Precisely zero surprise

The ever-impressive John Lott tells us what the results have so far been of the end of the so-called "Assault Weapon Ban":

This wasn't supposed to happen. When the federal assault weapons ban ended on Sept. 13, 2004, gun crimes and police killings were predicted to surge. Instead, they have declined.

For a decade, the ban was a cornerstone of the gun control movement. Sarah Brady, one of the nation's leading gun control advocates, warned that "our streets are going to be filled with AK-47s and Uzis." Life without the ban would mean rampant murder and bloodshed.

Well, more than nine months have passed and the first crime numbers are in. Last week, the FBI announced that the number of murders nationwide fell by 3.6% last year, the first drop since 1999. The trend was consistent; murders kept on declining after the assault weapons ban ended.

Of course the ban was never about reducing crime. It was about continuing the steady encroachment on our Second Amendment rights until such time as the citizens of the US could be completely disarmed. As has been stated here and elsewhere, "gun control" is not about guns but about control.

Time to send this link to Kim du Toit and The GeekWithA.45....

The real connection

Jon Henke at QandO reacts to Republican Representative Robin Hayes' statement that, "Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11."

Of course, this flies in the face of the 9/11 Commission Report, which concluded that we've seen no "evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States", and President Bush, who said that we have "no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11 [attacks]."

For a follow-up, maybe the Congressman from North Carolina will give us a little insight into those WMD stockpiles in Iraq. [sigh]

More importantly, however, he provides the best definition of the war we are actually fighting and how Iraq and 9/11 both factor into it:

we are engaged in a war against a sociopolitical paradigm—the confluence of Fundamentalist Islamist Jihadism and the powerful tyrannies that amplify the danger they present—which obtains predominantly in the Middle East, and can only be minimized to a relatively safe level by altering the fundamental nature of the States in the Middle East in order to disable the incentives that make Islamist terrorism seem worthwhile.

That is, to "win" the so-called War on Terror, we have to change the political landscape in the Middle East and minimize the dangers presented by the nexus of terrorism and Rogue States.

We might disagree on the utility of attacking Iraq for that reason, but that is the connection between the Iraq war and 9/11. It's not particularly hard to understand. (Emphasis in original -RR)

I would say, however, that it's not exactly obvious, at least not unless it is explained to you. In my case, it wasn't until a read a series of essays by the incomparable Steven Den Beste that I understood just why we are fighting this war, who our enemy is, why they really hate us, and what we will need to do to win. (Note to Steven should he, by some incredible miracle, ever read this: I know I speak for many of my fellow bloggers when I say thank you for all you've done. Your voice is sorely missed.)

Flags and Freedom

As some of you may already know, the US House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Constitution of the United States that states, "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." In order to become part of the Constitution, the Senate must pass it with a two-thirds majority, and then the legislatures of at least 38 states must ratify it within seven years. I would like to go on record as opposing this amendment as I believe it would be an unacceptable restriction of free speech.

The amendments to the Constitution have each done one or more of the following:

• Enumerated or expanded a right or rights of the people.


• Placed additional limits on Congress.


• Clarified the structure of government, rules of succession, and/or methods of election of government officials.


• Provided additional powers to Congress.


• Prohibited an activity to the people.

The last one was performed by precisely one amendment, the Eighteenth Amendment which initiated Prohibition. It is also the only amendment which has since been repealed. If you look at all the amendments, you see that the Eighteenth is the only one that specifically reduced the freedom of the people, that actually told the people that they could not do something. All other prohibitions at the Federal level have been in the form of laws passed by Congress.

The proposed amendment addressing desecration of the flag ostensibly gives an additional power to Congress. As such it is not *quite* as bad as the Eighteenth. However, as a practical matter, it would effectively ban such activity as any Congress which passes this amendment would immediately act under the power it grants to criminalize that activity once the amendment is ratified by the states. It's possible that the structure of the Congress would change sufficiently in the time it takes the states to ratify the amendment but it is by no means guaranteed.

I really can't say whether or not I think this amendment would be ratified by the states. I don't think it has much of a chance of passing the Senate but stranger things have happened. If it does become part of the Constitution, then it will open a door that is best left closed. The GeekWithA.45 sums it up nicely:

The promotion of flag burning to a crime theoretically punishable by loss of life, property or liberty is to place a higher value on intangible symbols and cloth than the inalienable rights of free men.

While I disagree with the act of burning the flag, I believe that it is a valid exercize of free speech. I believe the proper way of addressing those who do so is to exercize my right of free speech to speak out against them, and to attack their beliefs and opinions with well-reasoned arguments. It's more difficult but, in the end, it will be more effective.

Florida Democrats owe taxes

Well, it appears that the Florida Democratic Party hasn't paid the payroll and Social Security taxes it was supposed to, at least in 2003. In addition, "the state party's budget and finance committee voted Tuesday to ask for a new audit to account for more than $900,000 it believes somehow disappeared from the books during 2003-2004."

You know, I could bask in the shadenfreude and ask, "But aren't Democrats the ones that believe that we should all 'pay our fair share?'" However, the question that I think is more important is whether or not the citizens of Florida want to elect people who not only don't pay their taxes on time, but have also misplaced $900,000 and don't know where it went. Governments generally aren't known for their fiscal responsibility. Put people who have so grossly mismanaged their finances in power and, well you get the idea.

That's interesting...

Most nights before I go to bed I check up on the collection of webcomics that I read regularly. Most of them update at midnight eastern time and, as I am out here in Washington State, that means that tomorrow's comics are usually available at around 9:00 pm.

One of the comics that I read is Day by Day, authored by Chris Muir. Today's comic (Wednesday, June 22; direct links don't appear to be working at this time) was slightly different when I read it last night than it is now. The text in the last panel was changed some time during the night. Currently, the last panel of the comic has the Iraqi gentleman asking the US soldiers, "Ah. They sacrifice their lives to pay for their cause." The one soldier replies, "No, they pretty much leave that to everyone else."

The original said something else. I'm pulling this from memory so it's probably not completely correct but, as I remember, the Iraqi said "Ah. So they have made the ultimate sacrifice." The soldier's reply was, "Nah, they're still hanging with Durbin."

I can only speculate on what led Mr. Muir to make this change but I'm guessing it's the fact that, last night, Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois went before the Senate and apologized for his words of several days back comparing the conditions and interrogation activities at Guantanamo Bay to the Nazi death camps, the Soviet gulags, and the Cambodian killing fields.

I'm of somewhat mixed feelings on this. It's Mr. Muir's comic and he has every right to alter his work as he sees fit. On the other hand, it happened apparently without any notification or comment on his part, at least that I can find on his site. I would have liked him to put a short note on his page saying what he did and why. Perhaps he will do so later; I'll keep my eyes open.

Saving me the effort

I was going to write something in response to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin's recent comments on the Senate floor about the treatment of terrorist prisoners at Guantanamo Bay but, thanks to Captain Ed, I don't have to.

Durbin, who should know better, has the nerve to compare American soldiers to Nazis and Gitmo to the extermination camps they ran. If Durbin can't recall that the Nazis exterminated millions of people, deliberately, in those camps, I'm certain that Holocaust survivors in Illinois and elsewhere can remind him of that fact. If the Senator doesn't know about the estimated 2 million people who died in the gulag system, a system that was used primarily on internal political dissidents to suppress opposition to Stalin, then he should read his Solzhenitsyn. If he thinks that American soldiers operate on the same basis as Cambodia and the killing fields, he's out of his mind.

Via the ever-irascible Kim du Toit.

The duty of citizens

Via Kim du Toit we have this speech by a fellow in New Zealand named Stephen Franks which he gave as he handed over a petition to Parliament regarding re-establishing New Zealand's citizens' right of self-defense. Mr. Franks is apparently working on ammendments to New Zealand law in this area and had drafted the petition at the request of an organization of fellow citizens. Of them, he said:

They simply could not believe that the New Zealanders could allow themselves to be governed by rulers who not only can’t defend innocent citizens, but instead criminalise those who try to defend themselves and their property. “Where has the instinctive sense of right and wrong gone” they asked. “How can this happen in a democracy”.

I tried to explain the cowardice of the ruling clique, how Labour and the other parties despise the common sense of ordinary people. I said this cowardice was quite recent, but it was strong. I’d had members telling me they supported my amendments but could not risk pushing something like that themselves.

Cowardice indeed. One reason the rulers work to disarm the populace is because the realize that an armed citizenry presents a real threat to their power should they become tyrannical, or are perceived to be. This is one of the real reasons for the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, to ensure that we can protect ourselves from our government, as well as others who seek to harm us.

Regarding taking the law into our own hands:

It has always been in those hands. There has never been a time when there could be enough police to protect every New Zealander in this stretched-out land. The mutual trust and security that was part of our heritage did not come from having police to watch every scumbag. It came from decent and self-reliant families who knew they shared responsibility for upholding behaviour standards and the law in their communities.

I know I keep beating on this, but it all comes down to responsibility. Those that would disarm us don't want us to be responsible for ourselves. For whatever reason, whether it's because they believe we're not smart enough, they want to increase their power over us, etc., they want us to be as dependent on government, for absolutely everything, as possible. Carrying a lethal weapon for self defense is the ultimate expression of personal responsibility and they just can't tolerate that.

Sir Robert Peel, who founded modern policing, was insistent that the police had no special privileges. They merely did full time what all citizens could and should do when necessary. Over the past two decades citizens’ arrest has been strongly discouraged. Our police have become instead a class privileged with special rights. Neither we nor they are better off for being expected to enforce the law alone.

Entirely correct. Police deserve our respect for doing a difficult job which can put them in harm's way, but it does not accord them any special privilege over and above the rest of the citizenry. While I agree that current and retired law-enforcement officers should be able to carry a concealed weapon in any state of the union, it should not be limited to them but should be a right enjoyed by every citizen in good standing (i.e. those that are not felons, mentally ill, etc.).

I shall have to do some research to see if I can find out more about Mr. Franks and the legislation he is working on. Would that we had more people like him in this country.

Update: Here's Mr. Franks' page at the website of ACT, which is the New Zealand political party that he is a member of. This page appears to detail the legislation mentioned in his speech.

Quotes of the day

From today's Federalist Patriot email brief.

"The Children's Defense Fund and civil rights organizations frequently whine about the number of black children living in poverty. In 1999, the Bureau of the Census reported that 33.1 percent of black children lived in poverty compared with 13.5 percent of white children. It turns out that race per se has little to do with the difference. Instead, it's welfare and single parenthood. When black children are compared to white children living in identical circumstances, mainly in a two-parent household, both children will have the same probability of being poor. How much does racial discrimination explain? So far as black poverty is concerned, I'd say little or nothing, which is not to say that every vestige of racial discrimination has been eliminated. ...[B]ecause the civil rights struggle is over and won is not the same as saying that there are not major problems for a large segment of the black community. What it does say is that they're not civil rights problems, and to act as if they are leads to a serious misallocation of resources. Rotten education is a severe handicap to upward mobility, but is it a civil rights problem?" --Walter Williams

"We now have an answer to the question of whether U.S. agents should knock down doors and bat the reefer from the fingers of cancer patients. Yes! By all means, yes. The Supremes have ruled that federal anti-weed laws must trump individual states' laws on medicinal marijuana. So much for the idea that the states are the laboratories of democracy. ... I am not a lawyer, which is why the idea of the interstate commerce clause having jurisdiction over intrastate non-commerce is amusing. Everything is a matter of interstate commerce, it would seem. Pity President Bush didn't claim the right to knock over Saddam Hussein based on the interstate commerce clause; every statist and big-government advocate would have gotten writer's cramp praising this novel approach. It's only a matter of time before fast food is regulated under the clause, since hungry truckers often take sacks of fries across state lines. It's the perfect law. We could use it to annex Mars." --James Lileks

"Rather than just another $400 million line item in the federal budget, funding for PBS should be a litmus test for conservatives. After all, if you can't eliminate federal funding for a media outlet that regularly attacks your party and movement, what programs CAN you muster the political will to cut? The situation is as if taxpayers were being forced to fund advertising campaigns for John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi and conservatives who control the presidency and both houses of Congress were unwilling or unable to stop it. The real problem for taxpayers is that PBS is just one of hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of federal programs that take a small slice out of the budget pie every year but add up to big money. If Republicans tinker around the edges by changing the ideological slant of PBS, it will be just another sign that too many Republicans are OK with big government as long as it is 'our' big government. To say the least, that is poor strategy." --Paul Gessing

"The frivolous demands made on our military -- that they protect museums while fighting for their lives, that they tiptoe around mosques from which people are shooting at them -- betray an irresponsibility made worse by ingratitude toward men who have put their lives on the line to protect us. It is impossible to fight a war without heroism. Yet can you name a single American military hero acclaimed by the media for an act of courage in combat? Such courage is systematically ignored by most of the media. If American troops kill a hundred terrorists in battle and lose ten of their own men doing it, the only headline will be: 'Ten More Americans Killed in Iraq Today.' Those in the media who have carped at the military for years, and have repeatedly opposed military spending, are now claiming to be 'honoring' our military by making a big production out of publishing the names of all those killed in Iraq. Will future generations see through this hypocrisy -- and wonder why we did not?" --Thomas Sowell

"As distrust of the press grows, news articles are relentlessly scrutinized for bias, but almost no one is focusing on stories that are simply ignored. For instance, a May 18 report in the Afghan newspaper Kabul Weekly said the riots that killed 17 people were not about disrespect for the Koran in American detainment camps -- they were a show of force by the Taliban and another fundamentalist group, Hezb-e Eslami. 'These demonstrations were organized by the Taliban and their supporters, and only some naive people joined the protesters,' the newspaper said. The BBC picked up the story on May 22, but so far as I can see, it was completely ignored in American news media. If you edited, let us say, a large newspaper in Washington or New York, or a prominent newsmagazine accused of causing these famous riots, wouldn't you want to check this one out?" --John Leo

Good advice

In an effort to lighten things up around here, allow me to pass along some words of down-home country wisdom that a good friend sent me via email:

• Country fences need to be horse high, pig tight, and bull strong.


• Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.


• Keep skunks and lawyers at a distance.


• Life is simpler when you plow around the stumps.


• A bumble bee is faster than a John Deere tractor.


• Trouble with a milk cow is she won't stay milked.


• Don't skinny dip with snapping turtles.


• Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled.


• Meanness don't happen overnight.


• To know how country folks are doing, look at their barns, not their houses.


• Never lay an angry hand on a kid or an animal, it just ain't helpful.


• Teachers, Moms, and hoot owls sleep with one eye open.


• Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.


• Don't sell your mule to buy a plow.


• Two can live as cheap as one, if one don't eat.


• Don't corner something meaner than you.


• You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, assuming you want to catch flies.


• Man is the only critter who feels the need to label things as flowers or weeds.


• It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.


• Don't go huntin' with a fellow named Chug-A-Lug.


• You can't unsay a cruel thing.


• Every path has some puddles.


• Don't wrestle with pigs: You'll get all muddy and the pigs will love it.


• The best sermons are lived, not preached.


• Most of the stuff people worry about never happens.

Quotes of the day

(Courtesy of the Federalist Patriot)

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." --Thomas Jefferson

"The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State." --Bertrand de Jouvenel

"When the federal assault-weapons ban expired last September, its fans claimed that gun crimes and police killings would surge. Sarah Brady, one of the nation's leading gun-control advocates, warned, 'Our streets are going to be filled with AK-47s and Uzis.' Well, over eight months have gone by, and the only casualty has been gun-controllers' credibility. Letting the law expire only showed its uselessness." --John Lott, Jr.

"By now it should be clear to anyone who has followed this nomination that the fight here isn't over [John] Bolton's record, his temperament or his reading of the intelligence. Rather, it is a policy dispute in which a majority of Democrats, as well as a few Republicans, have chosen to hijack the nomination process to score some points against President Bush's foreign policy. In the case of Syria, they owe both Mr. Bolton and Mr. Bush an apology. Americans need to understand the threat Syria poses to our troops in Iraq and to our allies in the region. That understanding isn't helped when Senators put their partisan animus ahead of the national interest." --The Wall Street Journal

"Headline in yesterday's New York Times: 'U.S. Challenged to Increase Aid to Africa' which topped a piece by reporter Celia Dugger. The article states that the European Union has 'agreed unanimously...to almost double assistance to poor countries over the next five years. Japan this week reaffirmed its pledge to double aid to Africa in just three years.' All this in the run-up to British Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to Washington this week at which he 'hopes to shake loose more American aid for Africa.' Way, way, WAY down in the ninth paragraph we read that the 'United States has tripled aid to Africa to $3.2 billion since Mr. Bush took office.' [Emphasis mine]." --Rich Galen

"Let's understand what mishandling means. Under the rules the Pentagon later instituted at Guantanamo, proper handling of the Koran means using two hands and wearing gloves when touching it. Which means that if any guard held the Koran with one hand or had neglected to put on gloves, this would be considered mishandling. On the scale of human crimes, where, say, 10 is the killing of 2,973 innocent people in one day and 0 is jaywalking, this ranks as perhaps a 0.01." --Charles Krauthammer

Hillary Dean

Hillary Clinton is running for President in 2008, or at least that's her current intention. I don't think anyone with a modicum of political sense believes otherwise. Of course, she still has to be re-elected to the Senate by the votors of New York and, in support of both elections, she has put on the appearance of moving toward the center on such issues as illegal immigration.

However, in a performance that you probably won't hear much about from the mainstream media, Ms. Clinton did a pretty good impersonation of the current head of the Democratic National Convention, former presidential candidate Howard Dean. In her speech at her first major pre-election fundraiser, she had this to say:

"There has never been an administration, I don't believe in our history, more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda," Mrs. Clinton told the audience at a "Women for Hillary" gathering in Midtown Manhattan this morning.

"I know it's frustrating for many of you; it's frustrating for me: Why can't the Democrats do more to stop them?" she continued to growing applause and cheers. "I can tell you this: It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It is very hard to tell people that they are making decisions that will undermine our checks and balances and constitutional system of government who don't care. It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth."

Neal Boortz comments:

Well ... you have the power thing there .. but let's not overlook that statement about honesty either.

Let's see now .. .Hillary says that Republicans are people who have never been acquainted with the truth. Now ... work with me here ... Didn't Bill Clinton admit to lying under oath? Didn't he admit that he intentionally said things to mislead investigators and prosecutors? Just wondering. Oh, and hey! Didn't he lose his law license over his dishonesty! By golly, I think he did! And what about the White House travel office staff! It didn't take the jury long to throw out those Clinton lies, did it? And then we have the FBI files scandal .. and who hired that Livingstone chap? Hillary just doesn't seem to remember. How honest of her! And who was it who told a congressional committee for two years that she didn't have certain subpoenaed documents ... and that she didn't know who had them or, in fact, if they existed at all: only to have those very documents show up in her private living quarters in the White House with her handwriting and her fingerprints all over them? Would that be Hillary! Why, yes! I do believe it was!

Remember ... it's the Republicans who have never been acquainted with the truth.

In addition to the above, Ms. Clinton had this to say:

"The press is missing in action, with all due respect," she said. "Where are the investigative reporters today? Why aren't they asking the hard questions? It's shocking when you see how easily they fold in the media today. They don't stand their ground. If they're criticized by the White House, they just fall apart.

"I mean, c'mon, toughen up, guys, it's only our Constitution and country at stake," she said. "Let's get some spine."

Well, I'd say that the investigative reporters are a bit gunshy after what happened to Dan Rather and Newsweek. Maybe they're rethinking the whole business of trying to trash the Republicans with unfounded stories and actually taking the time to verify the facts. Of course, to the Democrats this is interpreted as the media being "missing in action."

And as for the Constitution and the country being at stake, well she's right about that although for different reasons than she thinks. The Constitution I want to preserve (or restore, to be more accurate) is the one that means what it says in the plain text. The one where the powers of the federal government are specifically enumerated and limited. The one she wants to preserve is the one that can be interpreted to mean whatever the Democrats want it to mean on any given day. Her Constitution is like a culture of stem cells, which can become any kind of cell in the organism. Her Constitution will support any power the federal government wishes to have, allow any law it wishes to pass, and uphold the desires of the collective over the rights of the individual. For that reason, she must never be allowed to become president, at least not if the Democrats also control Congress.

Firearms ownership is not about death

Professer Mike Adams makes this point concisely in his response to a critic:

And, of course, there is no inconsistency between my opposition to abortion and my opposition to gun control. Put simply, I am committed to the protection of innocent life. I want the fetus to be protected from the abortionist who seeks to take an innocent life. I also want adults to be protected from the murderer who seeks to take an innocent life.

Professor Adams often writes about the trials and tribulations of being a conservative working at an institution populated almost entirely by liberals. To be honest, I'm surprised the administration at his college hasn't canned him yet, though it's possible that his voice is loud enough that they know they wouldn't be able to get away with it. As is often the case with his articles, the real focus is the students:

Of course, critics of my response to Rita will argue that a fetus is not a person in order to rebut my assertion that "the abortionist...seeks to take an innocent life." But the real issue, the one that my critics will not touch, regards the status of the college student.

Whenever neo-libs seek to distribute condoms on campus, to show porn movies, to encourage sodomy, or to encourage "reproductive choice," they assert that college students are adults. But when it comes to gun ownership, they portray college students as children. And these children must be kept away from firearms, just as they must be shielded from any speech that might make them feel uncomfortable or wound their inner child.

The neo-libs claim a right to abortion they cannot identify in the constitution. But NRA members claim a right to bear arms, which is spelled out clearly below the 1st Amendment. It is no accident that the neo-libs seek to suppress knowledge of one amendment through the destruction of another.

Regardless of your stance on abortion, the fact remains that the Constitution specifically enumerates the right to arms whereas the right to an abortion was inferred by the Supreme Court. The latter is arguable, the former is absolute.

Gregoire wins (for now, but probably for good)

Today Judge Bridges handed down his decision in the challenge to the 2004 Washington State gubernatorial election. As many had predicted, he decided in favor of letting the election stand.

I am not a legal expert so take the following with a grain of salt. Listening to a portion of the judge's statements on the way into work (the local talk station was broadcasting it live) and reading the notes linked above, my opinion at this time is that the Republicans limited themselves in their case, and that certain issues were not presented that would have provided a more compelling reason for Judge Bridges to rule in their favor. One in particular that appears not to have been considered is that the manual recount resulted in some counties counting additional ballots that were found during the recount and which had not been counted in the previous two machine counts. Other counties did not do this. The law specifically states that a recount should count only those votes that had already been counted in the previous count. What these counties did is a recanvassing, which is when they not only count those that were previously counted but also look for, and include in the count, any additional ballots that were not previously counted. Also, since some counties did this and some did not, there was a lack of uniform standards across the state which can be considered a violation of the equal protection clause of the US Constitution. This is what formed the basis of the US Supreme Court decision in Bush v Gore after the 2000 election and, should this case rise to that level, that case may very well be used as precedent.

The next step for the Republicans is to decide whether or not to appeal the decision to the Washington State Supreme Court. Judge Bridges, in his opening remarks prior to handing down his ruling, indicated that he considered it an inevitability.

Decision coming in Washington election trial

Today is the last day of the trial where the GOP is arguing that the Washington State gubernatorial election was irredeemably marred by errors and fraud and the Democrats are arguing the opposite so that Christine Gregoire can remain in office. Judge Bridges is scheduled to render his decision on Monday.

Regardless of the decision, I expect the case will ultimately be decided by the State Supreme Court.