Irregular Militias

How’s that well-regulated militia working out? Protecting life, liberty and property, and all that? It says regulated. Regulated. The NRA will say crazy people will always kill. Yet that’s an argument not to control or outright ban weapons?

Want to have a gun? Learn how to use it. Learn how to store it. Join a state defense force. Or get one started. But quit pretending guns don’t kill people. Guns don't kill people by themselves, but they help people kill a whole lot of people.

The right to bear arms as a check on tyranny is infantile fantasy. The real bulwark against tyranny is not electing tyrants, because by the time you need your guns it will already be too late.

Don't Tell ME to be Happy, Merry or Anything Else, Dammit!

You know, no one actually cares if you say Merry Christmas. They really, really don’t. Most take it as “be well during this season to which I have assigned particular significance, i.e. maxing out all of my credit cards, oh and celebrating the birth of my lord and savior.” Happy Holidays! —which means happy holy days, if that makes the salutation less offensive. Now grab yourself a Starbucks and go love the hell out of your brothers and sisters! Ho ho ho, babies!

On Recent Shootings & Killings

The truth is boring. 

It's a confluence of factors that cause these things. Not this thing or that thing. 

One thing is for sure, assigning yourself and others to opposing teams, lobbing insulting names from the comfort and safety of your mobile device, and approaching each other from a position of hate and distrust, is no answer. It will simply result in more of the same. 

Too many passively hope the next victim won't be someone they know or love, whether it's a mad man with a rock or a mad man with 5,000 rounds, or someone who fires without regard to the baby in the car seat in the bullet's path, or the clinically depressed person who finds suicide easy with the pull of the trigger, or the kid who discovers a cool new toy in daddy's sock drawer. 

Yes. There will always be madness. Yes. There will always be weapons. But can we do something to reduce their impact? Can we save some number of innocent lives? 

I'm surprised and saddened that within hours of an assassination attempt on several elected officials -- people with families and friends just like us -- that so many fall back in line, back on their angry teams, spilling the same old talking points, spewing the same old angry speech. 

Thinking is hard. 

Keeping an open mind takes work and sacrifices ego. 

If the solutions were so binary a monkey would have come up with them long ago. 

Try approaching this, and each other, with compassion, respect and reason. I have to believe we want the same things. We might actually get there if we get out of our own way.