Just Because You Can

I haven’t written to this blog in a long while because I haven’t been angry enough about something in particular to do so. Well today, I have something at which I can direct some energy.

There’s a pernicious cliché I hear almost every time I talk to someone who doesn’t like Open Carry (which is the practice, in those states--free states--where it is legal to openly carry a firearm): Just because you can doesn’t mean you should, or another variation, Just because you can, does not mean you have to. I suppose one can also add, Just because you can doesn’t mean you must.

As with many such clichés, it seems to say something profound but actually doesn’t as I propose to show forthwith. The reason I dislike clichés is that they are a shortcut to critical thinking. In fact, it may be more true to say that clichés are short circuits, an endrun around having to think too deeply about things. By the way, if you want to see a thoroughgoing disassembly of cliché, I suggest you read Jonah Goldberg’s The Tyranny of Clichés.

So let’s make things a bit more concrete, shall we, and rejigger the mental circuitry, take apart this vapid saying, put some meat on them bones. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should … is an incomplete sentence, it’s a phrase. There are things missing, aren’t there? Let’s add stuff:

“Just because you can eat ice cream doesn’t mean you should.” (Noted, and thanks. I’ll go ahead and eat ice cream. I like ice cream.)

“Just because you can kiss your wife goodbye doesn’t mean you should kiss her goodbye.” (Noted, and thanks. I’ll go ahead and kiss my wife goodbye, because it shows I love her and she likes it.)

“Just because you can pet your dog doesn’t mean you should pet your dog.” (Noted, and thanks. I’ll go ahead and pet my dog, because I like doing it and my dogs likes it, too.)

You see what I mean? As you start adding specifics, it starts to approach inanity. It actually doesn’t tell you anything at all. There’s stuff missing, important stuff: the phrase is meaningless because it doesn’t give any reasoning & with that goes meaning, and meaning is vital to reason. In fact, it does mental damage beyond that. Let me illustrate:

“Just because you can exercise your First Amendment right to petition government does not mean you should.”

Woah now, come again? Why not?! It’s my right to petition government, are you saying I should not? Why not? Why don’t you want me to exercise my right to petition government, what's your motive? What do you have against my exercising the right to petition my government?

See the scorpion’s tail in that seemingly innocent cliche? It gets people comfortable with doing nothing. In fact, the counterargument can be more correct: Just because you can means you should! Also in fact, this is the way better phrasing: it is positive, it is a call to action. Of course, it keeps out a bunch of things as well, but I’d much rather defend a positive position than the negative. One’s making an argument, the other is merely making a critique. One is the sun, the other is the eclipse.

In the case of our civil rights, just because you can exercise your civil rights, means you should! A right not regularly exercised atrophies. A right which falls out of common use is a right effectively lost. A right which no one cares to exercise soon becomes easier to forget, and even to legislatively abrogate.

And here’s the reason I wrote this today: I hear this nigh meaningless phrase uttered in reference to Open Carry so here it is, the missing information: “Just because you can Open Carry doesn’t mean you should.” To which I counter, why ever not? It is a valid expression of our right to keep and bear arms! Those who contend that we shouldn’t or mustn’t are trying to sell you on letting go one of your most important civil rights, just as surely as they’re trying to sell you on any of the others you do have.

I have been told that the Supreme Court has decided on a slim margin that there is now a right to same-sex marriage. All well and good, and it is now the law of the land. One of the arguments on the side of the SSM crowd was that it was a civil right, and any attempt to water it down with civil unions or any other facsimile of full on marriage, is oppressive. Do not tell me when, how, and with whom I can exercise my civil rights! If it makes you uncomfortable that I want to exercise my right to same-sex marriage, I suggest you go pound sand (or go to jail in that Kentucky case). You cannot debate my civil rights away! You know what, I agree.

“Just because you can marry a man if you’re a man doesn’t mean you should.” Try telling that to the SSM supporter and be excoriated, and rightly so. We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.

I support Open Carry, it’s part & parcel of the “bear arms” section of the Second Amendment. If it makes you uncomfortable that I am OC, I suggest you go pound sand. I don’t care what you think or, to be precise, what you feel. Your insecurity about when I choose to exercise my civil rights doesn’t matter.

Some people don’t like the light it throws on all gun owners when certain gun owners act up. How they look while OC. It makes society at large think worse of us all gun owners. Some people say Open Carrying at people (whatever the hell that means, I’m guessing posturing aggressively) is wrong--we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it?--and yet others go on about how our rights will be curtailed by voters when people misuse it.

That’s the thing about rights, you see. They can’t be voted on; an opinion about a revoking a natural right is meaningless. I refuse to have the actions of a person who happens to be in the same category as me define who I am. A person who misuses their rights gets individually punished. If it is not against the law to OC then leave the man alone who OCs. He’s no more breaking the law than is the man who is eating breakfast at a cafe. Leave him alone.

That it happens to be a gun and not a breakfast sandwich is meaningless. Stop trying to convince me to stop exercising my civil rights because you don’t like the form in which I’m doing it or what I'm wearing while doing it. We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.

I could add that I usually don't Open Carry often as a choice because of strategic & tactical reasons (I don’t have backup, I don’t have a radio connecting me with a ton of other armed citizens who will arrive to help me if I get in trouble, etc.). But to make a point of it, to exercise a right which needs exercising, to condition the populace to being comfortable with the Second Amendment, to spit in the face of those who wish to make me feel like a dirty, broken person, belonging in the back of a closet: Just because I can, I will.

Open vs. Concealed Carry

A storm in a teacup, so the saying goes, and there's no bigger one than that currently raging between the advocates of so-called Open Carry and Concealed Carry. The carrying is of weapons, by the way.

Begging your pardon, it's not so much a storm as a bleeding hurricane. And it's all for naught. Why must people act as if those two modes of carrying a firearm are somehow mutually exclusive? Let me repeat this question:

Why must people act as if those two modes of carrying a firearm are mutually exclusive?

Because, pssst, they aren't. There's nothing that says that in jurisdictions where the two modes of carry are legal, you must choose one or the other! And once you have chosen to carry in one mode, you can never, ever, ever again carry in any other mode. Nonsense, stuff and double nonsense. Yet, to read the "debates" raging on various Facebook pages, twitter, and blogs, you'd think this was a problem beyond all cognition.

In Idaho, we are able to carry openly without a permit. With a tax permit, we are also able to carry concealed in town (you may carry concealed while outside city limits). We are currently trying to replicate what Vermont--of all states!--has had since 1791, so-called Constitutional Carry. This means that if you're a law-abiding citizen without adjudicated mental infirmities, not prohibited from owning firearms, you ought to be allowed to carry in whatever mode you desire. The Second Amendment describes it as carry but not in what mode.

And this is crux of the issue: in jurisdictions which both modes are legal, carry as you wish! I choose not to carry openly most of the time because concealed carry affords me the element of surprise if, God forbid, I ever have to deploy a firearm to defend against a forcible felony. Open carry is less strategically sound and were I to openly carry, I would very likely be doing so in a group of friends so we can look after each other. Cops who carry openly have backups, partners, access to long arms within reach and a radio for tactical reasons, and so would I want as well.

However, there's no law that forces me to carry one way or the other. And I refuse to impugn my fellow citizens' right to carry as they wish. The two modes of carry are not mutually exclusive. Good people can and do both!

I have more to say about this, but I wanted to keep this post short. However, I am going to take this opportunity now to address the brain-dead who insist in various ways all asinine, that those who carry openly are making it hard to know the difference between good guys with a gun and a bad guy with a gun.

One woman on Facebook put it this way (and by "way," I mean batshit cuckoo):

This is how you argue, folks! pic.twitter.com/HTrkxZytmy
— Salty Codger (@fwoodbridge) March 10, 2015

Ignore for a second her incredible assertion that someone exercising their legal rights necessarily leads to you standing over "your dead child's grave". What I want you to notice is this line:

You people are making it impossible to tell the good guys with guys [she must mean guns] from the bad guys with guns. And just one more thing [as if she's ready to drop some mad knowledge, yo!] ... 100% of all bad guys with guns were good guys with guns before they committed their first crime.

Get that? She is unable to tell, just by looking at someone (who happens to be bearing a pistol in a holster or a rifle slung over the shoulder) whether that person will commit a crime or not. Gosh, wouldn't that be swell? If you could somehow tell, just by looking, whether or not someone will cause harm in the near future? Well, we could start by employing Pre-cogs. That'd be a good first start. Until then, how about you stick to reality?

Let me put it another way to this woman: two men are walking towards you. They are both men, as you can easily ascertain, which means they both have penises. Which means that either man could conceivably (heh) rape you. But, just by looking at these men, how can you tell who's a good man with a penis and who's a bad man with a penis?

And just one more thing, 100% of all bad men with penises were good guys with penises before they raped you.

In Mala Fide

There are a great many people out there, including police officers unfortunately, who feel (not think) that the mere presence of a gun implies evil. In the case of the police--like this unfortunate meathead Idaho sheriff, who actually shot himself--the presence of a gun screams criminal!

What tosh.

The Idaho Supreme Court, in a case from 1909, includes this diamond of a quote among a long and rather dry analysis of an appeal before it:

A man may need a gun for a great many things other than that of shooting his neighbor. In fact, it should be presumed in the first instance that a man is going to use his gun for a lawful purpose and that he is not out gunning for his neighbor. [Emphasis mine.]

 Well there you go. Our system works on a presumption of innocence; even in the case of a clear-cut case against a violator with many witnesses, the burden of proving guilt lies with the prosecutor only.

It is the same way outside the courtroom as well. More people are pummelled to death by hands and feet than get shot by so-called assault rifles (AKA a black rifle) yet this doesn't make anyone afraid for their safety simply walking by a man equipped with those tools of destruction. One commences in life by placing good faith in their fellow citizen that they will not suffer battery at the hands (and feet) of passersby. In other words, unless and until you have good reason to believe you will be battered, proceed as usual.

Another quick example: chances are, you get into your car everyday and drive wherever you need to go. You do this without living in crippling fear that an oncoming vehicle's driver will swerve into your lane and take you out in a head on collision. Since you have no good reason to believe that the 2000 pound weapon under the control of your fellow citizen will be used with malice against you, you proceed as usual. (Need I point out that more people die in vehicle accidents a year than get shot?)

We presume that everyone around us will act in a lawful and peaceable manner.

Except, of course, if that person were carrying a firearm. In which case, small-minded, scaredy cat, safety-first-last-always folks will assign the worst motives.

Common sense ain't.

Base Assumptions

Ran into this execrable pile of shit this morning and "felt led" to opine. I'll quote it here and tell you what I think following:

Rep. Curt Oda, R-Clearfield’s HB260 bill permitting concealed guns without a permit is irresponsibly dangerous. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the U.S. Supreme Court held, “Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues of arms.”

As a licensed clinical social worker, I counsel men in relational disputes. Jacqueline C. Campbell, Ph.D., an internationally recognized domestic violence expert, has research suggesting the risk of a man killing a woman is highest where he is unemployed and possesses a weapon. Such men would often not be deemed mentally ill at the time of purchase of a weapon prior to relational disputes occurring.

Rep. Oda’s bill is irresponsible and would increase the likelihood that more women will be seriously injured or murdered than save people from criminals. Now is the time when government has a responsibility to protect its people and not promote freedom to handle anger and frustration to the detriment of people’s lives. Our freedoms on[sic] not unlimited, says the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tab L. Uno, LCSW, MPA

The open assertion is interesting, but there it is in all its sordid glory, the theme of his letter. Pity he follows up with a quote from a Supreme Court case that does not contribute in any way to his conclusion that a permitless concealed carry is "irresponsibly dangerous." Perhaps there's more following.

The second paragraph continues with an appeal to authority that because he's a licensed social worker--leftist alert!--what follows should be accepted without argument. What does he follow up with, a quote from yet another expert that suggests that a "man killing a woman is highest when he is unemployed and possesses a weapon."

Let's look at his base assumptions here: as a licensed clinical (no less) social worker, he's telling you to accept the "research" which "suggests" (though not actually proves) that there is a increase in the risk of men killing women when they're (a) unemployed and (b) in possession of a weapon. Keep it at the front of your mind his thematic conclusion: that permitless concealed carry is "irresponsibly dangerous" then ask yourself what connection permitless concealed carry has with research from some unknown authority figure named Jackie--whom he asserts is an internationally recognized expert--produced which show unemployed men who own guns are at risk of killing women.

Think of his assumptions here, based even though they are on this purported "research": he's assuming that men will have to be both unemployed and simply own a firearm to raise the risk of them killing women. That alone is debatable but it betrays a vicious mindset, a generalization that slanders men. Though strangely this curtails his argument, such as it is, since all I would have to do to destroy it is to say that employed male gun owners exist in much larger numbers.

Continuing: since the risk is "raised" that unemployed men are at risk of killing women (women in general or just ones they run into on the street?), we should not pass a law permitting concealed carry without a license. Okay, that makes all the sense in the world!

Unemployed male gun owners are at risk of killing women therefore do not pass a bill that would allow permitless concealed weapons carriage. Do you see the meandering illogic of this? The pure emotionality of it all? Women will die! The only thing that would round out this perfect dunghill of an argument is if he can somehow work in minorities, preferably gay minorities--into the whole stewpot.

His final paragraph seals the tomb: this bill will increase the likelihood that women will be murdered. H'm. Doesn't that require his two ingredients of male unemployment and simple gun ownership? Alas, he doesn't say. He just wildly asserts. His premises don't support his conclusions, but I wager he doesn't care, women will die! The fantastic rat's nest of assumptions that draws a connection between unemployed males killing women with their guns is a work of a very disturbed mind. That this person is "counselling men" is only just this side of frightening.

Secure in the fact that he has indeed made the connection between unemployed, gun-owning males, the women they kill, and permitless concealed weapons carry, he proceeds:

Now is the time when government has a responsibility to protect its people and not promote freedom to handle anger and frustration to the detriment of people’s lives.

Does that statement make any sense to you? I've read it a few times and each time, I get more confused. "Now is the time [as opposed to when other time?] when government has a responsibility to protect its people and [here comes the super bizarre part] not promote freedom to handle anger and frustration to the detriment of people's lives [Huhhuhwhat? Is there a freedom fit to be promoted by the government to "handle anger"? Seriously, what the fuck does this mean?]

By passing a permitless concealed weapons carry law, this is government "promoting freedom to handle anger and frustration to the detriment of people's lives"? How about permitted concealed weapons carry, which is legal now? How is the permitting process supposed to weed out unemployed men who will kill women? What standard ought the government use here? Will there need to be a question in the form for concealed carry that asks whether you're employed if you're male and which will deny you the right to keep and bear arms since it raises the risk of you bad male person you killing women?

Our freedoms are not unlimited, says the Supreme Court. I have so many questions: what does this have to do with permitless concealed weapons carry? Does the Supreme Court get to decide what those limitations on our freedoms are, or just the right to keep and bear arms? What will a limitation on the right to keep and bear arms mean with respect to unemployed male gun owners killing women?

This letter gives you an insight into the disjointed mind of a leftist who speaks only in buzzwords. Men kill women. Buzz! Guns are bad. Buzz! I am a clinical social worker. Buzz! Freedoms are not unlimited. Buzz! Supposition based on emotion riding on the rails of base assumptions with a touch of just pure crazy.

Tears on My Pillow

Ran into this gem published by our newspaper of record (I use that term loosely) here in Idaho, The Statesman. I'm going to quote it and intersperse my thoughts.

When a powerful organization called al-Qaida nurtures the violent fantasies of angry and disaffected men and enables them to obtain weapons and kill innocent civilians, we call that terrorism.
When a profit-driven industry lobby called the NRA makes it easy as pie for any angry or even crazy person to get handguns and assault weapons and act out their own violent fantasies against family and community members, does that count as terrorism, too?

Right off, you get the sense this is going to be a well-reasoned, thoughtful and sober reflection on the issues. "al-Qaida" is compared with the National Rifle Association because they both nurture the violent "fantasies of men" (not women?) by enabling them to "obtain weapons and kill innocent civilians."

Yes, those two organizations are different in name, perhaps, but that's where all difference ends. Must I point out the insanity of conflating these two organizations, really? Must I? Oh alright, I suppose I must. The NRA (I mean 'al-Qaida') enables crazy people to get handguns and assault weapons. I'd like to know how it does that exactly. Does it buy them the handguns? Does it encourage the crazy people to commit these atrocities? Does it put the evil in their minds, maybe using some "Inception"-type brainwashing? Does it make them crazy in the first place? I'm not quite clear what this person means by "enabling" because "easy as pie" isn't exactly a methodology.

To purchase a firearm, the NRA (I mean, 'al-Qaida') plays no part in the transaction whatsoever. To purchase a firearm, the person has two choices: buy from a dealer or buy from a private citizen. To purchase from a dealer, they must first have money, which isn't exactly easy to come by. So called "assault weapons" (so called because there's no one legal definition for what an assault weapon is) are expensive and the NRA, if anything, takes money not gives it.

At the dealership, the prospective buyer must pass a background check to ensure he or she is not a "prohibited person." Felons cannot purchase firearms, neither can those adjudicated mentally insane. So far, no 'Easy Pie' but it is simple as a concept: if you're not a felon or otherwise prohibited, nothing should come in the way of your obtaining a firearm, which is a right as recognized by the Second Amendment.

So what about private purchases? The first point to make here is an important and philosophical one: a firearm is not a sentient being, capable of making choices on its own. It is a tool, designed for the specific purpose of throwing a projectile in a certain direction, that direction chosen by the wielder of the firearm. It is a piece of property, no more no less. In many ways, it's like a car or a boat. As a private citizen, I ought to be able to sell my own private property, period. If you don't agree with this simply because it is a firearm, you are a tyrant-in-the-making.

That said, there are laws governing such transactions specifically because it is a firearm: the seller must be reasonably certain that the buyer is not a prohibited person. This means that most purchasers who do not know the buyer beforehand will insist on getting a bill of sale filled out, an ID check, and many insist that the buyer have a Concealed Weapons Permit which shows they've already passed an FBI background check. So far, no pie and the NRA (I mean 'al-Qaida') still hasn't made an appearance.

But, you protest, criminals and other prohibited persons get their guns somewhere! That's right: they buy them from other criminals. They do not go into gun stores. They do not buy them from law-abiding private citizens. Read the FBI reports on this and you'll find that criminals get the majority of their guns from strawman purchases (bad boy thug felon sends his baby momma who has no criminal record to buy him a gun) and of course from the streets.

As for crazy people obtaining firearms, until the day we can merely look at a person who has shown no signs of mental illness beforehand and foresee they are about to become insanely violent, we are forced to give them the benefit of the doubt. Mental illness is a terrible thing, but we all should not be guilty of it before clinical diagnosis. As easily as the mentally ill can use a firearm to cause violence, they can use a knife (as happened in China with those poor children) and they can use a car (too many examples of this abound) or something else, usually benign. It is the responsibility of society at large that before we strip someone of their unalienable rights--which include bearing arms--a sober judicial process must occur. We shouldn't be required to prove our sanity before exercising a basic and natural right. On second thought, maybe we ought to require proof of sanity before voting!

Now for "angry" persons obtaining firearms--what a ludicrous idea! Who hasn't been an "angry" person a few times in life? Prohibiting people from obtaining firearms because they're "angry" is insanity itself and pretty much rules out every man, woman, and child on the planet. Which is perhaps his goal, and if so, why doesn't he just say so?

As with most of the stupidity and irrationality in American public life, our friends, neighbors and family members are being killed on a weekly basis nationwide because this is what we have asked for, either by voting for politicians who are stooges of the NRA, or by not voting at all and thus leaving the decision to zealots.

In one breath you call Americans stupid and irrational but your "friends, neighbors and family members" who are killed on a weekly basis aren't stupid and irrational, they're just dead. Are those people not part of the stupid and irrational American public life? The connection he attempts to show between voting for politicians who are NRA (I mean, 'al-Qaida') stooges and his "friends and neighbors" being killed is tenuous, at best.

Let's see here: the politicians in Chicago, Democrats almost all, are hardly NRA stooges. In fact, Chicago and the state of Illinois has some of the most stringent gun regulations on the books. Yet it also has some of the highest murder rate committed with handguns (not "assault weapons," mind you which are statistically insignificant) in the nation. In fact, the areas with politicians who write the most stringent gun control measures into law have the highest rates of "gun violence." Interesting, that, no? So it seems where there's no NRA ('al-Qaida'), there's higher rates of "gun violence" which, alas, doesn't help his points.

So tell me again that a nation flooded with guns and plagued with mass murders is somehow freer and safer than nations such as Australia, Canada or England with vastly lower murder rates.
Somehow, I'm not feeling it.

And that's the key, isn't it? This whole letter is composed of "feels." You're not "feeling" it because basically, that's about all you're doing, is feeling. This is an unsteady appeal to emotion. None of the clear-eyed statistics actually supports your contentions so you blast out in a spittle stream of over-emotionality.

Well, I'm sure sorry to tell you this, but your feelings have no weight in overturning Second Amendment rights. As most Americans now agree, based on polling data, the Second Amendment is sacrosanct and gun control is nothing more than people control in hiding. The fact that someone, somewhere, will misuse their right to own firearms is not a reason to strip those rights away from everyone else. The fact that someone, somewhere, is sure to drink and drive is no reason to prohibit the sale of alcohol. Unless and until you commit a crime or are adjudicated mentally unstable, your rights are yours, given by the Constitution's 'Creator' and are not subject to your feelings.

As for the spurious claim about our nation flooded with guns is less "freer and safer" than Australia, Canada, or England, well that just does not hold any water! England and Australia have different populations in both numbers and culture than we do. Not only that, but their violence rates are higher per capita than ours. In fact, the United States is number 111 (One hundred and Eleven) in homicide rates worldwide and, if we take out the Democrat-controlled cities, we would fall even lower. We are freer, yes, and come to find out, we're safer, too.

Watch this, if you dare:


As an aside, it's rather interesting that you're calling out Australia and Canada where in the last few months violence with highly-regulated firearms have exploded into the news. France, with its Draconian firearms laws, just saw Islamic terrorists (NRA members?) murder police and journalists with semi-automatic rifles. How do you explain that away, I wonder?

And yes, I've been a gun owner all my adult life, am pro-hunting and attended the police funeral following the previous Moscow mass murders in 2007. Still not feeling it.
Chris Norden, Moscow

Well, Chris, the fact you're a gun owner "all your life" means nothing. It does not grant your opinion any more weight. That you want to limit firearm ownership, while being a firearm owner yourself, means nothing. It's a cheap rhetorical ploy to cover yourself in a mantle of reasonableness. It's sort of like saying that because you're married to a Jew, you are thereby free to be an anti-Semite.

The Second Amendment has nothing whatsoever to do with "hunting." Nice try. Go sell your crazy somewhere else, pal. Like Chicago.

I'm not a member of the NRA but this guy has given me all the reason I need to pull the trigger (no pun). Today, I'm joining the NRA (I mean, 'al-Qaida').

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/01/27/3612814_letter-guns.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Triple Check

So as many of you have seen, this is what your hand would look like if or when a 9mm Speer Golddot +P goes into your palm and out through your wrist. It's not a good feeling at all. Having been shot by one now I know why so many people like them. Even after a couple hours, morphine and an oxycodone I still feel like a tank is sitting on my arm with a fire brand inside. I'll have everyone know I didn't cry at all the while time and no one else was endangered by the gun when it went off. Now for exactly what happened : I had just made it home from work and was gonna oil my gun and put my new grip pin and trigger pins in the gun. It was loaded with gold dot +Ps and I dropped the mag racked the slide and was pulling the trigger to take the slide off and had my palm in front of the muzzle to pull the tabs down like I would with any unloaded glock. I shot through my hand and out my wrist. I did everything right but the bullet didn't eject so there was still a bullet in the chamber. It's been a good learning experience for me, even though it sucks to have to learn the hard way to triple check, it's worth it in the end. Thanks to everyone who has checked on me, sorry I haven't replied go everyone but I wanted to make this post so everyone understood what happened exactly. I appreciate any prayers while I try and rest up and heal. Thank you all my friends!! #glock

A photo posted by Hunter (@hunterrwill) on Jan 25, 2015 at 6:49am PST

Kill or Be Killed

Last night, because I wanted to understand the salient points of Idaho's self-defense statutes, I decided to take the course by the Ada County Sheriff's Office. It was three hours long and mostly worth it. However, there were a few glaring errors--maybe it would be better to call it let-downs than errors; I'm going to describe them, for the hell of it. There were two instructors, one behemoth deputy with each arm the size of three baseball bats taped together with bungee cords, Deputy Muscles. This is a guy you wouldn't want to tangle with without the aid of a meth/8-ball cocktail. The other instructor was a typical Idahoan male of a certain persuasion: funny, meek, untraveled, provincial, 6 children, all homeschooled. I liked him immediately. He was a Sergeant, Muscles a Corporal. After a few corny jokes that the universe could have done without, we got into it, wading ankle-deep into what was surely a wide and deep ocean of self-defense law. We were made to understand that our fine state had laws essentially unchanged since the 1800s when they were first drafted. The Deputies tried and laughably failed to show that the laws had been updated to “the present day” through the accumulation of case law. Now, I knew this, but from the vacant looks on the faces of the approximately 30 people in the class, I could tell they didn’t understand the concept. Is it slightly gauche to point out at this point that more than half the class was female? Maybe sexist. Maybe. And I’m not kidding about the Idaho Statutes! There’s mention of a justifiable homicide in defense of the life of one’s wife, husband, etc. and one’s “master or mistress or servant.” Nice. What was missing--but kept getting hinted at--was the fact that it would be necessary, on shooting in self-defense, to articulate the reason. Muscles made it seem as if you would be so doing to the Police. He did, naturally, point out that it was up to you whether or not you chose to speak to the Police and that, of course!, you had a right to shut up and request an attorney. But, it would still be necessary to “articulate” your reasons. Yes, Muscles, I must be able to articulate clearly the reasoning that went into my decision to shoot and possibly kill in self-defense. But it wouldn’t be to you, or any other Law Enforcement official: in the immortal ebonics of Tupac, only God can judge me. Well, Him and a jury of my peers. What they left out was that the articulation would be to that jury. While one’s first contact would certainly be with Law Enforcement, none of those yahoos had the power to pronounce guilt or innocence. With that in mind, Muscles really ought to have instructed class takers that in addition to the archaic-sounding statutes, it was necessary to find and read the Idaho Criminal Jury Instructions. This is really the standard to which one would be held. It should also have been mentioned that the standard for judging an action of self-defense involves what a third person, a so-called “reasonable person,” would have done in the same circumstances. That this wasn’t discussed by Muscles is slightly alarming. The other surprising thing I noticed: Muscles came to a slide in his pitiful Powerpoint deck that he skipped outright, mentioning insouciantly that it dealt only with Law Enforcement. By the way, these atrocious Powerpoint slides featured the usual “presentation sins”: text-heavy, shitty default templates, ponderous animation; in other words, something these cops were probably very proud of creating. Back to the slide in question: it dealt with Idaho’s “fleeing felon” law. 4. When necessarily committed in attempting, by lawful ways and means, to apprehend any person for any felony committed, or in lawfully suppressing any riot, or in lawfully keeping and preserving the peace. I can understand why Deputy Muscles didn’t want to discuss it, because it essentially gives citizens the right to pursue and possibly kill a felon. He preferred to lie instead. For shame. Yes, that Statute gives the everyday man and woman the right to claiming that killing a fleeing felon was a justifiable homicide. I know you don’t like it, Muscles, but that does not mean you get to lie about it. It does not only cover Law Enforcement, it covers everyone. The hint is in the title of the Statute itself: 18-4009. JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE BY ANY PERSON. I’ll save you the time and simply give you the answer: “any person” includes you, me, and yes, Deputy Muscles. Is it a good idea to pursue a fleeing felon and possibly kill him or her? No. The cold and unwavering eyes of the modern Justice system would probably not look with any mercy if you did. But that statute exists and can be claimed by, yes, any person. Another faux pas was his mentioning the fact that, by law, you needed to aid the now-stopped threat/assailant. I don’t see this anywhere in the books. It does indeed look good that you attempted to give aid and succor to the jerkoff you just shot--after all, one is shooting to stop a threat, not to kill but to say it was required by law without reference to any law is, again, a bit disconcerting. In all, I enjoyed the class. It needs a bit of a retouching, some highlighting, a spiff-up here and there and definitely losing a bit of shitty information. In his defense (no pun intended), Deputy Muscles did take the effort to point out that this class was just the beginning. More study was necessary. Roger wilco.

Reason And Force

A letter from a retired Marine:

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or forcing me to do your bidding. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it. In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunken guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society because a firearm makes it easier for an armed mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are unarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat -- it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a monopoly on force.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... And that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
By Maj. L. Caudill, USMC (Ret.)

Hear, hear!

Guns Be Bad

I was just listening to Adam Carolla’s podcast from July 22, 2012. The Aurora, Colorado shooting had just happened and libtard “news girl” Alison Rosen reported it.

Carolla proceeds to wax on about his idea to employ plainclothes “Air Marshals” to patrol “venues” around the US, paid for by the public through additional taxation. By his thinking, only certain places and events will need protection from these plainclothes Super Beings: sorry, Montana, you’re too small and insignificant. Los Angeles, filled with important people, number one on his list. Doing this, says the self-admitted dimwit, will stop incidents such as Aurora.

Normally, Carolla’s voice is the soul of cold pragmatism, but in this case he’s not only way off base, he ain’t even playing Baseball. First of all, we the public already pay for these special “Air Marshals” to patrol venues, only they’re not called “Air Marshals”; they’re called the “Police”. Second, no matter how many Police you employ, to completely prevent these kinds of incidents, you’d have to arm and train one policeman or woman to protect each person. That’s taking things to absurdity yes, but it’s to prove a point.

In an earlier podcast, Adam had come out in grudging support of concealed weapons licensees, but in this podcast it seemed he’d forgotten about his earlier support and was instead pushing for those things he’s normally and vehemently against: more government intrusion, more taxation. After judging Adam’s “Air Marshal-But-On-The-Ground” idea, Rosen, reliably liberal as usual, opines in response to some tweets re a concealed weapons carrier could have stopped the Colorado rampage: “No they couldn’t have. The guy was wearing body armor!” and smugly, as liberals are wont, relaxes into the pillow of stupidity every one of them carries around.

So let me get this straight: concealed weapons carriers couldn’t have stopped the shooter in Aurora because he was wearing armor, but plain-clothes “Air Marshals” armed in the same manner, by some dint of superhuman effort unlike those of the armed civilians could have.

Idiots, one and all.

In the words of the asshole politician in the White House, let me be clear (only, I’ll actually be clear): you’re not going to get rid of guns in America. For starters, it’s in the fucking Bill of Rights. So then, follow the designs of the Founders and license people to carry firearms, a trend I’m ever so glad to notice is sweeping the nation. You cannot have a policeperson on every corner, but what you do have are citizens. Long live the Republic.

The Guns Of Navarone

The first time I held a gun was in my early youth. My uncle-in-law, a Major in the Nigerian Army, such as it is, had left a Browning on the floorboards on the driver’s side of his car and I found it while he was in the house with everyone else.

I was maybe 10? I don’t rightly recall.

I do remember thinking, “Wow!” as I held it, but instinctively didn’t put my finger on the trigger because somehow (TV?) I knew a trigger pull was required to make the gun go “boom!” I also do remember, now somewhat painfully, that I pointed the pistol at my uncle’s housemaid who’d been travelling with him and motioned her, in the way I’d seen in movies, to move “that way.” She laughed and told me to put the pistol away, which I did sheepishly.

All that time, however painful it is to recollect pointing a gun at something I didn’t wish to destroy, all my fingers were around the butt, nowhere near the trigger guard or the trigger itself.

Now that I live in the United States where the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees citizens the right to own firearms, I own several and I will always guard the ability this gives me to protect my family and myself. This I believe is one of the best things about this country—know why? Personal and painful experience.

In Nigeria, the only persons who had firearms fell into two general camps: the police and armed forces in one and robbers in another. (There was one other, tiny group: the very rich who, as usual, could and did own weapons because of their connections and wealth. Teeny tiny group.) In my experience, the police acted like robbers, setting up “road blocks” where they extorted bribes from drivers and generally threw their weight around at a terrified public. The armed forces would regularly wrest power from the civilians anytime they felt slighted and power was passed from one General to another many times when I lived there.

On the other hand, the robbers operated with near-impunity. There were times when roving bands of armed robbers would ensure a virtual curfew every night starting at twilight. Only an extreme emergency would cause people to leave their houses past 6pm because they didn’t want to get shot. Armed robbers brazenly walked up to my mother’s house and demanded entry, which they obtained then proceeded to steal my brother’s passport after threatening him with a hot iron to his face. The “police” were nowhere to be found and never did show up.

That’s what happens when only the “authorities” and outlaws own guns. I have every reason to believe that the Second Amendment makes the First possible. Simple as that.

So when I see Democrats, many Jews (who should know better, considering WWII) and other gun-banners attempt at every opportunity to turn America into a “gun-free” country, I shudder with dread. Not only is this more than just a bad idea, we threaten the very essence of our Republic, inherited from some very bright people indeed.

Now comes news that once again, Democrats want to ban high-capacity magazines. Why this makes any difference at all speaks either to their mens rea (look it up) or ignorance or both. I think it’s both: they don’t understand how guns work, but they know something about committing political suicide by seeking an outright ban so “death by a thousand cuts” it is!

Ann Coulter writes:

In response to Columbine, schools adopted "anti-bullying" policies; in response to Virginia Tech, eBay ceased selling magazines online; in response to the Tucson shooting, liberals want to ban the particular magazine Loughner used.
And then the next killer will come along with a different arsenal and a different motive, and the only way to stop him will be with an armed citizen with a gun.

Read the rest, it’s an intelligent precis of the topic and how brain-dead it is to continue attacking symptoms while the disease rages on unabated.

Google Johnny

I’ve read John August’s blog from time to time over the last two years or so and never noticed what a disingenuous blowhard he is until our falling out some time back. Here’s an example: John August’s post On Google, and evil contains this:

I love the United States, but it’s easy to see why many actions our country takes in its own self-interest appear evil to other parts of the world. We want to raise the standard of living worldwide — but not at the cost of American jobs. We believe strongly in human rights, unless we’re talking about suspected terrorists, in which case we go Jack Bauer in a hurry.

The first sentence says a lot in 28 words, doesn’t it? He loves the United States, but. It’s always like this with liberals, there’s always a but (or in John’s case, a butt.)

I love the US, but here’s why I hate it.

And dressing it in seemingly disinterested terms doesn’t make it any better, John. “… it’s easy to see why many actions … appear evil …” really means, I accept and affirm that many of the US’ actions are evil. Know why I say this? Because old John then proceeds to show by example exactly why the US’ actions are indeed evil.

The thing is, reduced to personal actions by one human being in everyday society, the way the US acts is exactly the way even John would act in a similar situation yet he, I’m sure, doesn’t think he’s evil. Far from it.

Here’s what I mean: take out the US and insert a more personal pronoun in his statement:

I love [myself], but it’s easy to see why many actions [I] take in [my own] self-interest appear evil to other parts of the world. [I] want to raise the standard of living worldwide — but not at the cost of [losing my job]. [I] believe strongly in human rights, unless [I’m] talking about suspected terrorists, in which case [I] go Jack Bauer in a hurry.

If you don’t think this is true, consider that if anyone—including pansy John who looks like he can’t —is ever faced with true menace (say a guy with a leveled pistol) against themselves and their family, channeling Jack Bauer would be the first thing on their mind. That is, if they haven’t completely stripped themselves of any sense of self-preservation.

People like John August don’t pick up weapons to defend themselves and their family, they just take it up the ass (no pun intended) and die, all the while thinking “where’s the police?” Or in this case, “where’s Jack Bauer?”

John is all about raising the standards of living worldwide. In fact, he’s even gone to Africa (gasp!!). Yes, like every true liberal, Africa beckons and he jumps. But, to quote Bravo TV’s Andy Cohen, “here’s what”: if it ever came down to a choice between raising living standards worldwide and continuing to live his cushy Hollywood life, guess which one old John has chosen? Here’s a hint: his zip code is still 90210.

He didn’t drop it all to live in Africa. No, no. He came back! That’s right, gotta keep that job! If he really were committed to raising living standards “worldwide,” brother man would send his paycheck whole hog back down there or he’d give it all up to work at at raising those standards.

Damned hypocrite.

“Not A Damn Thing”

This old story out of Texas . Seems a guy cruises through a stop sign, or whatever, and gets pulled over by a local policeman.  Guy hands the cop his driver's license, insurance, plus his concealed carry permit.

"Okay, Mr. Smith," the cop says, "I see your CCW permit.  Are you carrying today?"

"Yes, I am."

"Well then, better tell me what you got."

Smith says, "Well, I got a ..357 revolver in my inside coat pocket.  There's a 9mm semi-auto in the glove box.  And, I've got a .22 magnum derringer in my right boot."

"Okay," the cop says.  "Anything else?"

"Yeah, back in the trunk, there's an AR15 and a shotgun.  That's about it."

"Are you on your way to or from a gun range?"

"Nope."

"Well then, what are you afraid of?"

"Not a damn thing!”

The Second Amendment

Gun control. Yeah. Right.

The Guide To Guns

Quote of the Day

I heard a philosopher once say that one of the biggest existential tasks of life is giving up the fantasy of the ultimate rescuer.  Liberalism reinforced this fantasy for me, as it does for so many others.   Now I see the truth:  We come into this world alone, and we will leave it alone. When we live our lives in the back seat of the car expecting Daddy to drive us, we only have a child's view of the world.

—Robin, a psychotherapist marooned in Berkeley.

Held: DC et al. v. Heller

Held:
1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

Well, well, well … looks like some common sense finally prevails [PDF] at SCOTUS.

Misc

Books

Visiting D.C. afforded me the opportunity to visit local branches of the national bookstores and as usual, I found that they had a wider, more diverse collection. My local Barnes & Noble and Borders Bookstore here in Boise both lick sweaty bull balls.
Sorry to be so absurd but it ticks me right off that they stock the shelves of the stores in bigger cities with more and different books so that I either have to order it from Amazon or go hungry. I never order in store, the prices are atrocious--whoever heard of paying the suggested price for a book--and it requires yet another trip to the store, which sucks.
Anyway, in D.C., the Borders had a wonderful variety of books on dramatic writing and I bought Playwriting by Sam Smiley. It was a toss between that and Carpe Diem by Harry Mount. Alas, Mount's book had some grammatical errors (wow, I actually caught Latin grammatical mistakes! Very proud) so Playwriting it was.

The Audacity

Hussein Obama's picking up steam and looks to supplant the virago. In what I can only think of as an empty gesture more than a rational decision, Democrats--especially the white ones--are voting for him because they would love to feel in their hearts that they don't have a problem with blacks. Hey man, look, no racism! Sigh. Well, if that's what it takes to curdle your milk, foo'!
I've posted before about my distaste for this treachorous asshole, abandoning as he did, any mention of his mother because it would be politically inexpedient to have everyone suddenly realise she's white! Gasp, you mean I'm still voting for a half-honky? Goddamn!
Which brings up a point: exactly what fraction of a person's racial constitution must be black in order to be black? If one is 50% black ... well, I can see how the color may give it away. What about 25%? Still black? 10%? A touch of the tar brush, as the British Raj used to say?
I'm reminded of this because of Henry Louis Gates' documentary on PBS, African American Lives 2.
In the first installment, Gates learned much to his dismay that he was essentially half-white and in part 2, he learned further that majority of that whiteness is Irish. Of course like Obama, that part of his history is rejected forthwith and Africa is embraced like a child rushing for mama. Gates refers constantly to "my people" and "our people". Which ones do you mean, Gates, you pissant?
Most of the other people on the show were revealed to have varying percentages of white blood, all of which again were summarily dismissed. Granted, the usual way this admixture occured was by brutal sexual exploitation (read: rape), but live with it. As one of the four I found fascinating on the show, Maya Angelou said she was grateful for everything. She was "here," wasn't she? (Don Cheadle, Morgan Freeman, and Bliss Broyard were the other three.)
Cheadle is so well-spoken (and I mean that, not as the platitude we all know, but genuinely. The man's fucking intelligent, judging by his word choice, etc.) as is, of course Freeman. Broyard is the daughter of a man who decided he would no longer be black because he wanted to get ahead in life during the 40s. Her genetic makeup was found to be 88% white and when she was asked, she self-identified as white. Gates' hackles were raised, I could tell. So I guess to him, 12% black is black. Whatever.
From the same program, I found a bit of fun to hear that only 1 in 20 black Americans have native American Indian blood. For an insane reason, high cheek bones and long hair in black Americans were attributed to intermarriage with Indians. As it turns out, it's almost completely false and come to find out, runaway slaves were routinely returned to their masters by Indians. I wonder how that stands with the Indians of today? Heheh...
To finish up this section as I started, with Hussein. Carmen is reading his Audacity of Hope and, like the cliched liberal intellectual she is, fawns over him. Which got me to thinking how inane such a title is. What is audacious about hoping? You want audacity? Pick up an M16 rifle and go fight for your country, you piece of shit. That's audacity, not some feather-footed notion about some ephemeral human feeling.
This is how far we've come that it takes audacity to hope? What next? The Temerity of Breathing? The Balls to Walk? Fuck me! Mr. Platitude needs to pussyfoot his way back to Illinois, which must make Lincoln spin in his grave. Two presidential candidates from the same state (Carpetbagger Hilly is from Illinois) and not one of them with enough common sense to reject Marxism.

Guns

Yet again another fucker goes crazy in a university setting and murders people. I tell you, like dictators, the only real tragedy here is that someone did not execute this fucking asshole as he went on his rampage. Forsooth, if I were a student at Uni today, I'd carry a concealed weapon and give as good as I got when I see this kind of shit go down. Fuck running away like a rabbit or freeze there awaiting my impending slaughter.
You know what we should do? Make craziness illegal. No more crazy people, no more mass murder. Right? [\sarcasm]
Here's an idea. I heard the man "went off his medication" some time back and "started acting irrationally" before the shootings. There are several contraceptives on the market today that release medicine at a constant rate sometimes for years. Why doesn't someone invent something that will feed anti-crazy medication to these fuckers so they can't "go off" their medication? How about that? I wager whoever does that will be a rich person.
However, enough of this bullshit. Either completely outlaw gun ownership then go house-to-house and seize every single weapon ... oh, so sorry, that pesky Second Amendment thing. Well then, the only thing you can do is allow people to be able to defend themselves. No one is crazy enough not to know the basic, pragmatic facts of life. You notice Mr. Cuckoo wasn't crazy enough to do this inside his local PD.

Congress Flickr

Love it!

The Library of Congress has put up 3000 images up on Flickr with the promise of putting more from its collection of 13 million!

Here's a quick favorite:

Mrs. Topperwein is mentioned in some detail ( as part of "The Fabulous Topperweins" ) in the wikipedia entry on Exhibition Shooting: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhibition_shooting

Ignominy

It's been said the Second Amendment ensures the First. Mostly tongue-in-cheek, but I believe it. If men were angels, we wouldn't need laws. We certainly wouldn't need the Second Amendment, but men are not angels and unless we have safeguards like the First and Second Amendments, tyranny can and will ensue.

In 2000 and again in 2004, I voted (in Florida!) for George W. Bush believing that he would make a better President than either of his two opponents. I believe, and still do, that The Goracle would have turned this country into a septic tank of Socialism. “JFK-lite” John Kerry's unique brand of Massachusetts Marxism only leads to that selfsame bog.

So I voted for George Bush.

Eight years later and the question is begged: how do I feel about Bush's presidency now, and the answer—hard as it is for me to say—has got to be: FUCK!! Apparently someone forgot to tell the President he's supposed to be a conservative. After the fight of both voting years, years I spent in the metaphorical trenches fighting the Bosch (in Florida!), all I got for my troubles was a massive government, spending through the roof and now, the latest in a long line of insults, an Amicus Curiae brief filed by his Justice Department in the most important Second Amendment hearing before the Supreme Court to date.

In this pathetic whimper not worth the paper it's written on, Department lawyers argued that gun ownership is not a “fundamental” right but it is a right deserving only an “intermediate” level of protection, whatever that means.

Translating the lawyer-speak, Ken Blackwell thinks the Justice Department is saying that:

… this is a right that should be protected, but the level of protection should be low enough to allow government to broadly restrict or maybe even eliminate your ability to exercise that right. They try to split the baby of having a right but letting government do almost whatever it wants to that right.

The problem with splitting a baby in half is that the baby usually dies. If our rights can be regulated to the point that we can’t exercise them in our own homes, then they’ve been regulated out of existence.

Thank you, guys. Great job.

Blackwell continues:

So much for civil rights.

The Left refers to racial equality and voting as “civil rights.” But, civil rights are broader than that. Our civil rights are all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence tells us that government exists to protect our God-given rights, and the Constitution created our court system where those rights are vindicated.

There are three civil rights for which any attempted regulation should be looked at with great suspicion. They are religious liberty, political free speech, and the right to keep and bear arms.

Our country was founded by pilgrims seeking the religious freedom to worship according to the dictates of their own conscience, free from government dictates. The highest promise of free speech is that we may openly discuss the public issues of the day free of censorship or threat, so that we can hold our elected leaders accountable and replace those whom we learn have failed to keep our trust.

And the right to keep and bear arms was put there so that we could defend ourselves and our loved ones, provide for ourselves, and have a last resort to defend freedom.

Indeed. Read the rest of Blackwell's column.

There are scary times ahead and I don't mean that in the typically dismissed way leftists love to say amounts to right wing paranoia. I mean it in the way that if the Second Amendment is construed the way these unworthy “lawyers” at the Justice Department mean it to be, we are indeed doomed. We are doomed because without that Amendment, the government has nothing to keep honest. A toothless Second leads to a defanged First.

Think I overstate? I've lived through six coup d'etats in a country in which any old group of people with guns can—and did!—march up to the state house and demand the reigns of government at gun point.

The British are considering forcing its citizens to donate organs at the so-called point of death, really brain death which doesn't mean death in every case. But whatever. There's a choice to opt-out, but the principal governing idea with such a scheme is the fundamental assumption that your body doesn't belong to you. Government will always expand, if it can. It will, and only way to keep it in check is to ensure its citizens have a real ability to seek redress.

The Second Amendment guarantees that ability, impractical as it may be (I'm sure no one thinks, crazy gungho or not, that they can take on the might of a Marine Division, say). At least, it's there. Of course, the present threat is not from the government (at least for now) but from our fellow citizens, coddled murderers and other malcontents who take what they want by force.

The Second gives the 5'2" woman the capability to truly be the match of a 6'2" marauder. That's true equality, and removing the right to keep and bear arms destroys that idea.

This is why the DC gun ban is unconstitutional.

This is why the Court of Appeals overturned the ban.

And this is why the Justice Department should immediately rescind that brain-dead brief.

Omaha

Gabe Suarez weighs in:

OMAHA - WHAT WENT WRONG AND WHOSE FAULT IS IT?

Once Again, the Law failed and The First Responders Were Irrelevant. How many more times will things like this happen before we stop relying on feel-good measures to keep us safe?

Right now, the witches and warlocks of government are plotting how to use this. The Kerrys, Kennedys and Pelosis are stirring their cauldrons as the Boxers and Feinsteins of the nation toss in their “eye of newt” to turn this event into a political platform from which to push their agendas.

They will say the 19-year-old Hawkins was a troubled young man. They will want to institute mandatory testing for all kids to determine their "danger quotient" so they can be "diverted" at birth.

They will call for more laws against the civil rights of all Americans in spite of the fact that there were already laws that would have prevented young Hawkins from possessing a firearm had he obeyed them. Local records show Hawkins had a felony drug conviction on his record as well as several misdemeanor cases filed against him.

The focus of course will be the SKS semiautomatic Russian military rifle -- the same type used in the shooting. I would not be surprised if they painted the evil “assault rifle” as the main culprit with Hawkins as a poor impressionable American Boy trapped by the evil weapon's spell.

“But there were laws preventing this,” the pundits of the left wing media will say. “We need laws to get these guns off the street,” Sarah Brady will shriek from her broom on the way to work this morning. “We need more police in Omaha,” someone else will say. We have heard it all before at Virginia Tech, Tacoma, Salt Lake City, Seattle , and Columbine.

There are in fact laws and rules. But laws and rules are only for the good, as the bad never pay them any mind to begin with. There were laws keeping Hawkins from having a rifle, yet they failed. There were laws keeping Hawkins from killing so many people. But, as in Virginia, Tacoma, Salt Lake City, Seattle, and Columbine, the law failed, as it will always fail.

I am told by one who was there that Nebraska just passed their Concealed Carry Law, joining the rest of America in recognizing the God-given rights of its citizens enumerated in the Constitution. Yet there was one law that seemed to work. It was the one that said - “NO WEAPONS IN THE MALL .”

Indeed! I wonder how many will obey that stupid rule today? Not I!

We will hear abut the “evil” assault rifle as well. I suggest that all of you who do not have an AK, or an SKS , or even an AR, that you go into debt today and get one. Get one this week! If we get the wrong sort into office next year, and it is quite likely we will, you can bet your bayonet that they will seize on events like this to ban even the mere picture of an SKS .

And the first responders, ah yes, the ones that arrive to save the day. Here is what the media said, “By the time police arrived they weren't sure how many shooters they were dealing with. They surrounded the mall, and once they were set up, shoppers and employees had to come out with their hands raised in the air.”

Very nice. Very nice. Thank you Mr. First responders for saving the day once again. You push for laws to take the guns out of the hands of common people and then arrive late to every single event that may have required their use. Shame on you.

Who is to blame? Well the murderer Hawkins is top of the list of course. But then there are those in power who sought to stall the Concealed Carry Law. They are at fault as well. And then the managers of the mall with the sign, “NO WEAPONS IN THE MALL”. They are equally at fault. I would like to see the survivors sue the state of Nebraska for dragging its feet on CCW and the owners of the Mall for preventing the legal exercise of rights.

In the meantime, buy all the guns and high capacity magazines you can. I think we can expect hard times for the civil rights of all Americans in a short time.

Gabe Suarez is a former L.A. police officer and author of several of my favorite gun books.

John Lott's take:

The horrible tragedy at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Neb. received a lot of attention Wednesday and Thursday. It should have. Eight people were killed, and five were wounded.

A Google news search using the phrase "Omaha Mall Shooting" finds an incredible 2,794 news stories worldwide for the last day. From India and Taiwan to Britain and Austria, there are probably few people in the world who haven’t heard about this tragedy.

But despite the massive news coverage, none of the media coverage, at least by 10 a.m. Thursday, mentioned this central fact: Yet another attack occurred in a gun-free zone. [Emphasis mine.]

Surely, with all the reporters who appear at these crime scenes and seemingly interview virtually everyone there, why didn’t one simply mention the signs that ban guns from the premises?

Nebraska allows people to carry permitted concealed handguns, but it allows property owners, such as the Westroads Mall, to post signs banning permit holders from legally carrying guns on their property.

The same was true for the attack at the Trolley Square Mall in Utah in February (a copy of the sign at the mall can be seen here). But again the media coverage ignored this fact. Possibly the ban there was even more noteworthy because the off-duty police officer who stopped the attack fortunately violated the ban by taking his gun in with him when he went shopping.

Yet even then, the officer "was at the opposite end and on a different floor of the convoluted Trolley Square complex when the shooting began. By the time he became aware of the shooting and managed to track down and confront Talovic [the killer], three minutes had elapsed."

There are plenty of cases every year where permit holders stop what would have been multiple victim shootings every year, but they rarely receive any news coverage. Take a case this year in Memphis, where WBIR-TV reported a gunman started "firing a pistol beside a busy city street" and was stopped by two permit holders before anyone was harmed.

When will part of the media coverage on these multiple-victim public shootings be whether guns were banned where the attack occurred? While the media has begun to cover whether teachers can have guns at school or the almost 8,000 college students across the country who protested gun-free zones on their campuses, the media haven’t started checking what are the rules where these attacks occur.

Surely, the news stories carry detailed information on the weapon used (in this case, a rifle) and the number of ammunition clips (apparently, two). But if these aspects of the story are deemed important for understanding what happened, why isn’t it also important that the attack occurred where guns were banned? Isn’t it important to know why all the victims were disarmed?

Few know that Dylan Klebold, one of the two Columbine killers, closely was following Colorado legislation that would have allowed citizens to carry a concealed handgun. Klebold strongly opposed the legislation and openly talked about it.

No wonder, as the bill being debated would have allowed permitted guns to be carried on school property. It is quite a coincidence that he attacked the Columbine High School the very day the legislature was scheduled to vote on the bill.

Despite the lack of news coverage, people are beginning to notice what research has shown for years: Multiple-victim public shootings keep occurring in places where guns already are banned. Forty states have broad right-to-carry laws, but even within these states it is the "gun-free zones," not other public places, where the attacks happen.

People know the list: Virginia Tech saw 32 murdered earlier this year; the Columbine High School shooting left 13 murdered in 1999; Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, had 23 who were fatally shot by a deranged man in 1991; and a McDonald's in Southern California had 21 people shot dead by an unemployed security guard in 1984.

All these attacks — indeed, all attacks involving more than a small number of people being killed — happened in gun-free zones.

In recent years, similar attacks have occurred across the world, including in Australia, France, Germany and Britain. Do all these countries lack enough gun-control laws? Hardly. The reverse is more accurate.

The law-abiding, not criminals, are obeying the rules. Disarming the victims simply means that the killers have less to fear. As Wednesday's attack demonstrated yet again, police are important, but they almost always arrive at the crime scene after the crime has occurred.

The longer it takes for someone to arrive on the scene with a gun, the more people who will be harmed by such an attack.

Most people understand that guns deter criminals. If a killer were stalking your family, would you feel safer putting a sign out front announcing, "This Home Is a Gun-Free Zone"? But that is what the Westroads Mall did.

No more gun bans!