What You Must Do to Opt-Out of Texas' New Open Carry Handgun Law

by Nomad

Not everybody in Texas is overjoyed about the idea of the open carry gun laws that came into effect on 1 January. There's a way to opt-out but the rules are very specific.  

Since the start of the year, Texas' new open carry handgun law has been in effect. From now on, people with proper registration can openly carry their firearms. In the past, the law required firearms be concealed.

There are, we are told, an astounding 12.8 registered firearms per 1,000 residents.The last time people of the Lone Star state were allowed such open carry privileges was 140 years ago- back in the good old Wild West days when rootin' tootin' cowboys engaged in shootouts in public streets.

When it comes to such laws, Texas is not alone. It's actually the 45th state to allow open carry in some form. (Shockingly, thirty states do not require the carrier to have a license.)
In terms of sheer population, Texas (population roughly 27 million) is the most populous in the nation now allowing for open carry. 

The new law allows nearly 1 million gun-licensed Texans to publicly display their holstered handguns, as long as they have a permit and they have passed a safety course.
One website for the national gun safety course says, "It doesn’t hurt to learn the basics." True that. It hurts less than, say, accidentally shooting yourself in the eye.

In Memory of David Bowie

by Nomad

"God Told Me So": The Dangerous Delusions of the Religious Republican

by Nomad

It's strange that the typical conservative voter would reject in a courtroom the very thing they openly support in their presidential candidates.

Last week, as reported by local media,  the courts in Cobbs County, Georgia  heard defense of an 18-year-old woman Olivia Nicole Smith. She is accused of the horrific stabbing murder her step-cousin, 17-year-old high school Abbey Hebert. 

According to her testimony, Smith claimed to neighbors, right after the murder, that God had made her do it after she and her cousin smoked marijuana together. She explained that she had "an overwhelming feeling of God coming to her: and that God had disapproved of her behavior.
In response to this imagined judgment, the young woman had an argument with her relative. That argument somehow ended in a butcher knife of murder in the victim's front yard. Prior to this, both victim and accused murderer had been close friends.

The public was justifiably outraged by the sensational crime.   

Of course, it wouldn't be the first time that God (or Satan) has been the alleged accomplice/mastermind of some otherwise inexplicable crime. In fact, it's a pretty common thing.

Astoundingly, in the very same county in Georgia, back in 2008, then 36-year-old Donna Marie Redding told the police that her husband, Gary Dean Parnell, taken the Lord’s name in vain once too many times. 

(For those of you keeping score, that's Commandment Number 3 - taking God's name in vain- while the prohibition on murder is Commandment Number 6.)

Redding's religious sensibilities were utterly offended by all this loose talk, she claimed, and for this reason, Jesus commanded her to shoot her man with a 12-gauge shotgun in the stomach.

The Vitally Important Lessons that Syrian Refugees Have to Teach America

by Nomad

A recent article from Detroit reminds us that Syrian refugees have something important to teach all of us about where we came from, who we now are and what we will become.

The arrests of two Iraqi refugees on charges of providing material support to ISIS this week has provided new impetus for governors to attempt to block Syrian refugee efforts. Their crusade, which runs counter to their actual authority, has naturally met with some serious stumbling-blocks.
Those obstacles are unlikely to force them to stop. For  some time now we have all watched as Republicans seized upon the Syrian refugees as a political issue, stoking as much as possible public fears. 

One state, Michigan, has taken in about 200 Syrian refugees, one of the highest of all states in the U.S. In November, after the Paris attacks, Governor Snyder -like many governors- demanded a halt to accepting any further Syrian refugees. 

Snyder cited security concerns and the possibility of terrorist infiltration. Never mind that there were already rigorous checks and screenings. Never mind that in the Paris attacks, only one of the 13 terrorists was born outside of France and Abdelhamid Abaaoud was born in Belgium, not in the Middle East, and definitely not in Syria.

Facts, facts, facts, what untidy things they are.

Meanwhile we have armed militias dressed up as soldiers seizing federal property in Oregon and advocating rising up" against the tyranny of the federal government. Nobody on the Right, as far as I know, has suggested deportation for these louts.

Fake Life Savers: Turkish Police Raid Reveals the Extent of Exploitation of Syrian Refugees

by Nomad

The news out of Turkey about the refugees attempting to make the treacherous crossing into Europe just keeps getting worse. We can now add yet another danger: counterfeit lifejackets.

Police in Turkey's third largest city of Izmir raided an underground workshop this week,  seizing large numbers of unsafe lifejackets. The cut-rate jackets to be sold to refugees crossing the dangerous straits between Turkey and Greece.

According to the local reports  (linked below), the more than 1000 life jackets failed to meet recognized safety standards, and were filled with "packaging" rather than the proper materials needed to maintain proper bouyancy.

The workshop was found to be operating in the heart of the city. As if that were not bad enough, authorities also found that the workshop had employed unaged Syrian workers to help in the manufacture.

The news report noted that four people were found working in the workshop, including two young Syrian girls. Refugees are not permitted to work legally in the country where the unemployment rate among Turkish citizens is already high.