The big winners in the Thoughts and Prayers kerfulfual

Is, as always, the secularists and atheists and non-believers of the modern godless world.  There is nothing better for them than to continually hear religious believers, including their leaders, affirm just how marginal and limited in effectiveness religious faith, practice and belief in God really is.  After all, when the Minnesota mayor belted out that the children killed were in the middle of praying, he did nothing but say 'see how utterly useless prayer can be!'  That those believers joining the 'sucks to your loser prayers' movement did nothing but circle the wagons around his speech shows how colossal the World now is versus the whimpering, emaciated Church. 

Now the whole 'sucks to your loser thoughts and prayers' line of attack came some years ago from gun control activists who were openly non-religious.  I remember this addressed on different Catholic sites.  At that time, there was obvious sympathy for the gun control activists making the charge.  But caution was advised with a gentle rebuke, reminding them (and us) that prayers are never to be seen as contingent upon worldly solutions or activism.  They shouldn't be seen as standing against such things as working to find a solution, as some either/or proposition. Likewise, at no point should we make judgments about the sincerity of those invoking prayers, since prayer is so much more than just asking God to solve our problems.  But mostly we want to be careful not to affirm the secular idea that God and all the religious stuff is worth nothing more than killing an hour on a Sunday morning versus looking for real solutions in the real world.

Well that's dead.  Now there are plenty of Christians saying just what those non-believer said, only more.  Taking the leap that nothing but the left's gun control advocacy can save us, and anyone who disagrees can be judged accordingly, it's Christians as much as anyone saying prayers and God are beneficial only within the context of proper political advocacy.

Which wouldn't be the first time someone charged forth and said my way or you aren't properly following God.  The irony, like so much we've seen in the last couple decades, is that it was the political and religious left that put the kibosh on such thinking.  After all, in WWII for instance, saying we will just pray for peace but not actually resist the Nazis would not have been seen as valid by a substantial number of people.  Yet look at all the horrible things we did to beat the Nazis. Hence those left leaning Christians I encountered warning the religious right about making one's religious life, devotion or sincerity contingent upon any worldly or secular matter, especially politics.

But again, that's dead.  The worst is, of course, that it plays into the modern narrative that Jesus is OK, God's OK, smoke'em if you got'em, but it's keeping up with the world that allows us to see the true nature of sanctification and righteousness and truth.  Something hammered home frequently during the papacy of Pope Francis.  Catholicism was OK, and Christianity as good as always.  But it was being properly ordered, which almost always looked like adhering to progressive and leftwing ideology and activism, by which we will see the good fruits.  Except for transgender activism, which Pope Francis pounded on more than once.  Odd that.  But that's for another time since right now nobody seems eager to address that particular topic.

No, I like what one fellow observed.  He said the big problem with this is how many Christian leaders now are undercutting prayer itself.  As any believer who has attended church more than a few times knows, prayer is more than a laundry list of requests we give to Santa God.  While supplications certainly have their place, prayer is so much more than just going to God with a list of demands and expecting results on our terms.  

In the MASH episode Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler, a B-52 bombardier has a meltdown and decides he is Jesus Christ.  It actually has some fairly honest theology for such a show.  But at one point, the villainous Frank Burns, who isn't buying this shell shock rubbish, says he knows he's not Jesus.  He prayed for something and it didn't happen.  To which Hawkeye quips 'just because you didn't get chocolate pudding for lunch doesn't mean anything'.  Of course it was a joke, and everyone got how stupid it would be to say 'it can't be God, because I prayed for something and didn't get it.'  Apparently those condemning the invoking of prayers because the children who were killed were praying missed that episode. 

So those who are saying your prayers are not enough have either two choices.  Either they are suggesting prayers are only good insofar as God answers them as we want, and since God hasn't saved the victims, the prayers obviously aren't enough.  Or they are saying the efficacy of prayer is entirely contingent upon one worldly solution and one worldly solution only.  I just don't see a third option here. But either way, again, the big winners are those who know religion, Christianity and certainly Catholicism are all a bunch of BS to begin with. Something our churches and leaders, and sometimes fellow believers, insist on inadvertently being the biggest cheerleaders for nowadays.  

FWIW, as for those Catholic leaders, bishops and others explaining that thoughts and prayers are fine, but must be accompanied by meaningful action?  Because meaningful action always sounds like it has been endorsed by the establishment media and DNC, while almost never daring to call out any possible part of the problem that might offend the left of center, I see that doing nothing to avoid the above concerns.  After all, even secularists and non-believers can tell court prophets when they see them.

But when it sounds like the US Catholic Leadership is taking its cues from Catholic tradition and not the latest Manhattan Democratic fundraiser, then I'll at least concede the obvious point that prayer does not negate the need for earthly action. It simply shouldn't be subordinate to political activism.  Remember, if the US bishops were 25% as passionate and zealous about calling out the border catastrophe during the Biden years as they have been condemning Trump's response to it, we might not have ended up with Trump being reelected in the first place.  The same goes for almost every other topic today, including this one. 

*Fun trivia.  In the MASH episode above, it was shown in season four.  Up until that time, the character of Radar O'Reilly had no first name.  But at the end of the episode, a young and innocent Radar asks Captain Chandler - taking at face value he might be Jesus after all - to bless his teddy bear.  At that point Captain Chandler says 'and bless you Radar.'  To which Radar responds 'I'm Walter.'  The writers had to come up with a name they thought would fit, and he became Walter as much as Radar for the rest of the show. 

School Shootings and random thoughts

Reposting a previous Post. 

Since I didn't have a chance to post a prayer for the victims of the Minneapolis church shooting before A) leftwing journalists and politicians circled the wagon around the shooter and the shooter's activist group and B) those on the Left, including clergy, swung into attack people turning to God rather than the state:

I hope that's not Pope Leo's opinion, I really do hope

I thought I would repose this musing about mass shootings in our society that I wrote in 2018.  

My prayers and thoughts are for the victims and their families.  I can't imagine what they are going through. I pray for all people of good will joining them and seeking consolation from God and guidance for how to handle the demonic levels of evil we see all too often in our Godless society today.  

Here is the post: 

These are just musings.  They are not based on science or studies.  Just me observing the nation in which I am raising my sons, and the current topic of guns and shootings and the desire to narrowly define the problem based on a single solution.

Did Roe v. Wade have an impact?  The essence of RvW: 'that is your definition of human life, not mine.'   Could generations raised in a nation coming to that conclusion be impacted by it?  Especially after WWII?  The entire point of legal abortion is that America has officially allowed us to define a human when we feel like it.  I can't help but think somehow it could be connected.

Divisions.  We are in what many are now calling a Cold Civil War.  Even the Cold War had hot casualties.  My son said that the kids at Parkland will be asked to surrender their freedoms for safety.  I said no, that's wrong.  We are a divided country.  They will be asked to surrender someone else's freedoms for their safety.  Increasingly we don't love our neighbors, but we fear and hate them, just as we feared or even hated the Soviets back in the day.  We're taught that they are the problem, and whatever happens to them?  Eh.  Being taught that our neighbors are our enemies must make an impact.

Rhetoric.  In following up on the divisions, I'm hearing and seeing chilling things from the Gun Control advocates.  Kill the NRA, exterminate the NRA, Wayne LaPierre is a seriel killer,  Ban guns, Gun owners are next.  And this is from the side ostensibly all bent out of shape by the violence and death at Parkland.  And what's worse, it's par for the course. That level of rhetoric exists on the highest levels down about any one of a million topics today.  It's not just gun control activists of course, nor is such rhetoric new.  Just note the irony of where some of it is coming from and how that must say something bigger about where we are versus where we might think we are.

Mental health.  After Sandy Hook, I heard a fellow on the news (can't remember the station) say something I've not forgotten. He said  that mental health went through a massive overhaul between the 1950s and the 1970s, and in the 1980s, the mass shootings began.  A connection?  I think that's a bigger elephant in the room than we're admitting.

Isolate events as universals.  Fact is, if you manipulate any data, you can arrive at different realities. Take the most dangerous cities in America off the burners, and America sounds much safer.  Likewise, many of these school, or mass, shootings were based on specific sets of circumstances that might unpack the stats.  Broward County looks to have dropped a dozen balls.  That would be the same county where educated adults were perplexed by the unsolvable mysteries of the paper ballot.  It could be connected.

American Craftsmanship a thing of the past. Speaking of dropping balls.  Parkland is the latest case where warning signs were missed and the official safeguards that should have been triggered weren't.  There is a decline in quality in America overall, with everything from the latest household products to the Secret Service being plagued by incompetence and a general lack of care for quality.  Could these have long range connections to any efficacy where new laws or even existing laws are concerned?  If we're becoming bumblers in making cabinets, will we do any better with laws?

Isolation through technology.  When news came that Amazon was going to have a people-less store, one of those interviewed in the story said he was glad.  A young fellow of likely college age, he was happy not to have to deal with people when he shops.  Several of the students at Parkland guessed who the shooter was before it was announced.  Could it be that we are becoming so isolated that all notions of human interaction are collapsing, and that is a problem?

Violence for fun.  Popular culture of mass violence everywhere. I mean, look at what kids are playing at the age of 5.  I know people who let 9 year olds play first person shooters, or watch rated R blood and guts movies.  I remember seeing old black and white movies when I was little where someone died a particularity gruesome death, and it impacted me.  What do kids today experience?  Also the not so subtle Hollywood meme that people who are really bad (like people who disagree with me) have it coming.

Post-Christian.  We were told America has no right to have a particular culture and moral basis, and so jettisoned it for whatever was nearby.  Could it be that when we say people can make up their own realities those realities aren't always going to be good?

Fortress Educationa.  If we are talking about having to turn our schools into fortresses with armed teachers and guards, what is next?  Barbed wire fences?  Could it be we've turned a corner if this is what we have to do?  And do we think it will really work?

Brats and narcissists.  Kids are raised today to think that if someone disagrees with them, or doesn't talk the way they want them to talk, or give them what they want, then that person is evil, hates them, and wants them dead, since the world exists to affirm them as gods of their own creation.  Might that make an impact?  Could kids raised in that manner develop unhealthy ways to react to a world that doesn't treat them way the way they want?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  What would Aretha Franklin say?  Respect, like manners, common sense and common values, went out the window decades ago.  Yes ma'am and no sir are as rare as Cuneiform word processors.  We love it when all the cool people flip the middle one to all those not-cool types who aren't like me.  Could it be a nation almost proud to not respect anything or anyone and yet told to respect everyone (sometimes) is facing an identity crisis where dealing with people is concerned?

I don't want to grow up!  Rush Limbaugh once pointed out that the Baby Boomers were the first generation that never had to grow up.  Hearkening back to the point about television and Boomers, could it be a generation of adult children raising more adult children who then raise another batch of children bent on staying children is not a healthy way for a society to function?  Could kids surrounded by and raised by kids have unintended consequences?

It's the Spirit stupid.  Assuming for a minute that the Christian Faith is actually true, can we expect much from a nation that goes out of its way to purposefully and officially expel it from all corners of our public domains?  That's what the Soviets did, and look what happened there.

Radical individualism.  In piggybacking on the narcissism above, could it be we're seeing in individual form what the nationalism of the 20th century saw on the battlefield?  As we allow people to think they are a nation unto themselves, that there is no 'Our country', and sure as hell not 'their country' (I call it the Kaepernick syndrome), could this be a logical extension of such a view - bad countries (people) warring with their neighbors?

As long as it doesn't impact me.  Following decades of misusing the notion of being judgmental (mainly, you can't judge me, or obviously you're wrong), and convincing people not to care unless it impacts them, could it be that we've let this go because it doesn't impact most of us?  After all, what is our approach to Islamic terrorism (only Islamic, not domestic) but 'as long as terrorists kill other Americans, it's the sacrifice I'm willing to make'?  That must say something about us, and perhaps why we're not really shaken to our foundations and willing to look at the hard realities when these tragedies strike.

The world.  Let's face it, the world is a violent place.  It always has been.  See the last century for an example.  In the end, gun violence might simply be the logical extension of everything we've been doing as the world continues to change.  Change it might, but many of the old characteristics - like sin - will remain and will find a way.  Like my son says, to paraphrase Ian Malcolm, destruction will find a way.

What of legalized drugs? If, in fact, liberals insist that laws against illegal drugs haven't helped the drug problems of our country, can we believe that more gun laws will do anything about the illegal use of guns in our country?

Car laws. Keeping with that thinking, we hear some gun owners point out that cars kill more people than guns.  But we have laws regulating cars!, is the answer.  Yes we do, and yet cars still kill more people than guns.

A little learning.  A dangerous thing, according to Pope.  We wage ideological warfare and I'm not always convinced we're as smart about all the topics we spew about as we think we are.  Armed with undergrad degrees and a semester of history 101, we suddenly become experts in every nook and cranny of human history - whenever convenient. I don't think this causes a society of mass shootings, but could it be what hamstrings our ability to solve the problems?  Or  worse, makes us schmucks easily manipulated by those who see shootings as a step toward some political end?

All those careless gun owners.  Guns are dangerous, look at the accidental shootings! I hear that if there is a story of an accidental shooting.  Gun accidents are, given the tens of millions of gun owners, relatively few.  Accidents happen, and you get the careless ones.  But on the whole, those isolated YouTube videos that show someone doing something stupid with a gun don't seem to fit the stats.

Wo ist Education?  Speaking of a little learning.  My wife was a teacher, and my undergrad was in secondary education.  I had three boys go through public schools. Let me tell you, it's a hot mess.  And not just because of STEM scores.  Half of what they teach is rubbish, the rest is based on teaching hatred and contempt for the Christian West, America, the latest designated ethnic groups, traditional values, and common sense notions like sex and babies are related or one's genitals have something to do with gender - but we can all make up our happy worlds where everyone affirms our self-affirming affirmation of our self affirming selves!  I wouldn't let those working within the current train wreck of educational philosophy teach a dog, much less kids.  Has to mean something.

Can we stop using the 33,000 killed by guns.  There are so many parts to that stat, there are so many dimensions that don't account for the numbers that are never mentioned.  Like saying 'Four years and 40 million dollars', it's a meme, not a fact, and if we care about the problem of violence, we'll never misuse it again.

The Gun Cult!  Please define.  From what I can tell, this radical bunch of gun nuts is typically not involved in most of the mass shootings.  Same with the dreaded militia (which is the cause of terrorism done in its name).  In fact, the worst killing attributed to the dread American militia movement used a bomb, not guns.

Gun Violence versus Violence.  Do we actually care?  As horrific as they are, mass shootings account for a barely measurable number of overall murders in our country. While murder rates have gone down, they are still far too high.  And yet not only do we hardly ever dwell on it, during the 2016 campaign, I heard the press insist things were getting hunky-dory.  Well, not to those murdered and killed.  Or do they not matter?

Stop comparing the US - to anyone.  We are a unique nation.  It does no good to pick out a dozen countries that help your case while ignoring other countries that don't.  And why don't gun control activists ever cite nations like Mexico, but only reference decidedly white European nations to compare America to?

Raising kids.  At the end of the day, it's not just kids raising kids, but broken homes, fatherless boys, wacked out psychological theories and science that looks common sense parenting straight in the eyes then turns around wand walks the other way.  I have no time to list the connections between broken homes and crime.  Much less screwball theories of raising kids and crime.

Exploiting vs. Memorializing.  If we are using a tragedy to advance certain solutions, then we should at least be able to demonstrate how those solutions would have prevented the tragedy in question.  To me, that's common sense.  If not common decency.

Sucks to your thoughts and prayers.  I just can't help but think that when we've come to a point where a sizable chunk of our nation now insists prayer and God are only worth a dime if put second to a singular political policy, we've officially shuffled off this Christian coil.  That so many Christians appear to agree only makes it that much clearer.  See my point about the truth of the Spirit above.

Those are just thoughts I've had over the last couple days in no particular order and with no particular weight or purpose.  Musings only.  Just the idea that maybe the problem of school shooting, that didn't happen when I was growing up, is beyond limiting a single type of gun.  We can do that, of course.  But I think it's foolishness to think anything will ultimately change.  The carnage might end up different, but it won't change until other things change.

David French continues to repeat leftwing talking points

Here:

I don't subscribe to the NYT, and wasn't interested enough to pull the tricks I sometimes pull to access an article.  I know what it says: leftwing talking points.  Gun owners are the problem. Gun cult is the problem.  Fear and rage among the right is the problem. Anything and everything right of center is problem.  To the left being the beautiful people who are never to blame. 

Oh, perhaps he mentions crime rates within the black community, the high rates of gang and drug violence that contribute to the overall homicide rate.  Perhaps he ponders the uptick in crimes and attacks against police officers and thinks it might have to do with BLM rhetoric.  When he speaks of fear and rage, he might cast a glance at the growing narrative that  conservatives and Christians are engaged in a genocide against the transgender community, and muse over whether that might have had an impact on the Nashville shooter, whose manifesto has yet to be released.

If he goes there, then fair enough.  I'm all for looking at anything when it comes to problem solving.  But if not, then I have a hard time believing French gives a rip about gun violence one way or anther and, like the Left in general, sees it merely as one more weapon in the leftwing arsenal, to be used only when convenient. 

FWIW, I'd love to see the stats on how many lawful gun owners are behind the gun violence, how many NRA members, how many MAGA types, how many who are part of this 'gun cult' actually become involved in gun violence.  Just like the stats that show pro-life people don't care about kids, or conservatives don't care about the poor.  I always ask, and yet I never see.  

Because of the news media

That's why:

"This is how it came to dominate the marketplace and loom so large in the American psyche"

Because the news media ignores stories that don't fit the press's agendas and narratives.

Because the news media has perfected the practice of making molehills out of mountains and mountains out of molehills.  

Because the news media waits until an AR-15 or similar gun is used and then keeps the discussion focused only on that one element of the story.

Because the press spends little to no time focused on any crime, murder, killing or other tragic event unless it can tie it around America as racist, phobic, bigoted nation or an AR-15 or similar weapon. 

Because the press all but refuses to allow any solutions, causes, symptoms or anything about violence in our modern culture to be discussed if it can't be linked to American racism, bigotry or assault weapons. 

Heaven forfend the press allows the conversation to drift to the godless morals, values and narcissism we've all but sanctified as a culture, all of which preceded the sudden emergence of the era of active shooter events. 

That's how it happened.  It's not rocket science. 

It reminds me of journalists sitting around the table on a Sunday morning newscast wondering why Americans are so obsessed about a story the press has been headlining 24/7 for the last three weeks.  Sometimes you just can't make it up.  Nor can you fathom how the press can write these things and not see the obvious.  It's either naked mendacity, or it's a pathological lack of self-awareness. 

Attention all Ukraine supporting Catholic gun control advocates

You do know you are implicitly, if not explicitly, supporting Ukrainian citizens who are arming themselves to the teeth in order to defend themselves against the Russian invaders, right?  Perhaps you might want to think that through and ask some tough question.  Though I'll admit such an approach is typically antithetical to being at peace with leftwing activism. 

We call this epic defeat

The crazy is boiling over these days.  I haven't followed Mark's twisting and turning in light of the Roe leak that much.  Why bother?  Likewise I haven't bothered with his reaction to the two shootings the media has covered over the last couple weeks.  Again, why bother?  

True, I get links and images of what he says.  Usually I don't waste time reading them because, again, why bother?  Some say Mark is a cautionary tale.  That is, if we're not careful we could end up like him.   Certainly there is the problem of Mark promoting a false gospel as a professional and endorsed apologist.  If we take seriously the eternal implications of people being led astray, that is important. But again, there is only so much we can do, right?  

Nonetheless, I had to, just had to, post this from an ongoing set of posts about last week's horrible shooting:

Saying absolutely nothing of value in 46 words

You see that?  That's called defeat. Crushing defeat. That's called admitting you're absolutely wrong without admitting it. That's called nothing meaningful to say in return.  Because it's true.  Within days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Western press began focusing on the heroism of the Ukrainians.  Included in this were endless stories of praise for armed Ukrainian citizens rushing out to defend their nation against the evil Russian invaders. From celebrities and media outlets to pundits of all stripes, the heroism of these gun toting citizens was universally celebrated. 

And rightly so, I should add.  No matter what one might think of other angles of the Russian invasion, bravery is bravery.  But there is a problem.  The praise was going to citizens using guns to fight a major military invasion from a sovereign nation in our modern age. 

When American gun owners say defense against such threats is the purpose for the Second Amendment, they are typically met with mockery, laughter, derision and outright condemnation.  Mark himself has often heaped mountains of scorn on such thinking, stating that there is no way a bunch of gun wielding yahoos could make a difference against a modern army.  And yet, here we are.

So what do you do if you are a gun control activist faced with yet another case where gun control narratives are based on falsehoods?  Well, you do what Mark did.  You post a rambling bunch of blather akin to what you might expect in a middle school locker room.  Heh.  I have to admit I laughed out loud when I was shown his Twitter post.  That's why I posted it.  To share the fun. And to relish in yet another leftwing narrative brought low by pesky facts and realities. 

Yes gun violence is a pro-life issue

 In response to this post from Trent Horn:

I have no clue who Mr. Horn is.  I think I've heard the name.  But I saw multiple reactions against this, especially from leftwing Catholics all about gun control and government policy as our only hope.  

In fairness to them, however, they are right in saying Mr. Horn is wrong.  Those who have said gun violence is a pro-life issue are spot on correct.  Even if they run with it to push political agendas and ignore the obvious social and spiritual ailments we are watching bear fruit in our society, they are right about that.  

Anything that involves aiding, preserving and saving the lives of God's children is a pro-life issue.  That doesn't mean, however, that it follows Gun Control is a pro-life issue.  Nope.  That is a vague term representing one possible solution.  Or maybe it isn't a possible solution.  Or maybe there are policies that fall under 'gun control' that are worth looking at, while others are not.  But a given political solution is not necessarily pro-life.  Something we need to understand.  Politicians may enjoy equating their particular party with the Thrice-Holy, but we Christians should avoid such leaps. Thus:

If you think the problem is with only one party, you're the problem.

But gun violence as a pro-life issue?  Oh yeah.  

We call this common sense

A professor of economics at George Mason University, Walter Williams, dares to point out that guns are not the problem with gun violence.  Guns, having existed long before the outbreak of regular and frequent mass shootings in schools and workplaces, are likely not the sole culprit.  Certainly not the sole culprit that gun control advocates want to focus on to the exclusion of any other possible explanation for our problems. 

Likely it's the move to officially reject God, push old Christian based values out the window, raise kids to be spoiled narcissists heavy on the hedonism and entitlement, and a general disregard for human life with an emphasis on aiding those would would harm the innocent at the expense of protecting the innocent. That's just a guess of mine, I could be wrong. 

I particularly like his emphasis on how ubiquitous guns were 50 years ago, and how easy it was to obtain them.  I, too, grew up in a rural community where farmers and hunters drove to school with guns in the back of their trucks as a normal practice.  I myself gave a demonstration in speech class how to clean and assemble a shotgun.  My only requirement: I wasn't allowed to keep the gun after class, I had to leave it in the principle's office.  That's because nobody imagined I or anyone else would go off nut crazy and kill people.  And that was the year after the infamous McDonald's shooting I should add.

Nope, our problem is a godless and blasphemous culture of death and slaughter for baseless debauchery and self-worship, materialist hopelessness, and a hatred and contempt for people who refuse to change the definition of Napoleon when I self-identity as the Corsican.  It doesn't take a game show host to figure out this, and probably not guns, is the primary mischief. 

There were many things we worried about when Dad worked on the railroad

There were derailments.  There were the freak head-on collisions, one of which claimed a friend and coworker of my dad when I was only a baby.  There were, of course, gasoline trucks.  Those were the bogeyman for every railroad crewman and his family.  There were freak accidents in the railroad yard.  Those are, after all, mammoth machines and pieces of equipment all around you when you're in a yard setting.  I don't know if you ever stood in front of a train engine, right in front of it, staring it down, but they're terrifying to see up close. 

A friend and former colleague from Nigeria I knew in my Protestant days once told me something that in hindsight made perfect sense.  He asked if I could guess what blew him away more than anything else when he first came to America.  I told him I couldn't begin to guess.  He said our trains.  He had never seen anything so monstrous or spectacular as our railroads and their engines.  They are big.  

Because of that, there was always a chance for injury or death on the railroad. True, it wasn't like it was in the days of steam.  Those steam engines were very, very risky to work on.  While many romanticize the glory days of steam, and even some old timers looked back with fondness on the old iron horses, my dad was never one who did.  He couldn't let the door hit the steam era in the behind fast enough.  

Noisy, hot, freezing, miserable, dangerous.  He was a fireman for all but the last few years of steam, and that meant straddling two separate wobbling machines barreling 70 mph down the tracks, seeing the railroad ties soaring by underneath, while shoveling about 100 tons of coal into a blast furnace a thousand degrees minimum, even if it was freezing outside.  Good riddance was Dad's opinion.  As soon as he could ditch the coveralls and hat he did, and went to polos with sunglasses and jeans. 

But then Dad always saw the railroad as a job, and nothing more. In the 1960s and 1970s, model railroading reigned as one of the biggest hobbies in America.  I knew several kids who had model railroad sets.  I met several over the years who had quite elaborate displays, including our high school chemistry teacher (who was always a bit smitten about  Dad's job).  When people would ask why he never had a big railroad layout in his house, he would respond that when people have model office buildings, law offices or factories in their homes, he'll have a model railroad in his.  It was a job.  A sometimes dangerous job, a good paying job with excellent retirement that Mom would not have made it this far without, but a job nonetheless.

All of this is to say that with all that working on the railroad was, the good, the bad, the scary and the dangerous, the one thing we never thought to worry about was a mass shooting at one of the railroad yards.  Why?  For the same reason we never worried about mass shootings in schools.  They didn't happen but rarely, if at all.  It just wasn't a thing.  

Despite gun laws being looser in many ways than today, and most people I grew up with having guns all over the place, it never dawned on us to worry that someone would get a gun and walk in and just start shooting because they just walked in an started shooting. Yes, you had the odd mass killing.  A few times there were mass shootings.  But they were rare.  They weren't something that happened every week, much less every day.

Even if you account for the news media hyping things, you must admit these things happen more, and in ways, that simply hadn't happened until a few decades ago.  Even if guns - and yes that include semi-automatics - were available, it just wasn't a thing.

If we care about human life, we would look at the disease, not the symptom or the tool.  If there was an accident on the railroad of any type, they would immediately check things out to see why and what was the root cause of the tragedy.  It's what they did.  So far, we've dodged looking at the root cause of our ever mutating culture of violence by focusing ever and only on guns, Guns, GUNS!  

Even if all of our solutions would barely shave off a fraction of the deaths in our country, we're content with that instead of asking the hard questions, like where did we as a society go wrong.  Which strongly suggests our concern about victims of gun violence is less about the human life involved and more about going after things that have been around for much longer than the problem we're using to go after them. 

For me, while I pray for the victims and the loved ones who they leave behind, I'm prepared to face the tough questions about the nation and world we've built and are responsible for.  To refuse to go there and obsess only about something that is a mere tool and clearly not the cause of the problem must, at some point, be an affront to God.  After all, we're to be about loving our neighbor, not exploiting him to ramrod our pet agendas and axes to grind. 

Why listening to gun control advocates can be difficult

In one easy post.  Normally I try to avoid the old 'this person said stupid lies on the Internet, that proves his whole group is just as bad' arguments.  It's easy, especially in the Internet age, to hunt down some radical, extreme, looney, wacked out or evil statement or position by someone, and then use it to tar and feather that group I don't like.  I prefer to focus on larger trends that are found in important outlets such as mainstream media, or church leadership, or college policy and academics, or politicians or the like. 

Nonetheless, the saddest thing about Mark's post isn't the misrepresentation of gun rights advocates and their positions.  Nor is it the fact that it's all designed to avoid the obvious problem in our society, that a nation dedicated to turning its citizens into nihilistic, drugged up, sexed up narcissists who think the world should worship them and F-you if you don't, might have a few ill side effects along the way.  After all, violence has spiked in our area over the last year and not a single gun law has changed during that time. 

The saddest part is that his is par for the course for most modern gun control advocacy.  Whether the national stage or here in our local neck of the woods, too many who advocate for 'sensible' gun legislation sound like Mark.  Oh, they may not sound as horrible as that stream of rage and word vomit, but the essence of what they say is seldom far from his post.  That makes any discourse impossible, no matter what the cause. 

For instance, I'm the last one to say the 2nd Amendment is carte blanche to own your own piece of artillery or .50 caliber machine gun.  I also think there should be mandatory training for gun ownership (those old militiamen of ancient days would have used their guns for survival and known how to properly handle them).  In addition, I think there is nothing wrong with saying different such qualifiers should be applied based on the type of arms you want.  After all, just because I have a divers license doesn't mean I can drive a semi truck or a tanker with hazardous material.  In fact, I would consider anything that didn't compromise the right of lawful citizens and could be shown to curb violence. 

Nonetheless, I can't have a conversation because the majority of gun control advocacy is in line with what we see in Mark's post.  It is a never ending stream of bilge, often based on falsehoods or outright lies, not to mention personal attacks and endless accusation*.  Often it is based on clear and obvious ignorance of the issue in question.  How often do gun control advocates, including those in the media, say wrong things about the very guns they are wanting to control?  

The saddest part is that Mark's  rant, packed with all those false premises and misrepresenting the opposition, goes a long way toward shutting down any debate at all, even debate that could lead to solutions.  If he really wanted to move forward with gun control, he would try to find those who support gun rights and find middle ground, extending the olive branch and all.  I'm sure some gun rights advocates could never be reached, but others could.  But not by screeds like that. 

Truth be told, however, Mark's post, like many gun control arguments, appears to exist in order to avoid the herd of elephants in the room.  That is, from the 1950s to the 1980s, our nation underwent a major revision of multiple aspects of our society, from mental health to morals and values, and by the 1980s, the regular mass shootings began.  If all we do is say, guns, Guns, GUNS, we go a long way toward saying we don't care about the problem at all.  In fact, more and more I'm convinced the focus on guns is merely a separate agenda being used in order to avoid critiquing this nation that so many supporters of gun control have spent decades building. 

*Note also that Mark joins the modern poo-pooing of the idea that our nation's official rejection of God has anything to do with our nation's problems.  The modern Christian notion that the Christian Gospel affords nothing special for a society goes a long way toward convincing moderns that the Gospel therefore affords nothing special for an individual either. 

Why sane people don't trust the Gun Control movement

Exhibit A.  A law that would add a financial burden on gun ownership meant merely to add a financial burden on gun ownership.  Of course the good news is that such measures meant to make gun ownership too expensive will ensure that only the wealthiest Americans on the coasts who get invited to the best parties in Manhattan and Hollywood will be able to afford guns.  Those rejoicing in this as a way to make gun ownership all but impossible (for anyone but the wealthy) are letting their ulterior motive slips show.

Reminds me of this scene (language warning):

Right.  We're not going to take your guns away!  You didn't let us finish our sentence.  We said we're not going to take your guns away ...

In addition to so much BS behind the gun control hysteria, the fact that our politicians are being compelled to ramrod gun policies of questionable effectiveness based on false premises, contradictory promises and conflicting data is troubling enough.  Add to it the obvious lie of 'nobody wants to take away your guns' and only a fool would fail to question their motives.

Meanwhile, the Democratic presidential candidates stumble over each other to figure out who can do more to tear down the whole American system so that they can go after the bad guys.  Kirsten Gillibrand makes it clear the Supreme Court could be rebuilt in the Left's image, while others are offering their own takes on just how much America we need to keep in order to put an end to all this dissension.

So I'm sorry.  We'll put 'nobody wants to take away your guns' right up with 'we'll only censor those evil Nazis over there', 'we want a non-politicized court' and 'nobody will be punished for opposing gay marriage' on the growing list of lies spewed by the Left.

When guns prevent crime

I know from experience that when you  bring up the idea that a gun can be used to prevent crime, you'll be laughed out of the discussion.  Gun Control Advocates will smack down the idea that gun owners use guns to stop crime as if it's believing in Big Foot, Unicorns or Eskimos.  

Yet, like so many things that seem associated with progressive agendas, there is a Himalayan sized pile of evidence that the Gun Control Advocates seem to ignore.  There's been a bit of a buzz over the last few months regarding a study that suggested a whopping 2.5 million cases (that's million, with six zeroes, or .00001 of Bill Gate's net worth in dollars) in which American gun owners used their firearms to defend themselves.  

I must admit that I don't do stats because I know stats can be easily manipulated to say whatever.  The push-back by Gun Control Advocates seems to be that such a figure is grossly inflated.  The problem is, in all the criticisms I've read, nobody suggests what they think it should be.  They just say it's an exaggeration, it's impossible, it's too high, it's overblown, but they never say what they feel it probably is.  And that got me to thinking, as I am wont to do.

Let's assume it is exaggerated.  Let's assume guns weren't used to defend against a crime 2.5 million times in a year in America.  How many times do we imagine they were used to defend against a crime?  2 million times?  1 million times?  Half a million times?  Let's just say a quarter of a million times.  250,000 times guns were used in self defense in a year.  That's a far cry from 2.5 million.  That is crazy off the study.  That number is nowhere near the claim made by Gun Rights Advocates.  

And yet, it's 250,000 times guns were used for self-defense.  Even if we drop it down to a paltry 25,000 times that guns were used for defense, that's still 25,000 Americans who are alive and happy and not victims of a crime, perhaps a violent one, all due to a gun.  I mean, that's a lot of people.  25,000 people not victims of crimes, be they violent or not, isn't bad.  

Think on that.  Even if the study is a whopping .01% of the truth, that's still tens of thousands who are not victims of a crime.  Given that around twice as many Americans are murdered by guns a year as die of HIV/AIDS (that would make it around 12,000/year give or take), that's still half as many killed by guns as crimes prevented.  That's assuming an epic fail on the study's part of missing the reality by 99%.  Sure, many of those would not be violent crimes.  But even so, what in the world are Gun Control Advocates doing acting like you just declared faith in a flat earth when you bring up guns being used for self-defense?  

What is one reason why am I more skittish about the Left than the Right, about progressives more than conservatives?  Because this line of argument seems to be common from top down and side to side when it comes to various progressive causes.  What would be laughed off the map if done by some wacky right winger in the back hills of Montana in his parents' basement, is often the line of arguing you here from mainline progressive pundits and leadership.  Whether #MeToo or abortion or transgender or gay marriage or open border immigration or tearing down Confederate memorials or gun control or whatever, there always seem to be this giant pile of facts and data that are not only ignored, but any who appeal to those are mocked at best, attacked a worst.

Forgive me, but if your entire argument is best summed up with 'please focus on the molehill and ignore the mountain range behind it', there's a good chance you'll lose me every time. 

Stupid Gun Control Memes

Memes, on the whole, make you stupid.  I'm sorry.  Every now and then one comes through that makes a fair point with wit and cleverness, but usually it's more like this:

Add the tendency of memes to the typical vacancy of too many Gun Control activists, and it's a poisonous combination of rage and dumb.

The answer to the meme's question is glaringly obvious.  Only an idiot, an illiterate person, or someone who cares not a whit about facts or reality would ponder this.  I don't need to point out why it's stupid.  Anyone with the ability to turn on an electronic device and find this page can see it.

That Mark and others think they just nailed a Cicero and have brought gun rights activists to their knees is emblematic of Gun Control's glaring problems.  All rage, no common sense.

Jimmy Kimmel and the problem with Gun Control advocacy in the wake of Santa Fe High

Unless there is something missing in the evidence we've been exposed to, nothing Kimmel or any mainstream gun control advocates have proposed would have stopped the shooting in Santa Fe.  The shooter had no red flags.  He used shotguns and handguns that are not being discussed by most Gun Control advocates.  His father legally owned the guns.  Nothing that gun control advocates repeatably propose would have prevented this.

Did that stop political pundit and activists Jimmy Kimmel from repeating bumper sticker slogans that are demonstrably wrong?  Did it stop him from attacking those who wouldn't support his proposals that wouldn't have made a difference? Not a bit:

I give you the glaring problem in the gun debate today.  So many gun control activists seem to think nothing about actual facts, data, truth or reality.  They vomit the same talking points whether the talking points apply or not, and then use carefully edited attack pieces to exploit the latest tragedy for political gain, almost as if to deflect from the glaring fact that all of their proposals wouldn't have stopped the shooting.

Shame on Mr. Kimmel, and all who won't admit the issue is bigger than legislation that would not have made a difference in the very tragedy he is referencing.

On the anniversary of Columbine

I have one question: Would gun control activists explain to me why guns are the problem when access to guns has always been there, but schools shootings haven't?

Simple stuff.  I get that the sudden preference for these nuclear machine guns that the press talks about is something worth looking at.  I'm willing to look at anything other than using gun violence to destroy my political opponents and abolishing the 2nd Amendment. Those are off the table.  Anything else, and I'm all ears. 

But I would like that first question to be answered.  Knowing that most school shootings involve guns that likely wouldn't be impacted by the legislation being focused on today, and most wouldn't have been stopped by the laws we always talk about (most, in fact, merely broke the existing laws as they are), it's worth getting to the core of the problem.  And the core suggests the problem is something other than guns.

If gun control activists insist by word or deed (and by deed, I mean the fact that we never seem to get around to talking about the other non-gun parts of the problems) that the problem is guns, then answer how guns are the problem when access to them has always been there, but school shootings have not.

Especially if our schools are going to keep  letting kids skip in order to advance one particular political narrative about the problem.

She is right about the March for Our Lives spectacle

While some are comparing it to the Sermon on the Mount, MLK's March on Washington, God's decision to create the heavens and earth, others are scratching their heads and saying, "Sorry, the emperor looks naked to me."

Just why this suddenly happened after one of the few mass shootings that could easily have been prevented if the current laws had been followed and procedures adhered to is beyond me.  Apparently a couple of the students were already pretty boisterous activists, pushing for things like gay alliances and LGBT and other Leftist tropes.  Perhaps they just know how to get the ball rolling.

Since the Left has thrown out all pretense of objectivity, fairness, truth, values, morals or principles, jumping on this and ramming it through in such a nakedly partisan and deliberate manner shouldn't be surprising.

Nonetheless, those behind gun control, banning guns, eliminating the 2nd Amendment, hating non-liberals, pushing for Democratic politicians are acting like it's the dawn of a new era in the history of the universe. Since these partisans happen to occupy the halls of Washington, the news media, Hollywood and academia, and apparently high office in religious institutions, expect this to be chiseled as an event demanding all worship and adoration into the remnants of former Confederate monuments that were destroyed by the Left's Iconoclasm.  Anything less and you're a baby killing murderer.  Thus the protesters.

Nonetheless, for those looking at this and saying, "Nope, still see a naked emperor here", we have someone who explains exactly why this is.  It isn't that we worship guns instead of Jesus, enjoy mass slaughter or get our kicks out of murdered babies.  Many of us actually have kids and don't want them to be a victim of such cruel and pointless violence any more than we want anyone else to.  We just see there is something wrong in all of this, so wrong that this March/Movement is diverting attention from actually solving the problem and working to lower the rates of killings in deference to partisan agendas.

Don't know who she is. Maybe she's been wrong about everything else, but this time she was spot on correct about almost everything (save the whole arming of teachers, which I feel is still avoiding the core of the problem).

Gun control humor

HT Donald McClarey

It's humor of course, but it also shows the hypocrisy behind the complete and unqualified allegiance that the New Prolife Movement has with this movement, funded by agencies like Planned Parenthood, dedicated to demanding sacrifices [from everyone else], and aligned with many of the forces likely behind the actual reason suicides and mass killings are now a common occurrence.  At least Mark Shea admits he  wants to abolish the 2nd Amendment (other Amendments to follow directly). 

Meanwhile I say we make St. Oscar Romero, shot to death March 24, 1980, the Patron of Gun Violence Victims and ask him to obtain for us the destruction of the Gun Cult and the repeal of the Second Amendment so we can finally start instituting sane laws.  (No, repealing the 2A is not “outlawing guns”.  There is no right to keep and bear cars in the Constitution, but lots of people still have them.  Repealing the 2A would make it possible to make gun ownership as difficult and expensive as car ownership, including requiring expensive registration and insurance.  You’ll live, Gun Cult.)

Of course Mark is a political Leftist, he doesn't represent the actual Catholic teachings. He has to know what he says is BS, especially after once calling out Obama and the Left as tyrants for the HHS Mandate's naked attack on religious liberty.  It's highly unlikely the side that taught Americans to chuck religious freedom for our libidos can be over-trusted when it comes to gun ownership. 

What is troubling in Mark's piece is that Pope Francis seems to embrace such things as 'power to the youth.'  Was a time when we taught age and wisdom were what young people should strive for.  After decades of handing the torch to one generation of youngsters after another, you'd think we'd have learned something.   Especially, as I said, if the adults who are so horrible today were the youth of yesterday who were supposed to make it all right.

Apparently not.  Once more Pope Francis and most of the modern Left has very little that isn't in common.  Whether that is why the entire Church seems to be collapsing before the onslaughts of the post-Christian Left, or simply the logical extension of a process years in the making, I don't know.  But the fact that a movement so clearly partisan, post-modern and riddled with endless problems behind the attitudes, hatred, vitriol and demagoguery all but gets a pass by those who strut under the moniker of New Pro-Life, and do so in complete allegiance to forces that should be antithetical to anything close to Pro-Life, much less Christian, shows that we are heading into an age of shadows for the Church.

BTW, could anyone tell me just where Pope Francis said anything about abortion in that quote that was supposed to prove Pope Francis speaks against the evils of guns and abortion equally?

The face of the anti-gun youth movement

Is, apparently, one David Hogg.  I know nothing about him apart from this issue.  I saw him on a videotaped interview and, boy, he doesn't hold back.  His opinions are not for polite company.

Eh.  It's a serious issue, so I suppose why worry about the language itself.   But he does seem to possess a rather 'they suck, so we're here to save the world' attitude that the last few generations of youth have had.  And since the basic premise of this latest 'hail to the youth' movement is that the adults stink and screwed everything up, it makes you wonder.

The adults today were simply the last generation of youth who were praised and told to rise up and save the world.  In fact, we've been passing that torch to the youth generation for about 60 years now.  And if the adults have continually done such a bad job, and knowing that they are merely the latest generation of youth who were supposed to save the world, perhaps it's time to rethink the whole 'youth to save the world' strategy.

This is especially true if this young man, boldly and bravely declaring the real way to do democracy, seems to embody that new spin on asking others to give up their rights while insisting - and rather proudly as well, if I may add - that he's not about to give up even the smallest little sacrifice himself.  Even for this most important of all issues.

A March against their rights will happen this weekend

Whose rights?  Why 'their' rights, that's who.  Because just like being willing to let terrorists kill other Americans, so taking away other Americans' rights is the price I'm willing to pay for making America a better country for me to live in.  After all, it's one thing to demand others give up their rights, it's quite another to think I should.  That's going too far.

Nonetheless, this whole episode is what we used to call pay dirt.  The Left, seizing upon a tragedy that was aided by systemic bureaucratic failures and breakdowns, has found a new weapon in its war against the traditional West:  Kids who came from a high school where a shooting occurred.

"As long as we have victims in front of us, we're invulnerable!"

Like the suffering individual advocating for Democrats' healthcare policies, these kids are invulnerable.  Put a disabled child, a parent of a slain youth, a student from a school shooting at the front of your column, and you're nigh on invincible.  Any criticisms or observations about collusion or exploitation will immediately be spun as 'you hate babies.'  Charges of bigotry, racism and sexism will be forthcoming.

Of course there's plenty to suggest that using them for political clout is a happy byproduct.  That a growing number of these kids, chanting an end to the NRA, a willingness to ban guns, and a general disdain for gun owners and conservative Republicans, might also ensure a new wave of registered voters who will join in supporting the party that wants to save us from racists, global warming, sexists and Christians, is even better.  Hence why this great movement is supported by the great alliance of the Left, given finances and support from the wealthy and powerful, and fully advocated by and promoted by the press.

Yes, there is that nasty little part about the press deliberately ignoring those students who were victims who don't support gun control as the only issue worth discussing.  Sometimes it almost seems like these kids are being exploited, rather than joined by the various national forces that want guns gone.

But almost overnight, the generation that has been taught America and Nazi Germany were practically one and the same, the entire history of America was a great evil, and it's time to end this notion that people have the freedom to be evil (that is, not Leftist), has adopted a new mantra: I'm perfectly willing to take away their rights for my safety. Exploitation is a small price to pay for such a reward.  Whatever the morality of it is, at this point, entirely irrelevant.

Fun Observation Update: My boys were watching the obviously coordinated marches, and my second oldest noted that 'to hear the media talk, you'd never know there was a Republican in Parkland.'  That is true.

Updated Observation: Another point was made, and I'm not sure.  I heard on the news yesterday that there were students on buses heading for Washington.  The press said last night some students were arriving in Washington early on in the evening.  Are these students on Spring Break this week?  Don't tell me schools are letting them out again.  I'm not saying they are, but the press certainly suggested the kids were on their way yesterday, a school day.  I'm just curious. 

Things I heard from the student walk out

First, apparently all the students are on the same page when it comes to focusing on guns as the solution, since almost every student interviewed went straight to guns and dealing with guns as the focus.  Well, that's not true.  FOX News managed to find a student who wasn't supporting gun control as the answer, so make your own call on that.

Many students apparently have no problem saying they want guns gone, they are against guns, they want them banned, and they have no issue admitting it.  Both in interviews, and during various chants, the message was clear.

Many apparently hate the NRA and see it as right up there with the KKK and Nazis.  They want it gone.  I didn't hear anyone chant 'Kill the NRA', but the NRA, when mentioned, was talked about the way one might mention a serial killer, or a terrorist organization.  Given that national leaders and pundits refer to the NRA in such a way, that shouldn't be surprising.

Nobody in the press confronted the kids about bullying and who is actually doing it.  There were a lot of demands that someone[else] do something, but not many of the students said 'Given the almost universal link between mass shootings and bullying, I pledge...'

I heard parents who were interviewed speak about how they had hoped their youth would become activists, even if not because of something like this.  I thought that was interesting.

Several of the protesters had no problem suggesting people who weren't on the same page as them about gun measures were more concerned about their guns than their kids.  That was repeated in speech and posters.

I noticed several youth linking this movement to other movements, like the Civil Rights marches or the Vietnam War protests.  I wonder if the above parents noticed that, too.

Nobody talked about the media violence, rhetoric and other characteristics of modern life.  It's not even worth wondering if I heard any links to our abortion culture or our more hedonistic tendencies. Because of this, there were no pledges by students to turn away from all the violence and rhetoric that has come to define our modern culture.  In fact, again, there were no pledges from students to do anything, other than demand political leaders do something about gun violence.

Nobody talked specifics.  Even when students were given substantial time in an interview, there were no real specifics.

Those are what I noticed the most.  No mention at all about suicides, the growth of suicides among white Americans, the disproportionately high level of violence among certain demographics and in certain reigns of the country.  Just mostly what I posted here.  I'm sure there were other things I didn't hear, but that's what I heard.