Author: Kevin

Another Liberal Dares Speak ‘Truth to Power’

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(Via AnarchAngel)

From the current issue of the liberal rag The New Republic comes a wake-up call by one Martin Peretz, and it’s a loud one. Some excerpts:

Ask yourself: Who is a truly influential liberal mind in our culture? Whose ideas challenge and whose ideals inspire? Whose books and articles are read and passed around? There’s no one, really. What’s left is the laundry list: the catalogue of programs (some dubious, some not) that Republicans aren’t funding, and the blogs, with their daily panic dose about how the Bush administration is ruining the country.

Europe is also making the disenchanting journey from social democracy, but via a different route. Its elites had not foreseen that a virtually unchecked Muslim immigration might hijack the welfare state and poison the postwar culture of relative tolerance that supported its politics. To the contrary, Europe’s leftist elites lulled the electorates into a false feeling of security that the new arrivals were simply doing the work that unprecedented low European birth rates were leaving undone. No social or cultural costs were to be incurred. Transaction closed. Well, it was not quite so simple. And, while the workforce still needs more workers, the economies of Europe have been dragged down by social guarantees to large families who do not always have a wage-earner in the house. So, even in the morally self-satisfied Scandinavian and Low Countries, the assuring left-wing bromides are no longer believed.

—

But, in the Democratic Party, among liberals, the usual hustlers are still cheered. Jesse Jackson is still paid off, mostly not to make trouble. The biggest insult to our black fellow citizens was the deference paid to Al Sharpton during the campaign. Early in the race, it was clear that he–like Carol Moseley Braun and Dennis Kucinich–was not a serious candidate. Yet he was treated as if he just might take the oath of office at the Capitol on January 20. In the end, he won only a handful of delegates. But he was there, speaking in near-prime time to the Democratic convention. Sharpton is an inciter of racial conflict. To him can be debited the fraudulent and dehumanizing scandal around Tawana Brawley (conflating scatology and sex), the Crown Heights violence between Jews and blacks, a fire in Harlem, the protests around a Korean grocery store in Brooklyn, and on and on. Yet the liberal press treats Sharpton as a genuine leader, even a moral one, the trickster as party statesman.

This patronizing attitude is proof positive that, as deep as the social and economic gains have been among African Americans, many liberals prefer to maintain their own time-honored patronizing position vis-à-vis “the other,” the needy. This is, frankly, in sharp contrast to President Bush, who seems not to be impeded by race difference (and gender difference) in his appointments and among his friends. Maybe it is just a generational thing, and, if it is that, it is also a good thing. But he may be the first president who apparently does not see individual people in racial categories or sex categories. White or black, woman or man, just as long as you’re a conservative. That is also an expression of liberation from bias.

READ THE WHOLE THING – Especially the last two paragraphs.

Printed in The New Republic! Who’dathunkit?

Absolutely Run of the Mill, Most Probably

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Vodkapundit points to an NRO piece by Myrna Bythe on her recent attendance at a Columbia Journalism School First Amendment breakfast. The kicker comes later, but something I found interesting comes first.:

The moderator, as usual, was lawyer and Columbia journalism professor Floyd Abrams, and he started the proceedings with a couple of personal anecdotes. First of all, he recalled his most famous First Amendment triumph, the “Pentagon Papers” case. He described Chief Justice Warren Berger’s dissenting opinion, which he quoted in part, as a “whine.” Then he went on to tell a long anecdote about a Fred Friendly panel, sometime in the past, that included Peter Jennings, Mike Wallace, and a wounded Vietnam veteran.

Abrams recalled that Friendly, as he often did, presented the panel with a hypothetical scenario that there was a civil war between the northern and southern sections of an unnamed country, with America helping the southern forces. An American journalist, to his surprise, was invited to go on patrol with the northern forces. While on the mission, the journalist realized the northern forces intended to attack a group of Americans. What should the journalist do?

Peter Jennings, Abrams recalled, said he hoped he would have the courage to call out and warn the American troops. But Mike Wallace interrupted to admonish Jennings, asking, “Peter, why are you there?,” implying that as a journalist he should not get involved. Abrams said Jennings then began to backtrack on his answer. The only comment of the wounded veteran who was on the panel was: “I always knew you guys were like that.”

That was one in a series of round-table discussions called Ethics in America that ran on PBS. I’ve seen that particular one, and I have to say I don’t think I’ve ever been more disgusted with journalists than I was that day.

But the part that Vodkapundit found apparently shocking was this excerpt:

The panel member who, one would have thought, would have the most to say about the subject of a “reporter as citizen” was Mary Beth Sheridan. But, she explained, she hadn’t realized she would have to make a speech at the breakfast, and that her remarks about her experiences in Iraq would be just “free-flowing” — and, indeed, they were.

First of all, she said she was “overwhelmed by the military,” but she did learn by being embedded that members of our armed forces were not “blood-thirsty maniacs.” Yes, she really did say that.

In fact, she said, they were “really decent people.” And even “sweet.” Of course, after being shot at they were eager to shoot back — a military attitude that seemed to surprise her.

She also reported that when she asked soldiers why were they in Iraq, every single one told her, “to help the Iraqi people.” Again she was surprised that the military could create such a unity of purpose even though, she said, she didn’t see any “brainwashing” going on. She also noted that many soldiers had no opinion about the war. They had gone where they were ordered to go, like all good soldiers. Such an attitude seemed to dazzle her as well.

She didn’t have anything much to say about “reporters as citizens,” but clearly she appeared to be one citizen who had very little familiarity with, or understanding of, or even quite possibly respect for the military before her tour of duty. In a way, it is kind of sad that only after some first-hand experience did she learn what most American citizens believe: that American soldiers are “decent people.” And that it is those soldiers, not our journalists, after all, who protect our freedom of the press.

Vodkapundit asks:

Just how typical an example of the MSM press corps is Sheridan, anyway?

Absolutely run-of-the-mill, as far as I can tell.

As I said in Fear, the only thing that can work to dispell the ignorance and erroneous beliefs of people is direct exposure to that which they irrationally hate and fear. Mary Beth Sheridan got that exposure, and it rocked her world, apparently. I wonder if she had a bit better understanding of Marine Lt. General Mattis’s comment about it being “fun to shoot some people” now.

Read Vodkapundit’s post, and all of the very funny comments. It’s worth your time.

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Another Realistic Democrat Gets It

Local columnist Jeff Smith of the Tucson Comrade Citizen has an interesting op-ed up on page 5B of yesterday’s edition. It’s also online. Entitled Dimwitted Dems migrate away from the middle, Jeff pulls no punches. Here are some tasty excerpts:

I don’t want to become a Republican. The first time I disagreed with my father over anything more weighty than wanting to stay up and watch “The Mummy’s Curse” and he said “no”, was over Kennedy vs. Nixon. Up to that point, Dad hadn’t really given me any excuse to cross him.

—

But Dick Nixon struck me as someone Abe Lincoln would despise, and John Kennedy hit all the right notes: I became a Democrat and never had any reason to regret it.

Until lately.

—

After Clinton II, the nation embarked on Bush II, and the Democratic Party rapidly changed from a vessel like Noah’s Ark – sheltering all God’s creatures who sought shelter from the storm – into something more akin to the “Christina,” Aristotle Onassis’ yacht and an apt metaphor.

—

It was after Bush beat Gore – yes, he beat him – that the Democratic Party left me. It wasn’t the other way around.

It was no surprise that both parties said terrible things about each other as the ballots were counted and recounted, seemingly without end. It was no surprise that the Democrats said they were robbed after they lost. The Republicans would have done the same. It was a surprise when my party still sang the same sad song six months later. And six years.

“No Sniveling” is more than a bumper sticker; it’s a law of human behavior. Persons and political parties violate it at their peril.

—

And as the Democratic Party hierarchy grew increasingly bicoastal intellectual elite, more and more of the low- and middle-class Joes joined the exodus, not out of bigotry but because they weren’t stupid: They may not have had graduate degrees, but they knew when they were being condescended to.

When John Kerry went bird hunting in a Carhartt jacket that still had the folds from the box in it and held his shotgun like a yachtsman’s telescope, he synthesized and symbolized the state of the Democratic Party today:

The elitist, stooping to offer a limp handshake to the Great Unwashed.

Read the whole thing.

Maybe the Democrats are going the way of the Whigs, and another party will rise, phoenixlike, from the ashes.

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“Green” Ammunition, eh?

This is disturbing. Popular Mechanics has a very short blurb on their web page:

Soldiers who survive battlefield wounds may be doomed to develop an aggressive form of cancer, according to a study published today in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Rats embedded with weapons-grade tungsten alloy–recently incorporated into munitions as a non-toxic alternative to depleted uranium and lead–developed tumors, which then quickly metastasized to the lungs. The findings raise serious concerns over the alloy’s potential health effects to humans, write the authors.–J. Bogo

I know the military has been switching to a tungsten core bullet, in part because of concerns about lead pollution and exposure.

The full report is available as a PDF here. It’s entitled “Embedded Weapons-Grade Tungsten Alloy Shrapnel Rapidly Induces Metastatic High-Grade Rhabdomyosarcomas in F344 Rats.”

(Edited to add:)

Here are some really disturbing excerpts from that paper, which was authored by government researchers for Walter Reed and other Army medical departments.

Previous work in this laboratory developed a rodent model system that mimicked shrapnel loads seen in wounded personnel from the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In this study, we used that system and male F344 rats, implanted intramuscularly with pellets (1 mm x 2 mm cylinders) of weapons-grade tungsten alloy, to simulate shrapnel wounds. Rats were implanted with 4 (low dose) or 20 pellets (high dose) of tungsten alloy. Tantalum (20 pellets) and nickel (20 pellets) served as negative and positive controls, respectively. The high-dose tungsten alloy-implanted rats (n=46) developed extremely aggressive tumors surrounding the pellets within 4-5 months after implantation. The low-dose tungsten alloy-implanted rats (n=46) and nickel-implanted rats (n=36) also developed tumors surrounding the pellets, but did so at a slower rate. Rats implanted with tantalum (n=46), an inert control metal, did not develop tumors. Tumor yield was 100% in both the low- and high-dose tungsten alloy groups. The tumors, characterized as high-grade pleomorphic rhabdomyosarcomas by histopathology and immunohistochemical examination, rapidly metastasized to the lung and necessitated euthanasia of the animal.

—

Advancements in metallurgy have led the military of many nations to replace DU in some armor penetrating munitions and lead in small-caliber ammunition with various alloys of tungsten. One motivation for such a replacement is widespread public concern about the health and environmental impact of continued use of these metals. However, to our knowledge, none of these militarily relevant tungsten alloys have been tested for potential health effects, especially as embedded shrapnel. There is a growing list of health concerns related to tungsten exposure. Although a definitive link has not been established, several cancer clusters in the United States are associated with elevated levels of tungsten in the environment. Those findings, along with the results presented in this manuscript, raise questions about the possible consequences of tungsten exposure. More importantly, it raises extremely serious concerns over the potential health effects of tungsten alloy-based munitions currently being used as non-toxic alternatives to lead and DU.

—

Tungsten-based alloys are currently being used as replacements for DU in kineticenergy penetrators and for lead in small-caliber ammunition. However, the health effects of these unique alloys have not been investigated, especially in the case of embedded fragments such as shrapnel wounds. In this study, using male F344 rats and a system designed to investigate the effects of embedded metal fragments (AFRRI 1996), we have shown the embedded weapons-grade WA [tungsten alloy] (91.1% W/6.0% Ni/2.9% Co) results in rapid tumor formation at the implantation site in 100% of the rats. The rate of tumor formation correlates with pellet number. Ni-implanted rats also develop tumors at the implantation site, although not as rapidly as seen with WA.

Rhabdomyosarcoma is a form of cancer most often found in children, and it’s aggressive and deadly. The survival rate after 5 years is about 50%. This ought to disturb the hell out of people.

Tungsten, by itself, appears to be mostly benign, but in alloy with nickel and/or cobalt it seems to be extremely carcinogenic. The alloy tested is that used in current military “green” ammunition. So I have to wonder if the workers at the ammunition plants where this stuff is being made are wearing environment suits, or else are suffering an epidemic of cancer.

(End edit.)

Here are a couple of articles on “Green ammo”:

U.S. Military “Green Bullet” (6/2000) Excerpt:

America’s military is about to lock and load with new ammunition that’s tough on enemies but easy on mother earth. It’s known as the “Green Bullet”, which is a new lead-free projectile that defense officials say is just as lethal as the standard 5.56mm without harming the environment. The Army led effort is designed to one day end the use of environmentally hazardous materials in small-arms munitions for all services.

The new round will replace the copper-jacketed lead core with a copper-jacketed tungsten tin or nylon core Military officials hope the program will soothe growing environmental and health concerns that have led to the closing of hundreds of live-fire training sites around the country.

Greening Service Ammunition for Individual and Crew Served Weapons (From the U.S. Army Environmental Center webpage) Excerpt:

For hundreds of years, soldiers have used small arms weapons in training and combat — and virtually all the projectiles fired from these weapons contained lead alloy. Lead bullets typically shatter upon impact with soil.

The resulting debris and corrosion products infiltrate the soil and can accumulate in sediment, surface water and groundwater.

The U.S. Army Environmental Center (USAEC) is working with the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) and other agencies to replace the lead in small caliber projectiles. USAEC is funding efforts to make bullets with materials that perform as well as or better than lead, but without the potential environmental effects.

So we get “green” target ranges, but wounded soldiers get to die of cancer?

“Unintended consequences” indeed.

One other thing. According to this chart, the U.S. imports the majority of its tungsten from one country: China – 530 of the total 1,090 metric tons of powdered tungsten in 2003 (up from 260 out of 642 metric tons the previous year). Do we really want to be dependent on imported materials for our ammunition needs?

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Registration: Only Good for Confiscation

I will not register. Ever.

Australia’s state of New South Wales just ran a “compliance check” on its registered, licensed gun owners. And seized and destroyed some 43,000 weapons “most of which” were firearms. (Hat tip, No Quarters.) The reasons given for the seizures?

Mr Moroney said that, as part of the blitz, thousands of weapons were destroyed because police were not satisfied that the firearms were being kept securely, or that “possession of that firearm was necessarily further warranted”.

Yes, the State, in its infinite wisdom, decided that either the weapons were (in their unassailable opinion) “not being kept securely” or it simply decided that the owners didn’t need them anymore.

This is known among the gun confiscation, er, ban, um, control, that is, gun SAFETY crowd as “common sense gun control.”

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ANOTHER Carnival.

Gullyborg at Resistance is Futile has decided that there aren’t enough “Carnivals” out there, so he’s trying to start another one. This one he calls the “Carnival of Cordite” – specifically a GUN Carnival. Go read the rules. I’ve got my entry in.

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I Like Being Validated

On December 7, I wrote On Guillotines and Gibbets, a piece on the conflict between not the Left and the Right, but between the Left and the Religious Right. Pertinent quotes:

What, I think, the Left fears from the religious Right is a conclusion that the Left is actively, deliberately evil in its pursuit of its Utopia.

—

The Left, intolerant and unbending, agressively evangelical, historically in control of the education of youth and the flow of information to everyone, fears a Christian backlash and a modern-day massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve. They don’t much fear the non-religious among the Right – we’re not organized enough. We’re not true believers. But they understand that when men like Theodore Dalrymple start throwing the religiously-weighted word “EVIL” around, then the backlash might not be far away.

So I was quite pleased today when I read John Hinderaker’s (of Power Line fame) Weekly Standard piece “Rapture” Rapture. From the opening of John’s piece:

ONE OF LIBERALS’ chief motivations these days is fear of the religious right. Ask people on the left to explain their loathing of President Bush or the Republican party, and the answer often comes around to Jerry Falwell, evangelicals, theocracy, and so on.

John doesn’t attribute that fear, as I do, to a subconscious (or even conscious) expectation of an organized violent backlash, but at least I’m not the only one who sees the behavior of the left not as simple political maneuverings. They really do fear the religious right.

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More Socialism in the Classroom

(h/t Random Nuclear Strikes)

Kicking Broadswords reports:

My American Presidency class had just gotten out and a couple of us stood around discussing politics. The teacher (Democrat) asked if there was anything we agreed with about the Democratic Party and the president of the College Republicans brought up public education. I did my John Dewey socialist rant and when that didn’t seem to work I brought up the Constitution. I asked him where in the Constitution the feds have the power to control education. He acknowledged that it didn’t but remarked:

“I don’t really believe in the Constitution”

President of the College Republicans. Decades of public education indoctrination. What a surprise.

FEAR,

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The Philosophy and Politics thereof:

Another interesting week has gone by, with various bits and pieces aggregating in my consciousness for analysis and synthesis. On Tuesday I found a Reason magazine review of cultural anthropologist Abigail Kohn’s book Shooters, with reference to her earlier Reason piece Their Aim Is True. The pertinent quote from the book review was this:

Kohn’s own research for Shooters, some of which appeared in this magazine (“Their Aim Is True,” May 2001), elicited predictable responses. One colleague said she was performing a “social service by researching ‘such disgusting people.'” Another said that unless Kohn acknowledged the “inherent pathology” of gun enthusiasm, she was disrespecting victims of gun violence.

Kohn herself admitted in her earlier piece:

Our initial attempt to meet local militia members took us to a shooting range in the Bay Area, where we assumed local militia meetings would be held. We went on a Tuesday night, fully expecting the range to be seething with radical political activity. Why else would people congregate at a shooting range, if not to meet other like-minded, potentially dangerous right-wing gun nuts?

Also I found a Feb. 1 piece in the UConn Daily Campus entitled Gun nuts’[sic] have no real excuse by one Robert Schiering that proclaimed:

At first glance, the term “gun nut” would appear to be nothing more than an ad hominem against the more enthusiastic weapon owners of this country. However, as one reads the literature espoused by gun nut organizations, the reasoning behind this term becomes startlingly clear. Gun nuts are called as such because they are incontrovertibly insane.

In not much of a stretch, Rep. Patrick Kennedy on Tuesday cosponsored a bill to ban .50 BMG caliber rifles, stating, according to CNS:

“Any policy maker who, on the one hand, says that they are for combating terrorism but, on the other hand, will not back this legislation, backed by Representative Moran, to me has a lot of explaining to do,” Kennedy said “In fact, I think it would be the definition of insanity to say that.”

It’s important to understand this: We call ourselves “gun nuts” – embracing the label thrust upon us by the ignorant, anti-gun bigots – but many of them really believe it. We’re “potentially dangerous” because we like guns.

I think that’s something most gun owners don’t really grasp. I know it initially took me a while to get my mind around the idea. Last January there was a multi-blog discussion about concealed-carry that inspired my essay TRUST. Blogger Barry of Inn of the Last Home began the discussion, saying on the subject of concealed-carry:

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.

That stirred up quite a controversy, but he later tried to clarify:

I would feel uncomfortable carrying a loaded weapon. Very uncomfortable that I would possibly have the means to end a person’s life within arm’s reach. That doesn’t mean I’m going to do it, or would ever be tempted. Just that fact makes me uncomfortable.

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. That’s simply it, I don’t trust you. I don’t trust a person who is not a licensed law enforcement officer of some kind – someone who, by virtue of their job, I would assume they have proper gun training – to carry a weapon. You may be a great person, love your kids, go to church, would never pull a gun in anger at another person – you may be supremely confident of that fact in your own mind, but I’m not. To me, you would be just as likely to be the one sticking up the fast-food clerk as the one defending him, or – in your possibly untrained and excited state – could be the one who with the best of intentions attempts to intervene but misses and hits someone else. Or you could be the one who gets pissed off at me in traffic and, instead of the flipping me the finger you pop off a few rounds at my back window.

I’m not concerned whether there are documented cases of this happening – I am afraid that they will, when more and more people are allowed to carry concealed weapons.

Last Thursday, Feb. 3, Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis offended the sense and sensibilities of a good portion of the public when he proclaimed “it’s fun to shoot some people.” The reaction was predictable. Congressman Pete Stark, (D-CA) put out a press release stating:

Last week, United States Marine Corps Lieutenant General James Mattis made public comments that were unbecoming of a military officer. As quoted in numerous newspaper articles and media broadcasts, Lt. General Mattis told a San Diego, California audience of 200 civilians that “It’s fun to shoot some people.” Referencing combatants in Afghanistan he added, “You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”

Lieutenant General Mattis has no doubt served his country with courage and distinction as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. It is, nonetheless, inexcusable that, as a high-ranking officer of the US military, he would make these callous and insensitive remarks that denigrate the value of human life.

That was relatively mild. Juan Cole said:

T.E. Lawrence, “Lawrence of Arabia,” was tortured and almost driven mad when he realized he got a thrill from shooting a man dead. His sadistic pleasure in killing Ottoman troops in Syria seems to have been wrought up with his rape by an Ottoman officer who thought him a Circassian Jordanian rather than a British secret agent. At one point he writes in Seven Pillars of Wisdom about how beautiful the dead Ottoman soldiers looked in the moonlight, lined up straight, after a battle.

—

Just as few priests are pedophiles, few soldiers are sadists. Mattis has brought dishonor on the US Marine Corps with his words. Killing is never appropriately called “fun.” I think he should resign.

You see, enjoying the practice of violence is “sadistic” and “racist.” Insane, in other words.

There are a lot more examples, but I’m sure most of you have seen ones like this or worse. However, I’ve read some military history, and I’ve read the current military blogs by some of the guys on the front lines pulling triggers, like Armor Geddon and A Day in Iraq. They like what they do, or they wouldn’t have chosen to do it.

Apparently, they’re insane too.

Or are they?

A while back I wrote a three-piece essay on the difference between violent and predatory and violent but protective, and their antithesis, pacifism. The pacifist culture, I wrote,

…doesn’t really distinguish between violent and predatory and violent but protective – it sees only violent. Their worldview is divided between violent and non-violent, or passive. There is an exception, a logical disconnect if you will, that allows for legitimate violence – but only if that violence is committed by sanctioned officials of the State. And even there, there is ambivalence. If violence is committed by an individual there is another dichotomy: If the violence is committed by a predator, it is the fault of society in not meeting that predator’s needs. The predator is the creation of the society, and is not responsible for the violence. He merely needs to be “cured” of his ailment. If violence is committed by a defender, it is a failure of the defender to adhere to the tenets of the pacifist society. It is the defender who is at fault because he has lived by the rules and has chosen to break them, and who must therefore be punished for his transgression.

And God help you if you admit that you enjoy exercising violence, for any reason. It’s a sign of mental illness, you know.

Finally this week, the D.C. Appellate Court upheld the District Court conclusion in Seegars v. Ashcroft. This was a suit to overturn Washington D.C.’s draconian gun ban. The courts, both the District and Appellate, essentially dodged the Second Amendment question by claiming that the appellants had no standing to bring suit. (Triggerfinger has a good collection of links to blog commentary on the decision.) This is just the latest in a long, long series of decisions and denials in which the courts have dodged and avoided addressing the true meaning and implications of the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court has done a yeoman’s job of that since its 1875 Cruikshank decision, the 1886 Presser v. Illinois decision, and finally the 1939 Miller decision. Lower court misinterpretation of Miller, backed by the two previous cases has put us where we are today. Only the 5th Circuit in Emerson actually had the intestinal fortitude to buck decades of bad precedent, and then, with a clear dichotomy between the 5th and 9th Circuits, the Supreme Court denied certiorari to the appeals of both Emerson and Silveira, leaving the question in legal limbo – again.

Gun rights supporters often wonder why that is – why is it that almost no one in government is willing to do what’s (to us) obviously right?

Because they’re AFRAID.

Gun owners represent about one quarter of the adult population of the country, and if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say somewhat less than half of those are active shooters. A signifcant majority of gun owners, in fact, are in favor of many forms of gun control. Why? FEAR. Like Barry, they don’t trust their fellow citizens. “I’m OK Mack, but I don’t know about YOU.” There’s a very large portion of the population, both gun owning and not, that holds the belief Barry does:

I don’t trust a person who is not a licensed law enforcement officer of some kind – someone who, by virtue of their job, I would assume they have proper gun training – to carry a weapon.

But this is fear born of two sources: ignorance, and sensationalism. The majority in this country are like Abigail Kohn was; ignorant, fearful, and naive when it comes to firearms as she describes herself. They are made fearful of them largely because of the media, where “if it bleeds, it leads.” I and many others have documented the monumental ignorance and anti-gun bigotry in the media (such as Ravenwood‘s recent skewering of a news report informing readers that the Bristol CT police department just up-gunned from 9mm to 40mm handguns. That’s a change in bore diameter from 0.355″ to over 1.5″. They would have apparently decided that grenade launchers are needed, if the report had been accurate.) We’ve noted the media’s fervent willingness to report criminal acts nationwide, while burying defensive gun uses on page D-24 of the local fishwrap. This is apparently because everybody knows that guns are only useful for criminal homicide.

And there’s the philosophical rub.

Our culture says that killing is wrong, and that being willing to kill is just as wrong. Yet we have that mental dichotomy that makes it OK if and only if the actor is a sanctioned official of the State. It has even lead to a linguistic dodge: States and their actors use force – individuals use violence. But either way, human beings end up dead or injured. Sure, it’s OK to kill someone in self-defense, but to prepare for that possibility is evidence of mental instability or at least criminal tendencies, unless you’re one of the anointed. That “logic” is the basis behind laws disarming citizens, brought to its (il)logical extreme in the UK where no one can legally carry anything considered an “offensive weapon,” or risk arrest. Note: there are no “defensive” weapons. If it’s a weapon, it’s “offensive.” The same illogic rests behind “proportional response” and “duty to retreat” laws.

Yet our system of government is one based on trust. I’ve quoted Bill Whittle before, I will do it here again, from Freedom:

This, to my mind, is the fundamental difference between the Europeans and the U.S.: We trust the people. We fought wars and lost untold husbands and brothers and sons because of this single most basic belief: Trust the people. Trust them with freedom. Trust them to spend their own money. Trust them to do the right thing. Trust them to defend themselves. To the degree that government can help, great – but TRUST THE PEOPLE.

—

Criminals, and criminal regimes ranging from The Brow-Ridged Hairy People That Live Among the Distant Mountains all the way through history to the Nazis and the Soviets, have and will conspire to take by force what they cannot produce on their own. These people must be stopped. The genius of the 2nd Amendment is that it realizes that these people could be anybody – including the U.S. Army. That is why this power, like the other powers, is vested in the people. Nowhere else in the world is this the case. You can make a solid argument that the United States is, by almost any measure, the most prosperous, successful nation in history. I’m not claiming this is because every American sleeps with a gun under the pillow – the vast majority do not. I do claim it is the result of a document that puts faith and trust in the people – trusts them with government, with freedom, and with the means of self-defense. You cannot remove that lynchpin of trust without collapsing the entire structure. Many observers of America never fully understand what we believe in our bones, namely, that the government doesn’t tell us what we can do – WE tell THOSE bastards just how far they can go.

Obviously a lot has changed over the decades and centuries. Industrialization and the growing urbanization of America has reduced the average American’s exposure to firearms, and high crime rates – especially in those urban areas – has caused much of the fear I illustrated at the beginning of this post. But since I’m quoting older bits with abandon in this essay, let me dredge up another one. I’ve referenced this letter to Kim du Toit several times on this blog, but that’s because it is so pertinent to the philosophy that I espouse. In this case, the relevant portion is this:

Being armed goes far beyond simple self-protection against thugs or even tyrants — it’s an unequivocal and unmatched lesson that you are politically and morally sovereign; that you, and not the state, are responsible for your life and your fate. This absolute personal sovereignty is the founding stone of the Republic. “A well-regulated militia” (where the militia is “the whole people”) isn’t just “necessary to the security of a free state” because it provides a backup to (and defense against) the police and the army. More importantly, keeping and bearing arms trains sovereign citizens in the art of freedom, and accustoms us to our authority and duty.

As Eric S. Raymond wrote:

“To believe one is incompetent to bear arms is, therefore, to live in corroding and almost always needless fear of the self — in fact, to affirm oneself a moral coward. A state further from ‘the dignity of a free man’ would be rather hard to imagine. It is as a way of exorcising this demon, of reclaiming for ourselves the dignity and courage and ethical self-confidence of free (wo)men that the bearing of personal arms, is, ultimately, most important.”

We need to get our heads around the idea that, by being armed for the defense of ourselves and the State, we are feared by those around us who don’t understand that they are responsible for their own protection, and those whose own philosophies are pacifistic.

It isn’t the people willing to be violent-but-protective who are mentally unbalanced, but those who cannot and will not recognized that violence exists whether they want it to or not, and that being unprepared and unwilling to face it will not make it go away. (Read the piece by Rev. Sensing I referenced in Violence and the Social Contract for a more in-depth discussion on pacifism.)

There is one and only one way to overcome this fear, and that is familiarity. Abigail Kohn described her experience:

There was a time when I would not have wanted to touch a gun of any kind, much less spend part of an afternoon riding the back of a rocking mechanical pony and blazing away at a series of targets with revolvers, rifles, and shotguns. But that improbable picture is the culmination of a journey that took me from the ivory towers of academia to the shooting ranges of Northern California. Bluntly, I was surprised by what I found there. As a practicing anthropologist, I had set out in search of gun crazies, but what I found were regular folks — enthusiasts who relate to their guns in generally socially positive ways. These people are usually ignored by most media accounts of America’s “gun culture.”

“Refugee,” the author of that letter to Kim du Toit said:

To those of you who grew up with guns, I expect that what I’m about to say will seem painfully obvious. But I came to class late, and what I learned there is still fresh and vibrant.

I thought, all my life, that I couldn’t own a gun safely, that no one could, really. Guns were dangerous and icky. Even after I realized that the Second Amendment was not quite the shriveled, antiquated appendix I’d been taught, for a couple of years or so I still wobbled around with the training-wheel comfort of believing that while not all gun owners were necessarily gap-toothed red-necked fascist militia whackos, I myself ought not to own firearms. I was too clumsy and careless, and guns were still dangerous and icky.

Just before 9/11 I woke up to how quickly my liberty was eroding, and in a fit of anger and defiance started saving for a handgun while training with rentals. (Thanks to Harry at Texas Shooters Range here in Houston.) When I actually bought one (to the horror and confusion of my friends and family), having it around the house, carrying it in my car, talking about it, showing it off, and of course shooting and maintaining it, taught me what I could not learn from books, magazines, classes, or even Usenet:

It taught me that freedom takes practice.

A while back I did two pieces on Emily Yoffe, a Slate columnist and contributor to NPR who, as part of her continuing series “Human Guinea Pig” had taken the challenge to learn to shoot. In her Slate piece she related the following:

So anathema are guns among my friends that when one learned I was doing this piece, he opened his wallet, silently pulled out an NRA membership card, then (after I recovered from the sight) asked me not to spread it around lest his son be kicked out of nursery school. My entire experience with guns consisted of a riflery class at summer camp back when Millard Fillmore was president, and an afternoon 20 years ago shooting at tin cans with a friend.

It was not easy finding an instructor willing to take on a reporter who lived in the District. Looking for help, I called Gary Mehalik, director of communications of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who offered to get me a setup in which a laser is inserted into a pistol, which I could then shoot into a specially equipped laptop computer that would track my accuracy. I worried that at the end of a day of typing on my computer, I would become addicted to shooting it—a journalist’s version of Elvis blasting his television when he saw performers he didn’t like. Then Mehalik realized he couldn’t send me the laser-equipped pistol: “As a D.C. resident, you of course are not allowed to use a firearm.”

She got her first exposure to anti-gun bigotry, and her first exposure to asinine gun laws – but she also exposed her own prejudice – being worried about becoming “addicted to shooting.” But her first actual shooting experience was an eye-opener:

The ammo itself made me uneasy, as if it could explode on contact, and I fumbled as I tried to load the shotgun. The first few shots didn’t go well. I could hear my blood pumping in my ears, and I realized that when you close both eyes as you pull the trigger, your clay target will fall to the ground intact. I slowed my breath, forced myself to keep one eye opened, and miraculously hit the thing. In the end I blasted 11 out of 25. Ricardo was thrilled and so was I. I felt even better about myself when, after I made Ricardo shoot a box of ammo, he hit only two more targets than I did.

I also transcribed her NPR interview with Alex Chadwick where Yoffe explained her reason for learning to shoot, which was similar to Abigale Kohn’s:

Well, guns are a big issue right now and I’m… I thought, I’ve gotta understand the rest of the country a little better. And, so I went to see if an absolute gun novice can learn to be a decent shot.

By the end of her experience, she’d been changed:

Chadwick:

So, how did you take to shooting, and are you any good? Could you hit the target?

Yoffe:

I’m darned good. What can I say? Everything has been a disaster in Human Guinea Pig, but I was hitting that thing, at.. My instructor Ricardo Royal put a paper plate out there, and I took his Sig-Sauer P226 9mm with a Crimson Trace laser grip…

Chadwick:

Huh?

Yoffe:

…and “Paper plate, make my day” I was hitting it.

Chadwick:

You sound like you actually know what that thing was. Is that a handgun or a bazooka?

Yoffe:

It’s a semiautomatic pistol.

Chadwick:

Oh.

It was the conclusion of the interview, though, that I found most pleasing:

Chadwick:

Ok, Emily. You know, you gave up being Mrs. D.C., you passed on being a street musician, you’re no longer a phone psychic. Are you actually going to be a shooter? Are you going to get a gun?

Yoffe:

Well, I live in Washington, D.C., which kind of precludes this. Un, unless I’m a criminal, of course. But I am thinking of taking my family out and having us all have a great time blasting at targets. I’ve also become… I see movies now in a different way. I look at people shooting in movies and think “There’s no follow-through there, you’re not gonna hit that person. You don’t know what you’re doing!”

Emily Yoffe hasn’t grasped the citizenship aspect of gun ownership, I think, though both Abigale Kohn and “Refugee” have. What she has done, as they have, is lost her fear.

While the total number of guns in America climbs by two to three million annually, the number of gun owners has been declining. If we wish to retain our right to arms, we’re going to have to address that. I offer to take novices shooting on the left column of this blog. James Rummel of Hell in a Handbasket does it as a vocation. Kim du Toit’s site, A Nation of Riflemen is dedicated to inspiring new shooters, and he gets letters from them. Publicola offers a list of us and other people willing to do the same.

We need more.

The only answer to fear is information and experience, and we need to be doing a better job, because the media is a difficult force to overcome. As I write this, my wife is watching MSNBC Investigates – Dark Heart, Iron Hand, and the topic is “Rampage Killers.” According to host John Seigenthaler, a rampage killing occurs in the United States some thirty times a year. The subject right now is the 1991 Luby’s cafeteria massacre in Killeen Texas. The subject before it was the 1984 San Ysidro, California McDonald’s massacre. In both stories there is much description of people cowering defenseless as they wait to be cold-bloodedly shot to death before the police can arrive.

In the Luby’s story, there is no mention of Suzanne Gratia-Hupp. There is no mention of defensive gun useage by anyone other than a law-enforcement officer.

But the blame for these rampage killings is placed on “the proliferation of firearms” and insane white men who enjoy violence and collect guns.

UPDATE 2/14: Jed at Freedomsight has an post on pretty much the same topic, Selling Fear and the Psychology of Gun Control, and Gunner at No Quarters has another sad example of gun phobia. Posse Incitatus points out a piece from June of last year on The Fear of Responsibility that dovetails nicely into the theme of this essay. He links in that to my also related piece Americans, Gun Controllers, and the “Aggressive Edge”. Good catch. He also has a new post on the topic, advising that the “public face” of the gun-rights movement needs to be that of Gary Cooper’s “Marshal Will Kane” in High Noon, rather than DeNiro’s “Travis Bickel” in Taxi Driver. But there’s that dichotomy again – authorized, responsible agent of the State vs. slavering untrustworthy civilian gun-nut. How many media images do we have of average, everyday people as responsible gun owners, anyway?

I think he missed the point. If we want to take the “nut” out of “gun nut,” image is irrelevant. We can’t overcome decades of propaganda. Only personal experience matters.

UPDATE 2/15: Denise of The Ten Ring is not so sanguine about the “take a novice shooting” suggestion as a cure, and with personal experience as evidence. She may have a very valid point. She notes, too, that my invitation has only garnered three takers to date. I’ve been passive about it. I’m going to have to become an active recruiter, I guess.

Additional update: Posse Incitatus objects to my “Will Kane / Travis Bickel” comparison.

UPDATE 2/16: James Rummel comments.

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Thanks for Admitting It, Dr. Dean

I was flipping channels this afternoon and came across Howard Dean on CSPAN at some Democrat function or other. I haven’t been able to find a clip or a transcript of it online, but it was a tape-delay of something from this morning. This is my best recollection of the question and answer, but when or if I find the clip or transcript, I’ll put it down verbatim.

Dean was asked about how the Catholic Church had acted during the last election, essentially telling practicing Catholics that it would be a sin to vote for (pro-abortion) Kerry. He was asked what, if anything, could the Democrats do to overcome this opposition.

Dean’s response was quite illuminating. First, he said that he thought the Catholic Church was somewhat divided, because he himself had received encouragement and endorsement from a group of nuns. However, he believed that the Democrat Party could reach out to Americans of all faiths, especially Catholics, because (as nearly as I can remember the exact wording):

We have a common social agenda. After all, it is said that a camel can pass through the eye of a needle easier than a rich man can enter the kingdom of Heaven.

Like I’ve said for a while – Leftism is a religion. Instead of supplication to the authority of the Church, you’re supposed to supplicate yourself to the authority of the Party. And from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. Let no one rise above anyone else. Equality of misery, not opportunity.

There‘s a campaign slogan for the next go-around.

UPDATE 2/14: Here’s the full quote from the Palm Beach Post:

“We have to remind Catholic Americans that the social mission of the Democratic Party is almost exactly the social mission of the Catholic Church,” Dean said. “The idea that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven is not a plank of the GOP platform. So it seems to me that we have a right to have a claim on Catholic votes based on Catholic teachings.”

Essentially what Dean said was “The DNC is just like the Catholic Church (except for that pesky abortion thing) – we believe rich people are sinners.”

Or at least rich people who don’t belong to our Church.

That would explain their tax policies. And their entitlement policies as well.