Gun violence

Jun142017 by jrcowlesNo Comments

Here’s How To Wade Through Thigh-Deep Horse Excrement

"Life" Issues, Challenge, Change, conservatism, constitution, Fascism, Gun violence, Guns, Uncategorized

I just got done listening to what must have been a world-record volume of horse fertilizer about the DC baseball shooting. (I shouldn't insult horse fertilizer with such a comparison ... sorry!) Herewith a couple of salient examples: o "At this point, there are no Democrats and no Republicans" HORSE-FERTILIZER ... that very partisan distinction is even more -- not less -- relevant now. Which party most consistently opposed all regulations on any and all assault weapons? Which party most consistently and reliably opposed any and all regulations on limiting, e.g., magazine capacity, limits on who can buy guns (even to the point of allowing blind people and the mentally unstable to own firearms), and which party most constantly and consistently opposed loophole-free background c...

Oct132016 by jrcowlesNo Comments

Guns, Planes, And The Second Amendment

14th Amendment, citizenship, civics, conservatism, Consitution, critical judgment, Evidence, Fear, Freedom, Gun violence, Guns, Ideology, Incarceration, justice, law, peace and justice, Rationality, Second Amendment, Supreme Court, terrorism, Uncategorized, violence, war

The late William F. Buckley once said “A conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'” Buckley was a member of that generation of conservatives, along with Russell Kirk, James J. Kilpatrick, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Mary Ann Glendon, and William Rusher – and very much unlike so many of today’s conservatives -- who were thoughtful, learned, witty, urbane, and well-schooled in nuanced rhetoric. For that reason, I would recommend that leftists and progressives heed the wisdom in Buckley’s maxim, and, likewise yelling “Stop!”, similarly stand athwart their own almost-unanimous consensus about the supposed inconsistency in prohibiting people with suspected terrorist proclivities from boarding planes while nevertheless allowing them to purchase firearms. For the cont

Jul142016 by jrcowlesNo Comments

Locked But Not Loaded — The NRA And The Dallas Shootings

14th Amendment, abolition, anger, bigotry, Change, citizenship, civics, Civil War, conflict, Consitution, emancipation, Emancipation Proclamation, Equality, Fourteenth Amendment, Gun violence, Guns, injustice, justice, peace and justice, political rhetoric, race, racism, Second Amendment, slavery, Uncategorized, violence

The orthodox argument advanced by the National Rifle Association (NRA) senior leadership for the individual ownership of firearms unconnected with military service is that firearms in the hands of private citizens acts as a deterrent to some future tyranny by the Federal government. One would think, then, that Micah Xavier Johnson would by now have been recruited by the NRA as both poster child and martyr. After all, in the wake of the LA and MN shootings of helpless black men by the police – to say nothing of Ferguson and New York City and Baltimore and … -- Johnson’s actions were pristinely and irreproachably consistent with the NRA’s avowed advocacy of armed resistance to a tyrannical government bent on the subjugation of its citizens. Yet – at least, as far as I have been able to