Are Gun Grabbers or Gun Owners Empathic and Distrustful?

Both sides of the gun debate feel that their position is correct. Both sides agree that horrible people do horrible things. Both sides of the debate want to stop that. That small point of agreement is where progress in the debate usually ends. I think both sides are empathic and distrustful but they are paying attention to very different things. A way to get farther in the debate is to ask a deeper question.

The anti-gun side says that the bad guys would become better guys if they were disarmed, and that the other side loves guns more than they love people. The self-defense side replies that gun-control disarms far more victims than criminals. They note that disarmed bad guys are still bad guys, and the vast majority of violent crimes are committed with fists, clubs, and knives rather than guns.

The pro-gun side of the debate says that the victims of violent crime would be less victimized if they were allowed an armed defense. The anti-gun side of the debate answers that guns are just tools of violence and violence is never an optimal solution.

Neither side changes their opinion because the argument never touches their core beliefs. I want us to join in the debate by asking a more fundamental question; can we be trusted with violence?

Most of us need to do some homework before we can put an answer together. Let’s look at the question piece at a time.

Can you judge when violence is justified? Have you studied enough to make that decision in a short amount of time? Can you recognize when violence is not only justified but a necessary evil that avoids a greater evil? Taken to the obvious limit, can you use a lethal tool to kill another person?

Those are difficult questions, but this isn’t a philosophy course where we have a semester to debate each answer. The hard part about the questions is that we will answer on our own in a very limited amount of time. We have neither the time to ask, nor is there an informed authority who knows our situation in enough detail to give us accurate and useful answers about what to do.

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Anti-Gun Politicians Lie About Violent Crime Because Telling the Truth Is Politically Costly

Last month, a man murdered his three daughters, ages 9, 10 and 13 in Sacramento, California. He also murdered the court-ordered chaperone who was supervising their visit. The murderer then shot himself. He used a modern rifle.

Democrat Governor Gavin Newsome called it, “Another senseless act of gun violence in America – In a church with kids inside – Our hearts go out to the victims, their families and their communities.”

Democrat State Attorney General Robert Bonta said, “We need to enforce more of the laws that we have. The rise in violent crime throughout the country is almost entirely because of guns.”

Of course they said that. They have to blame “the gun” because to speak the truth about what happened would offend of too many of the Democrats’ special interests. Here is some of what these Democrat officials couldn’t say out loud.

  • Democrat politicians couldn’t tell us the murderer was an illegal immigrant who overstayed his visa five years ago.
  • They couldn’t tell us that the murderer had an active restraining order that made him a prohibited possessor, and his possession of a firearm illegal. They left out that in legal documents the murderer swore he didn’t have any firearms.
  • They didn’t tell us that the murderer’s ex-girlfriend said he had mental health issues and had threatened her with violence and threatened to take his own life.
  • Democrats politicians didn’t tell us that the murderer was under a detainer request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement so that he could be deported.
  • They can’t say that the murderer was arrested and in police custody only five days ago for driving under the influence, resisting arrest, and assaulting police and medical staff who tried to help him.
  • Democrat politicians have to ignore that 85 percent of violent crimes don’t involve a firearm.

Democrats can’t speak these truths because those admissions would upset the special interests that keep these politicians in power.

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Yes, It probably was a fake officer since they weren’t smart enough to ‘pat down’ the victim to check for weapons.

Home invasion victim shoots, kills armed police impersonator in Mayfair

Police say at least one male was armed with a gun and had a police badge around his neck, which turned out to be fake.
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — A home invasion involving men pretending to be police officers in Philadelphia ended with a deadly shooting when the victim turned the tables on the suspects, police say.

Just after 10 p.m. Sunday, police were called to the 7200 block of Battersby Street in Mayfair for the report of a shooting.
According to authorities, a 25-year-old man had just returned home to a duplex on the block. After parking his car in a rear driveway, the resident walked up to the steps to his front door when he was approached by two males. Police say at least one male was armed with a gun and had a police badge around his neck, which turned out to be fake. He identified himself as a police officer.

The two males then forced the resident into his property and demanded money. “They tied his hands with zip ties around his back and threatened to kill him if he made any sudden moves. That’s when our victim realized these individuals were not police officers,” said Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small.

According to police, the 25-year-old victim was able to free his hands and grab a gun from his pocket. The victim fired several shots toward the men, striking the police impersonator three times.

The other suspect fled the scene on the foot. Police say it does not appear he was hit. Responding officers rushed the wounded suspect to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Police recovered the suspect’s gun as well as the weapon the 25-year-old resident fired. “I saw my neighbor outside speaking very loudly obviously he was very emotional.” said neighbor Ted Alicea.

Alicea says his neighbor was distraught after the attack.

“He was excited telling police, ‘The guy identified himself, I thought it was a cop.’ He kept saying one guy got away,” said Alicea. The victim and a woman who was also inside the home at the time were taken to the homicide division to make statements.

“We did find some cameras in the neighborhood and hopefully we can find some video that could help us with this investigation,” said Chief Inspector Small. Police are still looking for the second would-be robber.

Police say the victim had a license to carry. No charges have been filed at this time.

Media Has a New Talking Point to Defend Joe Biden – but It Makes Him Sound Even Worse

While sometimes you get a little truth from the liberal media, such as when CNN polling guy Harry Enten said how “really, really, really bad” the polling numbers for Joe Biden were — indeed, the worst ever for anyone at this stage of their term — a lot of the liberal media is still an acid bath of people hidebound to push the Democratic narrative to do what they can for Joe Biden.

One of the worst shills for the Democratic narrative is CNN’s John Harwood. But his excuse for Joe Biden — the latest Democratic talking point to excuse his failures — isn’t going to help him. Indeed, it makes him sound worse. According to Harwood, there’s not much Biden can do about any of the problems that are plaguing the country.

There’s just not much President Joe Biden can do about it.
There’s not much he can do to curb inflation.
There’s not much he can do to stop migrants from reaching America’s southern border.
Or to reduce crime,
or to make vaccine resisters get shots that would hasten the end of the coronavirus pandemic.
There’s not much he can do to compel cooperation from defectors within his thin Democratic congressional majorities. There is nothing at all he can do to compel it from Republican adversaries who would rather aggravate than alleviate his burdens.

But this appears to be the new talking point for some of the media. Here it is on ABC, as well, on Sunday.

Harwood even admits that Joe Biden’s policies led to inflation, “Liberal and conservative economists share a growing consensus that Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan last year pumped too much money into the economy.” But his response? “Yet the White House can’t fundamentally alter that reality now.”

Oh, great, so we should just suffer when he was told it was wrong and he did it anyway? When he lied to us about inflation being “transitory” for months? When he continues to lie about it being Putin’s fault? And the worst thing is that Biden would have spent even more on the plans that he was trying to push through Congress which — if he had gotten them — would have driven up inflation even more. So either he was still ignorant as to what causes inflation or he’s just so wedded to spending for the Democratic agenda that he doesn’t care how much it might hurt Americans.

Harwood’s excuse for Biden on the border crisis was even worse.

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TODAY’S INSTALLMENT IN THE FEINSTEIN COUNTDOWN

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, a reliable barometer of certified liberal opinion inside the Beltway, has a column up about the matter of Dianne Feinstein, which even a careless reader can make out as another loud note in chorus of coordinated voices that has determined that Feinstein needs to be forced from office.

The article breaks no new ground in terms of news value or reporting, as with one small exception it simply recycles the details of the San Francisco Chronicle story. The one small exception is this passage:

Feinstein’s handling of the 2018 Brett M. Kavanaugh confirmation hearings — in particular, her decision not to alert fellow lawmakers to the allegations by Christine Blasey Ford — prompted a near-insurrection by her Democratic colleagues.

I hadn’t heard previously that other Democratic Senators had been annoyed by being blindsided by the Blasey Ford allegations, and I am not sure I believe it.

The column pretends to be a high-minded meditation on the general problem of people staying too long in office, and here, too, there is an interesting tell. As Marcus explains it:

Feinstein is the oldest sitting senator, but she is far from the only official whose mental acuity has been called into question. . .

So one question raised by the focus on Feinstein must be whether, as some of her defenders insinuate, there is sexism at work. I think I have pretty good radar for sexism, and I just don’t see it. . . To the extent that there is differential treatment, the explanation might be less gender than ideology. Progressive Democrats long frustrated by Feinstein’s centrism are eager for a more liberal replacement.

There it is. (Never mind that Feinstein’s “centrism” is largely a myth, but it is easy to pull off that con when your fellow Senator is Barbara Boxer and then Kamala Harris.) And beyond this candid admission, we have to wonder whether this effort to drive Feinstein from office is a dry run for how the left will try to remove President Biden at some point soon.

EVENTS OF APRIL 18, 1775

“Listen my children and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere…”

With these words an American poet and ardent abolitionist named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized Paul Revere and Old North Church in American history and myth. Many of us may remember the poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” but it doesn’t portray the true events of what took place on that fateful night. Longfellow wrote the poem 80 YEARS after Revere’s famous midnight ride when the country was on the brink of Civil War in 1860. He wanted to inspire people to join the Union army by demonstrating that one person could make a difference AND change history in the process. As we shall see, the only one really changing history was Longfellow himself through his creatively altered story. The real events of what took place on April 18, 1775 are far more interesting.

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Analysis: Biden’s Aggression Elevates Gun Politics Before the Election

Will gun control become a top election issue?

It didn’t seem likely for a while. The high visibility of pressing concerns like 40-year high inflation rates, a burgeoning humanitarian crisis in the ongoing war in Ukraine, and domestic culture warring over education policy have been at the top of most Americans’ minds.

But actions taken by President Joe Biden this week may very well have foisted the issue of guns back onto the radar of voters going into November’s midterm elections. Largely at the behest of a sustained pressure campaign from gun-control groups, President Biden announced his new nominee to head the ATF on Monday. He also announced the accelerated release of the final ATF rule banning “ghost gun” kits.

Either action taken on its own would be enough to raise the political stakes. Gun control by executive fiat is a policy route that draws the ire of gun owners and energizes gun-control advocates. But combining that announcement with the another attempt to successfully confirm a permanent ATF director takes the political stakes up a notch.

Getting a permanent ATF director confirmed is a tough battle in any political environment, as evidenced by the fact that only one director has been confirmed since 2006. The Trump administration was not even successful in confirming a nominee despite Republican control of the Senate at the time.

But the failure of David Chipman’s nomination to the ATF director role was perhaps the most high-profile political loss for Biden thus far in an administration that has seen its fair share of contentious confirmation battles. The fact that the Biden administration would return to that well after burning so much political capital in vain last time around suggests a commitment to making gun control a key selling point for his party.

Dettelbach may not have the same political baggage as his ill-fated predecessor. Chipman was a professional gun-control advocate employed by Giffords prior to his nomination. He also had a history of making controversial and derisive statements about the industry and gun owners he would be in charge of regulating at the ATF. Plus, serious concerns about his character while working as a federal agent were uncovered after his nomination.

Dettelbach supports many of the same gun restrictions Chipman did. He was endorsed by the gun-control groups during his failed 2018 AG campaign, but has never directly worked for them like Chipman did. He has used heated rhetoric to question the integrity of Ohio’s elections. But much of his background is still unexplored to this point.

The renewed push for a permanent ATF director is likely part of the White House’s attempt to dissuade voter concerns over rising crime. Dettelbach’s background as a prosecutor and the bipartisan support he has received thus far from other prosecutors and law enforcement officials provides some support for that idea.

However, Dettelbach is on record as supporting contentious gun-control policies like “assault weapons” bans and universal background check mandates. His backing of those policies will undoubtedly raise the salience of gun politics alongside crime concerns in his upcoming confirmation battle.

The president is taking a political risk by announcing another gun-control advocate to lead the agency charged with regulating the firearms industry while releasing controversial new gun regulations. It isn’t immediately clear this nominee will fare better than the last in terms of securing the support of moderates in the Senate, and another tense confirmation fight this close to election season could be a political liability for Democrats. At the same time, his final “ghost gun” kit ban has already mobilized Republican political opposition, and the forthcoming pistol brace ban–which will directly impact millions of Americans–will only add more fuel to that fire.

The President’s handling of gun policy has been underwater for nearly a year. Now, Democrats as a party are polling behind Republicans on guns too.

As election season draws nearer, it’s unclear how enthusiastic moderate Democrats from vulnerable states will be to vote for an ATF candidate with an established history of support for gun restrictions.

But it is clear that the President has set in motion the potential for gun politics to be a motivating issue for voters just months away from a midterm election poised to deliver serious Republican gains. How will voters react?

BLUF:
Elon Musk will not save free speech online. Even if his intentions really are good ones, the scale of the problem goes beyond one platform. And free speech online is too important to rely on the benevolence of billionaires. But his attempted takeover of Twitter has already done us a great service, in revealing how important censorship now is to America’s permanently hysterical elites. (Just call them what they are: wanna-be tyrants)

WHY ELON MUSK HAS RATTLED THEM

We stand here on the edge of tyranny… Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter. That, roughly speaking, has been the commentariat reaction in recent days as the world’s richest man has launched a takeover attempt of the social-media giant, citing his concerns about its censorious policies as his main motivation.

Musk revealed last week that he had become Twitter’s largest shareholder, with a 9.2 per cent stake. Now he’s offered to buy the whole company for a cool $43 billion, a nice premium on its current worth. As it stands, Twitter’s board is resisting and America’s great and good have gone berserk.

The Washington Post’s Max Boot was swift out of the blocks. ‘I am frightened by the impact on society and politics if Elon Musk acquires Twitter’, Boot tweeted. ‘He seems to believe that on social media anything goes. For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less.’

On an even more demented note, Robert Reich, veteran of the Clinton and Obama administrations, essentially argued that Musk buying Twitter would put us on a fast track to fascism; that Musk’s vision for an ‘uncontrolled’ internet was ‘​​the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron’.

Reich wasn’t the only one gripped by this interesting idea that dictators love free speech and that more of it online will bring the Third Reich back. New York University journalism professor ​​Jeff Jarvis had this poetic response to Musk’s bid: ‘Today on Twitter feels like the last evening in a Berlin nightclub at the twilight of Weimar Germany.’

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More Gun Control Is Not the Solution, Most Voters Say

In the wake of Tuesday’s mass shooting on a Brooklyn subway train, most voters don’t think more control laws will prevent such incidents.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters don’t think stricter gun control laws would help prevent shootings like the one Tuesday that left 29 people injured in Brooklyn. Thirty-eight percent (38%) think stricter gun control laws would help prevent mass shootings, while another 11% are not sure. These findings are virtually identical to a March 2021 survey, when President Joe Biden called for new gun control measures in the aftermath of two mass shootings. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The survey of 1,000 U.S. Likely Voters was conducted on April 12-13, 2022 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Man, 21, arrested a week after 3 killed at Georgia gun range

GRANTVILLE, Ga. (AP) — A 21-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a fatal armed robbery at a Georgia gun range that left three members of a family dead last week.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Friday that Jacob Christian Muse, of College Park, is charged with three counts of malice murder.

Grantville officers who arrived at the scene of Lock Stock & Barrel Shooting Range on the night of April 8 discovered the bodies of the gun range’s owner, along with his wife and grandson.

Investigators said that as many as 40 guns and the range’s surveillance camera were also stolen. Authorities did not release additional information about Muse’s arrest.

Blinded Me with Violence: How the Left Fosters ‘Hate Crime’ Then Plays the Victim

I haven’t seen anyone else mention this, but subway shooter Frank James’s decision to shoot up a train in Sunset Park, Brooklyn likely wasn’t random. Check out the racial background of the neighborhood:

35.6% – Hispanic
34.8% – Asian
23.7% – white
3.9% – black

Until recently, you could see shooter Frank James spewing his black supremacy and hatred, but YouTube has now removed his channel. For those who didn’t see the videos, they were brimming with racial loathing for Asian, Hispanic, and white people.

You can see here that many of Frank James’s victims are Asian. For a “crazy” guy, he seems to have known what he was doing.

FACT-O-RAMA! In one if his videos, Frank James actually sobs upon hearing the news that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is married to a white man.

The problem is this: Frank James sees himself — and all black people — as victims. In one of his now-deleted videos, James tells other black folks that white people hate them, and that black people will be exterminated like the Jews were in Europe. This, despite the fact that America is bending over backward to keep black people out of jail. Shoplifting is all but legal now. Lefty cities have decriminalized certain driving laws that black people are more likely to break seem to affect black people more. Let’s not even get started on the surge of Soros-funded DAs who refuse to send black criminals — even violent miscreants — to jail. New York’s commie District Attorney, Alvin Braggs, is now actually allowing people to have their convictions “reviewed.”

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Why not just say it plainly? Biden is a bald faced liar, and always has been.

Biden Is Truth-Challenged When It Comes to the Second Amendment (and Much Else)

Since taking office, Joe Biden has been busy weaponizing the federal government against Americans who make or desire to purchase firearms. Naturally, he defends this by trotting out false claims about the Second Amendment. A favorite of his is the statement that when the Second Amendment was adopted, people couldn’t buy a cannon.

He’s taken to task for that assertion in this Truth about Guns post. 

Since he first made that statement, it has been refuted several times, such as in this article by Robert Wright.

Does Biden know or care? Of course not. The truth or falsity of a claim doesn’t matter, only advancing his agenda.

Even if it were true that the Second Amendment doesn’t allow anyone to buy a cannon, that would not logically lead to his conclusion that the feds should prevent buying all kinds of other firearms. Neither truth nor logic are of any concern to Biden.

If you’d like to be well armed to argue with Bidenistas over the meaning of the Second Amendment, I suggest reading America, Guns, and Freedom by Miguel Faria.

Would-be carjacker shot by intended victim in Bywater

A would-be carjacker remained hospitalized Friday in New Orleans after his intended victim shot him in the neck.

The wounded 17-year-old arrived unresponsive Thursday night at Tulane Medical Center, where police also found his alleged accomplice in the botched Bywater theft, a law enforcement source said. The second suspect, also 17, reportedly admitted participating in the crime, the source said, and the Police Department planned to book both with armed robbery and illegal possession of a gun.

The crime was reported in the 500 block of Louisa Street. Police arrived at 7:08 p.m., 10 minutes after being called, according to publicly available data.

There, the two teens targeted a 48-year-old man who had gotten out of his vehicle and was walking toward his house, the source said. The teens drove their own vehicle in reverse down the man’s street, and one got out of the passenger seat, pointed a gun at the man and demanded his keys.

The man told police he flung his keys, took cover under a nearby car and pulled out a pistol. He said he saw one teen by his vehicle, pointing a gun at him. The man told police he fired a single gunshot at the teen then ran for his house.

He said he heard someone scream an expletive, then both teens drove away on Louisa in their vehicle.

The teens picked up a third person then went to the hospital. There police seized two pistols, one of them stolen, from the accomplice, who told officers the guns belonged to him and the wounded suspect.

A single shot
The suspected accomplice was with his grandmother at the hospital, and both agreed to interviews, the law enforcement source said.

At the scene of the crime, police found evidence of a single gunshot.

Since May, four people have had their vehicles stolen at gunpoint, by force or intimidation in the 500 through 900 blocks of Louisa Street, according to the Police Department’s major offense log, and two people were victims of attempted carjackings there, making it one of the busiest stretches in one of the busiest neighborhoods for carjackings.

Well, after sinking their Black Sea Fleet Flagship, I’d think talks would collapse too.

UKRAINE INVASION UPDATE 23

April 15

“Negotiations: Ceasefire negotiations have effectively collapsed.”

The Ukraine Invasion Update is a weekly synthetic product covering key political and rhetorical events related to renewed Russian aggression against Ukraine. This update covers events from April 8-14. All of the ISW Russia’s team’s coverage of the war in Ukraine—including daily military assessments and maps, past Conflict Updates, and several supplemental assessments—are available on our Ukraine Crisis Coverage landing page.

Key Takeaways April 8-14

  • Ukraine and Russia are both unlikely to advance ceasefire negotiations until the ongoing Russian campaign in eastern Ukraine develops further. The Kremlin likely seeks to capture at minimum the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, while Kyiv seeks to further degrade the Russian military and potentially conduct major counteroffensives.
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin may be purging elements of his intelligence service and blaming close allies for Russian intelligence and planning failures in the lead-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
  • The Kremlin is likely falsely blaming Ukrainian forces for planning or conducting provocations in areas where Russian forces intend to commit or have already committed atrocities.
  • Independent actors are unlikely to be able to verify Ukraine’s April 11 claim that Russian forces used chemical weapons in Mariupol, but Russian forces retain the capability to use chemical weapons beyond this specific instance.
  • The Kremlin is reframing the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a Western war against Russia in a likely effort to maintain Russian domestic acceptance of the war.
  • Belarus and Russia are increasing economic ties—and likely Kremlin influence over Belarus—as sanctions cut off both states from international markets.
  • Finland and Sweden are increasingly reconsidering their non-aligned status and may move to join NATO in the coming months.
  • Western countries continued to search for alternatives to Russian energy while the Kremlin tried to downplay the effects of Western sanctions on its economy and energy sector.
  • NATO countries continue to secure their eastern borders and provide military assistance (including several high-end capabilities) to Ukraine to counter Russian aggression.

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I think if you don’t already have a Pocket Rocket™ this looks like a good one.

Gun Review: Smith & Wesson CSX Hammer-Fired 9mm Micro Compact

Smith & Wesson’s new CSX fills a gap in the pocket pistol market, scratching that double-digit round count micro compact itch we all seem to have, but doing it with an external hammer. The CSX is a little old school and a lot new school, and TTAG took it to the range to see how it stacks up.

If you’d rather watch than read, you’ll find my video range review embedded above. Otherwise, here we go . . .

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The Brooklyn Subway Attack Just Unraveled the Gun Control Argument Presented in NYSRPA v. Bruen.

The attack that occurred in New York City subway yesterday is proof positive that gun control, as envisioned by the Gun Control Industry and like-minded politicians, simply does not work. Honest, hard-working people were going about their day in Brooklyn, headed to work. Thanks to the intransigence of their local and state governments, these people were completely disarmed, left to the mercy of someone who’d planned his attack to do the most damage possible.

“First responders” were too late to do anything about the shooting. They always are.

As a former police officer, I know the sad truth. We virtually always respond to events after the fact. We rarely prevent them from occurring. What stops bad people from doing terrible things is good people. Good people who are there, at the scene, and armed.

New York City’s Mayor, Eric Adams, a former NYPD officer, knows this, but like so many before him, he chooses to ignore it. Instead, he spews the same old media-friendly prescriptions of increasing the number of police in NYC’s Subways. It’s all just security theater that will continue to leave the city’s residents vulnerable to the rising crime and violence that have plagued the city.

 

Subway crime is hardly unusual. From February 21 to February 27 alone, 55 subway crimes were reported. That’s compared to 18 in 2021. NYC had a 205.6% jump in crime. New Yorkers can actually track the crime that’s afflicting their city on the NYPD’s own website.

Subway crimes stats increased 72.4% for the most recent 28-day period, and 72.8% year-to-date compared to the same time last year, the data shows. Hate crimes have jumped up 200% and the total crime index jumped up 47%.

This has become the new norm for the city’s straphangers.

 

The irony of this is thick. In her arguments last year before the Supreme Court against lifting New York’s “may issue” concealed carry permitting system — which, in practice, is a no-issue system, except for the rich and powerful — New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood cited the city’s subway system as an example of why legal concealed carry by average citizens must continue to be banned.

Here’s how her exchange with Justice Samuel Alito went . . .

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Hitler thought the west was weak and decadent
Tojo thought the U.S. people were weak and lazy.
Napoleon thought the British were a ‘nation of shopkeepers’

While that Russian priest was correct about a lot of the immorality seen in the west, he, and a lot of others, always seem to make the mistake of believing that the loudest is an actual majority.

The Russian conservative elites currently in power supported war because they see Western power as decadent and declining.

“In his sermon approximately two weeks into the war, on March 6, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church justified the invasion of Ukraine as necessary to defend Orthodox Christians against Western values and gay pride parades. On March 24, during a meeting with young artists, Russian President Vladimir Putin complained about… the West was now ‘trying to cancel a whole 1,000-year culture, our people … Russian writers and books are now canceled.’… Russian media filled with TV shows and ‘documentaries’ on ‘Gayropa’ and ‘Sodom.’

These shows conjured up a caricature of weak ‘gayish’ Western males and women who lost their femininity by competing with men in spheres where they could achieve nothing serious. Russian media frequently stressed the oddity that many Western democracies nominated women as defense ministers… … Russia depicted itself… as the country of strength, the bulwark of traditional families: with strong men, fertile women and children properly guarded against subversive homosexual propaganda… Fascinated by this flattering vision of Russia, elites, it seems, overestimated the nation’s strength and underestimated Ukraine’s.”

Write Kristina Stoeckl and Dmitry Uzlaner in “Russia believed the West was weak and decadent. So it invaded. Russia sees itself at the global forefront of the culture wars, leading the resistance to gay parades, ‘cancel culture,’ and liberal values more generally” (WaPo).