First Guns, Now...

I've long been a proponent of loosening our overly restrictive gun laws. Yes, that's right, I want more guns sold to more folks who obey those various laws already in place. I want to be able to carry my weapon anywhere with me, and not have to worry about silly little power-hungry bureaucrats trying to tell me that I cannot carry my gun.

The reasons for this are many, and diverse, not the least of which is the simple fact that I believe it's my right to be able to defend myself from anyone who wishes harm to me or mine.

Anyways, Britian went through the whole hassle of taking all of the guns away from their law-abiding citizens--and conversely, they managed to get a decent number away from the non-law-abiding citizens as well.

So, what did those criminals begin to do? Why use knives of course. After all, a knife is the next best thing to a gun; plus it's quieter! According to an AP report, 15 teenagers have been murdered in London this year, with 11 of those being stabbed to death.

Now, like any responsible, intellect group of people, Britain looked at this situation, and thought, "Hey, we can't stop criminals ourselves, let's make sure that our people can defend themselves."

And then I woke up.

No, what those intelligent, responsible pansys and appeasers in the British government decided was to try to convince the law-abiding citizens to not even carry their knives anymore.

Here's the relevant sentence of the AP report:

Britain's government has begun a campaign of graphic Internet advertisements aimed at warning young people about the dangers of carrying a knife.

Brilliant eh? The dangers of carrying a knife.

Let's be honest here, I carry a knife every day of my life. In the past year, I've not carried it on two distinct days--and both of those days were when I was visiting an airport to get on an airplane. If you reached into my left, front pocket right this second, you'd find it--at which time I'd have to hit you for sticking your hand into my pocket.

Digression aside, I've been doing this for years. In fact, long before it was a pocket knife, it was a six-inch, folding knife I carried on my belt. Quite useful for when I was out in the woods. The relevant thing though is that I carried it nearly every day.

And you know what? I've not once hurt myself or someone else with any of my knifes. I've used my pocket knife to cut things (including straws for my kids) and all sorts of other legitimate uses. Amazing how someone can carry a knife, or a gun, and not hurt someone with the thing.

My point is that a weapon is an inanimate object. No gun or knife ever killed anyone. Not one. It's a literal impossibility that one could do it (at least yet, I'm sure one day we'll have smart, autonomous weapons that will kill their creators). They can be the CAUSE of death; but so can keys, screwdrivers, automobiles, tree limbs, bricks, hands, rolls of quarters or even a rusty spoon.

What is Britain going to take away from its citizenry after all the knives are gone? Forks? Screwdrivers?

It's insane to think that just because a weapon is removed from the people, that the people won't figure out a way to kill one another. Like it or not, it's in our nature to be aggressive beings.

I don't see that changing, no matter how many weapons the government takes from our hands.

To Knock, or Not To Knock....

Back in 1995, case number 514 U.S. 927 appeared before that highest of high benches; those keepers of the writ of law; the new High Priests of our land: The Supreme Court. Commonly known as Wilson v. Arkansas, this case gave the land the joys of the No Knock warrant.

For those of you who are unaware of this particular travesty, the No Knock warrant is the type of search warrant which allows police to enter your home without identifying themselves. Basically, it's the Gestapo, bursting down your door, usually between 1 and 4 in the morning, with their guns pulled, in the hopes that you won't destroy your drug evidence--because evidence can always be destroyed in the 30 seconds it takes a cop to announce himself.

Unsurprisingly, this type of search warrant has led to the unnecessary deaths of police and citizens alike. People like the father of 3, Police Officer Ron Jones. Officer Jones was playing stormtrooper, when he burst through the door of one Corey Maye. Maye had a young daughter in his house, and being the responsible father, when he was woken by someone breaking and entering, he made a decision and protected his family. After killing Officer Jones, he realized that it was the police breaking into his home, so he surrendered; only to now be serving a life sentence without parole solely for the perfectly reasonable action of protecting his family.

Of course, things don't always end up this nicely for those being served warrants. Kathryn Johnston, a 92 year old woman, was surprised by one of these things, and she ended up dead. Despite the fact that anonymous tips--which are almost universally the cause of no-knock warrants--informed the police that Mrs. Johnston held a large cache of drugs in her home, no drugs were ever found. All that happened was Mrs. Johnston was killed. Oh wait, that's not all that happened; in an effort to exculpate themselves from the blame of the death of Mrs. Johnston the officers on the scene planted three bags of marijuana.

How's that for police work.

Amazingly for Mrs. Johnston family, Mrs. Johnston is apparently getting some justice in this world. Fox News is reporting this morning that the officer in question gets to spend the next 5 years in prison.

How did we become this? At what point did our homes stop being sacrosanct and start being subject to searches and invasion all at the random voice of a drug informant?

If someone breaks into my home without announcing who they are, I am going to do everything in my power to stop them, and leave them dead. My family is that important to me--and quite frankly, other humans just aren't.

Of course the easiest way to stop all of these senseless killings, of both the gestapo and those being ground under their heel, is to simply outlaw no-knock searches. Make everything be a knock-and-announce search, and at that point, the folks inside the house know it's a cop coming through their windows waving guns at their family.

Wilson v. Arkansas gave us three guidelines for a no-knock search:

• "Circumstances present a threat of physical violence"
• There is "reason to believe that evidence would likely be destroyed if advance notice were given"
• Knocking and announcing would be "futile" Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, 394 (1997)

Let's be perfectly honest here--the first, the threat of physical violence, is always there. This is America, I have guns. Other folks have guns. It's a part of our national identity and culture. We have a strong history of self-defense, and I for one refuse to rely on the gestapo for that defense; especially where my family is concerned. Additionally, if there weren't guns, then there would be knives, swords, baseball bats, screwdrivers, forks, chainsaws, rakes, shovels, and all sorts of other implements with which I can carry out all sorts of body harming, if not outright deadly, violence.

The other two, those are just silly. Even with no-knock, evidence can be destroyed, and if it's "futile" to knock and announce, it's also not hurting anything to do so.

Of course, those "reasons" are really just random justification for the act. After all, the law of the land as defined in Hudson v. Michigan is that violations of the knock-and-announce rules (i.e. not knocking on a knock and announce warrant) is not a valid reason to exclude evidence.

Kind of scary, no?

Emotional Profiling

Seattle PI has an interesting article on the TSA entitled: Airport Profilers: They're Watching Your Expressions. Frankly this is yet another TSA program that just flat out scares me. It is giving a huge amount of power to individuals with no true way to verify their opinions. It's subjective and emotionalism, and scary to me.

Consider this quote:

But a central task is to recognize microfacial expressions -- a flash of feelings that in a fraction of a second reflects emotions such as fear, anger, surprise or contempt, said Carl Maccario, who helped start the program for TSA.

Basically, if you have a serious hate on concerning authority figures, guess what, if you fly, you make get a strip search.

Yet, if that wasn't scary enough, the fact that it's spreading should scare you. Additionally, one must question why such a program is spreading. After all, here's some statistics from it:

Since January 2006, behavior-detection officers have referred about 70,000 people for secondary screening, Maccario said. Of those, about 600 to 700 were arrested on a variety of charges, including possession of drugs, weapons violations and outstanding warrants.

One percent. Out of the 70,000 people inconvenienced by this emotionalism, less than 1% have been arrested. Additionally, those arrests were due to drug possession, weapons violations and outstanding warrants, which would have most likely been caught via normal operational security. So not only are the numbers on record a 1% success rate, but that is inflated by not removing those from the numbers who would most likely have been caught anyways.

In, parting, I'd like to leave you a passage from a classic work of literature.

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself -- anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.

-- 1984 by George Orwell

Could it be a 1% Tolerance Policy?

Escambia County School District (FL) possesses a Zero-Tolerance Policy for students concerning both weapons and drugs, to the extent that both fingernail clippers and aspirin warrant suspension, if not expulsion. Yet this same school district has been ordered by an EEA arbitrator and a judge that a school teacher that was found to have a massive (50X a positive test result) dosage of cocaine in his body has to be rehired.

What type of message is this for students? Drugs are ok, if you're an adult?

If Mr. Sites is supposed to be a role model for students, should he not be held to the same rules and regulations that students are? Why should he have his job, working with children, when he has proven himself to be a criminal (drug usage is still a crime you know). But ultimately I blame the EEA, yes the teacher's union which originally threw fits about Sites being fired. Now tell me, whose interest is this in? The students? Mr. Sites? The union (can't collect union dues if the guy's fired)? I applaud Superintendent Paul for not going along with this. In my opinion, as a tax payer, voter, and soon-to-be parent in Escambia County, Mr. Sites has NO business having anything to do with children.

End of story.