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.

Follow me on Twitter - @Andrew_G_Nelson

ISIL, Terrorism, War, Religion and America's Tepid Response

In my book, Queen’s Gambit, one of the central issues is the threat posed to this nation by radical Islam. It is a theme that is carried over in my forthcoming book, Bishop’s Gate.

I wrote the outline for Bishop’s Gate last January. One of the amazing things that I discovered was how, more than a year later, many of the things I had written about would come to fruition and be significant issues that we are dealing with, even now.

Several days ago, U.S. State Department spokeswoman, Marie Harf, made the following statement:  

“We cannot kill our way out of this war,… We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it’s a lack of opportunity for jobs.” 

Immediately, there was a backlash that resonated through the political world like a California wildfire in August.

Later she doubled down, saying that her comments might have been too nuanced for some to understand.

I guess I am not as intellectually astute as Ms. Harf.

In her defense, there seems to be a mindset within this current administration that believes it can simply redirect the attention away from the real problem and create a new narrative that they are more familiar with, i.e. if we redistribute wealth and provide those downtrodden would-be jihadists with more financial opportunities, then they won’t take up arms against us.

Really? Maybe your comments weren’t so much nuanced as they were naïve.

Perhaps Ms. Harf can explain to me how she believes that radical Islamic extremists, pursuing their religious ideology, can be converted into peace loving, hedonists, simply by giving them a 9-5 job. What part of radical Islamic extremist are you a little fuzzy on? 

It's about religion, not about the credit limit on your Visa card.

Several weeks ago the President made the following statement at the National Prayer Breakfast:

“Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."

Now, I’m really not sure why he felt that it was an appropriate time to bring that up, but he did raise an interesting point that I think a lot of people missed in the ensuing outrage, including the President.

Man’s pursuit of religious dogma can, and often does, cause him to commit unspeakable acts of barbarism in the name of God.

Many people in this country, and around the world, do not want to believe that the current battle we are fighting is a religious war. They, like Ms. Harf, and probably many others in this administration, want to believe that there is some other root cause. That Jihadi Johnny wasn’t nurtured enough as a child or that Falafel House isn’t hiring. Those are issues they can accept. Those are the neat little socio-economic issues they can champion. It’s sort of like social media diplomacy.

You know: #OccupyAleppo or some other little catchy slogan, in 140 characters or less.

The first problem is: they know it’s a lie. The second problem is: they have no clue how to address it.

It’s time to start being honest. We are at war with radical Islam. Why is that so hard to accept? Notice, I didn’t say we are at war with Islam, just an extremist segment of it.

Does this administration believe that we will offend the Muslim world by saying that? I think they do. Yet, when I saw the response of King Abdullah II of Jordan, to the slaying of his pilot by ISIL, I wonder why this administration can’t admit it. We are at war. Why do I say that? Because, and here is a news flash for those of you who just woke up, they are at war with US!

I’m sorry, but just because you do not want to accept it, doesn’t mean that they don’t believe in what they are saying. In 2014 the Islamic State (otherwise known as ISIS or ISIL) declared a worldwide caliphate. In doing so, they claim religious, political and military authority over all Muslims, worldwide, and that the legality of all emirates, groups, states, and organizations, becomes null and void by the expansion of their authority and the arrival of their troops into those areas. They also said that they would “humiliate U.S. soldiers in Syria” and “raise the flag of Allah over the White House.”

Does any of that seem ambiguous to you? I’m thinking worldwide is a fairly self-explanatory as is flying their flag over the home of the President.

The sad thing is that they are only one of many who believe that they are at war with us. Pick any Middle Eastern terrorist group, look at their fundamental beliefs and you will see a remarkable trend. They all believe that the United States is their enemy, and not just any enemy, but the Great Satan.

Does it sound like they are just longing for a cost of living raise or an extension on unemployment benefits? If these economic issues were correct, then why do we see citizens of western nations going there to fight, instead of coming here for jobs?

The vast majority of Americans need to turn off the Real Housewives of Wherever, or American Idol, and start to educate themselves. If you have no idea what the difference is between a Shia and Sunni, you are part of the problem. Do you understand the ideology of Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda or Ansar al-Sharia?

If you don’t, then how can you even begin to comment on the current threat we are facing?

The enemy we are facing believes that they are engaged in a holy war against the west, what we call it does not matter to them. All that matters to them is how we fight it. I keep hearing how this nation is war weary, and that might be true. This might not be a fight we want to wage, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have to.

Consider pre-WWII German. The signs were all there: Re-arming of the German military (1935), Annexation of the Rheinland (1936), the Flower Wars: Austria (1938), Sudentenland (Czechoslovakia 1938), Memmeland (Lithuania 1939), and the German-Romanian Economic Treaty (1939).

By the time Germany invaded Poland in 1939, even Helen Keller could have read the tea leaves. The appeasement and admonitions did nothing more than to embolden Hitler, convincing him that Europe had no stomach to fight, and he was right. They only prolonged the inevitable. If we had put a stop to it early on, he would never have been strong enough to inflict the level of damage that he did throughout the whole of Europe.

In fact, unlike our allies, the one thing that we, as America, didn’t have to face at that time was a direct attack on our soil (Before some of you scream, Hawaii didn’t become a state until 1959).

9/11 proved that we don’t live in that world anymore.

Whether we are war weary, whether we don’t have the stomach to fight, means nothing to our enemies. They have the desire. They are not fighting for a single piece of land, or the invasion of another country. No, their goals are much loftier, a worldwide caliphate where you will bow to Allah or die. It really is just that simple.

Whether we choose to fight means nothing to them, they will fight us, and they believe that they have God on their side in this battle. Make no mistake about it, this IS a religious war. It may be, as the President has said, a perversion of Islam, but it exists nonetheless.

More often than not I take exception with the policies and principals of the President, but I do agree, in part, with what he said at the National Prayer Breakfast. Human beings can, and do, perpetuate terrible atrocities in the name of religion. I also believe in the quote, often attributed to Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

I don’t want to shed the blood of another member of the United States Military, in some God forsaken sandbox around the world, but I do know that we will one day have to re-fight this battle that we irresponsibly walked away from.

Whether we fight it there or here is the only question.

I am not naïve to think this battle will not come, and there is nothing nuanced about the threat we face. I just pray that when the battle does come, that we have leadership that has the resolve to end the threat, once and for all.