We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
It is a sad fact that one of the things that causes the libertarian movement to get stronger is other groups in society getting weaker.
Consider Britain’s gun owners. Until recently they were very content, using their guns to attack targets, animals, and even the occasional bad human being. Most of their intellectual effort went into discussing amongst themselves which guns were the best, how to hit targets even more accurately, how to make sure that the only other creatures they shot were creatures they were trying to shoot, and so forth.
Then suddenly the government (worse, almost the entire country) held the gunners responsible for a couple of gun massacres of good human beings and decided to take their guns away from them. Somebody had to take the blame, and the actual perpetrators were already dead.
Suddenly a sublimely apolitical group got politicised. Suddenly they found themselves trying to persuade others of the wisdom and rightness of them being allowed to go on using their guns, which you can’t do only by talking about the technicalities of guns, although God knows they tried that. They found, far too late, that they would have to learn about politics, and in particular about whatever political principles might allow them to keep on owning their guns, or failing that, might one day allow them to own guns again. Thus many persons who formerly cared only about guns, suddenly started to care about things like libertarianism also.
I believe that another group which is about to be policised are the home schoolers, and not just of Britain but of the entire Anglosphere. Everywhere you look, in Britain and in the USA certainly, and I’m sure everywhere else where “education otherwise” is still allowed, efforts are being made to end what appears to professional state educators as a strange and scandalous legal anomaly. → Continue reading: Guns, the attack on home schooling, and the growth of the libertarian movement
Jeff Jacoby has a superb article on Jewish World Review about a woman’s right to defend herself:
But what if some of those women did want to protect themselves with guns? If they walked into a police station and applied for a license to carry a firearm for their personal protection, would they get one?
“They would not,” says Mariellen Burns, the Boston police spokeswoman.
What if they lived in the North End and two of their friends had been raped and they were terrified that they might be next?
Tough luck, says Burns. “Living in a high crime area is just not enough of a reason to get an unrestricted license to carry.”
Now, it is not news that Boston and Brookline — and Massachusetts generally — are frequently out of step with most of America. But it ought to be news when public officials increase the risk to life and limb of the people they are sworn to serve. And make no mistake: Those who prevent law-abiding women from arming themselves with guns make it easier for rapists and other predators to attack them with impunity.
Read the whole article as it is terrific stuff. But the fact is, it is not news that “public officials increase the risk to life and limb of the people they are sworn to serve”, it is actually the norm – for it to be otherwise, now that would be (good) news.
The state will nearly always try to place whatever its functionaries perceived to be its own narrow institutional interests before those of its subjects. The very nature of modern governance is about management, which is usually interpreted to mean control, and keeping weapons out of the hands of private individuals is pretty much the perfect manifestation of the desire to have the ability to easily impose management decisions on people who might not see that decision as being in their interests.
Yet the reality is that what makes management decisions by the state different from management decisions by a company or individual is that the state backs its decisions with the threat of force and does not think twice about intermediating itself into a person’s life without consent. The fact that very real threats to your personal safety are trumped by the state’s desire to maintain exclusive control over the means of self defence pretty much proves that the state regards its ability to impose management decisions as manifestly more important than a person’s right to life and limb, let alone private property.
In reality, the principle threat to most people in high crime areas are not so much the muggers but the state which make you easy prey for them and requires you to live in fear for its own convenience.
The state is not your friend.
If you like shooting guns for sport then it follows, as a matter of unalterable logic in today’s world, that you must be a nutter, a psycho, clearly not the kind of person to invite to dinner parties and definitely not in tune with today’s world. Well, that at least is the message given out by our ‘splendidly objective’ state-owned broadcaster, the British Broadcasting Corporation.
In an excellent article in this week’s edition of the Spectator, Michael Yardley shows how Britons’ recent success in shooting competitions at the Commonwealth Games were blanked by the BBC.
I particularly liked this paragraph:
“Shooting by law-abiding individuals remains an icon of liberty and thus a target for destruction by the apparatichiks of the nanny state. Shooters understand what political correctness is about: the empowerment of the central state by means of the disempowerment of the individual. Accept the idea that the individual is not to be trusted, that there is a need for wardens of thought in a world without sharp edges or real risk, and the battle for freedom is lost. You might, meanwhile, like to take up shooting just because it is fun.”
Well, on the latter point, I am doing just that. I am off to Las Vegas in September to attend a Front Sight course, in what promises to be three days of excellent handgun shooting practice. It is such a shame that this noble sport cannot be practised in the UK.
The Daily Telegraph reports today that a farmer who was accused of shooting intruders at his home has been acquitted. Frederick Hemstock, who had claimed he intended to fire the gun in the air to frighten two intruders, has been cleared of deliberately shooting one of them.
The judge in the case also criticised the police for refusing to answer an emergency call made by the defendant’s wife. Why is anyone surprised? Dialing 999 is now the equivalent of playing the National Lottery.
Of course, if Mr. Hemstock had deliberately shot the intruder, then he still would not have been guilty in my eyes if he could have been shown to prove self-defence. But as we sadly know, self-defence is the Number One crime in this country. Meanwhile, PC Plod has all those speeding CCTV cameras to attend to…
By August 1999, Norfolk farmer Tony Martin had had enough. After suffering a string of burglaries, he bought himself a shotgun. The next time he was burgled, by Fred Barrass and Brendon Fearon he used it. Barrass was killed, Fearon was wounded and the British State, outraged at the impertinence of this man in defending his home, saw to it that Martin was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison (the charge was subsequently reduced to manslaughter on appeal but Martin still languishes in jail).
Now, in a development of Swiftian absurdity, that poor, wounded little lamb Fearon is suing Martin for damages. He will, alas, have no trouble in finding lawyers to represent him and not just prosecute his case but do so with missionary zeal and conviction.
When I was first dating my wife (a barrister) I had occasion to meet most of her colleagues nearly all of whom were not so much lawyers as left-wing activists who had simply chosen the vehicle of the legal profession to press home their visions.
These people were ideologically and professionally committed to (a) screwing landlords, (b) destroying men in divorce cases, (c) protecting and succouring every scumbag thief and burglar (especially where they knew for sure he was guilty), (d) bankrupting employers, (e) trying (though thankfully failing) to ensure that men had no defence to rape allegations.
These people are probably quite senior now and they’re mouths will be watering at the thought of getting Tony Martin in court and stripping him of whatever few assets he has left. As far as they are concerned, Fearon is the innocent victim and Martin a fascist, racist monster.
I realise that this sounds like yet another ‘reactionary rant’ but I assure you I have experienced these obnoxious creatures first-hand and, if anything, I am understating the case. What is truly scary is that, in five to ten years, they will almost certainly be sitting on the benches in judgement.
I was wholly unsurprised to learn that Fearon had been given Legal-Aid (taxpayer funding) to pursue his claim. There is a certain horrid symmetry to it; the State that ruined Tony Martin’s life may as well move in to finish the job. Fearon will almost certainly win his claim and Martin will lose his home.
I would dearly love to endorse Dale Amon’s advice below to my fellow Britons but, in all good conscience, I can’t. In a country where raising your hands in self-defence is among the worst crimes you can commit, it is far less costly to simply let the barbarians in and take what they will.
Yesterday’s issue of “The Sun” (Saturday July 6th) has an article by John Askill “Gipsy burglar sues farmer”, one of the more appalling items I’ve read recently. The first line says it all: “The burglar wounded by Tony Martin is suing the farmer on Legal Aid, it was revealed yesterday.”
A few years ago I dealt with a computer sales guy from Atlanta, Georgia, an ex-US Army man who married a Belfast woman. I think this place was too much for him because after a few years he got divorced and went home to Atlanta. But I’ve always remembered some advice he gave me on dealing with burglars: “Use the Double Tap”.
He became proficient at the technique while on active duty. It’s a great small arms method of ensuring your target doesn’t get up again. Like most really good ideas, it is dead simple.
Your aim point is the center of the burglar’s torso; you pull the trigger twice, very quickly. That’s where the “double tap” name comes from. The first bullet is likely to hit mid body and dissuade him from further action. The recoil from the first shot pulls your aim point upwards such the second is a head shot. If executed correctly it’s an easy kill. Good ol’ US Army small arms training there!
He was advised by a police friend not to use more than two shots if at all possible. More might be considered “excessive force”. You should only use a third round if the lowlife is still breathing,. Make sure it’s not in the back so you won’t be accused of firing while he’s trying to get away.
If the body falls out of the door, drag it across the threshold before the police arrive.
Farmer Martin’s big mistake was leaving Fearon breathing. He certainly couldn’t be any worse off, and besides… dead men don’t sue.
Heard on the radio news so no link, but a 39 year-old man has been shot dead on the doorstep of his East London home in front of his three children.
Thus far, the killing appears to be motiveless.
And it’s getting closer. I was returning from work tonight to find my local shopping parade taped off and crawling with cops. A man was shot six times while sitting in his parked car.
This happened about 150 yards from my home.
That’s the headline. The story, in the Independent of yesterday (Thursday June 6), continues:
Medical staff at two London hospitals will be taught the emergency techniques on an intensive course that until now has been used to prepare military surgeons for frontline treatment of troops in the Balkans and Afghanistan.
The conclusion they’ll draw is that gun-control (in fact weapons control generally – the courses also include stab wounds) isn’t tight enough, and the law-abiding civilian tendency will have to surrender even more of their weapons, such as, I don’t know, their Sunday carving knives.
Four people have been gunned down in a drive-by shooting outside a nightclub in Bradford.
Residents in Manchester have taken to the streets in protest at the rising level of gun violence.
And (just on the TV so no link yet) a man has been shot dead in a pub in the East End of London.
Perry’s internet connection has been on the blink all day, on account of it being cable-based. That little power cut (see my previous post below, end of) apparently deranged his cable company. (His cable TV was out also. I hate that. Always keep business and pleasure on separate kit, I say. That way, when one fails you can still do the other.) Anyway the upshot is I promised Perry I’d shove something onto Samizdata tonight. Which is now.
Well the blog fairy has spoken, and I have my topic. It’s one of those mildly entertaining American movies (I’m combining blog pleasure with the pleasure of late night junk TV) about decorative but badly behaved people with nicer houses and swimming pools and weather than they deserve. It stars David Caruso and Marg Helgenberger and is called Elmore Leonard’s Gold Coast. And the David Caruso character has just said something calculated to annoy Samizdata and just about all its friends and readers everywhere:
“People who don’t own guns don’t get shot as often as people who do.”
That sounds like one of the big pro-gun-control mantras to me. Now most anti-anti-gun-controllers are no doubt familiar with all the wrongnesses of this mantra, but indulge me. It’s a somewhat new claim to me, and I want to explain (basically to myself) what’s wrong with it.
Error One – that the only bad thing a person with a gun can ever do to you is shoot you. But of course there’s something else, in fact a lot else. He can threaten to shoot you, and then without actually shooting you he can do lots of other bad things to you, or that you would otherwise have stopped him doing. So even if owning a gun yourself might have got you into a gun fight, the risks of such a fight might easily have been preferable to what happens as a result of you not being able to even threaten such a fight. Not getting shot is not a guarantee of happiness. You may not get shot, but you may be raped, or robbed, or powerless while your family ditto. There are worse things than getting shot, even than being shot dead.
Error Two – most of the above applies also to when you are attacked by someone physically stronger than you, but when neither you nor he has a gun. It all applies if, for example you are an averagely strong male who is not good at hand-to-hand combat, while he’s an above averagely strong male who is. In those circumstances you brandishing a gun makes all the difference (provided you’re willing to use it), even if you do take the risk that the physically stronger attacker does have a gun after all and waves it back at you in “self defence”.
Error Three, and I think this is my biggest objection – the benefits of widespread gun ownership among non-criminals for the purpose of self-defence are dispersed throughout society. Even if it were true that “people who own guns don’t get shot as often as people who do”, and even if getting shot was the worst thing that could happen to you, and the risk of getting shot was the worst risk you could take, that still wouldn’t mean that non-criminals being forbidden to own guns (the real world effect of gun control laws) is a good public policy. The widespread existence of non-criminals willing to take the risks alluded to by the David Caruso character may not make life safer for each non-criminal gun-owner, but between them these people sure as hell make for a better world. And if enough non-criminals can be persuaded to accept these burdens, the criminals pretty much give up, and the guns need never be fired, just owned. Think of the non-criminal gun-owners as soldiers in the war against crime, a war which they and only they can win. And think of David Caruso as the guy who says, don’t be a soldier, you’ll only get yourself shot at. That may make sense, even if the “only” is overstating things. But pacifism as a public policy absolutely does not make sense merely for that reason.
As for the claim that it’s the job of “experts” – like the good police – to do all the good gun-fighting against the bad criminals, and not the good civilians, well that seems to me like saying that you can win a land battle with the massed ranks of your own infantry stripped of all their weapons, but backed up by “expert” air power. Tell that to the Marines.
That last little metaphor might actually have contributed something useful to the argument, in the form of an aphorism worth copying and pasting to other places. Keep writing for long enough, and eventually you find yourself being brief, and to the point.
Yesterday at Instapundit, just in case there are any Samizdata readers who read this but not that, there was a link to a story in the Boston Globe about the failure of anti-gun laws to control crime, in Britain. Depressing. The story. And the fact that the story seems only to be being told in America.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
