Sebastian – Page 129 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Thom Anderson of SC Morning News Parades Ignorance

YellowJournalism

I was going to place this in the Weekly Gun News, but reviewing it, I couldn’t waste a perfectly good yellow journalism post. Thom Anderson of the South Carolina Morning News doesn’t understand all this icky gun stuff. That’s OK, not everyone does. But a wiser person would leave it at that. Not Mr. Anderson, however:

Really? Can you imagine that guy wading into a crowd and killing nine people with a knife? He quickly would have found the knife shoved exactly where it belonged. A gun is the only thing that would have enabled him to commit this act or enable a weak, cowardly person to do such killing.

I don’t have to imagine it, becauseÂ it happenedÂ with a death toll as high as Virginia Tech, the worst mass shooting in the this country. In fact, knife attacks are not uncommon in China, and the death tolls are higher than you would think, often with far more horrific woundings.

Terrible acts with guns seldom happen in other countries. In the United States, they are frequent because an overly influential right-wing minority sincerely fears that gun confiscation is just around the corner, and many politicians profit from that fear.

Were you asleep or unconscious on 22 July 2011? Worst mass shooting in history, and happened outside the United States.Â This claim, echoed by our President, was too much even for the biased folks at PolitifactÂ toÂ abide by. Seems other DemocratsÂ have been on a rollÂ with this one too. Dave Hardy has even more on this topic. The idea that this seldom happens in other countries is indefensible. He goes on to conclude, “[I]t would be even nicer to see our near-worship of guns decline and the 2nd Amendment brought back to the use The Founders intended.” Oh, what pray tell might that be, Mr. Constitutional scholar? At least with this claim, he managed to follow this sage advice.

Happy Independence Day

I hope everyone has a happy and safe Independence Day. Yesterday I went to the Amish market to pick up some spare ribs. I just St. Louis cut them and put them on the smoker. The tips I cook on the lower rack of the smoker. I’ll pick all the inedibles out of the tips, and then find some creative way way to use them.

But let’s not forget what the holiday is really about, especially as polls show that Americans are losing pride in their country. I have to admit that these days, I’m not really feeling it either. It’s worthwhile to take a look at the injuries and usurpations and see how many our current federal leviathan and it’s current White House occupant is guilty of:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. [Obama doesn’t have much of a veto record, actually]
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. [Check] [Check]
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. [Not really relevant in our current federal system]
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. [Fatiguing us into compliance? Never!]
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. [Our system doesn’t allow this.]
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. [Again, our system doesn’t allow this.]
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. [Not really relevant in the modern context]
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. [The constitution does this in our system.]
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. [Nope. Our current Supreme Court has self-immolated.]
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. [Check, check, oh hell yes check]
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. [Check, but every President since FDRÂ has done this.]
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. [Not yet, thank God.]
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
- For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: [Do these assholes count?]
- For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: [Check. Just ask the people at Waco, or the Terry family.]
- For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: [Nope]
- For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: [Obamacare, It’s a tax!]
- For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: [Check]
- For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences [Check]
- For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: [Pretty specific to the time.]
- For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: [Fundamentally transformed]
- For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. [Fortunately, no]
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. [No]
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. [No, at least not literally]
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. [Nope]
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. [Impressment isn’t happening today]
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. [Not literally, but I could rewrite this to apply to today’s context:
He has excited domestic strife among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our flyover states, the merciless Chicago political savages, whose known rule of politics, is an undistinguished destruction of all all competing ideas and conditions.]

So really, we’re not in as bad a shape as we’d like to think most days of the week, if you go by the standards of our founders. The only one Obama is really clearly guilty of is “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” But I’d argue Bush was just as guilty of that as well. The federal government is pretty clearly guilty of unaccountability for bureaucrats who make mistakes, but it’s been that way for a while.Â The other thing is, if we really decide we don’t like it, we can change it without a revolution. But an unfortunate fact is that too many Americans like big government.

Celebrating Independence Day

FireworksLaws

Here’s a handy guide to the Fireworks laws of the 50 states. Â Pennsylvania’s fireworks laws are strange because we don’t regulate possession or use, only sale. You can sell fireworks if you have a license to do so, but you can’t sell fireworks, other than the kid’s stuff, to a resident of Pennsylvania. There are a lot of fireworks stores on the Pennsylvania side of the river that specialize in selling fireworks to New Jersey residents, who, of course, ignore their state’s draconian fireworks ban. Buy too much in New Jersey, and it’s possession with intent to sell, and it’s a felony. People have been busted for it. Otherwise possession or useÂ isÂ a petty offense, basically just a fine. New Jersey authorities don’t like you celebrating freedom, comrade.

As Glenn Reynolds noted, fireworks bans “were the entering wedge of nannyism.” Of course, since our federal overlords banned the really fun stuff, I’m not sure how much of this matters anymore.

Sorry for the Dead Air

In addition to the approaching holiday, which always means more work, I had one of my data centers lose power the other day and the generator barfed. When I tried to manually start it, sparks were flying. It’s a very old generator that came with the building, so it had to be replaced by a new one that periodically tests itself and all that happy stuff. But I’m having to troubleshoot a whole other host of issues that went along with the outage, like how it didn’t get detected until the machines went down when the UPS battery ran out. Turns out I am missing some redundancy I didn’t think about. We actually lost one of the UPSes, and that killed Internet, which isn’t supposed to happen. Either way, I have to fix all this quickly, hence very little time for the blog.

How’s That Gun Ban Working Out Uber?

Last week Uber decided to add itself to the list of anti-gun companies I won’t do business with. It didn’t take long for one of their drivers to get robbed at gunpoint. I guess the robber hadn’t heard that Uber made a new policy. Surely he’ll be disappointed he’ll be removed from Uber’s network. No stars for you! Then an Uber drive shot someone who was allegedly trying to choke him. I can’t blame him. My car, my life, I’ll take my chances. What’s worse? Ending up dead or ending up kicked off Uber? Uber’s new policy will be widely ignored, and it should be, because the criminals will be the first to ignore it.

The Ultimate Gun Free Zone: The Beach

Thinking about the mass killing of 27 people at a tourist beach in Tunisia over the weekend, I worried that this sort of attack could provide a template for attacks here. I am not personally much of a beach person. I don’t like crowds, my pasty skin doesn’t appreciate much sun, and I’m not a big fan of salt water. When we visited Hawaii, I did go to a few lesser visited beaches to do some snorkeling. Even if Hawaii allowed carry, I wouldn’t have had a gun on me.

I think it’s safe to say that even in some very gun nutty states like Florida or the Texas Gulf Coast, your average beach goer, even the gun nutty types, aren’t going to take a piece when they head out for some beach time. It seems to me if this type of attack is to be a template, the only viable solution is a stepped up police presence at beaches, with the officers appropriately armed with patrol rifles (for those of you who are gun control advocates, ‘patrol rifles’ are what you people call an ‘assault weapon’) that can handle the kind of range you’ll encounter in a beach environment.

The Assault Weapons Hysteria Begins

Thank God the Charleston killer didn’t get his hands on an AR-15, or someone might have gotten hurt. Needless to say, the media and hysterical types are going to town with the fact that the killer wanted an AR, but supposedly couldn’t afford one. The deadliest mass shooting in America, Virginia Tech, was carried out with ordinary handguns. Handguns can be plenty lethal when the killer manages to find a small, enclosed space, can block exits, and is facing unarmed opponents with nowhere to run. A lot of Virginia Tech students jumped out of windows to escape the killer, but the confined nature of the setting is a big reason the killer managed to kill so many.

I’m not saying an AR-15 can’tÂ be more deadly than a pistol, it certainly can be, but in a confined space, a handgun can be just as effective a tool. Despite the fact that I have an AR-15, I usually don’t keep it ready for home defense. I’ve found some of the hallways in my house to be a bit tight even with a carbine. Needless to say, I think the media are overhyping this. Bob Owens also points out that the Glock handgun the killer chose was actually no cheaper than an AR-15 can be found for.

Implications of Same Sex Marriage Ruling on Guns Rights

Bob Owens points out that the Supreme Court’s decision in Overgefell v. Hodges enables national carry. I wouldn’t go toting a gun over into New Jersey or Maryland just yet. The argument used here will certainly be useful when defending National Reciprocity in court, or arguing a right to carry a firearm before the federal courts, but given how hostile and resistant lower courts have been, and given the Supreme Court’s reluctance to do anything about it, I wouldn’t want to find myself on trial arguing that some language in Overgefell supports a national right to carry. The courts aren’t likely to agree, and the Supreme Court not likely to care. Some rights are more equal than others, folks. That’s just the way it is, for now.

Best Gift Ever to the GOP

The Supreme Court has made gay marriage legal everywhere in the United States, thus giving the Republican Party a huge gift. The truth is that opinion on this issue has been breaking in favor of gay marriage for the past decade, and it’s only accelerating. The political fight over this issue risked losing an entire generation to the Democratic Party, since a lot of millennials are single issue voters when it comes to this issue. The Supreme Court certainly has not put this issue to rest, because we’re still going to argue over cakes, but for the most part it’s now off the table politically. I feel this will soon become a settled issue.

Pennsylvania was not a state that had legislatively enacted gay marriage, and it was not going to as long as the GOP controls the legislature. The GOP now controls the legislature at historic levels. I don’t think Kathleen Kane is endearing herself to many people these days. Things look good for the GOP in Pennsylvania for the time being, despite the loss of the governorship. I thought the gay marriage issue was likely the biggest threat to the GOP majority in the long term, and now that’s off the table. While I’m sure Rep. Daryl Metcalfe won’t be thanking Justice Kennedy any time soon, he probably should. The GOP was in a Catch 22. It couldn’t mellow much on gay marriage without risking the loss of evangelicals, but it also couldn’t keep being obstinate on the issue and expect young people not to close their minds to whatever else the GOP might have to say.

I have long been in favor of legalizing gay marriage (I supported it before Obama and Hillary), but preferred that it be accomplished legislatively rather than through the courts. But I’d much rather be pissed at the GOP because they are stupid, venal, and ineffective rather than because they are taking the ship down over this long-term losing issue.

Antis Back to Being Disillusioned?

I don’t take E.J. Dionne’s post in the Washington Post as a sign the other side is feeling all that good about things. Once it became apparent gun control wasn’t a hobby horse that anti-gun politicians could ride anywhere after the Charleston massacre, they quickly switched gears and got on the confederate flag hobby horse and took that to town instead. It’s always a good sign when our opponents are admitting that hearts and minds have to be changed before their issue is going anywhere. When I see our opponents whining like this, it’s music to my ears.

Sure, we have “hearts and minds” issues, like legalizing friggin’ machine guns, but I’d much rather than that problem than theirs. If their best argument is that guns will cause you to commit suicide, we should look up and thank our lucky stars, because even objectively, that argument sucks.