Still Free

Yeah, Mr. Smiley. Made it through the entire Trump presidency without being enslaved. Imagine that.

Friday, February 16, 2018

A Nation Of Sitting Ducks

So we have another school shooting. The usual suspicious politicians are saying the usual things and the people are sitting ducks.

Consider this. This guy entered the school grounds and went to at least 5 classrooms shooting at will, meeting no resistance whatsoever and when he was done he walked away and went to McDonalds and Walmart before he was arrested. I saw a report, among many that discussed how teachers locked the doors to the classrooms and waited.

A nation of sitting ducks.

I didn't know that at one time in America, students were taught to handle guns

So then at what point did schools become not only gun free but a place where basic shit like self defense is verboten and people hide behind doors and wait and hope for other men with guns to come rescue them? That is a pretty huge cultural shift.

Policy makers know full well that enabling people to act on the spot will save lives. Witness the proliferation of defibrillators that have been installed in many schools and office buildings. Why are they there? They are there because we know that in an emergency situation, time is of the essence. If we empower the people in the vicinity to render aid then they are more likely to survive until the medical professionals arrive. Yet when it comes to personal safety, the ability to defend oneself, which is the fundamental essence of the second amendment, this fact based knowledge goes out the window.

Had cruz met resistance after making himself known as a threat, far less people would have been killed or injured. As a matter of fact, it is likely that if Cruz knew that he would most definitely meet deadly resistance should he embark on his mission, he may have decided not to go through with the act.

How is it that the American public sees it as a virtue to be socialized into believing it is a good thing to be a helpless potential victim waiting on big daddy government to help them rather than being an individual capable of helping themselves?

I remember in the gym where I work out, going to a room with Chinese Butterfly knives to train with. The number of people who were shook at the sight of these training weapons (they were blunt) surprised me. Never mind that every dumbbell in the gym was a deadly weapon, these folks were shook. I was told I couldn't bring these items back because people felt threatened.

And that's the root of this problem. We have people making decisions based on their emotions and their inability to deal with the risks of a free society. If they feel threatened or uncomfortable, someone else must change their behavior. It's someone else's responsibility to make me feel safe. It is someone else's responsibility to coddle my emotional state. Someone, anyone, must do something so that I do not have to do anything.