Pizza Hut Employee Suspended for Defending Self
Mar 30, 2008 General
A Pizza Hut employee from Iowa was suspended “until police sort out the details” in a shooting incident. The details are pretty straight forward. A woman, an accomplice of a criminal, placed a order for a pizza. The delivery man, James William Spiers, attempted to deliver the pizza when he was confronted by a man who put a gun to his head. Spiers, who has a permit to carry a handgun, grabbed the assailant’s gun and pulled his own weapon. The attacker was shot three times.
When police arrived at the scene Spiers placed his hands in the air and dropped to his knees and told the police that he had both weapons in his pockets. So far no charges have been filed but Pizza Hut has suspended Spiers. The company has a policy against carrying a weapon, even for those who have a permit to carry one. Pizza Hut believes that denying its employees the right to self defense is the safest policy. As this incident shows, a no weapons policy kept Spiers from being attacked…
I understand that Pizza Hut is allowed to make policy and if Spiers broke the rule the company has a right to fire him. I also believe that the company has a duty to keep its employees safe. It appears that Spiers was the only one interested in his personal safety.
I rarely buy pizza from Pizza Hut. If they end up firing Spiers I will never buy anything from them and I encourage all Second Amendment supporters to do the same.
Pizza Hut officials would have felt better if Spiers had been shot to death so long as he was not carrying a handgun. One of his fellow employees stated:
Howe’s co-worker Kimberly Babis said Spiers should not have been armed on the job, no matter what the safety concern. She said most drivers have the right to refuse a delivery if they feel it could pose danger.
“I don’t understand why the pizza delivery guy had a gun,” she said. “And even if the other guy was trying to rob him, it’s a measly 20 bucks. At least that’s how much our drivers have on them.” Des Moines Register
This attitude is what allows students at colleges like Virginia Tech to become victims. It is the attitude that allows patrons of malls to become victims and it is the attitude that allows crime to blossom. Just submit and they will leave you alone.
James Spiers is alive today because he refused to be a victim. If he loses a job over this then at least he is still alive to find another job.
Tags: crime, pizza hut, Second Amendment, victim
WaPo is Wrong on Right to Bear Arms
Mar 18, 2008 General
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the DC gun ban and they will be asked to decide whether the Second Amendment is an individual right or a collective right that only applies to the militia. Any sand person can read the Second Amendment and tell it is an individual right. Yes it is worded peculiarly but it states that the right of THE PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The founders knew that a militia might need to be drawn from the population and that if that were ever required they would be able to draw from citizens who had the right to keep and bear arms. The words THE PEOPLE are used throughout the document and in every other instance they are deemed to mean each individual. Why, in the case of the Second Amendment, do these words have a different meaning?
The Washington Post laments about the upcoming court case and they are obviously in favor of a ruling indicating a collective right and therefore allowing government to make any rule it wants regarding gun ownership. The Post also indicates that if the right is determined to be an individual one then the court should give latitude so that laws may be enacted restricting those rights by regulation. The Post uses invalid arguments to make its case. They indicate that an individual right would allow people to own machine guns. People have not been allowed to own machine guns without costly permits since the early part of the last century. The Post also plainly states that the Second Amendment deserves more stringent treatment than the others (particularly the First) because words harm but bullets are lethal. All items in the Bill of Rights should be treated equally. We may not pick and choose which ones we agree with based on personal likes and dislikes. I suppose the Post would be happy if the courts decided that the press was too free and hurt too many people so they needed to be regulated.
The Washington Post takes it case further by trying to mislead its readers. The Post mocks critics of DC’s gun ban who claim that the city has high rates of gun violence despite the Draconian rules and asks how many more acts of gun violence would exist if we did not have the gun ban. That is easy to figure out but the WaPo is not interested in pursuing the answer because it will negate what they believe. All they have to do is look at the murders rates for the period before the gun ban and during the 25 years the ban has been in effect. It is easy to look at raw numbers (DC has been above pre ban raw numbers for all years but one) however, the true picture is seen when they use a per capita rate. Murders in DC have been at high levels even though population has declined which means there are more murders per 100,000 people during the ban than before it.
It is also important to note that in every state where there are shall issue rules, gun murders have declined. In every place (including overseas) where gun bans have been instituted the gun crime rate has risen and risen drastically. It is not hard to understand that criminals do not obey the law so they will not obey gun laws. That is why crime flourishes in places where there are gun bans. Criminals know that law abiding citizens will not be carrying guns so they look to “gun free” zones for easy victims. They are much more hesitant to attempt criminal activity in places where people carry guns because they know they will be met with force. The WaPo ignores these easily found facts and instead plays on emotions of its readers.
The Supreme Court needs to look past all this rhetoric and finally rule that gun ownership is an individual right and that states must institute shall issue rules. If the Supreme Court rules otherwise then there will be millions of new criminals in this country, the criminals who refuse to submit to government and surrender their weapons.
I say that if they rule gun ownership is a collective right applicable only to the militia then all members of the citizenry who are the militia should take up arms. You see, our country has already defined the militia in 10 USC 311:
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
I don’t know why there is an age limit but since the Second is an individual right, as stated in the writings of our founders, it is of little consequence. However, the gun grabbers like those at the WaPo had better be careful what they wish for. If every person who is part of the militia as defined by the federal government started demanding to carry weapons there would be nothing the grabbers could do because the court will have decided that they have that right. I wonder how the folks at the WaPo would feel knowing that their desires put guns in the hands of 17 year olds?
I am predicting that this will be ruled an individual right and that the gun grabbers will go nuts. The liberals will hate it because they want us disarmed because a disarmed people are an enslaved people.
Sources:
John Lott via Fox
Militia Laws
Gun Owners.org
Tags: gun rights, Second Amendment, supreme court
Plastic Bag Environmentalism is Flawed
Mar 9, 2008 General
There has been a movement to ban plastic bags. You know the ones, they are used by stores to bag your items. You get about 50 of them to bag a cart full of groceries (when 4 paper bags would have done the trick). The plastic bags are blamed for the deaths of many marine animals and lots of birds because scientists have estimated that the bags kill lots of these creatures. I personally like the bags because they are very convenient. You can use them to carry a lunch, line a small garbage can, or tote around any number of items. They are also nice when cleaning up after the family dog. We use them when we clean up the yard after our two dogs.
However, there are many who just do not think these bags are any good. I will admit that they are unsightly when they are discarded and they blow around and get hung up in trees and along fences but they are no more unsightly than the rest of the trash along the fences and cluttering the gutters. I think their benefits outweigh any problems and I am sure that it does not take them thousands of years to decay in the landfill. I am also sure that the newest article indicating that the bags are being banned based upon a series of blunders in the scientific community. It seems that blunders in science always favor the environmental movement (science that deals with such things, that is).
Who would have figured that science banning plastic bags was based on flawed science. Evidently, the science on plastic bags is just like the bags we use to clean up after our dogs.
A sack of ….
Source:
Times Online
Prince Charles, A Royal Pain
Mar 8, 2008 General
Prince Charles was speaking at a dinner reception and he described as “sheer madness” those who are skeptical on calls for rapid change on the environment. Charles said that the private sector has a particularly important role to play. His remarks about madness were:
“If I may speak plainly among friends, this is sheer madness. The scientific facts are as plain as they are alarming. Worryingly in the last few months we have learnt[sic] that the North Polar ice cap is melting so fast that some scientists are predicting that in seven years it will completely disappear in summer.” Trinidad News
Charles, like Al Gore, has aligned with scientists who have latched onto the teat of the global warming cash cow while disregarding those scientists who are skeptical about the whole idea. The southern ice cap is getting larger, a fact that is ignored when discussing polar bears clinging to life on run away parcels of ice.
Of course Prince Charles would put the onus on the private sector. He is not part of that sector and does not have much of a real job. His family has castles and mansions all over and they jet around all over the world. I imagine the royal family’s carbon footprint is much larger than just about anyone else’s in the UK and yet it is up to others to correct the situation.
There are scientists on both sides of this equation but those who do not believe in the doomsday predictions are castigated by the global warming crowd. The GW supporters stand to make a great deal of money by selling a hoax to the public at large. The state of Maryland has decided that carbon emissions would be reduced by a whopping 90% by 2050 despite the fact that no technology exists to accomplish this task. The answer provided by those who enacted this lunacy is that there will be appropriate technology by 2050. I will more than likely be dead by then but I dare say they will not accomplish this pipe dream.
However, let us suppose that we could spend an unlimited amount of money on the problem. The benefit would be minimal at best. Even if every country were able to reduce emissions the temperature would rise and drop as it has done for millions of years and long before man set foot upon this planet. Warming and cooling trends are part of the cyclic nature of the weather and nothing man does will change that fact.
The sheer madness is allowing someone like Prince Charles or Al Gore to dictate science and set an agenda that is unachievable and costly.
This is what happens when influential people have nothing better to do.
Tags: al gore, global warming, hoax, prince charles
Give the Brother a Break
Mar 8, 2008 General
Robert Downey Jr has a role in a new movie entitled Tropic Thunder. According to the Daily Mail, the movie:
The film centres[sic] on a group of pompous actors making the most expensive Vietnam war movie ever made.
Fed up with their self-involved cast, the film’s makers drop them into the jungle to take care of themselves, where they get caught up in a conflict they don’t realise[sic] is real.
However, all is not well in movie land because Downey Jr plays the part of a black man. He wears black make-up and a wig to play the part of a black actor.
Oops, that does not sit well with groups that want to know why a white man is playing a black person. Was there no black man to fill the role? This is over the line and cannot be tolerated.
My question; Who the hell cares? Their profession is acting and their job is to make people believe something that is not true. In this case Downey Jr looks like a black man and therefore he is making people believe something that is not true.
Why are there never concerns when black guys wear white make-up and play white people? Why are there no concerns when a woman plays a man or vice versa? It seems to me that this is much ado about absolutely nothing as is the flap over a white actor on SNL playing the part of Barack Obama, who incidentally is half white.
If this movie used Downey’s character to portray stereotypes of blacks and showed them unfavorably then there might be an issue but still, that issue never arises when people like Eddie Murphy wear white make-up to see how good whites have life. Murphy is a comedian and what he did was funny though it made fun of typical white stereotypes.
I wonder if this will pass without the race baiters making a big deal about it. If there is any way whatsoever that Sharpton and Jackson can play this for face time on some camera, somewhere, we will be in for another diatribe about the racist whites.
BTW, Jack Black is in the movie (just his name is ironic) and his hair is bleached blond. Should we protest that a blond actor was not found to play the part?