Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Review from "Mike the Gun Guy"

 So I have recently re-started and re-upped my efforts. The pandemic has changed us. We will now be as jaded to human interaction as we are to our gun violence issues.

What seems to be the most important about the pandemic isn't how we are moving to rid ourselves of the viral threat but whether we are amassing money, or not.

It is the "or not" that is the kicker. Those people are running scared... with guns.

Dim bulbs all over our country with guns brandished, eager to take out their angst on anyone that even comes close to the "level of threat" ignorant people feel gives them an opportunity to shoot someone for their pain.

I've handed out my book to over a hundred folks in the past month. I've mailed out over forty copies to advocacy organizations and media and the complaints and nods are starting to come in. I'll pass on displaying the thoughts of those that include sexual positions in their ideas of gun lust, but reviews by thinking people, good or bad, will be displayed here on this blog.

For instance;

Here is a review from a right center American that has spent his life immersed in gun culture:

"MikeTheGunGuy" is a blog and facebook page from a gun advocate. Mike Weisser is a gun guy, has owned a gun shop, and as the name of his blog implies, guns occupy a lot of his time and thought. I mailed Mike a copy a month ago and he saw fit to read it, and give us his thoughts.

https://mikethegunguy.social/2020/09/15/a-new-and-good-gun-book/

He calls it a good gun book. Thats all I can hope for. Thank You Mike.

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

El Paso, Texas - Candella Memorial

 This post will act as an update to what is going on.

As more and more people find out and start asking questions, the more this Pandemic has hurt us all. It's hard for me to go out amongst people, and even to have people to go out amongst, when everyone is staying at home as much as possible. 

When folks do go out, there is a mask covering most of their face. There is no facial expression involved in conversation. it sucks.

I left Arizona to go visit family in April and was essentially in Ocala, Florida lockdown until just recently. Lockdown is pretty much a running joke in Ocala though. That town is Pro-Trump, Anti-Mask, Pro-gun, Pro-Big Ass trucks and, in my estimation, Anti-Comfortable. Both its temperate climate and its Anti-Temperate climate had run their course with me, enough to make a mad dash back to thinner air in Arizona in the middle of an Anti-viral, political frenzy.

I cut my efforts short on the traveling, I missed three memorials I had planned to attend. Hopefully, I will be on hand next year. On my way across from Florida to Arizona, I stopped by El Paso, Texas to visit the Candella Memorial.
The Candella Memorial was put in place in the parking lot in front of the Walmart were the 23 people were killed.

Patrick Crusius Killed 24 and injured 22 there on August 3, 2019. Originally the number was 23 and 23, but another died from his injuries in April 2020.
What a grand waste. What was gained? Have immigrants stopped coming? Has some 
epiphinal vision now been realized?

No. Just another shooting

I now have more direct empathy for the families of these 56 people. We are all in the same club now. Us and more of the family friends. I wonder how all these people will vote this season.

What you did Patrick, is to make things worse for your cause. These people are now martyrs for the cause that have brought a couple hundred more with them. 
It is foolish to think that violence will get you your way or further your cause in any way.

Now Screw Off. Stare at some bars and leave us to continue.


I was able to hand out quite a few books while visiting the memorial. I waited till dark to get some pics with the lights on.






Thursday, August 13, 2020

Duke Law Blog entries throughout the Covid Summer

 This Covid nonsense is getting on my nerves but shootings continue at an even more rapid rate.

I have started going through my Summer Duke Law Blog offerings and have decided to post a few that are pertinent to this blog. 

Here are a few;

Exploring public carry reasonings:

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/08/public-carry-and-public-health-good-cause-as-a-good-solution/

On the ideal of self defense:

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/08/scholarship-highlight-interview-george-mocsary-on-firearms-law-and-the-second-amendment-casebook-online-chapters/

Heres one by a person looking for validation by pitting one part of religion against the other:

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/08/it-is-morally-permissible-for-christians-to-carry-firearms/

Exploring self defense as it applies to the McCloskeys in Missouri:

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/07/the-distortion-of-self-defense-and-the-second-amendment-in-missouri/

Up Soon in the Tennessee Law review; Assault weapon lethality:

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/07/scholarship-highlight-interview-greg-wallace-on-assault-weapon-lethality/

Giving local municipalities warring capabilities:

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/07/turning-sheriffs-into-soldiers-a-quick-look-at-the-1033-program/

The SCOTUS Gun Watch. This is the last installment for the summer before the Supreme Court break. This is one of the things that makes this blog interesting to follow. The gun watch follows all Supreme Court cases that might even remotely affect gun ownership and use in the U.S :

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/07/scotus-gun-watch-week-of-7-13-20/

What is a "Super-Statute" when it comes to firearm laws? :

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/07/are-any-gun-laws-super-statutes/

If you read my book, you know what I think about magazine limits on semi-automatic firearms. Heres a little blurb on the Colorado magazine limit legislation:

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/07/litigation-highlight-colorado-supreme-court-upholds-magazine-limit/

Can you / Should you keep a gun in your vehicle while unattended at work or in a public parking lot? 24 states have weighed in:

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/06/parking-lot-laws-their-content-and-applicability/

Bostock v. Clayton County is about LBGTQ issues but like the decision in 2013 that tore apart the voting rights act, it has further reaching implications into other parts of our Constitution, including the Second Amendment. How? :

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/06/bostock-textualism-and-the-meaning-of-bear-arms/

Exploring Smart-Gun situations and legislations:

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/06/smart-guns-an-effective-solution-or-a-waste-of-resources/

What do you think about Gun-Subsidy as an approach to help combat gun violence?

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/05/the-gun-subsidy-a-new-approach-to-combating-gun-violence/

In certain circumstance, "Standing Your Ground" in Florida includes against the Police:

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/05/when-stand-your-ground-meets-blue-lives-matter/


That's enough for the summer. I will continue to post these within my other updates. if you are interested in this subject, perhaps you should subscribe to the Duke Law blog on your own.

M/


Monday, February 24, 2020

What, How and Where?

The Topic of this blog is American Gun Violence.

Not American Gun Murder, that is a subset.
Not American Suicide by Gun, that is a subset.
Not American Injury or Maiming by Gun, these are also subsets.

The term "American Gun Violence" covers all of that, but by homogenizing the subsets for our own interest or experience, we are minimizing the others. We are also giving those that we are having a conversation with, something to fixate on as they try to disprove or follow along with something we may have brought up as a point.
When we talk of these things it is best to use the term "American Gun Violence," and then converse on the subsets as they arise. We don't want Americans invested in this topic fixating on any one aspect. That draws the conversation out as we explain, and if you have to explain, you are lost.

Nowadays I mention up front that American Gun Violence includes these other aspects before delving in any deeper. It strengthens my position and becomes a basis for the outrageous yearly numbers we Americans create.

For instance; the number I relate in these conversations is the total number of people physically affected by American Gun Violence each year.

For 2019 that number was 69,072. *

That is 189 people per day shot and killed in the US. That number includes all forms of bodily death and injury perpetrated on Americans in 2019 by statistic. A number that is outrageous and also seldom used. We somehow feel that displaying the number of dead people every year will turn some heads and gain favor, but it doesn't.
We play the disingenuous shell game with the murder and suicide number, negating the fact that the people on the other side of the topic are as educated and as observant as we are.
When someone does this type of thing to me, I get indignant.
They must think I'm a fool.

Enter the modern age of the internet and the good people of the GVA.

If anyone wants to see the yearly statistics of American Gun Violence, all they need to do is go to : gunviolencearchive.org (GVA)*

There, anyone can find the statistics for nearly any subset you can imagine except race and religion.
If you want to be morbidly entertained you can go to their active display of Gun Violence perpetrated in the last 72 hours. Refresh, and it changes in front of your eyes to display actual, verifiable gun violence incidents from every State and County in the entire United States. Their searching algorithms pull this information from municipalities and news sources all over the country in real time. You can even follow each incident to the address it happened at and sometimes even the names and witness accounts of each incident. Dozens and dozens and dozens each day of the year.
Before looking through the site I would recommend checking out their links to their mission statement and methodology. This is a completely non-partisan statistics gathering site that does not embellish in any way. No editorials, no discussion, no ideas, just actual, factual numbers that we Americans create on a daily basis, and they have subsets you may not even have realized were a subset at all.

This is where I get my 69072 number. Ive put the Suicide # plus injury # and murder # all together in one number. The result is Outrageous.
This is a number to consider. A number that pales the murder and suicide number.
A number equal to the population of a decent sized American city full of dead and injured people.
The injury number is rarely brought up or added to the deaths number but I consider it the most important to the conversation.
Why?
Not just because I am included in this number. No.
Because most of these people can still talk, think and vote, and we are pissed.

Live Love
Mac/




Nesting Dolls of American Paradox

 In 2020 America, our entitlements have become a double-edged sword. One side is used to separate us from others on earth and give us claim as leaders of the free world and the other to oppress those people in our own country that hold a more worldly and humane view that refuse to become slaves to those out of control entitlements.
With these Ideas of American entitlement, we have created nesting dolls of Paradox. 
For instance, America's out of control Gun Violence epidemic held in place by unbridled Capitalism. This unbridled Capitalism held in place by shiny baubles, and shiny baubles held in place by the carrot of American entitlement.
Entitlement to something, and deserving something, are not the same, they are not synonymous, they are mutually exclusive. For a person to deserve something infers a measure of value to become deserving. A person did something which in turn provides them value of some sort. They deserve the results of their efforts (or lack of effort). To be entitled does not suggest the same. Entitlement is a condition where a person is afforded something because someone else says they do. A decree offered by a person or entity in control and the power they wield. These two words play together, their definitions are muddled together, and they are used in America as interchangeable. 
A representative sentence on this subject might be; We are entitled to unobstructed gun ownership in America, therefore we deserve the results.
If we accept that we can own and use guns as we please, as entitled by our founding documents, the results are what we deserve because we have taken no action to prevent the negative effects of that entitlement. Yes, we can deserve out of inaction as well as action.

Americas founding documents are revered the world over. The ideals within were visionary for their time and have spurned human advancement throughout the world. The paradox they now create in America could not be foreseen by candle light. We no longer need leeches to bleed us dry. Our entitlements, freedoms and population have taken their place.

Through our American entitlements, we are now negating our founding documents. Unfortunately, only one of our founding documents is upheld legally. The others are given no weight in the face of the Capitalism they have spurned. Our founding Fathers would not, under any circumstance, have considered a business of any kind to be on equal standing with an actual American human. We all know this to be true, it is a very easy concept to grasp. But through fuzzy interpretation of our founding documents we have allowed our American Corporations, and even those of other countries, to direct our American lives for profit.

The American Declaration of Independence was what the Continental Congress of 1789 intended when they approved the new Constitution. This declaration spells out human moral entitlements, it elaborates on the reasonings and means. The Continental Congress, through the efforts of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and others, created a Constitutional document to enable the people of the United States to finally enjoy these human morals in an environment of solidarity, to be upheld by force if needed, a force entitled and upheld by our Constitution.
Our Declaration of Independence states: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, All men are created equal," and that all men are afforded the basic, human, GOD GIVEN right of "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."

This Capitalist bane of firearms we have created in America and the attitudes they breed are taking those unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness away from nearly forty thousand Americans and their families, every year, and by proxy, tens of thousands more. This is happening every single day of the year, without fail, and is increasing in scope as we sit by enjoying our moral degradation and what we now think is our God given right to kill as we see fit.
America's Declaration of Independence states these rights have been given to us by our creator and that governments are created to protect these rights. How many Americans confronted by American Gun Violence are able to now enjoy these God given rights? 

If we were talking about any other inanimate object, I'd say that this situation sounds like a law suit waiting to happen. Except of course that the Declaration of independence has no legal standing and that other avenues have been closed by our own PLCAA laws. driven not by need, but by the corporate greed our Babbitts of Congress allow.
Paradox often, if not always, includes a measure of irony. Intents of action ironically negated by the actions themselves. 
In 2020, with 320+ million people in the United States and through Corporate entitlement we have negated our American Constitution. From Article One, Through Article Two and on to the Preamble and Amendments, our legislative actions prove that our leaders no longer hold these truths to be self-evident.
It may be time to form a society for the friends of the intent of the Constitution.

All this, after un-nesting only one doll.

Mac/

Monday, February 17, 2020

Getting Real with Statistics

In line with my last post, yes, let's get real.
Let's break down our American situation concerning firearms and lets put ideas where they belong.

It isn't easy being in the middle, neither side is willing to listen to the other or even the middle. Our Capitalist lives demand that we pay attention to money rather than the humans around us. Our attitude as a whole seems to be that, "another dead person is one less trying to take my money... or my opportunities." This type of subliminal thought is predominant in America, until of course it was your daughter that killed herself, or your husband that was caught inside the store in the hail of bullets.

But those twists of fate only happen to other people.

In 2019 suicide by gun totaled  24,090.
Gun death from all other means totaled 15,336.
Gun injury from all means totaled 29,646
Total 39,426 killed  -  29,646 injured
Actual total of all is  69,072.            *GunViolenceArchive

There are a few ways to look at these numbers. The first way is to see the injury number, the injured count also. We never see or are told of the injury number. That injury number includes people that are now permanently crippled and are a weight on the US economy. That number also includes some that have a scar and mental issues now because of their incident. That number also includes police officer "lawful," shootings, failed suicides, all forms of accidents and failed murders. All still fall in the category of total aggressed incidents. These injured people were inches from death and that counts too, they were also shot with a gun.
It counts because for every person that is killed or injured come another ten people that know and love them that are now soured on firearms. As that number rises the gun fervor will get worse, the injured can still think and talk.

The far left towards the middle claims the total number of gun deaths as their talking point without separating the number by means. The Far right to the middle negates the suicide number and gives very little weight to the remaining considering it very low in the grand scheme of 320 million Americans. The middle separates these numbers but realizes it is all death by gun and then tries to pick this number apart by reason.

The reasons for ALL gun violence in America is either mental anguish or incompetence.

Shot by a stolen gun? - incompetence of the original owner
Shot by a meth addict?  - mental anguish
Shot accidentally?  - incompetence
Shot in a drive-by? - mental anguish and incompetence of thought of the shooter
Shot by your lover?  - mental anguish

And on, and on, and on. All means of American domestic gun violence can be boiled down to its root, which is primarily one of these two things. But then we could actually say that as a whole, Apathy is the culprit. We don't care unless it affects our families and friends, so it will continue. And because of this apathy the number will continue to rise until it knocks on your door or rings your phone.

To me, the most urgent number that should be addressed by the pro-gun crowd is the huge number of friends and family that have had a loved one shot and / or killed. The murder by gun number for 2019 was actually a small sliver of our populous. 15,000 last year. Considering that this is out of 320 million people, it is a number easy to dismiss with a paranoid American mindset. But that number is the basis for at least 150,000 more people to dislike guns and the people that use them. The Suicide number of 24,090 brings with it another 240,000 people and the injury number of 29,646, urges another 290,000 people soured on firearms.
Standing on the Second Amendment isn't going to work forever when over a half million or better are freaked out every year by our American right to bear.

We need to address why people kill themselves, why people shoot others purposefully and we need to address our own incompetence as gun owners.

Guns have a place and a reason. In the right human hands for the right reason.
Our reasoning is the Second Amendment, our reason is fear.

The right human, is a trained and respectful one.

LL/ Mac/




Friday, February 14, 2020

Disingenuous Claims & Use of Statistics

One of the most frustrating angles to consider concerning our American Gun Violence problem is the disingenuous use and presentation of gun violence statistics.
Here are two for us to consider:

"In 2018 there were nearly 40 thousand Americans killed by a gun !!"

We will see this claim quite a lot. It is true from a certain angle but disingenuously presented because the people saying this, purposefully lump all gun deaths together. Suicide is gun violence, Yes. But suicide is primarily a mental anguish issue. There is really very little anyone can do about suicides with a gun unless the underlying mental issues are addressed. Suicides make up 60% of that 40k number. In our fervor to present outrageous numbers to further our cause for less gun violence, the rest of the deaths by gun in that 40k number are lessened in the public eye.
This does not help, in-fact it lessens the "anti-gun" position.

The numbers for purposeful and accidental gun violence are bad enough without this skewed presentation. We can still champion less suicide by gun and keep these numbers related, yet not lumped together. All of our American gun violence problems are primarily mental anguish and incompetence issues no matter how they manifest.
It is those issues we need to address.

Here is another:

"Every year, guns are used over 80 times more to protect life than to take one !!"


That is an actual verbatim claim from a very pro-gun "statistics" site here on the net. But honestly, from a very narrow angle, I can see how people are thinking when saying that and it isn't completely wrong, just presented wrongly. But if presented correctly, the pro-argument is lessened.
We cannot say that we stopped gun violence merely by showing someone a gun when they were acting out. We have no idea, nor can we make a viable guess how any situation would turn out no matter how we threaten. The only number we can trust in this respect is an actual verified circumstance number. One of the good things about this skewed presentation is that it has brought this issue forward and these actual verified numbers are being collected and presented.
These numbers are actually something to think about without any bolstering.
In 2018 there were 1888 verified defensive uses of guns. Thats a lot actually, but pales next to the purposeful shooting and murder number. That is why it's presented in this way.
Yes, the secondary use of a gun is threat, but this issue is about positive stop and aggressed stop situations. Imagining that a person was stopped because you wore your gun around town or in a store is ridiculous and lessens the argument, nullifying the actual value of that 1888 number.

If you read my book, you will read how we can bring these numbers down and the people together, while still maintaining our American Gun Rights without pitting Americans against Americans.
Honesty goes a long way towards understanding.

All statistics are from the Gun Violence Archive.

The Parkland Florida murders were two years ago today.

Today (and every day) tell someone you love them.

Live Love
Mac/