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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. - MaxedOutMama I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. Kim du Toit
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. . . and so are you Wahabism Delenda Est      Hey, FEC!  BITE ME! I'm a Member of the McCain-Feingold INSURRECTION!    "Jeez, Kevin... calling you an asshole would be a huge understatement, wouldn't it?" -Jack Cluth, The People's Republic of Seabrook (Coming from you, Jack, it's an honor.)  email: gunrightsAT comcastDOTnet INVITATION: If you have never shot a firearm, regardless of your position on the right to arms, and if you live near or visit the Tucson, AZ metropolitan area, I invite you to go shooting for a day. I will provide the arms, ammunition, targets, safety equipment, range fees and instruction. All you have to do is show up. 6 Takers To Date DO YOU LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE and want to try shooting? Click HERE  Proud Gun-blogging member of the Pajamahadeen since May, 2003!
Debates: "The Commentary" A OLD discussion on gun control between me and an Irishman living in London Start here. UPDATED! Now with archive! Post #1 by Alex, a Guest A multi-post discussion hosted here at TSM My short exchange with Professor Saul Cornell of the Second Amendment Research Center Best Posts: The "Rights" Discussion: What is a "Right?" What is a "Right"? Revisited, Part I Part II Rights, Morality, Idealism & Pragmatism, Part I Part II Part III Part IV The United Federation of Planets Is the Government Responsible for Your Protection? Part I & Part II 1975 in Washington, D.C. vs. 2004 in Canton, Ohio Go Ahead, Rely on the Government for Your Protection The Other Side Liberal vs. Conservative: Both are Necessary The Mystery of Government The Blog that Ate Poughkeepsie Updated and restated as: Of Laws and Sausages Militias A Mistake a Free People Get to Make Only Once The George Orwell Daycare Center This is NOT What I Wanted to Read TRUST The Lying "News" Media, Pt. II Say WHAT? Bias? What Bias? Agenda? What Agenda? The Church of the MSM and the New Reformation Let's See if I Can "Germinate an Intelligent Thought" Here The ACLU Hasn't Changed its Tune They Never EVER Stop It is Not the Business of Government Five Reasons Why It ISN'T They Keep Making Better Fools Five Month Investigation, 10 Tracer Rounds, Two Felony Convictions That Sumbitch Ain't been BORN! On Guillotines and Gibbets England Slides Further Towards Bondage Pressing the "RESET" Button Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothin' Left To Lose A Terrible Resolve The Courts Will Not Save Us Trilogy: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions "Game Over, Man. Game Over." An Important Question And the denouement: Hudson Was Wrong The Dangerous Victims Trilogy: "(I)t's most important that all potential victims be as dangerous as they can" Violence and the Social Contract Governments, Criminals, and Dangerous Victims In the same vein: Those Without Swords Can Still Die Upon Them The True Believers Trilogy: True Believers March of the Lemmings Reasonable People Also in the same vein: Tough History Coming The Culture Trilogy Culture Hubris Weltanschauung And its follow-on: In Re: Culture Technical Dissertations Why Ballistic Fingerprinting Doesn't (And Won't) Work Spin, Spin, Spin Speaking of Teddy Kennedy... This is the Kind of Thing That REALLY IRRITATES ME Questions from the Audience?
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PROTESTWARRIOR Some people who are taking the fight to the Left. And some GREAT T-shirts, too. DAILY READS I need a longer day! Day by Day InstaPundit Lileks' The Bleat Mostly Cajun View from the Porch Of Arms and the Law TFS Magnum Ravenwood's Universe Irons in the Fire Say Uncle The Adventures of Roberta X TRUE EXCELLENCE American Digest The Belmont Club Boobs, Injuries, and Dr. Pepper The Volokh Conspiracy Michael Yon Varifrank Eject!Eject!Eject! Eternity Road Oleg Volk ON INDEFINITE HIATUS USS Clueless The Safety Valve Ipse Dixit The Lopsided Poopdeck Acidman (RIP) Skywritings Publicola D.C. Thorton Kim du Toit Personal Effects Smoke on the Water OTHER GUN/RIGHTS BLOGS Airborne Combat Engineer AlphaPatriot Alphecca American Dinosaur A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver The Anarchangel Mrs. Anarchangel The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler Argghhh! The Bitch Girls Boots and Sabers The Breda Fallacy Gun Nuts Media Carnaby Fudge Clayton Cramer Cogito Ergo Geek Countertop Chronicles Cowboy Blob Critical Mastiff Cryptic Subterranean Found: One Troll FreedomSight From the Heartland Fun Turns to Tragedy!!! The Geek with a .45 Gunwatch Heartless Libertarian Hecate's Crossroad Hell in a Handbasket Individ Justin Buist's Blog The LawDog Files Lead and Gold Les Jones Live from the (upper) Texas Gulf Coast Mad Ogre The Michael Bane Blog Moral Flexibility Mr. Completely Murdoc Online The Munchkin Wrangler Ninth Stage No Looking Backwards No Quarters Oscar Poppa Outrageous Malfunction Pass the ammo Posse Incitatus Random Nuclear Strikes Reasonablenut Resistance is Futile! Sandcastles and Cubicles SlagleRock's Slaughterhouse Snowflakes in Hell Surly Curmudgeon Texican Tattler The Ten Ring South Park Pundit Triggerfinger The View From North Central Idaho Vox The War on Guns Weck Up To Thees! Wince and Nod Xavier Thoughts .45 Caliber Justice BLOGGERS I'VE MET A Keyboard and a .45  
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Tuesday, June 01, 2004 Some Other Results of My Research The piece on self-defense in the UK was long enough by itself, but I found quite a few pieces I didn't want to just leave out. I'll just put them here for your First, let's take a look at how the British police are handling crime. First up, a story from 2002 that shows that the cops understand implicitly what their limitations are, and just who they can and can't intimidate: Police fail to stop raveThey weren't in the "open air" because they were in David Benton's BARN. That's enough of that. You read the rest. Then there's this lovely bit of news from December of 2003: Don't bother about burglary, police toldThat might help explain this story from May of 2003: Misery of couple 'burgled 192 times'I'd imagine not. There's a bit more to the story, but here's the kicker: Police Inspector Richard Douce, said: "Officers in Ely are aware of the continued problems at the address in Earith and have worked with Mr Charter in the past to look at the security at his house and outbuildings.After four years and 192 incidents. I'm sure Mr. Charter is greatly relieved. Of most everything he owns. But here the police are on top of the job! Someone might be defending themselves! Can't have that! Police swoop on 4ft 10in grannyThis story would almost, almost be funny, except for these two stories that show that the behavior of these "youths" is hardly unusual: Yobs drove man to kill himselfInvestigate, but do nothing to stop it. Nor is this the first case like this. Here's another: Let the force be with the good guys...pleaseAre you beginning to see a pattern here? Oh, and remember the bit about women having the inherent right to kill a rapist? Well, they really shouldn't, according to this piece: Advice to resist sex attackers may make it worse, rape charity warnsNo, according to the law if the crime is rape you can defend yourself with lethal force - but apparently you're limited to using "adult reasoning" and "poking fingers or thumbs hard into eyes or throat, pulling hair, pulling fingers back to break, and squeezing or kicking the groin," none of which - last I checked - were particularly lethal. And now let's skip to the subject of gun control in the UK, shall we? The most recently passed piece of legislation banned a certain type of "easily convertible" airgun. Yet guns, and more lethal weapons, seem pretty easy to get anyway. Here's a case where a guy was machine-gunned to death, not that this was necessarily a bad thing: Shot man was teen rapistAnd machineguns aren't all that uncommon, even though they've been banned since the 1930's. Not heavily regulated, like they are here, but completely banned: GANG HAD MACHINE GUNGo read the rest. Ignore the photo - that's not an Ingram, and, to my knowledge, the Ingram has never been a "US Army issue weapon." I've covered other stories of machine-guns in England, too. There's this story of an intercepted shipment of Uzi submachineguns, and here's one about an honest-to-jebus LMG found in a London raid. Here's one where a gang went on a 'shooting rampage' across London with an SMG. There are more, but you get the idea. Here's one that's a bit of a shocker. In addition to all the American, Israeli, and East European hardware being smuggled across the water, it seems there's a market for personal explosives, as poor Mrs. Ester Jonas discovered when someone lobbed a hand grenade into her home and took her leg. This guy was lucky - he just found one in the road. Where it came from, no one is saying. Here they found a live grenade in a railway tunnel. Of course, you don't have to import them if you can get them domestically while you're out for a beer. But, machineguns and hand grenades aside, it doesn't seem all that difficult to get a shotgun. Or a handgun. Because gun crime in the UK has been on the rise, according to this Telegraph piece, the money quote being: Firearms offences in England and Wales rose from 13,874 in 1998-99 to 24,070 in 2002-03. Recorded crimes involving imitation weapons trebled from 566 to 1,815 during that period.Response? Ban some airguns! This piece from October of last year puts some perspective on the problem: We are overrun by gun crime, says police chiefYes, Britain's draconian gun laws have worked so well in keeping weapons out of the hands of But this opinion piece said something I think illustrates a significant part of the problem, and I will close this post with it: "There Was Violence Used"And it's bled down from the intelligentsia. Now juries can decide, 10-2, that someone who has acted defensively in the insanity of defending one's family from an intruder, that "excessive force" was used, and the defender is guilty of manslaughter. Hindsight being 20/20, of course. The (considerably less than) Million Moms chanted at their first (and only) big rally: "England can do it! Australia can do it! We can too!" Not if I have any say in the matter. Labels: GFWs, gun control, UK | Compare and Contrast On the evening of May 17, a Pizza Hut delivery driver shot a robber - between 10 and 15 times. ("Why did you shoot fifteen times?" "That's all there were in the magazine!") He then picked up his assailant's firearm and drove to his place of business where he had his supervisor call the police. On Friday, May 28, the prosecutor's office ruled that the shooting - and the subsequent actions of the shooter - were justified. Contrast that to the piece two posts down. No charges of murder filed for "unreasonable force." No seven-week investigation. The shooter had a licensed firearm. His assailant had an unlicensed one. The shooter wasn't attacked in his home, but on the street - where, if you're in England, you're prohibited from carrying any sort of "offensive" weapon. If you actually obey the law, that is. Now, do you think pizza delivery drivers in Indiannapolis will be more or less safe for a while? Of course, this is just another example of the "blood in the streets" predicted by the anti-concealed carry crowd, right? Just one more example of how carrying a gun is useless, won't make you safer, and only endangers innocent people. Right? Damn it's tough being a "gullible gunner," but I agree with Ronald Honeycutt, the shooter who lost his job because Pizza Hut requires its delivery people to be unarmed: Honeycutt said he was fired from his job because he had violated the store policy against carrying a gun, which he was licensed to carry.That's what free people do. And that's what a free society defends. Hat tip, Kim | Sunday, May 30, 2004 In Memoriam This reminded me of a M*A*S*H episode - on of the early ones - where Henry Blake told Hawkeye - "The first thing they teach you in command school is that the first rule of war is 'Young Men Die.'" John Donovan has the story of 2nd Leutenant Leonard Cowherd, one most appropriate for this weekend. That is all. | Saturday, May 29, 2004 Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, In Conclusion... I and Tim Lambert, professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales, Australia and author of the blog Deltoid, have been having an ongoing discussion over self-defense in the UK starting back in March. The debate began over a news piece that stirred the outrage of those of us Tim calls "gullible gunners." Here's that piece, published in the UK paper, The Scotsman, in its entirety: Man Who Killed Armed Intruder Jailed Eight YearsThe reaction of several of us was commented on in Tim's initial post on the subject, Gullible Gunners. Tim commented, in part: Pro-gunners such as John Lott, Glenn Reynolds and John Derbyshire have written about the Martin case, apparently unaware of the facts that showed that the killing was not in self defence, and proceeded to make bogus claims that self defence was against the law in Britain. Claims which they have never bothered to correct.Note that Tim doesn't wonder why 61 out of 61 blogs choose option 2 - to him it's obvious that we're all just "gullible gunners" and there is no prior evidence that would lead us to believe that "self defence is illegal in the UK," this story being only the latest example. No, we're obviously just leaping to conclusions based on our inherent pro-gun bias. (What that bias indicates, I leave to you, the jury.) Tim noted that further details emerged indicating that perhaps this was not merely a case of self-defense. That, in fact, Carl Lindsay had pursued his attackers into a hallway and had stabbed Stephen Swindells in the back four times, thus prompting the murder charge. Instead, the jury found him guilty of manslaughter for an act of retaliation against the men robbing him. I was one of those who posted on the story. In my piece I said: The Next Time Someone Tells You that Self-Defense isn't Illegal in the UK, (for all intents and purposes,)...And pointed to the Scotsman story. I then added, after the additional details were brought out: However, were you a reader of this story - provided without nuance - would you not draw the conclusion that defending yourself against attack is legally risky?The following week Tim posted his first piece, and I began the debate with him in the comments to that piece. In response to that initial post by Tim I made this point: [T]here have been numerous cases of the British courts charging people for defending themselves. The law there seems to be one based on "proportional response" - e.g., stabbing someone who isn't armed with a weapon is "excessive force." So is bashing them over the head with a brick. There are many of these cases, and they've lead us to the conclusion that private citizens in Britain had best not resist attack, or face prosecution for usurping the authority of the State in its monopoly on the legitimate use of force. My primary objection to the news story was that it reinforces that conclusion. If you are a reader of that story, ignorant as to the details, in combination with all the other similar stories of people prosecuted after defending themselves, the message is "don't resist, you'll go to jail."In a later comment, I added: You object to our near unanimous conclusion that "self defense in the UK is illegal," poo-pooing it as "gullible," but for all practical purposes that assertion is true. Stories like the Scotsman piece reinforce that understanding. All it said was (in abbreviated form) "One man attacked by four. One of the four had a gun. Man defended himself with a sword, killing one of the four. Defender sentenced to eight years." When faced by four attackers, one armed with a firearm, it seems the "instinctive" reaction the government wants is for the victim to curl into a ball and surrender. Any other action is deemed "antisocial," apparently.Tim and I (and others) continued this debate over the course of the next couple of months. Tim posted a follow-on piece, Gullible Gunners, Again in response to my comments in which he states: Baker continued to insist that self defence was illegal in practice in the UK. His argument was that England’s “laws concerning weapons make self-defense, for all intents and purposes, a lost cause”. His argument is badly wrong for two reasons.My response was a post of my own. Tim responded in the comments of Gullible Gunners, Again, where he said:1. Using a weapon is not the only way to defend yourself. As far as I can tell, American pro-gunners are constantly on the lookout for news stories about how terrible things are in the UK. So far they have found a total of exactly zero cases where someone has genuinely acted in self-defence and been convicted of (or even prosecuted for) a crime. That's zero. But you seem to think that it happens all the time.and Next we come to your bizarre misreading of my statement:One of my commenters, Sarah, rephrased Tim's statement thus:"If the law disarms attackers, then it can make self defence possible where it would have been impossible if the attacker was armed."You claimed that I was somehow saying that "Honest citizens should never use a weapon in self defense" even though I wasn't and insisted that was the only possible meaning even though I had written nothing the slightest bit even remotely like that. Consider two scenarios:1. Attacker has a gun. Defender does not.Self defence is possible in the second scenario while it isn't in the first one. Is that clear now? If the law disarms citizens, then it can make self defence impossible where it would have been possible if the citizen was armed.That about covers that. I responded here. You can see this exchange has been quite involved. (I doubt many people have bothered to read this far, though I'm sure this post will draw some comments. If you really have struggled through to read to this point, please, let me know.) Tim then posted his third piece, Gullible Gunners, Part 3 on May 4. In that piece he states: He (that would be me) has “spent a considerable amount of time trying to do archive research through UK online newspapers for stories on self defense”, and found not one story where someone was prosecuted for defending themselves. So where do we stand here? Despite strenous efforts, we have not one case where the British courts have charged someone for defending themselves. All we have is two cases (Lindsay and Martin) where the killing was not self-defence, but were presented by pro-gunners to make it look like it was.Now, if you've taken the hour or two necessary to slog through this entire discussion; links, comments, etc., to this point, I applaud you. There are probably forty-thousand words or more to this point, and we rambled on over a fairly wide variety of topics. But it all comes down to the original point: Is self defense in the UK legal in practice? I've already noted that it is legal by statute, but I have held that prosecution of what appears to we "gullible gunners" open-and-shut cases of self defense in fact proves that the State does not uphold the idea that violence in self defense is acceptable. Tim claims that I have found "not one story where someone was prosecuted for defending themselves," "...we have not one case where the British courts have charged someone for defending themselves." There's that tricky semantics question again. Just what constitutes "prosecution for self defense?" I imagine Tim's definition is considerably more strict than mine. I did, in fact, point to this story in which a wheelchair-bound man used teargas to defend himself against a mugger. Teargas is considered an "offensive weapon" in the UK and is illegal (for a subject) to possess. The man was charged for possession of the teargas, but not, apparently, for using it. Was he "prosecuted for self defense"? I think so. Tim probably would not. I think that New York resident Ronald Dixon was "prosecuted for self defense" when he was charged with having an unlicensed firearm after he used that firearm in self defense. I think that Cook County Illinois showed decency and good sense when it chose NOT to prosecute Hale DeMar for the same "crime" when he used his handgun in self defense. Now, consider those two American cases. In both, the home of the gun owner was invaded by a man. The owner did not know if the invader was armed, but in both cases the owner used deadly force against the intruder. In neither case was the owner charged for the use of deadly force, but only risked prosecution for having a weapon he was not legally entitled to have. It was patently obvious to the investigators that an intruder was in the home, and it was patently obvious that the homeowner had the right to use lethal force against the intruder. In both cases the intruder could have died. Contrast that to the case of Thomas O'Connor, a 63 year-old nearly blind man whose home was invaded by a 23 year-old man who broke the front door in, knocking it off the hinges and out of its frame. Mr. O'Connor grabbed a knife and stabbed the invader, giving him a fatal wound. Mr. O'Connor then suffered through a seven week murder investigation before the Crown decided not to prosecute because - and I quote - "[I]t is not believed we would be able to disprove a case of self defence against [this man]." Still, it seems from Tim's writing that if I could come up with just one example of the government prosecuting someone for an obvious case of self defense, I would prove my point that government discourages the act of self defense by making it legally risky to do so. I promised that I would do more research and respond. Well, I have, and this is it. (Hell of a prologue, no?) First, let me go back again to the comments in Tim's posts. A couple of cases were brought up that Tim decided were at best inconclusive. The first was the case of Mark Barnsley, and second was that of Satpal (or Saptal, depending) Ram. Tim didn't comment on the Mark Barnsley case, but concluded based on this page that the Ram case couldn't be self defense because Mr. Ram had apparently also stabbed someone in the back. It's been said that on the internet anyone can write anything, so I'm not exactly certain why that one page makes Mr. Ram's claims of self-defense invalid. According to this Guardian article Mr. Ram was supposedly assaulted by a man using a broken glass as a weapon. His crime was apparently not backing down and being a good (read "meek") subject in the face of racism. Mr. Ram defended himself against attack, got a lousy lawyer, and received a life sentence. Hmm... So which version is true? You be the jury. The case of Mark Barnsley seems less ambivalent to me. He was attacked by a group of as many as 15 drunken college students, and defended himself while receiving a severe beating. He, according to the story, picked up a knife dropped by one of his attackers and hung onto it during the attack to keep from having it used against him. Some of his attackers received wounds. Mr. Barnsley was the only person charged. What's the truth? I don't know, but I know what it looks like from what I've been able to read. I'll leave it to those interested to do the research for themselves, and again be the jury. I've spent quite a few hours scouring the various UK newspaper online versions for stories of self defense. I have reached one fairly strong conclusion - either it doesn't happen much in the UK, or the papers simply won't report it unless it's a spectacular case. However, if someone is severely injured or killed, it is apparent to me that the Crown will file a charge unless, as it was in the case of Mr. O'Connor, it is blindingly obvious (no pun intended) that they cannot disprove self defense. I said early on that self defense was legally risky in the UK because by exercising your right you run the very real risk of being prosecuted. That legal risk has a chilling effect on the exercise of the purported right. So let's look at a couple of examples I found. First, there's the 2002 case of Barry-Lee Hastings, who was cleared of a murder charge, but convicted in a 10-2 jury decision of manslaughter and sent to jail for five years. (Tony Martin was found guilty of murder in a 10-2 jury decision as well.) This case has very much in common with the one that started all of this. Mr. Hastings, visiting the home of his estranged wife, found one Roger Williams burglarizing the home. Mr. Hastings, unaware that his wife and children were not at home, grabbed a bread knife from the kitchen and attempted to intervene in the belief that the burglar was armed with a machete and that his wife and children were at risk. Mr. Williams was stabbed 12 times - in the back - and died of his wounds. Here's what the prosecutor said: "The law recognises a man is entitled to defend himself, his family and his property - only if his action does not go beyond the reasonable and the necessary.But here's what the law says, as provided to me by Tim Lambert: Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 provides that a person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime, and the question of reasonableness is subject to the amplifications contained in such cases as R v McInnes and R v Palmer. It has been held that "if a jury thought that in a moment of unexpected anguish a person attacked had only done what he honestly and instinctively thought was necessary, that would be most potent evidence that only reasonable defensive action had been taken." Normally only reasonable force is acceptable but if in the unexpected anguish of the moment excessive force is used it may still be acceptable, if the defendant honestly and instinctively believed it was necessary. It has been long established (prior to either the Criminal Law Act 1967 s 3 or AIDS) that a woman may take the life of a man attempting to rape her, though she may not generally carry a weapon to achieve this.A fact that renders the right to use lethal force essentially meaningless, but I digress. When a defendant deliberately used a lock knife he had opened prior to an incident, and stabbed an assailant after the defendant had received a single blow to the face, it was held that this could not possibly be reasonable.Note, it's apparently OK for cops to shoot people they believe to be armed, but not for people to stab - in the back - people they believe to be a danger. Now, contrast this case to the Hale DeMar and Ronald Dixon cases. In both of those cases the homeowner shot the intruder - a definite use of lethal force - yet neither was charged with attempted homicide or excessive use of force or anything having to do with the woundings. It was, to Americans, an absolute case of righteous self defense. In the case of Mr. Hastings, he believed that his wife and children were at home and at risk, and he attacked to protect them. Yes, the burglar was stabbed in the back. So? If you're grappling with an attacker with a knife in your hand, where is the blade going to go? Mr. Hastings' lawyer said: "We are shocked by the verdict. The evidence clearly showed that Barry-Lee Hastings acted in self-defence. Most people will recognise that the verdict today represents an appalling miscarriage of justice and flies in the face of common sense."Apparently he's another "gullible gunner." Then there's this case from 2000 in which a homeowner beat the snot out of a burglar wth a baseball bat. A judge yesterday reignited the debate over the law on self-defence by asserting that a householder who repeatedly beat a burglar with a metal baseball bat had been using "reasonable force".Gee, ya THINK? Still, they weren't actually charged. And there's this case from 2003 in which an Judge Richard Pollard directed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty after a pathologist told the court he could not rule out the possibility death was caused by an accident.Sounds like Mr. Parkin dodged a bullet, so to speak. But he was definitely charged and tried. Still, there's other good news. In this case homeowner John Lambert (any relation?) was cleared by a jury in a case where he stabbed a burglar to death. Apparently this time the burglar wasn't stabbed in the back. Still, Mr. Lambert was held for two days before being released on bail prior to the inquiry that found his action to be defensive. I'd find that idea chilling - that for defending my wife and home I had to spend two nights in jail. But this is all so confusing, isn't it? Well, this BBC piece from January 2003 says yes: MP calls self-defence laws unclearDamned good question. It goes right to the heart of that "reasonableness" argument, doesn't it? And the question of what you believe even if your belief is wrong. People who believe they or their family are in imminent danger are allowed to use "reasonable force" to defend themselves but cases are examined individually and a decision to prosecute is based upon the circumstances.And those decisions appear to be somewhat random and capricious. Not something you want associated with the law when your life and your freedom are in question. One of Mr Bellingham's constituents is farmer Tony Martin, who was jailed for shooting dead a teenage burglar.It would appear that Mr. Martin's case stirred up a hornet's nest of controversy concerning self defense in the UK. So, have I found that one case that proves my point? I think so, and it just so happens to come from the very same paper that started all of this, The Scotsman: Man Who Stabbed Blood-Soaked Cocaine Addict JailedHindsight. It's always 20/20, isn't it? But that's not what the law is supposed to be based on, is it? “By your plea you have accepted that you intended real serious injury. Your use of violence was not wholly unpremeditated in that you did equip yourself with at least one knife.Not "unpremeditated" because he picked up a knife. Mr. O'Connor "picked up a knife" and he didn't get charged. Mr. Lambert "picked up a knife" and he didn't get charged. But Carl Lindsay picked up a knife and got a manslaughter conviction. It appears that Osborne, like Satpal Ram, had a lousy lawyer. That's not the only version of the story. There's one on the London Times site, but I'm not paying £10 to get it. There's also this version from The Telegraph: Five years in prison for acting in self-defenceAnd remember, they don't need a unanimous jury decision in the UK anymore. It was explained to Osborn that he could avoid that risk only if he elected to plead guilty to manslaughter as a result of provocation. He would then probably be sentenced to a maximum of three years. His defence team did not advise him to take that option: they merely set out the alternatives in front of him.I'm certain Tim will point to the fact that Halling was stabbed in the back as indication that it wasn't self defense. I'm sorry, Tim, but I disagree. If I'm defending others from a blood-drenched maniac, I'm not going to give a shit whether I stab the guy in the back or in the chest. Or if I shoot him, which side the bullets go in. It's defense of self or others. It's the legitimate use of violence to stop a crime. It's justified, and this is part and parcel of what we see coming out of the UK, and what residents there see just as well - just another example of the fact that self defense there is actively discouraged, regardless of the written law. Had Mr. Halling been shot by an armed police officer in the same situation, I have absolutely no doubt that the officer would have been exonerated. Instead, Brett Osborne - convinced by his attorney to plead, just as Satpal Ram was convinced by his attorney to not to claim self defense - gets to spend five years in prison for doing the right thing. And you know what I didn't find in all that research? A single case of successful self defense that didn't involve some sort of weapon. But I found a lot of crimes committed by bad guys with knives, guns, and even a handgrenade. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case. What say you? | Friday, May 28, 2004 "This is highly unusual for this neighborhood." I would certainly hope so. In another example of "just when you thought humans couldn't sink any lower," it seems that three children in Baltimore were killed yesterday. One was beheaded, the other two nearly so. The victims were: 9-year-old Ricardo Espinoza; his 9-year-old sister, Lucero Quezada; and their 10-year-old cousin, Alexis Quezada, a boy. Two have been arrested in the murders: Adan Espinosa Canela, 17; and Policarpio Espinosa, 22, according to this AP story. Baltimore, (home of Johns Hopkins and its Center for Gun Policy and Research) has one of the highest homicide rates in the nation. What? Is it something in the water? | I Still Want to See Him Defeated, But... Senator John McCain, co-author of the McCain-Feingold You know, I spent several years as a Prisoner of War in Vietnam, in the dark, eating scraps. Why would I want to do that again?I don't care for John McCain, but I've got to admit that was very funny. John Nance Garner, the 32nd V.P., serving from 1933-1941 under FDR (replaced by Henry A. Wallace), is famously quoted as saying, The vice presidency isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit.I'm not sure if he said that before or after being replaced by Wallace, but I'd imagine Al Gore would agree with him. Wallace might too, since he was replaced by Truman. I doubt Truman would agree, though. Garner also said (of FDR), "(he) is the most destructive man in all American history." Which would explain why he was replaced with Wallace. Not that I think Garner was necessarily wrong in his opinion. | Read Today's Bleat James's screed starting about a third of the way down the page is very much worth your time. | Thursday, May 27, 2004 Favorite John Wayne Movie? The Laughing Wolf asks this question. His are Hatari and Big Jake. If you're a gun guy, you're just about required to like John Wayne movies. I like both of the Wolf's choices, though my nod goes to Big Jake out of the two. I think my favorite is a tossup between True Grit, Rooster Cogburn, and The Shootist. I literally cannot choose between them. And Big Jake is certainly first runner-up. | Bet Your Ass That "Radically Overhauled" Does Not Mean "Repealed" It seems that the Brits, in that land of gun control utopia, have decided that their gun laws just aren't quite up to snuff. Gun legislation 'faces overhaul'"Let's see... We've made all semi-automatic long guns illegal, we've made all handguns illegal, we require draconian measures for subjects to legally possess what little is left over, we've managed to reduce the total number of people holding firearm certificates each and every year for the last decade at least. But it hasn't reduced firearm involved crime at all? In fact, firearm involved crime has only gone up? "What shall we do now, in the face of this apparent failure of policy? "I know! Let's do it some more, ONLY HARDER!" And I see they're using asset forfeiture over there as well. I wonder if the English at least need a conviction first? However, the government has ruled out a wholesale ban on imitation firearms, saying it was too difficult to find a legal definition for replicas.And what kind of levels were they at in the 1950's when this crap really got started? The number of recorded crimes involving imitation weapons has tripled from 566 to 1,815 during that period.Leaving, let's see... carry the one... 22,255 recorded firearm offenses that didn't involve imitation weapons, more than 92%! And bear in mind, the problem with the Brocock guns that got them banned was that they were converted to fire live ammo - making them REAL firearms, just like a zipgun is a REAL firearm. The consultation paper, published on Wednesday, said: "It has proved difficult to find a workable legal definition of an imitation firearm and we do not believe that the level of effort required by agencies to administer additional restrictions is offset by public safety gains."It would seem apparent that the "level of effort required" to collect and destroy all the legally registered semi-auto rifles and shotguns in 1988, and all the legally registered handguns in 1996 was not offset by "public safety gains" now wouldn't it? Home Office minister Caroline Flint said: "I can't envisage a wholesale ban on imitation and replica firearms".Well, Minister, I'd say that in your job that indicates a failure of imagination not shared by many of your peers. She added that the UK's complex firearms legislation needed to be re-examined.That's refreshing to hear! At least a decade too late, though, don't you think? A further £250,000 would be given to small community organisations tackling gun crime, "which blights too many of our neighbourhoods", Ms Flint said.Kind of a shock to find that stripping the legal gun owners didn't just clear the problem right up, eh? Routinely armedYes, like the incident where they killed the unarmed naked man, and the one where they killed the poor guy bringing home a table leg in a plastic bag. I'm not going to be too harsh on them. Cops are in a bad spot when it comes to defending themselves against possibly armed opponents. They are introduced into situations where they don't know what exactly is going on or who the bad guy might be. But this is not the situation for most armed citizens. When faced with a threat, it's pretty damned apparent who the bad guys are. But Mr Hollis added: "We do not believe that the police should be routinely armed.Meanwhile, I expect incidents in which unarmed officers are threatened or shot to rise. Mr Hollis added: "We were encouraged to find that at the local level a number of forces had developed positive initiatives to combat gun crime."Yet firearm involved crime continues to rise, requiring a "radical overhaul" of existing gun laws, right? The philosophy CANNOT BE WRONG! Do it again. Only harder. Sheesh. | "You just described a legal activity???" Fellow blogger Jason Hartney of Fish or Man has had a run-in with the cops for carrying openly in Ellensburg, Washington. Seems a teller at the bank inside the grocery store was frightened by Jason's .45 carried - openly - tucked inside his waistband. I'd link to the original post, but go to the top of the page and work your way down to the one titled Small town life, big time brainwashed. Scroll up from there. There are several related posts. Other than being perhaps a bit confrontational to the responding officer, I find nothing wrong with Mr. Hartney's behavior. | Have You Seen These? I ran across this news. A fellow IHMSA shooter, Lee Jackson from Kentucky got burglarized. A bunch of his guns got stolen. Here's the link to everything. Here's a list: Remington XP-100 7BR Pistol built by Kevin Randolph. Rear grip HS Precision stock in gloss metallic black. 15" fluted barrel. Jewell trigger. Model 700 bolt handle. Keep your eyes open, would you? This really sucks. | Wednesday, May 26, 2004 OK, ONE More Tonight It's another one of those blog memes. What's your workspace look like? James Lileks started it. Kim du Toit showed us his (so to speak.) Well, here's mine, taken with my el cheapo Largan Chameleon Mega camera.
Once. It took me awhile to sort out all the different bullets by caliber, weight, and style. This is in what should be the breakfast area of my house. The shot is taken from the kitchen. I had all my computer and reloading stuff in a spare bedroom, but after my daughter moved home with the grandkids, no spare bedrooms anymore! They've moved out again, but my wife is providing daycare for the kids, so one bedroom is my grandson's and the other is my granddaughter's. And I am relegated to the breakfast area. But it works. | This One's a Must-Read Via Ipse Dixit comes this excellent piece. A taste: A Movie Not MadeThis piece makes the point perfectly that in this war, as in every war, bad things happen. How you see it is very much up to the people who produce our media. Cathy Siepp has a related piece up on NRO that should also be read (via Instapundit). Hers is about the upcoming A&E movie Ike: Countdown to D-Day and its co-executive producer Lionel Chetwynd. Money quote: Now in his early 60s, Chetwynd is a longtime naturalized American citizen who was born in England and raised in Montreal. He'd remembered from Canadian regimental history that of the 4,400-odd Canadians sent to Dieppe, about 3,600 were killed. Although they knew it was basically a suicide mission, not one man failed to report for duty. Chetwynd asked one of the old soldiers in his regiment, Sgt. Gordon Betts, why.These people are not only producing our entertainment, they are producing our news. Each evening on CNN we're seeing - if not to the same intensity - Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11. It's in the New York Times, the AP, Reuters, ABCNBCCBSMSNBCPBS et al. People in the news media wants us to lose, and they report the news in such a way as to convince us, as they did in Vietnam, that we cannot win. That we cannot define "winning." That there is nothing good going on in Iraq. In early February there was a piece on ABC's news blog The Note that I saved for posterity. From it comes this: Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections.They're not looking to find cracks in the base, they're out there with hammers and chisels. And it's not just the Washington press corps. If you believe, as I do, that political cartoonists reflect the general attitude of the press, go read the daily political cartoons on Slate, like this one, or this one, or this one, or this one. I find this one particularly disgusting. Trust me, there are plenty more. Now they're hooking up jackhammers. I've said it before, our opponent cannot win. But we can beat ourselves. And our media is hellbent, for whatever reason, to see that we do. If the media in 1943 had the same attitude it has now, we'd have lost WWII. This conflict is no less important. Are we destined, as a nation, to die with a whimper? Are we what the Russians accused us of, what the jihadis accuse us of? Weak-willed, soft, corrupt and unwilling to fight? What the fuck happened to us? UPDATE 5/27: Ann Coulter has a related piece up, Tit for Tet. Recommended. | Today's Entry The Blogger Quiz: 1. Which political party do you typically agree with? Haven't found one yet. 2. Which political party do you typically vote for? Republican 3. List the last five presidents that you voted for? Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, G.W. Bush. (I first voted in 1980.) 4. Which party do you think is smarter about the economy? Libertarian 5. Which party do you think is smarter about domestic affairs? Republican, except recently. 6. Do you think we should keep our troops in Iraq or pull them out? We'd better stay. We need to pull out the media, though. 7. Who, or what country, do you think is most responsible for 9/11? Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. 8. Do you think we will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Haven't been paying attention? We have found WMD. Just not in massive quantities. The contents of that one artillery shell could have killed everybody in the Superdome. (Hey we're having a two-for-one sale at Saddam's House of WMD's! Two Sarin shells for the price of one! C'mon down! Have title to your camel? One Al Qaeda pay stub? We can finance! The first five customers get a Mustard Gas shell free!) 9. Yes or no, should the U.S. legalize marijuana? Yes. And most other illicit substances. It won't make everything wonderful, it will cause numerous different problems, it won't get Big Government out of our lives, but it's NOT THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT to protect us from ourselves. 10. Do you think the Republicans stole the last Presidental election? No. They kept the Democrats from doing it. Changing the rules in the middle of the contest is WRONG. 11. Do you think Bill Clinton should have been impeached because of what he did with Monica Lewinski? Bill wasn't impeached for playing hide the salami with Lewinski, he was impeached for lying under oath. And he should have been convicted. But that would have put Gore in the Big Chair - a frightening thought in itself. 12. Do you think Hillary Clinton would make a good President? Not even of her local Rotary Club. 13. Name a current Democrat who would make a great President: Not great, but I think Zell Miller would be a good one. 14. Name a current Republican who would make a great President: I don't see one. I like Ron Paul but I often get the impression that he's too much idealist and not enough pragmatist. I'd like to see Condaleeza Rice run in 2008, though. I think she'd be a good President. 15. Do you think that women should have the right to have an abortion? First trimester, yes. After that, for reasons of medical necessity only. This is based on my belief - and that's all it is, my belief - that prior to the second trimester the fetus is not yet a person with attendant rights. Sometime between the end of the first trimester and the beginning of the third, the fetus becomes a person with all attendant rights, but a minor over whom the mother has descretion. The "bright line" for me is twelve weeks. (Don't write letters. I'm not interested in debating abortion. I have enough on my hands debating gun rights.) 16. What religion are you? None. I consider the concept of a Supreme Being, Creator of the Universe, being interested in the activities of we puny humans and able to be swayed by our prayers one of the more ludicrous I've ever been presented. If there is a God, I doubt seriously he gives a s*!t about what we do. 17. Have you read the Bible all the way through? Nope. Nor the Torah, nor the Q'uran, nor the Bhagvad Gita, nor... Well, you get the idea. 18. What's your favorite book? The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Anson Heinlein. 19. Who is your favorite band? Probably The Eagles. I don't really have a "favorite," but I do have all of the Eagles albums. 20. Who do you think you'll vote for president in the next election? Bush, so long as no new gun control laws are signed. Particularly a renewal of the AWB. 21. What website did you see this on first? Kim du Toit's. | Tuesday, May 25, 2004 Blog Hiatus Glenn was discussing blog burnout the other day. Can't say I'm really burned out, per se, but I'm so damned busy I come home too damned tired to be all that enthusiastic about posting. I'm going to take a short break. Expect, at most, a post or so a day for a few days. My apologies, but I need some time off. Oh, and I added Number 2 Pencil to my blogroll. Kimberly Swygert posts on education topics, and has a blogroll of her own of education blogs. Since I tend to do a lot of "Our Collapsing Schools" posts, hers is a good blog to reference. | ¡Muy Ocupado! Sorry, all. Didn't post much over the weekend. I ran my monthly IHMSA match on Saturday, and got to meet one of my readers who was at the range for Hunter Safety class. Sunday we had a picnic to celebrate my daughter's 25th birthday. Yesterday I did a day trip to Nacozari, Mexico. We left at 5:00AM and got back at 5:45 PM. I didn't feel much like posting last night. I see I got a few hits from my entry into this week's Best of Me Symphony. Interestingly, my entry, Bias? What Bias? from last August is again topical, since Glenn Reynolds, Steven Den Beste, and James Rummel (among others, I'm sure) have current pieces up on media bias. I must be prescient. I sent my entry in early last week. Anyway, I'm ¡muy occupado! (very busy) and won't be posting again until this evening, but first, a little gun pr0n: My next purchase:
Capacity: 6 Rounds Barrel Length: 4" Tapered Front Sight: Black Ramp Rear Sight: Adjustable Black Grip: Cocobolo Trigger: .312" Hammer: .400" External Safety: N/A Frame: Large Finish: Blue Overall length: 9 1/2" Material: Carbon Steel Weight Empty: 39.5 ounces There's an excellent review (with more pictures) here. (Via Boone Country.) I've had a serious jones for a model 25 in .45LC for a long time. Many years ago, Lew Horton Distributing had S&W make a special run of model 25-5's with a 5" tapered barrel. Lew Horton has done many short-run custom order S&W's, like the more recent M24-3, 3" barreled Model 24 in .44 Special from 1983, but the 5" barreled Model 25 always struck me as the most beautiful revolver I'd ever seen or shot. Five inches is, IMHO the optimum barrel length for a big-bore revolver for handiness and velocity, and the .45LC is a cartridge that should be loaded with lead and not jacketed bullets. Well, I can't find a 5" model 25, but this short Performance Center run of 4" guns is a damned close second. I had planned to order one a couple of weeks ago. We've paid off our bills and we had some surplus. I was sure I could convince the wife that we could afford the nearly $700 price tag. Unfortunately, when I came home that very afternoon, I found a bill in the mail from the IRS. Seems that when I did our taxes in 2002 I managed to miss a 1099 we got from a local casino when my wife won $2,500. I remember her win. I certainly forgot the 1099. The bill was $711. Damn! Saving my pennies now. That piece will be mine! | Sunday, May 23, 2004 Another Important Piece Not written by me. While I essentially take the weekend off for personal reasons, the Geek with a .45 - now happily established in Freedom House in Pennsylvania, having escaped New Jersey - has penned an important piece. In some ways it's an adjunct to Bill Whittle's, referenced immediately below. Some excerpts: Make no mistake. The presidential election of 2004 is not like any other presidential election, at least in my lifetime. It is a coming watershed. I do not believe it to be hyperbole to state that the future shape of Liberty and the Republic will be decided THIS YEAR.Give it a read. It's not as long as Strength, but it's as critical to understand the importance of the upcoming election as it is to understand the importance of our war against Wahabist Islam. | Saturday, May 22, 2004 I Step Away from the Computer for a Few Minutes... And Bill Whittle posts his latest magnum opus: STRENGTH. I have printed out all 30 pages so that I may sit and absorb it as it should be. Now, Mr. Whittle, if you'd be so kind as to get Silent America published so I can get my Christmas shopping done early this year? (Edited to add:) Son. Of. A. Bitch. I just sat and read the piece. About four pages into it I felt the need to read it out loud. It demands to be read out loud. On television. On radio. On street corners. In auditoriums on college campuses and in high schools. In Madison Square Garden before a capacity crowd. In Carnegie Hall. Before Parliament, by Tony Blair. Before a joint session of Congress. By the author. And it needs to be translated into the languages of the Middle East and read over loudspeakers there, instead of the call to prayer. Bill Whittle goes to eleven. | Friday, May 21, 2004 Dept. of Our Collapsing Schools: Unintended Consequences Div. (Via Connie) Teachers Helped Students Cheat on Standardized Tests in CaliforniaHmm. The LA Dogtrainer. Well, I guess it's possible that even after holding Gray Davis's skirts and slinging mud at Arnold "The Actor" Schwarzenegger, they might still have one or two investigative reporters who actually understand the job. It is, after all, possible that they could find their own asses without a map. The teachers were among more than 200 investigated in California for possible cheating since a statewide exam program began five years ago.Yes, the number of proven cases. But what's the criteria under which "cheating" is established? Some educators said temptation to cheat soared under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which can take away funding or reassign teachers in schools with consistently low test scores.Yes, the Law of Unintended Consequences again raises its ugly head. And, of course, it's all Bush's fault. Except the investigations began five years ago, after a STATE exam program began. "No Child Left Behind" was signed on January 8, 2002, just over two years ago. And anyway, Kerry says NCLB is failing because, like every other government social program, it's "underfunded." So far the state has intervened at 56 schools with poor scores, shaking up staffs. The federal government has warned 11 California campuses that they could lose funding or face other sanctions.After all, what are "ethics?" Who's to say one morality is superior to another? What matters is how the teachers feeeeeel, right? And if they're OK with it, how dare we judge? We might affect their self-esteem! Union officials said cases of possible cheating soared after the statewide testing began. Since 1999, the California Teachers Association has defended more than 100 teachers accused of cheating, compared to one or two a year before that, chief counsel Beverly Tucker said.What do you want to bet they get reassigned to other schools in the district, or are shuffled off to other districts with a glowing recommendation? Where they get to remain bad teachers. UPDATE, 5/23: Tom of Center Digit posted yesterday a link to the original LA Times piece on the One cheater whispered answers in students' ears as they took the exam. Another photocopied test booklets so students would know vocabulary words in advance. Another erased score sheets marked with the wrong answers and substituted correct ones.(Gee, ya THINK?) In 2001, the state flagged test results for five Bakersfield classrooms with a lot of erasures. District officials concluded that three teachers had coached students to change answers. | Deer. Bad. Need To Shoot. Unbillable Hours has a funny-as-hell accounting of an "Informed Landowner's Meeting" he recently attended. Just a taste: The population of deer in New Jersey is something like 200+ deer per square mile, which is particularly bad if they happen to live in your square mile. Deer, to some, are nice and pretty and such, but to me they’re nothing more than long-legged rodents with good PR. In that regard, they’re not that different from Kate Moss. However, if you’ve hit a deer while driving – say, hypothetically, of course, a 1998 Mercury Sable at 75 miles per hour – down Route 520 at 11:00 at night, you look at deer as a serious, oh-my-god-an-antler-almost-went-through-my-head problem. And you’ll be filled with hate, which, as we all know, is good.Read The Whole Thing. It's a classic. | Thursday, May 20, 2004
Finally, Someone Explained it so I can Understand! There are a lot of folks who can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage here in America. Well, there's a very simple answer.... Nobody bothered to check the oil. We just didn't know we were getting low. The reason for that is purely geographical. All our oil is in Alaska, Texas, California, and Oklahoma.... All our dipsticks are in Washington, DC. | Who? Him? He's Harmless. TheHighRoad.org contributor Jim March applied to be on ComedyCentral's upcoming program The Debate Show. Probably not a bright idea, but I appreciate his effort. His application is public, and available here. Well written. He was accepted. He completed taping yesterday. He wasn't the only gun rights supporter "used," apparently: This was a total SHAM!!! This is from the person that I know who went, I feel for him and Jim.(Emphasis mine, otherwise unedited.) Here's what Jim had to say: I just finally got home by train, walked in the door 20 minutes ago.Read the whole HighRoad thread. I find it FASCINATING that gun-haters consider gun owners to be dangerous borderline homicidal maniacs, but have no fear that ridiculing and provoking a gun-rights supporter in this way will result in a "postal experience" with blood painting the walls. Their blood. Even going so far as to (jokingly) threaten to attack one with a rock, after provoking him. No, they are perfectly safe goading us, and they know it. But I'd vote to acquit. | The Death of Rights Francis Porretto wrote an essay a couple of days ago that included these pertinent quotes: One of the strongest arguments for conservatism about the law -- that is, for extreme caution in legal enactments, including the revision of laws by judicial pronouncement -- is the Law of Unintended Consequences. A legal change that makes something permitted, compulsory, or prohibited cannot guarantee that the results will be desirable.I ran across this story via The England Project a couple of days ago: Homeowners would be forced to rent out properties that have stood empty for more than six months under proposals unveiled today.There's a lot more, but that's the basics. So, what you see here is government considering passage of laws that violate property rights with no consideration for the Unintended Consequences. Then today I found this piece by Tim Worstall, an expatriate Brit who happens to own one of those vacant properties back in England. Tim says: Just had the local council inspecting my place in the UK as well. They're insisting on various upgrades, some of which are not technically feasible without a complete redesign of the interior. For which I probably won't be able to get listed buildings consent from the other side of the same council.I am, once again, reminded of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on the guilt. Now that’s the system!Steven Den Beste asked a couple of questions a few days ago, concerning the continuing creep of the EU: Can Europe avoid this nightmare? Do there exist people there who recognize the peril and who still are willing to work to prevent it?I responded that certainly there were people who recognized the perils, but there weren't enough of them to stop the process. This seems to me to be blindingly apparent. This latest violation of English property rights is but one more sad example of the death of rights that is spreading not only in Europe, but here as well, as our putative "servants" in government decide that they own everything - including us - and merely allow us to use it, so long as we pay our taxes and don't violate their ever-changing rules. No wonder they want to disarm us. UPDATE: Ian Murray of The Edge of England's Sword posts on the proposed legislation. The comments are interesting, too. | The Next Clayton Cramer has the scoop: Apparently Bush is responsible for keeping the Air Force grounded on 9/11 so they were unable to intercept the four airliners. Reynolds Aluminum must be working overtime making foil for the moonbats. (Use the Heavy Duty foil, shiny side out, three layers. It works best if you wrap your entire head and seal it at the neck with duct tape.) Sheesh. | Wednesday, May 19, 2004 The Last Stand of the Woodstock Nation Interesting piece on politics and The 2004 election is the last stand of (the) Woodstock Nation, and its Baby Boomers are determined to fight to the death. But their shrill, grating, and mindless nature of their attacks will only prove self-destructive in the end and hastern [sic] their demise.Read the piece, it's worth it, but that comment really caught my attention. Last stand of the Woodstock Nation, indeed. | Gotta Watch This One! Small Town Country Girl has an EXCELLENT piece up on the government's various Wars and the fact that they cost a LOT in taxes. (Also via The Carnival. Read the Carnival. Much good stuff.) | No More Loyal Opposition Dustbury has an interesting post up that touches on my Item 32 in 40 Things About Me and This Blog in his The next-to-last Democrat. Dustbury's piece was inspired by Emperor Misha, not me, but I thought the coincidence was interesting, and it's a good read. (Found via the Carnival of the Vanities #87, hosted by Dispatches from the Culture Wars this week.) | More Torricelling of Kerry Via Dodd of Ipse Dixit comes this NYTimes (!) piece lambasting the presumptive Democrat nominee: ith the election season moving into full swing as Americans start thinking about their summer travel plans, it's sadly predictable that politicians will try to curry favor with voters by playing silly blame games and proposing simplistic quick fixes for rising gasoline prices, which are averaging more than $2 a gallon. A case in point is the demand made yesterday by 20 Senate Democrats that the government release as much as 60 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the next two months.Why shouldn't Kerry recommend "switch-flipping" when he's already so good at "flip-flopping?" When the NYTimes starts whacking the Democrat's Golden Boy, he's in serious trouble. Here are two quotes from the piece that I found particularly interesting, given the source: The real culprit behind rising energy costs is the roaring demand from growing economies, especially China's and the United States', though the volatile situation in the Middle East does seem to add a risk premium.Let's see, the American economy is "growing" and producing "roaring demand,"; oil has, in the past, cost twice as much as it does now; there is no reason to believe that current high oil prices will endanger our economic recovery. Why is this not front-page news, but instead buried in the opinion section? | The Philosophy CANNOT BE WRONG! Clayton Cramer links to this ThisisLondon report on the sentencing of an 18 year-old who shot a 13 year-old boy in the head: Dean Davis was accidentally killed as he watched DVDs with his friends when one put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger as a "prank", believing it could not fire.This is a Brocock Valtro 8000FS
It's quite possible for a blank pistol - held close to the skull - to kill. Actor Jon-Erik Hexum managed to kill himself with a .44 Magnum loaded with blanks. The concussion is quite real. But note that Coke had the weapon, loaded the weapon, pointed the weapon at his victim's head, and pulled the trigger. But the gun was at fault. Jailing Coke, Judge Hubert Dunn said: "It is an appallingly sad case. It illustrates the great danger of guns and ammunition.AFTER the ban. AFTER they disarmed the people who represented the good "gun culture" - the ones who understand that guns are dangerous if mishandled. The ones who teach safe gun handling. He added: "We are doing very strong work with the community and targeting kids as young as six and seven so that they are being talked away from thinking like this.No, people who view them as fashion accessories are stupid and do kill. Deliberate criminals kill. But the gun is just a magic talisman that the philosophy has made it in the minds of the criminal class. Until the people in the UK accept that the philosophy that blames the gun is wrong and a failure, the problem is going to continue. Turning up the power on gun bans has failed and will continue to fail. We've got teenagers playing with blank guns that have no idea what any kind of gun can actually do, and a system that ensures that they'll never have a chance to learn while also ensuring that they really want that magic talisman that gives them power over others. It has been said that repeating the same behavior while expecting a different result is one definition of insanity. The UK's decades-long war on guns is certainly a good example of this. | Tuesday, May 18, 2004 Canadians Still Trying to Kill the Registration Beast (Hat Tip, CenterDigit.) Let's see what the Montreal Gazette has to say, shall we? The Martin government is letting slip tantalizing hints that it might do something about Canada's $1-billion gun registry. We are told that this has nothing to do with the election expected on June 28. Still, we can't help but note that if there were a political dimension to this, we would be seeing just what we are seeing now: acknowledgement of a problem but no specifics of a solution. Any precise step might cost votes.It certainly starts off promising. Wow. As much as $2 BILLION? I hadn't heard that. But of course it goes South, so to speak: The question then becomes whether there is a cheaper, more efficient, less invasive way to lower the incidence of gun crimes.Yeah. All that really helps keep the drugs out, doesn't it? And it's not like Canada has all that much firearm violence in the first freaking place. For example, the very next sentence: There is also the matter of Canada's 131,000 convicted criminals who have been banned from owning firearms.Wow. A whole 131,000! But check this! The registry does not keep track of them. Last winter, for example, the Toronto Star reported that Daniel Greig, on parole and prohibited from owning guns, illegally acquired the following weapons: a six-shot, .44-calibre Smith & Wesson; a .45-calibre Block semi-automatic; a .45-calibre Heckler and Koch semi-automatic; a 12-gauge Franchi pump-acton shotgun with a pistol grip; an M-16; a .223-calibre Colt semi-automatic assault rifle and several rounds of ammunition.Obviously "gun control" works as well in Canada as it does in Chicago, D.C. and London. And we should be surprised....why? (And what the hell is a ".45 Caliber Block semi-automatic"? Please, please tell me that was just a typo that an ignorant editor missed.) But of course the problem isn't that gun control doesn't work, oh no! Instead it's the same excuse gun There are too many holes in the current legislation.But at least the piece recognizes the - EXPENSIVE - futility of the registry: The screening falls far short of protecting the public. The follow-up of known risks is also totally inadequate. These are areas where money should be spent. Next up, the Star Phoenix from Saskatoon has a similar op-ed on dumping the registry, but there was also this excellent - but troubling - op-ed. Gun legislation a failure, let us count the waysThat's a little simplistic, but technically accurate. The anti-gunners like to point to suicide statistics as proof Bill C-68 in Canada is working. Indeed, gun suicides are going down, arguably due to the increased complexities and scrutiny in obtaining a gun. However, the total number of suicides is not changing. People bent on destroying themselves turn to other methods. So again the expensive experiment has failed to achieve one of its stated purposes.I have taken the suicide statistic problem on before. Gun The day at the seminar was filled with other speakers from Victoria to Halifax relating their own experiences and giving their explanations as to why the latest round of gun control is a waste of time, money and effort. But they were preaching to the converted. The audience was known supporters. The only skeptics were the three media reporters who came to question Dr. Mauser in the middle of the afternoon. Their questions would have had more relevance if they had bothered to sit in on his whole presentation.What, you expect reporters to do background? Why, that might affect their A lawyer from Arizona (that would most probably be David Hardy, a man I would very much like to buy lunch some day) made a good presentation that shocked us, then got our minds into a mode of re-evaluating our methods. First, he showed a video that documented the tragedies of the modern world; the extermination of more than 150 million people since 1900 by governments which started the process by outlawing the public from owning guns. Once disarmed the people were defenceless.Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. And disarming is a mistake a free people get to make only once. For me the most intriguing discussion was the message about using the proper language in our own defence. For example: Gun control is a physical description. It's used when handling the gun. You control it at all times to be safe.Excellent observation. And "people control" is what is responsible for that "decades-long slow-motion hate crime" I mentioned below. But the last line is the truly disturbing part of this piece: And finally a profound statement: The constitution was written to protect people from the government, not to protect the government from the people.Unfortunately, I don't think it's just Canadians who find that "profound" in the sense of "difficult to fathom or understand." It's the result of our dumbing-down in education and the fact that most students coming out of our government run daycare centers known as public schools have no real knowledge of American History or our government. They've made it a point to paint government as the source of manna, rather than a necessary evil, best watched closely and with a gimlet eye. | Remember "You're American if you Think You're American"? That was a post I wrote about Steven Den Beste's post "Non-European Country" back in November. In that piece Steven wrote: You're French if you're born in France, of French parents. You're English if you're born to English parents (and Welsh if your parents were Welsh). But you're American if you think you're American, and are willing to give up what you used to be in order to be one of us. That's all it takes. But that's a lot, because "thinking you're American" requires you to comprehend that idea we all share. But even the French can do it, and a lot of them have.I was reminded of that because of a post by the Mad Ogre (no permalinks, just scroll down - past all the other crunchy goodness - to the titled This email comes from a .de address where a commenter says: "I do not know how many countries you have on you side But what I know is that you have in every country on the planet people like myself Who have been on your side since day one and will remain so come hell or high-water Who actually have come to consider themselves "American" first and anything else a distant second So remember that you are not alone. – Pierre"Yup. Somehow I doubt there are people all over the world, born in different nations, who consider themselves French or German, but there are those who look at America and say "Regardless of the nation of my birth, I am an American." Damn but I love my country and its people. Now if I could just do something about my government... | THERE'S the Rachel We All Know and Love! She seems a bit perturbed that the French and the "Hate Bush" (yes, I know that's somewhat redundant) crowd just looooooved Michael Moore's latest film at Cannes. I'll take a couple, Rachel. | "...the Arab edition of Fear Factor" Author and attorney (among other things) John Ross - no stranger to controversy - has an interesting piece up on the Abu Ghraib photos. It'll make you think, I guarantee you that. | Two States, Two Mountain Lions A mountain lion was shot and killed by state Wildlife officers on Sunday in a recreational area near Tucson. This is after a local park area nearby was closed for five weeks after two or more cougars were seen near trails there. Another big cat was shot and killed by police officers in a residential subdivision in Palo Alto, California this morning. There's video of the shooting. The small, left-handed, female officer uses a tricked out Which has the (LEO-only) collapsable stock, forward vertical handgrip, and EOTECH optical red-dot sight. And 30-round magazine. One shot. (Edited to add: I noticed she didn't use the "more deadly" "spray-firing from the hip" mode that the pistol grip on the AR-15 "assault weapon" is designed for. Instead she used the "more deadly" aimed fire. I never have been able to figure out how both of those are "more deadly.") No information is available on what the Arizona Game & Fish officers used to dispatch the cat here. Expect an outpouring of outrage from the bunnyhuggers. Expect no comment from Diane Feinstein over the use of the "bullet hose." | Roderick Pritchett Acquitted! (Via Spoons) Roderick Pritchett (first covered here Sept. 18) has been acquitted of all charges according to this Chicago Tribune piece. Mr. Pritchett's story, in his own words, is here. The courts will not save us, but sometimes they're still honest. | WORDS WOMEN USE FINE This is the word women use to end an argument when they feel they are right and you need to shut up. Never use "fine" to describe how a woman looks - this will cause you to have one of those arguments. FIVE MINUTES This is half an hour. It is equivalent to the five minutes that your football game is going to last before you take out the trash, so it's an even trade. NOTHING This means "something," and you should be on your toes. "Nothing" is usually used to describe the feeling a woman has of wanting to turn you inside out, upside down, and backwards. "Nothing" usually signifies an argument that will last "Five Minutes" and end with "Fine." GO AHEAD (With Raised Eyebrow!) This is a dare. One that will result in a woman getting upset over "Nothing" and will end with the word "Fine." GO AHEAD (Normal Eyebrows) This means "I give up" or "do what you want because I don't care" You will get a "Raised Eyebrow Go Ahead" in just a few minutes, followed by "Nothing" and "Fine" and she will talk to you in about "Five Minutes" when she cools off. GO AHEAD! (Loudly) At some point in the near future, you are going to be in some mighty big trouble. LOUD SIGH This is not actually a word, but is a nonverbal statement often misunderstood by men. A "Loud Sigh" means she thinks you are an idiot at that moment, and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you over "Nothing." SOFT SIGH Again, not a word, but a nonverbal statement. "Soft Sighs" mean that she is content. Your best bet is to not move or breathe, and she will stay content. THAT'S OKAY This is one of the most dangerous statements that a woman can make to a man. "That's Okay" means that she wants to think long and hard before paying you back for whatever it is that you have done. "That's Okay" is often used with the word "Fine" and in conjunction with a "Raised Eyebrow." PLEASE DO This is not a statement, it is an offer. A woman is giving you the chance to come up with whatever excuse or reason you have for doing whatever it is that you have done. You have a fair chance with the truth, so be careful and you shouldn't get a "That's Okay." THANKS A woman is thanking you. Do not faint! Just say you're welcome. THANKS A LOT This is much different from "Thanks." A woman will say, "Thanks A Lot" when she is really ticked off at you. It signifies that you have offended her in some callous way, and will be followed by the "Loud Sigh." Be careful not to ask what is wrong after the "Loud Sigh," as she will only tell you "Nothing." Send this to the men you know to warn them about future arguments they can avoid if they remember the terminology! (And send it to your women friends to give them a good laugh.) | Monday, May 17, 2004 A Decades-Long Slow-Motion Hate Crime That's how the War on Gunowners™ has been described. This piece entitled Intolerance of gun owners nation-wide problem puts it very well. Excerpt: If you want to taste intolerance, let it be known you not only own guns, you like them. For instance, I can't help but notice the worried looks and whispers of waiting passengers while helping a ticket agent check in my rifle or muzzleloader at the airport. In one case, my daughters overheard a woman tell her husband, "You'd think with children in his house he wouldn't keep guns around."(Hat tip, Say Uncle) | Tell Me Again How Democratic Those Democrats Are? I've mentioned the local Lefty rag, the Tucson Weekly a couple of times before, but last week's issue, which I just scanned through, had a letter to the editor I just couldn't pass up: [Op-ed columnist] Tom Danehy is right: President Bush is going to be re-elected, but not because Democrats don't have it together (Danehy, April 22). They do have it together, but most Americans are too fucking stupid to recognize it.Yup. Most Americans are just too stupid to vote. Democrat. That's a real problem in a democracy, ain't it? | Here's a Pretty Interesting Take on Things Does a deeply divided U.S. have the guts needed to win in Iraq? Excerpts: Here's my soapbox, and I'm on it.Read the Whole Thing. | An Example of the Proper Application of the ClueBat™ Today's Bleat contains a severe drubbing of one Hunter S. Thompson starting about halfway down. Well worth the read. | Saturday, May 15, 2004 Human Nature Doesn't Change Steven Den Beste (I seem to be making a habit of commenting on his stuff) has a piece up entitled "Truth is Stranger than Fiction" about a specific form of backlash against the bureacratic red tape that is part and parcel of the EU. Read Steven's (short) piece, if you have not, because it is not exactly excerptable. Finished? Good. Steven asks two specific questions that I'd like to answer: Can Europe avoid this nightmare? Do there exist people there who recognize the peril and who still are willing to work to prevent it?IMHO, the answer to the first question is "no." And the reason has to do with the answer to the second question. Certainly there are people in Europe who recognize the peril and are still willing to work to prevent it. But they are far too few to affect the flood. One of the pieces Steven quotes says this: [A]t the heart of (Kafka's) obsessive and horrifying narratives is an unfathomable bureaucracy, one that has emerged through a combination of inertia, default, and the institution of political power, perpetuating itself by feeding upon the rights of the people it was ostensibly designed to serve.I submit that Kafka's vision is merely the behavior of human nature with respect to "popular government" writ to its logical extreme: The maximization of the regulatory power of government with the minimalization of individual responsibility and accountability. The only thing that actually prevents a completely Kafka-esque bureacracy is also human nature - the desire in a few to be the ones with their hands on the reins, even if, as the song goes, the reins are chains on their hands and they're riding upon a train. The purpose of our (apparently aberrant) Constitutional Republic was to build a government that could not "perpetuate itself by feeding upon the rights of the people it was ostensibly designed to serve." By all appearances, that government too has "through a combination of inertia, default, and the institution of political power" finally headed down Kafka's path. We're just not as advanced along it as Europe. But there are people here who clamor for it. It's human nature. UPDATE: This piece describes, I believe accurately, the human nature behind Robert Conquest's Second Law: Any organization not explicitly rightwing over time drifts leftward. It's a good companion to this one. And it's why, though there are people "who recognize the peril and who still are willing to work to prevent it," there are almost never enough of us to circumvent Conquest's law until we've all descended back into bondage. It also explains Tytler's cycle.UPDATE 5/16 9:55PM: A commenter, Dave Schuler of The Glittering Eye wrote: While I do agree with you about the consistency of human nature, I can't say that I agree with John Ray's analysis. The Left has no special monopoly on elitism or authoritarianism/totalitarianism. Those on the Right would be just as happy to impose their ideas forcibly on others—they just have different ideas.I responded, but it piqued something, so I hunted through my archives for a piece I wrote back when we were (only half-jokingly) promoting the Reynolds/Lucas 2008 candidacy - back when I wasn't quite as pessimistic as I am now about government. It's entitled History Calls - Will We Answer? (The answer is, apparently, "No" for the same reason I gave above - there aren't enough of us.) Anyway, it's still a good piece, and it's another good companion to this one, probably better than the John Ray piece linked above. In it, I quote something I found on the web long ago that answers Dave's contention better than I did in the comments: It stands to reason that self-righteous, inflexible, single-minded, authoritarian true believers are politically organized. Open-minded, flexible, complex, ambiguous, anti-authoritarian people would just as soon be left to mind their own fucking business. - R.U. Sirius | Friday, May 14, 2004
Thursday, May 13, 2004 40 Things About Me and This Blog 1) I started this blog on Wednesday, May 14, 2003. 2) I'm 42 years old. 3) I'm male, white, married, and overweight. I drive a pickup. (4WD. No gunrack, though.) 4) I have an IQ somewhere in the 130's, and my Meyers-Briggs personality type is INTJ. (My wife says I should frame that description for future reference - it's that accurate.) Supposedly INTJ's make up only one or two percent of the population. That would explain a lot. 5) I have a BA degree in General Studies after spending 5½ years in college studying Physics, Mathematics, and Engineering. 6) The Arizona Board of Technical Registration says I'm a qualified, registered Professional Engineer, (Electrical). 7) I have a rare genetic enzyme disorder that causes a condition known as Acute Intermittent Porphyria. My case is relatively mild and doesn't affect my mental balance, but it hurts pretty bad when it occurs and it requires me to sustain a carbohydrate-heavy diet - just ONE reason I'm fat. 8) I do not smoke, I do not drink, and I've never taken an illicit substance. I've never been intoxicated and never wanted to be. I don't understand the attraction and don't want to. But I don't believe it's the business of government to tell me that I cannot. 9) I'm a shooter and a reloader. Those are two of my hobbies. My blog is another, though it has consumed the majority of my time, spare and otherwise, over the last year. I also own a 1967 fastback big-block Mustang that will (someday) be built into a 500Hp highway-cruising hotrod. 10) I have two siblings; a brother five years older who is a professional auto mechanic, and a sister four years older who is a public school teacher. 11) Both of my parents are still alive and in their 70's. We all live in the same city. 12) I was pretty much apolitical for most of my life. I was 12 years old when Nixon resigned, and I was quite happy when Jimmy Carter won the Presidency. THAT was short-lived. I turned 18 in 1980 and voted for Ronald Reagan for President. It was quite obvious to me that Carter was a nice man, but a lousy President. He's still a nice man, but he should stick to building houses and stay the fuck out of policy. 13) Since that time there has not been a single candidate I was happy to vote for but quite a number I was more than willing to vote against. In almost every case, my vote has been against the Democrat running. 14) In 1992 I voted against G.H.W. Bush AND William Jefferson Clinton by casting my ballot for H. Ross Perot. I did not make that mistake a second time, though by then it didn't matter. I didn't really want Dole either. 15) In 2000 I cast my vote against Al Gore. On Sept. 12, 2001 I was very glad I had. I'm not quite as content with my decision today, but I still believe that Gore would have been an unmitigated disaster. (G.W. Bush is merely a mitigated one. His domestic policies are a mess. His prosecution of the war is not.) I believe the same to be true of any potential Democrat candidate for the seat this year. As I note below, I don't think Kerry will be the name on the ticket come November. 16) In general, my politics are those of a pragmatic libertarian (small "L"). I believe in maximum freedom and personal responsibility. I recognize that those are relatively rare traits. (Remember my Meyers-Briggs personality type. "Does it WORK?") 17) I had an AR-15 "post-ban" "assault rifle" custom built for me in 1997, specifically because of the 1994 AWB. And that sucker shoots. But it's still the pipsqueak .223 varmint cartridge. 18) When the AWB sunsets, I intend to buy an FN-FAL "black rifle" in celebration. Probably about 2006. There are other guns I want more in the mean time. 19) I'm a shooter, not a collector. I don't like overly fancy guns, but functional ones. I like hitting small things from a long way off, so most everything I've got is rifled. I have one shotgun, a Mossberg 590 model 50665. It is not a Sporting Clays gun. 20) I'm primarily a handgun shooter, though I really like rifles. I am the match director for the local International Handgun Metallic Silhouette matches a the Tucson Rifle Club. 21) I'm also the TRC's Pistol Director, though that duty hasn't required much of me. 22) My favorite target pistol is my Remington XP-100 center-grip chambered in 7mm Benchrest. 23) I'm a shooter, not a hunter. I understand the appeal that hunting has for some, but for me hunting is "taking your gun for a walk." If you do it right, you only pull the trigger once, and then things get messy. 24) I prefer shooting steel to punching paper. I like reactive targets. 25) I have shot clay pigeons in the air with my sporterized 1917 Enfield in its standard .30-06 chambering, shooting Korean military surplus 147 grain FMJ ammo. I hit three out of the first ten. I have witnesses. (I missed all of the next ten, though.) 26) I want to do it again. 27) My favorite handgun is my Kimber Custom Stainless 1911 in its John Moses Browning intended caliber of .45 ACP. My favorite load (Disclaimer: Use At Your Own Risk) is a 200 grain Speer Gold Dot hollowpoint over 7.0 grains of Unique. Out of my pistol it pushes 950fps, hits with a 6 o'clock hold at 25 yards and with a dead-on hold at 50. It feeds and functions with complete reliability. I wonder if I could hit a clay in the air with it. 27) When it comes to bolt-action rifles, I'm a cock-on-close enthusiast. My first bolt gun was a No. 4 Mk I Lee Enfield, my second a 1896 Swedish Mauser. Now that I've acquired a 1917 Enfield, I'm even more convinced that cock-on-close is the way it ought to be. Your mileage may vary. I don't give a shit. 28) I'm also convinced that recoil, at least to some point, is something you can simply learn to ignore. When I started shooting rifles, my .303 No. 4 kicked pretty damned hard. Now I can sit at a bench and put 100 rounds through my 1917 with essentially no discomfort. I've fired a couple hundred rounds of .30-06, .303, and 12 gauge high-base in a single afternoon and had barely a bruise and just a tiny bit of stiffness the next day. 29) Flinching, on the other hand, requires a LOT of practice to overcome, and it comes back if you don't keep up your practice. Intentionally setting off an explosion a few inches from your face is not a natural act. It takes a while to convince your subconscious that everything is copacetic, and I don't think it remains convinced long. 30) I think I prefer handguns because shooting a handgun well is more difficult than shooting a rifle well. I like the challenge. 31) I like reloading because it requires concentration and precision, just like shooting does. Loading my own ammo adds that much more control over the entire process. It doesn' hurt that it costs a lot less than buying commercial, either. But I won't load for someone else, and I won't shoot someone else's reloads. 32) Back to politics: I think our political system has degenerated from "loyal opposition" to out-and-out "the other side." I think this bodes ill for our future as a nation. The polarization affects about 10-15% of the population, leaving 70-80% in the middle pretty sick and tired of all the crap they have to put up with. Unfortunately, very few in that middle bother to vote much. Fewer bother to think. 33) I'm a REPUBLICAN but not a member of the "Republican Party." By that, I mean that I believe our Founders had it right in that Democracy was a quick path to Hell. As one local op-ed columnist put it recently The Electoral College stands as an elitist and blatant reminder that the founders of this nation believed the rabble - that's us - couldn't be trusted with the task of directly choosing our president.And they were right. About that and a lot more. But we've managed to (mostly) overcome the safeguards they built in, and the rabble - that's us - has managed to do what DeTocqueville warned against: "The American Democratic experiment will succeed until the people realize they can vote themselves money from the public treasury... then it will collapse."That's what a Republic is supposed to prevent. It failed. It was supposed to be foolproof, but we keep making better fools. 34) I have a stepdaughter, about to turn 25, who is a product of Tucson's public schools. 35) I have two grandchildren, one four and one five, who will also be exposed to that system. I hope to be able to intervene, or at least mitigate the impact. I am not, regardless of my sister's chosen profession, a public school enthusiast. I am convinced that the public school systems are a tool, deliberately 36) And I'm beginning to wonder about the effects of 20+ years of public school systems ON my sister. 37) I hope that the world my grandchildren grow up in is a bright, cheerful, and safe one. With the rise of Wahabist Islam and the moonbat Left, I don't think it will be. 38) I intend for them to be able to think for themselves and stand up for their rights. And I will threaten violence, if necessary, to keep the "authorities" from putting my grandson on Ritalin or any other substance when he happens to exhibit a personality in the classroom. 39) I concentrate in this blog on the right to arms because, to me, it is the litmus test of the politician's faith. If you do not trust the populace with arms, you should not be a leader. A Republic needs to be lead by leaders, not people courting popular support. Always understand that some will not be worthy of that trust, but that's not reason to strip all of their rights. Government is there to protect the rights of its citizens, not parent them. 40) In a Democracy, the majority rules. If 50% +1 decide that all left-handed redheads should be exiled, then it's law and that's all there is to it. A Constitutional Republic has a basis in law that says "Government may NOT DO" and "Government may ONLY DO" and when it strays from those rules, its citizens lose. That system WORKS, as long as we let it. But once we start bending those restrictions for personal advantage, it begins to fail. Our system began failing almost from inception, but for over 200 years it has worked better than any other government in history in making the United States of America the most free, most productive, and most hopeful nation on Earth. And I hope we can prevent it from collapsing under the weight of 225 years of being fucked with "by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." This, according to Blogspot, will be my 1,020th post since starting this blog. I don't intend to post anything tomorrow, and I don't know about this weekend. I still owe Tim Lambert a response, though, and I may get to it then. | Gun Control with a Happy Face (Via Ipse Dixit) PrudentPolitics.com carries an excellent piece by Howard Nemerov, entitled Gun Control and the Next Big Lie. A taste: Get ready for gun control with a happy face. Gun banners pretend to no longer want to confiscate your firearms. They are concerned about safety. With all those firearms on the streets, now that 37 states have Shall-Issue Concealed Carry laws, the gun banners want to know who has them and where they are at all times. In their hoplophobia (irrational fear of guns) they believe that anybody carrying a gun is a hair’s breadth away from becoming a homicidal maniac or that demon-possessed guns will leap out of holsters and fire of their own volition. Of course, the only way to keep track of all those guns is to have a registry, and history has shown that registration leads to confiscation, which leads to loss of other civil rights. So we come full circle to a new confiscation scheme.RTWT. It's worth your time. I'd like to remind you of two things when you read this. First, the Violence Policy Center listed as one of its reasons for supporting a ban on "assault weapons": Efforts to stop restrictions on assault weapons will only further alienate the police from the gun lobby.I submit to you that now they have added "liberalized Concealed Carry" to the list of "dividing issues." I'd also like to remind you that it was Broward County, Florida, Sheriff Ken Jenne who hoodwinked CNN's reporter John Zarella over the differences between pre-ban and post-ban "assault weapons" I reported on last May. For some reason, Florida seems to be a hotbed of anti-gun activity, perhaps because Florida is where the push for "liberalized" Concealed Carry began. I've noted here on numerous occasions that the opposition has (with the notable exception of the Violence Policy Center) abandoned the "gun control" platform for the "gun safety" one, though both mean to them precisely the same thing: Gun ELIMINATION. | Mike Spenis is on a Roll Excerpts: First things first:With examples! If Rumsfeld ought to resign over the Abu Ghraib scandal, then Kofi Annan ought to go to prison for the Oil For Food scandal. Humiliating and frightening prisoners is nothing compared to running a billion-dollar protection racket for a man with his own ideas of what 'wide-scale torture' really meant.Read the Whole Thing. | Tom Diaz Scares Me Because I don't think he's too tightly connected to reality. Tom is one of the principals of the Violence Policy Center which is dedicated to banning handguns. Our buddies at JoinTogether have published one of his op-eds. Let us fisk: Had Enough Yet?Note: Tom doesn't place any blame on the shooter, but on the gun industry. Anybody see a problem with that? A co-worker might come in packing to settle an obscure score that has been sloshing around in his cranial brew for years. What about church, or synagogue, or mosque? Nope, that's been tried. Angry, gun-toting people cork off there, too. Churches have been shot up, even priests officiating masses. Ditto, synagogues and mosques. Schoolyards, the Empire State Building, shopping malls, even the U.S. Capitol have been turned into shooting galleries.All the fault of gun manufacturers - not the shooters. And not all guns, only handguns. Except churches, schoolyards, shopping malls et. al have all been shot up by people with rifles, too. Oh, yeah, and the road rage shooters are out there, waiting to be crossed. One of them just might take the occasion of your flight to safety to decide that you are in too big a hurry, made too sharp a turn, or just plain look like a good candidate for road kill. Had enough yet?Again: It's apparently not the fault of the shooter, but the GUN INDUSTRY. Now Tom really runs off the rails: It wasn't always that way. The American gun industry -- one of only two consumer products in America free of federal product health and safety regulation (the other is tobacco) -- has created this nightmare.Excuse me? Last time I checked, the market is what drives innovation. If the industry builds it and nobody wants it, that product fails - but Tom is convinced that the industry somehow holds its product to American heads and forces us to buy. Here's his "evidence": This was described some years ago in a magazine called American Firearms Industry: "Without new models that have major technical changes, you eventually exhaust your market. . . This innovation has driven the handgun market." The most spectacular change in the U.S. civilian firearms market since the end of the Second World War has been the rise of the handgun. In 1946 handguns were only eight percent of firearms sold. Beginning in the mid-1960s this changed.Let's stop right there for a moment. Remember, Tom has just built the case that handguns are responsible for turning various places into "shooting galleries," that handguns represented only 8% of firearms sold, at least in 1946. Now, does that suggest to you that Tom is making the case that homicide rates were much lower in those halcyon days back when handguns were such a tiny percentage of all firearms? Well, here's a graph of homicide rates in the U.S. from 1900 through 2000. Bear in mind, those rates continued to decline through 2003.
So those corny old movies and nostalgic television shows are right. In 1946, you could go to a party and maybe somebody would get angry. Maybe a punch or two would be thrown. But it would be darned rare for somebody to pull out a Pocket Rocket and start shooting. Not because people were better then, but because handguns were scarce.Um, no Tom. Because "pocket rockets" weren't invented until much later. But what about 1929? Would it have been rare then for someone to have pulled a "gat" and started shooting? Was it the eeeeevil gun manufacturer's fault then? Not any more. Now every husband who decides to come home and pop the wife has a handgun readily at hand. Every depressed kid or senior who wants to end it all has a handgun. And every nitwit who wants to feel like a big man at a barbecue has a handgun.Right. The gun fairy just leaves it under the pillow. There are a few ideological fantasists who are so hooked on the power of the gun that they claim the answer is simply more guns, to arm more people so they can "defend themselves" and "shoot back." Jenna Cooper was enjoying a party. The bullet that hit her in the neck and took her life first traveled through another guest's scalp.Here I actually agree with Tom. He's correct on this - single - point. But he's absolutely wrong in his conclusion: Blame America's gun industry for putting the gun in his hand.I have, over the last few weeks, written piece after piece decrying the philosophy of the gun banners. They proclaim that the guns are at fault. That if they could only get rid of the guns none of this would happen. I have shown example after example from that gun-control utopia of England illustrating how even after implementing every single policy supported by gun control forces, gun crime there went up. And as a result, because the philosophy cannot be wrong, the response has been "do it again, only HARDER!" Tom Diaz exemplifies this mindset. Tom seems to believe that guns are the cause of this violent behavior. That all we have to do is disarm everybody, and THESE. CRIMES. WILL. STOP. Well, he's partly right. If the government banned all handguns and demanded that they all be turned in, it's possible that somewhere somebody might not get shot in a fit of anger. But it's also possible that law-abiding people might not be able to defend themselves against the criminals who will not hand theirs in. It's one of those "unintended consequences" that they don't bother to consider. Tom wants us all to be safe. He wants security. That's not a bad thing to want, really. I think Tom suffers, though, from the same problem that is exhibited by most people who hate guns - a lack of trust in their fellow man. I wrote an essay on that topic I entitled TRUST, inspired by another who feared guns, rather than the people willing to misuse them. That piece is the counterpoint to Mr. Diaz's philippic. Give it a read. And then think about the path England has chosen, and ask yourself if you really want us to follow them. Labels: fisk, GFWs, gun control | Wednesday, May 12, 2004 Wahabism Delenda Est John Donovan, I believe, has it right. Go read. Now. The question, of course, is whether we can do it before our internal decay causes us to defeat ourselves. The barbarians by themselves aren't enough to defeat us. They need our help to do that. | Tuesday, May 11, 2004 The Philosophy CANNOT Be Wrong! Do it AGAIN, Only HARDER! Ravenwood links to this news report under the heading of "UK still doesn't get it" Blunkett orders overhaul of outdated firearm lawsReally? Outdated? Let's see: 1920 saw the introduction of registration of all handguns and rifles. 1936 saw the banning of all privately possessed fully-auto weapons and short-barreled shotguns. As of 1946, "self-defense" was no longer an acceptable reason for issuance of a firearm license. In 1953 the Prevention of Crime Act made carrying any "offensive weapon" in public a crime. The Criminal Justice Act 1967 added shotguns to the registry. And jury trials no longer required a unanimous decision. (If they still did, Tony Martin, the farmer who shot two burglars - in the back - would never have gone to jail. His was a 10-2 decision.) In 1982 reloaders and blackpowder shooters were made subject to warrantless inspection by police to "ensure safe storage." Yup, the cops can come into the house without a warrant and inspect the premises. In 1987 most semi-auto and pump-action shotguns and all rifles of these types were banned and (the legally-owned ones) confiscated. In 1997 all handguns were banned and (the legally-owned ones) confiscated. In 2004 a certain type of airgun has been banned. Possession of one without a license will now bring up to a 5-year sentence. But England's gun laws are outdated and in need of an overhaul. Right. David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, will publish a consultation document which is expected to lead to tougher restrictions on the sale and manufacture of replica firearms as well as new age limits on gun ownership, especially for airguns, starter pistols and shotguns.What, no new restrictions on the few rifles still in circulation? The consultation follows lobbying by the police and anti-gun campaigners who say Britain's gun laws are confused, out of date and in desperate need of reform.Meaning "It's still legal for some citizens to own projectile weaponry! THIS MUST END!" Of particular concern are replica firearms which are popular with gun collectors and can be bought legally but are being converted by criminals into lethal weapons to fire live ammunition.Next up: Zip guns! Economics 101: Supply will always rise to meet demand. Police say that the greatest increase in gun crime is linked to a rise in the use of imitation weapons and converted airguns. In London alone, at least 70 per cent of weapons now seized by officers are converted replicas.Only because they're the easiest to get - right now. Last November, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Gun Crime published a report calling for a complete ban on the import, sale and manufacture of replica firearms.Remove the word "replica" from that sentence, replace it with "anything even resembling a" and you'd have the gist of the entire gun control movement. There has also been a rise in attacks on people involving airguns. Last week, a firefighter was shot in the face by an airgun pellet as he drove a 24-ton fire truck along a street in Dumfries, Scotland.And the airgun is obviously at fault, right? If the hooligan hadn't had the gun, he wouldn't have been tempted in the first place. It's those evil brain-altering mindwaves that guns give off that cause these acts, after all. Ministers have already brought in some measures to curb gun crime in Britain.You don't say! You mean, like that list I gave above that didn't reduce gun crime a damned bit? Last month, new anti-social behaviour laws came into effect which included a new imprisonable offence of carrying a replica gun in public.I love that. Anti-social. What a lovely expression. The legal age for owning an airgun has also been raised from 14 to 17 and it is now an offence to buy a weapon for someone under 17. But the ban on underage ownership only applies to Brocock-style airguns, which operate using a gas cartridge, and not to all types of airguns."Which must be amended, because we cannot have our youth corrupted by actually learning to shoot!" A Home Office source confirmed that the consultation document would cover all aspects of gun-control legislation. "We will be seeking people's views on all aspects of firearm legislation. We are looking at the whole issue, although replica and imitation firearms are of particular concern," the source added.Left unstated, however, is that people who legally own guns - that tiny minority - need not give their views. Their opinions are not needed or wanted. Anti-gun groups have welcomed the planned reforms, which are the first major overhaul of firearms laws since 1997, when the Government introduced a ban on handguns after 16 schoolchildren and their teacher were killed at Dunblane primary school in Scotland.I bet they have. Especially since the conclusion of the inquiry into the Dunblane massacre specifically recommended against the handgun ban that resulted. Note, please, that all the laws enumerated above did not prevent Thomas Hamilton from legally having the handguns he used at Dunblane. Once again, it's the gun that is at fault. Remove the guns and the problem will vanish, goes the philosophy. The Gun Control Network, which campaigns for tighter arms control, said Britain lagged behind other countries because it did not have a universal age limit on people buying guns. "In our increasingly violent world we need to ... tighten up on our gun laws," said Gill Marshall-Andrews, chairwoman of the GCN. "The world-wide pressures are for ... an increase in global gun violence.""Tighten up?" They're so tight now you squeek when you walk. And now the push - lead by the UN - is for global gun And the U.S. remains the evil poster-boy for it. Here we still give more than mere lip-service to the idea of a right to arms. Barbarians. But any restrictions on gun ownership are expected to face fierce opposition from the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, which represents gun enthusiasts.Oh, right. They've been so effective in the past. The cognitive dissonance here is really incredible to me. They've tried and tried and tried to reduce violent crime - specifically violent crime involving firearms, for over eighty years - and failed miserably. One definintion of "insanity" is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. But the philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again ONLY HARDER! Edited to add: I found this post by The England Project from April 29 explaining just how the last "update" to England's gun control laws is most likely to make "gun crime" jump (some more) and how it made a whole bunch of new criminals in the process. Give it a read. Labels: GFWs, gun control, UK | People You Won't See on 60 Minutes Blackfive has one of the finest examples of the merits of blogging available. Someone You Should Know Go spend some time there getting to know the people (and puppies) that the media won't introduce you to. It's well worth your time. | Monday, May 10, 2004 More on the Torricelling of Kerry In today's Tucson Citizen was an interesting op-ed by Hartford Courant writer Jim Shea. I couldn't find it on-line, so I've transcribed it here. It's written as a letter to Democrats by Howard Beale - the character from the movie Network. I don't know Mr. Shea's political leanings. I scanned a few of his columns and can detect from that quick overview nothing patently obvious, so I present to you now, interspersed with my commentary, his latest column: Democrats find Kerry is Dull and VoidI gather from this that Shea isn't a member of the moonbat hordes, so this bodes well - but limits the overall impact of the piece. So far, the Kerry campaign, has all the forward momentum of a Dukakis tank ride.I rest my case on the moonbat question. Since sewing up the nomination, the two most memorable things John Kerry has done are go on vacation and have surgery.A pithy and accurate observation. This man is no average Democrat. Besides the walking-and-chewing-gum problem, Kerry is also turning out to be quite the gasbag. He's one of those people who if you say nice night to him, he wants to explain the cosmos.And he has a sense of humor. I'm beginning to smell Republican... The thing is, we Democrats didn't endorse Kerry because of his intellect; we got behind him because we thought he would go nose to nose with President Bush.Say WHAT? The bottom line, fellow Democrats, is this. If Kerry doesn't show some spunk soon, we should start thinking about nominating someone at the convention who will.I've said it before. Kerry is NOT going to be the nominee. It might not be Hillary, but it ain't going to be Kerry. The writing is on the wall. The Democrat cry will be "Anybody but Bush." Except Kerry. | Want One, Want One, Got One, Want One, Had One... Jeff at Alphecca has this week's Check on the Bias up, with this picture of Jesse Jackson that inspired the title of this post.
| But What If Your Loyalty is to the Constitution? Steven Den Beste (soon to be married and fathering little Den Bestes if Connie du Toit has anything to say about it) has a piece on "What prevents another Civil War?" Steven has two answers: The first, sort of flippantly, the U.S. Army. The second, the fact that we as citizens no longer see our loyalty as being primarily toward our State but toward our Nation (unless you're a fringe leftist, in which case your loyalties are towards some nebulous "world government" currently represented by the corrupt UN.) There's more to it than that, though. With the advent of easy high-speed travel, the State borders have no real meaning to us beyond what the tax rates look like, and the climate and scenery. State borders aren't just unimportant, they are largely meaningless (unless you're a Texan) to us in terms of loyalty. But what happens when a large (but minority) portion of the population becomes convinced that the Federal government has abandonded the founding legal structure it supposedly "protects and defends?" Professor Randy Barnett's recent book Restoring the Lost Constitution makes the point that, for all intents and purposes the Constitution is, if not dead, on final life support. Justice Antonin Scalia protests that the Supreme Court no longer feels bound to follow the Constitution - "five hands is all it takes," he says. Senator Zell Miller protests that ours is a Republic no longer. Our Constitutionally enumerated and protected individual rights are under constant legal assault under the aegis of the War on Crime, the War on Drugs, and the War on Terror, and all three branches of the government are complicit. The media - the unacknowledged Fourth Branch - largely is too. What prevents another Civil War? Thomas Jefferson predicted it long, long ago in his letter to William Smith concerning Shay's Rebellion of 1787: And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The past which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.And Jefferson was right, as we have seen. Jefferson continued, though: We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure.Seems that Jefferson counciled a bit of revolution from time to time. Libertarian pundit Claire Wolfe wrote a while back, "America's at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." Claire had it wrong. The time to shoot the bastards is early on. Now it's too late. What prevents another Civil War here isn't the Army or the fact that we hold a higher loyalty to our Nation than to our State of residence, it's ignorance and apathy. EDIT: Another link from Steven in less than a week! I must be doing something right. Anyway, this piece is merely an update of an older one, Pressing the "Reset" Button from last December, which I also suggest you read. Professor Barnett's book, Scalia's quote, and Zell Miller's complaint just add to my convictions on the topic. The first part of the 21st Century promises to be an ugly one. Labels: Reset Button | Sunday, May 09, 2004 Well Said! From Smoke On the Water: Turning Lead into Gold Too good to excerpt. Short, eloquent, excellent. Go read. (Via No Quarters.) | Saturday, May 08, 2004 Need Some New Wall Art? Cancer poster draws lots of fireWell, it IS - that's something that gun-phobes don't get and never have. But wait! There's better! "Guns are what kill women. They are not a good thing. I regret hugely that this was done, especially for such a worthy cause as breast cancer."No, guns are sometimes used to kill women, but they are not the cause. And guns are an inanimate object, neither intrinsically good or bad. But this is the mentality we've got to combat, daily. Two officers in the Guelph police sex and child abuse unit, Constables Cate Welsh and Lisa Lakatos, are selling the posters so they can take part in the Princess Margaret Hospital's Weekend to End Breast Cancer, a 60-kilometre walk through Toronto this fall. Each participant must raise a $2,000 entry fee.Why? Should only police be allowed to have guns, then? Dianna Schreuer, president of the network, was not upset when she saw the police poster.According to this page, firearms are not exactly what's "killing women" in Canada. Here's the chart from 1992. The proportions haven't changed much, I don't believe:
Sly Castaldi, acting executive director of Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis, said she was confused by the poster.Sometimes critical thinking - especially when it comes to the topics of feminism and guns - is a very rare commodity. Anyway, here's a thumbnail of the poster:
(519) 824-1212 The price is a paltry $10 Canadian (what is that, $7.25 American?)Hat tip to Gunner of No Quarters. | Friday, May 07, 2004 More on Airguns This time from THIS side of the pond. That ever fruitful well of material, Jointogether.org, reports that the recent Daisy Settlement Shows Political Influence of Gun Industry. Let us fisk: Before the leadership of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) changed political parties late last year, the federal agency had filed a lawsuit against Daisy Manufacturing Co., a maker of air-powered BB guns, after complaints of misfirings."Complaints of misfirings? No, the complaint wasn't that the guns misfired but that they actually fired when their users thought they were empty. The fact that their users deliberately pumped up the rifles, intentionally cocked the rifles, intentionally pointed the rifles at another person and then intentionally pulled the trigger seems immaterial. THE SHOOTER THOUGHT IT WAS EMPTY! That's all that matters. To the lawyers. And the anti-gun groups. But now, instead of a recall, the federal agency has agreed to a settlement with the company that only involves promoting safe BB-gun usage, the Wall Street Journal reported April 29.Well, GEE. YA THINK?!?!? RULE #1: Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction. RULE #2: Never put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to fire AND ALWAYS TREAT A GUN AS IF IT WERE LOADED. Follow those three rules, nobody gets hurt. But noooooo. It must be the eeeevil gun manufacturer at fault. In 2001, the CPSC filed a lawsuit against Daisy Manufacturing, claiming that its PowerLine Models 856 and 880 were responsible for at least 15 deaths and 171 injuries, the majority involving children. Testimony by a Daisy Manufacturing engineer confirmed that BBs could get temporarily jammed in the corners of the magazine, making it appear that the gun is empty.The guns were responsible, not the person on the trigger. The cult of no accountability is obviously still strong. Obviously mommy and daddy didn't teach gun safety. Why aren't they responsible? It's not like it's difficult Treat it as though it is always loaded, no problem. It's stunning how many "accidental shootings" come from unloaded guns, isn't it? At the time, Ann Brown, who was appointed by President Clinton in 1993, served as chairman of the agency. In 2001, President Bush (Boo! Hiss!) replaced Brown with Republican Harold Stratton Jr. Prior to the appointment, the National Rifle Association (NRA) had e-mailed a "special alert" to members warning that the government's recall could be used in future lawsuit against all gun makers.And were they wrong? Under Stratton's leadership, the agency dropped the lawsuit late last year. (The heartless BASTARD!) Instead, the government accepted an offer from Daisy Manufacturing for a $1.5 million publicity and labeling campaign to promote safer use of its products.(If it weren't for that meddling NRA!!!) Administrative Law Judge William Moran strongly criticized the offer, calling it "empty." But Stratton said the lawsuit was "burdensome and inefficient" and would have led to "years of costly litigation."And it wouldn't?? Understand this: The CPSC wanted Daisy to recall 7.5 million rifles because 15 people (Children™) had been killed and some 171 people (Children™) had been injured because of the deliberate misuse of their product. But it's the "influence of the (cue scary music)GUN INDUSTRY" that foiled this Oh, and of course the (cue music) EEEEEVIL Republicans who WANT CHILDREN™ TO DIE! I certainly hope they were responsible. It tells me that my dollars an my vote still count for something. For further reading, let me recommend this piece, The 'Daisy Airgun Case'—not CPSC's finest hour. Money quote: (CPSC Commissioner Mary Gall) stated:"In my nearly twelve years of service with this Commission, and indeed, in my over thirty years of government service, I have never seen a more outrageous miscarriage of justice and abuse of the processes of public policy than this case ... Some of the deposition testimony given by Commission employees show clearly that the previous Chairman ordered that the case be removed from the ordinary processes of Commission staff review because she did not like the conclusions that the career staff were reaching about the hazards associated with the Model 856 and 880 air rifles. | A Parliament of Whores GREAT book by P.J. O'Rourke, from which comes his classic quote: Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.Or Henry Louis Mencken's take on it that I've posted here before: A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.James Rummel has a bit different take on it. They're all whores, and we're stuck with them, because that's how our political system works. Our only choice is to look at the "partners" they are and have been sleeping with, and the ones they want to sleep with. Because we'll be sleeping with them too. He says it much more eloquently than that, but quoting it here would not be fair to the quality of the piece. Read the whole thing. | Because Honor Doesn't Matter Any More Steven Den Beste asks in reaction to learning that Moore has lied, once again, and been caught, once again: Why does anyone believe anything that Michael Moore says, anyway?Because lying isn't considered wrong any more. It doesn't result in public censure. It's REWARDED, as I said below. As long as it's done by someone from the Left, because they only do it in a good cause. Or so they tell themselves. If someone from the RIGHT is caught doing anything that has a whiff of mendacity or obfuscation, RELEASE THE HOUNDS! STIR THE OUTRAGE OF THE PROLES! PITCHFORKS! TORCHES! Remember Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them... A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right? UPDATE: Steven linked to this. (Thanks!) The internal link in this piece refers to the Micah Wright piece two posts down. Wright, along with Jayson Blair, Steven Glass, and Moore all get a pass. They mean well. | No, the Media Doesn't Hype Assault Weapon Fears It seems that the Associated Press is reporting that two men were killed and two children were wounded in a drug-related turf war attack in Highland Park, Michigan. This was reported on MLive.com, an "Everything Michigan" website, and in the Detroit Free Press. Here's what the story says: About 60 shots from an automatic weapon and a shotgun were fired into a car as part of an apparent drug turf war, killing two men and wounding two young children, authorities say.Criminals shooting other criminals, which is the case in the majority of deliberate shootings. Two innocent children hurt, two apparent drug dealers killed. But an "assault weapon" and CHILDREN were involved, so THIS IS BIG NEWS! How big? Well, here's a partial list of the papers that are running the story, at least on-line: The Houston Chronicle The Atlanta Journal-Constitution The Mid Columbia (Washington) Tri City Herald The Alabama Times Daily The Boston Herald The Tacoma News Tribune The Anchorage Daily News The Raleigh N.C. News & Observer The Sacramento Bee The LA Times New York's Newsday South Carolina's Myrtle Beach Sun News and The State Florida's Bradenton Herald, and Tallahassee Democrat Georgia's Macon Telegraph and Columbus Ledger-Enquirer Minnesota's Duluth News Tribune and Pioneer Press There are a lot more. This is the perfect example of "man bites dog" combined with the topic du jour - assault weapons and the coming "sunset" of the "Assault Weapon Ban" (that didn't prevent this crime.) "Assault weapons" are used in less than 2% of all crimes committed with firearms, so things like this are really rare and thus newsworthy. Add The CHILDREN™ and the story is irresistable, because otherwise it's just criminals shooting other criminals. One interesting thing is, when I did the Google search on this story, the blurb connected to each link states: It appeared to be some kind of a rifle, perhaps an assault rifle," Wayne County sheriff's Cmdr. James Buford told WWJ-AM.But this line isn't in the AP piece. Could it have been an SKS? Yes. The SKS is not considered an "assault rifle" under the Federal ban, and some accept 30 round detachable magazines. But the story is quite explicit, it WAS an AK-47. Now, had the gunmen not had access to the AK, and had both shooters used shotguns, what would the result of this shooting have been? Handguns? Molotov cocktails? How would renewing the AWB have prevented this? How would strengthening the AWB prevent this? How would confiscating all legally owned "assault weapons" prevent this? Just asking. | The Definitive Micah Wright Post Via Michele Kevin Parrot details his personal history with the lying Mr. Wright, with illustrations. Like this one:
So, what's going to happen to Micah Wright now, you ask?Micah Wright passed himself off as an ex-Ranger, an organization built around the concepts of honor, duty, country. Our nation seems no longer to recognize the ideal of honor, in its definition of "a keen sense of ethical conduct." There is no public censure of dishonorable acts. The concept of shame is nonexistant. Bad behavior is rewarded. Infamy is equivalent to fame. Disgrace is treated as grace. Do something objectionable? That draws attention, and attention draws dollars. Besides, its always someone else's fault, anyway. Victimizer as victim. Moral equivalence at its worst. | But, But... Licensing and Registration WORKS! Via Ravenwood (AGAIN. How does he find this stuff? Go read all of today's entries. Uniformly excellent. Hell, read the entire page and start on his archives.) comes this heartwarming story of how wonderfully the Canadian effort goes in registering all firearms and their legal owners, in at least one case. Classic. Just classic. | Thursday, May 06, 2004
In Arizona, Don't Go Shooting Without a GPS and a Map Via Classical Values comes this eye-opening story of what can happen if you don't, as told at World According to Pete. Excerpts: I only wanted a little physical stimulation and maybe some thrills and a bit of excitement. So my friend, Jimmy, and I went out to the desert to do us a little shooting.Those would be real "assault rifles" - the selective-fire "bullet hoses" designed to be "spray fired from the hip" and are only good for "killing lots of people in the shortest time possible." The ones that only military and police forces can own now. Those assault weapons. “Spread your arms and get on the ground, or we’ll blow your fucking heads off!”No, they wanted money and the gun. On the drive home, Jimmy and I passed a billboard for “Shooter’s World”, advertising a big gun sale the following weekend. I suggested to Jimmy that he might want to check it out since he didn’t have a gun anymore. We laughed at my moment of levity and our shared misfortune and marveled at how we had bonded since spending time in the pokey together.The saying goes, "A good friend will bail you out of jail. A GREAT friend will go to jail with you." Read the whole tale. It's pretty sad. | Wednesday, May 05, 2004 Gun Rights = Anti-Socialism Ravenwood reports that, once again, the perpetually panty-twisted are up in arms over another "loophole" in Britain's ever-more-stringent gun Gun law 'loophole'OOH! It's a high-capacity "weapon of mass destruction!" Bear with me. Our purchase on Saturday just hours after new controls were introduced by the government.(Um, that's not a complete sentence in the English I learned. Poor editing?) The Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 made it an offence to manufacture, sell, transfer or acquire air weapons that use a self-contained gas cartridge system to fire pellets.The WHAT? It's anti-social to "manufacture, sell, transfer or acquire air weapons that use a self-contained gas cartridge system to fire pellets"? Are we using the same language here? For those of us who really believe that the evil that is socialism is spreading, that one sentence is a great big red flag waving in the wind. It's anti-SOCIAL, and the State cannot abide by behavior that is anti-social. Firearms enthusiasts who already owned one were required to obtain a £50 ($90!) firearms certificate from the police by Friday, April 30.Once again the legislature passed a gun control law. Once again, the refrain from the gun-phobes is "IT'S NOT STRICT ENOUGH!!" DisgustedIt tells them, I would hope, that you're horribly misguided at a minimum. But it's nice to see another group come out and vocally advocate what we all know the leadership of the gun control groups here actually want, but dare not voice. (Except the Violence Policy Center - I will give them credit for being forthright about wanting to ban all handguns.) Paul Kelly, chairman of the Police Federation in Greater Manchester, has called for a ban on the sale of guns like the Walther CP88.As I pointed out before: That would be the license scheme that failed to reduce gun crime? That would be the license scheme that let the government know who owned guns legally but had no effect on those who had them illegally? That would be the license scheme that allowed the government to demand that all legally held handguns be handed in because they were banned? That would be the license scheme that didn't prevent an increase in handgun-involved crime after the confiscation? See the cartoon immediately below this piece for a visual representation of the goals of gun control groups. Here's another sterling example. Linda Mitchell, spokesman for the Gun Control Network, set up in the wake of the Dunblane massacre, said: "All air weapons are lethal, full stop. They are capable of serious injury and there have been deaths. We really need to see legislation that covers all air weapons."Now, shall we look at this engine of death and destruction? Here's a standard version:
And criminals, of course. Or it could have been the really evil 6" barreled version with "compensator":
But here's the specs on this "powerful airgun, which could maim or even kill" (which, by the way, sells for about $165 here in the States.) Velocity, 4" barrel: 380fps. Velocity, 6" barrel: 400fps. If that's not enough for you, this web page discusses how to wring every last erg of muzzle energy out of the gun. It's obviously written by a terrorist! Now, here's some information on the various horrible projectiles fired by this awesome engine of destruction. The .177 caliber pellet comes in a variety of weights, ranging from about 6.5 grains (0.015 oz) to about 11.5 grains (0.026 oz) Yes, those decimal places are correct. Just to give you an idea, a standard paper clip weighs about 6.6 grains. Obviously the lighter pellets will be faster, the heavier pellets slower. They come in various shapes for different purposes:
The size in the image is obviously not to scale. A .177 caliber pellet is (surprise!) 0.177" in diameter. How big is that? Oh, about the size of the hole in a Cheerio cereal piece. The hole, not the Cheerio. But a pellet that size, massing about as much as a paper clip, is supposedly lethal out of this infernal engine of mass destruction! It is true that there have been deaths attributed to airguns, but not pipsqueak air pistols like these. No, the guns involved in fatalities are without exception much more powerful (and usually larger caliber) RIFLES that fire heavier projectiles at velocities in excess of 1,000 feet per second. And even then it takes either an act of complete idiocy or an act of God to kill somebody with one. As the commenters at Ravenwood noted, this reminds me of the scene in National Lampoon's Vacation where Clark pulls a gun to get in to Wally World: (John Candy) That's a BB-gun. Are you kidding?And so could the Walther CP88. But the English subject must fear these "potentially-lethal air guns" because the press says that it is so! "England can do it! Australia can do it! WE CAN TOO!" Not here. Not if I have anything to say about it. Labels: GFWs, gun control, UK | Thank You! I do this blog mostly because I feel like I have to. I am unwilling to just give up my rights without a fight, and this site gives me a place to voice my thoughts. But an audience helps. This blog turns one on Friday, May 14. Today, this morning at 4:41AM in fact, my Sitemeter hit counter rolled over to 100,000 hits. That's probably what Glenn Reynolds gets on a bad week, but for a site dedicated primarily to the right to arms, I'm very pleased. Oh, and visitor from medalertambulance.com? Thanks. No grand prizes awarded, though. This is Blogspot, afterall. I will give you a tip: Move out of New Jersey! | Monday, May 03, 2004 Call for Assistance It seems that Tim Lambert objects to the paucity of reports in which victims of crime are further victimized by the system that supposedly is there to protect them. I'll admit right up front that my wording "prosecuted" was a poor one. THREATENED with prosecution would be more valid, like in this case found by gunner, the proprietor of No quarters. I've perused my archive of articles I've saved for the last couple of years and found a few more. But I'd like the help of the "gullible gunners" out there. Perhaps someone has access to LexisNexis or some similar search engine for news stories? Got your own archive of outrage? Send me links, full text of the stories, whatever. It's my intent to build a nice case. Remember, limit this to England and Wales. Thank you for your assistance. | I Would Be Willing to Go to Jail for Assault If I ever meet Ted Rall:
I don't know how much of what Rall states in this piece reflect his actual beliefs and how much of it is a lie, but given Rall's history...Stainless steel wool and sulfuric acid. I'm all for the First Amendment. If I ever meet Rall, I'm going to demostrate my freedom of expression with a knuckle sandwich. I live in Tucson, Ted. You've got my email address. Drop me a line if you're ever in town. We'll do lunch. (Hat tip Instapundit and Michele.) UPDATE 5/4: Also via Prof. Reynolds, this absolutely astounding dissection of Ted Rall's mental state by Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom. If I had written that (thank Jebus I know I'm not capable) I would have showered with acid and steel wool. | Like I Said, Not ALL Brits Have Been Brainwashed (Via Deltoid, actually.) Peter Hitchens has written an interesting article, even though he quotes John Lott (whom both I and Tim Lambert believe to be, if not a fraud, at least untrustworthy.) It was originally published in May of last year, but it's still good. Entitled Why I Demand the Right to Carry a Gun, I'm sure it put some panties in a bunch. Excerpts: We in Britain believe guns are so dangerous that only criminals should be allowed to have them. If you think this sounds unhinged, you are quite right. But, crazed as it is, such is the thinking behind this country's current law on firearms.All absolutely, demonstrably true. Not intentional, but certainly the result of the policy. People in this country get emotional about guns but refuse to think about them. They run, squawking, from the subject as though it were perfectly obvious that the best response to anything that goes 'bang' is to ban it.But, because of the visceral reaction trained into the public, thinking about the subject has been effectively prevented. Take a deep breath and consider what follows: I have never owned a gun and hope I never have to, but I want to have the right to do so if I wish - and the right to use a gun in defence of myself and my home. In fact, I do not think that I am a free citizen unless I have these rights.(My emphasis.) If you haven't, let me suggest that you read the (rather long) exchange I had with an Irishman living in London concerning the right to arms. It covers the history and the law dating back to England. Start here and work your way up through the archives. But do it on the weekend - it's quite involved. One more excerpt (though I recommend that you read the whole thing): Once, police and courts and people all agreed about what was right and what was wrong. In those days, the authorities were more than happy for us to defend ourselves as vigorously as we liked.But, but... self-defense in England is perfectly legal! How could he possibly conclude otherwise? He's just a "gullible gunner." | More Taking Advantage of Fear and Ignorance Pixy Misa of Ambient Irony exposes another example of gun control supporters Money quote: So how many people are killed by handguns in Australia each year? This handy article in The Age, found in about 10 seconds of Googling, tells us that the number in 2001 was 49.(But the philosophy cannot be wrong!) | Jeff Outdoes Himself Jeff at Alphecca has this week's Weekly Check on the Bias up, and it starts off with a bang, almost literally. First, Jeff reviews the a case of a Detroit woman who used her - legally permitted - concealed handgun to defend herself from a gun-wielding attacker: I mentioned this story last week but thought it deserved mention in this post, firstly, because it is a perfect example of what the right to bear arms is all about and secondly, because -- in a break with their usual bias -- the Detroit Free Press actually reported this story straight-up, without an anti-gun slant. If you read the full article, I think that you will reach the exact same conclusion that I have: Holland would be dead now if she hadn't been carrying that firearm.Not only has it "not occurred," it never occurs. But it's ALWAYS PREDICTED. After the fact the best argument opponents can come up with is that supporters cannot conclusively prove that CCW is responsible for crime going down. Jeff follows this with a "Dial 911 and DIE!" story - from TEXAS. (Doesn't everybody in Texas own a gun?) Then he tells us that Jim Purtillo - the guy that moderates the rec.guns newsgroup, and all-around generally great and pro-gun guy, has filed suit against the State of Maryland over just what constitutes "an integrated mechanical safety device" in its badly-worded law that has severely restricted what firearms may be sold in Maryland. There's much more. Jeff does a helluva job. Read it weekly, even though it gives you a RCOB™ moment. UPDATE: Reader Sarah - proving that critical reading skills still exist - points out something that I had glossed over. The quote above from the paper reads: Some opponents of the law predicted a large increase in self-defense-type shootings.Uh, no. That's not what was predicted at all. What was predicted - and what is always predicted - is "blood in the streets" from shootouts over fender-benders and K-mart blue-light specials. And that NEVER happens. However, there is a - slight - increase in bad guys getting shot. Good catch, Sarah. And you're right: why should it be a bad thing to have a large increase in criminals being shot? | Hmm... Small World, No? While the blogosphere is abuzz with the news that Micah Wright actually wasn't an Army Ranger (or even in the Army) and never was in Panama, Spoon's significant other drops a bombshell: I just wish I had done a cursory google search on Micah Wright a couple years ago and found out what he was up to. I could have told Kevin Parrot, WaPo, and Wright's publishers that I knew Wright hadn't been a Ranger during the American invasion of Panama.Small world. | Sunday, May 02, 2004 Mea Culpa I owe Tim Lambert a small apology. In a previous piece I made a pretty stupid statistical error which he caught, and I have, until now, failed to correct it. I will do so now. In I Pound My Head Against the Wall Because it Feels So Good When I Stop I stated: To me that isn't as important as the fact that England, according to the British crime survey, suffered 276,000 robberies in 2000, and the U.S. about 408,000. With six times England's population, that makes the English rate four times the American rate.Tim followed the provided links and responded: Oh, and you blew the comparison of robbery rates. You have compared the survey measured robbery rate in England with the police reported robbery rate in the US. The police reported number in England is 78,000 (it's right next to the 276,000 figure you reported) that's roughly the same rate as you get with 408,000 robberies in the US once you adjust for population.Tim was correct, I did mix crime survey and police reported levels of crime, and that was an error. My apologies. It was not intentional. However, it was my intent to use survey results for both, rather than police reported crime numbers, because there is some significant doubt as to the accuracy of the actual levels of crime as reported by police agencies in England. To illustrate this doubt, let me preface by providing this Telegraph story from 2003: Britain the most violent country in western EuropeThose are pretty serious numbers, don't you think? Now in this slightly earlier piece there seems to be some question as to the accuracy of the data: Rising crime, falling accuracyIt's tough to know what to believe when the guidelines keep changing. And then there's the declining trust in the police to do much for you when you've been robbed. The British Government uses the British Crime Survey numbers because - even though the numbers are massively higher than the police reported numbers, the BCS numbers are coming down while the police recorded numbers are going up. Seeing as the BCS numbers - although they exclude victims under the age of sixteen - are supposed to represent reported and unreported crime, those are the ones I intended to use. However, to be consistent, I needed to use U.S. National Crime Victimization Survey numbers in comparison, not the police recorded number. According to this Dept. of Justice Report in 2000 there were 732,000 attempted and completed robberies in the U.S. in the year 2000. That's 732,000 estimated under the National Crime Victimization Survey, as opposed to the 408,000 recorded robberies, a ratio of 1.79:1. And as opposed to the 276,000 estimated robberies according to the British Crime Survey compared to the 78,000 recorded robberies as reported by British police forces, a ratio of 3.54:1. So, with one-sixth the population of the U.S. England and Wales managed to have a robbery rate not four times higher, but only 2.26 times higher than ours. In the year 2000. Way to go England! Oh, and our robbery rate has continued to decline precipitously. According to this report NCVS estimates show robbery fell to 630,690 in 2001, and to 512,490 in 2002. Robbery has decreased in England and Wales over the same period, though. Maybe. According the British Crime Survey, In 2002/03, the number of robbery offences in England & Wales for people aged 16 and over was 300,000.Apparently a LOT of Brits no longer bother to report robberies. I wonder how many are missed by the BCS? At any rate, a comparison of 512,490 robberies in the U.S. and 300,000 in England & Wales means the per capita robbery ratio has increased to just over 3.5:1. Now, if you want to talk recorded crime, take a look at this Home Office paper from January 2003: Recorded offences of robbery have risen sharply in recent years despite the fact that recorded crime overall has fallen over the same period. Between April 2001 and March 2002 robbery offences recorded by the police increased by 28 per cent. This followed a 13 per cent increase the previous year, and a 26 per cent increase before that.I hope to shout! Check out this graph:
Personal robbery accounts for the bulk of recorded robbery in England and Wales. Between April 2001 and March 2002, personal robbery accounted for 89 per cent of all robbery, and almost all of the increase. Personal robbery continues to increase at a faster rate than business robbery. Business robbery increased by 6 per cent in 2001/02 compared to the previous year, while personal robbery increased by 31 per cent.Now, why might that be? And if you really want to compare international recorded crime instead of estimated, there's this graph:
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