Author: Redactor

Spree Shooter Shot Dead

handgun, self defense, freedom, 2nd Amendment

We need to be reminded every now and then that shooting rampages can often be stopped as soon as they start — if only a good guy with a gun is on site and willing to use it.

Or good gal.

Dennis Butler, a 37-year-old with an “extensive criminal history,” recently targeted the attendees of a party in Charleston, West Virginia.

Earlier, someone at an apartment complex had asked Butler to drive more slowly because there were children around. This made him feel explosive rage. So he fetched a semi-automatic weapon that he owned illegally and started firing into a crowd of party-goers at the complex.

A woman with a gun and presence of mind happened to be at the party.

“She’s just a member of the community who was carrying her weapon lawfully,” says police spokesman Tony Hazlett. “And instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives.”

No one in the crowd was reported to be injured.

I hope that if this heroic woman had been carrying her weapon unlawfully, relevant authorities would have cut her some slack. But it’s good that she didn’t have to deal with such a complication.

Butler is dead — shot multiple times by the woman with a gun. Police haven’t reported her name.

Just as well. We wouldn’t want her to become a target of gun-control groups upset that she used a pistol rather than sharp words to dissuade Butler from killing everybody.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Robert Nozick

Doesn’t the idea, or ideal, of the minimal state lack luster? Can it thrill the heart or inspire people to struggle or sacrifice? Would anyone man barricades under its banner? It seems pale and feeble in comparison with, to pick the polar extreme, the hopes and dreams of utopian theorists. Whatever its virtues, it appears clear that the minimal state is no utopia.
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State And Utopia (1974).

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Stones

Post author By Redactor
Post date May 31, 2022
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On May 31, 455 A.D., Emperor Petronius Maximus was stoned to death by an angry mob while fleeing Rome.

On that date in 1578, King Henry III laid the first stone of the Pont Neuf (New Bridge), the oldest bridge of Paris, France.

In other rock history, May 31, 2013, marked the closest approach to Earth that the asteroid 1998 QE2 and its moon will get until two centuries hence.

crime and punishment national politics & policies Second Amendment rights

Not Saving Lives

Virtue signaling won’t stop a mass shooter.

Nor will scoring political points.

If we earnestly want to focus on preventing these horrific attacks, let’s stop wasting everybody’s time advocating new laws that we already know, had they been in effect, would not have stopped the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting.

Or the recent massacre in Buffalo.

Or virtually any other murder spree.

“On the specifics,” Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan asked Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), “how would your federal background check have stopped either of these two shooters in Buffalo and in Texas? Neither of them had criminal records.”

“I just don’t get into the trap of having to write a law for the last mass shooting that captured the nation’s attention,” the senator responded, arguing that “on the same day of the shooting in Uvalde, there were 100 plus other people in this country who died.”

Sen. Murphy was anything but frank, certainly, but it was an admission that his proposal is clearly not geared toward stopping massacres by gunmen.

Americans should ignore the political circus, realizing that the politicians are working on other agendas while these killers have serious and often completely untreated mental health issues. Let’s concentrate public policy — and everyday neighborliness — there.

Lastly, while some dismiss the value of “thoughts and prayers,” I do not. There is a social, emotional, spiritual element that I think we totally discard when all we can talk about is what a bunch of corrupt folks in Washington “must do” to solve our problems.

On the other hand, a return to a culture of mourning, thoughts and prayers might at least sober up those drunk on power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Barbara Emrys

So much of what we see going on in the world is mirrored in our interactions with each other. We see nations testing other nations, measuring each other’s strengths and weaknesses. For some leaders, the question is always the same: How far can I go with my bullying, before the consequences catch up with me?
Barbara Emrys, co-author with Don Miguel Ruiz, on his website.

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Goddess?

Post author By Redactor
Post date May 30, 2022
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On May 30, 1989, student demonstrators unveiled a 33-foot high “Goddess of Democracy and Freedom” statue in Tiananmen Square.

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Watch: Cops in Texas, Cops in a Police State

Post author By Redactor
Post date May 29, 2022
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We want to be for the police, but that obviously cannot be unconditional. One cannot be “for” the police in a police state. Just as we cannot be “for” politicians who seek to turn America into a police state . . . or the cops that enforce the tyrannies of just such a state.

Thought

John Lachs

On one level or another, important philosophical points can be understood by every college, even every high school, student. Many of these insights have direct bearing on how well people live. Failing to make them available or shrouding them in a fog of technicalities amounts to abandonment of our responsibility.
John Lachs, A Community of Individuals (2003), p. 11.

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