…You had best control it wisely! It is difficult, if not impossible, to keep up with the criminals when buying a gun. Although I do know where to get an unlicensed AR-15, I am not quite there yet. I tend to like dainty, girly
types of guns. Even our shotgun, a 19 gauge, is ladylike. A girl has to consider her clothes and accessories carefully.
What color of lipstick should I wear with an outfit? What pistol goes with what dress? I do have some vintage clothes, so perhaps I should wear our shotgun with those articles.
Anyway, I could go into any one of our gun stores here on the island and buy an AR-15, which, contrary to perception is not really an assault rifle. It was designed to look like a military rifle, but it is not. What a pity that Puerto Rican gun laws are so strict; Open Carry, a staple in Arizona, Arkansas and a few other lucky states, is not allowed here.
Culturally speaking, Puerto Rico reflects New York City. This is the same city that folks are leaving in droves. In NYC, one must be wealthy, a virgin, have negligible credit card balances and must prove that they never worked as a clown at a kid’s birthday party. I most likely made these qualifications up, but that was merely to illustrate how goofy their gun laws are.
Like New York, Puerto Rico punishes law-abiding people when it comes to the 2nd amendment. Until recently, It would have cost us in the neighborhood of $3000 to get a conceal carry license here. Recently the fee for conceal-carry has been reduced to $200, but why not bring it down further?
When we resided in a Philadelphia suburb, we got CC licenses for $25. I have news for the Puerto Rican government: Two hundred dollars is a lot of money for most wage-earners here. As a mother and a grandmother, I can report that $200 translates into groceries, not gun permits.
The former governor, Richardo Roselló, had a chance to lower the fee to $50, but it somehow slipped his mind. The bill was lying on his desk, he did not sign it. I believe he could not spare a minute from his pocket stuffing. Yes, this island is corrupt. What you may not realize is that the same corruption is embedded in the upper 48. The difference is that corrupt officials are more sophisticated in the states. They know how to cover their tracks. Occasionally, they do get caught, but generally speaking, they have ‘‘made bank,’’ a show biz term that the person has enough money. Money does equal freedom.
At times I wish that I had become a filthy politician instead of an RN. That seems to be where the real money and job security is these days. I wonder if there is a graduate course on how to be a dirty politician. I am betting that politicians need not fear for their protection, as it comes with the job.
No, our elected ‘‘Public Servants,” have no problems getting guns and bodyguards. They should not be considered servants of anything except their own interests. They have their guns and money; where does the average American get their guns? They can of course, but President Biden wants to confiscate all personal guns that Mr. John Q. Public owns.
I foresee lots of cold, dead hands. Americans are, by nature, happy-go-lucky. However, when something pisses them off, they morph into violent maniacs. Every time our European friends get into trouble, they call Uncle Sam on a private 911 line.
We should let the phone ring, or take it off the hook. Have you ever been to Paris, France? I have, several time. I speak a smattering of Quebecoise, which is astounding to the snooty Parisians. Like most nations in Western Europe, they have prohibitive gun laws. Only criminals in Europe have guns. Ditto for my favorite South American nation, Colombia. We toured the Bogota, Colombia police station situated by the main tourist area, and it was a very interesting tour, and did not cost a cent. Our guide, an affable young man named Carlos, told me “Only the criminals have guns here. “
Colombia has had a tumultuous span of violent crime, though it is fabulous place to visit. The US is also going through a period of violent crime, caused by egocentric, amateur Governors. Need I name them? High on the list would be Governor —-of New York, who is so oblivious to the reality that his political days are over. He had the audacity to publish a book, as his career ship was sinking.
On the west coast, California is losing its middle, and upper middle-class who are voting with their feet. Both New York and California have strict gun laws with rising crime rates and police dissatisfaction.
It is not a coincidence that the Blue states, harnessed to the notion of “Good for Me; Bad for Thee doctine, have restrictive gun laws. I wonder at times what our founders would have thought of letting disbelivers of the 2nd amendment. It is, our right to bear arms. Period.
Consider this: the 2nd amendment has nothing to do with protection of self, though it does come in handy for that requirement. It was designed primarily to get rid of an unsavory government; say one that is in league with bad boys like China.
Socialism is not an American ideal. Either is anti-Semitism, though with the Biden administration, this is increasing exponentially. When there is trouble, one must first blame the Jews. Think about that my Christian friends. First they come for the Jews; then they come for you. As far as I know, no Jews brought firearms into the concentration camp. That is why the state of Israel is so important to Jews worldwide. Judeo/Christian philosophy is the bedrock of our national soul. Yes, we went through turmoil; no, we are far from perfect; our past is not clean.
With warts and all; we continue to be the envy of the world.
Global citizens continue to flock to our shores in huge numbers, both legally and unfortunately, illegally. This experiment, called The United States of America, continues to lure a multitude of ethnicities, cultures, religious
groups.
But the founders used the teaching of and practice in Christianity to inform their choices. Yes, other religions are welcome to practice their beliefs in the US, but the bedrock of our nation as the founders saw it, was Christianity. Perhaps Christianity was the reason that our revolution did not echo that of the French bloodbath that was their revolution.
The M-16 was the army’s gun of choice in the Vietnam War. That was a war I remember, as I was one of the silly teenagers protesting and saying, “Hell no, we won’t go.” I confess that I was along for the ride. Why? It was fun for a young kid to protest against the war. There were very few hippies around Pittsburgh, Pa, when the explosive lid of the 60’s was blown off. Then, our scant group was in charge of meeting rock bands and getting protests started. It did not matter that there were less than twenty or thirty of us—we took our roles seriously.
I remember sitting next to Grace Slick after a Jefferson Airplane concert. She and I ate a peculiar hallucinogenic food, Woodrow seeds.
I recall that not one seed stirred the psychedelic pot for either Grace nor me. In any case, one could go to any college campus and buy real LSD, which is what we always did. Even uptight Carnegie Mellon University had dealers who were constantly working in Skibo Hall. So was I, although I was almost flunking out of my junior year of high school. In those days, the acid was Purple Haze, or vintage Osley. White Lightening is another product I remember. Once, I got a guy to drive me and my girlfriend from Shadyside in Pittsburgh, to our Northside home. This was at least a forty-five minute trek.
Once we got there, we were absolutely tripping our brains out. My mother, who had just bought a new jacket with a fur collar tried to get our opinions on it. She was one who could never make up her mind when shopping. Perhaps that is why I make my mind up so easily—if it makes me 10 pounds thinner and 10 years younger, I buy it no matter the cost.
My mother, a member of the Greatest Generation, was careful when it came to spending money. Here hesitancy stemmed from living in a household with nine other siblings and a father who was out of work in the Great Depression. That and WWII forged that generation.
So, she puts the jacket, fur and all on. She asked us our opinion on it. Sure enough, after dropping the Purple Haze, that collar was alive. It changed colors, it moved and at one point, purred like a cat. To test its viability, we touched it repeatedly with our hands. Only a ‘‘wow!’’ escaped our lips.
She did not get that anything was out of the ordinary. My father, had he been alive, would have sniffed out our behavior in a Pittsburgh minute. Of course, it is doubtful that I would have engaged in such tomfoolery to begin with if he were on the scene. Although he did not have a high school diploma, he was a soldier in WWII, and so had a built-in danger sniffer. He also had a sharpened bullshit detector. I inherited that from him.
I knew that a high school diploma was needed to get any type of job. So, I ended my senior year with straight A’s. Today, not even a college degree helps in the job market. It only helps if you are in a program like Nursing, that has built-in job security. Decades ago, college was such a rarity for middle-class Americans that a degree in basket-weaving could put you ahead of the mob.
My first degree was in History, not exactly a job getter. But, looking at what is going on in the Upper 48 now, I see it repeating itself, as history always does. One of my favorite professors, Dr. Ted Stetler, taught us that when a society has had enough of an overbearing government, it simply vomits said government up. Many of my friends now report almost daily nausea.
From my position of born-again Republican, I am wondering where the former Democratic Party goes. In my youth, all of our parents belonged. Now that it is the party of Socialism an Anti-Semitism, I suppose we ought to bring back the Whig Party. That was formed to antagonize President Andrew Jackson. The Whig’s contention was that “King Andrew “had shred the founding principles of the United States, and had accumulated too much power.
Now the reins of power are held by the New Democratic Socialist Party. I believe that their adherence to BLM, Antifa and Anti-Semitism will be their death knell. They are simply to radicalized for the average Mr. John Q of America and family.
Now, I believe that it was the Left, including the teenage me, who lost that war. In those days, the Domino Theory of Communism was in style. Simply put, it just meant that when one nation succumbed to Communism, a neighboring country would also be at risk.