Fire, brimstone, and a pistol.
Released prisoner arrested for carjacking in jail parking lot - WPTV NewsChannel 5
"A clergyman for Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office saw the incident and ran to help.
The Reverend put his firearm to his side and told Singleton to get on the ground. A deputy came to assist and handcuffed Singleton."
We note that students in Idaho are attempting to get a law through the legislature allowing students with a concealed carry permit to carry on campus. We also note that the Pocatello, Idaho newspaper, the Idaho State Journal (subscription required), took a knee jerk reaction on Friday the 8th with a sarcastic editorial hinting that these students are just a bunch of vigilantes.
They flippantly mocked a proposed bill to allow students with concealed carry permits to carry their firearms on university campuses in Idaho. Lost in the glittering generalizations, indignant bluster, and outright sarcasm was the responsibility of a newspaper to address the issues. Drowned out amidst the claims of student “vigilantes” and arrogant calls to “get real” is the eloquent argument of 32 students from Virginia tech. Their argument is eloquent for its brevity – for they are dead.
We do not live in the “civilized society” that Scott Hughes of the Idaho State University geoscience’s department fauns over. We live in a decidedly violent age and, if history is any indicator, the pending financial crisis and higher population densities will result in even more violent crime. Schools, like Virginia Tech and Louisiana Tech, are natural targets for lunatics who wish to kill as many people as possible.
When faced with such a reality we cannot simply stand on the supposed high ground and “shoot down” other people’s arguments claiming they are too radical while offering nothing of substance in return. That kind of arrogance is always repaid in the blood of innocents. Instead, we must honestly assess the situation and consider the possible solutions.
The Journal’s editorial board argues that the police and campus security should be enough to save students from a mad marauder who is bent on mass murder. The fresh bodies in the morgue in Louisiana prove differently. Universities and police departments have been on high-alert since Virginia Tech and yet, despite all their planning, they still cannot magically appear to stop a lunatic who is slaughtering fellow students. All they can do is secure the scene and draw chalk lines.
Perhaps the deceased should rest more peacefully knowing that their deaths were the price that had to be paid to prevent “far more incidents involving firearms if students are packing heat into classrooms” as the Journal claims. Of course, it appears that “heat” was already there, and the law-abiding were defenseless.
That is the point. The right to self-defense is not a right granted by man that it may be given and taken away at the whim of politicians and newspaper boards. It is a natural right based upon truths recognized in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” What point is there in recognizing the right to life if you are not allowed to defend your life from a murderer who is trying to slaughter you? If you do not have the right to defend your life then what point is there in liberty or happiness? Indeed, the right to self-defense is one of the oldest rights known to man and is exercised not only by humans, but by animals who fight with all their strength against a predator that would take their lives.
However, the Journal’s editorial board seems to think that law-abiding citizens on university campuses are not responsible enough to defend their lives in such a crowded environment. They seem to think that the right to self-defense should only be allowed in open fields far from civilization. If that is the case, and they have failed to make it, then it is the state’s responsibility to ensure that the right of self-defense is properly compensated for in the face of a lethal attack. They must provide an equal or greater amount of security to the students in the classrooms in order to morally justify the abolition of the natural right of self-defense. In other words, the state must guarantee the safety of our college students.
If the state is found to be unwilling or unable to take such actions then it is morally bound to allow students the right to self-defense. If the state continues to deny that right and refuses to provide adequate protection then students will have to decide for themselves what to do.
This leaves us with only a few possible solutions to the reality of violent attacks in crowded schools. First, we can do as the editorial board argues and leave things as they are, with safety left in the hands of the police and a miniscule campus security force. Clearly that tactic did not work in Virginia or Louisiana.
Second, we can demand that states make the universities absolutely safe from armed attack. Fences will have to be installed, metal detectors will become de rigueur, armed guards will be necessary in every hallway in every building on campus, and students will need to submit to random warrantless searches.
Third, we can allow law-abiding citizens the liberty to take responsibility for their own lives and, if necessary, to exercise their natural right to self-defense in the face of a violent aggressor bent on murder.
Unfortunately, the views of the editorial board are likely to prevail. It is unthinkable to many that the state should become immediately totalitarian, although they may allow it by degrees. Nor can they imagine the common person exercising the fundamental right to defend her own life in the face of a hostile attack, though that is her right granted to her by her very existence. They can only push for the status-quo with lip service toward “safety” and a pipe-dream of “civilized society” where a life is never threatened and a harsh word is never spoken.
If this is to be the case, then students at our universities must make a choice. They can choose to go to class as always and pray that their school is not the next scene of mass murder. Or they can choose to find an education elsewhere or, if poor, forgo secondary education altogether. Or they can choose to exercise their rights apart from unjust laws and insufficient government.
Whatever the students choose they must realize that they are ultimately responsible for their own safety. If a psychopath should visit the halls of their university the editorial board of the local newspaper will not be able to save them. They will only be able to sprinkle the graves of the innocent with pretty words, misguided intentions, and mocking editorials.
The Oregon teacher who was told by Jackson County Circuit Court Judge G. Philip Arnold that she doesn't have the right to bring her Glock with her to school is still fighting. Despite the fact that a citizen with a concealed handgun permit can legally carry within a sc,hool in Oregon the school district is holding her to a different standard. So, she's appealing the ruling.
Okay folks, Kansas just put 10,000 more people on the streets with guns. Anyone want to put their money where their mouth is and say violent crime is going to go up?
If the Wicked Witch of the North came to Kansas how likely would Dorothy be to get a concealed weapons permit in time? Well, first there are just a few barriers to her exercising her right to self-defense:
To get the four-year permit, applicants must complete an application, pay a $150 fee that is split between sheriff's offices and the state, undergo a background check and take an eight-hour training course, Klebe said.That's right. Dorothy lost her house in a tornado, she's got nothing but a dog and some cheap rubber slippers with glitter (you really don't think they're made out of rubies do you), and a picnic basket. So where is she supposed to come up with another $150 to pay for the processing.
Rob Allen points out that Michigan's CCW program is working wonderfully and all the stupid assinine arguments about the "wild west" and "crossfire" and "blood in the streets" and "skyrocketing suicides" and - ah hell, you know what they say every time Americans get their rights back - have been proven wrong, again.
The incidence of violent crime in Michigan in the six years since the law went into effect has been, on average, below the rate of the previous six years. The overall incidence of death from firearms, including suicide and accidents, also has declined.Of course the Loony Left keeps telling lies and saying that there may be a (shhhh) cover-up of gun crime.
Shikha Hamilton of Grosse Pointe, president of the Michigan chapter of the anti-gun group Million Moms March, said she believes overall gun violence (including suicide and accidental shootings) is up in Michigan since 2001. Many incidents involving CCW permit holders have not been widely reported, she said.Oh mercy! Heaven help us!.... Oh.... hold it, what "incidents"? And how many? *crickets*
Academic studies of concealed weapons laws that generally allow citizens to obtain permits have shown different results, Lott said. About two-thirds of the studies suggest the laws reduce crime; the rest show no net effect, he said.Take that you Loony nuts! Even the Universities with all their bleeding hearts and misdirected causes can't come up with a single peer-reviewed study to prove your hysterics.
But no peer-reviewed study has ever shown that crime increases when jurisdictions enact change...
So there it is. They declare it obvious so it must be true. Forget empirical evidence. Go for the emotions and the obscenities and we'll all just throw evidence to the wind and fall in line. Nope. Not going to do it.
