Senate "Terrorism" Hearings

It is a small wonder that the Powers That Be didn't publicize this meeting. The remarkably unbalanced witness list alone serves a warning. The JPFO summary here gives an indication of just how had it can be. Read it.

If, in your lexicon, "common sense" is a synonym for "colossal stupidity" then this is a common sense measure. However, if you believe that meekly stacking your belongings and stepping into the boxcar is a good way to get disappeared then you might recognize this as an attempt by the Administration to disarm its opponents.

Additionally, the Liberty Coalition testifies it is grossly unconstitutional. Not that matters to the current Administration any more than it did to the one before.

As always, there is useful commentary from David Codrea and a followup.

I predict that, should this make its way into law, it will not be used to go after real terrorists. It will be used to suppress dissent in the United States. The terror list has been wielded as a weapon against legitimate petition for redress before. For example in 2009, The Maryland State police admitted they classified non violent activists as terrorists:

The Maryland State Police have admitted classifying 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists, including opponents of the war and the death penalty, and tracking them in state and federal "terrorism" databases. Cops infiltrated organizing meetings and rallies, and spied on political email lists, similar to the government infiltration of the RNC.

The groups targeted, including the Maryland Campaign to End the Death Penalty and the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance, aren't suspected of harming anyone, aren't suspected of bombing anyone, and aren't even suspected of vandalizing property.

They're "fringe people," says Thomas E. Hutchins, the former state police superintendent who authorized the operation. "I don't believe the First Amendment is any guarantee to those who wish to disrupt the government," he said.

Terrorist Watch List: Homeland Security Defines Millions Of Americans As Domestic Derrorists[sic] (retrieved on May 5, 2010)

Fugit irreparabile tempus, singula dum capti circumvectamur amore

Scaring the Straights?

From Sipsey street Irregulars

Received this comment that seemed worthy of further discussion.

Ed Rasimus has left a new comment on your post "What passes for critical thinking at the Wall Street Journal":

At issue isn't the protesting against the administration, but the prudence and wisdom of flaunting the firearms at Starbuck's and park gatherings. We shouldn't question the right to do it and we should always be aggressive in defense of the Second Amendment, but we have to recognize that there is the aspect noted in the WSJ which is that it gives the hoplophobes something to illustrate their meme about redneck, dangerous, militia types who are a social hazard.

We act against our interest when we do that.

Do we really? Is it really in our interest to worry about whether we scare the straights or not?

Your thoughts, Irregulars.

The GLBT's, I've been told, debated the wisdom of scaring the straights with open displays. They knew that their behavior might upset the hetero majority and harm the "movement". Maybe it did but the harm was small while the benefits were large. If nothing else, it made it plain that many of the GLBT's were tired of living on the fringes of society.

Now the gunnies are having a parallel argument and in the long run I think it will have a similar outcome. As a group, gun owners are tired of being pushed around and marginalized. They are not going to back up any more -- not one goddamn inch! -- and the best way to defend a right is to push back against the infringements. Open Carry rallies where the gunnies demonstrate that willingness to push back have been shining examples of decorum and civility: No one has been shot. No negligent discharges. Hell! They even clean up after themselves.

While I generally suspect any appeals to "historical inevitability", I think gun owners "coming out of the closet" is an idea whose time has come and critics of Open Carry like Ed Rasimus and Nancy DeWolf Smith are going to have to get used to it.

Blair Holt Bill

Recently I've received a few emails about the Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009. This bill would burden firearms ownership (the "keep" part of the Second Amdendment) with licensing, registration and taxes (called fees but they're not fooling most of the people)

It is always important to keep an eye on the license loving fascists in Congress and this is the kind of bill that might be sneaked through in a midnight session. Nevertheless, pro-gun activists, while vigilant, don't seem worried about it. The bill has no co-sponsors indicating of a lack of enthusiasm for it among other congressmen. Politicians, above all things desire power and, historically, it is true that to exercise total power requires the gun owing members of the populace be rendered ineffective to resist. If every Jew in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle, 20 rounds of ammunition and the will to use them, National Socialism would probably be a minor footnote in the history of the Weimar Republic.

As things stand right now, an overt gun control bill would cause the so-called "progressives" to lose power in the upcoming elections. Their leadership (in both parties) is egotistical, openly fascist and would undoubtedly love to waco every decent gun owner in America but I seriously doubt they are stupid enough to risk the ire of the 80 million gun-owning citizens newly energized by the Heller decision and the probable incorporation of the Second Amendment in McDonald. I suspect that the House Democrats will allow the Blair Holt bill to die in subcommittee rather than risk the ire of pro-gun voters. If not then, "Cum ulla sella in pugno taberna."

Any chair in a bar fight.