Bill Cosby says gun owners want to kill people

Bill Cosby commented on the Trayvon Martin shooting by blaming guns.

"We've got to get the gun out of the hands of people who are supposed to be on neighborhood watch," Cosby said in his first public remarks about the case, published today.

 Apparently, people shouldn't be allowed to carry guns while on neighborhood watch even if they have a concealed carry permit. I would think that people working a neighborhood watch shift would be in more danger than the average person because criminals casing the neighborhood might notice them and want to take them out before breaking into a house. I wouldn't want to work a neighborhood watch without having a weapon on me.

Cosby goes beyond that first strange idea to make the assumption that gun owners, and more specifically those with concealed carry permits, want to kill people.

"When you carry a gun, you mean to harm somebody, kill somebody."

I spent thirteen years as a peace officer and have had my carry permit for the past several years. At no time did I ever intend or even want to kill somebody. In fact, I've always wanted just the opposite, to be left alone in peace. I carried a gun back then and still carry one now because the world can be a dangerous place. We just never know when that danger might show up and decide to involve us. If we lived in Cosby's fantasy land, we would be left defenseless to the criminals of the world who will undoubtedly be armed and willing to kill or injure us to get what they want.

Looking at North Korea and Into Our Future

President Obama was visiting the DMZ in South Korea and looking through binoculars into North Korea. He said it was like looking 50 years into the past. I can't help but wonder if looking into the past in North Korea is the same thing we'd see if we looked into the future of the United States.

I know that might sound a bit dramatic but our government is becoming much more involved in our daily lives with each passing year. We lose more freedom and choice a little bit a time over and over again. The government is involved in our insurance, mortgages, jobs, vehicles, food choices, education, and the list goes on. It would probably be difficult to find something that the government is not involved. You might be asking yourself how that could put us into the past. I don't think it would put us into the past but I'm sure it's dragging us down and keeping us out of the future. 

The federal government spent $500 billion of our money on the solar firm Solyndra. That money is now gone. Had it been left up to the private sector to spend that money, it could have gone to further research and development into things that people actually need or want. I would love to have a solar set up on my house. Sounds great. But the technology isn't quite ready yet. When it is ready, the free market will know it and people will buy it. Until then, the government should quit spending our money on the pet projects of those in charge or we will find ourselves living in the past of the countries that have moved on with technologies at the right time.

Supreme Court Rules Against EPA

The Supreme Court ruled against the EPA in a case involving an Idaho couple trying to build a house on their land. The short version of the story (long version here) is that they had permits from the county to build the house. A county owned ditch was clogged with trees and backing water up on their property. They got permission from the county to clear the ditch and the water went away. The EPA prosecuted the husband in criminal court for destroying a wetland and he was found not guilty by a jury. After the EPA lost in criminal court, they came after him civilly with a threat of fines if he didn't restore the land to its state prior to him clearing the blockage caused by the county. The family tried to get a hearing with the EPA but were told that individuals could not appeal compliance orders. They were also told they couldn't file a lawsuit until the EPA tried to enforce the compliance order and the fines would continue to grow. Once the enforcement order was filed, they could sue. The fines could have been in the millions by then. The suit they won was basically about having the right to sue the EPA about whether the land was actually a wetland. They could still lose that lawsuit.

This case is incomprehensible to me. How can a government agency force its will on the people this way? Their original case makes no sense by itself. But to then follow that up by not giving the people a chance to resolve the situation without incurring untold thousands or more in fines is nothing but regulatory tyranny. The countless laws passed by Congress are multiplied and magnified by the regulations imposed by the federal bureaucracy. People governed by this many laws and regulations are no longer free even if they think they are.