Trying to help the cause

Found at Snowflakes in Hell:



Interesting that the CBO scored the Republican alternative as costing only $61 billion, while saving $68 billion ....... hmmmm.

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Radical Islam

I believe that all thinking Americans should read this piece by Mark Steyn:

We use rhetorical conveniences like “radical Islam” or, if that seems a wee bit Islamophobic, just plain old “radical extremism.” But we never make any effort to delineate the line which separates “radical Islam” from non-radical Islam. Indeed, we go to great lengths to make it even fuzzier. And somewhere in that woozy blur the pathologies of a Nidal Malik Hasan incubate.

Because no matter how you slice it, or praise it, or talk about how wonderful it is, that dog shit on the bottom of your shoe still stinks.

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Just what I'd expect

In spite of the fact that I think he was a weak, weak conservative, this kind of thing is just what I'd expect from Pres Bush.

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Keynesians and gun control

I read several blogs during the day (see my blog roll). At Snowflakes in Hell today, I saw yet more willful stupidity from an anti-gun psychophant, MikeB:

....disarming bad guys by denying availability should not be in dispute.

I simply cannot fathom what the depths of idiocy that gun-ban'ers reside in must be like.

I don't think that anyone, including the National Rifle Association, the Gun Owners of America, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership and the 2nd Amendment Foundation, disputes that bad guys should not have firearms. I don't think that bad guys should have firearms; my wife doesn't think bad guys should have firearms; my relatives don't think bad guys should have firearms. No one except bad guys think that bad guys should have firearms. But you know what?

If bad guys want firearms bad enough they are going to get them, no matter how 'unavailable' they are. If the military and the police are the only people to be allowed firearms, then that's where bad guys will get firearms.

If anti-gunners are somehow able to collect and destroy all firearms on earth, then bad guys will start using knives to commit crimes.

If they can't get knives, they'll use baseball bats.

If they can't get baseball bats, they'll use sharpened sticks.

If they can't get sharpened sticks, they'll use rocks.

Which is why gun control idiots are like economic Keynesians. Their only solution is more of the failed policies of the past, only they need to do it harder. And when that doesn't work, we need more of the same, only much harder.

And so on and so on and so on ..........

Keynesians are just stupid, with their animal spirits.

Gun control'ers are borderline evil, because their goal isn't about guns ..... it's about control.

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Warrior

Stolen from Protein Wisdom:



And go to Project Valor.

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Cooper QotD

It turns out that representatives of the Moscow Militia Trade Union believe that they should keep their weapons at all times. They expressed the opinion of all personnel for reasons that there have been more frequent attacks on militia workers off duty. They are resisted by supervisors who feel that allowing firearms off duty would lead to massive numbers of lost weapons finding their way into the black market.

Militiamen, however, insist that by that way of thought citizens should have their cars impounded each day after work, since many of them drive while drunk.

Let us devoutly hope that reason may eventually pervade the bureaucracies of Eastern Europe. We in the West, however, are not setting them a particularly good example. - Jeff Cooper

Cooper QotD

Wasn't it depressing to note how D−Day passed with no observation except by a couple of old codgers who went to Omaha Beach in a memorial visitation. As the twentieth century slides into its closing years, it seems obvious that society as a whole has lost all sense of proportion. Can it be that the whole human race is in need of another world war in order to sort itself out? Ugly thought. - Jeff Cooper

Can England come back?

Kevin had a question from a UK reader, and dutifully responded. but another UK reader had ..... a bit more to say:

I personally do not believe that it is possible to peacefully reverse the restrictions and negative image of firearms in the UK for various reasons. Let me start from first principles to outline why I have come to this conclusion.

And he does, at some length and detail.

You really need to go check it out.

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Hard to hear

Today, at Ft Hood TX, a gunman opened fire at a soldier readiness center, killing at least 11, before being killed.

Please pray for the families of the fallen soldiers, and pray for the full recovery of the injured.

As for the perpetrators, may God have mercy on your souls.

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Cooper QotD

In Detroit, not long ago, a suspect was beaten to death by cops with flashlights, so immediately the chief of police forbade his cops from carrying four−cell flashlights. Presumably a three−cell light is all right. Here we have a classic manifestation of definitive hoplophobia, "It's not the act, it's the instrument!" How people can behave this way with a straight face is beyond me!
- Jeff Cooper

Blog roll

New on the blog roll is the Advanced Armament Corp blog. Check them out!

And note that there are other worthy additions.

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Tactics (with update)

So I'm cruising the intertubes, looking at my regular blogs, and I come across this post by Sebastian. In it, he quotes a post by Kevin over at Smallest Minority.

Seems that Kevin was going to lunch, and saw that his chosen establishment didn't allow weapons to be carried. So he took what I consider the only logical approach when dealing with a private business .... he stated his case succinctly and mentioned that he wouldn't be spending any money there.

Sebastian (and apparently, Caleb too) seems to think it's ok to try to trick or manipulate business owners into dropping the no-gun policy without letting on that you are a firearms carry advocate.

So I responded here and here; I thought the proposed solution was kind of weak, but what's new. But it was the other comments that Sebastian posted that gave me pause, because I seemed to detect a certain hypocricy to Sebastian's argument, as well as a generally distasteful attitude.

Now please note that Sebastian is one of the top-rated gunbloggers around, and he does a lot of work locally for 2A causes .... he's a good guy.

Caleb admonished commenter Bob_S on tactics with a two-step criteria:

Bob S. – who gives a damn what our tactics are as long as 1) we win, and we 2) don’t sacrifice our personal integrity in so doing?

Doesn't sound too bad, does it? I've often advocated that the right needs to get dirty in politics.

But Sebastian took that down a notch, advising that he doesn't mind sacrificing personal integrity to get the win:

Considering what’s at stake, yes winning trumps integrity. Politics and social change are not a process of integrity. Do you think the progressives won by patting themselves on the head for their integrity?

In this, I believe that Sebastian is dead wrong.

For years, the Brady bunch has lied about firearms, lied about firearms statistics, lied about how many die from criminal firearm use, lie about how many children die accidentally from firearms, lie and obfuscate about 'loopholes' and 'reasonable restrictions' .... lie after lie after lie. Why?

Because the truth is demonstrably on our side. Howard Nemerov (a story in himself) recently showed that accidental firearms deaths are going down dramatically despite millions of firearms added to the population. The 'data' that showed that 90% of the firearms confiscated from Mexican drug organizations come from US gunshows is blantantly incorrect and mis-used. The oft-screeched banshee cry that another law that restores firearm liberty to citizens will result in 'blood in the streets' ........ hasn't come to pass, anywhere.

So why would we as second amendment advocates think that lying would be ultimately beneficial to our cause?

I don't think it is.

But also disturbing is the apparent hypocrisy that Sebastian displays. If the win is important, above and beyond integrity, why then, is open carry a bad thing? Why is advocating machine gun ownership a bad thing? Why are the Threepers bad people?

Sebastian opposes all of these activities, because it might scare the white people (and we mustn't do that!). No, Sebastian subscribes to the NRA theory that we have to have a master plan, that we have to go slow, that we have to fight only the battles that we can win.

So what happened to 'the win trumps everything'?

Something just doesn't jibe.

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Update - Sebastian seems to have thought a bit about his comments.