Letter to Times Union(Albany NY)

So the Sun Times Union printed my very brief response to Mr. Fred Lebrun’s plea for firearm registration. If you have a minute take a look!

Lock, load and try taking aim at the illegal handguns

Read my Letter

the Constitutional Arguement Against Firearms Registration.

The slippery sloap arguement that the registration of firearms leads to and facilitates their prohibition and confiscation is a noteworthy point. History show a great many examples of this, and in fact, every marginally effective confiscation of arms has been preceded by their registration. It’s hard to confiscate something if you don’t know where they are or how many of them exist.

This is however an ultimately irrelevant point. It focuses on the merits of another issue(the right to own guns) and ignores the merits of the issue at hand(registration). That said, a clear and constitutional arguement against registration exists.:

The Second Ammendment protects both the right to Keep and to Bear Arms. Now how does registration infringe on these?

To ground the discussion, lets start on the topic of arms. What arms are included in this list, or at least what minimum arms are protected? Well quite clearly, as the Heller  case upheld, there is the right to keep and bear handguns and longarms in a readily operable(unlocked) state. But more basically, could arms be limited to .22lr and 2″ blades? Obviously not, while it meets the requirement of allowing arms, their utility is greatly harms, their effectiveness is greatly lessened, and ultimately all meaning is stripped from the word ‘Arms’. Therefor, ‘arms’ does not simply include any arms, but imples a certian level of effectiveness. It means that they may not be rendered useless.

Similarly, the right to bear arms is not limited solely to the physical act of having it on one’s person. There are far many more aspects of bearing which the word ‘bearing’ includes. Amongst these are the ability to use them effectively, to be able to train with the weapon and become familiar with its operation,  to be able to use it in all apropriate situations not merely a subset, to do many other things. Now if firearms must be registered, then this greatly harms your ability to bear them. After all, the effectiveness of arms depends in part on the enemy’s knowledge of that weapon. Does the potential enemy know you have a weapon? Do they know what capabilities it has?  Do they know who owns it and where it is stored? These are all things which would harm the militia’s ability to bear arms against anyone with access to the registration list, and since the purpose of the militia is to protect the authentic ‘State’ from both external and internal forces, even the state’s knowledge of the public firearm ownership greatly harm’s their ability to bear them.

Furthermore, registration infringes on the keeping aspect of the 2A. Specifically, Keeping arms includes as demonstrated, more than the simple posession of arms. It includes the posession; the storage, the mantanience; the knowledge of which arms are stored, the checking in and out of arms for use, the recording of sale or purchase of arms. Thus for the state to take control of any aspect of this process of keeping arms, to control, regulate and monitor the purchase and sale and storage of arms usurps the people’s righ to keep them

Apparently Not, Or At Least Not Immideatly

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest. -Mohandas Gandhi

Everyone looks up to Gandhi, and recognises his innovative peaceful rebellion. However even he recognised that it violence sometimes is the answer.

Back from the United Kingdom

After centuries of oppression, of foreign and domestic tyranny in India, Africa, Europe, the Americas, and in their own home; through protestant reformations, massive exodus, and disastrous wars; the land of from which so many have come, has not changed.

Indeed it has; it’s colonies have dwindled and it’s power fallen significantly. However the mentality of the people, and oppressive nature and not changed in the slightest.

In a local pub words shocked me and the fell from the lips of a nice lady. A local to Scotland, she passed to us the history of her trip to America, and within it, the sight of a police officer carrying a gun. The fear in her eyes, over a year later, swelled up and she explained how she paniced. Not literally, she held her fear quite well, yet never explained the cause.

Truthfully, I did not understand it, and still dont. But I suppose it comes from a general culture of fear. The only good reason why a sane person would fear a gun, is if they feared the person holding it. So when a country moves to ban all guns, it’s not because they fear the gun. Only ignorance to suggest that, the individuals of the nation all feel as though there no one they can trust. They put of 17 million government cameras to watch one another, millions more private. But it is never enough. Because no matter what they do. There’s no one they feel they can trust.

I arrived during, as one TV station reported, “A terrible weekend of knife violence.” The Edinburgh reporter proceeded to say that only twenty some odd knives were turned in thus far, during the knife amnesty month. He threw the at the ground, a machete, a pocket knife, a butter knife, a butcher’s knife. And I laughed. But really I cried.

This is where we are going.

It’s not that they don’t trust one another, or maybe it is. But ultimately, they don’t trust themselves. They want to watch everyone. Everyone is either good or evil. But they fail to realize. Almost everyone is good. Most everyone tries to do what’s right, it’s differences here which causes problems. But in the end, these aren’t problems. Nor are truly bad people. For they cannot change. And they are destine to fail to be killed off theoretically or literally. But when everyone is afraid of one another, and no one can break the law, no one can break the law. And it is discretion, in the grand scheme of thing that cleanses the globe. Some times people need to be killed. Things need to be stolen. And hatred for criminals is so strong, and no one is willing to weigh the motives. well I’m yet to understand it all.

But I can say right now, this won’t happen here. I’ll figure out what I’m thinking. I will write it down and will change the way we are beginning to think. And if all fails, then I’ll simply prove ideas wrong, one by one.

I don’t know. Maybe it won’t be that bad. But is is for them. For them, it is too late for preventative measures. Terrorism will win there. The country will collapse. What happens afterwards is a direct result of America’s path. Will we fall too? Or will we stand. Will we rebuild? I will. I am right now.

Gun Blog; Part 2

So the question remains, could you fend off a gun wielding attacker for the average of 7-8 minutes it takes for cops to arrive? Maybe you could, maybe you couldn’t. A gun in your hand would surly help, but if you banned guns, or at a minimum handguns, that criminal wouldn’t have a gun now would he? Yes and no. After all, there are roughly 200 million guns in the US(PDF).

Would all those guns just disappear? Of course not, but they would slowly fade away as those owned by malicious criminals were found, and the only ones which remained from the pre-ban era would be those owned by normal citizens who didn’t want to give their guns up. Now those people would be “criminals”, but as we all know, criminality is a state of mind. Anyhow, people argue that after a period of say 10 years, those guns wouldn’t be in the hands of real criminals. And they’re right.

“Those guns” wouldn’t be a problem, but new guns would. If you need proof of that look at Washington DC.The Washington Times admits that despite the 30 year old DC gun ban which banned handguns outright, and , “… the District had a higher homicide rate last year than any other city in the nation with more than 500,000 residents”, as recorded by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. Where do they get their guns? They simply get them from elsewhere.

We have to remember that it is illegal for convicted felons, fugitives from justice, illegal drug users or addicts, minors, anyone adjudicated mentally defective or having been committed to a mental institution, anyone dishonorably discharged from the military, illegal aliens, anyone having renounced U.S. citizenship. It has been this way since the Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed.

However that doesn’t stop felons from getting guns, because the obtained the illegally. Just as illicit drugs are sold, illicit guns are sold. And it’s no like they are a mysterious enigma that are far too difficult get. All you need is a couple hundred bucks and your set.

So when guns are banned, it only takes guns away from law-abiding citizens. Some contest that it would reduce the number of suicides committed by the youth. Again, I argue that what teen doesn’t have access to illegal drugs. While I don’t have any statistics off hand, I’m willing to bet you’d have a hard time finding a suicidal teen who couldn’t get weed if he wanted. And if you have access to weed, you have access to cocaine, steroids, guns, and all other “small” items on the black-market.

Then, the only people who don’t have guns are the people who don’t want to break the law. And then, when Joe Shmoe busts in your door, or breaks open you car window at a red light(and 5 out of 6 people are victims of violent crime(PDF)), he may still have that gun, but you won’t. If you don’t carry a gun, the situation wouldn’t be much different than before guns were banned. But it’s a much different situation for the people who do carry guns for protection, and mind you, not just to protect themselves, but to protect whoever may need protecting. They are the one’s willing to protect themselves and others no matter what the situation.

They are the people who sometimes have somewhat crazy ideas. They are sometimes the gun-nuts who go to the range every week, humorously talk with their buddies about zombie invasions, and hone their skills. Some may talk of dooms day, and they talk of what could be. They may hide guns in their walls, burry them under their driveway, build AK-47s from blank sheets of metal, write books on how to make ammunition out of lipstick lids; waste countless hours on the internet talking about things that will never happen, but they are the people you count on when riots churn over a young man’s death, and the crowds are burning your home, and when we flash back to Kristall Nacht, and Uncle Sam’s no where to be found.

Gun Blog; Part 1

I don’t blame people for being scared of guns. It goes back to everyone’s instinctive fear of death. I admit I’m scared of guns to an extent. Under no conditions do I want to look down a barrel to see a bullet waiting. Guns have the power to kill, to maim, to cause suffering of families and countries, and entire races. It’s only logical to think that it would all end if the guns weren’t there. If that man with the gun, was just a man with an attitude, then everything would be ok… or at least a little bit better.

But it wouldn’t be, because the gun is not the problem. On a similar note, I saw Hotel Rwanda just a week ago, and if you’ve seen it, I’m sure you’ll remember how the Hutus slaughtered nearly one million Tutsi, and this was just nine years ago, in 1994. Yet the worst part was not how soldiers shot innocent children intending to wipe out the next generation, but how they did so with clubs, machetes, or anything else they could scrounge up. Throughout the movie, the UN “peacekeepers” did virtually nothing.

Although it would be great to prevent all disasters, both large scale ones like in the movie, and small scale ones which are commonly seen throughout life, banning guns cannot do that because the evil is still there.

So instincts kick in. Fight or Flight. That’s interesting to me. Evolution has eliminated all the possible choices an animal can make, and left two. Most notably, it eliminated appeasement. Logically it did so because appeasement does not work in the majority of cases.

Getting back to what I was saying, Fight or Flight. The choice is to run, or to confront. Obviously, if you can escape, do it. Confrontation carries the risk of injury and death, and you generally won’t die in a successful escape(If you did then it would be pretty pointless). Yet since you may not have the choice of escaping, people have to be prepared to fight. Again, it is smart to get another person to do the fighting for you. After all you can’t get hurt, but it would naive to rely on another.

Reflecting back to Hotel Rwanda you will remember that UN helped just about the same amount as a lamp post. The same thing happened in Germany too. Utter disbelief wiht regard to the seamingly absurd rumors, disguised the truth from the Jewish populace. After all, not many liked the Jews, but they couldn’t seriously try to kill them all, especially not here, in industrialized Germany…

But it actually happened, and by the time Allied forces toppled the Nazis, 13 million were dead. Great for Mr. 13-million-and-one, but bad for everyone before him, and that’s the lesson we must learn. Help never arrives soon enough. To be protected, you must protect yourself.

In all seriousness, do you know how long it takes for the police to get to your house? The Washington Times reports that it takes an average of 7-8 minutes for metro police to respond to Priority 1 calls, which includes armed-robbery, assault, and shootings. Assuming your able to call 911, would you be able to fend off an armed, prepared attacker for even 5 minutes?

I’ll pick back up tomorrow.