Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.
Hermann Goering (1893-1946)
German Nazi leader, air marshal.
Alleged radio broadcast, Summer 1936, on the Four-Year Plan.
[As by the design of the U.S. Constitution power is safest when it is in the hands of the people, not the government. — Joe]
Much to my surprise the Gun Dictionary page on the Boomershoot web site is one of the most popular web pages on the site (thanks to Stephanie Sailor for suggesting this page). Even the USPSA has linked to the page on their information for the press page (from the same page they also link to my Gun Myths and Truth page). Because of that I frequently get requests for the definition of a firearm related term. Just today I received a request for the definition of ACP, as in .45 ACP. I updated the page with this definition and a few others. In the past week or two I have added the following words:
If you have suggestions for other terms let me know. Feel free to supply your own definition and save me a little bit of work.
I’ve written about this before. Jeff at Alphecca posted another example:
Leaving a Nashville courtroom yesterday morning, two Metro police officers were greeted by their peers and supporters with handshakes and hugs. A judge had just ruled they were not guilty of illegally taking guns into a downtown nightclub last year.
Personally, I think that they have such a law is wrong. Idaho doesn’t have a law against taking guns into places where alcohol is being served and doesn’t have the type of problems the anti-freedom bigots would whine about if they knew about it. You can’t legally be intoxicated while carrying a concealed weapon and I don’t have a problem with that. Driving and/or shooting while drunk is a bit on the reckless side of things. It’s not consistent with a big ‘L’ Libertarian philosophy but I’m not going to get all bent out of shape over that. I think it is a fair compromise.
An employee of the nightclub noticed that one of the officers was carrying a gun and asked him to leave. Police were called when the officers refused.
…
“There was no authorization for them to be there, nor did supervisors have any knowledge of them being there,” police spokesman Don Aaron said.
It’s a dangerous path to go down. If the police (and other government workers) don’t obey the law on minor stuff it becomes more and more likely they won’t obey the law on major stuff. The mindset becomes one of the laws are for keeping “them” in line. The government workers are the elite for whom the laws were not really intended. I’ve spoken to many liberals and who have a similar elitist mindset. They want restrictions on firearms for the “average” person. The police are the side of the elite who need to be protected from the common person that might want to hurt them. They just don’t seem to get it that more people have been murdered by their own government than by the “common criminals.” Government workers should be held to a higher standard of behavior than the non-government employee, not lower. And the Second Amendment is our last ditch means of enforcing that ethical behavior on an out of control “the law doesn’t apply to us” elitist government.
We need to reduce government to just the functions authorized in the Constitution. Then, if you believe that makes the federal government too big or too little, you can work to amend the Constitution to make it more to your liking. But the first step is to establish limits, so that we no longer have unlimited government that the politicians can use for anything they want.
Harry Browne
March 1998
Libertarian Candidate for President in 1996
I believe a self-righteous liberal Democrat with a cause is more dangerous than a Hell’s Angel with an attitude.
Ted Nugent
Some people say that I have no heart. I am here tonight to tell you that I do have a heart. I have the heart of a liberal…. It’s in a jar on my desk.
Sen. Phil Gramm
1992 Lincoln Dinner at the Middlesex Club in Waltham, Massachusetts
[Something very similar is also attributed to Colorado Sen. John Andrews. — Joe]
Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.
Edmund Burke
(1729-97)
Irish philosopher, statesman.
Americans may like guns because they were reminiscent of the smell of outdoors, military heroism, the intensity of the hunt or merely because they are fascinated by the finely machined metal parts. Maybe the origin of a gun speaks of history; maybe the gun makes a man’s home seem to him less vulnerable; maybe these feelings are more justified in the country than in the city; but, above all, many of us believe that these feelings are a man’s own business and need not be judged by the Department of the Treasury or the Department of Justice.
Samuel Cummings
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.
Lazarus Long
A character in “Time Enough for Love” by Robert Heinlein
[Applicable to those anti-freedom, gun hating people that say “I don’t believe numbers” or “I never trust statistics”. — Joe]
I heard it on the radio yesterday while reloading ammo. It’s on the web now:
Idaho 55 at the Rainbow Bridge was closed for about six hours Tuesday after a suspicious object was found underneath the bridge.
An ITD spokesman said investigators were conducting a routine bridge safety inspection around 9:30 a.m. today when they saw an object they could not identify. It was a green bucket with wires poking out.
Idaho State Police and the Boise Bomb Squad were called in to investigate and 17 miles of highway was closed. Investigators determined the bucket was filled with trinkets, photos and toys placed there as part of an online scavenger hunt called geocache. Players use a global positioning system to find the treasure.
Police say the man who stashed the object under the bridge has come forward and charges might be filed against him.
As it was said in a geocaching forum:
Consider. If all it takes to shut down the country is to toss ducted tape tupperware full of rocks with an old radio in it out the side of your window while you are driving down the interstate, then it won’t be long before terrorists start causing disruption in a mass scale by doing exactly that.
There are an almost infinite number of things we can’t and shouldn’t defend against. Money is better spend attacking the root of the problem–extremist Muslims. We must destroy their culture.
Occasionally I’m surprised at how far the anti-freedom people will take things. The banning of certain types of clothes took me by surprise. That Gun Guys (anti-gun website) would suggest there is no such thing as justifiable homicide almost surprises me, but not quite. In order maintain internal consistency they have to conclude that one life is just as valuable as any other life. And so we end up with drivel like this:
What exactly is a “justifiable” homicide? Is it OK to kill people sometimes and not others.
And from their newsletter which doesn’t appear to be their website there is this:
For whatever reason, killing another human being, an act made simple and easy by firearms, is an act not lightly taken, and not without consequences. Though a killing may be considered “legal” by any number of laws, that doesn’t necessarily make it right, and doesn’t mean that we should broaden laws without regard for those consequences.
Anyone that has taken any firearms self-defense class will have been exposed to the downside of using deadly force to defend innocent life. The taking of a life is serious stuff. But sometimes it’s the best of the available options. And when the legal use of deadly force is employed the person on the receiving end of that deadly force made the choices that triggered the use of the deadly force. It is they that bear the ultimate responsibility for their own injury or death. For the “Gun Guys” to even hint that there is not a time and a place for the use of deadly force in the defense of innocent life shows how completely disconnected from reality they really are. The last sentence of their email only seals that forgone conclusion. I’m not surprised:
Legal or not, like anything else involved with firearms, “justifiable homicides” lead to more violence and pain.
Those who have command of the arms in a country are masters of the state, and have it in their power to make what revolutions they please. [Thus,] there is no end to observations on the difference between the measures likely to be pursued by a minister backed by a standing army, and those of a court awed by the fear of an armed people.
Aristotle
Quoted by John Trenchard and Walter Moyle
“An Argument showing That a Standing Army is Inconsistent with a Free Government, and Absolutely Destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy.”
More news on the airport insecurity front. Bruce Schneier was on the working group that reviewed the plans for the TSA database to match passengers with names on the Watch List and the No-Fly List. As usual Bruce asks questions they can’t answer without confirming they don’t have a clue about security. The basic questions are in the report and are repeated on his blog. Here is a taste:
The SFWG found that TSA has failed to answer certain key questions about Secure Flight: First and foremost, TSA has not articulated what the specific goals of Secure Flight are. Based on the limited test results presented to us, we cannot assess whether even the general goal of evaluating passengers for the risk they represent to aviation security is a realistic or feasible one or how TSA proposes to achieve it. We do not know how much or what kind of personal information the system will collect or how data from various sources will flow through the system.
Again, “TSA has not articulated what the specific goals of Secure Flight are.” That’s absurd. How many billions have we spent on airplane security since 9/11? However much it has been it was all wasted if they can’t answer that simple question. It’s time to reevaluate airplane security methods.
Bruce winds up with the story of a commercial pilot that was put on the no fly list–which means he can’t work and he can’t find out why. He summarizes with:
Remember what the no-fly list is. It’s a list of people who are so dangerous that they can’t be allowed to board an airplane under any circumstances, yet so innocent that they can’t be arrested — even under the provisions of the PATRIOT Act.
The policy of the American Government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining them, nor aiding them in their pursuits.
Thomas Jefferson
World War is the second worst activity of mankind, the worst being acquiescence in slavery.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
On the Right
As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.
Tench Coxe
1755–1824
From a KABA alert:
FEDERAL JUDGE HALTS NEW ORLEANS GUN SEIZURES
BELLEVUE, WA – The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana this afternoon issued a temporary restraining order on behalf of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and National Rifle Association (NRA), bringing an end to firearm seizures from citizens living in and around New Orleans.
District Judge Jay Zainey issued the restraining order against all parties named in a lawsuit filed Thursday by SAF and NRA. Defendants in the lawsuit include New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Chief Edwin Compass III.
“This is a great victory, not just for the NRA and SAF, but primarily for law-abiding gun owners everywhere,” said SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb. “We are proud to have joined forces with the NRA to put an end to what has amounted to a warrantless gun grab by authorities in New Orleans and surrounding jurisdictions.
“Over the past three weeks,” he continued, “residents who had lost virtually everything in the devastation following Hurricane Katrina had also essentially been stripped of something even more precious, their civil rights, and their right of self-defense, because of these gun seizures.
“SAF and NRA had no alternative but to take action,” Gottlieb added. “If these gun confiscations had been allowed to continue without challenge, it would have set a dangerous precedent that would have encouraged authorities in other jurisdictions to believe they also could suspend the civil rights of citizens in the event of some other emergency.
“What must happen now, and quickly,” said Gottlieb, “is for authorities in the New Orleans area to explain how they will return all of those firearms to their rightful owners, and do it promptly. What this ruling affirms is that even in the face of great natural disasters, governments cannot arbitrarily deprive citizens of their rights. Thanks to some great teamwork between SAF and the NRA, this sort of thing will hopefully never happen again.”
PS Click here to make a contribution to help fund this lawsuit.
It’s just a small step. But it’s certainly a step in the right direction. From here we need to proceed to get one more more convictions on charges stemming for the violation of laws such as these:
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; orIf two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured—They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
It’s a stretch, but if someone lost their life due to these jerks confiscating their firearms then some bigots could be facing the death penalty.
See also:
SAF and the NRA to file suit
SAF needs New Orleans info
Searching for survivors
This is the way it will always happen
See also: Random Nuclear Strikes.
We have a blogger up and running full speed over at the Nation of Rifleman. He calls himself The Gun Guy. He immediately got added to the blogroll. This is no relation whatsoever to Gun Guys which is very anti-gun.
See also my post Nation of Riflemen is up now.
Thanks to Analog Kid at Random Nuclear Strikes for the heads up.
I don’t understand how they can say this without causing their head to explode:
Currie has been a strong advocate for civil liberties and women’s rights in the state legislature. She also has pushed for major reforms in the state’s property tax-reliant funding of public schools. Additionally, she’s been a leading advocate for gun control and an opponent of the death penalty.
[Emphasis added. — Joe]
It makes just as much sense as if the following occurred:
Why doesn’t the press laugh them them all the way to the funny farm?
Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.
Ronald Reagan
Guardian (London, 14 June 1989)