Month: May 2005

Travel Alert!.

I’m going to be out of town all next week. (Goblin warning: The missus will have that Model 60 I bought for BAG day easy-to-hand.)

I’m travelling to Houston, Texas to a seven-day technical school (Monday through Sunday) but I will have my evenings free, so I’m hoping to run into at least one or two of you Houston bloggers. The hotel I’m staying at is supposed to have wireless internet access, so I should be able to check my email, and maybe even post some stuff.

Maybe.

The Latest Edition of the Carnival of Cordite is Up.

Over at Pajama Pundits.

No entry from me this week, though. But don’t let that stop you!

“If the law disarms attackers…

“…then it can make self defence possible where it would have been impossible if the attacker was armed.”

Here’s another example of the falsity of that idea:

83-Year-Old Vendor May Have Sold Food To Attacker

Washington (AP) – A vendor outside the Foggy Bottom Metro station believes he’s seen the man wanted for beating an elderly woman who also worked as a vendor.

The 83-year-old victim was attacked on 24th Street, Northwest, Tuesday afternoon. The incident was caught on videotape, which has been shown repeatedly on local TV. Vendor Billy Smith saw it – and believes the suspect bought food from him on Tuesday.

D.C. police have sent the grainy video to a lab at the Quantico Marine Base, in the hopes of having the quality improved. But they say they’re still getting a number of calls from people with information who want to help.

Police Chief Charles Ramsey says they’re looking at whether the victim and the suspect had argued earlier in the day. Ramsey says in the video, it appears the man is chastising the woman.

A disgusted Ramsey says were it up to him, he’d give the attacker a life sentence.

Watch the video. Good thing nobody had a weapon. Someone might’ve gotten hurt. And those surveillance cameras do a helluva job of crime prevention, don’t they?

(The victim is in George Washington Hospital in stable condition, suffering from a broken cheek and nose, and other contusions. She was robbed of about $300.)

Only $12K? And What About the 2004 Election?.

Say Uncle points to this AP report:

Gun-Control Group, PAC Pay $12K FEC Fine

Thu May 5, 4:00 PM ET

WASHINGTON – A gun-control group and its political action committee have paid a $12,000 fine to settle a campaign finance case from the 2000 election.

At issue were ads and endorsements by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and its Brady Voter Education Fund involving various Democratic candidates in 2000.

The American Conservative Union, in a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, accused the Brady organizations of making illegal corporate contributions to the Democrats’ campaigns.

The FEC disclosed the outcome of the case Thursday.

The Brady Campaign is named after Jim Brady and his wife Sarah. Jim Brady, press secretary to President Reagan, was shot during a 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan. The Bradys later became gun-control activists.

I hope that $12K hurt, Sarah.

¡El Banco de Mexico!.

Remember that radio station in LA with the billboard that caused such a ruckus?

And you do realize that Arizona is where the Minuteman Project ran through the month of April?

So you can understand my surprise when I went to my bank yesterday and saw this:

A bit of a close-up on the banners:

Well! You can send up to $3,000 a day to Mexico for just $8! Imagine that! (You can send it to India, too, but I thought the problem with India was that we were outsourcing good jobs there? Like Dell tech support.)

I wonder what job an expatriate Mexican can hold that would generate $3,000 a day.

Don’t you?

Every time I find one of these cases, I’m going to post this cartoon:

Zendo Deb of TFS Magnum has another story of how a restraining order failed to protect someone. It didn’t keep her attacker away, it didn’t disarm her attacker, and in addition, her presence in a “gun free zone” didn’t prevent her killer from bringing a gun anyway. I’m going to comment on the entire piece, though:

Protect victims of violence with steel, not paper

Restraining orders aren’t enough to keep battered spouses safe

J.E. STONE PARKER AND F. PAUL VALONE

Special to the Observer

Shennell McKendall did everything “by the book.” She moved out, sought police protection and a restraining order against her abusive husband, had him arrested when he violated the order … and ended up dead. Out on bail yet again, Randy McKendall drove up as she walked to work at UNC Hospital. Jumping from his truck, he shot her, then killed himself.

What distinguishes the calamity is not perpetration of a murder/suicide by an abuser under a restraining order (Polk County resident Gary Rose killed his wife and himself just weeks later), but rather the utter failure of a law passed to prevent such things.

Sponsored by Sen. Tony Rand, D-Cumberland, the 2003 Homicide Prevention Act purports to seize firearms from abusers under protective orders. Far from preventing homicide, however, its advocates’ own Web site reveals that in the year following implementation, it shepherded not only a 26 percent increase in domestic homicide, but a 40 percent increase in murder/suicide.

Another case of the Law of Unintended Consequences? Hard to say. Does having one’s firearms confiscated and right to arms abridged contribute to the anger? I don’t know. Hard to say. But a 26% increase is significant.

The law’s “lesser” failures include leaving scores of victims unprotected. Allegedly intended to stop spousal murders by soldiers returning from Afghanistan, Rand’s bill ultimately exempted military and police abusers from many restrictions.

Just like many “gun control” laws exempt law enforcement officers, creating a “priviledged class.”

Nor has it disarmed abusers. Requiring compliance from batterers who routinely flout trivialities like restraining orders, gun seizures fail when defendants elude them or obtain guns later.

Thus the “got a tissue?” question.

Even when confiscations succeed, the problem remains: Firearms are used less often in domestic homicides (57 percent) than in others (75 percent). Because abusers — 91 percent of whom are male — typically kill smaller, physically weaker partners, popular weapons include blunt objects, knives and bare hands.

Now that was a statistic I was unaware of, but it makes sense.

Worst of all, the explosion in murder/suicide suggests that gun confiscations may actually spark confrontations by perpetrators already “on the edge.” Fully 20 percent of North Carolina’s domestic murderers kill themselves. And protective orders, gun seizures or — in McKendall’s case — campus gun prohibitions don’t deter suicidal killers.

So the authors do believe that the law aggravates the problem. Interesting.

Now consider Anson County resident Joy Burgess, whose estranged husband parked a mile from her house, cut her phone line, and while she and her 6-year-old daughter slept, broke down her door with a shovel. Husband Brian Lee Gathings had a long history of domestic violence. Jailed five times for assault by pointing a gun, assault on a female, domestic criminal trespass and telephone harassment, he was again out on $15,000 bail. Said Joy’s mother, “The restraining order was not worth the paper it was written on.”

Fortunately, however, in protecting herself Joy chose steel instead of paper: In what police ruled justifiable self-defense, she shot her attacker.

Zendo Deb links to a story about Joy Burgess, if you want to read it.

Says domestic violence expert Beth Morraco, “Shennell McKendall did everything society tells battered women to do to keep themselves safe. She had the support of her family, a local domestic violence agency, an attorney, the District Court, and sheriff’s department, all of whom actively sought to protect her.”

True enough. But when gun control activist Lisa Price, who lobbied for the Homicide Prevention Act, laments that Shennell “did all she could to protect herself,” she ignores the Burgess lesson: Police have neither the ability nor, as courts have ruled, the obligation to protect you. When restraining orders fail, you must protect yourself.

And you must be willing to do so.

For 10 years, North Carolina’s concealed handgun law has empowered citizens to do precisely that. Defying naysayers’ predictions of traffic light shootouts, permit-holders have been overwhelmingly law-abiding. Of 263,102 permit applications, only 727 (0.28 percent) have been revoked, typically for reasons unrelated to firearms.

As opposed to what percentage of N.C. police officers fired or jailed for illegal acts in the same period, I wonder?

Indeed, despite opposing concealed handguns, Price’s own lobbyist admitted to a House committee that “the fears that this concealed carry law would put bloodshed in the streets were way overblown the concealed carry law in North Carolina is a good law.”

Beyond rendering victims dependent on inadequate protection from others, let’s empower them to defend themselves. Sponsored by Reps. Mark Hilton, R-Catawba, and Linda Johnson, R-Cabarrus, H.B. 1311, the Domestic Violence Victim Empowerment Act will require sheriffs to expedite concealed handgun permits for applicants protected by restraining orders, and require judges to inform victims of their right to permits.

But here’s a problem: What if the offending spouse files a restraining order against his wife? FEDERAL LAW is what is supposed to disarm the restrainee. It prevents someone from purchasing a firearm from a dealer, and in North Carolina you have to get a permit to buy a handgun, even from a private party. So who will this ensure remains disarmed? The woman at risk, who will be trying to jump through all the proper legal hoops, will it not? While the violent husband won’t give a damn, and can still bludgeon or slash his wife to death because she won’t have (legal) access to a firearm.

Great law.

Whether domestic violence organizations support the bill depends on whether they prefer restricting guns or protecting victims. But when detractors conjure dire images of guns in unstable households, recall that because applicants get permits only upon issuance of restraining orders, abusers will already be out of the home. Nor can just anyone get a permit: Applicants will undergo criminal background checks and training just as they do now.

Some abusers will be deterred by armed victims, some won’t. But the next time a flimsy document “not worth the paper it’s written on” fails to prevent murder, maybe a pound of steel will.

J.E. Stone Parker, MD, is director of research for Rights Watch International and a physician in Lumberton. F. Paul Valone is a professional pilot and president of Grass Roots North Carolina. They can be reached at [email protected] or P.O. Box 10684, Raleigh, NC 27605.

I think J.E. Stone Parker and F. Paul Valone need to do something about 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8)(C)(ii) – the law that Timothy Joe Emerson was convicted under after he purchased a handgun while under a restraining order. That one trumps any N.C. STATE law, but still provides only a gossamer tissue of protection for a woman at risk.

Dept. of Schadenfreude

(h/t Ipse Dixit)

This is just too good. It appears that the environmental group Greenpeace may have fallen afoul of environmental regulations.

Greenpeace charged with violating environmental law

By RACHEL D’ORO
Associated Press writer

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Lawyers selected a jury Monday that will decide whether Greenpeace and its contract ship were criminally negligent by failing to have the proper oil spill response paperwork during an anti-logging campaign.

The environmental activist group, the captain of the Arctic Sunrise and the ship’s agent all are charged with misdemeanor criminal counts of operating a vessel without a spill contingency plan or proof of financial responsibility in case of a spill, as required by state law.

Opening statements were scheduled Tuesday in state District Court in the southeast Alaska town of Ketchikan. Because the case involves misdemeanor charges, it will be heard by only six jurors and two alternates.

“We feel good about the jury and feel confident they’ll listen to all the evidence and render a fair verdict based on the evidence presented in court,” said Greenpeace attorney Tom Wetterer.

State environmental regulators cited Greenpeace Inc., Arctic Sunrise Capt. Arne Sorensen and ship agent Willem Beekman last July for not filing a spill response plan or having a financial responsibility certificate. According to court documents, the ship was carrying more than 70,000 gallons of “petroleum products” when it arrived in southeast Alaska for the protest campaign against logging in the Tongass National Forest.

In Alaska, non-tank vessels larger than 400 gross tons must file an oil spill response plan application five days before entering state waters.

The group contends the paperwork oversight was a mishap that was quickly corrected. Those on board didn’t know such documents were required, Wetterer said.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse! Damn, but it would be funny if they lost the case.

And in similar news, animal rights activists are now conflicting with conservationists:

Conservationists Kill Pigs to Save Fox

By GILLIAN FLACCUS
The Associated Press
Monday, May 2, 2005; 2:13 AM

SANTA CRUZ ISLAND, Calif. — Norm Macdonald rises each morning with the sun, grabs his .223-caliber rifle and slips into the passenger seat of a tiny, doorless helicopter for another day of shooting pigs.

As the chopper skims over rugged terrain, Macdonald scans dozens of simple fence traps he’s set up for the thousands of wild swine that have overrun this Southern California island.

When there are pigs in the traps _ and there always are _ Macdonald leans out and pumps two bullets into each animal: One for the heart and one for the head.

Each pig’s death brings conservationists one step closer to their goal of saving the tiny Santa Cruz fox, an endangered species found only on this 96-square-mile island off Santa Barbara. Experts believe it’s the best way to mend the island’s delicate ecological web, which was torn when domesticated pigs escaped from now-abandoned ranches as early as the 1850s.

The killings have angered animal rights groups and forced the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy, which co-own the island, to explain why groups dedicated to protecting animals are instead paying $5 million to kill them.

Norm Macdonald uses a .223, eh? The same “high-powered” cartridge used in the evil AR-15 rifle! This is obviously excessive! (I wonder; does he “spray-fire” from the hip?)

The funny part is that the Nature Conservancy is paying $5 million to a New Zealand based outfit to kill the pigs, when they could just as easily sell pig tags to Californians and make money, but I guess that would mean allowing eeeevil hunters to tramp around on their pristine (and pig overrun) island.

There’s more:

Russell Galipeau, superintendent of the Channel Islands National Park, acknowledges that killing one species to save another puts his agency in an awkward position. The pig eradication, he says, fits his agency’s mission of restoring the island to its natural state while saving native species and protecting archaeological sites.

Federal and state law prohibits relocating the pigs, which may have pseudorabies and cholera, to the mainland. Sterilization and contraception aren’t practical because the plan would fail if biologists miss only a few pigs _ the fast-breeding pigs can rebound from a 70 percent population reduction in just one year, according to Galipeau.

“I’m trying to protect the natural system _ not what humans handed us, but what nature handed us,” he says. “Sometimes you have to do the same amount of disruption that damaged a place in order to restore it.”

Critics have argued that, after so long on the island, the pigs belong as much as the foxes.

One group, the Channel Islands Animal Protection Association, was formed in the mid-1990s after the National Park Service poisoned nonnative rats that were damaging vegetation on nearby on Anacapa Island.

In the current case, the association believes the golden eagles were attracted not by pigs but by the rotting carcasses of feral sheep from an earlier eradication program in the 1980s. They believe the golden eagles discovered the 4-pound foxes _ not the pigs _ and stayed.

“Not only was this story made up, but the pigs are now an established member of the ecosystem,” says association spokeswoman Scarlet Newton. “The public is being totally deceived.”

“I’m trying to protect the natural system _ not what humans handed us, but what nature handed us,” he says.

Right. Humans are not part of nature. No, we’re aliens. A beaver dam is “natural,” the Hoover Dam is not. Termite mounds are “natural,” skyscrapers are not. Living as vegan gatherers is “natural,” civilization is not. Eagles killing foxes to extinction “natural,” humans shooting pigs is not.

It’s not much of a stretch from that attitude to “humans are a disease on Mother Gaea.”

Giving 110%.

Another humorous email:

From a strictly mathematical viewpoint it goes like this:

What Makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life?

Here’s a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:

If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then:

H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

and
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But,

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

And,

B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

AND, look how far ass kissing will take you.

A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G
1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that While Hard work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it’s the Bullshit and Ass kissing that will put you over the top!

Sounds about right.