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Bill Lockwood: Responsibility Deficit Disorder 0 (0)

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by Bill Lockwood

Linda Sapadin, Ph.D, writing for Psychcentral.com, has coined a new term appropriate for too many in our generation. RDD—Responsibility Deficit Disorder. “Our entire culture is plagued with this virus,” she writes. “RDD is prevalent in our society and is a growing problem.”

However, unlike other “clinical” disorders, RDD effects people differently. “Those who have it do not suffer from it. Quite the contrary. The people who ‘suffer’ are those loved ones who must deal with the rat’s nest that is so often dropped in their laps.” How true.

On the lighter side, consider the following real-life excuses people have given to lessen their “responsibility” in motor vehicle accidents. “An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car and vanished.” Or try this one: “As I approached an intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.” Or this: “In an attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.”

Mothers-in-law will appreciate this one. “I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment.”

However, in a very real and somber way, Ms. Sapadin is exactly correct about our society and its failure to own-up to responsibility. Not only is it a growing problem, but our political landscape actually encourages RDD. Everything from obesity to “unsocial” behavior to political socialism falls under the umbrella of RDD. Colleges that once taught people how to think now offer “safe spaces” for students who become upset over conservative ideas.

Steve Siebold, writing for The Huffington Post, notes that:

It used to be that hard work was the American way. If you wanted to lose weight, you knew it took a good diet, exercise and a lot of hard work and dedication. If your wanted to make money and achieve the American dream, you worked hard, learned everything you could about your industry and created the life you wanted. Those days are over. Quitting and complacency are the norm. In fact, if our ancestors were alive today—the very men and women who came to this country to fight for the chance at a better life—they would be embarrassed, shocked and devastated at what we’ve turned into.

Responsibility Deficit Disorder

Social Justice is a concept that carries with it RDD virus. This is because “social justice” has very little to do with actual “justice” but focuses upon “outcomes.” Walter Williams puts it this way,

Outcomes of human relationships are often seen as criteria for the presence or absence of justice or fairness. Outcomes frequently used as barometers of justice and fairness are: race and sex statistics on income and unemployment, income redistribution in general, occupation distribution, wealth ownership, and other measures of socio-economic status.

In other words, no attention is paid to any underlying reason for differences, it is simply assumed that different outcomes among people is the result of crass prejudice and favoritism. For example, wealth distribution is uneven among various races of people. Social justice demands the assumption that foul play must be involved. But this must not be spoken out loud. Our political machinery just moves along as if this were true and prescribes mandates based on race—whether it be in job hiring or incarceration rates.

Differences among people or subcultures as a possible cause is never considered because that would be the “politically incorrect” thing to do.

The American justice system must be “profoundly racist” according to Bart Lubow of Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative. No examination of personal choices, no time wasted pondering different habits of sub-cultures—simply announce America to be a “racist” culture. This is how Lubow feeds RDD.

Reginald Denny

In April, 1992 during the Los Angeles riots, Reginald Denny, a white truck driver, was beaten nearly to death by four black men. The attack ended when Damian Monroe Williams took a cinderblock and bashed Denny’s skull, fracturing it in 91 places and causing severe brain damage.

Denny was hospitalized for 33 days with a compound skull fracture, almost 100 broken bones and internal injuries. Doctors said he was only moments from death before being rescued by four good Samaritans. Denny had taken what he thought would be a short-cut off of the Santa Monica Freeway.

At the trial social scientists from UCLA cited “mob behavior” which is “spontaneous.” Damian Williams was found “not guilty” of attempted murder because he had been caught up in “mob mentality.” Williams was “acting out his frustrations, his disappointments.” So argued his defense attorney; so agreed the judge. His only conviction was a 10-year “felony mayhem” sentence—the others were not sentenced at all. Responsibility Deficit Disorder is not only a retreat of the immature—it is encouraged by the judicial system.

Quota Systems

The International for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), a world organization with the imprimatur of the United Nations, founded in Stockholm, Sweden in 1995, has as its goal Sustainable Democracy.

Specifically, IDEA pushes “gender quotas” in politics and positions of power. “An increasing number of countries are currently introducing various types of gender quotas for public elections: In fact, half of the countries of the world today use some type of electoral quota for their parliament.” The goal is to have more “gender balance” in governmental representation.

What is the excuse for this top-down pressure to conform? Once again, the assumption that women suffer from male prejudice against women in power positions. Out-of-bounds is the question that there are differences between men and women and that many women may not prefer these roles in society. This is another facet of Responsibility Deficit Disorder. We simply disallow that women have control over their own lives and occupations.

The Gun Debate

The entire Democratic Party is afflicted with Responsibility Deficit Disorder. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in Democratic positions on firearm ownership. Witness the recent debates between 20 presidential candidates in Miami and what they propose as solutions to gun violence in America.

Many of the candidates advocate an outright repeal of The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a federal law that protects firearms manufacturers and dealers from being held liable for criminal misuse of their products (Frank Minter, in Freedom, September, 2019, p. 16). These candidates want gun manufacturers out of business. They UNANIMOUSLY refuse to understand that criminals that use firearms have a personal responsibility in their criminal behavior, and that the rest of us should not be punished.

Joe Biden, for example, said “we should have smart guns. No gun should be able to be sold unless your biometric measure can pull that trigger. It’s without our right to do that, we can do that, our enemy is the gun manufacturers, …” Smart guns, but not smart politicians. The gun manufacturers? RDD.

Biden even stated he would be willing for the federal government to confiscate millions of popular semi-automatic rifles from the public. Biden is not constitutionally-minded either.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren claims that “Gun violence is a national health emergency.” She advocates universal background checks and new bans on some guns. RDD. Sen. Cory Booker has the same disorder. So also Sen. Amy Klobuchar. She proposes a forced gun “buyback” program.

Not to be outdone, former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke opined that semi-automatic rifles are “weapons of war” and do not belong on our streets. Sen. Kamala Harris has threatened an unconstitutional executive order if Congress did not pass a new gun-legislation within her first 100 days in office. Sen. Bernie Sanders runs on a platform of “banning assault rifles” as well as “ending the gun show loophole.”

Not one of these candidates cares about the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, or the God-given rights owned by each citizen of America. They all function with RDD and suppose that you will as well. They will never even address the real issue as to rising crime and gun violence—lack of moral responsibility and moral character in America. That would be getting too close to “religious values” which they disdain.

If we are going to solve the growing Responsibility Deficit Disorder in our nation, begin by taking responsibility for your own actions. Desert any institution that refuses to recognize personal responsibility. Translated, that means, leave the Democratic Party. Because, as Dr. Linda Sapadin advises, “Dream on that the other person will change. He’s got it good—especially if you’re are enabling his dysfunction.” Quit enabling Democratic dysfunction.

Tom DeWeese: Growing Drive to Destroy the Beef Industry 0 (0)

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by Tom DeWeese

The American beef industry has long been a tasty target of the environmentalists and their allies in the animal rights movement. To understand the reason is to know that protecting the environment is not the goal, rather the excuse in a determined drive for global power. Their selected tactic is to control the land, water, energy, and population of the Earth. To achieve these ends requires, among other things, the destruction of private property rights and elimination of every individual’s ability to make personal lifestyle choices, including personal diet.

Of course, no totalitarian-bound movement would ever put their purpose in such direct terms. That’s where the environmental protection excuse comes in. Instead, American cattle producers are simply assured that no one wants to harm their industry, just make it safer for the environment. The gun industry might recognize that such assurance sounds a bit familiar. Same source, same tactics, same goals.

So the offered solution to “fix” the beef industry is “sustainable certification”. All the cattle growers have to do, they are assured, is follow a few simple rules and all will be fine, peaceful and profitable. Enter the players: the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB), and the U.S, Department of Agriculture.

First, let’s reveal the Sustainablists’ stated problems with the beef industry. What’s not sustainable about raising beef? According to the environmental “experts”, there are ten reasons why the meat industry does not meet sustainable standards:

  1. Deforestation – the claim is that farm animals require considerably more land than crops to produce food. The World Hunger Program calculated that if the land was used to grow grain and soy instead of cattle the land could provide a vegan diet to 6 billion people. Do you get that – a vegan diet! The fact is, most grazing land in the U.S. cannot be used for growing food crops because the soil wouldn’t sustain crops.
  2. Fresh Water – they claim that the America diet requires 4,200 gallons of water per day, including animal drinking water, irrigation of crops, processing, washing, etc. Whereas a vegan diet only requires 300 gallons per day. Apparently they don’t plan to irrigate the land to grow wheat or to wash the vegetables.
  3. Waste Disposal – factory farms house hundreds of thousands of animals that produce waste. They claim these giant livestock farms produce more than 130 times the amount of waste humans do. The interesting thing about this detail is that the actual sustainable policies they are enforcing to fix this problem destroy the small family farms in favor of the very giant corporate factory farms they profess to oppose. In addition, those global corporations which join the Green cabal have the ability to ignore many of the “sustainable” restrictions, unlike the small, family farms that are much better at protecting the environment on their own.
  4. Energy Consumption – For the steak to end up on your plate, say the Greens, the cow has to consume massive amounts of energy along the way as the cattle are transported thousands of miles to slaughter, market, and refrigerate. And let’s not forget, the meat must then be cooked! Well this transportation argument is a direct result of the existence of a limited few packing companies in cahoots with the Green Lords that dictate the market as they work against a more decentralized, local industry. Meanwhile, last time I checked, Tofurkey – made from soy — also has to be cooked!
  5. Food Productivity – say the Greens, food productivity of farmland is falling behind the population and the only option, besides cutting the population, is to cut back on meat consumption and convert grazing lands to food crops. As noted in point 1, most grazing land cannot be converted. Everything dealing with the sustainable argument is based on some unseen crisis. Yet we do not have a world-wide food shortage or pending famine. In fact, the media is persistently reporting “price-depressing crop surpluses.” The only places where such shortages may exist are in totalitarian societies where government is controlling food production and supplies – kind of like the Green’s plan for sustainable beef.
  6. Global Warming– here we go! Say the Greens, global warming is driven by energy consumption and cows are energy guzzlers. But there’s more to the story. Cow flatulence! A single dairy cow, they claim, produces an average of 75 kilos of methane annually. Meanwhile, environmentalists want to return the rangelands to historic species, including buffalo. And a buffalo, grazing on the same grass on the same lands would emit about the same amount of methane. It’s a non-issue.
  7. Loss of Biodiversity– What are some of the examples the Greens give for loss of biodiversity? Poaching and black market sale of bushmeat including everything from elephants and chimpanzees to birds??? Please explain what this has to do with the American cattle industry – other than a pure hatred of anyone who eats meat of any kind. And that, of course, is the argument from the animal rights/vegan wing of the Green movement that is leading the assault on cattle.
  8. Grassland Destruction– apparently this is based on the Green premise that domesticated animals like cows replaced bison and antelope, which, in turn, caused a loss of biodiversity of species. I’ve got two pieces of news for you. First, the Native Americans so revered by the Greens, hunted bison before the white man arrived. Take a trip to Bozeman, Montana and see the cliff where they used to run entire herds to their death, not just selectively choosing a few to eat. Second, the Greens, not the cattle ranchers, forced the reintroduction of wolves, and that has caused a near annihilation of the antelope and elk herds.
  9. Soil Erosion – the Greens claim that U.S. pastureland is overgrazed, causing soil erosion. In truth, a great many of today’s cattlemen are third and fourth generation on their land. Those ranches could not have existed for over a hundred years if they were so careless in taking care of the land. It is vital to their survival to assure the land stays in good shape. Of course, an environmentalist who has never worked a ranch or farm and rarely comes out of his New York high-rise might not know that.
  10. Lifestyle Disease– this is my favorite of the reasons why beef is supposedly unsustainable. In short, it’s because of stupid people! This one is blamed on “excessive” consumption of meat, combined with environmental pollution and “lack of exercise” leading to strokes, cancer, diabetes and heart attacks. So it’s the beef industries fault that people eat too much and refuse to exercise. The solution – ban meat consumption. Yet, doctors are now realizing that meat eating is not the problem, carbs are.

So, these are the ten main reasons why it’s charged that beef is unsustainable and must be ruled, regulated and frankly, eliminated. These are charges brought by anti-beef vegans who want all beef consumption stopped. In cahoots, are global Sustainablists who seek to stop the private ownership and use of land, all hiding under the blanket excuse of environmental protection.

To bring the cattle industry into line with this world view the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has accepted the imposition of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, which is heavily influenced, if not controlled, by the World Wildlife Fund, one of the top three most powerful environmental organizations in the world and a leader in the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), which basically sets the rules for global environmental policy. This is the same World Wildlife Fund that issued a report saying, “Meat consumption is devastating some of the world’s most valuable and vulnerable regions, due to the vast amount of land needed to produce animal feed.” The report went on to say that, to save the Earth, it was vital that we change human consumption habits away from meat. As pointed out earlier, the fact is most land used for grazing isn’t capable of growing crops for food. Further, to have the WWF involved in any part of the beef industry is simply suicidal.

It’s interesting to note that the “Principles for Sustainable Beef Farming,” issued for the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef by the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Working Group (SAI), follow the exact guidelines originally presented in the United Nations’ Agenda 21/ Sustainable Development blueprint. Agenda 21 divided these into three categories including, Social Equity, Economic Prosperity and Ecological Integrity. Using almost identical terms, the SAI plan for Sustainable Beef uses the following headings for each section of its plan: Economic Sustainability, Social Sustainability, and Environmental Sustainability.

Under Social Sustainability are such items as Human Rights, Worker Environment, Business Integrity, and Worker Competence (that means that workers are required to have the proper, acceptable sustainable attitudes and beliefs). Under the heading Environmental Sustainability are Climate Change, Waste, and Biodiversity, for the reasons already discussed.

Regulations using these principles impose a political agenda that ignores the fact that smaller, independent cattle growers have proven to be the best stewards of their own land and that for decades have produced the highest grade of beef product in the world. Instead, to continue to produce they will be required to submit to centralized control by regulations that will never end and will always increase in costs and needless waste of manpower.

To follow the sustainable rules and be officially certified, the cattle growers must agree to have much of the use of their land reduced to provide for wildlife habitat. There are strict controls over water use and grazing areas. This forces the growers to have smaller herds, making the process more expensive and economically unviable for the industry. In addition, there is a new layer of industry and government inspectors, creating a massive bureaucratic overreach, causing yet more costs for the growers.

The Roundtable rules are now enforced through the packing companies. You see, the cattlemen actually have no direct market. Instead, they first bring their product to feedlots for final preparation. The feedlots then sell the cattle to the packers. The packers are the ones who then have direct contact with stores, restaurants and other entities that actually buy the beef. The packers are a major force in the Roundtable, working side by side with the WWF, and so dictate the rules to the feedlots to comply with sustainable certification for the cattle they will buy from the growers. If the beef they obtain isn’t grown according to the sustainable beef principles then the packers refuse to buy it. That has quickly put smaller feedlots out of business. Consequently, it also destroys the cattle growers who rely on the feedlots to take their product.

There are only four main packing companies in the United States. These are Cargill, Tysons, JBS and Marfrig. These packers have already successfully taken control of the hog and poultry industries. Tysons is now raising its chickens in China to ship here. JBS and Marfrig are both from Brazil. It’s interesting to note that one of their first tactics was to remove the country of origin labeling from the packaging so that consumers have no idea where their product is coming from. So as the packers force their expensive, unnecessary, and unworkable sustainable certification on American cattlemen, they are systematically bringing in cheaper product from other countries that don’t necessarily adhere to strict, sanitary, safe production American producers are known for. As a result, there is a noticeable rise in news reports of recalls of diseased chicken and beef in American grocery stores.

Some cattle growers have tried to fight back by creating new packing companies to compete and provide an honest market. However, the costs to do so are huge, as high as $50 million. One such company called Northern Beef Packers was formed, using all the latest state of the art, high-grade processing. The four established packers reacted by drastically reducing their prices to the grocers, thereby destroying any hope of establishing a market for the new packing company.

This then is the situation that is threatening the American beef industry. If one reads the documents and statements from the World Wildlife Fund, the United Nations Environment Program and others involved, it is not hard to realize that the true goal is not to produce a better grade of beef, but to ban it altogether. The question must then be asked, why is the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association allowing this to happen, and indeed, is joining with the Sustainable Beef Roundtable to force these policies on their members?

The answer is actually quite tragic. American ranchers, farmers and livestock growers have been targets of the environmental and animal rights movements for years. They are beaten down. Like the rest of us they just want to be left alone to work their farms and herds like their forefathers have done for more than a century. But the pressure is growing day by day. So, they have come to believe that if they just go along – put the sustainable label on their product — then this pressure will stop. In short, they see it as a pressure valve.

The reality is it’s not going to go away because the goal is not environmental protection, rather the destruction of their industry and control through what the UN calls the reorganization of human society. The attack has now grown to major proportions with the Green New Deal. Beef eaters have no place in the sustainable paradise of city apartment dwellers who accept government controls to choose for them what they are permitted to eat.

There are efforts to fight back. A group of cattlemen has organized under the banner of R-CALF (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund) and they have managed to slow the Sustainable capture of the industry.  But the packers’ control of the industry is a major roadblock if the cattlemen can’t reach their market. R-CALF has filed Abuse of Conduct suits to shed light on the anti-trust activities of the monopoly tactics of the packers.

However, the beef industry cannot recover on its own. There must be outrage from the consumers who are facing higher prices, possible inferior meat, and the danger of disease because of this sustainable tyranny. If you want the right to your own food choices instead of the dictatorship of radical Greens, then get mad. Demand that “Country of Origin” labels be put on all beef products so you know where your food comes from. Demand that the Department of Agriculture rejects this sustainable myth and protects the American free market that has always provided superior products.

The so-called sustainable policy is not a free market. It is a government-sanctioned monopoly that is just short of a criminal enterprise. Stand with American farmers and cattlemen. If Americans don’t fight back now we will lose the freedom to our own dinner plates in the name of sustainable lies.

APC: https://americanpolicy.org/2019/06/10/growing-drive-to-destroy-the-beef-industry/

Read Tom Deweese’s Biography

Kathleen Marquardt: RED FLAG LAWS – DOUBLE SPEAK FOR GUN CONFISCATION 0 (0)

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by Kathleen Marquardt

When I went to pick up my concealed carry permit at the Sheriff’s office in Montana, I was asked if I would wait a few minutes because the sheriff wanted to talk to me. I wondered if he was going to impress on me the importance of being careful, that a handgun was a dangerous weapon, or something to that effect. He came out of his office and thanked me for getting my permit, stating that I was the only one who could save my life. He added that the police are not responsible for protecting us, they only respond after we call, and that is often too late.

So we need to realize that we are our own protectors. With that in mind, I posit that the Second Amendment is needed now more than it has been in a long time. All these actions attempting to take away our right to defend ourselves, our families, and our property, are very dangerous in today’s world.

Do you scoff? Am I being paranoid? Let me give you an example on which I rest my case. This is from JUSTIA’s Warren v. District of Columbia (see footnote 1):

In the early morning hours of March 16, 1975, appellants Carolyn Warren, Joan Taliaferro, and Miriam Douglas were asleep in their rooming house at 1112 Lamont Street, N.W. Warren and Taliaferro shared a room on the third floor of the house; Douglas shared a room on the second floor with her four-year-old daughter. The women were awakened by the sound of the back door being broken down by two men later identified as Marvin Kent and James Morse. The men entered Douglas’ second floor room, where Kent forced Douglas to sodomize him and Morse raped her.

Warren and Taliaferro heard Douglas’ screams from the floor below. Warren telephoned the police, told the officer on duty that the house was being burglarized, and requested immediate assistance. The department employee told her to remain quiet and assured her that police assistance would be dispatched promptly. Warren’s call was received at Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters at 6:23 a. m., and was recorded as a burglary in progress. At 6:26 a. m., a call was dispatched to officers on the street as a “Code 2” assignment, although calls of a crime in progress should be given priority and designated as “Code 1.” Four police cruisers responded to the broadcast; three to the Lamont Street address and one to another address to investigate a possible suspect.

Meanwhile, Warren and Taliaferro crawled from their window onto an adjoining roof and waited for the police to arrive. While there, they saw one policeman drive through the alley behind their house and proceed to the front of the residence without stopping, leaning out the window, or getting out of the car to check the back entrance of the house. A second officer apparently knocked on the door in front of the residence, but left when he received no answer. The three officers departed the scene at 6:33 a. m., five minutes after they arrived.

Warren and Taliaferro crawled back inside their room. They again heard Douglas’ continuing screams; again called the police; told the officer that the intruders had entered the home, and requested immediate assistance. Once again, a police officer assured them that help was on the way. This second call was received at 6:42 a. m. and recorded merely as “investigate the trouble” it was never dispatched to any police officers.

Believing the police might be in the house, Warren and Taliaferro called down to Douglas, thereby alerting Kent to their presence. Kent and Morse then forced all three women, at knifepoint, to accompany them to Kent’s apartment. For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of Kent and Morse[1]

Appellants’ claims of negligence included: the dispatcher’s failure to forward the 6:23 a.m. call with the proper degree of urgency; *3 the responding officers’ failure to follow standard police investigative procedures, specifically their failure to check the rear entrance and position themselves properly near the doors and windows to ascertain whether there was any activity inside; and the dispatcher’s failure to dispatch the 6:42 a.m. call.[2]

Now tell me that we don’t need guns, that the police will be there to save the day. They may save the day, but they very well might not save us or our loved ones.

On top of that, they aren’t even held accountable when they ignore calls for help; they behave as they did in the above case. The attorney for the women cited the Civil Rights Act of 1981, Section 1983, as follows:

42 U.S. Code § 1983.Civil action for deprivation of rights

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.

(R.S. § 1979; Pub. L. 96–170, § 1, Dec. 29, 1979, 93 Stat. 1284; Pub. L. 104–317, title III, § 309 (c), Oct. 19, 1996, 110 Stat. 3853.)

If you read the Code, you might believe that anyone acting under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, who causes someone to be deprived of any right

shall be held liable. Wow! Sounds great. But . . .. The big BUT. No, the Code doesn’t have a but, but a but is perceived to be in the Code by our courts today.

 Carolyn Warren, Miriam Douglas, and Joan Taliaferro, (and Wilfred Nichol in another case) sued the District of Columbia and individual members of the Metropolitan Police Department for negligent failure to provide adequate police services. The respective trial judges held that the police were under no specific legal duty to provide protection to the individuals who were suing the police department, and dismissed the complaints for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. A panel decided that Warren, Taliaferro and Nichol were owed a special duty of care by the police department and reversed the trial court rulings, while unanimously concluding that Douglas failed to fit within the class of persons to whom a special duty was owed, and affirmed the lower court’s dismissal of her complaint. The full court, on petitions for rehearing, canceled the panel’s decision, stating, “After re-arguments, notwithstanding our sympathy for complainants who were the tragic victims of despicable criminal acts, we affirm the judgments of dismissal”.

In other words, the police do not have to protect us, and even after some Keystone Kops behavior are not responsible for any harm done by their negligence.

So what does this have to do with Red Flag laws? Everything!

Yes, this happened in the District of Columbia, but that isn’t the only jurisdiction that has courts coming down with the same decision. What does that tell you?

It tells me that I want to be armed. And wish I had an AR-15. Pepper spray would have been as good as a squirt gun for those women. But what does this have to do with red flag laws?

John R. Lott Jr, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and an expert on gun rights, writing in the Washington Times on the Red Flag gun laws states, “. . . the laws are more complicated than usually discussed in the press. Depending upon the state, anyone from a family member, intimate partner, ex, house or apartment mates, or police can file a complaint. Under Colorado’s proposed law, anyone can make a phone call to the police. They don’t even have to be living in the state. There is no hearing. All the judge has before them is the statement of concern.” He also pointed out, “It has always been possible to take away someone’s guns, but all 50 states have required testimony by a mental health expert before a judge. Hearings could be conducted very quickly in urgent cases, But gun control advocates argue that it’s important to not even alert the person that his guns may be taken away. Hence, the 5 a.m. police raids.

“When people really pose a clear danger to themselves or others, they should be confined to a mental health facility. Simply denying them the right to legally buy a gun isn’t a serious remedy. If you think that you are any more likely to stop criminals from getting guns than illegal drugs, good luck. The same drug dealers sell both and are a major source of guns. And there are other weapons such as cars.

Despite the sacrifices, the evidence shows no benefits from these laws. Looking at data from 1970 through 2017, Red Flag laws appear to have had no significant effect on murder, suicide, the number of people killed in mass public shootings, robbery, aggravated assault or burglary. There is some evidence that rape rates rise. These laws apparently do not save lives.”

Lott mentioned that, “Depending upon the state, anyone from a family member, intimate partner, ex, house or apartment mates, or police can file a complaint.” That is scary enough; if an ex or even an angry or jealous family member wanted to, they could file a complaint. But we now live in very fluid times. Sue, a friend called me last week and related what had happened to her. Her daughter, Kerry, left a frantic text message that she needed her to come right away. Sue called Kerry to find out what was happening. Kerry was at a minor-league baseball game, enjoying herself and had no emergency. Sue called the police who told her that there is an app you can get that lets you use other people’s phone numbers. It happens that Kerry has a bit of a stalker situation at her work and she suspects that he is the one that made the call. But as the police told them, there is no way to trace who made the call.

I can easily imagine someone like that Red Flagging her. Or, there is another scenario I can imagine happening (and I don’t have much of an imagination or I’d be writing fiction and selling lots of books). That is someone(s) wanting to break into your house to rob you or worse, do to you what those men did to Carolyn Warren, above. With such open Red Flag laws, they can disarm you by cop. This isn’t farfetched. The police would take your guns and, by the time you got the situation rectified, you might be dead.

Because we humans need to protect ourselves and we aren’t born with claws, enormous teeth, or venom, we must use tools to protect ourselves. The quintessential tool is a gun. It’s easy to use and carry, and it is effective – both as a weapon and a deterrent. Plus, people have a choice whether they want to have and use guns or not.

And it has been a basic right. But right now, our right to own guns is being eroded faster than California’s bullet train. Not in one fell-swoop, but chipping away, one new law after another so that the powers-that-be will not have to come after our guns because we will have given them up with each new gun-grab.

There are people who are mentally unfit and are dangerous, who shouldn’t be allowed guns, and we need to find ways to protect society from them. But disarming the country is not the answer.

In reality, the Red Flag laws are being driven by emotion, not reason and logic. Gun owners, gun supporters, and freedom lovers need to stand up and bring common sense back to the dialog. This is truly an issue of protecting our lives, our families, and our property. We cannot, we must not, allow unsupported emotions to drive the day.

[1] https://law.justia.com/cases/district-of-columbia/court-of-appeals/1981/79-6-3.html

APC: https://americanpolicy.org/2019/05/15/red-flag-laws-double-speak-for-gun-confiscation/

Read Kathleen Marquardt’s Biography

Freedom and Firearms 0 (0)

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Freedom and Firearms– “…governing authorities therefore do not have any inherent right in themselves to rule the rest of us.”

by Bill Lockwood

This is about self-government. Do we have an inalienable right before God to determine our own government? To organize our own governing principles by which we live? The foundational platform of our entire system of political rule is the concept that human beings, all persons, have been created in the image of God and due to that inherent individual value in each one of us, we have a right to manage our own political future. From that single point of reference–the very core of our governing values–that we have a right to manage our own affairs– we have delegated to certain representatives which we call government. Government owns no more authority than we have delegated to it.

The opposite side of this coin is that governing authorities therefore do not have any inherent right in themselves to rule the rest of us. Their rule is delegated to them by us and goes so far as we allow. This is why we vote. They must have our approval. If this be not true, then let’s have a king to decide who gets what and who doesn’t. Who lives and who does not.

This also means that legislators, law enforcement, as well as the military have duties and responsibilities that inherently belong to ‘we the people.’ We have simply “delegated” to them the power that they have for protection of an orderly society and to fight enemies, foreign and domestic. We cannot delegate that which we do not have.

What does this mean to firearms? The 2d Amendment was not written in order to “give” us the right to anything. It is a part of self-determination and self-government. We the people composed it to remind governing authorities that they could not touch this sacred right, nor any of the others that are mentioned or not even mentioned (9th and 10th Amendments). These rights are God-bestowed and belong to us by nature.

To suggest therefore, that “we the people” do not have a right to own firearms is to suggest we have no more right to self-government. We no longer have a right to determine our own destiny. Instead, it is to say that we must have managers set over us to determine our course. It is to state that “we the people” have no right to rule ourselves.

John Paul Stevens

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is calling for a repeal of the 2d Amendment. In a column last Tuesday in The New York Times, Stevens admonished Americans to “respect” the demonstrations for Gun Control. Added to that he encouraged “the demonstrators” to “demand a repeal of the 2d Amendment.” That amendment, he added, “is a relic of the 18th century.”

Justice Stevens shows exactly what is wrong with America. He does not believe we have an inherent right to govern ourselves. What’s more: this abysmal ignorance of the fundamentals of American governance sat on the Supreme Court and helped decide the course of our nation. Adding to the insulting statements he made in which he basically denied our right to self-government, he indicated that during the years that Warren Burger served as chief justice from 1969 to 1986, no judge, “as far as I am aware, expressed any doubt as to the limited coverage of that amendment.” So the Supreme Court itself does not believe “we the people” have an inherent right to self-government.

Shocking, but not so. Exactly what Constitutionalists have been complaining about for decades. We have been crammed into a progressive top-down government-control system unheard of in the halls of freedom. Progressive lies have turned the Constitution on its head and up-ended the very foundation of liberty before God. Socialistic thinking has become the cancer on our society.

Justice Stevens should have been reading the Founding Fathers who crafted the 2d Amendment instead of the liberal law professors who filled him with progressive lies. Every single Bill of Rights (first 10 Amendments) was designed to demonstrate the limited ability of government to manage, not the limited ability of people to enjoy their freedoms. It is a “thou shalt not” touch list. If Stevens does not understand that, he does not understand the building blocks of our system.

Richard Henry Lee of VA stated, “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.” Note that Lee connected firearms to freedom. Power rests with the people; not to elitists who suppose they are above us.

Samuel Adams: “The said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress … to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.” Why this? Because daddy government allows people to have firearms? Absolutely not. Because I have a right to determine my own destiny, to protect my freedom and my family—even if by force against an all-powerful out-of-control government. God gave me this right.

Patrick Henry added, “The great object is that every man be armed … Everyone who is able may have a gun.” George Mason, also of Virginia, drafter of the Virginia Bill of Rights, accused the British government of having a plot to “disarm the people.” Why? As Mason stated, that was the best and most effective way to enslave them.” This is still true.

Justice Joseph Story served on the Supreme Court from 1811 until 1845. He published his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States in 1833. In these he considered the right to keep and bear arms as “the palladium of the liberties of the Republic” which deterred tyranny and enabled the citizens of our nation to overthrow dictatorial powers should that ever occur. This is why the Second Amendment reminds us that every law-abiding individual has the right to keep and bear arms.

The Second Amendment is a “relic of the 18th century”, as Stevens stated, only if freedom is also such a relic. Apparently, it is with the Supreme Court of his day as well as with many who are pouring into the streets stupidly to protest our right to self-government. The lines are being drawn.

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Palladium of Liberty

by Bill Lockwood

Associate Justice Joseph Story of Massachusetts, appointed to the Supreme Court by President James Madison, has been called the “Father of American Jurisprudence” since his contributions to the Court’s decisions were so influential and voluminous. In his Commentaries on the Constitution (1833), he wrote, “The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable a people to resist and triumph over them.”

A “palladium” is a safeguard or a principle upon which the safety of a people is dependent. One of my favorite Constitutional authorities is St. George Tucker, who studied law at the College of William and Mary under George Wythe, one of Thomas Jefferson’s tutors. He authored the first extended, systematic commentary on the Constitution of the United States.

Wrote Tucker: “This [gun rights] may be considered as the true palladium of liberty … the right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”

Obama’s Study

There is absolutely no question that Obama, growing more emboldened daily because of a compliant Republican majority in Congress and a disengaged populace at home, is all about being a “ruler”—not a servant of the people—whose constant “study” is to destroy the freedom of Americans. This is the mantle he inherited from communist Saul Alinsky. His success in these efforts thus far shows that, as Tucker put it, America is on the “brink of destruction.”

First, the “Small Arms Treaty.” Set to begin on August 24th the UN will host closed-door meetings in Mexico City to remove firearms from American citizens via the “Small Arms Treaty.” The National Association for Gun Rights has called this Treaty the “Gun-Grabbers’ Crown Jewel.” Registration and confiscation on a world-wide-scale.

This is why less than 24 hours after tyrant Obama was re-elected he proclaimed his desire to pursue the U.N.’s gun ban. Over 125 nations, including the United States, have already signed on to the Treaty and 67 nations have ratified it requiring legal compliance with the U.N.’s demands.

“But by far the worst of its provisions [Small Arms Treaty] encourage nations that accept the terms of the U.N. ‘Small Arms Treaty’ and provide the details of ‘end users’ of firearms. This is nothing more than gun registration—ensuring INTERNATIONAL bureaucrats have all the information they need to create a global database of gun owners at their fingertips.”

Second, Obama’s Proposed Gun Ban on Social Security Recipients. According to the Chicago Tribune, the Obama Administration is seeking tighter controls over firearms purchases and is pushing “to ban Social Security beneficiaries from owning guns if they lack the mental capacity to manage their own affairs, a move that could affect millions whose monthly disability payments are handled by others.”

Government cares for you? Government defines your rights for you. As one writer put it, this amounts to the rule that “anyone who can’t balance a checkbook could have their rights rescinded.”

As conservatives have ALWAYS warned, this is the trouble that comes with unconstitutional government socialistic programs. People quickly forget that their natural right to self-preservation, including use of firearm force, does not “come from government” but from God. Nor do any other natural rights such as freedom of association or property ownership. Therefore, government has no lawful ability to “rescind” this right. It amounts to another Obama-planned “usurpation and arbitrary grasp of power.” “Tyranny” is how the founders labeled it.  Are we on the brink of destruction?

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