February 2007 – Page 4 – Shall Not Be Questioned

“People are often stupid”…

… and “Bureaucrats are the same stupid people, with bad incentives.”

So says Megan, referencing an earlier post:

Which brings up one of my perennial peeves about people advocating national health insurance or any other big programme: they point out all the ways in which public choice problems make the current system suck, and then proceed to outline their future plans as if those problems will somehow magically fall away in their system. Companies won’t lobby. Voters won’t demand that every stupid alternative procedure they can complain about be covered, much less react to the lack of a price signal by using more of everything. People employed in that sector won’t band together to keep wages high and productivity as low as possible. Bureaucrats won’t shift priorities to minimizing their own political risk, rather than maximizing the level of service provided to the public.

Both her first and second observations I think are quite good.Â I’d also recommend reading the original Tyler Cowen post linked to if you follow the last link to the quoted post.

I don’t talk much about health care because it’s one of those subjects where I don’t trust anyone who tells me they have a good solution to the problem.Â The more I understand about the problem, the less I think I understand it, and the less I think anyone else understands it either. Â This is, of course, going to naturally make me skeptical about government solutions to the problem.

History of Maryland Concealed Weapon Laws

Clayton Cramer has a good history of Maryland’s concealed carry history up on his site.Â As one might expect, the roots of this law, like most other southern states prohibitions against carrying weapons, were aimed squarely at blacks, and were rarely enforced against whites.

They Can Have My Lightbulbs…

… when they pry them from my cold, dead hands:

[Australian] Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull this morning announced standard incandescent light bulbs would be phased out within three years in a bid to reduce energy consumption.

“We are introducing new energy efficiency standards and these old lights simply won’t comply, they will be phased out and basically over a period of time they will no longer be for sale,” Mr Turnbull said.

What about sockets that won’t take compact flourescence? I like my halogen spotlights, thank you. What about the fact that those flourescent bulbs make me feel like I’ve been institutionalized? Not that it’s really a concern for those in power, because all that matters is that we’re unable to make choices for ourselves, at least not the “right” choices.

I really hope we can move to Mars eventually, because honestly, it’s just not going to stop until government runs every aspect of our lives. Oh sure, you’ll still have some freedoms, except the most important one: choice.

I Do Believe Bloglines Is Working Again

It’s hard to tell if it’s because the 20th has come and gone (confirming my theory that it was my accidentally post-dated posts and comment that scrozzled the Bloglines), or if Bloglines did something.Â If bloglines did something, thanks.Â But I’m thinking it was probably the post dating and subsequent corrections that confused Bloglines into not updating its feed for my blog.

In other news, I’m liking my MacBook Pro enough that I’m considering getting myself a desktop Mac Pro and running the blog off that, and decommissioning the old Linux server.Â It’s not that I don’t like Linux anymore, it’s just the differences between MacOS and Linux are pronounced enough that it makes going back and forth painful.

They are both Unix underneath anyway, though it’s taking some getting used to going back to the BSD universe, where I have to do ps -aux instead of ps -ef to get a process list, and no longer have things like /proc.Â Plus, true to its NeXTStep roots, I see MacOS still retains NetInfo, which always seemed to me to be NIS written by aliens.

MacOS X is pretty cool, but it’s basically NeXTStep running on top of BSD with a nicer user interface on top of it :)

Thanks For the Heads Up

The Ten Ring points out what may turn out to be a bit of floor saving advise on the Walther P-38:

You could chamber a round and then flip the safety decocking the hammer. (Given the state of Germanyâ€™s wartime production, I recommend that you donâ€™t try this feature unless youâ€™re at a range with the muzzle pointing in a safe direction.)

I wasn’t aware the safeties on late war models were a problem, and I planned to pick up a P-38 on the C&R license at some point.Â I doubt I would have ever tried to use the de-cocker on a loaded pistol, since I’m interested in this pistol as a collector rather than carry piece.Â But it’s good to know not to ever try ahead of time.

We Still Need Hunters

Michael Bane asks where we go from here as the new masters of the shooting community. My answer is we need to reach out to the hunters, because, while we’re big enough to get the industry to pay attention to us, we still need hunters because of their numbers, the amount of money spent that crosses over to ours, and the generally positive image the public has of hunting.

The black rifle shooting community has made itself known as a force, and we should be happy about that, but it’s time to reach out to hunters and outdoor writers and make sure they understand how the makeup of the shooting sports is changing, and how that affects our respective issues.

Jim Zumbo grew up in a world where more people hunted, and the idea of someone coming after his deer rifle was absurd. That world is gone. One only has to look at what’s happened in states like New Jersey, Massachusetts and California to see that if you like things that go boom, whether you like shooting deer or paper with them, the anti-gun people are coming after you. That might seem far away in Wyoming, but look at this:

Caroline alleges that a gun ban in Washington D.C. has unarmed its law abiding citizens but allowed its criminal to remain armed. The result is a high rate of criminal activity in DC. The answer to that is that no ban will be effective unless it is national in scope and is diligently enforced.

And in virtually all of these hostile jurisdictions, they came after black rifles first, then went after other things. Oh sure, you might get to keep your deer rifle for a while, but they’ll keep making it harder, more burdensome, and more expensive, until most people give up the hobby, leaving us with so little political power, that it won’t be hard to convince legislators to come for that eventually too, or outlaw hunting. Don’t think we’re just paranoid extremists with delusional fantasies, and that it can’t happen, because it’s happened elsewhere.

So what do we do? This is where I’ll suggest some heresy; that we start with Jim Zumbo. He has tremendous reach within the hunting community, and if he can be brought back from the dark side, he could be really useful for outreach to hunters. So I’ll put a challenge out there to Jim: help us spread the message to hunters on the importance of working to preserve our second amendment rights, and I mean everyone’s, whether you shoot an AR-15 at paper or a Winchester at a deer, an AR-15 at varmint, or keep a Glock in the nightstand for self-defense; tell hunters of the importance of this struggle, because both our futures depend on helping each other out with our respective issues. We don’t have the numbers to stand alone. Do that, Jim, and I’ll happily forgive and forget, and I think a lot of other people will too.

Carolyn McCarthy Hates Due Process

H.R.1168:

To amend chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, to extend the firearm and ammunition prohibitions applicable to convicted felons to those convicted in a foreign court.

I’ve always said fighting these people is about a lot more than guns. Removing someone’s liberty based on the actions of a foreign court violates our right to due process. McCarthy is not just anti-gun, she apparently has no issues with suspending due process and subjugating our legal system to foreign powers. This one has 5 cosponsors who I wish you could see so I could tell you who else is violating their oath to uphold the constitution.

But if that’s not enough for you, there’s H.R.1167:

To increase public safety and reduce the threat to domestic security by including persons who may be prevented from boarding an aircraft in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and for other purposes.

On the no fly list? Lots of people are and we don’t know why or how to get off. Now you won’t have any second amendment rights either. Foreign citizens already can’t by a firearm legally; that’s reserved for citizens and permanent residents. So who is this meant to affect?

Carolyn McCarthy is violating her oath of office by crapping all over the constitution she promised to uphold. It’s time for the Congresswoman to revisit some wisdom from James Madison in Federalist 51:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

Emphasis mine. Due Process is one of those obligations set on government to oblige it to control itself, and the second amendment is the last resort of auxiliary precautions. How can Carolyn McCarthy support these things and still claim to be serving our country and upholding her oath of office? I’d really like to know. I’m disappointed more of her constituents aren’t asking.

More on HR1022 – McCarthy AWB

Gun Law News has the dirt on HR1022.Â It looks like it’s more like California’s ban rather than a renewal of the federal ban.Â TheÂ bill still has no cosponsors, which is good news.Â Let’s keep an eye on it, and keep asking why the people of New York’s 4th Congressional District keep sending Carolyn McCarthy back to Congress despite her complete ineffectiveness as a legislator.

Glad Remington Doesn’t Act This Slowly

According to David Codrea, the FAA has retracted its collective rights statement.Â How long ago was it that we pointed this out?Â Â The sad part is, they probably acted with light speed in government terms.Â It’s good news though, because it means it was the FAA not being aware of the administration’s position, rather than the administration deliberately retreating from the earlier position.

My Letter to Remington

I’m a firm believer when a company goes to bat for you, it’s nice to say thank you.Â I sent this to Remington a few minutes ago:

Dear Remington,

I want to thank you for your support in the recent controversy over Jim Zumbo’s unfortunate comments that were derogatory the AR-15 shooting community.Â While I hope we can find some way to heal the wounds between our community and Mr. Zumbo, I was glad to see Remington so quickly distance itself from his statements.

I often buy Remington ammunition for my AR-15, and will be sure to continue doing so, and will encourage others to do so as well.

Thanks Again,

Sebastian

I think it’s especially important since so many of us jumped the gun and went after Remington over the whole Zumbo thing when they were merely mentioned incidentally.Â Sometime soon, I’m going to head up to Cabela’s and buy some Remington .223.Â Everyone else should be nice and pick up some too as a thank you to a company who’s willing to stand with us on taking the second amendment seriously.