Monday, March 24, 2014

Constitutional Carry in South Carolina

In the past few days or so the Governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, announced her support for legislation that would allow both open and concealed carry in South Carolina without requiring a permit for either. This is called "Constitutional Carry," and is something that is already being considered in several other states. Needless to say, the social media debate on this topic is in full swing, and of course being the ardent supporter of the 2nd Amendment as I am, I'm involved in it. One of my friends on Facebook made an initial post on it in which she said she thought it was a bad idea and called it a "freeway to tragedy." She also said, "As an instructor and educated gun carrier, I can not imagine our public being told they do not need the education. We see 'experienced' shooters with absolutely NO safety or law knowledge until they come to our class. The only reason they do is they are forced. I support all gun rights but this will be a HUGE mistake." Here's what I said about it all:

"First, let me say that I am a huge believer in training in the use of firearms. I believe that anyone who chooses to carry a firearm for self-defense should be properly and adequately trained in its use, for their own safety if for no other reason.

"Having said that, let me say this: I am a fanatical supporter of the 2nd Amendment, and am a firm believer in the LITERAL definition of the amendment. "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" means just that - NO infringements, NO limitations, NO government requirements of ANY KIND. PERIOD. Nowhere in the 2nd Amendment does it say "shall not be infringed except for mandatory training," just as it doesn't say "shall not be infringed except for background checks." As has already been said, using the logic of requiring a state-approved training course before you can exercise your Constitutional right is the same kind of logic used to fight against concealed carry, and in my humble opinion flies in the face of and violates the 2nd Amendment. I see ANY kind of government requirement at any level of government as an infringement upon our Constitutional rights. I agree with Governor Haley on this one and will support her in any way I can."


There were two immediate comments to my remarks that I wish to address here, as my reply is going to be a tad more lengthy than Facebook will allow. I can also say what I want here without the liberal censors at Facebook censoring me out. So here's the first comment:

"'A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' It seems some people know 4 of the words very well in the 2nd amendment. Education is something alot of people don't have very much of."

My immediate reply to him was, "What's your point, John? Or is there one?"

The second comment was this:

"the (sic) constitution was written in a time of musket balls and not fully automated weapons.... Im all for gun rights too, but this bill will get ppl killed, we are already pretty high on homicides, cdv, and deaths caused by cdv, yet last in the nation in education. We have to take things like that into consideration. There is nothing our state needs more than a bunch of untrained trigger happy morons."

My initial comment to Jessica was, "So, Jessica, using that straing of logic, anything except quill and paper should be unconstitutional since that was all they had when the Constitution was written." I followed that up with another comment that said I had a lot more to say to both John and Jessica but would save it for later when I wasn't at work and had access to a real keyboard instead of the smartphone I was using. Jessica made the following reply:

"no, (sic) but of course you assume that is the same logic! I'm simply stating, I AM taking into consideration, people, mental illness, and weaponry has advanced far more than anyone who wrote the constitution could have ever imagined, and quite frankly some ppl do NOT need to be allowed to carry PERIOD. at all! That is my opinion and you are very welcome to disagree and quite frankly say what you want about it. It is my opinion and I will hold that strongly! Nikki Haley has done nothing for our state! We have only gotten worse on the things that need drastic improvement. IE education. But that doesn't matter, as long as ppl can carry their guns every where right. Priorities. I'm pro gun. I have guns and I carry them. But there are other things our fine governor could promote before making sure we remain a dangerous state."

Well, now that I'm home and have access to a decent keyboard, here's my reply to all three comments made in regards to my original post.

John has since answered my question thusly: "Ray my point is we the people who believe in the Constitution and live by it are the "Well regulated militia" Law abiding people need the education and training associated with carrying a firearm. It is just plain common sence (sic)...is there a way that can happen and be accounted for that would be in the best interest for all, other than a regulatory commission overseen by SLED?" (For those of you who don't live in SC, SLED stands for South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.)

Well, John, it's like this: I agree with what you said 100%. And no, I don't think there's a way this training can happen as a requirement without violating the 2nd Amendment. And SLED doesn't make the laws, they just enforce them.

To Jessica: In regards to your first comment, the line of "logic" that says the Constitution doesn't apply to automatic weapons because they didn't exist when the Constitution was written is anything but logical. It's borderline moronic, to be honest, and shows a depth of lack of understanding on the part of the person uttering it to be nothing short of stupendous. Like I said, using that line of thought the First Amendment wouldn't apply to anything written on a typewriter or a computer because they didn't exist when the Constitution was written. And don't say it's not the same thing because it most certainly is. There's absolutely no difference between the two just because one of the amendments is addressing guns.

As for your statement about the state already being high on homicides and the last thing our state needing is a bunch of untrained trigger happy morons, let me ask you this: who do you think is doing all the shooting in our state now? The law-abiding, responsible, mature citizens who follow the law and obtain the required permits, or the thugs, punks, thieves, and assholes who steal guns or get them on the black market and then use them to commit crimes? How can you even consider comparing the two groups to one another with any shred of decency or hope of being taken seriously? And how can you possibly think that this bill will get people killed any more or any faster than they're already getting killed by said thugs, punks, thieves and assholes already mentioned? Are you really that naive? If so, I suggest you cancel your subscription to "The State" newspaper, stop watching CNN, and broaden your horizons just a tad. What this bill will do is allow people to carry the means to defend themselves as the 2nd Amendment originally intended, nothing more and nothing less.

In regards to your second comment, I would not be so bold as to state what someone 200+ years ago thought would or would not exist in this day and age. The technology certainly wasn't there, but the imagination was. Besides, when you get right down to it, that's irrelevant as the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights took great care to construct a document that would apply just as strongly now in 2014 as it did in 1787 when it was ratified, and I think they did a damned fine job of it. We in this day and age are the ones who took a remarkably simple document and screwed it up with over-interpretation, misinterpretation, extrapolation, and intentional disinterpretation. Sure, there's such a thing as mental illness, just as I'm sure that there was in 1787 as well, but neither the Constitution or the Bill of Rights addresses that for one reason - the mentally ill have the same Constitutional rights as we do, like it or not. Yeah, that's gonna be a thorny problem for someone to handle later on down the road, so I'll leave that for people with more intelligence than me to figure out. Right now I'll just tell you that you can't use that as an excuse to talk bad about the proposed bill - not in my eyes, anyhow.

You also stated that "some ppl (sic) do NOT need to be allowed to carry PERIOD." If you're talking about convicted felons, I agree with you wholeheartedly; if you're not, then just who are you talking about? And how do you propose to decide who can be "allowed" to carry and who can't, and how are you going to get around the 2nd Amendment in doing so? I'd love to hear your ideas on this.

And judging from the last few lines of your post, I have a feeling that your issue isn't so much with the bill itself but with Governor Haley. It's glaringly apparent to me from your comments that you despise the woman, and those comments also lead me to believe that you're not the "pro gun" person you claim to be - or at least not to the degree that you think you are.

You and others like you all fail to see the facts for what they are, those facts being that where the citizens are allowed to arm and defend themselves, violent crime drops. If you don't believe me then go to the FBI's website and read their report on violent crime in the United States since the passage of the first "must issue" CCW law in Florida in 1996 and see for yourself.

Lastly, thank you so much for allowing me to have my own opinion, disagree with yours, but most of all to say what I want about it.

In closing, let me go back and reiterate to all who may be reading this what I initially said in my first post: I'm all in favor of people getting the training needed to be able to handle a firearm safely, and will support such training unless and until it takes the form of a requirement by law to do so. At that point you have violated the 2nd Amendment, and such a requirement is thereby unconstitutional and something I will fight against until my dying day.

"SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED." It's as simple as that.

IHC

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Random Thoughts on a Saturday Morning

My applogies for the extended length of time between my entries, but it's been a very busy two weeks for me. Having said that, let's take a stroll through the stories on the front page of Foxnews.com, shall we? Some good stuff there today...

So officials in Malaysia are now certain that the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 is "deliberate." Gee, ya think? First there are the two passengers who board with stolen passports, then those two passengers turn out to be Iranian, and then Iran says that they were "dissidents seeking asylum," and the officials in Malaysia are just now coming to the conclusion that the disappearance without a trace of a jumbo jet with more than 200 passengers on board was a "deliberate act?" Really? For openers, when did Iran ever admit that its citizens were fleeing their country? How about NEVER? Secondly, to make a jet of this size with this many people on board disappear without a trace requires resources far beyond those of a terror group - it would need the resources of an organized national government, and gee, ain't it funny that there were two Iranians on board? Like the old saying goes, "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck." And this duck is quacking 'TERRORIST.'

And meanwhile in Wyoming, in yet another display of the power of a liberal-backed government run amok, the EPA is threatening to hit a man who built a stocking pond on his own land with fines totalling $75,000 PER DAY unless he fills in the pond and restores the land to what it once was. The EPA is claiming that the pond is the source of "illegal runoffs," yet they fail to explain how "runoff" can come from a pond. They're also claiming that the farmer illegally dammed up a stream, yet pictures of the pond show no such stream anywhere near the pond. And never mind that the State of Wyoming has notified the EPA that the farmer obtained all of the necessary permits required by the state to build the pond and that he was in full compliance with Wyoming law; the EPA has apparently decided that it has nothing better to do than to go after a law-abiding citizen who builds a pond on his own land and threaten him with fines that will ultimately bankrupt him. And of coure, our Buffoon In Chief isn't saying a damned thing about it because, in my humble opinion, the farmer isn't black.

Down in Houston, Texas, the news is that the man who fatally shot a 16 year old boy he found in his daughter's bedroom at 2AM won't be charged with a crime. The sheriff in that area has said that he'll let the Grand Jury hear the case and decide whether or not to charge the man, but he's not doing it. And considering how it all went down, I agree with the sheriff's decision. If I heard noises coming from my 16 year old daughter's bedroom at 2AM, opened the door to find my daughter on the bed with a strange boy in the room, my daughter screaming that she didn't know the kid, I'd have shot his ass too. Only after the incident had taken place did the daughter cop to knowing the kid, saying that he was her boyfriend and that she'd snuck him into the house. This news resulted in the father having an immediate emotional breakdown, and I'm pretty sure I'd have had the same thing happen to me. But in the heat of the moment the father did what any father would do - he protected his daughter from what he perceived as a rape in progress, and while it's tragic that no such rape was taking place I don't think you can blame the father one bit. The mother of the dead kid, however, understandably has a different opinion. My heart goes out to her over the loss of her child, but the blame doesn't lie with the father. I'm sure the gun control nuts are gonna have a field day with this one, and I'm quite surprised it hasn't started already. But of course, since the kid isn't black I don't think it's going to generate anywhere near the publicity that the Trayvon Marting case did.

In North Carolina, the Buncombe County School District has told a 9 year old boy who was being bullied because he was using a "My Little Pony" backpack that he should stop bringing the backpack to school. At first glance this appears to be a callous thing to say and to a degree it is, but you also have to realize the obvious - a boy using a "My Little Pony" backpack is gonna get teased, period. I had a kid in my 5th grade class who caught hell from the other boys in the class because he showed up with a "Mickey Mouse" schoolbus lunchbox one day, and it only took one day for him to realize that the smart thing to do was NOT to use that particular lunchbox. So the next day he left it at home, the kids in the class lost interest, and all was right with the world. Kids react for the most part out of sheer emotion, and this is a great example of just that. Kids don't realize that what they say or do is hurtful because they haven't been taught that yet, and some kids aren't taught by their parents that some of the things they do may subject them to some not-so-pleasant experiences. As for the school's part, if they had also said that they were going to punish the kids doing the bullying I don't think this would have made the national news; but they didn't say that, so it did. There are several lessons to be learned by all here, and I hope people are paying attention.

Across the seas in Afghanistan, President Karzai has said in plain language that his nation "doesn't need American troops." Okay, fine by me. Cease all military operations, shut down the bases, divert all available air transport to Afghanistan, pack up our troops lock, stock, and barrel, and get them the hell out of there. And whatever you can't fit on a plane to fly out, blow it up so that there's nothing for that ungrateful bastard Karzai and his people to use when we're gone. Ten years from now when the Taliban has the nation in a stranglehold again and the people are crying out to the Afghan government for help, I just hope that whoever is President of both nations remembers what this jackass Karzai has said - and that our President, whoever he or she may be, tells the Afghani president to go pound sand.

In some interesting and unusual news from California, a gun shop parts store owner there has refused to turn over his list of 5,000+ clients who bought an AR-15 lower receiver from him to the feds, who are claiming that the part is "illegal" and want to confiscate the parts already sold. As any true American should, the shop owner has told the Feds to go pound sand. But the really funny and ironic part? The shop owner's name is Dimitrius Karras. Figure it out.

And all over the nation, the ongoing slow-motion train wreck that is NObamacare continues with the government granting yet another exemption, this one having the potential to gut the law into nothing but a useless, unenforceable jumble of words. The more this disaster goes on the more apparent it is that the Republicans and the Tea Party were right all along. I just hope America remembers this disaster in November and again in 2016.

I know I sure will.

IHC

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Liberalism and Political Correctness Run Amok in California

Anyone who knows me knows that I always refer to California as "The Land of Fruits and Nuts." I've spent my entire adult life trying to figure out why the people of California think the way they do and why they do the things they do, and so far I've not been able to come up with anything. I've talked to people from California and have asked them this question, and I've universally received one of two replies - either, "It's just the way they do it in California," or "I don't have any idea!"

I'm more inclined to agree with the former statement, especially considering the news coming out of that place this week.

The California Supreme Court, in its infinite "wisdom," has ruled that a school in that state was legally entitled to ban the display of the American flag on a t-shirt so as not to upset the Hispanic students in the school who were celebrating Cinco de Mayo.

Excuse me, say WHAT???

This latest load of crap and liberal bullshit from The Land of Fruits and Nuts is just so wrong on so many levels, I hardly know where to begin. (But I can tell you where I won't begin, and that is by citing the 1st Amendment. And if you need to know why, then go back a few posts and read what I said about what the 1st Amendment does and doesn't say. In any event, I'm not going there again.)

So I guess I'll start with the obvious and most outrageous thing first: A court in the United States of America has ruled that it's legal for a school in this country to ban the display of the American flag.

This is something that I never thought I'd hear from any court in this nation, but I guess I underestimated the stupidity of the liberals in California. As a 23 year veteran of the United States Air Force and someone who pledged his life to and put his life on the line for the great nation in which we live, I am disgusted to the very depths of my soul that a court in this nation would dare to utter such an unpatriotic, disrespectful, and disgusting a verdict. The people who sat on this court and released this drivel should be ashamed of themselves - but being liberals, I'm quite sure they won't.

Next is the reason that the court said it could be done, specifically, they didn't want to offend - God, how I hate that word! - the Hispanic students at a high school during Cinco de Mayo.

Really? You're telling me that the California Supreme Court is placing the celebration of a holiday of a foreign land over the rights of the citizens of this country to display the banner of our nation? Excuse me, but in the first place, if you want to celebrate Cinco de Mayo without having to worry about your delicate feelings being "offended," then I suggest you get your ass on a bus, or a plane, or in a car, and carry it to Mexico where the holiday means something. All it means to Americans is yet another reason to go out and party. I personally don't give a damn for celebrating Mexican independence, considering what those bastards did to the Americans at the Alamo and what the illegals from that cesspool of humanity are doing to our nation now.

The school said that the reason they banned the shirts with the American flag on it was to avoid physical confrontations between American students and Hispanic students. I see the logic in wanting to avoid violence, but here's a thought: instead of banning the American flag, why not just not celebrate the holiday at all? Yeah, I know, because not celebrating the holiday will offend the sensitive feelings of the Hispanic students. Screw the feelings of the patriotic American students, let's just say the hell with them and take care of the Hispanic ones instead by protecting their holiday and not the patriotism of the kids who were born here.

Please see my paragraph above relating to carrying your ass back to Mexico.

And before anyone tells me how much of the California population is of Hispanic descent, let me say this: I don't give a damn. The last time I looked California was still a state in the United States of America, and in my book that means American pride, American symbols, and American feelings take precedence and have priority over EVERYTHING and EVERYONE ELSE.

This is yet one more example of how rampant liberalism and "political correctness" is ruining our nation. Thanks to the liberals, in this nation it's now not allowed to say a prayer at the beginning of a high school football game or a high school graduation, lest someone's delicate feelings be "offended." It's not allowed to display a nativity scene on an American military base, and it's not allowed for a cross to be displayed as a memorial to ALL war dead on federal land. It's not allowed to display the Ten Commandments in a courthouse where justice is served to all without prejudice, and it's not allowed to erect a Christmas tree in the town square.

And of course, our socialist President and his liberal administration don't see a damn thing wrong with this. (Once again, for all of you who voted for this charlatan and moron, thanks a lot.)

Am I the only one who sees something drastically and dramatically wrong with all of this?

I don't think I am. I think there are a hell of a lot of people out there who feel the same way I do, and I have a feeling that in the next few years things are going to start changing for the better. I think "the silent majority" in America are getting damned sick and tired of the liberal, socialist policies of our current administration and the liberal Democratic party, and are going to do something about it starting in November of this year.

And for the liberals, it ain't gonna be pretty.

IHC