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Karno the bookworm.
2 weeks ago
General
Karno's Rare-Because-He-Never-Has-Time Blather:
So I recently discovered that the Tucson Library has a branch right around the corner from where I live. YAY! Now I won't have to deal with the godawful traffic and parking meters around the main branch downtown. First book I picked up there was
WHACK JOB
A history of axe murder
By Rachel McCarthy James.
As a history nut with Viking ancestry, I obviously couldn't resist. The axe is one of mankind's first tools, endlessly useful, especially after someone thought to add a handle to it. Got a couple-3 of them, myself.
The author writes accessibly, with only the rare stray into wokeness/smugness. Hey, it's tough to be both a good historian and a good writer at the same time.
So I recommend this book to both history nuts and true-crime aficionados. It's not perfect, but who or what is?
To fill out this post, an article about how Canada's rifle confiscation scheme keeps bumping up against reality:
https://www.nraila.org/articles/202.....s-than-30-guns
Even with MUCH fewer firearms per capita, and much more thorough registration (and a famously polite and compliant population), their "Assault Weapons Ban" just ain't working.
The "voluntary buyback" is not voluntary - the law threatens dire penalties if you insist on holding onto your property - and it seems it's not really a "buyback", either. After you surrender your rifle, you must fill out and file a pile of forms - and if they're not approved by some scowling bureaucrat deep in the nomenklatura, you get no compensation.
Would YOU accept such a "deal"? I sure as hell wouldn't. And neither will most Canadians, it seems.
Back to books: I'm looking for the Parker novels by Richard Stark (pen name of Donald J. Westlake). All except "Breakout" and "Firebreak", because I've already got those. Anyone trying to thin out their library of cheap thrillers? I'll pay you shamefully low prices for 'em. And the postage, natch.
Failing that, does anyone know a good mail-order source for such used books? I'm trying to avoid doing too much business with Amazon.
WHACK JOB
A history of axe murder
By Rachel McCarthy James.
As a history nut with Viking ancestry, I obviously couldn't resist. The axe is one of mankind's first tools, endlessly useful, especially after someone thought to add a handle to it. Got a couple-3 of them, myself.
The author writes accessibly, with only the rare stray into wokeness/smugness. Hey, it's tough to be both a good historian and a good writer at the same time.
So I recommend this book to both history nuts and true-crime aficionados. It's not perfect, but who or what is?
To fill out this post, an article about how Canada's rifle confiscation scheme keeps bumping up against reality:
https://www.nraila.org/articles/202.....s-than-30-guns
Even with MUCH fewer firearms per capita, and much more thorough registration (and a famously polite and compliant population), their "Assault Weapons Ban" just ain't working.
The "voluntary buyback" is not voluntary - the law threatens dire penalties if you insist on holding onto your property - and it seems it's not really a "buyback", either. After you surrender your rifle, you must fill out and file a pile of forms - and if they're not approved by some scowling bureaucrat deep in the nomenklatura, you get no compensation.
Would YOU accept such a "deal"? I sure as hell wouldn't. And neither will most Canadians, it seems.
Back to books: I'm looking for the Parker novels by Richard Stark (pen name of Donald J. Westlake). All except "Breakout" and "Firebreak", because I've already got those. Anyone trying to thin out their library of cheap thrillers? I'll pay you shamefully low prices for 'em. And the postage, natch.
Failing that, does anyone know a good mail-order source for such used books? I'm trying to avoid doing too much business with Amazon.
https://standardebooks.org
Nobody needs assault weapons.
Nobody should ever use Amazon. They're evil.
Come on, man. Last time I heard a gunshot was this summer, when an officer discharged his weapon to scare off some geese that were blocking a major thoroughfare. Don't wish your ways on us.
No, they didn't. They bought 'em legally, AND REGISTERED THEM, because they are law-abiding citizens. What the hell are you talking about??
Nobody is "confiscating" legal firearms, and prohibited firearms are prohibited for a reason; ie: they're designed specifically for killing humans. Any additions to that list have been written in readily predictable blood. We have been dancing around American NRA lobby pressure for a long time, with conservative governments doing their damndest to repeal anything vaguely resembling regulation at their behest. That is not okay. It's like America anti-policing the world. You don't have a dog in this fight; you don't even have a dog within 1000 miles of the border of this fight. In America, Gun is king—okay, cool, great work, but leave the king at the border. Furthermore, the buyback program you cite has barely even started, and I believe is currently limited to Nova Scotia; your lobby boys are jumping the gun, as it were.
tl;dr: I'm not asking you to change your views. I'm asking you not to push them on a population whose only threat to you is that they're not the failure you wish they were.
So I ask again: Who are these "people who violated the law to acquire weapons"? We both know there are no such people (criminals don't register their guns with the authorities, DUH!), but please, DO try to find another way to wiggle out of answering for your nonsense.
"Robbed of their property," pff... it was supposed to be a mail-in thing, counting on people's decency.
Do you really think that wailing "Asking me to back up my claims is a dirty trick!" and running away crying, leaves you with more dignity than admitting to a misstatement?
I didn't buy it from the entity attempting to "buy" it back.
I didn't obtain my rights to own said weapons from those folks either. They can pound sand.
As far as I'm concerned, any mealy-mouthed politician floating a mandatory 'buyback' of legally purchased and owned firearms here should be kicked out of office and barred from even serving as town dogcatcher.
Too bad people in the US aren't as smart as the people of Canada.
Gee, I guess bans, confiscations and even stricter rules than before, are easier to do than actually addressing the societal ills responsible for the problem. Those require loads of work and soul searching, and may yield unpleasant truths. But hey, as long as it helps them feel better about themselves, despite their policies not working.
"The "voluntary buyback" is not voluntary - the law threatens dire penalties if you insist on holding onto your property - and it seems it's not really a "buyback", either. After you surrender your rifle, you must fill out and file a pile of forms - and if they're not approved by some scowling bureaucrat deep in the nomenklatura, you get no compensation. Would YOU accept such a "deal"? I sure as hell wouldn't. And neither will most Canadians, it seems."
Politicians and bureaucrats tend to be the "want something for nothing" type. The sheltered existence and guaranteed pensions makes it easy to write off the consequences of their bad decisions.