End the War on Freedom

Anonymous Coward: I wish all you gun-toting fucktards would just go create your own nation...

pi rules: We did. Who the hell let you in here?

John Ross - The Betrayal and Redemption of an American Icon, or Smith & Wesson and the Springfield Sledgehammer - John Ross writes about the S&W revolvers he's fired over the years and about his new S&W .500 Magnum. Then he tells you why, if you're still boycotting Smith & Wesson, you should stop.

The wire services picked up the story and instantly there was a legislator making the hilarious proclamation that this new gun would be the "weapon of choice" for inner city gang members (the politicians' code phrase for "young black men with criminal records, gold teeth, and their pants falling off.") Memo to Rep. Danny Davis: For years you people in the gun-banning crowd have been telling us we need to ban guns that hold too much ammunition, fire too many shots too quickly, are too small and light, too easily concealed, or too inexpensive. The S&W .500 holds only five rounds, cannot be fired rapidly by anyone (even an expert), weighs as much as seven of Smith & Wesson's small revolvers, is about as easy to conceal as a bowling ball, and retails for almost a thousand dollars. I personally think this last fact makes the .500 the gun bargain of the decade, but I defy anyone to claim that a $950 gun is "inexpensive." As a final note, I would pay good money to see one of your gang members fire the .500 while holding it on its side, as is the fashion among would-be gunsels in the 'hood. Said gang member would be eligible for a lot more of those gold teeth.

Bruce Schneier at Cryptome - How to Fight - convincing the ID police to change their misguided policies.

I had no leverage when trying to check in without giving up a photocopy of my driver's license. My wife had no leverage when she tried to fill her prescription without divulging a bunch of optional personal information. The only reason I had leverage renting a phone in Japan was because I deliberately sneaked around the system. If I try to protest airline security, I'm definitely going to miss my flight and I might get myself arrested. There's no parity, because those who implement the security have no interest in changing it and no power to do so. They're not the ones who control the security system; it's best to think of them as nearly mindless robots. (The security system relies on them behaving this way, replacing the flexibility and adaptability of human judgment with a three-ring binder of "best practices" and procedures.)

It would be different if the pharmacist were the owner of the pharmacy, or if the person behind the registration desk owned the hotel. Or even if the policeman were a neighborhood beat cop. In those cases, there's more parity. I can negotiate my security, and he can decide whether or not to modify the rules for me. But modern society is more often faceless corporations and mindless governments. It's implemented by people and machines that have enormous power, but only power to implement what they're told to implement. And they have no real interest in negotiating. They don't need to. They don't care.

But there's a paradox. We're not only individuals; we're also consumers, citizens, taxpayers, voters, and -- if things get bad enough -- protestors and sometimes even angry mobs. Only in the aggregate do we have power, and the more we organize, the more power we have.

Even an airline president, while making his way through airport security, has no power to negotiate the level of security he'll receive and the tradeoffs he's willing to make. In an airport and on an airplane, we're all nothing more than passengers: an asset to be protected from a potential attacker. The only way to change security is to step outside the system and negotiate with the people in charge. It's only outside the system that each of us has power: sometimes as an asset owner, but more often as another player. And it is outside the system that we will do our best negotiating.

...

When you see counterproductive, invasive, or just plain stupid security, don't let it slip by. Write the letter. Create a Web site. File a FOIA request. Make some noise. You don't have to join anything; noise need not be more than individuals standing up for themselves.

Jonathan Cheng at The Star-Ledger - Out here, girls just wanna have guns - A report on the annual "Women's Day at the Range" at the Cherry Ridge Range in Sussex County, New Jersey. [firearmnews]

It was an otherwise quiet Saturday in the woods of Sussex County, when gunshots pierced the air. Again and again, all day long.

Girls with guns, females with firearms, women with weapons -- anyway you put it, there were a lot of armed women in the woods yesterday, and most of them had never touched a gun before.

Garry Reed, The Loose Cannon Libertarian, at Liberty for All - Revenge of the Bill of Rights - our country is supposed to be one where we delegate to government some of our rights. Not any more. Some examples of what could happen if citizens emulated their current government. Hehe. [kaba]

Authoritarian-minded folks would argue that if citizens could do anything the government does, we'd have utter chaos. But libertarians know that it's government run amok, doing all sorts of things that citizens can't do, that causes the chaos. What was legal yesterday is illegal today. What wasn't regulated then is regulated now. What belongs to us can belong to the government whenever they wish to take it, under whatever pretext of legalized thievery they choose to invent. How can any of us make long-range plans in an atmosphere of government chaos?

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