The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
Quote of the Day
From Jonathan David Morris:
Our civil liberties are at risk in America, but it isn’t a George Bush thing. It isn’t a Bill Clinton thing. It’s a government thing. The worst part about it, though, is that when lawmakers make pork-flavored promises, we are the ones who dig in.
And we are what we eat, indeed.
Yup.
This Will Elevate Your Blood Pressure
Two bulletin-board posts: The first is the story of a man arrested for illegally checking his firearms at the airport – after he did it absolutely correctly.
The second is the story of his girlfriend immediately subsequent to his arrest.
<sarcasm>I feel SO much safer now.</sarcasm>
UPDATE: The Laughing Wolf takes the topic and runs with it. With excellence, I might add (and do.)
UPDATE: The Hoplophobe Responds
Barry of Inn of the Last Home responds to the criticism of his objection to concealed-carry. (Link bloggered – scroll down to Vilification and Clarification.)
In my opinion, he just dug himself in deeper, and he needs to think about what he said very, very hard.
My response?
“I also would feel uncomfortable knowing that anyone on the street, in the theatre, at a restaurant, at the supermarket could be carrying a loaded gun on their person. And here’s why – despite training, despite temperament, despite the best of intentions: I don’t trust you.“
Barry, what you don’t seem to realize is that anyone on the street, in the theatre, at a restaurant, at the supermarket could be carrying a loaded gun on their person – WITHOUT A CONCEALED-CARRY PERMIT. They’re called “criminals” and they do it all the time. They’re the ones who do stick up the fast-food clerk, and the person behind the convenience-store counter, and the person stepping out of their SUV and so on and so forth.
The problem is, Barry, that you haven’t been paying attention. There are now 35 states that are “shall-issue” – states where the government must give an applicant a permit if he is not legally prohibited possessing a firearm. In none of these states has there been anything like you fear.
In short, your distrust is misplaced. As I put it, you are a hoplophobe – you fear weapons, not people – because if you were really distrustful of people you’d be going around in paranoid fear of the (approximately) 1% of the population that is violently criminal that might be carrying a weapon with intent to criminally use it. Instead, you fear the (approximately) 1% of the law-abiding population who are willing to jump through all the legal hoops necessary in order to carry a firearm legally and thus act as a deterrent against those willing to use violence to take what they want.
That is an irrational fear. And why do you have that fear? Because you project on all those others what you fear YOU might do yourself if you were armed.
You don’t mistrust others, Barry.
You mistrust yourself.
And I feel sorry for you.
But I’m glad you don’t want a gun.
Go tell him what you think. I believe he needs to hear it.
UPDATE 12/19/03: Francis Porretto weighs in, too.
No Charges
I’ve probably been beaten to this story already, but Bill St. Clair was kind enough to e-mail me this report that 71 year-old Melvin Spaulding will not be charged for shooting 20 year-old scum James T. Moore who was one of three men beating up Melvin’s 63 year-old friend George Lowe. Halleluja!
Why the hell Spaulding was arrested and jailed is still beyond me.
I covered this earlier here and here.
Per the e-mail:
Shooter, 71, won’t face charges at all
Prosecutors will not file an attempted murder charge against Melvin Spaulding, the 71-year-old man who shot a 20-year-old for allegedly attacking his friend in the street.
“That’s good,” Spaulding said after hearing the news Tuesday, as he smoked a Dutch Masters cigar in his mobile home.
Pinellas-Pasco Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett said evidence showed Spaulding was trying to prevent his friend George Lowe, 63, from being killed or suffering “serious bodily harm” as others attacked him.
The law allows people to intervene in such cases to protect others from harm, Bartlett said.
Spaulding said he fired his .22-caliber handgun Nov. 30 because three young men were attacking Lowe and he was afraid his neighbor was in serious danger. The bullet hit one of the men, James T. Moore, 20, in the arm.
Lowe said the episode began when he heard noise outside his home on 40th Street N in the Lealman area and went outside to investigate. He said he asked the men not to be so loud, which turned into an argument. Then the others began kicking him in the legs and back, he said.
After Spaulding fired his gun, sheriff’s deputies arrived and arrested him on an attempted murder charge. Later, the other three men were charged with misdemeanor battery.
But two of the alleged attackers dispute the description of the events by Lowe and Spaulding. They acknowledge having words with Lowe, but they say no one hit or kicked anyone before Spaulding fired.
Eric Palm, 18, said Lowe grabbed at his FUBU jersey, so he shoved his face to push him away. Palm said he then swung at Lowe and missed, and that’s when the shot went off.
Moore denies kicking or hitting Lowe. He said he wants people to know “that I’m not a damn old-person beater.”
“I’m a nice person, you know? I get along with everybody. When people get drunk, of course they’re going to get loud ’cause that’s what people do, but I don’t go around fighting people just for no reason.”
Moore and his friends had been celebrating his 20th birthday that night.
Asked about the sheriff’s deputies’ decision to arrest Spaulding, Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger said, “I think particularly in ones of this nature, they may want to call the State Attorney’s Office before they make an arrest.”
Gee, ya THINK?
Pinellas sheriff’s spokesman Tim Goodman said there was nothing improper with the arrest, even though the prosecutors have decided against filing charges.
Bartlett said the State Attorney’s Office was likely to file misdemeanor battery charges against the three men: Moore, Palm and James Curtis Ganoe, 18. Those three also were arrested by deputies.
Lowe said he was pleased with the decision not to file charges against Spaulding for coming to his aid.
“I think that’s excellent,” Lowe said. “I think that’s the greatest thing they could have done.”
Spaulding said he was relieved by the state attorney’s decision. While deputies were polite, he said, he did not enjoy his first trip to jail.
What if he hears a noise outside his trailer again and faces the same situation?
“I just couldn’t let them kill somebody,” Spaulding said. “I couldn’t do it . . . what they did was wrong.”
Yes it was, Mr. Spaulding. And you did the right thing.
Back Again
I’m not addicted to the Internet! I can quit anytime!
So why is it, as soon as I get access, I’ve got to get caught up on what I’ve missed?
Anyway, one more day at work, then I have the next two weeks off.
More posting is promised!
Via Say Uncle comes the link to fellow blogger Michael Williams’ disgusted response to being denied a CCW permit by his betters in California.
While I’m not surprised by the denial, I was a bit shocked to see the comment by Barry, another blogger who runs The Inn of the Last Home from Tennessee. It is the quintessential gun-phobe:
I just…I just blink my eyes in amazement everytime this crops up – actually watching people feel the need to carry a concealed weapon in public…
If I were to take a live, armed weapon and carry it on my person, in public, it would eat away at my sanity just as if it were emitting lethal radiation. To know that I carried an instrument of sure and certain death on my person, available and ready to be pulled out and used at a moment’s notice to possibly kill…a child. A homeless person. An innocent.
Obviously that is not your intent. You want to protect yourself – maybe that is how you feel in California. But being brought up in Eastern Tennessee I’ve never once felt the need to protect myself from imminent bodily harm in public. And if I were aware of a location that might be unduly hazardous – a dark alley, a badly lighted parking area – I would avoid it. I’ve never been mugged, nor can I readily pull up a name of any person I’ve ever met that’s been mugged or even bodily threatened in my whole life.
What scares me most is the arbitrary nature of self-defense. What line must be crossed to signal to you that there is imminent danger or threat? Is it a criminal pulling a gun on you? In which case, unless you’re a gunslinger, you’re not going to outdraw him. Is it someone pulling a knife? Threatening words? Bad language or rude gestures? Where is that one point where you decide, “Yes, my life or the life of my loved ones is in danger and I must now take it upon myself to take the life of another person.” What if the guy is reaching into his jacket, and you are sure, absolutely certain that it is a weapon. You pull your gun and shoot–and see he’s reaching for his wallet. Or worse, you miss and hit a child running in the street. Where is that line?
The radiation would rot my brain and I would never be able to live with myself.
Maybe it’s different in California. Maybe it’s different in Tennessee. Maybe I don’t love my family enough…maybe I love them too much. But I know myself, and know that if I surrendered to the paranoia – and I mean that in the most basic sense – there would be no turning back.
I’ll stay in the light, thanks.
Note the change: “If I were to take a live, armed weapon and carry it on my person, in public, it would eat away at my sanity just as if it were emitting lethal radiation.” Followed below by: “The radiation would rot my brain….”
That is fear of an inanimate object. He actually believes that the presence of a firearm will warp his sanity.
Barry, I applaud your decision to remain unarmed. I hope, however, that you will get some psychiatric or psychological treatment for your crippling fear of your own lack of control.
And I sincerely hope that neither you nor anyone you know becomes the victim of a violent crime.
But please, don’t project your mental disturbance on others.
UPDATE: The original JSKit/Echo comment thread is available here, thanks to reader John Hardin.
More Guns in Church!
Via The Volokh Conspiracy, comes this story of one Rev. Arthur Ford who used a handgun to defend himself and his son-in-law from a nut who was beating them with a fireplace poker. This guy attacked six people in total, with the Reverend and his son-in-law being the last. One of the victims was critically injured and is hospitalized.
I suspect that if Rev. Ford had not owned a handgun, they would not have been the last.
So much for turning the other cheek.
Good for the Reverend.
We Got Him
Like you haven’t heard it everywhere by now.
Wring him out, give him a fair trial, then hang him.
The New, Updated Bill of Rights
Spoons has it. Go read.
Truer Words…
From Donald Sensing:
I predict that the Bush administration will be seen by freedom-wishing Americans a generation or two hence as the hinge on the cell door locking up our freedom. When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I’d tell them to emigrate, but there’s nowhere left to go. I am left with nauseating near-conviction that I am a member of the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free.