AN AMERICAN SHOOTING ENTHUSIAST
In a materialistic world, next to my MAC computers, because of what I write as a consumerist, I jokingly value my personal defense weapons the most. I recently sold my offensive mostly competitive weapons. When you write about food as a critic, in my dreams I have a vision of a hatchet crazed chef mad because his Chicken Cordon Bleu tasted like KFC on steroids, and coming at me because I reported it as such.
Some of the products I write about as a religious consumer writer might just warrant protection too. Those who mysteriously get phone calls from God, or their believers get checks for thousands of dollars by praying, titheing, donating, and healings of cancer, leukemia, heart attacks, strokes, or a deadly ingrown toenail could easily rid the world of me.
Television Preachers or Prosperity Preachers want your money. Do people really believe that crock of bovine excretion. They rape the US of funding for the poor, take money from your moms, grandmas and overseas folks of many dollars last year, and estimated might top a 60 billion this year. Totally world wide religious donations that never saw the poor topped 65 Billion million.
The NRA didn’t do too bad with 7,000,000 members at 30.00 plus they sucker each year plus donations from corporate gun manufacturers. There are better uses for these funds, real people in need. But funds are dropping off as members find the lies within.
LOVED COMPETITION, MY GUNS and MY FELLOW COMPETITORS
I spent years and lots of dollars as a dedicated competitive shooter earning points, not kills, in state and regional events for the sport of it. The combat defense side, rifle and some simple sniper training was provided by the Armed Services, and well enhanced by IPSIC, and as a certified range officer. I loaded my own ammunition, in three calibers, like many competitors, and so forth. My garage was alike an ammo dump. You don’t get good watching movies, you burn the brass at the range.
I was fully emerged and the NRA was in a leadership role at one time in the shooting sports, not anymore. I really liked the sporting clays and skeet shooting.
I retired from competition some years ago, my age and related arthritis told me I was done, it means slower reflexes and I couldn’t compete against the kids anymore.
The long rifle and the shotgun were edging me into a condition called TMJ by displacing the cheekbones my right side. Tough decision but I gave up the large caliber rifle and shotguns. I still use my handguns and retrain once a month at the range with Glocks and Colts keeping fit.
My armament was never used for harm, simply sport and protection. War was different. They gave us guns and I used them for what they were intended.
I worked on charity events for the women’s sporting foundation, potentially meeting some of the younger shooters priming for the Olympics.
I shot sporting clays with the bear, General Norman Schwartzkoph, one hell of a shooter. I met with the Beretta family, even got a hat and borrowed a 20,000 dollar shotgun and fired icon one stage. I was ready to sell the house and get one.
GREAT LADIES
Then I was introduced to Louise Mandrell, an American country music singer. She is the younger sister of fellow country singer Barbara Mandrell, and older sister of actress Irlene Mandrell.
Louise had a successful singing career in country music from the 1970s, with a string of hits all during the 1980s. She is an extremely good clays shooter in the top ranks.
What a wonderful trio of beautiful ladies each a pretty as a button, and I was gaga over Irlene because she played drums, could do a set with anyone, ... and hunted and supported charities like the Special Olympics.
Irlene Mandrell is an accomplished hunter. She has hunted North America US and Mexico, South America and Africa. She has killed several animals that qualify for the SCI Record Book. Mandrell is proficient with handgun, shotgun, rifle, and crossbow. She is very competitive in many sporting events, including as a race car driver.
She is an active member of Quail Unlimited, Buckmasters, the NRA, Safari Club International, a life member of National Wild Turkey Federation and the Sportsman Against Hunger banquet, the National Whitetail Deer Education Foundation
Irlene Mandrell participates in several charities, such as Pegasus, Special Olympics, American Heart Association, and Easter Seals, but is closest to Wish Upon A Star and the Boy Scouts. The Irlene Mandrell Celebrity Shoot raises a large amount of money for both Wish Upon A Star and the Boy Scouts. As a 501c3 charity event, the Shoot has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to these two causes.
I LOVED THE GAMES AND CHALLENGES
I loved the game, the competition and as club VP created websites for the industry in the days when the computer was born and supported one company on the web for 34 years. I support the second amendment when it protects people, but not when it is abused and lied about. The amendment is a relative suggestion, all the amendments have lines of reason. You may own a gun but not a rocket launcher, nor a grenade. (They never mentioned the military weapons as sporters)
Gun ownership is a privilege, not an excuse, and safety and proper usage is it’s defining role.
THE NRA WENT POLITICALLY INCORRECT
I cried when I saw what happened to those children having kids in that school range, and middle to high school, and thinking it can’t get worse, I was wrong.
It has happened again and again and in my own state three times. Now adding 17 more to the carnage enough is enough. It is a time for action not words, it has turned me against the lies and the politicians bought off by the gun lobby.
One picture here is significant, the guy in the grey shirt shooting an M-16 Shorty with picatinny rails, forward assist, small scope, collapse stock IS ME 35+ years ago when the shorty or correctly designated the M-4 carbine prototype was being field tested, a privilege and had not been issued as yet. Let me explain, the guy in the picture has hair, dark and plenty of it and during the test it was referred to as the M-17. Thirty-five years ago I had dark hair, now what little is left comes from a tube of a new dye shampoo.
NRA and the T-RUMP HOUSE
JULY 18, 2018 - Maria Butina is an accused Russian spy who has been charged with infiltrating the NRA to influence US politics and help elect Trump in 2016. “No matter how strongly Donald Trump denies collusion, his own Justice Department has indicted a Russian national by the name of Maria Butina,” explained Igor Volsky of Gun Down. “And it has accused this lifetime NRA member of working on behalf of the Russian government to infiltrate the National Rifle Association.
In 2011, Butina co-founded a group in Russia called Right To Bear Arms with top Putin insider Alexander Torsion. Prosecutors allege that Butina and Torshin were trying to set up secret meetings between then candidate Trump and President Putin. And though the meetings never took place, they did connect with Donald Trump Jr.
It’s unclear how much the NRA knew about Butane’s agenda, though the organization is reportedly under FBI investigation for potentially funneling Russian money into the election. And the whole indictment highlights what many have already known about the gun lobby — that it will clearly stop at nothing to grow its political power.
They jailed Butina on charges that she is a Russian agent who worked surreptitiously, on orders from a close crony of Vladimir Putin’s, to subvert US politics for Russia’s benefit. But in the era of Trump, days after a summit in Helsinki, Finland, that forced the entire world to reckon with just how blatantly subservient the American president is to the Russian president, the distinction between Russian and Republican is not what it once was.
WHERE IS THE NRA I KNEW?
I was a life member of the NRA, and quit when they became political hacks, liars, story tellers and bribery became their main calling with your dues being given to politicians. Years ago, I forget exactly, maybe late 80’s at an NRA rally in Tampa, I was a member and believer in the NRA and asked to and addressed with several other speakers, the mostly adult crowd at the Tampa police Range, now closed, some in semi military uniforms with cute children in matching camos and cowboy boots. This is the South, and dress for success has some strange codes.
The occasion was representative of the paranoia and fear when some restrictions on firearms (big magazines and auto firearms) were being discussed in Congress. The crowd was pretty well charged up. My turn to speak and I defended our rights under the second amendment and basic Republican Principles, I promoted the NRA, and then:
I asked them to raise their hands and show their membership card if they supported the NRA, hands went up.
I asked them to hold up their drivers license’s, most raised their hands.
I asked them if they had a credit card, yes, hands went up about half.
Then I asked them to hold up their Voter Registration cards… and it was pathetic.
WHOM DO YOU BLAME?
Its simple, the NRA lobbyist group exists because our Congressmen take their bribes. And refuse to discuss gun control or create false narratives claiming it is not the time. Blaming it on anything they can other than truth, mental health, climate change, the Russian hoax, ingrown toenails, and bone spurs, alone kept these celebrity hair-do’s out of the military and many of them are into pubic service instead of public service.
Our Coward Commander, Captain Bone Spurs who unarmed claimed he was going to run into the school to save the children. Thats about the biggest frickin lie he has ever told. The count in April 2019 is according to Politico technicians is over 9, 400 indiscreet lies from Donald’s mouth.
TRUTH - More Donald lies, he never served, he is nothing but a corrupt Scumbag Draft Dodger, the proof is posted herein under THE FAKE PRESIDENT ...people of privilege who let others die... these are the ones that gun control is decided by...I stand by it...scumbags.
If they vote positive for gun control the NRA will spend their money on votes against them in their next re-election. So who controls gun control, the scumbags at the NRA and the Congress. Children die and they do nothing.
Truly the Presidents cabinet of losers slowly showing how weak, stupid, ignorant with a lack of compassion, unreal thinkers, sub-zero intellect, failures and should be removed and/or shot for the damage they will do to this country.
The President of the United States, our liar-in-chief who defends his brainless GOP base following. As I once said, It takes a schmuck to lead schmucks. His military academy friends thought he had shiniest shoes in the brigade. His awards at military school were in sports and he received the gold cup in bowling.
$5,900,000 Given to Republicans in 2016 election cycle, $106,000 given to Democrats in 2016 election cycle. Meanwhile T-RUMP and his campaign received 75 million for NRA sources. Some think this is the collusion contact for Russian money laundering as much of the money can’t be explained.
The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan think tank that tracks money in politics, found that in 2016 more than half of the members of the House of Representatives — or 232 of the 435 — received money from gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America. That money went disproportionately to Republicans. Only nine Democrats received campaign contributions from these groups.
T-RUMP READS THE NRA’S SCRIPT
President Trump met with state and local officials on school violence Thursday, including Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. (Closest Florida Friend, Rick Scotts pick, and Trumps dollars went to her during the election) Potentially looking at a post the real reason she’s there, certified GOP party girl and career seeker and he likes a Blond on his left)
In trying to clarify his Wednesday comments about arming teachers and other school personnel, President Trump, a day later, aligned himself even more closely with the National Rifle Association on the issue of teachers with guns and beefing up school security.
Whats the secret, he needs their 5,000,000 paid members for votes since those Neanderthals are part of the GOP base. So much so, they seemed, at times, to be reading from the same script. Are you nuts, you don’t see it? Of course he’s reading from their scripts, thats what certified scumbags do, it’s their party line.
He never writes what he reads, because he suffers from Cranial Rectal Dyslexia, or what we call a potty mouth caused by sh*t for brains. That’s what his fake scriptwriters are for, a fake President. Steve Miller should have be interned in a mental institution years ago. Only 5,000,000 members in the NRA and their other money comes form the sale of guns, like donations from manufacturers. If we use the GOP blame game against them, the GOP base are the real facilitators of children being killed.
Since 2004, the group has averaged about $128 million a year in total membership revenue. But that number has varied from $72 million in 2006 to $228 million in 2007, a peak it hasn't come close to matching since.
Membership revenue seems to spike following mass shootings and the resultant national discussions about gun control and gun rights. For instance, that 2007 peak came in the year that a gunman murdered 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech.
And in 2013, membership revenue increased by 63 percent over the previous year, following the killings of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in late 2012.
Membership revenue declined slightly in 2016, the most recent year for which IRS data is available. The group also raised the price of annual memberships that year, which may have something to do with the decline.
FLORIDA FLAKE - SEN. MARCO RUBIO SOFTENS ON GUN RESTRICTIONS
Senator Marco Rubio, certified candidate loser and first rate loser to T-HUMP, he caved, and a spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association were repeatedly heckled at a nationally televised forum on Wednesday night in Florida after they refused to back new gun control measures.
The spokeswoman for the NRA Dana Loesch, offering the group’s first public comments after a shooting last week at a Florida high school, strongly defended the gun advocacy group’s positions in front of students and teachers from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
“People who are crazy should not be able to get firearms,” she said, insisting that enforcement of mental health laws, not new gun restrictions, would prevent future massacres.
Mr. Rubio, Republican of Florida, also drew the ire of the crowd for refusing to support a ban on assault weapons and for saying that he intended to continue accepting money from the NRA and other groups that support his pro-gun agenda.
Ms. Loesch and Mr. Rubio appeared during the two-hour forum, broadcast on CNN from a site near Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Fla., knowing full well that they would be assailed by the gathering of people directly affected by the mass shooting last week.
The father of a 14-year-old girl who was killed at Stoneman Douglas angrily lectured Mr. Rubio for his refusal to support gun control legislation. The father, Fred Guttenberg, demanded that Mr. Rubio explain his opposition to a ban on the kind of assault weapon that the gunman at the school used to shoot his daughter, Jaime.
“My daughter, running down the hallway, was shot in the back with an assault weapon, the weapon of choice,” Mr. Guttenberg said during the forum as Mr. Rubio stood stone-faced. “It is too easy to get. It is a weapon of war. The fact that you can’t stand with everybody else in this room and say that, I’m sorry.”
The room erupted in applause for Mr. Guttenberg and repeatedly booed as Mr. Rubio sought to explain his opposition to a proposed assault weapons ban. The bill, he said, is riddled with loopholes that would make it easy for criminals to get around.
“First, you have to define what it is. It basically bans 220 specific models of gun,” Mr. Rubio said, prompting applause from the audience. He continued, saying that the bill also allows for “2,000 other types” of guns that operate the same way but are not classified as assault weapons.
Ms. Loesch repeatedly deflected questions about restrictions on the availability of guns, insisting instead that keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill or people with criminal records would keep students safe.
“I don’t believe that this insane monster should have ever been able to obtain a firearm, ever,” Ms. Loesch told Emma González, a senior at the high school. “None of us support people who are crazy, who are a danger to themselves, who are a danger to others, getting their hands on a firearm.”
But her answers prompted angry taunts from the audience. At times, Ms. Loesch struggled to answer, but she steadfastly refused to back down on the N.R.A.’s position opposing new gun restrictions.
She said the group opposed raising the legal age for purchasing an assault weapon to 21 from 18, an idea that Mr. Trump had earlier signaled support for. Students who are old enough to serve in the military should be allowed to own firearms, she said.
Diane Wolk Rogers, a history teacher at Stoneman Douglas, confronted Ms. Loesch by asking her to defend the idea that allowing the suspect in the shooting, a 19-year-old, to own an assault rifle represents “a well-regulated militia” as is written in the Second Amendment.
Ms. Loesch said the phrase was meant to protect the rights of anyone who “could operate and service their firearm,” an answer that drew loud yelling and more boos from the audience.
Mr. Rubio, for his part, had offered opening remarks that he clearly hoped would deflect criticism during the event. He expressed grief for those who were affected by the shooting, but he said that people in the United States needed to find ways to disagree “without accusing one another of being evil people.”
But the audience, including Mr. Guttenberg, did not hold back in criticizing Mr. Rubio’s position on gun control. Mr. Guttenberg repeatedly asked whether Mr. Rubio believed that “guns were the factor in the hunting of our kids.”
The senator said he agreed, but he insisted that other types of laws would better prevent such attacks. He said that he would support a bill to increase the minimum age for the purchase of an assault weapon to 21 from 18. And he said that he backed improvements to background checks and a ban on so-called bump stocks, which can convert semiautomatic weapons to fire automatically.
Students and teachers at the forum on Wednesday also had questions for Florida’s other politicians, including two Democrats, Senator Bill Nelson and Representative Ted Deutch.
One young student talked about how her best friend was killed in front of her, and she asked Mr. Nelson about background checks, and how to improve them. Another student, whose brother died in the shooting, bluntly said to Mr. Deutch that “my friends and I are worried that we are going to be murdered in our classrooms.” He asked what Mr. Deutch was going to do about it.
“As a starter,” the congressman said, “I’m going to introduce legislation to make sure that assault weapons are illegal in every part of this country.” The audience burst into applause.
But Mr. Rubio, who ran for president in 2016, was repeatedly challenged on his positions on gun control and his willingness to accept donations from the N.R.A.
The issue of donations was raised by a junior at Stoneman Douglas who stood just feet from the senator and asked him whether he would renounce money from the gun advocacy group in the future. When Mr. Rubio refused, the audience booed loudly. “People buy into my agenda, and I do support the Second Amendment,” Mr. Rubio said, repeatedly refusing to say he would stop accepting money from the group. “The influence of these groups comes not from money, the influence comes from the millions of people who support the agenda.”
Mr. Deutch at one point engaged in a brief debate with Mr. Rubio, saying that a gun allowing someone to fire off 150 rounds in six to seven minutes “should be banned.”
Later, Chris Grady, a student at the high school, thanked Mr. Rubio for appearing at the forum, unlike Mr. Trump and Mr. Scott. “A lot more than can be said for our so-called president and governor,” Mr. Grady told Mr. Rubio. “We need you and your colleagues on both sides to come together with us and find a compromise if we are ever to solve this epidemic.”
Mr. Grady asked the senator whether he supported legislation to limit high-capacity magazines that allow weapons to fire many bullets quickly. Mr. Rubio said that he had long opposed such legislation, but was now reconsidering that position.
The senator said that there could be evidence from the Florida school shooting that suggested the gunman might have killed fewer people if he did not have high-capacity magazines. “It wouldn’t have prevented the attack, but it would have made it less lethal,” Mr. Rubio said.
BOTTOM LINE TIME TO GET RID OF RUBIO
NRA LEADER WARNS CONSERVATIVES
So when it comes to “hardening" schools, not a phrase that was in wide use before Thursday, and speaking out against "gun-free zones," it appears the president and the NRA are, well, on the same page. Trump does appear, however, to differ with the gun lobby when it comes to his support of increasing the age to be able to buy an assault rifle, from 18 to 21. Trump said he wasn’t concerned, though, about that.
I don't think I'll be going up against them," Trump said. "I really think the NRA wants to do what's right. I mean, they're very close to me; I'm very close to them; they're very, very great people. They love this country. They're patriots. The NRA wants to do the right thing.” ( And he’s spoken like the true scumbag he is, nothing but a coward, and needs any friends he can find since his counterpunching never seems to work )
And then in his next sentence, he may have given away the reason he and the NRA seem to be using similar, and sometimes the exact same, language. They made him practice...
“I’ve spoken to them often in the last two days,” T-RUMP acknowledged, “and they want to do the right thing.”
They have never done the right thing, they are liars too, not patriots, from the Black helicopters to the secret Army Bullshit on our soil, they spread, lies and more lies about the second amendment.
Trump also reiterated his calls for arming more teachers and other adults working in the nations' schools, something LaPierre also called for. But Trump has made several conflicting statements on the controversial issue over the course of less than 24 hours beginning Wednesday.
At White House listening sessions Wednesday with students and parents, including some from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a gunman killed 17 people last week, Trump said, "If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms, it could very well end the attack very quickly."
But Thursday morning, the president put out a barrage of tweets, defending himself and clarifying, "I never said 'give teachers guns' like was stated on Fake News." He added that he wanted to look at the possibility of giving “ oncealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience."
BOTTOM LINE TIME TO GET RID OF TRUMP
ADVOCATE TO ADVERSARY
Those who fervently defended their right to bear arms and voted for the men to protect those rights were on a noble trip but driven by a fools errand. Many important decisions are made by our Congressmen and Senators. They, some of those bouffant brained useless individuals are not supporting the publics wishes, ignoring the situation, bowing to the demands of the Gun Lobby and running like the cowards they really are.
Whom you elected did not abide by what you voted for. This is wrong. 78% voted for more stringent gun control before all the mass shootings took place and it failed in Congress since the NRA bought them off a long time ago. It’s now in the higher eighties and close to 90%.
And voting is the answer to gun control. We vote hopefully to put those with our interests in place to make wrongs right. We have serious issues in this country, and most of it being caused by whom we elect. They have all been bought off, lock stock and barrel, from the local state representatives to Congress. Its time to take the streets back from the bad guys and the men who are bought and sold by the NRA using the second amendment to justify, as they are as guilty as the shooters.
I was a lifetime member at this point. I had the magazine subscriptions, the cheap Gold plated Lifetime belt buckle and deeply embedded in the Second Amendment. Years later after the NRA got too political and good research proved there was more lies than truth, I donated the shiny buckle and it’s cheap plating to the Atlantic ocean, the magazine collection to the trash, dumped my website...
I could not support a bunch of liars, and political hacks, who cared about the dollar more than people. Worse after attending the gun shows I saw an element of society that really fit the bill of the NRA. Speaking with some of them, I saw more mental issues and lies than at a crackhead convention.
VOTERS DON’T VET WHO THEY VOTE FOR
Most voting decisions are made in the curtained voter both usually based on a previous decision by what TV Channel you watch or name recognition. This is wrong. Many votes are simply unthought of, unchallenged, unqualified and unsupported, you pick a name and lets see what happens. Lately seven, maybe eight of ten are bad choices.
And year after year, those same politicians will do nothing, respond to nothing, repair nothing, but cheerfully accept huge donations from groups that fuel the gun lobby, mainly the National Rifle Association with the complete knowledge of the usual propaganda and mis-truths.
Though a majority of members voted for more stringent gun controls, it went unheard by the NRA hierarchy. Money trumps almost anything. Trump is all about the money.
In any other industry this would be called “Bribery”. In other countries, they might get shot. But this not the whole or real picture. This is wrong and it has gone on too long. The NRA recently stands for “ Nothing Real America” and has become in a sense its own militia.
The NRA is a company that talks about rights and freedoms and lies through its teeth to its constituents and members, ignoring their wishes and altering the progress needed to bring forward safety for all in the country. This is wrong. The truth is the position of the good members of the NRA is being ignored when a substantial percentage of 80% plus want to change the gun registration laws, with common sense approaches and enforce the established laws which are ignored. New leadership is needed.