gundamentalist child

On April 20, 2015April 15, 2015 By Rick McIn education, ethics, firearms, GOP USA1 Comment

Some children grow up in poverty, lacking food and sanitation, while others are born in countries where basic necessities are taken for granted. Photographer James Mollison came up with the project when he thought about his own childhood bedroom and how it reflected who he was. Where Children Sleep – a collection of stories about children from around the world told through portraits of their bedrooms – stemmed from his ideas.

16 Powerful Photos Of Children And Their Bedrooms From Across The World

I’m most worried for Joey, age-11, from Kentucky.

What could go wrong for this kid? 😦

boycott Kroger’s Supermarket

On April 16, 2015April 15, 2015 By Rick McIn education, ethics, firearms, GOP USA, government, product complaints3 Comments

Stop shopping at Kroger’s until they stop open carry of guns.

Groceries not Guns

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I was in Oklahoma last week. Pretty much every establishment I entered had either a “No Guns” sign. Or a “No unlicensed Guns” sign. Kroger’s does not. Boycott.

abortion, Gay marriage, prison, religion in the USA

On April 9, 2015April 7, 2015 By Rick McIn barbecue, education, ethics, firearms, GOP USA, government, travelLeave a comment

… If you know whether a state was part of the Confederacy, it is possible to make a reasonably accurate guess about where it stands on a range of seemingly unconnected matters, from party politics to gay marriage. …

Today, only five states have no minimum-wage laws; all were Confederate 150 years ago. Of the ten states that lock up the highest proportion of their citizens, seven were Confederate. …

Economist

The 11 states of the Confederacy were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia.

I was in Alabama last year. Very nice. I saw no visible signs of the legacy of slavery. I’m headed for Texas next week.

Archie Bunker on Gun Control and terrorism

On April 7, 2015April 4, 2015 By Rick McIn ethics, firearms, government, humourLeave a comment

This is still as funny today as it was when this satire was first aired. Gundamentalists agree with Archie. There’s no reasoning with them. Or with Archie Bunker.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

National Rifle Association hypocrites

On April 6, 2015April 6, 2015 By Rick McIn ethics, firearms, GOP USA, government, product complaintsLeave a comment

The NRA wants open carry in schools, churches and playgrounds … but for their own National convention?

“All guns on the convention floor will be nonoperational, with the firing pins removed, and any guns purchased during the NRA convention will have to be picked up at a Federal Firearms License dealer, near where the purchaser lives, and will require a legal identification.”

Tennessean

Hypocrites. 😦

Montana does something SMART

On April 1, 2015April 1, 2015 By Rick McIn education, firearms, governmentLeave a comment

Ten Republicans have joined House Democrats in narrowly defeating a proposal to permit concealed weapons on college campuses.

The Montana House failed Senate Bill 143 on a vote of 49-51 Tuesday. …

Opponents say only seven states allow concealed carry on campuses …

Republican Rep. Jeffrey Welborn said he voted against the proposal at the request of the parents of a Montana Tech student who was shot and killed by another student in 1982.

The House could reconsider the measure Wednesday.

NBC Montana

Allowing guns on campus would be more dangerous than not. Firearm accidents and stupidity would far exceed those incidents where some student stops a crime.

Kleck and Gertz were wrong.

what about Ted Cruz?

On March 26, 2015March 26, 2015 By Rick McIn ethics, firearms, GOP USA, governmentLeave a comment

I can’t support this guy. He’s far, far too right wing for me.

Let’s Be Serious About Ted Cruz From The Start: He’s Too Extreme And Too Disliked To Win

enten-datalab-cruz-1

He’s totally against same sex marriage. Extremely against a woman’s right to choose abortion.

FREEDOM for Cruz does not include those freedoms. I’m always astonished how politicians who speak most about “liberty” are so intolerant of anyone who’s not exactly like them.

He’s 100% for the NRA. His base is the Christian Right.

His main platform is to “kill Obamacare” (with no details on what would replace it) though he announced he may have to sign up for health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act. A hypocrite.

He’s not all bad.

• born in Calgary, Canada

• first Hispanic or Cuban American to serve as a U.S. Senator from Texas

• he’s a Constitutional expert

• very familiar with American Law. Believes in the rule of law.

• he’s outspoken, willing to speak against the Republican Party line. I admire that. No doubt his corporate paymasters consider him too much a loose cannon.

Taken 3 – a review

On March 14, 2015March 12, 2015 By Rick McIn firearms, movies1 Comment

Taken 3 (stylized as TAK3N) is a 2014 French action thriller … the third and final installment in the Taken trilogy, and the sequel to the 2008 film Taken and the 2012 film Taken 2. The film stars Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen and Forest Whitaker. …

Despite being largely panned by critics, the film was a box office success, grossing over $289 million.

OK, I’m a sucker for Liam Neeson. That must be it. The film is weak.

Liam’s fight scenes are the most unrealistic since 1960s TV, but I still enjoyed this pic.

Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.

Neeson is a critic of the proliferation of firearms in the US and has made calls for gun control. In January 2015, he repeated his views, calling US gun laws a “disgrace” in an interview with Dubai newspaper Gulf News when replying to a question about the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris earlier that month.

Smith & Wesson NEARLY did the right thing

On January 30, 2015January 26, 2015 By Rick McIn economics, ethics, firearms, government, product complaints1 Comment

In the late ’90s, Smith & Wesson was facing a major lawsuit filed by cities and states that blamed the company for rampant gun violence. The company stood to lose millions.

So in 2000, under pressure from the Clinton administration, Smith & Wesson’s chief executive, Ed Schultz, made a fateful decision — and raised the ire of the powerful National Rifle Association and its supporters. …

Click PLAY or see what happened next on YouTube.

On 11 May 2001, Saf-T-Hammer Corporation acquired Smith & Wesson Corp. from Tomkins plc for US$15 million, a fraction of the US$112 million originally paid by Tomkins. Saf-T-Hammer assumed US$30 million in debt, bringing the total purchase price to US$45 million …

In December 2014, Smith & Wesson Holding announced it was paying $130.5 million for Battenfeld Technologies, a Columbia, Missouri-based designer and distributor of hunting and shooting accessories. The company made the acquisition with the eventual intent to merge all its existing Smith & Wesson, M&P and Thompson Center Arms accessories into a single division

wikipedia

NRA’s Wayne LaPierre – CHICKENS are coming for your guns!!!

On January 29, 2015January 29, 2015 By Rick McIn economics, ethics, firearms, GOP USA, government, things getting worse5 Comments

Wayne LaPierre is an extremist.

I’m pissed when he says things like this:

We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and car-jackers and knock-out gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping-mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all. …

~~He lies.~~ He exaggerates.

He ~~lies~~ exaggerates I assume, to help increase sales of firearms. He exaggerates for money.

I can’t imagine any other reason to overstate the way he does.

LaPierre’s central message: Owning a gun is the solution. The world is a scary place. There are bad guys everywhere threatening you and your family, and the only thing they’re afraid of is a gun in your hands.

Tragically, a record number of Americans subscribe to some version of this mythology, with 63 percent (67 percent of men polled and 58 percent of women) believing that guns truly do make them safer. The public’s confidence in firearms, however, is woefully misguided: The evidence overwhelmingly shows that guns leave everybody less safe, including their owners. …

The Myth of the Good Guy With a Gun

Politico – The Myth Behind Defensive Gun Ownership

The NRA is wrong: Owning a gun is far more likely to harm you than protect you.

I agree with LaPierre on a couple of things. He supports:

• Increasing funds for a stricter and more efficient mental health system, and reform of civil commitment laws to facilitate institutionalization of the mentally ill when necessary.

• Creating a computerized universal mental health registry of those adjudicated to be incompetent to help limit gun sales to the mentally ill.

It’s deflection, I’m assuming. Taking those positions makes no sense relative to his other positions.

He’s totally against the government regulating firearms, even though they are dangerous. (More ~~Americans~~ American children and youth are now killed by weapons than motor vehicle accidents.) … But totally for the government regulating mental health. Because the mentally ill are dangerous. 🙂

• Two Decades of Paranoid Pronouncements by the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre

• Gun Deaths Versus Car Deaths

• American Gun Deaths to Exceed Traffic Fatalities by 2015