The Captain's Journal » 2013

How Helene Affected The People Of Appalachia

Herschel Smith · 30 Sep 2024 · 11 Comments

To begin with, this is your president. This ought to be one of the most shameful things ever said by a sitting president. "Do you have any words to the victims of the hurricane?" BIDEN: "We've given everything that we have." "Are there any more resources the federal government could be giving them?" BIDEN: "No." pic.twitter.com/jDMNGhpjOz — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 30, 2024 We must have spent too much money on Ukraine to help Americans in distress. I don't…… [read more]

16 Dec 2013

Notes From HPS

BY Herschel Smith

11 years ago

David Codrea:

Heated divisions among activist gun owners have surfaced with a December 2 announcement on Facebook by Brandon Webb, a former SEAL and author, that he is considering running for the National Rifle Association Board of Directors. Webb’s statement and reactions to it were noticed by The Patriot Perspective, which took him to task for, among other things, his assertion that the NRA was “not willing to compromise and create gun legislation that makes sense.”

David continues to explain what Webb has said, and laments the lack of involvement of gun owners in deciding NRA leadership and policy. I do too, and I don’t know what more I can do. I’ve made calls to the NRA, and I blog until I’m too tired to go on. I do have a day job that gets in the way of blogging. Gun owners need to do more. And as for compromise of any sort, recall what I said just recently.

… there is no grand bargain on guns. There is no compromise. There is no cooperation. There is only war between us as long as the collectivists want to enforce their will upon us. There will never be peace. That’s a promise.

I don’t need to hear more of his positions. I call for political and ideological battle, not compromise. I would rather hear a call to arms than speechification and pontification on the politics of liberty – as if I need a lesson in philosophy, theology or politics from this guy. Sorry buddy, but you’re trying to “teach your granny to suck eggs,” as the saying goes. Been there, done that. I can pontificate with the best of them.

Kurt Hofmann:

Ah . . . “to ‘effectively‘ convert semi-automatic weapons into machine guns,” with “effectively” in this context basically meaning “not really.” What they are referring to here are “bump fire” stocks …

One might inquire about the three gun competitors, some of whom (at the professional level) get so good that they don’t need either fully automatic or bump fire, having to modify the bolt mass and buffer springs of their weapons to keep up with the rate of fire they can accomplish with their fingers.

But it isn’t really about rapid fire. It’s just another way to go after liberty. This is just one more front in the progressive war on guns. It will be interesting to see what Amazon does with this. I’ll keep my eye on this – and I would ask Kurt to follow it too – in order to modify my shopping practices if Amazon folds like a cheap suit.

Mike Vanderboegh has a number of interesting posts today, but this one caught my eye from Rolling Stone.

All over America, communities are failing. Once-mighty Rust Belt capitals that made steel or cars are now wastelands. Elsewhere, struggling white rural America is stocking up on canned goods and embracing the politics of chaos, sending pols to Washington ready to hit the default button and start the whole national experiment all over again.

But in Camden, chaos is already here. In September, its last supermarket closed, and the city has been declared a “food desert” by the USDA. The place is literally dying, its population having plummeted from above 120,000 in the Fifties to less than 80,000 today. Thirty percent of the remaining population is under 18, an astonishing number that’s 10 to 15 percent higher than any other “very challenged” city, to use the police euphemism. Their home is a city with thousands of abandoned houses but no money to demolish them, leaving whole blocks full of Ninth Ward-style wreckage to gather waste and rats.

It’s a major metropolitan area run by armed teenagers with no access to jobs or healthy food, and not long ago, while the rest of America was ranting about debt ceilings and Obamacares, Camden quietly got pushed off the map. That was three years ago, when new governor and presumptive future presidential candidate Chris Christie abruptly cut back on the state subsidies that kept Camden on life support. The move left the city almost completely ungoverned – a graphic preview of what might lie ahead for communities that don’t generate enough of their own tax revenue to keep their lights on. Over three years, fires raged, violent crime spiked and the murder rate soared so high that on a per-capita basis, it “put us somewhere between Honduras and Somalia,” says Police Chief J. Scott Thomson.

“They let us run amok,” says a tat-covered ex-con and addict named Gigi. “It was like fires, and rain, and babies crying, and dogs barking. It was like Armageddon.”

Not long ago, Camden was everything about America that worked. In 1917, a report counted 365 industries in Camden that employed 51,000 people. Famous warships like the Indianapolis were built in Camden’s sprawling shipyards.

Part of the problem is corrupt police and the police union. Another part of the problem is that – as engineers like me know all too well – large scale steel manufacturing and ship building is no longer done in the U.S. It is outsourced to Japan and China, neither of which culture understands QA and none of which can produce the quality of American products. Nonetheless, it allows corporations to hire overseas workers, or better yet, hire Mexicans at facilities in Canada or the U.S., where the ratepayer and taxpayer picks up the tab for welfare, food stamps, medical care and other expenses, which is a form of corporate welfare.

Another part of the problem is corrupt people who revert to killing and harming each other when times get tough, lacking any values because the country has rejected God. The prescription is multifaceted and difficult because no one will implement all of the cultural changes that need to be made. This is why folks who understand aren’t sanguine about the future. America as you have known it is dead, and it isn’t coming back – at least in the same form. It will need to be multiple countries very loosely coupled, and states will have to become the true laboratories of democracy, uninhibited by the federal government so that there is immediate and unmistakable feedback when the state goes adrift.

5 Comments

Guns Tags: Notes From HPS —

15 Dec 2013

Freedom Group-Cerberus: Divesting Of Gun Stocks

BY Herschel Smith

11 years ago

NYT:

The owner of the Freedom Group, the gun manufacturer whose Bushmaster rifle was used in a deadly Connecticut school shooting nearly a year ago, is planning to give other investors in the company a way to cash out as an attempt to sell it has stalled.

Freedom’s parent, the investment firm Cerberus Capital Management, plans to unveil the proposal on Monday, a person briefed on the matter said on Sunday.

The shares of other gun manufacturers have recovered from a brief but steep dip following the shooting last year, prompted by fears of tougher gun laws that failed to clear Congress. Shares in Smith & Wesson have risen 28 percent since then, while those in Sturm, Ruger & Company have climbed 50 percent …

But Cerberus and its advisers at the investment bank Lazard have struggled with an auction process that has not yielded any acceptable bids so far, this person said. A number of potential buyers, ranging from leveraged buyout firms to fellow gun makers, have expressed interest. These would-be bidders ran into trouble for different reasons, including an inability to secure adequate financing.

[ … ]

Let investors in its funds — including those eager to wash their hands of the firearm industry — sell their holdings. Among the most vocal of these have been public pension funds like the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or Calstrs, and New York State’s comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli.

Concerning the value of gun stocks, Breitbart notes:

While the White House and Senate Democrats hammered guns and gun rights during 2013, investors put their money into gun company stocks and garnered “incredible returns.”

According to The Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch, “those who bought [stock in] Smith & Wesson in the aftermath of [the heinous crime at Sandy Hook Elementary] have made profits of more than 60 percent.”

Those who bought Sturm, Ruger & Co. stock have made profits of “nearly 80 percent.”

These investments beat “the overall stock market by more than two-to-one.”

As Breitbart News reported on December 6th, these gains have not been lost on mutual fund companies like Vanguard and Blackrock. They too have broadened their investments in various firearm companies over the last year, as have financial firms like Capital Research and Management.

Even Mother Jones acknowledges in a headline that “The Producer of Bushmaster Assault Rifles Has Made a Killing Since Newtown.”

This is just rich. Guns are still the hottest commodity in America. At a time when cities across America are staring bankruptcy in the face due to the ridiculous deals they cut with the unions, the progressive California State Teachers’ Retirement System and the state of New York have a chance to put their money where their mouth is.

Will you divest yourselves of the best money making stocks you own because they make those evil guns? Here’s your chance.

2 Comments

Guns Tags: Freedom Group - Cerberus, The Freedom Group —

15 Dec 2013

Notes From HPS

BY Herschel Smith

11 years ago

David Codrea:

The paid staffer who heads anti-gun billionaire and outgoing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns revealed the strategy the group will use to advance its demands across the nation, a report by the Associated Press documented Wednesday.

David goes on to discuss the statist threat that Bloomberg is, and what 2014 might portend for gun owners and our rights. Bloomberg is a threat indeed, but this only heightens the diligence we must bring to bear on opposing every piece of his agenda, even when (and perhaps especially when) it comes under the rubric of cooperative efforts with the gun community (here for example, think NSSF).

Kurt Hofmann:

Dr. Ben Carson, considered by some a potential “conservative” candidate for President in 2016, stumbled badly back in March, at least among gun rights advocates, when he blithely told Glenn Beck on Beck’s The Blaze radio show that the right to own semi-automatic firearms is contingent on where one lives.

This is a very good article by Kurt. Go read the rest of it to find out what Dr. Carson believes concerning the fountain of our rights. I’ve said it here and here in great detail, but I’ll sum it up again. God grants our rights. The states (formerly colonies) recognizes them, and to the degree to which they infringe upon them, those administrations deserve to be overthrown. The second amendment stipulates that the federal government has no right whatsoever in the making or enforcement of any gun law of any kind at any time. All federal gun laws are unconstitutional. And to remind you of what you already know, Dr. Carson is no conservative and won’t protect your rights. I like it best when candidates talk before their handlers get hold of them. The truth generally comes out then.

A Grand Bargain On Guns?

A year ago, in the days after 20 schoolchildren and six adults were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., it seemed for a moment that something had changed in America’s long-running cultural debate on guns. A new kind of national conversation — even some consensus — seemed possible. But that was then. Today the voices on both sides of the gun policy debate are back to being as shrill as ever.

Still, behind the heated rhetoric, there are areas of agreement. While polls show Americans almost evenly divided on the question of whether they want more gun control or stricter laws, they overwhelmingly support expanded gun-buyer background checks and overwhelmingly oppose bans on handguns.

Those two strongly held positions suggest potential for crafting a grander bargain on guns …

Gun rights advocates point out that most retail firearm dealers are mom-and-pop businesses and that, on some occasions, they have been shut down by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for mere paperwork errors. That’s also true.

Why does the ATF shut down these small dealers? Because doing so is the only civil tool it has to encourage compliance with its rules.

Oh horse crap. Anyone who personally knows FFLs can attest to the fact that slight errors when thousands of guns are moved is unavoidable even under the best QA program. Friends of FFLs can also attest to the fact that the ATF acts like hoodlums, thugs and bullies to FFLs. The ATF shuts down FFLs because they can. It’s that simple.

And by the way, these authors perpetrate the lie one more time that the majority of America wants universal background checks. It isn’t true. And there is no grand bargain on guns. There is no compromise. There is no cooperation. There is only war between us as long as the collectivists want to enforce their will upon us. There will never be peace. That’s a promise.

Charles C. W. Cooke:

As in the various columns of the same bent, Bloomberg’s purpose here was obvious: To suggest that, by failing to crack down on the private sales of firearms, the federal government has dishonored the memory of the victims at Newtown. Something that abhorrent happened, this argument goes, and we did nothing.

To wish to prevent another Sandy Hook is an admirable and human instinct. But to chase placebos? That is infinitely less commendable. Typically, when government inaction is the complaint, it is beneficial to eschew emotion in favor of a couple of hard questions. The first is “What is it that you want the state to do?”; the second, “How would the state’s doing this affect the problem?” In this case, the “what” was the Toomey-Manchin bill, which would have forced all the states to run background checks on all private transfers and sales of firearms. And the answer to “What would it have done?”: Nothing.

As a few of the more honest advocates of gun control acknowledged at the time, it is just about possible to argue with a straight face that universal background checks could help to prevent or diminish the general rate of gun crime. But it is certainly not possible to claim that they would prevent or even diminish the number of mass shootings.

I’m uncomfortable with this presentation. I do not in the slightest acknowledge anything like universal background checks having any impact at all on crime. Furthermore, eschewing emotion has nothing to do with my reaction. It is vestiges of collectivism that forces one to ask the question, “What is it that you want the state to do?” Rather, one must question whether doing something about some given state of affairs is within the province or purview of government to begin with?

In most cases in life, the answer is no. This difference distinguishes the Northern “conservatives” (like those who write for NRO) from true conservatives. That makes the answer to the question of “what” immaterial.

2 Comments

Gun Control,Guns Tags: Notes From HPS —

13 Dec 2013

Suburbia Shouldn’t Be A War!

BY Herschel Smith

11 years ago

Los Angeles Daily News:

“There’s a gun here, and here and here,” 5-year-old Thomas Glover said, pointing at translucent Legos sticking out from various points of the spaceship he built in his Michigan home. “There’s even bullets!”

The words “gun” and “bullets,” are taboo in his family, but he used them enthusiastically, without any worry that he’d be punished – mostly because his mother was out of earshot.

His mother Alicia, a native of Australia, despises guns and the gun culture that surrounds her family in Rochester Hills. She lives in a suburb north of Detroit – one of the most violent cities in the United States.

Intense feelings on both sides of the gun rights debate have caused her to lose friends and question her family’s decision to live in the United States.

“Suburbia shouldn’t be a war, it should be laughter and fairy floss,” Alicia Glover said. “People [here] think that it’s OK to shoot someone.”

She and her American husband, Jeff, met in 1999 while working together at a restaurant in Australia.

When they married and moved to the U.S., shortly before Thomas was born, they made a commitment to raise their children with dual cultures – American and Australian – with the hope of one day returning to Alicia’s homeland.

In the Glover household jackets are called jumpers, diapers are called nappies and the closet is a cupboard. Jeff has even picked up a bit of an Australian accent, easily recognizable to non-family members.

They also follow another Australian tradition: no guns.

Alicia, a naturalized U.S. citizen, finds herself in a distinct minority in her adopted nation. Despite a string of recent mass killings, including the massacre of 20 students and six adults in Newtown, Conn., a year ago, fewer than 50 percent of all Americans believe that gun laws need to be tightened, according to a Gallup poll taken in October. Twenty-six percent of respondents believe private handgun ownership should be banned – a record low.

Alicia has taught Thomas and his younger brother, 4-year-old Callum, that guns are bad, guns kill and guns are not allowed in their home – not in thought, word or deed. Toy guns, real guns, water guns and even fingers pointed like guns – are all forbidden.

“It’s the thing I hate about living here,” Alicia said. “I hate that the gun culture is so strong here.”

Perhaps Alicia isn’t considering the recent home invasion in Sydney, or the attack in a cinema in Sydney just two months ago, or the recent drug related gun violence in Melbourne, or that High School students in Australia are being recruited as drug runners by international drug syndicates.

Alicia thinks that suburbia should be “laughter and fairy floss.” Alicia doesn’t want to think about the sinfulness of man or how her vision of what Australia was like is false. Alicia lives in a fantasy world, and the saddest part is that her husband won’t teach her the truth about the world and refuses to protect her and the children.

8 Comments

Guns Tags: Australia Gun Laws —

11 Dec 2013

Who Needs A Gun?

BY Herschel Smith

11 years ago

NYT:

A gun is a tool, and we choose tools based on their function. The primary function of a gun is to kill or injure people or animals. In the case of people, the only reason I might have to shoot them — or threaten to do so — is that they are immediately threatening serious harm. So a first question about owning a gun is whether I’m likely to be in a position to need one to protect human life. A closely related question is whether, if I were in such a position, the gun would be available and I would be able to use it effectively.

Unless you live in (or frequent) dangerous neighborhoods or have family or friends likely to threaten you, it’s very unlikely that you’ll need a gun for self-defense. Further, counterbalancing any such need is the fact that guns are dangerous. If I have one loaded and readily accessible in an emergency (and what good is it if I don’t?), then there’s a non-negligible chance that it will lead to great harm. A gun at hand can easily push a family quarrel, a wave of depression or a child’s curiosity in a fatal direction.

Even when a gun makes sense in principle as a means of self-defense, it may do more harm than good if I’m not trained to use it well. I may panic and shoot a family member coming home late, fumble around and allow an unarmed burglar to take my gun, have a cleaning or loading accident. The N.R.A. rightly sets high standards for gun safety. If those unable or unwilling to meet these standards gave up their guns, there might well be a lot fewer gun owners.

Guns do have uses other than defense against attackers. There may, for example, still be a few people who actually need to hunt to feed their families. But most hunting now is recreational and does not require keeping weapons at home. Hunters and their families would be much safer if the guns and ammunition were securely stored away from their homes and available only to those with licenses during the appropriate season. Target shooting, likewise, does not require keeping guns at home.

Finally, there’s the idea that citizens need guns so they can, if need be, oppose the force of a repressive government. Those who think there are current (or likely future) government actions in this country that would require armed resistance are living a paranoid fantasy. The idea that armed American citizens could stand up to our military is beyond fantasy.

These objections are a red herring. Guns can be owned and handled safely and the shooters can learn to shoot and observe the rules of gun safety. It’s done every day all over the world by millions of safe gun owners. This is written by someone who has never owned a gun – which speaks poorly of the NYT that they would approve opinion pieces on issues of which the author has no knowledge whatsoever.

But notice how quickly he turns the conversation on the notion that we need to check our firearms in to a state-approved armory, even as Mr. Gutting drives his automobile down the road and risks far greater and more frequent injury to innocent people than me with my guns. This is called hypocrisy.

Finally, take note of his position on the idea that we need to own firearms in order to ameliorate tyranny. Without so much as blinking, he assumes like the good collectivist that he is that the armed forces would put down citizens in armed revolt over gun confiscation orders. Posse Comitatus being the law of the land means absolutely nothing to Mr. Gutting.

Furthermore, Mr. Gutting is apparently not the scholar he is made out to be, and knows nothing of the history of insurgencies. Easy, it will be for the army – or so he thinks. Oh, they may be outnumbered a thousand to one with every insurgent melting away into the woods after shooting. But surely the army would “win,” whatever win means.

In spite of the difficulty of Iraq and impossibility of Afghanistan, Mr. Gutting is sure of the simplistic, bloodless nature of an American insurgency. But he feels that he will never be in a position to need a weapon for self defense (perhaps he would stand around and watch if his wife was being raped by gangsters?). It is Mr. Gutting who is firmly ensconced in fantasy land.

7 Comments

Firearms,Guns Tags: New York Times On Guns —

10 Dec 2013

NYPD Tangles With Vicious Killer Parakeet

BY Herschel Smith

11 years ago

DNAinfo New York:

ST. GEORGE — A Staten Island woman has sued the city claiming police entered her St. George home without a warrant, beat her family and killed her beloved pet parakeet, according to court documents.Last year, Evelyn Lugo’s bird, Tito, was thrown from his cage after it was knocked off a dresser as cops came into her Corson Avenue home, the Daily News first reported.

The officers then stepped on the bird intentionally, killing it, court documents say.

Officers also beat two of Lugo’s sons, her daughter and a family friend, the lawsuit claims.

According to court documents, police entered Lugo’s home on Sept. 2, 2012, as her family was celebrating Labor Day.

Police stopped and questioned her son Edwin Avellanet as he was outside throwing out garbage and asked for identification, the lawsuit says. When he refused to show any, officers allegedly grabbed his right arm and Avellanet broke free and ran into the building.

Officers broke windows of the home, and when Lugo opened the front door she was thrown outside by police, court papers say.

When inside, police allegedly struck Avellanet two or three times with a hard object, struck their friend in the face and threw a woman into the dresser with the bird cage on it, court documents say.

Police then allegedly pepper sprayed Lugo’s daughter and son, according to the documents.

Lugo’s son, daughter and family friend were arrested and all three were taken to Staten Island University Hospital in custody.

They were treated for multiple facial lacerations and lacerations to the head. Lugo’s daughter was also treated for an asthma attack, the court papers say.

All charges were eventually dropped and sealed by Richmond County Supreme Court, the lawsuit says.

Lugo could not be reached for comment on the story.

The city’s Law Department did not say why police entered the home last year, or what charges were lodged against the family, but said they’re reviewing the case.

“We will review the allegations in the complaint, which at this point are merely allegations,” a spokeswoman for the department said.

But what isn’t “merely allegations” is that the family was beaten up, as we can ascertain from the lacerations. And apparently there is a dead parakeet.

Look, I know what you’re thinking, but here is the scoop on the event. That parakeet could have been concealing a weapon, or worse, it could have gotten into a pecker fight (um, excuse me, I guess we would call it a bill fight) with the cops. This could have been worse than a bull terrier going after the cops. And as it stands now, at least they got to go home safely at the end of their shift.

That’s what really matters, after all. As for the parakeet, perhaps he shouldn’t have resisted arrest. All dogs and parakeets involved in police raids reflexively get shot by cops unless they roll over or run away.

4 Comments

Police,SWAT Raids Tags: Police Raids —

09 Dec 2013

Notes From HPS

BY Herschel Smith

11 years ago

David Codrea:

Proving once more that unintended consequences of “gun control” actually increase dangerous crime, The Detroit News reported Thursday that “Guns are being stolen from vehicles downtown, in part because nightclubs and the NFL ban firearms.”

Unable to bring their firearms into venues that ban them, many gun owners are nonetheless unwilling to travel to and from such locations without the means of defense, and are opting to have their firearms with them as long as they legally can, then storing them in their cars.

So instead of allowing gun owners to bring them into the stadium to keep them safe, they’re requiring that gun owners turn them over to criminals. They’re doing this for the children. Consider the children …

Kurt Hofmann:

Apparently believing that the American public had not yet been subjected to enough ridiculous fearmongering over the supposed “undetectability” of firearms printed from plastic, ABC’s Katie Couric ran a short segment on her show, “Katie,” last week, titled, perhaps not surprisingly, “The Dark Side of 3D Printers.”

Who is Katie Couric?

Here is the NSSF on smart gun technology. I said before that Daily Caller annoys me, and increasingly so. Notice that NSSF doesn’t have any prima facie objections to smart guns, but they point out that they might be unreliable.

Pfft! I object to smart guns because they’re unreliable too. But I also prima facie object to smart guns because of government interference and potential usage in gun confiscation or registration shenanigans.

Uncle links this post on revolver science, entitled why heavy, slow bullets hit higher than light, fast bullets. Okay, since the original author starts the science lesson, I’ll finish it. He’s dealing with the gun and bullet as a system rather than individually, considering the affects of recoil on the trajectory.

But rather than titling the post about heavy bullets, he should have stayed on point about the overall system. It isn’t an enigma why heavy bullets and light bullets have the same drop given the same velocity, or another way of saying it is that he should have left out the discussion of heavy and light altogether and stuck with velocity and the affects of recoil on the pivot point of the firearm.

If you take a bullet of 180 grains and one of 230 grains, and hold them the same height and drop them, they will land at the same time due to the acceleration of gravity, which is the same and constant regardless of mass. Alternatively, drop a marble and bowling ball from the third floor of the stairwell of your college physics building, and they’ll land at the same time (remove people from the stairwell before attempting this experiment).

Of course, I’m leaving out a complex discussion of aerodynamic drag, from which I could explain why it’s better for folks with trucks like my F150 to leave the tail gate up instead of down, but I’ll save this for another lesson.

This is why BDC is a function of muzzle velocity (and aerodynamics for such rounds as hollow points), but not bullet mass. Okay, is that clear to everyone? This is basic physics, and everyone should understand this, especially shooters. If you have to adjust BDC for your rounds given different bullet masses, it’s because of different muzzle velocity due to mass (and because lower velocity rounds won’t go as far), not because heavy objects drop faster than light objects. Heavy bullets do not drop faster than light bullets. Finally, in order to get an idea how quickly your bullet is hitting the ground, hold it at the height of the gun you’re shooting, drop it, and time it. When it hits the ground, it would have hit the ground if you had shot the bullet out of the barrel of your gun, just some hundreds of yards away.

2 Comments

Firearms,Guns Tags: Notes From HPS —

09 Dec 2013

Fewer People Than Expected Have Registered Weapons In Connecticut

BY Herschel Smith

11 years ago

J. D, Tuccille with Reason:

According to Hugh McQuaid at CT News Junkie:

As of mid-November, the state had received about 4,100 applications for assault weapon certificates and about 2,900 declarations of large-capacity magazines.

Michael Lawlor, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s criminal justice advisor, said that so far fewer people than expected have registered weapons under the new law. However, he said gun owners should take seriously the consequences of ignoring the law. Disregarding the registration requirements can carry felony charges in some cases, which can make Connecticut residents ineligible to own guns.

First-time offenders who can prove they owned the weapon before the law passed, and have otherwise followed the law, may be charged with a class A misdemeanor. In other cases, possessing one of the newly-banned guns will be considered a felony that carries with it a sentence of at least a year in prison.

“If you haven’t declared it or registered it and you get caught . . . you’ll be a felon. People who disregard the law are, among other things, jeopardizing their right to own firearms. If you’re not a law-abiding citizen, you’re not a law-abiding citizen,” Lawlor said.

Mr. Lawlor, like most government officials, seems to think he and his buddies have invented policy out of whole cloth, and that the population has no choice but to shuffle along and obey. But weapons registration laws have a history—a consistent history, as I’ve written, of noncompliance and defiance.

State officials could have taken a moment to glance across the state line to New York City, where a few tens of thousands of firearms are owned legally, and an estimated two million are held illegally, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. That is not uncommon. In my piece on the history of gun control’s failure, I wrote:

The high water mark of American compliance with gun control laws may have come with Illinois’s handgun registration law in the 1970s. About 25 percent of handgun owners actually complied, according to Don B. Kates, a criminologist and civil liberties attorney, writing in the December 1977 issue of Inquiry. After that, about 10 percent of “assault weapon” owners obeyed California’s registration law, says David B. Kopel …

Connecticut may want to look close to home for even lower compliance figures. In New Jersey, reported The New York Times in 1991, after the legislature passed a law banning “assault weapons,” 947 people registered their rifles as sporting guns for target shooting, 888 rendered them inoperable, and four surrendered them to the police. That’s out of an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 firearms affected by the law.

Noncompliance means they’re not giving up their weapons regardless of what the law says. And that means that if the statists really want them, they’ll have to send in armed teams to invade the homes of gun owners (if they can find them) and confiscate them while they also shoot anyone who gets in their way.

And that means that gun owners who decide to keep their weapons have nothing left to lose when those armed teams come calling. The collectivists want it to be ever so easy, with fawning, stupid, television-watching imbeciles who listen and obey their edicts as long as they get free bread and circuses.

But are they okay with bloodshed as a result of their edicts? Perhaps yes, perhaps not. Perhaps with some, perhaps not so much with others. But collectivists nationwide should consider the ramifications of their laws. Gun owners won’t surrender firearms peaceably. You can take that to the bank.

1 Comment

Firearms,Gun Control,Guns Tags: Connecticut Gun Laws —

06 Dec 2013

Response To Robert Bateman Concerning Guns

BY Herschel Smith

11 years ago

By way of preliminaries, I had promised to craft more detailed response to Mr. Bateman, but the context of the promise is this comment.

When my son Daniel was in the USMC (part of which was a combat tour) I followed the Small Wars Journal and associated writers so that I could monitor the silliness. It was an exercise in self serving navel gazing and pedantry. Bateman was among those who spent time on those pages writing worthless garbage for others to ingest. I’ve seen his stuff before.

Bateman wants very badly to be more handsome, younger, more important and smarter than he really is. And he wants people to pay attention. Thus, when he would write and it seemed that no one was paying attention, he would then seed it with something really, really outlandish and ridiculous so that people would pay attention to him.

He isn’t so much an ideologue as he is an attention hound who wants everyone to look at him even if you find him grotesque. Rather than a stooge, he is like a misbehaving child who throws tantrums in front of important people.

Rehearsing the subject which initially brought about this charge, Robert Bateman penned a piece in Esquire in which he bolstered his credentials as a collectivist. Basing his diatribe on a recent shooting over a college football game, he outlines his plans for gun control. Here are some excerpts from his commentary.

My entire adult life has been dedicated to the deliberate management of violence. There are no two ways around that fact. My job, at the end of the day, is about killing. I orchestrate violence.

I am not proud of that fact. Indeed, I am often torn-up by the realization that not only is this my job, but that I am really good at my job. But my profession is about directed violence on behalf of the nation. What is happening inside our country is random and disgusting, and living here in England I am at a complete loss as to how to explain this at all. In 2011 the number of gun deaths in the United States was 10.3 per 100,000 citizens. In 2010 that statistic in the UK was 0.25. And do not even try to tell me that the British are not as inclined to violence or that their culture is so different from ours that this difference makes sense. I can say nothing when my British officers ask me about these things, because it is the law.

Turning his attention to Heller v. D.C., he makes some remarks concerning the second amendment.

But just so we are all clear on this, let me spell it out for the rest of you. During the American Civil War, a topic about which I know a little bit, we had a system of state militias. They formed the basis of the army that saved the United States. For most of the first year, and well into the second, many of the units raised by the states were created entirely or in part from militia units that predated the war. But even when partially “regulated,” militias are sloppy things.

Which is why, in 1903 Congress passed the Militia Act. Friends, if you have not read it I’ll just tell you: As of 1903, the “militia” has been known as the National Guard.

Bateman then turns attention to his proposals.

The only guns permitted will be the following:

a. Smoothbore or Rifled muzzle-loading blackpowder muskets. No 7-11 in history has ever been held up with one of these.

b. Double-barrel breech-loading shotguns. Hunting with these is valid.

c. Bolt-action rifles with a magazine capacity no greater than five rounds. Like I said, hunting is valid. But if you cannot bring down a defenseless deer in under five rounds, then you have no fking reason to be holding a killing tool in the first place.

2. We will pry your gun from your cold, dead, fingers. That is because I am willing to wait until you die, hopefully of natural causes. Guns, except for the three approved categories, cannot be inherited. When you die your weapons must be turned into the local police department, which will then destroy them. (Weapons of historical significance will be de-milled, but may be preserved.)

[ … ]

4. We will submit a new tax on ammunition. In the first two years it will be 400 percent of the current retail cost of that type of ammunition. (Exemptions for the ammo used by the approved weapons.) Thereafter it will increase by 20 percent per year.

You’ve seen enough to get the picture. A number of technical responses may be offered to Bateman. For example, Bob Owens has a takedown of the notion that well-regulated means under government control. Directing his instruction at Bateman, David Codrea remarks:

As for who is protected by the Second Amendment, it’s the people, just like it says. Alexander Hamilton addressed “well regulated” in The Federalist No. 29, conceding “To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss…Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped…”

There are other responses across the web. But mostly they are aimed at the content of Bateman’s commentary, which is good analysis technique, but there is more to understanding Mr. Bateman and why he wrote this diatribe.

Several years ago I frequented the pages of the Small Wars Journal. I linked them often and was linked by editors. Mostly what undergirded my advocacy was a concern over my son and his colleagues in the U.S. Marine Corps. The 2/6 infantry was soon to deploy to Fallujah, and I took a great interest in studying how the Marines did things, where they were going, and in watching the progress of the Battalion.

It was a hard time and I spent many hours awake (while other men were asleep), waiting at my door in the dark for that Marine Corps officer and Chaplain (who never came). It was also a rich time in some ways. I had shot guns my whole life, but I had not purchased an AR-15 until then and Daniel taught me to shoot the way the Marines taught him to shoot, i.e., what some might call aggressive, plates-forward stance. It came naturally to me. Still, the hard and bitter times were far weightier than any good times from it.

During this misadventure, I was unfortunately introduced to Mr. Bateman on the pages of the Small Wars Journal blog. I invite you to study his prose. Don’t take my word for what I have said and am about to say. Read until you simply cannot stand it any more. He is a scholar, and warrior, and he is good at what he does, and he is great at what he does, and he laments the evil, and he advises and counsels the best, and everyone listens to him, and he knows virtually everything. If you don’t believe me, just listen to him tell you that himself.

Bateman can only go so long without the attention he so richly deserves, though. When things get a bit quiet and he wants to shore up his credentials once again, he starts fights with men of notoriety so that they will respond and give him the press he’s after. The fight between him and Victor Davis Hanson (see here, here, and here) eventually bored Hanson, it appears, and anyway Bateman was highly over-matched.

Bateman goes into a fury over fairly well established facts like the idea that the Western way of war is different. I’ve commented in a pedestrian way on that same issue, but again, I am under the impression that this is fairly well established. Either way, Bateman got the attention he wanted, and he was eventually reduced to personal attacks and name calling, with commenters telling him he was acting like a juvenile.

It doesn’t stop there. At Zero Anthropology (and I make no claims to a knowledge of what this site advocates or the subject of the disagreement), one author had finally had enough of Bateman, and responded this way. First, Bateman’s comment, and then the response.

Bateman:

Well, at least I now know that you, at least, see what I type. That evidence, at least, now exists for your readers. As does the fact that you ban free speech on your site. Since your readers now see that you openly posted, “This is from the man who is now claiming that I “silenced” him and tried to avoid him challenging my ideas. Of course, he is saying that in private, because he has been banned from this blog and has sent four more messages nonetheless (not included in the list above).”

Well Max, I really could not contrive a confession of oppression of free speech or discourse any more clearly than the way you just laid it out for your readers. Well played son. Well played indeed. “He claimed I ’silenced’ him” and “he has been banned” are wonderfully juxtaposed.

“OPEN” Anthropology.

Regards Max. And I apologize for the future. Not really my fault. But I am sorry nonetheless.

Bob

Response:

You apologize for the future. It was worth approving your message just so that others can see the veiled threat.

It is OPEN Anthropology…just no longer open to you, and your kind. You had your say, and became repetitive, and rather obnoxious, especially as you turned some of your comments on this blog into ad hominem attacks toward someone (me) who had been very analytical, even handed, calm, and reasonable with you. But then the military wolf in sheep’s clothing is all ready to pounce, eh Bob?

Remember, you have a right to free speech. But not on this blog: it is a privilege, and you abused it.

To the notion that Bateman has been “silenced” on that blog, the author lists 32 comments from Bateman approved by the editors. The straw that broke the camel’s back was this comment:

…your apparent lack of eductation (sic) on military affairs and international relations. But then, of course, you are a minor teacher without a single published monograph, so I suppose you have to try and make your academic mark somewhere, eh? Anything for tenure.

The final remarks by the author are telling:

Not only is it ad hominem, it is a basic lie. Mission accomplished, Bob, you live up to the values of your institution. An academic, you are not, not even a good poser and pretender.

Well, Bob, you wanted attention, now you got it. You have all of our attention now, with your very own post on this blog, all about you. Is this what you wanted?

Why yes, that’s exactly what Bob wanted. He got his attention, and you spent your time responding to this narcissist. Perhaps I’m doing the same thing, but if enough people understand who Bateman really is, then my ordeal will have been worth it.

Bob’s outlandish, exaggerated, extremist prose is his hallmark. It helps with the attention. Consider:

My entree was, “I think that Robert E. Lee, as a traitor and betrayer of his solemn oath before God and the Constitution, was a much greater terrorist than Osama Bin Ladin… after all, Lee killed many more Americans than Bin Ladin, and almost destroyed the United States. What do you think?”

Yeah, I flunked “Subtle 101” in High School. Oh well. Like I said, I was not in a good place.

But the fact is that there was nothing that any of these men, and they were all men, could say in honest denial to my assertion. They sputtered and growled, spouted and shouted, but not once did it end well for them on any level. You see, if they were “unreconstructed rebels,” well then I was something almost none of them had ever experienced, an “unreconstructed Yankee.”

So that you understand him, he spells it out for you. He is not just a narcissist, he is a narcissist with an agenda (oops, that may not be so good for a dispassionate “historian,” no?). And his collectivist tendencies are usually obvious by the folks he hangs with. For instance, a search of “Bateman” at CNAS (the center that advises Obama on foreign policy) turns up some attention there too.

Now based on the discussion above, consider his recommendation to end ownership of weapons at death. Does anyone really think that this could ever obtain in America? Men who have spent $20,000, or $30,000 or $40,000 or more on guns, scopes, optics and ammunition, and who have taught their sons to use those weapons for self defense and bonded by hunting game with those guns, are expected to turn over those weapons to the government to be cut up with a torch rather than turn them over to their sons as a heritage!

Does Bateman know what he is proposing for the armed forces and police of America in the coming years under such a protocol? Of course he does. And the irony is that he claims to loath violence. Does Bateman know that it would take a violation of Posse Comitatus to even try to pull something like this off, breaking the law of the land? Of course he does. And does he know that tens or hundreds of thousands of men would perish as a result of his proposals?

Yes. And thus has Bateman shored up his progressive credentials one more time, and gotten the attention he so desperately wants, all at the same time. In the future, pay no attention to Mr. Bateman. He’s a publicity hound and attention seeker, and uses inflammatory and exaggerated rhetoric to evoke responses. The internet calls this a “troll.” It’s just that he’s a troll with credentials – and he’s an expert on everything. If you don’t believe it, just ask him.

44 Comments

Gun Control,Guns Tags: Bob Bateman, Robert Bateman —

03 Dec 2013

Followup On Closing Of Lead Smelter Plant

BY Herschel Smith

11 years ago

We discussed the closing the last lead smelter plant in the U.S. about one month ago.

I have a number of comments concerning this closure. First of all, the company also states that the $100 million project is “too financially risky.” And that’s the crux of the issue. Folks, $100 million just isn’t that much for large scale production in any industry in America. My bet is that the company believes that it could very well spend $100 million and then continue to be denied the right to manufacture ammunition due to the fact that people writing rulings in the federal register are calling the shots. You know what I’ve said about the federal Leviathan. Oftentimes, their standard is a moving target.

Second, I question the degree to which the company is committed to the manufacture of ammunition components. Power companies who have to fight the EPA on a regular basis simply do what they must. Of course, power is regulated, but the market for ammunition won’t be going away.

Third, regardless of where you turn (and I include myself in that category), there is vast under-reporting on this. We have all discussed it, but there is a paucity of good information. I would like to know the degree to which this will affect the production, availability and price of ammunition in the U.S.? But in order to know that, one would have to know such things as: (1) what percentage of lead in ammunition comes from this plant as opposed to overseas (including processing of the raw ore), (2) how much lead is used in ammunition in the U.S. civilian market every year, (3) what will the cost be of shipping the raw ore overseas for manufacture, and (4) are there any plans to construct and operate another plant?

This kind of knowledge requires real reporting, and that’s something I only sometimes have the time or resources to do. Having said that, while this plant may not have been able to meet current EPA standards, it’s a sad day. I suspect that the EPA hasn’t targeted this plant because of its role in the manufacture of ammunition. Rather, the EPA targets all productive, money-making industry for onerous regulations, written inside the beltway by armies of lawyers, without regard for the practical affect of said regulations. It’s governance by federal register, and it’s one thing that makes this so sad.

I still believe that there is under-reporting on this issue. Emily Miller addresses the issue (via Glenn), concluding that it will have minimal impact. Becket Adams with The Blaze also recently wrote on this issue, similarly concluding that:

“More than 80 percent of all lead produced in the U.S. is used in either motive batteries to start vehicles, or in stationary batteries for backup power,” the company states on its website. “In the U.S., the recycle rate of these batteries is approximately 98 percent, making lead-based batteries the most highly recycled consumer product. These batteries are recycled at secondary lead smelters. We own such a smelter in southern Missouri.”

Adams also cites Bob Owens who isn’t concerned. So be it. I am not “up in arms” as Emily Miller warned. But I still think that there is under-reporting on this issue, and the questions I asked earlier in large measure still haven’t been addressed.

The issue for me isn’t what is going to happen in the short term and the best of circumstances while there are plenty of automobile batteries that contain lead, or while the flow of lead from foreign countries is still high because shipping lanes are open and countries want to do business with us.

Unlike the ammunition rush of a year ago, I can now find 5.56 mm cartridges for 50 cents per round. What happens if our armed forces is sent on another adventure and signs another huge contract for ammunition? The question for me is what happens in the long term in situations of national duress or conditions in a potential future market a decade from now. I want a scholarly paper on this. I want to see good, in-depth reporting, and I’m still waiting.

4 Comments

Ammunition Tags: Ammunition And Lead Smelter Plant —

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