Month: April 2006

I Haven’t Heard Language Like This Since Billy Beck

He may be fine material for a subject, but citizenship is beyond his moral and intellectual ability.

That was directed right at me, since I tend towards pragmatism about rights, rather than being an absolutist.

Please, read the original post and all the comments.

And “straightarrow” is cordially invited to eat my shorts.

Gun owners are our own worst enemies.

UPDATE: David Codrea comments on absolutism. I replied. Sailorcurt had something to say as well. SayUncle notes that Jay had something to say too. (But Uncle got 13 comments to Jay’s one.)

It’s a regular blog-conversation!

And David seems to be outnumbered about 4:1. But that’s OK, because numbers don’t mean anything to absolutists. They think tilting at windmills is better than actually accomplishing anything. Ideological purity is more important.

The Answer You’re Looking for, Glenn, is “Yes.”

Glenn Reynolds writes about NBC’s Dateline program which is looking to put some Muslims wearing wires into an upcoming NASCAR crowd to see if they can bait some rednecks. Glenn asks (rhetorically, I’m certain):

does this mean (1) NBC’s news is bravely independent of NBC’s business interests, because they’re willing to stick it to NASCAR; (2) NBC’s news is only willing to stick it to NASCAR because NBC no longer has much of a business interest here; or (3) NBC’s news is just as clueless as NBC’s sports?

The answer is “Yes.”

Uncommon Voices.

Voices of reason that, surprisingly, actually hit the news media.

I haven’t said anything about the recent Seattle mass shooting. Others have done yeoman’s service at that (yes, Jeff, I mean you, and you’re not alone). Of course there was the usual dancing in the blood of the slain by the gun ban advocates, but there were two voices in the din that spoke sense. The first was from last week’s issue of the Seattle Times, an op-ed by Knute Berger:

There are two typical reactions in the wake of last weekend’s murder spree.

One is the impulse to turn this into a morality tale of drugs, guns, and out-of-control youth. The Nannytownies are already finding it hard to resist a story line that suggests our collective guilt is due to a failure of public policy. If only we had the proper restrictions in place, we could have saved the lives of these young people. The Seattle Times argues for a new, tough look at the teen dance ordinance; antigun groups are using the events to appeal for tougher gun laws. But raves don’t kill people; people kill people. And if you think gun control could have prevented this crime, consider that Huff’s arsenal included a baseball bat and a machete. This guy was going to find a way to kill, no matter what.

I strongly recommend you read the whole piece.

The second is by the mother of someone who was at the party, but was spared. The Seattle Times published her letter. The pertinent excerpt:

Today, I want the world to know that I’m angry.

I’m not angry at the things everyone is talking about, though. I’m not angry at the guns; the guns did not shoot at my son and kill his friends. I’m not angry at the after-hours parties, because billions of people of all ages have survived them. I’m not angry at the raves, drugs, alcohol, teenage rebellion, knives, bats, cars, etc., etc., etc.

I’m angry with Kyle Huff. Kyle Huff decided he wanted to end my son’s life. Kyle Huff decided to kill all of those kids. Not his arsenal, not his family, not alcohol, not drugs. Not anything or anyone except Kyle Huff. I’m angry with everyone who is trying to make themselves feel better about this by blaming anything or anyone except the person responsible.

When are we as human beings going to stop making excuses for our behavior and the behavior of others?

Another RTWT.

Just thought you might be interested that it wasn’t all a one-note symphony like it usually is.

Got Broadband?.

Watch Penn & Teller’s Showtime show “Bullshit!” episode #309 – Gun Control. It runs 28 minutes. Worth your time, but not for those with dial-up.

So Much for Condi’s Defense of the Right to Arms.

One can consider the source, The Guardian, but it’s given as an actual quote:

Iraq’s interior ministry is refusing to deploy thousands of police recruits who have been trained by the US and the UK and is hiring its own men and putting them on the streets, according to western security advisers.

The move is frustrating US and British efforts to build up a non-sectarian Iraqi police force which would not be infiltrated by partisan militias.

The disclosure highlights growing US and British concern about the role of militias in sectarian killings, and their links to senior Iraqi politicians. “You can’t have in a democracy various groups with arms – you have to have the state with a monopoly on power,” Condoleeza Rice, the US secretary of state, said at the end of her two-day visit to Baghdad yesterday.

I shouldn’t be surprised. You don’t achieve high office in government without being a Statist of some form or another.

Quote of the Week of the Day.

Since I already had a “Quote of the Week…”

From Albion’s Seedling:

Consider that effective enforcement would have to create a means of permitting employers to verify the eligibility of a job candidate, which means either a genuinely forgery-proof national ID card and/or an effective, accurate data base of all eligible US nationals (and everybody, even the blondest guëro, would have to present verification). As currently proposed, this would be done by the Department of Homeland Security. Presumably, implementation would be provided by the Effective Government Fairy.

Again, read the whole thing.

Religious discussions aside, this is supposed to be a firearm and rights-oriented blog. I’ve been following Michael Bane’s coverage of the recent BATF persecution of gunsmiths through the typical behavior of regulating bodies – changing the rules without warning, then going after everyone now “in violation.”

When does customization of a firearm become manufacturing? That seemingly simple question is occupying the near undivided attention of the firearms industry. Observers say it is a question with the potential to become a firestorm that could put custom gunsmiths out of business; if not behind bars.

The controversy began with a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms inspection of Competitive Edge Gunworks in Bogard, Missouri. BATF and tax agents appeared and began examining the company’s records. When they finished, owner Larry Crow was told he potentially faced felony charges for manufacturing firearms without a license.

So the BATF’ers want to make customizing a gun on which the excise tax has already been paid a crime? The guy that built my AR-15 up from a bare Bushmaster lower is a manufacturer? The ‘smith that rebarrelled my 1896 Swedish Mauser is a manufacturer? I’m a manufacturer for putting a new barrel, scope, stock, and Volquartsen trigger group on the already taxed 10/22 receiver myself?

Here’s the deal: When the original manufacturer stamps a serial number on the portion of the gun the BATF deems “the firearm,” the frame of a 1911, for example, or the receiver of a bolt-action rifle, or the lower of my AR, then it is legally a “gun.” If the manufacturer completes the assembly of the firearm – barrel, trigger group, stock – they pay the Internal Revenue Service an 11% tax on the value of the entire weapon. If they sell just the receiver, they pay the tax on the value of the receiver.

It sounds as though the BATF wants to claim that custom gunsmiths who start from a bare frame or receiver should be paying the 11% tax on the completed gun they deliver to the customer. It’s a case of “We’ve never required this before, but we do now! And it’s retroactive to whenever we say it is!” It sounds as though they’re saying “The American public is being bilked out of thousands in tax money!”

They’re not after the taxes, they’re out to shut down licensed gunsmiths. Changes in how the rules were interpreted – not changes in federal law – resulted in the number of licensed firearms dealers declining from 245,000 in 1994 to 54,902 in 2005. Now they want to put gunsmiths – another licensee – out of business, and possibly into jail.

They want to change the rules? Fine. The tax is on the firearm – the part with the serial number. Period.

Write your congresscritters. Call them.

Often.

Well, Apparently I’ve Offended Again.

Not that I didn’t expect that. Fran Porretto has asked specifically that I not comment on his “Sunday Ruminations,” and I will state right up front that he makes no direct attribution to either me or my recent post Why I Am an Atheist, but today’s post by Fran includes this quote, in large, bold, bright blue letters:

But one ought to look carefully at such things before running off at the mouth. In particular, one ought to exhibit a trace of humility about one’s outside-observer’s position:

“If I, an outsider, am correct in thinking that what I observe is pointless, does it not imply that the persons who voluntarily participate in it must necessarily be idiots? Were I to find non-idiots among them and (gasp!) ask what sustenance they draw from these endlessly repeated forms, what might they say?”

This question apparently does not occur to many of those who deride the Church.

(*Sigh*)

I have to assume this is directed at me in particular, though it is generic in tone. I won’t respond in Fran’s comments as requested, but I won’t let this go without response at all.

No, Fran. It does not imply that those who voluntarily participate must necessarily be idiots. It doesn’t even imply that they might be idiots. It implies only that they believe in something I am unable to believe in.

Does the fact that I am unable to believe imply that I must be mentally defective in some way? It seems the door must swing both ways.

As to the question unasked: “(W)hat sustenance (do) they draw from these endlessly repeated forms?” I need not ask it. The forms give you comfort. They draw you closer to your fellow believers. You said it yourself:

Formalisms and rituals have several known effects upon the mind. They’re calming, promote peace and order among their participants, and provide a form of psychic refreshment unavailable from informal activities.

I’m quite aware of that, and I don’t denigrate it. As I said in Why I Am an Atheist, I understand and believe that religion – particularly the Christian faiths – are symbiotic. That implies beneficial.

And that’s all I’m going to say on this topic at this point.

First Van der Leun Channels Ginsberg, Now Gregory P Josefowicz…

…who is President/CEO of Borders. Excerpt:

You want this shit to stop and people able to draw and publish what they want anywhere in the world at any time without being afraid of getting a bread knife in gut from some hyperventilating Islamic idiotarian with a religiously implanted mental disorder? Start getting governments that can grow a pair at home as well as overseas, and start kicking some Muslim ass whenever and wherever this crap gets started. Don’t come bitching to me that Borders has to step up and take the hit.

Is it really the case that your guys expect me, after months of watching this global governmental cowardice in the face of Islamic intimidation go down, to pin a big “Kick Me” sign on the backs of every one of my employees? Dudes, I worked in the grocery business for most of my career and if I am the last line of defense here, log off and head for the mountain redoubt with a box lunch because the terrorists have won.

I can’t believe that your guys expect me to step up and make my company the front line of defense against the Muslim hordes which, as far as I can see, get a free pass to do whatever they want whenever they show up in groups of like two?

I read the New York Times and the Washington Post and I didn’t see these cartoons in those papers. Maybe I missed them. Were they in the Sports section under “Global Riot League Scores Today?” Maybe they were. I can’t keep track of who’s a coward and who’s a hero in this whole thing outside of our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. All in all, I’m not really getting that safe and secure feeling out of the State Department or the White House these days, you know what I mean?

RTWT. I mean it.

More Fuel for the Fire…

It seemed topical…