by Bob Barr | Apr 13, 2023 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerIt takes just two words to drive liberals to their corner and conservatives to theirs: “Second Amendment.” The mere mention will send liberals into conniptions and conservatives into code red defense mode. Lost in this repetitive exercise is any opportunity to solve a serious problem facing 21st Century America – young people so alienated and detached from any moral or ethical moorings that murdering young school children presents itself as appropriate behavior. The problem is not that we as a society are bereft of solutions. The problem is that a partisan political curtain descends whenever there is a mass shooting, effectively blocking us from taking meaningful steps to reduce the chance for a recurrence of such tragedy.A recent opinion piece by C. Joshua Villines, a certified threat manager and a board member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals, addresses the problem and suggests realistic solutions, without ever using the words “gun control” or “Second Amendment.” His recent essay, “We know how to prevent school violence [by] Adopting research-based, established procedures [that] can mitigate risk,” focuses not on partisan or political policies, but instead on the existing body of research about the “risks for a person to commit an act of targeted violence” and the known “strategies that can mitigate that risk.” Villines correctly notes that those who commit acts of “targeted violence” do so in ways that by and large are predictable, and that we know “from decades of work” the risk factors that can help us identify potential shooters. If followed, this process can lessen the chances that those factors will play themselves out in tragedies such as that which occurred last month at...
by Bob Barr | Apr 12, 2023 | Townhall Article |
TownhallAmerica clearly is in the throes of a cultural campaign for transgender rights, privileges, and immunities. It is a multi-faceted movement at once entertaining and dangerous.The handwriting was on the wall six years ago, when the August 2017 National Geographic cover depicted a transgendered child and devoted its contents to the “Gender Revolution.” Now, in early 2023, we have Dylan Mulvaney, a well-known transgender “influencer,” as the new face of corporate giants Nike and Anheuser Busch. Soon we may see Mulvaney grace the cover of Popular Mechanics.When that same biological male – Dylan Mulvaney – is hawking not only Bud Light and sports bras but Tampax tampons, the question legitimately needs to be asked, “just what is going on here?”It is not only major corporations, including Nike, Proctor & Gamble, and Anheuser Busch that have jumped aboard the transgender bandwagon. Universities and now, the federal government and the judiciary are all in. Just last week, President Biden decreed that any education institution receiving U.S. taxpayer dollars (which is most every school in the country) cannot stop biological males who “identify” as female from competing against biological females. Even the Supreme Court seems to be intimidated — refusing to consider putting the brake on the practice even after state legislation declares it unfair.While videos of Dylan Mulvaney prancing around in a Nike bra or guzzling Bud Light in a bathtub full of soapsuds may seem comical on its face, with the feds now waiting in the wings to sue schools that consider it unfair for biological men to compete against biological women, the transgender glorification movement truly has transitioned into high gear.The cultural...
by Bob Barr | Apr 6, 2023 | Townhall Article |
TownhallWell, at least the wait is over. Donald Trump on Tuesday became the first former president to be charged with violating criminal law. Despite predictions by many of his supporters that his being charged criminally would cause the sky to fall, such calamity failed to materialize. Wednesday, April 5, 2023 dawned; the dollar remains the world’s reserve currency, our economy still is the largest and strongest on earth, and America’s armed forces remain the best in the world. Are there problems facing us everywhere, from our southern border to the Taiwan Strait? Sure there are but name a time when America has not faced serious challenges. Is our current President – Joe Biden – doing his best to make our domestic economy weaker by the day with his and the Fed’s bumbling decisions? That certainly appears to be the case. But here also, the odds are in our favor that we will survive to defeat him and his Democrat Party’s anti-free market policies in less than two years.Are there judges in states and federal districts across the country who deliberately or ignorantly misinterpret our Constitution and who seek to diminish our constitutionally guaranteed rights? Yes, there are. However, recent court decisions upholding such cherished but always-targeted liberties as the right to keep and bear arms are clear evidence that, despite the best efforts by the Left, the spark of individual liberty lit by our Founders has not been extinguished.And finally, are there prosecutors, such as Manhattan’s Alvin Bragg and New York state’s Letitia James, who openly declare their intent to wield the power of the offices they hold to destroy their...