Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.
Adolf Hitler
[For my readers, see Dan’s comment, that don’t “feel” people living under restrictive gun laws are oppressed.–Joe]
My generation of Canadians grew up believing that, if we were very good or very smart, we would someday graduate from Canada.
Robert Fulford
[Particularily relevant now with the proposed ban on handguns in Canada.–Joe]
It’s not much, but it’s a start:
READING, England — During his training to become a British police
officer, Ben Johnson recalled, an instructor told him and other
recruits, “If you ever see somebody carrying a gun, turn and run away
as quickly as possible.”“It was a bizarre situation,” said Johnson, 34, a former police
officer in Garland, Tex., and U.S. Army soldier who moved here with his
British wife three years ago and became this country’s first
non-British police officer. He said running from trouble was exactly
the opposite of what he learned as an American cop.Now Johnson is publicly challenging one of the great traditions of
law enforcement in Britain, what he calls the “old-fashioned idea of
the unarmed bobby on the beat.” He has written to his chief asking for
permission to carry a gun, arguing that Britain is no longer safe for
unarmed and under-trained police officers. He says he will resign if
the chief refuses.Johnson’s case has caused a media furor here, partly because an
American — a Texan no less — is claiming he feels less safe as a
police officer in Britain than he did on the beat in the United States,
which is routinely portrayed here as a gun-drunk Wild West.…
Britain has some of the world’s toughest gun-control laws, and
violent crime, while increasing, is still far less common than in the
United States. There were 184 murders last year in London, a city of
more than 7 million people, compared with 572 in New York City, which
has 8 million people.…
“The U.K. is changing rapidly, and the police have been slow to
adapt,” said Johnson, 6-foot-4 and razor thin, cradling his infant
daughter in his lap in the dining room of his neat row house. “We
should value the lives of police officers enough to properly equip them
and train them to do the job — even if that means getting rid of some
old-fashioned notions.”He said he had 36 weeks of academy training and
supervised field work to become a police officer in Texas. But at
Thames Valley he said he received less than half that, and most of the
instruction involved how to fill out paperwork.Johnson said British officers are instructed to retreat if they see
a gun and call for backup from armed officers, but that can give
suspects time to escape.
I love how they compare the entire U.K.
London, with tough gun control laws, to NYC also with tough gun control
laws. Why not compare it to the states of Washington and Idaho
combined? Those states are almost friendly to gun owners and the
right to self defense. They have about the same population and a good mix of urban and rural areas. Why? Because it’s the Washington Post and they have an agenda. Here is a comparison they could have done:
Washington and Idaho Population according to the 2000 census: 5894143 + 1293953 => 7188096
Washington and Idaho murders and non-negligent manslaughter (FBI Year 2000 UCR): 196 + 16 => 212.
So, even with the “gun-drunk” Wild West states of
Washington and Idaho the number of murders is comparable. Could
it be that something other than rate of gun ownership is the dominate
factor? Any sane person would conclude that, but the anti-gun bigots aren’t sane.�
That there is even a debate about keeping policemen disarmed in the
U.K. is further proof of that nationwide case of Hoplophobia. Fortunately there is help–if they would just take advantage of it.
Update: My mistake. The Washington post
comparison was London to NYC, not the entire UK to NYC. I’ll
update with city to city murder rates when I have more time.
Those who sell their liberty for security are understandable, if pitiable, creatures. Those who sell the liberty of others for wealth, power, or even a moment’s respite deserve only the end of a rope.
L. Neil Smith
Yahoo News reports:
OTTAWA (CP) – Prime Minister Paul Martin will venture into a violence-plagued area of Toronto on Thursday to announce a sweeping ban on handguns, The Canadian Press has learned.
Martin was scheduled to visit Toronto’s troubled Jane-Finch area to make a “safer communities announcement.” Liberal sources have confirmed the announcement includes an “outright” ban on handguns.
However, there will be exceptions for competitive target shooters, gun collectors and peace officers, a Liberal insider said on condition of anonymity. The source would not explain any more details of the policy proposal.
Handguns are already severely restricted in Canada and a handgun registry has been in force for more than 60 years.
…
Windsor MP Joe Comartin, the New Democratic Party’s justice critic, said the announcement sounds like “smoke and mirrors.”
“Basically, all handguns in Canada are illegal now,” said Comartin. “The only people who get permits are those who are using them for recreational purposes or those who need it for their own personal safety and there’s not a lot of those that are granted.”
He said the announcement sounds like “a political ploy during an election to garner some headlines and make it look like you’re actually doing something when, in fact, what you’re proposing is pretty meaningless.”
…
It remains to be seen how the ban will go over in rural areas, where the issue is more about rifles. Many Prairie rifle owners have never forgiven the Liberals for creating a registry for long guns.
Created 10 years ago, the registry was supposed to cost a mere $2 million. Instead, its cost has ballooned to more than $1 billion.
The Conservatives, who declined comment on the expected handgun ban Wednesday, have called the program a boondoggle and Auditor General Sheila Fraser has sharply criticized the waste and mismanagment that have pervaded the registry.
Gun owners warned at the time that the registry was the first step toward confiscation of their guns. Martin’s announcement may be seen as confirmation of their worst fears.
…
Wendy Cukier, who co-founded the Coalition for Gun Control after the Montreal massacre, said the government has yet to live up to previous promises to ban the AR-15 semi-assault rifle and the Ruger Mini-14, the same weapon used in the Polytechnique shootings.
But she said existing laws limiting the use of rifles and shotguns have been successful.
“Overall gun death and injury in Canada is way down,” Cukier said. “Where we’ve actually seen a slight increase is in murders with handguns and so clearly our existing laws are not addressing the handgun problem and something is needed.”
…
“It’s going to accomplish nothing,” said Wayne Fields of LaSalle, Ont., president of the Law-Abiding Registered Firearms Association. “There’s already all types of legislation and illegal use of handguns is out of control.”
Quick correction, it should be Law-Abiding Unregistered Firearms Association.
I’ve commented on Cukier before (and here, and here). I’m certain she is not ignorant on this issue, I think James has her pegged, and she is deliberately misleading when she says “gun death and injury in Canada is way down”. That’s not the issue. The issue is what is the total crime rate? As you restrict weapons the population at large is made less safe because criminals have a safer working environment. You have reduced the total cost to being a criminal. A criminal can be successful simply by being large, strong, or armed with a simpler and/or cheaper weapon. If you could magically eliminate all firearms from the planet you could set the firearm death rate to zero but the total murder rate could climb. There is Just One Question at issue here and Cukier dodges it.
And of course assurances by the anti-freedom bigots that a gun registry won’t be used for confiscation are worthless. That is the only thing it is good for.
People may be ignorant, yes. But it is a willful ignorance. They don’t want the truth. No matter how many times I explain they are wrong, no matter how much evidence I give them they don’t care. Their belief makes them feel good and that’s good enough for them.
And this understanding of people’s willful ignorance leads directly to my lack of faith in humanity. I don’t trust people to fix the political system, I don’t trust people to see religion for what it is, I don’t trust people to see the truth that is in front of them, and I don’t trust people to be smart. People don’t want to question their beliefs, they’re happy being ignorant and it doesn’t matter how much I argue with them they won’t change. Therefore they are not worth my time. The majority of mankind doesn’t care for truth and so I don’t care for them.
James Huffman-Scott
Speech for Comm 101
2001
From https://www.joehuffman.org/misc/LifeChange.htm
The Toronta Star says a brutal winter with colder than normal temperatures is coming. Contrast that with the CBC story on all the people marching in downtown Montreal urging our government to sign the Kyoto treaty to prevent global warming. The CBC story, even a single sentence all by itself, is an amusing contrast:
Thousands of people marched in frigid temperatures through downtown Montreal on Saturday as part of worldwide rallies to urge the United States and other countries to do more to curb global warming.
And people wonder why we call them barking moonbats.
If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Thomas Jefferson
[We failed.–Joe]
They aren’t technically calling it marriage but there is no legal distinction between the two. Read about it here. Many of my conservative readers will disagree with my libertarian viewpoint on this but I think it’s a good thing. Marriage (the first 29 years anyway) has been good for me and I expect it will be good for others even if they happen to be of the same gender as their partner. And what is good for the average individual is almost always good for society. I’ve posted on this topic before and don’t need to expound on it much again:
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded–here and there, now and then–are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as “bad luck.”
Robert Heinlein
[This, in a nutshell, is the problem with socialism in all it’s forms.–Joe]
Our movement took a grip on cowardly Marxism and from it extracted the meaning of socialism. It also took from the cowardly middle-class parties their nationalism. Throwing both into the cauldron of our way of life there emerged, as clear as a crystal, the synthesis- German National Socialism.
Hermann Goering (1893-1946),
German Nazi leader, air marshal.
Speech, 9 April 1933, Sports Palast, Berlin.
[“Progressives” and “Liberals” should never be allowed to forget the roots they share with the Nazis.– Joe]
The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it’s only the people who make them unsafe.
Philadelphia Mayor, Frank Rizzo
[My guess is that neither truer, nor more stupid, words have ever been spoken. The solutions to the problem Rizzo outlines are many but only a few are acceptable. Philadelphia has had a problem getting it right for many decades.–Joe]
A couple of cops are shot, one killed, when responding to a call of an armed robbery in progress. And they are “skeptical” that arming the cops would increase their safety. A couple of hours of simulations with AirSoft guns would answer that question quite decisively but they are so paralyzed by their own hoplophobia they can’t consider the obvious:
Mr Davis accused the government of failing to tackle the source of gun crime and particularly the illegal holding of firearms.
He said gun crime had doubled to around 10-11,000 since 1996 when Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and a teacher at Dunblane Primary School in Scotland.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the government was keen to learn any lessons from the Bradford shootings.
“My main priority is to ensure that guns no longer have a place on our streets and that armed gangs who terrorise innocent people are brought to justice,” he said.
But he signalled his opposition to arming all police, citing evidence from other countries which suggested it encouraged criminals to carry guns.
“I remain sceptical that arming all police officers all of the time would make them safer,” he said, writing in The Sun.
“Indeed, all the experience from other countries where the police carry firearms demonstrates that this only encourages the criminals to arm themselves and potentially to turn law enforcers’ own weapons on to the police themselves.”
If you had to choose between saving The Lying Bastard of Pennsylvania Avenue from drowning in a vat of steaming bubbling pig shit and taking a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph…
…what f-stop would you use?
Inquiring minds want to know
Ward Dorrity
Friday, December 04, 1998 2:49 PM
SOC Constitutional Infringement Issues
Microsoft Public Folder
[Check the date.–Joe]
You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
Aristophanes
[When reading this I immediately thought of the two Senators from New York.–Joe]
Q: What should you do if a pit bull is humping your leg?
A: Fake an orgasm.
This so reminds me of the government trying to “help”. You certainly don’t want to resist their “help”. That will only make things worse.
I was talking with a new friend the other night–“Solving the worlds problems”. And his solution was two fold; 1) Sterilize everyone at birth, 2) Put a chip, with a GPS and radio transmitter, in everyone’s skull at birth.
His thinking on item 1) was that after people really wanted kids then they would be able to get the sterilization reversed (we are talking utopia here, not the reality that many sterilizations can’t be reversed). With only wanted kids the quality of the childhood environment would go up drastically and crime, child abuse, gangs, drug use, etc. would drastically reduce and our looming exhaustion of natural resources would be relieved. On item 2) it was his belief that this would almost completely solve all crime where the criminal planned/hoped to escape. His biggest concern was how to deal with all the police, prosecutors, judges, lawyers, and prison personal that would be put out of work by his grand plan.
I think I bruised my jaw from it hitting the floor so hard. Apart from all the unsurmountable technical problems, with both 1) and 2), his ideas fail my Jews in the Attic Test in the most spectacle fashion I have ever seen. I outlined the test and said his ideas would usher in a police state and result in the deaths of millions. His response was that he would get rid of religion too so there wouldn’t be any need to hide “Jews in the Attic”.
Yup. There really are people like that out there. I tell you…just don’t get weirded out when someone starts talking and they will tell you the most “interesting” things.
He’s a nice guy and I like him. He’s very entertaining–but I don’t want him voting.
All the advances that mankind has made over his environment have been done using a formal system whereby man has hypothesized, “If I observe A then I can conclude B” and thereafter presenting the hypothesis and the formal system to the scrutiny of others.
Dave Smead
[I include political environment in this line of thought. Anti-freedom bigots apparently use some other failed system.–Joe]
People who falsify history don’t rescue freedom, they jeopardize it.
Vaclav Havel
President of Czechoslovakia
[In similar words, President Bush in a speech yesterday said, While it’s perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. — Joe]
Kevin, over at The Smallest Minority reports on a book, Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. He has this to say about the book:
The Scots-Irish culture is a highly individualistic one, but one willing to follow a strong leader. It has a hatred of aristocracy, but a respect for accomplishment. It’s also an embracing culture – adopt its ways, no matter your background – and you’re an accepted member.
…
If you want to understand the portion of the populace that decides elections these days, I recommend you read Born Fighting. If you’re of Scots-Irish descent, you’ll find yourself nodding and agreeing. If you’re not, you’ll be shaking your head. But trust me on this: James Webb knows whereof he writes.
It turns out those attitudes and personalities are still very visible in the descendants of those people today.
Barbara Scott, my wife, is of Scot-Irish descent (with a last name like that you never would have guessed?). Reading up on genealogy she found some interesting information on how the Scot-Irish immigrants and the German farmers (IIRC Huffman, a German name, means worker on a small farm. I grew up on a farm.) who immigrated at the same time into Virginia interacted. Also of interest is that Barb and I are cousins–about 5 or so generations back one of her relatives married one of mine in Virginia. We didn’t know this until a couple of years ago. Anyway the interactions and attitudes of those immigrants is not that much different from Barb and I. Not hostile but not always cooperative either. Our communication style is very different and we approach conflict MUCH differently.
Our children’s personalities reflect those differences too. James is the German. Kim is the hot-tempered Scot-Irish. Xenia is mostly German in personality but loves the Scot-Irish culture.
Ry and I have had some all night discussions on the topic of genetics and personality and the results were far more disconcerting that we cared to believe. Think about it some.