Sunday, July 19, 2009

Consider This

I've heard a lot of arguing lately about whether or not people should be able to defend themselves against home intruders (or other threats outside of your home) by using deadly force. From Jersey City's Police Chief Thomas Comey to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, enemies of our right to defend ourselves are becoming more prominent. 

I often hear the argument that states citizens don't need to carry guns or even have them in the home for self-defense purposes, as that's what police are here for. If someone is trying to break into your home, you should just call the police, announce to the bad guy that the authorities will arrive shortly, and then hope the criminals don't slit your throat in the meantime. 

Well, consider this. 

You're a stay at home mother with two small children in the house. You're husband is on a business trip for the next three days. You've decided to make fried chicken for dinner. You clean the chicken, dredge it, and preheat the oil. 

Then something unthinkable happens: the oil bursts into flames. 

A giant oil fire is now raging in your kitchen, spreading quite quickly. You make sure your children in the other room are where you can see them, go to grab the fire extinguisher out of the pantry, and you're stunned to find that the extinguisher is gone. 

Then you remember. The Washington bureaucrats outlawed using fire extinguishers inside the home a little over a year ago. Their rationale was that fighting fires is what fire departments are for. Vigilante citizens armed with fire extinguishers obviously cannot be trusted to take on the flame alone, so they should be forced to call the fire department when a fire breaks out. The government must take away their only line of defense against fires for their own good. 

So, you've got a raging fire (the threat) that could be extinguished by a fire extinguisher (the tool to neutralize the threat), but since you, the lowly citizen, can't be trusted with the tool because the government says so, you are forced to grab your children, hope that your phone is charged, run outside to find shelter, all the while a raging fire is consuming everything you have.

Make sense now?

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Constitutional Rights

I ran into someone on the internet who claimed that your Constitutional rights are void if people around you dislike what you're doing.

His example: If you're sitting in a classroom and you're legally concealing a weapon, if the students around you are uncomfortable with you doing this they can vote to void your right (to keep and bear arms).

This example was made under the assumption that the student is
legally allowed to conceal carry on campus, has gone through the necessary background checks, and has the license.

His exact words were "if the majority of your students don't want you armed in the classroom they are sharing with you, then I believe you shouldn't be armed. I would extend that to a city, state or nation."

Rights guaranteed in the Constitution, i.e. the supreme law of the land, can't be denied just because they're unpopular. So if I start speaking out against gay marriage in San Francisco they should be able to take my right to free speech away? No, it's guaranteed by the First Amendment. If I commit a hate-crime in a predominately black city should they be able to take my right to a fair trial away, just because there was an element of racism? No, because a fair, speedy, and public trial is guaranteed to me by the Sixth Amendment. If I do a news report over a corrupt presidential administration should they be able to take my freedom of the press rights away from me because the president's popular? No, because I'm guaranteed this right under the First Amendment. What if I'm a member of the Westboro Baptist Church and I stand on a street corner with a sign that reads 'GOD HATES FAGS' should I be imprisoned for my views? No, because I'm guaranteed freedom of religion under the First Amendment.

The Second Amendment is no different. Just because you're uncomfortable with my
right to carry a gun for my protection doesn't mean that you can deny me that right.

Our rights
are not to be compromised just because they're unpopular.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Some things are truly embarrassing.

I've lived in the South all my life (or what's commonly included as the south), and I've always maintained that people from the south are not the backwards-ass, stupid, ignorant, and bigoted people that those damned yankees up north make them out to be. 

But for every illogically ideological soggy-pancake-brained quasi-socialist from San Francisco who spews something moronic about "economic justice" and progressive bullshit, there's one person from down south who spews an equally ridiculous statement. 

I give you Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern (R).

She's an embarrassment to Oklahoma. I love my State, but we've got some nuts. She has started a little campaign known as the Proclamation for Morality, where she blames "abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and many other forms of debauchery" for the nation's economic crisis, among our other problems.

I set out to write a post about the absurdities of issuing permits to shoot off fireworks, but I just couldn't let this little nugget of shame go by.