Tag: Gun Rights

A Problem Only Government Could Create

The International Business Times has an article discussing the limited liability granted to gun manufacturers:

As the United States grapples with a rash of mass shootings, some are calling for tighter laws limiting who can purchase firearms — a politically controversial subject that has yielded more rhetoric than legislation. But another, lesser-known dynamic effectively shelters gun manufacturers from government oversight: Under legislation dating back to the 1970s, Congress has consistently adopted positions championed by the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association, writing special provisions that have effectively exempted firearms from regulation by consumer watchdog agencies.

Of course the article insinuated it is the fault of the National Rifle Association (NRA), which lobbied for the grant of limited liability:

Cementing these exceptions to safety oversight constituted a significant political victory for the National Rifle Association in the 1970s and helped pave the way for high-profile gun rights battles to come. Gun owners themselves, however, are left with little recourse to hold companies accountable for faulty products outside the civil court system. Whether gun manufacturers choose to recall a firearm is entirely at their discretion. If they do, there is no mandatory protocol to follow to alert owners, and no official repository of recall notices.

But this isn’t a problem created by the NRA, it’s a problem created by the State. The reason gun owners are generally oppositional to attempts by the State to regulated any aspect of firearms is because those regulations ultimately get used as a form of gun control.

The ongoing smartgun debate is a classic example of safety being used to justify a prohibition. Instead of acknowledging access control technology as something worth investigating the gun control community wants to mandate its use. That adds costs and unreliability, both because the technology is in its infancy, to firearms. And since the technology cannot be retrofitted into older firearms mandating its usage can remove all existing firearms from the market.

Safety regulations always sound good on paper, especially if they’re for protecting the children, but it’s only a matter of mandating too many safety features to make a production functional or cost effective to create a ban.

When the State passes a law it’s not a contract. The State can change the terms at any moment without the consent of the people. A law passed under the auspices of consumer protection has no clauses guaranteeing it won’t be used to create a legal prohibition. There’s also no recourse if a consumer protection law ends up being used to create a ban.

One has to be a fool to willingly enter a binding agreement without recourse that authorizes the other party to change the rules whenever they want. If people want to pursue improving the safety of firearms they should start an independent non-governmental entity to certify firearms much like Underwriter Laboratories. That would allow for safety certification that allows for recourse, namely ignoring the standard, if it’s used outside of the initial scope it was created for.

Laws Are The Problem; Laws Are The Solution

One of my socialist anti-gun friends posted this article on Facebook. It’s a fascinating article not so much because of its content but because of the cognitive dissonance the author, Chauncey Devega, openly displays:

When the New York Times editorial board issued its powerful condemnation of America’s gun culture, they went beyond mere outrage in response to the recent murder sprees in San Bernardino, California, and Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Times went so far as to suggest that “assault rifle”-style weapons should be banned from civilian ownership. As is our national ritual, President Obama also condemned gun violence, and just as he has been forced to do too many times during his tenure, pleaded that Americans must find a way to stop killing each other. The American people do in fact support stronger gun control laws; the NRA, functioning as the lobbying arm for the gun industry, opposes even the most basic common sense gun laws. The NRA wins while the American people die.

Devega disparages the fact gun control hasn’t been a political success as of late. As an author for Salon this probably doesn’t surprise anybody. What is surprisingly is the fact he then notes the fact that gun control in the United States is founded on racism:

After the Civil War, white Southerners desperately tried to snuff out the freedom dreams and democratic power of now free African-Americans. Once Reconstruction was betrayed, white Southerners would launch a reign of terror where it is estimated that approximately 50,000 black Americans were killed by whites. White elites understood the practical and symbolic power of the gun. As such, they passed laws that made it illegal for black Americans to own firearms. African-American Civil War veterans, a group that had earned their full citizenship as men via martial prowess, would be made the focus of special violence by white Southerners.

[…]

The notion that gun ownership should be exclusive to white people would be asserted once more. Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, worked to pass stricter gun laws because of the Black Panthers using open carry laws. Robert Williams would be forced into exile in Cuba. Black people who fought back against white racial terrorism were killed by white mobs, police, and other State actors.

Laws are the problem! Laws are the solution! This article is a self-contradictory mess, which is unavoidable when one is arguing democracy is the solution to minorities being oppressed. Democracies are based on the will of the of the designated voting bodies. Here in the United States the designated voting bodies include the Congress of the United States, the congresses of the individual states, the councils of incorporated cities, the school boards of each school district, and so on. Most of them operate under majority rules. Therefore the laws passed will inevitably reflect the will of the majority of those bodies. Congress is made up predominantly of white Christian males.

Voting bodies are just half of the equation though. The other half is law enforcement. It wouldn’t matter what any designated voting body decreed if it didn’t have a means of enforcing those decrees. In this country there are very powerful police forces whose primary job is to enforce the will of the designated voting bodies. Like the designated voting bodies, law enforcers are predominantly white.

Some of you are probably wondering why I’m making a big deal out of race. Since I don’t subscribe to collectivism I don’t believe membership in a category, such as race, is a valid indicator of their behavior. I mention it because it is the crux of Devega’s article:

There will be no effective gun control in the United States, even in the aftermath of horrific events such as Sandy Hook, the Planned Parenthood Shooting, or the San Bernardino massacre, until politicians, pundits, and analysts realize that the gun is a type of totem or fetish object for too many white men. As such, when we try to talk about gun control in America, a centuries-deep sense of white masculinity that understands the gun as its exclusive right is made to feel imperiled and upset.

If guns are a type of totem or fetish object for white men why does he think a voting body make up predominantly of white men is going to overcome their fetish? Why does he believe law enforcement bodies, against predominantly made up of whites, are going to fairly enforce the laws? Hell, we know for a face law enforcers don’t fairly enforce the laws. Although the laws passed today aren’t overtly racist, in fact many of them appear to be quite the opposite on the surface, the results indicate that they are either crafted to be covertly racist or the enforcers are enforcing the laws in a racist manner unchecked (in the case of the latter it would be necessary for the designated voting bodies to either be directly or implicitly accepting of such enforcement).

Devega claims that guns interfere with democracy. If that’s the case then he should support repealing every single gun law because democracy is the problem. It established a power hierarchy. One group of people are able to create and enforce laws while the other group of people cannot. That means the first group gets to make the rules and the rules it makes, due to human nature, favor the members of that group.

Until that power hierarchy is abolished cities will continue passing laws criminalizing homelessness, poor neighborhoods will continue to be demolished and replaced with more valuable properties that pay high property taxes, intellectual property laws will continue to serve the politically connected at the expense of their competitors, and gun control laws will target non-whites. That’s because the homeless, poor, small businesses, and non-white population are minorities not only in our society but especially in our designed voting bodies.

Still No Due Process

People often argue when I point out that the Republican and Democratic parties are the same. After the San Bernardino shooting the Democrats rekindled calls to ban people on the terrorist watch lists from purchasing firearms. The Republican Party, hoping to prove it’s the opposite of the Democratic Party, proposed the same thing with a minor, and entirely irrelevant, difference:

What’s been lost in the debate is the fact that Republicans have an alternative to the Democratic proposal. Under Republican legislation sponsored by Senator John Cornyn, the federal government may delay the sale of a firearm to someone on the watch list for up to 72 hours. During that time, if the government can show a judge there’s “probable cause”–the same legal standard used to obtain a search warrant–that the individual is plotting terrorism, then the gun sale is denied outright. The measure received 55 votes in the Senate. It it secured the backing of staunch conservatives like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Marco Rubio as well as moderate Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and moderate Democrats Joe Manchin and Joe Donnelly. The only Republican to oppose it was Mark Kirk.

Since there appears to be some confusion of what due process entails I will give an outline. Due process, on a very high conceptual level, first requires an accusation to be made based on credible evidence. After the accusation has been made an impartial body must be assembled. In front of this body the accuser must present their justification for the accusation and the accused must be given an opportunity to defend themselves against the accusations. Finally the impartial body, based on the arguments of the accuser and accused, must make a decision on whether the accusation is true. Unless that entire process is met due process is nonexistent.

Probable cause as you can see is not due process. Under the Republican Party’s scheme the accused isn’t given an opportunity to defend themselves nor is the final decision made by an impartial body that has heard both the accuser’s and accused’s arguments. Instead a secret government list is used to initially delay the purchase so another government employee, a judge, can order the purchase permanently barred. And make no mistake, any judge who has such a decision brought before them will almost certainly approve the ban because they don’t want to risk being the judge who approved the purchase of a firearm by a terrorist (this is called covering your ass).

The fact neither party has made a proposal that involves actual due process just demonstrates there isn’t a lick of difference between them. Both of parties are fascist parties.

Punishing The People Because Of Terrorism

The San Bernardino attack is just another tragedy on a long list of tragedies exploited by the State. Again we’re seeing the tired claim by the political body that the people must be severely punished:

Obama said he will “urge high-tech and law enforcement leaders to make it harder for terrorists to use technology to escape from justice,” without going into details, and order a review of the visa waiver program that allowed one of the San Bernardino terrorists into the US. Obama also called on Congress to ban people on no-fly lists from buying guns. “What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon?” he asked. “This is a matter of national security.”

Mr. Obama may not have gone into specifics but we know what he’s hinting at. “Making it harder for terrorists to use technology to escape from justice,” is a euphemism for prohibiting the use of effective cryptography. In other words the basic security tools every one of us relies on every day must be broken so the State can further expand it’s already too expansive surveillance apparatus.

Reviewing the visa program is a euphemism for finding more ways to restrict people from crossing the imaginary lines often referred to as borders. Anybody who has been paying attention to recent political maneuvering is aware that the State is becoming more interested in tightening the borders. Just remember that a secure border prevents tax cattle from leaving.

Finally the question, “What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon,” is a euphemism for removing due process from decided who can and cannot own a firearm. Apparently having to go through the process of finding somebody guilty of a crime before they can be prohibited from owning a firearm is just too damn inconvenient.

Notice how each of these proposals requires punishing the entire population of almost 319 million for the actions of two individuals. Also notice how none of these proposals will do anything to curtail terrorism. Just because domestic companies can’t release tools that use effective cryptography doesn’t mean foreign entities can’t. According to the United States government the border is 102,514 miles long. Any thoughts of effective controlling over 100,000 miles of territory is nothing but a fantasy. Prohibiting more people from owning firearms only ensures attackers will be met with lighter resistance.

There are many ways of making a society more resilient to attacks. Punishing everybody in society whenever attack occurs is not one of them.

My Position On Self-Defense

I try really hard to not use shootings as platforms to argue philosophical points but since everybody has been, shall we say, interested in my thoughts I’ll state them.

Until somebody can make a convincing argument of why people caught up in shootings are better off being unarmed I will continue to actively support people’s right to defend themselves with the most effective tools available.

Carry on.

Eliminating Due Process

time-machineWe’re going back to 2009!

Talk about preventing “terrorists” from acquiring firearms is in the news again proving that everything old is new. With the shooting in San Bernardino in recent memory several politicians have taken the opportunity to introduce an amendment to a bill that would, amongst other things, prohibit people on the terrorist watch lists from buying firearms. This maneuver is being heralded as a tool to prevent terrorists from acquiring firearms but, as I noted back when this shit was being argued in 2009, the terrorist watch lists are secret lists. How do you end up on one of the lists? Who knows? It’s a secret. Are you already on one of the lists? Who knows? It’s a secret. All we do know is that the lists exist and a lot of names are on them.

Prohibiting people on the terrorist watch lists from buying firearms isn’t about prohibiting terrorists from buying firearms. It’s about removing due process before prohibiting people from buying firearms.

Unlike many people my support for due process isn’t dependent on whether or not an accused party shares my philosophical beliefs. I oppose any punishment issued without due process. Do you know why? Because not performing a full investigation and trial leads to shit like this:

A Guantanamo Bay prisoner locked up for 13 years has been found to be a victim of mistaken identity, originally thought to be a member of al-Qaeda.

Mustafa al-Aziz al-Shamiri was kept in a secret prison camp for 13 years without charge because somebody mistook him for somebody else. The only reason this is known is because some kind of hearing was finally held. In that hearing it was determined that he was just some low level schmuck and not the evil mastermind trainer he was originally sold as. Of course some may point out that he was still a fighter in al-Qaeda so his incarceration was justified. To that I would point out that no such fact was known because no investigation or hearing had been conducted. All we know is he was locked in a secret prison camp for 13 years based on accusations so weak no charges were even filed against him. That’s the kind of shit that happens when you don’t have due process.

I’m not going to mince words. Anybody who endorses their philosophical and political opponents being punished by governments without requiring any manner of due process is an asshole. They are what’s wrong with the world. They are the reason we can’t have nice things. I’d consider rounding them all up and putting them in a secret prison camp for the good of humanity but, you know, I believe in due process so I could never support such a thing.

One Sword Keeps Another In The Sheath

George Herbert once wrote, “One sword keeps another in the sheath.” Later Robert Heinlein expressed a similar idea in Beyond This Horizon when he wrote, “An armed society is a polite society.” Today many people would argue the idea shared by Herbert and Heinlein is destructive. They argue that peace can only exist when the general population is unarmed but acknowledge the need for weapons to enforce such a prohibition so generally approve of the military and police keeping their weapons. But Herbert and Heinlein were correct, peace tends to prevail when no disparity of force exists.

Force is an appealing option when one enjoys a greater capacity for it than their target. We see this every day with violent criminals. Amongst violent criminals there is a great tendency for targeting easier prey. The criteria that determine how easy a target is varies. If the criminal is physically strong they may see physically weak individuals as easy prey. If the criminal has a gun they may see anybody who is unarmed as easy prey. If the criminal is with friends they may see any group they that is numerically inferior as easy prey. Most criminals see people who are entirely unaware of their surroundings as easy prey. In general criminals target those they believe to have a lesser capacity for force than themselves. Economically this makes sense because the risks of employing violence decrease when your force advantage over your target increases.

But force becomes unattractive when your target enjoys an equal capacity. The reason for this is obvious. Force carries with it the possibility of severe injury or death. That’s what makes force appealing to those who enjoy a sizable advantage. But it also means a target that is on equal footing with you stands a good chance of injuring or killing you. If two renowned swordsmen are both carrying their swords the likelihood of a disagreement between them turning violent is going to remain fairly low. Both of them know drawing their sword will cause an equal reaction from the other and the outcome of the fight may very well include the loss of limbs or life.

This principle remains even on larger scales. A nation only tends to declare war against another if it believes it’s in an advantaged position. When a nation doesn’t believe it enjoys a force advantage it tends to use diplomacy. The United States and the Soviet Union avoided a direct war because both had enough nuclear weaponry to wipe the other out. Napoleon invaded Russia because he believed his military was superior and that would ensure his victory.

One of the reasons I believe stateless societies tend to be more peaceful than ones under statism is because the disparity of force between the people and the State is nonexistent. Iceland’s stateless period, medieval Ireland, the Old American West, and Neutral Moresnet are all examples of stateless societies that tended to be very peaceful when compared to their statist neighbors. Since there was no organization with a great force advantage over everybody else the tendency was for people to choose diplomacy over violence.

The desire to eliminate disparity of force, and therefore reduce the appeal of using violence, is one of the primary reasons libertarians tend to be supporters of allowing individuals to be armed. They recognize that one gun keeps another in the holster. It is also why even libertarian statists tend to support individuals enjoying arms parity with the police and military.

New South Wales Bans Possessing Knowledge

3D printers have ensured gun control laws will continue to become less enforceable. How can a government enforce a ban on something anybody can download a schematic for and print in their own home? It can’t. But that’s not going to stop the government of New South Wales from trying:

Possessing files that can be used to 3D print firearms will soon be illegal in New South Wales after new legislation, passed last week by state parliament, comes into effect.

Among the provisions of the Firearms and Weapons Prohibition Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 (PDF) is an amendment to the Weapons Prohibition Act 1998 stating that a person “must not possess a digital blueprint for the manufacture of a firearm on a 3D printer or on an electronic milling machine.”

The maximum penalty is 14 years’ jail.

The provision does not apply to any person with a licence to manufacture firearms or the police.

‘Possession’ is defined as “possession of a computer or data storage device holding or containing the blueprint or of a document in which the blueprint is recorded” or “control of the blueprint held in a computer that is in the possession of another person (whether the computer is in this jurisdiction or outside this jurisdiction)”.

Enforcing this would require knowing every file on every person’s computer and knowing every purchase every person has made. Even banning 3D printers or requiring they be registered wouldn’t make this law enforceable because schematics exist for 3D printers that can print 3D printer parts and be built at home.

With that said, this is yet another law that should encourage people to utilize strong cryptographic tools. Ensure every data storage device you possess is encrypted. Only access websites through encrypted connections. And use anonymity tools like Tor to download any potentially illegal data (which is all data). Laws against possessing information requires the authorities be capable of finding out whether or not you’ve learned something. So long as you can conceal that from them they cannot enforce such prohibitions.

Police Shouldn’t Receive Special Treatment

Being a victim is all the rage these days. Because there is no real war on cops some officers have been posting sob stories of people acting rude to them in what appears to be a pathetic attempt to generate some sympathy. Not too long ago an office whined because a Dunkin’ Donuts employee wrote “#blacklivesmatter” on his coffee cup (which that was certainly unprofessional it was also so minor that I, were I in the officer’s position, would have entirely ignored it). A few days ago a police officer claimed he was told to leave Olive Garden because he was carrying a gun:

The staff at an Olive Garden in Kansas City asked a police officer to leave during his own birthday lunch on Sunday. According to KMBC, officer Michael Holsworth was waiting for his family to arrive at the restaurant, dressed in full uniform and with his gun because he was on duty. While he was sitting inside of the Olive Garden, a staff member allegedly asked him to leave, telling the officer they do “not allow guns inside the restaurant.”

The supposed actions of the Olive Garden employee aren’t really newsworthy to me. In fact they shouldn’t have been an issue to the officer since the employee was “just following orders.” What is newsworthy to me is the general sentiment amongst a lot of conservatives. To them the real problem isn’t the establishment haven’t a gun prohibition but that the gun prohibition was enforced against a man with a shiny liability shield pinned to his chest.

Police officers aren’t special and there’s no reason they should expect special treatment. If Olive Garden has a prohibition against carrying firearms in the restaurant then there is no reason an officer should expect to be exempt from it. There is also no reason anybody else should expect officers to be exempt from it. Enforcing the prohibition against an officer is no different than enforcing it against anybody else.

A large contributor to the breakdown of trust in police officers is the immense amount special treatment they enjoy. When they unlawfully shoot somebody it’s not uncommon for them to be fired and receive no further punishment whereas an average individual will usually find themselves in prison. Officers can kidnap people without facing charges even if the kidnapping is later found to be unwarranted by a court. Civil forfeiture laws allow officers to confiscate anybody’s property so long as they can explain why they thought it could be involved in some way to a drug crime.

Conservatives have been decrying the public’s dwindling trust in law enforcement officers and their response has basically been to get on their hands and knees and lick the boots of officers. That is not an effective way to address the problem. And every instance of outrage over rules being applied to police officers specifically just further erodes the public’s trust.

Going Medieval On Their Asses

Because I study the use of Japanese swords several of my friends were kind enough to send me this great story about self-defense:

Dolley, standing 5-foot-6, said she immediately attacked, punching him about 10 times and cornering him in her bedroom.

She reached for her gun in a nearby drawer, but she accidentally opened the wrong drawer during the chaos of the moment, so her gun wasn’t there.

She reached for her backup weapon, a Japanese-styled sword called ninjato, which she keeps near her bed. Her intruder crouched in the bedroom as she held him at sword-point until police arrived, she said.

She called 911 and police arrived within two minutes, she said.

Karen Dolley just showed the world how it’s done. When she saw the intruder she didn’t freeze up, which is a common reaction, but immediately attacked. She was following the first rule of a gun fight but having a gun but didn’t open the correct drawer. Again, instead of freezing up, she simply went for the next weapon available to her, a sword.

When you think self-defense Karen is the model you want to follow. Be ready to defend yourself, take the initiative, don’t freeze up, and have a backup plan to your backup plan.