Tag: National Rifle Association

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.

The Dumb Smart Gun

Remember the Armatix iP1? It was a supposed smart gun that utilized a wrist-mounted authenticator to allow the gun to fire. The gun, as far as I know, never mad it to market. While the inability to bring the gun to market causes anti-self-defense advocates to blame the National Rifle Association (NRA) it turns out the real problem was likely technical. As it turns out the NRA actually had the chance to perform range tests on the iP1 and were left wanting. Here is a list of technical failures exhibited during the NRA’s testing:

Does the Armatix operate perfectly? Well, no; we found it to be troubling at best. NRA’s tests, conducted with staffers trained by Armatix, found a number of very serious problems:

  • The Armatix pistol initially required a full 20 minutes to pair with the watch, even with the aid of an IT pro trained in its use. Without pairing, the Armatix functions like any other handgun, capable of being fired by anyone.
  • Once paired, a “cold start” still requires a minimum of seven push-button commands and a duration of 12 seconds before the gun can be fired.
  • While the gun holds a maximum of 11 rounds (10+1), the best our experts could manage was nine consecutive rounds without a failure to fire (and that only once). Three or four misfires per magazine were common, despite using various brands of ammunition.

    • […]

  • The pistol must be within 10 inches of the watch during “start up.” This slows and complicates the use of the pistol if one hand is injured or otherwise unavailable.

This is uncommon for a version one release although the fact the authentication system doesn’t prevent the gun from firing until it has been paired makes the entire system rather pointless. I would have thought such an obvious mistake wouldn’t have made it to a range test. The fact it did makes one wonder what other obvious mistakes were made.

The NRA Gave Me Cancer

I have a lot of issues with the National Rifle Association (NRA) but, in general, I believe the organization means well. Gun control advocates, on the other hand, view the NRA has the direct spawn of Satan. Anything that goes wrong in the world is, according to the gun control loons, the direct fault of the NRA. For example, did you know that the Ebola crisis is the fault of the NRA? I’m not joking on this one. Gun Free Zone linked to an article that would be absolutely hilarious if the author wasn’t being serious:

Every day brings more details about the first case of the Ebola virus to be diagnosed in the U.S. And while experts say there is essentially no risk of a significant outbreak here in the states, much of the public remains worried. A poll by Harvard found that 39% of U.S. adults are concerned about a large outbreak here, and more than a quarter fear someone in their immediate family could get sick with Ebola.

If only there was someone around who could educate the American public about the actual level of risk. Someone who was trusted as a public health expert and whose job it was to help us understand what we really need to worry about and what precautions we should take.

Actually, that is one of the primary responsibilities of the United States surgeon general. There’s just one problem: Thanks to Senate dysfunction and NRA opposition, we don’t have a surgeon general right now. In fact, we haven’t had a surgeon general for more than a year now — even though the president nominated the eminently qualified Dr. Vivek Murthy back in November 2013.

So the fear of Ebola is directly caused by the NRA because it somehow, through its Illuminati connections I’m sure, has prevented a surgeon general from being appointed and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) is totally not telling people that the likelihood of Ebola spreading in the United States is remote.

Although I’m accustomed to gun control loons blaming the NRA for everything wrong in the universe this accusation takes matters to an entirely different universe. First of all I can’t remember any previous surgeon general dispelling fears about previous epidemics such as the yearly flu that was always slated to kill us all. As far as I know the person who filled that position has never even put a dent in the mass media’s rampant fear mongering. Additionally I’m not aware of the NRA having connections to the Illuminati, Bilderberg, Rothschilds, lizard people, or any other group conspiracy theorists such as the author of the linked article are so accustomed to claim is pulling the strings behind the scenes. If the NRA did have such connections I would imagine, as a member, I’d see some pretty stellar benefits.

Really all there is to do about this accusation is point and laugh. It’s downright nutty. In fact it’s probably nuttier than many of Alex Jone’s insane ramblings. Next week I’m sure the author will have a fascinating investigative piece that will determinate that the NRA is headed by Literally Hitler.

The State is Hindering Smart Gun Availability, Not the NRA

Today’s theme, as you can probably guess from the previous post, is putting the blame where it should be. Far too often the media attempts to blame anybody but the actual culprit for perceived wrongdoings. For example, The Verge recently ran an article accusing the National Rifle Association (NRA) of taking peoples’ smart guns. At least that’s the accusation found in the title, the article itself points out that the NRA doesn’t actually oppose smart gun technology:

Opponents counter that the technology adds an unnecessary failure point — you don’t want to fumble with a fingerprint unlock if someone is breaking into your home. They also fear the spread of laws like New Jersey’s, since similar proposals have been introduced in other states and in Congress. “The NRA does not oppose new technological developments in firearms,” the group writes on its website. “We are opposed to government mandates that require the use of expensive, unreliable features, such as grips that would read your fingerprints before the gun will fire.”

And the closing paragraph finally points to the real cause of opposition to smart guns:

Many gun owners don’t object to smart guns, as long as they’re still allowed to buy regular guns. “If someone wants to buy a smart gun, that is fine,” Raymond said in his Facebook address. “When the law legislates it, that is a sin.” After the apology, he and his shop were flooded with supportive emails, calls, and visits. Members of the Maryland Shooters forum even rallied for a barbecue at Engage Armament. “It is only a matter of time before such guns are available. Acting like babies about it doesn’t make things better,” one user wrote. “Assuming of course there is an actual market for such a bad idea.”

So we come again to the real culprit, the state. As the article points out New Jersey passed legislation that would mandate smart gun technology be integrated into all firearms sold in the state within three years of the technology becoming available to consumers. That being the case it’s pretty simple to figure out why so many people oppose this unproven technology.

Smart gun technology is another victim of the gun control advocates’ policy of making everything either mandatory of verboten. If a new technology can inhibit firearms they demand it become mandatory and if the technology can enhance firearms they demand it be prohibited. Access control policies (which is what gun control advocates really mean when they say smart guns) could inhibit the reliability of firearms as none of the proposed access control methods have been rigorously tested. I don’t want a gun that will sudden cease to function because some asshole decided to jam the radio frequency being used to authenticate with my firearm. And I certainly don’t want to cut up and deface my current firearms (some of which are very valuable to me) to jerry rig some half-assed access control system into them. But that’s what the politicians in New Jersey have demanded and, as a general rule, if the politicians in New Jersey concoct a gun policy then us gun owners know it’s not to be trusted (and in this case those politicians were kind enough to make it blatantly obvious why we shouldn’t trust them).

There’s almost certainly a market for firearms with reliable access control technology. But the state doesn’t want to allow that market and the market for guns sans access control technology to coexist. So the debate necessarily becomes one of “us” versus “them”. If the state wasn’t using its monopoly on force to favor one market over the others then we could have both and everybody could be happy (except the anti-gunners but they’re never happy so there’s no point in trying to please them).

The NRA’s Speaker Selection Needs Work

As it happened over the weekend I didn’t pay much attention to the news coming out of the National Rifle Association (NRA) Annual Meeting. The only news I paid any attention to involved new firearms and firearm accessory announcements. I didn’t even bother to look up any of the speeches. If an organization has people like Sarah Palin speaking then I know it’s not worth my time looking up the speeches. Unfortunately Palin’s speech found me. Once again she opened her mouth and a flood of stupid came forth. And this was stupid that I couldn’t let go without commenting:

(CNN) – Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told a capacity crowd at a National Rifle Association rally how she would baptize terrorists if she was an elected official.

“If I was in charge,” Palin said Saturday in Indianapolis, “they would know, waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

Once again we return to the culture clash within the shooting community. It saddens me that so many people in the shooting community are warmongers. I’m sure this statement by Palin was met with great applause and cheering. Nothing gets a warmonger harder faster than discussions about torture.

But those of us who oppose imperialism don’t find statements like this funny, endearing, or appropriate. Torture is a barbaric act used by cowards and sadists whose only interest is inflicting pain on other human beings. The fact that Palin sees something like water boarding as a positive thing demonstrates her psychopathy. And this is far from her first time saying something like this, which makes me look down on the NRA for having her as a keynote speaker.

Obviously it’s impossible for any single organization to appease everybody. The NRA looks for speakers that will appeal to the majority of its members. That majority is made up by the old guard of the shooting community. But there are speakers that could be hired that appeal to both the old guard and people outside of the traditional shooting culture because they focus on gun rights and self-defense and not United States imperialism and warmongering. It would be nice to see the NRA try to bridge the gap between the traditional and nontraditional gun owning communities by hiring speakers for and hosting events at its Annual Meeting that appealed to both sides.

The NRA

During my textual monologue about the new generation of shooters I said some disparaging things about the National Rifle Association (NRA). This lead to an e-mail asking me why I dislike the NRA (it was actually a very polite e-mail, which I’m not used to receiving in response to criticisms I make). Assuming other people were wondering the same thing I felt that this would make a better blog post than an e-mail response. To save you a lot of reading I will just quote the relevant part of my post here:

I’ve had numerous heated discussions with fellows gun enthusiasts due to my political views (because the only thing more vile than a dirty liberal Democrat to some members of the shooting community is a downright dangerous anarchist). If you ever want to see a political discussion go from civil to yelling just bring up the fact that you think the Constitution is a flawed document that shouldn’t be cited as scripture. My viewpoints and the viewpoints of most of my anarchist friends do not align with the National Rifle Association (NRA). We don’t derive our ability to own and carry firearms from an amendment to some document written by power hunger individuals who were upset that the Articles of Confederation didn’t allow for monarchical control. Us metalheads aren’t interested in a country music concert and most anarchists and metalheads want to be as far away from a prayer breakfast as we can get.

It’s pretty obvious that I despise the NRA, right? Well my opinion regarding the NRA isn’t that cut and dry. The thing to remember is that the NRA is a large organization composed of approximately four million members. That being the case it’s difficult to make an overall judgement of the organization. I personally have a love-hate relationship with the NRA. While the organization does many things that I don’t like (with my range of dislike of individual things going from mild to borderline disgust) it also does many things that I do like.

Let’s start with the things I dislike about the NRA. The most obvious place to start is with the organization’s politics. In general the NRA uses its political clout to fight for gun rights and the organization has a good track record. However it also does incredibly boneheaded political maneuvers in my opinion. For example, during the last presidential election the NRA threw its political weight behind Mitt Romney. I’m not sure how endorsing a candidate who has a history of being, at best, wishy-washy on gun rights promotes gun rights but that’s what the NRA did. And the organization has endorsed other candidates who have been less than stellar in regards to gun rights.

Another thing I dislike about the NRA, and it is something that I dislike about most large and established organizations, is it’s apparent inability to adapt strategically. Political endorsements and campaign contributions are its hammer and it gets used whether the problem is a nail or a screw. There are many avenues of promote gun rights that the NRA has failed to utilize effective. Social media is probably ones of the biggest avenues that remains underutilized (although that seems to be slowly changing). Like them or not social media tools are probably the best way to reach the new generation. Much of what the NRA does with its barrage of physical mail could be better, and more cheaply, accomplished with Facebook, Twitter, etc. While the NRA does maintain Facebook and Twitter accounts it doesn’t use them much for engagement, which is the real power of social media. It would be nice to see the NRA engaging its online audience to both gather support for gun rights and to refute claims made by gun control supporters.

The third major problem I have with the NRA is it’s habit of taking credit for the accomplishments of others. This ties with the NRA’s inability to adapt. When organizations such as the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) make gains using a strategy left underutilized by the NRA it’s inevitable that the NRA will try to take credit for the success. Taking undue credit is sketchy at best and downright disgusting at worst. Instead of trying to make itself look like the only game in town the NRA should spend time reaching out to other gun rights organizations and try to build an alliance instead of a monopoly. Give credit where credit is due and make a point to work together with other gun rights organizations.

My last major gripe with the NRA is cultural. As was pointed out in Grant Cunningham’s excellent post on the new generation of shooters the NRA culturally appeals to political and social conservative Christians. While this group has traditionally been the biggest supporters of gun rights they are a dying breed (literally, they are getting older and the younger generation isn’t falling over itself to replace them). I don’t believe that the NRA should stop appealing to political and social conservatives but it should also invest time in appealing to other cultures. There’s nothing wrong with keeping the country music concerts and prayer breakfasts but it would go a long way to offer alternatives for those uninterested in such events. A death metal concert may be too niche but a concert by a group popular with the younger generation wouldn’t hurt. How about a workshop on using direct action to fight for gun rights? Some of us political radicals aren’t interested in working for political campaigns or marking boxes next to names of politicians but we love doing hands-on activities.

OK, that is a rather lengthy (although not all inclusive) summary of my criticisms of the NRA. Now let me bring up some things that I like about the organization.

One of the best things the NRA does in my opinion is promote firearm safety. While advocates of gun control spend time and money trying to scare children away from firearms the NRA invests time and money educating children on how to be safe with and around firearms. Children are naturally curious. Scaring them can often discourage them from exploring for a while it seldom works in the long run. Eventually their innate curiosity gets the best of them and they decided to face their fear. Education on the other hand tends to work well. If you want your child to be safe around firearms you need to destroy the mystery surrounding firearms. This is best done by educating children on firearms. Take away the mystery by showing them what a firearm is and how it works. Take your children to the range so they can experience what a firearm truly is in a supervised manner. This is something the NRA understands and directly works on.

The NRA also invests effort in firearm training. If you’ve never been around firearms the NRA has programs that introduce you to the shooting sports in a safe manner. Are you interested in learning how to instruct others on the use of firearms? There are numerous NRA programs for training trainers. I think it’s also beneficial to have a program geared towards teaching women how to shoot. My reason for thinking this is, unfortunately, related to the cultural problem surrounding the firearms community. Woman are sometimes treated as inferior by male shooters (especially traditional shooters). While those of us who aren’t sexist pigs are working to change this it’s taking time. Until things have been changed I appreciate having a mechanism for women to learn how to shoot without having to deal with the potential cultural neanderthal shitting all over their experience.

I also appreciate what the NRA does to promote the construction and improvement of firing ranges. Due to the legal landscape in this country it’s almost impossible to build anything without an army of lawyers to look over your plan. The NRA offers advice on how to build firing ranges in a manner that won’t upset the lawyers. It also offers grants for improving existing ranges. Without firing ranges the shooting sports become difficult to participate in. Any help that can be received for building new ranges or improving current ones is appreciated.

My overall opinion of the NRA changes depending on its current actions. When it does something like endorse a lackluster politician (but I repeat myself) I find myself wanting to burn my membership card. But then I hear about a firing range that was given a grant by the NRA for facility improvements and I’m happy to hold my membership card. As I said, it’s a love-hate relationship. Due to my range’s requirement of being an NRA member I will maintain my membership for the foreseeable future. But I not longer push people to sign up with the organization. If you want to sign up then do so but you shouldn’t feel like being an NRA member is mandatory to enjoy the shooting sports. Do what’s right for you.

A Gun Rights Story of Intrigue, Deception, and Corruption

As a radical my interest in politics is probably far lower than most people involved in the gun rights community. But I’m a sucker for stories of political corruption. Like a fine mystery novel, stories of political corruption can keep me turning pages into the wee hours of the night. Although I’m not as integrated in the local gun rights movement as others I still keep my ear to the ground and have friends who are. That’s why I was surprised that I hadn’t heard about a new gun rights organization here in Minnesota calling itself Minnesota Gun Rights (MGR).

The organization came to my attention only recently. A few people, after expressing displeasure with the Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance (GOCRA), have been pointed towards MGR. MGR describes itself as a no compromise gun rights organization. While I have had my disagreements with the tactics of GOCRA in the past, the organization has a long track record of getting things done in regards to gun rights and consists of some damned good people. Unlike GOCRA, MGR has no track record to speak of but their site is pretty boastful (without providing specifics).

Thankfully we have the Internet so it’s easier than ever to research a new organization. My search for information on MGR lead me to a series of posts on Shot in the Dark, a website operated by local gun rights activist Mitch Berg. The series starts with this post, which covers the organization know as Iowa Gun Owners (IGO). Post two is where the story became interesting. It seems that IGO was responsible for sinking an Iowa billion that would have allowed veterans who suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome (a medical condition that can prohibit you from legally owning a firearm) to get their gun rights restored. In its zeal IGO reintroduced some additional pro-gun legislation as an amendment to the above mentioned bill. This additional legislation effectively killed the bill. It also appears that the people in charge of IGO are also in charge of MGR, which is important to note because the third post indicates one of them was involved in some political shenanigans of a corrupt nature. The series is a great read if you’re into political corruption or curious about MGR.

This brings me to a subtopic I wish to discuss: being unwilling to compromise. As my long-time readers know, I have a no-compromise position on many issues. For example, I want to eliminate the state in its entirety. When it comes to masters I have a zero tolerance policy. So I have respect for individuals and organizations that are unwilling to compromise on issues (even when I disagree with those issues). With that said, I must also point out that not compromising requires a different set of tactics. I learned some time ago that politics is not the realm for radicals. Radicals, by definition, wants something radically different. For example, I find the very concept that people with guns taking guns from nonviolent people will somehow reduce gun violence. Because of this I oppose gun control. Instead I focus on the reduction of violence in society as a whole. Even though I acknowledge that completely eliminating violence from a society is impossible I believe there are methods that can greatly reduce the amount of violence present in a society. But these methods are not achievable politically because they rely on the destruction of the state, which politics cannot do.

My point is this: if you’re not willing to compromise then you are a radical and you need to seek nonpolitical strategies. Any organization that labels itself as a no compromise group and a political group should be treated with a great deal of caution. In my experience such groups are perfectly aware of the incompatibility of their position and methodology. They don’t care because their actual goal is different from their stated goal. These organizations tend to exploit groups of political activists in order to extract cash from them. Gun rights activists are a great target for such a strategy because they’re passionate and willing to give their time and money in the pursuit of winning their fight. Proof of this fact can be found by looking at the number of members the National Rifle Association (NRA) has. If an organization is able to position itself as fighter for gun rights it stands to make a good amount of money.

Based on what I’ve found it seems MGR is an organization created to extract money from gun rights activists without sincerely investing itself in the fight for gun rights. Any new political organization should be taken with a grain of salt until it demonstrates its trustworthiness. Even though I have disagreements with the NRA, Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and GOCRA they have demonstrated trustworthiness. If you’re going to support gun rights organizations those are good candidates. MGR has, so far, failed to demonstrated trustworthiness in my opinion and their list of accomplishments is nonexistent.

I won’t tell you to support or not support MGR. You’re all adults (I think) and can make your own decisions. But I urge you to research the organization, and all other political organizations, to determine whether or not you want to support it. What I can tell you is that MGR’s stated position and methodology are incompatible, which raises red flags for me. Finally I will close by offering to hear counterarguments to the claims made on Mitch Berg’s blog. Any members or supporters of MGR may post whatever counterarguments they wish in the comments section. Due to spambots I must manually approve all posts by first time posters, so if your comment doesn’t appear immediately please know that I will get around to approving it. You can also feel free to e-mail me at blog[at]christopherburg[dot]com.

Why are Gun Control Advocates so Violent

Gun control advocates like to position themselves as peaceful individuals however they have a habit of advocating violence against those who disagree with them. Consider this op-ed written by an advocate of gun control:

Here it is. The NRA advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America. That’s treason, and it’s worthy of the firing squad. The B.S. needs a serious gut check. We are not a tin pot banana republic where machine gun toting rebel groups storm the palace and depose the dictator.

I’m not sure when the National Rifle Association (NRA) advocated armed rebellion (I must have missed a mailing) but even if they did it’s not worthy of a firing squad. Being an anarchist I find the crime of treason to be bullshit in of itself but even those who recognize the state as a legitimate entity must also acknowledge that advocating armed rebellion, which the NRA hasn’t done as far as I know, is protected by the First Amendment. Unless the NRA was actually involved in an armed rebellion against the state they couldn’t be found guilty of treason.

Beyond advocating violence the author also invalidates his own argument. In the above paragraph he implies that armed rebellion is not the proper way to resolve disagreements with the duly elected government. However, in the previous paragraph he argues that might makes right:

And how does choosing a white, rich old man with an offensive degrading speech about the war of “Northern Aggression” as NRA president forward a sense of reasonableness? History lesson: It was an awful Civil War won decisively some 150 years ago. Over slavery. The Confederacy wanted to keep African-Americans in chains and President Lincoln didn’t.

Sure, there were states’ rights issues, but nullification, secession, and treason were settled at Appomattox Courthouse. Sure, Reconstruction left a bad taste. But, resurrecting these same things, the way South Carolina is as we speak, is to invite a return to the whole concept of a Union.

This man isn’t too bright if he thinks the Civil War was about slavery. If that were the case slavery would have been illegal in the Union but it wasn’t. In fact the Emancipation Proclamation would have only ended slavery in Confederate states that refused to rejoin the Union by January 1863. Slavery was one minor issue amongst a great many. What started the session movement that preceded the Civil War was the United States government’s continuous encroachments on the powers reserved for the individual states. In other words the Confederate states were sick of the federal government and decided to vote with their feet. They left the Union peacefully and formed a confederacy.

The Union wasn’t very happy with such open disobedience. Eventually the war broke out and the Union used violence to coerce the Confederate states to rejoin the Union even though the duly elected government of the Confederate states chose a different option. According to the author armed rebellion against a duly elected government is treason except when it’s not.

The closing of this op-ed is where the real content is. In three short paragraphs the author demonstrates just how much of an authoritarian blood thirsty psychopath he really is:

Normally, I am a peaceable man, but in this case, I am willing to answer the call to defend the country. From them.

To turn the song lyric they so love to quote back on them, “We’ll put a boot in your —, it’s the American way.”

Except it won’t be a boot. It’ll be an M1A Abrams tank, supported by an F22 Raptor squadron with Hellfire missiles. Try treason on for size. See how that suits. And their assault arsenal and RPGs won’t do them any good.

According to the author he is normally a peaceable man except when people disagrees with his position on gun control. He’s all for murdering those people with guns. In fact he wants to suppress free speech so badly he’s willing to use weapons of war to kill anybody who expresses an opinion different from his own. Think about that for a minute. A man who opposes guns wants tanks, fighter jets, and Hellfire missiles used on people who have, according to his accusation, done nothing more than express an opinion that differs from his own. I’m starting to think that the author has a shrine to Pol Pot somewhere in his domicile.

Also, if the author doesn’t believe people with rifles can stand up to the American war machine he should read The Sling and the Stone by Colonel Thomas X. Hammes. The United States hasn’t fared well against poorly equipped opponents.

When Gun Control Advocates Go Insane

Now that some of the more zealous gun control advocates have gotten their drink on and refilled their mugs with their own tears it’s time to watch them lash out and anybody attached to gun ownership. The award for most entertaining example of rage induced nonsensical lashing out has to Lawrence O’Donnell:

But no one was more adamant about their hatred for the NRA than MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell who last night accused the civil rights group of aiding and abetting the terrorist(s) responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings.

“There are new developments tonight in the bombing investigation here in Boston,” O’Donnell said. “But that investigation could be moving faster were it not for the successful lobbying efforts of the National Rifle Association.”

“The NRA’s efforts to guarantee that American mass murderers are the best-equipped mass murders in the world is not limited to murderers who use assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” he added.

Whenever I see random leaps in logic such as this I’m only able to laugh. How has the National Rifle Association (NRA) hampered the investigation of the bombing in Boston?

“The NRA is also in the business of helping bombers get away with their crimes. Gunpowder could be traced by investigators to a buyer at the point of sale if gunpowder contained a taggant, an element that would enable tracing of the purchase of gunpowder,” he explained.

“But thanks to the National Rifle Association, identification taggants are required by law only in plastic explosives. The NRA has successfully blocked any requirements for such taggants in gunpowder. So such supremely helpful evidence as taggants are not available to the FBI in this investigation,” he added.

Interesting. Do we know that the bombs used in Boston used standard gun powder? Furthermore, how would taggants help speed up the investigation? Taggants can only tell you about the powder manufacturer. Unless a gunpowder jug was also serialized and had the serial number recorded at time of purchase taggants would be useless. In addition to that recording sales information would be useless unless the buyer used an electronic means of payment such as a credit card. If the state mandated that personal information about gunpowder buyers had to be recorded the information would still be useless because making your own gunpowder from household items isn’t rocket science.

O’Donnell is just butt hurt because the state didn’t aggress against the people he wanted it to aggress against. Obviously he doesn’t understand how the state works. The state doesn’t follow any specific political ideology, it merely works to expropriate wealth from the general population. While it does pursue powers that makes expropriation easier, such as disarming the populace, it also wants the most bang for its buck. Gun control is a package deal with a lot of headaches. Expanding surveillance powers, on the other hand, doesn’t include nearly as many headaches, actually grants the state more power to expropriate wealth than disarming the populace, and is much easier to implement than gun control is to enforce.

White House Considering Stealing the NRA’s Proposal

It appears that a little irony is playing out in Joe Biden’s task force. The Obama Administration has announced that they will consider spending $50 million to put police officers in public schools:

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is considering a $50 million plan to fund hundreds of police officers in public schools, a Democratic senator said, part of a broad gun violence agenda that is likely to include a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips and universal background checks.

The school safety initiative would make federal dollars available to schools that want to hire police officers and install surveillance equipment, although it is not nearly as far-ranging as the National Rifle Association’s proposal for armed guards in every U.S. school.

I’m sure the National Rifle Association (NRA) will receive no credit for the idea, which is rather ironic consider the NRA’s actions towards the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF). But this decision by Biden’s task force doesn’t surprise me, in fact I would have been surprised if they hadn’t announced something like this. When the NRA announced its School Shield program and voiced my concerns over expanding the police state already rampant in public schools:

This concerns me as well. Securing schools as much as sports stadiums requires making schools even more like prisons than they already are. Many major stadiums have metal detectors, cameras everywhere, and guards performing pat downs on those entering the venue. Since stadiums are private institutions I don’t care how they run their operations. In his apparently desperate attempt to the Connecticut shooting on something LaPierre hasn’t considered the consequences of making schools more like prison. If he believes violent media causes violence in society then submitting children to prison style security is likely to make them more subservient to the state. As the state has a vested interest in disarm the populace it would seem counterproductive to the goal of protecting gun rights to instill even more obedience into today’s youth. Maintaining gun rights requires a populace that will stand up to the police state, not submit to it. Having children go through metal detectors, submit to searches of their persons and belongings, and being under the constant eye of Big Brother can only instill authoritarianism, which directly opposes the stated goals of the NRA.

Putting armed officers in schools makes sense from the state’s perspective as doing so will help instill more obedience at an impressionable age. We already have schools teaching children that the police are their friends and that one should always truth police officers, which isn’t true:

In reality the police are the state’s expropriators:

The true purpose of police officers is to act as direct state expropriators. Notice that a majority of offenses one can be punished for involve no victims. Speeding tickets, parking tickets, fines for possessing verboten drugs, etc. are victimless crimes that involve the payment of money from offenders to the state. Even the prison system is nothing more than a special form of subsidy in the form of slave labor. Federal prisoners are generally “employed” by Federal Prison Industries, more commonly known as UNICOR. UNICOR is a government owned corporation that produces goods and services for the federal government. All federal agencies, with the exception of the Department of Defense, are legally required to source all needed goods and services through UNICOR unless UNICOR is unable to provide it or gives permission to the federal agencie to seek an alternate provider. Private prisons are another form of subsidy. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison industry in the country, uses prisoners to provide goods and services to at extremely cheap prices. The police, through enforcing jailable offenses, provide both UNICOR and private companies like CCA with a source of extremely cheap labor. Both corporations enjoy a benefit over other domestic providers of goods and services since neither is obligated to follow labor laws such as paying workers a minimum wage. Effectively wealth, in the form of labor, is being transfered from prisoners to entities like UNICOR and CCA. The state’s courts have also ruled that the police are not obligate to provide protection, further invalidating any claim that their primary purpose is the defense of individuals from domestic threats.

It’s pretty easy to see why Biden’s task force has decided the NRA’s plan was a swell idea. Of course Obama’s administration needs to sell the idea, which will take a little finesse. Gun control advocates have been decrying the NRA’s idea because it would put more guns into schools. If Obama and his gang want to sell the idea they’re going to have to change the message, which they’re trying to do by claiming their plan won’t be as extensive as the NRA’s. This claim is an attempt to make the NRA look like overzealous extremists. Making the NRA appear to be overzealous extremists is necessary to forward the agenda of gun control because admitting the organization had a valid idea would give some the organization some credit and that may cause people to consider more of their ideas.

If Obama pursues the federally funded armed guards route you can rest assured he will say the federal funds will only go to arms school that are “at risk.” That is to say the federal government would start putting armed officers in a few schools initially and expand from there. At some point every public school would likely have posted armed guards but by then everybody will have forgotten about the NRA’s initial proposal and the gun control community’s reaction to it.

One question remains, why would gun control advocates go along with such an idea? They’ve been railing on the NRA’s proposal since it was made. How could they support the same proposal by the federal government? Easy. Gun control advocates don’t oppose guns, they oppose non-state agents having guns. Remember that gun control advocates are authoritarians and desire to grant the state totalitarian control so it can “advance” society in the “right” direction.

This will end up being an interesting month as far as gun rights are concerned. I wonder what other ideas will be announced by Biden’s task force next week.