We're the Only Ones First Doing No Harm Enough

"Under a new government decree, the cabinet has directed that each doctor may carry one weapon for self defence," the government said in a statement.

Doctors as "Only Ones." But it's not like their lives as human beings are more valuable than anyone else's (although I'm sure many would disagree)--it's just that their lives are more valuable to the state.

And let's not forget who owns whom.

Still, I take it nobody consulted the AMA on this?

Sticker Shock

Thomas H emailed this to me:

Fellow in a 7 series BMW cut off my friend M*** this Saturday, stopping in front of him, crossing three lanes to do so, in Austin "Texas", to give him a double handed bird sign through his sunroof because M*** has NRA and GOA stickers on his truck and the fellow in the 7 series also shouted expletives.

Irrational in general, and extremely irrational considering M*** is a Texas CHL holder, ex-Nam paddy walker, Ex-LEO and any physical road rage would have been dealt with with 230 grainers if forced.

And us gun owners are extremist? Gimme a break... Pot, kettle...black.

We're the Only Ones Who Get Up Early to Beat the Crowds Enough

To celebrate their attacks on protesters at the Democratic convention the head gang had a T-shirt printed up. The local CBS outlet describes the shirt as having “a menacing-looking police figure, wearing what looks like a Denver police badge and clutching a baton.” Along with this menacing figure is the slogan the police find just so amusing: “WE GET UP EARLY, to BEAT the crowds.” [More]

Nice attitude, "Only Ones." Here's the shirt:


William N. Grigg has lots more. Make sure you read it all and watch the videos.

Chilling. Enraging.

As long as we're free to joke, ha ha, I've designed a shirt of my own:

Think they'd accept that this is just a humorous way to build camaraderie?

[Via Plug Nickel Times and Mama Liberty]

This Day in History: September 30

I cannot but congratulate the Honorable Congress on the happy Temper of the Canadians and Indians, our Accounts of which are now fully confirmed by some intercepted Letters from Officers in Cannada to General Gage and others in Boston, which were found on Board the Vessel lately taken going into Boston with a Donation of Cattle and other fresh Provisions for the Ministerial Army...

The Militia is You

Buy a gun.

And learn how to use it.

[Via Carl S]

Case Studies in Civil Disobedience

The Radical Cleric

Michael Pfleger and about 50 supporters locked arms and blocked metal detectors and elevators inside a state building in downtown Chicago to highlight their cause Wednesday...

Protestors are calling for an assault weapon ban and stricter background checks for people wanting to buy guns.

Another Radical Cleric

Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmental crusader Al Gore urged young people on Wednesday to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants without the ability to store carbon.

So both of them encourage breaking laws they don't like until more government controls over private lives and activities are implemented. Snuffy even "said he succeeded in everything except getting arrested," and could Reuters have stuck their nose any further up Gore's uh...carbon emitter?

On the surface, civil disobedience sounds like a fine continuation of an American tradition. What was Thoreau's major premise in his defining work?

"That government is best which governs least"...

OK, so what happens when someone who's not connected suggests he'd like to disregard laws he opposes just like the big boys--and does so to call for less government instead of more?

Oh. Never mind.

Challenging BS

This year, her Republican opponent, Mineola Village Mayor Jack Martins, is promising to make McCarthy's long tenure in Congress - rather than her newness - the main issue in the campaign. With a well-funded campaign, Martins may prove McCarthy's most serious challenge in years.

What, old BS (Barrel Shroud) McCarthy has some competition?

Thing is, I looked at this guy Martins' campaign site and elsewhere on the web. I can't find anything that suggests he gives a damn about RKBA.

Anybody know different? Or are the Republicans giving us more BS of their own?

Essential Standards

The Police Department here shut down its crime laboratory on Thursday after an audit uncovered serious errors in numerous cases. The audit said sloppy work had probably resulted in wrongful convictions, and officials expect a wave of appeals in cases that the laboratory processed...

The inspection found that the laboratory’s firearms unit was in compliance with just 42 percent of “essential standards"...

One word: Detroit.

The areas in this country with the heaviest government influence and controls are so screwed up. Why on earth would anyone propose more of it for us all as the solution?

Oh.

Cause and Effect

As economy sours, gun sales boom

Gee, I wonder why?

Overkill

Tacking on gun charges for those who face murder, robbery and assault charges may strike some as overkill. It's not.

I'd say that depends.

If the gun allows me to victimize more people, punish me for that.

But like "hate crimes," whether I kill you because you're black or white, or with a brick or a gun, you're going to be just as dead.

And what may seem like self defense in your eyes may be portrayed to a jury as an assault or murder.

Mount Vernon to Stage Flash Points

Police will begin staging gun checkpoints at the city's borders tonight as a way to curb violence in the city, officials said yesterday...

[O]fficers will stop cars and talk to drivers about antiviolence, the Mount Vernon and county gun programs and even ask if people are carrying illegal firearms, Chong said. He added that the checkpoints will be similar to DWI checkpoints.

"We are not going to violate anyone's civil rights, but there has to be a very strong and clear message. Law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear," Young said.

Yeah, as long as you let us temporarily take you hostage and act with appropriate servile obedience, we'll maybe let you live.

But if you act like a free man, well, we're going to have us a problem. Besides--what have you got to hide?

Everybody still believe "it" can't happen in America?

The Bloomberg Collection

He marketed a line of bright colors called the "Bloomberg Collection," sold hundreds of graffiti-style patterns for five-borough themed machine guns, and just introduced a bright-red shade called "Furious Mike." [More]

I like this guy's attitude.

Maybe he can also develop a color for Bloomberg's Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Jason Post.

Some shade of yellow...

Lingering Questions

New York's 7-year-old database of handgun "fingerprints" has yet to lead to a criminal prosecution, and questions linger about its effectiveness. Still, state police remain committed to the database, saying more time and a long-awaited link to a federal ballistics database could bring success.

"Questions linger"?

I have no lingering questions. The thing's a damned boondoggle, but one politicians find gives them cover for "doing something."

Anybody have any lingering questions?

The only lingering questions the "committed" cops have are:What, are you NUTS? Why would we get rid of this sweet funding scam?

The excuses they're giving now ought to play for a couple more years, assuming the economy doesn't totally blow out. And if it does, I imagine police funding will be a priority anyway.

[Via Zachary G]

Viscous Animals

It's time for people to snitch on criminals instead of protecting viscous animals that prey on law-abiding citizens...

Sure thugs are committing crimes with firearms, but if it was tougher to purchase a weapon, maybe these animals wouldn't be able to acquire a gun as easily as buying a pack of gum...

And why do people need assault weapons? For hunting? Ever see what an M-16 does to a deer?

So far, all comments seem to be slapping this fool silly. Here's mine:

Viscous Animals?

What, you mean like cytoplasm-filled amoebas?

This has got to be one of the most moronic, disjointed and ignorant opinion pieces I've yet run across, and I've been reading 'em for decades. No wonder the byline has been left blank.

No--I've never seen what an M16 does to a deer. When did you? Or are you just thinking yourself clever?

You want to know what more and more Americans are tired of tolerating? Know-nothing blowhards like you presuming to have a say on our rights.

Feel free to slap him around a bit yourself--I doubt we'll rattle any sense into him, but sometimes, just having fun is enough.

We're the Only Ones Stressed Out Enough

Stressed-out officer shot dead after gun rampage
Officer kills colleague, wounds two others

And who better to be an "Only One" than someone "showing signs of severe stress and paranoia"?

True "Home Rule"

Prior to the officers arriving, police say the suspect forced his way into the victim's home. The victim attempted to evade the suspect by retreating into a bedroom. The suspect followed her and she fatally shot him.

Too bad the Brady Campaign's "home rule" (you know, the one where the government rules your home?) wasn't in effect--then she might be dead.

[Via Featherless Biped]

We're the Only Ones Electrifying Everyone Enough

"As the brother was getting tased the dad approached asked them to stop tasing his son, then they started tasing the dad at that time there were three cops tasing two people who were already on the floor," said witness Janine Esquivel.

Hardly shocking behavior for the "Only Ones"...

[Via Dave Licht]

This Day in History: September 29

I have no notion of being hanged for half treason. When a subject draws his sword against his prince, he must cut his way through, if he means afterward to sit down in safety.
Colonel Joseph Reed, to Mr. Pettit, September 29, 1775

Great Expectations

Really, David. I expected better from Bracken, and I certainly expected better from you.

Commentator Joel expresses disappointment with racial theme elements in the "Foreign Enemies" online sample.

Author Matthew Bracken responds:

I’m not sure what politically correct planet Joel hails from, or if he has some other axe to grind, but I’m confused by his comments. He begins by referring to “all those EEEVIL dirty brown people” in Domestic Enemies. Was he referring to the heroine, the Arab-American Ranya Bardiwell? Or perhaps to the hero, Alexandro Garabanda, a Cuban-American? Domestic Enemies is set in the future in New Mexico, during a period when the Southwest is fracturing away from the United States. Yes, plenty of bad guys in the novel are Hispanic. Plenty of the good guys are as well. Perhaps if I had set the novel in North Dakota, and invented an immigration invasion by Canadians leading to…never mind. You get my point. If I’m going to write reality-based fiction about the breakup of the USA, set in the Southwest, it’s going to be pretty hard to avoid some Hispanic bad guys. Sorry Joel, if that offends your PC sensibilities. (And don’t hold your breath waiting for my novel about North Dakota.)

As far as cannibalism occurring three weeks after the complete cutoff of Memphis from the outside world, following a Richter level eight earthquake—yes Joel, that would happen. Spend a little time researching such disasters. People don’t quietly starve, while calmly sitting at home. The young and the strong quickly revert to cannibalism in the face of the total cutoff of other sources of food. History shows this, over and over. In the posted excerpt, there is one case of cannibalism described, in a city of over a million inhabitants.

Considering that you found the internet posted sections of Domestic Enemies to be full of “all those EEEVIL dirty brown people,” (despite the ethnicity of the heroes and its Southwestern setting), I’m not surprised that you would compare the posted excerpt from Foreign Enemies to the infamous white racist screed, “The Turner Diaries.” Perhaps you stopped reading these excerpts, before you got to the story of Web Hardesty? He is a white racist villain of the first order, using the breakdown of law and order following the earthquake to engage in a vendetta against African-Americans and Hispanics in Western Tennessee. I’ll say it in your terms: Web Hardesty is an “EEEVIL dirty white person.”

In Foreign Enemies, a rough sort of race war is introduced as one of several background plot elements. Blacks and whites are portrayed in both heroic and evil roles. Perhaps you are simply offended that I would dare to suggest that a complete breakdown in the social order would lead to racial atrocities being committed on all sides? If so, I would suggest that you are a Pollyanna, inhabiting the lofty airs of politically correct thought, viewing the world through rose-colored glasses.

Forgive me if I don’t think that folks will be holding hands and singing Kumbaya, three weeks after an earthquake wrecks most of the bridges between Little Rock, Saint Louis and Nashville. In Memphis, after three weeks with no food, drinking water, electricity or gas, I believe that we would see many of the worst traits that humanity has demonstrated under similar circumstances down through the ages.

I don’t expect that Joel will be reading Foreign Enemies, after he saw “all those EEEVIL dirty brown people” in Domestic Enemies, (in spite of the fact that the heroes are themselves “brown people.”) But for anyone else who read and enjoyed my first two novels, I make this promise: Foreign Enemies ends with a positive resolution of most of the various crises described. This includes a racial reconciliation by several of the characters, who had come to distrust members of differing ethnicities.

And please don’t get the idea that Foreign Enemies is primarily about racial conflict. That is merely one of the plot elements, in a novel that is mainly about the total usurpation of the Constitution by a rogue President and Congress.

Matt Bracken

Florida

The Buck Stops There

Gov. Brian Schweitzer believes a university system policy banning those with concealed weapons permits from bringing guns on college campuses conflicts with state law, his campaign spokesman said Friday.

The issue arose the night before in a debate with Schweitzer's Republican challenger, state Sen. Roy Brown. During the debate, Brown said it was wrong that those with permits to carry guns could not do so on college campuses...

The Montana Board of Regents, however, has a policy restricting firearms to law enforcement and other officials.

There's something to be said about political rivals arguing over who is the bigger gun rights supporter. And also, lest we become too assured, something to keep an eye on and question more deeply.

Thing is, you can't shove all blame off on the Board of Regents, who are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state senate.

Well, gee, our underlings decided and now our hands are tied.

Right.

That ain't where the buck stops.