Marian Anderson on the "separate but equal" provisions of US segregation laws:
Somebody doesn't always come right up to you and say, "You can't have this, you can't have that,"...It's just as though there's a hair that blows across your face. Nobody sees it, but it's there and you can feel it.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
It's lonely behind the sofa.
Much like the law of conservation of ninjutsu, there's clearly a Law Of Inverse Dalek Scariness, though it's not strictly linear.
One Dalek is scary. Two Daleks are scarier. Three Daleks are scarier still, but diminishing returns start to set in. By the time you get to half a dozen Daleks, it's clear that the Doctor is going to come up with some clever or technobabbly solution that neutralizes all of them at once.
One Dalek is scary. Two Daleks are scarier. Three Daleks are scarier still, but diminishing returns start to set in. By the time you get to half a dozen Daleks, it's clear that the Doctor is going to come up with some clever or technobabbly solution that neutralizes all of them at once.
Come and knock on our door...
Along with our shocking success dismantling gun control in the US, these days we're also seeing what might--might--be the very earliest hint of the old anti-polygamy laws beginning to erode. Starting yesterday, Canada's Supreme Court has been hearing testimony in a case challenging the constitutionality of their marriage law, which was written to dissolve the marriages of Mormons fleeing to Canada to escape persecution in the States.
The Stop Polygamy in Canada blog* has been covering the proceedings from their charming perspective on the side against equal protection under the law. They report that Craig Jones, the British Columbia AG's attorney, is walking a very, very fine line, trying to argue that the law doesn't target a religion, while also trying to insist it only applies to Mormons:
- Most challengers of s. 293 propose the broadest possible definition; grey areas include same sex multiple partners, polyandry (rare), and polyamory claiming that they practice “good” polygamy.
- Polygamy must be restricted to polygyny and not polyandry, polyamory, etc.
- Almost all of the harms that we are going to demonstrate are the harms of polygyny.
- Legislators often use a general term to mean a specific term; e.g. polygamy = polygyny; laws about animal abuse—animal does not mean human.
So. If I read this correctly (and I haven't been able to track down a more reliable source yet, so grain of salt), he's suggesting that Canada's prohibition on polygamy is acceptable, because it would only apply to the "bad" kind of polygamy: polygyny. Which would seem to mean that a man could marry a man and a woman, or a woman could marry two men or two women, but it would be a crime for a man to marry two women, or a woman to marry a man and a woman.
...
This is starting to make US gun laws look straightforward and well-crafted.
[* - It's one of those things you see a lot of when you're a New Jersey gun owner in a sexual minority: groups of narrowminded busybodies that exist solely to slander you, equate you with monsters, and advocate for undermining your rights.]
The Stop Polygamy in Canada blog* has been covering the proceedings from their charming perspective on the side against equal protection under the law. They report that Craig Jones, the British Columbia AG's attorney, is walking a very, very fine line, trying to argue that the law doesn't target a religion, while also trying to insist it only applies to Mormons:
- Most challengers of s. 293 propose the broadest possible definition; grey areas include same sex multiple partners, polyandry (rare), and polyamory claiming that they practice “good” polygamy.
- Polygamy must be restricted to polygyny and not polyandry, polyamory, etc.
- Almost all of the harms that we are going to demonstrate are the harms of polygyny.
- Legislators often use a general term to mean a specific term; e.g. polygamy = polygyny; laws about animal abuse—animal does not mean human.
So. If I read this correctly (and I haven't been able to track down a more reliable source yet, so grain of salt), he's suggesting that Canada's prohibition on polygamy is acceptable, because it would only apply to the "bad" kind of polygamy: polygyny. Which would seem to mean that a man could marry a man and a woman, or a woman could marry two men or two women, but it would be a crime for a man to marry two women, or a woman to marry a man and a woman.
...
This is starting to make US gun laws look straightforward and well-crafted.
[* - It's one of those things you see a lot of when you're a New Jersey gun owner in a sexual minority: groups of narrowminded busybodies that exist solely to slander you, equate you with monsters, and advocate for undermining your rights.]
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Gonna buy me a Thompson 'chine gun...
Paul Helmke, president of the anti-gun Brady Campaign, is trying to revive the "assault weapon" meme*. Not that I blame him; if my organization hadn't had a win in sixteen years, I'd probably grasp for whatever worked last, too. The problem with the "assault weapon" meme, though, is that it can't work the same way again. The ban was passed in 1994 largely because the Bradies managed to use implication, innuendo, and outright lies to convince the public that the AR-15s, AK-47s, and Uzis they were targeting were fully-automatic military machine guns, when in fact they're ordinary semiautomatic civilian firearms. Today, AR-15s are so overwhelmingly popular that most Americans outside the super-liberal enclaves own one or know somebody who does. Between that and the internet, the Bradies can no longer conceal the pedestrian nature of these guns.
That means the only way forward is a new strategy: trying to convince people that pedestrian guns are so ultra-deadly that we need to add more restrictions to the mountain of US gun laws:
No, the NRA bosses are all tied up in knots because [hardcore Illinois gun-ban advocate and President Obama's choice for ATF director Andrew] Traver didn’t make it clear enough to the TV audience that a fully automatic weapon (like the one the reporter apparently blasted) can get a few rounds out more quickly than a semi-automatic and is not as readily available to the general public (although they would like it to be).
Yes, amazing, but true. The NRA bosses, who use the cover of law-abiding hunters and gun owners, now seek Traver’s scalp over a difference that has little distinction.
Semi-automatics are only a little less deadly than fully automatics.
It's rare that I can say this, so kindly imagine a blaze of trumpets here:
I agree with Paul Helmke.
Fully-automatic firearms are only trivially more effective at their job than semiautomatics, if at all, because full-auto fire is very difficult to aim, and for the most part just makes you miss faster. And if you're concerned about stray fire, remember that a dirt-common pump action hunting shotgun can blast out .32 caliber projectiles much faster than any Skorpion that ever haunted Diane Feinstein's nightmares. As full-auto enthusiasts like to say, they're machines for turning money into noise. The primary applications of full-auto firearms are military suppressive fire (which isn't intended to hit a target), and making your light AR-style carbine do a passable shotgun impression at very short ranges. For all practical purposes, a select-fire military AR and a semiauto civilian AR are the same weapon.
Of course, this isn't an argument for stricter gun control. If Americans aren't prepared to ban all the ordinary civilian semiautomatic rifles we've been using for a century (and believe me, we're not), then this line of reasoning in fact demonstrates the absurdity of the 1934 National Firearms Act's extremely strict machine-gun control. If the difference is so slight, it most certainly doesn't call for federal intervention that restricts expression of a Constitutionally protected human right.
I don't actually advocate for overturning the NFA in real life. Whatever the reality of the situation, machine guns are very, very dramatic and scare the crap out of the mainstream. Large numbers of smart, generally gun-friendly people find that machine guns fail their sniff tests. It doesn't matter how right we are; we're just not going to overcome this perception right now, and ignoring that reality can only give the anti-gun crowd the traction they've been desperate for. And frankly, that's not the end of the world. The machine gun restrictions are stupid, but by the nature of their uselessness they leave us all the alternatives we need to fulfill the ends of the Second Amendment. But man, if we ever get around to fighting that battle, it can't possibly hurt to have the president of the Brady Campaign on record saying that machine guns are basically the same as "normal" guns.
[* - Or, more likely, he thinks it's a good way to fill some blogspace and appeal to the dudes who decide where Joyce Foundation grants go. Being president of the Brady Campaign is probably the easiest gig in Washington, so even though it's obviously doomed, who can blame him for trying to stretch it out as long as possible?]
That means the only way forward is a new strategy: trying to convince people that pedestrian guns are so ultra-deadly that we need to add more restrictions to the mountain of US gun laws:
No, the NRA bosses are all tied up in knots because [hardcore Illinois gun-ban advocate and President Obama's choice for ATF director Andrew] Traver didn’t make it clear enough to the TV audience that a fully automatic weapon (like the one the reporter apparently blasted) can get a few rounds out more quickly than a semi-automatic and is not as readily available to the general public (although they would like it to be).
Yes, amazing, but true. The NRA bosses, who use the cover of law-abiding hunters and gun owners, now seek Traver’s scalp over a difference that has little distinction.
Semi-automatics are only a little less deadly than fully automatics.
It's rare that I can say this, so kindly imagine a blaze of trumpets here:
I agree with Paul Helmke.
Fully-automatic firearms are only trivially more effective at their job than semiautomatics, if at all, because full-auto fire is very difficult to aim, and for the most part just makes you miss faster. And if you're concerned about stray fire, remember that a dirt-common pump action hunting shotgun can blast out .32 caliber projectiles much faster than any Skorpion that ever haunted Diane Feinstein's nightmares. As full-auto enthusiasts like to say, they're machines for turning money into noise. The primary applications of full-auto firearms are military suppressive fire (which isn't intended to hit a target), and making your light AR-style carbine do a passable shotgun impression at very short ranges. For all practical purposes, a select-fire military AR and a semiauto civilian AR are the same weapon.
Of course, this isn't an argument for stricter gun control. If Americans aren't prepared to ban all the ordinary civilian semiautomatic rifles we've been using for a century (and believe me, we're not), then this line of reasoning in fact demonstrates the absurdity of the 1934 National Firearms Act's extremely strict machine-gun control. If the difference is so slight, it most certainly doesn't call for federal intervention that restricts expression of a Constitutionally protected human right.
I don't actually advocate for overturning the NFA in real life. Whatever the reality of the situation, machine guns are very, very dramatic and scare the crap out of the mainstream. Large numbers of smart, generally gun-friendly people find that machine guns fail their sniff tests. It doesn't matter how right we are; we're just not going to overcome this perception right now, and ignoring that reality can only give the anti-gun crowd the traction they've been desperate for. And frankly, that's not the end of the world. The machine gun restrictions are stupid, but by the nature of their uselessness they leave us all the alternatives we need to fulfill the ends of the Second Amendment. But man, if we ever get around to fighting that battle, it can't possibly hurt to have the president of the Brady Campaign on record saying that machine guns are basically the same as "normal" guns.
[* - Or, more likely, he thinks it's a good way to fill some blogspace and appeal to the dudes who decide where Joyce Foundation grants go. Being president of the Brady Campaign is probably the easiest gig in Washington, so even though it's obviously doomed, who can blame him for trying to stretch it out as long as possible?]
Friday, November 19, 2010
Let me tell you how it will be...
Just a damned minute.
So Browning can sink the development and tooling capital into producing a .22 caliber 1911 that, for some incomprehensible reason, is shrunk to 80% size, but no gun company can afford to engineer a smaller-framed revolver for the .327 magnum cartridge?
Come the hell on, people! This is a good cartridge, with the potential to revitalize revolver carry much more than an expensive plastic frame, or a bolted-on laser. It's being wasted just squeezing another round into .38 sized frames.
So Browning can sink the development and tooling capital into producing a .22 caliber 1911 that, for some incomprehensible reason, is shrunk to 80% size, but no gun company can afford to engineer a smaller-framed revolver for the .327 magnum cartridge?
Come the hell on, people! This is a good cartridge, with the potential to revitalize revolver carry much more than an expensive plastic frame, or a bolted-on laser. It's being wasted just squeezing another round into .38 sized frames.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
WAR-- Hunh!
The Telegraph has up an infographic about US military spending. And it's an infographic, so there's obviously some simplification going on. But still, seriously?
The US spends more on its military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined.
There's no earthly way you can justify spending that much on the military unless you're at war with the world. And man, any time you find yourself at war with the world for half a century, it's probably time to reevaluate your foreign policy. Because at that point, your sphere of influence is probably so big the Vandals will start finding nice, big holes in your defenses.
I'm super, thanks for asking
It's an unfortunate fact of the gun rights community that, along with the folks who care passionately about liberty, we also have a handful of people who love authoritarianism as long as it only oppresses the choices they don't like.
Case in point. Uncle points out the historical context shared by segregationists, gun controllers, and anti-gay advocates. The internet belched this back:
And a funny thing happened on the way to our new Gay States of America: As the vote on Prop 8 in California showed, most brown and black members of the Rainbow Coalition are not terribly fond of the idea of gay marriage in particular and homosexuality in general.
Buddy, respecting gay Americans' right to marry doesn't make us the Gay States of America any more than respecting your right to speak makes us the Asshole States of America.
Case in point. Uncle points out the historical context shared by segregationists, gun controllers, and anti-gay advocates. The internet belched this back:
And a funny thing happened on the way to our new Gay States of America: As the vote on Prop 8 in California showed, most brown and black members of the Rainbow Coalition are not terribly fond of the idea of gay marriage in particular and homosexuality in general.
Buddy, respecting gay Americans' right to marry doesn't make us the Gay States of America any more than respecting your right to speak makes us the Asshole States of America.
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