Who Built That

It annoys me to no end when “conservatives” take Barack Obama (or Elizabeth Warren) out of context. When the President said “you didn’t build that,” he was clearly, if clumsily, talking about infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.). Indeed, most business owners didn’t directly finance the baseline infrastructure that services their businesses.

It annoys me just as much when “liberals” fail to recognize such remarks as the claptrap and political flimflam that they are. While even ardent libertarians acknowledge that government can and perhaps should have an important role in developing and coordinating infrastructure projects, the fact is that very little of our tax revenues go toward public infrastructure.

Even when stretching the imagination, no more than three to six percent of the federal budget was allocated to infrastructure in FY 2012. The numbers are a little more favorable when we combine state and federal spending, but infrastructure still accounts for only a small sliver of the pie. Most of the pie goes to welfare and “defense.”

When the people complain about taxes, they aren’t talking about infrastructure … and when the President talks about raising them, neither is he.

Airway Insanity

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.

“If I Only Had a Gun”

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.

A Question of Failure

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

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

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.