It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
Lord Acton
Both sides can try to get some political pay out of it. We feel these types of situations actually make the point that a law-abiding citizen should have less controls or it would inhibit lawful self defense.
Clark Aposhian
February 14, 2007
Trolley Square slayings heats up gun-control debate
Chairman of the Utah Concealed Weapons Permit Review Board
Regarding the Trolley Square shooting in Utah.
[It was also Mr. Aposhian that I received my training for a Utah concealed carry permit.–Joe]
The Second Amendment isn’t about guns or hunting anymore than the First Amendment is about typewriters, Mr. Mayor. It’s about concepts of liberty residing in the authority of the people since the inception of the nation and written to remain that way. The First Amendment is watchdog of government in various ways and is not absolute, and the Second Amendment backs our sovereignty by force and is absolute, which authority cannot legally be taken away.
Taking weapons is breaking the law because it challenges our sovereignty with abuse of process, itself backed by force. This is not leadership or governance: this is an illegal challenge to sovereign authority.
Candidates who oppose personal carrying of handguns lack the understanding to serve and have only the lust to rule. The first step is, of course, to outlaw the honest. It keeps the issue of violent crime alive while people die at the hands of it. Gun control never reduces crime, but endures as an immortal, evergreen issue.
Listening, 2008 Candidates?
They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters – with force, if necessary. It’s how 22,000 gun laws profoundly affect the non-gun owners in America: it challenges their sovereign authority, too.
Repeal gun laws and stop challenging the sovereign authority of the people: protect it and serve it.
John Longenecker
February 13, 2007
2008: Gun Control Candidates Need Not Apply
I don’t care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating.
Boss Tweed
[I keep thinking of this quote as I read about the possible nominees for the next President. Someone who doesn’t like my politics must be doing the nominating for the nominations. It seems there will only be bad, worse, and worst options available.–Joe]
Gun control: Being able to hit a moving target at 500 yards with one shot, one kill, henceforth conserving your ammunition for further skirmishes and engagements.
Howard Hutchinson
Basically, IPSC is, and rightly so, about shooting people. Some people need to be shot. Get over it.
Joe Huffman
January 15, 1999 12:52 PM
Unofficial IPSC email Discussion List
…there’s no doubt that the buyers broke the Gun Control Act, and that those who set them to it were liable as aiders and abettors, not to mention on a conspiracy theory. I’d assume that Bloomberg and company (1) figured it was worth it for the publicity and (2) figured that the laws don’t apply to the rich and powerful. They may just have been right on both.
David Hardy
February 8, 2007
US Attorneys slap down Bloomberg
Of Arms in the Law
Do you know why prisoners can escape? Because they have more time.
You have the time, the motivation, and the smarts to devote to this case. The other side is at a disadvantage.
Matthew J. Bean, P.S.
February 7, 2007
Regarding Joe Huffman versus Battelle (PNNL).
[This was after he expressed some surprise at my level of preparation in the case and I said I had been thinking about these things for over a year and a half and have been looking forward to the day when I could execute on them.–Joe]
The Deacons forced the Klan to re-evaluate their actions and often change their undergarments.
Roy Innis
As related by Ken Blackwell
[“The Deacons” refers to armed black men who used firearms to defend themselves against the KKK as told in the book: The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement.–Joe]
Majority rule only works if you’re also considering individual rights. Because you can’t have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.
Larry Flynt
[I could have imagined myself quoting Larry Flynt–but never with this sort of subject matter. It’s not the first time Mr. Flynt has surprised me either. It might not be the last.
Other people have slightly different versions of this, with a punch line something like “…finding a well-armed sheep”. Individual rights are only guaranteed when the minorities have a means of defending them; i.e. the right to keep and bear arms guarantees the rest.–Joe]
I am not going to hide how much guns disgust me. I think they are one of the, if not THE, most vile contraptions on earth.
To give you an idea how much, I wrote three papers in college on guns and gun control in one semester. I cannot begin to tell you how many extremely heated discussions I’ve had with friends and family about guns.
While I strive to understand how anyone can think that any one person should hold that much power – the ability to intimidate and/or take someone’s life with a gun. I can’t deny an individuals constitutional right to bear arms, no matter how painful it may be for me to accept.
But as far as I am concerned, no one needs a gun at all. Not you, certainly not me. Not good people. Not bad people.
The general public has no reason to own firearms such as semi-automatic guns or assault rifles and should be completely banned and destroyed, along with all the other types of guns (as far as I am concerned).
There is no excuse, nor any reason, why guns should be allowed in homes with children. The two simply do not mix, and it is completely irresponsible parenting.
Don’t try the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument with me. I really despise that saying. Power changes people and guns provide more power than any one individual was meant to have.
Woody Bass
February 4, 2007
Are guns too accessible?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
[Interesting argument. I don’t think I have heard that one before in relation to gun ownership, “power changes people and people weren’t meant to have that much power”. It’s sort of a “it’s not natural” type of argument. My favorite response to that is, “You’re right, if people were meant to run around without clothes we would have been born that way.” Other possible arguments in this case could made be against cars, knives, clubs, antibiotics, and computers. Even the Amish could be made out to be “too powerful” with the right argument.
It’s also interesting that he “despises that saying” but doesn’t refute it.
He’s got mental problems.
I didn’t get into it with him. I just left a comment with Just One Question for him and let it go at that.–Joe]
On the one hand, the guns were there to help capture the imagination of the people. But more important, since we knew that you couldn’t observe the police without guns, we took our guns with us to let the police know that we have an equalizer.
Bobby Seale
Co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (later shorted to just The Black Panther Party)
Also important to note is that the organization was primarily socialist in nature.
Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion.
Robert Burton
[I have no idea what Burton was thinking of but it makes me think of socialists and gun control advocates.–Joe]
I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb. Having one, or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that’s not very dangerous.
Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel?
It would not have gone 200 metres into the atmosphere before Teheran would be razed.
French President Jacques Chirac
In an interview on January 31, 2007 with Le Nouvel Observateur, The New York Times, and the International Herald Tribune.
[If the device could only be delivered by air and all the probable recipients of said device were 99+% sure it wouldn’t arrive intact then I might actually welcome Iran launching such a device for the very reason that it would give Israel (and others) a immediate reason to get into the glass making business. But that’s not how it would work out. If Iran builds or acquires one or more bombs they will make sure the odds of successful delivery are relatively good. It could arrive by land, air, or sea. And it will be Jews, Christians, and “The Great Satan” who will have to first deal with a great excess of glass. Therefore, logically, Iran must not be allowed to build such a device. Our country doesn’t have the political will (until after the first one or two glass making exercises occur) to ensure that so I hope Israel does have the political will. My expectation however is that Iran will get to throw the first punch and we will then throw the next 20 or so. As usual, by failing to act early more lives will be lost on both sides.–Joe]
Washingtonians are not stupid. We are aware that gun laws have failed miserably wherever they have been tried. Anyone who knows how to visit the FBI Web site can tell you that the most dangerous places in the United States often are the places with the strictest gun laws. Gun laws overseas have been no more successful. Asking the Legislature to give us more is a colossal waste of time and an insult to our intelligence.
Michael S. Brown, O.D.
Brown, of Vancouver Washington is a member of Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws; www.dsgl.org.
February 1, 2007
Evidence says gun laws don’t work
Seattle Post Intelligencer
“Mission”
Translation: To stay alive when “scumbags” threaten your life.
From the Greg Hamilton to English Dictionary by Meredith Robinson
[As a private citizen your job is not to capture, punish, wound, or execute the scumbag. Your job is to make sure you and any innocent life you have taken responsibility for come out of the encounter in the best possible condition. Keep in mind the encounter is not just the few seconds or minutes in which you are face to face with the scumbag but can extend for years into the future including future encounters with the same scumbag (it is an ex-boyfriend that wants you dead?) with civil as well as criminal trials–which may have you as the defendant. When you are in “the situation” you will likely only have fractions of seconds to think about your decisions so you will need to think about what sort conditions will warrant what sort of actions. It’s going to be a rare case that you will want to restrain from pulling the trigger when the scumbag is at contact distance with a knife in hand and rare that you will want to pull the trigger when he is 20 feet away and running away. But there are exceptions and the time to think about those exceptions is long before you get into that situation.
When you are in a situation where there is no applicable ready made plan you need to keep your decision logic extremely simple. Hamilton, a professional self-defense instructor, captures the essence of that decision logic here. Concentrate on the mission and do only what is required to accomplish that mission. With days and weeks to think about it afterward you and others may come up with better things you could have done. If you do only those things that are relevant to that mission the results may not be optimal but they probably won’t be that far off.–Joe]
Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
Lord Acton
[PNNL has a problem with this. They have defied every Freedom of Information Act request I have made–in some cases blatantly lying say, “No such document exists.” when I created the documents and knew they must still exist. Someday someone will punish them for their illegal acts. When that happens I, and many others, will be there helping to make sure that punishment makes up for all the times they got away with it.–Joe]
Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.
William O. Douglas
[A similar thing can be said of guns. The type of gun that was used for a terrible crime yesterday may be used to save many lives the next. The government that protects you one day may next year send you to the gulags–unless you and your kind own and know how to use guns.–Joe]
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them…
Thomas Jefferson
1816
Letter to Van der Kemp
[Although Jefferson wasn’t referring to gun control it certainly applies. Keep that in mind when people in high crime rate areas with oppressive gun laws insist others in low crime rate areas enact more gun control with the claim such gun control will reduce the crime rates in the area of the first person. I’m thinking of a certain set of mayors here that should be laughed all the way back to some tiny closet in their respective offices ashamed to show their faces until they have been booted from office, dragged out to the street, and given a swift boot to send them on their way to the dustbin of history.–Joe]
…each Federal employee has a responsibility to the United States Government and its citizens to place loyalty to the Constitution, laws, and ethical principles above private gain. The public deserves and should expect no less.
U.S. Department of Justice
Departmental Ethics Office
Justice Management Division
[If they are required to have a loyalty to the Constitution then how do they get away with working for agencies such as the ATF that are enforcing blatantly unconstitutional laws? Oh, that’s right, the constitution and law doesn’t apply to them unless they want it to.–Joe]