A few things caught my eye this morning.
First, I was amused by an faux pas from the loony anti-gun deranged Left which made wild claims about possible after market customizations of an AR-15 rifle system. HERE
In a tweet, USAToday said that the Texas Church Massacre nutjob could have modified his rifle with – wait for it – a “chainsaw bayonet”. Not only that, these “chainsaw bayonets” are widely available! Gotta git me one o’ them!
A look at the gun used in the Texas church shooting. https://t.co/xdxIf5fR77 pic.twitter.com/sUY1mCCLZC
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) November 8, 2017
Whoa! THAT’s scary!
But wait… there’s more scarier scary to come! My emphases:
But where would USA Today get the idea that such an attachment was widely available and widely used? Trying to find such a device on the internet leads to results largely made up of the popular video game series Gears of War, where the super-muscular heroes use rifles with chainsaws to slay subterranean terrors. There were also plenty of DIY projects for such devices and there was a small company that claimed to sell them, but they’re marketed as a way to kill zombies.
The internet was the internet it and didn’t hold back as the paper was put through the wringer on twitter. #ChainsawBayonet was trending with image after image from people who photoshopping other ridiculous attachments onto USA Today’s AR-15 image. Such attachments included a lightsaber, a taco, a little corgi, (my personal favorite) 10 smaller AR-15s, and failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. [The most terrifying mod of all!]
Proving that the criticism went completely over their head, USA Today put out a second tweet to clarify their first one, saying: “To clarify, the video shows both the shooter’s modifications, as well as other possible modifications. The shooter did not use a chainsaw bayonet.”
[UPDATE: On Twitter check out hashtags… #PossibleModifications and #ChainsawBayonet ]
Also, the DailyWire reports on how the Left is lying about the legally armed citizen who shot the wack-job perp when he came out of the church he was shooting up (and still able to kill more people. No, no! That legally armed citizen had nothing to do with stopping the perp. HENCE… abolish the 2nd Amendment.
Next…
Pope Francis has banned, beginning in 2018, the sale of cigarettes through Vatican City. Vatican employees have been able to purchase cigarettes at a much lower price than in Italy, with its taxes, etc. There is quite the “black” market of fags that flow from the opportunity, as you can imagine… so that’s going away.
If Pope Francis didn’t have a food-taster before, he might do well to get one now. I can see beady-eyed monsignori, gardeners, and uscieri eyeing him from shadow filled corners, clenching and unclenching their shaky hands.
Speaking of Pope Francis, he has embarked on a new Wednesday audience series topic: liturgy.
I admit that my arrhythmia set in full force with that news.
However, he has started out with a topic that bodes well for all of us: the use of mobile phones and cameras at Mass. Hopefully the next speech will be on the pressing problems of coming to church with open or closed toed footwear, mercy and chapel veils, and, of course, checking watches during sermons… or perhaps, even worse… iWatches.
The moderation queue is ON… for ALL posts right now.
Loading ...
I’ll say beforehand that yes, I do check my watch (or smartphone used as watch) during Mass.
After all, how else could I be sure whether I’m within the Eucharistic fast or no?
Let’s see, other things the pope could ban in Vatican City:
1) cars–reduce carbon footprint and walk instead
2) pasta–it’s fattening
3) soda and gelato–too much sugar
No need to comment on the imaginary “zombie apocalypse chainsaw bayonet” (probably the product of someone playing too much PlayStation).
There is the sad fact that the killer’s military court martial conviction of felonies commited against his first wife and stepson would have prohibited him from legally purchasing a firearm had someone not failed to enter it on the Federal background check database. Errors by fallible humans are also a byproduct of Original Sin. As Catholics we know that our fallibility does not excuse us from making our best efforts to do good (in this case maintaining a common sense method to thwart lawbreakers from obtaining lawful and useful tools that can be perverted to an evil purpose by those shown to be so inclined). As the Sisters of St. Joseph taught me many years ago, “Pray and know that everything is in God’s hands but work with the effort as if everything depends on you.”
I just want to make one comment about someone pulling out a cell phone at mass: I have hearing aids, and I have an app on my cell phone to change the settings on the hearing aids, so I can hear Fr.’s sermon better, or turn down the over-miked cantor.
I don’t suppose that many people share this particular use of their cell phones, but some of them may have other equally valid mid-Mass uses.
This is Texas. We deep fry our chainsaw bayonets and eat ’em with mustard and beer. Rest o’ ya’ll are wimps.
Dear TonyO,
actually, one can use the smartphone as Missal, and even need only internet connection for it.
However, I wonder whether the lights would be unfitting in Mass – phones are not as friendly in this regard as a Kindle or a Tolino, after all -; and certainly the stares by others would. So I don’t do it. It’s embarassing enough when you look up the Lauretan Litany or the Breviary or some such in an almost empty Church and someone else is there and looks at you.
Alas, the Vatican actually does seem to give health reasons for their cigarette ban. If they said smokers should pay proper taxes to the Italian state, fine by me…
Maybe it’s time to re-read the Catechism where it says something about moderate tobacco use. Maybe it could also be time to see that the statistics about the heavy health-impact of smoking almost always seem to assume a one-to-two-packages-per-day smoker as “a smoker”. Maybe they could also consider that even according to these studies, at least as they are reported on Wikipedia and the like, that if a smoker stops smoking and so and so much time passes (depending on how long and much he had smoked before, but counted in years, not centuries), his risk reaches again the level non-smokers have. Seeing that, does it not seem that the “each single cigarette hurts” looks rather more like moralizing preaching than like scientific fact?
Ah, the dreaded Assault Corgi. Very nasty at ankle height in the grass.
[Especially the dread black ones.]
@ Gerard Plourde – Congress passed a universally supported bill in 2007 after the Virginia Tech massacre to deal precisely with these sorts of mistakes by rounding up old data not entered into the federal database, and streamlining the entry of new data. It was one of the few laws proposed in recent years focused on criminals rather than the law abiding, and even the NRA openly endorsed it. It should have prevented this court martial oversight. The program was never properly funded and very little was accomplished.
I will try to limit my further commentary, because it’s distinctly political. However, I think it’s ridiculous the media is not asking the person with primary responsibility for carrying out the provisions of the bill and submitting budget requests to Congress in support of doing so why he did not. After all his bluster about “common sense ways to keep guns away from criminals while protecting the 2nd amendment,” I really want to hear his explanation.
@ianlucky13 – I agree fully with your analysis. The law is in place. Why it was not complied with is a serious question. I also recently learned that under the UCMJ juries (made up of the defendant’s peers) rather than judges determine the sentence to be imposed and that such juries usually impose lighter penalties than would be meted out in the civilian world. The jury in this case elected to sentence him to a one-year sentence and a bad conduct discharge (which is less serious than a dishonorable discharge) for assaulting his spouse and fracturing his stepchild’s skull. The maximum penalty for severe child abuse under the UCMJ is five years imprisonment. This mindset may help to explain why reporting the conviction was also lax.
Aside from teaching safe ha doing of firearms I see very little value in the NRA -not a particularly Catholic organization. The fact of the matter is that accessibility to firearms has contributed enormously to mass shootings in the US. There should be strict restrictions on purchase of most weapons in the US. And I say this as someone who grew up with hunting rifles in the house and in those days stored in the closet and case with shells on shelf above. And I have used many many times hunting rifles. But i see no logic in assault rifles or the kinds of weapons used in these mass shootings. I would be willing to compromise on side arms but common sense and prudential judgment would have to yield to restricting the sale and distribution on these assault rifles.