I can't get to sleep... And my daily email from the (UK) Telegraph just arrived... And this insane article is guaranteed to keep me up the rest of the night fuming. This just goes to show what happens when a people lose their right to defend themselves and their homes.

This case started (in 1999) when Tony Martin, a farmer in Great Britain used a shotgun (apparently unlicensed) to kill one of two burglars invading his home. The other, Brendon Fearon was shot in the leg. This, in sick twisted English law is a no-no. He was sentenced to life in prison for murder. Then, through various legal maneuvers by his lawyer, got the charges reduced last year to manslaughter. He has one more year to serve on his (reduced to five years) sentence. That's still obscene. We all shake our heads here in America (except in N.Y. and California) but this is how low the law has degenerated in England.

By the way, the surviving mutant, Fearon, only served 18 months for his part in the burglary. This despite the fact that he had 30 (thirty) prior convictions. He was then released but is now back in prison doing another 18 month stretch, this time for drug-dealing.

Now Fearon is suing the victim-farmer Martin for 15,000 pounds for damages received during the commission of the crime. And he's now receiving free legal aid to pursue this suit. Here's a quote about the judge who allowed this to happen:

The judge said that to deny Fearon, who has more than 30 convictions, the right to his claim could contravene his rights under Section 6 of the Human Rights Convention.

Watch out folks, because we're starting to see this happening here and if liberals have their way, this could be standard operating procedure in the U.S. Remember, these lefties seem able to excuse and even support such monsters as Arafat, Hussein, Mugabe, etc. They would probably give a medal to a common thug.

The only bright spot in all of this is that Tony Martin is receiving wide-spread support from the public and now, members of Parliament are having second thoughts about their crime laws:

Dominic Grieve, the Conservative home affairs spokesman, said: "There is clearly an imbalance in the law between householders and burglars."

Norman Brennan, a serving London police officer and director of the Victims of Crime Trust, said: "Brendon Fearon put himself in a position of danger through criminal actions, he is a man long known to be engaged in criminal activity.

"If he wants to get some money, Fearon should get off his backside and not attempt to cash in on the misery of normal people."

Last month, David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, said criminals who injure themselves while burgling houses would be prevented from suing householders for compensation. Home Office lawyers were drafting an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill.

They're nuts over there. Absolutely nuts. Okay, I'm gonna calm down and try to go to sleep... My S&W 65 on the nightstand beside me. Here in America we still have a few rights left, including the right to protect ourselves and our homes. But see this post of mine -- (scroll down through the post to the item about Ronald Dixon in N.Y.) for proof it can happen here.

And remember -- if you have to use deadly force to defend yourself -- make sure they're dead. You know what I mean.

---

Update 6/14 afternoon comment received:

Dead men tell no tales. They file no lawsuits, either. But surviving relatives are often encouraged to file wrongful death suits (even though acting in self-defense can in no way result in a wrongful death). Personal vengeance is supposedly no longer acceptable, but such lawsuits are just a legal method of pursuing a vendetta. It is only legal because instead of exacting vengeance personally, you have to hire a hit man lawyer to go after money instead of blood. Though if their available target has no money, the lawyers may eventually consider harvesting organs.

--Jim Hart at KipperCat

On that good news, I guess this is a wrap for this week here at Alphecca (unless something dramatic happens that I just have to comment about.) As always, I appreciate your comments. I also appreciate your donations to help me keep Alphecca going and keeping the word alive about defense of the Second Amendment. As usual, I take the weekends off so I'll see you here next week. Thanks for stopping by!

The Professor has this post up about how Alaska has adopted a Vermont style concealed carry law -- i.e. that you don't need a permit anymore. Here's the actual article from the Anchorage Daily News. Good for Alaskans. Here's a quote I really liked from the sponsor of the bill:

Rep. Eric Croft, D-Anchorage, said he sponsored the bill out of frustration with continually fine-tuning the state's gun laws.

"I object to the government putting a precondition on that constitutional right (to carry a weapon). I'm presumed to be a responsible citizen until proven otherwise," Croft said.

Exactly. And bravo to Gov. Frank Murkowski who "lauded the work of the Legislature and the National Rifle Association in protecting the Second Amendment rights of Alaskans."

Incidentally, Glenn Reynolds (in his post) mentions:

Actually I know some gun-rights folks who don't like "Vermont carry." Their theory is that a bunch of people with carry permits are conscious of gun rights, and likely to act to protect their ability to carry, while if everyone is allowed to carry there's no such constituency.

Well, my experience here in Vermont is that Vermonters are very vigilant in protecting their gun rights. Way back last October I wrote about rural politics and guns in Vermont -- about how a candidate's position on the 2nd Amendment dramatically effects their chances of getting elected.

By the way, don't forget that you can find links to everything I've written about guns and the Second Amendment on my gun posts page.

Anyway, the thing I found most interesting about the article was buried near the bottom in a list of other legislation signed into law by the governor of Alaska:

Also signed into law was a bill to require the state Department of Public Safety to recognize all concealed carry permits issued in other states.

Yes indeed! And this is the way it should be in every state. Of course, N.Y. and California and New Jersey and et cetera would never go along with that. Currently, it's up to individual states to decide what other state CCW licenses they'll honor. There have been some rumblings on occasion at the national level for a law that would require just that -- that all states recognize other state permits.

Of course, this has hurt Vermonters since there is no permit to honor... So I guess it's a two-edged sword.

---

Update 6/13 9:00 PM:
Received a comment from a buddy:

It's called reciprocity and it is required by the Constitution. States currently recognize each other's marriage licenses, divorce decrees, drivers licenses, etc. It should apply to CCW but will probably require a Supreme Court ruling and even then New York and California will think it doesn't apply to them.

US Constitution, Article IV

Sect. 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public act, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

Sect. 2.
1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.

--Jim Hart of KipperCat.

I agree, of course. But that's in that far-off perfect world where the Constitution and Bill of Rights reign supreme. However we've seen that many states want to be able to impose their own regulations on some things (and they would cry, "states rights!")

For instance, A lawyer must obtain a seperate license for each state he wants to practice in. And while auto-license and registrations are universally accepted, most states require a snow-mobiler to obtain individual registrations for each state they plan to sled in. And remember when a bunch of state legislatures thought Vermont or Hawaii might allow actual "gay marriages?" They quickly passed legislation clearly stating they would not recognize or honor those marriages -- a clear violation of the "full faith and credit" clause. (And constitutionalists weren't complaining then!)

I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand the nuances of these issues. Perhaps one of my legal-eagle readers can explain it...

According to this op-ed in the N.Y. Daily News by Richard Aborn (president of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence -- in case you were wondering how it might be slanted) Chucky Schumer is introducing yet another gun control bill to double the sentences of folks found guilty of buying guns in one state and selling them in others. "Gun runners" if you will. He wants to prosecute them under the Ricco act.

That's not good enough for Aborn, who says that since N.Y. has ballistic fingerprinting, so to should all the other states around N.Y. such as Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida... Well, that's not so close so I guess what he is really implying is that all states should adopt ballistic fingerprinting. He says:

Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Pennsylvania are the source states for the vast majority of guns used in crimes in New York City, Newark and Jersey City. Not only do these states export guns here and to New Jersey, they are the source of more than 70% of the guns used in crimes within their own borders. Thus, it would benefit all these states to stop the flow of illegal weapons.

Ballistic fingerprinting has become an invaluable law enforcement tool. But in all jurisdictions except New York and Maryland, the system relies on the recovery of a gun to match its ballistics to crimes. With changes in state law, police would no longer have to capture the gun to capture the criminal.

This is sort of the "end-around" method of getting ballistic fingerprinting to be the law of the land. If the federal government won't implement a national system, then try to get all the states individually to do it.

I'd love to know how he decided that ballistic fingerprinting has "become an invaluable tool" since so far it hasn't resulted in more then a couple of positive results. Most law enforcement considers it useless. It's also expensive, both for the states and for the gun-buyer. Near the end of the op-ed he says:

Such legislation at the state level would be classic crime control, not gun control.

Baloney. This creates yet another database -- registry -- of guns and gun owners. In my book that's called gun control.

One aside -- once upon a time, the N.Y. Daily News was the conservative voice of New York City. But several years ago they abandoned the average working "Joe" and became just another shill for the liberals.

Bitter Bitch is still bopping all over Europe and even found time to hookup in Switzerland -- to the internet that is... A flurry of posts from her.

So the story in my previous post got me to thinking about the over-reaction so typical in -- let's say -- our schools. "We will not allow guns or other weapons in our schools." Okay, I have no problem with that. We live in a different world than the one a while back where many schools had riflery teams. But then these various board of educations determine that almost anything can be a weapon. And everything is equivalent. So no nail-files, jack-knives, wallet-chains, etc. etc.

They apply the same defective logic to drugs. I'll explain why in a moment. Anyone with a brain can understand that drugs such as heroin, alcohol, cocaine, pot, and so on should be banned from school property. Absolutely.

But then they go further. No aspirin, allergy pills, prescription medicine unless in the possession of and administered by the school nurse. Even life-saving medical devices such as asthma inhalers cannot be found on the person of the student no matter how quickly such a device might be needed. Really, there has been litigation over this.

So what message does this teach our kids? I think it tells them that aspirin, a legal over the counter drug used by half of mankind, is as dangerous and evil as heroin. And kids know this is bullshit. And if you try to tell them that aspirin is a bad thing, and they know it isn't, why should they believe you about alcohol or cocaine?

"Oh well my parents give me Tylenol and it's perfectly safe. So the school has lied to me about it. That means they've also lied to me about cocaine. So I'll try that."

And so it is with nail-clippers and guns. If the school system makes them equivalent, and punishes possession equally, the child is likely to reject the argument that guns are not toys. They're just like nail-clippers.

To me, this is failed logic being deployed by the school and is far more destructive then helpful. This is the lesson that airport security has learned in the last two years. At least they now allow "blunt" tweezers on board the plane.

That's the problem with "Zero Tolerance" policies. If you raise the supposed evil of everything to the same level, it becomes meaningless because folks just aren't that stupid. At least not as stupid as the (mostly) liberals who concoct these schemes.

And so it is with a skeet-shoot and shotgun rally that raises thousands of dollars a year for a local (poor) church. If you equate owning or using guns for sporting purposes with owning and using guns for mutant criminal behavior, you malign the former and minimize the evil of the latter.

---

Update 6/12 evening:
I received this comment...

The Brits are much farther down that road than we are. I lived in England for three years ('79-'82), and at that time even a cricket bat was considered to be a weapon. I recall the first time I visited the ironmonger (hardware store) to buy a hande sickle to shorten up the weeds; they wouldn't let me leave the shop without the thing being wrapped up securely. They warned me that I would be arrested for carrying an "offensive weapon" otherwise.

When I was in high school there were programs that included firearms and archery. At the noon lunch break you could even check out a target bow and lob arrows at targets. I'm sure that is verboten now. The current reaction to these kinds of things is predictable, given the mentality of the people who administer schools nowadays. When I was in high school a large number of the male faculty were fairly recent veterans of WWII; they had no problem with things that might be dangerous if used incorrectly -- or with malice. The female faculty, for the most part, had no problem with potentially dangerous stuff either. As time passed, however, new and unproven ideas emanating from so-called Ed.D.s changed the educational landscape.

For almost ten years I taught 300-level business courses at a local university. Sometimes I got majors from the teaching college and the journalism college, not to mention the engineering college. Over time I became aware that of all the students that passed through my classroom the least prepared students, both academically and analytically, were the education majors. The next rung up were the journalism majors (the Wall Street Journal published several letters just this week that seem to bear out that observational detail.) Anyway, the next least prepared were the psychology majors. After that everyone seemed to blend into a mélange that reflected individual capabilities. In a class by themselves, at the top of the heap, were the engineering majors and the actuarial science majors.

So. I'm not surprised that schools, especially primary and secondary schools, are so incapable of making rational and analytical decisions.

--Gerald H. from Nebraska

Yup! Neither am I. Look, I can understand that school systems are afflicted with the same frivolous lawsuits that everyone else is and they need to protect themselves. "Well, you should have known and banned those nail-clippers..." But this really just confuses and baffles our young folks and leads to more problems than it solves. And it makes kids think that educators really believe those nail-clippers are equivalent to a firearm.

John R. Lott, Jr. has an op-ed in the Washington Times about how, for three years now, a Catholic sportsman's group has raised a lot of money for a local Catholic Church.

Yet, with St. Jerome's Catholic Church located only a 10-minute-or- so trip from the Prince George's County Trap and Skeet Center, Mr. Aquilino hit upon the idea of shooting contests and a gun raffle each year on the Saturday before Father's Day. It has been a roaring success, raising thousands of dollars in just its first year. New uniforms were purchased and money was provided for new carpeting at the school.

Needless to say, the local anti-gun people in this Maryland area were shocked, shocked that money raised this way would go to support an impoverished church. And of course, the local archbishop declared:

Unfortunately, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the archbishop of Washington, has tried to stop the raffles and skeet shoots. The Cardinal decided that the sportsmen's group could only raise money for the church as long as it was not "related in any way to the use or sale of guns."

This hasn't satisfied opponents, who worry that some of the "tainted money" could still find its way into church coffers. They also complain that the "Sportsmen's group members wear T-shirts with gun images to church events."

This of course is the clash that happens as urban-ites move out to somewhat rural areas and try to force the culture to change to their own leftist, liberal thinking.

Remember the Tennessee car dealer giving away guns and the "National" rukus the Washington Post tried to stir up over it?

And don't forget fake, phony, fraud Michael Moore's fiction-drama where a rural bank gives away a shotgun to folks who open an account?

See, in rural areas, folks have grown up with and using firearms. They know there's nothing to be afraid of. And a skeet-shoot sounds like a terrific way to raise money. Heck, I lived in Hackensack, N.J. for awhile and the cops there held a turkey shoot every year. It was very well attended, raised a bunch of money, and this was in a gun-control-heaven area.

But I digress, as usual... I don't know of anywhere in the bible where it says you can't own or use guns for sporting events or hunting. Or raising money. (Or for self-defense for that matter.) So this church will forgo ten thousand dollars a year -- money badly needed for repairs -- because of the liberal wimps of that area. And once again, because of them, everyone loses.

---

Update 6/12 afternoon, another good comment from H. Cavanaugh:

Here is another link that I found quite compelling. It's David Hardy's analysis of "Bowling for Columbine" where he basically impales Moore, all with the truth. The Truth About Bowling For Columbine

We just passed the Minnesota Personal Protection Act here . I was present during the Senate debate. Before the session, we were accosted by the Code Pink girls (whom I refer to as the Million Moron Moms).

The one that stands out was the first, who saw me in a suit, with my black and yellow lapel sticker Self Defense Is A Right, Not A Crime" When I was at the Capitol to listen to the final Senate debate on the MPPA, I was confronted by a few of the Million Moron Moms. The first one told me "Look at ALL the women here!"

My reply "Yes. And all the women who are not here because they couldn't defend themselves."

She went on to say "Why would we want to do this?"

My reply-"Mam', what's the evidence of the other 30+ states that have shall issue conceal carry laws?"

Her reply "Well, if all the other states voted to go crazy, should we?"

And I repeated " what's the evidence of the other 30+ states that have shall issue conceal carry laws?"

She replied again "Well, if everyone else voted to jump off the bridge, should we?"
And again I replied "what's the evidence of the other 30+ states that have shall issue conceal carry laws?"

She finally said "I don't think I can answer your question."

And I said "And doesn't your reply speak volumes about your position and feelings on this matter?" Another of the two Million Moron Moms confronted me. One accused me of being in favor of teen suicide, and that this (the MPPA) was not the solution to the immigrant problem. Hhhmmmm.....

Then I was told that we'll have more Columbines because the shooters at Columbine got the guns from their parents. Enough was enough. I told these two that that was an out and out lie. Those guns were NOT gotten from their parents. And went on to tell them what laws could they dream up that would outlaw human nature?

And then I went nuclear with them- and asked them pointedly "You tell me what law you would pass that people like this (Columbine) would finally say ' I/we can't break that law.' What law could you, would you pass where evil miscreants like those at Columbine would have been stopped, and I will personally pull myself along on my elbows to my polling place to vote for that law." They admitted there was no law like that.

P.S. I have found that when I go into an argument with lefties, I go in with history, logic, reason, truth, facts, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and economics all on my side. But, alas, all is for naught. And the best explanation I've ever come across that explains this phenomena/occurrence is a quote from Jonathon Swift "You can not reason a man out of a position he didn't reason himself into in the first place."

--H. Cavanaugh

Good work! And of course, the latest Million Moms March only drew a handful of people in D.C. Apparently there are another 50 million moms who disagree with their agenda...

Hmm, the stress is coming back already. University of Chicago graduate student Kimberly Shearer Palmer has an op-ed in USA Today that says that women get a false sense of security from gun ownership. She used to think guns were just for cops and robbers. Then she learned to shoot. Here's a quote:

I was thrilled with my new power. A technological advantage now would let me fight the bad guys, even ones bigger and stronger that I am -- or so I thought. Guns give women equal killing ability, but they also draw us into the dangerous illusion that owning one makes us safe.

First mistake. No one says owning a gun will make you safe. Used properly, it will make you safer. If you don't understand the difference, you haven't received adequate training.

She says:

But gun popularity among women is based on two misconceptions. First, gun advocates often call guns the great equalizer between men and women. In reality, according to a new study by the University of California at Davis, women who own handguns are more than twice as likely to be murdered with a firearm by their partners than those who do not. While this may be partly explained by the fact that women who fear an attack are more apt to buy a gun, the study shows guns often fail to help women protect themselves.

"Having a gun gives women a false sense of security," says Naomi Seligman, communications director of the Violence Policy Center, a Washington non-profit that urges stricter gun control. "Guns can be taken away, and women can be killed by their own guns."

I haven't seen the study so I have no idea of how the statistics were juggled to fit an agenda. As for the claim from the anti-gun group that guns can be taken away and used on their owner -- well, yes. But that's not proper use of the gun. Each year, unfortunately, there are stories of bad-guys wrestling away a cop's gun and using it on him. Should cops stop carrying guns?

While there will always be some miscalculations by gun-owning victims, might I suggest another reason why many women (if it is many) have their guns used against them?

Some women are involved in abusive relationships. The woman buys a gun to protect herself. The guy shows up, the gun appears. The guy begs for forgiveness, crys, sobs -- he'll never do it again. The woman relaxes her guard. The guy takes the gun and kills her. There is an emotional struggle in these relationships that the gun will not equalize unless the woman is truly prepared to defend herself and to USE the gun. By the way, this is true in some shootings of men as well (in a reverse setting.)

Please understand I am not passing any kind of judgement on the judgement used in this situation. Only that it probably happens enough to skew the statistics. Not having been in a shoot or die scenario myself, it's impossible for me to put myself in another's shoes. I simply suggest it. I'll gladly entertain your comments here. And has anyone dissected this study yet?

But the simple fact is that with proper training and commitment to your own preservation, a gun is a very powerful equalizer and provides a very valid sense of security.

There. That didn't get my blood-pressure up to much. See you all tomorrow.

---

Update 6/12
Just received this comment:

Saw your blog on the Cal Davis study. This is a great example of post hoc ergo propter hoc.

I would assume that all those women also drank water and had estrogen present. Therefore, using the argument that Cal Davis appears to put out, the conclusion is that estrogen, in the presence of water, prompts gun deaths.

And you properly point out the emotional (and assumed psychological) aspects of the abuser/abused relationship.

There was a quote I heard about four years ago that's always stuck with me "Are you prepared to be wrong?" Bring a knife to fight, and find out the other guy isn't going to fight fair and brings a gun-you weren't prepared to be wrong. Gun to a knife fight? You were prepared to be wrong.

I once heard a list of questions that you¹d never ask in a gun fight:

Is my caliber too large? Do I have too much ammunition?

Just some thoughts.

--H. Cavanaugh

Indeed. And in an analogy I've used before in regards de-criminalizing marijuana where someone will say, "such-and-such percent of people who shoot heroin first smoked pot," I often say yes, well the same percentage of alcoholics first drank milk as a child. Statistics are too easy to manipulate to do anything other than take them with a grain of salt -- from either side of the issue. So I prefer to rely on the logic of an argument.

Update 6/12 afternoon:
My buddy Jim Hart at KipperCat linked to and commented on this post. Here's a quote:

When the use of deadly force is necessary to defend oneself, nothing less will suffice. If you have the opportunity to do so, point the gun at the attacker and say "STOP!". If the attacker does not stop immediately, shoot to kill. If you do not have the time to warn them off, just shoot to kill.

Exactly. Read his whole post. Okay, now that you're back... There are plenty of statistics -- never reported in the press of course -- that prove that merely showing the gun has prevented literally millions of crimes. This is one of the benefits of gun ownership. Usually, especially where there is no emotional sub-plot involved, just showing the firearm can prevent the completion of many crimes.

But. But! About a year after I received multiple stab-wounds from someone and decided to take my personal defense into my own hands, I was in a gun-training course and the instructor made a point that I've never forgotten. He said that once you've shown your gun -- you must, MUST be committed to using it. That is, don't have it and don't show it unless you are truly willing to use it.

Going back to my original post above, I said commitment to your own preservation. That is the key to all of this and it must be foremost in your mind.

A couple more bloggers have blogrolled me so naturally, into my blogroll they go. Check out Kin's Kouch, who lists me as "Armed and..." (though his blogroll doesn't seem to show up on Netscape, just IE. But that's probably my weird Apple Mac.)

And another new upstart, Giant City, who's even linked an item of mine already.

By the way, Hell In A Handbasket has moved. Adjust your tuners accordingly.

Long time readers know I used to have a general comments column over on the left sidebar. I might have to start that up again. Anyway, here's one now:

I went to college in the Inland Northwest, less than an hour's drive from Hayden Lake and the infamous Aryan Nations headquarters. While I was there, several black students of the university received hate mail and letters to the campus newspaper (this was a private college) claimed that the religion of the school was against gays (which a number of friends of mine gleefully refuted in a brilliant letter citing the bylaws of the church itself.) The whole situation startled me because I grew up in a city that was later found to have one of the highest levels of integration (not diversity but a mix within neighborhoods) in the nation. I didn't understand the fixation on race because I was, in fact, color-blind -- to the extent that I thought my high school was fairly white across the board until I started thinking about it and realized that a number of my classmates fell into the category of 'minority'.

Which brings me to this. A lot of people still think of 'other races' as 'them' because they allow an agenda to set their interactions, rather than approaching each person idividually. I knew an Orthodox Jew at my (Catholic) college who spoke of being asked "what Jews think" about one topic or another. Her answer was exactly right-- "I don't know, but I can tell you what I think."

The same concept applies to how (hetero) people react to another group they perceive as 'other'-- gays. I have known a number of gay people in my lifetime (some of them priests) and can definitively say that they are people. I mean, I've known "diverse" people in my life, but a single point of difference does not true diversity make.

End of semi-coherent rant.

--B. Durbin from Dex Lives.

Well okay. I'm very mellow just now having watched a PBS special about stress and why we need to reduce it. Heck, I'm practically a puddle...

I have to be at work early today so normal blogging will resume tonight...

Oh sure, all the other bloggers will be yakking it up about Monkey Pox and SARS and Hillary Clinton's new book. Granted, these three diseases are fascinating (I'm sure) but here at Alphecca we know what's really important. So yes, once again it's time for the Weekly World News check on the bias over at Yahoo's Gun Control Debate Page. Let's just see what news stories and editorials they choose to link to on this totally un-biased page (hahahahaha.)

Yahoo Gun Control Debate Page Articles
Sample Date	For More Gun Control Or Is Anti-Gun	Not More Gun Control Or Is Pro 2nd Amendment	Neutral Articles	Concurrent Events Notes
06/11/03	11	2	8	no dominant story
06/04/03	10	3	8	Mostly Minn. CCL law
May Avg.	11	2	9	NAACP loses, Bush vs NRA, Denver fights new CCL law, Heston
Apr. Avg.	11	2	6	NAACP suits, Heston retires, Wal-mart
1st qtr '03 weekly avg	12.5	5	5	Good news Il & CO, CA judge dismisses gun makers in suit, ATF prosecutions, Sniper victim lawsuits, England gang murders
4th qtr '02 weekly avg	15.5	3.5	2.5	DC Snipers, Canadian Registry fiasco & NJ "smart-gun" law

There was actually not very much new this week. And that's deadly to a blabbermouth like me. Yahoo seems determined to ignore the few "pro-gun" stories out there. They rarely link to the articles in the Opinion Journal, or on NRO, or anywhere else. The reason is obvious -- these are likely to go against the west coast liberal agenda.

Instead, they'll link to a hysterical op-ed from St. Louis Today like this:

HERE ARE SOME REASONS to worry about the proliferation of handguns:

Individuals who lie during criminal background checks are rarely punished.

Corrupt gun dealers are rarely prosecuted.

Federal laws to keep guns out of the hands of children and away from schools are almost never enforced.

Police routinely recover guns with obliterated serial numbers, but those cases are rarely taken to court.

This information comes from a disturbing new report, titled "The Enforcement Gap," by The Americans for Gun Safety Foundation. The data, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, seem to contradict promises by the Clinton and Bush administrations to aggressively enforce federal gun laws to keep weapons out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them.

Now, I've already discussed in last week's report that Americans For Gun Safety is a fake, phony, fraud orginization pretending to be for gun-owner's rights but in reality they are a pro-gun control group. So right there we know their report is biased.

But let's assume that all of their bogus statements are true. What's the answer to these problems? More gun control laws? Of course not. In every case they cite, the problem is that the 20,000 existing gun laws aren't being enforced. Help me out here folks, if the feds and locals aren't prosecuting current laws, then why would more laws (that we have to presume also wouldn't be enforced) help?

I hate to repeat myself (okay, that's a lie, I love repeating myself...) but if there are already a bunch of laws against drunk-driving, how will more laws reduce the problem? If loss of license and huge fines and possible jail-time don't deter the problem drinker, how will piling on more laws deter them? Especially if the existing laws aren't scaring them off?

Back to guns -- that's all I really want to talk about here, guns -- Look, criminals are criminals because they don't obey the laws. Passing new laws isn't likely to impress them or stop them from breaking laws. And if the feds and the prosecutors don't enforce the current laws, what difference does it make if you pass a ton of new ones? Okay?

Earlier this week I had a nearly incoherent post about this story from the Globe and Mail in Canada about how -- despite the fact that now seven provinces are refusing to prosecute violators of the new long-gun registration law, officials in Ottowa will continue to prosecute folks. I think this is stupid. I think the law will shortly fall, if not the whole party responsible for it.

This morning I discussed the silly editorial from the NY Daily News chastising the NRA for doing their job, lobbying for pro-gun folks.

Well, actually, that's all there was... A slow week leaving me nearly speechless. Just a reminder (I mentioned this two days ago) that you should all check-out this great op-ed over at NRO by Dave Kopel and Paul Blackman. It shows that the problems at the New York Times extended into their coverage of gun related issues. As if we here didn't already know that. But their dissection is terrific.

Update 6/13: Dave Kopel a correction to the above article concerning one of the Time's articles. It doesn't effect the overall issue at hand.

So while my fingers feel like typing some more, there is nothing to chat about so I guess I'll call this a wrap for this week's report. This is supposedly a Wednesday report but usually I prepare it Tuesday nights. So this one is a bit early. Thanks for stopping by.

---

Update 6/11 6:30 AM...
I have to be at work early this morning but here's a comment that came in overnight:

Your results always show a large anti-gun plurality of media stories, but the anti-gun media bias is really much worse than merely unequal.

We know from other evidence that good uses of guns (e.g., to prevent crime) far outnumber the misuses of guns. We also know that stories involving the misuse of guns are almost always reported to the police and covered by the media, while those favorable to guns are much less likely to be reported or covered. The anti-gun count is therefore a pretty accurate reflection of the true incidence of misuse, while the pro-gun count vastly understates the true number of those incidents.

In other words, if the media counts were unbiased, the pro-gun frequencies would not be merely equal to the misuse frequencies, but no doubt much higher. Some of the error is due to pro-gun incidents being less likely to be reported to the police, because the citizen decides it's not worth the trouble of making a report. And some is due to the media failing to cover pro-gun incidents even when they are known to the police, due to an ideological agenda or simply because a possible crime that was prevented is not a sexy enough news story.

Anti-gun agendas are common enough and should be exposed at every opportunity; but failures to report and judgments about newsworthiness probably guarantee that the counts would continue to be very unequal, even if anti-gun agendas suddenly became a thing of the past. To realize how inaccurately low our pro-gun estimates are, simply consider how many household burglaries are prevented in the U.S. each year because criminals fear the possibility of an armed homeowner. Pro-gun results like that show up in no count of any kind.

--Best regards, Byron M.

You are absolutely correct. In actuality, there is some coverage of defensive gun uses (or positive uses, we might say) but it's usually confined to small, local newspapers that are way below the radar of "the big guys" such as the NY Times, WAPO, Boston Globe, LA Times, and -- of course -- Yahoo, which is the focus of this specific weekly feature.

KABA does a reasonable job of tracking some of these stories but as a collective endeavor also allows some other agendas (off-topic) to creep in. If readers here at Alphecca want to point me to some of these local news items, I'll try to mention them during the week here at Alphecca.

Her cover-up may have been stupid, but to my mind she did nothing wrong. I said so way back in January in this post that actually was praising Susan McDougal. Anyway, I said:

Or (in a complete change of subject) contrast that with the garbage-can stock trader who turned --ratted-- on Martha Stewart. He tells Martha that one of the stocks she owns is about to tank. Folks, I don't care about the ethics in a case like this; Stewart did what ANYONE OF US would have done with information like that -- she sold the stock. And this crap-burger stock broker ratted on her to save his skin. Rats are diseased animals. They deserve to be stepped on. So far, Martha hasn't actually been charged. She shouldn't be. She did what anyone would do and dumped the stock.

That's my story and I'm sticking with it. Now she's been charged. I still think she's getting a raw deal and the feds are just trying to make an example out of her. I support her completely. (And we all know how much that counts for...)

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Reader comment:

What Martha Stewart did IS wrong. She had info she was not supposed to act on, by law. She knew this, it was no secret to her.

What about the person or persons who bought the stock she sold? They got shafted. Yes, the stock market is always a gamble, but Martha Stewart DELIBERATELY cheated the buyers. That is the reason for the insider trading rules in the first place. If it was legal, the entire system would not work.

Anyone who thinks Martha Stewart is getting a raw deal is not looking at the whole picture. She did it. She needs to be treated EXACTLY the same as anyone else. Being ultra-rich, and famous, does not give her a free pass on cheating.

--Adjax (location unknown)

I disagree. And apparently the concensus shows that a lot of people do. She will be busted on the cover-up, but not on insider trading. Eugene Volokh has this post (but you might have to scroll down a bit) on all of this. It references this L.A. Times commentary which (you all should read) sums up:

Tellingly, the Justice Department did not charge Stewart with insider trading. Only the SEC's civil complaint does so. Instead, the Justice Department went after Stewart for conspiring to obstruct justice by engaging in the great American pastime of lying to the cops.

According to published reports, the U.S. attorney decided that going after Stewart would be an "unprecedented" expansion of insider trading law.

Time will tell with all of this but I still, personally, believe she did nothing wrong other than to lamely try to cover it up. This cover-up seems to be a re-occuring theme among the rich and famous. And it's usually what trips them up. I said this months ago: If this was about a man, he would be declared a "straight shooter, man's man, no-nonsense...etc." When a woman does it she's a conniving bitch.

And:

Side note on Martha Stewart: Chris Noble tells me she was once a stockbroker. That means she'd have had all the insider trading "don'ts" drummed into her in the course of becoming and being a broker. That means she'd genuinely have known she was doing something wrong. If she was. Even if she did, I suspect there's an element of railroading involved to push it further than might have been the case. Still, an interesting thing to know. Just not a prime topic of interest for me overall.

--Jay Solo

She was indeed a stockbroker -- that's how she made her initial moola to start her media schtick. She's not really interesting to me either, except that I admire women who single-handedly build thriving empires. I only put this post up to link to my earlier post, since she's now back in the news.

...is this silly editorial from the New York Daily News:

The ATF is slowly bleeding out, thanks to the NRA and its cronies in Congress. Additionally, the assault weapons ban is in danger of expiring. And lawsuits against unscrupulous firearms dealers are likely to be banned. How any of this keeps America safe is beyond the comprehension of anyone but the gun-huggers - and the politicians held in their thrall.

"Gun-huggers?" Never mind... The editorial blames the NRA for doing it's job of lobbying on behalf of those who still support the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Somehow though, the implication that the NRA can dictate to federal law enforcement agencies rings hollow. The NRA lobbies the same as anyother advocacy group. If our elected officials (backed up with polling data from their own organizations) agrees with the position, they support it. And legislate accordingly.

And after claiming that the NRA has limited the ATF's ability or desire to work with local law enforcement, they then admit:

It's bad enough the ATF keeps the information from the public, but now it is limiting the data provided to police. The NYPD's gun task force still works closely with the ATF and apparently has not been affected by the policy change. But elsewhere cops have been having trouble with firearms tracing.

So the ATF only works with the NYPD? That's silly. The ATF will help any police department trace a firearm used in a crime. New York City doesn't have some magical power or exclusive rights to the ATF. If other departments are having trouble it's because they're doing something wrong. And every high-profile crime I've seen on TV has had the ATF working hand-in-hand with the locals. Good PR? I don't think the ATF works that way.

But even if I'm wrong about that, the point is that the NRA does for gun-rights what the AARP does for senior citizen rights and what the NEA does for educator's rights. And all three of these organizations receive a lot of money from their supporters and spend that money looking out for their respective interests. This is how the system has worked for two hundred years, at least. They do what they've been hired to do. What is wrong with that?

In the case of the NY Daily News, I suppose it's that the liberal editors don't like guns, so they cast aspersions on a completely legitimate lobbying group. You notice they never go after the NEA or AARP. How hypocritical. How typical.

I have to get ready for work shortly but as someone who is (besides pro-gun, pro-life, etc.) pro-God, I can think of nothing more worthwhile then spending money to preserve some of our historic religious sites. Eugene Volokh agrees and has this thoughtful op-ed in today's Opinion Journal:

The National Historic Preservation Act provides funds to help repair landmarks. In exchange for the money, the building owner promises to give the public substantial access, and to keep repairing the building for 50 years to maintain its historical integrity. The act essentially lets the government buy a preservation easement in the buildings, to maintain our cities as living museums of history and architecture. To its credit, Congress provided the funding for a wide range of historic buildings, whether or not the buildings have religious uses. But for decades, the executive branch excluded churches, synagogues and other religious sites.

Two weeks ago, the Bush administration eliminated this exclusion, and rightly so. Much of America's history happened in religious places. Paul Revere got his signal from a confederate in the steeple of Boston's Old North Church; the federal government will now help repair the 280-year-old landmark. A key event of the civil rights movement--the 1963 Ku Klux Klan bombing that killed four girls--happened at a Birmingham church. Some of the most notable buildings in our cities are churches. Any sensible historical and architectural preservation program must include them as well as secular buildings.

As we say in the blogosphere, read the whole thing. I think even the most hard-core athiest would have to concede that some of the most beautiful music, artwork, literature, -- and yes, buildings, -- were inspired by the love for (or of) God. Now, finally, the same tax dollars that support the restoration and preservation of secular historic structures can also be used for religious buildings. A nice move by the Bush administration -- done quietly, without the fanfare that Clinton used to insist on for every little thing.

It's late Monday. I'm beat. But there are some great reads out there for you and I thought I'd point them out. (And Ghod, it is so frustrating finding this stuff while at work and not being able to blog about it until I get home at night...)

First at bat: Dave Kopel and Paul Blackman have a superb piece in today's National Review Online about how the New York Times and their "gun story writers" have distorted and misled folks in their stories the same as the disgraced writers who have since left. The New York Times is perfectly entitled to slant things to their leftist, liberal ways on the editorial page. They are NOT allowed to do that in "news articles" and yet -- as we all now know -- that is what they did. And they do it with gun control stories too. This is a great, in-depth "learned fisking" of the Time's stories concerning guns. Go there now!

Dave has a correction concerning one of the N.Y. Times stories. But this doesn't excuse all of the other ones discussed.

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Meanwhile over at the Opinion Journal, Theodore Dalrymple (a pseudonym) has this superb story today about the problems faced in Africa and specifically Zimbabwe -- where he lived for many years. Again, this is the best kind of writing. Writing from personal experience.

I have long been fascinated by Africa. I don't fly in planes. If I did, the one place I would go to is Africa and I have no idea why. I don't know what the compulsion is. I consider Africa the dream never realized. A continent of promise, beauty, trajedy and misery. Theodore explains some of it. I clicked on the link thinking I would get another of his very good gun/England stories. I found this great post instead.

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My good friend at Publicola has an important post about the upcoming United Nations conference in New York about Earth-wide gun control. This comes up every couple years and while we would all like to think that here in the glorious U.S. we can resist and ignore this tripe, there might come a day where a Clinton or Gore or Kerry or Gephart is in office and will force us into this leftist fascist ideology by treaty.

So pay attention to this post of his, and he does also provide links to more commentary about this. An important post for all pro-2A folks.

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So there are three great reads for you. I've done enough damage to my reputation and so will next post late tomorrow or Wednesday my world famous Weekly Gun-Story bias check on the media. See you soon. Thanks for stopping by!

That's the conclusion of this editorial in today's Washington times:

It is 17 months before the next national elections, and Republicans already smell victory in the air. In Capitol Hill watering holes and the halls of congressional office buildings, members and aides are whispering about the prospects of a major power shift in favor of the GOP come November 2004. Senate strategists are daring to predict a possible six- or even seven-seat pickup, which would strengthen the majority party's currently undependable 51 votes. More Republican senators would make significant changes in policy possible exponentially, and prevent legislative logjams, such as the stalling on President Bush's tax cuts. At this early date, however, it is prudent to keep in mind that everything would have to go right to bring about such a lopsided outcome.

Wishful thinking. But everything is NOT going right. The economy is in very bad shape and everytime there's a glimmer of hope that it is turning around, something, some piece of news appears to show just the opposite. And I can tell you this: If in 2004 the economy is as it is now, Bush will lose. The only thing that might counteract that is if we are involved (at the time of the elections) in another armed conflict.

And speaking of which, rightly or wrongly, if we don't find those elusive weapons of mass destruction, Bush could also be toast irregardless of who was at fault. Regular readers know that last Winter I was "tepidly" (my words at the time) in support of action in Iraq. When it was over (well, the main theater of the war,) I was glad that we had gone in and liberated the people. But the justification for the war was WMD. Liberals, and Democrats in general are likely to make a LOT of noise about this next year.

Further more, this administration must follow through in stabilizing the new government of Iraq. They'd better do a better job then they did in Afghanistan.

Also, as hard as this President has tried to appear moderate, the decisions he and his minions such as John Ashcroft have instituted vis-a-vis Homeland Security, Total Information Awareness, et al have turned a lot of the libertarian (not to mention liberal) crowd off. There are some very basic issues of personal liberty and privacy that are falling by the wayside. Some of what is going on in this country borders on the unconstitutional.

I don't currently see a strong contender among the Democrats yet -- although if Howard Dean would stop blabbing about what Bush did and would start explaining what he'd (Dean would) do, he could make an attractive alternative. He has to lose some of the shrillness first.

The point of all this is that if Bush loses, voters being how they are will probably pull a lot of levers in the same column for Democratic senators and congressmen.

I'm not saying this is good or bad, just that Republicans had better not get cocky about 2004 and had better not keep lurching to the far right or they'll lose most of the middle... America has become far too cosmopolitan -- even in the heartland thanks to TV and the internet -- for Bush to keep sucking up to the far right.

Everyone says that "this time" is different then when Bush Senior ran for re-election. No it isn't. It's still, and always will be, about the economy because that is what people worry about every day. That is what keeps them sleepless at night. Wars, conflicts half a world away are abstractions to most people. Six and a half percent unemployment, valueless retirement funds, and a stock market that is making no one any money will defeat the Republicans.

I can't take it any more. The TV, the newspapers, radio, everywhere I turn all I see and hear is Bill and Hillary Clinton. Can't they just go away? Bill is no longer president and yet I see him more than ever offering his opinions on everything. Why can't he fade off into the shadows the way so many other former presidents have?

And then there's Hillary flapping her gums almost non-stop all over TV. Special after special on TV. With Barbara Walters. With Katie Couric. Last night, Drudge's entire radio show was about Hillary.

These two are the most self-absorbed people ever to have inflicted themselves on the American people. I just want them to SHUT UP!

I promise to make this quick. I want to enjoy what's left of this pretty Sunday afternoon. But from the (Canada) Globe And Mail, check out this article about how the stubborn justice department of Canada will continue to prosecute violators of Canada's new (FAILED) gun registry law:

OTTAWA -- Police will lay charges against owners of unregistered firearms despite the refusal of six provinces to prosecute the federal government's controversial gun control laws, the head of the Canadian Police Association said yesterday.

"A police officer is required to enforce the law," said David Griffin, executive officer of the CPA.

"From a police perspective, it's still business as usual. What we seem to be seeing here is a philosophical debate between the provinces and the federal government," he said. "We'd like to think this political posturing would not stand in the way of administering justice."

The showdown is escalating between the provinces and Ottawa over the controversial federal firearms registry, which has been mired by delays and cost overruns.

See, this is the sick mind-set that gets people to hating cops. I won't say that they deserve it but -- cops, prosecutors, law-makers, politicians, are all supposed to represent the majority opinion of THE PEOPLE. They are supposed to be our servants. We pay them and we demand to have our opinions enforced. Cops, and/or more rightly, their bosses, are all SERVANTS OF THE PEOPLE and yes, they do have the discretion to ignore a totally unpopular or bad law.

Let me say this now because this is what I believe: Any cop in the U.S. who busts someone for possession of pot is a piece of crap who is ignoring the majority will of the vast American populace. I don't care what a couple of ancient right-wing fossils in our government (which is supposed to represent and act on the will of the people) believes. They work for us. And they are doing a lousy job of it. Especially Ashcroft. That un-American jerk.

Getting back to Canada, in my Weekly gun-story bias check last week I pointed out that Nova Scotia was joining six other Canadian provinces in rejecting the fiasco that is the new long-gun registry of Canadian law. They don't care what the law says, they won't go along. The cops there should do the same.

But now we have David Griffin, executive officer of the CPA (Canadian Police Association) acting like a damn fool in declaring that "the law is the law" and we're going to enforce it. What a total jerk he is. I do not wish bad things on anyone but if I were to read in the paper that he tripped and fell into a ditch -- I wouldn't be sad. He should be drummed out of office. The proud Canadian people ought to rise up, throw their current corrupt government out of office and elect people who will represent the WILL of the common folk.

This bugs me to no end because we have the same stupid problem here in the U.S. as both Democrats and Republicans ignore the will of the people. They are both guilty and should all fall into a ditch. I kind of wish I had a personal lawyer who would advise me about these things. But I don't so I act and post as cautiously as I can.

It is against the law that I should suggest any hint at any sort of civil uprising against all the corrupt, lying, thieving politicians here in the U.S. or in Canada. And I won't. I don't. I'm not looking for a new "civil-war." I'm sure some would think it wrong. No doubt all the anti-constitutionals who now inhabit and run our current government would frown on it and with their new "Homeland Security" and "Patriot Act" laws, they would fabricate reasons to prosecute someone who does. So you should in no way think that I am hoping for or encouraging anything like that. What I am suggesting is that we need to start electing someone NOT from the standard two parties. There has to be someone out there with more than the usual half-a-brain who will honor our Constitution and will also avoid the extremism of both wings, or parties currently in power.

As the mast-head here at Alphecca has clearly stated since day one, these are simply the opinions of a gay gun-nut about all sorts of stuff...

I can dream... And no government can stop that.

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Comments received:

You said:

+++"Any cop in the U.S. who busts someone for possession of pot is a piece of crap who is ignoring the majority will of the vast American populace."+++

Police and judges serve the law, not THE PEOPLE. The police are not the servants of "the majority will". Serving majority will might mean ignoring the law and allowing mob rule. The legal indication of the majority will of the people is the laws enacted by their representatives. You don't like the law, work to change the law, but until the law is changed, don't expect the cops to ignore it and don't expect them to look the other way if someone else ignores it. If you choose to break the law, you should be prosecuted.

Without the law, just how are the cops supposed to determine the majority will? Listen to TV news?Go with their gut feeling? Take a head count at the next riot? Can you think of another area of individual rights where this might not be such a good thing? I can think of several.

+++"yes, they do have the discretion to ignore a totally unpopular or bad law."+++

Who decides what is bad? How?

Yeah, politics sucks. Mainly because we have it so good in this country that we don't know what bad is. Most voters are complacent and don't vote. The may say they don't have the time. Or they complain about the candidates when they have contributed absolutely nothing to the process of selecting those candidates. Yes, this is supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but that means the people have a responsibility to get off their lazy asses and get involved in the process of government from the grass roots on up. If we don't, we get the government we deserve.

FWIW, the situation in Canada would be unconstitutional in the US.

US Constitution, Article VI, Sect. 2. This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

I think you know my position on the 2nd Amendment, but that is in the US Constitution and Canada is not in the USA. Canada stayed loyal to England. Too bad for them.

-- KipperCat

All true. My ranting got ahead of my thinking... My desire for a perfect world where everyone thinks exactly like me shows there would be a lot of bad thinkers out there...

Further update (Monday night):

Okay. I admit this was one of my crappier posts. I wrote it last Friday night when I was half in the bag. And KipperCat is correct. And I've had, and admitted to some pretty crappy posts.

But I still think that cops DO make judgements all the time about what they'll go after and what they'll bust people for. The head-honcho cops in Canada must know that (now) seven provinces are refusing to enforce these new gun registration laws and are basically saying, "hey, it's your [national] law, you enforce it."

Cops and prosecutors do that all the time in the U.S. Oregon now has Dr. assisted suicide and they've basically told Ashcroft, "fine, you go after them. We've legalized it here."

And several states (California for one) have said, "Okay, we allow medical marijuana use. If you (Ashcroft and the Feds) don't like it -- then YOU go after it. We won't help you."

I don't know how it is elsewhere but in Vermont, most Chief of Police are elected positions that come up every year or two years. If they act like dicks, they get booted out. They ARE at the whim of the votors. I like it that way.

But I do admit (something most bloggers won't) that this was not one of my better posts. So there.

My blogson Eric has a good rant about the stupid new rave laws. As usual, and in the best blogging tradition, he makes it personal. (BlogSpot archive link not yet working...)

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Pretty gun pictures over at The Smallest Minority.

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Remember my post last week about sausages and hotdogs? Matt at It Could Be Better Too seems to have found the answer to my question of what is "mechanically seperated" meat. And it isn't encouraging... (BlogSpot archive link also not yet working.)

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And Tim Wilson? I would never consider you a moron. You all will just have to visit him to see what I'm talking about. (He links to a great blogging cartoon and once again -- BlogSpot archive link points to something else...)

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Meanwhile over at KipperCat (I love that name) Jim Hart takes aim in this post at all the folks accusing Bush of "enhancing" the evidence that Iraq had WMD. And amazingly, the BlogSpot link works! Anyway, Jim points out that if Bush was lying, so were a whole lot of other folks including Clinton. Incidentally, this was much as Condi Rice said today on Meet The Press.

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Incidentally, SCSU Scholars (I think I'm a member of their alliance -- and you have to be a compulsive blog reader to know what that is reference to...) has been covering a lot of academic issues faced by colleges including tenure, PC'ness, etc. There is a lot of good reading here for those who want to know what goes on behind the scenes at the local university in anytown, USA.

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I couldn't agree more. Huh? Bill Quick has it exactly right in this post on Daily Pundit on the probable up-coming retirements of several (well, two) Supreme Court Justices:

This will be nearly as big a test of GWB's fortitude and "conservative" credentials as the war on terror.

I'm strictly a litmus-test voter here, and my litmus test is simple: The Second Amendment. It has been a dead letter in American law for far too long. High time the Supremes finally ruled on it and halted the gun-grabbers' unconstitutional, decades-long, semi-successful effort to nullify it. And get rid of a few thousand unconstitutional laws at the same time.

Exactly. And the comments that follow (so far) are correct, too. So go there now...

Here is what I said last December:

I'll just say that while there is nothing we can do internally for the leftist state of California, I personally thank God that Republicans did well in the elections just-past. At least we can hope (that G.W. Bush's) appointments to the various courts will now, finally be confirmed. Maybe the tide of judicial-activism perpetrated by liberal judges will finally ebb.

Of course, the douch-bag Democrats filibuster every appointee (because they apply their liberal litmus test to every one of them) (and they do that all the while decrying any litmus test from the "right.") The difference between the two is that liberal Democrats will only allow a judge who agrees with their ultra-radical-liberal agenda. They want judges who are activists and will "create law." The right-wing ideologs want judges who won't practice judicial activism but instead will interpret the constitution as it was written and intended.

You know, if we could just find a few politicians who truly believe in the Constitution as it was originally written. And use the "bully pulpit" for supporting that. But now we're stuck with two (opposite) extremes who have no idea of what our Founding Fathers intended. How sad.

So I support Republican's efforts to circumvent filibuster rules because Democrats have become so shrill and activist that they no longer serve anyone's interests. They are destroying America. They are un-American. They can't accept loss. And for that reason, they are losers. I will never align myself with cry-baby losers.

Enough -- I'm not even supposed to be blogging today. I usually take weekends off. But it's a nice sunny day out and like most computer geeks I'm spending it sitting inside by my computer. Yipes. What have I become? Maybe I'll take tomorrow off from blogging...

Mike Silverman was kind enough to email me (and also has a post up) about this article in the SF Bay Guardian. It discusses the growing of the San Francisco chapter of the Pink Pistols. Here's a quote:

Despite the jovial atmosphere, the assembled group was dead serious about the threat of hate crimes against queers in San Francisco, and about their right to arm themselves. All of them said they had no qualms about using a firearm to defend themselves against would-be attackers, either at home or on the streets.

"I've had death threats, property damage, harassment, [and I've] been followed," said the anonymous Pink Pistols member. "You have to wonder if more of us got CCW [carry concealed weapons] permits that hate crimes would go down."

I've discussed this plenty of times. Gays, and for that matter, anyone living "under siege" ought to take advantage of their rights by packing heat. I know. I was a victim once (I'll be happy to take off my shirt and show any of you the seven stab-wound scars) from someone who didn't like fags. These days if someone tries that on me they're going to get more than they bargained for. I might lose, but not without a fight.

Most gays (not all of course) seem to march lock-step with the liberal agenda of the Democrats. It's as if they seem unable to examine each issue on it's own and demand a politician who really reflects their views.

Take the issue of abortion. I'm against it of course ("of course" because I've said so here several times.) And by the way, if it is ever found that the DNA of a fetus could be used to determine the "inclination" (there are probably several factors involved) of the future child to become gay, I am willing to bet money that most parents (no matter how liberal they claim to be) would opt to abort that child. How would gays feel then? Want to bet they suddenly become pro-life?

Anyway, it's good to see at least some folks are capable of thinking for themselves and of assuming responsibility for their own protection.

I put up the following two posts late last week and then somehow they "disappeared" when I updated something else. So I'm putting them here now.

From the AP:

Wal-Mart has agreed to pay $200,000 in a court settlement and abide by New York laws governing the sale of toy guns, state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said Friday.

And:

Under the settlement announced Friday, Wal-Mart agreed to include the stripe for any toy guns sold in New York. Wal-Mart also agreed to follow a state law prohibiting the sale of toy guns in realistic colors of black, blue, silver or aluminum.

N.Y. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is a piece of junk who (as a public figure) has been --in my 1st Amendment protected opinion-- doing something not much short of --in my opinion-- extorting money out of honest, decent, legitimate companies ever since his (in my opinion) liberal-agenda-ass somehow wound up in his position.

In my opinion -- here-after shortened to IMO -- he is a piece of crap that should (IMO) be flushed down a toilet. I would never condone or encourage violence against anyone. I certainly am not promulgating it here. But -- and this is just a fantasy I wish would only come true by the hand of God -- I wish that Spitzer would trip and fall into a ditch. IMO, he represents the worst of liberal, "nanny-state" behavior.

[So Jeff, how do you really feel about him?]

He's the one who goes filing law suit after law suit against gun makers. He's the one who then files appeals when he loses those suits. Now he's going after "toy guns." How pathetic. And how much do you want to bet that like most liberal politicians, he probably has a CC license himself because, like other liberal fake, phony, frauds (such as Rosie O'Donnell and Sean Penn and Chuck Schumer) he thinks he has the right to protect himself, but "ordinary people" don't.

Any of you out there have access to New York's CC permits issued database? I'd like to know if piece-of-crap Spitzer has one.

Since a lot of folks in the blogosphere have been chatting it up about links and blogrolls, I want to say a few things about mine. "My Good Friends" blogroll is composed of kind folks who blogroll me. Most of them haven't told me they are, they just do it and I just discover it by various means. But I thank them just the same. And of course, when I find out about them, I add them to mine... Technorati let's me know some of whom is linking to me but not nearly all. And -- Technorati doesn't pick up my links to others. I guess it must be something weird about my website (my HTML coding) that can't be scanned. I really don't know how it works.

N.Z. Bear's own Ecosystem picks me up and also picks up links to specific posts. But misses many itself.

Anyway, this is all besides the point. I admit (and have before) that I'm a link whore... I'm proud to say that at this point there are 63 sites with perma-links to me. They're listed on the left side-bar. There are some heavy hitters there and some brilliant new-comers. I try to mention all as often as I can but Alphecca isn't really a blog of links per se. I try to maintain a balance: More then half the posts are in defense of the Second Amendment with special attention to the bias in media stories, and the other half are on various other political subjects.

Normally I don't blog about other blogs that much except occasionally when I do one of my "cruises." So don't take it personally if I don't link to you regularly... But I do appreciate your mentions and links. And By Golly, if you are blogrolling me, I will blogroll you.

The blogosphere isn't a competition, there's room for all of us. But it does require some marketing effort. So just email me and I'll help you out. (Not that I'm a big fish, but I do what I can for others. And that's more than I can say for many out there. If only all bloggers were as generous as my blogfather Glenn Reynolds. But of the "Big Four," he's the only one helping newcomers out.)

Enough of that. Check out my blogroll because there are several new additions to it. And scroll all the way through. Pick folks out at random. Start from the bottom. They all have great blogs and interesting stories to tell.

By the way, it appears that Armavirumque (from the New Criterion Magazine) is now starting up again. Well, they have one post up from a couple days ago. So far, their blogroll is quite short and I am very flattered to be included. But let me say this again, I'm flattered to be included (or linked to) by any blogger. Including YOU!

This is the last word I'm going to say about linkage for a long time...