I don't get flu shots since l left the military. In the military, we were forced to get them. I always got sick from them.

But I haven't had a flu shot or the flu in the last 17 years. In the previous 20+ years, I got sick every year from the flu shot. Once, the flu shot actually gave me the flu--and that's no joke.

I believe in vaccinations in general, but the flu shot has been a con job from Day One. Flu shots are pushed by Big Pharma because they generate billions in revenue--even though they are worthless.

Tricky, how can you say you KNOW what I need in order to defend my home and my loved ones? An AR-15 gives me a lot more chances of hitting the bad guys and surviving than a six-shot revolver. And in today's home invasions, multiple assailants are the norm. No, you cannot say you have a crystal ball and will know what I need.

Nor can you say it is not the norm to be armed outside your home. You never know when someone is going to threaten you. I used a gun to break up a carjacking many years ago--without my intervention, the victim would have been killed. I also stopped an attack on myself and my family in a park--the assailants thought they had an easy target. They were wrong.

People use semi-auto rifles for target shooting, competitions, hunting and home defense. Semi-autos have been around for over a century. Lever actions that hold 19 shots have been around for a lot longer than that. But people weren't doing mass shootings a hundred years ago. Something has happened to our society. We know it's not the guns that changed our society--it's something else.

People have "hundreds" of cartridges because they often shoot "hundreds" of cartridges in a single day of target practice.

Yes, we could raise the age for owning a gun, but it would be rather incongruous to deny a 20-year-old the right to buy a gun while issuing him one in the military. Wouldn't it be better to make our background check system really work instead of punishing every 19 - 20 year old in the country?

The Las Vegas shooter was a multi-millionaire who also owned two airplanes. You know, he COULD have flown one of those planes into a crowded sports stadium. And personally, I don't care for "bump stocks" and they can be banned. We don't need some device that allows people to get around the National Firearms Act.

A person with a lever action rifle, or pump shotgun, could also have caused multiple casualties. Or someone packing multiple revolvers. Can we prevent mass shootings completely? No. Even if all guns were banned today, there would still be enough arms and ammo out there for some nut job to get.

You know what? People were not so power hungry and greedy and violent in years past. When the Great Depression hit, people shared their food with one another. Today that would not happen. We have been losing our sense of community, steadily, for decades.

The solution is not to try to lock up all of the potentially dangerous objects, which would be an impossible task--but, instead, to lock up the dangerous criminals and nut jobs. When someone posts a YouTube video bragging that he's going to become a "professional school shooter," that should be more than enough "probable cause" to drag him into a mental hospital and keep him there until a determination can be made about his danger to society. Civil libertarians will scream--you know that--but it's the only way.

Today we have people walking around whose systems are pumped full of psychoactive drugs--and these drugs have been a common denominator in a number of mass shootings.

And, finally, we need a "fast track" judicial process that leads to quick execution when there are more than five eyewitnesses to a shooting. McVeigh--the Oklahoma City bomber--was tried and convicted and executed in record time. We need to do that for mass shooters, as well.

Oh--and we need to mandate death by firing squad for mass shooters. That's only right!

We are going to have to risk the wrath of minorities and their sycophantic allies in order to "right" the ship. We are not getting the best and brightest right now because of "affirmative action," the liberal phrase for "quotas." It's not that there are not qualified minorities--it's that agencies feel they must hire the first minority candidate who walks in the door. What if they had to hire the first white male whose last name ended in the letter "d"? They'd probably get more than their share of doofuses in that way. So, in other words, we need to ensure that we have true meritocracies--and IF an organization is seen--statistically--to be discriminating against ANY group, then lawsuits and firings of executives need to happen.

The other thing that has to happen is to bring jobs back. For decades we have been hemorrhaging jobs. Jobs have been our chief export. We not only have to stem the tide, but reverse the tide. We need to punish--through taxation--companies that go offshore and then want to import their goods and services back into the country. Let's say Comcast wants to outsource their customer service to India--we slap a tax penalty, a big one, on Comcast for every outsourced job. We make it unprofitable for them to outsource overseas. It can all be done with a few strokes of a pen at the end of some legislation.

And we need to hammer government agencies and businesses that discriminate on the basis of age. It's not hard to do--you can conduct sting operations, and you can gather data from individuals who have reported discrimination. You hit them in their pocketbooks hard--and you also prosecute everyone involved in it, from the highest executive to the lowest, laziest HR drone carrying out those executives' policies.

It will take several high-profile lawsuits and prosecutions to fix the problem of discrimination, and it will take legislation to bring back our jobs. But this is not only do-able, but it's a must if we are to have a future for our countries.

Pssst,Helpbot! The Sack Man is coming for you!

You know, America is unique--not always better than other countries--but unique.

America was founded as the result of a revolution. Revolutions are violent affairs. The American Revolution was won by Americans who took their personally owned arms to war. America has a Second Amendment to prevent the government from taking those personally owned arms, which would render the citizenry impotent to resist a tyrannical government.

Now, let me contrast the US and Canada.

In Canada, the government provides me with free health care. You pay higher taxes, but you don't have to worry about being wiped out financially by an illness. I could die in America without health insurance--or a lot of money.

But I don't have real freedom of speech in Canada. If I were to picket the local United Church with signs saying "United Members Suck," I would be hauled in front of a human rights tribunal and charged with hate speech

In America, I can defend my home and my loved ones with lethal force, if necessary. In Canada, it's almost impossible to use a firearm for self-defense, because you are supposed to store the firearm and ammo in such a way that they are not readily accessible. One homeowner in Ontario used a shotgun to scare off people about to firebomb his home--the Crown prosecuted him, saying that he could not have accessed his shotgun in time if it had been properly stored. In Canada, you are not allowed even pepper spray for self-defense.

In America, I can say that a group sucks and there will not be any prosecution for "hate speech." Either my ideas win out in the marketplace of free speech, or they are rejected in the marketplace of free speech.

In Canada, you are a subject of the Crown, and the "sovereign" decides if you should be allowed to own firearms.

In America, it is considered that you have a right to own a firearm unless you are a nut job or a criminal. No right is absolute, of course--criminals and nut jobs do not have a right to own firearms, just as there is no right to falsely shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

And, in America, as in other countries, there are people who simply do not like guns. They will seize upon each and every opportunity to ban them. But, knowing that their chances of getting an outright ban are low, they take an "incremental approach" to restricting ownership, i.e., magazine capacity restrictions, high taxes on ammunition, demanding proof that you need a handgun for self-protection, requiring licenses, etc., etc.

There have been calls for gun registration. America rejects registration because in just about every country where there was registration, e.g., the UK and Australia, confiscation followed. If confiscation were to be directed in America, you would get a full-blown civil war.

There was no reason for the Florida school shooting. The FBI was given plenty of notice--but they dropped the ball.

I deeply regret the lives lost in mass shootings. I do not, however, believe in handing the shooters a victory by letting them take our rights from us.

Not really--because the guy holding your money does not have a crystal ball and cannot say with any certainty that the price of precious metals is going up.

If you cannot get your money out when you want it, then something is wrong.

It still seems that you need to "know someone" to get a job--even in the 21st century, even with the Internet.

You still have to get your resume out of HR and in front of a hiring manager. HR people are so lazy that they all have cats to do their breathing for them.

I was in a church once and some people there were in a position to help me get a job with their firms. Did they? No. One of them later regretted taking no action--and was very apologetic.

My daughter recently applied for an "intern position" with a police department. Guess what? The internships all went to minority candidates--who had less experience and education and fewer accomplishments than she had. Affirmative action programs further complicate the job hunting situation for non-minority applicants. You can be the best candidate out there--but you're not going to get hired because you got the wrong genes and the wrong chromosome. (PS - I hate discrimination in all forms, including reverse discrimination.)

It's really tough on young people these days. They get a university degree, and end up waiting tables or working some dead-end retail job. When I was young, anyone who wanted a decent job could get one.

Not any more.

Keep warm, drink nothing cold, and send an email to Trudeau calling him a twit and you will be cured in 24 hours!

Sherlock's advice:

1.You give a woman one chance, and one chance only, to go out with you. You never, ever "pursue" a woman. That's only in the movies--the 1930s movies.
2.Don't try too hard to make friends.
3.Don't doubt yourself. 99% of the people you believe to have self-confidence are faking it to a large degree.
4. Don't fret over the past.
5. Adapt. You cannot change the wind, but you can adjust your sails.
6.Few people can match the love and loyalty a cat or dog will give you.
7. You will never please everyone--so at least please yourself.
8. Do not become an approval addict.
9. Do not stay with any individual, group or organization that does not appreciate you.
10.Realize that the most fundamental relationship of your life is witb your Creator; screw up this relationship and none of tbe others will work.

I used an M16 in the military, as well as 9mm and .45 automatic handguns. For serious home defense, the gun that is best for defending your base camp is also the best gun for defending your home.

Home defense is an alien concept in most countries, and it is outright proscribed in some.

What really outrages me in this Florida case is that the FBI, after having been given this guy's name, said that they did not know where he was. Does anybody here believe that? It would be as simple as checking tax records or drivers license databases. My old PI firm could have found him with the proper information access. The FBI has just about lost all credibility.