Forget That The Criminals Are The Problem – Let’s Attack The Decent Law-Abiding People

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Time for a bit of a rant today.

First one this year, I don’t know how I held out for so long.

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Since the horrible massacre of schoolchildren and their teachers by a mentally deranged moron in Connecticut the real debate has again been sidelined into the convenient ‘to-ban-or-not-to-ban’ guns.

I can’t make up my mind as to what proportion of the gun-banning side of this so-called debate are idiots repeating what other idiots have said, how many are malicious, or how many are people trying to grab a handy headline or two.

The first lot can be easily compared with a flock of sheep. Sheep aren’t noted for their intellectual prowess, nor their debating skills, but when one sheep goes “baaa” you can be sure a lot more will say the same thing.

The second lot, the malicious ones, are deliberately rather than unintentionally refocusing the debate on to their liberal/fascist agenda of increasing bureaucratic interference wherever they see an opening.

And the third group are people, usually politicians or those with a political agenda, using the misery of other people to publicize themselves and their cause, but primarily themselves. Never one to let a band wagon roll past him, President Obama has jumped on this one, all guns blazing as it were!

For all these groups the ‘to-ban-or-not-to-ban’ guns debate is a handy, and a welcome, distraction.

It gives the first group something to say without stopping to analyze the real problem in detail. It gives the second group more ammunition (no pun intended today) to curtail freedom. As for the later group, the politicians love this distraction because it gives the impression that they are compassionate and caring and trying to find a solution, even though they are addressing the wrong problem.

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On the face of it, Obama’s proposals can be dressed up as reasonable. If you haven’t seen them on the media (how could you avoid it?) they include:  

• asking Congress to reinstate and strengthen a ban on the sale and production of assault weapons that passed in 1994 and expired in 2004;
• a ban on the sale and production of magazines with more than 10 rounds, like those used in Newtown and other mass shootings;
• criminal background checks for all gun sales, closing the longstanding loophole that allows buyers to avoid screening by purchasing weapons from unlicensed sellers at gun shows or in private sales;
• banning the possession or transfer of armor-piercing bullets;
• and cracking down on “straw purchasers,” i.e., those who pass background checks and then forward guns to criminals or others forbidden from purchasing them.

As I said, on the face of it reasonable, but I suspect this is just the first salvo of a much more comprehensive agenda.

However, the question of the moment is simply this  –  would a gun ban, whether partial or comprehensive, work?

And the answer is categorically, NO!

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And the answer is ‘NO’, not because I am a champion of the 2nd Amendment – I’m not, it doesn’t even apply to me! The answer is ‘NO’ because taking guns away from law abiding people won’t stop the criminals or those with criminal intent.

It doesn’t take a genius to work that out, but no one in the gun-ban lobby is even asking that fundamental question. Nor do they want it to be asked!  

You see this is how gun bans work. I’ve seen them in operation in numerous countries.

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If gun ownership is banned, law-abiding Joe Public won’t be able to go to Walmart and buy a gun as before. And he won’t be able to buy his gun because all that gun-banning legislation does is to make sure that no law-abiding citizen can buy and hold a legal firearm.

Joe Public is buying his gun (99.99 percent of the time) because he uses it for sporting purposes, or because he is a collector, or because he feels he needs it for his protection and the protection of his family.

The criminals, on the other hand, who don’t shop at Walmart, but are more likely to deal out of the trunk of a car in some isolated spot well away from prying eyes, will still be able to buy their guns and use them how they please.

Why?

Because they buy illegal guns from illegal dealers. And illegal guns from illegal dealers are not part of these new proposals. As a matter of fact the illegal guns are already banned which in itself proves that banning does not work! 

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So what has to be the inevitable result of a ban on legally held weapons?

Simply this. When you ban law-abiding decent citizens from buying or owning guns all you can possibly end up with are armed criminals versus unarmed civilians, with the police (who would have been used by the politicians and bureaucrats to subjugate the law-abiding population and remove their protection) now being the only form of defense and they will be grossly inadequate in numbers to ever hope to do so effectively.

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As another example of just how far up their own asses some people can stick their heads and still think they are getting a tan, an idiot reporter named Dwight R Worley of the New York Journal News recently published the names and addresses, complete with an interactive map, of people in Westchester and Rockland Counties who owned legally held firearms.

Like all such journalistic crap it was parceled up in ‘caring for the community’ and ‘public interest’ wrappers, but all this article did was to point an accusing finger at law abiding citizens who had done nothing wrong.

Well, when I say “all it achieved” that’s not quite accurate, because it also gave the thieves, the home invaders, the rapists, the thugs, etc., a map of the homes that were protected BUT equally the homes that were not.  

Thanks to dickhead Dwight R Worley (who incidently owns a .357 Magnum himself adding the crime of hypocrisy to his stupidity), Mr. Thief and Mr. Mayhem now know which houses in Westchester and Rockland Counties they can attack with impunity and those that they should stay clear of.

As it turns out, the people who should be most upset by this article are the ones who don’t have a gun, not those who do!

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Zip this forward to a gun-ban country where all the law abiding people are defenseless targets for the criminals and there can only be one result. Not just an increase in violent crime but also a vast increase in petty crime. The detection rate for the latter is already minuscule, so think for a moment what it will be like when the criminals have little fear of their victims and even less fear of being caught.

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The truth is that legally held guns probably save many, many more lives than they harm, and in most cases they do so without ever being used. But there aren’t any statistics for that.

The truth is that banning legal weapons will not stop illegal gangland shootings, which constitute the vast majority of deaths by gunfire in the United States.

The truth is that banning legal weapons won’t decrease the number of illegal weapons in circulation.

And the truth is that banning legally held weapons won’t stop morons or mentally deranged individuals from going on a murder spree – a knife, a bow or a can of gasoline will get the same job done.

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The saddest thing of all is that the people and politicians who are calling for these bans know it. It would be nice to see them show a bit of backbone and integrity for once and attack the criminals and leave the law-abiding people alone. But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. 

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I Miss Him

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Yes, I miss him, I really do.

And from what some of you have said recently, I’m not the only one.

So, today I have the honor of recalling probably some of the greatest political statements ever made or ever likely to be made.

For those of you who were privileged to live through these wondrous years I hope you enjoy recalling some of these important moments. For those who were too young to appreciate them at the time, you are I think in for a delight.

But that’s enough of an intro.

Without further ado I present to you some of the immortal words of United States of America President, George W Bush.

Enjoy!

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“Public speaking is very easy.”

-George W. Bush

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“The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country.”

– George W. Bush

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“If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.”

– George W. Bush

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“One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is ‘to be prepared’.”

– George W. Bush

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“I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.”

-George W. Bush

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“Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children.” 

– George W. Bush

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“We’re going to have the best educated American people in the world.” 

– George W. Bush

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“The future will be better tomorrow.”

– George W. Bush

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“We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe.”

– George W. Bush

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“A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.” 

– George W. Bush

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“We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.”

– George W. Bush

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“For NASA, space is still a high priority.”

– George W. Bush

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“It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.”

-George W. Bush

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“It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system.”

– George W. Bush

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“You’ve also got to measure in order to begin to effect change that’s just more — when there’s more than talk, there’s just actual — a paradigm shift.” 

– George W. Bush

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“I stand by all the misstatements that I’ve made.”

– George W. Bush

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Even Dumb And Dumber Are Beginning To Look Reasonably Smart

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

 

“Education is light, lack of it darkness.”
–Russian proverb

 

Teaching is a great vocation and a vitally important one for society. It’s a pity that the politicians didn’t realize that and devote a bit more of their time and our money towards improving the salaries of the teachers and raising the level of education of the pupils.

I know a lot of people would say what use is learning stuff like history or economics or having to read some high-brow literature in which you have little or no interest. But learning is, or rather used to be, about discovering how to think, how to retain information and how to apply what you have retained in other situations.

In other words developing a bit of common sense and the ability to think you way out of or around problem situations. The brain is like a muscle, the more exercise it gets and the more you use it the more efficient it becomes.

Sadly, we have reached the intolerable stage where, instead of the logical progression of standards being set just a little bit higher each year, the very opposite is occurring. Educational standards are dropping every year, and not by a little either.

Exam passing statistics have become a worthless joke. University degrees have been similarly devalued.

Nowadays, if you’ve got money and no brains you’ll get all the degrees and qualifications you want. If you got brains to burn and no money then the educational establishments don’t want to know you. If you get anywhere you have to rely on getting a scholarship to a good school, or working two or three jobs to gather up the money.

A few years ago I was having a meal with a Professor of mine from University days. “How are things with you?” I asked casually as you do, expecting to hear the standard answer like “Fine, what about you?”.

But instead I got a heartfelt reply that went like this.

“Things are terrible,” he started. “The kids these days don’t seem to want to learn anything. They, or their parents pay a lot of money to send them to college and they just don’t seem to care any more. Thank goodness I have only a few more years to go until I can retire. It’s just not the same any more. You have no idea how the standards have dropped. There is no comparison to when you were there.”

On further inquiry I found out that it was not just the kids, the Universities themselves were partly to blame. Everything now was money driven. There were not the same government assistance programs, the standard of the students being accepted was declining rapidly, very few of them even had the basics of a good education any more and the emphasis was on attracting overseas students, many of whom could only speak a little bit of English and could write even less –  because the fees the Universities could charge them were a lot more than for the indigenous variety.

If you think about it, it is a self-defeating spiral downwards. Teaching standards get lowered  –  students get a poorer education  –  some of them become teachers themselves  –  they know less than their predecessors  –  their pupils therefore can only learn less  –  some of them become teachers  –  etc., etc., etc.

I’m wondering now if it can actually reach the stage where nobody knows anything, but when I think about some of the stuff in this blog, maybe we’re already getting close, too close???

Need more proof?

Try this lot of answers from the British GCSE. This is an examination given to sixteen year olds, who by that age should know at least the basics of things. Judge for yourselves from these answers (the spelling mistakes are all theirs):

 

 

Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.

 

 

The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinessis, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked, “Am I my brother’s son?”

 

 

Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.

 

 

Solomom had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.

 

 

The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn’t have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.

 

 

Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.

 

 

Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.

 

 

In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java.

 

 

Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.

 

 

Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out: “Tee hee, Brutus.”

 

 

Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his subjects by playing the fiddle to them.

 

 

Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was cannonized by Bernard Shaw. Finally Magna Carta provided that no man should be hanged twice for the same offense.

 

 

In midevil times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature.

 

 

Another story was William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son’s head.

 

 

Queen Elizabeth was the “Virgin Queen.” As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted “hurrah.”

 

 

The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened and catapulted into Napoleon. Napoleon wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn’t have any children.

 

 

The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West.

 

 

Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. She was a moral woman who practiced virtue. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.

 

 

The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men.

 

 

Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.

 

 

It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper.

 

 

The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Romeo’s last wish was to be laid by Juliet.

 

 

Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

 

 

The First World War, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duck byan anahist, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.

 

 

During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe.

 

 

Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim’s Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.

 

 

One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. Finally the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared, “A horse divided against itself cannot stand.”. Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

 

 

Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.

 

 

Abraham Lincoln became America’s greatest Precedent. Lincoln’s mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposedly insane actor. This ruined Booth’s career.

 

 

Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy.

 

 

Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.

 

 

Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.

 

 

Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.