IANSA Back For Another Bite

(h/t: K-Romulus @ THR)

As we all know, IANSA struck out at the big UN disarmament conference earlier this summer, but, I guess it's only natural that they'd take another shot, so to speak, at our natural rights (and how ironic it is that as I type this, I am hearing a commercial for Jim Pruett's Guns & Ammo and the concealed-carry class he offers, maybe that's a sign)...

Examining the use of guns by civilians and armed groups, the UN Special Rapporteur concludes that there is no 'right' to self-defence under international human rights law. When someone uses a gun in self-defence, they can only use the principle of self-defence to establish that they have not committed a crime (eg their life was in danger). Even if there were a 'right' to self-defence, this does not affect governments' responsibility to prevent guns being misused.

Recommendations include licensing of private gun possession to prevent guns being used to violate human rights. In particular, the Special Rapporteur concludes that governments have a duty to protect the groups most vulnerable from gun violence, including victims of domestic violence.

In order to ensure the protection of human rights by preventing small arms violence by private actors, Governments shall enact licensing requirements to prevent possession of arms by persons who are at risk of misusing them....

Governments shall ensure that proper controls are exercised over the manufacturing of small arms through incorporation into national law and by other measures.

From the executive summary of the Sub-Committee report...

The principle of self-defence has an important place in international human rights law, but does not provide an independent, supervening right to small arms possession, nor does it ameliorate the duty of States to use due diligence in regulating civilian possession. Rather, as this report shows, there are wide areas where States should, can, and do regulate possession of firearms consistent with principles of self-defence. Self-defence is a widely recognized, yet legally proscribed, exception to the universal duty to respect the life of others. It is the basis for exemption from criminal responsibility that can be raised by any State agent or non-State actor. International law does not support an international legal obligation requiring
States to permit access to a gun for self-defence. The principle of self-defence does not negate the due diligence responsibility of States to keep weapons out of the hands of those most likely to misuse them. The State has particularly acute obligations to protect vulnerable groups, including victims of domestic violence, from abuses with small arms.

Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations applies to States acting in self-defence against armed attacks against their State sovereignty. It does not apply to situations of self-defence for individual persons.

So, if you'll pardon my french, it looks like they're taking the bullshit to a new level -- now they say we have no right of self-defense, they're back with the same statist solution of gun licenses, and ever more government regulation of the gun industry. Never mind that whole "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," the natural right of self-defense bestowed on us by our very existence, the free market or anything like that. And, of course, the rights of the all-powerful State take precedence over the rights of the individual, never mind various States' horrendous record vis-a-vis disarmed citizenry over just the 20th century alone. Just like the domestic disarmament lobbies (Bradys, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, VPC, etc.), these people have their own reality that bears no resemblance to the one the rest of us live in, and, like the domestic disarmament lobbies, these people are also going to have to be stopped. My NRA membership is up for renewal. I might just have to kick in a few extra bucks...it would be money well-spent.

We're The Only Ones Who Respect Guns Enough

From today's Dear Abby:

My husband is a great husband and father to our three children, ages 17, 10 and 4. The problem is, he leaves his loaded 9mm gun lying around our house. Last week, I found it on the kitchen table. Now here's the kicker: He's a police officer.

He leaves it in the holster, which is tricky to remove the gun from. He insists, "It can't be fired while it's in the holster."

What's that the formerly undercover DEA agent said in that video? He was "the only one...professional enough" to handle that gun. And, well, we all know how that turned out. Looks like what we have here is another of those Only One displays. It's been said that unloaded guns have killed or injured (to some degree) as many people -- or almost as many -- as loaded guns. I would venture to say the same is true for guns that, as this police officer might say, "can't be fired." Only ones professional enough, indeed...I hope for his sake and the sake of everyone he crosses paths with, that this guy wises up before somebody gets hurt, or worse.

Bloomberg Shooting Blanks in War on Gun Sellers

As many of us know, Michael Bloomberg, the *ahem* Republican mayor of New York City, has been on a crusade of sorts against gun sellers in other states, running roughshod over other agencies and even going so far as to jepoardize those other agencies' investigations. And now, via The Gun Blogs, we have this:

Private investigators wore hidden cameras and attempted "straw purchases," where one person fills out the legal forms and makes the purchase for someone else. The scam, prohibited by federal law, is typically used by people who cannot own firearms, such as convicted felons.

The city said the undercover investigators entered stores in teams of two, usually a man and a woman. While the woman roamed the store and acted disinterested, the man made all the inquiries about the gun and made it clear he was the buyer. When it came time to make the purchase, the woman would step up to fill out the paperwork.

The majority of dealers refused the sale, Bloomberg said. In a video from one such attempt, the man behind the counter shrugged his shoulders, apologized and said it would be against the law for him to sell to the woman because she was clearly not the intended user.

The majority of dealers refused the sale. So what does that mean? Well, as a commenter said, "the majority of dealers with a high incidence of gun traces refused the straw sales and appear to be innocent of wrongdoing."
Indeed, even the ATF has said that gun trace data is unreliable when determining if FFLs have sold to prohibited persons (emphasis mine -- ed.): "The appearance of [a licensed dealer] or a first unlicensed purchaser of record in association with a crime gun or in association with multiple crime guns in no way suggests that either the federal firearms licensed dealer (FFL) or the first purchaser has committed criminal acts. Rather, such information may provide a starting point for further and more detailed investigation." (Crime Gun Trace Analysis Reports, ATF, 1998) So it would seem, not that it's any big surprise, that Bloomberg is grasping at yet another straw in his war against the gun industry.

Once Again, I'm Not the Only One! Or, How To Not Win Friends And Influence People Negatively

Not that this was news, but it seems I am not the only gun nut who's not satisfied with the candidates the GOP elites are pushing for President in '08...

Josh Sugarmann is part of the Huffington Post stable of leftist political commentators. He has written virulently against gun ownership, the right to personal defense, and like most lefties, he only supports those parts of the Bill of Rights he agrees with and you'll be shocked to hear that the 2nd Amendment isn't one of those parts. None-the-less, even a stopped clock is right twice a day and he pretty well sums up John McCain's "Gun Problem" for voters like me...

...The gun lobby and its rank and file view the campaign finance law as an outrageous infringement on their free speech rights while the effort to regulate gun show sales is viewed as a direct attack on the Second Amendment and liberty itself....

John McCain's views on the 2nd Amendment are poison to me. I will not vote for him. Same goes for Rudy Giuliani. Same goes for Hillary Clinton. I hold no allegiance to any political party. I will vote for whomever has worked the hardest -- proven by their history of voting -- to preserve the 2nd Amendment, as well as all the others.

Say what you will, but that pretty much speaks for itself, and I have absolutely no doubt Jeff is speaking for many gun owners in this country. Many in the Pachyderm Party steadfastly proclaim that the Republicans are the party that most consistently supports and defends the natural right to arms, but politicians like Giuliani and McCain (and they're certainly not the only ones) seriously undermine that contention to the extent that it's true in the first place. And as the clock ticks on, I grow ever more weary of those who proclaim to be on our side yet basically tell us gun owners to "just sit down, shut up and vote for who we tell you that you should vote for." I know good and well that there's a war on right now. I know that if we don't win it, nothing else will matter, and I yield to no one in my belief in the grave existential threat posed by Islamic extremism. But the fact is that every one of the issues that we had to deal with before 9-11 -- immigration, spending, the national debt, taxes, the Ponzi scheme known as Social Security, gun laws, etc. -- did not cease to be important when the Twin Towers fell. What I am about to say shouldn't really be news to the self-appointed, self-important elite -- then again, no one ever actually accused them of being all that intelligent, as far as I know -- but basically telling 60 million voting-age people that their concerns don't matter, especially on an issue so central to American culture and who we are as a people, an issue which sparked the war that brought our nation into existence, isn't going to win them any friends, and, what's more, it for damn sure isn't going to win their preferred candidate any votes. I would almost go so far as to say it's tantamount to political suicide. It's bad enough when you're told that your concerns don't matter when it comes to comparatively petty things like relationships. (Trust me, I know that all too well.) It's absolutely infuriating when you're told that when it comes to bedrock convictions and principles like the natural right to self-defense.
I suppose some might think I am beating a dead horse here, but it's always best to go on the offensive and get all the facts out there when the hour is early and we still have choices. And no matter how limited those choices may realistically be as far as pro-gun candidates go, there has to be better than McCain or Giuliani...and that point will be nailed often here and elsewhere between now and 2008.
Of course, looking at the roster of contributors at the Huffing glue Huffington Post, it's very, very easy to see why Republican Party apparatchiks can get away with pushing RINOs like McCain and Giuliani upon us (and bring out the Hillary boogeyman every time people like me bring up some kind of dissent) -- Alec Baldwin, Walter Cronkite, Teddy Kennedy, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, Ned Lamont...if ever there was a better snapshot of what's wrong with modern-day American liberalism, I have yet to figure out what it could be. With people like that having a stranglehold on the Democratic Party, the Republicans could get away with running just about anyone to the right of Stalin! A good portion of the commenters there, though, at least to the Sugarmann posts, actually have figured out that gun control is the albatross around the Democrats' neck in Middle America, and if they'd run a candidate who understood this and who was actually friendly to the idea of gun ownership, we'd all be a lot better off, I think, mainly because the GOP wouldn't be able to get away with running milquetoast yellow-stripers like what they're running now. Judas, but politics sucks these days...

The Clintons and Guns: A New Look at Some Old Perfidy

Via Jim over at Smoke on the Water comes this from Judicial Watch:

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that fights government corruption, announced today that it has uncovered new documents from the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas which shed light on the Clintons’ plan to attack the gun industry.

Read the documents for yourself here. All the familiar avenues for leftist attacks on gun liberties can be found here, including:

Gun licenses. "Individuals seeking to buy a handgun would be required to obtain a photo license from their state of residence, and to present the license when they purchase a handgun. States would issue a license only if the applicant has (1) passed a Brady background check; and (2) shown proof of having completed a certified safety course or exam....Licenses will require a $44 application fee and a $26 renewal fee, and fees are based on the cost to the Treasury Department for processing applications." Of course, we all know what kinds of harassment potential gun owners have to deal with in places like New York, Massachusetts and Illinois, all states that mandate some kind of ID cards for firearm owners. I don't remember right off the top of my head which state it is, but if memory serves me right, one state actually requires that you submit letters of reference for a firearm license and requires spousal approval -- and we all know what could ensue if some poor lady's estranged husband is approached in regards to her attempts to obtain a license/purchase permit...

"Smart gun" technology. "President Clinton will also call on Congress to support research on 'smart gun' technology that can limit a gun's use to its authorized owner." Of course, we all know that even modern technology isn't foolproof even in the best of circumstances, and just like everything else is subject to Murphy's Law. But it's "for the chillldren," you see...

Lawsuits against gun manufacturers. "The first set of claims involves the application of product liability law to the gun industry. One such claim -- design defect -- asks the court to weigh utility of guns against the dangers inherent in those products....Another possible claim is that the use of guns constitutes an ultrahazardous activity." In other words, "guns are a social liability because they're dangerous and they could kill." You'll see a handwritten note at the top of Page 9: "Why not sue a gang?" We all know why, of course: because gangs don't have the financial assets the gunmakers do, even if those financial assets aren't worth nearly as much as the gun-haters would have us think they are.


Once again, Read The Whole Thing. You'll see much hay made of how many people are killed or injured with firearms every year, and the same old tripe about negligent marketing and distribution (even mewling about higher calibers and increased muzzle velocity and range!), but virtually nothing about personal responsibility, corruption of culture or abandonment of values -- in other words, trainloads of the trademark Clintonian horseshit. Once again, The Layabout Sailor:

We must not let the Hildebeest bring such evil intent back to the helm of the Oval Office! Now, the Hildebeest has been "playing to the center" as were, in regards to one of the Holy Grails of the democrat party; Gun Control. Yet she, and every other presidential contender from the left has a deep-seated elitist streak in them. And disarming America is at the core of their cause.

It always has, and it always shall be.

If you've ever given a moment's credence to the Hildebeest and her kabuki theater of "centrism", keep this in mind the next time the MSN gushes forth with their next gallon of leftist kool-aid. And then do everything you can, with all your might to keep her wretched hands as far from the reins of power as is humanly possible.

This of course applies to the entire democrat party, but especially to the Hildebeest. She's not just the most dangerous woman in America, she is indeed the most dangerous person on the left, and she must not ever weild presidential power.

Not if you cherish your rights as an American.

I know well that things aren't as well as they could be...but it used to be a hell of a lot worse, and could be again, if the Democrats are handed the reins of power again in November, and 2008.
We need to do everything in our power to see to it that does not happen.

Of course, this would also mean making for damned sure that the likes of Rudolph Giuliani doesn't get anywhere the nomination for the GOP in 2008, as he, like the Clintons, is no friend of the gun industry or of gun owners. Giuliani also filed suit against the gunmakers while he was at NYC's helm, and, of course, he also supports the whole licensing setup. I could well be wrong, but I think it's safe to say that with Rudolph Giuliani in the White House and a Democratic Congress, the state of gun rights in this country would go back to being just as bad as it was under the Clintons. I don't know if the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act would be rolled back, but I have no doubt that under either Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani and a Democratic Congress, they'd do their damnedest to roll it back or get around it. Time will see where the road leads us, but it's certainly no time to sit back and relax...

Talking Around the Threat

It seems we have yet another head-in-the sand column regarding the radical Islam and the threat it poses to the United States, from one Juliette Kayyam, a lecturer from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Last week, soon after authorities in London announced the arrests of a group of people allegedly plotting to bomb a number of airliners, commentators and experts were marveling at how the British disrupted the attack and asking whether we needed to be more like them, with their less restrictive surveillance laws, a domestic intelligence agency, almost no rules against watching and tracking Muslims in mosques or community centers, and no First Amendment. But those would be the very lessons we ought not learn from this week's events.
First, Britain has been the target of three serious homegrown attacks, either successful or attempted, since Sept. 11, 2001 — and all since the Iraq war began. The suspects are all from immigrant families, all young men who appear to have felt no allegiance to their nation or the freedoms they enjoyed. Their alienation was so complete that they sought to kill their own countrymen.
Second, the disruption last week of the bomb plot occurred because of very good human intelligence: a person's infiltrating the terrorist cell, convincing the plotters that he was part of their plan and then turning on them when they started to get serious....
Immigrant groups feel themselves part of America, and our success is that we have made them feel that they have a role in the nation's destiny. Tougher surveillance, profiling or efforts that risk alienation might give us a sense that we are doing something, but the long-term legacy of such efforts could well prove self-destructive.

Where to start, where to start...
How do we know how many immigrants are here who have the same mindset of the ones accused in the British plot? I think it's quite dangerous to assume that just because no plots have been uncovered here in the United States means they're not here. Also, this threat does not come only from alienation, and it's a textbook example of ostrich-type behavior to chalk such a desire to kill, to that. We all should know by now why the Muslim fundamentalists want to kill us -- it's not because of alienation, or our freedoms, or any of that. They want to kill us, quite simply, because we don't worship their god, or follow the teachings of said god's prophet, and, well, there ain't much peace upon ole Muhammad these days. Chalking the radical Muslims' grievances up to something like alienation seems to me to be little more than a product of the same mindset that chalks up the actions of killers, child molestors and rapists to their bad childhood. And it's just as dangerous, if not more so.
As far as immigrants to the United States feeeling like they're part of America, well, all we have to do to answer this bit of sophistry is point to the spring protests of the Hispanics as the illegal immigration issue came to the forefront. Those weren't American flags the protestors were waving. "Si se puede" is not an English phrase. Does the term "balkanization" ring a bell here? We may not be experiencing it to the extent our neighbors across the pond are, but if those in charge don't wake up and call this muiti-culti touchy-feely tripe out for exactly what it is, then we are in for some dark days. You owe it to yourself to read the entire Brussels Journal article, but following are some excerpts:

...In many countries across Western Europe, Muslim immigrants tend to settle in major cities, with the native population retreating to minor cities or into the countryside. Previously, Europeans or non-Europeans could travel between countries and visit new cities, each with its own, distinctive character and peculiarities. Soon, you will travel from London to Paris, Amsterdam or Stockholm and find that you have left one city dominated by burkas and sharia to find… yet another city dominated by burkas and sharia.
For some reason, this eradication of unique, urban cultures is to be celebrated as "cultural diversity."...
"Asian youths," a British euphemism for Pakistanis and Muslims from South Asia, in parts of Oldham are trying to create no-go areas for white people. One of them told: "There are signs all around saying whites enter at your risk. It's a matter of revenge." However, it’s not just the white natives that are targets of Muslim violence, but other non-Muslims, too. A report on Hindus being driven out of the English city of Bradford by young Muslims was described by some Hindus as "ethnic cleansing." Some of them want to leave the city to escape the "Talibanization of Bradford."
...In France, Muslims already have many smaller states within the state. Criminologist Lucienne Bui Trong wrote that: "From 106 hot points in 1991, we went to 818 sensitive areas in 1999." The term she used, "sensitive areas," was used to describe Muslim no-go zones where anything representing a Western institution (post office truck, firemen, even mail order delivery firms) was routinely ambushed with Molotov cocktails. The number was 818 in 2002, when the French government decided to stop collecting the statistics.
In some of these areas, the phenomenon of gang rape "has become banal." Violence against and pressure on women is part of daily life in the suburbs, where boys can dictate how girls should dress. Pressure is mounting for Muslim women to wear veils. In 2002, a 17-year-old girl was set alight by an 18-year-old boy as his friends stood by. The support group "Ni Putes, Ni Soumises" ("Neither Whores nor Submissives") says the number of forced marriages has risen in recent years, with roughly 70,000 girls pressured into unwanted relationships each year in France. A leaked study conducted between October 2003 and May 2004 under the auspices of France’s inspector-general of education, Jean Pierre Obin, described an educational system where Muslim students regularly boycotted classes that concerned Voltaire, Rousseau and Moliere, whom the students accused of being anti-Islamic. Orbin’s report cited Muslim students’ refusal to use the "plus" sign in mathematics because it looks like a crucifix; Muslims boycotting class trips to churches, cathedrals and monasteries; and forcing wholesale changes in school lunch fare to accommodate their religious practices.

Are we going to be so naive as to think we're going to be immune to the problems the Europeans are facing with the Muslims in their midst? I would surely hope not, especially given the separatist attitudes of a good portion of Hispanics in this country. Some of the comments to the article were spot-on, though (emphasis mine -- ed.):

I am quite sure many of you are tired of American solutions, but seriously, people in Europe need to protect themselves. A few dead punks would put a quick end to some of this thuggery where these animals pick on lone women and men....

I think we'd see a drop in the level of Islamo-fascist thuggery if some of their intended female victims were armed and trained, and started dropping a few of these twits.
This is what actually keeps the number of home invasions down in the US. Would-be raiders don't know when they would be confronted with superior firepower so it remains a marginal crime.
It might be interesting for France or Denmark to try legalizing concealed-carry permits...

Now, I am not so bold as to state with absolute certainty that the relative tranquility of the United States has everything to do with our attitude toward arming the general population, but I will say it would be foolish to discount it. As far as the opinion piece first quoted, taken with the second and looked at in the context of what's going on in our own country with the Hispanics, I will also say that we would be absolute fools not to keep better tabs on American Muslims. Just because the bombs (figuratively speaking) haven't gone off yet doesn't mean some jihad-bent malcontent doesn't have his finger on the detonator.

Misplaced Priorities

More thoughts at end of post, scroll down...
So, as everyone and their brothers, sisters and cousins knows by now, a suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey killing has been detained in Thailand. Good news, indeed, I will say that a little piece of me hopes he gets his just desserts in prison for what he did to that innocent little girl, notwithstanding the fact that such a punishment would be meted out in such an extra-judicial fashion (if indeed he did what he says he did -- ed.). And of course, it was front-page, above-the-fold news. I was in the lounge at my work yesterday, though, and this was all that several people were talking about, and the discussion was getting pretty deep; they discussed their *ahem* theories as to who did it, and why, and all that good stuff, and I just had to wonder to myself, why in the hell are these people seemingly so fixated on something that has so little import on their own lives? The people who are supposedly our representatives in Washington are spending our money like drunken sailors on leave, the rest of the world under the auspices of the United Nations wants to take our guns away, Islamic fundamentalists are bent on killing us all or converting us to their religion, and yet what do so many of us get so animated about? The cold case of a murdered little girl. One would think the way the media covered the JonBenet Ramsey case for the last ten years that she was the only one. But, apparently, that's what the people want to hear about. To paraphrase a comment I saw on The High Road last night, Americans, if they were not more interested in who killed JonBenet Ramsey than who's killing America, would demand better from the media. No doubt in some cases they do, but we can see how much good that's done with today's headlines. Sometimes I just have to shake my head...

UPDATE: Perhaps some good did come from the media coverage of the arrest of the suspect in the Ramsey killing, at least locally...the Beaumont Enterprise ran a front-page story on Orange toddler Dannarriah Finley, who will forever be the tender age of four years old. Those of you not from this area might not know what happened to little Dannarriah just over four years ago, so here's an excerpt from the Enterprise story...

Dannarriah's mother told police the last time she saw her daughter was about 4 a.m. on July 4. When Arnold awoke six hours later, her other children were playing but Dannarriah was missing. She looked for the 4-year-old for two hours before calling police.
As many as 200 people joined the search for Dannarriah.
Four days later, a government inspector found Dannarriah's body on a dirt path about 30 feet from a pipeline on Pleasure Island. Her body was so decomposed searchers didn't immediately recognize the remains as those of the child, according to The Enterprise archives. She eventually was identified using DNA, The Enterprise said.
Police investigators say that under the cover of night, someone familiar with Dannarriah's Fourth Street neighborhood entered her home. The killer sexually assaulted Dannarriah, and when it was over, wrapped her in a floral bed sheet and later dumped her 40-pound body 30 miles from home.
Richard Whitmire, an engineer, was among the first to find Dannarriah's body. He said it looked like whoever dumped her thought dredging crews would finish covering her with clay-like deposits.

Why no front-page story on her? Why so many column-inches burned up from coast to coast on JonBenet Ramsey but not on Dannarriah Finley? I have no answers, only questions. I know that if the media took every story like this and ran with it, there'd be little room for everything else; still, though, I heard no talk of little Dannarriah when I was in the lounge at work today, and this atrocity happened right in our own backyard. I can't explain why this just grates on me so, but it does. Maybe those idiotic big-city newspaper columnists who whine incessantly about "gun violence" and constantly attack gun owners and our culture will say this imbalance of coverage, effectively saying one child's life is worth more than so many others, is the province of other media columnists, but they should be asking their readers about it anyway, because once again, JonBenet Ramsey isn't worth any more column-inches than any other innocent toddler whose life was so brutally snuffed out.

The Price Is Wrong, Yet Again; or, Beware The Righteous Fury Of The Betrayed

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Via THR, comes this from one Jenny Price, who wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, I believe it was, right around Christmas last year, calling for a national ban on defensive sidearms. (If I remember correctly, it ran in the Post on Christmas Day. How's THAT for a turd in yer Christmas custard?) It seems that Jenny Price Googled her handgun ban article, I guess to gauge the reaction to it, and she was shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, that, wonder of wonders, some people actually thought she was full of bovine feces! So she wrote this follow-up piece, and it was more or less something to the effect of, "Oh, nooo, the gun nuts were mean to me, we should take all their mean ol' handguns away so they don't shoot us in a fit of rage!!" Granted, there were some responses to her Christmas commentary that were indeed over the top, and I know it's always best to watch what we say, but seriously, folks, what in the bloody hell else do these people expect when they propose to impinge on the human rights of all the population for the acts of a few mutants? I've fallen into the trap myself before, but I've crossed paths with people in my lifetime who would have been much better off if they'd had a gun available to them, and the willingness to use it, at certain points in their lives, and for someone to say that they should be denied such a means of defense just, indeed, drives me into a fit of righteous fury. You know how the old saying goes, "beware the righteous fury of the betrayed." Well, that righteous fury is what Jenny Price saw, albeit poorly expressed in some corners, and, being the typically disingenuous gun-grabber Jenny Price is, she chose the worst of the worst to advance her anti-human rights cause and paint all of us gun enthusiasts with the same broad brush as more or less knuckle-dragging troglodytes with hair-trigger tempers and itchy trigger fingers. And this:

I can cite statistics, and I can tell you why the right to carry a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun with a 10-shot clip is not guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment.

is one more reason that I never, ever use the Second Amendment to advance mine and my fellow man's human right to keep and bear arms. The individual-rights interpretation of the 2A has gained ground in recent years, but as Jenny Price's emotion-fueled, hate- and paranoia-filled rhetoric shows, there is never going to be any shortage of people who will advance the collective-rights interpretation to further infringe on the 2A and pass yet more unconstitutional laws.
Hate- and paranoia-filled, you ask? Take a gander at this:

...the paranoia and bone-chilling hatred that spew from such sites as packing.org and freerepublic.com make for an equally — and unusually — effective argument for a ban on handguns.

I would submit that the fact that Jenny Price advocates disarmament of those who disagree with her constitutes the real bone-chilling hatred. And as for paranoia, if the fear that people who disagree with you, even so vehemently, will so cavalierly pull out a gun and put a bullet in you, does not constitute paranoia, then just what does? Talk about the "Wild West" mentality taken to its logical extreme. And yes, that's bullshit, too. I really liked what David Codrea had to say yesterday morning:

So you can call us names but we can't reciprocate?

Here's the difference, Jenny Price. These people will leave you alone if you do the same to them. But you insist on using the force of the state to bend them to your will--and having them destroyed if they don't comply.

Yes, indeed. We didn't kill your brother, Jenny Price. Leave us the hell alone and we'll do the same to you.

(More commentary from SayUncle, The Ten Ring, Jeff @ Alphecca and Firehand)

McCain-Lieberman Party? Or, Trying To Make Chicken Salad Out Of You-Know-What

The column itself is behind the New York Times' paid subscriber wall (I read it in the Houston Chronicle this morning), but one of David Brooks' more recent columns mentioned the possibility of the "McCain-Lieberman Party." Quotes from (and discussion of) the column can be found here:

According to New York Times columnist David Brooks, the "three major parties in America" are "the Democratic Party, the Republican Party and the McCain-Lieberman Party," and "all were on display Tuesday night."...

"And the McCain-Lieberman Party was represented by Joe Lieberman himself, giving a concession speech that explained why polarized primary voters shouldn't be allowed to define the choices in American politics," Brooks continues.

I can see easily why people would be turned off more by the increasing polarization of American politics -- witness the social conservatives calling for a constitutional convention just because they can't get their way on gay marriage, and the perpetual hate fests at places like the Daily Kos, the Huffington Post and the Democratic Underground -- but if it's a choice between a McCain-Lieberman-and-probably-Giuliani-too hybrid of political strategy and the continued polarization of American politics, well, then that's really no choice at all. It's been said that "you can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit," and it would seem to me that in hyping this McCain-Lieberman tripe, Brooks is showing his delusion that we will indeed soon be able to make chicken salad out of the aforementioned chicken shit.
Harsh assessment? Some might think so, but what the McCain-Lieberman boosters are putting forth as their biggest virtues are either nothing but veneer or just outright deception.
In Lieberman's case, we have them touting his moderation, which comes mainly from the public image he puts forth as a man of honor and principle. I thought as much myself, and I guess I haven't really seen anything to change that much, but, as Ilya Shapiro points out at TCS Daily (h/t Kim du Toit):

In all the spin about how a "moderate" cannot win given our nascent "politics of polarization," we lose sight that Lieberman's supposed moderation rests mostly in his even-tempered disposition. This is a man, after all, who received an 80 percent approval rating Americans for Democratic Action and only 8 percent from the American Conservative Union (less than Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer and equal to Chuck Schumer and John Kerry).

So there you have it -- behind the face of honor and integrity, Lieberman's just as big of a lefty as the biggest hitters in the Democratic portion of the Senate. His Achilles heel was, of course, his support of the General War on Islamic Extremism -- which, of course, in a more sane Democratic Party, should have been a feather in his cap. (Apologies for the bad mixed metaphor.) But, of course, the moonbats on the other side of the aisle have cast their lot in with the likes of John Cut-and-Run-Murtha and International ANSWER, thus sealing the fates of folks like Lieberman. It remains to be seen if the nutroots will win any more upsets like they did in Connecticut, but, we shall see come November.
As far as John McCain...pardon my french, but give me a fucking break. Pragmatism and moderation and working with his opponents? I have three words for anyone who thinks McCain or his ilk would be good for American politics, or, for that matter, America in general: "Campaign Finance Reform." And then there's that infamous quote, you know the one, "I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government." I've heard that George W. Bush has said that the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper," apocryphal or not, but it would seem to me that McCain and his kind would be the ones who really think that. Given the way McCain feels about the First Amendment -- notice that "'quote First Amendment rights" -- then there can't really be much, if any, doubt that he and his ideological soulmates would happily shit on the rest of the Bill of Rights and the entire Constitution to advance their agenda. We already have a good idea of how McCain feels about our natural right to arms.
McCain-Lieberman Party? No thanks. I'd sooner vote for Ross Perot.

Getting A Grip

A few days ago, I was going back and forth with Firehand on the whole grip situation. As regulars know, I have the rubber Hogue wraparounds on all my .45s -- my Ruger P90, Springfield GI 1911 and Kimber Tactical Ultra II. The factory grips on the Springfield and Kimber posed the biggest problems when I first got them; the checkering on the front and sides got to be more than a bit uncomfortable on the hands during my typical shooting session. So as soon as I could, I replaced them with the Hogue rubber wraparounds. I suppose some might say I am an apostate from the Church of St. John for saying this, but I think those Hogues make the 1911 look pretty good as well as make it shoot better. Some might think it a little utilitarian, or even taking away from the soul of the gun, but, well, to each his own. I think the 1911 is such a beautifully-designed gun anyway, that you could only take away from its allure by putting something on it so garish like hot pink or neon green -- although, if something like that got a lady to be not so afraid of a gun, it could only be a good thing, for a little while, anyway...
;-)

A Study in Contrasts; or, The Mewling of Ibrahim Hooper

Adding to the ever-growing list of the atrocities perpetrated on -- and potential atrocities aimed at -- us "infidels," as we are referred to by an unknown number of adherents to the so-called "Religion of Peace," we now have this (emphasis mine -- ed.):

British police said Thursday they thwarted a terrorist plot, possibly just days away, to blow up U.S.-bound jetliners over the Atlantic and kill thousands. Chilling accounts leaked by investigators described a plan on the scale of 9/11 that would use common electronic devices to detonate liquid explosives concealed in sports drink bottles to bring down as many as 10 planes in a nearly simultaneous strike.
...British authorities arrested 24 people based partly on intelligence from Pakistan, where authorities detained up to three others several days earlier. More arrests were expected, the official said. The suspects were believed to be mainly British Muslims, at least some of Pakistani ancestry.

And via Mike Hendrix at Cold Fury comes this Washington Post profile of Little Green Footballs writer Charles Johnson, with this rather telling bit from Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for Islamist front group the Council on American-Islamic Relations:

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights organization often vilified on Johnson's blog, calls Little Green Footballs "a vicious, anti-Muslim hate site . . . that has unfortunately become popular."

The irony, Hooper says, is that if the same kind of "hatred" that appears on LGF appeared on Muslim sites, it soon would be used by LGF's fans to justify their worldview.

Like many politically themed blogs, Little Green Footballs doesn't always traffic in subtlety and nuance. Dissenting points of view often are dismissed as "idiotarian" or "LLL" (for "loony liberal left"), and Islam is mockingly referred to as "RoP," meaning "religion of peace."

Hooper says the Reuters incident is unfortunate in itself, but says such sites as Little Green Footballs use such lapses "as a club against the entire mainstream media. Their line is basically that if one freelance photographer alters a photo, then everything Israel does must be justified. Or if one of the sentences that Dan Rather once uttered wasn't correct, then the media is corrupt and Dan Rather's whole career is rotten to the core."

Wow. So much idiocy packed into so few column-inches that I hardly know where to begin!
Hatred? So far as I have seen, after reading LGF for about a year, the only hatred posted on Johnson's site comes from the news articles and video clips he posts, about the the activities of the Islamists from all corners of the world, even the good ole U.S. of A. Don't take my word for it. Go see for yourself. Little Green Footballs is, as Bill Whittle says, "a filter (and of course it’s a filter -– that’s why it is useful) that looks at Islamist thinking and behavior daily and shows what Islamists are saying and doing in their own words...He (Charles Johnson) is attacked personally in an attempt to discredit him and his website because the fact remains that almost everything he links to are articles by Islamists, about Radical Islam -– and what they say in their own words is so totally compelling, damning, and downright blood curdling that anyone not seeing the danger brewing does not deserve to be part of this argument."
And, once again, not just their words damn them, but their actions also damn them. Hooper can say what he likes, but, once again, as long as the adherents to his "Religion of Peace" keep blowing stuff up and otherwise terrorizing and killing those who don't worship their god, well, the explosions, gunfire, and the cries of the wounded and the dying, and those of the people they leave behind are what's going to be speaking the loudest about the true desires and intents of the adherents to this "Religion of Peace."
And don't you just love how Hooper spouts that tripe about one freelance photographer distorting a photo? It's as if everything else Johnson posts on LGF -- the Islamists' own words, mind you! -- doesn't even matter to him -- well, of course it doesn't matter to him or his band of terror apologists, but for Hooper to practically come right out and say it is...it just leaves me speechless.
As for Dan Rather, well, just where in the hell has Hooper been since 1981? People have been saying for YEARS now that Rather was a barely-veiled shill for the left. It was only his blatant confirmation of that bias with the fake Texas Air National Guard documents that led to his downfall. Methinks Hooper doth looketh a bit too hard for a reason to whineth. And Big Media, no matter the extent of its integrity, sure as hell isn't any kind of unbiased observer; in addition to the TANG document story, witness the New York Times' obsessive coverage of the so-called "scandal" of the men-only membership of the Augusta National Golf Club, the Associated Press' hit piece on Ronnie Barrett's .50-caliber rifle, and the list goes on and on for as far as the eye can see.
Good grief. Some days it's just too easy. Like shooting fish in a barrel...

More Thoughts on "Gun Stupidity"

I've been thinking more, about the newspaper column discussed at length here...

I don't know what's worse, the fact that the kid died, the fact that his parents (or whoever his guardians were) most likely didn't teach him any kind of respect for guns and the power contained in them, or the fact that some big-city candy-assed newspaper columnist is using this tragedy as a platform on which to push yet more restrictions on the freedoms of Americans, with enough straw men to fill every barn across the fruited plain a hundred times. This kid's death could have been prevented, but not by taking my guns away, or anyone else's, for that matter. They still don't know whether the kid died by his own hand or by someone else's, as far as I know, but if indeed it was an accident, as it sometimes is, then this kid's blood is on the hands of whoever raised him, as they obviously didn't teach him about guns, or about it being wrong to go digging through other people's drawers. As cold and callous as that might sound, I remember when I was 14. I minded my own business because I was always afraid of being discovered, legitimate fear or not, because I knew what would happen if my meddling was revealed -- I'd have gotten my tail end beat. And I was not too much of a gunnie back then, but I'd handled them before and certainly had respect for what they could do, enough that even if I saw one, I wouldn't touch it unless a trusted adult was around. I hate that the kid died, I really do...but I hate it more that guns and gun ownership have gotten such a social stigma in some places in this country that kids aren't even taught about them by their parents, let alone the schools. It's not the fault of the Founding Fathers, the NRA, the Second Amendment Foundation, the Gun Owners of America, (or, for that matter, the gun owners of America) or any other pro-gun people or organizations that this kid is dead. It's the fault of groups like The Organizations Formerly Known as Handgun Control (yes, Sarah and Jim Brady, my finger's pointin' at YOU!) and The National Coalition to Ban Handguns (hi, Michael Beard and Casey Anderson!) and the Violence Policy Center (take a bow, Josh Sugarmann and Tom Diaz!), and people like John Grogan who only look at the bad things that are done with guns and do their level best to minimize the good and nurture that aforementioned social stigma, no matter how many lies, distortions, manipulations of the facts, and intellectually and logically bankrupt emotion-driven arguments they have to use to do it. Damn them. Damn them all.

Not Much To Say To This...

We've fisked these people over and over, for what seems like time immemorial, and they keep coming back with their utter emotion-driven stupidity...

I know I will hear from the gun nuts and firepower freaks, and they will scream the same old bellicose rant. I'm tired of hearing it.

Well, okay, pansy. No bellicose rant here. Two words, that's all I am gonna say. But first, something else. As I said on the thread at THR, it is indeed 'time to unload on gun stupidity'...

It is time for people to stop assigning malevolent motives to inanimate, morally neutral objects as if they were some sort of talisman.
It is time for people to start holding people accountable for their misdeeds as opposed to holding those aforementioned inanimate objects responsible.
It is time for people to pull their kids out of the insidious muck of gun ignorance manufactured by the media and anti-gunners everywhere.
It is time for our kids to be educated on all the good things that have come about at the barrels of guns wielded by decent and moral men and women throughout history. And likewise, it is time for our kids to be educated on the bad things that have come about when those same decent moral men and women were denied the right to arms.

As for the two words...Molon Labe, Johnny. Come and get them.

Observations on the Seattle Shooting and the "Religion of Peace"

Via Kevin Baker at The Smallest Minority, we see that Dr. Rusty Shackelford, the writer of The Jawa Report, has decided to arm himself in the wake of events at the Jewish Federation in Seattle, in which a Pakistani man with two semi-automatic pistols killed one and wounded five after taking a 13-year-old girl hostage -- at gunpoint -- at the start of his rampage. A bit of irony in Dr. Shackelford's remarks on his site here:

The reason for the gun? The death threats. Hundreds of them. All for criticizing the ROP over the years.

The ROP the good doctor mentions stands for -- what else? -- Religion of Peace. How ironic it is, indeed, that so many adherents of this "religion of peace" are so willing to kill pregnant women, small children and otherwise innocent civilians (by suicide bombings and using said civilians as shields). I am reminded of the sardonic observation that different people have made recently, something to the effect that "Islam is a Religion of Peace, and they'll kill to prove it!" Far be it from me to say that all Muslims have such burning hate in their hearts for those who don't follow their religion that they'll do things like this, but I think it's safe to say that Islam has more or less been taken over by these extremists, and it's probably going to take nothing less than a full-scale intra-religious war, a literal war within Islam with guns and bombs and all that good stuff, to cleanse it of these insidious elements. Of course, there are those who would in effect argue that if something like this were to happen, there would be no Islam left (emphasis mine -- ed.):

I don’t like Islam. I have read the Koran, and I have studied for enough years to know that I do not like Islam. I view "good" Muslims (and I do so loathe that term, but find it useful in this case) as Muslims who do not practice Islam the way that it was meant to be practiced by the person who invented Islam. I wish there were more of them, and that they were more outspoken. I wish so because I want their freedom from tyranny just as much as my freedom from it as well. But Islam, as defined in the Koran, as practiced and invented by Mohammed - the historical figure of Mohammed - I do not like. I view him as a Hitler, and I view the Koran in the same light as I view Mein Kampf.

Take that for whatever you think it might be worth -- I personally haven't studied Islam or the Koran enough to make an informed comment -- but the events of the last five years, and even further back than that (bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the 241 Marines killed at the Beirut barracks in 1983, just to name a few), at least as far as I can see, do very little to dispel the perception that Islam is not nearly as much of a "Religion of Peace" as certain dangerously politically correct pundits, commentators, university professors, politicians, etc. would like us all to believe it is. The ghosts of 3,000-plus of our countrymen and 2,000-plus brave men and women in uniform fighting this monster in Iraq would certainly beg to differ. I hate to make what sounds like such a sweeping judgment, but the sounds of guns and bombs going off from Bali to Seattle to New York to Madrid to London to Baghdad are, literally and figuratively, much louder than the whispers that "Islam is a Religion of Peace."
And Kim du Toit asks a most pertinent question:

As for the people who are still “thinking” about buying themselves gun, I have only one more question to ask: How many more random massacres like this will it take to get you to buy a gun? Do you think this kind of incident is just going to magically disappear in the future?

It's a scary thing to contemplate indeed, but it's extremely difficult to argue that we're not suffering from the ancient Chinese curse of living in interesting times. The Muslims may not be bringing the jihad on here in the good ole U.S.A. as fast as they are in Europe, but if we don't remember our roots as an armed citizenry, and the value our Founding Fathers saw in an armed citizenry, it's only a matter of time until we suffer the same fate as our neighbors across the pond. Which reminds me, I need to go buy a few boxes of ammo and get my tail to the range, soooon....