Transcript:
But we have to take steps to harden our schools so that they are less vulnerable to attack. This includes allowing well-trained and certified school personnel to carry concealed firearms. At some point, you need volume. I don’t know that a school is going to be able to hire a hundred security guards that are armed. Plus, you know, I got to watch some deputy sheriffs performing this week. And they weren’t exactly Medal of Honor winners. All right?And I think most of the people in this room would have done that, too, because I know most of you.... The delusion that the people you've met are the good people. The disgusting — deplorable — people are farther away.
The way they performed was, frankly, disgusting. They were listening to what was going on. The one in particular, he was then — he was early. And then you had three others that probably a similar deal a little bit later, but a similar kind of a thing.
You know, I really believe — you don’t know until you test it — but I really believe I’d run in there, even if I didn’t had a weapon. And I think most of the people in this room would have done that, too, because I know most of you. But the way they performed was really a disgrace.
When other people do something disgusting, you should wonder whether, in the same situation, you'd have been disgusting too.
But he's serving up high hopes of solutions that could work, and like his dream of how he'd run into a stream of bullets for the kids, these solutions are happening now in the realm of the imaginary. You see yourself running toward danger, and you see the "well-trained and certified school personnel" with their concealed firearms "harden[ing] our schools." What fine, brave, competent personnel they are! But they'll be school district employees, just human beings beset by the complicated, unpredictable failings that cause real life to play out in a manner so different from dreams.
That's "Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening." That title was a clue in today's NYT crossword. The answer is Salvador Dali:
In this "hand-painted dream photograph", as Dalí generally called his paintings, there is a seascape of distant horizons and calm waters, perhaps Port Lligat, amidst which [his wife] Gala is the subject of the scene.... In the upper left of the painting what seems to be a Yelloweye rockfish bursts out of the pomegranate, and in turn spews out a tiger that then spews out another tiger and a rifle with a bayonet that is about to sting Gala in the arm. Above them is Dalí's first use of an elephant with long flamingo legs....An elephant with long flamingo legs. That could be the new symbol of the Republican Party, the Republican Party that dreams.
In 1962, Dalí said this painting was intended "to express for the first time in images Freud's discovery of the typical dream with a lengthy narrative, the consequence of the instantaneousness of a chance event which causes the sleeper to wake up. Thus, as a bar might fall on the neck of a sleeping person, causing them to wake up and for a long dream to end with the guillotine blade falling on them, the noise of the bee here provokes the sensation of the sting which will awaken Gala."
Detail from "The Temptation of Saint Anthony" by Salvador Dali.
Dreams! They're not just for Democrats anymore.
Posts
150 comments:
The I have a dream speech didn't work out really well either. It was made PC and modified into white hatred.
Conservatives are Dreamers too.
"the Republican Party that dreams." Let the truth be known: we are Dreamers.
Wet dreams don't work out either.
Those are elongated donkey legs. That makes it a symbol of Chuck's UniParty.
At least we aren't talking about that real coward in FL who failed in his real duties. I'm wondering what he's dreaming of now?
As to Dai, his "Average Bureaucrat" is appropriate if you get around to a policy dream. It's in the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida - on the other coast.
http://thedali.org
I'm dreaming that Broward County Sherriff Steve Israel is fired for pure incompetence and gross negligence.
So start, the sheriff of Broward county needs to be FIRED.
Everyone in law enforcement who dropped the ball with the 39 visits to crazy town needs to be fired.
How about we start there.
How can you argue with dreams?
Amazing communications.
Red meat to gun owners.
Poison to anti gun activists.
Are you imagining that Trump was dreaming or used the word "dream(s)"?
What if the presiden’t goal is to set the standard that we expect people to be brave and to run into a hail of bullets? That it is shameful to fail?
This does work.
Think of those thousands of teenage boys who stormed the beaches at Normandy. The expectation of that era was that they were bound by duty to do that. They knew they were likely to die.
The Vietnam anti-war movement changed that expectation, didn’t it?
In MY very best dreams I am pretty disgusting. And everyone else with me is disgusting.
I guess this is where PDJT and I differ.
That was inevitable, I guess.
Ask the guys on the flight that crashed in PA on 9/11 if they were brave enough to do the right thing.
Those police officers ARE a disgrace. If Trump wants to imagine that good and normal people would brave bullets for their children, I think they would too.
Democrat love teets, Hillary, sitting down on the job, cheating, loathing and lying.
One huge difference between Feis and Peterson is that Feis did not have time to think and Peterson did.
Peterson has stated through his lawyer that he thought the gun shots were coming from outside. "Broward Sheriff's Office had trained him to seek cover and assess the situation in the event of outdoor gunfire, his lawyer said."
There is a great late Victorian literature on courage. Kipling, Crane, Conrad. Crane's Red Badge of Courage is a deep dive. You can prepare for being shot at, but you have no idea whether you will be courageous or not. You can will yourself to be brave, but your will may break or simply vanish. You may be a coward in one fight and a hero in another. Whether you are a coward or hero depends a lot on the actions of the people around you.
In Lord Jim, Jim's initial act of cowardice is something he simply can't explain. One moment he is on the damaged ship full of helpless passengers; the next he is in the water. Nothing about his training, conscience, will, or intelligence can explain himself to himself.
Crane's Henry Fleming and Conrad's Jim are given a gift by their creators -- a scenario for redemption.
There was another beautiful dream called the Promise Program.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-did-parkland-shooter-slip-through-cracks-15741.html
Our President dreams of people, including himself, being brave and doing the courageous and right thing. This is not a bad thing for the leader of our country.
Trump himself, whether or not he would actually run into a hail of bullets, has courage and is brave.
Back in 1991, Trump intervened in a mugging in NYC. He and Marla were in his limo, driving down the 9th Ave near 45th St, when he spotted a man being beaten by another man wielding a baseball bat. He ordered his driver to stop, jumped out of the limo, and either exchanged words with the attacker and told him to scram or immediately scared him off without saying anything (witness accounts differ). But the gist of it is, he intervened in a mugging and possibly saved a dude's life. No word on whether he was armed or had a bodyguard waiting in the limo, but the only one who got out was Trump and he did the noble and right thing.
Maybe he would have run into the school. Who can begin to prove otherwise?
Althouse Lefties would have shit on the sidewalk. Which they do anyway.
In a crisis, you dont know what someone is going to do until he does, or doesn't. If he's had experience with previous crises he's more likely to perform.
People will also tend to do as they are socialized. If kids are encouraged to be brave and self-sacrificing, to overcome fear, then they are more likely to do this as adults.
Children in this society, on the whole, are trained to be cowardly. Its all about safety, which is understandable, no parent wants their kid harmed in some misadventure. They (especially in the upper-middle class) are too often over-supervised, discouraged from dangerous messing around, or prevented from brutal games. But there are population-level consequences. Everyone is less brave, less willing to risk, and this is a loss especially in this highly influential segment of the population.
Maybe every society needs to accept a certain casualty rate in order to remain vital.
Of course you never hear in the MSM about all the times the good guys HAVE charged the shooter because it doesn’t fit the narrative that we are all sniveling little proles who are not to be trusted to take care of ourselves and our loved ones or those under our care. The narrative tells us that only the state can care for us and that agents of the state will protect us. Yeah right…
Time for a dive into the ‘evil’ gun culture out there amongst the deplorables Ann, you may find it interesting.
When seconds matter, the police are minutes away. And when they get there, they'll stand outside and watch.
I know there are some in the room with Trump who would not run into gunfire. But I believe there are also some teachers who would.
As a society, we should arm all who would dare perform such acts on our behalf. We should give them every chance to exit the encounters alive.
When democrats makes mistakes, it's someone elses fault.
Where's that photo of Sheriff Israel, the incompetent loser with Hillary? They deserve each other.
buwaya,
"In a crisis, you dont know what someone is going to do until he does, or doesn't. If he's had experience with previous crises he's more likely to perform."
Experience, and training also helps. But the Democrats act as if there is no point in giving some teachers the option. Of course, the same applies to teaching people first aid, or how to deal with grease fires in the kitchen. Some people will do great, some will panic and not perform properly/freeze. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't teach people first aid and how to use a fire extinguisher.
An additional comment. It is established law that the cops have no legal requirement to protect people. A cop I once spoke with told me their job is to ‘tag ‘em and bag ‘em,” not run into the line of fire to protect the citizenry. It say something that many of them are brave enough to do so anyway, but the Supreme Court has ruled many times it is not their dutry.
Yeah, that totally irritated me too. Problem is, that's what we are all thinking. In a way, that's why it irritated me so much.
Broward County, schools and police, have some real blame in this matter, because the totality of their presumably well-intended decisions created the situation that allowed this half-demented and increasingly violent kid who grew into a mass-murdering young man to continue on without meaningful intervention, and never created the record that would have prevented him from legally buying a gun. The final failure was just the final failure.
Nonetheless, it is a failure and a very immediate and disastrous one.
It is apparently rather easy to buy an illegal weapon. So one can't say that nothing would have happened if they had performed better earlier - but at least we would now be operating from a higher level of confidence that laws we pass might at least do something. Right now I don't believe that they do do anything.
In the end we are all stuck with the necessity of thinking about this, and while every single judgment that each of us may make about any single step in the long series of official failures may be countered with some justice as being too superficial, the truth is that no regulatory scheme can possibly work with institutional failures so extreme and so pervasive. So we are doomed to be unhappy and uncomfortable ponderers, and Trump is doing that in public. My anger is probably because he's making me turn my mind back to an objectively horrifying and disturbing situation in which I feel powerless, which makes me want to ignore it.
The truth is that this kid did this with a weapon because he could easily obtain one, but if he had this rage in his heart, he could have rented or stolen a car and run amok with it through a crowd of students. Here the failures of the FBI came into play.
Everybody warned everybody official, and none of the officials properly evaluated the situation. This doesn't give me any confidence that banning guns is the solution. You can kill so many people with a 45 or a shotgun - probably more then he did. So then we'll ban shotguns and pistols. Then the SUVs will be used (or a rental van), and then we'll control those. Then the sick fantasies will turn to a few cans of accelerant and a Bic lighter.
When will it end? When we are all pedaling around on bikes and someone can get a 10 year term for possession of a Bic lighter? The path we are collectively on is idiotic and doomed to fail.
Trump's great strength is that he does not run away from reality like most people do. That may make us very uncomfortable, but in practice trying to deal with problems instead of trying to pretend they don't exist creates much better outcomes.
So in the end I work myself back to the position I found myself in before the election - Trump sets my teeth on edge, but maybe he's a better, more resolute, more honest person than I am.
We had all better get the logs out of our own eyes before we start clamoring for Trump to remove the specks from his.
But we have to take steps to harden our schools so that they are less vulnerable to attack. This includes allowing well-trained and certified school personnel to carry concealed firearms. At some point, you need volume. I don’t know that a school is going to be able to hire a hundred security guards that are armed.
Trump recognizing the prohibitive cost factor across all schools to insert dedicated security.
Plus, you know, I got to watch some deputy sheriffs performing this week. And they weren’t exactly Medal of Honor winners. All right? ...The way they performed was, frankly, disgusting. They were listening to what was going on. The one in particular, he was then — he was early. And then you had three others that probably a similar deal a little bit later, but a similar kind of a thing.
Trump is talking about the law enforcement who it is argued should be the only ones entrusted with guns.
You know, I really believe — you don’t know until you test it — but I really believe I’d run in there, even if I didn’t had a weapon. And I think most of the people in this room would have done that, too, because I know most of you. But the way they performed was really a disgrace.
Trump is saying that most people, if armed like those police, would have almost certainly went in. Trump emphasizes by use of comparison that, even if unarmed, the best of all us would have done something to respond, but who knows until you're truly tested. Trump recognizes human foible there.
But he's serving up high hopes of solutions that could work, and like his dream of how he'd run into a stream of bullets for the kids, these solutions are happening now in the realm of the imaginary. You see yourself running toward danger, and you see the "well-trained and certified school personnel" with their concealed firearms "harden[ing] our schools."
No he's not. He's not talking "solutions", but a layered approach of resistance and deterrence. And he's not talking about running into streams of bullets. Who is dreaming?
What fine, brave, competent personnel they are! But they'll be school district employees, just human beings beset by the complicated, unpredictable failings that cause real life to play out in a manner so different from dreams.
Trump is simply recognizing that such school personnel would be responding with survival instincts because they would be living, breathing targets rather than rescuers.
Althouse is not even recognizing the deterrence effect of this method.
With all due respect, you are a woman and you wouldn't be expected to respond in this way.
As a man, I am. It is my position in society to protect. I gave a vow to 'love and protect' my wife. I am personally responsible for the safety and wellbeing of my employees.
I haven't faced a shooter, but I have faced down people who were out of control intent on doing harm.
I'm quite impressed with Trump. He is calling on people to act for the good of others. To put their own safety at risk to protect others. Men get this. It is in our DNA.
It would probably do a great deal of good (not for this particular sort of crisis, really, but for psychological health and physical fitness), to give all children training in combat sports, boxing, wrestling, whatever martial art is culturally desirable, and weapons.
All, not some subset of physically superior or the self-selected.
The underlying problem is the destruction of our society. All the discussions about arming teachers and the failure of FBI/Sheriff/School system/social system, while important, are just treating the symptoms. Very little discussion on how to address the disease that causes the symptoms. Because any sane approach to that would not be PC.
Tank @ 8:22 AM - You are right! Trump does have intellectual, analytical and emotional courage that many of us lack, and that our public/media/political culture has utterly abandoned.
So many of us don't like him because in some ways he is a better person than we are. He's willing to tread on territory we avoid because we don't have the basic guts or decency to venture there.
As for running into streams of bullets, consider - a hundred years ago the Great War was going on, and it was a matter of routine for great masses of men, great proportions of European populations, to run, deliberately, on command, and often after long contemplation of the prospect, into streams of bullets.
EDH @ 8:38 AM - very fine comment. I agree that Trump is doing the opposite of what Ann's post would imply. Instead of dreaming, Trump is engaging with a highly unpleasant reality and trying to push the discussion toward some sorts of realism.
If it makes us uncomfortable, we are in the wrong, not he.
Comparisons are odious.
I was looking for the author of that quote and found this one instead:
When one hears about acts of extraordinary bravery in combat, it is usually a sign that the battle has not been going terribly well. For when wars unfold according to plan and one’s own side is winning, acts of exceptional individual heroism are rarely called for. Bravery is required mostly by the desperate side. -- Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages by Guy Deutscher
In pithier form, Eric Hoffer wrote: The ignorant are a reservoir of daring.
I am at an Adventist school this morning for a volleyball tournament my granddaughter's school is playing.
There is a perimeter fence with gate but the gate was not locked.
I've never been here before so found the office to ask directions. They just pointed me down the hall
In other words, less security than a Walmart.
Grandkids Adventist school is a bit but not much better.
It got me thinking, why do we never hear of shootings at private schools?
John Henry
My deep tendon reflexes are fine. I've done the right thing in a couple of perilous situations. I've also had time to mull over the consequences and acted in accordance with self preservation. I'm not sure what went through Scott Peterson's mind. Maybe he made an error in evaluating the situation or maybe he acted in a craven way. I think it's unseemly for the President to judge him out of hand. More facts need to be known......I do agree with the President about arming teachers. It couldn't hurt, and there might be occasions where they might save the day. Teachers have their flaws. They sometimes sleep with their students and, more disturbingly, most of them voted for Hillary, but they don't shoot up schools and the record shows that they have acted with courage and honor when someone does.
"And I think most of the people in this room would have done that, too, because I know most of you...."
So - immediately after saying something self-aggrandizing, Trump softens the bragging by projecting his own imagined behavior onto them. "I would have been braver than those duds in Florida - and so would most of you!"
Facts not in evidence. As buwaya says nobody knows how they would react in crisis. I can easily imagine a mother or father with a child inside the building rushing in; a random stranger with no ties to anybody in there would probably less likely to risk his or her life. You can never tell. There are many stories about the unlikeliest people being brave.
But we do trust law enforcement officers to be brave and protect us; just as we expect firefighters to run into a burning building rather than standing outside watching the fire. The basic, obvious question is: if they won't protect you, why should we give up our means of protecting ourselves?
"Think of those thousands of teenage boys who stormed the beaches at Normandy. The expectation of that era was that they were bound by duty to do that. They knew they were likely to die.
"The Vietnam anti-war movement changed that expectation, didn’t it?"
In WWII,we had been attacked by Japan and Germany had declared war against us. We were fighting a war against several nations allied with each other to assert their power over significant portions of the world.
In Vietnam, we were intruders in a land that threatened no one, (least of all us),where we had no business being and no valid purpose, our basis for sending troops a lie, (Gulf of Tonkin incident)...sort of like all the wars we're in now.
The expectation should be, "Fight NO wars that are not absolutely necessary."
As for running into streams of bullets, consider - a hundred years ago the Great War was going on, and it was a matter of routine for great masses of men, great proportions of European populations, to run, deliberately, on command, and often after long contemplation of the prospect, into streams of bullets.
And what's your point. Are we supposed to think that they were braver than modern men? That was not bravery, that was foolishness. And that foolishness destroyed three Empires (German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian) and mortally wounded two others (French and British).
This doesn't look like a man who would run into a hail of bullets
Trump is really showing his ass to make such a grandiose, self-serving statement and expect people to believe him. People who believe he would have (or even that he believes his own lie) show they have no brains.
Shouting Thomas
A lot of those men storming the beaches in Normandy (mostly draftees, btw) were doing it less for their country and more out of fear of letting their squad mates down.
Ditto Vietnam (smaller percentage of draftees, though)
Which is sort of the same thing you are saying about shame.
John Henry
Althouse ignores the fact that we know from history that very many people will act bravely. We know training works too. She has forgotten the 911 fireman as just one example.
"As for running into streams of bullets, consider - a hundred years ago the Great War was going on, and it was a matter of routine for great masses of men, great proportions of European populations, to run, deliberately, on command, and often after long contemplation of the prospect, into streams of bullets."
More likely they were ordered to do so under threat of being shot if they did not.
I read Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose. In that book, he made the point that those boys who stormed the beaches at Normandy became increasingly more risk adverse as the war went on. Watching friends get shot up or blown to pieces has that effect on the psyche. Courage is not a universal constant.
At the risk of thread jacking let me elaborate on vn.
There were some troops who refused to take part in what they saw as senseless battles.
National shame was not enough
Once in battle, those same troops were pretty heroic in fighting for their squad mates.
John Henry
And there were large mutinies in the French and Russian Armies in World War I that prevented any kind of offensive operations by the French in 1917 and revolution and surrender in Russia.
Cook,
You also had "tunnel rats" in vn who went into booby trapped tunnels day after day.
Worst punishment they could have gotten for refusal would have been a couple years in portsmouth or Leavenworth.
I doubt I could or would have done it. I joined the navy so I wouldn't have to.
I occasionally felt a tinge of cowardice/shame about that.
John Henry
Often bravery is foolishness. Foolish or misapplied bravery is still bravery. That Chinese fellow who made a Youtube career of taking absurd risks while climbing tall buidings certainly could have been advised to find a safer line of work. But he was brave anyway.
Sometimes it is a value judgement that you dont agree with.
Or an attitude toward the self that is not modern.
Gala is ripped.
A lot of those men storming the beaches in Normandy (mostly draftees, btw) were doing it less for their country and more out of fear of letting their squad mates down.
This is the concept that is so threatened by female soldiers and even by gay soldiers, that they will erode the comradeship of military organizations.
Then there are exceptions like Harrison Summers.
Summers led the attack, charging inside with his Thompson submachine gun. He had ordered the others to follow, however only Private William Burt and Private John Camien followed him while the other soldiers stayed behind.[3] He and the two others cleared out the buildings. Five hours later, the position was clear, and Summers killed more than 30 German soldiers.[
He did NOT get the Medal of Honor.
"Courage is not fearlessness, courage is acting in spite of your fears." Author Unknown (to me).
-sw
Freder,
But those mutinies happened after years of massive losses.
A great proportion of the bravest, especially in the French and Russian armies, had been killed or maimed by then. There are limits.
My point is that this sort of bravery can be trained and socialized, not just into a few exceptional men, but into great masses.
Stalin supposedly said that it would take a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army.
...and then you have this, someone claiming that allowing weapons to school personnel will result in willy-nilly shooting of black students.
https://www.npr.org/2018/02/27/589062004/critics-say-arming-teachers-will-create-new-dangers
My point is that this sort of bravery can be trained and socialized
And my point is that this sort of foolish bravery is destructive to society and ultimately leads to the demise of those societies when those brave soldiers realize that they are the tools of a cynical and uncaring ruling class.
Individual bravery and heroism are inspiring, but it's problematic to assume they can by themselves be converted into general policies to protect school children. Whether successful or not or whether brave or not, police confronting this kind of crisis can't just rely on the spontaneous courage of individual officers. It's a cooperative effort requiring command, co-ordination and communication in a scary and confused situation and it requires both individual and group training. That's the big question about general calls to arm teachers. Imagine a big school with ten armed teachers is invaded. Who is going to command them, coordinate them, etc? Do they stay in the classroom and lie in wait or leave to confront and maybe save other children while leaving their own alone? Chase the perp running to another floor or hold their posts? Wait for orders or take the initiative? Ignore threats to other teachers or try to protect them? Surely those aren't questions that can be just left to the discretion of individual heroes.
High Noon was a wonderfully inspiring movie about individual bravery, but it worked in large part because Gary Cooper didn't have to worry about what all the townspeople trying kill the bad guys too were doing.
Again, I'm sorry.
But going into the building IS THE JOB.
Otherwise, go to work at the DMV.
DCP
I have only been "under fire" once (Sept 21, 1983).
The Presidential guard fired on an unarmed crowd, killing, I think, according to later reports, about fifteen. I was near the front ranks of the crowd filling the street, at the edge, my back to a building.
It was an interesting experience. I wasn't there for any particular purpose, simply curiosity, with my camera. I stayed there, very foolishly of course, in the line of fire, for some time after I realized that shooting had commenced, trying to take pictures. But though I recall trying to wind and focus and do it, I only managed to take one recognizable shot (the barriers before the Presidential palace), and its clear that I was trembling uncontrollably as thats what appears on that one shot. I must have been trembling too hard to properly work my very familiar though rather fiddly equipment.
If my purpose had been to fight (not at all my purpose or state of mind beforehand or during the episode), I probably would have carried on doing what I was already doing, though certainly not with any efficiency or tactical reasoning.
The psychological issues of the situation and the mode of response matter a lot more than armament I think. An armed but paralyzed teacher, or one thats trembling too hard to hit anything even point-blank, or perhaps unable to release the safety, would not be more useful than an unarmed aggressive one.
Freder,
You see this sort of bravery used for all sorts of reasons, good or bad. The ability to create and use technology can be turned to evil purposes also. But its better to have it than not.
Gala had it goin' on -- too bad she didn't have it much for Dali.
It's so nice to see Dali back where he belongs.
Whats between the ears matters much more than whats in the holster. And that bit of mind is not what we think of as intellect.
"But those mutinies happened after years of massive losses. "
The leadership on the Allied side in WWI was appalling,.
Churchill tried to do an end run in the Dardanelles but was blocked by the cowardice of the Royal Navy which did not want risk its ships to Turkish mines. Had they blasted through with the loss of a couple of ships, the world might be quite a different place,
I have no idea what Pres. Trump would do if he were faced with an extreme life-or-death situation, but then I suspect most of us can't know what we would do either. At least not until/unless we're actually confronted with such a situation.
Nonetheless, the job of an armed guard is not to protect himself first. Furthermore, no one gets "volunteered" for such positions; all are volunteers. Although armed "resource officer" duty may mostly consist almost entirely of just hanging around and occasionally breaking up a loud argument or shoving match before things get out of hand, there's a reason why these deputies carry arms. And while no one expects deputies to just throw their lives away for nothing, we do expect an armed guard to at least enter the premises and look for opportunities to end a massacre in progress. Even if that's riskier than remaining outside.
We seem to have gone a bit wobbly on concepts such as honor, shame and cowardness; nonetheless, I'd guess there are very few who do not see the deputy's behavior as despicable.
"This is the concept that is so threatened by female soldiers and even by gay soldiers, that they will erode the comradeship of military organizations."
Why can't straight male soldiers feel that women and gay men are their comrades?
I believe they can, and I think you're wrong.
exiledonmainstreet: Facts not in evidence. As buwaya says nobody knows how they would react in crisis.
As Buwaya says? Trump said that, you know. "[Y]ou don’t know until you test it".
I hope the democrats keep pushing their heroes like Israel and their little tyrant tool Hogg all of the way through 2018.
The position that Only the police should have guns is looking like a total winner right now.
I am waiting for someone to stand up to that little piece of shit student who thinks he is a hero now. His book in 10 years about how he feels used by the leftists and media will be wonderful I am sure.
Robert Cook said...
“Why can't straight male soldiers feel that women and gay men are their comrades?”
We can. If they do their job.
The problem is most of them can’t hack it. At this point most millenials can’t hack it.
But the problem is standards are being and are always lowered for women and gay people. Special exemptions are always made for them. Shared misery is part of the binding glue of an effective military unit. Taking that away reduces readiness.
But the leftists hate this country and want it to lose so that’s that.
It is a mistaken expectation that "sanity" or common sense is a dominant trait in the educational field esp. public school educrats (not teachers) in blue states
Through that comment, whether it be from cleverness or mere verbal/mental flatus, Trump again draws the mind (and the media/twitterverse, for days) to the image of running toward/into a school where an active shooter is wreaking havoc...
and reminds EVERYONE exactly who failed to do so last week, and thus why the "We need to let the cops have all the guns for our own safety" rationale in the current debate is flawed.
Well done. Again!
This is the "Lucy and the football" presidency if ever there was one.
ps the I have a dream speech didn't work out because, as is obvious, MLK lost the debate; Malcolm X won. Looked at that way, much about current attitudes and conditions is explained satisfactorily.
Well as it turns out Trump has a history here.
http://donsurber.blogspot.com/2018/02/trump-would-have-stopped-shooter.html?m=1
He did intervene, even unarmed.
There were students escaping the building who saw the security guard hiding outside. Are we to believe everyone else knew what was going on but him? I expect his lawyer to find a plausable excuse for his failure to act, but I don't believe it.
Regarding Trump's statement about running into the building, that's an example of him expressing his emotions rhetorically, not him making a crafted policy statement. It wasn't meant to be picked apart or taken literally. He was saying that in any dangerous situation there are those who rise to the occasion despite the personal risks, and those who don't. He sees himself and other leaders in the room as people who would act. Probably true. Also, his instincts about "no gun zones" making schools less safe against sociopathic killers is probably correct, imo. Those cowardly maniacs might not even think about shooting up a school if they knew there were armed people waiting for them, not just pretend cops.
People who are focused on using these tragedies to get rid of all guns and/or the second amendment don't want any practical discussion about making the schools less easy targets. People with an anti gun agenda don't want an examination of how the bureaucracy, the mental health services and the background checks are failing. This idea of having armed personel in schools or having better mental health services were never suggested by Obama, not because they wouldn't work but because of his politics. Under Trump we're going to see a lot of options discussed.
"Why can't straight male soldiers feel that women and gay men are their comrades?"
I think they call it human nature but that has been repealed by the left.
Any woman who could meet the unalloyed standards of the military would be OK. Israel has successfully used them but, I understand, their use in front line combat has been curtailed.
There are ways for a leader to inspire people to be their best selves. Idle and habitual bragging, belittling personal insults to all who disagree with you, public shaming of those whom it's most politically convenient to blame, scapegoating of whatever group your followers have set their sights on lately. Those are not on the list. Everything in Trump's past--as a businessman, as a candidate, as a husband, as a public figure, suggests that he's extraordinarily selfish, interested only in escaping with the maximum profit and praise to himself and making sure that all blame goes to others.
As for the comically absurd idea that "having better mental health services" was "never suggested by Obama," this is true only in the highly limited sense that it wasn't his first response to mass shootings. Check Obama's budgets--and those of most liberal state and local politicians--against their Republican opponents and see who supports "better mental health services." The only time that conservative commentators get excited about mental health services is when they're a distraction from legislation to limit access to guns.
And the arming of teachers is not a comically absurd, but a tragically absurd idea. The idea that most school shooters are "cowardly maniacs" is half right. They're murderous maniacs, for sure, but the majority have been eager to go out in a blaze of glory themselves. Neither evidence nor intuition suggests that they would be deterred by the idea that their gunfire would be answered. None of us knows what the future would hold in a world of heavily or strategically armed school zones. My own hunch is that there would be many more shootings, some of which would be cut short as the advocates of armed teachers imagine--by the teachers (or guards, or whoever) taking out the shooter after he has killed some people but before he has killed as many as he otherwise might. But more often, I would guess, the guns would either prove irrelevant--because the violence unfolds rapidly and some place that the armed teacher can't or doesn't get to or because of the fear of collateral damage--or the extra guns would make things worse, creating collateral damage, adding to the confusion on the part of police about where gunfire was coming from, who was a perpetrator and who wasn't. Also, if there are tens of thousands of guns in tens of thousands of schools, some of them will inevitably be improperly secured as they so often are in private homes. Schools are not military bases, and we don't want them to be.
Trump has a history, he has rushed to save someone before. There is a newspaper article from 1991 when he stopped his limousine to interfere when he saw a man being beaten by a man with a baseball bat. Anyone on facebook has to be averting their eyes to have NOT seen that newspaper picture.
He is speaking from experience, he probably would have rushed in.
Schools are not military bases, and we don't want them to be.
Actually, military bases are generally gun free zones. Private firearms are not allowed in the barracks (they must be kept in the armory) and in family housing all firearms are registered (and you may have to be an NCO or above to even keep one in family housing), weapons and ammunition is secured and accounted for, and concealed carry is prohibited.
There is a newspaper article from 1991 when he stopped his limousine to interfere when he saw a man being beaten by a man with a baseball bat.
Trump also has a history of planting false stories about himself in the paper. If you read the article it sounds like a silly fantasy that he made up.
"Idle and habitual bragging, belittling personal insults to all who disagree with you, public shaming of those whom it's most politically convenient to blame, scapegoating of whatever group your followers have set their sights on lately. Those are not on the list."
George Patton - all the above. Napoleon Bonaparte - all the above. The Duke of Wellington - some of the above, often enough.
Etc.
"As for the comically absurd idea that "having better mental health services" was "never suggested by Obama,"
The problem in such cases is not "services" as such, but the ability and willingness to commit dangerous persons. Or deal with them at all. San Francisco is overrun with mental patients who cannot take care of themselves, on which the City, State and Feds spend immense sums. Its pretty damned expensive running an open-air asylum.
I don't know about Obama's budgets and I doubt that twhp has actual research, if so please cite sources, but I do recall Obama making a statement that he didn't think that mental health services would ever be able to stop killings, essentially he was saying that people the only way to prevent the carnage would be to remove the guns. (Not that Google's algorithms will pull that up at this point -- I looked and can't find it today) Obama made great inspiring speeches, he even used the opportunity to promote his Affordable Care Act for providing for more access to mental health services (for those who have mental health providers). see: June 03, 2013 Remarks by the President at National Conference on Mental Health but what did he actually accomplish except for making this a political issue? see: "At a news conference Thursday afternoon on the community college shooting at Umpqua Community College in Umpqua, Oregon, President Obama said gun control is 'something we should politicize.' "
FYI the psychopaths I can recall did not go out in a blaze of glory, they meekly surrendered when approached by police.
"Actually, military bases are generally gun free zones"
Yes, that made Major Hassan's rampage much easier.
There had been repeated warnings about him but the rule was the same as at Coward County,
"Don't make a wave."
It's also damned expensive to run closed asylums, at least to run them in any way that meets even minimum standards of humanity. And do you really think that school shootings would be lessened by rounding up the homeless of San Francisco or any other city and putting them away somewhere? Surely not. The shooter in question this time around had a history, it's true, but he hadn't yet done anything that he could be legally locked up for, had he? It would require considerable knowledge and expertise to make even an educated guess about the ratio between potential and actual school shooters--that is between the number of people who might be identified as troubled, aggressive, potentially violent and the number who will actually commit acts of mass murder. But I'm guessing that it's a pretty high ratio--that there are a lot more people who somebody reasonably fears might be violent than those who actually are violent. Do we really want to empower the FBI or local law enforcement to track down everybody who might be violent and watch them, or incarcerate them? There are many different things that might be reasonably identified as "the price of freedom," to quote an often heard phrase these days. Even a casual study of comparative politics suggests that there are a lot of demonstrably "free" societies in which private ownership of guns is drastically limited. So it's not really a necessary price of freedom to have millions of guns in private hands, though reasonable people can disagree about whether it is a necessary price of respect for the Constitution and the 2nd amendment.
Are there countries where "dangerous persons" are all contained and quarantined and where the government has the right to consider somebody dangerous enough to be denied rights even before he or she has committed any crime? If we look around to find such countries, do we want to resemble them more closely than we do? I'm skeptical.
As for your other point about Patton, Napoleon, and the Duke of Wellington, I accept its force. People can have all those ugly qualities as part of dynamic and effective leadership. But I'd make a few further points. 1. Patton won battles effectively, but Eisenhower and Omar Bradley did a better job of winning the war. And--we may disagree here--I think Patton (or Macarthur, whom you didn't mention but who might fit on this list) would have been truly awful Presidents. 2. Napoleon was a tyrant.
Rockport Conservative, is correct. Trump did intervene when he saw a man beating another man with a baseball bat:
"Trump was riding around Manhattan in his limo with his girlfriend, and later wife, Marla Maples. He saw a guy beating another guy. Trump told his driver to pull over. Maples did not want him to get involved.
But he did.
Trump told James Rosen of the Daily News, "The guy with the bat looked at me, and I said, 'Look, you’ve gotta stop this. Put down the bat.' I guess he recognized me because he said, 'Mr. Trump, I didn’t do anything wrong.' I said, 'How could you not do anything wrong when you’re whacking a guy with a bat?' Then he ran away."
There were witnesses, including Kathleen Romeo, who told the newspaper that when he emerged from his limo, the crowd cried, "There's Trump."
A bat is not a rifle, of course. But how many of the journalists and late night comedians who mocked Trump for what he said would have stopped and confronted a thug?
twhp, ace of ace of spades has the best rebuttal to your argument:
"I suppose Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Trevor Noah would not do likewise, and know that about themselves, and therefore find the idea that anyone else would to be just some kind of fantasy, like the idea that an armed citizen could ever be courageous and cool-headed enough to stop a violent crime by using or threatening to use his gun.
"And that's because they're narcissists, of course, as many progs and wannabe TV evangelists are: If I can't/wouldn't do it, no one can or would do it, and therefore, it shouldn't be done at all.
That's 99% of the reason for the gun-control frenzy: Many people just don't want the heavy moral responsibility of carrying a gun and being responsible for protecting their own lives and their loved one's lives (and possibly for taking the life of someone threatening those lives), and therefore think that no one else should volunteer to bear that moral responsibility."
As I said the other day, the Left is trying to make a virtue out of cowardice.
"And do you really think that school shootings would be lessened by rounding up the homeless of San Francisco or any other city and putting them away somewhere?"
In SF, for sure, it would have saved Kate Steinle. The guy was a nutcase on top of everything else. Also, probably, the guy who broke into the Feds car to steal the gun was a nutcase.
As for school shooters (a strangely specific sort of madman). In an earlier time Adam Lanza, for one, would certainly have been committed, being unable to care for himself.
You don't have to hunt potential "school shooters", simply make it easier to commit and hold crazy people. The US had far less of this back when it was just as well armed, pre-1990's, and guns were in many ways even easier to come by - no background checks and far less regulation of gun dealers.
The automatic rifle certainly isn't a requirement for school shootings. Pump shotguns will do well enough, and kill plenty, and I doubt Mr. Madman cares all that much if he is likely to kill 5 or 10 or 15.
Heck, automatic rifles were just as cheap back before AR's. M1 carbines are almost as effective, and they were once dirt cheap. That's what Patty Hearst famously used in that bank robbery. You could get those mail order from magazine ads, the same way Oswald got his Caracano.
" Even a casual study of comparative politics suggests that there are a lot of demonstrably "free" societies in which private ownership of guns is drastically limited. "
True, but they are not "free" in the same way. Among other things most "free" countries have a communal ethic (rapidly breaking down however) in a way that few places in the US have. There is a fine article in Bloomberg on Denmark.
You can't have Denmark without Danes
This has implications on all sorts of things - that Denmark thing - it applies all over Europe, most communities are in no way as anonymous as the US.
This tribal solidarity does not exist in the US, except, notably, in Utah.
As for whether you should have the Second Amendment, it is up to you Americans to say. I would say no, and agree with you, but I am not American.
But you are not going to get it, because it is implicated in the profound distrust of your institutions on the part of the gun-owning public. In my time here (30+ years) I have figured out why - it is the sheer enormity of the hatred of the common people on the part of the official and cultural elite. The people have noticed. This explains the enormous wave of firearms purchases since about 2005-06.
If you want rational dealing re firearms, first stop beating the people over the head with cultural and policy hammers, and stop spewing contempt all over them.
Patton was no politician, as Eisenhower was. But he could lead. Bradley has been criticized as being an out of touch military functionary. Montgomery certainly thought so.
"MacArthur, whom you didn't mention but who might fit on this list"
No, he was an extremely capable politician, and very charming in person. He had other faults, but being personally abrasive was not one of them. Do yourself a favor and get Manchester's "American Caesar". Its a classic of its kind, and most informative about things most Americans no longer care about.
Bonaparte was also an extremely capable politician, and people also forget, a similarly talented diplomat. That he was a bloodthirsty tyrant and unscrupulous beyond measure has nothing to do with the sort of personal quirks you cite. But he too could lead, men did follow him of their own volition, through the incredible force of his personality.
I would argue that if Cruz had wanted a gunfight, he would have shot at cops. If Cruz wanted slaughter, he would have shot up a school. Incoming fire could have distracted him, or caused surrender. Fight or flight are the options. Either way kids may be saved. Trump spoke of a positive, problem solving action that lays bare the cowardice. I can only imagine the FOUR deputies' nightmares borne by their inaction. Shame has a function here.
"The problem is most of them can’t hack it. At this point most millenials can’t hack it."
So, is the problem that they're gay or women, or that they're millenials? If the latter, then millenial straight men are not suitable either. (So why object just to the women and gay men?)
This may be good. The film THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY makes the argument (through the protagonist, played by James Garner), that we need more cowards in the world. In a world of cowards, there would be no wars. (This is a satirical film written by Paddy Chayevsky, writer of the brilliant film Network).
"'Why can't straight male soldiers feel that women and gay men are their comrades?'
"I think they call it human nature but that has been repealed by the left."
So, you assert that it is human nature for straight men to be unable to bond with gay men and women as comrades of equal standing? By nature, children seem open and accepting of all. This "human nature" of which you speak seems more like inculcated ignorance, fear and prejudice.
Trump is really showing his ass to make such a grandiose, self-serving statement and expect people to believe him. - Cook
Maybe you should look at the story making the rounds about what Trump's done in the past.
You know, lest you make a bigger ass of yourself.
Exiledonmainstreet quotes Ace of Spaces;
That's 99% of the reason for the gun-control frenzy: Many people just don't want the heavy moral responsibility of carrying a gun and being responsible for protecting their own lives and their loved one's lives (and possibly for taking the life of someone threatening those lives), and therefore think that no one else should volunteer to bear that moral responsibility."
And then comments herself: "As I said the other day, the Left is trying to make a virtue out of cowardice."
Well, No. That's zero per cent of the reason that I and others have favored more stringent gun control for decades. It's true that I have no interest in carrying a gun, having lived 67 fortunate years without ever having the occasion to use one. I've occasionally been faced with blowhards and bullies who I would have loved to put down in some way, but I trust that if I'd had a gun I would have had enough restraint not to draw and use it on jerks whose behavior didn't deserve the death penalty, whatever else it might have deserved. I certainly recognize that there are people who are cool and courageous enough to to stop a violent crime by using their weapons. I don't imagine that such people don't exist, and I hope that if I lived in circumstances that made it necessary for me to protect myself and others by being constantly armed and on guard that I would have enough courage and character to be such a person.
But--and this is where you and I must have sharply divergent views of the world--I don't live in such circumstances; I don't believe that the vast majority of Americans live in such circumstances; I think that the number of guns in private hands makes it more rather than less likely that we will find ourselves in such circumstances; and I think--most relevant to the discussion at hand--that there are many more people who fantasize about their ability to be cool and courageous under pressure than people who can actually manage it. It must be very different for you, but if I'm in a big crowd at a sporting event or a mall or any of a hundred other every day circumstances, I am not comforted to think that the crowd might be filled with gun-carrying fellow citizens who are ready to leap into action when necessary. Why should I have faith that they will display good judgment about when it's necessary? Why should I have faith that events will unfold as they would like them to in their most heroic imaginings? I don't think that cowardice is a virtue, but I do think that self-restraint is often a virtue and that it's a virtue that might not be strengthened by too many excited narratives about what good guys with guns can do. How good are those good guys anyway? Just because some are heroic and cool under pressure, does that mean that everybody who fancies himself "good" will be? The ordinary run of humanity contains lots of people with courage and good judgment, lots of people with anger management issues, lots of people whose courage and good judgment sometimes fail them. The places in the world I feel safest are not the places where the most people have guns.
Also, a separate note on our differing memories of school shooters. Perhaps you're right, and there have been many who meekly surrendered. I don't actually know the details of the most recent shooter who was captured alive in Florida. But the Columbine shooters and the Sandy Hook shooter and the Las Vegas hotel shooter and all of the others that come most quickly to my mind seem to have been in it to the end. I'm not calling that courage or intending to praise them--quite the contrary. But they clearly had their own fantasies, however dark and strange, about the lives they wanted to lead and the deaths they were ready to risk. There's no way for us to design a world in which people with those dark fantasies can't find victims to kill in great numbers before they're taken out themselves.
But I'd make a few further points. 1. Patton won battles effectively, but Eisenhower and Omar Bradley did a better job of winning the war. And--we may disagree here--I think Patton (or Macarthur, whom you didn't mention but who might fit on this list) would have been truly awful Presidents. 2. Napoleon was a tyrant.
It's amusing to see the left lecture us on military history,
What do you think of Bradley's decision at Falaise Gap ? Have you ever heard of it?
we need more cowards in the world. In a world of cowards, there would be no wars.
More amusement from the left.
I guess you prefer 1940 France to 19540 Britain.
"In a world of cowards, there would be no war, " only defeats and enslavement.
Shorter Freder:who ya gonna believe, me or witnesses?
So, you assert that it is human nature for straight men to be unable to bond with gay men and women as comrades of equal standing?
There has been a history of straight men bonding with gay men as long as the gay man is not open about sexual desires.
With women in combat, the Israelis, with their severe population issues, tried it and have pretty much given up on women in combat,
You do a good job of mouthing current leftist orthodoxy but that doesn't mean it works.
Is the argument is we can't deal with mentally ill people because there are too many? Even Obama argued against stigmatizing mental illness.
Again, the politicized all or nothing argument does not produce common sense results. Clearly some people are very mentally sick, the shooter was one of them. Everyone knew that he would likely commit a mass murder, he had threatened people, and yet nothing was done. I'm sure there are other shocking details we will never know about how his case was handled because of confidentiality. Clearly he was not treated effectively. People like him can not be ignored or another way to say it is people like him shouldn't have to commit mass murder to get some serious attention.
Somehow the massive failure in dealing with Cruz is excused because you can't lock up all homeless people? First, not all homeless people are mentally ill. No one is suggesting locking up all homeless people or even every person who has a mental illness, just create places for people who are a danger to themselves and others regardless of their living arrangement. Don't these places already exist? I don't actually know. Finally, I have to point out the shooter in this case wasn't homeless and neither were any of the others.
I think that the number of guns in private hands makes it more rather than less likely that we will find ourselves in such circumstances;
Contrary to the evidence. Well, we get that,.
If you read the article it sounds like a silly fantasy that he made up.
Yeah. Except for the witnesses.
You seem to forget - long before he became president - Trump was everywhere.
Appearing in cameos in movies, television shows and just being a celebrity.
He didn't need to make up shit 30 years ago just to prove what he might do as President in 2018
Cookie: "So, is the problem that they're gay or women, or that they're millenials?"
Gay? Can't hack it.
Women? Can't hack it.
Millenials? Can't hack it.
A gay millenial woman? Hmmmmm, probably could hack it.
Life is funny that way.
" Pump shotguns will do well enough, and kill plenty, and I doubt Mr. Madman cares all that much if he is likely to kill 5 or 10 or 15. "
A TV network, probably CNN, has a demonstration of "an AR 15" shooting a melon except the gun is obviously a pump shotgun.
We need a better class of fools.
"Why should I have faith that they will display good judgment about when it's necessary? Why should I have faith that events will unfold as they would like them to in their most heroic imaginings? I don't think that cowardice is a virtue, but I do think that self-restraint is often a virtue and that it's a virtue that might not be strengthened by too many excited narratives about what good guys with guns can do."
Unless you live in in NYC or Chicago or another blue enclave, you already live in a world where many people are carrying guns, since some form of concealed carry is legal in almost every state. I remember when Virginia was considering concealed carry. The WaPo was filled with hysterical imaginings about how people would be shooting each other in grocery stores and on the freeways over trivial insults. It didn’t happen. The overwhelming majority of gun owners exercise self-restraint. Most of the stories about 5 year olds picking pistols up off a coffee table and shooting their kid sisters with them happen in the inner city, among people who would not have won parent of the year whether they owned guns or not. (And no, it is not a race thing, but cultural. There are many responsible black gun owners.)
Really, most of us manage to get through a day without drawing our guns because the idiot in the car in front of us cut us off.
Nobody is saying a gun is a magical device that will always shield you from harm. As I said yesterday, I carry, I am a good shot, and I can imagine things going wrong. The gun might jam, or I might be shaking too much to get off a good shot or my attacker could be quicker on the draw. But “self-restraint” means jack shit when you are cowering behind a desk or playing dead and hoping the maniac in the room with you doesn’t decide that your skull gets the next bullet.
Why should I have faith that criminals will not have access to guns even after a ban? Terrorists had no problems getting their hands on them in Belgium and taking them to Paris to use on unarmed people. Do you have any idea how big the black market for firearms would become with a ban in place? How’s that War on Drugs going? Prohibition? You think a gun ban would work better?
And why should I have faith that those sworn to protect and defend us actually will? After last week, that seems like a dicey proposition, to say the least.
MaxedOutMama,
"You can kill so many people with a 45 or a shotgun - probably more then he did"
The demented soul who made that attack at VA Tech killed nearly twice as many people with a 9mm handgun and an .22 handgun!
And as a woman, a gun is the only thing that gives me a ghost of a chance against a male assailant who is bigger and stronger than I am and who is intent on doing me harm. Maybe it's a 50% chance or a 25% chance, but that's still better than a 0% chance.
Leftists make the perfect the enemy of the good. Because self-defense with a gun will not work 100% of the time, it should not be allowed.
Old and overweight as he is now, I'd have more confidence in Trump taking on a dangerous criminal than younger and slimmer girly-men "liberals" like "State-shtuppin' Steve" (to give Colbert an old-school Marvel Comics nickname) trying the same thing. Although maybe Colbert could extract the Mailed Fist from his rectum and beat a criminal over the head with it.
" In a world of cowards, there would be no wars"
Yeah - because cowards never gang up on others, do they?
"Leftists make perfect the enemy of the good. Because self-defense with a gun will not work 100% of the time, it should not be allowed."
By that logic, State socialism should not be allowed, since it has such a high rate of failure. But you know . . . "liberals," logic. . .? Need I say more?
Shorter Freder:who ya gonna believe, me or witnesses?
There was one witness quoted in the story, not witnesses. And give me a freaking break, read the story. Trump's account of the response of the guy wielding the bat is patently absurd: 'Mr. Trump, I didn’t do anything wrong.' Yeah right.
For a bunch of people who think the MSM is full of lies, you sure suspend your disbelief when it paints your guy in a good light.
"In a world with no statists, there would be no wars." FIFY.
FIFY
Blogger Drago said... Cookie: "So, is the problem that they're gay or women, or that they're millenials?"
Gay? Can't hack it.
Women? Can't hack it.
Millenials? Can't hack it.
A gay millenial woman? Hmmmmm, probably could hack it in the Navy.
Life is funny that way.
The part of the story where the bat-wielder tells Trump "I didn't do anything wrong" is the part with the greatest verisimilitude. Criminals are always saying stuff like that. It's like the Internet's "dindu nuffin" meme.
For a bunch of people who think the MSM is full of lies, you sure suspend your disbelief when it paints your guy in a good light.
Whereas you can't believe a 1991 story because you hate the guy. Got it.
Crazy control is a huge problem. Experienced this first hand with my SIL up in Portland. I've posted this story before, so I won't bore you with details. The bottom line is that Judges are hamstrung to do nothing unless the person acts in a way that is a provable threat to themselves or others. Fortunately, my SIL didn't kill anyone when she drove her motorhome on the neighbor's lawn and destroyed a fence. She would have likely avoided commitment still, but before her hearing, she shaved her head and made death threats to the Judge. In 3-months, she was cured and three years later, she got a college certificate and in another couple years worked her way up to her dream job with a large corporation. It's just luck she didn't kill someone.
A stitch in time saves nine.
Sounds true, but not necessarily all that brave since a crowd had gathered.
https://www.snopes.com/trump-stops-mugging-1991/
According to Snopes, there were 2 witnesses and their stories were only slightly different. Snopes says unproven, but their story reads likely true.
Whereas you can't believe a 1991 story because you hate the guy. Got it.
I don't believe because of what I posted earlier, Trump's well known propensity for bullshit, and his documented habit of planting, often fake, stories about himself in the New York papers.
" I think that the number of guns in private hands makes it more rather than less likely that we will find ourselves in such circumstances"
All evidence to the contrary.
It's a fact of life if you live in this country. Learn how to deal with it.\
Wednesday: Where have you been living?? The cops are not there to protect us, they are there to pick up the pieces and find the perpetrators.
twhp: Great posts. Don't agree with everything, but you state your points very well. I do agree that the public would be significantly endangered by having a bunch of armed wannabe's thinking they are just a moment from being Rambo.
Murray Rothbard once said that today's police aren't here to protect us but to act as record-keepers for the insurance companies.
A crowd of onlookers who did NOTHING had gathered, Trump was the only one to act. I give him full points for that intervention.
Among the many tragedies, I picked only one, but you can wash, rinse, repeat for any other:
35,000 to 40,000 deaths each year from motor vehicles (approximate estimate based on US Census since the data only goes to 2009: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2011/compendia/statab/131ed/transportation.html
If the Leftists had any intellectual honesty: Why can't we have common sense automobile control? [Dog whistle: Let's ban all automobiles! And if we can't do that, then let's have a government driver for all vehicles!]
It's for the children!
in another couple years worked her way up to her dream job with a large corporation. It's just luck she didn't kill someone.
I assume she stayed on her meds. The big problem with psychotics is they have no insight and stop the meds when they feel better.
Freder can't give up. If someone tells him Trump walked on water he would say he couldnt' swim.
I do agree that the public would be significantly endangered by having a bunch of armed wannabe's thinking they are just a moment from being Rambo.
Believe it or not, not everybody acts the way you think they would act.
Want proof? You have no idea how many people around you - each day - are carrying.
No clue. At all.
And yet? No wannabe Rambos.
twhp: Just because you have lived a nice peaceable life doesn't mean that others have. Your confirmation bias, normalcy bias, and motivated reasoning are showing.
It's like limousine liberals --- living in gated communities and associating only with upper 1-5% --- who want to signal their virtue by opening our borders to any and all, but who never have to live with the riff-raff illegal [criminal] aliens who do not share our values and the morals and scruples that go with them. It's easy to show that loving feeling when you don;t have to live with the on-the-ground consequences of your "virtue."
Go spend a day walking around on "the other side of town." Your opinion about the usefulness of a firearm as a deterrent will likely change quickly.
We have changed from a nation of service-oriented citizens to a nation of self-oriented narcissists.
Watch Pickett's Charge in the movie "Gettysburg." That men could and would march into almost certain death for a cause is considered a sign of insanity today.
After the battle, Grant took over the US Army and chased Lee around Virginia. Before the Battle of Cold Harbor, Union soldiers pinned their names to their tunics so that their bodies could be identified. 23,000 men died the next day for what they believed to be a righteous cause.
Warfare has mostly changed for the better, but what has happened to righteous courage?
Courage in the face of mortality is a tricky thing. I had an instance many years ago that resulted in awards, a newspaper write-up, etc. for risking my life to save others. I keep the mementos, as they represent my worst and best day, but am I 100% sure I'd do the same thing today? No. I'd like to think so, but the situation appeared so suddenly that I can't say I was being brave so much as just calculating best possible outcomes and reacting accordingly. If I saw a guy firing an AR-15 at a school full of children, and the Police were hiding, I would have to do something, but what would I do? Probably throw a brick at the fucker if one was handy, but that's not gonna do much good.
Howard: "probably could hack it in the Navy.
Life is funny that way."
Why you...I oughtta....
@exiledonmainstreet, I think you have a small part of it, but I think there’s a lot more to it.
(1) Democrats prefer it when women are victims. Women who shoot the gonads off men who want to rape them do not make good victims.
(2) Women of a certain age, roughly forty and up, were taught not to resist when threatened with rape and/or violence. Millennials seem to be wiser in this regard ( though not always in other ways), and there’s anecdotal evidence that more young women are buying handguns and learning how to defend themselves.
In support of my assertion, I note that Feinstein’s list of 205 guns to be banned include pistol-caliber carbines like the Beretta Storm and the Hi-Point. These are basically the companies’ respective semiautomatic handguns, fitted with a shoulder stock and longer barrel. The Hi-Point is lightweight, easy to handle, and cheap (I have seen them for $350 at gun shows), and the handgun it’s based on is a piece of crap. But everyone who has reviewed the carbine likes it and I have seen a YouTube video of a petite adolescent girl knocking off numerous targets with one. Pistol caliber carbines can be purchased chambered in 9 mm, a readily available cartridge.
I was just browsing through the "dindu nuffin" videos on YouTube (which I exited from after a short time because extended exposure to lowlifes quickly depresses me), when I took a much more edifying and entertaining side-trip through YouTube's collection of Armed Citizen videos (usually filmed on security cameras). If there's anything more entertaining than watching armed robberies go awry, and the robbers picking up bellies full of lead in the process, I don't know what it is. I get the same rush of dopamine watching the predators getting riddled with bullets that "liberals" get from tax hikes. It would be a shame if the statists succeed in depriving us of such entertainment.
Howard: "probably could hack it in the Navy.
Life is funny that way."
Or the Chairforce.
Blogger Francisco D said...We have changed from a nation of service-oriented citizens to a nation of self-oriented narcissists.
Watch Pickett's Charge in the movie "Gettysburg." That men could and would march into almost certain death for a cause is considered a sign of insanity today.
Longstreet wanted to retreat to better ground and place the Army of Va between the Federal Army and DC. The macho-man kamikaze attack you applaud was a waste that certainly cost the Confederacy the war... now that's Real Narcissism
Blogger Achilles said... Howard: "probably could hack it in the Navy.
Life is funny that way."
Or the Chairforce.
Thanks for the reminder to get up and stretch my legs.
he macho-man kamikaze attack you applaud was a waste that certainly cost the Confederacy the war... now that's Real Narcissism
I don't know. Civil War battles were horrendously bloody because the tactics continued to be those of Napoleon whose armies had smoothbore muskets. The Minie' ball changed war the way the machine gun changed things in WWI.
Repeating rifles were as revolutionary in 1861 but were not adopted, except by private purchase, through the war.
The Confederacy was never going to win the war unless the Union quit. Sherman taking Atlanta won the war, not Gettysburg,.
I have no trouble believing Freder would show himself to be a coward - you can see it in his posts. And if there is one thing I have learned about Trump, it's that he is not one. I've been in a war zone with little information and a loaded .45, but I don't know that I could stand up to the withering, unprecedented attacks Trump has endured. No one else in his position has.
Michael K, I am not a Civil War buff but I do know something about the small arms of the period, especially those that played a role in the post-Civil War West. Wasn't the Henry rifle--forerunner of the Winchester--one repeating weapon that played a role (however small) in the war? I've seen a photograph of Union soldiers all with Henrys, "that damn-Yankee rifle you can load on Monday and fire all week long" is what I think the Confederates called it.
Howard,
You make a valid point about Longstreeet's position, which then and now seems like the smart choice. His defensive tactics were taught to the next generation of military leaders and were in use through WWI.
However, it was not Lee's narcissism that led him to attack an extremely well defended Union position. It was his unwavering faith in his troops and his assumption (through experience) that the Union troops would break when pressed. He was also a strategic thinker.
He was a much better poker player than all the Union generals he faced, probably because he knew them from his days as Superintendent at West Point. He went all in at Gettysburg and lost the pot. The war took another two years because Grant was an unwavering opponent and Lincoln won the 1984 election.
Lee was well aware that winning the Battle of Gettysburg would have cost Lincoln the election. It was not narcissism that led Lee to make his fateful decision.
.
"Wasn't the Henry rifle--forerunner of the Winchester--one repeating weapon that played a role (however small) in the war?"
Yes, a number of officers bought enough for a company and the troops pitched in.
They were used at Antietam although I cannot find a link right now.
The Confederates could not believe it was only one company.
"It was not narcissism that led Lee to make his fateful decision."
This was occasion of his famous quote, "It is well that war is so terrible or else we love it too much."
.
"I've been in a war zone with little information and a loaded .45, but I don't know that I could stand up to the withering, unprecedented attacks Trump has endured. No one else in his position has."
Don't worry...he's well-armored by a thick hide of Narcissimlar™.
Cookie loves the abuse of Trump, our elected president,.
"Civil War battles were horrendously bloody because the tactics continued to be those of Napoleon"
Napoleonic battles could be horrendously bloody.
Borodino was something like 25% of all participants
Waterloo over 30%
Wagram 25%
etc.
Or for that matter, much of the 18th century
Malplaquet 1709 - 22%
Kunersdorf 1759 - 30%
vs
Antietam - 18%
Gettysburg - 26%
Weapons did change tactics to a great degree, so the rate of loss did not increase with the improvement of the weapons. It was not necessary, for instance, in the USCW for infantry to remain in tight formations, vulnerable to artillery, in order to guard against cavalry.
Besides this, losses through campaign wastage (illness, hardship, etc.) were probably higher in most of the Napoleonic period than in the US Civil War. Though disease did kill more men in the USCW, it was probably much worse in Europe, and that's not even counting Napoleons Russian campaign. The war in America was on the whole much better supplied.
Kirk - yes, and not only that, it is easier to bring in pistols than rifles. This is why I don't think the reflexive cry to ban AR-15s even qualifies as sane. It is no attempt to solve the problem. It could even make the problem worse.
Trump has apparently convened a group in DC to find out why mental health hospitals aren't covered under government insurance.
This is my point. He's trying to think about the ACTUAL problem rather than defaulting to the political BS. I give him credit for that. MAJOR credit:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/trump-administration-weighs-mental-health-coverage-option-53374849
"In the old days, you would put him into a mental institution," Trump said, apparently referring to alleged shooter Nikolas Cruz, whose troubling behavior prompted people close to him to plead for help from authorities, without success. "We're going to have to start talking about mental institutions ...we have nothing between a prison and leaving him at his house, which we can't do anymore."
Organizations representing state officials and people with mental illness say no one wants to go back to warehousing patients. But they also say that federal action is needed to reverse a decades-old law known as the "IMD exclusion," which bars Medicaid from paying for treatment in mental health facilities with more than 16 beds. IMD stands for "institution for mental diseases."
Ann's take that Trump is just rambling aimlessly is diametrically opposite of the truth. Of course it is exactly the same as my instinctive reaction, so I find it understandable. It's just RIGHT. Trump didn't know this stuff, so clearly he's been asking questions about why such a troubled kid was never run through the system, and it appears he has been given the answer that there isn't a good alternative. And that IS a valid point.
So now he's going to talk to the governors about CREATING an alternative. He's an excellent, excellent president.
"Napoleonic battles could be horrendously bloody. "
Much of that was due to artillery. Waterloo was lost because the cannon balls dug into wet earth and the British were able to stay in squares which were immune to cavalry.
Napoleon's tactics included artillery, which could break up squares and cavalry.
He was known for his use of artillery but he did not use it well at Waterloo. Wellington had his men lay down behind the military crest of the hill. The French did not see them.
Muskets were of little use beyond 100 yards.
Rifled muskets in the Civil War could kill at 1000 yards. They were not accurate at that range but were far more accurate at 100 yards than muskets.
Infantry marched into the range and were slaughtered.
"Richard said...
"It is established law that the cops have no legal requirement to protect people . . the Supreme Court has ruled many times it is not their duty."
I keep seeing this point raised, but it's misleading. It confuses two different meanings of "duty."
One meaning of "duty" is something you can be sued for not doing. The police have no duty to protect people in this sense. A person whom they fail to protect (much less the person's heirs) can't sue them.
But another meaning of "duty" is something that you've been charged or entrusted with doing. For a police officer, protecting people is part of the job description. A police chief, a police department, or, for that matter, the taxpayers have the right to expect the officer to do just that. The penalty for failure is being fired -- and, like Officer Peterson, disgraced.
Aren't statists like Cookie somewhat narcissistic? "My ideas are so great I have the right to force them on you."
The Day The Union won the Civil War was the day after the Battle of the Wilderness, when fresh from having his ass handed to him when Longstreet rolled up his flank and the Army saved by darkness, Grant had Meade line up his army on the road back north... and ordered them to march south.
There must have been a mighty roar in the ranks.
LincolnTf,
"Probably throw a brick at the fucker if one was handy, but that's not gonna do much good."
Actually, there's a good chance it would do a lot of good. Distract him, force to have to re-focus, give some potential victims a chance to escape and others a chance to throw something ...
Absolutely. It's entirely possible that one shot fired, anywhere the killer can hear it, could signal him this is the end.
OK...so we want a techno panacea for this right?...
Armed drones.
http://www.businessinsider.com/an-18-year-old-mounted-a-gun-to-a-drone-and-fired-shots-in-the-middle-of-the-woods-2015-7
In each classroom let there be a room camera and a drone, in the ceiling or a high shelf or such. Upon alerting, by panic button, shot sound detector, etc., the nearest drone(s) activate, seek or are guided to the shooter, and order him to surrender, then can tase, tranquilize or fill him full of lead.
Dunno cost - maybe a grand per?
Try to make unhackable.
Though, I have already suggested, give every teacher/staff, plus every student in good standing, a Taser. There would be some abuse perhaps, a few accidents, but of the nonlethal kind; and everyone within 15 feet can have a crack at the villain/s.
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