Constitutional Carry in NC?

 I missed this Cam and Company episode when it came out on the 25th, but I am catching up.  Here is Cam Edwards at Bearing Arms reporting that NC Gun Owners Demand Constitutional Carry. Will Republicans Listen. One thing that has always bothered me is that criminals wander around every day carrying firearms in public without a permit. So, what is so difficult about letting honest law-abiding people do the same?

You can read Edwards' article and of course watch his interview with Grass Roots North Carolina founder and fearless leader Paul Valone. He makes a convincing case for doing it this year. But they should have done it years ago. After all, if the criminals can run around essentially Constitutionally carrying, why can't we?

Time To Prosecute the Anti-Gun Lobby?

At Ammoland today Dan Wos asks a serious, and interesting question: Should Anti-Gun Lobbyists Be Prosecuted for Restrictive Gun Laws? We sometimes talk about the fact that both lobbyists who advocate for, and politicians who pass rediculous gun control have blood on their hands, but that is usually rhetorically. But do they really? Wos presents a case for doing just that.

Now, it is one thing to advocate for an unpopular position. Sometimes such advocacy is the right thing to do. For instance, advocating for the unborn is the right thing, although the abortion lobby would have us believe that abortion is the popular thing. Should pro-life people be prosecuted? No, of course not. I feel that the unborn is a human life that should be protected the same as those born. But we can only change peoples' hearts by convincing them, not forcing them.

But of course, the gun banners do not want to wait to convince us, probably because they know we can not be convinced. There is too much experience of the average person to convince them they don't need guns. But there is also so much scholarship; writings of legal experts, of historians, of criminologists, even of statiticians and plain old observers of life in general to tell us that disarming is a bad idea. We know, for instance, that criminals will always be able to have guns when they need them.

It’s ironic how the anti-gun crowd tries to hold firearm manufacturers responsible for deaths that involve their guns but claim no responsibility for the deaths of innocent people who were rendered unarmed and helpless due to restrictive gun laws.

The political left is always using “mass shootings” as justification for more gun control laws. The propaganda and media hype behind so-called “gun violence” is nothing more than fake rhetoric created for the purpose of gaining support for more gun regulations. The idea that the gun-grabbers continue to push is that “if the killer didn’t have a gun, he wouldn’t kill.” This couldn’t be further from the truth and has been proven to be a false claim time and time again.

And there is the difference between honest debate between two sides who see the same issue differently, and the bad faith efforts of the anti-gun lobby and anti-gun politicians. They deliberately cherry pick data, highlight some and cover up others to present their view. But the truth is that guns are not the problem, nor knives, nor even rocks. The problem, as always has been since man first walked the earth is that people kill other people. You will not stop them by taking away tools. They will simply find another way.

What the media won’t tell you is that violence is never the result of a gun, but anytime a gun is used, they will position it as the cause. There is no such thing as “gun violence.”

For example, Australia had two major gun bans under the guise of preventing suicide, yet after the bans, the trajectory of the suicide rate didn’t change. Giffords is notorious for pushing a false narrative that guns shoot all by themselves.

...See the tweet from Giffords about guns shooting themselves in Wos's article...

In the face of such bad faith rhetoric, shouldn't Giffords, Moms Demand Action, Everytown and Brady be held just as responsible as they try to hold gun manufacturers? If a zone is deemed "gun free" then don't police or the entity controlling that "gun free zone" have a duty to protect those in that zone? Perhaps, when there is a mass shooting at a school, those who proposed to make the school "gun free" should be brought up on charges as accomplices before the fact?

I will let Wos have the last word:

If someone cuts the brake lines on your car, should they be held accountable for any death or injury that occurs? That death or injury was a direct and intended result of their actions. Their actions caused you to be unable to stop your car. The same is true for gun control laws. The actions of the anti-gun activists and lobbyists are intended to keep you unarmed and result in you not being able to protect yourself in public. Anti-gun activists keep Americans unarmed, and criminals take advantage of the situation.

Tennessee Passes Bill to Allow Teachers to Carry at School

 According to a post, by Madeline Leesman at Townhall.com, Tennessee has now past a law allowing staff at schools to carry guns. It remains to be signed into law by the Governor. The post can be found at Lawmakers in One State Pass Legislation to Allow Teachers to Carry Guns in Schools. The bill also calls for strict privacy of carriers from parents, other teachers and school staff, and students. Only the administrators would know.

If the Governor signs the bill, Tennessee will join Texas, Florida and a few other states in allowing this common sense way to protect students. Does that mean we will never have another school shooting? Of course not. But as with all deterrents, those who would target students will have to factor in the possibility of being stopped before they can get started by a teacher with a gun. These shooters hope to gain fame, though not fortune, by having the highest body count before they are killed. Sick, I know. But we are not dealing with rational actors here.

Note too that this is an entirely voluntary program. People who want to carry at school will go through extensive training. They will have to be very responsible with their weapon. Carrying every day is both physically and mentally draining.  It requires a person to be on alert at all times.  No one who doesn't feel like carrying a gun will be required to do so, and no one will be made to feel less than if they don't.

Further, all of the angst about students feeling "threatened and unsafe" with guns around is pure hogwash, a talking point. I suspect that not one in a hundred students will care on whit. They are too wrapped up in themselves, their relative status, what the kool kids are doing, what's in and what's out, to worry about their teachers. They are kids after all, not little adults.

I applaud Tennessee legislators for their guts and forsight. Would that all states had similar laws.

If Teachers Can Not Be Trusted With Guns, Maybe We Shouldn't Trust Them With Our Children?

 Over at Bearing Arms Tom Knighton has a piece entitled Tennessee Teacher Says Her Profession Can't Be Trusted With Guns. Wow! I wonder if this (student) teacher, who appears to be rather new to the profession has done some sort polling of professional teachers to find out? One would think that taking a representative sample of teachers and polling them would be the least one could do if one claims to speak for others. But, well, just read the article.

On Wednesday, I addressed a teacher in Tennessee who said that she didn't want to carry a firearm while performing her job. My take was that if she didn't want to, she shouldn't. It's a pretty simple concept. It's something each person should decide for themselves and they should be able to decide for themselves.

That is my take too. Teachers that want to carry, and are qualified to do so, should be allowed to. But nobody should be forced to. It is a big responsibility. You must keep it concealed at all times, train with your weapon regularly, and have thought ahead where you might store it if it is not on your person 100% of the time. Your primary duty is always to teach the children, and only secondarily to protect them with deadly force if necessary.

But an op-ed out of Tennessee written by a student teacher appears to argue that her profession just can't be trusted with guns. Let's start with the headline that reads: "Teachers like me are trained to educate kids. Arming us will make everyone less safe."

You can read Knighton's total article. Needless to say, she offers no unbiased research, and her sources are things like Students Demand Action, a subsidiary of Moms Demand Action, funded by Bloomberg. But you can decide for yourselves. Knighton also makes the point, and I agree, if teachers can not be trusted with guns, why should we trust them with our children? Maybe we shouldn't?

Are You Listening Mr. Biden?

 Today, at the American Thinker Andrea Widburg tells Biden, and other tyrants around the world that The World's Leaders, Including Biden, Must Learn the Lesson of Passover. Actually, the story told in Exodus has many many lessons for us. God's mercy is but one. That Yahweh is the supreme God of all the other elohim, including Pharoah is another. In leading the Israelites out of bondage to Egypt, it tells the story of God leading each of us out of bondage to sin and the devil, which prefigures the coming of Christ to reconcile us to God. Widburg adds yet another lesson for Biden and other world leaders who want to lord it over men.

Tonight, at sunset, Jews across the world will celebrate Passover, something they’ve been doing annually for around 3,500 years. The holiday commemorates the miracle (and gift) of God leading the Jews out of slavery in Egypt. This was the world’s first slave revolt and led to God’s handing down the moral laws that are the backbone of the Judeo-Christian faiths. But the Passover story also tells us something important about the nature of tyranny, and the world’s governments, from Biden on down, would do well to heed that lesson.

...snip...

Then came that fateful day when Moses, while tending his flocks, encountered a burning bush from which came the voice of God. God set Moses a task for which Moses felt painfully unqualified: Return to Egypt, free the Israelites from their bondage, and lead them to Canaan, the land promised to them in Genesis.

Despite his fears, Moses took up the task and went back to the court in which he’d been raised. He told Pharaoh to release the Israelites from slavery. Pharaoh, naturally, refused.

This refusal began the cycle of the famous ten plagues that Jews have recited at every seder since the Exodus itself:

Widburg thereupon recites the 10 plagues of Egypt. It is here where God shows his mercy. At any point, Pharoah could have cried "uncle" and let the people of Israel go. That he didn't showed him to be unconcerned about the suffering of his people as long as he was safe, and in power. Notice that the plagues become more and more serious, but Pharoah doesn't care. Finally

10. The death of the firstborn. (That Pharaoh didn’t die, incidentally, means that he was not his father’s firstborn.)

Because the Angel of Death passed over the homes of those Israelites who painted their door lintels with the blood of s specially prepared lamb, we get the holiday’s name.

Left unsaid is that Pharaoh's first born son also died. Pharaoh finally felt the consequences of his actions.

Aside from ignoring the fact that Exodus marks the first recognition in human history that slaves are people and deserve liberty, this viewpoint completely misses the profound message attached to the myriad plagues that Pharaoh willingly visited on his people: All tyrants have an almost endless capacity for tolerating others’ suffering, as long as their power remains in place.

What Pharaoh discovered with the first nine plagues is that life can go on, at least for the ruler, no matter the burdens he places on his people. Pharaoh had wine to drink when the Nile turned to blood; physicians when the plagues and boils arrived; baths, unguents, and incense when the irritating bugs settled in; stores of food when the cattle sickened and starved; and a secure palace when the skies poured down hail and fire. As long as Pharaoh’s hold on power was undiminished, he could always reconcile himself to his people’s pain.

The lesson Widburg hopes the various tyrants learn for the Passover is that ultimately God is in control. That governments are established to serve people, not to control them. Whenever a government attempts to control the people, and isn't concerned about the suffering of the people, that government has gone to the dark side, to tyranny and destruction. Christ, on that Passover some 2000 years ago showed us the way by taking on our sins, and dying for us, then rising again as the prophets had said. He set the example of the suffering servant, not of the tyrannical dictator. Are you listening Mr. Biden?

Green Nazis Pushing Society Back to the Stone Age

 At 72, I grew up in a suburban neighborhood, but my parents grew up on farms, not unlike Viv Forbes who grew up in Australia on a farm.  Young people do not realize how fragile the technological society actually is, or how close they are to living as people have lived for centuries.  Forbes, though, can tell us from first hand experience of the coming of electricity to their farm in the 1940s.  Her story can be found at the American Thinker entitled A diesel in the shed. I urge you to read the whole thing.

When I was a kid living on a small dairy farm in Queensland, we relied on green energy -- horses and human muscles provided most motive power; firewood and beeswax candles supplied heat and light; a windmill pumped water and the sun provided solar energy for drying clothes and growing crops, vegies, and pastures. The only “non-green” energy used was a bit of kerosene for the kitchen lamp and the dairy lantern, and petrol for a small Ford utility for a trip to town every fortnight.

Our life changed dramatically when we put a diesel in the dairy. This single-cylinder engine drove the milking machines, the cream separator, and a small electricity generator, which charged 16 lead-acid two-volt batteries sitting on the veranda. This is the exact same diesel engine (built in Toowoomba) we had in our dairy in the late 1940s.

Our 32-volt DC system powered our “modern” marvel -- bright light at any time, in every room, at the touch of a switch.

You can see and hear that diesel engine at the highlighted link. It is noisy, but I am sure it was magnitudes better than they had before. It meant milking machines, which could service more cows and provide more milk. It meant electric light, which reduced the risk of fires. It meant electric pumps for water, thus reducing dependence on the wind. As I said, magnitudes of improvement in living standards.

But now, the green nazis have caused a backward push towards the stone ages:

There were no electric self-starters for diesels in those days -- just a heavy crank handle and a big flywheel. But all that effort, noise, and fumes were superseded when the house and the dairy got connected to clean silent “coal power by wire.” Suddenly the trusty “Southern Cross” diesel engines disappeared from Australian sheds and dairies.

In less than one lifetime, firewood, candles, horses, and kerosene were replaced by diesel and petrol engines plus clean, silent coal-powered electricity.

Today, after Aussies have enjoyed decades of abundant reliable cheap electricity from coal, green energy gambling has taken Australia back to that era which kept a diesel in the shed.

Green energy has a union that works to rules. If winds are too strong or too weak, they down tools and the turbines go silent. And their mates running the solar panels won’t work at night and also produce nothing on cloudy days. If we try to fill the gaps with battery power, where do we get the electricity to recharge the batteries and pump the hydro water back up the hill to keep the lights on?

The point of Forbes' piece is that the entire green energy scam is just that, a scam; a hoax. If wind could power everything, we would have already been doing it. It can't. And the fact is that the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth is (fortunately for us, as it turns out) woefully inadequate. If it were strong enough to power things like steel manufacturing, it would be too hot for us to live. There is no magic, no technological breakthroughs. Of course, if the green nazis don't like coal, gas, and petroleum, there is nuclear. Nuclear breakdown happens whether you put it to use or not. Putting it to good use provides energy without the carbon dioxide emissions. But again, that is really just a giant scam

Forbes closes with this:

Finally, our green media likes to feature some green energy enthusiast who is “off the grid.” But it usually emerges later in the show that there is a diesel in their shed too.

Those who remember the days of relying on a noisy, smelly diesel in the shed have no wish to be dragged back there by green zealots.

I say "Amen."

Bill Maher Hits an Improbable Home Run

 Andrea Widburg has an excellent post today entitled Video: Bill Maher's excellent monologue attacking the left's gender war on children. As Widburg points out, Maher is an amoral, atheistic leftist but sometimes he hits on the truth:

Comedian and talk show host Bill Maher always reminds me of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous short poem: “There was a little girl, Who had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, She was very good indeed, But when she was bad she was horrid.” Maher’s most notable riffs can be truly horrid, as was the case when he conceded that abortion was murder but added that he doesn’t care, or very good indeed, as happened with his most recent monologue addressing pedophiles in Hollywood and the scourge of wokies forcing transgenderism on children.

Widburg notes that Maher knows that abortion is murder, but he doesn't care because of overpopulation (a "problem that doesn't exist.) But as she notes, just because leftists are now killing the unborn doesn't mean they won't start killing other people they don't lik enmass. Widburg suggests they might decide to kill Trump supporters.

But, on the issue of Hollywood pedophilia and child abuse he is spot on. Go ahead and watch the video of Maher's monologue.