Tag: miscellaneous

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Words Mean Things…

You want to know one reason Chicago keeps trading places with Washington D.C. for “murder capital of the U.S.”? Reader Fabio from England emailed me this link to the City of Chicago’s Gun Safety/Violence Reduction page, and here is what it says:

The principal cause of violent crime in the City of Chicago is the use of firearms by criminal street gangs. Although Chicago has among the toughest gun control laws in the country, street gangs have been able to arm themselves with increasingly deadly firearms with little apparent problem. Although Congress and the Administration appear unwilling to make further gun safety legislation a high priority, the City urges increased attention to these issues in Washington.

The City remains deeply concerned about a last minute provision enacted as part of the FY03 Omnibus Appropriations bill that derailed the City’s Supreme Court argument regarding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) restricting the availability of public information for litigation purposes. Furthermore, Congress has included other last minute provisions in the FY04 Omnibus Appropriations bill that put in place additional limitations on BATF’s accountability for, and ability to collect and distribute, what should otherwise be public information on firearms purchases. In addition, Congress is considering legislation to provide unprecedented limits on liability focused solely on the firearms industry. These enormously misguided efforts are a direct threat to general public safety and will greatly undermine the efforts of state and local governments to combat illegal firearms trafficking.

Let’s parse this, shall we?

The principal cause of violent crime in the City of Chicago is the use of firearms by criminal street gangs.

Bang! (No pun intended.) Right out of the gate we have an outright falsehood. The principal cause of violent crime is the use of firearms. Um, what?

No, the principal crime IS the improper, illegal use of firearms. (Since the City of Chicago prohibits the use of firearms for legitimate self-defense, that’s about the only kind of firearm use you’re going to see there.) The CAUSE of this is something else entirely. But I have absolutely no doubt that the powers-that-be see the situation precisely as that first sentence is written. The cause to them is the “use of firearms.” That makes the solution simple, no?

Eliminate the firearms and the “cause” is eliminated.

And here we have a textbook example of my favorite gun-control meme, “cognitive dissonance” – described most eloquently by Steven Den Beste:

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”.)

Or as I put it, “Do it again, only harder! To wit:

Although Chicago has among the toughest gun control laws in the country, street gangs have been able to arm themselves with increasingly deadly firearms with little apparent problem.

In other words, “Our efforts to control the cause of violent crime, have failed. But the ideology cannot be wrong! The only possible conclusion is that the strategy failed because it wasn’t executed sufficiently well, so…”

Although Congress and the Administration appear unwilling to make further gun safety legislation a high priority, the City urges increased attention to these issues in Washington.

“We must try again only harder!” (And note the use of the phrase “gun safety” and not “gun control” – though we are told endlessly that “gun safety” isn’t “gun control.”) And since they cannot acheive the ends their philosophy dictates through legislation, they must then pursue it through the courts:

The City remains deeply concerned about a last minute provision enacted as part of the FY03 Omnibus Appropriations bill that derailed the City’s Supreme Court argument regarding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) restricting the availability of public information for litigation purposes.

I’ll bet the City of Chicago will be joining the Brady Center in its legal challenge to the recently passed Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, since it shuts down the nuisance lawsuits Chicago and other cities have been pursuing. They say as much in the last two sentences:

In addition, Congress is considering legislation to provide unprecedented limits on liability focused solely on the firearms industry. These enormously misguided efforts are a direct threat to general public safety and will greatly undermine the efforts of state and local governments to combat illegal firearms trafficking.

Efforts pursued thorough tort law, not legislation. But on top of that, read this again:

Furthermore, Congress has included other last minute provisions in the FY04 Omnibus Appropriations bill that put in place additional limitations on BATF’s accountability for, and ability to collect and distribute, what should otherwise be public information on firearms purchases.

No, I don’t think so. While the BATF has been moved from the Treasury Department to the Department of Justice, the BATF is still a tax collection agency. The information the BATF gathers isn’t “public information,” it’s protected tax information, as the state of California recently learned to its displeasure when charges against licensed FFL dealer Andy Sun were thrown out when the judge determined the search warrant was obtained based on “protected information” obtained from the BATF:

(Judge Frank P.) Briseno ruled that the search warrant was based on mandatory information Sun was required to submit to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives during an administrative inspection.

Not public information – protected information.

So it appears that the City of Chicago is quite willing to break Federal law to achieve its ends. My only question is this: Why doesn’t Chicago look around the rest of the country and figure out why its violent crime rate is so much higher than other cities of similar size that don’t have “the toughest gun control laws in the country”?

Oh, right. Because the philosophy cannot be wrong!

Fabio concluded in his email to me, “They don’t get it and never will.” Sadly, I’m pretty sure he’s right.

Two Hours in the Dentist’s Chair

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Actually, a bit more than that. Two molars that already had pretty big fillings, #18 & 19, back two on the left side, lower jaw. (The wisdom teeth came out at age 18.) Now they are two molars with temporary crowns. The novocaine hasn’t worn off yet, at least not completely. I think I’m going to be pretty sore when it does.

I put the appointment off twice because of work, but not today!

Damn. That money could have gone to another gun, more ammunition, or a nice kitchen appliance. (The remodeling work begins in November.)

I have had better days.

True Believers

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Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”

Warning: This piece is going to be long. It is also, in a weird way, a review of Joss Whedon’s Serenity, since that movie finally released the block that’s been keeping me from writing this essay for about a week, though work has conspired to keep me from posting it for the last four days. (Congratulations, Joss. I walked out of the theater Wednesday night with my mind whirring at mach 6, as the gears meshed and the tumblers tumbled and the mechanism, with groaning protest, unlocked. Serenity was excellent mental lubricant.) By now, I hope, most of my readers have already read one or more reviews of the film or have seen it, and have some familiarity with the background of that universe and its characters. Anyway, to proceed:

As I said last weekend, I watched the Jim Carrey movie The Majestic, and it inspired the idea for not one, but two posts. However, I was only able to write the first post. The second stubbornly refused to gel in my mind. I fought with it most of last week, and then Wednesday night I went to the Tucson Serenity sneak preview.

I don’t think I got out of the film what most of the rest of the audience did. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it very much, but the underlying theme of the film spoke to me. We in the audience were not, of course, allowed to record anything, so lines I “quote” will be my best recollection or paraphrasing (and if you’ve not yet seen the film and don’t want to know anything in detail about it, stop reading now.) The theme is “true believers.”

Captain Malcolm Reynolds, the protagonist, was once, but is no longer a True Believer. One of the rebel “Browncoats,” he had his belief beaten out of him at the battle of Serenity Valley. Now he just wants to be as free from the interference of the Alliance government as is humanly possible. He wants to be an individual. He wants his freedom. He is, if you want to draw a contemporary parallel, a practicing anarcho-capitalist living on the fringes of a totalitarian society (with the exception of the fact that he sees no problem with stealing from the Alliance at any opportunity). Although he’d probably have a hard time discussing his personal philosophy in detail, he has his own code that he lives by strictly.

The antagonist in the film, The Operative (since he is given no name), is a True Believer, and it is what he believes that grabbed my attention more than anything else in the film. The Operative believes that the Alliance is “building a better world – better worlds,” and he acts as a mechanism to enable the Alliance to achieve its ends, even though he describes himself as “a monster, who will have no place” in those better worlds. The ends justify his means. “I don’t murder children,” Reynolds husks. “I do,” replies The Operative, with a gentle smile.

Glenn Wishard, in a post at Canis Iratus last year entitled A Thumbnail History of the Twentieth Century wrote:

The rise and fall of the Marxist ideal is rather neatly contained in the Twentieth Century, and comprises its central political phenomenon. Fascism and democratic defeatism are its sun-dogs. The common theme is politics as a theology of salvation, with a heroic transformation of the human condition (nothing less) promised to those who will agitate for it. Political activity becomes the highest human vocation. The various socialisms are only the most prominent manifestation of this delusion, which our future historian calls “politicism”. In all its forms, it defines human beings as exclusively political animals, based on characteristics which are largely or entirely beyond human control: ethnicity, nationality, gender, and social class. It claims universal relevance, and so divides the entire human race into heroes and enemies. To be on the correct side of this equation is considered full moral justification in and of itself, while no courtesy or concession can be afforded to those on the other. Therefore, politicism has no conscience whatsoever, no charity, and no mercy.

(Emphasis in original.) One of the themes that I repeat on this blog is the cockroach resilience of socialism/communism. The line that piqued me from The Majestic was a line that wasn’t even in the original script. Set in 1951 during the McCarthy period, that film’s protagonist has been subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Adele, the love-interest in the film, utters this:

This is a free country, you can be a communist if you want to be a communist!

I think Glenn’s declaration that the 20th Century “neatly contains” the rise and fall of “the Marxist ideal” is a bit premature, but I fully concur with his conclusion that “politicism” has neatly divided societies in the manner described, and now, as Yeats put it in 1921, “The best lack all convictions, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” (That’s a bit overstated, but we’re talking poetry, not engineering.)

All of human history has encompassed the struggle to “create a better world.” The question, “A better world for whom?” has often been glaringly omitted, but nevertheless, history has shown a continuing progression of improvement for the average individual in freedom, general health, life expectancy, and material wealth. Just ignore those hundreds of millions who have died along the way in misery, squalor, and agony from warfare, disease, starvation, malign neglect and deliberate murder. Don’t you understand? They bore the cost of getting us here, and are bearing the cost of future advancement. As I quoted James Lileks in On Guillotines and Gibbets:

Personally, I’m interested in keeping other people from building Utopia, because the more you believe you can create heaven on earth the more likely you are to set up guillotines in the public square to hasten the process.

Human history is one of constant warfare, and the deadliest warfare hasn’t been over land or over resources, but over ideology. Further, the deadliest warfare has arguably occurred during the last century, and worse, it has been committed by governments not against the military forces of other governments, but against civilians, both foreign and domestic. According to this site run by Rudolph J. Rummel, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii:

Nearly 170 million people probably have been murdered by governments in the 20th Century, 1900-1987; over four-times those killed in combat in all international and domestic wars during the same years.

America isn’t left off this list, either.

During our takeover of the Philippines between 1899 and 1902, American soldiers undoubtedly tortured and deliberately murdered several thousand Philippine civilians, and tens of thousands more died of disease and starvation. This war, and our acts during it, was savaged by Mark Twain in his essay “A Defence of General Funston” in 1902. In the collection of Twain’s works On the Damned Human Race, the preface to that essay includes this speech given by Massachusetts Senator George Hoar from 1903:

You, my imperialistic friends, have had your ideals and sentimentalities. One is that the flag shall never be hauled down where it has once floated. Another is that you will not talk or reason with people with arms in their hand. Another is that sovereignty over an unwilling people may be bought with gold. And another is that sovereignty may be got by force of arms….

What has been the practical statesmanship which comes from your ideals and sentimentalities? You have wasted six hundred millions of treasure. You have sacrificed nearly ten thousand American lives, the flower of our youth. You have devastated provinces. You have slain uncounted thousands of people you desire to benefit. You have established reconcentration camps. Your generals are coming home from their harvest, bringing their sheaves with them, in the shape of other thousands of sick and wounded and insane….

The book also quotes Indiana Senator Albert Beveridge:

(God) has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America… The Philippines are ours forever. We will not repudiate our duty in the archipelago. We will not abandon our opportunity in the Orient. We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world.

The more things change…

The Philippines only started our 20th Century democidal activities, according to Professor Rummel. The sack of Peking after the Boxer Rebellion, the deliberate bombing of civilian populations during WWII, Korea and Vietnam followed. Rummel concludes:

Putting together all the subtotals in this century the United States probably murdered about 583,000 people, conceivable[sic] even as many as 1,641,000 all told. Virtually all of these were foreigners killed during foreign wars. Domestically, throughout this century the American Federal or state governments were responsible for the murder of about 1 out of every 1,111,000 Americans per year.

And we’re pikers.

According to Rummel:

Communism has been the greatest social engineering experiment we have ever seen. It failed utterly and in doing so it killed over 100,000,000 men, women, and children, not to mention the near 30,000,000 of its subjects that died in its often aggressive wars and the rebellions it provoked. But there is a larger lesson to be learned from this horrendous sacrifice to one ideology. That is that no one can be trusted with power. The more power the center has to impose the beliefs of an ideological or religious elite or impose the whims of a dictator, the more likely human lives are to be sacrificed. This is but one reason, but perhaps the most important one, for fostering liberal democracy.

Or, as he puts it on his main page:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—-Lord Acton

Power kills; absolute power kills absolutely.
—-This Web Site

And ideology kills, but the only thing that can oppose it is another ideology.

BELIEF

At war today are three mutually opposing ideologies. The first striving to “create a better world” is socialism. In its most virulent form, communism, it is responsible for the deaths of over one hundred million people. It has failed everywhere it has been tried; some failures being more spectacular (and bloody) than others. Glenn Wishard believes that “the Marxist ideal” is on its way out with the ending of the 20th century. I’m not so sure. I don’t think that species of cockroach is down for the count, apparently not here in the U.S., and certainly not in Europe. Not by a long shot.

The second ideology is “liberal democracy.” We are, right now, engaged in warfare in the middle East trying to bring sovereignty and liberal democracy to fifty million people by force of arms. So far it has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars, and about two thousand of the flower of our youth with many more wounded, and it shows no sign of ending soon.

The third ideology has been named “Islamism” – the forced spread of Wahabist Islam and the imposition of Sharia law upon the entire world. It is unknown how many that ideology has killed so far, but it’s definitely in the hundreds of thousands at least, millions if you include the internecine warfare between the different islamist sects.

There are, of course, other ideologies extant in the world, but these three are predominant and currently in open warfare, both cold and hot. Many people have commented on the apparent willingness of those of the socialist ideology to act as a fifth column for the Islamists. Why, they wonder, do people who espouse a belief in fairness, equality, justice, religious freedom, and tolerance support an ideology that puts religious leaders above all, that makes women chattel, that makes homosexuality a capital offense, that makes the practice of any religion other than Islam a crime?

Because they BELIEVE – they believe that theirs is the only “true way” to utopia, and that America with its individualism, consumerism, and capitalism is the one true enemy, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The Islamists won’t spare them, but they don’t care. Guillotines or car bombs in the public square, either is justifiable if it hastens the process. They have passionate intensity.

Following his own personal code, the character Malcolm Reynolds once again finds something to believe in. At the end of the film he and his entire crew embark on an almost certainly suicidal mission to tell the universe of the horrible secret they have uncovered. “The universe is gonna know the truth,” he says. The Operative asks, “Are you willing to die for that?” He replies, “I am,” and means it. Peter Appleton, Jim Carrey’s character in The Majestic stands before the House Un-American Activites Committee and speaks of his belief in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, fully aware that he could go to jail for contempt of Congress (a valid charge, since he holds the proceedings in contempt.) He believes in something enough to take a risk, for the first time in his life.

We have people in the White House who believe. They believe that we can bring sovereignty to an oppressed people by force of arms. They believe that people – everyday average people, everywhere – want to be free. They believe that liberal democracy is the best form of government for that. They believe in capitalism. They believe in individualism. They believe. The people in our military, in the overwhelming majority, also believe. They are willing to die for it, and have been.

This is America. You can be a communist here if you want to be (but given its track record, I cannot imagine anyone of sound mind actually wanting to be.) We won’t kill or even merely imprison you for your belief – unless you actively work to overthrow the Constitution of the United States, and even then your odds are pretty good. Socialists and their fellow-travellers are disproportionally represented in all levels of public education and the media, and have had literally decades to direct public thought. Yet (by the slimmest of margins) we’ve elected a leadership of True Believers of a different creed. This means that Yeats was wrong – the best do not lack all conviction. However, that doesn’t make us True Believers, either. We are jaded by government. We are often disgusted by the things our government has done in our name, for us and to us and to others. Not enough of us are willing to risk for our convictions. We would rather try to be as free of government interference as possible, because we know that power kills, and absolute power kills absolutely. In the Firefly episode “War Stories,” Shepherd Book speaks a line of great truth:

A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned.

But we are at a crossroad of history. Of the three ideologies that are fighting for the future, only one promises at least the possibility of restraint on the power of government. If we don’t support that ideology, one of the others will most certainly be ascendant. People will die. Governments will kill them. The question is, how many, and will they die in vain?

What do you believe?

I’ve Been Saying This a Lot, Recently.

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Read this. That’s an order.

Screw it. He’s given permission to reproduce it, so I will:

Background:
My name is John and I live in Central Texas. I have served in three different military components totaling 25 years of service and I am recording this story for posterity. All opinions are the author’s and if you disagree with them, that’s really too bad.

Katrina Day 1: Monday, 29 August 2005
Watching the news today was horrific. Hurricane Katrina has devastated an area larger than the United Kingdom. When I heard that Biloxi was savaged, I immediately thought about my best friend Tracy. Tracy was a Master Sergeant with me in the US Air Force and we were stationed together for several years. Friendships formed in the military are far stronger than anything a civilian can experience. They usually last until the grave. I won’t go into the psychology of it, it is just so. You usually bond to one particular individual, and Tracy was it. He was my Best Buddy, and that is spelt with two capital B’s. I know this man well enough to know that he was not going to evacuate, he would tough it out. Now I was worried sick about Tracy and his family. I tried calling him for several hours but gave up realizing that communication would be non-existent.

Katrina Day 2: Tuesday, 30 August 2005
Spent several more hours trying to contact Tracy, to no avail. It just was not going to happen. The body count is increasing. The question now is: what can I do?

I am sitting at home in air-conditioned comfort, watching a disaster of biblical proportions unfold on the idiot box in the corner. I am a man of action, not talk – always have been and always will be. What action could I take? How could I personally make a difference to what was going on? Even inaction is a form of action, but it has never been my choice. Now the news is telling me that getting food and water to the survivors is the number one priority. I rarely agree with television talking heads, mainly because they are so liberal and also so ignorant about the world around them. I had to concede that, for once, they were right.

What do I do? A plan. A plan is a good thing and helps you anticipate difficulties before they become disasters. I would need transport. I personally own an ex-army vehicle called an M35A2, better known as a deuce and a half. It is 30 years old, has ten driven wheels and is still camouflaged in its original paint scheme. All 3 axles are driven and it is one of the best all-wheel drive off road vehicles in existence. It also has a large cargo bed, with a 5 ton load carrying capacity. Perfect for getting large quantities of food and water into remote areas with difficult terrain.

I also realized that there would be many roadblocks manned by civilian law enforcement and by military personnel. How would I get past them? Would they think of me as a fruitcake? Would they turn me back? Would they think I was selling water for ten bucks a bottle? Would they shoot me?

I dusted off my old camouflage uniform. A bit tight around the middle, but acceptable. This should get me through roadblocks. My next fear was that the news was reporting widespread looting and general mayhem. I did not want my truck, food or water hijacked, so what to do? I loaded my .45 caliber H&K semi-automatic pistol, some extra magazines of ammunition, and buckled on a shoulder holster in plain sight. I did not plan on shooting people. I planned on staying alive. I am a firm believer in the old adage that it is better to be judged by twelve people than to be carried by six.

The next several hours were taken up by servicing the truck. You do not just jump in a 30 year old truck and high tail it a couple of thousand miles, you’ll never get there. I had to add several gallons of oil to the various places that were going to leak and burn. I had to load up all of the tools necessary to make roadside repairs, the manual tire changing gear alone weighs a couple of hundred pounds. A good friend, who will remain unnamed, helped me work through the night servicing and tweaking the truck. We loaded my survival supplies, sleeping bag, cot and a hundred other things that make living in the back of a truck a little less painful.

Katrina Day 3: Wednesday, 31 August 2005
Still servicing and loading the truck at 3 a.m. and now realizing that availability of fuel would be difficult or non-existent in a disaster area, we rustled up 20 five-gallon jugs. Off we went to the all night gas station to fill up. All told, it took an hour and $300 to fill everything. My friend shook my hand and wished me luck. He wanted badly to come with me, but his line of work is saving lives and he knew that he would be sent in an official capacity soon enough. Departing now would be madness, I hadn’t slept in 24 hours and I had a grueling trip ahead of me. It’s 100 degrees in Texas in August and a deuce has no air conditioning. There is no insulation between the motor and the driver so the inside cab temperature stays around 140 degrees. The metal surfaces can exceed 200 degrees and I have melted more than one pair of shoes driving in the summer.

I went home and sent an e-mail to my friends on the military vehicle mailing list telling them what I planned and asking for tips and advice on what I was attempting to accomplish. At 9 a.m. after four hours of deep sleep my girlfriend gave me a wake up call. It was time to load food and water. Our local grocery mega-store had enough water to fill up a pallet. When I explained to the manager what I was doing, he said that he was willing to empty the shelves of canned food, but it was not even a quarter of a pallet and most of it required can openers. I asked him if he could give me a break on the price of the water, the worst thing he could do was say no. He said no.

I have a pretty high limit on my credit card, so $250 wasn’t going to kill me. The next stop was Sam’s club which is another mega store which can sell food by the pallet. Unfortunately, this store requires a membership card and does not accept credit cards for payment. My girlfriend’s parents, bless their hearts, wrote a check for a pallet of chunky soup with pop-top openings. Her father even offered to pay half of the thousand dollars that the soup cost.

At noon I departed Central Texas, heading for Biloxi, Mississippi. Due to hurricane damage, I thought the southern route along Interstate 10 may be closed, so I headed North to meet Interstate 20 in Shreveport, Louisiana. I got into Shreveport just after dark and needed fuel. Right away I noticed panic at the gas stations. Lines of cars for blocks and fuel gouging. I thought to myself “what the hell was going on”? This was hundreds of miles from the hurricane.

I committed my first rude action of the trip. I went to the front of the truck line and asked a driver if I could butt in. Instead of the expected rude reaction I anticipated, the trucker seemed happy to see me and even backed up to let me get ahead. Other truckers in line waved to me, and not using just one finger. As I was fueling, a very old grandma came up and gave me a hug. She told me she always hugs servicemen, and she will never forget our sacrifices. Although I am retired, I did serve 25 years, so maybe, just maybe, I deserved that hug. I certainly appreciated it. Back into the truck I crawled and onwards through the night.

Katrina Day 4: Thursday, 1 September 2005
I’m falling asleep, my feet are burning, I’ve got to stop and stretch my legs. I get a cup of coffee and talk to the lady behind the counter. I ask, “Why is your 24 hour restaurant closed”? We have no food, the evacuees have eaten everything. I ask, “Why are your gas pumps closed”? We have no gas, it’s all gone. I look around the store. There are no potato chips, no snacks, and no batteries. Pretty much nothing but knick-knacks is all that remains.

Back into the truck I crawl with only a couple of hundred miles to go. Turning South in Jackson, Mississippi, I start to see storm damage. The further I go, the worse it gets. Gas stations have five-mile lines with armed policemen guarding them. Not just pistols, but shotguns and long guns. People wave and cheer as I pass by. I ask myself “Why”? Then it hit me. I am the only vehicle heading South. There were no military or relief convoys, no nothing heading South. Only streams of families heading North. I suppose the military truck I was driving gave them comfort, the feeling of order amongst chaos.

The damage is increasing as I progress South. There are now no more gas stations, just empty shells with the roofs torn off. All power is out. The trees have fallen across the power and telephone lines many of which are hanging dangerously low. I’m out of fuel so I transfer 30 gallons from cans to the tank.

As the sun comes up, the scenery gets worse. I pass a church. The building has vanished, but the steeple is stuck in the ground completely upside down like an enormous lawn dart. The last few miles were one bizarre scene after another. There’s a man walking his dog with a machine gun on his back. Twenty state troopers pass me, nose to tail, at 100 mph. They all have camping gear in their cars. Helicopters are everywhere. There are no road signs or traffic lights. Cars and trucks are piled like toys tossed in a box. There are big yachts in the forest. Half of the trees are horizontal. I have to start zigzagging around trees and power lines to make headway.

There’s Tracy’s street, which doesn’t look too bad. There’s his house, with only minor damage visible. He lives several miles North of the Gulf of Mexico, North of Interstate 10. Tracy’s wife Kathy opens the door. She seems very happy to see me. Is everyone okay? Where’s Tracy? Everybody survived, we’re all okay, only minor damage. Tracy is out helping friends who live near the water. I told her I brought food, water and fuel. She thought I would come.

She sees me stagger and gives me a pillow. I am fully clothed, stinking and asleep in five seconds. Three hours later I woke up because someone sat on the bed next to me. It is Tracy and his head is hung low. He is crying.

He said, “John, the devastation, the death, it’s just overwhelming. I know you’re tired, but we need you right now”. Tracy, Buddy, that’s why I’m here.

We unloaded the food and water in his driveway; at least none of his neighbors would be hungry or thirsty. His friend, Joe, lived in a housing subdivision on the Biloxi back bay. His neighborhood was blocked with trashed vehicles and debris, so the residents could not get in or out. Although friends from inland had brought food and water, it was very slow going on foot carrying the supplies a mile through the debris. We fired up the deuce and headed for the coast. Tracy started to sing ‘You ‘aint seen nothing yet’ an old 70’s song. He was right.

The closer we got to the water, the worse the devastation was. Fully 50 percent of the houses were just gone, concrete slabs bare beside the road. Do you remember that old game, pick up sticks? As far as the eye could see, someone had been playing pick up sticks. These sticks were 10 to 20 feet long and stacked 10 to 20 feet tall. Square miles of 2 by 4’s were everywhere. Of course, they were all that remained of thousands of homes.

We got to Joes subdivision and a pickup was upside down right in the middle of a stack of debris. I dropped the transmission into first, engaged low range on the transfer case then air locked the front axle. We played bumper cars for a few minutes, shoving some cars up onto lawns, some of them into the ditches. T he debris clung in clumps to the front of the truck, and we rammed it up onto the concrete slabs. Residents watched from a safe distance and then began to applaud. I was smashing their vehicles beyond recognition and they were clapping?

We passed several houses that appeared whole from a distance, however as we drew alongside, we could see that the ground floors contained no glass, doors or possessions. Sort of an open-plan. Many walls were missing also.

Have you ever seen any of the zombie horror movies like Dawn of the Dead? That’s what these people looked like. They were filthy, standing around in two’s and three’s and I have never seen so much blank confusion in people’s eyes. Still, they thanked us and went about whatever it was they were doing. When we got to the remains of Joe’s house, he was sitting on the ground where his front door had been. He was cradling his dead dog in his arms and weeping. When the ocean began to rise, Joe took his wife and children across the street to the only two story house in the neighborhood. He did not have time to go back and save the dog. Tracy found a shovel amongst the debris and buried the dog in the soggy lawn.

I was trying to untangle some of the two by fours in the street when my back gave up on me. At this point, I had better clarify my medical condition. During one of my many overseas vacations with Uncle Sam, I suffered multiple explosive impact traumas against my spine. T his left me with multiple broken vertebrae and a lifetime of prescription painkillers. After years of poking and prodding by the Veterans Administration, the federal government declared me 100% disabled and I now became an official burden to society. Whatever you say, Doc. Driving, standing and sitting is painful, but walking is agony. Bending and lifting is torture beyond belief. Tracy knows all this and bitched at me until I took double my dose of happy pills. Five minutes later I was unconscious next to the dog’s grave. A couple of hours later, Joe and Tracy had loaded up Joes remaining meager possessions, not very much, and we headed back North.

Driving over the debris, the deuce suffered its first puncture of the trip. Because we only had a few miles to travel at low speed, and the deuce has 8 wheels on the back, we left it flat until we got back to Tracy’s. After putting Joe’s trash, sorry, I meant possessions, in the garage, we changed the flat tire. Coffee, exhaustion, bed.

Katrina Day 5: Friday, 2 September 2005
Daybreak, up and at ’em. Spent most of the day clearing debris in Biloxi and Gulfport. The deuce makes a pretty good plow when you use a compact car turned sideways as a plow blade. As before, local residents cheered when they realized that we were making access for them. One man did ask us if we could help him load his piano onto a truck. We both thought of several rude answers, but his piano was all he had left. We just told him, “No, we’re just a little busy right now”. I left Tracy and headed to Keesler Air Force Base to see if I could get any help with the deuce, which had started to severely overheat. Because of the fear of federal prosecution, and because of future security considerations, I cannot relate that part of the story. I will only say that the military men and women were wonderful to me, and helped me beyond the call of duty.

As I headed towards highway 90, I decided to turn East along the coast to see if East Biloxi needed any streets cleared. The most incredible sight on my left! Biloxi has several floating casinos which appear to be nothing more than two enormous Mississippi river barges welded side to side with six story hotels built on top of them. These are truly stupendous looking structures when they are moored to the piers in the Gulf. They are doubly stupendous when they are sitting on dry land two blocks inland. Beyond description!

Every couple of blocks there are police roadblocks manned by law enforcement officials from all over the country. Seeing an Arizona Sheriff drinking water with an Alabama Parks and Wildlife Officer is not what you expect to see sitting on quads in the middle of a four-lane road.

Remember, I am in an obvious military vehicle albeit retired from current inventories, in uniform and armed. Over the next couple of days I was waved through more than 100 roadblocks, even those manned by regular Army Military Police. I did not feel guilty of deception because I was not rubbernecking; I was helping those in need. As I traveled further East along highway 90, I began to see more and more large white vehicles with huge satellite dishes on the roofs. Ah, the esteemed members of the press. The vehicles were clumped into groups and formations reminiscent of wagon trains in the wild west movies. What is the correct name for a large number of vultures on a corpse? A flock? A feeding frenzy? That seemed apropos.

There is a large group of men with oversize red hard hats on my left. They are wearing suspenders and baggy pants. Clowns? No, they look like half dressed firemen. The one in the middle is wearing normal clothes, older than the rest. T here were lots of cameras on tripods. A couple of cameramen hear the deuce and swing the cameras towards me. The older man waves. He’s definitely waving at me. I hesitantly wave back. Caramba! It’s George Bush! I really don’t think stopping here would be a good idea. I turn right, around a huge pile of debris, and get out of Dodge. I feel like I just narrowly avoided disaster.

Back onto Highway 90 and head east. There are hundreds of oak trees along the side of the highway. Every single historic residence that was built amongst the oaks has disappeared. The oaks appear to be unscathed. There is something poetic in that. The further East I go, I begin to notice that every second street has been bulldozed clean. This end of town does not need an old fart in a deuce helping them out. They are pretty well organized. So it’s back across the back bay bridge into the residential areas. Got to play bumper cars for a few more hours until dark.

Too dangerous after dark, the citizens are friendly but the water moccasins are lethal. There is a veritable plague of them. Heard the news that the hospitals were completely out of anti-venom, so discretion was the better part of valor.

Back at Tracy’s, all of the neighbors sat around and discussed the current situation. Because there was no electricity, we had no television or radio. The telephone system was inoperative and only a couple of cell phones managed to capture weak signals. Neighbors with generators provided all of our information, mostly skewed towards the negative. Everybody got in a dither because of rumors of armed thugs from New Orleans were headed our way. T here are just so many things wrong with that rumor that I tried to explain. What are they using for transport? What are they using for fuel? Why do you think they would steal from you when every store on the coast has millions in merchandise just lying in the street? My objections fell on deaf ears. The neighborhood blocked the entrance and put out armed patrols. I thought it most likely that a couple of them would shoot each other so it was a good time to go to bed. Wake me up if anyone needs a tourniquet.

Katrina Day 6: Saturday, 3 September 2005
Spent a few hours trying to find out why the deuce was overheating again. Removed the radiator and flushed it. Removed the thermostat. Flushed the block. Put it all back together. Bingo! Now it’s running at 160 instead of 230.

Headed for the back bay to clear debris. At noon, Tracy and I head back down into Biloxi to see if any relief has arrived. Overnight, several tractor trailers of food and water had been parked in the major shopping areas, Wal-Mart, Home Depot etc. These tractor-trailers were guarded by dozens of lawmen, although the public was conspicuously absent. How odd.

We headed back down onto Highway 90, actually searching for a cup of coffee. We stopped at a gaggle of satellite vans because they all had generators. Generators equal electricity and electricity equals coffee. At least that’s been my experience in the military.

We got talking with a CNN reporter called Chris Huntington who appeared not to be too much of a wanker. Although he was most definitely a city boy, there was a glimmer of intelligence in one eye. He soon realized that our truck could get him into the Forbidden Zone just a few miles West of his present position. He asked for a ride along so that he could see first hand the devastated residential neighborhoods that we described to him. We knew that aiding and abetting the enemy is a treasonable offence, however, if CNN could transmit more footage of serious carnage, the likelihood of more monetary donations to the Katrina victims would offset the distaste of actually having to shake a reporters hand. We agreed.

We locked both windshields in the full up position so that Chris could have an unobstructed 180 degree view with his mini-cam. We took him on a tour that he will remember his whole life. He was suitably sympathetic to the residents of Eagle Point, not one of who had escaped the carnage. Nothing shown on any television station had captured what we showed him. The deuce ride scared him to the point that he began to babble. He is a highly educated professional type, the type whose enunciation is great, his grammar perfect. Towards the end of his ride along, every second word began with an F and rhymed with duck. Looks like the scenery affected his speech abilities. Too bad. CNN probably is not going to air this one.

There was one incident with a couple of looters, however, I had decided before coming here that I was going to avoid looters except to protect my own property or well being. People who were stealing food, I did not even consider them to be criminals.

Once back at the CNN truck, Chris paid us with a Gatorade each and got back into his air-conditioned command post. Another reporter asked us if we had seen any dead bodies. Yeah, I told him, there are three in the back of our truck. He ran away salivating to find his camera crew. When he came back I told him that it turns out they weren’t quite as dead as they appeared. They didn’t want to be filmed and had gone for a swim. He threw a hissy-fit, however I was close to three times his size and armed. I could only laugh at the miserable bastard.

It was starting to get dark so we headed back home for, would you believe it? Spare ribs! I have died and gone to heaven. One neighbor who knew that I was penniless and out of fuel, drained his motor home and filled my diesel tank and canisters.

It’s dark now, but the Eastern horizon has a strange yellow glow. We were discussing this odd phenomenon when the air conditioning unit let out a groan and began to whine loudly. Good Lord! Power is restored! Screams of joy erupted from the entire neighborhood. If someone told me that power would be restored within four weeks, I would have bet against him or her. Seven thousand linemen from all over the USA and Canada had restored power to Northern Biloxi in under six days.

Before going to bed, I told Tracy that my work here was finished, everything I came to accomplish was done. I did not tell him that I was headed for New Orleans because I knew we would get in a shouting match about it.

Katrina Day 7: Sunday, 4 September 2005
Up at dawn, coffee in belly, fire up the deuce, wave goodbye. Turn off the deuce, stagger in house, first time I sat on the throne in 7 days. Lots of blood, that’s probably not a good thing. Can you say Too Much Information! Pop some more painkillers, fire up the deuce, wave goodbye, hit the road – Round 2.

I knew New Orleans would be bad, but honestly, I had no idea. The roadblocks were no problem, just waved on through. Although the damage in New Orleans was enormous, it was very different than Mississippi, completely flooded, but most buildings were standing.

I had a plan on what to do after observing the food distribution in Biloxi. Imagine if the closest food and water to you was four miles away in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Fire up the car and go get it? Wait a second. Our car is under 12 feet of water. A lot of big city residents don’t even own cars and the bus schedule in New Orleans was probably not very accurate this week. My plan was to find a food distribution center, load up as much food and water as I could scrounge, head into the residential areas and get the food and water to people whom, for whatever reason, refused to evacuate the city.

The police loaded my truck at the first center, stuffed in as much as would fit, even filled up the passenger side of the cab. T hey pointed me South and warned me that some residents were hostile, but no one volunteered to ride shotgun.

Now I had to weave to avoid trash. No, not trash. A large corpse lies right in the center of my lane. The stench was overpowering. Mixed in with it was a strange brew, similar to the stink of a paper mill. It smelt like flammable chemicals and sewage. Another body and another were present. A very unworthy thought hit me. These corpses were very well fed. I had seen bodies in war zones, and they were always pathetically skinny. At least here there was no charred pork smell.

The plan fell apart as soon as I stopped. I opened the tailgate and was mobbed. People began snatching cases of MRE’s and water with not a lot of restraint. No problem, go right ahead. This way, I didn’t even have to lift a single box. Some of the stronger young men actually got up into the truck and helped unload. As I was closing the tailgate, I noticed that one of my mobility bags was unzipped. I climbed in and checked it. All of my prescription drugs were missing! That really, really sucks. Within 36 hours, my blood pressure would skyrocket and I’d have no way to reduce it. I could stroke out in two days. Without my painkillers I would become a zombie basket case within 12 hours. I’m trying to help and this is the thanks? The two young men were long gone.

Mission, John, think of the mission. No way I’m going to get the meds I need in New Orleans. No way I’m going to become a burden to the rescuers. I would have to leave before dark, and risk seizures on the way home.

Back to the food distribution center, I load up and head southwest. Same story as the first run, except this time I watch over my personal belongings. This time when I closed the tailgate, I looked down and to my right and there was a large black doll under a bush. It sure looks oddly big for a doll. I look closer, then double over in pain. It’s a baby girl, just a few months old, eyes closed, hair in cornrows. Her skin is tight, no wrinkles. She is absolutely angelic. I turn and projectile vomit.

On the way to the food center, a filthy soaking wet teenage girl shouts and runs up to the truck. “My Grandma! my Grandma! Please h’ep”. I put her in the passenger seat and she is crying and giving me directions. I cannot understand a word she is saying, as her accent is so thick. I follow her hand signals for a few blocks and we come to a large depression that looks to be way too deep for the deuce. It’s up to the roofs of the cars in the street. Why the hell was I too lazy last winter to install the deep water fording kit? I figure if the water stays below my fenders and I go slow enough to not make a bow wave, I’ll give it a shot. Several hundred yards further the water gets shallower. There is one house with the water only about a foot deep around it. Standing in the yard are at least 60 people. There was a whole lot of “Praise Jesus!” going on. Then I realized, here were Grandma and all of her kin. My second realization was that they thought I was their knight in shining armor.

They all spoke at once, and I understood not a word. I almost blundered and asked if anyone spoke English. A Blackhawk had dropped food a couple of days earlier, but since then nothing. The water had gone down far enough for the young girl to swim for help. She walked/swam through half a mile of sewage, chemicals, dead bodies, snakes and rats to find me. If there is a hero in this story, she was this bedraggled little girl. We loaded up, put the teenagers on the hood, roof and fenders, Granny and the kids up in the cab.

Can you fit 60 people in and on a deuce? Yes sir, you can. It rides low and slow, but it still moves. As soon as I got to dry ground, I had to unload, I was afraid of damaging the deuce. I told them to sit tight for one hour and I’d be back. Two of the teenage boys came with me to the food center. They helped the Police load up to the roof again and back we went. When we got back to Grandma and the family, there was a crowd of over 200. They began to sing a gospel song. I couldn’t understand the words, but I understood they were thanking their Lord for sending an angel. I’m sure they meant the little girl.

We offloaded everything right there in the middle of the street. Before the last case came off, some of the children were on their second MRE.

Back to the food center. I did not know it, but this was to be my last load. It had been several hours since I last took my painkillers, and I could no longer walk properly upright. This time guardsmen loaded me up. I headed further Southwest into what looked like a beat up industrial area with a lot of smaller poorer houses. I honked the horn again and dropped the tailgate. As at all the other stops, people starting to come up to me. Something did not feel right this time, just a bit creepy. These people were not friendly, but I had no idea why. I realize that some people hate you just because of the color of your skin. I have no control over the color of my skin, nor do I have control over other people’s stupid bigotry. I decided to hurry up and off load quickly, this felt ugly.

Wheeeee, an angry bee went by followed by a loud deep boom. Wheeee, boom again. CRAP! I’ve heard that before. Some son-of-a-bitch was shooting at us. I dropped and looked right. There were two men standing waist high behind a pile of scrap metal about 75 yards away. One had his arms up and was pointing at me. Everything went slo-mo and someone behind began to scream. My .45 was out and I was squeezing the first shot. I jerked and the weapon bucked. Idiot! Slow down! T he next 11 rounds were gone in seconds. The magazine was empty and I was ejecting and running behind the left side of the deuce. I got the second magazine in and released the slide with my thumb. I looked back at the people who were taking the food and they were gone! Every single one!

I came around the front of the deuce slowly below the bumper. There they were, two heads popping up and down. They looked comical, were they crackheads? Two more booms. I knew what they were using, nothing in the world sounds like a .44 Magnum.

Twelve more rounds at ½ second intervals, a whole lot of screaming from that direction. Eject, reload. Only 12 rounds left. The screaming is faint, I think my eardrums are damaged as I’ve never fired this thing without ear protection. The two of them pop up together and take off at high speed in the direction away from me. Should I? They are running in a straight line directly away. Should I? They are around a building and gone. Release the hammer, holster, get in the deuce. Fire it up and go directly the opposite direction of those two. You don’t want to know what I am thinking about New Orleans at this point. About two miles down the road I stopped and closed the tailgate. I think its probably time to head back to Texas.

As I head up Interstate 10 towards Baton Rouge, I see literally hundreds of Army vehicles convoying in to the city. I stop to change a ladies flat tire. She is 5 feet tall and 500 pounds. She needs my help. My painkillers have worn off, I’m in agony, less than 500 miles till home.

Katrina Day 8: Monday, 5 September 2005 (Labor Day)
It’s almost midnight and I’ve just crossed the border into Texas. One more odd thing happened on the way home. A Ford Crown Victoria was tailgating me on the Interstate. After a couple of minutes he pulled up next to me and hailed me on the loudspeaker. The only two words I could make out were “left tire”. Arm out my window, wave thanks, took the exit not 50 yards away. At the top of the ramp, there was a well-lighted gas station. I went in to ask the owner if he minded me changing my tire under his lights. He had no problem with that, would I like a fresh pot of coffee? Yes sir, I would.

Because I was back in Texas, I had placed my weapon and holster in the glove box of the truck. I had also locked the passenger door so that no one could steal the weapon while I was in the gas station. I went to the back of the truck to get the many tools required to change my flat tire. As I was dragging the tools out, I heard voices next to the truck. I looked down the drivers’ side towards the front. There stood three ‘gangsta’s’. All 3 were black and naked from the waist up. They were very heavily tattooed, all kinds of symbols and stylized block writing. They were young and wiry muscular and very fit looking. Their pants hung very low and several inches of underpants were showing. My gun was beyond reach, I had a ¾ inch ratchet in my hands, but I thought this is it John, you are dead meat.

The tallest oldest one looked at me and smiled. “Sir”, he said, “we know what you done been doing”. I didn’t know what he meant. He told me he meant he knew I had come from New Orleans. How did he know? “You stink like the dead, man”. Ahhh, I hadn’t noticed. He wanted to shake my hand and thank me. Of course, grabbing a man’s hand is the perfect set-up for punching him in the head. I had no choice. I grasped my 18″ Craftsman tighter, and then I shook his hand. They asked what was I doing here. Flat tire. He asked why was I moving so bent over. I told him, I’m in a lot of pain.

He swore at me, then told his two brothers to get my tools off of the truck. I asked him what the hell was he doing? “We is changing your tire, old man, you go sit over there and watch. My Ol’ Daddy would whup us all upside the head if he saw us watch an old man change a tire without helping”.

What they lacked in experience, they sure made up with enthusiasm. All three were dripping with sweat within a couple of minutes, swinging that six foot cheater bar. T hirty minutes later they are almost finished, the spare is being hoisted back up the winch. The oldest one turned to me, “Sir”, he said, “I know that you will now offer us money, but my Ol’ Daddy would whup us all if we took it from you”. I turned and walked back in to the gas station. I came out with another cup of coffee and three tall cold beers. I can’t drink these beers. I’ll just have to set them down here. They sat with me. I shook their hands and thanked them. “No sir”, said the oldest, “we thank you”.

Several hours later, I am back at my house. It takes 15 minutes for me to get down from the truck. Another five minutes to get in the house. I sit down and take a double dose of painkillers. What is wrong with my eyes? I’m crying. I just can’t stop crying..

I could have done so much more.

Epilogue
Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, blah, blah, blah. That is what is known as a legal disclaimer. That being said, I do not know how many laws I broke, nor do I care. While others sat, I moved. Although I am not proud of everything I did in those seven days, I did directly affect the lives of thousands. I made access to hundreds of homes. I fed and gave water to thousands. I ferried dozens of people to safety. I gave comfort when comfort was all I had to give. The entire trip cost me between four and five thousand dollars.

It was the best spent money in my entire life.

EDIT TO ADD: Friday, 9 September, 2005
I’m in a lot of pain still and probably will be for a few more days, so I will be a bit hard to get a hold of.

I am overwhelmed at the number of positive comments by strangers. As far as the skeptics are concerned, oh well, whatever. I did not take a camera with me, simply because I thought it insensitive to take pictures of my truck amongst the ruins of people’s lives. I am no longer concerned about privacy, if you want to post my e-mail account on the web page, the best account is probably [email protected]

Also I freely give my permission to anyone who requests it to reproduce, reprint or copy or use for whatever purpose they wish. I really don’t give a damn.

And one very important note. I am not a hero, I am just a person who believes you sometimes have to do what you feel is right.

-John

EDIT TO ADD: Friday, 9 September, 2005
Dear Scott,
I just looked at our website. Whereas I really appreciate your concern about my monetary situation, I am afraid that there are people who may misconstrue the intent of telling my story. As I stated, the money is gone and it was well spent. I shall recover from the loss within a few months. Some of the people I met are never going to recover from this. Could you remove the donation information and print this apology on the website? Any money already received through the website will be immediately donated to Katrina relief through an aid organization. Anybody wishing to donate money to ‘Sarge’, please choose any Katrina relief fund you wish and send the money to them. It will reach the victims faster than if you send it to me. In the words of the older Gangsta, “My Daddy would whup me upside the head” if I took payment for doing what needed to be done. P.S. I don’t know what heroes look like, but I just look and feel like a tired old man.

It is an honor, sir, to share the planet with you. John (on the left) and his Deuce-and-a-half.

Thanks, Kim. I needed that.

Presser v. Cockrum

KevinLeave a comment

Reader Robert Lewis, commenting on I Imagine This Post Might Be an Unpopular One, below, takes exception to my citation of the 1886 Supreme Court Presser v. Illinois decision:

“Under Presser, the right to keep and bear arms is not a limitation on the power of States.”

Hah …the supreme court of Texas claims otherwise …

“The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the ‘High Powers’ delegated directly to the citizen by the United States Constitution, Amendment II, and “is excepted out of the general powers of government”. A law cannot be passed to infringe upon it or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the law-making power.”
-Supreme Court of Texas, Cockrum v. State of Texas (1859).

Delving into my library, I pulled my copy of Clayton Cramer‘s For Defense of Themselves and the State: The Origins and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Here’s what Clayton has to say about it over pages 90-92:

Article 610 of the penal code specified that manslaughter committed with a Bowie knife or dagger would be considered to be murder, and punishable accordingly. The defendant, John Cockrum, was indicted in 1857 for murdering William N. Self, of Freestone County. In 1858, Cockrum was convicted of murder, apparently based on article 610, and sentenced to life in prison in solitary confinement.

Cockrum appealed. The relevant part of his argument, as presented by his lawyer:

It is contended, that Article 610 of the Penal Code, is in violation of both of the State and Federal Constitution, which contain substantially the same provision, securing the citizen from any infringement on the right to keep and bear arms. 1st. it is asserted, that any law prohibiting a citizen from keeping or bearing any knife, which is intended to be worn upon the person, which is capable of inflicting death, and not commonly known as a pocket-knife, would be unconstitutional. To prohibit absolutely the keeping and having of an ordinary weapon, is certainly to infringe on the right of keeping and bearing arms. A bowie-knife, or dagger, as defined in the Code, is an ordinary weapon, one of the cheapest character, accessible even to the poorest citizen. A common butcher-knife, which costs not more than half a dollar, comes within the description given of a bowie-knife or dagger, being very frequently worn on the person. To prohibit such a weapon, is substantially to take away the right of bearing arms, from him who has not money enough to buy a gun or pistol.

Here Cockrum’s attorney, Robert S. Gould, crisply articulated the position that would be taken a century later, in opposition to laws banning so-called “Saturday Night Specials” – that such laws work principally to disarm the poor.

And I cannot help but point out the extreme divergence between this argument and the argument being put forth today in England seeking justification to ban all long, sharp kitchen knives.

Clayton continues:

But what is the relevance of a law enhancing the penalty for manslaughter, to the right to carry a “bowie-knife or dagger”?

Gould pointed to the court decisions on the right to keep and bear arms, in particular. Nunn v. State (1846), since it had overturned a law banning small pistols. He then argued that if it was unconstitutional to ban the carrying of an arm for a lawful purpose, such as self-defense; and discriminating against a particular arm by enhancing the penalty for criminal use would be an attempt to discourage law-abiding people from carrying such arms, for fear that a manslaughter might thus be punished as severely as murder.

From what I’ve seen, England has been treating arms violations more severely than some murders. Anyway, continuing:

Most of the Texas Supreme Court decision, written by Justice Roberts, addressed the issues of how the varying punishments available for a murder conviction could be determined by the jury, and are of no relevance to our interests. Of relevance to the Second Amendment and Texas’ similar constitutional provision, especially in light of the post-war decisions by the Texas Court: “it is contended, that this article of the Code, is in violation of the Constitution of the United States, and of this State.” After citing the Second Amendment and the 13th section of the Texas Bill of Rights: “Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms, in the lawful defense of himself or the State,” the Court explicated the purposes of the state and Federal Constitutional protections, with no apparent disagreement that both applied to a state law:

The object of the first clause cited, has reference to the perpetuation of free government, and is based on the idea, that the people cannot be effectually oppressed and enslaved, who are not first disarmed. The clause cited in our Bill of Rights, has the same broad objec in relation to the government, and in addition thereto, secures a personal right to the citizen. The right of a citizen to bear arms, in the lawful defence of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government, but directly from the soveriegn convention of the people that framed the State government. it is one of hte “high powers” delegated directly to the citizen, and “is excepted out of the general powers of government.” A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impact it, because it is above the law, and independent of the law-making power.

The Court then held that discrimination in sentencing based on the probable lethality of a weapon was legally justified, but:

The right to carry a bowie-knife for lawful defence is secured, and must be admitted. It is an exceedingly destructive weapon. It is difficult to defend against it, by any degree of bravery, or any amount of skill. The gun or pistol may miss its aim, and when discharged, its dangerous character is lost, or diminished at least. The sword may be parried. With these weapons men fight for the sake of the combat, to satisfy the laws of honor, not necessarily with the intention to kill, or with a certainty of killing, when the intention exists. The bowie-knife differs from these in its device and design; it is the instrument of almost certain death. He who carries such a weapon, for lawful defence, as he may, makes himself more dangerous to the rights of others, considering the frailties of human nature, than if he carried a less dangerous weapon.

Today’s controversy over semiautomatic military style rifles (so-called “assault weapons”) has strong parallels to the concern expressed here about the Bowie. In both cases, the weapon was perceived as an “instrument of almost certain death,” and a a weapon against which there was no defense. Also like today’s controversy, the distinction between a Bowie knife and a butcher knife is partly in the perception of the purposes of the weapon, not their actual capabilities.

Interesting parallels to today, aren’t they? The more things change….

The critical thing about this, though is that the Cockrum decision came in 1859. The U.S. v. Cruikshank decision came in 1875, followed by Presser v. Illinois in 1886. Cockrum should still be precedent for Texas STATE law, given the wording of 13th Section of the Texas Bill of Rights, but it does not apply to the FEDERAL government, because inferior courts cannot tell the Federal Supreme Court that it’s out to lunch, even when it is. And laws have been passed to infringe on or impair the right to keep and bear arms, but not too damned many in Texas.

You’ll notice that the Texas legislature didn’t stand up to the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban as being violative of the right to keep and bear arms, nor did it protest the 1934 National Firearms Act, nor any part of the 1968 GCA.

Nice try, Robert, but no kewpie doll for you! 😉

KevinLeave a comment

More Moronics from Nerf™land – I Mean England.
(Or: “At What Price, Safety?”)

Have you seen the latest? Two Three Four readers emailed me, and one commenter posted on this story:

Doctors seek kitchen knife ban

EDWARD BLACK

Key points
• Doctors claim long kitchen knives serve no purpose except as weapons
• 55 out of 108 homicide victims in Scotland were stabbed last year
• Police superintendents say a ban would be difficult to enforce

Key quote
“Many assaults are impulsive, often triggered by alcohol or misuse of other drugs, and the long pointed kitchen knife is an easily available, potentially lethal weapon, particularly in the domestic setting” – Dr Emma Hern, writing in British Medical Journal

LONG, pointed kitchen knives should be banned as part of a concerted effort to reduce the terrible injuries and deaths caused by stabbing attacks, doctors warned today.

Accident and emergency medics claim the knives serve no useful purpose in the kitchen but are proving deadly on the streets of Britain, with the doctors claiming the knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

Wait a minute. “(P)roving deadly on the streets of Britain”?? It’s already illegal to carry almost any kind of knife “on the streets” of Britain unless you can prove “need” of it. (No presumption of innocence there.) Just ask Charlie Booker, arrested and sentenced for carrying a butter knife in public. Last I checked, a butter knife wasn’t pointy or sharp.

Moreover, they’re setting up metal detectors in public places, and searching anyone who tries to avoid them. It’s “for the children,” you know. If it saves just one life!

But now they need to ban kitchen knives?

The doctors claimed they had consulted leading chefs who said the knives were not needed for cooking – a claim disputed by chefs contacted by The Scotsman.

Latest figures from the Scottish Executive show that in 2003, 55 of 108 homicide victims were stabbed by a sharp instrument – often a kitchen knife.

Fifty-five homicides justifies banning kitchen knives. Jeebus. And of those 55 the weapon was often, not always a kitchen knife. Anyone see a realty disconnect here?

Writing in the British Medical Journal, specialist registrar Dr Emma Hern and emergency medicine consultant Dr Mike Beckett said a short pointed knife may cause a substantial superficial wound if used in an assault, but is unlikely to penetrate to inner organs. However, a pointed long blade pierces the body like “cutting into a ripe melon”.

Define “short.” One inch? Two? I’ve got this Ka-bar meat cleaver that I could really go medieval on your ass with. I don’t think it qualifies as “pointy.”

Internal organs can be heavily damaged, causing serious injury or death. The doctors said long knives with blunt ends – such as bread knives – would do far less damage.

Unless they’re used to slash one’s throat. Or femoral artery. Don’t underestimate the lethality of a serrated bread knife!

Dr Hern said: “Many assaults are impulsive, often triggered by alcohol or misuse of other drugs, and the long pointed kitchen knife is an easily available, potentially lethal weapon, particularly in the domestic setting. Government action to ban the sale of such knives would drastically reduce their availability over the course of a few years.”

Wait, wait. I thought the problem with these knives is that they’re “on the street”. Doesn’t that suggest some premeditation? I mean, after all, you’ve got to be willing to break the law in the first place to simply carry such a knife out of your home, right? So if you’re willing to do that, why wouldn’t you be willing to substitute some other weapon? And banning the sale would “drastically reduce their availability over the course of a few years“??? IT’S A PIECE OF STEEL, YOU MORON!! THEY TAKE DECADES TO WEAR OUT! That Ka-bar meat cleaver I mentioned? WWII-era, if not older. I’ve got a couple of Old Hickory carbon-steel knives about the same age. And I don’t think my 10” bladed, razor-sharp, needle-pointed Henckels chef’s knife will be retiring any time soon, either.

Scotland’s most respected pathologist, Professor Anthony Busuttil, said: “All the statistics show that for the last 15 years, victims of stabbings, whether fatal or seriously injured, are caused by kitchen knives such as steak knives rather than knives bought specially for the purpose.”

Which, of course, could change overnight if such knives were all banned and confiscated, right? There’ll be a big amnesty for people to turn in all their sharp, pointy knives and be reimbursed by the government who will issue them sporks in return? And then house-to-house searches and imprisonment for those who fail to comply?

Restaurateurs and chefs reacted angrily to suggestions of banning kitchen knives. Malcolm Duck, chairman of the Edinburgh Restaurateurs Association, said: “Kitchen knives are designed for a purpose. It would be like asking a surgeon to perform an operation with a bread knife instead of a scalpel. Anything in the house like a cricket bat could be used as weapon in the hands of an idiot.”

Chief Superintendent Tom Buchan, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, said although a ban on sharp, pointed kitchen knives would be welcome, it could be difficult to enforce.

Gee, ya THINK?? You’ve got to have licensing and registration FIRST! Didn’t you learn anything from the handgun ban?

Oh, right. Of course you didn’t. Silly me.

The BBC has a story on this too. More of the same, except for this quote:

The use of knives is particularly worrying amongst adolescents, say the researchers, reporting that 24% of 16-year-olds have been shown to carry weapons, primarily knives.

The study found links between easy access to domestic knives and violent assault are long established.

French laws in the 17th century decreed that the tips of table and street knives be ground smooth.

A century later, forks and blunt-ended table knives were introduced in the UK in an effort to reduce injuries during arguments in public eating houses.

Ten minutes on a grinder: sharp pointy knife again. Or, of course, everyone could just switch to chisels.

Now, lest you think this is merely an aberration (even after the banning of full-auto weapons, semi-auto rifles, all handguns, pepper & other defensive sprays, tasers, pretty much anything suitable for self-defense, et cetera,) let me remind you that in 2003 they were discussing forcing pubs to use plastic glasses and plastic beer bottles to, what? REDUCE VIOLENCE, of course, because Pub fights cost £4m a year and bottles and drinking glasses were used to inflict 15,000 injuries a year! I don’t know what the outcome of that effort was. If anyone does, please let me know.

But I’ll tell you what: Let’s just raze the British Isles, tote off all of the wood and brick and glass and metal and rebuild with terrycloth, foam rubber, Saran-wrap and soft plastics and then you’ll all be safe! Right?

As soon as everyone is in a straightjacket, that is. You seem to need the spinal support.

KevinLeave a comment

Let’s Just Keep Bashing England, Test Case for America’s Future.
Dept. of Socialized Medicine, This Time.

I’m on a roll. Might as well. (The Telegraph is such a wealth of material.)

I present to you this op-ed on just how wonderful England’s National Health Care system is:

My mother was dying, but no one would take charge of her care

By Alasdair Palmer
(Filed: 15/05/2005)

The latest report into the failings of patient care in the NHS has a depressingly familiar ring. An organisation called the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death found that nearly half of patients needing intensive care were not properly cared for. In a substantial number of cases in which the patient died, the care was so bad that it could have contributed to hastening the patient’s death. The report found that the overall quality of medical records was “poor”. Ten per cent of patients did not even receive a complete examination, nor was their medical history available to the doctors who were charged with making decisions about their care.

Dr Bill Kirkup, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, was quick to insist that “there is no evidence to suggest that the failings identified by the report are typical or found throughout the NHS”. But of course there is: many people who have experience of NHS care will have their own stories illustrating “less than good practice”. Mine relate to my mother, who died of cancer 18 months ago. Initially, she went to her GP with back pain. He gave her some pain killers, and reassured her that nothing was wrong: he did not order any tests of any kind, even though her medical notes stated that two years earlier she had had breast cancer.

The pain killers he prescribed had no effect. She went back to see him, in increasingly severe discomfort, several times. Each time, her GP said the same thing: “Don’t worry, it will clear up.” My mother’s cancer was diagnosed only when she took herself to see a neurologist who had, years before, helped her get over back pain. That neurologist did some tests – and told my mother she would have to be admitted to hospital immediately.

The GP’s reluctance to look at my mother’s records delayed by six months the diagnosis of the recurrence of her cancer, which turned out to have metastasized into her bones and liver. It was unquestionably a dire example of “less than good practice”. But once she was admitted to the Royal Free hospital, in north London, the standard of her care did not improve much. Some of the nurses were inhumanly rough with her, causing her tears of agony when lifting her off the bed to wash her. We complained and tried to get the nurses changed. The complaints had no effect. Then the hospital’s supply of pain-killing drugs – essential for my mother – first threatened to run out, then not to be renewed.

There was no continuity of care. Several different teams of doctors were assigned to her. They didn’t lose her notes, but they did seem to have difficulty in reading them, for they each asked her the same questions – the answers to which were in her records – each time they saw her. Most of the very limited time the doctors had available for her consultations were thus taken up with these routine questions.

__

I remember my father sitting at her bedside as a group of doctors finally came to deliver an assessment. The senior consultant – who was standing in for someone else, who was on holiday – introduced herself and started to repeat the familiar questions whose answers were in the notes. My father interrupted and said: “We do need someone to take charge of this case. Can I take it that you are responsible for my wife’s care?” There was a long pause. Then came the answer. “Um… No,” the senior consultant said. “I’m not responsible. It is a committee thing.”

And there, it seems to me, is the crux of the problem with so much hospital care: no one is responsible for anything. There are endless teams and committees – the palliative care team, the medical emergency team, the patient-at-risk team, and so on – but no one takes responsibility. The whole point of the committees seems to be to ensure that no individual can be held responsible for whatever decisions are taken. “Less than good practice” is the inevitable result.

“No one is responsible for anything.” Let me quote Mark Steyn from the piece I pointed to in the last post:

Almost every act of the social democratic state says: don’t worry, you’re not responsible, leave it to us, we know best. The social democratic state is, in that sense, profoundly anti-social and ultimately anti-democratic.

That goes for everyone from petty criminal to Member of Parliament.

Please, please, PLEASE let us not take that path here.

Just How Good Are Those British Crime Statistics?.

KevinLeave a comment

(h/t to Lurch at Gun Culture)

From the Sunday Telegraph:

When the crime is to speak out
By Daniel Foggo
(Filed: 24/04/2005)

Picture this: you are a retired senior policeman who has information that gun crimes are going unreported because some of your former colleagues are not registering them. You report what you know to a Sunday newspaper, and the next day two detectives knock on your door.

At first you might be impressed by their prompt reaction. But then you discover that your visitors are from the “professional standards” unit (the subdivision of every force that polices its own officers) and have no interest in the truth of your claim. What they want to know is which serving policemen have spoken to you.

They are not concerned that shootings are spiralling out of control while being deliberately unrecorded in order not to spoil the crime figures: no, they want to discipline the officers for speaking out of turn.

This is what happened to former Detective Superintendent Peter Coles last Monday. The day before he had been quoted in this newspaper saying that gun crime in Nottinghamshire, where he was once head of the CID, was under-reported. Criminals turning up in hospital with gunshot wounds were often reluctant to involve the police, which led officers to treat the incidents as “no crimes”, Mr Coles said.

One of the few things that will make police forces stir these days, as Mr Coles discovered, is the slightest hint that their officers are talking to outsiders about embarrassing matters. Going “off-message” is now as much frowned upon by the police as it is by their New Labour paymasters.

Take the crime statistics. Under Labour, they are used to convey an expedient message of the rosiest hue. It would not help senior officers’ careers if they were to speak out about the glaring gaps in the Government’s compiling methods. So the prevailing face of most forces is one of sanguine denial.

Nottinghamshire police’s particular problem is that when their primary dissenter broke ranks last month it turned out to be their own Chief Constable, Steve Green. He admitted to me that his force was reeling under the murder rate and was going to have to “farm out” inquiries to other forces.

His reaction when we published the story was stupefying and gives great insight into the fear that going “off-message” engenders even in chief constables. His press office, who had helped arrange the interview with me and agreed the areas that Mr Green would discuss, announced that the Chief Constable had been “blackmailed” into giving the interview. This was utterly untrue and inherently preposterous. Yet in making the claim, the police tried to deflect attention away from the significance of what Mr Green had actually admitted – that his force could not cope with the slaughter on its streets – by suggesting that the more important issue was that he had been compelled against his will into saying what he did.

I have since been informed that Nottinghamshire police’s professional standards team has been trying to access my phone records and those of a colleague to find out which officers may have spoken out. This kind of behaviour is not unusual. Police forces now consider whistleblowing as a form of corruption that should be rooted out. The officers concerned may be revealing matters that are in the public interest, but this is not a consideration.

Three days after the knock on Mr Coles’s door, Nottinghamshire police revealed their latest crime figures, which showed a more than 10 per cent drop over the year. Naysayers, such as Mr Coles, who claim that the statistics are inaccurate, are not appreciated at such a time. As he is retired, the force cannot touch him but they can, and will, pursue anyone who might have given him information.

Getting to the truth behind the statistics and spin of crime figures is becoming increasingly difficult. Rare chinks of clarity, such as Mr Green’s interview, are quickly covered over. A fortnight after talking to The Telegraph Mr Green admitted that his interview “was not my finest hour”.

I beg to differ. It was probably his most conspicuous act of public service.

But crime is going down in England and Wales! Really!

KevinLeave a comment

Just, DAMN!.

Via Kim du Toit comes this outstanding essay on The High Road message board entitled There Are No Barbarians at the Gates. This might be vain, but I mean this sincerely: I wish I had written that. PLEASE go read it.

I did write something roughly tangent to the subject a long time ago at Themestream.com. March 7, 2001, I published Barbarians in the Village:

This week there have been not one, but two shootings on primary school campuses. Two people have died and numerous others were wounded. Both shooters were minors.

William J. Bennett was quoted once on the problem in America’s schools. “Teachers were asked in 1940”, he said, “what the three largest problems were in America’s schools. Their answer was noise, littering, and chewing gum. Teachers were asked last year (1992) what the three largest problems in America’s schools were, and the answer was assault, rape, and suicide.”

Kids have picked on and ridiculed other kids since there have been kids. Kids killing other kids is a fairly recent phenomenon, however. Is society at fault? Parents? Teachers? School administrators? Our elected representatives? The media? The kids themselves?

Yes. All of the above.

Since the 1950’s parents have increasingly relinquished their parental responsibilities to the schools, where education is no longer the goal, state supported day-care is. The schools have increasingly relinquished their responsibility to educate, and cannot maintain order and discipline under the constant threat of lawsuit. This has resulted in repeated generations of kids who receive less and less education, attention, and discipline as they grow up to become teachers, administrators, elected officials, members of the media and parents themselves, all the while concerned about themselves first and foremost. After all, nobody spent any time on them when they were kids. The hard, critical job of being a parent has now been reduced to making sure little Johnny is wearing the fashionable shoe of the week and has a brand-new chrome scooter like all of the “in” kids do.

So we have come to this – kids who kill because they’re unpopular.

I’m not accusing all parents of doing a poor job, but how many does it take to destroy the system? Just a very few. Hillary Clinton wrote a much maligned book entitled “It Takes a Village:” in which she stated that it takes that village to raise a child. I may not agree with anything else the junior Senator from New York has to say, but on that point she’s right. Whether we like it or not, the village raises our children. How much influence the village has is inversely proportional to how much influence the family has on the child. When the entire attention a child receives from his parents is clothing and material goods, the kids turn to the rest of society, our village, to tell them how to live. And our village tells them that violence is an acceptable method of solving our problems.

It took 50 years to get where we are today. The question now isn’t how do we stop it, it is can we stop it?

In another column I wrote: “We don’t live in the United States of America anymore, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We live in `Merica, land of the free to do whatever we please, with no adverse consequences to our actions because that just wouldn’t be “fair”. Ain’t Democracy wunnerful? Let’s just vote ourselves bread and circuses and wait for the Barbarians to come over the walls.” I was referring, of course, to the fall of the Roman Empire, whose death-knell was heralded by the empire being overrun by the barbarians they used to keep at bay.

I was wrong. Our barbarians are already inside the walls. Our barbarians are us.

“Control Group,” the author of There Are No Barbarians at the Gates points out quite starkly that the barbarians have always been inside our gates. And as the post below illustrates, England seems to be re-learning this fact about now.

KevinLeave a comment

Outstanding News!.

Back when I was writing at the late, lamented Themestream.com, one of the other contributors I read with much enjoyment was Tina Blue, a college professor. (Well, she’s “adjunct faculty” which means she hasn’t got a shot at tenure, which sucks when you realize that assholes like Ward Churchill get to be tenured big-shots, but dedicated, devoted teachers like Tina get the dirty end of the stick.)

Tina went on after Themestream folded to her own education-oriented website, Teacher, Teacher, and if you’re looking for some good reading material concerning education, that’s a great place to visit (and I don’t know why I haven’t added it to my blogroll under the “Dept. of Our Collapsing Schools” heading. Gotta fix that.) She’s archived most of her articles from Themestream at her site, so there’s a lot of good reading there.

But that’s not what this post is about.

I got an email from Tina this afternoon. I hadn’t heard from her in a while, so it was a pleasant surprise. Here’s what she sent me (and a bunch of others, natch):

Do you remember when everyone was so amazed at how brilliant John Kerry’s daughter Vanessa must be to win a Fulbright Fellowship to do research in England when she was a second-year medical student at Stanford University?

Well, my little daughter, who is a second-year med student at Georgetown, just won a Fulbright Fellowship to do a year of research in Ireland! In the letter she got today telling her she had won the fellowship, it said that of those who have won Fulbrights to Ireland, 35 of them are Nobel Prize winners! These Fulbrights really do go to the crème de la crème.

Sorry to be sending out a group email about this, but I am so proud that I have to tell the world.

Well, Tina, I’ve told a few more for you. Congratulations to you and your daughter. Drop me an email when she wins a Nobel!

(Damn, but I love good news!)