News

Regular readers will have noted that I haven't exactly been in top form lately.  Sorry.  I have a lot of stuff to post when I feel more like writing and posting it.  Nevertheless, the news that California is suing car manufacturers for pollution damages briefly stirred my apathy.  I fear that this was both horrifying and inevitable.  I am reminded of the premise of Atlas Shrugged -- the petty vindictive envy held by the human leech for those it feeds upon.

Earlier, I posted about an organization that did an investigation of complaint policies for police departments in Florida.  They sent in an undercover investigator who requested a complaint form.  All the investigator wants is a form -- not to "talk to" an officer about the complaint or otherwise be subjected to pressure not to file one.  He just wants the form.

Responses were mixed.  None of the officers he interacted with were willing to just let him leave with a form.  Some threatened the investigator with arrest.

Following the release of a short video documenting what they had done, the same organization tried it in Independence, Missouri.  Their investigator was arrested, violently enough to need medical care afterwards, and charges are being filed against him.  What those charges are is not specified, but watching this video should be enough to open the eyes of anyone who is still under the delusion that police officers are there to "protect and serve" the people. 

With some exceptions, they are there to keep us in line.

Hat tip to The Agitator.

... we have documents from the Clinton administration describing their strategy for attacking the 2nd Amendment and firearms in general.  In case you haven't noticed, the rash of gun liability lawsuits we've seen are the outcome of those plans.  So was the Smith & Wesson "settlement".  The Clintons were unable to implement their gun control fantasies legislatively, so they turned to other means.  This is the paper trail.

The Geek with a .45 has a take on the documents, as does Smoke on the Water.

I've read through the documents posted so far, and every single one of the points mentioned has later come up in various lawsuits. 

Wondered what the fuss was all about?  Find out here.

It should come as no surprise that an association of dictators, kleptocracies, monarchies, and communist "republics" tends to dislike the idea of ordinary people with firearms.  What surprises me is the way that so very many democracies seem willing to go along with them.

There are so many different ways that our government could modernize itself in order to better use technology to communicate with the people.  The problem is, our "leaders" usually see communicating with the people to be a one-way sort of thing: they talk, we listen.  That's why we need ideas like this one to shake things up a little.  It's impossible for politicians to keep track of this stuff even with dedicated full-time staffers.  How can ordinary citizens be expected to form an opinion of how their representatives are managing the nation's budget without the tools to do so in a reasonable amount of time and effort?  

Of Arms and the Law writes that the BATFE is looking into the "stings" that form the basis of this lawsuit.  This newspaper article has more details on exactly how those stings work; it seems they sent two "investigators", one a retired cop, trying to buy a gun without the right paperwork, then sent them back the next day with the right paperwork but two numbers transposed when the dealer refused to sell, and then tried to talk the dealer into completing the sale with the wrong numbers.  The dealer called into the office that issued the paperwork and got permission to update the numbers and sell the gun.  End result: no crime committed, but Bloomberg gets a very public raid.

Later, of course, the dealer gets a very private "Here are all your guns back, sorry," and a warning of "heightened scrutiny".  Typical.  This is about intimidation more than anything else.

FIREARM owners in Wodonga, and in fact the whole of Victoria, have been put on notice.  Victoria police will be calling on them in the coming months to check they are complying with the law when it comes to the stage storage of their weapons. And those who are not doing the right thing had better watch out as the penalties for breaking the law are pretty severe.

It seems that police in Australia will be making use of the registration system to go door-to-door, verifying compliance with the safe-storage laws.  if you've ever wondered why gun owners in the United States are so determined to never allow registration, this is an excellent answer: once the police have a list, they are determined to use it.  They aren't looking to catch criminals who are out committing violent crimes; it's much easier to write tickets to honest gun owners who haven't hurt anyone.  And let's not forget this little bit of editorializing by the "journalist":

Those who legally own and use firearms have to know it is not a right, and it comes with a special responsibility to comply with all relevant laws.

In the US, it is a right.  And we intend to make sure it stays that way.

Quotas for traffic tickets, long denied by police but generally accepted as fact by drivers, are pretty bad.  Speed limits are a revenue measure more than anything else.  But the same principle, applied to air marshals and the terrorist watch list, is much much worse. 

The simple truth is that there aren't enough terrorists for thousands of air marshals to identify one "suspicious act" a month, even if the only thing the terrorists were trying to do was fly around the US to scout out our air security.  Most likely the terrorists aren't even bothering; they are looking for other methods of attack while we focus on costly security theater. 

The only reason for this kind of quota is a beaurocratic exercise in justification.  You see, if the terrorists aren't probing the airlines, we might decide to shift resources elsewhere and use less costly methods (like, say, armed pilots) to defend air travel.

Imagine walking out of your house and seeing a flock of police cars filling the street.  Suppose you're a photographer, and you snap a few photos - or maybe you just want a quick image to send to your friends - "look what happened on my street today!"  Then imagine you get arrested for it.

This is not some fantasy of life in a police state; it happened to Neftaly Cruz, a Philadelphia resident:

"They threatened to charge me with conspiracy, impeding an investigation, obstruction of a investigation. ? They said, 'You were impeding this investigation.' (I asked,) "By doing what?' (The officer said,) 'By taking a picture of the police officers with a camera phone,'" Cruz said.

The police later denied telling Cruz that he was breaking the law by using his cellphone.  If that's true, why was he arrested in the first place?  Cruz was later released without being charged - unsuprising as they had nothing with which to charge him.

Be wary, citizens, lest the police swat you like an annoying fly for having the gall to watch them while they do their job on a public street.

What if I told you there was one -- in a race with two major-party candidates -- and that result was obtained as a write-in candidate?  Would you be interested?

Forget the hypotheticals: go read about a poll conducted by the Louisville Courier-Journal's Dale Moss.

The re-election of U.S. Rep. Mike Sodrel won approval, and he was picked too as the champion of public service. Then again, he tied with President Bush atop the list of those whom people suspect of being out for themselves. Better to be both cheered and booed than ignored, Sodrel said he has heard.

"I understand that I have disagreements (with some) -- what is in their best interests," Sodrel said.

Sodrel, a Republican, is opposed both by his Democratic predecessor, Baron Hill, and by Libertarian Party nominee Eric Schansberg. The latter received 72 votes, a pleasing total for a candidate whose name was not among the choices included on the survey. Does the result hint of public dissatisfaction with both Sodrel and Hill? Schansberg likes to think so.

"We'll see how it goes," he said.

Twenty-six people who wrote Schansberg in also singled out U.S. Rep. Ron Paul as their No. 1 good guy in government. Paul, of Texas, is also a Libertarian, although he won his congressional seat as a Republican.

In the Moss survey, Paul finished higher than dozens of supposedly better-known local and state officials.

That's a pretty striking result when you're talking about a write-in candidate. Now, it should be noted that the poll was "unscientific", which in this context probably means the results are being reported straight to the readers.  That's actually a bit of a good thing.

You see, the normal political polls ask a lot of people a lot of questions.  They don't just ask who that person supports or would vote for; they ask if the respondent has voted before, and how often, what political party they belong to, and so on.  They then run those numbers through a statistical analysis to try to weight the numbers properly to match exit polls, so that they can predict who will win an election better.  One of the steps in that process is often weighting the results by party affiliation; that is, they look at their sample, compare it to the expected Republican/Democratic split, and adjust the results to match what they think the results would be if their sample party split matched what they think the real party split is.

There's a place for manipulations like that, and predicting elections is as fair a place for it as any.  But when you are trying to guage public support for a candidate's proposals, or the candidate himself, playing too many games with the party split is a good way to lose information about those candidates who don't fit neatly into the two party system.

The Libertarian party is rapidly becoming the biggest thing in politics that nobody wants to talk about.  The man is Eric Schansberg.  He's an economist and public policy analyst with 15 years of experience as a university professor.  Despite that environment, he's pro-life, and has a more coherent and a more rational position on Iraq than the national party's presidential candidate in 2004.  Oh, and he has a blog.

Full-Disclosure: I don't know him personally, but I know people who do, and that's where I got the information.

Three criminals, one armed good guy.  Good guy wins.  It's a good thing that the handgun ban was struck down recently, or the police might have felt obligated to track down the good guy and arrest him for defending himself.

According to Dave Kopel at The Volokh Conspiracy, the UN conference on "small arms" is ending without a final treaty and without any follow-up conferences scheduled... primarily because the US ambassador to the UN refused to back down.

As he puts it, the outcome would have been very different had Bush not been in office.  A Democratic presidential appointee would almost certainly not have had the spine to resist.

I got it from the Geek.

There's been some excitement over at SaysUncle's place.  It seems one of his friends was raided by the BATFE.  There was quite a bit of confusion on all sides, and as a result, it's useful to consider the sequence of events:

1. Scoot, the accused, breaks up with his ex.
2. The ex calls the police, telling them that Scoot has "machineguns".
3. The ATF get excited and conduct a raid.  They forget to bring a search warrant, but get one a few hours later.
4. Searching the house, they don't find any machineguns.
5. They DO find lots of documentation about firearms, along with "assorted gun parts" and machine tools.
6. They don't find any machinegun parts, but they talk to Scoot's current girlfriend about how she "knows he was making machineguns, right?"
7. Finally, after all the dancing around, Scoot is apparantly charged with being a felon in possession.

We all know that being a felon in possession of a firearm is a big no-no, and that's the impression that will be left in most minds after reading this story... that is, that the BATFE is actively knocking on doors and searching homes looking for violent criminals in possession of firearms.  Perhaps not quite door-to-door but not far off and only a tip away.  Very scary for the violent criminals illegally possessing firearms.

But that's not what really happened.

What really happened was that someone was living their life, to all my knowledge peacefully, and because someone they married got angry, the government will now ruin their life.

The BATFE did not arrive because Scoot had committed a violent crime; nor because he was planning one; nor because he was enabling others to commit violent crimes.  They showed up because an ex-wife wanted to ruin his life, and was willing to tell lies (or, at best, speak in ignorance) in order to accomplish her goal.

They showed up without a warrant -- probably just a few minutes after she said "machineguns".  They couldn't wait even two hours to get a warrant before sticking their own fancy guns in Scoot's face on the word of an angry ex-wife. 

When they didn't find machineguns, they went digging.  They tried to accuse him of making machineguns, but apparantly couldn't make that stick either.  Finally they settled on felon-in-possession; unfortunately that part of the story appears to be accurate.  Scoot seems to be a convicted felon, a fact that a law enforcement officer should be able to determine readily enough.  It seems likely to stick because it seems to be true... but it's important to remember that it was the last thing on the list.

I don't know the man, and I don't know if he could be trusted with a gun.  I do know that this isn't about his criminal history, or any of his actions relating to firearms, or any real and immediate threat posed to public safety.  It's about a failed relationship and a woman willing to hurt a man she once loved.

The government isn't anything more than a weapon in her hand.

UPDATE: Some improvements in the situation, from SaysUncle.

There's a silly news release trumpeting the fact that the University of Kentucky has allowed itself to become a tool for political propaganda: Is There a Gun Where Your Child Plays? 

It's talking about the silly ASK campaign designed to encourage fear, suspicion, and social ostracism of gun owners and their children.  I do not think I have ever seen a more blatant attempt to achieve political goals by demonizing a targetted group through their children.

Some people have suggested that gun owners should respond to parents asking this question with a simple, terse "none of your business".  I think perhaps a different tactic is appropriate -- one that will better counteract the intent of the propaganda.

Imagine a conversation that begin like this:

"Hi!  I'd like to send my little Johnny over to play at your house.  But before I do that, I need to ask you whether you have a gun at your house, and whether it is safely stored, so I know my son will be safe!"

"Thanks for asking.  Yes, I do have a gun at my home.  I keep it loaded and on my person at all times; in fact, I am carrying it now.  I can assure you that little Johnny will be quite safe here and supervised by an adult at all times.  However, since I do have guns around the house, before I can allow Johnny to play in my house I will need to make sure that he understands the rules of gun safety so he can do the right thing if it ever comes up.  Have you given him any instruction?  If not I would be glad to, and you are welcome to sit in yourself."

This response neatly turns the question back on the questioner, frames the question of safety differently ("Your son is safe because I have a gun to protect him") and provides an opportunity to open a dialogue on safe terms ("gun safety") in a non-threatening environment (since the instruction is directed at the child), while reinforcing your own image as a responsible adult capable of owning and using firearms safely.

I haven't had anyone nosy enough to ask me this question, probably at least in part because I don't have kids.  I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has.  Leave a comment!

Of Arms and the Law brings us the story of Jake Tapper, an ABC news reporter charged with "handling" firearms issues.  But with the news media claiming so hard to be unbiased, it's interesting that they hired him without disclosing his past work history... including as a staffer for Handgun Control, Inc.

... but the current attitude towards prohibition in the United States is doing more harm than good.  This article, describing the results in Zurich of legalizing heroin use, suggests that other policies may be more effective. 

It is useful to reiterate here that all governments depend on voluntary compliance for the vast majority of our laws.  We pay our taxes and our traffic tickets without a quibble (mostly).  We send the police after murderers, rapists, thieves and muggers.  For the stuff in between, there simply aren't enough enforcement resources to have a prayer of enforcing the law by actual force; it all depends on the people complying voluntarily because they don't want to take the risk of being in the small percentage of violators who are actually caught.  For the victimless crimes of prohibition, with no one to report the crime and no body to find, it's even harder. 

We need to find a better solution to the real problems of drug abuse.  The current law is actually creating more problems than it solves.

Demonstrators would be barred from disrupting military funerals at national cemeteries under legislation approved by Congress and sent to the White House.

The measure, passed by voice vote in the House Wednesday hours after the Senate passed an amended version, specifically targets a Kansas church group that has staged protests at military funerals around the country, claiming that the deaths were a sign of God's anger at U.S. tolerance of homosexuals.

CNN tells us that our government has decided that the First Amendment is no longer the law of the land.  You may recall that, in addition to protecting the freedom of speech, that Amendment also protects freedom of assembly. 

While our government has long chosen not to notice it's own aggressive violations of the Constitution, this law -- passed by both the House and the Senate, awaiting only the presidential signature -- aspires to new heights of offense.  We have seen protesters disrupting military funerals in shameful and disrespectful ways, but how much more shameful is an Act of Congress that spits on the principles those men died for? 

If Republicans think that this bill will buy them votes from the military in November, I suspect they will be surprised.

Hat tip to View From The Porch...

It seems that Amy Fisher is making a living as an opinion columnist.  You remember her; as a 16-year-old she got national media attention by attempting murder and served 7 years in jail.  Her present employer is very open about hiring her to exploit her notoriety.  As you might expect from someone whose criminal history prevents her from owning or possessing a firearm, she's in favor of gun control. 

There seem to be quite a few people on the gun control side with this sort of problem.  Everything from the infamous Mrs. Brady buying her son a gun to Million Mommies who file off their serial numbers.  It's easier to blame the gun than to realize you, personally, are the villian in your own life story.

Captain Ed says maybe so, at least in Canada, and he has a convincing argument.  The Liberal government, recently ousted, had imposed a national registry of firearms upon the country.  The RCMP (Canada's national law enforcement body) were tasked with creating and maintaining that registry, but they were not given sufficient funding for the task.  Instead, other law enforcement operations had to be shortchanged in order to operate the registry.  This had the obvious consequence of ensuring that the registry itself was very poorly run, and the less obvious consequence of diverting the RCMP from other enforcement activities -- such as investigating political corruption.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the Canadian government fell in large part due to long-standing internal corruption, particularly the AdScam scandal.  It's useful to remember that everything has unintended consequences, even when those consequences are only visible as opportunity costs.  When you keep law enforcement busy doing paperwork to keep track of honest citizens who own guns, they aren't doing the legwork necessary to track down criminals who abuse them.

For example, there are a lot of people at the BATFE whose time would be better spent issuing parking tickets. 

PACER has this to say:

CLERK'S ORDER filed [962744] establishing the initial briefing schedule [962744-1]:
Appellant's brief due on 6/1/06 ;
Appellant's appendix due on 6/1/06 ;
Amicus Curiae's brief due on 6/16/06 ;
Appellee's brief due on 7/17/06 ;
Amicus Curiae's brief due on 8/1/06 ;
Appellant's reply brief due on 8/15/06.
[Entry Date: 4/14/06] (cwc)

Nothing really exciting, just dates and times.  Considering that I am writing this on the 30th of April, it shows both that I have been substantially behind the times for a while, and that we have only about a month until stuff finally starts to happen in this case. 

For those curious about the ordering, here's how I think it translates: Our side (Parker) files, followed by any friend-of-the-court briefs; DC then briefs, followed by their amici; and we reply to the DC brief.  We will have the first and last word, to the extent that such things matter. 

The actual order is here.

For anyone who is still reading, I'd like to add my heartfelt thanks for your patience and understanding with my schedule and lack of activity for the past few months.  Hopefully, the load will be lighter for a while and I can devote more time to hobbies like this one.  I've already got a fair number of things queued up to post, just as soon as I can find the time to write about them.

UPDATE: Of course, the day after I post this, I work 12 hours straight.  I am my own worst enemy.

Not many people would volunteer to wear the classic prisoner's anklet that reports their location to a satellite monitoring system regularly.  It would be, rightly, considered an invasion of privacy -- something society imposes on convicted criminals who pose a demonstrated threat to innocent people.  But millions of people carry cell phones with them everyone and don't give it a second thought.

Perhaps they don't realize that their cell phone is a tracking technology almost as powerful as the monitoring devices used on prisoners.  Technology firms in the UK are already marketing this as a "service", one that covers not only where the cell phone is now but where it has been in the past.  While those services claim to require consent, the underlying technology does not, and that means governments (and private parties through the court system) will have access to the data with no consent required and most likely no opportunity to contest the release.

Brin's The Transparent Society is looking more prophetic by the day.

Dave Kopel has a must-read article on the misuse of BATFE gun trace data.  It's fairly old (dating from 1999)  but the points it makes are still quite valid, and anti-gun organizations continue to make spurious and scientifically misleading claims based on this data.

I'm glad I don't live there.

Of Arms And The Law points to an article on Sandra Seegars entitled Pleading self-defense.  Yes, it's that Seegars.

Angel Shamaya, founder of KeepAndBearArms.com, has been arrested in Michigan for possession of unregistered firearms.  David Codrea at The War On Guns has the details.  If you know Angel well enough to provide a character reference, now would be a good time to do it.