End the War on Freedom

"The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations." -- David Friedman

Jeff Head - Dragon's Fury: High Tide - Mr. Head is working on volume three of his World War III series. There are two excerpts available. He expects to be finished by the end of the year, "probably not in time for Christmas (darn) but by January 1st." Volumes 1 and 2, Breath of Fire and Trodden Under are available in trade paperback, Adobe EBook, or Microsoft EBook format. I highly recommend them both.

Chaim at The Firing Line - Goodbye TFL- for now - a man in Maryland was harrassed by an f.b.i. agent over the phone. He was initially too frightened to tell his story, but loosened up over time. Neil Knox has his story here (scroll down or search for "Chaim"). AR15.com discussion here. [kaba]

dZ at The Firing Line - 5000 rifles turned-in, in Maryland? - seems that the b.a.t.f. is getting Maryland citizens to "voluntarily" turn in their rifles for testing.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds at FOXNews - The Next International Right - the editor of InstaPundit.com shows that the right to keep and bear arms should be recognized as an international human right because it prevents genocide. Bravo! [smith2004]

Nor have efforts to deter genocide by trying killers after the fact done very well. As the magazine Legal Affairs reports, Rwandan killers have turned up actually on the payroll of the "International Court" designated to try war criminals. It is, said one observer, as if Klaus Barbie had turned up on the staff at Nuremberg. Pol Pot, meanwhile, apparently died in bed.

This has led some observers to suggest that genocide isn't something that can be addressed by international conventions or tribunals. A recent article in the Washington University Law Quarterly argues that the most important thing we can do to prevent genocide is to ensure that civilian populations are armed:

The question of genocide is one of manifest importance in the closing years of a century that has been extraordinary for the quality and quantity of its bloodshed. As Elie Wiesel has rightly pointed out, "This century is the most violent in recorded history. Never have so many people participated in the killing of so many people."

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It seems to me that the human rights community has things exactly backward. Given that the efforts of the international community to prevent and punish genocide over the past several decades have been, to put it politely, a dismal failure, perhaps it is time to try a new approach. International human rights law is supposed to be a "living" body of law that changes with the needs of the times in order to secure important goals -- chief among which is the prevention of genocide. Given that the traditional approaches of conventions and tribunals have failed miserably, the human rights community should be prepared to endorse a new international human right: the right of law-abiding citizens to be armed.

Joseph Farah at World Net Daily - The sniper who paralyzed Washington - We The People can easily beat this sniper, all we need is for government to get out of the way. [firearmnews]

All this confusion created by one gunman shooting people over a wide geographic area at random.

Just imagine if there were 10 shooters, or 100, or, God forbid, 1,000 organized terrorists at work.

Once again, I point out this weakness in American law enforcement not to alarm people, but to demonstrate that ordinary citizens cannot and should not count on the government to protect them, their lives, their property and their family members. The government can't do it. It's not possible.

But people can defend themselves -- and should. To do that, government needs to get off the backs of the ordinary citizen, to stop harassing the great majority of law-abiding people and to stop preventing them and discouraging them from getting the tools they need to do the job themselves.

The Item (Sumter, SC) Editorial - Sniper shows gun control laws put people at risk - DC residents are disarmed by law. What better place for a sniper to attack? [firearmnews]

Disarming Americans isn't a solution. And if we can't disarm those who want to kill in spite of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation, what does that tell us?

An armed and responsible citizenry helped create this nation. Now they have the right to defend it.

John deLaubenfels at Strike the Root - Random Numbers: The Next Menace - in order to stop Steganography, the government will likely prohibit random number generators. [birdman]

Eric Raymond at Armed and Dangerous - Draft for an Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (version 2) - end terrorism now.

WE THEREFORE AFFIRM that both the terrorists and their state sponsors have made themselves outlaws from the moral community of man, to be dealt with as feral beasts are.

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WE SUPPORT, in recognition of the fact that the military and police cannot be everywhere, efforts to meet the distributed threat with a distributed response; to arm not merely airline pilots but ordinary citizens, and to recognize the citizen's right and obligation to respond to terrorist aggression with effective force.

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WE DEFINE IDIOTARIANISM as the species of delusion within the moral community of mankind that gives aid and comfort to terrorists and dictators operating outside it.

WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Left -- the moral blindness that refuses to recognize that free markets, individual liberty, and experimental science have made the West a fundamentally better place than any culture in which jihad, 'honor killings', and female genital mutilation are daily practices approved by a stultifying religion.

WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Right -- whether it manifests as head-in-the-sand isolationism or as a Christian-identity chauvinism that all but mirrors the Islamo-fascist fanaticism of our enemies.

Libertarian Party Press Releases - Initiative to end Mass. income tax sparks more controversy, publicity - Carla Howell's Small Government Act, question one on the November ballot, is not popular among statists. Good. Fuck 'em. [lp]

David Rostcheck at The North Bridge Training Institute - Beltway Killer Media Response Kit - some information for correcting media misrepresentations of the facts. [firearmnews]

Ballistic information has apparently led the police to believe the killer is using a .223 caliber cartridge (5.56mm in metric), which is commonly used in rifles - although it is also used in some large handguns. All rifle cartridges are more powerful than smaller handgun rounds. However, the .223 is not a high-powered cartridge - rather it is the lowest power cartridge in large-scale commercial use. By comparison, the 30-06 (pronounced "thirty aught six") cartridge, the round fired by the rifle Sarah Brady bought her son for Christmas of 2000 (described in her book "A Good Fight"), is over twice as powerful and can penetrate approximately 18" of oak. The .223 is used primarily to hunt small (rabbit-sized) game and is illegal for hunting large animals in many states because it is not sufficiently lethal to reliably kill the game.

Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - Why Won't Congress Declare War? - no balls in Congress, that's why. [sierra]

When Congress issued clear declarations of war against Japan and Germany during World War II, the nation was committed and victory was achieved. When Congress shirks its duty and avoids declaring war, as with Korea, and Vietnam, the nation is less committed and victory is elusive. No lives should be lost in Iraq unless Congress expresses the clear will of the American people and votes yes or no on a declaration of war.

Slashdot - Fuel Cell Laptop announced by Toshiba - for 2004. There's a short article at Fuel Cell Today. [/.]

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