The Gun-Control issue

The Arguments against having laws to control violence due to rifles or pistols seems to be 1-Safety, 2-that you can kill someone with a hammer, 3-Target practice, 4-equalizing power, and 5-hunting. Some of these are good arguments while others are delusions with a lot of data available that shows that fact. Now I am not a hunter and don’t own a firearm and only fired them when I was in the US Army. Let’s look at those arguments one by one 1. Safety- this is a delusion as data shows that having a pistol in a home make it 12 times more lightly that they or one of their family will die by gun fire. There are twenty thousand suicides in the United States in an average year and having a pistol available makes that more lightly to happen. There are other way to protect yourself like with pepper spray or a stun-gun (if the law allows) 2. That you can kill someone with a hammer (or any blunt object), knifes etc.- Fire arms can kill at a distance where as hammers and knifes you need a close up attack, giving your victim a better chance of living and you can attack only one at a time. 3. Target practice- this is a good argument, but do you need an automatic which seems just so you don’t have to reload. 4. Equalizing power- these is a more honest argument, the argument against see 1-Safety plus improve our neighborhoods with better drug laws and better schools with access to higher education to all our citizens. 5. Hunting- another good argument for rifles anyway. Do you really need a automatic rifles for hunting deer? Hunting is suppose to be a sport not a massacre, why not give the deer a chance by using a single action bolt rifle or a bow and arrow. Well, at least these are what I think of the arguments that I see on Facebook and Huffington Post. There are a lot of other arguments about video games, movies and the mentally ill all of which are even harder things to control. American culture will have to be changed which will take a lot of time.

The President's Family under attack

Attacking the President’s Family

The NRA’s attack of Obama’s daughters wasn’t the first time the president family was attack, in one of the more famous one Franklyn D Roosevelt defended his dog a Scotch Terror named Fala. “The Republican leaders have not been content with attacks upon me, on my wife, or on my sons-no, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Unlike the members of my family, he resents this. Being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers had concocted a story that I had left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find him- at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three or eight or 20 million dollars-his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since.” Frankly D. Roosevelt in a speech to the Teamsters Union on September 23, 1944 Some things never change like the Republicans and the NRA

My 2012 Genogical work

January seem like a good time to write about how my genealogical research went in 2012, well I did make some progress on my wife’s side on the tree, Eiermann, Stark and not much on my side. I did get my parents Marriage certificate from the New York City Archives, getting the information necessary from the New York City Library on 5th Avenue, along with a list of information that would be necessary for more certificates from the New York City Archives about my wife’s Aunt and Uncles. I used information that people such as Eileen Stark put on Facebook to get both photos and information about Eileen’s family, the Stark family is connection to the Eiermann line through one of my wife’s Great-Aunts who married a Duffy, who married a Karasz, who married then divorced Eileen Stark, so the relationship is through Eileen’s four children who are cousins to my wife. Well with all that as clear as mud I used the photos and companying information to research the Stark family back to Hungary, they ended up to be a very interesting addition to the tree with her Grandfather owning a restaurant in downtown Manhattan with a lot of newspaper articles about it during prohibition. I did get the permission of Eileen to use her data. Family Search the Web Site of the Church of Latter Day Saints helped a great deal on my breaking through on the Eiermann front, where I am now all the way back to the 15th century. My son Michael helped by getting a microfilm from the LDS in Salt Lake City to the Patchogue Library, We viewed the microfilm at the Patchogue Library, even with the fact it was hand written in German on the pages an old book we could make out the names and dates. Now we could the same information from the transcription of the microfilm on the LDS web site, but by put to images of the original church record on a flash drive then onto my computer the information became first hand, direct instead of second hand indirect information, confirming the information you already have is very important in that it make your family tree more accurate. I am still working on the Eiermann branch of the tree, now putting it on my Roots software. I have three different genealogical programs on my computer, the one I am now working on is RootsMagic 6, I like it for it has good templates for source information, but I am afraid it is too completed for people not familiar with genealogy. I also have Family Tree Maker 2012 which is easier to understand and can be synced up with Ancestry.com, but I have trouble syncing it up and then I have MyHeritage Family Tree Builder Which is cheaper, good for connecting with other peoples trees, but poor on sources templates.