H.L. Mencken didn’t suffer fools gladly. He liked to hand out free financial advice, too! Like when he wrote that you’d never go broke underestimating the intelligence of common people. We tend to disagree and find that the majority of Americans — and most gun owners, in particular…just read the comments around here — put the lie to Mencken’s maxim. Then again, people like Jeuriel Acevedo and Ricardo Arevalo (above) make you weep for the future . . .
Clerk booked for murder after deadly shooting at Spanaway store – His wife was shot while working in the same store in February. Oh and the perp was a convicted felon. Let’s see that surveillance tape.
Guns Up: Texas Tech will allow firearms in classrooms, some dorms – Firearms freedom on the march in the halls of Lone Star academe.
N.J. man under restraining order charged with possession of machine guns – Wait…isn’t that illegal?
Bill to allow guns on college campuses advances – The Volunteer State inches closer to campus carry.
Gun Crime Figures Rise by 20 Percent in UK, Children as Young as 10 Arrested – It’s almost as if even the most restrictive gun control laws don’t really work at all.
Clinton, Sanders and Trump price Mencken right.
“Gun Crime Figures Rise by 20 Percent in UK, Children as Young as 10 Arrested – It’s almost as if even the most restrictive gun control laws don’t really work at all.”
In 1775 Adam Smith wrote in “The Wealth of Nations” (paraphrasing): “If the government taxes a thing to heavily or seeks to restrict its access in normal commerce the inevitable result will be to encourage a black market in that commodity when the financial benefits of the transactions seem to outweigh the penalties.”
Two hundred and forty years and the Brits still haven’t learned the lesson Mr. Smith tried to teach them.
“…, in cases involving weapons such as air rifles, imitation firearms, BB guns and Tasers.”
Toys no less. The unarmed police are playing cops and robbers with unarmed (by our standards) children, and calling it “policework.”
I think this may be the quote you were looking for…
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
― H.L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy
Which, as gramps always said, is why we’re a Constitutional Republic. And why the Kardashians aren’t giving ‘happy endings’ at a local (low rent) massage parlor.
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” – H.L. Mencken
I could read Mencken all day (and did long ago when I had the time to do so).
Up there with Clemens/Twain as one of America’s great authors/philosophers – except most people have no idea about three-quarters of Clemens actually wrote.
The state — or, to make matters more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods. — H. L. Mencken
Two more…
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
― H.L. Mencken
“Civilization, in fact, grows more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. Wars are no longer waged by the will of superior men, capable of judging dispassionately and intelligently the causes behind them and the effects flowing out of them. The are now begun by first throwing a mob into a panic; they are ended only when it has spent its ferine fury.”
― H.L. Mencken, In Defense Of Women
Who did the text on the video still? It says “teens waiving gun face felony charges.” How does one “waive” a gun? I know how to waive my rights (but I won’t) and I know how to wave a flag (happens occasionally); I even know how to wave a gun (I don’t, I aim it if necessary), but I don’t know what “waiving” a gun means…
If it was a channel 9 employee that added the text, they need to go back to school & learn about homonyms.
Ewe, two, mite no watt eye find irritating about this…
Suppose you win a gun at a Friends of the NRA raffle, and let the someone else have it.
Congratulations.
Okay… that might qualify as waiving a gun, lol. Still, it seems like these dindu-nuffin yoots had other intentions…
“It is illegal under federal law to possess machine guns, which allow the user to fire more than one shot by a single function of the trigger, according to U.S. Attorney’s office.”
Oh really? Damn, some brainwashing must be going on in the DOJ.
Restricting firearms doesnt work, but it can make outlaws out of the law abiding.
It’s good to see some positive legislation coming out of my home state of Tennessee. It seems like every gun article I read about the Tennessee legislature has Sherry Jones D-Nashville vocally opposing it.
That dead shoplifter tried to kidnap a 6 year old girl and bear the rap. No great loss there.
No, he got a whole 90 days for that. Yeah, you’re right – that’s not even a slap in the wrist.
I would like to see the video, though. If the shoplifter charged him and made a threatening move or gesture, that may be enough to get past the charge.
I do think that the reaction of the dead shoplifter’s partner was something we should all consider. After the shooting, he sat down and waited for LE to sort out the mess. He managed to skate off without even being arrested.
More education isn’t going to help thise kids.
Gotta love stupid people making videos and then posting them on the interwebs. Makes cops jobs so much easier.
For Mr. Kim, by “jail” they mean he has to work behind or desk for a while or maybe if the tape looks really incriminating, paid leave, right?
I read the content here, regularly and can only express the thought that H.L. was within a single minute of angle.