Author: Bob

Unapologetically Patriotic!

Today we celebrate the birth of our nation on July 4, 1776.  The United States of America is now 243 years old and stronger than ever.  On this day we celebrate as one people. But even as we do, we are told by the uber-politically correct that our patriotism is offensive because it is not inclusive enough. I have a simple question for these people. You do know this is the United States, the melting pot of the world, right?? 

With the exception of the Native American peoples, we are truly a nation of immigrants. This heritage has made us more diverse and stronger through the years. We are each proud of our individual cultures but even prouder of what we as a nation have become together. No matter where we came from, we are now all Americans. 

Like every other nation, our history has had its share of dark and turbulent times.  There are things we look at now and wonder how could this have happened in our land of the free? But our history is just that, history. We don’t have to be happy about the dark times, but we must be proud of how far we have come and where we are going. We cannot – and should never try to – whitewash our history away. As painful as the past may be, the only way to not repeat the past is to learn from it. 

  • Is our nation’s first flag offensive because it came from the slavery era? NO!  
  • Is hanging Old Glory offensive because it doesn’t represent all peoples? NO!
  • Is saying the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of a government meeting or function offensive because some in the room may not be citizens? NO! 
  • Is saying “U S A” at a sporting event offensive because other nations may be in attendance? NO!
  • Is listening to, singing or standing for the Star Spangled Banner offensive because someone wants a little more attention for their pathetic, self-centered life? NO! 

You want to know what is offensive? Being made to feel ashamed because you are proud of your nation and want to practice respectful actions to show your pride and patriotism. 

I am not going to hide or tone down my patriotism because someone has come up with a new trendy belief that doing so is offensive. I am proud of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution – and damn right I know the difference between them. I am proud of our Bill of Rights and will support and defend them with ever fiber of my being. This IS the United States of America and we are patriots! 

I am unapologetically patriotic!

Bob

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Sacrificing Children For Gun Control

School is officially out for the year and everyone is diving head first into their summer plans. Something we wish our lawmakers and school administrators were doing during the summer months is making school shootings a thing of the past. Instead, come the start of the next school year, all we can expect to see is a bunch of plastic “Gun Free Zone” signs protecting our children from the next active shooter. Why? To be blunt, gun control politicians are using your children as active shooter bait. They know that when children’s lives are lost, they’ll be able to advance their completely unrelated and useless gun control agenda. 

It’s not as if the gun control politicians don’t know any better. The inconvenient truths are out there. 

  • 98% of all mass shootings in the United States since 1950 have occurred in Gun Free Zones. 
  • The duration of most mass shooting incidents is less than the average law enforcement response time, and only after the incident has been reported.
  • Gun Free Zones deny law-abiding citizens their most basic Second Amendment right to bear arms while providing absolutely no protection from predatory actors.
  • Gun Free Zones provide nothing more than a false sense of security for those who enter them.

If you don’t think these politicians understand how to make an area protected and people safe, take a look at where they work. A secure perimeter where everyone has to go through weapons screening to get in. Nobody except them, select staff and their law enforcement and armed security are allowed to possess a weapon of any kind inside. They are protected and they can protect themselves. 

Contrast this to the security situation at your local school. Thanks to the Gun-Free School Zones Act (GFSZA) of 1990, the public isn’t allowed to carry firearms at any public, private, and parochial elementary schools and high schools, and to non-private property OR within 1000 feet of them. The Federal law allows states and localities to grant exemptions to it, but states like California – which used to allow local school districts to decide if they would allow administrators, staff and teachers to be armed – has now completely outlawed the practice. 

Even in the schools that do have law enforcement officers on duty, some school districts like Baltimore, Maryland, do not allow their sworn officers to be armed. The result is sadly predictable. Unprotected schools are targeted by psychopaths who face no opposition in carrying out their plans. 

As the offices of the politicians themselves prove, this is a correctable situation. Schools can be secured, hardened against attacks and unauthorized access restricted. Armed law enforcement and security can be deployed to stop anyone who does try to harm the students and staff. As a last line of defense, volunteer administrators, staff and teachers can be vetted, trained and armed. 

Before you jump on the “teachers are there to teach not shoot” bandwagon, consider a few things:

  • With the exception of suicides or gang violence outside of school hours, no school that allows teachers to carry has experienced a death or injury from a shooting.
  • No student has ever taken a teacher’s gun. In fact, the only accidental discharge occurred outside of school hours and resulted in minor injuries for the teacher in possession of the handgun.
  • Not all teachers are interested or qualified in being armed, and nobody is going to force them to be. 

I’d also like to point out the similarities between airline pilots and teachers. At one point in time, our Federal Air Marshal program was robust and had marshals on many flights in and around our country. Over time, as the threat of hijacking diminished, the bean counters decided they were too expensive and massively cut the program. Then 9/11 happened. Only AFTER the fact, did the Air Marshals get re-staffed and returned to the skies. At the same time, airline cockpits were hardened and the Federal Flight Deck Officer program started to train pilots to carry weapons and defend aircraft against criminal activity and terrorism. 

Why did they do this? Because they knew from history what would, and has already happen. Once the initial shock and threat has faded, the bean counters started looking at the number of arrests the Air Marshals made and decided the program could again be scaled back. What remains is the piece that the airplane can’t do without, the pilot – and the hardened planes. The very same thing will happen with armed law enforcement and security personal in schools. Once the shock and threat has faded, budgets will be cut and they will be gone, but the teachers – and the hardened schools, will remain. 

Politicians and schools know how to fix this, but they are unwilling to spend the time and money to do it. The massacre at the high school in Parkland, Florida could have been stopped before it started if not for massive incompetence by federal, state, county and local authorities. The school itself had not acted on threat assessments that could have stopped or limited the loss of life. 

Instead of taking concrete steps, or allowing the school districts themselves to take concrete, proven steps to stop the violence, the gun control politicians pre-write their tweets and speeches in preparation for the inevitable next attack on soft target schools with the most vulnerable of our population waiting to become victims. They will repeat their call for laws such as universal background checks / firearms registrations, so-called assault weapons bans and myriad other useless programs that have never done and never can do anything to stop criminal or terrorist violence – or would have stopped the incident that just occurred. The ONLY impact of these gun control laws is to keep firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens. 

If these politicians want to “do something”, they should tackle the root causes of crime like the economy, poverty, jobs and mental health in our nation. They might also want to rethink their so-called criminal justice reform efforts that release violent criminals back onto the streets with no punishment or accountability for their actions. 

If you want to keep children safe in schools, stop electing gun control politicians who are willing to sacrifice children in the name of gun control. 

Bob

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Do You Lock Your Doors At Night?

All parts of our country are covered by a law enforcement agency, even if they are a significant distance away. Shouldn’t that be enough to protect your home? The answer is very simply the police can’t prevent your home from being broken into.  They can only respond after the fact to investigate and attempt to bring the perpetrators to justice. That after-the-fact ‘deterrent’ is what is supposed to stop the crime from occurring. That same deterrent effect is what is supposed to be protecting you and your family from assault, rape, robbery, murder or other mayhem in public. The only thing different is you don’t have a locked door between you and criminal. 

Let’s start back at your house. What prevents burglars, robbers and home invaders from getting into your home is having a hard target. That means a house that can prevent criminals from getting in in the first place. Lights outside so their approach can be seen, cameras so they can be observed on your property, sturdy locks properly installed in heavy door jams to prevent them from getting in and alarms to alert you of their unlawful entry if they are able to get inside. These things, and many more, will help prevent the crime from being committed in the first place. 

Criminals may not be the smartest people in town, but they aren’t morons. If there’s a choice between a hard target and a nice soft, unprotected one, they’re going to pick the soft one every time. 

Now let’s talk about you and your family out in public. You don’t have a nice thick, solid core door with deadbolts to carry around with you. You have yourself and whatever you carry with you to keep you safe from harm.  That means how successful you’ll be depends a lot on your gender, size and skills. 

Sad but nonetheless true, the elderly, women and smaller statured individuals are victimized at alarming rates. Quite simply put, without an effective force multiplier, they are not able to defend themselves from larger or better-armed assailants. There are a variety of effective self-defense items available, up to and including firearms. Your choice of what would be effective depends a lot of your physical abilities. 

Even worse, far too many jurisdictions in our country say you are already adequately protected by whatever law enforcement agency is there and that you do not need to carry a firearm for protection. They say you do not have a special need or sufficient ‘just cause’ to carry a firearm. Even though it is the most effective force multiplier available, it isn’t available to you.  

Now take a look at yourself from a criminal’s point of view. Are you hard target? Do you present a confident, strong image each and every time you are in public? That doesn’t mean you walk down the street in your gi, growling at dogs and punching streetlights. It means you are engaged, alert, on the lookout for threats instead of being fully engaged in on social media on your smart phone.  How you conduct yourself is a major consideration for perspective attackers.  

Side note: If you aren’t familiar with Col. Jeff Coopers Color Codes of Awareness, I strongly encourage you to read it and get some quality self defense training. 

So what is going to prevent someone from victimizing you and your family? It’s not the police who are minutes to hours away. It’s not the prosecutor or courts who in many cases aren’t even willing to give criminals a slap on the wrist any more. It’s fear of their potential victim that will stop them. It’s the criminals fear that they will be injured or killed themselves that will keep them from attacking. 

In parts of the country where the average citizen is not legally allowed to carry a firearm for defense, there is very little to prevent them from attacking anyone they have a physical advantage over.  If they are carrying some kind of weapon – and most criminals are – then physical advantage is less important. 

It boils down to this. Your safety and the safety of your family is your responsibility. Just as the locks, lights and alarms at your home is your responsibility, so is your safety in public. If you think you can effectively delegate this to the police because you paid your taxes, you are very, very wrong. To be safe you need to have the most effective self-defense force multiplier that is right for you readily available.

Until our elected officials get off their collective asses and start working on the causes of crime like poverty, jobs and mental health, and parents return to teaching their children about right from wrong, responsibility and accountability– crime is going to continue to increase. 

YOU are the only one who can prevent yourself from being a victim. Become the hard target no criminal wants to deal with.  

Bob

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Just Because They Say It…

Free speech is a wonderful thing, a natural, God-given right of all Americans protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. But with free speech, you inevitably get people who ignore reality and make up their own fantasy world. This is what we face when anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment politicians start talking about guns and “gun violence” in the United States. Just because they say it, doesn’t mean it’s true. 

In a recent speech in Brazil, our 44thPresident made the following comment: 

“Some of you may be aware our gun laws in the United States don’t make much sense. Anybody can buy any weapon any time —without much if any regulation, they can buy it over the internet, they can buy machine guns.”

Our former President of course knows better, but as an ardent foe of the Second Amendment protected right for individuals to keep and bear arms, he gets to make up his own imagined world where only he, his government and other elitists can have firearms. 

Anyone who has actually purchased a firearm knows he is full of the worst kind of BS. The vast majority of firearms are purchased from FFL (Federal Firearm Licensee) dealers who must run a background check before delivering a firearm. And while it is true you can purchase a firearm over the Internet, the part he’s leaving out is unless you are a FFL, it has to be sent TO a FFL to do a background check, just like any other firearm purchase. If you are a felon, domestic abuser, convicted drug user, adjudicated as a “mental defective”, illegal alien, dishonorably discharged from the military or have renounced your U.S. citizenship, you cannot be sold a firearm.

Can you buy a machine gun? Yes, but thanks to the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Hughes Amendment in 1986 there are a finite number of legally transferable fully automatic firearms available in our country. Those examples run in the 10’s of thousands of dollars and require an ATF tax stamp and extensive background checks and notifications, a process that takes many, many months.  

Yet if you take our former President’s statement at face value, it sounds like anyone in the country can log onto Amazon, order a fully automatic firearm and have it delivered to their home in two days, presumably for free if it’s Prime. 

It’s not like our former President hasn’t made up his own reality before. He’s infamously said “… this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.” Of course, you have to keep in mind when they compare worldwide “gun violence” rates; they pick and choose the countries to include so as to make the US look far worse in comparison. They preface their comparison list by referring to it as the list of “advanced” countries.  As an example, our southern neighbor is not on this list. However, if you look at worldwide violent death rates, Mexico ranks 15th and the United States ranks 85th out of 172 nations. Remember, if you are setting up your own gun control reality, adjectives matter.

California’s current governor / wannabe dictator recently added his half cent to the debate following a horrific incident and decided to perpetuate the former President’s myth by saying “Recognize and reconcile that we live in the only country in the world where anything like this happens.” 

Very sadly, neither of these men is telling the truth. Violence, mass violence, so-called “gun violence” and worse atrocities occur at a daily rate around the world. Simply putting on blinders and making up an argument that our nation is the most deadly place in the world as a pretext for eliminating your Second Amendment rights is quite simply a lie. 

It is rather interesting our former President chose to make his latest comment in Brazil, a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world. It could be because Brazil’s new President is making good on campaign promises to ease his nations draconian gun control laws on firearm and ammunition purchases.  During the latest decree signing, he said, “it is an individual right of the one who may want to have a firearm or seek the possession of a firearm… obviously respecting and fulfilling some requirements”.  

More lies and more useless gun control laws that only limit the rights of law-abiding citizens are not the answer. But when you have no interest in solving the real problems that cause crime and violence, it’s the perfect scapegoat to get what you really want – total civilian disarmament and control. 

Remember, gun control does absolutely nothing to increase public safety and the answer to fix that shortcoming is always to implement more gun control.

Bob

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The Lunatic Fringe of Gun Control

When it comes to gun control, there is no shortage of bizarre ideas that are supposed to put an end to “gun violence”. With this in mind, I’d like to share with you a couple of my favorite new additions to the mix and their likelihood of success. I present to you speed bumps, flowers and magic!

The first is from a Seattle Councilmember, a member of the Socialist Alternative party, who wants the city to use raised flowerbeds and speed bumps to reduce drive-by shootings in the Central District. Of course, she’s also calling for the standard “common sense gun measures,” which includes banning all semi-automatic firearms. Keep in mind this Councilmember is looking for gun violence reduction measures that do not involve more policing of the areas where it has been occurring.

Apparently the logic behind these ideas is that people who are considering committing murder on a public street will be deterred because they may scrape the bottom of their getaway car on the speed bumps. Likewise, the calming effect of flowers planted along the sides of the streets will induce such a feeling of peace and calmness that the thoughts of murder will be purged from the shooter’s mind. 

Of course, speed bumps might have been a good idea years ago when most people drove sedans, but today’s car buyer prefers pickup trucks and SUVs, which have a lot more ground clearance. Speed bumps just aren’t going to be as much deterrence to the modern and trendy drive-by shooter.  

Now, it’s hard to argue with bright, colorful flowers being calming. But if beautiful flowers calm, dead flowers may just trigger the opposite reaction. Taking care of these flowers is going to be a stressful job for the new army of city-funded florists. 

The raised flowerbeds however are an idea I can get behind, literally.  Made with thick wood frames and filled with dirt, they would be a great source of cover from incoming rounds.  This will be especially important since the Councilmember doesn’t want additional law enforcement resources in the area. I’m assuming some “duck and cover” training for the residents will come with the new flowerbeds. 

Hopefully Chicago, Baltimore and Los Angeles, cities with some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation – the same “smart gun control laws save lives” being pushed everywhere else – will realize the power of speed bumps and raised flowerbeds. 

Then we have an anthropology professor at Dartmouth College who claims that magic could influence people to use guns to kill other people. She based this on her studies of street politics, insecurity, and social performance in contemporary urban Haiti. Her own quote is the best way to describe this: 

“It would be shortsighted to dismiss these claims as the misguided logic of a ‘superstitious people…That racially inflected trope, long used to marginalize and demonize Haitians, among others, blinds observers to the way in which guns do exhibit a power akin to magic: the power to create a change in someone’s state of mind.”

Folks, I cannot stress this enough. Do NOT let the magic in your firearms turn you into a homicidal maniac. For this very reason, I’ve insisted on having a proper exorcism performed on all of my firearms. Purists – and 1911 shooters – will insist on a Haitian Vodou (Voodoo) priest for this job. Yes, it costs a little bit more but ya know, that peace of mind is worth it.  

Okay, enough of that nonsense. 

In all seriousness, how do these ideas differ from the other useless theories coming out from gun control zealots?  These are the same people who believe putting up a Gun Free Zone sign will actually “repel” homicidal maniacs intent on committing mass murder against defenseless victims.  

You want to make people safer? Address the root causes of poverty and crime. Address mental health and treat it like physical health, something society doesn’t scorn and ridicule. Address parenting, morals and respect for others along with the other basic life skills we seem to be ignoring. Address taking responsibility for ones own actions and holding people accountable for what they do. Address punishment for those who actually commit crimes instead of punishing the law-abiding.

There are no easy fixs to societal problems. But instead of doing the hard work, we have nitwits like this and the rest of the gun control groups saying ‘this one law / one new thing will save lives’. And when that fails, it’s another new law that will save lives. And another. And another. And another. 

Bob

#oddstuffing,  #Constitution, #BillOfRights, #SecondAmendment, #GunControlFails, #LunaticFringe, #SpeedBumpsFlowersMagic,#Voodoo, #RealSolutions, #mewe, #medium, #oddstuffing.com

p.s. In honor of speed bumps, flowers and magic, please enjoy Red Rider’s 1981 hit, Lunatic Fringe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqUa_G1h3pw

Sanctuary

The concept of sanctuary dates back thousands of years. Sanctuary was usually in the context of a religious organization providing a place of safe refuge for someone accused of some type of crime. Throughout the years, the legal significance of sanctuary within the walls of a place of worship diminished, however the concept mutated to political jurisdictions where sanctuary is granted against allegedly unjust laws. As you might expect, you can only support sanctuary for a politically correct cause, otherwise you’re just a criminal.   

Sanctuary cities in the United States got their start in San Francisco, California in 1985 with the “City of Refuge” resolution. It was followed by an ordinance prohibiting the use of city resources to assist federal immigration enforcement.  In the eyes of supporters, so-called sanctuary cities are better off when residents are not in fear of being deported. There are now more then 500 such sanctuaries across the United States.

While there is some logic to the argument, the contention that these individuals haven’t broken any laws is completely invalid. Federal immigration laws exist for many reasons. Less the Native American peoples, we are a nation of immigrants and millions upon millions have jumped through the proper legal hoops to join our nation. 

The federal government, who is responsible for the security of the nation and to oversee immigration, is obviously not supportive of these sanctuary cities. Efforts to force them to comply with federal law have been mixed. Threats of withholding federal grants and funds to sanctuary cities have been met with lawsuits and injunctions, which are still winding their way through the courts. The cities and states that support immigration sanctuary call the federal government racists, the laws unjust and say they have the moral obligation to provide refuge. 

But what happens when a jurisdiction within a sanctuary state says they do not agree and decline to be a sanctuary area? You then see the state threatening to withhold state funds and grants, or those involved face prosecution if they do not comply. If this sounds a lot like the same ‘evil tactics’ the federal government is being accused of, you’re right. The only difference is it is the state imposing its will on the cities and counties. In other words, if you support the politically correct cause, you are okay. If you don’t, you’re a criminal. 

Left wing politicians call the supporters of sanctuary cities and counties in non-sanctuary states heroes for doing what is right for their counties and say the state should stay out of the way of these localities. 

Fast forward a bit and you now have gun control zealots in charge of many state legislatures. Their so-called “common sense public safety measures” tend to trample the Second Amendment to death. But, since they do this in the name of public safety, activist/politician judges have ruled these infringements acceptable and provide the legal stamp of approval.  This has given rise to a new type of sanctuary, the Second Amendment Sanctuary City/County/State.

Second Amendment sanctuaries have adopted resolutions prohibiting the use of city, country or state resources to enforce gun control measures that violate the Second Amendment. Much in the same way immigration sanctuary cities are refusing to cooperate with laws they see as unjust, Second Amendment sanctuary areas are refusing to cooperate with laws they see as unjust. And the movement is spreading. At last count, three states and many jurisdictions within 11 more have declared themselves as Second Amendment sanctuaries. 

As you might expect, the reaction within gun control states has not been favorable. Threats of withholding state funds and grants as well as prosecution for not following state laws are leveled at those responsible for declaring themselves a Second Amendment sanctuary. 

Left wing politicians call the supporters of Second Amendment sanctuary cities and counties in non-Second Amendment sanctuary states rogue politicians, sheriffs and police chiefs who are out of touch with their communities and the call for the state to force them from office or prosecute them for disobeying state laws. 

A little hypocritical? You betcha! 

On one hand, you have supporters of immigration sanctuary openly defying federal immigration laws they believe are unjust. They call the efforts of the federal government to deny them federal dollars illegal and immoral. 

At the same time, and most often the very same group of people, say there is no justification for Second Amendment sanctuary against the gun control laws THEY enacted and vow to withhold state dollars, as well as threaten Second Amendment sanctuary supporters with prosecution for defying them. 

To me this boils down to a single key concept: the lack of respect for the rule of law. 

Despite what many believe, this nation is a republic, a nation of laws. If we were a pure democracy, 51% of the population could vote to take away the rights of the minority 49% and it would become the law of the land. But our republic says you have to obey certain basic rights principles – the Constitution – from which our entire system is built. Even if 99% of the population votes to take away the rights of the remaining 1%, the 1% would be protected, as the law must still pass Constitutional muster. 

The Constitution and Bill of Rights aren’t optional documents. You don’t get to pick and choose the rights and laws you like, while ignoring the ones you don’t. You don’t get to implement your own interpretation of other people’s rights just because it better fits your social agenda.  And lastly, we seem to have forgotten the concept that nobody is above the law. If the law applies to one person, it applies to every person. Yea, I’m looking at you US Congress.  

I admire people who see an injustice and want to correct it. But you don’t get to do that by making up your own laws to follow, and then punish those who do the very same thing with the laws you are unjustly imposing on them. 

Perhaps we should choose our representatives a little bit more carefully. 

Bob

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A Word Of Thanks

A slight diversion from my usual rants to do some thank you’s. For the past two years I’ve been in the Lassen Community College Gunsmith program in Susanville, CA.  I am proud to say my time there is now complete. This was an extremely intensive program covering all aspects of the classical gunsmith trade and I can now look forward to applying the skills and experience learned here with confidence. But it would have never happened without the incredible friendship and assistance of my compatriots.  

I was very lucky on so many things associated with this program. Not just to be able to get accepted to the program when I did, but to be able to come in with such a great group of fellow students.  Not that any group of incoming students wouldn’t be good, but I believe this was an exceptional group.  Not only that, but to be able to get into a work group with talented and supportive friends. 

Gunsmith students are an interesting lot and not what you would expect the typical community college student to be. Most are older – or a lot (damn) older – and working towards second or third careers. Single, married, some with children, even adult children of their own. Each uprooted and relocated from their homes, families and lives all over the western US.  All with their own unique love of just about every kind of firearm. 

Now imagine cramming all of these talented and opinionated oddballs into limited shared spaces, 12 & 13-hour days with long lists of skill development deliverables and homework. Homework?!?! At my age?!?!  What the hell!!! Yup, in addition to learning the trade, it is still a college course. So, homework. 🙁

Throughout these two years we all went through a lot, both in the program and in our own lives. An African proverb says it takes a village to raise a child. Well, I’m going to say it takes a great group of fellow students to raise a gunsmith. 

I know for me, I would never have been able to make it through this without the support and assistance of my teammates. I know there were many times where I ran full speed into a brick wall and if I didn’t have someone to toss stupid questions by, ask for a fresh set of eyes and a clearer mind, give me a helping third hand or 11thfinger, or simply a kind word, some understanding and a bit of encouragement to continue on, I would have never made it.  I know I learned as much from my teammates as I did through the course curriculum. We shared lessons learned, bad experiences and issues with guns likely designed by Satan himself.  My success through the program, and now being able to take what I have learned out into the world is a direct result of the exceptional people I was lucky enough to work with here. 

To say that I am beyond ecstatic of being able to be home with my own family now is an understatement, but I am also sad that our time here is over. Over the past two years, I’ve spent more time with my teammates here than I have with my own wife. During that time we became very good friends and I will miss this group of insane characters more than I ever would have expected. 

While I am sad that we are all going our separate ways to different corners of the country, I am also confident that we will keep in touch and continue to share our personal and professional adventures as we have here. I know in my heart that I will see my teammates again as the thought of not doing so would be intolerable to bear. 

Thank you my friends. It was a hell of an adventure and I can’t imagine going through it with anyone else but you.  I’m proud of what we accomplished together and know that we will continue to learn, innovate and achieve based on what we did together.  

Godspeed to you all. 

Rodd

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Election Theater Act 1, The Lightning Rods

Much like a lightning rod on a building, political lightning rods are sacrificial elements designed to protect the main candidate from damage. Shoved out front and to the top of the candidate pool, the press, opponents and voters focus all of their energy on them, keeping the actual candidate from unwanted scrutiny and potential harm in advance of the general election. Who is the actual candidate? It’s way too early for us to have that information, but we do know whom it is not, the ones who are taking the heat right now. Election Theater Act 1 is now on stage. 

A word of warning: What follows is my opinion and my opinion alone. It is based on my observations of far too many elections and the political process as I currently see it. 

As of today, 22 Democrats are in the running for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2020 elections. There are an additional 23 potential candidates who have discussed but not yet ruled out running on the Democratic ticket. With such a crowded field, it’s only possible to focus on the lightning rods. 

The lightning rods also serve another function, to throw out as many potential policy ideas as they can to see what sticks. If the ideas are well received, it becomes part of the party platform. If it crashes and burns, there’s no damage done to the candidate waiting in the wings.  After all, lightning rods are sacrificial. 

Why don’t I believe the current front-runners will be the ones on the ballot in 2020? The answer is in the voters being targeted by the DNC (Democratic National Committee) for a number of elections. The candidates they would likely support en masse are not two elderly, white male millionaires with more ugly baggage than the Kardashian’s on a weekend trip to Las Vegas. 

It all comes down to the illusion of choice. We believe all of the candidates have an equal chance to succeed and our opinions as voters are essential in the process. Instead, the pre-election campaign process is merely a smokescreen for the chosen few to determine who their favorite candidate is and what will be the winning platform issues. As we saw in the 2016 elections, and the lawsuits against the DNC by DNC’s own members, the DNC has the right to choose whomever they want, regardless of the will of the voters. 

Who is the actual Democratic candidate for President in 2020? Since the DNC hasn’t released their decision yet, we can only speculate.  I have my favorite, as I’m sure you do too. I’ve placed my first and second choices in an envelope, sealed in a mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnall’s back porch to be opened following the Democratic National Convention. 

I should note that while I’ve been talking about the DNC with all this, it doesn’t mean I believe the RNC (Republican National Committee) is any different. I am firmly convinced the denizens of the D.C. swamp are so entrenched in their own little world that they will do anything to protect it and themselves.  Until we as a nation come together to kick them out, impose term limits on congress and ensure that the people who pass the laws are not exempt from them, it will continue. 

You may be wondering why is the pre-nomination process so important to a Second Amendment supporter. For me, it’s not so much the candidate as the platform they and their party are running on. In order to gain the support of the party, each candidate has proudly bought into the myth of gun control as public safety policy. Restricting your right to buy, use and carry firearms, taking your firearms from you, while doing nothing to curb criminal use of firearms against you, is what they are pushing. 

When political policy includes stripping away our Constitutional rights, I become very concerned and very involved. And I’m not just talking about Second Amendment rights, I’m also talking about the First Amendment and every other one of the rights we hold so dear. 

If you don’t think your rights and liberty are at stake, take a look at what has been happening in Venezuela. After being stripped of their arms, the people are at the mercy of a brutal and unjust government. But of course, this could never happen in a modern society like ours, right?  I’m sure that’s what the Venezuelan people believed too. 

If you value your rights, you’ll start paying very close attention to what’s going on. Not just want is being reported by the news or on social media, but all the things behind the scenes.  Get involved now and stay involved. 

Bob

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The Rise Of The Fudds

Once beloved as Saturday morning cartoon’s loveable but hapless hunter, Elmer Fudd has come to represent all the things that are wrong with American’s modern day firearm owner and Second Amendment supporter. Some of this is well deserved and some merely accidental. Nonetheless, welcome to the Rise Of The Fudds. 

Unlike the animated Elmer Fudd who was “hunting wabbits”, I see several different types of Fudd in our modern society.  

The first is the classic, the Hunter Fudd.  Hunter Fudd heads out to the fields and woods a couple of times a year in search of his favorite prey. He grabs his trusty rifle or shotgun, does his hunt and goes back home. He’s not involved in politics or controversy, and if you didn’t see him in flannel or a bright orange vest once a year, you’d never know he owned any firearms at all. He is vewy, vewy quiet. 

Then there is Curmudgeon Fudd. Curmudgeon Fudd’s image of firearms ownership is everyone should be just like him. With his GI standard 1911 in God’s caliber, a M1 Garand in God’s other caliber and his trusty side-by-side 12 gauge, he sees no reason for anyone to need any other firearm. In between his five-times-a-day prayers while facing Camp Perry, he rips into anyone who owns and shoots anything else. All modern firearms are an abomination and as long as nobody tries to take away his, he doesn’t care what the politicians do. 

Next comes the Anti-Gun/Gun Owner Fudd. Anti-Gun/Gun Owner Fudd actually owns firearms, maybe one or two, maybe a dozen. But he’s out there making sure that others won’t be buying, carrying or using firearms.  Nobody, and he means NOBODY, knows firearms and firearm law better than him and he supports all the latest and greatest gun control laws. Keeping guns out of the hands of others makes him feel safer because he knows he will never give up any of his.  

Last but not least, there is the Hypocrite Fudd. Hypocrite Fudds tend to be politicians more times than not, but are also known to be ex-law enforcement administration and former ranking military officers – in other words, also politicians. These Fudds will go out to pro-Second Amendment communities and proudly claim to be gun owners. They often release photos of themselves at a range or in hunting apparel and proudly proclaim they “Support the Second Amendment, but… “. The “but” is follow-up where they say they also support “common sense public safety measures”. Back in front of their home gun control fanatic audiences, they go into great detail about how they will ban and take away guns they don’t like while working to eliminate everything the Second Amendment stands for.  All while standing behind walls of heavily armed security and government agencies. Their motto is — Do as I say, not as I do. 

Are the Fudds a problem? Yes and no in my opinion.  Just as it should be, firearm owners in this country cross all demographics of life. Knowing this it’s going to be impossible to get everyone to agree on everything, and sometimes anything at all.  So while the diversity of America’s firearm owner population is a great strength, it is also a great weakness.  

I can understand and appreciate the Hunter Fudds as the backbone of the firearm community. While they aren’t out helping to preserve our – as well as their own –Second Amendment rights, they are living proof that millions of Americans CAN and DO own firearms safely and responsibly every single day. 

While the Curmudgeon Fudds may be full of piss and vinegar, and love to spread their wisdom/grief around, what harm are they really causing? Yes, I get it, nobody likes to hear the 1911 vs. < any other gun in the world > argument every day, but who really cares? These Fudds are a vocal part of the firearm community, even if an annoying part.  At least they are out there voicing an opinion. 

It’s the last two Fudds I have the biggest problem with. The Anti-Gun/Gun Owner Fudds are themselves firearm owners, taking advantage and being limited by the very same nonsensical gun control laws the rest of us are. Yet they seem to feel that because they already own what they want, they don’t care about new laws limiting others. Somehow they feel they are either exempt or will be magically grandfathered into any new restrictions.  

Sadly, their attitude is very short sighted. As we’ve all come to realize, grandfathering provisions in gun control laws are just deferred confiscation plans. At some point, that grandfather clause will go away and they will be subject to the same restrictions the rest of us are.  

It’s also pretty damn selfish to think that it’s okay to take away the next generation’s Second Amendment rights if it means temporarily keeping some of your own. What kind of society are we turning over to our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren if they won’t even have their basic Constitutional rights? 

As for the Hypocrite Fudds, they are exactly what you would expect of politicians. They lie and tell people what they want to hear in order to progress their own agenda. Like the politicians with badges and disgraced ex-military officers they surround themselves with, they have long forgotten their oaths of office and the intent and meaning of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. To them, these are just old pieces of paper that they can pick and choose the parts they like while disregarding the parts they don’t.  And they do this while enjoying the safety and security they want to take away from the rest of us. 

While it would be nice to get all of the Fudds in line with those who are actively working to protect and retain our Second Amendment rights, we know it’s never going to happen. But that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the same rights we are fighting for. When we win, our entire nation wins. 

In the mean time, the rest of us need to be the opposite of vewy, vewy quiet and keep working as hard as we can. 

Bob

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