The Gun Culture's Grievances.

"See what I mean?" Fleming said. "We're all the same. And the kicker is, every single one of us believes that as honest adult citizens, we have the absolute right to own any and all small arms and shoot them just as often as we want. We have a specific culture. Guns and shooting are important to us, just like living as nomads and hunting buffalo was important to the Indians. We are willing to work hard and have the government confiscate half our money and use it for things we never get any benefit out of, if only we can continue to buy our guns and our ammo and our components, and shoot a lot.
"Our culture is important, and we're willing to pay for it. We have above-average educations, above-average incomes, and almost nonexistent criminal involvement. We pay far more in taxes and receive virtually no subsidy payments. You'd think Washington would be happy, but instead they are doing everything they can to destroy our culture
"In the 20's, soldiers sat on their bunks in the cold at Camp Perry, cleaning the handmade .22 target rifles they would compete with the next day. When the President proudly announces that today, seventy years later, he is ordering these same guns thrown into a blast furnace, we in the gun culture feel powerful emotions. They are the same emotions a Native American would feel if the President proudly ordered the destruction of war clubs and other sacred tribal artifacts. They are the same emotions that Jews felt watching newsreel footage of Nazi Sturmtroopen gleefully burning intricate copies of the Torah.
"We offer to buy the government's surplus guns, and instead they pay to have them cut up. We offer to buy their surplus military ammo, shoot it, sell the brass to a smelter, and give the government the proceeds, and instead they pay to have it burned.
"These government slugs ban our guns and they ban our magazines and they ban our ammo. They ban suppressors that make our guns quieter and then they ban our outdoor shooting ranges because our guns are too loud. They ban steel-core ammunition because it's 'armor piercing', then they close down our indoor ranges where people shoot lead-core bullets because they say we might get lead poisoning.
"The people in the gun culture have a better safety record than any police department in the nation, but in several states actually prohibit us from using guns for self-protection, and in all the other states except one they make us buy a license. They tax us so we can have more cops, and when crime still goes up, they tax us more and ban more of our guns.
"People in the gun culture endure waiting periods that no other group would stand for. We undergo background checks that no legislator, judge, doctor, or police officer has to tolerate, and we submit to it not once, or once a year, but over and over again. Then, after we yield to this outrage, they smile and forbid us from buying more than one gun in a 30-day period.
"If we sell one gun we own that's gone up in value, they can charge us with dealing in firearms without a federal dealer's license, which is a felony. If we get a dealer's license, they say we are not really in business, and report us to our local authorities for violating zoning ordinances by running a commercial venture out of a residence.
"If the steel or the wood on our guns is too long or too short, they make us pay $200 taxes and get fingerprinted and photographed. They make us get a law enforcement certification from the local police chief. If he refuses to sign we have no recourse. If he takes the forms in the next room and brings them back out, signed, he can later claim the signature is not his, and the feds will charge us with a felony.
"We in the gun culture have played all their stupid games on NFA weapons for over half a century, without a single violent crime being committed by any person in the system. So when a bill comes up to keep travelers with guns locked in the trunk of their cars out of jail, what happens? A scumbucket from New Jersey, where NFA weapons are illegal already, puts an amendment on it that closes down the whole NFA process.
"Then, if they even suspect we've ignored the $200 tax process altogether, on the guns where the wood and steel is too long or too short, they'll spend for a million dollars watching us for months, then they'll shoot our wives and children or burn us alive. When the public gets outraged by these actions, the government issues letters of reprimand and send the guys who did the killing on paid leave. In the decades that the feds have been raiding and killing people in the gun culture over suspected non-payment of $200 taxes, not one federal agent has been fined a single dollar or spent even one night in jail." Fleming stopped for a moment and took another drink of tea.
"And you know something else that's never happened, Ray? To this day, not a single person in the gun culture has ever dropped the hammer on one of these feds. Not once.
"Then, after these statist bastards have done all these things, they grin and tell us how they like to hunt ducks, and how the only laws they want to pass are 'reasonable' ones." Henry and Ray both looked at their friend. Neither had anything to add at that moment. It was Ray Johnson who finally spoke.
"I now know everything you say is true," he said. "I still can't quite believe it." He was quiet again, then asked a question. "What do you think is going to happen?"
"One of two things," Fleming said with a sigh. "One of the political parties is going to wake up, smell the coffee, and start restoring and reaffirming all the articles in the Bill of Rights--the Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Tenth Amendments."
"And if that doesn't happen?" Ray asked gently. Fleming took several moments before he spoke, thought it was obvious he knew exactly what he was going to say.
"Then we're going to have a civil war."




-from 'Unintended Consequences', by John Ross

The moral?

Stripping a motivated people of their dignity, and then rubbing their faces into it is a very bad idea.

Think Twice Before You Disparage Capitalism

The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - March 1977

Vol. 27 No. 3

Features:

Think Twice Before You Disparage Capitalism

By Perry E. Gresham

Dr. Gresham is President Emeritus, Bethany College, Bethany, West Virginia.

"Everybody for himself, said the elephant as he danced around among the chickens." This lampoon of capitalism came from a Canadian politician. The word "capitalism" has fallen into disrepute. It is associated with other pejorative terms such as "fat cat," "big business," "military-industrial complex," "greedy industrialists," "stand patters," "reactionaries," and "property values without regard to human values." Many serious scholars look on capitalism as a transitional system between late feudalism and inevitable socialism.

Adam Smith has been associated with the word "capitalism" even though he did not use the term. He did not so much as refer to capital by that name, but used the word "stock" to describe what we call capital. Karl Marx wrote in response to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and called his great work Das Kapital. There was disparage­ment and scorn—even hate—for the ideas of the free market economy. The term capitalism has been less than appealing to many people since that time even though they know little about the contents of the Marx benchmark in political economy.

Some political economists who cherish individual liberty and the free market have suggested that a new name be found to describe economic liberty and individual responsibility. Until a new name ap­pears, however, the thoughtful person does well to think twice before he disparages the market economy with all of its implications implied by the term capitalism since there is now no ready alternative available for reasonable discourse.

Is the System Outmoded?

Many thoughtful citizens of America think of capitalism as a quaint and vanishing vestige of our Yankee industrial beginnings. With burgeoning population, urbaniza­tion and industrialization, they argue, capitalism disappears. They are not quite ready to embrace socialism, but they heartily approve government planning and interven­tion. John Kenneth Galbraith, ar­ticulate spokesman for the liberal establishment, calls for the open ac­claim of a new socialism which he believes to be both imminent and necessary. "The new socialism allows of no acceptable alter­natives; it cannot be escaped except at the price of grave discomfort, considerable social disorder and, on occasion, lethal damage to health and well-being. The new socialism is not ideological; it is compelled by circumstance. "¹

At first blush, the Marxian assumption of economic deter­minism is quite plausible, but I do not believe it can stand up to the scrutiny of experience. My study of history leads me to assume with many of my thoughtful colleagues that free people can, within certain limits, choose their own systems of political economy. This is precisely what happened in West Germany at the time of Ludwig Erhard. The Germans chose capitalism rather than the socialism recommended by many American, British, and Con­tinental economists and politicians. It is my opinion that Americans can and should call for a renewal of capitalism rather than a new socialism.

Capitalism has been neither understood nor sympathetically considered by most contemporary Americans. Capitalism is a radical and appealing system of political economy which needs a new and favorable review. The new socialism has never been tried. The old socialism is not very inviting. Con­sider Russia, China, Cuba, Chile, and now Britain. Capitalism has been tried with the most amazing success in all history. What is the nature of a political and economic system which has made the poor people of America more prosperous than the rich of many countries operating under State control? Here are my paragraphs in praise of capitalism. They are somewhat lyrical but grounded in fact and open to review.

An Enviable Record

Capitalism is the one system of political economy which works, has worked and, given a chance, will continue to work. The alternative system is socialism. Socialism is seductive in theory, but tends toward tyranny and serfdom in practice.

Capitalism was not born with The Wealth of Nations, nor will it die with Das Kapital. It is as old as history and as new as a paper route for a small boy. Capitalism is a point of view and a way of life. Its principles apply whether or not they are understood, approved and cherished.

Capitalism is no relic of Colonial America. It has the genius of freedom to change with the times and to meet the challenges of big in­dustries, big unions, and big government if it can free itself from the restraints of interest-group in­tervention which eventuates in needless government expansion and spending. Let the market work, and the ambition of each individual will serve the common good of society.

Capitalism is an economic system which believes with Locke and Jef­ferson that life, liberty, and proper­ty are among the inalienable rights of man.

Capitalism denies the banal dichotomy between property values and human values. Property values are human values. Imagine the dis­junction when it is applied to a per­son with a mechanical limb or a car­diac pacemaker. The workman with his tools and the farmer with his land are almost as dramatic in the exemplification of the identity be­tween a person and his property.

Capitalism is belief in man--an assumption that prosperity and happiness are best achieved when each person lives by his own will and his own intelligence. Each person is a responsible citizen.

Limited Government

Capitalism recognizes the poten­tial tyranny of any government. The government is made for man; not man for the government. Therefore, government should be limited in size and function, lest free individuals lose their identity, become wards of the State. Frederic Bastiat has called the State a "great fiction wherein everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else."

Capitalism denies the naive and mystic faith in the State to control wages and prices. A fair price is the amount agreed upon by the buyer and seller. Competition in a free market is far more trustworthy than any government ad­ministrator. The government is a worthy defense against force and fraud, but the market is much bet­ter at protecting against monopoly, inflation, soaring prices, depressed wages and the problems of scarcity. Capitalism works to the advantage of consumer and worker alike.

Capitalism denies the right of government to take the property of a private citizen at will, or to tax away his livelihood at will, or to tell him when and where he must work or how and where he must live. Capitalism is built on the firm foun­dation of individual liberty.

Capitalism believes that every person deserves an opportunity. "All men are created equal" in terms of opportunity, but people are not equal—nor should they be. How dull a world in which nobody could outrun anybody! Competition is a good thing no matter how much people try to avoid it. Equality and liberty are contradictory. Capitalism chooses liberty!

Equality of Opportunity

Capitalism gives a poor person an opportunity to become rich. It does not lock people into the condition of poverty. It calls on every individual to help his neighbor, but not to pauperize him with making him dependent. Independence for every person is the capitalist ideal.

When a person contracts to work for a day, a week, or a month before he is paid, he is practicing capitalism. It is a series of con­tracts for transactions to be com­pleted in the future. Capitalism is promise and fulfillment.

Capitalism offers full employ­ment to those who wish to work. The worker is free to accept a job at any wage he can get. He can join with his fellows in voluntary association to improve his salary and working conditions. He can change jobs or start his own business. He relies on his ability to perform rather than on the coercive power of the State to force his employment.

Capitalism is color-blind. Black, brown, yellow, red and white are alike in the market place. A person is regarded for his ability rather than his race. Economic rewards in the market place, like honor and ac­claim on the playing field, are pro­portionate to performance. The per­son who has the most skill, ability and ingenuity to produce is paid ac­cordingly by the people who value and need his goods and services.

Trust in the Market

Capitalism is a belief that nobody is wise enough and knows enough to control the lives of other people. When each person buys, sells, con­sumes, produces, saves, and spends at will, what Leonard Read calls "the miracle of the market" enables everyone to benefit.

Capitalism respects the market as the only effective and fair means of allocating scarce goods. A free market responds to shortages and spurs production by rising prices.

Arbitrary controls merely accept and keep the shortages. When ris­ing prices inspire human ingenuity to invent and produce, the goods return and prices fall. Nobody knows enough to build an airplane or a computer, but hun­dreds of people working together perform these amazing acts of crea­tion. This is the notable human achievement which Adam Smith called "The Division of Labor."

Capitalism derives its name from the fact that capital is essential to the success of any venture whether it involves an individual, a corpora­tion, or a nation-state. Capital is formed by thrift. The person who accumulates capital is personally rewarded and, at the same time, a public benefactor.

Capitalism makes every person a trustee of what he has. It appoints him general manager of his own life and property, and it holds him responsible for that trusteeship.

Church and Family Ties

Capitalism is a natural ally of religion. The Judeo-Christian doc­trines of stewardship and vocation are reflected in a free market economy. Churches and synagogues can be free and thriving with capitalism. When the churches falter, the moral strength of capitalism is diminished.

Capitalism depends on the family for much of its social and moral strength. When the family disintegrates, the capitalist order falls into confusion and disarray. The motive power for the pursuit of life, liberty, and property is in the filial and parental love of a home with its dimensions of ancestry and posterity.

Capitalism enables entrepreneurs to be free people, taking their own risks and collecting their own rewards.

Work is a privilege and a virtue under capitalism. Leisure is honored, but idleness is suspect. The idea that work is a scourge and a curse has no place in the climate of capitalism.

Capitalism holds profits derived from risk and investment to be as honorable as wages or rent. Dividends paid to those who invest capital in an enterprise are as wor­thy as interest paid to a depositor in a savings bank. The idea abroad that risk capital is unproductive is patently false.

The Voluntary Way

Capitalism honors and promotes charity and virtue. True charity cannot be compelled. Universities, hospitals, social agencies, are more satisfactory and more fun when they derive from voluntary support. Money taken by force and bestowed by formula is no gift.

The consumer is sovereign under capitalism. No bureaucrat, marketing expert, advertiser, politi­cian, or self-appointed protector can tell him what to buy, sell, or make.

Capitalism encourages invention, innovation and technological ad­vance. Creativity cannot be legis­lated. Only free people can bring significant discovery to society. Thomas A. Edison was not commis­sioned by the government.

The concept of free and private enterprise applies to learning and living as well as to the production of goods and services. When a student learns anything it is his own. Nobody, let alone a state, ever taught anybody anything. The State can compel conformity of a sort, but genuine learning is an in­dividual matter—an act of free enterprise and discovery.

Respect for the Individual

Capitalism honors the liberty and dignity of every person. The private citizen is not regarded as a stupid dupe to every crook and con man. He is regarded as a free citizen under God and under the law—able to make his own choices; not a ward of the State who must be protected by his self-appointed superiors who administer government offices.

Capitalism is a system which distributes power to the worker, the young, the consumer and the disad­vantaged by offering freedom for voluntary organization, dissent, change, choice and political preference, without hindrance from the police power of government. The renewal of capitalism could be the renewal of America. Nothing could be more radical, more timely, or more beneficial to the responsible and trustworthy common people who are now beguiled by the soft and seductive promises of the new socialism.

No political and economic system is perfect. Plato's Republic was in heaven—not on earth. If people were all generous and good, any system would work. Since people are self-centered, they are more free and happy in a system which allows the avarice and aggressiveness of each to serve the best interest of all. Capitalism is such a system. It is modestly effective even in chains. The time has come for daring people to release it and let us once more startle the world with the initiative and productivity of free people!

Some of my academic colleagues will deny, dispute, or scorn the foregoing laudatory comments about capitalism. They will say that socialism benefits the poor, the young, the consumer, the minorities, and that capitalism pro­tects the rich and the powerful. When discussion is joined, however, they will argue in terms of politics rather than economics, ideology rather than empirical evidence, and they will accuse me of doing the same. When the most persuasive case is produced, it will not convince. Political opinions are not changed by rational argument.

A Call for Renewal

Those who have socialist ideological preferences are merely annoyed to arrogance and disdain by such honest appreciation of capitalism as I have presented. Those scholars, however, who like Ludwig Von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman have explored the relevance of capitalism to our present predicament, will join in the call for renewal of a system that works. Those who, like the late Joseph Schumpeter, have watched the apparently relentless disintegration of capitalism, and have concluded that socialism will work, albeit with painful disad­vantages, will heave a long sad sigh of regret at the passing of the hap­py and prosperous capitalist way of life. They will, as people must, ac­cept what appears from their perspective inevitable, and try to make the best of the gray and level life of socialism.

Schumpeter, however, was no defeatist. He was a perceptive analyst of human affairs. In the preface to the second edition of his magnum opus he wrote, "This,finally, leads to the charge of `defeatism.' I deny entirely that this term is applicable to a piece of analysis. Defeatism denotes a cer­tain psychic state that has meaning only in reference to action. Facts in themselves and inferences from them can never be defeatist or the opposite whatever that might be. The report that a given ship is sink­ing is not defeatist. Only the spirit in which this report is received can be defeatist: The crew can sit down and drink. But it can also rush to the pumps.”²

Friends of liberty, to the pumps!

Those who love liberty more than equality, those who are uneasy with unlimited government, those who have faith in man's ability to shape his own destiny, those who have marveled at the miracle of the market will join me in this call for renewal of this simple, reasonable, versatile and open system of capitalism which has worked, is working, and will work if freed from the fetters of limitless state in­tervention. The choice, I believe, is ours. The alternative is the stifling sovereign state.

¹Galbraith, John Kenneth, Economics and the Public Purpose (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1973), p. 277.

²Schumpeter, Joseph, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1950, p. xi.)










Copied from: http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=5730

Knife Violence Up in England

Just found this gem from a couple weeks ago.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7186534.stm

Cutting down on knife violence. Wow.

The Politics of Freedom: Taking on the Left, the Right, and the Threats to Our Liberties

Here's a book I want to read. Quoted from the Cato Institute website:

"As Americans head into a crucial election year, pundits are coloring everything in red and blue. But according to David Boaz, the old labels of left and right don’t tell us much any more. What we are witnessing is a contest of "Big-Government Conservatives" vs. "Big-Government Liberals."

In The Politics of Freedom David Boaz takes on both liberals and conservatives who seek to impose their own partisan agendas on the whole country. He explains
• why freedom is both "pro-choice" and "pro-life"
• the growing libertarian vote in America
• how the Republicans became the tax-and-spend party
• how the Democrats joined the Republicans in foreign adventurism
• the failure of the war on drugs and what can be done about it
• how competition can give us better schools
• the betrayal of our constitutional rights
• why markets work and government planning doesn’t
• and everything from gay marriage and the nanny state to taxes and terrorism.

For nearly 30 years, David Boaz has been speaking directly to the large and growing number of Americans who are fed up with politics as usual. His articles speak to the perspectives and values Americans have always held privately and more and more are coming to embrace openly. Now, for the first time, his best writings are gathered in one collection.

A recent survey found that 59 percent of respondents described themselves as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." Boaz shows that majority that their fundamental political value is freedom. Whether it’s the freedom to choose a church, a school, or a lifestyle, The Politics of Freedom gives voice to a value most Americans embrace. For the millions of Americans who don’t neatly fit into the red or blue, who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal, who reject big-government conservatism and nanny-state liberalism, this book offers a new politics of freedom."


And this, about the difference between Liberals and Conservatives-or as I like to refer to them, the Gambinos and the Luccheses (no offense to them, or the Five Families):

"Liberals want to raise taxes because they can spend your money better than you can. They don’t believe in school choice because you’re not capable of choosing a school for your children. They think they can handle your healthcare, your retirement and your charitable contributions better than you can. Conservatives want to censor cable television because you’re too dumb to decide what your family should watch. They want to ban drugs, pornography, gambling and gay marriage because you just don’t know what’s good for you."


Or about school choice:

"Every argument against choice made by the education establishment reveals the contempt that establishment has for its own product. School boards, superintendents, and teachers unions are convinced that no one would attend public schools if they had the choice."




Here are some of Cato's quotes and celebrity endorsements for Cato Institute Executive Vice President David Boaz's book:

"David Boaz has been my guide to the history, economics, and politics of freedom for years."
-John Stossel, ABC News

"David Boaz has long been one of the nation’s most stalwart and intellectually consistent advocates of individual liberty. At a time when our freedoms are under relentless assault from those who seek to use government to control every aspect of our lives, Boaz’s collection of writings offers an invaluable tool to defend against these incursions. The central promise of the American founding was individual liberty, and Boaz’s essays are grounded in this commitment and dedicated to its preservation."
-Glenn Greenwald, Author of How Would A Patriot Act?

"David Boaz wrote the book on libertarianism. With The Politics of Freedom David takes on the modern-day welfare state, and the reader learns why it’s now the Democrats’ turn to self-destruct. A great read for everyone who is perpetually disenchanted with politics as usual."
-Vernon L. Smith, Winner of The Nobel Prize in Economics

"There is a certain kind of thinker who is proud of ‘Speaking Truth to Power,’ as if America were a police state. In our country the truth is there for all to see, speech is free, and, as for power, we’re a democracy. Power resides with the public. Therefore ‘Speaking Truth to Power’ is just telling ourselves what we already know. Give me, instead, a thinker who speaks sense to the citizenry. That would be David Boaz. His arguments are intelligent, cogent, and persuasive. He praises the genuine progress in freedom and reviles the false progressiveness. He raises real problems and sets down actual solutions. Of truth to power, speak all you like. But when it comes time to listen, listen to David Boaz."
-P. J. O’Rourke, Author of On The Wealth of Nations and Parliament of Whores

"Is it any wonder that Americans have become so dissatisfied with government today? Politicians have given us rampant violations of our constitutional rights and growing intrusions into our personal lives. Now one of the nation’s leading libertarians raises the issues that are vital to the preservation of our individual liberties as Americans."
-Nadine Strossen, President, American Civil Liberties Union

"If you are interested in why the roots of American freedom conflict so greatly with the American political scene of today, open this book and read."
-Kurt Russell

"No one during the past quarter century has offered more upbeat, more lucid, and, at the same time, more uncompromising and intellectually satisfying arguments for freedom across the board than has David Boaz. His writing combines logical rigor, knowledge, insight, and accessibility. David writes for those who really want to ‘get it.’ He writes for those who want to be able to do more than mouth slogans. This book is for those who want to understand the workings of our political system and the threats to freedom from left and right."
-Donald J. Boudreaux, Chairman, Department of Economics, George Mason University


Yes, that's right - KURT RUSSELL. I actually had no idea he was a long-time member of the LP, a licensed pilot, and a member of the NRA. I had great respect for his manliness before, but he just went up about 1000 points in my book.

H.R. 808 Department of Peace and Nonviolence Act

"Department of Peace and Nonviolence Act - Establishes a Department of Peace and Nonviolence, which shall be headed by a Secretary of Peace and Nonviolence appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. Sets forth the mission of the Departmen more...t, including to: (1) hold peace as an organizing principle; (2) endeavor to promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights; and (3) develop policies that promote national and international conflict prevention, nonviolent intervention, mediation, peaceful resolution of conflict, and structured mediation of conflict. Establishes in the Department the Intergovernmental Advisory Council on Peace and Nonviolence, which shall provide assistance and make recommendations to the Secretary and the President concerning intergovernmental policies relating to peace and nonviolent conflict resolution. Transfers to the Department the functions, assets, and personnel of various federal agencies. Establishes a Federal Interagency Committee on Peace and Nonviolence. Establishes Peace Day. Urges all citizens to observe and celebrate the blessings of peace and endeavor to create peace on such day."


I couldn't even make such bullshit up.

What a bunch of hypocrites. The democrats make a stink (usually righteously) about Republicans attempts to legislate morality, and then they turn around and try to do the same. It's just coerced altruism.

H.R. 1955 Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h1955/show

This has recently (boggling my mind - they only now just hear about it?) been spreading like wildfire among smart people on the internet. I've been following it since it's passage through the House in late October. So far, no news on it from the Senate. Only creates a committee, but its still a shocking idea. 404 ayes, 8 nays, is the voting record from the House.

Still think I'm paranoid when I say guns are first and foremost the defense against a tyrannical government? It's not too far off, now, is it? In the early parts of tyranny or fascism you can't see the barbed-wire and prison camps.

Why I Am A Gun-Owner, and Why Guns Aren't a Social Issue

I wrote this paper for my Medical Sociology (which should have been called "Why Republicans are Uncompassionate Monsters, and Why We Need Complete Universal Health-Care"). The basis of the paper was a small part in the beginning of my Sociology textbook that mentioned that guns are bad and they cause crime. It even had a small section about some physicians group that advocates gun-control. What the fuck? Do you see articles in Gun & Ammo about surgery? No. Anyway, here it is, all 12 pages or whatever it was:

Why I Am a Gun-Owner

And Why Gun-Violence Isn’t a Social Issue – Let Alone a Medical Issue

I am an almost uncompromising supporter of gun-ownership. Uncompromising is something one hears on both sides of the issue: “You can’t convince me of…” is heard all the time whenever gun-ownership and gun-control are discussed – it’s something found in most debates, actually. There are some problems with this attitude; this type of attitude is remarkably close-minded, and usually misinformed. If a person is not open to other opinions, then she doesn’t really think for herself, and is instead just regurgitating whatever has been fed to her by others. Therefore, her “opinions” are baseless and have no value, and are not worth consideration. I myself am almost uncompromising; I always listen to the other side of the issue, and if they can convince me that gun-ownership is bad, and gun-control will magically solve all kinds of problems, then I will buy it. But, this hasn’t happened yet. To be fair, I used to be a staunch opponent of gun-ownership. I used to cite – no, regurgitate – all these statistics that Sarah Brady, Pete Shields, and others, have claimed, the same ones that Weitz uses in a very short part of her book The Sociology of Health, Illness, and Health Care. Then, I started reading the other side, something that I am ashamed to admit I never did before, and of which many people on both sides are guilty. But, it currently stands that I am an almost uncompromising supporter of gun-ownership. I don’t believe there should be any restrictions on gun-ownership of any kind.

The issue of gun ownership and gun-control has many fervid people on both sides of the issue, and both sides argue their cases with equal conviction and evidence – the statistics and facts are all fairly correct, which seems contradictory and almost impossible, until one looks at the points of view of those that are responsible for the statistics, and the things that are wrong or incomplete with those statistics.

Rose Weitz in the chapter “The Social Sources of Illness” lists things like illicit drugs, alcohol, diet and exercise, as well as firearms as social sources of premature death, but fails to mention how many of these homicides are caused by gang-wars, drugs, poverty, or other actual social problems. The question I brought up was, how could firearms be considered a social source of premature death? “According to McGinnis and Foege (1993), firearms account for about 2 percent of all premature deaths in the United States: 16,000 homicides, 19,000 suicides, and 1,400 accidental deaths.” (Weitz 41) The murders and suicides were not caused by guns, they were caused by other things (which either Weitz fails to mention, or the authors McGinnis and Foege never addressed) – there is no physical way those guns caused those deaths, because a gun requires some person to pull the trigger, and some emotion or incentive from those people were the causes of the death; the guns were incidental to the deaths. A pulled trigger is the only way those 1,400 deaths could have happened, other than the gun itself malfunctioning and firing on its own, caused by a strong bump, from dropping the weapon, or something similar. Give credit (responsibility) where it’s due. And, while every one of those accidents is tragic, as proper precautions – read: not trigger locks or gun safes – could have prevented those accidents, benefits of gun-ownership truly far outweigh the detriments.

It is widely accepted that America has the highest gun-crime rate in any industrialized nation mostly due to the easy access of firearms, and sheer numbers. “Studies have found that having a gun in the home significantly increases the odds of suicide, of homicide, and of unintentional shooting deaths of children (Kellerman et al., 1993).” (Weitz 41) Again, this “fact,” while supported by evidence, fails to take into account why those people are attempting to murder someone or commit suicide. All a gun does is increase the chance of successfully doing so. Therefore, the claim that not allowing gun-ownership might reduce murders and suicides in the home is somewhat correct, but only enough so to advance the goals of gun-control advocates; those studies want people to not be able to kill themselves or others, rather than fixing the problem at the true source – the reasons for the homicide or suicide.

Canada has many privately owned firearms, yet it has a crime-rate far lower than America’s crime rate. Some attribute this to the easy access people have to handguns in this country, yet when England decided to ban and confiscate handguns, it didn’t decrease gun-crimes. In fact, the opposite happened; gun-crimes increased. “After the 1997 shooting of 16 kids in Dunblane, England, the United Kingdom passed one of the strictest gun-control laws in the world, banning its citizens from owning almost all types of handguns. Britain seemed to get safer by the minute, as 162,000 newly-illegal firearms were forked over to British officials by law-abiding citizens.” (Stossel) Supporters of gun-control declared the gun-ban as a mark of a new era of peace and nonviolence in England, but they spoke too soon. Crime rates actually increased, especially “hot” robberies – where the intruder breaks into the residence while the homeowner is there. “Officials estimate that more than 250,000 illegal weapons are still in circulation in the country. Without the fear of retaliation from victims who might be packing heat, criminals in possession of these weapons now have a much easier job, and the incidence of gun-related crime has risen.” (Stossel)

Colin Greenwood, the Chief Inspector for the West Yorkshire Constabulary, studied for six months at Oxford restrictive gun laws from many different countries and concluded the same thing:

“At first glance, it may seem odd or even perverse to suggest that statutory controls on the private ownership of firearms are irrelevant to the problem of armed crime; yet that is precisely what the evidence shows.

Armed crime and violent crime generally are products of ethnic and social factors unrelated to the availability of a particular type of weapon.

The number of firearms required to satisfy the crime market is small, and these are supplied no matter what controls are instituted. (Note: Please reread this sentence many times!)” (As quoted from Boston’s Gun Bible, pg. 32/17)

Weitz then says on page 42 that “…guns are far more often used against family members than against criminals. Furthermore, even when a home is forcibly entered or a victim attempts to resists, owning a gun increases the chances of being killed (Kellerman et al., 1993).” Besides the fact that there have been studies proving quite the opposite, what an argument like this does is it says that because you (falsely, as I’ll explain later) are more likely to be killed even when you have a gun at home, we won’t let you have one – the right of self-defense is not allowed, and you aren’t important enough to be allowed to defend yourself. Besides, you’ll probably just hurt yourself or someone you love, or you’ll turn it on someone in anger. You must therefore rely on those with more power to protect you. “Leave it to the professionals” is the common phrase.

But, a very interesting fact that many people are not aware of is this: the police have no legally enforceable duty to protect you. This sounds very crazy to people, but it’s completely true, as the courts have consistently ruled. If someone breaks into your home, and you dial 911, and the police arrive too late, or simply don’t arrive at all, you couldn’t (assuming you live) sue them and win. See, the police had no special relationship with you; you’re just an insignificant part of society as a whole, not an important member they were trying to protect. (Kassler) This distinction between the individual and society is a major component of sociology, and one that the book Dr. Golem addresses specifically, but not allowing the best form of self-defense, a firearm, is ludicrous.

Weitz, along with so many other gun-control advocates, do truly inadequate research, or cite incomplete and low-quality research; usually having a position before hand and then looking for research that supports them. They constantly quote “statistics” by Kellerman, Sarah Brady, Pete Shields, all of whom have their own agenda, namely the banning and confiscation of all firearms. I, myself, am not prejudiced, as I said before. I was a very strong supporter of gun-control, and I never read any arguments on the other side. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to own a firearm except for hunting, and I believed that there should be very strict gun-control laws – I’m pretty sure I mentioned Britain, Canada, or Australia a few times as great examples of what gun-ownership should be like. What Prejudice is not is deciding on what side of the issue you are on after you’ve done plenty of research and thought.

What Weitz and the rest of them need is a truly outside study, done by a fairly objective researcher, that is as complete as possible. I found such a study, and it is a fairly new study, but old enough to have been available for Weitz (and for myself when I was younger.) This study was done by a Criminologist named Dr. Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, and published in The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology in 1995, entitled “Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun.” This study’s research methods and quality are top-notch and are extremely thorough. There is a problem that the authors acknowledge when trying to research guns and self-defense: if people use a gun in self-defense, it won’t always be reported to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) simply because the defender may fear that it won’t be seen as lawful, and so there could be many unreported self-defense cases:

“Even under the best of circumstances, reporting the use of a gun for self-protection would be an extremely sensitive and legally controversial matter for either of two reasons. As with other forms of forceful resistance, the defensive act itself, regardless of the characteristics of any weapon used, might constitute an unlawful assault or at least the R might believe that others, including either legal authorities or the researchers, could regard it that way. Resistance with a gun also involves additional elements of sensitivity. Because guns are legally regulated, a victim's possession of the weapon, either in general or at the time of the DGU, might itself be unlawful, either in fact or in the mind of a crime victim who used one. More likely, lay persons with a limited knowledge of the extremely complicated law of either self-defense or firearms regulation are unlikely to know for sure whether their defensive actions or their gun possession was lawful… It is not hard for gun-using victims interviewed in the NCVS to withhold information about their use of a gun, especially since they are never directly asked whether they used a gun for self-protection. They are asked only general questions about whether they did anything to protect themselves.” (Journal of Criminology… p.155)

Another problem he saw in past surveys and research that had been done was that they focused primarily on defenders who had shot and/or killed their attackers. Kleck and Gertz wisely considered the possibility that hostile situations may defuse before they get bad, and decided to include the factor of simply using a gun, as in a display and/or verbal warning to the attacker. While this may not exactly accurately measure the prevention of a crime – how does one measure something that doesn’t happen? – Who is to say that the attacker didn’t simply have a change of heart, and the defender’s gun was purely coincidental? – It does quite accurately show the “Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense”, to quote the title of the study; the use of a survey and the inclusion of the “showing and/or verbal warning” option will show how often a gun is truly used in self-defense situations. The study did not only just address that option, but, to be truly complete, it also included instances in which the weapon was fired, and when the defender wounded or killed his attacker.

The study was done from 1988-1993, and the methods Kleck and Gertz used was a telephone survey, with the calling and questioning done by an agency which does so professionally, calling random numbers and asking very detailed questions. To get an accurate random sample of gun-owners, the survey was conducted on the lower 48 states, on a state-wide basis, although with sometimes small samples. To get an even more accurate survey of gun-owners they over sampled the southern states, as these states have higher gun-ownership rates, as well as higher rates of gun-carrying for self-defense purposes. Households with males were also oversampled as they are more likely to own or carry a gun for self-defense. Their data was readjusted for the oversampling at the end of the survey. The survey was conducted over 5 years and asked whether the person had been the victim of a crime, if they had responded defensively, how they had responded, if they had used a gun for self-defense, if they had fired or simply shown the gun and/or given a verbal warning, as well as if other family members had gone through anything. If there had been an incident of guns being used in self-defense, then a very detailed account of exactly what happened was recorded. Instances of self-defense did not count in the study if the interviewed was a Police Officer, Military Personnel, or Security Guard; only average citizens were interviewed. There were 1 year and 5 year recalls to those same numbers to verify those stories.

Of the almost 5,000 people interviewed, 222 had confirmed that they had used a gun in self-defense. While not a very high number alone, when it is applied to the national level the conclusions are quite staggering: defensive firearms are used anywhere from 2.1-2.5 million times per year in the United States. This seems far too high, explain the authors, unless you take into account that, at the time publication, there were estimated to be about 220 million firearms in the hands of 60 million adults. (Journal of Criminology… pg. 166) The study shows that handguns alone account for approximately 1.9 million of those cases. Of particular relevance to medical sociology is this part about the failure of both defenders and offenders to report any type of shooting:

“ The health system cannot shed much light on this phenomenon either, since very few of these incidents involve injuries.[61] In the rare case where someone is hurt, it is usually the criminal, who is unlikely to seek medical attention for any but the most life-threatening gunshot wounds, as this would ordinarily result in a police interrogation. Physicians in many states are required by law to report treatment of gunshot wounds to the police, making it necessary for medically treated criminals to explain to police how they received their wounds.” (Journal of Criminology… p.168)

If this study, which was highly praised for the quality of its research, doesn’t quite refute the argument that guns are a source of death in this country, and that guns should be banned, let’s take a look at another country in Europe.

It’s a well-known fact among those who study the issue that every Swiss man – trained to be a militiaman – is required to keep his fully automatic rifle in his home. (He also can keep heavy munitions such as grenades, rockets, and mortars, too, but that’s beside the point.) Furthermore, he can carry any privately-owned guns where ever he chooses, even to the voting polls. Shooting is the national sport of Switzerland. Switzerland has more guns per-capita than any other western country, and possibly the world. Yet, Switzerland has one of the lowest crime rates in the western world; in 1997 the homicide-rate was 1.2 in 100,000. In fact, many have said that Nazi Germany’s unwillingness or disinterest in Switzerland was due to this very fact. As a result, Swiss Jews, who served right alongside other Swiss militiamen, didn’t go to any concentration camp. (Halbrook)

An interesting side note: Nazi Germany enacted first gun registration in 1933, and then gun confiscation in 1939. In fact, all the genocides of the 20^th Century were preceded by severe gun-restrictions or outright bans, including, but not limited to, the genocide of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, the Soviet Union’s genocide of political opponents and farming communities, Nazy Germany’s genocide of “inferiors”, the slaughter of Chinese under both the Nationalists and the Communists, the genocide of educated people and opponents in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and the Rwandan genocide of Tutsis. (Zelman) Even the current crisis in Darfur, Sudan, which has claimed the lives millions of people and displaced just as many was made possible in part due to severely restrictive gun laws. For instance, a black man in Sudan is only allowed to own a handgun after first providing enough proof that he needs it (based on economic and social status), and then he must undergo a physical exam by a doctor. If he is given the OK for a handgun, he can only purchase fifteen rounds of ammunition a year, which would be enough for only one full magazine on modern medium caliber pistols, such as a 9mm. However, gun laws with regards to Arabs and the horsemen are surprisingly lax. The government will even supply them with weapons, sometimes a half dozen rifles per person. (Kopel)

In both south Sudan (Christian and Animist Africans) and western Sudan (that is, Darfur, inhabited by Muslim Africans) there were armed rebels [sic] groups. That these resistance groups [who were trying to provide some kind of defense from the Janjaweed and Arab marauders] had been able to acquire weapons illegally was a great affront to the United Nations and the gun prohibition lobbies, who denounce any form of gun possession by “non-state actors.” A “non-state actor” is any person or group whose arms possession is not approved by the government; examples include the Sudanese who were fighting the genocidal dictatorship in their country, the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, and the American revolutionaries. (Kopel)

Guns are “liberty’s teeth” as George Washington put it. This isn’t to say that gun control isn’t a precursor or that it will inexorably lead to genocide, but it is a definite component; it makes the genocide by those in power much, much easier. That is what guns are for, a protection from a government that may get out of control. To imagine such happening in America is extremely difficult, but it has happened before; Shay’s Rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion, and the Civil War. Then again, it’s easy to dismiss this argument as alarmist. To be sure, an argument like this, of a philosophical, historical, and political nature, doesn’t have a very good place in a paper on sociology, but it is important to know that gun-owners generally do not feel gun-control and gun-violence is at all a social issue – the research has shown such to be so – and so any argument which takes the standpoint that it is some kind of social issue will immediately fall on deaf ears. This is regrettable, as it shows the sometimes narrow-mindedness of individuals on my side of the fence, as well. But, it’s a fundamentally different way of looking at the issue. So, in a way, author Rose Weitz was correct, it is a social issue, but not in the way she originally meant it. Gun control often has quite an effect on society, crime, and death, but not in the way Weitz was advertising; it’s almost always a negative effect.

Now it’s been shown that guns really can be used for self-defense, and that they don’t cause crime, I don’t see how any talk of them or gun-violence can be construed as a “social issue” or a “social source of premature death.” If anything about guns should be a social issue, it’s that banning them, confiscating them, and criminalizing them is a violation of basic human rights – to defend one self. All the time, effort, and money spent towards supporting gun-control could be better well spent trying to solve other problems, such as the actual sources of homicides and suicides. What this argument has to do with the medical aspect of sociology, other than the slanted view that guns cause tens of thousands of deaths a year, I’m not exactly sure. But, if so, why did Rose Weitz include it briefly in her book about the sociology of medicine? She does nothing to explain it’s significance.

I will make an assumption that the sources of these problems are multi-faceted, and I won’t presume to try to make any guesses, as they would be very uneducated and opinionated; I have ideas and conjectures about the causes of unhappiness, violence, rage, etc., but they aren’t supported by any kind of statistical or quantitative evidence. While leaving this subject like this would leave it unfinished and incomplete, I simply don’t have the resources to conduct any kind of research, except to draw on the information of others, which is varied at the least and outright contradictory at the most. Firearms should be left alone, as a given part of the landscape of American society, for there are no reasons, as I’ve shown, to want to adopt any other countries’ gun-control laws, or pass any more. Robert Heinlein once wrote “an armed society is a polite society.” As the Swiss have shown, it is in the best collective interest for every citizen to be armed. After all, Weitz, and the authors of Dr. Golem, would agree that sometimes the collective-side of the issue needs to be examined.

(SIDE NOTES THAT DIDN’T FIT IN WITH THE PAPER AND ITS ORGANIZATION)

The Real Goal of Gun-Control Advocates:

One argument made by many on the Gun-Control advocacy side is that they don’t want to ban guns or confiscate guns or restrict law-abiding citizens in any way. They simply wnt to make it harder for criminals to get guns. But, most of those people on the victim-disarmamanet side aren't the ones who are making the laws. The people who are making the laws or influencing such, people like McCarthy, Feinstein, Shields, etc., are the ones who are making the laws, and they don't intend to stop merely at tighter regulations and registrations. For them, these are stepping stones to the future goal of complete confiscation and disarmament. Senator Carolyn McCarthy has said just this about her H.R. 1022 “Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act.”

Unfortunately, this bill would in fact ban almost all semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, and make the possession of such punishable with a minimum of 10 years in prison. This bill, with a pen-stroke, would criminalize millions of law-abiding gun owners and guns instantly. How is this not banning and confiscating guns or restricting gun-owners? “The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws,” as Ayn Rand once said, and the banning of guns would do just that. It would be a two-fold effect: first, the government would criminalize an object (guns) and their owners removing guns from the hands of law-abiding citizens, and second, the people would have to rely on the government for any kind of protection, as the people can no longer defend themselves nearly as well. But, this would result in crime conditions worsening, as I’ve shown that banning guns has no positive effect on crime.

Let’s consider another quote, about the first Assault Weapons Ban, another name for the “Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994” from 1994, which ended in 2004. On April 5^th, 1996, Charles Krauthammer wrote in an article titled Disarm the Citizenry. But Not Yet that the Assault Weapons Ban was never intended to control crime, as the title suggests; “Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic — purely symbolic — move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation.” (MUCH OF THIS VERBATIM FROM 'BOSTON'S GUN BIBLE')

Pete Shields, the director of Handgun Control, Inc., has also admitted exactly the same about gun controls:

“We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily -- given the political realities -- going to be very modest. . . . [W]e'll have to start working again to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen the next law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we'd be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal -- total control of handguns in the United States -- is going to take time. . . . The first problem is to slow down the number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition-except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors-totally illegal.”

Richard Harris, A Reporter at Large: Handguns, New Yorker, July 26, 1976, at 53, 58 (quoting Pete Shields, founder of Handgun Control, Inc.) [http://www.gunscholar.org/gunban.htm]

Pete Shields, incidentally, has a Concealed Carry Permit, which probably means he, himself, carries a concealed handgun. Oops.

The argument that gun-controllers are not “out to get” all guns and punish gun-owners is completely false. They want guns to only be owned by the military and law enforcement. The military should have guns, yes, obviously, but what about law enforcement officers? As I’ve shown already, the police do not have to protect you, so why would they need guns? Well, to protect themselves, obviously. But, if there are no guns, why would they need guns to protect themselves against people who don’t have them? Well, because the criminals might have them, right?

Exactly. As tired as that old axiom is, when the guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

So, let’s assume (completely falsely) that banning guns leads to no guns being owned by anyone, legal or no. Why, then, would the police still need them? This is a very good question and one that can be answered by another quote from Ayn Rand; “A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.”

Works Cited:

Wietz, Rose. The Sociology of Health, Illness, and Health Care, 3^rd ed. Belmont, CA. Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2004.

Kleck, Gary; Gertz, Marc. “Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun”. Journal of Criminology and Law. 86.1 (1995): 150-186. JSTOR, Winona State University Library Catalog Database [http://www.jstor.org/] Accessed 24 Nov. 2007

Stossel, John. ABC News “20/20” Op/ed. April 26, 2007. Accessed 25 Nov. 2007. [http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story?id=3083618&page=1]

Party, T. Boston. Boston’s Gun Bible, revised ed. united states of America. Javelin Press. 1997-2002.

Kasler, Peter Alan. “Police Have No Duty to Protect Individuals.” Copyright 1992. Accessed 26 Nov. 2007. [http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/kasler-protection.html]

Halbrook, Stephen P. “Guns, Crime, and the Swiss”. 1999. Accessed 26 Nov. 2007. [http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/articles/guns-crime-swiss.html]

Zelman, Aaron. Stevens, Richard W. Death by “Gun Control” 2005, excerpted at:[http://www.jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/deathgc.htm] Accessed 25 Nov. 2007

Kopel, Dave. “Gun Bans and Genocide: The Disarming Facts.” America’s 1^st Freedom. August 2006. Accessed 26 Nov. 2007 [http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Foreign/gun-bans-and-genocide.htm]

I will be posting things I've written in the past, mostly about gun-rights and guns.

New Blog

Finally got around to making a new blog - have too many things to write about.