|
Liberty Notes, Kevin L. Jamison, 12 October 2001
It is a good day
for Liberty.
• The Anthropology Museum at the University of Missouri at
Columbia contains a world-class exhibition of bows and arrows.
Exhibits from around the world an many ages include accessories
and manuscripts on archery. It also includes a modern bow referred to as “Harry Drakes
unlimited footbow”, which reputedly fired an arrow 2,000 yards.
This feat seems to have been in one single shot, and not
cumulative over the life of the bow. It was not until revolvers became available in 1840 that guns
were a decided advantage over bows in combat.
For centuries, the only advantage to guns was that a man could
learn to be accurate with a gun in a much shorter period of time.
• BEYOND THE RHINE, by Donald R. Burgett is the autobiographical story
of the last days of nazi Germany by a trooper in the 101st
Airborne. He liberated
concentration camps, and met unrepentant nazis.
Some did not want to obey the occupation orders, until he pointed
his .45 at them. One nazi
thug looked down the barrel, said "big", and complied (and
Col. Cooper says “told ya”). Another
trooper captured a .25 caliber Thompson gun in a warehouse of guns from
different countries and ages. The
half-sized gun worked.
• I've come across some gun magazines from the mid-1960's.
In those days any 12-year old could get a Luger by mail for $50,
and a 32 round drum magazine for another $9; or an M-1 Carbine with 30
round magazine, an M-1 or M 14, or 20mm anti-tank gun (with all its
Unintended Consequences), or many other guns.
Yet, children were not killing each other.
Guns are not more available now; they are much less available.
Something has changed, and it is not the increased availability
of guns.
• The NRA's American Rifleman used to have a column called "A
Case of Interest". Written
by a judge, it reviewed cases of interest to the shooting community.
Blade magazine has a regular feature called “Your Knife
Rights”, which is always of interest. This was a good idea and should be revived.
• I have a handbook which appears to be for soldiers of the
Swiss Army. It has much
good information and would be quite useful if it were not in German; or
perhaps if I spoke German. Some
books are more useful than others.
I buy books for use, I do not usually collect, however I have
been forced to make an exception. At
the last MVAC show, the last gun show on Front Street, I bought a copy
of the Bible autographed by the Author.
Couldn't pass that up.
• We are at war. The
president gave a hellfire and damnation speech. He gave an ultimatum to people the Afghans think are
fanatics. This will be long
and bloody. There will be
no stunning victories. It
will be fought by young men with short hair and long knives; killing one
by one.
• It is astonishing how nice people are to you when you are giving
blood. Even when they know
you are a lawyer. It is my
only opportunity to have a pretty lady hold my hand, even if it is only
to take my pulse. When she
took my hand, she asked if my blood pressure just went up.
Well, yes; I’m old, not dead.
The only way for old soldiers to fight this war is to fly flags
and give blood. Just after
the 9-11 attack, there was a rush to give blood.
Blood is only good for a few weeks.
By the time this is published, there will be a critical need for
more blood. Donate blood;
they give free cookies.
• Gun Owners of America warns that the DoD authorization bill has a
provision allowing the destruction of privately owned weapons and
accessories which have ever, at any time, belonged to the military.
The NRA has joined this warning.
This bill is blatantly unconstitutional (depriving persons of
property without due process of law), however it might be used to
destroy the Civilian Marksmanship Program (old DCM).
This is a private corporation which sells former military M-1
rifles to high-power rifle competitors.
This program has long been a target of the prohibitionists.
• There is a danger that anti-gun measures will be attached to
anti-terrorism measures. Callous
prohibitionists will attach anti-gun measures to any anti-terrorism bill
that is moving. To them we
are the terrorists, all of us. Remember
the slanderous cartoon they did of Charlton Heston as a hijacker.
Keep alert, and keep those cards and letters coming.
• I was in Kansas City Municipal Court on a gun case.
My client was charged with carrying a gun openly in a government
office building; Truman Medical Center.
Obviously the hospital is a private corporation and not a
government office. The
prosecutor tried to bootstrap an argument that it was a government
building because it accepted government money.
Hell, I accept government money, by that standard my office is a
government office. We won,
but the court chose to lecture on the need for a city ordinance against
open carry and hoped that “in the current climate” it would pass.
• There is no definition of a government office in the Missouri
statutes. From the language
of the law, it would appear to involve some governing function,
administration, ministerial, enforcement, traditional “I’m from the
government and I’m here to help you” stuff.
There is a large body of law on sovereign immunity; when a
government function is immune from lawsuit.
Some hospitals and other activities owned and operated by
government have been found to be covered by sovereign immunity, at least
for some purposes. Since
Missouri’s law was a reaction to reconstruction era violence involving
government offices, I do not think hospitals and campgrounds are
covered. But, I just work
here, I don’t make policy.
• A carjacker was convicted in Jackson County Missouri for 1st
degree murder in the dragging death of a six-year-old boy.
The mother tried to pull the boy out of the car, but he was
tangled in his seat belt and was dragged to death.
This is the same prosecutor’s office that charged Officer
Finkelstein with second degree murder for shooting a suspect who was
dragging him. I keep
saying, it doesn’t have to make sense, its just the law.
• I want a blaze orange tie with green stripes.
Blaze orange is the gun safety color, our color, green is for the
volunteer rifle companies of the Revolution, and before, and after.
I have found no blaze orange ties.
I have a "burnt orange" tie, (not the same thing) which
I will wear in my next arson case.
I have found white ties, which I dyed orange, not a satisfactory
result. I have found a
number of green ties in thrift stores.
It appears that a number of people sober up after St. Patrick's
day, not all, but many.
• Since the 9-11 attack, I have seen statements about "ragheads"
who ought to go back where they came from.
I knew an American Indian who subscribed to this theory, in a
much broader sense. I would
like these bigots to go up to Massad Ayoob, call him a raghead, and tell
him to go back to the Middle East. But first tell me when and where, so
I can sell tickets.
• Massad Ayoob has written an article asking if all police officers
should carry the same gun. It
seems that all police officers will carry the same gun, and it will be a
Glock. I don't know why.
• One of my clients is from the Middle East; he was taking pilot
lessons. He says the FBI
was very nice.
• I remember reading an incident from the days of old sailing ships.
The hero had gotten crossways with the ship’s cook, who took to
intimidating him with a large kitchen knife.
The hero bought a knife and wetstone from a shipmate and made a
show of sharpening the knife. After
a few minutes of this, the cook came over and offered to be friends.
The trouble is, I cannot remember if this is from Two Years
Before the Mast or Seawolf or perhaps some other book I have
confused with these two works. Someone
should invent a machine where you could store information and search and
compute which book has the desired information.
They could call it a compute machine.
Such a device would be very complex and certainly not everyone
would be able to use one. A
machine containing 64,000 bits of information would be about right.
• There is some nonsense about President Bush not going
directly to Washington DC on 9-11.
This would have put the president and Vice-President in the same
place when another terrorist attack was expected.
• Phil Donahue is claiming that we should talk to the
terrorists, that if we do not, more innocent people will die.
After 10,000 years of organized warfare, he thinks we don’t
know that innocents die in war. More to the point, what kind of conversation does he expect
us to have with people who crash airplanes into civilian targets?
Innocent people will die, no matter what we do.
The only question is if we will shoot back.
The only choice is to conform to whatever the terrorists want,
abandon Isreal, make Islam the state religion, pull women out of school
and work and put them in personal tents, and then I think they will find
other stuff they are mad at.
• Emory University is requiring Michael Bellesiles to defend his book
ARMING AMERICA. This is the
book which claims that few Americans owned guns before the Civil War.
British records of the Revolution show that whenever they left
their strongholds, disaffected locals shot at them.
For Bellesiles thesis to be correct, the same wagon-load of guns
would have to be freighted from Main to Georgia, the Atlantic coast to
the Mississippi, just in advance of the British.
The logistics of the time make this highly unlikely.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence; Bellesiles
claims were accepted without question by the media.
Historians began to trace his footnotes.
They found that his quotes were out of context, contrary
information was on the same page, or the quotes did not exist.
Bellesiles claims to have researched probate records for 1840
& 50’s California. These
records were destroyed in the eathquake of 1906, there are no known
copies. Probate records in
states which still exist contradict his claims.
They show four times as many guns as he claims they show.
Bellesiles claims the records show old, rusty, and broken guns.
The records say nothing of the kind.
When prohibitionists make claims, they are accepted, when we
present research, they claim that our results are contrary to
prejudices, and could not possibly be true.
• UMKC Law School’s Federalist Society hosted a debate on gun
maker liability for crimes between Professor Jeff Thomas (for the
prohibitionists) and Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America (for the good
guys). The professor began
by assuring everyone that he was a liberal, as if that justified his
expertise and credentials. He
claimed that the issue was not about banning guns, although he made it
clear he favored such an approach.
Mr. Pratt took a Constitutional rights approach.
These suits are clearly to make guns too expensive for general
ownership. A fee many times
the value of the object is clearly confiscatory.
The professor claims that crime is a cost of ownership of guns,
that victims do not get the benefit of gun ownership, only the cost, and
therefore the owner should pay. This
is a perfunctory and incomplete analysis.
When running a liquor store, I found a guy beating his girlfriend
in front of my door. I
showed him my gun and told him to stop.
He did the sensible thing. This
lady got the benefit of my gun ownership, but I doubt she will help pay
for my gun, especially if the professor gets his way and they costs some
thousands of dollars, per ounce. The
professor graciously allowed that the surplus costs might only be
applied to companies which sold guns of which he disapproved.
He disapproves of companies which sell guns that shoot armor
piercing bullets, sell through the mail, and out of car trunks at gun
shows. He thinks guns are
sold through the mail.
• WMSA Board member Dean Johnson put on a presentation on Civil War
re-enacting at the July general membership meeting.
Dean portrays a half-starved Confederate infantryman.
He is really good; he has to be.
Dean’s group does not run up and down hills, they shoot
targets, best shot wins, as it should be.
• Dean will not give his son in the service a pistol.
He is upholding the family tradition and getting him a BAR.
He will get him a shoulder holster.
We shall overcome. |