That’s actually pretty devious. I like that.
Ry Jones
June 9, 2012
[Barron, Ry, and I were at the Boomershoot site doing some tests. Most of the tests were failures but one for a potential new target type was successful. It was the new target which prompted Ry’s comment.
For now, I’ll just say that the new target is 48” inches long, holds more Boomerite than any target we have deployed in recent years, and leave it at that.—Joe]
I remember the time I was in Iraq, and the family I was staying with insisted that I carry some form of weapon as “defence” and protection. Even their grandmother carried a small hand gun in her purse whenever she went out.
I vehemently refused. I hate the feel and the smell, indeed everything, about objects that kill and cause harm.
Rym Ghazal
June 7, 2012
No gun control plus idle youth equals recipe for trouble
[I wonder if she has the same hatred for guns used by the police. And does the same hatred extend to knives, clubs, rocks, feet, fists, hands, teeth, cars, scissors, rope, electricity, tobacco, alcohol, water, dogs, fire, snakes, spiders, bacteria, and viruses?
She must spend most of her time hating. Perhaps she should see a counselor about that. Such extreme hoplophobia can’t be good for one’s long term mental or physical health.—Joe]
While Bloomberg’s retarded proposal to limit the size of soft drink containers is getting a lot of attention I don’t think most people really understand how serious the problem is. I’ve had conversations with a few people who were admitted Marxist and many others who merely claimed they were Liberals or Progressives. One of the things they all had in common was their extremely simple view of the world while simultaneously proclaimed they were smarter than others and that gave them the authority to force others to live as they demanded. Any mention of individual freedom was immediately shot down because “People don’t do what is best for themselves or society.”
One of the admitted Marxists proclaimed, “I’m a firm believer in the good of society over the good of the individual.” In his world view the individual just doesn’t matter. Government must do what is best for the good of society and if the individual sometimes doesn’t get what they want or gets hurt that is just too bad. Pointing out I could find nothing different in that justification versus that used by those who murdered innocent civilians in 10s of millions in the last century yielded comments to the effect of “They made some horrible mistakes. We just need the right people in charge.” Of course he believed he was one of the right people.
Just as Bloomberg apparently cannot think one step ahead to how easily his proposed restriction on “high capacity” soft drink containers would be defeated these people cannot envision what follows next from their every proposed attempt at restricting individual liberty and the free market. In one of the recent books of Thomas Sowell that I listened to he related the story of when he was a economics student and was enamored with some idea that would “force people to do the right thing”. He proudly presented it to his instructor who asked, “And then what happens?” Sowell initially was perplexed. Why of course, the desired outcome would happen. There was a law or regulation that required people to do the right thing. The instructor pushed him to think it through from an economics point of view. And Sewell thought it through and gave the answer that only slightly diminished his enthusiasm for the idea. The instructor again pushed, “And then what happens?” Again Sowell answered and his enthusiasm damped just a bit more. As the instructor pushed him again and again Sowell walked through the rippling effects of the simple one law and it was not long before he realized that not only was the effect of the law far less simple than what he thought but it would not result in his desired outcome. Everyone touched by the “one simple law” would pay a price with no one, except perhaps the bureaucrats and the politicians, receiving a net benefit.
The typical gun controller cannot conceive of why registration of firearms would not make society safer. Unintended consequences escape their grasp all the while they proclaim themselves to be morally and intellectually superior to us. It’s all just “common sense” to them. They vehemently insist there are, literally, easy answers to some difficult problems that involve the constitution, criminology, psychology, and practicality of implementation. I sometimes believe those that insist that if someone had not had a concealed carry permit they wouldn’t have committed multiple murders must be suffering from some kind of insanity. If one is willing to break the law against murder why would they obey the law against carrying a concealed firearm or even ownership of a firearm? Why is it so incredibly difficult for them to think even one step ahead?
I struggle with how to get what I think are extremely simple concepts across to these people. Even everyday things Liberals/Progressives claim to be experts on they are profoundly ignorant and/or stupid on. One Liberal I know went on about how because something was “natural” it was “so much better for you”. I asked what the definition of “natural” was. Was this opposed to “super-natural”? This is about the only thing that even comes close in my mind. She said, “No. Natural is something that is not man-made.” “So”, I queried, “Does that mean the lemonade you are drinking is not natural? At the bare minimum a man or woman had to squeeze the juice from the lemon and mix it with water.” The response was, “If you ask that then you are just stupid.”
This liberal can’t even present a defendable definition of a word that she uses in probably 25% of her conversations with me and she calls me stupid? How do you get through to someone like that?
Sowell’s instructor had an advantage we don’t. He or she had a very bright student with a grasp of economic theory and the student was in a subordinate position. Liberals/Progressives will not tolerate being in a subordinate position. They believe they are superior to non-liberals and any challenge to that world view is met with an attack. And if the verbal attack isn’t sufficient to “win” their argument they are more than willing, as Bloomberg is demonstrating, to use force to get our compliance.
People with the intellectually power and problem domain knowledge of a 2nd grader are demanding they be put in charge of essentially everything with guns to back up their decisions. This is some seriously scary stuff.
Big Brother is now here – and look, he is retarded!
Bob Budz
Via Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries, Vol. 2, No.1 January 1, 1994
[Although it was said over 18 years ago I have to think it is more true today than it was then. At that time Mayor Bloomberg had not yet taken it upon himself to try and restrict the size of soda cups. Perhaps he is too stupid to realize that if he wants more than ‘X’ number of ounces he can hold a cup in each hand each holding ‘X -1’ ounces but very few others are so handicapped.—Joe]
There is no such thing as an amoral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
Oscar Wilde
1891
Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray
[One could just as well substitute “gun” for “book” and “made” for “written” and have just as a profound, timeless, and controversial statement. And in the truthfulness department I would give the edge to the version about guns rather than books.—Joe]
Good intentions are not good enough. In real life you need to look at the risks as well as the intended rewards of what you and your government do. Gun registration may sound like a good thing to some people but what if the registry became accessible to the bad guys?
Maybe this is what it looks like:
FIFTY firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition have been stolen from registered NSW gun owners in the past 16 days, prompting fears the firearms registry has been compromised.
…
Gun dealers and victims said the registry would be a gold mine to criminals as it contained details of the types of weapons, where they were stored and addresses of owners.
Registration increases the value of unregistered guns and increases the chances of theft (“creation” of unregistered guns). The registration list itself becomes a target because of its value in finding guns to steal.
Registration of firearms is only good for one thing… confiscation. And that confiscation could be thieves looking to make a buck or thugs getting a government paycheck. It doesn’t really matter. Don’t let them register your firearms.
What makes MAIG so dangerous is that they have chosen to remain rooted in reality as the rest of us know it, rather than trying to construct their own.
Sebastian
June 4, 2012
Richard Aborn’s Desperate Plea
[Sebastian has been concerned about MAIG (Mayors Against Illegal Guns) for a long time and I haven’t been seeing it. I’m not convinced yet but this is a best reason that I have seen so far.
The Brady Campaign and others have severe cognitive distortion problems. And it’s almost as if When Prophecy Fails was written about them. When one of their predictions about “blood will run in the streets” fails they become more frantic and proselytize even more. After a time most people realize they are a few Fruit Loops short of a full bowl and don’t pay much attention to them.
MAIG does appear to be fairly well grounded and for the most part stay on their one message. That message, if implemented, is harmful to us but is not easily dismissed as pointless. People want to believe there are simple solutions that will reduce violent crime. The MAIG message when viewed from a very narrow perspective would seem to have promise in doing this without significant harm to gun rights. This isn’t true but the complete refutation of that message doesn’t lend itself well to sound bites* and that makes the risk of causing problems greater.
*I like, “The war on ‘illegal guns’ will be no more effective than the war on illegal drugs.” But too many people view the war on illegal drugs as a necessary and beneficial thing. And it would seem to concede there is such a thing as an “illegal gun” when in fact they are referring to a prohibited person in possession of any firearm. Hence we quickly get out of sound bite territory.—Joe]
A man or boy has a psychological — perhaps even biological — need to prove his capability, durability, fearlessness, toughness. Recognizing this, it would be a worthwhile mission for families, schools, worship houses and other community institutions working toward violence reduction to formulate means that allow boys to fulfill that imperative constructively.
At the very least, teach them that a gun is not a penis. It’s a tragedy that Crittenton didn’t know that.
Leonard Pitts Jr.
September 2, 2011
Commentary: A gun does not equate manhood
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]
Health care is considered a right and everyone is required to purchase insurance so they will have it when they need it.
Doesn’t that mean that everyone should be required to purchase a firearm, training, and carry it with them all the time so they will have that right available to them when they need it?
Its not really a cartoon, but it’s close enough.
Logic isn’t the strong suit of the Anti-gunners.
The NRA’s proud history of fighting the Klan has been airbrushed out of the record by those who were complicit with the KKK, Jim Crow and racial terror, to wit: the Democrats.
Ann Coulter
April 23, 2012
Coulter: Gun control and self-defense
[Great article. As is usual for Coulter there is lots of snark.-Joe]
I have this hypothesis that our universe is a black hole. Via Jeff I found out there are some serious cosmologists that a hypothesis similar to mine.
Of course I’m still very interested in knowing the answer to the question, “When do we get ripped apart by tidal forces and our subatomic components get sucked into the singularity?” It affects my deciding whether I should unpack my boxes of stuff from Idaho and do some reloading or spend quality time with my kids.
I’m not proposing to rid society of all firearms. But how about if we start with the handguns?
Reflections of a shallow pond
June 1, 2012
Slaughter in Seattle: Why Gun Control is Out of Control.
[Yeah. A good first start. I got it.
Mr. Shallow Pond needs to spend a little time thinking on this. I would like to suggest he investigate the time when this country tried to rid society of “demon rum”. And what cave has he been hiding in such that he has Internet access and hasn’t heard of the war on (some) drugs? Does he think efforts to “rid society” of handguns as a start is going to turn out any better? As a final lesson, in more ways than one, I would like to suggest Mr. Shallow Pond look up the phrase molṑn labé.
I especially “like” how he doesn’t propose a plan for how to get around the Constitutional issues. My guess is that like most people demanding the government “do something” the Bill of Rights and enumerated powers is totally irrelevant to them.
For some reason I keep thinking it’s a mind not a pond that we are seeing the reflections of here.—Joe]
I like what I see here:
I found this analysis by Richard M. Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City and a former president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (it was called Handgun Control, Inc. while Aborn was president) insightful:
Supporters of gun control tend to be broad-based progressives who also support education reform, reproductive choice, marriage equality and other issues. In a country with low voter turnout, the ability to form single-issue voting blocs is a powerful political tool. The NRA has succeeded in doing this; the gun-control movement has not.
But when Aborn tries to elaborate on why this is true I think he misses, perhaps deliberately, some important points. For example he claims:
The communication strategy of the National Rifle Association centers on the idea that passage of any gun-control measure is a step toward the elimination of all guns. Framing the issue this way foments an element necessary to sustaining a broad movement that votes: the personal interest of its members.
While there is some truth to this I think it is important to look at the symmetry issues. How could have the gun-control movement (GCM) framed the issue that would have achieved similar and sustaining interest in their members?
If the issue had been framed as, “All we want is some minor tweaks in the law” what kind of support would they receive from their target base? I think their base would think of them as cowards without vision and look somewhere else to donate their money and time. While it is very difficult to show cause and effect in this case I think it is interesting that declining support for Handgun Control Inc. is strongly correlated with their name change to The Brady Campaign.
Therefore it seems the only way for them to have framed the issue to get more support on their side was a ban on all or as many types of guns as they could. They could have, and there are indications they did, privately pitch their agenda as incrementalism with a ban being their ultimate goal. Sort of “We don’t want to ban all guns” .
Since framing the issue as a total ban is a motivator for the base of both sides why did the GCM shy away from that but the gun freedom movement (GFM) embraced it? From a merely logical/symmetric perspective shouldn’t it be just as damaging/beneficial to whichever side framed it in that manner? There may be more than one reasons why that is not true but the most obvious one to me is that the GFM has a much larger base than the GCM. Hence for every “unit of motivation” the GCM were to gain by framing the issue as a total ban they realized the GFM would have gained, perhaps, 10 units.
I believe this knowledge essentially forced the GCM to work “under the radar”. In order to motivate their base they had to tell them the ultimate goal was much further along the total ban scale than what they could publically admit to. This may have created a climate where habitual deceit became institutionalized. Before the “information age” and with the strong media support they got away with this and almost won. If the Internet had been another 10 years coming to fruition I think we would be looking at U.K like restrictions today instead of planning the end of days for the GCM. This culture of deceit is unlikely to ever be successful again. And without the deceit they are essentially powerless.
I agree with Aborn’s next point:
Virtually all of the long-term grass-roots political movements in U.S. history have centered on direct stakeholders with a sustainable, single-minded focus that determines not only how an individual votes but also provides a strong motivation to vote. Most supporters of the early suffragist movement, abortion rights, civil rights, gay marriage and even the NRA have had a direct stake in the outcomes of their issues.
…
In a country with low voter turnout, the ability to form single-issue voting blocs is a powerful political tool. The NRA has succeeded in doing this; the gun-control movement has not.
In his proposals to address this point he completely ignores what I believe to be an insurmountable obstacle. The problem for the GCM is they do not have an immediate and direct threat if they loose the battle. The GFM does. The GFM would lose their guns and in some cases their livelihoods (manufactures, people in the firearm distribution chain, ranges, trainers, hunting guides, etc.) if the GCM were to win. Because the consequences of the threat are so much higher is the reason the people in the GFM have a strong tendency to be single issue voters.
What I find most telling about Aborn’s analysis is that he almost totally ignores two other issues.
In regards to the constitutional issue. He only says:
In 2008, the Supreme Court established in District of Columbia v. Heller that individuals have the right to own guns — and that the possession of firearms is subject to reasonable regulations.
He does not elaborate on what the definition of “reasonable” might be. There are indications that strict scrutiny is going to be the end result and almost for certain the standard will be intermediate scrutiny or higher. The problem for the GCM is that none of the proposed “reasonable restrictions” can meet the intermediate scrutiny standard. To pass intermediate scrutiny the law “is substantially related to the achievement of important government objectives”. I take this to mean that the law has to actually be somewhat effective. Light restrictions such as requiring ID to buy ammunition are not going to achieve anything and heavy restrictions clearly run into constitutional barriers. An even stronger claim can be made that the GCM has trouble with achieving effectiveness with any of law at any time throughout history.
The other issue Aborn totally ignores. That issue is the benefits of gun ownership. This is a gaping hole in the all the battle plans the GCM’s have ever fielded. And the GFM has used this hole to defeat them. The GCM does not, and realistically they probably cannot, recognize that firearm ownership has benefits. The best they can do is vigorously assert there are no net benefits. As long as law enforcement officers carry firearms that assertion is going to ring very hollow.
Aborn concludes that the GCM can still succeed if they just do three things:
In the 1980’s and 1990’s the violent crime problem was a motivator for gun control. But now violent is a motivator for private ownership of firearms. Aborn is living in the past on this one.
The GFM is very skeptical of “reasonable restrictions.” The GCM has just been way too deceptive for far too many years to believe they can be trusted. Forging an alliance with the great deceivers is going to be a very hard task.
He, probably deliberately, used the false metric of “gun death”. All reasonable research on the effectiveness of gun control uses a net benefit standard rather deaths by gun which the GCM nearly always throw in suicide and justified homicide. And as soon as the proper standard is used they lose the argument.
My conclusion is that Aborn’s position is nearly hopeless. He has nearly insurmountable obstacles at almost every step. I suspect he is desperate and is trying to rally support for a cause he knows is nearly dead but has dedicated the last 20 years to. It must be incredibly depressing to devote your life to something then see it die. That can make a person do desperate things and to not see things clearly. I believe that has happened in this case.
We live with guns and occasionally worry about them. If this leaves you feeling at a disadvantage, Lynne, maybe you need to get one.
Bruce Ramsey
May 31, 2012
Seattle shootings: Is it time for gun control?
[Considering the political atmosphere of Seattle in general and the Seattle Times in general this was actually a pretty positive editorial about guns. It certainly wasn’t “SHALL. NOT. BE. INFRINGED.” or molṑn labé! But compared to what Seattle Times editorials would have been 15 years ago it is absolutely awesome.
And I would like to go on record as making a public offer to Lynne Varner, or anyone else in the Seattle area, to take them shooting for their first time.—Joe]
I recently received an email containing the following from “The Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus” (emphasis in the original):
Over the last few years, the gun lobby has secretly tried to change state laws and force concealed weapons on college campuses in many states. We need your help, so that we can continue our successful fight against the gun lobby over the next few months.
The gun lobby has been secretive about trying to change state laws? How would this even be possible? State laws are changed by legislative actions which are far from secret.
The gun lobby has tried to force concealed weapons on college campuses? How would this even be possible? Has the gun lobby has been trying to ram vehicles through road blocks?
They have been successful? This is only true if they define success as not losing every single time. Our progress is not as fast as we would like but we have not experienced any loses. We have had some wins and many failures to score. But those failures to score are almost certain to be less and less likely. The specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms is very unlikely to be declared null and void on college campuses. All it will take is for one or two good court cases and hundreds if not thousands of colleges with repressive laws against gun ownership will have their rules struck down by court order.
Soon they will be irrelevant and out of a job. They are desperate and that explains their lies.
My advice to them is to change their names and go get another job.
Why change their names? Think of it this way; What are the job prospects of someone who used to be a high ranking Klan member?
This is kind of cool (via email from Tiffany Hopp, MarCom Manager, at Crimson Trace):
For Immediate Release;
May 31, 2012
Crimson Trace Extends Popular ‘Batteries For Life’ Program
(Wilsonville, OR) Crimson Trace, the Oregon-based manufacturer of the World’s only grip-activated laser sights today announced plans to extend its hugely popular ‘Batteries for Life’ scheme. CTC customers will receive free replacement batteries for the lifetime of their laser sights, in exchange for registering their products with the company’s customer service department.
“There are very few things in life that are truly free,” said Nate Hoke, Director of Customer service for Crimson Trace. “This is one of them. Just register online or via our 800 number and every year, we’ll send a fresh set of batteries for your Lasergrips® or Laserguard® product for as long as you own it.” Hoke reported that many customers were still using the original batteries in their sights after six or seven years. “While Crimson Trace products have the longest run times in the industry, laser sights are safety devices and as such, should have regular battery changes. We’re proud to be able to offer this program to our loyal customers – it’s one more way for us to show our appreciation to the people who have supported us over the years.”
All Crimson Trace products are proudly designed engineered and manufactured in the USA and fit the widest range or popular self-defense handguns, including Glock, Smith & Wesson, Kimber and Springfield.
For further information contact;
Iain Harrison
Media Relations Manager
CRIMSON TRACE CORPORATION
iainh@crimsontrace.com
1-800-442-2406 x1303
I use Crimson Trace lasers on some of the guns I teach beginners with. It think they make fine products.
Over the weekend I read The Communist Manifesto for the first time. I expected some sort of almost magical power to draw me into embracing the evil. I was surprised, disappointed, and finally I had a sinking feeling of emptiness as I thought about it more.
The book was like a synopsis of a poorly written alternate history novel. Assumptions critical to the reasoning which followed were unsupported and, at least to my present day perspective, either blatantly wrong or highly suspect. Even conceding the authors their assumptions without contest the conclusions reached with such confidence were as unstable as any house of cards.
And this is the book that convinced millions of people to murder hundreds of millions of others? Is this all that it takes to remove the thin veneer off of civilized behavior and enable the most evil empires human history has ever known? Self-described intellectuals accept this book as a valid political philosophy? These “intellectuals” regard themselves as my betters? Wow!
The typical two year old child or even the family dog wouldn’t accept the conclusions unless they were forced into compliance. It’s no wonder the authors state, “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can only be attained by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”
But in talking to Ry about the book I got a new perspective. He said that he first read it when he was about 12 years old and it was like the scales had been removed from his eyes and he saw everything clearly for the first time. Furthermore he said it is no wonder Communists killed off older people with any education or even if they wore glasses. It’s no wonder they attack capitalist societies through the school system. We were and are in a war most people don’t even realize exists (see also The Handbook of 5GW). Ry went on to claim that the book was aimed at the young and “the people with guns, the muscle” who would do the “heavy lifting” of “forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” These would be people without the intellectual rigor to challenge the assumptions, reasoning, or conclusions.
Okay… I can buy into that hypothesis for now.
The obvious question then becomes why do the people who claim to be the intellectuals of our society so much more likely to advocate for Communism?
I know a professor who admits he is a Marxist. He once insisted our family should not be allowed to own the home we do because we “don’t need such a big house.” The “government should let someone with a bigger family use that house.” This professor told me the previous dozens or hundreds failed attempts at implementing a Communist utopia failed because, “The right people weren’t in charge. We just need to have the right people.” I explained that concentrated power of that sort attracts the “wrong” people who would always succeed in the acquisition and control of that power. He insisted that “we just need to get the right people in power.” I then sent him a copy of The Road to Serfdom. I don’t know if he even read it but I do know his attitude has not changed. He believes he is an intellectual superior in our society. He is a professor. He knows what is best for our society. Of course you know he voted for Obama. But I could have given you 20 chances and you would not have guessed that he is a professor in a school of business.
So one answer to the obvious question is we are at war and most people don’t even know it.
Another possible answer is something Sarah once asked me, “Have you ever noticed that liberals are not very bright?” I was a bit shocked. Someone else noticed? I am a bit sensitive about challenging the intellectual capacity of others because I know there are many things that I don’t know and seem to be beyond my capacity to understand (such as the mass appeal of The Communist Manifesto). But here was someone else, without an engineer’s mind, who noticed it too. As I pondered the book and Ry’s observations I realized that was another plausible answer to the obvious question.
The Communist Manifesto tells its readers that supporters of Communism are the intelligent people. They deserve, are destined to, and the good of all human kind depends on them, being in charge. That they “understand” the benefits of Communism to the bafflement of others is probably proof to them that they are the intellectual superiors of those that think Communism is, at best, prone to abuse.
In other words the second plausible answer to the obvious question is that those that advocate Communism are not very bright people who want to believe they are the brightest of all people. And that The Communist Manifesto tells them they are the brightest enables them to then claim themselves as intellectuals.
Regardless of the plausible answers I have no choice but to view Communism as a cancer which has metastasized beyond the point which surgery or chemotherapy can do little more than delay the death of the host. And it can all be traced back to one little book. I’ve written thousands of blog posts on freedom related topics and thousands of others far smarter than me have written hundreds of times more than me with hundreds of examples of Communism evil and failure. Yet we are losing to a couple of guys who have been dead for 120 years who wrote something that was little more than a synopsis of a poorly written alternate history novel.
Man, that sure does suck.
A child says, “It’s my toy.” That’s property law. A child says, “You promised me.” That’s contract law. A child says, “He hit me first.” That’s criminal law. A child says, “Daddy said I could.” That’s constitutional law.
Harold Berman
[Via email from Rolf.
I have often thought of the property law angle. Animals even have a sense of what belongs to them. This has the potential to be used as an argument against Communism (as if more arguments were necessary).
But the extension to the others is enlightening and makes one ponder. Are these concepts universal? Or is there a strong environmental component that is injected by the time the child is able to speak? If these are universal then are there psychological or socials costs “paid” when the government (or even individuals in positions of parent/teacher/neighborhood-thug power) violates these universal laws? If they are not universal but are products of Western cultural then how do other cultures stack up in terms of happiness, longevity, productivity, and wealth?
Interesting stuff.—Joe]
