Month: February 2015

Residency Requirement for Buying Handguns Struck Down

Since the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968 it has been prohibited for individuals without a Federal Firearms License (FFL) to purchase a handgun outside of their own state. If you wanted to acquire a handgun from an individual or dealer in another state it had to be transferred to an FFL in your state. A federal district court in Texas just ruled that provision of the Gun Control Act unconstitutional:

A federal district court in Texas overturned a 1968 gun law prohibiting the sale of handguns to out-of-state residents, granting those who live in Washington, D.C., the ability to travel to an out-of-state gun store, buy a handgun and bring it home without a middleman.

The ruling takes aim at the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, which prohibited handgun sales to out-of-state residents and was defended by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who argued that the law doesn’t violate the Second Amendment.

Proponents of lifting the ban said the 1968 law had become dated given technological advances in instant background checks, which are performed every time a gun is purchased from a federally licensed firearm dealer. It also prohibited a robust national handgun market from developing, as rifles and shotguns can be purchased regardless of state residency, but handguns are not.

This is good news since the restriction made no sense when it was passed and makes even less sense now. However I’m guessing federally licensed dealers aren’t going to start selling handguns to out of state buyers until the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) give them permission. Angering the ATF, which is very easy to do, is a quick way to lose your FFL and therefore your business.

As the story notes the real winners will be the residents of Washington DC since the city has no federally licensed dealers.

Court Rules State Secrets Trump Justice

I really do appreciate living in the United States. In what other country could you be subjected to constant surveillance by your own government and enjoy a court system that declares the practice legal? OK, that’s actually a lot of countries. But what makes the United States so special is its propaganda about being the land of the free. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been working on a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) for violating our supposed Constitutional rights against unlawful search and seizure. Today a district court in California ruled that the NSA’s was above the law because prosecuting it would require revealing state secrets:

A district court in California has issued a ruling in favor of the National Security Agency in a long-running case over the spy agency’s collection of Internet records.

The challenge against the controversial Upstream program was tossed out because additional defense from the government would have required “impermissible disclosure of state secret information,” Judge Jeffrey White wrote in his decision.

That really shows how much protection the Constitution provides. The amendments in the Bill of Rights can be rendered null and void the second state secrets exist. If the Soviet Union were around today it would likely be envious of the American system.

Anarchists in Space

Or the Middle East. But as far as some American are concerned that might as well be in space. With the expanding threat of the Islamic State (IS) much of the Middle East is more chaotic than usual (which is saying something). Old states are crumbling, a new state is rising, and within the chaos a little bit of anarchy is cropping up:

The Democratic Union Party (PYD) and Kurdish National Council (KNC) established in the region of Rojava a society that mixes fierce libertarianism (guns are everywhere and there are no taxes – none) and Occupy-friendly anarchist thought with a healthy dose of feminism. While most Kurdish groups, especially those the US is friendly with, would some day like to establish a Kurdish state, in Rojava they have leap-frogged over the idea of the nation state into a more advanced system that they call Democratic Confederalism.

Heavily armed anti-state feminists? Sounds like my kind of crowd! If you know your Middle Eastern history then you’re aware that the Kurds have always had their own thing going. Other Middle Eastern nations have tried conquering them time and again but have never really succeeded. The IS is no different. While other Middle Eastern cities have fallen to its onslaught the Kurds have managed to keep it at bay.

According to statists anarchy should devolve into survival of the fittest. The people in Rojava should be slaughtering one another. But they’re not and that isn’t surprising. If you know the history of anarchism you know that it likes to creep up in areas of turmoil and act as an oasis to the burtchery surrounding it. Not only are the people in Rojava enjoying a far freer existence than the people around them but they’re also doing so with classic anarchist tools of organization and justice:

In the cantons of Rojava, there is a small central government with an absolute minimum of 40% female delegates, but most of the day-to-day work of running society happens at a local level, street by street and village by village. Democratic Confederalism’s chief architect, Abdullah Ocalan, says that “Ecology and feminism are central pillars” of the system he has spearheaded, something that you would have to go very far to the margins to hear from Western politicians. In Rojava, men who beat their wives face total ostracism from the community, making their lives in a highly social, connected society virtually impossible. Instead of a police force and jails, ‘peace committees’ in each municipality work to defuse the cycles of inter-family revenge killings by consensual agreements between both sides – and it works.

Like the Catholic concept of subsidiarity, anarchist societies strive to make decisions on the most local level possible starting with the individual. Rojava is doing that by leaving the day-to-day decisions at the local level and only involving more people in the decision making process when it’s absolutely necessary.

In addition to decentralized decision making the people of Rojava are opting for social ostracism instead of vengeful violence (imprisonment, lashings, and other forms of institutionalized violence) as a form of punishment. Statists often claim that anarchism can’t work because vengeful violence against bad actors in society is necessary to prevent societal collapse. But history shows that social ostracism and outlawry, that is taking away the protection of the law from those who refuse to live within it, is very effective at protecting a society from bad actors. There are few threats more frightening to most human beings than being completely cutoff from other human beings. Such is the burden of being a social species.

Obviously this won’t get much play in the media because the narrative of statism must be upheld at all costs. But for those of us who advocate anarchy it’s just another example of it working in the real world.

Michael Bloomberg Demonstrates the Racist Nature of Gun Control

History isn’t a topic researched thoroughly by enough Americans. This is unfortunate because history has so much to teach. Consider the modern gun control movement. Few proponents of gun control realize that their movement was founded on racist ideas. Gun control in the United States started as a way to prevent newly free blacks from acquiring arms. If you want a quick overview of this history the Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership put together a good documentary a few years back:

For those who prefer to read history Clayton Cramer put together a short, well-cited summary. The more things change the more they stay the same. Today the big player in American gun control is Michael Bloomberg. Considering his stated support for the New York Police Department’s stop and risk program, which heavily discriminated against black and Hispanic individuals, it’s not surprising to see racist motives in his push for gun control:

Bloomberg claimed that 95 percent of murders fall into a specific category: male, minority and between the ages of 15 and 25. Cities need to get guns out of this group’s hands and keep them alive, he said.

Statistics are a funny thing. If you massage numbers properly you can get whatever result you want. But if you look at the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ (FBI) Uniform Crime Report for 2013 you will see that the age range of 15 to 25 isn’t the majority. There were 12,253 murders reported in 2013 and a majority of the victims fell in the age bracket of 25 and above. Furthermore 5,537 victims were white, 6,261 were black, 308 were listed as other, and 147 were unknown. Nowhere could you get the 95 percent figure Bloomberg cites.

But it’s not surprising, considering his above mentioned history, that he’s specifically targeting young male minorities. History of the gun control movement, after all, arose because people wanted to disarm that particular segment of society. Even so it’s rare that you see a gun control proponent so openly state such a desire.

Meet Earth’s New Dominant Species

Us humans have enjoyed our spot as Earth’s dominant species for some time. But there are no constants in the universe and our era is finally coming to an end. Meet our replacements:

Yes, some of Moscow’s stray dogs have figured out how to use the city’s immense and complex subway system, getting on and off at their regular stops. The human commuters around them are so accustomed to it that they rarely seem to notice.

Most of the humans I know can’t properly navigate a subway system! But I know what you’re thinking. This means nothing. After all, dogs lack opposable thumbs. Well they have an ingenious solution for that apparent weakness as well:

Sometimes a pack will send out a smaller, cuter member apparently realizing it will be more successful at begging than its bigger, less attractive counterparts.

Who needs opposable thumbs when you can manipulate a dumber species with opposable thumbs to do all of your work for you? Let’s face it, we’re little more than laborers for our new dog overlords.

The Front Line of the Bathroom Wars Has Shifted to Florida

Republicans often call themselves advocates of small government. What that means is that the government needs to be small enough to fit into our bedrooms and bathrooms. In the tradition of the Roman propensity of naming wars after the locations where they were fought I’ve dubbed the Republican Party’s attempt to regulate bathroom usage the Bathroom Wars. Two years ago the front line of this war was in Arizona, where Republicans tried to pass a law that would make it a jailable offense to use a bathroom in a manner that wasn’t specifically approved by the men in suits in Arizona’s capitol building. Now the front line has moved to Florida where Republican scumbag Frank Artiles has introduced legislation that manages exceed Arizona’s attempt in stupidity and offensiveness:

According to the bill’s text, any trans person who enters a “single-sex public facility” that doesn’t match their “biological sex” is guilty of a first-degree misdemeanor. A “single-sex public facility” includes bathrooms “maintained by an owner of public accommodations, a school, or a place of employment”—basically, any public bathroom in the entire state. Any trans person who violates the act could be sentenced to one year in prison.

Regardless of your views on transgender individuals I think we can mostly agree that tossing somebody in a cage for one year because they failed to use a bathroom in a manner unapproved by the men in suits in Florida’s capitol is asinine. The state’s cages are already overflowing with nonviolent individuals so I fail to see how adding more to the mix will make matters worse.

But jailing transgender individuals for using a bathroom in a manner unapproved by the state is par for the course thanks to Arizona. Frank Artiles decided he wanted to kick things up a notch and prove that he is, without a doubt, more transphobic than the Republicans in Arizona:

It gets much, much worse. Any non-trans person who discovers a trans person using a bathroom that doesn’t align with their “biological sex” would be permitted to sue that trans person under the act. (If sued successfully, the trans person would have to pay their accuser’s attorney fees.)

I’m not sure how a cisgender person is supposed to identify whether or not another person using a bathroom is transgender unless they start resorting to age old tactics of detecting thoughtcrime:

On the upside this bill is mostly toothless because the Republican Party cherishes property rights above all else and therefore would never require a private business to abide by this law. Just kidding!

And, in a final turn of the screw, an “owner of public accommodations, a school, or a place of employment” who allows a trans person to use the bathroom of their true gender is liable for a civil suit.

Republicans never were big on the whole private property thing. This is especially true when property rights interfere with the subjugation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

As an individual with transgender friends I find these bills personally offensive. As a libertarian who believe the government has no right to regulate bedrooms or bathrooms I find these bills tyrannical. As an anarchist who believe all interactions should be voluntary I find these bills sickening. Basically these types of bills offend me on every level and I really think tarring and feathering individuals who introduce them and vote for them is too kind. I hope this bill doesn’t pass and I hope Frank Artiles gets exiled to a deserted island so far out in the middle of the ocean that there’s no chance he’ll make it back to the United States.

She Should Have Been a Security Expert

As you can expect from a man who has a blog just so he can bitch about whatever he feels like, there are a lot of things that really piss me off. One of the things at the top of the list of things that piss me off is blaming victims of rape fore being raped. Oftentimes such blame comes in the form of people claiming a woman shouldn’t have worn revealing clothing or gotten drunk at a party. But the Arizona Attorney General’s Office may have just taken the cake. A woman is suing the state because she was raped by a prisoner while working at the prison. The Attorney General’s Office is claiming she was at fault because the prison failed at provider her effective security:

“Plaintiff is an ADOC (Arizona Department of Corrections) employee who routinely worked at the prison complex,” Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Weisbard wrote in his motion to dismiss. “By being placed in a classroom at the complex, the officers were not placing Plaintiff in any type of situation that she would not normally face. The risk of harm, including assault, always existed at a prison like Eyman.”

[…]

Normally, such tests are given in the visitation room, which is monitored by security cameras and corrections officers. But on that day, because of a special event, she was sent to an unmonitored classroom, handed a radio and told to use it if there was any trouble, her lawsuit says.

The test lasted 90 minutes during which not a single corrections officer checked on her or radioed to ask if everything was OK. As they finished, six inmates left, returning unescorted to their dorm. One, Jacob Harvey, lingered.

According to the lawsuit, the 20-year-old inmate grabbed her from behind and took her to the ground as she struggled. He then stabbed her repeatedly in the head with a pen, choked her, slammed her head into the floor, tore away her clothes and raped her, the lawsuit says.

The teacher told investigators she screamed for help, but no one came. After the attack, Harvey tried to use her radio to call for help but it was tuned to a channel the guards didn’t even use. Eventually, Harvey allowed her to phone for help.

In other words the Attorney General’s Office is saying she should have known the room was unmonitored and therefore demanded a different room and to verify the radio given to her was set to the proper channel. Its defense is literally claiming she was at fault for being raped because she wasn’t a trained security expert. I don’t even have words for how disgusting that claim is.

Prisons are supposed to be completely controlled facilities. That’s why there are walls, fences, bars, and guards literally everywhere. But even in these tightly controlled environments the state can’t protect people. It really makes you wonder why anybody expects the state to protect them. This also shows that the state will sink to some really goddamn awful levels to dodge responsibilities for its failures.

Monday Metal: Helvetios by Eluveitie

This week we’re listening to another song from the genre I’ve mostly made up called history metal. Eluveitie’s album Helvetios is a concept album that covers the Gallic Wars from the side of the Helvetii. Since the Romans won the war the album isn’t exactly uplifting but it’s damn good nonetheless. The album is actually one of my favorites from Eluveitie and the title track is probably my favorite one on it:

Proving Once Again Police Are Better Than Us

Tony Cornish is a busy man. Last week he was helping introduce legislation that would classify any police body camera footage not being used to prosecute a prole, which would help ensure bad police officers continue to be shielded from the consequences of their misdeeds. This week he’s proposing a special emergency system just for the police officers:

ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) — Minnesota lawmakers are debating a statewide alert system that would be used by law enforcement and broadcasters when a police officer is hurt.

The Blue Alert system would help get the word out quicker to the public to help identify and locate a suspect who seriously hurts or kills a law enforcement officer. This would apply to local, state and federal police in Minnesota.

Rep. Tony Cornish, who introduced the bill, says the system would use the same format already in place that issues Amber Alerts.

Police officers are like you and me only better! You have to love the fact that this would help get the word out to the public when a perpetrator has hurt a law enforcer but won’t do squat if a perpetrator rapes, murders, or assaults anybody else. I can’t wait to see Cornish’s next attempt to hoist the police further above the general public. Maybe his next bill can require all emergency services be diverted from whatever they are doing to respond to any incident where a cop is injured. That would forsake any lowly prole who is having a heart attack but sometimes we have to make sacrifices to ensure our oppressors are safe.

Montana Passes Law Allowing Terminally Ill Patients to Tell The FDA to Pound Sand

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ultimate control over what drugs and medical technologies are allowed to be used in the United States. Because of the expense of getting FDA approval the drug and medical technology markets (at least the legal ones) are almost entirely monopolize by extremely wealth and established companies. Getting FDA approval also requires a very long and drawn out process, which means the United States lags many other countries in medial technology (but medical tourism gives people in the United States access to better technology). What’s especially stupid is that the FDA doesn’t even allow terminally ill patients, people with literally nothing to lose, to try unapproved drugs or medical technologies that may save their lives. Montana appears to be the first state to recognize the absurdity of this. It recently passed a law that would allow terminally ill patients in Montana to tell the FDA to pound sand:

On Monday, the Montana State Senate unanimously passed a “right to try” bill, which would allow terminally ill patients to ignore federal restrictions on experimental treatments and drugs. Too often, patients who cannot be cured by conventional treatment are denied the ability to try new options thanks to onerous regulations by the FDA.

It’s about time somebody did this. There is absolutely no reason why a terminally ill patient shouldn’t be able to try any and all means available to them to save their own life. I would even go a step further and say a person has the right to try any drug or medical technology they want regardless if they’re terminally ill or not. It’s your body so you should be free to do with it as you please. But this is at least a step away from the fucking ridiculous, which is appreciated.