Titled:   Pivotal Ohio Gun Rights Activist Passes Away

Titled:   Chief’s Counsel: Responding to Gun Possession Reports

A well written and thought out opinion from the General Counsel of Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association on how cops should handle reports of gun possession:

Enforcement Guidelines
Where a police officer receives a report that a person is in possession of a firearm, but the weapon is not visible to the officer, the following options are available:

• Engage in a voluntary contact and simply ask the person if he or she has a firearm.
  
• If he or she confirms he or she is in possession of a gun, the officer may ask the person to voluntarily hand it over just while the interview takes place, or insist that they hand it over if there is a reasonable belief that the safety of the officer or public is in jeopardy, or that the person has used it in a crime or is about to do so.
  
• If the person denies having a firearm or refuses to answer, and the officer does not otherwise have (legally sufficient) reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, the officer must allow the person to continue on his or her way.
  
• If the person denies having a firearm or refuses to answer, but the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person is armed and presents a danger to the officer or public, the officer may conduct a stop and frisk the person. If the officer finds a weapon, the officer may hold it while conducting the field inquiry. As long as the person is properly licensed, and no arrest takes place, the officer must return the gun at the conclusion of the interview.
  
• If the officer has a warrant or has probable cause to arrest the person for a crime, the officer may conduct a thorough search (not merely a frisk) and take possession of any weapon.
  
• Where the person appears to be a minor and therefore too young to have firearm (in most states), the police may have reason      to believe that a crime is being committed (unlawful carrying of a firearm) and may therefore conduct a stop rather than a mere encounter.

There is more, and it is well worth the read, if only to suggest that not all Massachussettes residents are crazy.

Hat-tip to SayUncle

Titled:   Anger over UK gun register delay

Just as Canada learns that gun registration is a thankless and expensive task, the UK marches onwards with plans to repeat the exact same experiment and hopes to achieve different results:

The government has said it still plans to set up a UK gun register amid mounting criticism over its delay.

Commons Leader Geoff Hoon said the government was still committed to a register as the UK prepares to mark 10 years since the Dunblane massacre.

...

Mr Hoon replied: "I recognise the disappointment, and I share it, that the national firearms licensing management scheme has taken so long to deliver.

"The Government remains fully committed to the project and it is planned to be rolled out to all forces in England and Wales from June, assuming that the final pilot in May is successful."

Titled:    Tory plan to kill long gun registry going strong

Canada's new minister of public safety says the government has no plans to back off on its intention to scrap the controversial long gun registry.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced his plan to kill the registry during the election campaign, and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day told CTV's Question Period the plan hasn't changed.

"We're not backing away at all," Day said on Sunday. "We're moving ahead on this. It was an election promise. It's something we've been talking about for years."

...

Day said the total registry costs could be approaching $2 billion, while the registry has not had a positive impact on gun crime.

"It has not reduced gun crime," he said. "As a matter of fact, homicide rates in the last two years have gone up in Canada. And we have committed to scrapping it."

$2 billion dollars, to keep a list that was never accurate and had no positive impact on gun crime! I hope those pressing for a similar registry in the US see what they get for the money.

Titled:   Muslim terrorist sentenced to life in Indonesia

Ismail Fahmi Yamsehu was found guilty of violating the country's anti-terror law during a trial at the District Court in the Maluku provincial capital of Ambon.

The three judges ruled that prosecutors had proven that Yamsehu took part in the attack on a Christian village on Buru Island in May 2004 in which three people died, and in an assault last February on a karaoke bar near Ambon in which two people were killed.

Titled:   As Canada's Slow-Motion Public Health System Falters, Private Medical Care Is Surging

Canada's health system has often been held up as a paragon of success by those interested in instituting a single-payer system south of the border, in the US. It is technically illegal to charge for treatment, resulting in long and incresing waiting lists for basic operations:

The Cambie Surgery Center, Canada's most prominent private hospital, may be considered a rogue enterprise.

Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients would wait months or even years in discomfort before receiving treatment.

But no one is about to arrest Dr. Brian Day, who is president and medical director of the center, or any of the 120 doctors who work there. Public hospitals are sending him growing numbers of patients they are too busy to treat, and his center is advertising that patients do not have to wait to replace their aching knees.

The country's publicly financed health insurance system — frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of its national identity — is gradually breaking down. Private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week, and private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine.

Dr. Day, for instance, is planning to open more private hospitals, first in Toronto and Ottawa, then in Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. Ontario provincial officials are already threatening stiff fines. Dr. Day says he is eager to see them in court.

"We've taken the position that the law is illegal," Dr. Day, 59, says. "This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years."

...

The median wait time between a referral by a family doctor and an appointment with a specialist has increased to 8.3 weeks last year from 3.7 weeks in 1993, according to a recent study by The Fraser Institute, a conservative research group. Meanwhile the median wait between appointment with a specialist and treatment has increased to 9.4 weeks from 5.6 weeks over the same period.

Average wait times between referral by a family doctor and treatment range from 5.5 weeks for oncology to 40 weeks for orthopedic surgery, according to the study.

Current waiting times in the UK:

• 8 months for cataract surgery
• 11 months for a hip replacement
• 12 months for a knee replacement
• 5 months to repair a slipped disc
• 5 months for a hernia repair

It's the same story across the Western world:

A recent survey of hospital executives in five countries (Australia, Canada, Britain, New Zealand and the United States) found that none of the U.S. executives thought a 65-year-old man would have to wait six months or more for routine hip-replacement surgery. The numbers for other countries, which have greater government control of healthcare, were significantly higher: 81 percent of hospital executives in Britain, for example, thought the wait would be more than six months.

And this is for non-urgent medical care, for just pain. Look at the current times for Ontario:

Hospital wait times for key services. Average wait time in days.

• MRI scan: 55
• CAT scan: 30
• Cancer surgery: 37
• Angiography: 22
• Angioplasty: 11
• Bypass surgery: 22
• Cataract surgery: 142
• Hip replacement: 162
• Knee replacement: 203

The BBC reports of a UK woman being asked to wait for 18 months for an MRI!

There are some benefits to a centralized, one-payer, socialized medical system, but quick access to needed services is clearly not one of them.

Titled:   It's about the Stratergy... Stupid

An excellent round up of information about the Ports kerfuffle, which seeming points towards the democrats shooting themselves in the foot once again.

...the UAE sits astride the Straights of Hormuz, through which flows the world's oil supplies, 50 miles from Iran, hosting the largest American military base outside of the United States...

While the 'ports' they own are right here in America, employing Americans, secured by Americans, and if we want to simply sieze them to punish the UAE it would take about an hour. In fact, for the Marines to take the UAE would take, about an hour.

The unsaid reason we are in Afghanistan and Iraq is because they are alongside Iran and Syria.

The UAE is part of that 'solution'.

Worth the time to read.

Titled:   Scalia says don't link guns only to crime

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia fondly remembers carrying a rifle around New York as a boy and says outdoorsmen should attack the idea that guns are used only for crimes.

An avid outdoorsmen who has hunted with Vice President Dick Cheney, Scalia spoke Saturday at the National Wild Turkey Federation's annual convention.

"The attitude of people associating guns with nothing but crime, that is what has to be changed," Scalia told the audience of about 2,000.

"I grew up at a time when people were not afraid of people with firearms," said Scalia, noting that as a youth in New York he was part of a rifle team at the military school he attended.

"I used to travel on the subway from Queens to Manhattan with a rifle," he said. "Could you imagine doing that today in New York City?"

We've some edumucating to do.

Titled:   Rocketry Hobbyists versus the BATFE

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has handed down a stinger of a decision against the BATFE and in favor of small children, science teachers and boys of all ages. Yes, ever since someone woke up in a bad mood and decided to classify model rocket engines as explosives, this hobby has faced increased regulations and costs. The judges had this to say (emphasis mine):

"The problem in this case is that ATFE's explanation for its determination that APCP deflagrates lacks any coherence. We therefore owe no deference to ATFE's purported expertise because we cannot discern it. ATFE has neither laid out a concrete standard for classifying materials along the burn-deflagrate-detonate continuum, nor offered data specific to the burn speed of APCP when used for its 'common or primary purpose.' On this record, the agency's decision cannot withstand judicial review."

It's a pity it wasn't in reference to "sporting purposes" or the current rules regarding US content of imported firearms, but it's a start in the right direction.

Hat-tip to TriggerFinger 

One thing worth keeping an eye on for those interested in the future of the US, the dollar, savings and 401ks is the approaching Iranian Oil Bourse. In real simple terms, oil is sold in dollars only, which forces all other consuming nations to keep buying US currency. Now Iran is opening a Euro-denominated oil bourse in March, just a few weeks away. This will enable it to sell oil to Europe and the rest of the world for euros instead of dollars, meaning that there is a lot less reason for countries to hang onto their stockpiles of dollars. A much more detailed version is found here.

Add to this the rapidly rising inflation rates in the US, which continuously erodes the value of overseas dollar holdings and you have another reason to ditch the dollar.

Remember Iraq tried this just before the second Gulf War, although it was severely shackled by the UN Bribe Oil for Food Program.

If the dollar drops in value, everything we import, especially oil, will become a lot more expensive.

There are some upsides, especially for exports and balance of trade:

A key effect of devaluation is that it makes the domestic currency cheaper relative to other currencies. There are two implications of a devaluation. First, devaluation makes the country's exports relatively less expensive for foreigners. Second, the devaluation makes foreign products relatively more expensive for domestic consumers, thus discouraging imports. This may help to increase the country's exports and decrease imports, and may therefore help to reduce the current account deficit.

And some downsides, including that pesky inflation problem which will eat away at the real value of investments and savings:

A significant danger is that by increasing the price of imports and stimulating greater demand for domestic products, devaluation can aggravate inflation. If this happens, the government may have to raise interest rates to control inflation, but at the cost of slower economic growth.

And the thing about inflation is you can't solve it by printing more money. You have to increase interest rates, restricting the money supply. Which is bad for investment and spending, especially on the now more costly imports.

And VERY bad for the housing market. Mortgage rates would rise, slowing the housing market and lowering house values. On the other hand, house price reductions would be partially offset due to inflation making many homeowners feel a little better even as their assets lose real value.

Interesting Times - Keep your powder dry - Buy Gold!

News comes of the latest setback for the new Bond star, Daniel Craig. Not being content with losing his front teeth in early filming after failing to demonstrate the ability to fight, he has now come up with another problem; he is unable to drive a stick-shift:

James Bond star Daniel Craig has stunned movie bosses on the set of the new 007 movie, by revealing he can't drive the secret agent's hi-tech car.

Craig - who was signed to replace former Bond Pierce Brosnan last October - is only qualified to drive an automatic transmission vehicle, so was useless behind the wheel of Bond's manual Aston Martin DB5.

According to sources, filming has been halted while the actor learns to drive the car, which had been specially shipped to the Bahamas set.

One would think that if you were in serious contention for tough-guy movie roles, then learning advanced driving, fighting, skydiving, motorcycling and other such pastimes would be high on the priority list.

This reminds me of Jeff Cooper's article on a suitable skill set to help a young man through life:

Before a young man leaves home, there are certain things he should know and certain skills at which he should be adept. We used to kick this around on watch and we covered a lot of ground. What should a young male of 21 know and what should he be able to do? There are no conclusive answers to those questions, but they are certainly worth asking. We agreed upon "civics" or what was called American government. A young man should know how this country is run and how it got that way. He should know the Federalist Papers and de Tocqueville, and he should know recent world history. If he does not know what has been tried in the past, he cannot very well avoid those pitfalls as they come up in the future.

Superficialities, of course, are rife. A young man should be computer literate, and moreover should know Hemingway from James Joyce. He should know how to drive a car well - such as is not covered in "Driver Ed." He should know how to fly a light airplane. He should know how to shoot well. He should know elementary geography, both worldwide and local. He should have a cursory knowledge of both zoology and botany. He should know the fundamentals of agriculture and corporate economy. He should be well qualified in armed combat, boxing, wrestling, judo, or the equivalent. He should know how to manage a motorcycle. He should be comfortable in at least one foreign language, and more if appropriate to his background. He should be familiar with remedial medicine.

And that list is for all young men, not James Bond wanabees.

A few posts ago I commented on how Google has been collaborating with the Chinese government to censor certain images and writings from the Chinese population.

DhimmiWatch has spotted how Yahoo is doing something similar right here in the US:

Yahoo! is banning the use of allah in email names - even if the letters are included within another name.

This was uncovered by Reg reader Ed Callahan whose mother Linda Callahan was trying to sign up for a Verizon email address. She could not get it to accept her surname.

Enquiries to Verizon revealed that a partnership with Yahoo! was to blame. Yahoo! will not accept any identies which include the letters "allah".

Nor will Yahoo! accept yahoo, osama or binladen. But it will accept god, messiah, jesus, jehova, buddah, satan and both priest and pedophile.

A commenter added:

Compare:

Yahoo Images: search for "mohammed cartoons"

Google Images: search for "Mohammed cartoons"

The times are indeed troubling.

god_messiah_jesus_jehova_buddah_satan_priest_pedophile@yahoo.com

Hey - a movie about Libertarianism? Maybe not in the way you think:

As SayUncle says:

V for Vendetta’s movie tagline is:

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Based on that, I’ll go see it.

A more in depth review can be found at Libertas, which puts forward a conservative view of movies:

Make no mistake about it (and question all the authorities who tell you otherwise): this film set in the jolly ol’ England of the not-so-distant future is very much about America here and now. Or more accurately: it is a paranoid, left-wing fever dream of what America is here and now. On that level, it can be amusing at times (unintentionally, because this film is oh-so-very self-important…as I’m sure will be the reviews that call it “brave” and “thought-provoking”). It is also educational in that it serves as a psychological study of left-wing projection and paranoia. Needless to say, this is one misguided, naive film that is everything it accuses the government within the film of being: fear mongering, deceitful, hateful, and propagandistic. This irony, unfortunately, seems to be lost on director James McTeigue and writers Andy and Larry Wachowski (who adapted Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s graphic novel).

It seems that Holywood has again taken a noble aim, and twisted it 180 degrees. The right-wing oppressive government is shown using the tools and methods of the left, leaving it a mish-mash of ideologies and wasting an opportunity to tap into the growing awareness of "small-l" libertarianism.

Probably worth a look for the action and neat comic-style imagery.

Titled: Castle Doctrine - Michigan Update!

Senate Bill 1046, introduced by Senator Alan Cropsey is moving into Committee.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear Senate Bill 1046 next Tuesday, Feb 21st.

This bill will clarify:

the rights and duties of self-defense

the defense of others

and provide for criminal and civil immunity under certain circumstances

and regulate the investigation of incidents involving self-defense

More at the Michigan Coalition of Responsible Gun Owners web Site.

Update: Your help is urgently needed to support Michigan's Castle Doctrine Bill

The Senate Judiciary committee will meet Tuesday, February 21st to consider, vote, and make recommendations concerning Michigan's "Castle Doctrine" Bill (SB 1046). This bill will clarify the rights and duties of self-defense and the defense of others and will also provide for criminal and civil immunity under certain circumstances. Please contact your State Senators today and urge them to support this important legislation, especially those legislators that embody the Senate Judiciary committee. More here.

Posted by Asa

Titled: Michigan Senate Bill 1046 (Repeal “duty to retreat” in home self defense)

Introduced by Sen. Alan L. Cropsey on February 15, 2006, to create a new law establishing that a person who uses deadly force for self defense in his or her home, contiguous private property or occupied vehicle need not first flee from a threatening attacker, and that a person who unlawfully and forcibly enters one of these is presumed is to be doing so with the intent to commit an unlawful act involving force or violence, with certain minor exceptions. This would place the “home is my castle” doctrine in statute. Also, to establish that a law-abiding person who is attacked in a place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat, and can “stand his or her ground” and meet force with force, including deadly force if necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm.

Read the text from the bill, analysis, and comments here.

Posted by Asa

Titled:    Poll: Republicans tend to be gun owners

PRINCETON, NJ, United States (UPI) -- A Gallup poll finds that Republicans are more likely to be gun owners and hunters than Democrats.

The poll found that 40 percent of U.S. residents say they live in a household with a gun in the home or on the property. Thirty percent say they own a gun personally while 12 percent say the weapon belongs to another member of the household.

A majority of Republicans, 55 percent, report living in a household with a gun, while only 32 percent of Democrats do.

Overall, equal numbers of gun owners use the weapons for protection, hunting and target shooting. But these numbers also have a partisan tinge, with Republicans more likely to give hunting and target shooting as reasons for owning a weapon.

The poll says that gun ownership has gone up and down over the years. In October, when the Gallup Organization conducted its most recent crime poll, it found that a smaller percentage of people own guns now than from 1959 to 1968 and 1989 to 1993. In 1999, only one in three households had a gun.

So over the last seven years, the percentage of households with a gun has risen from 33% to 40%.

There are an estimated 250 million firearms in the US. Between 300 million people and just over 100 million households. If only 40% of these have a gun, that makes for over six guns per gun-owning household.

Just six? It's nice to be above average...

Titled:    Civil liberties fear as US terror suspect list rises to 325,000

Now that 325,000 names appear on the US terror suspect list, I'm beginning to wonder where this will end. The numbers have increased four-fold in the last two-and-a-half years. At this rate, in twelve years we will all be on it.

Maybe we could speed things up - If every suspect could provide just a couple of new names each year, we could cut that down to eight years. That would reduce the demand for flying somewhat.

Thousands of Americans have only discovered their name, or a similar one, is on the list when they have been prevented from taking a commercial flight. Senator Edward Kennedy found himself in that position in 2004.

Senator Kennedy has, however, found himself in many positions we wouldn't like to be in either.

And so far, booking a commercial flight, has been the only proven way of finding out if you're on the list.