Doesn’t it seem more than a little messed up when Pravda is urging us to never give up our guns, telling us we are wrong to go down the Marxist path while the New York Times is urging us to give up the constitution?
Category Archives: Politics
Ammunition Capacity Limits – the “why” of the matter
Trying to cut to the chase; there are two possible reasons that I can see, why a rogue government (and let’s be honest– that’s what we’ve had for some time now) would want to limit ammunition capacity. One would be simply to irritate and harass their political opposition, putting a few innocent people in jail now and then as a bonus. The other would be to limit the ability of the citizenry to fight against mass attacks (two or more assailants).i.e. to promote the ease of government attacking citizens. A possible third reason, going along in part with the first, would be to generally degrade society with more complex laws, more bureaucracy and more violent crime (criminals will have 30 round mags, but law-abiders won’t).
Any or all of those motivations would appeal naturally to any authoritarian, and to anyone who sees the founding of the U.S. as a problem (unfair, unjust, etc.)
If anyone can think of another reason, I’d like to know it.
ETA, 1-18-13; I’d thought of another, hoping maybe someone would chime in with it, and Publius pretty much, sort of did in comments here, though it’s not the way I would have put it. That motivation being to control the framework of the conflict (between liberty and authoritarianism), to keep us fighting THEIR fight and not ours. On that they have done a most excellent job– I bet you can find a million words, just today, about details of this or that proposed restriction and how it will not “work”. Well, it is working– they’re keeping us talking about THEIR ideas. As I’ve said before and elsewhere; it is a subtle yet crucial tactic, though most every little kid understands it. You see that bratty kid fussing loudly at his mother in the supermarket? He knows how to keep his mom off balance, off kilter, off her game, distracted, irritated, embarrassed, until he gets something from her (recently I noticed one such brat pause in his “tantrum” to look around and make sure he was getting a reaction from bystanders, then resume his fake tantrum, thus demonstrating that he understood exactly what he was doing). HE set the agenda, the framework of the conflict, not his mom. That one should have occurred to me foremost. It goes along with number one, but the distinction is between simply wanting to irritate your opposition on one hand, because you dislike them, and maintaining control of the whole discussion’s very framework on the other. The communists are experts at this.
Quote of the day—Bob Owens
Governor “Common Sense” Cuomo is a stumbling, bumbling example of the kind of person emotionally unsuited for high office, a fact the flaws in the draconian SAFE Act will show over time as unintended consequences catch up to bad legislation.
Bob Owens
January 17, 2013
Oops. Were there not LEO magazine exemptions in the rushed NY SAFE Act?
[H/T to Chris Knox who retweeted thegunwire.
The only thing I can add is that anyone who advocates for gun control is emotional, logically, and philosophically unsuited for any public job above toilet scrubber.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Daniel Greenfield
Revolution works best when the authorities are weakened by a transition period, when they were once oppressive, but have been liberalizing, or where they are asserting a new level of authority that the people are not used to. It is in these transition points that revolutions are most effective because the authorities are not ready to cope with them and the people are made bold and desperate by the uncertainty.
Daniel Greenfield
January 14, 2013
And This is Revolution
[H/T to Rudy Kearney.
Interesting stuff. Almost all assertions with a bit of anecdote thrown it, but still interesting.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Adrian Bogdan
I cannot begin to tell you how many memories, flash-back and déjà vu moments I’ve had…
Youth brigades with full indoctrination programs and training to rat on all non-conformists, including their own families, mandatory service of up to 2 years in some sort of “service corps” for “mandatory national service” (which ultimately will turn out to be work brigades needed for cheap slave labor), nationwide police force with full military capabilities and numbers surpassing it and all the “patriotic” work they will be doing like income verification (making sure you’re not living above your means), suppression of free speech and all other basic rights, midnight roundups and arrests, impromptu inspections of homes/businesses/vehicles with no need of any kind of search warrant, unlimited detention at the slightest suspicion of illegal activities (guess how many things will still be legal by then) and so on, so forth.
Just a recommendation: start showing these proposals to the people you know from the old communist block and then take notes. Most of them can tell you from memory what the road map will look like.
Adrian Bogdan
January 15, 2013
From the gun email list at work.
[While the context was the anticipated attack this morning on gun rights by the President Adrian was actually referring to a different article. Still, the road map could be similar.
Other people don’t exactly have a “warm and fuzzy” feeling over the current activities of our public servants either.
It’s interesting to hypothesize parallels to the Palmer Raids which could be used in our current situation:
The Justice Department launched a series of raids on January 2, 1920 with follow up operations over the next few days. Smaller raids extended over the next 6 weeks. At least 3000 were arrested, and many others were held for various lengths of time. The entire enterprise replicated the November action on a larger scale, including arrests and seizures without search warrants, as well as detention in overcrowded and unsanitary holding facilities. Hoover later admitted “clear cases of brutality.” The raids covered more than 30 cities and towns in 23 states, but those west of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio were “publicity gestures” designed to make the effort appear nationwide in scope. Because the raids targeted entire organizations, agents arrested everyone found in organization meeting halls, not only arresting non-radical organization members but also visitors who did not belong to a target organization, and sometimes American citizens not eligible for arrest and deportation.
The Department of Justice at one point claimed to have taken possession of several bombs, but after a few iron balls were displayed to the press they were never mentioned again.
About 10,000 were eventually arrested.
Also the Japanese (and lesser known Italian and German) internment camps are also examples worthy of using for potential parallels.
And, of course, it was a liberal/progressive administration in charge at the time of both the Palmer Raids and the internment camps.
The way it could come about is as follows. There will be widespread noncompliance and heated talk about the “common sense” legislation when the next tragedy occur. Then, particularly if it involves a government entity, those most vocal will be targeted even when they had nothing to do with the violence.
Our Federal government hasn’t passed a budget in, what, three years now? There is significant political tension over the debt and debt ceiling
In times of discontent the government needs scapegoats. Gun owners are now the designated scapegoats. It’s could turn into an extremely rapid escalation of events. The more we complain and the more we resist the more valid the claims that “we can’t be trusted with weapons of war” may appear. They then “have to” confiscate them to preserve our “democracy” (I know it’s a republic but they won’t admit that).
I can see the sound bites now:
Sure, virtually no one is talking about stuffing people in cattle cars right now. But five weeks ago we didn’t, and most probably couldn’t, imagine we would be seeing seven round magazine limits being law, or a full-court press for a more restrictive “assault weapon” ban at the Federal level.
Things sometimes happen extremely quick. The Rwandan genocide went from moderate tension to mass murder in 30 minutes. Many other events of historical significance went from moderate tension to massive human rights violations over the course of a just a few weeks or months. And, of course, it will be for the children.—Joe]
Gun cartoon of the day
What if the president were to publically announce they were going to sign an executive order to “research” the detrimental effects of free speech or Christianity? Or how about the prohibiting the reading of material from international sources that had no “sporting or scientific purpose”?
Why can’t people see how disturbing it is that a single person has the power to place restrictions on a specific enumerated right? It’s a really bad precedent to allow.
Quote of the day—Robert J. Avrech
The automobile represents freedom.
You climb into a car and go, go, go, whenever and wherever you want. The car is modern man’s path to liberty.
Contrast cars with trains.
Railroads are an expression of the collective. Individual identity is erased. You are at the mercy of a state-controlled system that turns citizens into passive cogs, manipulated and at the mercy of government bureaucrats.
That’s why democrats/progressives/liberals/ (what are they calling themselves this week?) are obsessed with high-speed rail. The freedom of the road is repellent to big government fanatics. The ruling elite seek to regulate and control tobacco, food, calories, soda, education, light bulbs, toilets, health care, reproduction — your every cell. In short: liberty is constricted by any and all means.
And all in the name of an amorphous, preadolescent concept: Fairness.
And you better believe that the chattering elite are the ones who get to define what’s fair and what’s unfair. Funny how that always works out in their favor.
Nazis just adored trains. And hey, the Italian fascists boasted that Mussolini made the trains run on time. Though Italian trains were about as effective and efficient as the Italian army. Which is to say: Not.
At a certain point, one must acknowledge the convergent philosophies of post-modern liberals and iron-fist fascists. Both ideologies assert the power of the state as the final arbiter of human affairs. Hence, the government replaces G-d and family as the center of man’s universe. It’s no surprise that the formal title of the Nazi party was “The National Socialist German Workers’ Party.”
Robert J. Avrech
January 3, 2013
Hollywood: I Drive Therefore I am Free
[And what point will we “acknowledge the convergent philosophies of post-modern liberals and iron-fist fascists”? As a nation we clearly have not yet acknowledged it or else many who acknowledge it also welcome it. And I fear even if we were to acknowledge today it would already be too late.
We have some very rough times ahead of us.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Chris Cox
Yesterday was nothing more than a dog and pony show. They checked the box, yep, we met with the NRA. They had no interest in hearing what we had to say.
Chris Cox
NRA Chief Lobbyist
January 11, 2013
NRA Chief Lobbyist Chris Cox on Meeting With Joe Biden’s Task Force: ‘It Was Nothing More Than a Dog and Pony Show’
[I’m reminded of this:
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
—Joe]
Supremacy clause
An email exchange with lawyer/lobbyist Mike B. (with minor corrections and additions):
Joe: How about putting this on the agenda?
Mike: Won’t work: See supremacy clause.
Joe: Isn’t that the equivalent of saying, “The Fed can’t do that: See 2nd Amendment.”?
Mike: The 2nd Amendment doesn’t have its own tanks. See: Grant v. Lee (1865).
Joe: Vyacheslav Molotov mixes my cocktails: See Finland v. Soviet Union (1939).
You should know that Molotov cocktails have a difficult time with modern tanks. The proper application of Boomerite, thermite, and steel bars into the treads may also be required.
Conversations with special forces trained in improvised anti-tank methods are also useful. I kept my notes from the late 1990s.
Quote of the day—Louis Michael Seidman
As the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.
Louis Michael Seidman
December 30, 2012
Let’s Give Up on the Constitution
[H/T to Roberta.
It’s good to have clarity.—Joe]
Quote of the day—JBR
This will start a war in the US. Urban liberals simply do not realize that much of this country loves its guns as much as the liberals hate them.
JBR
January 9, 2013
Comment to New York Is Moving Quickly to Enact Tough Curbs on Guns
[Not if just a few states do what NY claims to be doing. If the Feds do it, yeah, I could see things heating up to extremely uncomfortable levels.—Joe]
If the pro liberty side had courage
And if we understood how the process of winning works, we wouldn’t be protesting the latest outrages committed by the authoritarians, we wouldn’t be panicked, hoping that the next set of violations will be endurable. We’d be proposing our own “outrages” for the communists to get upset over. They’d be protesting us, you see, because we were so blatant, relaxed, and matter of fact about it.
In that spirit I propose a short, simple bill that would repeal the NFA of 1934, the GCA of 1968, and eliminate (not restructure, re-task or rebrand, but eliminate) the BATFE.
If we feel we have to use statistics to justify it, we have more than enough of those, plus we have personal human interest anecdotes galore, but better yet we have the principles of liberty and the constitution on our side. We have the future of our children on our side.
And to summarize; if the pro liberty side had courage, and resolve, and really understood the principles and how this is played, we’d never have gotten to this stage. But resolve does exist and it is growing I think, watered by the increasingly outrageous and transparent enemy. Isn’t this interesting?
Extenuating circumstances
When politicians cite crime rates, accidents, or current news events as reasons to infringe on the rights of their fellow citizens, they are in effect claiming extenuating circumstances to explain or justify their violation of the Oath of Office.
The question then becomes whether extenuating circumstances are a legal justification for willfully violating the Bill of Rights, or whether said politicians are guilty of a serious legal offense and punishable (see 18 USC 242 for example). It has to be one or the other.
Why there is no cell service in Westlake tunnel
It has always annoyed me that I don’t have cell service while waiting for the bus at Westlake Station (downtown Seattle). Many times the bus or I will be late and I need to tell someone I’m not going to be on time but I have to wait until the bus arrives and gets me out of the tunnel. Or I could leave the tunnel on my own and risk missing the bus and being even later.
Yes, it’s in a tunnel 80 (?) feet underground but I put in my own microcell in the middle of a field in Idaho something like 30 miles from the nearest cell tower and have good service for myself and my Boomershoot “customers” using AT&T. Why couldn’t the cell companies get service 80 feet?
Now I know the answer:
The reason you don’t have cell coverage in Westlake Station is because the Three Stooges refused to allow the carriers to ride on the radio system without paying substantial fees for the privilege. Verizon, T-Mobil, Sprint, et al gave a collective “Eff You” to the Stooges when they demanded the fees, and now the populace is denied cell coverage.
Governments don’t have customers to make happy. They have subjects.
Quote of the day—Daniel Greenfield
The defining American code is freedom. The defining liberal code is compassion. Conservatives have attempted to counter that by defining freedom as compassionate, as George W. Bush did. Liberals counter by attempting to define compassion as liberating, the way that FDR did by classing freedoms with entitlements in his Four Freedoms.
On one side stands the individual with his rights and responsibilities. On the other side is the remorseless state machinery of supreme compassion. And there is no bridging this gap.
Daniel Greenfield
December 17, 2012
Gun Control, Thought Control and People Control
[H/T to JPFO.
Nearly every paragraph in Greenfield’s post would qualify for a QOTD here. It is filled with awesome insights.
I decided to focus on these two paragraphs because of the last sentence of the second paragraph quoted above.
I’ve read that no two businesses or even species in nature share the same exact marketplace or ecologically niche at the same time. One will dominate and push the others out or cause them to differentiate themselves.
The freedom and anti-freedom, the left being the dominate flavor of anti-freedom, people are in a political struggle for the geographical niche known as the United States of America. There is no compromising with the other side anymore than there is compromising with someone that wishes to rob you or loot your business. There is only winning versus losing and protecting your property versus having your property redistributed for the common good.
The language of the left betrays this mindset.
In their “compassion” they will sometimes “concede” a “buy-back” of firearms they want confiscated. You can’t “buy back” something that was not yours to begin with. And you can’t “buy” something with money that you confiscated (in the form of taxes) from the victims you want to take the property from. But in the mind of the left all property, including money, is “community property” and there is no inconsistency. They don’t, and probably can’t, “get” the problem we have with their plans.
The anti-gun people claim removing restrictions against people carrying firearms on college campuses is “forcing guns on campuses”. Did you catch that? In other words we are using the power of government to force liberty upon them. One of daughter Kim’s economic class reading materials literally referred to the U.S. government “forcing free markets.” In their language and their world/philosophical view that makes perfect sense rather than being a self-contradicting statement.
They can barely understand that we don’t trust the government. They can understand not trusting the “right government” which in broad terms is a government which is not “compassionate.” But they cannot understand not trusting a government because of its size. The classic joke about the anti-freedom people fear Libertarians because they would take over the government and leave everyone alone is funny because it is true. It is beyond their philosophical framework to not trust the government based on its size. It simply doesn’t make sense. It is a nonsensical thought and in order to make sense of it they have to redefine the fear of large government in other terms such as “greed”, “selfishness”, or a as a close relative recently told me, “heartless bastards”. Gun owners cannot possibly be serious about defense against a tyrannical government and rational gun ownership must be redefined in terms of a hobby, penis substitution, or some sort of paranoia in order for it to make sense to them.
Any “compromise” they offer is defined in terms they understand. They are “compromising” by “allowing” us to continue our “hobby” by registering our firearms/magazines and submitting to a licensing process. In their minds this is a HUGE concession. In our minds this essentially defeats the entire usefulness of the right to keep and bear arms.
It goes deeper. They do not comprehend that the act of submitting to the government over a basic right is unacceptable. Submission to government/authority on every level is so fundamental to their nature it is like a fish in water. Any glimpse of “not water” is very brief and incomprehensibly hostile. It is extremely scary to them. More government is less scary and more “compassionate” to them.
They oppose us so vigorously and with so much violence because they see it as does a fish having their water removed. In their minds we have to be insane, incredibly stupid, or have evil intent. There is no other way to explain our actions and desires. Hence they are completely justified in killing us because if we had our way we would destroy their existence.
As Greenfield says, “There is no bridging this gap.”
I only see two possible outcomes and two ways to get there.
The possible outcomes are:
- One side will dominate and force the other side into virtual extinction.
- The sides will find different geographical niches. This option would mean the collapse of the union of the individual states.
The two ways to get there are:
- “Education.” The left has been working, successfully, on education for a century.
- Force. The left is close to reaching a critical mass and they now contemplate a victory through force.
The force option will result in massive numbers of people being forcibly imprisoned and/or murdered.
The big wild card in this deck is that the intended victims are arming up and training. The outcome is difficult to see. It depends both upon the order in which the cards show up and how the cards are played. For example had a “Newtown massacre” occurred before the Heller decision the course of history could have been drastically different. And so it is with our future.
I hate to go all Godwin here but I’m seeing the final option being played by the anti-freedom people as being the Final Solution to the “freedom problem”. Let’s play our cards well.—Joe]
Gun Appreciation Day
January 19, 2013 has been declared Gun Appreciation Day.
When I first heard about this, via an email from Ray Carter, Director of Development, at SAF, the first thought that came to mind was, “I really should clean some of my guns.” That is especially true of the ones that I didn’t clean after shooting them months ago. If they were sentient they would appreciate it.
But that isn’t what this is really about. It’s about sending a message to politicians. And some of our politicians really need to get the message.
Random thought of the day
I wonder how much CO2 emissions would be decreased if the global cooling/warming/climate-change whiners were to stop exhaling all that CO2.
Quote of the day—Robert J. Avrech
We need Liberal control, not gun control in order to save lives.
Robert J. Avrech
Emmy Award winning screenwriter. Religious Zionist. Republican. Movie fanatic. Gun owner.
December 26, 2012
Comment to Stalked: Girl Without A Gun
[There is more than a little truth to this statement. The liberal agenda enables and emboldens criminals both on the streets and in control of the power of the state.
Reading the post made me think of Barb L. and her “I can’t wait until he is my ex” husband (as she described her husband in the first few minutes of our first date). Her situation probably wasn’t as bad as the one detailed in the post but still she “got her affairs in order” before the divorce papers were served on him because she believed the chances were significantly greater than zero that he would kill her after he was served.
The papers were served several months ago and Barb’s anxiety has decreased some. We seldom talk about it but it’s not something I ever forget. We recently found out that he knows she is “seeing someone” and he knows my name.
Every visit to her place, every time she visits me, every time we see each other at lunch I wonder if he or a friend is watching. He certainly knows where she lives and works but does he know where I live and work too? Would he be able to find her and the kids at my place if things ever “got ugly”? Sometimes people “raise their eyebrow” when they get hints as to the extent I safeguard the address of my residence but this is one of those times I’m glad I have.
I go to the observation deck of my clock tower when I hear her car drive up and as she leaves my place to make sure she makes it across the parking lot safely. As far as I’m concerned it’s a known distance range and if I can see it with my naked eye I can hit it. Her 300 pound “I can’t wait until he is my ex” husband would be easily visible, even without my glasses, in the parking lot.
I’ve taught her how to use a gun and she, her children, and I will soon be taking an Insights class together. The best way to save lives is to be responsible for our own safety. Acquiring the skills and tools to do that effectively are an essential part of being responsible adults. Many liberals want to do away with that. This has and will cost many lives.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Gerry
You’d think they would know their American history. Taxes started the debate, going to take the colonials firearms started the war.
Gerry
December 27, 2012
Comment to Quote of the day—Alan.
[This may become the quote of the year or the decade. It might even be quote of the century. The next few months or maybe year or two will tell.
Rivrdog has thoughts on the comment as well.
At the highest levels of the gun control movement the people are generally not stupid or ignorant (there are some exceptions). A case could be made that these people know that in the present political climate of oppressive and unjust taxes the confiscation of firearms will be a spark in the tinder box that ignites a rebellion. Furthermore a case could be made that such a rebellion is exactly what they want so they can rid the country of “those troublemakers” that hinder the implementation of their utopia.
If such a disaster occurs I hope the case is proven at their eventual trials.—Joe]
Quote of the day—john personna
I will say that if someone suggested a reasonable boundary and a buyback, it would matter to me how generous it is. Paying 150% of 2012 market price would seem pretty fair. It would not even hurt the economy if you printed money to do a lot of that. If money is traded for guns, and guns are destroyed, the wealth remains the same.
john personna
December 28, 2012
Comment to Taxing Ammunition
[He has no clue as to what wealth is.
And more generally he also has no clue as to the fundamentals of economics. As the supply goes down the price goes up. 150% of 2012 market price would be a buyers market when the supply is being forcibly set to zero. The people actually willing to sell their firearms and accessories at 150% of 2012 market price could get 200% or perhaps even 2000% on the black market.
I can only conclude liberalism is a mental disorder. This becomes a dangerous delusion that they are the superior ones and should be in charge.—Joe]