school (13)

TEXAS HOME SCHOOL ALERT!!

4064250808?profile=original     

I spent a considerable amount of time on the phone today with Sen. Huffines Education Policy director, Lauren who is at the Austin office (very nice lady)

***ALERT***

THERE WILL BE TESTING for all those that apply and get the state funding through Education Savings Accounts (ESA) in this proposed "School Choice" legislation.

Now with that said a student has to be in the public school system for an un-determined amount of time to qualify for the funding. (There was original discussion that this would be 100 days and it is not set in stone as of yet).

Now I want you to wrap your head around this home schoolers. Texas has been the best State in the US to homeschool due to our freedom from state mandates and testing. If this "School Choice" bill passes those who choose to exit the public school system to homeschool and buy into the money carrot of (ESA's) are unfortunately NOT aware of the freedom we have been blessed with.

Unfortunately, I feel many will be duped into taking the $$ keeping their child in the system. With this comes control, state mandates, testing and data collection on TEXAS' future homeschool community.

Please do not buy into the "MANTRA" that this $$ is going to parents to "EMPOWER" them to be involved in their child's education.A parent that wants to be involved in their child's education WILL BE!!

With that said I am most upset that the Texas Home School Coalition is throwing future Texas Homeschoolers under the bus.

Additional Information

If your on facebook please join in our discussion.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1848649718688814/

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4063934602?profile=original                              Arthur W. Newkirk, Jr.

NEWS RELEASE & PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT ‘PLEASE’

 

At 10:00 AM on July 28, 2014, the Hampton B. Allen Library in Wadesboro, NC  28170 will receive a 24” X 34” wood framed ‘Tribute to Arthur W. Newkirk, Jr.’ in Commemoration of Arthur W. Newkirk, Jr’s “Baseball Basics” never-forgotten teaching and coaching instructions and standards at the former Burnsville High School, Route 2, Polkton, NC 28135 and Anson High School, 96 Anson High Road, Wadesboro, NC 28170; both components of the Anson County, NC School System.

 

The public is invited to attend.

 

Hampton B. Allen Library is located at 120 South Greene Street, Wadesboro, NC  28170

 

Should you have any questions, please feel free to call 704-269-4590 or E-mail: oharward@carolina.rr.com

Baseball Basics as instructed by Arthur W. Newkirk, Jr.

 

Own an exact original!  Coach Arthur W. Newkirk, Jr. was a winner each and every year in each sport he taught.  On at least one Baseball season, Coach Newkirk had a perfect winning record.

 

In Commemoration of Arthur W. Newkirk, Jr. – July 28, 2014 at Hampton B. Allen Library, Wadesboro, NC.

Presenting and remembering ‘Baseball Basics’ as instructed by Coach Arthur W. Newkirk, Jr. and remembered by Oscar Y. Harward.

Pictures of Arthur W. Newkirk, Jr., a World War II Veteran as a US Marine, his College, and his Anson County High Schools.

Arthur W. Newkirk, Jr.’s winning teachings in the classroom!

A natural leader and well-trained instructor.

Teaching methods leaving students yearning for more knowledge.

Teaching from your own information, wisdom, and humor.

No division between baseball smarts, classroom smarts, and life skill smarts.

Adjusting yourself both physically and mentally on and off the field.

Maintaining a positive attitude in continuing to be the best we could be.

Arthur W. Newkirk, Jr.’s winning teachings on Baseball!

Newkirk on Offense

Newkirk on Hitting

Newkirk on Defense!

Newkirk for Pitchers!

Newkirk for Catchers!

Newkirk for Fielders!

Newkirk’s Baseball Physiology!

Instructions on winning in Baseball! Newkirk had a great record for winning; at least with one year undefeated.

A 24” X 34” Pictorial and written summary on Arthur W. Newkirk, Jr.’s disciplined winning teachings with an original ‘Program’.

Price: Contract --------------- $190.00

S&H – Insured – UPS --------- 40.00

Total Price: -------------------- $230.00

Cash, Check, Money Order, or Pay Pal:

Oscar Y. Harward
819 North Central Avenue
Locust, NC 28097

704-269-4590
oharward@carolina.rr.com

Please allow 3 weeks for delivery.

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From Fox...

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/06/19/jesus-republicans-and-nra-banned-on-school-website/

Welcome to Germany,  1938

One of the lessons that Andrew Lampart learned from being on his school’s debate team was to gather facts for both sides of an argument. So when his law class was instructed to prepare for a debate on gun control, Andrew went online using the school’s Internet service.

This is so utterly sad and depressing.

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ADMIN

american_gadsden_2
As high school seniors near graduation, they very often pull senior pranks. One young man in Colorado, however, was suspended from school and banned from graduation because of his prank. The incident caused no damage to the school and was pretty harmless. But, the visual of what he did angered his high school principal so much that she immediately lost it and went on a rampage. His prank? Raising the freedom representing Gadsden flag on the school’s flagpole.

The Examiner reported that on May 9th, Greg Stoneburner replaced the school’s flag with the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, one that is used by the Tea Party movement as an expression of freedom and the willingness to fight for it.

POLL: Is Common Core indoctrination or education?

According a Facebook post by Stoneburner, he was not attempting to push any political affiliation, but was merely trying to “encourage historical and contemporary discussion about our student rights.”

Upon seeing the flag waving in the air with Old Glory, the principal of Central High School, Jodie Diers, went on a rampage yelling to take the flag down. Stoneburner was pulled out of a scholarship breakfast, along with his parents, and told that he was not welcome at Central High and that his prank was ‘a slap in the face’ to the school.

read more:

http://www.tpnn.com/2014/05/17/fly-the-gadsden-flag-get-kicked-out-of-school-guess-where-that-happened/

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4063893867?profile=originalHOUSTON — Some of the least-qualified graduates of the University of Texas School of Law in recent years have high-level connections in the Legislature, which may explain how they got into the prestigious law school in the first place.

A months-long Watchdog.org analysis of political influence on the admissions process at UT Law found there’s some truth, after all, to the old line about who you know mattering more than what you know. We found dozens of Longhorns who don’t know enough to be lawyers but know somebody important in the Legislature.

Two of those mediocre students are legislators themselves.

Some have connections to the leadership circle of House Speaker Joe Straus, others to powerful state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, who’s already been caught three times trying to pull end runs around the admissions process.

Wallace Hall, a University of Texas regent, cited dozens of emails and letters that he obtained in a records review to support claims that some members of the Legislature abused their positions to influence admissions decisions.

Barely two weeks after Hall began his investigation of influence peddling last June, the Legislature launched proceedings to impeach him. The correspondence Hall saw has been kept from the public, as have the conclusions of an inquiry into favoritism conducted by Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa.

This Watchdog.org review of the record is meant to shine the available light on a process shrouded in secrecy by education privacy laws and by top school officials reluctant to embarrass powerful politicians, some of whom happen to be their friends.

Watchdog.org found a pattern of overlapping political influence and underwhelming performance on the bar exam. Any single one of the cases we describe could have an alternate explanation, such as personal problems that derailed studies.

Taken as a whole, however, they offer clear evidence that political influence is the reason dozens of students who are unable to pass the bar are getting into the state’s top law school.

Wherever it’s possible to tell this story without using the names of people who are one or two degrees removed from public life, we’ll do so, for reasons of privacy. We will provide a complete list of names to any university official interested in a review.

Until now, the most striking piece of evidence for the favoritism charge is the result of the February 2014 bar exam, published by the state Board of Law Examiners. UT is usually near the top of the list, with a passage rate for first time takers of about 95 percent. In February, UT’s 59 percent pass rate was dead last in Texas.

That could be a fluke. But we’ve found two dozen reasons to think it’s not.

Read more at: http://watchdog.org/144169/ut-law-school-hookups/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Watchdog%20Newsletter

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Perhaps here is the reason why:

As a school superintendent, you’re typically measured by a few numbers. Test scores, graduation rates, crime rates, finances, gaps in student achievement, and perhaps a few other metrics, depending on your board of education. You can actually tackle these problems, or you can employ the dark art of data manipulation. In 2012, a news story exploded onto the national stage that was very instructive in how to magically lower school crime statistics – yet nearly every major news outlet missed it.

Click here for more info.

ex animo

davidfarrar

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4063794153?profile=original17-year-old Arapahoe High School Gun Victim Dies – Some Blame 2nd Amendment

The 17-year-old Colorado student who loved horses, life and what was expected to be a promising future after graduation died Saturday from her gun injuries.  Claire Davis who had been the only victim of the gunfire unleashed by shooter and fellow Arapahoe High School student Karl Pierson was shot point blank in the head on December 13, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The unfortunate tragedy underscores the need for both law enforcement as well as mental health authorities to play closer attention to some of the possible triggers which set deadly shooters like 18-year-old Pierson onto their campaign pathway of evil.

There are some at the school who appeared to believe that Pierson was all consumed with the notion of creating as many victims of his mayhem as possible.  He came to the school armed with, “a legally purchased 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, a machete, and three Molotov cocktails, 125 rounds of steel-shot, buckshot and slug ammunition,according to Denver Westword.

Although Davis seemed to have had an acquaintance with the armed teenage shooter, according to the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office,  Pierson did not appear to have singled her out as one of his intended victims.

( Click to Read More )

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More nonsense out of Virginia. their contact page;  https://www.governor.virginia.gov/AboutTheGovernor/contactGovernor.cfm ***************************************

Ms. Hayden,

I am sorry, but you are uninformed. This IS the Governor's lane......

What ordinances the City of Virginia Beach Police and the Larkspur Middle school employ to "determine" this incident was an involvement with a firearm, a child and the school - are predicated and based entirely on Virginia State Laws.... as in every other State of the Union.

For a City within the State of Virginia to redefine the word of the English language such as "firearm" to include a TOY gun... for the City of Virginia Beach to redefine the meaning of "school" to include the private property of this Child's parents (the Child's home) means the State of Virginia allows the City of Virginia Beach to re-write existing Virginia State LAW to include these descriptors.....

Funny, I have never heard of such a thing before. A Governor allowing a City to re-write existing State Laws for their own political agenda - without Statewide Citizens allowed a vote or your State Legislative input.

Sorry Ms. Hayden, but this is clearly Governor McDonnell's lane to address and I urge you to bounce this back for him to address it. Please be advised.... this is all over Social Media - and the responses I am seeing are exactly what I am writing to you - OUTRAGE!

And Ms. Hayden, I know it is confusing and I do not mean to sound like I am attempting to chew on you, quite the opposite.... but about twenty years ago they started putting the name "Aubrey" in the baby books as a girls name... The primary problem is.... for the past one thousand five hundred years (1,500).... it has been a mans name.

Respectfully,

SFC (retired) Aubrey Mason San Antonio, Texas

cc; Social media

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott

Tea Party Command Center

************************************************************************line added to delimitate

From: OfficeOfTheGovernor@governor.virginia.gov

my email redacted

Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 13:09:12 -0400

Subject: From the Office of the Governor CRM:0128817

Dear Ms. Mason:   Thank you for contacting the Office of Governor Robert F. McDonnell.  Governor McDonnell is in receipt of your letter and he has asked me to respond on his behalf.   By your letter, it is clear that this matter is of the utmost importance to you.  However, it has been determined that your issue is a local matter within the City of Virginia Beach in which Governor McDonnell does not have the authority to intervene. This issue involves the bus stop, or in some cases depending on location, school property of Virginia Beach City Public Schools. You may wish to contact the Office of the Mayor, William Sessoms, Jr. at 757-385-4581. I am confident that his office will be able to appropriately address your concerns.   Thank you again for contacting the Office of the Governor.  Please do not hesitate to do so regarding future matters.   Sincerely,   Kathy Hayden Director of Community Relations Office of Governor Robert F. McDonnell     PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS E-MAIL ADDRESS Messages sent to this e-mail address will NOT be read. To send a reply, please use the contact form on the Governor's website, located at: https://www.governor.virginia.gov/AboutTheGovernor/contactGovernor.cfm

------------------- Original Message -------------------

From: Aubrey L Mason

Received: 9/25/2013 9:41 AM

To: yy EadPortalGovCr

Subject: Virginia Beach Police and Larkspur Middle School administration

Governor McDonnell,

 

Sir, reading all of the news releases about this incident pains me... for the Virginia Beach Police department and the Larkspur middle school administration to defy logic and law - claiming a TOY is a firearm and using this as the grounds to suspend this child from school is inexcusable. The Nation is outraged! How can you allow this nonsense in Virginia? And from appearances, the Virginia Beach Police and Larkspur middle school administration are demonizing an innocent child who does not understand "gun control" or anything else along those lines of political discussion! The boy was playing!!!!!!! Why is your State allowing a child to be harmed for the promotion of a POLITICAL AGENDA???????????

 

Respectfully,

SFC (retired) Aubrey Mason

San Antonio, Texas

cc; Social Media

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  4063643739?profile=original   Adam Lanza's mental illness claimed the lives of his mother and innocent school victims

There was a fear moving across the American heartland long before Adam Lanza stepped onto the nation’s stage and donned the dark murderous mass killer robe. This 20-year-old joined the unique club of notable mass murderers that used a gun as a weapon of slaughter. After his onslaught the gun control hysteria surrounding stricter legislation has risen to a fever pitch.

Why purposely avoid holding the gunman’s mental instability responsible? Should any dangerous behavior factors or legislation that could have been in place to prevent this terrible murderous outbreak be considered? What if there had been a 'Three Strike Rule' in place for Adam Lanza, which allowed automatic involuntary commitment by mental health authorities? Mothers, fathers and siblings need this kind of solution that will not make them the next horrific headline in America’s homes.

This rapid rush to judgment and instant condemnation of guns as the casual factor for the mindless killings by a disturbed gunman is just too convenient a straw man. Adam Lanza was the killer. Adam Lanza, according to Fox News reports, was upset that his mother was going to commit him for psychiatric treatment. And it was Adam Lanza that constructed the plan to destroy his computer to remove any evidence concerning his plan to murder.

Yet, it has been the mainstream media, along with the urgency of the gun control first responders to keep overlooking the obvious. This disturbed gunman may have used guns as weapons to kill, but it was his mental illness that was the true deadly assault weapon!

It is essential that the loss of such precious young children, teachers and Adam Lanza’s mother Nancy not be buried in the grave, while the true culprit to their senseless murders is ignored. Adam Lanza, a mentally disturbed young man, stole three legally registered weapons to commit his crimes the emphasis is on legal.

The actual crimes were formulated in his head and his conduct, unrestrained by possible intervention of law enforcement or mental health authorities, that became the deadly weapon.

So, why do politicians want to dismember the constitutional right to arm and protect the life of an individual or a family? These officials and gun control advocates are afraid to tackle the hard question and solution to this outrage. They absolutely refuse to hold the individual who had a mental illness, and has shown previous signs, of forceful dangerous behavior responsible for his actions.

Instead, this endless cat and mouse game is played on the national stage by congress, state legislatures, and mayors like Michael Bloomberg who hide behind their own protective guards and trained security. These first responders of gun rights denouncers are disingenuous. They purport to seek a conversation on what can safeguard society’s innocents, but denounce attacks on Hollywood movies and violent video games which savage the young minds of young children thousands of times a year.

These same gun control activists do not seek cooperation or genuine discussion but would rather demonize gun rights supporters and castrate the National Rifle Association (NRA) at every given opportunity.

On Friday, December 21st, when Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s Executive Vice President advanced proposals at the Washington D.C. Press conference, the mainstream media and gun rights opponents trivialized his comments.

( click to read more )

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Psych meds linked to 90% of school shootings

Expert: Psychiatric drugs likely cause of Lanza's extreme violence

Published: 2 days ago

NEW YORK – From the moment news emerged Friday that a young man had carried out a horrific massacre of elementary-school children, politicians from local city halls to the White House have been restoking the age-old push for more gun control. While guns have been a common denominator in mass slayings at schools by teens, there’s another familiar element that seems increasingly to be minimized.

Some 90 percent of school shootings over more than a decade have been linked to a widely prescribed type of antidepressant called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs, according to British psychiatrist Dr. David Healy, a founder of RxISK.org, an independent website for researching and reporting on prescription drugs.

Though there has been no definitive confirmation that drugs played a role in the Newtown, Conn., assault, that killed 20 children and six adults, media have cited family members and acquaintances saying suspect Adam Lanza was taking prescription medication to treat “a neurological-development disorder,” possibly Aspergers.

Healy cautioned that the public needs “to wait to find out what Adam Lanza was on, and whether his behavior does fit the template of a treatment-induced problem.”

However, in an email to WND, he said he suspected prescribed psychiatric medications was the cause of Lanza’s violent behavior.

Healy said that while the public waits to learn more about Lanza, there are two general points that can be made.

First, he said, “psychotropic drugs of pretty well any group can trigger violence up to and including homicide.”

“Second, the advocates of treatment claim both that it is the illness and not the drugs that causes violence and that we are leaving huge numbers of people untreated.”

But Healy argued that if this were the case, “we should not find that comfortably over 90 percent of school shootings are linked to medication intake.”

Dr. Peter R. Breggin, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and former full-time consultant at the National Institute of Mental Health, told WND it’s likely that problems for Lanza began with “getting tangled up” with psychiatric medicine.

Breggin insisted there has been overwhelming scientific evidence for decades correlating psychiatrically prescribed drugs with violence.

Writing in Ethical Human Sciences and Services, a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, in 2003, Breggin concluded SSRI drugs could be a factor in suicide, violence and other forms of extreme abnormal behavior, as evidenced in case reports, controlled clinical trials, and epidemiological studies in children and adults.

Since the 1970s, Breggin has testified in approximately 100 trials, including one in which Judge Robert Heinrichs ruled the adverse effects of taking Prozac drove a 16-year-old in Winnipeg, Canada, to commit an unprovoked murder.

Breggin appeared before the Veterans Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010 in support of his 2008 book “Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime.”

Breggin testified to Congress that research conducted in the medical science demonstrates a causal relationship between antidepressant drugs and the production of suicide, violence, mania and other behavioral abnormalities.

He warned Congress of the risks of giving these drugs to heavily armed young men and women in the military.

Mainstream religion

Breggin asserted that establishment media “ignores the scientific evidence linking psychiatric medications and violent behavior because psychiatry is the religion of the mainstream media, and they don’t want to see the dangers of psychiatrically prescribed drugs.”

“Besides, the drug companies also have incredible influence through advertising such that they can call the shots,” he said.

He believes the Lanza case fits the pattern of school shooters in some of the most famous incidents in recent memory, including the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado and the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007.

“Adam Lanza has in common with many of the young men who were shooters that they were outsiders who lived in the shadows, who deal with a lot of shame, humiliation and isolation,” Breggin explained.

He calls the psychiatric diagnoses “worthless.”

“We know exactly who they are,” he said. “They are called ‘geeky’ in the extreme. Not a single one has ever come forward with a close friend. They are alienated from their families, and they have been involved in psychiatry.”

Breggin insists that instead of psychiatric treatment, children of this kind need “more reaching out, more socialization, more caring, more involvement.”

“Our schools, our families, and our communities need to be aware of the kids who are withdrawn and violent, not because they are going to become violent – hardly any of them are going to become violent – but because these are really hurt kids,” he said.

“We can call them evil, we can call them mentally ill, but the pattern is really quite clear,” Breggin continued. “They are highly intelligent and highly withdrawn and they are all involved with psychiatry, so the claim psychiatry is going to do some good is really ridiculous.”

In many school shootings carried out by minors, court documents are sealed and the extent of chemical use is unknown to the public.

But in a number of high-profile cases, the link has been reported:

  • Kip Kinkel was withdrawing from Prozac and had been prescribed Ritalin when he murdered his mother and stepfather then shot 22 classmates, killing two, in 1998.
  • Christopher Pittman was withdrawing from Luvox and from Paxil when he killed his paternal grandparents in 2001.
  • Elizabeth Bush, who fired at fellow students in Williamsport, Pa., in 2001, wounding one, was on Prozac.
  • Jason Hoffman, was on Effexor and Celexa when he opened fire at his El Cajon, Calif., high school, wounding five.
  • Shawn Cooper of Notus, Idaho, was on antidepressants when he fired a shotgun on students and staff.
  • T.J. Solomon, on antidepressants, wounded six at his Conyers, Ga., high school.
  • Eric Harris was taking Luvox when he and fellow student Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 24 others before turning their guns on themselves at Columbine High School in Colorado.
  • At Virginia Tech in 2007, where 32 were murdered, authorities found “prescription medications related to the treatment of psychological problems had been found among Mr. Cho’s effects,” according to the New York Times.

“Violence and other potentially criminal behavior caused by prescription drugs are medicine’s best kept secret,” Healy said in a statement last month. “Never before in the fields of medicine and law have there been so many events with so much concealed data and so little focused expertise.”

In the past six years, Healy has authored two best-selling books analyzing the degree to which the pharmaceutical industry has influenced medical doctors to prescribe antidepressant drugs to patients with psychiatric problems: “Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression,” in 2006 and “Pharmageddon” in 2012.

Recently, Healy’s RxISK.org added a “violence section” to its website, allowing users to enter the name of a prescription drug to find out the side effects recorded in the more than 4 million adverse drug event reports filed with the FDA since 2004.

Was Lanza on meds?

Writing for Slate.com Monday, Emily Willingham was quick to warn against demonizing Asperger’s syndrome, or autism in general, as the cause of Lanza’s violence. Likewise, in a New York magazine piece titled “Asperger’s is a Red Herring to Explain the Newtown Massacre,” Adam Martin wrote, “As the nation sets out to understand how Friday’s massacre came to pass, some are rightly worried that the high-functioning form of autism will become unfairly stigmatized.”

Nevertheless, credible sources have not withdrawn published claims that Lanza was on prescribed psychiatric medication at the time of the shooting.

On CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday, Mark and Louise Tambascio, friends of the shooter’s mother, Nancy Lanza, said Adam Lanza was being medicated for Asperger’s.

“I know [Adam Lanza] was on medication and everything, but she homeschooled him at home cause he couldn’t deal with the school classes sometimes,” Louise Tambascio told CBS reporter Scott Pelley. “So she just homeschooled Adam at that home. And that was her life.”

Her comment followed Mark Tambascio explaining to Scott Pelley that “friends told us that [Asperger's syndrome] did dominate the Lanzas’ lives.”

In addition, the Washington Post reported over the weekend an unnamed former neighbor of Nancy and Adam Lanza in Newtown, Conn., recalled Adam as “a really rambunctious kid” who “was on medication.”

The story became confused when a now discredited source claiming to be Adam Lanza’s “Uncle Jonathan” told several publications, including the Sun in the United Kingdom, that Adam was being treated with the strong anti-psychotic drug Fanapt.

Later reports found no relatives who knew “Uncle Jonathan.”

Separately, law enforcement officers have found evidence Lanza played graphically violent video games, the Hartford Courant reported on Sunday.

The Express in the United Kingdom reported Monday that Lanza had “an unhealthy obsession for violent video games” and that his favorite video game was said to be a “shockingly violent” fantasy war game called Dynasty Warriors, which is “thought to have given him inspiration to act on his darkest thoughts.”

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I recently sent this link out to a number of friends.   

 I know some of them are very conservative, some are liberal, some are military, some are teachers and college professors.  I expected to hear the whole gamut of comments.  One of the most disturbing is from, an otherwise intelligent, retired college professor, a PhD.    

Below is what he said, and my reply.  What do you think?  We had all better prepare ourselves for these conversations.  Our politicians can't agree to fix the tax code, cut spending, or balance a budget; but they rammed through Obamacare and they are building support to ram through their unconstitutional restrictions on gun ownership.

Sent: Mon, Dec 17, 2012 5:21 pm
Subject: Re: Breeding Ground for School Shooter

I respect your opinion, but I disagree.
 
First: the term "assault rifle" is a vague misnomer.  Any rifle can be an assault weapon.  For the military, their "assault rifles" are capable of firing AUTOMATICALLY or in 3 shot bursts.  The civilian versions, while similar in "appearance", have no such capability. The civilian versions operate just like any other semi-automatic rifle.
 
Second: Our 2nd Amendment, like our 1st, does not have "qualifiers".  In fact it specifically states that it is an unalienable right meaning, the government did not grant us this right; it is a right derived by virtue of being born a free person.  It also stipulates that the government may NOT restrict that right.  We already allow certain restrictions by permitting background checks, and limiting military weapons to either the military or police, or in rare occassions individuals who go through a lengthy permitting process and pay the government a license fee.  No average, everyday citizen, crazy or not, has access to those types of weapons.
 
Third:  Even though I may not desire to own an AR-15 or AK-47 "style" of rifle, I detest some bureaucrat telling me that, as a free, law abiding, sane, citizen that I am not trustworthy enough to own one.  They, nor you, have that right, just as no one has the right to tell me which church to go to or what newspaper to buy. 
 
Fourth:  Having a weapon, of choice, that an individual is competent at shooting, is EXACTLY the point.  It does have a direct relationship on a person's "self-defense", the AR style rifles ARE indeed used in hunting, sport shooting, competitve/recreational shooting.  In fact, they are one of the most widely used guns in America today.
 
Fifth:  Your comment: "People who would buy such weapons are precisely the ones we don't want 
to have them."
  Is not only inaccurate, but displays a lack of understanding of the real underlying causes for these tragedies.  As stated previously, many, sane, competent, decent, law abiding Americans currently own these rifles and enjoy using them for a variety of lawful purposes; the guns, their caliber,  their capacity, nor their appearance are the problem.  These shootings did not happen because the shooter had an AR-15; they happened because the shooter was, for whatever mental or emotional reason, not acting rationally and committed a heinous crime while breaking the existing laws.
  More laws will not fix the problems with evil, crazy, irrational behavior.
 
I am saddened, and sickened by the carnage this single person inflicted on so many families.  Like most people who see it, I am angry.  Rationally, I realize, I cannot be angry at the gun or the millions of Americans who choose to own and use that type of gun in their own "pursuit of happiness" that is guaranteed under our constitution.  I am ANGRY as hell at a society that fails to place the blame where the blame should be; on the individual who committed the crime, and his family and friends who supported him and enabled him.  I am ANGRY that the American culture has declined to such a state that we no longer mourn the deaths of millions of unborn babies by abortion; in fact, we elected a man to the Presidency who not only supported late term abortion, he voted for and even went so far as stating that an aborted late term baby, that happens to survive, should be left to die because that was the mother's intent.  Talk about callous!  Talk about insensitive!  Talk about disgusting!
 
I am also saddened that intelligent people, such as yourself, are inclined to accept a knee jerk reaction, which will not solve the real causes of much deeper societal problems of mental health, drug abuse, etc.
 
We have some really serious problems in society today.  We should be brave enough to face the facts that several generations of permissiveness  decaying moral values, political correctness, drugs, and the destruction of the traditional family are more at fault than a specific type of firearm.  There have been guns around for centuries.  True, until the 20th century we didn't have high capacity, weapons, but we have had semi-automatics since the early 20th century and it has only been in the past couple of decades that we've seen this level of violence perpetrated on our most vulnerable citizens.  Rather than rushing to judge those who legally own, and lawfully use, these weapons, I would encourage you to get involved in a meaningful investigation and dialogue to put the blame where it should be and begin to change society's value system rather than restrict a free American's constitutional right to keep the arms he or she chooses will best suit them.
 
Bill

 

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             4063641490?profile=original                  Mother holds young child who escaped murderous rampage of lone gunman,

                                          who killed 20 children and six adults at school

On Friday, December 14th, 20 innocent children walked into their schoolroom class at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and before noon, Adam Lanza, 20, had gunned them and his mother down, according to Fox News sources. Recently, this horrific scene has been played out far too many times in malls, movie theaters, and at universities. This time, the unthinkable has occurred. The innocence of childhood was stripped away by this lone gunman, and left a town, and a nation in mourning.

Yet, in the midst of this very tragic day, the routine calls for tighter gun control laws have again raised its ugly head. While there is no reported connection to alleged shooter, Adam Lanza and illegal firearms, the calls are spreading, as they did earlier in the week, when another masked gunman entered a Portland, Oregon area mall, and shot and killed two victims.

According to Fox News, a U.S. Justice Department source, indicated that weapons used in the murderous assault, including a .223-caliber rifle, had been legally registered to the shooter’s mother. There is a serious problem in this nation, but with this tragedy and the one on Tuesday in Portland, Oregon, it was not the gun, but the stolen weapons that was the problem.

In a nation where there are over 50 million legal gun owners, there is no clear reason how the outbursts of violence by mentally unstable individuals whose weapon of choice is a gun, can be used as a rationale to curtail constitutionally protected Second Amendment rights. The two are not even logically synonymous.

Gun control laws that are not strict enough did not fail these families who are undergoing this very grievous period of mourning for their dead loved ones. What may have failed, even though speculative, is whatever social service system that did not intervene or pay attention to domestic issues that were occurring inside the home of the dead shooter.

The answers to what motivated Adam Lanza, to head into the school where his mother taught and into the very room where she was a teacher and open fire on precious little kids, shows anger that was perhaps motivated by revenge, or some other deep unsettling motive. But a gun control law is not the culprit in this tragic scenario.

How much tighter should the state of Connecticut’s laws be, if the weapons were purportedly registered to the shooter’s mother? The State of Connecticut gun laws specifies in part:
“It is unlawful to possess any other firearm by a person who has been convicted of a felony. It is unlawful to possess a handgun if convicted as a delinquent of a serious juvenile offense which includes.”

The mother did not appear to be a felon, now was she a convicted delinquent. She was a teacher in an elementary school, who was according to published reports from Fox News, murdered by her own son, who stole the weapons from her home. She was a victim not of a right-wing fringe element. She was murdered by her son.

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