Bring Your Sidearms To The Banks of the Potomac.

[StarmanSkye]

Yeah, I also agree with ya there Nordic; For the kind of situation where a sudden, total collapse of the social order leaves everyone fending for themselves during complete anything-goes anarchy having a means of self-defense could mean the difference between surviving or being a random victim.

But I guess the point 23 is making about gun registration and licensing as a condition of carrying (open as well as concealed?) requiring fulfillment of basic firearm training which indicates a demonstration of responsible use -- I'm of mixed thoughts. On the one hand, I don't really have a problem with a state requirement that all concealed carry permit applicants show a certificate of having completed basic firearm safety training course by certified instructor, going over applicable laws, shooting and self-defense guidelines, etc; That's what my state of Oregon requires and which I abide by; But the downside is that many state DMV's make note of drivers who also have carry permits, so that in the event of a traffic stop a police officer checking a driver's license for warrants and outstanding citations etc. will also be informed if the driver has a CC permit. This has resulted in vehicle-searches to check if the driver is carrying a loaded weapon in the car, or otherwise having the gun and ammo in the same carrying container (in other words, the gun and ammo may be in the same container but must be seperated by at least one lock, to prevent instant access to BOTH at the same time. I guess to reduce chances of a loaded gun being pulled in a sudden unconsidered response. This has happened not infrequently in California, for example. I'm not sure what policy is for oregon or other states, but the potential is there. So the idea is, get pulled over for a traffic stop and when the officer finds you also have a carry permit that can be probable cause to authorize an officer to search your vehicle. And THAT can always lead to consequences the driver has no control over. just something to keep in mind and become better informed about.

Also, Oregon doesn't require firearm registration, a whole other thing. I'm against registration because of concerns about the potential for the state using this info in any mandatory gun confiscation roundup -- which although it may be a very slight risk of happening ya can't rule ANYTHING out -- and any roundup facilitated by gun-registration information would result in a lot of angry, frightened, desperate citizens literally daring the state to take their weapons from their cold, dead hands. The horses have left the barn a long time ago, and shutting them now will be counterproductive in a society inculcated to hold their 2nd amendment right sacred -- for better but probably for worse, but there it is.

Remember how policemen were sent thru New Orleans neighborhoods door-to-door in the weeks after Katrina on mandatory gun confiscation sweeps, even accosting an old woman in her own kitchen they tried to evict even tho she had plenty of food and water and was in no danger? She, perhaps foolishly, in an attempt to show she was capable of protecting herself as she didn't want to be evicted and leave her dogs behind, picked up and flashed her hand holding an unarmed 22 revolver as she said, 'I have a gun to protect myself if I have to" or words to that effect. The policmen rushed her and tackled her to the ground even tho she wasn't threatening anyone or had it pointed at anyone -- a case of hysterical over-reaction by gestapo-like policemen who showed NO ability to discriminate between 'concern' for a citizen's wellbeing and active danger threat. A horrible show of unprofessionalism and misdirected zeal.

The anxiety and news hype and plain BS disinfo over reported, claimed, alleged, suspected etc. shooting incidents in the wake of Katrina resulting in hundreds of Michigan National Guard troops AND hired-on-the-spot Blackwater mercenaries patrolling the streets with weapons at 1/4 ready NEVER made sense, the story just didn't add up, along with so MUCH that happened then. I heard a lot of people that had their guns confiscated never got their guns back, as they were seized without receipts given or the policemen identified. Did the state really think Katrina victims would start a shooting war over being ignored, mistreated, villianized, denied, left to die, refused basic water and food and medical aid and even plain-speaking information?

A slightly different case -- But a group of dozens of Katrina victims decided to quit waiting for help that never arrived, decided to walk-out on their own over the main highway to the next Parish; They were met at the Parish line by a posse of armed, locked-and-loaded-and-aimed-by lawmen and vigilante citizens, told to turn around and LEAVE the way they came or they would be shot.

They left. Because of nothing they did, just because they were victims of a terrible hurricane and flood THEY were treated like dangerous law-breaking desperados. Guns were drawn on them, they were threatened and refused freedom of movement because other people were afraid. All the guns the Parish lawmen and citizens had didn't give them security (only in the sense that the 'threat' was made to leave). In other countries and even places in the US where there have been disasters, neighboring townpeople don't react with guns, but provide assistance and share their hospitality and care.

[23]

So the idea is, get pulled over for a traffic stop and when the officer finds you also have a carry permit that can be probable cause to authorize an officer to search your vehicle. And THAT can always lead to consequences the driver has no control over. just something to keep in mind and become better informed about..

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.

[Maddy]

Afraid + guns is an accident waiting to happen.

Stressed + guns is an accident waiting to happen.

Any high-powered emotion + guns is an accident waiting to happen. In any hands.

Just sayin'.

There's a lot of high-powered emotions and guns right now, and people with both.

[StarmanSkye]

23 wrote:
"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."

Thanks for the clarification.
Undoubtedly you're right about the holding of a CC permit being insufficient grounds for reasonable suspicion search of a vehicle. I guess I remembered the incident incorrectly, there were extenuating circumstances which changed the context.

It's been about 10 years since I heard this incident from a certified firearms safety instructor, about a pickup driver stopped in Calif, when asked if he had a firearm aboard (based on the police officer noting he had a CC permit, I THINK from Oregon -- not sure if it was Oregon or Calif) admitted he had a firearm in his pickup-bed. Turned out, because it was in a briefcase accessable from the driver's seat thru the cab's sliding rear window, he was charged with unlawful transport (I guess 'cause the briefcase wasn't locked and the ammo clip was together with the pistol). On reflection I remembered this wrong as providing basis for reasonable suspicion for search, which I initially commented. Not quite the same thing, sorry i mispoke. But I guess the point is there's potential for info about CC permits also being misused by the state, but that's true about a LOT of info, esp. in these politically-turbulent Big Brother times.

Again, sorry I spoke w/o thinking.

[23]

23 wrote:
"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."

Thanks for the clarification.
Undoubtedly you're right about the holding of a CC permit being insufficient grounds for reasonable suspicion search of a vehicle. I guess I remembered the incident incorrectly, there were extenuating circumstances which changed the context.

It's been about 10 years since I heard this incident from a certified firearms safety instructor, about a pickup driver stopped in Calif, when asked if he had a firearm aboard (based on the police officer noting he had a CC permit, I THINK from Oregon -- not sure if it was Oregon or Calif) admitted he had a firearm in his pickup-bed. Turned out, because it was in a briefcase accessable from the driver's seat thru the cab's sliding rear window, he was charged with unlawful transport (I guess 'cause the briefcase wasn't locked and the ammo clip was together with the pistol). On reflection I remembered this wrong as providing basis for reasonable suspicion for search, which I initially commented. Not quite the same thing, sorry i mispoke. But I guess the point is there's potential for info about CC permits also being misused by the state, but that's true about a LOT of info, esp. in these politically-turbulent Big Brother times.

Again, sorry I spoke w/o thinking.

No need to, SS. It wasn't my intent to prove anyone right or wrong. I was actually impulsively reacting to a pet peeve of mine, is all.

And that pet peeve? That many, if not most, Americans are content with knowing very little, if anything at all, regarding what their Constitutional rights are, when confronted by a law enforcement officer (LEO).

I can assure you that there are far too many LEO's who are more than willing to take advantage of that, whenever they can. They do it far too often, I've observed, as I have a tendency to stop and watch such interactions where I live.

Thanks for your clarifying response.

[Nordic]

Time to register knives:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100323/ap_ ... Fic2tpbGw-

Man stabs, kills 8 children at Chinese school

Where there's a will, there's a way.

[JackRiddler]

Time to register knives:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100323/ap_ ... Fic2tpbGw-

Man stabs, kills 8 children at Chinese school

Where there's a will, there's a way.

This example has no relevance to the discussion here. As described this happened quickly. He slashed a group of children before he was stopped by adults. Are you proposing it would have been better if he'd had a legally obtained assault rifle that he could set up in a sniper's nest?

[Nordic]

Time to register knives:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100323/ap_ ... Fic2tpbGw-

Man stabs, kills 8 children at Chinese school

Where there's a will, there's a way.

This example has no relevance to the discussion here. As described this happened quickly. He slashed a group of children before he was stopped by adults. Are you proposing it would have been better if he'd had a legally obtained assault rifle that he could set up in a sniper's nest?

I'm saying exactly what I said. "Where there's a will, there's a way". If you want to kill a bunch of people, you can always do it, even if you don't have a gun. Heck, driving your car into a crowd is pretty damned effective, for one thing.

It's not a perfect world, and you can't make it thus with laws about what people can own. Tens and tens of thousands of people get killed in cars every year, yet they're legal. Motorcycles, same thing. I mean, if we'd never had "the car" and somebody invented it now? There's no way anybody would ever approve of it. Can you imagine:

"It's like an Easy-boy chair, only you get to speed down a road in it at 80 mph! Listen to music, eat a chili-dog, put a DVD on for your kids in the back seat!"

I think everybody should have the right to act as self-destructively as possible. We have to have some way of weeding out the idiots.

I used to hike in the mtns of Colorado. There were no guardrails, warning signs, requirements to wear good hiking shoes, no. You just parked your car on the side of the jeep trail and headed off into the wilderness. You could easily slip off a cliff, get buried by an avalanche, get hit by lighting, or whatever. It was awesome.

[JackRiddler]

It's not a perfect world, and you can't make it thus with laws about what people can own....

Suitcase nukes? Dioxin dump sites? An industrial hog farm on Times Square? Slaves? Child porn servers? Weaponized anthrax samples? Water springs? The genetic code? The rights to Mickey Mouse? The airwaves? The means of production?

I think everybody should have the right to act as self-destructively as possible.

We have to have some way of weeding out the idiots.

Yes to the first. Emphasis on the "self-".

No to the second. Because arming the idiots is a way to help them weed out others.

I'm assuming you threw out the comment and didn't think too much about the further implications of a need to "weed out idiots," so I'll leave that be.

I used to hike in the mtns of Colorado. There were no guardrails, warning signs, requirements to wear good hiking shoes, no. You just parked your car on the side of the jeep trail and headed off into the wilderness. You could easily slip off a cliff, get buried by an avalanche, get hit by lighting, or whatever. It was awesome.

Understood. But in your post, conflated.

[Nordic]

It's not a perfect world, and you can't make it thus with laws about what people can own....

Suitcase nukes? Dioxin dump sites? An industrial hog farm on Times Square? Slaves? Child porn servers? Weaponized anthrax samples? Water springs? The genetic code? The rights to Mickey Mouse? The airwaves? The means of production?

I think everybody should have the right to act as self-destructively as possible.

We have to have some way of weeding out the idiots.

Yes to the first. Emphasis on the "self-".

No to the second. Because arming the idiots is a way to help them weed out others.

I'm assuming you threw out the comment and didn't think too much about the further implications of a need to "weed out idiots," so I'll leave that be.

I used to hike in the mtns of Colorado. There were no guardrails, warning signs, requirements to wear good hiking shoes, no. You just parked your car on the side of the jeep trail and headed off into the wilderness. You could easily slip off a cliff, get buried by an avalanche, get hit by lighting, or whatever. It was awesome.

Understood. But in your post, conflated.

Oh, quit being so specific and let me generalize!

Yeah, I'm full of shit here to a point. But I'm just trying to make a point.

No, obviously suitcase nukes and dioxin dumps aren't what I'm talking about as far as personal ownership and, for the lack of a better term, personal liberty.

I'm talking about the things that are private, that are in your home, that don't hurt anybody else. I guess for me, it just boils down, again, to viewing guns as merely tools.

And I think a motorcycle, and even a car, is far more dangerous than a gun. Every time I walk down a busy city street with my son, I worry about some inattentive asshole driving off the road and killing us. One day, a corner we walked around every day, where a Krispy Kreme Donut shop sits right on the corner, we approached and noticed that someone HAD driving off the road, right into the Krispy Kreme. Smashed the hell out of it. Had we been walking there at that moment, instead of an hour or so later, we could have been killed.

8 blocks away from this, not too long ago, an old old guy in a car drove through the weekly Farmer's Market and killed, I think, a dozen people.

Yet .... I never worry about being shot. Never.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

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.

Well, that just goes to show how unjust credit ratings can be!

Even Richard Nixon was amazed at how how dumb and corrupt Reagan was. He said himself that: "this man can never be allowed to be involved in a private meeting with Gorbachev." He was scared that Reagan would just be instantly outmanouvered and hand everything over straight away - which he did, at the first opportunity, despite all his tough talk.

Reagan was the first, and only, world leader to ever suggest a zero option on nuclear weapons. Not because he understood the moral and strategic implications of their use - but because he didn't, and just gabbled it out like a spanner.

He understood the moral and social implications of removing money from public programs designed to help the poor in order to spend it on guns, though. And he did it anyway.

It is, I feel, a shameful thing for a person to recommend the Something Awful Forums to another person, but I must do so. There's a wealth of dirt on Reagan in the Debate and Discussion and General Bullshit forums. I know he's getting posthumously rehabilitated like Khrushchev these days, and it takes a vigilant public to point out his huge, gaping, monstrous, all-encompassing, unavoidable flaws. Such a public can be found there, though they have flaws too. AdBlock plus Firefox eliminates most of 'em, though. And the info is worth it. I wish I remembered a tenth of it.

I've just been massively, massively hating on him recently.

This is normal and healthy.

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?

Does too:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... d=54162036

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.

[23]

And I think a motorcycle, and even a car, is far more dangerous than a gun. Every time I walk down a busy city street with my son, I worry about some inattentive asshole driving off the road and killing us.

That possibility will more likely involve a sardine can on wheels (the label that some motorcyclists use for cars) than a motorcycle, Nordic.

I can't pass on this opportunity to defend my fellow motorcyclists to say... we're a much less threat to you and your son than people who drive sardine cans.

Feel free have your son wave hello to a motorcyclist when he sees one. We're more likely to see his friendly gesture because we're a lot more attentive to our environment.

[compared2what?]

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

Does too:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... d=54162036

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Hmm. I have two basically unrelated responses to that video.

One of which is that it's too, too true, and very much a part of my daily reality, personally.

Because.....I've mentioned before that I have very longstanding friendships with many of the quasi-homeless crack addicts who sell stuff in my immediate and slightly extended neighborhood. Who do get hassled (and worse) by the cops when they're doing nothing illegal at all.*** And frequently arrested and hauled off to jail for desk-ticket offenses that (a) they're not committing; and (b) aren't grounds for either arrest or jail, but rather for the issuance of a desk ticket.

Decades ago, I used to intervene to diffuse conflict if I happened to be standing around when the cops came by. And that used to be effective, as a band-aid measure. Because I may look bohemian. But I'm white and well-spoken and non-confrontational and blah, blah, blah.

Basically, it mostly boiled down to appearing to have higher class standing than I really did. And to knowing how to be calming and smiley and generally do all that other soothing and charming stuff to propitiate big angry men that most women learn how to do at some skill level, just in the course of ordinary experience in the world.

But whatever, because it's been pretty much a totally moot point since Giuliani was elected. I would never do it now. These days, I stand well back, keep quiet, holding a cellphone as inconspicuously as possible just in case something really brutal starts going down, then I follow up later, via the word-of-mouth unofficial telegraph system by which you can somehow give a message to one quasi-homeless crack addict that'll end up getting passed along to its specified recipient.

And actually, ninety-nine percent of the time, they just get hauled down to the Tombs for an overnight, then released. So no follow-up is necessary. But occasionally they get hit with a bunch of bullshit fines and paperwork requirements and other assorted bureaucratic obligations that call for advanced fluency in bureaucrat-ese. So occasionally I can make a .00001 difference by having a phone and good office manners and stuff like that.

That's really just like trying to bail out a cargo ship with a thimble though. Everyone, including me, gets a very slight and transient benefit from being part of an interpersonal transaction in which no one's trying to fuck anyone else over. But beyond that, it doesn't do jack. Because no person acting alone can realistically achieve a whole lot more than that, even if they had the time and energy to do it full time, which I don't.

Which is actually related to my other response, shortly to follow, now that I come to think of it.

Anyway: Yeah. I don't talk to cops on duty anymore, unless they ask me a simple, factual question. There's too little guarantee that initiating conversation, just by itself, won't strike them as an act of aggression that has to be subdued with physical force. Not excluding armed physical force, necessarily.

However, I wouldn't want to cloud anyone's perception of that horrendous problem by pretending that I suffer much as a result. Because there are very large demographic populations that do and long have, Incidents outside of those demographics occur, as that video shows. But they're not the most representative examples of it. And they imply that there's a different problem than there is.

So. On to the second response.
_____________________________

***Or anyway, nothing illegal that the cops have any evidence of, or that -- strictly speaking -- I have any knowledge of myself.

Though FWIW, I've always assumed that they were street-retailing drugs under the tables on which as far as the eye can see, they're street-retailing books and records. Because for one thing, they mostly have vendors' licenses, which it's surprising they could get.

Also, I can't help noticing that for years, they've somehow managed to remain consistently stocked with enough salable books and records to do some real form of legitimate business that common sense suggests wouldn't be enough to support the costs of doing it, if it were the only business they were doing.

Plus, the quality and quantity of the books and records isn't really explicable by anything other than an organized distribution system by a single central supplier.

However, since they're not being arrested on drug charges, and I don't actually have any hard proof that there's any reason for them to be, none of that's immediately relevant, as far as I'm concerned.

Whole other question, in short.

[compared2what?]

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

Does too:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... d=54162036

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.

Arguably. I mean, definitely, the cops are a law unto themselves around here (NYC), and they've gotten much scarier since the '80s.

And definitely, the people should know, although I wish there was a way for them to know that didn't have all that ominous scare music in the background, and one that proposed or hinted at or showed some way for citizens to organize and do something like get a proposition on the ballot establishing (blah blah blah, non-emotionally gratifying details here).

You know what I mean, though. It would be nice if such presentations included something that gave people a way of thinking about the problem besides being frightened and angry.

Which is not to say that they shouldn't also be frightened and angry. They should. But they should also be as fully informed as possible about how to use one part of the system that's there in order to move toward getting rid of another part of the system that's there as they can be.

Granted, in some parts of the country, shit's been too fucked up since the 1950s for that. But most places, a little research, education and action by a small group working together that knows the regional terrain and has enough communication savvy to get its message out without going through the media can go a long way. Especially if it gets to be a local habit.

Because, you know, the people are just not in enough of an empowered position to take on the state by going straight to the videogame-style ultimate show-down stage right at the moment. And there's no way they're ever going to be if they don't do the groundwork to get there while they still have some tools to do it with.

Obviously, movement-building is much less fun than either being continually outraged or than coming up with a fundamentally self-directed and self-centered plan for keeping the goons away from yourself -- ie, owning and waving guns around. And it's also much harder work. But it has a long track-record of getting results. Both in this country, and in many others. It's also a whole lot safer.

The downside of it, apart from the inherent tedium, is that it's never-ending. Things never stay fixed. Movements never stay uncorrupted. You don't win all the time, ever. That's life.

So you just have to accept that democracy is not a free lunch, and that freedom is not, in itself, a cost-free utopia. In fact, it's very dangerous unless free adults acknowledge that the price of freedom is responsibility.

I mean, in any of the abuses of police power shown on that videotape, how could anyone having a licensed weapon possibly been anything other than a death sentence?

That just doesn't protect anybody from the kind of threat this thread implies that it does. People should be able to keep and bear arms. Absolutely. But in reality, that's not any kind of politically effective protection against fascism. It's just not. N-O-T. Not.

Like anyone's reading this anyway.

I can dream, though, can't I?

[jam.fuse]

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