Losing more slowly with the Stupid Party
Sometimes, just every now and again, actions really DO have consequences.
Michigan police went to an ammunition manufacturer and asked them to donate some ammo so the police could practice shooting. For free. The response is hilarious.
And it most certainly is at that.
Pretty much says it all, don’t it? I’m in full agreement with Divemedic’s closer: “That alone makes me want to buy their ammo.” Don’t it, though. Don’t it just.
3No, really, y’all. SRSLY.
Can animals trauma bond?
A farmer put a camera because he heard the dogs barking every night, and he saw this.
The leopard comes every night to meet the cow and the cow licks its head.
The man spoke with the previous owner of the cow and found out that the leopard’s mother had died when it was only twenty days old and since then the cow had fed the leopard with her milk. Therefore, the leopard thinks that the cow is her mother and comes every night to see her.
Okay, I gotta admit, even when I saw the pic as I was reading the post, I did NOT see that coming. And once again, Quora Digest proves its worth as my go-to source for wonderful, entertaining, and edumacational blogfodder.
Update! Commenters sez:
Kimberly Chapman—15h
What a mooving story.J T—6h
I know! Really unherd of!
Heh. Also: groooaaan. Good squishy, that.
2I’d say it is, yeah.
What is the coolest line in history?
Battle of the Bulge. Winter. 1944. An entire American armored division flees from a massive German onslaught. Trundling down the road, a tank pulls up to a lone Private First Class in a snow covered foxhole. The commander yells, down to the PFC in the foxhole.“The entire German Army is headed this way! We’re retreating!”
“Are you looking for a safe place?”, replied PFC Martin.
“Yes!”
“Well, pull your tank behind this foxhole. Because I’m the 82nd Airborne and this is as far as the bastards are going.”
Yep, it’s the coolest for sure, easily putting Tony McAuliffe’s “NUTS!” response during the Battle of the Ardennes in the shade—which, y’know, is really saying something. There’s also a pic, which I had no little trouble trying to figure out how to download for attachment to this h’yar post. But in the end, my Web-Fu proved the stronger. Thus:
Heh. And now you know why they called ‘em “dogfaces” back in the Big One, WW2. The look on that GI’s mug is about as surly, pissed off, and just all-round fed-up and determined as I hope (n)ever to see. Uncle Adolf would’ve pissed himself if he’d awakened late one night to find a face like that coming in through the bedroom window after his sick, sorry ass.
Update! A bit more interesting schtuff from the above-linked McAuliffe story, which you may or may not have known about already.
IT WAS MID-morning on Dec. 22, 1944 when U.S. troops manning the defences of the besieged Belgian town of Bastogne watched as four German soldiers – a major, a captain and two enlisted men – approached under a large white flag.
The four-man enemy delegation called on all U.S. forces in Bastogne to surrender within two hours or face “total annihilation” by German artillery.
Technical Sgt. Oswald Butler and Staff Sgt. Carl Dickinson of F Company, 327th Glider Infantry, and medic Pfc Ernest Premetz stepped out to meet them.
The men blindfolded the Germans and escorted them to an abandoned house serving as F Company’s command post.
When presented with the surrender demand, the 101st commander, Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe, laughed at very notion of surrender. In his opinion his men were giving the Germans “one hell of a beating” and felt the enemy demand was out of line with the existing situation.
“Aw, nuts,” he blurted out.
Nevertheless, McAuliffe realized that some kind of reply had to be made and he sat down to think it over.
After several minutes he admitted to his officers that he didn’t know how to respond.
One officer, a lieutenant-colonel named Harry Kinnard, offered a suggestion.
“You said ‘Nuts!’” he observed, suggesting that be the reply.
The idea drew applause from everyone present. And so McAuliffe decided to send that very message back to the Germans: “Nuts!”
A colonel named Harper eagerly volunteered to deliver it to the German officers in person.
“It will be a lot of fun,” he said.
“I have the commander’s reply,” he said giving the enemy delegates the note.
“If you don’t understand what ‘nuts’ means, in plain English it’s the same as ‘go to hell,’” Harper explained wryly. “And I will tell you something else – if you continue to attack we will kill every goddam German that tries to break into this city.’
At that, the German major and captain saluted very stiffly and turned to leave.
“We will kill many Americans,” the junior of the two officers said as they left. “This is war.”
Historians believed that it was the German high command sent their officers to Bastogne with the surrender demand. Yet in unearthed interviews with Allied interrogators, General Hasso von Manteufel, commander of the 5th Panzer Army, admitted that was not the case. In fact, he was surprised to learn that the ultimatum was even offered.
“Panzer Lehr Division sent a parlementaire to Bastogne without my authorization,” von Manteufel would later say. “The demand to surrender was refused, as was to be expected. I did not authorize the surrender demand which was made of the Bastogne garrison, and I am still not sure exactly who did authorize [it].”
More even from there, all of it damned good. There truly were giants walking among us in those days.
Updated update! I could very well be remembering this wrong, and probably am, but as I recollect it was the 101st AID which was involved in the Battle of the Bulge, not the 82nd. Who knows, though, maybe it was both. NOTE: Upon further digging, it appears that there may indeed have been units from both AID’s at Bastogne. Never mind.
3Reason #8,741 why you never, ever, EVER try to rob a gun store.
How do gun shops prevent a person from simply walking in, asking to look at a gun and some bullets, then holding up the store owner with the weapon?
You know, this is funny. I was actually in a gun store when something almost exactly like this happened.It was a fairly large store, with the owner and 4 other sales clerks behind the counters. I was with a friend who was there to pick up a shotgun he’d ordered. A guy walks in and asks to see a Colt .45 Model 1911. The clerk opens the glass, retrieves the pistol, and performs the necessary check, then lays the gun on the counter for the man. He picks it up, looks it over and says “Perfect…I like it.”
He then reaches into his pocket, pulls out a loaded magazine, and inserts it into the gun, then slides a round into the chamber – all pretty darned smooth and quick. He then points it at the clerk and says, “I’ll take it.”
The clerk just shrugged, and nodded past the guy. He backs off a bit, and then looks around the store. Every other clerk was armed, and had pistols pointed at the guy. Every customer had been ushered quickly behind counters or racks out of the way, without any fuss or noise. When the guy looked back at the clerk, he now had HIS pistol out and pointed at the guy. My friend and I were both trying not to laugh at this point.
The owner then starts walking towards the guy, with his hands up. He’s explaining to the guy how badly this is likely to go for him, and points out that he is seriously out-gunned, and he is definitely NOT leaving the store with that firearm. He speaks calmly, gently…and slowly reached out and took the gun from the guy without resistance at all. He then politely asked him to get on the floor, and told one of the clerks to call the police.
Found out later the store owner was a veteran, and the other sales people were either veterans or retired cops. All in all, I was never worried, scared…no, I was amused. And so were the cops, when they showed up (greeting the owner by name as they came in), wondering who’d try to rob a gun store.
I still wonder about that myself, some 30 years later, to be honest.
A gott-damned idiot, that’s who, and nobody whatsoever else. Period fucking DOT, as Ringo always says.
6How a fully-Woke D卐M☭CRAT—a former Hollywood actress, no less—finally came around.
I have been a Democrat my entire life. I live in Los Angeles. I was an actress for years. I voted for Obama, then Clinton. I couldn’t wait to vote against the ban on gay marriage. I supported Planned Parenthood. I called JK Rowling “TERF.” I read books like THE NEW JIM CROW in an… pic.twitter.com/ib98TDpOPs
— Natalie Jean Beisner (@NJBeisner)
Welcome to the party, babe. Fellow Red Pillian Elon Musk responds with a funny-because-true riff, to be immediately set upon by the usual jackal-pack of screeching idiot shitlibs bridling at such an uppity display of dissent from their ultra-orthodox catechism…thereby proving the lovely Ms Beisner’s (and Elon’s) essential point far more convincingly than anything else ever could. Good show all around, everybody!
(Via Ace)
Update! What the heck, while I’m posting amusing Tweets here, have another.
Shots fired!! FJB! pic.twitter.com/goW28aZ1uR
— ThēPrìcklyThìstle (@TheeThistle)
Heh. Nailed it in one, Mr Jockey, sir.
4
12Two real gems from Matt Margolis’s Meme-manic Monday Substack post, to which I am pleased and proud to be a (free, natch) subscriber.
Heh. Gotta love it, amIright? Lots more fun schtuff at the link.
3I repeat: If you strike him down, he shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
‘I’M PROBABLY THE FIRST UNEMPLOYED PERSON YOU EVER INVITED TO SPEAK’: TUCKER CARLSON TO SOLD OUT CROWD
Tucker Carlson had a great joke for a sold out crowd in Alabama as he talked about being ‘fired’ and some other things. The crowd wasn’t huge, but it was sold out as 1,189 people showed up to see him speak at the Oxford Performing Arts Center for a fundraiser for Rainbow Omega. Jokingly, Tucker Carlson started off with the epic one-liner saying “I’m probably the first unemployed person you ever invited to speak.” Then Carlson said, “It’s funny. I never give speeches because I’m working. When I accepted this speech six months ago or something, I didn’t realize how much free time I would have. One never knows, does one?”What else did Tucker Carlson say during his speech? Well, here’s some quotes thanks to AL.com who posted it in a news story about the former Fox News host:
I accepted for two reasons, one shallow and one a little deeper. One is, I do love Alabama. I’m not just saying that. We spend a lot of time in rural Maine, which is so close to this culturally, you have no idea. In a great way. The food is not very good in rural Maine. The food here is unbelievable. I’ve spent a lot of time in this state, and part of the reason is you have great hunting and fishing. The real reason is it has everything that I like. It has really nice people. It has amazing food. I have the world’s worst eating habits and here that’s not judged. Fried Oreos? Okay! I love that. I love the lack of judgment.
The perceptions, national perceptions kind of shift very slowly, then you wake up in the morning and everything’s different. The rest of the country’s view of Alabama is one of those things that just changed completely. Nobody makes fun of Alabama, at all, because they realize actually that’s how you’re supposed to be living. The only way to know what people think about something is to not listen to what they say, I say this as someone who has talked for a living for a long time, ignore the words. Watch what they do. Watch how they live. That’s the only accurate measure of what people really think. Ignore that. Be like your dog, who understands not a single word of what you’re saying but knows exactly who you are.
Are people moving to Alabama? Oh, yeah. I love that. Why are they moving here? They’re moving here because Alabama’s everything that you would want in a place that you live. It has cohesive communities, super-nice people, gentle people, people who care about their neighbors, and it has an abundance of nature, something that we I think undervalue. We went through this weird, kind of mass hypnosis where everyone was convinced we had to move to some horrifying concrete city in order to make a living and forgot that actually you need to see green, or else you’ll go insane. If you’re alienated from God’s creation, you become fundamentally alienated. Nature is the most beautiful thing. Driving around here today, I thought to myself, you think of Alabama, if you don’t live in Alabama, as a place that has a lot of past attached to it. And I thought today, especially reading the numbers about what’s happening in your state, Alabama is not the past, Alabama’s the future.
We’d damned well better hope it is, yeah. Thankfully, as Tucker implies, that’s something that just kinda-sorta happens when nobody’s really looking, or expecting it to.
2Again, that is, this time from the shitlibs and their preposterously unworkable “Green energy.”
Conservative watchdogs highlight ‘alarming’ surge in whale deaths as wind farms grow off NY, NJ coasts
Conservative watchdog groups ran a guerrilla-style ad campaign on the Jersey Shore for Earth Day, drawing attention to a surge in whale deaths amid the growth of offshore wind farms.Beachgoers in Atlantic City on Saturday looked on as a single-propeller plane carried a message waving from a banner — “SAVE-WHALES-STOP-WINDMILLS.ORG” — and drivers heading out of town saw a billboard with the same message and a picture of a dead whale washed ashore.
The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the Heartland Institute sponsored the ads to highlight the potential threat that wind turbine development poses to whales, dolphins and other aquatic life.
The campaign comes after a ProPublica report last week found that federal regulators in the Biden administration have downplayed environmental risks to greenlight “an unprecedented expansion for offshore wind” projects — including tax incentives through the president’s Inflation Reduction Act for renewable energy developers.
Pics of the aforementioned ads included at the NYPost link, and they’re truly wonderful. Well done, guys, and good on ya for turning the Left’s own twipe back on ‘em and hosing ‘em down good with it like this.
2Among the many, many email list-type things flooding my inbox daily are quite a few from Twatter (since Musk took over and cleaned house I’m gonna have to stop referring to it with such disparaging names), which I haven’t long since relegated to the CF Spamme Trappe because I actually enjoy quite a few of them. Sander from the Netherlands, a/k/a Buitengebieden, would be on the list of Twitterers I like.
The landing.. 😊 pic.twitter.com/HLeOokLymv
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden)
HAAA! Good stuff, no? I mean, really now, just look at the grin on that face at the end.
The cute little critter coming home to mama for a perfect three-point landing in her hand is a sugar glider, if I’m not mistaken; being a certified Elly May Clampett-level critter person (DEAD GIVEAWAY ALERT: there’s even a “Critters” category here, has been for a long time), I always did want one of those myself. Can’t recollect ever seeing a snowy-white one before, though. Some info on the li’l beasties, for those who might not know what the hell I’m even talking about here.
The sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps) is a small, omnivorous, arboreal, and nocturnal gliding possum. The common name refers to its predilection for sugary foods such as sap and nectar and its ability to glide through the air, much like a flying squirrel. They have very similar habits and appearance to the flying squirrel, despite not being closely related—an example of convergent evolution. The scientific name, Petaurus breviceps, translates from Latin as “short-headed rope-dancer”, a reference to their canopy acrobatics.
The sugar glider is characterised by its pair of gliding membranes, known as patagia, which extend from its forelegs to its hindlegs. Gliding serves as an efficient means of reaching food and evading predators. The animal is covered in soft, pale grey to light brown fur which is countershaded, being lighter in colour on its underside.
The sugar glider is native to a small portion of southeastern Australia, in the regions of southern Queensland and most of New South Wales east of the Great Dividing Range. Members of Petaurus are popular exotic pets and are frequently also referred to as “sugar gliders”, but these are now thought to likely represent another species from West Papua, tentatively classified in Krefft’s glider.
“Short-headed rope-dancer”—gotta love that, it certainly seems apt enough. Here, have yourself another adorable pic:
Oh oh wait, dang it, that’s Elly May. Sorry ‘bout that, folks…maybe. Here’s the one I meant to put in there.
Heh. Ye Olde Colde Furye Blogge: where the smart set goes for all their “cuteness” needs.
Moar adorable update! Another critter I always wanted, but never did get.
Those are African pygmy hedgehogs, comically enjoying one of their favorite pastimes: tubing, they call it. Too, too funny, and totally cute too. (SIDE NOTE: yes, that’s an old toilet-paper-roll tube they’re playing with; they’re known for keeping that up for hours, walking themselves off of tabletops, falling off chair seats and sofas, repeatedly crashing into walls, you name it)
The trouble with keeping exotic pets like gliders and hedgehogs is that they’re costly to keep and maintain, in all sorts of ways. They usually need a great deal of attention and affection; their dietary requirements can be expensive and, well, exotic, thus tough to fulfill; finding a vet for one outside of major urban areas can be extremely difficult, the visits frequent and expensive. Exotics are susceptible to bizarre, unheard-of diseases, for which treatment is both demanding in terms of effort and ruinously expensive.
All in all, then, not the best choice of pet for someone who travels as much as I used to. Hell, just keeping up with two cats, two dogs, and a freshwater aquarium which I successfully kept going for well over ten years (stocked with two clown loaches, an albino shark, an albino cory cat, and a firebelly newt; the pleco I got for algae-control purposes, a tiny thing at first, I finally gave away to a friend when the ugly bastid grew to just over two feet long) was hard enough, thanks.
Fucked around. Found out. Exactly as he damned well deserved to.
Sometimes you F around and find out… this guy did… pic.twitter.com/ZcjxlLsl8y
— Matt Couch (@RealMattCouch)
Divemedic says it for me.
I have heard the complaints that the guy shouldn’t have shot him when he was leaving, and you know what? I don’t give a shit. If the cops and courts won’t protect their citizens, the citizens eventually will.
Precisely so. I’m not so sure the soon-to-be-ventilated perp actually was leaving. He walked back around the counter, but he wasn’t moving in the direction of the door; probably looking around to see what else in the store might be worth stealing, seems to me.
“Shouldn’t have shot him”? Like bleedin’ hell. What shouldn’t have happened was, the predatory Gibmedat shouldn’t have robbed the guy in the first place, that’s what. Had he not chosen to commit armed robbery and ADW, thereby putting an innocent man in fear for his life, then he wouldn’t have gotten his sorry ass shot. That’s all on Sh’Quan’zellaramalamadingdong, and absolutely nobody else.
Be sure to stick with it for the happy ending; the footage of the worthless parasite writhing in pain on the sidewalk, bleeding profusely, is worth the price of admission all by itself.
13
1Tell me, oh Magic Eight Ball: Is the indomitable, perenially-awesome, so-ugly-it’s-beautiful Fairchild-Republic A10 Thunderbolt II the best damned combat aircraft the US has ever fielded? Signs point to YES.
A-10s Return to Middle East with a New Mission, and a New Weapon
Tensions with Iran, Russia have CENTCOM calling upon the venerable Warthog once again.A squadron of A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jets, specially modified to nearly triple their bomb loads, has been dispatched to the Middle East to boost U.S. airpower in the region amid increased tensions with Iran-backed forces in Syria.
With each plane carrying four SDB (Small Diameter Bombs—M) bomb racks, a flight of four A-10s could bomb up to 64 ground targets, a nearly three-fold increase. Each plane can also carry laser-guided rockets along with its famed 30mm tankbusting gun.
“That’s a lot of targets that you can hit from an air-to-ground perspective,” Grynkewich said.
The rugged attack jet also gives commanders more flexibility because it can fly from short or dirt runways.
“We would be able to maneuver [the A-10] very rapidly to different locations and show an ability to do strike operations that really would be very difficult to to counter in any meaningful way should things escalate,” he said.
The A-10 could also be used to patrol the Strait of Hormuz, where Iranian go-fast boats have harassed warships and tankers.
“There certainly are maritime threats that are out there that are promulgated by the Iranians,” Grynkewich said. “The A-10 brings you a capability that can counter that, as well—kinetically if necessary with those rockets and the gun.”
Designed in the 1970s as a specialized ground-assault weapon, the A-10 has won the love of generations of infantry. Protected by a “bathtub” of cockpit armor, Warthog pilots fly slow and low, eyeballing their targets before ripping into them with copious armament. But Air Force leaders have spent decades trying to win Congressional permission to retire the twinjet. They call it a sitting duck for modern air defenses, and they say stealthier, higher-flying, more lightly armed fighter jets can do the job. Earlier this year, Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown said the last A-10s would be gone by decade’s end.
Grynkewich’s command is also responding to a call from CENTCOM’s Kurilla to be more innovative. Air Forces Central aims to experiment with the A-10’s ability to shoot down enemy drones. Since the A-10 lacks a radar, officials plan to use a network of U.S. and allied radars to guide the attack jets to their uncrewed targets. The Warthog could then use its infrared targeting pod to engage a drone with heat-seeking missiles or laser-guided rockets, Grynkewich said.
Is there ANYTHING the ‘Hog can’t do? Apparently not. Stout, amazingly versatile, a-bristle with ferocious lethality—she’s a credit to her noble lineage and her namesake, no doubt about it.
Update! So in the comments, I said this to Steve:
Pretty sure I’ve told this story before here, but back when the band was regularly traveling from NC to NYC for shows, we always took the back way up the spine of the Shenandoah on 81, through Harrisburg, and then on into a stretch paralleling a mountainous area with a USANG base close by (Fort Indiantown Gap, I believe it was). The base had A10s attached, and quite often we’d see a flight of ‘Hogs practicing attack weaves, crisscrossing low and slow from one side of the mountains up over the crest to the other and back again.
We’d all watch this airshow completely spellbound, which is when it occurred to me how truly awful it must be to be a ground-pounding camel-humper being hunted by one of those truly magnificent bastards. Bet there’s been whole damned laundry-trucks’ worth of djellabahs ended up smeared in fresh-squeezed shit by guys in that unenviable position. If not, then they were just too stupid to live anyhow.
Just for shits and giggles, I poked around some when what to my wondering eyes did appear but this choice vid:
And dammit, that’s IT, the spontaneous, unannounced “airshow” we looked forward to seeing on every trip up to the Rotten Apple. Hell yeah! How fuckin’ cool is THAT?
321
1The right to repair.
John Deere Corporate Might Have Reason to Panic, But Farmers Will Love What’s Happening
Farmers have been battling the manufacturers of their high-tech farming machinery for years over the right to repair their equipment on their own.Major companies in the space, including John Deere, began restricting products to manufacturer exclusive service contracts.
These contracts lock out the farmers who own tractors, for instance, from making even small repairs to their machines. Instead, when something breaks down, farmers have to call the manufacturer or dealer to schedule a repairman to come out and service the device, forcing the farmer to shut down his operations while waiting for the repairman to come out to the farm.
This is obviously a serious problem for farmers who are under strict time restrictions during planting and harvesting seasons.
Farmers have been contesting this situation for years, ever since some manufacturers of equipment have begun implementing such exclusionary practices. It has resulted in a campaign among farmers called the “right to repair” movement, where farmers are fighting for the right to make repairs to the tractors and other instruments they bought and own.
The farmers claim that they lose money and time while waiting for these repair men to show up. Not only that, but they contend that if a tractor maker holds the sole right to repair, then the farmers don’t really even own their tractors despite paying tens of thousands for the vehicles.
As the truck drivers always say, so it is for the farmers: if the wheels ain’t turning, they ain’t earning. Not that the corporate types at John Deere, in defense of their “right” to bleed hardworking farmers like a deer tick on a hound with those exorbitantly priced “maintenance contracts” of theirs, give a discernible damn about that.
Now, however, the state of Colorado has become the first to give farmers the legal right to repair their equipment without being forced to pay for a manufacturer’s repair teams. That law was passed on Tuesday.
For their part, companies such as John Deere say that farming equipment is now so highly technical and computer-driven that repairs are often beyond the skill of barn tinkerers. Even more importantly, manufacturers say that if just anyone can start tearing down and rebuilding their high-tech machinery, their proprietary technology will be all too easily open for corporate theft.
Well, which is it, then? Are those slackjawed yokels too stupid to comprehend all that tech, or are those sharpie-farmers looking to inflate their incomes via some sophisticated reverse-engineering and corporate espionage?
For what it may be worth, my Uncle Gene flatly refused to own anything his whole life but a Deere…right up until his last one, which he spent a lot more time cussing and spitting at than actually riding the piece of junk.
Manufacturers also say that allowing tractor owners to make any manner of repair also allows them to bypass emissions controls set by governments and to crank up horsepower or make other modifications that violate laws. This, they say, puts equipment operators at risk of injury, and in turn would unfairly place the manufacturers in a position to be sued for those injuries.
Ahhh, and there it is: the cold, dead hand of government. You knew it would figure into all this somehow. Now for a little compare-contrast.
“Forcing a business to disclose trade secrets, software, and jeopardize consumer safety is poor public policy,” said Colorado state Rep. Matt Soper, a Republican who opposed “right to repair” measures in the Centennial State.
The opposition was not enough to stall the legislation. Colorado’s Democrat Gov. Jared Polis happily signed the new bill into law last Tuesday, saying, “This bill will save farmers and ranchers time and money and support the free market in repair” before exclaiming, “first in the nation!’”
Against all odds and expectations, we’ve now reached the point where the GOPer argues for restricting the rights of hard-working American farmers to do what they wish with the property they nominally “own,” while the Democrat stands up for freedom, real ownership, independent repair shops, and non-interference with said rights. UNEXPECTED!™
Should you buy a gun? OF COURSE you should, dumbass.
Progressives Convinced Us to Get a Gun
It’s hypocritical to urge Americans to disarm while also failing to protect them from surging crime rates.
Hypocritical? Nah, not quite. It’s EVIL, is what it is.
When I was growing up on the South Side of Chicago in the late 1950s, almost every boy had one treasured possession: a holster with two six-shooters. It was the essential toy for playing Cowboys and Indians, the most popular game in town. Regrettably at the time, my brother and I didn’t get in on the fun. Our father wouldn’t allow it.
He had his reasons: In depriving us of the revolvers, he often would cite his experience during World War II. Our father served in the French army
Ah, it all begins to make sense now.
and, as a member of an artillery regiment, fought the Nazis when they marched into Belgium. During that service, a rifle shot grazed the back of his neck and came close to taking his life. He made it clear that, having been wounded and seen the horrors wrought by firearms, he didn’t believe anyone should think of such weapons as playthings.
No sensible adult does, fool. As for kids disporting themselves at Cowboys and Injuns out in the backyard—Jeez O Pete, man!
Onwards.
Though as a child I sometimes resented not fitting in with my friends, I grew to accept that firearms were terrible devices that didn’t belong in our lives. As an adult, for many years I supported banning guns among civilians, even contemplating the merits of repealing the Second Amendment.
As the twig is bent…
But some months ago my thinking changed again. Today, my wife has a gun that she keeps in our home. She has the necessary permits from the authorities and has trained extensively in using the gun safely. Growing up, I never imagined I would have a firearm at home. But I am reassured to have one, even if I’ve never held it myself.
Our decision to acquire a gun is due to the recent release of the man who bludgeoned my wife’s younger sister to death several decades ago. My wife fears that the murderer, released from prison during the Covid-19 pandemic by New York state’s board of parole, poses a potential threat to us.
But our decision also is due to society’s current dysfunction. Crime is surging in our city—Washington—and around the country. Vagrants wander the streets, police are reluctant to tackle criminals, and courts seem unwilling to impose serious sentences on those who break the law. Given these circumstances, owning a gun seems to be one of the few ways to feel even a semblance of personal safety. There is an irony that policies progressives espouse, such as gun control, have prompted us to have a gun in our home.
Progressives nationwide have attacked police and law enforcement, alleging that our legal system is systemically racist and oppressive. They have caused recidivist criminals to haunt our streets and commit more crimes—and have refused to deal with homelessness in spite of the mental illness and drug addictions that so often afflict our cities’ most vulnerable. Numerous efforts to reduce the use of drugs have been rebuffed in the name, of course, of racism.
This approach has unleashed a crime wave and diminished our sense of safety on the streets. It is, therefore, unsurprising to see ever more law-abiding people seeking to arm themselves. As a result, there will be more guns out there, including in the hands of people who should never be near them.
To limit guns in America, much as my father wished, policy makers should focus on the underlying problems that are generating a spike in crime.
As always with leg-wetting hoplophobes, this sort of “thinking” is completely out of whack. “Limiting guns in America” is NOT a goal worth pursuing, based as it is entirely on ignorance, fear, and personal cowardice. In addition, it not only directly conflicts with the plainly-worded 2A, it also contravenes the values of individual self-determination, liberty, and personal responsibility upon which the Republic itself was originally Founded.
So how is it, then, that tremulous, antigun feebs dare to presume that, rather than scorning them for their pathetic neuroses, free Americans instead must bow to them and indulge their irrational phobias?
Sure, there should be more effort made towards reining in the crime currently rampaging and ruining US cities. At the same time, acknowledgment of a certain hard, immutable fact of life on this here planet must be made: Crime will never be eradicated completely. This is what we call part of the human condition; it will always be with us. Same-same for tyranny, which is the actual reason our Founding Fathers saw fit to feature the Second so prominently in the Constitution.
Those truths being self-evident, there can be but one reasonable way to look at the persistent shitlib obssession with doing away with the one truly effective means of resistance against crime and tyranny both: it is not merely wrong, not merely stupid, but actively, literally evil. Anything less is nothing but a comforting deceit we tell ourselves, as a balm for our collective lethargy in confronting it as it ought to be confronted.
All that said, I’m happy for this guy that they finally got a gun. But that’s only the start of it. Now, with a gun in the home, he needs to do himself a big, fat favor and emulate his obviously-intelligent wife: get to the local range; train with it; practice with it; get schooled on how to break it down and clean it (inquire about that at either the range or the local gun shop; you’ll find yourself astonished at the number of friendly, more experienced shooters who will be just pleased as punch to help you out). Learn as much about how y’all’s new firearm functions and the proper care and maintenance of it as you possibly can. It’s all part and parcel of the responsible-gun-owner experience, any one of which items you neglect at your own peril.
Education, see, is one of those “forever” kind of things; it never really ends, which is only meet and just.
(Via Insty)
2Anything goes.
Day of the Deadlifts only comp. Dale holds numerous NZ male records & has also broken world records. Dale knows he’ll easily break the female record & is doing this to highlight the absurdity of allowing self ID in sport & to help force a rule change.
We hope he is successful.💪— Save Women’s Sports Australasia (@SWS_australasia)
As do I. I mean, really, what could possibly be more fair? T’was toxic feminism created this voracious, all-consuming beast; now, let them live with it—cheek by jowl, in the house they themselves built for the rest of us, until they’re sick unto death of being forced to keep close-quarters company with the stinking, grotesque thing.
GP also has a copy of Shepherd’s application to compete as a wyrmynnzzz, wherein zhirm hilariously declares “I identify as a woman for this contest.” Naturally, the weightlifting Powers That Be are pissing all over themselves trying to find a way to short-circuit the jolt of high-voltage reality being hurled their way by the Zeus-like Ms Shepherd.
According to the Reduxx report, the Global Powerlifting Committee of New Zealand (GPCNZ) appears to be scrambling to keep Shepherd out of the competition — even going so far as to change their rule book to say that he is ineligible.
The report points out that in their 2023 Rulebook, the Global Powerlifting Committee of New Zealand (GPCNZ) recognizes self-declared gender identity. In a section of the guidelines titled “Transgender Athletes,” GPCNZ states that “gender is presented on a spectrum” and that the organization “respects the autonomy of the individual and how they identify.”
“An archived version of the official website dated March 30 does not display the GPCNZ rules for trans-identifying competitors, instead leaning heavily on self-identification,” the report explains. “But, after submitting his application and declaring himself a ‘woman’ for the purposes of the competition, Shepherd was hastily sent an email and told he was not allowed to self-identify as transgender and must have been on estrogen for at least one year to compete.”
Shepherd is challenging their decision to exclude him.
You go, girl ummm, boy ummm, Manwoman ummm, whatever.
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