Month: September 2004

Responsible Gun Owner, Eh?

Reader Sherri sends links to Yahoo! News photos of Sen. Kerry out being a “sportsman” shooting trap with his trusty over/under deer gun 12 gauge.

Those shots are here, here, and here. I’m going to abuse my Photobucket account some more and host one of them myself:

No hearing protection, no shooting glasses.

Great example there, Mr. Candidate!

More on “How Deep the Divide”

This is, in a way, a reciprocal link, but the piece expands greatly on what I had to say, and it’s more than a merely worthwhile read. Ironbear of Who Tends the Fires has written an essay entitled “So, is it a Spade, or is it an ‘Earth Removal Device’?” Excerpt:

Michele has stated several times that she has bad feelings about this coming November – 1968 all over again, like some bad acid deja vu. I think she’s wrong only on her possible timing. I see that recently she’s come to the same conclusions I did long ago, also: “This far, no farther. It ends here.”

Porretto I believe sees the same light at the end of that tunnel, and he dances at the edges of it, never quite spelling it out. There’s only one real conclusion to a political divide this deep, this wide, and this sharp. Only one way for it to go…

Civil War.

—

I have read a great deal of history. And I have read a great deal of past political debate and discourse. Like Beck, the last time I recall that we were this irrevocably divided between major factions was in the 1850’s and 1860’s – and we actually went to war within ourselves over it.

The divide is once again that stark, and that bleak. It’s not “1968 all over again”, it’s 1858.

Unlike the first one, the dividing lines don’t cut across states. Like the first one, the dividing lines are drawn across views of the ownership of men…. of wether (sic) we are owned by ourselves or by The State.

Read the whole thing. And think, really hard, about what he’s saying.

Because I don’t like it, but I don’t think he’s wrong.

It’s All Over But the Riots

Via Grim’s Hall I found a link to this SFGate.com column from the Sept. 3 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle (even though it’s page B-9) called Deserving Victory by Debra Saunders:

THE CONVENTIONAL talk about the Republican National Convention was that, like the Philadelphia convention in 2000, this would be a parade of moderates putting a kinder face on (what by implication is mean) conservatism. Instead the 2004 convention has been a parade of moderates and conservatives putting themselves on the line for President Bush because they believe that he is right about the most important issue before America today: The war on terrorism, which in this room includes the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.

That sentiment was clear Thursday night when Gen. Tommy Franks endorsed George W. Bush for president because he doesn’t believe “we should retreat into a defensive posture and hope that the terrorists don’t attack us again.”

Actor Ron Silver put it well when he told me he supports the GOP ticket because, “I’m a 9/11 person and not a Sept. 10 person.” Silver has been a supporter of abortion rights but, he noted, “If we don’t get this thing right, then the rest of it doesn’t make much of a difference.”

The difference between Boston and New York could not be starker.

A New York Times/CBS News poll in July found that three-quarters of Democratic voters and 86 percent of Boston delegates opposed the war in Iraq. Yet both John Kerry and John Edwards voted for the resolution authorizing force in Iraq in 2002.

The same poll found that 19 percent of GOP voters and 3 percent of GOP delegates oppose the war. Those delegates are in harmony with Bush and Veep Dick Cheney, even if 51 percent of all voters polled oppose the war.

That’s the central difference between the GOP and the Democrats: The Democrats were willing to — no, they chose to, by nominating Kerry — sell out their core issue in order to beat George W. Bush.

That’s how fanatical their hatred is.

Republicans, on the other hand, are willing to lose an election for a cause they believe in. Bush knew when he began that the war in Iraq could cost him the election, but he did what he thought was best. And he still isn’t flinching.

“He may lose this election. But the principle of how he conducts himself is more important than if he wins or loses the election,” said California GOP Chairman Duf Sundheim.

Let me be clear: I am not arguing that Bush is not political — he is political. He’s president. I am arguing that the Democratic Party has become so political that it stands for absolutely nothing. Dems know it, so they nominate men who also stand for nothing — but raw ambition.

Kerry won the nomination because many Democrats believed they had to pick a pro-war candidate in order to beat Bush. They were able to look at Kerry’s vote against the Persian Gulf War and determine that he did not believe his 2002 Iraq vote and does not mean the pro-war statements he has made during the campaign.

Some of the very folks who bellow, “Bush lied,” are crossing their fingers in the hope that Kerry lied.

“I don’t think the Democrats have confidence in the American people,” Republican National Committee Chairman Marc Racicot noted. That’s why the Democrats are “angry.”

And many Democrats think that they’re going to lose. A famous wartime poster had Winston Churchill’s face looming over the words, “Deserve victory.” You deserve victory when you believe in a cause so much that you are willing to take risks for it.

This year, the Democrats abandoned their principles, implying either that they don’t trust the America people to appreciate their message, or that they don’t trust their message. Democrats aren’t willing to take risks, but they are willing to choose someone whom they want to mislead the public. For that alone, they deserve to lose, and I think they know it.

Damn, I wish I’d written that. That it appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle tells me that the non-moonbat left might be waking up to what the Democrat party has become.

Detectives testing residents’ guns

2 Bodega Bay men voluntarily help investigators in Jenner killings, say rights violated

Friday, September 3, 2004
By DEREK J. MOORE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Detectives investigating the slayings of two young campers on a Jenner beach have visited the homes of at least two Sonoma County residents this week, seeking permission to test their handguns.

Sheriff’s officials wouldn’t discuss why the people were contacted, but a Bodega Bay man said he voluntarily handed over two guns.

Bruce, who asked that only his first name be used, wouldn’t divulge the make or caliber of the weapons, saying detectives asked him not to reveal that information.

He said he cooperated with investigators because he wants the killings of Jason Allen and Lindsay Cutshall to be solved. But he also believes that he was unfairly questioned simply for being listed in government records on gun owners.

He said other than a drunken driving conviction in 1990 he has no criminal record.”If this is going to help them, great,” he said. “But while they’re in here, they’re asking, ‘Hey, you got anything illegal we need to know about? No, except for the meth lab in my bathroom.’ C’mon guys. This is a fishing expedition.”

Sheriff’s investigators have said they’re chasing hundreds of leads but haven’t identified a suspect or a motive in the slayings. They also have said they haven’t found the firearm used to kill Allen and Cutshall, youth camp counselors whose bodies were found Aug. 18 by sheriff’s deputies.

Bruce is one of two men from Bodega Bay who said two detectives showed up at their homes unannounced this week to inquire about guns the men own. They said the detectives asked if they could come inside to make sure the weapons were “safe and accounted for.”

Both men said they were then interviewed about the Jenner case for more than an hour. Bruce said he was asked if he had been in Jenner recently and was asked for personal details about his family and friends.

He said detectives told him they wanted the guns for ballistic testing.

He said he fears his neighbors will learn that he has the firearms, which he said were obtained legally and stored in a secure place.

“I’m not the kind of person to advertise I have guns,” he said.

The other man whose guns were taken said he, too, feels like his rights were violated.

“This is the kind of stuff that makes gun owners jump up and down,” said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It’s like having the Wehrmacht knock on your door.”

Investigators have acknowledged contacting at least one other gun owner.

Sheriff’s officials confirmed at a news conference last week that they had checked on another man’s weapons, but they didn’t identify him or say whether that information proved useful.

Sheriff’s Lt. Roger Rude wouldn’t say how detectives identified the men or why they were interviewed, saying investigators want to protect the “sanctity of the investigation.”

But he said detectives acted properly and that not all Sonoma County gun owners are suddenly under suspicion, though he acknowledged that more people would be contacted.
“I do not believe that we have been exploiting a database in order to check everybody in the world that has a gun,” he said. “I think folks are barking up the wrong tree there.”No, you’re exploiting a database in order to check everybody who has a specific make and caliber.

It’s a long-standing law enforcement technique to knock on doors to try to find weapons used in a crime when other evidence, such as recovered bullet fragments,

points to a certain kind of gun.Oh really? And don’t you do that only in the immediate vicinity of the homicide?

That’s particularly true in cases such as the Jenner homicides when other evidence apparently is lacking.
Bullets or bullet fragments found at the crime scene could help detectives determine the type of weapon used or in some cases even identify its owner.
“All guns have a different ballistic signature,” said Hugh Wilson, a former Marin County sheriff’s detective and an associate professor in the criminal justice department at California State University, Sacramento.
“The Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has a large database to check recovered rounds from a crime scene to ultimately narrow the gun (used).”
He said the fact that sheriff’s detectives are contacting Sonoma County gun owners likely means they have recovered enough evidence to determine the type of weapon used to kill Allen and Cutshall.
“They’re checking everyone who owns a gun like this in Sonoma County,” he said. “They’re going to assign detectives in the morning to follow up the leads. It’s a very exhaustive process, but when you don’t have a lot of other good things to go on, you’ve got to eliminate that.”

So, if you own the make and caliber of weapon used – regardless of any other evidence or lack thereof, expect a visit from the cops and expect them to take your weapon away while they do ballistic tests – which they’ll keep the results from, just in case you ever decide to commit homicide with it in the future.
Hell, maybe they’ll be able to build a comprehensive “ballistic fingerprint” database eventually after all. They’ll just need one homicide with each model and caliber of handgun ever made!

Wilson said he and his colleagues banged on a lot of Bay Area doors in the late 1970s and early ’80s while searching for the gun used by the infamous Trailside Killer.

The gun was eventually recovered – in the possession of David Carpenter, who was convicted of the killings. They make it sound like they found the gun by “knocking on doors” and the gun lead to the conviction. Not so, according to this site:

On May 15, 1981, David Joseph Carpenter was arrested at 38 Sussex Street in Glen Park, ending the siege of the Trailside Killer. Carpenter’s history included a conviction in 1961 at the age of 34 for attacking a woman with a hammer and a knife. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison and was released after seven years. Carpenter returned to prison on a kidnapping conviction in 1970. Released again in 1977, the severe stutterer and sex addict began his reign as a serial killer beginning with the 1979 murder of Anne Kelly Menjivar, whose body was found in Mt. Tamalpais Park in Marin. As police searched for Menjivar’s unknown killer, Mt. Tam became the scene of three more murders. In August, 1979 Edda Kane vanished while hiking. She was found shot in the back of the head, execution style. In March, 1980 Barbara Schwartz, 23, was found dead of stab wounds to the chest. Next, 26-year old Anne Alderson was found shot in the head after she disappeared while jogging. More victims followed: Shawna May, 25, Diane O’Connell, 22, Cynthia Moreland, 18, and Richard Towers, 19. When the last four bodies were discovered in a single day in 1980, extensive media coverage stoked the fears of an anxious public. In March, 1981 the Trailside Killer claimed his next victim, Ellen Hansen, in a park near Santa Cruz. Hansen’s boyfriend survived the attack and provided police with a description of a suspect. Witness reports of a small red car in the area during the attack also provided a clue to the killer’s identity. Next victim: Heather Scaggs, 20, a co-worker of Carpenter’s at a San Francisco print shop who disappeared on May 1, 1981. When police came to Carpenter’s home on Sussex Street to question him about Scaggs, they immediately connected him to the composite sketch of the Trailside Killer. Carpenter, who drove a red Fiat, was arrested after Scaggs’ body was found in Big Basin State Park. A man admitted selling Carpenter a gun that was used in several of the killings, though the gun was not found. A second gun used in the last two killings was found by investigators and entered into evidence by prosecutors. Carpenter was convicted of the murders of Hansen and Scaggs on July 6, 1984. In a separate trial he was convicted of five murders in Marin County. On Nov. 16, 1984, Trailside Killer David Carpenter was sentenced to death.

Not exactly what the story implies, is it?

“This is very labor intensive, but in a case like (Jenner) they’re going to pull out all the stops,” he said. “You can bet that type of thing is going on if they’ve got ballistics evidence, and it sounds like they do. That’s lead No. 1.”

He said there is nothing illegal about using gun registry information in a criminal investigation, and that detectives don’t need a search warrant unless they are denied entry or a person refuses to answer questions. In other words, “fishing expeditions are A-OK!”

The information used in such cases can be obtained through the state Department of Justice, which keeps a record of all gun purchases made through licensed dealers in California. The information can be cross-checked with criminal records and other data from background checks that must be conducted when anyone buys a firearm, said Hallye Jordan, a Justice Department spokeswoman.
She said law enforcement agencies can access this information through a variety of state and federal databases, including the Automated Firearm System, which includes records of guns that are purchased as well as those that are booked as evidence or reported lost or stolen.

I will not register – EVER.

More on that Leftist Cognitive Dissonance, Too.

Francis Porretto has written one of his patented detailed essays on just what we are fighting here in World War IV. Entitled The Butcher’s Bill, this is what the Left refuses to look at.

Peel back your eyelids and stare straight at it.

Want to See More Examples of the Media Trying to Influence Rather than Report?

Or, the Lying News Media, Part “I can’t keep up anymore.”

Glad to oblige. They’re both AP stories and they’ve both been covered by others, but I’m putting them in here for my own records. First up, Glenn Reynolds has the full scoop on the first of AP’s fraudulent pieces:

President Bush (news – web sites) on Friday wished Bill Clinton (news – web sites) “best wishes for a swift and speedy recovery.” “He’s is in our thoughts and prayers,” Bush said at a campaign rally. Bush’s audience of thousands in West Allis, Wis., booed. Bush did nothing to stop them.

(My emphasis.) Problem being, it didn’t happen. No boos. Nothing to stop. Then the AP edited the story, taking out those lines without issuing a retraction, but the damage was already done. Like Mark Twain said, a lie is halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on. Go read all the links, and get pissed off.

Second, Free Will covers another AP story that slimes Arnold Schwarzenegger over his RNC speech – accusing him of lying about seeing Soviet tanks in Austria and Austria’s socialist government, though it’s patently obvious that the AP is the one doing the lying. Free Will has the text of the speech. Sloppy research or blatant propaganda? He reports, you decide.

Will the internet-challenged ever hear about this? Probably not enough, but a lot of people will, and they’ll pass it on to their friends. I know I’m forwarding this around to the people in my address book.

Yesterday, Dodd Harris commenting on the Bush rally booing story, said:

I’ve been skeptical in the past of Hindrocket’s (of Power Line) belief that the AP was the single worst offender in a crowded field of outrageously biased media sources (naming Reuters as my candidate), but I’m starting to become convinced.

Don’t get me started on Roto-Reuters.

Last week at the Belmont Club, Wretchard quoted a piece from Editor and Publisher in which James O’Shea, managing editor of the Chicago Tribune said:

“There are too many places for people to get information. I don’t think newspapers can be the gatekeepers anymore — to say this is wrong and we will ignore it. Now we have to say this is wrong, and here is why.”

(My emphasis.) Obviously the AP is among those who have decided their job is not to inform public opinion but to FORM it, and since they no longer have the power of gatekeepers to keep the public from hearing information they don’t want them to hear, they’ll engage in blatant propaganda – saying “this is wrong and here is why” while lying through their teeth. After all, they’re the unbiased arbiters of truth, right? Just ask ’em. Who would need to fact-check them? Who would dare?

We would.

Not too long ago Dean Esmay wrote on the same subject. He said:

The Internet has detected the mainstream media as a form of censorship and simply routed around them.

Not completely. Not yet. But I’m damned sure going to do my part.

How Divided ARE We?

In Democrat Meltdown below I state that the “Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party” will go nuts when/if George Bush wins re-election, but what exactly does that mean? How deeply divided are we as a nation? How angry are the two sides?

Apparently the answer is “pretty deep, and damned angry.” And there’s more to it, it seems to me. There’s a significant contingent of the Left that is self-delusional. Here’s just one example from Blog for Arizona the ex-Dean, now Kerry/Edwards blog for my state. It’s a commentary post on Bush’s acceptance speech. Here it is in its entirety:

43 Minutes of Sheer Wisdom

That is how Bush characterized his own nomination speech hours before delivering it to the nation. Ughh. More like 43 minutes of excuses for poor performance and appeals to overlook all his failures and hope that he can measure up in the future. Even as his own Secretary of State is admitting the Administration’s grand failures (as if it weren’t obvious), Bush speaks of spreading Democracy and justice across the Middle East. Even in the face of rising poverty, the worst job creation record since Hoover, and falling median wages, Bush is claiming victory for his economic program, i.e. tax cuts, and demanding we go further with that failed experiment. Like the spoiled ne’er-do-well he is, he boldly asked the nation to judge his first term, not on what he did, but what he says he intended, and what he says he hopes for in the future.

The short commercial that the The Daily Show created for Bush, “Because he says so” perfectly sums up Bush’s assertion over substance approach to governance. When you combine this sheer contempt for Americans’ intelligence with the personal animosity displayed by Cheney and, especially, Zell Miller, we may be seeing the begining of Bush’s final, and long-overdue political melt-down. In the end, the only wisdom conveyed by Bush last night is that of not electing him, or anyone associated with his Administration, to a position of leadership in America ever again.

Really? Powell acknowledges “the administration’s grand failures”? He said they underestimated the strength of the insurgency. Obviously the author has never heard the truism “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” And that is ONE admission, not plural. So far on the Foreign Policy front, that’s the only error I’ve seen, and I can accept it because of the uncertainty of war. Next, “the face of rising poverty“? What planet is this guy on? And “Bush’s final, and long-overdue political melt-down“? That’s one example of self-delusion.

Certainly we can go trade blog pieces, op-ed columns, and “straight-news” reports (that might as well be op-ed columns) for days, each “proving” the other’s position – but that’s the point. This country is more divided than I’ve ever seen it. People who are normally restrained – on both sides – are literally fighting mad.

Take, for example, this Chicago Tribune piece, Republican Nazis? by Charlie Madigan. Excerpt:

Union Square was packed with protesters, thousands of them, everything from gay guys urging the nation to ban marriage between Republicans to sad war vets carrying cardboard coffins to chipper women pretending they were convention delegates from the state of despair, debt, occupation, on and on.



And in one tiny spot amid the cacophony of protest stood a skinny woman and her skinny friend selling black Tee shirts. They carried a swastika on the front and the legend “Vote Republican.”



If you cut right down to the dark heart of what has been unleashed in this mean-spirited presidential contest, that’s what you find, someone who thinks that voting Republican makes you a modern-day Nazi. It better not get any more toxic than this, or Canada is going to start looking magnetically attractive to a lot of peace-loving people.

Then there’s the over-the-top attack by “poet” Molly Birnbaum (that you won’t hear on ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.):

“Imagine a way to erase that night four years ago when you (President Bush) savagely raped every pandemic woman over and over with each vote you got, a thrust with each state you stole,” Birnbaum said from the podium.

On the other hand, the militants – on both sides – are waiting anxiously for the battle to start. Denizens of the left are counciling rebellion on their message boards if/when Bush wins. Many on the right wing boards are chanting “bring it on.”

Trust me, there’s a bunch of people out there eager for it.

Da Goddess reports, for example, that at a recent protest, one protester smashed a car windshield of a counter-protester with his bare hands. Someone in Huntington Alabama fired a shot into GOP headquarters there. NYC got off lightly, I think, only because of the massive police presence. And massive arrests. However, there is evidence of blatant violation of freedom of speech going on in this campaign, and it appears to be one-sided. For example, the case of lawyer/protester Frank Van den Bosch who won $12,000 in a lawsuit for illegal arrest. All he was doing was holding a protest sign at a small-town Bush appearance. Sorry, folks, but arresting him is wrong. Of course the “Police State” found in favor of him, and awarded him $12k, but on the other hand, he’s a lawyer. Joe and Jane Bushater might not get the same judgement. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune had a recent op-ed on just this topic. If you believe in what America stands for, this should trouble you. And if you’re a protester, this must anger you.

Yet it’s blindingly obvious that if the Left were in charge, they’d be possibly more blatant in shutting down the voice of the opposition, and it’s even more apparent that the Left – in charge of the dead-tree and broadcast media – is doing its damnedest to make sure Mainstream America hears only what they want it to hear. (And it’s failing to control the information flow.)

I’m beginning to get an understanding of what Americans in the North felt like after the start of the Civil War when Lincoln was violating the Constitution in his effort to save the Union. You begin to ask the question, “Is it worth it?” Will we be the same nation, or at least one worthy of the name, of our history, when we come out the other side?

And then I look at the greatest division between us – the recognition of what’s going on in the world around us. The Left is still protesting “No Blood for Oil” – though we’re not stealing any. They’re still protesting our “illegal” invasion of Iraq, though it was resumption of the previous Gulf War, at a minimum justified by Saddam’s violations of the cease-fire agreement. (Yes, that’s a very simplistic explanation, but this essay is more than long enough as it is.) If you want to see self-delusion, you need only look at the news from Russia, and the reaction of the Left (more appeasement.) Or the old-media coverage of the RNC, and the reaction of the Left.

We are engaged in World War IV against an enemy that we cannot negotiate with, that we cannot defeat economically – as we did the Soviet Union – that we will not bring to a desk on the deck of a battleship for the signing of surrender terms. They want us converted, enslaved, or dead. Instapundit linked yesterday to David Kaspar’s viciously satirical Liberal Guide to Better Understanding Freedom Fighters, then Leftist blogger Matt Yglesias illustrated that Kaspar’s satire, wasn’t. (And yes, Matt, I clicked the link and read the whole post. “The situation, clearly, can only be resolved by Russian concessions on the underlying political issue in Chechnya” is precisely what you wrote.)

Part of this country recognizes the threat. A large part of the country doesn’t. Most, because they just don’t look, but a significant portion because they refuse to. That’s cognitive dissonance. “It doesn’t work, but we can’t be wrong, so keep doing the same thing over and over only harder.”

We were last divided as a country like this over the Vietnam war. One Presidential candidate is running – apparently exclusively – on his four months of combat service in that war, holding that service up as “defending the nation.” Yet he himself came back from Vietnam and stated that Vietnam held no threat to the United States. He dismissed the threat of the spread of Communism, which, during the decades of World War III – the Cold War – we defeated even with our loss in Vietnam. Does he, too, see the threat of militant Islamic fundamentalism as the non-threat the Left believed Communism to be? The Left in the 60’s wanted to embrace communism as the savior of mankind, but that didn’t work. Do they now want to embrace Islam as that savior? Or do they believe appeasement will keep the radicals content?

I don’t believe that the Right (for want of a better term) has all the answers. I don’t think our leadership walks on water or is infallible, or even isn’t corrupt. I don’t think, honestly, that you can reach national levels of power and not be corrupt or corrupted by it. The difference seems to be that the Right believes that commerce is a good, not an evil. That free people make better trading partners than those under tyrannical thumbs. That trade is better than war, but that war is sometimes necessary, where the Left thinks we all ought to just “share.” Which brings me to a quote from Thomas Sowell:

The left takes its vision seriously — more seriously than it takes the rights of other people. They want to be our shepherds. But that requires us to be sheep.

That’s what Wahabist Islam wants of us as well. They want us to be sheep. Sheep who obey their god. Or sheep to be slaughtered.

I am hopeful that the moonbat left represents only a tiny minority of the population, but honestly, it’s difficult to tell.

I think we’re going to find out in November.