While it may seem that there is plenty to be happy about this holiday season — a booming economy and record low levels of violent crime — that doesn’t seem to be a universally held opinion.
According to the Charlotte Center for Peace and Justice, we live in “a world filled with conflict and war, with mass killings and hate crimes.” Sounds pretty depressing. Makes you wonder why anyone would ever set foot outside their home.
Listen to their cheery holiday message . . .
The CCPJ wants you to be mindful of the frightening conditions in which we live our lives and to make sure that any toys and games you buy the kiddies this year “not encourage using weapons as a way to settle conflicts.”
Maybe they’ve missed the news that a country with well over 400 million civilian-owned guns is experiencing historically low levels of violent and gun-related crime. Why, it’s almost as if we’ve learned that more guns in the hands of law-abiding people translates in a less criminal violence and a more peaceful society.
There seems to be a perception problem on the part of some about state of the world in which we live.
The oh-so-concerned people at the CCPJ appear to fall decidedly on the left side of the graphic above.
How will your gifts avoid sending a bad message that’s not appropriate to the season this year?
That an easy one in our family group. WE don’t give presents at Christmas time. There are no children (under 10 yrs.) at this time. The idea of gift giving is and should be about children. Everyone else is money wasted and better spent on things needed in the family group. Some will say I’m an old fuddy duddy. Which may be true. Coming from a background of being dirt poor for the first 18 years of my life. I learned what was truly important in life. Nothing is as important as family and making sure that family is taken care of. Buying people STUFF to prove how much you care about them is more about the buyer than the receiver. Show how much you care every day. It may be the last day you get to spend with them. May Peace Be With You.
Darkman,
Agree on the gift-giving, in general. My wife and I generally agree on a practical gift; for the past couple of Christmas’ we purchased much-needed windows. Not sure what it will be this year, yet. Probably more windows.
For our daughter, we keep it simple. This year, a shopping day at the Korean clothing stores around H-Mart (she is Korean). We have given her a reasonable budget.
HOWEVER, I have been postponing a new gun purchase for a year; some other money-swallowing event always seems to happen. This Christmas, I may be purchasing a pocket gun (if nothing else goes awry). Wife is on-board with it, so it may actually happen!
The wife and I do pretty much the same thing. We each have a mad money account for those things in the want catagory. I’m mostly buying Ammo this year. Along with updating med kits and trauma bags. Also spending more time at the range with the family.
” This Christmas, I may be purchasing a pocket gun (if nothing else goes awry). Wife is on-board with it, so it may actually happen!”
Well, “Creepy Radio Voice Woman” *specifically* instructed us to choose gifts that “Promoted peace and good will”.
I’d say that stopping a mass-shooting in its tracks fully qualifies as promoting peace and good will to the people who may be about to be shot… 🙂
While I understand your opinion of Christmas gifts and giving and agree that it is magical for children I will have to say that it’s not wasted or any less meaningful for those giving and receiving.
It’s Christmas. Regardless of class or economic status. It’s a special day for many of us, Christian or not to go beyond or just show a little more of our appreciation and love. Whether it be gifts and presents or time and tradition. What may be “stuff” to you could be priceless to others.
No, no, no. It’s not about gifts for children. When you love someone you WANT to give them a gift/token of that love/appreciation. I gave my husband a DR pole saw last year. The kids gave him a new socket-wrench kit and other small tools. We’re always misplacing pieces. The kIds got wool gloves,socks,hats, tools. It’s always fun to rip the paper off a present no matter how old you are. That’s why no one likes gift bags.
After some intense cajoling I finally convinced my mother to make a charitable contribution in place of giving me presents. Now I get, usually, a pair of nice socks and the nice little wall calendar the USO sends her when she sends them my “Christmas present”. If I could just get my wife’s family to do the same…
I’m with you, gifts are for children.
Usually get people something they will fine useful, that or cash. Silver coins make a great, inexpensive gift, without coming across as ‘cheap’.
Socks, underwear, cash, ammo, all great. Moth food (sweaters and cloths), are not a good gift. I have so many gifted warming layers and almost all of them suck. A $40 jacket from the hardware store keeps me so much warmer than these expensive clearance items distant family keep giving me. Since I’m broke, grandparents will be getting beautiful, low care, hard to kill, house plants that I grow myself. 🙂
Cheap.
I DO show ’em how much I care every day. And this year I’m gonna show ’em with Brownings and Bark Rivers, it’s been a good year.
Next year, who knows. This year, though, I’ma rock some Santa and love every minute of it, and I know it will be appreciated.
The more guns in the hands of law abiding citizens the more problem that can be solved in the future.
We are a very lucky country. We have a president that has grown the economy to the point that anybody that wants a job has a job. If you are still jobless now then you want to be jobless. He is also loading the courts with conservative, business friendly judges. And will continue to do so during his second term.
As Darkman says above. Presents are for the kids. I have 10 grandkids. I buy for them. The adults in the family get together to share meals and talk. I’m on my second retirement now so I’m pretty much free to do as I please. Way cool.
Now we need to focus on fewer immigrant visas that are being used to take good jobs from the middle class and suppress wages. Wages are finally on the rise again, but we’re just now getting back to inflation adjusted 2007 levels which weren’t climbing much anyway. The only decent wage growth in the past 40 years have been the top 20%. We need to force the large companies the are actively lobbying for cheaper immigrant visas to train our young Americans that want a decent job.
I got no problem with legal immigration. So long as it doesn’t cost citizens jobs and opportunities.
We need to force our schools to get back to teaching the fundamentals of language and math so that American students can qualify for those jobs.
Americans do qualify for jobs and with degrees they should get them however they are too expensive. Getting that masters degree is wonderful but if it prices you out of the market what good does it do?
If we had not wasted over one trillion $ on bushes war of lies in Iraq, we would have more than enough money to forgive all the student loans and pay for four year degree’s based on merit for American citizens.
Instead, thanks to the intensive propaganda and lobbying efforts by the military industrial complex, we wasted over $1 trillion and over 4000 Americans in a sad war of lies against Saddam Hussein.
miner. .gov doesn’t save money. If that trillion dollars hadn’t been wasted on the war it would have been wasted elsewhere and not to the benefit of the people. The best way for the people to benefit from .gov is to keep it small and out of our lives as much as possible.
As for saddam and his wmd’s. A man approaches you on the street. He says he’s going to murder you with his Glock and then he reaches under his coat. Do you take action to defend yourself or simply wait to be murdered?
Saddam said he had wmd’s. He said he was going to use them. He believed he had them. If you were president how long would you have waited to see if he was bluffing?
And that whole ‘MIC’ thingie. That’s a radical leftist talking point that you are all programmed with. I swear if one of you little leftist robots had an original idea it would truly stop the presses.
If that Iraq war money was going to be wasted anyway, at least it could’ve been wasted here instead of creating even more enemies and a bigger mess in the Middle East. The fact that we’ve made the world’s anus an even shittier place in the last 20 years is proof that there’s nothing our government can’t fuck up if puts its mind to it.
The military-industrial complex is absolutely a thing — even Miner49er gets something right from time to time.
Where he’s gone wrong is in assuming that it’s irrevocably tied to the right when it’s actually tied to the uniparty establishment. It’s the single coin on which each party’s face is stamped. Some Republicans are starting to ask questions about it, but right now the Democrats love it more than life itself.
Illegal immigration cost jobs on the low end while the importation of cheap skilled labor through the H Visa programs capped it on the high. Restrictions on both ends forced employers to hire locals and deal with the costs. In the end employers are probably better off although they probably think Mexicans work harder for less money than born-here people do. I’m not in that business so I don’t have experience, just what news stories have said.
The nursing field is full of imported workers trying to fill slots. That’s had a damping effect of that field. IT is famously staffed with imported people and now the Cloud is putting everyone out of work. A friend of mine is a civil engineer and he’s got Indians now replacing retired folk. He wonders when he’ll be outsourced to a 40K a year guy.
Most countries view immigration as a risky bet not as a way to demographically win elections like here. Only people with real talent and no local source are allowed in. Try getting a work visa in Japan or Korea and see what that process is like.
Sad reply, you can’t believe what you posted.
If the trillion dollars hadn’t been wasted on the war, it would’ve just been wasted on something else? That’s just a silly statement, it’s our job as citizens to hold the government accountable for every dollar of taxpayer money.
So why was the money wasted? Again, not because Iraq represented a credible threat, Saddam had never once attacked the United States. None of the 9/11 hijackers were from Iraq, most were from Saudi Arabia, the only Muslim country that Donald Trump has not banned entry from.
We went to war in Iraq because military industrial business interests manipulated the right wing extremists into shouting for blood and oil, with no evidence whatsoever that Saddam Hussein had been involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack.
America had a choice, we could take that trillion dollars and spend it on healthcare and education for our citizens, or we could make Halliburton, et al, billionaires by blowing up some tin pot dictator in the Middle East.
Sadly, Saddam Hussein was very effective at suppressing the Muslim fundamentalists in Iraq, once we removed him from power it became a hotbed of terrorist recruiting and training, smooth move. And remember the Iran Iraq war, where Saddam Hussein smacked Iran around for years, once Saddam was gone now we have to deal with a powerful Iran, not distracted by a massive war with her neighbor.
And don’t forget, President Donald Trump said that the Iraq war was the greatest mistake this country had ever made, do you disagree with that?
No. I do not disagree. I was against that war. What I disagree with is your fairy tale vision of how the money would have been spent if not on the war. If we the citizens had been successful at holding our .gov accountable the war, and many others would not have been fought.
That money would only have been spent to benefit the average citizen if it had not been taken out of their pockets in the first place. Keep .gov small and out of our lives. The exact opposite of what you socialist types want.
“A job” is not the same as “a job where you’re treated decently”. The economy is nowhere near where it was years ago, it’s still pretty bad.
Ack! Could the syrupy, unnaturally happy way she delivered those lines be ANY creepier?
BTW, about 20 years back there was a case where a woman in Wilmington, NC lost points on the state’s evaluation of her day care facility’s pre-school program because the woman had nine – count ’em nine – toy soliders in the toy bin. They represented “stereotyping and violence”, or some such rot.
That happened to Laura Johnson’s Kids Gym Schoolhouse. It’s surprising how within only 20 years we went from that ridiculousness to schools in Iowa and Nebraska banning candy canes claiming they symbolize Jesus Christ while simultaneously teaching submission to islam, all the way to the point we have schools in the US teaching children about anal, oral and trans operations.
Yuri Bezmenov was absolutely right.
I’ll raise my own kids.
What in the Wide World of Sports is a MSR ?
Modern Sporting Rifle. (AKA, the AR-15)
That stuff they put on your food at a Chinese restaurant. 🙂
Fa Ra Ra Ra Ra🎶
Hey, the Chinese restaurant folks were *trying* to sing a carol!
“A Christmas Story” – Christmas the way it oughtta be… 🙂
I thought the same thing. Journalism 101: Use the whole word before you use the initials, even if you’re copying and pasting someone else’s work. I’m not even a journalist or writer and I know that. I’m a science major. It’s happened before. Are you listening TTAG writers?
I was going to say that MSR is so ubiquitous that spelling it out first is akin to having to spell out “AR” first… but actually it might be helpful if we DID spell out Armalite Rifle (AR) at first use.
Actually I was less concerned about good will and problem solving and more concerned with getting through it as cheap as possible…
Is there anything better at solving the problem of a crazed mass-shooter than a carried firearm immediately deployed by a citizen full of good will to his fellow citizens?
All my sons are grown. 3 out of 4 are doing great. Crime & violence has risen dramatically in my southern Cook County,ILL burb. Are the leftards “right” about crime? They are HERE…lock n load.
My son for his birthday in the midyear got a PC which is his major birthday and Christmas presents for the next 5 years. For Christmas he is getting a few minor items such as books and a swim fins for diving. He says he wants experiences instead of stuff.
Cool.
I bought the parts. He had to put it together with my assistance and advice. He really likes his PC and is also using it for school assignments.
Even cooler.
When I was extremely poor in the late 90s, I built my computers from parts found at the used computer store. (Some might have called it the dumpster behind the computer store, but I digress.)
It was a major sense of accomplishment for me figuring out bios settings, disk partitioning, and all the other things needed to get that sucker running. Good move, dad!
Lay low.
Watch for traps.
Try not to spend money.
“Will Your Christmas Gifts Encourage Good Will…”
Damn well better. My present to my wife this year is a fucking house.
I once had a girlfriend who was apt to fly into fits of rage at the drop of a hat.
‘The Clash’ seemed to sum it up –
“Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go, there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double…”
For me the song that should have been out when I was single was Self Esteem by the Offspring.
I knew a girl who matched that song perfectly. Beautiful, but pure evil inside.
My wife doesn’t have that much of a temper.
Considering what she put up with last year I’d probably go a more Reznorian route with this one.
“The Gospel according to Trent”?
If that was the year you nearly had diabetes kill your ass, you and I had something to celebrate… 🙂
My ex wife’s temper on a 1 to 10 logarithmic scale was 11 to 15. Everything, no matter how small was always responded with a great drama show. But she did watch soap operas where emotional responses to events had a response 5 to 8 orders of magnitude greater than those of normal people.
A fucking bed would have been cheaper…..
A whole house just for f@cking…I tell you, Strych9 is living the good life. 🙂
It’s an upgrade from the fucking shack and the fucking cottage.
Both of which were superior to the fucking yurt. Neighbors didn’t care for that.
LOL! I just have a fucking rental (which is a lot less like prostitution than it sounds; been faithfully married for 23 years now).
Nothing wrong with a fucking rental provided you clean it up. LOL.
Yeah, the guy who owns the house we’re in now wanted to sell it, wanted $80,000 over fair market and it needs a ton of work. So I decided to buy now that a mortgage is so much cheaper than renting is around here.
The house is a nice gift, but I don’t think that stuff going on inside is a good idea.
Daughter – holster for her soon to be carry gun.
Her husband – bottle of whiskey
Grandson – One of those cool Nerf Dart Guns. Last year I got him a Nerf tactical vest and some blow up bunkers to put in the back yard to play with those Nerf guns.
Granddaughter – Unicorn slippers, unicorn robe, unicorn craft set. She’s 5 and loves Unicorns. Hopefully she’ll grow up knowing that guns are perfectly safe in the right hands and they will protect her better than a magical unicorn. Until then, 3 our of 4 ain’t bad. 🙂
You’re a great father & grandfather. Merry Christmas to you.
My kids learn to use weapons appropriately and responsibly starting at a young age. It could save their lives both at a young age and when they are older.
Wow! is that creepy. It sounds like a propaganda message from some dystopian future.
Try 1984.
Everything is backwards in America now.
Liberals are closeted totalitarians, progressives are profoundly regressive, radicals are the establishment, and their future utopia is a fictional dystopia of the past.
Oh yeah, and conservatives are the real liberals now. Forgot about that. But that’s a good thing, so I guess it didn’t fit in with the 1984 observation.
Conservatives are the real liberals now, huh? Interesting logic, there, old man.
Well, it’s true. Classical liberalism — the live-and-let-live and everyone is equal under the law variety — is almost entirely the province of conservatives now.
Not that that’s exactly backwards, but it’s the polar opposite of what we’ve all been told for the last 50+ years.
Nothing encourages good will and problem solving like an AR under the tree……
Carlos, I would have thought the ‘White Feather’ would prefer a Winchester Model 70 in .30-06 topped with an 8-power Unertl scope to ‘solve’ problems…
There is a crying need for an accurate graph of crime vs. guns. The two are always graphed on entirely different scales, but it should be easy to convert the number of firearms to a proportion per thousand the same as crime. Then you’d see how the trends truly compare.
Oh, now that is a good idea Ing!
We nominate you to create one. Start researching.
I humbly accept your…
Wait just a minute… I shoulda kept my mouth shut. 🙂
“Will Your Christmas Gifts Encourage Good Will and Problem Solving This Year?”
Hell, yeah. I’m giving ammo. It’s been encouraging good will and solving problems for centuries.
I do the same for the son in law and one brother.
most of the family I have talked out of gift giving, exchanging gift cards is stupid.
The other brother no ammo, he is not into guns so I find strange t-shirts for him .
This years came from Seattle, it’s a hunter armed with a with a salt shaker hunting banana slugs.
Gotta love Charlottesville and their virtue signaling. Thank goodness nothing bad has ever happened because of it.
And I was about to buy my child their first gun for XMAS.
I would not of believed that ad if it wasn’t recorded.
Let’s see, I bought my future son in law a bedside safe for his Walther PPX, That way he can keep my daughter safe, and any future grandchildren and their friends. That should solve some problems and bring good will.