Pressing the Reset Button?

The blogosphere (at least the part of it that follows the gun rights agenda) is abuzz over this article:

New Orleans Begins Confiscating Firearms as Water Recedes

By ALEX BERENSON and TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
Published: September 8, 2005

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 8 - Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here.

No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said.

But that order apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16's and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.

As Eugene Volokh notes:

(T)he Louisiana Constitution, art. I, sec. 11 (enacted 1974), provides that

The right of each citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged, but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to prohibit the carrying of weapons concealed on the person.

Is there some implicit emergency exception to the right to bear arms here? On the other hand, doesn't the emergency make the right especially valuable to the rightsholders? Should it matter that the government seems willing to let "businesses and some wealthy individuals" hire to people use arms "to protect their property," but isn't willing to let less wealthy individuals use themselves and their friends and relatives to protect their property (and their bodies and their lives)?

The NYT piece continues:

Nearly two weeks after the floods began, New Orleans has turned into an armed camp, patrolled by thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, as well as National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers. While armed looters roamed unchecked last week, the city is now calm. No arrests were made on Wednesday night or this morning, and the police received only 10 calls for service, a police spokesman said.

Not exactly "unchecked." Armed citizens checked them pretty well in many accounts, while there were no local, state, or federal law enforcement officers available to respond to calls for service or perform arrests.

Continuing:

Many neighborhoods in the northern half of New Orleans remain under 10 feet of water, and Mr. Compass said today that the city's plans for a forced evacuation remained in effect because of the danger of disease and fires.

Mr. Compass said he could not disclose when New Orleans residents might be forced to leave en masse, but other police officers and law enforcement officials said the city planned to start as early as tonight.

The city's Police Department and federal law enforcement officers from agencies like the United States Marshals Service will lead the evacuation, Mr. Compass said. Officers will search houses in both dry and flooded neighborhoods, and no one will be allowed to stay, he said.

Many of the residents still in the city said they did not understand why the city remained intent on forcing them out.

"I know the risks," said Renee de Pontchieux, as she sat on a stool outside Kajun's Pub in the working-class Bywater neighborhood east of downtown. "We used to think we lived in America - now we're not so sure. Why should we allow this government to chase us out and allow people from outside to rebuild our homes? We want to rebuild our homes."

But Ms. De Pontchieux said she was resigned to being evacuated if the police insisted. "It would be foolish" to fight, she said.

But I'm wondering if this forced disarmament and evacuation won't force at least a couple of people over the edge. Back in June I wrote Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothin' Left to Lose. Most of these people literally don't have much left.

An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 people remain inside New Orleans more than a week after Hurricane Katrina hit, many in neighborhoods that are on high ground near the Mississippi River.

--

Among the authorities, though, some confusion lingered about how a widespread evacuation by force would work, and how much support it would get at the federal and state level. Mayor C. Ray Nagin told the police and the military on Tuesday to remove all residents for their own safety, and on Wednesday, the police superintendent, Mr. Compass, said state laws give the mayor the authority to declare martial law and order the evacuations.

"There's a martial law declaration in place that gives us legal authority for mandatory evacuations," Mr. Compass said. "We'll use the minimum amount of force necessary."

"Legal authority"? I don't think so. But what the government can do, and what it is legally empowered to do are two vastly different things.

State officials said Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco could tell the Guard to carry out the forced removals, but they stopped short of a commitment to do so. In Washington, Lt. Gen. Joseph R. Inge, deputy commander of the United States Northern Command, said regular troops "would not be used" in any forced evacuation.

Glad to hear that.

The state disaster law does not supersede either the state or federal Constitutions, said Kenneth M. Murchison, a law professor at Louisiana State University. But even so, Mr. Nagin's decision could be a smart strategy that does not violate fundamental rights, Professor Murchison said.

Illegal, but smart? I don't see how forced disarmament and forced relocation do not "violate fundamental rights."

The people left in New Orleans are the ones who are too stubborn to leave, too intent on criminality to leave, or lacked the ability to leave. They are also the ones least likely to understand what their rights actually are. If I had lived in New Orleans (as if) I'd have left before the storm hit, and I'd have had at least most of my firearms with me already, but there's the possibility that one or two of the stubborn ones still living in the city might find forced disarmament and forced evacuation to be their own personal breaking point - the point at which they are willing to press the "reset button." But the overwhelming majority will most definitely just go along.

And the rest of us will just sit and watch.

You've Got to Read This.

Via Samizdata. Excerpt:

As the full horror of Hurricane Katrina sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if this is the end of George Bush's presidency. The answer is almost certainly yes, provided that every copy of the US Constitution was destroyed in the storm. Otherwise President Bush will remain in office until noon on January 20th, 2009, as required by the 20th Amendment, after which he is barred from seeking a third term anyway under the 22nd Amendment.

If I See Someone Wearing One of These...

I might very well slap the shit out of them.

OK. I'm a Geek.

But this is cool.

Fact Checking, for The Children™.

Today's Tucson Citizen carried a USA Today article on the scourge of unsecured firearms in private homes. Another "guns as disease vector" meme. After the flurry of personal defense stories from New Orleans (and the stories of neanderthals shooting at rescuers), I have to wonder about the timing, but let's fact-check this story:

36% of Az's adults keep firearms at home

About 1.7 million U.S. children, including about 109,000 in Arizona, live in homes with loaded, unlocked firearms, according to the largest survey ever done on home weapons storage, out today in the Pediatrics online journal www.pediatrics.org.

James Mercy, researcher with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and colleague Catherine Okoro analyzed surveys of 224,000 adults done by health departments in 50 states and the District of Columbia during 2002.

One-third of adults in America, and 36.2 percent of Arizona's adults, have handguns, rifles or shotguns at home, says the CDC report. But states vary greatly in the percentage of adults who keep weapons, and in how many with children at home store their guns loaded and unlocked. In Arizona, 7.6 percent of households have a loaded and unlocked firearm.

Err, no. One third of adults in America, 36.2% of Arizona's adults, and 7.6% of households surveyed admit to owning firearms or admit to having a loaded and unlocked firearm. I suspect that a number of people queried either lied or answered "fuck off!" or its equivalent, so the accuracy of that particular set of data is questionable. If you're interested, the study is here.

But let's continue:

Eighteen states have laws dealing with proper storage of guns to limit access to children, says Jon Vernick, co-director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University's school of public health. But the laws vary in strictness and in the ages of kids covered, he says.

"Proper" storage. As in "state-sanctioned, state-approved, state-mandated, storage." The kind of "proper storage" that helped prevent 14 year-old Jessica Carpenter from protecting her brother and sister. The kind of "proper storage" that would have prevented an 11 year-old boy from shooting an intruder in South Bend Indiana. The man he shot was holding a box cutter to his grandmother's neck. Rare? Yes, but not unheard of.

Little is known about how well these laws are enforced, Vernick adds. "They're great, and we absolutely need more states with laws. But often they seem to get enforced after it's too late, when a child has shot himself or someone else."

That ought to chill you. How do you "enforce" a "proper storage" law? Why, by inspection, don't you know? And in order to know where to inspect, you must know who owns guns - doesn't that follow?

Two studies show accidental gun deaths and teen suicides decline in states with these laws, he says. Another study, out this year, suggests children and teens are less likely to shoot themselves or others in homes with unloaded or locked guns stored separately from ammunition.

I'm sorry, but I want links to these studies. Accidental gun deaths? We'll get to that in just a minute. Teen suicide? I don't think so. Teen suicide by gun, possibly, but overall? I find that highly doubtful. Gun access had nothing to do with Australia's massive increase in youth suicide. They took largely to hanging themselves.

The "Pediatrics" report says that of 1,400 children and teens shot to death in 2002, about 90 percent were home when it happened.

Ah! We have a number now! Let's check the CDC and see what it has to say.

The report itself states: "Firearm-related injuries remained the second leading cause of injury mortality in 2002, accounting for 30242 firearm-related deaths. Of all firearm injury deaths, 56.6% were suicides, 39.1% were homicides, 2.5% were unintentional, and an additional 1.8% were legal interventions or of undetermined intent. Furthermore, (approximately) 1400 firearm deaths were among persons (less than) 18 years old." According to the CDC's WISQARS Injury Mortality tool there were 115 accidental deaths by gunshot for children less than eighteen years of age in 2002. There were 423 suicides by gunshot. For all death by gunshot wound, including homicide, the total was 1,443. Now, that's out of a population of (according to the same source) 72,846,775 children up through the age of 17. By comparison, 1,007 children in this group died by accidental drowning, and 551 committed suicide by other means. Bicycle accidents accounted for another 164.

Let me make this as clear as I can: Each death of a child is tragic, but I think the fear of accidental death by firearm is wholly overblown.

"It's a frightening problem," says Michael Barnes, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a lobbying group that favors limiting gun ownership.

No, they favor gun confiscation, though they won't come right out and admit it. Yes, it's a problem that frightens people like author Jean Hanff Korelitz into believing that "more than 4,000 children...die in gun-related accidents each year"!

And then she calls for a handgun ban, just like they want.

National Rifle Association of America spokesman Andrew Arulanandam, declined to comment on specific laws but says, "The sad reality is, you cannot legislate responsibility."

The poster-child (almost literally) for this reality is the "family" of the first-grader who deliberately shot six year-old Kayla Rolland. An extreme case? Yes. But true, nonetheless.

Education is the best way to reduce gun accidents, and the NRA runs many education programs, he says. "Children are by nature curious and will try to seek out objects they shouldn't have. ... It's up to the parents to see that firearms are stored safely."

This is correct, and education is, apparently, working. Accidental death by gunshot has been declining since we started keeping statistics on it in the 1930's. This is in spite of the fact that the total number of guns in circulation has been increasing by about three million a year for decades. Even the Violence Policy Center admitted "Overall, from 1988 to 1994, rates of unintentional firearms death among children under the age of 15 actually fell by 40 percent—down to an average rate of 0.4 per 100,000." And that rate has continued to decline, while "assault weapons" and "pocket rockets" have been, according to the VPC, pushed by "the gun industry's insatiable quest for a higher profit margin." (Oddly enough, homicide has been declining as well. Whodathunkit?) So obviously we need "safe storage" legislation?

GUNS IN ARIZONA

108,630 children live in homes with guns that are loaded and unlocked.

And six children here under the age of 18 died of accidental gunshot wound in 2002. Three of them were under the age of 13. Should this statistic justify police inspection of 7.6 percent of Arizona homes to ensure "these laws are well enforced"? What should the penalty be for a breach of the law? What Robert George Wilton suffered after his 10 year-old son took a cartridge to school?

I suppose that, since the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals has decided that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" doesn't protect an individual right to arms, the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches" wouldn't apply to "gun safety inspections" either? Part and parcel, aren't they? And since we're so concerned about teen suicide, too, perhaps we should have the authorities check for unsecured poisons, narcotic medications, sharp objects, ropes and other devices with which our kids can deliberately kill themselves as well. It's for the children, you know.

I'm a grandparent. My grandkids are five and six. I have several firearms. I keep them locked up and unloaded when the kids are around unless I'm working on one and have it in hand (also unloaded.) However, I keep a loaded .357 magnum revolver in a quick-access safe. I believe I'm a responsible adult. But my father kept his guns in the master bedroom closet, and the ammo on a shelf above. I knew they were there. My brother and sister knew they were there. And we never shot anybody, including ourselves.

I will not register. I will not allow inspection of my home to ensure "safe storage" compliance.

Period. FOAD.

Wicked Cut of the Week.

By the inestimable, irreplaceable, inimitable Bill Whittle in Tribes:

It's always such a pleasure to have Germans enlighten us on the best way to move large groups of sick, downtrodden people by rail.

THAT'S gonna leave a mark!

Bill Whittle has Posted Again.

Today's piece is Tribes. Excerpt:

Only a few minutes ago, I had the delightful opportunity to read the comment of a fellow who said he wished that white, middle-class, racist, conservative cocksuckers like myself could have been herded into the Superdome Concentration Camp to see how much we like it. Absent, of course, was the fundamental truth of what he plainly does not have the eyes or the imagination to see, namely, that if the Superdome had been filled with white, middle-class, racist, conservative cocksuckers like myself, it would not have been a refinery of horror, but rather a citadel of hope and order and restraint and compassion.

That has nothing to do with me being white. If the blacks and Hispanics and Jews and gays that I work with and associate with were there with me, it would have been that much better. That’s because the people I associate with – my Tribe – consists not of blacks and whites and gays and Hispanics and Asians, but of individuals who do not rape, murder, or steal. My Tribe consists of people who know that sometimes bad things happen, and that these are an opportunity to show ourselves what we are made of. My people go into burning buildings. My Tribe consists of organizers and self-starters, proud and self-reliant people who do not need to be told what to do in a crisis. My Tribe is not fearless; they are something better. They are courageous. My Tribe is honorable, and decent, and kind, and inventive. My Tribe knows how to give orders, and how to follow them. My Tribe knows enough about how the world works to figure out ways to boil water, ration food, repair structures, build and maintain makeshift latrines, and care for the wounded and the dead with respect and compassion.

As always, read it all.

At least twice.

Range Report

[Monty Python]And now for something completely different.[/Monty Python]

Saturday morning about o'dark-thirty I got up and took a look out the window. The sky looked pretty overcast, so I thought I'd put off a trip to the range until Sunday. However, as the sun came up, it didn't look quite so bad. I logged on to weatherunderground.com and checked, and the chance of rain was slight, so I went ahead and loaded up and off to the range I went.

Despite $3+ per gallon gasoline, I drove the 70+ miles up Interstate 10 to Casa Grande and went to the newly refurbished Elsy Pearson rifle range which just reopened on Friday after extensive berm work. I took four weapons with me: My newly restocked and refinished M1 Garand, my trusty custom AR-15, my recently problematic Kimber Classic Stainless, and my latest acquisition, the S&W M25 Mountain Gun in .45LC.

This was my first chance to get the Garand sighted in again after having it refinished by Mac's Shootin Irons. Mac disassembles everything, including the front and rear sight assemblies. I'd taken two targets with me; a large cardboard box I could staple paper targets on to (the range has no target stands), and one of my 9"x11"x1" AR500 steel plate swingers. I set the cardboard up at about 100 yards, and the swinger up at the full 250 yards the range permits.

The Garand, true to form, functioned absolutely flawlessly, shooting about 4 MOA off the bench with Korean milsurp 147 grain ammo. I was even able to whack the swinger at 250 yards once or twice out of each clip of eight. At 250 yards, that 9x11 target is NOT very big over iron sights. I've now got the Garand sighted in for 250 yards, which should be sufficient for anything from point-blank out to 300+.

Next I tried out my AR with my 75 grain HPBT Hornady handloads. Using 24.7 grains of surplus WCC846 powder, LC brass, and an overall length of 2.245," I literally could not miss the swinger unless I really screwed up. I beat that thing like a rented mule. Now I just need to learn to shoot like that offhand.

I've been having problems with my Kimber since I installed a Cylinder & Slide Safety-Fast-System. Yes, I'm one of those people who just doesn't care for cocked-and-locked carry. The SFS allows you to carry the 1911 safely with a round in the chamber, hammer down and locked. Flick off the safety and the hammer springs back, ready to fire. Very, very cool. The kit came with a nice extended slide stop, but ever since I installed it I've been getting intermittent lock-open of the slide in the middle of a magazine. That was really irritating, so I recently reinstalled the original Kimber slide stop. The problem went completely away. I ran about 150 rounds through it without a hitch. I'm good to go again.

Finally, I worked on my Mountain Gun loads. The last time I tried it I was getting very high extreme spreads in velocity and concomitantly poor accuracy, so I switched from Winchester WLP primers to Federal 155 large pistol magnum primers, still using the same powder charges of Alliant 2400. Well, the extreme spread came down just a bit, but velocities did not improve. I want to get to right at 900fps. I think I'm going to work up to a sixteen grain charge under the Cast Precision 300 grain LBT gas-checked bullet, and if that doesn't work any better I'll try another powder.

Anyway, it was a very nice morning at the range, but I discovered that I've almost run out of the 384 rounds of .30-06 on clips that I bought shortly after I purchased my Garand. As soon as I got home I ordered two more cans from Aim Surplus. I really wasn't a fan of the M1 before I bought one, but I'll admit now, it's one of my favorites.

Well, Apparently not TOTALLY...

Via Doc Russia:

(James) Tilghman said he had been appalled by the violence in New Orleans and was concerned that some of it might spill over into his community with the arrival of more survivors. "I'm totally against guns, but I bought one this week," he said.

From My Way News, apparently a Reuter-rooter piece.

But the Second Amendment can't mean that the individual has a right to arms anymore, right? Regardless of what those rich white slave-owning dead Europeans believed!

Quote of the Day:.

From Gunner of No Quarters:

A lot of liberal anti-gunners have become pro-gun and are probably not happy with that fact.

You might note with all of the gun violence the Brady Center has not issues one single press release. Maybe even they see the people protecting themselves with firearms in the news and know they lost this battle.

Wait! Wait! One More!.

I've gotta print this one in toto:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4623265

This is the death of democracy in America. This is the end.

The left has been the target of incessant attacks by the right wing in America since the mid-1800's or earlier. This is naked neo-Nazi fascism. This is full-blown racist genocide. This is tanks-in-the-street martial law. This is Michael Ledeen's "creative destruction" and Grover Norquist's infamous bathtub.

The left, long subject to military assaults, COINTELPRO frame jobs, false imprisonment, voter disenfranchisement, prisonmandering, and the like, is now in its final throes as captives locked in death camps to die of dehydration and starve to death at gunpoint. The Democratic Party, with the exception of fewer brave souls than you can count on one hand who have refused to cow in terror before the prospects of Wellstoning and anthraxing, is thoroughly infiltrated and/or intimidated into utter subjugation and submission to the genocidal Republican agenda. And the horrors in New Orleans are now the future of every "blue" city, state, or "stronghold" subject to Bush's military occupation, for which he will doubtless invent pretexts if none present themselves easily enough, and concomitant genocidal campaigns against Democrats.

The fascist break happened long ago. The genocide in New Orleans is only the beginning of a larger, bolder campaign to exterminate us completely and impose overt martial law (as opposed to the increasing militarization of the police, which is de facto martial law anyway) over every "blue" area Bush feels the whim to point his "eliminationist rhetoric" at. The death squads are out in force in the streets of New Orleans. When the job is done there, pretexts will be invented for them to roam the streets of our home cities, the blue cities. The rank and file stormtroopers are already terrorizing us with chemical weapons like pepperspray and teargas. The death squads and death camps in New Orleans are the next step.

I have one and only one "positive message:" run for your lives. Get out of this country while you still can. Get out before Bush's "final solution" to the "liberal question" is implemented where you live.

Yes! Please! Get OUT! Leave! Go to France, go to Spain, go to South America. Go to that peon's paradise of Cuba! Just get the hell out of here! Because George Bush's military death squads aren't going to be the ones who want to kill you, we average citizens are. I swear to Odin, you people are too stupid to live.

What color is the sky on your planet, anyway?

Update: Dr. Sanity has more on the DU denizens in Narcissitic Underground. Hat tip to GM Roper for the link.

Update, 9/5, to add this cartoon found at American Digest:

Holy Excrement, Batman, the Moonbats will be are Frothing!

I just found out that Chief Justice Rehnquist has died. So President Bush gets to appoint not one, but two Supreme Court justices, and in short order. The far Left is already wetting itself over the Roberts nomination.

While I no longer spend time at DemocraticUnderground.com (I feel like I need a shower afterward) I dropped by to see what the caring, compassionate Left had to say this morning about the death of the Chief Justice. From this thread (cut and paste if you want to go there - I'm not hot-linking): http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1752394

WP: Bush Says Rehnquist's Death Is a 'Great Loss' (of a Racist comrade) - By Don1

Maybe we should fly sheets at half-staff in honor of Rehnquist - by mitchum

Of course, when Robert "Sheets" Byrd passes, no mention of his membership in the KKK will be made, I'm sure. More from this post, http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1752437:

Now that Rehnquist has passed on - a very sad moment, however that will open the ranks for another so called Bible Thumper to be introduced to the mix. - by Franmarz

--

Bummer. We're short a couple of nazis.

Guess we'd better turn over a bunch of rocks lickety-split and see what crawls out. - by PurityOfEssence

See why I say I feel like I need a shower? And why violence is becoming less and less abhorrent?

From this post, http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4619403&mesg_id=4619403:

There's one less racist breathing air I could be breathing tonight.

I would no more express my sympathies than I would to Hitler's family, Frank Cherry's family or David Duke's family.
Rot in hell, Rehnquist. - by nothingshocksmeanymore

Yes, the opposition is all Nazis, all racists, all evil.

These people make me tired. And angry.

I think I'll clean my Garand.

Remember On Guillotines and Gibbets?.

An essay I wrote back in December? Part of what it was about was the cockroach-like endurance of bad Leftist ideas:

If it is so blindingly obvious to many of us that the ideologies behind, for example, gun control and welfare are so fundamentally flawed, why are these ideologies not dead? Not only are they not dead, in many ways, still flourishing? Why is the demonstrably erroneous ideology of the Left still advanced by people who just want to keep turning up the power, with the resultant escalation of failure?

And I answered my question:

I submit, it is because the Left has never been significantly checked as it strives to spread its flawed ideology. Leftists occupy the majority of journalism positions, both as reporters and editors.

--

Leftists make up an overwhelming majority of educators and administrators in both primary and secondary education. Through these vectors of media and public education the Left has spread its ideology largely without any effective opposition for literally decades. Bear in mind also, I'm not attributing this occupation of media and education to some "vast Left-wing conspiracy." It's a natural outgrowth of a philosophy that builds unquestioning "true believers" who take their flawed ideology as gospel and are thereby inspired to evangelize. A fundamental tenet of Socialism is to proselytize the proletariat so that it recognizes the oppressive bourgeoisie and can then take steps to pull it down. The two places to best accomplish this are media and schools, so the evangelical migrate there, and steadily chip, chip, chip away at the proletariat, spreading the "hate the bourgeoisie" meme that produces women who tell mayors, in all seriousness, "It's my job to have kids, Mr. Mayor, and your job to take care of them."

Well I just came across a July 27 Theodore Dalrymple piece that illustrates my point, The Triumph of Reason? An excerpt:

In Australia recently, I shared a public platform with an educationist, who had won awards for social innovation in the field of education for disadvantaged minorities. I was looking forward to what she had to say.

I was soon in a towering rage, however. She uttered some of the most foolish cliches of radical education theory, now about 40 years old - theories that I had fondly thought were now behind us, such as the harmful effects upon the children of disadvantaged ethnic groups or families of an emphasis on education as learning, with particular reference to the damage done to their self-esteem by the dominant culture’s fetish about reading and writing.

--

This was all said with such smugness, with such an expression of beatific complacency and self-content, that I wanted to get up and strangle the innovator there and then. As a believer in the necessity of self-expression, she would no doubt have understood.

In Guillotines I wrote:

We've not had much success (at defeating bad ideas) because we're not "true believers." (M)ost of those of us who recognize the flawed ideology of the Left have to earn a living. The efforts we make in fighting them are on or own time and on our own dime. The Left is getting paid to evangelize, often on our tax dollars. We shine the light, but when it passes they come back out and keep on going. It's tiring, soul-sapping, and we're overwhelmed by the media and education vectors.

--

When (or if) the Left finally achieves unbridled control, it will continue in its cognitive dissonance, and keep turning up the power until guillotines are erected in public squares or mass starvation is seen again as a regrettable but necessary step towards Utopia.

Dalrymple:

Halfway through my own reply, however, I suddenly became bored. Why do I spend so much time arguing against such obvious rubbish, which should be both self-refuting and auto-satirizing the moment someone utters it? Why not just go and read a good book?

The problem is that nonsense can and does go by default. It wins the argument by sheer persistence, by inexhaustible re-iteration, by staying at the meeting when everyone else has gone home, by monomania, by boring people into submission and indifference. And the reward of monomania? Power.

It's nice to know that we're still on the same frequency, though I too am getting to the point where the idea of physical violence as a solution is getting to be less and less abhorrent.

Quote of the Day.

From Ian Hamet:

Once, we were a nation of competence. We’ve become, I’m afraid, a nation of bureaucrats, middle-managers, and video game obsessives, with a few competent people holding it all together.

Awakenings III.

Even the New York Times seems to get it (though I'm sure they'll forget very quickly):

Police and Owners Begin to Challenge Looters

The looters "are starting to get closer to heavily populated areas," Mayor C. Ray Nagin told The Associated Press, "hotels, hospitals, and we're going to stop it right now."

Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said she was "furious" about the looting.

"What angers me the most is disasters tend to bring out the best in everybody, and that's what we expected to see," Ms. Blanco said at a news conference. "Instead, it brought out the worst."

All sizes and types of stores, from Wal-Mart to the Rite Aid to the St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop, turned into bazaars of free merchandise.

Some frightened homeowners took security into their own hands.

John Carolan was sitting on his porch in the thick, humid darkness just before midnight Tuesday when three or four young men, one with a knife and another with a machete, stopped in front of his fence and pointed to the generator humming in the front yard, he said.

One said, "We want that generator," he recalled.

"I fired a couple of rounds over their heads with a .357 Magnum," Mr. Carolan recounted Wednesday. "They scattered."

He smiled and added, "You've heard of law west of the Pecos. This is law west of Canal Street."

Read the whole thing.

Awakenings II.

Via Mike at Feces Flinging Monkey from NOLA.com:

Managers at the Covenant Home nursing center were prepared to cope with power outages and supply shortages following Hurricane Katrina. They weren't ready for looters.

The nursing home lost its bus after the driver surrendered it to carjackers. Groups of people then drove by the center, shouting to residents, "Get out!"

On Wednesday, 80 residents, most of them in wheelchairs, were evacuated to other nursing homes in the state.

"We had excellent plans. We had enough food for 10 days," said Peggy Hoffman, the home's executive director. "Now we'll have to equip our department heads with guns and teach them how to shoot."

Looters around New Orleans spent another day Wednesday threatening survivors and ransacking stores. Some were desperate for food — others just wanted beer and TVs.

Mike's got some excellent advice, too.

Awakenings.

Reader Gunther sent me a link to this Scaggsville post. Money quotes:

No more excuses. No more waiting. Arming myself to protect my family, friends and possessions is now my new paramount concern.

--

I will not be an unarmed victim. This is the second time I’ve seen in 10 years (LA early 90’s) Americans, devoid of direct police authority, behaving in a manner unbefitting of members of a western civilization.

--

I will be ready if it happens to me. I will not loose(sic) everything I have because I relied on someone else for either protection or to respect our shared social contract. Armed response is an option I will have.

I will not go down whimpering.

I won't beg for what's mine.

Emphasis in original. And he's got really good taste in armaments, too.

Welcome aboard.

Thanks for the tip, Gunther. Good post.

Please Give.

As I write this, I'm waiting for the Salvation Army's secure server page to load so that I can donate toward disaster relief. I'm taking the slow loading as a good sign that their servers are overloaded by other people doing what I'm attempting. For reasons I won't get into, I'm not a big fan of the Red Cross (as always, YMMV) so I want to give to organizations that I believe are trustworthy and will use the money well. The Salvation Army seems to me a good one, but by all means pick your own. They are myriad.

(Whoops! Server timed out. Gotta try again...)

If you've been near a radio or TV or on the web in the last couple of days, I know you know that tens of thousands of families are now homeless, jobless, and quite probably possess only that which they can physically carry. These aren't people in some third-world country on the other side of the planet, these are our fellow citizens (who probably dug into their own pockets for the victims of the tsunami just a few months ago.) These people need our help. They've got next to nothing. Anything helps. There's a couple hundred million of us. No need to give 'till it hurts.

Just give 'till it twinges a bit.

(Server timed out again. Guess I'll try the old-fashioned way. I'll use the telephone.)

UPDATE: Phone lines were overloaded, too. Finally got through via internet.

UPDATE, 9/1: James Lileks today:

FEMA’s list of charities is here. Note anything about what sort of organizations are doing the hard work? I keep looking for the Objectivist Mutual Aid Society, but it never pops up.

Of course not. The free market is supposed to take care of all that. The root of all evil is altruism, you know. See what I mean about James's sense of humor?

Sweet. Bleeding. Jeebus.

Pseudo-anonymous commenter "a new mexican" links to this AP story, and the commentary attached:

Wal-Mart shooting was first under concealed carry permit

A fatal shooting at an Albuquerque Wal-Mart last week was the state's first by someone with a concealed-carry gun permit, authorities said.

Police said Felix Vigil was attacking his ex-wife with a knife near the store's deli counter where she worked when an armed customer intervened and shot him. The woman, Joyce Cordova, was treated for multiple stab wounds and later released from an Albuquerque hospital.

The armed customer, 72-year-old Due Moore, was interviewed after the shooting last Thursday and released.

Police spokeswoman Officer Trish Hoffman said it appeared the shooting was justified. However, it will be up to the district attorney to decide whether Moore, a volunteer with the police department's cold case unit, will be prosecuted.

Moore could not be reached for comment.

New Mexico allows citizens age 21 and over to carry concealed weapons if they complete firearms training and pass national and local criminal background checks.

Moore's fatal shot was the first fired by someone with a permit, according to state Department of Public Safety spokesman Peter Olson. The state has issued more than 3,100 permits since the gun law went into effect Jan. 1, 2004.

Moore took a class to get his permit just 13 days after the law went into effect, said Cody Patton, a manager at Calibre's National Shooters Sports Center in Albuquerque. That's where Moore was certified.

"He was the fourth person ever to sign up for a permit," Patton said. "I've now done more than 300 of them."

Patton said there has been a fair amount of interest in concealed-carry permits at his range _ in particular during the first four months after the law passed.

I'm not going to quote all (at present) 61 comments, just the two that illustrate just how far out there the anti-gun people can be. First, from "Rita Serrano":

What a bunch of gun happy loons. Just what we don't need is kooks carrying guns shooting and killing other nuts in the deli of the grocery store.

The shooting may have been justified but not killing the man because under the law, the penalty for stabbing your ex-wife is not death.

There's someone who's a member of the "reality based community." Rita? It's called "lethal force" for a reason. And the proper response to lethal force, is (surprise!) lethal force!

But this one really pushes my buttons. Meet Jay Raymond, stereotypical GFW:

Moore should be charged if only for lawmakers to see that their idea of adequate self defense can quickly move to vigilantism when the gun holder's perception allows zero legal and moral responsibility.

Obviously Mr. Raymond is not too familiar with a dictionary. "Vigilantism" is not what Mr. Moore exhibited. The legitimate use of force in the immediate defense of self or others is not limited to law officers.

Absolutely no one here knows squat as to whether an innocent life was saved or not. Turns out, an innocent life was not saved (as defined under the law). Whether threatening with a knife (not a capital offense) or with a cannon . . . when someone without adequate police training chooses to shoot to kill (as opposed to talking down or disabling), or disregards law enforcement and statutory protocols delivered into law since the days of Wyatt Erp, we are watching society break down.

Err, what? "An innocent life was not saved?" What, Vigil was just kidding when he was stabbing his ex-wife? That's not "threatening", that's attacking. And the use of lethal force in the defense of another is perfectly legal - whether you're a cop or Joe Average. Everyone was supposed to wait until the cops showed up? Kitty Genovese all over again? Thank you, no.

And, of course, we get the obligatory "adequate police training" canard - from someone who has probably never pulled a trigger in his entire life, and believes that cops shoot to "disable." Perhaps he missed the recent incidents in which police officers fired ridiculous amounts of ammo - at least 103 rounds in Pittsburg, over 70 rounds in San Antonio, 120 rounds fired in Los Angeles. Yes, all those shots were fired to disable, don'tcha know? And every one was fired by a highly-trained police officer. And those are just the most recent examples. I've got more. This is the model GFW who believes that only people who draw a government paycheck can be trusted with a firearm. I've never understood that mentality.

But wait! There's more! (Isn't there always...)

That the egos of some are so swollen from Yosimite Sam Syndrome to even dare suggest that this form of vigilantism in any way protects the whole of society or should even be tolerated for gun licensees who's responsibility, within obtaining the permit, should be limited to SELF DEFENSE ONLY, bespeaks not only arrogance, but lunacy.

Mr. Raymond expands on his "only government employees are qualified" mantra here, since I'm certain that he'd be A-OK if an officer shot someone who was attacking him. But what really waxes my ass is his insistence that coming to the aid of another is vigilantism. Arrogance? Thy name is Jay Raymond.

This law stinks to start with, but what moron shoots to kill when a shot into the ceiling, or failing that, a shot to the foot would have likely stopped this situation.

"This law" is the same law now in force in what, 43 of our 50 states? But it offends Mr. Raymond. Too bad.

No, Mr. Raymond. You shoot to stop. If you have to pull your gun and fire, then lethal force must be justified. Shooting into the ceiling? What if it ricochets off of a structural member and strikes an innocent? Shoot for a foot? Can you hit a small moving target under stress? Even if you hit it, a foot won't stop the round. Where does that bullet go? No. You shoot for center of mass, just like you practice. Two to the chest, assess, and if necessary try for one to the head. Be aware of what's behind your target, and watch the front sight. And keep shooting until you're empty, or the threat is over.

Only morons fire warning shots or shoot to wound.

Shoot to stop, not to kill. If he dies, he dies. It was his choice to start the attack, your duty to end it. Not vigilantism, Mr. Raymond, duty. The duty of a citizen. A duty you not only shirk, but denigrate.

Moore may have had itchy finger, based on his certification timeline and disregard of logic in his approach to killing this guy. What if his own sanity and judgment is in question? The certification doesn't allow for professional psychological assessment (which should be mandatory), but merely relies on criminal records of past to determine whether "Bubba" moves to the training level.

From the fingertips of someone who most probably has a pathological fear of weapons. The "itchy trigger finger" meme. How original. Yes, everyone who carries a handgun for defense is just itching to kill. We really look forward to all that time spent with the police, our lawyer, the nearly inevitable civil lawsuit that will cost thousands. Yup. Each and every one of us is just a Travis Bickel underneath it all.

Hairless turbo-monkeys . . . with guns and poorly written laws. Perfect!

You little boys wanna play cowboy . . . you should be made to jump through every assessment hoop possible and then sign a statement of financial responsibility so that when you do screw up (and Moore did), you have to pay all legal costs and if guilty of interference and murder, sit in jail while paying compensation to the family of the deceased . . . so that the taxpayer doesn't get stuck with the expense from your form of penile enlargement.

Ah, and no tirade can be complete without the obligatory reference to sexual organ inadequacy!

Repeat after me, Mr. Raymond: Freud said that fear of weapons was a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity. And you seem a prime candidate for some couch time.

The other posters do a good job whacking these idiots with the ClueBat™, and I'm proud to see them, but people like this really chap my hide.

How can one go through life and be this disconnected from reality?

UPDATE, 8/31: Publicola does whack-a-troll at extended length (he reminds me of me!) to some hoplophobe from a comment at Annika's Journal.

Alex said, "This entire blog is written to demean, make fun of, belittle and generally harass those who don't agree with you." To which I replied, "Nope. It's written to illuminate, expose, correct and educate. The demeaning, belittling, and harassing is just an extra added side benefit." This is what it looks like when people who are tired of the idiocy and bigotry of the gun-control movement stand up for the truth and our rights.

Get used to it, because we're not going to stay silent any more. And we're recruiting.

Quote of the Week:

Eric S. Raymond is posting again:

Of course, one could argue that Big Media is simply taking its cue from the Democratic Party. (Yes, I know one of those is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the other, I just can’t keep straight which one is on top.) If Republicans are beating the stuffings out of you in every election, it couldn’t be because you have no program beyond screaming “George Bush is eeeeevil!” and licking the anus of the Designated Victim Group Of The Week.

Some have a way with words, others not have way.