Category Archives: Gun control

A Is For Algorithm

You will be surprised to learn that I didn’t plan on posting about this.

I figured that anybody who has ever read my blog knows precisely where I stand on this issue.  So I left it in that barren wasteland where all unused posts go — DRAFTS.

But then tonight I read a blog post that broke my heart.

Most of you know my bloggin’ buddy, TwinDaddy of Finding Twindaddy.  He has a new job doing tech-ie stuff at a school, and he wrote about ALICE at his school in a post called “A Sad State of Affairs.”

Alice?  Who’s ALICE?

Alice is an acronym that stands for:  Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate.  The drills that students, teachers and administrators of our American — Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition — schools must perform periodically so that everybody is ready in the event that an active shooter comes to their school.

High School Students, Teachers and Administrators

Junior High School Students, Teachers and Administrators

Elementary School Students, Teachers and Administrators

Somehow, I don’t think this has gone down to the nursery school level.  Give it time.

Anyway, deleted what I had drafted because it was lame.  But after reading Twin Daddy’s post, I thought I’d show you the algorithm that one school in Michigan came up with.  It’s quite creative.

Because, you see,  not only do they (and folks in other states) have to worry about some nutcase coming through the door blasting, but they have to worry about other nutcases.  Yup, folks in many states need to figure out how to deal with potential crisis situations because of the folks who have been dubbed “ammosexuals.”   Ammosexuals are those particular nutcases who believe that their right to openly carry any fucking gun they please, and to waive it around, proclaiming their god-given/NRAsponsored right to bear arms, trumps your kids’ rights to, well, you know, breathe.

Because, of course, in states where it is legal to “open carry” guns, how can you tell the “good guys” from the “bad guys.”  So they had to come up with a decision tree:

Credit:  Americans for Responsible Solutions

Credit: Americans for Responsible Solutions

(Click to Enlarge)

Of course, by the time any school administrator could figure out that, well, that’s a bad guy, they’re probably dead.  Not a whole lot of help, then, is it?  Oh well, what’s a few more gun deaths in America?  It’s what we’re becoming famous for worldwide.  Once folks thought our streets were paved with gold — now they are paved with blood and bullet casings.

*      *     *

We really need to figure out, as a society, how to get a handle back on our brains, so that we can protect, at a minimum, our kids.

From my friend Father Kane at the Last of the Millenniums:  https://thelastofthemillenniums.wordpress.com/category/gun-control/

From my friend Father Kane at the Last of the Millenniums: https://thelastofthemillenniums.wordpress.com/category/gun-control/

 

ELECTIONS MATTER

Oh and as an aside, I passed through Newtown a few months ago.  I saw a pickup truck with this bumper sticker:

Assholes (Not Google Images who gave me this image)

Assholes (Not Google Images who gave me this image)

This is the ammosexuals’ response to the message that sane people in Sandy Hook put forth after the massacre:

Thanks, Google

Thanks, Google

 

And it made me realize just how important gun control laws are.  Because I wanted to shoot the asshole driving that truck.

48 Comments

Filed under 2016, Adult Traumas, All The News You Need, All We Are Saying Is Give Peace A Chance, Bat-shit crazy, Bloggin' Buddies, Campaigning, Criminal Activity, Disgustology, Elections, Farts, GOP, Gun control, Health, Health and Medicine, History, Huh?, Law, Mental Health, Peace, Stupidity, Taking Care of Each Other, Virginia, Voting, Washington, Wild Beasts, Writing, WTF?

Learn and Live? A History Lesson

We all thought it would be different, didn’t we.  After Columbine.  After Aurora.  After Sandy Hook.

But no.  Nope.  Nada.  Didn’t happen

We’ve all gotten used to thinking the unthinkable:  Not a chance for change.  Not with the money the NRA has behind them.  Not with the gun folks getting progressively crazier.

So some creative thinking was called for.

BAM!

Right to the Heart!

 

Naturally, the gun nuts are going, well, nuts.  As reported in the Huffington Post where I found the video:

The National Rifle Association’s New York affiliate immediately condemned the stunt and called for an investigation into whether the organizers violated New York’s gun laws.

“[It is a] felony violation of the Sullivan Act for a person to possess a handgun anywhere in New York without a license. The video clearly shows individual ‘customers’ handling various handguns and doing so in an unsafe manner,” New York State Rifle and Pistol Association President Thomas King said in a press release.

Because, you see, it’s not OK to “handle” a gun, but the 2nd Amendment gives us all the right to own them.  And use them.

*     *     *

Timiny Cricket, a commenter, said that he’d

like to hear about some of the positive examples where a gun scared away someone about to commit a crime or even was used in self defense and saved the owner’s life.

10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down

34 Comments

Filed under Adult Traumas, Awards, Conspicuous consumption, Criminal Activity, Disgustology, Family, GOP, Gun control, Health and Medicine, History, Mental Health, Mysteries, Neighbors, Politics, Stupidity, Taking Care of Each Other, Voting, Wild Beasts

The Funniest Ad I Have Ever Seen

I only hope my husband doesn’t think this would make an appropriate Valentine’s Day gift.

51 Comments

Filed under Adult Traumas, Awards, Bat-shit crazy, Climate Change, Conspicuous consumption, Crohn's Disease, Disgustology, Family, Farts, Flatulence, Gun control, Health and Medicine, Hey Doc?, Huh?, Humor, Taking Care of Each Other, Wild Beasts

Where’s MY ‘Panic Button’?

Wednesday, the Texas legislature’s House voted to allow their members to install “Panic” buttons in their office.  Isn’t that special?

The reason they might just need these panic buttons is because some folks are just getting out of hand.  And in their hands, they want deadly weapons.  Just about wherever they go.

The Texas Lege is voting on whether to allow “Open Carry” of guns.  Texas would join 22 states where Open Carry is already legal.  [For the record, I am astonished that that bastion of gun rights, Texas, does not currently allow folks to carry guns wherever they choose.  Shocked, in fact.]

The vote to allow House members to install “Panic Buttons” all came about because of a group of folks, ummmm, lobbying for open carry rights.  This group went to the office of a House member, Pancho Nevarez, who had the audacity to plan to vote “No” on open carry.  And while these “lobbyists” believe strongly in the Second Amendment, they apparently haven’t read about the FIRST Amendment.   They were aggressive.  They were intimidating.  They were, in a word, assholes.

But the thing is, rather than doing anything to prevent assholes and crazy folks from carrying guns, intimidating people and killing them, the Texas House voted to allow their members to install “Panic Buttons” to alert security.

You will be surprised to know this action just doesn’t sit well with me.

Perhaps I should be used to it.  After all, there have been security measures in Congress and most Executive Branch departments for nearly 30 years.

Folks cannot bring their weapons into the State or Defense or Homeland Security Department.  You can’t even bring it into the Air and Space Museum.

And, really, that’s OK by me.  I don’t want government officials to be shot at their desks.  It’s so messy.

But you know what?  I don’t think anybody should be shot at a Walmart.  Or at a movie theater.  Or at an elementary school.

So why should we provide an extra level of protection for the very same folks who vote to put the rest of us at risk?

The folks who decide on the gun laws are voting to keep themselves safe.  If they’re going to do that, they should damn well vote to make me safe.  And you.  And our kids.

What is wrong with this picture?

 

 

 

54 Comments

Filed under Adult Traumas, Bat-shit crazy, Conspicuous consumption, Criminal Activity, Disgustology, Elections, Gun control, Huh?, Humor, Hypocrisy, Law, Mental Health, Stupidity, Taking Care of Each Other, Wild Beasts

Hiding in Plain Sight

If you haven’t seen this bit from John Oliver’s new show, you should.  You should watch it before Tuesday’s election, and then again periodically, just so you remember what I keep telling you.  That elections matter.  And that it is important to pay attention to not just Federal elections, but to the ones lower down the food chain.

Apparently it takes someone from England, from the country from which we declared our independence, to explain to us just how we are letting our own government get away from us.

Because we don’t pay attention to “the unimportant levels of government.”

Ummm, it is at the state level that we’re really getting screwed.  I can attest to this as a resident of “Virginia is For Ultra-sounds.”    Yup, it is the folks whose names we don’t even know, who get to decide these issues that most impact your life and mine.

They are also the ones gerrymandering the US Congressional districts.  They are eliminating access to abortion, to birth control and screwing us in a hundred different ways.  And the state legislatures are the breeding ground, where the Not Ready For Prime Time Players go until they become the Michelle Bachmann’s and the Louie Gomert’s who end up framing our national debate.

[I read recently that John Oliver has been proclaimed the best journalist currently working.  I don’t recall who said it, but I think they are right.]

86 Comments

Filed under Adult Traumas, Campaigning, Cancer, Climate Change, Criminal Activity, Disgustology, Elections, Family, Global Warming, GOP, Gun control, Health and Medicine, History, Huh?, Hypocrisy, Law, Mental Health, Politics, Science, Stupidity, Taking Care of Each Other, Taxes, Voting, Wild Beasts