You can get online and get in touch with companies that sell gun kits. The net result at the end of that is a completely legal, unregistered, untraceable gun.
Ostensibly this is entirely legal. There is a legitimate loophole in the ATF laws that make it completely kosher for you to roll your own. If you have the smarts, you can make a gun. The only catch is that you cannot legally transfer ownership of said gun, ever. It's yours. When you die, it goes in the casket with you. And whereas most of us are law-abiding citizens, and more than a few of us are tool-happy nuts who like to make stuff, that's cool. I recently heard a news story where some curious experimenters fired up their 3-d printer and made some crucial gun components by simply printing them, just to see if they could and make it work. (They could, which startled several interested parties)
It's even okay for companies to sell kits that take some of the especially heavy lifting off the builder: a kit for the lower receiver, the main part of the gun that everything else connects to, starts with a solid piece of metal.
What's wrong with this picture? Not a thing. What you get when you purchase the kit is exactly that: a solid piece of metal, along with detailed, measured drawings showing exactly where and how deep to machine the metal to make it into a functional lower receiver to which other parts can then attach. It takes quite a bit of work, some machinery setup and a fair amount of patience. You have to want it to spend that kind of time.
You can purchase an additional array of supplies which attach to the receiver blank: jigs and guides that make it much easier to machine out the receiver's assorted recesses. Still okay, and still completely within the bounds, I think, of the law.
You can purchase a bulk order of 100 kits at a 30% savings.
What?
Purchasing one, two, even five of these kits is easily passed off as "for personal use only." How can you defend a bulk purchase of 100 kits? What possible use can anyone have for 100 semi-automatic rifles, 1911 automatic pistols, really 100 of anything that isn't shares of stock, money or socks?
See, at this point I think there really is a problem with this picture. I'm actually halfway inclined to buy a kit myself, simply because it is up to me, and not the government, whether I own a gun or not. But damn, a bulk discount for buying 100 kits at a time just shouts, "Arrest me because I am a dangerous nutcase."
Please note that I am not providing links to any of the companies that sell these kits. Because I consider what they're doing to be so iffy from a moral standpoint, I won't make it a no-effort jump to satisfy your idle curiosity. If you go looking for them, that will be on your time and on your own head.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
Monsanto vs. Everyone
It's in the news again this week as no less an authority than the US Supreme Court takes up the case, Bowman v. Monsanto.
Let's look at the particulars: Vernon Bowman, farmer, grows soybeans on his farm. For his first planting he uses Monsanto's genetically engineered "Roundup Ready" soybean seed. He signs a contract ensuring he will not save any back for replanting and according to him, he doesn't.
What he does do, however, is he purchases soybean seed from the local grain elevator for his second crop. And therein lies the rub.
This case has already gone up in a couple of lower courts and in both cases the court upheld Monsanto's argument.
Monsanto insists that Bowman is infringing on their patent by availing himself of Roundup Ready seed that is mixed in with the "commodity seed" provided by the elevator. Monsanto says Bowman is experiencing yields larger than he should if he were using non-Roundup Ready seed, and that he should have to pay a fine for infringing on Monsanto's patent, and for contract violation.
I've seen Monsanto take on farmers before, including a suit which they brought against a farmer - and won! - for having Roundup Ready canola plants in his fields even though he hadn't bought any Roundup Ready seed - the plants were there as a result of windborne contamination.
One wonders a few things:
1) How many spies does Monsanto employ, to keep such tabs on things like whether there is a small portion of RR plants growing in a field where there shouldn't be any?
2) How much diligence is due on the farmer's part?
The point behind Roundup Ready seed is that it germinates into a plant that has been genetically engineered to be highly tolerant of the broad spectrum herbicide "Roundup." It's worth pointing out that Monsanto is the company that produces Roundup, so their stake in this is much more than protecting its patent rights on the seed itself. The main ingredient of Roundup, glyphosphate, is no longer protected by Monsanto's patents, and other companies are now producing glyphosphate-based herbicides. It's worth noting that just as people and companies were starting to look forward to Monsanto's patent running out (thus making price-cutting competition possible), we started hearing about glyphosphate resistance cropping up in weeds, thus undercutting the effectiveness of glyphosphate-based weed control.
That Bowman uses Roundup-Ready seed for his first crop is not in dispute, and he insists that he obeys the stipulations of the contract with Monsanto. Monsanto, however, is up in arms with the results of his second planting, the one that Bowman gets by purchasing seed from the elevator. That elevator-sourced seed is not marketed as Roundup Ready, it's just "commodity" seed, which could be anything.
My point is that Bowman didn't purchase his second planting seed from Monsanto. He bought it from the grain elevator, which made no claims on its seed's resistance to herbicides, germination rate, or anything else. The seed was ostensibly intended as animal feed, what Bowman did with it after purchasing was really up to him.
According to court documents, Bowman tested the seed and found it resistant to Roundup, so he planted it and used Roundup as a post-emergence herbicide. That, by the way, is what is supposed to be so great about the seed. You can use Roundup at any time with the crop, instead of only pre-emergence for before the crop sprouts. Before Roundup Ready seed was developed, you had to stop using Roundup once your planting had broken cover.
So what Monsanto is charging here isn't breach of contract - the contract Bowman signed doesn't apply to this seed, since he didn't purchase it directly from Monsanto - but patent infringement, availing himself of the herbicide resistance bred into the plant by growing it from genetically modified seed. The original farmer that produced the soybeans on his farm was compliant with the contract, and sold the seed in good faith to an end user. And since we must assume that farmer didn't infringe on the patent by saving any seed from his crop, he's in the clear. He grew the crop, he sold the crop, he's done. That the crop is, by virtue of its parentage, resistant to herbicides is not his concern.
The seeds Bowman purchased are not stamped with the name Monsanto anywhere on them. They don't grow a special color or only facing toward St. Louis, Missouri. That Bowman tested the seeds and found them resistant isn't in dispute. What's really being contested here is whether the patent protection of the seed should be exhausted.
I think Bowman has one small leg to stand on in that he had no way of knowing whether the seed he was purchasing was Roundup Ready. The commodity seed he purchased was pulled from the grain elevator, not from any marked bins that had been filled by a specific individual.
At this point I have a question and I think the case could hinge on this: was Bowman required to assume the seed he purchased, being glyphosphate resistant, was "Roundup Ready" seed? Since the existence of glyphosphate-resistant weeds and indeed even coca plants has been noted, it's clear that resistance to glyphosphate need not be only from Monsanto's genetic modification. It could be wild, a sport mutation that has no bearing on Monsanto.
Granted this is a bit of a stretch, but it casts Monsanto's claim to patent infringement in some doubt, as the desirable trait can be had by other means than Monsanto's manipulation, and while Monsanto can easily bring to bear the technological tools and know-how to prove that the seed may indeed be the product of their GM product, Bowman cannot. And that brings us back to how much due diligence can reasonably be expected of a farmer.
Also pertinent but not entirely related: when people have to pony up for more and bigger expenses to eradicate herbicide-resistant weeds, can they hit Monsanto with a class action suit for creating the attractive nuisance that is Roundup? If they had stuck with mechanical weed control (pulling), the weeds wouldn't have developed the chemical resistance and Monsanto wouldn't have created the chemical-dependent weed control market.
Just a thought, probably specious. But it bears asking.
Let's look at the particulars: Vernon Bowman, farmer, grows soybeans on his farm. For his first planting he uses Monsanto's genetically engineered "Roundup Ready" soybean seed. He signs a contract ensuring he will not save any back for replanting and according to him, he doesn't.
What he does do, however, is he purchases soybean seed from the local grain elevator for his second crop. And therein lies the rub.
This case has already gone up in a couple of lower courts and in both cases the court upheld Monsanto's argument.
Monsanto insists that Bowman is infringing on their patent by availing himself of Roundup Ready seed that is mixed in with the "commodity seed" provided by the elevator. Monsanto says Bowman is experiencing yields larger than he should if he were using non-Roundup Ready seed, and that he should have to pay a fine for infringing on Monsanto's patent, and for contract violation.
I've seen Monsanto take on farmers before, including a suit which they brought against a farmer - and won! - for having Roundup Ready canola plants in his fields even though he hadn't bought any Roundup Ready seed - the plants were there as a result of windborne contamination.
One wonders a few things:
1) How many spies does Monsanto employ, to keep such tabs on things like whether there is a small portion of RR plants growing in a field where there shouldn't be any?
2) How much diligence is due on the farmer's part?
The point behind Roundup Ready seed is that it germinates into a plant that has been genetically engineered to be highly tolerant of the broad spectrum herbicide "Roundup." It's worth pointing out that Monsanto is the company that produces Roundup, so their stake in this is much more than protecting its patent rights on the seed itself. The main ingredient of Roundup, glyphosphate, is no longer protected by Monsanto's patents, and other companies are now producing glyphosphate-based herbicides. It's worth noting that just as people and companies were starting to look forward to Monsanto's patent running out (thus making price-cutting competition possible), we started hearing about glyphosphate resistance cropping up in weeds, thus undercutting the effectiveness of glyphosphate-based weed control.
That Bowman uses Roundup-Ready seed for his first crop is not in dispute, and he insists that he obeys the stipulations of the contract with Monsanto. Monsanto, however, is up in arms with the results of his second planting, the one that Bowman gets by purchasing seed from the elevator. That elevator-sourced seed is not marketed as Roundup Ready, it's just "commodity" seed, which could be anything.
My point is that Bowman didn't purchase his second planting seed from Monsanto. He bought it from the grain elevator, which made no claims on its seed's resistance to herbicides, germination rate, or anything else. The seed was ostensibly intended as animal feed, what Bowman did with it after purchasing was really up to him.
According to court documents, Bowman tested the seed and found it resistant to Roundup, so he planted it and used Roundup as a post-emergence herbicide. That, by the way, is what is supposed to be so great about the seed. You can use Roundup at any time with the crop, instead of only pre-emergence for before the crop sprouts. Before Roundup Ready seed was developed, you had to stop using Roundup once your planting had broken cover.
So what Monsanto is charging here isn't breach of contract - the contract Bowman signed doesn't apply to this seed, since he didn't purchase it directly from Monsanto - but patent infringement, availing himself of the herbicide resistance bred into the plant by growing it from genetically modified seed. The original farmer that produced the soybeans on his farm was compliant with the contract, and sold the seed in good faith to an end user. And since we must assume that farmer didn't infringe on the patent by saving any seed from his crop, he's in the clear. He grew the crop, he sold the crop, he's done. That the crop is, by virtue of its parentage, resistant to herbicides is not his concern.
The seeds Bowman purchased are not stamped with the name Monsanto anywhere on them. They don't grow a special color or only facing toward St. Louis, Missouri. That Bowman tested the seeds and found them resistant isn't in dispute. What's really being contested here is whether the patent protection of the seed should be exhausted.
I think Bowman has one small leg to stand on in that he had no way of knowing whether the seed he was purchasing was Roundup Ready. The commodity seed he purchased was pulled from the grain elevator, not from any marked bins that had been filled by a specific individual.
At this point I have a question and I think the case could hinge on this: was Bowman required to assume the seed he purchased, being glyphosphate resistant, was "Roundup Ready" seed? Since the existence of glyphosphate-resistant weeds and indeed even coca plants has been noted, it's clear that resistance to glyphosphate need not be only from Monsanto's genetic modification. It could be wild, a sport mutation that has no bearing on Monsanto.
Granted this is a bit of a stretch, but it casts Monsanto's claim to patent infringement in some doubt, as the desirable trait can be had by other means than Monsanto's manipulation, and while Monsanto can easily bring to bear the technological tools and know-how to prove that the seed may indeed be the product of their GM product, Bowman cannot. And that brings us back to how much due diligence can reasonably be expected of a farmer.
Also pertinent but not entirely related: when people have to pony up for more and bigger expenses to eradicate herbicide-resistant weeds, can they hit Monsanto with a class action suit for creating the attractive nuisance that is Roundup? If they had stuck with mechanical weed control (pulling), the weeds wouldn't have developed the chemical resistance and Monsanto wouldn't have created the chemical-dependent weed control market.
Just a thought, probably specious. But it bears asking.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Stuff Worth Owning: Ace Hardware 10-in-1 Screwdriver
That's a long title, but there's no way to shorten it. I don't remember what I was shopping for at the Ace Hardware in Clinton TN, but these bright yellow screwdrivers caught my eye at the checkout. I'm not usually diverted by impulse items at the checkout, but ask my kids and they will tell you loudly that I have an especial weakness for tools in general and screwdrivers in particular. Hell, I've even made screwdrivers when I needed a special one. A display of screwdrivers next to the register can almost suck the credit card right out of my hand.
I can't find the screwdriver on Ace's website, but this is it:
I can't find the screwdriver on Ace's website, but this is it:
The handiest tool in the junk drawer. I paid about $8.00
Recently I had a bit of a meltdown with my Maytag Neptune laundry stack. Now I'm a pretty good fan of Maytag appliances, but not the post-Whirlpool buyout models. Maytag stopped being the standard of excellence sometime around 2000 or so. Maytag had lost a fair portion of its reputation by the time of the buyout, but since then its reputation is completely gone. It's only a division of Whirlpool now: a brand, not a manufacturer. What made Maytag equipment unique and durable is no more.
But my Neptune pair is from a few years before the buyout. Even so, it turns out the Neptune line is not without problems. Get online and start looking up Neptune control problems, and you'll see this phrase a lot: "R11 resistor burned," and "Q7 Triac failure." My machine's board had both of those fail. The net result is that the machine won't spin out and clothes are sopping wet at the end of the cycle. When that happens, Maytag's pat answer is to replace the entire board. The list price on a new board is over $200, but I lucked out and found a local electronics purveyor who had purchased an appliance dealer's old inventory, and wasn't fully cognizant of what he had. My price: $60, including postage. I only took the step of replacing the board after trying and failing to replace the burned resistor and triac. Some people have successfully made that repair, but evidently my soldering mojo is so far limited only to plumbing. I'll keep working on it though.
So what does it take to replace the board? Look back at the screwdriver.
That's it. I don't need any other tools to take my Maytag Neptune completely apart. It takes one size of Torx driver (included in the driver's array of bits), two sizes of nut driver (take the bit out and there it is), and one size of Phillips driver. Sometimes you need a regular screwdriver to pop an electrical connector loose: not a problem. This one tool removes the door (not really necessary), top, front, control panel, everything. It's not until you get even farther back inside the machine that you encounter fasteners that are beyond this tool's capacity. At that point my entire upper body would be inside the machine.
To be completely frank I'm not a huge fan of multi-bit screwdrivers. Too often you find the multi-bittedness of the tool is part of what makes it unacceptable in lots of ways: having nesting parts makes the shank really thick, so it's no good for getting deep-set screws in appliances, tucked far down in narrow holes. Or sometimes what you need is a screwdriver on this side and a nutdriver on that side at the same time, to keep things from turning while you're trying to loosen or tighten fasteners. With the multi-bit screwdriver, you only have the one tool at a time.
All of that said, I first made some exploratory forays into the machine and discovered at that time that the multi-bit Ace screwdriver answered every need. I had gathered my ratchet set, a couple of different screwdrivers and even a Vise-Grip, just in case. When everything was done however, all my tool cases were still closed and the Ace was in my pocket. So when I got the replacement part in the mail, I didn't go to the shop at all. I cracked open the junk drawer and reached for that chunky, bright yellow handle with the Ace logo and got to work. 20 minutes later, my first post-meltdown load of laundry was up and running.
I remember asking the young lady behind the counter where the tool was made. She wasn't able to nail down the manufacturer - neither was I in research prepping for this post - but she did confirm it was made in the USA, so if nothing else that might be good enough.
Like I said, not a huge fan of multi-bits, but I'm a huge fan of this one. Shop around, get a couple. Put one in the car, one in the shop.
And one in the junk drawer.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
DON'T BELIEVE ALL THE ADS
If you see an ad on my blog that says anything against Barack Obama, disregard it.
That's right, ignore it all. Of course I can't compel you to do anything whatsoever, so you're going to do whatever you want and more power to you. However I can say this: don't believe any ad you see on my site must necessarily reflect my own beliefs.
There's an ad on here right now that says "Barack Obama wants to BAN GUNS! Don't let him do it!"
I say, do let him do it. There are a boatload of guns out there getting bought up that shouldn't be legal to sell. Obama doesn't want to ban all guns and only a simpleton would believe that he does. Ads like this are just more right-wing, ultra-conservative rabble rousing.
Don't let yourself be roused. That's how you separate yourself from the rabble.
That's right, ignore it all. Of course I can't compel you to do anything whatsoever, so you're going to do whatever you want and more power to you. However I can say this: don't believe any ad you see on my site must necessarily reflect my own beliefs.
There's an ad on here right now that says "Barack Obama wants to BAN GUNS! Don't let him do it!"
I say, do let him do it. There are a boatload of guns out there getting bought up that shouldn't be legal to sell. Obama doesn't want to ban all guns and only a simpleton would believe that he does. Ads like this are just more right-wing, ultra-conservative rabble rousing.
Don't let yourself be roused. That's how you separate yourself from the rabble.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Stuff Worth Owning: Bear & Son Cutlery
Last summer I had the chance to visit my grandmother, whom I love very dearly. Gram is getting up there in years, closer to 100 than 80, I think. And yet even though she can't get around quite as well as she used to, she's still Grandma, and only getting to see her for a single afternoon would have been worth the trip.
We got to see her much more than just the once, of course. We even went to church with her, the first time I'd been to church with my grandmother since one late Christmas Eve service when I was about four years old. And I very much enjoyed that.
But to get to see Grandma means taking a flight. It could mean driving for two days, but we took the flight instead. Flying ain't cheap, but it has its upsides - avoiding two days of driving being chief among them. But there are other encumbrances that go along with flying.
You can't take your pocketknife with you. The TSA has their own idea of what is and isn't acceptable aboard a domestic flight from East Tennessee to Minnesota, two hotspots of insurgent violence to be sure, but they're also pretty intractable when you try to challenge them on their mission, and things can get ugly. So my pocketknife, keys, Leatherman multitool and even my nicer hat all had to stay behind. I had the very basic-est of possessions in my carry-on bag and as little metal as I could possibly have. And even so I wound having to pause while the agent waved his wand over me. Rivets on the jeans, forgot about those. Ah well.
Get to Minnesota, connect with my dad with whom we were staying (Gram has moved to an assisted-living apartment and has no room for guests), and kept feeling like I'd left something on the plane.
I hadn't, of course. But the feeling stuck with me until two days later when I finally decided my entire problem was the utter emptiness of my pockets.
Well. Can't have that. While visiting Gram, I popped downtown (this requires walking three blocks in Grandma's little town) to the local Hardware Hank store and bought a knife.
My computer's card reader isn't behaving, so I can't upload pictures of the knife, but let's go to the manufacturer.
We got to see her much more than just the once, of course. We even went to church with her, the first time I'd been to church with my grandmother since one late Christmas Eve service when I was about four years old. And I very much enjoyed that.
But to get to see Grandma means taking a flight. It could mean driving for two days, but we took the flight instead. Flying ain't cheap, but it has its upsides - avoiding two days of driving being chief among them. But there are other encumbrances that go along with flying.
You can't take your pocketknife with you. The TSA has their own idea of what is and isn't acceptable aboard a domestic flight from East Tennessee to Minnesota, two hotspots of insurgent violence to be sure, but they're also pretty intractable when you try to challenge them on their mission, and things can get ugly. So my pocketknife, keys, Leatherman multitool and even my nicer hat all had to stay behind. I had the very basic-est of possessions in my carry-on bag and as little metal as I could possibly have. And even so I wound having to pause while the agent waved his wand over me. Rivets on the jeans, forgot about those. Ah well.
Get to Minnesota, connect with my dad with whom we were staying (Gram has moved to an assisted-living apartment and has no room for guests), and kept feeling like I'd left something on the plane.
I hadn't, of course. But the feeling stuck with me until two days later when I finally decided my entire problem was the utter emptiness of my pockets.
Well. Can't have that. While visiting Gram, I popped downtown (this requires walking three blocks in Grandma's little town) to the local Hardware Hank store and bought a knife.
My computer's card reader isn't behaving, so I can't upload pictures of the knife, but let's go to the manufacturer.
That's the one.
This is the Bear and Son Cutlery Model 247R, the rosewood-handled "Large Stockman." And I like it. It's in the current catalog as the 47R, but it's the same knife.
It's actually a decently large pocketknife, 4" long and pleasantly heavy. I don't have especially large hands but some of those cute little Swiss Army pocketknives are just too small. You don't handle them as much as finger them; this knife you can hold and know you've got a decent grip on it. And with that in my pocket, I could relax.
I think part of the discomfort of having nothing in my pockets is that I'm a handyman. As a handyman, having no tools is like having a hand tied behind my back. Now, with a tool on hand, I was suddenly much more capable.
Straight out of the box, it was wicked sharp and even now, six months later, I haven't had to sharpen it. Bear & Son uses a high-carbon stainless steel, the higher carbon content makes it a harder steel that can be a bit of a pain to sharpen...but you don't need to sharpen it very often, so it's a wash. And it's still stainless enough that owning it isn't an exercise in rust prevention.
Now that I've had the knife for six months, I find myself making room in my pocket for it, even though I'm back home and have my Leatherman on my belt. It's not that much extra weight, most days if I don't need it I won't even remember it's there...but there are those rare occasions when you need an extra knife - or I have a helper who is using the Leatherman, and then I need a knife.
If I have any complaints, it's this: the spay blade is pretty darned stiff. Opening that out felt like I was going to fold my fingernails backwards, and it hasn't loosened up much. I don't do much animal spaying so getting that blade out is a deliberate act, a choice to work the blade against its resistance in the hope of having it available when needed.
That's it. Folding it back up, back onto the "pocket shelf," where all my pocket and belt gear waits until the morning loadout.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Update: Automatic Weapons and Legitimate Sporting Use
I had the opportunity to speak to an actual hunter last week and he told me that not only would you not likely get the chance to use a second bullet in your clip, let alone a third...
"'Cause if you miss him with the first shot, that buck is gone. Forget it, he's just gone."
...but if you're inspected by a game warden while out hunting, there are restrictions on exactly how many rounds you can have in a clip in your gun. And the limit isn't somewhere close to the 30-round capacity of an AR-15, it's more like five. FIVE.
And like my hunting acquaintance pointed out, it's really only the first one that you're likely to get to use.
"And if you're caught with that many rounds in the gun, the warden'll just take your gun. Confiscate it, slap with you a fine, and you deserve it. Those aren't armored-up deer out there, you don't need that many rounds in your gun."
I asked him about having an AR-15 for "home defense."
"Not useful. Rounds go right through walls, so if you miss you might hit your own family on the other side of the wall. If you're worried about home defense, a shotgun full of birdshot is better. Won't go through the walls. Of course, if I was really worried about home defense, I'd move."
And there you have it.
"'Cause if you miss him with the first shot, that buck is gone. Forget it, he's just gone."
...but if you're inspected by a game warden while out hunting, there are restrictions on exactly how many rounds you can have in a clip in your gun. And the limit isn't somewhere close to the 30-round capacity of an AR-15, it's more like five. FIVE.
And like my hunting acquaintance pointed out, it's really only the first one that you're likely to get to use.
"And if you're caught with that many rounds in the gun, the warden'll just take your gun. Confiscate it, slap with you a fine, and you deserve it. Those aren't armored-up deer out there, you don't need that many rounds in your gun."
I asked him about having an AR-15 for "home defense."
"Not useful. Rounds go right through walls, so if you miss you might hit your own family on the other side of the wall. If you're worried about home defense, a shotgun full of birdshot is better. Won't go through the walls. Of course, if I was really worried about home defense, I'd move."
And there you have it.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Not a Good Kid
It's become a thing in the news just lately, that a young girl in Steubenville, Ohio was raped in August 2012. Exactly how the circumstances came to be what they were, that she was apparently unconscious and in the company of some high school football players, is unknown to me. The word "party" has been uttered more than once, but in my experience the combination of the words "party" and "high school football" usually translates to "lots of unsupervised, underage drinking."
What happens next? Well, given no supervision and lots of adulation from fans, evidently high school football players figure they can do whatever they want. They raped the girl.
Several voices can be heard on the video. None of the voices express any concern for the girl's well-being, let alone her consent to any of what was going on; in fact one even jokes that in light of her unresponsiveness to the ongoing sexual assault, she must be dead.
They also briefly debate whether it could even be construed as rape, since they didn't know whether she would have "wanted it" or not. "Maybe that was her final wish."
Well, I can certainly understand where the young lady's father is coming from. He wants the attackers hanged. I think he has a point.
Those young men are old enough to make some smart choices with their lives. They've seen enough about crime on the TV and seen enough of those crime shows to know what is and isn't a crime. There has been too much glorification of taking when the taking can be done, of being "owed" or "deserving" access, privilege, superiority. But they aren't using what little wisdom they could have developed. Instead they are taking advantage of another person's incapacitation for their own wants and desires. Their victim's wants and desires? Not acknowledged, only mocked.
So why am I writing about this? Certainly there's enough outrage going around but let me drop a little more. One of the kids' names is Michael Nodianos, and his attorney Dennis McNamara has this to say about him: "Michael is a really good kid from a really good family who did a really dumb thing and regrets it,"
A RAPIST IS NOT A GOOD KID. A good kid would have recognized that the young lady was in harm's way and defended her. Nodianos didn't do that. He didn't even rise to the level of ambivalence; even mocking commentary in this instance cannot do anything but harm her psychologically. At best, ambivalence would have been to walk away, but that didn't happen either.
Other bad kids, even worse ones, include Trent Mays - accused rapist.
Malik Richmond, accused rapist.
As soon as I learn more names, I will post them here. No one should ever be permitted to get away with stuff like this. It's the worst sort of behavior, and I would hope that the parents are tearing their hair, wondering exactly what the hell they did wrong that their kids turned out to be such monsters.
I don't support the death penalty. But as a father, if it were my daughter in this situation, I would be murderously angry.
What happens next? Well, given no supervision and lots of adulation from fans, evidently high school football players figure they can do whatever they want. They raped the girl.
Several voices can be heard on the video. None of the voices express any concern for the girl's well-being, let alone her consent to any of what was going on; in fact one even jokes that in light of her unresponsiveness to the ongoing sexual assault, she must be dead.
They also briefly debate whether it could even be construed as rape, since they didn't know whether she would have "wanted it" or not. "Maybe that was her final wish."
Well, I can certainly understand where the young lady's father is coming from. He wants the attackers hanged. I think he has a point.
Those young men are old enough to make some smart choices with their lives. They've seen enough about crime on the TV and seen enough of those crime shows to know what is and isn't a crime. There has been too much glorification of taking when the taking can be done, of being "owed" or "deserving" access, privilege, superiority. But they aren't using what little wisdom they could have developed. Instead they are taking advantage of another person's incapacitation for their own wants and desires. Their victim's wants and desires? Not acknowledged, only mocked.
So why am I writing about this? Certainly there's enough outrage going around but let me drop a little more. One of the kids' names is Michael Nodianos, and his attorney Dennis McNamara has this to say about him: "Michael is a really good kid from a really good family who did a really dumb thing and regrets it,"
A RAPIST IS NOT A GOOD KID. A good kid would have recognized that the young lady was in harm's way and defended her. Nodianos didn't do that. He didn't even rise to the level of ambivalence; even mocking commentary in this instance cannot do anything but harm her psychologically. At best, ambivalence would have been to walk away, but that didn't happen either.
Other bad kids, even worse ones, include Trent Mays - accused rapist.
Malik Richmond, accused rapist.
As soon as I learn more names, I will post them here. No one should ever be permitted to get away with stuff like this. It's the worst sort of behavior, and I would hope that the parents are tearing their hair, wondering exactly what the hell they did wrong that their kids turned out to be such monsters.
I don't support the death penalty. But as a father, if it were my daughter in this situation, I would be murderously angry.
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