In the whirlwind following the Sandy Hook massacre there were numerous calls for more gun control if not an outright gun ban. The response from the pro-gun crowd, was a call for a more substantive look at the broader scope of issues involved in mass shootings.

In the interest of doing something that will make a difference, let’s have a look at some of the proposals and qualify them based on whether they “might have” prevented Sandy Hook, or whether they “would have.”

Increased Gun Control

Let’s lump all of the gun control proposals into this one category: universal background checks, magazine capacity limits, bans on certain types of weapons, et al. And let’s also recall that Adam Lanza murdered his mother in order to obtain weapons, was illegally in possession of those weapons, broke the law bringing them into a gun free zone, committed multiple murders inside the school, had 20 minutes in which to commit those murders, was met with no armed resistance at all, and ultimately ended his own life.

I’d say it would be a stretch to claim that increased gun control “would have” prevented Sandy Hook, considering that Mr. Lanza obviously didn’t care much about laws, and even if there were increased gun control, there is the black market, theft, and even the consideration that Mr. Lanza likely could have committed this atrocity using a bolt action, single shot “hunting” rifle.

Still, there is the possibility that increased gun control “might have” prevented Sandy Hook. Adam Lanza’s mother might not have had any weapons available, they might have been locked up in a safe, etc.

So: Increased Gun Control? Might Have.

Next up:

A Total Gun Ban

This means no one but “special people” would have guns. Keep in mind that Adam Lanza wasn’t too fond of laws. A total gun ban would probably have made things more difficult for him, but there remains the illegal means of acquiring a gun. You know, the whole, “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns,” and Adam Lanza was certainly an outlaw.

A Total Gun Ban? Might Have.

A Better Mental Health System

Adam Lanza was obviously mentally unstable. Improved mental health screens, a public more willing to identify potentially unstable people, more widely available and approachable mental health institutions, etc, might have meant Mr. Lanza would have had access to help or perhaps even be off the street altogether.

But could he have slipped through the cracks? Been able to fudge his way through a mental health exam or otherwise avoid the system? Of course, however, it is possible that he could have also been identified and institutionalized.

A Better Mental Health System? Might Have.

An Adam Lanza Incapacitated by Armed Resistance

When Adam Lanza entered the school and presented a weapon, if he had been met by a barrage of bullets that incapacitated him such that he could no longer proceed down the hallway nor pull a trigger, would that have prevented Sandy Hook?

Absolutely. Would. Have.

So why aren’t we looking at ways to put a barrage of bullets in between a killer and their victims? Why are we even considering further limitations on magazine capacity and more pervasive gun control when it is easily demonstrable, as above, that those efforts “might have” made a difference, but more bullets in Adam Lanza’s face “would have” made a difference? Could it be that those proposing “might have” solutions aren’t really interested in preventing mass shootings? Could it be they have other priorities?

I would suggest that we could test that theory using a test very similar to “might have/would have.”

What?

Did I get that wrong?

Ohh. If I love someone, I’m supposed to set them free? I see.

Liberals claim the mantle of compassion and tolerance, evidenced as social justice, human rights, general welfare, safety nets, fairness… Liberals believe their policies deliver love through the mechanism of government.

If you wipe away the rhetoric and look at what liberals do, the picture is quite the opposite. Rules for restaurants. Rules for watering your lawn. Rules for light bulbs. Rules for toilets. And if you disobey the rules? No mercy.

If you’re a liberal, you probably think that limiting the amount of water per flush conserves water, and conserving water is good. I’m not arguing that. I’m arguing that you can’t simultaneously be the ideology of love and the ideology of never ending rules, regulations, and intrusions.

If you love someone, set them free allows no room for interpretation. You either love or you control, there is no middle ground. So – liberals – please excuse me if I shatter the illusion that you do what you do out of love. That you care so much you’re willing to force me to live in misery.

There’s no reason for conservatives to add a qualifier to their ideology e.g. “compassionate conservative.” Conservatives want you to be as free as possible. Burn the regulations. Punish only those that do harm, not those who would do good only to find their intentions suffocated under a crushing burden of rules.

Hey liberals, own it. You are the ideology of control, of no mercy. Conservatives are the ideology of freedom, of love.

If you love freedom, you are a conservative. And only if you love freedom, will you set someone free.

I don’t need you anymore.

What a powerful statement.

Imagine saying that to a cancer doctor.

Or to a wheelchair.

Or a bottle of alcohol.

How liberating. How beautiful.

I don’t need you anymore.

Now, imagine a welfare dependent telling the government,

“I don’t need you anymore.”

Imagine having raised yourself up to a place where you no longer need aid to survive, a place where your own hands, your own mind, your own effort have given you the capacity to live without someone else having to prop you up. Your own life, your own path, unchained from the bonds of government dependency.

Should that not be a resounding message of conservatism?

Shed your bonds, become free, become you.

How liberating. How beautiful.

I don’t need you anymore.

The moment that cemented my political ideology as conservative was while listening to the post-passage Obamacare speeches in March of 2010, during which Senator Max Baucus said, “…[Obamacare] is also an income shift…the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy…this legislation will have the effect of addressing that mal-distribution of income…”

When I heard that statement, I was shattered.

You see, I run my own business. I like running my own business, it’s very rewarding, but it can also be very demanding. I have big dreams for my business. Will I reach them? I don’t know. I hope so. But it is those dreams that compel me to do the hard work necessary for a business to excel.

So there I was diving home, tired, but happy that I had spent the day promoting my business and meeting some great people. Then I heard Max Baucus.

What Max Baucus essentially said to me was, “Hey. You can dream. Just don’t dream too big.” Who was Max Baucus to tell me how big to dream? Who decided someone was too wealthy? And what exactly was too wealthy? And what the hell does healthcare have to do with being too wealthy? What if someday I was “too wealthy?” I didn’t get that money by accident or take it by force. I earned that money. Every penny of it.

So in a few wags of his tongue, Max Baucus shattered my incentive to dream, my incentive to work. He placed a limit on my dreams. He told me that I could work as hard as I wanted to, but at some point I would have enough, and someone out there would take what they thought I didn’t need. I found that disgusting. What a terrible thing to shatter the desire to succeed, to make something great, to be the best, to be a champion, a leader.

Well, Max Baucus, I won’t let you limit my dreams and I won’t let you take whatever excess you think my dreams create. For those of you who don’t have a problem with what Max Baucus said, think about how disgusting it is for one man to arbitrarily determine when someone has “too much” and to take that “too much” by force.

I’ll dream however big I damn well please Mr. Baucus. And if my dreams result in me having “too much”, I’ll be keeping that as well.

The left believes that government is the answer to all of man’s ills, but they forget that government is one of man’s ills. You see:

Government is an institution, through which one group can be forced to comply with the will of another.

Government is a fabrication of man. Government does not have a brain, it does not have an agenda, it is a tool used by people to implement their will.

There is another institution through which one group can be forced to comply with the will of another:

Slavery.

Slaves are forced to do another’s will under threat of punishment, just as government forces you to comply with the rule of law.

There is a close cousin to slavery known as “indentured servitude” where a person offers their labor in exchange for basic necessities. How does indentured servitude differ from slavery? Indentured servitude is voluntary, slavery is not.

If you are comfortable with government dictating society, you must also accept that this form of government is tantamount to slavery. You are advocating enslavement of society through government.

So if government is a mechanism through which one group can be bent to the will of another, what is the most noble form of government? That in which the governed voluntarily submit to the government. Where the people implement their own will through government.

And what is the most evil form of government? That in which the governed are not consulted as to their agreement with the government. Where the people are forced to comply with government mandate against their will.

In that way, the most noble form of government is a kind of indentured servitude, where a government mandate is enacted only when the governed agree to be subject to it.

While not exactly a beautiful statement of freedom, since government is required by civilized society, the most noble form of government is that which allows the most freedom within the rule of law, where the government is of the people, by the people, and for the people…

Enacted Servitude

November 8, 2016

Election Day

1753 days

1753 days to mentor, educate, train, energize, shatter myths, expose the truth

1753 days to undo over 100 years of propaganda, misinformation, lies, and deceit

We will do it because freedom reigns supreme

People may reign for a moment, but the desire to be free will always prevail

Even in the darkest depths, when all seems lost, we yearn to be free

And free we will be

Today begins the long walk

Back to freedom

A post today on Red State prompted me to write an article in kind, describing the situation that started my journey to becoming a “gun nut.” (Actually, I think sharing more of these stories would be helpful to the pro/anti gun debate because they reveal that not all gun proponents have always been that way, contrary to how we are portrayed.)

It seems that most liberals think gun-nuts are just born that way, that we have a genetic disposition towards gun ownership or we’re conditioned to be pro-gun through culture. This mirrors the liberal assumption that if you’re conservative you must have been born that way because you simply can’t possibly be conservative if you open your mind to the real world. After all, “enlightenment” is the exclusive territory of liberals, right? In fact, the opposite is true, both in terms of having a conservative political worldview and in terms of gun ownership. My story is a case in point…

I’ve never been “anti-gun”, but I wasn’t a “gun nut” either. Guns were a non-issue for me.
I suppose you could have called me a gun agnostic. My grandfather was a hunter and I knew he went on deer and turkey hunts from time to time, but I never really had any interest in it. He took me out “plinking” when I was young, and I enjoyed it, but didn’t carry things any farther than that. School came and went, I moved away for college, time passed, and so did my grandfather. Before he died, he gave me one of his hunting rifles, a Winchester Model 94. I appreciated it, but never had any interest in shooting it.

A couple of years ago we had a rash of break-ins in my neighborhood. It’s a small community so we collaborated on timing, strange vehicles, etc. I work from home and come and go at non-typical hours. I had seen a strange vehicle driving through the neighborhood, but no one could confirm whether it belonged or not.

One afternoon my dogs went crazy barking at something, which usually means a delivery van is coming up the driveway. I looked out the window and saw “the car” coming up my driveway. “The car” pulled up to my front walk and whoever was inside apparently observed the house for a few moments. Probably because the dogs were barking and jumping around in the front window, they thought better than to try to break in, and left.
I recorded the make and model, the license number, and other details, and reported them to the local sheriff’s office. Turns out the owner of the vehicle was a gang member with a long criminal history including violent assaults, terroristic threats, burglary, etc.

The next few days I coped with several realizations:

1) If whoever was in that car had decided to bust in my front door and the dogs either didn’t scare them off or were shot, I would likely be dead. I had no means of protection other than my body and possibly a kitchen knife had I been of the mind to grab one (which was unlikely).

2) The person in that car had no regard whatsoever for the well being of any living things that were in my house. They wanted my stuff and were going to take it, perceived risk being low enough.

3) It didn’t matter to the person in that car how hard I had worked for my stuff or what it meant to me. They intended to take it, regardless of how much damage it did to my soul, my house, my bank account, or my life.

4) There are people “out there” who have no qualms about hurting you, killing you, taking your money, taking your possessions, or causing you some kind of harm. Harm that you could never imagine voluntarily causing anyone else. These people are real, the harm they intend is real, and they will not hesitate to ruin your life if you are an obstruction to their goal. And that is all you are, an obstruction, something to be moved out of the way.

I was forced into the above realizations. Dragged into them by the actions of someone who had already caused others great harm and might have also harmed me, had I not been lucky. I decided I wanted to move luck a little lower on the flow chart of why I get to be alive when my wife gets home from work or why my daughter gets to stay at school rather than be called home for my funeral.

So I bought a gun. And then another one. And then another one. The more I practiced and studied, the more I wanted to learn. Different guns, different tactics, different scenarios.
I enjoyed the challenge, the stress, the discipline. I was becoming a gun nut.

Something that took me by surprise, that I wholly did not expect was to confront the dark side of being a gun nut, that is, you are training for the possibility of being forced to do something about a bad guy some day. That there is a component of humanity that might actually cross the line and force you to use your gun. Rest absolutely assured, if you are of sound mind, you will probably tear up, or at least feel uncomfortable as you learn to defend yourself, particularly with a deadly weapon. It might not happen on the range, it might not happen at the dojo. But some night, you will break down. You’ll realize that your rose colored glasses have been ripped off and stomped to pieces, and you will never be able to get another pair. A new reality will sink like a cinder block into your stomach.

But you’ll get over it. You’ll have to. Just because there are people out there who mean you harm is no reason to shrink into a shell and stop living your life. If you do, “those people” have beaten you. You learn to defend yourself so you don’t have to live in a shell.

I haven’t lost all faith in humanity. I’ve just been slapped in the face by the fact that there is a percentage of humanity that means others harm.

Call me a “gun nut” if you like. I happen to believe that gun nuts have a far greater understanding of and respect for life than those who are ignorant of the fact that some people wish others harm. We certainly have a greater respect for life than those who desire to do harm. It’s ironic that those who would put themselves in harm’s way to defend your life are likely the same people who suffer the slurs of “gun nut” and “right wing nutbag.”

We hear no end to the Democrat call to tax the rich, make people pay their fare share, ask “millionaires and billionaires” to “pay a little more”. Republicans try to explain that raising taxes is pointless, particularly in light of the coming balloon of entitlement spending, but Democrats and the media don’t want to hear it and characterize resistance to more taxes as catering to rich “fat cats.” With the incredible magnitude of the numbers involved, it’s difficult to wrap your mind around the nature of the problem, so below you’ll find a way to easily and plainly see why the argument for more taxes is ridiculous.

The graphic below is interactive. The slider determines the income tax rate for “the rich.” The top pie chart shows how much “the rich” get to keep, and the bottom pie chart shows how taxes on “the rich” impact government spending. Some data points:

• “Rich” is defined as per the Democrats, that is all single income households earning $200,000 or more and all dual income households earning $250,000 or more.
• The top pie chart uses a basis of $3.5 Trillion dollars, which is what the Tax Policy Center estimates as the total annual income of “the rich.” This $3.5 Trillion dollar figure will not match what you might see elsewhere because it includes ALL forms of income, rather than paycheck alone, meaning interest income, dividends, etc. This was done to prevent the accusation of “hidden” income, which would then lead to the argument that the chart comparison is flawed.
• The bottom pie chart uses a basis of $6.1 Trillion dollars, which is what the usgovernmentspending.com website calculates as the total combined spending of federal, state, and local governments for 2011.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We did not use the federal only 2011 expenses figure of $3.6 Trillion for the bottom chart, because it is impossible to designate a portion of income as for federal tax calculation only. In other words, the federal government does not say, “Well, we know you made $200,000 this year, but you also pay state and local taxes so we’re only going to calculate taxes on $100,000 of your income.” The only way to normalize the two charts is to compare all income to all expenses. (The $3.6 Trillion figure comes from the Congressional Budget Office.)

Let the charts begin!

If you haven’t already, slide the percentage tax up to 100%. You’ll see that while all of the income of “the rich” is consumed, government expenses are still not covered. What does this mean? It means the Democrats are liars:

• Proposing that the solution for our budget woes (deficit spending) is to have the rich pay more is a lie. You can take 100% of the income of “the rich” (everything – salary, commissions, interest, dividends…) and still not pay for the government.
• The arbitrary $200,000/$250,000 definition of “the rich” is a lie. First, it’s stupid to say it’s ok if you make $199,999.99 but if you make $200,000.00 you’re an evil rich person. Second, you are kidding yourself if you think you’re safe below the $200,000/$250,000 limit. Without spending cuts, the only way to improve the scenario illustrated by the charts above is to lower the income thresholds so the first chart has a larger basis. Without spending cuts, “middle class” tax increases are inevitable. Think $100,000/$125,000, then $50,000/$75,000, etc.

What should be hitting you like a brick about now is that without a reduction in spending, your taxes will be going up. Yes, you. Not “the rich.” Not “millionaires and billionaires.” You.

Well then, let’s cut defense! Defense? Ok, take out $700 Billion, or $.7 Trillion. Disband the entire United States armed forces and you take spending from $6.1 Trillion to $5.4 Trillion. No Army, no Navy, no Air Force, no Marines. You’re still $1.9 Trillion short.

Keep in mind that this is just ONE YEAR. ONE YEAR of a 100% tax rate on “the rich” and complete elimination of the military and we’re still short $1.9 Trillion dollars. One year. “The rich” get nothing. The military gets nothing. $1.9 Trillion dollars short. ONE YEAR.

The Democrats are lying to you, to all of us. Why? The math doesn’t work, period. The “tax the rich” rhetoric has the sole purpose of making one group of people hate another. And it’s working, well.

This needs to end people. Before the whole thing comes crashing down, we need to open our eyes and see what’s really happening here. Taxing “the rich” is a lie. Taxes are not the answer. We must shrink government, radically, and immediately.

I’ll make this chart exercise available to anyone who wants it. I’m hoping it gets some use in the House and Senate. Contact me for details.

Mr. Morgan,

Based on your words and behavior in recent segments of your show, it’s quite apparent that you believe American gun culture to be asinine, and our legally protected right to keep and bear arms to be the root cause of gun related violence and murder in America. It is also clear that you view those who support the right to keep and bear arms as disgusting for what you interpret as complicity in crimes where people are harmed or killed by a gun.

What I think is disgusting Mr. Morgan, is that we continue to bury innocent loved ones because you and others like you refuse to accept reality, refuse to allow open discourse, and refuse to acknowledge the facts of gun control and gun violence. While there is no perfect answer, there is ample evidence that gun control results in more death and destruction. We know how to reduce gun violence. We can repeat fact-based scenarios over and over and over again, yet you prefer to condemn people to suffer at the hands of monsters rather than allow them to defend themselves and those they love and care for.

I hesitate to accuse you of having blood on your hands because I truly believe you are trying to do the right thing, that you really do want to preserve and protect life. But the fact that you will not allow open discussion exposes the unfortunate truth that you do not value life as much as you value your ideology.

I hope you realize that the longer you and others refuse to discuss all options, the closer we move toward the next atrocity. Open your mind before the next madman opens fire.

The Liberty Dude

The dark side of gun culture is not that bad people use guns to do bad things.

The dark side of gun culture is that you have to look in the mirror and realize that there are people out there who would kill you, who would kill your wife, your children, someone else’s children, and they would feel no regret, no remorse, no shame.

You are simply an obstacle, a thing that needs to be moved out of the way so they can have what they want – your TV, your car, your wallet, infamy.

They would not process the fact that you would never get to kiss your wife again, that you would never get to hug your kid again.

If this shocks you, makes you recoil, makes you weep, you are not alone.

The dark side of gun culture is not the machine we use for protection, it is the traumatic process of realizing that there are monsters “out there” who do horrific things. But the monsters are not stupid. They know about our machines with bullets inside them. They know we are out there, waiting to stop them, ready to stop them. That’s why they lurk, on the dark side of gun culture.