Reader (?) response

Here's a response to today's newspaper column:

Dear Mr McManigal and mr [Redacted] (a local Republican activist)
Boy howdy, you two are a pair.
Both of you wear hats in the house (now that is not real cowboy or polite)*.
“Liberty is more important than imaginary safety, or even life.”
I wish you two cowboys would saddle up and go to Ukraine and shoot your guns.

I’m tired of listening to your hunter biden, nord stream conspiracies, or the government taking your home protection firearm.

Now an assault rifle with a clip (semi automatic) is another thing.
I wish both of you to volunteer in the emergency room for a 9mm gunshot wound vs multiple 30-06 wounds.   Both stop an intruder, but you don’t want a kid using either.
A 30-06 is a deer rifle (bolt action) not an assault rifle with a clip.
One bullet one kill…. That’s how it worked in the old days.   No mistakes.

I believe you two “voices” contributors in the newspaper are destructive and you both need to be a little more constructive in our society.
Happy Mother’s Day and pass it on.
Sincerely [redacted]

Here's the reply I sent:

Mr. [Redacted 2],

Mr. [redacted] and I are not generally on the same side. I am the polar opposite of Republican/Democrat.

It's very strange that today if you're against Biden you're MAGA. If you're against Trump you're a leftist. If you're against both you're MAGA again. Politics makes people stupid.

I do not support the Ukraine government. I do not support the Russian government. I support every individual who is neither initiating force nor violating private property.

When have I ever mentioned Hunter Biden or Nordstream? Are you hallucinating? 

As for government taking home protection firearms-- that's the whole point of every one of the 20,000+ failed anti-gun rules (they aren't, and can't be, laws) and the criminal gang of the BATFE. A territory where only government employees are armed has a name; it's called a police state.

Assault rifles are select-fire rifles and have been (illegally) rationed since 1934. They are not semi-automatic. A clip is a metal strip that holds a few (usually 10 or fewer) cartridges together, ready to be pushed down into the action of a rifle. You're probably mistakenly referring to magazines. This is why it's difficult to take anti-gunners seriously when they try to speak as though they know what they're talking about while saying things of this sort.

The term "assault weapons" (which is so ridiculous it seems to be falling out of favor with people more often using the objectively incorrect term "assault rifles" for firearms which aren't assault rifles) was made up by Josh Sugarmann in 1988 in order to fool the public into supporting a ban on semi-auto rifles. His argument was: "Assault weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons --anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun-- can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons." So even he knew he was lying for a political purpose.

Your point about the 9mm wounds vs "multiple 30-06 wounds" makes no sense. Yes, the more powerful 30-06 is going to do more damage, especially if there are multiple wounds. So? I haven't even heard of any political criminals talking about outlawing rifles that shoot 30-06 yet. They are focusing on those that shoot little underpowered .223 bullets (AR-15s) right now. 

Both a bolt action and a semi-automatic shoot one bullet per trigger pull. That's all. It's still "one bullet, one kill" if that's your goal. Remember, JFK was killed with a bolt action.

Most of the time, though, the only goal is to shoot paper targets. Anti-gunners must be very violent people to constantly fantasize that the only reason to have a gun is to kill people. I support the fundamental human right for anyone who doesn't want a weapon to not own a weapon, and if you think this much about killing others, you should probably opt out of weapon ownership-- including cars or hammers.

No one has a right to shoot someone who isn't currently attacking them or violating their property. You're arguing a straw man you've constructed.

Why wouldn't I want a kid using a 9mm or a deer rifle? Would I prefer to keep guns a forbidden fruit so they'll not know how to handle them correctly, but will be obsessed with getting their hands on one precisely because it's not allowed? This is like pretending the best way to keep kids from drowning is to make sure to keep them ignorant about water and forbid them to learn to swim, and ignore the fact they'll still be curious about water-- even more so since you've made it off-limits. It's counterproductive and will end up in more deaths.

If you believe this is "destructive", then the problem is within you.

Kent McManigal

*Demonstrating historical ignorance 

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Help me cover the expense of my colon surgery, if you can and if you want to.
Thank you!

This isn't the time to beg for more government

The situation happening south of here, where the turf claims of two criminal gangs meet, is 100% a problem created by, sustained by, and magnified by political government. It's a statist thing. It was never something government should have meddled with in any way, and once it started, all roads lead to this situation.

If you blame anyone else you've been fooled by government supremacists.

It's not going to be fixed by politics or by statism-light. 

This isn't the time to call for more government, doing more things that will inevitably make things worse in the long run. Government created the mess, more government isn't going to fix it.

It could be fixed by absolutely respecting private property rights and the fundamental human right to defend life, liberty, and that property with whatever force is necessary. From any threat.

This, of course, is something government will never allow. Government hates life, liberty (especially!), and property unless those things can be made to work in government's favor.

As always, your property-- and your life and your liberty--  is your responsibility. Whether you live in El Paso or in the middle of Wyoming. 

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Help me cover the expense of my colon surgery, if you can and if you want to.
Thank you!

You're not under my control

Most things are not under my control. Shocking, I know!

I can't control the weather, the climate, or time. I can't control society, or wars in other countries.

I can't really totally control my health-- although there are definitely things I can avoid doing to make things worse. 

I can’t control what legislation is imposed or which politicians are forced upon me. People who v*te believe they can control this to some extent. I know they do because I used to. 

I would get really upset after every election that didn’t go the way I wanted (which was the vast majority of them). I’m happier now.

I gained much peace when I realized I didn’t have any control over such things-  or make any difference with my v*tes. 

Even outside the political realm, I can’t control other people. People often do things I’d rather they didn’t. Both strangers and people I know. Family members do things I imagine might reflect badly on me. They are not under my control, nor should they be. I don't need to be running anyone's life but my own.

It’s hard to keep in mind that I can’t control anyone but myself— neither the person who does what I think is wrong nor those who come to conclusions about me based on what some other person does.

I can't control the local person who told a family member "I'm sorry" yesterday when they found out they were my relative. I guess they aren't a fan-- which is something else I can't control.

I can't control how people will respond to the things I write or the concepts I introduce. I can't control how people will react when confronted with something they don't want to hear.

What I can control-- or should be able to control-- is how I react to people and situations. I don't always react the way I ought to, but in that case, it's my fault. My responses are what I can control. I need to do better. I think I am doing better.

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Help me cover the expense of my colon surgery, if you can and if you want to.
Thank you!

Government can be useful

You probably never imagined you'd hear me admit that government can be useful. Of course it can. Many things you don't have the right to use, in the specific way you are using them, can be useful. 

Jeffrey Dahmer found knives and big cooking pots useful. He didn't have a right to use them as he did, but they were indisputably useful for his purpose.

So, yes, government can be useful. But it’s always cheating to use it.

If you can't get what you need or want through voluntary exchange, it is useful to have a tool for forcing others to go along. That tool could be a gun or a government.

The thing that makes the government the worse tool to use is that your victim isn't generally forced to buy the gun and ammunition for you to use against him. Not unless you work for government.

No one using a gun to force compliance can pretend to be the good guy, unless they claim what they are doing is "the law". In this case, the real weapon being wielded is government; the gun is just jewelry.

Government can be useful, but if that's the tool you have to use you should probably stop to think if you have a right to do what you're doing. And if you do, why are you reduced to cheating?

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Help me cover the expense of my colon surgery, if you can and if you want to.
Thank you!