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It is a good day for Liberty.

We have about 60 days until the election, which will decide the next four years.

Washington D.C.’s new gun law still says that guns must be unloaded disassembled and locked until actually attacked.  Washington DC knows that it will be sued over its new handgun restrictions, but says “This time” it will be ready.  As if they lost Heller because they were not ready. 

It occurs to me that there were no anti gun demonstrators at the NRA Convention.   Even the “American Hunters and Shooters” was a no show.  This outfit is a false flag operation which pretends to be composed of hunters and shooters.  It was founded by anti-gun persons to provide the pretense of gun owner support to anti-gun politicians and measures.  It made an appearance last year at the NRA Convention in St. Louis.  It did not disappear and has arisen this election year.  They support Obama of course.

In the low crime Northland an armed robber attacked an older couple at an ATM.  The man got out of his car with a handgun and told the robber to halt.  The bad guy made a bad decision and was shot.  He appears to have survived.  The victim had a License To Carry.  The media reaction was remarkable.  The Kansas City Star broke with tradition and called victim the victim and the criminal the gunman.  In the past we have protested the Star’s policy of calling victims who fought back the “gunman” and failed criminals the “victim”.  They used to claim that the criminal was the victim of a gunshot, in the same way, I suppose, and a drunk driver is the victim of his own accident.  We hope that this new media stylebook is permanent.

I am reliably informed that the ancient Babylonian epic “Epic of Gilgamesh” has a passage in which a Wild Man terrorizes the countryside.  Hunters are unable to catch him so a Temple Prostitute is hired for the job.  It appears that religion had a much different view of such things in those days and perhaps sainthood had much different criteria.  The Temple Prostitute seduced the Wild man and explained the benefits of civilization which include girls, baked bread and beer.  Faced with such compelling arguments the Wild Man resolved to become a city boy.  There has been some discussion that women are a civilizing influence in society.   The thesis of the book Violent Land is that societies without women or that do not value women are more violent.  Of course, there are other elements.  Such societies are typically composed of the more adventurous and aggressive males which might increase the likelihood of violence.  Still, the author makes a compelling argument.  There does not appear to be a woman willing to civilize me, some challenges are simply too challenging.

A UMKC law professor, Allen Rostron, has written a gun control article for the Maryland Law Review, “Incrementalism, Comprehensive Rationality, and the Future of Gun Control”.  I have not read the article but after skimming the first few pages it appears to argue that the problem with gun control is that it has not be adequately tried.  The author seems to argue that gun control must be implemented all at once or it will not work.  This reminds me of unrepentant socialists who argue that socialism has not failed because it has not been adequately tried.  Certainly if gun control had any promise at all, some part of it would have shown some effect in reducing crime.  The experience has been quite the contrary.  Some people only see what they want to see.

I see that a video game company called Kuma War has a “news” operation which allows subscribers to fight recent squad level battles from Iraq or Afghanistan.  The download begins with a “news” broadcast which describes the situation and then the player takes over the battle.  The Kuma executives say that they get satellite pictures of the terrain and have communicated with participants in recent battles to ensure authenticity.  Some question that this is news, and it is a game, not combat.  Still, I cannot help but think that this is a concept that we could use.

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment is a Constitutional right many believe that we are clad in a bulletproof right to arms.  You will find that those Ghost Shirts don’t work worth a damn.  In the Ghost Dance religion among the Northern Plains tribes in 1890, it was an article of faith that if a believer wore a Ghost Shirt no bullet could touch him.  In the event, many of those bloodstained Ghost Shirts were buried with their owners.  The believers who ducked, dodged and hid during the battle had a much better chance of survival.  The moral of the story is that to survive, you have to work those Ghost Shirts.  Washington D.C. has re-written its firearms law to give lip service to the Supreme Court decision, and thumb its nose at the right it recognizes.  Anti-gun groups and politicians are re-naming all of their restrictions as “reasonable”.  The City Council of Kansas City is about to vote in favor of harassing gun owners.  We have a long fight ahead of us just to keep what we have.  If the election gives us “President Obama” the next four years will be the Alamo every day.

The Public Safety Committee of the Kansas City Council voted for a resolution in favor of the Mayor joining Bloomberg’s group.  Despite its high-flown rhetoric that group exists to harass gun owners.  It has compromised federal investigations to make political points about black-market gun sales.  It has brought the weight of New York City against small family gun dealers forcing them to choose between crippling legal fees or knuckling under to Bloomberg.  Although it styles itself as “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” guns are neither legal nor illegal; it is their use that is legal or illegal.  It has demanded access to data on guns that have been traced so it could claim that they were all used in crimes and sue the dealers.  The Kansas City resolution asks that only law enforcement have access to trace data, but Bloomberg’s group is not bound by the City resolution. 

The Mayor could join the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which actually works with the ATF to prevent illegal sales.  He could join Parents of Murdered Children.  He could have joined WMSA, we have circulated petitions against murderers getting parole and put in sentencing memos supporting long sentences in two local cases where FFL’s were caught selling illegally.  Instead he is resolved (as of this writing) to join a group which exists to harass gun owners.

The Mayor had promised Councilman John Sharp that he would not join Bloomberg’s group.  However Bloomberg cornered him at a conference and convinced him to go back on his word.  John Sharp has been very helpful to us in this matter.

In the aftermath of a man protecting himself at a Kansas City ATM, the Mayor has chosen to support the other side.

In an episode of the series “Psych” the lead character proclaims flight as the “universal sign of guilt”.  He is right.  Flight will always be taken as an admission of guilt.

Analysis of population shows that by 2042 all Americans will be members of a minority group, including Caucasians.  This is neither good nor bad, it simply is.  The question is what we will do with the information.  We need to recruit in minority communities.  If we do not, the enemy will.

I have the rare honor to be an honorary member of the Missouri Valley Arms Collectors Association.  My membership badge actually says “Hononaroy”.  This certainly makes it even more rare.  In twenty years people will offer me tens of thousands of dollars for it.  I won’t sell, but it’s nice to be asked.

A letter to the newspaper abuses a lawyer for arguing in defense of his client.  The client was clearly an evil person.  However, it was decided a long time ago that even evil persons are entitled to vigorous representation by a lawyer.  Many persons who have never needed a defense share the angry letter writer’s views.  Innocent persons do need defending.  The Bible tells us that Joseph (of the flashy coat) was imprisoned after being falsely accused of molesting a married woman.  I am reliably informed that the trial of Jesus of Nazareth violated local and Roman legal procedures.  If Jesus had competent legal assistance, the New Testament might have had a happy ending.  I grant that competent legal assistance may have interfered with some Grand Design.  More recently, we find that the ancient concept of self-defense must be presented again and again.  I defended a young man in municipal court who had been attacked in front of a movie theater and fought back.  He was arrested for fighting in public.  I pled self-defense.  The learned prosecutor patiently explained that self-defense did not apply because he was not charged with starting the fight.  I patiently refrained from calling her a raving idiot who should not be allowed in a courtroom without adult supervision.  Self-defense is technically the defense of justification.  The law recognizes that one may do illegal things in an emergency, such as if one is attacked in front of a movie theater.  The most common example is speeding while on the way to the hospital.  It is necessary in such cases to prove that one’s action is a reasonable reaction to an unreasonable situation.  There are other examples.  Recently a small-town Mayor was arrested for marijuana possession.  Someone shipped marijuana to his address.  The scheme was that a confederate would intercept the package at the house and the shipment could not be traced to the smuggler.  The mayor came home unexpectedly and got there first.  The police swooped in and a good time was not had by all.  In Ontario, Canada the child welfare department was summoned by school officials to investigate information that a certain girl was being sexually abused.  The information was based on word of psychic.  The “information” was that a girl in a teacher’s class with a name beginning with “V” was being abused.  From this they called the authorities.  Even if I believed that psychic evidence was just as good as any other type of evidence I would have to recognize that this is a minority view.  However that would require thinking which apparently is just too hard.  Defense lawyer typically practice their skills on guilty parties, which is fair, prosecutors practice on guilty persons as well.  When the innocent party is enmeshed in the legal system on the word of a psychic, or mistake, or lies it is nice to have a skilled advocate to present a defense.

I continue to get reports of people who have been fired from their jobs because they had guns in their cars in the company parking lot, sometimes even if they were not in the company lot.  It is difficult to file suit.  In Missouri one can be fired for no reason at all, and being a gun owner is not a constitutionally protected status; not yet.  The US Supreme Court has ruled that a business can restrict weapons on its premises.  It is, after all, their property.

A client with an LTC tells me that he was at a grocery, not a posted area, and as he was leaving a security guard demanded to know what was on his hip.  He explained that he has a License To Carry and offered to show it to the guard.  He was told that if he reached into his pocket he would be shot.  He was held for the police, handcuffed and threatened with jail until the police informed the guard that he did have an LTC and it was legal.  This has the makings of a case.  Before the law changed many people who were held on false accusations of shoplifting successfully sued.

A ceiling fan in my office has been wobbling and there was some concern that it would come crashing down and take out half the WMSA Board of Directors.  Bob Brannock took charge of repairs.  Bob used to work at TWA and is familiar with things that rotate.  Repairing things that rotate requires a number of exotic tools, this one called for a screwdriver.  I confined my participation to supervising quietly from a distance and the fan is now rock solid.  It is amazing what can be accomplished by not interfering with people who know what they are doing.

We shall overcome.

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