Thinking about: Difference in attitude

Whether you believe they’re serious or not, gun boards are filled with writers who claim they’re going to look to take up arms to defend their right to keep and bear arms. All well and good. The interesting difference is that you don’t see anybody on the freedom-loathing anti-gun side offering to personally go out and disarm gun owners. They all expect to farm it out to underpaid state workers, while sitting back and basking in the glory of their self-righteousness.

And that says so much about the attitudinal differences. Gunnies come from more of a “do it yourself” mindset, while Liberals are much more in the “Somebody needs to do it for me” camp. Even when it comes to killing those who would trample your rights, whether those rights are real or imagined.

Got popcorn?

Thinking about: Gun bans

Legislation to ban or severely restrict the possession of firearms by law aiding citizens due to the aberrant behavior of one nutball is, of course, back in the news. The usual blood dancers – and some new ones – are in the streets demanding that people who’ve done no harm to anyone should nonetheless be prevented from exercising a constitutionally protected right.

I wish to join with a number of other bloggers and say simply, “Bring it. But don’t send some poor underpaid bureaucrat-with-a-badge-and-a-gun to do your dirty work for you, Mr. Moyers, Ms. McCarthy, Ms. Feinstein. Man up. Gear up. Get your own hands dirty and bloody in the fight to trample on the rights of Americans. And absofreakin’LUTELY don’t plan for the ultra-hypocritical sneering trust that the law abiding are just going to hand them in when you say so. Bottom line – do it your own damned selves.”

But, that’s an ideal world. In reality, the tyrants and despots will have plenty of helpers and minions working for them. Sauron only had to direct the orcs, not actually march with them. So to the helpers and minions, to the orcs and goblins of the world … let me direct your attention, and the attention of others, to this quote:

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

Thinking about: Consent of the governed

Despite this opinion that is at some variance, government has always rested on the consent of the governed. The only question has been whether that consent was freely given, or whether it was forced at gunpoint.

The question then becomes whether the State has sufficient guns to force consent if freely given consent is withdrawn. It is likely that Americans will find out the answer to that question in the not too distant future.

Got popcorn?

QFT: Running Away From TSHTF

Arctic Patriot sums it up. I’ve lived overseas. If you can make a go of it when TSHTF, given your education, training, experience, or wealth, more power to you. But I just don’t see being a foreigner during Tough Times as a useful survival strategy. I’ll take my chances where I at least speak the language and can blend in with the population.

Got popcorn?

QFT: Rule of law

George Washington – no, not the dead President, but, rather, this one put it simply and correctly when he says, “We have argued for years that the best way to avoid violence is to reinstate the rule of law.

Go read the whole article.

Who’d have thought it – domestic violence

Alcohol, drugs, and accusations of sexual infidelity are components of domestic violence.

To figure this out, they need a study?

OTB: Bankers and OPM

Should banks be regulated by the State, like utilities? These guys think so.

Now as a libertarian in good standing I don’t know that I can truly condone government regulation and meddling … except … as the writer quotes, the banks are indeed playing with OPM – Other People’s Money, whether it’s in the initial risky loans or in the bailouts that they demand come from my pocket after those loans go sideways.

Perhaps an understanding that banks need to be insured against losses (hey, my car and house are!) and that banks, insured or not, should have no better right to dip into my pocket for a risky investment than anyone else, would prevent the need for tougher regulation. But, up until such happens, if the banks are going to have a call on my wallet, perhaps I – through my legislator – need to have some say in how they operate.

Thinking about: Aurora

Everybody has to have an Aurora Shooting Post – it’s in the guild rules somewhere. Anyway:

There’s an older story about a gathering of gunwriters, self defense gurus, industry people, for … I don’t remember, some shoot or something. Anyway, during lunch the conversation turns to the merits of various firearms for self defense and, after awhile, one of them pipes up with “a .38 J frame.” The rest of the room is aghast, and, sputtering, demands an explanation. He crosses his leg, taps his ankle, and replies, “Because apparently it’s the only gun in this room.”

Other writers and trainers have talked about going to police meetings and being surrounded in a sea of gunlessness, and plenty of applicants for CCW licenses will say, “It’s only for when I feel like it” or “It’s just so I can have something in the glove compartment.”

Which brings me to the point of today’s cogent observation – I am amazed at the number of guys on various gun fora who are now piping up with some form of “I’m going to have to start carrying again.” This leads to two points – “WTF???? You mean you WEREN’T????” and “I wonder how long before the ‘I’m feeling lazy and don’t want to dress to carry today’ becomes the mindset again.”

It would not surprise me to find that there were people in the Aurora theater who HAD licenses to carry – and who didn’t even have the “I left my gun in the car because the theater said ‘Gun Free Zone’” excuse.

Thinking about: Acts of War

So let me get this straight. If Pakistan never approved US drone strikes inside its borders, and yet US drones have struck and continue to strike Pakistan isn’t that an act of war by the US against a sovereign nation? What would the illiterati say if Mexican drones were striking targets in the US? Would they be as supportive? Or would their natural bigotry and hypocrisy come out on display?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Thinking about: Good book!

Sight unseen, at the moment, but the author comments here (there, and everywhere) on occasion, and they clearly show she is bright and thoughtful, and I’d be willing to bet that the book is worth getting, reading, and NOT letting it just stick around on the shelf.

I Am Not A Victim