I See by Your Holster

Ammosexuals who bellow about their Second Amendment Rights (as perverted and pronounced by the NRA and the rest of the gun lobby) seem to have forgotten a vital and essential aspect to civic rights: responsibility.

All civic rights come with integral responsibilities. Voting rights comes with the responsibility to educate oneself about the issues and the candidates. So-called 'gun rights' comes with a concomitant responsibility of gun-safety. 

Ironically, cynically, many on the 'right' feel that all those of the Islamic faith must take responsibility for the dangerous few who wage jihad and commit acts of terrorism. 

A similar standard is applied to other groups such as immigrants, Blacks, Hispanics, etc. All immigrants are judged and condemned outright because of the criminality (or perceived criminality) of members of their group.  A social penalty is levied against the entire group; distrust at the least.

When confronted with the 'bad apples', the 'lone wolves', the 'sickos', who commit multiple-homicide with a gun, those same fervent god-fearing, gun-toting folk are not so inclined to perceive that their gun rights are unalterably conjoined to the responsibility of how the proliferation of guns in American society has negatively effected all of us. They are not so keen on being grouped with psychos who are also gun-lover.

Yet, in truth, they must be grouped together; for the law-abiding gun-lover and the psycho murderer do share a very blatant and obvious characteristic.

Any guesses on what that commonality is?

Hope against hope

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/28/politics/rooney-hope-hicks-russia-cnntv/index.html

The culture of lying in Washington is so pervasive, so endemic that this GOP Congressperson, Rep. Tom Rooney, is defending Hope Hicks for lying.  He is outraged (outraged, I tell you!) that Dems would 'leak' (i.e. inform the public) about Hick's admission to telling 'white lies' for Drumpf. 

Rooney even went so far as to give an example of an 'acceptable' lie: to wit - his assistant lies to a constituent that Rooney is 'not in the office' in order to avoid a call.

So there you have it. Lying liars justifying lies in defense of the Liar-in-chief.

Poor little Hope...

Ammosexuals on Notice!

Taking the opposing view to David Hogg and the other activist survivors of bloody massacres is brazenly, callously stating that the murder of children is negated by the need of some people to own semi-automatic weapons of war.
Constitutional Rights do not come cost free.
Want to own guns? Fine... then take responsibility for that Right - not by fighting those who oppose the indiscriminate slaughter going on in America but by countering that slaughter by owning the fact that the slaughter is being done by fellow 'gun enthusiasts'.
Own that sh!t and end this epidemic of gun deaths.

Warning! The Teacher is Strapped!

A week after the Dec. 14, 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, said Americans need more guns in schools. 

BOYCOTT the NRA!That 'arm the teachers' plan has been working pretty well already it seems.
From 2014 - http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/utah-teacher-shoots-herself-the-leg-while-school

Teacher down! Call for a substitute!
Do they have firearms training?
And will they be bringing their own gun to school?
If not, will the school have an armory to provide weapons to teachers?
Will each classroom have a weapons safe?
And how 'bout ammo?
Will there be an allotted number of rounds per armed teacher much like the number of photo-copies each teacher can make per semester?
And if the teacher brings his/her own gun, will they be paid an annual/semi-annual depreciation for using their personal weapon for school use?
And will they be re-compensated for use of any rounds fired? What if the rounds are fired accidentally? 

Or in error, say?
And how about liability for actually shooting someone?

...and this is the plan that the POS POTUS, the Blob-in-chief, the Drumpfen-feck, so glibly pronounces as the solution to school shootings from his 'crib sheet'?

Rights and Responsibilities

Too bad that Civics isn't taught in school anymore. The Evangelicals keen and wail about prayer and 'god' being removed from classrooms in public schools. (Granted, that group is forever keening and wailing, such is their provenance.) - Setting aside the separation of church and State for the time being,  what we actually need are lessons in basic civics and civic responsibility.

It might be remembered that the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the US Constitution, is also an implied declaration of responsibilities which undergird those declared rights.
http://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/bill-of-rights/

Simply said, all civic rights come with integral responsibilities. Voting Rights come with the responsibility to educate oneself about the issues and the candidates. The Right to a speedy trial imparts the duty to create and maintain a judicial system that is efficient. The Right to free speech imparts the duty of the citizens to forbearance of conflicting views. The Right of the people to peaceably assemble requires that those assembled do not become violent. The Right to the free exercise of religion obligates the religious to respect other religions as well as respect those who are non-religious. 

Rights are predicated by responsibility. Anyone who knows the legend of Spiderman knows that 'With great power comes great responsibility...'.
The Rights guaranteed by the Constitution are the Power of the People. 

Now, we come to the Right guaranteed by the Second Amendment; the Right to keep and bear arms. With that Right, comes the responsibility that guns in society do not become a threat to public safety. The problem is that many gun owners (under the influence of the NRA and/or grand, machismo Rambo visions) refuse to accept that underlying  responsibility and duty inherent in exercising that Right.

Those who exercise their Right to 'keep and bear arms' must accept responsibility for the alarming number of gun deaths in America. One might bandy stats around and argue about the accuracy of data collection but the tragedies of Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Parkland, (etc, etc, ad fecking nauseum) go well beyond numbers of dead or the number of guns or the number of rounds.

Think what you will about the causes of gun violence. It makes little difference to the basic tenet that Rights come with Responsibility and duty.

The very troubling case at hand is this: there is gun violence. It exists. It exists at a level unmatched by any other First World Nation. It exists at a level unmatched even in our own violent history except for times of war. It is also very clear that the level of gun violence is unacceptable to the large majority of the population.

It is time for those who wish to be Gun Owners to accept the Responsibility incumbent to that Right.

The blame for the mass shootings, the suicides, the accidental deaths by gun-fire, the murders are not relevant to the Gun Owner's Responsibility and Duty to safe-guard society. Don't blame the shooter, Law Enforcement or society. Society is your charge as well, Gun Owners - citizens. Don't rail against those who wish to stop the carnage. Do your Duty and accept Responsibility for gun deaths.

Figure out the legislation which will mitigate the deadly effect of guns in our society. Keep all the guns you want but do so by making certain Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Sutherland Springs, Tx, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, etc, never happen again and the horrific number of suicides, murders and accidental shootings are considerably reduced to a socially acceptable level.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/10-deadliest-mass-shootings-modern-us-history/story?id=50234345