They will be yet another municipality bucking preemption passing this useless law.
Year: 2010
The Power of the Dark Side
This is Rich
Correct Usage
VPC Ruger Video
John Richardson has a VPC video that maligns the Ruger SR9, and Ruger’s advertising. John notes that they have a good case for copyright violation. I think the VPC’s is on pretty solid fair use grounds, so I don’t agree in terms of violation. But VPC does meet the criteria Righthaven would be looking for; a poorly funded non-profit that’s barely scraping by, and that would be more interested in a quick settlement than fighting an expensive lawsuit. Fortunately for Josh Sugarmann, Ruger is more ethical than Stevens Media LLC, so he has little to worry about. It would have been a real tragedy for Josh to have to cut back his six figure salary, or cut into his Google research budget, in order to fight a baseless lawsuit.
I’ve Wondering the Same Thing About Homeownership
Bitter is going to roll her eyes at this post, because she thinks I’m more down on my house than it deserves, but I have to agree with Dr. Helen on the issue of home ownership. It’s a big hassle, for sure. But renting isn’t exactly a panacea either, and in the case of renting, you’re paying for someone else to build value in a property, in exchange for them worrying about the day to day headaches of maintaining a property. You also have to follow terms of a lease, which can often be quite restrictive.
But I have learned quite a bit from buying a house, including what my needs are when it comes to housing. For one, the townhouse I rented had a basement, and I grew up with a basement. I bought a split level house with a partial finished basement. I’ve since discovered I was taking basements for granted. There was barely enough storage for all my junk, and adding Bitter’s on to it meant there was even less room, despite the fact that we both threw away quite a bit. The fact is that a basement is a convenient place to store junk you need some of the time, but not all of the time. My current house has a small attic, but things which go there are soon forgotten.
Every bit if work you think your house needs is a lot more of a pain to do yourself than you think, and finding honest contractors who won’t rip you off is difficult. I grew up in a house that was pretty consistently under construction, so I learned how to do even fairly radical home improvements myself. There’s some things that make sense to do yourself, but others it just makes sense to bring in professionals to do. Just because you know how to do them, doesn’t meant it’s worth your time. I am fairly happy doing plumbing an electrical work. Drywalling, painting, and carpeting are for the birds, and not much to have professionals do.
I wouldn’t suggest anyone buy a house thinking of it as an investment. It’s really a place to live. You can come out ahead financially over renting, but you also have to consider it’ll tie you down in ways you may not particularly like. Would I go back to renting? Doubtful. But home ownership certainly is no panacea. In some situations, you probably are better off just renting.
Should Kids Be Allowed to Shoot?
That seems to be the question plaguing the chattering classes in the UK:
“Guns are weapons, not toys, and we have to do everything we can as a society to ensure that children and young people are protected from the accidental injury and death that they cause.”
A force spokesperson said: “The possession of firearms, shotguns and ammunition by young people is covered under the Firearms Act. Young people are subject to strict supervision while using a firearm and appropriate provisions must be in place before a young person is granted a certificate.
So it would seem they need the certificate even for supervised shooting, and now that’s apparently becoming controversial. As one shooter notes, “When we go to championships abroad the majority of shooters are in their late teens or early 20s. The sport is dying in this country because we have no young people coming through.” That’s exactly the idea. They don’t care, because the law is working exactly the way it was intended to work.
More Guns, Less Crime
Don Kates is looking into European History:
Remarkably good homicide data is available for England, beginning in the 1200’s. Those data indicate a pre-gun homicide rate in England of roughly 20 per 100,000 [roughly four times greater than the U.S. today]
Firearms were introduced into England in the 1400’s and were in wide use by the 1500’s, coincident with a decline in the homicide rate to 15 per 100K.
RTWT. I would have never guessed that England kept detailed homicide data. That’s pretty amazing. There’s no doubt that pre-firearms societies were more brutal and violent than today. Back then, soldiering was an art form, and those not practiced in it couldn’t stand up to those who were. The firearm changed all that.
Legal Oddities
Xlrq notes that North Carolaina’s laws against fornication and adultery favor gay sex. This is a pretty amusing chapter in the law of unintended consequences.
Quote of the Day
From Wretchard, founder of the Belmont Club:
All of us should know when we’re getting in over their heads. Really bright people know their limitations. Truly stupid people cannot imagine they have any because they surround themselves with courtiers, hangers-on, hacks, yes-men, PR consultants, clowns, carny barkers and jesters. Nothing is new in this. The Divine King was the “best and the brightest†concept of 250 years ago and was a crock even then. It’s so old it seems new.
I think this might touch on the root of a problem we’ve seen in Government, for sure, but that I’ve also seen much of in industry. I think it may be that these kinds of financial crisises create wonderful opportunity for titanic realignment. Last time, that didn’t work out too well for us. This time might very well be different. Maybe the new lesson is we don’t need a self-appointed elite quite so much as we thought.