I am a witness in a still pending case, and I am being “leaned on.” This is not the first time ATF has taken out vengeance during a court case.
Len Savage
Owner Historic Arms LLC
January 31, 2009
Gun trial witness: Feds out for ‘vengeance’ Government’s action costing business thousands of dollars.
[Yup. Albert Kwan also comes to mind.–Joe]
This summer, I talked to security experts on both sides of the political spectrum, and had several conversations with Chertoff, in an effort to answer the following question: Is DHS achieving its mission of making us safer? My reluctant conclusion is that, although Chertoff has performed impressively in an impossible job, the department is hard to justify with any rational analysis of costs and benefits. On the contrary, it’s arguably one of the most expensive marketing ventures in political history–an enterprise that seeks to make us feel safer instead of actually making us safer. The best argument for DHS is that the illusion of safety may itself provide tangible psychological and economic benefits: If people feel less afraid, they may be more likely to fly on planes. But even if conceived on these terms–as a more-than-$40-billion-dollar-a-year pacifier–the department is hard to defend, since there’s no good evidence that it has, in fact, calmed Americans down rather than making us more nervous.
Jeffery Rosen
December 24, 2008
Man-Made Disaster—Six years on, the Department of Homeland Security is still a catastrophe.
[$40 Billion a year pacifer? Yup. That sounds about right for government work.
H/T to Bruce Schneier.–Joe]
This week, the NRA filed outrageous papers in federal court … impugning our Brady members and organization in our fight against the Bush Administration’s last minute rule allowing guns in our National Parks.
In the court papers filed this week, the NRA says they:
deny that the Brady Campaign is a grassroots membership organization or that it is involved in fighting to prevent gun violence;
deny that the Brady Campaign is dedicated to safety;
deny that the members of the Brady Campaign, if any, will face an increased risk because of the new regulation.
We’ve worked long and hard to stop the NRA’s “any gun, anywhere for anyone” campaigns and I, for one, won’t stop now.
As far as I can remember, this is the first-ever direct strike against the Brady Campaign and its members in court! The gun lobby is reeling after their election defeats and losing ground on all fronts, so they have it in for us for sure.
But we have common sense — and public support — on our side!
I won’t stand for their lies — especially lies that call into question the deep dedication of members like you and our long-time efforts to keep our communities safe from gun violence.
I say, allowing loaded concealed handguns in our parks and wildlife refuges puts public safety at risk!
Sarah Brady
January, 2008
NRA ATTACKS BRADY MEMBERS IN NEW COURT PAPERS
[I find this interesting for a number of reasons.
–Joe]
This isn’t your father’s recession. This is your grandfather’s recession.
Paul Krugman
January 29, 2009
Speaking to the Microsoft Political Action Committee in Redmond, Washington.
[I attended this presentation and I’ll have more on his talk later. He is also an active blogger — The Conscience of a Liberal.–Joe]
I think it’s time people took liberty seriously.
Alan Gura
Lead attorney in District of Columbia v. Heller
June 2008 interview with Nick Gillespie of reason.tv.
[Based on the results of the most recent election I have to conclude people have not taken liberty seriously and furthermore it may be that we have past the time where it will be possible to convince people to take liberty seriously. Appearances are that most people believe government is the solution to the problems created by government. That’s very scary stuff.–Joe]
If guns are an extension of a man’s penis, does that mean that men who support gun control secretly want to have vaginas?
Crotalus
January 23, 4:24 PM
In the comments to For the children…
[I had planned to never knowingly use the same QOTD as any other blogger within a month of them. Because this is such a good quote and such a good refutation of that tired attempt to derail a factual debate I am making an exception. H/T to SayUncle and Firehand.–Joe]
At least five of the eight state declarations of rights were specifically, in the words of the state constitutions themselves, part of their state constitutions. An obvious error of this type from such a large assemblage of professional academic historians is unacceptable in an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. The nature of this error is not just an embarrassment for the historians. It brings into serious question the factual basis of the historians’ Heller amicus brief supporting Washington DC’s gun control laws because it indicates that these historians are not overly familiar with the relevant period sources their assertions relate to.
David E. Young
January 25, 2009
The Root Cause of Never-ending Second Amendment Dispute
[The errors the anti-gun people bring to the debate are so numerous and so persistent despite being corrected numerous times I find it difficult to believe they are innocent mistakes or even willful ignorance. In many cases I’m certain it’s deliberate deception. And in some cases it’s an admitted deception on their part.–Joe]
Properly read, the Second Amendment prevents unreasonable federal encroachment on the ability of the States to maintain, arm, and call forth their militias. It does not handicap the States’ exercise of their police powers to regulate dangerous instrumentalities, including firearms, to fulfill their equally central role of protecting the lives, liberty, and property of their citizens.
Jeffrey A. Lamken
January 2008
Brief supporting petitioners of amici curiae American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, Ceasefire NJ, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Citizens for a Safer Minnesota, Methodist Federation for Social Action, Clifton Kirkpatrick in his capacity as the stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Educational Fund to stop Gun Violence, Freedom States Alliance, American Jewish Congress, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Gray Panthers, Gunfreekids.org, Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, Illinoisvictims.org, Iowans for the Prevention of Gun Violence, Jenna Foundation for Nonviolence, inc., Karla Zimmerman Memorial Foundation, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Council of Jewish Women, New England Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, DC Statehood Green Party, North Carolinians Against Gun Violence Education Fund, Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, Renée Olumbuni Rondeau Peace Foundation, Root (Reaching Out to Others Together) Inc., Union for Reform Judaism, Virginia Center for Public Safety, Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, and certain individual victims and families of victims of gun violence.
[Wrong. You lose. First clue–people have rights. States have powers. The words say, “…the right of the people…” Words have meanings and in a document as important the constitution of a nation each of those words were debated and very carefully chosen by very smart people who said exactly what they wanted to say. The first clue for people reading Lamken that he was full of it should be that you don’t protect the liberty of a citizen by taking a liberty away.–Joe]
Leave it up to New Yorkers to defeat those who support the constitution and elect those who seek to destroy it.
Michael Gaddy
Buy, Buy, Buy
January 5, 2008
[As pointed out by Clayton, Jeff, SayUncle, and Sebastian, this is not always true so -1 point for Gaddy. He still gets a 99% on his essay.–Joe]
While we opposed the Court’s decision to overrule 70 years of precedent and over 200 years of Second Amendment history, gun violence prevention advocates praised Section III of Justice Antonin Scalia’s decision to find a wide variety of gun control regulations “presumptively lawful” under the Constitution. Such laws include restrictions against carrying concealed weapons, laws against gun possession by felons and the mentally ill, laws against taking guns into “sensitive places” such as schools and government buildings, and laws that restrict “dangerous and unusual” weapons. Indeed, Justice Scalia stated that his list of “presumptively lawful” regulations comprised only examples, and was “not exhaustive.”
Paul Helmke
Brady Campaign president
January 21, 2009
OPINION: New Day Dawning for Gun Violence Prevention
[From reading his gloating the only thing the 2A protects in the right to keep a firearm in your home for self-defense. Concealed carry elimination is clearly one of his goals. Registration is almost for certain is one of his goals. And if I squint just a little as I read his article I can even see the desire to limit people to owning just one gun.
Molôn Labé, Paul, Molôn Labé.–Joe]
No man can bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.
Thomas Jefferson
[I wonder what Jefferson would have said about someone who, essentially, had no reputation going into the Presidency.–Joe]
THE PEOPLE: The people is a beast of muddy brain that knows not its own strength.
Tommaso Campanella
[This could relate to many things in the present day. I’m thinking of what the people did a couple months ago and of which everyone will soon learn the unintended consequences of their muddied brain actions.–Joe]
In a functioning market, vendors producing superior products would take share from vendors producing inferior products. Today that’s simply not possible because the cost of the most effective channel for distribution, shipping as the default browser with new computers, for everyone except the OS vendor is prohibitively high.
Asa Dotzler
Mozilla’s director of community development
January 17, 2009
competition is good (see also EU: Microsoft ‘shields’ IE from competition — Web too important to let one company dominate browser market, says Opera CEO)
[Taking this quote out of context is a bit unfair and he does address some of the issues I have concerns about. But the bottom line is there is much more to the story. “Superior products”, in his mind, is defined differently than the market has defined it. And unless there is government inference (or other application of force in the market place) then the “superior product” has, in fact, dominated the marketplace. The (relatively) free market has defined “superior product” in such a way that ease of distribution has played a major factor. In order words Microsoft is competing in the distribution channel and the market has spoken and said, “The Microsoft distribution channel is better.”
That Microsoft exploited their superior distribution channel and the customers responded favorably to this offering is not justification for some government thugs (the EU) to declare MS a law breaker and demand fines or that they offer free access of that distribution channel to their competition. Those competitors need to build their own distribution channel and compete in that market. Until they successfully do that they have a big hole in their offering because the distribution channel is part of the feature set.
Microsoft management will, almost for certain, be more “responsible to the stockholders” than I would. If it were up to me I would be strongly inclined to tell the EU they can write their own damn software. MS would refuse to allow any of their software be used in any EU country until the EU thugs making these decisions are all in prison or selling pencils and apples on the street corners to see what the free market is really all about.
Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft but I am not in a position of management and my opinion in no way reflects that of my employer.–Joe]
The Brady Law is still working to block handgun sales to convicted felons, domestic abusers, the mentally ill and other prohibited purchasers, according to a report released today by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. In 1997 alone, 69,000 people who were prohibited by law from buying handguns were denied access to these lethal weapons due to background checks. In the four years since the Brady Law was implemented, an estimated 242,000 ineligible purchasers have been stopped from buying handguns.
Sarah Brady
June 21, 1998
Sarah Brady Statement on Justice Dept. Report on Brady Law Success
[I find it exceedingly telling that the Brady’s measure their success in terms of the number of people denied the purchase of a firearm. I contend the only valid measurement of the success of a restriction on firearms is whether the average person is made safer by that restriction. In other words the Brady measure ignores safety and celebrates the blocking of people from exercising a specific enumerated civil right.–Joe]
A personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in Montana and that remains within the borders of Montana is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce. It is declared by the legislature that those items have not traveled in interstate commerce. This section applies to a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured in Montana from basic materials and that can be manufactured without the inclusion of any significant parts imported from another state. Generic and insignificant parts that have other manufacturing or consumer product applications are not firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition, and their importation into Montana and incorporation into a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition manufactured in Montana does not subject the firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition to federal regulation. It is declared by the legislature that basic materials, such as unmachined steel and unshaped wood, are not firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition and are not subject to congressional authority to regulate firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition under interstate commerce as if they were actually firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition. The authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce in basic materials does not include authority to regulate firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition made in Montana from those materials. Firearms accessories that are imported into Montana from another state and that are subject to federal regulation as being in interstate commerce do not subject a firearm to federal regulation under interstate commerce because they are attached to or used in conjunction with a firearm in Montana.
2009 Montana Legislature
HOUSE BILL NO. 246
[I also like the part where it directs the Montana attorney general to “defend in full” any “Montana citizen whom the government of the United States attempts to prosecute” for violation of federal law concerning a firearm manufactured and retained within Montana. It also provides this protection for firearms with bores up to 1.5 inches (38.1mm) in diameter.–Joe]
This dramatic decrease in gun violence debunks the gun lobby’s myth that gun control doesn’t work. Common sense laws can and have worked. The gun lobby claims that ‘an armed society is a polite society’, when, in fact, the opposite is true. These reports show that fewer guns on our streets means less crime and less violence.
While we are grateful for this news, we know that more can and must be done. We have eliminated a number of sources for crime guns but loopholes still exist which allow criminals to ‘lie and buy.’ We need to institute a national one-gun-a-month law to reduce gun trafficking to criminals even further. We need to close the gun show loophole which allows so-called ‘private collectors’ at gun shows to sell their wares to anyone without doing a criminal background check.
Sarah Brady
Chair of Handgun Control, Inc
January 4, 1999
YEAR-END CRIME STATISTICS SHOW GUN LAWS WORK, SAYS SARAH BRADY
[Note the year–1999. Also my next post will be of interest to supporters of this claim of hers.–Joe]
Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 37.3, the American Bar Association (“ABA”), as amicus curiae, respectfully submits that the decision of the divided panel of the D.C. Circuit should be reversed, because the decision improperly rejected the long and consistent line of precedent on which this Nation has built its entire matrix of gun regulation.
William H. Neukom
January 11, 2008
President American Bar Association
Brief of the American Bar Association as amicus curiae supporting petitioners.
[Similar things could have been said about passage of the 13th Amendment or any number of things such as allowing women to vote and laws against using birth control. Hence his justification for rejecting the individual rights viewpoint of the D.C. Circuit carries no weight.
But, assuming his characterization of the nations gun laws is true, then one should reasonable expect the “entire matrix of gun regulation” to collapse under the Heller decision. I wish that were true. I think it’s possible but unlikely. We will have to play our game very, very, well in order to even approximate this.
Based on these two items which Neukum apparently got wrong I must conclude that Neukom doesn’t know what he is talking about and his opinion, in general, should be severely discounted.–Joe]
[T]he NCVS [National Crime Victimization Survey] and researchers have concluded that women who offer no resistance are 2.5 times more likely to be seriously injured than women who resist their attackers with a gun. While the overall injury rate for both men and women was 30.2%, only 12.8% of those using a firearm for self-protection were injured. Subjective data from the 1994 NCVS reveals that 65 percent of victims felt that self-defense improved their situation, while only 9 percent thought that fighting back caused them greater harm.
M. Carol Bambery
Brief of amicae curiae 126 women state legislators and academics in support of respondent.
[John Fogh said it a little more succinctly with, ‘Nothing says, “Please don’t rape me.” like multiple jacketed hollowpoints.’ But some people prefer to see the details.–Joe]
Porn is not meant to be educational. It’s meant to be amusement.
Nina Hartley (NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!)
Via Jenny Block who has been twittering about the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo live from Las Vega.
We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected.
Henry David Thoreau
Walden Chapter 11. Higher Laws
[Thanks to Shyam who suggested I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan who used this quote in his book. I just finished the book about 90 minutes ago. It’s a good book. Perhaps a bit slow and wordy but opinion that might be because I grew up on a farm and have hunted and gathered food as well. A lot of the material covered was already fairly well known to me.
If we could but get the teaching of gun safety and shooting in our schools for all children to learn as they learn to drive automobiles we would be able to win the battle for gun rights. But then if it were taught in the schools that would mean we had already won. So we much teach the children ourselves outside the schools. Still it’s not an impossible task. The improved communication channel of the Internet favor the educated rather than the ignorant and no matter how repressive the anti-gun bigots it’s hard for them to repress our speech, or accomplishments, or recreation, and our way of life without revealing themselves for who they are. They are timid creatures afraid of confronting reality and willing to use the iron hand of government to crush the imaginary demons they manufacture in their narrow little minds from ordinary people who happen to own a gun.–Joe]