Our nation has a misconception that government is permanent. The perception is that we can't change or alter our government substantially. Well we can. The colonists that took the traditions of classical liberalism to fruition by force did it. Two-hundred and thirty years ago, the Founders of this nation who were exasperated with the rampant authoritarianism of the English Empire rebelled against their masters.
These men took the existing operating system and replaced it with a better system. They rebooted their system because it had become too intrusive and oppressive. The King's men no longer respected private property or basic rights of the Americans (who were still really British in those days). So those British citizens risked everything and fought their own government in a bid to end the corrupt oppression forced upon them by the King's government. It was a horrible risk, but they took it. The price of being forced into a lower status by the State was no longer worth not fighting for the few that initially took up arms.
So, it isn't unheard of for Americans to change their government by force when grievances aren't rectified. It isn't unheard of for a populace to rise up against its oppressive servants-turned-masters of a State. Thomas Jefferson even encouraged rebellion against the State as a necessity:
"A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical...It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."
But is this a viable philosophy towards rebellion in this era? In the 1700s, free speech's range was limited to how far a speaker could shout and how fast a paper could be delivered. If the State prohibited or regulated public speech or the press, the last and only recourse was a reactive act of force against the State's force.
These days, speech has many more outlets. These outlets can be easily monitored by the State, but are much harder to regulate or control. The Internet is the bastion of free speech. It can monitored easily, but its very global ethereal nature retards attempts at censorship or control.
This attempt at regulation failed miserably.
Unfortunately, with the exception of a few civil liberty-minded politicians, the State could care less about the opinions of its citizens. Given the more uncontrollable nature of speech in our current technology age, is force less necessary than it was centuries ago?
I say no. Although citizens are more able to speak freely to a larger audience because of technology, that same technology denies anonymity for most people and also enables the State to monitor and catalog information on citizens. This provides a different, but no less dangerous, threat to the liberty of a nation.
Just as in self-defense, one must eventually turn to force when threatened and confronted with intimidation. Even if this intimidation originates from the State, it must be resisted.
The following is not to be memorized or memorialized as the Pledge and Anthem are. It is merely the thoughts of a free-thinking and libertarian-minded individual living in the USA.
I am a citizen of the United States of America. I possess natural rights. These rights are assumed with every human life (or are given by the Creator according to belief). These rights are not granted to me by any government, piece of paper, or other human. These rights are, however, outlined and enumerated in the Bill of Rights in order to restrain the State from interfering with these rights. The Bill of Rights does not grant me these rights, but protects and states them.
The State does not have the authority, though it may have the power, to restrict what I do with my brain, body, genitalia, property, currency, or thought unless I seek to do or do harm to others. It is not the business of men I do not know to control my life unless in the defense others.
Nor is it the responsibility of the police to protect me. I am dependent upon myself for protection and reliant and cooperative with the justice system only for the prosecution of criminals. I am reliant upon myself for my needs, basic or advanced. I do not need the State to educate my children, feed me, keep me healthy, look out for my welfare, nor assist me. My personal preparation and ability or my voluntary community will carry me or aid me.
I am not a sovereign citizen, for I am a citizen of the United States of America, and will remain so until the State no longer respects me as an individual or my rights. However, I owe no allegiance to the State, nor my leaders, nor any patriotic symbol of the Nation. My only allegiance is to uphold, defend ,and respect the rights and liberty of myself and others. I will be tolerant and loving until others plan, wish, or do me or mine harm. It not my business, just as it is not the State's, what others do in their home.
The State ceases to be legitimate when it and its components seek the elimination of human rights via a monopoly of force. I will resist this force to my best ability. I will lend my hand to the Nation, not the State. The State serves us and should be monitored closely and restrained by the Nation.If the State has overgrown its bounds and is infringing upon the liberty of individuals, it should be replaced.
No Pledge or Alliance binds me to the State. I am not responsible nor beholden to it. My loyalty is bound only to its respect of my rights.
Rights are mine. The State cannot take them away, but it can suppress them. Paramount among these rights is that of free speech. Free speech enables the non-violent restraint of the State. Criticism, challenge, and reform are enabled by free speech.
Second of all is my right to bear arms. This right enables defense against those that wish harm and defense against the monopoly of force the State attempts to hold.
There are other rights that all citizens possess that deserve to be respected. And if the State does not not respect them as stated in the Constitution, the State should be, at minimum, be reformed, and at most, removed. This is not treasonous, nor un-patriotic (whatever that means anymore). It is exactly what happened in 1776, and is how this nation was born. It is American to the core to resist illegitimate authority. The original Patriots resisted overbearing and illegitimate authority, we should not hesitate either.
Currently trained as an engineer, I have had the distinction between precision and accuracy driven into me. But I've noticed that in the shooting community that the usage of one is neglected or that they are used interchangeably.
This is unfortunate, since the distinction is important, even in shooting.
Precision is a function of the rifle's build qualities and the ability of the shooter. Precision is the ability to fire bullets within a certain distance of each each other (normally a good benchmark is 1 MOA see below). This is normally referred to as "a grouping".
Accuracy is something quite different. An accurate rifle setup will deliver bullets with the center of the shots being the intended target. An inaccurate rifle setup is the result of the sights or optics not being aligned with the barrel. Accuracy has more to do with whether the bullet struck close to the target or not ("closer" being subjective), where precision involves whether the rifle is able to deliver a bullet to very close to the same location again and again.
Often an "accurate" rifle is actually precise. The user adjusts the optic/sights to make the setup accurate by definition, but the gun is capable of shooting bullets nearly on top of each other. Obviously the goal of any shooter is to be precise and accurate, even though most would just say accuracy is the goal.
Precision and accuracy together produce repeatability. Th ability to hit small targets consistently and reliably is the object of almost all shooters.
With this post, I wanted to bring up these definitions, no matter how trifling they are. I find it odd that the two distinctions aren't used more often in the shooting world, given the fascination with precision rifles.
***
Roughly speaking a 1 MOA rifle means it can reliably hit 1" at 100 yards, 2" at 200 yards, and 5" at 500 yards.
A 3 MOA rifle would hit 3" at 100, 9" at 300, and so on.
A sub-MOA rifle would hit smaller that an inch at 100 and smaller than 4" at 400 yards.
One MOA is considered by many to be a fine rifle and sub-MOA rifles are considered superb.
We're all aware of the events in Boston. It is national news that a large portion of Boston was in lockdown and that searches by thousands of law enforcement officers were underway. When Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was eventually caught, the people of Boston came out and applauded the work of their public officials. And rightly so. After a chase which resulted in one MIT campus officer dead and a transportation officer severely wounded, the officers that exhibited extraordinary bravery and courage against heavily armed suspects should be applauded.
But now, what about the massive civil liberties infractions against the residents of Boston? What about the paramilitary SWAT and FBI teams that ,without warrant or justified cause, unlawfully invaded people's homes and privacy?
It doesn't even matter that if those people complied or agreed or not. There were direct violations of the 1st and 4th Amendments.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
People were told to stay in their houses and to not use cell phones or social media in case the suspect was using cell-phone activated explosives or social media for information. So people (citizens) were told to not communicate or speak with others or their neighbors and to stay in their homes. A direct and onerous violation of the 1st Amendment since it attempted to restrict free assembly and free speech.
Perhaps even more disgusting were the house-to-house raids of entire streets. A video of which I have included below.
I'm not trying to steal the video. I just wanted it to originate from somewhere besides YouTube in case it is pulled down. The original video was uploaded by YouTube user rambone5 and can be found in higher quality here. (Blogger restricts videos to under 100 Mb.)
No warrants were served, but unreasonable searches were. What a horrific violation of people's right to stay in their own home unmolested by the State! This is almost un-fathomable to think that 2013 America allows this bullshit to occur. Maybe it is because this happened in New England, where the populace is accustomed to their rights being played with. I have a feeling this wouldn't fly in certain regions of the Midwest. They wouldn't try it, and if they did, there would be significant resistance, possibly even armed, from the populace. One terrorist running rampant does not eliminate my rights. The only thing that eliminates my rights is my death.
At which point does law enforcement no longer become justified and their actions no longer within the law. I would say when they start directly violating the Constitution. Citizens have to follow rules and laws respecting others. So does law enforcement.
I'm sorry officer. From my warm live hands. Get off my porch.
The video above struck a huge nerve in me. The poster was just a dude in his house when the paramilitaries came down and descended upon his street. Change the houses and the uniforms and what difference is there between that scene and Nazi troopers searching houses for Jews in 1942?
Now that it has been done once, expect it again and again. Each time the boundary will be pushed farther in order to "protect the people". Larger areas will be searched and anyone who resists will be dealt with faster.
Gradually, as more of these disgusting searches are done, there will be less resistance from the media or from independent viewpoints. It will become normal and people will expect it. For my part, I'm not coming out of my house and you sure aren't coming in mine without a fight. I'll probably lose and be labeled a domestic terrorist but at least I will have tried to protect my rights.
That may sound like bluster, but it is going to come to that for some of us within my lifetime and it isn't going to be pretty.
The forces of evil won two victories this week. They killed 4 people in Boston and injured hundreds. They also successfully caused the invasion of the homes of hundreds (maybe thousands) of people, resulting in countless unreasonable searches. It was bullshit like this that caused the original Americans to rebel against redcoats invading their homes and searching them. If some of the original patriots had heard this and seen the storm coming, I think they would have said this too: Keep your powder dry , America.
Note: Here's some light humor to end this very serious post. Maybe there's hope if this is what is interfering with our rights:
The chief neo-liberal is scolding like a mother hen again. I'm not going to go into much of what he actually said (you can see the whole speech below), but I will make some general comments.
First off, Obama likes to throw around the now infamous "90% of Americans approve of increased background checks" like its the ultimate showstopper. But even if we overlook the dubious statistics polls that he is using (an excellent response from Colion Noir here), we must remember that what a majority thinks on this subject does not matter. If a majority of Americans believed women should not vote, we would have to repeal the 19th Amendment, instead of ignoring it with unlawful legislation. If the majority of Americans wanted the US government to discriminate based upon religion, the 1st Amendment would need to be repealed first, instead of ignoring it with unlawful legislation. Now these things are obviously not popular, but the principle holds true. The Bill of Rights exists to oppose the whimsy and social waves of the masses. It exists, including the 2A, to recognize and protect rights we possess as humans. So even if the numbers Obama likes to throw around ad nauseam are true, which I personally doubt, it wouldn't matter. The opinion of the populace do not remove natural rights from the minority. That is a slippery slope to oppression.
I've heard folks say that having the families of victims lobby for this legislation was somehow misplaced. "A prop," somebody called them. “Emotional blackmail,” some outlet said. Are they serious? Do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don’t have a right to weigh in on this issue? Do we think their emotions, their loss is not relevant to this debate?
To answer the questions posed: Yes, they have a right to weigh in, like all other Americans with 1st Amendment rights. They have a right to speak about their opinion and their emotion and their pain. But you do not have the right to use that pain for your own and your party's agenda. Nor is their loss irrelevant. It just has no place on a podium next to you, Mr. President, when your party is attempting to circumvent the Constitution. You cannot equate their presence beside you to their right to speak out.
This tragedy and the parents' grief has been used to pull the heartstrings of America. This is an attempt to use emotion as the catalyst for politics. When we dally in the business of regulating rights, no one needs cloudy eyes. We should be clear headed and logical when writing off rights. This use of emotionally charged images is dirty politics and very dishonest and disrespectful way to address the American people.
While we are talking about disrespecting the people he is supposed to serve, let us talk about Obama's righteous indignation and scolding.
So all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.
I'd say it was quite a good day in DC, Mr. President. A large minority of Senators, including four Democrats decided to listen to their constituency and regard the Bill of Rights by voting down onerous regulations of arms. Nor do you, Mr. President, have any superiority to scold those people that are defending the Constitution you are supposed to defend.
But if action by Congress could have saved one person, one child, a few hundred, a few thousand -- if it could have prevented those people from losing their lives to gun violence in the future while preserving our Second Amendment rights, we had an obligation to try.
Denying millions of Americans the right to their chosen method of defense and resistance to Statist oppression is not worth it. We could also save lives by denying alcohol to the general populace (didn't work out to well in the 20s), restricting motorcycle use , or requiring everyone to drive 30 mph everywhere. But we don't. Those types of legislation are asinine and arbitrary. They are also restrictive and overreaching, and would create a massive political backlash, just like this attempt of gun control did. You and your party's attempt at control failed for a reason, Mr. President.
The point is those who care deeply about preventing more and more gun violence will have to be as passionate, and as organized, and as vocal as those who blocked these common-sense steps to help keep our kids safe.
This is one of the examples of what I call the "common sense assault". The common sense assault is an Orwellian thought manipulation technique. It implies guilt upon anyone who disagrees with what the speaker deems common sense. After all, sane people have common sense right? Adding the adjective common sense before an objective apparently adds a halo around the objective. Opponents now oppose "common sense" instead of opposing un-Constitutional and ineffective legislation. Don't fall for it. Here is where knowing some data comes in handy. This handy link demonstrates that rifles account for a tiny minority of murders committed with firearms. Also, a universal background check would not have stopped Lanza, Holmes, or many other mass murderers from acquiring their weapons. Now Obama's common sense doesn't make any sense anymore.
I believe we’re going to be able to get this done. Sooner or later, we are going to get this right. The memories of these children demand it. And so do the American people.
This is a threat and it serves as a warning to everyone who wishes to protect our natural rights. All the Statists need is another excuse to try. This will come sooner or later when another coward, pumped up by the attention given to Holmes and Lanza, wishes to write his name in history. Then there will new stern words from Obama and more families and token un-elected police chiefs paraded before the MSM cameras. This fight is not over, nor will it ever be.
It's been many hours now since the Tsarnaev brothers started their second rampage in Boston. One dead LEO, one severely injured LEO, one dead suspect, explosive ridden streets, and several gun battles later, the search for the remaining bomber is still not over.
Despite the display of power and force shown by local, state, and federal agencies (including FBI, DHS, and the National Guard), the 19-yr old terrorist is still at large. There even exists the possibility he has escaped the parts of Boston currently under lockdown.
A military vehicle of the Boston police. Is this what America is coming to? Armored policemen in armored vehicles patrolling our streets?
So, by Protectionist logic, the more that we the people are protected by the bureaucracy and police state the safer we will be. However, this is being shown to be false. While all these resources are being spent and the the police force in this country has been growing, these people have been plotting. Despite the existence of the onerous Patriot Act and the activities of the DHS and the NSA, these terrorists still were able to kill 4 and wound more than 150. The State has failed you and always will. They do not have your best interests at heart.
What can we learn from this? The government can only offer you limited protection, if any at all. The government was unable to intercept these seemingly independent operators. The government was unable to detect the devices, even though there were apparently warnings of this (since they already had bomb dogs and warnings out the day of the bombing). The government was unable to corral the rampage after their pictures were published, resulting in one LEO death and one LEO injured. The map below shows how these two brothers have traveled across Boston with that expensive police machine one step behind.
In addition, there's been further craziness across the nation this week. Today is the anniversary of both the Murrah Building bombing and the siege of Waco. Although it seems the Boston attacks were not related to any Patriot movement (Chechnyans aren't normally defenders of the Constitution), there was an oddly-timed explosion at a fertilizer factory in Waco, TX. Yes, a fertilizer factory ,which makes the same ingredient that McVeigh used in the Murrah building bombing (a protest against the Waco siege). Very odd is what I say.
This has been an amazing week (and not in a good way). Two bombs that killed 3, a mysterious explosion that kills 15 (so far), two very sad and emotional anniversaries, and a continuing chase that has explosives littering the roads of Boston. Furthermore, because of some of those events, Boston is in a state of unparalleled state of martial law.
If were in that neighborhood, I would have a sign on my doors:
Anyone that comes through this door unannounced will be shot on site. Police please announce yourselves. Terrorists go to hell.
If there was ever a time to own a firearm for defense, it is now.
If there was ever a time to speak out against an affront of civil liberty, it is now. While under the guise of their own safety, people were forcefully ejected from their own home for no crime or even suspicion of crime. These people did nothing wrong but they will be removed from their property by force "for their own safety", as judged by a nameless bureaucrat.They are not given a choice of protecting themselves or their property. It looks similar to the Katrina forced evacuation, except, this time, it is because of one person, not a massive act of nature. The State is giving these people no choice.
Now that the groundwork has been laid and the people of America have allowed this lockdown to happen, we can expect more of these State actions of force in the future. The pictures will be the same, but the reasons will be different and increasingly varied.
The thing that makes it so much worse is that, despite these Draconian measures and after almost 8 hours of martial, they still haven't found the lone suspect!
Welcome the new America!
Keep your powder dry and your firearm close. Safety is an illusion.
Listen up, gun community. I've noticed a "joke" going around the internet among the community lately. In short, let's stop doing it. It makes us look petty and childish. The argument, even if jokingly applied, is about as ridiculous as the nuclear weapon argument used by anti-2A people.
Even Rush Limbaugh gets in on the act with a caller. Enjoy the tripe:
.....And again here on Arfcom (AR15.com for anyone wondering)...
We all know that pressure cookers and cars are not explicitly protected by the Bill of Rights. A parallel cannot be drawn between arms, which are protected, and cars or pressure cookers.
I completely expect to hear this droll and un-imaginative "argument" for the next year, just as we are continually assaulted with the following "argument" from the new left:
NeoLiberal: "So what stops a person from having a nuclear bomb or an F16 for defense? The Second Amendment must have its limits!"
(An excellent response to which can be seen here by Colion Noir.)
We (the gun community) need to step up and stop putting all this BS out on the Internet, even among our own community since this content is public. We know why they are going after our firearms, and, more importantly, we know why we have the right to bear arms. We don't need to make up cute little asinine arguments to support our rights. We have firearms and the Constitution for that.
We have no right to drive cars or use pressure cookers. Let's just stop with this useless mouth finger diarrhea.
