March For Tyranny (videos)

A cold wind blew through West Chester, PA that Saturday. It was the day of the so-called March For Our Lives. While the wind was cold the protesters' anger burned and nothing good ever comes from such burning anger. 

Reacting to my sign that reads “background checks do not work” this guy was really upset. 

(I wasn't able to record the first part of the conversation as my camera had shut off.):
 

This belief in background checks is truly emotional and cult like. It's not surprising though, it's the only way to hold on to that belief in the face of overwhelming evidence that they've failed. No doubt readers noted the cherry picking of examples and denial of contrary facts. The reference to Prof. Cook at the beginning of the video was about me bringing up the article “Study Shows Brady Bill Had No Impact on Gun Homicides“. In it Prof. Cook clearly states that the Brady Bill is a failure, I.E. background checks don't work.  

These ladies were much nicer but just as wrong. They seem to think that all ARs (scary black rifles) are capable of fully automatic fire. As usual for gun rights haters they're wrongly convinced that the US has the highest murder rate in the world:

Anyone wondering about my references to social dynamics in the videos is invited to listen to this presentation by Prof. Randolph Roth of Ohio State University on the subject. I also recommend his book “American Homicide”. Both make clear that it is social dynamics, not access to guns, that drive the murder rate up or down.

The sign also lead to a very pleasant conversation with a member of Gun Sense Chester County who remembered me from Mike Weisser's presentation of March 3, 2018. I said that if they were going to claim that we have such a high murder rate in the US then that shows that all the gun control we have, including background checks, has failed. Her answer was that background checks aren't universal that's why they fail. She claimed that according to a RAND Corp study they do help a little in some cases. (This article from Newsweek says that RAND found a lack of evidence on the subject. If that's really the best they can do...) When I then pointed out that every step of the way advocates of gun control say this measure or that measure will solve the problem yet they never do. Each time gun control fails they only say we need more to make it work. We ended our conversation there.

Since my camera had shut off, again, I wasn't able to video another man who took exception to my sign. Our discussion quickly turned to the meaning of the 2nd Amendment. When I explained that it was about keeping the government disarmed by having a militia rather than standing forces he got really hot and bothered. He exclaimed that we need the government armed to protect the public from people like me. Maybe it was the hoodie I was wearing, who knows?

The cold wind also blew in a celebrity, Jay Leno. Gun owning members of his fan club may want to reconsider their memberships.

What's the takeaway from covering the march? These people are scared, hurt, and angry. They think they're doing good but good comes not from reacting emotionally but from having knowledge and thinking things through. One is reminded of the words of Judge Louis D. Brandeis:

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning, but without understanding.

A quick look at some of their signs tells us that they want to ban all the guns they think they can get away with:

 

 

The day didn't end on a sad note though. On the way home I stopped at the massive, 1700 table gun show at Oaks, PA. It sure seemed like there were more people at the gun show than attended the march. That is a good sign.

Mike Weisser: NRA Member, Gun Rights Hater

Gun Sense Chester County's brochure

Mike Weisser, who likes to be known as “the gun guy”, and I had a short conversation before his presentation on March 3, 2018 in Devon, PA. It was enlightening. Upon finding out that I'm a libertarian he asked if I refuse to pay taxes. My reply was no. Taxation is theft but I submit to the thieving government's superior force. Weisser then asked if I thought it was OK for people who can't afford housing to be kicked out to die in the street and tough luck. I said no and reminded him of the long history of mutual aid societies and lodges that provided social services before the rise of the welfare state. This lead to him asking me why the welfare state was created. My answer was to buy support and votes, in other words to control people. No, Weisser said, mutual aid societies had failed during the Great depression and the government had to rescue people from starvation. Of course, I replied, the depression caused by the government through Hoover's New Deal lite and the Federal Reserve System's bumbling overwhelmed the private welfare system in place at the time. The answer isn't a welfare state but to avoid depressions through free market policies. I brought up that it seemed strange that he would talk about hunger during the depression since the Roosevelt administration curtailed food production to boost prices during that time. Weisser then suggested that I didn't know what I was talking about. He's obviously never heard of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The point of this paragraph is to illustrate Weisser's ignorance, statist thinking, and slavish devotion to the concept of government-as-savior.

Let's get on with guns. In the video below you can hear Weisser clearly say he's fine with the government banning guns: 

Weisser's government-as-savior point of view comes through loud and clear. No need to fear government power, it's never abused, is it? (Note to the literal minded, the last sentence was sarcasm.) You also just heard Gun Sense Chester County member Wayne Hall unconvincingly say he hopes we can solve the so-called gun violence problem without banning guns.

The next video was also taken after Weisser's presentation. He says very clearly that people don't have a right to own guns. In it one can see how obvious it is that he's on the gun rights haters side:  

What a strange view of the Constitution. Of course, the law is there to limit action. Starting with the Constitution which is supposed to limit the government not the people. James Madison was clear that “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined.” Thomas Jefferson expressed the same view when he wrote, "The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." As I wrote in Democratic Socialism, Guns, and the Failure of the Constitution:

The real issue is the question, does the government have the legal power to take people's guns? One searches the Constitution in vain trying to find a clause that empowers it to do so. However, the Tenth Amendment reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This should be a great restriction on governmental power. Since the Constitution nowhere grants the government the power to take our guns the Tenth Amendment should stop them from doing so.

Look out for those impulses! As if they drive peaceful people to murder. Rather than dealing in depth with how social dynamics are the key to solving the murder problem I'll refer readers to Professor Roth's excellent presentation on the subject “Why Is the United States the Most Homicidal Nation In the Affluent World?”.

Gun Sense Chester County's brochure

One final commentary, not only Weisser but a group like Gun Sense Chester County come across as an attempt to mainstream gun control in order to exclude the advocates of liberty. If the contest is between gun controllers and gun banners the banners will win. We will continue down the slippery slope until we lose our gun rights completely. Gun owners must stand firm and push for the end of all gun laws and gun control at all levels of government.

Since Weisser makes it clear that he's a lifetime NRA member, what's the NRA's opinion of this? Does Weisser represent the NRA's views?

Below is Weisser's presentation in its entirety:

Don't Let Gun Rights Haters Intimidate You

Terry Rumsey and Robin Lasersohn of Delaware County United For a Sensible Gun Policy [sic] telling us what they really want to do with guns.

I can hear many gun owners laughing saying “I not afraid of those gunless and gutless morons”, but it's not physical intimidation I'm talking about. Think about it. They can't use force to shut us up but many of us are intimidated into silence by their rhetoric.

A prime example came from Pres. Obama during CNN's “Guns in America”. They went to great lengths to mock those concerned that the government might one day try to disarm us. Why do this? Because they want to bury the fact that they've long been saying that they do indeed want to disarm us. (See here, here, here, here and here.) True that they aren't going to require turning in guns nor are they sending out SWAT teams to take guns from people but they are trying to implement an incremental disarmament strategy. Obama said he wants to “make progress” and “incrementally make things better” with his anti-gun rights diktats. He was talking about gradually disarming us. It is discussion of this strategy that they want to intimidate us out of.

Ayn Rand referred to it as the argument from intimidation. Here's how she summed it up:

The tone is usually one of scornful or belligerent incredulity. “Surely you are not an advocate of capitalism, are you?” And if this does not intimidate the prospective victim—who answers, properly: “I am,”—the ensuing dialogue goes something like this: “Oh, you couldn’t be! Not really!” “Really.” “But everybody knows that capitalism is outdated!” “I don’t.” “Oh, come now!” “Since I don’t know it, will you please tell me the reasons for thinking that capitalism is outdated?” “Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” “Will you tell me the reasons?” “Well, really, if you don’t know, I couldn’t possibly tell you!”

All this is accompanied by raised eyebrows, wide-eyed stares, shrugs, grunts, snickers and the entire arsenal of nonverbal signals communicating ominous innuendoes and emotional vibrations of a single kind: disapproval.

If those vibrations fail, if such debaters are challenged, one finds that they have no arguments, no evidence, no proof, no reasons, no ground to stand on—that their noisy aggressiveness serves to hide a vacuum—that the Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.

In order to fool gun owners into accepting background checks and restrictions on the ownership, transfer, and transportation of guns they have to hide the real purpose of these measures. It's not about safety, Obama admitted they won't reduce crime during the clown show on CNN. To repeat, it's about gradually disarming us.

To restore our rights we're going to have to be mentally tough enough to stand up to gun rights haters. What Ludwig Von Mises wrote about economics applies to guns:

The enemy is not refuted: enough to unmask him as a bourgeois. Marxism criticizes the achievements of all those who think otherwise by representing them as the venal servants of the bourgeoisie. Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person. Few have been able to withstand such tactics. Few indeed have been courageous enough to oppose Socialism with that remorseless criticism which it is the duty of the scientific thinker to apply to every subject of inquiry.

The answer is clear, since they want to bury the idea of incremental disarmament we have to have the courage to shout it from the roof tops. Bring it up anytime gun control is discussed. Whether it's in comments to online articles, letters to the editor, or opinion columns, bring up incremental disarmament. In online forums, bring up incremental disarmament. In face to face conversations, bring up incremental disarmament. In videos and television interviews, bring up incremental disarmament. Our gun rights and, therefore, our lives depend on it. Once again Ayn Rand:

How does one resist that Argument? There is only one weapon against it: moral certainty.

When one enters any intellectual battle, big or small, public or private, one cannot seek, desire or expect the enemy's sanction. Truth or falsehood must be one's sole concern and sole criterion of judgment—not anyone's approval or disapproval; and, above all, not the approval of those whose standards are the opposite of one's own.

The most illustrious example of the proper answer to the Argument from Intimidation was given in American history by the man who, rejecting the enemy's moral standards and with full certainty of his own rectitude, said: "If this be treason, make the most of it."

Murder Rates: Why Comparing The United States Only To Other Developed Countries Is Deceitful

Bicycle taxi drivers waiting for passengers outside 
of a hospital in poor but peaceful Malawi

My recent article “Islands, Churches, and Guns” was met with a ridiculous criticism that gun rights advocates have left unrefuted for far too long. Namely, the idea that it's only legitimate to compare the US murder rate to that of other developed countries. When one does compare the US to that cherry picked group the US looks, for the most part, bad. This false point is why gun rights haters try to limit the comparison. The problem with that limited comparison is the fact that many very poor countries are also very peaceful. Gun rights haters would have to be able to show that virtually all affluent countries are very peaceful and that virtually all poor countries are very violent for their limited comparison to make any sense. That would indeed make the US an outlier. Fortunately for gun rights they can't meet the above conditions. There are many poor countries with high murder rates. The table below shows that there are at least 36 poor countries (that's over 18% of the 195 countries that exist in the world today) with a murder rate under 5 per 100,000. This puts them in the same category that the US and most of Europe is in. This tells us that a country's level of development or poverty is irrelevant to the murder rate.

Country	Murder rate per 100,000	Percentage of population living on < $2 per day	Percentage of population living on < $4 per day
Indonesia	0.6	43.3	80.5
Algeria	0.7	23.61	63
China	1.0	18.6	49.1
Tajikistan	1.6	27.69	74.9
Bhutan	1.7	15	52.8
Malawi	1.8	90.45	97.2
Armenia	1.8	12.43	65.1
Sierra Leone	1.9	76.08	96.5
Jordan	2.0	1.59	26.5
Tunisia	2.2	4.5	26.3
Syria	2.2	16.85	60
Morocco	2.2	14.3	52.9
Bangladesh	2.7	76.54	95.7
Senegal	2.8	60.36	88.8
Liberia	3.2	94.88	99
São Tomé and Príncipe	3.3	54.2	N/A
Vietnam	3.3	12.5	48.5
Egypt	3.4	15.43	71.6
Sri Lanka	3.4	23.9	63.9
India	3.5	59.2	91.2
Iran	3.9	8.03	86.7
Fiji	3.9	22.9	61.8
Georgia	4.3	32.21	67.9
Micronesia	4.6	44.69	N/A
Niger	4.7	75.23	96
Yemen	4.8	46.6	82
Libya doesn't have income figures on the source chart but this note says 1/3 of Libyans live under the poverty line. With a murder rate of only 1.7 per 100,000 they deserve to be included in this article.
Vanuatu is a country with little economic information available on the Internet. With its murder rate of only 2.8 per 100,000 and a per capita income under $5000 per year it merits mention.
East Timor isn't on the chart either but with a per capita income of only $1847 and a murder rate of 3.6 per 100,000 it gets mentioned here.
Tuvalu isn't on the chart either but with a per capita income of only $3400 and a murder rate of 4.2 per 100,000 it gets mentioned here too.
The Solomon Islands aren't on the chart either but with a per capita income of only $3191 and a murder rate of 4.3 per 100,000 it gets mentioned here as well.

The US has a rate of 4.5 murders per 100,000 of population which is well below the world average of 6.2 per 100,000. There's no disputing that the US has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world. Putting these two facts together is part of showing that having guns isn't the problem as gun rights haters can't show a correlation between access to guns (or the lack thereof) and murder rates.

If the level of development of a country and rate of gun ownership aren't determining factors what should we look at? The social dynamics that drive murder rates. As Kates and Mauser wrote in “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?”:

...the determinants of murder and suicide are basic social,
economic, and cultural factors, not the prevalence of some
form of deadly mechanism. In this connection, recall that the
American jurisdictions which have the highest violent crime
rates are precisely those with the most stringent gun controls.

Let's finally put to rest the idea that forcibly disarming people will make them safer. We need to stop wasting time and implement liberty so that the social dynamics that lead to a harmonious society can take hold here.

Islands, Churches, and Guns

Myself on a beach on Little Exuma, the Bahamas

This article is prompted by two things that happened recently. The first was a happy event, my vacation to the the Bahamas. The other the horrible shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. At first glance these two things may not seem related but the connection between them will soon be made clear.

As usual, a mass shooting like the one in Charleston brings out the gun rights haters who want to cynically use the blood of the victims to grease the skids for their gun control schemes. One hears and reads claim after nonsensical claim that if only we had less gun rights and fewer guns in the United States the victims would still be alive. Reality tells us something very different.

Unfortunately, while in the Bahamas I discovered that all is not well in paradise. During our visit a shooting happened at a school in Nassau. This sparked discussion in the local media that revealed that the Bahamas are on pace for a record number of murders this year after a substantial increase last year. How is this relevant to the US and gun control here? Because in the Bahamas they have strict gun control and way fewer guns per capita than we have here. Yet they die from gun shots at a much higher rate than Americans.

The lesson to be learned is clear and not the one gun rights haters would have us learn. Dreams of legislating away murder by outlawing guns is a dangerous fantasy. It will only lead to more violence as it doesn't address the causes of the problem. Until we start dealing with the social dynamics that drive crime the killing will continue both here and in the Bahamas.

This Is What Gun Control Looks Like: Shaneen Allen's New Jersey Ordeal (video)

It's great that Shaneen Allen is free and was able to share her story with us at a Citizens for Liberty meeting. I just couldn't post this video without commenting on her call for national reciprocity for state issued carry permits. She's in favor of them, I'm not. Here's why. National reciprocity is just more federal domination of the states. We have too much of that already.

The problem is states implementing gun control not a lack of federal laws on the subject. National reciprocity entrenches and legitimizes this state level tyranny while at the same time expanding federal power. Despite appearances it's step backwards for liberty. The answer is to repeal state laws about licensing and regulating guns. At the same time we need to end federal involvement with guns by abolishing agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It's by this kind of limiting of government power that we protect our freedom.

Shaneen Allen's website:

http://www.shaneenallen.org/


Please read this article for commentary on national reciprocity:

The Concealed Carry Lie

 

 

Braving Gun Rights Haters' Nails: Lower Merion Township, PA Family Open Carry Rally (video)

Braving nails placed in the street by our car tires by gun rights haters (one wonders if there is no low they won't stoop to) we protested the fact that Lower Merion, PA won't repeal their local gun ordnance despite the fact that it's in violation of the state's preemption law.

Pictures of guns at the rally that killed no one:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pictures of signs and other expressions of support:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gun Rights Haters: Victims or Aggressors?

Now these perpetual “victims” want to learn about “Powerfully Peaceful Action in the Face of Armed and Aggressive Opposition”. Why do they say they need to do this? Because, according to them, “Almost every group in the gun sense movement has – at some time in the last several years – been confronted by armed and/or aggressive counter demonstrators at one of our public actions.” Though as you can see at the link above no examples of any aggressive behavior towards them are given. Of course, we often counter-demonstrate their events armed but that's not aggression as the zero body count and zero hospitalization rate among attendees show. If being around guns frightens them there is a name for that, hoplophobia. Perhaps a psychiatrist would be more helpful to them than a workshop. 

I wish I knew what aggressiveness they've been facing. Last June we went out of our way not to interfere with their gun rights hating march from Chester to Media, two towns near Philadelphia, PA. Here is video proof that they weren't even verbally insulted.

Facing aggressors from our side isn't what's going on out there. No, they realize that they can't keep abusing us and keep the facade of goodness and victimhood intact. For example, they sure were abusive of me when I tried to flier their rally once:

Gun rights haters in Rhode Island were even worse to liberty activist Dan Bidondi:


Even disrupting a peaceful gun rights rally is held up by gun rights haters as a proper way to behave:


Then there is the vile practice of “swatting” open carriers. This is when gun rights haters call 911 and lie about open carriers' behavior so the police will stop, arrest, or even kill them.

Who really are the aggressors here? Certainly not gun rights advocates. We want only to peacefully have our rights respected. It is the other side, the gun rights haters, that want to send armed thugs with badges to infringe on our rights. Let's be very clear on this point, it is the gun rights haters who are the aggressors. They, in the form of their agents in the government, are coming after us not the other way around.

My impression is that they're stung by years of defeat in the legislatures and courts. Not to mention years of being proved wrong by the dropping crime rates that have occurred in recent decades despite the fact that there are more privately held guns than ever in the US. Just as they think that sounding more knowledgeable about guns will make them more credible and effective activists (see here for a write up of their meeting on firearms) they now think that hiding their hate will help their cause. It won't. More than a marketing problem what they have is a reality problem. They've been proved wrong and all the sweet talk in the world won't change that.