Weekend Ruminations

Lots of little things over the weekend in my black and white world.  Nothing super huge.

I noticed on Saturday that the local mall is all decked out in their finest Christmas splendor.  I'm surprised they haven't convinced Saint Nick to leave the North Pole early to listen to the kids in the center court.  It's not even Halloween yet, but the Christmas spirit is alive and well.  I guess before long, we'll see Christmas lights up right after Labor Day.  Bah Humbug.  Let me overdose on Halloween candy, and then turkey and stuffing, before you start force feeding me Christmas cheer.  Seriously.

While at the mall, I visited my favorite tattoo artist.  He gave my recent (and first) tattoo a looking over, a thumbs up, and said all was healing nicely.  I think I know what will go on the right shoulder now.  I was told once you get one, you seldom stop there.  I suppose that's right.

My adventure on two wheels continues.  I've enjoyed my little 150cc scooter all year, and it's a great way to get around town for errands.  However, I've decided that cold weather riding gloves were invented for a reason.  Obviously.  Need to pick up a pair.  Driving with warm weather gloves when it's 40 degrees outside makes for some cold fingers.

I had to do a Google search to see if there was any news about hell freezing over on Saturday night.  The Des Moines Register decided to endorse Mitt Romney for President on Saturday.  Coming from one of the most liberal leaning papers in the central part of the country, I was sure that the river Styx had formed an ice crust and the devil was wearing a parka.  I suppose once in a while, sanity does take hold, even for those who favor big brother governments.

Mrs. B&W Curmudgeon found evidence of wild rodents in her kitchen on Sunday, and I knew I had to figure something out.  Last year, as the rodents made their way into the house in the fall & winter, they figured out how to steal the peanut butter from my standard $1 mouse traps.  I'd find traps with no peanut butter on them, or worse, traps that were stripped and tripped, but no rodents captured.  Not this year.  Banana flavored "Laffy Taffy" to the rescue.  Four traps set after dinner, and by bed time, the score was Curmudgeon 3, Rodents 0.  Not one piece of Laffy Taffy was missing, either.  Bring it on, punks.

Sunday was a good day at the range.  Mrs. Curmudgeon went to the range with me and we had a good session breaking in her pink .38 snubbie, which will be her primary defensive carry sidearm.  I found a nice load that reduces recoil, and she was pretty darn proficient with it.  Ladies with guns, protecting themselves and not waiting for someone else to do it.  Makes me feel good.

Watching Hurricane Sandy from 1200 miles away, knowing that we have family directly in her path is not easy.  I almost got in the Jeepster and made the drive, but was turned off by the threat of heavy snows or even blizzard conditions in the WV mountains.  Seeing that threat fizzle out, while Sandy continues to strengthen somewhat unexpectedly doesn't make the decision to say put any better.  Here's to hoping that all of our family and friends on the east coast make it through the next few days safely.

Old Enough To Die

According to the Seattle Gun Rights Examiner, Dave Workman, the US Fifth Circuit Court Court of Appeals in Houston, TX today ruled that US citizens aged 18-20 can indeed be barred from purchasing handguns, regardless of what the Second Amendment of the Constitution reads.  According to Judge Edward Prado, "Congress was focused on a particular problem: young persons under 21, who are immature and prone to violence, easily accessing handguns.”

Old enough to die to protect you, but not
old enough to purchase a handgun.

In other words, if you are 18, 19, or 20 years old, you can enlist in the military branch of your choice and die for your country, but you cannot legally purchase a handgun because you might be too immature and prone to violence.  In fact, on any given day, Comp Pendleton and Camp Lejeune are full of men and women of those ages who are actively engaged in pursuing their decision to serve their country.  So are schools in Annapolis, West Point, Colorado Springs, and New London.

Young adults age 18-20 are also old enough to die for their community, serving as deputy sheriffs and police officers.  Any given day finds communities throughout the country protected by young adults in this age group, starting on careers that will hopefully not kill them before they are retirement age.

Some might argue that these young adults are only allowed to use firearms after they have undergone intense training.  While this is true, it does not guarantee that these same people will act appropriately with firearms.

Immaturity and prone to violence doesn't start at 18 and end at 21.  There are older adults who never get out of being immature and prone to violence, yet because they pass that magic number of 21, they suddenly become able to purchase a handgun (provided they pass a background check - a whole 'nother topic for a whole 'nother day).

So essentially, you have a panel of judges who just said that the bill of rights pertains to adults, with the exception of the Second Amendment.  What's strange to me is that I don't see anywhere in that amendment that an age limit is used.  It simply references a "well regulated militia" which we have already seen discussed in many other places starts at 18, not 21!

This is yet another wrongful interpretation by a group of black robed individuals who are evidently ignorant or apathetic to the meaning of the Second Amendment.  The NRA says they are considering all appeal options, as well they should.  Allowing our 18-20 year-olds to die for our country and communities while preventing them from purchasing a handgun is a double standard that flies directly in the face of liberty.

You cannot balance public safety on liberty's back.  While this ruling might make the anti-gun hand-wringers feel better, it is yet another example of a law that does nothing but erode the rights that our men and women in uniform have died to protect.

Armed Merchants

I had some money to invest today, so as I usually do when that happens, I decided to invest it in precious metals.  For the past three years, I've used the same place to buy and sell gold and silver.  They have excellent customer service, fair prices, and it's worth it to me to pass one or two other places to shop there.

The coins and fine metals are sold in the back portion of the shop, while the front portion deals with jewelry. I've only been in the front portion once or twice, but the folks up there always seemed to be just as friendly and customer oriented as the folks in the back that I've seen on a regular basis.

When I made my visit today, the folks in the back were still friendly, knowledgeable, and happy to help everyone.  And business was quite brisk today.  But all of them were sporting a new accessory to their business-casual outfits: an openly carried firearm.

It made me feel good that the proprietors were caring enough to arm themselves.  There have never been the "No Guns Allowed" signs seen at other businesses.  In fact, I've had firearms conversations in the past with a couple of the guys who work there.  Do they know I carry when I visit?  I don't know, and frankly, I don't care. My choice to carry (or not) is only a concern to me - not of anyone else.  So now, in addition to not posting a useless sign, they're taking it upon themselves to be active in the defense of their business.

(c) Oleg Volk - Used With Permission

I suppose it's in response to an attempted robbery that happened a little over a month ago.  But does that matter?  It shouldn't.  Even if the store had never been subjected to a robbery attempt, the decision to openly arm the employees is a good one.  It sends a message to customers (and hopefully criminals) that they are serious about defending what is theirs to defend.  I suppose some customers might feel ill at ease about shopping where firearms are carried out in the open, but so what?  Those who don't like it are free to shop elsewhere.  Any jewelry store in the local malls still have their employees working unarmed.  But this small shop is doing what they need to do to keep themselves (and presumably their customers) safe, and they should be congratulated for doing so.

Think it doesn't matter?  Ask the folks in Brookfield, Wisconsin.  Three workers at a spa were killed, and four others injured, when the husband of one of the victims came in shooting.  If the workers there had been armed, could the body count have been lower?

As usual, that is a question that we will never be able to answer.

All we know for sure is that seven innocent people were injured or killed, and they had no means to defend themselves.  The body count certainly couldn't have been higher had they been able to defend their lives, that much is beyond question.

From My Cold Dead Hands

So on national TV last night, the Comrade-in-Chief lets it slip out that he's in favor of bringing back an "Assault Weapons Ban" if he gets to keep his seat for another four years.  That should be a huge wake-up call for those of us who understand that our "assault weapons" are protected by the Second Amendment not for the purpose of hunting and sport shooting, but for protection from tyrants like Obama.

When the military - and increasingly, law enforcement - have weapons that far exceed what the general public is allowed to own, liberty is more easily trampled.  As a free citizenry, we should never fear our government; rather, it is our government that should fear us!  When our government stops fearing us, we have lost our ability to defend our freedoms.

I got a tattoo last weekend, and I believe it fairly well sums up my feelings on this issue.

If you want to grab my AR-15s and my AK-47, by all means, bring it on.  There are hundreds of thousands of other owners of these weapons who will not go quietly into the night either.  If Obama is looking for a reason to trigger martial law so his DHS minions can play with their shiny new toys, this might just be it.

It would be interesting to see just how many of our armed forces members would comply with such an order.  According to what I've been able to read, a large number of our military members understand that their job is to defend our Constitution, as opposed to following illegal orders from a wanna-be tyrant.  Local law enforcement might be a bit more lenient on following orders like that, but that would not last long.

As a population, we cannot allow today's version of the musket to be banned from ownership.  Doing so would bring us one step further away from liberty, and one step closer to socialized servitude.

The New Standing Army

Well, this should certainly be pretty damn disturbing to you.  If it's not, then you either A) aren't reading this carefully, or B) don't really care about your freedoms as an American.

It seems that the Department of Homeland Security has graduated its first class of 18-24 year-old members of the new Corps of Homeland Youth.  According to the news (of which there is very little out there - no major surprise), 231 of these "kids" were recruited from Comrade-in-Chief Obama's AmeriCorp volunteers.  These young adults (they are not really kids, are they?) will be tasked to assist with natural disasters.  It is hoped that the program will eventually number n the tens of thousands, according to what I've been able to find.

Why are we worried about nationalizing our response to disasters?  What happened to the Red Cross?  The Ham Radio community?  The National Guard?  Better yet, the concept of neighbors helping neighbors?

Do we really need DHS to step in and create yet another group of people to manage under a national flag?  Taking this news with the purchase of hundreds of millions of rounds of defensive ammunition and armored personnel carriers, my BS detector is buzzing.  Now add in DHS wanting to expand TSA's VIPR program to even more places (this is the program that puts TSA agents at train stations, bus terminals, and on interstate highways), and the needle is steadily rising on the detector.

Keep your eyes open, folks.  The pot of water is increasing in temperature, and we are the lobsters swimming in the pot.  If we don't figure out how to get out of it, we'll boil before we realize what's happening.

Which, by the way, is exactly what the socialist liberals would like to see happen.

Bullying

Word is making it around the Internet these days about a young lady who, at the age of 15, decided to take her own life in response to a turn of events that led to her being incessantly and cruelly bullied.  I won't recap the entire story here, but it's easy to find on the web.  You can find a news story here, and you can even see her desperate cry for help on a You Tube video here.  Amanda Todd was her name, and while she made a decision early on that was a poor one, it was further exploited by a man who should have known better (and by all accounts should be held criminally liable for his actions), and then seized upon by her "friends" who tormented her into a point of despair that she felt could only be resolved with her untimely death.

Being a parent who has seen the effects of bullying first hand in our household, I cannot help but feel nothing but pain and sorrow for the parents of Amanda.  And yet, while her story is only the most recent one to get publicity, teens are bullied every day across all walks of life.  Our kids were not bullied to the tragic extent that pushed Amanda into suicide, and for that we can be thankful.  But as I write this, I know that within 24 hours from now, many teens will find themselves just as lonely, afraid, and helpless as Amanda did prior to her final decision.  And for them, and their parents, I feel the same pain and sorrow as I do for Amanda and her family.

But I also feel anger.

I feel anger at the kids (who probably prefer to be called "young adults" even though there is nothing in their behavior that should warrant that description), because they make a conscious decision to pick another person out of the crowd to belittle and torment.

I feel anger at the parents of those kids, because being a parent is more than just providing room and board - it is a commitment that means involvement in a child's life.  It means asking questions about friends, trips, events, school, work, relationships, and yes, even sex and drugs.   Being involved in your child's life means knowing who he "hangs" with; knowing how things are going in school; knowing what she does for fun away from home and school; helping him understand how decisions made now can affect him for the rest of his life; but most of all, helping to shape her into a respectable adult.

But most of all, I feel anger at the system.  I cannot direct that at the schools, because we place too much blame and expectations on our schools already.  The schools have to step in when parents don't do their job (as I mentioned in the previous paragraph), when in actuality, the schools should really be teaching our kids reading, writing, and arithmetic.  They are not meant to be the moral arbiters of our next generation.  This anger is directed at society in general.  After taking a stroll through the Internet, it seems that the overwhelming response to dealing with bullies is to turn the other cheek; walk away; be strong; know you are better than the bullies; talk to a trusted adult about the situation; or find activities with a different group of friends.

None of these actions confronts the problem.  All of them suggest that the only way to handle a bully is to simply walk away, removing the "power" from the bully.  In my black and white world, that is a total sham.  In the case of Amanda Todd, she walked away alright.  She left her dad, moved to another town to live with her mom, and she was still tormented by her bullies.  Walking away from the situation did nothing.  And in the intimate knowledge we gained from our own kids who were the objects of bullies' desires, walking away did very little to solve the problem.

It is always suggested by the "experts" that a direct confrontation is never a good idea.  Doing so leads to more aggression and more problems.  This line of thinking is so wrong.  I agree that any confrontation should be avoided when possible, but at some point, one must say "enough" and decide to fight back.  Submission is a sign of weakness.  Had the United States been submissive in 1941, the Axis Powers would likely have taken over the world with no problem at all.  70 years later, we fight a different kind of war, where we submit to the whims of the governments that "host" us in their countries.  Because of that, we lose our men and women because they cannot fight back.  We lose our ambassadors because we cannot fight back.

We lose our children, because we cannot fight back.

The concept of walking away when possible is not a bad start.  But it cannot be the end.  Our children cannot be prepared for life if they only know how to be submissive and turn to the schools or "trusted adults" for assistance, and dissuaded from confronting their tormentors.  It is due to the lack of effective parenting that "trusted adults" need to be found in the first place!  The two adults that any child should trust more than any others are a mother and a father.  Not a school principal or guidance counselor.  Not the school resource officer.  Not a priest, rabbi, or any other spiritual leader.

Most of all, our kids should not find themselves dissuaded or even penalized for standing up for what is right.  The best way for evil to take hold is for good people to do nothing.  That is an old adage, and it is as relevant today as it has ever been.  No amount of counseling, hand-holding, peer group sessions, or diversionary programs will change a hard-core bully.

In Amanda Todd's case, she was wrong for sending an unknown Internet contact a topless picture of herself.  However, he was wrong for exploiting that, and the kids who tormented her because of that were equally as wrong.  All should be held liable for her death, as they all have her blood on their hands.  She chose to walk away, but her father and the school knew of her troubles.  Yet nothing was done.  I can guess with nearly as much certainty as knowing that the sun rises in the east that her school pulled in counselling resources to try to "work through" the situation.  Wrong.  All parties involved should have been immediately confronted, removed from the school, and been charged with assault.  Amanda reportedly did not want to press charges in the hopes that she could move on with her life.  That decision should never have been hers to make.  Just as an abused woman does not need to "press charges" to find her abuser arrested, neither should Amanda have been required to make that kind of decision.

Amanda Todd needed someone to talk to.  That is evident in the final part of her video.  Yet in my quick search of Internet resources, there is nothing available for bullied kids who just need an ear.  A resource for bullied kids to find others who have been bullied and are available to listen.  Not via e-mail, not in a text, but a real voice on the other end of the phone.  Absent the direction she needed from her parents, that may have been the very thing she needed to keep her from making a decision that would end what could have been a productive and loving life.  Unfortunately, we'll never know.

Rest in peace, Amanda.  I pray that your death was not in vain, and I hope that our society will someday realize that the right answer is not always turning the other cheek and giving hugs.  Sometimes, you need to take a stand and say no more.