Before gun control, about 800 Canadians were killed annually by firearms. After gun control, about 800 are killed annually by firearms. Simply put, gun control does not save lives. At the same time, about 2,500 die annually due to falls. Yes, the simple ladder kills more Canadians than firearms, but you don't see politicians clamouring to register ladders.

This information was obtained from the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. Ironically, this office in Ottawa is across the hall from the gun control bureau. If Ottawa's actions were based on a sincere desire to save human life, then the $2 billion could have been better spent on safety training and health care -- but unfortunately safety training and health care isn't as glamorous as gun control.

Based on this, I must therefore conclude that politicians' support for gun control is not based on a desire to save human life, but instead a cynical platform to obtain votes to stay in office.

Jay Dumas
Prince George
Thursday, 15 November 2007, 01:00 PST
Gun control shot down
[Another person answers Just One Question and comes up with the expected answer.--Joe]

Via Uncle.

Maybe this is proof I'm a gun nut but when I read this:

Under the DMV's plan, motorists will only be able to object to a ticket by email or letter where city employees can ignore or reject letters in bulk without affected motorists having any realistic recourse.

The first thought that went through my mind was, "168 grain Match Kings can reject city employees without any realistic recourse."

The second thought was, "It's no wonder Washington D.C. insists on retaining it's ban on firearms."

[The title of this post is shameless stolen from Sebastian. It's far better than anything I would have come up with. A significant part of the rest of this post is from a comment I left on his blog.]

We all have different backgrounds and hence different viewpoints on the past and the probable future. At least one person disagrees with me. Good. I'd like to be wrong on this. Maybe Chris and Melody will show up at Boomershoot 2008 (hint, hint) and convince me I am wrong.

Some weren't really aware because they were too young or because they simply didn't have the interest in some of the things that had a profound impact on me. When the standoff at Ruby Ridge occurred I lived only about twenty miles away. Being that close you learned of things and felt emotions others more distant wouldn't have a clue about. Although I grew up with guns around I didn't do much shooting and when the Ruby Ridge incident occurred in August of 1992 I didn't even own a gun.

A lot of things went through my mind during those 10 days. Probably the most profound thought was my complete inability to help the Weavers even if I had the courage and the determination. I didn't own a gun and I didn't have the training required to accomplish anything more than get myself arrested or killed.

The dark days of the Clinton administration began shortly thereafter and everyone knew what would happen to gun ownership under Clinton. I bought my first gun and became a gun-rights activist. Then in February of 1993 the events in Waco Texas began to unfold.

In September of 1994 the "assault weapon ban" went into effect. And even before it was enacted there was "Brady II" waiting in the wings. The anti-gun bigots were absolutely crowing about their victories and those they expected to follow. Those were very, very dark days. Barb will tell you how depressed and angry I was. I wasn't very pleasant to be around and it wasn't her fault.

What those dark days did for me was give me a lot of motivation to think about things. Both Ruby Ridge and Waco events were about guns. The ATF ("one of the best and most respected federal law enforcement agencies") manufactured the circumstances to entrap innocent people and resulted in the deaths of dozens of innocent men, women, and children. No government employee even lost their job over it. They lied to numerous judges and the worst that happened was U.S. taxpayers had to pay fines and settle a lawsuit.

If people were going to "come to the rescue" of innocents under attack by the government it would have happened at either Ruby Ridge or Waco. The innocents held out for more than enough time for people from anywhere in the country to travel and at least increase the casualties of the perpetrators. In Northern Idaho it was late August in sparsely populated woods and mountains. Spending a few nights in the woods approaching your targets and getting away would have been a relative simple challenge. No significant adverse weather conditions and lots of cover and concealment. In Waco the open terrain would have made an approach and departure significantly more difficult but the siege went on for 51 days. Someone could have gotten a bomb in there or a mortar within range and remotely fired upon the perpetrators during that time had they really wanted to. Yet no one did. There were some idiots who tried to drive in the back way to Ruby Ridge that got arrested. But they approached the problem in such a stupid manner that they had no real chance of accomplishing anything. There was zero serious resistance offered from the outside.

In both those cases the only casualties the forces of evil suffered were during the initial attack. And when it was all over the dead and wounded of the innocents outnumber those of the aggressors by at least a factor of four to one.

So, here was two very clear opportunities for gun owners to "show their stuff" over abuses by the Feds over "the gun issue". Both Idaho and Texas are very strong pro-gun states. And what was on the report card at the end of the lesson? All 80 million gun owners in the United States got a zero. Not a single shot fired by anyone other than the direct participants.

I don't know what I would have done in August of '92 if I had the equipment and training I have now. But with what I know now about how other gun owners "responded" it would have been a significant inhibitor on any actions I might have considered. Alone there is no point in going up against several hundred armed and trained men with helicopters, armored personal carriers, and excellent communication gear. If there were a half dozen or so of you then maybe you could pick off a few from the perimeter and get away with it.

Lots of people claim they will start fighting when they come to take their guns. "When they start going door-to-door that's when some really bad shit is going to hit the fan!" Oh yeah? Maybe you missed out on what happened after Katrina left town.

So where does that leave us? Interesting question. The conditions that will cause even a small fraction of gun owners to come to the aid of other gun owners under direct physical attack have not been determined. But we do know that lying to judges to get search warrants, entrapment, giving the victims wrong court dates, then charging them for failure to show up for the real court dates, shooting dogs, children, and mothers with a baby in their arms aren't sufficient. We also know what happened (or rather what didn't happen) in Australia and the U.K. when guns were confiscated. And do you have any idea what the kill ratio was between the Jews and the German Police Battalions that sweep through eastern Europe? For the one battalion that was well documented which I read about it was 16,000 to one. And that one casualty inflicted on the Germans wasn't by one of the Jews about to be led off to a trench to be shot in the back of the neck. If anyone has sufficient motivation you would think it would be them. But instead that causality was inflicted by a couple of Polish partisan snipers.

What that means is the conditions for actually using our firearms in active resistance against "our own people" must be exceptional extreme.

What I think happens is that it is very easy to postpone the outwardly visible actions of resistance. People will resist in their minds and in their fantasies and convince themselves they have accomplished something. I believe this is a nearly universal trait. It may sound like I'm picking on Sebastian here but only because he made himself an easy target and I'm pretty sure he knows I don't have any ill will toward him.

What Sebastian said was:

I’ll be honest with you all, I’d probably not turn in the ammunition first, as I have no desire to fight for a lost cause against a law that’s not really enforceable.   Show me real opposition, and I might join, but aside from that, I plaster an off the books AR up in my wall with a “Break Wall In Event of a Emergency” note in my head, and keep a few thousand rounds of ammunition.

I responded in the comments to his post was the following (with a few minor edits):

As long as we have private sales, and to a certain extent even if we don’t, a year or two after you filled out your 4473 a firearm may be considered “off the books”. “Oh, that one? I didn’t care for it and sold it via an note I put up on the bulletin board at the gun shop.” Or, “I loved that gun but I lost it in a boating accident last summer.” But mere possession of a firearm isn’t the critical item.

What will become difficult is to practice and receive formal training. You should be putting several hundred rounds down-range each month just for maintenance. If it becomes illegal to own then range availability as well as (black market) ammo prices will make practice nearly impossible.

Without the practice then you really won’t know if that 75 yard shot at the guard beside “the cattle car filled with Jews” will mean the release of the victims or your death. A 400 yard shot? Forget it. With practice you know what you are capable of (at GBR-2007 do you think I would have started off-hand shooting at the 400 yard plate had I not thought I would be able to make at least a few hits?). With this knowledge you can have the confidence to make plans and execute them.

It is my understanding that the “gardens of eastern Europe were well oiled” because of all the guns buried there. Even as tyrants of eastern Europe rose to power, people were dragged off in the middle of the night, and while the gulags killed their 10s of thousands those guns stayed buried in their well oiled graves.

To me, burying your guns is little different than turning them over. It’s only a victory in your mind. You must use them or you have lost them.

A further thing to think about is that it is exceedingly rare when the defender wins a war. As long as one side can choose the terms of all the engagements they are nearly certain to win in the long run. If you think holding on to your gun for another generation is a win then fine, you stand a fair chance of “winning” as long as you don’t tell any one about your guns and the high tech scanners in the patrol cars and helicopters overlook them as they go by. But really it just means your loss will go unnoticed and unremarkable.

If we loose at the SC it was for “all the marbles”.

One can argue that even if we completely lose the case realistically we aren't any worse off than we were before the ruling. After all, what protection did the Second Amendment give us in the last 70 years? How many laws were overturned because of it? We have been in the midst of a running battle for decades thinking we had the Second Amendment to back us up "if things got really bad". But really, how many battles has it won for us? How many times has it stepped up to the plate and even got a hit? Until Hellar it has struck out every single time it came to bat. In a rational world to have the Second Amendment end up not being worth the piece of paper it is written on wouldn't make much difference to us.

But this isn't a rational world we live in. The Second Amendment is something we believe in. We want to believe it and we do believe it and it makes a difference in how we fight. It makes a difference in how our opponents fight too. It's another hurdle they have to get over or around. They risk exposing themselves as liars and shuckers every time they try to explain "collective rights".

Without the Second Amendment as an individual right we have two realistic choices:

1. Sometime soon we start shooting.
2. We fight a political delaying action that lasts for a decade or two.

I don't have any hope the first one will occur or that it would be successful if it did happen. And ultimately we will lose via the second option.

I stand by my original agreement with Kevin's claim, This One's for All the Marbles. Anything else is only a victory of the mind.

While we truly feel badly for the law abiding citizens of California, we feel it is necessary to take a stand against irresponsible legislation designed solely to inhibit the American citizen’s right to keep arms. We are fierce proponents of the Second Amendment, and it is our hope that other manufacturers will follow our lead. It is time for the gun industry as a whole to take a stand against the insanity of the antigunners. We simply believe that some things are more important than profit.

STI International
Cessation of California Firearm Sales
[Via Uncle, Bitter, Sebastian, and Ninth Stage. It makes me proud that I own an STI gun. It's on my hip, as is normal when I'm allowed to carry, as I write this. It is my carry gun and it is my competition gun. Thank you STI.--Joe]

Just a gentle reminder that everything you say on the Internet is read by big brother. Case in point: my post comparing ATF agents to Special Olympics participants got the attention of the DOJ:

Domain Name		usdoj.gov ? (United States Government)
IP Address		149.101.1.# (US Dept of Justice)
ISP		US Dept of Justice
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  Maryland City  :  Potomac Lat/Long  :  39.023, -77.1993 (Map) Distance  :  2,059 miles
Language		English (United States) 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		Nov 13 2007 1:14:06 pm
Last Page View		Nov 13 2007 1:14:06 pm
Visit Length		0 seconds
Page Views		1
Referring URL		http://www.google.co...i&btnG=Google Search
Search Engine		google.com
Search Words		ben cornali
Visit Entry Page		http://blog.joehuffm...DoToDeserveThis.aspx
Visit Exit Page		http://blog.joehuffm...DoToDeserveThis.aspx
Out Click
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		Nov 13 2007 4:14:06 pm
Visit Number		210,121

Uncle points us to this article:

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.

[...]

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, helped connect a device in 2003 that he says diverted and copied onto a government supercomputer every call, e-mail, and Internet site access on AT&T lines.

Side note: I heard of such a device from a friend in 2000.

I've gotten into debates with people that insisted we just needed "appropriate regulations with regards to the collection and use of personal information". I expect Kerr, at best, would claim regulation should be in place and would protect us from the harm that might come from government abuse. That people can believe such outrageous fantasies is so mind boggling to me that I have difficulty articulating my case through my anger.

Let me put this as simply and calmly as I can. If the government has access to information that can be abused, no matter what "regulations" are in place, it will be abused. Just two quick examples; 1) Census data, supposedly "sealed" for 72 years was used by the FBI to track down "enemy aliens and foreign nationals who might be dangerous". People of Japanese, Italian, and German descent were put in internment camps based on "sealed" information. 2) Brady records were required to be destroyed if the gun buyer passed the NCIS check. They weren't. They were kept for at least a year "for audit purposes". I told one gun rights leader that I thought the gun rights community should make it an issue to make sure these records were destroyed. He told me that it wasn't that important because even if they existed they couldn't be used in a court of law because they were "legally destroyed" even if they weren't physically destroyed. After 9-11 those records were used to find "terrorist suspects" that might own guns. People who bought guns were found and their homes searched because those records existed. Gun owners screamed bloody-murder and the gun grabbers insisted it was entirely appropriate that the law be ignored.

A few days ago I finished listening to the book IBM and the Holocaust. Read that book and you'll give strong consideration to being on a back-packing trip deep in the woods when the next census is done. Information is power, tremendous power. When the German "Police Battalions" moved in behind the army to "maintain order" they had lists of every Jew in the area. You couldn't say you didn't have any children because they knew from the census a few months or years before that you did have them. They had birth and death records, they knew who lived in which house in which town. And they were able to murder "vermin" by the millions because they had those lists.

For Kerr to say we should "redefine privacy" is an even more inflammatory statement to me than some gun grabbing politician saying they want all the guns turned in. Even if I don't have my guns I have a chance of hiding my "Jews in the Attic". But if I can't buy them food or obtain medical care for them anonymously they are toast (sick pun intended).

I have yet to hear someone give me, despite my insistence they "put something on the table" to discuss, concrete examples of regulations they think would protect people from government abuse of such data. No one has ever done so. It's always been, "those are details that need to be worked out". I suspect Mr. Kerr is no different. In practical terms there are no regulations that will ever exist that would be adequate.

From a purely hypothetical view point I would be willing to compromise on a set of regulations that probably would be adequate but would violate several articles of the Bill of Rights and probably inspire new rights to be articulated in further amendments to our constitution. I'd explain here but you really don't want to know how creative I am in defending this essential piece of liberty.

Hence, since there will be no practical regulations that will protect such data collections we must not allow such data to be gathered in the first place. And the data that is gathered must be of suspect quality. You and I, as liberty and freedom loving people, have a duty to withhold and corrupt as much of this data as we can. And Mr. Kerr should get a one-way ticket on a fence rail, naked, tarred, and feathered, to North Korea, Cuba, or some other police state. [See my follow up post.]

Update: I forgot to mention another important (because I was there and heard it with my own ears) example. While working for the government laboratory PNNL I had fellow "scientist" (he had a degree in computer science and was working in "cyber security" but was unable to write a computer program) Newton Brown tell another co-worker and I, "See this badge?  This means the law doesn't apply to us." That is the mindset of some of those in government. And for all practical purposes Newton is correct.

Judges know very well how to read the Constitution broadly when they are sympathetic to the right being asserted. We have held, without much ado, that “speech, or . . . the press” also means the Internet...and that “persons, houses, papers, and effects” also means public telephone booths....When a particular right comports especially well with our notions of good social policy, we build magnificent legal edifices on elliptical constitutional phrases - or even the white spaces between lines of constitutional text. But, as the panel amply demonstrates, when we're none too keen on a particular constitutional guarantee, we can be equally ingenious in burying language that is incontrovertibly there.

It is wrong to use some constitutional provisions as springboards for major social change while treating others like senile relatives to be cooped up in a nursing home until they quit annoying us. As guardians of the Constitution, we must be consistent in interpreting its provisions. If we adopt a jurisprudence sympathetic to individual rights, we must give broad compass to all constitutional provisions that protect individuals from tyranny. If we take a more statist approach, we must give all such provisions narrow scope. Expanding some to gargantuan proportions while discarding others like a crumpled gum wrapper is not faithfully applying the Constitution; its using our power as federal judges to constitutionalize our personal preferences.

The able judges of the panel majority are usually very sympathetic to individual rights, but they have succumbed to the temptation to pick and choose. Had they brought the same generous approach to the Second Amendment that they routinely bring to the First, Fourth and selected portions of the Fifth, they would have had no trouble finding an individual right to bear arms.

Judge Alex Kozinski
Silveira v. Lockyer
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
[Via Kevin.--Joe]

There is lots of chatter on the expected news tomorrow:

• This One's for All the Marbles (by Kevin, a very good article)
• What if? (Uncle)
• What If We Lose? (Sebastian)
• What If We Lose? (Armed Canadian)

I agree with those that say, in essence, the U.S. Supreme Court cannot be counted to rule in any rational fashion. They will rule however they want to rule without regard to original intent. Oh, they will find something someplace to hang their decision on but they will have no qualms about putting on the blinders and steadfastly ignore data that disagree with how they want to rule.

At the end of the day (figuratively speaking, literally it will be next spring), the question is what will people do if we are ruled against. Uncle says, "Then, giddy up." Armed Canadian says he would expect the NRA to engage in its biggest fund raising drive in history. Sebastian says it will motivate people in the short term and then the RKBA will gently fade away.

One alternative is a constitution convention as discussed in the comments to Kevin's post. Yeah, right. Our country completely and totally abandoned the enumerated powers model of the constitution during the Roosevelt administration. There wasn't enough outrage then to do a constitutional convention and the loss of just one amendment that is only exercised by something like 40% of the population won't meet the bar.

Going back to the revolutionary war we find that only about one third of the population were in favor of revolt against the tyrant King George. Another one third was opposed and one third were uncommitted. So, based on that model a case could be made that enough outraged gun owners might be able to pull off an illegal action of some sort.

I'd like to imagine there would be some sort Unintended Consequences revolt to the decision but from talking to many gun owners I know that won't happen. I know of three different FFL holders that were outspoken defenders of the RKBA and told of how if they ever gave up their FFL they would have a "mysterious fire" and all the 4473s would be tragically lost. When it came down to it, all of them turned them over to the ATF with only a mild whimper. Another person was exceedingly outspoken about how strongly they believed in their right to free speech and the RKBA. It wasn't even government action, merely pressure from potential investors and employers that convinced them to take their blog offline.

Several years ago one IPSC shooter I know was complaining about the stupid gun laws and how wrong they were. I asked, "So what will you do when your guns are declared illegal and you are told to turn them in? What will you do?" He gave me a confused look and said in a tone that indicated that he thought I was insane to even ask such a stupid question, "I'll turn them over. I'll complain, but I'll turn them over."

Who do you know that has actually followed through on some illegal activity in pursuit of securing liberty for future generations? Okay, if they are smart they won't tell anyone they broke law. So lets reword that a little bit; Who do you suspect may have broken the law in pursuit of securing liberty for future generations? I'll bet you can count them all on the fingers of one hand with several fingers left over.

When talking to one outspoken (in private) gun owner and former Special Forces guy about this he explained that the conditions for revolution is a well known science. IIRC he told me there are five stages to this. Until the people are in stage four there is no point even pushing people in that direction. Our country is, at most, in something like stage 1.5. I tried to push for more, what are the stages? How do you measure them? But he claimed it was too many years ago and he didn't remember.

In the darkest days of the Clinton administration gun rights leaders were privately saying they were merely fighting a delaying action. The war was lost and they were merely fighting on to postpone the inevitable. One evening after attending a public hearing in which the city council discussed destroying confiscated guns rather than "turned them loose on the streets to kill again" (sell them to local gun shops) I found myself alone in the parking lot with a gun rights leader. I asked what about a revolution? What will it take for people to say, "You have gone too far. This cannot be tolerated."? He told me it would never happen. If for no other reason than other countries would not allow us to have a revolution. The U.S. is just too important to the world economy for the other countries to tolerate a civil war. If nothing else they would starve us of critical materials that would shut us down. Embargoes would hurt us so badly that no one would be willing to take the hit in their lifestyles for the sake of their guns and liberty.

The bottom line is that I think Kevin and Sebastian are right. This is for all the marbles. If we lose, then that's it man, game over man, game over.

Update 11/13/2007: Today isn't the day after all. I'm reminded of the Emerson decision that took something like a year and a half to be decided when most cases were decided in a few months.

Last December I got a call from a newspaper wanting to talk about illegal bomb building. I posted about it here. In August Michael Blattner, the college student that got caught with the pipe bomb materials, plead guilty to knowingly and unlawfully possessing firearms at the dorm and at his parents' home. This Thursday Blattner will be sentenced.

From what I can determine about the facts in the case the most Blattner was guilty of was being stupid. Oh, he probably violated several laws here and there but they were all victimless crimes. The type that nearly all gun owners violate all the time without realizing it. Nothing new to report there. Some stupid kid gets his life messed up because the government is overstepping it's constitutional authority--it happens all the time.

What surprised me is this:

Two agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will be honored in Pittsburgh today for their investigation into a former California University of Pennsylvania student accused of possessing pipe bombs.

[...]

ATF agents Matthew Regentin and Ben Cornali will join a handful of law enforcement officers from western Pennsylvania being honored at the 10th Annual Law Enforcement Agency Directors Awards Ceremony.

The men are credited with the arrest of Blattner, 19, who was charged last year in federal court with knowingly and unlawfully possessing firearms at the dorm and at his parents' home following a 10-day investigation.

According to the criminal complaint filed in the case by Regentin, police approached Blattner regarding suspected bomb materials on Dec. 5, 2006, at his dorm room in Residence Hall A.

Regentin said that when police - led by ATF agents and the Allegheny County Bomb Squad - searched Blattner's dorm room, they discovered six pipe bombs ranging from 2 to 4 inches long wrapped in black electrical tape.

Additionally, Regentin said police uncovered two journals detailing the making of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including drawings of pipe bombs and two sketches specifically titled "medium pipe bomb" and "planted IED" (Improvised Explosive Device).

If you read the original newspaper article you will see the local hardware store turned the kid in. As near as I can tell the ATF agents merely did a little searching through the kid's places of residence and concluded he broke some law. Yet they are being "honored" for this. Had they done some great detective work, disarmed a bomb about to blow up a school, or successfully taken down a criminal/terrorist gang that had thousands of pounds of explosives with plans to kill people or do extensive property damage I would be in line to congratulate them on a job well done. But to have some poor smuck handed to them on a silver platter then for them to be "honored" tarnishes the meaning of honored.

Maybe there is more to the story and I'm way off base. If so, someone let me know and I'll update my post. But until then I'll just have to conclude the agents were so stupid that this awards ceremony is like a Special Olympics contest where the contestants were so severely handicapped you are amazed they know which direction to run and everyone deserves an award for just showing up.

According to this report a box of .45 ammo on the U.K. black market cost from £2,000 to £3,000 ($4000 to $6000). Talk about opportunities for a profit! That has to to be more lucrative than drugs.

At second thought I think there must have been a mistake made somewhere along the way. They also say a .38 "bullet" cost £0.50 which would translate into about $50 for a box of fifty. Why would .45 ammo cost 100 times that of .38 ammo? Still there is more than adequate markup for someone with a Dillon 1050 to make a lot of money in their basement.

Smith advocates getting rid of Martin Luther King Day and replacing it with John Moses Browning Day. He makes some good points:

For the record, I am opposed to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a national holiday in the month of January or, for that matter, any other month. It isn’t that I oppose a national holiday celebrating the legacy of America’s greatest civil rights leader. I just don’t believe that King was our greatest civil rights leader. I believe that distinction belongs to John Browning.

Since John Moses Browning was born on January 23rd, 1855, it will be easy to make the transition from a Martin King to a John Browning national holiday. And it will be educational, too. Many gun owners are unaware that Browning sold 44 guns to Winchester including the Model 94 level action repeater. Guns based on the Model 94 design and chambered in 30-30 have probably killed more deer in North America than any other model before or since.

Few Colt owners have had a chance to shoot the .30 and .50 caliber machine guns or 37-mm aircraft cannon. But all of those lucky enough to own Colts including the .45 Caliber and Woodsman models are benefiting from a basic design coming from the greatest genius the firearms industry has ever known.

Today’s “civil rights” movement has become a disgrace largely because it is based on the idea that people are entitled to things they did not earn through the fruits of their own labor. Instead, people are given things on the basis of what their ancestors suffered – all coming from those who did nothing wrong on the basis of what their ancestors did wrong.

But John Browning was a different kind of man. He refused to take anything he did not earn. He even refused an honorary degree from a university on the basis of that principle. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson could learn a lot from a man who practices what he preaches.

Although it took a lot of courage to attack MLK I'm not sure there was anything to be gained by that except getting a little more attention. That extra attention is likely to be about 90% hostile.

The internationally organized bigots are a little more open about their objectives than are the ones in the U.S.:

All our objectives are predicated on the belief that the interests of public safety demand a reduction in the availability and attractiveness of guns of all kinds.

1. Minimum age of 18 for the ownership, use and possession of all guns. 
2. One certification system for all legal weapons i.e. rifles, shotguns, airguns. 
3. Certification of all deactivated weapons. 
4. Multi-shot rifles and shotguns to be banned. 
5. Practical or Combat shooting or any other shooting practice which involves the simulation of real life situations and/or the use of human shaped targets to be banned.

We recognise the existence of a significant minority interest in shooting for sport, and our proposals are aimed at striking an appropriate balance between the sport-shooting interest and the overriding interest in public safety.

Notice that self-defense is not recognized as a legitimate use of firearms. In fact they call out practice for self-defense to be banned. The most basic human right, the right to defend one's own life, should be forbidden. People that advocate this are not worthy of living in society. They should be be in prison or hung just as the Nazis in Nuremberg. They are participating in crimes against humanity. Our country has laws against conspiracy against rights and if they touch foot on our soil they should be arrested and put on trial.

Guns can provide an intoxicating and almost pornographic attraction to young men who often feel powerless, according to academics in the field.

Chris Summers
November 12, 2007
Who carries guns and why?
BBC News
[The actual report is here. What is interesting to me is the report does not include the words "porn" or "intoxicating" in any form. Apparently Summers is just making stuff up.--Joe]

The TLB ecosystem must be going through some global climate change or something. I doubt my blog will remain a Marauding Marsupial very long:

The Seattle Times has an almost unbiased article on the Heller case and the U.S. Supreme Court. What's really interesting to me is they didn't get any comment from the local anti-gun organization Washington Ceasefire. I haven't paid that much attention to local politics for several years but I remember several years ago when Washington Ceasefire had the local media eating out of their hand. It seemed like it was several times a month when the media would, essentially, print their news releases. And now with big news happening on the gun rights issue the local bigots are not to be heard. Their website shows no real activity since April of this year.

I looked at Ceasefire Foundation of Washington (non-profit branch of Washington Ceasefire) finances and updated my spreadsheet of anti-gun finances but didn't learn a whole lot. Their pattern correlates closely with that of other anti-gun owner organizations. But it hasn't, as of late 2005, gotten into what would appear to be a desperate situation.

I had to read this article twice to figure out what they were actually doing with their grant money. It turns out they are apparently taking a stroll into an alternate reality where good intentions make a difference. In their world view gang members need to be offered "alternatives to their current lifestyle".

I call it wistful thinking but they call it Project Ceasefire:

"Our role in Project CeaseFire is, quite simply, to stop the next shooting," state Attorney General Anne Milgram said, referring to the name of the statewide campaign and its tagline. "And if we do that, we can save lives."

[...]

Friday's news conference, held in the lower level of Plainfield Public Library before more than 100 people, also marked the graduation of eight paid outreach workers who endured 40 hours of training, including nighttime strolls in crime-ridden areas of other cities.

The workers said they will devote their time to consoling families affected by gun violence, offering gang members alternatives to their current lifestyle and promoting safe streets by holding community events such as a proposed midnight barbecue in the city's West End.

The group, led by Angela Piggee, executive director of the Liberty Community Development Corporation, includes: Arlinda Harris, Ethel Wheeler, Eric Spann, George M. Brown Sr., Amy Concepcion, Tawana Fields and Wanda Lyles.

Though Piggee said she received a number of unspeakable responses when she and fellow trainees attempted to talk to gang members in other cities, Piggee said she remained optimistic about the outreach efforts in Plainfield.

I suppose it's possible they figured out a way to get away with it but it sure sounds like entrapment to me:

What they noticed was that the maximum penalty for selling a firearm to a convicted felon was the same as that for being a felon in possession, 10 years in prison. So they enlisted a confidential informer with a felony record to start buying guns from gang members.

Government: If It Ain't Broke, They'll Break It

Larry Elder
November 8, 2007
From the article by that name.
[I really need to write up my "Just One Question" for big government advocates (see also this post and comments). This article will be one of the references.--Joe]

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein
[There are times when I'm very discouraged. There are times when it just doesn't seem worth gnawing through your restraints to get up in the morning.--Joe]

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.

Archimedes
[From some reason Kevin's project reminded me of this.--Joe]

In spite of a lifetime of indoctrination to the contrary at public schools, some students are figuring out that being in a "gun free zone" can put you at risk.  Here in Moscow, pro rights students at the University of Idaho are making themselves heard.  This comes shortly after our socialist mayor, Nancy Cheney, tried to ban guns in "public places" and was told by the state attorney general to back off.  "Preemption" laws state that a local government may not enact gun laws that are more strict than state law.  Yet hear we have a state-funded institution with a gun free zone policy.  Go figure.

Virginia Tech is also a “no firearms” campus, but that didn’t stop Seung-Hui Cho from killing 32 people there April 16. Baker [one of the student protestors] said he doesn’t believe being able to carry concealed weapons would have prevented the tragedy, but that it would have minimized the number of innocent people killed. He said Cho didn’t obey the “no firearms” signs, and that can happen anywhere when lawful citizens are denied their right to self-defense.

How do you spell, "Duh!"?

“We’re not saying we need a mass arming of students,” ... People are not going through these [permit approval] procedures so they can go out and commit robberies and rape.”

Does anyone else understand that a criminal isn't going to bother getting a carry permit?

Lt. Paul Kwiatkowski, campus division commander for the Moscow Police Department, said while concealed weapons are legal with a permit, the university’s code of conduct is very clear about carrying them on campus and that this policy, if changed, would complicate issues of violence.

Yeah, it would complicate things very much indeed - for the criminal.  Nothing will spoil your day of fun, murdering people, worse than having someone shoot back at you.

“If an individual is carrying a concealed weapon, you shouldn’t see it,” he said. “They like to flash their guns and show everyone they’re carrying a gun.”

Really?  Carry permit holders like to "flash" their guns and "show everyone"?  Got any proof of that, Lieutenant?  I know a bunch of permit holders, and I've never once seen it happen that way.  If I'm not mistaken, Lieutenant, "flashing" you gun around, can even get your permit revoked.  One thing left out of this article is the fact that Idaho requires three hours of training before a carry permit is issued.  My experience is that most people get a lot more training than that, all on their own.  Anyone who cares enough to have done even rudimentary study of this issue will already know that concealed carry permit holders are THE most law-abiding segment of society - more so than police.  Furthermore, (and are you listening, Nancy Cheney?) the rates of innocent bystander injuries, and of improper shootings, are far lower when a concealed permit holder is involved in a confrontation, compared to when a policeman is involved.  Look it up.

If concealed weapons were allowed, Kwiatkowski said, and a shooter came on campus, while concealed weapons carriers could fire back, when police arrived they wouldn’t know who the shooter was.

This is one point that has some shred of legitimacy.  However, we were trained in my "pre-permit" classes to be very aware of this potential problem.  If you're the citizen defender, and you're the one calling the cops, make sure they have your description and that of the perp.  When police arrive, put your gun down if possible, and identify yourself, etc..  Cops:  You people need to have thought of these things, and know what to do ahead of time to protect the innocent.  Our right to protect ourselves does not depend on what you consider to be convenient.  For that matter, should we automatically assume that anyone in a cop uniform is actually a cop?  Mr. murderer can get a cop outfit at the local rental store.  Now he's Deputy Freakin' Dog.  Unfortunately for all of us, criminals don't wear bright orange arm bands or some such, identifying themselves as criminals, either.

While looking for a reference link to my previous post I discovered this:

A famous negative reply to the issue was penned by Karl Marx, The Jewish Question, (Braunschweig, 1843). He asks the question "The German Jews desire emancipation. What kind of emancipation do they desire? Civic, political emancipation." And answers: "The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism." Karl Marx responded to Bruno Bauer's two studies on the Jewish Question focusing on religious differences by seeing a corrupt capitalist nature to be essential to Judaism, and thus preventing its assimilation.

It's all the more interesting because Marx was Jewish by birth. So the father of communism, who was a Jew, claims a corrupt capitalist nature is essential to Judaism. It appears Marx wasn't a practicing Jew but I still find it ironic that he contributed scholarly works On The Jewish Question that contributed to the genocide. 

They haul out the tired mantra of "government intrusion on their rights."

But those are just code words for being selfish and lacking empathy.

Gun Guys
November 8, 2007
Another Child Shot Accidentally as the Gun Lobby Selfishly Refuses to Help Protect Our Kids
[I'll bet you didn't know the Bill of Rights was just code words for being selfish and lacking empathy. I didn't either. Maybe he thinks people with black skin should stay out of white restaurants, whites only swimming pools, and not use drinking fountains intended for whites. Does that mean black skinned people should understand that whites like the Gun Guys shouldn't be exposed to using the same eating utensils that have been in the mouths of blacks. And swimming in the same water? Isn't that real lack of empathy for whites? And I'm sure it was being selfish and a lack of empathy for the Aryans when the Allies went to war with Germany just because they were trying to implement a Final Solution for the Jewish Question in Europe.

It seems to me there are a large number of people that seem to believe, at some level, that Governments can't intrude on rights--that it's a logical impossibility. They seem to think that governments grant rights and hence if the law changes the right no longer exists. The truth of the matter is, of course, that rights exist irrespective of governments and governments can only infringe, guarantee, and/or protect rights. The Gun Guys mindset is but one example.--Joe]

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.

Jonathan Swift
[Governments that forget their true relationship with it's citizens are on their way to enslaving their subjects.--Joe]