You know when the only standard for a cop, and now individuals (stand your ground) is that a person or cop feels threatened, perceived or real; bad sh*t will happen. This truly is a recipe for disaster.
And these MAGA morons are even creating laws allowing white nationalists to run down protestors. I’m not sure they’ll hold up as constitu…
You know when the only standard for a cop, and now individuals (stand your ground) is that a person or cop feels threatened, perceived or real; bad sh*t will happen. This truly is a recipe for disaster.
And these MAGA morons are even creating laws allowing white nationalists to run down protestors. I’m not sure they’ll hold up as constitutional, but it just might, and then what? It’s licensed state murder. Apparently, every gun owner is the new 007; except lacking brains and any semblance of morality…:)
As for Alito, he and Thomas are in a class of their own; amongst a group of the most corrupt jurists ever to sit on the bench; and we’ve had KKK jurists in the past, which speaks volumes.
This country is truly going to hell in a hand basket….:)
Your line of thinking, with which I agree, is why I inserted the "I was triggered" reference as well. We see this more and more often in society, that people feel like if they are "triggered" by an action or an event, they have the right to pass the buck as they see fit, a convenient escape hatch for just about anything. It essentially becomes a self-empowering defense of "I can't accept this and don't want to deal with it, so you'll have to do it my way." It is a dangerous precedent and a slippery slope when we create a circumstance where there is no accountability as long as someone has strong feelings about something, with or without a gun. The guns just make the resolution that much more permanent.
I was raised in New Hampshire, where everyone always had a weapon, mostly for hunting, but more recently just because going out in the woods and firing of a few hundred rounds from an AR-15, “is a real blast” (pun intended). When I {barely} graduated from high school in the mid 1970’s I was all about doing the unexpected, so I joined the US Marine Corps, because I didn’t like anyone telling me what to do- one of many exhibitions of poor judgement that have colored my life experience. Anyway, it would likely come as no surprise that I became a gun owner whilst serving in the Corps. I had pistols, shotguns, rifles. I also had two young children and a wife. I rationalized the need for various weapons for, “Self-defense”, and brandished them like any other fool to show what a man I wasn’t and had occasion to threaten those I disliked by making sure they knew I had them. After leaving the Marine Corps I continued to be a raging fool, unconsciously waiting for a karmic experience to prove what a man I was. Luckily fate, as opposed to karma, intervened. A man from my town who had also enlisted in the Marines a couple of years after me was home on leave, got drunk and decided it would be a great idea to play a little game of Russian Roulette with a friend. He killed himself with the first pull of the trigger. My personal epiphany with regard to my friend, Chuck’s fate was to realize the simplest fact, that being the likelihood of shooting someone who made me feel threatened was a thousand times less likely than my killing my self or someone I loved through stupidity, intoxication, rage, or even by accident. I discarded all of my weapons and have consistently told those friends and acquaintances when discussing guns in general that I believe they have Every right to own them, and I have every right to disassociate myself from them when they choose to carry them. I just don’t trust anyone who’s carrying a gun to always act rationally whilst doing so
OMG, Timothy. What a story! Was Chuck, your friend, the man who shot himself? If so, what a heartbreak for you.
And what guts you have to admit you were motivated by proving what a man you were. To whom were you proving that? Yourself or somebody else? Recognizing not liking anyone telling you what to do was poor judgement is superior character as well. You're talking about a different level of manhood - judgement and character, not the ability to violate another human being.
Thanks for speaking out and I hope you are doing so throughout NH. God bess you!
I wrote a long reply and deleted it inadvertently - I think
Sure, I knew Chuck. My graduated class was little more than 100 from a 4 town regional school district! So everyone knew everyone and Chuck was a guy I knew most of my life. And there were a lot of kids in small town NH that never saw 18 through drugs, booze, car wrecks and guns. And many more who were lost to Vietnam.
I don’t think that much has changed in my lifetime. Different Drug epidemics, more gun violence & accidents, safer car wrecks but plenty of American carnage to go around.
Regarding who I wanted to prove what a man I was? Me & everybody else too! And I think that reason rings true today. Lots and lots of insecure young men, perhaps more alienated & alone but insecure nonetheless that feel powerful with a killing instrument in their hands.
Thanks and good evening or good morning as the case may be when you read this.
Thanks for your reply. (It's morning now.) As a retired social science teacher (history, geography, government, etc.), I want to know why there are so many insecure young men. Is it because the economy has changed so drastically that high school graduates can no longer get good-paying manufacturing jobs. Is it because relationships between men and women have so drastically changed that men without a good income are not good marriage material and women have the option now of not marrying or marrying later in life?
You know when the only standard for a cop, and now individuals (stand your ground) is that a person or cop feels threatened, perceived or real; bad sh*t will happen. This truly is a recipe for disaster.
And these MAGA morons are even creating laws allowing white nationalists to run down protestors. I’m not sure they’ll hold up as constitutional, but it just might, and then what? It’s licensed state murder. Apparently, every gun owner is the new 007; except lacking brains and any semblance of morality…:)
As for Alito, he and Thomas are in a class of their own; amongst a group of the most corrupt jurists ever to sit on the bench; and we’ve had KKK jurists in the past, which speaks volumes.
This country is truly going to hell in a hand basket….:)
Your line of thinking, with which I agree, is why I inserted the "I was triggered" reference as well. We see this more and more often in society, that people feel like if they are "triggered" by an action or an event, they have the right to pass the buck as they see fit, a convenient escape hatch for just about anything. It essentially becomes a self-empowering defense of "I can't accept this and don't want to deal with it, so you'll have to do it my way." It is a dangerous precedent and a slippery slope when we create a circumstance where there is no accountability as long as someone has strong feelings about something, with or without a gun. The guns just make the resolution that much more permanent.
I was raised in New Hampshire, where everyone always had a weapon, mostly for hunting, but more recently just because going out in the woods and firing of a few hundred rounds from an AR-15, “is a real blast” (pun intended). When I {barely} graduated from high school in the mid 1970’s I was all about doing the unexpected, so I joined the US Marine Corps, because I didn’t like anyone telling me what to do- one of many exhibitions of poor judgement that have colored my life experience. Anyway, it would likely come as no surprise that I became a gun owner whilst serving in the Corps. I had pistols, shotguns, rifles. I also had two young children and a wife. I rationalized the need for various weapons for, “Self-defense”, and brandished them like any other fool to show what a man I wasn’t and had occasion to threaten those I disliked by making sure they knew I had them. After leaving the Marine Corps I continued to be a raging fool, unconsciously waiting for a karmic experience to prove what a man I was. Luckily fate, as opposed to karma, intervened. A man from my town who had also enlisted in the Marines a couple of years after me was home on leave, got drunk and decided it would be a great idea to play a little game of Russian Roulette with a friend. He killed himself with the first pull of the trigger. My personal epiphany with regard to my friend, Chuck’s fate was to realize the simplest fact, that being the likelihood of shooting someone who made me feel threatened was a thousand times less likely than my killing my self or someone I loved through stupidity, intoxication, rage, or even by accident. I discarded all of my weapons and have consistently told those friends and acquaintances when discussing guns in general that I believe they have Every right to own them, and I have every right to disassociate myself from them when they choose to carry them. I just don’t trust anyone who’s carrying a gun to always act rationally whilst doing so
OMG, Timothy. What a story! Was Chuck, your friend, the man who shot himself? If so, what a heartbreak for you.
And what guts you have to admit you were motivated by proving what a man you were. To whom were you proving that? Yourself or somebody else? Recognizing not liking anyone telling you what to do was poor judgement is superior character as well. You're talking about a different level of manhood - judgement and character, not the ability to violate another human being.
Thanks for speaking out and I hope you are doing so throughout NH. God bess you!
I wrote a long reply and deleted it inadvertently - I think
Sure, I knew Chuck. My graduated class was little more than 100 from a 4 town regional school district! So everyone knew everyone and Chuck was a guy I knew most of my life. And there were a lot of kids in small town NH that never saw 18 through drugs, booze, car wrecks and guns. And many more who were lost to Vietnam.
I don’t think that much has changed in my lifetime. Different Drug epidemics, more gun violence & accidents, safer car wrecks but plenty of American carnage to go around.
Regarding who I wanted to prove what a man I was? Me & everybody else too! And I think that reason rings true today. Lots and lots of insecure young men, perhaps more alienated & alone but insecure nonetheless that feel powerful with a killing instrument in their hands.
Thanks and good evening or good morning as the case may be when you read this.
Thanks for your reply. (It's morning now.) As a retired social science teacher (history, geography, government, etc.), I want to know why there are so many insecure young men. Is it because the economy has changed so drastically that high school graduates can no longer get good-paying manufacturing jobs. Is it because relationships between men and women have so drastically changed that men without a good income are not good marriage material and women have the option now of not marrying or marrying later in life?
Need bumper stickers: "I'm scared as shit and heavily armed!"
Love this!
I get it, and agree. Another excellent post as usual Deutschmeister…:)