…written by old, dead, white, misogynist slave owners who aren’t the boss of us.

We are told that the founders wrote the second amendment with muskets in mind, and that they couldn’t possibly have foreseen the deadly effectiveness of our modern weaponry. The Bill of Rights, the enemy says, should be interpreted with that understanding, which means we should be allowed to have all the flintlock long rifles and muskets we want. Banning effective modern weapons is therefore not only permissible but is the necessary, “right thing to do”.

We’re all very familiar with this argument, but like everything else coming from the Progressives it misses the point entirely.

The purpose of the American Revolution, and of the Constitution, was to secure liberty. The purpose of the second amendment was to ensure that the people at large would keep any army the government could muster “in awe”. Their words.
That concept makes perfect sense for a people who, not only had just defeated the most powerful military in the world, in part using personally owned weapons, but who saw the purpose of government as being “…to secure these rights…”

The new concept of that time (and it is still very new today – so new that even now very few people understand it) was that government functions at the pleasure of the People – that ultimately the people hold the power, and individuals’ rights having been “…endowed by their creator…” cannot be altered or abridged by anyone for any reason.

The second amendment is a natural expression of these concepts. It defines the force relationship between government and the people. WE hold the power. Rights belong to US and cannot be altered by any mere mortal. Rights can be violated by criminals, certainly, but not altered.

Therefore; if we are going to “update” anything with regard to personal weaponry for the purposes of the second amendment, so as to maintain the force relationship required to secure liberty, we must have weaponry that will truly and efficiently keep the most powerful, modern military in the world “in awe”.

In support of that simple point; I don’t want to see any of you making that silly “Semi-autos are OK because they aren’t assault rifles” argument any more, or its twin brother; “Those media types are trying to confuse people over the difference…” That’s the argument of the loser– he’s already ceded the main point, and is now arguing (pleading) over the details of the violations of his rights and those of his neighbors.

The point is, Young Grasshopper, that semi-autos are OK, and assault rifles and machineguns are even MORE OK. And now you need to ask yourself; just what would the private citizenry want to have, so as to keep a modern army “in awe”? And right there, after thinking about that for a few weeks, you begin to see the meaning of the second amendment.

If liberty is worth defending, then surely it is worth defending effectively and efficiently.

Of course the weaponry is only a part of the equation. The understanding of the principles, and the resolve that comes from that understanding, is the prerequisite. Without that, this conversation is pointless.

As nearly everyone already knows there is an experiment in progress in southern California. I would like to share the design of the experiment and the questions I hope to answer.*

Why a new experiment was required:

After Columbine law enforcement had to reevaluate how they responded to this new situation. Their training was for a “hostage situation” and they handled it as such. Of course this was completely the wrong response. They didn’t even have a name for the type of event. It is now called “an active shooter” and the tactics and training have been modified to respond in a much better fashion. The D.C. snipers comes close but those two were of below average intelligence and had only a moderate amount of military training between the two of them, no law enforcement training, no knowledge of how law enforcement would respond, attacked random private citizens, and attempted to extort money which resulted in important clues being left behind.

This too will be something almost completely new to the police. No known data can be confidently extrapolated to this new situation.

Subject selection:

I wanted the subject to be a black lesbian with a strong affinity for leftist politicians. This would deflect the knee jerk “angry right-wing white male” response from the gun hostile media and politicians. But finding one in possession of a variety of firearms, the skills to use them, plus a law enforcement and military background proved too difficult on the tight schedule. The substitution of a black male was considered adequate.

Experiment location:

The location of the experiment was chosen as California because of the large geographical area with repressive guns laws. A multi-jurisdictional response is expected to yield a more confused and less effective response by law enforcement. A minimal set of variables were desired in the initial experiment.

New York and New Jersey were also considered but were rejected for the following reasons:

1. Smaller geographical area for the subject to take advantage of.
2. The higher population density makes detection and reporting of movement by the public more likely.
3. Higher population density increases the risk to innocent private citizens.
4. If the experiment could have been run as original scheduled in May, when I have time after Boomershoot but before the hot summer months, NY and NJ still might have still have been given serious consideration but the frenzy of anti-gun legislation in December and January pushed the schedule ahead. The winter climate of NY and NJ this time of year would have put the subject at an disadvantage.

The Los Angles police department also is one of the largest, outside of New York City, in a repressive gun law environment. This gives us important data on the effectiveness of extensive hardware and well developed command and control.

The existence of the repressive gun laws was important to demonstrate that the laws are useless or at least any effect they have still leaves the subject with sufficient opportunities.

Plus my parents honeymooned in the Big Bear Lake area and I have always wanted to visit.

Questions to be answered:

1. Just how much damage is likely by a relatively smart and sane, well-trained, well-armed individual?
2. How do the police handle being the hunted instead of the hunters?
3. Do the police have any training for this situation?
4. Does law enforcement even have even have a name for this type of situation?
5. What changes in training will result?
6. With the police spending significant resources on one subject what are the effects in other areas in their jurisdiction?
7. Does the general crime rate increase during the time the subject is active?
8. Do the targeted law enforcement departments quit their jobs or otherwise decrease the effectiveness of the police force when subject to increased stress?
9. Do the politicians and/or media advocate for new laws to prevent events from happening again?
10. If new laws are advocated what are those laws?

Although further experiments will be required for confirmation, the data will be used to extrapolate the expected outcomes from a small team targeting a police force. Multiple team information is desired but it is not expected to accurately extrapolate from this one experiment.

Applicability to other situations:

I would caution other experimenters to not attempt drawing conclusions from this experiment as to the expected results if it were politicians, the media, a corporation, or other group instead of law enforcement being targeted. The dynamics, mindset, strategy, and tactics of being the target versus protecting a target are different and probably cannot be accurately accounted for without actually running the experiment.

*Yeah, right. If I had the mind control technology to do something like this from 1000 miles away with no contact with the subject I would a be a multi-gazillionaire. Furthermore the entire world would have a free-market economy with free-minds and the political discussions would be over who had the purest principles and which politicians best exemplified the principles expressed by Ayn Rand, Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, and Robert Higgs.

This makes sense and is valuable information:

The soft-spoken academic interrupted the conversation about the nuances of gun control to point out that random mass shootings are typically suicides augmented with multiple murders as a way of dramatizing the shooter’s pain and self-hatred. Copious amounts of research show that media publicity of suicides leads to copy-cat crimes. “It seems to me,” the professor politely interjected, “that the more we report that this sort of assault weapon was used, that this person had this kind of bulletproof vest, that this person entered the school this way—that gives other people who are depressed and suicidal and want to take a whole bunch of people with them the knowledge on how to pull it off.” The media, Bell said, should self-censor their sensational, detailed coverage of mass shootings.

But as Barrett (yes, Paul Barrett from Business Week, Gun Blogger Rendezvous 2011, and Boomershoot 2012) points out:

That’s not going to happen—for the same reason that the inevitable commissions and hearings on violence in films and video games will conclude that there’s little for government to do about bloodshed in entertainment. The First Amendment protects a robust right to expression. A parallel exists with the Second Amendment, another emblem of freedom, forged in the 18th century yet still hallowed generations later. These uniquely American rights come with tremendous responsibilities—and haunting costs.

Self-censorship isn’t going to be effective in a free market. The temptation to increase readers/viewers/listeners with “uncensored” coverage will result in fuller, more sensational coverage by a few who will gain from it. There competition will either pay a heavy price in the market place or end the policy of self-censorship.

Censorship will last only if there are direct costs such as fines or prison terms associated with such coverage.

There are haunting costs no matter which direction you go.