Reason # Infinity to carry a gun – Crazy people. (Also – Don’t go Full Hero during a Mass Shooting.)

‘Carry at All Times’: Video of Random Woman Stabbing Boy in Front of Parents Shocks Gun Owners

First off – You need to watch this video.

Second off – The title is wrong, this should shock everyone, and if you love your family, you should be concealed carrying anyways.

Historically speaking, the world has always been full of vile, evil, crazy people willing to inflict pain and hurt on others. And just because we’ve got indoor plumbing doesn’t mean that thing’s ain’t changed none. There’s only a thin veneer of civility on top of society, and it could be argued that’s been weakened with the current state of vitrol amongst our politics, the pathetic shape of our mental health institutions, the lack of father figures in homes, and the influence of social media.

But if you are carrying a firearm, you could have done something other than flail about pathetically like the child’s father in the video.

You could have shot her during the confrontation or you could have tried to detain her afterwards.

Personally, I’m not above shooting her in the back as she’s walking away. If that gets me arrested, I’ll smile for my mug shot. But I’m not about to let someone walk away after stabbing my kids.

But I’ve always been the sort to figure, if they’re willing to do this to me and my kids, when will they stop?

Answer – when they’re incapacitated.

Now, comparing this to the mass shooting that just happened in Texas on how a concealed carry holder should act…

I read this recently at Survival Blog and found it to ring true.

The letter itself is in italics.

***

Some Counter-Mass Shooting Wisdom

SurvivalBlog’s Editor-At-Large Michael Z. Williamson chimed in with this letter that he received from a friend who is a former SADF trooper, in South Africa:

“Handguns are better than bare fists but that’s about it. Shooting it out with someone who is armed with a carbine sucks beyond belief. I speak for experience since, unlike a whole pile of the Internet blowhards, I’ve actually done it. As have numerous cops in other [bad places]. Ask any of them if a pistol would be their first choice if they had to do it again.

Having said that, the problem with long guns is how are you going to carry it? Go back to your vehicle and fetch it? Not going to work in reality. Carry it around in a bag or under a coat? Statistically it’s probably not worth the trouble.

As to the little Suarez gem about being seen as an accomplice if you are armed with a rifle (Obviously you should be armed with one of his red dot pistols because of wallet mining) that’s BS. The cops have been given a report of an active shooter. Anyone waving a weapon around be it a rifle, shotgun or a sidearm is going to be seen as a possible suspect and treated as such. Why? Because plenty of other weapons are used by active shooters.

A lot of police work is a game of imperfect information. Even if the report said man with a rifle, no cop in his right [expletive] mind is going to go “Oh look a guy with a pistol he must be a CCwer and I can safely ignore him, in-fact I can safely expect him to help”, to do so would be folly.

And as to the re-conceal bit. That may take timing you don’t have. I know the latest fantasy of the red dot “offensive pistol” crowd is that they will snipe the [bad guy] across the mall with their awesome skills. Maybe they will, but maybe they won’t. Bad guys don’t want to die either. If the shot is less than perfect, there are more than one shooters (remember you are also playing a game of imperfect info) or anything else aside from what you hope for you will attract fire and maybe get into a protracted firefight. At that point there is no more concealing after taking care of business.

In South Africa, during a cash in transit heist, an armed private citizen engaged the robbers with his pistol killing one. Problem was he engaged them from behind the cover of a car. Why is that a problem you ask? Because it was a car with one of them in it, assumedly a getaway vehicle. The occupant simply got out and blew the good Samaritan’s brains out. Remember it’s a game of imperfect info! A single private individual has even less of it that cops with radios and such.

Personally, I would not directly engage, unless I was in the perpetrator’s immediate vicinity or immediately threatened by an identifiable threat, some of those are better off eliminated proactively. Given the option, I would take my spouse and or family members, seek hard cover and the safety of a defensible position and wait for a decent opportunity. If the active shooter goes Mumbai style and comes looking for more targets that’s when you take the [hostile] out.

I realize that’s not being “sheepdogish” and such. But if you want to go full [hero] and charge on the sound of the guns, to die a good death then go for it. I guess someone else will look after your family and the people you saved families won’t be giving a [care] either. Life is hard, simple as that. Your immediate duty is to you and yours, [expletive] the rest. Of course its different if you are responsible for more people’s lives, for whatever reason, but most normal, family people are not.

As I’ve said before most people are not trained to clear a house, let’s not even talk about waging urban warfare in a [expletive] Shopping Mall.”

 

Stay safe friends. Practice shooting often and write diligently. 🙂

 

A Few Random and Unpopular Opinions.

First – “Your allegiance should be to the Constitution, not to a person, President, or political party.”

I love Trump, he tickles me. He’s one of the greatest Presidents we’ve ever had. He deserves his place on Mount Rushmore.

But he sucks sometimes too. Especially when it comes to his waffling back and forth on firearms. If he wants to see his almost guaranteed 2020 win evaporate, he needs to allow an Assault Weapons Ban to go through. He’s already ticked us all off over the Bump-Stock ban.

I’m also a Republican, well, really a Libertarian, but I know a losing side when I see one and prefer to work within the system rather than sit outside the gate kicking my boots against it hopelessly. But the Republicans really suck sometimes.

(Also – That is not my quote. I can’t recall where I read it, if you know who said it, please let me know so I can give credit.)

Second – I think Greenland would be a pretty sweet buy. Vast, open spaces, low population density, huge and untapped resources, and access to the arctic that would make Russia jealous. It may take some time to sway the Greenlandies to our side, but once they reach our obesity levels… we can trust them.

Besides, why would the Danes still want it?

According to Climate Change specialists it’s going to melt into the sea in the next dozen years. So we’re looking at diminishing returns here on our investment. The Art of the Deal man should be able to use this to his advantage.

Speaking of climate change activists, why did the Obamas just buy a mansion at Martha’s Vineyard that is dang near sea level?

Won’t it be under water shortly?

Rhetorical question, because they don’t believe in it anymore than I do, they just see the POWER that comes from using FEAR to gain political advantages and force economic changes that benefit them and their goals for America.

Third – I’m not that big a fan of Chic-Fil-A. I like that they’re a Christian company who non-apologetically sticks to their guns, and I’ll support that by eating their food… but really… other than the lemonade and chicken nuggets.. not a big fan. And for the love of all that’s good, please stop putting pickles on my chicken sandwiches and put some mayo on it instead.

(I do hear their frosted lemonade is the bomb-diggity though.)

 

Book Update.

Let’s see. When it comes to Publishing Houses, I’m doing well. Several have shown  strong interest so far, plus the one offered contract. When it comes to Publishing Agents, I’m at 22 rejections. So, all in all, pretty good. 22 is still a pretty low number of rejections, and considering how genre-blending this book is, it’s going to be a hard sell. Folks keep telling me how it’s unlike anything they’ve ever read, which is awesome, but that also makes it more difficult to interest agents and publishers. But the interest is good enough that I’m confident it’ll sell.

For the sequel, I passed the 60k word mark over the weekend. That’s half-way to my goal. For my first sequel and second book ever, it’s considerably easier than the first now that I’ve climbed the learning curve and most of the world building/characters/villains etc have been built and established.

If you’re curious as to what I’m talking about. Here’s the first 15% of the book, if you like it, I’ll send you a copy for the sake of feedback.

West of Prehistoric

2019 NC Writers Conference

I’ve never been to a writers conference before, but I’ve heard good things and writers I respect have taught courses at them so… enh… Maybe something to them.

And the Fall Conference is in Asheville which is only 40 minutes away, so I think it’d be rather foolish if I didn’t at least try that one. Looking at past course offerings, I can see some classes I’d like to take. The Spring conference offered several Fiction Master Classes, Writing Speculative Fiction(whatever ‘speculative’ means I’m not sure…), and the Basics of Book Business. But the Fall Conference seems like a much bigger deal, spanning two and a half days instead of one, and offering much more goodies… like breakfast. And book sales/exhibitor tables, speeches, awards, many more classes, book signing, etc. Looking at last Fall’s schedule, there are all sorts of courses on world building, dialogue, character creation, etc.  Oh, and one course called ‘Shut Up and Write!’ which sounds like something I’d want to teach.

Sounds fun.

I will confess, I don’t recognize ANY of the authors from previous conferences. But I’m terrible with names. Unless it’s someone I read regularly, I’ll forget it. So I’ll have to google these men and women before attending to see what they’ve written first…

Because I -really- don’t want to pay monies to sit in a class for someone who writes homo-erotica transgendered ANTIFA fiction that involves fascist werewolves that tinkle under moonlight…

(meant to write ‘twinkle’ but tinkle works…)

We should be air lifting guns and ammunition into Hong Kong.

First rule in Democracy – Never, ever, EVER, give anything or anyone to the Communists. British PM Margaret Thatcher really screwed up when she gave Hong Kong back to China. You are giving people to evil. That is subjecting them to tyranny.

Second rule in Democracy – When someone wants freedom, when someone is willing to stand for freedom, to beg and plead for it, to risk their lives for it, then they deserve it. It’s downright chilling to watch Hong Kong protesters flying our flag, singing OUR anthem, and begging for our help to stave off the mainland Chinese Communists. This ain’t a bunch of middle easterners who hate us, our way of life, and our involvement in their politics. This is a bunch of people who’ve retained a small amount of their freedoms from Britain rule and are bound and determined to keep them and they are begging for our help.

Third rule in Democracy – The spread of globalism should always be neutered when possible. We should be building our military up in preparations of the defense for Hong Kong.  In the meantime, we should be air lifting pallets of rifles, PMags, and ammunition into that city to give the protesters (who are now being labeled ‘terrorists) a chance to not go silently into the night. Thousands of ironically named communist ‘Peoples Liberation Army‘  troops, vehicles, and equipment are already being staged!

If they invade it will be a massacre of biblical proportions.

We should be praying, arming them, and preparing to come to their defense.

So Epstein ‘offs himself’ eh?

I don’t think we can even jokingly call this a conspiracy anymore. It seems more and more to be a murder of sorts.

Well….

Is it murder if you kill a pedophile?

Or is it simply a clean up on aisle four?

Anyways, I digress.

Here’s what we know.

  1. He seemed intent on living when he spoke to his lawyer last. (Surely this guy hoped to make a deal considering the people he knew?)
  2. Both guards were asleep for three hours, instead of checking on him every thirty minutes as required. (BOTH? Sleep over, Cell Block A)
  3. Prison records were falsified by same guards.
  4. His cellmate was moved, which allowed Epstein to be housed alone, which violated the jails procedures.
  5. Shrieks were heard from other inmates coming from his direction.
  6. He ‘strangled’ himself by kneeling with a noose made of bed sheets. (Not in a ‘kick out the chair from under me, no backing out now!’ method, but a ‘I’m going to keep self-choking myself until I pass out and die’ method.)
  7. He had multiple broken bones in his neck that are sometimes found with strangulation homicide victims.
  8. The cameras weren’t working. (Gee – really?)

Ain’t all that just convenient?

Now, maybe no one actively murdered him. Maybe they simply removed him from suicide watch and waited for nature to run its course. Or, maybe someone slipped in and actively offed the guy to make it look like suicide.

Either way – No big loss to society.

Except that with him dies lists of names of people who should also be hung. And it’s a shame we won’t get to see those folks kicking and twitching anytime soon.