Category Archives: Gary

A liberal thinks the open market will lead to more gun control…

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Dahlia Lithwick is all but rooting for the Open Carry movement to result in such blowback that it results in “sane policies.” She’s a Canadian by birth and, like so many in the media, she’s not exactly supportive of the 2nd Amendment. The fact the Supreme Court recognized an individual right to keep and bear arms is clearly a bit of a sore spot.

In her latest submission to Slate.com, she laments the familiar cycle of,  “…feints toward meaningful reform followed by crushing defeats as memories fade,” that follow every new shooting. There’s no attempt to be even remotely objective here but, she’s a writer, not a journalist. She need not hide her bias or opinion. And to that end, she thinks the free market will force businesses to pick, “…sane policies over dangerous ones, or at least more customers over fewer.”

“…Chipotle, forced to take sides, issued a statement last week indicating that state law notwithstanding, open carriers should leave their weapons at home or not come to Chipotle.

via Guns after Elliot Rodger: Businesses like Chipotle and Sonic are our best hope for gun control.“

Sadly, I agree with her. I think the free market may very well indeed end up settling the issue and I worry it won’t be in our favor. Tread lightly folks.

-GM

Every once in a blue moon, NPR will surprise you…With a pro-gun story.

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Yes, that NPR.  Professor Charles E. Cobb, Jr. of Brown University has just published a book titled, “This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed.” Michel Martin of, the NPR series, “Tell Me More,” interviewed Prof. Cobb and brought to light a facet of the Civil Rights Movement of which most NPR listeners are likely ignorant.  That facet being, gun ownership and carriage of guns, not in the vein of the Black Panthers or today’s “Open Carry” movement but, in the same stead many of us do today…quiet, “unviolence.”

There was never a family I stayed with that didn’t have a gun. I know from personal experience and the experiences of others, that guns kept people alive, kept communities safe and all you have to do to understand this is simply think of black people as human beings and they’re gonna respond to terrorism the way anybody else would.

– Professor Charles E. Cobb, Jr. via  ‘Guns Kept People Alive’ During The Civil Rights Movement : NPR.

You can see a full transcript, listen to, or download the interview here. I don’t know Prof. Cobb and don’t presume to have anything in common with him other than the color of my skin. But, I fully appreciate him for telling this story. It needs to be told and couldn’t come from a better source. I wish more folks took note and recognized this very real link between civil rights and the right to keep and bear arms. I know that neither I nor my family would be hear today had it not been for the fact my family owned guns. Though I enjoy participating in the shooting sports and hunting, shooting for me has never been about “sporting purposes.” I have long held that the reason I own guns and maintain my skills as a shooter is to defend against anyone who seeks to deny my rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

-GM

Coming to an America near you…BBC NEWS | Health | Doctors’ kitchen knives ban call

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A&E doctors are calling for a ban on long pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths from stabbing.

via BBC NEWS | Health | Doctors’ kitchen knives ban call.

Britain started whittling away its gun rights nog long after the gun entered the battlefield. As a result, most Britons today, have no concept of private ownership of guns. The Dunblane massacre of the 1990s eventually led to parliament all but ending private handgun ownership and severely limiting all other forms of firearms. Predictably, crime has continued unabated since then and arguably gotten worse.

With guns being off the table as the boogieman de jour, stabbings and slashings make the headlines. As a result, kitchen knives are now the latest evil that must be purged from society. No one needs a 10-inch long slicing knife to carve a roast. No, you should make do with a 3-inch butter knife! Up next for ban…Spoons!

-GM

Scientific American goes full retard…Citing Wikipedia as a data source

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The title might be a little harsh. What I meant to say was they went…No, no. Full retard is the right phrase now that I think about it.  Most teachers worth their salt will issue zero credit to a student who writes a paper and cites Wikipedia as an information source as surely most people now realize that ANYONE can edit a Wikipedia entry. I realize this is the pot calling the kettle black but, may be this whole blogging as news concept isn’t such a good idea.

-GM

When I heard, “New York and Los Angeles combined,” I intuitively thought of combining the populations of New York and Los Angeles and their murders to get the murder rate of some bicoastal megalopolis. Of course, instead of adding the two murder rates together, this equivalent to taking a weighted average of the rates, yielding a number somewhere in between New York’s 5.1 murders per 100,000 people and Los Angeles’s 7.8 murders per 100,000 people. (Chicago’s murder rate in 2012, the year whose data is in this table I’m using from Wikipedia, was 18.5 per 100,000 people.)

via A Higher Murder Rate than New York and Los Angeles Combined | Roots of Unity, Scientific American Blog Network.