Showing posts with label Orlando. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orlando. Show all posts

Thursday, June 23, 2016

2016 United States House of Representatives Gun Control Sit-In

The Democrats staged a congressional sit-in over failure to pass new gun legislation.


Seriously? This is what allegedly passes as 'adult' leadership in this country, a sit-in? What the hell are you, children? This is the idiotic thing we see kids do in high school?

Is there any wonder why the overall approval rating for Congress is abysmally low? 

See this for what it is folks, a political publicity stunt, and I am begging you not to fall for it. The fact is that they could not care less about you. It's like Charlie Rangel saying to a reporter how he (and his fellow lawmakers) deserves protection, but apparently you and your family; not so much. Have you ever stopped to wonder why places like the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and Federal Court House’s, are all gun-free zones, yet they surround them with armed protection, but our schools, which hold our most precious assets, are labeled as gun free zones and give no protection? How does that make any sense?

First, let's be clear that the measures put forth didn't pass because they were ill-conceived, knee-jerk reactions. It has gotten to the point in this country that our representatives don’t look to actually fix anything, they just want to slap a Band-Aid on it and ignore the real problems. Seriously, have you heard anyone call for actually fixing the highly problematic terrorist no-fly list?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

No, right from the beginning all you hear about are calls for re-instituting the ‘assault weapons ban’ and how these horrific weapons of war don’t belong in civilian hands, unless they are in the hands of those protecting the politicians.

In terms of the latest gun fix we have this pesky little thing called due process, which for some strange reason doesn’t seem to matter to certain elected officials who are charged with: (repeat after me) ‘Upholding the Constitution.’ I can only assume that they believe the laws only apply to us lowly rabble.

Now I know a lot of folks think our Constitution can be a tad bit difficult to deal with, or even understand, sometimes. Especially when it comes to that damned 2nd Amendment, but consider that the Constitution states only one command twice. The Fifth Amendment says to the federal government that no one shall be ‘deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.’ The Fourteenth Amendment, uses the same eleven words, called the Due Process Clause, to describe a legal obligation of all states. Yet our vaunted representatives want to be able to toss you onto a list, without any evidence or due process, and let you fight with the government after-the-fact to get off said list. 

Did you know that the Orlando terrorist, Omar Mateen, was on not one, but two terror watch lists? He was subsequently removed from them in 2014, after twice being interviewed by the FBI, in 2013 and 2014, for potential terror ties.  In theory, for an individual to be included on the no-fly list or selectee list, additional evidence of his threat to aviation security and clear identifying information is needed above and beyond the standard of reasonable suspicion. I say in theory, because the list has included such notables as the late Senator Ted Kennedy, Congressmen John Lewis and Don Young, Journalist Stephen Hayes, not to mention a number of Federal Air Marshals. You know the guys who are supposed to keep us safe in the skies! Even poor David Nelson, or Ozzie & Harriet fame, was on the list and don’t even get me started on the young children who found themselves listed. One Canadian businessman went so far as to legally change his name, in order to avoid being delayed every time he flew.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have the Constitution in this country for a very good reason. It arose out of a need to protect us from things that were actually happening to us when we were under British rule. Yet now, we are seeing our very own government begin to act in the same way.

Trust me people, we are heading down a very slippery slope here and we really need to proceed with extreme caution. There is a lot going on that doesn’t make the news, but should give you pause. It is also one of the topics which I am currently writing about in my latest book. I’m sure no one reading this would be okay if the feds just seized the property from your home, without any explanation or court order, and told you that it was up to you to prove your innocence.  Yet the minute it becomes about evil guns, a large swath of society seem okay with that very premise. Perhaps many of the younger generation need an overall refresher course on American History.

Despite what they will say, the problem is not a gun control issue. As someone who spent over two decades in law enforcement I can speak on this subject from actual real-world experience. The truth is that we have tons of gun laws, already on the books, that either not being prosecuted or are simply plea bargained down for a quick conviction. 

This is an 'individual' problem and they refuse to acknowledge or address it. It is the reason why murders in Chicago, a city with some of the most stringent gun laws in the nation, has had 313 killed so far this year, yet NO ONE will address this problem because they have no answer for it. Likewise, they have no answer for why other U.S. cities, with a comparable population, have relatively low crime numbers.

At every turn they have coddled, praised, and emboldened criminals and so-called activists, while calling the police brutal, racist and stupid. Guess what, I imagine things will get a lot worse in the country, but don't worry, your petulant elected leaders will all be fine, surrounded by armed officers to protect them while they 'sit-in'..... You? Well, I guess you're pretty much on your own.

Oh, and as for the ‘sit-in’ that the Democrats engaged in, you’ll be happy to note that there bold statement was used as a fundraising solicitation. That’s right; the Orlando terror attack was hijacked to raise funds for the party!

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) sent out an email, signed by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, which read: "This is an historically important moment! John Lewis has been leading a sit-in on the House floor for 11 long hours now. We’re fighting to prevent gun violence. The Republicans refuse to lift a finger. It’s shameful. I need your help to defeat them once and for all." The email asks for 6,000 donations and provided several options to donate amounts between $1 and $250. It was at least the sixth such email from the DCCC, which also included several that were signed by sit-in leader, John Lewis.  

But hey, it really is about those evil guns……. So will that be MasterCard or Visa?

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Wednesday, June 15, 2016

The Orlando Terror Attack - It's Not About Guns, It's about Radical Islam

I’ve been staring at this blank page for the last few days. I’ve felt an urge to write, but the words have alluded me. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, I am from New York City, after all, it’s just that I have too much to say and I am not even sure where to begin.

Now I know some of you will immediately want to know why I am not writing my latest book, but I promise you, I am. I just needed to get this off my chest.

The problem probably started where it always does, on Facebook. I’m not exactly sure what we did before FB, but I vaguely recall that it was a much more productive time. My quandary exists because I have what can best be described as very eclectic friends, who have posted a wide range of responses to the Orlando terror attack. What saddens me is the fact that there has even been a ‘wide range’ of responses.

In just over forty-eight hours I have heard some of the following diatribes play out in social media:

  • The attack in Orlando was a hate crime.
  • This has nothing to do with moderate Islam.
  • We need to ban these senseless weapons of war.
  • The police responded slowly because it was a LGBT club.

Let us set the record straight right from the beginning. This was, first and foremost, a terror attack committed by radical Islam. Anyone who wants to muddy the waters by mincing words is being disingenuous. When some try to claim that this was a hate crime, they are attempting to minimize the significance of what occurred at the Pulse Nightclub. While hate certainly played a role in the attack, it was part of a much larger picture that many are attempting to gloss over: Radical Islam.

This attack was carried out as a direct result of the theological beliefs of a particular group. Unfortunately, for some strange reason, a large majority of our politicians, pundits and ordinary people refuse to accept this. If I had a dollar for every time I heard: “These acts don’t reflect moderate Islam…” I’d be living on a tropical island, without Wi-Fi access, in a perpetual state of bliss.

The question then is: What is moderate Islam and what do they believe?

The answer to this question is one that many do not want to hear. They want to believe in this illusion that there is a moderate world that just chooses to remain quiet, yet when you pull back the thin veneer, you see a world that doesn’t seem all that different from the radical.

I see you in the back, waving your hand like a maniac, and yes, I know you know a Muslim who is moderate…… and I know a lot of Catholics who live their lives quite differently then what is taught in the Bible. Hell, I used to be one of them. I was even an altar boy…… stop chuckling. The fact is that there is a big difference between calling yourself something and actually being engaged. I am talking about those who actually believe in and follow the teachings of the Qur’an.

In considering political rights and civil liberties, the vast majority of countries in the Middle East are simply not free. At least not the ‘being free’ which those of us, here in The West, think of. I am often amazed when I see groups, who identify themselves as feminists or members of the LGBT community, come out in support of moderate Islam, yet in the majority of those Muslim countries they would face severe penalties and even death for their beliefs. It’s tantamount to seeing a ‘Jew’s for Hitler’ sign.

The simple truth is, that even in moderate Islamic countries, the penalty for being homosexual is: prison, punishment and / or death. I’m not talking about Iran, or one of the other hardline countries, but the moderate ones like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. If you are lucky enough to be a lesbian in Kuwait you get a free-pass, but males are still breaking the law…… don’t ask, I scratched my head on that one as well. These moderate nations have even used their influence to block advancements in LGBT rights at the United Nations.

Unlike the west, which enjoys a separation between politics and religion, the Muslim world does not. For some unknown reason, many people don’t understand or accept that theology is the driving force in Islamic government. Islam is not just a religious belief system, but a legal system as well. Sharia law is the religious legal system governing the members of the Islamic faith. And therein lies the real problem.

The lives we enjoy in western civilization are in direct opposition to the Muslim world. They don’t believe in our values and they don’t respect that we recognize individual rights.

In the United States we have the 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech. It means that I don’t have to agree or even like what you say, but you still get to say it. What I find extremely funny is the fact that all of the real cutting edge comedians and Hollywood celebrity types have a field day mocking Jesus, yet those same folks are nowhere to be found when it comes to mocking Muhammad. Ever wonder why? That’s because death threats don’t seem to lose any of their significance when they come from moderates.  

The Avant Garde folks over at Charlie Hebdo decided to push those boundaries, it didn’t end well for them.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with Muslims. In fact, I’ve had the pleasure of working side by side with many of them during my career. I respect them, but I also understand that we have very different belief systems. If my path took me to a country where Islam was the rule, then I would act accordingly, but here in the United States, it is not, and that is what has always made us great.

Unfortunately for us, it seems the principle of America being one great ‘melting pot’ has been forgotten. Instead of people coming to here to become Americans, we have more and more people coming here who want to change us into something resembling what they left.

In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt made a speech regarding the assimilation of immigrants into American culture. It was true then and even truer now:

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American ... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." 

Why is this important? Because America is different.

Contrary to what many ill-informed people believe, we are not a democracy, but rather a constitutional republic. What this means is that we are a country where the officials are elected as representatives of the people, and must govern according to existing constitutional law which limits the government's power over citizens. It is sometimes referred to as the rule of law, not man.

Why is this significant?

Because in a democracy, that is a political system in which the majority enjoys absolute power, the majority can vote to impose tyranny on themselves as well as the minority opposition.  Simply put, without the constraints of The Constitution, the majority can vote to elect those who will infringe upon our inalienable God-given rights.  Thomas Jefferson referred to this as elected despotism.

This brings us to the 2nd Amendment and the current argument that certain guns need to be banned; for our own good.

You might not like guns and that is your right, but you simply don’t get to choose that for me. That might not sit well with you. You might be one of those enlightened folks who believe that, by simply getting rid of all the guns, the world will be one big happy family and that is within your 1st Amendment right to profess, but I also have my 2nd Amendment right just in case you are wrong.

It’s like that old adage: Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who didn’t.

The truth is that we cannot legislate morality. 

I’m truly sorry for the loss of lives in Orlando, but if anyone believes that the sole responsibility for what happened resides with a mechanical object, I suggest you seek some immediate help. In over two decades in law enforcement I have had a front row seat to man’s inhumanity to man. In his desire to kill another, man has no limitations. I have seen baseball bats, hammers, steak-knives, cars, ropes, broom-sticks, machetes, rocks, handguns, dogs,  arson, poison, swords, rifles / shotguns, explosives, and planes, along with a few I have probably forgotten, used to kill other human beings.  This absurd belief that, by somehow removing one item from the inventory list, we will somehow be able to bring peace to modern civilization is not only patently false, but extremely dangerous.

We look for simplistic answers to complex questions that we don’t want to address, like thinking we can we hangone of those stupid little 'no gun' placards outside of or homes, schools and offices and think that we are safe.

Let us take the 1994 ‘Assault Weapons Ban’ as an example. This was supposed to cure everything. In fact, after the Orlando terror attack, many are calling for its re-instatement. The truth however is much different than what the politicians and pundits would lead you to believe. A number of academic studies determined that this ban had little to no effect on gun violence and that the re-institution of the ban would have no significant merit.

Now granted, when we have an attack like this, it does seem to grab the headlines, but is it the gun or the person wielding it that is the real problem?

There’s the complex question that no one wants to address.

Whether it was Adam Lanza, Nidal Hassan, Jared Loughner, Dylan Roof, James Holmes, and now Omar Mateen, each had clearly observable mental health issues that went unreported / unaddressed. These issues should have precluded them from having access to any firearm. In essence, they were already breaking the law long before they ever pulled the trigger.  Unfortunately, society does not have an answer for mental health issues, so they look to shift the blame to something else and that is most often guns. Guns can be banned and restricted. Politicians can pass more laws and the media can sing their praises, at least until the next shooting.

You know, it is kind of ironic.  After every terror attack I hear the admonishment that we shouldn’t judge all of Islam because of a few bad ones. When we have a mass shooting, the mental health community is quick to remind us that we should be wary of stigmatizing the many, in an attempt to stop the few. Yet if the NRA, or a responsible gun owner, protests, they are quickly attacked as being evil.

We don’t want to fix the problem; we simply want to pass the buck.

Which brings me to my final thought: Blame the police.

It seems that our men and women in law enforcement have become the political piñata when all else fails.  To aggressive, not aggressive enough, too militaristic, ill-equipped, and the complaints and accusations just continue to flow, ad nauseum. They speak of them in abstract, as if they are some foreign entity brought in to punish them.

I have a question for those who enjoy bashing the police: just where exactly do you think they come from?

In over two decades of law enforcement I worked with people from every walk of life: Heterosexual, Homosexual, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim, White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, and the list goes on. The NYPD is comprised of well over fifty thousand uniformed and civilian members which covers the entire spectrum of the population of New York City.

We are not aliens, recruited from some distant planet, and brought here to subjugate the people.

We are the people.

We have just chosen to be that thin blue line which separates the innocent from the evil in the world. 

One of the best analogies I have ever read was Lt. Colonel David Grossman’s On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs.

Simply put: We hunt the evil that you pretend doesn’t exist.

This vilification and dehumanizing of law enforcement is done for one purpose and that is to pretend that the underlying problem is someone else’s fault.

I read a 2015 New York Times article that outlined a series of seventy-three (73) fatal police shootings, over the course of a 1 year period, from August 2014 to August 2015, throughout the United States. While the story strives to paint a picture of cops killing unarmed people, I could not help but note, that in all but three cases, the shootings where the end result of what started off as some type of criminal activity.

Look we have to be honest about things. Cops are not rolling down the streets of Chicago’s South Side doing drive-by shootings. Nor are they pulling up at playgrounds and schools to pop off a few rounds for giggles. In my twenty-two year law enforcement career I never worked with a cop that put on his gun belt and said ‘God, I hope I get to cap someone tonight.’ Yet, if you listen to the media and all the activists, you would think this nation was being patrolled by brutal mad-dogs Hell bent on killing everyone they encounter.

It should come as no shock to anyone that there are criminals in the world. If you engage in criminal behavior, eventually you will cross paths with law enforcement. There are unintended consequences of actions. Does that mean you should be killed for breaking the law? Of course not, but if it is 2 a.m. and you are coming out of a home, that you just burglarized, and you quickly reach into your waistband, as the cops approach you, there is a very good chance you are going to get shot. If it turns out you didn’t have a gun, well what can I say? Your mother raised an idiot.

I’m reminded of the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Missouri. Here is someone who just robbed a store, then assaulted a police officer, while attempting to get control of his firearm, and then after running away, turned and charged back toward the officer. He was shot and killed.

The media and the political activists attempted to paint this picture of a mad-dog cop who gunned down an innocent child. The fact that the innocent ‘child’ was 6’4”, weighed 294 lbs., and had drugs in his system at the time of his death, seemed to somehow get lost in the translation.

  • Crime 1 – Illegal Narcotics
  • Crime 2 – Robbery
  • Crime 3 – Assault / Attempted Robbery
  • Crime 4 – ?

Well, let’s just say that I don’t think he was running back to surrender. Remember, “Hands Up – Don’t Shoot” was definitively proven to be a lie by eye-witnesses who testified that they believed Wilson’s life was in danger and that he fired in self-defense.

I’m sorry, but these are the unintended consequences of a criminal behavior.

Did Darren Wilson get up that morning thinking he was going to kill someone? No.

Did Michael Brown get up that morning thinking his illegal actions would lead to his death? No, and that is the problem.

We have turned a corner in society where we are abdicating personal responsibility. We are living in a new world, where it is always someone else’s fault for our actions and more and more people are buying into that premise.

  • Bad grades in school: The teacher is at fault.
  • Choose to pursue a useless degree program in college and now you can’t find a job when you graduate:  Greedy capitalism.
  • Engage in bad behavior: The U.S. is a brutal police state.

I understand the allure. Let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to enjoy all the benefits, but none of the responsibility for ones actions?  But this is the real world.  The politicians and activist’s lie to you, the media paints a narrative they want you to believe, but ultimately it is up to us to search for the truth.

In the aftermath of the terror attack some are claiming that the police were at fault, that they were slow to respond because it was only a LGBT bar.

I was not there so I won’t comment on the tactics that were used, unlike some self-proclaimed experts who jumped at the chance to promote themselves. I will say that the moment Omar Mateen took hostages inside the club, and claimed to have explosives that he was going to strap onto the hostages, the entire situation changed.

Imagine the headlines Sunday morning had the police immediately entered and he detonated a bomb killing countless people. The press would have crucified the entire police department as well as the mayor and everyone in city government.

The problem with Monday morning quarterbacks is that, in most instances, they have never actually played the game, but have the luxury of being right 100% of the time. This causes them to think they are smarter than the people who actually do the job. Sorry Skippy, but you don’t get the right to judge me from your living room, twenty-four hours after the incident. You want to play Mr. or Mrs. Expert? Then I suggest you put on a uniform and get some skin in the game.

You might find that the BB gun, which looks so obviously fake, under the brilliant light of the TV cameras, looks a helluva lot more realistic at 1 a.m. when it is being pointed at your face.

In law enforcement this is called: damned if you do, dead if you don’t.

To the members of the LGBT community, don’t think for one second that the cops in Orlando did things any differently because it was a gay club. We don’t play games like. You needed help and they came and I can state with almost absolute certainty that in the group of cops who responded that morning a number of them were also members the LGBT community.

We are not the enemy, we are you.

The real enemy is the politicians we have elected. They don’t want to be bothered addressing the real problems and finding actual solutions; that would take honesty and require actual work on their part. They count on our ignorance and drive the wedge of division between us. One day soon we will have to wake up and realize that we are not Republicans or Democrats, but Americans. Only then will we be able to finally fix what is truly broken.


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