Category: Crap For Brains

Just to point out the intellectual level of some people who believe they’re making a salient point about a subject that anyone can easily determine they are totally clueless about

Letter: What does any of this have to do with the Second Amendment?
Portsmouth Herald

June 10 – To the Editor:

In the news the past month or so:

A 57-year old retired NYC police officer is shot accidentally by a friend trying to break up a dispute outside a pizza parlor.

A 6-year old boy, a passenger in his mother’s car, is shot in a road rage incident.

Another young boy, retrieving his bike from the sidewalk near his home, is shot by a neighbor.

Several dozen are killed or wounded over a weekend in gang-related shootouts in Chicago.

An 18-year old from Ohio is found carrying an AK-47 in a NYC subway.

A woman in Texas shoots a beauty shop owner in a dispute about the cost of her pedicure.

A 5-year old boy is accidentally shot by his mother who was aiming at a dog.

Eight people are killed in Atlanta, followed by shootings in a supermarket in Colorado, an office building in California, a FedEx office in Indianapolis, a rail yard in San Jose. A total of 39 people.

Somebody….anybody….Please! Can anyone tell me what any of this has to do with the Second Amendment?

Anthony McManus

Dover

I wouldn’t necessarily call criminal being criminals as a ‘failure’ of gun control. This just confirms that these laws aren’t for controlling guns, but controlling the average law abiding citizen.

Gun Control Failures Don’t Mean You Need More Gun Control

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, then there’s no doubt about how insane gun control really is.

Over and over again, proponents of it continue to take everything as an excuse that more gun control is needed. Study says that gun control reduced crime? Then it’s proof we need more gun control. Study shows gun control doesn’t work? Then clearly the problem is that we need more gun control.

It’s not any better when you have a total failure of gun control happen in real life, either.

A month after Gov. J.B. Pritzker took office in 2019, giving Democrats complete control in Springfield, flaws in Illinois’ gun laws were exposed when a convicted felon whose state firearm owner’s identification card had been revoked opened fire in an Aurora warehouse, killing five co-workers and wounding a sixth along with five police officers.

The case became a rallying point for gun safety advocates, who’ve pushed for mandatory fingerprinting for FOID card applications, universal background checks for gun buyers, and a system that ensures people whose FOID cards are revoked hand over their weapons to authorities.

More than two years later, however, Pritzker and the Democratic-controlled legislature haven’t enacted those policies or any other major gun safety measures, even as they successfully pushed progressive measures that range from legalizing marijuana to abolishing cash bail.

“These are complicated issues,” Pritzker said of gun control last week in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.

“We have Democrats from downstate, from areas where people are deeply concerned about protecting their gun rights,” he said. “And then we’ve got people who live in other parts of the state who believe, as I do, that we need to have a greater focus on gun safety, but it’s a complicated challenge in order to get enough votes put together.”

And all of that ignores the simple fact that while the Aurora shooter was a convicted felon, he went through every hoop the state of Illinois cared to present. He got a FOID. He filled out the ATF’s Form 4473. He didn’t lie about any of his personal information–though he did lie about being a convicted felon, to be clear, but not his name, address, or other such data–and still was able to buy a gun.

Gun control failed at every single level.

That’s kind of like what happens every single day in Chicago. There, despite all the gun control laws on the books in Illinois, criminals are able to obtain firearms easily enough. Meanwhile, citizens trying to obey the law are dealing with a screwed-up system.

At what point do people look at these failures and recognize that doubling down on a failed strategy isn’t going to make anyone’s life any better? The gun control we see day in and day out in Illinois doesn’t work, and yet people are asking why isn’t there more of the very thing that has been amply illustrated to not accomplish a blasted thing.

Honestly, it makes no sense to me. It just doesn’t.

What a strategy fails to work, a reasonable person would try something new. In Illinois and far too many other states, they’re enamored with the idea of gun control that they can’t admit that it just isn’t working.

These states are like that friend in a toxic relationship who is convinced that they just need to do one more thing to make the relationship work. We all know how those kinds of things work out, don’t we?

Illinois isn’t likely to turn out the least bit better, either.

 

 

Comment O’ The Day:
“I could be down for this. Maybe it would keep those afraid of any firearm from moving away from the coasts.”

BLUF:
Virginia is concerned about a “bad” America.
The one to which she refers — one in which houses host guns — was previously known to both Republicans and Democrats as just “America.”

LA Times Writer Wants Gun Ownership Reported on Real Estate Listings, but for the Opposite Reason as You

When you’re considering moving to a new area, what are the pluses that matter most? Low crime? Good schools? Trash pickup?

A writer for The Los Angeles Times has another metric that may be worth consideration.

On Tuesday, opinion columnist Virginia Heffernan took to Twitter with an idea:

“Real-estate listings should include prevalence of gun-ownership in a 50-mile radius…”

She’d also like info on the “number of annual mass shootings in the region.”

“Time to change what a ‘bad neighborhood’ is,” she announced.

What if someone owns a modern sporting rifle, also known as the best-selling hunting rifle in America?

She believes that’d constitute a bad place for children:

“[A]nd introduce a meaningful tax on guns and gun violence. No one should say, ‘This is a great place to raise kids’ about neighborhoods where even one person has an assault rifle.”

Stop all the racializing:

“The metric would be simple. Example: Staten Island (pop 474k) has 4x the gun ownership per capita of the Bronx (pop 1.4m). If that reads as safer or more [free] to some people, Staten Island is for them. If not, maybe time for the Bronx. Take race, class, politics out of the real-estate equation.”

 

There’d definitely be a lot of items to track.

In 2018, Switzerland’s Small Arms Survey reported there were nearly 400,000,000 guns in the United States.

That was, obviously, two years before 2020’s gun-buying surge.

As for “assault rifles,” the AR-15’s certainly been vilified courtesy of impressive, dedicated effort by some on the Left side of the aisle.

Meanwhile, of course, ownership of any firearm doesn’t equal impending murder, and the lightweight modern rifle isn’t employed in most gun crimes.

The vast majority of such are, as you know, committed with handguns.

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Gun Owners of America Blast John Cornyn

Erich Pratt, Senior Vice President of Gun Owners of America sent out an email blast yesterday accusing Texas Senator John Cornyn of attempting to sell out gun owners:

We have an emergency on our hands.

While preparing to fight back against the ATF’s unconstitutional regulation of pistol braces, we learned some disturbing news…

Senator John Cornyn — a Republican who should be pro-2A — is quietly making a deal with the rabid anti-gunner, Chris Murphy, to pass universal background checks.

We need EVERY gun owner in America to take action right now to prevent what would be Armageddon for the Second Amendment.

The language seems overwrought in that direct mail we’re-all-going-to-die-unless-you-donate way. Is there some truth to it? Apparently so:

After years of failed attempts to pass a firearms background check bill, two senators think they have a path to agreement — at least on one key component of a deal.

Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, have been quietly negotiating a way to bolster background check rules by making a small but consequential tweak to current law, which they say would close an unintended loophole in the system that has led to preventable mass shootings.

House-passed legislation to require background checks on nearly all gun purchases has stalled in the Senate. But Murphy and Cornyn, who have been negotiating behind closed doors with little fanfare, believe they may have a formula that can attract broad support from both parties.

Bipartisan, of course, means that the Stupid Party and the Evil Party get together to do something stupid and evil. Or, in this case, Republicans go squishy in the face of Democrat demands.

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A Middle Class Rebellion Against Progressives Is Gaining Steam.

A specter is haunting America, a great revolt that threatens to dwarf the noxious rebellion led by Trump. The echoes of another potentially larger pushback can already be heard in progressive America. But it’s not towards socialism, as many suggest. It’s the opposite: a new middle-class rebellion against the excesses of the Left.

This new middle-class rebellion isn’t rejecting everything that progressives stand for; the Left’s critique of neo-liberal excess is resonating, as is the need for improved access to health care. But the current focus on “systemic racism,” coupled with a newfound and heavily enforced cultural conformism and the obsessive focus on a never-ending litany of impending “climate emergences” are less likely to pass muster with most of the middle class, no matter how popular they are with the media, academics, and others in the progressive corner.

And this new middle-class rebellion is being bolstered by a wide-ranging intellectual rebellion by traditional liberals against the Left’s dogmatism and intolerance. Indeed, what we’re about to see has the potential to reprise the great shift among old liberals that had them embracing Reagan in reaction to the Left’s excesses of that generation.

In a way, this should not be surprising. After all, the progressive base is limited: According to a survey conducted by the non-partisan group More in Common, progressives constitute barely eight percent of the electorate. The report also found that fully 80 percent of all Americans believe that “political correctness is a problem,” including large majorities of millennials and racial minorities.

Party line journalists may see President Biden as the new champion of the middle class, but every time he adopts central tenets of the new Left, he undermines his pitch.

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Pentagon OKs Chinese Drones Previously Banned over Espionage Concerns

After years of citing potential spying by China via sophisticated drones, the Pentagon has approved the U.S. military to acquire two Chinese-made “Government Edition” drones.

A recent Pentagon report seen by the Hill found “no malicious code or intent” in two drone models manufactured by Da Jiang Innovations (DJI), a Chinese company, and one of the world’s foremost drone makers. The May 6 report, released on Tuesday, concludes that DJI’s drones are “recommended for use by government entities and forces working with U.S. services.”

“This U.S. government report is the strongest confirmation to date of what we, and independent security validations, have been saying for years — DJI drones are safe and secure for government and enterprise operations,” DJI spokesperson Adam Lisberg told the Hill.

Almost 80 percent of all drones used in the United States and Canada are made by DJI.

The Department of Defense green-lighting controversial drones comes after escalating concerns at the federal level around the security of DJI and Chinese drones more broadly.

DJI was added to the Commerce Department’s “entity list” — i.e., the list of bodies considered a “national security concern” — late last year, effectively blacklisting the company.

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I have no idea what, but
WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!™©®

He’s no more ‘On the Mark’ than most two year olds are in the bathroom.

On the Mark: Gun violence can no longer be ignored
Team 12 Anchor Mark Curtis discusses gun control after recent shootings in San Jose.

The comments are always predictable.

“Bad guys will always find a way to get their guns.”

“The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a bigger gun.”

In the wake of the latest mass shooting in San Jose, this pandemic of gun violence can no longer be ignored.

Now, let me be clear, I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in the rights of Americans to own a gun. But not if they are violent, or mentally ill, or have been convicted of a violent crime.

I wish I had the answer…but I don’t.

All I know is, doing nothing can no longer be acceptable.

Today’s Logical Fallacy is… “We Have to Do Something!”

A very dangerous contemporary fallacy, this one arises when tragedies and crises triggers the response: “We have to do something!” – regardless of whether or not that “something” is an overreaction, ineffective, or even makes things works. The logic, or lack thereof, usually flows like this:

1. We must do something.
2. This is something.
3. Therefore, we must do this.

Humans are empathetic, and when a tragedy strikes, our emotional response pushes us to do anything we can do prevent it from happening again. However, just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should, and just because the situation seems to warrant an immediate response doesn’t mean it actually needs one.

Sometimes the situation does call for action, but action should be carefully considered before it is undertaken. Doing something because it is “better than nothing” will often result in unintended consequences that often do more harm than good.

Wasn’t Climate Change!™ going to kill us all in 10 years?
What about every single chair behind the desk in the Oval Office, right now.

Biden says every single hospital bed in America will be filled with Alzheimer’s patients in 15 years

 

Hello Texans. Ring up your Stunned Tater Cornyn and tell the RINO where he gets off.

A quiet bipartisan effort on gun background checks may have a path to a deal
Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican John Cornyn believe they may have landed on a new way to beef up background checks while attracting bipartisan support.

WASHINGTON — After years of failed attempts to pass a firearms background check bill, two senators think they have a path to agreement — at least on one key component of a deal.

Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, have been quietly negotiating a way to bolster background check rules by making a small but consequential tweak to current law, which they say would close an unintended loophole in the system that has led to preventable mass shootings.

House-passed legislation to require background checks on nearly all gun purchases has stalled in the Senate. But Murphy and Cornyn, who have been negotiating behind closed doors with little fanfare, believe they may have a formula that can attract broad support from both parties.

Specifically, they want to clarify who is required to register as a federal firearms licensee, or FFL, and thus conduct FBI checks on a buyer before selling a gun. The senators say an ambiguity in the law has enabled unlicensed sellers to transfer weapons to dangerous people who skirt the background check system.

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Charges against woman involved in gun-waving incident during George Floyd rally are amended

A special prosecutor said Tuesday he has amended the charges against a St. Louis woman who waved a gun at racial injustice protesters last summer, and he’ll decide soon if he’ll amend charges against her husband.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey were indicted by a grand jury in October on felony charges of unlawful use of a weapon and evidence tampering. Special Prosecutor Richard Callahan said in a statement that he filed a new indictment on Monday that would give jurors the alternative of convicting Patricia McCloskey of misdemeanor harassment instead of the weapons charge. Under that alternative, the evidence tampering count would be dropped.

The move essentially gives a jury the option of convicting Patricia McCloskey of the lesser misdemeanor charge if it sees evidence of a crime that doesn’t reach the level of the felony charges.

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License Required: The Alarming New Mantra from Gun Prohibitionists

ANALYSIS: Gun control proponents have latched onto a new mantra in their effort to reduce the number of guns—and gun owners—on the U.S. landscape, reluctantly recognizing that so-called “universal background checks” are not the solution to violent crime involving firearms, nor have they prevented criminals from getting guns.

The latter fact is underscored in a recent online GUNS magazine report covering incidents in several states where suspects have been charged with “felon in possession” of firearms. The “dirty little secret” is that criminals don’t obey gun control laws, a fact that seems elusive to gun control proponents.

So there’s a new strategy gathering momentum among anti-gunners, and according to Vox, this strategy comes from perennial gun control extremist Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who proposed on the 2020 campaign trail to require a license before purchasing a firearm.

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enemies; foreign and domestic

The four people in the conversation are Alfred “Shivy” Brooks, candidate for city council in Atlanta, Dr. Kate Slater, Assistant Dean of Graduate Student Affairs at Brandeis University, Louiza “Weeze” Doran, and Los Angeles high school teacher Will Rausch.

The entire conversation is available on YouTube.

If ‘gun control’ laws really worked, this wouldn’t happen.

Tremonton man pleads no contest in gun trafficking case

A Tremonton man who was restricted from owning firearms due to a previous violent felony conviction in the 1980s has pleaded no contest to 11 misdemeanor charges after he was caught selling guns online in a January 2020 Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) sting operation.

Richard Lewis Andrew Christiansen, 67, who had been convicted in the 1980s of a felony for sending threatening communications through the mail in another state, reached a plea agreement with prosecutors in April of this year that had him plead “no contest” to five counts of Class A misdemeanor attempted transfer of a firearm by a restricted person, five counts of Class A misdemeanor attempted unlawful solicitation for a firearm transfer, and one count of Class B misdemeanor providing false information on a concealed weapons application.

In exchange for the “no contest” pleas, Box Elder County prosecutors dismissed 18 third-degree felony counts of possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person, and six third-degree felony counts of transaction of a firearm or dangerous weapon in violation of law.

Christiansen is scheduled to be sentenced on May 24 by 1st District Judge Spencer Walsh. He faces up to a $1,000 fine and up to 180 days in jail on the Class B misdemeanor charge, and up to a $2,400 fine and 364 days in jail for each Class B misdemeanor charge.

According to court documents, the BCI first became aware of Christiansen when he was denied a gun purchase after he answered that he was a convicted felon on a required form.

“In May 2014, Defendant attempted to purchase a firearm but was denied because he marked that he was a convicted felon on the application form,” reads the statement of probable cause. But in an application for a concealed carry permit from March 12, 2018, Christiansen answered “no” to the question asking about felony convictions.

An oversight at BCI led the agency to issue Christiansen the carry permit, which was discovered nearly two years later.

In January of 2020, agents from the BCI conducted an undercover operation targeting Christiansen and were able to purchase two guns and ammunition from him using an online auction site. Christiansen was taken into custody after meeting with the undercover agent to complete the gun sale. A search warrant executed on Christiansen’s Tremonton home turned up 23 additional guns, which Christiansen “admitted he owned.”

Christensen was able to post a $10,000 bail bond, and made an initial appearance before 1st District Judge Brandon Maynard on June 22 of 2020. A preliminary hearing held on Nov. 2 found there was enough evidence to support the charges, and Christensen was bound over for trial.

At a pre-trial conference on April 14 of this year the plea arrangement was reached, dropping the felony charges.

“Since that felony conviction back in the 80s he’s really had no other criminal involvements and has become a good, productive member of society. Due to him leading an otherwise good life and the oversight by BCI, I decided to offer a plea to misdemeanors,” said Box Elder County prosecutor Blair Wardle, when asked about the plea arrangement.

Just because politicians have an “R” after their name doesn’t mean they’re automatically less tyrant minded than their demoncrap counterparts.

Senator Marco Rubio admits he’s a Second Amendment ‘butter’
The senior Senator from Florida tells a reader he supports the Second Amendment, but

At 5-feet 10-inches, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is the same height as Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), but that’s not all the two have in common.

Neither Rubio nor Feinstein support the Second Amendment.

While Feinstein is open an upfront about her anti-rights passion, Rubio is riding the fence. Several bills he’s introduced clearly infringe upon the Second Amendment, but he still tries to hide his anti-rights zealotry in communications with constituents.

A reader recently reached out to Rubio after reading this story: Sen. Rubio’s red-flag bill would allow ‘temporary’ firearm confiscation and delay due process.

“I emailed him a while ago about his Red-flag bill he sponsored after you taught me about it and telling him it violated several amendments and to my dismay this was the response I received,” she said in an email. I am not publishing her name.

She noted that Rubio’s reply was “vague” and that he was “not specifically addressing the issues about his bill’s violation of due process and our other amendments as opposed to him saying that our communities lack the law enforcement resources.”

Politicians have form letters for irate constituents. I have no doubt our reader received one of Rubio’s letters designed to appease an angry Second Amendment supporter. I’m guessing his staff sends out a lot of them, especially since he introduced the federal red-flag bill.

“I hold the fundamental belief that the Second Amendment should not be altered,” Rubio’s email states. “While I have always supported the right of law-abiding Americans to bear arms to protect themselves and their families, I am committed to working with my colleagues in the Senate to create a more effective system to prevent senseless gun violence, without unnecessarily infringing on the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.”

Two things leap out of that statement. First, “senseless gun violence” is a Bloomberg talking point, which is used by Demanding Moms, Everytown and the Trace.

Second, Rubio hopes to create a more effective system “without unnecessarily infringing on the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.”

I guess that means the Senator is willing to infringe upon our Second Amendment rights, but only when he believes it’s necessary.

Bunkum, that is.

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Comment O’ The Day:
Actually Mao said “Women hold up half the sky.”
This potato cant even plagiarize correctly.

Biden Parrots Quote Made Famous By Communist Dictator Mao Zedong: “Women Hold Up Half The World”

Joe Biden Has a ‘Please Clap’ Moment That Would Make Jeb! Bush Blush

If you thought Jeb! Bush was low energy, you haven’t seen Joe Biden lately, and by lately, I mean anytime in the last few years. Now, Biden is one-upping the former Republican presidential candidate in a different area.

While attending a graduation ceremony for the U.S. Coast Guard, Biden had his “please clap” moment in a cringe-tastic display where he insulted the graduating class and then wondered allowed why they didn’t break out into applause at his brilliance.

For posterity, here’s Bush’s viral moment.

Yeah, that was cringe, but I think Biden has him beat. Here’s the current president attempting to make a joke about the Navy that apparently no one understood. In response,he calls them “dull” and then ponders why they didn’t clap while proclaiming “C’mon man, is the sun getting to you?”

Biden’s appearance as a cosplay of Skeletor should be enough to elicit a few laughs, but this joke was that bad, I guess. You’ve probably noticed that one of Biden’s tics is that when people don’t respond the way he wants, he insults and belittles them. It’s a defense mechanism that never comes across well. Here, after he chastises the class, he finally gets a few laughs from what sounds like officers near the front, but there’s never a real response.

Of course, maybe some of this has to do with the fact that military members aren’t necessarily keen on Biden and his party. With more and more woke garbage being shoved down their throats by the top brass at the direction of the administration and a foreign policy that promises to cause chaos, why would they be?

Past that, if you’ve got a really good memory you may recall that this isn’t Biden’s first time to insult military members while demanding applause. He did it back in 2016, calling the troops he was speaking to “dumb bastards” for not clapping at a quip about his wife and a military appointment.

Here’s the quote via a “fact-check” by Reuters which desperately tries to spin what he said.

Then he said, “I just want you to know that. Clap for that, you stupid bastards.” After the applause, Biden said to the audience, “Man, you are a dull bunch.  Must be slow here, man. I don’t know.”

Everything that’s old is new again for this administration, I suppose. To be fair, Biden probably doesn’t even remember that he had already made nearly the exact same comment half a decade earlier.

Even still, maybe Biden should take a breath and realize that military members do not exist to clap like seals for him every time he says something dumb.

Cowardly Journalists Chuckle as Biden Jokes About Murdering Them:

Imagine if Donald Trump had jokingly threatened to murder journalists standing in front of him. They probably wouldn’t have laughed. Yet that’s what Joe Biden did on Tuesday and the assembled reporters just chuckled at the funny threat. While test driving an electric Ford F-150, ABC’s Cecilia Vega broke up the adoring queries about the car by actually asking, “Mr. President, can I ask you a quick question about Israel before you drive away since it’s so important?”

Biden, who was sitting in a truck at the time, sneered, “No, you can’t. Not unless you get in front of the car as I step on it. I’m only teasing.” The off-camera journalists awkwardly snickered in reply. Biden then drove off, having threatened the press and then not answered the serious question.

Just prior to a real question, the reporters acted as Democratic hacks, offered up sycophantic queries about the photo-op. They included, “How does it feel to be behind the wheel, sir?”  and “Mr. President, how fast were you going?” Biden was happy to answer those.

We don’t actually have to imagine how the networks would react if this were Trump. In July of 2017, the then-President tweeted a video of a wrestling video in which Trump grappled with a superimposed CNN logo. On the July 3, 2017 Today, Hallie Jackson warned, “A spokesperson for the cable network saying, ‘It is a sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters’…”

Then-CNN political commentator Sally Kohn fretted, “Both sides have a problem with hateful crazies. The difference is the left denounces theirs. The right elects theirs president.” Journalists on the network declared Trump a “dangerous” madman who will get members of the press killed.

How will Cecilia Vega report this story? Wonder how the people at CNN feel now? They probably laughed along with the reporters Biden threatened today.

A ‘study’ using interviews of sixteen seasoned citizens and thirteen medicos and the researchers use it as a venue to merely regurgitate their previous anti-gun views.

And just to point out:
Read These Taxpayer Funded Antigun Research Projects
The Centers for Disease Control recently announced the projects funded by more than $7.8 million dollars to “Prevent Firearm-Related Violence and Injuries.”
Let’s take a look at some of the projects receiving CDC funding:
Dr. Ali Rowhani-Rahbar of the University of Washington will receive $1.5 million over three years for a project that “will identify the context, antecedents, and consequences of handgun carrying among adolescents who reside in rural communities in order to inform culturally appropriate and community-specific interventions.” “This project is intended to inform the development, adoption, and refinement of non-punitive prevention approaches to address factors that influence handgun carrying and reduce the burden of firearm-related injury among youth in rural communities.”

This project would seemingly build on Rowhani-Rahbar’s previous work on the topic through an NIH grant, and he has published dozens of articles and studies on firearms and firearms-related policies. He is the Co-Director of the Firearm Injury and Policy Research Program at Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center at the University of Washington.

Gun for young people are baaaaaad.
Guns for old people are baaaaaaad.
Guns are baaaaaaad!

Should There Be ‘Gun Retirement’ for the Elderly?

MONDAY, May 17, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Just as some elderly drivers need to give up their car keys, older gun owners may eventually face “firearm retirement.” And a preliminary study suggests they are open to the idea.

In focus-group interviews with older gun owners, researchers found that many had considered putting limits on their firearm access — though they usually hadn’t yet laid out plans for when and how.

It’s an important issue, given that 40% of older Americans live in a home with a gun, said lead researcher Laura Prater of Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The concern, she said, is that a significant number of those seniors have or will develop dementia or major depression. If they have easy access to a firearm, they could harm themselves, accidentally or intentionally.

No one wants to wrest firearms from the hands of older adults who can use them safely, Prater said.

The point, she stressed, is that gun owners, family members and health care providers should talk about the future — including what should happen with household firearms once a person’s health makes access a hazard.

“We should be treating this like a normal conversation,” Prater said, “just like you plan for other things, like driving, retirement or finances.”

A big takeaway from the interviews was that gun owners accepted the concept of firearm “retirement.”

“Older adults want to be responsible gun owners,” Prater said.

“What they weren’t open to,” she added, “was someone else making the decision for them.”

That means planning is key — before, say, early-stage dementia advances. One place to start, Prater said, is with a “firearm inventory,” where the older adult and family members account for all firearms in the home.

Many owners, Prater noted, have multiple firearms, and family members or other caregivers are not always aware of them.

Some older adults might want a “transition period,” she said, starting with disposing of firearms that are not being used. (Local laws vary on how to do that, Prater noted.)

The current findings are based on interviews with 16 older gun owners, as well as 13 geriatrics specialists.

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I think we covered this back in the late 18th Century. I don’t care what the British think about rights. We told them where to go and how to get there concerning them, and we actually helped a lot of them on their travels in two wars before they finally got the idea through their thick heads.

Harry: 1st Amendment ‘Bonkers’ So He’ll Have Real Trouble with 2nd

Fox News is reporting that Prince Harry ignited a media firestorm when he stated during a podcast interview that he thinks the First Amendment is “bonkers.”If that’s the case, he’s liable to cause a social and political earthquake if he ever takes a position on the Second Amendment.

Harry, also known as the Duke of Sussex, made the observation while appearing on an episode of “Armchair Expert,” the podcast hosted by Dax Shepard and Monica Padman.

Harry and wife, Meghan Markle, have set up housekeeping in Los Angeles. The Duke—not to be confused with American icon John Wayne—was holding forth on what he considers a media “feeding frenzy” when his every move is watched by the media, especially paparazzi. His mother, Princess Diana, died as the result of a car crash in which the driver of the car she was in was trying to elude photographers. That occurred in Paris in 1997.

Harry had been staying at the Beverly Hills mansion owned by actor/producer Tyler Perry. He told Shepard and Padman, “I don’t want to start sort of going down the First Amendment route because that’s a huge subject and one in which I don’t understand because I’ve only been here a short period of time,” Harry said. “But, you can find a loophole in anything. And you can capitalize or exploit what’s not said rather than uphold what is said.”

“I’ve got so much I want to say about the First Amendment as I sort of understand it, but it is bonkers,” he stated.

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