If You Want Peace, Prepare For War: Why All Should Be Armed

A lot of people get armed for a lot of reasons. Those reasons generally don’t matter all that much because we don’t have to provide a reason why we want to exercise our Second Amendment rights, but those reasons exist and are varied.

People who live in high-crime areas tend to prefer not to become a victim. Some people recognize bad things can happen at any time and place. Still others figure they’ll never need it, but are armed simply because they have the God-given right to be armed.

Yet the flip side is that a lot of people refuse to carry a firearm. They believe the world should be better than it is and that there’s no reason for any of us to have a gun.

My friend Yehuda Remer, aka The Pew Pew Jew, had an interesting post over at his site that I think we should talk a bit about. It starts with a story from the Old Testament. Jacob and his family, with all their riches, are on the road to meet his brother, Eisav, who sanctioned his murder 20 years prior and who thinks Jacob is already dead.

To prepare for this meeting, Jacob does three things. The first is to send an offering to Eisav to hopefully make peace. The second was to pray. It’s the third thing that leads to why I’m writing this.

Lastly, and the real reason I am writing this blog, is that Jacob prepared for war. He split his family into two different camps to spare one if Eisav decided to attack. Of course, he would be willing to fight but still ensured some of his family would live.

Why is this important? Why is the preparation for war so integral to Jacob even though he had God’s ear? What can we learn?

I am a Jew who carries a firearm. I write about guns. I use firearms regularly. I train people on firearms and educate them on their Second Amendment rights. Unfortunately, Jews get a bad rap because so many of them are anti-gun and anti-2A, which is true. I know many Jews from all walks of life who hate firearms and believe that guns have no place in society. Well, my question to them is, if guns don’t have a place in society, how do we explain the fact that Jacob prepared for war? How is exercising my Second Amendment and carrying a firearm on my person to ensure my family is protected any different than what Jacob did?

The answer is that there is no difference.

“Si vis Pacem, Para Bellum.” If you want peace, prepare for war.

Exactly.

Look, I’d love to live in a world where there was absolutely zero chance I’d ever need my gun for anything but recreational shooting. We don’t live in that world, we live in this one.

As such, I can and should take all the steps one can think of to prevent myself from becoming a victim and, as a society, we should take all the steps we can to make it so crime disappears forever.

Those of us who are the praying sort should do that as well, pray that those who would become violent criminals and those who already have find another way forward with their lives.

But we shouldn’t rest exclusively on those.

We should want peace, but we should prepare for war. At least in a manner of speaking, anyway.

Violence can and will come for some of us. We can and should do everything we can to mitigate the risk of that, but some of us won’t be fortunate enough to escape that.

So, we should be prepared to meet that violence with the threat of force and a willingness to use violence in the defense of ourselves or others if need be.

Robber shot, killed during robbery at Dollar General,

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A robber died after being shot during a robbery at a Dollar General store in Memphis on Tuesday, according to the Memphis Police Department (MPD).

MPD said three people began robbing the Dollar General on Winchester Road around 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 28.

During the robbery, someone witnessed the crime and shot at the suspects, according to police.

One of those alleged robbers was hit by the gunfire and rushed to the hospital but died from his injuries, police said.

Another of the alleged robbers was quickly arrested but the third ran away, MPD said.

The person who shot at the robbers was detained at the scene but no charges were immediately announced.

“That’s horrible to hear that someone actually lost their life,” Crystal Blair told FOX13. “But that’s what’s going on in Memphis and we need to really take this seriously.”

Blair owns a business down the street from the scene of the botched robbery. She said her store opened three months ago and had already been broken into twice.

“I don’t even stay open after dark anymore,” Blair said. “I’m really hoping when the new mayor comes in that he has a plan. Businesses are suffering over here.”

The Double & 1 Drill: 10 Rounds Is All You Need

Most shooters have a “sweet spot” of which is a favorable balance of distance, shot tempo and target size for their skill level with handguns. It is common to see enthusiasts, competitors and even armed professionals struggle to speed up as they encroach closer on the target from the sweet spot and struggle to use more time to good effect as the distance stretches much beyond their preferred-and most-practiced range. The ability to modulate the degree of trigger finesse and sight refinement based on proximity to the target is one of the key skills which make good shooters … well, good.

This is the exercise space for the ‘Double & 1’ drill. Double & 1 begins a scant 2.5 yards from the target on a tight time limit of only one second to fire two shots into the NRA B8 bullseye target from the low-ready position. For each succeeding string, the distance is doubled and an additional one second is allowed; hence Double & 1. The strings look like this:

String        Distance (Yards)  Time (Seconds) Shots From Ready
1 2.5 1 2
2 5 2 2
3 10 3 2
4 10 3 2
5 20 4 2
Total shots 10/ Possible score 100

Continue reading “”

Hamas Had to Stop Palestinians From Murdering Hostages on Their Way Out of Gaza

A fifth round of hostages were released by Hamas in the Gaza Strip Tuesday on day five of an extended, six day ceasefire. Twelve people were released, none of them were Americans.

But before they gained their freedom after being held for more than 50 days by the Iranian backed terror group, hostages were confronted by Palestinian civilians who shouted “Allahu Alkbar” and blocked Red Cross vehicles from quickly exiting. According to local reporting, the Egyptians had to essentially rescue the hostages as they were being harassed and threatened with death.

Meanwhile, recent polling from the Arab World for Research & Development shows the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank approve of the October 7 massacre of more than 1400 Israeli civilians in their homes, at a music festival, in bomb shelters and elsewhere.

November 29

1114 – A large earthquake damages areas the Crusaders in the Middle East rule, hitting the cities of Antioch, Mamistra, Marash and Edessa, with over 40,000 people killed.

1729 – Natchez Indians massacre 138 French men, 35 women, and 56 children at Fort Rosalie, near the site of modern day Natchez, Mississippi.

1776 – During the American Revolutionary War, a 500 man, but poorly supplied, American force besieging Fort Cumberland, near the present day border between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, is repulsed when British Marine reinforcements arrive

1777 – San Jose, California, is founded as Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe by José Joaquín Moraga.

1783 – An  earthquake later calculated at measuring magnitude 5.3 on the Richter scale, strikes New Jersey, to date the most powerful quake in the state.

1847 – Missionaries Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa, and 15 others are killed at their mission near present day Walla Walla Washington, by Cayuse and Umatilla Indians, causing the Cayuse War east of the Cascade mountain range.

1864 – Colorado volunteers led by Colonel John Chivington massacre at least 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho noncombatants near Sand Creek in Colorado Territory.

1872 – The Modoc War in northeastern California and southeastern Oregon  begins with the Battle of Lost River between a small force of U.S. troops under Captain James Jackson, and Modoc warriors under Kintpuash, known as Captain Jack.

1877 – Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph for the first time.

1890 –The US Army and Navy academy’s foot ball teams play their first game with Navy beating Army 24-0 at West Point.

1902 – The Pittsburgh Stars defeat the Philadelphia Athletics, at Pittsburg 11–0 to win the first championship associated with an American national professional football league.

1910 The first US patent for inventing a traffic lights system is issued to Ernest Sirrine.

1929 – Admiral Richard Byrd leads the first expedition to fly over the South Pole.

1942 – During World War II, the US Office of Price Administration begins the rationing of coffee a 10 pound a year

1947 – The United Nations General Assembly approves a plan for the partition of Palestine.

1953 – American Airlines begins the 1st regular commercial New York to Los Angeles air service

1963 – President Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.

1972 – Atari releases Pong, the first commercially successful video game.

1999 – Kazuo Sakamaki, a former ensign in the Imperial Japanese Navy, the skipper of midget submarine H-19 which attempted to attack Pearl Harbor, and the first official U.S. prisoner of war in World War II, dies, age 81, in Tokyo.

2009 – 4 police officers are shot and killed in a gunfight inside a coffee shop in Lakewood, Washington by Maurice Clemmons, who escapes wounded and is shot and killed 2 days later by police in Seattle.

2013 – LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470, an Embraer 190, is crashed in the Bwabata National Park, Namibia, by the pilot in a mass murder-suicide, killing all 33 passengers and crew on board.

Second Amendment Roundup: Concessions by the Government in the Rahimi Oral Argument
Misdemeanants don’t fall within the “not law-abiding” category.

In the November 7 oral argument in U.S. v. Rahimi, the government conceded the fundamental difference between felonies and misdemeanors, which criminal defense and pro-gun attorneys will find useful.  Also, direct references were made by some Justices to the issue of non-violent felons who are not dangerous.  And on the separate state-law issue of whether administrative officials may have discretion to deny the right to bear arms, the government conceded that they do not.

Recall that under N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, a person who is among “the people” has Second Amendment rights, and conduct covered by the plain text of that Amendment is presumptively protected unless the state can satisfy its burden (yes, it’s the government’s burden) to demonstrate that the current gun control regulation is similar to valid historical analogue laws. In Rahimi, the issue is whether any Founding-era analogue laws exist to justify the federal gun ban against persons under a domestic violence restraining order (DVRO).

To uphold the ban, the government relies on laws that punished affrays, including the brandishing of weapons to terrify others, and laws that required persons who did so to find sureties to keep the peace.  Such laws are not “historical twins” to today’s DVRO laws but are argued to be close enough.

A significant concession arising in the arguments would have jumped out at any member of the criminal defense bar, although it was not on the exact issue before the Court. The United States had argued in its briefs that persons who are not “law-abiding, responsible citizens” may be disarmed. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar began her argument by saying that not being “law-abiding” means having “committed serious crimes defined by the felony-level punishment that can attach to those crimes.”  Not being “responsible” “applies to those whose possession of firearms would pose an unusual danger.”

Continue reading “”

Homeowner shoots burglary suspect in Frisco, suspect now in custody

FRISCO, Texas — An 18-year-old burglary suspect was shot and wounded by a homeowner during a break-in attempt, according to the Frisco Police Department. The suspect, identified as Clinton Montgomery of North Richland Hills, was later arrested and remains in custody.

On Sunday, November 26, 2023, at approximately 8:06 p.m., Frisco police officers responded to a suspicious activity call in the 10400-block of Belfort Drive. The resident reported an unknown individual breaking into their backyard, detaching a ladder from the house, and using it to shatter a window. As officers neared the scene, they reported hearing gunshots.

Upon securing the scene, officers discovered Montgomery inside the home with a gunshot wound. Further investigation revealed that Montgomery was attempting to enter the residence when he was shot by the homeowner.

Montgomery was later transported by Frisco Fire Department personnel to a local hospital for treatment. He remains in custody for Burglary of a Habitation, a second-degree felony carrying a maximum punishment of two to twenty years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

The Frisco Police Department is urging anyone with information related to this incident to contact them at (972) 292-6010. Tips can also be submitted anonymously by texting FRISCOPD and the tip to 847411 (tip411) or by downloading the Frisco PD app. No additional information will be released at this time.

‘mysterious’. Just may be my cynical side, but the most accurate knowledge of that would be possessed by the U.S. goobermint

Report: ‘Mysterious’ Entities Giving Migrants GPS Coordinates to Unsecure Locations on Southern Border.

Hundreds of illegal aliens” heading for the U.S. Southern border have been provided with GPS coordinates of unsecured locations to help them cross en masse, according to a new report.

The crossings are “clearly pre-planned and organized by mysterious hands,” Border Hawk reported Monday.

Border Hawk correspondent Efraín González was recently embedded with a large group of migrants making their way at night through Piedras Negras, Mexico, to the Rio Grande.

“We accompanied this caravan that walked for an hour in the darkest to reach the crossing point,” González reported. The reporter spoke with one migrant who suggested the Mexican government was directing their movements.

“The migrant said they were angry Mexican authorities sent them to cross into this dangerous area of the river at night,” González said.

“Most of these people do not know how to get to the river. However, through GPS they obtain the exact location where forklift tractors raised the razor wire in October,” he added.

According to Border Hawk, “GPS-guided mass crossings into Eagle Pass” increased in November.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the Biden regime in October after federal agents were seen removing the razor wire barriers.  Paxton’s lawsuit accused the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of interfering with state efforts to secure the border.

On October 30, U.S. District Judge Alia Moses issued a temporary restraining order blocking the regime from using federal agents to interfere with the razor wire barriers.

“The Court grants the motion for a temporary restraining order until the parties have an opportunity to present evidence at a preliminary injunction hearing before the Court,” Judge Moses said in her ruling.

The order was to last until November 13th, but was extended to Monday, November 27.

In the meantime, the Texas governor had storage containers installed to fill gaps in the U.S.-Mexico border.

 

As a more permanent solution, Texas is also building its own wall in the area.

PRESIDENT BIDEN’S REELECTION CAMPAIGN TARGETS GUN CONTROL

President Joe Biden’s campaign is waking from its slumber and vowing he will “finish the job” on gun control as a central pillar of his pitch to stay in The White House for another four years.

The Biden-Harris reelection campaign is circulating memos and reaching out to friendly media to make the case that President Biden will use a second term to usher in gun control’s radical unconstitutional agenda. That includes banning America’s most popular-selling centerfire rifle, the Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR). That also means defying the will of Congress. White House officials are playing up bipartisan efforts but are making it clear that they are willing to strike out unilaterally if Congress doesn’t knuckle under to their demands.

“The president demonstrated that he can get things done, working across party lines when necessary, on our own where we can’t,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bruce Reed told The Messenger.

‘Finish the Job’

President Biden has already made clear he’s not listening to American citizens when it comes to guns. An NBC News national poll indicated that the majority of Americans live in a gun-owning household for the first time. The Biden-Harris reelection campaign, though, will lean on the political favors they’ve delivered for special interest gun control – specifically the deep-pocket donors who expect a return for their campaign donations.

President Biden continuously calls for Congress to re-enact the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported had no effect on reducing crime.

“Who the hell needs an assault weapon that can hold, in some cases, up to 100 rounds?” President Biden said just last month. This is the line of attack that he’s coupled with veiled threats of using U.S. military force against its own citizens.

“If you wanted or if you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons,” he said in 2021.

Weaponizing ATF

President Biden has made his attacks on the firearm industry central to his administration, starting with calling firearm manufacturers “the enemy” to most recently halting U.S. firearm exports without explanation. In between, he’s pushed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to punish the firearm industry through a “zero-tolerance” policy that has seen a sharp increase of federal firearms licenses revoked or surrendered for minor clerical errors.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris promised they would use the ATF as a blunt force instrument to hammer the firearm industry – simply because they don’t agree with Second Amendment rights. The ATF has published Final Rules – one to redefine frames and receivers and another to ban pistols with attached braces. Both have faced legal headwinds with various courts deciding that the ATF overreached its authority to write criminal law without Congressional input or approval. It is the responsibility of Congress to write law and for the Executive Branch to execute that law. Both Final Rules created criminal penalties without a vote in Congress.

Most recently, ATF Director Steven Dettelbach spoke to Harvard University where he doubled back on a pledge to U.S. Senators that he would “use the tools Congress gives” and instead advocated for increased gun control. He told the audience he agreed that the administration should pursue an MSR ban and also push for universal background checks. Both would be Constitutionally-specious. The U.S. Supreme Court held in Heller that the U.S. Government cannot ban an entire class of firearms and in order for universal background checks to work, it would necessitate a national firearm registry. That’s still forbidden by federal law.

Scaring Voters

President Biden isn’t just sharpening his attacks on the firearm industry. He’s scaremongering voters too. His reelection campaign circulated a memo titled, “Trump’s America in 2025: More Guns, More Shootings, More Deaths.”

“A Donald Trump presidency will mean more guns in schools and more guns in the hands of criminals, all because he thinks being pro-gun makes him look tough,” Biden campaign spokesperson Seth Schuster said in a statement, according to The Hill. “But his refusal to stand up to the gun lobby to protect our kids makes him weak and a coward.”

The Biden-Harris campaign counts it as a feather in their cap that they caved to gun control special-interest demands to create an Office of Gun Violence Prevention that’s stacked with gun control lobbyists. While they blame others challenging them for unsubstantiated claims that gun owners had carte-blanche access to the Oval Office, the Biden administration literally gave gun control lobbyists an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on The White House grounds.

Biden-Harris campaign staffers are scaring voters that the same protections they enjoy on those protected grounds would create chaos should similar protections be afforded to schools and private citizens. It just doesn’t make sense. Criminals – especially violent criminals – have shown time and again that posting “gun-free zone” signs doesn’t deter crime. Meanwhile, investigations have shown that violent criminals sought soft targets where they knew they wouldn’t be confronted by armed security or private citizens protecting themselves with firearms.

President Biden’s pledge to “finish the job” means the end of Constitutional rights. The presidential election is less than a year away and the primary means of preventing these efforts is through the ballot box.

But Trump is a Fascist

Mayor Eric Adams finally had the guts to call out Biden for the border crisis. Almost immediately after, the FBI opened a bribery investigation against him.Then they seized his phones and iPads. Now a liberal activist came forward and is accusing him of sexual assault from 3 decades ago.

And if you’re wondering why no democrat or leftist ever openly defies the party….this is why.

HOW HAMAS BECAME AN ENVIRONMENTALIST AND GUN CONTROL CAUSE

From Queers for Palestine to marchers carrying signs reading, “Palestine is a Reproductive Justice Issue”, the Hamas cause has been vertically integrated throughout the Left. Greta Thunberg was booed after injecting anti-Israel chants into environmental rallies. The BLM movement was a longtime foe of Israel, but Asian Studies departments recently joined in.

The leaders of March for Our Lives and the Sunrise Movement, a gun control group and an environmental protest group, signed a letter to Biden warning that young people wouldn’t vote for him unless he forced Israel to stop attacking Hamas.

How better to promote gun control than by defending mass murderers who used machine guns to kill innocent people and how better to champion the environment than by supporting terrorists who deliberately start fires in Israel. What does Hamas have in common with gun control advocates, environmentalists and abortion activists?

“I think something very bad is happening on the left,” Israel’s Labor leader Merav Michaeli complained. “People who consider themselves to be democratic, progressive, are supporting a totalitarian terror regime that oppresses women, the LGBTQ+ community… The more you go to the left, the more there’s a big mix-up. Something went very wrong on the way.”

The ‘something’ that went wrong is called ‘intersectionality’. That’s why abortion protesters, gay activists, environmentalists, gun control activists and the entire Left have to support Hamas. But intersectionality is also bait and switch. While gay activists have to support Hamas, the Islamic terrorist group doesn’t have to stop throwing them off buildings. Making sure Hamas has enough fuel to fire rockets at Israeli kindergartens may be a reproductive justice issue, but no one expects masked men armed with RPGs to shout, “Allahu Akbar” at a Planned Parenthood rally.

Continue reading “”

Incremental Strategy to Reform & Repeal the National Firearms Act

Previously, this correspondent wrote an essay on Incrementalism v. “all or nothing”. It was well-received:

Roland T. Gunner ~ “Mr. Weingarten, I take my hat off to you. This article is the best thing I have read in modern memory. Now, tell me, how do we get incremental movement on repealing the NFA? And for all you naysayers, sit down, shut up, or help us get it done.”

Incremental movement is happening to dismantle the National Firearms Act (NFA), bit by bit. The ultimate goal is repeal.

Here is how it is being done, and what needs to be done in the future.

Educate Gun Culture & The General Public

When people understand the NFA is the result of a political compromise that did nothing to stop crime; but results in thousands of Americans being punished for peaceful acts, support for the NFA drops to politically irrelevant numbers. Support for the NFA is fairly wide, but very shallow, propped up by the dominant Media and their creation and proliferation of false narratives.

Continue reading “”

Police in This Blue State Will Continue Enforcing ‘Draconian’ Handgun Law Ruled Unconstitutional by Court

Maryland State Police will continue enforcing the state’s handgun law for now, despite a federal appeals court ruling that the licensing requirement is unconstitutional.

“At this time, the HQL law remains in effect and there are no immediate changes in the process to purchase a firearm in Maryland,” the department wrote in an agency-wide advisory after last week’s ruling.

Maryland’s Handgun Qualification License (HQL) requires applicants to submit fingerprints for a background check, take a four-hour firearm safety course with a live fire component, and wait up to 30 days for approval before purchasing a handgun, which then requires another application and seven-day waiting period.

Last Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the law is overly “burdensome” and cannot stand under the 2022 landmark Supreme Court decision that a firearm regulation is unconstitutional unless the government can prove it is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition.

Continue reading “”

November 28

1520 – After 38 days, the naval expedition under the command of Ferdinand Magellan completes the first passage through the Strait of Magellan and enters the Pacific Ocean.

1785 – The first Treaty of Hopewell is signed, where the U.S. acknowledges Cherokee lands in what is now eastern Tennessee.

1794 – Former Continental Army Inspector Major General, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben dies, age 64 at his estate in Oneida County – later Steuben – New York.

1798 – Trade between the United States and modern day Uruguay begins when John Leamy’s frigate John arrives in Montevideo.

1811 – Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, premieres at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.

1821 – The nation of Panama separates from Spain and joins Gran Colombia.

1843 – The Kingdom of Hawaii is officially recognized by the United Kingdom and France as an independent nation.

1895 – The first American automobile road race takes place over the 54 miles from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours.

1908 – An explosion in the Pittsburg Buffalo Company’s mine in Marianna, Pennsylvania, kills 154 men, leaving only 1 survivor.

1912 – Taking advantage of the turmoil caused by the First Balkan War, Albania, which was not one of the belligerents, declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire.

1914 – Closed in July due to the outbreak of war in Europe, the New York Stock Exchange reopens for bond trading.

1925 – The Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee on clear channel radio station WSM.

1942 – In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub kills 492 people

1943 – During World War II, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin meet in Tehran, Iran, to discuss war strategy.

1958 – The U.S. makes the first successful flight of the SM-65 Atlas, the first operational intercontinental U.S. ballistic missile.

1964 –National Security Council members agree to recommend that President Johnson adopt a plan for a two stage escalation of bombing in North Vietnam.

1965 – In response to President Johnson’s call for “more flags” in Vietnam, Philippine President-elect Ferdinand Marcos announces he will send troops to help fight in South Vietnam.

1967 – The first pulsar, PSR B1919+21, is discovered in the constellation of Vulpecula by astronomers Jocelyn Burnell and Antony Hewish at the  Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory in Cambridge, England.

1971 – Wasfi al-Tal, Prime Minister of Jordan, is assassinated by the Black September unit of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

1994 – Jeffrey Dahmer completes his life imprisonment term for multiple murders by being murdered himself by another inmate.

2016 – A chartered Avro RJ85 plane carrying 77 people, including the Chapecoense football team, crashes near Medellín, Colombia.

2020 – David Prowse, English weight-lifting champion, and the actor who portrayed Darth Vader in the original trilogy, dies, age 85, in London.

Where Did New Gun Owners Come From and Where are They Going?

Our society is changing. Those changes caused many of us to buy a firearm. We see that crime is rising around us. We notice that criminals are no longer routinely caught by police and prosecuted in the courts. We consider moving to a safer location. (examples from California and New York) We decided that we need a gun to be safe. That chain of events might sound like mere speculation but a number of recent surveys have confirmed it. Almost 14 million of us bought a gun for the first time in 2020 and 2021. The increase in gun ownership will not lead to a significant change in political affiliation.

Personal protection is the main reason we buy a gun today. By a two-to-one margin, more of us think crime is getting worse rather than getting better. The margin increases to three-to-one when we consider crime in our inner cities. Those opinions come from a Harvard-Harris poll conducted only a few weeks ago in mid-November of 2023. Democrats think the increase in crime is because of a worsening economy while republicans think it is because criminals are not prosecuted for their crimes. Most republicans think that the police are afraid to do their job while most democrats disagree. By a four-to-one margin, voters in both parties think that laws about minor crimes like shoplifting should be rigorously enforced. Except for democrats, a majority of us blame woke democrat politicians and district attorneys who won’t prosecute crimes. Most of us think that the US justice department is focused on politics rather than stopping gangs and crime syndicates.

A majority of voters from both parties now think that it is necessary to own a gun for personal protection. Including independent voters, 63-percent of us now believe it is necessary to own a gun to prevent criminal attacks.

We acted on those personal motivations and gun ownership has grown over time. We’ve seen record gun sales for the last 50 months. We also have mixed data on the number of new gun owners. A Pew research poll from August said that 41 percent of us live in a household with a firearm. That estimate may be on the low side since a Gallup poll put the number at 44 percent. A recent NBC poll put the number at 52% of us who live with a gun in our home. The variance between different polling organizations are significant, but the trend of increased gun ownership is consistent.

We have to be skeptical about these polling numbers. A recent research report said that many of us don’t tell the truth to strangers on the phone when the strangers ask if we own firearms. The research report estimated that as many as 60 percent of adults might own a gun as compared to 30 percent reported earlier.

That is another part of our changing society. It now makes sense that we are reluctant to tell strangers whether we do or do not own firearms. Gun owners don’t want to be targeted and have their guns taken. Households without a gun feel more vulnerable if they admit they are disarmed. All of us have become more concerned about having our personal information gathered and sold. In addition, the precise details of the polling question are critically important.

Let me give a practical example to prove my point. My first auto accident was a dented fender on my parent’s car. My worst auto accident was as a passenger. I wouldn’t mention either of those accidents if you asked me about accidents where I was driving my car. The same situation applies to gun owners as applied to drivers. Many older teenagers and younger adults depend on using someone else’s firearm for protection when they are at home. Likewise, a husband or wife might carry a gun that is actually owned by their spouse.

It is undeniably true that the face of gun ownership is changing. The stereotypical gun owner used to be an old, white, rural male. That face is now a young, urban female minority. In short, gun ownership now represents the population at large. The older stereotype of gun owners was that they were politically conservative. It does not follow that new gun owners will follow suit and vote republican.

Gun ownership is unlikely to change voting patterns. Party affiliation is a stronger predictor of attitude towards firearm regulation than is gun ownership. In general, republicans who don’t own a gun are slightly closer to democrats. Democrats who own a gun are slightly closer to republicans. That said, the difference between the political parties is larger than the difference between gun owners and non-gun owners within the parties.

Owning a firearm is only one of many cultural differences that separate liberal politics from conservative politics. Given the Democrat party’s recent adoption of firearms prohibition, most liberal gun owners ignore their party’s position on guns and vote for liberal candidates anyway.

As usual, change happens at the margin. A centrist democrat who recently bought a gun may now see the Democrat party’s gun prohibitions as the issue that changed his vote.

So, playing classical music and reading classical literature, right?

Language heard while still in the womb found to impact brain development.

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Padua, in Italy, working with a colleague from CNRS and Université Paris Cité, has found evidence suggesting that neural development of babies still in the womb is impacted by the language they hear spoken by their mothers as they carry them.

In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes research they conducted with newborn babies fitted with EEG caps.

Prior research has shown that babies still in the womb (starting at about seven months) can hear when their mother speaks. They can also hear other sounds, such as other voices, music, and general noise. They can also recognize their mother’s voice after birth and specific melodies related to her speech. Less well understood is what sort of impact hearing such things has on the neural development of the baby’s . To learn more, the research team in Italy conducted an experiment involving 33 newborns and their mothers—all of whom were native French speakers.

The experiments consisted of fitting all the newborn volunteers with caps that allowed for EEG monitoring in the days after birth. As the babies slept, the researchers played recordings of a person reading different language versions of the book, “Goldilocks, and the Three Bears.” EEG recordings began during a period of silence before the book was played, continued through the reading and also during another moment of silence afterward.

In studying the EEG readouts, the research team found that the babies listening to the story in French showed an increase in long-range temporal correlations—all of a type that has previously been associated with speech perception and its processing. The researchers suggest this finding is evidence of the baby’s brain being impacted in a unique way by exposure to a unique language while still in utero—in this case, French.

The researchers also conducted detrended fluctuation analysis on the EEG readings as a means of measuring the strength of the temporal correlations and found them to be strongest in the theta band, which prior research has shown is associated with syllable-level speech units. This, the team suggests, shows that the infants’ brains became attuned to the linguistic elements present in the language they had heard.

The research team also found that the baby’s neural response was most strongly seen in the EEG readings when the book was being read in French, suggesting that prenatal exposure to a given language played a role in their brain neural development.

More information: Benedetta Mariani et al, Prenatal experience with language shapes the brain, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adj3524

Journal information: Science Advances