Large Fierce Mammal

On compromising principles and the justification of cheating:

“If there really is a principle involved, things are either black or white. There are no grey areas. You can’t be “a little bit” dead or “sort of” pregnant.  A ship is not seaworthy merely because the total area of its hull exceeds the total area of its holes. You can’t breathe for only 22 hours a day and not breathe for the other 2 hours. You have to breathe all the time because your physical survival depends on that consistent behavior. Likewise, you can’t have integrity only part of the time, because your spiritual survival depends on morally consistent behavior, too.

“Like the other important lessons of the sword, this is one you can take home from the salle.” ~ Adam Crown, M.d’A.

I might be inclined to regard political and legal matters existing or evolving in the United States of America as none of my business but for two issues:

1. I have some Esteemed Friends who are U. S. citizens, and so what affects them matters to me; and
2. To quote then Canadian Prime Minister Elliott Trudeau, speaking on 25 March 1969 to the Press Club in Washington, D. C. in reference to the relationship between Canada and the United States, “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”

To Live by the Sword: Integrity , an excerpt from which forms the lead in to this piece, is the title of an article by Adam Crown published 9 January 2013 to the highly recommended Swordmaster’s Grimoire. He has a lot of value to say on the subject of Integrity, and the pitfalls of a society that has forgotten what that means. Most particularly, he neatly packages the principles of Integrity as they must exist in all areas of Human endeavour, highlighting the folly of justifying their abandonment by means that mirror the way misuse of words by the uneducated gets their erroneous definitions entrenched in dictionaries – common usage; i. e., everybody’s doing it.

I recommend you click on the title of that article and absorb its message, whether or not you have, do, or ever will pick up a sword.

Hard on the heels of my previous article, Mrs. LFM has turned up a press release issued yesterday by the Connecticut State Police under the signature of Lt. J. Paul Vance. Its contents are quoted below in their entirety in case of later amendments, edits, or complete removal of, the original document:

** UPDATE **

STATE POLICE IDENTIFY WEAPONS USED IN SANDY HOOK INVESTIGATION;
INVESTIGATION CONTINUES

In previous press conferences, the Connecticut State Police clearly identified all of the weapons seized from the crime scene at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

To eliminate any confusion or misinformation, we will again describe and identify the weapons seized at the school crime scene.

Seized inside the school:

#1. Bushmaster .223 caliber– model XM15-E2S rifle with high capacity 30 round clips

#2. Glock 10 mm handgun

#3. Sig-Sauer P226   9mm handgun

Seized from suspect’s car in parking lot:

#4. Izhmash Canta-12   12 gauge Shotgun    (seized from car in parking lot)

This case remains under investigation.

Lt. J. Paul Vance

While I applaud this effort to set the record straight, it still begs the question of whither the wayward AR15? Some say it was in the school, others that it was in the trunk, and still others that it wasn’t there at all. If, in fact, “In previous press conferences, the Connecticut State Police clearly identified all of the weapons seized from the crime scene at Sandy Hook Elementary School,” where is the confusion coming from? If multiple “official” sources are providing the media with conflicting details about something as simple and fundamental as the types of firearms used by the perpetrator to fire his lethal shots, this one represents simply the latest version of the truth. Worst of all, the police investigation seems to be devolving into an effort to put an AR15 rifle at the scene of the crime, and brand it a co-conspirator. I believe the issue in question here is much bigger than that because I’ve been privileged to know and work with a lot of cops, and the ones I know aren’t predisposed to be this questionable.

Whoever actually wrote this press release raised a red flag in me when I read the reference to, “… high capacity 30 round clips.” This is a politically inflammatory assemblage of words routinely spoken by politicians, not by people with an understanding of firearms, and it bothers me that it needed to be described that way by a serving police officer who should know how important it is to, “Stick to the facts Ma’am. Just the facts.”

Until the Truth is out, I am inclined to view this as propaganda. Even if it’s just a white lie on  agency letterhead intended purely to fix embarrassing gob flapping on the part of people who should have kept their mouths shut and have since been chastised, it comes in the wake of enough conflicting information from “official” sources to render it likewise suspect. It might have helped if survivors of the event had been interviewed by the media immediately afterward, but doing that now might regrettably leave the testimony open to question out of concern over coaching aimed at keeping it in line with the official version of events. This is sad in the extreme because it speaks more to trust lost than to public safety as I know the meaning of the term.

Mrs. LFM and I have recently been moved to write about firearms, the laws that pertain to their possession and use, and public perceptions of both, entirely thanks to official reports on, and observed reaction to, the Newtown murders.

In addition to reports coming out of the mainstream media, this event has given birth to an entire genre of conspiracy theory rivalling that of the 9/11 attacks. In the latter case, the gist of the perceived conspiracy is that the 9/11 attacks were staged by agents provocateurs working for some shadow organization within the US government as a means of justifying the ensuing wars. The favoured position on the Newtown incident is that it was a media event staged for the express purpose of justifying banning, or at least further restricting, ownership of certain classes of firearms. Whatever you believe, tragic events have always been exploited to advantage by those with agendas and axes to grind, and Newtown is no different. Humans are opportunistic animals, and exploitation of events after the fact doesn’t represent conclusive evidence of complicity beforehand. That having been said, I’m having trouble with pesky inconsistencies that have infected reports on Newtown. (more…)

(LFM photo)

All the debate, argumentation, and general rigamarole about firearms lately has motivated me to start a new series, as if I didn’t already have enough on my plate. Thank you very fucking much. Terms that either are, or will come to be, addressed in this series appear in bold type.

Today we’ll deal with the distinction between “clip” and “magazine“. I know some of you who are more opinionated than most will say this distinction doesn’t matter, and that adherence to long known and accepted terminology is little more than splitting hairs, but to that I would say fie. Yes, fie. Words have meaning, and no argument has merit that deals in sloppy language or revisionist history.

I’ll keep it simple – A repeating firearm is one that is capable of firing more than one shot before it has to be reloaded. This is an obviously desirable trait for any firearm to possess in that it permits rapid follow up shots to be fired when engaging a dangerous target – a large predatory animal for example – or to ensure that a hunter can reliably bring down prey that may only be wounded by the first shot fired. A Duck hunter, for example, needs to fill the air around his quarry with enough projectiles to ensure that a sufficient number strike the bird to bring it down – hence two or three quick shots fired by one who knows his or her business will do what a single shot will not.

The legacy of the first solutions to this are extant today in the form of double barrelled  shotguns and the handguns referred to as revolvers – the first carries its follow up shot ready to go in the chamber of an entirely self contained alternate barrel while the second has a single barrel and carries additional ammunition inside a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers that are rotated into alignment with the breech of the barrel as each is fired in turn.

Most repeating firearms carry additional ammunition in a reservoir called a magazine. The famous Winchester lever action rifle we all know from watching movie and television Westerns has a magazine in the form of a tube slung underneath and parallel to the barrel, as do most repeating shotguns. Most rifles and pistols you’ll encounter today feed their ammunition from a so called “box” magazine – usually detachable from the firearm, but sometimes built in. No matter which, all magazines share a common trait. They incorporate a spring in their structure that presses against the last round in the magazine and thereby feeds each round as the action requires it.

A clip, on the other hand, has a different purpose, and the role of both it and the magazine will become clear by way of the following images.

Two detachable, 10 round box magazines for the Lee Enfield No.4 Mk.1 rifle. The one on the right is loaded with 10 rounds of .303 British rifle ammunition, the one on the left is unloaded, showing the stamped steel “follower” which, pushed by the magazine spring below it, feeds each succeeding round of ammunition into the action every time the rifle’s bolt is cycled by the operator. (LFM photo)

What you see here, above the magazines previously referred to, is a “clip”, or “charger” in Commonwealth parlance, loaded with 5 rounds of .303 British ammunition (not in accordance with Commonwealth military doctrine for reasons that don’t matter for today’s discussion). It is used to recharge rifle magazines with ammunition, 5 rounds at a time. Clips and magazines – not the same thing. (LFM photo)

This is a picture of a CLIP that has been inserted into the feedway of the official LFM Lee Enfield Rifle, No 5 Mk1. A CLIP is used to feed ammunition, in this case five rounds at a time, into the MAGAZINE of a rifle. A MAGAZINE has an internal spring that feeds each round to the CHAMBER of a firearm every time the ACTION is cycled. The CLIP does no such thing. The only spring it has is the one that keeps the ROUNDS from falling out until my thumb pushes them down into the MAGAZINE. (LFM photo)

Soak this up and learn the terminology. You’ll need it for what’s to come, and be mindful that I don’t tolerate sloppy argumentation.

I have been (mostly) staying out of the gun debate that is so rampant in the US these days, partly because I live in Canada and it doesn’t directly affect me (yet), partly because there is so much misinformation out there that wading in and attempting to clear things up will most likely be an exercise in futility.

However, I am in the mood to give it a go.

Banning “assault weapons” is a completely useless, money-wasting attempt at making the public feel good. There is no “assault weapon”. There ARE assault rifles and they are not available for private ownership. Assault rifles are used by the military, and are usually selectable to be fully-automatic or semi-automatic, depending on what the circumstances warrant. Civilians are able to purchase versions of these rifles that LOOK identical, but they are only semi-automatic.

Automatic weapons fire multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger. Machine guns do this, and they are what most people, including the media, have in mind when there is a reference to an “assault weapon”. That is false. You can’t just stroll into a store and buy an automatic weapon. There are multiple steps involved including getting a signature from a sheriff or police chief, and having a specific class of license. They are also extremely expensive and, comparatively speaking, rare outside military supply lines. For all intents and purposes, they already have been banned, and they were not the type of guns used in mass shootings anyway.

Semi-automatic weapons fire a single round per trigger pull. This is where we get to the controversy. Functionally speaking, a scary looking AR-15 is no different than the popular Remington Model 750 used for hunting. Both are semi-automatic. Both fire only one bullet per trigger pull. But one looks like its selective fire military counterpart, is therefore scarier, and so it should be banned?!?
There are so many parallels here to breed bans against Dogs, I could scream.

Banning one weapon that functions the same as another one, but looks different, is the only thing the “assault weapon” ban targets. Then how is anyone safer?
They aren’t. It gives people a false sense of security. It is a completely useless waste of time, money, and resources. We ALREADY have laws against murder! More laws will not stop it.

So now we get into the talk of banning ALL semi-automatic weapons. This will never happen. Semi-automatics are popular for self-defense, sporting, hunting. They have many, many valid uses. They are not inherently dangerous. They are simply a modern version of guns. All technologies evolve. You aren’t still calculating on an abacus, or driving a Model T Ford, or flying in a biplane. Calling for a ban on all semi-automatic guns is comparable to calling for a ban on cars that can drive faster than 50 km/h. When cars were first invented they certainly couldn’t go that fast, and most fatalities occur at higher speeds, so we should just be happy to go back to driving a maximum of 50 km/h. Why would we NEED to go faster than that?
It simply won’t happen.

There are more guns in the US than anywhere else. Are there more murders? No. The US doesn’t even come CLOSE to having the highest murder rate. Let’s not waste our breath with debating how many firearm related murders there are compared to other countries, because that doesn’t matter. If someone you love is murdered, what effing difference does it make HOW they were murdered?
“Oh, my husband was only murdered by being beaten to death with a baseball bat, he’s far better off than your husband being murdered with a gunshot to the head.” – said no one ever.

It has been suggested to me that I would feel differently if my child was killed in a mass shooting. I beg to differ. I am an intelligent, educated, practical woman. I would no more blame the gun than I would the car or the car manufacturer, or the bar, liquor store, or distillery that either manufactured or sold its products to a drunk driver that killed my child.

The other major issue that needs to be taken into account is the Second Amendment. Many people are arguing that when it was written, they were only talking muskets. What gets forgotten is that the Second Amendment was not written to allow hunting, sporting, nor even defending yourself from an assault. Rather, it was to ensure freedom from tyranny, freedom from an oppressive government. At the time the Bill of Rights was written, the government ALSO only had muskets. Such is not the case any more!! Citizens cannot fight against a government armed with modern firearms if they only have access to muskets! Let’s not roll our eyes, this is a very serious issue. I am no conspiracy theorist. I AM Polish, however, and my family defected to Canada while Poland was still under the communist regime. Far too many people growing up in North America take this pesky “freedom” point for granted. They have NO concept of what it’s like to be living in a country where everything is heavily regulated, where you are followed by military with guns pointing at you when you buy groceries, where your house gets raided on a regular basis to ensure you don’t have something you shouldn’t. The United States was founded with measures in place to ensure this will never happen to them!! To argue that the Bill of Rights should be strictly applied as written at the time it was written is an extremely foolish and dangerous premise. It would put the First Amendment, Freedom of Speech, in serious jeopardy, not to mention a host of other rights. Since there was no internet or any form of digital communication, it could be argued that Freedom of Speech doesn’t apply to that. The Bill of Rights excluded races other than Caucasian; it excluded women. To attempt to freeze the constitution to the time it was written is not in any way practical, nor would it be right.

In conclusion, I leave you with this scene from The Last Samurai.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FQd5n16Qug
It makes me cry every single time. This is what happens when war is fought and one side is armed with modern weapons, while the other isn’t. THIS is what Americans who are fighting so vehemently for their right to bear arms are trying to prevent. It’s not about going out skeet-shooting, or bagging a deer, or being able to own a gun just because you want one. It’s about freedom.

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson

Effective communication requires patience, both in formulating and conveying your own thoughts, and in receiving those of others. We live in the so called “information age”, and yet too many people are so busy thinking about what they’re going to do next that they are never actually in the moment that’s happening now. They ignore the people who are present to communicate with those who are absent. Where once people wrote carefully crafted letters that travelled to their destinations by horse, ship, and postman, taking months to arrive, the norm has become to expect an instant response, and damned be he who fails to provide it!

For example, a few weeks ago I was on the phone to a client when another call rang in. Because I was engaged, it went to voice mail, which I was free to listen to less than 2 minutes later. The message was from a man seeking to employ our security services, and in it he said he was calling because he had asked around and heard we were “… the best”. No more than 4 minutes after his call was made, I returned it and heard him say, “Thanks, but when you didn’t call me back I called someone else.”

On another occasion, an Ontario couple, with a seasonal residence here in Nova Scotia that they normally occupy during the summer, called us to arrange a meeting at their property. We were busy in the morning of the day they wanted, and so I suggested we drop by in the afternoon. Their response was that they would be in “all afternoon” that day, so they would be happy if we would drop by “any time”.

We arrived at about 2:45 PM to find the house locked up, no car in the driveway, and a note taped to the door that read, “When you didn’t show up by 2:30 we figured you weren’t coming so we’ve gone out for the rest of the day.”.

At least once a year I’ll get a call on my cel phone from an exasperated client who begins the conversation with, “You are a hard man to reach!” When this happens, I hear those words on the first call I have received from that person. Returning to my office after one of these calls, I usually find that they called my main land line, left a voice message requesting a call back, and then redialed the same number 10 to 12 times in rapid succession. Only after that do they call my cel phone, get an answer on the second ring, and proclaim me hard to reach.

We see parallels to these impediments to communication in our consultations with some of the people who call us to help them resolve problems in the relationships they have with their Dogs. Most of our clients are open to following a patient, empathic, and Natural approach, but an annoying percentage don’t want to build a relationship. They want command and control, and the faster the better. Some can see no reason why they should have to actually play a role in training their Dog, calling us in on the presumption that they’re paying us to “fix” it for them, as though it and the root cause of the issue were something akin to a dented fender. Scissors sharpened while you wait!

It’s interesting how technology and both the drive for, and acceptance of, faster results go hand in hand. Sadly, this leads to even transient and ill conceived “solutions”  to problems being found acceptable because with everything done at speed, everything is transient. Just because a problem seems to have gone away doesn’t mean it has.

Remember that Nature keeps time much differently than the frantic, driven, delusional Human. While Man observes transience in the blink of an eye and craves for it to move faster, Nature too is in transition on Her own terms. Always changing, but at a rate that is in keeping with the rate of change of all things, and in this may appear to be permanent. A Natural cycle that runs its course over centuries before waning only to reappear after many Human lifetimes; many many Dog lifetimes; even more Mouse lifetimes; may, while it holds sway, be thought permanent by those who experience it. In its passing it may be forgotten; its resurgence treated as unprecedented. Even frightening.

Patience is at one with the Way of the Wild, as is knowing when to make haste. Be synchronized with the moment you are in.

A Dutch company is developing a “reality” show as part of its project to put an actual Human settlement on Mars beginning with the placement of a communications satellite and landing of the first supply ship in 2016. According to the Mars One website:

Mars One is a not-for-profit organization that will take humanity to Mars in 2023, to establish the foundation of a permanent settlement from which we will prosper, learn, and grow. Before the first crew lands, Mars One will have established a habitable, sustainable outpost designed to receive astronauts every two years. To accomplish this, Mars One has developed a precise, realistic plan based entirely upon existing technologies. It is both economically and logistically feasible, in motion through the integration of existing suppliers and experts in space exploration.

The Mars One project represents the first time in many a year that a one way trip to colonizing another land has been considered. It’s all about getting there and living there. There is no coming back.

As an exercise in adventure and spirited determination, this is quite a thing. What bothers me is that I don’t believe Mars One, nor anything like it, represents exploration in the name of a greater good. I grew up fascinated with aviation, space travel, and the grand eras of exploration. I used to fantasize about going into space and being part of a new frontier. I don’t any more. I’ve invested absolutely in the Earth. I need nothing more, and find it hard to applaud major investments of time, treasure, and lives in development of technologies and techniques that will permit people to live in an environment that all too closely resembles what will become of the Earth without a check on ravenous human consumption. Desolation with an overlay of unbreathable atmosphere.

While the first landing on the surface of the Moon was motivated by international rivalries and political agendas, in its development, the fallout of space exploration has given us a host of technologies we take for granted and rely on every day. It was beneficial to society at large, and its legacy incalculable. Mars One, on the other hand, is predicated on finding novel and innovative ways to use existing, off the shelf technologies to permit Human life to be where Nature has already decided it shouldn’t. This instead of bringing the same commitment to bear on solving the problem inexorable growth and voracious consumption has become to the Earth and all Her children, Man included.

I’m staying here to do what I can do, ever striving to get closer to the Earth, not further away.

Society is over regulated, and it’s getting worse all the time. This becomes an inevitably self-perpetuating trend when laws put in place to control problem behaviours are crafted without regard for actual causes because when they fail to work, the tendency is to increase the severity on the grounds that measures already taken simply weren’t enough. So it is with “gun control”.

As with all issues that attract a passionate following, this one has had a polarizing effect, and statistics quoted have become meaningless because they are either offered completely out of context or fabricated altogether. No matter though, because I don’t need statistics to come to an understanding,

Governments should be about good roads, national defense, order and prosperity while creating as little interference with the conduct of life and commerce as possible; but they aren’t. They are about control and interference based on promises that it’s all in the name of the public good. In this they get bogged down in creating laws about and against issues that are already regulated, with much time and treasure being squandered.

An example of this is the matter of breed specific Dog control regulation. When I was growing up, the breeds of choice for people wanting a guard Dog were most commonly the German Shepherd and the Doberman Pinscher. They were also the choice of people with the kind of character flaws that drive them to compensate for their shortcomings through the kind of acquisitions that I like to call “penis extenders”. These people still exist, as they will always do, only now they have a new breed du jour at the end of a chain – often a Pit Bull type, Rottweiler, or something else that carries the air of bad assedness their owners lack themselves. Banning those breeds will have no effect on the problem of Dogs biting people because the kind of sloppy Dog handling that contributes to it still remains, and people in need of a penis extender will always find a means to their latest enlargement. Ban Pit Bulls and bites from Pit Bulls will naturally become a thing of the past, but those of their owners for whom they filled a compensatory need will remain, and another breed will be found to fill it. Measured exclusively against Pit Bull bites then, the ban will appear to be a resounding success, but the question is really what impact did it have on the total number of Dog bites overall.

Likewise with firearms. Back when I first started teaching Provincially and Federally mandated firearms and hunter safety courses, the population of Canada was somewhere around 25 million, and the annual number of deaths involving a firearm had been holding steady at around 1100. Most of those were suicides and accidents due to a combination of negligence and misadventure. Only a tiny fraction were homicides, illustrating a simple fact of society at the time – people are more inclined to be suicidal or stupid than they are to commit murder. To that I would add that nothing has really changed.

Focusing on the suicide issue, we have such lofty organizations as the World Health Organization (WHO) wading in with the assertion that, “The easy availability of firearms has been associated with higher firearm mortality rates.” to which one astute author replies, “The authors, in noting that the presence of a gun in a home corresponds to a higher risk of suicide, apparently assume that if denied firearms, potential suicides will decide to live rather than turning to the numerous alternative suicide mechanisms. The evidence, however, indicates that denying one particular means to people who are motivated to commit suicide by social, economic, cultural, or other circumstances simply pushes them to some other means. Thus, it is not just the murder rate in gun-less Russia that is four times higher than the American rate; the Russian suicide rate is also about four times higher than the American rate.”

When the gun control act here in Canada got its first major overhaul, it introduced safe storage and transport regulations that required stored firearms to be fitted with a trigger lock or be otherwise rendered unable to be instantly fired, and that ammunition be stored separately in a locked container or compartment. The explained reasoning for this had less to do with keeping children from playing with loaded firearms – although this was a part of it – than with keeping gun owners safe from their own passions. We were told that the small interval of time it would take to unlock the ammunition and the gun, load it, and turn it on yourself or someone else could save a life. I have always considered this to be complete bullshit. I am an exceptionally stable person, but I can tell you with certainty that if I have somehow been brought to the conclusion that my problem can only be solved with a firearm, it was arrived at through sober deliberation over a time period far exceeding that required to bring gun and ammunition together. Rare is he who wakes up one morning with a burning desire to kill himself or someone else that came out of the blue. These urges come from other sources than the tool used to bring them about, and anyone who tells you that getting rid of the tool, or slowing down access to it, will fix the root cause is selling fertilizer of the most aromatic sort.

I speak with authority here because long ago in another lifetime I plotted my own demise in great detail as one option I could choose from a number that were open to me. After all, suicide is but a choice from among available choices. One could ask, “Should I have whole wheat toast, white toast, or just kill myself?” Suicide is a really low probability choice in this case, but admittedly it is a choice. My plans did not include firearms or blades of any kind, and in the end another plan I had in play bore fruit, eliminating the need for a final option. Whole wheat as it turns out. I have since had candid conversations with several others who have done likewise – planning suicide as an intellectual exercise without execution, which is completely different from chickening out. None of those people considered any methods that might put others at risk, or that involved firearms or blades which can be horribly inefficient under such circumstances. When you’ve had enough, you’ve had enough, and it offends me to be told I need to be saved from myself. Even more so at the implication that well meaning bureaucrats can do anything to help, particularly because government bureaucracy was part of my problem at the time, and nothing in my methodology could have been denied to me by any legislation then, since, or even possible ever.

We’ve had the shining example of Prohibition to illustrate how well bans work to keep the banned commodity out of the hands of people who want it. We’ve got the so called war on drugs, and with it every year a new term for the latest craze from junky world – bath salts being a recent example. It’s already illegal to murder people or negligently endanger life and property with anything, guns included. Criminals are called that because they do not obey the law.

One last item I want to mention is how little thought is given to arguments offered for or against tighter restrictions on gun ownership. The current government of Canada campaigned on the issue of eliminating registration of so called “long guns”; i. e., most rifles and shotguns; on the grounds that the system used to administer them had proven too costly and cumbersome. Detractors of the move – including some Canadian police chiefs – cited an officer safety concern on the grounds that police rolling up to a residence were safer knowing going in that there were registered guns there, and what kind they were. On the surface one might be inclined to nod and accept this at face value, but it’s really quite meaningless, and plays more into the cult of knowing that afflicts bureaucracy at large than it offers any real benefit beyond regulation for regulation’s sake.

To illustrate, consider another example from my own experience. When my own firearms possession and acquisition license was due to expire, I had to submit some updated paperwork. Included in this were provisions for my Wife to sign off on her comfort at the thought that I should be permitted to acquire and keep such things. Likewise I had to swear that I had not recently suffered a marital breakup or business failure, that I had no criminal record that might prohibit me from owning or acquiring weapons, and I was required to provide several references. In this latter case I had requested and been given permission to list the then Justice Minister for the Province of Nova Scotia (with whom I have hunted many times), the Chief of Police for the Lunenburg-Mahone Bay Police Service, one serving member of that same police service, and another serving member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, with all of whom I had professional and personal affiliations. I was golden.

So now, after all the hoops put in place by the Government of Canada to eliminate me as a candidate for lunacy or sociopathy, I would suggest that any police personnel called to my house on a disturbance complaint should be overjoyed to learn I have firearms registered to my name because it speaks to my good, law abiding, and stable character. In fact, instead of wasting time on a database that really tells nothing of unregistered lethal implements that might be lying around, what happened to good old safe operating practices? In teaching hospital staff to conduct a bomb search in the wake of a threat, I always applied the doctrine of searching your own work space on the grounds that nobody knows it like you do, and if you find something suspicious, never assume it’s the only one.

Guns don’t make me dangerous any more than driving a car that can exceed the maximum legal speed limit by at least 100% makes me a speeder.

There’s a bit o’ readin’ in this here article today. Let’s start with this snippet. The entire article is linked to the title at the end of the excerpt.

The controlling mindset of those attempting to protect every person from everything has gone off the deep end. From the anti-bullying movement to government intrusion in banning all guns from public possession, there is no longer logic in building government policy or formulating scientific protocols around modes of reason. All is based on the ludicrous nature of our nanny culture. There is an absolute refusal to accept the fact that it is the people who cause harm and not the objects they classify as weapons themselves. ~ Let’s Ban Everything Pointy To Reduce Deaths, Marco Torres

Now do the same with this one.

Would you like to empower children with the wisdom to be responsible for their own actions based on solid moral principles and empathy, or would you prefer teaching all kids to fit into a behavioral template and abide by certain rules to create a completely safe utopian environment in which everyone is always nice to each other by default, without moral responsibility and the wisdom to know the difference? You can’t have both. ~ How The Anti-Bullying Movement Is Setting Up Kids For Failure In Life and Their Evolution of Consciousness, Marco Torres

A worthy read, and my first exposure to the Pierson’s Puppeteer.

While I was at university back in the 1970’s, I read Ringworld by Larry Niven, and got my first exposure to a non-humanoid sentient being called the Pierson’s Puppeteer. Conceived more than 40 years ago, Puppeteer society exemplifies what has come to be referred to in this time and place as the nanny state – the step by step effort to turn human society into a child proof daycare centre for people of all ages.

Consider these descriptions and stay tuned:

“The Puppeteers’ herd-beast ancestors were prey to many different carnivores, and for protection developed a disproportionate instinct for survival. This survival instinct causes them to avoid or flee from danger in any form, no matter how insignificant. Puppeteers go to great lengths to avoid and minimize any possible danger to themselves and their civilization ….”

“Every Puppeteer is trained at a young age to respond to danger from which it cannot flee by tucking both necks beneath its forelegs and folding its legs beneath itself, to resemble a furry footstool. Assuming this position is called the “explosion reflex.” A fearful Puppeteer may remain in this fetal position for hours or possibly days, quivering with fear, withdrawn from a hostile universe. However, the presence of preventable danger will bring the Puppeteer out from hiding in its own belly.”

“Puppeteers’ fear of danger has lead them to strive for subtle, behind-the-scenes dominance in the affairs of other species. They do not hesitate to resort to blackmail, bribery, or any other form of influence. They prefer to avoid using even carefully applied violence, but if necessary they will employ an outside agency for such unpleasantness. The Puppeteers’ drive to minimize danger, coupled with their pragmatism, gives them a ruthlessness beyond that of even the Kzinti, only falling short of the Pak (other species that include Humans, sharing the Universe with Puppeteers). To ensure their own safety, they might go so far as to utterly destroy another species.”

The dreaded year 2012 ends tonight, and tomorrow begins 2013 with the traditional and annually recurring 90 day festival of getting cheques in the mail that were stale dated a year at the very moment they were written. Traditions are a wonderful thing.

To all of you who have spent time with us here, and most particularly to those who have taken the time to comment on what you’ve read and seen, your efforts help keep this place alive. To those we count as Esteemed Friends, know that you are treasured, and may the coffins that carry each of you hence be crafted from the wood of a two hundred year old Oak tree that I promise to plant in the Spring.

To all who read these words, Mrs. LFM and I hereby send out our most sincere best wishes to you and yours for good health, happiness, and prosperity in what promises to be another year to test the soul. I’ll end with the same song I used a year ago – a shaggy mopped expression from Canada of a sentiment it’s hard to argue with – Let the Good Guys Win. Happy New Year.