Pay no attention to the Wolves...

First off let me say that the tragedies of West, Texas and Boston, Mass were horrendous and my thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims and the brave first responders who were affected by this. As a runner myself I know the feeling of victory and accomplishment from crossing the finish line and can only imagine what it would be like to have that moment ripped from you by an explosion with seemly no cause.

Now… Shame on our government for using these events as a fog of war during which press coverage was diverted and them pushing the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) through the House and into the Senate, and shame on the news agencies for focusing on the NAMES OF THE “TERRORISTS” as I stated in an earlier blog.

First, Our Government. I’m not sure if you all are catching this but every time we are “attacked” our government likes to pass acts/bills/laws/referendums/cereal box labels that are designed to keep us “safe from threats.” These government follies rarely actually define what the threats are. Sure CISPA has some real uses about sharing of legitimate data regarding cyber threats between companies and governments, but it also allows personal use data to be sent to agencies like the FBI, CIA, and NSA. The beauty of this one is that it didn’t have anything to do with the Boston attacks, but it even has mainstream media outposts like the Huffington Post saying things like “Top intelligence officials now say hackers pose a greater national security threat than terrorists.”  Hackers are worse that terrorist? Yeah I saw that movie and Angelia Jolie didn’t look good back then either.

Second, the goddamn Media. We as Sheeple provide these people the power of a herding dog. They tell us where to look, they tell us when we should be afraid, and the move us in the direction that our farmer (government) wants to push us. The Majority of the Sheeple even eat up what the dogs tell us what is good to eat without even thinking about what we should be doing for ourselves. With West and Boston we let them divert our attention, to terrible tragedies no doubt, but for the wrong reason. This allows the government to focus on stealing away a few more of our civil liberties, while we focused on the NAME AND HISTORY of bad people, instead of coming together as a country and fixing the problems and becoming stronger.

Its too early for me to don my tinfoil Sheeple fleece and rant and rave about Boston and West to a larger degree, but I will close by saving that I’m disgusted and appalled at the government and medias handling of it, and I’m ashamed, but not surprised, at The American Sheeples focus on the train wreck of events, rather than the important pieces of everyday life that are being eroded away.

If I agree does that make me a sheep too?

I recent read a blog on The Political Ribbit that I felt was an interesting read.

I'm inclined to agree with her end result: that it would help some.

The bigger concern I have is based on the fact that the majority of the proposed gun law reforms do are only focused on law abiding citizens. I’m an avid gun owner who has purchased guns at stores and gun shows (background checks every time) and from private sellers (with a bill of sale every time to protect them and myself).

I’m not saying that background checks are a bad thing, but even people who fail background checks via the NICS system aren’t picked up or penalized when they fail the existing steps we have in place.

The problem is that the majority of Americans aren’t educated and are awed by numbers. The politicians and media throw out the sensational numbers and a lot of people are too lazy to fact check them or learn the truth themselves. People hear “gun show loophole” and then demonize it. They don’t realize that 90% of people selling guns at a gun show are FFL dealers themselves (thus required to submit paperwork to the BATFE or lose their license), 9% are people selling guns TO the dealers and of the 1% who do transactions between citizens you usually ask for a bill of sale, and a valid ID as we all know that it takes to get one from a dealer, and don’t want to be held liable if you use it in a crime (since it was registered when bought from an FFL originally).

The follow up question that they don’t ask in their polls is “Are you willing to pay increase in taxes for more political entities to enforce this rule.” I bet the 92% would change their answer =p