Quote of the day—Mark Ridley Thomas

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Let’s stop mincing words; Let progressives — not all but certainly many — stop feigning tolerance for a gun culture we abhor and rampant gun ownership we cannot comprehend.

Mark Ridley Thomas
January 17, 2013
Supervisor for the Second District in Los Angeles County
The National Rifle Association Is Correct: I Do Want Your Guns
[First off, his admission should be used as evidence at his trial.

Second, if he has that tough of a problem with comprehension why isn’t he in an institution of some sort instead of public office?

Third, H/T to Say Uncle.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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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?

Ammunition Capacity Limits – the “why” of the matter

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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

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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]

The stupid—it burns!

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H/T to Jon H. from the gun email list at work.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. After all he is a politician and he is from Chicago:

A South Side alderman is asking for City Council hearings on an unorthodox gun control measure that would allow for GPS tracking of firearms.

WBBM Newsradio Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports Ald. Willie Cochran (20th), a former police officer, has suggested that global positioning system chips be embedded in new guns, and retrofitted on existing firearms, so they could be located if they go missing.

“Just like if your car gets stolen, OnStar can tell you where your car is. If your gun gets stolen, and you report it, we should be able to find that gun,” he said.

Your car has a battery that weighs 40 pounds and is recharged every time you use the car.

You cellphone is a better analogy but doesn’t make his case any better. A cellphone has a standby time of, at most, a few days and requires a service provider such as AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, or Verizon in order to report it’s position.

That doesn’t even take into account that a criminal who steals one with a GPS will remove the battery or destroy the electronics.

One of the better comments I read on the site:

The difference between stupidity and genius: Genius has it’s limits, stupidity doesn’t, case proven by Willie Cochran.

Stupidity this strong should cause him to burst into flames hot enough to melt tungsten. The reporters that didn’t call him out on the stupid should smolder.

“Review” has a specific meaning

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I think I’ve read several hundred product “reviews” that go along the lines of;
“It looks and feels great. I can’t wait to go out and shoot it.”

I’m sorry, but “wow-I-can’t-wait-to-get-out-and-try-it” is not a review. Please don’t do that. Sometimes I can read through dozens of “reviews” before I find a single review. I fully understand your excitement and pleasure upon receiving a new product, but that’s a reaction, not a review. Please don’t waste people’s time.

Words mean things

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I suppose that the word “clip” being used to refer to a magazine must have started in earnest during the period in which the M1 Garand rifle was common issue. “Toss me another clee-up, Cletus” would have been used to apply to either a 1911 magazine or a Garand clip (or Tommy gun, M3, et al, magazine) among comrades, maybe. I still talk with the occasional W.W. II or Korean War vet who says “clip” all the time (and if they’re from Alabama it is “clee-up”, with the extra syllable, as in “She-it” or the number Foe-er”)

And so we’ve been harping on it for a while now. Some media types are starting get a whiff of a clue, but just to be safe, they’re using both terms, talking about “magazine clips” which, technically, would be devices that hold two or more magazines together. I’ve seen those for sale. Not that your average media pundit would ever understand.

Anyway; just off the top of my head, I don’t recall ever seeing an ammunition clip than hold more than ten rounds (unless you count a belt). You?

I suppose some of this misuse is intentional, just to irritate people. When you read the actuall laws, they tend to use the term magazine when they mean magazine.

Prior restraint

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Gun control is prior restraint. Since prior restraint for the First Amendment is unconstitutional it is also unconstitutional when applied to the Second Amendment.

The classic example of falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater can be extended to illustrate.

Prior restraint would be requiring a gag on everyone as they enter the theater because someone might falsely yell fire.

The solution we have is to punish those that do, not gag everyone who enters the building.

“Gun free zones” are the same sort of thing. You must leave your gun behind because it is feared that you might use it in a criminal manner.

The solution must be that we punish those that injure innocent people and we must not attempt to prevent all people from using their gun at all.

One might claim that the risks are so high that prior restraint is justified as in drunk driving laws. There are two counters to that. 1) Driving is a privilege, not a specific enumerated right; and 2) Only in extremely rare cases does driving drunk have any benefit to society.

And even if we were to accept crime prevention is a valid means to protect innocent life we have problems. Does that mean to prevent rape we should castrate all the men? How about sewing all vaginas shut so women can’t engage in prostitution? Or removing eyes so people can’t engage in voyeurism? And to prove I’m not stuck on sex crimes, we can prevent fights by shackling the hands and feet of everyone. We can prevent drunk driving and public drunkenness by banning alcohol. Slander can be prevented by removing people’s vocal cords. Libel can be prevented by banning publication of, well, everything. And while we are at it we can prevent theft by abolishing private property.

Crime “prevention” is a very hot button for me.  There is no limit to the evil that can be justified and/or enabled once you accept the premise that it is acceptable to prevent crime by restricting liberty.

The very name of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence demonstrates they are a very misguided and dangerous organization.

We are better than this.

Quote of the day—Daniel Greenfield

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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]

Somebody picked the wrong girl

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Via a Tweet by Chris Knox who says, “I do so love a happy ending”:

A comment by celticwarrior916:

That locked door you opened… was for your protection. Not mine.

Some days are better than others

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I have to think about it. This is Wednesday, so it had to be Monday night. I had a normal day at work, but when I got home I started to feel a bit uncomfortable, in a vague sort of way. Then it got more uncomfortable.

Son and I were watching a movie (Loopers – not bad either) and after getting up to get a drink of water, it got very uncomfortable. I told Son; “I don’t think I’ll be watching the rest of the movie.”

Then it was Armageddon. It came on so exponentially fast I didn’t realize that all I really had to do was puke. I remember saying something like “I think I’m dying” between moans, and then things went the way of the classic, closing down tunnel vision people talk about as a result of being under high Gs. The world went dark, and as I went under, in the sort of agony that brings thoughts of death being a sweet gift of relief, I don’t know if I said it but I remember thinking it, very deliberately, and it was sort of printed in bright letters over my endarkened vision;

I DON’T WANT TO GO OUT LIKE THIS

In upper case letters just like that. Now I think I know exactly what it’s like to die a very quick and agonizing death, ’cause essentially that’s what I did, only I woke up later, in a dream. My wife was slapping my face, trying to get my attention like you see in the movies (what else could she do?) but I was still dreaming. When I noticed wetness on the side of my face that was against the floor, and that my sinuses were packed full of liquid, I said dreamily, and to no one in particular “I think I vomited”.

Waking up in a pool of your own vomit, and with your sinuses full of vomit, is something we’ve all heard tell about, but I’d never done it before. Never even came close before. It wasn’t nearly as bad though, not by a long shot, as the going down part. But it wasn’t over.

Oh no. I’ll just say “both ends” and leave it at that (PV/PD). So my wife and kids sort of freaked out I suppose, and so did I. Phone calls were made and crews showed up, and well, right now I’m just fine and dandy. They say that a “single episode” like this is not uncommon, and not necessarily indicative of anything but some immediate GI distress. I got hauled in, poked, bled and prodded, EKG’d, x-rayed and whatnot, and everything is fine. They seemed surprised in fact, that my BP and heart rate, glucose level and everything was all so good. I guess a fart of my oldness is suppose to be more deteriorated.

When I told a nurse I was cold, she said my skin was warm (still in the process of getting over the bout). I told her that it made sense – that if your skin is hot, you’re losing more heat, and so you’ll feel cold. Your heat sense registers direction-of-flow (gain or loss) more than it registers temperature. I would have expected her to understand that, but it seemed a new concept to her. How many times have you hugged your spouse, and she says you feel cold, while you say she feels warm, or visa versa? That’s what’s going on there, and if you think about it from a survival point of view it makes sense.

And here’s a thing about negotiations. They (both my wife and the doctors)wanted very much to keep me at hospital overnight. They all said so several times, but I wanted to go home. I knew that I could have said simply, “No way. I’m going home and that’s that” and I was prepared to do it if needed, but but instead all I said was stuff like, “I’d rather not stay” and “I think I made a big compromise even coming here” and “all I really need is water and some sleep”. They took my wife out of the room to talk about it for a bit and then THEY decided I could go home, see.

Twenty four hours mostly sleeping and I’m a new man. I’d tap dance right now if I’d ever learned how. So remember, if you’re having problems and things seem to be going from bad to worse, well; cheer up– You’ll soon be dead.

The answer is no

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Sebastian wonders about the executive order “Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.”:

Does this mean that we can just get the check without the 4473?

I was informed by the ATF of the letter (here is my private copy) at 12:03 this afternoon.

The answer is no.

Quote of the day—Adrian Bogdan

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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:

  • Those most hostile to our way of life must not be allowed to spread their hate.
  • They do not represent true American values and respect for our form of government.
  • While still respecting the 2nd Amendment we must restrict the rights of a few gun owners in order to respect the rights of the population as a whole to be free from fear.

    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

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    ExecutiveOrder2ndAmendment

    From The Patriot Post.

    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.

    Do you trust your government?

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    Yesterday I had lunch with Barb L. and as I was giving her an overview of our current political situation something crystalized and I thought I would share, in more detail, that insight.

    I have been a gun rights activist since 1995 and have seen the fight from the perspective of someone “in the trenches”. In this post I want to give the 10,000 foot view of the battle.

    Gun ownership is under more pressure with draconian laws affecting more people than I have ever seen. And I remember watching the TV news as the gun control act of 1968 was being debated. A month ago gun rights activists were on the offense and making steady progress. We would have minor losses and advances would be slowed or temporarily stopped but we would use what we learned from the failure and reapply the next legislative or court session. The anti-freedom people were on the defensive and operating with severally restricted finances. That changed on December 14, 2012.

    One tragedy, implemented by a mentally ill man, put us on the defensive again. That tragedy is used by both the politicians and the anti-freedom activists as the reason for the latest push for gun control. It was the spark that ignited the Gabby Giffords anti-gun Political Action Committee two years after she was shot by another mentally ill person. It is the justification for the committee on “gun violence” headed by V.P. Biden.

    I completely understand the grief and the urge to prevent such terrible tragedies but there is something that truly scares me about the political reaction to these tragedies.

    Let’s take a look at some of the proposed anti-freedom legislation.

    From New York state:

    • Ban any magazine that can hold over seven rounds.
    • Existing magazines holding more than 10 rounds must leave the state or be destroyed.
    • Existing eight to 10 round magazines may be kept but must not be loaded with more than seven rounds.
    • “High volume” (undefined) purchases of ammunition will alert the police.
    • Universal background checks will prohibit sales between private parties without a background check.

    The Federal government wish list formulated by V.P. Biden isn’t public yet but it is expected to include essentially the same things along with numerous executive actions such as increased gun control “research” and enforcement of existing laws.

    What is particularly striking and scary to me is that none of the firearms restrictions would have prevented the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting or even reduced the death toll. The facts are that the shooter had 15 to 20 minutes without serious resistance by someone with a gun. Even if he fired three rounds for every one of the 26 people murdered that would have only required 10 magazine changes with a limitation of seven rounds per magazine instead of the three with 30 round magazines. Suppose a magazine change on an AR-15 style rifle requires five seconds (with practice it requires far less). Had he been limited to seven rounds per magazine it would have taken him, at most, an extra 35 seconds to execute his foul deeds.

    Even if all semi-automatic firearms were banned, and unavailable, the reloading of a six round revolver is also easily (with some practice) accomplished in less than five seconds. Suppose it was 12 reloads instead of the three. This requires, at most, 45 more seconds.

    A total of something on the order of 100 rounds were used. A typical practice session of mine is on the order of 300 rounds. A typical weekend class is on the order of 1000 rounds. A one day pistol match is on the order of 150 rounds. Any “alerts” the police receive will be totally without meaning.

    The shooter did not obtain his guns through a private sale. He murdered his mother with her own guns and took them.

    Weerd Beard has more examples with a broader historical scope but arrives at the same conclusion, in many instances the firearms restrictions proposed and passed into law would not have prevented the tragedies that inspired the law.

    If the Sandy Hook shooting is the motivation and none of the solutions being so vigorously being pushed would have in any way prevented the tragedy then what is the real reason? I can only come up with two different hypotheses to explain the politicians demands for more firearms restrictions:

    1. They have ulterior motives they are not sharing with us.
    2. They are unwilling or unable to act rationally.

    If it is the first then what could those ulterior motives be? From U.S. history we know the motivation for restricting firearm access to the native Indians, the slaves, and blacks in general was to the extreme detriment of those populations. Internationally the same was true in Russia in 1918, the German Weapons Control Act of 1938, in China throughout the 20th Century, and in many other instances. The people in control of the government had sinister plans for the disarmed populations.

    If it is the second then there is no predicting what these people might do next. And there is every reason to believe they will act in ways that will be to the extreme detriment of the whole of society.

    This realization should shake the U.S. population to its very core. This should be like the moment you see in the movies when someone realizes that the person standing in front of them is either very evil or very crazy. It should make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and a chill run down your spine.

    This is not, and cannot be, about preventing the shooting of elementary school children. This is about sinister and/or irrational people in control of our government who are trying to take your means to defend yourself and your family away from you.

    Do you trust a government like that? And what do you do about it?

    Quote of the day—Robert J. Avrech

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    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—Drake Womack

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    I won’t be buying. I’m ok with my penis size.

    Drake Womack
    December 20, 2012
    Comment on Facebook about the buying spree on guns.
    [It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! This was via email from Say Uncle.

    The best response was from Lissa K Hailey:

    Drake Womack: So, your plan if someone busts into your house is to show them your penis and while they’re rolling on the floor laughing, you’ll make your escape?

    You think that attempt at a joke would get old. But these people apparently have some sort of irrepressible fixation on male genitalia.—Joe]

    Quote of the day—Charlton Heston

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    When freedom shivers in the cold shadow of true peril it’s always the patriots who first hear the call. When loss of liberty is looming as it is now the siren sounds first in the hearts of freedoms vanguard. The smoke in the air of our Concord bridges and Pearl Harbors is always smelled first by the farmers who come from their simple homes to find the fire and fight. Because they know that sacred stuff resides in that wooden stock and blued steel. Something that gives the most common man the most uncommon of freedoms. When ordinary hands can possess such an extraordinary instrument that symbolizes the full measure of human dignity and liberty. That’s why those five words issue an irresistible call to us all.

    …

    From my cold dead hands!

    Charlton Heston
    2000 NRA Annual Meeting
    [H/T to Mike B. who sent me the link via email.

    I have nothing to add.—Joe]

    Possible blog outages

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    I’m in the final stages of testing the import of old blog posts into the current blogging software. It’s looking really good but you never know what might happen.

    Last night I accidently restored a backup copy of the database for my real blog when I intended to do that for my test blog. I lost a blog post and few comments. I recreated them but there is a little weirdness with the restored comments.

    If all goes well the blog posts will be fully restored by tonight. Please be patient if you experience some outages or a comment gets lost or something. Let me know if you think a comment was lost and I’ll see if I can find it and restore it.

    Update (1524 PST): All the old blog posts have been imported. There are a few broken links to fix but things are looking good at this time.

    Update (1728 PST): I found a serious bug. 1828 comments were lost in the translation. Probably all of them were my comments. I think I am going to restore to a saved database and start over in the morning. Please don’t leave any comments. I probably will just end up deleting them.

    Quote of the day—Chris Cox

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    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]