Entries from November 2007 ↓

There’s an article over at SPOnG about Rockstar’s appeal over the UK ban of Manhunt 2. Arguing for the BBFC, Andrew Caldecott had this to say:

“Games and technology develop incrementally… If you take the comparable argument to its extreme, you get a gradual creeping towards ever more graphic violence, but you never draw a line at any particular point.

“If you’re not careful you get into a peculiar game of Grandmother’s Footsteps, where everybody’s shuffling forward but Grandma’s never allowed to turn round and say, ‘Stop’… Is there never a point at which you can say, ‘This is unacceptable’?

“If there is a point, the question then becomes much more difficult: where do you draw it?”

As a quasi-independent entity with the full force of law delegated to it by the state, then, no. There is abso-fucking-lutely no point at which you should stop and say ‘This is unacceptable’ for adults to view. None. The whole point of freedom of speech is protecting unpopular speech.

Now, slippery slopes usually make for bad arguments, but seeing as we’re talking about “drawing the line” for future titles, what happens next? What happens when the next would-be censor decides some other game crosses the line? I’ve beaten Manhunt 2, and it didn’t even seem as brutal as the first one, so the bar seem rather low.

What happens when the next bureaucrat decides all war games cross the line because of fear they promote “gun crime” or something? Sounds far-fetched until you consider there were cries to ban another game for that very reason. And given the British elite’s pants-shitting hysteria over toy guns, well, yea.

And given that about half the people posting at various game sites around the net don’t seem to care or about (or in some cases even support) the ban simply because they think the game sucks anyway, what motivation is there for the BBFC to not ban more titles when they think they can get away with it? But, hey, when they end up banning Mario because it’s insensitive to the turtles’ feelings or some shit, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

At any rate, this illustrates precisely why the US Constitution prohibits the state from granting legislative powers to unelected, non-accountable, private actors. Even though certain politicians would like to do otherwise..

Looks like ABC just couldn’t resist jumping on the disinformation train with CNN and Time. Most of the piece is the same lies spewed in the other articles, so there’s no real point in going over them again. There is one rather thing I’d like to point out though.

As in the previous reports, they’re claiming Miami-Dade police weren’t issued “semiautomatic assault rifles” until after an incident in September involving an AK-47 lookalike. Yet, in the file footage from the incident they use in the report, there’s an officer carrying what looks like an AR-15:

Umm, guys, if you really expect us to believe the police weren’t carrying those rifles yet then, it would probably help if you, oh, I don’t know, didn’t show footage of the police carrying them..

There are few things more amusing than an unhinged moonbat. Take this diary at DKos for example:

The Coup:

It is November 2008. Let’s say for argument that the nominees for the presidency are Clinton and Guiliani. The polls show Clinton ahead by a margin of at least 10 points, and the talking heads are predicting a landslide for the Democrats across the board.

But this is where Diebold and the Rove playbook come in. There will be voter machine fraud on a much larger scale than before, in several key electoral states. Individual news agencies will not be conducting their own exit-polling. When the votes come in, it is a total reversal. Guiliani has won by a large margin, taking a number of states by a margin of 2 or 3 points, and the Republicans have been swept back into power across the board.

Damn that Karl Rove! He probably used a time machine to fake the moon landing too! Is there anything he can’t do? Anyhow, on with the crystal-ball-wrapped-in-tinfoil predictions.

The Protest:

There will be a huge demonstration on inauguration day. It will be massive, numbers reaching a million. We will believe this is our last chance to save America. Police presence around DC will be immense. Blackwater security will be part of that presence.

The protest will turn violent. The Brown-shirts will be incited to violence, from both the inflammatory rhetoric of their leaders and by agent provacatuers strategically placed in the crowd. Blackwater Security will use strong arm tactics, and there will be beatings, tear-gas, and mass arrests. At some point, a lone Blackwater operative will fire into the crowd and a number of people will be killed and wounded. At least one of those killed will be a journalist or a photographer.

And from there it goes on into how the NeoCon Blackwater Brown-shirts™ will shut down all the nutroots blogs, execute professors, enforce martial law, etc.. Yet the Kos kiddies shriek when people call them paranoid, fringe wackos.

The part that always confuses me is this: If they’re so damn convinced that Bush and the NeoCon Blackwater Brown-shirts™ are going to round them all up in death camps or whatever, why the fuck do they keep voting for Congressthings who want to disarm the public and give the Federal government the monopoly on force needed to do just that? Are these people crazy?

Seriously. If it should ever come to the point where government agents are trying to put you on cattle cars and/or kill you, “witty” protest signs and drum circles aren’t going to help much. While the pen may be mightier than the sword, 5.56 x 45 mm rifle rounds rip through paperboard like butter.

Or, on the other hand, if the idea is to somehow “peacfully” overthrow the US government if their candidate loses, well, good luck with that. Just be sure to tell Darwin I said hi.

SCOTUSblog says the Supreme Court has granted cert for Heller v. DC! And it looks like the Court has ignored the District’s attempt to limit the issue strictly to the handgun ban. This is how the Court worded the question they will decide:

Whether the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 — violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?

Arguments will likely be heard some time in March, with a decision coming down in or before June. Just in time to heat up the 2008 Presidential race..

From The Boston Globe, via The War on Guns:

Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children’s bedrooms.

As we’ve seen in the past, the gun grabbers don’t just hate the Second Amendment, they hate the Fourth and Fifth too.

The program, which is already raising questions about civil liberties, is based on the premise that parents are so fearful of gun violence and the possibility that their own teenagers will be caught up in it that they will turn to police for help, even in their own households.

Hmm, using irrational fear to trick people into giving up their rights? Isn’t this the exact same thing the left has been accusing Bush of doing for the last six years? Only in this case, instead of being a vague possibility that one might be wiretapped or whatever some time in the future, these fascists are proudly admitting door-to-door sweeps in an American city. Naturally, they try to justify it as somehow being voluntary or something:

The officers will travel in groups of three, dress in plainclothes to avoid attracting negative attention, and ask the teenager’s parent or legal guardian for permission to search. If the parents say no, police said, the officers will leave.

Because we all know that when a group of armed agents of the state show up to search a place saying it’s for the kids’ own good and promising not to arrest anyone, no parents will be intimidated into complying, right? Sounds to me like the mafia asking a business owner for a “donation” because “bad things might happen,” but okay..

Police will rely primarily on tips from neighbors. They will also follow tips from the department’s anonymous hot line

Joseph Stalin would be proud..

As bad as all that is, I find the following bit the most nauseating of it all:

“What I like about this program is it really is a tool to empower the parent,” [Rev. Jeffrey L. Brown] said. “It’s a way in which they can get a hold of the household and say, ‘I don’t want that in my house.’ “

What?! This program completely and unequivocally absolves parents of anything remotely resembling parental responsibility. If the parents want to “get a hold” of their household, they should look for themselves. Otherwise, the only entity which this program empowers is the state.

Finally, I can’t help but wonder how many kids will be arrested for terrorism when the police find Lite-Brites in their rooms.

I tuned in to the Democratic debate tonight in hopes there would be some comedy as Hillary!™ and Edwards bicker like school children over who has flip-flopped the most. In that regard I was not disappointed. One thing about the debate was somewhat surprising though. Somewhere in the middle, Wolf asked the candidates if standing up for human rights in Pakistan is more important than national security. After some lengthy answers from the other candidates, Senator Dodd, who apparently lost track of the original question, basically said that defending the country is more important than defending the Constitution.

So, after years of Democrats bashing Bush for violating civil liberties in the name of security, Dodd feels the same way? Now, maybe it’s just me, but this is rather unsettling coming from someone whose father was responsible for passing a bill based on a direct translation of the Nazis’ 1938 Law on Weapons.

Oh, yea, and Hillary!™ agreed with Dodd that security trumps freedom. Umm, Senators, methinks Benjamin Franklin would like a word with you…

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Once again, retired Virginia State Police Superintendent Massengill is out shilling for closure of the so-called “gun show loophole.”

Stepping into a volatile political issue that he said will take on a new urgency and tenor in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, Massengill described himself as a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights but

Ah, yes, there’s always a but. Just like when someone starts a sentence with ‘I’m not racist but,’ you know they’re about to contradict themselves.

“We can’t allow the proliferation of guns to continue,” he said, speaking before The Virginia Center for Public Safety, a nonprofit group that is part of a coalition of gun-control advocates.

You support the Second Amendment by supporting a gun prohibition group that wants to eradicate said Amendment? That makes sense. And, umm, you’re saying we can’t allow people to continue buying guns? But isn’t that kinda the opposite of supporting the people’s right to own them? Oooookay. Moving on.

Private sales or trades at gun shows involving unlicensed dealers are exempt from background checks, which can turn up information on criminal histories and hospitalizations for mental illness.

Supporters of the exemption argue that data is lacking to show a direct link between gun violence or crime and private sales. Such sales often involve a single weapon and another collector.

No. The data isn’t lacking. The data is rather clear, and it shows pretty much the exact opposite. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, gun shows account for less than 2% of guns used by criminals. But, hey, why let little things like facts get in the way when you can dance in the congealed blood of Virginia Tech students?

But he also recounted Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho’s ability to purchase guns despite findings that he was mentally ill, a matter since corrected through an executive order issued by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.

But Massengill said even if a background check had turned up Cho’s name, Cho could have purchased weapons at a gun show.

So let me get this straight. Because Cho didn’t buy his guns at a gun show and would have passed the identical background check at a gun show anyway, we need restrict people’s rights based what didn’t happen and what could have happened? If you want to play a game of what-ifs, Cho could have walked into school with a chainsaw and started decapitating people. He could have walked in carrying a duffel bag filled with molotov cocktails and burned just as many people alive. He could have simply made a bomb from fertilizer and diesel fuel and killed everyone in the building. So why aren’t you rushing out to close the gas station and lawn care “loopholes” too?

Speaking of what-ifs, how about, oh, I dunno, we put an end to this “gun-free,” victim-disarmament zone nonsense so that students and faculty could defend themselves?

But he minimized the notion that Cho may have been stopped sooner had students or selected teachers been allowed to carry guns.

Allowing such a scenario may have deterred Cho, Massengill said, but law-enforcement officers realize that more guns on campus combined with what he called “the exuberance of youth” will eventually lead to a calamity.

“More guns on campus is not going to lead to a safer environment.” he said.

Riiight. Because we all saw how well it worked out when the only gun on campus was in the hands of a madman. And we all saw how well it worked out when the administration fought to keep it that way and proudly proclaimed their institution as a target-rich environment in the press so that every madman would know.

Spoken like a true Only One..

Given that CNN has been caught lying about “assault weapons” before, this story probably shouldn’t come as any surprise. But it’s just amzing how they keep parading out the same bullshit propaganda and expect people to believe it, or anything else they say for that matter. “Most trusted name in news,” my ass.

After rambling a bit about some new “arms race” between the police and bad guys which has led to police carrying AR-15s (despite the fact law enforcement has been using the carbine for decades), they jump right into the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership talking points.

Across the country, at least 62 police officers have been gunned down this year — a record pace, said Robert Tessaro, the associate director for law enforcement relations for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

As a result, the Brady organization supports police officers arming themselves with high-powered weapons “to protect themselves and their communities,” he said.

He lays the blame squarely on lawmakers who allowed the assault weapons ban to expire in 2004.

Never mind that the number of police killed with rifles– “assault” flavored or not –has decreased since the ban expired (and on that note, those new FBI numbers contradict those quoted in the story about the “surge” in cop killings I posed about last month). Ignore the fact more are killed with handguns and cars than with “assault weapons.” And most of all, ignore the fact that over the years, more officers have been killed with their own weapon than by so-called “assault weapons.” It’s easier to just blame the scary looking guns, right?

Designed to be fired from the hip, assault rifles such as the AK-47 can spray at a rate of up to 600 rounds a minute in full automatic mode. It is the weapon of choice for guerillas and gangsters.

First off, the semiautomatic rifles affected by the ban don’t spray anything, let alone at 600 rounds per minute. They fire one shot per trigger pull. And designed to be fired from the hip? Ummm…

See that big hunk off wood on the back of the rifle? That is designed to go against your shoulder. Ergonomically speaking, it’s eaiser to fire an old fashioned stock from the hip, as seen in this 50+ year old television show using a 100+ year old rifle:

There’s no doubt that urban street warfare, aided by a proliferation of cheap automatic weapons, has come even to Palm Beach County, once high society’s vacation mecca and a retirement destination for northern snowbirds.

“They don’t have .38s anymore. They have AK-47s. …They have automatic weapons now,” said Sgt. Pfeil.

“The streets of South Florida are being flooded by AK-47s and assault weapons from old Soviet bloc countries. It’s driven the price down, making the availability greater,” said Chief Timoney.

The Miami police department evidence room has seized AK-47s, AR-15s and an assortment of other automatic and semiautomatic weapons piled on shelves from floor to ceiling.

Chief Timoney says he started noticing an increase since the federal assault weapon ban lapsed in 2004.

Ahhh, now the whole bullet spraying thing makes sense. They’re mixing machine guns and, err, everything that’s not a machine gun. There are a couple of glaring problems here, however.

It has been illegal to import machine guns for civilian use into the US since 1968. This law did not change in 2004.

The sale of new, domestically produced machine guns to civilians was banned in 1986. This law did not change in 2004.

It has been illegal to import semiautomatic copies of AK-47s and such since 1989. This executive order did not change in 2004.

Or, in other words, CNN and Chief Timoney are lying about the lapse of the “assault weapon” ban flooding the streets with machine guns. Then they contradict themselves on how many murders involved so-called “assault weapons.” No doubt because they change the definition all the time.

Assault weapons have been used to kill eight people and wound 25 here over the last two years.

The Miami Police Department said 15 of its 79 homicides last year involved assault weapons, up from the year before. So far this year, 12 of 60 killings have involved the high-powered arms.

So of a total 8 people killed with “assault weapons” in two years, 15 of them were in one year, and 12 in the next? Were some of them zombies or something? Either way, the FBI indicates that twice as many people are beaten or kicked to death than killed with any type of rifle. Shall we ban hands and feet? Four times as many people are stabbed to death. Want to ban all sharp objects too? And “high-powered arms?” Err, assault rifles (even the real full auto ones) are, by definition, rifles that use an intermediate cartridge. Which means they are less powerful than a typical hunting rifle.

Over the weekend, anti-game activist Jack Thompson debated game developer Lorne Lanning at a gaming convention in Philadelphia. Like clockwork, Thompson tried to blame video games for school shootings. GamePolitics on the other hand, took issue with the fact Thompson doesn’t blame guns.

Regarding school shootings, Thompson repeated his mantra about kids going to school with guns for 200 years in this country in order to shoot their dinner on the way home. This was by way of saying school shootings cannot be traced to easy gun availablity. Cite a reference, please, Jack. Which kids? Which 200 years? It sounds apocryphal from here.

As I posted in the comments at GP: Jack is correct on the facts. His cause and effect theory is dodgy, but the timeline is about right.

Before the 1934 National Firearms Act, a kid (or anyone else) could buy a machine gun at a hardware store or through mail order, cash and carry, no questions asked. Until that point, the only known school massacre was the Bath School Disaster in 1927, in which an adult blew up a school with dynamite and killed 44 people and himself.

Before the 1968 Gun Control Act, one could still buy non-automatic rifles and handguns via mail order or from a store with no questions asked. Until this time, there were only a few school shootings, almost all of which involved adults at college. See also: Charles Whitman.

Before the The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (which was ruled unconstitutional and replaced by a new version in 1995), kids could (and did) carry rifles to school. Be it for hunting after class, or for varsity shooting teams. Up through the late ’70s/ early ’80s, even New York City had shooting teams in public schools. In a number of States, faculty and adult students could also carry handguns to school before the Federal law passed. And until this law, school shootings were still quite rare. Most of which, again, involved adult shooters. In all but a couple of incidents, no more than two or three people (including the shooter) died.

Long story short, it wasn’t until schools became “gun-free zones” that the shootings became a common occurrence. The timing just happens to coincide with the rise in violent games like Doom and Mortal Kombat. This is where I cease to agree with Jack though.

In my honest opinion, the main reason for all the shootings is that schools are a soft target now, which is quite attractive to people who want to kill lots of people. To me, this is obvious. Banning guns in single buildings in the middle of a city/state/country filled with guns is like tossing a cotton ball into a bath tub and asking it to stay dry. Much like the air pockets in a cotton ball create a void which the laws of physics demand the water to fill, a “gun-free zone” creates a power vacuum which attracts sociopathic losers.

Israel experienced a similar phenomenon, only in reverse. They started with ban on guns at schools, and after a number of terrorist school shootings, they armed the teachers and parents in the mid ’70s. And school shootings promptly ceased to exist; terrorist or otherwise.

Via Of Arms and the Law comes this hilarious piece of disinformation from the “Gun Guys” in which they try to whip up more pants-shitting hysteria over a .50 caliber “sniper rifle.”

It’s terrifying to think what might have happened if an officer was shot with such a devastating weapon. It’s ours, and certainly every officer’s worst nightmare. A weapon designed to shoot down civilian aircraft during takeoff and landing would devastate and rip apart a person’s body if shot by one of these powerful weapons.

So the question is why are these weapons of war available on the civilian market? Secondly, why is an “ex-con fighting demons in his life” in possession of the most powerful sniper rifle available on the civilian market?

The most powerful sniper rifle you say? Designed to shoot down civilian aircraft?! OMG, everybody panic!!1

Or, umm, you could read the rest of the story the “Gun Guys” are shrieking about first…

Jessica says they told police Casey had no black powder for the muzzle loader, but police say they can’t take that chance.

Black powder? Muzzle loader?! Sounds like a freakin’ musket to me. And last I checked, there were no aircraft around when muskets were designed. Civilian or otherwise. Never mind the fact it would be rather difficult to hit a parked plane with a musket from more than 100 feet away, let alone one that’s flying.

The best part of the “Gun Guys” story has to be this:

Another law abiding gun owner? Of course the gun lobby says that no crimes are committed with .50 caliber sniper rifles.

The gun lobby is clearly lying. The Violence Policy Center lists some of the criminal uses of the .50 caliber sniper rifle. Now they have another chilling incident to add their list.

No, it’s quite clear the “Gun Guys” are the ones lying here. But this really comes as no surprise. For those unfamiliar with the group (as well as the head of their hydra, the “Freedom States Alliance“), they are but one of many false flag operations set up by the rabidly anti-gun Joyce Foundation to give the appearance of support from gun owners for gun control.

And for those keeping score at home, presidential candidate Barack Obama used to be on the board of directors of this pack of liars.