New Year’s Eve Dinner

We stayed home for New Year’s Eve this year. Avoided the crowds, the drunk drivers and the police sobriety checkpoints. Besides, the big screen provides a better view of the NYC fireworks than camping in Times Square would, LOL.

I made grilled chicken for dinner tonight. I have the usual pictures also, but I wanted to give a couple of tips for any charcoal grilling newcomers.

First is a piece of equipment that I consider essential. I was and still am one of those people who couldn’t get a traditional charcoal fire going to save my life. Then I discovered this:

It’s called a charcoal chimney. Stuff the bottom section with newspaper, junk mail sales ads or similar paper (crumpled up) then flip it over and fill the top portion with charcoal. Put the chimney on the lower rack for charcoal in your grill and light the paper. 15 minutes later you’ve got perfect coals for cooking over. Empty the chimney’s coals onto the rack, put the grilling rack on the grill and you’re ready to go. This thing really is flawless. You also avoid the need for any lighter fluid and the nasty aftertaste that it can add to food.

Here’s the end result there by the way:

Yes, it was dark out when I started. It gets dark crazy early here this time of year. The glowing charcoal at night made for a neat picture though. 🙂

Now the next thing I want to mention is how to avoid flare ups on a charcoal grill. Flare ups happen when fat melts from the heat and drips down onto the charcoal. The way around that is indirect heat. You arrange the coals along two sides:

And then put your food along the middle so that it’s not directly above the hot charcoal:

yeah, my iPhone’s flash finally decided to work, LOL.

Yes, the food is a bit too close together. Ideally you want it spaced out a little more so that it gets more uniform heat all around the individual pieces of food. By the way, indirect heat has two other advantages; you lose a bit less moisture, and it’s slower than direct heat. That gives you time to finish that side dish that’s taking longer than you thought, LOL.

So back to the chicken. It all got my usual Salt Pepper and Garlic treatment, then half got some lemon pepper seasoning and the other half got some chipotle pepper seasoning.

After grilling, add in some Au Gratten potatoes and steamed veggies and you have a nice relaxing meal at home to enjoy:

Peppermint Bark Chocolate Brownies

I’m overdue for a food post here, largely becuase my iPhone has decided it doesn’t want to download pictures anymore. >_<

I have a special holiday treat today; peppermint bark brownies. The original, make it from scratch recipe is courtesy of San Francisco’s famous Ghirardelli chocolate company. Occasionally some good comes out of S.F. lol.

Unfortunately for those outside the U.S, everything is in our measurements, so you’ll have to do conversions. If you’re interested in using authentic Ghirardelli peppermint bark, you’ll have to order fast. It disappears at Christmas and won’t be back until after Thanksgiving. Whatever you do, make sure you use high quality peppermint bark here. I tried substituting Costco’s store brand one year and took the tub back for a refund it tasted so bad. Quality ingredients are probably the biggest unspoken “secret” to good cooking or baking.

So, here’s the “from scratch” version:

Ingredients:
1 ¹/₂ cups Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips
1 ¹/₂ sticks unsalted butter (12 tablespoons)
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¹/₄ teaspoon salt
¹/₂ cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
¹/₂ teaspoon baking powder
8 Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark SQUARES™ chocolates, chopped into large chunks (for the brownies)
18 Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark SQUARES™ chocolates, broken in to large chunks (about 8 pieces per square) (for the finishing)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. n

Line a 9 x 13 inch baking pan with foil and grease with pan spray.
In a medium saucepan, bring 2 inches of water to a gentle simmer. Put the 60% chips and butter in a heatproof bowl and set it over (but not touching) the simmering water.

Stir the mixture with a rubber spatula until the better is melted and both ingredients are completely combined. Turn off the heat and leave the bowl over the warm water.

Sift together the flour and baking powder and set aside. In a large bowl whisk together eggs, salt, sugar and vanilla. Add the egg mixture to the chocolate mixture and whisk together gently. With a spatula, fold in the flour.

Immediately pour ½ the mixture into the prepared baking pan and spread it evenly. Next, sprinkle the chopped peppermint bark over the batter and then pour the remaining batter over this. Spread evenly.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. The center should be fudgy but not dry. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes.

Place Peppermint Bark chunks on top of warm brownies and allow them to soften for 1 minute. Using a spatula, gently swirl the melting Peppermint Bark to create swirls of melted chocolate. Refrigerate for 1 hour. Trim the 4 edges of the brownies by 1/4 inch. And cut into 18 squares.

SILK’S EASY SHORT CUT VERSION:

There’s one big shortcut to making these brownies and a few tweaks to make them turn out even better.

The Shortcut: Instead of manually making the brownies from scratch, use Ghirardelli (and only Ghirardelli) brownie mix. The version I think works best is the Triple Chocolate Brownie mix and that’s the one I used this year. Follow cooking directions / time on box.

Substitutions: The brownie mix will tell you to use water and vegetable oil. Instead of vegetable oil, use an equal amount of butter (1/3 a cup). Instead of water, use milk. I use just a little more than the 1/3 a cup that the box calls for; right in the middle of the 1/3 and ½ a cup marks on the measuring cup. That way they stay moist but don’t turn to goo.

Tricks: There are three tricks I’ve discovered with making these. First is to add a half teaspoon of Peppermint Extract to the brownie mix. This adds a bit more peppermint flavor to the brownies without overpowering the chocolate. Make sure to mix everything thoroughly if you go this route so that the peppermint flavor gets evenly distributed into the mix.

Second is a prep trick that makes clean up easier. When breaking up the Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark squares, I use a blender or food processor. To make clean up of the blender / food processor easier, I freeze the squares in the freezer overnight. The pieces will break more cleanly and not start to melt in the food processor. This will let you almost just rinse the processor clean.

Third: I place the Peppermint Bark on top of the Brownies 2 or 3 minutes before they’re ready to come out of the over (when a toothpick will come out of them almost completely clean). They’ll melt into an even topping better that way.

Proof: Squirrels are EVIL!!!

Updated; got a YouTube video link so the video will play here.

There we go… The video finally made it to YouTube

Grilled Chicken Garden Salad

I need a lighter post, and I’ve neglected my fellow foodies lately. That being the case, I thought it was also time I showed I can do more than BBQ and do eat healthy (occasionally, lol)

What I did the other day was grill some boneless skinless chicken breast fillets on the charcoal grill

Two were seasoned with lemon pepper seasoning and two were seasoned with chipotle pepper seasoning, which allowed me to customize both our salads a bit. 🙂

From there, it was a simple matter of combining all the veggies, shredded cheese, sunflower seeds, etc… into a salad.

I double layer everything so that the salad is pre-mixed without actually tossing it in large bowl. The final result is a pretty big salad, but that was the main course for dinner

Serve with fresh french bread on the side and viola, a meal. 😀

The Great Star Wars Conspiracy

Want to know the rarely discussed conspiracy theory around one of the greatest movie franchises in history? The one only a few old time fans discuss? No, it’s not that Jar Jar Binks was secretly a Sith Lord and helped Palpatine engineer the clone wars (that one IS on YouTube). LOL

It’s that George Lucas didn’t actually write Star Wars at all!

The theory or story is that George Lucas was approached by an unknown third party with the manuscripts for (at least) the original trilogy. Lucas liked what he saw, bought the story outright from this mystery author, and went on to make a fortune from the manuscripts while leaving our poor unknown author to fade away in obscurity.

I’m going to take a rational look at this theory and it’s evidence here.

First, there’s the original 1976 copies of the books for Star Wars (A New Hope). All the early printings had a note on them that said either “Based on the Adventures of Luke Skywalker” OR “From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker”.

I owned a copy similar to this one LONG ago.

What IS known and admitted to is that Alan Dean Foster ghost wrote the novels for the original trilogy for Lucas. Part of his reward for that was being able to author “Splinter of the Mind’s Eye”, which was the only other Star Wars novel for ages.

Great book also.

The naming inconsistency between the New Hope film and novel is something that points towards Lucas and Foster working with an outside manuscript. Even in 1976, the movie was “Episode 4: A New Hope”, but the book (which actually was released shortly before the film) was not. Lucas otherwise kept VERY tight creative control and branding over the franchise for decades, but couldn’t keep his branding consistent at the start?

Lucas not writing the original manuscripts would also explain some of the inconsistencies with canon between the original films and the prequels. The biggest of which is how “the Force” is defined. In the original trilogy, the Force is described in terms that are nearly identical to the concept of chi / qi / ki / prana in Eastern cultures; “…an energy force created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us and binds the galaxy together.” Jedi seem to be equal parts Zen Buddhist warrior and Taoist chi wizard.

The other big indicator of a different author’s mindset is the infamous “Han shot first” drama over Lucas adding in an attempted shot by Greedo before Han kills him in the Mos Eisley cantina. That’s a BIG change in mindset by an author OR it never was Lucas’s belief system to begin with. The original author understood that when a known killer is holding a gun on you and says he’s marching you out of the building to kill you, it’s a reasonable use of lethal force in self defense to shoot them before they can shoot you.

Lucas gets typical West Coast far, far left wishy-washy on self defense and adds Greedo shooting first. Worse, he turns the Jedi into monastic unfeeling robots. The teaching of every Eastern philosophy that the Jedi were remotely based on is NOT that emotions are to be completely eliminated, it’s that they’re to be controlled. Unlike Catholic monks, the monks of most Eastern religions and philosophies are permitted to marry also. Part of my dislike of the prequels is in fact that Lucas’s ideas of the Jedi come across as the badly bastardized and distorted idea of Buddhism that exists among the new agey white folks on the West Coast looking only to virtue signal and pretend to be more enlightened than those around them.

The force… Reduced to a virus, or more accurately some microscopic symbiotic parasite. That from a energy source created by and surrounding all living things. The former is as unspiritual and illogical as you can get while the other reflects at least a casual understanding of martial arts or Eastern philosophy. It’s just FAR too big a change in view to make it likely that they both came from the same author.

We can also look at some of the things that were leaked EARLY on also. For example, it was known / leaked shortly after “The Empire Strikes Back” and Vader was first seen without his helmet that he needed his armor because he was disfigured in a duel with Obi-Wan at a volcanic site. Yet it took almost 30 years to see this come to life on the big screen. Either Lucas was planning far, far, far in advance OR he had a manuscript he was working from.

The tipping point for me came when a friend of mine actually talked to Alan Dean Foster. My friend said that Foster was cagey about outright confirming that Lucas was working with somebody else’s earlier work. He did confirm some of what’s known elsewhere though, such as Luke’s original last name was going to be Starkiller (hence the tribute name of the character in the game “The Force Unleashed”). Foster also said that (quoting my friend here) “alot of Lucas’s visions were borrowed”.

MY conclusions from all of this: Lucas VERY likely did buy the manuscripts from a third party. Lucas and Foster probably spent a great deal of time fine tuning the manuscript into a workable trilogy. A New Hope probably got the least amount of modification from the original as Lucas worked on getting it to the big screen. The other two likely got a little more.

So, do we go out and burn Lucas at the stake for profiteering off of somebody else’s work? Nope. We have no way of knowing exactly how close the movies are to a theoretical original manuscript. As somebody who has followed the franchise since it’s inception, I can also say unequivocally that the movies wouldn’t have succeeded without all the other work that Lucas put into it. Just about EVERY special effects technique used in film for 30 years following the original trilogy has it’s roots in Star Wars. Blue screen (later green screen) being one of the biggest example. It also takes connections and resources to bring a book or books all the way to a blockbuster film franchise. This alleged other writer doubtless didn’t have them and Lucas did. For all we know, this mystery author (maybe Foster himself) is also getting quiet royalty checks to this day from Lucas.

As an author and fan however, I *do* wish Lucas would have been more true to the original vision of the franchise.

Star Wars History and Story Ideas…

My mind tends to wander a mile a minute when I’m doing mindless labor like packing and painting. Now despite the fact I should be working on my Witchfire series and the other writing that I’ve mentioned in the past, I find my thoughts drifting towards a few Star Wars ideas I mentioned far ago.

So my story ideas circle around a character of mine from the game Star Wars: The Old Republic. I realize most of you won’t be familiar with the game, so a quick bit of background. It’s a game set in the Star Wars Universe, but about a thousand years before the movies.

Side Note: At the time the game was released in 2011, it’s content was at least more or less canon. Since Disney has taken over an turned things on it’s head, I have NO idea if that’s still true. Their pattern SEEMS to be if they license it, it’s canon. If not, or it’s before their time, it isn’t. Bioware still has license, soooo…

The technology level is about the same as the movies. Apparently technology can only advance so far when you’ve hit that level. The Empire and the Republic both exist side by side and in conflict with each other. The Empire has many more Sith dark side force users than the movie however.

There’s some background to that also. Sometime between the game and the movies, the Sith got into a massive internal struggle and they all but obliterated themselves. The strongest survivor (by far) was a Sith named Darth Bane who created the “Law of Two” which says there’s only ever two Sith Lords; a master and an apprentice. Bane deemed legions of Sith to be a threat to themselves even more than the universe. But at the time of the game, there are still several Sith, all jockeying for power within the Empire.

Enter my character; Adoxia:

As a quick note, the bone color looking things on her face are actually jewelry.

She’s a pureblood Sith. What’s that you ask? The Sith were originally a red skinned humanoid race that were strong with the dark side of the force. They were largely untrained though and quickly conquered by the first fallen Jedi. From the combined teachings of the Pureblood Sith, and the fallen Jedi, the Sith Order arose. The pureblood SIth were quickly becoming an endangered species at the time the game was set. Interbreeding with human SIth and steady warfare had greatly reduced their numbers.

Adoxia goes through all the standard Sith trials and then fights her way through all the traps and politics of the Empire to become a Sith Lord. She tires of all the bloodshed though and also realizes as her adventures progress that the humans on the dark council are going out of their way to feed the Purebloods to the wolves and solidify their own power. Not too hard a task either since the Purebloods were the elites of the Empire for centuries and have the hubris to show for it.

Adoxia defects to the Republic and tries to train as a Jedi. While extremely capable, she has has an extremely hard time going from the passionate philosophy of the Sith to the emotionally dead ideology of the Jedi. This was 2011, so the revamped ideas of the Jedi as suppressing all emotion and connections that the prequel movies put out was already in full force canon-wise. Yes that was a deliberate pun also.

Philosophical discussions with a few other players who were dissatisfied with that new canon, AND the mean spirited power gaming on the Empire side and the lackluster play on the Republic side led to me (or rather Adoxia) creating the Order of the Grey.

Yes, God help me *I* may be partially responsible for the wishy washy grey, morally ambiguous force users that Disney is now trying to push on us.

MY Order of the Grey was a spin on the existing Revanite philosophy in the game though, and more accurately based on a true interpretation of Buddhism’s teachings regarding emotion. The original Jedi concept, as I mentioned, was based loosely on Buddhist teachings. Proof Lucas didn’t actually write the original trilogy, but that’s another post.

So, the Order of the Grey taught that emotions were part of life and not to be blocked out. They were to be kept in check and balanced by reason and logic. Properly focused positive emotions were particularly good so long as they didn’t reach the level of unhealthy attachment. There’s also a right and wrong to the universe, and Order of the Grey members were encouraged to pursue morally correct action along the lines of the Jedi. There was enough of a Sith influence to allow for a bit more extreme options than a Jedi might like though. Jedi were always supposed to try to find peaceful options, and take prisoners alive for example. The Grey might just put down a mad dog attacker.

Long explanations aside; my story ideas (kinky and not) were for stories continuing Adoxia’s adventures. Perhaps in her time, perhaps in the time of the movies. One previous Star Wars book has already established that a hyperdrive malfunction can result in time travel…

Would Adoxia be good, would she be bad? Still undecided there. I can see all kinds of scenarios though.

BBQ Time Again! Beef Tri-Tip!!!

In between all the chores, I did find time Monday to apply my tasty slow cooking techniques to some beef Tri-Tip from Costco. It’s just taken a couple days to get to blogging about it.

Half the time, I’ll use my dual grill method and slow smoke until the meat hits an internal temperature of 100 degrees, then put it on a hot charcoal grill to put a nice sear on the meat and get the IT to 135 degrees. This time, I didn’t feel like fussing with two grills. I slow smoked at 180 degrees for a little over an hour to get the meat to 100 degrees, then I just cranked up the heat on the pellet smoker. So, no grill marks, but it did turn out very tasty:

Perfect medium rare with great smoke flavor

And for those who are curious… Yes, just basic salt, pepper and garlic for a rub. That’s almost all I ever use. Good meat doesn’t need sugar and other fluff. 🙂

Leftovers…

Tonight, It was time to finish off the spare ribs from last week. Luckily smoked meat keeps longer than with regular cooking. 🙂

Even a week later, I’d pit my ribs against any local restaurant’s.

Th curlie fries are left over from a burger joint last night. 🙂

Slow Smoked St Louis Style BBQ Pork Ribs

It’s FINALLY time! Yep, the pictures are downloaded and I finally have time to tell the tale. Easily offended vegetarians, vegans, kosher and halal eaters may want to leave now. 😀

That said, here’s the run down on the BBQ a couple of days ago. St Louis style BBQ ribs were the main course.

For anyone who doesn’t know the difference, St Louis style spare ribs (keeping it simple) are from the thicker belly ribs on the pig. Baby Baby back ribs (a.k.a. loin ribs, back ribs, or Canadian back ribs) are taken from the top of the rib cage between the spine and the spare ribs, below the loin muscle. St Louis ribs are flatter, have a slightly higher fat content (which can make for good flavor), and brown more evenly. Baby Backs do come from adult pigs, and some people think they’re more tender. It’s more about how either is cooked though.

The same can be said with the meat content for either rib. St. Louis style come from the belly, so the thicker the meat on the ribs, the less bacon and pork belly you get from the pig. It all depends upon how both pieces of meat are cut and trimmed. I look for packages with nice thick ribs. 🙂

THAT is the bone side of the ribs. You want to cook the ribs with that side facing the heat to avoid drying out the meat. That layer of white across 2/3 of it is called silver skin (at least it is in cooking circles here). It’s a connective membrane that helps keep meat together and connect fatty tissue to meat. Now if the silver skin is thin, you can ignore it and let the cooking weaken it. THIS is really borderline, and I probably should have skinned it off. If it’s thicker or especially if you’re doing a competition, you want all silver skin gone. It can not only be tough, but it also blocks flavor from smoke or seasoning from getting through.

Now this is the other side. Almost all the meat on St Louis ribs are on this side or between the ribs. This side rarely has any silver skin, BUT…

That’s a perfect example of way too thick silver skin. I had to get my trusty Cutco fileting knife and cut that out. It would have been like having a piece of rubber in the ribs otherwise.

There was a little left further under that fold of fat and meat to the right but it was thinner and I didn’t want to cut away half the meat to chase, so I left it.

After that, it was time for the rub:

There’s BBQ folks that put 20 different seasonings in secret combinations to create a fancy rub. Almost all of them have brown or white sugar also. I believe in keeping it simple. Just like with my last few food posts, it was salt, pepper and garlic, then some of Costco’s mesquite flavoring.

With my family’s roots in Texas, I’m not big on sugar in cooking (baking is another story, hehe). Never mind it’s unhealthy, and hidden in everything we eat too. Even my BBQ sauce recipe (four generations old at this point) is only tomato, water, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, onion, salt, pepper, lemon juice and a little Tabasco. Tangy and savory without being sickeningly sweet like the bottled stuff at the grocery stores.

Once all three racks of ribs were done, into the smoker they went:

Yep, it’s a big smoker, but we wanted one that would let us entertain.

Now in competition, the big thing with smoking ribs anymore is the “3-2-1” method. You start out low and slow for 3 hours, misting the ribs as you go, then at the 3 hour mark, you pull them, put them in a ‘boat’ of aluminum foil, add some apple cider, seal it up and throw the ribs back on for 2 hours. This lets them steam in the apple cider. Pork and apple are a good pairing, so if you want to do sweet, that’s a good option. This also supposedly keeps the ribs from drying out due to the prolonged cook. Then the last hour, you pull them back out of the foil and cook them “naked” again to finish cooking and hopefully put a little bark on the ribs.

Me… I have to be different, LOL

Here’s what I don’t like about the 3-2-1 method. First, the few times I tried it, I tasted more apple than pork. No bueno. Secondly, the time spent steaming in the apple cider tended to make the ribs a little mushy. Yes, I went fairly light on the cider too. 🙂 The mushiness wasn’t horrible, but you just couldn’t get a good looking bark or crust to the ribs. Lastly, the method is really intended for an old fashioned ‘stick burner’ smoker. Those are designed to operate around 250 degrees F (121degrees C) or so. Using a pellet grill, I am able to keep a very constant heat as low as 180 degrees. I just do a straight cook through, spraying the ribs every half hour or so to keep them moist. When they’re within 30 or 40 degrees of done, I turn up the temperature on the pellet grill and finish them off, putting a nice bark on them:

Do those look dry at all? LOL Because I go low and slow, I’m able to get smoke flavor and coloring all through the ribs also. I had one guest as me if they were done because of that even pink color. 😀

One thing I didn’t cover was the “spritz” AKA what I spray them with while cooking. Apple cider is again a common choice. Too sweet though, especially if you’re doing the 3-2-1 method also. What I use on either beef or pork is a mixture of broth, water and pepsi or coke. 1 part Pepsi to two parts water to 4 parts broth. Using broth as a primary ingredient keeps the flavor pure. Just use beef broth for beef and pork broth for pork. The water keeps the broth weak enough that the meat doesn’t taste like soup, and helps with moisture. The soda pop helps the spritz stick, adds a little browning and just a touch of sweet without overpowering the meat’s flavor.

One last note: Ribs are properly done when they have an internal meat (not bone or fat) temperature of 185 to 200 degrees. At that point, the meat should stay on bone, but still come away easily with a light tug of the fingers or teeth. If it’s tough, it’s undercooked. If it falls apart, it’s been cooked to death. My own personal experience vs conventional wisdom is that 185 to 190 is about the ideal temperature.

And that’s it for Silk’s scrumptious Southern style BBQ ribs. 🙂

We also had leftover Brisket and chicken, along with that homemade BBQ sauce I mentioned, green beans and bacon, smoked portabella mushrooms sauteed in marsala and garlic, biscuits, a green salad and raspberry and yogurt fruit salad sort of thing I found on Pinterest.

All of that would take an entire second post however, lol.

How to Stop Mass Shootings

I’m going out on a limb here, but I am soooo tired of the inflammatory rhetoric on both sides of this issue. I think it’s damned well time I try to inject a little common sense here.

I’m really tempted to rant at both sides individually, but I believe I’ll lose most readers so let’s skip the rant and get to the fixes. Novel concept in today’s society, eh?

First, you can’t confiscate everybody’s guns. Period. It’s morally and legally wrong to hold 43% of the US population accountable for the actions of a handful of lunatics.

Second, the existing laws have to be better enforced. In so many cases, there were processes that failed when they shouldn’t have, law enforcement agencies that dropped the ball regarding reports and warnings, etc… What good does making a new, stricter rule do if it’s also going to fail to be executed properly? You have to fix what’s broken to build newer systems on top of it. That’s just common sense.

Yes, We NEED New Laws Also… Better background checks that are collaborated between agencies so things are not missed. I’m very open to reasonable increases in restrictions also. Maybe waiting periods like here in California, with exceptions if an applicant can show a legitimate need for protection (domestic violence separation for example)

Red Flag Laws. I’ve been saying for YEARS we need these. I’m so pissed off at the gun lobby and the far right for saying that they wont work and saying that they’ll be used to arbitrarily take innocent people’s guns away. Don’t tell me it can’t be done! Find a way to make it work and set up processes to protect the rights of people who might be falsely accused. It’s WAY past time we got the guns out of the hands of mental defectives.

Mental health in General: This country has swung from the extreme of persecuting and in some cases torturing the mentally ill to the opposite extreme of excusing everything they do in the name of false compassion (ie enabling). It’s time to find a reasonable, compassionate middle ground. People who struggle with issues like depression who aren’t a danger and deserve our compassion and understanding. If somebody is a violent psychotic though, I want them locked up in a mental institution! It’s not prison, it’s having the compassion to protect them and others from their violent tendencies. Yes, we need to make sure said institutions are run in a way that gives patients human dignity also.

Quit Glorifying These Shooters and Giving Them Press! Far too many of these people leave some sort of statement or manifesto behind that they want to be famous, often like some other shooter or movie character. The Aurora Colorado theater shooter wanted to be The Joker. See above mental illness and red flag paragraphs there. If these folks know that their faces will never be shown and their names will never be spoken by the media in any way, they lose alot of incentive.

Gun Show & Private Sale Loopholes: Sorry, it’s not popular with other gun owners, but these need to be closed to prevent psychos from getting around checks. Gun shows dealers can set up background checks on wifi enabled laptops and private sales can be brokered though a licensed gun dealer like here in California.

Friends and Family of Shooters: Another one that’s likely to ruffle some feathers. Too many times though, these folks have gotten guns from family members either willfully or because they weren’t secured properly. If that’s the case during a shooting, the friend or family member should be tried as a co-conspirator. Harsh? No, it’s taking securing your weapons seriously. Understand however, I would NOT apply this to anyone who did make a real attempt to secure their guns (locked in a safe), and the shooter still got them. It’s a sticky subject, but people have to start being held accountable for their actions.

STOP THE HATE: This goes for more than both sides of the gun debate. There are so many issues, causes and beliefs out there than have taken to vilifying anyone who disagrees with any part of their dogma. Hate and fear are damned near a universal tactic now. It DOESN’T help the cause, it just makes you look bad, and undermines the cause. That’s true no matter how righteous you think your cause is. Worse, this kind of constant bombardment of hate, fear and negativity does take a toll on the human psyche.

Stop the Political Bullshit: Plain enough? Yes, there are almost as many extremists involved in these shootings as there are just plain crazy folks. Most are alt right, a fair number are also far left, like the Washington DC congressional softball team shooter. It’s NOT a left vs right thing, except for politicians trying to exploit this for their own power gain (and ONLY that). A comprehensive solution will take admitting shooters come in all flavors of mentally ill.

Responsible Gun Ownership: Gun owners, if you want your rights protected, you have to start putting your foot down when a fellow gun owner acts like a jackass. The guy who waltzed into a Walmart a few weeks back wearing body armor and carrying multiple weapons… Not to shoot anybody, but to show he had a right to bear arms. This isn’t protecting your rights, it’s trying to intimidate those who disagree with you and only makes people who fear guns further believe that gun owners are psycho.

This includes shutting down the idiots on YouTube that make videos glorifying destructive and dangerous gun use. Blowing up SUVs loaded with BBQ propane tanks for example (yes I’ve seen it). For every one of those videos, there are 10 more safely demonstrating how to use a specific gun, or how much penetration another gun has via shooting at wood or metal fixed targets. I’m fine with those. The rest of my fellow gun owners have to realize that these other bad apples are dragging you down with them. You can cut them loose or go down with them.

Gun Mentality Education: We need some sort of a public service campaign to change the mindset of people. Guns do not make you macho. They are also not self automated killing machines or tools of evil that possess their victims and prompt them to murder. A gun is a dangerous tool that needs to be respected. It has multiple uses including hunting and amateur and professional target shooting as well as self defense.

Improve Police Response Times: Yes this is a VERY real issue. It literally takes over 7 hours to get a police unit dispatched in my city sometimes. If you want people to feel safe in giving up their guns, they have to believe that when they need protection, the police will be there in minutes, not hours.

Punishment for Shooters: The draconian side of me says execute them right on the scene. Treat them as domestic terrorists as the Trump administration has started to do sounds good too (off to Gitmo), but there’s a question in both cases of suspension of constitutional protections. Once anybody starts losing those, it’s all bad. At the very least however, I’d make sure they spend their lives in solitary confinement and never get to become a celebrity inside prison or out… or even talk to another human being again. Execution should definitely be a possibility for them too. If they don’t respect life, there’s no reason we should respect theirs.

Alot of what I said came down “against” my fellow gun owners. I’m very second amendment, but we have to realize that all freedoms are balanced by responsibilities. We can’t yell fire in a crowded theater despite having freedom of speech. If we’re not willing to take reasonable steps to protect the public from the bad apples among us, we’re ALL going to lose our rights. Let’s do something now that weeds those folks out while protecting our rights.

You folks on the other side of this issue… I said it at the start of this post. When you condemn almost half of the population of the country for the actions of a few, you lose any pretense of the moral high ground and turn those people against any ideas you might have. It’s human nature.

My advice to you? Talk like human beings. Realize that people have valid reasons for owning guns. Collecting for investment, farmers protecting livestock from predators, women fleeing abusive relationships, people who sport target shoot, hunters in poor rural areas trying to feed their families, etc…

Education is the antidote to all fear also. Learn about guns, if only to discuss and debate more intelligently. Properly respected and handled, a gun is no more dangerous than a kitchen knife. Target shooting at a range is intimidating at first, but can be fun. You also learn things like an assault rifle is not a machine gun. It’s a class of rifle under 5 feet in length that came into existence around or after World War 1 when armies were finding their 6 foot long rifles impractical for fighting in tight spaces. The civilian copies are not the same as the military versions either. I’m not specifically defending assault rifle ownership here. I *am* saying understanding makes them a little less intimidating and you able to better discuss the issue.

Help promote the idea of responsible gun ownership also. Speak out against extremists groups. Remind responsible gun owners not to approve of the conduct of people with a Rambo mentality. Urge gun owners to keep their guns secured properly. And let them know you appreciate those who do it right. You’ll gain alot more allies than you will by kicking people in the teeth.

All that said, I’m done on this topic. I’m leaving the comments off with this topic because I know I’m going to have infuriated the extremist idiots on both sides of this issue. Most of them are also trolls with exceedingly poor reading comprehension who will take everything out of context as well. That’s if they just don’t blatantly lie about what I said. Ergo, no comments.

If you read and liked this at all, feel free to hit the like button or reblog me. If you disagreed, that’s fine also. Let’s just simply leave it at we respect each other’s right to their own opinion and keep things friendly.