A 2nd Amendment rally was held in Phoenix, Arizona today, the ‘Day of Resistance’ rally, put on by the Phoenix TEA Party. This rally was well attended, with a crowd of 1,500 according to event organizers. Compare that figure to the showing at Congressman Matt Salmon’s office during the Obama For America/Organizing For Action’s National Day of Action in support of gun control. Coincidentally, Congressman Matt Salmon was a featured speaker at today’s pro-gun rally.
Phoenix ‘Day of Resistance’ rally at the Arizona capitol. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu speaking (visible on the right).
Much of the crowd was armed with revolvers, semi-auto handguns, AR-15s, and/or various other rifles. Despite the large number of armed individuals present, only two law enforcement officers were spotted at the rally. One Arizona Department of Public Safety officer who used his car to enforce closing the street in front of the capitol, providing safe passage for all of the pedestrian traffic. The other law enforcement officer was Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, another featured speaker at the rally. As commenter Zermoid noted over at Shall Not Be Questioned, “The fact they felt they needed more cops for an anti rights rally than for a pro gun rally (where alot of the people were probably packing) says ALOT!”
Three local news stations were there to cover today’s event too. I haven’t watched any of the coverage of today’s event, but I have no reason to believe it will be any different than the coverage of last weekend’s pro-rights rally.
A truly grassroots 2nd Amendment Rally was held at the Arizona Capitol last Saturday. Turnout estimates for “High Noon at the Capitol” have ranged from a crowd of 400 people at any given time, to more than 1,500 total based on the number of hand outs distributed.
A producer must have decided the story needed to be more dramatic and scary, did some editing, then ran the story again. The edits turned it into a “Gun Rights/Anti-Obama Rally” about “a small army, armed with hundreds of assault rifles, pistols, and shotguns took to the front lawn at the capitol today”.
ABC15 Reporter, Steve Kuzj, was a good guy and ran a fair story. Please send him a thank you note if you get a chance. Trusting in Mr. Kuzj’s good nature, Jacqueline elected to discuss gun rights, the Sandy Hook shootings, and what should be done to reduce violent murder. The reporter was initially confused about the rally, since he had an announcement that claimed it was supposed to be an Anti-Amnesty rally. He also noted that he would need an opposing view for “balance” in the story, but that there were no anti-rights people counter protesting. Unfortunately, the two or three anti-gun/anti-rights activists in Arizona were busy, so he had to use Facebook comments for balance. It must have been challenging to find a few anti-gun quotes that didn’t include personal attacks, profanity, or delusional thinking.
KPHO CBS-5 did a drive-by hit-piece about an “Impeach Obama Rally”. When contacted by rally attendees about the deceptive story, KPHO adamantly argued that their story was correct. Eventually, they provided a link to an ALIPAC (Americans for Legal Immigration PAC) Facebook event page as the source for their story. Unfortunately, nobody actually organized their national event and only 350 people even “Liked” the event page. Even worse for KPHO, it appears the Washington based ALIPAC planned their event for 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM EST (9:00 to 11:00 Arizona time), while the 2nd Amendment Rally was from noon until 2:00 Arizona time. Yes, a local news station “covered” the story of armed people at the capitol by looking at the wrong event page on Facebook and “constructing” the rest of the story. On the KPHO Facebook page, they blamed the gun-rights rally organizers for the story.
it was presented to us as a rally to “Impeach Obama”. The initial information we received said nothing about gun rights. We expected a few dozen people and weren’t even sure we were going to cover it. It was a surprise to see all those people there and the biggest issue was the 2nd amendment. We would not have even known about the event except for 2 viewers who sent us the first info with links to an Impeach Obama Facebook page. No one involved in the gun rights issue bothered to tell us about the rally. Next time perhaps they will.
I guess KPHO doesn’t believe it is their job to publish accurate stories.
This is a reprint of Dr. Paul Quinnett’s thoughts on how to effectively deal with the disturbed, before they commit murder, reprinted with his permission. I don’t agree with all of his statements, but he actually is willing to have a conversation that focuses on the real issues we face, rather than just latching onto intentionally deceptive, focus group tested, “Demand a Plan” slogans.
Dr. Quinnett noted in his preface: The shooter in Newtown was suicidal first, homicidal second. This is true of most mass murderers and about 30% of domestic violence related murder-suicides.
To keep the debate from veering off into the size of AR-15 magazines and pumping vast sums of money into broad mental health reform, what we need is a targeted, proven, and effective way to address firearms access by persons suffering from suicidal self-directed violence, a few of whom are also homicidal.
Mass murderers never ask themselves, “And after I kill all these innocent people, how will I escape?”
The “escape” is a pre-planned suicide – whether delivered by one’s own hand or by a police sharpshooter.
Reducing access to firearms will surely save lives, but such measures fail to address the source code in all these terrible tragedies: the disordered brain of an utterly hopeless mentally ill suicidal person whose reasons for releasing hell on others die with him.
The vast majority of the mentally ill are not violent, but those who become suicidal represent a special threat to themselves, and sometimes others. The so-called suicide “contagion effect” travels like a virus from one suicidal mind to another suicidal mind via the media, and most mass murders follow another event previously publicized where a “like me” suicidal, rage-filled young man kills others and then himself.
Yes, our culture of violence aids and abets the suicidal mind. Yes, too many guns and large capacity magazines increase the body count. Yes, the contagion effect is real and media exposure of mass murderers inspires copycats.
But let’s be real, while some measures will help on each of these fronts, these genies are out of the bottle and they are not going back in.
Only by preventing the development of his suicidal desire, ideation, intent, capacity, planning and, yes, frustrating his attempt to acquire the firearms that his rage requires to express itself can we hope to find a compassionate and sustainable solution. Early detection, assessment, and treatment of emergent suicidal behavior in known at-risk populations will at least give us a chance for reducing violence in our nation.
The debate on gun control will produce mostly heat, not light. Gun safety is another matter and excellent light on this subject can be found at www.meansmatter.org – one of Harvard’s wonderful School of Public Health’s web sites. Gun owners who are alert to signs of crisis in a family member and temporarily store guns away from home if a family member is at risk of harming themselves or others will avert some disasters.
To understand the prime source code of violence – the suicidal mind – we must first understand that persistent suicidal thoughts and feelings are markers for unremitting, unendurable psychological pain and suffering. If we are thinking about killing ourselves or others, something is terribly wrong and something needs immediate attention and balm.
Psychological pain is one term that covers distress, despair, depression, rage, anxiety, isolation or hopelessness. More than 90% of suicide deaths are by people suffering from serious mental illnesses or substance abuse problems, the majority of which remain untreated, but all of which can cause what may become unbearable psychological pain.
According to a 2008 federal survey, in one year the adult American psychological pain index was as follows:
8.3 million of us seriously considered suicide
2.2 million of us made a plan to kill ourselves
1 million of us made an actual suicide attempt
For 2010, unbearable psychological pain contributed to 38,364 completed suicides. That’s 105 Americans a day. Imagine what Congress and the President would do if a commercial airplane loaded with 100+ Americans crashed not once a year, not once a month, not once a week, but every single day, day after day after day?
Yet because suicidal people usually die alone and devastate only their family and friends, it is only when suicidal people commit mass murder that Congress rises from its lethargy. But it is not just broad mental health reform; it is bringing a laser focus to the prevention of suicide – the source code to violent injury death.
We who work to prevent suicide for a living strongly support this statement by former Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. David Satcher, “Suicide is our most preventable death.” Rather than arming our teachers, we should ask: What actionable public health knowledge do we have to reduce suicide and, with it, collateral violence toward others?
Unknown to the vast majority of the public, we actually have a lot of actionable knowledge. Published only this past September, the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention 2012 represents our best scientific thinking on how to prevent suicide and its related violence toward others. The plan includes achievable goals, objectives, and action steps.
Will it help?
Yes!
Need proof?
In 2003 our own US Air Force published a multi-year study in the prestigious British Medical Journal clearly demonstrating that a robust, mandatory, suicide prevention/mental health promotion program dramatically reduced violence of all kinds. Findings:
33% drop in suicides
18% drop in homicides
54% drop in serious family violence
30% drop in moderate family violence.
18% drop in accidental deaths (some of which were likely disguised suicides)
Several large means restriction efforts to prevent suicide have proven successful in other countries, and in the Air Force study reductions in other-directed violence were a happy and unexpected byproduct.
So let’s focus on what will work. Let’s implement our new National Strategy for Suicide Prevention 2012 now.
Implementing the National Strategy will have a wide, generalized harm-reduction effect through the improvement of the mental health of an entire nation. Remember calm, happy, mentally healthy people – including millions of America gun owners – do not kill themselves or others.
So as the gun debate unfolds let’s not get lost in the bushes of how many bullets a Bushmaster holds, but view it through this lens:
Almost all mass murderers die by suicide.
Suicide is preventable.
Prevent suicide and you prevent violence.
An estimated 39,000 Americans will die by suicide in 2013. Among them will be our children, our teenagers, our working brothers and sisters, and hundreds of doctors, police officers, firemen, and veterans. Since each 1% rise in unemployment drives up the suicide rate by 1%, America’s psychological pain index stands at an all time high. Thanks to improved safety engineering and fewer motor vehicle accident fatalities, suicide deaths now exceed those from car crashes.
So, let’s recalibrate and resource safety-focused interventions that will not only lower our nation’s psychological pain index, but lead to broad reductions in self and other-directed violence, including the risk of mass murders.
When our national grief work is done, let us memorialize our collective loss by taking bold, science-based positive actions. We have a plan. America, it is time!
Paul Quinnett, Ph.D. is President and CEO of the QPR Institute, Inc., an educational organization dedicated to the prevention of suicide @ www.qprinstitute.com. He is also Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health. A free e-book on preventing suicide is available from the Institute’s web site.
By now, you’ve probably heard that U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens, and three other American diplomats were murdered in Benghazi, Libya, coincidentally on September 11th, 2012. I say “coincidentally” because the U.S. media is weaving quite a tall tale in order to prevent any connection to President Obama’s foreign policy, or lack thereof.
How is this fairy tale woven?
Media outlets in the U.S. want you to believe that a Youtube video, posted two months ago, insulted the Muslim religion so much it’s frothing adherents had no choice but to go on a murderous rampage. The video is allegedly a trailer for a movie that apparently doesn’t really exist, performed by actors who swear they didn’t utter the lines in the video, which had offensive dialog dubbed into the clip, then was translated and re-dubbed into arabic with even more offensive dialog, by a man who doesn’t seem to exist, but is a Jewish/Coptic Israeli/Egyptian. The backlash from the video caused immediate protests (two months later) that magically turned violent.
This storyline is so perfect, that any criticism of arming the Muslim Brotherhood to overthrow dictator Mo Gaddafi during the “Arab Spring” is blasphemously “politicizing” this tragic, but predictable outcome for political gain. This is particularly true if you are applying for the job of President and believe you can provide a better outcome.
How is this story reported outside of Never Never Land?
Some group, most likely al-Qaida, meticulously planned an operation to target the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi in an attempt to kill the ambassador and as many other Americans possible to celebrate the anniversary of their September 11th, 2001 terror attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The State Department had received advanced warning of the attack. As with other al-Qaida attacks, this attack was preceded by a video from al-Qaida leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Ayman al-Zawahiri called on Libyans to avenge the death of his Libyan deputy, Abu Yahya al-Libi, in an American drone strike in June.
After attacking the consulate, terrorists armed with RPGs followed the staff to (or already knew) the official “safe house”. Some reports even say that precision mortar strikes rained down on the safe house. Hardly a spontaneous display of rage over an insulting video, but likely a show of force demonstrating that al-Qaida is still a threat.
Back in Never Never Land
Obama supporters in the U.S. media are desperately clinging to their fiction, lest the President’s foreign policy look like a failure. The American press actually expects Romney to refrain from commenting on world events, or they’ll make him look bad. After all, this horrid attack has happened days after the President received drooling praise at the DNC Convention last week, where they even gave him credit for the Arab Spring.
In a move so stupid it defies any sane explanation, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, called publicity whore Koran burning preacher Terry Jones to ask that he pull his support of the offensive video. At the highest levels of our government, the best national security plan they could come up with was calling a two-bit rabble-rouser in Florida and asking him to “tone it down”. I guess the administration believes Terry Jones is THE religious leader of America, and/or that radical Islamikazes will stop being suicidal terrorists if Jones gives the video a thumbs down.
Even American scholars are providing cover for the President by suggesting we further limit the First Amendment through banning “hate speech” (as determined by politicians). They don’t want you to realize the emperor has no clothes and is visibly ill-equipped to deal with national security issues that require quick, decisive, and effective action. The El Dorado Canyon kind of action that stopped old Mo from being a threat to U.S. citizens 26 years ago. Instead, the storytellers want another four years of the presidential puppet show.
Today is our annual day of mourning for the murder of more than 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001. Most consider today a “day of remembrance”, but for me it stirs resentment.
Our biggest memorial to those lost on that September morning is an unfinished war in Afghanistan, a huge bureaucratic expansion of inept Government, and too many of our best and brightest killed or wounded in combat without clear goals.
I remember September 11th when I see frail elderly women “asked” to climb out of their wheelchairs and walk through body scanners at the airport, because those crippled old women could be dangerous terrorists.
I remember September 11th when I see a love note from Transportation Security Administration in my luggage, reassuring me that they’ve rummaged through my underwear for “prohibited items” and found nothing of interest.
I remember September 11th when the news media covers “important” issues – demands to see Mitt Romney’s tax returns, what’s happening on Jersey Shore, and how President Obama’s “jobless economic recovery” has saved the United States.
I remember September 11th when attending the Gun Blogger Rendezvous, which was held to raise money for Soldiers’ Angels Project Valour-IT.
I remember September 11th when I see the young men and women at the hotel for the Tailhook Association reunion (an association for aircraft carrier and sea-based aircrews).
I remember September 11th when Mz. VRWC remarks that those young men and women look like they’re barely out of high school.
I remember September 11th when I remind her that those same young professionals are trusted to fly heavily armed, multimillion dollar aircraft, while making life and death decisions as part of their daily job. Unfortunately, they don’t have the right carry a concealed weapon on most college campuses, because they can’t be trusted to “use the best judgment”.
I remember September 11th when I remember how we went to war to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan.
I remember September 11th when I wonder how and when the war in Afghanistan will end.
Yes, I remember that day and I mourn the loss and the pain of those directly affected by that act of terrorism. I also remember the people lost during our response to a barbaric attack directed at civilian U.S. citizens. I won’t forget that day, nor the losses we’ve had since, but I can’t help remembering my bitter resentment too.
It’s time for SHOT Show 2012. Time for the annual pilgrimage to NSSF’s Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, the biggest firearms trade show in America. Mz. VRWC and I will lead you to the various temptations of new guns you’ll need to buy this year.
Our GunBroker.com SHOT Glass from SHOT Show 2011. What will they have for us this year?
My Hi-Point 995 9mm carbine torture test is complete. I didn’t set out to conduct a torture test of the Hi-Point carbine, it just happened. I wanted a cheap, pistol-caliber carbine for shooting a tactical carbine/shotgun match at Phoenix Rod & Gun Club, to see if this was a discipline I would want to spend my time and money on. The rifle retails for only around $250 or less, making it much cheaper than a 9mm AR platform rifle for “testing the water”.
Danno, over at SandCastle Scrolls, appeared at the range on the day I was sighting in my new carbine. I couldn’t stop giggling as I created a jagged hole in the upper A-zone on a USPSA target. This proved to be way too much for Danno, as he explained in his Very Short Play in Three Scenes.
I had more than 15 rounds stuffed into the ProMag magazine. The mag hit the ground when I racked the slide. I shot the same match the following week, loading the aftermarket mags with only 14 rounds, and didn’t have any malfunctions.
I’ve shot all but one of the monthly matches in the last year, but I haven’t bothered to upgrade to a different carbine. I haven’t even taken the time to clean the one that I have. Over a year, and more than 1,000 rounds later, I’ve finally started to have a small problem with my American made rifle. At last night’s match, the bolt needed a slight tap to get the gun to go into battery for the first round on each stage. Despite the extra required nudge during loading, the rifle shot flawlessly and has never had a malfunction that wasn’t traceable to aftermarket magazines.
The little burp going into battery meant the rifle was telling me something. It was ready for a cleaning and maybe some oil. Once stripped, I was surprised that there wasn’t a pile of broken parts inside, but it was filthy.
More than a year of shooting without maintenance and it’s still cruising.
It took almost two hours to get all of the gunk out. The gunk included some of the receiver paint that had peeled off and blended into the burnt powder gunk.
It turns out that over 1,000 rounds of the cheapest, nastiest ammo I could use, fired during scorching hot duststorms and freezing rainstorms, had made the rifle dirty (shocking isn’t it). That little carbine still ran and fired every time the trigger was squeezed.
I don’t think I could ask for much more from any rifle. In fact, at every carbine match in the last year, I’ve watched rifles with much better pedigrees and significantly higher price tags malfunction on every stage. This brings me to the most important reason for cleaning the little rifle that could. True Blue Sam is hosting a Hi-Point e-postal match for November. If you have a Hi-Point carbine, join in and see how your shooting skills compare to others.
I am impressed with this inexpensive American-made rifle. It works reliably every time. If you want a fun little carbine that will shoot 9mm hollow points and is compact enough for home defense, or need something for tactical pistol-caliber competition, the Hi-Point 995 is a great choice. It is a fun little rifle to shoot for grins and giggles, that also could be considered as an affordable home defense option.
