Guns

Did you hear about the Bushmaster XM-15 semiautomatic .223 caliber rifle that went on a killing spree along the interstate? How about the Walther P22 and Glock 19 that walked into a school and killed 32 students, faculty and staff? No? Perhaps you heard of the M-4 rifle and M9 pistol that got together one night and killed 17 people? This one you must have heard; a 9MM pistol was a self-appointed night watchman and killed someone who looked “suspicious”.

The recent controversy in Florida about Trayvon Martin has spurred all kinds of opinions about what happened. I know everyone is entitled to their opinion on things but at the same time, those opinions should have at least a breath of common sense. I’ve said that to say this; GEORGE ZIMMERMAN KILLED TRAYVON MARTIN. The idiot(s) who waste breath and brain cells in thinking or saying that a GUN killed Trayvon is the reason why there is such a misconception about guns and the people who own them.

Owning a firearm is a right protected by the Constitution of the United States. This right is exercised by millions of Americans including this one. As far as I know, my shotgun has yet to kill anyone. Now it could be living some kind of double life and be the most prolific serial killer ever, but I doubt it. Then again I’ve been wrong before, just ask my ex.

There is this little mechanism all guns have than sets into motion a series of actions to cause that gun to fire, it’s called a trigger. I have yet to see a gun that did not need any kind of human action to fire. Thus, a gun did not kill Trayvon Martin. A crazy, ignorant, wannabe cop, arrogant racists PERSON killed Trayvon Martin.

It’s bad enough I had to hear that ignorant comment but then I turn on the news and there’s a clip of someone who was part of a discussion about the Trayvon Martin case that made the 2^nd stupidest statement I heard about all this. I’m gonna quote as close as possible:

“It’s funny because the same people, politicians and governors who push for laws that allow people to use guns to protect themselves are also pushing to get prayer back in schools. So its ok to preach about turning the other cheek but don’t mess with me because I will shoot you? It’s hypocrisy!”

If this idiot had half a brain, at least part of it would have caught some of this nonsense before it had a chance to leave his mouth. Apparently, because I believe in God and I want my child to pray at school if he wants to, I should just let someone break into my home and kill me and my son. Nah! Not gonna happen without a fight. Yes Jesus turned the other cheek. He was the son of God and could have stopped everything that happened to him by just blinking his weak eye! The purpose for him walking this planet in human form was to die for our sins! You cannot compare any situation in which we face life or death situations with how Jesus handled everything leading up to and including his crucifixion.

If you use situations as this to try to gain support to further restrict access to firearms, you are a pitiful person to say the very least. If you make it harder for law abiding citizens to purchase guns, then you’re opening the flood gates for the criminals. Outlaw guns then only outlaws will have guns. A truer statement has never been spoken. I think here in North Carolina, we have enough laws governing the purchase of guns and the use of force (although I think some should be tweaked). The fact that Zimmerman had a gun is something that should be looked at. The guy has a record of a violent past but was able to obtain a permit. I’m not sure how the permit process works in Florida, but here, there is a background check and the sheriff issues the permit. For a conceal carry permit, there is a class in which the laws of using deadly force are taught then a check is conducted by the SBI. If everything is clean then the permit is granted.

So no, the Bushmaster XM-15 semiautomatic .223 caliber rifle was not the DC sniper! It was a tool used by John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. The Walther P22 and Glock 19 didn’t just get up one morning and decide to kill 32 people at Virginia Tech! That decision was made by Seung-Hui Cho (I will say his best decision was to shoot himself). As for the M-4 and M9, they didn’t get drunk and kill 17 Afghani citizens! Robert Bales was the person pulling those triggers! Guns don’t kill people, people kill people!

For all you people who want to do away with guns and use tragic situations to use the fear to get your “point” across, I will not protect you with my firearms in the event of a zombie apocalypse! I’ll just tell you to turn the other brain! (I had to!) Making these stupid comments or even thinking these thoughts have made you my close encounter of the STUUUUUUPID kind!!! I shall leave you this evening with a quote:

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” - Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II.

Occupy This Post!

I am all about standing up for what my beliefs and rights. I would expect everyone reading this to feel the same. What I don’t understand is this “occupy” movement. I don’t understand how so many people can get behind this thing and yet, no one has a clue about what is going on!

A brief background about this crap: it all started in Spain. Yeah, I said it, Spain. Apparently, the people of Spain got caught up in this “Arab Spring” and began their own protests against their government. Since there are like 5 Arabs living in Spain, they couldn’t be considered part of the “Arab Spring” so their protests became known as the Spanish Indignant movement. A few weeks later, a group in Canada called Adbusters Media Foundation decided that it would be cool to come up with something that would equal the attention in the eastern part of the world. So they came up with the idea to organize a protest on Wall Street. TIMEOUT! A group of CANADIANS who got their idea from the SPANISH, who got their idea from the ARABS decided to protest something in AMERICA! Yeah, that’s how messed up this whole thing is. Anyway, the Canadians decided to protest corporate influence on democracy. Thus, “Occupy Wall Street” began. As you all can see on TV, it has grown to other things since then.

I won’t even address the obvious problems of people from other countries taking it upon themselves to use our freedoms in our country to try to change our system of democracy. I’ll leave that one alone. The part of all this that irks me more than anything is when an “occupier” is interviewed, one of the first things they say is “we can’t find jobs, we can’t buy homes, we just can’t get ahead under our current system”. Let’s keep in mind that a majority of these protestors are college aged people (18-24). I would imagine all they say is true. How would anyone be able to find a job when they’re too busy “occupying” everything but a job application line? How can you buy a home when you can’t “occupy” anything other than your parents’ bank accounts? Maybe I’m the stupid one here when I say, GO LOOK FOR WORK AND DON’T EXPECT EVERYTHING TO BE HANDED TO YOU!! What’s that? That won’t change anything? Ok, well if you really want to change the way our system works I will tell you how.

There is a misconception that change happens at the top. VERY rarely does change come from the top. Change begins at the bottom. Think about it. Let’s say you’re a citizen of a colony founded by, oh let’s say Britain. Also, let’s just assume you were being taxed by Britain but yet not getting any say to where and what the money goes to (not that this has ever happened or anything). Do you really think that the king of Britain or even the leaders of the colonies would be like “You know we should let them have some say about this”? Heck no! Why? They’re still gonna get their money either way. The king of course got richer and the leaders of the colonies were paid to collect the taxes. Everyone in that chain were beneficiaries of the system. It took the people on the bottom to say, “If I’m paying, I should have say in where it goes”. They went to the top. They wrote letters, they complained to their leaders and nothing worked. So they stopped paying taxes. Wouldn’t you know it; we’re a free country today because of it.

I said all that to say this; if you want to change our system, “occupy” elected offices. If you really think you have all the people behind you that you say you do, run for state or federal offices. Start bringing about the change you want that way. “Occupy” Congress with bills that support your cause.

The only things you’re “occupying” now are parks and welfare lines. Which kinda defeats your cause right!? But it supports my cause to point out yet another close encounter with stupidity!

8 Year Old Pepper Sprayed

Colorado police pepper-spray angry 8-year-old boy after violent tantrum at elementary school

Cops defend use of pepper spray on 8-year-old during tantrum; boy threatened to stab teachers

Justified? Police use pepper spray to subdue 8-year-old

So you may have heard the story of Aidan Elliott, the 8-year-old kid in Colorado who police pepper sprayed after he flipped out in class. Thanks to all the publicity from this incident, the stupidity and lack of responsibility becomes ever more present here in America. Prior to America catering to the “feelings” of children, this story wouldn’t have even been a blip on the media radar. Now that it has, let’s look at this a little deeper.

Here are the facts: Aidan went to school that day; Aidan got mad; Aidan started cursing and threatening teachers; Aidan pulled a piece of molding off the wall and in essence had the intent of using it as a weapon; the teachers and the rest of the students barricaded themselves in an office; police was called; Aidan flips out at them and curses them also; Aidan gets pepper sprayed; no one gets hurt.

Those are facts that have not been disputed by either side. The kid himself even said this on numerous morning news shows. So what’s the problem? His mother says that they should have handled it differently. His mother says that police need special training to handle kids with behavioral issues. His mother says that there’s something wrong at the school because he never acts like this at home.

Ms. Elliott, allow me to dissect your thoughts on this matter:

1. It should have been handled differently – How could this situation been handled differently? You have someone in front of you who is obviously a danger to others saying that if the teachers come out of the closet he’s going to kill them (terroristic threats) with the stick (assault with a deadly weapon and since it’s on a school campus, automatic felony). Not to mention when police arrives he taunts them and begins threatening them (could be assault on an officer but in this case we’ll go back to terroristic threats). Let’s be honest, had this kid been a grown black man, he would have been shot or at the very least tasered. You should be thankful that all they did was use pepper spray. People have been shot and/or kill by police for a lot less. That’s not to take anything away from police; they’re here to protect us from people who are flipping out because they didn’t get their way.

2. Police need special training to handle kids with behavioral problems – I completely disagree. They have received all the training they need to deal with people. Just because you baby and pacify your kid at home, doesn’t mean the rest of the world should do it. This is the real world. When you do something wrong, there are consequences for your actions. Police are equipped with 3 levels of force to handle situations: gun, taser, and pepper spray. Those 3 items can de-escalate all situations involving 1-5 people per officer. It is not the job of the police to give him candy or a video game to calm him down; it is their job to help the people who were barricaded in the closet.

3. There’s something wrong at the school because he never acts like this at home – Yeah, no one in America believes that one. He may not do this kind of stuff now but I’m 99% sure he has in the past. When he didn’t get his way he would flip out. So you, being the piss poor parent you are, started giving him everything he wanted. THAT’S why he doesn’t act like this at home NOW. The kid said himself on “Good Morning America” that they wouldn’t let him do something and he got mad. The issuance of rules and borders begin at home and at your home there aren’t any so he thinks he has none everywhere. If someone does try to limit him, he flips out thinking that’s going to solve the problem. On the video of the story from GMA, the kid is playing a violent video game that kids his age shouldn’t even play. He even made the statement that he just got the game. So not only did you give him a game intended for mature audiences, but you gave it to him after this whole incident! Rewarding bad behavior only fuels more bad behavior! The funny thing about this one is in the police report of all this you are quoted as saying “Well, you probably deserved it” when he told you they sprayed him.

Now let’s take a look at how this would have been handled when I was 8 years old (it would have never happened because I knew better but let’s play along). I flip out at school and cause teachers to leave or hide in the closet. Police get there and pepper spray me, and then handcuff me. My mom shows up and asks what happened. By this time I’d be praying that the cops would just take me away to jail because I know what my mom would have for me would be far worse. Once mom would get the story, she would kindly ask the police to step away from me for a few minutes. Once the cop would have left, I would have gotten my ass beat!! No morning news shows, no national publicity, no nothing; just a good old fashion beating, which would have been well deserved! That would have been the first and the last time I would have flipped out like that. This was his THIRD time!!!

So allow me to conclude this by saying that this attempt to build some kind of following for a frivolous lawsuit against the police department, school system, or both, has more than backfired on you. You and your kid said he deserved it. My advice is that you first of all thank God I wasn’t the first cop on the scene because by the time you would have gotten there, he would be flopping like a fish out of water from the taser shocks (ignore the bruises that look like a nightstick, he fell….honest!). Second, the cure for an unruly child is being a parent! Spare the rod, spoil the child. Third, you win the “Piss Poor Parent of the Year” award along with being my close encounter of the stupid kind!

Introduction and a couple of things....

Close Encounters of the Stupid Kind....the title speaks for itself.

Let me start out by saying that I'm honored to be able to add to this blog. I have not ever written or maintained a blog before. This will be a learning experience for me. I ask that you work with me as I get into the swing of things! =)

A little about me; My name is Thomas Paine. I believe in common sense and logical thinking. I believe that all men and women are created equal. I'm 27 years old. I have a Bachelor's degree. That's the generals about me. If you'd like to know more, just comment or email me thomaspaine81@gmail.com and now time for a short first post...

Let me begin by saying that I'm not impressed by people who do everything they can to TRY to look cool. All you're doing is making yourself look....well.....look stupid. So, I've devised a list to shed some light on exactly what I'm talking about.

You ain't cool if:
-you wear shorts that go to your ankles
-your rims cost more than your car
-your rims cost more than your car and too big for the car
-you're a guy who wears skinny jeans
-you're a guy who wears skinny jeans and tries to sag
-you're a guy who wears skinny jeans, tries to sag, and tuck your shirt in your boxers
-you wear shades inside (Kanye West)
-your shirt goes down to your knees
-you wear a bandanna and a hat at the same time
-you cruise the Wal-Mark parking lot
-you walk at half the speed of smell
-you walk at half the speed of smell while talking loudly on your cell phone
-you walk at half the speed of smell while talking loudly on your cell phone complaining about a teacher who marked you tardy
-you wear tight and revealing clothing even though you weigh over 300 pounds
-you date someone who fits into any of these categories

...and last but not least...

YOU WEAR YOUR PANTS DOWN TO YOUR KNEES AND HAVE A BELT ON BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO PULL THEM UP!!!! For the record, I'm a huge Tupac fan but he did not originate this style. It came from prison. Pants below your ass means you're available....figure it out!

So, I said that to say this, PLEASE STOP BECAUSE YOU'RE ONLY MAKING YOURSELF LOOK STUPID!!!! But on the other hand, if you didn't do it, I wouldn't have had my close encounter for my first post!!!!!!!

Letting Go

I never thought this day would come. The day when it would be best that I let go. The day when I let go of my baby....my blog. I've thought about this for a while and I think it's best that I do it now rather than hold on to it longer. I feel like I've been holding it back from it's full potential.

That's not to say that I won't have some kind of input to what happens with "Close Encounters of the Stupid Kind", I'm just stepping back...way back...and allow someone else to take it and make it grow. The person who will be taking over will be good to her, I know this for a fact. Thomas Paine will begin his work soon. I know him well and know that if you liked my postings/stories, you will love his. I will allow him to introduce himself with his first post.

This blog has been a lot of things for me. I've posted/ranted about a lot of things and it has helped me personally. Now, I must step back in order to help myself and the blog. I'm gonna miss everyone who reads this blog and comment on the posts. I love you all! If at anytime you want to email or chat with me, my contact info is the same: email - o_rock@yahoo.com Facebook - Clifton Oxendine, Yahoo messenger: o_rock

I know this isn't a close encounter of the stupid kind, for me, this is a close encounter with myself.

Thank you!

Fear not my blog! I have not forgotten you! Soon there will be a post!

Why do some people think that the word "super" in SUPERvisor means they can do whatever they want like they're SUPERman or something?