Attribute to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise
We'll start this one with an excellent link contributed by Mama Liberty.
Soooo, enjoy the link, and the commentary on it—
Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun:
www.catb.org/~esr/guns/gun-ethics.html
But for the other 97%, the bearing of arms functions not merely as an
assertion of power but as a fierce and redemptive discipline. When
sudden death hangs inches from your right hand, you become much more
careful, more mindful, and much more peaceful in your heart—because
you know that if you are thoughtless or sloppy in your actions or
succumb to bad temper, people will die.
Too many of us have come to believe ourselves incapable of this
discipline. We fall prey to the sick belief that we are all psychopaths
or incompetents under the skin. We have been taught to imagine ourselves
armed only as villains, doomed to succumb to our own worst nature and
kill a loved one in a moment of carelessness or rage. Or to end our days
holed up in a mall listening to police bullhorns as some SWAT sniper
draws a bead...
But it's not so. To believe this is to ignore the actual statistics
and generative patterns of weapons crimes. "Virtually never", writes
criminologist Don B. Kates, "are murderers the ordinary, law-abiding
people against whom gun bans are aimed. Almost without exception,
murderers are extreme aberrants with lifelong histories of crime,
substance abuse, psychopathology, mental retardation and/or irrational
violence against those around them, as well as other hazardous behavior,
e.g., automobile and gun accidents."
To believe one is incompetent to bear arms is, therefore, to live in
corroding and almost always needless fear of the self—in fact, to
affirm oneself a moral coward. A state further from "the dignity of a
free man" would be rather hard to imagine. It is as a way of exorcising
this demon, of reclaiming for ourselves the dignity and courage and
ethical self-confidence of free (wo)men that the bearing of personal
arms, is, ultimately, most important.
This is the final ethical lesson of bearing arms: that right choices
are possible, and the ordinary judgement of ordinary (wo)men is
sufficient to make them.
Useless liberal twits Harvey Weinstein and Meryl Streep are teaming
up to make the NRA "wish they weren't alive."
[Link]
"I don't think we need guns in this country,"
Weinstein
told Stern on Wednesday. "I think the NRA is a disaster area."
"I shouldn't say this, but I'll tell it to you, Howard,"
Weinstein
added. "I'm going to make a movie with Meryl Streep, and we're going to
take this head-on. And they're going to wish they weren't alive after
I'm done with them."
Apparently, Weinstein hasn't read the US Constitution, or the Bill of
Rights (which, among other things, protects his right to make asinine
comments such as those quoted above). And of course, as usual, Uncle Ted
has sounded off on Harvey's asininity. While he is a little mellower
than I might be if I had the national spotlight, he DOES have some good
thoughts—[Link]
"I know that God is inspiring the subhuman punk Weinstein to create
what is going to be the most powerful promotion tool for the NRA ever
because people are smarter than he acknowledges." Nugent goes on to
compare Weinstein to Nazi propaganda master
Joseph Goebbels
and left-wing activist
Saul Alinsky.
He adds, "(People) will see that Joseph Goebbels and Saul Alinsky is
alive in the form a fat punk named Harvey Weinstein, and as he tries to
destroy the NRA it will backfire on him... Harvey Weinstein is on the
side of criminals. The NRA is on the side of innocent victims protecting
themselves from criminals."
Stop pulling your punches, Ted, and tell us how you REALLY feel!
Anybody got a contact e-mail address for Ted Nugent? I want to send
him a copy of this...
India has come out with a new weapon for a woman to use for self
defense.
[Link]
Grammatically, the link is pretty poor. And, as L. Neil Smith, the
provider of the link, says:
Unfortunately, this19th century design costs around $2000, is
available only to licensees, is chambered for a feeble cartridge, and is
manufactured by the Indian government. The caste system wins again.
Can't have them untouchables able to defend themselves, now, can we?
At least it's a (very small) step in the right direction.
Well, my friends, another very busy week behind me, with not enough
time to work on the Rant. I hope to have more time next week.
Remember—hoard lead, primers, and powder. They're going to become
more expensive than you ever expected if The Kenyan Keynesian has his
way.
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