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
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!
The Geek and Publicola have been doing yeoman duty in keeping tabs on our congresscritters in the Senate. Please, stroll over and read. And the Geek's got a link to a helluva Kerry-bashing story in The Village Voice, no less.
And now I must go to bed, because I have to get up at 4 AM again, and leave for more field work. Back Tuesday night, I hope.
I will have to agree with your last debate partner and say:
"I think that my position now is actually more liberal (in terms of my approach to gun control) than when we started."
There are certainly regulations already in place that need to be strengthened by enforcement, and it seems I have much more to learn on the subject. I believe I am on the road to a possible core value change on this subject. (although I still have a usefulness issue with automatic weapons and probably always will. And no, not because they are scary, either. Just without need.)
So you may chalk up another "win" in your column on this issue. You are certainly a formidable advisory (sic) on this issue, and I have really enjoyed myself and learned a lot.
(I think he meant "adversary," but "advisory" might have been a freudian slip.)
Damn, only thirty some posts and less than a month. I was just getting warmed up!
C'mon, c'mon... another challenger out there? I'm ready!
The book runs just short of 300 very fast pages chronicling Stossel's career to this point (it was published just before Barbara Walters announced that she would no longer be co-anchor of ABC's 20-20 with Stossel). It begins with a short retrospective of his career. Opening chapter excerpt:
"I was once a heroic consumer reporter; now I'm a threat to journalism.
--
I won 18 Emmys, and lots of other journalism awards. One year I got so many Emmys, another winner thanked me in his acceptance speech "for not having an entry in this category."
Then I did a terrible thing. Instead of just applying my skepticism to business, I applied it to government and "public interest" groups. This apparently violated a religious tenet of journalism. Suddenly I was no longer "objective."
--
These days, I rarely get awards from my peers. Some of my ABC colleagues look away when they see me in the halls.
What follows is a description of the journey from rewarded "advocate" to shunned "gadfly."
I found it interesting that Stossel repeats the "journalism is a religion" meme I first ran into in a Jay Rosen editorial. Stossel makes it explicit in the title to his book that there is such a thing as "liberal journalism," yet he himself is not part of that orthodoxy. He explains this simply:
I never planned to be a reporter.
--
Every time a company sent a recruiter to Princeton, I volunteered for an interview. I got a dozen job offers and took the one that offered me a free flight that would take me the farthest: Seattle Magazine. They said they'd teach me how to sell advertising or do bookkeeping. But by the time I graduated, Seattle Magazine had gone out of business. I was lucky, though: Ancil Payne, the boss of the parent company King Broadcasting, called me to say, "We have a job available at KGW, our Portland, Oregon, TV station. Want to try that?"
And he did, starting as "gofer," then researcher, newswriter, and finally reporter. Stossel says:
In retrospect, I see that it probably helped me that I had taken no journalism courses. Television news was still inventing itself then, and I was open to new ideas. I learned through fear. My fear of failure made me desperate to do the job well, to try to figure out what people really needed to know and how I could say it in a way that would work well on TV.
But what Stossel doesn't say, outright, is that his lack of ordination in the Church of Journalism left his mind open to question what he saw. The first inklings of this willingness to question came shortly after he moved from Portland to the "big leagues"; WCBS in New York, where he met up with what I call the "union mentality" and was exposed to regimented reporting:
We'd show up for work at 10 A.M., and the assignment editor would tell us what we'd cover that day. I sometimes suggested we ought to report on someting else, and he'd tell me, "Do what you're told." Each correspondent would then grab one of the three-man union crews and drive to the scene of the fire, murder, news conference, or whatever the assignment editor wanted us to cover. We'd arrive like a lumbering army. It was remarkable how much time a cameraman, a soundman, and an electrician could take just getting out of the car. Every move was deliberate.
They had no reason to hurry because no one ever got fired. There was no reason to work harder because union rules demanded everyone be paid the same. Many union workers were masters not at just killing time, but at killing innovation. "Can't be done." "Against the rules." "Equipment won't do that." It stunned me that so many of them could be indifferent to what I thought was important work.
More on "regimented reporting" and how Stossel avoided it:
At WCBS I was steadily growing more frustrated with following the assignment editor's vision of what was "news." Perhaps because of my stuttering, I'd always avoided covering what the pack covered. I didn't think I could succeed if I had to compete by shouting out questions at news conferences, so I seldom vounteered to report the day's "big news." That turned out to have an unexpected benefit, It helped me realize that the most important news happens slowly. The assignment editor aw WCBS was focused only on that day's events: government pronouncements, election results, grisly fires and murders. But the world's real life-changing developments were things like the women's movement, the shrinking of computers, the invention of the birth control pill. They mattered more but happened quietly, well off the radar screen of my assignment editor, because they weren't in that day's news releases, the AP daybook, or that morning's paper. (That would be The New York Times in this case.) I decided I wanted to search out those trends and cover health and science news, the environment, sociology, psychology. The assigmnent editor wasn't interested.
One day, with great trepidation, I went over his head. I brought Ed Joyce a list of the stories the assignment editor had rejected. I said I thought my ideas were better. I feared Joyce would fire me or tell me to shut up and do what the assignment editor had told me. Instead he said, "You're right - yours are better. Do them."
And Stossel was unleashed upon unsuspecting hucksters, cheats, scam artists and the liberal media.
What follows are 14 chapters on the evil and idiocy practiced upon the American public by those Stossel exposes. In Chapter 2, Confrontations, Stossel recounts how he started doing "In-your-face" consumer reporting, and his shock at the reactions of those he exposed - blasé. Generally "stonewalling, lying, and weird politeness." It's an excellent look, psychologically, at the people who make their living out of cheating others. Especially the concluding paragraph:
Donald Trump was offended when I called him a bully for trying to force an old lady out of her house to make more room for his Atlantic City casino. After the interview, the producer stayed behind to pack up our equipment. Trump came back into the room, puffed himself up, and started blustering, "Nobody talks to me that way!"
Well, someone should.
Amen.
Chapter 3 recounts Stossel's continuation down his path to journalistic heresy, his "Confusion" over the fact that his consumer-advocacy work wasn't having any results, or at least not positive ones.
It was satisfying to confront the bad guys, but it wasn't enough. I'd expose them, and a month later, they'd be back at it. I wanted the government to do something to stop the crooks, to compensate the victims. After I spent time with the victims listening to their sad stories, I was angry. I wanted someone to help those people. What was the purpose of government if it couldn't protect them?
But that's not what happened:
Occasionally the government did act, but its actions rarely worked out well.
Every regulation seemed to have an unintended consequence. Taxpayers' dollars wound up in the pockets of the rich instead of the poor. Well-meaning regulation designed to protect consumers often hurt them by narrowing their choice.
As an idealist fresh out of college, no wonder he was confused. The chapter goes on with example after example of how government regulation of business hurt innovation and profited established business: Hair salons, milk producers, unions, public transportation, the FDA. It's angering to read, but the honesty is refreshing.
Chapter four is aptly entitled "Epiphany" and is a scourging of regulators and regulating:
I had moved from seeing regulation as a good thing to seeing it as a necessary evil. More years of reporting led me to conclude that much of it is also unnecessary evil. We don't need a million rules because free markets police themselves.
And here we see in print Stossel's small "L" libertarianism really take off.
By contrast, government almost never polices itself. When government agencies lose money, or fail at their missions, they ask Congress for more money. They usually get it, citing their failure to achieve their goals as proof they need more funds.
Followed by example after example.
I'm not going to go through all the chapters, but I will comment on the one that is one central theme of the book: the need for tort reform. The chapter entitled "The Trouble with Lawyers" begins:
I don't hate lawyers. We need lawyers.
We need them to preserve the rule of law. We need them to defend if others cheat us, steal from us, trample on our rights. However, we also need nuclear missles - to keep other nations from trampling on our rights. We try not to use them, because they harm innocent people.
We should treat lawyers the same way. Lawsuits are necessary, but evil.
And he goes on to make a very cogent case. His conclusion? We need a "loser pays" system of tort. I recently read John Grisham's The King of Torts which I found to be a fascinating and repelling look into the business of "personal injury law." Stossel's right - it's got to change.
Everyone needs to read this book, right and left alike. The right for ammunition, the left for reflection on their failures. I would have preferred some more in-depth information on each of the examples Stossel relates, but then the book would have been a thousand pages at least. I imagine his research archives must be a gold mine. Stossel makes an outstanding argument for small "L" libertarianism, and concludes with this:
My epiphany was seeing that we don't need experts to "run the country." We need limited government, a referee that keeps the peace. But that's all. Then free minds and free markets will make good things happen.
Sounds remarkably like the system our Founders envisioned, doesn't it?
Got home Friday night about 8 PM, ate dinner & crashed. Got up Saturday at 5 AM, left the house at 6, and ran my combination IHMSA pistol & NRA pistol & cowboy rifle match. Got home about 5 PM. Laid down on the bed "for a few minutes" about 6. Got up this morning about ten minutes to 8.
I head back to the job site tomorrow morning at 5 AM, and will be there probably through Tuesday.
I'll try to post some insightful commentary or biting satire today, but as burned out as I feel at the moment....
Canada's army, navy and air force are facing a funding shortfall of up to half a billion dollars, defence sources told the National Post, and the military is recommending drastic measures to make up the difference, including closing some of the largest bases in the country.
The federal government is stalling the release of internal documents that outline the looming financial crisis, but military sources said the reports indicate that in the fiscal year beginning on April 1, the air force expects to be $150-million short of funds needed to fulfill its commitments, the navy will be $150-million shy of its needs and the army will be as much as $200-million short.
The figures were submitted to General Ray Henault, the Chief of Defence Staff, last month by the heads of the land staff, the maritime staff and the air staff in anticipation of this year's defence budget.
The military sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the reports foresee a situation so dire that they recommend curtailing operations, dry-docking ships and mothballing vehicles or aircraft and closing at least four Canadian Forces bases.
Unless additional funding is awarded by the government, the air force is suggesting closing bases at Goose Bay, Nfld., Bagotville, Que., North Bay and Winnipeg, the sources said.
Further, the air force report says that unless its fleet of ageing CC-130 Hercules transport planes is replaced or modernized, the main transport base at Trenton should be closed within 10 years. "There won't be enough Hercs flying by then to justify keeping that base open," one air force source said.
The navy predicts it will not be able to live up to treaty obligations to NATO and other alliances and cannot carry out enough patrols of Canadian waters to comply with agreements with other government departments such as Immigration Canada or Fisheries and Oceans.
"We will not be able to meet our domestic defence obligations," one naval officer said.
The army is said to be in the worst financial state of all three branches of the Canadian Forces. "Everyone knows that the army's broke and has been for a couple of years," said one military source familiar with the reports.
Colonel Howard Marsh, a former senior army staff officer now working as an analyst for the Conference of Defence Associations, said he was not surprised by the size of the shortfall.
"This is a look forward ... at what they need in order to keep the army going," he said. "Nobody has ever seen a bankrupt military in a developed country.... This year I predict we will see that in Canada."
Col. Marsh said the military is saddled with ageing bases and increasingly dilapidated buildings that are fast reaching the point of collapse. "What they've been doing, year in and year out ... is not replace or repair those buildings, or buy new equipment," he said.
"The average age of the equipment in the Canadian Forces is over 20 years and it hasn't been well-maintained."
The Liberal government reduced defence spending by 23% and cut the number of regular military personnel to approximately 60,000 from 80,000 between 1993 and 2000. There were 120,000 people in the Canadian military in 1958.
In 2003, the defence budget was increased $800-million to $12.7-billion, the single largest increase since the Liberals came to power. But that still left the total below that of 1991, when the Mulroney Conservatives committed troops to the Gulf War and the defence budget stood at $12.8-billion.
Jay Hill, the Conservative defence critic, said the reports outline the result of more than a decade of Liberal cuts to the Canadian Forces.
"They shouldn't even be in this position," he said. "They shouldn't be having to look for nickel and dime savings when the government is blowing hundreds of millions on sponsorship programs."
Mr. Hill called on the government to make the three reports available immediately. "This flies in the face of this Prime Minister's stated commitment to being open and transparent," he said.
The Department of National Defence has refused to make public the annual reports, known as command impact assessments.
Defence officials this week turned down a request by the National Post and the influential defence publication Jane's Defence Weekly to see the reports under access to information legislation.
Judith Mooney, the director of access to information for the Department of National Defence, said the reports will not be made public for another three to five weeks because they are considered "draft" documents.
"I exercised my discretion to withhold the documents until the [Defence] Department's business-planning process is complete, at which time they will be released," she said.
Ms. Mooney could not say when exactly the reports would be released, but indicated they would be available by the end of March.
Although that would delay them until after the release of the federal budget, which is expected on March 23, she said David Pratt, the Defence Minister, was not involved in the decision to withhold the reports until then. Mr. Pratt did not reply to repeated requests for comment on the reports.
In previous years, the assessments have been made public.
This year's reports paint a picture even more bleak than last year's, which said the military would be unable to sustain itself without additional resources or a reduced workload.
They were the basis for a story last year in Jane's Defence Weekly, the prestigious London-based magazine, which caused a furor in Canadian and NATO defence circles. Under the headline "Running on Empty," the story said the army, navy and air force did not receive the money they needed.
The article said the navy asked for an additional $50-million to bridge the funding gap, but received only $6.7-million. The air force expected a $104-million shortfall but received about $7-million. The army had a larger gap between what was expected of it and the funding available, and received $85-million in extra money.
Major-General Terry Hearn, the chief of finance for the Canadian Forces, acknowledged the military has had "issues" with funding over the past four years.
But he said the department is implementing a long-term plan to stabilize its finances. "We'll become sustainable over the next couple of years," he said. "We have long-term strategies to deal with these issues ... [but] we're not going to solve them next year."
Peter Stoffer, a New Democrat MP whose Nova Scotia riding includes a large military base, called the government's refusal to release the reports "very suspicious."
"If anyone out there honestly believes that access to information will be any easier under this government, they are fooling themselves," he said. "They say one thing and do another."
Yet Canada's Auditor General Sheila Frasier has reported that implementing registration of all long-guns and all firearms owners (and failing) had cost, as of April 2002, $629 million. The projected cost through 2005? One BILLION.
Yet the Canadian military is sorely underfunded. Think that money might have been better spent?
I'm going to be out of town on business for the next three days or so, so no new posts for a bit. Sorry.
It'll be real interesting to find out what happens in the Senate over the bill protecting gun manufacturers and dealers, once S.659, now S.1805. The Geek is all over this, so please stay tuned in there.
And thanks for visiting! The archives are still open.
The Transportation Security Administration is not saying exactly who x-rayed themselves or when because of privacy reasons, but a source tells 9NEWS the six screeners were working at passenger checkpoints when they decided to x-ray their own bodies.
Like a piece of luggage, the screeners would have rolled down the conveyor belt into the opening, about 2.5 feet high and a foot and a half wide.
"There's enough training, enough education available in the public domain, let alone the circumstances of the TSA, to know this is a foolhardy thing to do,” said David Forbes, president of Boydforbes, Inc. “The questions that come out of this though are what is the level of supervision?"
Forbes, a security expert, says this highlights a lack of good management and training. But TSA spokesman Mike Fierberg says it was just someone doing something stupid. He insists it did not interfere with security.
TSA would not say if the screeners were still on administrative leave. In fact, it would only confirm that "some kind of action" was taken against one screener at DIA.
As for the screeners’ health, the manufacturers of the x-ray equipment say the exposure is actually too low to hurt anyone. They say a chest x-ray at a hospital would be 50 times stronger than an x-ray from an airport system.
There are also news video reports on the site.
OK, one comment: Do you feel safe? No, wait! Two: Think your tax dollars are well spent?
So...Gunshows are "Supermarkets for Criminals" eh?
Not according to J. David Phillips of Crystal River FL, and his experience is just about a duplicate of mine. Which is why I don't go to Evil Loophole Gunshows anymore. Here's an old rec.guns newsgroup post on the topic. Keep spewable liquids away from the keyboard:
Is your show anything like this one?
Arrive early. Usually a short wait to get in. For parking that is. Overpriced parking that costs more than show admission. Gunshow is usually held at the same time the Women's Knitting Society Doll Show is held, and they open earlier, so all the good parking is snapped up. Oh well, I suppose no one in Florida has any right to complain about walking in the rain.
Now we've got the line to get in. Let's see, there are three lines. Gee, this one is a bit shorter. Oops, why is it going so slow? Why the #### is everyone in MY line paying with loose change? Cripes, the other lines have cleared out twice over. Finally get to the booth. Oops, now it's shift change. At 9AM?
A couple of sleezy looking good ole boys holding up the wall shout "Hey, what'ya got on that chrome AK? Does it have the switch on it ?"
Now for the line to get in. Everyone has to be checked for guns. No, I'm not carrying a gun. Thank goodness. The old geezer rent-a-cop is having trouble trying to figure out how to open someone's 30-30 action.
OK, now we're cooking with gas. Literally. I have to run the gauntlet of BBQ grill dealers.
Ah, a gun table. Looks interesting. Oops, spoke too soon. Someone must be kidding. These are parts guns and this guy wants 50% over MSRP? Move on.
Here's a familiar sight. This old fella always has a table full of Winchester Model 71's. The same table full. Meaning he hasn't sold any for several years. I guess he's just displaying his collection and is tired of saying they aren't for sale, so he's resorted to putting astronomical prices on them to discourage sales. At least that's what I can figure out.
Oh look, the Beanie Baby dealer fom Ozello has managed to move closer to the front door.
Couple of ultra fat sleezy good ole boys holding up the South wall shout "Hey, what'ya got on that there chrome AK? Has it got duh switch on it ?"
Now I have to run the gaunlet of safe dealers who take your order but never deliver. My sister had to get the state attorney general involved to get her money back from one. Quickly move on.
Make quick pit stop. Wish I had gone before I left home. The facilities are so filthy that I cannot describe them here. Wish I had used the safe of the ripoff dealer to relieve myself.
Now I pass the snack bar. I could never figure out why it is located right next to the restrooms. People are standing in line for hotdogs that look like they've been cooking since the last gunshow. The smell of hotdogs and urinal mints must make some people hungry, I guess. Quickly move along.
This guy seems to have quite a crowd around his gun parts. Wait to get close to table. Dang. It's all the pot metal 1911 bushings with built-in comp and bayonet lugs. Work my way out of the crowd and on to the next table.
More Beanie Babies from a dealer in Aripieka.
Now a jerky and sausage vender from Brooksville.
Darrel and Darrel come up to me and ask "Hey, what'ya got on that chrome AK? Do it have the switch on it ?"
Ah, some real gun parts. Unfortunately none for any of the many gun projects I have. but it's good to know that if I ever get a Mondragon that this guy has cornered the market for firing pins.
More beanie babies from an idiot in Crystal River.
Say, here's three tables with books. Let's see... "How To Turn Your 10-22 Into A Thousand Yard Assault Sniper Rifle". "How To Make A Fully Automatic 10-22 Assault Sniper Weapons System". "Converting Your 10-22 Into a Fully Automatic Thousand Yard Assault Sniper Weapon". Hmmm, I'm begining to see a pattern here. Move along.
Ah, the mountain man muzzleloader dealer. This guy seems knowledgable, reasonably priced, has lots of inventory and accessories, and is friendly. Too bad I'm not into muzzleloaders.
Here's a fellow I can't figure out. He is a collector. Yet he brings glass display counters. Six of them. Full of brand new guns with warranty. No 4473, cuz he ain't a dealer. He's a collector. Gee, wish I could be a collector and sell dozens of brand new guns still in the box from my collection each weekend. Course, if you are in 'business' , then you have to have a license.
Next is the eight tables of guns from a local storefront dealer. They are selling like hotcakes. Can't be the price, because they are marked up even more than what they sell for in the store. After looking over the guns and hearing "You gunna buy or what?" from three different clerks, it begins to dawn on me that people are there for the abuse. I think they're from Inverness.
Quickly move along.
Here's a table dedicated to sniping. He sells sniper rifles, sniper scopes, sniper ammo, sniper clothes, sniper books, sniper bumper stickers, sniper posters, sniper conversion kits for 10-22's, sniper jacket pathes and how to snipe video tapes. Quite a crowd too. The seller is telling some youngsters about the brave and noble Waffen SS snipers who would hold their fire while old Russian women crossed the street with their babies. Made sour mental note that perhaps Waffen SS snipers might be a level above Lon Horiuchi.
Stop at a little table with an interesting old pistol. Unfortunately, the seller is not there, as he ate one of the hotdogs and is soaking up some of the restroom mints, but his sister's cousin's daughter's boy is, and he's watching the table. Have to come back later.
Oh look, the magazine dealer. This old gentleman makes my visit worthwhile. His prices are pretty high, but it's amazing the magazines he comes up with. I need a magazine for a Walther P-38 in 22LR. By George, he's got one. New in wrapper. $60. Ouch. Buy it anyway. Have to make the parking and entrance fee seem worthwhile. Wish he'd sell out of his house, but no, only at gun shows.
More Beanie Babies from another idiot in Lecanto.
Bruce and Larry from Queer People, Inc, ask "What'ya got on that there chrome AK? Does it have the switch, sweetie?"
Another magazine dealer. Let's see what he has. Lots and lots of bins of magazines for every imaginable military firearm since WWII. Uh oh, they are all USA magazines. But, they're guaranteed for life.
And another book dealer. Let's see. "How To Turn Your 10-22 Into a...." QUICKLY move along.
A pawn shop table. Cheap jewelry, watches and junk from a competitor in Crystal River. I guess he's finally found out that one has to watch how much stuff they take into the store.
Another sausage and jerky dealer from the place next door to the pet store in Crystal River.
Alright! An old west firearms dealer. Rusted pre-war Win 1894 - $650. Rusted Iver Johnson topbreak 32 revolver with peeling nickel finish - $400. Halfway decent Colt SAA - note says it was owned by Jesse James. (sigh)
Another parts dealer. Yep. Lots of parts alright. Too bad they all are either demilled by being torch cut or look like they've been salvaged from a sunken U-Boat. Thought I heard someone say they're from the Atocha, and found by Mel Fisher.
Here's an interesting table full of guns. Decent prices. Decent looking old guns. Hey, just what I'm looking for. Says the bore is good. Can you please snip the ty-wrap so I can inspect the bore? Why not? Oh, you aren't allowed to do that? Show management said so? How come all the other dealers do it? You won't sell to me because I'm a trouble maker? Geeeesh, must be from that Hernanidiot club.
Surplus military clothing. Lots of it. Along with surplus moth holes. All at non-surplus prices.
Table full of cheap toys made by slave labor in communist China.
Oh boy, this looks interesting. Lots and lots of reloading equipment, much of it in older boxes. Might find some obsolete dies. Yep, just what I need. 25-35 and 32-40. I figure $20 each is fair. What? Do you know your price is double the new RCBS price? Take it or leave it? They got a lifetime warranteeee. Leave it.
A guy selling gun stocks. Do you have a stock for a pre-64 Model 94 Winchester? Looks around, slightly confused, then says his stocks fit all Winchester 94's. Sorry, but no, they don't, they are the same stock as the Win 1892. Well sonny, I've been in the stock biznuz for thutty yaars, and I oughta know.
Familiar looking cast bullet dealer. Lots of nice looking bullets. Ask him the same question I ask at every gun show. Do you have soft cast 45-70 and 45 Colt bullets with either SPG lube or no lube? I see, only hard cast with lube so hard it might as well be plastic. What's SPG ?
Another gun dealer. Hmmm. Interesting Broomhandle Mauser. Say can I ***HEY MISTER YOU WANT TO SELL THAT SPRINGFIELD?*** look at your ***WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR THAT WINCHESTER?*** Broomhandle Maus- ***I HAVE A BAYONET TO FIT YOUR GARAND RIGHT HERE*** Give up and leave. He'd rather cast his line at fish going by than one nibbling on his hook.
Another Beanie Baby dealer from New York, shouting out " Such a deal for youse".
See an old acquaintence of mine that is a total gun show whore. Hey Samuri Davie boy, you sure have put on weight. How much ya got on that there chrome AK? Does it have the switch on it?"
A table with all sorts of old junk, none of it having anything to do with firearms, being manned by a kindly looking old lady. Politely smile and nod and move along.
Table full of project guns. All torch cut in two. Yep, they'd be a project alright.
Samuri sword dealer. I started feeling for my pocket gun and the switch on the AK.
Nazi collectibles dealer. Why are these guys always about 330 pounds, need a shave, have a tooth missing, wear plumber's butt jeans and wife beater t-shirts and have their hair slicked back? Oh, the 'DEATH TO ZOG' bumper sticker is a nice touch. Skip whole row.
Demonstration row. Here's a guy with a hotplate and tea kettle showing how his goop fog proofs your eyeglasses. I bought some of the stuff a couple of years ago from a woman with huge tits. Still have it, as it doesn't work. Here's a guy showing how his vacuum cleaner can pick up a bowling ball (will keep that in mind when the bowling ball buildup on my carpets gets out of hand). Here's a guy selling a complete butcher shop kit. Bandsaw, huge sausage grinder, giant meat slicer, more knives than a Ginsu ad, everything to keep Jeffery Dahlmer happy. Here's a guy selling a meat blade that attaches to your chainsaw to cut up your deer. Must be for the high volume hunter. What else? A knife sharpener. Carpet shampoo. Car wash. Kit for making 800 lbs of jerky. At least walking this isle was better than going by the hotdog and urinal mint stench.
More Beanie Babies from the Christmas Store down the street.
Table with lots of AR15's. And the obligatory old geezer spouting off to no one in particular, "By gum, that be them thar ay-salt wippins thet be gettin the rest of ouh gun rayhts taken away, yessir. No self ray-spectun sportsman would evah own one o dem. No sir. They need ta be banned." Notice at least he has a wide space around him. Maybe it's a plan to keep from being jostled by the crowd. I think he's the guy that sells the blowguns down the aisle.
T-Shirt vendor. Has t-shirts like "DEATH TO ZOG". Gee, this guy is about 330 pounds, needs a shave, has a tooth missing, wear's plumber's crack jeans and a wife beater t-shirt and has his hair slicked back. Shake head wondering if he's related to the Nazi collectibles dealer.
This table is loaded with all the gun gimmicks of the last 30 years. Glow in the dark sight paint. Folding 10-22 Assault Sniper Weapon Stocks with Flash Hider and Built In Bayonet Lug and Oversized Tactical Safety and Magazine Release kit. Barrel heat shield for 10-22 (they get might hot after conversion to a thousand yard fully automatic assault sniper rifle, ya know). Ah, this is interesting. Why I don't know. A 150 round snail drum for a Charter Arms AR-7. At least when you're living off the land you won't have to reload all winter.
Jerky and sausage dealer from New Jersey, shouting " Oy Vey".
Bikers selling Harley parts for 20% above retail from one of the biker trash shops around Crystal River.
Mutt and Jeff stop by and ask, "What'ya got on that chrome AK? Duhs it have switches on it?"
Local gun club group who says they are raffling off a Winchester 22 Magnum rifle with a 3-9 scope. Raffle tickets are $10 each and go to defending gun rights and their building fund. What building? Free club patch, suitable for patching holes in your shirt. Ask them who won the last rifle they were raffling off. Sorry, can't tell ya. Privacy and all that. Do you at least have a photo of the winner holding up his gun? Uneasy silence while they all look at each other with that "gee, maybe we'd have more credibility if we faked a photo like that."
Guy with a few bins of gun parts and a HUGE-BY-LARGE sign that says I CARRY ALL GUN PARTS - JUST ASK!. Do you have a loading gate for an 1886 Winchester? No. Do you have a firing pin for an 1892 Winchester? No. Do you have an extractor for a Rem 788? No. (Hmmm, let's try an experiment.) Do you have a kit for converting a Ruger 10-22 into a thousand yard fully automatic assault sniper rifle? Yessir, sure do.
Old woman at a table full of books. She weighs about 330 lbs, has a tooth missing, greasy hair and is selling books with titles like "DEATH TO ZOG". She vaguely resembles someone. Shake head and move on.
Only a couple of tables to go. Getting hungry too. And need to make a pit stop. Figure I'll drive to the nearest McDonald's rather than risk the toilet mint aroma hot dogs and the filthy facilities.
And what are the last two tables?
Beanie Babies seconds from their factory.
And a guy who has REALLY figured out marketing. His table has jerky, 10-22 conversion books, rusty gun parts, old reloading dies, a few Nazi medals, and a rusted up top break Webley revolver, formerly owned by Jesse James.
My contribution? Parking fee, entrance fee, bought one pricey magazine, headache from the toilet mint smell, and two black tire marks out of the parking lot.
The only difference between Mr. Phillips' experience and my own is that the gun shows out here have a lot fewer gun vendors, and only one "DEATH TO ZOG" booth.
(Multiple Expletives Deleted...) THIS is What We're Fighting
Via AR15.com I found this... (*ahem*) propaganda video produced by those concerned citizens of the Brady Center. The NRA is "bullying" Congress into "ending" the AWB! No, we concerned gun owners are "bullying" them into letting the damned useless law sunset like it's supposed to. But that's not how the Brady people spin it, oh no! It will "put dozens of illegal weapons back on the street!" Excuse me? It never took them off the damned street. At least they got the quantity right. Dozens is about it.
But what do they do? Frighten the kiddies! "Criminals will have access to a terrifying arsenal!" You morons, they already do! Even in England, where guns are banned, they have access to machineguns and handgrenades!
Oooh! Look at the scary guns! Right.
"12 rounds into a cop's body in 2 seconds." Suuuure! Can you pull a trigger twelve times in two seconds and hit anything?
Oooh! "In a recent poll, 70% of Americans supported keeping and strengthening the Assault Weapons Ban." Well, how surprising. Who funded the poll? Who worded the poll? And who is responsible for ensuring that the populace doesn't understand the idea of Constitutional protections of individual rights?
"Favor #2: Slam the courthouse door on victims and their families." Oh, right. It's the gun manufacturer's fault when somebody is shot during a robbery. It's the gun manufacturer's fault when some moron points a loaded gun at someone and pulls the trigger. Are we going to sue cutlery manufacturers for stabbings with evil "assault knives?" Willl we sue them when someone cuts a finger while chopping celery? The Lousville Slugger company for baseball-bat assaults? Or players injured by flying ones? Ford, when someone deliberately runs someone over? Or drives drunk into a tree? That's not justice, it's a perversion of it.
"The NRA is pushing a bill giving sweeping immunity from civil lawsuits." Well, YEAH, because the Brady Foundation and others have been using civil lawsuits in an attempt to bankrupt gun manufacturers. Here's what several decisions in these lawsuits have said:
"Although this public nuisance lawsuit is brought by the Attorney General on behalf of the State of New York - while the Hamilton action was one initiated by private parties for negligent marketing - both were brought against handgun manufacturers and sellers. Plaintiffs attempt here to widen the range of common-law public nuisance claims in order to reach the legal handgun industry will not itself, if successful, engender a limitless number of public nuisance lawsuits by individuals against these particular defendants, as was a stated concern in Hamilton (96 NY2d at 233). However, giving a green light to a common-law public nuisance cause of action today will, in our judgment, likely open the courthouse doors to a flood of limitless, similar theories of public nuisance, not only against these defendants, but also against a wide and varied array of other commercial and manufacturing enterprises and activities.
"All a creative mind would need to do is construct a scenario describing a known or perceived harm of a sort that can somehow be said to relate back to the way a company or an industry makes, markets and/or sells its non-defective, lawful product or service, and a public nuisance claim would be conceived and a lawsuit born. A variety of such lawsuits would leave the starting gate to be welcomed into the legal arena to run their cumbersome course, their vast cost and tenuous reasoning notwithstanding. Indeed, such lawsuits employed to address a host of societal problems would be invited into the courthouse whether the problems they target are real or perceived; whether the problems are in some way caused by, or perhaps merely preceded by, the defendants completely lawful business practices; regardless of the remoteness of their actual cause or of their foreseeability; and regardless of the existence, remoteness, nature and extent of any intervening causes between defendants lawful commercial conduct and the alleged harm." - from the appeals court decision upholding the dismissal of New York v. Sturm Ruger et. al.
--
"Knives are sharp, bowling balls are heavy, bullets cause puncture wounds in flesh. The law has long recognized that obvious dangers are an excluded class. Were we to decide otherwise, we would open a Pandora's box."
"The city could sue the manufacturers of matches for arson, or automobile manufacturers for traffic accidents, or breweries for drunken driving.
"Guns are dangerous. When someone pulls the trigger, whether intentionally or by accident, a properly functioning gun is going to discharge, and someone may be killed. The risks of guns are open and obvious.
"We hold that the trial court properly dismissed the city's complaint. The city's claims are too remote and seek derivatively what should be claimed only by citizens directly injured by firearms. The city cannot recover municipal costs. We overrule its assignment of error and affirm the judgment of the trial court." - Judge Ralph Winkler, Ohio 1st District Court of Appeals in the decision upholding dismissal of Cincinnati's lawsuit.
--
"As an individual, I believe, very strongly, that handguns should be banned and that there should be stringent, effective control of other firearms. However, as a judge, I know full well that the question of whether handguns can be sold is a political one, not an issue of products liability law, and that this is a matter for the legislatures, not the courts. The unconventional theories advanced in this case (and others) are totally without merit, a misuse of products liability laws." Judge Buchmeyer in the dismissal of Patterson v. Gesellschaft, 1206 F.Supp. 1206, 1216 (N.D. Tex. 1985)
But you won't be hearing any of that from these people.
"Even the notorious Bull's Eye Shooter Supply will be protected by the bill. 52 crimes were traced to guns sold by Bull's Eye. The government discovered 238 guns missing or stolen from Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, including the Bushmaster used by the DC snipers. Victims will have no recourse against dealers who supply guns to the criminal market."
Where do I start? First "52 crimes were traced" is exactly backward. The BATF traces guns not crimes, so did we have one guy committing 52 crimes with one gun, or 52 different guns and different crimes? It's pretty damned vague. How old were the guns? Were they in the possession of the original owners? Were they illegally purchased by felons? Were they "straw purchases"? Were they stolen? None of this matters to the Brady people, because all guns are bad to them. So, the "government discovered 238 guns missing or stolen" from Bull's Eye. Wonderful. If the company was so fucked up, why did it take years for the BATF to pull the license? Regulating licensed dealers is their goddamned job! And Bull's Eye was the source of the DC sniper's Bushmaster? But I thought the sunsetting Assault Weapons Ban kept these guns off the street! Guess not, huh?
Get this straight - if it can be proven that the DC snipers bought that Bushmaster "under the table" then Bull's Eye's previous owner is civilly liable even if the preemption law passes. But if the gun was, as Malvo has confessed, stolen it's not his fault. But you won't hear that either.
"The NRA wants complete immunity for Bull's Eye and other bad gun dealers and justice denied to victims and their families." HORSESHIT! The NRA wants immunity against nuisance lawsuits that are nothing more than blatant attempts to litigate businesses into bankruptcy. The Brady bunch doesn't give a rat's ass about "victims and their families" except as poster-children for their pogrom against guns. They know that these lawsuits are groundless, but it hasn't stopped them from filing them all over the country, and appealing defeat after defeat. If they actually gave a damn, they'd be giving "the victims and their families" the money that the greedy fucking trial lawyers are expecting.
"Right now gun victims can sue irresponsible gun manufacturers and dealers. The NRA wants to change this." Fucking-A right they do. For all the reasons listed above.
"Right now, military style semi-automatic weapons are illegal."
NO THEY ARE NOT
That is a blatant lie and the Brady bunch doesn't give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about lying to you if it furthers their agenda. And their agenda is to make that statement true.
"STOP THE MADNESS" Here's an idea: STOP THE BRADY BUNCH AND THEIR ILK!
Here's the source of this shameless bullshit, hunted down by AR15.com contributor colinjay:
Kenneth Lerer Associates
331 West 57th St
PMB 465
New York, New York 10019
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com
Domain Name: NRAMADNESS.COM
Created on: 29-Sep-03
Expires on: 29-Sep-05
Last Updated on: 29-Sep-03
Administrative Contact:
Lerer, Ken lerken2003@yahoo.com
Kenneth Lerer Associates
331 West 57th St
PMB 465
New York, New York 10019
United States
917.254.8732 Fax --
Technical Contact:
Lerer, Ken lerken2003@yahoo.com
Kenneth Lerer Associates
331 West 57th St
PMB 465
New York, New York 10019
United States
917.254.8732 Fax --
Domain servers in listed order:
VARICK.DATAGRAM.COM
VANDAM.DATAGRAM.COM
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
1225 Eye St, NW
Suite 1100
Washington, District of Columbia 20005
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com
Domain Name: NRABLACKLIST.COM
Created on: 26-Sep-03
Expires on: 26-Sep-05
Last Updated on: 26-Sep-03
Administrative Contact:
Hall, Keith webmaster@bcpgv.com
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
1225 Eye St, NW
Suite 1100
Washington, District of Columbia 20005
United States
(202) 898-0792 Fax --
Technical Contact:
Hall, Keith webmaster@bcpgv.com
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
1225 Eye St, NW
Suite 1100
Washington, District of Columbia 20005
United States
(202) 898-0792 Fax --
Domain servers in listed order:
VANDAM.DATAGRAM.COM
VARICK.DATAGRAM.COM
Campaign, Brady (ZSATDLEOQD)
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
1225 Eye St, NW
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005
US
Domain Name: STOPTHENRA.COM
Administrative Contact:
Campaign, Brady (35898741P) webmaster@bcpgv.com
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
1225 Eye St, NW
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005
US
202-898-0792
Technical Contact:
Network Solutions, Inc. (HOST-ORG) customerservice@networksolutions.com
13200 Woodland Park Drive
Herndon, VA 20171-3025
US
1-888-642-9675 fax: 571-434-4620
Record expires on 04-Sep-2006.
Record created on 04-Sep-2003.
Database last updated on 24-Feb-2004 03:24:21 EST.
AR15.com contributor rayra googled and found this:
"Ken Lerer" pops up as a publicist / shill in New York. There is another hit for "ken lerer" in DC, and joining AOL / TIme Warner.
Then there is a "ken lerer" who left AOL Time Warner, and joined something called the "New Democracy Project" - http://www.newdemocracyproject.com/about/board/
http://www.newdemocracyproject.com/about/board/#Lerer
which states -
past Executive Vice President at AOL Time Warner, is currently head of Kenneth Lerer Associates, LLC and a lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
Don't let anybody tell you that gun owners are paranoid and that "nobody wants to take your guns away."
These fuckers do. And they're well organized and well financed. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out that Mr. Lerer has one of the few NYC gun carry permits, or employs an armed bodyguard.
(Pardon my language, but these people really piss me off!)
Now, call your Senators and tell them that you want Senate Bill S.659 to pass without amendment.
The number is 202-224-3121. You have to call twice, once for each Senator. Do it now.
Several of us couples were gathered for dinner at the home of a friend, when one of our young desperados emerged from playing.
The little bandito must have been packing heat because we heard the hostess sing out from the kitchen:
"All weapons in the playroom!"
I caught the eye of my conscientious mother friend sitting across the table from me.
Weapons?
It's not like my friend and I are purists.
Her son has in his toy chest two vintage Army tanks that once belonged to her husband. My son has a plastic box filled with miniature Revolutionary War soldiers. Her son has a toy gun his grandparents gave him for Christmas one year. Both our kids own plastic swords.
But a pack of boys of varying ages and sizes playing outside their parents' view with a random bunch of violent toys? Hmmmm.
How times have changed. I used to play "War" with my friends literally for hours "outside my parent's view."
When I became the mother of a son 15 years ago, I didn't consider toy weapons for playtime, mostly because my own girlhood toy du jour was Chatty Cathy.
As the years went by and my normal American boy began to notice he was the only male child on the block without an Ouzi (sic) for a squirt gun, I felt compelled to research the appropriateness of weapon play.
I learned that while some childhood experts believe kids who play with toy weapons become Columbine shooters, that there is no conclusive evidence to support such a theory.
Who'dathunkit? "no conclusive evidence to support such a theory"? How about any evidence to support such a theory?
I learned that Mister Rogers thought war play an appropriate, dare I say necessary, way for kids to act out a violent world. Even peacenik Joan Baez reportedly let her kids play with toy guns, contending if she didn't, they would want them even more.
I learned from my own experience that boys will be boys, that a pork chop bone readily becomes a Colt 45 in the hands of a 4-year-old, even a 4-year-old who's never seen anything on TV more violent than Barney.
Amazing, that, isn't it? And another nail in the coffin of the idea that "boys and girls are the same, it's just the way we raise them that makes them different."
As time went on, as I watched my first son and his friends grow up - some of them with toy guns, others not - I concluded that weapon play does not necessarily breed violent tendencies, that whether a child should play with cap guns depends partly on the child, that it is not necessarily a bad thing for a child to play with toy weapons, that it may even be good.
I still didn't like it. When all was said and done, expert wisdom or not, I simply didn't like the way kids acted when they played with certain violent toys. Never mind violent tendencies later. The way I saw it, weapon play produced violent behavior now.
And this is a bad thing....why? Shouldn't children learn the effects of violent behavior when they're young, rather than find out after years of being coddled and protected? Violence often hurts, but if you don't learn that as child, doesn't that leave you unprepared to learn it as an adult?
And yet, knowing the power of culture and a little boys' urges, I ultimately decided to take it one supervised weapon play at a time. Two well-behaved boys playing toy soldiers on the floor became acceptable. Ouzis (sic) in the hands of 6-year-olds, or 15-year-olds, for that matter, did not.
Even if they're just squirt-guns? Why?
An occasional sword fight in the living room, as long as there was no actual contact, was tolerable. Neighborhood gun battles were not. All weapon play, regardless, was heavily monitored and controlled, so it didn't escalate into something it shouldn't.
Oh for Jebus's sake. They're CHILDREN, not porcelain dolls!
I didn't say anything the other night to the hostess - a mother whose parenting I trust, by the way - even though eight boys, and, I might add, two girls, apparently were chasing each other around with what I later learned were pretend guns, swords and firefighters' axes.
As a matter of fact, after my initial eyebrow-raising, I didn't think much at all about the kids' choice of play, partly because I trusted this particular group of kids and their parents, partly because I didn't think it was my place. It wasn't even my house. Who was I to order the kids to put down their toys and find something else to do?
And yet, as it turns out, as we parents all later realized, that's exactly what one of us should have done. Because things did escalate, because one of the kids ended up getting hurt, because halfway through dinner, my conscientious friend's 6-year-old son emerged scared, crying and asking his parents to take him home. She later said he had bumps on his head and a cut on his face.
Direct contact with a weapon was not the cause. The kids assured us of that. But I doubt very seriously this would have happened, had they been redirected to a rousing game of, say, Tiddlywinks.
"Bumps on his head and a cut on his face." I shudder to think what generations of kids who are raised killing and maiming characters on a video game display, but who have never been injured when playing "War" would be like when they hit adolescence. Boys play rough, and "bumps and scratches" are a normal part of that. Wrapping them in cotton and only allowing them to play Tiddlywinks is idiocy. Pain is a corrective feedback mechanism. Eliminating all pain and injury from childhood is a sure way to leave kids unprepared for life.
It would appear that Ms. Hook is the same kind of parent who would oppose competition because it might affect her child's "self-esteem."
And do your part. | posted by Kevin at 7:20 PM PermaLink
Joke of the Day
A minister was seated next to an U.S. Army Ranger Officer on a flight to Fort Benning, Georgia. After the plane was airborne, drink orders were taken. The Officer asked for a whiskey and soda, which was brought and placed before him. The flight attendant then asked the minister if he would like a drink.
He replied in disgust, "I'd rather be savagely raped by brazen whores than let liquor touch my lips."
The Officer then handed his drink back to the attendant and said, "Me too. I didn't know we had a choice." | posted by Kevin at 6:24 PM PermaLink
Sunday, February 22, 2004
It's Official!
Ralph "Unsafe at Any Speed" Nader is out to spoil any chance the Democrats thought they had. Again. He's running for President as an independent. He got a whopping 2.7% of the vote in 2000, but in more than one race his totals were more than the difference between Bush and Gore. I hope the race this year won't be so tight as to make a Nader candidacy important, but you never know.
"It is an offence to deny millions of people who might want to vote for our candidacy an opportunity to vote," he said
Well, he might generate "millions" of new "protest" voters, but he's more likely to draw the Deaniacs and the PETApeople and their ilk who would be inclined to hold their noses and vote DEM.
Meanwhile, I and many like me will hold our noses and vote for Bush, because as James Lileks wrote
Bush is serious about the war. The Democrats are serious about the war against Bush.
According to this story the New Hampshire Senate on Thursday passed a "Vermont Carry*" bill which now proceeds to the House. Colorado's legislature is debating such a measure (though I think it'll die on the vine) and Alaska passed "Vermont Carry" last year.
Now New Hampshire?
Did some elected officials get replaced with reasoning beings when no one was looking?
(*For those of you new to this blog, "Vermont carry" is legal, permitless carry of a concealed weapon. i.e: You don't have to prove to the state that you're worthy, they have to prove you're not.)
David Codrea, professional writer for gun magazines, wrote this excellent letter to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, acting Chief of Police Heather Fong, and Judge James L. Warren, which I will reproduce here in whole:
Mayor, I see you are authorizing city employees to perform homosexual marriages, Judge Warren, you are allowing them to proceed, and Chief Fong, you are allowing California law, as enacted by a vote of the people, to be publicly and repeatedly broken without making any arrests.
I'm not commenting on that issue, per se, so much as observing that you are all three instigating and abetting the violation of that law.
Judge Warren, you went so far as to state that you couldn't issue a restraining order to halt the marriages because, as Reuters reported, "there was not enough evidence presented showing that immediate damage would be done by allowing them."
Which leaves me with an interesting dilemma.
You see, I also belong to a group that is forced by social prejudices to keep a low profile—often times to hide my choices and practices lest I suffer disapproval and ultimately, life-threatening persecution by the state.
I am a gun owner and I live a gun owner life style.
I don't know if I was born with a tendency to be this way, or if it was an acquired disposition. All I know is, I don't see why I should be forced to change. Truth be known, I like owning guns, and am happy with who I am. I hope I suffer no repercussions by "coming out of the safe," but I just can't hide the truth any longer.
We gun owners have been living and working among you. Our kids go to school with yours. We may be your doctor, or minister, or your child's teacher. We may even work in city administration, or the courts, or on the police force. And we are sick of being abused for simply being who we are, all because of hoplophobic* prejudice and fear. We don't see any reason why we should have to put up with it any more.
Which brings me back to my dilemma and the reason I am writing you.
You have shown progressive thinking and tolerance for that which the majority condemns. So I was thinking of coming up to San Francisco and exercising my right to keep and bear arms, maybe showing up at City Hall with a state-banned AR-15 and a couple 30-round magazines, and also carrying several pistols concealed without a permit.
Yes, I know, it will be a violation of California laws, but you've shown that you're willing to disregard those when it serves your goals. And because I am a peaceable citizen, I should easily meet Judge Warren's criterion that no immediate damage would be done by allowing this.
So what do you think, if I visit your city and proudly display my lifestyle choices, can I count on your support? As a private citizen, don't I have as much right to disregard laws I find reprehensible as you public officials? Isn't that what equality is supposed to be all about, where no class of citizen enjoys privileges and immunities not extended to all?
How about it? You wouldn't have me arrested, would you?
Please let me know if I have your support.
Sincerely,
David Codrea
* Credit and gratitude to the peerless Col. Jeff Cooper for coining this term.
The response to this excercise of freedom of speech? An investigation by the San Francisco Police Department because the letter was perceived as threatening. David received a phone call from a Inspector Peter Walsh of the SFPD who conducted an interview. Read David's account of whole thing, but these are the parts that I think are important here:
He explained several times that it was just routine to follow up on things like this, that his job was apolitical, and they just have to investigate. I told him I understood that, and hoped he also understood what a chilling effect a police response to political speech created.
He indicated I did not sound like a threat and sounded "intelligent".
I was left with the impression that they were probably not going to put much more energy into it -- although I would be surprised if they haven't checked my background, records and gun purchases, and wouldn't be surprised if a judge didn't consider the circumstances probable cause to tap into my phone and internet. But anyone who is an activist is an automatic target, especially if it's about something that scares the hell out of civil authority (people with guns!!!), and I've felt there's probably a good chance the government has been doing that for some time.
He told me he had also asked the Redondo Beach Police to drop a message off at my home as backup to the message he left on my machine, so to just ignore the message they delivered. We then said our goodbyes.
--
I do find it bizarre that civil authority is so fearful of an armed citizenry that if they feel there is any chance of it happening, their response is to send armed men. It also confirms my opinion of the corrupt gangsters in charge of San Francisco's city government -- ready to use the force of law to advance their agenda, but publicly flout the law when it doesn't.
But of course. They're the government. That puts them above the law.
Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate who ran for president in 2000 as a Green Party candidate, will enter the 2004 race for the White House as an independent candidate, advisers told Fox News on Friday.
A formal announcement by Nader is expected this weekend.
"He's felt there is a role for an independent candidate to play," Linda Schade, a spokeswoman for Nader's presidential exploratory committee.
Yeah - spoiler of any hope the Democrats have.
Run Ralphy, RUN!
(Return nose to grindstone, shoulder to wheel, and ear to ground. How am I supposed to get any work done in this position?)
And it's a doozy! Via Instapundit comes a Reason piece about a recent Arizona gathering of moronsracistsidiots um.... Oh! Yeah! "White Supremacists." It seems that Arizona was the home of "Aryanfest 2004" (doesn't that sound like a real good time - sheesh!). However, one of the attendees didn't quite get the idea:
Aryanfest's gates opened at noon, and about an hour later, the gathering assemblage gradually hushed as all eyes turned upon the young man who had just paid his entrance fee and was casually perusing the hate-rock compact discs, swastika flags and white power watch caps at Panzerfaust Records' merchandise booth.
He was in his late teens or early 20s, had a shaved head and sported Nazi and white power tattoos on both arms, in addition to wearing the white tee shirt with bold, black script.
He would have fit in just fine, except for one thing: He wasn't white. Not even close. There was at least half a cup of Kahlúa in his cream.
He was also wearing a "WHITE POWER!" T-shirt. Read the whole thing. And the comments. And read the link to the original Phoenix New Times story that covers "Aryanfest 2004" in more detail. (Why does "Aryanfest" make me think of beer in steins and fat men in lederhosen?) Man, those are some sad, sad people.
But Ravenwood is, and in his typical brief and wickedly pointed way. Go thus and read. Start with "GOP becoming the Tax and Spend party" on Virginia's "limited government" party wanting to raise taxes more than $2 billionmore than their Democrat counterparts, then 1984: NM House approves mandatory car breathalyzer (self-explanatory). Keep working your way down, but monitor your blood pressure. You don't want to blow a major artery.
As noted below in Read the Curmudgeon. The Curmudgeon is Wise, I noted that Francis Porretto is writing a series on our government's decay, and what we might do to reverse that trend.
The Only Redeeming Feature of the LATimes - Mike Ramirez
Mike Ramirez is a Pulitzer-prize winning (and one of my favorite) political cartoonist. Here are five of his most recent. You can see why:
Photorealism is so hard, but Mike nails it.
Reason does seem to be AWOL here.
The treatment seems to be working, though.
And I think this is precisely why Kerry shouldn't have a chance to win in November. His position hasn't wavered much since the 70's - the use of force and the American military is, to Kerry, a great evil. His words and his actions since returning from Vietnam demonstrate his unfitness to be Commander in Chief.
And today's pièce de résistance:
That's it from me for a while. I have more work to do than there are hours to get it done in. The economy (at least here) has recovered. Boy, has it recovered!
Though this will have to be quick. I found this message board thread on InterOrdnance (and other "parts kit" vendors), which indicates that, at best, the people who sell "parts kits" aren't all that reliable. (I wouldn't know, I've never bought one.) But this post was the one that got my attention:
(Subject)ppsh 41 (Author)grandpawoo (Date)8/11/03
I can't believe that so many of you are bitching about the condition of your Inter Ordnance ppsh 41 kits. The real issue is that Inter Ordnance sold us a ppsh 41 parts kit that does NOT meet BATF requirements. How do I know, you might ask? Well on 08/07/03 Agent Brooks Jacobsen of the BATF and his partner showed up at my door step with orders to confiscate it. After showing me all the paper work from BATF as to why they are taking them (none of which made any sense), I was given the option of signing a "Notice of Abandonment of Property" or going to jail. BATF now owns my parts kit and said they would be destroying it (as if all those torch cuts weren't enough), and those cuts aren't enough. Each Inter Ordnance ppsh 41 kit has at least 4 cuts. BATF requires 3 cuts through the receiver. You might note that none of these 4 cuts are through the main receiver. They are through the cooling jacket, barrel (sometimes) and upper receiver. None of these cuts count. Oh, by the way, it gets better. BATF is in the process of inditing (sic) Inter Ordnance for selling illegal firearms and neither Inter Ordnance nor BATF will reimburse you when your ppsh 41 is taken from you. One last thing. How did BATF get my name and address? They went to Inter Ordnance with a warrant and told them to hand over a copy of all sales invoices for ppsh 41 sales. When agent Jacabsen arrived, the first document he handed me was a copy of the Inter Ordnance invoice. I am one very unhappy former ppsh 41 owner and you need to be very careful.
Then there's this one:
(Subject)ATF and Law Suit (Author)gunwriter (Date)8/26/03
I too got a call from the ATF (at my parents house)... not pleasant... and I ordered the kit for a friend... He wanted some parts and I sold the others off at a gun show ... I may or may not have the torch cut receiver parts... but I think I threw them out. Unfortunately all my firearms related stuff is in storage while I'm stationed overseas...
I'm not too happy with Inter Ordnance... and as for the ATF -- how does a receiver chopped into junk constitute an illegal weapon?
Sounds like InterOrdnance is a very shady business, but did they sell machineguns? Only if you accept the premise that a receiver chopped up with a saw or a torch - just not to the BATFE's exacting specifications - is a "machinegun." For those of you wondering, this is a PPSh 41, the original Soviet "burp-gun":
On Mother's Day Weekend, Million Mom March Will Gather in DC, Urge Congress to 'Halt the Assault' on Child Safety
Oh, right. Fighting idiotic gun laws is an "assault on child safety." You want to protect children? Teach them how to swim. Keep them away from household chemicals. PUT THEM IN CAR SEATS AND MAKE THEM WEAR SEAT BELTS. Finally, STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM FELONS.
With children at risk in their schools, their playgrounds and their communities, America's mothers and others will gather this Mother's Day weekend, May 8-10, in the shadow of the Capitol in Washington D.C., to demand gun violence solutions, Million Mom March members announced today.
"Demand gun violence solutions" = "Demand sweeping gun bans." Not a solution, but that's what they want.
Concerned citizens, community leaders, gun violence victims, and a coalition of state-based gun safety groups gathered with Million Mom March members in New York today to announce plans for the Mother's Day 2004 Halt the Assault Weekend, May 8-10. The announcement was made outside Martin Luther King Jr. High School, where two students were shot on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday in 2002.
What?!? At a gun-free zone?!?
"There are war casualties all around us. We need to stand up and say we've had enough," said Shikha Hamilton, official spokesperson for the Mother's Day March to Halt the Assault. "America's mothers have had enough. We are calling a timeout in the war against the next generation -- our children."
Ms. Hamilton, then I suggest you direct your attention towards the problem of drug trafficking, because that's what's driving the violence that's killing your children.
The Million Mom March, a chapter-based, grassroots organization with thousands of members and many more thousands of supporters (Even they no longer claim anywhere near a million.) throughout the nation, announced the support of Essence Communications Partners and ESSENCE magazine, which have agreed to underwrite some of the event's costs and to reach out aggressively to attract supporters over the next three months.
Really? "Aggressively"? Does that mean junk-mail and dinnertime phone calls? TV propaganda ads? What?
The main element in the Halt the Assault weekend plans announced today is a public gathering at the West Front of the Capitol starting in the late morning of Mother's Day, May 9. Following an interfaith service at the start of the program, a number of speakers and entertainers will fill the afternoon. Informational booths and other visual elements will be scattered throughout the area.
And hopefully the 2nd Amendment Sisters will be there too. Maybe this time they won't be harassed and threatened, and their literature won't be stolen and thrown away by the nice Mommies.
The weekend will be preceded by events throughout America urging rational steps to reduce gun violence through legislation, public education, lobbying (REDUNDANCY ALERT!) and other activities. Locally based chapters of the Million Mom March will hold press conferences and other events in their cities to call attention to the need for action to protect America's children.
Further details of the weekend, as they develop, will be posted on the official Mother's Day March to Halt the Assault Web site, http://www.mmm2004.com.
On Mother's Day 2000, with memories of the horrible events at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado fresh in the public's mind, hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the Mall in Washington D.C. to demand saner gun policies in our country.
Best estimates I have seen give the attendance at something over 100,000. Max. But who are we to dis a good soundbite?
"Since our last march, 120,000 Americans -- almost 14,000 of them children -- have died from gun violence.
Numbers that have declined steadily, year by year, until just recently. But because they can't point to a gun control law (or six) as a cause of this decline, it's not "progress." Never mind that the CDC's study couldn't find any correlation between gun control laws and changes in gun crime statistics.
We are deeply disappointed that Congress hasn't made progress -- and instead is trying to turn back the clock on the progress we've made," said Mary Leigh Blek, president emeritus of the Million Mom March. "We are resolute, and we won't rest until our children are safer."
As I've said, they equate "progress" to "more gun laws." Nothing else. And "safer"? "Safer" than what standard? Don't want your kids dead of gun violence? Move out of the city. That will be your best single thing to do.
The gathering comes at a time of great challenge to responsible gun policies.
"Responsible gun policies" = "more and more restrictions on the right to arms."
Unless Congress acts to renew and strengthen it, the nation's landmark assault weapons ban will expire on September 13 of this year, and AK47s and Uzis will be legal (still are) and easier for criminals to acquire. (They can get them regardless.) Weeks ago, the gun lobby's friends in Congress passed a dreadful law that requires rapid destruction of Brady background check records. (And this was "dreadful" why?) In the coming weeks, those same Congressional allies of the gun lobby will try to pass gun industry immunity that would slam the courthouse doors on gun violence victims and protect reckless gun dealers like Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, the gun dealer that "lost" the assault rifle used by the infamous Washington D.C. area snipers in October of 2002.
This is another of my pet peeves. The lawsuit is also against Bushmaster - the manufacturer of the firearm. How, precisely, is Bushmaster responsible for a gun stolen out of, or even legally sold out of any gunshop? If it can be proven that Bull's Eye illegally sold the weapon, the lawsuit against it is not protected under this legislation, but Bushmaster is. And rightfully so. But you will never hear that from people like this.
"We are all entitled to a life free of gun violence," said ESSENCE magazine's Editor-in-Chief, Diane Weathers.
Like hell you are, Ms. Weathers. Nor are you "entitled" to a life free from cancer, nor a life free from want.
This "entitlement" bullshit really jerks my chain.
"The magazine will work hard to help spread the word that women of every color and every economic background have an opportunity to be a force for positive change. The Million Mom March will unite these women and show the impact they have in saving lives."
As the nation's largest national, non-partisan, chapter-based grassroots organization leading the fight to prevent gun violence, the Million Mom March is dedicated to creating an America free from gun violence, where all Americans are safe at home, at school, at work, and in their communities.
ESSENCE magazine is the preeminent lifestyle magazine for eight million African-American women. The magazine delivers cutting-edge information on careers, money, health, fashion and beauty. Last year, ESSENCE was ranked seventh on Advertising Age's "A-List," which spotlights the best in the magazine industry for the year. This is the first time that an African-American targeted publication received this honor.
I will say that ESSENCE is probably a good forum for this, as the overwhelming majority of both perpetrators of homicide and victims of homicide are the tiny minority of urban black males between the ages of 15 and 35. They are, in fact, suffering from the equivalent of an epidemic of gun violence. But if you're not young, male, urban, and black, your odds of being a victim of gun violence aren't all that much worse than that of any average European. This argues that the problem isn't one of guns, but one of culture - especially as recent black immigrants from African and Carribean nations have about the same risk as the general caucasian population.
Want to end it? Address that problem.
Oh, and stop defending Barbara Lipscomb. At least be consistent on that.
Seems the BATF has indicted Oliver M. and Ulrich H. Wiegand, owners of InterOrdnance "on 83 counts alleging conspiracy, illegal importation of machineguns, illegal possession and transfer of machineguns, structuring, and money laundering."
The charges involve the Wiegand brothers' federally licensed firearms business, Interordnance of America, L.P., located in Monroe, North Carolina, as well as foreign companies located in Witten, Germany and Ferlach, Austria, at one time owned and controlled by the Wiegand brothers.
According to the indictment, Ulrich and Oliver Wiegand are German nationals who established Interordnance of America in June 1995 as a firearms importation business and used the business to illegally import machineguns into the United States as machinegun component parts. According to the indictment, Ulrich and Oliver Wiegand also owned and controlled two foreign companies Wiegand Ordnance GmbH, located in Witten, Germany and Interordnance Waffenhandel GmbH, located in Ferlach, Austria, which were used by Ulrich and Oliver Wiegand to illegally import Russian-made PPSH 41 machinegun component parts into the United States for subsequent sale by Interordnance of America. In addition, the indictment alleges that Ulrich and Oliver Wiegand also illegally imported FN FAL IMBEL and STEYR MP69 machineguns. The indictment alleges that Ulrich and Oliver Wiegand imported the machinegun component parts knowing that the machineguns had not been destroyed according to ATF specifications. Further, the indictment alleges that Ulrich and Oliver Wiegand sold these machineguns as parts kits to customers throughout the United States knowing that the component parts could be assembled as functional machineguns. According to the indictment, Ulrich and Oliver Wiegand, through Interordnance of America, sold over 2000 PPSH 41, over 1000 FN FAL IMBEL and over 500 STEYR MP69 machineguns to customers throughout the United States without conducting any background checks and without recording any ownership registration information with the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.
So, what they're saying is that some 3500 illegal machineguns are now in circulation? Good job ATF! A two-year investigation! Job security!
I seem to remember something about torch-cut FAL receivers that the BATF was running around trying to collect from people who had purchased parts kits.
Oh, and of course here's another example of asset forfeiture at work:
The indictment includes a Notice of Forfeiture that asks that the defendants be required to forfeit to the United States all of the property involved in the offenses charged in the indictment and all property traceable to such offenses.
Which means, effectively, "everything they own."
InterOrdnance has a response up at their web site. The response is here. Key quote:
Interordnance maintains that its actions regarding the importation and sale of the parts kits were at all times legal and in accordance with BATF regulations. Presently, none of the parts kits are offered by Interordnance pending resolution of the formal charges, even though similar parts kits can be found for legal sale by other firearms dealers.
Problem is, the BATF has such a bad reputation with me that I tend to believe almost anybody over them.
The daily life of an educrat is far from uniform. Some of us have no contact with students whatsoever, and create reams of paperwork which apply to children whom we’ve never met. I, on the other hand, am one of the lucky ones who gets to interact with pupils directly for assessments, observations, or group therapy.
It is my role to academically assess, on an annual basis, all of the children at our alternative school. This is due to our kids being exempted from district wide testing based on what I call “The Spicoli Effect.” This refers to their habit of drawing rocket ships on evaluation protocols if left unsupervised in auditoriums.
One-on-one sessions with students are the most rewarding aspects of my vocation. On one occasion, last October, while timing a student completing mathematics problems, the young man suddenly threw his pencil down and rose from his chair, in response to an “all call” from the PA. He walked towards the door after announcing, “I’m going to the tug-o-war.”
I told him to wait a minute. I called up front, and discovered that the whole school, in the midst of academic instruction, was being summoned for festivities in the gym.
What occasion were we celebrating on that day in October? The fall harvest? No, it was yet another in a long line of contrived events, and this one happened to be titled “Wacky Wednesdays.” Bizarre holidays from curriculum have become the rule rather than the exception since our school hired a new principal in 2001.
Old-timers like myself dubbed her “Princess Sparkle.” It is a most appropriate nickname for our leader as it surgically captures her vapidity, lust for attention, lack of seriousness, and ever-present sense of entitlement. No one has ever witnessed her read a book or keep her mouth shut for more than two minutes.
Read the whole thing. Move the breakables first, though.
Ok, so I found it interesting, but I thought you might, too.
When I started The Fabulous Baker Boys, Swen Swenson of Coyote at the Dog Show was the first to comment (and the first to link), and he took exception to my characterization that "rights are whatever the majority says they are." Thus began an email exchange that ran the better part of a week. I asked him about it, and we decided that posting the exchange might be interesting to others, so here it is, my comments in blue, his in grey (and no, I don't mean anything by that color combination.)
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2004 8:53 PM
Subject: RE: A right is what the majority believes it is.
Swen:
Thanks for the link.
Actually, that's the subject of an essay I wrote a while back. I didn't link it at the debate site, but if you'd like to read my reasoning, it's here:
And you're right - it's a pragmatic view of the idea of rights. Idealism is all well and good, but not all that useful in the real world. Words on paper don't hold the idea - we hold it in our hearts.
A couple of posts above that one is a concise explanation of the idea, supposedly stated by Associate Justice Scalia, though I've never been able to find a definitive citation:
To some degree, a constitutional guarantee is like a commercial loan, you can only get it if, at the time, you don't really need it. The most important, enduring, and stable portions of the Constitution represent such a deep social consensus that one suspects if they were entirely eliminated, very little would change. And the converse is also true. A guarantee may appear in the words of the Constitution, but when the society ceases to possess an abiding belief in it, it has no living effect. Consider the fate of the principle expressed in the Tenth Amendment that the federal government is a government of limited powers. I do not suggest that constitutionalization has no effect in helping the society to preserve allegiance to its fundamental principles. That is the whole purpose of a constitution. But the allegiance comes first and the preservation afterwards.
My purpose in blogging is to help in my small way to keep that abiding belief alive in those who hold it, and rekindle it in those who have let it die out. If we don't do that, once gone getting it back will be a bad, bloody business.
Kevin
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 7:34 PM
Subject: Re: A right is what the majority believes it is.
>>Idealism is all well and good, but not all that useful in the real world. Words on paper don't hold the idea - we hold it in our hearts.
And what is it we hold in our hearts if not idealism?
I understand what you are getting at, and I agree with you. But consider -- Encyclopedia.com offers this introduction to its definition of natural rights:
"Natural Rights -- political theory that maintains that an individual enters into society with certain basic rights and that no government can deny these rights." http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/n1/natrlrig.asp
So you see, I really am making a pretty quibbling point. *By definition*, no government or majority of people can deny your natural rights. You still have the right to life, liberty, and happiness, after they've stoned you to death. Cold comfort, I know. I think this is what Heinlein was getting at, that you may *enjoy* only the rights you are willing to fight for, and strong and intelligent enough to fight for successfully. After all, he was espousing the philosophy of a country that had put that philosophy into practice, where only those who had served in the military had full rights.
There would be little need to discuss natural rights, human rights, or whatever, if there weren't a distinct tendency by governments and various other entities to violate those rights. Yes, a majority can vote to violate your rights, just like a brutal dictator can do it on his whim, but in either case it is no less a violation of rights. So perhaps you might better say that you can only *exercise those rights* that a majority agree to.
Here, I think, is the rub: It's well and good to say you have 'certain basic rights', it's not so easy to say what those rights might be, and it is in defining our rights that all the problems arise. The old socialists argued that human rights included the right to a job, food and shelter, and medical care. Tangible things very different from 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'. You'll note that the constitution and amendments are vague throughout about other unenumerated rights held by the states and/or the people. A good part of that was because our constitutional framers couldn't agree on what constituted our rights. Oddly, we've never achieved a consensus since, nor do I expect we ever will.
So yes, pragmatically, our rights are *effectively* whatever a majority agree they are, but to put it quite this way is definitionally and philosophically awkward.
Cheers!
Swen
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 7:53 PM
Subject: Re: A right is what the majority believes it is.
Swen:
You're right, we're having an argument of philosophy. Do I believe I have an inherent right to be armed? I do. Do I believe I can exercise that right if society does not hold that ideal? I do not.
The problem I've got with many advocates of the right to arms is that they state, forcefully, that the Second Amendment protects an ABSOLUTE right to arms, and screw anybody who thinks otherwise. I hate to tell them, though, it does NOT. A cursory study of the legal history of the Second Amendment pretty much puts paid to that argument. The Second Amendment doesn't protect ANYTHING - only an abiding belief in the right to arms can do that, and that belief has been under attack from long before ratification of the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment has simply provided a (rather steep) speed bump to the complete denial of the right, but hardly an impregnable barrier.
So to be semantically accurate I would have to say that the right to arms is a natural right, but governments CAN AND DO DENY IT. They can only SUCCESSFULLY deny it when the majority of the population does not hold the ideal in its heart. More accurately, they can only successfully deny it to the HONEST POPULATION when they do not hold the ideal. The criminal and the anarchist will exercise the right at the risk of sanction regardless.
Kevin
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 11:41 AM
Subject: Re: A right is what the majority believes it is.
>>So to be semantically accurate I would have to say that the right to arms is a natural right, but governments CAN AND DO DENY IT.
No. *By definition* a government can't deny your natural rights. However, governments do frequently *violate* them, hence the term 'human rights violation'.
>>Do I believe I have an inherent right to be armed? I do. Do I believe I can exercise that right if society does not hold that ideal? I do not.
I'd point out that throughout history there have been plenty of people who have exercised their natural rights despite prohibitions by government -- passing out bibles in an Islamic country comes to mind. Those folks know it's against the law, they know they may be caught and punished, or even killed. They also believe that they are answering to a higher authority. Likewise, I suspect there are a lot of folks in places like NYC who exercise their 2nd amendment right and their basic right to self-defense despite their society's denial of that ideal. They know they may be caught and punished, but perhaps their fear of criminals exceeds their fear of the law and they've made a simple, pragmatic decision.
Philosophically, I think you either believe you are 'endowed by your creator with certain unalienable rights' or you don't. If you do believe you have rights that have come from some *higher source* [and it doesn't have to be religious], how could you possibly argue that those rights should be submitted to the review of the unwashed masses? How could you even much care what society thinks? Is it *safe* to ignore society and follow your conscience? Of course not, never has been. But let's not forget the old rub about trading freedom for safety -- you will have neither.
I think I agree that there is no such thing as an absolute right. The right to bear arms should not give you the right to threaten or injure innocent people with them, any more than the right to free speech extends to shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater. [I would argue that the right to bear arms doesn't give you the right to run around like a lunatic playing vigilante either, an activity that seems to draw a lot of applause in some circles.] Bottom line, sometimes it comes down to whether you should follow your own conscience and common sense, or obey a law you know is foolishly, even dangerously wrong.
As in all things, we make our choices and we take our lumps.
Cheers!
Swen
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 6:55 PM
Subject: Re: A right is what the majority believes it is.
Swen:
Oy, semantics.
Denial vs. violation of natural rights: Um, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, being the portion of the government responsible for ensuring the legal protection of my right to arms, denies that I have one. However, to date the actual violations of my right have been relatively minor. (I live in Arizona, thankfully.)
Exercise of right: Pardon me if I was unclear. Do I believe I can FREELY exercise my right if society does not hold it dear? No, I do not. I exercise it at the risk of prosecution, persecution, or worse, or I don't exercise it at all.
Do I believe that I have an inherent right to arms? Indeed I do. "(H)ow could (I) possibly argue that those rights should be submitted to the review of the unwashed masses?" I'm not arguing that they SHOULD, I'm arguing that they ARE. Fait accompli. I don't have a choice in the matter, being but one voice among the "unwashed masses" that have decided that the right I believe in really isn't what I believe it is. Since the government that supposedly represents them has accepted (or imposed) that view regardless of the written guarantee, and that government has the overwhelming firepower to carry out whatever it wishes (see Waco, TX) then I have but four choices: Follow the law even though I disagree with it; violate the law, but keep a low profile and hope for the best; violate the law openly (ride in the front of the bus) and risk certain incarceration; or violate the law violently and die for my beliefs.
Given those four choices, I VERY MUCH care what the public believes, as I like not being dead or incarcerated.
My remaining options, then are either to live with the status quo, which is ever-dwindling individual rights or to be an activist to try to affect the beliefs of the "unwashed masses" and their representatives in government in order to change the direction we are traveling. I choose option B. I'm not "trading freedom for safety," I'm retaining my freedom so that I can work to recover the ability to freely exercise my inherent rights. The point may come where I decide to choose to violate the law and take my chances, or even violate the law and die for my beliefs, but I am not at either of those points - yet.
Is this helpful?
Kevin
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 10:53 PM
Subject: Re: A right is what the majority believes it is.
Sigh.
I concluded my first email to you: "So yes, pragmatically, our rights are *effectively* whatever a majority agree they are, but to put it quite this way is definitionally and philosophically awkward."
That, and only that was my disagreement with your original post and I believe I said from the first that it was only a minor quibble.
Cheers
Swen
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 6:18 AM
Subject: Re: A right is what the majority believes it is.
Swen:
Yeah, but arguing about it is SO entertaining, isn't it? :-)
Look, my entire point is that if we don't AS A GROUP recognize the reality that we live in a pragmatic world, our view will end up marginalized (as it is most definitely becoming.) That's the reason I wrote that piece - as a wake-up call. Words have meaning, but as our exchange illustrates, unless we all agree on the meanings, any conversation we have will be useless. That's why discussing things with a gun-control proponent is so difficult. We use the same words, but they don't mean the same thing. And in my not-so-humble opinion, they understand that and use it on purpose to achieve their goals. That's why they've dropped "gun CONTROL" and switched to "gun SAFETY". But both terms, in their lexicon, mean "gun ELIMINATION."
The problem is there's not just two groups, us and them. There's three: us, them, and the majority of the pragmatic population that lives somewhere in between. We've got to reach those pragmatists, and spouting idealism - regardless of which side you're on - tends to chase them away. Our side is big on idealism. The gun control groups have learned that pragmatism works. Scare 'em with "assault weapons," "plastic guns," "cop-killer bullets," etc, etc. Doesn't matter whether anything they say is factually accurate, they just have to convince those in the middle that it's a pragmatic thing to do to eliminate the perceived threat.
Anyway, it's been interesting.
Kevin
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 8:12 AM
Subject: Re: A right is what the majority believes it is.
>>Look, my entire point is that if we don't AS A GROUP recognize the reality that we live in a pragmatic world, our view will end up marginalized (as it is most definitely becoming.)
Absolutely. Can't eat all those principles and ideals. [A gripe I have with big 'L' Libertarians. Abolish the IRS indeed.] Although the bottom line I tend to draw is that some things are simply sacred and not to be trifled with -- like the Bill of Rights. That, I'll admit, is rooted in my gut, not my head. It's my gut feeling that you've got to take a stand on something, so it might as well be on principle. *However*, you are absolutely right. Principles are very personal and emotional things, and it's about impossible to get everyone together on what our principles should be. [Or even how we should verbally express them. Gad! Do you suppose the awkward construction of the 2nd amendment was due to similar problems? I bet it was.] Therefore, I'll argue that while we should always be guided by principle, we must act pragmatically.
From a pragmatic point of view though, with the proliferation of 'shall issue' CCWs and even the recent jaw-dropping proposal of Vermont-style carry in Colorado, I'm surprised you'd suggest that we're becoming more marginalized. It would appear to me that, shall we say, 'pragmatic gun rights'* have been on the ascent since CCW passed in Florida [well, okay, there was the little Brady mess in there], and 9/11 has given us an immense boost, sending a wake-up to a lot of people who thought the government could protect us.
*Here I should point out that while pragmatically, CCWs are a great advance in exercising our freedom, idealistically, licensing a natural right is an atrocious idea. For that reason, I'm mightily heartened by the new initiative in Colorado. One might even suggest that, by giving in a little on our ideals, in the form of CCW licensing, we've gotten a foot in the door to get back to a more ideal situation vis bearing arms. Give up a little in the short term to gain a lot more in the long. As you note, given the incrementalism gun banners are so fond of, I personally never would have believed I'd see the day when our congress critters would stand up in a state legislature and legitimately argue that the people should be able to bear arms. !What a concept!
Colorado's new initiative is, I think, a shining example of why it is better not to be too rigidly absolutist and idealistic. In the give and take of politics it is difficult to get anywhere if you won't compromise at all. Unfortunately, the record from the '60s, when GCA '68 was passed, to '80s, when we started making gains again in places like Florida, has been that any compromise on our part meant all give for us and all get for the gun controllers. That, I think, is what makes so many, including myself, so absolutist and unwilling to compromise.
Of course, whether one is willing to compromise depends a good deal on which direction we're moving. When it was 'Oh, it's a perfectly reasonable bit of gun control, give a little will ya?' Compromise started to sound like a dirty word. But now that it's 'The Brady Bill was a useless bit of tomfoolery, give us back that little bit' -- when *we* gain by the compromise, which we seem to be doing on occasion now -- it becomes a whole lot easier.
Bottom line, we've got a long way to go, but I think we're making progress on a number of fronts.
Cheers!
Swen
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 8:12 PM
Subject: Re: A right is what the majority believes it is.
Swen:
Y'know, we should have blogged this.
And I'll retract that "more marginalized" comment. That was true without question up until, possibly, Florida's passage of CCW. There are signs that the pendulum may be starting a backward swing, but I'm going to remain vigilant.
Do you work at a place that has those "motivational posters" on the walls? You know, beautiful cibachrome shots of gorgeous scenery with an inspirational message at the bottom like this one on leadership?
The caption says something like "Until you spread your wings, you have no idea how far you can fly."
I find these things annoying.
Apparently someone else does too, and in an excellent example of free market acumen, he has started a business to address (and create!) that market. The business is Despair.com and it produces DEmotivational posters, "Demotivators," most of which are absolutely hilarious. Here are a few of my favorites:
Also true for "Government Regulators"
So absolutely true, especially to those of us in highly technical fields.
and
I would like very much to sneak a bunch of these professionally framed posters into some of the major corporation offices I have been in and replace the annoying ones with these just to see how long it would take somebody in management to notice.
Anyway, you can see the entire catalog here, so go and peruse. But put a towel over your keyboard. There are some funnier than these.
SMILE! You're on Candid Camera! (Don't You Feel Safer?)
This is one of the most disturbing trends that I've seen building over the last few years - more and more cameras being used by governments to observe the people they supposedly work for. These cameras take two forms: closed circuit TV where a few officials sit in some dark room and observe banks of monitors (or videotapes run for later review); and unattended cameras such as those used in speed traps which are checked periodically and used as revenue-gathering devices. In each case the cameras are installed with the promise of increasing "public safety," yet the facts are that they do no such thing. I touched on this topic very briefly in "England Slides Further Toward Bondage" back in November, but I want to expand on this topic now because it was a closed-circuit TV camera that caught footage of the abduction of Carlie Brucia and led to the capture of her killer. But it's hardly all up-sided.
I came across this Christian Science Monitor article in a link at FuturePundit that claims Britain has one (government run) CCTV camera for each 14 inhabitants, yet the evidence is that such surveillance only makes people think they're safer. Read the entire FuturePundit piece, as Randall Parker goes into more detail concerning the effectiveness of these systems than I am going to. Go ahead, I'll wait....
Finished? Good. Then I discovered that new blogger Gunner, proprietor of No Quarters, also had something to say on the topic (scroll down to "Burn Baby, Burn"). He links to two groups who are resisting the other kind of cameras, the ones used as revenue devices, and news stories of these cameras destroyed by "resisters."
Finally, there's a post by the Geekwitha.45 on just one example of the idiocy of CCTV's as a deterrent. His take on the subject has more to do with the death of jury nullification, but in "This is what happens...", he tells the story of one Richard Albert who had the temerity to drive around the gate at a closed U.S./Canadian border station so he could go to his chosen church on Sundays. He faces a $5,000 fine for that.
As the Geek put it:
Since the gate is "duck aroundable", the border station is pretty useless, isn't it? But no, they installed cameras, and started taking pictures and handing out $5000 dollar fines to residents.
ANGER.
What extreme bullshit. Harrassing the local residents with revenue collection activities has absolutely nothing to do with serving the principles of securing our borders.
Not. A. Damned. Thing.
And the cameras?
Absofuckinglutely Pointless.
Any Al-Q agent who slipped through would be long, long gone, hidden in Boston or NYC within the next 10 hours, and whatever car they drove will have been ditched along the way.
Well, yes.
But don't you feel safer? And isn't that what matters?
In Orwell's 1984 Big Brother put a camera in every room of your home. You never knew if you were being observed, but you knew you could be. In England today, they haven't gotten to that point, but a ratio of one camera per 14 citizens subjects is, to me at least, disturbing. According to this USAToday piece:
If you live in London, you can't get through a typical day without being captured on tape at least eight times - and possibly as many as 300.
and
"What you're looking at in Britain, with saturation CCTV coverage in every nook and cranny of the country, is what you'll be seeing all over the United States in the next 5 years."
So sayeth Simon Davies, head of Privacy International, which predicts 6 million CCTV cameras in the U.S. in five to seven years.
The Christian Science Monitor piece points to two incidents where CCTV was used to apprehend violent criminals, one in which a "knife wielding assailant" was captured shortly after his crime was taped for posterity, and another more heinous crime in which 2-year old Jamie Bulger was abducted and murdered by two other children.
But here's the difference: In the case of both Jamie Bulger and Carlie Brucia, the cameras that captured the footage were not run by any government agency. They were owned by the businesses at which the children were abducted. In none of these cases were these crimes prevented by the presence of cameras, though it is true that the cameras made it far easier to identify and capture the criminals. In the case of privately owned surveillance equipment, the implementation of these cameras is restricted by privacy laws, and the information they gather is not the property of any government body. If there is a crime, then the information can be freely given to the appropriate government agency, or that agency can attempt to get it through legal subpoena, but when the government owns and installs the cameras then they have little incentive to follow the requisite laws. For example, the CSM piece notes:
(S)erious question marks hang over the technology and its dark Orwellian implications. Many cameras are hidden or not signposted, in breach of regulations. Several cases of abuse have been documented, raising fears of snooping or worse.
Surveillance systems present law enforcement "bad apples" with a tempting opportunity for criminal misuse. In 1997, for example, a top-ranking police official in Washington, DC was caught using police databases to gather information on patrons of a gay club. By looking up the license plate numbers of cars parked at the club and researching the backgrounds of the vehicles' owners, he tried to blackmail patrons who were married.
--
Powerful surveillance tools also create temptations to abuse them for personal purposes. An investigation by the Detroit Free Press, for example, showed that a database available to Michigan law enforcement was used by officers to help their friends or themselves stalk women, threaten motorists after traffic altercations, and track estranged spouses.
And I should be surprised... why?
The proliferation of closed-circuit TV and traffic camera systems is a given, since very few people appreciate or even consider the downsides. I have no answers for you here, though I'm quite enthusiastic about the vandalism civil disobedience idea (not that I'd ever do anything illegal, you understand.) The idea that surveillance and recognition systems might someday become as ubiquitous as illustrated in Spielberg's film Minority Report bothers the hell out of me. I can think of nothing to add to FuturePundit's concluding paragraph:
There is a limit to what technology can do to counteract the decay of a culture that has lost belief in the right of law-abiding people to defend themselves. One of the hardest problems when trying to guess about the future is that there is no way of knowing whether any given culture will partially or totally decay and become very degenerate. More generally, what technology can make possible is a far larger set of possibilities than what people will choose to do with it.
I do feel sorry for you guys. | posted by Kevin at 11:52 AM PermaLink
Friday, February 13, 2004
Dept. of Our Collapsing Schools
I don't know where the hell I was while this was going on, but it seems that Cathy Siepp's daughter Cecile, 14, caught some flak from a teacher at her high school for daring to espouse right-wing opinions in a paper. She was denigrated and called racist by the teacher not only in the class in which Cecile presented the paper, but in other, later classes. In the past, as Cathy says in this National Review Online piece, humiliation by the teacher (and then the students) would have been the end of it.
Not so anymore.
Cecile has a blog of her own, and she blogged about the incident. Apparently Cecile has been visiting and commenting at right-wing blogs for quite a while, and one of those blogs is the libertarian-oriented Samizdata, based out of England. (Highly recommended, by the way.) Brian Mickelthwait, one of Samizdata's contributors, started a "Support Cecile" effort, and the next day Cecile got an Instalanche from Glenn Reynolds.
As Cathy writes in her NRO piece:
(E)ven if she hadn't received such an outpouring of support, I think Cecile's regular stops in the blogosphere would have served as an antidote to what happened at school this past Friday. Certainly if a teacher implies a student is a racist idiot one day, and by the next some 200 smart and articulate adults have said she's not and here's why, that rather counteracts the original lesson plan. Now that so many teens have blogs, concerns about doctrinaire teachers may be passé. Our sons and our daughters are beyond their control.
The discussion over at The Fabulous Baker Boys is starting to ramp up. We're up to about ten posts now, and we're discussing specific issues. Give it a read.
A couple of posts down is the story of Caroyln Lisle who shot an intruder in her Rancho Cordova home. Quoted in the story is one William Vizzard, described as "chair of the criminal justice department at California State University, Sacramento." One commenter called him "a gun control flunky" and suggested Googling to prove it. So I did.
I found this interesting transcript from PBS's Newshour from October 18, 2002 where Mr. Vizzard, described as an ex-employee of the BATF was one of the panel. The discussion was about "ballistic fingerprinting," and was inspired by the fact that the DC snipers were active at that time.
This will be kinda long, but I'm going to fisk it.
RAY SUAREZ: The recent sniper attacks in the Washington, DC, area have revived a debate over a technology that helps authorities trace ammunition found at crime scenes. The technology is called ballistic fingerprinting, and it's based on the idea that every gun leaves unique markings on its bullet casings.
Um, not quite so unique. Modern manufacturing methods and tooling mean that guns coming sequentially off a production line are very likely to have very similar tooling marks.
Gun makers would be required to register those fingerprints so a national database could be compiled. Until recently, crime labs relied solely on the human eye and a microscope to look at evidence from bullets, but now bullets, bullet fragments and shell casings are scanned into a computer and compared against thousands of other bullets or casings.
SPOKESMAN: When a barrel is produced or a firearm itself is produced, it's made by other tools. The metal is formed and moved around, scraped away, and those imperfections of each of those tools in the manufacturing process have accidental characteristics it imparts on the gun. It's still a needle in a haystack, but now we can get through the haystack faster. These comparisons from bullet to bullet are into tenths of seconds.
This assumes that there's enough left of the bullet to allow identification. On top of that, the bullets being compared must also be of similar composition. For example, a .45 caliber 230 grain full metal jacket bullet made by Speer will have much different markings than a 185 grain hollowpoint bullet manufactured by Federal when fired from the same gun. Especially if the first was fired into a water barrel and the second recovered from a corpse after impacting a major bone. A computer probably wouldn't be able to get a match. A human eyeball Mark I might. But the human eyeball takes a lot longer than tenths of a second.
RAY SUAREZ: Law enforcement officials back the idea of ballistic fingerprinting and so does the federal Bureau of Alcohol, tobacco and Firearms. Several lawmakers have called for legislation requiring gun makers to record the ballistic markings. The National Rifle Association and other gun rights advocates oppose legislation, saying the fingerprinting is an unproven science.
The Bush administration was also skeptical, saying earlier this week the technology might not be reliable and could infringe on privacy. But on Wednesday, Spokesman Ari Fleischer said the President does want to look into creating a national registry.
ARI FLEISCHER: The president wants this issue explored. And to that end, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has been meeting, and met yesterday afternoon with White House staff to start to discuss the various issues: The technical issues, there are feasibility issues, the pros and cons about how this could possibly... may be effective, whether it could work or whether it would not be able to work.
Gee, thanks Mr. President.
RAY SUAREZ: While the national debate continues, two states, New York and Maryland, have already enacted laws requiring a ballistic fingerprinting for handguns.
Neither of which has yet to have a match that didn't identify a crime gun already in their possession, contemporary with the crimes, and firing ammunition that matched that found at the crime scene.
We pick up the debate with Joe Vince, the former chief of the crime guns analysis branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He now has a consulting company in the Washington area. And William Vizzard, a former ATF agent, now chair of the division of criminal justice at California State University at Sacramento.
Well, since the speculation, Joe Vince began with the Washington area sniper, let's take a look at how ballistic fingerprinting may have been useful in a case like this, in investigating a case like this?
JOE VINCE: In a case like this, Ray, this right now, the ballistic evidence is your best evidence. It's almost your only evidence. So it provides a lead for law enforcement. And any time you're working an investigation, law enforcement officials are looking for leads that take them to the next step.
You build your case incrementally. And for this, knowing that it was a .223 what type of firearm it could come from, is very useful.
RAY SUAREZ: But would you, if you had this database, have been able necessarily to narrow down what firearm?
Note, now, how Mr. Vince artfully dodges answering the question:
JOE VINCE: With a database like this, the possibilities multiply. And we have to remember that law enforcement today needs to rely on 21st century technology. In 1890, if you wanted to get in law enforcement, you received a badge, a gun and a club, and said go out there, enforce the law.
Well, that was towns of hundreds. Now we have metropolitan areas of millions. Law enforcement has to leverage technology in order to help them solve crimes -- as the gentleman said on your earlier piece, to take the haystack and eliminate as much hay as you can to find the needle.
Simple question, wasn't it? Would the technology help narrow down what firearm? Answer? Evasion, obfuscation, and haystacks. Is he called on this? Don't be silly.
RAY SUAREZ: William Vizzard, would this have been a useful tool in this investigation?
WILLIAM VIZZARD: Well, it conceivably could be although -- given the circumstances -- an individual who apparently has planned these shootings in advance, it's most likely not in the sense that we have about 200 to 250 million guns in circulation in the United States today.
And it's possible for an individual simply to acquire one of those and use it, knowing that it's not in the database. I mean, if we were to begin a database, for instance, today, or at whatever point Congress would cease debating it, presumably, it would start recording bullets and cartridge cases from that day forward.
Now one could of course try to collect the 250 million existing samples out there. But I don't hear anybody really advocating that because the mechanics of simply trying to track down those guns and get some sort of record on them is extremely difficult. So Joe is certainly right about the technology; it's extremely useful technology.
It's proven very useful in a number of crimes involving suspect firearms and bullets or cartridge cases recovered from crime scenes. And had we been doing this from the 1930's on, and of course in those days we didn't have in way of cataloging it, we might have some utility at this point.
Hey! An actual answer! No wonder he's no longer in the ATF.
RAY SUAREZ: But given the plans that are under consideration now this gun would have had to have been either used in a crime before or purchased and profiled at the time of purchase in order to get a hit in a database, is that right?
WILLIAM VIZZARD: It would have to be placed in the data base through scanning in either at time of manufacture or when it was picked up by the police.
Of course unlike fingerprints when you fingerprint an individual and they're subsequently released and you have their fingerprints, in the case of guns, normally when police get their hands on a gun, they don't release it and so it's usually useful only for checking against previous crimes as opposed to building a database for future crimes.
This, too is factually accurate. So far I'm impressed.
RAY SUAREZ: I'm sorry, Joe Vince, go ahead.
JOE VINCE: Well, a good comparison is over 100 years ago when we started fingerprinting. We had no database and we were doing everything in a card file. However, we said this is a good tool to use and it has been extremely useful. Now we have a computerized AFA system; that's a national system that has fingerprints computerized.
And we don't only put bad people into that system of fingerprinting. Every man and woman who enters our armed services is fingerprinted. Schoolteachers are fingerprinted.
My wife is a schoolteacher; she's in there. The reason for that in the military is to obviously check their background, check the teacher's background but also, God forbid, if they were injured or killed in the line of duty, we could identify them.
This is the same thing we have to do. We have to take incremental steps now and build our database up so we have the same capability that we have with fingerprints.
Yet no one suggests that we fingerprint and DNA scan every single individual so we can pick criminals out of the population from crime scene evidence.
RAY SUAREZ: William Vizzard notes that there are some 250 million guns already out there. How long would it take until you had a database that was actually useful, a body of profiles that was large enough to be useful compared to the number that's already out there?
And, once again, Mr. Vince dodges the very simple question: "How long?"
JOE VINCE: Well, I agree with Bill, there are a lot of firearms out there. But we have to take the next step. (And there is ALWAYS a "next step.") I was in Palm Beach, Florida, last week and I talked to the sheriff's office there. Six months ago they received the IBIS equipment and that has already linked seven or eight different homicides and shootings together that they did not know it was related.
So you can see, in a short period of time you can have some success. We have to start somewhere. Congress wisely already allocated the money. We've put the equipment everywhere in the United States. Now we have to effectively use it as a law enforcement tool.
Uh, Mr. Vince, you matched crime scene evidence. You did not identify the firearm or its possessor. And YOU DIDN'T ANSWER THE QUESTION.
RAY SUAREZ: Mr. Vizzard, you've used the fingerprints analogy. To carry it one step further, it's pretty hard to change your fingerprints. Is it hard to change the so-called fingerprint that a firearm puts on a shell casing?
WILLIAM VIZZARD: It's difficult. It's more difficult than the opponents have characterized. Firearms are made of extremely hard steel and it takes a long time to wear them enough to significantly alter them. But they are capable of being altered, unlike fingerprints and DNA.
Not exactly true, Mr. Vizzard. For example, take two identical Glock model 17 handguns manufactured three years apart, both of which had been ballistically fingerprinted at manufacture. Run 10,000 rounds through gun #1. Then replace the barrel with a new one you can buy - without a background check, via mailorder. You won't get a ballistic match on the bullet any more. You might be able to get a shell casing match, but after 10,000 rounds I'd imagine the breechface, the extractor, and the firing pin would be quite worn and the last two items might have been replaced. Add to that the fact that the hardness of the brass and the primer cup has a significant effect on the markings put on the case and you just decreased the possibility even more. Finally, swap the slides and barrels between gun #1 and gun #2. It's the frame of the pistol that's considered the "gun." But it's the slide and barrel that leave the ballistic markings. Your trail just went cold.
WILLIAM VIZZARD: I think the real issue probably here is that the devil is in the details. It's a question of cost/benefit analysis, not a question of whether it would be desirable to have this data. I think it would be. I'm not an apologist for the NRA. I'm not morally opposed to the idea.
I simply think that if you consider the cost and the benefits, for instance, we aren't currently, I believe, scanning into AFIS, any of the prints-- any of the non-criminal prints that Joe mentioned, either at the state or the federal level. Some local agencies do.
We are taking DNA only on a very small number of samples from serious offenders. It varies from state to state, depending on what the state law is. We would probably solve far more crimes collecting DNA from everybody in the United States than we would from collecting ballistics from every gun manufactured, so I think you just have to weigh what's the cost going to be, how is it going to work.(I stand corrected. Someone has suggested it.)
Is there going to be a chain of custody issue, which I haven't heard anybody discuss; you can get a lead without a chain of custody issue, but if you want to actually make the comparison and you don't recover the firearm, that's going to be a problem.
So I don't think it's a case of it being a bad program in the sense that it's evil. I think it's just simply a very difficult program. And before you rush into it, you sit down and you figure the cost and you figure the benefits. And you say what would we do with the money if we didn't spend it on this. That's my only point.
And a good one it is.
RAY SUAREZ: Well, Joe Vince, how would it work? A lot of the firearms sold in the United States are made overseas. There are domestic makers and sellers as well. At what point in the life cycle of a gun would we check the markings that it puts in the firearm?
JOE VINCE: It would have to be when the firearm sold. Right now in Maryland and New York, they're doing it with new handguns. And it really is not keeping a database of names. It refers back to a serial number of a gun and then back to the records of that dealer.
So the government really doesn't have the information. But we do it in a way that's very similar to the tracing of firearms that we do now for crime guns, which has also been very useful. But again I really think we have to look at integrating this, too with the various information systems we have in law enforcement.
Like, say a gun registration database? That would be the logical "next step" would it not?
JOE VINCE: The idea is that law enforcement collects enormous amounts of information. This is just one piece and DNA is another. But it's getting knowledge from all that information. That's what we have to look at. So it is integrating this so we can get those leads consistently and so that crimes like the sniper in Maryland can be swiftly apprehended.
RAY SUAREZ: How about that, Mr. Vizzard, the idea not being that it would provide absolute information, but when cross referenced, when overlaid with a lot of the other sources that police use, it might be useful?
WILLIAM VIZZARD: It would clearly be useful in some cases. My guess is that for sometime what you would get are rather poorly planned crimes, particularly among younger offenders who tend to acquire new guns more readily than older offenders.
I suspect-- I really would question Joe's characterization of collecting at the time of sale. Frankly collecting at the time of import or manufacture would make more sense. We're talking about a lot of guns here and I envision ATF being back where they were when they used to put personnel at the distilleries -- simply putting somebody at the factory and scanning the data in there, but without a national gun registration and licensing system, you've got real limits on the value. (Thank you for making my point, Mr. Vizzard.)
And of course that's why the NRA gets so exercised by it. I'm as not offended by a licensing and registration system as they are. But without that information, private sales very often result in guns just simply being swallowed up and disappearing.
And we do oftentimes trace guns to individuals. We oftentimes lose the track, also. So I think you just have to again analyze the worth of the system as it relates to the specific kind of information you're looking for. Nobody, I think at this point, can estimate the cost.
Every computer system ever built has turned out to be different than people expected and I realize we're running the system on a small scale today. But if we start running on a much larger scale, we'll probably gain some economy of scale and probably also run into problems we didn't know we would have. All of those things have to be addressed.
Thus endeth the transcript.
All in all, I thought Mr. Vizzard was quite fair, and Mr. Vince was the typical official-line-spewing, job-justifying government flunky.
When Vizzard said "Nobody, I think at this point, can estimate the cost" he wasn't kidding. What he didn't say was nobody can estimate the effectiveness, either. Without those two crucial bits of information, it's damned hard to do a cost/benefit analysis, isn't it?
UPDATE, 2/12: Reader Kevin P., who was the commenter that characterized William Vizzard as a "gun control flunky" has withdrawn that comment, and instead states: "I withdraw that term unreservedly and apologize to Mr. Vizzard should he ever read this.
"However, I will stand by the assertion that he is a gun control advocate. He is a rarity, an informed and knowledgeable gun control advocate, probably because of his career in the ATF. His performance in the PBS ballistic fingerprinting debate was fair and accurate - but it is something that should be expected and demanded of everyone."
Yes, it should. Kevin P. also links to this quite interesting review of Mr. Vizzard's book Shots in the Dark: The Policy, Politics, and Symbolism of Gun Control by Dave Kopel. Give it a read.
AGAIN via Instapundit, more evidence of media bias and agenda. We all knew about it, but it's refreshing to see journalists talking about it for a change. Bernie Goldberg bore the brunt of being the first to protest publicly, but now we're seeing more.
Anyway, it seems that Dr. Bob Arnot, NBC foreign correspondent, hasn't had his contract renewed, and he's a might perturbed about the stories he's pitched that the network has rejected. And he's got something to say about it.
In a 1,300-word e-mail to NBC News president Neal Shapiro, written in December 2003 and obtained by NYTV, Dr. Arnot called NBC News’ coverage of Iraq biased. He argued that keeping him in Iraq and on NBC could go far in rectifying that. Dr. Arnot told Mr. Shapiro that NBC had alienated the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad since it shot and then aired footage of correspondent Jim Miklaszewski at the scene of the November bombing of the Al Rashid Hotel, in which a C.P.A. staffer was shown injured. That incident, he wrote, "earned the undying enmity of the C.P.A."
"We’ve been at a significant disadvantage given NBC’s reputation in Iraq," Dr. Arnot wrote Mr. Shapiro. He argued that due to his excellent relationships with military and C.P.A. personnel, NBC News could repair its standing with government authorities by airing more of his material.
"I’m uniquely positioned to report the story," he wrote. "NBC Nightly News routinely takes the stories that I shoot and uses the footage, even to lead the broadcast," but "refuses to allow the story to be told by the reporter on the scene."
In other words, he suggested, NBC News did not like putting him on the air.
Dr. Arnot included excerpts from an e-mail from Jim Keelor, president of Liberty Broadcasting, which owns eight NBC stations throughout the South. Mr. Keelor had written NBC, stating that "the networks are pretty much ignoring" the good-news stories in Iraq. "The definition of news would incorporate some of these stories," he wrote. "Hence the Fox News surge."
Much more. Read the whole thing.
I wonder if FOX is looking for a Geraldo replacement?
Leading the BAN 'EM ALL! charge was testimony that "One in five law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty is killed with an assault weapon." The piece reports:
There's just one problem with the ratio, according to gun rights advocates: It isn't true.
Dozens of them testified before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee yesterday, and a hundred more crammed an antechamber while committee members considered a bill that would give Maryland one of the nation's strictest bans on semiautomatic firearms by banning 45 named weapons and any subsequent copycats. Though 70 state senators and delegates back the bill, gun shop owners, hunting groups, and assorted police organizations rejected the ban and the statistic.
Lt. Col. Steven. T. Moyer of the Maryland State Police -- which opposes prohibiting the sale, transfer and ownership of semi-automatic weapons -- told committee members that of the 50 rifle-related deaths in the state over the past decade, none of them were officers.
"The statistics are not here and [don't] support this legislation," he said.
That's a surprising thing to hear from a high official of any law-enforcement department. Usually these people are politically savvy and anti-gun. In Maryland it's especially refreshing. However:
Roots of the 20-percent figure lie in the Washington-based Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit group that works to curtail gun violence through research, advocacy, education and litigation. The group analyzed unpublished FBI data on fatal police shootings from Jan. 1, 1998, through Dec. 31, 2001. During the period, 211 officers nationwide were killed in the line of duty, 41 of them with weapons the group determined to be assault weapons, such as M1 Carbines, AK-47s, Tec 9s and AR-15s.
"They classified all rifles as assault weapons," Republican state Sen. Nancy Jacobs, wearing a button with the words "MARYLAND GUNOWNERS VOTE," complained during the marathon hearing.
Not so, said Kristen Rand, the Violence Policy Center's legislative director, in a telephone interview.
"All we did was we called the FBI, we asked them if we could get a list of guns used to kill police officers," Rand said. "We took those instances where we knew for sure that it was an assault weapon and put them together. I think the confusion comes in that this data is not routinely released."
The data, summarized in the organization's "Officer Down" report, includes the model number and bullet caliber used in police shootings from Alaska to New York. Among the fatalities is the Oct. 20, 2000, death of Baltimore County Police Officer John Stem, the last Maryland officer to die of wounds inflicted by an assault weapon. Stem suffered the wounds during a barricade shooting in 1977 that left him paralyzed and killed a fellow officer.
One quibble - "research, advocacy, education and litigation"? The VPC is unabashedly in favor of banning handguns. If they can get "assault weapons" banned first, they're all for it. Here's where I get to insert my favorite VPC quote:
Although handguns claim more than 20,000 lives a year, the issue of handgun restriction consistently remains a non-issue with the vast majority of legislators, the press, and public. The reasons for this vary: the power of the gun lobby; the tendency of both sides of the issue to resort to sloganeering and pre-packaged arguments when discussing the issue; the fact that until an individual is affected by handgun violence he or she is unlikely to work for handgun restrictions; the view that handgun violence is an "unsolvable" problem; the inability of the handgun restriction movement to organize itself into an effective electoral threat; and the fact that until someone famous is shot, or something truly horrible happens, handgun restriction is simply not viewed as a priority. Assault weapons - just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms - are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons - anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun - can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.
Yeah, they're really dedicated to honesty and full disclosure. People are confused about the difference between semi-autos and machine guns? Great! Works for us! Plastic firearms? Don't exist, but boy, what a fear-inspiring soundbite! Armor piercing ammo? Who cares if any rifle round will penetrate a police vest, we can use that to slip in a backdoor ban! Spin, twist, mislead, obfuscate, exaggerate, lie! It's for a righteous cause!
Ok, what we've got here is both sides offering "sloganeering and pre-packaged arguments" for the purpose of influencing lawmakers. (Big surprise.)
I covered the VPC's report back in May when the Atlanta Urinal Constipation Journal Constitution ran a story on it. What I found was that the report said that of the 211 officers killed with firearms, 41 were killed with "assault weapons." The accuracy of this statement depends on the definition of "is" how you define "assault weapon." Unsurprisingly, the VPC defines it as broadly as possible. Of the 41 deaths, four (4) were with M1 Carbines, eight (8) with SKS rifles, two (2) with Mini-14's, three (3) M-11's, and two (2) TEC-9's. Problem is, the M1 Carbine, the SKS and the Mini-14 don't qualify under the current Federal ban as "assault weapons," and neither the M-11 nor the TEC-9 is a rifle. The table indicates that in 2000 a Maryland officer was killed with an M1 Carbine, so somebody is obviously in error.
But the point everybody misses is the one I made in that May piece: The underlying implication is that the "assault weapon ban" would result in officer's lives saved, but the statistics show that's a conclusion you can't draw. According to this table provided by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, there is no evidence that the proliferation of "assault weapons" has caused any increase in officer deaths. In other words, you cannot honestly conclude that banning these guns would save anybody. If someone's willing to shoot a cop, they're willing to shoot a cop. Choice of weapon is apparently immaterial. And an "assault weapon ban" is a useless exercise, as Lt. Col. Moyer correctly stated.
Though I think he'd be wary of ME. Barry of Inn of the Last Home has written an excellent piece (permalinks bloggered, scroll down to "What to Write, What to Write...") (Link via Say Uncle) Teaser:
I'm just the average guy who wants to do the right thing and the dutiful thing when voting. Today's Primary Day in Tennessee. I plan to go to the polls this afternoon after work, and make my choice for Democratic candidate for President.
Trouble is, I'm not sure I want a Democrat as President this time.
In the past, I've always considered myself a Democrat, and have mostly identified myself with liberal causes. The Republican mindset has mostly been alien and unfathomable to me.
But things have changed in this past year.
I wrote a couple of pieces about Barry's position on guns a while back. I accused him, based on his writing, of being mentally unbalanced when it came to firearms, but this piece illustrates beyond a doubt that his logical faculties are quite functional. Read the whole thing.
Unsigned (naturally), the ABC News "The Note" newsblog had the following admission of liberal bias that I feel (and Instapundit felt) needs to be recorded for posterity, as it's sure to disappear as soon as some higher-up discovers it, if not it will simply scroll off the page into oblivion:
NEWS SUMMARY
The first version published of yesterday's Note included what was intended as a SATIRICAL report of a fictional ABC News/Washington Post poll. No such poll was conducted. The questions and results listed were not from a real poll.
But on this day when John Kerry has a chance for wins in Tennessee and/or Virginia that just might get the Southern monkey off of his back -- and take an opponent out of the race -- and after two full news cycles in which Kerry's transient upper hand over President Bush doesn't seem to have been removed by the "Meet" appearance -- on this day, let us tell you again what we tried to say yesterday.
Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections.
They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are "conservative positions."
They include a belief that government is a mechanism to solve the nation's problems; that more taxes on corporations and the wealthy are good ways to cut the deficit and raise money for social spending and don't have a negative affect on economic growth; and that emotional examples of suffering (provided by unions or consumer groups) are good ways to illustrate economic statistic stories.
More systematically, the press believes that fluid narratives in coverage are better than static storylines; that new things are more interesting than old things; that close races are preferable to loose ones; and that incumbents are destined for dethroning, somehow.
The press, by and large, does not accept President Bush's justifications for the Iraq war -- in any of its WMD, imminent threat, or evil-doer formulations. It does not understand how educated, sensible people could possibly be wary of multilateral institutions or friendly, sophisticated European allies.
It does not accept the proposition that the Bush tax cuts helped the economy by stimulating summer spending.
It remains fixated on the unemployment rate.
It believes President Bush is "walking a fine line" with regards to the gay marriage issue, choosing between "tolerance" and his "right-wing base."
It still has a hard time understanding how, despite the drumbeat of conservative grass-top complaints about overspending and deficits, President Bush's base remains extremely and loyally devoted to him -- and it looks for every opportunity to find cracks in that base.
For a couple of weeks now I've had an urge to write an essay about just how crappy our government has become and what to do about it. Don't get me wrong - I think that our system of government is still the best in the world. No other democratic form of government has lasted as long as ours in modern history, nor has any other nation achieved the wealth, the power, nor the standard of living the United States has. However, the defective components of the system - the people who want to manipulate it for their own ends, and those who fail to oppose them - have had a very long time to toss sand and monkey wrenches into the gleaming machinery our Founders constructed, and time has taken its toll. Repair is needed. The question, in my opinion, is whether we're going to be able to make the necessary repairs while the system is running, or if we're going to have to dismantle the thing for a complete overhaul. The second option holds the very real risk of not being able to put it back together again, or - possibly worse - put it back together in a form that is far worse than what we have now.
My urge to write that essay was largely inspired by a piece written by the Geek With A .45, because, like me, he sees the mechanisms of oppression being constructed by our ostensible public servants - subassemblies just waiting to be put together into a machine of tyranny. Mechanisms that I believe the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written to prevent.
Thankfully, Francis Porretto has begun a series of essays entitled Tyranny and its Fringes which is up to part four now. If you don't read The Curmudgeon's Corner please give these a read:
Francis lays out an excellent background lesson, and has begun to explain how we can repair the damage with the machinery still running. The Constitution has really excellent self-healing properties, but it requires us - the working parts - to do our jobs. We've not been living up to the task.
I may still write my piece(s), but I'm going to wait until Francis is finished with his series.
I've written a couple of pieces on news stories on cops that can't seem to shoot straight. It is my opinion that there is a misconception among the general public about the efficacy of the training regimens of police forces and the general level of marksmanship thereof. However, Officer Richard Silva of the Tucson Police Department can shoot. (Last story on the page)
Police wound man, say he fired twice at them
TUCSON - A man chasing his ex-wife with a handgun was injured this weekend when he shot at police and an officer returned fire, police said.
Tucson Police say the man, Bernie Duran, 55, was treated for a gunshot wound and booked into the Pima County Jail on one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, three counts of aggravated assault on police officers and one count of kidnapping.
At 12:40 p.m. Saturday, a man called police to report that his mother-in-law was being held against her will by her ex-husband.
When police called the home, the woman was evasive on the phone but was apparently in distress, said Sgt. Judy Altieri, a Tucson Police spokeswoman. As officers reached the home, the woman ran out with Duran chasing her, Altieri said.
Duran fired two shots at Officer Richard Silva, 36, and Silva fired three times from about 180 feet away, striking Duran once, she said.
That's about sixty yards at a running target. That's damned good shooting, especially when your target is shooting back!
And lest you think I pick on cops too much, you might want to revisit "THIS is Why You Train".
From the Denver Post comes this touching story of the widow of one of the pilots murdered on 9/11. It opens:
A week after United Flight 93 crashed into a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001, Sandy Dahl had a dream about her husband, one of the pilots aboard the four ill-fated planes that day.
In the dream, she and her husband, Jason Dahl, were each piloting F-16 fighter jets. The dream was a reminder for Sandy Dahl: Jason had hoped to fly "the Porsche of aircraft" during his life and counted his 25th birthday - the cutoff age for entering flight school for F-16s at the time - as one of saddest days of his life.
Sitting in a briefing room at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora on Sunday, minutes before living out her husband's dream to see the world from the cockpit of an F-16, Sandy Dahl recalled "the most real dream I've ever had."
This ought to have you laughing. And thinking. Clayton Cramer relates this Sacramento Bee story of a loser who broke into the wrong dad-gummed house in the wrong dad-gummed neighborhood!
Woman opens fire on intruder
A man is wounded as she defends her home with two handguns.
Firing nine rounds from two handguns, a 53-year-old Rancho Cordova woman fended off an intruder Thursday night after he crashed through her sliding glass door.
William Kriske, a 47-year-old parolee, was treated for a gunshot wound to the arm, then taken to jail and arrested on suspicion of burglary and resisting arrest, according to Sacramento County Sheriff's Sgt. Lou Fatur.
"It was one of those nights. I have a few holes in my glass out front," Carolyn Lisle said Friday.
"That's OK, I don't think he'll be back," said Lisle, who emptied one .357 revolver at the intruder before she retrieved a second one and he crashed through another window to flee.
"I was trying to miss my furniture. Priorities, right?" Lisle said.
Lisle, shaken but spirited, recounted her night that started as a quiet evening of TV with three friends and two dogs in her living room.
At about 9 p.m., a noise at the sliding door prompted a male visitor to get up to investigate, but Lisle dashed to a back room to get one of her guns.
"I knew it couldn't be good," Lisle said.
When the intruder shattered the glass, Lisle's three guests fled from the house. Lisle stood her ground and opened fire.
"He was like a mosquito hitting the window. Every time he turned around, poweee," she said.
Lisle wasn't sure the intruder was alone so she nervously watched her back as she squeezed off rounds.
When she emptied one gun, she still hadn't hit him. And he wasn't gone.
"He was still in the garage, flitting around," she said.
She went to get another gun -- "I like to be prepared," she said -- and waited to see his next move. After tearing up the garage, he finally broke out through a garage window, but he veered toward Lisle's front door. She fired again, hitting him at least once.
The bleeding intruder ran across the street and tried to hot-wire a motorcycle, but its owners, already armed to come to Lisle's aid, chased off the would-be thief, she said.
She said one of the men yelled after the retreating burglar: "And that's just our womenfolk."
A California Highway Patrol officer stopped the suspect a short distance away and sheriff's deputies arrested Kriske.
Lisle is still puzzled why someone would break into a well-lit living room with four people and two dogs.
"It was like he was out to hurt someone," she said.
Fatur said a prowler had been reported moving through neighborhood back yards at about the time Lisle's house was invaded.
Lisle, who said her guns are registered, will not face criminal charges, Fatur said. California law allows someone to use deadly force whenever a reasonable person believes an intruder poses a threat to kill.
Lisle is the second homeowner in the Sacramento area this year to use deadly force against an intruder.(And it's only February!) In January, a Sacramento man shot and killed one of two armed intruders who broke into his home. He wasn't charged.
Studies done to determine whether gun ownership deters crime have only stirred more controversy because of the way statistics are gathered and analyzed, and the way people recall their experiences, said William Vizzard, chair of the criminal justice department at California State University, Sacramento.
"We tend to see ourselves as heroic rather than idiotic," said Vizzard, who is also a 30-year law enforcement veteran.
Vizzard, who has studied major research and written on gun issues, said two of the most prominent surveys differ dramatically in results, showing anywhere from 150,000 people a year to 2.5 million who claim success in thwarting crime with a gun.
"The answer is, no one can say for sure at the end of the day that the presence of a firearm doesn't increase your risk of getting injured, nor does it reduce your risk," he said.
Lisle is pretty sure where she stands: "You need protection in this day and age."
A retired state worker who once worked as a correctional officer, she did admit that she hadn't been to a shooting range lately: "After last night, I might go once in a while."
I'd appreciate it if she went more than once in a while. Nine rounds and one peripheral hit? The odds of one of those misses hitting an innocent are low, but certainly not zero.
This is a surprisingly balanced piece given the source. The quote from Vizzard shows, I think, some bias though. To be really valid he should have said no one can say for sure that the presence of a firearm increases or decreases your risk of getting injured. Read it carefully for the spin he actually put on it: Heads, I win. Tails, you lose.
Consider, though, what might have happened if she had not been armed. A guy willing to break in to a house with three people and two dogs? That could have been very ugly.
I ought to make this a department like "Our Collapsing Schools."
Via Instapundit comes this email from a 1st Leutenant in the First Armored, currently stationed in Iraq. He hasn't got a lot of respect for the "news" media, and with good reason. Excerpt:
The Fox News crew laid out what qualified as "newsworthy: -- Women taking an active leadership role in the new government, detainee/prisoner abuse cases, any WMD news, and individual soldier contributions (such as one soldier who bought school supplies and teddy bears for Iraqis out of his own pocket.) These were the stories deemed airable and they wouldn't respond to anything outside of that. The news crew wasn't bashful about its agenda and they made it clear that they weren't going to respond to anything outside of those story lines unless it was something really spectacular.
Fox stood out most as a network that knew what it was going to put out before it even shot the footage. Other news organizations were more subtle about what they wanted to cover but pretty much everyone had their stories written before they showed up. To Al-Jazeera especially, the video footage was merely a formality.
(My emphasis.) Has this always existed? I think so, but I don't think it's previously been as institutionalized as it apparently is today.
I strongly recommend that you read the whole thing. Then write ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox a nice letter telling them you're tired of being spoon-fed whatever story they decided a week ago you needed to hear.
Then forward a copy of the email to every journalism school in the U.S.
I've started another blog. Like I have time for that, but the opportunity presented itself and I just can't avoid it.
Like I did in The Commentary, I'm now engaged in another debate on the right to arms at a shared blog we've decided to name The Fabulous Baker Boys, because Dave and I share the same last name, and he's a movie buff.
I don't expect this debate to move much faster than the last one (at least I hope not, given my current workload), but hopefully it will draw some traffic from others "on the fence" and encourage some thought.
Give it a look. We've got a few entries up already.
This is actually kind of funny, but it seems that a couple of idiots decided to do a drive-by shooting of a bar in Texas, using a .22 pistol and a 1992 Ford pickup. They even made two passes.
Problem was, there were some off-duty Sheriff's deputies inside having some cold ones.
After the first pass, the officers came out and tried to identify the truck and its license number, but were unsuccessful. So,they wandered back in and sat down, but when they heard the sound of the truck returning for the second pass, they leaped into action!
"By that time the guys had loaded up and said, 'If he comes back again, forget about it, we're returning fire,' " says Burt Springer, the lawyer representing two of the deputies.
And did they ever. Somewhere around 40 shots' worth. Investigators reportedly ran out of the little markers used to identify spent shell casings and had to borrow paper cups. Basically, Springer says, the deputies emptied their guns.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but... all the shots missed. The truck was shot up like Swiss cheese, but neither the driver nor the trigger-happy passenger was hit. They were stopped a mile or so later -- not because they were driving a truck riddled with bullet holes, but because they ran a red light.
(Deputies do have to keep up their target-shooting qualifications in Harris County, but those tests are not taken in bars.)
(Emphasis in original.)
Well, they do say that alcohol and firearms don't mix, but it does remind me of this incident where several officers emptied their magazines at a guy attempting to commit suicide by cop. And hit him once. In the shoulder. Googled but can't find it, and I know it's somewhere in my archives. | posted by Kevin at 2:31 PM PermaLink
I Want to Catch Up to James
James Rummel of Hell in a Handbaskethas instructed over 500 people in his basic firearms course. I'm not quite so formal, but I have an invitation over there on the left sidebar for anyone who wants to go shooting who has never done so before.
The invitation is still open. And I think I'll broaden it. If you haven't gone shooting in a long time, the invitation stands. I invite you to go shooting for a day. I will provide the arms, ammunition, targets, safety equipment, range fees and instruction.
In relation to the story below of Cook County prosecutors dropping charges against Hale DeMar for failure to renew his Firearms Owner ID card, let me quote the prosecutor:
Declaring "we choose to prosecute the real criminal," a Cook County prosecutor declined Friday to press state firearms charges against a Wilmette man who shot an intruder in his home.
Hale DeMar "purchased a gun legally. It was registered. What he failed to do was keep current" his state firearm owner's identification card, said Assistant State's Atty. Steve Goebel.
Prosecuting DeMar, 54, of the 0-99 block of Linden Avenue for a "memory lapse" would violate the spirit of the law, he said.
"We choose to prosecute the real criminal here, the person who broke into this house not once but twice," Goebel said.
The sweet voice of reason, right? While failure to keep an FOID current is a misdemeanor, it carries a possible fine of up to $2,500. (Nice how the report targets where Mr. DeMar lives for any criminal wishing to invade his home now that his handguns have been confiscated by the State. Hopefully the next one will have a close encounter with Mr. DeMar's 12 gauge.)
As noted below, the town of Wilmette is going ahead with prosecution of DeMar for violation of the handgun ban. This is a civil matter with a maximum fine of $750.
State Representative John Bradley (a Democrat, no less!) as noted below has introduced legislation to protect people like DeMar from prosecutions such as Wilmette is now pursuing. According to this story:
District State Rep. John Bradley (D-Marion), who called DeMar a "law-abiding citizen," has introduced HB 4075, which would override local handgun bans when the handguns are used in self-defense.
Now, remember, we're talking about a civil violation that has, at most, a $750 penalty. Here's what Chris Boyster, spokesman for the gun bancontrol "safety" organization Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence had to say about that:
"He was not a law-abiding citizen," Boyster said. "He had a handgun, there was a handgun ban, he broke the law.''
Remember that. Burn it into your brain. As far as the gun bancontrol "safety" organizations are concerned, if you violate any law, you should be disqualified from gun ownership.
Carry that to its logical conclusion: Get a ticket for speeding? You're not a "law-abiding citizen." Do some remodeling on your house without a permit? You're not a "law-abiding citizen." Violate any of the almost innumerable, often contradictory Federal, State, county, or municipal laws, ordinances, regulations, or edicts and you're no longer a law-abiding citizen. And you have, in their eyes, no right to arms.
So the next time you hear a spokesweasel for a gun bancontrol "safety" organization say that they support the right of "law-abiding" Americans to possess firearms, remember how they define LAW-ABIDING.
Via Kim I find out that Cook County, Illinois will not prosecute Hale DeMar, the resident of Wilmett who shot the man who burglarized his home twice. (Originally covered here.) The story says:
Cook County prosecutors on Friday dropped a charge of failing to renew his Firearm Owners Identification card against Hale DeMar of Wilmette, but the Village of Wilmette is going forward with its prosecution of DeMar for violating a local handgun ban.
The bastards. In good news, however:
The village's prosecution has outraged many people, including Sen. Edward Petka (R-Plainfield), deputy minority leader of the Illinois Senate. Petka has introduced Senate Bill 2165, which provides an affirmative defense to a violation of a municipal ordinance that prohibits, regulates, or restricts the private ownership of firearms if the charged individual used the firearm in self-defense or to defend another person.
House Bill 4075, introduced by Rep. John Bradley (D-Marion) in the General Assembly's other chamber, has similar provisions.
Petka said he objects to Wilmette's handgun ban and prosecution of DeMar because he believes self-defense is both "an inalienable right" and a "law of nature."
"People have a right to protect themselves and their families. A person has a right and duty -- a duty -- to protect himself and his family in his home," Petka said. "The bill restates the obvious, but apparently it's not so obvious to people in Wilmette and some other towns who don't understand there is a direct relationship between the ability to protect yourself and freedom. That's the essence of it."
Petka's bill would apply in all communities, including Chicago, where Mayor Richard Daley is a fervent opponent of gun rights and where a handgun ban also exists.
Finally! Some freaking backlash!
Is it possible that the pendulum is finally starting to start its swing back? Read this!
Many members of Wilmette American Legion Post 46 agree with Petka. They have invited him and other speakers to address issues of self-defense, state gun laws and the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
--
The Legion Post decided to invite the speakers to highlight Petka's legislation and shed more light on the factors involved in Wilmette's prosecution of DeMar, said Mike Luxem, senior vice commander of the 1st Division of the Sons of the American Legion.
"The Legion supports the Constitution," Luxem said. "Our goal is to educate Wilmette residents who want to understand their gun rights, the Second Amendment, and state gun laws."
Luxem said the Legion also hopes to explain guns themselves. He said Wilmette residents need to understand that if DeMar had used a shotgun or rifle he probably would have killed Billings, because those firearms are much more lethal at close range. Yet the village allows residents to own shotguns and rifles.
Education, education, EDUCATION!
People fear what they do not understand.
And in Illinois, no less! No wonder it's been so cold up North. Hell is apparently freezing over.
You have to give them an "A" for effort, or at least persistence. What a way to reimport the classics!
Marciel Basanta Lopez and Luis Gras Rodriguez have again attempted to sail from Cuba to Florida, but once again have unfortunately been intercepted by the Coast Guard short of their goal. Back in July they made the journey in a specially modified 1951 Chevy pickup.
It seems that, due to some protests, the inspections aren't going to be "random" after all. No, the police are going to have to make appointments with the licensees:
POLICE firearm safety audits will not be carried out randomly and will be done in co-operation with the licensed owners. The Member for New England, Tony Windsor, said the motives of police entering homes of legitimate firearms owners had to be questioned following reports that police were carrying out inspections without first seeking an appointment.
Really? The motives of the police had to be questioned? But they're from the government and are only interested in your safety!
Oxley Local Area commander Superintendent Tony Jefferson said all firearms audits would be carried out after a mutually suitable arrangement with the licensed owner. He said the audits were designed to ensure that firearms were stored safely and properly.
Unspoken, though, is his frustration that if they actually make appointments the licensed gun owner will have a chance to make sure he's in compliance before the cops get there - thus making the inspection useless at catching non-compliance and allowing the State to confiscate the guns of licensees. (Paranoid? Me?)
The audit would include checks of storage safes, serial numbers and that the licence was valid, he said. Superintendent Jefferson said firearm owners would be contacted first to arrange an appointment before an inspection was carried out. "The police carrying out the audit will only be authorised to check all the normal safety aspects and have no authority to do any other searches," he said.
But if they happen to see anything slightly suspicious during the inspection....
This is not about making breaches but checking on correct storage of guns and making recommendations if any improvements are needed." He said Oxley had the largest number of audits in the state for an area command to undertake, numbering at more than 5000. The audits have to be carried out by the end of May.
Five thousand inspections over the next three months. Assuming they're not inspecting on Sundays, that's right at 90 days - 55 inspections a day. The previous story said that ten officers would be used.
They're going to be quite busy, don't you think?
Mr Windsor said it was a breach of the Act if the licence holder was not present when a firearm audit was being carried out. He said another member of the family, who was not a licence holder, could not open a safe firearm storage facility.
Here's something I don't think most people are aware of: If a person who is not the license holder has access to the weapons, guess what? The license holder is in violation and the guns can be confiscated. So if the cops knock on the door and ask the missus to show them where the gun safe is and would she open it for them so they can perform an inspection....
There's been one comment on the story:
rod Masters Wednesday, 4 February 2004
RE firearms inspections whilst I do not live in the Tamworth area, i had my fireamrs(sic) inspection in Penrith on Saturday 24/1/04. A policeman turned up on my door and said that he was there to conduct my inspection, at no time was I contacted to arrange an appointment, or advised that if it was not convenient I could have the inspection rescheduled. I feel that people need to be aware that if the inspection is at an inconvenient time, then they have the option to have it rescheduled.
Good thing he was home, huh? And in compliance. He could have ended up like Robert Wilton. | posted by Kevin at 6:40 AM PermaLink
My Only Comment on the Janet Jackson Tit Superbowl Controversy
Actually, someone else's commentary:
Jeff Parker, Florida Today
I'm no prude, but this was THE SUPERBOWL. The "entertainment" provided at halftime would have been more appropriate in a topless bar, and that includes the backup dancers. Who the hell at CBS approved the dancers in leather, garter belts, stockings, and gagsdry humping? Especially, the MEN?? Sure! S&M bondage gear and transvestites are wholesome family entertainment!
The ornamented tit? Mere distraction. A cherry on top, (no pun intended.)
What do we get next year? Shania Twain and Faith Hill in a 69?
A Queens electrician has been charged with keeping a powerful battery of weapons inside his Flushing home, including 69 rifles, pistols, shotguns and even an Uzi assault weapon, the Queens District Attorney's Office announced yesterday.
Bruce Steinfelder, 55, had permits for only 44 pieces in his shocking arsenal - and has been slapped with weapons-possession charges that could net him up to 15 years in prison.
As others have said, WHY? he's only gotTWO HANDS. What's the difference between having 44 guns and 69? (I know, I know, 25.)
Acting on a tip officers raided Steinfelder's home on 58th Road last week and found the stockpile, a source said. Steinfelder allegedly had 51 pistols, four shotguns, six rifles and eight assault rifles, including the 9 mm Uzi. Some 25 of the weapons were unregistered.
A tip, eh? So nice to know that in the People's Republic of New York where you apparently need a permit to take a crap that the informant system is functioning up to spec.
The 55-year-old is free on $100,000 bail.
A law-enforcement source said investigators are still trying to figure out what Steinfelder was doing with all the weapons.
See the title of the post, you morons.
I will not license. I will not register. Ever. Period.
Edited to add: In reference to "The Power To Tax is the Power to Destroy", if Gov. Pataki's plan goes through, Mr. Steinfelder would have been required to pay $100 for his gun license and $1,275.00 every five years for his 51 handguns.
Until, of course, they raised the $25/handgun rate, or made renewal annual.
POLICE will target gun owners in a series of surprise weapon safety audits across the Oxley Local Area Command and the State in coming weeks.
As Ravenwood so cogently asks:
"Note that this bigotry only happens with guns. Would people be so quick to accept the government beating down your door to see if you have an unsafe gas can in your garage, or keep your household chemicals under your sink?"
I don't think so.
The audit is aimed at preventing theft and injury caused by the unsafe storage of firearms, such as under a bed or in a cupboard, an unfortunate circumstance of improper firearm storage that police often have to deal with.
What, exactly do they "often have to deal with"? Theft? Injury? Or simply "unsafe storage"?
Oxley Local Area Command Inspector Tony Rogers said licence holders were required under the Firearms Act to keep their weapons and ammunition locked in a storage case as required for the class of firearm.
And this is precisely the kind of law the "gun ban safety" groups tell us they want to pass here. How could we possibly object to this kind of "common-sense" measure?
Police have detailed files of thousands of licence holders and have already begun random visits in the Tamworth area. The audit will extend the throughout the command area. Inspector Rogers said it was a condition of the licence for gun owners to allow police onto their premises for safety inspections.
Of course it is. And who knows what else they might observe while they're inspecting the premises? After all, it's for your own good!
He said up to 10 police would carry out the operation throughout the day and also evenings.
Ten officers who won't be doing anything else that might actually make the public safer - like patrolling high-crime areas.
Category C, D and H firearms must be stored in a locked steel safe. When both longarms and pistols are being stored, then pistols can be stored in a longarms safe provided the pistols are secured by other means inside the safe. If the number of firearms stored exceeds 15, the safe must be located in a premises which is either fitted with a monitored alarm system or staffed 24-hours-a-day.
And understand, they can change the storage requirements at a whim, and you will no longer be in compliance.
It's just boiling the frog: Make it incrementally more and more onerous to acquire and keep firearms, and eventually the law-abiding will no longer bother to. It'll be too much hassle. And if it's not working fast enough, well all you need is some highly publicized prosecutions with significant fines and property loss to get the point across.
I will not license. I will not register. Period. | posted by Kevin at 7:03 AM PermaLink
GUNMEN robbed diners at an exclusive Italian restaurant in a Pulp Fiction-style raid — the first crime of its kind in Britain.
One thug held a pistol to a waiter’s head while an accomplice took customers’ jewellery, wallets and mobile phones.
Women sobbed as they were forced to take off wedding rings and put them on the table.
The loot was collected in a bag and the robbers fled.
A senior Flying Squad cop hunting the pair described the robbery as “audacious and outrageous”.
He added: “It is the first time we have ever heard of diners in an expensive restaurant being robbed while they were eating.”
In Quentin Tarantino’s violent 1994 movie Pulp Fiction, a couple played by Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer hold up a US diner.
Well, obviously it's the fault of American cinema for putting the idea in the heads of these brazen robbers.
Police believe the robbers targeted the Ros Marino in St Johns Wood, North West London, because they knew well-heeled customers were likely to be there.
And the fact that they were assured that no one would be armed or likely to resist didn't hurt.
The area is one of the most expensive in London and home to VIPs and showbiz stars. Nearby streets have private security patrols.
Private unarmed security patrols.
Two bandits, one black and carrying a handgun, the other white and armed with a knife, walked in through the front door of the restaurant at 10.10pm on Sunday.
But, but handguns are banned in England! Didn't he get the memo?
They closed the door behind them and the black suspect grabbed a waiter.
He threatened to kill him unless the 15 customers and 15 staff handed over their personal belongings.
Around ten people were robbed. No one was injured but the staff and customers were shaken.
What, 20 people know enough to not carry valuables anymore?
The restaurant is owned by Giuliano Lotto, whose company also owns the Zafferano in Knightsbridge. A company spokesman said: “We are just glad nobody was hurt."
Well, as long as everybody (especially the robbers) went home safe. Of course, they could have killed or injured multiple people, and no one could have done anything about it. They were dependent on the good behavior of the robbers.
No thanks.
As one AR15.com member commented:
Why they should have put up a bloody sign informing those miscreants that firearms were not allowed.
That would have settled their hash forthwith and they would have taken their skullduggery elsewhere! Pip Pip!
Yeah! That'd work!
UPDATE: Here's another story on the robbery, again with the "Pulp Fiction" reference, by different reporters. I'll just excerpt the parts that are different or noteworthy:
In a raid reminiscent of a scene from the film Pulp Fiction, the thieves held a gun to a customer's head as they forced diners to hand over money, mobile phones and other belongings.
The other story said they held a gun to the head of a waiter. I'd imagine they threatened both and/or more.
(A senior police officer) said: "It is the first time we have heard of diners in an expensive restaurant being robbed while they were eating."
Translation: "The bloody cheek of these buggers, robbing their betters! They ought to stay with sticking up the lumpenproles!"
(An unidentified restaurant employee) said staff and customers had been "traumatised" by the attack, adding that waiters who had been working that night had been given today off to rest.
Speaking as staff started clearing away the damage, he said: "I think we will be considering having bouncers on the door after this."
Who will do exactly what when someone sticks a gun in their faces? Serve as the example to the crowd?
The raid was similar to the opening and closing scenes in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, in which an armed couple hold up a diner before the hitmen, played by John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson, pull out their own guns and take control of the situation.
But, of course, that's only because it was cinema, and they were bad guys anyway.
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