Tag: linkery

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“Be consoled that you are winning the battle.”

(From that email from Laura Washington.) Want to know why we’re winning? Because we have turned away from the gun control path taken by the Brits. We have not allowed ourselves to be marginalized and politically silenced through the death-by-a-thousand-cuts.

And because too many people are willing to think for themselves about the question of guns and gun control. While anecdotes are not data, people like this woman pop up all over the country each and every week:

They’ve found a body in the woods. Again. Another missing girl, woman, sister, mother, friend strangled, stabbed, shot, raped, mutilated, dismembered and tossed in the brush, in a ditch, beside railroad tracks, in a dumpster, in the ocean like so much garbage. The details don’t really matter. They were all guilty of nothing more than perhaps smiling at the wrong man, speaking to the wrong stranger, being at the wrong place at the wrong time, not being wary enough while going about their daily lives, not realizing that they were prey, that someone was watching them, following them and thinking violent thoughts about them.

The photographs their loved ones give to the police are all eerily similar..a sideways smile, a dream behind the eyes. They could be me, or you, your best friend, your neighbor or your mother. And then the body is found and the coroner talks about needing dental records, about decomposition, about DNA. I can never get over the horror of it, those women, their thoughts and hopes and precious temples of flesh so quickly turned to nothing but scraps of meat and bones and if never found, nothing. Forgotten, except for the whispered hometown legends about the girl who got lost, disappeared without a trace.

How fragile we are.

Every time I hear another one of these stories, I decide that this will never happen to me. That I will not be a victim. A man will never understand the fear a woman has walking across a dark parking lot alone. How it may be a risky thing to take a walk by yourself around your own neighborhood. How no amount of judo or karate will make a difference if you are a small female person and there’s a large male person who’s running after you or, God forbid, has gotten close enough to put his hands on you.

I have two defenses. #1, listen to that internal warning alarm and pay attention to my surroundings and the people in it. #2, get my concealed carry permit. I’m halfway there.

“Abe Lincoln may have freed all men, but Sam Colt made them equal.”

Women, this is for you too. Don’t be afraid of protecting yourself. You really are worth it.

Every day people realize that they bear primary responsibility for their own protection, and that depending exclusively on the police or others is unrealistic. They consider the options, and then many of them consider a gun. Education is the key. People fear what they do not understand, and can be convinced of anything in their ignorance. Knowledge is empowerment:

I come from a long line of awesome women. Brave and bold and clever…and not the least of these my own mother. I took her shooting at the range today. She was tiny bit apprehensive at first and jumpy at the sound of the guy shooting the .357 next to us, but after a quick lesson on gun safety, loading, and lining up the sights, she got right in there and started shooting. After her first 10 shots, she put down the gun, turned around and had the most immense grin on her face. It was a beautiful thing.

I’ve decided that it is now my task to convince every girl I know to come to the range and and shoot with me. If my 60-something, breast cancer survivor mother can shoot (and hit the target!), anyone can. And should.

Amen! (H/t to Say Uncle for the initial link.)

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“Authorized Journalist” Misses the Key Facts.

Big freaking surprise.

A Keyboard and a .45 has the real scoop on how the legacy media once again allowed itself to be manipulated in the battle against those eeeevil guns, the giant gun industry and its all-powerful lobby that wants to see a gun in every child’s hand!

Hie thee hence. And maybe write a short letter to the editor when you’re done reading.

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“You’re an American!!! We don’t do that sort of thing!”.

A reader sent me an email with a link to a really outstanding first-person account over at OpenCarry.org. It seems a young American serving in the Israeli Defense Forces had an encounter with a couple of New Yorkers in Tel Aviv.

I imagine that couple counted themselves among those who have “been against violence and guns their whole lives.” I think he rocked their world a little bit.

Give it a read.

Thanks for the link, Chuck!

Like Water Off a Duck’s Back

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Say Uncle pointed to a Chicago Sun-Times op-ed yesterday by columnist and journalism professor Laura Washington. I won’t reproduce the whole piece, but here’s a taste:

Gun lovers disarm control advocates

August 27, 2007
LAURA WASHINGTON Sun-Times columnist

It looks like the petulant, gun-toting NRA stalwarts have won the first round.

Last time, I used this space to ask where you stand on the issue of gun control. A torrent of e-mails later, it’s clear: Gun-control advocates were outgunned, four to one.

The gun lovers were legion, robust and vitriolic. Many of you told me to go places where the sun doesn’t shine and the temperature is way too hot. Yet, if you believe public opinion polls, that reaction is an anomaly. For instance, last April, ABC News polled adults nationwide, and asked: “Do you favor or oppose stricter gun control laws in this country?” Sixty-one percent favored them, 36 percent were opposed, and 3 percent were “unsure.”

CBS News asked, “In general, do you feel the laws covering the sale of handguns should be made more strict, less strict, or kept as they are now?” Two-thirds of respondents nationwide opted for “more strict.”

What is the problem with the advocates of gun control? Why are their voices not being heard? They are consistently cowed and overmatched. Gun violence is out of control, yet the gun lovers are ascendant.

You think we’ve got problems now? Just listen to Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential aspirant. At a recent Conservative Political Action Conference, he bragged, “I’m not a newcomer to the NRA,” the New York Times reported on its political blog. “I was the first governor to have a conceal-carry permit, so don’t mess with me.”

Huckabee, mind you, recently made a flashy second-place showing in the Iowa presidential straw poll.

Do you want to be standing in line for gas, popcorn or a gallon of milk and find yourself next to someone who’s packing heat? If he takes the White House, we can all go shopping for embossed leather holsters and pearl-handled pistols. I’ll be looking to accessorize that with rhinestone-studded boots.

You know, the usual Reasoned Discourse™ we’ve come to expect from our opposition. Please, RTWT. (And yes, I do know about the Zogby poll.)

Instead of fisking her piece, I thought I’d drop her a nice email (and copy the paper’s letters-to-the-editor while I was at it. What the hell, worth a shot.) Here’s what I sent:

Ms. Washington:

I read with interest your op-ed in the online edition of the Sun-Times, and I had some comments to make. I hope that you will see this epistle in the volume of email I am sure has been forthcoming since your little jeremiad was published. Provoking an outpour of response was, I am sure, one of your intentions. Let me apologize in advance (though it is not really my place) for those who will shower you with invective and vitriol. We on the side of the right to arms have been fighting against a decades-long slow-motion hate crime,1 and it tends to wear on our patience. I understand such responses, but I cannot countenance them.

I am eternally fascinated by people who see themselves as “gun control advocates.” I find them fascinating because they epitomize to me the phrase “cognitive dissonance.” The fact that you write from Chicago, one of the epicenters of “common-sense gun control” only adds to my fascination.

Cognitive dissonance has been defined thus:

“When someone tries to use a strategy which is dictated by their ideology, and that strategy doesn’t seem to work, then they are caught in something of a cognitive bind. If they acknowledge the failure of the strategy, then they would be forced to question their ideology. If questioning the ideology is unthinkable, then the only possible conclusion is that the strategy failed because it wasn’t executed sufficiently well. They respond by turning up the power, rather than by considering alternatives. (This is sometimes referred to as ‘escalation of failure’.)”2

Or, as I phrase it, “The philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again, only harder!” We see this behavior in gun control advocates all the time. There’s always a “loophole” to blame. Always a “next step.” But “gun control” never improves crime rates, never reduces homicide rates. Never. Gun control advocates always – without exception – predict “blood in the streets” and “wild West shootouts” when “shall issue” concealed-carry legislation makes progress in state legislatures, but this never happens. Never. Somehow this data fails to make a dent in the “gun control” mindset. The strategy constantly fails, but the ideology cannot be questioned. Do it again, only harder!

Ms. Washington, you note in your piece: “(I)t seems the gun control advocates have been outmatched. Abigail Spangler acknowledges as much. Spangler is the founder of ProtestEasyGuns.com, a Virginia-based group that has been spearheading a slew of anti-gun protests around the nation.

“Gun control activists, she wrote me, ‘are TRYING HARD but they are seriously affected in state after state by lack of funding and contributions.” She recently met, she says, with the leader of Virginia’s only gun control group. “He says they may not even be able to afford any lobbyist at all soon in Virginia!'”

Ms. Washington, the citizenry will offer an opinion to anyone. Opinions are free. But activism costs money – and the anti-gun side has shown that the hearts and wallets of the general public are not really into it. Ask any hundred random people on the street if they favor stricter gun laws and most likely the majority will say “yes.” Ask them what the current gun laws are, and they won’t be able to tell you. Gun rights activists can. The gun control side of the argument has been supported for decades with money from foundations, perhaps the largest contributor being the Joyce Foundation. Look them up. Those of us who believe in the right to arms are the true grass-rooters, and there are far more of us than the mere four million that the NRA claims as members. As someone once put it so pithily: “Poor Lefties; they’ve been playing on astroturf so long that they don’t know grassroots even when fed a mouthful of divot.” 3

Ms. Washington, our side is winning because we can see reality. We are not blinded to a flawed ideology. The ideology you operate under is expressed best as “Guns are baaad, mmmmkay?” This ideology springs from an inability or unwillingness to see a difference between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective.” You see only “violence” and violence offends you. From this inability you mistake the tools of violence to be the cause of violence, and from that error comes the desire to eradicate the tools. But this does not address the actual cause. In other words, “Gun control is what you do instead of something.”4

When disaster strikes and civil society breaks down, when the government proves unmistakably that it cannot protect everyone, everywhere, all the time, then some people have an awakening – and they go to a gun store or a Wal-Mart and try to buy a gun.

And that’s when they discover just what the gun laws really are.

And many become gun-rights activists because, as one woman put it when she found out she had to wait a week for a gun while being stalked by an ex-boyfriend, “I’ve been against guns and violence my whole life.”5 She and those like her were responsible for that interminable week wait. She finally understood the difference between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective,” and wanted protection – which the law denied her for a full week.

Some of us are “gun lovers,” Ms. Washington. I am, unashamedly. But many, many more simply want to be able to choose how to defend ourselves. That is a choice you wish to deny us out of a belief in a flawed ideology that you cannot bring yourselves to recognize.

I’d love to discuss this topic with you further, but I seriously doubt you’ve bothered to read this far.

Thank you for your attention, however much of it I was able to garner.

(Footnotes not in original).

Somewhat to my surprise, she replied:

Dear Mr. Baker,

Thanks for your comments on the gun control column. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.

Be consoled that you are winning the battle. And yes, I did read your entire letter.

Best, Laura

=================================================================
Laura S. Washington
Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor
DePaul University
Contributing Columnist, Chicago Sun-Times
Senior Editor, In These Times

The fact that she responded was surprising. The content was not.

I sent her a short reply:

Dear Laura:

Thank you for your gracious reply, and for taking the time our of your obviously busy schedule to read my missive.

Water off a duck’s back, eh?

My sincere condolences,

Kevin

But wait! There’s more! Phelps had a beautiful response of his own that I hope he sent to her. I urge you not to miss it.

Footnotes:

1Dr. Michael S. Brown
2Steven Den Beste
3Tamara K
4Say Uncle
5Seraphic Secret

Credit where credit is due.

UPDATE: Commenter Kevin P. notes that he maintains (an EXCELLENT) Wikipedia page on the Joyce Foundation and their funding efforts. Way to go, Kevin!

KevinLeave a comment

Cue Islamic Rage Boy!.

(I especially like “I am not Amish!”)

Some 25 newspapers refused to carry last Sunday’s Opus cartoon. According to Eugene Volokh, one reason given was “a sex joke a little stronger than we normally see”. With all due respect: horseshit. As a commenter put it so succinctly:

Let’s not act all innocent here. The Post is not afraid of offending someone, they are afraid of offending someone who might bomb them. Breathed has gleeful drawn caricatures of evangelical Christians for years and the Post has complacently published them, not out bigotry but out of the tacit but wholly accurate calculation that evangelicals, whatever their shortcomings, are not likely to commit terrorist acts.

And remember the South Park Muhammed episode? The one Comedy Central censored? Who haven’t Matt Stone and Trey Parker skewered? No, this is simple cowardice.

Not so, here at TSM. Here’s the offending cartoon in all its glory:

Ah, Steve Dallas is a conflicted man.

Like Hell it Was.

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I like George Hill, proprietor of the singular blog Mad Ogre (note to George: permalinks would be nice.) He’s an opinionated SOB, but aren’t we all? I read George because he’s an interesting writer (could use spell check from time to time – OK, a lot) and I enjoy a lot of what he has to say.

But not all. Especially not when I read things like this:

I was asked about the Confederate flag in my banner artwork. Really that was the idea of the artist who put it in there… as to him it expressed the MadOgre.com vibe. To me, it does that too… and a little more. First off, I’m a Son of the South… so let me explain this as best as I can… The Confederate flag is not a symbol of hate as the damn Yankees would have you believe. It was the flag of the Confederate States of America. This is a part of our shared American History, not just a south eastern regional thing… It’s not saying I want to start my own country or that I want to own me some niggers to pick my cotton back at the ol’ plantation. That’s just ignorant stereotyping to even think that when you see the Dixie flag. The way I see it, it’s about Liberty.

OK so far, I’m with him. I think the Confederate flag controversy is far overblown. But then this:

The War of Northern Aggression was, in a nut shell, about States Rights. About the individual states deciding on how to run their own states… about not letting the Federal Government dictate matters that should be local matters.

The “War of Northern Aggression” began when the South captured Ft. Sumter – a Federal Fort. The Civil War was, like it or not, a war over the practice of slavery and the desire to continue it. It was a war that was born in the compromises required to ratify the Constitution in 1788. Yes, “States rights” was the excuse nearly all (especially non-slaveowning) Southerners used to explain their reason for fighting, but slavery was the causus belli.

This is a concept completely alien to so many Americans now. What with George Bush being the controller of everything…

To a large extent this perception is true. It is also true that it is, in part, one result of the war – in which “These United States” became THE United States.

the President of the United States is evidently responsible for your local municipal road maintenance and everything else now. This is BS.

Granted. But this outcome is not entirely due to the Civil War, it’s due in large part to 150+ years of entropy, wherein busybodies from both sides have come to make the Republicans into the “Daddy” party, and the Democrats into the “Mommy” party. And whoever is sitting in the White House is seen by the majority of the population as “the Father of the Nation.” Yes, it’s BS, but it’s the logical outcome of our system of government. “Democracy” is the problem, not the Civil War.

Local folks should manage local matters. Simple as that. Salt Lake City should not have to bow down to the wishes of Boston or San Francisco. And vice-versa. Or in San Fran’s case – vice-vice. Or Washington DC. What does Washington DC know about the Uintah Basin? Those inside the Belt Way have never even been here, yet they have the audacity to tell me what’s best for me and my own here? They are going to tell us what to do and when? I don’t believe that’s right. That’s not the way it is supposed to work.

Also granted. But there it is.

Yes, I believe The South should have won. Many Southern Scholars believe that Slavery would have been ended within a short number of years anyways and The South would have returned to the The Union all on its own.

And many scholars do not. I do not believe the South should have won, not if their goal (as stated) was secession from the Union.

The only difference is that The South would have rejoined on their own terms and not as subjects of The North. I also believe that. The writing was on the wall even then.

This is the part I take strongest exception to, because I don’t believe the South would have rejoined the North. I think the result of the South winning the war would have been eventual disaster on the global scale. Perhaps the best example of this comes from the novels of historian Harry Turtledove. His “Great War” series examines one possible outcome of a Southern victory, and it’s not only plausible, to me it is chillingly convincing.

Of course those of you who get your history strictly from Yankee written books might think otherwise because you guys want to feel justified in your invasion of The South. The War of Northern Aggression seriously damaged The South in ways Yankees don’t and never will understand. The economic scars remain there today. I know it’s hard to understand, but there is more to The South than just grits and Dollywood… even though those are some of the best things.

My parents were born and raised in a coal town in Virginia. I was born in Lexington, Kentucky and raised mostly in Florida. I’m not a DamnYankee, and neither are they. Yes, the loss of the war and the economic predation that occurred during Reconstruction did vast damage to the South, but the preservation of the Union, with all of its warts, was better than letting the nation dissolve as I believe it would have done.

George thinks that the South would have rejoined the North, though from the sound of his jeremiad he’d be just as happy if the South had won and remained separate, or marched into Washington and demanded surrender. (Had that happened – and were the union preserved because of it – I might not be so piqued about this.) But preservation of the Union was what motivated Lincoln, and he was right. The war was, at its root, about whether it was morally right for human beings to own other human beings. If you read the words of the Founders, especially the philosophical justification expressed in the Declaration of Independence, then this nation could not have endured a continuation of the practice of slavery. It took seventy years for the fuse lit by the ratification of the Constitution to ignite the powder keg that was the Civil War, but any other outcome, I believe, would have been disastrous for both America and Europe. The damage caused to the South was tiny compared to what could have happened.

KevinLeave a comment

“No wonder so many women have self-esteem problems.”

Via The Unforgiving Minute comes a link to iWANEX Studio, a “professional photo retouching studio.” The title of this post comes from the link, and I think it’s quite appropriate. Go to the site and click on the “portfolio” link. There are several examples of their work available to review. They are, I will admit, very skillful. Here’s an example of after-and-before:

The effect is much more, er, impressive when you see it as a mouse rollover.

Jeebus. What are we doing to our kids?

The Wonders of Nationalized Health Care

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In relation to some discussions in the comments here, I thought this bit of news was quite illuminating:

Canadian has rare identical quads

A Canadian woman has given birth to extremely rare identical quadruplets.

The four girls were born at a US hospital because there was no space available at Canadian neonatal intensive care units.

Karen Jepp and her husband JP, of Calgary, were taken to a Montana hospital where the girls were delivered two months early by Caesarean section.

Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia are in good condition at Benefis Hospital in Great Falls, Montana.

(Emphasis mine.)

Yup. Socialized medicine really works good, doesn’t it?

UPDATE via Instapundit, Don Surber comments:

This is not to piss all over Canada. Nice nation. Great people. I’m sure most Canadians like their health system. Just remember, though, that Canada’s backup system is in Montana. Americans spend 15% of their income on health care. That’s why Great Falls has enough neo-natal units to handle quadruple births — and a “universal health” nation doesn’t.

After all, they didn’t fly Mrs. Jepp to Cuba, did they?

Quoth Glenn: “OUCH!”

And, as one of Don’s commenters noted, the Jepp quads are now Americans.

Also, from a link in Don’s piece; Kate at Small Dead Animals relates her story about her mother’s terminal illness treatment in Saskatchewan. Interesting quote:

After waiting 10 days on oxygen in an intensive care ward, where it was more likely that a knowledgable visitor would tend to a distressed patient or dysfunctioning equipment than any of the five nurses charged with holding down chairs, we began to wonder when the lung specialist planned to show up to discuss our mother’s condition.

Anecdotes are not equal to data – until you collect enough of them.

UPDATE: And here’s another, found via Clayton Cramer. According to this 8/17 Calgary Herald piece on the Jepp quadruplets:

Jepp was transported to Benefis hospital in Great Falls last Friday — making her the fifth Alberta woman to be transferred south of the border this year because of neonatal shortages in Calgary.

(My emphasis.)

KevinLeave a comment

Holy Sh!7!.

I knew ammo prices were climbing, but this is ridiculous!

As I mentioned previously, the new Kimber Ultra CDP II works beautifully with hardball, but not with my pet handload. Well, I don’t reload hardball – economically it just didn’t make sense. I could spend the same amount of money that commercial hardball ammo would cost and shoot premium bullets, or I could buy el cheapo hardball bullets and load them, but why bother?

Well my wife wants to try the new Kimber out, so I needed some hardball. I went down to the local “Caveman’s Warehouse” (as she calls it) and looked at what was available in “bulk” .45. Blazer was the cheapest (aluminum cases, non-reloadable). Next cheapest was UMC.

$79.99/250 rounds! That’s $0.32 per shot!

David Codrea wants us all to buy ammo on August 28 in counterprotest to a planned Brady event. I’m not sure I can afford to!

KevinLeave a comment

The Munchkin Wrangler Gets Published!.

I hadn’t seen this reported on any of the other gun blogs, but Marko Kloos has had his essay Why the Gun is Civilization published in the September issue of Dillon Precision’s Blue Press – their monthly catalog/magazine.

Too cool! That piece made it around the blogosphere (often unattributed, occasionally misattributed.) He got credit, and the URL of his site is also given at the bottom of the article. Congratulations, Marko. You killed some trees!

Edited to add: Of course, I’ve had something to say on the topic myself, but it wouldn’t fit on a single 5×7″ page….