Category Archives: Freedom

Letter to my representative

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“Regarding the gun issue (and all issues really); We who advocate liberty are getting tired of reacting to the Left’s latest outrages. Shouldn’t they be forced to react to our “outrages”? In that spirit, I call for a bill removing all firearm restrictions on the state level, and for ordering all state and local law enforcement to prevent any federal gun law enforcement in the state. In other words, uphold and protect the constitution you’re all sworn to uphold and protect.

How’s THAT for an “outrage”? Let’s see the leftists go nuts trying to pick that one apart, and get them to feel lucky if WE only get half of OUR way this time through.

See how this works?.

Sincerely,
[Me]”

Not that it’ll have a whelk’s chance in a supernova of doing any good. We’re dealing with Republicans after all. But it has to be said, if for no other reason than to be able to say we told them so, to give them a chance to do the right thing while they still have a chance.

What’s wrong with this picture…

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…is what’s wrong with society. You all have gotten some version this spam e-mail, usually from a .ru domain;

“You know, they are so many people in the world, but some of them are alone, because they didn’t find their halfs yet, as it is so hard.
If you are alone and want to find your love, you can write me and we’ll start communicating. I’m alone and looking for a good man, who will give me his love and care. Who knows, maybe we can fill up our lonely hearts with love.”

If you’re looking for someone else to make you whole, you’re looking in the wrong place. If you want to be wanted, if you desire to be desired, if you need to be needed, you are part of the problem.

I cringed when one my many nephews said, right after he’d been divorced within a year or two of being married, that he’d found this other woman, and how great she was, and how they were meant for each other and he knew it because of some mundane coincidence or other. The ink on the divorce papers was still drying. I didn’t know what to say at the time, but he was running from one hell-of-his-own-devising and straight into another.

No, Young Grasshopper; if you’re not whole, or complete already, no one else can make you whole. If you’re searching for someone else to make you whole, you’re looking for love in all the wrong places. You’ll be let down, because getting what you want, the way you want it, is impossible. You’ll feel betrayed, because what you thought you had was something you can never have. This is the stuff of murder, of self destruction and suicide. It’s what’s wrong with our whole society.

Those in government (and gangs) know just enough about this to take advantage of it. We look to them for “salvation” of one kind or another when all they have to offer is entrapment. They want to own you in the same way you want to own someone else, or be owned by someone else. They want you dependent on them in the same way you want to depend on someone else, or you want someone dependent on you. They want you to need them in the same way you need other people, or you want other people to need you. This is the stuff of mass destruction, war and mass death.

That word we throw around so much in America, Independence, I am only just realizing, has a far deeper meaning than I’d previously suspected, and I think it is extremely important.

None of this stuff is new, and so these words aren’t mine. It’s as old as the hills, and yet we fall for this trap over and over.

Quote of the day—Rivrdog

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Do NOT be deluded into thinking that this push for gun control is about CRIME control. It isn’t, it’s about removing the guns from ALL of the society so as to make way for an uncontested dictatorship.

The only thing we can’t know yet is how benevolent the dictatorship might or might not be. In other words, will our enslavement be easy or harsh.

Also, do not be deluded that we aren’t already in the fight. The line between us being considered as dissidents exercising our rights and the putative dictatorship considering us insurgents is but a line in the sand, and the blowing wind will soon cover that line.

Rivrdog
February 17, 2013
Comment to Quote of the day—Nicholas James Johnson
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Collective identity

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One shouldn’t be surprised, shocked, or indignant that leftists claim “We are all Chris Dorner.”

Taken out of context his claims of injustice sound credible and if the claims were correct I can understand his rage and could even let pass a statement of “We are all Chris Dorner”. But he murdered innocent people who had nothing to do with his complaints against the Los Angeles police department. He, an individual, did this. He did this to innocent individuals.

People on the left have a mindset bordering on and many times crossing well into a personality disorder such that they cannot readily distinguish between themselves and others who share some or most of their beliefs. “Individual” is a term that, in their mind, translates into “not one of mine”. This is why they are confused by and ignore the concepts put forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

This is why they speak of a “right to health care”, a “right to a job”, and even “freedom from want“. Individuals, for all intents and purposes, do not or should not exist outside of the collective. Leftists cannot easily distinguish between their “one true collective” and themselves. And the collective should care for itself just as we believe an individual should care for itself and their immediate family. Those outside the collective or belonging to a different collective are to be shunned if they are no consequence. If they impede its objectives they should be reeducated, put in mental institutions, or disposed of.

Dorner did not view “the collective” that supposedly wronged him as individuals. The families of supposedly racist police officers and of his lawyer were just as deserving of punishment as the primary actors who perpetrated the injustices upon him. In his mind all members of a collectives, either his or of another, are equivalent.

The leftist collective identifies Dorner as one of theirs and hence “We are all Chris Dorner” makes perfect sense in their mentally disturbed universe. There are tens of millions of examples in the 20th century where leftists used violence to dispose of “not one of mine.” That leftists identify with him and cheered him on should only be a surprise to those that do not understand the mind of the leftist and/or are ignorant of history.

Quote of the day—Bernardine Dohrn

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There’s no way to be committed to non-violence in one of the most violent societies that history has ever created. I’m not committed to non-violence in any way.

Bernardine Dohrn
In the 2002 documentary film The Weather Underground. Get the movie from Amazon here.
[From the Wikipedia entry:

Dohrn with ten other SDS members associated with the RYM issued, on June 18, 1969, a sixteen-thousand-word manifesto entitled, “You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows” in New Left Notes.

…

The manifesto stated that “the goal [of revolution] is the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism.”

Leftists know their agenda can only be implemented with violence. Government is violence and the threat of violence. They wish to use government to create their utopia. To advocate non-violence and have a leftist philosophy is a contradiction. To allow people not of the government to have the means to resist government is to allow their idyllic future to be denied.

The murdering, anti-gun, pro-leftist, ex-cop, from Los Angeles who was killed this week is just one in a long line of his type.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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The First Amendment guarantees freedom of association. This is an obstacle in enabling “common sense gang laws”. If New York treated the First Amendment like they do the Second Amendment then anti-gang legislation would include the following:

No new social organizations having more than seven members would be legal. Existing organizations of eight to ten members would be still be legal but no more than seven members could be in the same room at any one time. Existing organizations of greater than ten member would have the option of moving out of state or turning themselves into the police for Soylent Green feedstock.

Freedom shall be infringed

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Via a tweet from Barron.

As Lyle has pointed out many times before the left has their “shall not be infringed” issue with abortion. Michael Z. Williamson has an elaborated version of that which I cannot find fault with.

Read the whole thing but the “punch line” is this:

First they came for the blacks, and I spoke up because it was wrong, even though I’m not black.

Then they came for the gays, and I spoke up, even though I’m not gay.

Then they came for the Muslims, and I spoke up, because it was wrong, even though I’m an atheist.

When they came for illegal aliens, I spoke up, even though I’m a legal immigrant.

Then they came for the pornographers, rebels and dissenters and their speech and flag burning, and I spoke up, because rights are not only for the establishment.

Then they came for the gun owners, and you liberal shitbags threw me under the bus, even though I’d done nothing wrong.  So when they come to put you on the train, you can fucking choke and die.

~~~

Or you can commit seppuku with a chainsaw. I really don’t care anymore. This is the end of my support for any liberal cause, because liberals have become anything but.

That old, outdated document…

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…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.

They don’t want background checks

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Via email from Joe Waldron of Gun Owners Action League of WA, February 1, 2013:

Let there be no doubt in your mind, HB 1588, and similar bills to be offered at the federal level, are after one thing only: gun registration.  If they want to debate registration, by all means do so.  But call it what it is.  Don’t try to sell it under a false flag, and one that is likely to gain widespread support even among gun owners.  There ARE ways to conduct background checks WITHOUT the record-keeping.  We showed them that in Olympia twice in the past decade.  They rejected it, and admitted that what they wanted was the “audit trail” — the paperwork.

“Audit trail”. Yeah. Got it.

That is what they said about the NICS checks records when they were supposed to be destroyed after a person had successfully passed. They didn’t destroy the records as required by law. They kept them “for audit purposes”.

Attorney General Janet Reno even once said the system was unable to delete the records. Then they, with much howling, consented to 90 day retention of the records. In 2001, under a new administration, the DOJ changed the retention to “less than one day”. In reviewing the impact this would have the GAO reported (pages 1 and 2):

According to the NICS regulations, information on allowed firearms sales is used only for purposes related to ensuring the proper operation of the system or conducting audits of the use of the system.

Then on page 4:

NICS officials told us, however, that the FBI would not lose any routine audit capabilities under the proposed policy for next-day destruction of records.

On the other hand, a next-day destruction policy would adversely affect
certain nonroutine audits of the system. Specifically, under current DOJ
policy, if a law enforcement agency has information that indicates that an individual is prohibited from purchasing firearms under federal law, the agency may request that the FBI check whether the name appears in NICS records of allowed transfers. If the FBI finds a record showing an allowed transfer to a “prohibited person” (e.g., a transfer to an alien who is illegally or unlawfully in the United States), that record indicates a potential violation of law, and the FBI may disclose the record to the appropriate law enforcement entity. These audits of the accuracy of responses given by NICS, and the additional (secondary) benefit of assisting law enforcement investigations, generally would not be possible under a next-day destruction policy.

In the GAO’s own document the FBI was admitting they were using the records in ways that were not authorized by law. Yet no one went to jail.

Eventually, they claim, regulations were implemented that required the records be destroyed within 24 hours. But why should we trust them? They were using the records illegally before and no one was punished. What is the incentive to keep them from violating the law again? They cannot be trusted.

In California and New York where guns were registered gun owners were told, with great sincerity, “No one is trying to take your guns.” In New York, several years ago, they did confiscate registered guns. In California they are attempting to pass laws that will confiscate registered guns.

The government in general, and anti-gun people in particular, cannot be trusted. Do not ever give them a means, no matter how indirect, to register your guns, your books, your religion, or your sexual preferences. It’s none of their business. And all have been used in other times and other places to imprison and/or murder people by the 10s of thousands and even millions.

If you allow it there is an unacceptably high chance it will not end well.

Experiment goals

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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.

Quote of the day—JB Williams

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It will be ALL Americans, including their military, against the Marxist anti-Americans destroying America, which means politicians, their lawyers and their leftist minions in the press. I wouldn’t want to be them when they finally succeed in pushing the nation to internal war.

Politicians, their lawyers and their minions in the press are NOT the kind of people that go to war. They are only the kind of people that order other people to war. When “other folks” refuse orders to go to war on their own citizens, their families, their friends, the people issuing those orders will be standing bare naked on the front lines and nobody will be able to save their sorry asses from the wrath of the American people.

JB Williams
February 2013
Is Obama Pushing for a Civil War?
[I have nothing to add that I haven’t already said.—Joe]

Boots on the ground

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As illustrated by the gun cartoon I posted the other day the anti-gun people don’t understand the issue. That is just a sample of one but without much effort you could find hundreds of instances where our opponents insist we value our hobbies/profits over the lives of children or we own guns to compensate for inadequate “sexual equipment”.

They certainly do not understand why we own guns. And they don’t even come close to knowing how we think.

About 10 years ago I was talking to someone from the CIA who managed a group of psychologists. He was explaining how difficult it was for people in the U.S., even in the intelligence community, to understand how our Muslim adversaries thought. He told me, “They think differently than we do. It’s even possible they think differently than we can think.”

It may be that we have the same sort of problem with the anti-gun people and they with us. After all, many of the things they say sounds like crazy talk to us. And they insist what we say is “crazy talk” as well.

They believe that a bunch of uneducated, beer bellied, red necked, slack-jawed, hillbillies wouldn’t stand a chance against the U.S. military if it came down to a confrontation between a tyrannical government and us. But is that claim true?

They are certainly wrong in their assumptions about the demographics of gun ownership and I believe they are wrong about the outcome. And would all, or even most of the military follow orders to fire upon their fellow countrymen? Or would they switch sides and bring their equipment with them? As others have pointed out, “That guy with a S&W .38 leading a popular revolt might actually have air support.”

Furthermore there are approximately 80 million gun owners in the U.S. About 4.25 million of them are members of that “extremist” group known as the NRA. What our opponents don’t, and perhaps can’t, understand is that the reason a good number of the gun owners that don’t belong to the NRA actively reject joining is because 1) The NRA isn’t “extreme” enough for them; and/or 2) They don’t want to be on “that list” if the government ever demanded the NRA membership list.

Any idea how many members of Al Qaeda the U.S. military are fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan? According to intelligence estimates reported by the New York Times in 2010 the answer is “fewer than 500” in Afghanistan and “more than 300” in Pakistan. A 2011 article in the Wall Street Journal put the number in the range of 200 to 1000 with “affiliated fighters or funders” making up thousands or tens of thousands.

How’s that war turning out for the U.S. military? Are they going to wrap that up and come home in the next couple of weeks?

Any idea on the resources Al Qaeda can bring to bear compared the resources several million U.S. gun owners can bring to the fight? I’ll give you just a few clues.

Private citizens typically consumed 10 to 12 billion rounds of ammunition per year. But current domestic production (including that used by the military and law enforcement) is about 1 billion rounds per week and it is being purchased so rapidly it is difficult to find any on the shelves. I know individuals that have nearly 1 million rounds of loaded ammunition and/or components in their possession.

Gun manufactures are running at near maximum capacity and have a backlog of months or even a year or more. During the 1990’s Bill Clinton and Sarah Brady were considered “gun salesmen” of the decade. But, using NICS data as a rough estimate, during 1999 and 2000 private gun sales were roughly 9 million per year. In 2012 it was over 19 million. At least 19 million guns were sold to U.S. private citizens in 2012. For the duration of the time NICS has been keeping background check records from November 30th, 1998 to December 31, 2012 there have been over 160 million checks/gun sales.

Numerous other differences between a fight with Al Qaeda and a fight with U.S. gun owners should be obvious and will be left as an exercise for the reader.

Our adversaries insist we do not stand a chance against a tyrannical government. Aircraft, tanks, and artillery would, they say, make any such fight short and pointless on our part. But it has been a truism of all wars except for the Japan mainland, where U.S. troops were being prepared for an invasion, “boots on the ground” were required to win. And I have talked to enough current and former military people to believe that “heavy equipment” won’t be particularly useful or last long without a lot of ground support and a safe haven from which to maintain and deploy the equipment.

They believe we would and should just turn over our guns without a fight should the government pass a law to do so. I would say their spreadsheets have some errors but I’m nearly certain they don’t think that way. Numbers, and facts in general, are not their area of expertise.

Another thing they believe is only a few people would take up arms against our government. But Bob Owens has a different view:

Every weapon of military utility designed within the past 100+ years was gone. This isn’t society stocking up on certain guns because they fear they may be banned. This is a society preparing for war.

It is my contention that gun sales above the mean of that during the Bush years represent committed gun owners who didn’t buy the gun just to have it registered and/or taken away a few months or years later. The mean number of NICS checks during the Bush years is a little less than 9 million per year. Hence one may reasonably conclude there have been a minimum of 10 million gun sales made “in preparation for war” during 2012 alone.

That’s a lot of boots, guns, and ammo on the ground on our side. And I didn’t even get into the training our side has. Compare that to the resources the anti-gun people can bring to bear. Yet it appears President Obama may be deliberately trying to start a civil war.

So tell me. Which side is crazy to believe they will come out on top of a violent conflict?

See also The Mathematics of Countering Tyranny.

The Stars Came Back -001- Intro

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Today I’m starting to publish a story here. It will be a (hopefully daily) series of posts that are a screenplay of sorts, though in the interest of screen-space it will not be in proper screenplay format. This is a sort-of movie script. It is somewhere between a proper movie and a movie-of-the-week or a series, or maybe a novel. Read it like you are seeing it on the big screen. It’s a space-western, in the Firefly genre. The story proper takes place circa 2655. FTL travel was discovered in the late 21st C, but not FLT communication, so star systems are still connected similarly to the 18th century days of sail, with message-drones and ships carrying data and people between stars, often taking days, weeks, or even months for flights.Explorers might be out of touch for months. Many star systems and planets have been explored, and some have been partially terraformed. A “local” supernova disrupted subspace so much, though, that FTL was shut down for several centuries, and each terraformed planet (and planets that were still very much “in process”) and colony had to survive (or not) on its own. This was known as “the long dark” or “the big blackout”, as well as by several other names. This takes place after things have quieted down a bit, and “the stars are coming back,” meaning FTL travel is once again possible in some places. But, FTL sub-space is like a stormy ocean, and “swirls” in it can make FTL flights faster, or slower, than normal, or even shut them down altogether.

Cultural note: the dominate cultures out among the stars are the descendants from former British Colonies, but there are scattered colonies from various other places as well.

If anyone in the movie industry sees its potential and wants to turn it into something “real”, I’d be more than happy to talk to them. Feedback from readers welcome, be it positive or negative.

OK, here we go:

The Stars Came Back, Part 001, Intro

Continue reading →

So much for that “common caliber” meme

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Re-think?

Quote of the day—Robert Higgs

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In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.

Robert Higgs
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Taking a step back

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If the origins of American ideals of liberty were understood and widely embraced, we wouldn’t need to be defending the second amendment. Understand the former and the latter comes naturally.

ETA: I got that from my son, who seemed fairly miffed that I was talking so much about the second amendment. He is quite convinced that I don’t get it, and his evidence is that I talk about it so much. I’m finding that I cannot very well disagree.

Original Principles

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You cannot claim to defend the second amendment while supporting or openly accepting the NFA of ’34 and GCA ’68. Or background checks. It makes absolutely no sense.

Progressive president FDR knew exactly what he was doing. Before 1934 you could buy a Thompson sub machinegun by mail order with no paperwork. Or a BAR. Or an M2, et al. The second amendment said so. It was understood. The convenient ruse was Prohibition. Never let a crisis go to waste. Prohibition naturally led to gang warfare, widespread corruption and a general degradation of society, just as the “War on Drugs” does today. Then, as now, the violence and degradation guaranteed by a profitable, government-enforced monopoly for criminals is used as a tool to intimidate you into accepting infringements on your rights. It isn’t so much a conspiricy as a natural progression for those in power.

You don’t HATE children, do you? Of course not, and so you must give up more of your rights, and your children’s rights. Remember that, Grasshopper; this “for the children’ or “for the good of society” crap demands giving up not just yours but your neighbors’ and your children’s rights – so now who hates children? Who hates your grandchildren? Since you gave up THAT little bit (NFA, GCA, NICCS, et al) you have ceded the enemy’s point. You’ve agreed that restrictions on gun ownership are a legitimate and sensible way of addressing crime. You’ve proven to everyone that, under the right pressures, you’re willing to give up more, and more and more, until you’ve forgotten what the right was in the first place. Which is where we are now. You’re dancing someone else’s dance and you don’t even know it. It works so well that many of us are afraid to articulate the true meaning of the second amendment in public, for fear of being branded as extremists. That cheap, transparent game is as old as the hills, but it’s so effective, over and over again, that many of you reading this are still falling for it. Cowards. Don’t think that your clever rationalizations make you less of a coward. You’re clever cowards.

If we allow ourselves to be suckered by proposals for “mental health” screening for gun purchases, for example, just watch how quickly the number of people being determined to have “mental health” issues starts to climb, and climb, and climb exponentially. Don’t ask later, in bewilderment, (NRA) how it could have come to such a state of affairs. It will. And you will have helped it along (which means you’re crazy, which means you can’t have guns ; )

No, Young Grasshopper; the only way to fix this is to rediscover Original Principles, then articulate them clearly, then stand our ground, and then win it all back. The enemy wins through subtle lies, mind tricks, degradation, intimidation, smear, and outright lies. We are better than this. We win with the truth, and with the courage to stand up for it.

Background checks

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The anti-gun people insist “improved background checks” and even “universal background checks” should not be controversial. Let me try to explain why they are both pointless and completely unacceptable to thinking people.

Pointless demonstration number 1:

The claimed purpose of background checks is to prevent “people who shouldn’t have guns” from acquiring them. That is a noble objective. It sounds so reasonable and “common sense” that I want to agree without giving it even a seconds thought. It’s an excellent idea! It’s such a great idea we should apply that to some other dangerous things. Let’s have background checks before people can purchase recreational drugs. Far too many people abuse them and destroy their lives and frequently the lives of others. Keeping recreational drugs out of the hands of people that would likely abuse them is just “common sense”. Right?

Oh! That’s right. We have something way beyond background checks in place for most recreational drugs. We have banned them not just from “people that might abuse them” but from everyone. How’s that working out? How long does it take the average high school dropout to find a way around the ban? Yeah, that’s right, Einstein. The average high school dropout can get all the recreational drugs they want within an hour anytime of the day, any day of the week. So just how effective you think a background check would be in reducing the abuse of recreational drugs?

Now apply what you know about the recreational drug issue to firearms. A background check is totally pointless.

Pointless demonstration number 2:

Universal background checks can only claim effectiveness if they can be enforced. Prostitution is illegal in most states but if a beautiful woman leaves a $100 bill on my nightstand when she leaves in the morning (yes, stretch your imagination a bit, or a lot, for purposes of illustration) how does  the government enforce the “no sex for money” prohibition in this case? It was a “private transaction” between willing parties. Do you think either party has an interest in disclosing the transaction to the police? And even if they do there is a significant obstacle in that it becomes a “he said, she said” problem.

In the absence of gun and/or gun owner registration the case of the “private transaction” between gun owners boils down to the same thing. The government, and perhaps one party to the transaction, can claim no background check was done. As long as the person being prosecuted keeps their mouth shut and the transaction wasn’t recorded it is going to be impossible to prove that a background check wasn’t performed. Remember, in order to get the Brady Act (“instant” background checks for gun transactions) passed the law states that all record of passing background checks must be destroyed. Searching the records of all those authorized to perform background checks would be a violation of Fourth Amendment rights.

Pointless demonstration number 3:

Even if a background check is performed it only requires a stolen or fake ID to defeat it. The fake ID doesn’t even have to be for a real person! The check is not against a “white list” of people that are “allowed” to have guns. The check is against a “black list” of people that are disallowed from possessing guns.

Conclusion:

If you still advocate for background checks for firearms I can only think of two possibilities:

  1. You have a motive other than reducing the misuse of firearms.
  2. You also get confused when your caretaker is reading Dr. Seuss books to you.

Now that we have it settled that background checks are completely pointless let’s proceed on to the “unacceptable” demonstrations.

Unacceptable demonstration number 1:

Background checks cost money and time. The FBI portion of them is “free” to the people doing the transaction. But really that just means the government is wasting scarce law enforcement resources using money they obtained through taxes (obtained at gunpoint–oh, the irony!). The only people authorized to do background checks are people with Federal Firearms Licenses (FFLs). Because it is time consuming they always charge a fee and you must do a face-to-face transaction. This adds more wasted time and money to the transaction. A transaction which is a specific enumerate right.

This pointless waste of time and money is unacceptable at any time but when the government is deeply in debt and the economy is doing poorly wasting precious government and private resources it is even more so.

Unacceptable demonstration number 2:

If law requiring universal background checks is passed it will only be a short time before the politicians will “discover” the “loopholes” that prevents the law from working as intended. These include the lack of gun registration and the lack of defense against fake IDs. Any attempt at gun registration in the U.S. will result in massive non-compliance on a scale that will make alcohol prohibition look like first graders failing to stay in a straight line while waiting to go on recess. Look at the non-compliance experienced in the failed long gun registration in Canada. Multiply that by three (the difference in per capita gun ownership rate), multiply that by two (U.S. citizens trust the government less than Canadian citizens), then add ten billion rounds of ammunition (annual consumption by private citizens). Or look at New York state,  multiple by fifty (the citizens of other states included in the non-compliance) and multiply that by ten (the citizens of New York state have the option of moving to a freer state, with no place to escape the resistance will be more fierce), then add ten billion rounds of ammunition.

The “ID loophole” was identified years ago by the Feds and they passed a law requiring “Real ID” by the states. How’s that working out?

For the government to force this sort of situation upon the people is unacceptable.

Unacceptable demonstration number 3:

Since demonstrating that background checks are pointless the continued insistence upon forcing them upon the people this must mean that those continuing to advocate for them are either evil (option 1 above) or have the comprehension skills no better than that of an above average German Shepard (option 2 above). Despite the existence of blue dog democrats we have never elected someone so stupid as a real dog to a Federal office (Senator Patty Murray is not a counter example, she is capable of reading and comprehending most Dr. Seuss books). One can only conclude those advocating for background checks are evil or are doing so under duress.

Good people don’t knowingly and willingly cooperate with evil. It is unacceptable.

Conclusion:

Background checks are pointless and unacceptable. We are better than this.

Even compromising with those that advocate for them is the moral equivalent of compromising with people that want “common sense” limits on the 13th Amendment or someone intending to rape your 10 year-old child. The response must be an exceedingly firm no.

Update: I almost forgot, as pointed out by Tim S. in email a few days ago, there is a form of background check almost all gun owners would accept. That is if there were an “endorsement” on your state ID card (such as drivers license) like the restriction for corrective lenses or endorsement for motorcycle or commercial drivers license. It wouldn’t be much, if any, more effective than that currently proposed by the anti-freedom people. But it would eliminate the concerns over registration and most of the expense and wasted time. If such a thing is offered as a compromise to the anti-gunners expect it to be vigorously rejected. They know it doesn’t meet their “needs” and as such will refuse to give in.

Update 2: See also the conclusions which can be drawn from this study.

Quote of the day—Senator Dianne Feinstein

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It will not effect hunting or sporting firearms, instead the bill will protect hunters and sportsman.

Senator Dianne Feinstein
January 24, 2013
Feinstein: Goal is to Dry Up the Supply Of Weapons Over Time
[Ignore the “effect” instead of “affect” error. That could have been the reporter not Feinstein. Instead concentrate on “the bill will protect hunters and sportsman”.

Thank you Senator Feinstein, that line should go down in history with other memorably phrases such as the following:

I am of the opinion that Senator Feinstein has fully mastered doublethink. What she did here demonstrates her contempt for the true meaning of the Second Amendment.

This quote should be used as evidence at her trial.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Adrian Bogdan

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In the old country we used to celebrate holidays with a day of rest, a picnic, going to the pool, etc.  Until they came up with the idea of celebrating “through work”…  kinda like this:

http://news.yahoo.com/president-obama–national-day-of-service-offers-a-chance-to–change-lives–110548447.html

Adrian Bogdan
January 18, 2013
[I find it interesting in a very scary sort of way when I talk to people that lived under communism.

See also other comments from Bogdan.—Joe]