Politics

How to be remembered

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Linoge has a posting about, as he terms it, the Whiner-in-Chief.

Let me make this perfectly clear to you, Mr. President – this whole situation is not about you, and it sure as hell is not about your precious Presidency.

Actually Linoge, that’s where you are wrong. It’s sorely evident by his words and his actions that this is all about him. It’s all about his ego-satisfaction and being more concerned about trying to leave some monumental legacy.

The way to be remembered is to first live a life worth remembering. Mr. President, I’d say if you really want to be remembered and leave a great legacy, stop trying to be remembered and leave a great legacy. Just do what is Truly Right™ and the rest will take care of itself. It may be useful to recall the Classical Greek maxim: hubris brings nemesis.

National Reciprocity – A step forward

/ hsoi / 9 Comments

Looks like amendment 1618 to S.1390, the national reciprocity effort of Sen. John Thune, passed the US Senate with a 58-39 majority. Obviously that’s bipartisan.

Good news.

Updated…. oh wait, I misread that. No, it didn’t pass. It needed 60 votes to pass, but the vote still demonstrated a majority. Hopefully this will enter into NRA grades for the upcoming elections. Shows you who is on what side of the fence for sure.

CNN article.

While it didn’t happen, I still think it’s a step forward. It still shows where the US Senators stand on such issues. It still shows that a majority can be had.

National Reciprocity

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

There have been numerous attempts at national reciprocity, even within this current US Congressional session.

The latest attempt? S.1390, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2010. More specifically, amendment 1618 to that bill, sponsored by Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. This amendment appears to be the same as Thune’s stand-alone S.845 bill, just in amendment form.  I see Sen. John Cornyn has signed on as a co-sponsor of the amendment form but not of the stand-alone form (odd). Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, where are you on either?. Note, if my links to the bills don’t work, go to the THOMAS website, search for S.1390 by bill number, then you can see everything including the amendments. THOMAS is neat, but it’s linking system totally blows. Anyway…

I’ve been a bit torn on this topic because I don’t really want the Fed to step in. But when you consider some unexpected bedfellows in matters such as trucking interests, and then how Thune opted to word things, this is actually reasonable.

As well, while I normally am not hip to using amendments as a way to shuttle pet projects through, I think this is a reasonable place for such an amendment. If there’s one thing the Federal Government is supposed to do it is national defense. This is the defense appropriations bill, and bringing about national reciprocity falls in line there.

For those that expect this will cause doom and gloom, I suggest you do a little homework before you start with the hysterics.

If you haven’t contacted your Senator, now is the time.

Updated: Didn’t happen. This time. Still, I think it made a good showing.

Why do you want my gun?

/ hsoi

So a liberal asks: why do you want my gun? (h/t to SayUncle)

After reading his story it reminded me of a “joke”:

Q: What do you call a Democrat?

A: A Republican that’s never been mugged (yet).

Do children need guns?

/ hsoi

Howard Nemerov examines the question of children having access to guns.

He recounts a recent story where a 10-year old boy had access to his mother’s gun and used it to save the lives of himself and his 8-year old sister. This isn’t the first story I’ve heard where a minor had access to a gun and used it to protect themselves and their family members.

Nevertheless, out of the woodwork come those that decry that a loaded gun was accessible to the children. That children should even know how to use a firearm. That “what if the gun had been taken away and used against them”. And all the usual foul cries.

In his usual style, Howard sets aside the emotion and looks at the hard facts:

After compiling data from the FBI’s Supplemental Homicide master files for 2000 through 2002, it turns out that children shooting children is a rare occurrence.

[…]

This means that of the truly unfortunate circumstances where a child finds a gun and kills another kid, there are an average of 10 per year for entire country. Obviously, that is 10 too many. But considering that 633 babies under age 2 (211 per year) were beaten to death during this same time period, some perspective needs to be maintained. There are already laws against beating babies to death, just as there are laws against killing children with firearms.

Texas is one such state with “child access” laws. My wife and I have had discussions on this very matter. The law says I cannot leave a “readily dischargeable firearm” in a way such that a child could have access to it. That means that my children — who know how to safely and responsibly operate firearms — cannot use a firearm to defend themselves. Given that firearms are an equalizer, why shouldn’t my children be allowed means and mechanisms to level the field against larger and stronger invaders/attackers? I grant the intentions of the law, but I also see the perils the same law creates.

So Howard provides much-needed perspective:

Of these 31 incidents, 15 of them occurred in the 18 states (about 1 per state) that had child access laws on the books at the time. That means the remaining 16 incidents occurred in the 32 states without these laws (0.5 incidents per state), not the best testimony for child access laws!

Ten of these incidents involved shooters age 10 or less, about 3 per year. Four of these occurred in states with child access laws, still near that 50/50, coin-flip percentage that indicates failure for child access laws.

So based strictly upon percentages, this 10-year-old is a hero.

How can you label that 10-year old boy any other way?

Sotomayor and the NRA

/ hsoi

It took a while, but the NRA has officially come out against Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination for SCOTUS.

Certainly the NRA brings up Sotomayor’s anti-2A record:

Judge Sotomayor’s judicial record and testimony clearly demonstrate a hostile view of the Second Amendment and the fundamental right of self-defense guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

But I think a bigger judicial issue is involved, and one that should concern all US citizens, including those that may be pro gun-control:

The one part of the Bill of Rights that Congress clearly intended to apply to all Americans in passing the Fourteenth Amendment was the Second Amendment.  History and congressional debate are clear on this point.

Yet Judge Sotomayor seems to believe that the Second Amendment is limited only to the residents of federal enclaves such as Washington, D.C. and does not protect all Americans living in every corner of this nation.

This is a larger issue (14A), and one generally hostile towards protecting and preserving the freedoms this country was founded upon.

In last year’s historic Heller decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees the individual’s right to own firearms and recognizes the inherent right of self-defense.  In addition, the Court required lower courts to apply the Twentieth Century cases it has used to incorporate a majority of the Bill of Rights to the States.  Yet in her Maloney opinion, Judge Sotomayor dismissed that requirement, mistakenly relying instead on Nineteenth Century jurisprudence to hold that the Second Amendment does not apply to the States.

If she’s going to make such mistakes and disregard the ruling of the highest court — the one she’s now attempting to gain a seat upon — what sort of respect does she have for that court? And what sort of behavior is it to be so disregarding? Can the American Citizens trust such behavior?

What will make this rather interesting is apparently the NRA will count the Sotomayor vote towards NRA grade/score. We’ll see what happens.

The dumbers are getting more dumberer

/ hsoi

Walter Williams, a professor at George Mason University, has published an article on the failed public school system.

The solution? Decentralization and competition (imagine that!):

Any long-term solution to our education problems requires the decentralization that can come from competition. Centralization has been massive. In 1930, there were 119,000 school districts across the U.S; today, there are less than 15,000. Control has moved from local communities to the school district, to the state, and to the federal government. Public education has become a highly centralized government-backed monopoly and we shouldn’t be surprised by the results. It’s a no-brainer that the areas of our lives with the greatest innovation, tailoring of services to individual wants and falling prices are the areas where there is ruthless competition such as computers, food, telephone and clothing industries, and delivery companies such as UPS, Federal Express and electronic bill payments that have begun to undermine the postal monopoly in first-class mail.

We homeschool our kids. Can’t get more decentralized than that!

Happiness

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

The U. S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.

— Benjamin Franklin

Unfortunately today too many people think that the job of the government is to provide them with the happiness (and security) they deserve.

All that happened was hysterics

/ hsoi

Via Tam I read about a spectacular case of PSH.

PSH – Pants Shittin’ Hysterics

So a man with a gun comes into a city council meeting in Chico, California, addresses the council in support of a library, then leaves. Wow, nothing happened. The gun didn’t just jump and start shooting people. No blood was shed. No one died. Wow. Unbelievable.

Thing is, the man is a former California Highway Patrol officer and had permit to legally carry. So thus, no laws were broken.

But lots of hysterics:

Although the man didn’t violate any laws, it made Mike Maloney uncomfortable as the interim chief of police, he said.

“From my perspective, I can’t see any reason for someone who’s not a peace officer to carry a weapon to the City Council,” Maloney said.

He was uncomfortable. He got his feeling hurt. Time to call the waaambulance.

“The million-dollar question is, why would you bring a weapon to the City Council meeting when we’re talking about library funding and the budget?” Vice Mayor Tom Nickell asked.

Those police officers in the chambers and around the building, why do they have guns at a City Council meeting when you’re talking about libary funding and the budget? Perhaps because the potential for bad guys to do bad things doesn’t get scheduled on your meeting agenda? Back to that whole “Be Prepared” thing. Again, the guy’s an ex-cop and probably has enough personal direct experience to know that it’s wise to be prepared to defend yourself because shit happens.

“My opinion is that members of the public should allow trained professionals to carry and use firearms,” Maloney said.

Hrm. The guy in question? He’s an ex-cop. So I guess as soon as he took off the badge, all of his training was immediately removed from his brain, body, and soul. Now he’s suddenly one of those dangerous citizens that we just cannot trust. Sure 5 minutes ago he was a cop and we trusted him fully with a gun, but now he cannot be trusted!

Wow.

Having seen the effects of gun use, Maloney thinks citizens should instead be good witnesses if they spot a crime, he said.

OK ladies. While you’re being raped, just be sure to be a good witness. That’s what Chico, California Interim Police Chief Mike Maloney wants you to do.

And gosh, if that’s how the Police Chief wants things to be, how much can you expect the police will do anything to protect you? Especially how later in the article it mentions how Chico is down on police officer positions. They just don’t have enough cops to go around to even come and protect the legislators in their meetings, so how are you mere citizens going to be protected on a daily basis? But just remember, be a good witness so you can help the Chico police clean up afterwards.

[Mayor Ann] Schwab was concerned when she heard about the gun, especially considering children were in the audience and the council had a heated discussion on budget issues, she said.

Ah good! Someone was thinking about the children. You know, those children that weren’t harmed at all by a law-abiding citizen doing lawful things; in fact, a law-abiding citizen participating in the legislative process… arguably being a more productive citizen than most! Gosh now, we can’t have any more of that. Children are watching!

Thank God we have hysterical Mayors, Vice Mayors, City Councilmen, and Police Chiefs to keep us safe…. safe from what, I don’t know, but thank God we have them. I would add “Thank God they’re thinking of us” but that implies thinking, and it appears not a lot of that is going on.

Gun control works

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

… just a question of who does it work for.

Over at Howard Nemerov’s website, a little back and forth in one article’s comments lead to Howard writing a full follow-up article asking if civilian gun ownership causes bloodshed.

His conclusion? Gun control works:

Don’t like Jews or Catholics? Hitler disarmed them and then murdered millions in concentration camps, along with Gypsies, homosexuals, etc.

Hate Christians? After Uganda banned guns, 300,000 were rounded up and murdered.

Don’t like “smart” people? After banning guns, Cambodia rounded up and murdered over one million of them.

Hate people who disagree with you? After the Soviet Union established gun control, over 20 million dissidents were rounded up and killed.

Of course, if it works or not all depends whose side you’re wanting it to work for.

Howard continues:

By comparison, the Second Amendment has actually saved millions of lives. It also protects your right to religious freedom, your pursuit of happiness, and your opportunity for upward mobility. It raises the cost for thugs who want you rounded up and murdered.

It also shows that anybody who is against the civil right of self-defense is a person who hates your life, liberty, and happiness.

Why would you want to be disarmed before such a person?

Indeed, why would you?

For all those that love the protections 1A gives to the God-given rights enumerated therein, remember that it’s 2A that helps to preserve those rights. The facts of history bears this out.