Captain's CornerLove is a cabin in the middle of nowhere.

While the title could actually apply to very nearly every problem facing our nation, I am of course speaking about the very real threat against the Second Amendment in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting.

What most people seem to be forgetting is that there are only two tools available to us as humans to change someone’s mind and/or actions. In our civilized society we understand that we have the tool of reason. However, the further we get away from hunting and gathering the more we seem to forget about the other tool: force.

Reason, as seen in societal values and legislation, stops the reasonable, civilized man. For instance, licensed concealed firearm carriers will typically not carry in a gun free zone. Reason, however, does not stop individuals like the Sandy Hook shooter. People who are committed to doing something the rest of us see as insane are beyond reason. Reason, in their own mind, would have stopped them and caused them to seek help before this point. Because they are now unreasonable, there is no “civilized” discourse or action left to us. This leaves us with only one tool against them, force. This is why legislation does not and will not ever stop them. This is why a civilized man (or woman) who has taken responsibility for themselves and is not afraid to use the tool of force is the one thing that has always stopped them. We cannot pass more laws (of any kind) and expect mass shootings of innocents to end.

Taking guns away from law abiding citizens will not stop school shootings – it will remove the victim’s tool of force and thus their means of stopping the unreasonable. Giving the government sweeping power over the citizenry’s mental health with not stop school shootings – it will, however, give the government a greater tool of force to use against dissidents and “enemies of the state.” This should be a terrifying proposition after the last 12 years of building an imperial presidency, but that is an issue for a much longer post. Mandating armed personnel in schools may actually make them safer – because it is applying force to a problem only solved by force. However, it takes away the rights of the school administrators and would add an exorbitant cost to an already over-burdened federal government.

The solution? Enforce the laws you already have in place when it comes to firearms. Make as effective use of this tool of reason as you can. Secondly, rollback legislation and federal control over the security of schools. Allow schools decide how best to keep themselves safe. If they want to hire armed guards, let them craft a plan and implement it. If they want to allow trained personnel (ie: teachers and administrators who have qualified) carry firearms, let them. If they want to allow concealed weapons carriers carry on school property, let them. We all must take responsibility for our own safety and quit relying on a nanny state (or worse a police state) to keep us safe.

In this light we need to remove “Gun Free Zone” legislation at the federal, state, and local levels. Criminals use these signs to find soft, easy targets. If you want to lower mass shootings create more hard targets – armed and armored public places. The military knows that if you want to keep someone from attacking something, you make it appear as costly as possible to attack it. If criminals and sociopaths wanted to work for a living, they’d get a job. If a target can fight back or is too difficult to penetrate, they will move on.

Despite what the anti-gun crowd will say, I value human life. I value our nation’s children. We should protect our children at all costs, with both reason and force. In fact, we should be brutally and violently swift in protecting our children by force. I value the freedoms that were encapsulated and protected by our Founding Fathers. I value the blood that was spilled to free us from tyranny over 200 years ago and has been spilt since then to allow us to remain free. We must not surrender our freedom for any reason. We especially must not surrender our freedom for an empty promise of safety that will leave us in greater danger.

Today I wrote the President of our country and my legislators expressing my concerns. I used the form found here and sent them the following letter:

Dear Legislators and Mr. President,

Considering recent events there is now a concentrated effort to limit the rights of law abiding and free men. My heart, as a father, was broken on December 14 as I saw the events play out in the news. I grieve with the families who were broken and destroyed by the actions of a sociopath. However, blaming firearms or their law-abiding owners and punishing them is not the answer to the challenges we face as a nation. History has shown such actions to be completely ineffectual.

The laws we currently have in place did nothing to stop the Sandy Hook shooter. He was stopped by the mandatory background check from purchasing firearms. He then decided to murder his mother and take her legally owned firearms to commit this tragedy. A dedicated man who does not value life nor the limits of society or government cannot be stopped by more legislation. Laws do not stop those committed to breaking the law.

I agree that we need to do all within our power to protect our children and I partner with all of you to do just that. So I beg you to enact legislation that will genuinely be effective. Banning firearms used in less than 1% of crimes committed is not going to stop such tragedies. Again, this was proven in 1999 when the Columbine shooting took place under the 1994 ban.

Do something meaningful, please. Help reform the mental health care system and help remove the public stigma from needing said mental health care. Allow schools and school personnel the freedom to set their own security policies and to use all available methods to make their school a hardened target, which is the surest way to prevent these tragedies. Do not strip us of our rights and property by passing additional antigun laws that have historically had no positive effect on crime in our nation or others.

Finally, proceed with caution. It is very easy, in a moment of pain and hurt, to overreact and in the process unnecessarily and detrimentally limit freedom. Whether we are addressing mental health, gun legislation, or armed guards in schools we must be wary of assigning too much control or responsibility to our government. Many Second Amendment supporters cite protection from our government as a reason for needing firearms and then call for a veritable police state to protect out children. We must be ever vigilant and mindful of our freedom.

Thank you,
Kevin Dooley

Let me tell you a story…

Unethical Mortgage Brokers make some really bad loans because they know they’re going to sell them to big banks and not have to worry about. After they sell their loans, people who couldn’t afford their houses, quit paying on them. When the big corporate banks don’t get their money, they kick people out of their homes. The banks don’t really want to diversify into real estate, so they decide to sell off the homes at rock-bottom prices and right off the loss. So they sell off their homes in my neighborhood for 50-60% of their actual value and now I get an appraisal on my house for a ridiculously low amount and can’t sell it unless I walk into closing with SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. So now, my only legal recourse is to become a landlord, and every night I go to bed telling myself that it’s both illegal and immoral to burn down my house. At least I can sleep at night knowing I’m not as evil as 90% of mortgage brokers.

The American Dream has become a farce due to greed and the erosion of morality. Home ownership is an undue burden that we have taken upon ourselves because we believed some bullshit marketing and some idyllic image of a world that doesn’t exist.

Alternately – “How to ruin your senior year of high school.”

So this past week someone rang my mom’s doorbell rather agressively at around 12:30 am or so… My mom looks out her peephole, and seeing no one calls the police to report the incident. The police ask if she saw anyone and if they were driving a particular pick up truck. She says nope, cuz she didn’t see anything.

The next day we find out that her neighbor saw quite a bit. He’s a cop and the minute a pickup truck holding approximately a dozen young men parked outside his house, he woke up. Unsure what was going on, he armed himself and kept an eye on burgeoning mob.

Suddenly two of the young men charge across the street and up the sidewalk towards the neighbor’s door. He throws open his front door and levels his issued Glock at what is now clearly two very, very frightened teenagers who were merely trying to get in a little post-graduation “Ding, Dong, Ditch” or “Ring and Run” or whatever they call it near you (we called it something involving a racial slur where I grew up, but this post is not about that). The cop chases after the two guys and watches them hop into the back of the pickup which is quickly filling up with young men who just found out what a stupid idea it is to go onto someone’s property uninvited in the middle of the night in Texas.

By the way, deadly force is authorized against criminal mischief in the dark in the state of Texas. Meaning? Just for annoying the crap out of people like this gives them the right to shoot you in Texas… as long as it’s dark out.

One last note, since I forgot to mention it. My mom was at her door with her custom-made, stainless steel .45, just for the record…

So today I am at one of our campuses and I just overheard a couple of members who are here early because they are serving. They were talking about our upcoming service projects that we’re doing to celebrate our church’s 30th anniversary. One of them said, “I can’t take off work for all the stuff we’re doing – I’ll lose money.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t laying aside your wants, comforts and schedule to feed the hungry and clean up your community supposed to be sacrifice?

So I had an interesting conversation with my favorite barista/owner at my locally owned coffee shop… (NOT STARBUCKS). He told me that someone came in this week and told him that they knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the Cardinals would win the Superbowl today because Kurt Warner is a believer and God is with him. Jeff’s questions was, “Doesn’t God have bigger fish to fry… what with World Peace not achieved and hunger not yet eradicated?” To which I replied that certainly he does – and in fact there are believers on both teams, so God’s only real concern is that somehow he might be glorified by the game, but by and large I didn’t believe that God really cared who won the Super Bowl and in all probability did not plan to “intervene”…

So all you Christians out there… You make us look petty and, well, retarded, when you say things like this. Sure, we can take time to unplug and enjoy some football… but let’s not blow it out of proportion…

This weekend is the last weekend that George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States is president.  Next week President-Elect Barack Obama will be sworn in.  Now, I have no idea what the next 4-8 years will bring us with Obama, but I can say this – we’ve got to be better off without Bush or his administration destroying our constitution, devestating our standing in the world, and generally showing contempt for everyone – including the people who voted them into office.  So, as a final tribute to the man who is easily the worst the president that I have seen in my lifetime I give you a little song from the vault… Guns N Roses “Civil War”.

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“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.
Some men you just can’t reach…
So, you get what we had here last week,
which is the way he wants it!
Well, he gets it!
N’ I don’t like it any more than you men.”

Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they’ve always done before

Look at the hate we’re breeding
Look at the fear we’re feeding
Look at the lives we’re leading
The way we’ve always done before

My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can’t deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars

D’you wear a black armband
When they shot the man
Who said “Peace could last forever”
And in my first memories
They shot Kennedy
I went numb when I learned to see
So I never fell for Vietnam
We got the wall of D.C. to remind us all
That you can’t trust freedom
When it’s not in your hands
When everybody’s fightin’
For their promised land

And
I don’t need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin’ soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain’t that fresh
I don’t need your civil war

Look at the shoes your filling
Look at the blood we’re spilling
Look at the world we’re killing
The way we’ve always done before
Look in the doubt we’ve wallowed
Look at the leaders we’ve followed
Look at the lies we’ve swallowed
And I don’t want to hear no more

My hands are tied
For all I’ve seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
‘Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars

“We practice selective annihilation of mayors
And government officials
For example to create a vacuum
Then we fill that vacuum
As popular war advances
Peace is closer”

I don’t need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin’ soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain’t that fresh
And I don’t need your civil war
I don’t need your civil war
I don’t need your civil war
Your power hungry sellin’ soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain’t that fresh
I don’t need your civil war
I don’t need one more war

I don’t need one more war
Whats so civil ’bout war anyway?

I keep hearing people say this (including Cindy McCain) when they’re defending Sarah Palin’s lack of experience…

“It’s the closest point of America to Russia.”

How in the world does that equal foreign policy experience? Colbert put it in the best perspective by also saying that since Alaska has Mt. McKinley, America’s closest point to space, that she must also have space policy experience.

Just admit that she wasn’t chosen based on experience but by the fact that she isn’t mired in Washington Politics and can be an agent for change… What’s wrong with the RNC spin that they can’t turn that lemon into lemonade… BARACK OBAMA did when met with the same criticism…

For those having a hard time keeping up… it works like this:

No Experience = Agent of Change

Lots of Experience = Wise, Strong Leader

See how easy that was… and with none of the lame geographical experience qualifiers…

So I was watching one of those “Did You Know” style countdowns… and one of the facts was:

It is impossible to lick your elbow.

At first glance this is a reasonable “fact”… despite this a good number of you reading this probably tried it.

BUT… it’s not IMPOSSIBLE.  It would be incredibly painful, but let’s face it… arms have been broken before… so have necks.  I would almost bet my house that someone, somewhere, has fallen off a roof, cliff, down a set of stairs, or just had a parachute not open and has landed in such a way that their mouth and their elbow were uncomfotably close.  In fact, I’d be almost as confident that in said predicament and the delirium that pain can cause that one of those people actually did lick their elbow.  Maybe just to prove the skeptics wrong…  I know I would.

… and I mean HATE, vein popping out on my forehead straight up HATE…

1. When someone comes to me with a problem and I tell them how to fix it, and they ignore me. Now, I’m not talking about some kind of grey area, morality type problem or something someone would like advice for… I’m talking about my area of expertise, there’s a problem with getting a camera working or a piece of software is wonky… I tell them what’s wrong and how to fix the problem and they just deal with whatever it is not working because they’re too lazy to fix it… That bugs the ever loving snot out of me… especially if I have to clean up the mess.

2. When I give a direction – an order if you will – in regards to something I have authority over, and it gets ignored. Now I don’t have authority over much in this world, and I’m okay with that. But when it comes down to one of the few things I have been placed in charge of and I don’t give options when I hand out instructions… there’s usually a good reason… Once again, this is only exacerbated by the fact that I usually end up cleaning up that mess too.

Aren’t you guys proud of me?? I just vented without swearing once!

Normally I’m more elegant when I try to describe a movie… but not this time. In fact, I won’t even waste the time to tell you how absolutely God-awful the movie was.  Here’s a snippet of a review by Sean McBride that pretty much sums it up.

The slight premise, coupled with some very bad performances by the cast as well as a screenplay filled with ham-fisted dialogue makes for a film that’s not scary and borders on being ridiculous at times. The bottom line is that “The Happening” just isn’t happening, and makes you wonder whatever happened to M. Night Shyamalan’s once lauded directorial skills.

Every local station has canceled their prime time shows this evening to give us (up until now) over an hour and a half of news coverage on severe thunder/hail storms and a potential tornado…

Really?  You can’t just put a bug in the corner of the screen and run a ticker on the bottom with the info?  Really?  Because that’s whatever everyone else in the world does, especially places that have whole seasons of tornados.

Yet another reason Texas sucks sometimes.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am vehemently opposed to further military actions in Iraq (and for God’s sake don’t even think about Iran!) because I’ve realized that military actions aren’t making any headway and the responsible thing to do would be to begin a diplomatic and political rebuilding and stabilization process. Today I know that I’m not alone.

Today I came across this document was written by 10 congressional candidates with input from former military and political leaders.  It outlines a new plan, a responsible plan, to restore and rebuild not only Iraq, but also our international standing and our military.  Whether you agree with my point of view or not, you need to read this document.  If you agree with what you read, great.  If not, I hope it at least makes you think.  If you want to get more involved, go here and voice your support of the document.

So I found this editorial online and thought it was oddly insightful and interesting.  The basic premise… don’t forget the angry white man in 2008.  It’s written by Gary Hubbell of the Apsen Times:

There is a great amount of interest in this year’s presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party’s nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords — “disenfranchised,” “marginalized” and “voiceless” — don’t resonate with him. “Press ‘one’ for English” is a curse-word to him. He’s used to picking up the tab, whether it’s the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a “living document” open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he’s willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn’t bother him.

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

His last name and religion don’t matter. His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.

He’s a man’s man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. He coaches baseball, soccer and football teams and doesn’t ask for a penny. He’s the kind of guy who can put an addition on his house with a couple of friends, drill an oil well, weld a new bumper for his truck, design a factory and publish books. He can fill a train with 100,000 tons of coal and get it to the power plant on time so that you keep the lights on and never know what it took to flip that light switch.

Women either love him or hate him, but they know he’s a man, not a dishrag. If they’re looking for someone to walk all over, they’ve got the wrong guy. He stands up straight, opens doors for women and says “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am.”

He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green. He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.

He’s not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He’s willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don’t pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.

He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum.

When you say something like:

Celine Dion is my idol. I listen to her everyday. She gives me warmth.

Okay, in the wake of a couple of mass murder shootings and now a couple higher profile armed robberies (one last week near a mall in PA, and one today in the New Orleans area), the morons are crawling out of the wood work.

The premise of their argument is simple, though fatally flawed. They stipulate that the reason there is so much violence is because of access to weapons. In fact, they maintain that if you ban all the weaponry that private citizens own, violent crime will stop. Does anyone else see the flaw here? People who have determined to commit violent acts are already determined to break the law. Why would ANOTHER LAW stop them? By this reasoning, (that weapons are the problem)no one could possibly have committed any violent act before weapons of any kind were invented.

Look at any other country that has banned guns, knives, etc. and see if they have a violent crime rate of 0… I’m guessing that’s not the case. In fact, the European country with the least amount of violent crime arms it’s citizenry with a fully automatic “assault rifle” and demands that they keep 50 rounds of ammunition on hand to defend themselves until they can report to base. Switzerland has for years had this policy, demanding military service and arming it’s general populace.

Which brings me to my point. Wouldn’t MORE, RESPONSIBLE armed citizens curb these violent outbreaks? Who would attack a mall if they knew that their victims were armed? Look at the Colorado shootings.  The perpetrator killed two people at the first location and escaped.  However, once he arrived at his second location, an responsible and armed VOLUNTEER stopped his rampage through force and decisive action.

What do you guys think?