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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. - MaxedOutMama I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. Kim du Toit
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. . . and so are you  Wahabism Delenda Est      Hey, FEC!  BITE ME! I'm a Member of the McCain-Feingold INSURRECTION!    "Jeez, Kevin... calling you an asshole would be a huge understatement, wouldn't it?" -Jack Cluth, The People's Republic of Seabrook (Coming from you, Jack, it's an honor.)  email: gunrightsAT comcastDOTnet INVITATION: If you have never shot a firearm, regardless of your position on the right to arms, and if you live near or visit the Tucson, AZ metropolitan area, I invite you to go shooting for a day. I will provide the arms, ammunition, targets, safety equipment, range fees and instruction. All you have to do is show up. 6 Takers To Date DO YOU LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE and want to try shooting? Click HERE  Proud Gun-blogging member of the Pajamahadeen since May, 2003!
Debates: "The Commentary" A OLD discussion on gun control between me and an Irishman living in London Start here. UPDATED! Now with archive! Post #1 by Alex, a Guest A multi-post discussion hosted here at TSM My short exchange with Professor Saul Cornell of the Second Amendment Research Center Best Posts: The "Rights" Discussion: What is a "Right?" What is a "Right"? Revisited, Part I Part II Rights, Morality, Idealism & Pragmatism, Part I Part II Part III Part IV The United Federation of Planets Is the Government Responsible for Your Protection? Part I & Part II 1975 in Washington, D.C. vs. 2004 in Canton, Ohio Go Ahead, Rely on the Government for Your Protection The Other Side Liberal vs. Conservative: Both are Necessary The Mystery of Government The Blog that Ate Poughkeepsie Updated and restated as: Of Laws and Sausages Militias A Mistake a Free People Get to Make Only Once The George Orwell Daycare Center This is NOT What I Wanted to Read TRUST The Lying "News" Media, Pt. II Say WHAT? Bias? What Bias? Agenda? What Agenda? The Church of the MSM and the New Reformation Let's See if I Can "Germinate an Intelligent Thought" Here The ACLU Hasn't Changed its Tune They Never EVER Stop It is Not the Business of Government Five Reasons Why It ISN'T They Keep Making Better Fools Five Month Investigation, 10 Tracer Rounds, Two Felony Convictions That Sumbitch Ain't been BORN! On Guillotines and Gibbets England Slides Further Towards Bondage Pressing the "RESET" Button Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothin' Left To Lose A Terrible Resolve The Courts Will Not Save Us Trilogy: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions "Game Over, Man. Game Over." An Important Question And the denouement: Hudson Was Wrong The Dangerous Victims Trilogy: "(I)t's most important that all potential victims be as dangerous as they can" Violence and the Social Contract Governments, Criminals, and Dangerous Victims In the same vein: Those Without Swords Can Still Die Upon Them The True Believers Trilogy: True Believers March of the Lemmings Reasonable People Also in the same vein: Tough History Coming The Culture Trilogy Culture Hubris Weltanschauung And its follow-on: In Re: Culture Technical Dissertations Why Ballistic Fingerprinting Doesn't (And Won't) Work Spin, Spin, Spin Speaking of Teddy Kennedy... This is the Kind of Thing That REALLY IRRITATES ME Questions from the Audience?
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PROTESTWARRIOR Some people who are taking the fight to the Left. And some GREAT T-shirts, too. DAILY READS I need a longer day! Day by Day InstaPundit Lileks' The Bleat Mostly Cajun View from the Porch Of Arms and the Law TFS Magnum Ravenwood's Universe Irons in the Fire Say Uncle The Adventures of Roberta X TRUE EXCELLENCE American Digest The Belmont Club Boobs, Injuries, and Dr. Pepper The Volokh Conspiracy Michael Yon Varifrank Eject!Eject!Eject! Eternity Road Oleg Volk ON INDEFINITE HIATUS USS Clueless The Safety Valve Ipse Dixit The Lopsided Poopdeck Acidman (RIP) Skywritings Publicola D.C. Thorton Kim du Toit Personal Effects Smoke on the Water OTHER GUN/RIGHTS BLOGS Airborne Combat Engineer AlphaPatriot Alphecca American Dinosaur A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver The Anarchangel Mrs. Anarchangel The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler Argghhh! The Bitch Girls Boots and Sabers The Breda Fallacy Gun Nuts Media Carnaby Fudge Clayton Cramer Cogito Ergo Geek Countertop Chronicles Cowboy Blob Critical Mastiff Cryptic Subterranean Found: One Troll FreedomSight From the Heartland Fun Turns to Tragedy!!! The Geek with a .45 Gunwatch Heartless Libertarian Hecate's Crossroad Hell in a Handbasket Individ Justin Buist's Blog The LawDog Files Lead and Gold Les Jones Live from the (upper) Texas Gulf Coast Mad Ogre The Michael Bane Blog Moral Flexibility Mr. Completely Murdoc Online The Munchkin Wrangler Ninth Stage No Looking Backwards No Quarters Oscar Poppa Outrageous Malfunction Pass the ammo Posse Incitatus Random Nuclear Strikes Reasonablenut Resistance is Futile! Sandcastles and Cubicles SlagleRock's Slaughterhouse Snowflakes in Hell Surly Curmudgeon Texican Tattler The Ten Ring South Park Pundit Triggerfinger The View From North Central Idaho Vox The War on Guns Weck Up To Thees! Wince and Nod Xavier Thoughts .45 Caliber Justice BLOGGERS I'VE MET A Keyboard and a .45  
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Monday, July 14, 2003 "A Mistake a Free People Get to Make Only Once" "May you live in interesting times." That fits. A lot happened in the last couple of weeks. Brian Borgelt, the owner of Bull's Eye Shooter Supply in Tacoma, Washington, the gun shop from which Muhammed and Malvo "acquired" their Bushmaster AR-15, is finally getting his Federal Firearms License pulled for improperly tracking and losing records for over 200 firearms, while the GAO reported that the federal government has lost 824 firearms, some of which were full-auto weapons, and many of which were not properly reported or reported long after the loss. Canada's gun registration deadline has passed with (a government estimated) 20% of rifles and shotguns remaining unregistered. Another workplace multiple shooting occurred. This time there were five dead and nine wounded at a Lockheed plant in Mississippi (not including the perp.) Three teenagers were arrested before they could carry out what certainly appears to be a premeditated killing spree. A grandmother, mother, and three children - all infants to toddlers - were shot to death in Bakersfield, California. (A quick Google news search on the word "shooting" brings up the normal long list of single-victim stories, as well.) The Supreme Court received the petition for a writ of certiorari in the Silveira v. Lockyer case. And the UN released its Small Arms Survey 2003 that detailed worldwide civilian gun ownership. That report proclaimed that there is a near 1:1 parity of guns and people in the United States. America, it is often pointed out, has one of the highest firearm-related homicide rates in the world, and easily the most civilian-owned arms. Gun control supporters constantly decry the "number of guns" in America as being the, or at least a cause of our firearm-related mayhem. It is the point of the UN Small Arms Survey: the number of guns in civilian hands worldwide represents a threat to the health and safety of those civilians and their societies, and that governments should work to reduce the number and so reduce the threat. And here's a shocker - to some extent I agree with the basic premise that having a lot of guns around, indiscriminately, uncontrolled, does contribute to the volume of injury and death inflicted with firearms. It's almost - almost - a tautology. Here in America if John Q. Wifebeater didn't have a .357 revolver laying around, he might not be able to kill the Mrs. (or vice-versa) the next (and last) time they get into a knock-down, dragout fight. It's possible that a distraught teenager in a moment of bleakness might not kill himself with his father's shotgun if Daddy just didn't have one. If no one kept a gun at home, there wouldn't be twenty or so toddlers killed accidentally with them each year. If guns were less available, it's possible that more armed robbers would be armed with crowbars and baseball bats rather than 9mm's, and fewer convenience store clerks and cab drivers would end up shot. Yes, America has a lot of guns and a lot of death and injury by them. I've been asked "How many people have to die before you realize that we need effective gun controls?!?" And I've responded: "How many deaths will it take before you realize that gun control isn't effective, and stop pushing for new gun control laws?" Because that's the question, isn't it? We all realize that there's a problem, but we're divided by the proposed solution to that problem. And we're really divided on just what that solution entails - because if you believe that "the number of guns" is the problem, then the only answer is to reduce (to some arbitrary "this is enough" level) or eliminate those guns. I'm willing to bet that the arbitrary "this is enough" level is roughly equivalent to zero. In order to eliminate those guns you've got two choices: render the Second Amendment meaningless in the minds of the citizens and in the courts of America, or find some way to legally give government the power to do what the Second Amendment prohibits - disarm America. So far the legal process of making gun ownership by the law-abiding difficult in America has only been successful in a few places: Chicago, New York City, Washington D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, and some others. Generally, buying a gun legally still a fairly easy thing to do nationwide. (You'll note that it hasn't affected illegal acquisition in the least.) The second part, rendering the Second Amendment meaningless, has progressed somewhat better. At this time there is no legally recognized individual right to arms in the states of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and to be honest, that right is only recognized - and weakly - in the 5th Circuit. The other circuits are largely mute on the question, but lean towards the 9th Circuit's opinion. If the Supreme Court grants cert. on Silveira that question might finally get an answer. (And I'm not betting on just what that answer will be, either.) However, I've made a blanket statement: "Gun control isn't effective." How can I claim that? Gun control works in other countries, doesn't it? What about the 1934 National Firearms Act? Hasn't that been effective? Gun rights proponents proudly proclaim that only one legally registered fully-automatic weapon has been used in a crime - and that by an off-duty police officer. Gun control proponents respond that this means that licensing and registration does work. Well, admittedly the use of NFA weapons is much less than, say, basic handguns, but how do you define "works?" In a discussion I had a while back on another site it was defined to me as "not hindering law abiding citizens from owning guns but making it more difficult for criminals to acquire guns." My response to that was that the question of "hindering" was one of degree (as in "what, exactly, constitutes 'infringing' on a right?"), but that licensing and registration - in some countries - indeed did not significantly hinder the law abiding from owning guns, and that it did, indeed make it "more difficult" for criminals to acquire guns - but it didn't make it effectively difficult. As an example, the "war on (some) drugs" does not prevent the law abiding from getting needed medications, but it doesn't effectively prevent criminals from getting illicit drugs, does it? Harder, yes, but I think that scoring a tab of Ecstasy or a baggie of pot is probably only a little more involved than driving down to the neighborhood Walgreen's if you're inclined to use that stuff. And if you want to buy a gun while you're at it, that probably isn't any harder. You might even get a discount for doing both at once. What I did note in that discussion, however, is that in many societies that had gun licensing and registration, the registry had been used for gun confiscation, and that I believed that they would be used that way here, as well. Nor am I alone in that belief. Charles T. Morgan, at the time Director of the Washington office of the ACLU said in Senate testimony in 1975 when asked about gun registration: What the administation's and Congressman McClory's bills . . . call for is a whole new set of Federal records. . . .Only one legally owned NFA firearm has been used in a crime, but it didn't stop two gunmen from using at least three fully-automatic weapons during the North Hollywood bank robbery. It certainly hasn't stopped criminals from sawing off shotgun barrels. But let's look at the NFA for a second. The primary effect of the 1934 National Firearms Act was the registration of fully-automatic weapons and the strict control of their transfer between law-abiding owners. On top of that, at the time the law was passed a truly draconian "tax" was assessed on each transfer of NFA restricted weapons - $200. In 1934 that was a lot of cash. The effect was to essentially stop the production of many otherwise legal NFA firearms for public consumption such as the Ithaca Auto & Burglar - because the guns themselves didn't cost $200. Now, of course shotguns like these
So, reducing the number of guns available to the public could reduce the "heat of the moment" type killings, and the accidental deaths by firearm, but it doesn't really affect deliberate criminal useage. In fact, as evidenced by England, it might result in an increase in deliberate criminal use. It might prevent, say, the Lockheed slayings, but it won't have much of a positive effect on the number of convenience stores robbed annually, and might even result in a negative effect when criminals realize they have little to fear from their targets. The initial argument against semi-automatic "assault weapons" was that these were the "weapons of choice" of criminals, but the fact of the matter is, with well over 2 million (depending on your definition) "assault weapons" in circulation, the most popular firearms in criminals hands remains the handgun - and only the Violence Policy Center is willing to come out in favor of banning those. Now the argument against "assault weapons" is that they're only good for killing a large number of people indiscriminately (which of course is why police forces across the country are equipping with them. Right?) But using that argument there is now a Federal "ban" on some "assault weapons" and there are some state and local "bans" on them as well. The "bans" just resulted in some redesigns and some workarounds, but the intent was clear - these weapons were no longer to be offered to the general public ostensibly in an effort to keep them out of the hands of people who would misuse them. The same holds true now for .50 BMG caliber rifles - efforts are afoot both locally and nationally to (at a minimum) include these weapons in the NFA restricted list. Demand for both has skyrocketed - if we think the government is going to ban them, we want them. So, to date the path to civilian (some say "victim") disarmament has been pursued through the "death-by-a-thousand-cuts" strategy, or, more aptly the "frog in a pot" analogy. This is illustrated well by the "assault weapons ban" that really isn't. Charles Krauthammer made the true point of the law quite plain in his 1996 Washington Post op-ed "Disarm the Citizenry:" It might be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today. Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic - purely symbolic - move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation."The gun control groups term it as the "next step" - as in "Gun DNA is the next step for New York as we continue to develop innovative crime fighting policies." - so said New York Governor George E. Pataki in 2000. There's always a "next step" because all the previous steps didn't work to reduce crime or accidents - but they do work to make it more difficult to legally acquire and keep a firearm. There is no doubt that there is a movement out there intent on disarming not only Americans, but civilians around the world, because the only "effective" gun control is gun elimination, and the only way to reduce the number of guns in civilian hands is to take them from us, or make us give them up. As with all things political, there is no single reason for this movement. There's the tinfoil-hat bilderburg/zionist/mason/communist/skull-and-bones conspiracy-of-the-week, there's the "we know what's best for you" crowd (which can be rolled into the first group pretty easily), there are the people who have lost loved ones to gun violence, and there are the people who "care" but don't tend to think much (the "useful idiots.") And on the face of it, it seems pretty obvious to a lot of people that fewer guns would be a good thing, even to many gun owners. It seems pretty obvious to a lot of people that "assault weapons" have no place in our society. In fact, our gun control laws have, for years, been predicated on a "sporting use" philosophy - and even I will admit that there isn't a lot of "sporting use" for a gun like an AK-47 or even my Mossberg 590. This movement, however, has lost traction here in the last few years. More and more states have adopted "shall-issue" concealed-carry laws in the face of vociferous opposition from the gun control crowds. And, most telling, incidents like the Lockheed shooting and Columbine haven't resulted in the kind of overwhelming outcry for more gun control that incidents like Port Arthur, Dunblane, and Erfurt elicit in other countries. A lot of people ask why that is? What is it about Americans that makes us ignore what is so obvious to others - that guns shouldn't be in private hands, uncontrolled? I think I have an answer to that. And to give you an example, I will quote, in its entirety, a letter recently submitted to Kim du Toit (and republished with his permission): Your offhand comments about keep-and-bear supporters who do not, themselves, keep and bear hit a nerve.THAT is what separates us from everybody else: the belief in personal sovereignty, as a citizen of this nation. In fact, there's a guy out there who has a site dedicated to opposing the very idea of personal sovereignty. (It's a very good site from an informational standpoint, although I disagree violently with his position.) Why don't we get rid of our guns? Because we're not subjects, we're citizens. The majority of Americans - still, somewhere deep inside, perhaps dimly - understand that we are sovereigns, that we are responsible, not government. Our collapsing schools have not yet broken us of this belief, though I don't think it exists in many of our children any more. For the majority of us who bother to vote, however, being told that we are not responsible enough, grates. We are not willing to yeild, yet, our right to self defense, and eventually self determination. Somehow, the majority of voters sense a threat to their sovereignty. I find this encouraging as I watch Europe proceed in its formation of its union. I read as Steven Den Beste points out the disastrous path they are taking, and wonder what's going to happen there if it all comes crashing down (as I believe it will.) That collapse would have worldwide repercussions. We don't make a lot of things here any more. There really is a 'global economy' all connected together like a vast power grid, just waiting for a circuit failure somewhere to crash the system in whole or in part. And if such a collapse does occur, I believe the results will be very, very bad. I wonder what North Korea is going to do, and when or if China will make a grab for Taiwan. I wonder if Pakistan and India will throw nukes at each other some day. In short, I wonder if the wheels might come off the wagon without much warning, and leave the U.S. and the rest of the world in a really bad position. "Interesting times" indeed. For all the mayhem guns in civilian hands have caused, guns in the exclusive control of governments have resulted in far more. "Assault weapons" may not have much of a "sporting purpose," but the Second Amendment isn't about "sport." Judge Kozinski in his eloquent dissent to the denial of appeal for an en banc rehearing of Silveira explained it perfectly: The majority falls prey to the delusion—popular in some circles - that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns, and we would be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals on the government payroll. But the simple truth - born of experience - is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people.Somehow, I think that we are almost alone in the world still understanding in our bones that tyranny isn't something relegated to history, never to raise its ugly head again. And because we understand that, we're willing to endure our daily mayhem and slaughter. It's better to live with that, than to make the mistake we only get to make once. Labels: gun control | | |
