Tag: Politics

The Firearms Interstate Commerce Reform Act

One of the biggest cluster fucks in United States law regards the sale of firearms between individual states. Basically the only legal way to sell a firearm to a person residing in another state is by doing a transfer through a federally licensed dealer. Well it appears as though some congress critters have finally had enough of this stupidity and introduced H.R. 58, The Firearms Interstate Commerce Reform Act. The National Rifle Association (NRA) has a good rundown of the bill:

In the 1980s, the Congress revisited these restrictions during the debate over the Firearms Owners` Protection Act (FOPA). As the Senate Judiciary Committee’s report on FOPA put it, the 1968 interstate sales provisions were “so cumbersome that they [were] rarely used.”2 When the Congress passed FOPA in 1986, it did away with the state authorization, notification and waiting period requirements. Federal law now allows dealers to make interstate rifle and shotgun sales, as long as (a) the buyer meets in person with the dealer, and (b) the transaction complies with the laws of both the buyer’s and the seller’s states.3

Since 1998, however, all people buying firearms from dealers in the U.S. have been subject to computerized background checks under the FBI`s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), either by the dealer contacting NICS (directly or through a state “point of contact” agency) or by the buyer presenting a state firearms permit issued after a NICS check. Any of these systems are far more advanced than anything available in 1968.

H.R. 58 are common sense measures that would take advantage of these technological improvements to further reduce restrictions on law-abiding citizens. Under H.R. 58:

Individuals could buy handguns, as well as rifles or shotguns, from licensed dealers in another state, subject to the background check requirement. The buyer and dealer would still have to meet in person and comply with the laws of both states.

[…]

Finally, H.R. 58 would reduce theft and loss of firearms during shipment between dealers. BATFE’s longstanding interpretation of the Gun Control Act generally forbids licensed dealers from transferring firearms directly to other licensed dealers, face to face, away from their licensed premises.5 Even though the dealers have already had a thorough background check, under the current interpretation, dealers who agree on a sale are forced to return to their business premises and ship firearms to each other by common carrier, which always involves some risk of theft or loss. H.R. 58 would allow a face-to-face exchange instead.

I could never figure out why I’m forbidden from buying a handgun in a neighboring state when all federally licensed dealers, regardless of the state they’re in, are required to perform the same National Criminal Instant Background Check System (NICS) check on me. Before the anti-gunners start shitting their pants lets just get this out of the way; this bill will not allow somebody to bypass stricter laws in their state of residence by purchasing a firearm in another state. H.R. 58 only affects federal laws and will not prevent states like Illinois from requiring stupid things like Firearm Owner Identification (FOID) card before being able to legally own a firearm. An Illinois resident who purchases a firearm in Wisconsin will still be a criminal unless he has a FOID card in hand when he gets back to his home state.

Misleading Titles are Misleading

I love reading through Think Progress because so much of what they post is blatantly wrong. It’s kind of like Fox News except for progressives in that they’ll do and say anything in order to attack their opposition, Republicans. A person I know, who adamantly hates Ron Paul, posted the following story which is titled, “Ron Paul: Greater Access To Birth Control Makes A ‘Mockery’ Of Christians.”

When reading the title you’re obviously lead to believe Ron Pauls stated that greater access to birth control makes a mockery of Christians. Here’s what he actually said:

Not all Americans are comfortable with the Obama administration’s decision to mandate coverage of birth control and morning-after pills, and the considerations of these people, many of them Christian conservatives, are worthy of careful consideration — not mockery.

While the title leads you to believe he said one thing what he actually said was the arguments against birth control brought forth by Christians should be considered instead of mocked. I know a great number of people who simply hate anything to do with religion and if a person makes an argument based on religious beliefs they instantly reject it as false and start up the old mockery engine. Although I don’t believe religious arguments should be the basis of any policy besides religious ones, there is absolutely no reason to completely ignore an argument simply because somebody is making it based on religious beliefs.

I’m sure we can all agree that murder is wrong and most religions have some kind of dogma against the act of murder. Whether you claim an all powerful deity in the sky told humans not to murder each other or that reason lead most people to the understanding that dying sucks and thus killing each other isn’t productive is irrelevant. The bottom line is murder is bad for society and thus we’ve implemented various rules against the act.

A Terror Plot of Convenience

While I’m a cynical guy I’m generally not what you would consider conspiratorial. Yet when news like this sprouts up at an overly convenient time it’s hard to consider it a coincidence:

The US says it has broken up a plot by agents linked to Iran to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington using explosives.

Two men originally from Iran – one a naturalised US citizen – have been charged with counts of conspiracy, Attorney General Eric Holder said.

[…]

The two accused were named as Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old naturalised US citizen with dual Iranian and US passports, and Gholam Shakuri, based in Iran and said to be a member of Iran’s Quds Force.

Mr Arbabsiar, who was arrested at New York’s John F Kennedy airport on 29 September, has confessed to his involvement in the alleged plot, Mr Holder said.

Mr Shakuri was said to be in Iran.

US officials said that on 24 May 2011, Mr Arbabsiar made contact with an informant for the US Drug Enforcement Agency, who was posing as a Mexican drug cartel member.

Over a series of meetings, it is said that details emerged of a conspiracy involving members of the Iranian government paying $1.5m (£960,000) for the assassination of Saudi ambassador Adel al-Jubeir on US soil.

Let’s just link up all the memes in this story. Iran hired a member of a Mexican drug cartel to kill a Saudi ambassador in the United States. Somehow the United States was able to swoop in, stop this supposed plot, and hand Eric Holder the credit by having him announce the miraculous work of the United States government. This single story is so convenient that I honestly don’t believe it’s true.

It’s no secret that the United States government wants to go to war with Iran and is simply looking for an excuse that it can feed the American public. Eric Holder is in some very hot water right now due to his knowledge of operation Fast and Furious, which involved the United States government smuggling guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels . Finally the drug cartels are becoming more of a problem as their violence spills across the American-Mexican border and we’re looking for an excuse to march in after them (mostly so the government can continue it’s war on drugs).

Basically this story creates propaganda against Iran and the Mexican drug cartels while it boosts the image of Eric Holder and America’s anti-terrorist initiative. I’m sorry but this pill is a little hard to swallow. Hell if you’ve ever seen the movie Wag the Dog this is basically the same idea.

Working With the Enemy

It appears as though things aren’t going so well for Obama’s lastest stimulus plan and he’s looking to Harry Reid for some much needed assistance:

Adopting a defiant tone after the vote, Mr Obama said he would work with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to see that individual proposals in the bill gained a vote as soon as possible.

Obama better check who his friends are because Reid wasn’t very helpful with this bill last week.

Last Night’s Republican Presidential Candidate Debate

It’s a new week which means a new Republican presidential candidate debate. There isn’t much to say about this debate that I haven’t said in posts about previous debates. Basically the entire debate can be summed up as follows: Everybody there besides Ron Paul is a fucking idiot and our country is boned if any of them obtain power of if Obama keeps his.

With that said there were some highlights. First of all Herman Cain really fucked up because when the moderator asked him who he thought was a good Federal Reserve chairman the answer that came out of his mouth was Alan Greenspan. While the answer was idiotic Ron Paul wasted not time jumping on that and pointing out the fact that Bernanke is just a continuation of Greenspan which is lead to more continuous bubbles.

A couple people at the debate watching party (yes, we have those) were playing the Herman Cain drinking game. The Herman Cain drinking game is very easy and consists of taking a drink every time he says the phrase, “nine nine nine.” The downside to this game is that you can get completely obliterated in a very short span of time so you may pass out and miss the tailing half of the debate (although the brain damage caused by the alcohol will be negligible compared to the brain damage caused by watching the rest of the debate). I still don’t understand how Cain thinks giving the federal government another source of revenue in the form of a federal sales tax is a good idea. While I detest Bachmann she pointed out the fact that governments aren’t very willing to voluntarily give up revenue streams but are more than willing to increase the size of those streams.

Bachmann has been fun to watch because she’s acting like an injured animal and striking at anything that gets close to her. She made a great quip about 999 turned upside down becomes 666. Being a religious zealot I kind of expected hearing her say that but damn it was still fun even though I saw it coming.

That’s about all I can say about this debate that I haven’t said about previous debates.

Some Common Sense from Wisconsin’s Attorney General

While I’m not keen on Wisconsin’s rule requiring four hours of training before a person can exercise their Constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms, it’s still not as bad of a system as it could have been. It’s also good to hear some common sense come from Attorney General Van Hollen:

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said Thursday he would be comfortable with allowing people to carry guns in the Capitol and other state buildings.

“I don’t have a problem with it, but I’m not going to have a say in that,” the Republican attorney general said in an interview.

“One of the oldest arguments out there is that the criminals – the ones who aren’t entitled to have firearms – are carrying concealed already,” he added. “They’re the ones we’re worried about, not the ones who are going to be abiding by the law.”

There is no danger in a person like myself carrying a firearm into any building. I’m a peaceful person who will only use violence in response to somebody initiating violence against myself. Regardless of what the anti-gunners think the majority of people are in the same boat as me, if it were otherwise we wouldn’t have a functioning society. Sadly there are violent individuals in our society and the best way for us peaceful citizens to defend ourselves against such scourge is by having a proper self-defense tool available to us.

We’re not the ones who law enforcement officers should be concerning themselves with. If law enforcement are concerned with criminals carrying firearms into the Capitol building they can do what Texas does and install metal detectors but allowing those with permit to bypass the security as they’ve already been checked out through a background check and are known to be free of violent crime.

This year saw massive protests at the Capitol as Republicans who run the Legislature debated and passed a new law that eliminated most collective bargaining for most public workers. Van Hollen said those demonstrations did not change his opinion on whether people should be allowed to carry guns in the Capitol.

“Any one of them could have been carrying a firearm without our knowledge already had they wanted to do so,” Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen seems to understand a fact most anti-gunners fail to grasp, bad people will do bad things regardless of the laws put into place telling them they can’t. A statute passed by some politicians isn’t going to stop a violent criminal from performing a violent act.

“I’m a proponent of concealed carry for law-abiding citizens because I don’t believe there has been a redeeming argument or evidence of the government (needing) to interfere in our lives in that category because there’s just not this pile of anecdotal cases where law-abiding citizens are abusing firearms to the detriment of the public,” Van Hollen said. “So I don’t know that there’s a problem to protect ourselves from.”

This is where the anti-gunners have failed to make a case; they’ve been crying that there will be blood in the streets if carry laws are loosened but so far there hasn’t been any evidence supporting their claim.

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter California

Not surprisingly Governor Jerry Brown of California has signed into law the ban on openly carrying unloaded firearms in his state:

Gov. Jerry Brown announced early Monday that he had outlawed the open carrying of handguns in public in California, a controversial practice that top law enforcement officials had denounced as dangerous.

Clearing his desk of final bills sent to him by the Legislature, Brown signed the ban into law after it was backed by Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and other law enforcement officials throughout the state.

“I listened to the California police chiefs,” Brown said in a statement.

He listened to the police chiefs by forsaking the people he supposedly represents. So there you have it, your Constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms no longer applies on the People’s Republic of California. This supposed right wasn’t eliminated due to intolerably high gun crimes being committed by those legally carrying but because some police chiefs don’t like the idea that mere serfs could carry an unloaded firearm openly. Although it’s been known for quite some time that police officers, as agents of the state, receive priority over the serfs it’s still sad to watch actual demonstrations of this fact move through the legislative process. Here’s a gem of a quote from one “representative” of California’s serfs:

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-La Canada Flintridge), author of the ban, and his supporters said California is no longer the wild west, where citizens had to carry six-shooters on their hips for protection.

“The bottom line is the streets will be safer for law enforcement and families,” Portantino said.

I’m sure the streets are going to be much safer without those horribly law-abiding people walking around with openly displayed and completely unloaded firearms. Those unloaded guns certainly are known for jumping out of the holsters of the law-abiding and gunning down random people on the street, which is why states that have looser restrictions on carry permits have much higher rates of violent crime… oh wait, that’s not true at all.

Those of you living in California may want to consider either fleeing to the United States or performing mass acts of civil disobedience. Personally I’d take the first option and run to Arizona where your right to keep and bear arms is fully recognized.

Occupation of the Hennepin County Government Plaza

Minnesota’s branch of the Occupy Wall Street movement kicked off on Friday. I hit the event up on both Friday evening and Saturday afternoon with several of my libertarian friends to see what was actually going on. I can say with certainty after conversing with many attendees that a great deal of diversity exists in those attending which is the opposite of what many media outlets are reporting. Regardless of what you’ve heard these events aren’t made up entirely of unemployed Marxists. With that said a large majority of those in attendance certainly subscribe, at least in part, to the failed philosophy put forth by Marx.

Both days I attended there were quite a few people there with shirts and signs saying, “End the Fed.” The people there to protest the Federal Reserve make up the second largest faction after the Marxists. It was interesting to see two groups who are usually in direct opposition of one another existing in the same place peacefully. I had the pleasure of meeting several other voluntaryists whom I had not previously known along with a couple of guys up on Austrian economics (in fact one guy was wearing a shirt with Ludwig von Mises on it).

The variety of people attending this event puts further credence in my theory that these occupations are basically bring your own grievance protests. It could be best summed up by saying the one unifying aspect at these occupations is that everybody in attendance is pissed off about something. Some are there merely to portest American’s wars, others are there to protest the banks, and others are there to protest the entire corporatocracy we currently live under.

I’m sure it’s pretty obvious that, with such a diverse group in attendance, organization isn’t evident. While there is good organization as far as having good, water, and sanitary needs on site there is little in the way of determining overarching goals of the occupation. Each night there is an event called a general assembly which is basically a big collectivist circle jerk. Like most collectivist ideas, these general assemblies are great at taking up a ton of time and accomplishing very little. As an individualist I have no problem with this as it prevents the collectivists from establishing complete domination over the occupation. What makes the general assemblies so ineffective is the fact they are trying to please everybody which is impossible. Minor topics, such as decided how things will be voted on, can take an hour or more. Once the attendees of the general assembly have voted on how they’re going to vote other topics are discussed and decided. While many topics can be discussed and voted on quickly as there is an overall consensus other topics can take an apparently endless amount of time. Personally I prefer my individualist system of deciding things which can be summed up as, “I’m going to go do whatever the fuck I want and you’re welcome to join me. If you don’t want to join me that’s fine, you can go do your thing.”

Some interesting things to note about the Minneapolis occupation are the lack of electricity and shelters and an overall desire to do everything within the rule of law. While many participating in the occupation use the phrase civil disobedience I don’t thing those words mean what they think they mean. Civil disobedience is showing disregard for the law and doing what you want to do. For example the county has ordinances against erecting tents on public property, which the Government Center Plaza is considered, so the people sleeping overnight are doing so without shelter. Were the participants performing acts of civil disobedience they would just erect tents and give a big middle finger to the police surrounding the Plaza. In fact the regard for obeying the law is so strong that several of my friends who were going off to protest the Federal Reserve met with some resistance from the occupation organizers. The organizers stated that they made an agreement with the police to inform them of any marches so the police could escort the march participants. My friends, being the individualists they are, questioned why they are being hassled for going off and doing what they want to do (which was walk the distance from the Plaza to the Federal Reserve Building in Minneapolis).

I mentioned the lack of electricity and this is entirely due to a dirty stunt pulled by the city. The Plaza has openly accessible electrical outlets available that were fully operational Friday but sometime during Friday night the city cut them leaving the occupants without any source of power. The organizers questioned why the city would pull the plug on the electricity when taxpayers are footing the bill and I have to agree, those in attendance or taxpayers and should have access to the electrical power on public property. In luie of working electrical outlets the occupations have erected a couple of solar panels but as we know solar panels are incapable of providing much in the way of power. Currently the organizers are trying to obtain some bicycle generators as the city will not allow any form of fuel-powered generator to be in the Plaza (against the words civil disobedience do not apply to this occupation).

The lack of shelter is also a notable issue. As I state the country has an ordinance against erecting tents on public property and the attendees of the occupation have been unwilling to give the law a nice big middle finger. Since they are unable to erect tents some people have resorted to covering themselves with tarps which are legal so long as they’re not propped up by any type of structure. While some of the participants are petitioning the country board to get permission to erect tents I believe their concerns will go unheard as the country would like nothing more than getting the protesters out of there. Without any form of basic shelter I doubt this occupation will last much after the temperature starts dropping.

Free food is being provided to the protesters but another ordinance prevents anybody from preparing hot food on site. Thus all of the food being provided is in the form of sandwiches, previously baked goods, and food heated offsite and brought to the Plaza.

From what I saw during the weekend it seems Minnesotans are again earning their title of Minnesota nice (which should actually be called Minnesota passive-aggressive). The number participating in this occupation is fairly unimpressive and the numbers seem to be dwindling with each day. Those who are actually there have been very good at obeying every law on the books instead of performing actual acts of civil disobedience. I’ve been checking in on the live stream periodically to get an estimate of the number of participants and I’m noticing a definite surge during the evening hours. When I checked in this morning there were, I estimate, a little less than 100 people. Tonight when I checked it it seems there could be close to 200 people (but as I’m checking the live stream I can only see what the camera is focused on to make my estimates, hardly accurate data).

I’m glad to see people have finally gotten pissed off enough with our current corporatocracy to start demonstrations. I wish a large number of participants had working knowledge in the field of economics and history. If the majority of Marxists attending these occupations understood both economics and history they would know socialism can only lead to decimated economies and high death tolls (the latter isn’t a guarantee but the first is with time).

Many participants also seem to believe the government is going to listen to their grievances and thus change will occur but I believe they need to reconsider this belief. Our “representatives” rarely listen to the people and prefer to enact legislation that benefits their large campaign contributors. Instead of pleading with these “representatives” the participants of these occupations should simply ignore the state as much as possible. A good amount of peaceful civil disobedience combined with agorism is going to do far more to change society than appealing to the better nature of our so called “representatives.” Stop worrying so much about getting group consensus and instead promote the individualist ideal, have each person bring their own thoughts, actions, and strategies to the table. Competition is good so having competing ideas and actions to enact social and economic change is going to work far better than getting everybody to sign onto one single method.

After all we should remember that American was founding on the individualist ideal while the Soviet Union was founded on the collectivist ideal. Look which of the two is still around and consider that fact.

Ending the ATF Could Go Either Way

The Gunwalker scandal has gotten so big that there has been talk about completely dismantling the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). While many are cheering this possibility some, like Sebastian, are quick to mention abolishing the ATF could turn out poorly for us:

The country’s gun laws are not going away, and someone is going to be charged with enforcing them. That agency is likely to be the FBI. While the FBI would certainly do the enforcement part far more competently, you’d be giving the FBI an incentive to lobby Congress for more gun laws.

The problem with that is that people in Washington have a high degree of respect for the FBI, and they are listened to. ATF is the bastard step-child of federal law enforcement, and Congress and the other D.C. powers that be don’t really take them too seriously. It’s also worth noting, because of the FBI’s other missions, you’re not really going to have much luck threatening the FBI’s funding in order to keep it under control.

This is a valid point although, as Joe Huffman, points out the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) have enough skeletons in their closet that much of what they say may not be taken too seriously:

The concern that the FBI has credibility and respect the ATF doesn’t and we would rather have a money starved easily demonized bunch of screw ups instead of the FBI, the Secret Service, or the U.S. Marshalls enforcing the regulations has been the whisper from behind the scenes since as least the Regan years when the first serious thoughts of disbanding them came up.

Things have changed with the FBI since the 1980’s. Remember Ruby Ridge and Waco? The ATF created the messes but it was during the FBI “cleanup” that the FBI shot the woman holding the baby and burned down the church with the women and children in it. The FBI has it’s own public relations issues to be concerned about.

So what’s my take? Honestly, I’m all for abolishing the ATF. Although I realize that the federal gun laws won’t be abolished alongside their enforcer it would require either creating a new agency or loading up a current agency with even more pointless shit to do. If we’re lucky the latter option will be taken and an agency that doesn’t have the time or resources to effective enforce those arbitrary regulations will be given the task. Whether due to lack of resources or the fact gun control enforcement is a secondary task it’s likely the federal government won’t be putting as much time into harassing innocent gun dealers and owners.

Hope and Change Baby

Remember when the Obamessiah promised he wouldn’t go after medical marijuana growers:

“Prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana users,” he said in the summer of 2007, is “really not a good use of Justice Department resources.” Later he extended that statement to include medical marijuana growers and promised that “I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue.” Early in his administration, Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, reiterated these points.

Apparently The Chosen One doesn’t remember this:

Federal prosecutors have launched a crackdown on some pot dispensaries in California, warning the stores that they must shut down in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property even if they are operating legally under the state’s 15-year-old medical marijuana law.

Perhaps this is part of Obama’s new job creation bill, hire a bunch more government goons to raid and shutdown medical marijuana facilities. Either that or the federal government is just upset that a state is refusing to respect their authoritah. Finally, just so there’s no ambiguity, I leave you with this paragraph:

The Department of Justice issued a policy memo to federal prosecutors in late June stating that marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers in states with medical marijuana laws could face prosecution for violating federal drug and money-laundering laws. The effort to shutter California dispensaries appeared to be the most far-reaching effort so far to put that guidance into action.

Obama promised he wouldn’t use the Department of Justice to override state marijuana laws and he’s using the Department of Justice.