Doesn’t it?
Just when you thought you’d seen it all, someone opened up with a set of twin-mounted .30-caliber machine guns, or the more lethal array of quad-mounted .50-cals in a swivel turret.
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October 16th, 2003 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Could there be such a thing a ‘Legal Laffer Curve’? What I mean is, a point where there are so many laws that the State cannot possibly enforce them and their agents start to wilt under the pressure of trying to do so. From then on the whole thing starts to go downhill and the lawlessness begins to grow uncontrollably. Has that point been reached?
A very telling admission from a man who is clearly under pressure. However my sympathy-meter is stuck at nought. The police have spent decades campaigning vigourously to abolish just about every right of the citizens to preserve their own security and, of course, the means to do so. The natural consequence is that they have arrogated that burden onto themselves and it is a burden the can neither cope with nor discharge. Truly that is a zero-sum game. Yes, I think something will have to ‘give’ but knowing this country as I do, I doubt very much that it will be the pathology of total control that has caused the problem in the first place. October 10th, 2003 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
The US Centers for Disease Control (for our UK friends, that’s the same as “Centres for Disease Control”) recently admitted that gun control laws can’t be shown to do much of anything to reduce violence. From the press release:
A little background and a few points to consider: The CDC has a long history of being virulently anti-gun. That it would make such an admission, even in such painfully hedged terms, is no small thing. The diversion of the Centers for DISEASE Control into the gun debate was a prime example of mission creep and of the notion that violence is not the result of personal decision and (ir)responsibility, but rather was the result of impersonal forces and even of inanimate objects. Alternatively, this may also be cited as an example of the way that administrative agencies bend to the political winds – the CDC was pro-gun control under pro-gun control administrations, and now . . . . My acquaintance with the tenured civil servant class, though, tends to undercut this attack. The folks who generate these kinds of reports are very nearly untouchable, and if anything their motivation increases when they disagree with the politicals. I have always said that the burden of proof rests on those who would restrict our liberties. This report would seem to pretty well indicate that the burden has not been met on gun control. It will be interesting to see if this affects the coming expiration of the assault weapons ban. Bush has said he will sign an extension of the ban if it lands on his desk (another black mark on his permanent record). The CDC report should be useful to opponents of the ban. October 7th, 2003 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
Glenn Reynolds has an interesting article with links on violent crime. US murder rates have continued to drop over the last ten years and are now at the lowest seen since the 1960’s. Meanwhile, as we have seen in the last week, murder in the UK has been skyrocketing. One of the linked articles also reports something many of us have predicted. If cheap guns cannot be bought, they will be manufactured. It turns out that is exactly what is happening in the UK. It is not as if gunsmithing were a high technology endeavour. Is there anyone out there who truly believes hand-made items manufactured in 16th century London workshops cannot be built to much higher standards in a 21st Century London garage? Where there is a customer, there’s a way. PS: An interesting thought struck me whilst off in the shower… we may be on the verge of a new generation of experimental and creative armourers here in the UK. October 6th, 2003 | 50 comments - (Comments are closed)
The time has come for the government to take firm action.
This must never be allowed to happen again. How many more lives are going to be sacrificed to the cowboy, wild-west gun culture that has gripped this country? How many more families are going to be destroyed? When is this government going to do something to make our streets safe again? We must get guns out of private hands. All handguns and automatic weapons must be banned completely. We must have strict laws against possessing these kind of deadly weapons backed up by draconian sentences. If it saves even one life its worth it. Enough is enough. Britain needs gun control now! Update: I have just been advised by my eagle-eyed team of researchers that, in fact, Britain has the strictest anti-gun laws in the developed world and that handguns and automatic weapons were banned years ago! I told them that this cannot possibly be true but they assure me that it is. Well, back to the drawing-board to find a new campaign. Any suggestions? October 3rd, 2003 | 63 comments - (Comments are closed)
This is both good news and bad news:
The good news is that this absurd and fraudulent legal threat from “Mr” Fearon now looks as if it will cease. The bad news is that this deal accepts not only the equality before the law but also of legal outcome of a householder and his burgling attacker. Maybe (maybe), Fearon has suffered enough for what he did to Tony Martin, although I doubt if he has suffered nearly enough for what he has done to lots of others. But Tony Martin has certainly suffered far too much. If this deal makes his life easier and happier, then I’m for it, and of course he knows his own best interests. But the law should never have put him in the absurd position of having to negotiate with this thieving little apology for a man in the first place, just to stop any further predations. Sting in the tail of the Telegraph piece already quoted from:
But of course. Going off at a bit of a tangent, I posted some news yesterday afternoon and last night over at White Rose of another bit of broadcasting done by Sean Gabb, whose efforts on behalf of Tony Martin were featured here in two recent posts, this time on the subject of Identity Cards. I didn’t hear the broadcast, but Sean apparently did very well, with much phoned-in and e-mailed support. ID cards will do nothing to stop the likes of Fearon in their criminal rampages. ID card forgery will merely be another crime for criminals to commit and another pointless governmental expense, as Britain seems about to learn, and as Nigeria, apparently, already knows. There, the forgeries came several weeks before the real things themselves! September 22nd, 2003 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
Which is to say, a politician I respect. Now I do not always see eye to eye with Ron Paul, the
Damn, that is almost enough to turn me into a Republican! Now if that party could just do something about its mercantilist anti-market trade policies, repressive sexual policies in some states and nasty tendency to vastly increase the size and scope of state whilst claiming to be the party of small government… September 21st, 2003 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
Despite the most draconian anti-gun laws in the known universe, the British police are having to resort to enlisting the help of musicians in an attempt to curb gun crime:
What’s all this nonsense about ‘escalating gun culture’? How can that be? Isn’t that something Americans are forced to endure but we Brits are mercifully free of? Priceless. September 21st, 2003 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
In response to my posting below about Sean Gabb’s radio interview with Tony Martin, a couple of commenters from the USA have inquired as how they may make a contribution to Mr.Martin’s legal defence fund. Allow me to assist. Mr.Martin has a support group with a website which, I believe, has details of how to contribute to his civil defence fund. September 21st, 2003 | Comments are closed
Our friend Sean Gabb is no stranger to radio or TV broadcasting. Indeed, so commonplace are his incisive contributions to both that Sean himself appears to regard them as somewhat mundane. But yesterday was different. Yesterday, Sean travelled the studios of BBC Radio Oxford to take part in a phone-in debate on law and order. One of the other studio guests was none other than Tony Martin. As Sean himself says:
If it is possible to be incandescent with envy then I am. As is his custom, Sean has written about his afternoon with Tony Martin:
Sean has a gift for commentary which few can emulate. This article, as with so many of his other writings, has all the solemn dignity and moving power of a hymn. His melancholy conclusions alone deserve the widest possible audience if only as a chronicle of these troubled times. Seldom has the phrase ‘read it and weep’ been quite so literal. [Update: I think ‘whoops’ is the appropriate phrase. I drafted this and posted it up without realising that Brian was doing exactly the same thing only marginally sooner. But even duplication can be quite instructive as both Brian and I live up to our respective reputations of him being optimistic and me being pessimistic in response to precisely the same article.] September 19th, 2003 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
The latest Free Life Commentary is the occasional essay series written and e-published by the Libertarian Alliance’s Sean Gabb. In the latest, number 112, he descibes how he yesterday spent An Afternoon with Tony Martin:
And so should you, by reading the whole thing. Sean took photographs of the event, or persuaded others to take photos in those cases where he was a photographee. Sean, to those who have known him at all long, looks impressively slim, while Tony Martin looks pleasingly plump despite his ordeal by injustice, and subsequently by celebrity. The piece may be about a rather doleful subject, namely injustice and official stupidity. Nevertheless I found that reading it made me feel quite cheerful – cheerful that such men as Tony Martin exist, cheerful that I have a friend like Sean Gabb who is prepared to go to all that trouble just to lend him moral support and then to write about it, and cheerful that I now have the chance to give the whole event another little boost, thanks to Samizdata. September 19th, 2003 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
According to FEE Missouri has joined the free states:
I understand Michigan is also very close to falling in line. Correction: It’s Wisconsin, not Michigan September 12th, 2003 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
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