Publicola

2006-12-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

Witness Pics

The first target I shot with the new Witness Elite Match in 10mm. This was using American Eagle 180 grain FMJ's which traveled around 1025 fps. The distance to the target was roughly 30 feet.

The second target was shot with handloads. Speer 180 grain TMJ's on top of 8.5 grains of Longshot. They were clocked at around 1180 fps.

Here's another one of the targets hopefully in an easier to see format.

8.9 grains of Longshot pushed those Speer 180 grain TMJ's to around 1240 fps

& this is the first target shot with handloads again.

As I said, er typed it was only around 30 feet because I was mainly trying to chronograph the handloads but the accuracy doesn't seem to be too bad considering I've never been a great pistol shot.

For a more detailed review see Can I Get A Witness Part Two

2005-08-26T05:56:00.000-06:00

...So Long As 100 Of Us Can Remain Alive...

On Tuesday, August the 23rd of 2005 Sir William Wallace was honored in a ceremony in the place where he was executed by the English in 1305.

Sir William Wallace was further honored by a few polls over the years:

"Opinion polls in recent years suggest between a quarter and a half of Scotland's 5 million people want the same independence from London which Wallace fought for seven centuries ago."

The man who honored Wallace in the ceremony went further to show his respect:

"Our country is still ruled from somewhere else,' he said, referring to the British parliament. 'It's time the leaders in Scotland woke up and listened to what the people want."

That quote was from David Ross, historian, author, musician & International Convener of the Society of William Wallace. I also recommend looking at his site WalkforWallace.com.

700 years ago Wallace was tortured, executed, butchered & scattered because he dared stand up to a foreign king who claimed dominion over his home. Today Scotland is still subject to the foreign land that Wallace fought against. It would seem to me that honoring Wallace would have to entail at least some sympathy for Scottish independence.

Now if the Scots wish to live subject to British Parliament then that's their decision. I'm not a Scot & I would not presume to tell them what to do with their country. But if you're wondering whether I'd support those Scots who wish to live absent the British Parliament my answer would have to be aye.

2005-08-26T05:54:00.000-06:00

Oh Good Grief

This is not directly gun related (though I might play a round of "Six Degrees of John Moses Browning").

Gretchen Wilson is being asked by some ass in Tennessee (actually the AG, or Ass, Generally) to stop using chaw (i.e. smokeless tobacky) at her concerts.

"State officials said
Gretchen Wilson can be seen on concert jumbo screens pulling a can of Skoal from her pocket while performing her new song, 'Skoal Ring.'
That may violate the 1998 settlement between states and tobacco companies forbidding tobacco ads targeting young people, Attorney General Paul Summers said."

WTF??? Exactly how does it violate an agreement miss Wilson was not a party to?

"Many young people attend your concerts and purchase your music and T-shirts,' Summers wrote in a letter he sent to Wilson Thursday. 'Because your actions strongly influence the youth in your audience ... I ask you to take steps to warn young people of negative health effects of smokeless tobacco use."

Huh. Well I wonder how many "young people" read papers that have asshatted quotes from the AG of Tennessee? Doesn't that impart a duty on him to remove his head from whoever's orifice it's currently entrenched in? After all, we wouldn't want impressionable young folks to start acting like self righteous controlling statist assholes now would we? I mean aren't there negative effects of participating in such behavior, well other than being accused of being a lawyer? (To all my lawyer pals, nothing personal, but damn - jerks like Summers give the other 2% of ya'll a bad rep).

"The landmark $206 billion tobacco settlement 'provided that advertisements such as this would be and should be prohibited,' Summers said."

Hmmm. I am almost certain that "advertise" was used in the sense of compensating a person or company for the promotion of their wares or services. That would exclude the more generalized sense of advertise (i.e. AG Summers advertised both his ignorance of the law & his disdain for private actions not controlled by the state with his asshatted statements).

"U.S. Smokeless Tobacco does not have an agreement with Wilson or any artists to promote its products, said company spokesman Mike Bazinet. Summers said his office is also contacting the company about the use of its products at Wilson's concerts."

Hmm So Summers, being the astute paragon of legal intellect that he is, is claiming that an agreement between party A (the tobacco companies) & party B (the government) is enforceable against party C (miss Wilson). What a brilliant actionable strategy. I know; next why doesn't he make Smith & Wesson sign an agreement - wait, not Smith & Wesson since some still aren't over the last time they did that - let's get Rug...er, Col... Damn. I'm running out of untainted firearms makers. Let's get the firearms industry to sign an agreement with the government saying that none of their products will be "advertised" during a crime. That way should anyone use on of their firearms while committing said crime then the AG can write them a letter telling them to stop cause kids are impressionable.

Asshat.

Disclaimer: I don't know miss Wilson. I've heard one or two of her songs but only in parts. I did hear "Redneck Woman" when I was in the Carolinas, but it was performed by my friends in a band called Latitude not by miss Wilson. (In case you missed it the url was for Latitude; Myrtle Beach's finest Beach, Dance & Party music duo - now hopefully they'll stop calling me about that 20 bucks I probably owe them ;D ) Further I don't use Skoal or any other form of smokeless tobacco. I smoke cigarettes with an occasional cigar thrown in the mix. I am not being paid by miss Wilson, Skoal, or any group generally opposed to asshattery in public ~~orifice~~ office holders.

I am a musician though & the idea of the state even having a freakin' opinion on what I do that is not against any law, legit or contrived, is as repulsive as Tipper Gore's explorations into a new special place back in the mid 80's. I don't care if smokeless tobacco is bad for you. I don't care if fast food is bad for you. Nor do I care if language or subject matter is offensive. If you don't wish to be subject to that kinda of thing then don't go to the damn venue where it's occurring. If you don't want your children to be exposed to that kind of thing then don't let them attend the venue where that will be occurring.

I mean bloody hell, what's next? Banning t-shirts or caps cause they have a picture of a firearm? - oh, nevermind. Or perhaps suspending young children for playing cops & robbers at school? Er, nevermind again. Oh surely some places haven't proscribed the spelling of the word "gun" have they? Ayup.

The root of this (& here's how it does come back to firearms, albeit indirectly) is the desire to prohibit things that aren't thought to be proper. Even when things are popularly accepted there are some who would deny those things to others based on their own beliefs. (Temperence anyone?) It's different in specifics for sure, but the base is constant: someone is doing something I do not approve of therefore I will try to get them to refrain. Now acting asan individual I can tolerate a bit of that. But as an individual I can also tell you to go straight to hell & disregard any entreaties to stop whatever my "offensive" behavior is.

Summers is not acting as an individual. He's acting as an agent of the state of Tennessee. He has not told anyone they must stop doing anything, but the weight of the state is presumed to be behind him if he did so. If he wished to voice his concerns to miss Wilson as an individual then it wouldn't be that much of an issue for me. But to use his office to ask someone to reduce or eliminate a legal behavior because he does not approve of such behavior is a subtle yet brutal strike at the notion of a people not controlled by the state.

Sure, smokeless tobacky might be bad for ya, but it is not the states' place to protect us from ourselves. The states' place is to protect us from each other whenever we try to disparage the equal rights of one another. Anything more than that is more dangerous than any substance in a can could ever be.

Considering the title of some of her songs ("Redneck Woman"; "Pocahantus Proud"; etc.) I sincerely hope miss Wilson does not give AG Summers the typical southern courtesy & keeps the Marlboro red between her lips while she tells him to kiss her country fried ass.

2005-07-04T09:14:00.000-06:00

Independence Day. The 229th anniversary of a statement of freedom from a government that impeded individual liberty. (Please note: the holiday is called Independence Day. It occurs on the 4th of July. Unless you typically wish people a happy 25th of December or ask if they have plans for the 31rst of December then please try to refer to the holiday by its rightful name. Referencing it by its date belittles the import of it to just another day that you don't have to work & the banks are all closed - thanks.)

Some are unhappy with the way things are yet hopeful. Some othersare unhappy with the way things are & feel dejected. There is a long list of grievences to be unhappy about for sure. Though unspoken as the cause, it's not difficult to speculate on the nature of some folks depression.

I was thinking about making a big long post filled with links to support the greivences I have against the government - or perhaps more accurately the ones it seems to have against me. The links above do a fine job of that, even if they're somewhat understated. Instead I'll point you to this post on Patriots' Day; this one about the Mecklenburg Declaraion of Independence & the Mecklenburg Resolves; this one on The Declaration of the Causes & Necessities of Taking Up Arms (No Quarters has more on the Document that We Forgot); this one on Independence Day; & this one on Bill of Rights Day. I'll also point you to The War on Guns' Patriots Day post as the pictures sum up things too accurately. Tell Me How Do I Get To My America? is another one I'd ask you to glance at. & it will be much worth your while to visit this post of IsThatLegal's where an Independence Day speech by then AG (soon to be Supree Court justice) Robert Jackson is transcribed.

Today is not a happy one for me. I think of my state & the Republic which she is a member of & I find little comfort or cause for celebration. I won't wax dramatic on you about it but I will say that I have little or no faith in the government & not much more in the people. Churchill said that it's good for an uneducated man to read a book of quotes. I admit I have found this to be good advice for myself at least. Sometimes words from others give solace & comfort to a troubled soul. I will leave you with some excerpts of folk more sober in thought & spirit than I am currently.

"Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose to offset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites?" - H L Mencken

"It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts." - H L Mencken

"A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar" - H L Mencken

"It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of a State religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men." - H L Mencken

"The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade the state to send men to war... The state, in truth, is degraded in its very nature: a few butcheries cannot do it any further damage" - H L Mencken

"The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-bye to the Bill of Rights" - H L Mencken

"Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods" - H L Mencken

"All government, in its essence, is organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable enemy of every industrious and well-disposed man" - H L Mencken

"The ideal government of reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone" - H L Mencken

"It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen;it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly." - H L Mencken

“The average man’s love of liberty is nine-tenth’s imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty--and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies. It is, indeed, only the exceptional man who can even stand it. The average man doesn’t want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.” - H L Mencken

"Anything that is moral for a group to do is moral for one person to do" - R A Heinlein

"No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law. He simply follows the eleventh commandment" - R A Heinlein

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects" - R A Heinlein

"Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure 'good' government; it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare; most people want to run things but want no part of the blame" - R A Heinlein

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do" - R A Heinlein

"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it" - Ayn Rand

"The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles." - Ayn Rand

"A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims" - Ayn Rand

"Evil requires the sanction of the victim" - Ayn Rand

"It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master" - Ayn Rand

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws" - Ayn Rand

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force" - Ayn Rand

"Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off" - Ayn Rand

"Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property" - Ayn Rand

"Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law" - Ayn Rand

"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)" - Ayn Rand

"It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time" - Sir Winston Churchill

"It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required" - Sir Winston Churchill

"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." -Jeff Cooper

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" - Edmund Burke

"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt." - John Philpot Curran

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government" - Alexander Hamilton

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws" - Tacitus

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law', because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual" - Thomas Jefferson

"Can our form of government, our system of justice, survive if one can be denied a freedom because he might abuse it?" - Harlan Carter

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government" - Edward Abbey

"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood . . ." - James Madison

"Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it." - Patrick Henry

For a few more quotes look here.

2005-03-22T18:21:00.000-07:00

Note: I use this site for initially posting audio stuff. My written posts can be found at http://publicola.mu.nu.

2004-08-10T17:03:00.000-06:00

Just an update to remind everyone that the new blog can be found via this link. (& to keep the blogspot site open in case a back up is ever needed.)

2004-04-19T15:40:00.000-06:00

We're moving. Pixy has graciously offered space over at mu.nu for Publicola & we're going to give it a go. As far as I know this site will still be here & accesible, but the new posts will be at the new site (makes sense doesn't it?).

The new address is http://publicola.mu.nu

It'll take a few days to a few weeks to get everything in order over there, but the new posts will be there as of today.

2004-04-18T07:19:00.000-06:00

Cheney spoke at the NRA convention on Saturday. Kerry made a statement prior to Cheney's address. Tom Mauser (father of a victim at Columbine High School) was denied entrance to the NRA convention despite his literally wearing his murdered son's shoes. Here's the article from which the following fisk is based.

"PITTSBURGH - Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) portrayed President Bush (news - web sites) and himself as champions of the Second Amendment ?— and Democratic candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) as a potential threat to gun owners ?— in a speech at the National Rifle Association's 133rd annual convention Saturday."

Oddly enough, if I portray myself as cantaloupe that does not make it so. Champions of the Second Amendment? Not the one I've been reading all these years. Perhaps he should have portrayed himself & Bush as champions of the 2nd Amendment with reasonable exceptions.

"John Kerry's approach to the Second Amendment has been to regulate, regulate and then regulate some more,' Cheney said, citing votes against legislation that would protect gun makers from lawsuits and in favor of allowing federal authorities to randomly inspect gun dealers without notice."

& Bush's approach has been to enforce, enforce & enforce so more the gun control laws we have on the books - despite their conflict with that whole "...shall not be infringed..." thing.

"Cheney lauded the NRA for its safety programs and said the best way to prevent gun crimes was to enforce existing laws. Federal prosecutions of crimes committed with guns increased 68 percent under President Bush, he told the crowd."

Funny, the lying bastard didn't mention how many of those laws he seeks to enforce pass constitutional muster. Nor was it mentioned how many of those gun crime prosecutions involved a person or persons with no harmful intent who just happened to possess something verboten or not have their papers in order.

"Bush 'has shown you respect, earned your vote and appreciates your support,' Cheney said."

Bush showed me respect? Earned my vote? Appreciates my support? Damn skippy I'm not included in the "you". Bush has bitch-slapped gun owners, told them eveything'll be okay if they just use a little more make-up to cover the bruise so the family won't talk, & then tells us he's a saint compared to the other abusive pimps out there.

"Cheney did not address the federal assault weapons ban, which expires in September, and which the NRA maintains has been ineffective."

Damn right he didn't address that. Neither would a prudent man discuss his approval of wife beating with his wife right before he takes a nap. Cheney didn't bring it up cause he knows that gun owners wouldn't be able to cling to the "Bush is pro-gun" lie if confronted so directly with his bullshit.

"Kerry, in a statement issued before Cheney's address, said 'most voters don't know that (Bush and Cheney) are standing against major police organizations and breaking their promise to renew the assault weapons ban ?— which helps keep military-style assault weapons out of the hands of criminals and terrorists."

& Kerry doesn't know that all federal gun control laws based on prior restraint stand against the 2nd amendment of the constitution of the united States. But one good thing about Kerry is that most people see through his bullshit. I don't think anyone - Republican or Democrat - will actually argue that Kerry is pro-gun. But both Republicans & Democrats think Bush is.

"Earlier in the day, Tom Mauser, whose son, Daniel, was killed with an assault weapon in the Columbine High School killings five years ago, tried to enter the convention hall where the NRA was meeting, seeking to urge Cheney to support extending the assault weapons ban. Mauser was turned away by a security guard..."

I do not know for certain Daniel Mauser was Murdered with an "assault weapon" or not. The murderers had a Tec-9 which was mentioned specifically by the "assault weapons" ban, but I never heard if they determined who was killed by what. Since the Tec-9 fires the 9x19mm cartridge it is very possible that he was killed by either that particular weapon or a pistol chambered in that cartridge. I seriously doubt Mr. Mauser recognizes the problems with ballistic matching of a projectile to a particular firearm, but it is possible that the Tec-9 was the only 9mm weapon they had, or that the rifling differed significantly from the pistols they may have had.

In any case Mr. Mauser doesn't seem to grasp that the "assault weapons" ban did not prevent two deranged people from committing a horrific act of murder. Neither does he realize that since they were prepared to break the laws concerning murder, possession of weapons & explosives on school grounds & a host of other laws that the AWB probably wouldn't have made them alter their plans.

Mr. Mauser also does not realize that the problem wasn't the instruments used - it was the people who were using them. Daniel Mauser would be just as dead if they'd have used muzzle-loaders. In fact if you average the number of people killed or wounded at Columbine from the time they started shooting until the time they presumably killed themselves you'll find that the rate of fire was under 3 rounds per minute per murderer. That's a little slower than the Minutemen were expected to accomplish in the 1770's. So "assault weapons" didn't enable the murderers to do anything they couldn't have done using230 year old technology & techniques.

But Mr. Mauser is a sad case. I cannot fathom the pain he went through in losing his son & feel a great amount of pity for him because it has warped his logic.

"Mauser, who marched three blocks to the convention hall literally in his son's shoes, said before the march that continuing the ban would be common sense.
'What is the useful purpose to these weapons? ... They are the weapons of gangs, drug lords and sick people.' Mauser said. 'It is a weapon of war and we don't want this war on our streets."

They are also the weapons of freedom fighters, of people who will be free & of people who will not be forced to give up that freedom even to their own government. A sick person is not one who espouses the ownership of arms, but one who thinks that through a law the good as well as the bad will give up their arms & leave peaceably forever. It is further evidence of sickness that a person thinks that I & others such as myself will acquiesce to a law demanding us to give up our arms without first enduring the war in our streets that Mr. Mauser claims is a bad thing.

"Mauser called the NRA 'an organization with a Field-and-Stream-magazine membership but a Soldier-of-Fortune-magazine leadership."

Ya know, I keep hearing about this radical leadership in the NRA. Where the hell are they & who the hell are they?

I'm tired of everyone getting it backwards: the NRA membership is typically more pro-gun than the NRA leadership. If you presented detailed questions to both, I think you'd find that it's the leadership who are in favor of gun control far more than the members.

But some of this is starting to leak out in the mainstream press. This MSN video touches on that. Angel Shamaya of KeepAndBearArms.com is interviewed & has some pretty harsh (well for him mild) words for Bush's support of the AWB. However you should keep in mind that the press is mainly interested in this angle because it's anti-Bush.

I have no problems with airing grievances against Bush - as long as the grievances are based on substantive issues instead of a general bias. If you want to trash Bush on his record or his views then I can understand that. But the bulk of the opposition to Bush is based on either a personal dislike of him (he's uneducated; he has no tact, etc...) or a misunderstanding of him (he's shrinking the government too much; he's too pro-gun, etc...).

The video has a couple of interesting thing sin it;

First of all they reporter says the NRA has launched its own news network to "get around" campaign finance laws. That's like saying a person joined the military to "get around" federal firearms laws. The NRA started its own news network simply because that was the only legal avenue left to them to get their message out in the months prior to an election. It'd have been real nice if the reporter had mentioned the constitutionally questionable nature of those campaign finance laws (yes I know how SCOTUS ruled - they were wrong) but since reporters are immune to those same laws I doubt she was aware. After all if it doesn't affect a reporters livelihood it couldn't violate the 1rst Amendment could it?

Next we have LaPierre saying that gunowners know the difference between Bush & Kerry on the 2nd Amendment. What difference? What freakin' difference is there between a man who calls them reasonable regulations & a man who calls them common sense gun laws? One fakes to the left while the other fakes to the right but they both try an end run around the constitution. Now I have no doubts Kerry would be a messed up president, but I don't think he'd be much worse than Bush. Their methods would differ but they'd both be the wrong methods to achieve the wrong goal. But focusing strictly on the firearms issue I see abo-freakin'-lutely no difference between Bush & Kerry.

"President Bush's support of the "assault weapons" ban is an embarrassment. He should hang his head in shame." A bit harsh you say? Those were the words of Angel Shamaya. Considering the source I'd think it was on the mild side. Honestly I'd expect Mr. Shamaya to start talking about tar & feathers, but perhaps he did & the reporter thought it best to not air that portion of the interview.

In the introduction to Mr. Shamaya's statement the reporter said his website (KABA.com) has "tens of thousands of followers" (emphasis mine). First I'd be surprised if KABA.com didn't have a hit count of 6 digits, but I suppose that it could be in the 70 to 80 thousand range. But does it strike you as odd that a web site & political organization has "followers'? I can understand "members" & I could understand "visitors" but "followers"? Maybe I'm just reading too much into it but it seems like the reporter was trying to subtly plant the idea that you should equate the people who visit KABA.com with a religious group. After all, the word "followers" is rarely used unless you're talking about a cult of some sort. The NRA has "members", not "followers". Jim Jones had "followers". But as I said perhaps I'm just reading too much into it.

Just for laughs pay close attention to the segment of Kerry with the side by side & orange vest. I'd be hard pressed to find a better visual for "Fuddite".

It goes on to say that most NRA members are supportive of Bush. The two people interviewed to support this statement never said they support Bush wholeheartedly; rather they feared Kerry would be worse than Bush.

Don't be fooled - the only reason the mainstream media is airing this story &/or others like it is not to spread the truth but to garner opposition against Bush. They don't care if he's pro or anti gun as long as they can use it against him. But despite their ill intent the word is getting out. It'd be a beautiful thing if Bush did a turn around & started being actively pro-gun, but the skeptic in me doubts that will ever happen. What I do think is possible is for the election to send a message to the Republicans that the half assed approach to being pro-gun (i.e. relying more on reputation than action) isn't going to cut it. But that's real difficult when the NRa leadership is constantly being called extreme.

Just out of curiousity if the leadership of agroup who supports every federal gun law on the books is consiered pro-gun in the extreme, then what would I be labeled as? Extreme extreme? ultra extreme? Uber-extreme? Course if you're thinking that most of the mainstream press couldn't even imagine people with my beliefs exist let alone label them, then you're probably correct.

2004-04-15T04:35:00.000-06:00

I can't say I wholeheartedly agree with David Kopel on everything although I must confess I'm more in agreement with him than Ted Kopel. But over at the High Road someone linked an article Mr. Kopel & Stephen D'Andrilli wrote in 1990 about Switzerland & its militia system. It's called The Swiss & G U N S ~A Success Story~. It's a bit dated as some changes to the gun laws in Switzerland occurred in the 90's. In fact the Swiss pro-gun group Pro-Tell is busy fighting these efforts as we speak. But the bulk of the article is correct in its assessment of Swiss firearm laws.

Now here's something to think about:

"Indeed, the militia is virtually synonymous with the nation. 'The Swiss do not have an army, they are the army', says one government publication. Fully deployed, the Swiss army has 15.2 men per square kilometre; in contrast, the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. have only .2 soldiers per square kilometre. Switzerland is 76 times denser with soldiers than either superpower. Indeed, only Israel has more army per square kilometre."

I'd venture to guess that only certain parts of the American South & Southwest could even begin to approach that kind of coverage by the militia. If I'm looking at the correct conversion table (hey - it's late) a square kilometer is 0.3861 square miles, & a square mile is about 640 acres. So the U.S.A. figure mentioned above would equate to (if my calculations are accurate) about 2.5 soldiers per square mile. Now a mile is 1,760 yards so at the dead center of a square mile you'd have 880 yards in all directions (actually a little more than that in the corners). That's along way to shoot. But throw in the other man & a half & you could cut it down to something a bit more reasonable - say just shy of 600 yards. Now for a rifleman with a rifle that'd be no problem, but for a soldier with an M16...let's just say I'm not optimistic. After all, no matter how good Hank Aaron was ain't no way in hell he could've hit anything in a meaningful way if he substituted his Louisville Slugger for a flyswatter.

But the Swiss can field 38 men per square mile. That's a man for every 16.8 acres. They'd be spaced so close together that they could effectively cover each other with rifled muskets!

Now Kopel & D'Andrilli don't take into account the U.S. militia which would boost our numbers a bit. But probably not by that much. If someone tried to invade Switzerland almost the whole citizenry would show up to stop them. In the U.S. we'd expect the Marines & Army to show up & do something. But the average citizen for years & even decades has been bombarded with the idea of letting the professionals handle things. Hell, lowly peasants often get arrested for shooting criminals in self defense or merely partrolling private land on the borders. So it wouldn't surprise me in the least to hear a chorus of "let the Marines handle things - that's what we pay them for" echoing through the countryside if anyone ever tried to invade the U.S.

In Texas, the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Colorado, New Mexico & Arizona I'd expect a little more turn out than average but only in the rural parts of those states. Any state with a medium to large urban area (i.e. a big city) can almost write that part of the state off. This isn't so much because people in big cities are cowards but rather they've been indoctrinated so long into government dependence that it'd be difficult to get them to change their views in time to do any good. The rural areas of every state won't have the same mindset as most rural folk are used to doing for themselves - well at least to a greater degree than their citified brethren.

Another reason is that in urban centers (i.e. big cities) gun control is usually more strictly enforced. That means the confidence that comes with developing skills in arms will be lacking & create another psychological barrier. & that's not even dealing with the issue of having arms in the first place. After all, would you feel positive about repelling invaders when your most potent weapon is a bottle filled with gasoline & a lighted rag? I'd like to think the city dwellers in D.C., Chicago, NYC & other places where possessing arms is legally difficult to impossible ignore those laws, but I can't see more than 10% or so being armed with anything more than a small pistol.

The Geek With A .45 touched on a related subject in a post of his a few days back. His focus was on gun control laws on the federal level being harmful to small arms development that is essential to national defense. A few months ago I wrote about an article on the National Matches & their relationship to national defense, or more specifically how the government has been withdrawing its support of this important primer for national defense. But as important as those two issues are to address I feel they are insignificant compared to the one I'm talking about now, which is an apathy on the part of the populace. After all, if we could buy newly designed & manufactured machine guns over the counter & the government was actively involved in civilian matches as it once was it would accomplish very little if the majority of people simply looked to the government to protect them.

Pay attention over the next week or so to the news & other forms of mass communication. In newspaper articles, news stories, billboards & magazine ads & articles you'll see that anytime the public's role is mentioned in anything its merely to be a good witness &/or informant. No cop has ever said (in recent times at least) for a citizen to get directly involved in preventing crime. Illegal aliens crossing on your land? Call the cops. A little old lady getting her ass kicked? Call the cops. Someone's being gang raped in the alley beneath your window? Call the cops.

What this message is doing is conditioning the populace to not getting directly involed. It's taking them out of their proper place in society a sparticipants & making them mere spectators. Now I'm not saying you should go out on "patrol" every night looking for drug lords & pimps to place under citizens arrest. But if you see a person getting beaten up & robbed, even if its by the cops, you should try to intervene if you can. Yes, it's risky as hell; you don't know if the attacker will turn on you or just run away. But here's the thing - that attacker whom you let get away because you feared for your own safety could very well be the attacker your wishing someone will save you from 3 weeks from now. Or worse: he'll be the one who beats up &/or kills your wife or daughter or son 3 weeks from now. C'mon - didn't you watch Spider-man? He let a guy go because he didn't want to get involved & that same guy ended up killing his uncle. There's a message in that which most people seem to ignore: if you tolerate someone you don't know being mistreated then don't be all shocked when it happens to someone you care about.

That's one of our problems as a society: we do not want to get personally involved. If we won't get involved when crime threatens our community, then what makes you think it'll be different if an invasion threatens out community? Do you think the Jews in Hitler's Germany just accepted their fate? Do you think they were all pacifists up till the very end? No, it was conditioning that made them too susceptible to inaction. That same conditioning is present today in the U.S. It's perhaps a bit more varied than what the Jews in Nazi Germany were taught, but everytime you here that "it can't happen here" or "we'd be no match for a modern military so resisting would be futile" I hope you'll recognize it as a modern variant of the reasoning that caused millions of people to allow themselves to be murdered with little if any resistance.

More from the article:

"Since 1291, when the landsgemeinden (people's assemblies) formed circles in the village squares, and only men carrying swords could vote, weapons have been the mark of citizenship. As a Military Department spokesman said, 'It is an old Swiss tradition that only an armed man can have political rights.' This policy is based on the understanding that only those who bear the burden of keeping Switzerland free are entitled to fully enjoy the benefits of freedom."

I can't say that I'd be opposed to something like that over here. Hell, can you imagine the looks on Schumer's, Feinstein's & Brady's face if on election day everyone showed up at the polls with their pistol, rifle & best web gear?

"In 1977, the Münchenstein Initiative proposed allowing citizens to choose social or hospital work over military duty. It was rejected at the polls, and in both houses of parliament (the Bundesversarnmlung's Nationalrat and Ständerat). There are provisions for conscientious objectors, but this group only numbers .2% of conscripts."

& keep in mind Swiss militia service isn't about getting job training or money for college. These people are very serious about defending their country. They want to serve.

"In 1978, Switzerland refused to ratify a Council of Europe Convention on Control of Firearms. Since then, Switzerland has been pressured by other European governments, which charge that it is a source for terrorist weapons. As a result, in 1982 the central government proposed a law barring foreigners in Switzerland from buying guns they could not buy in their own countries and also requiring that Swiss citizens obtain a license to buy any gun, rather than just handguns.
Outraged Swiss gun owners formed a group called 'Pro Tell,' named after national hero William Tell. In 1983, the Federal Council (the executive cabinet) abandoned the restrictive proposal because "the opposition was too heavy" and suggested that the cantons regulate the matter. A few months earlier, the Cantonal Council of Freiburg had already enacted such a law by a one-vote margin. A popular referendum overturned the law the next year, by a
60%-40% vote."

Apperently they want to vote as well. Can you imagine what the press would do if gun owners got off their ass, stopped making excuses for the lesser of two evils & elected pro-gun politicians to repeal gun control laws? Imagine every time a gun control law is passed it gets repealed right after the next election. But imagine is all we can do because gun owners are petrified of Kerry even though Bush isn't all that different on the gun issue.

But go read the rest of the article. It does a good job of explaining the Swiss mindset when it comes to guns & culture. I still think in theory America has the best system going, but in practice the Swiss aren't that far behind, if at all as far as arms ownership goes. Switzerland isn't perfect by a long shot, but if you read your history you'll note that several American institutions were copied from the Swiss. One of those was the militia. It's a shame it's more a part of history for us than anything else, especially when the Swiss seem to be doing well with it after 500 years or so.

2004-04-15T02:51:00.000-06:00

At End the War on Freedom I found a rather interesting link: a fellow by the name of Larken Rose has put together a flash presentation called "The 861 Evidence: A Disturbing Exposé of the United States Income Tax System". It takes a while to load & it's rather lengthy but considering the day I thought I'd pass it on.

2004-04-12T05:48:00.000-06:00

April 15th. It's only 3 days away so you have to get moving.

No, I'm not trying to encourage you to send your yearly extortion payment to the IRSS; I'm telling you about B.A.G. day.

Aaron the Liberal Slayer came up with this last year. His original goal was for everyone to buy a gun on April 15th just to piss off Michael Moore. Can't say his heart wasn't in the right place with that one, but he decided to shorten it to B.A.G. so it'd be a little catchier this time around.

Unfortunately due to a lack of finances & a recent purchase I won't be able to join in with y'all this year. But that will not stop me from vicariously shopping through you - so if you're undecided on what you want to purchase feel free to drop me a line & I'll give you my $0.02 for free.

But allow me to go over what in my opinion is a complete battery for anyone in the U.S. to have in their gun safe:

First & foremost a .22LR chambered firearm is essential. No, it won't stop a tank with one shot nor will it shoot flying saucers down from a low orbit. It will put food on the table. I've never seen a squirrel or rabbit that's immune to a .22LR. It will also keep pests out of your garden. In a pinch it'll keep the two legged vermin from doing much damage to you (although there are better choices). Most importantly it's cheap to feed. You can still get a 100 round box of decent quality ammo for around $3.50. Three cents a round ain't anything to laugh at & you can find plinking ammo for a bit less than that. But the beauty of its economic friendliness is that for under $10 you can have a nice little practice session. & practice, even with the lowly little .22LR, will help your shooting skills to develop.

As far as which .22LR to get it's hard to go wrong with damn near any well know make of firearm. Ruger makes a superb autoloading pistol as well as a decent single action revolver in .22LR & .22 Magnum. CZ makes a much talked about line of .22LR bolt action rifles. Browning makes fine autoloading pistols in .22LR. Smith & Wesson & Taurus have both pistols & revolvers to choose from. Remington makes a superb line of .22 rifles as does Marlin. But my favorite for a host of reasons is the Ruger 10/22.

Next I'd list the shotgun. In fact if a pragmatist was limited to one firearm a repeating shotgun of some sort would not disappoint. The main virtue of the shotgun is its versatility. By switching the ammo you can have a firearm that propels multiple projectiles or a very large single projectile. It's ideal for close range hunting of damn near any game in North America & is an ideal choice for close range defense against bipedal predators. I would also advise getting a 12 gauge. For the recoil sensitive people out there (& it's nothing to be ashamed of) you can use target loads in your 12 gauge to reduce the perceived kick. If it comes down to it Aguila makes a 1 & 3/4" (as opposed to 2 & 3/4" or 3") shotshell they call the Minishell. They make slug, buckshot & birdshot loads. As you might imagine it doesn't have as much projectile as the longer shotshells but a 7/8 slug or 5/8 ounce of birdshot will get most jobs done that you need done at close range. The big plus is that they generate very little recoil so those who are sensitive to kick don't have to settle for a smaller gauge (not that there's anything wrong with 16, 20 or 28 gauge guns).

Remington makes perhaps the best pump action shotgun available in the model 870. There are other very reliable & very decent pump action shotguns out there but I've always had a soft spot for the 870. One other one I will mention is the Ithace model 37. It's another one of JMB's designs & as such I wouldn't feel slighted with it at all. (For more on JMB look here, here & here.)

Of course being somewhat of a traditionalist I have a big soft spot for double barrel shotguns; particularly side by sides. My grandfather was an avid bird hunter in his youth & the first firearm I ever had any exposure to was his L.C. Smith 12 gauge field grade. Unfortunately it was stolen from him when I was still a teenager. I'm primarily a rifle person so I could never justify spending a grand or two on a long gun that doesn't have any rifling although when I think of the old man & the look in his eyes when he'd tell me about dove hunting with his favorite pointer I'm tempted to sell something & find an L.C. Smith that needs a good home. In the meantime however I'm making due with a rather enjoyable & economical Brazilian side by side imported by Stoeger called the Uplander. I doubt my grandfather would turn his nose up if he'd have been handed one though I'm sure he wouldn't have favored it to his Smith.

But there are automatics as well as single shots & over/unders made by many manufacturers. Depending on your needs finding something suitable won't be nearly as difficult as narrowing the selection down.

Handguns are next on the list. Revolver or auto is strictly a matter of preference. Personally I'm intrigued by the S&W model 610 although I haven't acquired one for various reasons. The steel frame 10mm EAA Witness is another one I've had my eye on. Keep in mind though that the fit & feel of a handgun are the most important things to consider. A gun that fits comfortably in your hand may feel awkward in mine. & recoil that you're comfortable with may cause me to flinch. So try to narrow your choices to handguns that feel comfortable in your hand when you hold it & cartridges that are tolerable when you shoot them.

Now if you're thinking I'm a fan of the 10mm you'd be correct. It's odd because I don't own one & can't honestly say I've ever fired one, but the external ballistics have me hooked. A full powered 10mm load would be ideal for hunting medium to large sized thin skinned game & I wouldn't feel too peevish about carrying one into brown bear country. But the thing that has me most intrigued is that in my opinion the 10mm would make the ideal cartridge for military use. It'd be a much more decisive fight stopper than the 9x19mm & I'd wager it'd be more effective than the much revered .45 ACP. But that's another discussion all by itself.

The important thing to remember about handguns is that their main purpose is to allow you to fight you way to your long guns. So without further ado...

Rifles are what make my world go round. & nothing spins it faster than an accurate rifle. Remington, Browning, Ruger, Savage & many other make brand spanking new bolt rifles that will usually shoot better than you can right out of the box. Those same companies also make fine auto-loading rifles. A few companies even make single shot break open rifles.

But in my opinion there is no finer product offered today than the ones offered by the Civilian Marksmanship Program. They sell government surplus 1903 Springfields, 1903A3 Springfields, 1917 Enfields & M1 Garands. All four rifles are chambered for the .30-06 Springfield cartridge & as such I cannot think of any man or beast in North America that would not be deterred by its judicious use. Now in keeping with the original theme of B.A.G. can anyone think of a way to piss off Michael Moore, Sarah Brady or any others of their particular ilk more than to buy a battle rifle from the U.S. government? I think not.

Another reason to buy the Garand in particular is that it can have 5 (count 'em - 5!!!) of the features that make a semi-automatic firearm into an evil "assault rifle". Reese Surplus has some BM-59 folding stocks that will fit on the Garand. That'd knock out the folding stock & conspicuously protruding pistol grip. The Garand's gas system uses a threaded part on the barrel that will accept a flash suppressor so even if you don't have one that knocks out that requirement. All Garands come with a bayonet lug - it's part of the gas system. & finally Numrich Gun Parts among others offers grenade launchers for the Garand. So all 5 of the evil features can be on your rifle at the same time. The only thing lacking is the "high capacity" detachable magazine.

One rifle, sold to you by the government that can have 5 of the 6 features that the hoplophobes feared so much they sought to make them illegal. I'd say that alone would be reason enough to buy a Garand. Of course I am of the opinion that the Garand is the finest piece of machinery available, so forgive me if my bias shows.

But just as important as the platform you select to launch projectiles from are the projectiles themselves. Or more precisely the cartridge. If you only want one or two rifles in your collection then a general purpose cartridge such as the .30-06 or .270 Winchester would be what to look for. But if you don't mind having two or more cartridges in your ammo locker then I'd say there are three areas you'd want to focus on: a small bore, a medium bore & a large bore. Now keep in mind these are all dependent upon your needs: I'm only offering an opinion.

For a small bore I'd look at one of the medium velocity .22's such as the .223 or the .222 Remington Magnum. They're not the fastest out there but they're close enough to give good performance without the decreased barrel life offered by the .220 Swift or the .22/250 Remington. & I'd prefer a decent bolt action but I wouldn't be opposed to an accurate autoloader since these cartridges would be limited to target shooting & varmint hunting. So don't misunderstand - I am not telling you to get an AR-15 for defense from anything other than prairie dogs. A decent variable powered scope would be a must no matter what type of rifle as the targets are often small & far away, but occasionally closer than you'd need a 14x scope for.

I also wouldn't discount the .243 Winchester or some other 6mm cartridge to bridge the gap between a small bore & medium bore. Truth be told for deer (not elk) & varmints a .243 is pretty close to ideal as long as you use the appropriate bullet weights for the game you're hunting.

For a medium bore I'm all set with the .30-06 Springfield. But the .270 Winchester, .280 Remington or any of the .30 caliber magnums would work just fine. & almost any action type will work depending on your needs. Bolt actions have a reputation for accuracy, but I've seen Garands that will shoot 1 inch groups at 100 yards.

For a large bore I'd look somewhere between the .338/06 & the .375 H&H Magnum. Personally I don't see a need for anything larger than the .375 H&H for any North American game, although if I were in Alaska amongst the grizzlies I might consider revising my standards considerably. But for me a .35 Whelen would be about ideal for anything that could be hunted. This has nothing to do with the fact that Garands can be chambered in that particular cartridge. I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

If you plan to hunt in Africa then that's a whole ?nother ball game. I'm sure there's a host of people that could give more accurate detailed advice on which cartridges are best for Cape buffalo & other dangerous quadrupeds. But feel free to ask & I'll try to point you in the right direction.

I'd be remiss in not pointing out that the pistol caliber carbines such as the Ruger PC4, High Point carbine & M1 carbine fill a very unique, if somewhat limited niche & they'd be worth considering. Also the cheap surplus rifles aren't a bad idea especially for those on a budget. The SKS in 7.62x39mm, Mosin-Nagant in 7.62x54R, & 98 Mauser in 8mm can still be found relatively cheap.

So to sum it up I think everyone should have a .22LR (either handgun or long gun but preferably both), a shotgun, a centerfire handgun, & at least one rifle.

I regret that I won't be able to make any new (or used) purchases this week but by all means let me know if you do. Hearing from a reader who buys a firearm isn't quite as good as getting one myself, but it's definitely the next best thing. Thanks again to Aaron for not only coming up with the idea but for doing a lot of footwork on its behalf.

So do him, me & yourself a favor - go buy a firearm on the 15th.

2004-04-06T16:13:00.000-06:00

The Volokh Conspiracy, Instapundit & Kim du Toit along with a few others are talking about the number of dissenting judges & the intensity of their dissents in 2nd amendment cases. What seems to be of interest are the dissents in Nordyke v. King. Of particular interest is that Justice Kozinski concurred with the majority opinion to deny an en banc hearing. This is the same Justice Kozinski who wrote a passionate dissent in Silveira v Lockyer & wrote the majority opinion in U.S. v Stewart(which stated that privately manufactured machine guns do not affect interstate commerce & therefore can't be used as a basis for NFA prosecutions).

I am simply not heartened by the dissents. their intensity is admirable & many good points are made in them, but they are still an underwhelming minority. The main reason I'm not as optimistic is that despite their personal feelings all these judges are bound by precedent. Justice Kozinski is arguably the most outspoken supporter of the Right to Arms on the federal bench today, yet he has denied 2nd amendment claims because he was bound by previous rulings of the court. He even concurred with the majority in Nordyke for what he deemed "prudential considerations".

If you haven't read "Game Over, Man. Game Over." by Kevin of The Smallest Minority then please do so. It sums things up quite nicely.

What we have is a judiciary that keeps building on very bad decisions even when the judges disagree with those decisions. Some will say this is a triumph of the rule of law or the impartiality of the courts. I disagree. I'm more inclined to say it's a sign of failure of the rule of law & shows the bias of the courts.

The rule of law is a very simple idea: a ruler is bound by the law just as the common person is. In this country we have a pecking order as far as the law goes. Deference must be given to the federal constitution when a conflict arises between it & a federal or in some cases a state law. The main purpose of the federal constitution is to place limits on government authority. What the courts have been doing with regards to the 2nd amendment is not to make the common folk & government equals in the eyes of the law but to side with the government against the common folk despite the constitutions limitations on government. They have done this through exercises in acrobatics of logic that are at times quite astonishing.

This demonstrates not only their personal prejudice in the matter but a deference to the government rather than the constitution. When a judge who openly agrees that the 2nd amendment protects an individual right feels compelled to abide by a system that whittles all the substance from said amendment he is not acting impartially. What he's doing is showing deference not to the constitution but to the courts.

You might disagree with my view on this. A very good argument could be made that without the system of precedent that the courts have long honored we'd have judicial activism of the worst sort. But I fail to see how that would be any worse than a system in which a man must forsake common sense & his oath to defend the constitution (assuming judges are still sworn in with an oath that affirms such) because he is verboten to rule against the government (i.e. the courts).

Let me make this clear - the judiciary is a branch of government. Some will say that the courts are not swayed as easily by politics & other factors which seem to drive the legislative & executive branches, but supposing that's true they are still swayed by considerations other than what their original purpose was: protecting the people.

Courts were instituted so that the ruler would be seen as fair in matters that directly effect the people. A murderer could not be summarily executed w/o a trial to determine if he was in fact a murderer. Similarly a person could not be punished for refusing to abide an unlawful act on the part of the government. (& yes I realize this is a rather simplistic explanation but bear with me as I'm a bit rushed.) For these reasons the courts were viewed as a good idea as a way to impose fairness on a government which by its very nature is unfair.

In our system the constitution is supposed to be the highest law in the land. No law that conflicts with the constitution is supposed to be upheld as valid by any court. In this way the courts are supposed to check the excesses of the legislature which in most circles are a recognized & unavoidable part of a legislative system.

But now it seems the courts are (& have been for some time) bending over backwards to explain why the laws which seem unconstitutional on their face are in fact quite constitutional. As many others & myself have said the lengths some courts have gone to in order to justify laws they approve of despite conflicts with the constitution are simply amazing.

But what discourages me is not so much that the courts are doing this, but that even judges who see this as blatently wrong are going along with it. Sixty four years of bad precedent is more compelling to them than their own conscience. That to me is the main source of my discouregment & disgust with the courts.

Some have opined that for reasons similar to what I stated above that we should be glad that a lot of 2nd amendment based cases are not heard by the higher courts. The idea being that until the courts are more favorable we should thank judges who vote against hearing such cases. & this I disagree with as well.

There is simply no practical effect that a Supreme Court ruling would have as far as the 2nd amendment goes unless it reversed those 64 years of bad precedent. If they sustain a federal courts ruling in whole that the 2nd amendment means the states have a right to a militia but individuals have no right to arms, then what difference will it make? Since the Supreme Court hasn't heard a direct 2nd amendment case in the last 64 years the district court rulings are binding on all lower courts. In other words the practical effect is the same whether the Supreme Court upholds a bad ruling or they simply refuse to address it.

This is because all federal district courts have promoted a collective rights view of the 2nd amendment. The 5th Circuit is the only notable exception & as yet hasn't been tested in their district. Considering the lengths judges have gone to in order to refute the meaning of a constitutional amendment I have no doubts that the 5th Circuit ruling in Emerson will be worked around in some fashion. Perhaps by a direct reversal or possibly even by stating that the 2nd amendment shouldn't have been addressed & the opinion concerning it was merely dicta (which is part of an judicial opinion that holds no legal weight). & as the recent Parker v DC demonstrates the 5th's view of the 2nd amendment is not seen as persuasive by other districts.

& you must remember that in Emerson the court did say that the 2nd amendment protected an individual right, but it was subject to reasonable government restrictions. To me there is little if any practical difference between the "collective right" view & the "reasonable government restriction of an individual right" view. It all revolves around what is considered reasonable & given what I've seen of the courts I'd wager that their idea of reasonable is a lot closer to Sarah Brady's than mine.

I wish I could share the optimism expressed by some, but for the reasons stated above I cannot put any more faith in the judiciary than I can in the legislative or the executive branches of government.

2004-04-02T14:58:00.000-07:00

A decision was made in Parker v D.C.: the 2nd amendment does not guarantee an individual right to own or possess arms unless it is directly related to service in a state militia, therefore D.C.'s firearms laws are valid.

Again we see a court take U.S. v. Miller & misinterpret it. Then they cite 60+ years of circuit court decisions that also misinterpret Miller. & on top of that they claim that since the Supreme Court has not reviewed Miller or any direct 2nd amendment cases since Miller that the highest court in the land must approve of the interpretation of Miller.

They do spend a little time downplaying the 5th Circuit's decision in U.S. v. Emerson. Well downplaying isn't the proper description: they explain why they feel Emerson was an incorrect decision based on precedent as well as reasoning. I thought that was interesting since Emerson is the only circuit court decision issued recently that would support an individual as opposed to a collective right. & perhaps even more so because the Emerson decision was a 5th circuit matter: not binding on any other circuit. Yet the D.C. court went to some trouble to argue against it.

The court explained in some depth that a person had to be sanctioned by the state to qualify as a member of a militia. They reasoned that a militia must be trained & organized by the state & subsequently that enrollment in such a militia is the only means of claiming to be part of the militia. In other words, they suggest that unless you are actually on a roll of a state's militia then you're not a member of the militia. This despite the evidence presented in Miller that the militia was composed of all capable people within certain a certain age frame.

But the D.C. court held that since the plaintiffs raised no argument that they were members of a militia that they had no claim under the 2nd amendment & ruled against them.

Kevin of The Smallest Minority has a post up entitled "Game Over, Man. Game Over." that has more than a little relevance to the situation with the courts generally.

Parker is further proof that we have no redress in the courts. The only thing that could alter my view of that would be for the Supreme Court to hear & reverse the findings in Parker or a similar 2nd amendment case, but they've been ducking the issue since 1939 & I doubt they'll grow a conscience & courage at the same time.

2004-04-01T14:53:00.000-07:00

So I get this nasty, shrill message in my KABA mailbox this morning from a British panty-wetter reporter, who is apparently irate that we repeatedly use articles in UK publications to point out how ineffective, absurd and positively medieval their gun control laws are.

Greg Truscott writes:

DO NOT USE MY NEWS STORIES TO FUEL YOUR DESIRE TO BEAR FIREARMS.

TAKE NOTICE OF THIS WARNING OR I'LL PASS IT TO OUR LAWYERS TO DEAL WITH.

GREG TRUSCOTT, SOUTH LONDON PRESS, UK.

The message resulted in an email exchange between myself, KABA Executive Director Angel Shamaya and Mr. Truscott, detailed here.

Give it a read. It will give you a chuckle. Not only are the Brits unilaterally disarmed, but they are prosecuted for defending their lives without permission from their tyrannical government and they try to threaten those who expose this savagery with legal action!

Mr. Truscott's email address is: crime@slp.co.uk

I imagine he will be quite irate tomorrow when he gets to work and finds his email box full of love letters from gun rights supporters.

A friend of mine wrote the following in an email:

I was born and raised in the UK.

I live in the US now.

It's very sad to see the festering sh*thole Britain is becoming.

Under the US Constitution, we have free speech and press.

By federal law and Supreme Court decision, anyone may post links to
anything on their site, as free speech and free press.

It's sad that your articles prove our point. But your lawyers can't do
a damned thing about it, and you won't find an honest US lawyer to take
the case. A shyster will take your money, lose and get us lots of free
publicity. I urge you to do so.

Are all British reporters incompetent and irrational fools? That's all
I seem to read anymore from over there.

Cheers

2004-03-31T06:35:00.000-07:00

Now I am not the first to tackle the problems with Miller: Brian Puckett wrote a piece entitled United States v. Miller and Short-Barreled Shotguns which I would encourage you to read. (He has more modern examples of shotgun use in the military - with pics!) I've previously touched on Miller here & here But for my own reference felt a more in depth refutation of Miller was necessary.

Many federal courts rely on U.S. v. Miller in which the Supreme Court remanded a case back to the District Court that had overturned the National Firearms Act of 1934. The District Court agreed with Miller that the NFA violated the 2nd Amendment. Justice McReynolds delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court that the weapon in question, a shotgun with a barrel of less than 18?, was not known to the court to have use in the militia & therefore the NFA didn't conflict with the 2nd Amendment.

Most federal courts since then have misconstrued this to mean that unless a person was actually serving in a state militia with a state approved weapon then the 2nd Amendment is inapplicable to them. This is flawed simply because the findings in Miller did not state or even imply such a conclusion. In fact Miller went to great lengths to establish that "militia" meant every person capable of serving in the common defense.

Before I get into the Supreme Court's decision in Miller there are a few facts I would like to point out about the case. First of all a gentleman named Patrick L. Aultice compiled all the available information on Miller that he could find. It contains every document from the district court's grant of bail to the Supreme Court decision itself as well as a brief summation of Jack Miller himself.

It should be noted that Miller was indicted twice for the same violation of the NFA; once on June 2nd, 1938 & again on September 23rd, 1938. In the first instance a demurrer to the indictment listing 5 items was filed on June 11th, 1938 with a memo opinion from Judge Ragon on June 11th, 1938. In the second instance a demurrer to the indictment listing 6 items was filed on January 3rd, 1939 & a memo opinion was given by Judge Ragon on January 3rd, 1939. In Mr. Aultice's chapter on Jack Miller, he mentions that Miller originally plead guilty but the judge advised him to withdraw his plea & he appointed counsel for both him & Mr. Layton (who was indicted along with Miller). I think if you have an interest in the case you'll find all the documents & summaries provided by Mr. Aultice interesting, but I'll leave it to you to click on the link above for the detailed story.

This is Judge Ragon's opinion as stated on January 3rd, 1939:

"The defendants in this case are charged with unlawfully and feloniously transporting in interstate commerce from the town of Claremore, Oklahoma, to the town of Siloam Springs in the State of Arkansas, a double barrel twelve gauge shot gun having a barrel less than eighteen inches in length, and at the time of so transporting said fire arm in interstate commerce they did not have in their possession a stamp-affixed written order for said fire arm as required by Section 1132 c, Title 26 U. S. C. A., and the regulations issued under the authority of said Act of Congress known as the National Fire Arms Act.

The defendants in due time filed a demurrer challenging the sufficiency of the facts stated in the indictment to constitute a crime and further challenging the sections under which said indictment was returned as being in contravention of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

The indictment is based upon the Act of June 26, 1934, C.757, Section 11, 48 Statute 1239. The court is of the opinion that this section is invalid in that it violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing, 'A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.'

The demurrer is accordingly sustained."

That & the demurrer itself are all the Supreme Court had to go on from the defense. They did not submit a brief or attend oral arguments.

The briefs from the government in objection to the lower court's ruling were very detailed. Common law was cited as far back as 1686 in England to support the idea that restrictions on arms were justifiable. What they failed to do was demonstrate that the 2nd Amendment sought to adopt the common law of England in its restrictive view of the Right to Arms. But oddly enough the Supreme Court decision itself fills in many gaps that the government left in its briefs concerning militias.

This is an excerpt from Miller where Justice McReynolds states his overall findings concerning the case:

"In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense"

He then goes on to explain the Congressional power concerning the militia that was granted in the Constitution & concludes that

"With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view."

He then continues about the militia:

"The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they [307 U.S. 174, 179] were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia- civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.

The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. 'A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline.' And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time."

Justice McReynolds spends a great deal of time in discussing the history & purpose of a militia:
"Blackstone's Commentaries, Vol. 2, Ch. 13, p. 409 points out 'that king Alfred first settled a national militia in this kingdom' and traces the subsequent development and use of such forces.

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Book V. Ch. 1, contains an extended account of the Militia. It is there said: 'Men of republican principles have been jealous of a standing army as dangerous to liberty.' 'In a militia, the character of the labourer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier: in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every other character; and in this distinction seems to consist the essential difference between those two different species of military force.'

'The American Colonies In The 17th Century', Osgood, Vol. 1, ch. XIII, affirms in reference to the early system of defense in New England-

'In all the colonies, as in England, the militia system was based on the principle of the assize of arms. This implied the general obligation of all adult male inhabitants to possess arms, and, with certain exceptions, to [307 U.S. 174, 180] cooperate in the work of defence.' 'The possession of arms also implied the possession of ammunition, and the authorities paid quite as much attention to the latter as to the former.' 'A year later (1632) it was ordered that any single man who had not furnished himself with arms might be put out to service, and this became a permanent part of the legislation of the colony (Massachusetts).'

Also 'Clauses intended to insure the possession of arms and ammunition by all who were subject to military service appear in all the important enactments concerning military affairs. Fines were the penalty for delinquency, whether of towns or individuals. According to the usage of the times, the infantry of Massachusetts consisted of pikemen and musketeers. The law, as enacted in 1649 and thereafter, provided that each of the former should be armed with a pike, corselet, head-piece, sword, and knapsack. The musketeer should carry a 'good fixed musket,' not under bastard musket bore, not less than three feet, nine inches, nor more than four feet three inches in length, a priming wire, scourer, and mould, a sword, rest, bandoleers, one pound of powder, twenty bullets, and two fathoms of match. The law also required that two-thirds of each company should be musketeers."

He then continues with examples of regulations concerning militias in the states before he concludes:

"Most if not all of the States have adopted provisions touching the right to keep and bear arms. Differences in the language employed in these have naturally led to somewhat variant conclusions concerning the scope of the right guaranteed. But none of them seem to afford any material support for the challenged ruling of the court below.

In the margin some of the more important opinions and comments by writers are cited. 3 [307 U.S. 174, 183] We are unable to accept the conclusion of the court below and the challenged judgment must be reversed.

The cause will be remanded for further proceedings."

Justice McReynolds never mentions that Miller was not a member of a state militia & therefore had no standing. Rather he concludes that the weapon Miller had was not of a benefit to the militia, but he even left that open by mentioning that it was not within judicial notice.
Now once again here's the relevant passage of Miller:

"In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense"

Matters of fact are usually left to the trial court, unless it is something very obvious such as the capital of Oregon or the allegation that a river runs from the upper midwest to the Gulf of Mexico or that cars use gasoline. But what is curious is that the Supreme Court at the time had two justices with prior military experience, three if you count a newly appointed justice who recused himself from the case due to his missing the oral arguments. From this site the JPFO put together on Miller I found the following:

"...Two of the Court's members had seen military service, Justice Hugo Black as a Captain in the Field Artillery in 1918 and Justice Felix Frankfurter as a Major in the Army's Legal service. Justice William O. Douglas, who did not take part in the decision, had been a private in the U.S. Army in 1918."

So it should have been possible that at the least Justice Black had some exposure to the military's use of short barreled weapons. From the same article from the JPFO we see numerous examples of the military use of short barreled weapons.

"The British issued a Sea Service flintlock blunderbuss with a 16-inch brass barrel, circa 1760..."

Jumping to the Late Unpleasantness 'Twixt the States:

"The degree to which barrels were amputated depended upon the whim of the cavalryman, or was dictated by battle damage sustained by the gun. Thin gun barrels were often dented or bent. Since weapons were scarce, the damaged portion was simply cut-off to restore the gun to action. This resulted in the discovery that shortened guns were more controllable while mounted; therefore, they were better suited for fighting purposes."

& further:

"In 1861, the Federal government purchased 10,000 Austrian-made carbines (KammerKarabiner, Model 1842). This muzzle-loading .71 caliber firearm resembled a shotgun: it had a 14.5" rifled barrel and no bayonet...The government issued three types of ammunition for this carbine: buckshot and ball combined, ordinary buckshot, and round balls..."

& from WW1:

"...The Ordnance Department procured some 30,000 to 40,000 shotguns of the short-barrel or sawed-off type, ordering these from the regular commercial manufacturers..."

But it is entirely possible that none of the justices were aware that short barreled shotguns not only could be of use, but had & currently were in use by the U.S. military.

Now Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution provides in part for Congress to have the authority to:

"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water..."

A letter of marque is defined at Findlaw.com as: "a letter from a government formerly used to grant a private person the power to seize the subjects of a foreign state" & more specifically: "authority granted to a private person to fit out an armed ship to plunder the enemy (usu. used in pl.) (often used in the phrase letters of marque and reprisal)".
Private citizens were granted permission to engage an enemy nation on the seas. Now if any of you have ever spent time aboard any ship you'll understand what a commodity space is. A short barreled shotgun or rifle, not to mention a belt fed machine gun, would be the preferred weapons aboard any ship. I am sure that the U.S. Navy employed shot barreled weapons, including shotguns, aboard her vessels & it would be foolish to conclude that given the options we have today short barreled automatic weapons as well as shotguns would not have been coveted by the early American Navy.

The same part of the Constitution also states that Congress is empowered:

"To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions..."

Up until the mid 1800's the military (including the militia) was expected to perform the same duties as police officers do today. & considering that in most states citizens have power of arrest when they see a felony or other dangerous crime being committed it would not be unreasonable to conclude that weapons similar to what the police departments use would be well suited to the private citizen. If you weren't aware police departments & other law enforcement agencies do use short barreled shotguns among other NFA weapons.
The justification used in Congress to pass the NFA was that certain weapons such as short barreled shotguns were particularly suited to criminal use. Criminals did use them on occasion. But this points to a another class of people at whom the sale of short barreled shotguns was targeted: law abiding citizens.

Miller was decided foremost on an inaccurate assumption of fact: that short barreled shotguns had no militia use. It's obvious to anyone with more than a moderate knowledge of firearms that literally any weapon is suited to militia use, just as any weapon is suited for criminal use, or police use. It is not the type or design of the weapon that determines their suitability to a specific class of person, but the intent of the individual wielding the weapon.
Moving on to Justice McReynolds finding of law, I cannot begin to fathom how he would have (if indeed he would have) justified the NFA once he was shown that the short barreled shotgun, as well as all other weapons covered by the NFA, do in fact have a use for the militia. But let's just forget that point of fact for the sake of argument.

Justice McReynolds states that, "...With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view." The preceding part of his statement merely recited the powers Congress was granted concerning the militia.

So the continuance & possibility of an effective militia was considered the reason for the amendment & all interpretations must be consistent with that goal. To which I must point out that the militia was to be called forth to "...execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions". Justice McReynolds states a little later on that "...The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia--civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion." (emphasis added)

The same weapons useful for one of the purposes would be useful for the others, providing the wielder of said weapon was proficient with them. Naturally a belt fed machine gun would be useful in repelling an invasion, but also in suppressing a riot or to stop or discourage looters during a black out. & equally a short barreled shotgun would be useful in repelling invaders, as it would be in suppressing a riot or discouraging looters during a black out. The same could be said of any weapon as long it was used by someone who knew its strengths & limitations.

If a person one day finds himself behind a belt fed machine gun, or a short barreled shotgun in the course of his lawful duties within the militia the type of weapon he has will do him little good if he is not properly trained in its use. So if the 2nd Amendment must be interpreted with the goal of keeping a well trained militia capable of acting for the public defense, then the courts must strike down laws which impose burdensome fess or other restrictions on the individual obtaining & practicing with weapons suited to militia use. That would encompass all weapons as a militia may find itself in what we today would consider a military combat role; a military peacekeeping role; an irregular military role; a general police role; or a specialized police role (such as a SWAT team).

A militia was expected at the time to perform the duties of soldiers as well as policeman. Fighting an invading army is the most common thought of use for the militia, but fighting an oppressive government, suppressing insurrections, enforcing laws, controlling & dispersing riots, as well as helping an area during & after a natural disaster would all fall under the duties of the militia. That these duties have been neglected is bad for us not just because of the misunderstanding surrounding the 2nd Amendment, but because our obligations to our communities, states & country have been neglected along with them.

I believe Justice McReynolds own findings established that the militia is any able bodied person capable of acting in the public defense. But I will add a few quotes from those around at the time of the Revolution as well as some who lived to see the Constitution ratified:

"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms." - Richard Henry Lee, Additional Letters from the Federal Framer (1788) at p. 169

"It is reported that the Governor has said, that he has Three Things in Command from the Ministry, more grievous to the People, than any Thing hitherto made known. It is conjectured 1st, that the Inhabitants of this Province are to be disarmed." - "ABC" (PSEUD., SAMUEL ADAMS)

"The said Constitution be never construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Samuel Adams, during Massachusetts's Convention to Ratify the Constitution (1788).

"The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them." - Zachariah Johnson, 3 Elliot, Debates at 646

"Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." - Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion." - James Burgh, Political Disquisitions: Or, an Enquiry into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses [London, 1774-1775].

"The right of the people to keep and bear...arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country..." - James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789.

"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." - Tench Coxe in `Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution' under the Pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 at 2 col. 1.

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these States....Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America" - Gazette of the United States, October 14, 1789.

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." - James Madison, The Federalist Papers No. 46 at 243-244.

"...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..." - Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist No. 29.

"The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops." - Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed BV the Late Convention (1787).

You get the idea: the militia was thought of as the body of the people that were capable of bearing arms. The law that currently defines the militia in the United States can be found at 10 U.S.C. § 311. While it only includes males between the ages of 17 & 45 I would say its safe to say that with the case law concerning equality between the sexes that women should not count themselves out of the militia just yet. & it should be noted that whether this age range is applicable depends entirely on the occasion for which the militia is called up; should a hurricane ravage a town along one of our coasts or an invading force attempt entry at our borders then I would think the tie honored definition of "any able bodied person capable of acting" would be what's required.

& I'll beg your forgiveness as the next bit of information I was going to present isn't where I thought it was. It's a case the Supreme Court decided in the early 1900's or possibly the last decade of the 1800'2. The name escapes me but it was a tax case & it more or less held that taxation must not be for any regulatory purpose but solely for raising revenue. I'd kindly ask for anyone who recalls the name of this case to drop me a note as I don't expect anyone to merely rely on my word that such a case exists or that it found what I say it found. So if you'll pardon the lack of citation I'll submit that a taxing measure must not be for regulation: its sole purpose must be to generate revenue.

I must ask, is a $200 tax on a short barreled shotgun (which prior to the NFA sold for between $10 & $40) something that you would do to generate revenue? I could possibly see a tax of 10% or even 50% of certain items, but 200%? & instead of requiring a tax stamp that is transferable without any further oversight, a request for permission for the tax stamp, as well as much paperwork must be delivered to the government & your request could very well be denied. Further in 1968 all weapons in existence that fell under the NFA & that were not registered & taxed were declared contraband & wouldn't be able to be registered after a grace period ended. In 1986 all newly manufactured weapons were prohibited from being added to the registration. I realize these last two things happened long after Miller was decided, but can there be any doubt about the NFA's purpose being one other than taxation?

To further that I offer you this testimony from the congressional debate concerning the NFA in April & May of 1934. In it Mr. Frederick (President of the NRA) discusses his views on the proposed NFA. Several times it is mentioned that the purpose of the bill is a regulatory measure under the guise of a revenue measure & towards the end there is open discussion about the goals of the legislation, which is to target gangsters.

In Murdock v. Pennsylvania it was found that:
"A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the federal constitution... The power to impose a license tax on the exercise of these freedoms is indeed as potent as the power of censorship which this Court has repeatedly struck down... a person cannot be compelled 'to purchase, through a license fee or a license tax, the privilege freely granted by the constitution."

So even if on the surface the NFA was a revenue raising measure it would not be applicable to possession of firearms. I would offer that a sales tax as is common to other items similar in value & collectible at the retail purchase of a firearm would not fall under the provision of Murdock, but I cannot see how a $200 tax on items that at the time were as cheap as $2 (sound suppressors) & currently could still be half the value of the tax (single barrel shotguns are commonly available for $100) would not run afoul of Murdock.

The militia is comprised of the people which would include anyone capable of acting in the militia. To preserve that militia the individuals who comprise it must be able to own & train with suitable weapons. Given the wide range of duties the militia may be called up for any weapon may have valid militia use. Short barreled shotguns & all other NFA weapons would have militia use & are in current use with the military & police forces of the U.S. A tax law must be designed with the sole purpose of revenue & not regulation. A Right guaranteed by the Constitution may not be taxed or licensed.

Because of these conclusions the finding of the lower courts that the 2nd amendment relates to a collective, rather than an individual Right & that Congress has the authority to regulate firearms is absurd & is not supported by the facts or the law.

2004-03-30T16:53:00.000-07:00

More about Mr. Lancaster.

The Nashville Files has published a little more on the background of Mr. Lancaster, specifically dealing with the motives behind the ATF & their informants:

"Someone (who I can't name) that works for the Federal government added an interesting perspective to this entire issue. He said that the BATF might be in the hot chair. The BATF spent lots of money going after Lancaster, and if they don't get a good sentence out of it, it will look bad on paper...
When Lancaster was arrested, there were approximately 15 law enforcement people of various capacities at his residence, and there was at least one and possibly two experts flown from D.C. It takes a lot of money to undertake a raid and investigation like this. In fact, the source listed above said it probably goes into the tens of thousands of dollars.""

This seems likely because it appears to be a pattern with the ATF. They spend X amount of time & money on an "investigation" & they feel obliged to produce "results" to justify their expenditure & provide arguments for increasing their expenditure. & considering they just asked for another budget increase I can see how important any & every conviction would be for them. Never mind that they don't bother to differentiate between the arrest of violent people & those with no prior criminal records who made some error relating to paperwork or mere possession as that wouldn't endear them to the hearts of congress now would it? Too bad Rep. Ron Paul isn't on the committee that Acting Director Domenech addressed his statement to. Course I can't let that pass: considering this report on the ATF's practices, I'd say they didn't just need an acting director, but acting lessons.

If you're interested in learning more about how the ATF does its thing to the people, look here.

& in answer to a complaint of mine Blake goes on to give some details of what & who started this mess:

"First off, this entire fiasco started because of a church budget. And you thought that your church had rought budget battles. Two associate pastors were going to be getting big raises (we're talking in the 20% range). A large group of members couldn't understand why and they wanted to get answers, and Lancaster took the side of the people wanting answers...
We know for certain the names of two of the Confidential Sources of Information listed in the affidavit for the search warrant. According to the affidavit, an annonymous caller tipped the BATF off (with confirmed lies about Lancaster being a Nazi sympathizer, manic depressive, dangerous, and having explosives). During the supression hearing, it was learned that an associate pastor at the church (James Mason...one of the ones getting a raise in the budget) made that call to the BATF and was also CSI2 in the affidavit (on a side note, Mason was later arrested for beating his wife...his wife has since fled while he is out free)...
CSI3 gave the most information, but he was essentially coerced into talking (because of the coersion, I will not give his name here). The BATF apparently threatened him with jail time if he didn't talk, and James Mason was also present during part of the questioning (CSI3 would have been considered a subordinate of Mason at that time)."

So because of a church budget battle members of that church ratted out Mr. Lancaster to the feds & he's looking at federal time????? Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus to the Romans & Chief Priests for his own profit. You'd have thought that members & especially leaders of a church would have remembered this story. Not that Mr. Lancaster was the equivilent of Jesus, but that Judas' crime would have been just as treacherous no matter the state of his victim: the betrayal of someone who has done you no harm in exchange for your own profit.

Now I grew up in Charlotte, NC back when tele-evangalism was getting popular. I couldn't tell you the number of times my living room was standing-room-only 'cause everyone wanted to watch Billy Graham together. Coming from the same area as Jim & Tammy Baker I know a little something about how vicious conflicts within the church can be. But turning a person over to the feds so you can get a 20% raise? Did James Mason ever bother to read any of the literature inside the church? I'm positive there had to be a New Testament lying around somewhere. & in that New testament the Gospels tell us repeatedly about how Jesus condemned the religious leaders as hypocrites. Ratting someone out who has never harmed anyone while you're slappin' your old lady around would qualify as hypocritical in most people's minds. There are also numerous condemnations of betraying someone in the Gospels, as well as throughout the rest of the Bible.

Turning someone in to the ATF is not drastically different than turning someone in to Tomas de Torquemada. Despite not having caused any harm to any person, they are persecuted with the might of a government & could suffer anything from loss of property to imprisonment to death. We look back on the Spanish Inquisition as a gross injustice that not only harmed innocents but contradicted the goals sought by the Inquisition (a conversion of all to Catholocism). One's only hope in either case was to admit to & repent of acts which you may not have been guilty of or caused no harm to others, or to turn in other people.

& to make it worse on a different level, James Mason & his companions in treachery turned in a good church going fella to the damn revenuers! I know that this events didn't take place in Appalachia, but wouldn't they be close enough to realize how lod down this sort of behavior is? But I guess if you can't expect Christian charity you can't be surpised at a lack of down home ethics.

I'm much obliged to The Nashville Files for posting this information. I can understand how someone would feel that someone who is coerced shouldn't bear the blunt of public disapproval for their actions. However I will point out that what this does is give a free pass to anyone who claims they did it to save their own skins. The ATF routinely theatens people into infroming on others with the promise of dropping some BS charge they claim they have on them. More gun owners inform for the ATF than non gun owners & because of this I'd be more inclined to hold them as accountable as those who inform for some other motive. don't get me wrong - the bastards at the ATF who use this strategy should all be forced to serve out the sentences of those they seek to charge, but unfortunately there's enough blame to go around.

& I'm still disappointed that a very large group of concerned citizens haven't demanded Mr. Lancaster's release & kicked the statist bastards that did this to him out of the state. At the very least I hope James Mason, Special Agent Patrick W. Hand & all others who advocated Mr. Lancaster being punished for violationg an unconstitutional law will be treated as persona non grata wherever they go.

2004-03-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

Angel Shamaya wrote an article about concealed carry that's been published in the Ft.-Wayne News-Sentinel. I understand they contacted Mr. Shamaya & asked him to write a piece for them to print after one of their own reporters admitted to having a concealed carry permit.

So I'll give them credit for trying to display both sides of the issue. Mr. Shamaya tells me that the article is completely unedited so again I must say I they've acted admirably in this instance. Other papers could learn from them.

Give it a read.

2004-03-29T01:39:00.000-07:00

NJ is following NYC's example.

"It is just a big mess,' Bogdan said. 'This is definitely out of the ordinary. He (Garcia) was in the wrong for shooting at him. The other guy was in the wrong for stealing the van and the other guy was in the wrong for having a gun."

That was from NJ Trooper David Bogdan regarding a situation where a man (Horn) stole a van that had another man (Garcia) sleeping in the back seat . Garcia was awakened when his friend (Jimenez) discovered the van missing as he came out of the truck stop & called Garcia on his cell phone. Garcia pulled a gun, made Horn pull over & kicked him out of the van. Then Garcia fired a shot in Horn's direction but didn't hit him. Meanwhile back at the rest stop Jimenez had called the cops to report a stolen van. So when Garcia arrived back at the rest stop the troopers searched the van & arrested Garcia & Jimenez as well as Horn. The charges?

"Horn was charged with carjacking, burglary and theft.
Garcia was charged with possession of a weapon, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, aggravated assault and possession of hollow-point bullets.
Jimenez was charged with possession of a weapon and possession of hollow-point bullets.
All three were being held Friday at the Warren County Jail."

I'll agree that barring some circumstances we do not know about from the article that Garcia shouldn't have fired at Horn & should be charged for it. But charging either of them for mere possession of a firearm or a certain kind of ammunition that the state troopers had in their guns is outrageous.

So I would add to Trooper Bogdan's quote above that he (Bogdan) was in the wrong for arresting anyone for mere possession of a weapon or ammo & his fellow troopers were in the wrong for not arresting Bogdan for flagrantly violating at least two people's Right to Arms.

The usual applies: if you see Trooper Bogdan or any other NJ law enforcement agent who you know would arrest someone for mere possession of arms or ammo then explain to him why he can't do business or interact socially with you until he changes his evil ways.

2004-03-28T16:09:00.000-07:00

Kevin of The Smallest Minority has a thoughtful post up regarding the 5th Circuit's decision on the 4th amendment from last week. In case you haven't heard the 5th Circuit decided that a warrant, consent or even probable cause aren't needed to conduct a cursory search of a person's home if done it under the guise of "officer safety". The majority opinion was 32 pages & there are a further 30 pages of dissent. 3 judges dissented & 1 dissented in part from the majority opinion; that's out of 16 judges who heard this case. 3 to 1 odds against protecting a constitutionally enumerated Right. Not heartening is it?

Kevin does a good job of discussing the case & its implications. Go read what he has to say.

2004-03-28T01:05:00.000-07:00

There's been some bad news from the courts this week.

For starters Mark Lancaster had a sentencing hearing on Friday (for some background on Mr. Lancaster's circumstances I refer you to this previous post). The blog Nashville Files provides an account of what happened at the hearing. Bottom line is Mr. Lancaster is facing 30 to 33 months in jail & that will be decided after a ten day wait so the respective attorneys can file arguments for or against a shorter sentence. All this because he didn't have the correct paperwork for the machineguns found in his home. Chief District Judge Robert L. Echols wouldn't allow Mr. Lancaster to change his plea from guilty to not guilty despite the recent 9th Circuit decision where they held that home made firearm were not subject to the NFA.

Another name y'all should remember is that of ATF Special Agent in Charge James Cavanaugh. He was the statist bastard who organized the raid & arrest of Mr. Lancaster. Ditto for BATF Agent Hand who, according to the Nashville Files account, was sitting with the ~~statist bastards~~ ~~persecutor~~ prosecutor during the trial.

What is not mentioned are the names of the "informants" who ratted Mr. Lancaster out to the ATF. All I can tell you is to be careful of whom you trust. The ATF has a long history of "recruiting" informants who are actively looking to save their own hides from a federal weapons charge.

No Quarters tells us that Francis Warin was sentenced to 33 months earlier this week. Mr. Warin is a U.S. citizen that emigrated from France & started challenging federal firearms laws in the 1970's. His latest conviction is for mailing & possessing NFA firearms w/o having the proper permission slips, as well as being a felon in possession of a firearm (his felony conviction came from earlier attempts to challenge the NFA). For more details on Mr. Warin's history please look at this previous post as well as this post from Say Uncle which links to his previous posts on Mr. Warin.

Of note is that Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Weldon thought it was a just sentence according to this article. U.S. District Judge David Katz sentenced Mr. Warin to much less than the maximum he could have, but he also fined Mr. Warin $2,500 & 2 years of supervised probation after he's released. ATF Agent Dennis Bennett testified against Mr. Warin according to this article.

Ravenwood tells us of a raid where the cops confiscated a person's firearms & involuntarily committed him to a mental institution for observation. When he was released (as his sanity wasn't questionable & he'd committed no crime) they refused to return his firearms because he had been involuntarily committed! This was the work of a special "firearms unit" set up to handle the tips from the D.C. Sniper incident in 2002. Yep, the bastards got so many tips they decided to keep the special unit that focused on firearms. Lt. Michael Mancuso and Sgt. Kenneth Berger are two of the thugs & are pictured in this article.

FreedomSight has a post up about the 10th circuit's collective right interpretation of the 2nd amendment as handed down earlier in the week. The case was U.S. v Parker. Paul M. Warner and Diana Hagen were the U.S. Attorneys who argued against an individual interpretation & Kelly, McWilliams and Briscoe were the presiding circuit judges. Judge Kelly dissented in part to their reasoning regarding the 2nd amendment but concurred with them in their decision. It was decided that no oral arguments were necessary & the case was decided purely on the briefs. Mr. Parker accidentally carried a pistol onto a military base & it was found under the seat of his truck. This was an offense under the Assimilative Crimes Act which allows federal prosecution for violating state firearms laws on federal property. It was a misdemeanor & he was fined around $100. He appealed on 2nd & 10th amendment grounds. While they agreed he had standing to bring a 2nd amendment claim they denied his having 10th amendment grounds to argue his case. they then explained why the 2nd amendment confers only a collective right to arms & repeated a 4 part test (originally used in U.S. v Haney) that must be met to have a successful 2nd amendment case. More or less it'd take a note from the governor to have a valid 2nd amendment Right according to those bastards.

I'll try to examine the court decisions more in depth in a later post.

What I do want to stress is this: gun owners don't have many friends apart from other gun owners. There are a few who are on our side on general principles but don't own guns themselves, but the majority of people you will see that believe in an individual having the Right to Arms are gun owners. & hell, even some gun owners aren't our friends. We do have a lot of enemies, both in ideology & fact.
So what I would recommend is if you know anyone who advocates civilian disarmament or who actively advances it (such as those people named above) then politely try to change their minds. Convince them that what they're doing or encouraging hurts not only themselves but everyone in our society. If you honestly attempt to sway them & they still persist in their encouragement of civilian disarmament then politely but firmly tell them that you've got no choice but to take it personally & as such you'll be disassociating yourself from them. Don't do business with them; don't go to social events with them; don't invite them to dinner, etc. Leave an invitation open to discuss their views on civilian disarmament but make it clear that that's it.

A little harsh you might think? No. After all if you're neighbor was actively lobbying for your taxes to be jacked up by 20% more than you're paying now & he was behind organizing special audit teams in the IRSS to check on people like you then you wouldn't think snubbing them socially or professional was too harsh at all, now would ya? If you're neighbor was advocating a Nazi-like "solution" to a minority group that you were a member of then ostracizing them wouldn't even be a question would it?

& I don't see why it should be any different for gun owners. Gun control proponents are in favor of disarming you; they wish to make it illegal for you to have the means to defend yourself & your family. I'd say that is pretty harsh - far harsher than making them find a new golf partner or buying their groceries from another store. & remember that this is a practical decision as well: if a law was passed banning a certain type of firearm & your anti-gun neighbor/co-worker knew you had one of those banned weapons it'd be more consistent for him to rat you out than someone who thought the law was unjust (well, except for those ATF "informants" who are usually given the choice between facing criminal charges or "informing" on someone else to be prosecuted in their place).

So try to convince people that civilian disarmament is a bad thing. But if they still persist then cut them out of your professional & personal life. It's sad that it might be necessary to do this but I'm afraid it is necessary.

2004-03-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

This week on Armed Females of America, I wrote an article called "Turning schools into victim disarmament zones." When I sat down to write, I tried to control my ever rising temper from boiling over and spilling onto my keyboard. But now that I think about it, more needs to be said...

...not just about school victim disarmament zones, but about stupid, worthless, gutless, clueless, tyrannical politicians who breed this atmosphere of paranoid hoplophobia in which we live. So here goes ...

The schools are just the beginning. Schools are a way to indoctrinate the population into the mindset of government dependence, destruction of freedom and mindless obedience from a very young age. Public schools are under the control of the politicians - both local, state and federal. Their funding depends on how well they parrot the political agenda of the moment and how loudly and wetly they kiss the derrieres of the politicians setting the political agenda. They are taught that armed guards in schools are there for their protection, but students themselves are not worthy enough, intelligent enough or responsible enough to also take a modicum of responsibility for their own safety. They are taught that firearms in the hands of the armed police are necessary tools, while firearms their parents may own must be locked away, because in the hands of the "civilians" they aren't. The children are pounded with propaganda about the absolute need to lock up your tool of self defense and encouraged to nag their parents into using government-provided locks (obtained by stealing money from the taxpayers, of course) to disable their firearms. They are taught that water guns, GI Joe guns, small knives to cut their fruit, laser pointers and even rubber bands can be used as weapons and must not be tolerated.

These same children, who are endlessly inundated with hoplophobic, paranoid, bigoted garbage about the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, citizen militias, guns and freedom, grow up to be paranoid, bigoted college students who spend their days growing their armpit and leg hair (for women) and facial hair (for men -- and even some women) as long as possible, washing as little as possible and spewing socialist propaganda disguised as "progressive," for the children, for a better world, common good policy for a brighter future and a sunny, green world filled with rare insects, tropical birds, killer cougars and a few unwashed humans.

Is it any wonder, then, that the bureaucrats and government flunkies of today are so indoctrinated into the disarmament mentality? After all, you cannot impose your version of utopia on an unsuspecting public without quelling insurrection, can you? You can't force an entire population to be dependent on the omnipresent, ever-benevolent state, without taking away their means of smacking down or destroying that state should it become tyrannical, can you? And you certainly can't expect the sheep to worship the state without removing the concepts of freedom, of personal responsibility and of individual rights from their minds.

I am convinced that this is the true purpose behind the increasingly absurd zero-tolerance policies of our public schools. This is why they expel gold twinkies from their rectums at the very thought of a kid wearing a shooting sports T-shirt to school. This is the real reason why they force the children and teachers alike to worship at the altar of victimhood, disarmament and government dependence. That's why they lock down schools at the mere thought of an armed intruder, locking every disarmed and helpless body inside with the potentially dangerous criminal and force the frightened, vulnerable students and teachers to wait for the armed police protectors to arrive, compelling them to depend on government guns for their very lives.

Because once they take away every last shred of dignity, personal responsibility and freedom, individuals who have the gall to shake off the tentacles of government control can be easily beaten down by the state without too much protest from the rest of the sheep.

Think about it -- aside from the gun rights community and freedom advocates, who raised an eyebrow when Ron Dixon was prosecuted by NYC for defending his family against a violent repeat offender who broke into his home without getting several-hundred dollar permission from the tyrannical panty wetters of New York? Who was outraged when Hale DeMar was harrassed by the foul, cowardly, statist cops in Wilmette, IL for daring to protect his family with a firearm, instead of cowering in his locked bedroom and waiting for the donut munchers to arrive? Who protested when Melvin Spaulding had to spend time in jail for using a firearm to protect his 63 year old friend from being kicked to death by a band of thugs? And who is raging now, as Edwin Marte, who had the nerve to stop an armed robber from robbing the Ramon Food Market in Queens without getting permission from the nanny state, is being prosecuted for using an "illegal" tool of self defense to protect life and property?

Are the people of America angry? Are they incensed? Are millions of Americans angry at this injustice? No. A few thousand dedicated gun owners and gun rights advocates are. The rest of the indoctrinated American sheep, go about their daily business, watch Friends, gorge on McDonald's burgers and delude themselves into thinking they are free.

Whew! I feel better now.

2004-03-25T20:57:00.000-07:00

In the comments to the post below I found the following from Linda Seebach:

"I am distressed when people I generally agree with behave in a disgraceful manner to advance our shared views.

Threatening the newspaper's staff members, most of whom have nothing to do with the decision, if it publishes something you do not approve of is beneath contempt.

As you probably know, the Rocky supported making Colorado a shall-issue state, so we have no animus toward guns. And as far as I know, no one here has ever contemplated putting the state's list of concealed-carry permit holders online. We have, however, opposed measures to make the permit list secret (in furtherance of the principle that government records should be open whenever possible). And we opposed a bill to end the sharing of permit data between counties (it lost).

You could threaten us with harm for some of our positions, and the anti-gun people could threaten us for the rest. In either case, the tactic would be thuggery. It discredits your views."

There are a few factual discrepancies that keep me from agreeing with her admonition.

For starters the idea that I or any other blogger threatened a newspaper's staff because they were going to publish something I or we didn't like is an oversimplified & inaccurate representation of what happened. I point this out because of the typical negative connotation of ?threat? which I don't believe applies: in the sense that a threat is a warning then it could be used accurately, but I think "ultimatum" better describes what was relayed than to say we "threatened" anyone.

If an ultimatum or threat was offered solely because a newspaper's intended content would offend, then I would agree that using any coercion beyond persuasive logic or consumer retaliation (a boycott) would be unacceptable in that circumstance. A punitive response (other than the boycott) wouldn't be generally acceptable if the issue was only a papers' intellectual content.

But the issue wasn't about publishing an opinion that I don't agree with; it was about publishing a list of names which in a pragmatic sense could be directly harmful to those whose names are published & in a principled sense would cause harm to the people's privacy. That differs greatly from an op-ed that calls for more gun control. One affects everyone who may or may not agree; the other affects a specific group of people who have no choice in the matter.

Put another way: I don't agree with wearing sandals with socks. I also don't agree with unprovoked violence against an elderly person. It would be unacceptable if I smacked down someone just because of a serious lack of judgment in footwear options, but justifiable if I smacked down someone who was beating up their grandmother. What the Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel was about to do was much closer to beating up their grandmother than it was to making a fashion faux pa. & since I don?t think it's "thuggery" to stop someone from beating up their grandmother I have to disagree with that characterization of my actions as well.
Now what was "threatened" would not cause any harm to the newspaper staff if their reasoning about publishing the list of permit holders was valid. After all, if publishing public records is no cause for concern then publishing legally obtainable info on the staff of a paper shouldn't cause a problem right?

But we all know this is not the case. What would be substantive is the loss of privacy suffered by both parties. Now to say that it's acceptable to compromise the privacy of gun owners because the law allows it is bullshit pure & simple. To go further & say that finding legally obtainable info on a newspapers staff is somehow different is also bullshit. There simply is no difference in publishing permit holder's info & publishing newspaper staff info. Neither was accused of any crime or claimed to be a threat to the public & the public can gain no useful insight in finding out how & who doesn't have permission to carry a concealed weapon.

Why would I have done it if the actions in general aren't cool? By publishing names they would have crossed the line from making flawed policy recommendations into causing substantive harm to gun owners. The only way to counter such a direct affront is in kind.
My goal was not to publish the info of the staff out of spite or vindictiveness, but to make the paper aware that if their actions were acceptable then I wouldn't have qualms about stooping to their level. In doing that I hoped the paper would see that if it's wrong for me to publish the info of their staff then it'd be at least equally wrong for them to publish the names of the permit holders.

There simply is no public interest whatsoever in publishing a list of people who have concealed carry permits. The only things such a list could be used for would be to discriminate against people with such a permit & to discourage the more privacy conscience people from applying for a permit. I can see no pragmatic argument which outweighs the privacy & safety concerns of permit holders. & in principle what they were advocating is making a list public of those who would exercise a distortion of a Right. I cannot fathom that a list of library card holders or church members would be seen as "newsworthy" by any paper in this country. Despite at least one reporter missing the point entirely, y'all wouldn't dream of publishing info that's perceived as being available through the Patriot Act, would ya? & despite the name & photo of Kobe Bryant's accuser being widely available on line & in the tabloids the Rocky wouldn't publish it would they? That's cause despite the info being available to the public it would serve no public interest to make that info available in a paper & could possibly cause harm to those whose info was published. So again I come back to an attempt to discourage & demonize permit holders as the only valid reasons for publishing such a list.

Luckily, everybody won: the permit holder's info was not published by the paper & I didn't feel i had to publish the info of their staff. They decided (quite correctly) that their actions would be inappropriate. Whatever the cause I'm glad for all concerned that no info was published.

Now about the Rocky Mountain News:

I'm usually much more severe with their sister publication* the Denver Post. That doesn't mean the Rocky is without fault - not by a longshot.
Now have you or anyone at the Rocky staff really examined the "shall Issue" law we have in Colorado? Have you ever studied the law it replaced? Or did an in depth look at proposals to replace both of them? I have & you're more than welcome to view my conclusions here. The short story is that the "shall issue" CCW is a step backwards from the "may issue" law it replaced. & both were inferior to a proposed but quickly tabled CCW law that was introduced around the same time. & All three are inferior to the Vermont/Alaska style law that was proposed but killed in committee a little over a month ago.

The NRA backed the "Shall Issue" law & opposed the others so to most people they assume that the "Shall Issue" law was a good idea. But as far as the interests of gun owners are concerned the NRA is falling short in a lot of areas. You're welcome to view my previous posts on the NRA here. In fact I'll go so far as to advice you or any other newspaper that if you want to make the NRA look bad in a story you're wasting your time with the anti-gun groups. You'd be far more effective talking to gun owners who are disgruntled with the NRA's tactics & strategy.

But all this is to say that equating support for Colorado's current "Shall Issue" law is not effective proof that the Rocky is not hostile towards guns or gun owners.

You go on further to state your opposition to making the list of permit holders "secret". Now here's the deal: I am not a fan of CCW permit laws. They compromise what should be considered a Right & place undue burdens on those who would simply want to protect themselves w/o having to run afoul of the cops. They're nothing more than prior restraint based laws designed to desensitize a populace as to their Rights. That being said I disagree wholeheartedly that a list of any gun owner who is not a violent habitual felon should be publicly accessible. It's making public a system of gun owner registration & were the objects of said registration exercising any other Right enumerated in the federal & state constitutions respectively then there'd be all kind of hell raised at the idea of it being part of a law.

Let's suppose a law was passed that required all newspaper staff to be licensed. Would you honestly say that this information should be a matter of public record? How about a license to belong to a religious organization? Again, would a public record of whose Muslim, Buddhist, Protestant, Catholic or Hindu be acceptable? Would there be any valid reason whatsoever for you to be able to look at a record & determine whether your neighbor works for a newspaper & what religion they practice considering the state ran a background check & determined them to be okay people?

& the law you refer to about sharing permit holder information is described inaccurately. I assume you were referring to Rep. Crane's HB1205. The bill would not have ended the "...sharing of permit data between counties...": rather it would have eliminated a statewide gun owner data base. Now in the "Shall Issue" law we now have a sheriff may at his/her discretion share info with another law enforcement agency for the purpose of confirming the validity of a permit. That wouldn't have been changed. What would have changed is that instead of 2007 as originally specified in the law, the date would be moved to 2004 to abolish a statewide database on permit holders.

Now why the hell would you oppose a bill that merely moves the abolishment of a statewide database up 3 years but still allows for confirmation that a permit is valid? Did you or anyone at the Rocky staff actually read the bill & attempt to understand what it means? The language is very plain & fairly simple. It's a two page bill that changes the law by invalidating one sentence in one paragraph & changing the year from 2007 to 2004 in another paragraph.

The only reason for opposition to said bill would be if you were also opposed to the statewide database of law abiding gun owners being done away with in 2007. So in 2006 are we going to argue the merits of gun owner registration all over again, or did the Rocky simply make a knee-jerk reaction to what it perceived to be a pro-gun law?

As I've said the Rocky is by comparison a decent paper as far as gun issues go, but it's by no means perfect & I'd spend more time on the Rocky's errors if the Denver Post weren't as bad as they are.

But I'll make you an offer (don't get all happy I make the offer to any & every paper that will listen) if you wish to discuss the situation with publishing the names of CCW holders, Colorado's gun laws or any & every other firearm related issue I'll be more than happy to accommodate you. I can meet you in person, call you, have you call me, or simply exchange e-mails. It can be on the record, off the record or anything in between. I'll be more than happy to publish anything that we discuss here unedited. This is open to you or anyone at the Rocky or any other newspaper so your anonymity can be preserved. & I'll even go so far as to grant you amnesty if your paper publishes CCW holder names & I respond in kind (well as long as you're not the one pushing for it). & to make the offer even sweeter I'll be more than happy to take you or any other newspaper employee to a range & teach you &/or them about safe firearms handling, marksmanship & perhaps most important to your line of work the actual differences between types of firearms.

& in case you're wondering what's in it for me, it ain't the publicity. The way I see it if I can make some headway into changing the attitudes of one reporter in a (& I'm being generous here) paper that's only moderately biased &/or ignorant about firearms then perhaps it'll cause factual articles to be published at least occasionally instead of the usual gun control organizations press releases being printed as news articles.

Update:

*Ms. Seebach has informed me that I am mistaken in the nature of the relationship between the Rocky Mountain News & the Denver Post:

"...the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post are not 'sister papers.' They are owned by different companies and fiercely competitive in the field of journalism. Only the non-journalism part, advertising, circulation, printing and the like are shared, but all that is outsourced to a third company, the Denver Newspaper Agency, which is in turn jointly owned by the companies that own the papers."

So I stand corrected.

Another thing that was brought up was that my attempts to differentiate between "ultimatum" & "threat" were unconvincing to Ms. Seebach. Hopefully this will make it clearer:

The word "threat" is usually perceived as an unprovoked & unjustifiable preemptive measure (i.e. "I'm gonna kick your ass"). The word "ultimatum" is generally perceived as a retaliatory warning dependent upon another's action (i.e. "if you don't drop the gun I'll shoot you"). I simply feel that because my actions were an attempt to respond in kind to what the paper in question was considering that the word "threat" was an inappropriate description in the context Ms. Seebach meant it. (The dictionary will point out that "threat" can be defined as merely "an indication of something impending" with no other implications, but from her later use of "thuggery" I assume Ms. Seebach was not referring to "threat" in that sense).

2004-03-25T04:16:00.000-07:00

An Indiana newspaper was thinking about publishing a list of CCW permit holders. For some background please see this previous post by Nicki & this previous post by me. The Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel decides to do the right thing.

"After listening to many of you and reading pages and pages of e-mails, as well as consulting experts in ethics and law enforcement, we've decided not to provide easier access to this public record on our Web site. The prospect of harm seems to outweigh the potential for public good. Those who want the information will have to request it from the State Police and pay $25 for it."

About 3,000 people contacted them & the vast majority of them opposed making the list public. What they didn't mention was that some bloggers contacted them & said if any CCW permit holders names are published then all the legally obtainable information of the newspapers staff will be posted on the net in blogs, message forums & any other venue that it can be posted in. I have no idea if that had any effect at all on their decision but I'd like to think so.

There were a few disturbing things mentioned in this paragraph towards the end of the article:

"While we reached this conclusion after much thought and discussion, anyone with programming skills could purchase the list from the state and provide searchable access to it online. So, while the debate over what The News-Sentinel does with the list is over, perhaps we've started a useful conversation about who should have easy access to this information. Twenty-one states allow the public at least some access to this data, and 23 close the records, while six states issue no permits, according to research by The Plain Dealer in Cleveland."

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is a paper in Ohio that threatened to do the same thing & bloggers responded appropriately. But that there's contact between the two papers is interesting.

But the first two sentences could be taken as a request from the newspaper for an anonymous individual to post the list on the net. Hell, I'm damn sure it is. If they feel that they shouldn't publish the list because the "...prospect of harm seems to outweigh the potential for public good..." then why are they suggesting that some other person or entity could post the list? It seems to me that they just want to avoid the responsibilty & consequences of publishing the list but they'd still like to see the list published.

They did list some of the more compelling pragmatic arguments for not publishing the list (while ignoring the principled ones) but then they turn around & mention that anyone with some basic computer knowledge could publish the list & perhaps the topic is still open for public discussion.

I'm glad (for a number of reasons) that they decided not to publish the list, but I am disappointed in their veiled plea for someone else to publish it for them.

2004-03-25T03:28:00.000-07:00

NYC is at it again. No, they weren't handing out tickets to people helping with traffic control in an emergency again.They didn't arrest another person & his 1 month old friggin' kitten again. They didn't scare anyone else literally to death in a no-knock raid again. They didn't even suspend a cop because he refused to obey an unlawful order again. They have done this kind of thing before, most notably in the Bronx to Mr. Dixon. This time the bastards in Queens are prosecuting a person solely because he had the means to defend himself.

"Devin Keitt, 26, allegedly tried to rob at gunpoint the Ramon Food Market on 107th Avenue in Ozone Park at 8 p.m., cops said.
But he was foiled by Edwin Marte, 35, who shot Keitt once in the head with an unlicensed gun, police sources said."

So a guy shoots someone that's robbing him at gunpoint. But instead of being lauded or at the least left alone guess what happens to the good citizen:

"Police sources said Marte is facing a weapons charge and Keitt is facing attempted robbery and weapons charges."

WTF??? The guy was defending himself but because he did it without having his papers in order he faces ~~persecution~~ prosecution. I'll grant that NYC isn't as bad as England yet but you have to remember England didn't just morph overnight into a place where exercising a basic human Right was verboten; they got there through incremental policies that eventually culminated into what it is today: a victim disarmament/criminal encouragement zone.

Now I'll grant that there could be more to the story than was reported, but unless the clerk was holding the guy's infant at gunpoint immediately prior to the robbery then I just don't see how it'll make this anything less than a sick & twisted version of what should have happened.

As I was searching for contact info I happened upon this page from the NYPD site. If you'll note at the bottom they have a banner ad offering a $1000 reward for anyone who rats out a person with an "illegal" handgun. The phrase "self-serving, elitist, statist bastards" comes to mind but more importantly it probably guarantees they'll be less than sympathetic. In fact, here's an interview Angel Shamaya had with a NYPD officer about this bounty on unlicensed self defense tools. Now to shed some more light on this I refer you to this page which is nothing more than an advertisement for the NYPD's rent-a-cop program! Those elitist bastards have a vested financial interest in making sure the populace is disarmed: $30 per hour for the cop plus an additional 10% of the total to NYC.

& on top of that, the NYPD gets the cash from the handgun licenses:

"$255.00 - Made payable to the New York City Police Department, must be paid by certified check or money order.
$99.00 - Made payable to the New York City Police Department, must be paid by certified check or money order."

Capone wished he had it so good.

In NYC you're forced by law to obtain a permit to have a handgun in your own home or place of business. The permit process is expensive, invasion & time consuming. I can't speak for most of New Yorkers but if I was paying damn near $8 a pack for smokes I sure as hell couldn't afford the $400 for a permit. & that's even if you find some way of justifying licensing a Right. This previous post on concealed carry permits explains some of the reasons why permits in general are violative of our Rights. Though it's focus is concealed carry I don't see much difference between the situation with NYC's handgun possession permits.

But if you won't believe me then perhaps you'll believe SCOTUS:

"A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the federal constitution... The power to impose a license tax on the exercise of these freedoms is indeed as potent as the power of censorship which this Court has repeatedly struck down... a person cannot be compelled 'to purchase, through a license fee or a license tax, the privilege freely granted by the constitution." MURDOCK V. PENNSYLVANIA 319 US 105 (1942)

What should happen is for the officers making the arrest & subsequent theft of Mr. Marte's property be arrested themselves for the violation of Mr. Marte's Right to Arms. And any DA who gave the word to press charges against anyone for exercising their Right to Arms without the required government permission slip should likewise be arrested along with any of their inferiors who carried out their orders. But at the very least Mr. Marte's property should be returned to him & all charges dropped immediately.

I encourage each & every one of you to take a few minutes & let the ~~statist bastards~~ government officials of NYC know that you, as a potential tourist, aren't making any plans to visit as long as they disrespect the Rights of U.S. citizens.

Now I'm not exactly sure how things work in NYC so if anyone has any advice on how to streamline the following list to be more effective feel free to let me know.

What I can give you is the following info:

Queens Police Dept contact page

Queens DA Richard Brown's contact page
E-mail: pbclark@queensda.org
(718) 286-6000

Mayor Bloomberg's contact page
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
City Hall
New York, NY 10007
PHONE 311 (or 212-NEW-YORK outside NYC)
FAX (212) 788-2460
E-MAIL:
http://nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html

NYPD Police Commissioner Kelly's site (Kelly is a Vietnam vet Col. USMCR)

I would assume that the mayor & the Queens DA would be the people who could potentially get things done, but I could be mistaken.

Call them & demand that A: Mr. Marte's weapon be returned (as I assume they've ~~stolen~~ confiscated it) & B: they drop all charges based on any weapons possession laws. Then tell them that you & your family (remember they'll probably think we're all ~~inbred~~ interrelated so let's use it to our advantage) will not set foot or spend any cash in NYC until flagrant infringements of a person's Right to Arms are stopped.

Update: I received the following from a fellow over at Brutal Hugs

"One person you might want to add to the list of people to contact is City Council Speaker Gifford Miller - he's planning on running for mayor. As for somebody that might actually
do something to help this guy, I'd suggest Helen Marshall, Queens Borough
President. Intervention in situations like these is pretty much the kind of thing she's in office for."

If anyone has contact info for these people lemme know & I'll post it here. & much thanks to the guys at Brutal Hugs for dropping the info to me.

Further Update:

Brutal Hugs is on the ball again. Here's the contact info they sent.

Helen Marshall is at 718-286-3000 Her website is
http://www.queensbp.org/

Miller's contact info:
District Office
336 East 73rd Street (Suite C)
New York, New York 10021
Tel: (212) 535-5554
Fax: (212) 535-6098

e-mail: miller@council.nyc.ny.us

City Hall Office
City Hall
New York, New York 10007
Tel: (212) 788-7210
Fax: (212) 788-7207

2004-03-25T01:21:00.000-07:00

Well I can finally say that I've heard "Ready on the right; ready on the left; all ready on the firing line" shouted over Camp Perry as the National Matches begin. Granted it was said something close to 60 years ago & I've never actually been to Camp Perry, Ohio but beggars can't be choosers.

From this post at No Quarters I found a site that has thousands of downloadable & streaming movies. (No - not those kind of movies!) The majority of them aren't feature films but if you dig a little you can find soem that are entertaining.

For example I stumbled across a movie that shows kids using guns.< sarcasm > Kids, I tell you! < /sarcasm > It features a boy named Jimmy & his sister Mary. I'd assume Mary is about 16 or 17 but Jimmy is at most 15. < sarcasm > It was made around 1946 by those evil gunmakers. Imagine, even way back then subjecting a porr innocent teen to the horrors of firearms! < / sarcasm >

In truth it was made by SAAMI & shows a boy whose father sends him to various shooting tournaments to gain instruction from some of the top shooters of the day & then the father takes the kid hunting. It's called Making of a Shooter. The journey includes (but is not limited to) the National Matches at Camp Perry, Ohio where his sister Mary is shooting in the rimfire class. ( sweet little innocent Mary - forced to hold & use one of those evil objects! have they no shame? < /sarcasm > The main focus of the film is gun safety but seeing the matches back then was what made it worth it to watch.

There's another one that looks interesting called Bird Dogs. I haven't watched it yet But I definitely will after I get done posting. I had some cousins back home who raised bird dogs & as a result have a weakness for watching bird dogs in action. To give you an idea how bad I am I have watched Biscuit Eater every time I've seen it was playing.

There's another oen I have yet to see called Man to Man. It was made by Remington Arms Company Inc. & Peters Cartridge Company in 1947 & is supposed to be about "Salesmanship and psychology instruction for gun dealers".

There's a section which has newsreel-type films of the Korean War & both World War 1 & World War 2 as well as actual newsreels.

There are also sections about the military, the atomic bomb tests, patriotism, political campaigns & elections, political science, & propaganda (mainly U.S. WW2 era films).

The ones that look most interesting to me are The Truth About Taxes which is described as "Republican party campaign film on behalf of Wendell Willkie for U.S. president in the 1940 elections"; Despotism, which measures where a society stands between democracy & despotism; The Powers of Congress in which "Mr. Williams drops off to sleep for a few minutes to find himself confronted with a world in which Congress has been suspended and federal authority dissolved"; & a Newsreel film that's listed as [Knife-Thrower and Children] where a Texas knife thrower gets his kids into the act - well sort of. The last one seems interesting just because it should give a massive coronary to any of those people who think anything less of complete nannyism is child endangerment. < sarcasm > Ya think ya know about child endangerment? well we got your child endangerment right here & it ain't got nothing to do with their "feelings" < /sarcasm >

But hit the main site & browse around if you want to see some rather interesting old flicks without turning off the PC.