Snowflakes in Hell

Come on Paul, just declare Godwin’s Law and be done with it. If you want reasoned discourse, why don’t you post about some of the stuff you disagree with on some of our blogs? Brady people are as welcome to comment here as anyone else. Although, I guess you and your staff are too busy destroying our second amendment rights to bother. A shame, but it’s not our fault you guys don’t have any real grass roots to back you up.

Ever since I read David Brin’s book A Transparent Society, I’ve become a big advocate of more transparency in government, and a big advocate of proliferating the tools that allow it. I’m going to second David Codrea’s call for more of that, in regards to the activities of the BATFE. More light shining in the crevices of government is nearly always a good thing. We can’t remain a free society without an active citizenry scrutinizing government.

But that said, I think we need to be careful about how we go about it, and with that in mind, I do take exception with some of David’s rhetoric:

I repeat my call for a rapid response team of “minuteman” volunteers to make themselves available via a phone tree to go to gun stores being audited, and audit/document/photograph the auditors. Don’t let creatures of the shadows hide there–expose them to the light and make them live there–or cravenly slink back under the baseboards where they belong. You can also help by spreading the link to this post to fellow gun owners and letting them know what is going on. BATFU is relying on people remaining uninformed and apathetic.

I don’t disagree at all with the sentiment, but minuteman evokes images of people showing up with guns, ready to do battle. It’s important to note that the problem at the ATF is cultural, and it goes beyond those on the ground, or any one agent or auditor. The ATF, as an organization, is broken, needs to be abolished or reformed, and the agents who fail to respect the kind of power they wield, need to be moved to other lines of work. But we should treat individuals in the ATF as just that. They may be part of the cultural problems, or they may just be doing a job. I would not discourage anyone from shining the light on their activities; that’s important to maintaining a free society.

I’ve always liked this advice on how to deal with the ATF:

Under general principles of law a compliance inspection must be “reasonable” in terms of time, duration, scope, number of inspectors, lack of disruption to your business, etc. If the inspector is reasonable and professional, you should be too. The process does not have to be adversarial or antagonistic. If the inspector is not reasonable or professional, keep in mind that your license does not require you to talk to him, or to provide him access to your copy machine, rest room, etc.

If you decide to peek in on a compliance inspection, introduce yourself. Be civil. Explain yourself to them if they ask. Sure, they might be boneheads back to you, but let them, and then let everyone know about it. That’s the big reason I have Red’s on the blogroll. His story needs to be out there, and I think he’s doing us all a service by telling the world about his experience.

That many ATF auditors and agents are decent people doing a job shouldn’t excuse the vendetta against Red’s. That’s part of the cultural problem. But if we’re to achieve a political solution, we must be careful about how we proceed. We must seem reasonable, and interested in a political solution. I’d rather fight the ATF politically in Congress, and people on the ground will be invaluable in that struggle. But for the people who have to deal with the ATF on a regular basis, I’d worry that turning up the rhetoric too much would just make things worse, and make us look like a bunch of pissed off miscreants to Congress, not to be listened to, or considered.

Check out Ahab’s post on derringers.  Bitter has a Davis Industries .22LR derringer, which makes me feel like buying a pink caddie, a purple suit, and a big foo foo hat every time I shoot it.

… meet kettle. The ATF accusing anyone of intimidation is almost laughable.

UPDATE: I’ve read the whole complaint. It would seem to me that citizens ought to be able to photograph agents of the government pretty much at will, and this should not be treated with suspicion. I sincerely hope that the judge in this case understands the need for citizens to be able to monitor the activities of their government.

When you have the power to ruin people’s lives and livelihoods with a stroke of the pen, then citizens damn well ought to have the right to scrutinize those activities. I’m sorry the agents felt threatened. I might even understand, if they don’t get the context, why they might feel that way. I’ve deleted more than a few threats to law enforcement on here, and I certainly don’t condone anyone advocating violence against anyone, including federal workers and law enforcement. There are boneheads in the pro-gun movement. They are out there. I don’t think Ryan Horsely or the person photographing the agents at work are among them, however.

Perhaps if government workers feel intimidated doing their jobs, they should be allowed to carry firearms if they want to. The second amendment, and one’s right to self-defense don’t go away just because you get a government paycheck.

I’ve noticed a lot more blogs lately picking up on the gun control thing.  This keeps things interesting, at least, but I wish they’d come up with their own material.  When was the last time you saw one of us linking to crap at the NRA?  They are usually a week behind us.

 For two examples, 1) keeping guns out of the hands of mentally impaired veterans (who, after all, know how to use them); and 2) letting the ATF track guns used in crimes back to their point of sale. The NRA vigorously opposes both of these controls, for “reasons” that strike us as benefiting absolutely no one, except (in the second case) gun dealers who knowingly traffic with persons buying firearms for criminal purposes.

Many of those veterans added are no longer suffering from mental illness.  They were added as a matter of course by the Clinton administration.  Veterans still suffering from mental illnesses will still not be eligible to purchase a firearm under this bill.

The ATF can still trace guns used in crimes to their source.  The NRA supports that.  What they don’t support are people having access to the trace data for matters not relating to criminal investigations.  That’s what Tiahrt does.  The ATF supports it.  So does the Fraternal Order of Police.

Indeed, the NRA thinks that the massacre at Virginia Tech could have been prevented if every student and teacher there had carried a handgun. Perhaps that massacre could have — who knows? — but the notion of arming 18-24 year olds, at the very time that “drugs and alcohol use and suicide and mental health issues all peak” is, well, CRACKPOT CRAZY.

No one thinks that every student or teacher should carry a handgun.  I would oppose any effort to hand out guns to students.  What we do support is removing legal barriers that prevent people who hold concealed weapons licenses from carrying on college and university campuses.  Maybe you think that’s crackpot crazy too, but I have news for you, people over 21 years of age can get a license that allows them to carry most other places.  Will it prevent VT tech style incidents?  Maybe not.   But if you ban them, then definitely not.  VT’s rule against guns on campus didn’t stop Cho.

After all, as the Brady Center schools report observes, on the whole “college campuses are safer than the communities that surround them, precisely because those institutions have barred or tightly controlled firearms.

Or, because like where I went to college, in West Philadelphia, outside of campus is, shall we say, not the nicest of areas.  It has nothing to do with campus policy on firearms, and everything to do with most college students not being miscreants.  Do you think muggers bother to read the student manual?

Right now, by the way, the Brady Center could use your support to help fight the strong possibility that activist judges –this is rich — will strike down Washington, D. C.’s and eventually every major city’s most effective gun laws.

It’s activism to uphold the Bill of Rights?  I’ll remember that next time Congress starts prattling about making more restrictions on speech, and the courts strike it down.

Explore the Brady site to see how you can help in this fight . . . unless, of course, you believe the bumper sticker that greeted me on the rear of a hunter’s pickup when I returned to Pine Mountain from Blacksburg after the shooting spree at Virginia Tech on April 16 took our son Jamie’s life: “Gun Control: Simple Solutions for Simple Minds.”

I prefer SayUncle’s favorite saying: “Gun Control: It’s what you do instead of something”.   I don’t think everyone who supports gun control has a simple mind, I just think they don’t really know much about the issue, and desperately want to believe a lot of things that aren’t true.

Feel free to head over and comment, but please be polite.

I’m glad Hillary declared herself a proud modern progressive in last night’s debate, because it brings people like me one step closer to being able to call myself what I really am: a liberal.   Libertarian is, and always has been, a word that should never have existed.  Nor do I like calling myself a classical liberal, because no one understands what the hell that means either.

But I digress.  I’m always amazed at the level of vitriol on a lot of progressive blogs.  Sure, there are plenty of reasonable progressives out there, and some of them are blogging.  Certainly there are plenty of loony right wing bloggers that go largely unread, I’m amazed that so many people read this garbage:

The NRA and its friends in the “militia movement” are into the same stock-in-trade: Fear. Their target audience: Those people, generally disenfranchised white males with at most a high-school education and middling to piddling income, who suspect they’re being screwed but either have no clue who’s screwing them — or who know but don’t have the guts to fight the real enemy. The NRA and its allies push fear in general, and fear of non-whites in particular, to these white males, telling them that blacks/liberals/Jews/women/unions/etc. (but never ever ever corrupt corporations or businesses) are the cause of the white guys’ problem (and that the problem is crime, not the hyper-rich bleeding everyone below them) — then promptly sell themselves as the solution.

Wow.  I read stuff like this and think maybe someone needs to up their medication, or the voltage.  First off, most milita types hate the NRA, and the NRA doesn’t pay any attention to them.  The rest of that is just lunacy.   Seriously.   I have a college degree, and probably make enough money that most progressives would think I should pay more in taxes.  Some of us have graduate degrees.  Many of us are attorneys. My friend Jason, graduate degree in bioengineering, Jewish, and an NRA member, would be quite surprised to find out the NRA is hostile towards Jews.  So would my girlfriend, a woman, college educated, and NRA member. I’ve met more than my fair share of African-American NRA members.  Union members?  NRA’s bread and butter around these parts, which is why this state elects a lot of pro-gun Democrats.

I don’t know if Phoenix Woman is aware of this or not, but what she wrote here is, correct me if you think I’m mistaken here, totally and completely batshit crazy.  And this is one of the top blogs in the blogosphere!  What’s wrong with you people, seriously?  Shouldn’t you guys be paragons of tolerance?  Or is that only for activity that you approve of?