David Codrea:

Proving once more that unintended consequences of “gun control” actually increase dangerous crime, The Detroit News reported Thursday that “Guns are being stolen from vehicles downtown, in part because nightclubs and the NFL ban firearms.”

Unable to bring their firearms into venues that ban them, many gun owners are nonetheless unwilling to travel to and from such locations without the means of defense, and are opting to have their firearms with them as long as they legally can, then storing them in their cars.

So instead of allowing gun owners to bring them into the stadium to keep them safe, they’re requiring that gun owners turn them over to criminals.  They’re doing this for the children.  Consider the children …

Kurt Hofmann:

Apparently believing that the American public had not yet been subjected to enough ridiculous fearmongering over the supposed “undetectability” of firearms printed from plastic, ABC’s Katie Couric ran a short segment on her show, “Katie,” last week, titled, perhaps not surprisingly, “The Dark Side of 3D Printers.”

Who is Katie Couric?

Here is the NSSF on smart gun technology.  I said before that Daily Caller annoys me, and increasingly so.  Notice that NSSF doesn’t have any prima facie objections to smart guns, but they point out that they might be unreliable.

Pfft!  I object to smart guns because they’re unreliable too.  But I also prima facie object to smart guns because of government interference and potential usage in gun confiscation or registration shenanigans.

Uncle links this post on revolver science, entitled why heavy, slow bullets hit higher than light, fast bullets.  Okay, since the original author starts the science lesson, I’ll finish it.  He’s dealing with the gun and bullet as a system rather than individually, considering the affects of recoil on the trajectory.

But rather than titling the post about heavy bullets, he should have stayed on point about the overall system.  It isn’t an enigma why heavy bullets and light bullets have the same drop given the same velocity, or another way of saying it is that he should have left out the discussion of heavy and light altogether and stuck with velocity and the affects of recoil on the pivot point of the firearm.

If you take a bullet of 180 grains and one of 230 grains, and hold them the same height and drop them, they will land at the same time due to the acceleration of gravity, which is the same and constant regardless of mass.  Alternatively, drop a marble and bowling ball from the third floor of the stairwell of your college physics building, and they’ll land at the same time (remove people from the stairwell before attempting this experiment).

Of course, I’m leaving out a complex discussion of aerodynamic drag, from which I could explain why it’s better for folks with trucks like my F150 to leave the tail gate up instead of down, but I’ll save this for another lesson.

This is why BDC is a function of muzzle velocity (and aerodynamics for such rounds as hollow points), but not bullet mass.  Okay, is that clear to everyone?  This is basic physics, and everyone should understand this, especially shooters.  If you have to adjust BDC for your rounds given different bullet masses, it’s because of different muzzle velocity due to mass (and because lower velocity rounds won’t go as far), not because heavy objects drop faster than light objects.  Heavy bullets do not drop faster than light bullets.  Finally, in order to get an idea how quickly your bullet is hitting the ground, hold it at the height of the gun you’re shooting, drop it, and time it.  When it hits the ground, it would have hit the ground if you had shot the bullet out of the barrel of your gun, just some hundreds of yards away.

J. D, Tuccille with Reason:

According to Hugh McQuaid at CT News Junkie:

As of mid-November, the state had received about 4,100 applications for assault weapon certificates and about 2,900 declarations of large-capacity magazines.

Michael Lawlor, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s criminal justice advisor, said that so far fewer people than expected have registered weapons under the new law. However, he said gun owners should take seriously the consequences of ignoring the law. Disregarding the registration requirements can carry felony charges in some cases, which can make Connecticut residents ineligible to own guns.

First-time offenders who can prove they owned the weapon before the law passed, and have otherwise followed the law, may be charged with a class A misdemeanor. In other cases, possessing one of the newly-banned guns will be considered a felony that carries with it a sentence of at least a year in prison.

“If you haven’t declared it or registered it and you get caught . . . you’ll be a felon. People who disregard the law are, among other things, jeopardizing their right to own firearms. If you’re not a law-abiding citizen, you’re not a law-abiding citizen,” Lawlor said.

Mr. Lawlor, like most government officials, seems to think he and his buddies have invented policy out of whole cloth, and that the population has no choice but to shuffle along and obey. But weapons registration laws have a history—a consistent history, as I’ve written, of noncompliance and defiance.

State officials could have taken a moment to glance across the state line to New York City, where a few tens of thousands of firearms are owned legally, and an estimated two million are held illegally, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. That is not uncommon. In my piece on the history of gun control’s failure, I wrote:

The high water mark of American compliance with gun control laws may have come with Illinois’s handgun registration law in the 1970s. About 25 percent of handgun owners actually complied, according to Don B. Kates, a criminologist and civil liberties attorney, writing in the December 1977 issue of Inquiry. After that, about 10 percent of “assault weapon” owners obeyed California’s registration law, says David B. Kopel …

Connecticut may want to look close to home for even lower compliance figures. In New Jersey, reported The New York Times in 1991, after the legislature passed a law banning “assault weapons,” 947 people registered their rifles as sporting guns for target shooting, 888 rendered them inoperable, and four surrendered them to the police. That’s out of an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 firearms affected by the law.

Noncompliance means they’re not giving up their weapons regardless of what the law says.  And that means that if the statists really want them, they’ll have to send in armed teams to invade the homes of gun owners (if they can find them) and confiscate them while they also shoot anyone who gets in their way.

And that means that gun owners who decide to keep their weapons have nothing left to lose when those armed teams come calling.  The collectivists want it to be ever so easy, with fawning, stupid, television-watching imbeciles who listen and obey their edicts as long as they get free bread and circuses.

But are they okay with bloodshed as a result of their edicts?  Perhaps yes, perhaps not.  Perhaps with some, perhaps not so much with others.  But collectivists nationwide should consider the ramifications of their laws.  Gun owners won’t surrender firearms peaceably.  You can take that to the bank.

By way of preliminaries, I had promised to craft more detailed response to Mr. Bateman, but the context of the promise is this comment.

When my son Daniel was in the USMC (part of which was a combat tour) I followed the Small Wars Journal and associated writers so that I could monitor the silliness. It was an exercise in self serving navel gazing and pedantry. Bateman was among those who spent time on those pages writing worthless garbage for others to ingest. I’ve seen his stuff before.

Bateman wants very badly to be more handsome, younger, more important and smarter than he really is. And he wants people to pay attention. Thus, when he would write and it seemed that no one was paying attention, he would then seed it with something really, really outlandish and ridiculous so that people would pay attention to him.

He isn’t so much an ideologue as he is an attention hound who wants everyone to look at him even if you find him grotesque. Rather than a stooge, he is like a misbehaving child who throws tantrums in front of important people.

Rehearsing the subject which initially brought about this charge, Robert Bateman penned a piece in Esquire in which he bolstered his credentials as a collectivist.  Basing his diatribe on a recent shooting over a college football game, he outlines his plans for gun control.  Here are some excerpts from his commentary.

My entire adult life has been dedicated to the deliberate management of violence. There are no two ways around that fact. My job, at the end of the day, is about killing. I orchestrate violence.

I am not proud of that fact. Indeed, I am often torn-up by the realization that not only is this my job, but that I am really good at my job. But my profession is about directed violence on behalf of the nation. What is happening inside our country is random and disgusting, and living here in England I am at a complete loss as to how to explain this at all. In 2011 the number of gun deaths in the United States was 10.3 per 100,000 citizens. In 2010 that statistic in the UK was 0.25. And do not even try to tell me that the British are not as inclined to violence or that their culture is so different from ours that this difference makes sense. I can say nothing when my British officers ask me about these things, because it is the law.

But just so we are all clear on this, let me spell it out for the rest of you. During the American Civil War, a topic about which I know a little bit, we had a system of state militias. They formed the basis of the army that saved the United States. For most of the first year, and well into the second, many of the units raised by the states were created entirely or in part from militia units that predated the war. But even when partially “regulated,” militias are sloppy things.

Which is why, in 1903 Congress passed the Militia Act. Friends, if you have not read it I’ll just tell you: As of 1903, the “militia” has been known as the National Guard.

Bateman then turns attention to his proposals.

The only guns permitted will be the following:

a. Smoothbore or Rifled muzzle-loading blackpowder muskets. No 7-11 in history has ever been held up with one of these.

b. Double-barrel breech-loading shotguns. Hunting with these is valid.

c. Bolt-action rifles with a magazine capacity no greater than five rounds. Like I said, hunting is valid. But if you cannot bring down a defenseless deer in under five rounds, then you have no fking reason to be holding a killing tool in the first place.

2. We will pry your gun from your cold, dead, fingers. That is because I am willing to wait until you die, hopefully of natural causes. Guns, except for the three approved categories, cannot be inherited. When you die your weapons must be turned into the local police department, which will then destroy them. (Weapons of historical significance will be de-milled, but may be preserved.)

[ … ]

4. We will submit a new tax on ammunition. In the first two years it will be 400 percent of the current retail cost of that type of ammunition. (Exemptions for the ammo used by the approved weapons.) Thereafter it will increase by 20 percent per year.

You’ve seen enough to get the picture.  A number of technical responses may be offered to Bateman.  For example, Bob Owens has a takedown of the notion that well-regulated means under government control.  Directing his instruction at Bateman, David Codrea remarks:

As for who is protected by the Second Amendment, it’s the people, just like it says. Alexander Hamilton addressed “well regulated” in The Federalist No. 29, conceding “To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss…Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped…”

There are other responses across the web.  But mostly they are aimed at the content of Bateman’s commentary, which is good analysis technique, but there is more to understanding Mr. Bateman and why he wrote this diatribe.

Several years ago I frequented the pages of the Small Wars Journal.  I linked them often and was linked by editors.  Mostly what undergirded my advocacy was a concern over my son and his colleagues in the U.S. Marine Corps.  The 2/6 infantry was soon to deploy to Fallujah, and I took a great interest in studying how the Marines did things, where they were going, and in watching the progress of the Battalion.

It was a hard time and I spent many hours awake (while other men were asleep), waiting at my door in the dark for that Marine Corps officer and Chaplain (who never came).  It was also a rich time in some ways.  I had shot guns my whole life, but I had not purchased an AR-15 until then and Daniel taught me to shoot the way the Marines taught him to shoot, i.e., what some might call aggressive, plates-forward stance.  It came naturally to me.  Still, the hard and bitter times were far weightier than any good times from it.

During this misadventure, I was unfortunately introduced to Mr. Bateman on the pages of the Small Wars Journal blog.  I invite you to study his prose.  Don’t take my word for what I have said and am about to say.  Read until you simply cannot stand it any more.  He is a scholar, and warrior, and he is good at what he does, and he is great at what he does, and he laments the evil, and he advises and counsels the best, and everyone listens to him, and he knows virtually everything.  If you don’t believe me, just listen to him tell you that himself.

Bateman can only go so long without the attention he so richly deserves, though.  When things get a bit quiet and he wants to shore up his credentials once again, he starts fights with men of notoriety so that they will respond and give him the press he’s after.  The fight between him and Victor Davis Hanson (see here, here, and here) eventually bored Hanson, it appears, and anyway Bateman was highly over-matched.

Bateman goes into a fury over fairly well established facts like the idea that the Western way of war is different.  I’ve commented in a pedestrian way on that same issue, but again, I am under the impression that this is fairly well established.  Either way, Bateman got the attention he wanted, and he was eventually reduced to personal attacks and name calling, with commenters telling him he was acting like a juvenile.

It doesn’t stop there.  At Zero Anthropology (and I make no claims to a knowledge of what this site advocates or the subject of the disagreement), one author had finally had enough of Bateman, and responded this way.  First, Bateman’s comment, and then the response.

Bateman:

Well, at least I now know that you, at least, see what I type. That evidence, at least, now exists for your readers. As does the fact that you ban free speech on your site. Since your readers now see that you openly posted, “This is from the man who is now claiming that I “silenced” him and tried to avoid him challenging my ideas. Of course, he is saying that in private, because he has been banned from this blog and has sent four more messages nonetheless (not included in the list above).”

Well Max, I really could not contrive a confession of oppression of free speech or discourse any more clearly than the way you just laid it out for your readers. Well played son. Well played indeed. “He claimed I ’silenced’ him” and “he has been banned” are wonderfully juxtaposed.

“OPEN” Anthropology.

Regards Max. And I apologize for the future. Not really my fault. But I am sorry nonetheless.

Bob

Response:

You apologize for the future. It was worth approving your message just so that others can see the veiled threat.

It is OPEN Anthropology…just no longer open to you, and your kind. You had your say, and became repetitive, and rather obnoxious, especially as you turned some of your comments on this blog into ad hominem attacks toward someone (me) who had been very analytical, even handed, calm, and reasonable with you. But then the military wolf in sheep’s clothing is all ready to pounce, eh Bob?

Remember, you have a right to free speech. But not on this blog: it is a privilege, and you abused it.

To the notion that Bateman has been “silenced” on that blog, the author lists 32 comments from Bateman approved by the editors.  The straw that broke the camel’s back was this comment:

…your apparent lack of eductation (sic) on military affairs and international relations. But then, of course, you are a minor teacher without a single published monograph, so I suppose you have to try and make your academic mark somewhere, eh? Anything for tenure.

The final remarks by the author are telling:

Not only is it ad hominem, it is a basic lie. Mission accomplished, Bob, you live up to the values of your institution. An academic, you are not, not even a good poser and pretender.

Well, Bob, you wanted attention, now you got it. You have all of our attention now, with your very own post on this blog, all about you. Is this what you wanted?

Why yes, that’s exactly what Bob wanted.  He got his attention, and you spent your time responding to this narcissist.  Perhaps I’m doing the same thing, but if enough people understand who Bateman really is, then my ordeal will have been worth it.

Bob’s outlandish, exaggerated, extremist prose is his hallmark.  It helps with the attention.  Consider:

My entree was, “I think that Robert E. Lee, as a traitor and betrayer of his solemn oath before God and the Constitution, was a much greater terrorist than Osama Bin Ladin… after all, Lee killed many more Americans than Bin Ladin, and almost destroyed the United States. What do you think?”

Yeah, I flunked “Subtle 101” in High School. Oh well. Like I said, I was not in a good place.

But the fact is that there was nothing that any of these men, and they were all men, could say in honest denial to my assertion. They sputtered and growled, spouted and shouted, but not once did it end well for them on any level. You see, if they were “unreconstructed rebels,” well then I was something almost none of them had ever experienced, an “unreconstructed Yankee.”

So that you understand him, he spells it out for you.  He is not just a narcissist, he is a narcissist with an agenda (oops, that may not be so good for a dispassionate “historian,” no?).  And his collectivist tendencies are usually obvious by the folks he hangs with.  For instance, a search of “Bateman” at CNAS (the center that advises Obama on foreign policy) turns up some attention there too.

Now based on the discussion above, consider his recommendation to end ownership of weapons at death.  Does anyone really think that this could ever obtain in America?  Men who have spent $20,000, or $30,000 or $40,000 or more on guns, scopes, optics and ammunition, and who have taught their sons to use those weapons for self defense and bonded by hunting game with those guns, are expected to turn over those weapons to the government to be cut up with a torch rather than turn them over to their sons as a heritage!

Does Bateman know what he is proposing for the armed forces and police of America in the coming years under such a protocol?  Of course he does.  And the irony is that he claims to loath violence.  Does Bateman know that it would take a violation of Posse Comitatus to even try to pull something like this off, breaking the law of the land?  Of course he does.  And does he know that tens or hundreds of thousands of men would perish as a result of his proposals?

Yes.  And thus has Bateman shored up his progressive credentials one more time, and gotten the attention he so desperately wants, all at the same time.  In the future, pay no attention to Mr. Bateman.  He’s a publicity hound and attention seeker, and uses inflammatory and exaggerated rhetoric to evoke responses.  The internet calls this a “troll.”  It’s just that he’s a troll with credentials – and he’s an expert on everything.  If you don’t believe it, just ask him.

WRSA

David Codrea

Kurt Hofmann

Mike Vanderboegh

We discussed the closing the last lead smelter plant in the U.S. about one month ago.

I have a number of comments concerning this closure.  First of all, the company also states that the $100 million project is “too financially risky.”  And that’s the crux of the issue.  Folks, $100 million just isn’t that much for large scale production in any industry in America.  My bet is that the company believes that it could very well spend $100 million and then continue to be denied the right to manufacture ammunition due to the fact that people writing rulings in the federal register are calling the shots.  You know what I’ve said about the federal Leviathan.  Oftentimes, their standard is a moving target.

Second, I question the degree to which the company is committed to the manufacture of ammunition components.  Power companies who have to fight the EPA on a regular basis simply do what they must.  Of course, power is regulated, but the market for ammunition won’t be going away.

Third, regardless of where you turn (and I include myself in that category), there is vast under-reporting on this.  We have all discussed it, but there is a paucity of good information.  I would like to know the degree to which this will affect the production, availability and price of ammunition in the U.S.?  But in order to know that, one would have to know such things as: (1) what percentage of lead in ammunition comes from this plant as opposed to overseas (including processing of the raw ore), (2) how much lead is used in ammunition in the U.S. civilian market every year, (3) what will the cost be of shipping the raw ore overseas for manufacture, and (4) are there any plans to construct and operate another plant?

This kind of knowledge requires real reporting, and that’s something I only sometimes have the time or resources to do.  Having said that, while this plant may not have been able to meet current EPA standards, it’s a sad day.  I suspect that the EPA hasn’t targeted this plant because of its role in the manufacture of ammunition.  Rather, the EPA targets all productive, money-making industry for onerous regulations, written inside the beltway by armies of lawyers, without regard for the practical affect of said regulations.  It’s governance by federal register, and it’s one thing that makes this so sad.

I still believe that there is under-reporting on this issue.  Emily Miller addresses the issue (via Glenn), concluding that it will have minimal impact.  Becket Adams with The Blaze also recently wrote on this issue, similarly concluding that:

“More than 80 percent of all lead produced in the U.S. is used in either motive batteries to start vehicles, or in stationary batteries for backup power,” the company states on its website. “In the U.S., the recycle rate of these batteries is approximately 98 percent, making lead-based batteries the most highly recycled consumer product. These batteries are recycled at secondary lead smelters. We own such a smelter in southern Missouri.”

Adams also cites Bob Owens who isn’t concerned.  So be it.  I am not “up in arms” as Emily Miller warned.  But I still think that there is under-reporting on this issue, and the questions I asked earlier in large measure still haven’t been addressed.

The issue for me isn’t what is going to happen in the short term and the best of circumstances while there are plenty of automobile batteries that contain lead, or while the flow of lead from foreign countries is still high because shipping lanes are open and countries want to do business with us.

Unlike the ammunition rush of a year ago, I can now find 5.56 mm cartridges for 50 cents per round.  What happens if our armed forces is sent on another adventure and signs another huge contract for ammunition?  The question for me is what happens in the long term in situations of national duress or conditions in a potential future market a decade from now.  I want a scholarly paper on this.  I want to see good, in-depth reporting, and I’m still waiting.

WKMG:

Florida Fish and Wildlife officers have set up three traps in hopes of catching a bear that attacked a Longwood woman on Monday night.

Susan Chalfant, 54, was injured in the attack, classified by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as the first of its kind by a Florida black bear.  Chalfant was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center with serious facial injuries and she remained hospitalized on Tuesday.

“The dogs got agitated, and she turned around to go back to her house, and the bear knocked her to the ground,” said Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Karen Parker.

According to officials, Chalfant was walking two small dogs around 8 p.m. in the 2600 block of English Ivy Court near Markham Woods Road when the bear attacked her before running away.

Chalfant was helped by neighbors and 911 was called, officials said.

“A woman has been mauled by a bear,” the neighbor said on the call, which was released Tuesday.  “She’s so bloody, though, I can’t tell.”

The caller also told dispatchers that the woman was bleeding from her head.

According to the FWC, the neighbor said Chalfant was walking two small dogs, which became agitated and began to bark.  The bear then attacked the woman, the neighbor told officials.

“We believe she was bitten,” said FWC spokeswoman Karen Parker, who added that they only have preliminary information about the incident.

The dogs were not harmed, officials said.

The comments are interesting.  According to some idiotic remarks, it’s her own fault for walking a couple of yap-yap dogs.

My readers know how I feel about OC spray.  It’s a second best option, far behind the first best option, a gun.  If she had shot the bear, the game management folks wouldn’t be searching for the bear and trying to trap it and then “decide” what to do with it.

It would be on its way to bear-heaven, which as best as I can tell doesn’t exist because only humans are made in God’s image.  Shoot the bear.  It almost killed a woman.  Does anything more need to be said?

Prior:

Backpacker Shoots Grizzly In Denali, First Life Saved Since Firearms Legal

Bear Attacks: What About High Capacity Magazines?

So the NFL won’t allow the Daniel Defense Super Bowl commercial (see also National Review).

Now I am no defender of the NFL.  The state of professional football is horrible and the NFL is an overbearing Robber Barron (who prosecutes churches for putting games on a large screen [also a bad idea]).  It has become a game of coaches calling plays in from the sideline rather than quarterbacks being field generals and reading the defense.  For starters, the NFL could attempt to recover some of the historical game by banning electronic communications devices used between coaches and players.

Furthermore, any commercial as good as that one deserves to be aired.  But I won’t be purchasing any Daniel Defense firearms any time soon.  A quick look at their products shows that they are roughly equivalent with Rock River Arms, but RRA’s cost is about 50%-60% of Daniel Defense.

But here is another perspective for you.  I also won’t go out of my way to advocate a firearms company that has a special financing package for their guns if purchased by LEOs.  Either LEOs are special, in which case they should get special deals, or they’re not.

If they’re not and it really matters that common citizens like me should be able to defend their families like the commercial indicates DD believes, they why don’t they offer this “special” financing to everyone?  And if the commercial indicates what DD really thinks, then why offer the special deal to LEOs?

David Codrea:

As there is clearly no pressing justification for imposing draconian citizen disarmament edicts under the guise of crime-fighting, the “benefits” being touted are that the new measures will curb arms trafficking.

The smart money says this is a cynical ruse, and that imposing the new controls will benefit those in a position to create and capitalize on a lucrative new black market — that is, those in power.

That’s what most laws do.  And gun control isn’t about fighting crime.  It’s about controlling the population and making them subservient to their centralized masters.

See other recent articles by David.  He has been busy over the last several days.

Kurt Hofmann:

Killing the filibuster–one of the most important “speed bumps” that has helped make the Senate the more deliberative of the two Congressional bodies, is seen by Sen. Murphy and friends as what is needed for Congress to “do something” against private gun ownership.

And this could be harmful.  Of course, the House could hold strong in spite of the sniveling lackey Boehner.  A potential good thing coming from all of this is that the collectivists in the GOP tilt just enough for us to see their hand.  Oust them, we can, assuming that the vote still means anything, a proposition that I’m not sanguine about.

Kurt also turned my stomach and brought back bad memories by discussing Chris Murphy.  Readers know we have had our run-ins with ole’ Chris.

John Dodson gives us a teaser for his new book on Fast and Furious.  Doubtless he is an honorable man and I believe his account.  But there is a nagging suspicion that what he sees as incompetence was planned and thoughtful foresight by his superiors for the purpose of beefing up the 90% myth, just made to look like incompetence to him.  In other words … well, you know what I mean.

And finally there is this.

Benjamin Johnson faces a charge of negligent endangerment after shooting through the ceiling of his apartment with his handgun, while he was sleeping.

“He woke up from the smoke and the alarm going off in the apartment. He realized something had happened, his gun was on the floor and didn’t make the connection until he looked up and saw a hole in the ceiling,” said McLane.

According to court documents, Johnson’s firearm was not on his headboard, where he had put it before he went to bed, one round was discharged from it and there was a hole in his ceiling.

Uh huh.  It just “went off.”  No rhyme or reason, no one pulling the trigger.  Actually, there is a possibility that is as dangerous as the idea that he didn’t keep his booger hook off of the bang switch (and maybe worse).  It is that he is a sleep walker and didn’t know what he did.  Um, time to move or make him lock his firearm away in a small biometric safe.

Preliminaries

WRSA gives us a proposed formulation for the basis of liberty.

1) We believe and act upon the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

2) Government, to the extent that it is even necessary, must be effectively and eternally constrained, lest it turn once again into tyranny.

3) We believe that it is each individual’s duty and responsibility to provide all necessary support for oneself and one’s family.

4) Beyond the limitations imposed by traditional laws against murder, robbery, theft, rape, and assault, rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.

5) Being essential to the protection and support of ourselves, our families, and our country, no restrictions upon speech, self-defense, arms-bearing, association, worship, private property, parental authority, or the privacy of one’s affairs and writings shall be permitted or tolerated.

This isn’t a bad start, and it’s certainly a daunting task to construct a philosophy for the governance of mankind in a short essay.  I should point out that I think that number (3) is woefully incomplete, and that in order to “act upon the principles of the Declaration of Independence,” it’s necessary properly to understand the foundations of the American revolution, what motivated those men, and why as John Adams observed, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other” (which quote demolishes silly and uneducated objections like the citing the Treaty of Tripoli as counterevidence since it was politics done spuriously in order to allay the fears of a Mohammedan government).

The comments to the article are more interesting than the article itself.  Wombat remarks:

It is the most lazily appealing avenue to attribute the failing of society to the things we dislike.  We can all play the guessing game but in some cases the facts are plain. America has been brought to its knees under the watch of an indisputable Christian majority, so if you want to blame it on the godless heathens be aware. That dog doesn’t hunt.

And ghostsniper remarks:

America is a concept not a gender.Straighten up your act Ed.

A concept is incapable of *honoring* anything.*We* didn’t murder babies.

And later:

… the next time they show up around here I’m gonna turn the hounds of hell loose on them.

And then later:

Faithers *believe* because they have no capacity to do otherwise.

They have maxed out the capability of their thought process.

Like trying to reason with children.

Perhaps we ought to resist the temptation to hurl insults at ghostsniper that he wouldn’t comprehend (such as “Why don’t you try to reason with Professor Alvin Plantinga concerning his Warrant: The Current Debate, to see if you can keep up, or perhaps inquire of my personal friend Hans Halvorson, also a Christian, concerning his views on Quantum Theory or Superentangled States, or perhaps converse with my Christian friend Nolan Hertel concerning his views on the age of the earth).  Perhaps it may be more appropriate to observe that he has accidentally stumbled upon a relevant nugget of truth.  Are belief systems epistemically incorrigible?

With Professor Plantinga, I assert that they are (within certain boundary conditions such as absent the actions of a Sovereign God to change hearts and minds).  My belief Christian belief system is incorrigible, but so is his whether he knows it or not.  And when I say “system” I mean certain things and not others.

To assert a basis for liberty without the context of a world view is vacuous and without compelling force.  We’ll deal with this shortly.

The American Revolution: Analysis & Commentary

Before we can understand where America stands and how to construct a foundation for liberty, we must understand the American experiment at its core because it is the only revolution that has succeeded in supplying the freedom necessary for life, prosperity and peace.

R. J. Rushdoony remarks in “The Nature of the American System” (page 2):

Two causes stand out clearly as basic to the break between the Colonies and George III.  The first cause was the religious issue.  John Adams cited the attempt of parliament to force the establishment of the Church of England on the colonies as responsible, “as much as any other cause,” for the break.  “The objection was not merely to the office of a Bishop, though even that was dreaded, but to the authority of parliament, on which it must be founded.”  We can agree with Bridenbaugh that “It is indeed high time that we repossess the important historical truth that religion was a fundamental cause of the American revolution.”

Does this mean that the American revolution was irreligious or anti-religious?  Not even nearly.  Turning to my former professor at Reformed Theological Seminary, Douglas Kelly, in “The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World” (page 120 – 126):

In terms of population alone, a high percentage of the pre-revolutionary colonies were of Puritan-Calvinist background.  There were about three million persons in the thirteen original colonies in 1776, and perhaps as many as two-thirds of these came from some kind of Calvinist or Puritan connection.

[ … ]

… by 1776, nine of the thirteen original colonies had an “established church” (generally congregational in New England, Anglican in New York, Virginia and South Carolina, “Protestant” in North Carolina, with religious freedom in Rhode Island, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Georgia) … While this did not necessarily mean that a majority of the inhabitants of these colonies were necessarily committed Christian believers, it does indicate the lingering influence of the Calvinist concept of a Christian-based civil polity as an example to a world in need of reform.

Returning to Rushdoony (page 2):

Every colony had its own form of Christian establishment or settlement.  Every one was a kind of Christian republic.  It was to them a monstrous idea … for an alien body, parliament, to impose an establishment on them.  The colonies were by nature and history Christian … to read the Constitution as the charter for a secular state is to misread history, and to misread it radically.  The Constitution was designed to perpetrate a Christian order.

So how did this religious-based opposition to the decrees of George III play out in the colonies?  Returning one final time to Doug Kelly (page 121).

Their experience in Presbyterian polity – with its doctrine of the headship of Christ over the church, the two-powers doctrine giving the church and state equal standing (so that the church’s power is not seen as flowing from the state), and the consequent right of the people to civil resistance in accordance with higher divine law – was a major ingredient in the development of the American approach to church-state relations and the underlying questions of law, authority, order and rights.

[ … ]

It was largely from the congregation polity of these New England puritans that there came the American concept and practice of government by covenant – that is to say: constitutional structure, limited by divine law and based on the consent of the people, with a lasting right in the people to resist tyranny.

Take note that we aren’t asserting that every man must be a Christian for a fundamentally Christian society to obtain.  We are asserting that the polity and laws must follow the basic tenants of Christianity.  This is what obtained in Colonial America and what formulated the basis for the American revolution.

Furthermore, notice that while the revolution was largely religious in nature, it wasn’t a rebellion against religion.  It was a rebellion against the idea that a centralized, dislocated power would impose its will on them, especially in terms of religious polity and laws.  Finally, note that the Calvinian idea of covenant underlies the principles of the American revolution.

It wasn’t a war of rabblerousers, troublemakers or hoodlums.  It was a revolt against a centralized power based on the idea that that power had broken covenant with God and with them, and only thus did they have the right to replace that power.  Power is best located nearest the people where they can hold rulers accountable, a fundamental formulation in the rights of states (or Colonies) early in the days of the republic.

Personal Observations & Conclusions

I’ll now address other, related issues and questions based on the discussion above.

America as a Christian Nation

As to the notion that “America has been brought to its knees under the watch of an indisputable Christian majority,” there is nothing indisputable in that assertion and I do indeed dispute that there is currently or has even recently been a Christian majority.  That statement could have been [correctly] made at the founding of the country, but not now an any meaningful sense.

I can assert that I am the king of Siam, but that doesn’t make it so.  That’s the failure of the ridiculous term “co-religionists,” which means nothing except that the person using the term is a coward (or perhaps just ignorant if we are gracious to him).

Going to church doesn’t make one a Christian.  Asserting so doesn’t make one a Christian.  Pretending so doesn’t make one a Christian.  Doing public “good” doesn’t make one a Christian.  Claiming to do things in the name of Christ doesn’t make one a Christian (Matthew 7:23).  Being a Christian involves a change of heart and mind by the work of a sovereign God who isn’t Himself moved or swayed by the words of man.

America as a Christian nation means more than just the majority of people having been raised within Christian families, professing Christianity and practicing Biblical law in their lives.  It involves Christian polity and public law – implementing rules for how men behave towards one another that is pleasing to God.  That existed at the time of our founding.  We have left that formulation, and thus have we perished as a nation.

The Requirement for a Clash of World Views

The pragmatists recommend keeping politics and religion away from the dinner table at the holidays.  Conversely, my son Joseph recent did a mission trip to the Dominican Republic, and was pleasantly surprised at the almost reflexive tendency to openly discuss world view and religious persuasion over the dinner table.

America has largely lost the ability to think deep thoughts (and cannot even keep up with folks in the DR) because so much of the country reflexively gets sauced and watches idiotic nighttime sitcoms rather than engaging in reading, discussion, learning and challenging each other – no, not talk show challenging, but serious methodological challenges to the logical order and consistency of world views.

The reference to “natural laws” and what nature may teach us is quaint and amusing, but philosophically outdated and meaningless.  Nature confers upon us nothing, and certainly not rights of any sort.  What may be obvious to us is contrary to the pronouncements of others who look at the same “nature.”  To John Dewey, John Stuart Mill and in more drastic form the communists, whatever works the best and achieves the greatest good for the greatest number is “good” (whatever that means).

But under this rubric many men and women have perished, a fact that is acceptable to the communists.  Under this rubric many millions of unborn infants in America have also perished, a fact that is wholly acceptable to the pragmatists and utilitarians.  The tribes in Ethiopia engaged in the practice of killing healthy baby boys whose top teeth came in before his bottom teeth.

America has for a long time found acceptable the idea of theft through taxation and inflation (both of which steal wealth), because that’s what the majority say.  If one turns to “nature” for values, whatever that means, perhaps the best source for ethics and morality would be watching male lions kill the cubs of females so that they come into estrus, or watching other animals as they steal kills.  Again to emphasize the point, nature cannot reveal a system of laws and turning to natural law means that you haven’t thought things through.

For those who have taken courses in apologetics or philosophy (and also for those who haven’t), a world view requires a system of categories working together, including metaphysics, ontology, ethics, epistemology, and so forth.  All of it is usually seen to be based on epistemology, as that category of philosophy describes and explains your source of truth.

It also requires that you posit your presuppositions beforehand.  Arguing that you want “reason” instead of “faith” belies ignorance (and the failure to take courses in math and philosophy).  Recalling the advice of Gordon H. Clark, you need to take a class in geometry.  All logic is governed by rules of deduction, but based on presupposition, axiomatic irreducibles.  If it can be demonstrated it is a pronouncement of your syllogism, not a presupposition.

With the right presuppositions you can demonstrate that the moon is made of green cheese.  You must state yours, and we get to examine them, along with your syllogisms.  What is your source of truth?  You see, these things are necessary before your system can amount to anything.  Otherwise, you’re an infant trying to read a calculus textbook.

Politics is ethics.  It is part of a larger system of philosophy, and it cannot be posited in a vacuum without being void of compelling argument.  You must explain how you know what you know in order for us to judge it, and all of your system must show itself to be consistent with the rest.  This is what philosopher Gordon H. Clark shows so well in “Religion, Reason and Revelation.”

More specifically, in the first chapter Clark shows that the proper way to compare and contrast world views is just that, i.e., religion cannot be separated from other world views because it posits a person (or trinity of persons) from whom revelation flows.  From the utilitarian and instrumentalist, to the communist and anarchist, every man has a god, whether it is himself, his desires, the so-called needs of the many, the utility of ideas, or whatever.  Separating world views based on whether there is such a thing as revelation suffers the logical fate of begging the question because the definition poses that which has been assumed rather than demonstrated.  It’s best for you just to queue up your world view, and for me to queue up mine, and let them fight it out.  We’ll see which one is most consistent and compelling.  Unless, of course, you would rather watch night time sitcoms rather than consider philosophical questions?

The Success of the American Revolution

The American revolution was wrought in substantial measure by men who were willing to lose everything for the sake of what was right, good and what they perceived as holy.  No other revolution has accomplished what it did, especially the French revolution which was a product of the enlightenment.

America has diminished because it has rejected the theories upon which it was built.  But it will ever be that way with no source of truth.  As another professor mine observed, “Statism, in all of its forms, is the logical result of autonomous man attempting to govern himself” (C. Gregg Singer, “From Rationalism to Irrationality,” page 411).

Because of the philosophical problem of the one and the many, man’s attempts to fix his problems will invariably land him in anarchy or totalitarianism (see Rousas J. Rushdoony, “The One and the Many”).  References to pronouncements that I may make because of my world view (e.g., murder is sinful, theft shouldn’t be tolerated, the state is accountable to both God and the people, etc.) are allowed for you even if I find it amusing, but take note that you are borrowing from my world view rather than finishing your own.

To the degree that you don’t develop and complete your world view you are inhibiting conversation because you cannot hold up your end of the bargain to engage in the so-called clash of world views.  And to the degree that you develop a world view that is a recapitulation of one that has gone before, yours will end in totalitarianism.  I guarantee it.  If you argue that you haven’t read all of the philosophy or history text books, you’re arguing for laziness as an excuse.  I’m unimpressed.  I’m sorry that you’re intellectually lazy, but I can’t help you with that.

Finally, to the extent that you are looking for or trying to develop a foundation for liberty that ignores the religious elements of the American revolution, you’re being dishonest.  Our founders were men of character, faith, and fight.  Being men of fight and leaving the character and faith to someone else is a poor substitute for the foundation of liberty in America.  It means that we who do that are not even in the same league as our founders.  It also means that we will fail at our goals and initiatives – I guarantee it.  But if our beliefs are incorrigible, those who are merely fighters (without character or faith) may even be unable to diagnose this malady.  Beware of such men.

Individual and Corporate Accountability, and The Death of Nations and Men

I said earlier that proposition #3 was incomplete.  I have explained that the expectation is not and was never for the state to provide for the needs of the needy.  The state has more and more taken this role to itself as the church and family have left the scene (and as we have allowed the state to usurp God’s authority).  Likewise, when nation-states allow national sins to occur (like abortion), at times in history God’s judgment encircles the entire nation.  He holds people accountable corporately, not just individually.  This is demonstrated all through the Holy Scriptures.  If you haven’t read them, I cannot help you because you’re arguing for laziness again.

And while we may agree that taxation is theft by the power of a badge and gun, that doesn’t mean that we aren’t to provide for the needy (see the admonition of Paul and James concerning widows and orphans).  Families may not always be able to assist because they may not exist.  In such instances, the church and other families show the national character by the care they give widows and orphans.  And again note that I didn’t place the role of support on the state.  I placed it squarely where God does – families and churches, with all institutions accountable to God, including our governors and lawmakers.

For those who have been in any way engaged in dependent care, you have become aware of what I already know.  The elderly cannot care for themselves – or at least, they are much less able to care for themselves than are we.  We can collect our guns, ammunition, gold, tactical gear and food stuffs, but the reality is that there is a short window of time in life where that means anything.

I may carry weapons from room to room with me when I make my way around the house, and carry them on my way about my business on a daily basis.  But one day soon, my life and yours will be snuffed out.  We will perish from the face of the earth, along with any memory of us.  The very small segment of the world that knew we existed will forget us.  Then we will face judgment in front of our creator.

That day, our mouths will be closed.  We will not speak.  There will be no defense.  Christ will be our advocate, or we will be told to depart.  No amount of guns and ammunition will be able to change things.  Before that day we will be as helpless as the other elderly for whom God has made us accountable – unable even to move at times, much less provide for ourselves.  We will be dependent upon other men in life, and God’s judgment in death.

Take care that your world view is sufficiently humble.  You won’t be “unleashing the hounds of hell” on anyone.  You will soon be old and feeble, and then you will die.  “It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).  Understand that whatever designs you have for your family and your nation depends upon the favor of a sovereign God, and not your own “wisdom.”  No basis for liberty that ensconces sin or ignores the demands of a sovereign God (whether theft by taxation, abortion, or whatever) will ever succeed.  “Do homage to the Son that He not become angry and you perish in the way” (Psalm 2:12).

And thus no one who reads this article will have the excuse that he has never heard this.

All the best to my readers and happy Thanksgiving from me and mine to you and yours.  It is a truly Christian holiday.  Enjoy it.  Jerry Miculek shows us how to carve a turkey.  Since I don’t have a .460 Magnum Weatherby rifle, I’ll have to live vicariously through Jerry’s demonstration.

The impossible has happened.  The ROE in Afghanistan will get even worse.

The new U.S.-Afghanistan security agreement adds restrictions on already bureaucratic rules of engagement for American troops by making Afghan dwellings virtual safe havens for the enemy, combat veterans say.

The rules of engagement place the burden on U.S. air and ground troops to confirm with certainty that a Taliban fighter is armed before they can fire — even if they are 100 percent sure the target is the enemy. In some cases, aerial gunships have been denied permission to fire even though they reported that targets on the move were armed.

The proposed Bilateral Security Agreement announced Wednesday by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Secretary of State John F. Kerry all but prohibits U.S. troops from entering dwellings during combat. President Obama made the vow directly to Mr. Karzai.

“U.S. forces shall not enter Afghan homes for the purposes of military operations, except under extraordinary circumstances involving urgent risk to life and limb of U.S. nationals,” Mr. Obama pledged in a letter to the Afghan leader.

Ryan Zinke, who commanded an assault team within SEAL Team 6, said of the security deal: “The first people who are going to look at it and review it are the enemy we’re trying to fight. It’s going to be a document that can be used effectively against us. This is where we either fight or go home. What’s happening is we’re losing our ability to fight overseas.”

As I’ve covered, we never really had the ability in the first place.  Why are we still in Afghanistan anyway?  I’ve covered this almost two years ago.  We should have already withdrawn.

Tim Lynch, who has spent more time in Afghanistan than any English-speaking man alive, has told me that we’re “finished” in Afghanistan, and he concurred with my counsel to withdraw.

It was a campaign of state-building waged by the social planners.  We should have already pulled all troops out of that God-forsaken part of the world and send in all the social planners who played god with the lives of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines.  Let them deal with the mess they created.

To Hamid Karzai, prepare for your own demise.  Your administration will soon collapse.  But not another drop of American blood.