Never forget that almost 34 years ago, we learned the government will kill your dog, shoot your 14-year-old son in the back, and snipe your wife in the doorway while she holds your infant child—all over how long the barrel of a shotgun is.
Here's the Dugan Ashley/Jordan Derrick indictment (in comments, there's probably a better way to share this but here it is). BTW thermite is NOT a destructive device, and the equipment listed in the separate unregistered DD charge is standard hobby pyrotechnics equipment, an old mercury switch because you don't throw out free mercury and his kid's BBs listed as "ball bearings". Hope none of you have empty beer bottles and gas for your mower in the garage cuz apparently that's "constructive intent" now.
Know your enemies.
Rueben Dass, a fellow at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research and various other research centers/schools. He's framed 3D printed gun folks as far-right extremists, radical Islamists, and various other forms of terrorist.
USA. Summer. It is 95 degrees outside, and I am shivering inside a sandwich shop.
I have discovered how Americans forge strong souls.
Outside, the sun is trying to kill everyone. Inside this small restaurant, it is winter. My breath does not fog, but it is thinking about it. A man near me is eating a cold sandwich while wearing a jacket. In summer. Indoors.
In Japan we would simply turn it down. Americans do not turn it down. And now I understand them better than they understand themselves.
This cold is not an accident. This cold is a gift.
The owner has built, inside his shop, a second season. He invites you in from the brutal heat and hands you the one thing the sun has denied you all day: a reason to be cold. To endure it is to be tempered. You walk in soft and sweating. You walk out sharp and clear, a slightly stronger person than you were.
So I did not complain. I removed my outer layer and offered it to the woman at the next table, who was hugging herself. She said, "Oh, no, I'm fine, thank you." She was not fine. Her lips were blue. But she, too, understood the training. She would not break first. I respected her deeply.
The owner asked if everything was okay.
"It is perfect," I said, through my teeth, which were chattering. "Thank you for the winter."
He said, "...I can turn the AC down if you want?"
I told him no. A man does not ask the mountain to be shorter.
I stayed two hours. I ordered a hot coffee to survive. Then a second one, to hold. By the end I could no longer feel my hands, but my spirit had never been clearer.
So now, on the hottest days, I seek out the coldest rooms. I sit. I shiver. I sharpen.
And when I finally step back out into the summer heat, and it wraps around me like a warm bath, I feel it.
Reborn.
A man who has survived the winter, in August, indoors, for the price of a sandwich.
literally nothing more annoying on the fucking planet than when websites don’t have the US at the top of a country selection list. No, I am not going to select fucking “Afghanistan” boutique clothing brand based in Nashville. Fuck off.