tkhayes

Everyone carrying guns is just a stupid fantasy idea with no value to discussing. touche

I never said it was a government problem. I never said the government should do anything. I am pointing out the fact that there is a problem.

http://www.nyclu.org/content/stop-and-frisk-data at least 'attempt' to find some data before you denounce mine as non-existent. That took me seconds to find. try harder....really.

that may very well be the case, but I have no problem with separating the issues: 1. racial discrimination is a problem in the USA, and people of color are protesting. Albeit today because of the GZ case, - so that in itself might be misguided, but people of color have EVERY RIGHT to be pissed off in this country. 2. Stand your ground and/or carry laws may very well have a black advantage, but that does not mean it/they are good laws. Innocent people get killed. criminals that you hope to stop with such laws walk away scott free because they too, were 'defending themselves'. 3. white people enjoy the privilege of being white. they DO NOT get pulled over as much as people of color because they look less suspicious. They DO NOT get stopped and frisked proportionately to the crimes committed. They DO NOT fill the prisons disproportionately due to petty pot or similar light-weight drug charges, yet use of drugs is pretty similar across all races. People of color are pissed off and protesting. I understand why.

back to my original post. White people don't whine because they are not being regularly discriminated against by a system that is biased by color. When was the last time you got stopped and frisked for no good reason?

arguably the laws that we had written BEFORE Stand your ground and the carry laws we have today also 'worked as well as any that could be written'. part of the "Where's the line" argument is "who decides it" yes, that what laws do. The stand your ground law in Florida today is far from perfect - given that two people could both get shot defending each other's 'rights'. they would both be right and they would both be dead. These have large consequences for society as a whole and some of the criminals you hope to stop have actually been set free in Florida due to the law that you so staunchly uphold.

while your personal story is valid, it is only valid to THOSE people in THAT situation and does not make a case for the nation. If your story is valid as a reason for everyone to carry guns, then Oscar Grant's story is a reason to remove all guns from society - and just as valid. just sayin'

I agree with that. Responsible gun ownership is fine. now go and write a law that puts that into place. It is the dilemma. I have a different view about responsible gun ownership versus 'people getting needless shot in situations that could have been prevented'. No one wants anyone to not be able to defend themselves. no one wants assholes walking around with guns either. No one wants innocent people getting shot in situations where a gun probably did not need to be used, but the law allows that to happen. Where's the line?

Race is MOST DEFINITELY an issue in this case, not as far as the trial goes, not as far as the verdict goes, but MOST DEFINITELY a cause for the protests and outrage by the colored community. If GZ was black and TM was white, I expect the outcome would have been far different. Those types of bias in cases are spread all over the United States daily, you simply choose to ignore them. Stand your ground, AND similar carry laws, do not make the country safer. The statistics in Florida on crime reduction are marginal at best. My point is that well intentioned laws allow assholes to carry guns and make life and death decisions. My point was CLEAR and UNDERSTANDABLE - to most, but of course not to you. The case maybe should not have gone to trial - but it did. stop yer whining. yer whining sounds a lot like what you are complaining about now re: the protests. tit for tat. EVERY case is political in case you had not noticed the legal system that we have here. LEGISLATORS (i.e. politicians) write the laws. Throw out the 2nd amendment? I have never ever said that. Not once. I have also never said no one should carry guns. I think it is due for an overhaul, not abandonment. I am a gun owner. Where did you read that about me? On Fox news? The protests are being fired up by the 'racists'. And the Koch Brothers are firing up anti-climate change rhetoric. whoopitty-doo. Not one is making you listen to it or participate.

I have plenty of knowledge of the facts of the case. You will notice, if you had bother reading my posts: - I have no issue with the verdict - I do have issue with assholes carrying guns - Stand your grounds laws, while well intentioned, do actually get a lot of people killed unnecessarily. But no surprise that lawmakers are capable of writing bad laws - black people are rioting because of racial disparity, and this case is another blow dealt to black people in general - Racial disparity does actually exist in this country Got none of that from MSNBC or anywhere else, "I dun thawt that up all by myself".... backing it up with real data of course, which you probably did not bother reading either.

I did read it. Did you read "The New Jim Crow"? It is filled with real data, real stats, real references to real stuff. really. The article talks about violent crime - and a narrow scope. The New Jim Crow deals with a systematic problem in America that targets people of color.

Unless you've been arrested or convicted of something, in which case you do not qualify anymore for anything.

The Heritage foundation? Really? At least the book I quoted is backed up by data from real sources. Real data, real sources. Not opinions written by PhD's hired by a conservative think tank. His quotations are simply parroting of other right-wing conservative opinions. I actually enjoy the use of facts. real data.

the book is not 'racism'. It's about racism. If you have not read it, then you have no reason to comment on it. People of color are systematically discriminated against in this country and every judicial statistic supports that. Unless of course you have countering data, in which case I am all ears. But you do not in fact have any data other that your own opinion.

Because people of color in the USA are still widely discriminated against, and systematically at that. And mostly reflected in the criminal justice system. So they see problems with the criminal justice system, and they protest what they see as a continuation of that discrimination. It's not rocket science http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1595586431 read chapter 2 if nothing else.

Well it is Polk County.....we set our expectations pretty low for them...

even I agree with Kennedy and that is pretty rare. tin foil hats on sale at shop.tkhayes.com, $25 each plus S&H. BTW, I was the guy on the grassy knoll with the second gun......no shit I was....

Stratostar had specs? wow...whodathunk?

Generals don't 'leak'.....they 'disclose'

In 1989, and while that was a long long time ago, the RCMP offered to take my uncle's guns into possession and safe-keeping after he died. There were some 200 pieces total, and as it ended up, that's exactly what they did. They kept them all safe until the auction was held and we got rid of all of them. They charged us nothing for the transport, the storage or otherwise. This was pre gun-registry, but I too will wait and see what pans out of this. It sounds like bullshit on the surface, but they may very well simply return everything.

silly question really. They make the social atmosphere at your DZ, which drives business. Skydiving is made up of people and people are not robots. They come to your DZ, they buy food, gear at the gear store, they drink a beer at the bar. They give the tandems something to watch while they are waiting. They are the base of knowledge and the core of your business. They are the people that when you are talking to your tandems and your tandem asks about learning to skydive you can say "That guy/gal over there would be your instructor - he/she has 12,000 skydives and had been jumping since before you were born - there's nothing that he does not know or cannot teach you". But if your business model is 'one tandem, then go away', sure there is no need for experienced skydivers. I don't know about you folks, but experienced skydivers are a significant part of the bottom line. The cost of a jump ticket pays for their slot in the plane and a little more. Tandems do not subsidize the fun jumper. Nor should they.

There wasn't a response (soon enough or strong enough). We already know that. That in itself does not mean that anything was done wrong. Over 4000 US soldiers died in wars in the past 10 years. Many of them ambushed in dangerous parts of the world in dangerous situations. Did someone go to jail, get charged, get impeached, get hung out to dry for 'not responding' to their needs before they died? No I did not think so. When people are in dangerous situations in dangerous parts of the world during dangerous times, sometimes people actually die. Yes, believe it or not, it happens. To apply the need for a 'necessary response' in the Benghazi situation while you openly ignore the hundreds of other similar situations (with absolutely NO requirement for a similar response) makes you a hypocrite at the worst, and paradoxical at the very least.

I doubt anyone said that they were not worth saving. But making such antagonistic statements and baiting like that also assumes that they 'could have' been saved, which of course, no one actually knows the answer. And it also assumes then, some sort of wrongdoing. Complete invalid, in other words. They were working in a dangerous part of the world. In a volatile country, in a civil war, with people armed to the teeth all around, and they got killed in an attack. Attack, demonstration gone bad, pre-planned maneuver, none of that actually matters. The fact is that 4 - count 'em. FOUR, 1-2-3-4 people died in a very very dangerous part of the world, and the idiots that continue to perpetuate this as one of the worst things that ever happened to the USA are just that.... 30,000 children die from hunger every day. 20 kids got killed in a school shooting. thousands of soldiers died in two wars and we spent trillions of dollars for NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING, and we are going to turn the world upside down for 4 people that died in a dangerous part of the world on a dangerous mission. The reason that this country cannot get anything done (anything that matters) is because of this sort of bullshit. And the reason that no smoking gun has been found regarding Benghazi is because there isn't one.

My letter to Congress just yesterday: June 14, 2013 Congressman Gus Bilirakis 5901 Argerian Drive, Suite 102 Wesley Chapel, FL 33545-4220 Dear Congressman: We now see a continuing move towards intervention and involvement in the civil war in Syria. I cannot even begin to express how much I OBJECT to our involvement. Bottom line is that the USA cannot afford another war. If you want to go to war, then I am OK with it as long as every person in the USA gets a bill in the mail each month to pay for it. Then you might really see the actually support that exists for such a move. We are justifying this possible intervention based upon the use of chemical weapons? Weapons that ‘might’ have killed a few hundred people? What about the conventional weaponry that has killed 90,000 people already? What the USA is saying is that we are NOT concerned with the numbers of people killed, but the method by which they are killed. I am sure that is great console to the families of tens of thousands of dead people. I might remind you of the hundreds of thousands of people killed in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hands of the USA and its allies. Let’s try not to pretend that we somehow care about human life – because apparently we do not. 30,000-40,000 children starve to death in the world every day. Just to name one of the many larger issues that face humanity today. Stay out of Syria altogether. The proper way to do it is to put up a Paypal donation page and let those who care about Syria freely donate their own money to the cause. I for one, do not want to see my taxpayer dollars spent fighting a civil war that will likely result in the implementation of another extreme Islamic regime in the Middle East. Sincerely, David Hayes Zephyrhills, FL .cc US Senators Bill Nelson & Marco Rubio

My letter to Congress yesterday....did you write yours? June 14, 2013 Congressman Gus Bilirakis 5901 Argerian Drive, Suite 102 Wesley Chapel, FL 33545-4220 Dear Congressman: I am pretty shocked at the revelations of the extent of the NSA and Intelligence community surveillance industry here in the USA. Bottom line, people do not trust the government to run such secret programs. If the Congressional approval rating was above 50%, then it (almost) might be justified, but sadly, your approval ratings are at all time lows, about 10%. What that means is we do not trust you. We do not trust you to keep secrets, run secret programs, monitor the American people en masse and conduct such blatant violations of the Constitution. The cost is secret, the programs are secret, the laws are secret, the courts are secret, the surveillance is secret, and that puts us closer to a totalitarian police state, much like Eastern Europe through the 50’s and 60’s. This is how it starts. If you want to earn the trust and respect of the American people, then you have to actually EARN it. And one of the steps is to reel in these programs, defund the outside agencies that have made ‘spying on Americans’ a for-profit business with pretty much ZERO accountability to the American people, and put a stop to the nonsense and outright Constitutional violations. The only reason that the government can justify these intrusions into our lives as ‘legal’ is through the passage of really bad laws that make them ‘legal’. You have voted many times on bills to repeal the ACA, but I do not see any work on repealing the Patriot Act. It has no place in our society, certainly not 10-12 years after it was implemented. Stop the surveillance programs. Run the requests through the regular federal court systems and stop the secrecy. It will be the undoing of this country. Sincerely, David Hayes Zephyrhills, FL .cc US Senators Bill Nelson & Marco Rubio