Tag Archive for 'guns'

Simple solution to gun-free zones

Published at 7:30 pm on August 25, 2010 in Deep Thought and firearms.

Right now, anyone who owns private property can prohibit people from carrying guns on it. These are known as gun-free zones, and are often marked by signs such a gun inside a circle with a line from it, or a notice citing the particular state law that regulates gun-free zones.

I’ve always been conflicted over this. On one hand, I think you should be able to defend yourself wherever you are. On the other hand, I get that it’s the owner’s right to ban firearms, just as it’s their right to ban people wearing “fuck you” t-shirts or loudly preaching the merits of racial purity.

Today it struck me how to reconcile these two viewpoints, and it’s pretty darn simple: enable the banning of open carrying, leave concealed carrying alone.

To reuse my examples above, stores can’t ban someone from wearing a “fuck you” t-shirt underneath a hoodie, or ban someone from having a quite conversation with their Nazi buddy where no one else can hear them. Likewise, businesses should not be able to ban someone from carrying a firearm (or any other weapon) where it cannot be seen.

Simple, logical, awesome, now gimmie a frigg’n Nobel Prize or something.

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Global Gun Control? Probably not, but keep an eye out…

Published at 3:30 pm on March 22, 2010 in Deep Thought and firearms.

Uzi

The oft-maligned Uzi. It’s on my wishlist, even though I have no compelling reason to own one.

Over the past few months I’ve been seeing articles on the UN’s Small Arms Treaty pop up in various places. The articles warned of one world governments, global civilian disarmament, and how Hillary Clinton was the Antichrist.

In other words, I thought, your standard tinfoil hats. Until today, when I actually looked up the treaty, and realized that tinfoil hat types are similar in function to the canaries miners use to have to warn of poisonous gas.

As it turns out, the Small Arms Treaty has yet to be written. However, the group pushing it — Control Arms Campaign — has enough information to get me slightly worried…

Extracted from their FAQ: “…but it would most likely not affect national laws allowing private citizens to be properly licensed to own and lawfully use a firearm in cases where they have a compelling reason to use a firearm and can do so safely.”

No, they’re not taking your guns away. Providing, of course, you have a compelling reason to own them… and something tell me “resisting governmental tyranny” sure as hell won’t cut it.

Of course, things change. The damn treaty isn’t even written, and once it has been the US still needs to sign it — something far from guaranteed. I’m not opposed to the main ideas put forth in the treaty — that is, keeping small arms out the hands of wannabe dictators and warlords — though I do think it’ll do little good. The final version will probably be quite tame and do jack shit about anything, just like the rest of the UN.

But keep an eye out.

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Unintended Consequences

Published at 2:03 am on December 11, 2009 in Random Stuff.

After reading for about 20 straight hours, I finished the novel Unintended Consequences. It’s a pretty long book.

Basic plot is… well, the basic plot actually has nothing to do with most of the book, and doesn’t start until page 500 or so.

The main theme, however, is firearms and related laws. Honestly, that’s all the book is about.

Good book, anyway. It’s a must read if you can manage an almost 900 page, small print novel. Read the Wikipedia page for more info.

EDIT: after reading some of the reviews on the Amazon page, my mind was opened a bit, and I realized that this book should have been split in two: one non-fiction dissertation on the history and effects of gun control; and one (reasonably sized) work of fiction that covers the main plot of the current Unintended Consequences novel.

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To-do list

Published at 3:13 am on June 17, 2009 in Life.

My to-do list:

  • Buy a gun
  • Stockpile ammo and other supplies
  • Bury survival caches in strategic locations
  • Learn basic survival skills, both urban and woodland, e.g.:
    • picking locks
    • hot-wiring cars
    • escaping from handcuffs
    • starting a fire from scratch
    • killing, gutting, skinning and cooking an animal
  • Buy a knife or two
  • Buy paracord to replace my shoelaces, because this stuff can come in handy in an amazing number of situations
  • Get a girlfriend. If my supplies of canned food run out, she’ll make an excellent source of protein.
  • more stuff then I can list here

So, I’ve been reading. As you might have guessed from the above list, it’s not my usual sci-fi/fantasy fare. This book is called EMERGENCY, by Neil Strauss, and I suggest you read it right now. Aside from being highly informative, it’s also hilarious. The author writes for the New York Times as well as other publications, and has also written a couple other best-sellers. Oh, and: The author is crazy in a way I can only dream of being. When he decides to do something, he does it, no matter how crazy or stupid. For example, sinking a few hundred thousand dollars into a citizenship on the island of St. Kitts, pretty much just on a whim. Or calling up the neo-nazi founder of the survivalist movement. (“You should move to Arkansas. It’s great. There’s no black people here.”) Or taking all sorts of first-aid, rescue team, emergency response and FEMA-sponsored courses. Or caching gasoline all along the way from Los Angeles to Spokane.

Like I said, crazy — but in an awesome way.

Tomorrow — or I guess I should say today, because it’s 4 AM — I’m going to make a credit card knife, lockpick, and padlock opener out of a can of pop.

I’ll tell you how it goes.

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