Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt

1. First impression:
2. Truth is: 
3. How old do you look: 
4. Have you ever made me laugh: 
5. Have you ever made me mad: 
6. Best feature: 
7. Have I ever had a crush on you:
8. You’re my: 
9. Name in my phone: 
10. Should you post this too?

first-in-firearms:

I’m sure all of you have heard this argument before, but seeing it put so succinctly surprised me.

“The only thing you need to know about gun control is this:

Guns exist.

There is nothing anyone, any government or any group can do to make them go away. They are a fact of life. To be upset about how they kill, or how quickly they do it, is a moot point.

Guns are here and people will want them due to the fact that they kill, and kill quickly. The only defense you have against guns in the hands of people who wish to do harm with them is to have one yourself. It might seem like a bad thing to many but that is the reality of the world we live in.

Since bad people have firearms, good people should have them too, lest they be at the mercy of the wicked.

In a land where guns are outlawed, only the outlaws will have guns.

Guns are here: deal with it.”

booksofthought:

zigziggityzoo:

Most of you know that I am what those in the political game would call a pro-gun individual. And for most of you, that will automatically color your view on the paragraphs that follow. But there have been lots of people out there wanting a reasoned conversation on the issue, all the while offering their own knee-jerk reaction in the conversation. I’m hoping to offer a reasoned response.

I want to stop before I get much further and say this: I am deeply saddened by the loss of 12 lives, and the 59 others injured by the lone perpetrator in the Aurora, CO incident. It is not my intent to detract from the losses in their families, and the permanent mark it makes on their loved ones’ lives.

I will not go into whether or not you or I believe the second amendment protects ones’ individual rights to both own and wear guns. The Supreme Court has already held that it has. I will leave it at that.

I would first like to talk about the so-called “solutions” for stopping mass shootings being proffered thus far: These range from outright banning of all firearms, to banning just the specific types of guns the aurora shooter used. I would also like to talk about  the blaming of lawful carriers for not stopping the Aurora crime. Let’s dissect each.

Banning all firearms

While it would be relatively easy to cease all sales of firearms, the hard part of implementing this solution is removing them from the hands of those that own them.  The Federal government doesn’t know exactly how many guns are in private hands, but best guesses put the numbers thusly: There are roughly 200-350 million guns in private owners’ hands, and an estimated 34% of Americans own at least one firearm (with roughly 1 in every two homes having at least one firearm within its walls). 

Let’s assume it’s possible to round up 99% of these guns (I have my doubts, but for the sake of discussion). Is this solution even going to help? Well, fortunately, someone at Harvard asked just that question, and did an empirical study on the subject (PDF LINK). I would encourage you to read this for yourself, but here’s the conclusion from the study:

Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, espe‐ cially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra. To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world.

(Emphasis mine)

To boil this down for you: Reducing or eliminating gun ownership has only shown to have a net zero or negative effect on reducing crime. Crime stays the same or goes up in almost all nations that have eliminated private gun ownership. In any nation that has had reduced crime after eliminating private gun ownership, they were the exception to the rule.

Banning specific firearms

Believe it or not, we have tried this before. In 1994, Congress under Clinton passed The Public Safety and Recrational Firearms Use Protection Act (hereafter called the AWB), which eliminated the ability to purchase so-called “Assault Weapons” and magazines with a capacity of greater than 10 rounds. This bill went into effect in 1994, with a sunset provision expiring the law in 2004.

Assault weapons under this law are Semi-Automatic (almost all firearms are - this means one trigger pull = one bullet fired), and must have also had two other cosmetic features of the firearm. The only differentiator between an assault weapon and a sporting rifle (for hunting) were in the cosmetic design of the gun. None of the differences affected the ballistics or deadliness of the gun itself.

What’s important is not what this law did, but what it failed to do. in 1994, the USA was already in the middle of an 8-year decline in violent crime rates. During the AWB, violent crime rates continued to decline, which proponents attributed to the AWB itself. But then, in 2004, the AWB law ceased to exist. After 2004, even though so-called Assault Weapons were legal again, violent crime rates continued to decrease (and still do today). 
(Sources: disaster center, Berkeley.edu, FBI)

Blaming lawful carriers for not stopping shooter

I was incredulous when I was reading both Roger Ebert and MG Seigler’s posts, asserting that the pro-gun argument is invalid because no lawful carriers stopped this man on that day. This is a straw-man argument.

Cinemark Century Theaters, the owner of the Cinemark 16 in Aurora, CO, has a company-wide policy that bans firearms within its premises. Only law-enforcement officers are exempted from this policy. Violation of this policy could get you charged with trespassing.

Not only that, but within the city limits of Aurora, CO, it is unlawful to be in possession of a concealed dangerous weapon unless you are law enforcement or within your own home or business. (Cite)  

And see, the thing about lawful firearms carriers is that they tend to follow the law. In fact, one empirical study showed that lawful concealed carriers are 5.7x less likely to commit violent crimes than the general public, and 13.5x less likely to commit non-violent crimes than the general public. So if you’re reading this and not a licensed concealed permit holder, you’re statistically 13.5x more likely to commit a crime than I am.

So these individuals will, in all likelihood, not be carrying in a place that bans firearms. So if they’re not carrying due to mandatory disarmament, how would they have been able to shoot back? If you’d like to make this argument, you must first allow lawful carriers the opportunity to exercise their ability to defend themselves, instead of disarming them.

A Cultural Issue

In the end, I DO think there’s something we should be talking about in the USA. It’s something that not a whole lot of people are really talking about. We must look past the tools used by the criminal in this case so that we can identify and then work toward solving the true problem here. And that problem is that we promote a culture of violence in the USA.

See, I think we’ve been ignoring the 1.43:1, 7.1 surround, 72-foot-wide elephant in the room in Aurora, CO. It’s no coincidence that the shooter was dressed as Joker from the Batman comics, and imitated his actions from The Dark Knight film with the smoke/tear gas grenades and theatrics. The USA promotes such violence, to the point of all of us dressing up and attending midnight premieres of violent films. We treat exposed female breasts as worse for young eyes than extreme gore and violence. Our news sources incessantly talk about crimes and violence, because they know what draws eyes. Our primetime television shows are largely about crime solving, criminal behavior, and police activity.

I’m no more or less guilty than you are. I enjoy these TV shows, movies, and video games as much as the next person. But all of these are indicators of where we, as a culture, place our values.

By enjoying films such as The Dark Knight, or TV Shows such as Dexter, we are inadvertently rewarding behavior displayed by the Virginia Tech shooters and Aurora, CO shooters in this nation. They are guaranteed their 15 minutes (or days) of fame.

But see, I already showed my hand back at the beginning of this post. Going back to that Harvard Study, the results already prove my point. Without cultural changes, violent crime remains (or gets worse!).

Conclusion

In the end, I think we do have to address a problem, but I don’t believe the problem is specific to the tools used by criminals (As more than one empirical study has shown). The problem, in my opinion, is that we have a cultural issue at hand here. And if we were to address this cultural issue, the rest of it becomes irrelevant. 

This guy hits the nail squarely on the head.

You can ask me anything and I’ll answer honestly, but only with yes and no.

thebatfe:

you’re fucking’s greatest hits.

At a Defensive Handgun/Urban Rifle Program recently, one of my students was a strapping, young Marine E5 with a half-decade of active service. His learning attitude was excellent. He was there on his own dime, and anxious to learn everything he could. As a Marine Infantry Officer (Ret), I am so glad to see such fine, young men continue to be attracted to the Corps!

As I unapologetically explained to the Class that we boldly run a hot range, he nodded his head in agreement, but that is where our communication got muddled!

He conceded that he did not carry concealed as a regular practice. Nearly all of the rest of my students do. He was using a borrowed pistol (G21). He bragged about the way his recon unit used 1911 pistols to great effect, but curiously he was unable to produce a copy of his own.

In any event, when he arrived at the range the morning of the second day, he put on his holster and pistol. At a distance, I watched him insert a magazine into the pistol, but he failed to chamber a round, as he had been instructed to do.

I decided to let it go, as the learning-point would likely arrive shortly.

It did!

During our first drill, he drew his G21 and pressed the trigger. It was obvious to all that he fully expected it to fire. Instead, of course, it went “click!” Mystified, he paused and looked at it. He finally ran the slide and belatedly started the drill.

I grabbed his shoulder and stopped him. I pointed out to him that he had been carrying an unloaded pistol all morning, and, had our drill been a real fight, he probably would have been killed, and for a really stupid reason!

I continued:

“In what passes for ‘training’ you’ve become far too accustomed to carrying around unloaded guns, my friend. You claim to be an Operator, yet you don’t even carry a gun as a regular practice, and you’re obviously not traveling with one. 

Well, the rest of us do, and we expect you to come to the party.

Around here, we don’t holster empty guns. We don’t ‘pretend,’ and we need you to stop pretending too!

Marine, you may be dynamite in a gunfight that is scheduled and part of a ‘plan,’ but what is going to happen to you when you get involved in an ‘unscheduled’ fight, on the way to the ‘planned’ one?”

To his credit, he graciously acknowledged the unhappy gap in his habit repertoire.

It has improved slightly over the past forty years, but today Soldiers and Marines, even from “elite” units, still receive no instruction in personal readiness. They run guns now and then, but don’t carry loaded weapons, even blades, regularly. On those rare occasions when they do carry, all guns are routinely unloaded. This is currently true, even in areas of active fighting!

My student, at the price of a little personal embarrassment, learned this important lesson about personal readiness. The vast majority of his colleagues haven’t, probably never will, nor will they even think about it…until it’s too late!

The term “readiness” casually rolls of the lips of generals and politicians alike, yet it has never been practiced on a personal basis, at least during the past half-century. Instead, we unwittingly teach Soldiers and Marines how to get killed, as we see. 

Anyone remember Ft Hood?

We desperately need courageous leaders, political and military (the kind we once had!), to boldly step forward and start taking “readiness” literally.

In my small corner of the Universe, I passionately, joyfully do what I can!

“Argue for your limitations, and they’re yours”

Boehlen

John S. Farnam

socialjusticeally:

red-dead-confessions:

Honestly, Red Dead Redemption is such a beautiful game. It’s not just a game about some badass who kills guys. It’s so much more. 

It’s not just about some badass who kills guys.

It’s about an unfortunate bastard whose horse walks off a cliff - then he gets attacked by a cougar.

FUCKING COUGARS

operator-as-fuck:

touchmymas:

blackveilbridesbxtch:

nowimthevillain:

jedioftheseanarwhals:

so… if we put all our money together… we can buy new zeland…?

^ Ha

Not bad.

Even Andy is clapping^

I love whoever made this. Kissesss for youu.

Except Gunblr would end up killing 80% of the population and enslave the rest.

Merciless Genocide of Hipsters and Fandoms?? 

I can get down wit dat.

THE GUNBLR WILL SHOW NO MERCY

gunrunnerhell:

This is important for all of gunblr…former Pres. George W. Bush said no to this when it was first brought up. Pres. Obama has changed the U.S position on this issue.

Dear Friend,

On July 27th, the nations of the world are scheduled to meet in New York to sign a global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).  Disguised as a way to prevent the proliferation of small arms throughout the world, it is, in fact, a backdoor way to legislate gun control in the United States and effectively repeal our Second Amendment.

The ATT will set up a global body, which will require all nations to regulate firearms so that they can prevent their exportation to other countries.  Inevitably, this will require countries to inventory the guns in private hands and to register them.  A gun ban is not far away.

The ATT, under the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, would have the power of a constitutional amendment and would, effectively, repeal the Second Amendment guaranteeing us the right to bear arms.  We must fight to stop the US from signing the treaty and, if we fail, block Senate ratification.

Please sign the petition below and include your name and address so we can send it to your Congressman and Senators.  We’ll add your email address to our Alerts list so we can keep you posted on progress and next steps.

Thanks very much.

Dick Morris

http://dickmorris.rallycongress.com/7175/gun-control/

catherinedoll:

green-street-politics:

teaandtheatre:

(TW for audism out the ass)

As we were leaving the NAD convention in Louisville, Kentucky, I had on the following shirt I got at the convention:

It was a very public week-long event downtown, make no bones about it. As such, the shirt very clearly identified me as deaf.

While I was going through the TSA, some of them started laughing in my direction. I thought it might’ve been someone behind me, but I found out otherwise.

They went through my bag (for no reason), and found a couple bags of candy I brought. I was told I wasn’t allowed to fly with that (wtf? I’ve flown with food before — these were even sealed still because I brought them right in the airport). I was then asked if I would like to donate the candy “To the USO”. Since I know the airport there has an Air National Guard base, and I figured it would go to the soldiers, I (annoyed) said sure, why not? 

The guards, as I was getting scanned, started eating the candy they just told me was for the soldiers. In front of me, still laughing at me (very clearly now). One of them asked why they were laughing, and one of them came up to me, pointed at my shirt, laughed at me and said, “Fucking deafie”. The Louisville TSA called me a “fucking deafie” and laughed at me because I was deaf, and they expected wouldn’t say anything back (or wouldn’t hear them). Make no bones about it — she was facing me and I read her lips. There was no mistake. I would later find out that they had called at least 4 other individuals the same thing. 

My teammates had to hold me back from going after them, but we moved on. After I had calmed down and we had sat down, some rude as fuck lady got up and started filming us signing. She called us “Dumb apes” with a “gesture language” and laughed at us. When we asked her to stop, she said “I was getting a picture of the plane behind you! (the plane wasn’t even at the gate yet)” and “You’re dumb deafies anyway so no one would believe you”.

At this point I was blind in rage, but I let it go. It wasn’t the end of it though. This, however, is why I’m never returning to Louisville, ever again. 

When we got back to Rochester, we found out that United had lost all of our luggage. It ended up in Kansas. The United reps had put a phone number up and said to call it. I responded, “I’m deaf, I can’t use a phone!” I was told, “Buy a TTY then talk to us!” When I shouted back that TTYs had gone obsolete years ago for texting, I was told, “I guess you’re shit outta luck then, huh?” .

But I guess because I’m disabled, I have too many rights, huh?

Who Ever Made This.
YOU’RE A GENIUS

like my 30th time rebloggin , ilove this :D lol

oh my gawddd <3

lol

been waiting for this omg

GODBLESS TUMBLR

controlledcalamity:

i feel safe.

Gotta love Ohio

I’ll make fucking Compton look like Disneyland.