The Orange Dragon Reads Don Martin
# Somebody from the Special Operations Command did a Google search on Tuesday for "billstclair" and visited my home page. A light plane or helicopter buzzed my house last night as well. The nearest airport I know of is 10 miles away, and it's on the other side of a big hill (yeah, they call it a mountain, but I'm from real mountain country). If I stop posting without warning, it might be time to worry...
asoc3.soc.mil - - [02/Mar/2004:08:13:13 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 8467 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=billstclair&btnG=Google+Search" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)"
# The Don Martin Shrine contains lots of hillarious comics from one of the geniuses who drew comics for Mad magazine (30¢ cheap). I remember liking his comics when I was eight (forty years ago) and I still like them today. He died in 2000. [smith2004]
# Claire Wolfe at Backwoods Home Magazine - Miss Fitz Buys a Gun: Part I: Which to choose? - some practical advice for the smallish beginner on choosing an effective self-defense tool. Revolver or pistol, caliber, barrel length, weight, "Yeah, but which gun?" [claire]
If Miss Fitz really were the schoolmarm, she might have no particular need for a gun. Most of the students in Hardyville are well-equipped to handle the situation in the event, say, that an IRS agent showed up to impress the class with the virtues of the income tax.
But Miss Fitz's Young Ladies aren't always able to have their own firearms on their person, so to speak, since some other person is frequently on their person.
So Miss Fitz finds herself in need of the occasional self-defensive firearm.
# Edward Giroux at The Albany (NY) Times Union - Legal handguns save lives and prevent crime - guns save lives and are used by many for hunting. Cracking down on the law-abiding does not stop violence. Mr. Giroux intends to leave the state when he retires.
# Sunni Maravillosa at The Price of Liberty - Law and Liberty - we don't need no steenking laws. All we need is individual responsibility. Laws cannot create it. As a matter of fact, they destroy it. [lrtdiscuss]
So, what about the argument that laws are required for individuals to be responsible? Although I agree that individual responsibility is an essential component of a civil society, I am unconvinced that laws help create individual responsibility. In fact, I think it's quite the opposite.
Murder and rape? I never hear about such horrible crimes these days -- after all, they've been illegal for years. Now that carjacking is a federal offense, it's stopped, too. Since the Brady Bill keeps guns out of criminals' hands, we don't need any more gun laws. Megan's Law stopped sexual abuse of children, so I don't bother to watch mine any more -- the law keeps them safe. I haven't heard of a case of counterfeiting in years, so I don't know what all that hoopla was over the new peachy-keen $20 bills. And of course, CAN-SPAM does a splendid job of keeping my inbox free of unsolicited email!
Now that we're all done laughing, we can return to more serious matters. Individual responsibility is indeed a fundamental element of freedom. But laws do not enable responsibility. Instead, they encourage mental and moral laziness, and thereby foster irresponsibility. This happens in several ways.