Is the purpose of legal proceedings to get at the truth or to provide media entertainment?
Thomas Sowell
March 12, 1998
Media Circus versus Justice
[Sowell was referring to the Monica Lewinski/President Clinton media circus but it applies just as well to the Martin/Zimmerman media circus.—Joe]
I first heard about this on the Glenn Beck radio show this morning. As Beck said, “That must mean they think that 150 million of us will need to be shot twice.”
If the plan were to shoot nearly everyone in this country they are seriously underestimating the difficulty if they think they will only need 450 million rounds. Hence I have to conclude they don’t have such a plan or if they do it demonstrates a catastrophic failure of their victim selection process.
In this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost impossible for anyone to believe that anyone else could possibly reject the law of the final supremacy of brute force.
Mahatma Gandhi
August 11, 1920
The Doctrine of the sword
[But he did successfully reject brute force. By nearly every measure he won his political objectives.
He changed the course of history not only by winning critically important battles but by teaching the world the methods by which non-violent methods can achieve revolutionary political ends. This is something those advocating violence in the Martin/Zimmerman case would do well to learn and remember.—Joe]
There is only one question I want answered at this point. There might be more questions once I get the answer but I suspect I’ll know all I need to know with that one answer. I would like to think that answer would enough for everyone else as well but for the people chanting for Zimmerman’s arrest and those putting up “dead or alive” rewards for Zimmerman little things like facts probably won’t make much of a difference.
I strongly suspect Zimmerman is innocent of a crime. I need one more fact to convince me it was a lawful use of deadly force or that we cannot know the answer.
It is possible that Zimmerman instigated the confrontation in such a way that Martin attacked him. Taunting or “picking a fight” with Martin would have Zimmerman sharing a significant amount of responsibility in the death of Martin. But I have heard zero reports of a beginning to the confrontation in this manner. Hence I am of the opinion it did not happen this way or that as long as Zimmerman does not change his story we will never know about it.
I realize the police can’t always be trusted that concern is usually associated with the facts in regard to police conduct, the conduct of those with significant political power, or the conduct of groups being discriminated against. In the case of Zimmerman I don’t think there is any particular reason to believe the police are “fact challenged”. I realize witnesses can be mistaken and/or have a bias. If possible I would like to be able to reach a conclusion based entirely upon physical evidence that is difficult to convincingly fake in a timely manner without getting caught. Hence the particular facts that I think are most relevant are:
The one question I have that will probably settle the issue for me is when the authorities said, “Zimmerman then shot Martin once in the chest at very close range”; What was that range? I’ve probably spent more time and money than most on learning about such things and if the investigators know what they are doing, and I have no reason to believe they don’t, then they should be able to determine that range quite accurately. If the range was under 12 inches they can probably determine the range to within a fraction of an inch. And of course the angle can be determine quite closely as well.
If the range is determined to be within six inches and the bullet path matches Zimmerman’s story then I have to conclude the two were in a fight at contact distance and Zimmerman was losing badly. If I were on a jury I would insist that Zimmerman was in reasonable fear of imminent permanent physical injury or death and was justified in using deadly force to protect himself.
End of story for me.
There essentially are no restrictions on guns or ammunition. There are several organizations, local, national and worldwide, providing guns and ammunition to minors and to the poor, either for free or at subsidized prices, often without parental consent, even to the point of covering up for criminal use of guns in some cases so as to maximize the number of kids with access to guns. It is a human right after all. A right is a right, and that’s that. If you so much as question it, you are against children and against human rights in general, you backward-minded Neanderthal, redneck ignorant Nazi bastard. There are gun training programs in most public schools, with free ammunition available if a kid goes to a school counselor to ask for it, saying that his parents are denying him his right to ammunition.
There’s the background. It is firmly entrenched in our culture, hardly anyone is questioning it, those who do are never taken seriously, and for sure it is not threatened either by this Congress or any foreseeable one.
Then; proposed new federal legislation adds to all of the above by forcing tax payers to pay for free guns and ammunition, for the asking, nationwide. Anyone objecting to this new bill is accused of wanting to “ban guns”, denying the poorest people and the children their second amendment rights. If you can’t get it for free, immediately, any time, anywhere, your right to it has thereby been denied, QED, so without this new bill, even with everything in the first paragraph untouched and safe for the future, the second amendment is effectively banned. Poor, sobbing victim after poor, sobbing victim is paraded in front of the in-depth news show cameras to tell their stories of woe and despair arising from a lack of access to ”affordable” guns and ammunition, and the pundits have nothing but sympathy for them, and the serious understanding that can only come from having had similar experiences of their own.
Now; it is by that same resoning, in that same sort of environment, that Rick Santorum and others are accused of wanting to ban birth control.
Focus, People. Santorum may be the spawn of Satan for all I know, but neither he nor anyone else of any prominence wants to ban birth control. This entire issue was manufactured by Democrats to divert attention from the Obama economy and other Obama atrocities because they believe that “social issues” are the Republicans’ weakness and they want to keep the discussion focused there. Some among us have actually fallen for it even though it’s been used a thousand times before in broad daylight. Please get a grip.
Now I will point out that when we of the pro liberty mindset want a human right respected (one that‘s actually in the constitution, for example) we don’t demand that certain goodies be given to us as part of a government program at taxpayer’s expense and we don’t demand it be given to kids against their parents wishes. The proof of whether a “right” is really a right is that a true right never demands anything from anyone else other than non interference.
[W]e have to get some shit straight.
If you are an atheist then the Koran is fiction, if you are Christian it’s either fiction or worse, the work of Satan, if Jewish well I don’t know, you probably think something like the Christian, and if Muslim, ….oh yeah I don’t have Muslim friends…. Well whatever you believe, unless you are Muslim the Koran is NOT holy or sacred, it is a FALSE book, about a FALSE religion, by a FALSE prophet of a FALSE god. Everybody have that straight?
We publicly fund shit like “Piss Christ” and the same Americans who protest to protect it are mad about a fucking Koran?
Today should officially be “go buy a Koran, put it on the barbecue, and cook some fucking pork chops and bacon with it” day.
It’s called a fucking war, if you don’t like it feel free to castrate yourself and all the males in your genetic line, convert to Islam, and let the savages breed with your women.
Oh, one more thing, unless you are a follower of Islam quit calling that boy-buggering pedophile Mohammad a damn prophet! Whether you are atheist, Christian or Jewish he CAN’T be a prophet. He is either a wack-job like L.Ron who made some shit up or he is the minion of the Devil.
Greg Hamilton
February 27, 2012
Facebook Post (with some minor typos fixed).
[Greg is very good at succinctly expressing a complex topic in such a way that you realize the topic perhaps isn’t as complex as you thought it was. See also all my other quotes by and references to him.
The one thing not directly addressed in his rant above is about respecting other religions. If we are to respect the First Amendment don’t we have to respect all religions? To that I would say the First Amendment is about mutual respect. Read Osama bin Laden’s letter to America and tell me how we can have peace with people like that and still have a First Amendment, a Bill of Rights, or even a constitution other than something that is subordinate to the Koran. He literally says:
What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.
…
You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator.
Our options are: 1) Dispose of our Constitution and accept Islam as our one and only state approved religion; 2) Be at war with them—forever; 3) Convince them by any means possible that portions of their religion have to be permanently abandoned.
Respecting their religion is only an option if it is your intent to completely submit to their religion. If that is your intent then as Hamilton says, “…feel free to castrate yourself and all the males in your genetic line, convert to Islam, and let the savages breed with your women.”—Joe]
Numerous individuals, known as straw buyers, were recruited to buy AK-47 like semi-automatic firearms. These firearms were then sent to Mexico for use by a drug cartel.
One of the firearms in the hands of the cartel was used in a shooting which resulted in the death of a U.S. law enforcement official.
Sound familiar?
Okay. Well this is probably something you haven’t heard. The perpetrator, Manuel Gomez Barba, of Baytown, Texas, has been sentenced to 100 months for the exportation of the 44 firearms.
The ATF illegally exported something on the order of 2000 firearms to Mexican drug cartels. Does that mean those criminals will receive 2000/44 x 100 months (~380 years) in prison for their crimes?
I don’t think so. Tar and feathers might also be considered appropriate but also have a near zero chance of coming to pass.
I claim retirement at full pay with bonuses will be the most likely outcome.
We had radar proximity fuses in use in AAA rounds during W.W. II, and they of course used vacuum tube technology. One of the members of our local ham radio club worked on that project in the ’40s. One of the challenges for his team was developing tubes that could withstand the 10s of thousands of Gs at launch. Ouch.
Now we have this, via an e-mail from my nephew. I find it fascinating, funny, and a little disturbing all at the same time. Ordinary rifles spin a bullet at 2K RPM? They missed that one by an order of magnitude or two. A rifle chambered for the 5.56 NATO round for example rotates the bullet at around 300,000 RPM, more or less depending on barrel length, rifling twist and bullet weight. But as I often say; what’s an order of magnitude (or two) between friends?
It is very telling, if not entirely predictable, how they smear the general public in the article– government = good, whereas regular citizens = dangerous or at least troubling. They of course have it entirely upside down and backwards in that department.
David Hardy has the story on virulently anti-gun lawyer, Dennis Burke, who has been working on anti-gun projects since at least 1989. He was a driving force behind the “assault weapon” ban of 1994. Operation Fast and Furious was secretly launched just one month after his appointment as U.S. attorney was confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Burke predicted, “It’s going to bring a lot of attention to straw purchasers of assault weapons. Some of these weapons bought by these clowns in Arizona have been directly traced to murders of elected officials in Mexico by the cartels, so Katie-bar-the-door when we unveil this baby.”
I say we should try him for treason and every single illegal gun purchase. When we are done with him extradite him to Mexico and let them try him for all the violations of Mexico laws he is implicated in.
I told you if you came back, I was gonna kill you.
Anonymous St. Louis Woman
January 2012
Self-defense shootings to get closer scrutiny
[And she did kill him. She will not be charged.
From reading the article I am strongly inclined to conclude that while her actions were probably within the letter of the law she violated the spirit of the law, and acted immorally.
On the other hand if the backstory been that it was my daughter and she had been beaten by him for years (from the story above this is not known to be true), finally kicked him out, and had a restraining order against him at the time he broke in I would have been strongly inclined to handle it differently. Rather than giving the gun to the woman as the guy in this case did I would have had a strong urge to tell her, “I can shoot better than you. Close your eyes and plug your ears.” Then I would have done my best to empty the gun into him before he dropped to the floor. At close range 18+1 rounds should take on the order of 3.8 seconds and leave a hole on the back side that you could hide a basketball in.
Then the daughter would call the cops (she is the one still be able to hear) and tells them nothing but there has been a shooting and they should send an ambulance. Then she would then call a lawyer who will answer all questions from the police.
Regardless of what really happened in the case above it appears to me this woman made some serious errors. Others should learn from those mistakes.—Joe]
“Project Gunwalker” was not a “botched” operation–it was a massive crime, perpetrated by our own government, to justify attacking our Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human rights. And now is the time to hold those responsible to account.
Kurt Hofmann
January 23, 2012
Brady Campaign underpants gnome Dennis Henigan missing the news?
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Sure; they know what you want to hear, at least for the most part, though they’re playing the Bible-thumper card a bit too heavy. They know pretty well how to push your buttons, getting the applause at the rallies and so on. As they see it, they know how to win over us stupid bumpkin Elmer Fudds in fly-over country (just throw ’em some red meat and watch them bark like dogs).
Here’s an example of what they really think, gleaned from a rare moment of partial honesty. Newt calls himself a “Realpolitik Wilsonian.” Yeah; that Wilson. Be sure to watch both videos on the page. I don’t care what you think of Glen Beck. Screw that. Listen to the words. The “Four Freedoms”.
That’s the Republican Party today. You can’t mix the liberty talk with the Four Freedoms. That’s a lie, and yet it represents everything the Party stands for.
Make no mistake. We’re being offered what amounts to a plea deal. Either we take the deal (vote Republican) or we’re sentenced to another four years with a Democrat in office. Bleed slowly or bleed quickly. It’s a threat you see– take a Progressive dirt bag (Republican) or else. That’s how this works, and I’m not playing that game. I’ll get interested in an election when liberty is on the ballot, but don’t expect that to happen any time soon.
Periodically I trade emails with some people within the ATF. I recently noticed they have a rather strongly worded restriction on the use of the email attached to each message. This restriction is identical regardless of the person I received it from within the ATF. I admit my sample size is small but it does include people in significantly different geographical area.
The restriction is (bold in the original):
******* NOTICE: This e-mail message and any attached files are intended solely for the use of the addressee(s) named above in connection with official business. This communication may contain Sensitive But Unclassified information that may be statutorily or otherwise prohibited from being released without appropriate approval. Any review, use, or dissemination of this e-mail message and any attached file(s) in any form outside of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives or the Department of Justice without express authorization is strictly prohibited.
I didn’t remember it always being that strongly worded so I went looking at previous emails to see if it had changed. It had.
The notice above first appeared on March 29, 2011. A previous email from the same person on March 23, 2010 (the previous year) had this restriction (bold in the original):
******* NOTICE: This electronic transmission is confidential and intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify the sender by return e-mail and destroy this message in its entirety (including all attachments).
So sometime in that year (and six days) between March 2010 and March 2011 the notice changed. My hypothesis is that the leaking of various emails associated with operation Fast and Furious caused a review of the restriction and a rewording which was much more strict.
The question I have (calling all lawyers!) is; Does the restriction have any legal weight in use against me or is it merely a legal bluff? For example, am I at risk for merely revealing the restriction even though I did not reveal the other contents of the emails? What if I were to reveal to the public the gist of one or more email discussions that clearly was not “sensitive information” but might be somewhat embarrassing to the ATF?
A choir boy shot by a racist vigilante white guy in 1984 died on the 27th anniversary of the shooting:
Exactly 27 years to the day after Bernhard Goetz — famous in New York lore as the “Subway Vigilante’’ — shot four young men he thought were threatening him on a train, one of them killed himself by swallowing prescription pills in a low-rent Bronx motel, authorities said.
James Ramseur, 45, was found dead of an apparent overdose at 11:30 a.m. yesterday at the Paradise Hotel at 2990 Boston Road, law-enforcement sources said last night.
…
Ramseur had gotten out of prison only 17 months ago, after serving 25 years upstate for raping a young woman on a Bronx rooftop.
The shooting took place on Dec. 22, 1984, when Ramseur, 18, and neighborhood pals Darrell Cabey, Barry Allen and Troy Canty, all 19, were riding a downtown No. 2 train.
…
Cabey, who was paralyzed when Goetz shot him at close range, won a $43 million lawsuit. Goetz declared bankruptcy and hasn’t paid a dime.
Cabey, by far the most seriously injured, still is confined to a wheelchair and functions with the intellect of an 8-year-old.
Allen was convicted of robbery in 1991 and released from prison four years later.
Canty racked up a string of petty offenses and once served 18 months in a residential drug- treatment program.
The NY Times has more:
Mr. Ramseur was already incarcerated at the time of the trial, having been convicted of raping, sodomizing and robbing a young pregnant woman in 1986. He was conditionally released in 2002, but he returned to prison for a parole violation in 2005. He finished his sentence in July 2010.
I can only think that Goetz should have had more training and ammo so this particular chapter of history could have been closed much earlier.
Billy Beck wanted some discussion on the matter of Eric Holder a while back, but I didn’t see much of it.
While I agree with Beck’s sentiment, I question the idea of firing Holder’s ashes from a cannon into Mexico. It could be seen as an act of hostility toward Mexico, but then I wonder if that would be such a bad thing.
I’d be OK with the extradition of Eric Holder to Mexico (alive or dead) but only after he received justice here in the U.S. That is both our right and our grave responsibility.
But justice for the pawn is only the beginning, not an end. It would be a mistake to focus on the lieutenant to such a degree as to forget his commander.
By all accounts guns and associated gear are a big sellers for Christmas this year. Here is what one article says:
A sale for a basic Russian-made rifle — priced to move at $79.99, bayonet included — was targeted at bargain shoppers buying gifts for a first-time shooter.
“I’ve had little old ladies come in… and buy them by the crate for gifts for all the men in the family,” he said. “Across the board, we used to sell to men, adult men, ages 18 to 45. Now we’re advertising to everybody.”
According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, handgun production and imports more than doubled between 2005 and 2009 to 4.6 million, as changes in many laws have relaxed restrictions on carrying such weapons. Gallup’s annual crime poll in October showed record low support for a handgun ban for civilians. It was also the first time the poll found greater opposition to a ban on semiautomatic guns or assault rifles than support for such a restriction.
Say Uncle said Cheaper Than Dirt was running ads on the radio in his home town. I’ve been hearing them on a Seattle radio station too.
This made me wonder; What would be an appropriate gift for someone still aligned with The Brady Campaign? Mailing them a gun is out because that is still illegal. Ammo would be pointless because they probably don’t own any guns. Tequila has it’s appeal but a little birdy once told me someone at the Brady Campaign had a really bad drinking problem already and it wouldn’t be appropriate to tempt them. I can understand the temptation to give whiskey and sleeping pills but the humor would probably be lost on them. A one-way ticket to the “gun-free” utopia of the U.K. would probably be well received but it’s too expensive. I could see a Sad Panda being acceptable but it’s a little “down” and I think they really need something to cheer them up after all they have been through the last few years.
Therefore I believe some suggestions for a name change would be the ideal Christmas gift. With a name change they could have a chance of starting over without so much anti-gun baggage. They already changed their name from oppressive “Handgun Control Inc.” to the neutral sounding “The Brady Campaign”. It’s now time for something positive. They already say they are defending the Second Amendment (H/T to Sebastian) so here are my suggestions:
Second Amendment Supporters: The plan would be to beg for a buyout from The Second Amendment Foundation. But a SAF audit would find their computers are so old they are still running Windows 95, they are behind on the rent for their office space, Dennis Henigan doesn’t have a clue what Alan Gura is talking about, and the only the people on their mailing list that have donated any money in the last two years are a few people on the board of directors who stopped payment on the last check they gave them.
Handgunning and Running for Fun and Profit: They could start out helping the ATF run guns into Mexico then transition into USPSA/IPDA training.
And my favorite suggestion is Gunowners Anonymous: Initially they could offer to help people with their “gun addictions” but when no one shows up they could transition into a service to anonymize gun purchases.
Idaho is very serious about thinning the wolf packs to give the deer and elk populations a chance to recover:
An Idaho Department of Fish and Game official said Thursday the state will use aerial gunning and professional and government trappers to kill wolves in the Lolo Zone, even as public hunting and trapping seasons continue.
Dave Cadwallader, supervisor of the department’s Clearwater Region, said he wants a multipronged approach to wolf control in the difficult-to-access area where elk herds are hurting.
One of the comments particularly struck me:
Why are these so called environmental groups so anti-elk? Around this world there are more wolves just like the ones we have here than we have elk. Not only the elk but our moose population here is all but gone. These groups need to be held accountable for what they have caused and should have to pay for the costs it’s taking to correct this destruction.
Recently I’ve been listening to Basic Economics 4th Ed: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell as I drive to and from Idaho and on my commute into Seattle. One of the lessons was that if prices are fixed by the government you will have problems.
If the prices are fixed too low it results shortages, poor quality, and under the table payoffs to suppliers and/or government price control enforcement agents. If prices are fixed too high it results in surpluses, wasted resources, less efficient means of producing the product (no incentive to reduce costs), and a heavier tax burden. Letting the free market adjust prices dynamically results in much closer to optimal allocation of scarce resources with alternative uses.
This lesson has been known for decades, if not a century or more, but politicians have no incentive to adhere to the laws of economics.
Via email from Ry we have the further proof that the laws of economics cannot be violated without suffering known punishments:
A federal power agency discriminated against wind operators in the Pacific Northwest when it unplugged their generators to cope with a surplus of renewable energy on its transmission system this year, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled on Tuesday. It ordered the agency, the Bonneville Power Administration, to rewrite its rules.
Bonneville had argued that it had no option but to lock out the wind generators to protect salmon in the Columbia River.
While the agency could have reduced the power output of hydroelectric dams by routing excess water through a spillway, doing so would violate the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, it said.
…
But a group of wind companies filed a complaint with the energy regulatory commission saying that instead off turning off wind turbines, Bonneville should have resorted to “negative pricing,” or paying customers to take the excess power. Bonneville countered that this would conflict with its obligation to repay loans from the federal government and to provide power cheaply.
…
The problem could crop up more often as companies build wind and solar farms to meet state requirements for renewable energy.
“Negative pricing”?
We need a Constitutional amendment that guarantees freedom of commerce. That would have prevented the health care bill, the war on drugs, subsidies for farmers, and the $200 tax on firearm noise suppressors as well as crazy stuff like people advocating “negative pricing” for electrical power.
The Guardian (U.K.) is either living in the past, is willfully ignoring the evidence and news, or is engaged in deliberate misinformation. I have to conclude the later because of the extreme anti-gun bias of people in the U.K.) and the following evidence:
“The United States is the easiest and the cheapest place for drug traffickers to get their firearms, and as long as we are the easiest and cheapest place for the cartels to get their firearms there’ll continue to be gun trafficking,” said J Dewey Webb, the special agent in charge of pursuing weapons traffickers in Texas at the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
…
87% of firearms seized by Mexico over the previous five years were traced to the US. Texas was the single largest source. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, told Congress last month that of 94,000 weapons captured from drug traffickers by the Mexican authorities, over 64,000 originated in the US.
Kristen Rand, director of the Violence Policy Center, is quoted extensively. No pro-gun organizations were quoted.
And, of course, the reason all this gun trafficking occurs is because of the evils of capitalism:
“Why does this arms business continue?” Calderon said in June. “I say it openly: it’s because of the profit which the US arms industry makes.”
“Reasoned discourse” has of course been implemented. No comments are allowed.
If this isn’t enough to convince you they are engaged in deliberate misinformation watch the video in the article. From the music to the images of bullet holes, piles of drugs and money, and text they chose they make it very clear they believe the gun laws of the U.S. are evil.
The Department of Justice used Operation Fast and Furious to manufacture gun crimes, and then used those crimes to argue for more gun restrictions. If this sounds eerily like the cliche of a mob protection racket to you, you’re right on the money. This is racketeering, and those DOJ officials responsible needs to face a criminal trial under RICO statues.
Bob Owens
December 7, 2011
ATF used Fast and Furious to argue for new gun control measures
[Further mob like in their behavior was that gun dealers had the threat of ATF retribution hanging over their heads if they didn’t go along with the ATF mandated behavior they believed to be wrong and endangered innocent life.
When is the special prosecutor going to be appointed to clean up this mess?—Joe]