May 2012 – Page 4 – A Geek With Guns

The Open Carry Debate Rises Again

Caleb over at Gun Nuts Media has stirred up the shooting community by posting a video of Rob Pincus and James “I put cameramen downrange during live fire exercises” Yeager bitching about open carry. Once again those who support open carry are debating against those who oppose it. Let me solve this debate.

Does the act of open carrying hurt anybody? I don’t mean some imaginary definition of hurt, like hurting a “cause” or somebody’s feeling, I mean actually physically hurting somebody. No? Then it’s not a problem, is it?

That’s it, the argument is over as far as I’m concerned. You can claim that people who openly carry a firearm are harming the cause of gun rights, but that’s really an irrelevant statement because those who oppose the right to carry a firearm are going to oppose it regardless. Their problem lies with the fact that they don’t like guns, they’re afraid of guns, and unless you get them beyond that point they’re going to oppose legalizing the carrying of firearms. Getting people beyond their fear of firearms requires normalizing firearms in their eyes. Instead of the magic black boxes that are capable of dealing death we must introduce opponents of gun rights to the fact that firearms are machines, no different than automobiles. We must demonstrate that firearms aren’t evil, they have no consciousness, they are merely tools in the hands of people.

Fighting amongst each other isn’t going to help promote gun rights, in fact I bet that fighting amongst each other does far more harm to gun rights than any act of openly carrying firearms could ever manage. Seeing proponents of gun rights fighting with one another causes outsiders to question our ideals even more.

Confiscating Guitars Possibly Going to a New Level

Several years ago Gibson was raided and guitars were seized because they were supposedly using “illegal wood.” Interestingly enough Martin was using the same wood and never go raided. This would indicate a double-standard or some kind of payoff in my rather cynical mind but the state may still step up its game by raiding concert to seize even more guitars:

Lawmakers are scrambling to save the summer concert season from federal agents poised to seize the instruments of rock and country stars because the wood used to make them may have been illegally harvested–and without their knowledge.

“I don’t want the musicians from Nashville who are flying to Canada to perform this summer to worry about the government seizing their guitars,” said Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander.

[…]

“Senator Wyden and I are going to write the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a letter in the next couple of weeks and try to make it clear that wood harvested before 2008 to make musical instruments can’t be seized by the federal government,” Alexander said in a statement. “The Justice Department and Fish and Wildlife have said they have no intention of doing that, but Sen. Wyden and I are going to make it absolutely clear. We hope to get a clear ruling within a few weeks, and if we can’t get a clear ruling, we’ll introduce legislation to change the Lacey Act.”

I wonder if the feds have actually threatened to raid summer concerts or if Senator Alexander and Wyden are simply performing political grandstanding. It’s sad that I have to wonder this but the federal government has become so drunk with power that raiding I wouldn’t put raiding concerts past them. They already stole guitars from Gibson and haven’t even had the decency to charge the company with a crime yet.

This case is very interesting to me because I have no idea what is going on. Did a competing guitar manufacturer sick the feds on Gibson? Did some official in Madagascar do it? Did a local supplier of wood bring in the federal dogs? Did Gibson merely forget or refuse to pay off a state agent? If the state were confiscating goods from the competitor of an obviously politically well-connected company I would already know what the angle was. As far as I know none of Gibson’s competitors are all that well-connected politically, in fact I don’t know if any guitar manufacturer contributes money to political campaigns or hires lobbyists.

Holding to Higher Legal Standards

In a conversation relating to the Zimmerman case one of my friends made a statement that really bugged me. I’m paraphrasing but he basically said, “Concealed carry holders should be held to a higher standard just like cops and soliders.” The belief that some people should be held to a “higher standard” has always bothered me, especially when discussing legal matters. I firmly believe that all should be equal under the law. Whether you hold a carry permit, are a police officer, or are a soldier should be irrelevant if you’ve harmed another person outside of self-defense.

Of the three categories he listed I will point out that only one of them receives no state protection. Both police officers and soldiers are actually exempted from various laws. If anybody is held to a “higher standard” it’s the average person who actually faces prison sentences, fines, or both for breaking the state’s decrees. When a police officer breaks a law or decree they are usually given administrative leave until the public forgets about the officer’s transgression at which point he’s put back on the force and the whole ordeal is forgotten. Those who believe some groups of people should be held to “higher standards” than the average person need to stop using state agents as their examples.

One of the failures of our legal system in the United States is the creation of numerous protected groups. Corporations, by definition, are granted limited legal liability by the state. Agents of the state are often given the ability to break some laws in order to enforce other laws. The wealthy and politically well-connected are often able to get special privileges from our legal system and are always favored in political matters. Individuals convicted of felonies, not just violent felonies mind you, become a separate class and are stripped of several so-called rights. The list goes on but you get the point. Equality under the law doesn’t exist in the United States (or anywhere else that I’m aware of). The state sees fit to hold some groups to a “lower standard” while it holds other, usually the average individual, to a “higher standard.”

The legal system should not hold some to a “higher standard.” All should be equal under the law. If you’ve harmed another person or their property it should be irrelevant what your profession or status in life is. Murder is murder. Theft is theft. The only reason to establish “higher legal standards” for some groups is to allow discrimination. When somebody says they want carry permit holders held to a higher legal standard what they’re really saying is, “I don’t like the fact you carry a gun. Guns are scary and I want to discourage people from carrying them. Since I can’t prohibit you from carrying a gun I’ll do the next best thing, I’ll make sure your every action in life is placed under a microscope and if you screwup, even in the most minor of ways, you’ll spend the rest of your life rotting in a prison cell. Meanwhile I demand the law take it easy on me because I don’t carry a gun and therefore I’m not a blood thirsty ravenous monster like you.”

Be Careful What You Wish For

I’ll be honest, a vast majority of my friends don’t hold much in the way of prejudice. I don’t have any overtly racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted friends that I can think of off of the top of my head, which is probably why I forget that monsters like this exist:

The pastor, identified on YouTube as Charles L. Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, N.C., condemns President Obama’s much-publicized endorsement of same-sex marriage while calling for gays and lesbians to be put in an electrified pen and ultimately killed off.

“Build a great, big, large fence — 150 or 100 mile long — put all the lesbians in there,” Worley suggests in the clip, reportedly filmed on May 13.

He continues: “Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can’t get out…and you know what, in a few years, they’ll die out…do you know why? They can’t reproduce!”

Perhaps Worley should be careful what he wishes for. I vaguely remember the leader of some country or another that did something very similar to members of a religion. If history has taught us anything it’s that persecutions often target specific religious group.

Worley may get his wish although the people tossed in his electrified cage may be him and any of his loyal followers.

People like this are why an armed society is necessarily. If given the chance you can bet Worley would act on his desires, he would gladly round up homosexuals and toss them in a cage. He’s a psychopath, he has zero regard for the wellbeing or rights of others. The only effective way to defend against these types of psychopaths when they do manage to obtain power is by refusing to comply and that often means armed resistance. I don’t care if somebody started rounding up homosexuals, jews, blacks, communists, or any other group, I would gladly stand by them and help in their resistance against the tyrants trying to bring harm upon them. It is my sincere hope that those of you reading this would also stand by them.

Agorism Alive and Well in Spain

Agorism is a strategy many of us in the voluntaryist movement advocate. It’s a simple idea that many people partake in without ever realizing it. Whenever you work for “cash under the table” you’re performing an act of counter-economics as you’re disobeying the state’s decree regarding income tax. In Minnesota you perform an act of counter-economics every time you buy something online or in a state with lower sales tax and don’t pay the difference to the state. Most of us are agorists in some way or another and such practices become more common in failing economies such as Spain:

More than six months ago, a 37-year-old worker here named Juan was laid off from his job delivering and assembling furniture for customers of Ikea, joining the legions of unemployed in Spain. Or so it would seem.

Since then, Juan has continued doing more or less the same work. But instead of doing it on the payroll of Pantoja, a transport subcontractor to Ikea, he hovers around the parking lot of the megastore, luring customers of his own by offering not only to deliver their furniture but also to do “general work,” like painting and repairs, all for the bargain price of €40, or $51, a day.

“I will do anything except electricity and plumbing, where I really don’t have enough expertise to guarantee a safe and decent job,” said Juan, who did not want his full name used because he does not declare his income and did not want to run afoul of the tax authorities.

One nice benefit of not having to pay income tax is the ability to undercut those who do. If you pay income tax you must make enough money to not only survive but to also pay the state its tithe. Those who don’t report income tax don’t have to worry about the additional money that will be stolen by the state and therefore can work much cheaper and still get by.

When you consider the amount of money that goes to the state in the form of taxes, licenses, and compliance with regulations you realize a great deal of economy goes to feed the state. How much of your life is spent working for the state? What percentage of the money you spent on your computer went to the state?

When you think about it we’re not better off that then serfs of yore. Serfs were those who worked land owned by or rented from nobles. In exchange for working the land they were “granted” the privilege of protection and the use of some fields for their own subsistence. Those of us living in the United States are in a similar situation although the illusion of freedom is presented to us. Like serfs our land is owned by another entity, in our case the state. We are allowed to use the land so long as we pay rent, usually referred to as property tax. The state promises to protect us from outside enemies and criminals living within its borders (and like the nobles’ promises of protection the state never really fulfills their end of the “agreement”). If we fail to pay our tithe the state kidnaps us, holds us in cages, and steals our property under the “debt” is paid off. When we lack property to take we become bonded laborers, our wages are garnished until the “debt” is paid off.

Serfdom never went away, the nobles merely changed their title to the state and pretended to give us the ability to elect a representative government.

The serfs of yore eventually awakened to their plight and revolted against the nobles. Agorists are revolting but not by using violence. Instead the agorists analyzed the enemy and discovered its weakness, it survives only on what it can take by force. If the state has no income, if they are unable to seize wealth by force, it eventually starves and dies. Why wage a violent revolution against an entity that specializes in violence? When you challenge a specializes you are likely to lose unless you are also a specialist. While the state specializes in violence it is utterly incompetent when it comes to economics and economics is something individuals specialized in. The golden rule of a fight is to never fight fair.

Fortunately for agorists the state recruits people for our movement as it attempt to bleed the serfs dry. When the serfs no longer have anything to give they must fact facts and decide whether they’re going to continue providing to the state at the cost of their lives or keep what wealth they can scrounge and disobey the decrees of the states. Most people will follow their survival instinct and give the state a giant middle finger and it is at that point that they become agorists.

Obama’s Hypocrisy Regarding the War on Drugs

Penn Jillette is not only an excellent illusionist, he’s a well spoken advocate of libertarianism. Unlike many libertarians (including myself) Penn seems to have a knack for explaining concepts in very clear language, which he did when addressing Obama’s hypocrisy regarding the war on drugs:

Do we believe, even for a second, that if Obama had been busted for marijuana — under the laws that he condones — would his life have been better? If Obama had been caught with the marijuana that he says he uses, and ‘maybe a little blow’… if he had been busted under his laws, he would have done hard f*cking time. And if he had done time in prison, time in federal prison, time for his ‘weed’ and ‘a little blow,’ he would not be President of the United States of America. He would not have gone to his fancy-a** college, he would not have sold books that sold millions and millions of copies and made millions and millions of dollars, he would not have a beautiful, smart wife, he would not have a great job. He would have been in f*cking prison, and it’s not a god damn joke. People who smoke marijuana must be set free. It is insane to lock people up.

The Obama administration has been cracking down on medical marijuana facilities even though Obama himself has admitted to using marijuana and cocaine. Had Obama been caught he would be suffering the fan of so many victims of victimless “crimes” instead of sitting in the Oval Office ordering the murder of American citizens.

I’m guessing Obama never wonders what would have happened to him under many of the laws he pushes to adamantly to enforce. Does he stop to consider the fact that under his current war on drugs he’s be sitting in prison? Probably not, psychopaths generally don’t stop to consider others.

California Looking to Ban More Firearms

If you’re living in California I have one simple question: Why? Is it your job? It won’t be there much longer with the way California’s economy is going. Do you like living on the coast? There’s coastline is many other far freer states. Do you just like having more and more of your freedoms stripped from you by the California government? If that’s your reason then you most certainly should stay.

Earlier this month gun control zealots were stirring up dust about California’s so-called bullet button loophole. Because of this a senator wanting to boost is status has decided to introduce legislation to ban firearms with so-called bullet buttons:

“When I saw the news I was absolutely horrified,” said State Senator Leland Yee, referring to a CBS5 report about the so-called bullet button.

It’s a modification that enables the magazine of a semi-automatic rifle to be removed quickly, with the tip of a bullet. Removable magazines in combination with other features like a pistol grip and telescoping stock are banned under California law. But the bullet button is legal because it doesn’t work with your finger, so the magazine is considered “fixed.”

The modification has allowed military style rifles like the AR-15 to proliferate in the state, something Senator Yee said has got to stop.

“It is extremely important that individuals in the state of California do not own assault weapons. I mean that is just so crystal clear, there is no debate, no discussion,” said Yee.

That’s why the Senator is introducing a bill to ban the bullet button.

“What I am proposing is to essentially prevent any mechanism that would allow the conversion of an assault weapon into a way that you can fire these magazines upon magazines without effort,” he said.

You can tell Yee is a gun control zealot because he has outright stated that “there is no debate, no discussion.” He doesn’t give any justification because as far as he’s concerned it’s a self-evident fact. To him the people of California are subjects and must bow to his will and obey his commands.

This also demonstrates that no gun control law will satisfy the advocates. Every time a law has been enacted to control some firearm or feature the gun control advocates wanted controlled they have come back for more. First it was just a ban on “obviously” dangerous weapon such as machine guns and explosives, then they demanded all felons be prohibited from owning guns, then they wanted background checks and waiting periods on all firearms purchases, then they wanted to ban rifles with a list of arbitrary features, and now they’re demanding more.

Fortunately gun control advocates haven’t been having a great deal of success outside of California but they have had success in California. If your a gun owner, heck if you’re a person who enjoys freedom of any kind, abandon California. The entirety of the United States is becoming more and more of a police state every day but it’s still freer than California.

My Modest Proposal

Every election seems wrought with accusations of corruption. The Republicans blame the Democrats and the Democrats blame the Republicans. Accusations of the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) being controlled by the Republican and Democrat parties and therefore biased against third-parties are often brought up. Republicans tell their supporters to be election judges to protect against tampering by Democrats while Democrats tell their supporters to be election judges to protect against tampering by Republicans. The losing party in an election will often accuse the winning party of committing election fraud and begin an expensive recount and possible court battle.

It’s easy to see why all of these accusations are thrown around, both parties are extremely biased. As a general rule it’s a bad idea to have biased entities in control of events they have vested interests in. Having political parties in control of elections is a recipe for disaster and that diaster hurts the genera populace more than anybody. These squabbles almost always end in expensive state solutions, court battles, and recounts. None of those actions are productive in any way yet syphon money from other state tasks like building drones and enforcing decrees that prohibit victimless crimes.

Since I hate seeing inefficiency and suffering I have a moderst proposal of my own, put us anarchists in charge of running elections. As a general rule we don’t really care about elections, we realize that we’re going to get fucked either way. Whether a Republicrat or a Depublican win is irrelevant to us. For many of us elections are mostly a form of amusement, similar to baseball, and the outcome truly has no consequence.

You don’t have to worry about us being biased against third-parties because we usually have more in common with third-parties than the Republican and Democratic parties. There is no need to worry about doling out more campaign money to one part over another because we don’t want to give any money to any party. Voters can rest assured that nonpartisans are overseeing each polling place and counting the votes. We can’t be accused of committing election fraud to ensure victory for our candidate because we don’t have a candidate. It’s win/win for everybody involved, with the possible exception of us but we’re willing to make a few sacrifices to help alleviate your suffering because we’re generous and kind.

The Reason the State Loves Civil Forfeiture Laws

One of the favorite tactics used by police in the war on drugs is civil forfeiture laws. For those who don’t know civil forfeiture laws are the laws that allow the state to steal any private property if the owner can’t prove said property isn’t tied to a crime. It’s a classic case of guilty until proven innocent and the state absolutely loves it because it gives them the legal authority to take whatever they want, including bail money:

When the Brown County, Wis., Drug Task Force arrested her son Joel last February, Beverly Greer started piecing together his bail.

She used part of her disability payment and her tax return. Joel Greer’s wife also chipped in, as did his brother and two sisters. On Feb. 29, a judge set Greer’s bail at $7,500, and his mother called the Brown County jail to see where and how she could get him out. “The police specifically told us to bring cash,” Greer says. “Not a cashier’s check or a credit card. They said cash.”

So Greer and her family visited a series of ATMs, and on March 1, she brought the money to the jail, thinking she’d be taking Joel Greer home. But she left without her money, or her son.

Instead jail officials called in the same Drug Task Force that arrested Greer. A drug-sniffing dog inspected the Greers’ cash, and about a half-hour later, Beverly Greer said, a police officer told her the dog had alerted to the presence of narcotics on the bills — and that the police department would be confiscating the bail money.

Drug-sniffing dogs are also favorite tools of the state because nobody can interrogate a dog. K9 officers will often claim a dog “alerted” whenever they desire to check or confiscate property without a warrant or probably cause. They claim the dog “alerting” gives probably cause but a study demonstrated that the dogs aren’t “alerting” to a scent but to their controller:

The performance of drug- and explosives-sniffing dog/handler teams is affected by human handlers’ beliefs, possibly in response to subtle, unintentional handler cues, a study by researchers at UC Davis has found.

The study, published in the January issue of the journal Animal Cognition, found that detection-dog/handler teams erroneously “alerted,” or identified a scent, when there was no scent present more than 200 times — particularly when the handler believed that there was scent present.

I’m sure the police are well aware of this fact but continue putting forth propaganda stating drug and bomb-sniffing dogs are effective so they don’t have to worry about pesky inconveniences such as warrant or probable cause. What has been setup is a method of confiscating property that the average person won’t oppose. After all most people actually believe the police so when they claim a dog “alerted” to the smell of drugs people just say, “OK, if that guy didn’t want his money stolen he shouldn’t have been dealing drugs.”

Of course civil forfeiture laws can’t actually be laws, right? Wrong. As I’ve shown previously civil forfeiture laws are covered under United States Code 881(a)(6). The state has covered all its bases. They’ve legalized theft, abolished the concept of innocent until proven guilty, have gotten the general populace to believe drug and bomb-sniffing dogs can sniff out drugs and bombs, and convinced people that this power is necessary to fight the war on drugs. Confiscating bail money is a new low though but demonstrates how desperate the state is to lock people away in cages. They’ve created a new twist in the system, now you can’t even get bailed out of jail because the bail money will be confiscated by the state under the claim the persons posting bail can’t prove said money wasn’t tied to a drug crime.

We live in a prison state, unfortunately most of the people can’t seem to wake up and see it.

You May be a Terrorist if…

With suspected terrorists being held without trial at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) the evidence held by the state must be insurmountable right? That really depends on your definition of insurmountable:

It is cheap, basic and widely available around the world. Yet the Casio F-91W digital watch was declared to be “the sign of al-Qaida” and a contributing factor to continued detention of prisoners by the analysts stationed at Guantánamo Bay.

Briefing documents used to train staff in assessing the threat level of new detainees advise that possession of the F-91W – available online for as little as £4 – suggests the wearer has been trained in bomb making by al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

There is a list on Wikipedia of Gitmo detainees held, at least in part, because they were in possession of a Casio watch. In other words, for around $10.00 you to can become a member of Al Qaida. You would think the premier terrorist ground in the world, the organization that is so insidious and power that they have been the primary target of America’s military might since 2001, wouldn’t be such cheap bastards. The least they could do is splurge for a G-Shock.

With “evidence” like this almost anybody can be a terrorist. The Casio F91W isn’t exactly a rare watch, you can pick them up almost anywhere. It’s been in common production since 1991 and is still being produced, a demonstration of the watch’s popularity. Until now I’ve never owned one of these, I usually don’t go for extremely cheap and mass produced watches, but I’m going to order one now. Somehow I still haven’t made it on the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) no-fly list, hopefully being in possession of an F91W will finally get me on that list (then I only have a few more government watch lists to get my name on before I’ve “collected them all”).