Cmdr. Gravez0r
Member
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2007
- Messages
- 427
My humble viewpoint, posted here for your benefit (and maybe for my vanity).
Directly from my FaceBook notes.
How much is too much?Share
Friday, June 27, 2008 at 11:22pm | Edit Note | Delete
Because
a) I am feeling brilliant--actuality notwithstanding
b) I only have two topics of conversation in my rotation (those being guns and African politics)
c) gun conversations slide so well into African politics
d) I am somewhat euphorious over the Heller v. DC SCOTUS decision today
e) I want to
I am going to talk about guns and African politics.
Today SCOTUS ruled that the Washington, DC handgun ban is unconstitutional, throwing into jeopardy the legitmacy of similar bans across the country, especially in Chicago, where Mayor Daley lost his temper.
Needless to say I have guns on the brain, and my mind wandered to a greivance voiced by groups like the Brady bunch and the Violence Policy Center--namely, that assault rifles are dangerous and should be banned. So we're going to talk about assault rifles.
So what is an assault rifle? By law, an "assault rifle" so termed is a semi-automatic (that means one round fires with each trigger pull) rifle with a high-capacity magazine. It may or may not have a bayonet lug, foregrip, barrel shroud.
In otherwords, a "military-style" weapon.
So...why am I so worked up?
Because Congress in general, and Rep. McCarthy specifically, is stupid.
Tell me...which is the assault rifle?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ruger_Mini-14.jpg
OR
http://www.tapco.com/catalog.aspx?id=291
This is easy. You saw this coming. Those are the same rifle. The difference? The second one has the evil features. The first is a wholesome, all-American hunting rifle. The second, with the larger magazine, pistol grip, and collapsible stock, is a killing machine.
In order not to insult your intelligence--although the same courtesy will not be afforded Congress--the cosmetic stuff doesn't matter that much. Don't let anyone tell you that the pistol grip and the black stock make the weapon more dangerous, because that's simply not true. (Again, Congress says otherwise, and has gifted us with non-sensical laws like 922(r)). Us gunnies have a name for it--TactiCrap. (For those of you in Rio Linda, that's 'Tactical" + "Crap.")
What worries a lot of people more than anything else magazine capacity. They see a 30- 40- or 75-round magazine on the weapon and say, "why the heck does anyone need that many rounds? No law-abiding person would need that many bullets. Such a device is fit only for killing; it's designed for mass destruction."
To that I would say, yes. High capacity magazines were designed for and continue to facilitate killing all over the world. So...do we really want that much firepower available to your average Amurr'can citizen?
I'm so glad you asked.
Let's go back to killing for a minute. It's true that killing is, in general, bad. But there is such thing as a good killing, such as in war or in defense of home and family.
"But why do you need a 30-round magazine to defend your family? Isn't ten enough?" I don't know--ask the Iraqis, who are allowed by law to have a fully automatic AK with a 30-rnd magazine in the home. Just for defense against crime.
My point is...why would you limit a man's ability to defend himself by restricting the amount of ammunition directly available?
This is like telling people how fast a car you can drive, or how many dogs you can keep in your house. There's a right way to drive, a right way to own dogs, and a responsible way to use a 30-rnd magazine.
Let's move on to my next reason for high-capacity magazines: military equivalency. Simply put, military equivalency means that We the People should have equivalent or comparable firepower to the military that protects us, for two reasons.
1. So that we can assist them in the defense of our country, and
2. So that we can dispose of an oppressive government if necessary.
To number two, I usually hear two arguments: that It Won't Happen Here, and Even If It Did We Couldn't Stop Them Anyway.
First of all, could It happen here? I don't know. Ask the dudes (usually found on the left side of the aisle) if G.W. and Dick Cheney are infringing on civil liberties. Do you really trust your government? I don't. And not because I'm worried about my phone calls being tapped. We are dealing with a government that screws up everything it touches. And you want to trust them with your rights? Give me a break. No one is looking out for you in Washington, except maybe DeMint.
So. Do yourself a favor and quit trusting the government.
Number two. Could we stop a U.S. government with far greater organization? Or would a "resistance movement," Red Dawn style, simply be steamrolled into Oblivion? I don't know. Ask the British. They dealt with a similar situation back in the 1770's.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of these militia types who sleeps with a rifle and hopes for the fit to hit the shan so he can hop on some rock outcroppings and shout "WOLVERINES!!!" (Although my gun is three steps away from the bed, and there may be some incriminating pictures to secure...)
"But Graves...to be on par with the Army wouldn't we need stuff like machine guns, tanks, and artillery?" I'm glad you asked. The answer is YES!! Unfortunately, the ATF doesn't agree. But we're working on it. Maybe my next treatise will be an a argument for federal deregulation of machine guns. With the Heller outcome being positive, we can start to think about that.
Now, lets move on to the African politics segment. I'm going to make this short because I'm tired.
I hope you people have been following the situation in Zimbabwe. For some reason the media is covering it a lot more now that someone is standing up to Mugabe than when he was indiscrimately killing white people and stealing their property.
Mugabe is your typical former Soviet-backed thug who came to power at the end of a bush war, won a fair and free election, and promptly screwed his country over. He has directly or indirectly been responsible for the deaths of probably hundreds of thousands of people, either through outright killing or through lousy economic policy (worse than Ethiopia.)
Finally, people are ready to stand up to him. But...they can't. Why? Because they have no guns. Mugabe banned them a month after he came to power. Now the victims of his dictatorship are unable to resist. Members of the opposition party are beaten, run out of the country, or killed. It's bad.
All this from a country that once had prospects just as rosy as could be. Zimbabwe used to export more food than any other country in Africa. Now, its people starve in the thousands, because they have to recourse to tyranny.
They too, thought It Could Never Happen.
In closing, I want to give you this quote.
"Our votes must go together with our guns. After all, any vote we shall have, shall have been the product of the gun. The gun which produces the vote should remain its security officer--its guarantor. The people's votes and the people's guns are always inseparable twins."
What a great quote. Who uttered this wisdom? Locke? Madison? Jefferson? Washington?
Try Comrade Mugabe. Unfortunately, like most tyrants, Mugabe lost trust in the fickle populace and saw fit to renege on that little statement. After all, it's hard to kill people indiscrimately when they might shoot back.
Let's bring it home.
Mow much do you trust the government with their guns? And more importantly...how much do they trust you with yours?
http://www.lifelibertyetc.com/product.aspx?pid=33
*not affiliated with the above site
**Edit: I hope this is clear and lucid. Any sections of this note--which is suffering from lack of editing--which seem overly violent, angry, agressive, or otherwise stupid are, I assure you, caused by lack of lucidity rather than those actual traits.
That is all.
Directly from my FaceBook notes.
How much is too much?Share
Friday, June 27, 2008 at 11:22pm | Edit Note | Delete
Because
a) I am feeling brilliant--actuality notwithstanding
b) I only have two topics of conversation in my rotation (those being guns and African politics)
c) gun conversations slide so well into African politics
d) I am somewhat euphorious over the Heller v. DC SCOTUS decision today
e) I want to
I am going to talk about guns and African politics.
Today SCOTUS ruled that the Washington, DC handgun ban is unconstitutional, throwing into jeopardy the legitmacy of similar bans across the country, especially in Chicago, where Mayor Daley lost his temper.
Needless to say I have guns on the brain, and my mind wandered to a greivance voiced by groups like the Brady bunch and the Violence Policy Center--namely, that assault rifles are dangerous and should be banned. So we're going to talk about assault rifles.
So what is an assault rifle? By law, an "assault rifle" so termed is a semi-automatic (that means one round fires with each trigger pull) rifle with a high-capacity magazine. It may or may not have a bayonet lug, foregrip, barrel shroud.
In otherwords, a "military-style" weapon.
So...why am I so worked up?
Because Congress in general, and Rep. McCarthy specifically, is stupid.
Tell me...which is the assault rifle?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ruger_Mini-14.jpg
OR
http://www.tapco.com/catalog.aspx?id=291
This is easy. You saw this coming. Those are the same rifle. The difference? The second one has the evil features. The first is a wholesome, all-American hunting rifle. The second, with the larger magazine, pistol grip, and collapsible stock, is a killing machine.
In order not to insult your intelligence--although the same courtesy will not be afforded Congress--the cosmetic stuff doesn't matter that much. Don't let anyone tell you that the pistol grip and the black stock make the weapon more dangerous, because that's simply not true. (Again, Congress says otherwise, and has gifted us with non-sensical laws like 922(r)). Us gunnies have a name for it--TactiCrap. (For those of you in Rio Linda, that's 'Tactical" + "Crap.")
What worries a lot of people more than anything else magazine capacity. They see a 30- 40- or 75-round magazine on the weapon and say, "why the heck does anyone need that many rounds? No law-abiding person would need that many bullets. Such a device is fit only for killing; it's designed for mass destruction."
To that I would say, yes. High capacity magazines were designed for and continue to facilitate killing all over the world. So...do we really want that much firepower available to your average Amurr'can citizen?
I'm so glad you asked.
Let's go back to killing for a minute. It's true that killing is, in general, bad. But there is such thing as a good killing, such as in war or in defense of home and family.
"But why do you need a 30-round magazine to defend your family? Isn't ten enough?" I don't know--ask the Iraqis, who are allowed by law to have a fully automatic AK with a 30-rnd magazine in the home. Just for defense against crime.
My point is...why would you limit a man's ability to defend himself by restricting the amount of ammunition directly available?
This is like telling people how fast a car you can drive, or how many dogs you can keep in your house. There's a right way to drive, a right way to own dogs, and a responsible way to use a 30-rnd magazine.
Let's move on to my next reason for high-capacity magazines: military equivalency. Simply put, military equivalency means that We the People should have equivalent or comparable firepower to the military that protects us, for two reasons.
1. So that we can assist them in the defense of our country, and
2. So that we can dispose of an oppressive government if necessary.
To number two, I usually hear two arguments: that It Won't Happen Here, and Even If It Did We Couldn't Stop Them Anyway.
First of all, could It happen here? I don't know. Ask the dudes (usually found on the left side of the aisle) if G.W. and Dick Cheney are infringing on civil liberties. Do you really trust your government? I don't. And not because I'm worried about my phone calls being tapped. We are dealing with a government that screws up everything it touches. And you want to trust them with your rights? Give me a break. No one is looking out for you in Washington, except maybe DeMint.
So. Do yourself a favor and quit trusting the government.
Number two. Could we stop a U.S. government with far greater organization? Or would a "resistance movement," Red Dawn style, simply be steamrolled into Oblivion? I don't know. Ask the British. They dealt with a similar situation back in the 1770's.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of these militia types who sleeps with a rifle and hopes for the fit to hit the shan so he can hop on some rock outcroppings and shout "WOLVERINES!!!" (Although my gun is three steps away from the bed, and there may be some incriminating pictures to secure...)
"But Graves...to be on par with the Army wouldn't we need stuff like machine guns, tanks, and artillery?" I'm glad you asked. The answer is YES!! Unfortunately, the ATF doesn't agree. But we're working on it. Maybe my next treatise will be an a argument for federal deregulation of machine guns. With the Heller outcome being positive, we can start to think about that.
Now, lets move on to the African politics segment. I'm going to make this short because I'm tired.
I hope you people have been following the situation in Zimbabwe. For some reason the media is covering it a lot more now that someone is standing up to Mugabe than when he was indiscrimately killing white people and stealing their property.
Mugabe is your typical former Soviet-backed thug who came to power at the end of a bush war, won a fair and free election, and promptly screwed his country over. He has directly or indirectly been responsible for the deaths of probably hundreds of thousands of people, either through outright killing or through lousy economic policy (worse than Ethiopia.)
Finally, people are ready to stand up to him. But...they can't. Why? Because they have no guns. Mugabe banned them a month after he came to power. Now the victims of his dictatorship are unable to resist. Members of the opposition party are beaten, run out of the country, or killed. It's bad.
All this from a country that once had prospects just as rosy as could be. Zimbabwe used to export more food than any other country in Africa. Now, its people starve in the thousands, because they have to recourse to tyranny.
They too, thought It Could Never Happen.
In closing, I want to give you this quote.
"Our votes must go together with our guns. After all, any vote we shall have, shall have been the product of the gun. The gun which produces the vote should remain its security officer--its guarantor. The people's votes and the people's guns are always inseparable twins."
What a great quote. Who uttered this wisdom? Locke? Madison? Jefferson? Washington?
Try Comrade Mugabe. Unfortunately, like most tyrants, Mugabe lost trust in the fickle populace and saw fit to renege on that little statement. After all, it's hard to kill people indiscrimately when they might shoot back.
Let's bring it home.
Mow much do you trust the government with their guns? And more importantly...how much do they trust you with yours?
http://www.lifelibertyetc.com/product.aspx?pid=33
*not affiliated with the above site
**Edit: I hope this is clear and lucid. Any sections of this note--which is suffering from lack of editing--which seem overly violent, angry, agressive, or otherwise stupid are, I assure you, caused by lack of lucidity rather than those actual traits.
That is all.
