The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
This is NEAT
Being a South Park Republican type, I found this little tool pretty entertaining. (Via the Everlasting Phelps) The South Park Create a Character. Here’s my interpretation of me on the average weekend:
Only I don’t look that young.
This, however, is NOT neat: Read Phelps’ post on the abuse of eminent domain in Norfolk, Virginia.
Now do you understand why my character is holding a rifle evil bullet-hose militia weapon?
I Thought the Idea was to PUNISH Criminals
Oh sweet bleeding Jebus. Kim linked to this story about an Austrailian police officer:
He faces one charge of wounding with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm.
He also faces three charges of firing a firearm in a manner likely to endanger the safety of any other person.
Why? Because he shot at a man trying to run him over.
But that’s not the best story! From a link on that page, we get this:
PRISONERS losing privileges and being moved to higher security areas as punishment has been criticised by the state Ombudsman.
In his annual report, Eugene Biganovsky raises concerns a section of legislation allowing prisoners to be moved at the discretion of prison officials or losing privileges was being abused.
He cited three cases:
A prisoner who allegedly threatened to take an officer hostage was stripped of electricity in his cell and had his phone calls limited.
An inmate wrongly accused of being involved in building and operating a still at Cadell Training Centre was moved to a high security jail yet faced no charges.
A television was taken away from a prisoner accused of “abusing a nurse”.
Poor babies! They should file suit because they’re not being tucked in at night!
First the police can’t do their jobs, and second the prisons can’t either!
And they wonder why violent crime is on the rise in Australia!
Read This and then Tell Me that Gun Control “Works”
Read this excellent editorial from the British paper The Guardian: Gun crime spreads ‘like a cancer’ across Britain
Money quote:
Handgun crime has soared past levels last seen before the Dunblane massacre of 1996 and the ban on ownership of handguns introduced the year after Thomas Hamilton, an amateur shooting enthusiast, shot dead 16 schoolchildren, their teacher and himself in the Perthshire town.
It was hoped the measure would reduce the number of handguns available to criminals. Now handgun crime is at its highest since 1993.
As well as being converted from air guns and blank firing weapons, handguns are being imported from eastern Europe and beyond. A good quality semi-automatic handgun can be bought on the streets of London for as little as £200.
That’s about $350.00 – about the retail cost of a decent pistol here in the U.S.
Sure, gun control works. It disarms the victims just about perfectly.
You’ll note that there aren’t any stories like these in the British press.
Privacy? Peons Don’t Need Privacy!
Remember the airport scanner story from back in January that caused such a ruckus because it could see through your clothes? Yes, it would help detect concealed weapons, but it also let operators essentially see you naked. That raised some questions about privacy, but the argument at the time was that if you wanted to fly on a commercial airliner, you already gave up quite a bit of your right to privacy.
Well, now England is looking at invading your privacy when you’re walking on the street. Seems that they’re developing a unit that will fit into the back of a van and allow police officers to scan anybody.
Police are developing a mobile scanner that can detect weapons being carried on the streets as part of the fight against the rising tide of gun crime.
The scanner, which is being developed by scientists on behalf of Scotland Yard, will be able to pick out the outline of knives, guns and other weapons hidden underneath clothing, enabling officers to target criminals before they strike.
The justification?
The scheme was initiated by Sir John Stevens, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, earlier this year as he launched a crackdown on the tide of gun crime sweeping across Britain.
It comes in the wake of a number of high-profile shootings across the country in recent weeks including the shooting of six-year-old Makada Weaver in Liverpool.
Figures show that shooting incidents across England and Wales rose by 35% from 17,589 in 2000-2001 to 22,314 last year.
But I thought that gun control was supposed to make everybody safe. Now they’re telling us that invasion of privacy will make everyone safe?
Before the scanner takes to the streets the police may find they have to fight civil liberties groups concerned that the scanner – which reveals intimate body details – is an infringement of privacy.
Well I certainly hope so. However, I don’t think the government is all that interested in what the civil liberties groups think:
The spokesman refused to comment on reports in The Times that a version of the scanner has already been tested on the streets of London from the back of a converted van.
But he confirmed that the force would be using it “as soon as is practicable,” he said.
Another Expensive Exercise in Futility
Last week it was reported in several places that Canada’s attempt at registering all long guns and all gun owners – originally sold to Parliament and the people of Canada as having a net cost to taxpayers of $2 million – would reach a cost of $1 billion a full year earlier than the Auditor General predicted after she reviewed the fiscal debacle last year.
Now in that gun-control Utopia of England – where all legal guns and gun owners are registered and licensed, and all machine-guns, “assault weapons,” and handguns are banned – they’re going to spend £1.1 million (about $1.9 million) to build a “National Firearms Forensic Intelligence Database” so that the police can “speed up the way officers can link gun crimes.”
At least that’s the initial estimate.
He Shoulda Used a .45
I expect that anybody who reads The Smallest Minority also reads Kim du Toit (and probably Kim first), but since he posted this link without comment, I’ll comment.
Wimpy 9mm Europellet! An XBox requires at least a .40 S&W, and I’d recommend a .45ACP.
OUTRAGE!
Ravenwood begins his piece with this warning: “If you have blood pressure problems, you probably don’t want to read this”.
He’s right.
A 63 year-old man is being beaten by three young men. His 71 year-old friend intervenes with a .22 pistol, wounding one, and stopping the fight.
The 71 year-old was arrested and held without bond.
Read Ravenwood’s post.
I need to reduce my blood pressure.
Sore Losers
Do you think Jeff Danziger is a little peeved? I didn’t see a single picture of the coverage of Bush’s Baghdad visit in which the soldiers weren’t smiling ear to ear.
Did you?
Well, I Won’t Be Buying Anything Taurus Makes
According to this report, Taurus International is helping in New Jersey’s effort to make a “smart gun.” In an earlier piece I discussed New Jersey’s law that mandates that all new handguns be equipped with “smart gun” technology once such technology becomes available, in an effort to reduce the number of accidental gunshot deaths.
New Jersey had eleven accidental gunshot deaths in 2001.
ONE was a child.
How many of those accidental deaths were hunting accidents? You know, gun in the possession of the authorized user?
The Supreme Court has sidestepped the Second Amendment AGAIN, denying cert. on Silveira v. Lockyer.
Gun control groups will doubtlessly tout this as “proof” that there’s no individual right to arms, neglecting the fact that that same reasoning would “prove” that there is one, based on SCOTUS’s denial of cert. on U.S. v. Emerson.
Excuse me, but I’m PISSED!
UPDATE: Clayton Cramer comments. He thinks gun owners dodged a bullet, but I disagree. He says:
It wasn’t the perfect case, because it involved several different questions:
1. Does the Second Amendment protect an individual right?
2. Does the Fourteenth Amendment incorporate this right against the states?
3. Are assault weapons included among the protected arms?
—
Supreme Court justices, however, are not required to be honest or consistent, and I suspect that the prospect of striking down California’s useless assault weapon ban would have caused the the Supreme Court to look for some way to uphold California’s assault weapon ban, leading to at least a NO on #2, and perhaps a NO on #1.
Perhaps he’s right, but he also says:
There’s a sequence for winning constitutional issues: win the simplest and least offensive case first; then use then(sic) as a wedge to win the less popular situations.
We’ve been fighting this fight since 1939. How long are you willing to wait, Clayton? Silveira asked those three critical questions. Had SCOTUS heard the case and decided those three questions, then we gun owners would know where we stand, wouldn’t we?
Those are questions I’m losing patience over. The Justices may not be “required to be honest or consistent,” but it’s our job as citizens to hold them to that standard, isn’t it? Just throwing up our hands and saying “Oh, well…” doesn’t cut it. That kind of crap gives us courts like the 9th Circus – the epitome of dishonesty and inconsistency.
Another UPDATE: Say Uncle comments too, and apparently Eugene Volokh had the original scoop.
UPDATE 12/3/03: Publicola comments as well, in conjunction with SCOTUS’s recent decision overturning the 9th Circus’s ruling that 20 seconds was not enough time to wait before jack-booted thugs government agents busted down the door of a suspected drug dealer. Money quote:
I seriously doubt either will have any positive effect on the going on in congress &/or the courts. I don’t think we’re gonna see anything close to freedom unless there’s another revolution. The government has too much of a hold on power & it will not let it go easily.
But I would suggest that if anyone busts down your door, defend yourself. It may be cops & it may not. But if I can’t check out their credentials & read the warrant to determine its validity before they enter, I’ll assume they’re either criminals in disguise or just criminals in uniform & attempt to repel them accordingly.
In summation none of this bodes well for the Republic, or its people.
Can I get an “AMEN!”?