The resistance is growing

Earlier I mentioned legislation that has been proposed in Wyoming that would nullify any ban on any semi-automatic firearm or any magazine regardless of how many rounds it can hold. Anyone trying to enforce such a ban, including any Federal agent or officer, would face arrest.

Unsurprisingly, similar legislation has been proposed in Texas.

And in related news, Sheriff Denny Peyman of Jackson County, Kentucky, and Sheriff Tim Mueller of Linn County, Oregon, have stated that they will not enforce, nor allow to be enforced in their counties, any legislation or executive order that violates the Constitution and requires confiscation of weapons.

The latter is interesting because Oregon, as a whole, isn't a terribly conservative state. However, as with its neighbor to the north, I expect that different regions have different political compositions. In any case, hats off to both of these fine gentlemen and patriots. May more and more sheriffs and other law enforcement officials across the nation follow their lead.

The road to servitude

Runs through New York.

So the New York State Legislature, in its far less than infinite wisdom, has passed a gun control bill that is far more restrictive than the original Federal Assault Weapons Ban that was passed in 1994 and allowed to expire ten years later because it did jack all to reduce crime. The New York law includes the following list of items; it's not exhaustive but it covers the most important ones.

• Flat out prohibits any magazine capable of holding more than ten rounds. The Federal AWB allowed such standard capacity magazines provided they had been manufactured prior to it going into effect. The New York law requires that any such magazines be sold to someone outside the state or otherwise disposed of within a year. After a year, possession of any such magazine is prohibited.
• Sets the limit on new magazines at seven rounds. As I understand it, no new magazines may be purchased that can hold more than seven rounds. Magazines holding more than seven rounds but no more than ten are grandfathered in but they can only be loaded with up to seven rounds.
• Broadens the current state ban on "assault weapons" to those with only one of the features on a list of those "commonly associated with military weapons," instead of those with at least two. It also adds to that list of features.
• Requires that any "assault weapon" with two of the features that was grandfathered in under the existing "two feature" ban, and any with one of the features that will be grandfathered in under the expanded "one feature" ban be registered. Note that in the summary of the law it says, "All registered owners will be subject to a review of disqualifiers by the State Police."
• Prohibits the sale of any "assault weapon" to anyone else in the state unless it's a licensed firearm dealer. In other words, it stays in the state only as long as you own it.
• Requires a background check for all gun sales, except to immediate family. Previously background checks were required for purchases from dealers and at gun shows.
• Additional requirements regarding safe storage of firearms and new measures to keep guns away from mentally disturbed people.

 From the article at Fox News:

"It is well-balanced, it protects the Second Amendment," said Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos of Long Island. "And there is no confiscation of weapons, which was at one time being considered.

This, coming from a so-called Republican. There will be no confiscation now. But unless this law is struck down or repealed, you can bet the topic of confiscation will come up again, probably the next time someone uses such a gun in any way unlawfully anywhere in the country. Maybe even sooner. Registration historically has tended, very strongly, to lead to confiscation. Don't think it won't happen in the United States, and especially in New York.

There is one upside, however. the law does prohibit making public the names of registered gun owners as was done by the Journal News recently. I'm not sure how that one slipped in there. Maybe someone realized that a list of gun owners is, by logical extension, a list of people who don't own guns.

Taken as a whole, this law is a naked attempt at rendering the Second Amendment meaningless. I expect considerable lack of compliance. Ultimately, there will be people arrested, tried, and sentenced under this law. I hope when that happens there will be enough support to appeal it as high as possible, all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. Of course, by then, Obama may have managed to appoint one or more justices so the point may become moot.

Will you stand?

A brave man, a soldier, writes words that may prove to be very dangerous in the not-too-distant future.

I am a soldier.  I know what war looks like, what it sounds like, smells like, what it feels like in my soul.

I stand today in the twilight of my nation’s grace, looking into the darkness of impending war.

My sleep is troubled, knowing what awaits, yet the ignorant and the ‘true believers’ sleep easily in their delusions, and I am saddened by it.

 The future he sees is possible. I pray it does not come to pass, but I fear that it will. In that event, if it comes to the gravest extreme, I only hope that many others in our military and in law enforcement will realize what their oath to support and defend the Constitution, from all enemies, both foreign and domestic, really means.

Without going into detail I will say that, even though I do not claim to have served my country in the military, I did at one time take that oath. I consider myself still bound by it. I have not seen war in person, nor do I ever wish to. But if it comes to me, in whatever form it may take, I hope that I will comport myself accordingly.

One possible way to resist

From a report at the Huffington Post, just so nobody can accuse me of using only sources that agree with me:

State Rep. Kendell Kroeker (R-Evansville) has put forward a bill making it a felony to enforce in Wyoming any federal ban on assault weapons or high-capacity gun magazines, two proposals that Biden's gun control task force is likely to present to President Barack Obama on Tuesday.

 As noted, this approach is controversial. Nevertheless, I hope it passes. It will be an interesting test if an arrest is ever made under that law. There's no way in hell such a law would ever be considered in my home state so I have to live vicariously through others.

Required reading

Although by no means an exhaustive list, the following two essays are among the most powerful and eloquent regarding the right to keep and bear arms. I can't recommend either of them enough. Read them and pass the links around to your friends, especially those who wonder just why the Second Amendment exists.

First up is the seminal piece by Jeffrey R. Snyder, A Nation of Cowards. An excerpt:

One who values his life and takes seriously his responsibilities to his family and community will possess and cultivate the means of fighting back, and will retaliate when threatened with death or grievous injury to himself or a loved one. He will never be content to rely solely on others for his safety, or to think he has done all that is possible by being aware of his surroundings and taking measures of avoidance. Let's not mince words: He will be armed, will be trained in the use of his weapon, and will defend himself when faced with lethal violence.

Fortunately, there is a weapon for preserving life and liberty that can be wielded effectively by almost anyone -- the handgun. Small and light enough to be carried habitually, lethal, but unlike the knife or sword, not demanding great skill or strength, it truly is the "great equalizer." Requiring only hand-eye coordination and a modicum of ability to remain cool under pressure, it can be used effectively by the old and the weak against the young and the strong, by the one against the many.

The handgun is the only weapon that would give a lone female jogger a chance of prevailing against a gang of thugs intent on rape, a teacher a chance of protecting children at recess from a madman intent on massacring them, a family of tourists waiting at a mid-town subway station the means to protect themselves from a gang of teens armed with razors and knives.

But since we live in a society that by and large outlaws the carrying of arms, we are brought into the fray of the Great American Gun War. Gun control is one of the most prominent battlegrounds in our current culture wars. Yet it is unique in the half-heartedness with which our conservative leaders and pundits -- our "conservative elite" -- do battle, and have conceded the moral high ground to liberal gun control proponents. It is not a topic often written about, or written about with any great fervor, by William F. Buckley or Patrick Buchanan. As drug czar, William Bennett advised President Bush to ban "assault weapons." George Will is on record as recommending the repeal of the Second Amendment, and Jack Kemp is on record as favoring a ban on the possession of semiautomatic "assault weapons." The battle for gun rights is one fought predominantly by the common man. The beliefs of both our liberal and conservative elites are in fact abetting the criminal rampage through our society.

And second is an essay by Eric S. Raymond, one of the most influential people in the Open Source Software community, titled Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun: What Bearing Weapons Teaches About the Good Life. An excerpt:

The Founding Fathers of the United States believed, and wrote, that the bearing of arms was essential to the character and dignity of a free people. For this reason, they wrote a Second Amendment in the Bill Of Rights which reads the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with it, the Second Amendment is usually interpreted in these latter days as an axiom of and about political character — an expression of republican political thought, a prescription for a equilibrium of power in which the armed people are at least equal in might to the organized forces of government.

It is all these things. But it is something more, because the Founders regarded political character and individual ethical character as inseparable. They had a clear notion of the individual virtues necessary collectively to a free people. They did not merely regard the habit of bearing arms as a political virtue, but as a direct promoter of personal virtue.

So here we are again.

With all that has been happening, namely the "re-election" of Barack Obama to the Presidency, the so called "fiscal cliff" deal that raised nearly everyone's taxes, and the renewed calls for disarming law-abiding citizens, it's probably time to dust off this blog. Not that I think it will make much difference but at least it will provide an outlet for what I believe needs to be said.

For some time I've had an online presence on a certain major social media system under my real name, as required by the Terms of Use for that service. It's true that a lot of people using that service do so under pseudonyms but I've been using it to correspond with friends so having it under my real name was beneficial. In recent years I've allowed myself to post more often about political matters in attempts to support my friends who I agree with, and try to convince those with which I don't that they may be in error.

Given what is currently going in, however, I think it's time for me to tone that back. Although I hope I'm wrong, I foresee the official climate becoming increasingly hostile toward me and those who think as I do about politics, and especially about the right enshrined in the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Thus I return here. Though I have no illusions that a concerted effort, especially on the part of law enforcement or other government agency, would not be able to ferret out my identity, at least it will be a bit more difficult and hopefully they won't wast their time on someone with what I'm sure will be a relative insignificance.

I hope this move will prove to be unnecessary, but I believe that I must act as if it is. The ballot box has failed. That leaves us with the soap box and, in the gravest extreme, the cartridge box. Some include the jury box but I don't think it applies because it's not something the average person has access to at will.

So to anyone who happens to stumble across this little corner of the resistance, for that it surely is, welcome. May fortune favor us and may our resolve never falter.

On what the Sendai earthquake means for US energy policy

The earthquake and tsunami last Friday which devastated the northeastern coast of Japan is a terrible natural disaster and my thoughts go out to the people of that great nation.  It's not the most devastating natural disaster by far, due in no small part to Japan being a more technologically advanced society with better building codes, but it will still have far-reaching consequences for Japan and the rest of the world.

One of those consequences will result from the ongoing crisis at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plants.  At the Fukushima-daiichi plant, two reactor buildings have already exploded due to the build-up of hydrogen which resulted from attempts to cool the reactors with seawater.  As far as we currently know, the reactor containment vessels are still intact, though at least one of the reactors has undergone partial melting of the nuclear fuel.  The reactors were shutdown ("scrammed") when the earthquake hit but the fuel will continue to emit residual heat for several days.  Cooling systems were damaged or rendered inoperable so the reactors are still very hot.  They should cool in time but for now the goal is to prevent total meltdown.

Nuclear power is currently the most "green" energy source we have that is economically and technologically feasible.  Other "green" sources are still being researched and none of them currently are capable of being implemented in a way that will provide a reasonable supply of electricity, let alone be cost-effective.  Until something better comes along (such as the development of nuclear fusion as an energy source instead of a weapon), nuclear fission is the only significant energy source that does not involve burning something or, as in the case of hydro-electric dams, other large environmental impacts.

In the United States, no new nuclear power plants have been constructed since the Three Mile Island incident over 30 years ago.  That incident was worse than the current situation in Japan and there was little to no effect on public health.  Recently there have been a few additional licenses granted for new reactors in a limited effort to expand the use of nuclear power in the United States.  The Obama Administration has publicly voiced support for nuclear power in the past, and continues to do so even with the situation as it is in Japan.

However, I'm not sure I buy it.  My prediction is that the future of nuclear fission as an energy source in this country is effectively dead.  Environmentalists will make every effort to prevent any new plants and reactors from being built, and to shut down any existing reactors.  It's already happening as a quick search on your favorite search engine will tell you.  I predict that the administration will ultimately and "regretfully" decide that we really can't afford the risk and will cancel all of the new licenses that have been issued, will advocate shutting down any existing reactors if possible, and will refocus its efforts on promoting other, less feasible technologies like wind and solar.  I personally don't think Obama supports nuclear power at all but is only putting on the show of doing so to appease its supporters.  I think this crisis will be yet another that they won't let "go to waste" in order to further their agenda.

I hope I'm wrong, I really do.  We'll just have to wait and see whether or not I am.

A deplorable act

I agree with everything in the following press release from the Citizens' Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms:

CCRKBA DEPLORES AZ SHOOTING,
SUBSEQUENT EXPLOITATION

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is condemning Saturday’s attempted assassination of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the murders of six people including a federal judge and a 9-year-old child, for which a 22-year-old Tucson man is now facing charges.

“Our sincere sympathy and sorrow goes to the victims of this heinous crime, and their families, who are in our thoughts and prayers,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan M. Gottlieb. “This was a despicable act of cowardice, and we believe the full force of law should be used against the individual responsible.

“And speaking of despicable,” he continued, “we find it unconscionable that the gun prohibition lobby wasted no time at all in its attempt to exploit this hideous attack in an effort to further its political agenda. When will these people stop dancing in the blood of crime victims in an attempt to resuscitate their relevance?”

Gottlieb was especially critical of attempts by at least two different organizations to link an out-of-context remark made in 2009 by the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre to this crime. He called it a “shameless demonstration of the depths to which the anti-gun-rights lobby will stoop in an attempt to discredit gun rights organizations.

“We notice,” he said, “that little has been said about the courageous armed citizen, Joe Zamudio, who helped physically subdue the gunman. Despite Mr. Zamudio’s disclosure during interviews with CNN and Fox News that he was armed, the press appears to be largely ignoring this detail.

“The gun apparently used by the suspect, Jared Loughner, was quickly traced to a legal sale at a Tucson-area sporting goods store in November,” he added. “The speed by which that firearm was traced belies claims that police agencies are hindered by current statute that prohibits political exploitation of firearm trace data.

“A horrible crime has been committed, and our nation is stunned,” Gottlieb concluded. “But until this investigation is completed, it is disgusting that gun prohibitionists would rush to the nearest microphone, demanding that we need more laws, while trying to link firearms rights advocates to this tragedy.”

There is hope

In Egypt, something wonderful happened:

Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.

From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.

“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea.

Among those shields were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole.

“This is not about us and them,” said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly. “We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together.”

Got it in one

The quote of the day, from this article by John Hayward:

The assertion that some citizens have an unbreakable, arbitrary responsibility to provide sustenance for others is inherently hostile to the concept of liberty.  You are not “free” when the collective demands of favored citizens can place unlimited demands on the fruit of your labor.  A nation is not “free” when any class of its citizens faces such demands, no matter how badly outnumbered or politically unpopular they might be.

Go read it all.

Justice Breyer thinks banning guns is allowed under the Second Amendment

He's really stretching for this one:

If you look at the values and the historical record, you will see that the Founding Fathers never intended guns to go unregulated, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer contended Sunday.

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Breyer said history stands with the dissenters in the court's decision to overturn a Washington, D.C., handgun ban in the 2008 case "D.C. v. Heller." 

Breyer wrote the dissent and was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He said historians would side with him in the case because they have concluded that Founding Father James Madison was more worried that the Constitution may not be ratified than he was about granting individuals the right to bear arms.

To Justice Breyer I would say two things:  First, regardless of what Madison actually thought, he was not the only founder and his is not the only opinion to value.   Second, even if you're right, you cannot reasonably extrapolate that Madison, let alone all of the Founders, would support an outright ban on personal firearms as effectively existed in Washington DC prior to the Heller ruling.

He goes on:

"If you're interested in history, and in this one history was important, then I think you do have to pay attention to the story," Breyer said. "If that was his motive historically, the dissenters were right. And I think more of the historians were with us."

That being the case, and particularly since the Founding Fathers did not foresee how modern day would change individual behavior, government bodies can impose regulations on guns, Breyer concluded.

Do you also agree, then, that "since the Founding Fathers did not forsee how modern day would change individual behavior" that government bodies can impose regulations on speech?  Of course not.  Some would say that this analogy is not valid, but throughout history governments have decreed that certain speech is just as dangerous as a gun.  Of course, first they took away the guns, then they took away the right to speech.  There's a lesson there, methinks.

Quote of the day

Via the Patriot Post.

"More troubling than WikiLeaks' latest revelation of US secrets ... is the Obama administration's weak, wrong-headed and erratic response. Unfortunately, the administration has acted consistently with its demonstrated unwillingness to assert and defend US interests across a wide range of threats, such as Iran and North Korea, which, ironically, the leaked cables amply document. ... His secretary of state does not comprehend that America is the subject of the attack, his department of defense is not interested in defending us, and the president himself seems utterly indifferent to the whole affair. All of this underscores the real problem. It is not WikiLeaks that ultimately imperils our national security, but the failing Obama administration, which ignores the nature and extent of threats we face, and which is too often unwilling to act to thwart them." --former UN ambassador John Bolton

A new record

It's been pretty cold lately here in the Seattle area.

As expected, the temperature dropped to 14 degrees early Wednesday at Sea-Tac Airport, breaking the old record of 16 from 1985.

KING 5 Meteorologist Rich Marriott said temperatures dipped to 9 degrees in Lynnwood, 7 degrees in Parkland and -8 in Ellensberg. Other reported temperatures included Bellingham 18, Tacoma 13, Olympia 16, Vancouver 19, Yakima -11, Moses Lake -17, Spokane -6, Pullman -1.

Al Gore, call your office, if you're willing to stick your head up at all.

TSA Humor

Ah, you *think* they're only jokes....

Via the Patriot Post.

Transportation Security Administration

Submitted

Submitted

Obamacare is so awesome...

that only 111 companies and other organizations have been issued waivers.  So far.  I'm sure the number will increase, but that doesn't mean Obamacare isn't everything Democrats have told us it is, right?

Unsurprisingly, many unions such as SEIU are on that list.

Also unsurprisingly, this information wasn't made readily available.  After all, what we the people don't know won't hurt them....

Quote of the day

Via the Patriot Post.

"While we are constantly being schooled in how insensitive we are to Muslims and how we should be bowing to the idea of a Ground Zero mega-mosque, or are being admonished for not embracing the Sharia, the state of wartime siege continues unabated. The Muslim world is under no such mandate to reach out or reciprocate. They only have to demand, and the West apologizes. ... We live in a constant state of low-grade war. And with each new Muslim attack, we lose a right. We lose a freedom. We have to adhere to some new restriction or loss of privacy. ... The general silence from the mainstream media and our governing officials on last weekend's wholesale slaughter of Christians praying in a Church is indicative of how decayed, empty, and morally inverted our leaders and media have become. The slaughter of the churchgoers in Baghdad was a crime against humanity. And there are thousands of stories of Islamic slaughter, but the lambs remain silent. Have we become so inured to Islamic jihad that human life is cheap to us as well?" --columnist Pamela Geller

Rachel Maddow gets pwned

After Keith Olbermann was suspended (as it turns out, for only two days) for making undisclosed campaign contributions in violation of his employer's policy, Rachel Maddow leapt to his defense with a classic example of tu quoque. Except that it really wasn't. The single example she provided was not that of a Fox News host providing a campaign contribution but rather a clip where a Republican candidate who was a guest on Sean Hannity's show provides the URL for his website and notes that donations can be made:

People can come on our website at KasichforOhio.com, Sunday night at 6:30 we're going to talk about the damage the Obama agenda has done to us and if you have any extra nickels or dimes, please send it our way. KasichforOhio.com.

The implication is that this is equivalent to Hannity making a contribution to Kasich's campaign but it's not.

Still, Maddow thinks this one incident proves that Fox is a political organization whereas MSNBC is not. I wonder just how hard it is for her to reach such a high level of hypocrisy. I wonder if, after seeing the below video, she will provide a "correction" to her statement. Can't say as I'm going to hold my breath waiting for it.



This paragraph from the above linked blog post provides a good summation:

Rachel Maddow’s holier-than-thou smugness is best encapsulated in her claim that on Fox News, hosts allow fundraising for Republican candidates on the air. Ergo Fox is political, MSNBC isn’t. Ms Maddow’s examples of this happening on FNC? A grand total of: one. John Kasich, appearing on Hannity, gave out his website URL and encouraged donations. It’s the only example Maddow gave because it’s the one Media Matters cited. That’s called ‘journalism’.

There may have been a time when Rachel Maddow had journalistic integrity. If so, it's long gone. Watch her for her opinions if you want, but if you trust her to tell the complete truth, you are a fool.

Not really funny

The Patriot Post send the following image in this week's humor email. The problem is, it's not really funny. It's more a serious commentary on religious tolerance. You know those "coexist" stickers you see on many cars, especially in cities like Seattle and San Francisco, the ones where the letters are actually the symbols of various religions and movements? This image does a pretty good job I think of explaining just why such coexistence is currently problematic. Comments?

Rights vs. obligations

The First Amendment guarantees my freedom of speech. However, it does not impose an obligation on anyone to facilitate that speech, nor does it allow me to impose my opinions upon others if they don't want to hear it. In short, if I want to say something, I should get my own damn soap box, namely this blog, and I can't force you to read it.

The so-called Reverend Phelps and his odious Westboro Baptist Church have been pushing the boundaries of this division, and the argument can be made that they have crossed the line. A lawsuit is currently in progress to determine whether or not they have done so. In the meantime, a small town in Missouri have come up with their own solution to this problem.

Hundreds of residents in Weston, Mo. -- as well as people as far away as California and Australia -- rallied in support of Sgt. First Class C.J. Sadell, who died from injuries suffered during a surprise attack in Afghanistan.

The residents sought to block Fred Phelps, leader of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., and his followers from picketing Sadell’s funeral, according to the station

.
And how did they accomplish it?

"We got everybody here early so we could take up all the parking spots," Rebecca Rooney of Weston, Mo., told Fox4kc.com. "We did that so Mr. Phelps wouldn't have a contingency that was really close."

"I'm glad they left, but I'm sad they came," she said.

Very clever, and quite legal. Nicely done.

How the mighty has fallen

Oh California, you were once the envy of the nation. Now, you're just a laughingstock. I really can't argue with anything said here:

It’s the proverbial morning after and with votes counted, California has won the Dumbest State Award in a historic landslide of monstrous proportions.

All Californians can now see Greece from their bedroom windows. No need to even go to the backyards and crane their little necks.

The author brings up something that has been on my mind since yesterday evening:

...if they keep it up they’re going to face a loud demand from the other 49 for their statehood and immediate, irreversible secession by force.

To my knowledge, there is no provision in the Constitution that allows the United States to kick a state out of the union so I don't think it's currently possible for that to happen. But given that California is almost certainly going to end up completely bankrupt, and will demand the rest of the nation bail out its collective ass, it may be time for an amendment adding such a provision. After yesterday, it could very well pass the House, but probably not the Senate. But that's not the only way an amendment can be proposed. I think it's high time for a good old fashioned Constitutional Convention.