Beagles

I was walking home from the supermarket earlier, lugging a couple of bags of stuff, when .I saw a woman walking a pair of beagles, so I ran over and said hello. One of the beagles, who was mostly white, jumped up and licked my hand. I petted the other beagle, a tricolor like my old friend Rex. The woman told me that the more active beagle was a friend's. They were both female; the tricolor was an elderly nine years old, and the mostly white was still energetic at five.

I mentioned having had a beagle as my best friend growing up. The white beagle jumped around and pulled at her leash, but wouldn't stay still long enough to be petted. The tricolor let me pet her, but didn't seem all that interested in me; Rex also seemed to lose interest in making new friends once he became elderly. So the encounter was not ideal, but I did get to meet a couple of pretty nice beagles.

Gun Rights

Understandably, people are reacting to the mass shooting in Las Vegas by saying that it's time to take action in gun control. Ban or seriously limit bump stocks, ban "assault weapons", close loopholes, demand more background checks, something. It is understandable, but I still don't agree. For one thing, the Las Vegas killer had no major criminal record, and was not obviously crazy, up until the point at which he murdered fifty-nine people and injured hundreds of others. For another, we simply cannot get rid of all of the guns in America; we can at best have partial success, and that means having the greatest degree of success with those most willing to lay down their arms, who are probably not those most likely to use firearms for criminal purposes. For a third point, we we should not overlook the value of weapons for resisting tyrannical government and KKK violence. My progressive friends, consider that it may be true even if people with whom you are not inclined to agree say that it's true.

Also, remember that Timothy McVeigh did not need firearms to murder people, and neither did the September Eleventh hijackers or the Aum Shinri Kyo cult in Japan. If I took it into my head to do something likely to kill at least fifty-nine people, I would not need to acquire a revolver, let alone an automatic weapon, and neither would plenty of other people with scientific knowledge or technical training.