Stimulus: President Obama, a smart man, says that tax cuts for the wealthy are the main reason we’re now in such economic trouble. Someone needs to tell him how utterly — and dangerously — wrong that is.
Month: February 2009
Guns and church
Arkansas’s House just passed a bill approving concealed carry in church.
I applaud this. Texas’ concealed carry laws originally prohibited carry in church but the law changed to allow it (unless, like any place they post a valid 30.06 sign).
Like I said before, having such laws only stop the law-abiding good guys. The law-breaking bad guys don’t care. The wolves will roam where they please, especially to places where it’s easy to pick off the sheep. Laws don’t erect magical force-fields to keep out the bad guys.
From the article:
Rep. Steven Breedlove, D-Greenwood, a minister at the Valley View Church of Christ, said allowing concealed handguns won’t stop someone from opening fire inside a church.
“Ronald Reagan was completely surrounded by armed guards and he was still shot,” Breedlove said. “And that is why we must put our faith in God and not put our faith in something else … Let us keep the sanctity of churches and put our faith in God and not in guns.”
No, it won’t stop someone bent on crazy. John Hinckley Jr. was crazy. A minister should know that bad things can happen to good people and we can’t stop it all. And although a subject of much debate, it seems rather a Christian thing to defend yourself and others.
Self-defense may actually result in one of the greatest examples of human love. Christ Himself said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:14). When protecting one’s family or neighbor, a Christian is unselfishly risking his or her life for the sake of others.
Theologians J. P. Moreland and Norman Geisler say that “to permit murder when one could have prevented it is morally wrong. To allow a rape when one could have hindered it is an evil. To watch an act of cruelty to children without trying to intervene is morally inexcusable. In brief, not resisting evil is an evil of omission, and an evil of omission can be just as evil as an evil of commission. Any man who refuses to protect his wife and children against a violent intruder fails them morally.”
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.
So while allowing good people to possess useful tools wherever they man roam may not stop crazy, it can act as a deterrent and discourager, and at least give you a fighting chance. Yea, it even appears to be a moral obligation.
I agree. Do not put your faith in an inanimate object — a gun. But perhaps you can have faith that God might be guiding some to do His will, to be the sheepdogs helping The Shepherd guard his flock. Just ask Jeanna Assam.
Update: Robb chimes in with his take on the matter.
Capacity
Oh t3h interwebtubes are rife with endless debate about gun stuff, from your choice of gun sucks to your caliber sucks and every possible debate in between.
One thing tho I haven’t seen much debate on tho is capacity… well, at least within the gun-toting community. Across the lines there are those that believe a capacity of zero is ideal, or if they’re feeling generous might think 10 is the most one could ever need. I mean, what reason could you ever have to need to fire more than 10 rounds?
When you look at the reports of police under pressure in gunfights, what is their ratio of hits to misses? Depending on the amount of training the police force gets and then the particular force, I’ve seen numbers ranging from 25-33%. So think about that. These trained professionals, and only at most 1/3 of the shots fired actually find their mark. You have to realize in a gunfight tho, that’s probably fair. Training takes you so far, then you’ve got adrenaline rushing, you’re moving, the bad guy is moving, you’re not going to bat 1000 under those circumstances.
So now let’s look at you, average citizen. You may not have as much training or at least as much exposure and conditioning to such pressure-filled situations. So let’s put things on the lower end of the spectrum at 25% hit ratio. That means 1 out of every 4 bullets fired will hit its mark. Now we have to understand that handguns are woefully underpowered and it’s unlikely that only 1 bullet will stop the attacker. Let’s say you’ll need at least two (but there’s no guarantee how many you’ll need). So that means you’ll need to fire at least 8 bullets. If you’re arbitrarily limited to 10 rounds, well… you might be ok.
Now note that few attackers act alone. Sure maybe you might only confront one person, but there’s usually a lookout or backup hiding off in the shadows. So now you’ve got 2 guys to deal with… that’d be what? at least 16 bullets needed?
And you can see where this math can go.
Now I admit, I’m just playing with numbers. But I prefer to err on the side of caution. You never know what you’re going to need or what you may be up against. Sure .45 ACP is a great round, but a lot of 1911-style handguns can only carry 8 of them, but a XD-45 can carry 14. Or you could get a XD(m) in 9mm and carry 20 rounds. .45 ACP sucks just as much as 9mm sucks just as much as .40 S&W sucks just as much as most any handgun round sucks. So, all sucking being equal, I like that 9mm allows increased capacity.
Wolves tend to travel in packs. How does it help the sheep if the sheepdogs can’t have all their teeth?
Economic analogies
I just love Tam’s analogies for the stimulus plan.
Oh grow up
Once again, I’m with you Lissa.
My mother is Korean, my father is “white” (German, Scotch-Irish). I took zero offense to this. Why? Because there’s no offense intended. Look at the picture…. all the white kids are squinty and the one Asian kid is round-eyed. Looks like nothing but a bunch of friends having fun and being silly. If the Asian kid in the picture isn’t offended (and in fact is playing along), why the hell should you be? Oh that’s right… he’s not the one hoping to milk Miley Cyrus for a $4B payout.
Is it playing on a racial difference? Sure. But being offensive requires intent to harm. I recall one time as a kid some other kid came up to me, made some Asian-like faces, flailed his arms, and made “ching-chong” sorts of sounds at me. Did that bother me? Sure did, because the kid’s intent was to make fun of me and hurt me. In high school a Korean friend and I would always joke back and forth about being a “rice eater”, he’d call me a “half-breed” and I’d call him “slant eyes” or some such thing. Did this bother us? Nope, because it was all in fun with no intent to harm.
Look folks, racial/cultural humor can be funny (Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, Mel Brooks, Jeff Foxworthy), or not (Margaret Cho – sorry, while I get her Korean jokes on a whole other level, I just don’t find her all that entertaining). You have to look at intent. Is it intended to be funny? or is it intended to harm? Causing harm to another, even by word or gesture, isn’t acceptable. But it appears all Miley did was have some fun with her friends.
Cutbacks
So until we’ve all been fully stimulated and the rainbow-farting unicorns appear, we’ve got to cut back. It’s happening around my household, and I’m sure it’s happening around yours.
It’s happening in your cities too. Massad Ayoob writes about how various municipalities are cutting back on law enforcement because they just can’t afford it. Even here in Austin. APD Top Cop Art Acevedo cut $3.7 million from the police department budget by reducing overtime and delaying a cadet class until September.
What does this all mean? Simple. Less cops on the street.
For those of you that put your safety and security into the hands of others, there weren’t many of those others before, and now there will be even less. That means there’s less to protect you… fewer hands into which to put your safety and security. The corollary is the bad guys will be aware of this reduced police presence, and you better believe they’ll take advantage of it.
It’s your life. It’s your liberty. It’s your property. It’s your happiness. How much do you value it? How much responsibility for it are you willing to take?
Gun Rights Week @ JMU
Just read about Gun Rights Week at James Madison University.
I attended JMU for my undergrad. If it’s anything now like it was back then this probably won’t go over well with the general student populace. But that’s to be expected with a bunch of 18-21 year olds at a liberal arts college in the United States, likely on their own for the first time in their lives, experiencing freedom (i.e. no mom & dad looming over them) like never before. Given how I thought at the time, if this had happened when I was there I too probably would have wondered what the point was and thought concealed carry on a college campus was more dangerous and inviting bloodshed in the classroom if there was a minor disagreements over how to interpret some poem in English class, shootouts on The Quad over hackey sacks, or poor food choices in D-Hall.
But as I’ve documented here, I’ve since changed. I’ve improved my education on and understanding of the matter. And the stark reality is creating “gun free zones” in reality creates a “victim-full zones”. Virginia Tech is just a short drive from JMU. If creating a “gun free zone”, like a school or university, also erected a magical force-field that kept the bad guys and the crazies out and allowed a blissful sheep-like existence within, I’d be all for it. But alas, such things don’t exist, and the wolves roam without regard for artificial boundaries. All “gun free zones” do is keep out the sheepdogs, and the sheep keep grazing on The Quad.
Ignorance is only bliss until your rose-colored glasses are violently shattered (VaTech, various other school-based shooting tragedies). There’s movement within Texas for this year’s state legislative session to improve things in this very manner, and I support those efforts and will do what I can to help them succeed. I’m all for removing barriers that abridge sheepdogs.
Delayed stimulus
So the stimulus package has been delayed. I guess better than premature stimulus.
The new version includes help for victims of the recession in the form of unemployment benefits, food stamps, health coverage and more. It would also provide billions for states that face the prospect of making deep cuts in their own programs.
It also preserves President Barack Obama’s tax break for millions of lower and middle income taxpayers.
Ah, help for the victims. And who gets to pay for all of this? Me (at least in part).
Anyone going to give me a break?
Anyone going to give me a handout?
Anyone going to take care of my mortgage? My bills? Feed my children? Put gas in my car? Keep my lights on?
I guess I’m not a victim.
It’s an interesting thing. When something is worth spending your money on, people willingly spend their money on it. When something isn’t worth two shits, people don’t spend their money on it. So what’s the solution if your two shits aren’t getting funding? Why use the force of law to get funding! And so government grows, more money is taken from We The People, and We The People rightly get pissed off.
I donate money to charitable causes. I volunteer my time. If I was able to keep more of my own money, I’d had more to give to worthwhile causes. If I didn’t have to take on additional employment, I’d have more time to volunteer. You’d think those liberals with all their compassion would understand that, but apparently they don’t know how to give unless they’re giving someone else’s money away or forcing you to volunteer. And then of course, you have no personal investment in any of it, so you aren’t that responsible with it. One mess leads to a bigger mess.
autodiskmount
As documented earlier, I was having problems with my home file/print/whatever server. I’ve gotten her mostly back and working, but I was having problems getting the FireWire drives to mount over AFP to my other boxen on my home network. Really, all you should have to do under Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) is flip on File Sharing and off you go… log in via AFP to the machine with your user/pass for that machine and you should be able to see all the volumes. But alas, not working. Sometimes I would, sometimes I wouldn’t. Sometimes some volumes would show, sometimes some would not.
Eventually I cleaned up some permissions stuff, some ACL’s, and some other things, and I got it to a point where I could get all of the FireWire drives to be visible and mount over AFP but not after a reboot. Then I remembered there’s an old trick to get this to happen. But my Google-Fu was weak… much chaff, little wheat. But then I found a posting that jogged my memory. I looked on another computer in the house with a similar setup and found it, and so I must document it here so it’s easy for folks to find… or at least me to find if I need it in the future. 🙂
Terminology and Semantics
Terminology and semantics matter, folks. There’s no two ways about it.
Stuff From Hsoi 