text:
This is a TSP script that installs support for list sweeps with an arbitrary mix of voltage and current steps on Series 2600B and 2650A SMU instruments.
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Power Equipment
Featured categories
More Categories in Power Equipment
In the event of an emergency, a generator can save the day. Each generator option available through Sam's Club offers its own unique features including wattage, running time, and noise level output. In addition, some generators are smaller in size and portable versus their larger counterparts capable of powering a higher wattage level. Generator brands including Gentron and Black Max are stocked and ready to help you in your time of need.
Pressure Washers/Power Washers
Cleaning automobiles or outdoor areas with concrete, brick, or glass can be simple and convenient with a pressure washer. A pressure washer should be selected by the job and surface you desire to cleanse. The pressure of the water along with the size of the machine will differ from item to item. You will shop from brands such as Black Max, Simpson, Gentron, Pressure-Pro and POWERWASHER at Sam's Club and you can expect quality products at affordable prices. Accessories are also available for the pressure washers ranging from nozzles to hose to cleaning agents.
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Find all your auto power equipment needs at Sam's Club today.

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Budget Battles
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Medicaid Work Rules Approved for South CarolinaBy Michael Rainey
The Trump administration on Thursday approved South Carolina's request to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid...
Watchdog Questions $6.7 Billion in Medicare PaymentsBy Michael Rainey
Health insurance companies in the Medicare Advantage program have received billions in extra payments after making adjustments to their patient charts – changes that the Department of Health and...
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Congressional appropriators have reportedly reached a deal "in principle" to fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year and avert a potential shutdown at the end of next week. The...
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A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration's plan to divert $3.6 billion in military funds toward construction of barriers along the border with Mexico. District Court Judge...
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It looks like Space Force has earned its wings. The leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees announced late Monday an agreement on the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which...
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The war in Afghanistan is the longest armed conflict in U.S. history, and throughout the 18 years of fighting, U.S. officials have publicly said they were making progress. Yet a new investigative...
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The federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2019 was nearly $1 trillion. "In the next downturn, don't be surprised if this number hits $2 trillion," writes Nick Timiraos, The Wall Street Journal's...
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The Trump administration is spending $28 billion to bail out farmers hurt by the president's trade war with China – a huge sum that some experts say overestimates the economic losses inflicted by the...
New Trump Food Stamp Rule Will Cut 700,000 from ProgramBy Michael Rainey
The White House said Wednesday that it has finalized a rule that will tighten work requirements for participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The new rule could result...
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The extensive array of government assistance programs — including Social Security, unemployment insurance, veterans' benefits, nutritional aid, rental assistance and the Earned Income Tax Credit —...
Trump Scores a Win From NATO, but Fireworks AheadBy Michael Rainey
Ahead of NATO's 70th-anniversary meeting in London this week, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced last Thursday that the U.S. will contribute less to the alliance's relatively small central...
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Lawmakers took a big step over the weekend toward reaching a spending deal for the 2020 fiscal year, though a major hurdle — funding for President Trump's border wall — remains in place. On Saturday...
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Many teenagers experience times when keeping up with schoolwork is difficult. These periods may last for several weeks and may result in social problems as well as a decline in academic performance.
Some adolescents get through these difficult times with minimal assistance from their parents or teachers. It may be enough for parents to listen to the teenager's problems and suggest coping strategies, provide a supportive home environment, and encourage the teenager's participation in extracurricular school activities.
However, when the difficulties last longer than a single grading period or are linked to a long-term pattern of poor school performance or problematic behaviors, parents and teachers may need to intervene.
Who's at Risk for Failure?
Some students may exhibit at-risk behaviors from the early elementary school years on; others may overcome early difficulties but could experience related problems during the middle or high school years. Still others may not exhibit at-risk behaviors until early adolescence.
To intervene effectively, parents and teachers need to know some common characteristics of adolescents at risk for school failure. These characteristics include:
When an adolescent exhibits more than one of these characteristics, he or she will likely need assistance from parents and teachers if he or she is to be successful in school. If parents and teachers step back and let these students "figure it out" or "take responsibility for their own learning,"this may lead to a deeper cycle of failure at school.
What Role Does Parenting Style Play?
Parenting style may affect a child's school behavior. Many experts distinguish among permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative parenting styles. These parenting styles are associated with different combinations of warmth and support, and limit-setting and supervision for children.
The permissive style tends to emphasize warmth and support, and the authoritarian style tends to emphasize limit-setting and supervision. The authoritative style offers a combination of both warmth and support and limit-setting and supervision, and it has been identified as the parenting style that is more likely to encourage academic success in adolescents. Authoritative parents are warm and responsive but are also able to establish and enforce standards for their children's behavior, to monitor conduct, and to encourage communication. Authoritative parents make it clear that they expect responsible behavior from their children and that they are available to support their children as needed.
How Should I Respond?
Parents often feel uncertain about how to approach their adolescent or the school when their teenager seems to be having difficulty. However, it is important to remember that adolescents need their parents not only to set appropriate expectations and boundaries, but also to advocate for them. Teachers can ease parents' concerns by including the parents as part of the student's educational support team. When an adolescent is having difficulty, parents can help by:
Understanding the factors that may put an adolescent at risk for academic failure can help parents and teachers to determine if a student is in need of extra help or support. Being aware of common problems can help parents know when it is important to reach out to the student before a "difficult time" develops into a more serious situation.
Where Can I Get More Information?
The following organizations offer information about at-risk students and about elementary and early childhood education:
ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Children's Research Center
51 Gerty Drive
Champaign, IL 61820–7469
Toll Free: 800–583–4135
Phone: 217–333–1386
Fax: 217–333–3767
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Web: http://www.ericeece.org/
National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth
P.O. Box 13505
Silver Spring, MD 20911–3505
Phone: 301–608–8098
Fax: 301–608–8721
E-mail: email@example.com
Web: http://www.ncfy.com/
National Middle School Association
2600 Corporate Exchange Drive, Suite 370
Columbus, OH 43231
Toll Free: 800–528–NMSA (6672)
Phone: 614–895–4730
Fax: 614–895–4750
Web: http://www.nmsa.org/
(Information provided by Educational Resources Information Center)
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Saturday, December 15, 2012
Guns, Guns, Guns
The issue isn't really guns. Guns are how we misspell evil. Guns are how we avoid talking about the ugly realities of human nature while building sandcastles on the shores of utopia.
The obsession with guns, rather than machetes, stone clubs, crossbows or that impressive weapon of mass death, the longbow (just ask anyone on the French side of the Battle of Agincourt) is really the obsession with human agency. It's not about the fear of what one motivated maniac can do in a crowded place, but about the precariousness of social control that the killing sprees imply.
Mass death isn't the issue. After September 11, the same righteous folks calling for the immediate necessity of gun control were not talking about banning planes or Saudis, they were quoting statistics about how many more people die of car accidents each year than are killed by terrorists. As Stalin said, one death is a tragedy; three thousand deaths can always be minimized by comparing them to some even larger statistic.
The gun issue is the narrative. It's not about death or children; it's about control. It's about confusing object and subject. It's about guns that shoot people and people that are irrevocably tugged into pulling the trigger because society failed them, corporations programmed them and not enough kindly souls told them that they loved them.
Mostly it's about people who are sheltered from the realities of human nature trying to build a shelter big enough for everyone. A Gun Free Zone where everyone is a target and tries to live under the illusion that they aren't. A society where everyone is drawing unicorns on colored notepaper while waiting under their desks for the bomb to fall.
After every shooting there are more zero tolerance policies in schools that crack down on everything from eight-year olds making POW POW gestures with their fingers to honor students bringing Tylenol and pocket knives to school. And then another shooting happens and then another one and they wouldn't happen if we just had more zero tolerance policies for everyone and everything.
But evil just can't be controlled. Not with the sort of zero tolerance policies that confuse object with subject, which ban pocket knives and finger shootings to prevent real shootings. That brand of control isn't authority, it's authority in panic mode believing that if it imposes total zero tolerance control then there will be no more school shootings. And every time the dumb paradigm is blown to bits with another shotgun, then the rush is on to reinforce it with more total zero control tolerance.
Zero tolerance for the Second Amendment makes sense. If you ban all guns, except for those in the hands of the 708,000 police officers, the 1.5 million members of the armed forces, the countless numbers of security guards, including those who protect banks and armored cars, the bodyguards of celebrities who call for gun control, not to mention park rangers, ambulance drivers in the ghetto and any of the other people who need a gun to do their job, then you're sure to stop all shootings.
So long as none of those millions of people, or their tens of millions of kids, spouses, parents, grandchildren, girlfriends, boyfriends, roommates and anyone else who has access to them and their living spaces, carries out one of those shootings.
But this isn't really about stopping shootings; it's about controlling when they happen. It's about making sure that everyone who has a gun is in some kind of chain of command. It's about the belief that the problem isn't evil, but agency, that if we make sure that everyone who has guns is following orders, then control will be asserted and the problem will stop. Or if it doesn't stop, then at least there will be someone higher up in the chain of command to blame. Either way authority is sanctified, control or the illusion of it, maintained.
We'll never know the full number of people who were killed by Fast and Furious. We'll never know how many were killed by Obama's regime change operation in Libya, with repercussions in Mali and Syria. But everyone involved in that was following orders. There was no individual agency, just agencies. No lone gunman who just decided to go up to a school and shoot kids. There were orders to run guns to Mexico and the cartel gunmen who killed people with those guns had orders to shoot. There was nothing random or unpredictable about it. Or as the Joker put it, "Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying."
Gun control is the assertion that the problem is not the guns; it's the lack of a controlling authority for all those guns. It's the individual. A few million people with little sleep, taut nerves and PTSD are not a problem so long as there is someone to give them orders. A hundred million people with guns and no orders is a major problem. Historically though it's millions of people with guns who follow orders who have been more of a problem than millions of people with guns who do not.
Gun control will not really control guns, but it will give the illusion of controlling people, and even when it fails those in authority will be able to say that they did everything that they could short of giving people the ability to defend themselves.
We live under the rule of organizers, community and otherwise, whose great faith is that the power to control men and their environment will allow them to shape their perfect state into being, and the violent acts of lone madmen are a reminder that such control is fleeting, that utopia has its tigers, and that attempting to control a problem often makes it worse by removing the natural human crowdsourced responses that would otherwise come into play.
The clamor for gun control is the cry of sheltered utopians believing that evil is a substance as finite as guns, and that getting rid of one will also get rid of the other. But evil isn't finite and guns are as finite as drugs or moonshine whiskey, which is to say that they are as finite as the human interest in having them is. And unlike whiskey or heroin, the only way to stop a man with a gun is with a gun.
People do kill people and the only way to stop people from killing people is by killing them first. To a utopian this is a moral paradox that invalidates everything, but to everyone else, it's just life in a world where evil is a reality, not just a word.
Anyone who really hankers after a world without guns would do well to try the 14th Century, the 1400 years ago or the 3400 years ago variety, which was not a nicer place for lack of guns, and the same firepower that makes it possible for one homicidal maniac to kill a dozen unarmed people, also makes it that much harder to recreate a world where one man in armor can terrify hundreds of peasants in boiled leather armed with sharp sticks.
The longbow was the first weapon to truly begin to level the playing field, putting serious firepower in the hands of a single man. In the Battle of Crecy, a few thousand English and Welsh peasants with longbows slew thousands of French knights and defeated an army of 30,000. Or as the French side described it, "It is a shame that so many French noblemen fell to men of no value." Crecy, incidentally, also saw one of the first uses of cannon.
Putting miniature cannons in the hands of every peasant made the American Revolution possible. The ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would have meant very little without an army of ordinary men armed with weapons that made them a match for the superior organization and numbers of a world power.
At the Battle of Bunker Hill, 2,400 American rebels faced down superior numbers and lost the hill, but inflicted over a 1,000 casualties, including 100 British commissioned officers killed or wounded, leading to General Clinton's observation, "A few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America."
This was done with muskets, the weapon that gun control advocates assure us was responsible for the Second Amendment because the Founders couldn't imagine all the "truly dangerous" weapons that we have today.
And yet would Thomas Jefferson, the abiding figurehead of the Democratic Party, who famously wrote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants", really have shuddered at the idea of peasants with assault rifles, or would he have grinned at the playing field being leveled some more?
The question is the old elemental one about government control and individual agency. And tragedies like the one that just happened take us back to the equally old question of whether individual liberty is a better defense against human evil than the entrenched organizations of government.
Do we want a society run by the flower of chivalry, who commit atrocities according to a plan for a better society, or by peasants with machine guns? The flower of chivalry can promise us a utopian world without evil, but the peasant with a machine gun promises us that we can protect ourselves from evil when it comes calling.
Evil may find heavy firepower appealing, but the firepower works both ways. A world where the peasants have assault rifles is a world where peasant no longer means a man without any rights. And while it may also mean the occasional brutal shooting spree, those sprees tend to happen in the outposts of utopia, the gun-free zones with zero tolerance for firearms. An occasional peasant may go on a killing spree, but a society where the peasants are all armed is also far more able to stop such a thing without waiting for the men-at-arms to be dispatched from the castle.
An armed society spends more time stopping evil than contemplating it. It is the disarmed society that is always contemplating it as a thing beyond its control. Helpless people must find something to think about while waiting for their lords to do something about the killing. Instead of doing something about it themselves, they blame the agency of the killer in being free to kill, rather than their own lack of agency for being unable to stop him.
68 comments:
- mindRider said...
Yes and no, strict gun control like in The Netherlands where I live, does not prevent hardened criminals from carrying even though their use of guns in robberies is relatively low because they do not have to fear that their subject carries and equalizes them. Mentally unstable seldom if not never(a random shooting in a mall by a legall permit perpetrator did happen) have access to a gun or a knife wider than hand width (also forbidden to be carried) in the public space, police has the right of preventive body search in sensitive areas of the city (bar & night clubs). Normal people that get aggressive as they can't hold their liquor never shoot others in a bar brawl, middle-finger raisers who have cut in front of others in traffic are not shot at. Heated arguments are not solved by a shoot-out. These are all the advantages of strict gun laws. Of course arguments against exist, the Dutch public can not violently overthrow a repressive government (had it become such), ambulance and fire-truck staff can not defend themselves from being seriously harassed by the people they try to help. Robbers escape with their loot without chance of at least having to remove shot-gun pellets out of their butts. In general however the Dutch do prefer it this way rather than the American way and do remember The Netherlands was the first republic, called The Seven United Provinces, after having fought for it's freedom from Spanish royal rule in the 80 year war from 1568 till 1648.
- 16/12/12
- mindRider said...
Addition to my comment an interesting view from the Jewish press:
- 16/12/12
- lemon lime moon said...
Banning drugs simply made it more profitable. Same with alcohol.
The same would be true of weapons.
And of course, the bad guys will always have access to weapons no matter how illegal they might be made.
- 16/12/12
- mindRider said...
Sultan after sharing a last thought on guns I prommiss I'll stop on the subject! In my youth as member of a gun club I had handguns, all official on my permit, amongst which a .38 Derringer which I kept loaded (in case of burglars....) in my cupboard. However once a cleaning woman cleaned that cupboard and the gun fell on it's hammer resulting in an accidental discharge leaving to her and my luck only a hole in the cupboard and the ceiling and one very upset lady......
- 16/12/12
- westbankmama said...
All this talk about gun control makes me angry. Why in heavens name don't they have a fence around the schools and a guard at the gate? An ounce of prevention perhaps....
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Well said! Pity the hand wringers digress.
- 16/12/12
- Dennis Latham said...
I don't go anywhere without a gun. I grew up in a city that has the most dangerous neighborhoods in America (Cincinnati). I've stopped a violent assault on myself and a loved one, just by letting the bad guy know I was armed and would kill him. I never showed him the gun. It was behind my back and ready to fire. He believed me and fled. Lucky for him. The schools don't have armed guards anymore because the government took the money away in their budget cuts. Politician kids are safe in their patrician schools but the peasants sometimes become victims. You can't stop a psycho when he is ready to blow, and blaming guns is ridiculous. A gun like the longbow at Agincourt is a tool, and if used when needed can save lives. A psycho will use any tool if he can't get a gun so the argument against guns (Hollywood stars and politicians all seem to need people with guns protecting them, but that's different they say)is stupid. I read a newspaper from Scotland where they outlawed guns. Now all the people stab each other to death. I agree that the entire issue is about control so the peasants can't rise up and slaughter the socialist leaders.
- 16/12/12
- Leo said...
Having a gun usually works best, but also it always puzzled me why most people tend to underestimate and ignore a plethora of very effective non-lethal protective means.
- 16/12/12
- Edward Cline said...
If there is a "gun culture" in America today, it's encouraged by the government's obliterating every little nook and cranny of an individual's freedom. The current administration is stoking the fires of "class" and "race" warfare, so many people are buying guns to defend themselves if things really go crazy, and also to defend themselves against government goons enforcing new prohibitions, such as on speech. On an historical note, even before war broke out between the colonials and the British, the British sought to outlaw the import of French-made muskets and, more importantly, the possession of rifles (not muskets) by colonials, which were far more deadly than muskets. And, of course, everyone's focusing on the Sandy Hook massacre, but the MSM isn't talking about all the massacres by Muslims via bombs, poison, swords and knives of others in all those "gun free" zones around the world. If the colonials lived in a "gun free" zone, there would've been no Revolution. Guns are good for retaliatory force, and that force wasn't there to protect the children and teaches at Sandy Hook school. Lastly, the only forces armed in a "gun free" zone are the authorities and the lawless. So, why is it so difficult to grasp that criminals by nature flout the law and find ways to obtain what's forbidden? Guns do not possess aphrodisiacal powers to take over an individual's mind and cause him to shoot people. And, gun controls infer that everyone's nuts and shouldn't be trusted with firearms of any kind.
- 16/12/12
- mushroom said...
Guns are how we misspell evil.
One of the best lines I have ever read. Thank you.
- 16/12/12
- Elisandra said...
The liberals and "progressives" claim they're making the world a better place, but when I was a kid, back when right and wrong still existed, and crimes weren't excused away by blaming the chosen weapon or not enough hugs in childhood, we didn't need armed guards and metal detectors in schools.
- 16/12/12
- moshe said...
This entire argument is a red herring. The SOLE purpose of the Second Ammendment is to prevent tyranny by ensuring that the People as a group always outgun the combined Armed Forces of the United States. We have already moved far away from the intent of the Second Ammendment by banning private ownership of indirect fire, antitank and aircraft weaponry, not to mention fully automatic firearms. The would-be Stalins and Hitlers of the Democratic party are just trying to finish the job of disarming us all by banning even the pitiful pea-shooters our lords and masters still permit us to possess. Because even today, with the public helpless against the government's tanks and helicopter gunships, the 200 million pistols and 100 million long guns in private hands still make it impossible for the jackbooted thugs of the totalitarian police state to control any ground but that directly underneath their feet.
In 1776, the majority of artillery in America was in private hands. When the liberals quote Jefferson, they do so hypocritically, because they cannot quote Lenin and Stalin, their true sources of emulation. Jefferson today would be a member of the NRA, not the Brady Campaign.
- 16/12/12
- Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog said...
Jefferson would think the NRA were sellouts and that the Hamiltonian elites were crushing the countryside and destroying the spirit of America
- 16/12/12
- @murphquake said...
Excuse me, did you say "ambulance drivers"? We'd appreciate proper titles like police officers & firefighters are accorded in the media. For most of us Emergency Medical Technician/EMT or Paramedic/Medic is appropriate. EMS (Emergency Medical Service) works for all of us and is nice and short too.
As for us carrying guns "in the ghetto", it's not particularly common around NYC, but then again, but that's because of the draconian gun laws here, not because some of us wouldn't choose to if it weren't a path to legal nightmares.
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
There is another way to look at this.
"A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.
I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza's mother. I am Dylan Klebold's and Eric Harris's mother. I am Jason Holmes's mother. I am Jared Loughner's mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho's mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it's easy to talk about guns. But it's time to talk about mental illness."
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
As usual, you've hit it out of the park. This is a great piece that I intend to share with everyone I know who still has a mind and free will.
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
It is difficult to improve on Daniel's observations. We are surely headed toward becoming H.G. Wells' Eloi, tended and fatted for the Morlocks' dinner when the sun goes down. The Eloi knew only pleasure and enjoyment while the sun shone. They knew no better and blithely ignored their eventide fate. In our version, the Morlocks are played by the governing elites.
Disarming the citizenry (already a tenuous descriptive term) turns them into sheep-like subjects. We are well on the way, in part because we allow ourselves to be manipulated by staged 'crises' to surrender still more individual rights in the name of "safety." Hans Hermann Hoppe, in "The Myth of National Security" well describes this scheme. The government security monopoly confiscates ever increasing (unlimited) amounts of wealth to provide an ever decreasing quality of a product called 'security,' all the while decimating individual liberty.
Daniel alludes gently to the role of government in mass killings. In "Death By Government" one learns that 120million citizens (beyond those killed in wars) were murdered by their own governments in the 20th century. The agents of this evil, as Daniel says, were following orders. If you believe it could not happen here, you haven't read enough history, haven't understood what you have read, or are in denial of the capacity for human evil. The Second Amendment exists to forestall that possibility. So goes the Second Amendment, so goes any vestiges of individual liberty and dignity.
Civil Westman
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Perhaps, it is time to accept certain facts of life.As Dennis Miller stated some years ago, It may become necessary to literally 'cull' the herd in order to protect the innocents. We, my friends, have walking among us, scores of deviants, criminally insane, and those that are just plain evil, that exibit no potential for redemption nor ability or desire to give a damn about the lives of others. For too long we have been concerned about trying to be 'socially, and politicly correct' in our handling of same, all the while they prayed upon us, especialy targeting the young, the weak, the elderly, etc. Perhaps it is time to have a frank discussion.
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
This was an excellent read. Have posted for others to read. Thank you.
- 16/12/12
- Doug Mayfield said...
Would this shooter, or any other of the dirty little cowards who arm themselves and shoot innocent people, have been able to do what he did, if enough teachers in that school owned and carried guns and knew how to use them?
Perhaps teachers by the nature of their profession woul be horrified by such a question but frankly, I believe that carrying weapons and being able to defend yourself and those you care about will be a necessity in the forseeable future.
As far as gun control, both DG and those who commented above have analysed that well. I add that in my view if you scratch the surface of a gun control advocate, underneath you will find a potential tyrant looking to enslave their first victims.
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Been my experience that (1) police take about 20 minutes to arrive when called and (2) drugs are illegal but you can get some on most any street in town.
Just Sayin' --
Notice everyone in congress plans to keep their armed guards, they are just discussing disarming you - not them. It is good for you - not them, just like obamacare.
- 16/12/12
- Keliata said...
"Having a gun usually works best, but also it always puzzled me why most people tend to underestimate and ignore a plethora of very effective non-lethal protective means"
An excellent point, Leo. Sadly, I find myself in urgent need of some sort of protection in my apartment (long story). I wouldn't resort to a gun but have found that bear spray is legal in all states and probably more powerful than regular pepper spray or cap-spray as cops call there form of it.
But yes, all we have to do is watch Home Alone to see how to creatively protect oneself in one's home. Where there's a will there's a way.
As for personal protection as required for my profession? I'm fair game. I accept that. Reporters don't carry guns. Even crime reporters.
But the professionals most in need of lethal weapons are pizza deliverymen and convenience store clerks.
- 16/12/12
- Keliata said...
There's something very wrong in a world where schools have such little protection and a world where I had to be wanded by an armed guard at a sneak preview of a movie just to make sure I didn't have a recording device.
As for these mass shootings--when people clamor for gun control etc. what they're really saying is who could have known? Chances are people in the lives of these killers had an inkling that something was wrong but ignored it.
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Interesting perspective, thanks. So long as it works for the Netherlands, who's to say this is wrong? I wonder though, when and if it fails, though, through massive civil disorder, climbing crime rates, foreign invasion, or government repression, what recourse will Dutch citizens have?
In the US we do not have the option of reconstructing society along these lines. There are hundreds of millions of firearms in private hands and no legislation and/or enforcement action would ever eliminate enough of them to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals, terrorists, or other sociopaths. Indeed, since it is the foundation of our liberty and a constitutional right, any serious attempt at confiscation would lead to massive disorder and the probable collapse of our civil society. So we must approach the "problem" such as it is, in a uniquely American fashion, and Mr. Greenfield's thoughts are quite cogent.
- 16/12/12
- Chrysler 300M said...
there is a gigantic violence in the Netherlands, with and withour guns:
- 16/12/12
- moshe said...
Thank you, Daniel, you are correct. The NRA are sellouts.
The Anon talking about the Netherlands and all the folks of their type need to also remember the secondary purpose of the Second Amendment --providing for a national defense. When asked about invading the United States, Yamamoto replied "there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass". The Germans in 1900 also had not a doubt of their ability to overwhelm the US. Army and US Navy. It was the realization that every grown man in America had ready access to a rifle that put paid to the Case Orange contingency plan. For that matter, America's disastrous attempts to control Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate how little even a superpower possessing massive technological superiority can do against a determined people armed with the most basic of infantry weapons. America has drones, tanks, fighter jets, armored vehicles, eytc, etc. All the locals have are AKs, RPKs, PKs, RPGs and a whole lot of fertilizer. The Americans control nothing they do not physically occupy. Even what they occupy, they occupy insecurely. Between April and December, at least one American service member dies in Afghanistan pretty much EVERY SINGLE DAY. Think about this.
- 16/12/12
- Steven Habener said...
Our Constitution, WE are in trouble just like they said it would happen! Almost every person in this country is unaware, doesn't care, was not or is not educated well enough to understand it. We have a decision to make here with this gun control issue. It is a Constitutional issue and a freedom issue. We are able to do this together without the social, religious, and foreign policy conflicts. The more we yell at each other for any reason, the longer insanity will continue. It is obvious something happened and generations before did't see it or were bullied into this slavery. Either we ditch the Constitution completely and outlaw the document or we wise up and do something to unite the Union once more.
- 16/12/12
- Marcel said...
In 50's America the biggest problems schools faced were students chewing gum and talking in class.
And then the elite with their evil agenda and their courts removed God,prayer and the Bible from the classroom.
What we see in amoral America today is a direct result of removing God and darkness filling the void.
How sad that Israel imitates a now corrupt,godless,perverted nation and still looks to it as a beacon of light.
America is paying the price for our violent culture, from video games,TV and Hollywood.
The death culture,the goth,the vampires,the occult,deviancy,you name it, are all acceptable and any mention of God or the Bible is verbotten in the classroom.
Is it any wonder why innocent children are in ever growing danger in America.
Tolerance for evil has replaced good common sense and opened the door wide to our destruction.
- 16/12/12
- joan said...
Thank you for hitting the nail on the head--again. God has blessed you with extraordinary perception.
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Michael's Mother you are right. I worked in the field of education for the last seventeen years. My job started in M.H. then to E.D. now they are combining the two. It is like you said in your article. Glorified babysitters. Most of the people working that job have little to no education in that area. I totally agree we have to look harder at how we are treating and teaching our mentally challenged children, because they do grow to be bigger and stronger than we are. My heart goes out to you for the position we have put you in . I pray that congress will listen to you and others in your position to give you and your child better care and understanding.
- 16/12/12
- mindRider said...
@Chrysler 300M I never said there is NO crime in The Netherlands but like last Saturday's shooting that killed one, they are in most cases criminals shooting other criminals about sour drug deals or whatever criminals feel justified to murder one another it are not random outsiders that get shot.
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
OK - but you posted this gun^3 comment into coments about school children shootings. A comment made above seems more to the point:
westbankmama said...
All this talk about gun control makes me angry. Why in heavens name don't they have a fence around the schools and a guard at the gate? An ounce of prevention perhaps....
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Again, your insight and intelligence (and common sense) is amazing and refreshing.
The battle we face today is a battle against those who deny the author of Evil, Satan, and so cannot speak its name.
By denying evil and its source, man continues with the fallacy that if the right men had control over others, heaven on earth is possible.
And this will be as it is until God determines it is time for Christ to return.
- 16/12/12
- Suzanne Fleishman said...
The Netherlands is a filthy dirty hole of sex perversion and sin.
They kill each other there with sex diseases and
and politically correct conversation. So they don't need no guns.
Marcel in the 50's school problems included zip guns, chains and heavy duty saps carried by students with greasy hair and leather jackets, you idiot.
Gangs were everywhere. In NY alone you had the Fordham baldies, the Ducky Boys ,etc.
What? You live under a rock somewhere?
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Moshe said " Between April and December, at least one American service member dies in Afghanistan pretty much EVERY SINGLE DAY. Think about this."
End the war then. They sign up for that.
Newtown victims were babies. The best children in the world: American children.
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
"I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza's mother. I am Dylan Klebold's and Eric Harris's mother."
This is why God created abortion.
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Lott offers a final damning statistic: "With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns."
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Or another thought - 10000 plus americans shot - Europe less than 500 .. nope you are totally right gun control doesn't work plus we really need them guns cause you never know when we might have a native american uprising or a grizzly bear could come and tip over our outhouse when we are in there .. this is all so stupid
- 16/12/12
- Keli Ata said...
Well, I really don't see the purpose in regular civilians having assault weapons. Street cops definitely need more powerful weapons than 9 mm.
As for personal protection, again, I'm going with bear spray. I honestly don't think I could fire a gun.
- 16/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Keliaba you would see the need if we had a repeat of 1776 and you needed to fight against those weapons.
Forbidding the patriot to have weapons is the first nail in the freedom of liberty in America.
Thank God almighty America didn't agree with you back then.
- 17/12/12
- Anonymous said...
First glance I thought the title was gums, gums, gums and I was expecting a post on oral hygiene.
- 17/12/12
- Anonymous said...
A quick mental discussion:
Me:"Okay if I give up my guns, can you guarantee that not one more gun murder will occur in the United States from that moment on?"
Obama:"Nope, can't do that".
Me:"Okay, then can I get an ironclad guarantee that if I turn over my guns and there is another gun murder, that my 2nd amendment rights will be reinstated and my guns returned to me?"
Obama:"Nope, that aint gonna happen".
Me:"Then why the hell am I turning in my guns to you and surrendering my 2nd amendment rights?"
Obama:"Because I told you so, and I have a lot more so's to tell you once you turn your guns in".
- 17/12/12
- Phil said...
Personal responsibility is the term missing from most of the bantering. Law abiding gun owners take the most significant claim as such. Leaving self protection in their own ability before entrusting it to an unknown agency. So when the abortionists call for gun control, and finger pointers want no blame, you know it's a lack of personal responsibility. Food stamps, obamaphones, and entitlements in general a cop out of personal responsibility. That must be the argument! Most of these zombies have never touched a gun, or have any familiarity with them except for Hollywood romanticism. They have been acquainted with responsibility though. Regardless of their commitment to upholding their end of the deal it a concept less fleeting than firearms ownership, and thus is more comprehendible by the the lesser willed.
- 17/12/12
- Ed Williams said...
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote." -Benjamin Franklin
- 17/12/12
- Michael J Stammer said...
Comparing longbows to assault rifles and automatic pistols is quite a stretch. The former is a powerful tool in the hands of an archer with skill and the ability to send a SINGLE arrow at a target before reloading. An automatic weapon sprays lethal lead which can explode on impact at rates that can exceed 5 PER SECOND.
If you see an equivalence between them then the logical extension is free access to grenades, rocket launchers, and flame throwers.
Maybe even IEDs.
- 17/12/12
- Anonymous said...
A gun-free zone is a murder-zone.
When I see a gun-free sign this is what I hear:
"Dear homicidal maniac,
We certify there is no one inside this facility who can meet you with any real force.
You will have approximately ten minutes to kill as many people as you are able.
The Management."
I talked with a man the other day and he said "Well, you can't have security guards in every school." I said "Guards? You don't need to employ guards. What's wrong with all the other people in the school? The teachers, principals, vice-principals, janitors, lunch ladies, office workers, councilors, and others? These are grown men and women. If they choose to get a CCW they should be allowed to pack. There should be guidelines in schools for carrying on the job – not laws prohibiting it!"
So many people want to live in The Shire where wolves have been outlawed.
"No wolves here, Thank you. Why, I'm certain I wouldn't even know how to repel a wolf attack. And anyway, we have people to do that if it ever comes up. Good morning!"
But wolves do not disappear just because people make it illegal to be a wolf.
And then, one day, a wolf is sniffing at your door…
- 17/12/12
- Anonymous said...
The sad thing is that nobody is willing to address the real problem, the fact that it is not the guns, in any shape or form, that are at fault, be it fully auto AK47 or .22 pistol. They are just tools with the potential to kill. A knife, also with that potential, can reek havoc in the hands of those who want to kill the helpless. As we saw in China on the same day as the mass killing. Any weapon in the hands of a psycho can do a lot of damage. Would we be even having this discussion if those that possessed those knives and guns chose not to express their anger by going on a psychopathic killing sprees? Could anyone imagine these school shootings happening even as recently as the 1950's? Instead of asking ourselves the question, "Where did all these psychos suddenly come from in our society?", we instead say, "The psychos are fine, lets just take the weapons away so the psychos can't kill us." It is irresponsible to the point of madness. When I was growing up in the 1980's I was unpopular and picked on. I was what one would call a nerd. I hated the bullies and those that hurt me. I would fantasize about having my revenge. This was later popularly called nerd rage. Never in a million years would I desire to take an assault rifle onto campus and go on a killing spree. As one can see from all the school shootings, almost all those that went on these sprees were outsiders, ostracized by their peers and picked on. This is no different then when I grew up, but, in this day an age, nerd rage has taken on a whole new form. How can this be? What could have changed? I believe the sense of selfish entitlement inculcated in this generation by the flawed liberal thinking the previous generation has allowed nerd rage to move from quiet anger and begrudging acceptance to psychopathic killing sprees.
The root cause of this is the departure from teaching our youth the realities of life. Instead of teaching our children that there are winners and losers in life and that they need to try hard to not be a loser, we teach them that everyone's a winner and that they are special just the way they are. Instead of teaching them to aspire to greatness and realize they are not great by default, we tell them to aspire to mediocrity. We can see it in the absurdity of the "self esteem movement" and the media bombarding our children with images of awkward and scrawny characters, as ideals. Instead of looking up to others who are intelligent, strong, and attractive with the impression of that as an ideal, they are told that those awkward individuals in the movies and shows are OK just the way they are and they should feel the same way about themselves. Instead of teaching them to have grand aspirations of progression as human beings, through hard work, we see a bunch of highly disappointing kids that are shocked that UPS did not deliver to their doorstep their SUV, flat screen TV and big house. When the walls of reality come crashing down for these poor souls, instead of seeing a brutal but realistic hierarchy of life, they see complete injustice. They feel cheated. Some, on a level that drives them to acts of utter lunacy, to psychopathic killing sprees. We need to let our children know that we love them but that in the real world not everything they do is golden and that they have to struggle and deal with injustice to find greatness, but that, that is the reality of life and the way of the world.
- 17/12/12
- Anonymous said...
80 million gun owners didn't shoot anyone today. A fact that will be glossed over in the histrionics to create a national gun-free zone by the collectivists.
- 17/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Your stupid.....
- 17/12/12
- Anonymous -938 said...
No you are stupid since you don't know that it is you're, not your.
- 17/12/12
- Rielly THom said...
If people did not have to own guns there could be no war. Only the army should own guns and not many of them either.
Disarmament of the entire America is the only answer.
Only when the USA has no weapons will the world be free of murder and hatred.
6 million Jews died because the USA had guns and murders of all kinds leading the whole world to follow them
Pol Pot followed the USA to murder his own people with guns and weapons.
We need legislation now to forbid weapons, to stop the arms race and end nuclear proliferation in America.
We got to take guns out of the hands of the common man and put them in the hands of government only where they can regulate the people properly and make sure they behave.
- 17/12/12
- RegT said...
The belief that removing guns from everyone except LEOs and military would protect us is false as well (as I'm sure you know). A guy on my squad at San Diego PD was killed one night by a fourteen year old who dressed in his step-father's deputy Sheriff uniform, strapped on his duty revolver, and took his marked patrol car for a joyride (while Mom and Step-dad were out of town).
When my co-worker pulled his unit up next to where this kid was parked, thinking he was going to schmooze with a deputy, the kid panicked and shot my co-worker through his open window, killing him.
Just to dispell that myth in anyone's mind. If any guns are available, the bad guys (or people who will misuse them, anyway) will get them.
Yet, they are the only way a human being can defend him- or herself from a larger, stronger aggressor or multiple aggressors. No one has the right to deprive another of such effective self-defense, unless they have actually demonstrated they will intentionally misuse a firearm to harm others.
- 17/12/12
- Richard of OZ said...
Good Lord, Rielly. I hope you had simply forgotten the tag.
- 17/12/12
- Lisa G in NZ said...
Rielly THom - "6 million Jews died because the USA had guns" - really? Where did this happen? Your argument is completely factually incorrect - are you trying to discuss Hitler and his nazis rounding up UN-ARMED Jewish people and killing them? Perhaps if all the Jewish people HAD arms, a few less would have been killed.
You make no sense whatsoever.
America came LATE into WWII - or don't you recall that? In any case, how would American gun ownership "make" anyone else in the world do anything? By telekenitic power or something?
You, sir, just don't get it.
Go research the truth about history on this planet. Perhaps you'll understand one day, because today you surely don't get it at all... not one iota.
By the way, Daniel - GREAT article...
- 17/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Do not pass "Go," do not collect $200. Go immediately to www.Hawaii.edu/powerkills/20th.htm or Amazon.com and peruse "Death By Government" by Professor R.J. Rummel. The governments you would trust to make sure all "the common men" "behave" murdered more than 170 MILLION of their own citizens in the last century. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll take the risk of my well-armed peasant/common man neighbor going berserk before I'd risk my life that your angelic government agents won't commit democide in their attempt to "regulate the people properly."
- 17/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Dear Reilly THom,
You are the most ignorant and naive person I have ever had the pain of reading thoughts from. All your logic and facts are flawed. Please go do some historical research. Hitler instituted gun laws taking guns off the 'common man' as you say, about 3 years before he started rounding up and killing millions of Jews. This tactic was employed by Mao in china and the Ottoman empire too. Go and educate yourself for the betterment of mankind please.
- 19/12/12
- Anonymous said...
I would recommend everyone yelling at ReillyThom go (re)read "A Modest Proposal." Personally I thought Reilly's screed was hilarious.
SultanKnish, thank you for a well-written and well-thought-out post.
- 20/12/12
- Anonymous said...
great article.
- 20/12/12
- Patrick said...
I drop into your blog on a regular basis Daniel, I can not fathom how a guy can be so intelligent and so prolific at the same time, I despise Islam, but your arguments about gun control stinks of I'm right you're left, just for the goddamn sake of it been right?
Come on Daniel you're a very intelligent man??? imagine a million and one Muslims armed to the teeth?
- 21/12/12
- Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog said...
They're already armed to the teeth.
Who would you rather rely on to stop them if the worst happens, the usual politicians or your neighbors next door?
- 22/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Gun control is not a bad idea. I am a conservative but most of us see the need to remove assault weapons from everyday hands. They are just not needed except in war.
There must be a decent discussion of this topic rather than the stridency I see on the right and left.
- 22/12/12
- Anonymous said...
I'm Australian, we have quite considerably tight gun control. I don't have a gun, and I did it wouldn't be for self defense because MOST Australians are not as violent as their American counterparts. Besides our government taking private property with a pysop for justification, crime has not really been shown to be impacted in a positive way, although the biased government will dig up slanted statistics.
Armed robbery went up for about 2 years after the buyback of semi autos and other crime that everyone thought was on the decline since the gun control laws was actually on the decline BEFORE the laws were instituted anyway.
BUT America is a whole different kettle of fish. I used to be irritated by Americans and all their gun loving violent culture but what I didn't see is a one of a kind system of government where the citizens are given the right, duty and obligation to be AS ARMED as their standing army in case the government got oppressive and they needed to defend themselves against it. If you think it can't happen you are just plain naive and don't deserve the freedom that the founding fathers paid for you with unregistered guns that were identical to what the 'military' was using. Adolf hitler, Mao, Stalin, the ottoman empire all agree that you disarm your citizens just before you kill millions of them. The second amendment was out in place by thinking men who didn't even trust themselves with all that power, but knew yet had to be kept honest by their citizens. The problem with the left, socialists and communists are that the trust themselves too much and think their ethics/ lack of morals are good enough of everyone.please tell me more about how you intend to remove assault weapons from 'everyday hands' and leave them in the hands of criminals who unfortunately DON'T follow laws. They will miss the memo on any gun amnesty or just forget to show up etc. Guns are not ideal but as long as criminals, armies and police have them, the common man should be allowed to possess them and defend himself from tyranny from any of these if they become part of an oppressive communist/ or other government. Obama is clearly a socialist which is well on the way to communism and of course he doesn't want to disarm americans so he can institute a government system not based on the constitution... So what is he worried about? Why is he taking away a mans right to defend himself from.very real dangers? True, Americans are so much more paranoid than Australians but they are justifiably so. Assult weapons are needed by the common man to keep the ever honest and holier than though government honest. This right should be respected. When this falls so will the rest of Americas freedoms. The first amendment has already been under attack for ages. And if you read the suggestions in the communist manifesto and then compare them to the patriot act you see it's derived from the manifesto. Disgusting; to see humans running a government not trusting other humans in areas they have far more experience in creating horror in. The American go rennet is totally corrupt and makes me sick in the mouth. Their last hope was Ron Paul... But he didn't win any popularity contests did he?
- 24/12/12
- Anonymous said...
Gun control is a bad idea. It leaves the door open to oppressive governments, mass murder by those governments (see adolf hitler, Mao and Stalin on gun laws) and fails to take them off criminals who miss the memo and don't follow laws anyway. It's a nice idea that's not thought out properly.the 2nd amendment protects America from being the next communist country and should be revered. It was made by more intelligent folk than us, who were hum me enough not to trust themselves with too much power. Assault weapons are needed to be effective against any government ordered tyranny via the standing army. You are naive if you think it cant happen. Patriot act = communist manifesto
- 24/12/12
- Anonymous said...
As is the majority of gun crime is in the US.
- 25/12/12
- Steven Newman said...
This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins. -- Benjamin Franklin
- 1/1/13
- Anonymous said...
No words. No words are available or necessary.
- 2/6/13
- Anonymous said...
I had an eerie dream that keeps haunting me. I dreamed a bunch of foreigners armed with military weapons stamped into my home. My spouse told me the government had outlawed all the guns from our home a year ago. The troops eyed my things and I told them to take what they wanted. With extreme disgust, they seethed, "we do not want your possessions......we want you." and proceeded to chain our children together and aim their guns at my head.
I think of this dream every single time I hear someone talking about gun bans or further gun control laws. I would never harm another human being unless a scenario such as this one occurs. I'm certain it has in other places of the world.
- 8/10/13
- Anonymous said...
There is so much argument over whether or not the founders intended for the citizenry to possess such an "instrument of evil" as the AR-15 or AK... And it is always a discussion centered around the rifle and musket, and how much firepower is embodied within respective small arms then and now. Very little is ever said about the fact that the British were as, or more concerned with taking away the instruments of war stored by communities in the form of cannon and mortar, and the powder and shot for such. The founders very much thought that the populace should have access to the firepower therein represented, as their revolutionary documents were partly in reaction to the attempts by the British to move to seize those items. Frankly, the 2nd doesn't just protect our rights to own hunting rifles, AR-15's or ClassIII... but also area denial munitions, anti-armor devices and anti-aircraft capabilities. I'm not saying that it is a good idea for those sorts of items to be freely available, just pointing out where the framers were coming from with the 2A.
- 24/2/14


text:
Kovy27 wrote:Michael Russo @Russostrib
RT @michaelgrange: Sources confirm that @odognine2 is just messing with people on twitter. He's good at it!
I'm hearing that the #NHL #Lockout is over! Let's get back 2 watching the greatest gm on earth! & let's not allow this to ever happen again!
Bret Hedican @BretHedican
Nothing official yet that I've heard, but several sources have said it's done. Let's hope this is Official!
marek wrote:pens#1 wrote:So lets say a deal gets done today- when would opening night be?
Jan 19th. Penguins @ Filthy
Lt. Dish wrote:
ivand87 wrote:Who knows, if they continue to make progress today, there's a chance an announcement could be made tonight during halftime of the Packers-Texans game...
Steve wrote:They can't put it on the internet if it's not true.
Tim Thomasen wrote:Lt. Dish wrote:
Great movie.
Users browsing this forum: Sigwolf and 18 guests


text:
Greek: kanon, rule
- A practical law or rule of guidance; a standard, or criterion; a catalog or list of such rules.
- In art, an established rule.
- In biblical usage, the official catalog of inspired writings known as the Old and New Testament See also: Canon of the Holy Scriptures.
- In ecclesiastical usage, a short dogmatic definition, with an anathema attached, made by a general council; a rule of the Church. See also Canon Law.
- The fundamental part of the Mass, coming after the Offertory. See also Canon of the Mass.
- The rules of religious orders and the books comprising these rules.
- The catalog of canonized saints.
- Certain ecclesiastical persons. See
- In music, a composition consisting of the imitation or repetition of the same melody by one or more voices in turn, in such a manner as to produce harmony.
- In printing, a size of type almost equal to four-line picar 48-point type; it is said to be so called because it was used for printing the Canon of the Mass and church books.


text:
A Posthumous Tribute To Guns From A Sniper Shot To Death
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
Last February, a murder at a remote Texas gun range captured the headlines.
DAN HARRIS: An ex-Navy SEAL and one of America's best-known snipers murdered at a gun range in Texas allegedly by a troubled former Marine. This comes...
LYDEN: Chris Kyle was a sniper in Iraq and the author of a best-selling memoir about his experience. The man who confessed to killing Chris Kyle was a young mentally ill veteran, just one of many mentally or physically injured vets Kyle took shooting in an effort to help them heal and readjust to civilian life. At the time of his death, Chris Kyle was writing a book about the history of firearms in America. That book, called "American Gun," has just been published posthumously.
His widow, Taya Kyle, spoke to us from the family home south of Dallas. She says that her late husband loved history and wanted to place his own experience with guns in a historical context.
TAYA KYLE: He always saw himself as just an everyday guy in different situations. And he had a tool. There are always everyday people in extraordinary situations throughout our history who use the tools available to them to change history, and it was just a perfect fit for what he'd been reflecting on.
LYDEN: Taya Kyle, you've taken up your late husband's mantle in more ways than one. You've written the foreword and the afterword to this book. You've spoken out for vets' benefits. You've also spoken out for gun rights, spoken to the NRA at their annual convention this year. Your husband has a very large profile. What do you want and hope that his legacy is going to be and how do you think firearms are going to be part of that legacy?
KYLE: Well, I certainly don't pretend to take a political stance. I feel that we should have the right to bear arms. But I don't mean it so much as a political statement. And certainly, "American Gun" was never intended to be a political statement in any way, shape or form. As far as speaking at the NRA, I just wanted to represent that there is so much good being done every day with guns, and I don't want that to be forgotten.
LYDEN: William Doyle was the co-author of the book "American Gun" and he completed it after Kyle's death. He says that Chris Kyle saw guns as an inescapable part of the American story.
WILLIAM DOYLE: Not really for better or worse. Just because of the nature of our country, all Americans are connected, one or two steps removed from firearms.
LYDEN: The narrative of guns in America begins at the Battle of Saratoga, and it wasn't going well for the colonists on the ground. Then one soldier climbed into a tree with an American long rifle and fired the shot that took down a British general. It would change everything.
DOYLE: That one shot early in the American Revolution helped turn the tide at the Battle of Saratoga. And the Battle of Saratoga, the American victory, is what brought the French in to support the Americans, which arguably was the decisive strategic factor of the American Revolution. So, you know, it shows you how sometimes a single bullet can change history, in our case for the cause of freedom.
LYDEN: The last gun in the book is the M16 rifle, and this is now the weapon of choice for the U.S. military - has been for a long time. It's the gun that Chris Kyle used when he was a sniper in Iraq. Let's talk about the M16, the birth of the modern assault rifle - assault weapon is a term we hear a lot today. What is the history of the assault rifle exactly?
DOYLE: The modern assault rifle really traces back to Lincoln's quest to gain an edge on the battlefield. And that turned into what's called repeating weapons, which helped win the West, both to slaughter an enormous amount of buffalo and also to win the Indian Wars, very tragic Indian Wars. But the repeating rifle, something that you could crank off several rounds with and get distance and power and accuracy with, was another historical milestone in the evolution of weapons. And I think that they all sort of flowed into the idea of a modern assault rifle.
LYDEN: You wrote this book with Chris Kyle, and he was famously the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history. And earlier this year, as we know, he was killed on a shooting range by a fellow veteran who had PTSD. I'd like to ask you to read a paragraph that sums up the inevitable duality of guns.
DOYLE: Sure. Well, in our book, Chris wrote: (Reading) Whether they're used in war or for keeping the peace, guns are just tools. And like any tool, the way they're used reflects the society they're part of. As times change, guns have evolved. If you don't like guns, blame it on the society they're a part of.
LYDEN: You know, he's no longer here, of course, to explain that paragraph. But for you, what is the purpose of this book in the national conversation we're now having about guns, and did he speak to you about that at all?
DOYLE: Chris Kyle made me realize that at the same time we are very aware - and we should be - of the tragedies that can occur when guns are in the wrong hands, Chris reminded me very much that my life depends on guns. My life walking out the street here in New York City depends on a man or a woman with a gun three blocks away and their ability to defend me against evil.
My life depends on guns in the sense that there are men and women in the service all around the world right now who are literally - this is not just a slogan - they are literally protecting my freedom and my ability to shoot my mouth off and behave as an American citizen.
LYDEN: A point that Doyle and Kyle make frequently in this book is that guns are only as good or evil as the people who use them, not a point everyone is going to agree with as gun violence escalates. I asked Taya Kyle whether, in the wake of her husband's murder, she thinks there's anything that could or should have been done that could have prevented the tragedy.
KYLE: Anytime someone dies, I think that it's normal to look back and think could have, would have, should have and how could we have changed it. But I can say that Chris certainly should have had more information about the person who he was trying to help and that - that's troublesome.
LYDEN: In the book and in your essay, you write that firing weapons like this for veterans, especially veterans who seem to be struggling with PTSD, could be healing. And I have to ask if you haven't revisited that notion.
KYLE: No, it's a fair question. I think that what we have to remember here is that a lot of veterans are outdoor-type people. The place where Chris died is a very beautiful place with wildflowers and buffalo, and it's just - it's a very healing type place. Most of Chris is something other than guns and being a sniper and being in the military, even. Chris was a big-hearted, loving man who, he had a disarming ability to put people at ease.
LYDEN: Hmm. You seem very composed, and I'm sure that that wasn't easy. You have young children and you're young people. You must miss your husband very much.
KYLE: More than I can say.
LYDEN: Taya Kyle, I so want to thank you for being with us today.
KYLE: Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
LYDEN: Taya Kyle is the wife of Chris Kyle, the high-profile sniper who was killed in February by a mentally ill veteran in Texas. The book Chris Kyle was working on when he died is called "American Gun." It's just been published posthumously.
Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.


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If you're running a workload with WLM Percentile Response Time goals take a look at the RMF Service Class Period Response Time Goal Attainment instrumentation. It's in the Workload Activity Report but this post is about using the raw data to tell the story better than a single snapshot (or long-term "munging") can. (An example of a percentile response time goal is "90% of transactions must end... [More]


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text: Democratic Forest Trusts (PDF)in Watson, Alan; Dean, Liese; Sproull, Janet, comps. 2006. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Eighth World Wilderness Congress Symposium; 2005 September 30-October 6; Anchorage, AK.Democratic trusts with leadership elected by citizen-members promise to solve many of the problems afflicting both traditional government and corporate ownership of forestlands. This article explores these issues in some depth.Complexity and the Dream of Human Control of Eco-Systems (PDF)in Watson, Alan; Dean, Liese; Sproull, Janet, comps. 2006. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Eighth World Wilderness Congress Symposium; 2005 September 30-October 6; Anchorage, AK.The title captures it. I then explore the kinds of institutions compatible with both nature and the modern world that are implied from this analysis.Rethinking the Obvious: Modernity and Living Respectfully With Nature (PDF)The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, Winter, 1997.Modernity is usually considered a wrong turn in terms of respect for and sustaining the environment. I argue the reality is more complex, for modernity has freed us from personal dependence on agriculture, ended the economic value of children, radically reduced the likelihood of large scale wat, and shifted much production to intellectual rather than material capital. This partially decouples society from nature, which gives us important opportunities as well as problems.Towards an Ecocentric Political Economy (PDF)The Trumpeter, Fall, 1996.This paper begins my effort at showing how liberal modernity can be harmonized with an ecocentric perspective on our relationship with the natural world. It is a corrective to much "free market environmental" literature that sacrifices Nature to money as well as to anti-liberal attacks by well-meaning but economically naïve environmentalists.Unexpected Harmonies: Self-Organization in Liberal Modernity and Ecology (PDF)The Trumpeter, Journal of Ecosophy, 10:1, Winter 1993This is my initial paper exploring how what I term 'evolutionary liberal' thought can be an important means by which society and nature can be brought into greater harmony. The other Trumpeter papers build on it.Deep Ecology and Liberalism: The Greener Implications of Evolutionary Liberalism (PDF)Review of Politics, Fall, 1996.Liberal thought and deep ecology are usually regarded as mutually exclusive. But the "evolutionary" tradition offers a way to integrate the two through commonalties in the work of David Hume, Michael Polanyi, Arne Naess, and Aldo Leopold, providing a stronger foundation for liberalism while strengthening the case for an ecocentric ethic.(Related subjects: Ecology)Saving Western Towns: A Jeffersonian Green Proposal (PDF)in Writers on the Range, Karl Hess and John Baden, eds., University Press of Colorado, 1998.Developmental pressures in the rural and small town West involve three groups: long term residents, new arrivals, and environmentalists. Today their interests often conflict. This conflict is in part the outcome of institutions which prevent harmonizing competing interests. The concept of developmental trusts, both for rural regions and for small communities offers a means whereby these interests can be harmonized for the benefit of all concerned.(Related subjects: Politics)Social Ecology, Deep Ecology, and Liberalism (PDF)Critical Review, 6: 2-3, 1992.Murray Bookchin is considered a leading radical environmental theorist. However, his analysis is incapable of leading humankind towards a more respectful and sustainable relationship with the natural world. Criticisms of Bookchin from both the deep ecology and evolutionary liberal perspective complement one another, pointing the way towards a better understanding of how modernity relates to the environment.The paper as a whole offers an early discussion of issues that are more clearly addressed in later papers, particularly Deep Ecology and Liberalism (1996) and the three Trumpeter articles in 1997, 1996, and 1993. However, there are other ideas in the article which have not been developed more thoroughly elsewhere.


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In a landmark ruling, Samsung has been found guilty of infringing upon many of Apple's patents related to its mobile devices. Samsung will be forced to pay Apple a total of $1,049,343,540 in damages. The amount is less than the $2.5 billion Apple requested, but still a major victory for Cupertino.
The jury was required to fill out a 20-page verdict form, which contained 33 multi-part questions concerning the infringement by Samsung through its more than 20 smartphones and tablets. It was asked to decide whether or not Samsung infringed on a variety of Apple's patents, including software and hardware design patents, as well as "trade dress," which refers to design aspects that are non-essential to the function of a device.
Here's how the patent violations break down:
- Patent '381 (the "bounce back" action): The jury ruled in Apple's favor and found that all of Samsung's accused products infringed on this patent. Concerning this patent, all Samsung devices were found for inducement (meaning Samsung made its U.S. counterparts infringe on the patent). Samsung was also found guilty of willful infringement on this patent.
- Patent '163 (the "double tap to zoom" action): The jury ruled in Apple's favor and found that with the exception of eight mobile devices, Samsung infringed on this patent. Samsung was also found guilty of willful infringement on this patent.
- Patent '915 (the "pinch to zoom" and other zoom and scroll function actions): The jury ruled largely in Apple's favor, saying the only Samsung devices exemptions are the Intercept, Replenish, and the Ace. Concerning this patent, all Samsung devices except the Replenish were found for inducement. Samsung was also found guilty of willful infringement on this patent.
Design patents
There's surely some overlap between what could be considered software and design, but there are the proper design patents that were covered in today's verdict.
- Patent '087 (back of the iPhone): All Samsung smartphones infringed on this patent, with the exception of the Galaxy S 4G and Vibrant.
- Patent '677 (front of the iPhone): Aside from the Ace, all Samsung handsets were found to infringe on this patent. Samsung was also found guilty of willful infringement on this patent.
- Patent '305 (iOS app icon design): All Samsung devices were found to infringe on this patent – this has been a much-talked-about point, and the jury came down hard on it, saying, basically, that Samsung should have known better. Samsung was also found guilty of willful infringement on this patent.
- Patent '889 (iPad design – specifically, "clean front, edge-to-edge glass, thin bezel, thin outer border, and rounded corners"): On this patent, Samsung and its Galaxy Tab devices were determined to not have infringed on Apple's patent, although monetary rewards were yielded to Apple — something that has been called to the court's attention and is being reviewed.
Trade dress (overall design)
Trade dress is the overall styling of something, but is limited to design elements that aren't functional and purely for… style's sake.
Samsung argued that patent '893 was not protectable, but the jury ruled against this decision. However, Apple was only able to prove that trade dress of the iPhone 3G is protectable. All other iPhone models, and the iPad, do not have protectable trade dress, the jury ruled. The jury found that the Samsung Fascinate, Galaxy S i9000, Galaxy S 4G, Showcase, Mesmerize, and Vibrant all diluted the iPhone 3G trade dress. The Captivate, Continuum, Droid Charge, Epic 4G, Prevail, S2 (AT&T), S2 i9100, S2 (T-Mobile), Epic 4G Touch, Skyrocket, and Infuse 4G were not found to dilute iPhone 3G trade dress.
Samsung sues Apple… and loses
Samsung also filed suit against Apple, but the jury ruled that Apple had not violated any of Samsung's patents. Apple was not able to prove that Samsung's patents were invalid. But Apple will not have to pay Samsung any damages.
Apple did not win everything — but it won big. This case will have consequences for both the consumer electronics market, as well as the patent system itself, for years to come.
For a little context, however, the damages to be paid by Samsung equal about 0.0725 percent of its 2011 revenue (of about $145 billion). So while a billion seems like a lot of money, this isn't going to put Samsung out of business.
Still, the consequences of this case are sure to reach far and wide across the consumer technology industry.
"The mere existence of a case like this will further push patents into the realm of a 'commodity' that is stockpiled by large tech companies for the purpose of stifling competition," said Kevin Afghani, a patent attorney, in an email with Digital Trends. "This causes companies to think of patents first, and innovation second, which is opposite of the intended purpose of the patent system."
Update: See statements on the verdict from Samsung and Apple here.
Update 2: After the correction of discrepancies in the verdict, the amount for damages inflicted upon Samsung by the jury changed from $1,051,855,000 to $1,049,343,540. This change of $2,511,460 has been reflected above.
Molly McHugh and Jeffrey Van Camp contributed reporting for this story.
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In January 2010, more than a year before Mitt Romney had formally announced he was running for president, political historian Allan Lichtman predicted President Obama would be re-elected in 2012.
On Tuesday, Lichtman extended his record of correctly forecasting the winner of the popular vote to eight straight elections.
What makes Lichtman interesting is that he makes predictions early, long before eve-of-election polls, long before October surprises, and sometimes even before the nominees have been chosen.
Lichtman says he sees elections the way geophysicists see earthquakes — as events fundamentally driven by structural factors deep beneath the surface, rather than by superficial events at the surface.
He said he came to this idea after happening to meet a Russian geophysicist. They got to talking about earthquakes and asked themselves whether elections might follow the same principles as earthquakes.
"Everything we know about elections, we've already stolen from geophysics," Lichtman said in an interview shortly before Tuesday's election. "Tremors of political change, seismic movements of the voters, volcanic elections, political earthquakes. It's all geophysics anyway."
Rather than think of elections as battles between liberals and conservatives, or even between two candidates, Lichtman said he decided to test the idea that elections follow earthquake principles: You either have stability, or you have upheaval.
Translated to elections, if the incumbent party in the White House kept the White House after the election, that meant you had stability. If the incumbent party lost, that meant there was upheaval — an earthquake.
Lichtman analyzed presidential elections between 1860 and 1980. Over that 120-year period, he looked for markers of stability and markers of upheaval.
Much of what he found is intuitively obvious: When the country was in recession or there was a foreign policy disaster during the tenure of the last administration, the incumbent party was likely to lose. When there was a major domestic or foreign policy success, the economy was doing well, or an incumbent president was running for re-election, the party in power tended to hold on to power.
What Lichtman did was take his data seriously: He found that in every election between 1860 and 1980, when the answers to six or more of the 13 questions he devised went against the party in power, there was an upheaval — the challenger won.
He applied the model to subsequent elections. Starting in 1984, the model has correctly predicted the winner of the popular vote in every election — sometimes months or even years before the election takes place.
Lichtman's model raises questions about the way the media cover campaigns and the way candidates run for office because it suggests that the ups and downs of horse-race coverage, gaffes and ad campaigns may not be as important to the outcome as most people believe.
"Primarily, elections are responsive to these much deeper forces," Lichtman said. "Focusing on the campaign is like focusing on the froth of the wave, instead of the wave itself."
Lichtman said the model actually shows the American political system in a positive light. Basically, it suggests good governance tends to get rewarded. If a party is in power, it doesn't need to have a perfect track record to keep the White House. It can afford as many as five strikes against it — any more, and there is an earthquake and the challenger wins.
Before the 2012 election, Lichtman said his model showed the answers to only three of the 13 questions — he calls them "keys" — turning against Obama: One was the long-term state of the economy. A second was the fact that the incumbent party in the White House had taken a shellacking during the previous midterm elections. The third was that Obama's sizable disapproval ratings meant he could not be considered a once-in-a-generation charismatic leader.
Forecasters predicted much of Sandy's destruction. They also made forecasts of the presidential election.
Nate Silver, a blogger of the New York Times, was fiercely criticized during the campaign for forecasting overwhelming odds of President Obama's reelection.
MONTAGNE: Republicans made their own forecasts - not just a victory, but for a landslide win for Mitt Romney.
INSKEEP: NPR science correspondent Shankar Vedantam has been talking with a man who has made forecasts even earlier in presidential election campaigns without even consulting a poll.
Shankar, who is he, and he what does he do?
SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: Well, his name is Allan Lichtman. He's a political historian at American University. And this Tuesday is the eighth time in a row that he's correctly predicted the winner of the popular vote. And what makes Lichtman really interesting is how early he makes his predictions. I talked with him last week, and I want to play you a little bit of our conversation.
Who is going to win the next election?
ALLAN LICHTMAN: Barack Obama.
VEDANTAM: Just for the record, the election hasn't yet taken place. And you're telling me four days before the election that you know who's going to win.
LICHTMAN: I told you in January 2010 who I knew was going to win.
INSKEEP: Before there was even a Republican nominee. So what does he do to try to find that out?
VEDANTAM: Well, he told me that 30 years ago, he happened to be sitting down at dinner next to a geophysicist. And they were talking about how earthquakes form, that they're driven by these faults that are deep under the surface of the Earth. And they said: Is it possible elections work exactly the same way? And Lichtman told me the more he thought about it, the more plausible the analogy seemed to be between elections and earthquakes.
LICHTMAN: We've already stolen from geophysics: tremors of political change, seismic movements of the voters, volcanic elections, political earthquakes. It's all geophysics, anyway.
VEDANTAM: So he told me that he said: What if we don't think about elections in the conventional way? So don't think about them as liberal versus conservative. Don't think about them even as one candidate versus the other candidate. Think about them in terms of earthquakes, right? Earthquakes have two states. You either have stability - in which case we don't have an earthquake - or you have upheaval, in which case you do.
You translate that to elections, when you have stability, the incumbent party in the White House keeps the White House. When you upheaval, you have an earthquake, and the challenging party takes over.
And so what Lichtman did was he studied every election between 1860 and 1980. That's 120 years. He said: What are the markers that are associated with stability and what are the markers that are associated with upheaval? And what he found, in many ways, was quite obvious. You know, he found that when the country was in a recession you are more likely to have upheaval...
INSKEEP: Sure.
VEDANTAM: ...the incumbent party was likely to lose. When you had a major foreign policy victory, you know, the incumbent party was more likely to win. When you have a domestic policy victory, you are more likely to win. You have a major scandal, you're more likely to lose.
So he teamed up with 13 of these questions, you know: Is there a third-party candidacy? Does the president have a primary challenger? Is there an incumbent president who is running for election? And what he found between 1860 and 1980 is that when six of the 13 questions went against the incumbent party, you had an earthquake. In other words, the challenging party took over.
And what he did was he started applying this model prospectively to every election afterwards.
INSKEEP: From the '80s onward.
VEDANTAM: Starting from 1984 to 2012, his the model has correctly predicted the winner of the popular vote - not weeks, not days, but months or even years in advance.
INSKEEP: So these underlying factors, these tectonic factors are more important than all the stuff that we cover all year, the conventions, the debates?
VEDANTAM: Yeah. In fact, I put this question to him. Here's what I asked him.
What does that mean, all of the other stuff that we have in campaigns is about? You know, the speeches, the nominees, the money, the ads, the consultants? What is that?
LICHTMAN: It means it's all about the wrong things. Primarily, elections are responsive to these much deeper forces. Focusing on the campaign is like focusing on the froth of the wave, instead of the wave itself.
INSKEEP: I'm wondering if there's something about this theory that misses the point, though. Because if you have these underlying factors - like, say, you're a challenger and you've got a weak economy. I mean, you have to go out and campaign. You have to persuade people of your view of the economy. You actually have to work through all these parts of the campaign. You can't just sit there and rely on historical forces to bring you victory while you stay at home.
VEDANTAM: For sure. I don't think Lichtman's model suggests that if - because the fundamentals are in your favor, you can stay home and not campaign. He's a assuming that campaigns will do what they did between 1860 and 1980. But what he's saying is when the two campaigns do that, odds are they're largely going to cancel one another out, and what ends up then deciding the outcome are the fundamentals.
INSKEEP: Shankar Vedantam, thanks very much.
VEDANTAM: Thanks, Steve.
INSKEEP: You can follow him on Twitter @Hidden Brain. You can also follow this program @MORNING EDITION and @nprinskeep. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.