Voting is a right--gun ownership is not

Just remember that they want you to vote against your interests--and we have already had one party admission from you lot that you do it. Thanks for not being as "brite" as you lot think you are.

In case you haven't figured it out...

I tend to write posts before I post them.  Often, when MikeB asks me to fill in for him, I can write posts days ahead of when they will post (as is the case with this one).

I am also "comment adverse" meaning that I usually don't bother reading comments.  In fact, if moderation were on, no comments would be published during my tenure as "blogger in charge".

Very rarely do I actually read a comment (although, I do if it is something I need help on on my own blog).  but I really do tend to block people who annoy me--even if they "agree" with my point of view.  I am less concerned whether we agree or not as much as how annoying you happen to be.

Verstaste?

Test time!

Test yourself on these statements!

1. Success is based on survival of the fittest; I am not concerned about the losers.   
2. I find myself in the same kinds of trouble, time after time.                    
3. For me, what's right is whatever I can get away with.                     
4. I am often bored.                     
5. In today's world, I feel justified in doing anything I can get away with to succeed.                     
6. I find that I am able to pursue one goal for a long time.                     
7. My main purpose in life is getting as many goodies as I can.                     
8. I don't plan anything very far in advance.                     
9. Making a lot of money is my most important goal.                     
10. I quickly lose interest in tasks I start.                     
11. I let others worry about higher values; my main concern is with the bottom line.                     
12. Most of my problems are due to the fact that other people just don't understand me.                   
13. People who are stupid enough to get ripped off usually deserve it.                     
14. Before I do anything, I carefully consider the possible consequences.                     
15. Looking out for myself is my top priority.                     
16. I have been in a lot of shouting matches with other people.                     
17. I tell other people what they want to hear so that they will do what I want them to do.               
18. When I get frustrated, I often "let off steam" by blowing my top.                     
19. I would be upset if my success came at someone else's expense.                     
20. Love is overrated.                     
21. I often admire a really clever scam.                     
22. I make a point of trying not to hurt others in pursuit of my goals.                     
23. I enjoy manipulating other people's feelings.                     
24. I feel bad if my words or actions cause someone else to feel emotional pain.                     
25. Even if I were trying very hard to sell something, I wouldn't lie about it.                     
26. Cheating is not justified because it is unfair to others.                     
    
    Find out what this means here.

Jefferson was a commie

I wonder what he would say about a corporation going bankrupt after destroying the economy or poisoning a river?

Shooting at the Columbia Mall (Maryland)

I had to think if I really wanted to post that there was a mass shooting at the Columbia, Maryland shopping mall, but I thought about it and it makes loads of sense.

If you are unfamiliar with Columbia there was this link below the Baltimore Sun story when I first saw it:

Columbia: 10th most perfect suburb?

This is the start of the Wikipedia Article about Columbia:

Columbia is a planned community comprising 10 self-contained villages, located in Howard County, Maryland, United States. It began with the idea that a city could enhance its residents' quality of life. Creator and developer James W. Rouse saw the new community in terms of human values, rather than merely economics and engineering. Opened in 1967, Columbia was intended to not only eliminate the inconveniences of then-current subdivision design, but also eliminate racial, religious, and class segregation.
Columbia proper consists only of that territory governed by the Columbia Association, but larger areas are included under its name by the U.S. Postal Service and the census. These include several other communities which predate Columbia, including Simpsonville, Atholton, and in the case of the census, Clarksville. The census-designated place had a population of 99,615 in 2010,^[4] making it the most populous community in Maryland after Baltimore.^[5]

In other words, Columbia was supposed to be the perfect suburban space.  A place which is family friendly and relatively crime free.  It is a place where people move so they can raise families away from Urban problems.

In other words, this shit ain't supposed to happen in places like Columbia.

But, it does, it can happen anywhere.  That's what this shooting should hit home to you, but I know that you are a little too biased to believe the bullshit you spout without criticism.

Do guns really make people safer?  If that is the case, why are these incidents so common in the US, but not other developed nations?  Why not let the research speak for itself rather than silence it?

It's nice to say things, but not when objective facts contradict them.

Gun Control: ‘Liberal’ TV Anchors Alter Stance On Second Amendment

I am blatantly ripping off the title of this piece mostly because it it pure rubbish.  You might have a big alteration in the US Main Stream Media "position" on the Second Amendment if they came out and said that a right to arms outside the Militia Context was pure rubbish.  But, people still to the rest of the sentence want to talk about "personal gun rights".

On its face, the Second Amendment comes right out and says "A well regulated militia being necessary for the Security of the Free state".  Well if its fucking necessary, then it MUST have some relevance.  That's why US v. Milller (307 U.S. 174 [1939]) says:

With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces, the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.

I have emphasised the above passage to point out that this decision says that the Amendment must be read as a WHOLE as the First sentence gives the purpose of the right and the second part tells how it would be implemented.  It's a sunset clause for those educated enough to understand it (which Scalia did not) You have just said that the Second Amendment is no longer valid if you say that the first part is irrelevant.  Although, for all his sophistry about Second Amendment linguistics, Scalia failed to actually address the Miller decision saying that it wasn't helpful to his analysis.

No shit, Sherlock, the decision totally contradicts what you did.  Especially if one reads the cryptic  Aymette v. State, 21 Tenn. (2 Hump.) 154 (1840) reference at the end of this paragraph from Miller:

>In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense. Aymette v. State, 2 Humphreys (Tenn.) 154, 158.

Aymette  says:

To make this view of the case still more clear, we may remark, that the phrase, "bear arms," is used in the Kentucky constitution as well as in our own, and implies, as has already been suggested, their military use. The 28th section of our bill of rights provides, "that no citizen of this State shall be compelled to bear arms, provided he will pay in equivalent, to be ascertained by law." Here we know that the phrase has a military sense, and no other; and we must infer that it is used in the same sense in the 26th section, which secures to the citizen the right to bear arms. A man in the pursuit of deer, elk and buffaloes, might carry his rifle every day, for forty years, and, yet, it would never be said of him, that he had borne arms, much less could it be said, that a private citizen bears arms, because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his clothes, or a spear in a cane. So that, with deference, we think the argument of the court in the case referred to, even upon the question it has debated, is defective and inconclusive.

Justice McReynolds taught law at Tennesse's Vanderbilt University, I am sure he was quite aware of this reference which has gotten lost in the mix. And what he is saying is that the Second Amendment's use of the phrase to keep and bear arms has a military sense, and no other.

Anyway, there is far more proof that the Second Amendment relates to an institution which is as relevant to modern US society as the direct appointment of Senators.   As such, it is no bar to gun control.

Or to once again quote Justice William O. Douglas’s dissent in Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S 143, 150 -51 (1972).  Reminder Justice Douglas was on the SCOTUS at the time of US v. Miller:

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, with whom MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL concurs, dissenting.

My views have been stated in substance by Judge Friendly, dissenting, in the Court of Appeals. 436 F.2d 30, 35. Connecticut allows its citizens to carry weapons, concealed or otherwise, at will, provided they have a permit. Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. 29-35, 29-38. Connecticut law gives its police no authority to frisk a person for a permit. Yet the arrest was for illegal possession of a gun. The only basis for that arrest was the informer’s tip on the narcotics. Can it be said that a man in possession of narcotics will not have a permit for his gun? Is that why the arrest for possession of a gun in the free-and-easy State of Connecticut becomes constitutional?
The police problem is an acute one not because of the Fourth Amendment, but because of the ease with which anyone can acquire a pistol. A powerful lobby dins into the ears of our citizenry that these gun purchases are constitutional rights protected by the Second Amendment, which reads, “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.”
There is under our decisions no reason why stiff state laws governing the purchase and possession of pistols may not be enacted. There is no reason why pistols may not be barred from anyone with a police record. There is no reason why a State may not require a purchaser of a pistol to pass a psychiatric test. There is no reason why all pistols should not be barred to everyone except the police.
The leading case is United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, upholding a federal law making criminal the shipment in interstate commerce of a sawed-off shotgun. The law was upheld, there being no evidence that a sawed-off shotgun had “some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” Id., at 178. The Second Amendment, it was held, “must be interpreted and applied” with the view of maintaining a “militia.”
“The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia – civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.” Id., at 178-179.
Critics say that proposals like this water down the Second Amendment. Our decisions belie that argument, for the Second Amendment, as noted, was designed to keep alive the militia. But if watering-down is the mood of the day, I would prefer to water down the Second rather than the Fourth Amendment. I share with Judge Friendly a concern that the easy extension of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, to “possessory offenses” is a serious intrusion on Fourth Amendment safeguards.
“If it is to be extended to the latter at all, this should be only where observation by the officer himself or well authenticated information shows `that criminal activity may be afoot.’” 436 F.2d, at 39, quoting Terry v. Ohio, supra, at 30.

Another type of welfare

According to an Urban Institute Study called The Hospital Costs of Firearms Assaults fount that about 80 percent of the cost of treating victims of gun violence in 2010 was borne in part by taxpayers.  That means taxpayers paid for victims' care either through government programs like Medicaid or through publicly-funded programs that subsidize hospital care for those who don't have insurance and can’t afford to pay.

“The victims are concentrated among young, poor males,” said the report's author, Embry Howell, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. “This is the population we’re talking about and their costs are very high. It's one group that is heavily uninsured."

Hospitals in the U.S. spent $630 million in 2010 treating the victims of gun violence -- everything from minor gunshot wounds to injuries that required days-long stays -- and public funds provided most of that money. The Medicaid costs of gun violence alone that year amounted to approximately $327 million.

Notably, the report found that the average cost of a hospital visit for a gun violence victim is $14,000 more than that of the average hospital stay, due to the severity of the injuries often involved.

Although, the true economic cost of gun violence is much larger that what hospitals are spending on care. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that gun violence deaths cost the U.S. economy $37 billion and gun injuries $3.7 billion in 2005, the last year the public health agency conducted an analysis. In addition, taxpayers often end up footing the bill for social services for gun violence victims, as well as building the expensive hospital trauma units needed for their treatment.

One bit of good news:

Many of the victims of gun violence who are uninsured will see their hospital bills go down as President Obama’s health care reform law offers more low-income Americans access to Medicaid in many states.

The Bad News:

But because Medicaid is a government-subsidized program, Howell noted, the cost of gun violence to taxpayers will go up.

In other words, society bears the cost of gun violence, but that's another thing I've been sayiing all along.