Loyal Sedition

Kachalsky Advances to the Second Circuit

2011-11-09T19:21:00.000-08:00

The opening brief has been filed at the U.S. Court of Appeals in the case of Kachalsky v. Cacace. The appeal challenges the constitutionality of New York’s discretionary handgun-licensing scheme. Currently, the state requires “proper cause” for the issuance of a license to carry a handgun, creating a prior restraint on the fundamental right to bear arms under the Second Amendment and violating equal protection under the 14th Amendment.

An Economic Crisis (and Miracle) Revealed

2011-10-17T21:15:00.000-07:00

So I took the predictable flack from my “liberal” friends on Facebook after my recent comments on the “occupy Wall Street” business. There has also been much discussion of the protests elsewhere on the Internet. Eventually, these discussions turn toward uncomfortable things, such as facts and data.

An article cited made much out of the fact that the portion of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) comprised of wages and salaries has shrunk quite dramatically over the last 50 years. While this apparent disparity isn’t necessarily a cause for concern, the article’s evocative graphic led me back to its source, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. There, I examined the data for myself and built some of my own graphs.

The Federal Reserve data yielded two interesting and somewhat unexpected facts. First, the sharp decline in income (adjusted for inflation) beginning in A.D. 2008 is one of historic proportions. That alone can explain the unprecedented anguish so many people are feeling. They are suffering, or at least they’ve received quite a shock after decades of relative prosperity. It also explains why “occupy Wall Street” took me personally by surprise, as I will explain shortly.…

Second, the overall growth in real income was equally unexpected. I had long subscribed to the “liberal” economic theory that real wages had been generally flat or even declining for several decades, driving the proliferation of the two-income household. Now, if the data are to be believed, that notion must be largely false. Yes, we can surely parse the numbers to show how certain segments have not benefited, but that would turn us toward other uncomfortable things, such as personal choice and responsibility.…

However, my own observations have now been confirmed, repairing a troubling logical contradiction. Since the late 1980s, I have watched a dramatic increase in personal wealth among the general population. Since that increase only rarely applied to me, I explained it away as a personal sampling error. Nevertheless, the people around me in a variety of income brackets seemed to have plenty of food, personal electronics, and expensive telecommunication contracts. Indeed, prices in these sectors were either fairly flat or even declining in some cases.

I’ve been a formal member of the workforce for 20 years now. As the graph above shows, change in real income was entirely positive during this period … until the financial crisis. My personal experience was very different. Though my working life has seen only three official recessions, my real income has been recessionary in nine of those 20 years. In other words, coping with declining wages has become normal for me.

The time when I felt the richest came shortly after I finished college and before my wife and I bought our house. Working full time, our disposable income increased rapidly but was still moderate. This allowed us to pay off our vehicles and student loans on time or early, so we were effectively debt free until buying our house.

That brief window of perceived prosperity came to an end when we became homeowners. In fact, the opening phase of my next personal recession was part of what enabled us to buy into an affordable housing program. Thereafter, my income continued to decline in real terms for six out of eight years. When it arrived, the great recession was simply treated as more of the same in my household.

Without digressing into those other uncomfortable matters, the moral of this post is that the financial crisis has had a profound effect on real income, much more so than I had thought. (Consider me properly chagrined.) However, the data also show the heretofore dramatic and largely sustained growth of that income. This latter fact should not be forgotten as we find our way out of the current crisis.

Occupying Wall Street

2011-10-11T21:25:00.000-07:00

As I’ve said before, emotions run high in hard times, and people look for someone (usually someone other than themselves) to blame for their financial woes. That observation has been starkly illustrated in the last few weeks as thousands of mostly young people have rallied to protest flaws in the American economic system. This so-called occupy Wall Street movement began in New York but has spread to other cities.

Actually, my description above is a charitable one. Most of the protesters don’t fully understand what they are protesting. Instead of challenging they very real problems within our economic policy and regulatory structure, they are lashing out at big corporations, free markets, and capitalism in general—and griping about having to repay their student loans.

The more strident critics of the “occupy” movement are quick to point out the apparent hypocrisies and contradictions among the protesters. The protesters, they note, have arrived wearing designer clothes, bearing the latest smartphones, and enjoying many other accoutrements provided by the very corporations that they’ve come to decry. However, such criticism is as misdirected as the protests themselves, even if the observation is an extremely important one for a different reason … which I will explore shortly.

Predictably, the “occupy” movement has been met with approbation from the leadership of the Democratic Party and generally favorable reporting by the mainstream news media. In his panegyric for CNN, Douglas Rushkoff writes that the protesters “are pointing the way toward something entirely different than the zero-sum game of artificial scarcity favoring top-down investors.…” While something different may be on the horizon, Mr. Rushkoff displays some of the same economic ignorance shared by the protesters he admires.

Before I explain why they are misdirecting their rage, I must confess my sympathy for the “occupiers.” I understand their desires and frustrations. It is perfectly natural to want more for oneself and to envy those who appear to already have it. Channeling those feelings onto productive courses is the challenge that we all face.

Now, here is where they’ve gone wrong. Economics is not a zero-sum game. In fact, capitalism itself is predicated on an increasing-sum paradigm. Therefore, investors aren’t trying to take wealth from others via any sort of zero-sum chicanery. They are instead risking some of their existing wealth to build even more for themselves and by extension for society at large. The evidence of this and for capitalism’s unmitigated success is so ubiquitous that it often escapes notice. Capital investments and market forces have created and distributed so much wealth in a few short centuries that it boggles the mind. Human expectations are only just now catching up with this economic accelerando.

So the wealthiest people who have ever lived are presently complaining about the very economic engines that have delivered their wealth. Yes, if you have fine clothes on your back, magical electronics at your fingertips, and thousands of calories easily within your grasp, you are rich in absolute terms. Some of us have more than others, but we are all rich beyond almost any previous imagination.

And that brings me to why so many people are so angry. Our imaginations and expectations can expand. Revolutions may be triggered when expectations rise more quickly than they can be met. That is clearly the environment we see today, even if many of the heightened expectations are still unwarranted … still belonging to a future that we can’t quite touch.

Nevertheless, a new economic revolution may be on the horizon. Unfortunately, revolutions are always an uncertain business, prone to failure and fraught with potential danger. If there will be change, we must identify the right targets for reform, but that is not what I see happening within the “occupy” movement. If this economic anguish remains misdirected, it risks being co-opted by the very forces that have always sought to maintain that anguish for political gain.

I don’t know what shape the new economic model for a “post-industrial” America will take, but I do know that the best course into the future won’t be the quickest or the easiest one. Let’s begin with an inventory of our enemies and allies on the journey forward. Capital investments and free markets are not our enemies. They are our tools for building and distributing wealth. (We just have to learn to use them correctly.) Our only real enemies are those who would abuse economics for political gain and those who would abuse politics for financial gain. They aren’t that hard to identify.

Meanwhile, here is the best way to occupy Wall Street.

If you have no stake in the system, then you have no right to change it. Fortunately, in a free market, you can buy yourself a stake. Your dollars will often speak louder than your votes or your misdirected rage.

The Incredible Shrinking Man

2011-09-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

So … I’ve been fat for a very long time. However, if the scale, the comments, and the new clothes in my closet are to be believed, I am much less so today. In a little more than a year’s time, I’ve shed at least 50 lbs., going from medically obese to merely chubby. Indeed, a neighbor recently called me “the incredible shrinking man.”

Most people embark on a weight-loss regimen for some combination of health and vanity. In my case, it was almost all about my health, since absent thousands of dollars in cosmetic surgery, I still won’t be turning any heads. I was also just tired of being fat. I was tired of my own body getting in my way, tired of always feeling hot, and tired of the annoying aches and pains that attended carrying dozens of extra pounds on my back for decades on end.

How did I get here? I may have inherited a metabolism bred to survive northern European winters 10,000 years ago, but I live in the land of plenty that is southern California in the 21st century A.D. I like to eat (and drink), so I gained weight easily and steadily for many years. Cutting out junk food such as candy bars and soda pop slowed the process but never stopped it.

From time to time, I would make efforts toward diet and exercise. I would find some limited success, but eventually life would intervene. I would lose my opportunity for regular exercise, and gradually my caloric intake would creep up again. Nevertheless, this ill-fated methodology still helped me back away from my heaviest weight and keep those pounds off for several years.

As my 40th birthday approached, I wanted to do better for all the reasons mentioned earlier. I also knew that I had to try something different, or I would surely face the same failures as I had before.

First, I finally rejected the notion that I would ever “find enough time” to exercise. Obviously, if I spent four to six hours in the gym or walked 10 miles every day, I could be lean and fit, but I already didn’t have enough time to do the things I wanted to do. Second, I accepted the fact that I needed very little food to survive. For my office-worker lifestyle, a few bites here and there should be sufficient. In fact, to lose weight, I would have to eat even less than that meager amount.

So I reduced my consumption rather drastically. I started eating a third to a quarter of the amount of food I used to, replacing several meals per week with just fruits and vegetables. I also curtailed the alcoholic beverages that had snuck into my diet in place of soda pop. Even allowing myself the occasional indulgence, I slowly but surely began to make progress, usually dropping two or three pounds per month.

The process wasn’t easy or painless or without setbacks. I had to watch my leaner co-workers consuming buckets of tasty food at lunch, while contenting myself with a piece of fruit, a small salad, or a few spoonfuls of some leftover dinner. I had to ignore the gnawing hunger that gripped me at various times throughout the day. I had to reverse my tendency to fret about having too little food and worry instead about eating too much. Otherwise, a single big sushi weekend could erase two or three weeks of progress.

Fortunately, things have gotten easier. As the weight has come off, my appetite has gradually declined. This has made it easier for me to eat less and to further limit my indulgences, accelerating my downward progress in recent months. Measurable results have also helped to strengthen my resolve.

I’m now scarcely 10 lbs. away from my preliminary goal, a weight I haven’t seen since I was about 16 years old. I was already fat then, so I’m prepared to discover that I’ll still have 10 or 15 lbs. more to go after that.

I suppose the moral of my story is that these goals are obtainable without fad diets or inordinate amounts of exercise.

Please forgive my photograph. I wouldn’t normally post something so unpleasant, but it illustrates the progress I have made … and still have to make. It was either that or a dramatization starring George Clooney.

No Correlation between Firearms and Violence

2011-09-18T17:37:00.000-07:00

As a supporter of the right to arms and of human freedom in general, I am prepared to accept a high price for those liberties if need be. However, it is always nice when the evidence shows that more freedom is at least not more dangerous than less freedom.

Please see walls of the city for methodology and sources.

Defeat in New York

2011-09-06T19:49:00.000-07:00

The predictable decision has been released for Kachalsky v. Cacace at federal district court. Judge Cathy Seibel ruled that New York’s discretionary handgun-licensing scheme does not violate the U.S. Constitution.

An appeal is expected. We fail upward again.

Appealing for the Right to Carry

2011-08-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

Though it’s a few days after the fact, the first appeal brief has been filed in Richards v. Prieto, the case challenging the constitutionality of California’s discretionary handgun-licensing system—or at least the administration thereof. At this point, Richards is no longer in the vanguard of right-to-carry litigation, thanks to an accomplished bit of judicial stalling surrounding the once related case of Nordyke v. King. However, there is now a raft of cases throughout the federal court system that will likely demand a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court within the next two years.

Even after a right-to-carry victory at the high court, there will probably be holdouts in California and the other restrictive states. Much like the long aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education, subsequent enforcement actions will be required if that proves to be true. Richards v. Prieto may ultimately become the first such action here.

Assault on “Assault Weapons” Begins

2011-05-23T17:28:00.000-07:00

Sponsored by the Calguns Foundation and the Second Amendment Foundation, a lawsuit has been filed in federal court to challenge California’s ban on so-called assault weapons. Richards v. Harris attacks the ban itself on Second Amendment grounds and as a bonus also challenges the constitutionality of warrantless gun-related searches under the Fourth Amendment. The lawful possession of a firearm is not probable cause that a crime has occurred.

As I have noted before, “assault weapons” do not actually exist. They are an artificial and arbitrary category of weapon, functionally identical to many non-banned semi-automatic firearms, and much of the legislation passed against them was done through subterfuge, exploiting their superficial resemblance to machine guns, which have been tightly controlled since A.D. 1934 and effectively banned since A.D. 1986. Even in California, there are hundreds of thousands of firearms that have been modified to comply with the law’s confusing definitions.

The time has come to strike down this unconstitutional statute that prohibits firearms “in common use for lawful purposes.”

Economic Musings

2011-05-17T17:31:00.000-07:00

As a libertarian, I advocate for individual freedom and responsibility. However, I focus mainly on the personal aspects of this and am fairly content to let economic matters wait. While economic freedom is tremendously important and has far-reaching implications, the route to more libertarian economic policies must first pass through such subtler points as the right to privacy and the freedom of association.

Nevertheless, economic questions have been impossible to ignore in the face of the most recent financial crisis. When jobs are lost and financial security evaporates, emotions naturally run high and hot, and frightened, angry people look for someone or something to blame. Predictably, capitalism and free markets end up taking much of that blame.

The irony is that we don’t actually have free markets. Even in nominally capitalist countries such as the United States, the markets are managed, regulated, influenced, and manipulated by governments. This often, if not usually occurs with the participation or at least the tacit approval of powerful corporate interests, which are happy to see a regulatory status quo that protects their profits from potential competitors. In the latter respect, a private company can be as unfriendly to free markets as any state socialist.

In fact, free markets have never really been given a fair shake. While the young United States embraced the idea of capitalism after throwing off the legacy of British mercantilism, the federal government was still quick to regulate international trade. The industrial and banking magnates that rose to prominence after the Civil War also sought to control markets by building monopolies when possible or by colluding with their competitors when not. The legislation and regulation that followed, though born of good intentions, created new problems, especially for organized labor.

Regulations or rather bad regulations helped turn the recession of A.D. 1929 into the Great Depression. As with the latest crisis, easy credit fueled bad investments and outright speculation. Governments worldwide tried desperately to solve the problem through deficit spending, increased taxation, and ultimately warfare. When prosperity began to return after the Second World War, this had the curious effect of appearing to be successful. Government intervention in the economy had surely ended the depression!

The corollary observation was that capitalism and free markets had failed—though it’s hard to imagine that the economy wouldn’t have recovered naturally after nearly two decades. If greedy bankers and speculators had triggered the depression, then obviously the government needed to keep these dangerous “capitalists” in check by maintaining an active regulatory role and to help their victims by providing generous social welfare supported by significant taxation. This became the framework that encloses “free markets” today.

Therefore, it is now effectively a given that governments should step in to “fix” economic problems caused by “failures” of the free market. Indeed, many high schoolers learn about John Maynard Keynes, but few college graduates have even heard of economists such as Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, or Milton Friedman. Public education has framed the discussion very thoroughly, if incompletely in this regard.

Of course, under the right fiscal circumstances, Keynesian economic policies make perfect sense. We should set aside some funds in the good times and spend them in the bad times, smoothing out the ups and downs of the “business cycle.” However, governments are almost always spending beyond their means, abusing fiscal power for political favor. In the end, rampant Keynesian interventionism provides the would-be socialists with the power they crave and the so-called capitalists with the wealth they cherish.

When both of the factions that would destroy free markets are happy, I have to worry.

Right-to-Carry Loss in District Court

2011-05-16T20:04:00.000-07:00

Seeming to deliberately misread the Heller and McDonald decisions, Judge M. C. England has ruled in favor of Yolo County in the case of Richards v. Prieto at federal district court. Citing the fact that it is not yet technically illegal to openly carry an unloaded firearm, Judge England concluded that the county’s arbitrary licensing policy is “constitutionally valid.” However, in an ironic coincidence, the California Assembly voted to eliminate this technicality earlier today.

A notice of appeal has been filed.

May 1st

2011-05-01T22:35:00.000-07:00

I had planned to write about economics tonight, but war news intercedes. Osama bin Laden has been killed in Pakistan.

Right-to-Arms Rally in Los Angeles

2011-03-16T17:20:00.000-07:00

Mayors Against Illegal Guns sounds like an innocuous organization. Who isn’t against illegal guns? Illegal guns are those used by criminals in the commission of their crimes … right? Not exactly.

Michael Bloomberg’s pet gun-control group operates on the standard prohibitionist model. Not only would these mayors make owning and using firearms more difficult for law-abiding citizens in a vain attempt to thwart criminals, they would manufacture even more “illegal guns” by broadening the already broad categories of prohibited persons. Maybe that’s not so bad, you think? However, they would also circumvent due process of law and proper adjudication in order to do so, which is the much graver threat to personal freedom and civil rights.

This week, Mayor Bloomberg brought his show to Los Angeles, and that is how I found myself at a rally sponsored by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Under a blue but slightly cloudy sky, I joined fellow civil-rights proponents in front of the dilapidated headquarters of the Los Angeles Times. For a weekday event scheduled with short notice, it was fairly well attended, given that these were working people who had to use vacation credits or sacrifice a day’s pay to be there.

Gene Hoffman, Jr., of the Calguns Foundation spoke to the news media and addressed the public. Contrasting the Bloomberg group’s focus on the dozens of daily gun-related homicides, he cited conservative statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice that estimate more than 2,100 defensive gun uses per day. In other words, guns save far more lives than they take.

The gathering was also somewhat noteworthy in that rallying and demonstrating are not things gun owners usually do. Instead, we let our factors (such as the National Rifle Association) in Washington or Sacramento do the talking for us … and grumble quietly when things don’t go our way. Expectations are clearly changing, even if today’s event was little more than an exchange of propaganda.

As it often is, the “after party” was as interesting, if not more so than the event itself. I had the opportunity to listen to Mr. Hoffman discuss the constitutional, judicial, and legislative factors that should firmly recognize the right to carry a firearm within the next two or three years. He even let us in on the ironic but nearly foolproof method that should soon moot California’s ban on so-called large-capacity ammunition-feeding devices.

Like the skies over Los Angeles, so much has changed since I met with the NRA’s California leadership in early A.D. 2008, several months before the Heller decision. Gene Hoffman was there then too and ever more diplomatic than I in explaining to the old guard how the information revolution had affected the situation and our ability to organize and motivate people. I saw that again today, with renewed confidence that while there may still be minor setbacks, the overall victory appears inevitable.

And then things should start to get interesting.…

Right-to-Carry Update for California

2011-03-10T21:40:00.000-08:00

Right-to-carry reform inched forward in California today as oral arguments were heard for Richards v. Prieto. Arguing for the plaintiffs, Alan Gura challenged the constitutionality of the state’s arbitrarily applied discretionary licensing system (and specifically how such discretion is exercised in Yolo County). With very narrow exceptions, the only legal way to carry a functional firearm for self-defense or other lawful purposes in California is to have a concealed-handgun license issued by the county sheriff or local police chief. As Gura argued, for these licenses to comply with the Second Amendment right to bear arms, they must be provided to all applicants not prohibited from owning firearms and cannot be denied for arbitrary reasons.

Regardless of how the judge eventually rules, appeals are expected.

Back to Work

2011-01-01T18:49:00.000-08:00

Now that I’ve had some of the fun I promised, it’s time for Loyal Sedition to return to more serious, philosophical topics. In the coming weeks and months, I will be writing about the nature of rights and privileges, the relationship between the right to privacy and the right to arms and their importance to the civil-rights movement, and the history of cultural economics and its effects upon wealth and poverty. No doubt, I will also continue to report and muse on new developments in the civil-rights landscape and on the continuing revolution in the information economy.

The Apple iPhone as a Multifunctional Device

2010-11-20T14:05:00.000-08:00

I recently acquired a first-generation Apple iPhone to use as a mobile multifunctional device. Before I recount my successes and failures in this endeavor, I should first define exactly what a multifunctional device is. Quite simply, it is a device that performs more than two functions within four broad categories: communication, entertainment, information, and productivity.

The iPhone operates in all four of these areas, and it does so in multiple ways. The implementation of this functionality isn’t perfect, which is partly due to the designed limitations of the device and partly due to the fact that I’m a cheapskate. Though it was intended to operate on AT&T’s premium voice and data networks, I am running my iPhone on an inexpensive prepaid voice plan, while relying solely on Wi-Fi for data.

Not unexpectedly, communications and entertainment are the iPhone’s greatest strengths, descending as it does from earlier music phones. Voice calling and text messaging are standard features alongside the built-in iPod audiovisual player. Wi-Fi connectivity adds the ability to send and receive e-mail, to stream video, and to download music, games, and e-books.

Ubiquitous access to information via the Internet would be the iPhone’s greatest value, if data plans weren’t so damned expensive. Wi-Fi helps to fill the gap here, but coverage is still far from complete. Nevertheless, the convenience of always having information at your fingertips can’t be overstated.

In my case, I’ve turned to off-line solutions for certain information needs. For example, when I can’t access Google Maps, I now use a mapping application that I downloaded from the App Store for a few dollars. While not ideal, it’s still far more convenient than fiddling with paper maps.

In many ways, productivity is the iPhone’s weakest capability, even though it has a dedicated piece of on-board productivity hardware (a camera). The failure is actually one of software, in this case the lack of a built-in editor for documents and spreadsheets. While boring perhaps, I think that an advanced productivity suite will be vital to future multifunctional devices.

Fortunately, there are already workarounds for the productive user. Notes and e-mails can be used to create content for later export to a document. Google Docs can be used to view and edit spreadsheets when Internet access is available, and Google added the capability to edit documents while I was writing this post. Finally, there are third-party productivity applications available to download, but I have yet to try any of them.

Overall, my iPhone has proved itself as a prototypical multifunctional device. Though so-called smartphones are just beginning to penetrate the market, I expect they will become commonplace as mobile computing technology grows and matures.

Right-to-Carry Progress in California

2010-10-25T17:55:00.000-07:00

The Calguns Foundation and the Second Amendment Foundation have dropped their case against Sacramento County, now that Sheriff John McGinness is effectively issuing concealed-handgun licenses for the “good cause” of self-defense. Sykes v. McGinness will now continue as Richards v. Prieto in Yolo County, where a constitutional showdown may yet be required. However, for now at least, the civil-rights skirmish in Sacramento is over.

Coupled with the CGF’s recently announced concealed-carry compliance and sunshine initiative, the victory in Sacramento illustrates how right-to-carry reform will proceed in California. With support from a broad base of volunteers in every county and bolstered by the public disclosure of acceptable “good cause,” a series of civil-rights lawsuits will challenge unequal and/or unconstitutional licensing practices until all of the counties have reformed or until the question of constitutionality is settled in federal court. Should the constitutional issue be settled elsewhere in the meantime, a network for implementing compliance in California will already be in place.

Entertainment and New Media

2010-09-09T00:00:00.000-07:00

I like movies and television as much as the next guy, but in recent years, some of the most entertaining productions with the most intriguing plots, the best acting, and the most beautiful design and cinematography have come not from film studios but from game developers. Yes, video games have come a long way since two rectangles bounced a square “ball” back and forth.

Though I have played video games off and on since the days of coin-operated arcades and the first Atari console, I’ve also mostly avoided or at least lagged far behind in the electronic arms race that is PC gaming. However, there were two notable exceptions for me. StarCraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 1998) and Half-Life (Valve Corporation, 1998) were both innovative in their respective genres (real-time strategy and first-person shooter), but they were also novel for me in that they had cohesive stories to go along with their pixelated mayhem. These stories moved the games forward and kept the action from becoming stale.

I also completely missed several intervening generations of video-game consoles. While these systems were much more powerful than my old Atari, I felt that they still fell below the bar set even by my perpetually outdated PCs. That finally changed after the arrival of the Sony PlayStation 2.

Star Wars: Battlefront (Pandemic Studios, 2004) was the title that brought me back to console gaming. It was a straightforward action game (with the trappings of the popular Lucasfilm franchise), but the detailed graphics amazed me. In between blasting enemy troopers and robots, I found myself marveling at tree rings, blowing leaves, and waterfalls.

At the same time, I also picked up Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar North, 2004), which was then the latest entry in that controversial series. This was my first experience with an open-world game, where the player is largely free to move throughout the entire game environment and to experience the story in a nonlinear fashion. In many ways, it remains the most ambitious game I have ever played.

The story itself (despite its dubious morality and sometimes ridiculously over-the-top action) was also emotionally engaging. Set in a fictional southwestern American state (complete with three major cities, several small towns, and the countryside, waterways, and airspace between them) in the period leading up to the 1992 riots, San Andreas deals with family, friendship, betrayal, poverty, crime, and corruption. Excellent voice work by the main cast (including Chris “Young Malay” Bellard, Samuel L. Jackson, James Woods, and the late Chris Penn) sells the tale completely.

However, San Andreas pushed the limits of the PlayStation 2’s capabilities. Indeed, the developers made many technical compromises to achieve the game’s breathtaking scope. I wondered what the next generation of gaming consoles might bring.

Once the winning format for high-definition video had been determined, I quickly bought a PlayStation 3. This versatile device features Blu-ray playback, wireless Internet connectivity, and many gigabytes of on-board memory. Oh, and it plays video games too.

Soon, the Uncharted series (Naughty Dog, 2007–09) brought back the action-adventure magic I hadn’t experienced since Raiders of the Lost Ark (Lucasfilm Ltd., 1981) or The Mummy (Universal Pictures, 1999). There were puzzles to solve and enemies to fight, but sometimes I simply had to stop and admire the scenery as I followed lovable rogue Nathan Drake (voiced by Nolan North) through his improbable but engaging adventures.

Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar San Diego, 2010) took me to the dying days of the Old West and into another gorgeous open-world environment. In the game, reformed outlaw John Marston cuts a bloody path across several fictional border states in search of redemption for his past crimes. The fact that virtually every other character he encounters is morally flawed (and often deeply so) tells the player how successful Marston’s quest will ultimately be.

The world of Red Dead Redemption is fantastically detailed, rivaling San Andreas in ambition and far surpassing it in execution. The sparsely settled countryside ranges from deserts and mountains to prairies and forests, and it lives and breathes with the activities of people and animals. The graphics are beautiful, and the animation is mostly fluid and realistic.

Honorable mentions are also in order for Dead Space (Electronic Arts, 2008) and Prototype (Radical Entertainment, 2009). While these two science-fiction/horror games lacked the overall attention to detail offered by most of the others that I’ve described, they made up for it with singular focus on brutal combat gameplay. They also had better plots than most movies within the genre.

Video games won’t replace movies any more than movies replaced books, but they have certainly established themselves as a powerful new storytelling medium. As information technology and computing power continue to advance, I expect that we will experience some truly amazing interactive entertainment.

The Information Revolution and the Advent of the Multifunctional Device

2010-09-05T22:08:00.000-07:00

I never really wanted a cellular telephone. The convenience of mobile calling wasn’t enough to justify the expense—not to mention the fact that I mostly loathe phone calls. However, when our daughter was born, my wife insisted that I get a cell phone, so I grudgingly bought a basic phone and activated it on the least expensive pay-as-you-go plan that I could find.

Even then, it was already clear that mobile telephones, personal digital assistants, digital cameras, and portable media players were on a collision course that would integrate these technologies into a single multifunctional platform. (Indeed, my basic LG C1300 phone was a better PDA than my old Palm m125 in most respects.) This was a trend that interested me! Personal productivity, communications, and entertainment were about to become ubiquitous, consolidated, and portable.

A few short years later, so-called smartphones began to become widely available and relatively affordable. Among these was the Apple iPhone. With its multi-touch interface, application support, and Wi-Fi connectivity, I soon recognized the iPhone as a prototypical multifunctional device.

I usually eschew Apple products, but as soon as the opportunity presented itself, I purchased a decommissioned first-generation iPhone for a fraction of its original retail price. I then set about bending it to my will. This is not an uncommon practice with iPhones, which suffer from Apple’s typical insularity, but I was trying to do something even more basic than most.

I needed to reactivate my iPhone as a telephone on the default AT&T cellular network. What I didn’t need was to be forced into expensive long-term voice and data plans. I spend most of my time under Wi-Fi coverage, and my GoPhone account already meets my calling needs for less than $10 per month.

It should have been simple enough. I removed the SIM card from my old LG phone and installed it in my new iPhone … and was immediately greeted with an error message. The phone had detected a “different SIM” and didn’t want to play nicely with the new subscriber card. Actually, I could still make and receive calls, but I couldn’t access the iPhone’s operating system with the SIM in place.

That is when the power of the information revolution came into play. Once I stopped overthinking the problem and focused on the specific error, I quickly found that a solution had already been provided by the Internet guys, those anonymous heroes and villains of the information economy. Once I had installed a couple applications and patched some files, my iPhone was operating in all its multifunctional glory.

“Good Cause” Challenged in New York

2010-07-16T08:57:00.000-07:00

While waiting for California’s own right-to-carry challenge to move forward, lead counsel Alan Gura has filed a similar case in that other bastion of gun control, New York. Like our own Sykes v. McGinness, the new complaint challenges the constitutionality of “good cause” requirements for the issuance of handgun permits. Since the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that we have a fundamental right to keep and bear arms, Mr. Gura writes in Kachalsky v. Cacace that “[i]ndividuals cannot be required to prove their ‘good cause’ for the exercise of fundamental constitutional rights” and “cannot be required to demonstrate any unique, heightened need for self-defense apart from the general public in order to exercise the right to keep and bear arms.”

“Good cause” requirements violate the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Elders and New Information Technology

2010-07-11T18:03:00.000-07:00

What is the world coming to? Both of my parents are on Facebook now.

Of course, I shouldn’t be too surprised. My father was an early adopter of personal computers and taught me the basics in turn. By comparison, I’ve ridden the wave of the information revolution at its crest more often than on its face.

However, in my line of work, I’ve seen many of the elders in higher education struggling with or even resisting new information technology. This can be very disconcerting in an institution where “learning is preeminent.” I can understand the difficulty faced by those who’ve had long, fairly static careers, but those who teach should also be willing to learn.

Now, if I could just get my parents onto the PlayStation Network for some “Old West” gaming in Red Dead Redemption.…

Beyond Chicago and Incorporation

2010-06-28T23:30:00.000-07:00

And the Second Amendment has come back to California … again … and to the rest of the several states as well.

Today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in McDonald v. Chicago wasn’t the historic victory for civil rights that it could have and perhaps should have been, but it was a victory nonetheless. The court failed to breathe new life into the 14th Amendment’s intended protection for the “privileges or immunities” of American citizenship, but it still found that the Second Amendment applied to state and local governments, restoring the right to arms to its proper place in the pantheon of American civil rights. That is cause enough to celebrate for many reasons.

So what happens next?

Even after Chicago’s handgun ban is dismantled, many details about the nature and scope of the right to arms will still have to be defined. Many gun-control laws will be challenged. Some will pass constitutional muster, and some will not.

Legal challenges that have been on hold here in California can now proceed. The state’s concealed-carry licensing system and certified-handgun roster are clearly discriminatory and violate equal protection under the law. These are the low-hanging fruit. The optimists at the Calguns Foundation expect these to fall within two years.

Meanwhile, the usual batch of gun-control legislation has been moving forward, despite the fact that some form of incorporation has been widely expected since the ruling in D.C. v. Heller two years ago. California legislators and officials are either too ignorant or too disingenuous to avoid the oncoming train of constitutional law.

Elsewhere, some good progress has been made during the last year. Iowa joined the ranks of right-to-carry states, while Arizona became the third state to allow concealed carry without a license or permit. Federal regulations prohibiting firearms in national parks have also been lifted.

Why is this all so damned important? That I will explain in a future post.

Business as Usual at the Supreme Court?

2010-03-03T08:25:00.000-08:00

So oral arguments in McDonald v. Chicago were made before the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday. While the court is widely expected to rule that the Second Amendment does apply to state and local governments, attorney Alan Gura arguing for the plaintiff received a somewhat hostile reception as he made the case for reviving the original intent of the 14th Amendment’s “privileges or immunities” clause, which had been mostly nullified by a previous ruling in A.D. 1873.

This seemed odd, since the High Court’s dicta in D.C. v. Heller appeared to invite a new look at this very issue. The more cynical observers were quick to suggest that the whole thing might have been a setup. Perhaps, they argued, the “conservative” members of the court wanted the issue before them specifically to kill “privileges or immunities” for another century or two.

Why? Because a fully realized 14th Amendment would revolutionize the civil-rights movement. That the Bill of Rights applies in all its glory to the states as well as to the federal government could no longer be denied. Minority groups still fighting for their share of American liberty would also have an easier time of it.

On the other hand, one well-educated correspondent of mine pointed out that the exchange resembled an academic thesis defense. The faculty may savage the student, but if his arguments are sound, his diploma will be secured. Viewed from this perspective, the proceedings can look much more promising for a reading of the 14th Amendment that is finally right and proper.

In any case, it looked like business as usual at the Supreme Court, but we probably won’t know for sure until June.

The Perils of Charity

2010-01-21T22:24:00.000-08:00

Hundreds of thousands dead or injured. Millions displaced. Billions of dollars in damage. How can we respond to last weekʼs devastating earthquake in Haiti? Americans are generous … and wealthy, so we give. How can we not?

But charity can also be dangerous to its would-be beneficiaries. Too much giving can destroy local economies. How can the farmer sell his produce when food is given to the hungry? How can the manufacturer sell his goods? The merchant his wares? When they canʼt, they too end up in line for the dole. If and when the largess comes to an end, its recipients are left without the means to support themselves, permanently dependent on the fickle generosity of others.

Haiti poses an especially difficult problem in this respect.

Even before the earthquake, Haiti was one of the poorest countries in the world. It was and is also one of the most corrupt. Nearly 40 percent of its national budget was already based on foreign aid, while just one percent of the population controlled half of the nationʼs wealth. With that in mind, how much of our charity will really go to those in need?

How can we truly help Haiti and the similarly troubled nations of this world? Neither our generosity nor our military might can fix their problems—at least not without more money and time than we will ever be willing to invest. Maybe the best we can do is to lead by example, which means fixing our own problems and achieving our full potential as a nation of freedom and opportunity.

But thatʼs enough cynicism for one day. Besides, I have a donation to the relief effort to make. How can I not?

Airway Insanity

2010-01-05T17:22:00.000-08:00

It has been said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.

We should have learned at least two lessons on September 11th. First, our conventional security measures donʼt work. Second, informed passengers are more effective at fighting airway terrorism than even the mighty U.S. Air Force. Instead, President G. W. Bush created the asinine Transportation Security Administration to execute the same failed procedures under federal control.

Ironically, it took the likes of anti-gun Senator Barbara Boxer to push for something different. Eventually, the Congress enacted the Federal Flight Deck Officer program, with the Bush administration resisting all the way. This program allowed a handful of pilots to be armed with handguns for the defense of their aircraft. It was inadequate, but at least it was something new … and a step in the right direction.

On Christmas Day, A.D. 2009, a would-be Nigerian terrorist attempted to detonate an explosive device hidden in his underwear while on a flight to Detroit. He was “subdued” by other passengers. Again, conventional procedures had failed, while travelers who acted in their own defense had prevented something terrible. The lessons of September 11th had been taught once more.

Of course, as before, we learned nothing.

The TSA under President B. H. Obama has responded by doing more of the same. Invasive and useless screenings have increased, while those who actually foiled the December 25th attack—the passengers—have been ordered to stay in their seats. They could be stripped and caged, but that won’t stop our enemies from finding ways to kill us.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.

Supreme Court to Hear Incorporation Case

2009-09-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear McDonald v. Chicago to decide if the Second Amendment is incorporated against the states via the 14th Amendment. The case challenges Chicago’s ban on handguns, which is very similar to the District of Columbia’s ban that was struck down as unconstitutional last year. This case also bears watching for its approach to incorporation, which could finally put an end to this long bit of legalistic fiction.

Meanwhile, all pending right-to-arms litigation in California is on hold.

En Banc Hearing for Nordyke v. King

2009-09-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

The en banc hearing for Nordyke v. King was today. The judges didn’t pull any punches, but late in the day, the court vacated the submission pending the disposition of several Second Amendment incorporation cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Sadly, this decision will deny the honor of incorporation to California and delay progress on civil-rights litigation here.

U.S. Health Care

2009-09-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

Okay! Let’s talk about health care. First, I must confess that I haven’t been following the heated public debate on the matter very closely, since it seems to be long on emotion and short on information. In the end, of course, only the actual legislation will matter.

Meanwhile, though, the propaganda has been extra hot and spicy. Death panels? Tens of millions of uninsured Americans? Seriously? What’s the big deal?

Health care is expensive. The practice of medicine is a complex and sensitive skill, so mistakes can lead to death. It costs a small fortune to properly train a physician and costs another to protect him from the attorneys waiting to capitalize on his mistakes.

Consumers don’t really want to pay these costs, so they gamble instead. Turning to insurance companies, they put down their money and bet that they won’t get sick. The insurance companies want to make profits (preferably big profits), so they do their best to pay out as little as possible when the consumers do need medical care. However, rates steadily creep upward as insurers, physicians, attorneys, and consumers all try to squeeze more and more out of this flawed system.

Take my household as an example. Each month, my wife and I pay about $100 for health insurance. Our employers kick in another $1,300! Imagine what we could have done with that money over the last 10 years if it had been part of our actual salaries. Even conservative investments would have put $170,000 in our bank account by now, far more than enough to cover the few thousand dollars of health care that we’ve actually consumed.

So, yeah, health care (or rather health insurance) is too expensive. A non-profit “public option” could help introduce more freedom to the market, but not if it comes with so much bureaucratic and regulatory overhead that any potential savings are lost—especially if these “hidden” costs are foisted off on the taxpayers. Legal reform is also needed to limit the inflation of medical costs, but simply tweaking the existing health-care system may never be enough.

However, government involvement helped to create the problems we currently face. Therefore, even more government involvement in health care may not be the best solution. I’ll leave it to brighter minds than mine to come up with a system that doesn’t promote gambling or rely on reciprocal marketing.

Nefarious Organizations

2009-08-18T17:01:00.000-07:00

My father recently confessed that he had looked me up on Google and remarked that I belong to several “nefarious organizations.” Indeed, I have made no secret of my various memberships and affiliations, but I also rarely go out of my way to talk about them. Today, though, I think I will discuss some of my more nefarious connections and activities.

I am a card-carrying* member of the oft reviled American Civil Liberties Union. Yes, this organization frequently stands up for some real unsavory characters, but while the ACLU is defending the dregs of society from persecution, the rest of us are much less likely to find ourselves among those dregs. In other words, the ACLU helps keep normal people from becoming direct combatants and possible casualties in the war on civil rights.

I am also a member of the equally reviled National Rifle Association. This may seem at odds with my ACLU membership, since that organization’s national leadership fundamentally misunderstands the firearms issue for reasons that are as irrational as they are forgivable, but the NRA and the ACLU do complement each other, even though their actual collaboration may be rare. Of course, the NRA promotes and defends gun ownership and the right to arms.

Based on many of my posts here at Loyal Sedition, you can tell that this last point is very important to me. I have been increasingly active in the right-to-arms movement for several years now, in my own small way at least. This is not because I think that the right to arms is our most important civil right—it isn’t—but because it is the one with the best opportunity for real progress at the moment. The most dramatic progress is currently happening in the courts, so I am a financial contributor to the Calguns Foundation.

I am also a member of the Libertarian Party mostly as a statement of my political support for social and economic freedoms, which are really the same thing—but it’s considered greedy and insensitive to be concerned about money unless you don’t have any. I might call myself a communist, if communism didn’t violate the second law of thermodynamics and the first law of human laziness. However, I don’t limit my political defeat to one party. I was registered as a Republican during the last two elections, and I sometimes even vote for losers from the Democratic Party.

Finally, some interesting stereotypes can be derived from my on-line activity. I am a frequent poster at Calguns (dangerous gun owner), an occasional poster at Libertarian Undergound (heartless libertarian communist) and Cool Mini or Not (freakish gamer geek), and a formerly active poster at Sword Forum International (scary blade lover). I also write this blog and make comments on other people’s blogs from time to time (lonely Internet nerd). Oh, and I recently joined Facebook (unskilled Internet plebeian).

Next year, I may even register to vote as a Democrat.

*I don’t like to have a lot of cards in my pocket, so I don’t actually carry my ACLU or NRA cards, but I do have them.

Another Setback

2009-07-31T22:04:00.000-07:00

As reported at the Volokh Conspiracy, the U.S. Court of Appeals has ordered Nordyke v. King to be reviewed by the court en banc. This unexpected move means that, temporarily at least, the Second Amendment has been snatched back from California and the rest of the Ninth District. However, the news may not be all bad.

While the rehearing may void incorporation, it is also possible that the court may instead correct some of the problems with the original ruling, which held that the Second Amendment applied to state and local governments but that the county ordinance in question did not violate it. Even if incorporation is voided in the Ninth District, the U.S. Supreme Court is still likely to hear one of the other incorporation cases currently on appeal. In any event, pending civil-rights actions in California may face a longer, more difficult course.

Victory in Defeat

2009-07-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

Lest it appear that I ignore setbacks and defeats …

As the New York Times reported today, the U.S. Senate failed to pass an amendment to a defense-spending bill that would have mandated nationwide recognition of concealed-weapons permits—which, technically, Article IV of the U.S. Constitution already requires. Actually, the amendment was approved 58 to 37, but procedural rules required 60 votes. Of course, even if the amendment had eventually passed into law, it would have done little for California … other than to further demonstrate that most other Americans enjoy more freedom than we do in this area.

However, this minor defeat illustrates how far we have come since the zenith of the gun-control movement in A.D. 1994. Over half the Senate voted in favor of a provision that would have benefited law-abiding gun owners. That is progress in itself.

Climatic Change and Human History

2009-07-11T23:48:00.000-07:00

As we traveled through the tortured landscape of the Great Basin on our way to and from Utah, I was reminded of the long history of climatic change in this region. Millions of years ago, it was seabed. Thousands of years ago, it was largely filled with lakes and rivers fed by melting glaciers. Even after the glaciers began their abrupt but long retreat, the region remained wet and lush long enough for ancient humans to survive and prosper.

That prosperity didn’t last. The climate continued to change. Lakes and rivers shrank, and some disappeared altogether. Rainfall also declined. The Great Basin dried out. Crops failed. People died. The first inhabitants had all but vanished by the time more adaptable tribes arrived from the east to dig wells, divert rivers, and build cities.

Despite all the recent concern over climatic change, it is simply not a new phenomenon. In the broadest sense, human history has been defined by our response to this ongoing process. Legendary civilizations arose and thrived on the low-lying temperate plains, only to be washed away by the rising seas that heralded the beginning of a warmer, interglacial period. As the ice retreated, the survivors of the great floods migrated into the new lands, where they planted the seeds that grew into the nations we know today.

Humans have always adapted to such change or paid the price for failing to do so. Now, though, we talk of controlling the climate by our own hand and of spending the wealth of nations to do so. Assuming this ability is within our grasp and not another fiction of our own arrogance, how will we select the ideal global climate?

That is the question that still remains unanswered and, for that matter, largely unasked. Why should the predominant climate of the 20th century A.D. be our ideal? It was but one point on the climatic spectrum—and perhaps an unstable one at that. Should we forgo adaptation in our pursuit of control? Our civilization will pay a high price if our quest for control fails—or perhaps even if it succeeds.

California Asks for Nationwide Incorporation of the Second Amendment

2009-07-07T16:26:00.000-07:00

On July 6th, Attorney General Edmund G. Brown submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on two pending Second Amendment incorporation appeals out of Chicago. Citing the protection of Constitutional rights in California, AG Brown encouraged the high court to hear these cases and to affirm the applicability of the Second Amendment to the states. He also asked the court for guidance on what kinds of firearms regulations are permissible.

The momentum for reform is clearly mounting now. The Supreme Court will doubtlessly rule in favor of nationwide incorporation, which will make sweeping advances for the legal right to arms almost inevitable. Furthermore, AG Brown’s brief also focused attention on California’s particular plight, which is shared by a handful of other states (such as Illinois and New York). Together, we suffer under a tangled, ineffective mass of gun-control laws that are becoming ever more clearly unconstitutional.

It seems that the question I asked just two months ago has been answered. A quiet but well-placed ally has indeed found the political cover needed to move toward a more reasonable interpretation of the right to arms in California.

Cultural Movements and Social Trends

2009-06-29T13:45:00.000-07:00

Recently, I have been reflecting upon my role in several recent cultural movements. To be more precise, I have noted that my involvement seems to signal the relative success of the particular movement. I recognize that this is a heavily anthropic observation, but then the beauty of the anthropic principle is that it requires self-reflection by definition.

I won’t make a detailed history of this, but here are the broad strokes. As a gamer, I have enjoyed the ongoing development and mainstream acceptance of role-playing games. I participated in the popularization of Japanese animation in the West and thus the renewed interest in all forms of cinematic animation. In a small way, I also helped bring about the current renaissance in Western swordsmanship and sword making. Most recently, I have become an active participant in the right-to-arms movement, now entering a revolutionary stage in the United States.

While none of these movements have attained complete cultural normalization, all have made great strides in that direction. I also cannot definitively say that my participation has been a factor in their successes. However, I can say that, so far, my involvement is indicative of impending success, which brings us back to the anthropic principle.

Speaking more broadly, I also find myself part of various social trends. These differ from cultural movements in that they generally lack group cohesion and internal organization, but they can be very significant nonetheless. I’ve written about some of these in the past, including the ongoing information revolution and the new baby boom. Another example is the increasing numbers of interracial marriages and families. Here, I have my Chinese-Indonesian wife and our beautifully mixed daughter, and there are at least three other similar families in our small neighborhood.

All of this leads me to wonder about the future. In this era of rapid social and cultural change, what will happen next? Will my wandering attention predict success or failure?

Well, that’s enough self-aggrandizement for one day.

Facebook

2009-06-25T15:59:00.000-07:00

I said that I would try to be less stubborn about new information technology, so I’ve finally joined a social-networking site. That is Facebook in this case, since some folks have been pestering me with invitations, and I see that many of my friends and family have already joined.

What’s this all about? The idea is to make finding and connecting with friends and associates easier. Of course, anyone looking for me can find me with any search engine.

Nevertheless, I’ll give this social-networking business a try, though I can’t imagine using Facebook as much more than a pointer to my more formal on-line endeavors. Time will tell.

Fighting for the Right to Arms in California

2009-05-08T20:59:00.001-07:00

Scarcely two weeks have passed since the historic ruling in Nordyke v. King incorporated the Second Amendment in California, but unconstitutional gun-control laws and regulations are already being challenged. The Second Amendment Foundation and the Calguns Foundation have filed two lawsuits in federal court. Peña, et al. v. Cid attacks California’s roster of approved handguns as a de facto ban on common defensive weapons, while Sykes, et al. v. McGinness, et al. challenges the outdated and arbitrary application of the state’s discretionary handgun-licensing system.

The constitutional questions raised in both cases were addressed by last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in D.C. v. Heller, so positive outcomes seem likely. The real question may only be how long it takes for the litigation to be resolved. I don’t expect victory to take more than 10 years, but it could come much more quickly than that.

It has been suggested that the right-to-arms movement in California has allies in high places. I have to wonder if these lawsuits wouldn’t provide the political cover for such allies to issue new, more reasonable interpretations of our current laws … in light of Second Amendment incorporation. Why not spare the state, counties, and municipalities from costly litigation?

The Financial Crisis Simplified

2009-05-04T22:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a visualization that explains the current financial crisis clearly and concisely.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

However, I also have to point out that the private sector is not solely responsible for the mess. The government did its part to set the stage by artificially inflating housing prices through poor but well-intentioned regulations.

A Small Victory for Privacy Rights

2009-04-22T15:07:00.000-07:00

Amid all the other excitement this week, I almost overlooked another civil-rights victory. In Arizona v. Gant, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police need a warrant to search the vehicle of someone they have arrested, if that person poses no threat to officers. While this decision doesn’t moot searches for “officer safety” permitted under Terry v. Ohio, it is a small step forward for Fourth Amendment protection of privacy rights.

Watch where you park.

The Information Revolution

2009-04-21T07:35:00.000-07:00

By now, it should be clear that an information revolution is in progress. Just 15 years ago, information was still a relatively scarce and well-controlled commodity. The economic and legal barriers to reaching a wide audience were substantial, and access to information and other intellectual capital required persistence or money or both.

That has all changed. Now, information is abundant and often available at little or no cost to the user. The institutional barriers that once controlled the flow of information have been largely circumvented. The information economy is rapidly adjusting, and the value of intellectual capital is falling—but that is a topic for another post.

The mainstream media are struggling to adapt to the new paradigm. Where once the publishers controlled the supply of information and thus the architecture of any related public debate, the consumers have now freed the market. Web logs and on-line discussion forums now rapidly spread the news that some traditional media outlets still try to conceal, minimize, or distort due to their own political agendas.

Yesterday’s historic court decision in Nordyke v. King is a perfect example. This morning, there is nothing in the Los Angeles Times on the story, but there is an article about the 10th anniversary of the shootings at Columbine High School and the drive for tougher gun-control laws. In contrast, the right-to-arms community on the Internet knew about the decision within minutes of its announcement, and we had known that it was coming for months.

Similarly, ABC’s recent gun-control propaganda piece was a traditionally massive exercise in broadcast “journalism.” It might have stood on its own, but on-line communities mounted an immediate challenge. Discussion forums and web logs quickly and effectively refuted ABC’s deceptive, politically motivated reporting.

And who can forget that it was bloggers who took down CBS’s Dan Rather? A distinguished journalist ended his career in disgrace, because he let his political agenda get in the way of his objectivity … and because he failed to realize that his powerful television network no longer controlled the information.

This then is the true power and promise of the Web 2.0 paradigm. Information wants to be free.

The Second Amendment Comes to California

2009-04-20T20:24:00.000-07:00

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that “the Fourteenth Amendment [to the U.S. Constitution] incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it to the states and local governments.” While 14th Amendment incorporation is a profanely legalistic concept, the way has now been opened to challenge unconstitutional gun-control statutes and regulations in California and beyond. The case in question was Nordyke v. King.

In a clever bit of jurisprudence, the court ruled against the plaintiffs (gun-show organizers) while settling the incorporation matter. Alameda County was the “winner,” so it cannot appeal the decision. The right to arms is now the law of the land, at least for much of the western United States.

This is wonderful news for the civil-rights movement, but the fight is really only just beginning. Prepare for an onslaught of litigation over the next few years.

Baby Boom

2009-04-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

The United States saw a record number of births in A.D. 2007. That bit of news confirmed my own hypothesis that we are in the midst of a new baby boom. At Sea World this past weekend, I certainly saw quite a few women who were already working on their second or third contributions to the trend.

I grew up in the so-called baby bust of the 1970s. Besides my brother and me and our friends down the street, there were very few younger children in my neighborhood. Now residential streets are alive with the voices of children at play—my own daughter’s among them.

I’m not yet sure what to make of this demographic surprise—and i think that it is a surprise, coming as it does from my own scarce generation. On one hand, those of us who thought we would probably never see a dime of Social Security income may be able to rest a little bit easier. On the other hand, population growth will probably continue to strain global economic development.

“If I Only Had a Gun”

2009-04-11T01:25:00.000-07:00

I suspected that I would regret it, but I did it anyway. I watched Diane Sawyer’s report, “If I Only Had a Gun,” on ABC’s 20/20 last night. I was expecting bias that would lean away from gun ownership and the right to arms, but what I saw was an hour of shamefully unadulterated propaganda.

I’m not naive when it comes to journalism. I’ve had my share of experience being misquoted, plagiarized, and editorially marginalized, but this was mainstream media bias in rare form. There were omissions, lies, and even fabricated evidence.

The broadcast sought to make four main points. Firearms are ineffective weapons for self-defense. Children are in grave danger of being killed by improperly stored firearms. “Gun violence” plagues a small town in Florida. Weapons can be obtained too easily through the “gun-show loophole.”

Can You Defend Yourself with a Gun?

The first segment dealt with carrying handguns for self-defense. To demonstrate that armed civilians are doomed to failure, ABC contrived a scenario designed to almost guarantee such failure. Posing as a deranged gunman, a well-trained police firearms instructor bursts into a small classroom and begins shooting simulated bullets. A barely trained college student wearing an awkwardly long shirt, bulky gloves, and cumbersome headgear is expected to engage this threat with his own mock handgun. Naturally, none of ABC’s handpicked subjects were able to make any quickly incapacitating shots. However, though this fact was minimized, one young woman did manage to deliver a probably fatal wound to the assailant’s femoral artery, which would have mitigated the casualties from his rampage as he rapidly bled to death on the classroom floor.

Indeed, if someone walks up and immediately begins shooting you at close range, your chance to successfully defend yourself is already over, regardless of how well you may be armed. This applies even to well-trained police officers, who are far less common than ABC implied. Throughout the segment, video of intensive tactical training suggested that the average cop is a firearms expert. Unfortunately, standard police and even military firearms training is actually very basic. My own marksmanship skills are minimal, but even I have outperformed federal law-enforcement officers at the shooting range.

However, any honest right-to-arms advocate will tell you that a firearm is not a magic talisman that will guarantee your survival in a violent confrontation. Having a gun merely gives you a fighting chance, but that chance can be very small. I know that I would rather risk injury in defense of my loved ones than do nothing only to see them brutally murdered.

Extrapolating from this worst-case scenario that carrying a handgun can never help you in a violent encounter would be unwise at best, but this is exactly what ABC did. As further evidence, Diane Sawyer herself stepped up to a police simulator and failed to draw her sidearm quickly enough. Of course, that was a self-fulfilling prophecy, but don’t let her cover you in a potential firefight.

In the end, ABC and Diane Sawyer were making a case that no one should be armed, not even the police. Of course, total disarmament is the ultimate goal of the gun-control movement. Despite their wishful thinking for a non-violent society, if the prohibitionists ever succeed, they would only turn the whole world back into Pahokee, Florida, as we will see in a moment.

When Older Kids Find Guns

The second segment explored the attraction guns hold for both younger and older kids. In another poorly constructed experiment, children were shown handling and playing with firearms placed where the kids would find them. Why this should surprise anyone is unclear.

Children are naturally curious. When adults try to hide something from them, they become even more eager to explore. The lure of forbidden fruit is a well-known phenomenon.

As usual, the answer is proper education. In the show, only the young man with gun-safety training resisted the temptation to improperly handle a found gun. The others all demonstrated their profound ignorance, though this occasionally had to be encouraged by ABC collaborators. Education saves lives.

Fortunately, accidental shooting deaths are actually very rare.

Damon Weaver’s Plea to Obama

Pahokee is a town of 6,000 souls, few jobs, and an “infinity of guns.” When darkness falls, the violence begins. Gangs rule this place, and by the light of day, the law-abiding residents are too frightened to help the police. Young, would-be journalist Damon Weaver asks what President Barack H. Obama will do to help his town.

Criminal gangs are the problem here. Criminals are already prohibited from having firearms, but one gang member boasts that he can get an illegal handgun for $60. When I legally purchased a police-surplus pistol for $350, I thought that was a smoking-hot deal.

Violent gangs are a problem older than human civilization. In fact, they are the problem that led us to form governments and states. We can no longer apply the historical military solutions, but until we put an end to the institutionalized poverty that encourages modern gangs and to the black markets that finance them, the problem will persist.

Firearms prohibitionists would unintentionally—or so I assume—return the whole world to the conditions of Pahokee, Florida. When the good people are disarmed, it will once again be the ruthless, violent gangs that dictate social policy. Violence as a means of conflict resolution is most effectively neutralized only when all sides are equally equipped to do violence.

I will answer little Damon’s question with my usual cynicism. President Obama will do nothing to help Pahokee. Doing so would be to reject the institutionalized poverty and paternalistic racism that is his party’s source of political power.

10 Guns in One Hour

The next myth that ABC promoted was the “gun-show loophole.” I have already written an article on this topic, but let me reiterate that there is no loophole. All federal, state, and local laws continue to apply at gun shows.

To illustrate their point, ABC gave $5,000 to the grieving brother of a Virginia Tech victim and sent him to a gun show in Richmond. Within an hour, the young man was able to buy 10 firearms (mostly old rifles and shotguns) from private parties at the show. He found some pretty good deals but nothing approaching the $60 stolen handguns in Pahokee.

Shooting Under Fire

The final segment wrapped up the rigged experiment that opened the broadcast. Diane Sawyer closed with this blatantly false statement: “… if you’re wondering where’re all the studies about the effectiveness of guns used by ordinary Americans for self-defense, well keep searching. We could not find one reliable study.…” Apparently, Ms. Sawyer and her “research” staff have never heard of libraries or even Google Scholar, where the ongoing academic discussion on the subject can be uncovered in less than five seconds … or maybe the facts didn’t support their predetermined conclusions.

About the only thing that ABC and Diane Sawyer got right in this report is the fact that you are unlikely to be shot and even less likely to be shot fatally. A gunfight is one of the last places anyone should want to be, but having a gun does improve your odds of survival, according to federal crime data. That fact was nowhere to be seen in last night’s broadcast.

Firearms aren’t for everyone, but we have an inalienable right to arms. The U.S. Supreme Court has now recognized that fact. Nevertheless, the prohibitionists in the mainstream media clearly aren’t ready to abandon their propaganda campaign.

Fun with Widgets

2009-04-10T18:54:00.000-07:00

Internet widgets (or gadgets, as Google prefers to call them) are little bits of code that allow users to add features to their websites, search engines, and whatnot. For example, I’ve added an instant messenger to my homepage, a financial widget to my customized Google interface, and a simple text editor to this web log. There are already thousands of ready-made widgets to choose from.

These widgets are another example of Web 2.0 technology. In many cases, the user doesn’t have to know a thing about programming to incorporate a widget. Some programming ability certainly won’t hurt, though, as it allows the user to modify widgets as needed. A savvy user can also copy the source code for an interesting widget he may discover while browsing the web.

Welcome to Loyal Sedition

2009-04-07T07:39:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I created this web log to replace my sidebar commentary at the Dancing Giant Inn. That site will continue to host my more in-depth articles, while this space will provide immediacy and the opportunity for participation from my “readership.” Never mind that in the last 10 years I have received exactly one piece of fan mail, one piece of “hate mail,” and one citation.

I wanted an engaging name that would also summarize my intent with a fair amount of accuracy. This is how I arrived at Loyal Sedition.

To a libertarian, sedition is one of the most chilling words in any language. Though defined as conduct or speech meant to incite rebellion, sedition has often been charged against any criticism of the state, its leaders, or its agents. I am here to raise my voice in dissent to the powers that be whenever necessary.

That said, I love my country and my nation. Despite our many flaws, the United States was founded on the principle of human freedom and remains the most successful embodiment of that ideal in known history. This is something I have sworn to support and defend.

To be honest, I don’t really want any attention. I would rather go about my business and pursue my interests in anonymity and privacy, but the stakes are too high. I cannot condone with silence the many forces that would trample human freedom and extinguish the American Revolution through ignorance, greed, or ambition.

Loyal Sedition is my voice (or at least part of it) in the ongoing struggle for human freedom.

But that doesn’t mean we can never have any fun here.

Web 2.0 and Loyal Sedition

2009-04-05T17:14:00.000-07:00

And so, with no small amount of reluctance, I have finally launched a web log (or “blog” in today’s vernacular). This is mostly in response to a Web 2.0 initiative by my employer. To be fair, though, my former Commentary section at the Dancing Giant Inn served a similar purpose and now provides a ready-made archive for this space. What’s next? A MySpace page or my own World of Warcraft account?

Web 2.0 is more than another empty bit of marketing, though the term has certainly been used in this manner. In a nutshell, the Web 2.0 concept represents the combination of web-based software and user-generated content. This contrasts with the traditional model of controlled content authoring and desktop software distribution.

I foresaw this trend at least a decade ago, when I created my first website. Back then, I described a time when software developers would simply provide the tools that would allow non-programmers to create useful electronic content. I saw programs like Netscape Composer and Microsoft FrontPage as early examples of this technology, but a web-based distribution model seemed more like science fiction at the time.

While I was clicking away at HTML on my dial-up connection, the Internet was quickly blooming with user-created content. What I was trying to accomplish with my monolithic website was being accomplished much more easily on web logs, photo-sharing sites, on-line auctions, discussion forums, and social-networking sites. To some extent, I was ignoring the very technology I had predicted and desired.

My late arrival to high-speed connectivity explains some of my reluctance to embrace these trends, but there is more to it than that. I wanted total control over the architecture of my content—or at least as much control as I could get. In pursuit of this goal, I built my own websites from the ground up, teaching myself HTML as I moved slowly forward. I’m sure that I even sneered at all those Internet plebeians who were quickly popping out so many MySpace pages.

I will have to let go of some more of my stubbornness in this respect. It won’t be easy, but I’ve been making progress. There is a wild and wonderful world out there on the Internet. It’s time for me to embrace all of it … maybe.

I will talk about Loyal Sedition and what that’s all about in a later post.

A Question of Failure

2009-03-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

Last night, during a political discussion fueled by a combination of alcohol and vitriol, we came to the subject of hoping that a certain President should fail. Irrational partisanship aside, the question was whether or not hoping for the failure of an administration is wrong. My position was and is that the answer depends on what one means by failure.

Is it purely a matter of partisan politics? I want the other party to fail, just because I don’t like the other party. Or is it a matter of policy? I want the other party’s policy to fail, because I think it dangerous and want a better policy to prevail. In fact, I fall into the latter category.

During the G. W. Bush administration, I wanted some policies (costly and unnecessary war in Iraq) to fail and other policies (Social Security reform) to succeed. President Bush got his war and suffered only a little disengenuous opposition for it, but he gave up on fixing the great American pyramid scheme as soon as the Democrats raised the slightest complaint.

Now, during the B. H. Obama administration, I will continue to hope for the success of the good and the failure of the bad. If he can disentangle us with honor from Iraq, then I hope that he succeeds. If he can prevent the current recession from turning into a depression, then I wish him success for the most part. If he can bring the efficiency, compassion, and quality of the typical Department of Motor Vehicles to the American health-care system, then I hope he fails.

Beyond that, though, I have to wonder why failure has become such an anathema in American society. We used to learn from our mistakes and failures. Now, we protect and bail out failing industries. We continue to pursue failing social policies. We pour more and more money into failing institutions. We reward failure and demand that American taxpayers foot the bill.

We must have the moral courage to let some fail … or risk ruin for all.

President Obama’s Inaugural Address

2009-01-20T23:59:00.000-08:00

President Barack H. Obama was already well regarded as a public speaker (at least when his teleprompter works properly), but his inaugural address was certainly as masterful a speech as we have seen in recent decades. One passage near the middle of his address caught my attention immediately. It cut right to the heart of the American experience and the struggle for human freedom.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man—a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.

As a confirmed cynic, I have to wonder if the President and his Congress will abide by these words. Given their collective political histories, that would be quite remarkable. For now, though, I’ll hope for change and accept the new President’s words on their face.

The Election of Barack Obama and the Defeat of Racism

2008-11-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

The “most important election in our lifetime”™ is over, but it was indeed historic. The people of the United States have elected their first “black” President. While I didn’t vote for Barack H. Obama myself, I can still celebrate the moment for another reason.

That distant pounding you hear is less Republicans banging their heads against the wall for almost completely squandering the last eight years than it is the triumphant sound of Americans collectively hammering the last nails into the coffin of “racism.” Oh, “racism” is not dead by any means, but we have succeeded in burying it alive. It’s best to ignore the whining and scratching you will hear from its grave, lest undue attention should let “racism” slip free again.

That said, I feel terribly bad for President Obama. Expectations of him are so high that he almost can’t fail to disappoint. I have little doubt that the Democrats will squander their time and burn their political capital as recklessly as the Republicans so recently did.

Supreme Court Rules on the Right to Arms

2008-06-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

At long last, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects the individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense and other lawful purposes, striking down the District of Columbia’s 30-year-old ban on private handguns. Unfortunately, the court’s decision in D.C. v. Heller was not the sweeping, revolutionary opinion that might have spared Americans from many more years of political theater and emotional litigation. Civil libertarians still face a long and torturous path to create a working freedom from the Constitutional right.

Indeed, the court was almost evenly split on the matter. In a disappointing display of intellectual dishonesty and contradictory reasoning, four justices dissented from the majority, favoring their personal opinions over nearly self-evident constitutional law. Tonight, however, the way is ever so much clearer, so I raise my glass in thanks to the five justices who finally ended 216 years of uncertainty.

Choosing a President

2008-01-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

The election of 2008 will feature one of the most interesting Presidential contests in recent history. A white woman and a black man lead the Democratic field. Among the Republican candidates, there are an aristocrat, a fascist, an evangelical, a libertarian, and even one or two “conservatives.”

I will temporarily change my registration so that I can vote for Ron Paul in the Republican primary. Representative Paul is the only libertarian on the ballot from either of the two ruling parties, so I urge all freedom-loving citizens to do likewise. Even if he doesn’t win the nomination, we can show both parties that we value freedom and peace over militarism and “security.”

Fred Thomspon on the Right to Carry

2007-04-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

In all the discussion of gun control and the right to bear arms that has been generated by the Virginia Tech massacre, probably none has been more eloquent or courageous than the commentary by F. D. Thompson. Though I may disagree with Mr. Thompson on a number of other political issues, he is right on the mark in this case. I’ve quoted a particularly insightful passage below.

Still, there are a lot of people who are just offended by the notion that people can carry guns around. They view everybody … as potential murderers prevented only by the lack of a convenient weapon.…

Virginia Tech Massacre

2007-04-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

I was both saddened and disgusted by yesterday’s terrible events at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg. I was saddened that so many innocent lives were taken and saddened too that political opportunists would lay part of the blame for this atrocity upon law-abiding gun owners. I was disgusted that one troubled young man saw mass murder as the solution to his personal problems and disgusted too that the very institutions charged with protecting his victims had unwittingly helped him to kill so many.

Yet it could have been so much worse. Had the murderer used a can of gasoline and a box of matches, hundreds might be dead rather than only dozens. Thankfully, he chose to express his rage and hatred with handguns, weapons normally ineffective for mass slaughter. The death toll was so high only because his victims were unarmed and even more unaware, but I imagine this fact provides precious little solace to the victims and their families.

The Inconvenient Truth about Climatic Change

2007-02-26T00:00:00.000-08:00

I am sure it came as no surprise when An Inconvenient Truth took the Oscar for best documentary feature at the 79th Academy Awards. This film joins the growing chorus sounding the alarm about the phenomenon of global warming. While I will stipulate that the global climate is indeed warming and that human activities play some part in the same, I must question the extent to which this is true and to which it is a problem and the advisability and wisdom of the proposed solutions.

The real inconvenient truth about climatic change is that it is a perfectly natural and normal process. A complex interplay of orbital, solar, biological, and geological factors causes our planet to cycle somewhat regularly between warmer and cooler periods. These cycles develop over approximately 40,000 to 100,000 years.

Currently, we are about 10,000 years into an interglacial period that may persist for another 20,000. Temperatures are generally increasing, and ice coverage is generally diminishing. Even so, there is still variation within the cycle. It was warmer about a thousand years ago, but it was colder just 400 years ago. The climate may very well be right where it is supposed to be, with human activities contributing little to an existing warming trend.

Technically, in fact, we are still in an ice age. In the more distant past, the global climate has been much warmer. Climatic change is a reality, and the biological history of our world has largely hinged on that fact. The only question is what we might do about it.

The assumption behind global-warming alarmism is that a warmer climate would be a bad thing. Sea levels would rise, weather patterns would change, and human civilization would be much disrupted. While such changes could surely be dramatic, I can’t say that they would all be negative.

In a warmer climate, vast tracts of the northern hemisphere would become more favorable to human habitation and agricultural development. The opening of the Northwest Passage would facilitate maritime trade. Perhaps the Sahara would become a verdant savanna once again. As with any change, there would be both positive and negative aspects.

Proposals to halt global warming, such as the Kyoto Protocol, raise still more difficult questions. If human-influenced climatic change is undesirable, is “natural” climatic change any more desirable? Do we stand by and do nothing when the climate “naturally” begins to cool again, starving our multitudes, crushing our cities under the ice, and land-locking our ports? Or do we try to keep things warm? If we decide that climatic control is a human prerogative, which ideal will we choose?

Furthermore, the proposals themselves often appear as much politically as ecologically motivated. Might they do more harm than the problem they are intended to correct? For example, the Kyoto Protocol is somewhat arbitrary in its application and almost seems to punish the developed nations, even though these are the ones working the hardest to reduce pollution and to mitigate environmental damage. This would also threaten to spread the institutionalized poverty that serves as the political power base for many of the parties that support the protocol.

Climatic change is an extremely complicated subject. More research and much more discussion should be undertaken before we begin to make rash decisions about controlling the global climate. We live in a dynamic system, and disrupting that system to maintain some arbitrary status quo may prove just as dangerous as pushing it toward an unknown outcome.

Setting climatic issues aside, however, there are still a number of reasons why we should clean up our act on hydrocarbons. Respiratory health and economic sustainability are just two more immediate and pressing considerations where the rampant use of hydrocarbons is concerned. Tackling these issues would be a safer and more effective strategy than doom saying about global warming.

Letter Published

2007-02-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

I recently had a letter on the history of the gun-control movement published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Immigration Amnesty

2006-05-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

So I find myself warming up to President G. W. Bush’s guest-worker amnesty proposal. Once every couple years, he seems to stumble upon a good idea, if for the wrong reasons. Of course, the anti-immigration xenophobes are quick to accuse the two major parties of tripping over themselves to see who can offer the best deal to the “illegal aliens.”

I have to admit that they’re not altogether wrong. The Republicans need poor workers to exploit, and the Democrats need poor voters to exploit.

Propaganda Wins Again

2005-11-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

Despite or perhaps because of months and months of transparent propaganda, Californians rejected even incremental political reform yesterday. I am very disappointed but only a little surprised.

Special Election

2005-11-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

The special elections in California are just a few days away. Though not without flaws, I think Gov. Schwarzenegger’s reform package (especially Props. 75, 76, and 77) should be approved. It is a small step toward preventing a long-term fiscal and political disaster in the state.

Immediate Commentary

2005-11-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

Writing the “well-crafted, thought-provoking” essays [on my website] takes a lot of my time and energy. I have lots of ideas for more of this fine work, but actual writing tends to distract me from playing with my daughter and from other amusing diversions, so I thought I would try something quicker and more immediate in this space—not that anyone other than a few of my family members actually reads this stuff.

For example, today I can comment on the usual Internet idiots who think the news media’s reporting on American casualties in Iraq is tantamount to treason. Yes, that’s right. These monkeys think that reporting simple, if unpleasant facts provides “aid and comfort” to the enemy. Now, I always thought treason involved something like giving the enemy a bomb and telling him when and where he could use it on American troops … or even enacting, approving, and upholding unconstitutional legislation.

Death of a Bad “Law”

2004-10-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

On September 13, A.D. 2004, the 10-year-old federal ban on “assault weapons” expired. The “law,” which banned semi-automatic firearms with certain cosmetic and ergonomic features, had done nothing to reduce violent crime. This was not surprising for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that semi-automatic rifles were rarely used in crimes even before the ban.

Nevertheless, in the days and weeks before the ban expired, many gun-control advocates and “impartial” news reports warned that “deadly assault weapons” would soon “flood the streets” and lead to a new “epidemic of gun violence.” Senior law-enforcement officials (such as Sheriff Lee Baca and Chief William Bratton) publicly worried about the safety of their subordinates. On a similar note, CSU Fullerton’s Daily Titan ran the following editorial.

Weapons of destruction
Daily Titan Editorial Board
September 13, 2004

Thanks to the National Rifle Association’s indefatigable lobbying, the federal assault weapon ban
expires today.

For the first time in 10 years, Americans can legally purchase 19 ludicrously lethal weapons, with high-capacity ammunition clips to match.

This is a pernicious development for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that the policy was an overwhelming success.

Federal statistics reveal that crimes perpetrated with the aid of the banned weapons—which included Tec-9s and Uzis—were down by more than 60 percent since former President Clinton signed it into law.

What we find most contemptible is the mendacity by which the assault weapons ban was attacked. The bill’s now-victorious opponents speciously wrap themselves in the Second Amendment. Corporate interests, ranging from gun-manufacturers to dealers have, with the help of the NRA, painted their profit-hungry cause as one of freedom-loving patriots and hunters.

The Bill of Rights authors would be aghast to see the molestation of their hallowed document.

Over subsequent generations, American legislators have learned the bill’s ultimate virtue: the flexibility and breadth which allows contemporary wisdom the autonomy to work with, not just within, the Bill of Rights.

Literal interpretations are dangerous, as former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously articulated with his admonishment of First Amendment freedoms.

The First Amendment does not, Holmes said, grant citizens the right to “shout fire in a crowded
theater;” some speech may be restricted if it presents imminent danger.

The same theory applies to the Second Amendment, which grants citizens “the right to bear
arms,” and makes no further distinction.

Taken literally, the Second Amendment would permit citizens to stockpile bazookas and warheads. Of course, no one finds that sensible.

We don’t find the idea of anyone being able to purchase AK-47s to be sensible either.

Proliferation of profusely deadly weapons is only good for manufacturers’ pockets.

Given the amount of weapons being used in America’s foreign military engagements, haven’t
those who produce killing machines gotten rich enough?

Amused but somewhat bothered by the hysteria, misinformation, and outright bigotry presented in this editorial, I decided to send an e-mail to the Daily Titan’s opinion editor, Robert Rogers. Following the newspaper’s editorial guidelines, I kept my comments very brief.

Re.: Weapons of destruction …
Dear Mr. Rogers:

Though California still has its own permanent, more stringent ban on “assault weapons,” I’m compelled to respond to the Daily Titan’s histrionic editorial … on the expiration of the federal version.

As the editorial board demonstrates, the ban itself was widely misunderstood. The Violent Crime Control Act of 1994 prohibited the sale to private citizens of semi-automatic rifles with certain ergonomic features. These features (such as pistol grips and flash suppressors) had nothing to do with how powerful or dangerous the weapons were. In fact, the banned rifles were no more “ludicrously lethal” or “profusely deadly” than many other similar firearms.

According to the FBI, crime with semi-automatic rifles was minuscule before the ban, so even a 60-percent drop is statistically insignificant, but this debate isn’t about statistics or even criminology. As the Daily Titan suggests, the real question is one of rights. Why should a law-abiding citizen be prohibited from owning anything so long as he doesn’t misuse it?

The editorial board answers by misapplying Oliver Wendell Holmes’ famous remark about shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. The corollary to Holmes statement, however, is that if the theater really is on fire, the responsible citizen has the right to warn fellow theatergoers. Likewise, if violently attacked, the responsible citizen has the right to defend herself with a firearm. In a free society, we would punish the abuse of rights but would not prohibit their exercise.

My letter was published in the Daily Titan’s Sept. 20th issue. However, this process instigated and interesting and amusing e-mail exchange between Mr. Rogers and myself. I have reproduced verbatim his first response below.

Mr. Van Norman,
Thank you for reading and responding to the Titan. I hope that you continue to read not only the editorials, of which I am the author, but the paper as a whole. Needless to say, I disagree steadfastly with your position, but appreciate it nonetheless.

Please check upcoming issues of the Titan for the printing of this letter. I entreat you to respond in the future.

Thank you,
Robert Rogers

P.S. Was a “responsible citizen’s” right to defend him/herself with a firearm truncated by the expired law? If so, at what point are “firearms” too deadly to be legal?

Two more points: The editorial board has no misunderstanding of the ban, as you haughtily suggest. The fact that some legal weapons may have been arguably as deadly in no way precludes the banned weapons from being accurately labeled “profusely deadly.”

As for this phrase: “Why should a law-abiding citizen be prohibited from owning ANYTHING so long as he doesn’t misuse it?” I will let the silliness of this speak for itself

Now free of the newspaper’s page limits, I responded to Mr. Rogers at greater length.

Dear Mr. Rogers:
Thank you for your reply. Even as a university staff member, I enjoy reading the Daily Titan when I have the chance. I have enough experience with journalism to know that one must take the good with the bad. Like any newspaper, the Titan serves a bit of both. To be fair, I probably shouldn’t have called your editorial histrionic. It spoke for itself in that respect.

From the tone of your e-mail, I now see that you would prefer to prohibit most, if not all firearms and other dangerous weapons. I didn’t address that idea in my first e-mail, because I didn’t have the space, and it was only indirectly germane to your editorial. I’ll do so here, as it’s more relevant to the broader debate.

First, though, I’ll explain my perspective. I believe in a free society, wherein people can do as they please so long as they don’t harm others. (The right to keep and bear arms is a small but important portion of this freedom.) Naturally, I take note and am distressed when anyone advocates limiting freedom or curtailing rights. In discussing the point, I prefer to argue from principle rather than utility, even when the utilitarian argument supports my point of view (as it often does in the gun-control debate).

Now, the basic argument for banning guns is that if there were fewer guns available, fewer people would be murdered with them, and this is true on its face. However, the “with them” portion is often omitted, incorrectly implying that there would be fewer murders overall. As an educated person, Mr. Rogers, you know that many people were murdered before firearms were invented and many more will probably be murdered after firearms are replaced by some superior form of weaponry. Even if we could somehow eliminate all guns, violence would still be a sad reality in our world.

So I’ll ask this question again. Why should you or I or any other responsible person be prohibited from owning or doing anything so long as we don’t harm anyone else? You called this a silly question, but you didn’t explain why. As you are the one calling for suppression of others’ liberties, I believe you are the one who must justify himself.

On average, in the United States, about 15,000 people are killed in firearms-related homicides each year. By contrast, about 40,000 people are killed in automobile crashes. If guns are so dangerous that they should be banned, then cars are even more so. That is the inescapable utilitarian argument, but prohibiting either would be wrong in a free society.

As you imply, the responsible citizen’s right to defend himself was not significantly restricted by the expired “law.” That’s why I didn’t argue that point per se. What the federal “assault-weapons” ban represented (and our California ban still does) was one more small step toward total prohibition of private firearms, one intended to make the next step that much easier. We saw proof of this last week, when Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill that will ban single-shot .50-caliber rifles beginning next year. These rifles have never been used in a crime in California.

Yes, all firearms are dangerous. That’s why they were invented and why we still need them. A simple handgun can make a 90-pound woman the physical equal of a 250-pound man. To forbid firearms is to leave the weak perpetually at the mercy of the strong. I invite you to study history for examples of how unpleasant that arrangement has so often been.

We could trade statistics, if you like. I could cite studies and data showing the benefits of private gun ownership, and with a little effort you could cite opposing numbers, which I could probably refute, but that would get us nowhere. The simple truth is that we can’t eliminate violence through legislation. After all, criminals don’t obey laws.

I realize my words probably won’t sway your opinion. Nevertheless, I’ve spent the better part of my Sunday evening writing this e-mail, because I once felt much the same way you appear to. I thought that sometimes people had to be forced to do the right thing, but then I realized the logical conclusion to this utilitarian line of thought. Utilitarianism can be and has been used to justify the extremes of human greed and cruelty. Freedom is the only acceptable alternative.

Freedom is often frightening and dangerous, which is why so few people really desire it. Freedom comes with responsibility, and abuse of freedom can and should be met with appropriate punishment. Freedom also means accepting others and their beliefs and behaviors, even if you dislike them. Ironically, the same people who advocate gun control usually advocate this kind of tolerance as well.

Finally, as fear and ignorance are the foundations of bigotry, I would like to offer you the opportunity to learn a bit more about firearms and possibly dispel any unnecessary apprehension you may feel about them. They are just inanimate objects, after all. If you’ve never fired a gun before, please consider this an open invitation for a safety lesson and an afternoon of target practice at a local shooting range.

Mr. Rogers’ reply was filled with somewhat juvenile but perhaps good-natured posturing. Unfortunately, he continued to demonstrate a lack of understanding of gun-control legislation and of individual rights and freedom. Notice, how he proudly walked into my guns-vs.-cars trap. Here is his reply verbatim.

Mr. Van Norman,
Thank you for contributing your valuable time and expertise to our discourse. As for our previous correspondence, I hope you have the opportunity to peruse today’s Titan -- your letter is enclosed as promised. Reader response is steadily growing.

As for the loquacious response to which I reply, I brush it aside as little more than interesting reading. Your writing is steady and smooth, though far from mellifluous. Some of your points, such as your discovery that people were murdered before the invention of firearms, were at best belabored; at worst, they smacked of pontification. As you are an educated university employee, and I a student, I’ll forgive your proclivity for superciliously pandering to students from whom you expect servile deference.

I am not one of those students. Please read on, as I will methodically dissect each of your points. I trust that, as a sportsmen, you will enjoy the contest. I expect that, as a competitor, you'll be pained by crushing defeat.

First, allow me to clarify so as to avoid allowing you to tangle yourself in additional erroneous conclusions: I do not espouse the prohibition of all firearms and other “dangerous weapons;” I have in fact never alluded to such a position. I merely condemned lifting a federal law that outlawed the sale of a particular batch of weapons and ammunition cases. Your use of slippery-slope rhetoric is, though tiresome and easily confuted, employed with laughable regularity by gun enthusiasts and anti-government freedom fanatics alike. My editorial clearly made germane the point that the right to possess firearms, like many other rights, is not absolute. Your supposition was incorrect.

I too believe in a free society (who doesn’t? That was a loaded, banal statement). I believe that citizens should be endowed with the right to bear arms. However, the 20th century has brought with it technological innovations that have forced us to examine what men and nations may and may not do. To believe that certain rights should be immutable over time is to not accept reality. Imagine, if you will, that a stream runs through a village, and it is decided that all may share indiscriminately in the water. Over time, the village grows big and the stream grows small. If people did not ration their intake -- by re-examining their ethos and PRODUCTIVELY LIMITING their rights -- all would die. Or, as is likely in a world in which unfettered weapon stockpiling was possible, all but a few would perish. I find it admirable that you engage me so energetically.

Contrary to what you assert, both principle and utility are firmly in my ammunition holsters.

Granted, people were murdered before firearms -- I will not dignify that piece of historical research with any further mention.

You ask the question: Why should you or I or any other responsible person be prohibited from owning or doing anything so long as we don’t harm anyone else?

Allow me to retort … Please descend for a moment from your skyward, philosophical ideals, Mr. Van Norman. You must accept that the epoch in which we live is fraught with the dangers of our own ingenuity. On a global scale, life on this planet could be annihilated by man-made weapons, should one disgruntled leader choose to “harm anyone else.” As a response, nations have negotiated non-proliferation treaties to curtail the potentiality of freedom to own weapons leading capable of bringing about total devastation.

On a parochial level, one disgruntled person, be it a 90-pound woman or 250-pound man, is empowered as never before. With the right weaponry, the person can lay waste to a multitude of people, a whole community if you will, in an absurdly short period of time.

The past is gone; the new reality is one of heightened stakes. Just as warfare between nation-states and its corollary probability, global devastation, has required new rules with the advent of new weapons, the profusely deadly weapons available to individual actors requires new ways of thinking about individual rights.

Also, the notion of a militia protecting itself against the tyranny of U.S. government has grown moot with time and technology. In short, the catastrophic capabilities of modern weaponry, which includes the awesome power of U.S. military power, makes the right to own ANY and/or ALL types of firearms unjustifiably dangerous and of no utility.

Take a long look at your next paragraph: On average, in the United States, about 15,000 people are killed in firearms-related homicides each year. By contrast, about 40,000 people are killed in automobile crashes. If guns are so dangerous that they should be banned, then cars are even more so. That is the inescapable utilitarian argument, but prohibiting either would be wrong in a free society.

Is this argument really inescapable? If so, call me Houdini. You are right that more people die in car crashes than by firearm. Cars, like many wondrous technological innovations of the 20th century, are capable of destroying human life. Therefore, everything concerning automobiles are subject to state regulation. What you can own (no tanks, many not “street legal”), how you can operate, taxes, roadways, speed limits, etc., are all stipulated by the state, in large part for safety purposes. Guns too should be heavily regulated, beginning with what you can own (no bazookas, M-60s), and including with what they may be operated. With cars, you can’t burn alcohol; with guns, you shouldn’t be able to have high-capacity ammunition magazines.

After such a thorough denunciation of your unequivocal statement, I bet you wish you had that one back!

You call this one small step toward total prohibition of private firearms. Well, the ban has been lifted. After 10 years on the books, the ban envisaged no such next step. This is more slippery slope stuff, and it is all the more ineffective given that the slide appears to be progressing in the other direction, that is, less gun control.

I have, and do, study history. I need no invitation. At some point, however, one has to realize that many of the foundations upon which history was forged have eroded, at least in cases that feature rapid technological advancement. In 1800, a man had a difficult time killing more than one person with a gun. There is no history that can easily establish a paradigm with which we can study the consequences of not regulating modern weapons. Weapons today are not equalizers, as you suggest. Modern weapons endow men with powers they were never meant to have; ultimately corruptible power. With the right weapon, a 90-pound woman can kill thousands.

As for trading statistics, I am doing well enough without them. As I am demonstrating before your probably awestruck eyes, your arguments are sufficiently pulverized by my logic alone. Your argument went nowhere; my argument seeks to mold our individual rights into practical constructs applicable to the world in which we live. No reasonable person would find full freedom of arms possession to be applicable. I am not naive enough to believe that violence can be ended through legislation. The naivete rests on your side of the argument (again, that people should be able to own any weapon). Do you fatalistically suggest that since problems can’t be “solved” through legislation, legislation is itself futile? With assault weapons illegal, there will nevertheless still be people who possess them and kill with them. With cocaine illegal, people will still use it, sell it and even kill for it. Should society capitulate in the face of these challenges? Should things be made legal just because their illegality fails to curtail them to a certain level.

You oversimplify when you posit that I think “people must be forced” to do the right thing. The utilitarian argument is firmly on my side, not yours. The logical conclusion is that with the advancement of weapons, the laws of nature and freedom must be refreshed. We cannot axiomatically remain rooted in certain lines of thought when the material conditions (ie weapons) have progressed in their deadliness to levels we could not have foreseen. This is the struggle of our time: How to prevent the proliferation of ever-advancing weapons that carry with them the potential of widespread destruction.

Freedom has always been frightening and dangerous, as you said. However, freedom of arms has never carried with it the capacity for freedom-crushing death that it does today. Seriously, to imply that accepting beliefs and behaviors somehow encompasses the freedom to own ANY weapon in 2004 is myopic. The abuse of freedom (like mowing down hundreds with a machine gun) carries with it much graver consequences than it did in a different era.

Finally, I must thank you for the hearty chuckle I got out of your suggestion that I go shoot some guns. While firing off some rounds may be fun, to think that it will aid my understanding of this issue is, well, predictable advice from an obvious gun aficionado like yourself. Fear and ignorance do not drive my beliefs, dispassionate analysis does. Like a reasonable person, I think American’s should be able to legally own hunting rifles and pistols. As for the exact line between legal and illegal, that is debatable. However, I maintain my opinion that those weapons devoid of practical use (hunting, defending one’s body and property) should be vigorously sought and seized by the Federal government. Fully automatic should not be an option. Magazines carrying any more than 10 rounds should be cracked down upon. These propositions, however vague, are still diametrically opposed to your “any weapon” mantra.

People kill people, but technology greatly enhances a killer’s prolificness.

Thank you,
Robert Rogers

p.s. Some of my posturing and aggressive tactics above might appear crude or pejorative. I apologize. In the end, I am just having fun and learning. The next time I go to the library, hopefully we can meet, shake hands and talk, time permitting.

Ignoring Mr. Rogers’ posturing, I returned with facts and reason, though this e-mail was actually the most emotional for me. I also provided a brief primer on the history of gun control in the United States. Of course, I couldn’t resist destroying his let’s-treat-guns-like-cars argument.

Dear Mr. Rogers,
Thank you for your long but well-reasoned reply. You at least took the time to think about the issue, which is more than a lot of people would do. If nothing else, this exchange of rhetorical barbs has been an amusing exercise for both of us. However, I hope you don’t really believe that I expect “servile deference” from students. On the contrary, I want students to investigate this issue for themselves and draw their own conclusions, rather than merely accepting the propaganda put out by lobbyists on both sides.

With that out of the way, let me address each of your points. First, what is a weapon that is too dangerous? In your first reply, you acknowledged that there was little difference between the banned “assault weapons” and other semi-automatic rifles, suggesting that these other firearms should also be prohibited. Now, you say that only certain weapons should be banned.

I’m sorry to belabor the point, but a semi-automatic firearm will discharge only one round of ammunition each time its trigger is pulled. Standard magazine capacity for these weapons usually ranges from 10 to 30 rounds. (If it matters, machine guns and other automatic firearms have been tightly regulated since 1934 and were not subject to the 1994 ban.) So how is a banned semi-automatic “combat” rifle firing an intermediate cartridge more dangerous than a non-banned semi-automatic “hunting” rifle firing a high-powered cartridge, if the only other difference between them is a pistol grip?

How is any firearm more dangerous than a box of matches, which can be used to kill hundreds at a time with much less effort? Anything can and will be used as a deadly weapon by someone intent on murder or mayhem. A “disgruntled person” can kill more people more quickly behind the wheel of a perfectly legal four-ton SUV than he can with a banned semi-automatic rifle. In this respect, the will to do harm is the most dangerous weapon we know.

In June 2001, a man armed only with a kitchen knife killed eight children and wounded 21 other students and teachers at an elementary school in gun-free Japan. You know what happened that September on four gun-free American airliners. Nearly 3,000 people were murdered by men armed only with flimsy box cutters. These murderers succeeded because they had the determination to kill and because their victims had been disarmed and trained not to resist. I will return to this last point a little later.

You say you also believe in a free society, but obviously yours would not be as free as mine. I think some rights are immutable, or inalienable, as the Founders would have said. Your example of limiting rights doesn’t hold water, if I may be permitted a little banal humor. Riparian rights have often been a point of conflict, with some people enjoying them at the expense of others. For example, when L.A. ran short of water, rather than rationing its use, the city simply appropriated more from other communities.

Let’s compare this idea to weapons. You believe that unfettered access to firearms would lead to many deaths, but the opposite proves true. When guns are prohibited or even just tightly restricted, then only the criminals will have easy access to them, and these are the people most likely to misuse them.

In the U.S., 37 states now permit their citizens to carry concealed handguns after doing little more than passing a standard criminal-background check. Most of these states adopted such shall-issue permit laws within the last 15 years. Invariably, in each state, the opposition claimed that legal concealed handguns would lead to “blood in the streets.” Minor traffic accidents, casual disagreements, and petty disputes would all escalate into shootouts, they warned. These dire predictions never came to pass. In fact, permit holders have proven to be more law-abiding than the population at large and are even less likely to commit crimes than police officers.

Returning to the guns-vs.-cars comparison, you point out the amount of regulation placed on automobiles and suggest that firearms should be similarly regulated. Many other gun-control advocates also make this argument, and many right-to-arms advocates would happily accept this paradigm! Let’s examine your idea in more detail.

In California, all I need to buy a car is enough money. I may purchase the car from either a licensed dealer or a private individual. I may even buy one in another state. If I want to drive my new vehicle on public roads, however, I must get a driver license, register the car with the Department of Motor Vehicles, and purchase insurance. Once I’ve done these things, I’m free to drive throughout the United States and, for the most part, throughout Canada and Mexico as well.

Getting the driver license is easy. I must pass simple written and practical tests and must be at least 16 years old. Without exception, the DMV will issue a license to any eligible driver who meets these requirements. A California Driver License is valid for four years and may be renewed routinely through the mail.

To buy a handgun in California, I may purchase only through a dealer licensed both by the California Department of Justice and by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits me from buying a handgun outside of my home state. However, before I can buy the gun, I must be 21 years old and have a Handgun Safety Certificate.

Getting the HSC is also relatively easy. I must take a gun-safety course and then pass a simple written test. The HSC is valid for four years but requires retesting for renewal. As an historical aside, the HSC replaced another safety-certification program that was originally sold as “valid for life,” so we can probably expect even stricter “safety” legislation in the future.

Once I have my HSC, I can finally purchase a handgun from a licensed dealer. However, I may only buy models that have passed a safety inspection by the California DOJ and are not designated as “assault weapons,” and I’m restricted to one handgun per month. In addition to my HSC, I must also provide some additional documentation before I can buy the gun.

To prove my citizenship and residence in California, I must provide the licensed firearms dealer with my CDL (or California ID) and a copy of a utility bill or other legal document showing my California address. Once the dealer has my HSC, CDL, and proof of residence, we can begin the process of legally transferring the handgun to me. First, I must pass a criminal-background check by the California DOJ and the FBI. (Illegal aliens, former felons, drug addicts, alcoholics, subjects of restraining orders, the mentally ill, and those convicted of certain misdemeanors are prohibited from owning firearms.) Though this background check can often be completed within minutes thanks to computerized databases, I must also wait through a 10-day “cooling-off” period required by California law.

At this time, my prospective handgun purchase is also registered with the California DOJ and the BATFE. This legally transfers the gun from the dealer’s inventory to my ownership. Registration allows police to conduct ownership traces for guns recovered from crime scenes and in other situations, but unlike what you see on CSI or Law & Order every week, it is rarely useful in solving crimes.

Once my 10 days are up, I can return to the gun shop, but I had better not wait longer than 30 days, or I must start the whole process over again. Before I can actually take delivery of my new handgun, I must still perform a safe-handling demonstration, provide a thumbprint, and either buy a certified gun lock or prove ownership of an approved gun safe. With that accomplished, I can finally take my gun home, but it must be locked in the trunk of my car separate from any ammunition during the trip.

By law, I may only have my gun at my own residence, on other private property where authorized by the owner, or certain other designated places (shooting ranges, hunting areas, etc.). When transporting it to one of these places, I must keep the gun secured as above. At home, I must also keep my gun stored in such a way that a child or unauthorized adult may not get access to it. If I fail to do so, and an injury or death results, I will also go to prison.

In general, if I want to carry my handgun on my person for defense of myself and my family, I must apply to my local police chief or sheriff for a California concealed-weapons permit. In addition to the application form and fee, I must submit a full set of fingerprints, certification of advanced training, and a statement of cause for issuance of the permit. The sheriff or police chief may then issue or deny the permit at his discretion, even if I meet all the requirements. As you can imagine, very few permits are issued, but when they are, they usually go to the wealthy, famous, or politically connected. Even those with unquestionable need (death threats, protective orders, etc.) are routinely denied permits, and women and minorities are also grossly underrepresented among permit holders.

If I somehow do manage to get a California concealed weapons permit, it is valid only in California. It is also valid for only two years, and renewal involves repeating the entire application process. Unlike my driver license, the permit doesn’t allow me to carry in any other states, let alone Canada and Mexico. There’s something in the U.S. Constitution about “full faith and credit” between states, but nobody cares about that dusty old thing anymore.

So, yes, let’s regulate guns just like we do cars. My handgun license would allow me to buy whatever gun I wanted, even ones that had features I couldn’t legally use on the street. It would also allow me to carry my pistol wherever I go, with very few exceptions. The license would be issued as a matter of course to qualified applicants and could only be revoked in cases of gross negligence or criminal misconduct. Sounds like a great idea!

I’ll leave your anti-government comments aside. Suffice it to say that tyrannical governments murdered something like 170 million mostly unarmed people in the 20th century, far more than all other criminals combined. However, I do want to comment on the slippery slope.

Though the slippery-slope argument if often cited as a logical fallacy, it is an all too accurate description of the history of gun control. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were very few federal restrictions on arms in the U.S. Private citizens could and did own everything from pistols and rifles to machine guns and artillery. That changed with the National Firearms Act of 1934, which strictly regulated machine guns and a few other odds and ends by taxing their transfer. At that time, the Congress still recognized that it didn’t have the Constitutional authority to actually prohibit weapons, but it was able to impose taxes that had much the same effect.

The Federal Firearms Act of 1938 imposed the licensing system for firearms dealers that continues to this day. This system also serves as a de facto gun-registration program. Dealers must retain sales records for at least 20 years. If a gun dealership goes out of business or changes ownership within this period, all records must be turned over to the BATFE.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 was the next big infringement on the right to keep and bear arms. It prohibited interstate and mail-order sales, required the registration of ammunition purchases, and prohibited the importation of “non-sporting” firearms. Except for the import ban, most of these things were merely inconvenient, but they set the stage for the more egregious gun-control legislation that was to follow.

The so-called Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 eliminated ammunition registration, which had proven completely useless in solving crimes, but prohibited the sale of new machine guns to private citizens. Market forces quickly moved these weapons out of reach for all but the wealthiest people (in states where ownership was still legal). Incidentally, there have only been two crimes committed with legally owned machine guns in the last 70 years, and both of those were perpetrated by police officers.

In 1994, both the Violent Crime Control Act, which attempted to ban a variety of semi-automatic rifles, and the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which imposed background checks and waiting periods, were passed by the Congress. After 10 years, both of these “laws” have proven largely ineffective at reducing crime. To be fair, thousands of transactions have been denied by the National Instant Check System, but few of the presumably prohibited persons have been prosecuted, in part because NICS generates too many erroneous rejections.

After 70 years of federal gun-control legislation, the slippery slope is clearly in effect. Where Congress once had to use backdoor means to regulate firearms, it can now brazenly pass obviously unconstitutional laws. Every single year, new gun-control bills are proposed, while laws that have proven ineffective at reducing crime linger on the books for decades. In unguarded moments, gun-control advocates such as Diane Feinstein and Josh Sugarmann have readily admitted that total prohibition is the long-term goal behind their legislative agendas.

The expiration of the federal “assault-weapons” ban is the first significant change in this pattern. Of course, like California, many individual states have enacted their own bans. As far as that goes, our state has already slid much further down the slippery slope, and almost every year some new bit of gun control becomes “law” here. We’re after semi-automatic handguns and bolt-action rifles right now.

Most state gun-control laws began to appear after the Civil War and were intended to prevent former slaves from arming themselves. These “laws” routinely went unenforced against whites. However, this had changed by the 1960s and ‘70s as overt racist law-enforcement practices had been largely weeded out. Thus began the wave of concealed-carry reform in the 1980s and ‘90s, which has been about the only trend away from more gun control in the last 140 years. Of course, concealed-carry laws are still a form of gun control.

But maybe my history lesson is a wasted effort, as you declare that “the foundations upon which history was forged have eroded,” implying as gun-control advocates often do that firearms have little relevance in our modern, civilized state. Setting the historical chauvinism aside completely, I would still argue that the right to keep and bear arms is more relevant than ever. This brings me back to that horrible morning in September.

A few men armed with only the most meager of weapons were able to murder thousands. Why? Because we have decided that criminals are the lowest common denominator of society, so now we treat everyone as a possible criminal. We disarmed the people on those airplanes, told them not to resist, and condemned them and thousands more to death.

Now, we are spending billions of dollars on a dangerously misguided Department of Homeland Security and a comically misnamed Transportation Security Administration more intent on treating airline passengers like prison inmates than on implementing meaningful security measures. Meanwhile, the politicians run around pointing fingers of blame at everyone but themselves. It’s all nonsense, because we’ve had a homeland-security measure written into our Constitution for over 200 years. It says “being necessary for the security of a free State,” but we have neither freedom nor security.

For 30 years, if not longer, the “authorities” have taught us that the best way to survive a violent crime is to comply with the attacker’s wishes. I bought into this until September 11th, when we all saw the appalling consequences of that advice. Then I looked at FBI crime data for myself and found out that it had been a lie all along. According to our own government, the best way to survive a violent crime is to resist with a gun.

And so we return to my question. Why should something be prohibited if it harms no one? Why should we treat people like criminals only because of what they might do? If we ban guns, why stop there? Why not ban cars, matches, cigarettes, baseball bats, swimming pools, kitchen knives, stairs, and household poisons, all of which are involved in many, many injuries and deaths, both intentional and unintentional?

You ask if things should “be made legal just because their illegality fails to curtail them to a certain level?” My answer is yes, in some cases. With gun control, for example, additional laws can only affect the law-abiding. Criminals have long been prohibited from owning and using firearms, so additional laws can do nothing to further curtail their misuse of guns.

The so-called war on drugs is another example of a colossal failure in crime reduction. We prohibited certain drugs “for the public good,” but at the same time, we created a hugely profitable black market that generated ancillary crime that has proven even worse than the original problem. Decriminalizing drugs would drastically reduce the violence and theft associated with the drug trade without substantially increasing drug abuse. This is exactly the lesson we were taught but failed to learn during the years of alcohol prohibition.

Ironically, the advance of gun control is inextricably connected to both alcohol prohibition and the “war on drugs.” The crime wave that resulted from alcohol bootlegging led to the National Firearms Act of 1934. The escalation of the drug war in the 1980s helped bring on the machine-gun and “assault-weapons” bans. Throw in the civil-rights movement and the political assassinations of the 1960s, and you get the Gun Control Act of 1968. In all cases, the law-abiding citizens have paid the price for the behavior of career criminals and a few social misfits.

Finally, I offered to teach you how to shoot because a little education can never hurt. I don’t know if you’ve ever shot or even handled a firearm before, but most people who haven’t done so have learned all their firearms “knowledge” from movies and television. I can assure you, though, that guns are not nearly as easy to operate and not nearly as powerful as they usually appear in these entertainment media. Anyway, the invitation still stands.

In the end, I hope you can see that guns (even semi-automatic rifles) have a legitimate place alongside fire extinguishers, seat belts, first-aid kits, and other emergency equipment. Guns aren’t for everyone, but they shouldn’t be forbidden to anyone who hasn’t proven irresponsible. That’s all I’m asking here.

To date, Mr. Rogers has yet to reply again. I know my position is right and think my arguments were superior, so I’ll take that as a “victory” in this debate. It’s unfortunate, though, that he wouldn’t take the opportunity to learn even a little about a subject he was ready to pass judgment on. It’s even more unfortunate that most people are like Mr. Rogers, regardless of what natural right or civil liberty is under discussion.

Political Evolution

2004-10-25T00:00:00.001-07:00

My website has been gradually evolving over the last several years, as history has carried us into a new century filled with old tricks. In these troubling times, my thoughts have turned more and more toward politics, and the site will follow.

Despite my unofficial motto, I continue to struggle against the current of despair. I cannot shirk my duty, though instinct tells me to keep my head down and simply survive. The United States seems balanced on the edge of a knife, with an electorate almost evenly divided between the petty fascism of one major political party and the casual socialism of the other—but this is a false dilemma, presented more by inertia and electoral ignorance than anything else.

Six Questions about War with Iraq

2003-03-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

With war perhaps only hours away now, we are still left with questions regarding the need to invade and conquer Iraq. The administration of President George W. Bush has proffered numerous rationalizations for war, but none seem adequate to explain why we must attack an insignificant foreign state that would otherwise appear to lack the intent, means, or opportunity to harm us in any meaningful way. So the questions remain.

If the war is really about U.S. “national security,” why don’t we just attack those states that pose more of a clear and present danger to us—like North Korea, with its unstable leadership, long-range missiles, and advanced nuclear-weapons program?

If the war is really about limiting the spread of “weapons of mass destruction,” why don’t we just destroy the storage and production facilities for these weapons?

If the war is really about fighting terrorism, why don’t we just use special-operations units in conjunction with air strikes to destroy or capture the terrorists, while defeating any Iraqi forces that happen to get in our way?

If the war is really about a “regime change” in Iraq, why don’t we just kill Saddam Hussein al Majid al Tikriti?

If the war is really about “liberating” the people of Iraq, why don’t we first demand that Saddam hold free elections monitored by an international commission of observers?

If the war is really about the control of oil, why don’t we just invade Iraq with combined arms, defeat Saddam’s forces in detail, set up a long-term occupation force, and install a friendly, “democratic” government?

Debunking “Grandma”

2003-02-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

We all get them: those endlessly forwarded e-mail messages warning about the latest computer virus, propagating yet another helpful/profitable e-mail forwarding scheme, or simply sharing some kernel of happy wisdom. While the former categories are usually urban legends and often obviously false, the latter type can be more subtly deceptive. These paeans to better times are often just as untrue as Microsoft/Intel/AOL/whoever opening itself to catastrophic financial obligations through some ill-advised mass e-mail forwarding scheme, but they are often disguised as folksy wisdom or make appeals to “common sense.”

For example, take this tale about a boy’s conversation with his “grandmother.” To me, it looks like the story was written perhaps a few years ago by someone a bit older than my own mother. (After all, 58 is hardly “old.”) He or she wrote this story about how “things were better back then” based on “common knowledge” that wasn’t quite so accurate. The moment I read it, I knew several points were wrong (TV, radar, marijuana use, etc.), and a few minutes of research not only proved that but showed “grandma” would have to be over 100 years old for most of it to be accurate, setting aside the parochial value judgments.

Here is the original story in its entirety. My response follows. When I see this silly stuff, I just can’t help myself from taking it apart.

How old is GRANDMA?

Stay with this—the answer is at the end—it will blow you away.

One evening a grandson was talking to his grandmother about current events.

The grandson asked his grandmother what she thought about the shootings at schools, the computer age, and just things in general.

The Grandma replied, “Well, let me think a minute[.] I was born, before television, penicillin, polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox, contact lenses, Frisbees and the pill. There was no radar, credit cards, laser beams or ball-point pens.

“Man had not invented pantyhose, air conditioners, dishwashers, clothes dryers, and the clothes were hung out to dry in the fresh air and man hadn’t yet walked on the moon.

“Your Grandfather and I got married first—and then lived together.

“Every family had a father and a mother. Until I was 25, I called every man older than I, ‘Sir’—and after I turned 25, I still called policemen and every man with a title, ‘Sir.’ We were before gay-rights, computer-dating, dual careers, day-care centers, and group therapy. Our lives were governed by the Ten Commandments, good judgment, and common sense. We were taught to know the difference between right and wrong and to stand up and take responsibility for our actions.

“Serving your country was a privilege; living in this country was a bigger privilege.

“We thought fast food was what people ate during Lent. Having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins. Draft dodgers were people who closed their front doors when the evening breeze started.

“Time-sharing meant time the family spent together in the evenings and weekends—not purchasing condominiums.

“We never heard of FM radios, tape decks, CDs, electric typewriters, yogurt, or guys wearing earrings.

“We listened to the Big Bands, Jack Benny, and the President’s speeches on our radios. And I don’t ever remember any kid blowing his brains out listening to Tommy Dorsey.

“If you saw anything with ‘Made in Japan’ on it, it was junk. The term ‘making out’ referred to how you did on your school exam.

“Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, and instant coffee were unheard of. We had 5 &10-cent stores where you could actually buy things for 5 and 10 cents.

“Ice-cream cones, phone calls, rides on a streetcar, and a Pepsi were all a nickel. And if you didn’t want to splurge, you could spend your nickel on enough stamps to mail 1 letter and 2 postcards.

“You could buy a new Chevy Coupe for $600, but who could afford one?

“Too bad, because gas was 11 cents a gallon.

“In my day, ‘grass’ was mowed, ‘coke’ was a cold drink, ‘pot’ was something your mother cooked in, and ‘rock music’ was your grandmother’s lullaby.

“ ‘Aids’ were helpers in the Principal’s office, ‘chip’ meant a piece of wood, ‘hardware’ was found in a hardware store, and ‘software’ wasn’t even a word.

“And we were the last generation to actually believe that a lady needed a husband to have a baby. No wonder people call us ‘old and confused’ and say there is a generation gap.....

“[A]nd how old do you think I am???.....”

Read on to see—pretty scary if you think about it and pretty sad at the same time. This [w]oman would be only 58 years old!

So “grandma” is only 58 years old. Well, 58 years ago, it was A.D. 1945 …

Television had been invented over a decade earlier, though TV sets were still very rare. Alexander Fleming had discovered penicillin in 1922 and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1945. The polio vaccine, developed by Jonas Salk, went into use a few years later in 1955. Frozen foods, however, had been on the market since the 1930s. The photocopier had also been invented in that decade. Patented by Chester F. Carlson in 1939, the new invention was widely available by 1950, thanks to the Xerox Corporation. Contact lenses, on the other hand, had been conceived all the way back in the 16th century by none other than Leonardo da Vinci! The first glass lenses hadn’t appeared until 1887, however, and plastic lenses didn’t arrive until 1939. As for the Frisbee, Yale University claims that one of its students had “invented” the flying disc as early as 1820. More than likely, though, it was simply developed by bored college students tossing empty Frisbie Baking Company pie tins back and forth for amusement sometime after 1871.

It’s true that the birth-control pill didn’t become widely available until 1960, but its development owed a lot to the pioneering family-planning efforts of Margaret Sanger in the early 20th century, and the science behind it had been established in the 1930s. The first practical radar systems had also been developed in the 1930s, and radar became an important technology for the Allied forces during the Second World War. The first credit cards weren’t introduced until 1950, but more limited retail credit systems had been in use since the 1920s, and the concept of “credit” dates back at least 3,000 years. While laser technology wasn’t invented until the late 1950s, the modern ball-point pen was developed in the early 1940s and introduced to the U.S. market in—you guessed it—1945, the year the Second World War ended.

During the war, nylon stockings were hard to come by, but they had first gone on sale in 1940. Perhaps “grandma” was talking about spandex pantyhose, which didn’t appear until 1959. Maybe it was just too hot back then for her to remember clearly, which is too bad, because the modern air conditioner had already been invented back in 1902 by Willis Haviland Carrier. As for other household appliances, the first mechanical dishwasher had appeared in 1893, but they didn’t really take off until the 1920s. Clothes washers and dryers were both invented in the 19th century. At least “grandma” remembered that the first manned moon landing took place in 1969.

“Grandma” may have married “grandfather” before living with him, but marriage has never been so legally clear cut as she implied. In centuries past, a couple could be considered married simply by publicly declaring it so. As another example, the Celtic cultures of western Europe followed the practice of “handfasting,” a kind of non-permanent trial marriage, for thousands of years before Christian concepts of matrimony came to dominate. These are the origins of modern common-law marriage, where actual fact outweighs the lack of civil or religious ceremonies. And computer dating is just the latest iteration in the ancient tradition of professional matchmaking.

Family cohesion was also a myth. Divorces were simply harder to come by. “Illegitimate” births and absent parents were just as rampant then as they are today, if not more so. Maybe people had more respect for authority, but there was also a lot less authority to respect. I can’t understand why “grandma” was so eager to call a policeman “sir.” Police officers are public employees who serve at the behest and sufferance of the people and as such are no more worthy of respect than the common taxpayer. Indeed, it is the police who should always be ready with a “sir” or “ma’am.”

There may have been no gay rights in “grandma’s” early youth, but there were also few women’s rights. Women were still legal chattel, in many respects, and homosexuals could be beaten and murdered almost with impunity, which was all just fine according the Bible “grandma” so loved. I would much rather people governed their lives by the ten articles of the Bill of Rights than the Ten Commandments of a frequently mistranslated old religious tract.

In “grandma’s” youth, serving your country was more an obligation than a privilege. The draft was ended in 1973, giving the U.S. an all-volunteer military for the first time in its history. Until then, many people dodged the draft and even rioted against it, because they didn’t like the idea of being conscripted to fight and possibly die for causes they didn’t support. And living in the U.S. is certainly good luck but not a privilege, unless you are a foreign immigrant, of course.

The first commercial FM radio broadcast was in 1941, before “grandma” was born, but AM radio had already been around for two decades. Phillips introduced the cassette tape in 1962, but recording on magnetic tape had been in practice since the 1930s. Laser discs were developed in the 1970s, and compact discs became commercially available in the U.S. in 1983. The first electric typewriter was actually introduced in 1902! Yogurt or yogurt-like foods have been around for thousands of years, and earrings on men have gone in and out of fashion throughout recorded history.

No one has ever killed himself because of a song, a movie, or a book, though any one of these can provide terminal inspiration for a suicidal person. Today, recorded suicide rates for children are higher than in “grandma’s” youth, but fewer adults kill themselves now than then. Apparently, in “grandma’s” day, people just waited longer to off themselves. Of course, I also have to wonder how many childhood suicides were reported as “accidents” and how many adult murders were passed off as “suicides” back then.

At the beginning of 1945, the Pacific War was still raging. In 1933, the Japanese had introduced the “Long Lance” torpedo, with a maximum range three times that of American torpedoes. I doubt the American sailors who faced this weapon considered it “junk.”

The first instant coffee was invented by a Japanese-American chemist in 1901, but the stuff wasn’t mass-produced until 1906. (Incidentally, the first coffee house was opened in Italy around 1645, nearly 500 years before Starbucks!) The first McDonald’s franchise opened in 1955, but the McDonald brothers had been selling hamburgers in California since the 1940s. The Carney brothers opened the first Pizza Hut three years later in 1958.

Most things cost less back when “grandma” was born, but everyone also earned less. Unfortunately, prices have indeed gone up faster than most salaries. However, there are exceptions. In 1946, an RCA black-and-white TV set sold for $435. In 2003, an RCA color TV can be had for as little as $75. Furthermore, in 1945, the average car cost $1,250, and a gallon of gasoline was 21¢.

Cannabis (or marijuana) was legal throughout much of the U.S. until federal prohibitions were enacted in the 1950s. Back then, it was often called “reefer.” Of course, Coca-Cola was named after one of its original ingredients: cocaine. That narcotic was ultimately banned in 1914. The “war on drugs” launched against these and other substances has been the greatest cause of erosion to our civil liberties since Prohibition and until the current “war on terror.”

The AIDS virus (HIV) most likely infected humans for the first time in the 1930s. With the development of integrated circuits, microchips were essentially invented in 1959, though the term didn’t appear until the 1970s. Hardware can still be bought in hardware stores, but software is all around us.

Finally, women have never needed husbands to have babies. All a woman needs for that is a willing man and a few minutes of his time.

“Grandma” may well be “old and confused,” but I think she is just ignorant.