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News

Self-defense: 71-year-old woman uses legally-owned gun to fight off robber

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Guns are for self-defense against criminals
Guns are for self-defense against criminals

This story is from the Washington Free Beacon, and it’s a good reminder why we should let law-abiding citizens own legally-purchased firearms.

Excerpt:

A 71-year-old woman was able to fight off a man who tried to steal her car on Sunday.

Janet Willis told a reporter a man entered her store around 5 a.m. and demanded she give him the keys to her car. “He said, ‘I want your car,’ I said, ‘so do I,’” she told the Morgan County Citizen.

Instead of handing over her keys Willis pressed a panic button under her counter. Unfortunately the assailant saw her press the button and became agitated. He then threatened to kill her.

When the man became distracted by a customer Willis was able to grab her 9mm handgun. “When he turned around I said ‘I’ll blow your guts all over this store,’” she told the paper. “Then I led him out.”

She kept her gun pointed at the attempted robber as he ran out and got into a car he had apparently stolen at another point. That car had a flat tire and the sparks created by driving on the rim caused the stolen car to be set ablaze. Shortly thereafter the suspect, 21-year-old Prince William Dennis, was arrested by police.

“I admire her for doing what she did to thwart the robbery,” Captain Chris Bish of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office said of Willis. “I’m grateful for the outcome.”

Willis said this was not the first time she had defended herself with a firearm. Three decades ago a man had threatened her life but she was armed with her Colt .45. “I asked him, do you want this (the pistol) or do you want the door,” she said to the publication. “He chose the door.”

Indeed.

And notice that no shots were fired, in either of the cases she talked about. Guns are not owned by bloodthirsty people who are anxious to shoot other people. Guns are owned by normal law-abiding people who don’t want to be robbed, raped or murdered by criminals. It’s especially important for women and the elderly to own guns, because it equalizes the differences in physical strength between men and women, or younger people and the elderly. We have an entire political party that champions leniency for criminals. They want to let them out early, not punish them, let them do whatever they want. Law-abiding citizens have to have some way to defend themselves from the compassion of the pro-criminal party’s policies.

Learn about the issue

To find the about guns and self-defense, look in the academic literature. Here are two books I really like for that.

Both of those books make the case that permitting law-abiding citizens to own firearms for self-defense reduces the rate of violent crime.

News

New study: long-term marijuana use causes decline in memory in middle age

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I have a key that will unlock a puzzling mystery
I have a key that will unlock a puzzling mystery

Cool new study reported by Reuters.

It says:

As marijuana becomes more accessible to young and old alike in the U.S., researchers warn that long-term use of the drug may cause lasting harm to at least one type of brain function.

A new study based on following thousands of young adults into middle age finds that long-term marijuana use is linked to poorer performance on verbal memory tests, but other areas of brain function do not appear to be affected.

“We did not expect to find such a consistent association with verbal memory for chronic exposure to marijuana,” especially since the link held even when other factors like cigarette smoking, alcohol use and other behavioral factors associated with marijuana use were accounted for, said lead author Dr. Reto Auer of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Auer and colleagues analyzed data from a 25-year U.S. study of young adults, which included repeated measures of marijuana exposure over time and a standardized test of verbal memory, processing speed and executive function in year 25. Almost 3,500 participants completed the standardized tests.

At the beginning of the study period in the 1980s, participants were 18 to 30 years old and more than 80 percent reported past marijuana use. Just 12 percent continued to use marijuana into middle age, according to the results in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Researchers found that as past years of marijuana use increased, verbal memory scores decreased. In practical terms, the results meant that for every additional five years of exposure, 50 percent of marijuana users would remember one less word from a list of 15 tested words.

“Recreational marijuana users use it to get high, to benefit from the transient change it produces,” Auer told Reuters Health by email. “But this transient effect might have long term consequences on the way the brain processes information and could also have direct toxic effects on neurons.”

What I am finding out as I age is that I have to keep pushing back the date of my “retirement”. I thought I  could quit working at 30, then 35, then 40. Now I am thinking 45 before I can be more free. The point is that the world is becoming a more difficult place to be independent. A lot of government spending is going on, and a lot of debt is being added to our national debt. I may never be able to stop working. And it’s a good thing that I will have all my faculties intact when I have to keep working. Be careful with exchanging short-term fun and thrills for long-term poverty. Things are not getting easier, you’ll have to work just to get by.

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News

Kentucky governor shuts down illegal, unlicensed Planned Parenthood clinic

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Hillary Clinton and Planned Parenthood
Hillary Clinton and Planned Parenthood

Story from Life News.

It says:

A Louisville, Kentucky Planned Parenthood abortion clinic shut down Friday after pro-life Gov. Matt Bevin discovered the abortion clinic was operating without a license.

The new abortion clinic opened in December and applied for a license to do abortions from the state; however, last week, Bevin’s office found out that the abortion clinic began offering surgical and medical abortions in January without a license, LifeNews reported.

[…]New acting Kentucky Inspector General Stephanie Hold, who serves on pro-life Bevin’s administration, said the state has not licensed the clinic because it found two deficiencies in Planned Parenthood’s application. The abortion clinic does not have adequate written agreements with an acute care hospital or an ambulance service in case of emergencies, according to a letter from Hold.

[…]Last Thursday, Bevin called out the abortion business after his office discovered the violation. A Kentucky statute prohibits providing abortions without a license, and provides for penalties ranging from $500 to $10,000 for each violation, according to the governor’s office.

“They are openly and knowingly operating an unlicensed abortion facility in clear violation of the law,” Bevin said in a statement. “We will use the full force of the commonwealth to put a stop to this. There is no room in Kentucky for this kind of blatant disregard for proper legal procedure.”

“It’s that brazen disregard for the law that is going to be hammered down,” Bevin continued. “There is no tolerance whatsoever for people in the Commonwealth of Kentucky disregarding the law. They are unlicensed. They are doing it knowingly, and they are going to brought to justice on this front.”

Kentucky, what happened to you? You used to be liberal, now you have a conservative governor who defends natural marriage, opposes abortion, and wants to pass right-to-work! It is so important for people who want to protect the unborn from the selfish grown-ups to elect candidates with a pro-life record. It does matter who you elect – the right candidate does reduce the number of abortions.