I’m not sure I’ve ever panicked. I take that back, I can think of once when I was 18 when I panicked (There you go John, I figure I’d head you off). There have been only two times in my life I can think of when I’ve been nearly shut down. Once when I lost a friend, another when I lost my wife. This past week I got into a wreck. My back is still killing me, but my truck is surprisingly (mostly) unharmed. As my tires came out from under me I said to myself calmly, “Well, this is going to happen.” I popped it into 4 and snapped myself into the rail preventing me from hitting head on.
Why do I bring this up? Even though in many circumstances it’s been helpful, I think the fact that I’ve never panicked might be a problem.
The first time we took incoming in Iraq when everyone was taking cover, I sat on the top of the truck thinking, “Oooooh, pretty.” In other words, I’m an idiot. When my marriage was falling apart I am not sure I realized the situation was dire or that there was even really a problem. When people stress out over going to court and thus overprepare out of fear of the judge, all I can think is of my favorite line from Inglorious Basterds:
This is perhaps one of the mental issues that go unrealized by returning vets. I don’t think I’m alone. There is something about being a Marine infantryman that turns down the volume on the rest of life. So very little seems serious. So when say, you are running into financial issues and you need to maybe panic so as to adorn yourself with the gravity of the situation, instead you just smile and carry out the plan of the day. This has caused a problem in my life. I’ve been entirely too happy on my own without such negativity pressed upon me(though it has its downsides of course) but I think I might need a Jiminy Cricket.
In other words, but for the occasional sobering moment (and damn if they don’t hit hard), I cannot stop smiling over the last year.
(again, I’m not attempting to incite violence, nor intend to engage in any myself.)
Alright gun community, it’s your turn.
I’ve gotten a crash course in lying this last year. One of the most insidious things about lying is that when you do it enough you believe it yourself. Another trick is to get another person to tell your lie for you; it makes your lies more palatable and fell less like, well, lies.
In the gun community, one of the favorite lies to tell is the, “these are just cosmetic features” lie.
Listen, these aren’t mere cosmetic features. Yes, an AR15 (the civilian equivalent of the M16) and a mini-14 shoot the same round and use the same magazine. Yet for some reason the military has chosen the M16 instead of the mini-14 to take into combat. Why? Well, because those “cosmetic features” have certain applicability to the weapon’s lethality. Let us count the ways:
Pistol grip — provides greater control of the weapon, especially for follow up shots (in my experience) / allows the user easier access to the fire control group / provides a superior grip angle for prone shooting (in my experience)
Front broomstick — same thing
Collapsable stock — allows fitting the weapon to a smaller shooter, or to body armor to a lesser extent
Handguard / Barrel Shroud — allows putting many more rounds through the weapon without burning yourself
Hi-cap magazines — allows putting more rounds downrange in less time, lessening mag changes when a less well trained shooter might lose sight of targets
Now let us leave this lie and go into the general deception and disinformation of the gun community. I’m well aware of the difference between an “assault rifle” and “assault weapon”. But you need to stop pretending that the difference is of any practical value. I would have much rather taken my AR15 into Iraq than my M16. The principal difference is that the M16 can fire in a 3-round burst or semi-automatic mode. The AR15 fires only in semi-automatic.
During my 5 years in the Corps I’ve found 2 circumstances when you would place the weapon on burst. 1) During what we called a dump-ex, and 2) on ACCIDENT when you flipped the selector too hard.
A dump-ex is what we call a situation where you have had too much ammo brought out into the field and the powers that be don’t want to fill out the paperwork to turn it back in, nor want to have to answer why they are asking for X number of rounds for training when they only seem to use Y number of rounds. The end result is that you make an assembly line of Marines filling magazines and passing them to others firing those rounds into a berm without aiming.
I’m no Richard Marcinko and I haven’t seen the thickest of combat, but there is almost NO legitimate use for 3-round burst. You can fire exceptionally fast in semi-auto and have much more control of the weapon. This is why Marines are taught to fire a “hammer pair” instead of burst fire.
So stop referring to your assault weapon as anything but. It is not a modern sporting rifle.
Does this mean we give in and let the gun banners take our weapons? No! Quite the opposite. The Second Amendment does not exist to protect your hunting rifles (but yes your sniper rifles). The Second Amendment doesn’t protect hunting. It doesn’t even protect your ability to protect your family from criminals. It protects your weapons that serve a military purpose. Recall in United States v. Miller, it was a short-barelled shotgun in contention. The court held that the gun was unlawful without the stamp because it was not a weapon in common use with the military. The flaw in that argument is that when one looks at the makeup of the militia, it was men bringing what arms they had. Truth be told there is a valid military purpose to every weapon, properly employed. The court did not grok that.
So the gun community needs to stop trying to skirt the facts about their weapons. They cry Molon Labe’and wave their Gadsden Flags, but shrink from the government and gun controllers by asserting that their weapons are Modern Sporting Rifles. Sunshine Patriots is what I see.
These are weapons designed as tyranny defense weapons to be used for a military purpose. Charlton Heston popularized the “cold dead hands” battle cry. I have no interest in dying, and neither should you. That’s why you should own an assault weapon. And instead of begging like a slave to be allowed your arms or attempting to place the blame on a scapegoat, each gun owner should defiantly say, “If you come for my guns, I will fucking kill you. And when I’ve killed you, I’m going to kill the motherfucker that sent you.”
Here’s a little Stone Sour for you. I’ve been waking up this for weeks. Damn it rocks socks.
(once again, I am neither attempting to incite, nor intend to engage in violence)
I’m done with you Walter Steed.
Walter Steed is the president of the Moscow City Council. Walter Steed is also a Republican.
Several years ago during a Latah County GOP meeting I gave Mr. Steed a small public tongue lashing over his statements about being pro-small business while at the same time advancing a smoking ban in Moscow. Now he has signed on with Mayor Nancy Chaney asking for an assault weapons ban among other things. PDF here: Moscow_gun_control_23JAN2013.
Look, this is something I’d expect from the mayor; a democrat in by far the most blue county in the state. But Steed. I’m done with you sir. You’re a petty thug and pathetic little wannabe tyrant. But for the fact that you have David Duke and the rest of Moscow PD in your corner you’d likely be getting swirlies at the hands of high school girls because the boys wouldn’t find you worth their time and effort.
If you want to know who Mr. Steed is, watch this video and you’ll get the spirit of the man (it isn’t actually him).
Make note, the mayor in the video mentions that the man that moved to have weapons removed from the meeting is the same guy that tried banning the wearing of hats, not far removed from Mr. Steed voting to ban smoking. Again, as with yesterday’s post, the Second Amendment exists to turn those weapons on an invading foreign soldiery, quell insurrections, and as a doomsday provision to protect us from our own government once it turns tyrannical.
It is telling that those same men that seem to think it’s okay to control and micromanage our lives, in effect, people who think they OWN you are the same people WHO WANT TO TAKE THE VERY FIREARMS YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DEFEND YOURSELF FROM THEM WITH. Of course your oppressor wants to keep you unarmed.
Show some dignity and honor Mr. Steed and leave office. Now. You will not be re-elected.
(again, as with yesterday, I don’t necessarily think Walter Steed is a bad person, but in the end we are a product of our actions)
(allow me to begin by noting I am not intending to engage in, or incite violence)
Now, you people need to stop lying. All of you are engaging in dishonesty.
The University of Idaho’s student paper published an article regarding gun control and applied their usual lean to it. My expectations of the Argonaut (which has more editors than pages) have been pretty low since one of their editors referred to the events of Lexington and Concord on April 19th, 1775 as “terrorist acts”. But this isn’t about the Argonaut, but rather two esteemed gentlemen quoted.
First, let us go to the Chief of Police in Moscow, David Duke. Mr. Duke is quoted in the Argonaut thusly:
The letter was based on a memo issued by Moscow Police Chief David Duke that laid out actions the police department believes would limit gun violence. The letter included the following recommendations: defining and limiting assault weapons, stricter requirements for background checks, limiting access to high capacity magazines, increasing documentation of gun sales, controlling and recording the sale of ammunition, support of national standards for concealed carry permits, mandating of a database including a fingerprint for every gun sold and steps to ensure law enforcement can mandate and encourage safe gun ownership.
The Second Amendment exists for a military purpose…that the body of the people be capable of bearing arms in defense of enemies foreign and domestic. Our founders were rarely in lockstep in agreement on anything, but there was nearly no notion more universally agreed upon than that of standing armies being anathema to liberty. Today’s standing army is not the military, but rather the modern police force. They do the policing that was done by standing armies in times past.
Moscow Police Chief David Duke advocates limiting assault weapons. He should. His position is completely understandable, because the purpose of assault weapons are to shoot government agents. Men like police officers. Mind you, the Second Amendment exists as a doomsday provision. I am not advocating violence against government agents. We must do our best to use peaceful means before resorting to arms. As a lawyer, I clearly believe the legal path to be ideal.
A week ago I sat in a courtroom and witnessed a Latah County Sheriff’s Deputy admit to making bigoted statements against a homosexual defendant. I witnessed this very same deputy, who just so happens to be the son of Moscow Police Chief David Duke WHO WANTS TO LIMIT ACCESS TO ASSAULT WEAPONS(in case you’ve already forgotten), admit in open court that the law enforcement profession as a whole is homophobic. During this same hearing I watched as the court uncovered that potentially exculpatory evidence against the defendant was withheld from not just defense counsel, but also the prosecutor’s office.
Take a moment and let this all sink in as context the next time a law enforcement officer makes his opinion about your ability to own an assault weapon known.
As an aside, I’d like to add that I think that neither of these men are necessarily bad people, but that’s a discussion for another day.
I don’t recall much from my early childhood. I was 5. I remember seeing this live on my giant wood mounted TV with the UHF and VHF dials, sitting down in front of the TV at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. I have always loved space, and my youthful excitement with it has been returning with a vengeance. The Challenger was my first taste of the heroics of space travel rather than simply the coolness of it. Regardless, I cannot put things into words nearly with the eloquence of the Great Communicator:
I’ve discussed the notion of placing women in the infantry before at length. Just for a third time, I support it, and not just because it should increase the combat effectiveness of the army. ( just kidding!)
To be honest, I think that not allowing Marines to roll their sleeves, have sleeve tattoos, or wear silkies will prove far more damaging to my Corps than will allowing women in the grunts. I do think however that this move was made too quickly. The Marines have slowly been sticking their toes in the water on allowing women in. It was bound to happen, but it would have been better to have been phased in, rather than made so abruptly. The army had not been preparing for this though, so perhaps this was the only way it was going to get done in a reasonable time period.
Regardless, there is no need to fear change. You cannot pat yourself on the back for being on the cutting edge of things while simultaneously avoiding it. That is not to say that all change is good, but you must be open to it. The concern of course is that standards are going to be watered down when women are involved. Unfortunately that’s probably true. But then again, there will be some unintended consequences — some good, some bad. One of those is that while standards may come down, there will be a stronger push to not be beaten by the women. Such shaming of fat bodies will carry over to greater physical fitness.
Honestly, I have had a greater kinship with Marines, especially infantry Marines than anyone in the outside world. My well documented love of redheads aside, I would consider it the greatest fortune to find a woman who I could share that with. In Firefly terms, I swoon for Kaylee, and Inara might be hot, but the woman I’d truly want to make my own would be Zoe. That’s who you establish dominance over this world with.
In short: not many women can handle a ruck. Those that can are a special breed. I’d share a fighting hole with one in an instant.
On a down note, I don’t want to undercut my main point, but you will find a rash of women getting pregnant pre-deployment. People are really scared to deploy, and I’m not just talking about combat deployments. I once knew a kid who was going to have his girlfriend run his leg over to break his femur to get him out of a deployment to Okinawa. The solution for a woman needn’t be quite so drastic. But that’s no reason to punish all women, nor the Corps for that matter by weeding out the extraordinary women.
So the vice-president stopped in to give his regards to a few dozen Medal of Honor recipients.
Deciding to open his mouth as if in a room full of these warriors he rates to so much as bus a table, Mr. Biden gave us the usual song-and-dance. Whether Republican or Democrat, the words are always the same: Thank you for what you’ve done, now we owe you some stuff and to take care of you.
Here’s the money quote from the story: [T]he government has an obligation to assist the “elderly and the young” but it only has one “truly sacred obligation” — “to equip those who we send to war and care for them and their families when they come home from war.”
No! Look, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that men who join the military are of the same cloth, with the same motivations — we’re not. But there are some deep currents we all share to some degree. You absolutely should care for your wounded. You owe what you promise. But when these men join they do so generally for one of 3 reasons: to upgrade their lives to that of the middle class, to seek adventure, and to serve their country.
The point of this is that no, Mr. Every-single-politician ever, your “one truly sacred obligation” is to help these men carry out their mission. To take men who have promised their lives if need be in service of their country and erode the liberties they’ve fought to deliver for others on foreign lands is about as vile a thing to do as is possible. Stop trying to buy us off to get us to look the other way. Many of us took out oaths seriously.
And on a final note, returning to the concept of using people. Overwhelmingly, veterans DO NOT LIKE YOU OR THE PRESIDENT. Stop using these people to make yourself look good. I don’t foist myself upon people who hate me even when I can.
Sorry for the delay in posting kids — will some Pop Evil make you forgive me?
Once during a meeting with a group of intellectuals John F. Kennedy is quoted (paraphrasing) as claiming it was the greatest gathering of intellectual brilliance since Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
Well, allow me to repeat that sentiment, but go sufficiently low brow as to claim this is the greatest gathering of carbon based life forms in a YouTube clip since the sneezing panda:
