Snowflakes in Hell

I noticed this quite funny comment over on Bryan Miller’s blog:

Dear Mr. Miller:

As you know, the Supreme Court shortly will be making a weighty decision concerning the future of American freedom as it resides within the Second Amendment. I know we are diametrically opposed on this issue. However, the die has been cast and now we as a nation will finally have an answer to a question which both sides have sought for decades.

I have made a layman’s study of arguments from the pro and anti-gun rights perspectives and am firmly convinced that the Court will hold that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, not one reserved to the state. But what value is rhetoric if not backed up by a concrete demonstration of one’s firm belief?

Thus, my point in posting this message is to challenge you to a friendly personal wager regarding the outcome of the Heller case. If the Supreme Court holds that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms, I will personally present you with a certified check in the amount of $100 payable to your charity of choice. I will do so at a New Jersey place and time of your choosing, and in honor of the nanny state you represent, while wearing a diaper and drinking milk from a baby bottle.

Conversely, if the Supreme Court should hold, what every person who can read plainly the King’s English already knows, that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to keep and bear arms, you will present me with a certified check in the amount of $100 payable to my charity of choice. You will do this at a time and New Jersey place of my choosing while wearing full camouflage and bearing an unloaded New Jersey compliant AR-15 (semi-automatic, no lugs for drive-by bayoneting, no adjustable stock, magazine capacity restricted to 15 rounds, etc.), while keeping your finger off the trigger and muzzle pointed in a safe direction.

The gauntlet has been thrown. Demonstrate the courage of your convictions as I am willing to do and accept this challenge of the ages! This offer expires at 5 PM EST on Friday, December 21, 2007.

Respectfully Submitted in Good Faith and Credit,

Matthew Carmel
mcarmel@constitutionarms.com

I sincerely hope Bryan will take him up on this wager!  But my bet is there’s no way he’ll take it.

This one is from Paul Helmke:

“There is the mythology advanced by the gun lobby of the Wild West and the individual frontiersman single-handedly holding off the British and the Indians and the bears simultaneously”

I don’t think I’ve ever done or seen a post that’s talked about the British, Indians and Bears attacking simultaneously.   I’d say that Peter Hamm needs to keep Paul away from the hard liquor, but I think this is actually carefully crafted language to make people think that what we advocate is an anachronism, and not relevant to modern society.   He also says:

He said European countries have enacted effective gun control laws and that U.S. politicians are cowed by the gun lobby as exemplified by the National Rifle Association.

I guess that’s why mass shootings never happen in Europe, or anywhere else with strict gun control.

Ah, yes.  Persuasion by insult.  The true harbinger of someone willing to engage in reasoned discourse.  One of his commenters, though, gave me a good idea:

Therefore, if gun advocates were serious about using the magic of gun possession to protect the innocent from violent crimes…

…they would advocate or even create for themselves programs to provide firearm ownership and safe use training to impoverished inner city black and Hispanic residents.

If they are not willing to do so, it is because they only intend their arguments to apply when they apply to an imagined innocent *white* population.

That’s actually not a bad idea.  I have to wonder if the people in Pro-Gun Progressive’s neighborhood might be tired of being intimidated into letting the drug dealing scum run roughshod over their neighborhoods.  Particularly in urban settings, the good, upstanding people need to be able to defend themselves.

Of course, Saturday Night Special bans, a favorite of the gun control crowd, most heavily fall on the urban poor’s ability to defend themselves.  We’ve fought these laws time and time again, even though few of us buy those types of firearms.  If we’re such a racist bunch, you’d think we’d support a law that would disproportionately disarm the poor and minorities.

I wonder if this guy is aware of the racist history of gun control in America.

It would seem on this day in 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution of the United States.  Happy 220th anniversary of saying yes The United States, Delaware!

I’ll take Paul’s latest post:

A 36 year-old janitor belonging to the Aryan Nations shoots 200 rounds from two military-style semiautomatic weapons, killing his wife, a police officer and a church sexton.

Gotta get that assoication of gun ownership with racism in there eh Paul? Because if people believe all gun nuts are racist, they can continue to look down on us and give you money.

A disgruntled client of attorney Michael McKenna forces his way into a busy downtown office building, where he barricades himself inside and shoot and kills McKenna and two other employees. The shooter was killed after a gunfight with the SWAT team.

I thought guns were illegal in Chciago? How could this have happened?

A man first kills the mother of his child, then goes to his workplace and shoots three others to death before committing suicide.

Good to see all those workplace violence policies you folks have convinced HR clowns they need working out really well.

Tyler, Texas. February 2005. A gunman - wearing a bulletproof vest and a military flak jacket - shoots over 50 rounds with an AK-47 killing his wife and a bystander. The shooter’s son and three law enforcement officers are wounded in the gun battle.

What he doesn’t mention is that that the bystander that was killed saved the kid’s life by trying to take out the shooter with a .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol, which, unfortunately, doesn’t penetrate body armor.

A fired worker shoots and kills six of his former co-workers with a .38 caliber semi-automatic pistol.

.38 is a revolver caliber. They don’t make semi-auto pistols in .38. He probably means .380, but we don’t expect people advocating for gun control to actually know anything about guns do we?

An angry employee, denied vacation because of a paperwork mix-up, shoots and kills a co-worker, wounding two others before killing himself. The shooter was armed with four handguns and had spent much of his spare time shooting at targets behind his home.

We must get everyone in workplaces fearful about people who target shoot. That way they can’t find jobs anywhere, will get fired, or what have you.

John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo randomly selected victims in sniper-style shootings - one acting as a long-range shooter from the trunk of their car. Muhammad and Malvo have been linked to 20 shootings, including 13 killings, in Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, Arizona, Alabama, Louisiana, and Washington, D.C., many of which were carried out with a Bushmaster XM-15 semi-automatic assault rifle.

The rifle the DC snipers used was irrelevant. They could have used an antique bolt action rifle, because they only ever fired one shot. Good thing they didn’t, because antique bolt action rifles are much more powerful than a Bushmaster XM-15.

Wow, that’s a lot of mass shootings! Sure makes me glad I’m licensed to carry a firearm by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. You’d think it’s dangerous out there from what Paul says.

According to Michael Bane:

On the Nebraska mall shooting, I’m getting unsubstantiated reports that the mall has removed the “No Guns” signs from their little gun-free zone paradise, lest someone take a picture of them.

It would be interesting if it turns out to be true

Today is Pearl Harbor Day 

That is the Wreck of the USS Cassin, and USS Downes.  In the background is the USS Pennsylvania.  It is a lesson in being unprepared, and in the folly of believing our oceans still protect us.  America took a stand against Japanese imperial aggression in east Asia by passing sanctions against Japan, but we were unprepared for war.

There are those who argue Pearl Harbor is a lesson in getting involved, and those who argue it cautions against isolationism.  I am in the latter category.  America’s entrance into World War II was inevitable, but the sense of isolationism that pervaded the American populace left the country wholly unprepared for war, and left Pearl Harbor vulnerable.  There is no going back to the days when we could count on the Royal Navy to protect global trade networks.  That responsibility now falls on us.  Pearl Harbor is a big part of the reason I can’t vote for Ron Paul.   Whether you call it isolationism or non-interventionism is of little matter to me.   Paul’s philosophy is inward looking.  While I share his concerns about our nation remaining sovereign, the United States has a role to play in the world, and Pearl Harbor was the wakeup call that it was time to step up.

Looks like the Mayor of Rutledge, who is also an attorney, plans to sue Mike Nutter over his controversial “stop and frisk” policy. He’s going to have his work cut out for him, because Terry v. Ohio is the established precedent that says police officers are allowed a limited search for weapons before questioning someone, to ensure their own safety. The standard in Terry is “reasonable suspicion” rather than “probable cause.”

But I’m quite happy to see he’s also suing the Upper Darby Police Department for their policy of seizing firearms illegally. The UDPD has a reputation in Delaware County, or at least had a reputation when I lived there, that was less than stellar. This would indicate things haven’t changed much:

Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood Sr. said yesterday that his department will not return seized firearms without a court order or his personal approval. Those that aren’t returned to the owners are destroyed.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the state attorney general’s office are investigating aspects of the township’s policy.

Those investigations are focused on activity that apparently predated Chitwood’s arrival in 2005.

Chitwood apparently doesn’t care about Pennsylvania law, which states very clearly:

The Pennsylvania State Police and any local law enforcement agency shall make all reasonable efforts to determine the lawful owner of any firearm confiscated by the Pennsylvania State Police or any local law enforcement agency and return said firearm to its lawful owner if the owner is not otherwise prohibited from possessing the firearm. When a court of law has determined that the Pennsylvania State Police or any local law enforcement agency have failed to exercise the duty under this subsection, reasonable attorney fees shall be awarded to any lawful owner of said firearm who has sought judicial enforcement of this subsection.

There’s no penalty other than having to award attorney’s fees. If I were a taxpayer in Upper Darby Township, I’d be outraged that my Chief of Police was promulgating a policy that wasted taxpayer money fighting their legal obligation to return seized or stolen property to the rightful owner.

Hat tip to War on Guns