Another Quote to Think Upon

The quote intended in the title is the last one in this post. Before that, however, I want to post this excerpt from The Right to Keep and Bear Arms: Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the United States, published February 1982. Warning: The excerpt is long, but I urge you to slow down and read every word:

Enforcement of the 1968 (Omnibus Crime and Safe Streets) Act was delegated to the Department of the Treasury, which had been responsible for enforcing the earlier gun legislation. This responsibility was in turn given to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division of the Internal Revenue Service. This division had traditionally devoted itself to the pursuit of illegal producers of alcohol; at the time of enactment of the Gun Control Act, only 8.3 percent of its arrests were for firearms violations. Following enactment of the Gun Control Act the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division was retitled the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division of the IRS. By July, 1972 it had nearly doubled in size and became a complete Treasury bureau under the name of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The mid-1970's saw rapid increases in sugar prices, and these in turn drove the bulk of the "moonshiners" out of business. Over 15,000 illegal distilleries had been raided in 1956; but by 1976 this had fallen to a mere 609. The BATF thus began to devote the bulk of its efforts to the area of firearms law enforcement.

Complaint regarding the techniques used by the Bureau in an effort to generate firearms cases led to hearings before the Subcommittee on Treasury, Post Office, and General Appropriations of the Senate Appropriations Committee in July 1979 and April 1980, and before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee in October 1980. At these hearings evidence was received from various citizens who had been charged by BATF, from experts who had studied the BATF, and from officials of the Bureau itself.

Based upon these hearings, it is apparent that enforcement tactics made possible by current federal firearms laws are constitutionally, legally, and practically reprehensible. Although Congress adopted the Gun Control Act with the primary object of limiting access of felons and high-risk groups to firearms, the overbreadth of the law has led to neglect of precisely this area of enforcement. For example the Subcommittee on the Constitution received correspondence from two members of the Illinois Judiciary, dated in 1980, indicating that they had been totally unable to persuade BATF to accept cases against felons who were in possession of firearms including sawed-off shotguns. The Bureau's own figures demonstrate that in recent years the percentage of its arrests devoted to felons in possession and persons knowingly selling to them have dropped from 14 percent down to 10 percent of their firearms cases. To be sure, genuine criminals are sometimes prosecuted under other sections of the law. Yet, subsequent to these hearings, BATF stated that 55 percent of its gun law prosecutions overall involve persons with no record of a felony conviction, and a third involve citizens with no prior police contact at all.

The Subcommittee received evidence that the BATF has primarily devoted its firearms enforcement efforts to the apprehension, upon technical malum prohibitum charges, of individuals who lack all criminal intent and knowledge. Agents anxious to generate an impressive arrest and gun confiscation quota have repeatedly enticed gun collectors into making a small number of sales — often as few as four — from their personal collections. Although each of the sales was completely legal under state and federal law, the agents then charged the collector with having "engaged in the business" of dealing in guns without the required license. Since existing law permits a felony conviction upon these charges even where the individual has no criminal knowledge or intent numerous collectors have been ruined by a felony record carrying a potential sentence of five years in federal prison. Even in cases where the collectors secured acquittal, or grand juries failed to indict, or prosecutors refused to file criminal charges, agents of the Bureau have generally confiscated the entire collection of the potential defendant upon the ground that he intended to use it in that violation of the law. In several cases, the agents have refused to return the collection even after acquittal by jury.

The defendant, under existing law is not entitled to an award of attorney's fees, therefore, should he secure return of his collection, an individual who has already spent thousands of dollars establishing his innocence of the criminal charges is required to spend thousands more to civilly prove his innocence of the same acts, without hope of securing any redress. This of course, has given the enforcing agency enormous bargaining power in refusing to return confiscated firearms. Evidence received by the Subcommittee related the confiscation of a shotgun valued at $7,000. Even the Bureau's own valuations indicate that the value of firearms confiscated by their agents is over twice the value which the Bureau has claimed is typical of "street guns" used in crime. In recent months, the average value has increased rather than decreased, indicating that the reforms announced by the Bureau have not in fact redirected their agents away from collector's items and toward guns used in crime.

The Subcommittee on the Constitution has also obtained evidence of a variety of other misdirected conduct by agents and supervisors of the Bureau. In several cases, the Bureau has sought conviction for supposed technical violations based upon policies and interpretations of law which the Bureau had not published in the Federal Register, as required by 5 U.S.C. Sec 552. For instance, beginning in 1975, Bureau officials apparently reached a judgment that a dealer who sells to a legitimate purchaser may nonetheless be subject to prosecution or license revocation if he knows that that individual intends to transfer the firearm to a nonresident or other unqualified purchaser. This position was never published in the Federal Register and is indeed contrary to indications which Bureau officials had given Congress, that such sales were not in violation of existing law. Moreover, BATF had informed dealers that an adult purchaser could legally buy for a minor, barred by his age from purchasing a gun on his own. BATF made no effort to suggest that this was applicable only where the barrier was one of age. Rather than informing the dealers of this distinction, Bureau agents set out to produce mass arrests upon these "straw man" sale charges, sending out undercover agents to entice dealers into transfers of this type. The first major use of these charges, in South Carolina in 1975, led to 37 dealers being driven from business, many convicted on felony charges. When one of the judges informed Bureau officials that he felt dealers had not been fairly treated and given information of the policies they were expected to follow, and refused to permit further prosecutions until they were informed, Bureau officials were careful to inform only the dealers in that one state and even then complained in internal memoranda that this was interfering with the creation of the cases. When BATF was later requested to place a warning to dealers on the front of the Form 4473, which each dealer executes when a sale is made, it instead chose to place the warning in fine print upon the back of the form, thus further concealing it from the dealer's sight.

The Constitution Subcommittee also received evidence that the Bureau has formulated a requirement, of which dealers were not informed that requires a dealer to keep official records of sales even from his private collection. BATF has gone farther than merely failing to publish this requirement. At one point, even as it was prosecuting a dealer on the charge (admitting that he had no criminal intent), the Director of the Bureau wrote Senator S. I. Hayakawa to indicate that there was no such legal requirement and it was completely lawful for a dealer to sell from his collection without recording it. Since that date, the Director of the Bureau has stated that that is not the Bureau's position and that such sales are completely illegal; after making that statement, however, he was quoted in an interview for a magazine read primarily by licensed firearms dealers as stating that such sales were in fact legal and permitted by the Bureau. In these and similar areas, the Bureau has violated not only the dictates of common sense, but of 5 U.S.C. Sec 552, which was intended to prevent "secret lawmaking" by administrative bodies.

These practices, amply documented in hearings before this Subcommittee, leave little doubt that the Bureau has disregarded rights guaranteed by the constitution and laws of the United States.

It has trampled upon the second amendment by chilling exercise of the right to keep and bear arms by law-abiding citizens.

It has offended the fourth amendment by unreasonably searching and seizing private property.

It has ignored the Fifth Amendment by taking private property without just compensation and by entrapping honest citizens without regard for their right to due process of law.

The rebuttal presented to the Subcommittee by the Bureau was utterly unconvincing. Richard Davis, speaking on behalf of the Treasury Department, asserted vaguely that the Bureau's priorities were aimed at prosecuting willful violators, particularly felons illegally in possession, and at confiscating only guns actually likely to be used in crime. He also asserted that the Bureau has recently made great strides toward achieving these priorities. No documentation was offered for either of these assertions. In hearings before BATF's Appropriations Subcommittee, however, expert evidence was submitted establishing that approximately 75 percent of BATF gun prosecutions were aimed at ordinary citizens who had neither criminal intent nor knowledge, but were enticed by agents into unknowing technical violations. (In one case, in fact, the individual was being prosecuted for an act which the Bureau's acting director had stated was perfectly lawful.) In those hearings, moreover, BATF conceded that in fact (1) only 9.8 percent of their firearm arrests were brought on felons in illicit possession charges; (2) the average value of guns seized was $116, whereas BATF had claimed that "crime guns" were priced at less than half that figure; (3) in the months following the announcement of their new "priorities", the percentage of gun prosecutions aimed at felons had in fact fallen by a third, and the value of confiscated guns had risen. All this indicates that the Bureau's vague claims, both of focus upon gun-using criminals and of recent reforms, are empty words.

Remember, that was an official publication of the United States Senate from 1982. I didn't emphasize anything, but that is quite strong language from a group of sitting Senators. It was the hearings referred to in this report that prompted Representative John Dingell (D-MI) to say in 1991, on camera:

"If I were to select a jackbooted group of fascists who are perhaps as large a danger to American society as I could pick today, I would pick BATF - They are a shame and a disgrace to our country."

And in 1995 in Congress:

The consequences of the behavior of the BATF in these kinds of cases is that they are not trusted. They are detested, and I have described them properly as jackbooted American fascists. They have shown no concern over the rights of ordinary citizens or their property. They intrude without the slightest regard or concern.

All of that was a lead-in to this, found at Extranos Alley:

Jackie Brown, one of the final witnesses at the Ruby Ridge hearings, spoke for many of us when she said "As one whose father fought in World War Two, who had relatives killed in every war this country has fought, it's terrible to wake up one morning and realize I no longer trust this government. No-no notes in files and promotions and paid vacations are not justice."

Happy Tax Day.

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

They're obviously filling the news cycle as much as they can. If a stickup artist wings two people at a 7-11, it's going to get national airtime as a mass shooting, and if someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder smokes a gun barrel, it'll be trumpeted in the headlines as a multiple homicide. They are not going to stop the constant barrage until they get what they want, or are distracted by something shiny, like a celebrity wedding. - Tam, Awwww...

Extraordinary?

Extraordinary?

Glenn linked to this story with this comment:

I’M PRETTY SURE THAT THIS MEXICAN ARSENAL didn’t come from an American gun shop.

The "anti-aircraft gun" is a Browning M1919 on a tripod - totally unsuitable for use as an "anti-aircraft gun." For that, it would need to be on a pintle mount. There appears to be a 37mm grenade launcher, an AR15 with a long, heavy stainless barrel of the type favored by varmint shooters for long-range accuracy, two bolt-action hunting rifles, and an AK-47-pattern rifle with quite the collection of magazines for it. Can't tell if the AR or the AK are full-auto, but with that barrel I strongly doubt the AR has a rock-n-roll setting.

So, M1919 and grenade launcher aside, you could buy the other four guns in most gun shops here.

Or on a street corner in Manchester, England for that matter.

What's so extraordinary?

And Now for Something Completely Different . . .

Engineer humor. (Don't groan!)

One of the webcomics I read regularly is Hunter Cressal's Vexxarr. I won't even try to explain the premise, you don't need it to appreciate these cartoons, you just need to know an engineer. And if RobertaX doesn't read this strip, I'll be amazed!










And, of course there's always Dilbert:




I'm pretty sure that's how I ended up married . . .

Now THIS is Reasoned Discourse™!

Now THIS is Reasoned Discourse™!

James did indeed print my reply to him (see the post below), and responded.

And then closed his comments.

Here's what I would have left, if he was still allowing comments:

". . . my stated suspicions at the outset were correct – that your honeyed words in challenging me to a debate were bogus, and that you are not remotely interested in meaningful dialogue . . . ."

Except, James, I never even suggested that we were going to be engaged in "meaningful dialogue" - I don't know where you even got that idea. I was quite clear on the fact that I HAD NO ILLUSIONS THAT I WOULD CHANGE YOUR MIND, NOR YOU MINE:

I did not engage you in Rachel's comment thread because I came to it too late, but I now invite you to actually debate this topic. I suggest that the forum for this debate be our two blogs. We can trade posts, or I'll be more than happy to give you guest posting privileges at my blog.

I'm quite serious. And I promise that you will learn things you didn't previously know. I don't expect to change your mind, but I do predict that you will be made uncomfortable by what you learn.

--

No, James, it's not about "winning" or "losing," it's about the philosophy. As I said above, I don't expect to change your mind, nor you mine. What I want to do is get the discussion out there where "fence-sitters" can find it.

You seem like the type capable of defending his position, and (given your performance at Rachel's) willing to.

You have no idea how rare that is. On my side of the fence we have a running joke about "reasoned discourse" - it's what your side does here on the internet generally when confronted with facts and reasoned arguments. They close their comments and often delete them. I don't think you'd do that.

(Emphasis added.) Obviously I was wrong about the "closing comments" part, and we've yet to see about deletion, but I can honestly say that you you totally mischaracterized what I promised, now you're all butt-hurt and your taking your ball and going home. As I said:

I can guarantee you that I won't quit first!

So much for defending his philosophy.

Almost, Billy,Almost

Billy Beck weighs in on a bit broader front after James Rummel posted his The Debate Would Be Over if the Other Side was Rational piece yesterday. Says Billy:

Consider the subject header, taken from Rummel. Now, extend the logic of it to democracy:

The running political fight would be unnecessary -- "over" -- if the other side were rational.

Billy, when it comes to politics, I'd be happy (or at least happier) if either "side" was rational.

But one is now Statist, and the other is Statist Lite. Somewhere along the way, I suspect not long after the Founding, the rational (which our Founders most definitely were) started getting replaced by people with (obviously) less and less attachment to the real world. The replacement process (which reminds me very much of the plot of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers) is essentially complete.

UPDATE: I'm sorry. I just realized my error. For Billy "the other side" is everyone who still thinks voting can accomplish anything. I'm slow on the uptake this morning, obviously. Theirritablearchitect commented:

I really like Billy, and always enjoy reading his take on things. I agree with him on almost everything, including his point, here, but in a philosophical sense only. His position can only be, if and when the masses (and I'd have to include everyone in this mass) gets enlightened about the prospects of freedom. Until then (never), people will still flock to the voting booth, in an effort to afford themselves the self-satisfaction of forcing others, and you, to live by their own standards, through the mechanics of gummint. Freedom? The statists just can't have that.

Until we can get the morons to wake up, the rest of us are just pissing into the wind, don't you think?

I withdraw my objection. From Billy's perspective, he's exactly right.

I Could Not Have Begged for a Better Opponent

I Could Not Have Begged for a Better Opponent

Joe Huffman emailed me early this morning:

You have to read this.

My take is here.

Here's the comment that so flummoxed Joe:

The difference in this debate is that I have been arguing on the basis of what I believe to be true, and doing my best to explain why I believe it. Kevin, by way of contrast, claims to be able to literally ‘prove’ his case beyond any doubt whatsoever by recourse to detailed statistical data. To underline the point, he even posed the extraordinarily conceited (some would say delusional) question "why isn’t being right good enough for us?"! That’s why ‘correlation, causation and all that’ are a far greater problem for him than they are for me – a ‘reasonable doubt’ does tend to counteract the assertion that something has been literally ‘proved’.

My own view (and note that I don’t claim to be able to prove it) is that Brazil and Mexico are not more like the UK largely for one very simple reason – a greater rate of poverty.

By all means, please do read all the way to the end of the comment thread.

Here's what I just left in James' comment moderation pile:

Thank you so much James, for being such a STERLING stereotype for your side:

"The difference in this debate is that I have been arguing on the basis of what I believe to be true, and doing my best to explain why I believe it. Kevin, by way of contrast, claims to be able to literally ‘prove’ his case beyond any doubt whatsoever by recourse to detailed statistical data."

In other words, "My mind is made up. You can't confuse me with facts!"

I happen to be very, very busy this week, but I hope to have another rebuttal post up on or by Saturday, again using your own words and "detailed statistical data," plus a whole lot of comparitive examples.

I could not have begged for a better opponent.

I have to take enjoyment out of this. The only other option would be to tear my hair out from frustration!

See today's Quote of the Day, too. It makes much clear.

Your Moment of Zen

Your Moment of Zen

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

The first thing a conservative notices about leftists is how afraid they are. Any conversation with them soon, no immediately, leads to something they fear, and they fear almost everything. They fear food, tobacco, the sun, clothing, cars, open discussion, life, death, etc. Because of many of these deep fears it is not surprising that they are passionately interested in making life 'safe.' Life must be renewed. If something incidental, such as this freedom or that freedom, must be given up in order for life to be 'safer,' than so be it. (Perhaps this makes perfect sense because when someone is consumed by fear he is in effect imprisoned. Accordingly, the meaning of freedom changes.) -- Ed Detrixhe

Thanks to commenter Windrider for that one. And there's this corollary:

Family member Ed Detrixhe points out that when you overload the circuits on your computer the screen goes blank. Likewise, when you confront a hoplophobe with reasoned argument, his mind goes blank. We have so little contact with those other people that it is sometimes hard for us to understand that they exist - but they do. The media, the megalopolis and academia are lousy with them. Reasoned argument is entirely on our side, but sometimes it is hard to find anyone to reason with. That blank screen is hardly an interesting antagonist. - Jeff Cooper, Cooper's Commentaries, Vol. 9, No. 10, September 11, 2001

Oh, I Will SO Be Buying This Book

Oh, I Will SO Be Buying This Book

"And that one?" I pointed to a man up to his chin in boiling blood. He was screaming in agony so his face was distorted, but he looked Oriental.

"New one," Billy said. "Seung, something like that. Went out and shot a bunch of people in the college he was at. Allen, it puzzles me that a man can shoot thirty-two full-grown men and women before the sheriff's men gun him down. You're more his time, maybe you can tell me. Why didn't someone just shoot the son of a bitch?"

I scratched my head. Billy's viewpoint seemed skewed, alien.

"Five of them were teachers," Billy said. "They had to protect their kids. How could they not be armed? It's as if someone has been taking away their guns." He saw my puzzlement. "Oh, well. I don't know how long he'll be out that deep, but he needs watchin'. Keeps trying to get ashore." - Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Escape from Hell

Excerpt stolen shamelessly from From the Barrel of a Gun.

My boss and I talked for a good half-hour before work this morning about books. He'd brought me S.M. Stirling's In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, since he'd just finished it and knew I'd recently read The Sky People. As it turns out, our tastes in fiction are almost identical, though he tends to enjoy the horror genre more than I do. Escape from Hell was one book we both mentioned we planned on reading. On his recommendation I'm going to be picking up some C.S. Friedman soon, too.

More Reasoned Discourse™

In reference to the recent debate between Mr. James Kelley and various and sundry members of the RKBA contingent, Joe Huffman left this in a comment here:

Did you notice that James says he will not read my post and that he accuses us of both of "angry/emotional reactions"?

And that, apparently because of me he now says, "I had no intention of doing this, but as someone has just penned a blog post with a title that takes my name in vain, I feel I now have no option but to take the precaution of reintroducing full comment moderation for the time being. I apologise for doing so, because to be fair no-one has actually over-stepped the mark yet."

Interesting. Without even reading my post, but because of it, he moderates the comments on his blog.

Joe is referring to this comment:

To be honest, Joe, I'm not planning to follow your link - but on the plus side that at least means you don't need to worry about me penning a counter-post entitled 'Why Joe Huffman is So Offensive to Me'. It's interesting that Kevin suggested on his blog that I was guilty of resorting to the typical emotional arguments of my side of the argument (implying that he by way of contrast relied solely on hard-headed logic). And yet we've now seen clear-cut examples of angry/emotional reactions from both Kevin and Joe. And when someone reacts to a calm debating point with such startling emotion, I think it's always worth looking beneath the words to see what it is that's really making the person so uncomfortable. In the case of Kevin's reaction to my point about Thomas Hamilton, I don't think we need to look very far - it clearly hit a nerve because the logic of my argument is inescapable. Everything we know about Hamilton's character suggests that if he hadn't been able to obtain guns legally, he wouldn't have obtained them at all. Allowing Hamilton the right to own handguns therefore directly deprived more than a dozen young children of their right to life. Repeating over and over again that the object in Hamilton's hand made no difference to the outcome (only the killer’s murderous intent counted) is a desperate last line of defence and a poor one - and I'd guess Kevin's discomfort in having to rely on it is as good an explanation as any for his resort to emotion. He knows in his heart of hearts that Hamilton simply would never have succeeded in killing as many as he did with virtually any other realistic choice of weapon at his disposal.

The other point at which Kevin substituted logic with emotion was on his own blog post, with his shameless juxtaposition of a photo showing hideous injuries with the words "after all, it's just 'bumps and bruises,' right?". The equivalent of that debating tactic for me would have been to show a photo of one of the Dunblane victims with a caption reading "was my right to life really so much less important than your right to own a luxury item - one that you described yourself as an 'inanimate object'?" I haven't felt the need to debase my argument with that kind of tactic - others can draw their own conclusions from the fact that you have felt such a need.

Other matters - Kevin, your response to my 'correlation is not causation' point was interesting, but it raised more questions than it answered. You assert that since the UK murder rate has not gone down since the handgun ban, this constitutes proof that the ban has not protected the public - quite simply this is woolly thinking. In order to say you have 'proved' that, you would have had to demonstrate that the murder rate would not now be even higher than it currently is had the ban not been implemented. At what stage have you even come close to demonstrating that? This idea that the only test that counts is whether the murder rate goes up or down in absolute terms following a change in the law is one you've conveniently conjured out of the air, and it has no rational basis whatosever. I could just as easily - and I did the other day - conjure up my own test that says any lowering of murder rates following the introduction of 'conceal/carry' laws is meaningless unless it reduces the murder rate to below that seen in a comparable society that had fewer guns in circulation in the first place. (And incidentally, any of your attempts to draw conclusions from apparent localised drops in crime rates following a liberalisation of gun laws in the US also very clearly falls foul of the 'correlation is not causation' principle – I don't see how you can now credibly dispute that.)

On the Alun Michael quote - any reasonable person would understand that he was talking about protecting the public specifically from violence caused by handguns. Again, how have you proved that the ban has failed to do achieve this? Small hint - you haven't. The overall murder rate is irrelevant (as it includes non-gun-related deaths), and highlighting that there are more guns around than there were before 1996 doesn't even begin to do the trick, because as I've already pointed out there might now be even more illegal weapons in circulation had the ban not been implemented. You've already pointed out that I have no evidence this is the case - so I'm now waiting with baited breath for your hard evidence this is NOT the case, which is the minimum that would be required to substantiate your claim that Alun Michael's statement has been 'proved' wrong.

"Things have changed a great deal in Britain since the Tottenham Outrage 100 years ago, and not, to American eyes, for the better. A lot of us have started referring to that space on the other side of the pond as where 'Great Britain used to be.'"

It's ironic that you charged me with being a stereotype in the arguments I deployed, because when you used the words I’ve just quoted it was at that point you revealed yourself to be a walking, breathing stereotype of your 'type' of right-wing American. Did you actually imagine I or others would never have encountered that particular cliché before? As a Scottish nationalist I've got no special illusions about the 'greatness' of Britain past or present - but in hankering after (for instance) Britain's Churchillian past you're missing an aspect of the British people's true 'greatness' in times gone by that I suspect wouldn't be quite so much to your taste. For during Churchill's wartime tenure as PM, the electorate were just biding their time to replace him with a red-blooded socialist government that would build the welfare state and a National Health Service free at the point of need. And if you want me to go further back, I can – it’s now more than 100 years since the Liberal landslide that laid the initial foundations of the welfare state, and that was accompanied by the first massive influx of socialist members of parliament. So it’s not only your assessment of Britain's present that's distinctly faulty, it's your assessment of our past.

Finally, I had no intention of doing this, but as someone has just penned a blog post with a title that takes my name in vain, I feel I now have no option but to take the precaution of reintroducing full comment moderation for the time being. I apologise for doing so, because to be fair no-one has actually over-stepped the mark yet.

I left this in reply:

"Full comment moderation" due to something someone posted somewhere else.

As to stereotypes, you just fulfilled the last one: You are now practicing what we call "Reasoned Discourse™".

I'm undecided on whether to dissect this comment in all its circular-logical glory - I am tempted - but I will most definitely put a link to it on my blog, along with a copy of this comment, since I believe it probably won't escape your "full comment moderation."

We'll see if he "allows" it.

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

As faux propaganda I am distressed that it should be considered believable. When you so easily believe something like that, you are that much less removed from being another Markadelphia. - juris_imprudent in a comment to But What if Your Loyalty is to the Constitution?

I deserved that. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

What They Think of the Rest of Us

What They Think of the Rest of Us

(Via Glenn, of course.) Moe Lane has a piece of video that speaks for itself, but he has some additional commentary anyway. So do his readers. Best one so far:

You are not a good citizen unless you think and do exactly like me.

And that means making sure that no one does anything I disapprove of.

The poster behind the woman using a megaphone to talk to 20 people says

Nationalize
Reorganize
Decentralize

Uh, how do you Nationalize then Decentralize? Logic fails these people, doesn't it?

Oh, right . . . (See post below.)

If the Other Side was Rational, the Debate Would be Over

If the Other Side was Rational, the Debate Would be Over

That title is a slightly re-worded version of a post by James Rummel, referencing Of That, I Have No Doubt. I laughed initially, but really, it's true. The Other Side's irrationality can be infuriating.

Joe Huffman is one who has been so affected. He makes a very strong case, which, of course, is water off a duck's back to those committed to a philosophy that cannot be wrong!

But Joe delivers the killing stroke with his last line:

His "cornerstone of personal freedom" is the basis for the deaths of tens of millions of people and he doesn’t see the logical inconsistency or the impossibility of that being a functional basis for a civil society.

Go. Read.

"26 filing cabinets of gun control data"

"26 filing cabinets of gun control data"

This site will bear watching: Extranos Alley. From this post:

My friends and I have examined every American gun control law, and every law that permits, allows, encourages, or requires citizens to own guns. All 22,309 of them. On the way, we gathered 26 four drawer filing cabinets of information on crime reporting, crime statistics based on crime reporting, and a host of other things. At the end, I intend to bring it all together and explain why I describe gun control advocates in just two words and a prefix. Pro crime activists.

And this post:

I have mentioned digitizing my files on guns and gun controls. It's going to take a while. Weighing the papers in what we decided was a typical file drawer, it seems there are seven reams per drawer, more or less. There are 104 drawers, total, so I probably have 400,000 or so pages to scan. Many of those pages are "duplex" printed on front and back. And then there are the many newspaper clippings. At 500 pages on a good day, none on a bad one, it's going to take a while.

I'd imagine. But what a treasure-trove! I look forward to it. And if he's willing to index it all and burn it to DVDs, I'd probably be willing to buy a copy when he's done.

But What if Your Loyalty is to the Constitution?

DISCLAIMER: Until proven otherwise, I'm going to go with reader juris_imprudent's assessment that this "report" is a very clever fraud, thus my Quote of the Day for Monday, April 13. I was not the only one suckered (not an excuse), but juris is right - it smells, and I can only plead stuffed sinuses for not recognizing it. Still, I'm not going to pull the post. I admit my mistakes when I make them, I don't shove them down the memory hole.

UPDATE 4/14: Michelle Malkin confirms THE REPORT IS REAL, though she does concur with juris that it is "one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS."

I ought to feel better about not being a dupe, but I think I actually feel worse knowing that the Department of Homeland Security actually did conceive, create, publish, and issue the damned thing.

End of update. Please, read on.

I guess it makes you a potential Rightwing Extremist. I don't listen to Roger Hedgecock. As far as I know he isn't syndicated on any station here, but apparently he got a copy of a Department of Homeland Security report, dated April 7, 2009, and did his show on Friday about it. Someone at AR15.com - a hotbed of over 10,000 potential Rightwing Extremists - posted a link to the document, entitled Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment (PDF), so I gave it a read. It's only ten pages long, including the cover. Aside from the predictable warnings about neo-Nazi skinheads recruiting because our new President has a skin-tone darker than alabaster, there's some actual new stuff our political masters seem to be worried about. Here are some of the highlites lowlites:

The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.

Perhaps they read Neil Strauss' Emergency? We now need to be afraid of pissed-off military veterans!

Proposed imposition of firearms restrictions and weapons bans likely would attract new members into the ranks of rightwing extremist groups, as well as potentially spur some of them to begin planning and training for violence against the government. The high volume of purchases and stockpiling of weapons and ammunition by rightwing extremists in anticipation of restrictions and bans in some parts of the country continue to be a primary concern to law enforcement.

Well, we knew they were keeping track of the Three Percenters already. That is, after all, their stated goal of being loud, proud, and in-your-face; to make sure the .gov knows there's a line that shouldn't be crossed.

A recent example of the potential violence associated with a rise in rightwing extremism may be found in the shooting deaths of three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 4 April 2009. The alleged gunman’s reaction reportedly was influenced by his racist ideology and belief in antigovernment conspiracy theories related to gun confiscations, citizen detention camps, and a Jewish-controlled "one world government."

Right. This is in keeping with "The Nazis and eugenics were right-wing" meme that Jonah Goldberg so thoroughly debunked in Liberal Fascism. But Goldberg is a JEW, so, um, nevermind. . . (Liberal Fascism will be out in paperback in June, just so you know. Strongly recommended.) Yeah, this nut, probably off his SSRI meds, decides to shoot three cops to death because of his paranoid fear of having his guns taken away, therefore he's the poster-boy for "rightwing extremism."

It goes on in this vein for a while, but here's the really interesting parts:

Many rightwing extremist groups perceive recent gun control legislation as a threat to their right to bear arms and in response have increased weapons and ammunition stockpiling, as well as renewed participation in paramilitary training exercises. Such activity, combined with a heightened level of extremist paranoia, has the potential to facilitate criminal activity and violence.

--

During the 1990s, rightwing extremist hostility toward government was fueled by the implementation of restrictive gun laws—such as the Brady Law that established a 5-day waiting period prior to purchasing a handgun and the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act that limited the sale of various types of assault rifles—and federal law enforcement’s handling of the confrontations at Waco, Texas and Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

--

On the current front, legislation has been proposed this year requiring mandatory registration of all firearms in the United States. Similar legislation was introduced in 2008 in several states proposing mandatory tagging and registration of ammunition. It is unclear if either bill will be passed into law; nonetheless, a correlation may exist between the potential passage of gun control legislation and increased hoarding of ammunition, weapons stockpiling, and paramilitary training activities among rightwing extremists.

--

Open source reporting of wartime ammunition shortages has likely spurred rightwing extremists—as well as law-abiding Americans—to make bulk purchases of ammunition. These shortages have increased the cost of ammunition, further exacerbating rightwing extremist paranoia and leading to further stockpiling activity. Both rightwing extremists and law-abiding citizens share a belief that rising crime rates attributed to a slumping economy make the purchase of legitimate firearms a wise move at this time.

--

DHS/I&A assesses that the combination of environmental factors that echo the 1990s, including heightened interest in legislation for tighter firearms restrictions and returning military veterans, as well as several new trends, including an uncertain economy and a perceived rising influence of other countries, may be invigorating rightwing extremist activity, specifically the white supremacist and militia movements. To the extent that these factors persist, rightwing extremism is likely to grow in strength.

--

Unlike the earlier period, the advent of the Internet and other information-age technologies since the 1990s has given domestic extremists greater access to information related to bomb-making, weapons training, and tactics, as well as targeting of individuals, organizations, and facilities, potentially making extremist individuals and groups more dangerous and the consequences of their violence more severe. New technologies also permit domestic extremists to send and receive encrypted communications and to network with other extremists throughout the country and abroad, making it much more difficult for law enforcement to deter, prevent, or preempt a violent extremist attack.

Sounds frightening, doesn't it? Especially those parts about "as well as law-abiding Americans".

Now, for me, this is the pièce de résistance (pun intended):

DHS/I&A assesses that lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States. Information from law enforcement and nongovernmental organizations indicates lone wolves and small terrorist cells have shown intent—and, in some cases, the capability—to commit violent acts.

As opposed to leftwing extremist lone-wolves and small terrorist cells who, apparently, are only capable of torching animal testing labs, McMansions under construction, and SUV dealerships, or blowing up their own membership by being incompetent bombers like Bill Ayers.

Essentially, the leftwing extremists must not be seen as much of a threat, since they can't (apparently) organize anything as complex as a birthday party for a five year-old.

And, of course, there's the Muslim extremists, who don't do "terrorism" anymore, they do "man-caused disasters."

But here's where the real error lies, I think: misidentifying the problem:

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

They missed the single biggest group out there: those of us who aren't anti-government, we just want our elected and appointed officials to do what they swear to do upon taking their offices: uphold and defend The Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic. As one ARFCOMmer put it:

This "homeland" shit that suddenly started up in the last couple years pisses me off. It reeks of the "fatherland" and "motherland" propaganda shit our enemies used throughout the 20th century. The Nazi regime was "father" to the German people. The Soviet regime was "mother" to the Russian people.


This guy is our uncle and that's as close as I want the fucker.

I don't need the government to be my big brother, my parent, my nanny, or my caretaker. It needs to maintain public services (roads, etc.), maintain foreign relations and the military, keep the states from squabbling, and stay the fuck out of my life.

This desire, apparently, makes us "antigovernment rightwing extremists."

So be it.

Because what really frightens them is that we really do know what we're doing. We are, after all, the people who build and maintain the infrastructure of these United States. People like Joe Huffman, who - when he's not coding for Microsoft - makes explosives for fun. People like Mostly Cajun (or for that matter, me), who understand what it would take to bring down our electrical grid. These are just two examples off the top of my head. I'm sure my readers can chime in with their own. That ought to frighten the piss out of our political masters. I know the TEA Parties do.

I wrote another post with this same title almost five years ago. It was about the possibility of another American Civil War. I concluded that piece, thus:

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.

It would appear that both ignorance and apathy are beginning to wane. And it's not because our new President is black.

No wonder they're worried.

Remember When I Bought My Safe?

Remember When I Bought My Safe?

My wife told me "Get the bigger one. You'll fill it up eventually."

Shortly after that she said, "Do you have to fill it up so fast?"

Well, it's not full yet, but it's definitely getting there, and I don't have much space for a bigger one, or a second one. Nor, really, do I want to spend the cash for another one.

Now I won't have to, at least for a while. Follow the link, but while you're over at Mike's, you might enjoy this post, too. I did.

Brilliant! (Part III)

Brilliant! (Part III)

Today's Day by Day, Captain Sarah L. Palin vs. Obamakahn:


And we all know how that one ended, don't we?

Quote of the Day

In honor of James Kelly:

Civilization is not an evolution of mankind but the imposition of human good on human evil. It is not a historical inevitability. It is a battle that has to be fought every day, because evil doesn’t recede willingly before the wheels of progress. - Andrew McCarthy, quoted by Mark Steyn in Our Reprimitivized Future

Do read the whole piece. Steyn sails one out of the park again.

Addendum: From my old Usenet days, a sigline by "Trefor Thomas:"

To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem.
To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized,
merely the domesticated.

Want Some Fun Reading?

Want Some Fun Reading?

Over at AR15.com one of the members is reposting the funniest stories told there, beginning with the legendary Seeing Eye Cat stories by Piccolo. They're, . . . they're, . . .

There aren't words.

Go read.