Month: March 2013

Gun Control Advocates Dislike Turnabout

Joan Peterson is a gun control advocate who lives in the same state as I’m currently occupying, Minnesota. Her zealotry is notable and I believe she would love nothing more than to see a law passed that granted the state a monopoly on legal firearm ownership. Her latest blog post demonstrates an interesting characteristic of gun control advocates, they dislike turnabout:

Isn’t it interesting that the gun rights extremists are more than willing to give up some of their rights to privacy and government interference when it suits their own purposes? Surely requiring everyone in a community to own a gun fits this description.

[…]

At least convicted felons would be exempt. That’s a relief. What about dangerously mentally ill people or domestic abusers? What about those convicted of drug crimes? What about minors? Where do you draw the line? How will you know who is legal and who is not if this is a requirement? Will “jack booted government thugs” go door to door to make sure those in the home are actually legal gun purchasers? Will you invade their privacy? How will you enforce this law? I mean, shouldn’t we make sure we enforce the gun laws we already have? What will happen if you refuse to have a gun? Will you be charged with a crime and sent to jail? Will you be fined? Remember now, these are the very same people who object to any paperwork requirements when a gun is purchased because it might lead to some sort of government record of gun ownership. How does this objection square with that point of view? Because of the stupid idea that a measure like this will keep the government from passing reasonable gun laws to keep us all safer in our communities, the NRA extremists are violating their own talking points. Hypocrisy as far as the eye can see…..

Notice how every question she asks is also a valid question when discussing gun control. How can a law against mentally ill individuals owning firearms be enforced when many mental illnesses can’t be detected until their symptoms begin to manifest? Why should a person convicted of growing, selling, or using cannabis be prohibited from owning firearms? None of those acts are violent in of themselves.

Obviously I oppose laws that require people to own a firearm just as I oppose laws that prohibit people from owning firearms. With that said proposed laws requiring people to own firearms is turnabout. It’s using the tactic beloved by gun control advocates, enforcing their personal desires onto a entire population by using the state’s capacity for violence, against them. Demanding everybody in a community own firearms is no different than prohibiting everybody in a community from owning firearms. Regardless of what is being demanded by the state the consequences of violating the demand are the same, men wearing costumes and carrying guns will kidnap you and lock you in a cage. That’s the difference between myself and gun control advocates, I have no desire to send armed thugs to kidnap you if you do something I disagree with. In fact I’ve not heard a single advocate of gun control explain how using the state’s capacity for violence to fight violence makes sense. If the desired end is to abolish violence then violence cannot be the means as it is mutually exclusive to the end.

Consider the following paragraph taken from her blog post:

As we all know, most reasonable gun owners, and even NRA members, want reasonable gun laws. I have written about that many many times before on this blog. NRA lobbyists don’t like new gun laws, right? That’s what they claim. But, wait- they love the gun laws that they, themselves, write and push on the public.This is ludicrous, stupid and dangerous. Where is common sense? A gun in the home is more likely to be used against you or someone in the home than to be used for self defense. Sure, guns are occasionally used for self defense in a home invasion or attack of some kind. But more often a gun is used in a suicide, homicide or accidental shooting.

Here statement that “A gun in the home is more likely to be used against you or someone in the home than to be used for self defense.” is a ridiculous one. But Joan asks a pertinent question, “Where is the common sense?” How can one oppose gun violence and advocate for laws that require men with gun to kidnap or murder people who violate those laws? Gun control advocates always seem to miss the fact that gun control laws are enforced by men with guns. Even worse, those men with guns are less accountable because people view their actions as being legitimate by default. If a police officer shoots somebody many people will believe the shooting was legitimate unless an investigation, which may or may not occur, says otherwise. On the other hand if I were to shoot somebody many people will believe the shooting was illegitimate unless an investigation, which will almost certainly occur, says otherwise. If gun control advocates want to grant a monopoly on gun ownership to somebody wouldn’t it make more sense if the monopolist was usually held accountable? Why do gun control advocates generally believe that the common sense solution is to give the monopoly to individuals that are held less accountable for their actions? She closes with the common gun control advocate tripe of having a discussion:

Let’s have some real discussion about whether guns in the home are a good idea or not. Let’s talk about whether using a gun for self defense actually is necessary or actually works.

Let’s have some real discussion about whether granting the state a monopoly on violence is a good idea or not. Let’s talk about whether having a state, an entity with a monopoly on violence, actually is necessary. It’s hypocritical to claim an opposition to violence while advocating solutions that rely on violence. Is having a gun in the home a good idea? That’s subjective. For some people it is, for others it’s not. Is a gun necessary for self-defense? Once again, that’s subjective. Each person has unique knowledge regarding themselves that is derived from their monopoly on life experiences. I cannot know what is best for you because I lack your unique knowledge about yourself and you cannot know what is best for me for the same reason. Therefore it’s egotistical, to say the least, to believe you know what is best for everybody else.

I should point out that Joan made a mistake in her post. She omitted the asterisk after saying:

People are free to own guns if they want to.

The asterisk should say “So long as those people are people I personally approve of, only own firearms that I personally approve of, and can have their firearms revoked the second I no longer personally approve of them.” Joan doesn’t believe people are free to own firearms, she believes select people, those she personally approves of, are allowed to have a temporary privilege to own certain firearms.

I will close with a thought. As a gun control advocate Joan appears to believe that gun owners are, at least on some level, inherently violent and therefore warrant more scrutiny in our society. As an anarchist I believe that statists are, at least on some level, either violent or ignorant of how the state works. I don’t believe Joan is ignorant of how the state works. She seems to have a very strong desire to control other people and she sees the state as her tool for doing so. In all likelihood her desire to control other people derives from fear of other people and that fear is likely cause by projecting characteristics of herself, namely her desire to control other people, onto everybody else. It appears that she’s caught in a vicious cycle of having a desire to control other people leading to a fear or other people leading to a desire to control other people and so on.

Orwellian Interrogation

It appears that the suspect in the Aurora, Colorado shooting it going to be drugged up in order to determine whether or not he’s sane:

The defendant in the deadly Colorado theater shooting could be given “truth serum” under a court order issued Monday to help determine whether he is insane if he pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.

Suspect James Holmes could be required to submit to a “narcoanalytic interview” as part of an evaluation to determine if he was legally insane at the time of the July 20 shootings, Arpahoe County District Judge William Sylvester said.

A narcoanalylitic interview is a decades-old process in which patients are given drugs to lower their inhibition. Academic studies have shown that the technique has involved the use of sodium amytal and pentothal, sometimes called truth serum.

If administering the drug will lower the suspect’s inhibitions wouldn’t it put any statements made by the suspect into question? Have we really reached a point in our society where people are willing to accept statements from a drugged up suspect? What’s to stop interrogators from telling the suspect what to say and record those statements as evidence? I don’t like where this is going, I don’t like it at all.

Judge Blocks New York City’s Ban on Large Sugary Drinks

A judge has blocked Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on large sugary drinks. That in of itself isn’t overly interesting in my opinion, Bloomberg’s reaction is:

Mayor Bloomberg responded to the ruling by telling a news conference: “We think the judge is totally in error in the way he interpreted the law and we are very confident that we will win on appeal.

“One of the cases we will make is that people are dying every day. This is not a joke. Five thousand people die of obesity every day in America,” he added.

The ban would prohibit places like restaurants and movie theaters from selling soda containers exceeding 16oz. of capacity. Bloomberg claims that obesity kills over 5,000 people a day and his proposal to prevent it is to make patrons of movie theaters and restaurants buy two smaller drinks instead of one large drink. Making the situation more laughable is the fact that two 16oz. drinks will contain more sugar than one 20oz. drink. It seems that Bloomberg hasn’t thought his master plan all the way through.

MakerBot Industries Unveils Prototype 3D Scanner

3D printers are a marvel of modern engineering. A device that is able to build almost any solid object from the ground up stands to reshape modern manufacturing. One of the gaps in the technology has been the lack of a tool that allows you to scan an object so you can replicate it. Last week at South by Southwest MakerBot industries unveiled a prototype desktop 3D scanner:

The maker community has helped on that front, as well, with MakerBot’s Thingiverse serving as an unparalleled resource for 3D images, meaning that, once your printer’s all set up and calibrated, you can download and print to your hearts delight — but what if, say, you want to print up something that some kindly soul hasn’t designed for you? You could learn a CAD program — or you could invest in an industrial 3D scanner. The latter option has lead to something of a land rush of companies and individuals looking to break things wide open with an affordable, consumer-facing offering. And while MakerBot still seems a ways away from the final product, the company used SXSW as a platform to unveil a prototype of its MakerBot Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner.

Imagine being able to toss a part onto a scanner and having copies print out in a few minutes. That’s what 3D scanners combined with 3D printers stands to do. It will be interesting to see where this technology goes in the next decade.

South Dakota to Allow Armed Teachers

The aftermath of the Connecticut shooting has seen very little common sense. We’ve seen countless people claim that more gun control legislation is needed but South Dakota is bucking the trend by allowing teachers to arm themselves:

The measure does not force school districts to arm teachers and will not require teachers to carry guns.

But it allows each school district to choose if staff could be armed. It takes effect in July.

Under the Republican-sponsored bill, school staff given permission to carry firearms on campus will be known as “school sentinels”. The state has given a law enforcement commission the task of establishing a training programme for the sentinels.

This is the appropriate response. Allow teachers that want to carry a gun on the job to carry a gun on the job. It’s a simple strategy that increases the cost of inflicting violence upon schools, doesn’t require gun owners to submit to further state tyranny, and doesn’t cost tax victims any additional money. I wish other states would remove their restrictions against teachers carrying at work but most states seem focused on punishing gun owners instead of protecting children.

The Political Game of Sequestration

Those who had been paying attention to the world of politics know that this entire sequestration drama is nothing more than political theater. We’re told that sequestration will lead to massive layoffs and furloughs even though the “cuts” will increase the federal budget by $110 billion. A recently leaked document from the Agriculture Department shows just how much of a game sequestration really is:

A leaked email from an Agriculture Department field officer adds fuel to claims President Obama’s political strategy is to make the billions in recent federal budget cuts as painful as possible to win the public opinion battle against Republicans.

The email, circulated around Capitol Hill, was sent Monday by Charles Brown, a director at the agency’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service office in Raleigh, N.C. He appears to tell his regional team about a response to his recent question on the amount of latitude he has in making cuts.

According to the partially redacted email, the response came from the Agriculture Department’s budget office and in part states: “However you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be.”

In other words the doomsday scenarios described by Obama are to be carried out even if departments have no need to do so. I think this leaked document does a marvelous job of demonstrating how politics is nothing more than Kabuki.

Monday Metal: Ground Zero Pilgrims by Al Qaynah

I’ve found something, I believe is, rather unique for this week’s Monday Metal. Al Qaynah is a folk metal band from Afghanistan. Many people don’t realize that metal is alive and well in the Middle East even though some countries in that region have declared the music illegal. Ground Zero Pilgrims is an interesting sounding song as it has a very Middle Eastern sound but maintains a fast pace and a powerful sound. It’s an instrumental so if you need vocals this song isn’t for you:

Eric Holder Believes Swartz’s Case was a Good Use of Judicial Discretion

Eric holder believes that demanding jail time to justify charges that were based on a document, not a crime, was a good use of judicial discretion:

Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday said the suicide death of internet activist Aaron Swartz was a “tragedy,” but the hacking case against the 26-year-old was “a good use of prosecutorial discretion.”

Holder, the nation’s top prosecutor, is the highest-ranking member of the President Barack Obama administration to defend the indictment and prosecution of the former director of Demand Progress, who committed suicide in January as his April trial approached. Holder’s comments come seven weeks after Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, whose office was prosecuting Swartz, said the authorities’ actions were “appropriate in bringing and handling this case.”

This isn’t surprising to hear from a man who believe it’s legal to murder United States citizens in the United States without due process. Still, you would think the man could show at least a little remorse for ruining a man’s life just to prop up a dying industry for a short while longer. Instead he came out and said his boys did a bang up job and that the ends (protecting the state’s cronies) justified the means (terrorizing a man and ruining his life).

United States Lawmakers Considering Undoing Damage They Caused

The politicians in Washington DC are making noise about legalizing the act of unlocking a phone:

A U.S. senator has proposed a bill that will allow consumers to unlock cellphones for use in other networks, after the administration of President Barack Obama backed over 114,000 petitioners who asked the government to legalize the unlocking of smartphones.

“You bought it, you should be able to use it. My Wireless Device Independence Act ensures you can unlock your device,” said Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, in a Twitter message on Tuesday.

The proposed “Wireless Device Independence Act of 2013” aims to amend Section 1201(a)(1)(B) of title 17 of the United States Code which deals with circumvention of copyright protection systems.

What Senator Wyden’s Wireless Device Independence Act does is undo the damage caused by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which he apparently liked enough to not oppose the voice vote that passed the DMCA during his time in office. But now he’s going to be magnanimous and allow us lowly serfs to do with our property as we wish. If Wyden really wants to correct the root of the problem he should be working to repeal the DMCA in its entirety.

The Illusionary Division

According to the Star Tribune Minnesota Democrats are split on the issue of gun control. The divide, for all intents and purposes, is illusionary:

A bipartisan majority of Minnesota House members and gun-rights groups are lining up to back a new proposal at the State Capitol that would tighten penalties on Minnesotans who obtain weapons illegally and would prohibit felons from owning ammunition.

[…]

But the proposal also is laying bare the divide within the DFL on gun rights, and could signal the first serious dissension within a party that now controls the Legislature. Rep. Michael Paymar, DFL-St. Paul, who heads the House Public Safety and Finance Committee, has already proposed a bill featuring universal background checks — an element that gun safety activists say is key step toward restricting gun violence.

The two options are expanding the state’s power by give state agents more data and new crimes to charge people with or by prohibiting private sales of firearms. No matter which side wins we, the people, lose. But the illusion of choice exists and ,so long as that illusion exists, people will believe they are free.