So Goes The Constitution, So Goes Our Country

So Goes The Constitution, So Goes Our Country 03/30/2014   This country was founded on the idea that all men are created equal, and certain god given rights were endowed, to each of them, among them, the right to life liberty, and pursuit of happiness. To that end , the founders created the Bill of Rights setting out the boundaries  for our government for generations to come. For over 200 years it has worked pretty good, with a few minor exception and changes.      However, over the last 50 years or so there has been a slow but subtle movement to weaken our second  amendment, the rights to keep and bear arms. Over the last couple of years the forces that would see law abiding citizens become essentially victims of every criminal looking for a quick easy score, have become more vocal, and active, and brazon. Michael Bloomberg's "Mayors Against Illegal Guns  is a front for his effort to disarm America.  The number of mayors who have left the group after finding out what's its really about is getting higher regularly. Also there have been a number of elections in which the candidate who didn't support  MAIG group won by a landslide, that goes for sheriffs too.      Recently there has been charges brought against a California senator, LeLand Yee; for gun  running, selling guns to terrorists among other  various charges which should land him in jail for a good long time.   The fact that any senator, congressman, or other civil servant is charged those crimes is appalling. Add to that one that has been spouting anti gun rhetoric for a number of years, and doing everything in his power to disarm lawfull American citizens. He should be charged with treason and treated accordingly. as with any other senators and congressman who propose , and support bills that weaken our constitution. If they started treating theses types of thing like they should, we'd be busy electing new senators all the time,as old crooked one and treasons ones were ousted.  What is needed is a new attorney general with pro constitution agenda, and willingness to stand , up to the incumbents and bring up charges no one wants to hear, treason, Every elected official swear to protect and defend the constitution of the us from all enemies both foreign and domestic.some of what they've done is way beyond a lie to make their constituent happy, They are outright committing crimes, In many cases up to and including treason when they propose bill that will weaken our constitution, many folks don't see the bigger picture .      Efforts to limit Any of our basic rights is the precursor to much worse things yet to come. When a senator declares on national television, that he thinks that ANY Amdentant, should be scraped, be it the second or third,  forth, tenth, twelfth, or eighteenth, its setting a very bad president and, opening the floodgates of others to make similar statements, Granted the first amendment gives us the right to free speech, which give me the right to express my opinions here.  However, in my  mind expressing ideas such the senator did on nation tv, is a open invitation for some very dire consequences, possibly for him, and definitely  for his cronies. who feel the same way. The article is here;  http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2014/3/for-gun-controllers-honesty-is-not-the-best-policy.a LeLand Yee story; http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2014/03/27/california-democrat-and-gun-control-advocate-charged-with-arms-trafficking/      This should be a call to action to all American who believe in the Constitution, that is is our ultimate rule of law, or the country. All other laws and rules passed by the government and states should support it, and do NOTHING to undermine it.Any official from mayor or senator, or representative or governor, or president who works to undermine the Constitution, and Bill of Rights is committing treason. When they took the oath of office, the promised to protect the country from ALL enemies both  foreign  and domestic. By proposing bills and supporting bills that limit and tend to make it harder for law abiding Americans to exercise their god given rights, they are committing treason, and as such should be tread as traitors.  Call your senators and house of representative and let them know you demand investigation and prosecution  of  oficials who are trying to  dismantle the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

“God made man, But Samuel Colt made them equal" 

 

This a quote probably from Colt manufacturing  In a world where the bad guys are generally well armed, or at least in a state where reasoning with them isn't going to happen, something else's needs to brought to the table; ie; personal self defense.

Personal Self Defense begins with being aware of your surrounding, and potential and possible dangers, and scenario, that could end very badly for you. If at all possible avoiding them is always the best option, however, sometimes there is no other option but to go into a situation that is less than safe in some way. With that in mind, always be looking and thinking ahead. I’m not a personal defense expert, however, I have been watching and listening to a number of self defense shows and taken many of the lessons to heart.

In a perfect world, the only things that ever got shot were targets, and animals for hunting for food. However, this is  a far less than perfect world. Sometimes, two legged animals need to be dealt with. Also in a perfect world, police would be close at hand to bail you out, the second you called 911.  We all know the police are spread far too thin and understaffed and overburdened to do what they would like to, even in metropolitan areas. Much less in rural areas,where they many times only have 3 cars to cover a whole county. Response time can run from as little as 15-20 minutes, to well over half an hour, in some cases a hour, thats with them risking their lives to get there in the dark on a windy country roads. That 15-20 minutes can seem like an eternity, and a lot can happen in that time, Probably a lot has already happened, none of it good.

Defending your life, and the lives of your family and loved one can come down to the choices you make now. The right to defend yourself and family has never been question, at least not in principle. However, what is quickly being questioned is what weapons you can use to do that defending.

In the light of the recent mass shooting over this last year, there has been a outcry, to do something ,anything.  What this has become is a knee-jerk reaction to a very real problem.  Make new laws,,, most of them dumb, and don’t solve the problem.  The problem in a nutshell, is health system, particularly the mental health side, The NRA has been trying for over 20 years to get a mental health database tied to gun buying background check, to make it harder for people with mental issues to get guns. The other side of the coin is, the mental health system,itself, which passes the patients off among itself, and no one takes responsibility for seeing to it the patient get what it needs, either treatment, or locked up for both their and the publics safety. No one is willing to make those hard choices, and stand behind them.

The other legs to this is enforcement.  That is enforcement of the laws on the books. And communication between the prosecutor, and the DA and other parties involved, be it the defense, and parole department, to make sure everyone knows if the subject has a record, and what kind of record it is.

The problems occur when one leg breaks down; in the case of the recent mass shootings, its usually  the mental health system which didn’t deal with theses individuals  in a way that was appropriate for them,  either serious treatment, and monitoring, or in extreme cases locked up for their own good. and ours.

I can understand the cry to do something, however, before we pass more bills that eliminate my right to use the gun I feel I need to protect myself and family, go back and look at the guns in question themselves, and look at the way they actually work, all semi-automatic gun work the same, you have magazine which hold your rounds, you pull the trigger once, one round goes out the barrel.

The includes everything from my little Ruger 10/22, to a AR-15 and a semi-auto pistol. regardless of the platform, the principle is the same. The only difference is the “scary level of a  AR-15, is considerably more than that of a traditional gun like a Ruger 10/22, or other semi auto rifle.  If a Ruger 10/22 had been used in these types of shooting, it would be the “Scary Gun”

My advice is got get the people who have used these guns,in real life self defense situation, be it in the army, or ar a peace officer to testify as to why they came home that night, most would probably say that AR-15 and the high capacity magazine saved their lives and that of their fellow officers or soldiers.
When is facing a unknown number of assailants and the first 2-3 shots didn't discourage them,  a federally mandated ban on large capacity magazines is not going to help you when they come breaking in and all you have is 7 rounds maximum .
Many times the presence of the gun pointed at the attacker  is enough to make them think twice about what they want to do. Of course in some cases shots need to be fired, however, as long as there is clear evidence that the shooter was justified in using deadly force, there's usually not a problem.

  As for concealed carry, the, more the better. If There's a very good chance that a bad guy going to run into a gun on the other side of the door, or inside a bank or store, or wherever, he was thinking of doing something bad, then maybe he’ll think twice. Here in Virginia we have open carry law, which allows one to openly carry a handgun on their person, without a permit. In the 3 years I’ve been here, I’ve seen 2 people carrying open. No problems. If its obvious that there are weapons around, the criminals will not be in a hurry to start something.
A gun free zone is stupid, I can definitely see where limiting or regulating the people who can carry a gun in a zone is needed, however, a completely “Gun Free Zone” is essentially a killing field waiting to happen. If it is necessary to make it  a” Gun Free Zone”, then other steps need to be taken to provide for security in that area.
In a interview I saw recently , Ted Nugent said “ an armed society is a polite society “
Meaning if criminals know the  chances of winding up on the wrong end of a gun a very good if you start something, then Maybe they won’t.
Us  armed  law-abiding citizens  have nothing to fear from other armed law abiding citizens.

Kenneth Lawson

Technolgical Blaze of Glory

    The time has come, again to rant about the past year.  However, there are a variety of subjects  to choose from. One could go on about the current state of  the telecommunications industry, and the future on online viewing   habits and venues, to the recent  advances in television technology.
   However, there are bigger issues that need addressing. Such as Gun Control, Mental Health, and fiscal responsibility of our government, and  the like.  Its all fine and dandy to sit here in our techie towers and ponder the future of telecommunications, which is important, but in the final analysis, if the country has lost its moral compass and its roots all the technology in the world won’t get it back on the right track. It will just go down the wrong way in a technological blaze of glory, which will keep people from seeing what the real problems are.
The shooting last year , prompted me to write about my views on gun control, particularly concealed carry. I don’t belive new rules governing guns are going to solve the problem. The majority of shooting are done by people who have mental issues who were not treated properly or at all. In many cases they were dumped from one organization back and forth to another and no one took responsibility for making sure they got what they needed, either treatment that worked or locked up for both their and societal safety.  The point is everyone who has any responsibility in any level of government is too busy playing the blame game, pointing their fingers at everyone elses when the Sh**t hit the Fan, No one has gumption enough to stand up and say, he was my patient, or our department was handling him, and frankly, we screwed up, and we’re looking to see where we screwed up. No one has said anything remotely like that, nor will they, because, the would be taking responsibility for ones  own actions, or in some cases inaction.  

    This country was founded on a principle that all men are created equal, and should be given the benefit of the doubt, and along with certain other rights, such as to vote, and pursue that which give us pleasure, so long as it do no harm, to society .  When the government has become so big and complicated that many times one department doesn't know what the others are doing, there is a fundamental issue with the power structure, and  delegation of authority, and who answers to who. While it is clearly laid out in the constitution, and on the state levels, Sometimes  many things are lost in translation, and the people who are responsible, tend to forget to whom they’re ultimately responsible to, to the people who elected them to their offices. They were elected and they can be unelected just as easy. President Obama made history when was the first black president to be elected., again he made history by being reelected, what his final role in history will be remains to be seen, and will not be fully understood for decades. Just as all of our past presidents have been judged through the eyes of time and history to be kinder than  they were at the time.  One can hope history and time will be as kind to President Obama.

Looking forward to the new year, which has already started. Once again find many things to talk about. The advances in media in the last ten years or so have far outstripped sixty plus years of media that came before it. From the time in the 1950’s when color TV came on the scene and  the movie industry felt threatened, to the next generation of TV, being cable and satellite,  there really hasn’t been a fundamental change in the content itself, it was essentially still the same as it was in the 1950’s plus or minus a few little tweaks, depending on your point of view. Then the VCR came along, and that was the beginning of the changes which are still happening.   The movie industry soon embraced TV, as a way to reuse a huge backlog of movie content that had stored and monetize it and get it to still make them money, which they’re still doing, only today on a grander scale. The VCR became the DVR, Digital Video Recorder,, in which we still say we’re  “taping” a show or a movie, and there is no actual tape involved, it all ones and bytes. Of course with the surge of good relatively cheap fast broadband internet across the nation,  sites, like Hulu came along, which allowed us to stream content directly to our computers. while it wasn’t a perfect world, the content still had ads, but it was a small price to pay to be able to see free content, we wouldn’t be able to see in places we wouldn't normally see it.
After that, came Netflix, one price a month, and all the streaming you could watch. Best part no commercials. It was the right product at the right time. They were aggressive with the marketing, and making content deals to get more content as they went along, as they were doing that, they also perused the hardware side, making deals to get their software in as many  types of consumer products as possible, making it easier for the consumer to watch the content they paid for and as many platforms as possible. Since then many other players have jumped into the video streaming pool. It has become somewhat crowded. Amazon has their own streaming service, Amazon Prime, for a flat rate you get to stream a large catalog of material, however, having used it, I have to give it mixed reviews.
    To aid in the distribution of all of this video content online a number of set top boxes have come out. The best of theses is the Roku, its cheap their  cheapest box is about 50. dollars, and their most expensive is 100.00.  Theres no fee for using it. Only if you are using Netflix or other pay service, which you're paying for anyways. The best part is all of the free channels they have available .
At present they have several hundred channels which you can add, 99% of them are free,  The ones that require a fee are relatively cheap. As for subject manor, that ranges from many niche subjects such as specialized cooking to various forms of tech , to a wide range of music channels to stream almost any taste in music to you tv, and sound system, If one is is looking for a good way to supplant their cable or in a few cases eliminate it completely the Roku Box is a good candidate.

    The discussions in Washington, about both technology, and gun control, and health care, are important and far reaching. The right of a citizen to defend themselves is paramount  in the minds of many people. While I am deeply saddened by the shooting that happened last year, particularly the school shooting. I refuse to give up my right to defend myself and my family and anyone else who is in danger at a given time.  As for limiting rounds in magazines that is just a first step to working to take our guns away completely, If we give in to that, we’re saying ok, fine you have my constitutional right, even if it only a round in my magazine at a time,  I’ll remind you of it when I need it and I’m a round short to stop the situation  and people get dead because I couldn’t have the capacity magazine I needed to stop the bad guy and he killed more people.

Personal Defense; Its Your Right and Responsibly

     Introduction

Those of you who have followed my blog over the last few years and know me personally, know I rarely take a stand on political issues one way or another. 
 However, the subjects of the article that follows, is something that a vast majority of Americans have in theirs lives in one form or another, guns. 
     Where I grew up in Western New York, It was not unusual for a farmer to have a old .22 and a couple of old shotguns sitting in the closest as  many of my family did, But, the time I came around, they were never used. I sure in their day they saw plenty of use. 
When I lived in Texas, the gun culture was far more prevalent.  
Many of the  pick-up trucks one would see would gun racks mounted to the insides of the back windows, and at least a shotgun, or a rifle of some kind would live there. And no one paid any attention. 
I have had a .22 rifle most of my adult life and started with BB guns and the like as teenagers.  


     I don't claim to be a expert or marksman of any kind, However,  I do enjoy shooting and seeing and handling fine guns. A  fine gun is in many respects a work of art, and a display of craftsmanship, which  alone can be appreciated .
I said all of this as a introduction to the real article I am publishing today. I wanted people to understand where I come from, and , possibly go back and rethink  the roles guns have played in their lives. But Now On to the article.


    Today, I find my myself writing about a subject that is near and dear to my heart.
In a Word Gun Control. The news s been almost  nothing but the tragedy at the Batman screening  last week . The repercussions will be felt  far and wide both for the good and bad.
As near as I can tell The gunman had all off the-shelf gear that anyone who passed a basic background check can get.  I don’t begrudge any person the right to purchase whatever firepower that they feel the need to defend their life and loved one. including him.

As much as a tragedy this is, This is a isolated incident and should be treated as such. The fact that they have him alive will in the long run help answers a lot of question.

The Second Amendment in the Constitution give all free able bodied citizens  the right to bear arms.    I just went over the requirements for getting a concealed carry permit here in Virginia
.http://www.vsp.state.va.us/Firearms_ResidentConcealed.shtm
The point is its very easy only cost about 50.00, with the background check, and only takes  about 45 day. and the permit is good for 5 years. So as long as you keep your nose clean, and send in the renewal papers every 5 years your good.
    This bring us to a bigger question . Different states have much tighter processes for getting a ccp, an tighter rules about where you can actually carry it when you finally get it. That not even counting  the fact the many states will not honor a ccp from another state while the reverse state will honor it.

Here is a list of all of the states and a simplified  of each state's rules about ccp rules;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_(by_state)

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   There have been  several instances of people getting it into their head that doing some kind of mass killing spree will make them famous in the last several years.  While I understand the initial impact is horrific and terrifying to those involved.
My, feeling that keeping it in the news and giving out every little detail only feeds their need to be famous. If they are captured alive in particular,  their names and personal details should be buried, as much for the public's sake, who knows all of this has happened, but does not need to be constantly reminded of it every time they turn on a tv. But it also takes the glamour out of committing the crime and having their names in the public face. The factual detail details are all a matter of record to a very large extent. But there's no reason to  open it any more then needed.

    On to possible outcomes had there been armed  citizens in the theater :
Its entirely possible if he knew there was the possibility that he might be met with armed resistance he would have thought twice about it, but I doubt it from the reports put out so far.
So he goes in with a AR-15 semi auto rifle and starts shooting at whoever presents themselves.What if,  Suddenly he is is being fired back at from the audience, whom he is trying to kill. Now, at that time no one knows he’s wearing all the body armor, But  getting hit multiple times with a large caliber round is going to hurt and possibly give some else a chance to help subdue and minimize the damage and thus change the outcome of the whole situation.

I’m not in way suggesting that we go back to the days of the wild west as portrayed on tv on the 1950’s westerns, where everyone wore a gun on the hip for all to see. Sociality wouldn’t tolerate it. However, making it easy for law abiding citizens and responsible people who are trained in how to handle their gun, and the repercussions would go a long way to helping to shop violent crimes in general. Its my contention that if one knows there at least a 50/50 chance he’s going to ment with a gun on the other side of the door he‘s thinking of breaking into, maybe he’ll think twice, is it worth it.

    The flip side of all of this is the anti-gun camp. They believe that guns are evil and should be banished from everyone but a very select few.  Their argument is very simple; Guns Kill, So get rid of the guns.  A knife can kill, a piece of rope can kill, hell, even a laptop bashed over someone’s head can conceivably kill. Do We ban all of the above mentioned, just because they have been, or can possibly  be used to kill. NO A gun is a tool., Just like a knife, piece of rope, and a laptop. Its all in how their used.
What is needed is education starting from a young age, in boy scouts,, which I know have shooting programs, and fathers and grandfathers educating the young people in their lives about the responsibilities of having guns around both in safety aspects, no one wants someone  shot accidentally because they didn't know what they’re doing, but in  how to handle the firearm, how it works loading  running the action, shooting it and being comfortable enough that should the unthinkable happen and they need to defend their lives or their family's life they know how to use the gun.Alway be aware that this is a perishable skill.  Meaning, that if one does not practice on a regular basis one will lose what proficiently they ever had, instead of building new skills.

    I could go on, However, I think that I have stated my case that I am very much pro gun, and pro concealed carry policies that could help changed the ending of incidents like the Batman shooting. and Maintain the  freedom of all Americans to own and use whatever firearm they deem necessary for their situation. Its in the Constitution, and It should not be watered down by states passing arcane laws that restrict the carrying of the gun, or the purchase  the gun they need for their particular situation.
It seems that as the years have gone by, places that were once considered safe and family friendly are becoming more and targets of people like the batman shooter, so carrying a gun where one might not of thought to suddenly becomes a good idea.


Kenneth Lawson