The View From North Central Idaho

The evidence is sketchy in places and testimony is changing in the Fast and Furious scandal so we don’t yet know for certain what happened. But many people, including 52 members of the House and two senators, are calling for the resignation or firing of Holder and even indictment ATF officials.

There is one nagging piece of evidence that I haven’t been hearing requests for that should, and I think must, be demanded by the investigating committees. Was operation Fast and Furious what President Obama was referring to when he said, “I just want you to know that we are working on it. We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”? If it wasn’t then what was he referring to?

Based upon the “guns in Mexico” mantra the ATF implemented a regulation requiring some firearms dealers to report multiple sales of some rifles in direct violation of U.S. law (18 U.S.C. § 923(g)(1)(A)):

…dealers shall not be required to submit to the Attorney General reports and information with respect to such records and the contents thereof, except as expressly required by this section.

The following hypothesis is thus fully supported by all the evidence I have seen:

The administration deliberately enabled and in some cases delivered firearms to Mexican drug cartels in an effort to justify subversion of U.S. law with illegal regulations imposed upon U.S. gun dealers and owners.

If this was the intent of Fast and Furious then it would appear the entire chain of command from President Obama on down knew and were responsible for the results. This isn’t resignation material.

18 USC 242:

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

If Fast and Furious was “under the radar” gun control and resulted in the deaths of not just a Border Patrol agent but hundreds of Mexicans then it would appear to me that the administration doesn’t just have the shame of resignation hanging over them. They have the specter of a death sentence starting at them. The investigating committee should use that as a bargaining chip to get their full cooperation. Once all the facts have surfaced the culprits should be given a fair trial and appropriate sentences.

Violation of civil rights under the color of law must be taken very seriously. Inalienable civil rights of the individual are one of the key difference between our supposed form of government and that of a totalitarian government. If the U.S. Attorney General and/or the President of the United States were and/or are treating their positions as if this is a totalitarian society they need to be subject to extremely severe sanctions to not only to punish them for their crimes but as a deterrent for future aspiring tyrants at both the national and local level.

I challenge you to debate the Second Amendment in my district in front of real Americans in the heartland, not Washington D.C. insiders. Unless, of course, you have no interest in hearing what real Americans have to say.

Joe Walsh
U.S. Representative from Illinois
December 2, 2011
Letter to Dennis Henigan, Acting President, The Brady Campaign.
[Henigan wants to have the debate in D.C.. Walsh says it should be in his Congressional district.

Henigan didn’t care what the U.S. Constitution said about guns so of course he has no interest in what real Americans have to say about guns. People are even less relevant than the Constitution to his type. Plus being outnumbered 100:1 by a bunch of gun owners would probably require too many layers of Depends.

Sebastian has more thoughts on the debate about the (no) debate.—Joe]

Via email.

Discuss.

Subject: DGU or not?
From: An Anonymous friend of mine
Date: Mon, Dec 05, 2011 12:32 am
To: Joe Huffman

was wondering if you’d mind posting this (sourcing it as “from an anonymous friend of mine”) for people to think about and comment on. It happened to me just a few days ago. I’m not entirely sure what all I think about it, just yet.

<><><>

DGU
Defensive Gun Use… maybe

Sometimes when a person uses a gun in self defense, it’s obvious: clear threats are made, shots are fired, blood is drawn, legal issues considered with lawyers, and much paperwork is filed.

Sometimes, it’s not so clear-cut. Case in point:

I was out for a walk in the woods, on a public trail that was foot, bike, and horse only. It is clearly marked as such, with obvious “No motorcycles” symbols. I was about a mile from the (empty) parking lot when I heard the sound of motorcycles coming from up ahead. I saw two young men in hoodies (late teens or early twenties) coming down the path on mini-bikes (very small motorcycles) and around the “S” curves in the trail. I had my DSLR, so I took pictures of them as they came by – it was not very discreet, and they obligingly flipped me off as they went by and around the next corner. I kept walking. I heard the mini-bikes continue along, and then stop and idle, then turn around and started coming back my way.

I looked to see if there was anyplace I could jump off the trail to let them go on by (I didn’t want a confrontation if I didn’t have to have one), jogged a few yards forward and ducked off to the side and hunkered down. I heard the bikes stop back up the trail a piece, and one rider said to the other, “Did you see him jump off right there?”

I figured there was no benefit in keeping down at that point, so I stepped back over to the edge of the trail (I was up a slight embankment), and looked at them. I vaguely recognized one of them – likely a former student. They were back down the trail about 15 yards or a little more, stopped, and looking at me. They asked, aggressively and feeding on one another’s comments and attitude, things like, “Why did you take our pictures, are you weird or something?!”

I replied “I take pictures of a lot of things out here. Mushrooms, birds. And people breaking the law; the trail is clearly posted ‘no motorcycles’.” And I took another few pictures, causing them to promptly attempt to conceal their faces with their hands, but neither of us moved toward the other.

They argued with me a bit, saying they didn’t see any signs, I should delete the pictures, etc. I said I’d walk the trail and if I saw any damage, or vandalism, or heard reports of problems later, then I’d show the photos to the appropriate authorities; if not, then no harm no foul no report. One of them started to get off his bike, saying belligerently, “I guess I’m going to have to fuck up your camera!”

I didn’t change my stance, sweep my coat back, flash a pistol grip, or do anything cinematic. I just stared straight at them, shook my head slightly, and said quietly, but clearly and confidently, “Nah, you don’t want to do that, because then I’d have to defend myself, and that could get… messy.” Not threatening or taunting, not challenging or belittling, not meek or desperate, just confident and not intimidated in the least. In my mind I was thinking about the Glock with a full magazine on my hip, and the fact that I had plenty of distance / time to draw (15 to 20 yards), a great backstop, no innocent bystanders, recent range-time, and good terrain advantage (they’d be running up a somewhat muddy trail, then have to climb a two-foot embankment and go another few steps). I was thinking they were much younger, and outnumbered me, I’d been to the PT recently for my hand, he’d made a clear verbal threat, and running away was clearly not an option with them on mini-bikes, so the legal side was solid. If these two insisted that things had to go all to shit, his day WAS going to be a lot worse than mine.

They suddenly appeared to have a situational epiphany. The lead guy sat back down on the bike, and his body language and tone changed dramatically and instantly, becoming much more easygoing and polite, saying “we didn’t know it was off limits, we didn’t come in the normal way, it’s not like we are out doing drugs, we are just trying to having fun in the outdoors, we’ll turn them off if we pass any horses, please don’t turn us in,” etc. I said again, if I didn’t see any problems on the trail, and heard no reports of problems or vandalism, then I saw no reason to file paperwork, and it would be best if they continued on their way, and I’d continue on mine.

I turned around, and headed on down the trail, listening carefully. I heard them start back up and motor off the other way, slowly. On my way back, I passed their tracks in the mud; they were clearly driving slowly and carefully, as there was no splash or anything torn up anywhere from their tires. I got back to my car, and drove home without any further incident. (Ironically, reviewing the pictures later I noted that far and away the best pictures I got were after they came back to harass me and stopped, and most of the ones I took on their first pass by me would be almost completely useless in trying to identify them (low light means slow shutter speed, and fast moving bikes in a telephoto lens meant out of focus)).

The weirdest part of my recollection is the emotional part. I felt utterly calm. No sweats, no accelerated heart rate or breathing. Just a quick series of mental checklist flashing by – can I avoid them by ducking off to the side somewhere? Then, Can I de-escalate verbally? Well, that’s out, so document the scene and then What’s the physical situation: terrain, backstop, distance, footing, how will I draw from concealment? What’s their mental state, how would I describe how they are acting (body language) and their tone, what specific words did they use? What’s the legal situation? – they came back acting like they knew they did something wrong and knew I’d photographed them and they made verbal threat (intent), two of them apparently in decent shape (ability), all alone in the woods with an empty parking lot at the trailhead (opportunity). It was odd. Not dream-like or anything, just very…clear. Or something.

Was that confrontation a Defensive Gun Usage? I don’t know. I didn’t display or draw or fire or even say I was armed and able to defend myself. I know taking the pictures was the proper thing to do. I don’t think they were unusually psychotic or evil or out searching for victims. But I’m not sure that I’d have been (or acted) nearly as confident in my stance without a gun on my hip, currently having a flakey shoulder and tweaked hand. It may be that they were all bluster, and anything stronger than abject submission would have stopped them. It may be that I could have said the same thing, and had the same effect, knowing I had a Spyderco Delica in my pocket, and some martial arts experience. It may be that the punk just suddenly realized he was being all sorts of stupid, and a possible ticket was much less of a problem than an assault and battery charge.

Maybe. But maybe not.

Modified slight from what Crotalus said almost three years ago…

If anti-gun people think guns are penis substitutes then that must mean they wish to be castrated.

Having grown up on a farm I have some experience with this task. I’m willing to donate a few hours of my time to servicing these needs for the Brady Campaign, the Violence Policy Center, and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. If they would coordinate their schedules such that I would only have to make one trip to D.C. we could get this taken care of by Christmas. Think of this as an example of my willingness to work together with my political opponents and compromise on common sense solutions.

I was just reading a NYT op-ed about the insane, irrational paranoia of gun nuts during Obama's presidency­. These people are just itching for any reason to go on a mass shooting spree. Most of them probably have really small penises too.

edgeninja
December 2, 2011
Comment to Gun Ad Likens Obama To Hitler, Other Dictators.
[It’s Markley’s Law Monday!

I was going through the comments on this Huffington Post article and finding the commenters were generating QOTD material faster than I could harvest it. There are going to be Markley’s Law QOTDs every Monday for several weeks along with “Crap for Brains” and “Why are Liberals so Violent” QOTD material for quite some time.—Joe]

I just donated $100 to Soldiers’ Angels as part of the fundraiser being put on by Linoge at walls of the city.

Boomershoot did fundraisers for Soldiers’ Angels in 1998, 1999, 2010, 2011 after hearing Chuck at Gun Blogger Rendezvous in 2007. Boomershooters have donated at total of over $6000 to Soldiers’ Angels and at Boomershoot 2012 will donate still more. I’m know I’m biased but I think this is a good charity.

My nephew Jason lost his right arm and the vision in his right eye while serving in Iraq and Soldiers’ Angels was a huge help to him when he was in the hospital.

My son-in-law John, Xenia’s husband, was deployed to Afghanistan a few days ago. This is his third deployment.

Please consider donating and make Linoge’s fundraiser a success.

Ry and Aaron W. both sent me email on this:

Tim Patterson has no doubts he would have pulled the trigger.

He's glad he didn't have to.

But when a woman is being attacked by a man with a knife, Patterson says he'll do what must be done.

"If he had not stopped what he was doing," he says, his voice fading. "He came very close to dying. Really, really close."

..

A man had a woman's head pulled back with one hand, and a knife to her throat with the other.

Patterson didn't hesitate.

He drew his Kimber 1911 .45 with a six-shot clip.

"Drop it, or I'll shoot you," he shouted.

The assailant, wearing a hoodie that covered his face, glanced up. He immediately let go of the woman, dropped the knife, raised his arms in the air and fled.

There are some other tidbits that are of possible interest.

Tim Patterson was one of the people Ry tried to get to do the catering for Boomershoot earlier this year. It was just too far (Patterson is in Coeur d’Alene which is probably about a three hour drive with his “The Big Yellow mobile kitchen”) for the number of people we have at Boomershoot.

Patterson has a blog for The Big Yellow Trailer.

The Coeur d’Alene police “is in process of pulling together a public presentation to honor his bravery”.

One of the comments to the story is from an old friend of Patterson’s:

Well Done Tim. I remember when you used to sing a parody of "Don't mess around with tim" driving around GG in the Mustang II in the mid 70's and I guess that is still true. Proud to have known you.

For those who don’t “get it”:

he'd been cut 'n 'bout a hundred places/ and he'd been shot in a couple more

…

You don't mess around with Slim.

Crimson Trace has a new web site and you can get a $30 discount at check out if you use the code 30LSR11 at checkout.

This is never going to end until we make it illegal to own firearms. Until then, thousands of innocent people will die every year. So this country has a choice - either give up the deadly weapons or admit the selfish desire to pack heat is DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for all those deaths. There is no other way around it - you own a gun, you're part of the problem. Period.

Excelsior
November 24, 2011
Comment to Dear Amy, Should I Let My Holiday Guests Pack Heat?
[[sarcasm] And the abuse of recreational drugs and alcohol is never going to end until we make it illegal to own them either. [/sarcasm]

I’m always surprised that people who make claims like this were smart enough to assemble a sentence that was intelligible. They could not possibly have given their views more than a second or two of thought. Of course the last two sentences demonstrate they think proof by vigorous assertion is valid too.

It’s pure crap for brains.—Joe]

The U.S. is done. It’s all over but the killing and eating. I just hope we have the ‘nads to never let another government take root in this country. Governments are always corrupt. Always.

Crotalus
November 9, 2011
Comment to Theory.
[Ubu52’s comments here reminded me of this quote.

While I could find a lot to agree with this I fear that for the foreseeable future government will always be a necessary evil. Hence the best we can do is minimize the evil. We probably will not be able to eliminate it without going to a small tribal society which looks to be an even worse option.—Joe]

NJ is in the dark ages trying to eliminate violent crime with bloodletting, that is the blood of crime victims, disarmed by their state’s archaic gun control laws and forced to face violent criminals on the streets that do not obey those laws with nothing more than a cell phone in one hand and a prayer in the other.

Anonymous
November 28, 2011
Comment to Amick: Gun laws in the Garden State
[It’s an imperfect analogy because there are some diseases that are treated by bloodletting. There appear to be no benefits to restrictions on restricting access to handheld weapons. Hence NJ restrictions on the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms is more harmful than bloodletting.

However Anonymous is completely correct about NJ being in the dark ages where when dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his own peril. This is analogous to the 13th Amendment guaranteeing there is no slavery but saying black skinned people venture there at their own peril. It’s time, as before, to send in the U.S. Marshals and National Guard to set these bigots straight.—Joe]

I have been poking around some more in the anti-gun section of the term paper warehouse I reported on a few days ago and continue to be amazed at the total lack of quality in writing and reasoning. This one really did it for me though:

carrying a gun will push him to commit a crime which he has never been intended.

Carrying a gun will “push” a person to commit a crime?

This is frequently hinted at in the anti-gun rhetoric but I don’t believe I have ever heard it explicitly articulated. I always figured that they knew it was so absurd they would never say it directly. Surely they were smart enough to know that if they did they would be mocked and laughed into oblivion. Apparently this person wasn’t that smart and/or they actually believe it.

I have to wonder about the mechanism of this “push”. Is it some sort of mind control? Or is it a “flesh magnet” that pulls their hand to the gun and then causes it to squeeze the trigger? Can we measure the magnitude of the “push”? Would that “push” be proportional to the area or mass of the possessor? Does the force extend to nearby people as well? Is it inversely proportional to the distance or the square of the distance? And does wearing a government uniform provide immunity from this “push” for the possessor of the gun?

But there is another option which should be considered. It could be that the author has crap for brains and just doesn’t have a clue as what they are writing about.

For quite some time about 80% of my .40 S&W reloads would not fit in the case gauge even though they would fit in the chamber of my gun. The base of the brass had a slight bulge that the resizing die did not address.

I ended up using an old barrel to verify my reloads were not so far out of spec that they would fail to chamber. I was always concerned that using my old barrel as a case gauge was risky because it could be the current barrel chamber was slightly smaller than the old one and I would have a problem with some small percentage of the rounds. I really wanted to build the ammo to spec and use the case gauge.

I then discovered and purchased a Redding G-RX Carbide Push Thru Base Sizing Die via Sinclair.

I had some strong hints before purchase that it wouldn’t directly work in my Dillon 550B press but I figured I could figure it out. I was correct on both accounts.

The bottom end of the pushrod did not fit in the shellholder of my press. The die itself worked fine in the 550 toolhead. But the bottle intended to be used that attached to the top of the die would not fit among the other dies of the toolhead with an available opening.

It wasn’t a perfect match because it had different threads but the neck of a Dr. Pepper bottle (Coke, Pepsi, and most other soda bottles would not have worked because they have a shorter neck) had a gradual enough taper that it would fit among the dies. I cut the bottom out and screwed it into the adapter:

I took off the shell plate and verified the stroke and alignment of the pushrod on my press were close. But I needed some method to hold the pushrod in place. I strongly considered double stick tape and actually was about to buy it at the hardware store when I saw magnets just a few feet away. I found some very thin disc magnets that looked to be about the correct size and appeared to be strong enough to handle the pressure:

These worked wonderfully:

These magnets, as the packaging says, are extremely strong and held the pushrod firmly in place.

I resized about 100 cases in a few minutes and verified the base sizing die works as advertised. I’m very pleased with the result. My only tweak will probably be to buy a toolhead just for this die so I can use the correct bottle.

This is the power of victimhood in the "social justice" (Marxist) movement, and it's why I've said many times that victimhood-- real, genuine, beautiful, wonderful, rich and delicious victimhood, is so deeply cherished, sought after and uplifted with such passion by the left. It's their gold and diamond currency and they mine it, mint it, wear it and show it off with a greedy, lusty fervor.

Lyle
November 30, 2011
Comment to Peterson Syndrome example.
[You don’t have to think about this very long to realize Lyle has nailed it.

The NRA says, “Refuse to be a victim” and trains people to enforce this refusal with knowledge, confidence, and, if necessary, force. The anti-gun people seek out victims, hire them, and not only enable more victims but work to force others into being victims.—Joe]

This is from Canada:

Karen Vanscoy’s 14-year-old daughter was shot and killed in 1996 by an acquaintance using a stolen gun.

“The proposed weakening of our gun laws will make it easier for those at risk of committing acts of violence either towards themselves or others to acquire guns,” said Vanscoy.

She is complaining about the possible elimination of the long gun registry. How in the world does she think the Canadian long gun registry would have prevented the murder of her daughter?

It’s Peterson Syndrome. She is incapable of logical thinking.

And of course the writer (an “independent journalist covering social justice events”) doesn’t give any time to the violated natural rights of firearms owners.

George Washington didn’t cross the Delaware River to get to his duck blind.

Weer’d Beard
November 30, 2011
The Other Way, Actually
[I like the way he said that.—Joe]

Urban myth has it that the average man thinks of sex once every seven seconds. If you give that a little bit of thought and if necessary pull out the calculator to crunch a few numbers you will realize that just can’t be true. I mean, when would a guy have time to think about food, sleep, and his guns if he was thinking about his penis that frequently? Some would say that we combine the penis and guns thoughts hence there really is time for everything.

But that can’t explain things for men who are are lacking a gun of their own so Terri Fisher, PhD, professor of psychology at The Ohio State University at Mansfield did a study on thoughts of food, sleep, and sex. Apparently she was working on a limited budget and was unable to include thoughts of guns in her study. The results are still interesting and it is claimed:

This is the best study to date looking at frequency of sexual thought," says Janet Hyde, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She reviewed the study but was not involved in it.

Nice!

The bottom line is that college aged men think about sex, on the average, about 19 times a day. This is about once every 50 minutes during waking hours. Women think about sex, on the average, about 10 times a day or about once every 96 minutes.

But the more interesting result is that while the averages differed by almost a factor of two the variations were huge for both genders. The men had as many as 388 sexual thoughts per day and the women as many as 140. This means that unless you are a guy with very frequent thoughts of sex or a woman with very infrequent thoughts of sex there is probably enough overlap in the population such that you can find someone who thinks about sex about as frequently as you do.

At least that is what their research indicates. One woman I know recently told me she keeps an inverter in her car to power her Hitachi Magic Wand at stoplights. She probably needs to find about a half dozen high end guys to keep pace with her. She is probably stretching the bell curve so far that the bell would ring ultrasonic if I were to ping it with my gun.

Of course I knew it was possible. But I didn’t dare say it for fear of being wrong and embarrassed when some other explanation came to light. So I just stated the facts when a pro-gun story disappeared from the UK’s Daily Mail.

I did manage to contact the author who responded with a single URL. It is a link to the same story on a different website with the subtitle, “Read the column the UK's Daily Mail pulled for being too dangerous”.

Not only was it possible; it was what happened. Some people in the UK are such wimps they can’t tolerate people even speaking about the exercise of their natural right to keep and bear arms.

Should they end up needing that which they don’t have it will be hard to give them much sympathy beyond nominating them for a collective (as they surely would have wanted it) Darwin Award.

Someone apparently wrote a term paper on the Brady Campaign and is making it available to others.

The quality is about what I would expect for a Brady Campaign supporter:

The Brady Campaign is a very large organisation, and they are working to prevent gun violence through legislations. Ronald Weagan’s press secretary was a man called Jim Brady. Jim Brady was seriously wounded by a shoot during an assassination attempt on Ronald Weagan, who was the president of the United States at that time. After the harsh experience and the wounds mentally, Jim Brady and his wife Sarah Brady began to work for stricter gun control laws. In the 1993 the Brady law was passed. If you wanted to buy a handgun, you had to wait in a five-day period so there could be made a background check and a ban on the military-style, semi-automatic machine guns and the “assault weapons”. George Bush did not renew the ban of the “assault weapons” in 2004. The Brady Campaign argues that armed revolution and violence against the government is not necessary in a democracy.

The Second Amendment Myth and Meaning means that the American nation suffers from an epidemic of gun violence. They mean sensible national gun control laws are urgently needed to reduce this violence and killings. They mean the NRA’s constitutional theory is a calculated distortion of the text, history and judicial interpretation of the Second Amendment. They say it is time for the debate over gun violence to focus on the real issues, free from the NRA’s constitutional mythology and they say that the courts consistently have ruled that there is no constitutional right to own a gun for private purposes unrelated to the organized state militia.

The National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment is an organisation which promotes the Second Amendment right to carry and bear arms. The organisation has about 4 million members and defends the right to possess, buy and use firearms.

I would guess they are functioning at about a fifth grade level:

• The Brady Campaign cannot be considered “very large”.
• Organization is consistently misspelled.
• It’s Reagan, not “Weagan”.
• Grammar is extremely poor.
• “Semi-automatic machine guns” is contradictory.
• “Assault weapons” were not covered by the 1993 Brady Act.
• Even though the term paper was uploaded today the Heller decision is unknown (or perhaps irrelevant in their world view) to them.
• The Second Amendment is not an organization.
• They state the NRA “defends the right” but yet claims the court interpretations of the Second Amendment does not recognize a right to keep and bear arms.

It’s possible they are mocking the Brady Campaign but my guess is they really are that dumb.

Government turns to clandestine terrorist operations when it is afraid of it's own population.

Noam Chomsky
[I was reminded of this quote by various links to this article and related stuff.

But from actually reading the bill I don’t see what the big fuss is about:

Subtitle D—Detainee Matters

SEC. 1031. AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES TO DETAIN COVERED PERSONS PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE.

(a) IN GENERAL.—Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107–40) includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons (as defined in subsection (b)) pending disposition under the law of war.
(b) COVERED PERSONS.—A covered person under this section is any person as follows:

(1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.
(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.

This appears to be consistent with my understanding of the Geneva and Hague Conventions in regards to acceptable conduct during war. When someone aids the enemy, on or off the battlefield, they are subject to detention, interrogation, trial, and if not a privileged combatant, even execution.—Joe]

Son James, his wife Kelsey, and I had an interesting conversation about the possible coming collapse of the Euro this evening. I read part of this story to them:

British embassies in the eurozone have been told to draw up plans to help British expats through the collapse of the single currency, amid new fears for Italy and Spain.

As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.

Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis.

The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way.

A senior minister has now revealed the extent of the Government’s concern, saying that Britain is now planning on the basis that a euro collapse is now just a matter of time.

That’s the background. What’s more interesting to me is this article:

About a year ago, I spoke at a conference in Europe that attracted a lot of very rich people from all over the continent, as well as a lot of people who manage money for high-net-worth individuals.

What made this conference remarkable was not the presentations, though they were generally quite interesting. The stunning part of the conference was learning – as part of casual conversation during breaks, meals, and other socializing time – how many rich people are planning for the eventual collapse of European society.

Not stagnation. Not gradual decline. Collapse.

As in riots, social disarray, plundering, and chaos. A non-trivial number of these people think the rioting in places such as Greece and England is just the tip of the iceberg, and they have plans – if bad things begin to happen – to escape to jurisdictions ranging from Australia to Costa Rica (several of them remarked that they no longer see the U.S. as a good long-run refuge).

Of course. Once it is pointed out it is obvious.

Those with money will escape the collapse if it occurs. They will take a big hit and won’t be able to get all of their wealth out but they are generally smart and will generally succeed. The looters (by this I mean to include the socialist governments) will attempt to prevent the wealth from leaving but even if they were successful eventually the looters will run out of loot.

Much of the wealth and nearly all the brain power that generated that wealth will “take a holiday”. There is also a good chance, as in the book, that the escape of these people to another place will hasten the downfall. Rand may have missed a lot of the details but the basic concepts may be close enough that the end result is essentially the same.

Atlas may be shrugging.

There appears to have been an article saying “It is time for Europeans to support the natural right of human beings to protect oneself with a firearm” on a UK newspaper website earlier today. It is no longer available. Here is the screen capture evidence:

Clicking on the link (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2067300/Europeans-guns--It-time-Europeans-support-natural-right-human-beings-protect-oneself-firearm.html?ito=feeds-newsxml) yields, “Sorry. The page you have requested does not exist or is no longer available.” There does not appear to be a cache available for it either.

I can find all other articles by this same author but the one I am interested in doesn’t show up.

I was unable to find his email address or I would have attempted to contact him and find out what happened.

Update: Via some suggestions in the comments I was able to contact Brian Darling. He send me a one URL response, “http://bit.ly/tUExhc”.

I love the line after the title, “Read the column the UK's Daily Mail pulled for being too dangerous”. I do wish he had elaborated on that a bit more but there are times when you don’t tweak the nose of the one who feeds you.

For the people who insist on carrying weapons, driving oversized pickups and HumVees to the 7/11, and similar manifestations of psychological problems, it isn't that they're paranoid, although that may also be a problem. Their major problem is a real or imagined dysfunction in their capacity to procreate. They may have tried the various "enlarge your penis" advertisements on the internet and none of them gave results, so now they go with an artificial sexual apparatus enhancer.

Texas Aggie
November 24, 2011
Comment to Dear Amy, Should I Let My Holiday Guests Pack Heat?
[Ahhhh yes. It’s the kindergarten kids talking about penises and giggling.

When in the context of gun owners it’s known as Markley’s Law.—Joe]

Give the Treasury Department health and safety authority over the gun industry, and any rational regulator with that authority would ban handguns.

Real gun control will take courage. In the long run, half-measures and compromises only sacrifice lives.

Josh Sugarmann
1999
Seattle and Honolulu shootings more reasons to regulate guns
[This is from the dark days of gun owner rights activism.

Sugarmann goes through regulatory proposals such as licensing, registration, expanding background checks at gun shows and stopping the import of high-capacity magazines. He then concludes a complete ban is the only rational conclusion.

I grudgingly admire Sugarmann for his genius in regards to “assault weapons” and his honesty in saying the endgame must be, always has been, and always will be a complete ban.—Joe]

I realize the ability (and to a certain extent the desire) to get elected is largely uncorrelated with intelligence but the ugly parallels to statements like the following just jump out of the page at me:

While our Constitution guarantees people a right to bear arms, the decision was made to allow states to regulate guns, in order to allow them to develop strategies that meet the individual states’ demographic, economic and lifestyle needs. What works for Florida or Texas may not work for New Jersey and vice versa, and gun control should be the sole provision of the individual states, not the federal government.

Replace “a right to bear arms” with “will not be slaves” and “guns” with “ni**ers”.

Now start heating up the tar and gathering the feathers for New Jersey State Senator Loretta Weinberg.

There is an interesting article on the history of Freedom Group here.

To me some of the more interesting stuff was the hints about gun bloggers:

rumors about the Freedom Group — what it is, and who is behind it — have been circulating in the blogosphere. Some gun enthusiasts have claimed that the power behind the company is actually George Soros, the hedge-fund billionaire and liberal activist. Mr. Soros, these people have warned, is buying American gun companies so he can dismantle the industry, Second Amendment be damned.

I vaguely remember something being said about that a while back but don’t remember it being anything we really took seriously.

And how about this?

the Freedom Group has ingested so many well-known brands so quickly that some gun owners are uneasy about what it might do next. Two years ago, a Cerberus managing director, George Kollitides, ran for the board of the N.R.A. Despite an endorsement from Remington, and the fact that he was a director of the Freedom Group and Remington, he lost. His campaign didn’t sit well with some gun bloggers, who viewed him as an industry interloper.

I don’t involve myself with the internal politics of the NRA that much. Was this really an issue? Or is the reporter exaggerating things a bit in an attempt to create a more interesting story?

Update: This is an article in the NYT (thanks Thirdpower) as well as the Herald Tribune which I originally linked to. The NYT version has the link to Sebastian and Bitter’s post about George Kollitides run for the NRA board of directors. I have updated the quoted paragraph above with the NYT link to their post.

It amuses me to no end that people who faint dead away at the thought of judging someone by their outside appearance have no problem judging the function and intent of an inanimate object by its outside appearance.

Exurban Kevin
November 22, 2011
Comment to SAF/Calguns Suit Against California Assault Weapons Ban
[For some reason it doesn’t amuse me. I’m inclined to call them intolerant, ignorant, bigots.—Joe]