If I Died Tonight

If I died tonight would any of my so-called friends, those social justice warriors, mourn me.  If my death were at the hands of some disenfranchised immigrant who shouted to some god in a foreign tongue whilst also quoting some utterly inane verses steeped in hatred and bigotry.

If I died tonight for nothing more than being a shield, a warrior, a defender of the Republic, would those same criers for justice laud me as a hero if my death were the result of someone of a “protected” class.

If I died tonight would any other than my family (blood and blue alike) even care to know me, care to embrace any legacy I might leave, care to feel for my now fatherless children.

If I died tonight would you suspend your agenda long enough to see that my death means at least as much as, but likely far more than, the life of one who died in the commission of a crime or while involved in some shady business you like to pretend does not exist.

If I died tonight I know my brothers and sisters would remember me as the man they know me to be.

If I died tonight I would not have died in vain.

But if the enemy comes to take me, he best bring many tried and true allies for I will not go without a fight, and until my last breath I promise to take as many of them with me as my hands can reach with whatever weapon i can grasp.

For death is not the greatest thing I fear; rather it has become the lack of living with purpose that is the greatest fear I have.  My life is filled with purpose these days, and no man can remove that from me, nor can he shift it from my sight.

God bless, warriors, keepers of the thin blue line.

Nightmares and Fears

Have you ever had a really strange dream that woke you and then stayed with you all day?

I’m sure some of you have.  It’s a weird thing, I suppose, but not anything so very out of the ordinary.  Yet for those in my line of work, some dreams are telling regarding what fears we suppress.  I guess dreams are telling for everyone else in this regard, but when part of your job is the constant possibility of using deadly force in the course of your duties those dreams can have a really telling and potentially chilling effect on the dreamer.

I awoke in the early morning hours of November 11, 2015, having had one such dream.  Or perhaps it was a strange series of dreams that morphed into the one which awoke me.  And of course it involved the use of deadly force, but it was not in the performance of police duties.  It was simply to stop some who were in the act of killing others.  But it was so very real and surreal.  It embodied several fears that have affected me in many different ways throughout my career.  And these fears don’t necessarily affect in a negative way.

Taking the life of any person is not something I relish.  I have a distinct understanding of my duties and my commitment to them is unwavering.  That said, I am in no rush to take the life of anyone.  However, I am ready and willing to use whatever force necessary to prevent anyone from causing such harm to me, my brothers, or anyone else in the public that might severely injure or kill.  I have trained for this my entire career and have known the righteous warrior within me for much of my adult life.  But such knowledge and training does not negate my humanity.

Public safety is one of those professions that exposes its workers to all manner of injury, mayhem, and death.  We do get to see the worst in people and the worst of humanity.  We get to see the ugly side of the world in which we all live, though many refuse to accept as reality.  And that, I suppose, is a good thing.  Good in that those willing and able to work to keep such abject Evil at bay do so on a regular basis.  But we still remain human.  We still are affected.  We still must face the demons we daily push into our subconscious.

Sometimes those demons come to us in nightmares.  I’m pretty sure every cop has had the really messed up dream in which the service weapon would not fire.  Or it fired and the round just sort of fell out of the gun, useless.  Or every pull of the trigger was a simple click on a dead primer.  Or the trigger would not pull to the rear.  Or all of the above and then some.  And sometimes we dream of the instances our guns work just fine, but it is the situation we must use them that is the disturbing part of the dream.

Children always have gotten me in my work.  I do not like visiting pain on children.  I do not relish being a part of the pain any child must bear.  And I have prayed I would not ever have to use deadly force on a child, any child, for any reason.  So of course I had a nightmare about children in deadly force encounters.  Of course.

There were a few dreams that morphed into one another.  But the one that got me and awoke me was a doozy.  I won’t get into the vivid details (and if you’ve read any of my fiction you are well aware I can be quite vivid in my description of violence, gun or otherwise), but I will give a little info on the overall feel.  Active shooter type situation.  People being shot at random.  No law enforcement yet on scene.  I am there off duty.  Hunkered down and hiding a few unknown children behind me.  Of course my pistol is in hand and I am sighting in on one of the two shooters.  I am preparing to take quick and speedy action to stop the killing.

But the shooters are a husband and wife team and they have their two children in front of them.  They are crouched behind their children using them as shields.  Head shots.  Both of them down.  Then the two children pick up the guns to start shooting again.  Of course I am left with but one choice.  Remember, I dream vivid details.  It’s not pretty, but I do my duty.  I stop their killing.

And I wake up nearly in tears.  Yeah, we’re all cold, heartless creatures I suppose.  I mean, who dreams about shooting parents and their kids?  Nobody but us cops, right?

God bless, warriors.

Guns, Murder, and The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy

“Even if one is inclined to think that gun availability is an important factor, the available international data cannot be squared with the mantra that more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death. Rather, if firearms availability does matter, the data consistently show that the way it matters is that more guns equal less violent crime.” -DON B. KATES AND GARY MAUSER

While doing some research for a piece of non-fiction I’m currently working on, I came across a recently published article that led me to another article published in 2007 in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. The Harvard Journal article was titled “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence.”

As I began skimming through the article I took note of some fairly juicy material, juicy and scholarly material. After the brief skim I went back through the article and read more carefully, and even more nuggets became apparent. I then went back to the beginning of the article and started to copy notes, specific quotes, from the article to refer to as I worked on my own writing. And I also thought about how the findings of the authors of this article were buried then and even seem to have remained buried by the anti-handgun advocates still pushing for additional gun control (bad) at the least, and even hinting at the necessity for a total gun ban (worst) at the greatest.

Whether for or against civilian gun ownership many, if not most, Americans know little about any true empirical data correlating gun ownership to actual violent crime in this or any other country. Most of us rely on information relayed to us by those members of society we elect (choose) to trust. Many of those we elect (vote) into higher office in the belief they have our best interest at heart. Yet there are many of us (true independents) who choose not to rely on rhetoric from either side of any imaginary dividing line as prescribed by an aisle cutting through the middle of our beloved Congress.

I firmly believe there are those in the know who would rather push an agenda than have the masses in toto glean any true understanding of that agenda. Data is data, without prejudice or leanings. And the gathering of data in any one area leads indubitably to the necessity of gathering even more data. This particular article is no different. The authors, two notable criminologists, lay out not only the information gathered from the U.S. but also from other developed countries. And that information is compared so as to be easily understood by any who would choose to see it for what it is.

I could state a multitude of facts that would dispel the myriad false narratives pushed by anti-gun hacks who post so many anti-gun memes all over social media. Yet the memes themselves are based on patently untrue statements. Much of the information put out by left-leaning politicos, those celebrities who have taken up the mantle to fight for the rights of all to live in a gun-free society, and the common man who wants to help deliver peace to his fellow man by removing the greatest perceived threat out there (guns!), all of that information is based upon erroneous assumptions at best and outright lies at worst.

I would implore any who have an opinion on the issue to read the article. And if you have already read it and base your opinion on such true data, than I say kudos to you. You are well ahead of the game.

Stay frosty, sheepdogs. And watch that six!