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 “But everybody knows that capitalism is outdated!”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 “Since I don’t know it, will you please tell me the reasons for thinking that capitalism is outdated?”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."

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.

Joshua Prince Mops the Floor With CeaseFirePA (video)

Attorney Joshua Prince makes a complete fool of CeaseFirePA's gun rights hating Shira Goodman. They're debating Pennsylvania's Act 192 which allows people to proactively sue municipalities which enact gun control laws in violation of the state's preemption statute. Enjoy!

Using Gun Rights Haters Own Research Against Them

Easy to do with Robert Muggah, among many things the coauthor of “We Need Better Data for a Serious Gun Control Debate”, an article in which he advocates gun control despite the fact that he claims there isn't enough good data on the subject to even have a debate about it. A tad bias, wouldn't you agree? Could that be why gun rights advocates don't want such people doing research on crime and violence? But I digress, on October 8, 2014 he gave a talk at TEDGlobal 2014: South! in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil titled “How To Protect Fast-Growing Cities From Failing”:

In his talk he says a number of things that make clear that guns aren't the drivers of a high murder rate. Most importantly, he directly contradicts that major gun rights haters' argument when Dr. Muggah says that, “...when it comes to cities, the conversation is dominated by the North, that is, North America, Western Europe, Australia and Japan, where violence is actually at historic lows.”. He then drives home the point with:

What's more, we're seeing a dramatic reduction in homicide. Manuel Eisner and others have shown that for centuries, we've seen this incredible drop in murder, especially in the West. Most Northern cities today are 100 times safer than they were just 100 years ago.

These two facts -- the decline in armed conflict and the decline in murder -- are amongst the most extraordinary, if unheralded, accomplishments of human history, and we should be really excited, right?

That drop in murder rates includes the United States with all its guns. The slide from his presentation below clearly shows the US to be in the same low murder rate category as western Europe. So much for the lie that the US is a very dangerous place!
 

Dr. Muggah goes on to talk about social and demographic factors that that drive violence, all the while making the gun rights advocates' case for us. Not once does he say that the availability of guns is the cause of the violence. He ends his talk with this:

There is nothing inevitable about lethal violence, and we can make our cities safer. Folks, we have the opportunity of a lifetime to drop homicidal violence in half within our lifetime. So I have just one question: What are we waiting for?

Yes, gun rights haters, what are you waiting for to stop worshiping the false god of gun control and start facing the real causes of the violence problem?

Gun Rights Versus Anecdotes

Which side wins depends on whether one can reason or simply react emotionally.

Letters and an ad from gun rights hating groups

For a while back in the Winter, a retired philosophy professor (who wants to remain anonymous) and I exchanged a few emails and, from him, snail mail, discussing gun rights. After not hearing from him for several months he very unexpectedly mailed me a large envelope containing forty-nine newspaper clippings with many reports of shootings and a few anti-gun rights op-eds (and, strangely, a pro-gun op-ed by John Lott). He also included a fund raising letter from the Brady Campaign, another one from the Children's Defense Fund Action Counsel, a magazine ad from the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, and a hand written note. Especially surprising for their absence were any articles from scholarly source. Are there no scholarly articles in favor of gun control? He sent almost all anecdotes from mass media sources leaning heavily towards the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. One would expect better from university professor.

Some of the anecdotes are easily debunked as challenging gun rights. For example the New York Times' article, “In Youth’s Death, Some See a Montana Law Gone Wrong”. A tragic and unnecessary death for which the shooter has been convicted of murder, but what does it say about guns in Montana? Not much. The article states that “...Montana...has one of the country’s highest rates of gun ownership...”. Yet its murder rate is only 2.2 per 100,000, less than half of the national average. If anything Montana proves gun rights haters wrong, more guns don't mean more murder.

Another easily debunked article is the Wall Street Journal's “Mass Shootings on the Rise, FBI Says”. The idea that mass shootings are on the rise was debunked previous to the publication of the FBI report here. The FBI's report is directly debunked in John Lott's “The FBI’s bogus report on mass shootings”.

The professor also sent an editorial from the New York Times titled “The Court: Ignoring the Reality of Guns”. This editorial attempts to justify banning hand guns but fails. First, it gets wrong the practical matter of thinking that the availability of guns is the problem. Second, it fails to present constitutional grounds justifying a ban on hand guns. In the end it is really advocating ignoring the Constitution. So much for the rule of law. 

I could go on debunking but I feel I've made my point. The gun rights haters' case is all smoke and mirrors. It also ignores the fact that guns in private hands prevent 2.5 million crimes each year.

Part of the hand written note mentioned above reads as follows:

I have selected newspaper articles to send you. I think almost all of them challenge your position.

I take your position to be that the more guns there are in the hands of private citizens , and the less government regulates or restricts them, the better off we all are.

These articles are full of horror stories stories about the harms guns do in the hands of private citizens.

True that “... the less government regulates or restricts them [guns], the better off we all are.” As to what the right number of guns in society is I'll leave that to the market. I'm surprised that the professor sees my view as so shallow since he saw my presentation “There Is No Case for Gun Control”. I've written much on my blog on the subject of gun rights, let me quote from it in rebuttal:

...as with any issue, we have to start with basic principles and moral implications. That means talking about the one moral imperative that guides us in all human relationships, the non-aggression principle [NAP]...It is immoral to initiate the use of force or the threat of force against peaceful people. In other words, a person has to be actually engaging in aggression or credibly threatening to do so before it is morally justifiable to use force in retaliation. What does that have to do with guns? The mere possession of an inanimate object such a gun aggresses against no one. There is no moral justification for taking guns away from people who adhere to the non-aggression principle since this involves initiating the use of force to separate them from their weapons.
From “Progressivism’s Violent World”

It is violation of the NAP that leads to society becoming more unstable and unsafe. The more society is ruled by force the worse the results. As Frederick Bastiat, wrote in his book “The Law” in 1850:

Is there any need to offer proof that this odious perversion of the law is a perpetual source of hatred and discord; that it tends to destroy society itself? If such proof is needed, look at the United States. There is no country in the world where the law is kept more within its proper domain: the protection of every person's liberty and property. As a consequence of this, there appears to be no country in the world where the social order rests on a firmer foundation.

This is the source of the problem, violation of the NAP and the social dynamics that unleashes, not the availability of guns. This is reinforced by modern research such as that of Randolph Roth, a professor at Ohio State University and the author of “American Homicide”. In a presentation at the National Institute for Justice titled “Why Is The United States The Most Homicidal Nation In The Affluent World?” Prof. Roth sums up the drivers of the murder rate on slide 4: 

Again showing that it's not the availability of guns that drives the murder rate. Deal with the social dynamics that are the real problem and, when it comes to crime, guns become irrelevant. That begs the question, why do so many advocate gun control as a solution when guns obviously aren't the cause of the problem? Because it's their beloved big government that has caused the problem. To again quote from “Progressivism’s Violent World”:

Progressivism has failed to achieve its lofty ideals. Instead it has created our present situation of crime and murder, war and empire. It is this failure that the advocates of gun control want to cover up. Instead of facing reality they want to blame guns for the problems the implementation of their ideas has created. Before anyone gets too smug, let me emphasize that both political parties have adopted the progressive ideology. Today’s so-called liberals and conservatives advocate different degrees and different aspects of it, but advocate it they do...It’s past time for both sides to realize that the killing will only end, society will only heal by turning it away from being ruled by force and toward voluntary interaction between its members. Liberty is the answer. Implementing it means change at the institutional level, disarming the government and keeping the people not only armed but also organized to defend themselves.

Compassion is what motivates us to feel outrage about senseless murders. Gun rights advocates share that feeling with gun rights haters. The difference is that we, gun rights advocates, realize that reason is what must guide us not compassion. Unthinking, emotional reactions to horrible events will only make things worse. Let's stop trying to add the force of more gun control to the force that's already damaging our society. Freedom from force, liberty, is the only reasonable way forward.

                    Some suggested reading to gain insight into why we need guns in civilian hands. Not pictured but also recommended is "Guns and Violence: The English Experience".

Open Carry Brunch

We had a successful and friendly open carry Sunday brunch at the Court Diner in Media, PA. The event was lead by Mark Fiorino whose arrest by Philadelphia Police sparked outrage. Below is my interview with him. We talked about open carry both here and in Texas where it has generated much controversy.

Below is a picture of all the open carriers who attended. Thanks for the great time but especially thanks for standing up for liberty!

An African Adventure

It all started when YouTube analytics showed that my video PA Gun Rights Haters Show Their Intolerance was embedded at GunSite South Africa. I promptly joined the forum. On May 5th I noticed a thread titled “To vote or not to vote.......” discussing participating in their upcoming May 7th elections. Nonvoting being one of my favorite topics I jumped in urging people to give up voting. After declaring that my post was “...some of the stupidest shit I have ever read” a moderator asked “Are you a 'sovereign citizen'?”. Later, after being accused of advocating inaction, some Lysander Spooner seemed appropriate. Here's what I posted:

...people rule you because you accept being ruled. Politicians have power because people like you think they should have it. Voting is part of the mechanism to get you to accept that rule. Stop being fooled by elections. Remember what the doctors say, first do no harm. Participating in elections does harm. It isn't taking action for good. It is doing what the power hungry govt wants you to do.

Modern democracy isn't about individuals it's about institutions. Politicians come & go, you get to vote for them. Institutions remain, you don't get to vote for them. Power is in the institutions not the individuals. They want you to think that power is with the individual holding office. That is the big fraud that you're falling for.

Nonvoting isn't a protest, it is a first step in rejecting an institution, namely the state. We need to mentally separate people from the govt. Only once they do that will they resist it in other ways. Real power is controlling money. As long as the govt can force us to pay for their operations they control us. Voting doesn't matter. Resisting taxation is the key to restoring liberty.

"That every man who puts money into the hands of a "government" (so called), puts into its hands a sword which will be used against himself, to extort more money from him, and also to keep him in subjection to its arbitrary will."

--Lysander Spooner, NO TREASON NO. VI. THE CONSTITUTION OF NO AUTHORITY

BTW, an experience that taught me a lot was living in Venezuela. I was there when they elected Hugo Chavez. Tell me again how well voting works.

http://www.gunsite.co.za/forums/showthread.php?47529-To-vote-or-not-to-vote&p=643933&viewfull=1#post643933

From that my nemesis the moderator somehow decided that I was indeed a sovereign citizen! “And surprise surprise he is a sovereign citizen.”, he posted. (For the record I've never had anything to do with the sovereign citizen movement.) In the next comment someone asks “Soooooo. We all need to become anarchists?”. At least that commenter seemed to get were I was coming though his subsequent comments showed that he was just conflating sovereign citizens and anarchists. There followed some of the usual nonsense about 

who would build roads and the like then a comment from a second moderator announcing my banning. (At least I did get one supportive comment.) Now when one clicks on my profile one sees this:

An 88? My first thought was that it was some kind of South African insult. A little research turned up that an 88 is a Nazi. (For the record I am not now nor have I ever been a Nazi.) Had all of this been true it would have been quite an accomplishment being a sovereign citizen, an anarchist, and a Nazi all at the same time! These South African guys have a lot to learn not only about political ideologies but also about free and open discussion. At least their ignorance made for an interesting cyber-safari.

Know The Enemy of Liberty: the National Rifle Association

Oppressors Not Protectors

With the release of the first episode of the Defending Our America series titled “Know Your Enemies and Know Yourself” the National Rifle Association (NRA) puts itself at the forefront of the shills for tyranny and empire. Please watch the first episode and the season preview. They advocate police power to fight the war on drugs, police power to secure the borders, and military power to fight Islam overseas. In other words, they advocate for the very things that are destroying our liberties. Not once in either video do we hear the words liberty or freedom.

The war on drugs has lead to the destruction of the right to privacy and property. It is driving the militarization of the police enabling Commando style raids that now happen over one-hundred times a day in the United States. Sometimes they are based on nothing more than the word of an informant. Sometimes they are to serve a warrant on a non-violent person. Asset forfeiture has police forces becoming predators seeking out the maximum take with little or no due process. Law enforcement has become the standing army many Founders warned us not to have. The war on drugs keeps the money flowing to the law enforcement establishment.

“Securing” the massive southern border of the US is a pointless and impossible task. In the process of attempting it the government is building up a police state characterized by checkpoints, warrantless searches, and other intrusive controls. We need the governments permission just to work now that they've made it illegal to hire undocumented workers and implemented e-verify. This is another form of tyranny that keeps money flowing to the law enforcement establishment.

Fighting Islam is a farce designed to keep money following into the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned was taking over. It furnishes an excuse to keep taxes and government debt high. “...armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instrument for bringing the many under the domination of the few.” is how James Madison put it.

Follow the money. It comes as no surprise that the series is sponsored by Sig Sauer a supplier of weapons to law enforcement and the military. It is obviously important to Sig Sauer that the people support the gravy train they're riding. Hey, who cares about liberty when there's government money to be had?

If my words aren't enough to convince you perhaps you'll listen to Patrick Henry. He warned of the dangers lurking in the constitution, the very document the videos advocate defending. Below are selected, relevant excerpts from Henry's speech arguing against adoption of the constitution titled “Shall Liberty or Empire Be Sought?”:

A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny; and how are you to punish them? Will you order them to be punished? Who shall obey these orders? Will your mace-bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment?

When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: liberty, sir, was then the primary object...by that spirit we have triumphed over every difficulty. But now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire.

But, sir, we are not feared by foreigners; we do not make nations tremble. Would this constitute happiness, or secure liberty? I trust, sir, our political hemisphere will ever direct their operations to the security of those objects.

It is on a supposition that your American governors shall be honest, that all the good qualities of this government are founded; but its defective and imperfect construction puts it in their power to perpetrate the worst of mischiefs, should they be bad men; and, sir, would not all the world...blame our distracted folly in resting our rights upon the contingency of our rulers being good or bad? Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty! I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt.

Now that we clearly see that the NRA is wholly behind the powerful government that we have to just trust and hope will not oppress

us it is time to turn our backs on that vile organization. Don't let the Siren song of patriotism fool you. Stand for liberty, not the empire and its police state!

Professor Roth Says “...Guns Aren't the Problem”

One of many guns carried at a gun rights rally where not one person was shot.

During his presentation “Why Is The United States The Most Homicidal Nation In The Affluent World?” Professor Randy Roth of Ohio State University speaks for an hour about the causes of murder and why the murder rate fluctuates. What are most conspicuous for their absence is that he doesn't mention guns. They only come up during the question and answer period because of an audience question. Below is a transcript of the question and Professor Roth's answer with the most relevant parts in bold:

CARRIE MULFORD: I’m Carrie Mulford at the National Institute of Justice. I couldn’t help but notice that you didn’t mention gun availability, gun laws, anything like that, so I was curious —

ROTH: Because I don’t like being abused and having my life threatened. [audience laughter] Because I’ve had both. I’ve been, you know, my scholarly credentials have been, you know, when I — because guns aren’t the problem. I mean, I say this, and as I say, I went to graduate school, many of us went to graduate school. We had very expensive and rigorous educations to learn that the answer to every important question is yes, no and maybe, right? And the answer to the question, “Are guns responsible for our homicide rate?” Yes, no and maybe. And that’s the truth.

And you try to tell that truth, and you get — I mean from the left and from the right. I mean it’s been more vicious from the right because they’re more vicious, but I’m sure if I said that in the 1960s when the left was more violent than the right, I would have gotten the death threats from them. So, you know, it’s a hard thing to really deal with, but I do talk about it in the book and I think about it extensively. Do you want me to talk about this? Because I know that people will watch this video, and they’ll doctor it. You can look at YouTube at how they’ve chopped things I’ve said to make me look — like one of their favorites was to chop what I said about Democrats and Republicans with what I said about chimpanzees. So they chopped it so I called Republicans chimpanzees, so they started a campaign to get me fired in Ohio. This is the kind of stuff that people will do, and I don’t want to be a coward about it, so I’ll answer your question, but this won’t go well for me if this gets on the Web. They will make sure that I get punished for saying what I’m going to say.

We’ve had, we’ve always had, a high level of gun ownership from, say, the colonial period right down into the 1940s. And at times we’ve been the most violent society in the affluent world, and at times we’ve been the least homicidal, haven’t we? So is it just guns?

When you take a look at the muzzle-loading era, and this is in the book, when it takes you time to load that gun? You know, “I’m mad now, but you’ve got three minutes to run, I suggest you do that.” Did you see, you know, the movie “Lincoln,” did you see that wonderful scene where he shoots and misses, and the guy’s trying to reason with him while he’s trying to reload his derringer, because you only got one shot? And he’s waiting, you know, he gives him about 20 seconds, and then he decides, “Uh oh, it’s time to run.” And he does. That’s how it goes. So when you look at that, what’s interesting is that gun use, the percentage of homicides committed with guns, goes up and down with the murder rate.

When that murder rate is high as it is in the mid- and early 17th century, the majority of homicides among unrelated adults are committed with guns. You look at this low period from the 1690s to the 1760s, only 10 percent of all homicides among unrelated adults are committed with guns. You go back up to the Revolution, it goes up to over half. Up and down in the Embargo crisis, up and down going into the crisis of the 1840s. So what it means is when people are feeling hostile or defensive, they will go to that dispute with their neighbor with their gun loaded. When they’re not feeling hostile or defensive, they go and cuss them out when their cattle come across the line and destroy their crop. They’ll go to the law.

So you’ll see that, you know, they’ll go to property disputes, they’ll go to political disputes with the guns loaded, and they kill each other. And so you have to kind of plan that out. And so what you see is that it goes up and down like that. And one of the experiments I would love to do, I’d love to run American history back to 1857 and dis-invent modern firearms. What do I mean by modern firearms? Those, the great invention of Smith and Wesson when they put everything together in 1857 and the first rimfire handgun that the black powder was totally enclosed within the cartridge, so you could keep your gun loaded all the time. Because if you know, black powder’s hygroscopic, it absorbs water, it corrodes your barrel, you can’t keep it loaded. Why do they always show the gun over the fireplace? Because that’s the warmest, driest place in the house. You’re trying to keep that gun going. So the thing is is when you see that firearm’s gunstock change between 1857 and 1910, it took that long for us to move to the breech-loading guns with self-contained ammunition, reliable manufactured ammunition. You will see the percentage of homicides committed with guns go up and up and up regardless of whether the homicide rate was going up or down.

And what you see, the dramatic thing is all through the colonial period, when you look at intimate partner homicides, family homicides, only 10 percent were committed with guns whether the homicide rate was high or low among unrelated adults. But when you see that modern firearm come in, you’ll see the rate at which intimate partner violence was committed goes up to be the same level as with unrelated violence. And you’ll see who’s most likely to be killed with a handgun in the late 19th century is not an unrelated adult. It’s a woman who rejected her lover. Because now I can take this gun around and I can stalk her. I can go with this gun — concealed if I am suicidal, I can conceal it, I can go talk to her. And very often she wants to be friends, she want to — rejected me, but the family wants to be friends. You go over to her house, he’ll say, “Will you take me back?” She gives the wrong answer, she says, “No, I can’t come back, but I’d like to be friends.” Shoots her, shoots himself, done. Seventy percent of those homicides are being committed with a handgun in the 1850s, ’60s and ’70s because that’s the perfect murder weapon. And because they love you, of course, the guys love you, so they don’t want to shoot you in the face, they don’t want to disfigure you. They love you, they shoot you in the back of the head or through the heart. They want it to be quick, they want it to be relatively painless, and they want to go too.

So in other words, what I would you say is that when you have this gender problem coming up, you can see that throwing guns into that is deadly. And when that homicide rate goes up, having guns there means the completion rate of an assault goes up. So, yeah, I think that when you have that homicide rate go up, having this many guns in the society makes it worse than it would otherwise be. And I say one of the reasons why we probably had a tough time during the 1950s getting down to 1 or 2 per 100,000, why were we stuck at 4 to 5, part of that is the fact that we were so heavily armed, and because we’ll engage in this kind of impulsive violence.

So in other words, what I told you was that guns aren’t the fundamental problem, we’d be killing each other with rolling pins because we hate each other, we hate our country. Europeans have a tough time understanding why Americans hate their government so much. So I say there’s a very elaborate form of self-hatred in a democratic society, isn’t it? But I think that that’s there. So in other words, you can see why everybody hates me by what I say, okay. It’s not an ideological response, and, you know, it’s based on years of research, it’s based on hard work that they don’t respect. I’ll be blunt. [emphasis added]

The entire transcript can be downloaded here.

I don't agree with everything Professor Roth says in his presentation but he does knock down the gun rights haters argument that the problem is guns and that eliminating them will make everything great. In fairness, his words don't completely favor gun rights either but they do support the view that guns aren't the cause of the problem. Thank you, Professor Roth.

It makes me sick to have to say I'm grateful to the government but I must cover myself so here is the required citation:

The International Libertarian gratefully acknowledges the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, for allowing us to reproduce, in part or in whole, the video Why Is The United States The Most Homicidal Nation In The Affluent World?. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this video are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The “Pacifist” Advocates of Violence Lie Again

Do the anti-gun rights zealots really think that people are so stupid they'll fall for these lies? Given what Shira Goodman wrote in “Gun Bullies Back Down and Plan to Stay Away from Peaceful Gun Violence Prevention Event” they must. Let's take her article apart piece by piece. (Items in bold are quotes from the article linked above.)

Concerned Gun Owners of Pennsylvania made clear in their press release that “CGOPA has canceled their counter-rallying on Sunday out of respect for private property rights and the sanctity of God's church.” They did this after CeasefirePA and their collaborators were run out of Doylestown, PA and had to relocate to a church in a nearby town.

“...CeaseFirePA, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and local groups like Bucks Safe are hosting a peaceful event to greet the Sandy Hook Riders Team 26,...” Quite true, the event is peaceful, but what violence are they calling for? Read on.

“... a group of cyclists riding in memory of the victims of gun violence prevention...” Interesting that they published this. We're the ones advocating gun rights, they're the ones whose “gun violence prevention” is disarming decent people preventing them from defending themselves. I guess that makes their mourning appropriate. (Since they will no doubt correct this typo a screen shot is included below as proof of their sloppiness.)

“...and calling for stronger gun laws.” Last I checked laws are enforced by armed people with jails to confine other people in. An interesting position for alleged pacifists to take. They seem to be all for non-violence until is is time to disarm peaceful people like us activist gun owners. Then the violence and bullying become OK. Here's how I put it in my coverage of their two state May 11, 2013 event:

There is a reason we stayed in Pennsylvania. We knew we couldn't go into Trenton, New Jersey (where their rally started) with our guns. The police would have arrested us. Even in Morrisville the township threatened to arrest open carriers. We ignored those threats and they backed down. Yet somehow the gun haters saw themselves as being threatened. The fear was totally irrational. The open carriers would have protected them had a criminal tried to harm them. Meanwhile, it is they, the gun haters, that want to send armed law enforcement officers after gun owners. Go figure.

“For the last week, pro-gun organization Concerned Gun Owners of America had been planning a counter-protest and blatantly trying to intimidate supporters to avoid this event.” No, it was the Concerned Gun Owners of Pennsylvania that was holding the counter-protest. Obviously accuracy isn't Ms. Goodman's forte.

“Members of the group took to social media posting plans to carry firearms and shout through megaphones at the peaceful gathering, but [we] were not intimidated.” Intimidated? Please, Ms. Goodman, post any threats of violence that were made against your group. I know you won't because there were none. As opposed to your group which advocates legal violence against us. Regardless, please don't lie, the counter-protest was going to be empty holster since guns aren't allowed in or near schools. (They originally were going to rally at Central Bucks West High School.) We already know that these gun rights haters have an irrational fear of guns. Are they now afraid of empty holsters too?

“...bullies try to intimidate people because they’re insecure.” I couldn't agree more. We libertarians live by the non-aggression principle. The idea is that it is immoral to initiate the use of force or threaten the use of force against others. We have the confidence to say we will not use violence or threats nor will we tolerate that kind of behavior against ourselves or others. I call on all gun rights haters to renounce their advocacy of violence and join with us in calling for a world in which no one aggresses against anyone else.

Lastly, I issue a challenge to Ms. Goodman and the others standing with her to debate the issue with me. If you really think you know what you're talking about we'll be debating soon.

Democratic Socialism, Guns, and the Failure of the Constitution

“...whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain --- that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”

--Lysander Spooner, 

No Treason, NO. VI., The Constitution Of No Authority

This one was just too good to pass up. An acquaintance on the left sent me the Democratic Socialists of America article "There Is No Second Amendment Right To A Gun". It reinforces everything the anti-federalists said about the Constitution back when and everything libertarians like Lysander Spooner have been warning us about since then.

Early in the article the author, Steve Max, states, "Today, progressives must claim the legitimacy of the Constitution in advocating gun control, and not let it be further hijacked by the Right." He then goes on to tie the right to gun ownership to membership in a militia, "There have been no state militias since 1903, and there is no longer a constitutional right to gun ownership. It doesn’t exist! " Brilliant! Destroy our right to organize to defend ourselves and then use the fact that they've destroyed one right to claim that they can legitimately destroy another one, namely the right to bear arms. Read for yourself how Mr. Max quotes the Second Amendment to justify gun control:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Clearly, the right to bear arms was connected to militia service. There were not the votes in either house to pass a stand-alone right to gun ownership.

This is all very interesting but only makes sense if one ignores the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. The Ninth Amendment reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Obviously, not every right has to be listed to be valid. The right to own guns apart from membership in a militia clearly falls into this category.

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. Unfortunately, these amendments aren't working. The Constitution has failed just as the anti-federalists warned us it would. The dismal state of our rights today and Mr. Max's article attest to this failure. Patrick Henry spoke about the danger lurking in the document, “O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone...” He went on to explain how the Constitution takes the power to defend their liberty away from the people:

Let me here call your attention to that part which gives the Congress power "to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States — reserving to the states, respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress." By this, sir, you see that their control over our last and best defence is unlimited. If they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia, they will be useless: the states can do neither — this power being exclusively given to Congress. The power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed is ridiculous; so that this pretended little remains of power left to the states may, at the pleasure of Congress, be rendered nugatory.

[From Patrick Henry's speech arguing against adoption of the Constitution titled "Shall Liberty or Empire Be Sought?"]

Another anti-federalist a issued similar warning which Mr. Max twists into this nonsense, “The Second Amendment was rooted in the then living memory of the militia-fought battles of Concord, Lexington and Bunker Hill. A modern day equivalent of those battles would turn America into Syria or worse.”

The idea that the people should be armed and organized to defend themselves is actually rooted in the fact that someone must have power. If the people have that power no one will try to attack or tyrannize them. If the people are disarmed a government will come to power that will tyrannize them. This has been extensively written about. That Mr. Max should pretend otherwise is inexcusable. For example, John Trenchard wrote:

...if a prince will rule us with a rod of iron, and invade our laws and liberties...we...must patiently submit to our bondage, or stand upon our own defense; which if we are enabled to do, we shall never be put upon it...

[Emphasis added. From “An Argument Shewing, that a Standing Army is inconsistent with a Free Government, and absolutely destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy“]

Contrary to Mr. Max's ranting, arming the people, rather than the government, and organizing them to defend themselves leads to peace not civil war. Matter of fact, it was an anti-federalist who correctly predicted that adopting the Constitution would lead to civil war.

All of the above is secondary. More important than law is morality. As I wrote in “Progressivism’s Violent World”:

It is immoral to initiate the use of force or the threat of force against peaceful people. In other words, a person has to be actually engaging in aggression or credibly threatening to do so before it is morally justifiable to use force in retaliation. What does that have to do with guns? The mere possession of an inanimate object such a gun aggresses against no one. There is no moral justification for taking guns away from people who adhere to the non-aggression principle since this involves initiating the use of force to separate them from their weapons.

This alone destroys the morality of gun control.

In the end Mr. Max's ideas are a nightmare. When he writes, "We need to start saying loudly and strongly that if you want a military gun, go join the National Guard..." he shows himself to be an enemy of liberty and a friend of militarism by advocating that people join the institution that directly destroyed what militias we had. When he writes, “...government at all levels has the right to limit guns just as it does drugs, tobacco, gambling, alcohol, tainted meat and a host of other evils.” Mr. Max shows that he sees no part of our lives that can't be forcibly controlled by the government. Hiding this tyranny behind a smiling democratic facade that allegedly wants to protect us doesn't change its evil nature. 
 
Mr. Max, we need to get out from under your failed Constitution and the tyrannical institutions it has created. Instead, we need to set up an institutional framework that will protect our lives and liberties. Guns and liberty are inseparable. It is past time to disarm and disband the government and set up independent militias and other private providers of security. We can only do that with military guns in civilian hands. ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!