Laws Are For The Little People

US Representative James Sensennbrenner (R-WI) says:

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should be prosecuted for lying to Congress.

"Lying to Congress is a federal offense, and Clapper ought to be fired and prosecuted for it," the Wisconsin Republican said in an interview with The Hill.

He said the Justice Department should prosecute Clapper for giving false testimony during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in March....

The intelligence director said he tried to give the "least untruthful" answer he could without revealing classified information.

More here.

Gun Sales & the Right to Revolution

The number of National Instant Background Checks (NICS) run on Black Friday 2013 was the sixth-most in history at 144,758, according to the FBI...

There have already been 19,051,745 checks so far this year, and Christmas shopping is just getting started. Last year, there was a total of 19,592,303.

Put in perspective, the last year that President Bush was in office, there were 12,709,023. NICS checks have risen by more than 50 percent since Mr. Obama has been in the White House.

A guy from Cato today referred to the right of the people to revolution. At a Congressional hearing:

On Tuesday, Michael Cannon, Cato Institute’s Director of Health Policy Studies, testified before a congressional committee about the dangers of the president’s legal behavior.

“There is one last thing to which the people can resort if the government does not respect the restraints that the constitution places on the government,” Cannon said. “Abraham Lincoln talked about our right to alter our government or our revolutionary right to overthrow it.”

“That is certainly something that no one wants to contemplate,” he continued. “If the people come to believe that the government is no longer constrained by the laws then they will conclude that neither are they.”

“That is a very dangerous sort of thing for the president to do, to wantonly ignore the laws,” Cannon concluded, “to try to impose obligation upon people that the legislature did not approve.”

19,000,000 gun background checks per year X 5 years.... that's a lot of guns, most of which are new and will not wear out in the next 100 years.

We do live in interesting times. I hope they don't get a lot more interesting.

Aiea, Hawaii

Here is the Wikipedia entry for Aiea.

"This is America" Is Not A Magical Incantation

In 1913, what sane German would have claimed that within the remaining lifetime of a middle-aged person the German government would build extermination factories and use them to murder millions?

The time to resist despotic government is not after you have smugly eliminated all of your children's options. It is time to resist when the smug try to eliminate your options, and all of your children's options, and your grandchildren's. The intent of those eliminating options for resistance is irrelevant. Their intentions can be the very best, the most benign possible. All that matters in the future is the effect.

All of this debate about banning assault rifles is over sad circumstances, but the numbers pale beside what unleashed governments can do. Look at the FBI homicide data for 2011. All homicide deaths by rifle (All, not just "assault rifles"): 323.

Source: FBI Expanded Homicide Data for 2011.

How does one say "It cannot happen here" in German? In Polish? In Chinese? In Khmer? Who are we to say it cannot happen here? Cannot? "This is America" is not a magical incantation.

Let's Regulate Guns and Gun Owners Like We Regulate Cars and Drivers.

I think it is long passed time to accept the gun control advocates' proposition that we regulate guns and gun owners as tightly as we do automobiles and drivers.

If we regulated them alike, no one would need a federal license to deal guns. There would be no background check to buy one. Anyone of any age could own a gun. Anyone could operate it without a license so long as it was on private property. Anyone 16 or older could get a license to use i.e. carry a loaded gun in public simply by passing a simple written and practical test, and that license would be honored by every state.

Any licensed person could go to another state, show their license and a credit card, and rent a gun to be carried loaded in public. There would be no registration of guns so long as they were kept on private property, and unregistered guns could be transported on public streets and sidewalks so long as they were not loaded, just like towing or trailering an unregistered car.

There would be no limit on how many cartridges a gun or magazine could carry, just as there is no limit on gas tank capacity or horsepower. There would be no BATFE registration of mufflers i.e. sound suppressors, no background check for acquiring them, and no transfer tax for acquiring a sound suppressor. There would be no restrictions or special regulations on fully automatic weapons, just as there is no restriction on automatic transmissions.

I don't think the Constitution authorizes even such regulation, but few people care about the Constitution anymore. It would be a step in the right direction.

New York Post on "Fast and Furious" Gun Running Project

The New York Post excerpts a new book by John Dodson, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Dodson, who was on the scene while the scandal was playing, says:

Take the government out of this equation and nothing gets done. No guns get purchased, because there is no FBI money to pay for them; no guns get sold, because ATF is not coercing the gun dealers to sell them; and no guns get trafficked, because ATF is not using the guise of a “big case” to allow it all to happen.

More here.