Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

[23]

Since I agree with Paul Craig Roberts' conclusion that we are in a police state, I feel that Herr Hitler's quote deserves added attention.

Adolf Hitler: "The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty.

George Orwell: "That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."

The Dalai Lama: "If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."

George Washington: "A free people ought to be armed." * (also: "Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere.")

Jim Morrison: "They got the guns but we got the numbers."

There are as of 2006, 683,396 full time state, city, university and college, metropolitan and non-metropolitan county, and other law enforcement officers in the United States. There are approx. 120,000 full time law enforcement personnel working for the federal government adding up to a total number of 800,000 law enforcement personnel in the U.S. -- wiki.answers.com

How I long for public corporal punishment of corrupt/brutal law enforcement officers.


*source: http://www.sightm1911.com/Care/Gun_Quotes.htm

[compared2what?]

Since I agree with Paul Craig Roberts' conclusion that we are in a police state, I feel that Herr Hitler's quote deserves added attention.

Adolf Hitler: "The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty.

Guns -- and arms generally -- were not what they are now in Hitler's time. (I'm not giving him the honorific.)

However, as a pure hypothetical, I guess you could argue that if there had been enough armed trained anti-National-Socialist militias in the 1930s to outnumber and outgun the armed trained pro-Nationalist-Socialist militias that took over the country and established the Reich, there might not have been a Reich.

But I don't know why you'd want to, at least in the context of considering the political plausibility of gun-ownership as a defense against fascism. Times have changed out of sight and mind since then. Even if the technology of war hadn't advanced at all, advances in communications technology alone would be enough to make any tactic that worked then utterly obsolete now.

George Orwell: "That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."

I agree that it's a symbol of democracy. But (a) no one is trying to remove it; and (b) that doesn't make it an effective present-day defense against fascism.

The Dalai Lama: "If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."

Sure. But please note that the Dalai Lama did not say,

"If the state has trashed the fourth amendment, and nothing is stopping its agents from keeping the citizenry under 24 hour surveillance both legally and illegally, plus its elected leaders have committed and are continuing to commit high crimes and misdemeanors, not excluding several very large-scale crimes against humanity -- in addition to which they've stolen, wasted or outsourced nearly all the nation's assets and totally control the pathetic remainder of them, which is mostly nominal -- leaving the population angry, dispirited and divided against itself, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."

Probably because that not only wouldn't be reasonable, it wouldn't even be coherent. In any event, the statement he did make is moral commentary, not political commentary.

George Washington: "A free people ought to be armed." * (also: "Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere.")

And so they ought. May I mention again that this is not 1776?

Jim Morrison: "They got the guns but we got the numbers."

Sadly, Jim Morrison turned out to be wrong about that. Additionally, in his day, they had incalculably greater numbers than we have in the present, plus it was a boom economy. The mass-media environment was more favorable, too. Nevertheless, they that had got the guns didn't have to do much more than knock in some heads on television in Chicago in 1968 to send the number into a steady decline, then shoot four dead in Ohio in 1970 to make that decline precipitous.

Which left a small number of committed dissidents who were willing to fight and die for the cause who were pretty expeditiously dispatched via Cointelpro infiltration and/or neutralized via drug addiction or drug busts or both.

And several units of that last, diehard contingent were very well armed, incidentally.

There are as of 2006, 683,396 full time state, city, university and college, metropolitan and non-metropolitan county, and other law enforcement officers in the United States. There are approx. 120,000 full time law enforcement personnel working for the federal government adding up to a total number of 800,000 law enforcement personnel in the U.S. -- wiki.answers.com

How I long for public corporal punishment of corrupt/brutal law enforcement officers.

Public corporal punishment is not a symbol of democracy. To put it mildly. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single free society that's practiced it since, maybe, the 1830s or 1840s. The United States sometimes pilloried people up until around that point, I believe.

But during the first part of the nineteenth century, the United States was also still pretty actively engaged in genocide against Native American peoples; there was a booming slave economy in the south; and indentured servitude hadn't yet totally died out, although it was on its last legs.

Personhood wasn't something everyone got just for being a person back then, is my point. It could be purchased by some, but it could also be lost by others. Or taken away from them. By, for example, pillorying them.

Anyway, I don't long for the public corporal punishment of anyone. It's a barbaric practice, imo. And inimical to freedom.

I doubt Orwell would have been very enthusiastic about it, either, though I don't know that he ever addressed it specifically. I mean, I suppose that 1984 makes it pretty clear that he thought that public pillorying, both figurative and literal, was strictly the domain of fascists.

But I was talking about his non-fiction work.

[surfaceskimmer]

Jeepers creepers, Three-Pers, Freepers ... and Oath Keepers.

[compared2what?]

Jeepers creepers, Three-Pers, Freepers ... and Oath Keepers.

Et les gens qui prient pour un autre Ypres.

[82_28]

So the society we live within, the world which is broadcast to us, is essentially a death cult? Sure seems that way. Nobody and I mean NOBODY, gives a shit about figuring it out. It's all about "weathering the storm".

Tonight's clue on Final Jeopardy dealt with what was Wile E Coyote's greatest nemesis. Nemesis? Gravity.

There certainly are no answers, other than the obvious ones. The most obvious thing to do now is well "revolt". But the "tea party" has the revolt part covered. So, "revolt" is underway. What do the "liberals" do now? Oh, well. we "reform" health care through our amazing quantities of hope. I wasn't alive during Nixon, but he would be one hell of an improvement.

Watergate has turned into an everyday occurrence, via the ways in which news of absurdities are delivered. Watergate would be Benny Hill skit in today's world.

[jam.fuse]

Since I agree with Paul Craig Roberts' conclusion that we are in a police state, I feel that Herr Hitler's quote deserves added attention.

Adolf Hitler: "The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty.

Guns -- and arms generally -- were not what they are now in Hitler's time. (I'm not giving him the honorific.)

However, as a pure hypothetical, I guess you could argue that if there had been enough armed trained anti-National-Socialist militias in the 1930s to outnumber and outgun the armed trained pro-Nationalist-Socialist militias that took over the country and established the Reich, there might not have been a Reich.

But I don't know why you'd want to, at least in the context of considering the political plausibility of gun-ownership as a defense against fascism. Times have changed out of sight and mind since then. Even if the technology of war hadn't advanced at all, advances in communications technology alone would be enough to make any tactic that worked then utterly obsolete now.

I agree with the bolded text.

As for the times, things today seem, strangely, really quite similar to the 1930s, not that I was around back then, at least not in this body. And of course guns still kill, maim and mutilate, then as now.

Communications technology is increasingly available to all, and as such, I would argue, tends to level the playing field, if anything.

The Dalai Lama: "If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."

Sure. But please note that the Dalai Lama did not say,

"If the state has trashed the fourth amendment, and nothing is stopping its agents from keeping the citizenry under 24 hour surveillance both legally and illegally, plus its elected leaders have committed and are continuing to commit high crimes and misdemeanors, not excluding several very large-scale crimes against humanity -- in addition to which they've stolen, wasted or outsourced nearly all the nation's assets and totally control the pathetic remainder of them, which is mostly nominal -- leaving the population angry, dispirited and divided against itself, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."

Probably because that not only wouldn't be reasonable, it wouldn't even be coherent. In any event, the statement he did make is moral commentary, not political commentary.

I take the Dalai Lama's statement as practical, moral and yes, political advice; he's an intelligent man and presumably has an idea of what's going on in the world.

Jim Morrison: "They got the guns but we got the numbers."

Sadly, Jim Morrison turned out to be wrong about that. Additionally, in his day, they had incalculably greater numbers than we have in the present, plus it was a boom economy. The mass-media environment was more favorable, too. Nevertheless, they that had got the guns didn't have to do much more than knock in some heads on television in Chicago in 1968 to send the number into a steady decline, then shoot four dead in Ohio in 1970 to make that decline precipitous.

Which left a small number of committed dissidents who were willing to fight and die for the cause who were pretty expeditiously dispatched via Cointelpro infiltration and/or neutralized via drug addiction or drug busts or both.

And several units of that last, diehard contingent were very well armed, incidentally.

Morrison, booze and drug addled as he was, was just a stating a fact. There are more of 'us' than 'them' by a landslide. For every jackbooted psychopathic heathen thug, their employers and cheerleaders, there are, I'm thinking, hundreds or thousands of 'us', i.e., non-jackbooted psychopathic heathen thugs, their employers and cheerleaders.

There are as of 2006, 683,396 full time state, city, university and college, metropolitan and non-metropolitan county, and other law enforcement officers in the United States. There are approx. 120,000 full time law enforcement personnel working for the federal government adding up to a total number of 800,000 law enforcement personnel in the U.S. -- wiki.answers.com

How I long for public corporal punishment of corrupt/brutal law enforcement officers.

Public corporal punishment is not a symbol of democracy. To put it mildly. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single free society that's practiced it since, maybe, the 1830s or 1840s. The United States sometimes pilloried people up until around that point, I believe.

But during the first part of the nineteenth century, the United States was also still pretty actively engaged in genocide against Native American peoples; there was a booming slave economy in the south; and indentured servitude hadn't yet totally died out, although it was on its last legs.

Personhood wasn't something everyone got just for being a person back then, is my point. It could be purchased by some, but it could also be lost by others. Or taken away from them. By, for example, pillorying them.

Anyway, I don't long for the public corporal punishment of anyone. It's a barbaric practice, imo. And inimical to freedom.

I doubt Orwell would have been very enthusiastic about it, either, though I don't know that he ever addressed it specifically. I mean, I suppose that 1984 makes it pretty clear that he thought that public pillorying, both figurative and literal, was strictly the domain of fascists.

But I was talking about his non-fiction work.

The only 'free societies', I would venture, were primitive ones, 'barbarians' if you will; and I would furthermore venture they on at least some occasions, did indeed practice public corporal punishment.

[Joe Hillshoist]

I think I should be able to buy and own a gun without the government knowing about it.

It's really none of their damn business.

Buying a gun should be like buying a lawnmower. A gun is a tool, nothing more. A damn dangerous tool, but probably less dangerous than, say, a chainsaw.

Yet more dangerous than, say, a lawnmower. Although I agree that both are single-purpose tools. Chainsaws got a little more multi-dimensionality.

But seriously, honey, that's fine and good, but it isn't reasoned. I mean your presentation of it isn't, not that you're thinking is disordered. So I'm not sure exactly on what basis you think you should have that ability, or on what basis you think it's none of the government's business. Without elaboration, it sounds like you're saying that you think it's an invasion of privacy for the government to know what its citizens buy, across the board. Which would be fine if you had some other way of proving that your car or your house and property belonged to you and not to the car-thief or the mining company that said otherwise. Or whatever. My point being that there are a lot of purchases that generate a public record that's filed with the state. Stocks and bonds, for instance. Many, many things.

Are none of them the government's business? Should there be no legally binding contract when, say, you sell a book to a publisher? I mean, the judiciary is a branch of the government. The police (who investigate crimes) and the district attorneys (who prosecute them) would be pretty seriously handicapped when it came to stuff like finding out who shot and killed some nice young grad student during a car-jacking if there were absolutely no paper trail for the gun or the car.

Or...You know what? Since I have no idea whether that is what you're saying, or whether it's just what it sounds like you're saying, I'd probably be better off just asking the question I have in a simpler and more open-ended form. Which I guess is more or less:

Assuming that you buy the gun legally and use it legally, in what aspect of gun registration is the invasion and/or infringement vested, per your line of thinking?

My answer to your question is this:

Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago
ISBN 0 00M 6336426
Part 1


The Prison Industry

Footnote 5

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in there lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you'd be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or, what about the Black Moria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur--what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalins's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!

That is why I don't want them to know who has guns and who doesn't.

Thats why they have SWAT teams in the US isn't it?

How long would it have taken for the USSR to develop the same tactics if the first of those Russian dissidents had weapons?

Seriously, you want to defend yourself against government?

Get involved in it.

If you want to take down the state use bioweapons and trash infrastructure.


Guns are a false sense of security. Someone always has a bigger one.

BTW They guys who know how to use guns effectively train with them regularly, like hours a day, 3 or 4 days a week. That takes a lot of ammo, time and if you aren't in an official organisation somewhere out of the way where you won't get busted.

Its not just the guns, its how you use them, and whether you are able to use them in an emergency.

Its a false sense of security.

Also, consider this, if you pull a gun on someone and they are close enough and quick enough how do you know they will be unable to disarm you and use it on you? Obviously you wouldn't carry a knife for self defense unless you were a kid and had no clue, or knew how to use it at close quarters when someone else was trying to get it off you.

There was a story about an old martial arts and Daoist master. Every market day he'd walk into town and follow the same route to the market where he brought the batteries for his gameboy.

One day a wild bull got loose and was ramapging in the street. No one wanted to get near it.

they all waited for the master to get there, sure that in some way he was gonna calm the bull and make everything all right.

When he got to the street the bull was in he looked at it then turned around went to the next street (one he never used) and walked up that, got his batteries and went home.




Thats actually self defense.

Identifying a potential threat long before it becomes a real one and avoiding it.

[MacCruiskeen]

A gun is a tool, nothing more. A damn dangerous tool, but probably less dangerous than, say, a chainsaw.

To state the obvious, Nordic, a gun is a hell of a lot more dangerous than a chainsaw, not least because it can be used from a (very great) distance.

Just for example: If Martin Luther King's killer had used a chainsaw instead of a gun, then he might very well not have succeeded in killing his victim, he would almost certainly have been identified, and he would very probably have been wrestled to the ground and therefore arrested.

Never mind guns into ploughshares; guns into chainsaws would be a huge first step towards peace and justice in the world.

[Joe Hillshoist]

It was ultimately through widespread concerted non-violent resistance (and a gradual, generational change in the leadership) that the Soviet Union was brought down.

Would that it were so.

They were broke and isolated, as a result of the long, fruitless and costly war in Afghanistan into which we enticed them during the Carter administration. They just happened to run so totally out of options that they had to put on their Glasnost best and come begging their rich western cousins for work when Reagan was in office. So he gets the credit.

I've just been massively, massively hating on him recently. As more and more of the flowers he planted in the eighties reach their fullest bloom.

No, it has nothing to do with the topic at all, actually. Why do you ask?

Well no, it was actually the combination of both those things... (being broke and popular resistance/generational change.) The internal pressure wouldn't have been effective if the USSR was still solvent and capable of organising itself, and if people hadn't organised themselves and reacted the way they did it would have stumbled along till they finally did... or some jerk took over.

It took both things, but it didn't take an armed uprising froma apopulation using their 2nd amendment rights.

(Also, with the second amendment, was it here I recently read that the militias can be called up after the national guard, as a further resource available to the federal govt? IE You join a militia and just before you all head to the hills to do a Red Dawn against the COMZOG you get a letter from a government, open it read it and realise you're a sucker?)

[Joe Hillshoist]

Whats PCR got to do with this 23? Its not like he was the first to notice the US became a police state back in the 80s or 90s when the seizure laws were first implemented. Or probably before that.

[Joe Hillshoist]

A gun is a tool, nothing more. A damn dangerous tool, but probably less dangerous than, say, a chainsaw.

To state the obvious, Nordic, a gun is a hell of a lot more dangerous than a chainsaw, not least because it can be used from a (very great) distance.

Just for example: If Martin Luther King's killer had used a chainsaw instead of a gun, then he might very well not have succeeded in killing his victim, he would almost certainly have been identified, and he would very probably have been wrestled to the ground and therefore arrested.

Never mind guns into ploughshares; guns into chainsaws would be a huge first step towards peace and justice in the world.

Honestly Mac that depends on the situation. Chainsaws are fucking dangerous, as anyone who has worked with them for any length of time will attest.

Anything than can kill you easily is dangerous.

I agree with your example tho re MLK, but thats about as far as it goes.

I live on a farm, and have used guns and chainsaws. Chainsaws scare me more than guns.

Its only the business end of a gun thats dangerous (if its well made and maintained and the ammo is too.) A chainsaw blade can make mincemeat of you literally, no matter where you are in relation to its "business end" if it all goes pear shaped. (If you are gonna use one alot, ie for hours on end day in day out, get some kevlar chaps to wear. Seriously, it takes a split second loss of concentration, and thats easy during a long hot day, and you can lose your leg or slice an artery. I know - the chaps we used at work had so many nicks in them at the end of each pruning season, any one of those could have mained or even killed one of us.)

Not to mention the fact that to my friends in Mindinao, chainsaws are a bigger threat to their peace and justice than guns, the guns are used to support the chainsaws, but without the saws there would be no need for the guns.

Its true that guns are a far more dangerous weapon than chainsaw over a distance, or wrt maintaining some sort of concealment.

So sure guns are a tool. They are tool designed for killing things.

But its wrong to say they are more dangerous than chainsaws.

Chainsaws are full on.

[Cordelia]

I live on a farm, and have used guns and chainsaws. Chainsaws scare me more than guns.

I agree. I hear my daughter's fiancée using his almost every day and I worry until he's finished. (But not when he's out hunting.) Thanks for the tip on the Kevlar, which he can't afford, but maybe I can, if he'll wear them...........

[Joe Hillshoist]

No worries. Honestly before I worked with them every day pruning huge bamboo and trees, for months on end in tropical weather ... I thought chaps were a bit of a joke. You know, the sort of thing idiots had to wear because they weren't capable of concentrating. I have ripped fence posts before, all day for a couple of days in a row, but thats not the same as week in week out work with a chainsaw and never bothered with chaps.

Now I'd probably wear them every time, cos they only take a second to put on, and they certainly don't make me feel more secure. If the saw kicks and decides to have a serious go at my leg then I'll still get messed up, but its unlikely to go to or through the bone, and its unlikely to permanently incapacitate me.

And all those nicks that will otherwise mean stitches and maybe crutches for a month .. they result in a bruise at worst, and your heart getting stuck up your nose...

Seriously if you use a chainsaw regularly but not all the time, its easy to maintain the required level of concentration IMO. (I hope I haven't jinxed myself with that.)

If you use it all day for a couple of days the same thing applies, but fatigue becomes an issue.

if you do it week in week out for months on end, mental fatigue and over familiarity with the thing become the greatest danger IMO.

All of this goes double if you are working with other people.

Anyway feel free to show your future son in law this post.

I'll also mention that I have worked with people who have used chainsaws all their life and are well aware of the dangers, and chaps have saved them (and me), from what would have otherwise been serious injuries at least, possibly life threatening ones.

Anyway back to the topic...

[apologydue]

The legal premise, that a police officer needs to search your vehicle in the course of a traffic stop, is reasonable suspicion not probable cause, SS. Probable cause is the legal premise for an arrest.

Be that as it may, I'm of a doubtful mind that your possession of a registration to carry a firearm is enough reasonable suspicion for a police officer to search your vehicle without your consent.

I'll have to check with the ACLU to see what they say about that.

And yes, you're right. I support a citizen's right to responsibly own and carry a firearm. And licensure, a stronger requirement than simple registration, is a tool towards that end.

Are you sure about that? Probable cause is what is needed to make the traffic stop in the first place. Reasonable suspicion is needed to search a vehicle. In the past a violation of the law was needed to make an arrest. I think that has slid to reasonable suspicion nowdays (make an arrest) but i'm not sure it is legal in Circuit Court. If the judge isn't willing to uphold the law (and increasingly many are not) you are screwed anyway. Look how many people get tazed. If you get tazed for no reason, and its on video, appeal to circuit court and get a jury of your peers. If all people did this tazing business would stop.

Most officers use the bogus "crossed the center line" as probable cause for the stop, even though there is no law against crossing the center line in the first place. I was told by a lawyer that there is no citation code and arrestable offense related to crossing the center line. Even if they see nothing through the window to arouse reasonable suspicion they get around that by calling in the drug dogs. They can always claim the dogs gave a signal for contraband even though the dog did not. It is your word against the officer's word. While he is searching your vehicle on the bogus dog signal anything he finds is fair game because the dog gave him reasonable suspicion to search.

Still this is not lawful because most people are brow beaten in District Court into taking the bogus charges. Most people do not know that they can appeal to Circuit Court on these offenses and have a jury of their peers judge the case. They don't know because they don't have money for a lawyer or the lawyer does not tell them the truth. Lawyers do not tell the truth because they do not want to spend their time in Circuit Court because they have to prepare for the trial. Most lawyers would rather take the fee off the client in District Court, let the person get busted, and go on their merry way with the money in their pocket.

And, if judges in District Court do not uphold your rights, which they usually do not, you are stuck with it unless you have money for a Circuit Court lawyer, or are skilled enough to carry it off on your own. If you tell the District Court judge up front that you plan to appeal to Circuit Court, your chances of not getting convicted go up tremendously because he does not want to take the chance of getting his verdict overturned. It hurts his ego and makes him look bad. District Court judges are really no more than bully fine collectors if they can get away with it.

[23]

The legal premise, that a police officer needs to search your vehicle in the course of a traffic stop, is reasonable suspicion not probable cause, SS. Probable cause is the legal premise for an arrest.

Be that as it may, I'm of a doubtful mind that your possession of a registration to carry a firearm is enough reasonable suspicion for a police officer to search your vehicle without your consent.

I'll have to check with the ACLU to see what they say about that.

And yes, you're right. I support a citizen's right to responsibly own and carry a firearm. And licensure, a stronger requirement than simple registration, is a tool towards that end.

Are you sure about that? Probable cause is what is needed to make the traffic stop in the first place. Reasonable suspicion is needed to search a vehicle. In the past a violation of the law was needed to make an arrest. I think that has slid to reasonable suspicion nowdays (make an arrest) but i'm not sure it is legal in Circuit Court. If the judge isn't willing to uphold the law (and increasingly many are not) you are screwed anyway. Look how many people get tazed. If you get tazed for no reason, and its on video, appeal to circuit court and get a jury of your peers. If all people did this tazing business would stop.

If you reread what I said, I think that you will find that it does not disagree with what you said.

"The legal premise, that a police officer needs to search your vehicle in the course of a traffic stop, is reasonable suspicion not probable cause." (quoted from me)... says the same thing as... "Reasonable suspicion is needed to search a vehicle." (quoted from you)

I made no comment about the legal premise for a traffic stop. Only about what a police officer needs to search your vehicle once a stop is made for a tickatable moving violation.

Where do you see the disconnect?