On Eating Peas and Taking Guns

Apparently forcing your kids to eat their peas is grounds, by at least one gun control advocate, and Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, for getting the government involved. Off on a blog I hadn’t previously heard of, a father writes of trying to get his son to eat:

He’s being a very finicky eater, lately.  Doesn’t want to eat squat.  We force him to at least taste (not necessarily eat) one of each item on his plate.  Tonight was different.  My wife worked pretty hard making some chicken and rice with mixed veggies mixed in.  I cut a small piece of chicken and shoved it into his mouth.  Spit it back out so I pushed it back in.  After a dozen times, he got a super sad, big pouty lip on his face, and started chewing.  I will admit it, I was doggone mad.  He swallowed it a few seconds later.  Starting with that, our new rule with him eating is that he WILL eat at least one single bite of each item on his plate.  He won’t have to eat the entire thing, but he WILL take a bite, chew, and swallow one of each.

I can’t count how many times my mother made my eat my dinner when I didn’t want to eat. It’s a game kids play with their parents, and I was certainly no exception. Some say it’s not great parenting to force your kids to eat, and maybe they have a point that they’ll grow up having been conditioned to overeat. But find me a picky eater in adulthood, and I’ll find you a parent that didn’t make their kids try a lot of different food. Now that I am an adult, and have learned to appreciate a wide variety of cuisine, I’m thankful that my mom made me eat stuff I didn’t want to when I was a kid.

But according to some of our fascist opponents, that’s grounds for having the government come and take your kids:

I’m going to be blunt, but just who the hell do you people think you are? This really crosses the line well and beyond a mere debate over the role of guns in society. These people really need to learn to mind their own goddamned business. I hate using language like that on Good Friday, but I’m having a difficult time picking my jaw off the floor at the gall of these people.

Little Randy
"Someone better call Child Protective Services. Not only are they going to make me eat this meatloaf, beatloaf... rumor has it they'll give a gun to my brother and he'll shoot his eye out too."

UPDATE: More anti-gun fascists who think Mr. Tango is holding his gun to the kid’s head:

We must stop this cycle of forcing kids to eat their peas! Or else kids will become obese because of parents threatening to shoot them with guns if they don’t eat! Do these people give two seconds of thought to what they are saying?

I’m sorry @CSGV. This game isn’t going to work out for you. Your people are far far more outside the mainstream than ours are.

89 thoughts on “On Eating Peas and Taking Guns”



  1. I thought I could not be more shocked by these people.

    I was wrong.

  2. What a bunch of loons. Luckily no one but us listens to them. Have you ever wondered if their real aim is to bang the drum in order to get gullible people to send them money? In a country of over 300 Million, they should be able to get enough loons to send them enough money to cover Ladd and Josh’s salaries. That’s all they really want.

  3. I used to make my son try everything once. I don’t have to make him anymore. He LIKES trying new foods. So far Gorgonzola cheese, smoked oysters, kippers and sardines are on the yes please list. Today he tried head cheese. It is on the maybe list.

  4. “Have you ever wondered if their real aim is to bang the drum in order to get gullible people to send them money?”

    I think that’s entirely their point.

  5. At this point, I have to wonder at any parent posting anything about their child online. It’s just so much of a risk, for what? “Awww”s from strangers? Think before you type, people.

  6. “I’m having a difficult time picking my jaw off the floor at the gaul…”

    Did you leave a set of false teeth in France? :-P

    …Sorry, couldn’t resist it… I took Latin in college…

  7. All right. I wasn’t going to go here…but now I will.

    Joan Peterson, I know that either you or one of your fellow goblins are lurking out there. So riddle me this, Japete:

    What kind of woman covers for a criminal who murdered her sister?

    Put it differently: what kind of likely relationship was Joan Peterson having with her brother-in-law before he murdered her sister.

    Hint: he was a con man, skilled at emotional manipulation, and she’s a very emotional, not very smart woman.

    How was he, Joan?

  8. As far as I recall, the man, and I use that term loosely, who murdered Joan’s sister, offed himself before justice could be served.

    But I think the rest of your comment is rank speculation, and quite honestly,on a similar level to what I’m criticizing here. Unless you can present evidence of what you are accusing, you’re just being nasty for the sake of being nasty and lashing out.

  9. Yes, he did commit suicide.

    As I said, I wasn’t planning on going there. However, I have known women who defended men in unthinkable situations, and always it would turn out they were romantically involved with them. That was my first thought when I heard the full story.

    Since they’ve gone beyond just insults and have moved on to malicious destruction of lives, I think it’s only fair to point out the elephant in the room.

  10. Their attitude us why kids don’t lusten any more…. Know why Ceaser Milan is good with dogs? He understands the importsnce if Alpha. People like the one you quote obviously don’t get dog or human psych or alpha. Likeky, they were made to eat theit peas and now find themselves correcting for some oerceived wrong…

  11. Another creep posting on this subject is “Mohawk” John Woods (what a laugh–the Mohawks would have scalped him without even bothering to kill him first).

    This is the guy from Virginia Tech who was with his girlfriend, and when the killer came around, played dead so that he’d kill his girlfriend instead of him.

  12. “Since they’ve gone beyond just insults and have moved on to malicious destruction of lives, I think it’s only fair to point out the elephant in the room.”

    I think it’s awfully speculative. Losing a loved one can have a number of irrational psychological effects on even perfectly rational people. To this day I have an irrational fear of medical settings, largely because of what happened to my mother. As I have arrived at the age she was at when she was diagnosed with cancer, the paranoia rises even more that I’m certainly destained to get it.

    The difference is I can admit these are largely irrational fears, and don’t do me any good. Not everyone is capable of backing off from themselves and admitting their fears.

    And even being able to talk about that here, it doesn’t help me in clinical settings. To this day I can’t set foot in a doctor’s office without practically going out of my mind.

  13. It doesn’t affect me that way. As strange as it may seem, my best friend shot himself in the head before my very eyes. It didn’t make me want to ban guns; it made me not want to shoot myself in the head, and to wish he hadn’t shot myself in the head. As for hospitals, my father and sister both died in them, and as broken up as I was, I didn’t associate it with the hospital.

    Still, at some level you must realize that out of all the odd responses to her sister’s murder, covering up for the murderer has to be one of the more inexplicable. This wasn’t her relative, it was an in-law who killed her relative. Most in-laws don’t get along at the best of times, and, to repeat myself, he KILLED her sister.

    It makes much more sense if you assume a prior intimate relationship between Joan and her brother-in-law–who, as I mentioned, was a con artist and probably good at getting his way with gullible women.

  14. Vinnie, I’m sorry my man, but I’m gonna have to turn you in to the Social Wreckers for making your kid eat head cheese!

  15. I’m not saying it makes sense, any more sense than my fear of clinical settings does. But the only difference between Joan’s psychosis and my own is that I recognize it, and know it is completely irrational.

    The problem with Joan is, and this is only an opinion, is a lack of introspection. In an attempt to cope with her grief, she’s picked an object to demonize and to blame (can’t blame the murderer, he killed himself and denied that to her). We are advocates of the object which she demonizes, so she demonizes us too.

    I should note, that in many ways I don’t like the person I perceive Joan to be, but that’s largely because she insists on drawing everyone else into her grief. My problems are mine to overcome. I’m not imposing anything else on society. If I die of something because I’m afraid of clinical settings, that’s my issue, and mine alone. Joan wants her grief to be everyone’s issue. a public issue. I don’t even get on my high horse about cancer research, even though it killed my mother. I figure a greedy capitalist is more likely to cure cancer than millions of women walking a marathon.

    If I could go back in time, I’d stop Joan’s piece of shit brother-in-law from ever harming a hair on her sister’s head. I’m sincere in that. I would do it in a heart beat, whatever it would take, if I had the capability. The big question I would have for Joan is whether she would want me to.

  16. The utter evil that can be committed with a smug sense of self-righteousness never fails to amaze me. These are the kind of people who would, if necessary, use gas chambers to keep “hate from begetting hate when guns are trump”.

  17. Thanks for one of the most bizarre and humorous threads I’ve seen over here. I especially enjoyed the way Sebastian pretended to take kenno271 to task for his wild speculation and then turned the whole discussion into how Joan is irrational and doesn’t know it while he, Sebastian, is irrational but realizes it so it’s OK.

    I love fleshing out stories we read in the news, always turning them into something that makes my point better, but what kenno271 did on this thread is vile. It’s a vile personal attack. I suppose the reason is he cannot accept that Joan Peterson has a different opinion than he does.

    And let’s not overlook Tam’s contribution. I’m starting to wonder if you guys are having a communal breakdown or some kind of mass hysteria. Is it because of your setbacks in Texas and Arizona? Or, maybe you’re just getting fed up with your own twisting and spinning?

    Whatever it is, thanks for the amusement.

  18. We do need to address the elephant in the room with Joan. She jealously defends the murderer of her sister while demonizing the firearm that he used to kill her. Her actions raise the cost of buying, keeping, and carrying a firearm, which has the effect of disarming the poor, who are disproportionally black and Hispanic. So what we have is the spectacle of a woman whose sister was murdered by a rich white man disarming poor blacks and Hispanics.

    She has repeatedly said that the killer had “undiagnosed mental problems.” Yet neither she, nor her family, nor his family did anything about it. He was unstable enough that he got removed from the Board of Directors of the family grocery business at the same time that his own son (from his first marriage) was installed as CEO. He wasn’t prosecuted even though he was intimately involved in a nasty fraud case where the CEO and his girlfriend the Executive VP earned 35 and 25 years in prison, respectively. This despite the fact that he was the founder of the company!

    Her sister had a restraining order against the killer, yet she went to his house to talk divorce settlement on the day she got murdered. The sister got ambushed in the basement and killed. The murder weapon was a “stainless steel revolver,” not some “high powered ‘assault-rifle,'” yet she persists in demonizing and trying to ban all sorts of weapons that she thinks no one should have.

    Here’s what I think. I think that she is feeling guilty over not having done something to prevent this. I think that she and the rest of the family knew that he was unstable and shouldn’t have been allowed to own guns. I think that she feels guilty for not connecting the dots. I think that in an attempt to avoid blaming herself, she has transferred that anger to the gun.

  19. How very convenient that Mike introduced the word “hysteria” into the conversation… what better word could be used to describe the actions of the CSGV than “hysterical”, in every definition of that word?

    They know they’re losing, they know there’s nothing they can do about it, so instead they desperately lash out at people they irrationally hold repsonsible for their loss… and attacking a man through his children just because you have a difference of opinion with him is a particularly disgusting thing to do!

  20. MikeB302000,

    Let me fix your sentence

    I love fleshing out making up complete lies about the stories we read in the news, always turning them into something that makes my point better and it doesn’t matter if what I lie about has any correlation to the story, but what kenno271 did on this thread is vile because I didn’t do it to a gun owner first..

    Now that seems a little more accurate.

    Why is it okay for you to ‘flesh out’ the stories Sparky but when we use an analogy –involvement in Chlid Pron (deliberate misspelling) — to show how irrational you are that you fly off the handle?

    Guilty conscious? Too close to home?
    (See I’m just ‘fleshing out the story’ here Sparky)

  21. “…(can’t blame the murderer, he killed himself and denied that to her). We are advocates of the object which she demonizes, so she demonizes us too.”

    Same thing happened over here in the UK. Hamilton shot seventeen, sixteen of which were kids (IIRC) before topping himself.

    Turned out he lied at least three times on liscence applications, and had at least four other incidents that would have had it pulled.

    What did we do? Blamed innocent people for it and stole from them. I’m only just managing to come to terms with how shameful that was.

    Oh, and Mike:

    “…but what kenno271 did on this thread is vile. It’s a vile personal attack.”

    And what CSGV did isn’t? Let’s see, we have Thirdpower showing they deliberately changed the words of a quote to make it sound abusive, then did their damndest to make blow things out of proportion anyway.

    If you can defend that, then you’ve no right to try and take the moral high ground here. Hell, you’re pretty much a “ban ’em all” person anyway – the high ground was never yours to begin with.

  22. If anyone’s actually surprised at this, I don’t know why. The people who belong to anti-gun organizations have time and again shown themselves to be, at best, a bunch of incredibly nasty people and at worst downright evil. Surely no one thought such would limit itself to their attitudes on self-defense.

  23. What they’re doing *IS* vile and I’m going to do what I can to make sure their organization sinks and all we hear is a “BLURB blurb …….” as the quicksand of gun rights overtakes them.

    That being said, I ask that we do not do the same thing (or similar things) to them in regards to this situation because that will not do anything but make them dig in their heels more (BUT THEY DID IT, TOO!) and will put us on the same immoral ground as they.

    We’re winning our fight because we’re right. Don’t make us wrong.

  24. The “man” pushing this vileness was Craig Hexham. He’s a licensed professional counselor in [Redacted – Sebastian]

    [Redacted – Sebastian]

    Any way we can put him out of business?

    [NOTE: Please do not post people’s personal information in the comment’s section. That’s not something I’m going to allow, no matter who it is. – Sebastian]

  25. Mikey, as I’ve told you before, you have no concept of the political atmosphere in the US, because you don’t have the balls to even live here. Tell you what, you don’t tell me what normal American people think, and I won’t tell you what rich Italian ex-Americans think.

    (Although, if you are any example, the answer is, “Not one whole hell of a lot.”)

  26. Sean:

    “Here’s what I think. I think that she is feeling guilty over not having done something to prevent this. I think that she and the rest of the family knew that he was unstable and shouldn’t have been allowed to own guns. I think that she feels guilty for not connecting the dots. I think that in an attempt to avoid blaming herself, she has transferred that anger to the gun.”

    If you are correct, then why does she persist in declaring her brother-in-law blameless? Couldn’t she just as well say, “The NRA allowed my POS brother-in-law to get a gun!” instead of “My brother-in-law is a saint. The gun did it”?

    Her feelings about her brother-in-law have some element that has nothing to do with her sister’s death. Apply Occam’s razor, assuming CSGV doesn’t ban it first.

  27. This just goes to prove what I’ve always maintained. People like that are vile and violent, so they have to cloak their nasty behavior behind a pretended “concern for others.” In reality, all they are doing is covering up their worst character traits by projecting them on others while pretending to take care of others.

    Leftism always depends upon a captive “oppressed” class that the leftists can pretend to be fighting on behalf of. That’s why their extra special rage is reserved for “class traitors” like Clarence Thomas, Joe the Plumber, ans Sarah Palin. They expose the lie that the leftists speak for the oppressed minority.

  28. Gareth says to me, “Hell, you’re pretty much a “ban ‘em all” person anyway – the high ground was never yours to begin with.”

    That’s not exactly true. Are you just exaggerating or guessing, since it’s clear I am on the other side. Does anyone who disagrees with you fall into that category of “ban ’em all?”

    kenno, You know less about me than Gareth.

  29. What I know about you:

    I know you live in Italy, and have for many years.

    I know that in spite of that, you claim to have your finger on the pulse of American opinion about guns–even though polls consistently show that people’s attitudes have consistently become more pro-gun at least for the past decade.

    I know that you consistently get your clock cleaned in your arguments. Example: on Joe Huffman, you claimed that more guns leads automatically to more crime, and were proved wrong, so you changed it to gun crime, and even there had to compare the hypothetical case of zero guns to our present rate of “gun” crime.

    I know you claim that you were an illegal gun owner. I don’t actually know you *were* one–you might just be some punk trying to gain street cred.

  30. I’m going to request that people not post personal contact information in the comment section. That’s one line I’d like not to cross.

  31. He’s always advocated for gun registration, knowing that it would eventually result in confiscation, without any safeguard from governmental abuse.

    If you were suspected of a crime, registration could deprive you of your firearms even though it hasn’t been proven you were innocent or guilty. And if you’re proven innocent, sometimes the firearms may not even get back to you.

    Hell why did Lenin himself advocate for registration in the first place?

  32. “Sebastian pretended to take kenno271 to task for his wild speculation and then turned the whole discussion into how Joan is irrational and doesn’t know it while he, Sebastian, is irrational but realizes it so it’s OK.”

    It’s really not OK in either case. If I thought it was OK, I wouldn’t recognize it as a fault.

    Here’s the thing, you don’t get to bring your own tragedies into public debates about public policies that affect everyone, and then claim your personal tragedy is off limits. Sorry, no. It’s completely fair game. If I were advocating that no one go to the doctor, and avoid hospitals, because Doctors kill people, man… and you’re better off healing naturally… and I am so convinced of this I’m going to make the government force you to be that way…. bringing up that I might have an irrational motivation for advocating such a position is completely fair game.

    And let’s not overlook Tam’s contribution. I’m starting to wonder if you guys are having a communal breakdown or some kind of mass hysteria. Is it because of your setbacks in Texas and Arizona? Or, maybe you’re just getting fed up with your own twisting and spinning?

    I think we’re kind of tired of trolls thinking they can shit all over us and not be pointed out for being the horrible people they, in fact, are.

  33. Let them be the bad human beings. It is wise not to wrestle with pigs. You will both end up covered in shit, but only the pig will like it.

  34. “And let’s not overlook Tam’s contribution. I’m starting to wonder if you guys are having a communal breakdown or some kind of mass hysteria. Is it because of your setbacks in Texas and Arizona?”

    Let’s put this in perspective. I’ll make an analogy involving football. Now, football is primarily an American game, so it’s possible that Michele (Italian for Michael) won’t understand it. I’m hoping, though, that he’ll remember enough of the days before he fled that he will understand.

    Imagine up until 2000 as the first half. The anti-gunners got a 5-point lead during the Clinton administration. With their anti-gun lawsuits, they were on our five-yard line. However, with the S&W boycott, we intercepted the ball and made a touchdown, tying it up. We scored a 2-point conversion with the Bellesiles scandal. We held onto a 2-point lead until the 2004 attempt to re-up the AWB, which stalled out at our 30-yard line, then got the ball back and made a field goal with the expiration for a five-point lead. Since then, between the ban on anti-gun lawsuits, Heller, McDonald, and victories across the nation, we’ve run up a 40-point lead, while they haven’t scored once.

    In this perspective, the setback in AZ (I’m not sure to what he refers in TX) is an incomplete pass on a first down. When we are leading 57-17, this is hardly something to make us panic.

    But it sure is fun knocking them all over the field, just for the hell of it.

  35. Oh, how could I forget? We scored a safety when Harry Reid, as majority leader, grounded the ball behind his own goal line rather than face us. :)

  36. Change 5-point lead to 6-point lead–I’m not really ignorant of math or football.

  37. “That’s not exactly true. Are you just exaggerating or guessing, since it’s clear I am on the other side.”

    In all of your posts on your blog and others, I haven’t seen a proposed law restricting or banning guns that you don’t like.

    Not only that, but when we discuss “compromise”, you say you won’t adovcate *any* repeals, claiming “it’s about what’s right and what’s proper”.

    Omitting the fact, I might add, that in certain cases, repeal is the only right and proper thing. Hughes Amendment for example.

    I’ll admit kenno’s comment was a little harsh, but no more than the CSGV’s comment, the intended topic of this blog entry.

    On Joan Peterson – I’ve read about similar things regarding Dunblane. All the antis use that as the reason stealing from the law-abiding was a good thing, but when the facts are pointed out, we’re suddenly the insensitive ones.

    Hell, part of the reason I left the anti side was due to a slightly more violent version of that.

  38. “I’ll admit kenno’s comment was a little harsh, but no more than the CSGV’s comment, the intended topic of this blog entry.”

    It was less so. I’m merely trying to cast doubt on her morals, not to put her children into foster homes, which would most likely result in them being poor and shorter-lived.

  39. kenno271,

    But it sure is fun knocking them all over the field, just for the hell of it.

    Yup. Another legislative session where we got tons of stuff passed in states all across the union, plus a few key judicial decisions. Didn’t get everything, but then you never do; we’ll be back again next year.

    What big antigun laws got passed in any state at all recently?

    *crickets*

    Thought so.

    Who’s “desperate” and “hysterical” again?

    Yeah, thought so.

  40. Hell, the AZ campus carry bill got vetoed simply because it was flat out bad lawmaking not because Brewer had a problem with the concept.

    The Governor as much as told the Legislature to fire up a couple extra brain cells and pass something that won’t cause more problems than it solves and I’ll sign it.

    That actually makes your take even -worse- Mike, in the majority of states we’re past the point of simply accepting what we can get, the momentum is so much in our direction we are willing to kill a bad bill in order to get a better one passed.

  41. kenno,

    My only problem with speculating on japete’s tragedy is that it is unnecessary.

    We win on the facts about guns and carry, all the science (that is published and peer-reviewed as opposed to googled) supports our position.

    We win on the rights argument and in the courts when we phrase the arguments properly.

    We win on the “hearts and minds” because we are rational, calm and use examples that engage the emotions and reason of undecided persons, as opposed to the VPC and their ilk’s hystrionic claims and bald appeals to fear.

    By getting into the name-calling (beyond calling a spade a spade like “bigot” when necessary) and speculating on the mentality and motive of the japete’s of the world we distract from our winning arguments.

    It let’s Joan throw on the mantle of “abused victim” and allows her supporters to point at us (yes, hypocritically) as avoiding the facts. That clouds our message unnecessarily.

    We don’t need to sink to their level, we are winning on every front without it. If we leave those tactics to them the sensible people we care about will notice who’s doing what and will know where to focus their disgust without the counter of “but, but, the pro-gun side does it too”.

    Anyway, you’re free to do as you wish, I just don’t see the point, it won’t change the minds of the anti-gunners and won’t impress the undecided. They can see her pathology for what it is just fine by reading her drivel without us looking like “meanies” for harping on it.

    Let her and her ilk continue to destroy themselves in the only court that matters, the court of public opinion.

  42. “Let her and her ilk continue to destroy themselves in the only court that matters, the court of public opinion.”

    I don’t think it’s the only court that matters (I would like to have SCOTUS with us, wouldn’t you?), but I agree it’s the highest court in the land and the one we most need.

  43. Garrett,

    The only court that matters in the sense that she and her ilk can effect.

    The Supremes don’t care what drivel she spews and aren’t going to be influenced by it. Even the “anti-gun” Justices have smarter arguments, they don’t need the kind of tripe she and Mike regularly spill on the subject.

    Where her sob story can get traction, if we make her a “victim of bullying”, is with the credulous public.

  44. “Where her sob story can get traction, if we make her a “victim of bullying”, is with the credulous public.”

    I disagree. She needs to be called on her lies. If her allies want to call that bullying, let them. I refuse to alter my stance based upon the lies of a bunch of gun grabbers.

    When she calls herself a “gun violence survivor” she lies.

    When she pretends that her brother-in-law was a law abiding citizen until he pulled the trigger, she lies.

    When she blames the gun, and honest gun owners, for the murder of her sister, she lies.

    When she does her level best to deny the fundamental rights of the rest of us and claims to be a victim of any kind, she lies.

    I don’t personally care what her allies think of me calling her a liar. They encourage her, support her, and back her up in her lies. They are no better than she is.

  45. Sean,

    I have no problem with that as long as the responses are focussed on facts not insult.

    When she calls herself a “gun violence survivor” we gently point out that she was not a direct victim or even witness of the evil act that took her sister’s life. She is a grieving relative with whom we can sympathize for her loss, as for any other person who lost a loved one. We can say that her loss, however tragic, does not justify infringing the rights of innocent law-abiding Americans.

    See how that makes us kind but firmly rational and can’t in the eyes of the general sane public be twisted into bullying? If she and her cohorts try they look ididotic. It’s all about tone and presentation, the facts we use don’t have to change.

    When she says he was law-abiding and apparently sane and “just flipped out” we, again gently and with sympathy, point out his actual history of violence and criminality.

    again, that leaves her side no hooks to potray us as callous monsters.

    Speculatinging her relationship

  46. Whoops, I’m a bad typist.

    Anyway, the pattern of responses should remain the same.

    We address her emotion-driven outbursts (which most of the general public will, to a point, be inclined to sympathize with) with gentle but firm correction. Pointing out the facts and the proper rational take on them. That will leave us looking like empathetic beings to the moms of America and, if she gets aggressive in response, will lose her that sympathetic viewpoint and make folks see her true anti-factual and ideological agenda.

    Being kind and gentle in speech yet remorseless in defense of the truth is the way to win any argument. The other party ends up looking bad with no even remotely valid appearing way to change the subject to how “mean” we are.

    Anytime you argue your argument should include theirs, and disarm it. That leaves them with nothing to do but get frustrated and repeat things you’ve already addressed on your own terms.

    Personal insults are of no use in winning arguments, they can only hurt, ther’s never an upside to lowering yourself to your opponants level if, like we do, you hold the factual, philosophical and moral high ground.

    End of my opinion. =)

  47. Tam: “What big antigun laws got passed in any state at all recently?”

    AB 962 (California)- Ammo registration. But upon further review by the California Courts, the officials ruled that Assemblyman De Leon was out of bounds… so those points came off the board.

  48. kenno, I’m a creep and you wish me ill simply because I disagree with you and you lack the maturity to accept such an affront to your ego. Your hostility towards me is so over the top that it makes you sound like a nut. Your only saving grace is that you’ve got a lot of company around here, gun nuts all and loyal.

    I’d like to see proper gun control, background checks on every transfer, licensing and registration as well as safe storage laws, not as you paranoid babies claim, reading my mind badly, but for the reason I state, to minimize gun flow from you guys to the criminals.

    In addition we need stricter screening procedures, which could be part of the licensing part, in order to eliminate some of you flaky and unstable guys from owning guns.

    I’d suggest a home visit to kenno, first of all.

  49. “kenno, I’m a creep and you wish me ill simply because I disagree with you and you lack the maturity to accept such an affront to your ego.”

    Mikey, if you’d been following the thread, I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about Craig Hexham, the weirdo who first suggested getting Tango’s kids taken away. The ultimate reason was that he, and CSGV, “lack[ed] the maturity to accept such an affront to [his] ego” as Tango disagreeing with him. I didn’t wish him ill because of his stupid opinions; I wished him ill because he was trying to separate an innocent man from his flesh and blood.

    Since you have been pointedly avoiding the original issue, just how do you feel about CSGV changing Tango’s words and then using the altered post to try to separate him from his beloved children? Are you OK with that?

    Yes or no.

    (Oh, and as to your little wish list, including wanting the cops to come take me away, as well as your lies about us supplying guns to criminals–it really doesn’t bother me. Because, frankly, you have zero chance of ever getting any of your wish list. Your opinions are more than a decade out of date, among those who didn’t flee America).

  50. So the CSGV’s threatening to take a man’s kid away over a difference of opinion, and Mike can’t spare a single keystroke over it.

    But when we express our desire that his authoritarian pipe dreams fail, he’s suddenly the aggrieved, picked-upon martyr/victim.

    Talk about a distorted sense of scale.

  51. ME: “My grandfather lived to be 96!”

    Them: ” Was he forced to eat his peas when he was a kid?”

    Me: ” No, by minding his own damn business!”

    And remember kids, an armed society is a polite society.

  52. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” C.S. Lewis

    Natan Sharansky’s Fear No Evil really captures how the Soviet Union was run by omnipotent moral busybodies, a group who were trying to force Sharansky to love Big Brother not for the power, but because they were convinced that this was the path to truth and the greater good. Communism, and its close relative progressivism, are religions without a God.

  53. I am going to bet long odds that the people who get their guns stolen or who willingly give them to criminals have never heard of the NRA let alone participate in any sort of organized gun training or gun rights group.

  54. kenno271, Sorry if I misunderstood. I’m sure it was my not following the thread and not your having written an ambiguous rant.

    About the child-rearing questions, I think there’s a lot of abuse that goes on behind closed doors. The overly strict dads, the types who comment here are probably big offenders, you know all in the interest of making a man out of the boy and teaching him respect. The real motivation is often the same one that prompts you guys to own guns, insecurity and fear.

    About the government intervening, that should be reserved for only the most extreme cases.

  55. “But find me a picky eater in adulthood, and I’ll find you a parent that didn’t make their kids try a lot of different food.”

    My mother forced us to eat things we didn’t want to eat. I still can’t stand broccoli or cauliflower. Turns out there is a chemical in those vegetables that kids are sensitive to and it tastes repulsive to them. Thanks to my mom’s attempts to get me to eat specific vegetables I have been conditioned not to ever eat them.

    Who suffers if a kid eats poorly? The kid. Let them make up their own mind.

  56. Mike,

    Do you have a cite on any part of that bit about it being “likely” (which means statistically significant in grown-up smart people speak) that: gun owners on this site are >= overly strict dads >= “secret abuse going on” ?

    Jeez man, you do understand that spouting your insulting opinion as a statement of fact without providing any cites to data that supports you makes you look like an idiot to rational people right?

  57. “Let them make up their own mind.”

    Wrong. They eat what’s put on the table or they go hungry. Teach a child that temper tantrums will work and you get more temper tantrums. Teach a child that you will alter your life to accomodate their picky eating habits, and you will get more picky eating habits. A little honest reflection on the parent’s part and they will be able to tell the difference between a brat and an honest dislike of a food.

    And Matthew, stop feeding the troll.

  58. Anticitizenone,

    In the interest of fair play.

    I wouldn’t make that bet. There’s no sound basis to believe that the 4+ million NRA members, or the 10+ million Americans who think they are NRA members, are any less likely to be the victims of thieves than any other gun owner. NRA and other gun rights groups members are no more or less likely to practice sound storage procedures, or not, -and be victimized anyway- than the millions of non-NRA member gun owners. In the end the problem is that thieves feel they can commit crimes and get away with them.

    On the second part of your statement, I would agree that most NRA members and in fact most gun owners don’t make straw purchases nor knowingly provide firearms to prohibited persons. I can confidently agree because the data from the FBI and ATF support that opinion (see how that works, mikeb?). Given the millions of gun owners in the US and the few (percentage-wide) weapons acquired and misused by criminals the current restrictions work pretty well and, per the comprehensive studies by the NAS and CDC covering decades, no additional restrictions have shown any positive effect on such transfers (I know you’ve been shown those studies more than once mike).

    I do have to disagree that folks who break the law probably haven’t heard of the NRA. After all the NRA is well known to support carry rights and armed self-defense against criminals and to support programs like Project Exile to more seriously punish gun-using criminals and the “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy” anti-straw purchase campaign.

    Criminals and their law-breaking families and friends are as likely as anyone else to have heard of the NRA so I disagree with your last contention. =)

  59. Sean,

    He’ll eat what’s on the table!

    ;)

    (yeah, you’re right)

  60. Matthew asked, “Do you have a cite on any part of that bit about it being “likely” (which means statistically significant in grown-up smart people speak) that: gun owners on this site are >= overly strict dads >= “secret abuse going on” ?”

    Did you miss the part where I preceded my remarks with “I think…?”

    I’m expressing an opinion or an idea of MINE, which I realize you don’t like, but there it is.

    You tell me, are most gun owners you know the gentle, soft-spoken, loving type or are they more like the guy in the post who forced the food into his kid’s mouth twenty times or like Sean Sorrentino, who speaking from all his experience in child rearing said the kid eats what he gets or goes hungry. Sean goes on to preach about how to deal with temper tantrums.

    To me all these tough methods of teaching kids are not motivated by the kids’ best interests but by your impatience and inability to teach in any other way, by example, for instance. And it makes sense that you can’t do any better becasue that’s what you received from your dads.

    And then here we are passing the shit down to the next generation and justifying it all the way.

  61. Mike,

    The problem is, that isn’t “thinking”, that’s baseless prejudice based on deliberate ignorance.

    Deliberate because studies on both gun ownership and psychology and the effect of various child rearing methods and future well-being exist; yet you apparently lack the intellectual curiosity and integrity to go find them and see if the data supports or contradicts your beliefs.

    Rational and intelligent people, people whose opinions are worth listening to, people worthy of respect, don’t act that way.

    You on the other hand, by your continuing refusal to engage with data rather than opinion, opinion which we again and again demonstrate to be objectively false from a scientific perspective. continue to reinforce the perception that you are an emotionally driven bigot who lacks intellectual rigor.

    From a rationalist perspective you might as well be a rather dim child.

  62. “Let them be the bad human beings. It is wise not to wrestle with pigs. You will both end up covered in shit, but only the pig will like it.”

    Same goes for feeding them, Sebastian. Maybe its relevant to the cause that all ardent supporters of gun control are stalkers and trolls, and MikeB is of course one of them, as well as a strong supporter of them.

    But last I checked this was a thread about CSVG making threats to take Tango’s kids away because he disagrees with them on gun issues.

    Your comment section, but it does seem a bit disrespectful to have it derailed in such a way. Especially after making the “Wrestling with Pigs” analogy….

  63. They’d round us up and put us in death camps if they had the power, just like their commie compadres did the USSR.

  64. They’d round us up and put us in death camps if they had the power, just like their commie compadres did in the USSR.

  65. MikeB, How are the shooting sports in Italy coming along? Don’t look behind you, but while you were trying (and failing) to pester us, we now have an Italian IDPA (International Defensive Pistol Association) club and will soon be hosting an international match in Bella Italia. Shooters from Malta, Slovenia, Russia, Serbia, Lithuania and Finland will also be attending from Europe. And, of course, we Ugly Americans!
    We Gun Nuts are coming to a quartiere near you.

  66. “The real motivation is often the same one that prompts you guys to own guns, insecurity and fear.”

    No, my motive to own guns is to fight my government, just as the Founders said.

    My motive is making a child do as he does not want to do is to ensure that he grows to be an adult.

  67. To me all these tough methods of teaching kids are not motivated by the kids’ best interests but by your impatience and inability to teach in any other way, by example, for instance. And it makes sense that you can’t do any better becasue that’s what you received from your dads.

    This is just another opinion of yours that I don’t have to give a second thought to, right, MikeB?

  68. “Hate begets hate when guns are trump!”

    Funny how leftists only apply that thinking to private gun owners and never to the government. When government guns are trump it’s suddenly all unicorns and rainbows.
    How many people did the commies in China and the USSR execute with a bullet to the back of the head? Leftists never want to talk about that because it trumps their totalitarian agenda.
    I’m going to have to get a can of peas. They taste pretty good, actually.

  69. So, here’s a little tidbit of info as to why I’m strict with him eating some of the stuff. I went into the US Marines weighing 122 lbs. That’s 11 lbs from the bare minimum. Up until high school there was only 1 person my height and we were the 2 shortest BY FAR in all grades I was ever in. My son inherited those genes. He’s 19 months old and weighs all of 20.0 lbs. For 3 check-ins in a row, my kid was the same weight, or close to it. For one of them, his weight dropped a little. The doctor wasn’t too worried because he’d just had 2 bouts of the flu, one of which raised him to 105.6 degrees (don’t worry, he was fine. Same doctor’s office saw him for that fever and it was to 102 before the night was over). She wanted to do another weigh-in which was today, after the sicknesses to see how his weight was and to make sure he’s doing ok and his weight is climbing as it should. The best way to make sure someone’s weight is climbing, PER DOCTOR’S ORDERS, is to make sure they eat a lot of high fat content foods, as well as iron and proteins. Protein… I seem to remember a food that’s very high in protein… OH. CHICKEN. For fat, she said just load him down with lots of his Vitamin D or Whole Milk and that’s fine. Iron is one we’re working on, but he is doing ok with that. We just didn’t realize it.

    Fuck you, CSGV. When you’re a pediatrician, you can argue with my son’s doctor. Until then, my representation is still waiting for your call.

  70. Tango I have a Nephew like that. Finicky eater, high energy, and just generally a small kid. His Mom seriously worked her tail off to get his weight up. Little punk is definitely starting to fill out now.

    Thankfully she’s Anti-gun (for the time being, she does want to come to the range with me) so for now she’s safe from persecution.

  71. I *think* the world is getting worse and worse and I *think* that is because more parents are not teaching children discipline but to do anything they want in *their* interest. It is ideas like Mike expouses that makes children *think* it is acceptable to use violence to solve a situation.

    I *think* most gun owners understand that firearms are a last resort to be used defensively and those not taught about firearm responsibility are those people that Mike is protesting about. It is exactly that same *type* of child-rearing that Mike is preaching that, I *think*, is causing the same behavior problems that Mike is complaining about. Yes? No?

  72. And it makes sense that you can’t do any better becasue that’s what you received from your dads.

    When a supposed adult starts saying “oh yeah? Well my dad’s better than your dad!”, it’s pretty clear that this is not the kind of person with whom you’ll ever have a productive conversation.

    Also, my dad died of an aggressive glioma nineteen months ago. Isn’t it distressing to see the gun controloons bullying cancer survivors like this?

  73. I’m going to choose my words carefully here.

    Good sir, you are making a fundamental categorical error about the intent, motivation, and nature of the people with whom you believe you are having a rational and civil debate.

    They’ve read their Alinsky. Have you? Know thine enemy, and all that?

    Tread with caution. You seem to be assuming that their objective is the logical mirror image of yours. You may wish to reexamine that assumption. You cannot anticipate the means a foe will use until you understand the ends that he wishes to achieve.

  74. me,

    The debate isn’t for -their- hearts and minds, it is for the hearts and minds of the undecided voter. The more extreme position we can reveal them as having, the more we win on that battlefield.

    They themselves aren’t the target of lucid rational arguments, the bystanders are.

    Fortunately for us mikeb and japete and their ilk live in a deliberately created echo-chamber and fail to understand that the sea in which they wish to swim has fundamentally changed in our favor.

    They learned their Alinsky but failed to keep their execution of his tactics relevent.

  75. @Matthew: “fail to understand that the sea in which they wish to swim has fundamentally changed in our favor.”

    I have to disagree with you. The sea has not changed. There was never a mass movement, or even widespread agreement with gun control. There certainly was the perception that there was agreement, but that was fostered by the echo chamber media who were largely sympathetic to the anti-rights agenda.

    What you are seeing as a sea change is actually better described as a “Preference Cascade.”

    http://tinyurl.com/6ekmlpu

    Basically this means that most people agreed with the pro-rights agenda, but they were quiet because they felt that they were alone and no one else agreed with them. Once enough people started to come out publicly pro-rights, the rest of us realized we were not alone.

    The gun-grabbers will tout their biased polls, but you can see that their support is paper thin. They can’t mobilize our numbers, no physically, not even virtually. When gun related bills come up for votes, we bury our representatives in emails, phone calls, and paper letters. We pack rooms and tell our reps face to face how we feel. They can’t match us. If the anti-rights faction actually had the support that they claim, they would be able to at least match us on emails.

    For support, I offer this article from Ohio

    http://tinyurl.com/6zjurlh

    The Ohio Governor got 11 times the emails, faxes, and letters and 3.5 times the number of telephone calls from pro-Concealed Carry as against.

    From and Anti-gun legislator
    “It’s like comparing the Army’s 5th Division to, like, the Boy Scouts. They aren’t even playing the same game,” Fingerhut said.

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