Sacajewea

The very first Americans, of course, were the indigenous population later known as “Indians”. From the very beginning, the Indian population was conflicted over the arrival of the Europeans and their colonization of Indian homelands. Some resented their coming, while others welcomed the newcomers, perceiving them as just another tribe with whom to share the bounties of nature. Ultimately, it became obvious to the Indians that the Europeans were there to stay and would eventually become the dominate culture. Some fought the inevitable and others embraced it. Sacajewea, whom I salute in this installment of my Profiles of Leadership in America, embraced it.



Sacajewea
c. 1784—December 20, 1884?

Americans, living today, owe much to our exploring pioneer forefathers. But, what of our exploring pioneer foremothers? In 1804, Lewis and Clark set out, with a company of some fifty men, to explore the Louisiana territory. The President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, had purchased the huge territory from France with very little knowledge of what it contained. He enlisted Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who had never set foot in that part of the land, to undertake this dangerous expedition and bring back that knowledge. Luckily for President Jefferson, and even more so for Lewis and Clark, the explorers met a young Indian woman on the way, who guided them through the most difficult and potentially perilous part of their journey. That Indian woman was Sacajewea.

Sacajewea was born a Shoshone around the year1784 in the area now known as the state of Idaho and was named Boinaiv (Grass Maiden in the Shoshone language). While still a child, she was stolen away from her family by the Minnetarres (an enemy tribe) and renamed Sacajewea (Bird Woman in the Minnetarre language) by her new tribe. Her Minnetarre captor later gambled her away to a French trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau. She became Charbonnea’s wife and was living with him in the Dakotas in the autumn of 1804 when Lewis and Clark reached there. Sacajewea and her husband agreed to act as guides for the team of explorers. The group wintered at Fort Mandan where Sacagawea gave birth to her son Baptiste.

The Frenchman, Charbonneau, possessed marginal abilities as a guide, but his young Indian wife proved to be an excellent guide, showing exceptional courage and resourcefulness. On one occasion, Sacajewea risked her own life to rescue the records of the expedition and other valuables from an overturned canoe. She accurately directed the Lewis and Clark expedition to her own country, which she had not seen since she was a child. She also taught the company how to gather food and live off the land to survive when supplies began to run short.

When they arrived at the Shoshone tribal camp, she renewed her associations with old friends and family. It was here that she very likely saved the lives of the whole party of explorers. Sacajewea’s brother Cameahwait was now the chief of the tribe. His first inclination was to kill the white men for their belongings. But, because of Sacagawea’s influence, Lewis and Clark were able to procure food and horses from the Indians and were allowed to go on their way unharmed.

Sacajewea, finding that the rest of her family was dead, except her brother and her dead sister’s son, adopted her sister’s child (she named him Basil) and took him, along with her own child, on the Lewis and Clark trip. With her two children in tow, she continued as guide, leading the explorers to the Pacific Ocean, arriving on November 7, 1805. On the way back, they explored the Yellowstone region, which she also knew well. Upon returning to the Dakotas, Charbonneau refused all inducements to go back to civilization and Sacajewea remained with him. Little more is known about the rest of her life, but Sacajewea is believed to have married into Comanche Indian for an extended time and living  to the age of 100 years, dying around 1784 in the Shoshone Indian Agency.

The white men of the Lewis and Clark Company had great respect and affection for this young Indian woman, who, while mothering two small children, was able to lead, teach, and even protect tough explorers on a very difficult journey. She created good will and trust, for at least a short while, between Indians and white Americans. Without her help and guidance, the Lewis and Clark expedition would likely have experienced disaster, and President Jefferson would not have received the wealth of information that he desired. Sacajewea’s roll in the Lewis and Clark exploration exemplified peaceful cooperation between Indians and white Americans. Sadly, that peaceful cooperation was seldom repeated in American history. Still, Americans that live west of the Mississippi River today, like the men in the Lewis and Clark expedition and President Thomas Jefferson, owe Sacajewea a lot.

Samuel Adams

The American Revolution produced quite a few extraordinary leaders: brave and spiritual men and women who were willing to sacrifice all they had to create a country and government where freedom would reign, and where all people could pursue their individual life, liberty, and happiness (private property).  However, for the revolution to be successful, many at the time believed that faith in God and His endorsement of the colonists’ efforts to confront the greatest military power in the world would be paramount. Perhaps the most vocal exemplary proponent of this idea was Samuel Adams.
                                                                 

Samuel Adams, September 27, 1722 – October 2, 1803

Samuel Adams, like his second cousin, John Adams, the second president of the United States, was born into a religious and politically active family and was a graduate of Harvard College. Adams was generally unsuccessful in his business affairs.  His father’s attempts to create a “land bank” for the farming community had been impeded by the royalists in Massachusetts government and left the older Adams with substantial personal debt at his death, which in turn fell to Samuel to deal with.  Samuel never was particularly successful in business, but he flourished in politics.  In his masters thesis of 1743, Adams argued the case for colonial rights, that it was "lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate” to preserve the Commonwealth.

By the1760s, Adams had become an influential member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and was vocal in his opposition to the efforts of British Parliament to tax the American colonies without American consent.  His publicized call for cooperation between the colonies was a contributing factor in the British order to have British soldiers occupy Boston, which in turn aggravated the Bostonians to the point of violence, culminating in the famous ‘Boston Massacre’ of 1770, where British soldiers responded to rock-throwing from a Boston mob with gunfire.  Ironically, it was Samuel’s cousin, John Adams, an equally vociforous voice for American liberty, but defender of law and order, who would defend the British soldiers in court for using deadly force to defend themselves against the angry Bostonian mob. A couple years later, Samuel Adams and other like-minded American colonial patriots organized links between their fellows throughout the other twelve colonies. The “Boston Tea Party” of 1773 and other later efforts by Adams and his fellows, who became known as the “Sons of Liberty”, resulted in further reprisals by the British government to quell the American rebellion in the form of the occupation of Boston by British troops, the “Coercive Acts” of 1774 which was akin to marshal law. Adams and his fellow patriots responded by convening a Continental Congress in 1775.  Adams was considered a traitor by the British at this point and they sent troops to both capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock and seize the military arms which the British had learned were stored in Concord. The battle of Lexington and Concord and the successful defense put forth by the “Minutemen” essentially began the American Revolutionary War and eventually resulted in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 at the Second Continental Congress. Thomas Jefferson said of Samuel Adams that he steered the Congress toward independence.

During and after the Revolution, Adams served on numerous committees. He promoted paying bonuses to the Continental soldiers for reenlisting when their enlistment was ended. He also called for the punishment of Loyalists to the British crown, banishing them and confiscating their property. His harsh approach to loyalists continued even after the war, opposing their return to Massachusetts, believing that they would work to thwart the new republican form of government. He was on the committee which drafted the articles of confederation with his emphasis on strong state sovereignty. Along with his cousin, John Adams and James Bowdin, Samuel drafted a new constitution for Massachusetts in 1779.

After the Revolutionary War, and under the Confederation, economic troubles began to trouble the new republic. The uprising known as “Shay’s Rebellion” and other difficulties with taxation led many to believe that the confederation needed revision. In 1786, delegates met in Philadelphia to try to revise the Articles of Confederation but ended up creating a new United States Constitution with a stronger federal government.  Adams had misgivings about a strong central government and was initially counted among the Anti-Federalists, but eventually he agreed to support the new constitution, with the proviso that amendments would be added later, which resulted in first ten amendments now known as ‘The Bill of Rights’.  With this ability to amend it, Adams became a staunch supporter of the new constitution.


Adams attempted to be elected a representative to the new House of Representatives but lost the election. However he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts and then Governor. Samuel, unlike his cousin John Adams, aligned himself with the Thomas Jefferson and the anti-federalist party. He left office as governor in 1797 and retired from politics. He suffered from essential tremors and was unable write effectively during the last ten years of his life and he died at the age of 81 years on October 2, 1803. He was considered by his contemporaries, both friends and advisories as one of the greatest personalities among the founding fathers and a firebrand personality for individual freedom. In fact, much to his chagrin, John Adams, while serving abroad as a diplomat was often referred to as “the other Adams. Indeed, Samuel Adams was at the forefront of the revolutionary movement and with a loud voice for independence, ever vigilant, willing to sacrifice his own wellbeing for what he believed in, and was convinced that he was doing God’s will by creating a republican form of government.  The Boston newspaper, The Independent, Eulogized him as the “Father of the American Revolution”. There were many founders of our nation who could claim that they did their all for the birth of the United States of America, but few who were the equal of Samuel Adams.

I'm Sorry You Were So Gullible!

I really did not think I would ever see Barack Obama apologize for anything, let alone his “Affordable Care Act” (aka-Obamacare).  But today he sort of did, though he made it plain that he had been misunderstood--wink, wink, nod, nod--when he placed a “period” behind every outrageous promise he made while he was selling the public on it.  Of course he could not take full responsibility, because he is not capable to do that. It is much easier for him to say that he was misunderstood than to say, “I bald-faced lied to everybody about what they could expect, like being able to keep your insurance if you like it, or the average family will save $2,500 a year on insurance cost, when the average family will spend $7,500 more per year”.  The fact is that he, like the lovable Sergeant Schultz, of Hogan’s Heroes fame knows nothing: He did not know about ‘Fast and Furious’, He did not know that we were spying on our allies; He did not know that the IRS was targeting conservative organizations; He did not know that terrorists were involved in the murder of four Americans in Benghazi—in fact, we still do not know where he was that night and who told our military and CIA to stand down when those Americans were screaming for help; And, he does not seem to know that he has no constitutional authority to grant waivers to his supporters on Obamacare, or pick and choose which laws congress passes to enforce. But then, if we look at all of these things from Hillary Clinton’s perspective, what difference does it make at this point?  

Well, it makes a lot of difference to people of principle. I did not like it when Nixon lied. I did not like it when Bill Clinton lied. I did not like it when Carter was inept. And I do not like it when Obama is both inept and a liar, which is pretty much all of the time. He owes an apology for deceiving the electorate to get elected.  He knew that if he allowed the truth to be told in any degree, whether it be that it was not a stupid video that got four Americans murdered, or that Obamacare is an ill-conceived attempt to turn our healthcare system into a single-payer socialist monstrosity, that the public would not have gone for it. If he had been honest, which frankly is beyond his ability, we would have a president who actually understands business and economies, instead of a socialist nincompoop.  

I apologize if I hurt anyone’s feelings and my apology is every bit as sincere as Obama’s, PERIOD!

What Do You Do Now, America?

I do not like saying I told you so, but…  Well, actually I do not like having to say I told you so.  I would like to have seen a president in charge of the country who was not a complete dunce when it comes to our country’s health care system and general economy, then I would not feel compelled to say "I told you so. Some of us--I mean those of you who voted for Obama and who are not me--are so tainted by the media’s love affair with the Obama and the Democrat party, and who are so loathing of all things Republican, that they cannot hear logical arguments.  Too many people are so easily led by union bosses, progressive educators and simplistic entertainers that they run over a cliff like lemmings, taking the rest of us with them because we, the reasonable ones. are trapped in the crowd. The old saying, “fool me once—shame on you, fool me twice—shame on me” is appropriate here. "Three strikes and your out" seems apropos as well. 

 Obama fooled enough of the voting public to get elected the first time, partly,by  promising to have the most transparent administration we have ever seen and declaring that he would bring civility to the office and to change the way things would be done in Washington.  And, do not forget, he would be a post racial president. But then we got the Chicago way of doing things. We got graft and good-old-boy politics like we have never seen before, with sweetheart deals of “stimulus money” given to his supporters and cronies like we haven’t seen since Andrew Jackson.  We got cover-ups over gunrunning to Mexican drug cartels by the Justice Department, where a border patrolman was murdered, and the Benghazi fiasco, where four more Americans were murdered, because Obama wanted to take credit for having “Al Qaeda on the run” and bringing peace to the Mid-East by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood--He couldn't let anything like the truth interfere with his chances for re-election. Oh yes, and do not forget that he would regain respect from the other nations of the world. Anybody who pays attention to world affairs and domestic issues would be disgusted.  He has taken every opportunity to take racial sides, making divisive comments where he should have just played basketball or gone golfing. And then he ran the most nasty and vicious re-election campaign in a century, via character assassination against one of the most moral and ethical businessmen to ever run for president.  He also pushed socialized “Obamacare” down everyone’s throat, except for government employees at the very top. Those things were the result of fooling enough people the first time.

Now, after being fooled the second time, people are beginning to recognize the fact that he is a charlatan and may be the most inept man since Buchanan to sit in the Oval Office. Truly conservative lawmakers tried to defund the ill-conceived and unpopular Obamacare and save our country from its ruinous effects, but the idiotic Democrat leadership [insert Obama, Pelosi and Reid here] would not compromise an inch and shut down the government for a couple weeks and the Obama-minion media, as they always do, blamed the "evil Republicans".  Now, as the roll-out of Obamacare has begun, people are beginning to see  that Obama and his minions either have no clue about anything, or they are trying to destroy the best healthcare system in the world and replace it with socialized medicine.  Even the densest people are finding out that Obama is evidently a big liar or big boob.  He said that under Obamacare, you could choose to keep your healthcare plan, if you liked it, and your doctor, if you liked him or her, and the average person would save  $2,500 a year on health insurance.  Now they find, when they actually are able to get on the government healthcare website—the one that was farmed out to a Canadian software firm and cost over half of a BILLION DOLLARS and does not seem to work any better than some of the most ardent of the Obama voters—that none of those things are true: Most often, they are not able to keep their doctors and plans and the cost is on the average of $7,500 a year. That would be a difference of $10,000, in case you are wondering. The republicans tried several ways, during the government shutdown, to pass legislation to fund the government and curtail some of the most troubling parts of Obamacare, including postponing for a year the mandate for individuals to sign up for government healthcare or be fined. They reasoned that, since Obama authorized a waiver for big business to do just that, that it was only fair to allow individuals the same waiver. The Democrats are always worrying about fairness, are the not? But Noooooo… the Democrats would not budge because  they seemed to be winning the war of public opinion and, once again, and successfully pinning the Republicans with the blame for shutting down the government for political reasons. So much for changing the atmosphere in Washington. But then again, to be fair, I do not believe he actually said he would change it for the better.

Now, because people are meeting some of the effects of Obamacare head-on, and seeing that it will actually cost jobs, and in many cases cause people to lose their health insurance, and force them into a much more expensive government-authorized plan, there are some Democrats coming over to the side of reason.  Six Democrat senators: Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Pryor, Joe Manchin, Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan, and Rick Nolan, are now asking to have that individual mandate postponed a year.  A cynic, like myself,   might think that most of these folks are up for re-election next year and might be changing their position because Obamacare has never had a majority of support by the voting public and they are from more conservative states. But who can say for sure?

The fact is that public opinion may be changing about this naked Emperor of ours. As more and more people become frustrated and find themselves in trouble with the law because they cannot afford the “affordable” care act, we might see them vote with a little more understanding next time around. He fooled you twice, so shame on you! You blew the call! What are you going to do about it? In 2014 we have a chance to put a Republican majority in both houses. Remember, "Three strikes and your out"!!!

Help! Help! I'm Being Repressed! Come See The Violence Inherent In The System!

If you watch TV news, you probably have heard that the villainous Republicans have shut down the government. Although, unless you are trying to go to a national park or another site that is controlled by the National Park Service, the might not have noticed any problem yet.  The president and Democrat leadership in the Senate and House of Representatives have been hysterical about the dire consequences of the “shut down” describing the Republicans as “terrorists” and “hostage takers”, who are holding the American people ransom threatening to blow up the government if they do not get their way.  It would be funny if it were not so sad for the rest of us who value accuracy. Well, wait a minute—it is still pretty funny. I mean watching Obama, Reid and Pelosi spew their rhetorical hypocrisy, while keeping strait faces is always humorous. Some people don’t see them as funny, but then many people—especially women—don’t get the Three Stooges either. Now, who are the hostage takers?

The hostage-holding analogy is a tried and true hyperbolic argument for Democrats. It worked pretty well when a similar situation happened during the Clinton administration. Republicans got the blame in most people’s minds because most people get their left-biased news reportage form TV news and entertainment medium who reported it that way, though there were two parties involved with differing opinions about where the money should go and how much needed to be spent. It is interesting to me that the president and Harry “Dracula” Reid—Unlike the Democrat politicians, I can say insulting and demeaning things about people whom I disagree with  because I am not an office-holder who is supposed to show decorum—are constantly clamoring for a clean spending bill. A clean spending bill would be, in the Democrat’s view, a bill that meets all of their requirements, funding the entire government, which would not exclude anything that the Republicans did not want to fund.  But who are the hostage takers again?

The Democrats are not very good when it comes to history, especially when the things they do and say seem to come back to bite them, as when they try not keep from raising the debt limit because it would be “unpatriotic”. Yes, that was what Obama said as a Senator when trying to defund the war effort in Iraq. Historically speaking, spending bills in this country used to be passed on an individual basis, not the so-called “clean bill”. The House of Representatives, as most people know, hold the purse strings and decides what bills are funded. If they choose to defund Obama Care, for example, or to fund individual segments of the government they can legally do so.  They were voted in to use their discretion, just as the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives and the Democrat-controlled Senate chose to unilaterally pass Obama Care without knowing what was actually in it, as Pelosi unwittingly (her favorite position) admitted. The use of words like “hostage” and “ransom” are inflammatory and inaccurate in the extreme, but it seems to be offensive to the media if applied in the right direction, just like it seems to be impossible for minorities to have racist feelings.  And again, who are the hostage takers?

Though the hysterics on left describing hostage taking and ransom demands are purely infantile, let us go with it for the sake of argument. This time around, it has been pointed out, by reasonable observers on the right, that normal “hostage situations” require someone, with experience in such matters, to “NEGOTIATE” to free some if not all of the so-called hostages. In fact negotiators who care about people will try to get as many out of a hostage situation as possible.  So, it would seem that the Democrats only care about their favorite hostage of the month: Obama Care.  It should be pointed out that the Republicans have met initially tried to defund Obama Care, passing a bill that would fund everything else. When that did not even get voted on by the Senate, the house passed, as used to always be the case, spending bills for individual projects or departments. Those efforts have also been ignored by Senate Majority Leader, Harry “Emperor Palpatine” Reid. When asked in a news conference, why he would not allow a vote on passing the House’s funding of at least the NIH, if it were to help a young child get cancer treatments, Harry “Wicked Stepmother” Reid replied, “Why would we do that?”.  The like-minded Senator Chuck “Commander Lyle Tiberius Roarke” Schumer chimed in, “What right did they have to pick and choose what part of government is going to be funded? Oh, I don’t know… Maybe it was  Article 1 of the United States Constitution, you idiot! Not only are Democrats typically bad at history, they apparently have not read the Constitution since high school if even then. The House has offered to fund the government, but the President and Democrat-controlled Senate refuse to budge. If the words “hostages” and “ransom” are to be applied, then who is really Hell-bent to hold the American people hostage or hold them for ransom? Could it be the Democrats? I think so.

Let us also take a look at who is actually getting hurt the most and who is doing the actual hrting. The House passes budgets and spending bills but the President apparently has discretion on who actually gets hit and who gets favored status. The day that the government was officially shut down, Endowment For The Arts, which targets PBS, Sesame Street and Big Bird and Elmo, was given nearly a half billion dollars, while the President ordered the federal parks closed. And, the Obama administration barricades the WWII Memorial, but allowed an illegal alien amnesty rally on the Washington D.C. Mall during the “shutdown”.  At the WWII Memorial, Carol Johnson with the Park Service says, they were told to close the site by White House's Office of Management & Budget. This was also the case at the US cemeteries in France, where travelers wanted to pay their respects to the WII fallen heroes, but found the entrances locked. The National Park Service, under orders from Obama, have been blocking off all of the viewing areas of Mt. Rushmore with cones. Not only did they close down the park that the monument is located in, but they are now blocking off any and all spots along the roads surrounding the park that provide a viewing spot for picture taking. South Dakota Democratic State Senator, Tim Johnson, said that the problem would be fixed if Republicans would just send a clean CR that funds Obamacare to Harry “Satan” Reid.  Where you used to see unarmed park rangers you now see armed guards keeping people away. It has been reported that park rangers have been instructed to make it difficult on the public. One wonders what would happen if someone should stray across a barrier to the Lincoln or Jefferson memorials. How difficult should it be made on us? Deadly force, perhaps? We might be being held hostage, but not by the Republicans.

Help, Help, We’re being repressed! I just hope we do not experience the violence inherent in the system. But nothing would surprise me with these guys.  

Obama Fiddles With Golf While Rome Burns; Why the Affordable Health Care's Approach Has Me Feeling Ill

Well, it appears we have another  “government shutdown” looming. I suspect that it will either not happen or it will be short lived. It is claimed by the democrats that it will hurt the economy. I suspect that it will hurt the economy less than the ironically named “Affordable Health Care Act” will ultimately hurt the economy and is anything but affordable.  Let us face the facts: The economy is still in the tank after five years of Obamanomics; we are heading into another housing bubble; the Fed is printing money like crazy; more people are leaving the labor market than are entering it; a bigger percentage of Americans are on food stamps and welfare than ever before; the spending bills passed in the past have been nothing more than Democrat slush funds and to pay off the unions.; and that stupid health care law is only a ploy to push us into one-payer socialized health care and wreck our free market economy beyond help.  Even the Obama’s complicit buddies, the corrupt (possibly just ignorant) union bosses are starting to become frightened of “Obama Care”.  What were once full-time jobs are now part-time, and business owners know they have to cut down on labor and pay the health care “tax”, as Chief Justice Roberts assures us it is, though to get it passed in congress the Obama administration argued that it was not. Somehow, these knuckle heads—anyone who subscribes to Keynesian economics— believe that a superficially high government-imposed “minimum wage”,  price controls on commodities and extra government spending adding public entitlements will equate to a robust economy, lots of job creation and a greater standard of living.  That would fantastic if it were not a fantasy.

The Dems have always believed in government-implemented price controls as a way to keep prices down, while upping spending.  Sadly, those policies have never worked as intended. Whether promoted by FDR, Carter or even the Keynesian convert, Richard Nixon, price controls and added government spending have only promoted inflation. Read Thomas Sowell if you are not able to get your head around the economy and how it actually works. When you take competition out of the equation, cost always rises. If the profitability of a product is taken away by either the cost of its production through the imposed cost of materials or labor, the producer of the product will either cut back or go out of business.  What will follow will be less availability of the product, which will inevitably make it more dear and will eventually cause the price controls to break.  Government intervention into the airline and oil industries in the past are exemplary of government manipulation’s destructive effects on business and the public. For the protection of consumers, it is illegal for businesses to collude—and it should be—so why would it be good idea for the government to do essentially the same thing?

The fact is that Obama only cares about socializing American health care as well as other aspects of American life.  If he was serious, he could be meeting with Republican leaders in the House and Senate,  to try to resolve issues that they and even  some union leaders have now clamored about, but he refuses to budge from his lofty perch at the golf course. He plays golf while Rome burns, it would seem,   He suspects, and with reason that the media will enforce the idea that the cold-hearted Republicans only want to shut down the government and cause problems for this wonderful “black” president, even though the Republicans have tried to introduce legislation that would force the president, congress  and federal judges to use Obama-care. But alas, the president and his Democrats in congress don’t want it for themselves. Could it be that they cannot afford it? Heaven forbid! It makes me ill to think of it, so I hope I do not have to depend on the Affordable Health Care Act, should it be fully implemented. 

They Never Had A Chance!

Well, here we go again. Some nut, or homegrown terrorist, has run amuck, shooting a bunchy of defenseless people—this time at another military site, the Washington D.C. Navy Yard. Twelve people “never had a chance”, as they say. Again, we have silly people on the left, like Senator Diane Feinstein, clamoring for stiffer gun control laws. If I might be so bold, Diane Feinstein is an idiot! Gun control advocates always try to make hay out of these events, but never see the realities. What do 99% of these shootings have in common? They happen where the shooter knows the people will be sitting ducks and defenseless.  The reality is that Gun control laws have dictated the very circumstances that these nut jobs look for! Washington D.C. is a gun-free town.  Schools, churches and some movie theaters, like the ones where recent mass shootings occurred were gun-free establishments. The Navy Ship Yard, like all US military properties, as was Fort Hood, has been gun- free zones, except for the military police, since the Clinton administration.  Our military are not trusted to carry guns? Pretty weird, when you think about it. True, the perpetrators of the ship yard and Fort Hood shootings were ex-military and military, but they would have been vastly outnumbered had everyone else on base been able to legally carry a weapon that they have been trained to responsibly use. I

Almost without exception, gun control measures, which restrict legal carrying or possession of firearms, result in higher instances in gun violence.  When gun control activists are asked if they would be willing to post a sign on their house declaring that their home is a gun-free home, they are nonplussed. The clueless will always want to take self-defense privileges away from the law abiding public in an effort to quell the use of illegal acts. They always ignore the fact that criminals are not law-abiding in the first place, and will never oblige themselves to give up their weaponry and the obvious advantages they have in a society where their prey wander around defenseless. Make no mistake about it, we are talking about actual predators, and predators use the advantages they have, whether they be large claws and teeth or guns, knives and clubs, to overcome their prey.  If sheep had the same big teeth and claws that wolves and big cats have, the carnivores would not try to devour them.  Humans are much the same way in respect to preying on the defenseless.  Why create more defenseless people when it has been demonstrated over and over again that conceal-carry laws and ever open-carry laws definitely reduce gun crime. Imagine, if you will, the rabbit from Monte Python and the Holy Grail.  Run away!

In truth, gun control is less about gun control than it is about trying to make us more and more dependent on government. Gun control advocates want us to think that they can protect us better than we can protect ourselves.  Law enforcement, by and large, does what they do to the best of their ability. However, most of the police officers will admit that most gun crimes have been committed well before the police can arrive on the scene.  The liberal news media will report the kinds of stories where people are preyed upon successfully by the criminal much more often and with much more glee than they will the stories where those preyed upon successfully defend themselves or deter a crime from happening because they had a gun. How many lives could have been spared if someone on the scenes of these terrible acts had had a gun to defend themselves and the others around them? We will never know, because our progressive lawmakers never gave them a chance.