Sebastian – Page 235 – Shall Not Be Questioned

I Don’t Know Why They are Surprised

Many on the left have been angered at Diane Feinstein’s reaction to the NSA surveillance scandal, as evidenced by this New York Times article here. Is it any surprise? One reason I like the gun issue is that it’s such a great political proxy. You can tell a lot about how a politician thinks by whether or not they believe you ought to be permitted to have some parity with the government, in terms of application of force, and the means to do so.

Really, the whole notion of popular sovereignty ceases to have any meaning of the people can’t meaningfully withdraw their consent to be governed. Feinstein has Napoleon-like tendencies? The devil, you say. One thing I’ve never understood is the shock so many left-of-center voters display when they find out some of their heroes are nothing more than Napoleon wannabes. A little careful thinking about how Feinstein believes citizens and government ought to relate should reveal that in a hurry.

One Key Difference Between Our Side and Theirs

Miguel goes through Bloomberg’s list of victims from the Miami area and finds a list of doozies, including one police shooting. This illustrates a key difference between those who support gun control and those who do not. Generally speaking, gun control advocates rarely accept the notion that there are some people out there who need shooting. Pull a knife on a cop? The results are predictable, and that the police officer was able to defend himself successfully is what most of us would regard as a good thing. To the other side? Mr. Knife Puller is just another tragic victim of gun violence. All lives are precious. When you boil all the other BS away, this is one of the core philosophical differences.

Illinois Approaching Deadline

Eugene Kontorovich over at The Volokh Conspiracy notes that the deadline is looming, and also discusses some of the Constitutional issues with Quinn’s amendatory veto:

Turning past the text â€“ the purpose of the Second Amendment is self-defense. Limiting people to one gun fundamentally jeopardizes self-defense in the event the gun malfunctions, is dropped, etc. The best way to evaluate the seriousness of such concerns is to look to whether police and military personell carry multiple weapons, i.e., whether this is a done thing in contexts where regulation is not an obstacle. This of course is also the leading way of thinking about what kind of weapons can be banned. This is partially an empirical question; I donâ€™t know the answer. The non-empirical part what the threshold must be â€“ how many cops have to carry weapons to make this normal.

Some very good questions. I’ve long advocated that the courts need to evaluate police use to determine the scope of the constitutional protections, the police being situated similar to non-police citizens. That can become difficult. Are machine guns in common police use? Increasingly this is so. I think a reasonable standard would be that citizens can have anything the police can have, subject to the same or similar restrictions to police. This would also tend to serve as a check on the militarization of police forces, since they’d have to accept that issuing “special equipment” to cops means Joe Citizen has a right to access to the same. But we can always imagine far better constitutional regimes than the courts would ever be willing to implement.

UPDATE: More here.

R+P Keeps Digging

Look at this hilariousness. Those of you in the tech industry will truly appreciate it:

As such, we are implementing the necessary Web 3.0 Social capabilities to ensure that each individual voice is not just heard, but protected against cyber-bullying, virtual filibustering, off-topic rhetoric, or defamatory and inflammatory language that is not related to the discussion thread.

Read the whole sad thing. Web 3.0? Really? They are totally beyond this whole Web 2.0 thing. We dumb rednecks can’t even begin to appreciate their sophistication. Even Bloomberg isn’t stupid enough to be this condescending and insulting toward gun owners. Bloomberg, at least, has the decently to be forthrightly condescending to us. We know where Bloomberg stands.

The more I see from these R+P people, the more I believe they really think we’re the reason there can’t be a conversation. Even though none of us censor or squash dissenting viewpoints, whereas it’s SOP for their side (and apparently for R+P too). I think these guys believe they are what the gun debate has been waiting for. Sorry, no. We’ve read this shitty novel before, and didn’t like it 5 years ago either. R+P is nothing new. In fact, they are a far more humorous and amateurish than the previous version of this farce.

American Rifle and Pistol Association Responds

It looks like Peter Vogt has chosen to respond to Bitter’s article the other day, exposing the problems with American Rifle and Pistol Association. Go read the whole, sad thing. I didn’t really understand why anyone would want to join a group like this before they published this “interview.” Now, understanding they are actually a for-profit corporation, and don’t really seem to have any real mission or vision for what they want to stand for, I really don’t understand it.

Is the purpose just to make money? Trying to help along this national conversation the other side wants to pretend hasn’t happened because of the big-bad NRA? What these ARPA folks don’t seem to get is that they have approached this issue from an astounding ignorance.Â The gun rights movement is already hyper-connected on the Internet, as I’m sure these guys are now beginning to discover. Perhaps I might suggest they read Brian Anse Patrick’s “Rise of the Anti-Media” before proceeding further. And that’s just a start. There has been a national conversation on gun control, and it’s been raging for decades. The anti-gun folks want no part of it because they keep losing the arguments.

How Massachusetts Authorities Celebrate the 4th

By seizing guns, of course. Oh, the sweet irony. Somewhere in the netherworld,Â General Gage is having a laugh, for sure.

Happy Independence Day

I hope everyone enjoys the holiday. We’ll be busy moving and re-arranging. My office is complete, and more importantly, I have a desk:

I’ve been waiting for this to be finished for some time, and now it is finally done. But moving back in is going to be arduous. This room was packed to the gills before.

Airplane Needed for Leaflet Drop

Mike Bloomberg is hosting a 1000 dollar a plate fundraising dinner for his good buddy Joe Manchin. I would love to print out that invitation and air drop them all over the state of West Virginia. I don’t see this kind of thing going over well with the locals. Let us not forget that in addition to Bloomberg’s rampant nannying on every freedom issue under the sun, he’s also an avowed enemy of coal.

“Joe Manchin gets help from the Mayor of New York City, a billionaire who hates gun rights and wants coal mining to disappear. He throws fancy fundraising dinners for Joe in Manhattan that none of you could ever afford to attend, and that goes double when the coal jobs disappear.” Yeah, that’ll go over well in West Virginia. I’m sure of it.

Some questions for OC Opponents in Mississippi

Dave Hardy asks a few questions about the new OC law that’s now been enjoined in Mississippi.

Who drafted this pile of offal? Can officers of a county (which is generally a subdivision of the State) sue the State? Isn’t that a little like the City Planner suing the city because he doesn’t like the zoning plan?

Read the whole thing.

Quinn’s Expected Veto

Governor Quinn of Illinois apparently doesn’t care that the court has spoken. His amendatory veto suggests that:

You only be allowed to carry one gun. Because two would just be one too many?
No carrying any spare magazines.
No carrying anywhere alcohol is served, even if you’re drinking iced tea.
Requires businesses to opt-in to the concealed carry program rather an opt out.
Removes preemption of home rule regulation of so-called assault weapons.

Screw this guy. Tell your lawmakers you expect them to override Quinn and ignore his tantrum.