An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
Mohandas K. Gandhi
(1869-1948), Indian political and spiritual leader.
Non-Violence in Peace and War, vol. 2, ch. 150 (1949).
Category Archives: Freedom
Quote of the day–Ayn Rand
The necessary consequence of man’s right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of force an evil, make the retaliatory use of force a moral imperative.
Ayn Rand
1962, from The Virtue of Selfishness
This is the way it will always happen
Background:
In the mid and late 90’s the anti-freedom activists were winning. They were nearly dancing in the street. Never mind they were dancing in the blood from each new school or mass public shooting. Just when we would think they had been stopped another “event” would happen and they would get the extra little boost they needed to get that last vote to infringe on our freedom just a little bit (and sometimes a LOT) more. At the range or in hushed voices late at night in someone’s den people would talk, “When you hear they took Frank’s guns you’ll know Frank is dead.” “When they start going door-to-door that’s when they will realize they bit off more than they could chew.” “They can have my guns–when they are empty.”
Even a brief look at history tells you that isn’t how it happens. Look at Germany, Australia, England, and even Canada. There is always an “event” that gives the anti-freedom people “justification” for infringing on inalienable rights. They don’t just wake up some ordinary, bright sunny day and say, “This is the day we start shipping the Jews off to the camps.” Or “This is the day we pass the law that makes firearms possession by private citizens illegal.” By taking advantage of essentially random tragedies they can ratchet down on our freedoms at times when all but the most devoted freedom lovers have some doubt, some question about the wisdom of private people having freedom. The majority, if for only a week or two, can be persuaded that maybe it really would be better to let government take care of them. That it might be better for the the individual to give up an essential liberty for an imagined temporary safety. Of course Ben Franklin has the proper response to that argument. But this pact with the devil is just too tempting for the majority when they are writhing in pain from the latest event. And the pain from the event we know as Katrina and the aftermath in New Orleans make it seem acceptable to the majority–“Yes, they are taking everyone’s guns, but they had to for everyone’s safety.”
When it comes right down to it you will be far more alone than you think you will be when you are talking about it at the range with your shooting buddies. Your fair weather friends will have “really important things” they have to do when the troops come down your street knocking on the doors and entering the houses one-by-one with the M-16’s at the ready (read about it and watch the video). People, as much as they might say, “I don’t care what other people think” do care what other people think–at least some. And when other people publicly approve of the confiscation and the majority have doubts about resisting it will be difficult to rally the numbers needed to make any conflict go decisively in your favor. And how much have you practiced as a team? Probably zero. Nearly all shooting events are individual events or at best you have shooter/spotter relationship where there is just one gun between the two of you. You’ll be going up against teams of shooters that have been practicing for at least months if not years as a team. If you do that you better know exactly what your capabilities are and what you expect to accomplish. Punching holes in a piece of stationary paper 30 feet away is a useful exercise but it doesn’t compare to shooting at a trained team of shooters. Think things through. What is going to happen in the seconds after you fire your first shot? If you make it that far. You might get hit from 200 yards away by the sniper in the shadows from the second story window down the street as you bring your shotgun to your shoulder. Have you even walked down your street thinking about the positions and angles for shooters to cover their teammates as they go door-to-door? It’s going to be second nature for them to see what to you will take hours to figure out–if you are lucky.
If you think you are going to stand up to “them” going door-to-door then you need to know if you will have anyone helping. If you haven’t practiced with them already then the answer is, almost for certain, “No.” If you are going it alone then be darned sure you know the price you pay is worth what you are getting in return. How many can you take out before your gun is forever silenced?
This is Why Boomershoot.
Quote of the day–Doug Huffman
We have a legal system, not a “justice” system.
Doug Huffman
September 8, 2005 9:27 PM
[Lots of other people have said this too. I am unable to determine the originator of the phrase. — Joe]
Gay marriage in California
I’m all in favor of gay’s being allowed to marry. I think marriage is a great institution and people that are willing to make that sort of commitment should not be prohibited from getting hitched to the partner of their choice. California legislators have passed a bill removing restrictions on same sex marriages. Governor Schwarzenegger says he is going to veto it. From the LA Times via Yahoo News:
… announced through an aide Wednesday that he would veto the measure “out of respect for the will of the people.”
In a careful statement, Schwarzenegger press secretary Margita Thompson invoked the voter approval in March 2000 of Proposition 22, which said: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
I have mixed feelings on Arnie’s action. I have a pretty strong tendency to agree with his reasoning, especially since Proposition 22 passed with 61% of the vote. But what if Proposition 22 had said blacks/Jews/whatever were not allowed to marry outside their groups? Or 61% voted to re-institute slavery? Is the only valid solution to go through the courts seeking to remedy the injustice or convince the population at large it’s a bad decision? It’s a tough call for me. I think the bottom line is that denying someone marriage isn’t clearly (although I think a case can be made for it) infringing a fundamental right like the right to freedom (non-slavery), freedom of speech, and the right to keep and arms. Therefore I have to conclude Arnie made the right decision–especially when it provokes the moon-bats into statements like this:
“The only reason that he could be doing this is that he is pandering to the far right,” said Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), the measure’s author.
61% of the voters were against same-sex marriage, therefore Assemblyman Leno must think 61% of California voters are “far right”. Someone should give him his anti-psychotic meds as they lead him away to the funny farm.
More of the same on the Canadian gun registry
More delays and people ignoring this waste of time and money–but this time there’s talk of the police ignoring it:
In what has become a familiar refrain, the Canada Firearms Centre has once again quietly put off several gun regulations that were supposed to take effect this month.
Among the measures delayed until next year is a provision to have police forces across Canada register all their weapons – including seized guns – with the federal agency. New rules governing gun shows have been deferred until November 2006, while regulations that would force gun-makers to identify all firearms with internationally recognized markings won’t come into force until the end of 2007.
The provisions were initially supposed to take effect last January, but were put off to Sept. 1. Now they’ve been deferred again.
A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan said the deferral is both to “ensure compliance and be responsive to the feedback” on the regulations from the public.
…
The latest delays indicate there are still many kinks in the system, said Conservative MP Peter MacKay.
“It’s another example of the ineffective, overly bureaucratic nightmare that is the gun registry,” MacKay said from Halifax.
“The government continues with this simultaneous face-saving, rear-end-covering exercise of trying to justify a very cumbersome, useless system.”
MacKay, a former Crown prosecutor, insisted the government backed off because police forces would have ignored the registration demand.
“They’ve got far more important things to do.”
The registry has become an easy target. The Liberals promised it would cost taxpayers just $2 million when they introduced it in 1995. But the price has skyrocketed past $1 billion and been the subject of scathing criticism from the federal auditor general.
Opponents claim tens of thousands of guns remain unregistered, and say the system punishes law-abiding farmers and sport hunters while doing nothing to deter illegal weapons from getting into the hands of criminals.
It’s a losing issue. They should salvage the computers, lay off all the Canada Firearms Centre workers, and either spend the money saved on police and/or prisons or let the people use it to buy a good handgun and training to defend themselves and their families with. Registration of firearms and their owners is no more effective in reducing crime and no less abhorrent than registering Jews/blacks/homosexuals/etc.
Making ourselves secure from movie plots
As usual Bruce Schneier articulates the straight scoop on security issues well. In this article he also takes a swipe at the politicians with the “make people feel good” mindset. From Wired News:
Sometimes it seems like the people in charge of homeland security spend too much time watching action movies. They defend against specific movie plots instead of against the broad threats of terrorism.
…
The problem with movie plot security is that it only works if we guess right. If we spend billions defending our subways, and the terrorists bomb a bus, we’ve wasted our money. To be sure, defending the subways makes commuting safer. But focusing on subways also has the effect of shifting attacks toward less-defended targets, and the result is that we’re no safer overall.
Terrorists don’t care if they blow up subways, buses, stadiums, theaters, restaurants, nightclubs, schools, churches, crowded markets or busy intersections. Reasonable arguments can be made that some targets are more attractive than others: airplanes because a small bomb can result in the death of everyone aboard, monuments because of their national significance, national events because of television coverage, and transportation because most people commute daily. But the United States is a big country; we can’t defend everything.
One problem is that our nation’s leaders are giving us what we want. Party affiliation notwithstanding, appearing tough on terrorism is important. Voting for missile defense makes for better campaigning than increasing intelligence funding. Elected officials want to do something visible, even if it turns out to be ineffective.
Quote of the day–Steven A. Sliver
You will see I simply believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And in today’s world of expanding, pervasive and all-powerful government, that makes me an extremist.
Steven A. Sliver
The Liberty Pole
May 1998 Volume V. No. 2
The Lawyer’s Second Amendment Society
Quote of the day–James Bovard
The creeping political repeal of the right to self-defense is a huge decrease in the modern American’s liberty because the government has completely failed to fill the void. The government has stripped millions of people of their right to own weapons–yet generally left them free to be robbed, raped, and murdered. Gun bans are one of the best cases of laws that corner private citizens–forcing them either to put themselves into danger or to be a lawbreaker.
James Bovard
Lost Rights
ISBN 0-312-12333-7
Copyright 1994, 1995
Denise gets her Boomershoot rifle
Quote of the day–Andrew M. Cuomo
They are not on the side of the patriots. They are on the side of the criminals.
Andrew M. Cuomo
Housing Secretary
July 27, 2000
Regarding gun manufactures advertisements claiming they were supporting American values by manufacturing and selling firearms.
From: http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/072800nra-guns.html
[A reminder of how far we have come in the past five years. — Joe]
Quote of the day–Henry David Thoreau
As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course.
Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist.
Journals (1906), entry in 1850.
Four million illegal guns in Britain
From The Independent:
Up to 4m guns in UK and police are losing the battle
‘IoS’ investigation: Another week, another horrific shooting. The culture of illegal firearms is running out of control
By Sophie Goodchild and Paul Lashmar
Published: 04 September 2005
British criminals could have access to as many as four million illegal firearms, criminal intelligence experts warn.
…
Even when handguns were banned, only around 3,000 of the 100,000 believed to have been in private hands before May 2004 have been handed in for destruction. The other 97,000 have disappeared.
David Raynes a former senior Customs investigator, believes there is now an ample underground supply of guns. “Guns can be had for £100 or so,” he said. “I suspect the market is saturated in both Britain and Ireland. The real UK arms smuggling issue now is probably military explosives and detonators, to be used in future acts of terrorism.”
And is anyone surprised? Did anyone think the ban would be any more effective than the ban on recreational drugs? The only thing they accomplished with the ban was drive the number of valid defensive use of firearm in protection of innocent life to almost zero. And what do they think the proper solution to this is? Why it’s as if it came out of the book “When Prophecy Fails“:
After many years of campaigning by the gun control lobby, a ban finally came into force in May 2004, making it illegal to own a blank-firing replica gun without a firearms licence.
I shake my head in amazement at why the politicians over there are still allowed to breath.
Quote of the day–Albert Einstein
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form.
Albert Einstein
Case blown open–maybe
I was gone all day yesterday working on the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory project. Other than spending an obscene amount of money on gas I thought it went quite well. I won’t know the results for at least a week but on the drive back home (I do a lot of thinking when driving alone) I realized what must have happened to cause them to “reconsider.” I called Barb with the news as soon as I had a good cell-phone signal.
I only was able to check out two of the four “blunt instruments” to see if they were responsible. Both of those turned up negative. After several hours of mulling it over I came up with a hypothesis that explained all the data I had. It almost for certain was one particular “blunt instrument” that I implemented almost as an afterthought. It arrived at it’s destination Wednesday, Aug 31, 2005 13:57 GMT. Less than 36 hours later I received word they had “reconsidered”. After I thought about it I realized what I had done, had it been consciously thought out, was rather brilliant. Everyone’s “hand” would have been forced by my action. PNNL had made a mistake by putting an unnecessary sentence in an email I was able to get my hands on. It was enough to get some “traction” and it appears to have blown the lid off of things. I won’t know for certain until I get my hands on the information they are sending me but from what I heard on the phone it sounded far better than what I imagined I would get for that particular effort. What I think happened was they knew I was now going to get nearly everything I wanted, just from a different source. I had not even considered my action would get me the information I wanted. I thought that at best it would just cause them some pain. So rather than look bad in court, by not giving it to me directly, they tried to wipe some of the crap off of their face and “reconsider”.
This is sort of a security game. It’s better to be on the offense because you only have to find one crack to blow it open. The defender has to have everything nailed down tight. I have been probing from many different angles and almost by accident found where they made a mistake. I probably shouldn’t say, “almost”. It was essentially a whim I requested the file that had the email with the one hugely significant sentence in it. Then it took me a couple of days to realize I could take a swing at that sentence. And when I took the swing I didn’t realize it would be such a solid hit–that took hours of bewilderment at their reaction before I put it together. In hindsight it was stupid that it took me so long to realize the significance.
The game isn’t over but I just connected my bat on a significant portion of their ball. My Labor Day weekend should be a lot happier than some of theirs. I’ll be fantasizing about some anti-gun owner bigots in a Federal prison spending “quality time with Bubba” and they will be thinking about the same thing.
Update: I just received the file. Either I misunderstood or the guy I talked to on the telephone didn’t understand what had been redacted. I understood that the names of other people who were being investigated at the same time as me were redacted. The names redacted were other people being hired at the same time as me. All I received was what should have been in the “personnel file” I received several weeks ago. There was only the tinist hint of the investigation in the file. It is useless but I’ll post it later today anyway. I’ll get the performance reviews and goals scanned and posted sometime today. The battle continues.
Reconsideration
At 16:39 this afternoon I received a call from the person responsible for handling my FOIA/Privacy-Act information requests at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He said they had “reconsidered” my request for the rest of my personal file (or “Field File” as they prefer to call it) and it will go into the mail tomorrow.
Gee, I wonder what it was that caused them to “reconsider”? I can only think of four different “blunt instruments” they might have seen coming their way that might have caused an “attitude adjustment” on their part. I’ll be checking on three of those “blunt instruments” tomorrow to see if any of them had something to do with it. If all goes as planned I’ll be able to share most of the results with everyone here sometime next week.
Barb had a rather apropos quip when she heard the news. It will be the quote of the day tomorrow.
As if this is supposed to make sense
From The Globe and Mail in Toronto:
Ontario to blitz gun shops
In an effort to stem a recent rash of gun violence in Toronto, the Ontario government announced it will begin conducting sweeps of gun shops to help reduce the number of illegal guns in the city.
“[We want] to ensure that we have safe standards in place,” said the province’s Attorney-General Michael Bryant at a press conference in Toronto Thursday.
However, Mr. Bryant said the sweep will be limited to businesses and not individual homes, as that is the purview of the federal government and the gun registry.
They are doing sweeps of the gun shops to reduce the number of illegal guns? How about they “blitz” automobile dealerships to reduce the number of illegal cars on the roads? Or tweaking one of my favorites, conduct raids on cosmetic stores to “stem the recent rash of prostitution” on the streets?
Give it up guys, you spent $2 Billion dollars on a failed gun registration system, and still you can’t answer just this one question in the affirmative. Harassing the gun store owners isn’t going to be productive either.
I’m at a loss
I was reading some of the comments on the Wal-Mart shooting story. I can’t imagine the mindset this person must have:
By Roy Salazar (Submitted: 08/31/2005 9:03 pm )
The truth of the fact is, Mr. Moore killed a person from the side lines and that is not “self-defense”…, I call the murder. Mr. Moore should be prosecuted for the point blank murder of Mr. vigil and the ex-wife of Mr Vigil should be prosecuted for party to crime. An eye for eye is not justice in this country ( thats dark-age justice ). We have laws and we ( we, means all of us, the people ) should follow them. Otherwise, we are using double standards in the law and orders of the country. Furthermore, Wal-Mart should fire MS. Ex-wife for taking garbage to her work station and indangering the lifes of others.
Blaming the victim and the rescuer… It boggles my mind. This cannot be a rational person. It must be this is type of person that would send money to the VPC.
Larry Elder on defensive gun use
It starts out with the Wal-Mart shooting and gets better from there. From Jewish World Review:
UCLA professor emeritus James Q. Wilson, a respected expert on crime, police practices and guns, says, “We know from Census Bureau surveys that something beyond a hundred thousand uses of guns for self-defense occur every year. We know from smaller surveys of a commercial nature that the number may be as high as two-and-a-half or three million. We don’t know what the right number is, but whatever the right number is, it’s not a trivial number.”
…
A gunned-down bleeding guy creates news. A man who spared his family by brandishing a handgun, well, that’s just water-cooler chat.
He gets all the facts right and he introduces them without it being just a bunch of numbers. It’s an excellent piece.
Quote of the day–Jay Loveless
Dogs wear collars, wolves do not. I am a wolf. You can shoot me, trap me, poison me – even set my brother the dog on me. But you can not pat my damn head unless I say so.
Jay Loveless
1995