Category Archives: Quote of the Day

Quote of the day—Justice Antonin Scalia

Posted on by

I don’t see how there’s any, any, any contradiction between reading the second clause as a — as a personal guarantee and reading the first one as assuring the existence of a militia, not necessarily a State-managed militia because the militia that resisted the British was not State- managed. But why isn’t it perfectly plausible, indeed reasonable, to assume that since the framers knew that the way militias were destroyed by tyrants in the past was not by passing a law against militias, but by taking away the people’s weapons — that was the way militias were destroyed. The two clauses go together beautifully: Since we need a militia, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Justice Antonin Scalia
March 18, 2008
During oral arguments in the case of District of Columbia et. al. v. Heller.
[We lost our strongest ally on the Supreme court in the battle against anti-gun people yesterday. He will be greatly missed.

See also other quotes and references I have posted about him.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Professor Ruth Wisse

Posted on by

If history has taught anything. When someone says he is going to murder the Jews, believe him.

Professor Ruth Wisse
February 6, 2016
Professor Ruth Wisse Explains the Worst Case Scenario
[There was another gem in the same post:

Professor Wisse explained why she is a political conservative. “When I look at any policy, I ask myself: What is the worst outcome that can happen?” Liberals, she said, are fixated on the best outcome. The liberal outlook ignores history and reality.

I can’t recall where I read it, and it was very recent too, but someone explained progressive thinking in a very similar manner. Their observation was something to the effect that if a good outcome was possible from government involvement then that was sufficient justification for government action. Examples abound but the most obvious are Obamacare and the popularity of an admitted socialist running for U.S President.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Louis Pasteur

Posted on by

The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so.

Louis Pasteur
[I can’t disagree with the conclusion. But I fear that particular derangement of the mind is so common that one would be hard pressed to prove it was abnormal. Hence my placing it in such a wide variety of blog post categories.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Denning and Reynolds

Posted on by

Political scientists and law professors alike have written extensively on signaling and agenda-setting by the Supreme Court. Despite being dicta—the issues mentioned were not before the Court and were not necessary to resolve those that were before it—the Heller safe harbor seems to us to have been a clear signal, clearer perhaps than any sent in Lopez, that lower courts should not declare open season on any and all federal gun laws. It seems to us that the lower courts have certainly heeded this signal.

If the Heller safe harbor was indeed intended as a signal to lower courts (and litigants, perhaps), then it tends to confirm an earlier observation we made about Heller: that it is another example of the Court’s tendency to constitutionalize the national consensus on certain hot button issues and then enforce it against outliers.

Brannon P. Denning
Glenn H. Reynolds
August 1, 2009
Heller, High Water(mark)? Lower Courts and the New Right to Keep and Bear Arms
[Via Glenn Reynolds.

This conclusion would appear to be true and signals to gun rights activists the incredible importance of changing the culture prior to pushing our luck in the courts. We need to make restrictive laws appear to be nonsensical outliers then, if we cannot get legislative action to our satisfaction, press the issue in the courts.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Stephen Miller

Posted on by

Sanders is a kookily proud outsider and self-declared Democratic Socialist who joined the House of Representatives in 1988 and the Senate in 2005. In the quarter-plus century he’s served in federal office, only 3 bills he’s sponsored have ever made it into law. Otherwise, he was that guy you would occasionally see yelling about rapine capital or the unnecessary proliferation of deodorant brands to an empty chamber of Congress on C-Span during midday break sessions. And this has been Bernie’s professional life for the past 35 years. Get up. Go to Congress. Fight with Lamp. Declare victory.

Stephen Miller
February 1, 2016
Culture Club: How Media Makes a Meme
[H/T to Ed Driscoll.

I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Korwin

Posted on by

Nothing points out the bankruptcy of our nation’s gun-control debate better than the mythologies that surrounds it.

Prior “common sense” proposals are perpetually abandoned. The so-called “news” media adopts each new absurd gun-control scheme dutifully, promotes it uncritically, then drops it like a hot potato when it is proven worthless and runs to the next latest greatest bit of hoplophobic (morbid gun fear) ridiculousness.

In effect the nation endures a serial mythology, with new myths invented constantly, so we lose sight of each established myth as new ones spring into the public eye.

Alan Korwin
December 21, 2015
KORWIN: America’s Real Gun Problem – The Gun Myths
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ms. Ann Drist (@saltphoenix)

Posted on by

and the first thing to shit up my mentions with trollish-ness? A man with a gun. Always swinging their dicks when you call ’em out. Or guns.

Ms. Ann Drist (@saltphoenix)
Tweeted on November 2, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jasim Mohammed Atti’ya

Posted on by

What I did were terror acts. It was my duty. There are infidels and there is instruction in Koran to stop this and fight all infidels.

Jasim Mohammed Atti’ya
February 3, 2016
EXCLUSIVE: Jailed ISIS bomb maker says he would quit before donning one of his deadly vests
[The options they give to us are become Muslim and follow Sharia Law, pay a heavy tax, or die. I am of the opinion we should create alternate options not to their liking.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Caleb

Posted on by

Today’s post has been brought to you by Captain Obvious needs content.

Caleb
February 3, 2016
Training doesn’t always equal skill
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

Posted on by

We reject the State’s argument that the Second Amendment does not apply to detachable magazines because magazines are not firearms—that is, detachable magazines do not constitute “bearable” arms that are expressly protected by the Second Amendment. See U.S. Const. amend. II. By Maryland’s logic, the government can circumvent Heller, which established that the State cannot ban handguns kept in the home for self-defense, simply by prohibiting possession of individual components of a handgun, such as the firing pin. But of course, without the ability to actually fire a gun, citizens cannot effectively exercise the right to bear arms. See Jackson v. City of San Francisco, 746 F.3d 953, 967 (9th Cir. 2014) (“The Second Amendment protects ‘arms,’ ‘weapons,’ and ‘firearms’; it does not explicitly protect ammunition. Nevertheless, without bullets, the right to bear arms would be meaningless.”). In our view, “the right to possess firearms for protection implies a corresponding right” to possess component parts necessary to make the firearms operable.

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
February 4, 2016
No. 14-1945; STEPHEN V. KOLBE et al. v. State of Maryland
[It’s nice to find a court that agrees with us and is making clear what we gun rights activists all know to be true and essential.

This answers the ignorant high school kid I quoted yesterday.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Murray Rosenbaum

Posted on by

If you have a single gun and over 50 bullets, you could be a public danger.

…

The amount of ammunition you would need to keep your home safe from potential thieves and those who would cause you harm wouldn’t be even close to 100 rounds of anything. A single clip is more than enough to be threatening and protective if worse comes to worse.

Murray Rosenbaum
A eighteen-year-old senior at Columbia Prep in NYC
February 3, 2016
Bullet, Not Gun Control
[Children say the cutest things!

But children with crap for brains like this shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

Murray, let me help with your education.

A typical pistol match requires a 100 to 150 rounds.

Last month reloaded, for my own use, just under 2000 rounds. Last year it was 9531 rounds. Later this month I’m taking a class which requires, “2000 rounds of brass-cased FMJ ammunition (minimum)”.

When I took a friend to the range last weekend for a couple hours to teach her how to defend herself she went through about 200 rounds and her education and practice is far from complete. After I get her to a basic competency and comfort level she will probably take this class which requires, “600 rounds of brass-cased, FMJ ammunition (minimum)”. I expect getting her to that level will require another 500 rounds of ammunition.

Murray, you say,

the trick is making bullets more expensive…

I have no doubt there are plenty of other people who would claim that I’m endorsing the destruction of the second amendment. They can say that all they want, but in the end the Constitution says “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” but it doesn’t say anything about bullets.

Okay. Then using that same argument I have to conclude you would be unable to find a constitutional problem with a heavy tax on books. The First Amendment says freedom of the press, but doesn’t say anything about you being able to read it. Right?

When practicing I sometimes go through ammunition at the rate of up to five rounds per second. I figure that is about half the speed you can read words. So I propose we tax your use of reading of words at double whatever tax you want to impose on bullets. The number you used as an example in your post figured out to $75 per bullet. So, doing the arithmetic for you just in case your ignorance extends to the area of numbers as well as firearms and constitutional law, that would be a tax of $150 per word.

If you want to inflict a crushing tax on my education and those of others exercising their specific, enumerated, constitutionally protected, rights then you can say all you want, but in the end the constitution doesn’t protect you any more or less than it does me.*

* If you want to claim “books don’t kill people” ask your history instructor about Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, and Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. Then reevaluate your claim before you engage me on that issue.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Maj. Gen. Robert Scales

Posted on by

Presidential involvement in small arms has been strategic and game-changing in our history. Obama comes along and tells the Army that, in this administration, money is going into small arms to build — not a deadly weapon, not an effective weapon, not a dominant weapon, not a lifesaving weapon, not a technological cutting-edge weapon — but a weapon that prevents accidental discharge. Give me a break.

Maj. Gen. Robert Scales
Former commandant of the U.S. Army War College
January 31, 2016
Obama’s eye-opening order to Pentagon: Make combat weapons safer, not more lethal
[He is doing just what he said he would do. He is fundamentally transforming our country.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Iain Thomson

Posted on by

NSA tiger teams follow a six-stage process when attempting to crack a target, he explained. These are reconnaissance, initial exploitation, establish persistence, install tools, move laterally, and then collect, exfiltrate and exploit the data.

During the reconnaissance phase agents examine a network electronically and, in some cases, physically. They work out who the key personnel are, what email accounts matter, how far the network extends, and maintain constant surveillance until they can find a way in.

Iain Thomson
January 28, 2016
NSA’s top hacking boss explains how to protect your network from his attack squads
[Via Bruce Schneier. See also NSA Hacker Chief Explains How to Keep Him Out of Your System.

Most of this process applies to physical as well as information security. Use this information wisely.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Paige‏ @Trunthepaige

Posted on by

@SnowdenEd @Duck_Hunter7 @orangeblood307 @JoeHuffman Somebody is talking about penises so it must be a gun conversation with anti gun folks.

Paige‏ @Trunthepaige
Tweeted on January 20, 2016
[In a break from the usual Markley’s Law Monday I’m presenting a slightly different view of the theme today.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Claire Wolfe

Posted on by

We should be using email encryption even for sharing our chocolate chip cookie recipes.

Claire Wolfe
January 30, 2016
Weekend links
[I enthusiastically agree because of this:

Given that the NSA has taps on almost all of the internet’s major trunk routes, the PGP records can be incredibly useful. It’s a simple matter to build a script that can identify one PGP user and then track all their contacts to build a journal of their activities.

Even better is the Mujahedeen Secrets encryption system, which was released by the Global Islamic Media Front to allow Al Qaeda supporters to communicate in private. Weaver said that not only was it even harder to use than PGP, but it was a boon for metadata – since almost anyone using it identified themselves as a potential terrorist.

“It’s brilliant!” enthused Weaver. “Whoever it was at the NSA or GCHQ who invented it give them a big Christmas bonus.”

Given all the tools available to the intelligence agencies there’s really no need for an encryption backdoor, he explained. With the NSA’s toolkit of zero-day exploits, and old-day exploits, it’s much easier to root a target’s computer after identifying them from metadata traffic.

The problem is that encryption is a hassle. Until the hassle factor is significantly reduced it’s not going to happen.—Joe]

Quote of the day—David E. Petzal

Posted on by

The forces acting upon the gun industry are Armageddon, for which we are all tooling up, and our Peerless Leader, who has sold more firearms than even Bubba Clinton, and The Horror That Is Hillary, who is lurking in our future like the Wicked Witch of the West.

David E. Petzal
January 25, 2016
SHOT Show 2016, Part I
[Via Caleb who has a much different, but entirely valid, angle on Petzal’s post.

As others have observed, if Obama and his friends want to reduce the number of guns being sold in this country they should resign from politics.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Richard Feldman

Posted on by

In 1994 [when President Clinton introduced a ban on assault weapons] I remember being asked ‘Why do you need these guns?’ My response was ‘Well, I never needed them before, but if the government thinks I shouldn’t be able to own them, I guess I want them now’, and I did go out and buy about 15 of them before the ban.

Richard Feldman
January 26, 2016
How has the US gun lobby been so successful?
[Just like I buy and read banned books I also buy and use banned guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Carl Bogus

Posted on by

There had been only three US Supreme Court cases that dealt with the second amendment. They all held that the second amendment was related to militia service [and] granted a collective right, not an individual right. This was considered pretty settled until the 1960s.

…

They won the war in 2008 in a case called ‘The District of Columbia versus Heller’, when the Supreme Court held for the first time that the second amendment grants an individual right.

The nine justices of the US Supreme Court divided five to four along perfectly ideological lines. The conservatives said it grants an individual right, and the liberals all said, no, it grants a collective right.

Carl Bogus
Professor of Law at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island
January 26, 2016
How has the US gun lobby been so successful?
[Bogus is correct. As a name for this liar that is.

  1. The Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, does not grant rights. It protects preexisting rights. Read the words of the Second Amendment. Or read US v Cruikshank, “This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.”
  2. I can only think of two Supreme Court cases directly addressing the Second Amendment before Heller, one being Cruikshank, and the other is United States v. Miller 59 S.Ct. 816(1939). Neither say anything at all about a “collective right”. Miller is sometimes misunderstood to imply something like that but that interpretation is obviously wrong. Read my comments on that here.
  3. The Heller justices were not divided on the issue of an individual versus collective right in regards to the Second Amendment. The four dissenting justices said, The question presented by this case is not whether the Second Amendment protects a “collective right” or an “individual right.”  Surely it protects a right that can be enforced by individuals.

Anti-gun people lie. It’s in their culture. It’s what they have to do to have any hope of making progress in their battle to eliminate our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Greg

Posted on by

I no longer call it registration, it is a gun confiscation data base.

Greg
January 23, 2016
Comment to Ballot Fight in Maine
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brian Garrett

Posted on by

Whenever someone tells me to “check my privilege”, I like to respond with “root access confirmed”.

Brian Garrett
January 21, 2016
Comment to Indistinguishable from Reality
[To understand this, and find it absolutely hilarious, it helps to be a computer geek.—Joe]