Demote or promote?

I sent out a couple emails using some “back channels” after I posted this. I wonder if it got someone stirred up:

Domain Name   usdoj.gov ? (U.S. Government)
IP Address   149.101.1.# (US Dept of Justice)
ISP   US Dept of Justice
Location  
Continent  :  North America
Country  :  United States  (Facts)
State  :  District of Columbia
City  :  Washington
Lat/Long  :  38.9097, -77.0231 (Map)
Distance  :  2,071 miles
Language   English (U.S.)
en-us
Operating System   Microsoft WinXP
Browser   Internet Explorer 6.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; DOJ3jx7bf; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Javascript   version 1.3
Monitor  

Resolution  :  1024 x 768
Color Depth  :  32 bits

Time of Visit   Mar 25 2008 8:42:16 am
Last Page View   Mar 25 2008 8:43:03 am
Visit Length   47 seconds
Page Views   3
Referring URL http://search.yahoo….args=0&pstart=1&b=31
Search Engine search.yahoo.com
Search Words atf forfeiture blog
Visit Entry Page   http://blog.joehuffm…ThinkForfeiture.aspx
Visit Exit Page   http://blog.joehuffm…ThinkForfeiture.aspx
Out Click    
Time Zone   UTC-4:00
Visitor’s Time   Mar 25 2008 12:42:16 pm
Visit Number   273,824

They are looking pretty deep because my blog was number 39 on the list of hits.

I just wonder if they will find it cause to demote or to promote.

Quote of the day–Dan Henninger

Now, I think this goes to the heart of the matter, because the gun-control advocates–it isn’t so much that they are against guns; they’re just against the idea of killing. Guns kill people. And there is simply no way the two sides are ever going to be able to come to terms. But I think the idea of gun control is going to die with this decision.

Dan Henninger
Wall Street Journal columnist and deputy editor
March 24, 2008
The Journal Editorial Report
[He was referring to the Heller case. He betrays his bias with the “Guns kill people” line and his belief that gun controllers are against killing. If they were just against killing they would recognize the fact that guns are used to protect innocent life far more frequently than they are used to take innocent life. But he gets it right that there is no coming to terms between the two sides and that there is a good chance that gun control is going die or at least have some serious health problems if this decision goes down like we think it will.–Joe]

Who is Fascist?

I’ve written about this several times over the years, but it takes a true scholar to do a superior job of it.  A while back, Jonah Goldberg did just that, and Thomas Sowell did a review on Goldgerg’s book:

Fascism, initially recognized as a kindred ideology of the left, has since come down to us defined as being on “the right” — indeed, as representing the farthest right, supposedly further extensions of conservatism.

The next time you hear Leftists throwing the word “Fascist” about like a general epithet, and then hanging it around the necks of capitalists or Jeffersonian liberals, you can correct their rather silly (and I have to think willfully ignorant) error.

There is no Santa Claus

I’ve never had a big problem with automated traffic law enforcement as long as it was used only for enforcement of moving violations and not for general surveillance.

Now you can add another objection to my list of objections. From Dallas:

Citywide statistics obtained by NBC affiliate KXAS-TV found that red light cameras do reduce accidents. That is a good thing.

But they do it by reducing red light violations, by as much as 29 percent from month to month at particularly busy Dallas intersections. On the face of it, that, too, is a good thing — but not, necessarily, if you rely on traffic fines to make up a healthy chunk of your budget.

Dallas lawmakers originally estimated gross revenue of $15 million from their 62 cameras this fiscal year, which ends June 30. But City Manager Mary Suhm estimated last week that the city would fall short by more than $4 million.

So Friday, the city turned off about a quarter of the least profitable cameras, saying it couldn’t justify the cost of running them.

Yeah, I’m naive, I take things at face value. I actually believed traffic law enforcement was to reduce personal injury and property damage, not just a source of revenue. I don’t recall ever believing in Santa Claus and having the myth shattered, but this must be what it feels like.

Self medication

I remember this sad woman that lived in the same condominium complex as Barb and I who each weekend seemed to have a different guy leaving her place in the early morning. She never seemed happy and we always figured it was self esteem problem and the pond scum she brought home didn’t make the situation any better. Now some researchers have some data on women, depression, and sex. I wonder if the researchers investigated the self-esteem issue and if the “self medication” aspects of using sex for treating their depression benefited them in the long term. And of course they should also explore which, if any, was cause and which was effect. Or was it just correlation?

Posted in Sex

Quote of the day–Alan Korwin

The level of intensity in that courtroom defies description. The brain power those nine people brought to bear, on top of the months of prep from the litigants, was exhausting. Any more time than we spent would have been overwhelming. It’s a good thing it’s kept to an hour (and this case ran 38 minutes long, quite rare). You just fit everything in, then declare an ending.

Alan Korwin
March 20, 2008
D.C. v. Heller Eyewitness Report — Analysis 1
[I wasn’t there but the intensity comes through loud and clear from all the reports I’ve read and listened to. I was surprised at the extent of understanding of the issue. From English common law to the problems with trigger locks the justices were prepped as well or better than anyone I have ever met. To stand in front of the and defend a position would be very, very intense.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Richard Lamm

Christmas is the time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell government what they want and their kids pay for it.

Richard Lamm
[This quote reminds me of a book I just finished listening to: The Coming Economic Collapse: How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrel by Stephen Leeb and Glen Strathy. It has some interesting stuff in it. He claims we are headed for some very bad times, “Unless government does something.” Of course this annoys me a great deal unless he means that government should stop meddling in the free market. Published in 2006 he correctly predicted $100/barrel oil when it was $60 and the DOE was predicting it would return to the $35 to $45 range. He said gold would skyrocket. He is saying that we could even see the collapse of civilization because of the shortage of energy and our large debt.–Joe]

Wolf guarding the hen house

Grrrrr… Even if the ATF and police didn’t actually get the lawyer-client conversation tapes (I don’t trust them to tell us the truth about this), that they admit to getting a list of the times and duration of the calls is unacceptable to me. Even if I don’t have access to the actual content of your phone calls and email if I have all the other information the traffic analysis alone can reveal far more about you than you might want known.

The machine gun issue

Throughout the Heller case I think most hard core gun rights activists have been thinking “Will this help or hurt machine guns? Even if the Supreme Court slaps D.C. down on handguns, rifles, and shotguns will they create a rule or test that slams the door on machine guns becoming commonly available?”

I’ve been, behind the scenes, asking people not to even talk about machine guns in the context of Heller. My thought was that if machine guns are ignored in the Heller decision, then if we do things right after a Heller win we can get some machine gun relief eventually. Obviously it came up in a big way during the oral arguments. Some people have been critical of Gura for “throwing machine guns under the bus” during the oral arguments. I am not one of them. I viewed it as unfortunate collateral damage. We needed to bomb the crap out of D.C. and they were holding machine guns as hostages. It was more important to destroy D.C. now than to try and figure out a way to get the machine guns to safety. We might still be able to resurrect machine guns, they aren’t really dead, just on life support.

Now, via Uncle, I find Gura responds. I agree with him.

More thoughts on the slaves being freed

The following is from a reader regarding my post Slaves are about to be freed. He reveals that he and his family are so far unarmed but strongly support the RKBA. He lives in the California which puts a severe chilling effect on actually possessing firearms.

From: Rob 
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 2:42 PM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Re: Your post: “Slaves are about to be freed “

 

Joe,

 

I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 

I think we should start preparing to use a new weapon that we might well have in our arsenal by July. As with all new weapons we need to train with it and plan how to use it before we can use it to maximum effectiveness.”

 

I thought you were going to write about a newly informed populace and moreover, new shooters

 

The biggest thing we can have/build is numbers.  Politicians can read polls.  If we have the majority of folks behind us (as I think we do) we tend to win.  If we have repeated instances of the Kim du Toit happy dance for new shooters, then we have motivated people behind us. 

 

Numbers are what the Brady Bunch worked on for a long time, but they are in trouble because they are selling a negative – the momentum has shifted. 

 

The intermediate victory is that we have begun to sell gun ownership and carrying as a positive.  A place not to let up is the “Gun Free Zone” nonsense.  We need to make darned sure that private defensive use of firearms in such situations is responsible and underscored in the media as such.  The Brady Bunch has no answer for this.

 

People are the new weapon.  The most potent weapon is people who understand RKBA truth and wield it well – freed slaves, empowered private citizens.

 

I see the training as literal, for new shooters. (My little family – for example – will someday, God willing, be new shooters.  We are pro-gun and pointedly so, but not –yet- armed.)  The gun community needs to train train train,  Now is not a time for a blossoming of gun accidents because people do not know and strictly follow Cooper’s four rules.

 

When we add to our numbers (who this we unarmed white man?) we win.

 

When even those who do not choose to arm themselves are happy to allow us to do so, we triumph.

 

I think I hear the sound of triumph approaching just over the next hill.

 

Rob

All good points. I’m sure there are others that can be made. I just threw things together off the top of my head to get people started thinking. Please keep thinking and if you want it to have more visibility than a comment email it to me and I’ll probably post it.

Quote of the day–George Washington

I have heard the bullets whistle; and believe me, there is something charming in the sound.

George Washington
After returning from a battle during the Revolutionary War.
[For a general he was quite the bad-ass. He had horses shot out from under him. His coat had numerous bullet holes in it. His accomplishments as a young officer were rather daring as well. To say that Washington was “highly regarded” by his men and country would be a huge understatement. My school history books did not do him justice.–Joe]

Another article by Jonathan Rauch

H/T to Rob who sent me the link and made at least a tenuous connection to my previous efforts.

Jonathan Rauch. Does that name sound familiar to you? And if so what did he do for gun owners?

Okay, so maybe one out of 50 or 100 gun rights people will recognize it. You would have to be pretty hard core (potential pun material) to recognize his name and make the connection to gun rights.

So, Rauch just published an article in Reason: The Right Kind of Gun Rights–Why the D.C. case is about self defense. Before I tell you the first article he wrote which got my attention and ultimately nearly all gun rights activists here’s the final clue–from todays article:

Yesterday, unbeknownst to itself, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a gay-rights case. To most people, admittedly, District of Columbia v. Heller is a gun-rights case. In fact, it’s the most important gun-rights case in decades, one that may cast a shadow for decades to come. But to gay Americans, and other minorities often targeted with violence, Heller is about civil rights, not shooting clubs.

To put it all together, this is from the main page on the Pink Pistols website:

“Thirty-one states allow all qualified citizens to carry concealed weapons. In those states, homosexuals should embark on organized efforts to become comfortable with guns, learn to use them safely and carry them. They should set up Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals get licensed to carry. And they should do it in a way that gets as much publicity as possible.”

–Jonathan Rauch, Salon Magazine, March 13, 2000

Yeah, now you should remember. Jonathan Rauch wrote an article and the Pink Pistols spontaneously burst up out of nothingness and gives the gun hating liberals severe indigestion to this day.

Cool, you say. But so what?

What’s interesting to me is that some other people and I had been trying for a year or two before Rauch wrote his article to get something going (see the Lewiston Morning Tribune and the Seattle Times) using the same concept. We didn’t get much traction. Perhaps it was the wider distribution of his article. Or maybe it was just an idea whose time had finally come. Perhaps it was just the right person got the message and had better organization skills than we did. Or maybe Rauch puts his words together in some magic way. No matter. Rauch wrote a single article and did massive damage to those that would take our freedoms away from us.

Sometimes the pen is mightier than the sword and Rauch demonstrated that in a big way.

Self-parody

I had seen the graphics below before but just shook my head and went on. Reader Rob sent them to me today and pointed out it’s self-parodying. They are from the main page of the Brady Campaign website.

In the first graphic they actually say guns murdered people. It seems to me if that is the case all those biologists trying to create and/or modify life in a “test tube” should be redirected to study common metals, charcoal forges, hammers, and drills. Apparently the secret to life was discovered with the invention of the first firearms four or five hundred years ago.

Okay, so maybe I was taking them a little too literally. But my point is they twist the meanings of words to achieve their goals. It is only by telling half-truths and sometimes outright lies that they can achieve political traction. We need to rub their noses in it in a very public manner.

In the second graphic they try to take advantage of a negative stereotype of the gun owner as a vandal who shoots up a sign. They also imply that disallowing guns makes a workplace safer. To test that hypothesis answer this question, “Which is a safer workplace, a maximum security prison or a police station?” Nearly no one has a gun in the prison (including the guards who are in contact with the prisoners) and almost everyone has a gun in the police station. Of course the police station is safer–because the people there are much more likely to be trustworthy people. It’s the people, not the guns, that make the difference.

In the world view of the Brady bunch the concept of there being more than one variable that contributes to personal safety is too difficult of a concept. Guns have no will of their own and are tools that can be used for good or evil but making the intellectual leap from the gun to the person pulling the trigger is just asking too much of their feeble brains.

Either that or they have mental problems.