Stalin, Hitler, or McCarthy?

I’ve been looking at the parallels of the cancel culture, riots, and looting of today in the U.S. to other times and places in history.

Numerous times I’ve mentioned Gulag Archipelago both on this blog and in private conversation with my children and others. The survivors of those times wrote of the truth not being “politically correct” and to speak the truth could result you being “reeducated”, sent to a slave labor camp, or being executed. But, as far as I know, they lacked the riots, thuggish mobs, and looting.

In Nazi Germany the removal of all Jews from government jobs and universities warrants at least a mention. The Brown Shirts, thuggish mobs, and looting ignored by the government certainly are a good match for what we are seeing today in some locations. But the removal of people from their jobs wasn’t because of their political beliefs and/or speech.

After reading Bari Weiss’s letter of resignation from the New York Times (via email from Paul K. and Reason Magazine which has a good article on the topic) another potential parallel was brought to my attention. From Weiss’s letter* (emphasis added):

The paper of record is, more and more, the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people. This is a galaxy in which, to choose just a few recent examples, the Soviet space program is lauded for its “diversity”; the doxxing of teenagers in the name of justice is condoned; and the worst caste systems in human history includes the United States alongside Nazi Germany.

Even now, I am confident that most people at The Times do not hold these views. Yet they are cowed by those who do. Why? Perhaps because they believe the ultimate goal is righteous. Perhaps because they believe that they will be granted protection if they nod along as the coin of our realm—language—is degraded in service to an ever-shifting laundry list of right causes. Perhaps because there are millions of unemployed people in this country and they feel lucky to have a job in a contracting industry.

Or perhaps it is because they know that, nowadays, standing up for principle at the paper does not win plaudits. It puts a target on your back. Too wise to post on Slack, they write to me privately about the “new McCarthyism” that has taken root at the paper of record.

McCarthyism certainly cost a lot of people their jobs (watch The Front, if for nothing other than the credits at the end which are incredibly sobering). And it was about political correctness of a type. But the thuggish mobs, riots, and looting are missing as well as the political persuasion of the villains being anti-Marxist rather than pro-Marist as we have in the circumstances of today.

The fictional dystopia of 1984 could be considered a match in many ways but it takes place deep in the depths of the fierce suppression of speech, written word, and even many thoughts are forbidden. Something closer to our present circumstance and non-fictional is preferable.

I’m left with less than great matches. Sunday evening I suggested to my children they read Gulag Archipelago. Kim eagerly asked for the spelling but Jaime protested that unless it offered a solution then she didn’t want to get even more depressed and upset by our current situation. That’s a valid point. And furthermore, without great parallels how can I shed light on what to expect next or what to suggest as a remedy? And then there are so many variables such as our technology lending itself to vastly superior suppression of free speech than the previous examples. On the other side of that coin is that same technology also can also be a tool for the enabling of free speech and punishment of the evil doers. And, of course, 100s of millions of guns and billions of rounds of ammunition in the possession of the persecuted also is a variable not present in any of the historical scenarios.

The McCarthyism parallel is by far the least tragic of the outcomes, but it is also the worst match so I’m going to dismiss it.

The conclusion am am left with is that the all the reasonably good historical parallels lead to really bad situations. We must do our best to avoid going in that direction.

I keep thinking that with more and more evidence such as Weiss’s letter, the lessons learned from CHAZ/CHOP, and the continuing destruction in other cities, Portland Oregon in particular, that there is a good chance of a political turn around in the November elections. We should work at making a political solution the most likely outcome while ensuring a 2nd Amendment solution is a last resort and crystal clear that if needed it will be used and will be overwhelming successful.


* I intended to extract a paragraph of the letter for a QOTD but nearly every paragraph would have qualified. I would like to suggest you read the entire letter.

Quote of the day—Greg Scharf

The United Kingdom has ridiculously restrictive gun laws, and right now is having a tsunami of knife crime. And what we’re not hearing is that bad guys have a steady stream of illegal weapons coming from Eastern Europe via the Chunnel.

Greg Scharf
May 1, 2020
Gun control is unable to contain the problem of evil
[It’s obviously not about crime. It’s about control and creating dependency.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb & Dave Workman

Nothing so vividly illustrates the delusional state of the gun prohibitionist’s mindset than the stubborn defense of the so called “gun-free school zone.”

Alan Gottlieb & Dave Workman
2019
Good Guys With Guns, page 105

[You would think they would give it up after being shown that 95+% of all mass shootings occur in “gun-free” areas. Or just pointing out that if “gun-free” areas worked making banks “gun-free zones” would eliminate bank robberies. Or making schools “drug-free zones” would cause recreational drug to cease.

But it is irrational to expect people to be rational. And those rational enough to know the truth but evil enough to further their agenda with the deaths of innocent children use this lack of rationality in the masses to their advantage.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Eric Boehm

Of all the places to argue that only the government should be trusted with guns, Beto O’Rourke picked…Kent State University.

Eric Boehm
September 27, 2019
Beto Goes to Kent State, Argues Only the Government Can Be Trusted With Guns
[One might claim Beto pegged the irony meter. More careful reflection should bring to mind that leftist governments regard shooting disarmed civilians with little or no risk a feature, not a bug.—Joe]

Beto and his friends

Via Comfortably Smug @ComfortablySmug we have evidence that Beto has philosophical friends in political history:

BetoAndFriends

It probably would make it a little too busy, but one or more from Vladimir Lenin could demonstrate Beto’s kinship with him as well:

An oppressed class which did not aspire to possess arms and learn how to handle them deserve only to be treated as slaves.

Or:

One man with a gun can control 100 without one. … Make mass searches and hold executions for found arms.

Or:

Soviet organisation has made possible the creation of armed forces of workers and peasants which are much more closely connected with the working and exploited people than before. If this had not been done it would have been impossible to achieve one of the basic conditions for the victory of socialism—the arming of the workers and the disarming of the bourgeoisie.

Quote of the day—Timothy Callahan

Somewhere out there, there are british cops who are, no shit, filing charges against people for saying how shitty they are for protecting a bureaucracy that is actively preventing a third party from treating a sick child.

And here’s us, talking about how best to range them under field conditions.

If that doesn’t sum up the vast gulf between our nations, I’m not sure what else will.

Timothy Callahan
April 26, 2018
On Facebook regarding commentary on this photo:

image
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Shoot/don’t shoot

I woke up, not knowing the time. It was dark. I heard faint sounds, like distant, blood-curdling screams. No.., uh…I determined I was not dreaming. There it is again. Is it cats? I got up and went to the tiny, upstairs bathroom window. I see the cats hanging out on the garage steps. That’s odd for the middle of a freezing cold night. There’s the sound again!

Continue reading

Stack ’em up nearly 500-feet tall: Chicago gun-related homicides hit 600+

Gun-related homicides in Chicago have reached a new high in 2017, surpassing a body count of at least 600 dead human beings.

If you were to stack those bodies one on top of the other, a graphic graph would look something like this, in comparison to the height of Sears Tower:

If you were to stack bodies of people who died in gun-related homicides in Chicago 2017, it would be nearly 500-feet tall

In short, Chicago’s restrictions on firearms ownership are deadly. They do more harm than good, making unarmed people easy prey for gun-bearing thugs who care nothing about gun laws.

“600” is a nice, tidy number, but the bottom line is that Chicago’s a total mess.

I lived in Chi-town from 1996-2001. The gun situation was ugly, to say the least. There, I learned that an unarmed populace is easy prey. The break-ins, shootings, homicides, and lost lives were a brutal reality.

Combining my firsthand experiences with second-hand accounts from friends, my stack of Chiraq stories is seven-feet deep. There’s plenty to share; here are two of many, many, many:

On a bicycle ride home from work one night, someone shot at me. I could not see the shooter (the bullet came from behind), but as the bullet sped past me, it made an unforgettable whizzing sound, like what you might see/hear in war movies. I pedaled mightily, for I was more interested in zipping home, rather then calling the police. I doubt the shooter would’ve pulled the trigger if he thought there was a possibility I was packing heat.

Another Chiraq adventure comes from my then-husband/current frex (friend who’s an ex). Once upon a time, back in our Chicago era (Chicago error?), he walked with his pal to the corner store to fetch some goods. To get to the door, he had to step a few feet around a dead body. Cops had just arrived at the scene; the victim was a Latino man who’d been shot by another fella.

If gun-controllers like Chelsea Handler, Julianne Moore, and other privileged celebrities had to step around a dead body each time a Chicagoan was gunned down, they might reconsider their just-one-more-gun-law-will-fix-gun-tragedies strategy.

Whilst the 2010 McDonald case has opened up things a bit, the remaining gun laws of Chicago are extensive and harsh, making it incredibly difficult for the average law-abiding citizen to purchase a tool of self-defense.

Years ago, Joe Huffman encouraged me to blog about my experiences of living in gun-controlled Chicago. He said my pro-gun/pro-self-defense advocacy had a place in gun rights history, and that people would want to read my writings. I’m not sure if that’s true; today, I’m finally giving it a shot, putting pen to paper, fingers on keyboard.

I know there are scores of current and former pro-gun Chicagoans out there who could publicly share their eyewitness gun tragedy stories. But most won’t, out of fear. Pro-gunners from all walks of life understand the consequences of speaking up for their right to armed self-defense: bigotry, harassment, and persecution from anti-gun folk.

On the most basic level, we’re used to being yelled at by bitter GunCoggers. “Shut up! You’re a liar!” is the kind of language they embrace.

Outspoken gunfolk have had their lives threatened to the point of needing to relocate. Vocal anti-tyrannyists have been ousted from families, fired by employers, tattled on by tattlers, and targeted by anti-gun politicians. Some have experienced the meddling of their medical records. Others are locked in cages, incarcerated. Or worse.

I can relate to all of the above. I know I’m not alone. We’re not alone.

I write not for sympathy or attention. I write to shed light on what gun control looks like at ground zero in Chiraq. Nobody needs to go through any of that.

My investment in the gun rights matter is rooted in the fact that I’m profoundly saddened by the 500-foot tall pile of dead bodies in Chicago, plus scores of others elsewhere. Those were real people, not numbers. Heavy is my heart.

To the current residents of Chicago, do what I did:
Get the hell out of Dodge; dodge with Godspeed out of Chicago.

—–
Definition of “gun-related homicide” is here.

#Chiraq #Chicago #GunCog

‘Dangerous game’

It’s a relative term isn’t it?

The vast majority of times, a deer will run if it sees you. They’ll often ignore motor vehicles, but if you’re out walking, a deer will alert on your movements, and if recognizes you as human it will bolt. Anecdote abound, and situations vary widely, but a deer, as a rule, will avoid humans.

On the other hand, a healthy buck in the prime of its life is more than capable of killing you, and quickly, if it gets the hankerin’.

I always carry a sidearm when out and about. Elk and moose are common in my roaming area, and I hear that wolves are getting closer.

The unfortunate in the story was apparently unarmed. Whether that would have made any difference in this case is debatable, but having a heavy caliber pistol cannot but improve one’s odds. What an embarrassing way to die!

Terror attack in another gun free zone

From CNN a few minutes ago:

Eight people are dead and about a dozen injured after the driver of a truck drove the wrong way down a well-trafficked bike path, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

“This was an act of terror, and a particularly cowardly act of terror,” he said.

The driver then exited the vehicle while displaying imitation firearms and was shot by police, according to the NYPD. The suspect is in police custody and was taken to a hospital for treatment, sources at the NYPD said.

The incident is being investigated as terrorism, according to multiple law enforcement sources. Witnesses reported the suspect was yelling “Allahu Akbar,” according to four law enforcement sources. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is taking over the lead of the investigation.

We don’t have enough information at this time to know if the innocent people had been allowed to exercise their specific right to keep and bear arms things would have turn out any better, but it’s unlikely it could have turned out worse.

Overheard on the cruise

Barb and I were on a cruise the last few weeks (Los Angles to New Orleans through the Panama Canal). I checked the web site (Norwegian Cruise Lines) before we left and, no surprise, guns were not allowed but knives with blades less than four inches long were acceptable (curiously, laser pointers are not allowed either). Never mind that steak knives on the ship were probably going to be longer than four inches, but whatever. I brought along the two Spyderco Delicas I carry in my pockets whenever it is legal to do so. I got them on the ship just fine. I got off the ship at our first stop then got back on just fine. Security even examined them and measured the blade length. At the second stop shore security took them from me when we tried to get back on the ship. I got a receipt and they told me to talk to ship security. I talked to guest services about the knives and they promised to contact security for me and they would get back to me. After about a day and a half I talked to guest services again. They said security would come out to talk to me about the knives. After about 20 minutes two security people showed up. I greeted them warming and introduced myself and shook their hands. Security Officer Judd Hinchliffe was the one that did all the talking:

Norwegian Pearl Security Officer. October 2017.

The following is a close approximation of the conversation. My thoughts which I dared not express are in [brackets].

Hinchliffe: I have your knives but these are not allowed on the ship.

Joe: I checked the website before we got on the ship and it says knives with blades less than four inches are acceptable.

Hinchliffe: Yes. But these knives are what we call lock blade knives.

Joe: I didn’t see anything on the website about lock blade knives.

Hinchliffe: It doesn’t but in the U.K., where I’m from, these are banned. We not in the U.K. but these are banned for a reason. With a normal knife if you try to stab someone with them the blade may fold on your hand. A locking blade knife is much more dangerous. These are what we call lock blade knives.

Joe: [Are you saying that U.K. law is incorporated into Norwegian Cruise rules while we are sailing in international waters off the west coasts of the United States and Mexico? Why not incorporate U.S. law which says you are infringing upon my right to keep and bear arms? That’s a felony by the way.
That’s the second time you told me they were lock blade knives. I knew that before you ever said so about these knives and I heard you the first time. In my defensive knife classes they taught us to use slicing motions, so the locking feature isn’t really going to make a difference if I need to use the knife on someone.]  If I were ever to go to the U.K. [not bloody likely until you fix your idiotic anti-self defense laws] I wouldn’t bring my knives.

Hinchliffe: I know this isn’t the U.K. but I’m in charge of security and I need to make sure everyone is safe. Why do you carry knives?

Joe: I grew up on a farm. When I was in the first grade the teacher gave all the boys in the class a knife for Christmas. I have carried a knife ever since then. [So… if someone attacks Barb or I and we are unable to defend ourselves because you took away our knifes you would be held responsible for the attack?]

Hinchliffe: Look around us. Does this look like a farm?
Joe: No. [It doesn’t look like the U.K. either. What does it matter?] Of course not.

Hinchliffe: In the U.K. we have a knife culture since we don’t have gun culture like in the U.S.

Joe: [You say “gun culture” like it’s a bad thing. If you would have let me bring my guns on board I would have been happy enough to leave my knives at home so you could indulged your prejudice against knife ownership without causing me any grief. As it is I’m probably going to lose the callouses on my hands from shooting 500 to 1000 rounds a week in practice. I’m then going to have to start practicing at drastically reduced levels to avoid blisters.] Yes, I know. I read about it sometimes.

Hinchliffe: What do you use a knife for?

Joe: I use them for all kinds of things. Cutting apples, opening boxes, most recently on this cruise I cut the labels off of some new clothes for my wife.

Hinchliffe: How are you getting along with your wife?

Joe: We get along great! In fact while we were waiting in line over there someone asked us if we were newlyweds. [Seriously?!! You want to get into couples counseling? If I were inclined to hurt her there are many options other than one of these knives. Let me see, I haven’t thought about this before. What would be my options? Push her overboard, push her down the stairs, hands, fists, feet, elbows, knees, a metal water bottle, a pillow while she sleeps, the metal chairs on our balcony, I could burn her with the hot hair dryer in our cabin, hmm… I could go on for quite some time like this…]

Hinchliffe: Why do you carry two knives?

Joe: [What difference does that make? Norwegian Cruise rules don’t put a limit on the number of knives only on the length of the blade. According to the rules I can have 10, 100, or 1000 knives. But you don’t care about the written rules, do you?

Do you think I’m twice as dangerous with two knives? How about if I had ten knives? Do you think I want to sell them to other passengers?] I have one in each pocket so I can easily reach one or the other if one hand is holding something.

Hinchliffe: I can’t let you have these knives in public. If someone saw you with them it would frighten them.

Joe: [Really? Even though the rules don’t prohibit it? Oh, yes, the rules don’t matter to you. What matters to you is that you get to exercise your prejudice against people who carry knives.

Perhaps the ship has a mental health professional on board who could help people with irrational fear of knives. Have you considered seeking some help yourself?] Well, I don’t need to have them in public.

Hinchliffe: You seem like a reasonable fellow so I’m inclined to let you have the knives back. But you will have to put them in your luggage so they can’t be seen by your steward when they are cleaning your room.

Joe: That sounds fair enough to me. I’m very much a rule following person. If I had known locking knives were a problem I would have left them at home but the website didn’t say anything about them. [So small pocket knives, which meet the your website criteria, sitting on a shelf in our cabin are going to frighten your crew? If this is really true it sounds to me like you need have higher standards for crew selection. I know! If they fire you and raise the standards for your position the problem will be solved for everyone!]

Hinchliffe: I’m going to escort you back to your cabin and you can put them away while I watch.

Joe: Okay. That works for me. [How does this help? If I wasn’t going to do that if you gave me the knives now, what makes you think I will leave them hidden away the minute after you leave the cabin?*]

Hinchliffe: [As we walk to my cabin.] I still don’t understand why you have two knives.

Joe: [That’s not a question so I don’t have to say anything now. I’m just going to walk back to the cabin, get my knives, thank him, and enjoy the rest of the cruise. I’m sure there are lot of things this guy doesn’t understand in his life and I don’t think there is anything anyone can do to help him with that.]


* It’s possible he visited our cabin once or more times when we were on shore or at a meal and checked to make sure the knives remained where he saw me stash them. I was tempted to put them in the safe or hide them at the bottom of my dirty laundry bag just to mess with him, but decided I had better things to do on the cruise than play mind games with the head security officer.

Quote of the day—David B. Kopel

The close surveillance of gun owners and householders comports with the police tradition of keeping close tabs on many private activities. For example, the nation’s official year-end police report includes statistics like ‘Background and Motives for Girls’ Sexual Misconduct’. The police recorded 9,402 such incidents in 1985, and determined that 37.4 per cent of the girls had been seduced, and the rest had sex ‘voluntarily’. The two leading reasons for having sex voluntarily were ‘out of curiosity’ for 19.6 per cent, and ‘liked particular boy’, for 18.1 per cent. The fact that police keep records on sex is simply a reflection of their keeping an eye on everything, including guns. Every person is the subject of a police dossier.

David B. Kopel
1993
Japanese Gun Control
[Japan has extremely low rates of crimes committed using a gun. And, as you can guess from the details about sexual conduct of girls, they also have a police state. They visit every home twice a year. The confession rate of criminal suspects is 95%. And the police routinely engage in torture or illegal treatment.

If someone suggests we should implement Japanese type gun control in the U.S. let them know they can’t have the same “success” as Japan without a police state to back it up. Implementing a police state here would be “challenging”.—Joe]

7 dead, many more wounded, it’s the internet’s fault

Predictably, another attack occurred in London this weekend. Theresa May did at least mention radical Islamism as a problem, but went on to call for more police powers, and to blame the internet.

Centuries upon centuries of Islamist aggression and murder, and it’s the internet’s fault. Your freedom, and mine, is to blame.

One report claimed some fifty shots were fired by police to stop three Muslims armed with knives. I could understand that number of shots if they’d been taking return fire, but against knife wielding punks it seems like an awful lot of shooting.

At least one person was wounded by police gunfire. When that happens (and it sometimes will) and it’s a police bullet, it is a footnote. If a regular concealed carry holder in America were to do the exact same thing, never mind that lives were saved; the howls of accusation would last for weeks.

Practice on moving targets. Aerial clay targets are good, if you can find a place to do it safely;

With only a knife, it is relatively easy to murder innocent, unsuspecting people, in a country that talks about freedom and rights but has forcibly disarmed its citizens and practically turned self defense into a crime.

The Brits have invited this upon themselves with their idiotic policies and their embrace of Progressivism, and we in America are not far behind. They’ll ramp up their police state, clamp down on the internet (control of which has been coveted by authoritarians since its inception) spend more of their tax payers’ wealth, and accomplish next to nothing.

Once again, as always it seems, at least one of the perpetrators was known to the British security network. The result of that knowledge was that they were able to say, after the fact, that they’d been watching that person.

The only way jihad will ever stop is if they’re all convinced that it is utterly hopeless, or foolish, or morally wrong, to continue. There are several ways to accomplish that end, only one of which involves a commitment to total extermination. Theresa May eluded to one of them, but I don’t believe that there is currently a government on this planet that is either principled enough or committed enough, or politically capable of any of those ways.

Maybe it’s not really a government’s problem to solve. What was that saying? Something about a people, or ideology, or process, which created a problem will never be the one to solve it.

The police will protect you

Watching a Stefan Molyneux video, he quoted note from a listener referring to gun-free zones and the Berkley riots over Milo:

Give up your guns, they said. The police will protect you.”

Only if you are one of those that the police / state think are worth protecting.

Sobering thought when there is a transition of power from one party to another, and you realize there is another foot that might wear that jackboot you’d hope would step on the throat of your enemies.

But I bet a lot of leftists still won’t understand.

Another victim disarmament zone tragedy?

Hmm… The BBC reports:

FBI agent George Piro said earlier that the suspect had travelled to Fort Lauderdale specifically to carry out the attack.

Unlike Alaska, Washington, Idaho, and most other states Florida airports are “gun free zones”. So, did the murderer fly all the way from Alaska just to find a place to shoot a bunch of people where they are extremely unlikely to shoot back?

A glitch in The Narrative

Some of you may have heard about the Somali immigrant of undetermined ancestry, religion, or motivation slashed nine people with a knife while asking them if they were Muslim at a Minnesota shopping mall over the weekend. Most news stories say the self-proclaimed “soldier of the Islamic State” was stopped by an “off duty police officer.”

Turns out the hero of the day was also a USPSA member, 3-gun competitor, and NRA-certified shooting instructor who happens to be the “President and Owner of Tactical Advantage and has also been operating Tactical Advantage Firearms Training, Inc., since 2003.”

Yeah. Bad day for that particular knife-dude to go to the mall, and only bring a blade to a gunfight.

Thank you, Jason Falconer. May you live a long and happy life.

How’s the UK gun control working out?

In 2009 the headline was UK is violent crime capital of Europe with reports of:

Analysis of figures from the European Commission showed a 77 per cent increase in murders, robberies, assaults and sexual offences in the UK since Labour came to power.

The total number of violent offences recorded compared to population is higher than any other country in Europe, as well as America, Canada, Australia and South Africa.

That was over seven years ago.

Today, some police forces in the UK are underreporting crime by 10s of thousand of cases:

Dru Sharpling from HMIC said: “Despite making some progress following our 2014 inspection, the force is failing some victims of crime. We estimate that the force fails to record over 38,000 reported crimes each year. The reported crimes that go unrecorded include serious crimes, such as violence and sexual offences.

Even so the numbers tell a frightening story with the headline today being Sexual offences convictions in England and Wales hit record levels in the past year:

The number of prosecutions brought for sexual offences has risen to its highest level ever, jumping 22.5 per cent on last year.

In total 11,995 defendants were prosecuted in 2015-16 for sexual offences other than rape, up from 9,789 the year before. The figure has steadily increased since 2012, but never as steeply as in the past year.

Sexual offences range from non-consensual sexual touching to serious sexual assault.

I’m reminded of what John Fogh said nearly 20 years ago that was true decades before and will probably be true until we have handheld phasers:

Nothing says, “Please don’t rape me.” like multiple jacketed hollowpoints.

John Fogh
Insights Self Defense Instructor
February 23, 1999

Why would women ever want to visit, or especially live, in places without easy access to guns?

Knifemen

It’s a good thing people weren’t allowed to have guns. That would have only increased the violence.