The whole barrel.

Like, every damn apple in the fucking barrel.

So, Police Officers, if you don't like being painted with that broad brush, stop covering for the BAD APPLE.

If a fellow cop holds racists beliefs, you know it and you know HE AIN'T YA' BROTHER.

If a fellow cop trades sex for a traffic ticket HE AIN'T YA' BROTHER.

Get the fuck over it and clean up your house.

You know who they are. You know what to do.

I have a Tarrant Co. Dems t shirt and a Moms Demand Action shirt. I don't wear them in public 'cause I just don't need the aggravation. However today I was wearing my MDA shirt, not planning to go out, and had to make a quick trip the pharmacy.

As I expected I was confronted---by a woman who asked where she could get a shirt like it! Didn't see that coming.

Governor Gregg Abbott
https://gov.texas.gov/contact

Speaker of the House Dade Phelan
https://house.texas.gov/members/member-page/email/?district=21&session=87

Find your state and national legislators.
https://wrm.capitol.texas.gov/home


After the freeze and once I got electric and internet back I sent missives to every one of those in elected office.

A paraphrase of my missive to Gregg Abbott:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/18/guns-are-a-way-to-exercise-power-how-the-idea-of-overthrowing-the-government-became-mainstream

I have heard this 'insurrection theory of the 2nd Amendment' argued right here on DU. I have yet to have anyone explain to me just why the founders would go to such pains to create a government of, by and for the People and then espouse the possibility of destroying it through violent revolution. Nor have any of them explained to me why, if they believed such overthrow might be advised, they included Article III Section 3 in the document that created it.

Regardless of any reasoned explanation to the contrary it is a widely held belief fostered by every gun rights advocate and furthered by the marketing by gun makers.


As the sign in the mall says, You are here. What can be done to counter this insurrection inspiring dogma that has adherents wearing combat gear into government buildings and plotting the kidnapping and murder of heads of state?

I suggest that the best place to begin is to ban the manufacture, import, sale, transfer and possession of any semi automatic weapon that accepts interchangeable magazines.

I keep hearing this.

A Muslim ban, this is not who we are . . .

Children in cages, this is not who we are . . .

George Floyd, this is not who we are . . .

Nazis in Charlottesville, this is not who we are . . .

White supremacists storm the Capital, this is not who we are . . .

THIS IS EXACTLY WHO WE ARE.

Who we always have been.

If we, the white, privileged, moderate, mainstream Americans don't realize and embrace this, THAT THIS IS WHO WE ARE, it is who we will always be.

Martin Luther King tried to show us the way. We killed him. John and Bobby tried to show us the way. We killed them. Abraham Lincoln tried to show us the way. We killed him.

WE DID THIS. The white, privileged, moderate, mainstream Americans.

Trump has shown us who we are. If it weren't Trump it would be someone else.

The only question remaining is, now that we've been shown will we see? Will this upheaval that pulled the curtain aside, that held the mirror to our face and exposed us to ourselves will we seize this as an opportunity for redemption or quietly settle back into who we are?

I fear the answer.

It's been said that, at it's most base, the job of the Military is to tear things up and kill people. Of course that's an over simplification and definitely not a primary mission but in there somewhere is that last option.

In the implementation of that last option the Military has a LOT of guns and a LOT of people well trained to use them. So, how does the Military treat guns which are so vital to it's mission?

Why don't do what James Fallows, a reporter for the Atlantic, did and ask an Army Officer:


There is so much more context in the article and it's a good read. Four paragraphs are very limiting so I hope you take the time to at least scan it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2018/03/an-army-officer-says-regulate-weapons-just-like-we-do-in-the-military/554816/

From another article in the series:


As with the first article this one has much more context and is is worth the read or at least a scan.

https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/11/why-the-ar-15-was-never-meant-to-be-in-civilians-hands/545438/

These articles are part of series with the other parts linked at the end. I anticipate that I'll be posting from them as well assuming the assembling militias in our state capitols don't preempt me.

I ask again, is it time to talk about the free access to guns in American society?

There are more than 393 million civilian-owned firearms in the United States, or enough for every man, woman and child to own one and still have 67 million guns left over.

About one in three Americans owns all these guns.

About one third of gun owners own 5 or more.

Just about 5% of gun owners who are not collectors of curios and relics own 15 or more.

Two thirds of gun owners cite protection (presumably from other people with guns) as reason for owning a gun.

There are 285 pages of safety regulations that apply to cars. None for guns.

Deaths from autos has steadily declined since the 1960s, from guns a steady increase.

Last year 40,000 people died from gunshot in the United States, three times that (120,000) were injured.

80% of mass shootings happened with legally purchased guns by people who qualified as law abiding before they slaughtered fellow Americans.

2020 saw yet another record set in gun sales.

The FBI, after the seditious attack on the Nation's Capital, warns that similar protests are planned for ALL 50 STATE CAPITALS.



Is it time yet to discuss the easy access to guns in the United States?



Disclaimer: as a former Federal Firearms Licensee for Curios and Relics I own more than five guns, all but one designed before WWI and one before WWII. As such I was background checked by the ATF, State and local law enforcement and probably by the Animal Control Officer in my city.

This is the seventh in this series. I stopped numbering them at 5 because I realized that this is a never ending problem. For years the death rate attributed to guns has been about 30,000 a year and in the last few years has grown to more than 40,000. That's bad enough but along with those deaths goes 3-4 times that number in injured and damaged victims ranging from near vegetative state to simple (?) PTSD. That's as many as 160,000 people a year ranging in age from 2 to 90+ years old.

So, yeah, the Pandemic has taken precedent and deservedly so, but there is no vaccine to fix this.

So far I've devoted myself to discussing the fallacy of how we have attempted to suppress the level of carnage. I've pointed out that no matter how we try to compromise with gun extremists there will be no success because it's like pushing on a water balloon, no matter where we push it only expands elsewhere.

That is why, as a collector of antique and not so antique firearms and an avid shooter, I have come to the conclusion that we must ban the import, manufacture, transfer and possession of semi auto firearms that accept removable magazines. Period.

In earlier posts I've shown how the piecemeal approach to prohibitions and restrictions have failed because of the ingenuity of the gun industry. Today I offer an article from the gun rights side of the issue. Please take the time to read it to gain an understanding of how the industry responds to simplistic attempts to compromise with them in attempts to reduce, not eliminate, the daily carnage.

An excerpt:

The article:
https://www.explosion.com/138461/how-to-be-ready-for-the-next-potential-gun-ban-in-the-united-states/

I will continue along this line and expand it to answer some of the objections hurled at any attempt legislate these military inspired rapid fire death machines.

Previous posts can be fond in my journal.

First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Second Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Do any of the pictures below conform to the emphasized portions of the Amendments above cited?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=916
Michigan

https://i.insider.com/5eac2453e3c3fb73644ccc22?width=2000&format=jpeg&auto=webp


North Carolina


Missouri


Virginia

?resize=770%2C513
New Mexico

https://www.click2houston.com/resizer/cEJymDE5K2VqWDMPvWh17MXFu8c=/1600x1066/smart/filters:format(jpeg):strip_exif(true):strip_icc(true):no_upscale(true):quality(65)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gmg/GC6VJTOPCRGN3HKXWZKZ3PLLIY.jpg
New Hampshire

?auto=compress&crop=faces&fit=fit&fm=jpg&h=0&ixlib=php-1.2.1&q=45&w=1260
Texas

?quality=80&strip=all
Clearly part of the 'Well Regulated Militia". My advice for him? Go ahead, pull the trigger and see what happens next.

Stand Your Ground laws, or as some have called them 'Shoot First' laws, are the darling of the 2nd Amendment absolutists. Made famous by Florida and subsequently passed by 33 other states SYG laws are a pox on the land (but only a Smallpox).

The right to self defense is deeply ingrained in English Common law which is the basis of US law. The concept is that a person has the right to respond to threats of physical harm or death with sufficient force to neutralize that threat including deadly force. Embedded in that right is the Duty to Retreat or the responsibility to avoid violence when possible. Who wouldn't want to avoid confrontation and violence? Apparently people who carry guns.

In the decade since Florida passed SYG murders have increased 22% and lawful homicides increased from 3.4% of that total to 8.7% or a 75% increase. Other crime, both violent and nonviolent, has remained flat. So the only thing that changed was the number of people getting shot. Whoda' thought?

“Both justifiable and unlawful homicides increased substantially after the law’s effective date, unlawful homicides made up the majority of that increase,”

From this I surmise that a lot of people carrying guns thought they could get away with shooting someone but were mistaken. Still, somebody's dead. Then there is this little tidbit:

“The difference between murder and justifiable homicide hinges largely on the self-reported and difficult to refute subjective feeling of being threatened prior to killing someone,”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-homicides-standyourground/murders-surge-in-florida-in-decade-after-stand-your-ground-law-idUSKCN1AU1QL

In other words he who survives gets to tell the story any way he wants. George Zimmerman was one of those 'justifiable homicides' until public outrage resulted in charges of second degree murder for which he was acquitted.

So, what has the gun rights movement and the SYG laws it fosters gotten us?

MORE DEAD PEOPLE.

These laws must be repealed. They do not decrease crime and do not decrease unlawful homicide. Evidence suggests that the increase in 'lawful' homicide is vastly exaggerated. They do not make anyone safer, quite the contrary.

This epidemic has no vaccine. It's up to us, you and me, to bring this insanity under control. Join an anti gun violence organization of your choice. Give money, join, go to meetings, write letters to the editor and your representatives. Make your voice heard.

Part 1 here:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/126213614

Part 2 here:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/126213620

Part 3 here:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/126213623

Part 4 here:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/126213627