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Posted on 10/19/2014 3:37:59 PM PDT by ModernDayCato
The governor of Connecticut is a tool. He ran one of our biggest cities (Stamford) into the ground, and now has managed to run this liberal paradise of a state into the ground as well.
Aside from the personal attacks on the GOP candidate that is running against him that come from the so-called media here in Connecticut, all we keep hearing about this election season is "common sense solutions to gun violence."
I live in Sandy Hook. On December 14, 2013 a young man who was pretty much insane murdered 26 people in an elementary school a few miles from my house. One of the dead children was my neighbor. I lived among all of the stuff you saw on TV -- the anguish, the funerals, the idiots from the media crawling all over the place like maggots. And stuff you didn't read about or see on TV, like the traffic jams, the complete lack of privacy, the consolation of our friends and neighbors, the sharing of the grief and relief and guilt of the parents and the children who survived (my friends and neighbors).
I watched my friends who are first responders struggle in the aftermath of staring into the face of evil, having nightmares of shattered little bodies and of trying to identify fragments of teeth and hair from those bodies. All in a place the press never saw and the people never heard about thankfully.
I walked my dog past the command post at Fairfield Hills every day, a space littered with vehicles from a multitude of law enforcement agencies, people gathering outside the small building staring stone faced at me, the grim uniformed officer guarding the entrance nodding at me each day.
I own a few businesses in town that were negatively affected by the tragedy as all of us numbly stumbled through Christmas.
The helicopters of Marine Helicopter Squadron One flew noisily over my house in formation, delivering the disgrace we have as a president to speak at the local high school with the disgrace we have as a governor.
I watched it on TV. We all did.
The point is that I felt the pain. Personally. Not that I would ever compare my pain with that of someone who lost someone at the shooting (that's what we call it now), but I felt the pain we all felt and it changed all of us.
There are some vocal gun control people among the relatives of the victims. I counted eight different families speaking out for gun laws like the one we got in Connecticut, with four families being especially vocal. That's about a third of the families involved. Yet the press always refers to them as "The Sandy Hook Families" or "Sandy Hook Parents," implying the involvement and consent of a much larger group.
I've watched the First Selectman (town executive and "Republican") and the Police Chief speak out for more gun laws while earning a salary that I and other gun owners pay when they should be busy running the town and the police department respectively.
But that's not how all of us feel. As a parent of one of the students who hid in a closet and made it out alive said, "if someone there had had a gun there would be more kids alive today." Amen.
So we gun owners have gone further underground in Newtown then normal Connecticut residents. But I was surprised to find that there are many more of us then I had imagined.
I see them at my business when they open their wallets to pay and I see their pistol permits. I overhear conversations in the diner or the supermarket or the number one place for socializing in town, the dump.
I've had many conversations with neighbors about the second amendment, about shooting and the shooting, about the politicians who are taking advantage of people who have suffered an unspeakable loss that no one should have to endure.
The point is that all of the families of the people slain at Sandy Hook Elementary aren't clamoring to abridge the rights of legal gun owners, just as all of the citizens of Newtown don't agree with the politicians and opportunists who scream for "gun control."
I feel for these people. I really do. They want to do SOMETHING that will stop other families from having to experience the evil they endured. Unfortunately nothing they've had a hand in would have had any effect whatsoever on Adam Lanza and Sandy Hook Elementary if it was in effect when it happened.
I am speaking of the draconian and unconstitutional gun laws that were rushed through a Democrat-controlled State Assembly after the shooting. The idiot Republican who serves as my State Senator helped shepherd the bill through, which arguably destroyed him in the GOP primary for governor, and the idiot Republican who represents me in the State House offered no opposition either. Who could? They were all DOING SOMETHING.
Gun owners said no. They estimate the compliance to the law, including registration of "assault weapons" (redefined) and "high capacity magazines" (10 or more rounds) at about 15%. Neighboring New York passed an even more restrictive law, and compliance there is estimated to be less than 10%, with all the Sheriffs in the state vowing not to enforce the law.
We have no Sheriffs in Connecticut. Just State Police. And they have no plans to start any major enforcement action. They are still trying to complete processing the paperwork for the 15% that DID comply. How did they plan to operate if everyone had complied?
The point is the same old stuff that the anti-gun nuts just can't get into their heads -- you're not going to stop people who have no regard for the law by restricting people who FOLLOW the law.
It doesn't matter whether you needed an "eligibility certificate" to buy a long gun, or a permit to buy ammo, or couldn't legally possess a magazine with more than 10 rounds in it if you're going to shoot your mother in the head and steal her guns. I know...that's terrible. But it's a fact. And that's exactly what Adam Lanza did. Murder is illegal too. How could these people think that Lanza would follow restrictive gun laws if he's willing to murder children?
And then there are the organizations. We have Sandy Hook Promise, a slick, media-friendly organization that has tons of volunteers here in town and in other places, because they're, you know, DOING SOMETHING. Sandy Hook Promise started off as Newtown United, part of the dozens of organizations that millions from all over the world poured into. When generous people were sending flowers and Teddy Bears and so many expressions of sympathy they filled two huge warehouses, they were also writing millions of checks and sending them along. Did any of those generous souls realize that their money would be used to hire a lobbyist to visit legislators throughout the country to try to restrict and complicate their gun ownership?
That's why one of the Sandy Hook parents calls Sandy Hook Promise's donations "blood money."
But they're not the only organization. There are also organizations like the Newtown Action Alliance, an organization dedicated to "reversing the escalating gun violence epidemic." Sigh. It's not escalating. And it's not an epidemic. But whatever. They "had to do something."
According to Guidestar.org, Newtown Action Alliance raised about fifty grand in 2013. The much, much bigger Newtown Promise hasn't provided any information to Guidestar, so who knows, though I've heard they have a deep-pocketed benefactor. Someone speculated it might even be Nanny Bloomberg, but who knows.
I do know I have to listen to them tell me that all they want are things like "universal background checks" and "a ban on high capacity magazines." Well, in Connecticut you need a background check to buy a gun from anyone, anywhere. So that's done. And as far as high capacity magazines go, first off that's subjective. In Connecticut it's 11 or more rounds. In New York it's 8 or more. Regardless, the theory is that reloading gives people time to escape. These are people who obviously have never handled a gun.
As Boone County, Indiana Sheriff Ken Campbell shows on Youtube here, there's just no validity to the theory.
These organizations and these people want to do the same thing they all want to do -- control legal gun ownership. And we will continue to fight it and compliance levels to the ridiculous laws will continue to be low.
Meanwhile politicians like Obama invite the victim's families on Air Force One (if they toe the gun control line), and our wonderful governor blatantly exploits a Sandy Hook victim's mother for his campaign ad here.
No matter what the media and the politicians try to convey, all of the families of the victims and survivors of the shooting aren't gun control crazy. And all of us here in Newtown aren't either. We're just as divided as the rest of the country.
Molon Labe.
Well done. Have you submitted that to the letter section of any local papers?
Bravo. And I don't mind buying my ammo in New Hampshire.
Excellent essay. While my family deeply sympathizes with the families that lost children we also deeply resent their efforts to make it more difficult to protect our children. I simply do not understand the mindset of shuffling on the train rather than dying fighting the conductors.
Stop it.
>> They want to do SOMETHING that will stop other families from having to experience the evil they endured.
The emphasis must be on mental illness, not the 2nd Amendment.
Thank you for the post.
Thanks everybody. No newspaper would take what I wrote, even if I cleaned it up. I’m pleased that I was able to share it here.
Polls vary, but it looks like Malloy and Foley are neck and neck in the Governor’s race. It’s shameful how the media is shilling for Malloy. I’ve got my fingers crossed. Foley has no position on the new gun law other than “he would have done things differently.” That’s the best we can do.
I buy my ammo in Rhode Island pretty much.
And lastly, as far as the shooting not happening, there was an amazing amount of sleight of hand involved with protecting the crime scene and the privacy of the victims and their families. There were locations that were used for forensics, for example, that were never revealed to the press. I have first hand knowledge that proves beyond any doubt that the shooting was real. I can’t reveal anything more without getting people in trouble. That’s not even considering the massive scale of the conspiracy that would be required to keep a staged incident a secret, from layers of government that leak the smallest thing like a sieve.
I have to admit, the aerial video of the emergency workers and others at the firehouse simply walking around in circles and around the building — which would simulate “action” at ground level — is head-shakingly weird. As one commenter points out:
It’s really easy to follow the guy in the yellow Underarmour Hoodie and shorts in the first segment. He literally walks back and forth in circles, not stopping to talk to anyone. Just trying to look busy.
It really is nothing more than a bunch of people “trying to look busy.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZRa5_DHgl4
For some reason, they have set the thing to needless music. Better watched with the sound down. It’s truly strange.
Thanks for posting this.
The answer to that is easy, if not sad. There were dozens of first responders on the scene — Newtown and State Police, firemen from most if not all of the companies in town (5), and EMTs and other medical personnel. As the incident progressed, police departments from around the state sent people to the scene.
I was in Stamford when everything happened and I was behind a speeding police car from another town for a while on my way back. That particular town sent two SWAT team members.
All of those people had nothing to do, as everyone was dead.
So they very well could have walked around in circles, especially since any wide circle around the perimeter would put you at the Sandy Hook firehouse, where parents and first responders were gathering.
I appreciate your on-site observations, and that could very well be. But no one in that video seems to be doing ANYTHING. They’re definitely all walking around in unison, but no one seems to have a purpose at all. And many are indeed just circling the building. Just seems very odd.
Thank you for your commentary! Well done!
I will never forget what one of my friends (an officer in one of the fire companies in Newtown) said to me about that day. He responded to the scene (it was at least 20 minutes into it) lights and siren. In a big truck. He was passing the exit ramp from I-84 and almost got broadsided by a CT State Police car that just blew through the traffic light.
He followed three police cars to the scene and he said it was complete chaos. He stepped out of the truck and he said all he could smell was burning brakes.
He also said he made himself available to help but he couldn’t go into the school (crime scene) and there was no triage or other medical stuff to be done (there was no one to triage). The road was blocked off a mile away in each direction so there was no traffic control needed, and police were STILL responding from all over the place so you had to watch where you were stepping.
I can’t imagine what it was like, but I’ve seen some videos and heard from other people. I would imagine that everyone wanted to help and didn’t want to leave, so they just wandered aimlessly.
Ok. I looked at the video. That’s the BACK of the Sandy Hook firehouse, which faces what was the Sandy Hook School. There are a lot of ambulances there, including one from Danbury (15 minutes away) and one from Oxford (next town over). There are a few town trucks, probably volunteer firefighters that work for the town, and the Newtown paramedic truck was there.
In the part of the building to the right of the screen was where parents who couldn’t find their children were waiting. There was a priest and the First Selectman and eventually the governor in that space, along with tons of first responders. Many of the circling people could very well be panicked parents looking for their kids, because as we know more than twenty found out in that room that their kids were murdered.
Well said and our sympathies for what you and your neighbors had to endure.
Race can you ping the Connecticut contingent? I’d like to get their opinions too.
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