Posted on 11/27/2012 9:03:57 AM PST by marktwain
As you may recall, I have utter disdain for gun buyback programs. With that being said I was greatly amused that the State of Kentucky has done a one-eighty on the idea and have begun a sell back program.
The program has been in place for 15 years now and as you can imagine, the gun control zealots are still bemoaning the “inevitability” of blood running in the streets. Even after a decade and a half of positive results, some are still criticizing the program such as Kenton County Commonwealth Attorney Rob Sanders.
“In my experience, the guns that end up there are dangerous weapons, poorly made, often damaged or really don’t have value unless you’re looking for an inexpensive firearm. And if you’re looking for a cheap gun, you’re usually up to no good.”
Apparently Mr. Sanders doesn’t believe that poor people have a right to protect themselves and their family against crime. Or maybe he is speaking from a position of bigoted elitism stating that all poor people are criminals.
Fortunately, when this bill was proposed and passed in 1998, then State Rep. Bob Damron, D-Nicholasville, didn’t let baseless and bigoted claims prevent him from moving forward with this gun sell back program. He argued that in his rural district the police told him that they were forced to destroy firearms that were better than they were being issued. Damron’s bill allowed the police to keep some weapons for departmental use while sending the bulk of them to the Kentucky State Police for auction.
Not surprisingly due to the political nature of the position, a number of police chiefs, nearly unanimously in Northern Kentucky opposed the measure, going so far as circumventing the law and stockpiling these weapons to avoid following the law. In 2000 though the Kentucky Assembly amended the law requiring that the weapons be turned over for auction within 90 days.
Now though, after $7 million worth of bullet proof vests and other police needs have been funded directly by this program, the police are among its biggest supporters. Though the support isn’t universal, and you will always have the gun control zealots try to undermine the rights of the citizenry with outlandish claims and sensationalism, it seems that Kentucky is on the right path and that the gun sell back program will continue on its successful path.
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An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. -Robert Heinlein
I’m a fan of Heinlein. If you are uninitiated with his writing, you may be familiar with the movie Starship Troopers which was loosely based on his novel of the same name. Heinlein was a science fiction writer who used the otherworldly landscapes to promote a libertarian philosophy. As the above quote can attest to, Heinlein believed you are responsible for your own actions and when those actions have consequences you will act with greater care.
Why do I bring up Heinlein? Because I detest Black Friday. The day after Thanksgiving when people act like animals in order to get a discount on some materialistic good. Every year you hear stories of the worst of people coming through on Black Friday, people being trampled why others do nothing to help, punches thrown over this bauble or that.
Imagine my surprise and delight when I heard about the following tale from a Sears store in San Antonio. Being Black Friday, a long line existed heading into the store as people decide that the hours upon hours they wait in line are worth wasting in order to save a couple of bucks. Of course, some people don’t like waiting, some people think that they can do whatever they want because everyone else are sheep and will be cowed by a dominant personality.
That is what one line cutting rude and violent man thought at least. When the doors opened he sprinted in front of the line pushing and shoving his way to get in front of everyone. As you can imagine some people didn’t care for his attitude or his line cutting ways and told him to go back to the end of the line. The line cutters response was to start punching people in the face.
I can only imagine that he was bigger than the other men and women in the line so he felt confident that he would just muscle his way past those weaker than him. What he didn’t expect, was when one man who he punched in the face responded by pulling a handgun out and pointed it at him.
Like cowards always do, the line cutting assaulter ran away and shopping continued normally. The armed citizen will not face any charges as he had a CCW and acted right and proper in his response to the assault.
Will Mr. Face Punching Scumbag start throwing punches next time to get ahead in line? Something tells me, probably not. I think he got a lesson his parents neglected to give him years ago…actions have consequences.
But in an unarmed society, where the big man rules without challenge, where gangs can use muscle to oppress the weak, there are no consequences for the strong, only fallout for the weak.
I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. -Robert Heinlein
The Stars. my destination.
!
This truely is the price of freedom, Morality.
...for those interested. :D
FBI asked to probe Obama 'vote-changing' machines
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2963240/posts
Wow! Rand Paul on On the Record with Greta-where was this message in the campaign?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2963254/posts
Life at Conception Act: Rand Paul's Bold Plan to End Abortion via Roe v. Wade
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2963255/posts
As corroborative evidence, see his book ...
...for those interested. :D
FBI asked to probe Obama 'vote-changing' machines
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2963240/posts
Wow! Rand Paul on On the Record with Greta-where was this message in the campaign?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2963254/posts
Life at Conception Act: Rand Paul's Bold Plan to End Abortion via Roe v. Wade
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2963255/posts
...for those interested. :D
FBI asked to probe Obama 'vote-changing' machines
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2963240/posts
Wow! Rand Paul on On the Record with Greta-where was this message in the campaign?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2963254/posts
Life at Conception Act: Rand Paul's Bold Plan to End Abortion via Roe v. Wade
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2963255/posts
“My name is Gully Foyle,
and Terra is my nation.
Deep space is my dwelling place,
And the stars my destination.”
Unforgettable - one of the best things Alfred Bester ever wrote.
I liked Heinlein a lot. But even Heinlein ended up becoming a Deist. I came to Jesus when I realized that even with my best efforts, I still needed forgiveness. I made mistakes. Everyone does.
Based on the first volume of the Heinlein biography, I'd call him more of an experimental pantheist, with some weird friends. Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard were in the circle of people he knew. His second wife*, Leslyn, was a witch of some sort.
I await the second volume.
*First marriage was very brief, just after his Naval Academy days.
Rah’s second wife was named Virginia. Ginny.
It might be a better idea to create gun “set asides”, specifically for crime victims in need of a weapon. This would help insure they got a good, functional weapon, appropriate to their needs, and probably free ammunition as well, and training on request, along with range training.
There is a lot of common sense with this, as for long the FBI has compiled statistics about crime and victims, and discovered that some victims are “frequent flyers”, being victimized repeatedly, for assorted reasons. Many can’t seem to stop the cycle of victimization on their own.
I’m not sure Deism explains RAH, at least in his later and weirder years.
Best I can figure is he had some notion that the universe (or universes) came into existence because sentient beings believe in them. Sort of a Tinkerbell approach to Creation.
This of course makes those who create the stories which become creation myths into God. Which of course is flattering to writers of stories.
Pretty much everything he wrote after 1973 is garbage. Some of it interesting garbage, to be sure.
you brought a tear to my eye...
Just when the books start getting good, out comes the wife-swapping.
It made the last 1/3 of some of his later books unreadable.
As for “blood running in the streets,” as long as it’s the right blood...
Righto. Though a good bit of that was in there as far back as the 60s with Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Two of his best, especially Moon.
He also drifted into time travel for the purpose of incest, which is a little too bizarre for me. Later books started at least hinting at homosexuality.
Icckk.
Still, he had a hell of a run and wrote a lot of stuff that still stands up very well.
I grew up devouring Heinlen (and Asimov and a host of others of the era) and loved his works. He got a little outre’ near the end, but even then he showed an understanding of where we were going as a society and I like to think his versions were the softer, gentler versions of what he knew we would end up with. Then again, maybe he turned more towards sexual freedoms as an antidote to old age - as an elderly gentleman friend once remarked, “I had to go to the doctor to try to get my sex drive lowered”. My wife looked at him and said, “Mr. Stewart (first name Stewart - southern convention of address), did I hear you correctly?” He pointed at his head and said, “Yes, I want to get it lowered from up here to down where it belongs”.
I just re-suffered through the last 1/5th of “The Number of The Beast” and he hit all of those things; swapping, incest, homosexuality. Only the animals were left un-molested.
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