2018 – Page 17 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Armed SRO Stayed Outside

It’s breaking news that the Stoneman Douglas high school had a School Resource Officer who stayed outside and failed to act. It’s easy to armchair quarterback this kind of thing in retrospect, but here’s the deal: no one has any idea how they are going to react when bullets start flying. Trained soldiers and cops are not immune to freezing up under fire. If people are going to argue that this shows armed intervention is a fool’s errand than we should disarm the police and military too. The only way you will find out for sure how you will act when people start shooting bullets at you is to have bullets shot at you. Training helps. That’s why I believe armed individuals make the choice to carry in schools with an intent to protect children should receive active shooter training, and whatever else is useful above and beyond what an average owner with a carry permit typically receives. I’d also note this country has a pool of veterans, many of them retired and with free time, who already know how they react when people are shooting bullets at them. They might be a useful part of the solution too.

So I’m not going to blame this school officer. I don’t like the odds of facing a rifle wielding maniac armed with a pistol and soft body armor either. I’d like to think I wouldn’t freeze up, regardless, and I’d give myself good odds on landing hits. But I don’t know. I’ve never been shot at, and neither have most police officers, even those with long careers. So I’m inclined to cut this guy a break. He decided to resign. That is the right thing. You know now that you’re not cut out for this line of work. I’d hate to have to live with what he’s going to have to live with, but he won’t be the first nor last.

UPDATE: I know this post is a bit controversial. Bitter is discovering some more information about the SRO that would indicate, yeah, sorry dude, I’m willing to judge. What I don’t like to do is beat my chest and declare “I could do better!” I’d like to think I could, but I’ve never had to face down an active shooter.

UPDATE: One deputy freezing up is something that can happen. Four of them freezing up is a systemic problem with the department.

Gun Rights Threat Shaping Up

It looks like the big thing we have to worry about post-Parkland is going to be a move to raise the age for buying a long gun from 18 to 21. I’ll be honest, telling a 20 year old kid who’s coming back from a tour of duty in Afghanistan that he’s responsible enough to use an M4 to shoot Taliban for God and Country, but not responsible enough to own a semi-automatic AR-15 to shoot paper or to say, defend his family after a natural disaster, does not sit well with me at all. Are we going to repeal the 26th Amendment? Because if they aren’t responsible enough to own a rifle, why are they responsible enough to vote? Maybe we shouldn’t let them join the military either. Maybe we should raise the age you can get married without parental permission back to 21, like it used to be in many states?

This is bullshit. If you’re old enough to die for your country, you’re old enough to vote for or against the people who would send you, old enough to have a beer, get married, and yes, own a gun. If we’re now talking about moving the age of majority back to 21, and maybe we should (we have an awful lot of man and women children running around out there) we ought to have that serious conversation about that. Otherwise, this is just another case of the Second Amendment, to borrow from Justice Thomas, being treated as “a disfavored right.”

And to make matters worse, it’s the fucking Republicans doing this to us. Not that I’m shocked. I’m way too cynical about politics to be shocked. But I can’t think of any better way to make me stay home, rather than lift a finger or even vote for your shitty, awful candidates.

I Like Them to Learn Early

Local municipalities in Pennsylvania are preempted from enforcing any ordinance relating to guns. This is pretty well-established under our law. But that doesn’t stop them from passing ordinances, and a popular thing to do is for Boards and Councils to use their positions to lobby state lawmakers to let them have a go at gun regulation, or lobbying on behalf of some legislation or another that the majority of the Board or Council would like to see. It’s like what we do, only they get to do it with taxpayer dollars.

On a rumor, I dragged a bunch of club people out our township meeting with the belief that they might try to pass something like they did after the Vegas shooting. It was shot down after Vegas, because the three Republican Supervisors could outvote the two Dems. However in November, the Dems flipped a seat, and took control of the Board. The Dems this time were assuring members who e-mailed that no gun issue was on the agenda, and they would be taking no action. Even though they are preempted, I like my politicians to learn early about the gun voter. Also, getting them on the record is helpful if they try to run for higher office.

Last night we get through most of the meeting and nothing comes up. Good, that’s victory. But now I’m worried about having a dozen or so people questioning why I dragged them out to a meeting to hear a retirement speech, watch a few appropriations votes, and hear the Chief of Police give his report. Then, at the end, right before adjournment, the big anti-gun Dem on the Board decides he can’t help himself and opens his yap. Wonderful! Thanks for pulling my ass from the fire there! I was starting to worry they might begin to think I cry wolf, and I won’t be able to rally troops the next time I need them. But then again, if he had let the meeting just adjourn, he probably wouldn’t have gotten hisself in the papers.

The Bump Stock Issue Never Went Away

The ATF, in a rare move, decided several months ago to enter the rule making process with the bump stock issue. There was even the required public comment period. I say rare, because ATF has never liked using rule making, choosing to do most regulation through determination letters. They traditionally prefer policy to regulation.

Now the big deal is that Trump called for a bump stock ban, probably because NRA called for a bump stock ban, and there’s already a rule making process going on that’s headed in that direction. NRA called for a bump stock ban because in Congress, the votes were there to pass one, and all the Congressional bills I saw on the topic were overly broad and sucked. They would have made any gun smithing work on a semi-automatic firearm legally risky, and that’s before you get into the multitudes of constructive possession issues.

So what do you do? Call on ATF to undertake rule making, where you can control the process under a friendly administration, and make sure whatever comes out is narrowly worded. Also, since it’s regulation, rather than law, it’s much easier to change.

So that was the choice: a bump stock ban that swept in a lot other ordinary and legal activity, and a bump stock ban that was just a bump stock ban, and was regulation rather than law. There are no other options. Don’t like that? Then you’re left replacing many of the squishy Republicans. But you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone running for office in this country willing to stand up and shout, “Yay for machine guns,” let alone win on it. And if you challenge all the squishy Republicans and lose? You’re done. Finished. Bump stocks ain’t a hill I’m dying on, and trust me, it is a hill you’ll die on.

This Will Shock No One: Moral Outrage is Self-Serving, Says Reason

New research out, and the science is settled! We all knew this. Hell, Zuckerberg built an empire on this: what would Facebook be without self-serving moral preening? A platform to share baby and cat pictures, basically.

When people publicly rage about perceived injustices that don’t affect them personally, we tend to assume this expression is rooted in altruismâ€”a “disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others.” But new research suggests that professing such third-party concernâ€”what social scientists refer to as “moral outrage”â€”is often a function of self-interest, wielded to assuage feelings of personal culpability for societal harms or reinforce (to the self and others) one’s own status as a Very Good Person.

Well bowl me over with a feather. I will admit I’m one of those odd ducks that doesn’t feel guilty about a whole hell of a lot. If anything, I feel guilty over the fact that I don’t feel guilty about much. Maybe I’m sorry I didn’t spend more time with my mom when she was terminally ill. I kind of feel bad about that. Wish I had been more interested in getting to know my paternal grandparents before they died when I was in my early 20s. I probably also don’t do enough to mix with and help people who are truly needy. I’m more of a person to lose touch than keep in touch.

But that’s all my cross to bear, not any of yours. Maybe that’s a difference. It’s not that I, and people like me, don’t have guilt: we internalize it. I don’t need to make my failings as a person your failings as a person. But if there’s anything people are bad at these days, especially on social media, its internalizing things. This rings true:

Gun Control Has Nothing to do with Crime Control

I’m sure criminals will roil at the idea that they’ll no longer be able to buy firearms out of the back of a van with a Visa or a Master Card. This is aimed squarely at law abiding gun owners:

What if the finance industry â€” credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express; credit card processors like First Data; and banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo â€” were to effectively set new rules for the sales of guns in America?

I think they overestimate how much leverage they have over the industry. If forced to, I’ll pay cash for guns. In fact, I’ll make it a point to buy more as a fuck you to the financial industry. I haven’t really been buying for a while. I have little doubt such a move would cause industry upheaval, but it would survive. Maybe Cabela’s wouldn’t, but the industry would.

People hate banks. If the banks and financial industry suddenly “got woke” and started believing their job is to enforce social justice, I’m going to push my lawmakers to start enforcing some anti-trust and bust up all these financial conglomerates.

Critics of using the finance industry to influence gun sales might argue that such a move would be discriminatory against gun retailers. But gun sellers are not a protected class, like age, race, gender, religion or even political affiliation. This would be a strictly commercial decision.

Want to bet on how quickly we can make it one?

Gun Ban: This Scenario is Entirely Plausible

Over at Reason:

But the cultural onslaught, ably assisted by the stumbling GOP and its internal civil war, had enough impact at the margins to affect elections. Democrats seized the White House and majorities in both houses of Congress and promised major changes to comeâ€”including on guns.

Warned by experts that yet another “assault weapons” ban made no sense because “as a matter of functionality, these guns are just like other rifles. They’re more powerful than some handguns and rifles, and less powerful than others,” they decided to go a step further. Encouraged by Supreme Court turnover and the resulting opportunity to redefine the Second Amendment out of existence, Congress banned all semiautomatic firearms in private hands, with compensation promised in return.

Read the whole thing.

About as Shocking as Weather

Lame duck governor whose political career is at an end didn’t used to like assault weapons, then liked them, and now decides that once again he doesn’t like them. It bears repeating: politicians very rarely come to this issue out of any real personal conviction. It is almost always based on a calculation of political expedience. When banning assault weapons was all the rage even among a lot of Republican politicians in the early 1990s, Kasich liked himself some assault weapons bans. When the 1994 Federal AWB laid the foundation for our return to political power, Kasich flipped and declared himself a darling of the NRA, and gladly took our endorsement. Now that his political career is over, he has plainly laid out that he’s not really a gun guy, and all those NRA endorsein’ and assault weapon lovin’ was just a show.

Oh well, whether he likes it or not, he signed a lot of stuff that’s good for gun owners. Remember, just because your girlfriend is a whore doesn’t mean you can’t get laid. Remember Uncle Milty:

Reminders About Action to Push Back on Gun Control

So many gun control advocates really do believe that the only reason guns aren’t banned yet is because of the NRA. They really do not understand that we’re bigger than the NRA. NRA membership is held by only a few of the millions of gun owners and pro-gun people. It’s not a top-down organization that tells us to jump. We tell the organization to jump.

A few years ago, I wrote a series of posts of very specific ideas that people with different backgrounds and connections in the pro-gun community could take to protect their rights. There’s a good chance that some of those ideas need to be dusted off.

Here’s the list for:

If any readers tried some of these suggestions, feel free to share how they went over. Not every idea will work for every situation, but this should cover a great number of ways to engage people who are otherwise intimidated by the process of fighting gun control.

Seen on the Book O’ Face

This could pretty much sum up what we’re all seeing on social media lately:

Well, I don’t know about you guys, but her well reasoned post wishing for my brutal murder totally makes me want to give up my guns!

All I can say is that in 2018, get out and vote. I’m pissed off that the GOP hasn’t done anything either, but I’ll take nothing over rewarding people for this kind of behavior by putting them back in power.