Virginia Stands Up to Feds on NDAA

It is great to see that our compatriots in Virginia are about to sign into law a bill to prevent any Commonwealth official from enforcing certain provisions of the NDAA. I hope that Arizona soon joins Virginia.

The fact that Sen. McCain and several other Republicans were behind these clearly unconstitutional provisions suggests that we need to not merely wipe any remaining trace of the current Democrats from Congress, but to surgically remove a number of Republicans as well.  McCain should have been callenged and thrown out in the primaries leading up to his last run for re-election, for the McCain-Feingold debacle if for no other reason.

For other news on the NDAA, here is the the New American Anti NDAA Bills Worth-And Not Worth-Supporting.

BofA Drops McMillan Group for Political Reasons

I missed this the day it came out. Bob Owens had a piece on Pajamas Media reporting that Bank of America drops Gun Company for Political Reasons. If you have an account at BofA, and the other banks in your area haven't thoroughly disgusted you yet, you might think about moving your money elsewhere.  Be sure to tell them why you are changing banks. You do not expect to change the company's policies, but why should you help fund something you don't agree with?

We are now seeing the real danger of the TARP bailouts, and indeed, of bailouts in general.  When the government pays the bill, the government gets to tell you what to do.  Given the rabidly anti-gun nature of this administration, it makes sense that they would try to cut off as much funding to gun manufacturers as the could.  While I am sure McMillan Group will survive, they way that these TARP bailouts were handled such that the government muscled there way into otherwise profitable banks has always struck me as being not much different from a mafia protection racket.

Juvenile Attempt at Blood Dancing

Kevin Jersey, a staff writer for the Valley Star writes a fairly typical anti-gun screed lacking any originality, or even, it seems, fact checking. The article, entitled Continued Lack of Gun Control means No End to Tragic Campus Shootings. I would assume that Mr. Jersey is a journalism school student, destined to become a future "Authorized Journalist," a term coined by David Codrea at the War on Guns blog. Let's see, where to start deconstructing this abomination...

The Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms, and Americans have taken full advantage of this right. There are currently around 270 million guns in America, nearly one for every person in this country. That is despite the fact that guns are created for only one purpose: to kill.

Guns are, in fact, designed for a variety of purposes. Yes, they all can kill, even a highly modified target pistol shooting .22 Shorts. But I would be surprised to learn that any have. Certain rifles and shotguns are designed for shooting game. But I don't think that is what he is after either. No, the rage of Mr. Jersey's outburst appears to be targeted at your typical handgun. Perhaps Mr. Jersey doesn't know, for instance, that there are actually 2 million defensive gun usages every year, most of those do not involve having a shot fired. The purpose of defensive handguns is not to kill, but to save life.

Guns have killed an average of more than 32,000 people per year over the past three decades, according to a report from the Firearm & Injury Center at the University of Pennsylvania. That’s almost a million lives that could have been saved if guns weren’t so easily available.

When we eliminate suicide as a cause of death, the number of people, of all ages, killed by firearms is 12,632 for 2007 according to the CDC. Suicide, we know from the Japanese experience, will happen whether or not guns are available. There are just too many ways to commit suicide. For that matter, there is no evidence whatsoever that the overall murder rate would be any lower if guns were banned. There are too many things that can be used as weapons. For example, machetes, hammers and screw drivers, knives, nail guns...well, you get the idea. Human ingenuity is such that anything can be turned into a weapon in a pinch.

Rather than just keep correcting the factual information that is there, let us look at what isn't there. The whole paper seems to be based on a collectivist conception of the State, rather than and individualist one. He has no problem taking recommending the taking away of the rights of 300 million Americans because he himself doesn't want to be prepared to defend himself. Now, he is free to do whatever with his own life, but what gives him the right to make those determinations for others?

Then there's the idea that it is actually possible to round up, and eliminate 270 million guns. Look, the press has been telling us that the government can't find 12 million illegal aliens. Guns are easier to hide than people are. But let's assume it can be done, how would he do that do you think? What about the fact that some of these guns are worth enough to be tempting targets for corrupt police. Perhaps some of the owners themselves might be willing to pay a corrupt police officer to let them keep their guns. It doesn't take very many getting through the confiscation to satisfy the needs of criminals for years to come. And has he ever thought about how easy it would be for someone with a small machine shop and some knowledge to make any number of guns for sale on the black market? And then there are those who simply will not give them up. How many will he have to kill in order to "save some lives?" I would like to see the cost/benefit analysis on that one.

This is a violent country, but it doesn’t have to be. Fewer people should have guns, and there should be fewer guns available. Laws making it easier for people to obtain guns are the cause and not the solution to the problem of gun violence. And until people realize this, no one will be truly safe.

Even here, he seems to have his facts wrong. In Study the United States came in 9th. Other studies I quickly found indicated 13th for one, and the US not even registering on the other. But one thing that the study also finds is that there is no correlation between the availability of guns and homicide. Thus the entire thesis of the paper is ultimately proved false.

A Gun is Lighter than a Chip on the Shoulder

Ann Coulter has an interesting piece entitled Negroes with Guns. In the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, she asks the obvious question:

I don't know the facts yet, but let's assume the conclusion MSNBC is leaping to is accurate: George Zimmerman stalked a small black child and murdered him in cold blood, just because he was black. If that were true, every black person in America should get a gun and join the National Rifle Association, America's oldest and most august civil rights organization.

Apparently this has occurred to no one because our excellent public education system ensures that no American under the age of 60 has the slightest notion of this country's history.

Coulter then talks about how the KKK was the militant arm of the Democrat party in the South, allowing the political wing to appear to have "clean hands." But the two wings of the Party worked together to discriminate against blacks. Let's be honest here, "may issue" laws were originally designed to keep certain people, whether those people were the blacks in the South, or the Italians in New York, from getting guns. In preventing people from defending themselves effectively, the people who put in place these laws, and the people who maintain them today, have the blood of every victim of gun violence on their hands.

No less a body than the Supreme Court has ruled that an individual has no right to police protection. For instance, in the 2005 case of Castle Rock vs Gonzalez, the Court found that Ms. Gonzalez had no right to police protection even with a restraining order. The Free Republic also discusses this case, but the useful thing here is the foot notes. I would point you to Warren vs District of Columbia. It is a very sad case.

There are now 38 States with "shall issue" concealed carry laws on the books, and all but the State of Illinois has some sort of carry provisions making it either easier or harder to get a permit. So, why don't the race hustlers and race baiters suggest that citizens get a gun, get trained, and carry wherever it is legal to do so? More on that in a minute.

Ms. Coulter goes on to cite a book by civil rights organizer Robert F. Williams, in which Williams cites a little self help in the war raging with the KKK at the time:

The NRA opposed these discretionary gun permit laws and proceeded to grant NRA charters to blacks who sought to defend themselves from Klan violence -- including the great civil rights hero Robert F. Williams.

A World War II Marine veteran, Williams returned home to Monroe, N.C., to find the Klan riding high -- beating, lynching and murdering blacks at will. No one would join the NAACP for fear of Klan reprisals. Williams became president of the local chapter and increased membership from six to more than 200.

But it was not until he got a charter from the NRA in 1957 and founded the Black Armed Guard that the Klan got their comeuppance in Monroe.

Williams' repeated thwarting of violent Klan attacks is described in his stirring book, "Negroes With Guns." In one crucial battle, the Klan sieged the home of a black physician and his wife, but Williams and his Black Armed Guard stood sentry and repelled the larger, cowardly force. And that was the end of it.

I have not read the book yet, but I will be getting a copy soon. It sounds like a good read. Incidentally, this story perfectly illustrates the proper use of a militia. No one will want to call it a militia, but that is exactly what it was.

So, why don't the race hustlers advocate for lawful concealed carry in defense of themselves and their families? I suspect that it is all about power. If the average person discovers that he can do for himself, he won't need them. He can start carrying a gun, and stop carrying a chip around on his shoulder. A gun is certainly lighter.

Quote of the Day

Can be found Gun Rights 4 Us:

Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Liberty Slowly Creeps Northward

Alan Gura and the Second Amendment Foundation have struck again, this time in Maryland. Fox News has the story. From Fox News:

U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg wrote that states are allowed some leeway in deciding the way residents exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms, but Maryland's objective was to limit the number of firearms that individuals could carry, effectively creating a rationing system that rewarded those who provided the right answer for wanting to own a gun.

"A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and substantial reason' why he should be permitted to exercise his rights," Legg wrote. "The right's existence is all the reason he needs."

Marylanders have been fighting this for a long time. It seems that at every level of State government, the attitude has been to fight tooth and nail to maintain its supposed monopoly on the use of force, but refuse to provide security for citizens who may be danger. The hypocrisy of the State's position has been breathtaking in its chutzpah.  While the Governor of Maryland goes about with armed body guards like an emperor, and State and local police are armed to the teeth, the average citizen can not usually get a permit,even if a woman has had documented death threats against her.  A "good and substantial" reason typically has not been good and substantial enough.

Typical of Marylanders' frustration with the law in Maryland pertaining to carry permits are the commenters to Red Maryland. I especially liked this comment from warpmine:

The CCW permit for criminals is one that is a Don't ask don't tell honorary law of the jungle. Criminals generally use their weapons for aggression rather than self protection and when they hunt, it's usually human beings that are the bounty.

Maryland liberal logic mandates that only criminals should have the opportunity to carry a fire arm forcing the law abiding citizens to fear for their lives.

Having lost, the State Attorney General plans to appeal.  I don't have any insight into what the AG's strategy or thinking may be, but I suspect it is a delaying tactic.  But remember that a right delayed is a right denied.  How many more victims will the State have on its conscience as it tries to maintain the fiction that they, and they alone, have a monopoly on force in the State.

Update:  Dave Kopel has more analysis over at the Volokh Conspiracy.

The Slippery Slope was Real After All

Fay Voshell has an article up at American Thinker on March 1, 2012 entitled Infanticide on Demand that expresses the many fears pro-life people have had about the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Click to read more at Free Liberty Writers.

Recently, advocates for the parental right to kill unwanted newborns have appeared in the forms of Drs. Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, whose paper for the Australian Journal of Medical Ethics advocates "after birth abortion."

This of course, is laying the foundation for the re-emergence of Eugenics, a so-called science that takes the prejudices and fears of the Left, and gives them quasi scientific sanction to kill anyone who is "undesirable" for whatever reason.  But, of course, who decides who is undesirable? Who decides that someone's life is not worth living? Who has the effrontery to claim to play God?  If you are living in a Fascist State, the State does. 

An enthusiastic proponent of the "science" of Eugenics, Margaret Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood and a godmother to the modern feminist movement that sees abortion as a sacred rite. Some biographical details of Sanger's life can be found at Creation Ministries. A few quotes may get your blood boiling:

Sanger believed she was ‘working in accord with the universal law of evolution’. She maintained that the brains of Australian Aborigines were only one step more evolved than chimpanzees and just under blacks, Jews and Italians. When arguing for eugenics, Sanger quoted Darwin as an authority when discussing ‘natural checks’ of the population, such as war, which helped to reduce the population. Her magazine even argued for ‘state-sponsored sterilization programs’, forcibly sterilizing the ‘less capable’. She won many academics and scientists to her cause, including Harvard University sociologists E. M. East, University of Michigan President Clarence C. Little and Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Alfred Meyer.

Sanger also made her eugenic views clear in her many publications, such as The Pivot of Civilization and Woman Rebel, stressing that birth control was not only ‘important with respect to controlling the numbers of unfit in the population’, but was the ‘only viable means to improve the human race’. For example, she wrote: ‘Birth control itself … is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives.’ She boldly proclaimed that birth control was the only viable way to improve the human race. And while in her later years Sanger redefined what she meant by the unfit, ‘she increasingly saw feeblemindedness, the bogey of all hereditarians, as antecedent to poverty and social organization in the genesis of social problems.’

Sanger believed the ‘Negro district’ was the ‘headquarters for the criminal element’ and concluded that, as the title of a book by a member of her board proclaimed, The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy, was a rise that had to be stemmed. To deal with the problem of resistance among the black population, Sanger recruited black doctors, nurses, ministers and social workers ‘in order to gain black patients’ trust’ in order ‘to limit or even erase the black presence in America’.

Sanger was perhaps too successful, as she exported her ideas to a number of European States including Nazi Germany. But the horrors of the Nazi eugenics program were so repugnant to the average person, that eugenics went underground. But it didn't disappear. I remember a self proclaimed atheist saying once of someone that "He is too stupid to live." But this person had lot of people who, for one reason or another, didn't deserve to live.

Ms. Voshell goes on:

Both doctors go on to write that the newborn and the fetus are morally equivalent. Both are human beings and "potential persons," but since neither is in the position of attributing any value to his or her existence or able to articulate any aims in life, neither is a person. It follows that "[m]erely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life."

Huh? This is playing semantic games. The dictionary defines a "person" as a "human being." To be a human being is to be a person. All the mumbo jumbo about having aims and appreciating life is little more than window dressing. This is not a serious paper on ethics, though I take it very seriously, but is laying the ground work for infanticide, euthanasia, and eventually, a resurgence of eugenics.

Larry Grathwhol, an FBI informant in the Weather Underground recounting a meeting of the upper eschelons of the organization says they would have to kill 25 million people after their revolution. Of course, they already had a solid blue print to go by. The Communist regimes killed an estimated 120 million of their own people during the 20th century. Before that, there was the Reign of Terror of the French revolution. The Left hates everyone, and everything. They hate creation. They are the ultimate death cult. They do not see people as individuals, pursuing their own hopes and aspirations, but as cogs in a machine, doing their bidding.  And if you don't want to?  Well, there are the "re-education camps."

From the moment that a fetus begins growing in the mother's womb, it will, if unimpeded, become a person.  It is already a human being; it can be nothing else. Although it can not at this point articulate the an aim in life or an appreciation of life, it none the less has a right to life by virtue of the fact that it will eventually become a person, and by virtue of the fact that it is a human being.  The person who chooses to stop that process, by aborting the fetus, or by killing the born child, commits homicide. There may be extenuating circumstances that might justify the decision, but those circumstances should be explained, preferrably in a court of law.