First of all I want to say that I
think it is fantastic that the NRA supports the rights of millions of Muslim
American citizens to purchase and “Constitutional-carry” weapons.
Republican “leaders” like Senator
Blunt and others are portraying a dire picture of the state of our government.
Our Senate and House of Representatives both have Republican majorities and
Republican leaders are telling us how bad things are and how screwed up
government is. If they believe what they’re saying and I believe that they do
then after decades in office they have proved that they are incapable of doing
anything to fix the problems they perceive. They have nearly paralyzed
government for the last eight years.
There’s a political ad on TV here
in Missouri from Jason Kander showing him assembling a weapon blindfolded. He’s
running for the U. S. Senate against Senator Roy Blunt. Blunt has held his seat
in the Senate for 20 years. At the end of the ad Kander says that he would like
to see Blunt do that. Senator Blunt avoided serving during the Viet Nam war
with student deferments until he received a high lottery number. Kander is an
Army veteran who served in Afghanistan. It’s a great ad.
It seems to be popular to campaign
against people for trying to eliminate our right to bear arms if they supported
any gun legislation short of making it mandatory to own one. I’m okay with
limiting the rights of some people to bear arms, like some convicted felons,
terrorists or those advocating the violent overthrow of our government. There
are people that would take issue with any exclusion or proposed change to gun
laws due to there being some Citizens Against Virtually Everything.
Years ago when I served as a
councilman for a small city in Kansas we would on occasion have to pass an
ordinance raising or lowering a speed limit. In either case our goal wasn’t to
eliminate speed limits or reduce the speed limit to zero. The council had the
desire and intent to make streets safer.
We’re a nation awash in weapons.
Those who own guns tend to own several. We aren’t even close to losing our 2nd
Amendment rights unless you’re a subscriber to extremist propaganda that we
need weapons to fight against our own military and government. We enjoy more
rights now in regards to guns that we have ever had in the past.
When I served as a Drill Instructor
we had trainees who really didn’t seem to know for sure which end of the weapon
the bullets came out, judging by the way they waved them around. They pointed
loaded weapon indiscriminately. I had a
guy who was so dangerous with a weapon even after training that I took his
remaining ammunition away from him halfway through a live fire combat training
course.
Jason Kander’s history is not a
problem for me and I do not put any political party before my country when I
vote. I am interested in seeing some checks and balances and one way to bring
about a better government is to vote out those who haven’t been up to the task.
For these and other reasons I am voting for Jason Kander.