Shoot Out at the OK Corral
24 Jan 2010 1 Comment
in Cartoons, Life, Politics, ramblings, Texas, Thoughts, Uncategorized, Venting Tags: Austin, cartoon, G.O.P., guns, NRA, Politics, Republicans, Rick Perry, Texas
This from the Austin American-Statesman newspaper:
A day after a man fired shots into the air outside the Texas Capitol, a renewed debate over bolstering security at the statehouse gained momentum.
With several lawmakers calling publicly for metal detectors and other beefed-up security measures, Senate and House leaders announced plans for a special working group to study increased security measures.
Even so, Gov. Rick Perry made it clear Friday that he’s not in favor of increased security if it means installing airportlike checkpoints.
“The last thing I want is the Texas Capitol to turn into DFW airport,” he told reporters after accepting a re-election endorsement from the Texas State Rifle Association and the National Rifle Association.
Perry said enough people in Texas have concealed-carry handgun licenses to deter violent criminals. “That keeps us all safer,” he said.
And so Gov. Rick “Goodhair” (Nothing Succeeds Like Secession!) Perry says he doesn’t want the capitol to turn into DFW airport shortly after receiving an endorsement from the NRA. Hmm……
But wait….there’s more!
About a year ago, John Carona, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, called for increased security after a witness threatened him during a hearing and was escorted from the building.
Carona, R-Dallas, called for metal detectors at all public entrances to the Capitol, more surveillance cameras and more security personnel to be assigned to the seat of state government — which state officials at the time acknowledged was probably one of the few remaining state capitols without security screening devices at every entrance.
Capitols in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana all have metal detectors, officials in those states said. The Texas Capitol has a network of surveillance cameras supplemented with uniformed state troopers posted in all hallways and public areas.
I don’t know. Am I missing something here? A guy brings a concealed weapon into the state capitol building, has an altercation with staffers of a representative (a Republican, by the way) and goes outside and fires his gun five times into the air, and Perry worries about making the capitol as safe as an airport?
I was at the capitol last October for my son-in-law’s police academy graduation, and though there were a lot of uniformed troopers around, I doubt if any of them could stop someone from shooting people at random with a gun that was brought into the building—concealed legally or not. It gives me the heebie jeebies now to think that ordinary folk were packing heat in a governmental building while I was there. I felt safe with all the armed officers that were around attending the graduation ceremony, but their guns were visible and they are “ordained”, if you will, through much intensive training, to be allowed to carry them in such a venue. But what would have happened if some nutcase carrying a weapon had decided to open fire?
Now, some of Perry’s own fellow Republican party members are getting goosey about the wisdom of mixing guns and “gubmint.” Especially when the business end of a pistol is pointing at them.
One even called it “a warning shot—literally.”
Huh. Fancy that.
Handy Hints for Hunters
30 Nov 2009 2 Comments
in Biology, Family, Humor, Life, Texas, Thoughts, Venting, Women Tags: animals, camouflage, deer, deer season, guns, hunters, hunting, litter, Texas, turkeys
The days between Nov. 1 and Jan. 1 in this part of Texas are hell indeed—and not because of the usual onslaught of tourists who do their holiday shopping in our picturesque city.
No, my friends, it’s deer hunting season.
The third highest form of religion around here behind Jesus and football.
Needless to say, we are not hunters. My husband and I like to think of ourselves more as biologists. We like to preserve life, not shoot it. Yes, I know, the deer in the Texas hill country practically outnumber the humans. They need to be kept in check—the deer, not the humans. (But that is a provocative thought). Although….the maniacal drivers do a pretty good job of controlling the deer population, as evidenced by the roadkill we see every time we drive into town.
We dread hunting season for several reasons, not the least being that our local newspaper publishes photos of smiling hunters of all ages posing with their dead deer. The heads of the animals are held up so all can see their cold, dead eyes. (Didn’t anybody watch “Bambi” when they were a kid?)
But the main reason we hate hunting season is not so much about what the hunters take with them, than what they leave behind.
Trash. Lots of it.
Our country roads’ volume of litter goes up at least 100% when the hunters are here. Cans, beer bottles, empty deer corn bags. (For the uninitiated: before deer season, folks who have deer leases put feed out to lure the deer, who then become used to such a spread and hang around so the hunters riding up in their ATVs can shoot them like ducks in a barrel. Ah, what sportsmen!)
And, just today, I saw a large trash bag lying along the road with the carcass of a field dressed deer spilling out on the ground. What a slob.
So here are some handy hints for the mighty hunters who flock to our area:
1. I know y’all aren’t from around here, but when driving the back roads it’s customary to nod or lift your hand in a slight wave when approaching an oncoming vehicle. A little politeness and neighborliness go a long way. Don’t blast by with a scowl on your face. We can see you’re driving a Hummer, but you don’t have to prove beyond all doubt that you are, in fact, an asshole.
2. On a similar note, slow down! You think it’s exhilarating to drive a one-lane, curving road in that SUV of yours, but there are other cars and sometimes people on that road. Also, get the hell over to the side of the road when another car is coming your way. We’ve nearly been run off the road by hunters who think it belongs to them. It doesn’t—didn’t your mother teach you about sharing?
3. Watch where you’re aiming that rifle. We have had “hunters” who illegally hunted on a small, less than five acre parcel next to us. I don’t care to be shot while doing the dishes in my kitchen. Housework is bad enough without having to worry about stray gunfire.
4. And about that trash of yours. If this is the way you treat Mother Nature, I’d hate to see how you live at home. Would it kill you to save that empty beer can, styrofoam cup or candy wrapper and put it in a trash receptacle later? Monkeys at the zoo are more discerning about where they fling their poo than you are with your detritus.
I can’t wait for January 1st to arrive. No longer will I be subjected to the spectacle of camouflage-covered beer bellies at the supermarket.
Until it’s turkey season.
I’ll be rooting for the turkeys—the feathered ones, that is.
And the Threats Keep Coming….
28 Aug 2009 4 Comments
in Politics Tags: assassination, G.O.P., guns, Obama, Republicans
GOP hopeful jokes about ‘Obama tags’
‘I would never support him being assassinated,’ Idaho candidate says
BOISE, Idaho – An Idaho Republican gubernatorial hopeful insists he was joking when he said he’d buy a license to hunt President Barack Obama
.
Rex Rammell, a former elk rancher slated to run against incumbent C.L. “Butch” Otter in the May 2010 GOP primary, made the comment at a Republican rally Tuesday in Twin Falls.
Talk at the meeting turned to the state’s planned wolf hunt, for which hunters must purchase an $11.50 wolf tag.
When an audience member shouted a question about “Obama tags,” Rammell responded, “The Obama tags? We’d buy some of those.”
Rammell told the Times-News newspaper the comment was “just a joke.”
“I would never support him being assassinated,” he said.
Then don’t suggest it, shit-for-brains.
Death Threat from a Vet
26 Aug 2009 2 Comments
in Family, Life, Politics Tags: Chuck Grassley, guns, health care, town hall, veterans, WWII
Here is the latest insanity from a Chuck Grassley led town hall meeting yesterday:
“The president of the United States, that’s who you should be concerned about. Because he’s acting like a little Hitler,” said Tom Eisenhower, a World War II veteran. “I’d take a gun to Washington if enough of you would go with me.”
My Dad, rest his soul, was a World War II veteran. In December of 1942 he was a 27 year-old married man who would, in a few months, become a father. He was told if he got a job at a certain defense plant he could sit out the war, enabling him to be at home with my Mother and her soon-to-be born child.
But he wouldn’t do that. He told my Mother he didn’t think he could face his children if he didn’t step up and do his part for the war effort.
So he enlisted in the Coast Guard and became a signalman. Eventually he was sent on a ship to the South Pacific where he spent the rest of the war and then, thankfully, came home to my Mother and his now two year-old son.
It was a difficult adjustment. It took some time for him and my brother to become acquainted, and for my brother to learn how to “share” my Mother with him. But my Dad didn’t complain. He wouldn’t have had to do this if he’d taken the “easy way” out. But he didn’t.
As I read those words above by Mr. Eisenhower (how ironic!), I am filled with shame and anger.
I’m sure Mr. Eisenhower knew the magnitude of the Nazi threat and all that it stood for. Perhaps he enlisted in the war for the same reasons my father did—because he felt it was the only thing he could do and still be able to look his children in the eyes when it was all over.
Now he is sullying what my Dad and countless others fought against by cavalierly tossing about the comparison of Obama to Hitler, as many seem to be doing these days with no objections from the Republican leaders who stand there listening with mute tongues and cold, leaden eyes. They feel this kind of talk will “gin up” the base and that’s alright with them.
The more right-wing flamethrowers, the better.
Not only is this kind of rhetoric ridiculous and demeaning to the Greatest Generation, but it is also inflammatory and downright seditious. How can people–especially veterans who have fought against the real Hitler and should know better–be allowed to make such statements against the safety of the President of the United States and the stability of our country?
Didn’t he live through the agony that was the JFK assassination?
I did, and the memory is forever scorched into my brain.
Perhaps Mr. Eisenhower wasn’t paying attention in 1963 to the painful turmoil that trauma caused our country, and the subsequent stripping of innocence from the young people who believed in “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
Now this “veteran” is calling for the same violence to be enacted upon yet another president.
I’m sure if Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford were still alive they would be appalled at the threats being shouted against this president. Both of them suffered through assassination attempts, and with Reagan it was almost accomplished. The specter of assassination has again raised its ugly head.
Before long, Mr. Eisenhower himself will die, and when he arrives at the Pearly Gates I hope he’ll be met by a throng of WWII veterans who are just as ashamed of him as I know my Dad is.
Guns ‘n Moses
17 Aug 2009 6 Comments
in Art, Life, Politics Tags: artist trading cards, ATC, guns, hunting, Obama, religion, rifles, Second Amendment
What is it, really, with the American obsession with gun ownership? Or even guns in general. I live in a rural area of Texas and I understand the whole hunting tradition thing that’s been a part of this state forever. We even have a “take an orphan hunting” program (or something similar) in this county. At church during hunting season they have a “hunter’s blessing” Sunday, where they devote much of the service to wishing godspeed to the hunters (but I suspect it’s also to wish good profits to those folks who own hunting leases, too.) Hunting and the conventional rifles that are attendant to that pastime are ingrained in the fabric of the community. Okay, I get that. But….
The big “but” (other than my own) is this: Why in hell does any American need an AK-47 or semi-automatic assault rifle? One does not go deer hunting with that kind of weapon unless one wants to splatter deer carcass all over the landscape.
No, that type of weapon was made for killing people….lots of people, quickly.
Today in Arizona near where President Obama was appearing, “a man, who decided not to give his name, was walking around the pro-health care reform rally at 3rd and Washington streets, with a pistol on his hip, and an AR-15 (a semi-automatic assault rifle) on a strap over his shoulder.” This is the third such incident in the space of a week or so.
When asked why he was armed, he said “Because I can do it.”
We have laws against women showing their nipples in public, but a man can prance around with loaded deadly weapons in close proximity to the President of the United States because “he can?”
What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong with this country? The Christian majority supposedly worships the Prince of Peace, but don’t you dare take their assault rifles from them or there’ll be hell to pay.
My son-in-law is currently in training at the police academy and will be graduating before too long. He will be an excellent police officer because he’s smart and has great people skills. Our town doesn’t have a big crime problem (yet) but I still fear for him because these weapons are out there and often are used against the very men and women who have devoted their lives to protecting us.
People who scream about their Second Amendment rights are the same ones who make a big show of “supporting our troops,” and police officers. If they really cared, they would “get” that these weapons weren’t foreseen by the Founding Fathers and how they would be used against our own people.
In that vein, here is an ATC I did several years ago (one of my first) that features my husband when he was a boy. He knows and understands rifles, having learned from his rancher grandfather to have a healthy respect for what their purposes are and for what they can do if not handled properly.
However, he is not gun obsessed and shares my view on assault weapons.
Your 2 Cents