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Naomi Wolf wrote an article in 2007, titled “Fascist America in 10 easy steps.” The subtitle was:

History shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. Each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

She then went on to list those steps. I thought that I would revisit this list, and see where we are:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system or even this example. What scares me the most is this executive order.
5. Harass citizens’ groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law

Coke or Pepsi. No difference between the Republicans or the Democrats.

I am taking a class on EMS injury prevention, and the author of the book spends an entire chapter on how eliminating guns would prevent millions of injuries. He cites the largely discredited studies by Kellerman and Hemenway that state you are 4.8 times more likely to die from suicide if you own a gun, and 43 times more likely to die if you have a gun in the home. A quote from the book:

The ease of access and lack of safety standards has made the United States one of the most “gun violent” countries in the world. It is particularly tragic that suicide has not been a part of the suicide debate despite the fact that 55% of completed suicides are carried out with firearms. The political leadership of the nation has facilitated suicide and homicide even as the public health and medical communities have geared up to reduce intentional violence. Politicians have avoided offending a powerful gun lobby by hiding behind a mythical individual “right” to guns.

They have played out this deceit even though the US Supreme Court has made it clear that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution has no significant limiting impact on efforts by government to control (and even ban) firearms. Two Supreme Court decisions defining the meaning of the Second Amendment have made it clear that there is no Constitutional right to possess firearms.

This is what passes for scholarship in the colleges of this country. I will grant you that this book was written in 2006, two years before Heller, but even using the figures available at the time show that 52% of suicides were by firearm, not 55%. Also, I would like to know which two cases the author speaks of. The only case I know of is Miller, and that case certainly did not say that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right.

UPDATE 6/6/2011: I contacted the professor and complained about the text. The professor agreed, and told that he would begin looking for another textbook.

As a health professional, I frequently attend classes at a local community college, to keep up my continuing education requirements. The college sent out the following email this morning:

This is to let you know that an incident involving a weapon occurred on West Campus today which was quickly contained resulting in no injury and no threat to students or staff.

Shortly after 1 p.m. today, there was a scuffle in the rotunda of Building 3 during which a male student was seen being attacked by several others. During the scuffle, a gun was knocked to the ground. The gun was never discharged but was immediately recovered by a staff member.

The alleged assailants then fled campus in a vehicle. Orlando police responded to the scene and the student victim, who knew the alleged assailants, cooperated with police to identify them off campus. Two arrests were made within an hour of the incident.

We have learned that in addition to the victim, three of the alleged assailants were current or former students. The college has petitioned the Orlando Police Department to issue trespass warnings to each of those involved. This means that none of them are allowed on any Valencia campus for any reason.

Because the gun was immediately confiscated and the suspects fled the campus, there was never a danger to students or staff. As such our emergency communications procedures did not need to be implemented.

I did however, want to inform you of the incident. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact campus security

What we have here is proof that people with criminal intent will carry firearms on college campus, even when it is illegal to do so, meaning that the only thing that laws against weapons on campus accomplish is to ensure that the armed criminals have defenseless victims to prey upon. Of course, anti gun forces frequently like to claim that a shoot out between criminal and armed victim will kill others in the crossfire, all the time ignoring two facts:

– If only the criminal is armed, I will admit that there is no chance of “crossfire,” only a massacre.

– A mass shooting only ends one way- a person with a gun resists the shooter. Whether that is a licensed, armed student now, or an armed police officer an hour from now will decide how many people the shooter kills.

I am going to take this opportunity to vent a little. If you do not care about people complaining, you can stop reading now. This post is for me to vent, and may be a little boring.

My wife and I have shared the cooking and cleaning duties around the house, or at least we did until she lost her job last summer. When she lost the job, I told her that she would have to take care of the housework and not just lie about the house, and she replied that she did not want to take advantage of me, and that she thought she was getting the better end of the deal. That lasted about a month.

So far this week, I worked a 24 hour shift on Sunday, and got off work at 0730, and drove directly to my second job. I had time to eat breakfast in the employee cafeteria before that job started at 0900. I worked, wandering around a local theme park delivering Band-aids and Tylenol to tourists until 1800, whereupon I returned home, after stopping at the Taco Bell drive through for dinner. I got to watch a Hockey game on television until 2300, and went to bed for my 0530 wakeup call.

I stopped at a McDonalds drive through for breakfast and was at work again at 0700. I worked until 1530, and had to come home to do my homework for college, so I stopped at Subway on the way home and got the wife and I a sub for dinner, and I was in bed by 2100, exhausted. I took vacation today so I could go to the Hockey Game tonight, and I get up to get breakfast and see that the dishes from last night were left for me to take care of.

You can see where this is going. I am not eating at home, I am working two jobs, full time college student (I have taken 55 credit hours in the past 12 months) and I still have to come home and help with the dishes, even though the wife has no job, and does very little. It is frustrating.

Anyway, thanks for reading this, if you have gotten this far.

I sent an email to the Florida Republican Party ten days ago. They didn’t even bother to answer. How anyone can believe that the Republican party cares about gun owners at this point boggles the mind.

There are many people out there who actively oppose gun ownership by private citizens, themselves and their security details excluded, of course. They are not the ones that you can convince that the antigun position is silly and illogical. The ones that you can convince are the ones who only say that they oppose guns, but do not run around and try to force the issue.

When I first start dating (or even when I first meet) people, I rarely mention being a gun owner. In fact, in many cases I fail to mention that I routinely carry a gun, because I believe that opening a friendship or relationship with, “I have a gun in my pocket” is boorish and a sure sign of a lonely chronic masturbator who spends his Saturday nights looking for midget porn and playing World of Warcraft.

About nine years ago, I dated a woman who was from a typical south Florida Jewish family. Many of these south Florida Jews are fresh from the New York area, and the Liberal bias displayed down there is pretty strong, as demonstrated by the number of blue counties down there in the last election. She was of the opinion that gun ownership should be restricted.

When, a month or two into our relationship, I finally told her that I carried a gun, she was mildly horrified. One day shortly thereafter, we were entering a bank when she told me that she was surprised that people with concealed weapons were allowed to enter a bank. I replied, “Yes, all bank robbers would get jobs and stop robbing banks, if only we made it illegal to enter a bank with a gun.”  She conceded my point that a person willing to rob a bank was willing to ignore a law against carrying a gun, and how silly such a law would be.

This was the beginning of her epiphany. She eventually came around to a more logical way of thinking, and changed her mind on guns. This is how we win, through logic and reason.

Today’s post is another EMS post. I recently had a call to a local nursing home for difficulty breathing. When I entered the patient’s room, she was in agonal respirations, known as “guppy breathing.” We began bagging her, and I then checked pulses, and found no radial pulse, and her carotid pulse was less than 40. Applying the monitor, she was in a sinus brady at 34 beats per minute, so I began pacing.

I was waiting for help in moving the patient to the stretcher because she weighed over 500 pounds. By the time help arrived, we had lost capture and she was in PEA. Because she had a valid DNRO, efforts were discontinued and she was determined to be deceased. I was later told by an EMS supervisor that since we had initiated ALS, we were bound to continue after the patient coded, and that he (the supervisor) would be referring this call to the medical director for more action. I disagreed, and sent him the following:

Section 64J-2.018 of the Florida Administrative Code (PDF alert) specifies that an emergency medical technician or paramedic shall withhold or withdraw cardiopulmonary resuscitation upon the presentation of an original or a completed DNRO. (emphasis added)

Note that the word “shall” means that a paramedic has no choice in the matter, cardiopulmonary resuscitation must not be initiated, and if it has already begun, must be withdrawn, as soon as you are presented with a valid DNRO. The supervisor is clearly wrong in this case, and I will await more word on how that goes.

I just sent this email to the Republican Party of Florida:

I am writing this to express my dismay at the actions of Republican party members with regards to Senate Bill 234, the bill that would have allowed people with concealed weapons permits to carry their weapons openly and on college campuses throughout the state.

As a 42 year old college student who has a concealed weapons permit, I cannot understand how it is that I can be trusted to defend myself wherever I go, until I cross the line to enter campus. It was my understanding that the Republicans were defenders of the Second amendment, but the gutless stripping of this bill by Republican legislators has shown me that this was merely lip service, simply a way to fool me into giving my vote to the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, which it seems that the Republican party has become.

As of today, I am no longer a registered Republican. My campaign contributions and my votes will be going elsewhere.