Category: Government

Being Delusional

?This is going to be implemented in January, and there won’t be any bumps in the road,? said Assemblyman Mike Feuer, a Los Angeles Democrat who carried the legislation for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
?I remain confident,? Feuer continued, ?that it is in fact going to become not only the law in other states, but the law of the land.?

-Mike Feuer, in this article about microstamping in California.
The only other political entity to implement a microstamping law is the District of Columbia, which is about as anti-gun as it gets. I seriously doubt that such a law would ever be enacted in, say, Arizona. Mr. Feuer is clearly off his rocker if he thinks that the technology will (a) work, and (b) ever catch on outside of such bastions of gun control. Even then, the legal hurdles to implementing the technology will be great, few manufacturers will comply, everyone in saner regions of the country will laugh at them, and criminals will remain completely unaffected by such legislation.
The article continues with a rather telling quote:

Many firearms companies are struggling to comply with California’s 2006 mandate that all new handgun models include a loaded chamber indicator and a mechanism that prevents firing when a magazine is removed.
In the more than three years since, just one new semiautomatic model has been approved by the state. Two others are pending, Gasparac [the attorney general’s press secretary] said.
Sturm, Ruger & Co. Inc. is the only gun maker to date that has overcome that hurdle. The company’s general counsel said he has ?grave concerns? about whether microstamping is feasible.
?The problem I have with this is it can’t be done,? said Kevin Reid, Ruger’s general counsel. ?The legislation says it has to work 100 percent of the time and there is nobody, nobody including Todd Lizotte [inventor of the microstamping technology] himself, who would say it will always work.?

I’m pretty sure the Ruger MkIII .22LR pistol is the gun they’re referring to. Even so, it’s not as nice as the MkII. Granted, I have a MkIII because it was available at the shop here in Tucson when I was craving a .22 pistol, but I removed the magazine disconnect (I refuse to call it a “safety”) and have considered removing the loaded chamber indicator.
Having a California-specific line of handguns is going to be rather expensive for manufacturers, and I seriously doubt that any of the major manufacturers will bother complying with the law. Sucks to be Californians, but such is the way of things until they go to court.
The article concludes with this:

For Feuer, the time has come to move past the debate and implement the law.
?The bottom line is this technology is going to help put criminals behind bars,? he said. ?We should do it.?

No, Mr. Feuer, it won’t. Criminals are not going to buy their guns from retail stores, register them with the state, and then use them in a crime where they can be trivially traced back to them. Rather, criminals will continue to acquire their firearms illegally, be it from theft, straw purchasing, inter-state smuggling, international smuggling, or any of the other numerous sources they get them from.
There are hundreds of millions of handguns not equipped with microstamping features. If there’s a demand for non-microstamped guns in California, someone (quite possibly a criminal enterprise) will fill it.
Rather than passing silly laws that have no real effect on criminals but infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens, why don’t they simply enforce the already existing laws that they don’t presently prosecute criminals with?

Fisking the Daily Star

The Arizona Daily Star published an article in their Sunday Edition that stood out to me when I was grocery shopping today: it had a large, above-the-fold headline entitled, “US makes it easy for gun traffickers.”
While their article is long and makes a weak attempt at appearing balanced, it has some absurdities that I really must point out. I’ve made a few statements in my response that are likely to be common knowledge to gunny folks, though I’d appreciate it if readers could point out where I might find good sources for such statements so I can cite them properly.
Also, I wrote this post rather late at night, so I’m likely to have a few spelling or grammar mistakes. Mea cupla. Continue reading “Fisking the Daily Star”

On Iran

Friend: “Based on news reports, one would think that Iran is about to explode. However, it seems as though they go through this every election cycle.”
Me: “I know nothing about Iranian politics, but I’m just happy that the most recent city-engulfing riot in the US that I can recall is when the Red Sox won the World Series.”

That said, if there’s any bloggers, journalists, or other such folks in Iran who need a private, secure tunnel out to the public internet, I’m willing to provide an SSH tunnel and/or a SSL web-based proxy. Free speech and all that. Simply contact me by email for details; if privacy is a concern, my PGP key is also available on the contact information page. If you are unable to send email to that address, leave a comment and we can arrange alternate communications.

Perspective

I’ve recently been reading The Huffington Post ((Why? Maybe my blood pressure was too low. I dunno.)) and find it amusing how people on both sides of the political aisle view politicians on “their side” and “the other side” in much the same way.
Many of the commenters seem to believe that, on the topic of health care reform ((“The government will pay for everything.” without mentioning where the money will come from.)), the current Democrats in office are “Republicans lite.”
From my discussions with Republicans, many people believe that on many issues, Republican politicians are “Democrats lite.”
I’ve seen and heard any number of uncivil words written and spoken by members of both major parties directed against members of their opposition.
While people may disagree, sometimes vehemently, on various policy decisions, I think people need to find a bit of perspective: in the end, we’re all citizens of this great nation, and we all want what’s best for it. The Founding Fathers disagreed on many things, but they were able to work out their differences as best they could. Is it too much to ask that today’s citizenry do the same?

Government Websites

$DEITY, I forgot how much I hate dealing with the government. They’re inefficient, bloated, and complicated.
I’m applying for academic benefits from the VA, and have to deal with all their normal government suckiness, but even worse, their web design skills suck and they use overloaded, slow Microsoft servers.
The only thing worse than government paperwork is government websites in lieu of paperwork.

First Principles

Over the years, I’ve met several people who opposed the right to keep and bear arms. In some cases, these meetings resulted in discussion and debates on US firearm law and policy.
For the first year or two that I had these discussions, I found it very difficult to understand the other person’s position, and they had difficulty understanding mine. Eventually, I discovered why: we each held fundamentally different first principles.
For example, I hold the belief that the default state of rights is “on” — if someone wishes to create a new law or restriction, the onus is on them to justify their restriction. I’m consistent in the application of this belief: all rights default to “on,” whether they’re the right to speak freely, possess and use arms, maintain one’s privacy, have sex with any other consenting adult, end one’s life, ingest or otherwise consume intoxicating substances (( With the caveat that some substances may require a doctor’s perscription, as they might have harmful side-effects if not taken in a particular manner. )), operate a vehicle, and so on so long as one exercises those rights in a manner that is safe, does not infringe on the rights of others, and takes responsibility for any effects of their actions.
Some people I know hold an opposite belief: that the default state of rights is (or should) be “off,” and that unless a specific thing or behavior is allowed, it is forbidden.
Some people straddle the line in that they believe that certian rights default to “off” and others default to “on” — a person may have a right to speak freely, but needs to justify their desire to possess arms. Perhaps they think that a person may have a right to own arms, but simultaneously think that one may not have consensual sex with another adult that does not fit with their personal beliefs. Another common one is that that one may own arms, but has no right to privacy.
When it comes to guns in particular, some believe that guns serve no useful purpose, and so one must demonstrate a “need” (such as being a member of the police or military) prior to being allowed to own one, while I believe that guns are useful, and one must demonstrate a “need” to justify a restriction on their ownership.
Once I discovered this fundamental difference in first principles, I realized why I was having so much difficulty understanding and being understood: discussions and debates are impossible if the participants do not agree upon a common set of first principles.
As such, I’ve stopped figuratively bashing my head against a brick wall when it comes to debating gun-specific issues, but instead focus on the two of us agreeing on compatible first principles, if possible.

Obama in Mexico

The Arizona Republic published an article discussing the various details of Obama’s recent trip to Mexico. While it covered a wide range of details, I was mostly concerned with the gun-related issues. I’ve taken some excerpts and made some comments below:

President Barack Obama, outlining plans to help Mexico combat drug violence, promised Thursday to resurrect a treaty against arms trafficking that has been stuck in Congress for 12 years, but rebuffed Mexico’s demands to curb sales of assault weapons that Mexico is demanding.

While I’m glad that he doesn’t seem inclined to promote an assault weapons scary-looking-gun ban, the fact that Mexico is “demanding” changes to American laws, particularly fundamental ones like the right to arms, is troubling.

Obama showed little appetite for reviving the 1994-2004 Assault Weapons Ban. During a joint press conference in Mexico City, Mexican President Felipe Calder?n blamed the end of the ban for the increasing firepower wielded by drug cartels.

Well, then Calder?n is an idiot. The now-expired AWB didn’t have any effect on the availability of certain scary-looking guns. Ban-compliant AR-15s and AK variants, for example, were easily found during the decade it was in effect, and are functionally identical to guns that were banned. Guns affected by the ban were simply semi-auto lookalikes of their select-fire military brethren, and are now the most common sporting arms in the country. They are used by no military in the world. The guns used in violent crimes in Mexico are almost certainly the select-fire variants which are effectively unavailable to US citizens, and not available in US gun shops.

Obama said he still believes the assault weapons ban ?made sense,? but that he wants to concentrate on measures against gun smuggling, not gun sales themselves. Many Congress members, including Democrats, have vowed to fiercely oppose any revival of the ban.

If Obama believes the AWB “made sense,” then he’s a fool. It was about as effective as banning red cars (but not banning non-red versions of the same car), because red cars are obviously go faster and are more dangerous than every other car. Anyway, good on Congress for vowing to oppose any such ban.

The ban prohibited sales of semi-automatic weapons with certain combinations of military-style features, such as folding stocks, large magazines and flash suppressors. Opponents of the ban say the weapons actually fire smaller bullets than some other rifles, and that it is unconstitutional to ban a gun simply because of how it looks.

I’m not sure about the constitutionality of a ban(( My gut instinct says a ban would be unconstitutional, but I’m not a lawyer and Constitutional law can get rather muddied and complex. )), but simply having “smaller bullets” doesn’t make a gun any less dangerous than any other. 7.62mm NATO is certainly more lethal than, say, .32 ACP, but the .32 has a slightly larger bullet.
It’s nice to see a media outlet describe, with reasonable accuracy, the gist of the AWB, rather than claiming it banned machine guns or other such stuff.

On Actually Doing Things

It’s April, which means it’s tax time. While I completed my taxes last month, this reminds me of when I was doing taxes last year: I had a week off, so I figured I’d get my taxes done early, and my sister asked if I wouldn’t mind doing hers, as she was particularly busy. Of course, I said yes.
While going through her paperwork, I noticed that she had made a charitable donation to the “Genocide Intervention Network” — some sort of “Save Darfur”-type group. Everyone is interested in stopping violence and genocide, right? Sounds like a good organization.
At the time, I did some digging, and it turns out that all the organization does is collect money which it uses to “educate people about genocide” and “lobby Congress to do something about genocide” (I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it). Nothing about actually protecting innocents from violence, nothing about providing aid to those in refugee camps, etc. Just money for lobbying.
While I suppose there’s some benefit to that, I can’t really see it. I’d much rather give my money to an organization that actually does things, such as the Red Cross:

So far this year, the ICRC has delivered food aid to an average of 177,000 people per month, delivered more than 19,000 Red Cross messages between those separated by the conflict, and reunited 36 families.
[…]
The Federation [of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies] continues to manage two refugee camps in Eastern Chad for 45,000 people, with a focus on health services, provision of food and essential household items, and water and sanitation programs.

The fact that the Red Cross also helps a huge amount of people through their blood banks, services to members of the military and their families, POWs, disaster relief, first aid/CPR training, and various international programs is also nice.
While the Red Cross, like any organization, may have made mistakes or received well-deserved criticism over the years, they do good work and help lots of people. Certainly more so than some lobbying group.

Rocket Fail

According to the BBC, the recent rocket launched by the North Koreans failed to achive orbit. The BBC quotes the US military thusly:

In a statement on its website, the US Northern Command said North Korea launched a three-stage Taepodong-2 missile at 0230 GMT.
“Stage one of the missile fell into the Sea of Japan/East Sea. The remaining stages along with the payload itself landed in the Pacific Ocean.
“No object entered orbit and no debris fell on Japan.”

Heavens Above, a orbital object tracking database, confirms the failure.
Perhaps someone should inform the North Koreans?
Rocket science is some pretty demanding stuff. New rockets require a lot of careful design and testing, and failures are commonplace. That’s why you actually do the testing prior to launching valuable payloads. Even so, failures still occur, which is why launch insurance is a good idea.
It seems incredibly unlikely that the North Koreans would be able to independently develop a rocket and successfully put a satellite into orbit on their very first attempt. Not even the US or the former Soviet Union were able to do that without extensive testing, large numbers of rocket scientists, a lot of ICBMs, and huge amounts of funding.
Of course, the Korean state-run media would never admit such a failure. That’s one of the things I love about living in a free country: our failures, in addition to our successes, are widely reported and known (who doesn’t know about the Challenger or Columbia accidents?). We never claim to be perfect, and such failures are experiences that we learn from.
Maybe the North Koreans should prioritize their people’s basic needs (food, water, etc.) rather than wasting resources on space and nuclear programs, not to mention their massive military? It seems like they’ve got their priorities all wrong.