No Guns Allowed - What are you thinking ?

I think I woke up on the silly side of stupid and entered the Utopian world of No Guns Allowed.

Have you seen these little signs that have popped up all over? They are quite adorable, if you believe in that sort of nonsense. I guess that I am just a cynic.

Over the course of a day I encountered these little gremlins in a series of different places: a hospital, DMV, the bank, and a pizza shop. You see them popping up at malls, schools, movie theaters, hotels. Heck, even private citizens are putting them up outside their homes. Not the brightest of ideas, but hey, to each his own. I did get a pretty good chuckle out of the fact that the Mall of America in Minnesota has ‘no gun’ signs up.

I wonder, in light of the recent threat to the mall, made by the terrorist group Al Shabaab, if the State Department should notify them that they will have to select a different target? Maybe Jen Psaki can send them a tweet. #PickAnotherMall

In the end, I finally threw my hands up in disgust and made a beeline straight to my sanctuary, far away from the lunacy that seems to grip society today. In fact, the grip seems to be more like a full-on death throttle, threatening to kill off any sort of resistance to their peace, love and harmony position.

It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? 

Reminds me of those warm and cuddly folks over in the Middle East and their mantra: Convert, or Die.

Now before you start screaming about how you are just trying to protect innocent people, let me stop you. First, if that’s the best you can do, you need to go back to whatever school of higher learning you attended and demand a refund of your parent’s money. That’s just stupid, right out of the gate. Unlike you I have real world experience, earned during a twenty-two year career in law enforcement.

You’re not protecting people; you’re promoting your agenda. Let’s be honest, you don’t like guns, plain and simple. You think they are barbaric instruments that have no place in a civil society. The problem is that you place responsibility on the wrong thing. You believe that the tool is the problem, instead of looking at the person wielding it. You don’t have an answer for that, so you shift the focus away to something you can vilify.

During the course of my career, I encountered a number of people that were truly evil, and many more, who I would describe as ambitiously evil, those who had no qualms about using violence to further their criminal activities. These people were not encumbered by such niceties as obeying the law, respect for individual rights and properties. No, they believed that their particular needs, real or imagined, provided them the right to take from others. They did it with whatever tool was available at the time, whether it was a gun, knife, hammer, or physical force.

This is not a new trend, in fact it dates back to the earliest days of man, when Cain set upon his brother, Abel, and killed him out of jealousy and anger. I don’t recall any firearms being around at that time, and I don’t believe there was a big outcry of ‘No Stones.’

In the end, the actual culprit was not the weapon, but the person wielding it. The same is true today.

However, just like in the biblical days, man doesn’t seem to have an answer for man’s inhumanity to man. Not that we haven’t tried, ad nauseum, in terms of correctional rehabilitation, psychiatric care, and at-risk outreach programs. Yet the fundamental issue is that some people just don’t get along well with others. I’ve seen this many times over, and yet civil society has no answer. We believe that a term of imprisonment is sufficient to ‘correct’ a person’s behavior, but what about the person who likes his behavior and doesn’t want to change? To them, jail or a psychiatric facility is simply an imposed time-out, a place to wait until they can be unleashed on society again.

Do you think these folks worry about your silly little signs?

Do you think someone intent on robbing a bank; is going to simply walk away, his crime spree ground to a halt, because of a ‘no gun’ sign?

Do I need to answer that? Seriously?

The simple fact, based on my real world experience, and not some hippie-happy utopian fairytale is that criminals are not hampered by such niceties as the law. The politicians know this, the courts know this, and, honestly, so do you.

But you are not really interested in that, are you?

No, the truth is that you don’t like guns. You want them banished because they offend your sensibilities. They force you to recognize that there is evil in the world. An evil you pretend does not exist and one that I dealt with on a daily basis for twenty-two years. You believe that, because some professor taught you that guns were bad, grotesque, things that had no place in civil society. The same professors who taught you that prisons are inhumane and that those who are incarcerated are good people who were made into criminals, because of the socio-economic pressures that were imposed on them by a privileged society.

Yes, there are some that become criminals by virtue of necessity, but it has been my experience that those folks rarely use a weapon to further their crime. No mom is pulling out an MP-5 to heist a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. No, it is the ones who have embraced the violent criminal lifestyle that use a weapon and they are not impeded by laws. If they were, we’d have no crime.

No, the sad truth is that these signs are hung up by idiots, who believe that this small placard will protect them from the wolves of society. That somehow this little plastic shield will keep them from harm. Jeez, why didn’t we think of this hundreds of years ago? Think of all the wars we could have prevented, just by hanging one of these signs at the border crossing. I’m sure Hitler would have turned away at the Polish border if there was a ‘No Invasion’ sign. In fact, why didn’t Wyatt Earp think about that? He could have just hung a sign saying no guns in Tombstone and could have avoided the whole O.K. Corral fiasco…… oh wait, he did. Guns were outlawed in Tombstone in 1878, three years before the gunfight. Yeah, I guess that worked out well.

Here’s the thing, I won’t sacrifice my freedom and safety, because you’re not comfy with my gun. The fact that you will never know that I have one, unless I have to defend myself or you, means nothing. Your signs indicate to me that you do not value me as a customer, just my money. So I will not give you either. I think of it as doing you a favor. The less money you have, the less you have to lose when the armed criminal comes in and rips you off.

I pray that nothing befalls you. Unlike the criminal, I believe in and respect laws. I wish that we lived in a peaceful world where there was no need for guns, the police or laws. I wish we were more civil with one another, but we aren’t.

And therein lies the rub: Society has no answer for the criminal element.

Politicians make more laws, that criminals will not follow, and businesses put up signs, that criminals will not follow.

When the folly of these things becomes known, then the next step is to ban firearms from legal owners.

In 2008, during a campaign event in Lebanon, Virginia, then Sen. Barrack Obama said:  "I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in people's lawful right to bear arms. I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won't take your handgun away.”

On February 13th, during another infamous late Friday information dump, the ATF revealed that it is proposing to put the ban on 5.56 mm ammo on a fast track. The reason for this, the ATF contends, is that the ammo can be used in semi-automatic handguns and that they pose a threat to police. So the agency now proposes to reclassify it as armor-piercing and not exempt, meaning that they will be banned from production, sale and use. This would then be signed into effect through a presidential executive order. I guess he was right; he doesn't want to take away your rifle, just the ammunition for it.

You would think that I, a veteran member of law enforcement, would be behind such a well-intentioned rule. But I see past the line of drivel they are spewing.  This is simply a ruse. One of those ‘surely you’re not opposed to common sense laws, designed to protect our law enforcement officers, are you?’ charades.

The ATF has not even alleged, much less offered evidence,  that even one such round has ever been fired from a handgun at a police officer, despite the fact that there are millions upon millions of rounds that have been sold and used in the U.S.

So why are they doing this?

It’s like the ‘no gun’ placard. They don’t have an answer for the real problem, so they go off chasing unicorns. It makes them feel better.

This isn’t about doing anyone any good; it is about pursuing their agenda of outlawing firearms. They don’t like them, and if you don’t agree you’re one of those knuckle-dragging, violence mongers who can’t be trusted to know what is best for you. I guess the fact that I served in law enforcement for over two decades means nothing.

Here’s a novel idea, you hold onto your beliefs. If you don’t like me and my guns, I will respect that and not patronize your establishment. At the same time, I demand that you respect my rights, protected under law. If you don’t like guns, I won’t force you to own one, but do not be so misguided to believe that you can tell me that I cannot own one.

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