Month: December 2012

The Importance of Educators in the Gun Rights Movement

A movement is only successful if public opinion can be swayed to favor that movement. This is true of the civil rights movement, the movement to repeal marijuana prohibition, and the gun rights movement. Often people mistakenly believe that political action is the most important pillar of a movement but political action only manifests when sufficient public support has developed. Consider the movement to repeal marijuana. On November 6th the voting public of Washington and Colorado voted in favor of repealing marijuana prohibition. This outcome was only made possible because educators managed to sway public opinion against marijuana prohibition. What isn’t seen by many is the fact that repealing marijuana prohibition is also unnecessary. So many people oppose marijuana prohibition that almost anybody wanting to smoke it can do so. In fact public opinion is so opposed to marijuana prohibition that individuals who smoke it can openly discuss their violation of the state’s decree without concerning themselves with repercussions.

Let’s consider the gun rights movement. During, what I will refer to as, the dark age of gun rights laws restricting gun rights were being passed into law without much resistance. A prohibition against certain semi-automatic rifles was passed as was a law restricting who federally licensed dealers could sell firearms to. Few individual states allowed non-state agents living within their borders to carry firearms. Eventually things began to change. When the “assault weapon” ban expired no serious effort was made to renew it. Few efforts have been made to make firearm sales between non-federally licensed individuals illegal. All but one individual state (which will almost certainly join its 49 brethren within 180 days) have some mechanism for non-state agents to legally carry firearms and the number of states with no restrictions on who can carry a firearm has been continuously increasing. What we’re seeing is a manifestation of public opinion being swayed from favoring gun control to opposing it.

How was public opinion swayed though? People living in the United States didn’t just wake up one day and say “I now oppose gun control.” The swing in public opinion was accomplished through the diligent efforts of educators in the gun rights movement. When I say educators I don’t me K-12 teachers or college professors, I mean the individuals who dove through all data pertaining to gun rights and presented logical deductions derived from that data. Gun rights educators studied and presented historical and legal arguments for gun rights, gun-related crime statistics, and issues relating to self-defense and gun safety. Through their tireless efforts arguments made in favor of gun control were demonstrated to be false. More and more people were beginning to realize that gun control was a folly and either began to support gun rights or held no strong feelings either way. Without the efforts of gun rights educators things today would likely remain as they were during the dark ages of gun rights.

Political action was merely a manifestation of the change in public opinion. In fact political action would have been rendered almost entirely unnecessary in due time. This is because as public opinion began to turn more towards gun rights laws restricting or prohibiting the exercise of those rights would have been rendered irrelevant. What could the state do if a majority of individuals began carrying firearms without getting state permission? The state would attempt to punish a handful of individuals here and there to set an example but they would leave the vast majority of carriers unmolested. This is what the state has been relegated to when enforcing the marijuana prohibition and speed limits.

As I stated before most people who want to smoke marijuana do so in spite of the law and are even willing to publicly say that they disobey the state’s prohibition against marijuana. Most people seem to be willing to exceed the speed limit as well. Driving with “the flow of traffic” usually implies exceeding the speed limit since most drivers exceed the speed limit. Police officers often don’t bother issuing citations unless a driver is exceeding the speed limit by at least five or ten miles per hour. Such excesses are generally higher than the amount most drivers are exceeding the speed limit by and therefore can be enforced to some degree. Outside of those cases very few people out of the total number of people exceeding the speed limit receive any kind of punishment from the state.

I argue that education is far more important than any form of political action because political action will never even manifest without education. Education is the catalyst to change whereas political action is merely an officiation of a change in public opinion. In actuality political action usually ends up being an admittance by the state that enforcement of one of its decrees is no longer possible. This was the case with alcohol prohibition, is currently the case with marijuana prohibition, and will eventually become the case for gun rights if educators in the movement continue performing their task successfully. At some point in our future laws restricting gun rights will be repealed because they are no longer enforceable. Most states will enact, what is commonly referred to as, constitutional carry in response to the public’s general support for individuals right to carry a firearm. Items currently regulated by the National Firearms Act, likely starting with suppressors, will no longer be so restricted. Even the requirement that federally licensed dealers only sell to state-approved individuals will eventually go away.

The gun rights movement must strive to make the enforcement of restrictions against gun rights unenforceable. Whether restrictions become unenforceable through political action or because a majority of individuals blatantly violate those restrictions is unimportant. A change in public opinion will lead to the latter and the latter will lead to the former. It is the job of gun rights educators to encourage that change in public opinion that will make the rest of the dominos fall.

Israeli Weapon Industries Launch a United States Subsidiary

Earlier this year I mentioned some interest in the new Israeli Tavor. Two things have stood between myself and getting trigger time with that rifle. The first was cost. A manufacturer suggested retail price of “under $2,000” didn’t fill my heart with hope that the rifle would be cost effective. The second problem was the fact no American firearm manufacturer had expressed interest in importing the Tavor. That second problem is no longer an issue as the manufacturer, Israeli Weapon Industries (IWI), has launched a subsidiary in the United States:

Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) has announced their new US subsidiary IWI USA Inc. The new company has leased a 21,000 sq. ft. facility in Harrisburg, PA. They plan on selling the TAVOR SAR rifle in a number of different configurations as well as the UZI Pro pistol.

If anybody can manufacture a bullpup rifle that is affordable and addresses the most common issues with that style of firearm it’s a company that manufactures weapons for a government that can’t get along with its neighbors for more than two minutes.

Members of the New York Police Department Need Additional Firearms Training

People who read the title of this post and instantly think about the incident earlier this year where members of the New York Police Department (NYPD) injured nine bystanders while attempting to gun down one individual who wasn’t currently acting aggressively are probably saying “No duh!” The conclusion in the post title wasn’t my own, it was the conclusion of a writer at the New York Times. Let’s look at the charges being made against the NYPD:

This year, there has been an unusual string of questionable and highly public shootings. It began in February, when a narcotics officer in the Bronx chased an unarmed teenager named Ramarley Graham into his building and killed him in his bathroom. The most recent came in October, when a veteran detective shot Noel Polanco, an Army National Guardsman, during a traffic stop on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens. In the intervening months, the police: fatally shot Darrius H. Kennedy as he waved a knife at tourists in Times Square; injured nine civilians near the Empire State Building while shooting Jeffrey T. Johnson moments after Mr. Johnson shot a former colleague; shot Mr. Bah; and accidentally shot and killed Reynaldo Cuevas, 20, a bodega worker who ran into an officer while fleeing from a robbery in the Bronx.

For a city run by a man who continuously implies that individuals outside of the state’s employ are irresponsible with firearms they sure have a lot of police officers who have acted irresponsibly with firearms. Seeing the extent of NYPD’s training it becomes apparently where the issue lies:

Some of Mr. Kelly’s troops disagree, going so far as to approach reporters with unsolicited views. One officer, who joined the force with a military background and spoke anonymously because he feared reprisals, said the problem was training. The department has “a factory line” approach to weapons training in which officers “get the basics — breathing, trigger control,” but not much else, he said. “It’s very brief, minimal.”

“Firearms training is important — it’s very important,” the officer concluded. “And it’s something that is not taken seriously.”

There are seven firing ranges at Rodman’s Neck, from Adam Range to George Range, and on most days, they crackle with the reports of weapons shot by new recruits or by officers who must requalify twice a year with an accuracy rate of no less than 78 percent in target practice.

Of the people I know who carry firearms a vast majority of them have training that is far more extensive than that received by members of NYPD. This really puts a hole in the claims gun control advocates often make regarding the insufficient training received by carry permit holders and the superior training received by police officers. The training received by members of the United State’s largest police force seems entirely inadequate, especially when you consider the job police officers are expected to perform (namely using their firearms against people who disobey the state’s decrees).

The Last Domino Standing Against Legalized Firearm Carry Fell

Zerg593, via Twitter, informed me that Illinois, the last individual state to completely prohibit non-state entites from legally carrying firearms, now has 180 days to craft legislation to allow non-state entities to legally carry firearms:

In a huge win for gun-rights groups, a federal appeals court in Chicago Tuesday tossed the state’s ban on carrying concealed weapons and gave Illinois’ Legislature 180 days to craft a law legalizing concealed carry.

“The debate is over. We won. And there will be a statewide carry law in 2013,” said Todd Vandermyde, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association.

In a split opinion (see below), the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling in two cases downstate that upheld the state’s longstanding prohibition against carrying concealed weapons.

The court’s decision can be read here. This case further demonstrates the value of innovation as it was made possible by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), the organization that decided to use the court system to advance gun rights instead of relying on political lobbying. I think it also demonstrates the general swing of public opinion from supporting gun control to either opposing it or holding no strong feelings regarding it. Something people often fail to consider is the value of public opinion. Even though judges are supposed to ignore public opinion and rule on the letter of the law their rulings are generally crafted in manners that at least attempt to appeal to public opinion. Consider the ruling in McDonald v. Chicago where the Supreme Court rules that Chicago’s ban on handguns was illegal under United States law but didn’t rule out “reasonable” restrictions on gun rights. Although the decision granted gun rights activists what they wanted it didn’t ignore the desires of gun control advocates. Public opinion is swinging in the direction of expanding gun rights but hasn’t reached a point where most people are willing to oppose all restrictions on gun rights.

Even though I don’t want to denigrate this victory I feel the need to point out two caveats. First Illinois could still maintain a prohibition against legal carry by carefully crafting legislation. Making carry permits $10,000 would effectively ensure only the wealthy enjoy the right to legally carry a firearm in Illinois and a restriction against recognizing any other state’s carry permits could make this ruling irrelevant for everybody living outside Illinois. Only time will tell and any such restrictions can be challenge in court if they arrise. Second the defense has 180 days to appeal the decision, which would take the case to the Supreme Court. This victory hasn’t been finalized yet but it’s certainly a move in the right direction and overall I believe it’s extremely positive. Illinois has been one of the most entrenched holdouts in the fight for gun rights and a hole has just been made in their armor. The trick will be turning that small hole into a massive one, which I believe will inevitably happen in time.

James Yeager, A Demonstration of Emotional Argumentation

Linoge at Walls of the City brought James Yeager’s recent shenanigans to light. For those of you who don’t know him, James Yeager is a Tennessee firearms instructor that is extremely opinionated. He’s passionately argued in favor of putting cameramen downrange during live fire exercises and believes all guns should be Glocks. Now he’s trying to prove his manliness by challenging online individuals to duels. As Linoge points out in his post dueling is prohibited by the Tennessee constitution so Yeager is doing a marvelous job of disregarding the law. Disregarding the state’s laws is not something I care much about but it is interesting to see a firearms instructor doing it so blatantly. Generally firearms enthusiasts argue that law-abiding citizens should be granted the right to keep and bear arms but will often support prohibiting criminals from owing firearms.

I usually care little about ongoing drama regarding “celebrities” (Yeager is a kind of celebrity in the firearms community) but Yeager’s actions are a great demonstration of a personality trait I find annoying. Yeager is one of those individuals who accepts what he believes unconditionally and is willing to go so far as to challenge individuals to duels in order to prove his devotion. This is a trait commonly found in gun control advocates. Regardless of the amount of evidence showing the futility and dangers of gun control, advocates for restricting gun rights will refuse to change their stance. Big government advocates are another group that generally rely on emotional arguments. When you attempt to explain the damage big government programs do to an economy, how the constant creation of new laws leads to the imprisonment of nonviolent individuals, or the inherently violent nature of the state they merely ignore you and write you off as a kook. I generally attribute such staunch devotion to a lack of knowledge (either intentional or unintentional) of deductive logic.

When people call Yeager a coward it strikes an emotional nerve. Instead of reviewing his actions to determine whether or not they may appear cowardly to a third-party he attempts to bully his opponents with threats of violence. Seeing his reaction to those who criticized him for allowing a cameraman to be downrange during a live fire exercise further demonstrates his reliance on emotional argumentation. He didn’t acknowledge that putting a cameraman downrange during a live fire exercise is extremely dangerous and entirely unnecessary, he merely attempt to justify why he was right and everybody else was wrong without presenting any logical justification for why putting a cameraman was downrange during a live fire exercise was either safe or necessary.

The gun rights movement has succeeded because it has primarily relied on deductive logic instead of appealing to emotions. People in the gun rights movement have done an amazing job of combing through homicide data, self-defense data, and other data related in any way to firearms and presented the implications of that data. Ultimately this has lead to a change in opinion of guns in the United States. We no longer face attacks against gun rights from the majority, instead it is only a handful of extremely devoted gun control advocates who still continue to make any real effort to restrict gun rights. In the end deductive logic leads to success while emotional appeals, when they work, are only effective for a short period of time.

Ironically Yeager has displayed the primary characteristics of the people he claims to oppose. When he believes something he refuses to be swayed or even consider the arguments against what he believes. Instead of giving logical reasons for why he supports his beliefs he resorts of threats of violence in the hopes it will shut his opposition up.

Price Controls Lead to Shortages

Price controls are a mechanism that the state often employes to prevent market forces from setting prices on goods or services. Generally the state fixes prices below market value in order to incentivize the use of a good or resources. One of the recent alarms that has been raise as of late it a purported shortage of helium. The problem has become notable enough that some individuals are demanding a ban on helium-filled balloons:

Dr Peter Wothers, a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a University of Cambridge chemist, will use this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures to argue that there will be “serious problems” in 30 to 50 years’ time if the lighter-than-air gas continues to be wasted in party balloons.

Helium is a non-renewable gas that is used to cool magnets in MRI scanners in hospitals. It is also mixed with oxygen to make breathing easier for ill patients and can help save new-born babies’ lives.

However, there is currently a global shortage of the gas, which cannot be synthesized. The gas has to be extracted from beneath the earth’s crust and 75 per cent of the world’s helium comes from the US.

If helium is in short supply then the price should be going up. As we know the more scarce a good becomes, with all other things remaining equal, the higher the price will go. So why hasn’t the price gone up? Because the United States government, the worlds largest supplier of helium, fixes the price:

The federal government, which sets helium prices, announced in April that helium prices would spike from $75.75 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) in FY 2012 to $84 per Mcf in FY 2013. (Last year, prices rose only 75 cents.) This price spike, along with uncertain federal policy (and a peculiar industry setup to begin with), is threatening to create a shortage. Here’s what’s going on.

There is no need to ban helium-filled balloons in order to conserve the gas, simply remove the state’s meddling in helium prices. If helium is in short supply and in demand the price will increase and therefore the gas will be conserved. Let’s say the cost of a helium-filled balloon goes up to $10.00, would more or fewer people buy them? Fewer. Now let’s say the cost goes up to $50.00 per balloon, what will happen? Fewer helium-filled balloons will be purchased. People wanting to buy floating balloons will look for alternatives to helium which will free up the supply for other uses.

Conservation is a side effect of market prices, which is why I always roll my eyes when a so-called environmentalists demands the state enact prohibitions against the use of scarce resources.

The State Incentivizes Illiteracy

Most people believe the state wants to promote literacy. If the state was actually interested in promoting literacy you would think it would avoid incentivizing illiteracy but the opposite is true:

THIS is what poverty sometimes looks like in America: parents here in Appalachian hill country pulling their children out of literacy classes. Moms and dads fear that if kids learn to read, they are less likely to qualify for a monthly check for having an intellectual disability.

Many people in hillside mobile homes here are poor and desperate, and a $698 monthly check per child from the Supplemental Security Income program goes a long way — and those checks continue until the child turns 18.

“The kids get taken out of the program because the parents are going to lose the check,” said Billie Oaks, who runs a literacy program here in Breathitt County, a poor part of Kentucky. “It’s heartbreaking.”

When an employer wants to attract top talent they generally do so by offering incentives in the form of money and benefits. If you’re a company that wants to hire away a top employee from another company you generally approach that employee with an offer for higher pay and improved benefits. Money is also a common tool to incentivize good behavior. Parents may make their children’s allowance dependent on good behavior, which includes performing chores satisfactorily. Not surprisingly money can be used to incentivize bad behavior, which is what the state does when it makes checks dependent on poor performance.

If a child can net a family a check for being illiterate then that family has a direct interest in preventing their child from becoming literate. Human action is performed in self-interest. When it’s in the interest of the parents to keep their children ignorant they are likely to keep their children ignorant. By rewarding illiteracy the state demonstrates that it doesn’t care whether or not a child remains illiterate, it does demonstrate a desire to keep people dependent on the state though.

Shooting in New York City Demonstrates the Futility of Gun Control… Again

New York City is known for its rather stringent gun control laws. This isn’t surprising since the city is ruled by Michael Bloomberg who also heads Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), an organization dedicated to the abolition of private firearm ownership. While Bloomberg and MAIG constantly parrot about the need for stricter gun control laws, New York City continues to suffer from shootings. Yesterday a man was fatally shot in Central Park:

The shooting happened shortly before 14:00 EST (19:00 GMT), when an unidentified man opened fire at the corner of 58th and 7th Avenue.

The gunman fled by jumping into the passenger seat of a waiting vehicle that drove away, US media reports said.

Officials say the 31-year-old victim was brought to St Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The shooting took place in a busy area of Manhattan not known for shootings or crime.

It happened close to Central Park and high-profile shops, as well as the Time Warner building, home of CNN’s New York studios.

From the facts currently being reported (which are always subject to change) it appears as though the shooting was a hit job. Regardless of the shooter’s motivations this event demonstrates once again that gun control is a futile pursuit. Even with very strict gun control laws New York City suffers from multiple firearms-related homicides at year. To make matters worse getting a carry permit in the city is almost impossible unless you are wealthy or politically well-connected. Restricting access to carry permits lowers the cost of committing violence, which increases the likelihood of violent crime occurring.

Monday Metal: Uis Elveti by Eluveitie, Guten Tag by Varg, and Starchild by Wintersun

Sunday night Station 4 hosted an absolutely awesome concert featuring Varg, Wintersun, and Eluveitie. In all honesty Eluveitie is the only band on that list that I listen to regularly but I enjoy a lot of metal live that I don’t generally enjoy listening to otherwise.

As expected Eluveitie did a bang up job. Instead of playing a smattering of songs from their various albums they played the entire Helvetios album. Since Helvetios was a concept album revolving around the Gallic Wars this approach made a great deal of sense. After playing through all the songs on Helvetios they also payed a handful of songs from other albums including Inis Mona. Because of the weather I arrived to the concert late and missed most of Varg’s act but did catch Wintersun, who did a pretty decent job.

In celebration of my first time seeing Eluveitie live this weeks’ Monday Metal entry will be featuring one of their songs and a song by Varg and Wintersun thrown in for good measure. First up is Uis Elveti by Eluveitie:

Next is Guten Tag by Varg (admittedly I don’t generally listen to this type of metal but the band was pretty entertaining live):

Finally I’m going to close this week’s Monday Metal with Starchild by Wintersun:

This Blog Delayed Due to Weather

Everybody who lives in Minnesota is well aware of the slight snowstorm that descended upon the state Sunday. Due to the storm it ended up taking me five hours to drive from Southeast Minnesota back to the Twin Cities (a trip that normally takes two and a half hours). It also took me a little more than an hour to drive to the Eluveitie concert in Saint Paul (which kicked ass) and another hour to drive back home. This morning it ended up taking me two hours to drive to work and another two hours to drive back home. All in all I spent roughly 11 hours driving in this shitty weather during the last two days.

The weather problem was made worse but the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MNDOT) and the absurdly high number of incompetent drivers. MNDOT is in charge of plowing the major highways, which it appears to not have done. Since the snow stopped on Sunday night the major highways have remained in an almost unusable condition. I can honestly say that denizens of Minnesota would get more value from their tax dollars by taking every cent that was appropriated for snow removal and using it to build a bridge to nowhere. While the bridge to nowhere will be relatively useless there would at least be something to show for that wasted money.

The other issue are incompetent drivers. I cannot even begin to estimate the number of dumbasses I saw stalled in between two lanes on the highway. That’s right, not only did they stall on the highway but they stalled in between two lanes, which managed to take major sections of 694, a three land highways, down to one lane. Numerous individuals were in the ditch and there was a notably high number of fender benders. I really wish people who are unable to safely or competently drive in this weather would just stay at their fucking house. They’re a danger to everybody else on the road and slow everything down to an almost unbearable crawl.

In summary fuck this weather, fuck MNDOT, and fuck incompetent drivers.