On Milton Friedman's 100th Birthday

One video I think everyone should watch - "What is America?" A lecture given in 1978 at the University of Chicago. The opening part is significant:

The title had to do with the question of whether America, by which I mean the United States of America, I mean our society, whether America is what it was. Whether America is the land of opportunity which produced over the past two hundred years the greatest freedom and prosperity for the widest range of people the world has ever seen. Whether it still is the land in which people of many races, many beliefs, many origins are free to cooperate together to achieve their separate objectives, while at the same time retaining a diversity of values and opinions. Is that still America? Or is America what it has seemed to be becoming these past few decades? Is America not what it has been, not the land of promise of the past two hundred years but is it instead a land of growing bureaucracy and diminishing freedom? Is it the land of squabbling groups seeking to control the political levers of power, of devisive tendencies that are producing not merely variety, not merely diversity, but open conflict? Is it becoming instead a land of ethnic separatism rather than the land of the melting pot?

That's what I intended by this question, and that is the theme of the whole series.

I believe the choice is still open to us, that we can still decide, you and I, our fellow citizens, which of these two directions we want to go in. Whether we want to return to the path that made this the great land of opportunity for millions and millions and millions of people, or whether instead we want to continue down the road toward a destruction of both liberty and prosperity.

I believe very deeply that we are nearing the point of no return, that we still have the choice, but that if we continue much longer along the road that we have been going, we no longer shall have the choice. That we shall degenerate into a society which will lose that spark of creativity that spark of independence and freedom that we have all loved in our country.

Thirty-four years further down the path of growing bureaucracy and diminishing freedom, toward a destruction of both liberty and prosperity, toward ethnic separatism and open conflict, I personally think we've passed that point of no return, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

Bill Whittle on Gun Control

In addition to the Afterburner, Firewall and Trifecta videos Bill does for PJ Media, he's now doing a weekly one-man show on UstreamTV called Stratosphere Lounge.  The shows run from an hour to 90 minutes or so, and there are about eight of them in the archive.  Here's an excerpt from the eighth show, it's in two parts because Photobucket limits videos to 10 minutes.  This one runs about seventeen, with a touch of overlap.  Bill does very well speaking extemporaneously.  No teleprompter for him!

Part 1:



Part 2:


His next show may be tomorrow, I'm not certain.

Me Too

Found this somewhere a couple of days ago.  Thought I'd share:

The Philosophy CANNOT BE WRONG!

Do it again, only HARDER!

Do you remember that thing about how the banks wouldn't lend to blacks and Hispanics because they were racists? And do you remember how they passed the Community Reinvestment Act so that banks were forced to reduce down payments practically to zero and lend to a lot of people they knew were bad credit risks? And do you remember how Wall Street bundled all these risky subprime mortgages and sold them to investors around the world so that when it became clear that those people weren't going to be able to pay their mortgages banks everywhere were left holding the bag and all five of the Wall Street investment houses either went under or had to be bailed out by the federal government?

And do you remember how, when it was all over, liberals said it was actually the banks' fault for "deceiving" all those people into thinking they could afford to buy homes and that the banks should be punished for it and some of those people be allowed to keep their homes anyway? And do you remember how all this cost the government close to a trillion dollars and put the whole economy in a hole that we really haven't begun to dig ourselves out of yet?

Well, get ready because the whole thing is about to happen again.

h/t var/log/otto, who asks:

How can this be anything but deliberate sabotage of our economy?

I don't doubt this is accurate. Tar and feathers are too good for them.



+



+


Some assembly required.

Outrage

I have no words.  Go read. 

The drug war is over.  The drugs won.

Project Valour-IT (Bumped AGAIN)

Project Valour-IT is the charity that the Gun Blogger Rendezvous supports each year, and has since 2007.  It was established by Major (then Captain) Chuck Zeigenfuss and his Soldiers' Angel after Chuck was severely wounded by an IED in Iraq.  While Chuck, a milblogger, was recovering in the hospital with about two functioning fingers on one hand, he asked his Angel to get him a laptop computer, and blegged for voice-recognition software so that he could get back online and communicate with the outside world.  As he put it,

It was the first time I felt whole since I'd woken up wounded in Landstuhl.

In fact, it made such a difference in his recovery, he thought about all of the other soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines like him and how much it could help them out, so with Soldiers' Angels he established Project Valour-IT to provide as many as he could with the technology to help them reconnect.

He has spoken several times at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous since he first attended GBR-II in 2007, and he is always inspiring.

As I noted last month, Project Valour is low on money. They are currently conducting a donation drive running through September 3 (just before this year's Rendezvous) and are trying to raise $100,000. I know times are tough and things are tight, but please pitch in if you can. You can donate to team Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines (the Marines are currently leading).

Since my father and my father-in-law are both Air Force veterans, I'm going to support the flyboys in this one:

Thanks.

BUMPED 7/25. This is just sad. C'mon Air Force, represent!

Junk-on-the-Bunk

From Maryland:

Authorities have arrested a Maryland man they say referred to himself as "a joker" and threatened to carry out a shooting at his workplace, Fox News has learned.

Police arrested 28-year-old Neil Prescott of Crofton, Md., after he allegedly called his employer and threatened to "shoot the place up," a source close to the investigation told Fox News.

Yeah, copycat.

I liked this detail:

The suspect was also wearing a T-shirt that said, "Guns don't kill people. I do," when taken into custody, according to authorities.

I don't have that one, but I do have one that says "When I SNAP, You'll Be the First to Go."

It was a gift. In poor taste.

I like tasteless gifts, though.  I used to have the smileyface with the bullet hole in the forehead.  Wore that one out.
(I have another that states, "Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints." The TSA bluehands enjoy that one when I'm flying somewhere.)

But this is the part that got my attention - the classic "junk-on-the-bunk" statement:

Police said that when they took the man into custody, they found an "arsenal" (love the scare quotes) of weapons inside his home. The Associated Press reports that a search of the suspect's home turned up more than 20 guns, including assault rifles and handguns, and more than 400 rounds of ammunition.

Uh, I have more than 20 guns in my safe.

And I've got more than 400 rounds of .45 Long Colt alone.

Why do they continue to treat this like it's unusual?

Oh, right - because FEAR!

Meanwhile in Sarah Brady Paradise

The Bobbys are finally carrying firearms.  Fully automatic firearms:




But what about the CHILDREN?!?!?!


They seem to think it's pretty cool.

UPDATE:  In comments, "bogbeagle" notes "They've been carrying such weapons in England for a decade or more, esp. around major train stations and airports."  He's right.  Here's the first picture I saved to Photobucket years ago:



That's from 2003, I think.

This Makes (at least) Two

Gun carrying man ends stabbing spree

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - A citizen with a gun stopped a knife wielding man as he began stabbing people Thursday evening at the downtown Salt Lake City Smith's store.

Police say the suspect purchased a knife inside the store and then turned it into a weapon. Smith's employee Dorothy Espinoza says, "He pulled it out and stood outside the Smiths in the foyer. And just started stabbing people and yelling you killed my people. You killed my people."

Espinoza says, the knife wielding man seriously injured two people. "There is blood all over. One got stabbed in the stomach and got stabbed in the head and held his hands and got stabbed all over the arms."

Then, before the suspect could find another victim - a citizen with a gun stopped the madness. "A guy pulled gun on him and told him to drop his weapon or he would shoot him. So, he dropped his weapon and the people from Smith's grabbed him."

That's from last April. This has happened before, though. In 2005 at a Tulsa, OK Albuquerque, NM Walmart, 71 year-old Due Moore shot Felix Vigil as he attacked his wife, a Walmart employee, with a knife.

I'm sure there have been many more, but defensive gun use never makes the national news like criminal misuse does.

Back-Door Gun Control

The Hill reports:

Democratic senators have offered an amendment to the cybersecurity bill that would limit the purchase of high capacity gun magazines for some consumers.

Shortly after the Cybersecurity Act gained Senate approval to proceed to filing proposed amendments and a vote next week, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a sponsor of the gun control amendment, came to the floor to defend the idea of implementing some "reasonable" gun control measures.

The amendment was sponsored by Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Jack Reed (R.I.), Bob Menendez (N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Schumer and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.). S.A. 2575 would make it illegal to transfer or possess large capacity feeding devices such as gun magazines, belts, feed stripes(sic) and drums of more than 10 rounds of ammunition with the exception of .22 caliber rim fire ammunition.

The usual suspects. 

Call your congresscritters. Stomp on this one HARD.

Because I Need One

Your moment of Zen, Mt. Rainier at sunsetrise:





(Click for a slightly larger image.)

The Five Stages of Bullshit

From a comment left at Rachel Lucas' place, The Five Stages of Bullshit:

1. The crocodile tears. This includes the False Moment of National Unity, during which people proclaim that events like this bring us together, even as they sharpen their partisan knives for the next step.

2. The blood libel. With no data, motive is assigned to some conservative group or belief. This proves false 100% of the time, but like a tattoo, the accusation can never be entirely removed.

3. The Rorschach test. Every politician and pundit on earth pens an editorial explaining how this one isolated event has a much broader meaning that proves everything he’s been saying for the last 20 years.

4. Something Must Be Done. A national debate ensues on how to make sure that something like this never happens again. This event was a wake-up call and a game-changer. Everything must be on the table. We must not allow a 200-year-old piece of parchment to prevent us from Acting Right Away.

5. Suzy’s Law. Congress vomits forth a bipartisan bill that no member dare vote against. For precisely that reason, the bill includes a litany of unrelated pork and policy for both parties that could never otherwise pass. In exchange for a few billion dollars and a bit of your liberty, the president, surrounded by beaming legislators, offers a few cloying words about “what this town can do when people put their differences aside” and ostentatiously signs “Suzy’s Law”, a new set of rules that, had they been in place before the tragedy, would have made absolutely no difference.

Though it appears items 1 & 2 reversed this go-around, Jeff Bonwick, take a bow...

UPDATE:  Alternately, (5a): a bill that will probably get passed on its merits gets a gun control rider amendment.

Interesting Commentary from Across the Pond

UK expat Phil B. sent me a link to an op-ed in the Irish Daily Mail, Denver shootings: the murder is in the corrupted mind, not in the legal guns. Not what I've come to expect from UK newspapers. Excerpt:

The Denver Dark Knight shootings: first thing to note – despite the uninformed Irish wails about American gun laws – is that the number of guns per head in America is irrelevant to such a crime.

If ownership of a weapon equalled homicidal intent, the ten most murderous countries in the world would include Switzerland, Finland, and Sweden.
The 15 most murderous would include France, Canada, Austria and Iceland.

--

The figures show that in recent years, Mexico has been down at 42 in averaged rate of civilian ownership of guns, below even Belgium and Luxembourg. Yet Mexico is so much a free-fire zone that last week the only way a nine-year old boy with a massive tumour could be taken out of gang-infested Ciudad Juarez and into an American hospital was in an armoured vehicle manned by armed US federal agents.

So if we want to know the origins of such slaughters as the one at the Colorado cinema, we need to look beyond the uninformed response of: 'It's all because of private gun ownership.'

It's not.

RTWT.

Once a Month Until the Election

And this one:




And this:

Quote of the Day - Daniel Greenfield

From Sultan Knish - So That This Never Happens Again:

The edifice of government towers over public life. It is built for fighting systems, groups and "Isms'" and it can be used to ban guns, lock up the mentally ill or launch another one of its incessant public education campaigns. Its ability to stop an individual bent on causing harm to other individuals is highly limited at best.

That is where the illusion of control breaks down. The system can promise to stop gun violence, but it can't stop a man with a gun. All it can do is exploit the tragedy for more power. Only individuals can stop individuals. The only control we can possibly have comes from living in a society where the people do the right thing... and are empowered to do the right thing.

But that is not the society that the gun-controllers and police-staters want to create. The society they want is a place where everyone sits quietly, offers no resistance, contacts the authorities and waits for the accredited branches of the government to do something. A place where everyone knows that if they do something, they may be arrested or sued by the criminal afterward. A place where people are expected to be willing to die, but not fight back.

That's (formerly) Great Britain. 

Fuck THAT.

Want a Suppressed .22 Pistol?

The Arizona Citizens Defense League is giving away not one, not two, but THREE of them:

AzCDL is raffling off 3 (Yes, Three!) suppressed pistol packages.

Each package includes a Ruger 22/45 pistol with threaded barrel, plus a Gemtech sound suppressor. And, we will pay the $200 Federal Transfer Tax required for suppressor ownership.

Tickets are $10 each.

Each raffle ticket represents THREE chances to win!

Only 900 tickets will be sold.

The 3 winning tickets will be drawn on October 6th at AzCDL’s Annual Meeting in Phoenix.

The winners do not have to be present to win.  However, winners must comply with all federal, state, and local laws, and must pick up the firearm and suppressor from a federally licensed firearm dealer.  Additionally, if a winner does not qualify under federal, state or local laws for possession of the sound suppressor, only the firearm will be transferred and the winner waives all rights to the suppressor and associated transfer fees.  In some states, the possession of a firearm with a threaded barrel is illegal.  If you reside in such a jurisdiction, we cannot transfer the pistol to you.

Tickets can be purchased at upcoming gun shows and other events where you find AzCDL volunteers.

You can also purchase tickets online at AzCDL's store.

While you are at our online store, don’t forget to renew your AzCDL membership (or join if you are not a member).

Raffles are our fundraisers.  Help support AzCDL, buy raffle tickets!

I'm in, how about you?

Quote of the Day - Victor Davis Hanson

From Works and Days - The Demons of the Modern Rampage Killer:

If the suspect is charged and found guilty, I have zero confidence that he will be hanged. I have a great deal of confidence that over the next five years, his awful presence will pop up on a news broadcast. We can execute bin Laden and high-five it; we can incinerate over 2,000 suspected terrorists by video-controlled Predators, and have the president brag about it in warning away suitors from his daughters at a White House Correspondents’ Dinner— but we cannot do the same for someone who was tried, convicted, and sentenced for horrifically destroying people.

--

We the sophisticated with university degrees are supposed to know better: that hanging such a nightmarish criminal when convicted is both barbaric on our part and offers no statistical evidence that it will deter future such killers.

Perhaps. But society needs to be affirmed with a certainty that it has the clear sense of evil and good to try, convict, and punish the killer. Hanging Saddam or Eichmann, for all the controversies over their trials, at least offered some finality: they were evil and now are no more—and now we don’t worry whether Saddam was unloved, or the circumstances of Eichmann’s childhood.

In other words, I don’t care a whit whether the Aurora killer was a loner. I don’t care if he was unhappy or if he was on medication. Millions share such pathologies without killing a mouse. I don’t even know whether giving him swift justice will deter the next mass shooter. Yes, give the suspect expert legal counsel; call in all the psychiatrists imaginable; sequester the jury; ensure the judge is a pillar of jurisprudence; but if he is found guilty, I would prefer the gallows and quickly so, to remind us that we live in a civilization that prefers to remember the victims and to remember nothing at all of their killer.

Can I get an "AMEN!"?

Quote of the Day - Batman Edition

Our old friend James Kelly (much like Markadelphia) apparently just can't seem to stay away from TSM, and comments (without links) on my post Why. Then, apparently suspecting infiltration, suggests that I have been stalking him, and leaving anonymous comments at other sites.

Can you say "projection"? I knew you could.

But that's not the QotD. From that linked piece comes this picture, and this comment:

If you've actually seen the latest Batman film, you might want to note that (SPOILER ALERT!)



Catwoman blows Bane away with THE CANNON MOUNTED ON THE BATCYCLE - and suggests that Batman may need to rethink his "no guns" philosophy in the face of almost having his head blown off by Bane with a 12 gauge double-barreled sawed-off shotgun.

No, James, that wasn't me, but I'll certainly borrow it!  James' response?

Alternatively, he might want to persevere with the no guns philosophy to ensure that Bane doesn't have the 12 gauge double-barreled sawed-off shotgun in the first place.

And how would you go about ensuring that, I have to ask?  No, on second thought I don't even want to try following James down that particular rabbit hole.

And I find it interesting that, while Batman eschews personal firearms, he seems to have no problem with vehicle-mounted artillery.

Odd, that.

So Gun Control Will Make Us Safer?

That's what we're hearing.  If the "assault weapon ban" had been renewed, the Aurora shooter couldn't have killed and wounded all those people, and the entire country would be safer than it is today.  That's what we're told, right?  "More guns = more violent crime."  It's their mantra.

Problem is, that theory is provably wrong.

Australia has very strict gun laws.  In 1997 after the Port Arthur mass shooting, Australia enacted gun bans.  In point of fact:

In 2002 -- five years after enacting its gun ban -- the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime. In fact, the percent of murders committed with a firearm was the highest it had ever been in 2006 (16.3 percent), says the D.C. Examiner.

Even Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:

•In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
•Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent.
•Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.

Moreover, Australia and the United States -- where no gun-ban exists -- both experienced similar decreases in murder rates:

•Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America's rate dropped 31.7 percent.
•During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
•Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent.
•Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
•At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.
•Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.

And in Britain:

Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.

The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year - a rise of 89 per cent.

In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.

In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled.

--

Last week, police in London revealed they had begun carrying out armed patrols on some streets.

The move means officers armed with sub-machine guns are engaged in routine policing for the first time. (My emphasis)

--

The number of people injured or killed by guns, excluding air weapons, has increased from 864 in 1998/99 to a provisional figure of 1,760 in 2008/09, an increase of 104 per cent.

Meanwhile, here in gun-lawless America, all forms of violent crime have been declining for over a decade, while more and more citizens have been buying (and carrying) more and more guns.

It may sound crass, but I'll take an occasional Aurora if overall homicide rates are declining, and it means thousands fewer rapes, aggravated assaults, and armed robberies every year.

(Edited for clarity.)

Quote of the Day

Dr. Helen asked, What are your favorite science-fiction books? Best response so far:

I like the New York Times, the Washington Post, Huffington, and the LA Times.

CNN is also pretty good as is the BBC.

All present a very bizarre picture of an alternate reality, like a parallel universe or a different dimension loosely based on the real world.

I don’t like MSNBC because it has no connexion whatsoever to reality, it’s pure fanatasy.

Terry Eliat, Israel