Entries from December 2008 ↓

Looks like I finally got my own server. Maintaining the code on my old blog was getting boring too, so I decided to scrap it and just install WordPress. Comments and categories got lost along the way since the default RSS importer wouldn’t play along, but hopefully they’ll be easy to convert later. That will come after redoing the theme though.

Federal court upholds machine gun ban because they’re not in “common use.” They’re not in “common use” because the ban, and the cumbersome registration process before that, have artificially limited the supply.

So, I guess this means Congress can simply ban any and every firearm designed or manufactured after today’s date because things which don’t exist obviously aren’t in “common use” yet?

And does this apply to other individual rights? Can Congress ban future, high tech publishing devices because they’re not in “common use” yet? Can they quarter troops in new homes which aren’t in “common use” yet? Pass a law authorizing searches and surveillance of all new communication devices which aren’t in “common use” yet? Or, well, you get the picture..

But, yea, it’s a good thing the Heller case didn’t happen 200 years ago. Had lower courts used Scalia’s jumbled dicta like this then, the Second Amendment would have been reduced to a right to keep and bear muskets.

Prags v. 3 Percenters, round eleventy bazillion.

I don’t get why some people feel this must be an either/or situation. I write letters to representatives and bureaucrats, am in the NRA, donated more than I could afford at the time to help pay for Heller briefs, etc.. like a good “prag.” If, however, the enemy redraws the line behind us, I will peacefully refuse to comply. Up until they initiate force against us..

Just as Mr. Vanderboegh has emphasized with his “No Fort Sumters” guideline.

If we ever get to the point where mass confiscations– or merely mass arrests for owning previously legal arms — begin to happen, public support will be the least of our worries. Though it seems unlikely to me that the general public would have the stomach for the government killing, say, a million of us. Or even a thousand for that matter. Yes, we may scare the proverbial white people now, but when the anti-gunners’ collective mask comes off and the boot steps on our necks, public support/sympathy will almost surely grow.

If only because some of them begin to realize they might be next.

But, yea, being that I do “pragmatic” things, I obviously don’t fault the “prags” for doing them too. It just puzzles me when they spend so much energy criticizing their own side for being too scary or whatever (especially when they attribute threats of starting a war to people only promoting defensive action). I don’t think anyone is saying political action is cowardly in and of itself. Just that it’s a bit low to throw others under the bus for daring to speak of what may happen if political action fails.

The Second Amendment isn’t about hunting, sport, or even just stopping burglars. It’s about armed resistance to tyranny. If we keep verbally ceding that ground to the enemy, we will lose the argument. Sorta like how we almost lost the self defense card before the (re)birth of the modern shall-issue CCW and castle doctrine wave.

Besides, seeing as a few Federal judges have mentioned the whole armed resistance thing in opinions and dissents, it’s a bit late now to go trying to shove the cat back into the bag held by the elephant in the middle of the room.

Anyhow, like I said a few months ago, the Brady types are going to use anything we say or do (or don’t) out of context to fear monger, so there’s no point fighting amongst ourselves.