Via email from Rolf.
Good question.
An increasing number of societal “privileges” related to transportation, accommodations, communications, and the rates we pay for services (like insurance) are either controlled by technology companies or affected by how we use technology services. And Silicon Valley’s rules for being allowed to use their services are getting stricter.
If current trends hold, it’s possible that in the future a majority of misdemeanors and even some felonies will be punished not by Washington, D.C., but by Silicon Valley. It’s a slippery slope away from democracy and toward corporatocracy.
In other words, in the future, law enforcement may be determined less by the Constitution and legal code, and more by end-user license agreements.
Mike Elgan
August 6, 2019
Uh-oh: Silicon Valley is building a Chinese-style social credit system
[Via email from Chet.
I had a incident with the Boomershoot website and Google that lasted weeks (they claimed it was a phishing website) before I finally got them to stop showing a red screen when people visited using Chrome. The security certificate (https) is still suspended because of this and I need to get that fixed soon. It cost them virtually nothing to do that and it cost me many hours and who knows how much loss of traffic and reputation.
As further evidence of this line of thinking, people have made suggestions that banks should cut off credit card processing and other financial services from stores that sell certain types (as a prelude to all types) of firearms:
…assault weapons would be eliminated from virtually every firearms store in America because otherwise the sellers would be cut off from the credit card system.
Of course PayPal, Square, Stripe and Apple Pay already completely ban the sale of firearms via their services.
I’m not sure what the proper response to this sort of thing is. In principle, I’m against government telling how to run their businesses. Let the free market decide. But sometimes the outcome doesn’t seem just. Restaurants, apartment owners, and hotels refusing to do business with people with black skin is one such example. The free market response seemed inadequate to remedy the problem.
I’m in the process of moving to a different credit card processor for Boomershoot even though PayPal was much easier and cheaper. But even with many people reducing or ceasing their use of PayPal because of their anti-gun policies it doesn’t appear to be suffering any.
It’s wasn’t exactly a legal restrictions so it’s tempting to say this type of thing is an appropriate response:
Top Louisiana officials have blocked two large bank corporations from participating in a road financing plan due to their gun control regulations.
Perhaps. But it hasn’t seemed to been effective, it is a form of government telling a business how they should operate, and the banks could probably easily retaliate with greater effect against those states.
What would seem to me to be the best approach is for the corporate officers to be prosecuted via 18 UCS 241. It’s not telling them how to do business. It’s prosecution for attempting to deny people their specific enumerated rights. Yes, it’s walking a very narrow, perhaps imaginary, line. It wouldn’t take very long for banks to revise their business practices if a few banks lost all of their upper management to life sentences in prison.
That’s not going to happen in the next few years so what should be done in the mean time? Is there anything more we can do than attempt boycotts and document their crimes?—Joe]
In order to obtain the maximum results from psychological operations in guerilla warfare, each combatant must be highly motivated to engage in propaganda face to face, to the same degree that he is motivated to fight.
Tayacan
1984
Sanitized Copy of CIA’s Psychological Operations in Guerilla Warfare
[Confrontation is what the political left does. If we are to win we must do the same.—Joe]
At its heart, liberalism is a gnostic religion, and the essence of that religion is the believer’s faith that he possesses the means of changing the world for the better. The belief that the world must be changed requires there to be a mass of individuals whose lives are in need of change. Following this logic, it is the liberal, not those deplorables in need of change, who knows what must be changed. For liberals, there must be a mass of people in need of this knowledge for life to make sense.
Jeffrey Folks
February 24, 2018
Leftists versus the People
[Substitute “leftist” for “liberal” and “socialism/communism” for “liberalism” of course.
It’s a reasonable hypothesis that would appear, in the general case, to fit the available data. If true, we must conclude they despise the very concept of individual rights and respond appropriately.—Joe]
The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom.
Robert A Heinlein
1942
Beyond this Horizon
[This is the same character in the same book which made this famous quote.
Also, from here:
This should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer of the 20th Century. But somehow many people have not done much observing and/or have no interest in civil freedom.—Joe]
If you are a registered Washington State voter please sign the petition for I-1094. Do it soon! The last day to sign in December 28th, 2019.
If passed I-1094 would repeal I-1639. Here is the website for the good guys.
Here is the list of addresses where you can find copies of the petition to sign. Here is a map of the locations where you can find copies of the petition to sign:
If you’ve taken away that person’s ability to protect themselves, then it’s incumbent on you to protect them.
W.Va. Del. Brandon Steele, (R) 29th
October 14, 2019
W.Va. delegate seeks to hold ‘no-gun zones’ legally liable for shooting injuries
[H/T Glenn Reynolds.
The best defense is a good offense. This would appear to be a good offensive play against the anti-gun people.—Joe]
Anytime someone talks about taking away your ability to defend yourself you’re in danger.
Chad Prather
November 11, 2019
Chad Prather: ‘Anytime someone talks about taking away your ability to defend yourself, you are in danger.’
[And, as frequently pointed out by pkoning:
Never forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anyone has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn’t let him do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians.
Alexander Hope
In the novel “Hope” by Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman.
And there are a lot of people talking about taking away our ability, and even right, to defend ourselves.
Respond appropriately.—Joe]
It is beyond comprehension—ambitious candidates of an entire party—are campaigning on things the Constitution bans, and getting cheering support.
I certainly don’t advocate violence. On the other hand, like my armed countrymen, I vigorously support self defense and am prepared to act if desperate immediate proximate criminal trouble were to arise, God forbid. I’ve been through intensive training, classes, reading, for decades. I’ve written ten books on the subject—so far.
What I haven’t done is consider the dire threat politicians present to the nation, when they stoke the flames of revolution by doing precisely what the British did that got us there those many years ago. They have announced they’re coming for our guns. It is not subtle. It is not limited. It is not allowed.
Alan Korwin
November 10, 2019
THEY’VE GONE TOO FAR
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
San Francisco recently passed Proposition H, which bans the ownership of guns in homes and businesses.
I for one am comforted by the fact that San Francisco has taken this safety measure. Now when some big dude meets you along a dark street, you’ll know that it’s not a gun in his pocket. The downside of course is that he’s really happy to see you.
Right Wing Duck
November 11, 2019
IMAO Time Machine: Proposition H – A fun look at gun control
[Note the phrase “Time Machine” in the title. Proposition H was passed 14 years ago on November 8, 2005.
While this quote has a high humor value it has a lot of truth in it.—Joe]
Yes, the framers intended We the People to have “weapons of war”.
Where in the 2nd amendment does it say that civilians can have one form of arms and the govt can have the superior form?
If that were true then what type of equal playing field would that leave us with?
Antonia Okafor Cover @antonia_okafor
Tweeted on November September 23, 2019
[See also United States v. Miller 59 S.Ct. 816(1939).—Joe]
Charlie should automatically be dismissed as irrelevant to the conversation. He apparently has an obsession with comparing guns to male genitalia. That’s a sure sign that he’s an ignorant, uneducated, demented leftist.
They are the only ones who view guns as penises.
Cowntess Of Austerity @_MoCowBell_
Tweeted on November 9, 2019
[I was tempted to post the tweet Cowntess is referring to. But this is better.—Joe]
The only reason why the government would want to disarm you after 243 years is because they intend to do something that you would shoot them for.
Kathy Zhu @PoliticalKathy
Tweeted on November 7, 2019
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
There are zero reasons to believe a gun offers personal protection against a felon or any protection against any attack. Normal people don’t have the disregard for life to pull the trigger against a threat. The felon enters the scene prepared to shoot at the slightest resistance. Guns are virtually useless for personal protection.
Prosper
Posted at Democratic Underground on November 2, 2019
[Interesting. Apparently in this world view the police and military are not “normal” people. Nor are the thousands of ordinary citizens who fire their guns in self-defense each year. I think the more likely case is this is a troll.
If someone with children tries to make a such a claim ask them if they would be unable to shoot someone about to beat their young child with a club.
If they have no children of their own then ask about a mass shooter at a children’s school. Do they think they would be unable to pull the trigger if the alternative were to run away and/or watch a dozen or more children be killed?
If they are unable to pull the trigger when confronted with murderous evil in action then it is they who are not normal and should be treated as such.
Continuing on a different path…
Even if we were to grant the absurd proposition that 90% of the population can be characterized in this fashion there is still a problem. The statistics of the masses cannot justify denying the individual their right to defend themselves using the most effective tool for the job.
This type of person belongs in a collective of some sort. They apparently have no concept of the individual or individual rights.—Joe]
No law can limit the methods available for a motivated person to do violence unto others sufficiently enough to justify the infringement of natural civil rights through prohibition, even if democratically agreed upon. The people lose and nobody gains anything except an illusion of safety. That illusion will break every single time it is tested with even the most remote bit of competence.
Keith Finch
November 2, 2019
A Constitutional Case for… Gun Control?
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Dear Politicians,
We are not buying all these guns just to give them up.
bakerjrae
T-shirt design
[We live in interesting times.—Joe]
They should not tell everything they’re going to do. If you’re going to take people’s guns away, wait until you get elected — then take the guns away. Don’t tell them ahead of time.
Joy Behar
November 4, 2019
Joy Behar: Don’t tell Americans before you take their guns
[Behar was discussing failed 2020 presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke.
Good advice. A little too late. But good advice.
But then, it appears that these days if a candidate has a ‘D’ after them name gun confiscation is their game plan so one should just automatically assume the worst regardless of how public they make their gun confiscation plans.—Joe]
We are taking your guns. Period. The tide is turning rapidly. The NRA is toast. As soon as trump is gone, guns are gone.
NitramLand @NitramLand
Tweeted on October 27, 2019
[Who’s “we”?
And as if the NRA and President Trump were protecting gun owners from him and others like him. It’s more like he and his unindicted ideological coconspirators are being being protected from us by the presence of the NRA and a president who gives lip service to the 2nd Amendment.
Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
My service to the country will not be as a candidate or as the nominee. Acknowledging this now is in the best interests of those in the campaign; it is in the best interests of this party as we seek to unify around a nominee; and it is in the best interests of the country.
Beto O’Rourke
November 1, 2019
Gun control advocate Beto O’Rourke drops out of US presidential race
[Certainly it’s in the best interests of the country if he never sees political power again. I would prefer that he be given a fair trial, convicted, then sentenced to hard labor. But this is good enough for now.
Although, I will kind of miss the opportunity to collect more “No one wants to take your guns” quotes.—Joe]
The necessity for this Court to clarify the role of history in defining the right is illuminated by so many outcomes depending on whether the reviewing court considers history. Disregarding history and merely interest-balancing Second Amendment rights has allowed the Second Amendment to be singled out for special—and specially unfavorable—treatment. Many courts have boldly admitted doing so, offering justifications that this Court has previously rejected. Until this Court reinforces its precedents, lower courts will continue to treat the right to bear arms as a second class right.
Joseph G.S. Greenlee
Counsel of Record
Firearms Policy Coalition
October 30, 2019
BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE FIREARMS POLICY COALITION, FIREARMS POLICY FOUNDATION, CALIFORNIA GUN RIGHTS FOUNDATION, MADISON SOCIETY FOUNDATION, AND SECOND AMENDMENT FOUNDATION IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS
[This is an Amicus brief before SCOTUS in Brian Kirk Malpasso, et al., Petitioners v. William M. Pallozzi, Superintendent, Maryland Department of State Police
Things are moving in the courts. It’s a good sign that gun owners are choosing the cases to back.
I believe this is our best chance for making progress on the gun owner rights front. I and, through matching funds to 501(c)(3) corporations, my employer donate thousands of dollars every year to FPC and SAF.—Joe]