Snowflakes in Hell

The first night we were in Texas, after a heavy rain the night before, we tried to make a fire. Turns our mesquite doesn’t burn too well when it’s wet and so is everything around it. This video is pure blackness, which I found amusing for some reason. At least we didn’t get the part on film where Carrie was questioning my manhood for not being able to get a fire going ;) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6179279145523913679
Bitter is taking the video and is the loudest voice on the movie. The male voice is obviously me. The Texas accented female voice is Carrie’s mom. The non-southern accent voice is Carrie. The end of result of a cup of diesel fuel:

Once the diesel burnt off, nothing. But fortunately, I managed to redeem my manhood in the eyes of the ladies present the following night when got the fire going finally. Things just needed another day to dry out:

It was a nice fire. And that night, you could see every star in the sky, and the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy. Priceless. You just don’t see things like that near a city.

[UPDATE: It should be noted that we have been deceived by Congressman Murphy in the intervening years, as he signed onto the semi-automatic ban I wrote to him in reference to below.  See Congressman Murphy's Anti-Gun record here.]

I had been wondering what my new Congress Critter’s stance on the gun issue was. I had planned to write about HR 1022 shortly, but hadn’t completed my thoughts yet. I was quite pleased when perusing the Pennsylvania Firearms Owners Association to find a copy of a letter received from Congressman Patrick Murphy on the same subject. I’ll post the good bit:

Thank you for contacting me in support of maintaining the rights of gun owners. As you probably know, I personally hold a concealed-carry permit and I am a strong supporter of upholding the 2nd amendment. You can rest assured that when legislation involving gun-owner rights comes up before Congress, I will keep your thoughts in mind.

A Democratic Congressman who admits he holds a PA LTC? Congressman Murphy has overcome a big hurdle toward getting my vote. If the Republicans run a bonehead, as they are wont to do, there’s a strong likelihood I’ll be in his court come election day.

A commenter mentions:

As someone who used to shoot before anything apart from a .22 was banned in my country, I can feel a great deal of sympathy for those whose rights are under attack.

But seriously, a guy spends 30 years making drunken assholes with high capacity firearms running around the woods look legitimate, then suggests that carrying an AK47 around might be resonant with events on TV and you all turn on him.

Seriously, anyone watching this little farce who isn’t attached to Mr Heston’s baby cannon gets a pretty ugly picture of the NRA and shooters of the US. There’s a reason why, when someone wants to depict an incompetent and reckless hunter, it’s always some American in a Davy Crockett hat.

You have a very warped understanding of the American shooting community if you think that’s what hunting in America is all about.  Hunting accidents in the US are exceedingly rare, despite the fact that the sports has tens of millions of participants.  Same goes for sport shooting.  There is nothing irresponsible about hunting with a semi-automatic firearm (no one hunts with a machine gun, an none of us would advocate that) provided the caliber is appropriate for the game.  The rifles Zumbo was talking about are military patterned, but they are semi-automatic, and not capable of automatic or burst fire.

And maybe the reason that everything apart from a .22 was banned in your country is because shooters there didn’t take their gun rights seriously enough.  Ever stop to think about that?

I think Gun Law News just got us all some good press from Fox News:

“The amazing thing about Zumbo was, he posted it on Friday night and by Monday there was a mushroom cloud,” said Jeff, a gun-rights advocate who runs GunLawNews.org and did not want to be identified by his full name. “I think it teaches a lesson to those who are listening that the power of the Net should not be underestimated.”

He’s not happy about the segments used, but I think overall this isn’t bad press. I don’t, however, really appreciate how NRA vs. Bloggers was played up though:

While Cox said the NRA is able to “update our members in real time” on legislative alerts and other perceived threats to their cause, some bloggers say their online network has allowed them to report stories even faster.

“Blogs covering gun rights provide the same immediacy of coverage and action as others do that cover more general politics,” said Soyer. “Blogs are on the story as it happens.”

Miller suggests that blogs have evolved to the point that they can go around the NRA hierarchy to communicate with millions of people on their own.

“I think bloggers have diluted the power of the NRA,” said Miller. “If I find an atrocity done by my elected official in my state, I don’t have to contact the NRA and tell them to get on it. It can be passed along where it does not have to go through the bottleneck, where the NRA puts its own spin on it.”

Cox said, however, that the NRA is at the heart of the grassroots effort. “Both our friends and enemies agree that when it comes to making a difference, when it comes to grassroots activism, no one does it better than the NRA.”

Bloggers are important, and we’re definitely not the NRA lapdogs the press and Brady Campaign would make us out to be (as my position on the workplace carry bills should convince anyone), but we’re all essentially on the same side, and we both need each other.

Joseph of Geek vs. World, has a post about a bill that’s recently been introduced in Oregon that would require you to turn over your “papers” (vere are your papers?) to a government mandated “range master”, including what guns you were shooting. You might even have to keep a government agent present to shoot on your own property. Needless to say this is bad with a capital B. The fact that this was listed as introduced by the committee itself is not very good news.

Oregon is becoming a state we might have to start fighting for, so it’s important to keep an eye on this bill. Even if it fails in Oregon, this tactic might get tried in other states as well, all in the name of safety. It’s for our own good, you know.

Readers have made some really thoughtful and persuasive comments on my last post about the Texas bill that would force employers to allow employees to keep guns in their vehicles on company property. Persuasive to me because I do agree that it’s absolutely silly for a workplace to have a policy on guns with an aim to prevent workplace violence, but I’m afraid I still have to come out against these laws.

I think there’s a distinction to between discrimination because of someone’s race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion, which people largely are born as and have little control over, and discrimination based on specific behavior, even if that behavior is generally protected from interference by government.

It’s true that employers are preventing employees from exercising a right, but employers are generally free to do this. Employers may dictate how you dress, what time you come to work, what you may or may not say on behalf of the company, what you can or can’t say in the workplace or to customers. They may do things like forbidding you from talking about your political views with clients. They may prevent you from handing out religious leaflets, running prayer groups during business hours, etc. You could be fired for saying something negative about the CEO. These things are all ingfringing on some fundamental rights that, if we were talking governmental action, would be prohibited by the constitution.

But we’ve generally accepted that, with a few exceptions for race, gender, age, and a few other types of discrimination, that employee employer relationship are private relationships governed by rules and standards of behavior agreed to by both parties for their mutual benefit, and both parties are allowed to terminate that agreement when the benefit is no longer mutual. I accept the government meddling in this agreement, even for the case of racial discrimination, very reluctantly, and I am not inclined to accept more government interference in private relationships, especially one that comes down to a matter of behavior, and not characteristics that people are born with. I am a strong believer in the “employment at will” doctrine, where either party can terminate employment when they no longer find it beneficial.

As a believer in liberty, free from undue interference from government in private affairs, I can’t accept much in the way of restrictions placed on private relationships between employers and employees. If we can force employers to accept guns on their property, we can force them to accept speech that the company does not wish to accept, or force them to accommodate religious preferences, like cab drivers refusing to pick up fares with alcohol, or cashiers refusing to ring up pork products. I am very reluctant to accept more government interference into private relationships, even if it would benefit me personally.

I am not saying this lightly. I can assure you that no employer will ever search my car or my person. My car is my property, and I will never offer my consent for an employer to have access to it. I absolutely accept this might get me fired. It’s my right to refuse this. If my employer damages my property, he is liable. If he interferes with my person, he is liable. I have a right to refuse my employer interfering with my person or property, but he absolutely has a right to discontinue the relationship for my violation of that private covenant.

There are many things about employment I don’t like. I wish I could say whatever I want without consequence, wear my “Peace Through Superior Firepower” t-shirt in meetings with clients. I wish everyone I knew at work would be comfortable with me carrying a firearm on me, and talking about what my favorite carry guns are. But that’s not the case, and I accept I could be fired for both activities.

I don’t think government can help us out much in our private relationships with others. In that realm we’re stuck with using persuasion, and trying to educate people that gun owners, and people who lawfully carry guns for self-defense, aren’t irresponsible and dangerous whack jobs who are going to instigate workplace violence incidents. But bringing more government into the situation just opens the door to a lot of unpleasant restrictions on private behavior that I’m just not willing to accept.  I guess when it comes to this stuff, I’m a libertarian first, and a gun owner second.  I hope you all don’t find that too terribly disappointing.