Your bias is showing.

       Recently I've seen an image circulating.  You know the kind, someone tried to force a meme by putting words over an image.  Normally I ignore these things, as they are thoughtless ignorance encapsulated; but this one bothered me.  It represented the culmination of assumptions feeding confirmation bias, feeding assumptions, in a vicious circle.  Rather than direct traffic to the site hosting it; I, armed with the fair use doctrine, am posting it here.

       Let's disassemble the assumptions and biases here.  First this assumes that these two people have any intent at all.  They may simply have been walking down the street.  This isn't likely the case, but I'll cover that shortly.  Next, it assumes they are cowards, and that only armed services members and veterans can be brave, or defend themselves or their country.  Since the second amendment was born out of the fact that non military people armed themselves to liberate us from the British, this is especially off base.  Lastly the assumption that they are "playing army".  Because one cannot possibly be engaging in any activity with a firearm, unless you are acting immature.  This is an assumption feeding a confirmation bias and back.

       The first assumption is the funniest.  Ever run into armed people just wandering around?  Me neither.  That is because it doesn't happen, in this country, unless you are out hunting.  This was most likely from one of the many "Open Carry" events in places like Texas, which were to highlight the absurdity of the laws there.  It was lawful to carry a rifle openly, or a handgun concealed, but not a handgun where it could be seen.  This left enforcement far too open to interpretation.

       These protests worked, and as of this January it became legal to carry a handgun openly.  Other protests seek to "desensitize" people to the sight of a firearm, which should be no more alarming than the presence of a bat, hammer, or other tool.  At no point, that I could find, was the intent of these protests to intimidate anyone.  That is why the rifles are slung, and not carried.

       I have prepared an image as a rebuttal, which is every bit as ignorant, assumptive, and reinforcing of bias.  It was done for satire, and not because I am stating the contained words to be truth.

        See how this can be turned around.  These people are engaged in the same activity.  A collective agreement to protest.  Unlike the protesting people carrying rifles, however, their right to intimidate is protected.  (http://www.nrtw.org/d/big_labor_special_privileges.htm).  Paints a different picture now doesn't it?

Free speech culture

       In order to shine a light on a certain brand of hypocrisy; I will be writing a paragraph from the perspective of an outraged liberal.  I have read several such articles explaining to all the "Sheeple" that "American Gun Culture" is the reason why we still have gun rights, which should, due to the actions of a few be taken away.  (By the way, if you ever want people to immediately tune you out, use the word "Sheeple")  Instead of using the term "Gun-Culture" however, I will be using the term "Free Speech Culture.  (the only differences will be a lack of spelling errors, and a lack of egregious grammatical errors).  I hope that this will show just how flimsy, and frankly how Anti-American, those arguments are.

       Well, here we go again.  Another day another incident of someone causing pain and suffering because the Free Speech Culture wont allow the government to protect us by taking away these idiot's right to disagree.  As long as people have the right to say whatever they want, whenever they want, this will keep happening.  Certain places are not even safe anymore because these sociopaths get to spread their idiocy wherever they choose.  How many lives have to be lost, just because someone wants their individual freedom preserved.  How many children need be injured or die, just because a selfish few, feel a need to speak freely.  Distracting billboards, political speech on the radio.  I can't even concentrate on driving!  People protesting gets in the way of emergency vehicles and causes economic disruption!  By disagreeing with necessary policy choices, children won't have access to free services.  By speaking out against these things, children die.  Think of the children.  And how dare they impose this disease of theirs on the rest of us.  I'm not saying that these people can't practice their free speech in appropriate places, like designated lounges, but they should not be allowed to shove their beliefs in our faces.  I should not have to feel threatened by their disagreement.  When can we just ignore this Free speech culture and do what is best for society?  We should really just round up all the transmitters and printing presses and take them away so no one would have them.  Free speech is not a guaranteed right when children get hurt.  

       Now I hope I don't need to point out that the above paragraph is farcical in nature.  But this is how the arguments against the second amendment go.  It cannot be said enough: My rights should never be curtailed due to someone else's actions.  That isn't gun culture.  That is one of the founding principals of our country.  To say that my firearms pose a threat to someone, because an illegally obtained pistol in Chicago was used in a crime, is erroneous thinking.  There is no gun culture in America.  We have a culture of being at liberty.  We have a culture that allows divergent viewpoints to peacefully coexist.  When my rights are eroded because someone else committed a crime, we have a fundamental violation of civil liberties.  

To put things another way, when someone is arrested the 15th time for drunk driving, or road rage, no one hesitates to blame the local DA for not keeping them in prison.  No one blames the car, or the road, or sues GM; no matter how many people this person killed.  They blame the person.  To do otherwise is ridiculous.  Why then, do we blame an inert piece of machinery when there is a shooting.

Bonus, in case you missed it: Bloomberg admits his racism, and that the problem is the shooter, not the gun.  Of course he is asking the press not to distribute the video of him saying it.  (Not that he controls a significant potion of the press)  Bloomberg's Hypocrisy

Firearms Education

While on an online forum (reddit) I ran across a user on the firearms sub that had an idea I would like to share.

One of the primary complaints from the anti-gun rights crowd is that we should not have untrained people with guns in public, where they could potentially do harm to others.  Rather than argue against the fallacy in the logic; that those following the law would somehow be more dangerous than those who don't, this user attempted to work within that constraint.  Working within a constraint is what breeds true creativity, after all.  Also it is hard to argue against proper training. So thank you user xicougar106 for the following.  (Taken with permission, sometimes verbatim)

Add mandatory firearms training to the high school curriculum.  Much like sex-ed.  In fact the arguments against it will be much the same.  I will tackle these as they arise.

"It's not the state's place to teach this."  Much like sex-ed, actually.  But since there is a definite right way and wrong way to handle a firearm, and with disastrous consequences, (again, like sex, think of the safe sex lessons), it is in the interest of the public's well-being that this should be taught.  Also, I will add that maybe if our media had a modicum of schooling on firearms they wouldn't fear them so much, and maybe even call them by the right names.

"This is a parent's job"  Yes, yes it is.  But unless your parent is a certified instructor, you will likely not be taught correctly.  Again this is a direct corollary of sex-ed.

"I don't want my child exposed to this"  There would be an opt out, again, exactly like sex-ed.

"This would encourage bad behavior"  (http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats07/trends.htm)  You can do your own look ups on this but here is the punchline, education does not equal bad behavior, in fact it tends to work the other way.  Many of my friends attended rural high schools.  Trap shooting was part of PE and many kids brought their hunting rifles to school, so they could get in the field faster, after class.  Those schools, tellingly, have not had any shootings.

Now the arguments in favor.

There would be no additional requirement for training needed to obtain permission to carry.  In fact, there would not be a need to obtain permission at all.

The average person would know the immediate effects of shooting someone/something.  The only downside to that is that Hollywood would need to work harder to get effects right.  This would actually remove the detachment from reality that most of the "school shooters" felt.  (note I'm not a psychiatrist, nor do I play one on TV, but seeing first-hand what something does, and how it impacts a life, makes it real.  Like having to care for an egg, or a doll, in you guessed it, sex-ed.)

The general population would be properly educated about firearms.  With education comes the removal of fear.  More education is always better.  This is why I despise media coverage of any firearms related topic.  They spread misinformation.  Whether knowingly or out of ignorance, they perpetuate the lack of knowledge, or more precisely; the possession of incorrect knowledge, which is far worse.

You don't want your kids learning about this on the streets, or from their friends.  Self explanatory.

In fact the arguments for and against, so closely mirror sex-ed, that a truly progressive society would demand both be taught.

A violation of civil rights.

       The constitution, as it was originally worded, left allowances for slaves, chattel, and indentured servants. Not too long after this was corrected, but not before many lives were made worse, by being treated as second class citizens.  Slavery was abolished but wrong-headed practices endured.  People were denied rights based on their ethnicity, country of origin, and sometimes even religion.
       Much later many brave souls stood up and declared that they would no longer tolerate this.  Such treatment was a violation of their civil rights.  They complained that whole classes, races, ethnicites, and even religions were being pre-judged as dangerous, or criminal, based on the actions of a few, with whom they were in no way connected.  Their civil rights were being violated.
       Apply this logic to what we see today.  The rights of an entire group of people, representing just about half of all Americans, depending who's chart you believe, are being told that rights guaranteed to them by our constitution, will be curtailed, or for lack of a better word, infringed upon.  This group is nearly equally represented by men and women, Democrat and Republican, young and old.
       Based on the actions of a infinitesimally small amount of people, and to combat a problem that represents 0.16% the number of drunk driving fatalities, some in Washington are seeking to ban a popular type of repeating rifle.  (FBI crime statistics.  18 fatalities from so called "Assault weapons", 10,839 drunk driving fatalities.)
       That's right.  The patent office recognizes semi-automatic firearms as a type of repeating firearm.  This means one trigger pull equals one bullet fired.  Semi-automatic is a bit of a misnomer, because it in no way can match the function of a fully automatic weapon.  The other thing to consider here is that to ban any type of firearm is a violation of every single American's civil rights.  The same as if they decided on a state religion, or to preemptively arrest all persons of African and Hispanic ancestry, because of statistical findings.  If reading that infuriates you, good.  Because it is no different.
       The numbers show we don't actually have any type of problem with those rifles.  Crime statistics show that there is absolutely no reason to act against any particular type of gun, but least of all what they are incorrectly terming "assault weapons".  Of all firearms used in the commission of homicides, let alone general crimes, those are used least, and by a huge margin.  The numbers are 92.73% of homicides committed with handguns, 6.99% with rifles, and 0.27% with what they call an "assault weapon".
       Stop solving a problem we don't have, and solve the ones we do.  You may have noticed that as a country, we are nearing insolvency.  Taking action against the law-abiding gun-owners is a violation of their civil rights.  The question here is why is the ACLU not involved?  Why are they not being called out for their hypocrisy in this?  Why are we allowing Washington to waste money we don't have, to solve a problem we don't have, and distract us from the real issues?

The President's agenda has changed. Or has it?

       You can say a lot of things about Barack Obama.  One thing you cannot say, (at least accurately) is that he is stupid.  While I disagree with a lot of what he has attempted to do; he has been the most politically savvy President in a long time.  I have previously, jokingly suggested that his agenda for 2013 was to sell guns.  I think now I have figured out what he is really doing, and I want everyone to hear it from me first.
       He assigned the biggest fool on the left side of the aisle, Joe Biden, to head up a commission (which I'm sure was a four-star, blue ribbon panel, since they all are) to look into possible gun-control solutions.  This is significant given Biden's role in the Brady bill, and his political nearness to extremists like Feinstein.
       Examine what a farce this panel has been already.  Meeting with the makers of video games, movies and television shows to discuss whether there should be gun-control measures.  Someone said this is like asking the makers of Hot Wheels their opinions on automobile safety.  I concur.  Considering how badly Hollywood and the gaming industry botch firearms in general, it is moronic to ask for their input.
       Unless your idea is to shake up your political opponents.  Here comes the NRA, the 2nd amendment foundation, and the whole of the Republican party, riding in on their white chargers.  They are yelling that guns are not the problem.  Mental health care and schools are the problem.
       The President, while taking V.P. Biden's suggestions "under advisement", meets with the NRA and the Republican leaders.  He ponders for a while, then declares that he thinks they are right.  Education and health care are what need to be fixed, not the private business of law-abiding citizens.  He then invites the Republicans, and those in the Democrats who previously voted against reforming health care, to join him in this noble cause.  To correct the issues that were his primary platform to correct.
       He will have forced the Republicans, and the Democrats who didn't vote for those reforms the first time, to gladly join him in reforming these things now.  In doing so he will have built a bridge between both parties. Brilliant, when you think about it.