Saturday, October 11, 2003

Clayton Cramer & The Spoons Experience both link to this post from a blogger who shot an intruder in his home two days ago.

"About 1:25am EST on October 8th, I awoke to the sound glass breaking. It wasn't that drinking glass-breaking sound. It sounded like a window breaking. I proceeded into the family room (where I heard the sound). I peeked around the entrance and there is this guy just standing there looking around. Then I see another guy coming through the broken window. And then I noticed that the first guy is carrying a gun. Now I'm thinking at warp speed to myself, "Should I announce my presence or should I shoot?". But thinking about my family (wife and 7-month old downstairs, my 5 and 4 year old upstairs) won out. I quickly stepped out from where I was hiding and fired at the man with the gun approx. 10 feet away. He fell to the ground. I then pointed my shotgun at the broken window and I could see someone running away.
I looked at the man I shot. He was alive but in bad shape. He looked at me and said that I was lucky that I shot him since he was going to kill all of us niggers. I almost pointed my shotgun at his head and pulled the trigger. Thank God for my wife who lightly grabbed my wrist and said, "It's over baby, I called the police." All this time, my 5 and 4 year-old were watching from the balcony. They saw everything...
Come to find out that the man's motive was that he hated black people. I just moved in a little over a week ago. The neighborhood is about 70% white and 30% black but he picked me and my family."


I wish him & his family well. I am sorry that his children had to witness this, but not as sorry as I would have been for his children if their father hadn't stopped the bastard before he caused all of them harm.

His blog is S-Train Canvass & is definitely worth looking over.

Now let's examine why this man had two people attempt to break into his home & do him & his family harm:

1: They are racists.
2: He is Black.

Don't take much in this world now does it?

But fortunately even though the intruders were armed, S-Train was too.

Now according to the NAACP S-Train shouldn't have been armed, because firearms disproportionately harm the black community & all self respecting black people should disassociate themselves from these dangerous objects. Sounds like the NAACP would have been on the side of the racist bastards doesn't it? Wouldn't be the first time. Look here & scroll down for previous posts on the NAACP's lawsuit against gun makers & here for a JPFO alert on the same.

Matter of fact I see a pattern emerging. In that same link where I have previously posted about the NAACP's lawsuit I see I've also posted about Ronald Dixon who was prosecuted for possessing the gun he used to defend his familyin NYC. I've posted about Roderick Pritchett who was arrested for legally carrying a firearm in Chicago. Here I posted about William Gates who shot two armed men in the process of shooting at each other & promptly had all his weapons stolen (temporarily) by the police in Charleston, SC.

Y'all may not have noticed, but all of these men were black men attempting or merely possessing the means to defend themselves. They live in cities with a large population of black people. Yet S-Train, who lives in Detroit is the only one who was not (so far at least) subjected to further hassle. Am I implying that Mr. Dixon, Mr. Pritchett & Mr. Gates were treated badly by their respective police departments because they are black? Nope.

What I am saying is that in cities with large black populations, any person who has or uses a firearm for self defense is suspect. This is because of racism, but not racism directed, or at least instigated towards these people.

Here's how it happened:

After the War of Nothern Aggression the southern states & a few others weren't too thrilled about having large populations of newly freed slaves being able to carry arms. So they passed laws prohibiting black people from having arms. This didn't work out, so what they did was pass laws that kept either all people or at least the poor ones from having arms in theory. In practice if you were white it was cool. No cop would bust you for merely possessing a gun where prohibited. That's where permitting systems for firearms came from. A sheriff would deny all black people's permits while approving all white peoples. If you think that's history then look at the stats of concealed carry permit holders in California by race. Turns out even in places with a large black or hispanic population, relatively few black or hispanic people have permits, but quite a lot of white people do.

Fast forward to the post-civil rights movement America. Now those same laws are used to deny all people arms regardless of color. One thing that supporters of gun control abso-friggin-lutely hate is when someone brings up that gun control got its start in the states because of racism. Trust me, they can't stand it.

So places with higher populations of black people usually have stricter gun control laws or at least stricter enforcement of gun control laws. Gun owners are viewed with suspicion & distrust by the authorities. & this goes for white & black people alike.

Now most gun controllers will try to explain this away by saying that most urban areas have higher concentrations of black people than rural areas, & its the denser population which causes the (usually) higher rates of crime which make these stricter gun control laws necessary.

First of all, if that is the case, then its an ineffective solution. In the cities with the strictest gun control (D.C., NYC, Chicago, LA) the crime rates are still very damned high & not backing off disproportionately when compared to places with less restrictive gun laws. So on the surface it doesn't appear that gun control is effective in stopping the growth of the crime rate.

But the fact is that these laws are in place because of racism. 125+ year old racism, but racism nontheless. Name one place in the U.S. with a small minority population that has strict gun control laws? Name one place 125 years ago that instituted strict gun control laws that wasn't worried about newly freed black people or other minorities?

But the real question is why are these laws still in place? Easy. Cause in those respective places the government figured out a long time ago a disarmed populace is a dependant populace. & who does a dependant populace turn to for protection? The government. The reasons for stricter gun control in places with high minority populations may have been racist in the beginning, but they're completely statist now.

Here's a more detailed treatment of this subject called The Racist Roots of Gun Control written by Clayton Cramer.

An excerpt:

"Gun control advocates today are not so foolish as to openly promote racist laws, and so the question might be asked what relevance the racist past of gun control laws has. One concern is that the motivations for disarming blacks in the past are really not so different from the motivations for disarming law-abiding citizens today. In the last century, the official rhetoric in support of such laws was that "they" were too violent, too untrustworthy, to be allowed weapons. Today, the same elitist rhetoric regards law-abiding Americans in the same way, as child-like creatures in need of guidance from the government. In the last century, while never openly admitted, one of the goals of disarming blacks was to make them more willing to accept various forms of economic oppression, including the sharecropping system, in which free blacks were reduced to an economic state not dramatically superior to the conditions of slavery. "

And another excerpt:

"Today, the forces that push for gun control seem to be heavily (though not exclusively) allied with political factions that are committed to dramatic increases in taxation on the middle class. While it would be hyperbole to compare higher taxes on the middle class to the suffering and deprivation of sharecropping or slavery, the analogy of disarming those whom you wish to economically disadvantage, has a certain worrisome validity to it."

This excerpt is from another article, called The Racist Origins of Gun Control written by Steve Ekwall:

"Gun Control Act of 1968 passed. Avowed anti-gun journalist Robert Sherrill frankly admitted that the Gun Control Act of 1968 was 'passed not to control guns but to control Blacks.' [R. Sherrill, The Saturday Night Special, p. 280 (1972).] (GMU CR LJ, p. 80) 'The Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed not to control guns but to control blacks, and inasmuch as a majority of Congress did not want to do the former but were ashamed to show that their goal was the latter, the result was they did neither. Indeed, this law, the first gun-control law passed by Congress in thirty years, was one of the grand jokes of our time. First of all, bear in mind that it was not passed in one piece but was a combination of two laws. The original 1968 Act was passed to control handguns after the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been assassinated with a rifle. Then it was repealed and repassed to include the control of rifles and shotguns after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy with a handgun.... The moralists of our federal legislature as well as sentimental editorial writers insist that the Act of 1968 was a kind of memorial to King and Robert Kennedy. If so, it was certainly a weird memorial, as can be seen not merely by the handgun/long-gun shellgame, but from the inapplicability of the law to their deaths.' (The Saturday Night Special and Other Guns, Robert Sherrill, p. 280, 1972) "

Something else to ponder: why is the NAACP anti-gun? Because its the way they feel will best advance the organization. Not the people it purports to represent, but the NAACP itself. The NAACP, just like the NRA, is a self concerned entity who cares no more for the people it claims to represent than a person cares for the escalator step used to take it to another floor.

If it were up to the NAACP, black people would be disarmed & totally dependant on the government for protection. & naturally dependant on the NAACP for protection from the government.

S-Train, Mr. Dixon, Mr. Pritchett & Mr. Gates would have been disarmed & at the mercy of any attackers if the NAACP had been succesful with its agenda. They very well could have all been dead along with their families, but that would have been great publicity for the NAACP as it called for more police protection in those respective cities. Or they would have ignored it & pursued other avenues to advance its power.

It wasn't always like this. The NAACP was at one time, & for quite a long time a very effective organization who did make legitimate advances for the people it represented. But power is a strong drink & an addictive one. Tolerances are built up fast & that requires drinking deeper from that cup.

But even though they did do a lot of good work in the past, the NAACP was not the lone saviour of black americans that they'd have you believe.

There was a time when the Klu Klux Klan was a real threat to black people in certain places. What stopped the KKK? Was it litigation? Perhaps the laws passed at the urging of the NAACP & other civil rights groups? Nope. It was people oppossing the KKK with weapons. In many cases it was black people oppossing the KKK with firearms. That's right - what stopped the Klan from burning crosses in someone's yard wasn't a lawyer from the NAACP with an injunction in his hand. It was a black man who put a few ounces of buckshot into said klansmen as they were trying to bum a light. & in many cases, the NAACP of yesteryear recommeded that black people arm themselves. Back then even the NAACP realized that black people were safer when they had the means & the will to protect themselves. & it was also common knowledge that a klansman couldn't light a match with a hand full of buckshot. The people with FBI badges didn't stop the klan - free black people with Remington's did.

But todays NAACP has opted to encourage black people to be disarmed for the NAACP's ambitions. & i find it more than a little ironic that the NAACP sued the very same gunmakers whose products in the hands of black people dispursed many an attempted cross-burning or lynching.

The chances of racially motivated violence happening in most places in the U.S. is relatively low, especially compared with the odds of that happening 100 years ago. But odds are simply a form of gambling. Even if only .01 percent of all black people in the U.S. will become victims of racially motivated violence in their life, it's no comfort when you are that .01 percent. Ask S-Train how the odds would have treated him & his family if he'd have been foolish enough to play them.

I am not encouraging black people to go out, purchase a firearm, learn to shoot, become responsible for their own defense & piss off the NAACP because there's a great statistical probability that they'll individually be the target of racial violence. I encourage black people & all other categories (real or imagined) of people to do so because it's better to be prepared than to trust in the odds that no kind of violence will ever be used against them. I encourage everyone to arm themselves because that is the only way to remain free.

This is rich. In California a lot of support for various gun control laws have come from the police unions. Well, they're not happy about the recently passed law that requires magazine disconnect safety's on all firearms sold in Cali. Here's why:

"Davis' bill exempts cops from mandatory use of the new 'safety' features. However, even this exemption creates new dangers for police.
'Governor Davis' bill ... exposes California law enforcement and taxpayers to additional liability risk,' says the Sept. 25 LEAA press release. 'The law officially defines guns lacking these features as 'unsafe guns.' As a result, nearly every single handgun used by California law enforcement officers will be officially defined as an 'unsafe handgun,' a notion certain to be exploited in lawsuits involving police use of firearms.'
In short, California sheriffs and police chiefs must now choose between issuing mechanically unreliable guns to their officers or issuing guns deemed legally 'unsafe'. "


The article this excerpt comes from is called "Gray Davis' Cop-Killing Gun Law"

Well perhaps I'd have some sympathy for the cops if they hadn't been supportive of damn near every victim disarmament measure that affected California civilians.

The thing that burns me up is the whole article is bitching that police officers are beign subjected to the same treatment us mere peasants have been. A nationwide concealed carry for cops only bill is stalled in congress, the magazine disconnect law poses problems for the officers on the street. What about the friggin' civilian who has to put up with these bullshit laws & more every friggin' day?

& to top it all off:

"What is next?' asks Lott. 'Banning guns carried by on-duty officers?"

In places where mere citizens are prohibited from carrying arms, damn right. If it's such a safe world that the peasants don't need weapons, then the agents of government shouldn't need to carry them either.

The way I feel about cops is this: they're no different than the public at large. A small perecentage of them are really good people, a small perecentage are really bad people & the remainder fall to varying degrees in between. However they have been set up as a privileged class. They carry arms in places where us common folk cannot & carry weapons & ammunition that are prohibited from the common folk's possession.

This is mainly due to factors other than the cop on the street wanting to feel special. Unions are notorious for promoting these privileged class measures even when they're opposed by the cop on the beat. But the fact remains that they are treated as a privileged class. This is soley because of their function. Nope, it's not to control violent criminals, its to enforce laws. Those laws may be good or bad. Most cops I have met say its not their place to judge the law, only to enforce it. But motivations only affect blame & credit, not results. So untill the cop on the beat refuses to carry a gun where they are prohibited for everyone else, or at the very least refuses to use a brand new 15 round magazine because the mere peasants are denied them, then I won't feel much sympathy for them when compared to a common person who has to endure these prohibitions.

As for the argument that cops are in harms way more often than non law enforcement officers.... puh-leez. Cops make up a fraction of our population. Further cops are only fractionally involved in situations where violent, dangerous crimes are happening. They mainly show up after the fact & attempt to apprehend the suspect. Most of the time the suspect gets away.

Civilians who are not in law enforcement on the other hand make up a large percentage of the population. & they are more frequently involved in situations where violent, dangerous crimes are occuring. Remember that small percentage of violent confrontations that cops are faced with? The flip side of that is there are a greater number of violent confrontational crimes that happen when cops aren't around. Since we are dividing things up into two groups - cops & non cops - who do you think is around for most of those violent crimes? That's right. Non law enforcement officers.

Non law enforcement officers are subject, as a whole, to a greater risk of being around a violent, confrontational crime than cops as a whole are. This will always be the case until the cops outnumber the non-cops. So arguments that cops as a group lead more dangerous lives & require more protection don't convince me that we should treat them any different.

Further, even if the odds were in favor of cops being involved in more potentially dangerous situations that in no way means that non law enforcement officers should forsake the ability to protect themselves, even if the occasion for doing so may be much rarer.

But non cops are the target of most violent confrontational crimes. Therefore non cops should be as well armed as cops.

& don't get me started on cops who wear arms but arrest people for merely possessing them. That is hypocrisy in action.

So yes, disarm the cops where the people are disarmed & place the same restrictions on them that the people have on them. Or there is a better solution: stop preventing the people from exercising their Right to Arms & let the cops & non cops carry what they wish.

But don't try to invoke pity in a disarmed peasant for an elite class who suffer from a fraction of the restrictions I am faced with.

JoinTogetherOnline tells us that "...Congressmen Richard Gephardt (D-MO) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) have co-sponsored H.R. 2038, a bill that will renew and strengthen the federal assault weapons ban..."

Lovely, no? Seems like the Democrats may embrace gun control as a party platform once again. Not that they ever adandoned it, they just went Republican on us - supported it as discreetly as they could.
This is bad for two reasons, the first is that a lot of gullable democrats would suport it without thinking, the other is that when the Democrats are openly pro-gun control the Republicans don't draw as much attention to themselvs for being pro-gun control. They appear to be the lesser of two evils & get support from gun owners.

Another example of the Republicans exceptional PR department:

"...If the president doesn't read newspapers but relies only on his aides, then I wonder if they told him about Kimberly Requell Mari Brice, the Landover, Md., five-year-old first grader who was fatally shot by her four-year old brother...It was a tragic story that made a compelling case for gun control, something that Bush is totally opposed to..."

That comes from this story bemoaning the fact that Bush doesn't read the papers himself.

But did you catch that? "...a compelling case for gun control, something that Bush is totally opposed to..."

Anyone ever hear of Bush reading a gun control bill he didn't like? Ever see him take direct action to oppose a gun control bill, or support a pro-gun bill? Bush is not a friend of gun owners. He's a friend of government. But for a variety of reasons, most think Bush is pro-gun Rights.

So Bush supports renewing the assault weapons ban & asks the Supreme Court to not hear second amendment cases (Emerson, & a challenge to the NFA whose name escapes me) but gets labeled as pro-gun Rights.

There is a difference between Republicans & Democrats when it comes to gun control: the Republicans have much better PR people.

BTW, here's a link to a site called Candidates On Guns for your amusement.


I am oppossed to any law that requires you to obtain a permit & pay a fee merely to own, possess or carry a weapon.

That being said, Missouri's new concealed carry law is being challenged as conflicting with the state constitution. How you may ask? The proponents of victim disarmament assert that since the Missouri constitution says that concealed carry is not justified by its provision concerning the Right to Arms it is therefore unconstitutional for the legislature to make it permissable by law. Further a judge has issued a temporary injunction of the new concealed carry law until the Missouri Supreme Court can rule on the case.

"Attorneys for plaintiffs seeking to stop the concealed-weapons law from taking effect Saturday argued that the law is unconstitutional. They said it violates a 128-year-old clause in the Missouri Constitution, imposes a new requirement on counties without providing funding and contains vague language.
The lawyers, Burton Newman and Richard Miller, also claimed the Legislature overstepped its police powers to secure the general peace and safety of Missourians and usurped the power of the people by passing a law similar to one voters rejected in an April 1999 referendum.
...They cited a section of the Bill of Rights from the 1945 Missouri Constitution declaring 'that the right of every citizen to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property ... shall not be questioned; but this shall not justify the wearing of concealed weapons."


Even if I were to fall for the idea that carrying concealed is somehow different than carrying openly & should be restricted I could not buy the argument that the Missouri constitution prohibits it outright. It merely says that the constitution does not recognize that Right. It does not prohibit Missouri law from establishing a permit system, or even a non permit (i.e. Vermont style) system.

Seems like they're getting desperate. Problem is, this might work for them.

Thursday, October 09, 2003

Republicans. Not worth a damn. Not the individuals who call themselves republicans, but The Republican Party. Only thing worse is the Democrat Party. But not by much.

In California they recalled a Democratic governor who was screwing the pooch royally. What did the Republican Part do? Stabbed an actual conservative/libertarian republican candidate in the back, abandoned him & threw their support behind a right leaning democrat with an 'R' beside his name.

In D.C. we have a republican in the White House who lowered taxes. That's it. That's all he's done that the Republican Party is supposed to stand for.

Not that he's not done anything else; he just hasn’t done anything else that's supposed to be 'republican'.

For example, he (& by he I attribute acts performed by his administration which he either approved of or didn't stop, thereby implying approval) has increased not only spending but the size of government.

When parts of the country suffered attacks by terrorists what did he do? He created a new federal bureaucracy to deal with it. He (along with congress) federalized airport security & made damn skippy that the passengers couldn't bring nail clippers on a flight w/o facing charges if caught.
He opposed arming pilots & since congress told him to arm them anyway, the TSA (which, as chief executive officer he has authority over) has dragged its feet & set up so much red tape that less than 200 pilots are carrying weapons. & to add insult to injury, pilots who do pass through the multiple level hoops to get permission to carry are officially federal officers, thereby creating a distinction between us ordinary peasants who should never be allowed to exercise our Right to Arms & agents of the state, who are better than us & therefore can pack if they so choose.

Arm the passengers? You mean stop prohibiting individuals from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed Right to Arms when they fly? Puh-leez. That could be viewed as "pro-gun" & if there's one thing President Bush isn't, it's "pro-gun".

Assault weapons Ban? Bush likes it. Thinks we should give it another decade or twelve to see how it pans out.

& Bush isn't as far left as Schwarzenegger is. I feel for California.

But what really has me ticked off right now is not so much a direct action of Bush. Hell, there might not even be any republicans involved, although I doubt it. But it is of a direct concern to Bush, & it will be to Schwarzenegger & any other elected official remotely involved with state &/or national security.

A group of men detained 6 illegal immigrants at gunpoint. They handcuffed them, called the Border Patrol & turned them over once the Border Patrol arrived.

Now those men are felons. But CNN doesn't view it like that. Their headline reads:

2 border vigilantes go to jail in capture

From Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: vig•i•lan•te
Pronunciation: "vi-j&-'lan-tE
Function: noun
Etymology: Spanish, watchman, guard, from vigilante vigilant, from Latin vigilant-, vigilans
Date: 1865
: a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law appear inadequate); broadly: a self-appointed doer of justice


Now here's CNN's account of the terrible crime these men committed:

"According to an indictment, Hoffman, Dumas and a third man went out on July 31 and confronted a group of six undocumented immigrants in Yuma County and at gunpoint handcuffed them until the U.S. Border Patrol arrived."

Yep. Sounds like a lynch mob, don't it?

Actually if we go strictly by the Merriam-Webster definition they could be considered psuedo-vigalantes. They were members of a voluntary committee. They apparently thought the process of law was inadequate, at least in some respects. They did organize to suppress crime.

However, they did not organize to suppress & punish crime summarily, which is essential to the definition & connotation of the word vigilante.

One thing against them: they plead guilty. They didn't fight the charge. Normally I have no pity for anyone who pleads guilty. In that I mean I simply don't believe someone when they claim they plead guilty to something they didn't do in order to avoid a harsh sentence if they were convicted. I know it happens but frankly I don't have time to sort out the few honest people who succumb to this particular trap of our legal system from the many dishonest people who would attempt to cover their guilt in such a way.
But I make exceptions to laws that are unjust, or applied unjustly.

These men pleaded guilty to "conspiracy to commit unlawful imprisonment"

Where the application of this law is flawed is that it reduces the charge from a class 6 felony to a class 1 misdemeanor if "...the victim is released voluntarily by the defendant without physical injury in a safe place prior to arrest..."

So if they would have fought they could have convinced a judge &/or jury that a felony charge was inappropriate, considered no physical harm was done to the detainees & they released them into the custody of law enforcement voluntarily.

Also "restrain" is defined by this section of Arizona law thusly:

"2. "Restrain" means to restrict a person's movements without consent, without legal authority, and in a manner which interferes substantially with such person's liberty, by either moving such person from one place to another or by confining such person..."

So they could have, & should have been able to argue that since they were detaining people who were in the process of & intent on continuing a commitment of a crime (entering the country illegally) that they were acting lawfully in detaining them until the Border Patrol could arrive to pick them up.

But finally I think this little ditty from Arizona law should have settled the matter:

"A private person may make an arrest:
1. When the person to be arrested has in his presence committed a misdemeanor amounting to a breach of the peace, or a felony.
2. When a felony has been in fact committed and he has reasonable ground to believe that the person to be arrested has committed it."


Again, from the account given by CNN it sounds like the actions of the 'vigilantes' were legal under Arizona law.

Since they pleaded guilty they may be screwed, however I did find this:

"Subject to the limitations of section 13-4232, any person who has been convicted of or sentenced for a criminal offense may, without payment of any fee, institute a proceeding to secure appropriate relief on any of the following grounds:
1. The conviction or the sentence was in violation of the Constitution of the United States or of this state.
2. The court was without jurisdiction to render judgment or to impose sentence.
3. The sentence imposed exceeded the maximum authorized by law or is otherwise not in accordance with the sentence authorized by law..."


Might help them, might not.

In any event they were prosecuted for doing what they thought was their duty as citizens of a country that has a serious problem with border security.

Now here's a surprise for ya: know who else besides CNN takes a dim view of their actions & jumps for joy at their convictions?

"Human rights advocates, prosecutors and Mexican officials hailed the sentencing as a blow against border vigilantes..."

I know. I was shocked myself.

"Armed citizens groups have patrolled the border in Cochise County for several years, but this was the first time armed citizens had gone out looking for undocumented immigrants in Yuma County, said Yuma County Attorney Patricia Orozco.
'It's just a very dangerous place, and I don't want to see people hurt, and that's what I fear will happen that if they do go down: We will see people hurt,' Orozco said."


I wonder if fear of being hurt is the reason said sheriff wasn't out patrolling the border his damned self? & for those of you who would come to the sheriff's defense by pointing out he doesn't have enough manpower to do that, why the hell do you think he doesn't have enough manpower? Perhaps it could have something to do with volunteers getting arrested for attempting to help his manpower problems?

BTW, an undocumented immigrant is just a very polite, politically correct term for illegal alien.

"Beatriz Chavez, a spokeswoman for the Mexican consulate in Yuma, praised the sentencing.
'To see someone pointing a gun at you is very scary, and they were really defenseless because they were just women and children,' Chavez said."


First of all why the hell is a government official from Mexico even venturing an opinion on a legal proceeding in Arizona? Or more appropriately, (since everyone is entitled to their opinion) why is CNN printing it?

Second, how dare anyone from freakin' Mexico speak of a defenseless person being afraid of someone with arms. They ban their peasants from owning weapons or ammunition. If anyone in Mexico is defenseless it’s because of people like her passing gun control laws that disarm the populace.

Third, those women & children, while being 'defenseless' were breaking a law. A very big law. They had firearms pointed at them by people whose intent was to prevent them from breaking said law. I'm quite sure that the border patrol or any other law enforcement agency would have weapons drawn when approaching a group of people engaged in an illegal activity.

"Rev. Robin Hoover, president of Humane Borders, a nonprofit organization that builds water stations in the desert for undocumented immigrants, said he hopes Wednesday's sentencing will discourage people from resorting to vigilante activity along the border.
'It sends the right message . . . that this kind of behavior won't be tolerated,' Hoover said."


The message it sends is, "Y'all come on in. Take your shoes off. Visit for a spell." Another message it sends is that anyone who attempts to do what they feel is their duty as a citizen to help out with domestic security will be punished beyond the extent that the law allows.

I understand why Mexicans would want to immigrate to America. I sympathize with their plight & do feel sorry for their situations in Mexico that would drive them to this. But the fact remains that our borders are not secure, & the States are in danger (though no one is sure to what degree) from agents of foreign governments &/or organizations that seek to cause damage to the States & their respective people.


CNN did include one pro-vigilante viewpoint:

"But Chris Simcox, founder of the Civil Homeland Defense, a citizens group based in Tombstone in Cochise County, condemned the sentencing.
'Something is just not right with this situation. The only thing I think they went too overboard was on the handcuffing,' said Simcox, who also publishes the weekly Tombstone Tumbleweed. 'They potentially saved the lives of those kids, and they were only doing what our president has asked us, which is to be vigilant and to report suspicious illegal activities to the proper authorities.'
Simcox said he is in the process of training a group of more than 100 people from Yuma who were galvanized by the charges against the three vigilantes to patrol the border on their own."


& what does Mr. Simcox know about the state of our borders?

"Simcox said over the past year his group has turned over more than 2,000 undocumented immigrants to the Border Patrol."

Let me emphasize that for you, & add correct what I feel is an edit of what Mr. Simcox actually said:

"...over the past year his group has turned over more than 2,000 [illegal aliens] to the Border Patrol."

2000+. One group. One state. Less than a year. 2000+.

What does this have to do with the Republican Party?

Bush.

This is a matter of state concern. It occurred within the borders of Arizona & is subject to Arizona law. However since it is also a matter of national concern Bush should use his influence to either A; encourage state governors to make exceptions for these citizens who are attempting to protect our borders or B; call up the unorganized militia to assist in the patrol of our borders, thereby providing some measure of protection for said volunteers.

But he won't do either. He (& the Republican Party in general) is too devoted to the idea of government fixing all our problems. They have totally abandoned the political philosophy that set them apart from the Democrat Party. Bush may not have caused this situation himself, but he is in a position to affect a positive change. He won't. The left leaning trend in the Republican Party may or may not have led to these events, but again they have the ability to attempt to bring about a positive change. They won't.

& how does this relate to Schwarzenegger? Easy. What do you think he'd say about armed citizens patrolling the California borders? I rest my case.

So two very patriotic men now sit in an Arizona jail for protecting the border.
I thought about ending this post by saying that I at least partially blame the Democrat Party & the Republican Party, but that would be redundant. Take away the "R" or "D" beside their names & I cannot tell them apart.

For previous posts on the condition of our borders & border patrol groups, private & public, look here.

Wednesday, October 08, 2003

A public service announcement:

Laissez Faire Books is having a sale. 15% off everything, even already discounted books. But it only lasts through this month.

Thanks to David Bernstein of The Volokh Conspiracy for pointing that out.
Browsing through The Serfdom Times I found a link to an article by Gary North called The Myth of Insufficient Gold.

It's a very interesting read about the free market & monetary policy in our economy. He contends that the unsupported currency we use is a valuable tool in the government's quest for power, & that it's not only possible but desirable to return to a gold or silver standard.

A taste:

"Monetary policy in this perspective is an "exogenous factor" in the marketplace – something that the market must respond to rather than an internally produced, "endogenous factor" that stems from the market itself. The money supply is therefore supposedly indirectly related to market processes; it is controlled by the central governments acting through the central bank, or else it is the automatic creation of a central bank on a fixed percentage increase per day and therefore not subject to "fine-tuning" operations of the political authorities.
A smaller number of free market advocates (myself among them) are convinced that such monopoly powers of money creation are going to be used. Power is never neutral; it is exercised according to the value standards of those who possess it. Money is power, for it enables the bearer to purchase the tools of power, whether guns or votes."


I agree with him & believe you will too. Go read the article to find out if I'm right about this.

Tuesday, October 07, 2003

Yet another gun control bill looks likely to pass, thanks in no small part to the NRA. Angel Shamaya tells us about the NICS Improvement Act that will make a person's state records, including but not limited to medical records, available to the government.

“What do you get when you put a current and former board member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the same room with two of the most vehemently anti-gun members of the House and Senate?' asks CNSNews columnist Jeff Johnson in his Sept. 26 news report. “On Thursday, the answer to that question was: agreement.'
The NRA is enthusiastically endorsing a gun control bill that's also supported by avowed gun banners Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy. Handgun Control, Inc. calls the bill “a sensible step that will save lives” — note the word “step” — which is what they say about banning semi-automatic rifles due to ergonomic and safety features, and what they've said in the past about completely banning handguns."


Here's Larry Pratt's take on it.

"Remember the so-called 'Our Lady of Peace Act' from last year? Well, Our Lady is back, but under a new name.
Two notoriously anti-gun legislators have teamed up again to deny millions of additional Americans their right to keep and bear arms. They are Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY).
What makes this bill so dangerous is the fact that many Congressmen who are perceived to be 'pro-gun' are supporting the bill as well.
According to CNS News, a current NRA Board member, together with a former board member, appeared at a press conference last week to support the Schumer-McCarthy legislation. Specifically, Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) and Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) lent their visible support on Thursday in favor of the 'NICS Improvement Act'. "



The NICS Improvement Act is typical of federal extortion: they have no constitutional authority to force states to abide by it, so they threaten to cut off federal funds to any state that does not comply.
This has been a successful tactic for the feds, most notably in the case of a state's BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) level. The BAC level is used to determine whether someone is driving while intoxicated. The feds told the states that unless they dropped their BAC level's to .08 from the .10 most state's used to determine who was driving while intoxicated, they'd lose money for highway construction projects. Sc was the lats hold out & they caved in earlier this year.
So if this bill passes, which seems likely, then expect your state to sell you out for road construction money.

& in case you just don't get it, this bill is not about making it harder for criminals to obtain guns. It's a culling of the herd. The government is trying to incrementally cut down the number of people who may legally own guns. Think they'll stop before you're included in the prohibited class? Only if we fight bills like this real hard, or you die real soon.

Here's the strategy:

Convince people that certain actions justly disqualify a person from owning weapons legally.

Slowly expand the list of prohibited actions.

Couple this with bans directed towards classes &/or types of weapons.

Institute a system of firearm owner registration.

When you've reached a certain point (where you think you've used this incrementalism all you can or need to) then you enact a blanket prohibition on all privately owned firearms.

If I was directing the confiscations what I would do is set up across the nation a series of DUI checkpoints. Confrontational resistance would be kept at a minimum & officer safety would be maximized while being able to round up a sizable number of privately owned weapons. Few people would know what was going on until after they were disarmed.

Of course all this seems a bit far fetched doesn't it?

Actually all but the last part of the strategy I outline (the actual blanket prohibitions & mass confiscations) have happened to one extent or another. Here's the strategy again with more details:

Convince people that certain actions justly disqualify a person from owning weapons legally. Not many people will argue that a murderer or rapist should be able to legally own a weapon.

Slowly expand the list of prohibited actions. First it was felonies. Then any crime punishable (not the sentence received, but the sentence that could have been received) by a year or more in jail. Now it includes domestic violence misdemeanors that were committed before the law included them was enacted. With the addition of state records the number of disqualified person will increase yet again, ranging from misdemeanor marijauna convictions to people who have something in their medical records that the state can say is disqualifying.

Couple this with bans directed towards classes &/or types of weapons, such as assault weapons bans, saturday night special bans, smart gun only laws, .50 caliber firearm bans, etc...

Institute a system of firearm owner registration. A Shall Issue CCW law is a good technique because most firearms owners don't the this as registration. Purchase permits &/or retained background check records are another good method that most firearms owners will not object to.

When you've reached a certain point (where you think you've used this incrementalism all you can or need to) then you enact a blanket prohibition on all privately owned firearms.

If I was directing the confiscations what I would do is set up across the nation a series of DUI checkpoints. When running the license plate &/or drivers' license certain data comes up, such as that person having a CCW permit &/or a record of any firearms they have registered with the local or state authorities. Then I'd simply detain that person (confiscating any weapons he/she had with them) while another team of police went to that persons' house & picked up any weapons that were there. Confrontational resistance would be kept at a minimum & officer safety would be maximized while being able to round up a sizable number of privately owned weapons. Few people would know what was going on until after they were disarmed.

Doesn't seem as far fetched when you see that most of the strategy has laready been successful.

The NICS Improvement Act is just another step towards the overall goal of a disarmed populace. It will likely pass, especially with the bi-partisan & NRA support. This should, at the very least serve as a reminder that while some say, "It could never happen here" it is happening here.