Tag: Reset Button

The “Threshold of Outrage”

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Well, we’ve had another rampage killing, another church shot up. Pretty much everyone in the firearms community is aware of this, but for future readers I’ll spell out the specifics. On Sunday morning a man armed with a semi-automatic shotgun and 76 rounds of ammo walked into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church during a children’s performance of “Annie Jr.” and opened fire. According to the reports so far, he fired three shots, and was then subdued by congregants when he attempted to reload. There were two fatalities and seven wounded. From the reports, the first person killed placed himself directly in the shooter’s path in order to shield others. As of this writing, four people are still in the hospital, two in critical condition.

The shooter, 58 year old Jim Adkisson, left a four-page letter in his vehicle that gave clues as to the reason for his rampage and leading authorities to believe that he intended to use all of the ammunition he brought, and die in a hail of police gunfire. In the letter, Adkisson indicated antipathy towards Christians, and extreme antipathy towards “liberals” and their causes, gays in particular.

He did not expect resistance.

When I wrote Why I Am an Atheist, I included a couple of jokes, one of which was a “how many X does it take to change a light bulb?” joke. For the Unitarians the punchline was:

We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey you have found that light bulbs work for you, you are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your light bulb for the next Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, 3-way, long-life and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.

If there’s a “liberal position” on something, the Unitarian Church can be counted on to support it. The particular church Adkisson chose was openly friendly to homosexuals, and that may have had an influence on his choice of targets as well.

Mr. Adkisson was unemployed and apparently unable to find work, at least work that he found acceptable. He was receiving food stamps, and there was a letter found that stated that his food stamps were to be reduced or cut off. Mr. Adkisson’s only criminal record was two DUI convictions in two different states. CNN reports that Adkisson had threatened to kill his fourth wife and himself in 2000 which resulted in an order of protection barring him from contacting his wife. He apparently drank heavily, and had done so for quite a while.

Adkisson purchased his shotgun a month before the shooting. He was not a prohibited person. A waiting period would not have helped. The shotgun was not a high-capacity “street sweeper,” but apparently a standard hunting shotgun with a three-round capacity. He was an angry, bitter old man of 58, probably alcoholic, who wouldn’t or couldn’t face the fact that his problems were of his own making. Like too many people today, he decided to end it all, but to take as many with him as he could in a burst of rage.

Some time back, Billy Beck wrote an essay in response to a post at the newsgroup misc.activism.militia. I linked to it in my 2005 essay, March of the Lemmings, and I came across it again recently. In that piece Billy stated something that I unconsciously absorbed, I think, and have restated myself in my various “Reset Button” postings:

Every human being has a “threshold of outrage” beyond which a transgressor proceeds at peril of response. At this point in our history, individuals are responding ever more frequently. The only question to me concerns the nature of the response.

It would appear that this is the case in Mr. Adkisson’s rampage. In 1997, Carl Drega killed two policemen, a judge, and a newspaper editor in New Hampshire over property rights. In 2000 Garry DeWayne Watson killed a town alderman and a city worker and wounded two others also over property rights. Also in 2000, 77 year-old Melvin Hale shot a Texas State Trooper to death because he’d been pulled over for not wearing his seat belt. In 2003, Arthur and Steven Bixby of South Carolina shot two Sheriff’s deputies to death over the taking by eminent domain of a 20-foot wide section of their property. Also in 2003, Stuart Alexander, owner of a sausage manufacturing business in California, deliberately murdered three of four state inspectors in his office. The fourth escaped only because Alexander couldn’t run him down. In 2004 Marvin Heemeyer destroyed a good chunk of Granby, Colorado with an armor plated bulldozer before taking his own life, again over property rights.

And yesterday, Jim Adkisson decided that he was going to kill himself some liberals because they were keeping him from getting work.

Last week and over the weekend there were a lot of pixels spilled over a letter to the editor written by an outspoken member of the militia movement, a letter threatening bloodshed against “anyone who tried to further restrict our God-given liberty.” A lot of the discussion was heated, too much of it was insulting. Far too much of it lacked perspective and thought.

Billy Beck is spot-on. Everyone has a “threshold of outrage.” For everyone it’s different, and what happens when that threshold is crossed is different for everyone as well. But the general public doesn’t share the outrages perpetrated by society on its individuals. No one is able to accurately gauge the egregiousness of the insults and injustices – or lack thereof – visited upon those whose personal “thresholds of outrage” were crossed. Our media hasn’t done it. In many cases of government overreach that do end up in the media, I (and I’m sure others) wonder what prevents the victims from exacting a similar revenge. Perhaps their own personal “thresholds of outrage” weren’t crossed, or simply a violent response just isn’t in them.

But when someone states in a public forum that “There are some of us “cold dead hands” types, perhaps 3 percent of gun owners, who would kill anyone who tried to further restrict our God-given liberty,” the picture the general public gets isn’t one of a patriot standing up for the rights of all, it’s this:

That’s not the picture I want attached to the battle for my individual rights.

The Four Boxes

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The Four Boxes

The saying goes, we have four boxes with which to defend our liberty: the Soap Box, the Ballot Box, the Jury Box, and the Cartridge Box.

There’s been a recent excrement storm over someone using Box #1 to threaten the use of Box #4. If you follow the threads and especially the comments, there is much sturm und drang over how counterproductive it is to threaten lethal force in a letter-to-the-editor of a local paper over licensing and registration. This then transitions to essentially two positions: One – our right to arms is slowly but surely being won back by people who have been fighting the good fight, within the system, for decades. Thirty-seven “shall-issue” states, the Heller Supreme Court decision, politicians avoiding gun control like it’s the proverbial “third rail” all indicate that our side is winning, and throwing verbal hand-grenades is not helpful to the cause. Two – our right to arms is still being eroded daily, as a right should not require us to petition the State for a license to exercise it, the Heller decision didn’t go far enough, and regardless the government is still persecuting gun owners without penalty, the State has overreached its limited powers, and TEOTWAWKI is rapidly approaching, or worse, it’s already over and we just refuse to take notice of it. The second side also points out that the right to arms isn’t the only right that’s been folded, spindled, mutilated and defecated upon – not by a long shot.

Side one argues that the system works for those who show up. Side two points out that the overwhelming majority of those “showing up” support ever-larger, more intrusive government. Side one counters “then get involved!” Side two ripostes that threatening violence is “getting involved.” Side one argues that violent revolution hardly ever results in an improvement of conditions, and that ours succeeded only because of the extraordinary selflessness of the men who led it.

Side two doesn’t have much of a response to that.

Side one argues that nobody really wants what violent revolution would result in. That trying to work within the system is, by far, preferable to rooftop snipers, IEDs, and the possibility of our own military dropping cluster-bombs on our neighborhoods (or, per Vanderboegh, suicide pilots and fuel-air explosions), just to name a few of the cheerier scenarios. Side two remains mostly mum, but I hear echoes of Patrick Henry.

What this whole thing illustrates for me is, again, that humanity has a strong self-destructive streak. Now that the surface of the earth has been explored, and humans have settled everywhere that they can raise enough food to survive, we no longer have frontiers for the disaffected to go to in order to escape the restraints of societies that they cannot fit into. There’s nowhere left to go. And there aren’t enough of the misfits to alter those societies enough to make them even marginally comfortable. Even worse, the misfits cannot form their own societies – they can’t get along with each other.

I’m not saying that Mike Vanderboegh is one of the misfits. Hell, he didn’t say anything I haven’t thought or written myself. Hell, maybe I’m a misfit, too, just a bit closer to the middle of the bell curve. After all, I have my own bright shining lines.

But I think one thing is certain: There’s tough history coming.

UPDATE: I strongly recommend that you read The Myth of the Clean Revolution.

This too: Thoughts on a revolution

Frightening the White People

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There is an interesting discussion going on in the comments to a post at Snowflakes in Hell on a letter to the editor written by Mike Vanderboegh. Mr. Vanderboegh is a strident voice for the right to arms, an extremist’s extremist. He is, as I described him in my own comment at Snowflakes, the Malcolm X of the gun-rights movement.

He’s the guy who wants to, as SayUncle puts it so wincingly, “frighten the white people.”

Mr. Vanderboegh is currently writing a book, one that makes John Ross’s Unintended Consequences look like a trip to Disneyland. It’s entitled Absolved, and it’s being published, chapter by chapter, on various gun blogs. David Codrea, a member of the Black Rifle Panthers himself, has a link to all the chapters posted so far. You might find it an interesting read. Mr. Vanderboegh is a pretty good writer.

The general consensus of the 66 (so far) comments at Sebastian’s is that actually telling people that gun owners are willing to kill over the right to arms is counterproductive in the struggle to convince a majority that having a right to arms is a good thing. Of course there are those who think Mr. Vanderboegh is off his rocker, or that anyone who doesn’t agree wholeheartedly with him is a traitor, but generally the middle-of-the-road position is “he’s right, but we shouldn’t say things like that out loud.” Most believe that we’re turning back the tide of gun control, and that the Heller decision illustrates this emphatically, so tossing verbal hand-grenades is more than a little counterproductive. Others argue that incidents like the David Olofson prosecution and conviction prove that the government is still coming after us, and they’ll keep doing it retail until they figure out how to do it wholesale.

I’d like to point out that Mr. Vanderboegh is not the only person out there who has stated, seriously, that lethal force against government officials isn’t off the list of possible responses. In fact, in January of 2007 SayUncle (in all seriousness) and Tamara (you never can really tell) made it plain that that was a position they both took.

Mr. Vanderboegh wrote in his letter to the editor:

There are some of us “cold dead hands” types, perhaps 3 percent of gun owners, who would kill anyone who tried to further restrict our God-given liberty. Don’t extrapolate from your own cowardice and assume that just because you would do anything the government told you to do that we would.

SayUncle wrote:

What makes me a gun nut?

Not the number of guns I own. For someone who yammers on so much about guns, I probably own considerably less than the average reader here. I own the following: Ruger 10/22, a Walther P22, Kel-Tec 380, an AR in 9mm, Glock 30, an AR in 5.56. I think that’s it. Six firearms. I have a lot on my to buy list but they always get pushed back due to other priorities or whatever. And here lately, I’ve actually sold a couple of firearms. One, because I didn’t care for it and one because I was offered too much to turn it down.

It’s not that I like how they work mechanically or tinkering. I do that with other stuff and I’m not nuts about that. I like to do woodworking but I am not a woodworking nut. And I don’t blog about woodworking.

It’s not hunting. I don’t hunt.

It’s not the zen of target shooting. I zen playing cards, golf, and other activities as well.

So, what is it? I thought about it long and hard. And it’s this simple truth:

If you fuck with me bad enough, I’ll kill your ass.

Simple. Not elegant. But that truth is what scares the shit out of others and it’s that truth that makes people look at you like you’re crazy. It won’t be a NRA slogan any time soon. But it’s what you’re asserting when you claim to be a gun nut, whether you like it or not.

SayUncle is one of Mr. Vanderboegh’s “3 percent.” So am I. But SayUncle made his statement on a blog, a site read mostly by others who share, largely, the same beliefs. Mr. Vanderboegh made his statement in a newspaper, where people who don’t think the way we do are in the majority.

I’m ambivalent on the topic, myself. I think those who really need to understand that some of us are willing to kill already do. That’s why they go after people like David Olofson – to frighten the rest of us. I think that the 97% of the gun owning population that isn’t on the same wavelength as Mr. Vanderboegh and SayUncle and myself needs to be reminded from time to time that the Second Amendment isn’t about hunting and target shooting and gun collecting. There’s a reason they enumerated an individual right to arms, and it had to do with watering the Tree of Liberty, if necessary.

Where Mr. Vanderboegh and I differ is on when (or whether) that watering needs to be done. I suspect that SayUncle and I are in more agreement that Mr. Vanderboegh and I would be. As I said in my own comment at Snowflakes in Hell:

There’s a group of people, and as far as I can tell it’s growing, that not only believes that we’re headed for violent revolution, they want it.

And what scares me is, sometimes I think they’re right.

Your thoughts?

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

The bobsled is already over the edge of the slope, all we can do is try and ride out the bumps.

At least future generations won’t damn us, since they’ll be unable to read. – Tamara K.

Bringing you the finest in black, black snark since August, 2005

Pushing the “Reset” Button – Part II

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Quite a while back I wrote a short essay on this topic, inspired by a question posed by Jay Solo:

Do you expect the “reset button” to need to be used in our lifetimes? For the sake of a common number, let’s define “our lifetimes” as the next fifty years. Hey, I could live that long, given my genes and medical technology.

I was recently discussing with someone the concept of the Second Amendment as the government’s reset button. Ultimately a major reason it exists is so the populace cannot be prevented from being armed, or easily disarmed through registration or excess regulation for that matter, in case we must ever take back the government and start again if it gets out of hand or something akin to a coup happens and the imposters must be reckoned with.

It says that the government provides for the national defense, but we retain the right to self-defense, and to keep and bear the tools needed for that, including defense against the government if it ever turns its might inward or ceases to represent us at all. It’s not a separate entity, after all. It’s us. If it ceases to be us, it ceases to be in our control, it needs to be taken back into the fold.

Do you think this will ever be needed?

I left a comment there, and turned it into a post here.

My conclusion:

I’ve quoted Jefferson’s letter to William Smith several times recently, but this part is the one I find most interesting:

Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The past which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.

It seems, in the main, that we aren’t informed at all, much less well. Lethargy? For the overwhelming majority, yes indeed.

Until it happens to you. Then you get pissed right quick, and wonder why nobody hears your side of the story.

I think a lot of people are getting fed up with ever-increasing government intrusion into our lives. With our ever-shrinking individual rights. More than one of Jay’s respondents noted the apathy of the majority, though, and I agree. Government interferes lightly on a wholesale basis, but it does its really offensive intrusions strictly retail. So long as the majority gets its bread and circuses, it will remain content.

But not everyone.

I then recounted the story of the Bixby family, of Greenwood, S.C. Son Steven Bixby shot and killed two Sheriff’s deputies who came on to his property over a 20-foot easement taken under eminent domain law. I concluded my previous piece:

Yes, these people were extreme. Killing two officers and then engaging in a gunfight with many more over 20 feet of property certainly is excessive.

But I don’t think this is going to be an exceptional case as time goes on.

I think more and more individuals will be pressing the “RESET” button in the future.

With about the same effect.

Yesterday, in a comment thread, I discussed the case of 72 year old Melvin Hale, who in 2000 shot Texas DPS trooper Randy Vetter to death when Vetter pulled him over for a seatbelt violation. Hale had stated previously that he would kill any officer who tried to cite him for not wearing a seatbelt. My correspondent “Adirian” stated about Hale, “Live free or die. He proves that some of us still mean it.”. Hale pressed the “Reset” button, just like Steven Bixby did. As of 2005, Hale was still alive at 77, serving a life sentence for Vetter’s murder.

So much for “live free or die.”

Still, I stated back in 2003, almost five years ago, that I thought more people were going to find their own personal limits with respect to government overreach and press the “reset” button individually. Today over at Rodger’s place I found the story of Stuart Alexander, “The Sausage King” of San Leandro, California. Mr. King murdered three meat inspectors, also in 2000, who, according to Rodger, were harassing Alexander until his limit was crossed. Under the view of surveillance cameras he himself installed, he shot three of the four inspectors, and pursued the fourth who escaped. Mr. King died of a pulmonary embolism while on Death Row.

In following that story, I found this Vin Suprynowicz column that collects a number of similar incidents in one place. Also included in his list are Carl Drega who in 1997 killed two police officers, a judge and a newspaper editor, and Garry DeWayne Watson who killed two city workers and wounded a police officer, also over an easement issue and also in 2000. Drega died in a police shootout. Watson killed himself.

Then there was Marvin Heemeyer of Granby, Colorado. He killed no one but himself, but he wreaked a lot of destruction with his armor-plated bulldozer in 2004. Heemeyer’s rampage was also over property rights.

So here we have seven incidents in which individuals reached their own personal “line in the sand.” Were they crazy, or were they just serious about defending their rights as they understood them against government intrusion? Most of them did, indeed, decide to “live free or die,” but what did their acts accomplish? I’d never even heard of Melvin Hale until yesterday, or Stuart Alexander and Garry DeWayne Watson until today.

I repeated as the conclusion to my first post on the Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision yesterday that “Claire Wolfe Time” passed us by long ago. For those few of you unfamiliar, Claire Wolfe’s most famous quote is this:

America is at that awkward stage. It’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.

That’s the opening line of her 1997 book 101 Things to Do ‘Til the Revolution. But she was wrong, and Jefferson was right. We should have pressed the “reset” button often – had a mini-revolution somewhere in the country about every 20 years or so – just to keep our political masters reminded of who it was who holds (now held) the reins, but after the one big one from 1861 to 1865, our stomach for it was (understandably) gone.

And now it’s too late. Instead of putting government back in its proper place, any overt organized resistance to government overreach generally results in government overkill these days.

In all, I think the normally pollyannish Peggy Noonan was right. There’s tough history coming.

UPDATE: In a comment at Xavier’s on the Melvin Hale incident, Oleg Volk writes:

This is a good reminder that ALL LAWS come down to the state’s willingness to imprison or kill non-compliant people. Minimizing the sheer number of laws would reduce the number of conflicts people have with those who pass those laws and those who enforce them.

I left a comment of my own that hasn’t posted yet, but basically, “minimizing the sheer number of laws” isn’t in the job description of lawmakers. When your only tool is a hammer, all your problems look like nails.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

Rome did not fall over a long weekend and our age has had a lot more history to learn from than did they. The ramparts you must man are the most difficult sort: metaphorical ones. Far less blood and thunder, far less thud and blunder and even the most heroic incur but little physical risk and garner little recognition. But if these battles are not fought — or if they are engaged too foolishly, with the wrong weapons and on unfavorable terrain — future generations will pay the price.

That’s why I’m not “voting from the rooftops” and why I am voting in the more-traditional manner. And it’s why I bother to blog. – Roberta X, Wall? Head. Rock, Paper, Scissors

well hell I’m a felon

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Well, Hell, I’m a Felon

There’s been a lot of talk around the gunblogosphere about this case, but this is the first legacy media coverage of it I’m aware of:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/05/07/ldt.gov.guns.cnn

David Olofson is a member of AR15.com, and has been posting regularly on his case.

Under the conditions that gained him his conviction, I’m a felon, too. My AR15 is equipped with a Jewell trigger. When I first received it, the trigger was adjusted too light and it doubled on me twice in initial testing. I would imagine it would be a simple thing for any ATF “technician” to misadjust any Jewell-equipped AR to do the same.

According to the BATFE, that makes it a machine gun, if this case stands.

Here’s the quote that grates on my nerves:

Critics say the problems stem from a lack of uniform testing protocol at ATF.

My aching ass. They were told it was a machine gun, it was damned well going to be a machine gun. The BATFE doesn’t make mistakes! Remember, this is the organization that told its agents to perjure themselves on the witness stand by declaring that their NFA records were 100% accurate.

Mr. Olofson is scheduled to be sentenced next Tuesday. What he ought to get is an overturned decision, full restoration of his rights and property, and a big damned settlement check from the pocket of the local head of the BATFE.

Every time I hear about something like this, I think to myself that just perhaps John Ross’s Unintended Consequences isn’t so far-fetched after all.

And remember: This is the same group that is now after CavArms. David Codrea has been keeping tabs on that travesty.

Edited to add:

How do you like this? (TIFF file, download and blow up to read)

Here’s what it says: “Third notice. Final Claim Date May 25, 2008” At the top of the page (it’s cut off) it says that if the material is not claimed it is forfeit “and will be disposed of according to law.”

Here’s a partial screenshot of what was seized from CavArms that the government – without charging anyone with anything as of yet – is ready to “dispose of according to law”:

“Always Think Forfeiture” anyone?

This is What Licensing and Registration are For

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And it’s why I will never register my firearms (and why I’m still not too happy about having to get government permission to carry concealed.)

A lot of blogs were talking about the news from Taxachusetts last week when they reported that gun permit renewals were down 25% over the last six years, and 30% in Boston.

Gun permits drop 25% in Bay State

Culture shift, fees are cited

Normally I don’t include the photos from these stories, but in this case, I will:

Obviously Massachusetts has taken a page from Maryland’s playbook. Continuing:

The number of licensed gun owners in Massachusetts has declined by more than a quarter in the past six years, a falloff driven by restrictive laws, higher licensing fees, and cultural change, according to police officers and gun owners.

The drop is especially dramatic in the eastern part of the state and in urban areas. The number of licensed gun owners fell at least 30 percent in Boston, Springfield, Quincy, Fall River, and Waltham. It dropped at least 20 percent in more than 220 of the state’s 351 communities.

The number of licensed owners climbed in about 40 mostly smaller communities in the central and western parts of the state. It also rose in a handful of eastern suburbs and cities, such as Weston and Brockton, according to data from the state’s Criminal History Systems Board, which tracks licensed gun owners.

Overall, the number of people in Massachusetts with a license to carry a weapon has declined from about 330,000 to about 240,000 from 2001 to 2007. Over the past three years, the number of licensed owners has declined by 15,000.

While some law enforcement officials praise the decline, police, politicians and antigun advocates caution that there are still plenty of illegal guns on the streets, contributing to a steady pace of violence.

Well THERE’S a shocker.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: These laws can disarm only one group – the law-abiding. Note that the piece blames part of the decline on “cultural change.” They’re correct. I’m willing to bet that many gun owners are leaving. Let me quote The Geek with a .45 on his 2003 decision to depart from New Jersey for the (relative) freedom of Pennsylvania:

We’ll be starting the house hunt after the first of the year. With the miniGeeks, we need a bigger place anyway, and shortly, this will all be a bad dream.

The thing is, I don’t think that’ll be the happy end of the story. I think the story is just beginning to be told.

As I mentioned to Kim, there is a hidden exodus that you won’t read about in the papers:

“People are moving away from certain states: not because they’ve got a job offer, not because they want to be closer to family, but because the state they are living in doesn’t measure up to the level of freedom they believe is appropriate for Americans. We are internal refugees.”

The fact that things have gone so far south in some places that people actually feel compelled to move the fuck out should frighten the almighty piss out of you.

Ten or fifteen years ago, I would’ve dismissed that notion, that people were relocating themselves for freedom within America as the wild rantings of a fringe lunatic, but today, I’m looking for a real estate agent.

It is a symptom of a deep schism in the American scene, one that has been building bit by bit for at least fifty, and probably more like seventy years, and whose effects are now visibly bubbling to the surface.

Just open your eyes and take a long look around you.

If you’re an informed firearms enthusiast, you know how much has been lost since 1934.

Even if you lay aside gun rights issues, let me ask you some questions.

No, on second thought, let’s save the 50 questions for another posting, for now, lets just ask one:

When was the last time you built a bonfire on a beach, openly drank a beer and the presence of a policeman was absolutely no cause for concern? Hmmm?

I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Edward Arsenault wishes he’d joined that “hidden exodus” some time ago. His right to own a firearm rests only on the whim of a licensing board.

Still, regardless of the fact that these laws disarm only the law-abiding, the opposition sticks to its endless mantra that it’s the number of guns that’s responsible for the carnage:

“Fewer firearms on the street makes life safer for everyone,” said Robert F. Crowley, Quincy’s police chief. “The average citizen who has a gun 24-7 I don’t believe has the experience, knowledge, and training to know when and if they should use a firearm.”

To paraphrase somebody, your belief does not negate my rights.

Many attribute the drop to a 1998 state law, the Massachusetts Gun Control Act, and subsequent changes, which dramatically changed the gun licensing landscape by increasing fees and making it more difficult for people with old legal problems to renew their license.

It now costs $100 for a six-year license for a handgun, shotgun, or rifle. It costs $25 for a six-year permit for a chemical repellent, with no renewal fee. A lifetime permit for a rifle used to cost $2. It can take about two months to get a license.

“People come in to renew and are shocked it’s $100,” said Keith MacPherson, deputy police chief in Waltham.

The power to tax is the power to destroy. As I have also noted, this is how it worked in England, as well. Make legal gun ownership expensive and onerous and the number of legal owners will decline. Increase the onerousness, and the decline will increase. It’s not worth the hassle to most people for whom guns are just (at best) recreational devices used about as often as a tennis racket. (Got one of those in your closet?) Once the number of legal owners declines far enough, the rest of the population becomes apathetic towards protecting the right to arms – and that right, for all practical purposes, ceases to exist. It’s $100 every six years now? Why not make it $100 annually? And you can only apply to renew on each third Wednesday of the month between 8:00 AM and 4:00PM (but not between 12:00 and 1:00). You must appear in person with a notarized copy of your birth certificate (a new copy for the file each year.) Certified check or money order only, and it must be for the exact amount – which will change by a few cents each year. Processing fees, you understand.

What, that’s not a “reasonable restriction”? Says who?

Other New England states do not appear to have experienced a similar drop, although comparisons are hampered because permitting and records differ widely.

Limited data show that the number of nonresident permits have increased by more than half in Maine and have more than doubled in New Hampshire since 2000 and 2001, respectively. Pistol permits are down slightly in Rhode Island and are up slightly in Connecticut.

“We saw a big increase after 9/11,” said Sergeant William Gomane of Maine’s State Police.

Right, when some people figured out that they were responsible for their own protection. But it didn’t really sink in with the majority of the population.

The law in Massachusetts was changed in 1998, and in later years, so that anyone convicted of a violent felony is disqualified from ever obtaining a state license. Those convicted of a misdemeanor or a nonviolent felony are also disqualified for five years following conviction or release. People convicted of assault and battery on family members, or crimes involving drugs or guns, are also disqualified.

This is an expansion of U.S. Code Title 18, Chapter 44, Section 922 (g) (1) in which anyone “who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” no longer has a right to arms. Note that you don’t have to actually receive a sentence of more than one year, the charge just has to be one that can result in a sentence of more than one year.

Apparently stealing a chicken at age 9 qualifies.

It makes you wonder what else does, too, doesn’t it?

“A slew of people are now prohibited,” said Dennis Collier, a police captain in Revere.

You betcha!

Even before the new law, license applications were filed with local police chiefs, who have some discretion for granting or denying licenses. For instance, a person whose state and local background check shows he or she has been on trial for violent crimes, but not convicted, can be denied a license by the chief.

With even tighter restrictions, some gun owners have been infuriated, considering it an unjust and a transparent attempt to deny honest hard-working residents their right to own a gun.

But not infuriated enough to cause them to do a Marvin Heemeyer. Not yet, anyway.

Edward Arsenault, 70, of Fairhaven, was turned down for his license renewal earlier this year because he had been convicted in juvenile court of stealing a chicken from a chicken coop when he was 9 years old, in 1946.

Arsenault said he barely remembers the incident.

Seeing as it happened only sixty years ago, I can’t imagine why he would have problems remembering it. It should have been seared, seared into his memory! Obviously someone with that kind of mental defect should be denied access to something as dangerous as a firearm!

“I have no problem with gun control or background checks, but let’s not get ridiculous,” said Arsenault, a gun license owner since the 1980s. “Something done when someone is 9 years old carries over until they are 70? We’re not talking about robbing a bank; we’re talking about stealing a chicken.”

No, we’re talking about guns – a talisman of evil to some people, and a reminder to others that some of us still believe in the concept of personal sovereignty. Remember, “when dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril.” Here’s a hint, sir: It’s already gone way past ridiculous, because people like you “have no problem with gun control.”

But you do now, don’tcha?

He appealed the ruling to New Bedford District Court in April and won, at least partly thanks to Fairhaven Police Chief Gary Souza, who testified on his behalf. It was the first time in more than four years on the job that Souza stood up for someone who had been denied a license, he said.

In Boston, the number of licensed owners fell from 7,577 in 2001 to 4,374 this year, a drop of 42 percent. In the same period, gun licenses in Cambridge dropped 25 percent to 782; 71 percent to 484 in Brookline, and 33 percent to 1,150 in Newton, state records show.

“We’re pleased that the number of gun owners has decreased in our city, but the real issue is illegal guns, and we need more laws to deal with illegal guns in our cities,” Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston said in a statement.

No, Mayor Menino, the real issue is violent criminals, not the tools they use.

But it’s so much easier to blame an inanimate object, isn’t it?

Mayor James E. Harrington of Brockton, a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a national organization, said that while it is good fewer firearms are around, the bigger problem is guns that make their way to the street illegally. He would like more restrictions on bulk out-of-state sales of guns by dealers.

What, he wants to make it super-duper illegal? I assume he’s talking about multiple handgun sales. Handguns that can’t be sold to someone from out of state? And that multiple purchases of which are reported – by law – to the BATF? (Which seems to do fuck-all with the information.)

What “more restrictions” would he like? I love these vague ideas that the gun-control people keep touting.

John E. Rosenthal, founder of nonprofit Stop Handgun Violence, said the drop in ownership is primarily because of the law, but might also be because of increased awareness of gun safety and violence. Maybe “moms who are the primary caregivers are concerned about guns in the home and maybe they are influencing the men in the home,” Rosenthal said.

Right. Sure. It’s the “civilizing influence” of nurturing mothers.

The drop did not surprise Andrew Arulanandan, a spokesman for the 4-million-member National Rifle Association.

He attributed the reduction to higher fees. “When you add additional taxes on any universe of people, there are going to be people who are forced to give up whatever pursuit that is being taxed. The victims here are the people with limited means and not the criminals. The criminals won’t stand in line to . . . pay the tax.”

They don’t stand in line at “gun buybacks” either.

Don Hunt, owner of Hunter’s Trading Post, a gun shop in Weymouth, thinks the dropoff is partly because of negative media stories, which he said poison young people’s minds toward firearms.

“This is not a gun sport friendly state,” he said.

And it’s getting less friendly by the month, too.

It’s all part of the plan.

Attitudes toward firearms vary widely. Many people in rural areas and in the western part of the state enjoy hunting and guns.

In Chester, nestled in the foothills of the Berkshires, “the joke is, you don’t live in Chester unless you own a gun,” said Police Chief Ronald Minor. The town of 1,300 has about 185 licensed gun owners. Owning a gun “is like second nature, like having a car,” Minor said. “It’s just a different way of life.”

Well, they’d better get used to the idea of not owning a gun when the overwhelming majority of their mostly-urban neighbors decide that there is no right to arms worth protecting, and their civil masters in the legislature – who know pretty much where every legally-owned firearm in the state is – demands they give them up.

And are then surprised by the fact that the “illegal guns” are still out there, and in ever-increasing numbers.

Another Golden Oldie.

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One of the (I suppose) advantages to having authored a blog for four years is that you get to revisit stuff you wrote a long time ago (in blog years.) The Everlasting Phelps recently posted on “bright lines” – the personal lines he draws for himself that signal when things have gone just too far. Excerpt:

I am almost physically ill with the dread I am feeling right now. I’ve said before that I have thought about armed revolution before. It is something that I think everyone who considers himself a patriot has to think about ahead of time. You might think about it and say “never”, but you need to think about it.

I am reminded of the cannibal paradox. The paradox is that there are a lot of people in starvation scenarios who turn to cannibalism and starve anyways. They starve because the cannibalism taboo is so strong that they wait too long and are past the point of no return before they do what they need to survive. There is a point of no return when it comes to revolution.

I have in my mind several bright, shining lines that shall not be crossed without retribution. I keep those lines, like Joe’s Jews in the Attic Test, in mind. I have them for two reasons. One, you should decide on your actions rationally and dispassionately when possible. Being worked up in the heat of the moment is not the time to make a decision like this. And the second is because the heat of the moment is just as likely to counsel you to not act, to wait a little longer, to not make that tough decision.

RTWT.

A commenter left this:

I had one of those “scary” moments while discussing the 2000 election with my dad. He pointed out to me how close we were to a coup via the supreme court. I scoffed until I thought about it a little more carefully. The Democratic party tried to get the supreme court to disenfranchise us, and almost succeeded.

I never thought about what it would take, but I did comment the other day that I was glad the disagreements and political lines right now are not as regional as they were 150 years ago.

Now, read my September, 2004 post While Evils are Sufferable (especially you, Markadelphia) and then read this Steven Levitt New York Times piece and the 500+ comments and reflect on just how easy it would be for “we the people” to pull everything down around us.

Societies exist because the members want them too. When that desire is lost, so is the society. That’s what Arnold Toynbee meant when he said “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”

Yeah, Phelps, I feel a little ill myself.

UPDATE: The original JSKit/Echo comment thread is here.

KevinLeave a comment

What Happened to the Concept of a “Speedy Trial”?.

Back in 2003 when I wrote Pressing the “Reset” Button, I mentioned the case of Steven Bixby and his father Arthur of Abbeville, SC. The Bixbys admittedly shot and killed two SC peace officers over a dispute about a 20-foot section of property taken for a road-widening project. Steven Bixby is going to trial shortly. Bixby claims the first officer was shot in self-defense. Judging from the scant evidence provided by the newspapers, the second officer cannot be so justified.

Jury selection begins next week, according to an AP news report.

According to the latest report:

The Bixbys left New Hampshire about a decade ago after participating in a group angry with zoning laws and taxes.

And, of course, anybody who dissents over government exercise of power is painted with the same broad brush:

“When I think of the Bixbys, it’s like the arc that anti-government folks take,” said Heidi Beirich, spokeswoman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Alabama-based civil rights watchdog group. “You start not paying your taxes, you start hating the government, you get involved reading publications from patriot groups. So many of them end up committing acts of violence.”

“Patriot groups.” Really. No “scare quotes” either.

As I wrote in “Reset” Button:

Jefferson suggested a small armed rebellion every 20 years or so. We didn’t take his advice. Our last one ended in 1865, and it was so devastating, I think it put us off rebellion entirely too long.

Government isn’t “us” and hasn’t been for a long, long time. It represents the people who run the Democrat and Republican Parties, and those who pay them the most. Government-run education has ensured that the end product coming out of our schools is uniformly ignorant of how the system is supposed to work, and it’s done a damned good job of indoctrinating our children in the “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” philosophy, and the “if it feels good, do it” philosophy. Fifty-plus years of this has produced a very large, very ignorant, very apathetic population.

I think that “pressing the reset button” is going to happen, but all it’s going to get some of us is a tighter collar and a heavier chain.

—

I don’t think you’re going to see a widespread armed uprising. What you’re going to see is individuals and small groups who’ve simply had enough arming and striking – and probably dying in the process. If you’ve read John Ross’s Unintended Consequences you’ll get the idea, but I don’t expect anything like the level of response he writes of. Not enough people are pissed off enough to do that.

Of course the media will spin it as “lone deranged gun-nuts” or “anti-government militias,” but if you pay attention you’ll note an increase in the numbers over time.

In the earlier piece, Steven Bixby reportedly stated: “If we can’t be any freer than that in this country, I’d rather die.” Chances are good he’ll get his wish.