Wow, even some of the Mexicans are on board...

...with legalizing drugs. I am not surprised that there are some who don't get it -- namely the Citizen's Council on Public Safety, who argues that the main problem is the government's loss of monopoly on the use of force. Why do they think the government has lost that monopoly? Where do they think the money for the cartels' weaponry comes from?

And then, of course, there's the old implication from this side of the Rio Grande: "drugs 'r' baaad, hmmkay?" But they think banning the guns will fix everything, even though the lion's share of the cartel's weaponry is highly illegal here...

Here's your monopoly on force...

...right here:

For decades, black men across Chicago described torture at the hands of former police Lt. Jon Burge and his officers, and for decades no one listened. Suspects landed in jail and even on death row for crimes they say they didn't commit after Burge and his men coerced confessions using terrifying methods including suffocation, a form of waterboarding and electric shocks.

And that, along with Anthony Abbate, is the type of person Chicago mayor Richard Daley thinks should have a monopoly on force. These are the types of people he believes should be trusted with lethal force -- the types of people he believes should have the only guns. I'll admit it's funny -- albeit in a really twisted way -- to watch Daley joke about putting a bayonet up a reporter's ass, but this type of savagery is what the "Chicago Way" of doing things comes down to. This is where the rubber meets the road. And it's deadly serious business -- especially when one considers the fact that Daley was the Cook County state's attorney during Burge and his thugs' reign of terror. Call me a cynic, but there's no way you're going to get me to believe he didn't know about any of the methods being used to extract confessions from the people his office put on trial.

Making saints of devils?

It certainly seems people are prone to do that, especially when the devils shuffle off this mortal coil.

I can definitely understand BR's daughter getting pissed off about what was being said about him before it was deleted. I can also understand her thinking he was a good person. But I can't agree with that, or with a commenter there saying he "led a good life...despite his imperfections." Those imperfections being, of course, that he was an elitist, vitriolic asshole who tried to divide the gun owner community even more than it already is, when it needs now more than ever to present a united front against those who would take all of the guns. The fact that a certain organization which advocates the government having a monopoly on force called him a "profile in courage" (linked at SIH) ultimately tells me all I need to know about just how "good" of a person he was. It sucks for his family that he's dead, and I'm sorry for their loss, but that's about all the sympathy I can muster.

These people are just deranged...

Something called the Potowmack Institute...

Ayers can only be faulted for acting out the NRA's childish political fantasy.

Once again, excuse the fuck me? I very highly doubt the NRA as an organization ever entertained the thought of killing 25 million people in an attempt to establish some "socialist utopia" like Bill Ayers and his Commie thug friends did. To put that in perspective, it's the equivalent of over four Holocausts. Yeah, trying to link Bill Ayers and the National Rifle Association, yeah, I'd say that was seriously deranged...but then again, so is their main belief, which seems to be that all governments are deserving of the monopoly on force, no matter the carnage they inflict. One wonders just what they would support to help get that monopoly back...

...so where's this "majority," Mikey?

Via 45superman at Armed and Safe, we have this whopper from Michael Beard, the chairman of the Coalition to Stop Gun Ownership:

Right now, the gun lobby holds a tremendous amount of power in this country, and legislators are doing its bidding because they are not hearing often enough from the majority of Americans who want sensible gun laws and safe communities.

Actually, I'd argue that the "gun lobby" holds the power it does because the people behind it -- you know, we gun owners, who have spent untold amounts of our hard-earned money on guns, ammunition and training -- have a vested interest in preserving our right to keep and bear arms. And we finally got off our asses, showed our political muscle and got on the offensive. What he won't remind you of is that for a good 15 years at least, the gun control movement had gained a sizable amount of traction, culminating in the first two years of the Clinton presidency, which resulted in the two biggest gun control laws in more than two decades, since the Gun Control Act of 1968 -- the Brady Law and the semiautomatic rifle ban. And what happened then? The party that passed those laws got their asses handed to them in the next election, and no less a Democrat than Bill Clinton -- the Gun-Grabber-In-Chief himself -- acknowledged the biggest reason for that was the party's push for more gun control. And we haven't had any more really big gun control laws since then, even with all the high-profile shootings such as what happened at Columbine and Virginia Tech. Could it be that the politicians HAVE heard from a majority of Americans and that those Americans have said, in effect, "no more gun control"?
Poking around over at Kevin Baker's place, I found this great essay from Michael S. Brown:

Prior to 1934 there were no federal gun control laws. There was only an odd assortment of gun laws in various states and cities which were intended to disarm racial minorities and immigrants. As far as the federal government was concerned, anyone was free to buy a machine gun or even a cannon, and the level of gun crime was relatively low.

Since the National Firearms Act was signed into law in 1934, the number of gun control laws at all levels of government have multiplied exponentially. So has the overall crime rate, which some argue is a direct result of gun control laws that discourage self-defense.

Although none of these laws reduced crime, each new law creates another way that a well intentioned gun owner can inadvertently end up in prison or ruined by legal costs. Some have been killed in raids by government agents. Much like laws passed to promote the failed war on drugs, each new gun law gives the police additional powers that threaten basic constitutional rights.

America's lawful gun owners are painfully aware of these facts. Since gun laws don't reduce crime, they wonder, what is the real purpose? This question has led to numerous theories that attempt to explain why the "ruling elite", which includes the media and many politicians, would want to eliminate civilian gun ownership in America. American gun owners feel as if they are being slowly crushed. One writer recently described this decades-long campaign as a slow motion hate crime.

Frustration has been building in the gun culture for thirty years and has been accelerating with the faster pace of anti-gun attacks and the dramatic improvement in communications. Stories of outrageous persecution by government agencies now circulate like wildfire via the internet. Anti-gun bills introduced in any legislature are instantly made known to millions. Gun owners know the major players in the anti-gun lobby as well as they know the villains in their favorite movies.
...
Some observers of this cultural war wonder why large numbers of gun owners have not yet resorted to violence to preserve their way of life. Civil wars have started over less. Almost every gathering of lawful gun owners has a deep undercurrent of anger. They see each new gun law as a way to harass them and make it more difficult for everyone except criminals and the government to own guns. Solid, productive citizens complain bitterly about how good people have been arrested for unintentional violations of the myriad of gun laws. Each wonders if he could be next.

Although this group has been involuntarily radicalized, there are several things holding back a violent response. One is the fact that gun owners are a very law abiding group of people. They have a deep faith in the Constitution and are willing to give the political process a chance to balance itself. The second is that leaders of gun rights organizations, such as the NRA, are promising relief through the political system. The third reason is that the leaders of the anti-gun lobby are masters of propaganda and would gleefully exploit any minor incidents to further harm gun rights. It would take a massive wave of violent protests to affect any positive change.

Nobody knows if, when or how this group will reach its breaking point, but one must question the wisdom of infuriating millions of armed citizens.

Indeed. Michael Beard and his organization do advocate the government having a monopoly on force, indeed...but just how stupid (or evil) are they that they'd risk pissing off such a large group of (armed) people even more than they are already?!

I always knew it was true...

but finally, we see it in print.
Apparently, last week when I was out of pocket I missed one of the biggest shitstorms in recent memory in the gun blogging community. Seems that Mike Vanderboegh, whose writings at The War on Guns and other places I await with bated breath, penned a letter to the editor of the Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin:

Dear Editor:

Joe Bialek from Cleveland proposes the licensing and registration of all weapons currently in civilian hands. My question is, how exactly do you propose to do that, Joe?

There are some of us "cold dead hands" types, perhaps 3 percent of gun owners, who would kill anyone who tried to further restrict our God-given liberty. Don't extrapolate from your own cowardice and assume that just because you would do anything the government told you to do that we would.

Are you proposing to come yourself, or do you want someone else's son or daughter in federal service to take the risk? Are you truly prepared to stack up the bodies necessary to accomplish your plan? Seems a strange way to make a "safer society." More to the point, are you willing to risk your sorry hide to do it? No? I thought not.

Then quit proposing the next American civil war. We're done being pushed back from our natural rights without a fight. Be careful what you wish for.

Which threw the pragmatists into quite a tizzy, leading them to call Mr. Vanderboegh things like "lunatic" and "asshole." Ironically enough, some of these comments were being made by those who practically scream bloody murder every time someone says something that might offend the hunters. Yet it's okay to offend everyone else? Funny how that works out.
But it isn't the pragmatists' double standard I mean to comment on today. This is:

Forget the fact that almost 80% of Americans favor gun registration. Forget the additional fact that 61% of gun owners favor "mandatory registration of handguns."

Vanderboegh's ravings are clearly meant to get a rise out of people. Yet as hyperbole from a possibly unstable individual, they are virtually meaningless (unless ATF knows something we don't).

So, did gun bloggers simply ignore Vanderboegh's letter, or at least denounce it as morally degenerate and unrepresentative of gun owners at-large?

No. Instead, they debated Vanderboegh's rant on the merits - as a legitimate alternative.

I love how those assholes cite those figures as if the fact that so many people allegedly favor such wrongheaded and ineffective measures proves their validity. I guess it goes back to the whole "we live in a democracy" bit, or, as I referred to it earlier, "ye olde 'tyranny of the majority' whose doctrine says that if 51 percent of the people vote to strip the other 49 percent of their God-given rights then that's just too bad for them." And that's exactly what registration and licensing are intended to make it easier to do. I could be way off base here, but as far as I've been able to tell the whole licensing and registration scheme, wherever it has been implemented, has had two underlying goals. The licensing part is to make the gun ownership process so onerous that one doesn't even bother, and the registration prong of that strategy is to make it easier to find the guns that are left when it comes time to confiscate them so it'll be easier to find them. As far as finding Vanderboegh's writing as morally degenerate...well, the only thing I can say to that, is if that is what those evil shitbags find to be morally degenerate -- as opposed to the fact that many men would be forcibly disarmed for having done absolutely nothing wrong except to disobey, as some might call it, "a patently unjust and unconstitutional malum prohibitum law" -- well, that says more about the aforementioned evil shitbags than it does about Vanderboegh and those who agree with him. I always knew it was true that the Bradys and their ilk had no problem with seeing Americans disarmed, that they would more or less do everything in their power to see to it that we were -- but now we see them admit it. So if they think that fighting back is "morally degenerate," then that means they think Americans should roll over and take whatever the government dishes out to them, no matter how bad it gets, that the government should have a monopoly on force. I'd say they're the morally degenerate ones, but I'm just a bloodthirsty warmongering Texan, what the hell do I know. As one intrepid commenter said over at Kevin Baker's place...

Sheesh, if that is getting their panties in a bunch, wait until they hear from this loon:

"It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! "

What utter rubbish! Tinfoil hat ravings!

(for those of you who didn't know, that was from Patrick Henry's "The War Inevitable" speech, aka the "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death" speech, from March 23, 1775.)
Tinfoil hat ravings, indeed. ;-) I've heard it said that the quickest way to get yourself branded as a raving lunatic extremist is to start repeating the phrases uttered by the Founding Fathers. And I take it the Bradys agree, but then they never seemed to have much respect for the Founders' principles anyway. Or, the truth, for that matter, as evidenced by this whopper...

If even most gun owners support reasonable controls - including a common-sense idea like gun registration - and recoil at any suggestion that they should engage in armed "revolution," why would the NRA cater to the "smallest minority" that does not?

Has a "bunker paranoia" gripped the NRA leadership, so clouding their judgment as to justify the moral bankruptcy of spying on gun violence victims and their families?

The NRA should come out of their bunker and explain themselves.

As David Codrea said, "The folks who champion their legislative approach have been Mike's most vehement critics in the gun blogosphere....So what's with lying to the world that this somehow has NRA sanction?"
My guess is, they just take the NRA-as-boogeyman and run with it, no matter, of course, how much truth there is to that, and there's even more evidence of that here:

It was NRA Executive Director Wayne LaPierre, after all, who coined the phrase "jack-booted thugs" to describe Federal law enforcement officers merely doing their jobs.

WRONG ANSWER, yet again. But how about this -- Just doing their jobs. Just following orders. Boy, does THAT one ever ring a loud bell. I know I shouldn't have expected better from those cretins, but it's still rather disgusting.

...do these people think we're stupid?

By "these people," I mean, of course, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, or The Organization Formerly Known As The National Coalition To Ban Handguns...
http://csgv.blogspot.com/2008/07/freedom-vs-responsibility.html

As German theologian and Nazi resister Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "Responsibility and freedom are corresponding concepts. Factually, though not chronologically, responsibility presupposes freedom and freedom can consist only in responsibility. Responsibility is the freedom of men which is given only in the obligation to God and to our neighbour."

There are at least a couple of ironies here, both of which apparently escaped Michael Beard and his evil minions. One is the fact that Beard talks about responsibility at all. After all, I've said it elsewhere, and so have many others, including Kurt Hofmann over at Armed and Safe: Freedom IS responsibility. This responsibility includes watching out and being responsible for yourself in all areas of life, and this includes self-defense, against everything from petty criminals to tyrannical governments bent on your enslavement. And Michael Beard and his cohorts don't support using lethal force for defending yourself from anything on that continuum. On one end, we have Beard saying, "The privatization of public safety is a dangerous issue in our society. And I've always seen that as the beginning of the loss of liberty." If you'll recall, he said this after Arlington, Texas grandmother Susan Buxton made national headlines when she was recorded on a 911 tape shooting an intruder who broke into her home. So that leaves one to think that Beard and his organization thinks Ms. Buxton should not have done anything to protect herself, that she should have waited for the Arlington police to show up and take care of it, or just "given him what he wanted" -- in short, that Ms. Buxton should have just let the Arlington Police Department take responsibility for her safety, despite the fact that various courts have ruled over the years that the police are not responsible for individuals' safety, but only that of the public at large. On the other end, we have Beard's colleague Ladd Everitt contending that "the government should have a monopoly on force." Which brings me to the next irony.
You'll note that Beard quoted a member of the Nazi resistance. Where's the irony in that, you ask? Well, it lies in the fact that if Beard, Everitt and the rest of that gang had their way, there would have been no way for the opponents of the Nazi regime to mount a resistance that was anywhere near effective. After all, while Hitler was not directly elected, he came to power directly through the democratic process.
(http://www2.dsu.nodak.edu/users/dmeier/Holocaust/hitler.html)

The Nazis gradually devised an electoral strategy to win northern farmers and white collar voters in small towns, which produced a landslide electoral victory in September 1930 (jump from roughly 3% to 18% of the votes cast) due to the depression. Refused a chance to form a cabinet, and unwilling to share in a coalition regime, the Nazis joined the Communists in violence and disorder between 1931 and 1933. In 1932, Hitler ran for President and won 30% of the vote, forcing the eventual victor, Paul von Hindenburg, into a runoff election. After a bigger landslide in July 1932 (44%), their vote declined and their movement weakened (Hitler lost the presidential election to WWI veteran Paul von Hindenburg in April; elections of November 1932 roughly 42%), so Hitler decided to enter a coalition government as chancellor in January 1933.

Upon the death of Hindenburg in August 1934, Hitler was the consensus successor. With an improving economy, Hitler claimed credit and consolidated his position as a dictator, having succeeded in eliminating challenges from other political parties and government institutions.

In light of that, I have to ask -- do Beard, Everitt and the rest of that gang think Hitler's "undesirables" should have rolled over and taken what Hitler and his forces eventually handed to them? I can't help but think the answer is yes. How do these people look themselves in the mirror every morning?! On with the show...

The recent Supreme Court decision in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller has set the principle that there are legitimate restraints on the constitutional rights of individual citizens to own firearms. This is consistent with the view of our Founders that government regulation was an integral part of not only the Second Amendment, but ordered liberty in general.

I'd love to know who wrote the history book Beard got that out of, and why in the hell he hasn't demanded his money back, because he was woefully mis-informed. As has been covered on numerous occasions, the regulation mentioned in the 2A referred to training with one's weaponry to assure proficiency with it -- NOT government regulations of and restrictions on the business of selling arms. After all, anyone who's read what the Founding Fathers had to say about government in general knew that they regarded it with extreme distrust, as a necessary evil, one might say -- with an emphasis on the evil part, because the Founders had seen up-close and personal what government could do when it was left to its own devices. They regarded it with so much distrust that they made sure the people would have the means to overthrow it if it got to be too big for its britches. Once again, the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Do Beard and his cohorts really think the Founders would have approved of the government telling the people what kinds of arms they could and could not own? That the Founders would have approved of the government imposing certain conditions on the ownership of said arms? Does that jibe AT ALL with the words reproduced above that the Founding Fathers penned 232 years ago? If so, how?

A History Lesson in Motion

From the AP this morning, via the Houston Chronicle, the bit in bold caught my eye...

They travel for days though checkpoints, across dangerous roads and past Myanmar's bribe-hungry soldiers to make it to the Thai border. They're not refugees fleeing the junta — they simply want to see a doctor.

Myanmar has one of the world's worst health care systems, with tens of thousands dying each year from malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, dysentery, diarrhea and a litany of other illnesses.

While there are hospitals in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation also known as Burma, only a few can afford to pay hospital workers the various "fees" in the tightly controlled nation fueled by corruption.

"Even if you use the toilet in the hospital you have to pay money," said a 70-year-old man from Phyu Township, who journeyed two days by bus to see a doctor at the Thai border town of Mae Sot and have a cataract removed. He declined to give his name for fear of reprisals.

"They never think of improving health care," he said. "They only pull the trigger. Because they are holding the guns, we have to live like this."

But remember, my friends, the government must have a monopoly on force!
In all seriousness, though, I would love to see those who subscribe to that notion be forcibly deported to places where they would have to bear all the consequences of such a circumstance. I do wonder, though, why exactly they don't go live in one of those places. Like all the leftists who threatened to leave the country when George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, just get off their tails and leave. There are plenty other places in the world where the government has that monopoly on force, why the hell won't these people just go to those ratholes instead of trying to make our country just like them? Food for thought...

I think he missed the irony...

Some idiot leftist blogger, on the shooting of the kids by the Wisconsin cop:

Well.. here we are again. A tiny town in Wisconsin, 7 young kids are dead and no one knows why. A deputy sheriff who was 20 years old apparently got into a jealous rage and went after a girl, taking the others in his path.

He was a deputy sheriff. He was a cop. He was obviously dangerous and he was armed.

So when, oh when will there be gun control in this country? How many more have to die?

"When will there be gun control"? Hey Sparky, guess what? They HAVE gun control in Wisconsin. As a matter of fact it's one of only two states where you cannot lawfully carry a firearm on your person under any circumstances -- in other words, it's exactly the conditions you and your emasculated gun-hating brethren want us all to have to live under. You could even say that "the government...(had) a monopoly on force" here. (Ladd Everitt, call your office, you evil son of a bitch!)
And as Dave Hardy points out, the Big Three of the gun-grabbing organizations in the U.S. are all conspicuously silent on the matter. I wonder why that is? Maybe because what happened up there put the lie to the statement that only the police and the military should have guns? Or maybe they think that if they ignore what happened, it'll be swept under the rug or maybe those people that evil bastard killed will all come back to life?Whatever it may be, they can all go straight to hell, the whole sorry lot of them.
(h/t Nicki)

Another Anti Slipup...

or, one more reason gun controllers are evil to the core...

"We need your help," National Council of Churches President Michael Livingston implored of the WCC’s “Living Letters” team while they were in Washington, D.C. "We need your help to turn around this terrible situation we have." No doubt sincerely, he told the ecumenical group: "We want to learn from you, and from our own stories, to make this world a world of peace."
Mostly Livingston wanted the “Living Letters” to help advocate stricter gun control in the U.S. He was joined by Ladd Everitt of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, who bewailed: "We have a real pride in violence in our country." He likewise exclaimed, "We also profit from it,” fingering the U.S. films that “glorify violence and promote vigilante justice,” according to a WCC account.
More revealingly, Everitt insisted that “the government must have a monopoly on force,” according to an account by my assistant Rebekah Sharpe, who attended the meeting. He identified the obstacles to fuller gun control as “hardcore gun owners” who have a “profoundly, virulently anti-government attitude.” Many of these hardcore zealots adhere to the National Rifle Association’s ostensible belief that “if our government becomes tyrannical they have a right to take over that government, our democratically elected government!”

The government must have a monopoly on force? After the events of the 20th century, in which almost 175 million people were murdered by government agents who by and large had the monopoly on force? Once again, I cannot find the words to describe just how evil, how rotten to the core these people are. I know well what Occam's Razor might say to this -- never ascribe to evil what can be attributed to ignorance -- but in the case of the gun-grabbers I just don't buy that anymore. And what to say of this "World Council of Churches"? I have spoken of the Religious Left before, but still I found it breathtaking that supposed "men of God" would lend their names to efforts to leave God's people defenseless. And, once again, there are no wors to say just how evil that is. Evil and quite ironic as well, considering the radical Muslims seem to be taking over various parts of the world across the pond. Maybe it's wrong of me to think this, but I can't help but think the people who advocate that monopoly on force deserve to live under that boot of tyranny, and all the attendant characteristics and consequence of that tyranny. Let them live as second-class citizens, be stoned to death or have their heads cut off. At this point I am more than willing to tell them to their evil faces, "you scumbags asked for it."
(h/t Armed and Safe)