Electronic Lycanthroplasty

So, yea, the media is freaking out because someone, somewhere, looked at three of the Presidential candidates’ passports. I don’t get it. What’s the big deal?

For, like, forever, Congress has been making law after law collecting more info on us. They’ve been adding more and more places where we’re asked to show “papers, please!” And when RealID goes into effect, we will essentially have to carry Federal interstate passports which any agent of the state can ask to see, and will be needed to enter buildings that we pay for with our taxes.

But they’re shocked that someone would have the audacity to look at their passport?

With all due respect Senators, you’ve made your bed; now lie in it.

As the global media descended on DC to cover the Heller case, a rather interesting thing happened. Sebastian from Pro-Gun Progressive and Maryland Shall Issue debated Rebecca Peters from IANSA live on Al Jazeera. Videos can be found here.

Despite being in what had a hint of a hostile venue, Sebastian did a spectacular job of taking Ms. Peters to task on her lies and disinformation. Personally, I don’t know if I could have kept a cool head while she spewed such rubbish. As usual, she rattled off the usual crap about the US being the most violent country in the world, the NRA exporting illegal weapons, and that the UK is a fairy tale land of peace because they ban most guns.

And on that note, allow me to present the statistical piece I’ve been working on; Homicide in the US, England, and Wales. It was originally going to be a blog post (hence the snark), but it got so long I decided to make it a static page. While it could use a peer review and such before being considered truly scientific, the raw numbers do paint a different picture than what Ms. Peters and her ilk would like you to believe.

After listening to the oral arguments and reading a bunch of reactions to it, I think Alan Gura did a splendid job. At first I was a bit perturbed that he agreed a ban on machine guns might be “reasonable,” but as others have said, this was probably a tactical move to avoid scaring away any fence sitters. Likewise, the machine gun talk could have been a trap by the left half of the Court to get Mr. Gura to overstep the Miller precedent. This case isn’t about full autos though, so it’s kinda beside the point anyway.

There was another exchange that puzzled me. At one point, Justice Ginsburg asked if it would be reasonable to require a license to posses a gun, which Mr. Gura answered with:

Well, the government could set reasonable standards for that, Your Honor. The government could require, for example, knowledge of the State’s use of force laws. They can require some sort of vision test. They could require, perhaps, demonstrated competency. And those are the types of things that we sometimes see; background checks, of course. Those are going to be reasonable licensing requirements.

Again, I realize that he was just playing it cool, and only arguing against the ban since that’s all that’s at issue here. But where the heck did vision and competency testing come from? Given the precedent (or lack thereof) stacked against us, I can understand leaving licensing alone for the time being. But do we really want to volunteer competency testing?

Granted, this too could be strategery, so I’m really not blaming Mr. Gura for it altogether. However, I’ve seen it pop up in a number of discussions around the internet with more antis than usual pointing it out as if it’s a great new idea. The idea of competency-based licensing annoys me for two reasons:

First, if we allow the government to set training requirements, what is there to stop them from setting the standards impossibly high? For instance, the anti-gun loons in Australia are demanding a “rigorous training and testing program over a six month period” to earn a license. How many people would really be able to quit their job for half a year to take such a course? Even if the requirements aren’t that ridiculous, wouldn’t it be kind of hard to be competent with something you’re not allowed to own until you become competent? Sounds like a Catch-22 to me. And what about, say, someone in a poor rural area who can barely afford a $200 shotgun or rifle needed to put food on the table? Does his right to keep and bear arms go away if he can’t pay for some class?

Second, I fail to see how this even passes a rational basis test; let alone strict scrutiny. If the purpose is to prevent criminals from murdering people, wouldn’t training them to shoot effectively make them more likely to hit and kill their victims?! On the other hand, if the idea is to prevent accidental shootings, those are already exceedingly rare.

According to the CDC, there were only 789 Unintentional Firearm Deaths in 2005; which no doubt includes a good number of “misdiagnosed” suicides. Not to mention 683,396 law enforcement officers who have their own fair share of “accidents“. Given that there’s ~80 million people who own an estimated 290 million guns, 789 fatal accidents is statistically negligible.

To put that in perspective, there were 927 Unintentional Pedal cyclist Deaths and 19,656 Unintentional Fall Deaths in the same year. Ergo, there would be a far more compelling government interest in competency tests and licensing for bicycles, ladders, and windows in multistory buildings.

The Supreme Court will be hearing arguments in DC v. Heller today, and people have been lining up since Sunday night to watch the show. Unlike camping out for a new Star Wars film or Harry Potter book, however, the lucky few who get a seat in Heller could very well be watching the case which will decide whether the Bill of Rights means anything anymore. Or, for that matter, the entire Constitution.

So how bad could a “collective rights” ruling really be? Well, put on your tinfoil hat, and join me as we examine how such a precedent could be used to gut other provisions of the Bill of Rights which mention “the people.”

Amendment 1

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

“The people” mentioned here in the First Amendment are the same ones found in the Second. Now, let’s assume the Supreme Court rules against Heller, and apply the District’s logic and write a bad law..

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘Ensuring National Salesman Livelihood And Vibrant Economy Act’ or the ENSLAVE Act.

SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS.

Congress finds the following:

(1) Whereas the Supreme Court of the United States has found that “the people” is a legal term of art which means the governments of the several States;

(2) Whereas the governments of the several States have a right to peaceably assemble in State Assembly buildings;

(3) Whereas the assembly of groups of citizens in private dwellings affects interstate commerce by depriving shopping centers, restaurants, theaters, and other commercial enterprises of business;

(4) Whereas the health and safety risks of private assemblies in facilities which are not properly inspected and licensed affects interstate commerce by placing an undue burden on the national health care system.

SEC. 3. PROHIBITION OF UNLICENSED ASSEMBLY VENUES.

Section ???? of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

‘(?) It shall be unlawful for five or more unrelated persons to assemble in any dwelling, building, or other venue which is not properly licensed by a Federal, State, or local agency to conduct business in a manner which safely accommodates visitors in accordance with OSHA guidelines except that–

[insert a bunch of exceptions for legislators, and Only Ones here]’

Tack on some definitions, criminal penalties, Federal carrot-and-stick funding rules, and perhaps some exemptions for public parks and you have yourself a nice foundation for a police state. You could also swap out the assembly bits, focus on the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, and make it illegal for anyone other than State representatives to contact members of Congress. After all, it’s not like Congress hasn’t tried to outlaw political speech before.

And, of course, redefining “the people” to mean the government would pretty much destroy the Fourth Amendment. But that’s already being eroded as well, so, umm, yea..

Oh my. They’re banning fire extinguishers in the UK now..

Fire extinguishers may be removed from blocks of flats across Britain after they were deemed dangerous by buildings risk assessors at two blocks on the South Coast.

Many residents regard the distinctive red extinguishers as the first response to fire, giving vital time until professional firefighters arrive.

But a review of two residential blocks in Bournemouth has raised concerns that householders could delay their escape to tackle a blaze. There is also concern that the use of extinguishers by untrained people could add to the danger.

Got that? Fire extinguishers are a “danger” in the hands of “untrained people” because they might try to *gasp* protect themselves from fire. Why, someone might just get hurt while they’re, umm, trying to not get hurt!

But, yea, where have we heard something like this before? Oh. Right. From the gun-banners. First the statist bastards are all like “turn in your guns, the police are the Only Ones with enough training to use them to protect you!” And now they want to ban fire extinguishers because they think the British subjects are too stupid to pull a pin and spray a hose towards a fire.

Stick a fork in Britain. It’s done.

Or, on second thought, you might want to ask a specially trained and licensed chef to do that for you. Otherwise, you might put your eye out with the fork..

Not content with infringing on the Second Amendment, the DOJ and ATF are also going after the First Amendment. In an open letter to US Marshal David A. Meyer who made the veiled threat, Mr. Codrea explains, in part (be sure to read the whole thing):

I understand you took Ryan Horsley aside at the conclusion of trial testimony and instructed him to advise me of the Court Security Improvement Act of 2007, specifically, “Inspector Meyer asked me to contact you in regards to posting any information with the intent to threaten, intimidate, or incite the commission of a crime of violence against that covered official… “

WTF? Reporting on what ATF agents are doing is somehow “threatening” and “intimidating” now? Last I checked, government agents work for us. We pay their checks via our taxes. We have a right to know what they’re doing, and we have a right to speak out against it. Furthermore, we have also have a right to peaceably assemble in order to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

But now they want us to shut up ignore their actions because talking about it somehow “threatens” them? What could be so “threatening” about the truth unless they have something to hide? It’s almost like cockroaches panicking when the lights come on. Only instead of having the decency to scurry away, the ATF cries that the big, mean bloggers are scaring them and ask the DOJ to start bullying people into silence.

Disclaimer: The picture above is a artist’s rendition created for the purpose of satire. Said picture is in no way intended to “threaten, intimidate, or incite the commission of a crime of violence” (nobody would hurt a baby, right?). No ATF agents, babies, or kittens were harmed in the making of this post. The management is not responsible for misuse of this image; nor for lost coats or handbags. Image void where prohibited. Offer good while supplies last. No rain checks.

The District of Columbia’s final reply brief in the Heller case is online now. I don’t know if they’re just getting desperate now or what, but the brief is a comedy goldmine! Basically, they’ve boiled their argument down to three main points:

First, they pretty much admit that the militia referred to in the Second Amendment was composed of the people themselves. All of them. They go on to argue (against who? themselves?) that the keeping arms bit really means that said people would have arms in their possession before they were called into service (isn’t that what we’ve been saying?!). From this they conclude that since everybody is in the militia, everybody has a right to own arms unless they’re not in the militia which they said everybody is already in. Umm, okay?

Their second argument is basically that the Second Amendment only restricts the Federal government, and not the several States or the District itself. If you replaced “controlling weapons” and such here with “controlling slaves” or “controlling blacks,” it would read just like the racist arguments in Dred Scott or Brown v. Board of Education. Do the fascists in DC really want to go there? And, umm, isn’t this type of State/local usurpation of rights precisely what the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to prevent?

Their third argument is that a total gun ban is somehow “reasonable” either way. They arrive at this conclusion from two main concepts. For one, they claim that handguns are too dangerous to use in self-defense in an urban environment, and that people are “permitted” to use rifles and shotguns instead.

Aside from the fact that they’re lying about people being “permitted” to use a rifle to defend themselves, the idea that handguns are more dangerous is ridiculous. Rifles, by their very nature, are far more likely to penetrate multiple walls and hit an unintended target some distance away. Tactically speaking, the whole point of handguns is to serve as a short-range defensive weapon while fighting your way back to the rifle you should have never left behind.

The other main (and most hilarious) part of their third argument is that their ban has a “grounding in Framing-era practice.” And which Framing-era practice do they cite as evidence that the Framers would somehow approve of their gun ban?

Long before the Founding, England banned the use of particular weapons. Near the Founding, Boston enacted storage requirements that effectively banned the possession of loaded firearms within city limits.

Umm, guys, I hate to break this to you, but that ban in Boston is, well, pretty much what started the damn Revolutionary War. If the Framers really liked the idea of gun bans so much, we would still be part of the UK..

Armed and Safe has a rather funny story about some newspaper who asked a bunch of their “authorized journalists” what they would do to prevent mass shootings and such. Between the usual cries to ban everything and stuff come this piece of false, statistical fear mongering:

The gun problem in the United States is huge. Some 4,000 soldiers have died in Iraq during the long war. Virtually none of these were killed by handguns, but by improvised explosive devices, rockets and, on occasion, AK-47s. During the same period, in the United States, 200,000 people have been murdered, the vast majority with handguns.

200,000 people murdered in the US since the Iraq war began? That’s funny, if you start adding up all the homicides recorded by the FBI, you don’t pass 200,000 until you make it back to 1995. Eight years before the beginning of the current Iraqi adventure. And that’s also including fifty or sixty thousand homicides where no firearms were used. To reach 200,000 homicides involving handguns (which is apparently what’s being implied here), you would likely have to go back to before the first Gulf War. But I suppose that wouldn’t sound as scary..

It is decidedly safer to be a solder in Iraq than to simply walk in areas of our cities. More people are killed annually by handguns in the tri-state area alone than all the soldiers killed by handguns in Iraq, ever. The difference? Soldiers are armed to the teeth, and trained to use their weapons. “Bad guys” don’t want to mess with someone who is armed.

Umm, no, the difference is, you’re comparing a single apple to all the orange groves in Florida. There are something like 299,000,000 more people inside the US than there are troops in Iraq. Which means the actual risk (even using the bogus claim of 200,000 murders) is about forty times higher in Iraq.

To put this in some perspective, there were 55,692 Unintentional Fall Deaths in the US from 2003 to 2005 according to the CDC. By the “logic” in the first quoted paragraph, gravity in the US is exponentially more dangerous than a battlefield. Shall we repeal the law of gravity? Or wrap everybody and everything in foam?

Oh, and while we’re looking at CDC numbers, they reported just 35,896 Homicide Firearm Deaths in that same time frame. The FBI, while having a lower total of 29,202 for all homicides via firearm, indicates there were just 22,687 homicides where a handgun was used in those same three years. Either way you slice it, you’re roughly twice as likely to die from an accidental fall than you are to be murdered with a handgun.

Anyhow, I must admit it was cute how he played the ‘not anti-gun, but..’ card before later going on to suggest banning things and turning the country into a total police state where everyone would be subject to random searches at any time..

With just a little more than two weeks to go before the oral arguments in DC v. Heller, it looks like the anti-gunners are getting frantic.

First up, and this could just be a coincidence, but the ATF has raided Cavalry Arms to “seize everything.” Nobody’s quite sure why the raid took place; with everything from allegations of money laundering (which has what to do with the ATF?) to a disgruntled employee being cited (see any of the linked words..). I, for one, can’t help but think it’s strictly political. For one, and again, it could be a coincidence, but it took place just one day from the fifteenth anniversary of the Waco Siege. The ATF referred to the Waco raid under the codename “Showtime” (hence the title of this post), presumably because they wanted to make a public spectacle from their display of force.

Like Waco, the ATF went out of their way to make this raid into a total media circus. Instead of quietly recording serial numbers and such as they tossed everything in boxes, they dragged all of Cav Arms’ inventory outside to show off in front of the TV cameras. Hell, they even brought their own circus tents:

To make it even more dramatic, agents spoon-fed the media scare words like “assault weapons” and such as if they were illegal. The agents also joined in with their media accomplices to feign surprise at how many firearms were recovered. What else did they expect to pull out of a firearms manufacturer?!

And on a more comical note, Sebastian and Bitter delve into the desperation of the so-called American Hunters and Shooters Association. AHSA, if you’ve never heard of them, are a proverbial who’s who of the gun ban movement hiding behind the Realtree camo of a hunters rights group. It seems to me that they’re terrified that SCOTUS will recognize an individual right in DC v. Heller (where they tried to split the proverbial baby by submitting an amicus claiming gun bans don’t violate the right to own them because DC isn’t a State or something), and are lashing out in an attempt to remain relevant.

Even though they really don’t have any members, and really don’t do much of anything, they’re sending out e-mails and blogging over at Daily Kos trying to sell themselves as the real pro-gun grassroots movement. Not to mention trying to paint the bizarre picture that the NRA is anti-gun. Never mind the fact that AHSA members have never met a gun ban they didn’t like. Or that they’re running around calling anyone who owns a gun for anything but hunting “extremists” and “whackos.” They want you to believe it is only them who support the Second Amendment because they might let you keep a single-shot “hunting” rifle. As if the Second Amendment says anything about hunting..

But, yea, expect all sorts of PSH from the anti-gun groups (and government agencies) over the next two weeks as they try to sway the Supreme Court and the court of public opinion away from an individual right. In fact, I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if the US Solicitor General brings up the Cav Arms raid as an example of all the spooky looking guns which might be “on the streets” otherwise. As ridiculous as that sounds, the argument in their brief was based on the idea that ruling the BoR means what it says would somehow cause the apocalypse.

I’ve heard Hillary say a lot of stupid things before, but this takes the cake. Now, I understand she’s a socialist and all, but to say health care is a Constitutional right is quite a stretch..

“We have to start asking ourselves, ‘Do we want to enshrine discrimination in our health care system, the one area where of our lives where we’re most vulnerable?’” Clinton told the crowd.

“The Constitution says you can’t discriminate against somebody because of what color they are or what religion they are,” she went on. “Why is it OK to discriminate against somebody who is born with a heart defect, or who is diagnosed with prostate cancer?”

Um, Senator Clinton, if you’re talking about the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, you might want to check out the Amendment just above it. You know, the one which bans slavery and involuntary servitude. Because if you’re implying that doctors and such should be forced to supply services without pay, involuntary servitude is precisely what you’re advocating here.

On the other hand, if she is implying there is a right to have the government provide said services, she is equally as wrong. Courts have consistently ruled that neither government or its agents have any obligation to provide any services or protection to an individual citizen. See here for a number of ugly cases involving police protection; which despite being one of government’s most universally accepted purposes, still isn’t an individual right.

I had a discussion with a Democratic friend once about the role of government, and he was quite shocked to learn the courts have repeatedly ruled there is no duty for government to provide services or protection to the individual. At first he dismissed the mountains of precedent (dating back to the guys who wrote the Constitution..) as the work of “activist judges,” then tried to play the preambulary General Welfare card.

The idea that this clause somehow bestows unto Congress the power to swaddle us in bubble wrap (at gunpoint), or that it creates a “right” to receive services from government is probably the most widespread misconceptions about Constitutional law.

For starters, the term is “general welfare,” not “individual welfare.” While the outcome can overlap at times, the legal concepts are miles apart. For instance, the CDC is an entity which protects the public health in general by tracking contagions, statistics and such, but isn’t expected to protect any individual from every disease. At a more local level, the theory of “general welfare” is a bit easier to grasp. When a city builds roads, it helps even those who do not drive by providing a channel through which goods can be brought into the area. Nor does a city or State need to build an expressway to each and every house/farm/etc.. for individual drivers to benefit.

To create an individual “right” to government services from either the general welfare clause or the Fourteenth Amendment would not only go against the very principles by which the Constitution was established, the results would be completely untenable. Think for a moment about all the services which government at all levels provide on a discretionary basis or with various requirements for eligibility. Now imagine what would happen if you had a “right” to demand that these services be provided directly to you, rather than the general public..

How exactly would the government find staff and funds to provide a 24 hour police detail to every man, woman, and child who asked? Or to provide an FDA inspector to act as a personal taste tester to every household in the United States? How fast would the budget explode if HUD and the USDA had to provide free housing and food stamps to everybody, regardless of income? Or using the road example from above, could some guy living in a secluded cabin demand a highway be built to his front door? Etcetera, Etcetera..

Going back to the original topic of health care service, an individual right to same would require the government provide a personal in-house doctor to anybody who requested one. And, no, this isn’t a straw man argument. This is pretty much why every court who has heard a protection/service liability claim has thrown them out. A right, by definition, is something which the government cannot deny access to. Even to deny it momentarily without due process, as with other rights, would cause what the courts refer to as “irreparable harm.”

Even if an overwhelming majority of people never chose to exercise these newly discovered individual “rights,” it would open the government up to an endless stream of civil rights lawsuits which would cripple the courts. Likewise, all medical malpractice suits would likely be transformed into civil rights suits. In the end, such lawsuits could ultimately bankrupt every level of government.

Putting aside all logistical arguments, the concept of a “right to services” has an even deeper fundamental flaw. For there to be any right to a governmental service, one must start with the absurd assumption that there is a right to government itself.

Think that one over really carefully, as it tends to be something most people have never thought of.

Assuming there was a “right” to government, what would you do if you woke up tomorrow and every politician in the country had mysteriously disappeared? Could you sue your neighbors for not providing a government for you? And where exactly would you sue them if there was no government courts? Or what if you woke up on, say, a deserted island? Would you sue yourself in an international court for violating your own “right” to be governed?

Anyhow, if Hillary and her socialist friends want a policy fight over “universal health care,” bring it on. They should just leave the ridiculous notion of it being a “right” alone. But somehow, I don’t think they thought their cunning plan all the way trough…