Guns, Guns, Guns!

The Supreme Court and New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett.

In the 2021 term, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett. This is a Second Amendment case that could have far reaching consequences on carrying guns in America.

The case basically revolves around the right, under the Second Amendment, to carry guns in public for self-defense. Two people who applied for an unrestricted license, in New York state, were denied a license and sued.

Now the Justices will determine whether or not the rights under the Second Amendment can be restricted. The Court’s decision could be very bad for America. Should the Court rule that plaintiff’s rights have been violated, it would potentially affect every gun law in the country. You can bet that the lawsuits will begin flying should this happen. The gun nuts will be frothing at the mouth to get to carry concealed guns in public.

Let’s consider this some. Many times in the aftermath of a mass shooting, someone spouts off about if only someone would have been armed, they could have intervened and stopped the massacre. I’m not buying that line of thought. Look at the Boulder, Colorado, shooting. Ten people died, including a veteran police officer. The large majority of people walking the streets are going to confront the triple F choices in a shooting incident of this type. Flight, fight, or freeze are those choices. Most untrained people will do the last, freeze. That’s perfectly understandable too. The shock of a situation like the Boulder shooting will freeze you while your brain is trying to process what’s happening. In Boulder, police were in a sustained gunfight with the shooter and could not take him down. Police officers are trained to confront violence, to overcome any fear and take action. Yet, the shooter was able to keep up the fight until deciding to peacefully surrender to the police.

Now, imagine yourself inside that store, carrying a concealed firearm. The only training you have is shooting at paper targets, that don’t shoot back. If you overcome your fear and break out of the freeze mode, you pull your gun and do what? Are you going to pull a John Wayne and have a high noon shootout with the bad guy? If you do, consider yourself dead. Are your going to tactically advance on the shooter and take him out? Do you even know how to do that from training, not watching television to give you your “training?” Somehow you get to where you see the bad guy and open fire. Have you considered who you might be endangering with your gunfire? If you miss, who might be hit and possibly killed? What about the bad guy shooting back at you, in which you might get hit and possibly killed by that fire? Think it through, you know the truth. Remember, your adrenaline is going to be pumping my friend.

Now, one BIG question. How are the police going to know YOU aren’t a bad guy and shoot you, possibly killing you? Do you expect the police to politely ask you who you are? Nope, likely you’ll likely be in a situation where police bullets are flying your way too. In dangerous situations the police are trained that everyone is a possible bad guy until proven otherwise, unless they are uniformed police. That’s for their own safety. So, still think you can take down a shooter John Q?

But, let’s look beyond a mass shooting incident to just plain everyday life. The Governor of Tennessee recently signed a bill into law allowing the carrying of concealed firearms without needing a license (Texas is working on the same type of law too). Now, your a police officer on patrol and make contact with a driver and passenger in a traffic stop. You know anyone can now carry a concealed weapon, so how are you going to approach the vehicle? The police I knew and worked with will do so with their gun in their hand. A police officer will be potentially dealing with a gun carrying citizen in any contact with members of the public. Can you blame them? I would pray that those citizens don’t make any move that a police officer would interpret as an act of reaching for a weapon, because you’d likely get a bullet or more for your movement.

Then, I consider having an armed public out there. How many hotheads will decide to handle their anger by pulling out and using their gun to settle disputes? Do you potentially want to die over a parking spot argument, or some other inane issue?

The hardcore Second Amendment believers want just what the Court may decide. They don’t believe in any laws “infringing” on their Second Amendment rights, most of them being of the Republican persuasion. Hopefully you know they’re lying right? They don’t want convicted violent felons to have guns, even if that felon has completed his/her sentence and paid “their debt to society.” Also, they don’t want those who are mentally ill from carrying guns either. After all, they are not in their right minds. Well, unrepentant felons don’t care about laws do they? If they want to they will go armed. As for the mentally ill, since they are not in their right minds they don’t know that they shouldn’t, or can’t, carrying a gun. Plus, if there is no licensing requirement, no one will put them on the radar to stop them from going around armed.

Do these type of laws guarantee our protection? No, they don’t. But, they can cause law-abiding citizens to refrain from unlawful activity. There are no absolute guarantees. Heck, the Boulder shooter was supposedly known to the FBI prior to him killing ten people. Yet, he was legally able to purchase the firearm he used to murder ten people.

I’m a gun owner and I support the Second Amendment. I just do support the belief that the Second Amendment prevents implementing reasonable gun laws, like concealed carry permits for instance.

You shouldn’t believe it either.

Until next time

White America Mental Illness?

Or, What the Hell is Wrong People?

I am mystified over the seeming illness of White people in our country since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. With much of America up in arms protesting police brutality and the systemic racism, there seems to be a number of white people who have lost their minds and done so in public.

We had Amy Cooper, a White woman, calling 911 on a Black man, Christian Cooper, who was out in Central Park bird watching, because Mr Cooper asked her to leash her dog (which is required in NYC). Somehow Amy Cooper felt threatened and called police. The police that respond to this heinous crime did nothing, explaining it was nothing more than a verbal dispute.

Now, we pop over to Auburn Hills, MI, to a Walmart parking lot. A Black women slapped the back of a vehicle that was backing up out of a parking space. This was done, allegedly, to keep the driver from continuing to back up, which would have hit her daughter. Of course this is where things really go downhill. The driver, a White woman, jumps out of her vehicle and confronts the Black woman and her family, brandishing a handgun that she was pointed at the Black Woman. What the hell? How does this white woman feel the use of a handgun is necessary? Apparently the White woman is yelling and screaming obscenities. Of course the police show up, at which time the White woman is taken in to custody (and later released).

Next we are in Montclair, NJ, where a White woman flips out. Susan Schulz, the White woman, who confronts her next door neighbor, a Black couple, by coming onto the neighbor’s property demanding to know if there was a permit, or if a permit was required, for the stone patio the couple were putting in. Her neighbors happened to be lawyers and were, apparently, not providing acceptable responses to this nut. So, nutty woman calls police and falsely claims that they had pushed her. While waiting for the cops, Susan tries to get White neighbors to back up what she said to police. Cops arrive, Susan gives them her story. Unfortunately for Susan, her White neighbors didn’t back up her story, instead supporting the Black couple’s explanation.

It seems White American, primarily women from what I’ve read, are somehow intimidated by Black Americans. They lose whatever common sense they have and publicly make asses of themselves. Is there something in the water? Is the air they are breathing tainted with a stupidity ingredient that makes them fall off sensibility mountain? I dunno folks, but it seems like to me that Whites are plain old idiots.

It’s not just against Black Americans people are “going off” on. There are many examples of White men and women going crazy over being required to wear a mask by business owners. These “patrons” make asses out of themselves with their yelling and screaming about their “rights”, which they are completely ignorant of when the US Constitution’s Amendments can be used. Maybe the government is seeding some whites only chemical in the air to cause white people to flip out.

Whatever it is making them climb up on the public hill of stupidity, it makes us regular White Americans just sigh and shake our heads at the lunacy. I don’t know, is there any way to resign as a White American? If so, where do I sign?

Until next time