Firearms

Super-statists Love The Super State

by on September 5, 2011 @ 1:35 pm · 3 comments

in Anti-Statism, Firearms, Political Correctness, Racism, Totalitarianism

After a horrific and murderous weekend in NYC, Mayor Bloomberg, frustrated that folks determined on committing crimes are ignoring those magical incantations and spells enacted by local legislators, does what must necessarily follow in the mind of the statist: call the feds.

“We cannot tolerate it,” Bloomberg said while speaking at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn. “There are just too many guns on the streets and we have to do something about it.”

New York has the toughest gun laws in the country, but Bloomberg said the city alone cannot stop the onslaught of shootings. “We need the federal government to step up,” he said.

The problem of crime is that it finds a way. And prohibitions are, at best, marginal; but they are totalitarian nonetheless and have no place in a free society. To try to control the means of the few by subjecting the entirety of society to the dictate of a despot is a symptom of desperation. After all, not every place experiences the same level of overall crime or the same numbers of crimes committed by firearms.

And then there is the elephant in the room. As Robert Wicks points out, “‘getting guns off the streets’ is just code for ‘getting poor urban minorities to disarm themselves.’” Indeed, NYC’s own government report on crime shows that minorities both commit and experience a higher percentage of crimes. Yet because most minorities are not criminals but potential victims, gun disarmament leaves minorities in a greater situation of peril. Of course, politicians do not understand economics or how incentives work so they would never think that ending drug (and gun) prohibition, welfare, taxes, zoning and licenses, rent control and compulsory education would radically lower crime across the board.

As for Bloomberg, his policies, and the policies of Albany, are–let’s face it–pretty much an epic fail. The last thing anyone needs is the federal government coming in to “fix” things.

 

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Getting Guns “Off the Streets”

by on September 1, 2011 @ 5:10 pm · 0 comments

in Firearms

Manuel Lora pointed me to this article on the “success” of last year’s Kicks for Guns campaign. Talk show hosts and various promoters of these programs love to talk about taking guns “off the streets,” as if a person who makes a living as a criminal, using a gun, would trade it in for a pair of shoes. As others have mentioned, these programs generally only result in a bunch of old, fairly useless guns being turned in in the first place. But I want to address the notions behind the rhetoric.

It seems apparent to me, based on the places where these events are staged, that “getting guns off the streets” is just code for “getting poor urban minorities to disarm themselves.” The main people who would turn in a functional gun in an inner city are 1) drug addicts who are just looking for something which can be converted into cash for drugs or traded directly for drugs and 2) people who try to avoid using guns. Obviously, people of type 2 are not much of a threat in terms of gun crime, but even 1) is really not a threat. A drug user who feels that a gun is better used as currency for drugs, rather than used as a tool for robbery, is exactly the kind of drug user who is no physical threat.

This is just an angle for the anti-gun lobby. Unfortunately, it is one which resonates with the “law and order” gun lobby. Black liberals have often accused conservatives of using racist “code” when addressing minority issues. “Getting guns off the street” is code embraced by liberals of all colors, and all-too-frequently resonates with conservatives as well.

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Keeping Rights on Paper, Losing Them on the Streets

by on July 22, 2011 @ 11:55 pm · 6 comments

in Firearms, Legal System, Police Statism, Private Crime, Victimless Crimes

While many people love to promote the various rights guaranteed by the Constitution, it is interesting to see how rights are restricted not through legislation or even an active judiciary, but simply by law enforcement not respecting them. Consider the right to keep and bear arms and this officer’s reaction to a man exercising his right. The Second Amendment has been upheld by the courts, and there have been recent landmark cases restoring that right to people unfortunate enough to live in places like Washington, D.C. Legal victories such at that have little effect on those supposedly hired to defend person and property, however:

[Keep reading…]

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The Good In American Culture

by Manuel Lora March 17, 2011

Easily 99% of what American libertarians talk about is the demise of the country, with countless daily examples of new regulations, and the devastating results of those regulations. The US is, after all, in what to many appear to be an accelerating rate of decay compared to other countries around the world. The endless complaining [...]

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Zero Tolerance = 100% Totalitarianism

by Manuel Lora February 3, 2011

How else could one explain this? A 7-year-old child allegedly shot a Nerf-style toy gun in his Hammonton, N.J., school Jan. 18. No one was hurt, but the pint-size softshooter now faces misdemeanor criminal charges. Dr. Dan Blachford, the Hammonton Board of Education superintendent, said the school has a zero tolerance policy. “We are just [...]

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Clean Our Society* of Guns!

by Manuel Lora January 23, 2011

* but surely not the guns of the state, that is. That’s the jive I get from RFK’s daughter’s comments on further limiting gun freedom: Townsend said she believes the Justice Department and “this country have got to do a better job on gun regulation and on gun control and making our citizens safe.” “As [...]

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Why Can’t Kobe Get Any Love?

by Wilton Alston November 22, 2010

“A debate on ESPN about Kobe being in that “Call of Duty: Black Ops” commercial, holding a rifle, convinced me of two things…” ~ First Tweet “…One, ESPN has a lot of retarded debates about issues that are less than important.” ~ Second Tweet “…Two, I watch too much ESPN.” ~ Third Tweet My previous [...]

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