The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
Quote of the Day
From the personal story of a 9/11 “Security Mom” (h/t SailorCurt), Anti Gun Rights to Pro Gun Rights–My conversion:
The tragedy at Virginia Tech was the final straw. I was not going to be a victim anymore. My children were not going to be victims anymore.
I took my first gun safety class, and I got my first concealed carry permit. Some people may be surprized that I have changed. I am surprized that some of them haven’t.
Can I get an “AMEN!”?
Enjoying a Fight
Back in 2005 I wrote Fear: The Philosophy and Politics Thereof. The general topic was the fact that the gun-control philosophy is based on just that – fear. As I said then:
It’s important to understand this: We call ourselves “gun nuts” – embracing the label thrust upon us by the ignorant, anti-gun bigots – but many of them really believe it. We’re “potentially dangerous” because we like guns.
I think that’s something most gun owners don’t really grasp. I know it initially took me a while to get my mind around the idea.
The Brady Campaign linked to several gunbloggers yesterday. (No link, on purpose. You can find it below if you want.) The author was horrified at that famous letter to the editor, but even more horrified that we gunbloggers didn’t “denounce it as morally degenerate and unrepresentative of gun owners at-large”.
And we didn’t.
Our dedicated opposition is made up of people who actually believe there is (or ought to be) a Right to Feel Safe. The fact that there are people around them, armed and willing to use violence scares the crap out of them. As I’ve noted before, they either refuse or are unable to distinguish between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective”. They see only violence, and violence is bad, mmmmkay?
But what really gives them PSH are people who aren’t afraid of fighting. It’s taken me a while, but I swear that half the antipathy the Left has for the modern military must come from the fact that soldiers are trained to fight, and volunteer for the training. When I wrote Fear there had been a Great Outrage at the pronouncement of Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis that:
You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right upfront with you, I like brawling.
One typical response was from Juan Cole:
Just as few priests are pedophiles, few soldiers are sadists. Mattis has brought dishonor on the US Marine Corps with his words. Killing is never appropriately called “fun.” I think he should resign.
As I said then, according to the Left, enjoying the practice of violence is the definition of insane.
Eric S. Raymond posted today on this topic. He’s got some interesting insights. Here’s a taste:
It used to bother me that I like fighting. I had internalized the idea that while combat may sometimes be an ethical necessity, enjoying it is wrong — or at least dubious.
So I half-hid my delight from myself behind a screen of words about seeking self-perfection and focus and meditation in motion. Those words were all true; I do value the quasi-mystical aspects of the fighting arts very much. But the visceral reality underneath them, for me, was the joy of battle.
In 2005 I finally came to understand why I enjoy fighting. And — I know this will sound corny — I’m much more at peace with myself now. I’m writing this explanation because I think I am not alone — I don’t think my confusion and struggle was unique. There may be lessons here for others as well as myself, and even an insight into evolutionary biology.
If that’s not enough of a teaser, you’re not interested in the topic.
Eric is not alone, but I don’t count myself among that group. I don’t like fighting. I haven’t been in a physical altercation since I was probably 12. I have no idea how I would perform in an actual combat situation. I’d like to think I’d be adequate, but I don’t expect more from myself than that. I remember reading W.E.B. Griffin’s series Brotherhood of War. In the first book, The Lieutenants, a soldier is sent to Greece in the immediate post WWII period during America’s initial, stumbling efforts to check the spread of Communism. He is sent as a liaison to the Greek army during their civil war. He was not supposed to be a combatant, but his position comes under major attack, and there are numerous casualties. During WWII he had not been exposed to battle, but in the hills of Greece, he comes under mortar and small-arms fire.
And he shits himself.
Then he picks up his Garand, and goes to war anyway.
That was not the behavior I was expecting from a major character in a war novel, but it rang true.
If the S does HTF, all I can hope for myself is that I do what is right, but I’ll remember what I learned from Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society – about 2% of the population is able to kill without hesitation and without remorse. Half of those are clinically insane. But the other half are perfectly sane, and they’re the ones who lead in battle. I suspect Eric is one of that 1%. But the rest of us can do violence, if it’s necessary.
What decides that is the philosophy (or lack thereof) you live by.
In Britain He’d be in Trouble
Self-defense is all about attitude.
Stealing blatantly from the Ass. Press again, comes this story out of Charlotte, N.C.:
Charlotte teen foils burglary with pocketknife
Fourteen-year-old Dante Gardin first hid in his closet from the burglars who broke into his Charlotte home.
But when one of them kicked in his locked bedroom door Saturday morning, Gardin told The Charlotte Observer, he decided to act.
Gardin said he cut the man on the stomach with a pocketknife he grabbed before he hid and the man dropped his gun.
The teen said when he grabbed the gun, the thieves left without taking anything.
Gardin said he called police, but officers could not find the green van he saw driving away.
No 14 year-old needs a pocketknife! He should’ve curled into a ball and begged them not to hurt him!
Nah, screw that. Good for him. Too bad he didn’t have a 12 gauge. I wonder if the police will be able to find anything when they run a trace on the gun dropped at the scene. Maybe they’ll get lucky and the perp will go to an emergency room to get his gut sewed up.
Oh, wait, of course they won’t. The eeeeeevil NRA prevents them from running traces… What? You mean they don’t?
Quote of the Day
More from the place where Great Britain used to be:
Steve Kink apprehended a thug after catching him breaking into a mobile phone shop late at night. Although the 47-year-old was punched in the face, he managed to pin the offender to the floor. Passers-by called the police while he stood over him until officers arrested the 25-year-old man.
Mr Kink, who owns a tattoo parlour, was stunned when he found out the next day the suspect had been let off with a caution for criminal damage. But his shock turned to fury when days later police officers turned up at his house to arrest him for assaulting the thug. He was taken to his local police station and held in a cell for six hours before being interviewed.
He was then charged with assault and battery and is due to appear before magistrates next week.
That’s not the Quote of the Day. It’s a lead-in.
Here’s the Quote of the Day:
I’m an alumna of Pepperdine University, a school which proudly owns a house/campus on Exhibition Road, literally across the street from the Imperial University, in the middle of South Kensington, right near Harrods, Hyde Park, the Albert Hall. Within two days of arriving for our first semester in London, our relatively small [American] class (37 students, 10 men, 27 women) was visited by a local police officer to instruct us on living in London. Her first question was to the women, ‘How many of you brought mace?’ Three girls raised their hands. She told us we couldn’t use it, shouldn’t even carry it, it was illegal.
Had any of us brought any other type of weapon, such as a knife? Several of the men in our group indicated that they carried pocket knives. She told us to leave them at home too.
Then she instructed us on how to properly be a victim. If we were attacked, we were to assume a defensive posture, such as raising our hands to block an attack. The reason was (and she spelled it out in no uncertain terms) that if a witness saw the incident and we were to attempt to defend ourselves by fighting back, the witness would be unable to tell who the agressor was. However, if we rolled up in a ball, it would be quite clear who the victim was.
The feeling I got was, in London, it is not permissable(sic) to defend oneself. I also understood that this police officer thought Americans were more likely to be agressive(sic) and/or cause more damage to a potential attacker. She was warning us for our own good. I have to admit, she did not make me feel particularly safe.
(My emphasis.) Mr. Kink’s arrest reminds me of the story of 64 year-old Diane Bond from 2006 where something very similar happened to her. She was precisely correct when she said:
This sends out the message that if you stand up for yourself, if you try to take action to stop anti-social behaviour, you are likely to end up being arrested.
There’s a few more like Ms. Bond listed in this post.
UPDATE 7/8: Rachel has another example.
Do it Again, Only HARDER
Sebastian has a very interesting British Public Service advertisement on his blog. His reaction:
You’d almost think the laws were ineffective, and only resulted in criminals having guns. Nah! Can’t be. That’s crazy talk!
Or, as Uncle puts it, “That’s unpossible!”
Here are two screenshots from near the end of the piece that say it all, now eleven years after the UK banned all handguns:
They admit that banning legally-owned firearms has failed. But the philosophy cannot be wrong!
The answer? DISARM BRITAIN!
Wait… I thought the handgun ban was supposed to do that…?
I left this comment at this blog post there. I doubt seriously it will make it through moderation:
OF COURSE “these laws don’t seem to matter.”
Are any of you familiar with the concept of “cognitive dissonance”? Here’s an excellent definition:
“When someone tries to use a strategy which is dictated by their ideology, and that strategy doesn’t seem to work, then they are caught in something of a cognitive bind. If they acknowledge the failure of the strategy, then they would be forced to question their ideology. If questioning the ideology is unthinkable, then the only possible conclusion is that the strategy failed because it wasn’t executed sufficiently well. They respond by turning up the power, rather than by considering alternatives. (This is sometimes referred to as ‘escalation of failure’.)”
You’ve TRIED “disarming Britain,” and you’ve FAILED. Al you’ve done is disarm your victims and made them fearful of the consequences of defending themselves. Your ideology says “Violence is bad. Weapons are at fault. Remove the weapons and the violence will go away.” The ideology is FLAWED. But you’ve tried to follow the logic of the ideology, and it has failed. Since the ideology cannot be wrong, you keep turning up the power, and escalating the failure.
What you’ve lost is the understanding that there is a difference between “violent and predatory” and “violent but defensive.” Instead, you see only “violent.”
Human predators exist. A brick, a pipe, a chisel, a bottle – broken or not – can be a weapon in the hands of someone willing to use it. Knowing that their prey will be defenseless merely encourages them. How many of you avoid even looking at a hoodie-wearing chav on a bus or riding the tube, afraid that they might find an interest in YOU?
If any of you still have an open mind on the subject, read this. All three parts.
No wonder Brits are emigrating en mass.
UPDATE: Needless to say, my comment wasn’t approved. So I sent the blog authors, Natalie Harrison and Kyle MacRae an email directing them to this post and asking them “why not?”
Nat, Kyle:
I visited your website, “Disarming Britain” yesterday and read several of the posts after one of your adverts was posted to a web site I frequent. I left a comment on the post in question, “Knives and the Law” which was held for moderation.
It appears it didn’t pass muster.
I posted my entire comment, with a link to your site, at my own blog. I was wondering if you could tell me just what was it about my comment that got it rejected?
Thank you for your attention.
Kevin
Further updates as events warrant.
23 Is Old Enough
Old enough to own a firearm. Old enough to get a CCW permit. But not in Manhattan. And not if you attend Columbia University. No, in that case you have no option but to rely on the State for your protection.
And the State failed a 23 year old woman, a student at Columbia and resident of Manhattan. And, like Linda Riss, she has no legal recourse against the state for that failure to protect.
Bad things happen to good people, but read what she had to endure:
Over many torturous hours, she had been repeatedly raped, sodomized and forced to perform oral sex, a prosecutor told a jury on Thursday. The accused, Robert A. Williams, 31, had doused the woman’s face and body with boiling water and bleach, forced her to swallow handfuls of pills and to chase them with beer, sealed her mouth with glue, and bound her wrists and legs with shoelaces, cords and duct tape, said the prosecutor, Ann P. Prunty. And now, Ms. Prunty said, he was asking the woman to gouge out her own eyes with a pair of scissors.
And so the woman, sitting on the floor of her studio apartment in Hamilton Heights and holding a pair of scissors between her knees — the blade pointing toward her face — tried to stop the suffering. She lowered her face to the blade, but turned her head at the last moment, trying to stab herself in the neck instead of her eyes.
The scissors slipped from her grasp, the suicide attempt failed, and the woman suffered several more hours of torture, Ms. Prunty said.
But wait, there’s more.
The woman survived the nearly 19-hour ordeal, which ended, Ms. Prunty said, when she used a fire started by Mr. Williams to burn the cords that secured her wrists to a futon.
Mr. Williams went on trial Thursday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, where he faces 71 criminal counts, including attempted murder, rape, arson and assault. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Could but probably won’t. Here’s his previous rap sheet:
Mr. Williams, who was homeless at the time of his arrest about a week later at the scene of a burglary in Queens, has a lengthy police record dating to his childhood, the authorities have said.
He was charged in a murder as a juvenile, though the outcome of that case is sealed, a law enforcement official said, and he spent eight years in prison for an attempted-murder conviction in 1996.
Why was this guy even on the street?
Here’s how he got her:
On the night of the attack, the victim, a month from graduating with a master’s degree, was at Columbia, putting the final touches on her résumé for a job fair the next day, Ms. Prunty said. When she arrived at her apartment building, she got on the elevator and found Mr. Williams inside, Ms. Prunty said. She rode with him to her floor, and could hear him follow her as she navigated the long L-shaped hallway to her apartment.
As the woman entered her apartment, Ms. Prunty said, Mr. Williams asked her if she knew where a Mrs. Evans lived. The woman stopped to answer.
“Her kind moment of hesitation would cost her,” Ms. Prunty said.
Mr. Williams forced his way into the apartment, Ms. Prunty said, put the woman in a chokehold, and slapped her cellphone from her hand. Mr. Williams slammed the door behind him, and “her Friday the 13th nightmare began,” Ms. Prunty said.
The anti-gun people tell victims to “give their attacker what they want.” He wanted her body. He wanted her to gouge out her own eyes. Instead, she attempted to end her own life.
How can anyone believe that it is morally superior to submit to a rapist rather than carry a gun and have at least the chance to shoot the bastard?
This could be you, your sister, daughter, wife, mother. Please, take a “Refuse to be a Victim” course. Learn how to spot the danger signs. Learn how to protect yourself, even if you are unable to be armed. Don’t let anything like this happen to you, or someone you love. No one should have to endure this. No one should have to deal with its consequences.
Maybe We Should Unconditionally Withdraw From Cleveland
This story saddens and angers me:
Home from Iraq, wary Marine fatally wounded
Sun Jun 1, 9:44 PM EDT
CLEVELAND — On leave from the violence he had survived in the war in Iraq, a young Marine was so wary of crime on the streets of his own home town that he carried only $8 to avoid becoming a robbery target.
Despite his caution, Lance Cpl. Robert Crutchfield, 21, was shot point-blank in the neck during a robbery at a bus stop. Feeding and breathing tubes kept him alive 4 1/2 months, until he died of an infection on May 18.
Two men have been charged in the attack, and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason said Friday the case was under review to decide whether to seek the death penalty.
“It is an awful story,” said Alberta Holt, the young Marine’s aunt and his legal guardian when he was a teenager determined to flee a troubled Cleveland school for safer surroundings in the suburbs.
Crutchfield was attacked on Jan. 5 while he and his girlfriend were waiting for a bus. He had heeded the warnings of commanders that a Marine on leave might be seen as a prime robbery target with a pocketful of money, so he only carried $8, his military ID card and a bank card.
“They took it, turned his pockets inside out, took what he had and told him since he was a Marine and didn’t have any money he didn’t deserve to live. They put the gun to his neck and shot him,” Holt told The Associated Press.
The two men charged in the attack were identified as Ean Farrow, 19, and Thomas Ray III, 20, both of Cleveland. Their attorneys did not respond to The Associated Press’ requests for comment.
Read the whole thing. It only gets sadder.
Back when I wrote “(I)t’s most important that all potential victims be as dangerous as they can”, I quoted a piece from Grim’s Hall on Social Harmony:
Very nearly all the violence that plagues, rather than protects, society is the work of young males between the ages of fourteen and thirty. A substantial amount of the violence that protects rather than plagues society is performed by other members of the same group. The reasons for this predisposition are generally rooted in biology, which is to say that they are not going anywhere, in spite of the current fashion that suggests doping half the young with Ritalin.
The question is how to move these young men from the first group (violent and predatory) into the second (violent, but protective). This is to ask: what is the difference between a street gang and the Marine Corps, or a thug and a policeman? In every case, we see that the good youths are guided and disciplined by old men. This is half the answer to the problem.
Lance Cpl. Crutchfield was 21. His assailants were 19 and 20. What do you want to bet that LCpl Crutchfield had a strong male mentor growing up, and that Ean Farrow and Thomas Ray III’s fathers were absent or (more likely) in prison for the overwhelming majority of their lives?
I wish that LCpl Crutchfield had been able to disarm and disable his attackers, but that didn’t happen. I’m sure he also “heeded the warnings of commanders” not to carry a weapon, too.
My suggestion: After the trial, just give the two murderers to the Marines at the nearest Naval base. I’m sure they can do something appropriate.
Maybe bayonet practice.
More from the Petri Dish…
…that resides where Great Britain used to be. Via The Policeman’s Blog comes this cheerful bit of news:
Firefighters attacked at least 40 times a week
By Norman D. Landings ⋅ February 11, 2008
News to me.
Firefighters are being attacked at least 40 times every week, according to shocking new figures published today.
Crews have been pelted with bricks, bottles, burning wood and stones as they try to save lives.
In some cases they have been called to hoax incidents and ambushed, according to the Easy Targets? report, commissioned by the Fire Brigades Union.
In one incident, an entire crew was taken to hospital after a gang armed with sticks and scaffolding poles attacked them.
Unbelievable. Read the Fire Brigades Union web page on this topic.
But here are the key graphs from the story:
The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, are four times the number of attacks recorded by the Government and rose by 15 per cent to 1,500 last year in England and Wales. The total for the UK was 2,100 attacks.
In contrast, official statistics claim assaults fell by 68 per cent to just 400 in 2006/07.
Yet we’re supposed to believe that the British government reports on violent and gun-involved crime are accurate?
Go ahead. Pull my other leg.
The highest number of attacks was reported in the North-West of England.
Kevin Brown, from the regional FBU, said sometimes youths started fires just so they could target firefighters.
He added: “It tends to be in areas of social deprivation and poor housing, with gangs of youths fuelled by alcohol and drugs. They see the fire service as a target.”
In Tyne and Wear, crews have even been given ‘spit kits’ so DNA can be collected from those abusing or spitting at them.
I’ve covered “spit kits” before. As far as I’m concerned, they ought to be given “broken tooth” kits, so they can pick up the fragments of the teeth they knock out of the people who spit on them for proper forensic matching.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Local Government and Communities said they had not studied the report fully but would be happy to hold talks on tackling the problem.
She added: “This is an important issue and one the Government takes very seriously. It is unacceptable that firefighters should have to face such behaviour.”
Yes, I’m sure talking will help.
Firefighters called for more protection following the publishing of the report.
FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said it is almost “beyond belief” that firemen and women can be attacked so viciously while fighting fires and trying to save lives.
“In some areas, attacking fire crews has become a recreational activity with very serious consequences. It cannot be part of anyone’s job to face abuse, threats or attacks.
“The Government needs to take a lead rather than sitting on the sidelines ignoring the problem as it is doing in England. It is a different story in Scotland, Northern Ireland and increasingly in Wales where politicians are playing a more direct and active role.”
Talking isn’t “taking the lead”?
Research by the FBU showed that last October alone there were a series of attacks against crews across England, including:
• A hoaxer luring firefighters to a “car fire” in Cheshire before attacking them with bricks.
•A petrol bomb thrown at a fire appliance in Merseyside as firemen tackled a rubbish blaze.
•A gas cylinder exploded after being planted inside a wheelie bin and set ablaze in Cleveland.
In Lothian and Borders, incidents have included attacks with hammers, bricks, knives, lumps of concrete and coins while one crew reported that a breeze block was thrown off a bridge onto a fire engine.
Firefighters have ended up in hospital as a result of some of the attacks, which have led to delays of hours in attending emergency calls.
A spokesman for the Communities and Local Government Department said the Government believed the safety of firefighters was an important issue and it was “unacceptable” that crews should have to face attacks.
Legislation had been brought in last year to help the fire service take action against people who assaulted firefighters.
The spokesman said the department had not had a chance to consider the union’s report but would be happy to discuss the next steps with the FBU.
No wonder Brits are abandoning their country at the rate of 400,000 a year, while at the same time non-Europeans are streaming in.
When the Geek with a .45 decided to leave New Jersey for Pennsylvania, he wrote:
All I can say is, if you remember and cherish Liberty, and you live in a place like New Jersey, it’s high time to get the hell out of Dodge.
JOIN ME.
We’re Not Out of The Woods Yet…
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.
(His emphasis.) The fact that people are abandoning their home country over shit like this ought to frighten the almighty piss out of the ones they’re leaving behind.
UPDATE: In comments, Kim du Toit councils, “Let ’em sink.”
Damn, that’s harsh.
Quote of the Day.
How much training do you think you need to determine that the thug/s standing there demanding your wallet, car keys, or vagina is not there to hold hands, eat a bowl of granola and sing Kumbyah with you?
– Gunscribe at From the Heartland, “Editorial Staff Lack Education” on why private citizens don’t need the “incredible amount of firearms training” that police receive.
RTWT if you haven’t already.
And it’s been my experience that private citizens interested in firearms “train” a lot more than most police officers do, at least at the “hitting the target” part.
“The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous.”
That quote is from Grim’s Hall, in his piece Social Harmony, quoted here before in the first part of my Dangerous Victims trilogy.
Someone learned that lesson last Wednesday. (h/t: Instapundit)
Police: Teen makes mistake of trying to rob former U.S. Marine
SANTA ROSA – A boy in his mid-teens learned Wednesday afternoon that it is not a good idea to try to rob a former U.S. Marine at knifepoint, even if the former Marine is 84 years old, police said today.
Santa Rosa police Sgt. Steve Bair said that’s what happened around 2 p.m. in the 1600 block of Fourth Street. The elderly man was walking with a grocery bag in each arm when the boy approached him with a large knife, Bair said.
The boy said, “Old man, give me your wallet or I’ll cut you,” Bair said. The man told the boy he was a former Marine who fought in three wars and had been threatened with knives and bayonets, Bair said.
The man then put his bags on the ground and told the boy that if he stepped closer he would be sorry. When the boy stepped closer, the man kicked him in the groin, knocking him to the sidewalk, Bair said. The ex-Marine picked up his grocery bags and walked home, leaving the boy doubled over, Bair said.
The man reported the attempted robbery to police 45 minutes later.
Bair said the teen is described only as 15 or 16 years old. Anyone with information is asked to call the Police Department.
Ah, I love a happy ending!