Minneapolis Shooting and Mental Health

Above, the shooter, Robin Westman.

The following was posted by Jamie Fraser-Page, the administrator of the Facebook page, Gun Owners of New Mexico:

It was impossible to avoid hearing about the shooting at a Catholic Church in Minneapolis, a parish church with a school attached not unlike the one in my neighborhood in Queens where several of my friends went. Some deranged individual, armed with a rifle, shotgun and pistol fired all of them into the church where grade school kids were at prayer on the second day of the school year. 

The coward took her own life. Or his life. The shooter was a transgender person, which will no doubt become part of the narrative from one side, just like the three firearms will become the main point from the other side. Neither fact is the reason this happened. It happened because people who knew this person and saw their descent into madness did nothing to stop it.

There were a lot of indicators. Detached, isolated, creating a YouTube manifesto to explain the inexplicable - why anyone would shoot into a church filled with kids from the ages of 6 and 14, killing two, 8 and 10 and wounding 14 others as well as three parishioners in their 80s.  The shooter entered the church only after their deadly fusillade of gunfire ceased to end their life with a self-inflicted gunshot would.

We need to ask why no one saw this coming. Friends, parents, followers on YouTube and other social media must have known. And, assuming they could see it coming, why - why - did they do nothing to intervene and stop it before it started? 

I wonder if this person's change from Robert to Robin was influenced by the increased normalization of transgenderism and by the incessant progressive's preaching abut "toxic masculinity. Perhaps for some M->F transgenders among the young their decision to identify as female is driven or exacerbated by a feeling of being treated as "toxic" by some. 

While transgendered individuals according to several studies are only 0.6% of the population the number of young people ages 13 to 24,  is twice the average across all ages. I am not saying that there is a direct connection between a person identifying as non-binary or transgender means that they will become mass shooters, just that among those who seem driven to this aberration it might be a contributing factor. Food for thought, at least. 

We do a terrible job of identifying and treating the mentally ill. It is still an affliction viewed with a great deal of ignorance and fear - needlessly, since most people with mental health issues pose no threat to others and even little threat to themselves. But those who harbor suicidal and/or homicidal ideation - two sides of the same coin according to some - do pose such a threat. Few mass shooters are taken alive. After inflicting carnage on others they either take their own lives or force suicide by cop by taking precipitous action to trigger a lethal response.

We need to stop using these tragedies to further the agendas of the left or the right and actually *do* something to identify and fix the problem.  So many mass shooters give a lot of notice that they are going to do something horrific. We need to listen, watch and get them the help they need, intervene to prevent them from carrying out these acts. 

And, yes, when identified, they should be prevented from legally acquiring firearms. For nearly 60 years I have advocated for stripping from our laws the infringements to exercising our right to keep and bear arms protected by the 2nd Amendment . But I also feel that if a person is adjudicated a danger to self or others they need to be barred from access to firearms and explosives. And, if evidence is presented to a court of a credible threat, while a person's mental health is evaluated to rule out it posing a threat to self or others, they should not have access to firearms. This does not mean I support so-called Red Flag laws, since those lack due process. No right should be infringed upn nor abridged but by due process.

In the end, we as a society need to actually care - give a damn - about the incidents like this, which, though relatively rare compared to other types of killings happen far too frequently and are often preventable if due care is exercised. We need to push our elected representatives to create and fund programs to identify and get treatment for the millions of people with mental health issues and not turn a cold shoulder and a blind eye to their affliction. Out schools need to be especially observant of the signs and precursors of such acts and move to thwart them early by getting the individuals help. And, we need to consider having trained armed individuals in our schools and other places which have been targets in the past. And we need t avoid situations of command paralysis such as the one in Uvalde, TX. There is a lot we can do but we, the people need to push to make it happen. And it begins with giving a damn.

Democrats Seek To Ban Trump From Being Buried In Arlington National Cemetery

The Looney Left Report

One would think that after putting their man in the White House, the Democrats could purge their Trump Derangement Syndrome, let go and move on. 

Apparently not.

From Todd Starnes:

A new bill in Congress shows just how far Democrats are willing to go with their hatred for former President Trump.

The “No Glory For Hate Act,” introduced by California Democratic Rep. Linda Sanchez, would ban the federal government from commemorating Trump in any way.

H.R. 484 states “twice impeached” presidents will be banned from being buried at Arlington National Cemetery and prohibit federal funds from being used to display their names or acknowledge their achievements.

What this says is that Democrats cannot shake their hatred for Trump and, despite their crocodile calls for unity, are incapable of putting Ttump in the rearview mirror. They are nothing but a bunch of insane sick bastards. (And that's being kind.)

To read more, go here. 

California's High Gas Prices Are Intentional

The current sky-high gasoline prices in California is no accident. It is a systematic plan by the left wing Democrats who control the state.

A recent article by Forbes spells out what's going on in the former "Golden State".

Here's a snippet:

Higher gasoline prices are just one part of the California government’s plan to make automobile travel much more expensive as time goes on. The state has also adopted policies, like requiring cars sold in their state to have higher mileage requirements per gallon than the national requirements, that already make buying a car in California more costly than doing so in other states, and will only increase that disparity into the future. 

California’s state and city governments are also going about implementing policies that will reduce the number of automobile-traffic lanes and one-way downtown streets in order to force drivers to spend more time sitting at traffic lights and in traffic jams. These policies are designed to encourage car-pooling and the use of modes of public transportation, whose buses and incredibly costly commuter rail cars today travel mostly empty. To draw an analogy, California car drivers are the proverbial frog who is being boiled. 

One outcome of these policies intentionally designed to increase the cost of living in California has been a large number of residents fleeing that state for less expensive environs. In recent years, states like Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Nevada and Texas have seen thousands of ex-Californians move into their cities. A 2018 study sanctioned by the Sacramento Bee found that, since 2001, “about 410,000 more people (about the population of Oakland) have left California for the Lone Star State than arrived from there.”

The trouble is, these ex-Californians are changing the political balance in these states. While they flee the liberal utopia of Commiefornia, some are bring with them their longtime voting habits to their new states. This seems awfully weird since they supported those policies of Democrats they fled, and now they are trying to implement those same polices in their new home states.

As the article states:

So, do Californians really understand that they actually voted for the policies that are causing many of them to flee their home state? Their voting patterns in their new, adopted states indicate that they really don’t.

This buttresses the argument that liberalism is a mental disorder.

To read more, go here.

Flags and Liberal Mental Illness

Above, the U.S. and Gadsden flags flying today. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Since left-wing liberals are having mental issues with Revolutionary War era flags lately, I am making it a point to fly my Gadsden flag along with the U.S. flag today, Independence Day.

Liberal Democrats are siding with Colin Kaepernick over his "offensive" cries about the Betsy Ross flag. It doesn't matter to them that she was an independent businesswoman and owned no slaves, the whining socialists are trying to re-write history and tailor it to buttress their agendas. The problem isn't the Betsy Ross flag, the problem is liberal mental illness.

They also are trying to re-write history on the Gadsden flag as well.

What the Strident Conservative says about the Gadsden flag:

The Gadsden flag, the yellow flag showing a coiled snake with the words “Don’t Tread on Me,” originated during the revolutionary war and was directed at England. Nothing racial, unless you’re Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A complaint has been filed claiming that the flag is a “historical indicator of white resentment against blacks stemming largely from the TEA Party.” Why did the EEOC decide to hear the complaint? Their response states that even though the flag originated “in a non-racial context … it also has since been sometimes interpreted to convey racially tinged messages in some contexts.”  

Under Obama and left-wing Democrats, PC agendas are a great thing. And they’re even better when you ignore or rewrite history to advance them.

That is why I am flying the Gadsden flag today.

To read more, go here.