Minnesota House to Drop Universal Background Checks

It appears that the gun control advocates in Minnesota are setting their sights lower and lower:

The House Democrat pushing for broader restrictions to Minnesota gun laws has abandoned imposing universal background checks for firearm sales.

Rep. Michael Paymar of St. Paul says he’s switching to a plan that would expand background checks to sales at gun shows but not to private sales and transfers.

I’m not sure how Paymar plans to expand background checks to gun shows but not private sales since the only sales that don’t require a background check at gun shows are private ones. Trying to find the logic in a politician’s statement is harder than finding unicorns. Why the sudden change of heart? It appears that the change in heart, at least in part, is due to the alternative gun control bill that was offered by gun rights activists:

Paymar says he also plans to include many provisions from the alternate package of less-restrictive gun measures that would tighten the state’s current background check system, add to the parameters of who cannot legally own a gun and help county attorneys crack down on illegal gun owners.

It just goes to show that gun control advocates are more than happy to compromise so long as that compromise involves more gun control. I don’t know why Minnesota gun owners are expected to suffer more gun control, especially since none of us were involve in the tragedy that sparked the recent gun control debate, but suffer we apparently will.

“Assault Weapon” Ban Won’t be Part of the Federal Gun Control Package

Dianne Feinstein, war profiteer extraordinaire, has had her agenda pushed back slightly. As it turns out Feinstein’s coveted “assault weapon” ban won’t be part of the gun control package offered for a vote on the Senate floor:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on Monday that a controversial assault weapons ban will not be part of a Democratic gun bill that was expected to reach the Senate floor next month.

After a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Monday, a frustrated Feinstein said she learned that the bill she sponsored — which bans 157 different models of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines — wouldn’t be part of a Democratic gun bill to be offered on the Senate floor. Instead, it can be offered as an amendment. But its exclusion from the package makes what was already an uphill battle an almost certain defeat.

The ban is supported by more than a dozen Senate Democrats and the White House, as well as gun-control groups.

My money is on Feinstein offering her ban as an amendment. She’s very zealous in her pursuit of disarming all of the serfs she’s not making money on through her ties to the military industrial complex. It’ll be interesting to see if she becomes more unhinged as her political power further unravels.

Obama Threatening Iran

Over the last four years Obama has proved to be quite the war monger. Besides continuing Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama has been using his personal arsenal of drones to bomb people all around the Middle East, including two American citizens. As his term continues it is becoming more apparent that Obama wants to instigate a war with Iran. During a speech, supposedly meant for the Iranian people, Obama first blamed Iran for current international tensions:

In a video to the Iranian people, Mr Obama urged Iran to take “immediate and meaningful steps” to reduce tension with the international community.

I’m not sure how Iran is supposed to reduce tensions with the “international community” when the “international community” is the one who placed and is enforcing sanctions (an act of war) on Iran, continues to threaten Iran, and has made it impossible for Iran to satisfy demands because the demands aren’t concretely defined:

“To date, however, they have been unable to convince the international community that their nuclear activities are solely for peaceful purposes.

“Now is the time for the Iranian government to take immediate and meaningful steps to reduce tensions and work toward an enduring, long-term settlement of the nuclear issue.”‘

Perhaps it would help if the “international community” would tell the Iranian state what it needed to do to satisfy them. I continue hearing murmurs about Iran failing to ease the concerns of outside countries but nobody has really stated what Iran can do to ease those concerns. Looking at the situation objectively it appears that the “international community” wants war and is therefore ensuring Iran cannot satisfy their needs. We know that the “international community” has been at odds with Iran ever since Iran threw out the puppet government established by the British and United States in 1953. At this rate Obama will have the United States embroiled in yet another war, which is rather ironic because he was whisked into power, in part, by support from the anti-war movement.

Iraq Didn’t have Weapons of Mass Destruction

Speaking of war and saber rattling, even more evidence has come to light that shows the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was pure malarkey:

Fresh evidence is revealed today about how MI6 and the CIA were told through secret channels by Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister and his head of intelligence that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction.

Tony Blair told parliament before the war that intelligence showed Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programme was “active”, “growing” and “up and running”.

A special BBC Panorama programme tonight will reveal how British and US intelligence agencies were informed by top sources months before the invasion that Iraq had no active WMD programme, and that the information was not passed to subsequent inquiries.

It describes how Naji Sabri, Saddam’s foreign minister, told the CIA’s station chief in Paris at the time, Bill Murray, through an intermediary that Iraq had “virtually nothing” in terms of WMD.

Since the United States government lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction why is everybody so quick to believe its current claims that Iran is developing weapons of mass destruction? Why are people so quick to believe a perpetual liar? What makes anybody think that the United States government has decided to tell the truth this time?

The Effect of the Ammunition Shortage

The ammunition shortage caused by the recent push for more gun control has gotten out of hand. It’s actually bad enough that suicidal individuals have to hold up gun stores with empty firearms just so they can acquire a firearm to shoot themselves with:

The incident began around 7:30 p.m. Saturday along Commerce Boulevard in Fairless Hills.

Sources tell Action News that he went into the sporting section and asked to see a shotgun and ammunition.

The store clerk complied and McCarty allegedly pulled out a handgun and told the clerk to undo the gun lock on the shotgun.

Witnesses say McCarty then took the shotgun and ammunition and ran to the bathroom, barricading himself inside.

At least I’m assuming the man was unable to acquire ammunition for his handgun since he didn’t kill himself with it.

I’m Giving a Presentation on Tor in Apple Valley, Minnesota

Tomorrow (March 20th, 2013) at 18:00 (although the talk probably won’t start until 18:30 or 19:00) I will be giving an introduction to Tor in Apple Valley, Minnesota. The event will be held at Rascal’s Bar and Grill located at 7721 147th Street West. My plan is for the event to be an introduction to Tor, specifically what it is, why it’s important, and how to use it. If anybody reading this blog is interested in attending feel free to join us.

3D Printed Firearm Technology Will Begin Advancing Quickly

I think we’re going to see a rapid advancement of 3D printed firearm technology now that Cody Wilson, the crypto-anarchist who is working to develop printable firearms while bypassing potential copyright laws, has a Type 7 Federal Firearms License (FFL):

On Saturday, Defense DistributedAmerica’s best-known group of 3D gunsmiths—announced on Facebook that its founder, Cody Wilson, now has a federal license to be a gun manufacturer and dealer. The group published a picture of the Type 7 federal firearms license (FFL) to prove it.

“The big thing it allows me to do is that it makes me manufacture under the law—everything that manufacturers are allowed to do,” he told Ars. “I can sell some of the pieces that we’ve been making. I can do firearms transactions and transport.”

Cody isn’t planning to stop with a simple manufacturing license though:

Currently, Wilson said he will not actually begin manufacturing and selling guns until he receives an “add-on” to his FFL, known as a Class 2 Special Occupational Taxpayer (SOT), as licensed under federal law (PDF). This would allow him to manufacture and deal a broader range of firearms under the National Firearms Act. The Class 2 SOT would grants Wilson the ability to manufacture, for example, a fully-automatic rifle. Wilson applied for the SOT on Saturday and expects to receive approval within a few weeks.

The primary advantage a manufacturing license has in regards to creating printable firearms is that it allows Cody to work on the project openly while legally seeking investors. In other words it keeps the state off of his back for a while. If Cody can build and test printable machine guns the technology of printable firearms in general is likely to advance leaps and bounds very quickly.

Prisons Don’t Work

I’ve stated the reasons I oppose prisons as a form of punishment before but didn’t mention one of the biggest problems with the incarceration system. Prisons are very expensive facilities because, in order to work, they need to prevent prisoners from escaping. Preventing an intelligent and creative creature from escaping is impossible because every system developed to prevent escape will eventually be bypassed:

Two inmates have made a daring escape from a prison in Canada by climbing up a rope into a hovering helicopter.

In order to prevent helicopter escapes prisons will have to either install anti-air defense systems or cage over the top of the facility. Both options are expensive and will simply delay the inevitable escape of future prisoners.

Aaron Swartz’s Lawyer Files Misconduct Complaint

In the ongoing Aaron Swartz case a misconduct complaint has been filed regarding the state’s absolutely barbaric behavior in its pursuit of nailing Swartz to the wall:

The complaint letter [PDF], which is dated January 28 but was just published this afternoon by The Huffington Post, accuses Heymann of withholding key evidence, as well as abusive behavior related to plea bargaining. The letter was sent to the Office of Professional Responsibility, a part of the Department of Justice tasked with overseeing its lawyers.

Specifically, Peters says that Heymann withheld a key e-mail until after a hearing in which it would have been useful. The e-mail “demonstrated that the Secret Service both had effective control over Mr. Swartz’s electronic devices and knew it needed to obtain a search warrant,” as of January 2011, according to Peters. That contradicted other government testimony about delays in searching Swartz’s devices. Heymann thus violated his “duty of candor to the court,” wrote Peters.

The plea bargaining abuse really lends precedence to the belief that the state was seeking revenge on Aaron Swartz for his perpetration of the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) incident. Not only was the state seeking insane charges but they also demanded cage time “>in order to justify those charges. I’m sure this case is going to get more interesting but no result will really matter since Swartz is no longer with us.