Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Congress woman Gabby Giifords has been shot.

I was down in Tulsa at the big gunshow the weekend the Westboro freaks went down to McAlester (a small city about 100 miles south of there) and protested a dead soldier's funeral. I have a cap that says simply "Kansas" on it, which I was wearing. I ditched it and wore my Cowboy hat instead because I didn't want to be associated with the Westboro nuts.

The people in McAlester protested right back at the Westboro people and when the freaks got back to their minivan all the tires were flat. They couldn't get anybody to fix it on a Saturday. Finally, they got some dude from the auto club to bring a flatbed truck and haul it to Walmarts where they got it fixed. A rather cold reception.

The jackasses also protested a National Guardsman that I knew who was killed over in the Sandbox. They are a disgrace to Kansas. It is great to ignore them because they are attention whores, perpetual victims and also lawsuit mavens. I can't say I dislike the McAlester approach though. Just thought I'd share.

Quick reply utilized so not addressed to Cole:

I finally waded through all 21 (to me) pages. One and only comment.

I pray to God that some of the sick assed comments that have been expressed on this thread are NOT representative of the campfire. If they are then GOD HELP US ALL.
Giffords and the other poor people had done nothing deserving of injury or death at the hands of some deranged moron.






BCR

Downright disgusting.

Man, this thread is terrible in so many different ways.

Brian.

That's what I figured.

Excellent post Foxbat.....


Casey

Here's the thing that conserns me. This guy is a mental case. They can't use his ideology so much to denigrate the republicans of the Tea Party. Bet they will make some political hay from it. That will be the "Mentally Ill" end.

Right now the standard is "Adjudicated mentally defective or INVOLUNTARILY committed to a mental institution". Both of these cases require an action by court. An action that has the effect of limiting the exercise of rights. It fills the Due Process clause of the constitution.

Now we go to simple mental illness. What exactly is that. In fact if you would look through DSM-V you would see that just about everyone is mentally ill in some way. It comes down to if you don't ascribe to some ideology. Maybe you are anti- social. Just the opinion of a quack shrink. And who set the standards?

Maybe you went through a spell of major depression, and you checked into a facility. It doesn't mean you are a danger to society, it doesn't mean you don't know right from wrong. Maybe you had problems in the service and were treated, maybe even discharged, that still doesn't mean you don't know right from wrong or that you are wholly or partially a "Mental Case" like this guy.

These things happen in a free society. In fact they happen much more often in a society less free. Let's understand that living in a free society has inherent risks. Do we really want some bureaucratic hack or politician to set a standard in which ANY of your rights can be restricted without due process? Is that the crack in the door we want to give to the politicians? Over rare instances, as a reaction.

Perhaps if we want such a standard people with diabetes of heart disease should not be allowed to drive. In fact they can and do cause accidents in which people get hurt or killed. Yet we have them driving school buses. In fact, that scenario comes to light one heck of a lot more often than a shooting.

Good post.

kique, if they do come to town, which you please let some of us know in advance?
thanks.
that guy is a real piece of work, isn't he?
http://networkedblogs.com/cLuTY

With the left's gnashing of their teeth over Palin's use of a gunsite over those districts that included Giffords.....

A very relevant dose of hypocrisy...


�If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun, because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I�ve seen Eagles fans.�

Barack Obama - 2008 to a rally in Philadelphia

Keep digging that hole deeper! Douche bag!

I agree on all counts ,James .

crosshair, I don't know your background other than that I believe you work in penology, but you really nailed it. Thank you for your excellent post. It should be a wake up to those who think "nut jobs" are somebody else, and have no problem denying rights to anybody who is designated mentally ill. You really have to know something about the system to appreciate the danger this presents to civil rights. Too many people think it couldn't apply to them. Remember what happened to people labeled mentally ill in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

Paul

I have about three dozen Bibles, in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, Spanish, and Dutch, as well as of course well over a dozen English versions � can't find any glimmer of that in any of 'em even with the help of a few dozens of commentaries, lexicons, encylcopedias, and contemporary peripheral works.

Not sure that I'd understand Barak's Complete Annotated Commentary on the Bible even if I had it. Too bad that the Holy Spirit ain't really Twins, as some seem to like to believe that He is. Obviously, I could use a lot more of His help.

Haven't seen my beloved old copy of Berkof's Principles of Biblical Interpretation in several years, so I've just ordered another copy. Looking forward to getting reacquainted with an old friend. Maybe that'll help.

It ain't easy bein' senile!

The point is that I generally serve a Kairos weekend in some prison or other once every six months, during which I do precisely no preaching whatever; but every week I'm in there with my Agile Java class, teaching principles of modern software development to a mess of prisoners with two other volunteers who are also programmer consultants. That I suppose you could call preaching in a secular sense, but it'd be stretching a point.

I knew that.

Hate to dig up this toxic thread but...

Barak, ya asked my opinion.

You're the guy who has a hard time with the finer, non-literal nuances of normal human communication, like how it is difficult for you to percieve sarcasm, so I'll cut you some slack. Perhaps you have no idea how you appear over the 'net.

Your assertion that all government figures are corrupt and worse than armed robber and perhaps even rapists is absurd. I know that in your perfect world people live in small, self-governing communities wherein they can set their own norms of acceptable behavior and rules, and if they dont like it, can find another one.

Your belief is that innate human goodness or Christian values whatever would prevent people from committing abuses upon others or upon their own children (to use that particularly egregious example), but if there was a community that WANTED to abuse their kids, they could go for it. Your assertion being IIRC that such communities would die a natural death resulting from their own behavior, whatever it might be.

A nicely idealized world perhaps. Except that innumerable examples past and present, show that left unchecked, all sorts of perversions and violence can become the norm and yet those communities persist indefinitely. Indeed, those who live in such setting generally lead short and violence-filled lives relative to what we have in Western societies, with far less freedoms.

In short, experience has shown that a rule of law, as imposed by a government, is a necessary adjunct. No government is perfect, ours ain't bad, especially considering the alternatives.

All well and good, difference of opinion among ourselves, though numerous obvious examples would back my argument.

Where it becomes more than just a difference of opinion is your lunatic assertion that anyone in government is necessarily corrupt and fundamentally evil. IN this Tuscon case most of us see a tragedy involving an insane person inflicting horrible losses on decent people, you see a young man carrying out an act of public good.

Even more lunatic, you go on to aver that the children of politicians are themselves deficient, by genetics one presumes.

'Oh the shooter ain't a hero' you say 'because he also shot the general public, and a kid'. Leaving us with the implication that if he had just murdered or maimed the politician and the judge, then his act would have been virtuous in your eyes.

I think you would have made a very fervent Islamic radical, the logic and assumptions being very similar.

If stupidity is a function of context and likely cost/benefits in a given setting, then indeed your posting what you did on a public forum was stupid.

Birdwatcher

Birdwatcher +100 Your post is probably the best post in this entire 72 page mess!

I think it's a pretty good post, too, and I like Birdie (he's generally a fair man, and doesn't look to stir up trouble), but I do think he has read into Barak's posts elements which are not, upon careful reading, actually in them. High emotions (which the current tragedy quite naturally engenders) tend to have that effect, so I don't blame folks for reading with emotions high rather than dispassionately, considering the circumstances.

Barak's a [bleep]' NUTCASE,.....and I'm with LHonda,.....I hope they haul his azz away in handcuffs.

This idiot TRH is trying to dodge HIS endorsement of vile behavior with typical bullchit, and loony rhetoric.

GTVC