I Got Your Back.... We Clear?

"That's all right. Don't worry about it. I got your back... We clear?"

Those were the words recorded by 911 operators as Anthony Arambula lay bloodied on the floor of his home, having been shot six times in the back.

"That's all right."

Such a simple phrase, one that I've repeated to my children many, many times over the past few years--whenever they've done something wrong. Whenever they've accidentally hit me. I've used it at work. I used it when I was at school. I've even used it at the restaurant a few days ago, after the waitresses ignored us for twenty minutes.

It's a shorthand for the person you're talking to, telling them that what they have done is not that bad of a thing.

And it was being used by the folks who shot Anthony Arambula in his own home.

Now, you may ask, what was Mr. Arambula doing? Who shot him in the back? What about the police?

The answer there is simple: Mr. Arambula had cornered someone breaking into his home, and had his gun trained on the burglar, as said burglar was in Mr. Arambula's son's room.

Apparently, the police heard the burglar breaking Mr. Arambula's window, and after having been told by Mr. Arambula's wife of his presence, and the burglar's presence, the police in question rushed into the house, and more or less shot the first person they came across.

And after this brilliant display of bravery and intelligence by the "Boys in Blue" they proceeded to a) describe how they were going to cover up the shooting, and blame it on Mr. Arambula, and then b) drag Mr. Arambula around by his leg and finally c) treated Mrs. Aramabula and the rest of the family as if they were the criminals here.

Were it not for the existence of those 911 tapes, the Police's description of events would remain uncontested and incontestable.

Mr. Arambula would have been blamed for the police randomly shooting him in the back.

And these are the so-called guardians of law and order in our society?

It makes me wonder--as it should you--how many times this has happened in the past, and the poor victim just unable to prove that the police willfully and maliciously shot him.

I'm disturbed by the sense of conceit which permeates the police forces in our society today. We're expected to kowtow to their every whim and demand, and they are more than willing to enforce those demands with force.

They have forgotten that they are neither above the law, nor are they the law. Rather they are just a group of people whose job it is to investigate purported breaks within said law.

Our police forces have become caught up in their own mystique--helped in this by the inane portrayals of the heroic cops on shows such as Law and Order. When in reality, most cops are closer to the ones depicted on The Shield: corrupt and/or power hunger.

After all, it takes a special type of person to be a cop.

The proverbial guard dog, to the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Of course, most of us forget, that the guard dog has much more in common with the wolf than with the sheep; and given half the chance will be just as quick to take advantage of an unwary sheep as the wolf is.

2 School Shootings!

In the past few days there have been 2 shootings involving colleges. The first I want to talk about happened yesterday (5/6/09) on the campus of Wesleyan University, and involved a man walking into the college bookstore there, and shooting a poor girl dead.

Yes, this man, walked through those magical, pixie-powered force fields called "no-gun zones" and managed to hold a gun as it spontaneously spat out a projectile towards a young lady, identified as Johanna Justin-Jinich of Timnath, Colorado, who was merely working at her job.

And if you missed any of the sarcasm which filled that sentence, you need to go back to high school.

It was a sad thing. It is. But unsurprisingly, there are news articles all over the place (here's Fox News' rendition). In fact it is a story produced by the Associated Press. I'd be surprised if everyone hasn't heard of this particular story by dinner time tomorrow.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the AP shouldn't have reported on this. It is a news worthy event, a young girl lost her life to what amounts to a wild animal.

But I said there were two shootings.

The second story, once again involved a college student. This time though (and this happened on 5/4/09), their were two gunmen. The basics is that a group of students were having a birthday party for someone in an apartment, when two men (and I use that term only in the sense that they are human males) burst into the home waving guns about. They then segregated the men and women, and one of them began to count the bullets they had with them.

Based upon the conversation between the two criminals, their intention was to kill all the men, and then rape and kill the women.

Anyways, the college student in question, one Tom Jones, grabbed a gun from his bookbag, and protected himself, and the others--and in the process ridding the world of one more useless drain on society, sadly his aim was a bit off, as he failed to rid the world of both of the drains in question.

This story managed to get some local news coverage, but that was it. It did not appear on Fox News, and the Associated Press had nothing on it at all.

Now, what's the difference between the two stories?

It's simple, in the first, the person doing the shooting was entirely the evil one. He went into the bookstore and just killed the poor girl. In the second, the one doing all the shooting was a hero. He protected himself and others--not just his friends that he was with that night, but all the other potential victim of the useless twit who wanted to rape and kill them all.

Frankly, they are both news worthy events. They're both describing attacks, but one had a "happy ending" with the innocent still alive, and worse, still alive due to the presence of a gun! The other story showed a gun entirely in an evil light--and because the victim was in a state-mandated shooting gallery gun free zone, there was no one there who was willing and/or able to protect her.

Personally, if I were Johanna's parent, I'd be screaming that these nonsensical gun-free zones be done away with. After all, if there had been someone there with a CCP and a gun, Johanna could possibly still be alive today.

On the other hand, Charles Bailey, one of the 10 people saved by Tom Jones, at least knows that he owes his life to a gun. Maybe next time, he'll be the one willing to risk himself to save those around him.

Crazy Killing Machine Buyers...

ABC has an article up on its website currently about the EVVVILLL gun shows, and how they are such dangerous, evil things, that need to end.

I'm sickened by it. Truly. The Liberal, anti-Constitution bias in the article causes literal pain for me. They carry on about the evilness of gun shows, and even go to classify a LEGAL way to purchase a product a "loophole."

Basically, the entire article is an emotional call, made by one of the legally-mandated sitting ducks students of the Virgina Tech massacre's brother on just how bad guns are. Forget the fact that if someone had been armed that morning in that particular building that it would not be remembered as the largest massacre by a sole gunman. He waxes inanely about wanting to "protect" other people, and how he's trying to do so by showing how easy it is to get guns.

And I'm still trying to figure out, just how not letting additional guns be purchased legally will stop someone willing to murder others? I mean think about it, if someone is willing and wanting to take the extreme step of killing someone, do you think that creating magical legal barriers will stop them from doing it with a gun?

If you do, I have a very nice bridge I'd like to sell you.

Personally, I have long thought it the height of insanity to create these nice shooting galleries where those willing to carry out massacres can go, safe in the knowledge that folks whom are actually concerned about carrying out the law will not be carrying their guns.

Yet, that's not the worse thing about the article. I can say this, because ABC allows comments. Which of course, provided me this particular gem of utter tripe and stupidity by someone named "truth_2_power":

only crazy people would support the ability to buy killing machines this easily... the world has changed and the laws need to as well

I'm going to take a look at the second part of that stupidity first. "The world has changed, and the laws need to as well." From a certain point of view, he's right. The world has changed, and the laws do need to. We need to open up, and make it easier for the populace to own guns.

Of course, that's not what he's meaning. This fine, upstanding, member of the easily-victimized-by-criminals brigade wants everyone to be as helpless as he himself is. Forget the fact that places with concealed carry have less crime. Forget the fact that the police are more likely to use their weapons in an illegal manner than the non-police. Truth_2_Power wants everyone to be as unprotected, and victimizable as he himself is. He insanely believes that making it harder for people who are good upstanding citizens to procure guns will stop people who have no respect for the laws already.

And no matter how you cut it, that's just not true.

Now, let's look at the brilliance of the first part of his statement: only crazy people would support the ability to buy killing machines this easily.

I went to Bass Pro Shops the other day. While there, I purchased a number of machines whose sole purpose was to kill. That's it. That's what they are designed to do. I bought two-dozen of them. It took me minutes, fifteen at the most. My identification wasn't checked. I didn't have to fill out any paperwork. Yet, I was in and out with those killing machines with a "thanks, come again."

What machine was this? Fishing hooks. Which killing machine is not the point. The point is that truth_2_power thinks that just because something can be utilized to hurt someone, then no one, but those magically blessed by the State (or those willing to break the law), should have it.

Any day of the week, you can go into nearly any store and purchase something with which to kill:

• Lowe's -- good night, that's a cornucopia of mayhem--chunks of wood, power tools, saws, axes
• Target -- walk through the sporting goods section, see all those baseball bats and golf clubs?
• Any gas station sells me the needed ingredients for a molotov cocktail
• Pharmacys & grocery stores are slower in their killing machines, as they sell poisons

What truth_2_power seems unable to comprehend is that there are people out there who are willing to kill, steal, and rape. They have no problems with this, and are happiest when they know that their victims do not have the means with which to protect themselves.

And don't even think of saying the word "police." The Supreme Court of the United States has clearly stated (Castle Rock v. Gonzales--June 27, 2005) that individuals have no inherent right to police protection. And this isn't the first time. That particular judgment was based upon a long history of case law. In 1856, the U.S. Supreme Court (South v. Maryland) found that law enforcement officers had no affirmative duty to provide such protection. In 1982 (Bowers v. DeVito), the Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit held, "...there is no Constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen."

And in some states, this concept is embedded in actual state law. For example, California's Government Code, Sections 821, 845, and 846 state (in part): "Neither a public entity or a public employee [may be sued] for failure to provide adequate police protection or service, failure to prevent the commission of crimes and failure to apprehend criminals."

Yet, truth_2_power, and his liberal, anti-Constitution brethren, wish us to believe otherwise. He wants us to happily become the sheep which the police, the government and the criminals fleece.

The only way to truly protect ourselves from those who wish to do us harm is to do it ourselves. We, are the only people capable, and concerned enough to do so. Go out, buy a gun, and get a concealed carry permit. It works, even the police agree.

Journalism or Creative Writing?

You know, it's usually easy to tell the difference between journalism and creative writing. There is just a certain... feel that creative writing has that really has no place in a news article. Sure, some of the concepts found in creative writing can be in an EDITORIAL, but in a news article? No.

Case in point, this first sentence from a recent news report in the The News Courier (Athens, Alabama's newspaper):

The ominous sound of sliding metal and the 9 mm semi-automatic pistol was cocked and ready to deliver death to two Athens cousins out for a night of drinks and dinner at T.G.I. Friday’s Dec. 17, 2006.

That's not a sentence that one expects to find in a news article. First off, there are the descriptive adjectives both create a bias in the reader's mind and reveal a bias on the part of the article's author. The "ominous sound" is a specific turn of a phrase and one which creates a certain attitude throughout the reading of the article as a whole.

And it's poor bad journalism.

The reason I say that it's such, is because the article is about the events which lead up to a man shooting 4 (killing 2, wounding 2) people in an Athen's TGI Friday's.

Yet, the article reads like either a murder mystery or a attack on gun owners. In fact, the way the text is written, it makes it seem like the GUN is the evil thing that killed two people and wounded two others, rather than the man, who was a drug dealer, who pulled the trigger multiple times.

How many times must this be repeated: guns do not kill.

Now, consider this sentence:

The Board of Medicine has revoked the license of a Florida doctor accused of medical malpractice in a botched abortion case in which a live baby was delivered, but ended up dead in a cardboard box.

That sentence is from an article in The Buffalo News (and as an AP story) detailing what has happened to a Florida doctor. Reading that sentence, you know the fundamentals of the entire article. Go read the The News Courier sentence I quoted at the top again, what can you tell me about the article it came from? Both sentences were the first sentence from their respective news articles, but the latter works while the former falters for the reasons I've described.

Additional, The Buffalo News sentence you don't get any sense of a bias from the reporter. One can't tell from that sentence what the author's stance is on abortion, medical malpractice or just doctors in general.

While the author of that The News Courier article wears her anti-gun bias proudly on her sleeve and in her journalism.

Is it any wonder that news papers are a fast dying breed? After all, if this is the level of staff writers for a standard small-town newspaper, I'm not surprised that no one wants to buy it.

I know that an obvious bias on things is the reason that I had never subscribed to the Pensacola News Journal while living in Pensacola. As a digression, by the time I moved here to Madison, I had become so used to receiving my news and other information from online sources (I love Google Reader) that the local papers here never had a chance.

Unfortunately, the using Internet for news also means that I get to read more of these piss-poor staff reporters.

9th Circuit Appeals Court At It Again...

That wonderfully liberal 9th Circuit Appeals Court has yet again pulled off a brilliant activity. Known for the infamous ruling which declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, they have now said that the average citizen cannot bear arms, and it is actually unconstitutional for them to do so (Reuters News Story).

Now, I can see that incredibly liberal section of the country, having 3 judges who just happened to sit on that particular court to say this. Yet once the ruling was handed down, the appellants tried to get it brought before the entire Appeals Circuit Court. Out of the 28 judges on the appeals court, only 5 of them think that this ruling is as stupid as it truly is.

Now let's look at the amendment in question:

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.

Hmm... it seems that the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. To me that actually means that there should be NO laws regulating guns and gun control, for any laws that the federal government places upon arms, is infringing my right to bear them. From concealed weapon to waiting periods. These all are infringing upon my right to bear arms. How can I say this? Well let's look at exactly what infringe means:

To hinder; to destroy; as, to infringe efficacy;

So with this definition, the second amendment reads "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 hindered."Makes a world of difference doesn't it. Remember this appellate court if and when someone breaks into your home. Remember this appellate court if and when someone hurts your loved ones, while all you can do is stand by, because you don't have the means to protect yourself and your loved ones. Remember that this appellate court, the liberal left and the ACLU (because they still have yet to defend the second amendment) all think that the common man is to stupid and careless to have guns. I personally think they're afraid we might get tired of their liberal agendas and finally overthrow this bloated government, and reinstitute our Constitution.

The ACLU Protecting Your Rights, At Least the Pretty Ones...

You know, In a forum discussion on guns, it hit me that the ACLU should be protecting American's rights to bear arms. The ACLU, by charter, is described as an organization that exists to protect the Bill of Rights. They may be misguided from a Christian point of view, but from a strictly social viewpoint they are a good organization. I spent a good 10 minutes looking through their site. They cover everything from religion to free speech, but nowhere do guns come up. Now, why don't they protect the second amendment? What is it about the second amendment that means that it doesn't get protected.

Our founding fathers obviously thought this was important, it came second only to free speech. Yet the government wants to remove our firearms, and the ACLU doesn't care. Does that leave us with just the NRA as a lobbing effort to try and control gun laws?

On that note, I believe we should adopt the Liberty Amendment. This amendment would allow for the removal of simple majority to decide laws. This amendment would allow for only laws that pass a true majority (about 75%) to be in effect, and then also would allow for those laws to regularly be voted on for reenactment to see if they still contain their true majority support. This would allow laws like the one in Florida which makes it illegal to drive without wearing shoes to pass from being.

Guns and the Liberty Amendment, two things helpful for returning this great land to its Constitutional roots.