Does giving oppressive new laws pink, fuzzy names really fool anybody? Seriously?
SB 53 is one of seven “gun violence” bills approved on Wednesday. Together, the seven Democrat-sponsored bills are known as the “Lifesaving Intelligent Firearms Enforcement Act,” dubbed the LIFE Act.
I must not tell lies…
H/T to PoL.
They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means “The Ultimate Argument of Kings,” and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. “We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it’s about: You’ll do as I say or I’ll send my goons to kill you.”
I thought about that for a long time. If there’s an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I’ve got bullets – he’s got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that’s not going to happen. So if there’s an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain’t bullets.
It finally came to me – and that’s when I abandoned the city and most of my stuff, and gave all that was behind me a good stiff Randian Shrug.
The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh.
Little Bear 2009-2018
Laddie the Amazing Torso Boy 2011-2020
"Freedom Outlaw. It’s not what you do; it’s how you do it. It’s an attitude — from which actions always follow. It’s a do-it-yourself occupation. And a lifetime vocation."
- Claire Wolfe, Backwoods Home Companion, 6-07-10
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
- G. K. Chesterton
"If every Jewish and anti-Nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic."
- Aaron Zelman
"Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force."
- Barbie
"Never underestimate the ability of shit to find a fan."
- F. Paul Wilson
"You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." The sophistry of villains - Bah!
- Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star
“Truth is, I’m not specifically interested in an armed society. What I want is a free society.”
- George Potter
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
- D. H. Lawrence
Aristippus passed Diogenes as he was washing lentils.
He said, “If you could but learn to flatter the king, you would not have to live on lentils.”
Diogenes said, “And if you could learn to live on lentils, you would not have to flatter the king.”
Sandy Hook was a Gun Free Zone. So was the Westroads Mall. And the Aurora Theater. And Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Should I go on? They were all Gun Free Zones.
– Reality
“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
- Robert A. Heinlein
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
If ever a man should ask you
For your business or your name
Tell him to go and fuck himself
Tell his friends to do the same.
For a man who'd trade his liberty
For a safe and dreamless sleep
Doesn't deserve the both of them
And neither shall he keep.
- Frank Turner
Don't be afraid to try something big, just because you're an amateur. The Ark was built by amateurs. The Titanic was built by professionals.
- Anon
"Nothing scares a police officer more than the threat of being treated the way that they treat people every day."
- Anon
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."
- Gen. James Mattis
"Lust for power is the most flagrant of all the passions."
- Tacitus
"The man who knows what freedom means will find a way to be free."
- F.A. "Baldy" Harper
"The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude."
- William James
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
- Viktor Frankl
The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.
- Milton Friedman
“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.”
- William Faulkner
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
- Ernest Hemingway
"Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
John Moses Browning - The most badass Mormon who ever lived.
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'"
- Ronald Reagan
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
- James A. Baldwin
"It is better to be a warrior in a garden than to be a gardener in a war."
- Anon
“I tried to live in such a way that, when dying, I would rather feel happy than scared.”
– Witold Pilecki
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
- Sallust
"Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark."
- Lazarus Long
Read, every day, something no one else is reading.
Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.
Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do.
It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.
– Christopher Morley
“I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man.”
-Frederick Douglass
ESSE QUAM VIDERI –
To be, rather than to seem
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
“A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.”
– Ida B. Wells
Do what thy manhood bid thee do; from none but self expect applause.
He noblest lives and noblest dies, who makes and keeps his self made laws
– Sir Richard Burton
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
– Winston Churchill
“Happiness is a journey, not a destination. Dance as though no one is watching you. Love as though you have never been hurt before. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth.”
― Father Alfred d’Souza
Those who wish to be fooled would believe it if their betters said they’d make the sun rise in the west tomorrow. (They’d do this, of course, simply by issuing an Officious Statement that east is west, and west is east*, and of course prosecuting anyone who complains.) There seem to be a depressing lot of folks fitting this description, including many who are otherwise quite intelligent.
Personally, my own definition of “lifesaving firearm” is pretty restrictive. It’s the one I have on me at the exact moment I need to save my life. (By that literal definition, I have owned three. One of those I still wear frequently, another has been replaced by a more efficient design, and the third–the only one I actually had to fire to extricate myself from trouble**–I traded long ago, again for greater efficiency.)
Now the definition does have some nuance, since the need to save my life doesn’t come up very often, and I certainly think of whatever I’m currently wearing as a potentially “lifesaving firearm”.
But, card-carrying members of the Order of the Authoritarian Jackass please take note, the definition itself is not negotiable. I don’t expect you to share it, even though I suspect that my definition and rationale is a great deal more morally defensible than yours, and I wouldn’t dream of enforcing it upon you. (You may note that this latter statement is an excellent summary of what separates us in the first place.)
My definition, of course, outwardly reflects upon me, and I’m responsible for it: that’s what makes it mine. Yours, similarly, is solely yours, and as long as you’re willing to accept the outward reflection upon you, it can be anything you like. This is what makes reputations, after all.
You seem to think you will do best by winning over the credulous and attacking the skeptical by using “the political means”. Very well then, duly noted. You may well get what you ask for, since there are a whole lot of the credulous, you seem impressed by numbers, and the political mob you compete to wield certainly has a demonstrable shitload of enforcement hardware at its disposal.
Whether what you ask for and what you want are the same thing…well, I’m sure you’ve thought that through with just the same analytical facility that brought us the “LIFE Act”.
_________________
* Then, of course, the related tax-farming ideas will start to roll in. They could similarly switch “north” and “south”, and then fine people whose toilets don’t swirl the water the right way.
** The trouble in this case was a pack of feral dogs trying to get into the SW Texas deer blind I was in, well before first light. I was young and very shaken, but still managed to hit one, on which the others turned, then left before the car came. It was this episode that convinced me to have a pistol and a flashlight on at all times while hunting; trying to connect in the darkness using a traditionally-scoped bolt rifle in one hand and a Mini-Maglight in the other is not easy, and despite being as careful as I was capable of at the time, two shots went into the ground before I hit. I’d do a million things differently now, of course, but the value of the one-hand gun was pretty firmly stamped on my brain that day.
“the value of the one-hand gun…”
Indeed… and the only reason I stopped carrying the .45. I could not control it with just one hand. 🙂 A solid hit (or more) with the 9mm I now carry is far better than any number of misses with the .45.
That’s funny. One reason I switched from a .45 to a revolver is that dangerous things I’ve shot with a .45 in the desert didn’t always seem sufficiently impressed. I wanted a cartridge that held more powder, and an action that would function dependably with flying-ashtray hollowpoints.