Tag: gun control

1x, 11x, 1250x

The President of the Philippines demonstrates how small-scale, but intense action can lead to significant results.

Duterte’s centerpiece anticrime drive, focused on an ambitious campaign promise to end the widespread drugs problem in six months, has left more than 400 drug suspects dead, many of them either in firefights with police or under suspect circumstances. More than 4,400 have been arrested, police said.

The unprecedented killings have scared more than half a million drug users and dealers who gave themselves up to police, officials said. An overwhelmed Duterte has said he was considering to set aside some areas in military camps nationwide to build rehabilitation centers for those who surrender.

We’ve already seen significant self-deportations take place in the USA response to fairly modest crackdowns on illegal employment. While people have questioned how 60 million immigrants could ever be deported, it should be obvious that tens of millions would self-deport with alacrity were the federal government to announce it was targeting them for arrest and would no longer respect their human rights.

If we assume that arrests are equivalent to deportations, that means 500,000 deportations would probably suffice, although it is unclear if the deportations alone would provide the sufficient motivation. One tends to suspect the drug users and dealers were more impressed by the anti-drug death squads.

Don’t forget, this math works two ways. I tend to suspect that the anti-gun forces in the USA are counting on a similar equation.

Quintessential cuckservatism

Rod Dreher demonstrates the effete and useless nature of modern conservatism:

The Speaker of the House of Representatives was shouted down by Democratic Congressman as he attempted to regain control of the House of Representatives. Actual US Congressmen behaving like a bunch of giddy Oberlin undergraduates.

They had better not give in. Look, on gun control matters, I am generally — generally — more sympathetic to Democrats than to Republicans. But this mob insurrection on the House floor is profoundly unsettling. I have not looked closely at the legislation, so it is entirely possible that I might support the Democratic proposal. But to attempt to get one’s way by showing utter contempt for rules of the House? No. No, no, no. Their passion does not justify their behavior.

This country is in trouble.

You know he’s serious when he resorts to no less than FOUR (4) nos. This useless, limp-wristed excuse for a purported conservative “opinion leader”, this hapless, low-testosterone shadow of a man, is more concerned about fucking etiquette, than he is about the single most important right in the Bill of Rights.

“Dear God, they’re sitting on the floor! Heavens to Betsy, whatever shall we do?”

If you want to understand the key difference between the Alt Right and the Conservative movement, all you need to do is look at Rod Dreher. If he strikes you as a strong and principled Christian man standing up for what is right and true and important, then you are most definitely a Conservative.

If he strikes you as missing the point so badly that he would have done far better to put on a dress, smear some lipstick on his face, and record a video reading from Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette, you just might be Alt Right.

Why gun control will never happen

Scott Adams explains the political impossibility of gun control in the USA:

On average, Democrats (that’s my team*) use guns for shooting the innocent. We call that crime.

On average, Republicans use guns for sporting purposes and self-defense.

If you don’t believe me, you can check the statistics on the Internet that don’t exist. At least I couldn’t find any that looked credible.

But we do know that race and poverty are correlated. And we know that poverty and crime are correlated. And we know that race and political affiliation are correlated. Therefore, my team (Clinton) is more likely to use guns to shoot innocent people, whereas the other team (Trump) is more likely to use guns for sporting and defense.

That’s a gross generalization. Obviously. Your town might be totally different.

So it seems to me that gun control can’t be solved because Democrats are using guns to kill each other – and want it to stop – whereas Republicans are using guns to defend against Democrats. Psychologically, those are different risk profiles. And you can’t reconcile those interests, except on the margins. For example, both sides might agree that rocket launchers are a step too far. But Democrats are unlikely to talk Republicans out of gun ownership because it comes off as “Put down your gun so I can shoot you.”

It does indeed, and not only to Republicans. What gun control advocates don’t understand is that they are advocating a very violent civil war that will lead to the end of the Union. Millions of Americans all across the country will absolutely shoot anyone who attempts to disarm them, and moreover, are also willing to shoot anyone who advocated their disarming.

We all know that the government has its lists. Do you really think that gun owners don’t too? The only reason they’re not shooting gun control advocates now is because they don’t believe it to be necessary in order to keep their guns.

Do you really want to convince them otherwise?

Irony: Gun Control version

A journalist tries to write an article about how easy it is to buy guns, is denied due to criminal record:

I was looking forward to shooting my new rifle the next day. I’ve shot guns. It’s fun. I was worried though, about having fun with guns in the current environment of outrage and horror. Had I been co-opted by the purchase process? By the friendly staff at Maxon’s?

 At 5:13 Sarah from Maxon called. They were canceling my sale and refunding my money. No gun for you. I called back. Why? “I don’t have to tell you,” she said.

 A few hours later, Maxon sent the newspaper a lengthy statement, the key part being: “it was uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife.”

Well, didn’t see that coming.

The best part is how he tried, and failed, to set the Narrative.

Mr. Steinberg was very aggressive on the phone with Sarah, insisting he was going to write that we denied him because he is a journalist. “Journalist” is not a protected class, BTW. We contacted his editor and said that, while we don’t normally provide a reason for a denial, in this case to correct the record before you publish, here’s why; we pasted a couple links of press accounts of his past behavior and his admission of same. He’s free to believe or disbelieve that’s why he was denied, but that *is* why he was denied. There was no “We’ll see you in court!!!!” type of language from us – we simply want to set the record straight. That it undermined his thesis and rendered the column incoherent isn’t really our problem, is it?

Never talk to the media. Just do not do it. They are almost comically dishonest and they will go to any length in order to write the story they plan to write regardless of what the relevant facts happen to be.

And perhaps more to the point, they aren’t necessary anymore. The risk/reward ratio now tips heavily to the “why even bother” side. Furthermore, even just talking to them can be downright dangerous for the average citizen:

A Denver newspaper columnist is arrested for stalking a story subject. In Cincinnati, a television reporter is arrested on charges of child molestation. A North Carolina newspaper reporter is arrested for harassing a local woman. A drunken Chicago Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member is arrested for wife beating. A Baltimore newspaper editor is arrested for threatening neighbors with a shotgun. In Florida, one TV reporter is arrested for DUI, while another is charged with carrying a gun into a high school. A Philadelphia news anchorwoman goes on a violent drunken rampage, assaulting a police officer. In England, a newspaper columnist is arrested for killing her elderly aunt.

Unrelated incidents, or mounting evidence of that America’s newsrooms have become a breeding ground for murderous, drunk, gun-wielding child molesters? Answers are elusive, but the ever-increasing toll of violent crimes committed by journalists has led some experts to warn that without programs for intensive mental health care, the nation faces a potential bloodbath at the hands of psychopathic media vets.

Freedom trumps “free speech”

Eugene Volokh somehow manages to completely miss the salient point. This is why lawyers tend to be intrinsically flawed defenders of freedom; their training predisposes them to miss the forest for the trees:

Monday, a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit panel handed down a third opinion in Wollschlaeger v. Governor, the Florida “Docs vs. Glocks” case. Florida law limits doctors’ conversations with patients about guns. The first opinion in the case held that the law wasn’t really a speech restriction, because it just regulated the practice of medicine (a deeply unsound view, I think). The second opinion, issued after a petition for rehearing, changed course and held that the law was a speech restriction, but that — as a restriction on professional-client speech — it had to be judged under “intermediate scrutiny,” which it passed.

First of all, since the State regulates doctors and protects them from competition, they can do anything they want with regards to how they go about their business. Second, as the article shows, what is actually being prohibited is doctors being used as a line of attack against gun rights.

It bans doctors “from unnecessarily harassing a patient about firearm ownership during an examination.” This means, according to the panel majority, that a doctor “should not disparage firearm-owning patients, and should not persist in attempting to speak to the patient about firearm ownership when the subject is not relevant [based on the particularized circumstances of the patient’s case, such as the patient’s being suicidal] to medical care or safety.”

And whenever there is a conflict between gun rights and speech rights, gun rights much always come first, because gun rights defend speech rights far more effectively than speech rights defend gun rights.

But that is a philosophical point, not a legal one, which is why even a libertarian lawyer is likely going to miss it. Here is the crux of his error:

Now I think that the supposed imbalance of power between doctor and patient, like the supposed imbalance of power among students, is quite overstated.

That’s completely absurd. This attempt to turn the medical community into a white-coated Stasi should be shot down in any and every way necessary. 

Mailvox: the power of freedom

A reader writes about a recent life-changing experience:

Yesterday, me and my wife took the second step in buying a gun — attending a four-hour Basic Firearms Safety Course .  The first step is finding out whether your town’s police authority will give out gun licenses.  Since [State] is a “shall issue” state, forget about getting a licence in [Big City] or another large city, forget it unless you’re well-connected.  The instructor said that this de facto ban was illegal, but what are you going to do?

All 40 seats were full.  This facility hold this class every day.   The instructor said that ever since the Paris attacks, they haven’t been able to keep up with the demand and would hold a second class if they had the range time.  The demographics were quite telling.  There was a 50/50 gender mix with six other couples.  There was one 18 year old guy and only one other guy under forty.  The rest of us were middle-aged and middle-class.  And… we were all white.

I wasn’t alone in having trouble practicing loading/unloading the full-sized guns.  My hands weren’t big enough, and I ended up waving the barrel around too much while trying to release the magazine clip.  Oops.  And my index finger ended up sliding down from alongside the barrel into the the trigger guard.  Double oops.  And I pointed the revolver up in the air when unloading it.  Nope nope nope.  Beginners mistakes; easily identified and fixable with training.

On the range, I got a very good cluster.  The instructor was astonished that I’d never picked up a handgun before, and my last time firing a gun was a 22 for the Boy Scout merit badge.  

I really enjoyed firing.  I lined up the sights, felt an adrenal rush, stopped thinking, slowly squeezed, and watched bullets hit the target.  It was a shock when the gun went ‘click’ instead of ‘pop’.  So here’s my problem.  All my life, I’ve been told guns are evil and as a upper-middle class white guy, I shouldn’t use one.  But it was fun, dammit!

Next step is to get a licence.  And more classes, leading up the practical purchase of a pump-action shotgun with an 18-22″ barrel that both my wife and I can handle.

The American militia is awakening. I have no doubt it will be ready when the time comes. None at all. Will it be enough? Only time will tell.

And if you haven’t armed yourself and your family, what are you waiting for? You can’t possibly say that you haven’t been warned. Repeatedly.

Remember when they said “no one wants to take your guns?”

They lied, of course.

It’s Time to Ban Guns. Yes, All of Them.

Ban guns. All guns. Get rid of guns in homes, and on the streets, and, as much as possible, on police. Not just because of San Bernardino, or whichever mass shooting may pop up next, but also not not because of those. Don’t sort the population into those who might do something evil or foolish or self-destructive with a gun and those who surely will not. As if this could be known—as if it could be assessed without massively violating civil liberties and stigmatizing the mentally ill. Ban guns! Not just gun violence. Not just certain guns. Not just already-technically-illegal guns. All of them. 

I used to refer to my position on this issue as being in favor of gun control. Which is true, except that “gun control” at its most radical still tends to refer to bans on certain weapons and closing loopholes. The recent New York Times front-page editorial, as much as it infuriated some, was still too tentative. “Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership,” the paper argued, making the case for “reasonable regulation,” nothing more. Even the rare ban-guns arguments involve prefacing and hedging and disclaimers. “We shouldn’t ‘take them away’ from people who currently own them, necessarily,” writes Hollis Phelps in Salon. Oh, but we should.

I say this not to win some sort of ideological purity contest, but because banning guns urgently needs to become a rhetorical and conceptual possibility. The national conversation needs to shift from one extreme—an acceptance, ranging from complacent to enthusiastic, of an individual right to own guns—to another, which requires people who are not politicians to speak their minds. And this will only happen if the Americans who are quietly convinced that guns are terrible speak out.

Every vocal would-be gun banner needs to understand that this is what they are trying to make “a rhetorical and conceptual possibility”. Their endorsement of disarming the people is every bit as evil and horrifically unacceptable in a civilized Western society as endorsing cannibalism, pedophilia, or necrophilia.

You can email your thoughts on Phoebe Maltz Bovy’s call for disarming you to her here: maltzp@gmail.com.

No, there will be no debate

Ken White of Popehat suggests how a reasonable discussion about guns could begin:

We yell, we signal to the like-minded, we circle our wagons, we take shots at opponents. But we don’t change minds. Take a look at the discussion of guns on your Facebook feed right now. Do you think it’s going to build a majority on any issue?

Say we wanted to have a productive conversation. Imagine we wanted to identify our irreducible philosophical and practical differences, seek any areas of agreement, persuade anyone on the fence, and change some minds. What might we do….

If you’d like to persuade people to accept some sort of restrictions on
guns, consider educating yourself so you understand the terminology
that you’re using. And if you’re reacting to someone suggesting gun
restrictions, and they seem to suggest something nonsensical, consider a
polite question of clarification about terminology.

No. We don’t want a discussion. We aren’t discussing anything. There is nothing to discuss. There will be no debate. There is absolutely nothing you can say to move us one iota. We have very clearly communicated the same message over and over again: No. Under no circumstances.

Come for them and we’ll come for you.

No more free Wacos.

Molon labe.

Government isn’t fixing this either

The New York Daily News has announced that God is not going to fix the problem of Muslims murdering people in California:

GOP presidential candidates offer prayers — not solutions on gun control — after San Bernardino massacre

Prayers aren’t working.

White House hopefuls on the Democratic side of the aisle called for stricter gun laws in the wake of the shooting in San Bernardino that left at least 14 dead.

But after yet another mass shooting in America, GOP presidential contenders were conspicuously silent on the issue of gun control.

Instead, the Republicans were preaching about prayer.

“Our prayers are with the victims, their families, and the first responders in San Bernardino who willingly go into harm’s way to save others,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tweeted.

It was remarkably similar to the response from Cruz following the shooting at a Planned Parenthood office in Colorado Springs last week.

“Praying for the loved ones of those killed, those injured & first responders who bravely got the situation under control in Colorado Springs,” Cruz tweeted at the time.

Democrats — even those not running for office — slammed the GOP presidential candidates for offering prayers instead of action.

“Your ‘thoughts’ should be about steps to take to stop this carnage,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn) posted on Twitter. “Your ‘prayers’ should be for forgiveness if you do nothing — again.”

Now, let’s get this perfectly straight, would-be gun-banners. There is a much better chance, it is far more likely, that God will answer people’s prayers, descend from on high, and forever put an end to all gun violence tomorrow morning before breakfast than tens of millions of armed Americans will EVER permit you, or the federal government, or anyone else, to disarm them.

Give it up. It isn’t happening. Not now. Not ever. Deal with it. We don’t care how many dead bureaucrats or how many corpses of kindergarten kids you want to run up your bloody flag and wave. WE. DON’T. CARE. We aren’t falling for the sob stories again. Not now. Not ever.

Molon labe, motherfuckers. Molon labe.

Mailvox: Attack near Marine recruiting center

RJ emails: “Attack at a Marine recruiting station. Near me. Still ongoing. Knew this was coming. Didn’t think it would be here.”

BETTENDORF, Iowa (KWQC) – Police are responding to calls of a
possible shooter in the 4500 block of Utica Ridge in Bettendorf. It
appears to have started near the Marine recruiting office located at 710
E. Kimberly Rd. in Davenport around 2 p.m. Monday, Oct. 26, 2015.

A witness tells TV-6 that he was in the Marine recruiting center when
he heard shots fired at a nearby law office. He says he heard screaming
and then heard the gunman try to reload his gun. A Marine recruiter
told everyone to run. As the witness was running, he said he heard more
gunfire. Kimberly Rd. was closed, but has since reopened to traffic.

It’s going to be everywhere because the invaders are everywhere. Gun up. Carry. Be prepared.

UPDATE: False alarm, looks domestic in nature.

“Davenport police told local reporters there were no injuries from the
shooting, and the gunman shot himself on Utica Ridge Road, about three
miles away.”