Will not surrender my weapons including guns as my ancestors did. Know well compliance means an early death whether by starvation or by violence. Am not alone in that way of thinking. My kind doesn't enlist in the military in the highest % of any group solely to escape Rez life. What we do is with purpose or else we don't do it at all.
-Mass shootings were foreseeable by sole proprietors. For the most part, America has avoided mass shootings by multiple shooters. Is that nightmare scenario that keeps those charged with the nation's internal security up at night. And that scenario includes figuring out how to keep LE at bay longer and at a greater distance to slaughter more. Eventually, they will figure it out. Mofos are a lot of things including slow learners.
Do hunting guns include weapons of war such as the AR-15 and its clones, which are often used in mass shootings, or would you support banning those?,
Have written much on the subject of "banning" whatever that means. It ain't in the cards w/this SCOTUS. And by banning do you include a buyback or simply have a law that requires those families of weaponry and acessories that fall under the umbrella of weapons of war?
Have written the solution must follow the American way (1) sin tax as is done with A for alcohol, T for tobacco, but doesn't truly exist F for firearms. (2) I for insurance to include carrying a minimum of Xmillion for personal liability (3) laws that require mfg. to produce/install safety features on new weapons and supply same safety features for existing (as we do w/fixes to motor vehicles) (4) make mfg and dealers subject to liability regs, rulkes, and laws (5_) Q is for qualifying on every owned weapon much like happens in Japan, that includes re-qualifying (6) R is for registration as we do w/motor vehicles. Nothing in the Constitution forbids registering weapons.
As to that AR platform. It is not a weapon of war unless one buys a kit (it's cheap and easy to install and has a famous name) to convert it to full auto. The platform is not a hunting rifle, it's a hooman killah but can also be repurposed during a hunt. The best hunting rifles are bolt action. Few hunting rifles can dissuade or stop a large adult male bear from charging. Never ever recommend hunting in bear country alone. Always recommend one person do nothing else other than look out for adult males of females w/cubs while slinging an AR rifle 762x39mm ammo w/30round mags. Carrying a Nosler 28 (a bear rifle) is fine if you know you can drop a charging bear w/one shot. Easier said than done.
Thank you, thank you!!
As long as it can hold a 30 to 100 round magazine the AR15 is a weapon of war regardless whether it's semi auto or full auto. Most modern militaries teach their riflemen that the use of aimed precision shots is much more effective than going for sheer volume-of-fire when engaging targets. It allows for ammunition conservation and generally yields more shots on target.
The more apt term should be rapid fire instead of semi or auto. My view is that removable magazines should be banned and no weapon should hold more than 3 rounds in the chamber as are regulated hunting guns in most states.
In combat anything can be a weapon of war from the mind, body, to repurposing a tool. You’d be hard pressed to find a nation state’s military that issues semi-auto rifles other than for sniping.
The law you referenced is often misstated and misunderstood. All it takes to own a full auto is a dealer’s license. They’re not difficult to apply for or to get. (It’s common knowledge and the proof is found in pop-up gun “shows” that proliferate in a zone across the southern border and extend east to FL. It’s not a coincidence and yes includes the gun running cottage industry of selling full autos earmarked for Mexico and beyond.)
Am far more concerned w/mil grade accessories than am of AK and AR platforms. Same w/the explosion of free tax stamps for suppressors.
But thanks for your primer on weaponry. Now that I think about it the only reason(s) am still here rather than in the ground is dumb luck.
"(1) sin tax as is done with A for alcohol, T for tobacco, but doesn't truly exist F for firearms"
Actually it was the National Firearms Act of 1934 which instituted a tax on machine guns like the Thompson submachine gun that effectively doubled the cost of purchasing a machine gun and essentially ended its use by criminals during Prohibition.
Conversion kits are legal. Installing them on a pistol or rifle is illegal. It’s only illegal when caught. 1934 is so 1934. You totally missed the point of ATF and sin taxes. There is no progressive sin tax on semiautos. There is on alcohol and tobacco. The entire point was plain, make ownership and use costly and burdened w/bureaucratic repetitive steps that vastly exceed the original purchase price and time to purchase in short order aka CoO cost of ownership. The 1934 Firearms Act did nothing of the sort. Indeed opened the door to the civ AK and AR platform. And no law on the books comes close to regulating ammo in any meaningful way. Same w/accessories. This is 2024, not 1934.
Hunting for food should not exist in any place that can grow grains, nuts, fruits, and vegetables, which are all healthier and less expensive than meat. Since meat is not necessary for health (unless you're stranded in Antarctica or a comparable place), it's no more justifiable than trophy hunting.
As if the globe, including Turtle Island (North and South America) is one big year round garden and orchard. The idea you would compare hunting to sustain life with desecrating an animal (4legged, the feathered fliers, or swimmers/gills) is absurd. And most of all is insulting to all hunter/gatherers who never take more than they need and give back what isn't edible to the earth which guarantees a cycle of life will be fed. Chuckle when you talk about what's healthy. Free animals mistakenly called game are protein rich and very lean. They can't be compared to ranched or kept animals including fish farms. Jeez. We lived right for >20,000. Don't need a lecture on what to eat and not to from those whose history is one continuous linear line of killing any living thing because they can. My kind (indigenous and aboriginal) are the stewards of this Blue Marble and have been >20,000yrs. It's the so-called civilized people who have been raping, pillaging, and killing this Blue Marble. Thanks for reminding of few more reasons to support that.
Where I live in southeastern Mass., the white-tail deer herd is always on the verge of out of control. Since deer have no natural predators here, their numbers are kept in check by two means: (1) motor vehicles (an insurance adjuster told me a few years ago that about 3/4 of his calls involve deer-auto collisions), and (2) hunting. This year archery season runs from Oct. 7 to Nov. 30; shotgun season from Dec. 2 to Dec. 14; and "black powder" (primitive firearms) season from Dec. 16 to Dec. 31. A fair amount of the meat gets donated to the local food pantry and/or to the area's senior centers.
As is the issue framed by so many. The answer is the reintroduction of natural predators. Nature knows balance. Hoomans insist they know better than nature. Hoomans reject the lessons of the natural world until a crisis emerges. Then most say, wait a minute I have a better idea. At best it is a short-term one. Most times it creates another set of problems.
States w/hooved herds have long tried playing w/the hunting season and limits to no avail. But they do keep trying the same old same old. Deer in particular have learned. Now they realize a house/yard affords them a degree of protection plus good eats. More and more videos of homes on the periphery have become a haven for does w/fawns. Generations of them. And they will befriend hoomans and dogs. Elk cows are known to that as well.
Hoomans take short cuts when problem solving and it presents in their "solutions" while ignoring causations. And that is due to the causations more times than not start w/hoomans.
Shadowcloud, Thank you for your insights and responses.
You're right that the deer have learned. Sometimes I think they can read the signs posted in areas where hunting is allowed: they say NO HUNTING WITHIN 500 FEET OF AN INHABITED DWELLING. And that is where the best gardens are.
Why should hunting for food be less justifiable than consuming chicken or beef raised on factory farms? An argument can certainly be made in support of not consuming meat, but I don't understand the distinction between hunting and letting someone else kill the animals.
Who said that hunting is less justifiable? Eating factory-farmed animals is less justifiable because it entails the lifelong torture of animals, not merely their killing.
The men in my family all hunted for food. I remember Saturday afternoon, the already dressed dinner in the kitchen. That was a different time, with a different mindset than we see now. Now it can be simply sport, not food. The real problem though, is that if you overkill the top predators in the wild, that forest suffers. The animals that feed on the vegetation, small trees, prosper, to the detriment of the wild forests we all love. Over kill the foraging animals is also harmful to our forests. With humans moving their homes into the woods now, wildlife are at risk to the loss of habitat. I have a feeling that you love the woods as much as I do. I hope you understand that this is where I am coming from.
My god. What has become of us? When did we stop caring? These tragedies can be avoided with so little effort. The damn war weapons should never be in a child’s hands. Or any civilian as a matter of fact. We are becoming the monsters we abhor.
This is one of the best essays on the subject that I have read in some time.
Yes, absolutely! Kindergarteners brandishing sticks are indeed taken seriously. (Preschoolers who bite are taken seriously.) The Second Amendment doesn’t give us the right to arm ourselves with a switchblade or openly carry a sword in public.
For years, I've joked about spring being the season when the men come out with their long sticks (golf clubs, baseball bats, fishing rods) because of caveman DNA ... you don't leave the cave without a weapon.
I can back up what you said about little boys with the following story. My family sold some ground to an idealistic couple who were going to build a home powered by solar energy. (I don't think they had built so much as a bird house before this.) Everything would come from the sun. They would not be hostages to public utilities, etc. etc.
(When this all broke up, there were battles over custody of the VCR.)
Since this couple were both therapists (and I've been leery of the compassion industry ever since) some of their women clients came to live them. One woman was persuaded to have a baby by artificial insemination. The husband left his wife for Jesus. The wife teamed up with the single (by choice) mother.
Some time after the dust settled, the two women and the little boy (about three years old) came to visit us. One woman spoke at great length on how they were going to raise this lad to be a sensitive man -- so there would be no conventionally masculine toys like trucks or weaponry.
Meanwhile, the kid had wandered into the living room, so I followed... just to see what he was up to.
He had found a box of Legos -- and he was building a gun.
I agree it’s genetic in males. I made cookies with my son once when he was 3 or 4, and the only thing he wanted to make was a gun. I told him our country would be a lot better off if all guns were made of cookie dough, with cinnamon red hots for decoration.
"I'll give up my cookie dough when you take it from my cold, sticky hands!"
Haahahahaha!
Exactly, Marjorie J. Birch! When a friend denied her two little boys toy guns they devised stick guns. I also remember in our early teens when the boys in my small town were all excited for a while over BB guns. I agree that the urge is undeniable but lean more toward the Freudian explanation for it. While the gun industry has made great efforts to enroll women, I think the visceral attraction is limited to boys and—excluding hunters of necessity—to those men who never outgrow it.
At the age of 6, I chewed a gun out of a piece of whole wheat toast and shot my brother dead at the breakfast table.
Nothing is stranger that truth.
And when we look in the mirror and everything goes blank,
it's time to turn off the television!
Now who are you going to believe? The GPS?!?
On of the assigned textbooks in my high school US History class in 1966-67 was the US Constitution with annotations and interpretations by its publisher the conservative Hoover Institution. The book's section on the Second Amendment stressed that it did not convey the absolute right for an individual to bear arms. The section cited nearly two centuries of Supreme Court decisions affirming that position.
As recently as 1980, a majority opinion, joined by then Chief Justice Warren
Burger and Justice William Rehnquist, ruled that the federal prohibition on
felons possessing firearms were constitutional. There are dozens of earlier Supreme Court decisions from almost every decade affirming this position.
After substantial lobbying by the NRA, more recent Supreme Courts have reversed two centuries of legal authority and unleashed this firearms fueled hell on the country. Cleary the damage to our constitution can be repaired by reversing the legalistic nonsense recent Supreme Courts have propagated, but the lives lost in the meantime cannot be restored. Time is of the essence.
Well said, Jeff. Good to see you here.
As long as we keep electing people who support guns and fetuses over human beings, this will continue.
Most of them don't give a damn about fetuses. They just want to keep women in their place. Otherwise, they would allow abortions of non-viable fetuses, but they're willing to allow women to die before they'd do that. They're pro-death, not pro-life.
We need to repeal the 2nd.
It would be easier to overturn the Supreme Court's decisions in D.C. v. Heller (2008) and, especially, Bruen (2022), when the Court ruled that the right to carry a pistol in public was guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment. Before Heller, courts made no such assumption.
Either repeal the 2nd
Amendment or update it
to cover the 21st century.
There were no automatic
weapons of any type in the
1700s. Stop the murdering
of children by other armed
and dangerous children.
"2nd Amendment."
The founding fathers "milita readiness" has no correlation with today's shopping at Walmart with your
AR 15.
I'm going to refrain from bad mouthing Thomas. He doesn't need any help.
Absolutely. And, I might add, so much for public health, safety, and welfare. Pursuit of happiness anyone? Yeeesh
I do not think sensible gun laws will happen until the child or grandchild of a powerful Senator ... or even the President ... is slaughtered while attending school.
I've said this before: If Alito's grandchild was killed by a gun, Mrs. Alito would cheer if it was done by a legal gun...
Agree. The powerful senator would call for hopes and prayers. Actually, though, I don't know that Mrs. Scalia (about whom I know nothing) is a good example. I'd make your point by citing her late husband. She may have a mind (and a heart) of her own.
OOPS! I meant Mrs. Alito!!! It will be edited instantly.
Someone could take a shot at the President himself and nothing would change.
Unless I am in the military, I do not need or have the right to own a gun whose sole purpose is to kill people.
This is a point that is only difficult to understand if someone has been brainwashed by the NRA or who plans to shoot people.
Thank you for naming the names.
They are as guilty as the shooter and his father.
I believe the second amendment relates to states having the right to raise militias, not for individuals to own guns.
That's correct, but the Republican politicians on the Supreme Court, by cherry-picking historical facts, deliberately misread it. Historians have shown that Heller was wrong. And don't get me started on Bruen, which held that gun regulations violate the Constitution unless comparable ones existed in 1791. To not take into account the need for a regulation is an unheard of and deranged way to apply the Constitution. The Supreme Court upholds restrictions on free speech if they serve a "compelling" interest by the least restrictive means.
The "originalist" approach to the Second Amendment willfully ignores that the automatic weapons used today are almost nothing like the muskets used in 1791. They are so different that they ought to go by a different name. In fact, they do; we don't usually call an automatic weapon a "gun." The Second Amendment (according to the knowingly false interpretation the Court gave it in Heller) protects the right to bear "Arms." If guns are called "Arms," then, because automatic weapons are so different from guns, maybe we should call them "Legs." The Second Amendment does not protect the right to bear "Legs."
It's truly crazy, JD said he and Trump support the 2A even if we have to pay the price of occasional school shootings. Why should innocent kids stand between these maniacs and their arsenals.
That means that they support school shootings. If you support a policy, then you also support its inevitable and foreseeable consequences, even if you regret those consequences. Analogously, people who support the death penalty support executing innocent people, even if they regret that it happens.
Maybe, someday, the big discussion will turn to the way we hammer and reward the clench of competition into every expression of our human condition.