Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 1659 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

Gun control, circa 1782

So, I was going through some of my great-great grandfather’s things, and I found this press release that was disseminated to all “Citizens of the Crown in the Colonies” back in the 1700’s. Needless to say, I was quite surprised to find the Violence Policy Center (back then it was the “Victory Policy Centre) involved. Enjoy!

Fifty calibre long rifles are an ideal tool for insurrectionists. They are a real and present danger to our forces in the colonies, yet are easily found even in the possession of farmers and other peasants. Fifty calibre long rifles are specifically designed to engage small targets with precise accuracy at ranges unheard of on the battlefield. These precision weapons combine long range and tremendous accuracy to create a weapon that has a range beyond anything that our infantrymen carry. Officers, messengers, cannon crews, even our daring cavalry are vulnerable to accurate fire from these deadly rifles at ranges exceeding 200 yards! The entire infrastructure of the colonies is threatened by these weapons, as they give the insurrectionist the ability to strike individual targets at distances normally reserved for cannon fire. A Citizen of the Crown would be shocked to learn that these “rifles” are so common amongst the colonials, that even small children are well versed in their use. These rifles are specifically designed for great accuracy against fast moving targets at extreme ranges beyond the reach of musket fire. They are â€œpurpose-designedâ€ and â€œpurpose-builtâ€ weapons. This terminology is used in colonial literature to describe weapons that are made for a specific, narrow purpose, in this case for long range shootingâ€”highly accurate firing at a target from a significant distance. Musket fire and civilized warfare is conducted at ranges of 50 yards, even our boys fine Brown Bess Musket does not fire accurately beyond that range. 50 yards is less than the distance across Trafalgar Square. These .50 calibre long rifles are accurate at ranges of up to 100 yards, and in the hands of an expert marksman, even 300! At 300 yards, a Colonial marksman could easily pick off our officers, leading to a wholly uncivilized engagement of infantry just “having it out” on the battlefield. 50 calibre rounds are one of the smaller and lighter bullets available, which allows the Colonial marksmen to carry more rounds and powder than one of our boys for the same amount of weight. The potential for these rifles to be abused by the insurrectionists in a manner inconsistent with civilized warfare is difficult to overstate. It is a known fact that the criminal known as The Swamp Fox has hundreds of these “long rifles” in his possession, and his men are well trained in their use. As recently noted at the Battle of Mingo Creek, our brave forces were barraged from all sides by fire from these deadly weapons, and their foe did not even have the courage to face them on an open field. England is in the midst of a Colonial Insurrection. The Colonial forces are arming themselves to the very teeth with these incredibly destructive weapons of war. It is time to regulate 50 calibre long rifles by bringing them under the control of the Crown, so that our soldiers can confiscate them from these Colonial criminals masquerading as soldiers. By so doing, we will be able to bring a rapid end to this bloody insurrection that has divided the North American Colonies from their Sovereign.

So, needless to say, I was really surprised to read that, especially in the light of the modern incarnation of the VPC trying to ban 50 caliber rifles today. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same. ;-)

Crossposted at What Would John Wayne Do?

Ask-a-stripper

I wasn’t planning on doing this, but I noticed that a lot of the comments I received on my first (real) post were, well, not exactly relevant to the post. It seems like a few of you have questions about the strip club industry and you’ve been waiting for a stripper to come online and answer them in a semi-anonymous forum. Perhaps there are still some unanswered questions out there. This is your chance to ask them. Feel free to ask me anything about stripping, strippers, strip clubs, etc., and I will answer to the best of my ability based on my personal experience and knowledge.

Guns & grammar

I’m willing to bet that at least some of the reading audience did not know that firearms have generated several turns-of-phrase that still of relative common use in today’s lexicon. We’re going to go over a couple of the ones you might have heard, and what their origins are.

One phrase I’m guessing everyone has heard, especially if you watch war movies is “lock and load”; which has graduated to the general lexicon. It’s current usage means “get or be ready” for whatever action may happen. With the M1 Garand, we wouldn’t have this handy phrase for overzealous business majors to use in class. The phrase was originally “load and lock”, which referred to inserting a clip (I don’t get to say that much…clip clip clip clip) into the M1 Garand, and locking the bolt forward. An alternate interpretation suggest that the phrase was originally “lock and load” and referred to locking the bolt in the rearward position prior to inserting the clip into the rifle.

No matter the origin, the phrase was immortalized by John Wayne in the movie The Sands of Iwo Jima; and was also uses later in both Platoon, and one of the Star Trek movies.

The next phrase is “flash in the pan”, which is currently used to describe bands, actors, or artists that have one hit and then disappear. Its usage is similar to “shooting star”, and “one hit wonder”.

This phrase has its genesis in the days of flintlock weapons. Back then, loose powder was carried in “the pan” of your weapon; which would in theory ignite the main powder charge. However, as flinters were and are notoriously unreliable, a “flash in the pan” would sometimes occur, where the powder in the pan would burn but not ignite the main charge. The result would be a pretty lightshow, and a very unhappy soldier.

That concludes today’s “gun induced grammar” lesson; feel free to add your own in the comments section!

Unarmed and useless

My industry is a perfect example of one of the real problems with guns. The wrong people have them and the right people don’t. There have been several strip club shootings in the news recently, the most recent occurring less than a week ago in Texas. Before that there was a high-profile incident in Las Vegas involving multiple celebrities.

Working around drunk people in any capacity can be pretty scary. Most of the clubs I’ve worked at either have metal detectors or (more commonly) “wand” patrons as they come in. At the ones that only wand people, I’ve only seen it done on the weekends and evenings. I understand the logic (basically it’s profiling) but it seems to me that a preventative measure that takes 15-20 seconds should be performed every time if it’s going to be used at all.

The real problem, though, is that bouncers are never armed. In most places security is a joke. A lot of dancers refer to them as “door guys,” because we can’t bring ourselves to say “bouncers” or “security” without an accompanying eye-roll. I would love it if every club had armed bouncers. The problem is that clubs don’t want to deal with the hassle of having every bouncer licensed, trained and background-checked. Not for a position that pays minimum wage plus tips. Most bouncers don’t stay in the industry very long, either, so it would be time-consuming and costly to jump through the hoops to arm each bouncer, only to have to do it again a few months later. Additionally, a lot of clubs are skittish of having too much visible security. According to this line of thinking, metal detectors and armed bouncers make a club look dangerous and scare away the “right” type of customer.

Before I started dancing in clubs I worked at a peep show. This was the only time I ever worked with an armed bouncer. The peep show was in a porn shop, and the bouncer was also a clerk. He was definitely a “gun guy” who always had his weapon on him, including at work. He carried it unconcealed. I never had a single problem with customers there when he was on shift. It didn’t seem to affect my money or the shop’s business. However, he carried his weapon because it was part of his lifestyle, not as part of the job. I guess the only conclusion I can reach from these musings is that if I were to ever open a club of any sort I’d want to hire “gun guys” for security. Opening a club is not in my ten-year plan, so for now I’ll just continue to work at places with metal detectors and avoid NFL players.

Pitt-for-Brains

The Pittsburgh Penguins have become the latest sports franchise to hold the state of PA hostage so they wouldn’t have to get their own financing for a new arena. Today, Gov. Ed Rendell announced a deal that would keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh. The Penguins had threatened to leave to Kansas City, MO if they could not secure a new arena when their lease with the 40 year old Melon Center expires at the end of this hockey season. In this new deal, the Penguins will get help from PA slot parlor revenue.

A Pennsylvania law signed last year allowed for a certain number of slot parlors to be built in the state. A percentage of the revenue from the slot machines will go towards reducing property taxes. Another portion of the revenue is slated for other economic stimulus projects. However, there is absolutely no evidence that a stadium provides any sort of economic boost. In fact, studies have shown that, on average, they reduce workers’ incomes by $47 per year. Further more, a 2004 study showed that teams never need help in financing the stadiums. The stadium generate enough revenue to cover construction costs and more.

People can try to spin this, saying that it’s slot machine money and not taxes that will go towards financing the arena. I contend that with Pennsylvanians looking down the barrell of a 1% increase in the state sales tax and other ills such as our crumbling transportation infrastructure and our awful inner city crime rate, the slot machine revenue could be put to better use than helping to keep hockey, a second-rate sport, in Pittsburgh. I also contend that slot machines are just another tax, one that disproportionately affects the poor – you don’t see people with a lot of money habitually gambling at slot parlors.

Lastly, Mario Lemieux completely disrespected the people who paid money to watch him play for the Penguins during his career. The Penguins have some of the best attendance figures in hockey, and it’s a sham that he would even consider giving up standing room only crowds 17,000 strong to play rent free in front of 7,000 “fans”.

Southern Mud

We’ve been having some spotty rain here in Jayton, TX. It hasn’t stopped the shooting activities though. Yesterday we were doing small bore shooting, and a little clay shooting. They have an old WW II era jeep that I got to drive around in the mud a good bit, and I had a giant shit eating grin on my face the whole time. I’m still getting used to driving a vehicle that has to be double clutched, but it’s a lot of fun. We went spotlighting for wildlife (just observing) in the jeep after dark. It was a lot of fun.

Check in later maybe.

At Least There’s the NIT

Normally, I don’t like to go on “We wuz robbed!” rants about something silly like the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament. But since Syracuse University basketball coach Jim Boeheim has gone on a two-day rant about how his team isn’t in the field of 64 this year, I think that I can take a few paragraphs to say this: Syracuse wasn’t robbed, Drexel was.

Drexel beat Syracuse. They also beat tournament invitees Villanova and Creighton. They beat major Philadelphia basketball programs at Temple and St. Joseph’s, too. They did all of this away from their home court, as no program of any significance is going to agree to play Drexel at the bingo hall that is the Daskalakis Athletic Center. Yes, Drexel does play in a middle-tier athletic conference, and their in-conference record was decent. However, small programs like Drexel have to schedule games on the road at big-time basketball powerhouses in order to make a case for an invite, and this year, they played great.

If there’s one thing that George Mason University showed us last year, it’s that middle-tier schools are worthy of getting invites to the tournament even if they don’t win their conference. Last year, teams from minor conferences got 8 of the 34 invites available. This year, they got six. The number of invites from minor conferences has gone down every year for the last 4 years. The NCAA Selection Committee is showing elitism and favoritism towards big schools at power conferences.

This is complete folly. There’s a reason why there’s a 13 seed upsetting a 4 seed every year: a good team from an OK conference is better than an OK team from a good conference. Do we really need to see Boston College lose to North Carolina again? No, let’s give a team like Drexel a chance to play UNC. I bet they’d at least make it interesting.

In the interest of disclosure, I am a Drexel alumnus.

The Pink Pistols

If you’ve not heard of them, the Pink Pistols are a firearms advocacy group that also advocates gay rights. If you go to their website, the front page says “Armed Gays don’t get bashed” a phrase which makes me giggle incessantly whenever I see it.

I really like groups like the Pink Pistols, not just because they advocate for the 2nd Amendment, but because they give the radical lefties serious mental fits. They can’t comprehend how someone that “should” be “on their side” is advocating for a dirty “Republican” concept like RKBA. One of the biggest reasons that I like the Pink Pistols is because we need more groups like them. We need gun owners and 2nd Amendment advocates that don’t just break the media’s stereotype of gun owners, they smash it.

The biggest reason that I support the Pink Pistols (and any group that exposes the cognitive dissonance inherent in the radical left) is because they also display the deep seated hypocrisy in the “social progressive” movement. Think about this for just a minute: the ~~marxists~~ social progressives are constantly trying to “help the little guy” (generally with your money); however if they were successful in helping the poor not be poor, or minorities be treated equal, they would lose their mandate and by losing their mandate they would lose their power.

It is imperative to those in power (your Nancy Pelosi’s, Ted Kennedy’s, and Dianne Feinsteins) that the poor and disadvantaged remain poor and disadvantaged. Of course, they will make a big show of “helping” the little guy, but their help is little more than free handouts at the expense of the taxpayer – handouts that do nothing to actually help the poor and disadvantaged.

I sometimes feel that the Big Left has forgotten the simple proverb “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.”

Time for Louis Gosset, Jr?

West Philadelphia High gets evacuated again. I expect that Mayor Street will finally cave to Paul Vallas’ wishes to have police patrol the school.

That might be a good short-term solution just to make it through the rest of the school year. In the long term though, instead of thinking large-scale about systems, they’ll just shove a “Crazy Joe” Clark principal into West Philadelphia High and hope that the rest will fall in line.

Thoughtcrime

One of the websites I frequent is The Martialist, and it’s attendant forums. The owner/author of the Martialist is Phil Elmore, who is a figure of some controversy in the self-defense world.

I don’t always agree with him, but no matter what my stance on his various opinions is, he is an excellent writer who both turns a phrase well; as well as takes a thoughtful approach to his topics.

His latest piece is on “Thoughtcrime”, and while it’s rather long; it’s also an excellent read. I may not always agree with him, but in this case I’m in absolute agreement. The whole post can be found here.

Thoughtcrime in contemporary society began as “political correctness” and “multiculturalism.” These are cultural movements that hold as their central tenets the notions that some terms, phrases, and lines of thought are intrinsically offensive and inappropriate for public discourse, and that history has traditionally been the exclusive domain of dead white European males whose injustices to all other cultures have been whitewashed (while the historical contributions of other cultures have been simultaneously omitted from the record), respectively. The scions of political correctness and multiculturalism took root in our schools and in our government, teaching our children and pushing through legislation that made it thoughtcrime to adhere to the old ways of the culturally insensitive, ethnocentric Anglos whose evil designs on power the movements were designed to foil. As these movements gained in influence and in converts, it became a cultural crime — punishable by social censure — to engage in politically incorrect language or ethnocentric attitudes. Thus, kicking and screaming, would those who adhered to traditional values be dragged into the brave new world advocated by political leftists (who are at the forefront of the establishment of thoughtcrime).

I have seen the above example first hand, where the positive actions of my ancestors are dismissed out of hand because simply because there were rich Anglos. I now celebrate my heritage with a certain amount of guilt, simply because even I have been indoctrinated to the point where I feel as though I should be remorseful for the actions of people long dead.

Legally, the first of the “hate crime” legislation gave political correctness and multiculturalism the force of law. Now, the government is not merely supposed to concern itself for punishing you for what you’ve done. No, now we presume that it is possible to know what you were thinking when you committed a crime, and to punish you more severely for thinking incorrect thoughts while engaged in your crime. It is not enough to prosecute you for assault or vandalism, for example; now we must further punish you if your victim was one of a number of protected socio-political and/or ethnic pressure groups (and thus a member of a specially protected class). While prosecution under “hate crime” legislation is notably rare (if not absent entirely) for crimes committed by ethnic minorities whose victims are white, any and all crime commited by white men and women against persons of color or those who are members of other pressure groups (such as homosexuals) usually becomes national news and prompts calls for further indoctrination — excuse me, sensitivity and anger-management training — in our government and educational institutions.

I am a huge opponent of “hate crime” legislation, as it does in fact created a protected class. All crime against another person is a hate crime; regardless of skin color, sexual orientation, or religion. By making it worse to commit a crime against a person because of the color of their skin, you actually feed racism instead of curtailing its spread.

The entire article is excellent, and well written. You should go check it out.