Tag: blogging

Blame Torchwood

KevinLeave a comment

I know I owe one Überpost, but blame it on Torchwood. I’m almost through the series, and I can’t stop watching it, despite all the bad gun-handling and every Hollywood firearm cliché ever used.

Two episodes left!

Update: Holy sh!t.

I Really Have to Apologize

KevinLeave a comment

I’m still working on my response to James Kelly, because – frankly – he deserves my best effort.

Don’t read into that something that isn’t there.

I’ve started and restarted the essay at least a half-dozen times, and during that period James has written not one, but two new pieces, as have others.

One piece I think everyone should read is by Nate of Guns and Bullets!, In conflicts of vision, temperament wins the day. Some of you will recognize yourselves there, I hope.

I have said more than once that we are often our own worst enemies, but that I understand the anger and frustration that results from what has been described as “a decades-long slow-motion hate crime” against gun owners. I have endeavored to avoid that here unless provoked first, and James has not provoked.

So I owe him an honest and thorough response. I find it interesting that when we started this exchange back in April of last year, James characterized it as :

. . . an utterly pointless discussion . . .

but he agreed to engage, and did so in a follow-up post, which was followed by 84 comments at the end of which he declared:

My position is now that the debate is closed at this site.

However, since then he has written an additional seven posts (to my, I believe, three) and he has remained civil in all of them. (A bit snarky, but civil.)

I have accepted that James and I have different first principles, and that our discussion on the topic of gun control will not (nor did I ever expect it to) convince either of us to change our position on the topic. The purpose remains to provide a forum for those looking for understanding to see the two sides presented as well as possible, with all warts and flaws exposed, so that they may decide for themselves.

I remain convinced, as does James, that my side of the argument is the most compelling. I’ve met very few people who have gone from being gun-rights supporters to gun control advocates, but many (like Nate and Weer’d Beard) who have been convinced by exposure to the facts that gun control – well, let Nate say it, since he did it so well:

I was turned from collectivism to individualism during several years’ worth of disastrous college experiences in communal living and unpleasant but forced interactions with a sociopathic collectivist. My faith in my new beliefs was further reinforced by enrollment in several economics courses, and when I landed a good job that earned me more money than my friends, I was dismayed by their jealousy and resentment. Then I bought my first gun, and things snowballed from there.

You could show me all the facts in the world that individualism and gun ownership make society unsafe and I still wouldn’t be convinced that human freedom is worth curtailing. Just as we tried bombarding Mr. Kelly with facts showing that his favored restrictions were the culprit of the UK’s rising crime wave, it didn’t make a difference to him. I can’t blame him for this because we all do the same.

In James’ latest piece, he asked:

One of the issues I raised with Kevin Baker’s Fan Club the other day in my ten question challenge was suicide, and whether restrictions on gun ownership wouldn’t be an effective way of making it harder for people to take their own lives. This (remarkably) is the only one of the ten questions that anyone has felt able to respond to so far, seventy-two hours into the challenge, and the response came from Kevin himself, in the form of a link to a long blog post he wrote on the subject in 2004. With characteristic theatricality, the post claims to establish indisputable proof that there is no problem whatever – despite this being an issue over which, on further investigation, it turns out there is significant academic dispute. However, when I thought about it some more, the question that really intrigued me was why Kevin would have gone to all the trouble of writing that post six years ago.

Because it’s people like Nate I want to reach. It’s for people like Nate that I started writing this blog seven years ago.

I’m not at all surprised that what James took from that piece was the (mistaken) belief that my intent was to prove “that there is no problem whatever.” It was not. It was to illustrate that the claims of the other side are not provable. That those claims do not stand up to investigation. That those simple, obvious, commonsense propositions aren’t so simple, obvious, or commonsense when examined against reality. That when you dig into the facts, it can cause honest, undecided, openminded people to reconsider their positions. To once again quote Colin Greenwood from that piece that James found “incomprehensible, logic-bending,” and “pseudo-scientific”:

At first glance, it may seem odd or even perverse to suggest that statutory controls on the private ownership of firearms are irrelevant to the problem of armed crime; yet that is precisely what the evidence shows. Armed crime and violent crime generally are products of ethnic and social factors unrelated to the availability of a particular type of weapon.

The number of firearms required to satisfy the crime market is small, and these are supplied no matter what controls are instituted. Controls have had serious effects on legitimate users of firearms, but there is no case, either in the history of this country or in the experience of other countries in which controls can be shown to have restricted the flow of weapons to criminals, or in any way reduced crime.

As James said in his opening piece, his arguments are honest, and come from “deeply-held principles.” Of this, I have no doubt. But I am used to being lied to by my opponents, and admit that this is the default reaction I have developed over the years. So my apologies, James, if I offended.

And my apologies to my readers (my “fan club” as James styles them) for once again delaying the next Überpost. James will, undoubtedly, find it “incomprehensible” and “logic-bending,” but I’m expecting that. I’m not writing it for him. I’m writing it for people like Nate who I hope will join us in the fight against those who wish to curtail human freedom in the name of making us feel safe.

HOME!

KevinLeave a comment

We were greeted at Customs by the agent singing “José, Can You See . . . ” No, I’m not kidding – and he was Hispanic. Apparently it’s a running joke between him and one of the pilots, (the José in question).

That was a LONG seven days. Mining towns are not “touristy” even in the States. In rural central Mexico, there’s no pizza, much less a Domino’s. (Considerably better than Domino’s is on its way to me right now.)

I just got off the phone with Ted Brown. My M14 is done. My LaRue Tactical rings were waiting for me when I got home – along with a LaRue Tactical hat, a ‘Dillo “Beverage Entry Tool,” a pocket edition of the Constitution of the United States, and two “God Bless Our Troops… Especially Our Snipers” bumper stickers. LaRue knows how to treat its customers! If I’m lucky I’ll have a range-ready rifle in my hands in time for the long weekend!

UPDATE: Pizza’s here! Nom nom nom . . .

Regular blogging to resume shortly.

Well, I’m Here

KevinLeave a comment

As expected, internet access is very slow, so not much surfing or blogging will get done for the next six days or so. Sorry.

Is it “charming”or “quaint” to hear braying burros outside your hotel room in the evening?

The Free Ice Cream Machine is Broken

KevinLeave a comment

Sorry, y’all, but I have to travel on business, and I’m going to be in central Mexico for the next seven days. Those days promise to run about 12-13 hours, and I suspect I’m going to have neither the time nor the inclination to write much after work. I’ll be lucky to keep up with the blogs I follow daily.

I’ve got to get up at 4:00 tomorrow to get to the airport by 5:30 to catch the 7-passenger plane to the job site, so tonight I’ve got to pack and get to bed early.

Later, everyone.

That’s 49 in Blog Years

KevinLeave a comment

Seven years ago today I hit “Publish Post” on my first entry here at The Smallest Minority.

It’s been an interesting seven years.

I’ve been unemployed once, changed jobs twice, gone to two NRA conventions, watched two fronts of a war unfold, gotten three Instalanches, been to four Gun Blogger Rendezvous, met nearly a hundred other bloggers, gone from less than a thousand hits a week to over a thousand hits a day (closing in on two million total), written 4550 posts, collected something on the order of 50,000 comments, saw the Supreme Court finally declare the right to arms to be an individual right, watched the continuing march of “shall-issue” concealed-carry legislation across the nation take us from 33 “shall-issue” states to 39 – including two, Arizona and Alaska going from “no-issue” to “no permit required” . . .

As I said, it’s been interesting.

And it’s been ego-boosting. Some of the compliments I’ve collected from here and around the web over the past seven years:

Not only does your essay hit on all the major points of self defence, it is crafted with a type of cold, hard, scientific logic that I have seldom seen from anyone in my, albeit inexperienced, 19 years of existence. This logic is what sets your essay apart from other writers on the subject, as they often do not hit on very important defining details that allow logical links to be made.

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I’ve argued the case for gun rights many times using information I got right here.

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I don’t always agree with you and I have no illusions about whether you have all the answers or not, but you bring a unique perspective that always makes me look at things from a different point of view. You inspire me to think just a little bit deeper and analyze just a little more thoroughly and for that, I thank you.

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I’m now forced to reconsider my position on religion, now that I realize you share it.

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Wow… Reading your takedowns of this drivel is like watching Barry Bonds play tee ball.

It’s an easy target, but it’s still damned impressive.

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Entertaining and witty, your occasional fiskings of the anti-gun whackos is marvelously entertaining.

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You seem to be doing O.K. without their help. Madison, Jefferson and all the rest may slumber peacefully in their graves because men such as you have proved themselves to be competent caretakers of our political liberties.

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I’m going to print out a copy of this and use it on my liberal history professor. Probably best online synopsis of the various important 2A court cases I have read.

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“What has been your best blogging experience?”
Arguing with Kevin from The Smallest Minority over religion and philosophy.

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I don’t read as many blogs as a lot of other people do so I can’t say he is the best philosopher on guns and freedom. I can only say he is by far the best philosopher of the bloggers I have read.

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I warn you, The Smallest Minority is (a) addictive and (b) almost invariably “Geek Length”. The difference being, of course, that Kevin can put more concept and information into his writing than I do, he is a better writer, and a much better researcher.

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I don’t know if you read Kevin Baker’s, The Smallest Minority but if you don’t, you should. There is no finer way to spend an evening than with your feet up in front of the fire, a large glass of something dark & peaty close to hand as you read one of his Uberposts in which he will methodically & in great detail argue his position & deconstruct the opposing view.

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Your blog is one of the few I read daily. Thanks for your tireless efforts on behalf of our rights, both on your own blog and in the comments sections of others. You are far more persuasive and far more tolerant of ignorance, stupidity, emotional reasoning and bad faith than I could ever be.

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I really like the way you tackle these issues – it appeals to the (software) engineer in me. More than that, your posts are incredibly effective in getting lefties to think about guns and crime. Most profess themselves open to alternate viewpoints, so on several occasions I have pointed people at your posts – not as facts per se, but as a place to start because you always attribute your sources. One friend will now simply no longer talk about guns in any context; I’m sure that given a little more time he’ll accept that “more guns please” is the only logical step to take.

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This is one of my key sites, where I consistently see stuff I can find nowhere else.

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Watching one of your debates is like watching a episode of Mission Impossible, you know the IMF is going to pull it off, but it’s great fun to watch the process.

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Seriously. I am going to print this out and carry it in my wallet.

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Deep down inside, you knew all this. But it is very nice to be able to read an extensively research post on the topic so that you don’t start believing you’re the only one.

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. . . it’s interesting to me that a media, namely blogs, that have long been associated with personal spleen-venting, are increasingly becoming sources for polished, focused commentary. Some of the work (e.g. Kevin Baker’s uberposts) being done on them is downright scholarly.

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In theory, controversial subjects are best resolved through a dialectical process of argument and counterargument, arriving at a conclusion. Threaded discussions are the perfect medium for this kind of debate, because they allow a topic to be broken up into component parts, and each part to be addressed individually. This should serve to simplify and clarify complicated debates.

In practice, few people (anywhere) have the discipline, patience, or intellectual honesty to carry such a debate to its conclusion. Fewer still combine these traits with sufficient subject-matter expertise to be useful in such a debate. (Kevin at The Smallest Minority keeps coming to mind. He combines an extraordinary knowledge of gun control case law, with Sisyphean patience.)

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It took me an hour to read (it is a classic Kevin Baker post) but I found the enlightenment worth my time.

As Uncle says, I do this to entertain me, not you, but stuff like this really makes all that effort worthwhile.

Thank you all for being my audience. I will continue to strive to be worthy of your time. Quite often, a LOT of your time!