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Liberty Notes, Kevin Jamison, 17 September 2001 It is a good day for Liberty. Buck Cassidy Video, PO Box 216, Hazlet, NJ 07730 (732)888-8245, sells videos of many of the old western series I enjoyed as a boy. Prohibitionists claim that the 1939 Supreme Court case US v Miller ruled that the Second Amendment only allows the states to have a National Guard. The decision says nothing remotely of the kind. Mr. Miller, a bootlegger, was arrested for having transported a sawed off shotgun across state lines. The US District court dismissed the charges on Second Amendment grounds. The government appealed. By this time Mr. Miller was in prison on other charges. His lawyer was not paid on the appeal, and did not appear. No one appeared for the defense on the appeal. The Supremes listed a long history of late 18th century laws to the effect that every man was in the Militia and provided his own weapon, and abruptly ruled that it could not take judicial notice (meaning common knowledge) that a sawed off shotgun was a proper part of militia equipment. Miller never claimed, and the district court never ruled, that he was in the National Guard. The Supreme Court did not mention the National Guard. The Court only upheld the 1934 National Firearms Act on the very narrow grounds that it did not know if sawed off shotguns were used by state militias. There is evidence that they were and are. Many lower courts have ruled that there is no individual right to own guns, citing Miller for a proposition which it does not even discuss, much less state. This sort of vague reference is used as a substitute for legal reasoning. Miller deals with guns, so any ruling dealing with guns uses it as authority, even when it says nothing of the kind. The people who claim Miller for the collective view of the Second Amendment either have not read Miller, or are lying. State vs Finklestein has ended with a defense verdict. Officer Finklestein was a Claycomo Police Officer working off duty security at an apartment complex in Jackson County. He was asked by Kansas City Police to watch for a specific individual who had warrants. When the guy appeared, the officer opened the passenger door and asked him to get out. The suspect gunned the engine and started to drag the officer. People have died in this fashion, so the officer shot him. He died. Black suspect, white cop. There had been several black suspects shot by white cops, only this time, the white cop was from Clay county, and not a Kansas City cop. The Jackson County prosecutor could prosecute without political repercussions, and did. Justice triumphed. The next day a suspect tried to drag a Kansas City officer, who used his new Glock. This time the bad guy lived. We shall see. The Kansas City Police have replaced their S & W Sigmas with Glocks. That agreement S &W did is really working out for them. I hear that the Sigmas do not function reliably. J & R Guns in Kearney is out of business, the Front Line shooting facility is out of business. On the good side, a new Black Powder store has opened in Kearney. Clear Creek Trading Co is at 818 N. Grove, just north of town in a fenced in building just after the road curves to the east. Like all 19th century establishments, they have a web site http://www.clearcreektradingco.com I checked on Al Capone’s criminal history. He was convicted on failure to file income tax, failure to pay income tax, and evasion of income taxes. Oddly enough, the evasion of the tax on liquor was not pursued. This rough tough gangster whose face bore evidence of willingness to stand up to a knife fight, was afraid of a needle, and died of syphilis. I supposed he was afraid of condoms too. Inspired by such American legends, I went for a physical. The doctor says that I’m not dead, and he can prove it. I was pleased to learn that medicine can screen for prostate cancer with a blood test. I (unlike Mr. Capone) prefer a needle to the undignified manual examination. However, dying of prostate cancer is more undignified by far. Like everything else, if they catch this early enough, they can do something about it. My little sister, the Doctor, is authorized to pronounce people dead. She spends her training and career fighting death, but the state trusts her profession, and no other, to recognize it when it appears. For the record, Little Sister is still mad about some things I did during the Eisenhower administration. If she pronounces me dead, I want a second opinion. The California “safety” test for handguns is passing many cheap guns, and failing many expensive models. Companies complain that it is an expensive boondoggle, which is what it was intended to be. Missouri Valley Arms Collector Association has a web site at www.mvacagunshow.com. A bill was introduced in Congress, H.R. 1112, to restrict muzzle-loading firearms in the same way as modern cartridge guns. This means background checks and permits for flintlock pistols and rifles, antique or reproduction. The prohibitionists do not even pretend that that the old guns are the “preferred weapons” of gangsters, they hate gun owners and want to make life miserable for all of us. The bill is probably not going anywhere, but that is how the Brady law started, that is how the “assault weapons” law started, that is how they all start. Reading IBM and the Holocaust answers how the nazis were able to identify the Jewish population of not only Germany, but the nations they occupied. They gathered records from all possible sources, and expended huge amounts of manpower to enter this information onto IBM punch cards. They were then able to identify people who did not consider themselves Jewish, who did not know they had a Jewish grandparent. Without this information the holocaust would have been a bureaucratic nightmare. This is the danger of the “minor”, “reasonable” registration of guns. There is only one reason they want to know where our guns are, and who the gun owners are. There is much speculation on the authors of the recent terrorist attacks. The names thrown around are from the Islamic world. Our enemy is not the Islamic world, our enemy is those persons who use Islam as an excuse to exercise their perverse blood lust. Many claim that the terrorist assault was too complicated for a single organization. The most complicated part of the attack was someone with enough skill to fly a plane into a building which covers several city blocks. Terrorists have conducted cockpit training for over thirty years. It is not hard to guide a plane in the air, landings and takeoffs are the hard part. If one has fanatics willing to die, one only needs a support network for safehouses and money to support the terrorists and buy their tickets. In an open society such as ours, a support network is not hard. It is odd that there were 19 terrorists. This is a lot of suicides to recruit, support, and keep motivated. Doing so in the target county (that’s us) is a security risk. The support network did not even need to see the terrorists, much less know the mission. Both targets were high profile, very large (hard to miss even for amateurs) and mass casualty. The only way to deal with terrorists is to send out young men with short hair and long knives to kill them. There is a day of mourning proclaimed for the victims. We do not need a day of mourning proclaimed, we will do that anyway, we need a day of resolution, we need a day of revenge. WMSA has voted to endorse the NRA Bylaws Amendment providing for State-elected Directors on the NRA Board. This would have 50 NRA directors elected by members in their individual states, and 25 at large. This would ensure that at least one member of the NRA Board was familiar with the needs of his state, and presumably responsive to the concerns of the local members. Six other NRA state affiliate organizations have endorsed the proposed by-law, including Missouri Sport Shooters Association. I checked. The M-79 Grenade launcher has a barrel of 14 inches, the M-203 is about that. The Army issues a buckshot round for these guns. So, the Army does see a need for sawed-off shotguns, a very large-bore need, and they are proper militia equipment. Mind you, the feds will take a different view. Anyone who wants to be a test case, call my office. No; first get a barrel of money, then call my office. Ted Nugent mentions that Jimi Hendrex saw his guns and thought that he was "far out". He points out that he and his guns are going strong, while Jimi and other rock stars are dead of drug overdoses. I was watching a Discovery Channel program on prostitution. Can't pick these things up in the street. It seems that in Jim Crow New Orleans, the town fathers decided that the red-light district had to be segregated by race. They thought that the prostitutes would not, could not, resist. Once the precedent was established, the rest of the city could be segregated. They failed to consider that prostitutes know a number of lawyers (get your mind out of the gutter and certain similes). They also meet a number of politicians (put your mind back in the gutter). Some of the madams were rich. They fought the proposal, and prevented segregation. We have to fight evil on behalf of some disreputable types. It is interesting that some ladies, of completely European ancestry advertised themselves as "quadroons", a lady of 1/8th African descent. It seems that in Louisiana this is a real turn on. Advertising does make a difference. Right now the public finds gun safety a real turn on, so, we advertise ourselves as leaders in gun safety. Speaking of which, the WMSA board is looking into putting up billboards. This will give us name recognition above the heads of the media. The only problem is that a worthwhile effort it will cost a minimum of $6,000. We think the exposure will be worth it, however, the $6,000 is a problem. If you were wondering what to do with your tax refund, now you know. I spoke to Neal Knox. It is a given that an anti-terrorism bill will pass congress. The last two such "anti-terrorist" bills had substantial provisions against us. According to the prohibitionists, we are the terrorists. Osama bin Laden is only a means to destroy us. Neal Knox makes the point that the terrorist attack was based in a no-gun zone. If it was not a no-gun zone, they could not have succeeded. It is assumed that the passengers on one aircraft attempted to re-take the plane, and in the battle it crashed. Pundits asked why no other group of passengers made such an effort. I would guess that the fourth plane got lucky, to an extent. Someone had the leadership to resist. This is unusual. We are taught not to do this. We are taught to call for help, and wait patiently until it arrives. We are taught that under no circumstances are we to take responsibility for our own lives. The last words of one passenger who fought back were “let’s roll”. On 11 October, 2001 between 1100 and 1300 (11:00 AM and 1:00 PM for those in the National Guard) there will be a pro-gun rights demonstration in front of the Kansas City Star, 18th & Grand. The Star promotes hate against gun owners, opposes all pro-Second Amendment proposals, and favors all anti-Second Amendment proposals, and then claims to support the Second Amendment. We will have a new concealed carry license bill within six weeks; they will oppose it. They are an ongoing insult to the gun community. I notice that some judges insist on taking guns away from police when they testify. I'm not sure what they fear from an armed police officer. The prohibitionists hate us all. I’ve reviewed GANGRENE AND GLORY about Civil War medicine. There is a report from a period doctor on African American troops. The old doctor said that one advantage was that African troops eat less than white troops. Obviously he never met our Gary We shall overcome. |