The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Brought to you by Heather in Alaska, who was having a conversation with some friends about the Colorado shooting, and discussed carry in movie theaters. This prompted the question: “Why would you need to bring a gun to a theater anyway?”
I think that particular question has rather answered itself.
Looks like the anti-gun groups are planning themselves a little (and I do mean little) protest of NRA. Of course, they are not going to protest NRA’s high-profile headquarters in Fairfax, but instead will protest NRA’s non-descript Federal Affairs office, which sits atop the popular Capitol Hill bar Bullfeathers. I guess the anti gun groups can’t really cover the cost of bus or cab fare out to Fairfax these days, so I suppose I should be understanding here.
It’s a shame I’m in a rush to get back, because Bitter and I could pass through DC and counter protest. Actually, the idea we came up with would be to stop off at a gun shop and pick up one of those jam-o-matic 100 round drum magazines, and offer to destroy it on camera under one condition: that the protesters all sing “I’m A Little Teapot,” of course also acting out the song as they sing it. I figure their dedication to stopping gun violence and ridding our streets of these killing machines is very strong, so of course they would be willing to suffer some minor embarrassment among gun bloggers to accomplish it.
I found one of them peddling this bit around, so like a grade school teacher, I have marked it up in red and corrected the ignorance, inaccuracies, and distortions:
Given the amount of time I’ve spent in a car between Friday evening and this morning, I’ve been following along with Twitter discussion about the Aurora mass killing. The truth is that both sides like to present simplistic rhetoric. On our side, you still see plenty of “If only one of the theater goers was armed, this would have been prevented!”
I’ve been reading about how elaborately his guy planned, and I have to say, this looks an awful lot like a Kobayashi Maru scenario to me. How often to you practice shooting in a dark theater filled with tear gas? This isn’t to say that I want some pant wetter from the Brady crowd telling me I can’t carry a gun, because I’ll take my odds with a gun as opposed to without, but I’m afraid I rank this scenario up there with hearing your door break down, grabbing your defensive firearm, only to find yourself pointing a gun at a SWAT team that got the wrong address. I support your right to be armed, but I wouldn’t bet on your coming out of that scenario unscathed.
A gun only improves the odds. It doesn’t guarantee victory. Society is always going to be vulnerable to paranoid schizophrenics who are high functioning enough to plan, and intelligent enough to plan well. As Joe Huffman points out, it could have been much much worse. You could double or triple the number of people carrying firearms, and that’s not going to change.
So it seems the Republicans won control of the Tennessee legislature for the first time in a long time, and then proceeded to do what Republicans do best when gun owners help them get elected: tell us they don’t owe us anything, and proceed to do little to move gun rights forward. While the particular topic of parking lot bills is not one I’m fond of, I agree with Packetman that I’m happy to see NRA holding Republican feet to the fire, and trying to push for the GOP to be better. As I said, I’m not fond of the parking lot bills, but Republicans have to get the message that just being less-bad than the other guy isn’t enough, especially in areas where the Democrats can be convinced to play along and compete for our vote. It also looks like strategic targeting in primaries is now becoming part of the NRA playbook, which is smart. If you can get enough heads on pikes*, eventually you just need to threaten, without having to throw down and follow through on election day.
* For our metaphorically and intellectually challenged friends in the gun control movement, I am not suggesting Chris Cox behead and pike any of our political opponents. I am not suggesting anyone do that. It is just a metaphor, like “heads on a platter” does not mean literal heads a platter, nor does saying a newly hired CEO is a wild hatchet man when it comes to culling the head count, means that the new CEO is an axe murderer. I would normally not feel the need to point this out, but many of our opponents have shown an inability to converse like rational adults.
Clayton notes that GAO says the number of concealed carry license holders is 8 million. His estimate was 7.6 million. Either way, that’s a large enough constituency that politicians won’t want to risk pissing off.
I have never heard of this apparent erstwhile arms bazar, which makes me highly skeptical of this whole thing. Especially when you ask something like this on any Internet gun forum:
I started asking around via private message—”Do you have what it would take to arm a small paramilitary group? Say, 20 people?” I made it clear that I needed something “more powerful” than what was displayed on the site.
Now that’s immediately going to set off anyone’s gullible 13 year old kid who’s played too much counterstrike (or whatever it is the kids play these days) alarm, and of course prompt the appropriately mocking response:
I can provide: tec9, scorpion, ak47 and one single vietnam war “thumper”, but its ammo costs. Smgs are much less expensive, and satisfy your self protection or combat needs very well: the sound of a easy-to-conceal soviet scorpion can scary the most badass motherfucker will stand in front of you…I’m telling this for you: one single grenade of a thumper costs 50 btcs to me: the GL itself will be around 100, to me. Take your time to choose, there’s no rush: but be sure your purchase is worth :)
Sorry dude, I’d bet a fairly large chunk of change that’s either someone making fun of you, and trying to string you along for entertainment, or hoping to use your own idiocy and naivety to scam you out of some cash. Either that or it’s a fed. Odds are pretty good on either, and the fed probably still thinks you’re stupid and naive enough to make your own case against yourself, without him having to push the boundaries of entrapment. I think what’s even more precious is that the author called the ATF and expected to meet anything other than incompetence and indifference. I guess our Gizmodo writer didn’t know they were too busy helping smuggle guns to Mexico to give a shit about a bunch of nerds playing arms dealer online.
Gene Simmons, eat your heart out. It would seem that guided bullet technology is close to coming to fruition. I doubt that this technology will be able to perform miracles. You’ll still likely need to get the bullet somewhere in the neighborhood of a man sized target, with the bullet doing the real precision work. Any change in bullet’s trajectory is going to dissipate energy and reduce range, and you’d need range to be able to affect a large change in the point of impact. I’d say that for shooting people at ranges under 500 yards, this isn’t likely to replace plain, ordinary bullets anytime soon. I’d also imagine the bullets themselves will be rather pricy. I’d almost imagine you’d be better off using a small, portable mortar launcher, with a guided mortar. If you’re going to incur the cost for guidance, send the enemy something that goes boom.
What do you all think?
Chris from Alaska finds quite a gem of a quite from one of the Brady Campaign’s board members. One other thing I would ad, is even if any major newspapers weren’t calling for DC v. Heller to be overturned, it should concern them greatly that we have at least one, and probably four Supreme Court justices that want to overturn the decision. For years, I think the elites in the gun control movement really convinced themselves they were up against rubes. Now that it’s becoming abundantly clear their elites are not all dripping with intellectual talent, the tiger is finding it difficult to change its stripes.
On the policy front, a recent tactic you’ve seen from the gun control elite is to pooh pooh the notion of the “law abiding citizen.” You can see a recent example of it here. This is such a thoroughly weak argument that one laughs over the fact that they are even presenting it. Most people, I believe, recognize that Minority Report was a work of fiction, and we do not have a magical ability to look into people’s heads to assess whether or not they might in the future become criminals. All we can do is look at past criminal behavior as an indication for future criminal behavior. That’s what the NICS check is about.
So yes, some people who can pass a background check now will later go on to commit crimes. This is hardly surprising. But the more important question is how you deal with this fact in terms of public policy? You really have to start with the default assumption that everyone is a potential criminal, and either make buying a gun impossible, or so onerously difficult that only the strongly motivated bother. And in the realm of motivated people, where does someone who’s planning on committing a crime with a gun rank?
If the answer is that you have to assume everyone is a criminal, and make it generally difficult or impossible to obtain or buy firearms, how does that jibe with the keeping and bearing of arms to be a fundamental right? Why am I paranoid, as gun control elites suggest, for suggesting their end goal isn’t just a few “common sense” regulations, but a draconian public policy regimes aimed at unconstitutionally disarming most of American society? Their own rhetoric betrays their true intentions. The only reason they joke about our paranoia is because we have them at the end of their rope, and they realize it more than we do. I realize it, but I aim to cut that rope, and help accelerate their movement’s plunge into the dustbin of history. I don’t see any reason to let up now.