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BHSRifleClub53

Owning or carrying a gun for self-defense requires a measure of courage. Taking responsibility for your own safety, the safety or your loved ones and/or other innocent life is a courageous act. Why? Using a firearm for self-defense puts the gun owner in the crosshairs. As our readers acknowledged in our post on countering terrorism, defending yourself by force of arms is an inherently risky business. It requires no small measure of intestinal fortitude; before, during and after an attack. I’m not saying that people who don’t have a gun for self-defense are wimps but . . .

OK, I am. If a person understands the dangers of going through life unarmed and accepts their potential fate, they get a pass. But if they refuse to acknowledge the danger, or worse, try to disarm their fellow citizens in some misguided attempt to protect themselves, they are wimps of one sort or another.

We could talk about how America became a nation of wimps. How and why Travis County decided that the West Ridge Middle School Wildcats’ motto would be “Respectful, Responsible, Safe” instead of, say, “Decisive, Determined, Dedicated to Freedom.” Or something like that. The real question is, how do we fix this?

On the gun front, I’d like to see firearms training and rifle teams back in the schools. More than that, I’d like to see the NRA and the firearms industry break the mainstream media ban on firearms-related advertising. The People of the Gun have a compelling message: defend freedom. Until and unless we get out of our echo chamber and change the culture, we’re fighting an uphill battle. Get our message into the mainstream and we’ll win.

Your thoughts?

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147 COMMENTS

  1. It’s increasingly hard to fix broken men. You start in the schools as the Antigun crowd did. These kinds of Battles are own in the minds and hearts of children. It’s a generational process.

    • I agree wholeheartedly. If you’re not taught self reliance and personal responsibility at a young age the window of opportunity for such education closes pretty rapidly. As adults, these wimps think that meaningful dialog and an adroitly placed quip will de-escalate any confrontation – until it doesn’t.

      • I’ve actually considered this quite a bit, and I have my own answer boiled down to one word (sort of). Adversity.

        We have removed almost entirely all of the adversity that is normally found within the human condition. Our children are rarely bullied. They don’t overcome great odds, or slay great dragons. We have a nation of boys who have never had to overcome anything, had everything handed to them, and are now so undisciplined as to be able to accomplish precisely squat-diddly. It is the adversity that makes one strong, that breeds the mental toughness required for hard men to do hard things. When you look at the Greatest Generation (Lord, how I loathe that phrase), the single unifying characteristic is the massive adversity almost every member of that generation had to overcome. But we’ve convinced ourselves that avoidance of problems and being comfortable is the real way to success – and in maybe one or two ways, it is. But by removing adversity from our condition and from the conditions of our children, we removed the opportunity to build confidence, the ability to overcome and to prevail in the face of overwhelming odds. No one wants a hard life for their own children, but we must recognize that when we removed adversity, we are also removing an opportunity to grow.

        Take that for what it cost ya’.

        • When children are given freedom to choose, along with responsibility suited to their age and abilities, they have the opportunity to develop honest character and good judgment if they are not continually rescued from bad judgment. Being responsible for the consequences of their choices and actions – good or bad – is the foundation for self ownership and self responsibility.

        • I agree with you, except where you say “bullying” is not a problem. It IS. Bullying is a further symptom of the wrongness of the kind of people we are creating. People with no heart, no compassion, no kindness, no respect for another person’s right to be who they are. This is the worst kind of wimp. The kind who picks on the weaker, those who do not “fit” their preconceived notions, or are just ‘different’. These are the kinds of people, who as adults think nothing of the murder of those they do not approve of. The kind who stand by while atrocities are committed, then say they “did not know” what was happening when confronted.

        • When I was in middle school and a kid got bullied the coaches had their own approach to it: they took the bullied kid and taught him to fight back, hard and mean. It kept bullying to a minimum, because some of those kids learned to strike back HARD. When two kids got into a fight, our P.E. teachers got out boxing gloves and put them in a ring together.

          It’s too bad we’ve become wimpified to the point that it’s no longer acceptable to teach kids to stand up for themselves.

        • A huge problem is zero-tolerance has made bullying and fighting back against bullying equivalent: both the bully and the bullied will be punished equally. This actually extends beyond just kids, and can be seen in the idea that no violence of any sort is legitimate, not even self-defense.

          This inability to distinguish between illegitimate violence vs. legitimate violence, to distinguish between predation by perpetrators from defense by victims, is a moral blindness that is becoming more and more widespread throughout our culture. I don’t see how you can foster a culture of responsibility for oneself if the very idea that using force to resist being killed makes you evil.

    • That’s exactly why disarmist, progressive feminists and their goosestepping, (biologically) male “allies” have replaced nearly all staff in most school systems (except custodians because that would be “icky”). Nowadays male teachers are under extreme scrutiny for every little thing, while female teachers get away with rape at a disturbing rate.

    • The people that control the antigun crowd are responsible for the destruction of American education. Don’t underestimate your enemy, they are far smarter and more powerful than the antigun fools.

    • I agree with the author and have advocated for years now to go backwards .
      Go backwards in our schools , churches , neighborhoods , communities , in government and in our families . We need to take a step back in time when values were so important . We don’t have to bring racism with us or go back to a place where homosexuals were beaten or where Ricky and Lucy slept in different beds , but we could acknowledge that culturally , black and white folks are a little different , homosexuality is a little askew with nature and showing Ricky and Lucy attempting to procreate a little Ricky isn’t needed on television .
      We’ve allowed the pendulum to swing too far . We’ve allowed the progressive agenda to carry our society into a land of ‘ anything goes ‘ , ‘ vice is nice ‘ and ‘ what ever makes you happy ‘ rules the landscape .
      These trends will lead to more and more government control and invasive laws because vice and the money that accompanies it , unchecked , will lead society into anarchy .
      We should have guns 101 in our schools , instead of ‘ gun free zones ‘ and expulsion for drawing a picture of a firearm . We need woodshop , metal shop , electrical and mechanical engineering , old fashioned math classes and swing and cooking classes again .
      We should go back to basics and start building automobiles again that don’t require a computer to function .
      I like technology , I enjoy intermittent wipers , but do we need it .
      I like burning wood in the winter , I like the smell of it and the pop and crack while I clean and lube my rifle with my son and daughter watching and learning and helping .
      I was raised around firearms and so were my kids , there is no psychological adversity to any tool on my homestead .
      We are not mature enough as a species to thrive in a multicultural , anything goes , everything is acceptable , world . Technology has replaced human contact and also our instinctive need for reliance on God . We have tried to replace God for as long as we have had a mind to imagine one and it seems to me , we are all , one giant failure . The world is unraveling before us and the more we try to simplify our lives with technology , the more complex we make things . It is this commentators humble opinion that our way forward may involve , going back .

  2. I don’t think I can help solve the problem In this country of people being Wimps It’s going to take a whole lot of Anti political correctness to correct the problem in this country it’s seriously damaged right now. I remember in elementary school my father telling me never put your hands on another kid, unless He puts his hands on you first And my dad said then Well into a real hard so that he’ll never mess with you again And that’s how you cure this bully problem that’s abundant in our elementary and high schools today! Nowadays The Moron parents Tell their children always if you get hit or if you get bullied go to the principal’s office and handle it In a logistic type of manner. What this does in fact it makes that person lose his or her independence having to rely on an outside source for help in self defense. What needs to happen is To go back to the old ways in the 1950 sixties and seventies the way we brought up our children, if your child does something wrong Paddle him or her I remember when I was a young man doing things wrong like all children do and getting a SWAT on my ass from my father even my mother And I grew up respecting other people’s property and myself and others. But at no time or place will I let another person put his or her hands on me and not fight back It’s the way we’ve been doing things for millions of years If you believe in The creation theory Big Bang Theory. We are raising a nation of wusses Part 1 part plus! I really hope that people can understand that raising a child Is a very difficult thing to do yes you can do it with one parent But it’s much easier to do with two And have those parents At least be in their twenties and not 16 years of age having children is another huge problem in this country. Let the children grow up instruct them upon their making a proper decisions but never and I repeat never let your child think that he has to call upon someone else to defend themselves The buck stops here ladies and gentlemen. Time to nut up or shut up! That’s my $0.10 worth from a Florida southern boy.

  3. Sorry for any run-on sentences, and bad punctuation. I don’t want one of these punctuation Nazis the start rising me over it I think you can kind of read through it and get the point I’m trying to make.

    • It’s hard to instill personal responsibility when that phrase is “triggering” to the current crop of precious little college snowflakes.

    • Further, why do we need to rely on the schools/authorities to “allow” rifle teams? There are plenty of local, state and national pro-gun organizations in this country. Wouldn’t it be better if these independent and liberty-minded organizations developed shooting clubs and competitions for middle and high-school aged teens rather than depend on the permission of school boards?

    • A war on or soil to show these sheltered people what real horror is, and that being prepared is the only way to deal with it.

      • Stop voting against the democrats. Let them have exactly what they want. They’ll kill themselves off in a few months. They’re too stupid to deal with reality. They lash out and blame instead of man up. Usually at their neighbors. Let them loot and burn.

        Be smart enough not to live where they do when it happens.

  4. I’ve considered this a lot lately and I think I’ve come to the conclusion that it can’t be done. I think what we’re seeing today is a natural progression. This society was forged by hard men carving a life out of a hard land. The next generation had it a little easier, the next easier still. Today the vast majority of people are perfectly happy so long as they have cable TV and cold beer in the fridge.

    The only reversal isn’t so much of a reversal as a natural progression of a cycle. This society (read: western civilization as we know it) WILL fall, eventually, as has every human society in history. When that time comes, hard men will once again rise up to carve out a new civilization in the ashes. And the cycle starts over.

    I think the best we can hope for is to stall the cycle, and the only way I think that’s possible is with a MASSIVE paradigm shift. The type of shift that only comes at the tip of a spear.

    But, then, I’m just an engineer, much better with snark than philosophy.

    • That idea is expressed somewhere in the Bible (Damn! Must read it one day!) thusly: There is a pious generation who venerate God, worship Him and He blesses their labors; the next generation give lip service to the form of worship, but disregard God by their actions; the next generation denies God exists and commit all kinds of sins and follies until God finally gives their land to others more deserving.

      We are well into that third generation, and unless we revert to the ways of our forefathers, disaster will fall upon us unawares.

      Immigrants and refugees come to the USA, see the ingratitude and wastefulness of the citizens, and this inspires contempt for America and Americans. The weakness and unwillingness to sacrifice their lives of the average American gives hope to all the nutjob terrorists at home and abroad. Then it becomes like the unravelling of the Roman Empire. With only immigrant military servicemen, they will eventually seize control of the USA. Defeats in desert lands will only accelerate this process.

      Sending wimps to battle will only ensure rapid defeat.

    • “It comes back to personal responsibility: government provided abortion amounts to a free mulligan on a bad personal decision.”

      As it should be. Society is on the hook for kids now: property taxes fund schools, and we can’t as easily kill people, so the only other options beyond making them productive citizens are warehousing them or spending lots of money on therapy. Throw in a non-motivated parent, and society is on the hook for HUGE costs down the road, and subpar results. Abortion is way cheaper than dealing with bad parenting down the line. I mean, especially because a kid represents a commitment and something that can’t be undone. If poor people are irresponsible you can blame them all you want, but until society is not on the hook for them, whether in school, in dark alleys, and the like, I think offering an ability to take that away matters. I mean, we should force people to have kids? When they’re poor? People with bad judgement exist, and until you can propose a way that doesn’t involve society being on the hook, then abortion seems far cheaper.

      • I mean, we should force people to have kids? When they’re poor?

        I’m pretty sure no one’s forcing to do the wango tango in the first place.

        Or, in the words of an old Chris Rock routine: Put the dick down.

        • Stupes gonna stupe (stupids gonna stupid). Especially stupid people with poor impulse control (really? the two are related? I never imagined!) are left to their own devices. The answer is to let them have kids, take shitty care of them, terrorize teachers who can’t lay a hand on them in most states, and then grow up to either lead a life of crime and/or repeat the cycle? Wow…

          Personal responsibility is a GREAT answer to personal improvement, but as public policy it’s lacking. This is why mandating firearm ownership is a BAD idea. Not everyone is responsible, and treating them as if they were doesn’t fix the problem.

  5. Here’s a controversial idea: Universal Military Training. Yes, a draft. Or at least national service of some sort. Don’t want to carry a rifle, then build a dam. 18 year olds are full of energy and poor judgment. Let’s harness the first while giving them time and trial to get over the second. Let ’em know their cushy life isn’t free. And give them a common life experience that will unite them as Americans. Two experiences that form an instant connection across culture, race, and age — motherhood and military service. Both are hard. Going through hardship builds real self esteem.

    • makes national healthcare and education an easier pill to swallow when everyone (able bodied) spends a few years working for it.

      • “Able bodied” isn’t necessary. As In Heinlein, it would be the government’s job to find SOMETHING every individual can do, regardless.

        But “able bodied as possible” would be needed, and that means getting physical fitness back into the schools in a serious fashion. No more accepting a ten-minute mile because Timmy is tubby, or less than ten pull-ups because Sammy is skinny; no more fun and games so everyone feels good about themselves — get them in shape and thus provide a reason for them to feel good about themselves. Then when they hit national service, there won’t be any need for coddling or babysitting.

        • As a life-long student of Robert A. Heinlein, who matured from a very liberal pro-statist opinion in his early writings (For Us the Living) to a dedicated anarchist/Libertarian, I think you need to go back and read some more. He would have rejected almost everything you just wrote, IMO.

          His concept of service for citizenship is interesting, but you may recall that the government never made it easy to enlist and in fact openly discouraged it. You had to really want and work for tha citizenship. Even after you were accepted into government service there was no guarantee you would be assigned to what you wanted and certainly no guarantee you would easily complete your full two years of service to become a citizen. It took hard work and dedication.

          As for his opinion on the draft: “A lobster in the pot may be experiencing his finest hour, but the choice wasn’t his.” – Robert A. Heinlein.

          I believe that every student should be required to attend basic training between their junior and senior years in order to graduate. This would be an effective and important way to train young people as to the purpose and traditions of military service. HOWEVER! No person should ever be compelled by the government to combat! All participation in combat arms MOS’s should be strictly voluntary and should be so because the government has convinced the population that the need for that service is right and important, not that failure to serve will get your ass thrown in prison.

          If a government is not capable of expressing its strategic goals sufficiently that an adequate number of citizens (or potential citizens) volunteer to work to achieve those goals then that government and those people may not deserve to continue in existence. Any government that must coerce participation in its armed forces has already failed this test.

        • Amplifying what CliffH said.

          In Starship Troopers it was made abundantly clear throughout the book that no one was compelled to perform any service whatsoever. You could even join the Federal Service, get partway into your two year enlistment, and quit, without penalty (the only exception being, not while actively in combat). You could even quit right before a “drop” (roughly corresponding to jumping out of the plane, for today’s airborne). You’d be paid off, and sent home. But you’d never be allowed to enlist or try for citizenship again.

    • That was Robert Heinlein’s idea in Starship Troopers except that service was voluntary and not necessarily military service. What was important was that it was the only way to earn citizenship. Where you were born or whether your parents were citizens was irrelevant. It was something each person had to do on his or her own. Without it, you could not vote or hold public office. That is, you had essentially no input into how society was governed.

      • And Heinlein’s idea was good — indeed, essential for a free society. This whole idea that you get a say in how things are run when you never put in any effort is ridiculous — it’s the beginning of the notion that we should get things for free, the original entitlement. Invest a piece of your life in a society and thus earn a share and you’ll take it more seriously.

        Though for the sake of having a well-regulated militia, I’d require two years of everyone that included military training. You’d have to serve another two to get the vote, and another two to be able to hold public office at the state level, and another two to hold federal office. And that service would have to include physical work; no chair-warming allowed.

        And no professional politicians: up to eight years in office allowed after finishing national service, but after that back to the private sector, and later you can run for a term no longer than the amount of time you’ve spent in the private sector.

    • I can see your point, and I don’t necessarily disagree with all of it, but the idea of compulsory service to the state (there would presumably be penalties for noncompliance?), especially at a time period in a young adult’s life that is critical for laying the foundation of future endeavors/success seems very scary. I am a fan of LESS gov’t involvement in our lives, MORE individual responsibility and freedom. Forcing every adult into serving our government overlords for the critical years of their lives when they should be gaining an education, establishing a business, starting professional/technical training or apprenticeships, etc seems like a step in the wrong direction to me. From a fundamental philosophical point of view, if an 18 year old doesn’t WANT to serve the government, for whatever reason (whether I agree with it or not) what gives the gov’t the right to force them against their will?

      An idea mentioned in several comments above, and espoused by a personal favorite of mine, R. A. Heinlein, was to make some form of service OPTIONAL, with the reward being full citizenship. You were more than welcome to abstain from some form of service, but in doing so you were not granted certain privileges in society, such as voting and holding office. This ensures that the people making the decisions have some stake in them, and the general masses who are happy to go on living under any system can skate through without being compelled to give more than they want.

    • Scrolled down to post that exact thing. 🙂

      And I agree with Rocket Scientist’s reply – if you choose not to serve, you don’t get benefits of being a citizen. No voting, no holding office, and I think importantly, no welfare. For that matter, welfare should go away completely and that money can be used to pay for governmental service jobs (bring back the CCC!).

    • I don’t support a draft. Philosophical objections aside, I don’t want to deal with Sailors who are serving against their will and fundamentally don’t want to be here.

    • Genius.

      Hardship builds character. Structured, disciplined and steered hardship can build a nation of warriors with a code.

      Free-Men

        • Maybe not, but it’s a start. It’s something to build on. Taking back the schools from the liberals, socialists, and bureaucrats as well as from those who are against having the schools as natural training grounds for ideas such as service, citizenship, training, practical math, science, engineering, etc.

          Still, Heinlein was onto something with the idea of “service means citizenship”. No handouts everything earned and no power for those unwilling to sacrifice for it.

    • Not going to work. Britain had universal male service into the 1950s and 60s. Michael Caine was a drafted, poor inner city kid who fought in Korea. Michael Caine is also a tax dodging left wing actor. Britain’s empire had lost all the pieces by 1970.

      Then there’s Russia, Germany, France, Italy, etc. They all had it and all of them except Russia is at the mercy of Islam. Russia is a vastly corrupt state however.

  6. I’m trying to do my part through blogging and being vocal on social media (like Facebook). Also, I make a regular effort to do it face-to-face with friends and family. Lead by example. Be professional, be polite. And, I can tell you this…. IT WORKS. It doesn’t always work, of course. Some people are intractable or just plain “set in their ways.” But, I have had success, and the effort has been worth it.

  7. As long as women are having sex with “modern” men both the soft castrated types and the lead-paint eating “thug” types men will continue to be by and large either ineffectual pansies or violent irrational apes.

    The tastes of women have more to do with the behavior of men than any other factor.

    • I think this has more to do with it than anyone wants to admit. Negative male behaviors tend to be rewarded by women. Many of the “it should have been a defensive gun use” articles here involve various felons or others with criminal pasts who seem to have little trouble keeping female company. The same applies to the effeminate hipsters in our culture.

      • That ties to something I’ve observed among the Klan types around here: none of the men seem able to conceive of themselves as “real” men unless they’ve got a female to “bang”, and none of the women seem capable of finding any value in themselves unless they’ve got a “real man” to cling to.

        Right there is a good reason to have national service: give them a self-image that has value without needing the crutch of dependency on someone else.

        • Nailed it: mindless animal-ism portrayed as positive traits. Once both genderas are lowered to that foolishness, it’s just a matter of spreading it. Rap Culture. Be a boss. Fancy car proves you’re a badass. Etc…

  8. A nation-wide return to Christian principles, as espoused and endorsed in the founding documents followed by a stronger push to get Boy Scout skills in front of more kids.

    A pure mind filled with a broad array of useful life skills creates a great person.

    JMO 😉

    • There are no “Christian principles” “espoused and endorsed in the founding documents” — at least none that are uniquely Christian.

      The folks who believe that and want to make this a “Christian nation” are a great example of why we have the Second Amendment. That’s the sort of tyranny that would rose me to take up arms against the government.

      • While the Founding Fathers carefully avoided including “Christian Principles” in the founding documents – The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States of America, and The Bill of Rights, This nation was in fact established on long recognized Judeo-Christian principles and values.

        That accomplished, they included the First amendment to ensure that specific religious values could not and would not be mandated by government and the Second Amendment to ensure that if the government violated ANY of the provisions of their new charter they could face an enraged and armed populace.

        THAT is the essence of liberty that they dreamed of and fought for.

      • Oh now Roymond, us Christians are not a bunch of muslim terrorists or progressive mass murderers that will force you into a re-education camp or chop your head off if you refuse the Christ.

        We believe in voluntary acceptance of the Christ. As the early christians believed and acted for the first 300 years, until Christianity became a tool of government oppression.

        So rejoice and know that the only gun or sword pointed at at your head or neck will be in the hands of our progressive/statist ordered state enforcers, or our believers in Allah.

    • Yep. The bible is a manual based on the laws of the universe. It details what is the laws of G-d on how to form a society based on the laws of the univese, it details how that society will be strong, free and properous if those laws are followed and it details what happens when those laws are broken.

      What is happening in this country, is not new, it has happened at the end of every culture. The break up of the familty, the feminization of men, the active attack on the traditional roles of what is to be a man, a husband and a father. All because we have rejected the laws of G-d, of the universe, and are now following the laws, and the heart of man. Which is always weak and sinful.

      Unless we return to following the laws of the universe, we will fall, and a dark age of tyranny, mass death and the rule of the brutal and violent over the many will be the result. As the bible details.

  9. Kill political correctness, the wossification of our men, and get rid of the feminotizes, not to mention the gay rights agenda.

  10. The problem starts at home. Many children are growing up in single-mother households, or with absentee fathers. Only another man can teach a boy to be a man. Without that, well, we have the situation that we’re in now.

    • I’ve met some darned rugged men who grew up with two moms and no dad. The one who’s a Marine would have a vigorous response to your claim that he can’t be a real man since he had no dad.

      • He apparently still needed a strong male influence in his life – hence the Marines. I’m willing to bet that his Drill Instructor played a significant role as a substitute father figure for him. Or perhaps one of his two “mothers” was actually a father figure? Some butch lesbians are very good in their assumption of male attributes.

  11. I absolutely agree with putting firearms education in schools. Start with gun safety training in kindergarten and the early grades. Then make marksmanship part of physical education starting around 4th grade. Schools can use airsoft guns so that the ninny-generation parents don’t have to worry about their little ones getting more than a welt if something goes wrong. School districts that have the intestinal fortitude can have shooting teams with the real deal in high school.

    Along with that we need a big dose of personal responsibility. Actions need to have consequences. Kids who bully face appropriate discipline. Kids who don’t do their work fail classes. Kids who do their work but don’t put in enough effort get a lower grade, and no amount of whining changes it.

    Lastly, we need to do away with the revisionist history and the “America bad!” curriculum in history classes. Our nation does have sins in its past that need to be acknowledged and learned from. We can do that without teaching our kids that our country was conceived and built by bunch of racist imperialists who unleashed hell on Earth for the last two centuries. Kids should have pride in this country, and be proud of the sacrifices of past generations, especially those who went to war for us. They should have pride in the American spirit if individualism and personal responsibility, instead of the collective and its safe spaces.

    The above is a nice dream. I plan to teach these things to my kids, and God willing they will take to it. I hope it will give them an advantage among their peers who will be raised as wimps. I hope they can find friends and spouses who were raised with similar ideals. Sadly I don’t have a lot of hope for our nation as a whole. I just know that it won’t survive without people like us. Somebody has to defend us and keep the government teat full of free handouts so that the wimpy masses don’t implode.

    • This, except our whole educational system needs to change. It was appropriate for an industrial age mass-production society, but today’s society needs far more flexibility. Packet learning is a far better way to go than having grade levels.

  12. As our readers acknowledged in our post on countering terrorism, defending yourself by force of arms is an inherently risky business. It requires no small measure of intestinal fortitude; before, during and after an attack.

    More importantly: liberty itself is inherently risky, and requires no small measure of intestinal fortitude. Life and freedom are fraught with risk. Evil exists and will not be eradicated on this side of Kingdom Come.

    Microaggressions, demands for “safe spaces”, demands for “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want”, and all such other nonsense are direct enemies of liberty, because they, by design, turn free men into wimps.

    • Liberty is risky, absolutely. Look at the various “reproductive rights” movements and see that the rates of unwed mothers and STD infections are climbing in the US. One never hears the left lamenting the consequences of the depravity they support, rather, because they are too busy encouraging the behaviors, rather than high lighting the responsibility that comes with the freedoms they have pushed for.

      • Irresponsible sex is more important than responsible gun ownership.

        Getting intoxicated on Marijuana is better than gun ownership.

      • Well the rising STD rates are thanks to religious Republicans insisting that teenagers shouldn’t be taught anything about sex and that places, such as Planned Parenthood, that offer free condoms should be shut down. It’s also ironic that Republicans, who claim to be for less government spending, would rather force a woman to have a baby she doesn’t want and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in welfare for it than allow her to get an abortion or even a $0.10 condom paid for by the government.

        • @piersonb,

          When you were a teenager, did YOU abstain? (This assumes you had choice in the matter, some spend their high school years celibate by popular demand.) If so, how many around you did? If not, why do you expect teenagers to be any different than you were?

        • Yes, I did. I have no idea how many around me did, nor do I care. Your question is an is-ought fallacy. Because kids do not abstain doesn’t mean they shouldn’t.

          I was forced through a ridiculous sex ed class in what I suppose would be middle school now. More importantly my folks had “the” talk with me, at home. Add to that the knowledge that as a teen I couldn’t afford to raise a family, nor would I kill a baby that resulted from sex, and abstinence is really an easy decision.

          It comes back to personal responsibility. When one’s decision is to jump into bed with anything with a pulse there are consequences.

        • Those “consequences” you mention are readily reduced by making birth control–and the knowledge to use it–available.

          I don’t know what’s going on in your mind on this issue, but I’ve found in 99% of the cases when I run into someone who advocates for abstinence, pointing to the consequences of not being abstinent, those people are simply using the threat of the consequences to attack their bugaboo: teen sexual activity. They don’t want to reduce the consequences per se, they want to reduce the sex, and are using the consequences as their club. That’s why they resist anything that would reduce the consequences, it takes their club away from them.

        • To be honest, I could care less about teen sexual activity. My choices are personal, others’ choices are personal, and however strongly I may feel about the issue my feelings about personal liberty are even stronger.

          Along the same vein I have no real problem with abortion. I have a BIG problem with State sponsored abortion. It comes back to personal responsibility: government provided abortion amounts to a free mulligan on a bad personal decision.

          And, as off topic as this section of comments may appear, the lack of responsibility in this country is at the core of the question in the article above.

        • Along the same vein I have no real problem with abortion. I have a BIG problem with State sponsored abortion.

          I share this attitude, actually, we appear to be closer than I thought. I don’t think government should be paying for this sort of thing.

          On the other hand, I don’t think teaching abstinence in school, full stop, is the right solution either. Not everyone will abstain, and if they simply aren’t told how to reduce consequences, they won’t do those things, and the consequences will be much more likely than otherwise. Worse, with little education, they might not even realize what the consequences of “insert tab A into slot B” might be, if all they hear is “Don’t insert tab A into slot B.” (Some parents are abysmally bad about this part of teaching their kids how to live life.)

          Ideally there would be private organizations that made basic condoms (nothing fancy), etc. available to people who were indigent. One thing I saw on a recent trip to Europe was that even when the drugstores were closed (which was quite often, the concept of 24/7 shopping is nearly nonexistent there), there was a hole in the security gate that allowed access to a condom vending machine, 24/7. Sure, a bit of planning ahead makes that unnecessary, but I’d rather have the emergency thing in place and not need it, than otherwise.

    • We are very close to being able to have a society with “freedom from want” (in the original meaning of “want”, which is “lack”, so “freedom from want” meant “freedom from lacking the essentials of life [i.e. food, clothing, housing]”). But even if we are so fortunate as to achieve that, “freedom from fear” is something that can only be the case in a society of angels, not of human beings.

      • We are very close to being able to have a society with “freedom from want” (in the original meaning of “want”, which is “lack”, so “freedom from want” meant “freedom from lacking the essentials of life [i.e. food, clothing, housing]”).

        We only have the appearance of a society that has eradicated “freedom from want” (without effort), because of (immoral and unconstitutional) wealth redistribution. In reality, we have always been such a society – for those willing to put in the hard work required to free oneself from want.

      • and we watch as the French trade liberty for safety , who wins ISIS does….Will America trade liberty for safe slavery , I think so. WE watch sports on , it only sports if you play in it. and we no longer wage war to win ,, jets bombing can never win ….

    • The progressive liberal so-called Four Freedoms (though its really five freedoms, thank you “Tom Clancy” via Splinter Cell) of FDR run counter to the Constitution amendments. You especially hear the freedom from fear and want used often by its adherents.

      And when these freedoms are threatened, they espouse the Fifth Freedom, which is violence, usually the understood kiling of someone. Notice you’ll hear the liberals talk about using violence against people of the gun, or labelling organizations like the NRA as terrorists and then advocate violence against individuals.

      That is a “fifth freedom” moment. The freedom to protect their precious four freedoms.

  13. I tried. All 3 kids were Marines.
    The fighting lessons will start with the granddaughter soon. Fist, feet, stick, knife and gun.
    There is no PC in my house and I don’t apologize for it.

  14. Three simple words: No Free Lunches.

    End government entitlements for everyone. No unemployment, no social security, no farm subsidies, no medicaid, nothing.

    That would fix just about everything.

        • Remember that a good portion of the anti-firearm Democrat crowd today were the violent militant anti-government types of yesteryear.

    • If you want to live in a third-world country, that would be one way to achieve it.

      Just because a virtually non-existent government is ideal doesn’t mean we can make an ideal society by making the government non-existent. The Founding Fathers understood that. Today’s America has a severe lack of people both self-reliant enough and educated enough to survive with that sort of freedom. It’s taken a century and more to train it out of them, and it would take at least that long to train it back in — but as someone noted above, societies don’t trend that way, and to get back to it would require either a miracle or a collapse.

    • There’s yet another Heinlein reference!

      “TANSTASFL” “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch!” – Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I believe he also wrote that: “Everything you get for free is worth exactly what you paid for it.”

    • Welfare used to be a small push from Uncle Sam that motivated you to succeed because you no longer had to worry about your kids dying of starvation every night. It was never supposed to grant a comfortable lifestyle, only prolong the misery of being poor and get your mind on track to climbing out of the financial pit. Then you would stop accepting benefits and pass the baton on to some other poor bastard stuck in the place you once were. That mentality died when hard-work ceased to be a cornerstone of American culture as it was decades ago.

      • No, that mentaity ceased when rich stockholders decided they could get even richer by sending manufacturing overseas to third world hellholes where the natives worked for peanuts. This killed entire cities at their core, deprived lower and middle income earners of a career path, and created entrenched unemployment for whole neighborhoods.

        Nothing has risen to replace the working life that was destroyed in the 1970s, solely to increase the profits of business owners. This was economic treason. Government hand outs are another example of profits being privatized, and costs being nationalized. If you want a villain, blame the rich.
        They have acted in the same way the rich did in Roman times, when they displaced rural land owners for vast estates filled with slaves. Those rural poor flocked to Rome and relied on grain subsidies to live. The American economy is little different. The costs are being concealed by constantly increasing the money supply. All billionaires share the blame, as they share the profits.

        The Roman Empire died due to internal revolt combined with external invasion. When the new master class comes to power (immigrant warriors who rise to prominence) they could well combine with the urban poor to subvert the USA, change the Constitution, and then the rich will finally get their just deserts. Then the USA will be changed to Greater Mexico or some similar new republic.

        • People with foresight should have seen this coming: the movement of jobs to places with lower wages was inevitable once transportation costs were low enough.

          And with foresight, the worst could have been avoided: if we’d vigorously pursued a program of boosting the economies of our neighbors in the hemisphere and pushed Latin America to turn into real republics instead of supporting dictators, the economies of the two continents of the Americas combined with Europe would have pushed worldwide wages higher faster, making the process far more gradual.

          Though it isn’t too late yet: the right policies toward Latin America, encouraging U.S. citizens and companies to invest there are partner with them building companies there could redress a lot of the problem. But the giant corporations prefer having an imperialist power manipulating other countries rather than partnering with them.

        • Nonsense.

          Organized labor, over regulation, free trade agreements and the obscene US corporate tax rates caused the jobs to be shipped overseas. Not billionaire greed.

  15. start with homeschooling or private schooling . so much of this crap is drilled into their head in the 9 years of K – 8
    schooling by the 99% women teachers union members.

    If you are lucky enough to live near a private all boys high school , check it out, it may be good.
    here in a Detroit suburb my son’s catholic high school had a shotgun sports and camping club. Their school motto was about becoming men. They demanded a lot from the boys, and got it.

  16. You’d have to get both the media and schools to stop vilifying male behavior and insisting that men should behave like women. After that, you’d have to wait a few decades for it to filter through into a new generation or two.

  17. “…they…try to disarm their fellow citizens in some misguided attempt to protect themselves, they are wimps of one sort or another.” – The longstanding Democrat Party way of doing ‘the people’s’ business, AKA intolerance.

    “Until and unless we get out of our echo chamber and change the culture, we’re fighting an uphill battle.” – Which will continue, until the POTG, “…the NRA and the firearms industry break the mainstream media [propaganda and their] ban on firearms-related advertising.”

  18. An ancient Spartan, whose name I can’t at the moment recal,l once said that an ideal city was one with neither too much gold nor too little.

    In America we have lost that happy medium, and with our collective superabundance of wealth, we can gratify our every passion rapidly and without any real effort. We have too much “stuff,” too much food, too little real work to do that involves two hands and breaking a sweat. These factors are especially true in cities, which are where most Americans now live, work, and spend their lives.

    In a city, there’s much less “need” for most of the tool aspects of a gun. There isn’t wildlife to hunt, cans to plink on the back 40, pests to kill, animals to put down… And most of those things would probably be dangerous anyway, because shooting a piece of lead at very high velocity is never a good idea when you are in the middle of a crowd, which is basically what living in a city is.

    I think in order to de-wussify America, cities, wealth, and material ease must all decrease. I don’t foresee this happening any time soon, sadly, without great societal upheaval. America was built as a nation of farmers, and now it is a nation of office drones and sales floor clerks.

  19. Flawed premise; the makeup of the country hasn’t changed. It’s just that the wimps that have always been among us have a much, much louder megaphone now.

    Even Tombstone (and many other towns back in the “manly” days of the frontier) outlawed guns in town, remember? The feel-good stuff has always been with us.

  20. First I will say 2A is a duty not a right, You are not free to have a gun or not, Due to our liberal/socialist education the truth is no longer given to our young people , but we still have history books , every male is a member of the militia and has the duty to be supplied with a firearm, ammo and all other military needed gear… that is our history and its a FACT all liberal LIES aside……..

  21. You have to look your self in a mirror and ask ” do I believe in traditional male values?”
    The homosexual power city of San Francisco does not. They have disarmed the city. They forced the last gun store to close. If homosexual gun owners where there to protest the closing I missed the pictures. There are no white Christians around to blame.
    People travel to rural California to attend apple seed project events. They can’t even tell family or friends they are gay, no I ment to say a gun owner.

    The black voters of Baltimore have chosen. They now live with their choice. There are no white republicans around to blame.
    There are some people trying to get their rights back. But I have to ask who have you been voting for, for the last 15 years?

    It is no accident that the bible belt still has its gun civil rights. As the godless president said “they cling to their religion and their guns “.

    Traditional male values are not in style in California. Oregon, Colorado, Washington state.
    What is in style with the majority of voters is great homosexual sex in marriage. Perhaps using crystal meth to increase their sexual experience. That applies to straights as well.

    Marijuana intoxication is also more important than gun civil rights. That pot must be better than a gun because the Form 4473 asks if you are a Marijuana user. The pot heads are only interested in intoxication. There are billions to be made in the non intoxication pot business. But pot heads care only about intoxication. Canada is doing very well in the industrial hemp business.

    Traditional male values are not the “in thing” these days. I use to think France was a lost cause. But it seems their still really is such a thing as a ” french fighting man. ”

    Will Real men lead empty holster protests in California, as they did in Texas? No they have other things to do.

    Will real women lead an empty holster protest? No they have other things to do.

    • Ok, just to be clear….god, Christ, southern states = good, homosexual, pot, non-obedient women, non-Bible Belt states = bad
      Interesting the south eastern states have highest rate of obesity and welfare recipients. All the “clubs” have bad apples – that’s humans for ya. There are whimps and tough guys everywhere.

      • California has always been the best place for welfare. That has not changed. But what has changed is the loss of civil rights in the western states. I understand people like to put all kinds of things into their bodies for pleasure. But only in California will the liberals put a gun in your face if you want to drink raw milk.

        The movie Deliverance from the 1970s is proof there is good homosexual sex outside of California in the bible belt states. Although the ” catcher” in the movie did not enjoy his side of the experience.

        And since when is being fat an issue with libertarians? I was told people had the right to put anything into their body they choose. And as often as they choose to. Are you one of those bigots I read about?

  22. Mr. Fargo, there are a few factors at play that have converged to help us get into the fix we are in. One is that few people are alive today who remember that many babies and children used to die before reaching adulthood, and that many mothers used to die in childbirth. Our society has gotten used to having most children reach adulthood, and thus has come to demand and expect childhood to be 100% safe.

    Second, there are far fewer people in society today who believe in the fundamentals of Christianity. I remember growing up and being taught that I was not automatically going to Heaven. In fact, due to Adam and Eve, I was taught that we are all sinners. Earth is an imperfect place. Our goal on Earth is to live good lives, and to try to earn our way to Heaven.

    People today tend to claim they are atheists, but at the same time they also seem to think everyone goes to Heaven. They also believe we all need to be working to make the world a utopia. We all just need to get along. Safety, or the illusion thereof, has become more important than liberty.

    Most Americans today know very little about our history. If they did know history, they would know that our Founders warned against the very beliefs so many people seem to hold today.

    • People today tend to claim they are atheists, but at the same time they also seem to think everyone goes to Heaven.

      If you actually think that, in general, atheists think they are going to heaven, you are unclear on the concept of atheism. On the other hand, you might just be quoting what other people seem to think is atheism…in which case THEY are unclear on the concept.

      An atheist does not believe in god, nor the devil. The overwhelming majority don’t believe in any sort of afterlife, hence, no heaven, no hell. Even those who do believe in an afterlife can’t consistently accept the Christian concept of heaven, which would, of course, require there to be a god.

    • Everyone is mostly an atheist. Who here believes any of the ridiculous gods of the ancient greeks and romans? Zeus and Thor anyone? How many christians think the mormon religion is correct? (I wish it was..I would love my own planet when I die! That’s really what they believe!) Or who on here believes in the scientology people in volcanoes thing? So you are ALL atheist towards the THOUSANDS of other gods and religions. .. Atheists just take it one god further!

      • The Ancient (pre Christian, pagan) Romans understood this. One of their complaints about the early Christians was that they were atheists! (The irony is huge, here.) The early Christians, after all, didn’t believe in any of the gods that the pagans believed in.

        Pagan gods weren’t described as jealous and weren’t supposed to be exclusive of each other. Pagans simply worshipped whatever god was appropriate to the occasion. About to set sail? Give Poseidon an offering. Going to stay on land for the next three years? Don’t. Poseidon won’t care. But then the Christians came along and wouldn’t worship ANY of them, so they were called “atheists.”

    • Reminds me of that old song: “Everybody Wants To Get To Heaven, But Nobody Wants to Die”. And relying on works to get into heaven would have you burned at the stake for the heresy of Pelagianism in early Christian times. Only faith will get you there, but works are a practical demonstration of inner faith. But a heathen makes his own heaven, for the brief time he is on Earth. Good luck to him. But don’t be like him.

  23. No one should confuse young Americans today with our country’s greatest generation during WWII. Nowadays we’re force-fed gobs of PC drivel from angry men-hating feminists, political scoundrels & tattooed effeminate fatties…

  24. I say that, in order to gain full citizenship rights (like voting and gov’t assistance), students must show a comprehensive understanding of our system of government and economics (I.e. The way our society functions) and U.S. History (I.e why our society functions the way it does). One shouldn’t have a say in something if they haven’t any idea how government or society actually works. That’s like saying the janitor (not to devalue janitors and what they do) should have a say in how a company is run.

    • On the surface this seems like a good idea. But guess who will do their damnedest to become the ones who get to write the test?

    • I’d say that’s part of what Jefferson and the rest meant when they spoke of a Republic requiring an educated citizenry: knowing what their Republic is, both its values and how it functions.

    • Well, naturalized citizens do have to pass a version of that: http://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learners/study-test/study-materials-civics-test

      There are a hundred questions. You are asked ten in a face-to-face interview, and you have to answer at least six correctly. It’s not an supremely tough challenge or anything, but I remember a high school history teacher springing these questions on us as a pop quiz and the class average was well below 60%. I easily scored 100%, and that was even before I was thinking seriously about getting my citizenship.

  25. 1. Take away their money, access to a decent livelyhood, and means of transportation.
    2. Allow no personal property other than the clothes on their backs then open the door and push them in the back.
    3. Close then lock the door.

    Oh wait, step 1 and half of step 2 is the marxists current plan. huh! funny what God does to sissy babies.

  26. How do we fix our nation of wimps?

    As of today we should encourage our children to emulate the French.

    Now I must weep.

  27. You can start fixing our Nation of Wimps by bringing back ‘shop class’ and restoring Boy Scouts. Teach boys manly things at a young age and they will grow into men.

      • Yeah, that will work. Give them black belts at age 5 (and yes it happened in the UK) so they can go out and encounter a bully and get their butts stomped. What does that solve? I have spent 25 years training in various martial arts. I have a third-degree black belt from an internationally recognized instructor. I’ve met some great practitioners, sure. But also some of the biggest losers, psychos and wimps I’ve ever met, I met in dojos. I think martial arts can hone mental discipline in someone who’s head is screwed on straight, but it can make head-cases even worse.

    • I agree, but when you say Boy Scouts, I can’t help thinking of of the “Canteen Boy” skits on SNL. Gives me the creeps!

  28. Dissenter here-you don’t fix it. It’s too late. I was hurled into adulthood having wife and kid at 20. And I took responsibility for gettin’ mom knocked-up. My youngest sons are 20 and 23. In no way are they ready for anything remotely like pops-mom babies the hell out of them. My eldest who’s 41 joined the military at 17,went to war and works for the gubmint. He’s manly but sadly anti-2A and left-wing. I do NOT support any draft-my choice was Vietnam. Or any Asian adventures.

  29. I think the two biggest things we can do are tell our kids “no” and unplug them from time to time. These seem to be the biggest things that screw society up these days in my opinion.

    “Respectful, Responsible, Safe” is actually a good slogan. I’d rather have responsible first because being a wimp comes on a lot of levels; Being irresponsible is leading to a huge amount of the issues today. No one wants to be accountable for their actions, rather they want to pass the buck.

  30. How to attempt to reverse wimpdom? Start by voting against Hillary, or if that fails, at least vote for those in Congress who would oppose her and her sick philosophy. And be sure to vote in local and school board elections (or run if you can stand it). Many articles I have read make the point that the left wing philosophy is losing big time in local and state level elections where candidates cannot hide behind party platforms and big media buys from out of state interests. Local elections have great effect on school curriculum, teacher tenure, teacher qualifications, local welfare programs, etc. as well as gun related issues. These will define whether the next generation is educated or braInwashed, hopefully more so than the baloney that comes from Washington. I think another way to reverse the trend is to write in to companies every single time that they fall for the hoplophobic or otherwise politically correct crap, and call them on it. Threaten to shop at their competitors and let them know it. Worked with Kroger. And as many of you have suggested elsewhere, take a non-shooter to a range. I am bad in this regard as I don’t know anyone to take that is a fence-sitter (people I know are either strongly anti or seem to all own .45’s). Some of you sound a lot better at that than I am.

  31. And as Andrew above me said, unplug your kids. When Facebook came out, I read a description of it as “the computer version of the mind of the teenage girl.” Truer words have never been spoken. Facebook, Twitter and the like are root evils.

  32. The traditional fighting male spirit is a threat to the many people. It has always been an independent spirit. That is why it can’t be allowed to attend home school or a private religious school.

    The enemies of liberty need an uneducated population. That is why government schools are as bad as they are. The Clintons will send their daughter to a private Lilly white school. Just like other progressives. And then the democrats will step on the necks of black children and crush any chance they have of a better life.

    Homosexuals want marriage. And at the same time will support the enemy of liberty , welfare, that is destroying the traditional black family and others. Some homosexuals do support the second amendment. Most do not. That is why Tom Ammiano can be honored in gay pride parades as he disarms the state of California one small piece at a time, with the laws he writes and are signed by Moonbeam.

    The traditional male is the enemy of progressives. I suggest a male stand up and demand to know why a city council needs armed guards but the people don’t need there own guns. Or why a woman should piss on herself as a defense against rape instead of using a gun to stop a rapist.
    Ask them if it better she be raped or the rapist be shot? Perhaps this traditional male could take a video camera and ask questions of West coast politicians. This is called being a citizen journalist. They are protected by the 1st amendment just like any city paper.

    Someone can even ask duddly brown in Colorado why criminal muslims can get 30 round magazines but law abiding homosexuals or any one else can’t.

    • There was a libertarian magazine that used to mail free journalist credentials to anyone who could write at all decently and ask for them. I don’t think it was Reason mag, but that’s the only name I can remember at the moment. A roommate in college made use of that when he went to a women’s rights conference.

      Of course there was a move to throw him out anyway, despite credentials, on the basis that a male can’t understand women’s issues, but he told them he was a lesbian trapped in a male body, and they let him stay.

      • As far as I’m concerned anything that helps lights a fire under a lazy politician making them fear for their job is ok with me.

  33. As long as we tolerate the Progressive Agenda, allow Progressives to run our schools and Colleges, elect Progressives to Public Office, play along with their “PC” games and let them have their way because we are too busy and self-absorbed with our own interests, this wimpification of America will not and cannot be reversed. We have been subverted and until we unite and engage aggressively…very aggressively…the downward spiral of America will continue.

    Many great comments in this thread and much to think about.

  34. The biggest and most pernicious social evil foisted upon America was the most recent instantiation of “feminism,” authored and championed by hard-core marxists/communists.

    Modern feminism isn’t about “equality” any more than the Endangered Species Act was about bringing back sustainable populations of rare species. Modern feminism is all about control, and specifically control of men and abolishment of masculinity.

    Fortunately, the rapidly declining rate of marriage and the inherent female attribute of hypergamy are going to eventually solve the issue with feminism. Women played stupid games, now they’re regularly winning stupid prizes, and not liking it.

  35. I don’t think we are, or ever were, a nation of wimps.

    If we are talking about self defense we have “manned-up” over the past decades. In 1986 16 (mostly southern) states prohibited concealed carry and most states that did not prohibit it were may-issue. Today all states “allow” concealed carry, and most of them are shall issue. Many more people are taking responsibility for their own protection today than 30 years ago.

    As for society as a whole I don’t think we are wimpy either. Some will point out safe spaces, trigger warnings, and other nonsense as evidence of our weakness, but BS has always occurred on college campuses and always will occur there. The Internet is just amplifying this for everyone to see.

    I also disagree that adversity does not exist anymore. I would argue that the people born in the late 80s and onward have it tougher than any generation since the Great Depression. On top of an increasingly technical economy requiring more and more education to be marketable in the labor force, they will have to deal with the problems past generations have left for them (the national debt and social security pyramid schemes come to mind). Of course, its too early to tell if they will be able to handle these issues.

    • The manning up you suggest is reflected in the spread of concealed carry laws and practice ignores the underlying facts of that phenomenon; namely, the demographics of who’s actually carrying.

      Look at any state’s actual applications and active license data and you’ll see that the largest groups of carriers are the 50+ crowds. 50+ isn’t the young 1980s generation. More like 1940s through 1960s, exactly the last generations anyone looked upon admiringly. It’s the older generation realizing that the youngsters aren’t manning up, so the seasoned citizens are going old school and doing the manning up themselves.

      Moreover, the fastest growing carry groups are women. When women are doing the manning up (and God bless them for exercising their right to do so), it doesn’t speak well of men out there in their lives.

      As for the rest, much of the latest technology, with its emphasis on user friendliness and entertainment as much or more than on actual problem solving, mostly just makes those with marginal skills more efficient at wasting time.

      We’ll see how the 1980s kids do in the future, particularly regarding government finances, but don’t hold your breath. This demographic includes vast hordes of parents’ basement dwellers whose votes are easily bought with the mere suggestion of free tuition or student loan forgiveness. These aren’t the fiscally prudent citizens you’re looking for.

      The 1980s and beyond group consists largely of easy living freeloaders who haven’t faced the reality yet that the good times must ever come to an end…..or come with a bill.

  36. The child is the father of the man. If vital life lessons aren’t taught and lived while growing up, then growing up is a stunted, semi-successful process, resulting in less able, less stable, and more vulnerable adults. Delestage may work with wines, but people require genuine maturation.

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