Guns and Muslims; and Southpark

Here we have an assertion that the failed car bomb attempt in Times Square may have been retaliation for the South Park controversy concerning the allegedly offensive depiction of Muhammad.  In the many commentaries on Comedy Central’s censorship of South Park’s episode on Muhammad in a bear costume; one misses the role of the Second Amendment and it true purposes in the defense of personal liberty.  And, why the the right to keep and bear arms is so important in matters such as these.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park’s creators grew up in Texas and Colorado.  Though they may have tromped around in the uber-liberal environs of Boulder, Colorado, they, nonetheless live cheek and jowl next to a culture that accepts personal  firearm ownership.  This is a region, where the probability of a home or car complete with at least one immediately operable firearm approaches unity.  It is also a region where said firearms are in the possession of individuals who know how to operate them.

Contrast this to the situation in New York City, headquarters for Comedy Central, where the Second Amendment has been gun-controlled into oblivion.  Unless, of course, you’re financially or politically connected enough to score a concealed carry permit.

The net effect is that Parker and Stone probably knew that they would be targeted for all sorts of abuse for this latest Muhammad episode; possibly even expected hot-lead-fired-in-anger abuse.  But, I suspect that they may even go as far as to have firearms in their possession.  If nothing else, in Colorado, as most of the inter-mountain west, a firearm, with little bureaucratic meddling can be obtained in short order.

In contrast, the Muslim website that warned of a fate similiar to Theo Van Gogh takes on serious gravity in New York City since your life is entirely tied up in the interest and competence of governmental authority.  Since the police aren’t in the business of protecting people (their only mandate is to enforce the law), you’re on your own.

In the west, you’re still on your own.  But, you at least got a gun.

So, to someone like my self, a death threat would be very unsettling, to say the least.  And, yes I would call the police–it may help with creating leads.  But, I know that the police aren’t going to camp out at my doorstep as my bodyguards.

However, I would do one more thing.  Check the security of my home and business.  And, check that my firearms are operable.

A firearm isn’t a talisman against evil.  Nor, does it give me the right to go and shoot my way out of every tight spot.  Nor, will I necessarily engage in words or activities to provoke anger.  An armed society is a polite society (h.t. Heinlein, I think).  Moreover, Parker and Stone are in the business of potentially provoking such anger; no one said that South Park is a cuddly chick flick.  But, a firearm lends an enormous psychological advantage in giving me the reassurance that, in the gravest extreme, as a truly last resort, I have the means to preserve myself and my family.  And, with that calming reassurance, I now have the ability to think through and consider other alternatives to solving a potential crisis.

Moreover, living a culture and environment of gun ownership, the bad guys, most likely outsiders, are going to have a much harder time driving an SUV ladened with explosives without getting noticed by neighbors who are going to start to ask questions.  One of the characteristics of those who carry firearms is that they are going to be more alert; more cognizant of their environment.  Most people live in condition white, oblivious. Gun owners are more likely to be in condition yellow; not paranoid, just aware.

In New York City, confronted with the gravest extreme, you maybe have a kitchen drawer with some knives.  In other words, unless your some highly trained martial arts aficionado, you’re dead.  The police will then come and enforcing the law about bringing murders to justice, will dust for fingerprints, zip you up in your body bag and cart you off to the city morgue for more clue analysis.  The folks at the Comedy Central home office know this.  They caved.

This now brings us to the issue of probable cause.  The use of lethal force is limited to stopping an imminent threat of loss of life or serious bodily harm.  This involves a reasonable perception that the person stopped had the proximity, means and motive to carry out an attack that would so threaten loss of life or serious bodily harm.  Say, a 6’6″ man with a hunting knife ten feet away yelling he’s going to kill you.

While the threats over this South Park episode can’t be directly construed as imminent harm to life and limb; it carries weight as such since it emanates from a Muslim.  Unlike the other major religions where killing in the name of religion is very clearly outside the pale, this is a religion that has a significant and numerous enough minority of followers who will, in fact, carry out threats of violence and murder in the name of Islam.  It is a religion, who’s holy book, the Koran, specifically advocates killing certain specific enemies.  And, it is a threat that Comedy Central has construed as an imminent threat to life and limb.  Hence censorship.

The real purpose of the Second Amendment is to give each individual citizen the physical means to defend life, liberty and property from criminal elements; whether the common street variety or those working at the behest of a criminal government.  Or, in this case, to give the individual citizen the means to defend those same rights to life, liberty and property when the government abdicates its duty to defend those rights.  Unfortunately, with our Secretary of Homeland Security so tied down with identifying critics of  Dear Leader Obama as terrorist threats, you’d better move to Colorado and get a gun because you’re on your own.

Pirates; Now the Hard Part

The Easter Sunday rescue of the skipper, Richard Phillips,  of the SS Maersk Alabama was exactly how piracy should be handled.  My only criticism, outside allowances to tactical considerations of our SEALs on the spot, was the slowness in response.  The order, from Obama, of shooting only in the face of “imminent” harm, belies a fundamental mindset that these pirates are somehow entitled to due process.  Certainly, a brilliant Harvard lawyer, like Obama, should be aware of the fundamental legalities that were worked out by the ancient Romans that pirates operate outside any civilized norms and deserve not of the courtesies afforded to people who choose to subscribe to those civilized norms.  There is only one policy, one solution, to piracy–summary execution.  

But, though the outcome was positive–a failed piracy attempt, our crew alive and free and three dead pirates–Obama backed into this happy outcome.  His order of “imminent” harm gave away the game.  It was Obama, prime minister to the world, that crafted that order.  What Obama, president of the United States should have immediately recognized was that it was American sovereignty under attack, it was protections of the Bill of Rights for America’s citizens that were under attack.  It was these principles that were paramount and required immediate and muscular defense.  It is these principles that take precedence over even the lives of the crew.  Had this attack come from a governmental entity on the Horn of Africa, this would constitute an blatant act of war.  Along the Horn of Africa, Geneva Conventions don’t apply; these are non-uniformed combatants who don’t even deserve Gitmo.

And, so, we have a lot of luck that allowed a happy conclusion to l’affaire Alabama.  Obama still has the legacy of a robust Navy that actually had assets in the area that could be brought to bear rapidly.  Obama had the advantage that American individualism is still the norm and this allowed a successful repelling of the pirate takeover.  And, of course, was the brave actions of the skipper, Phillips, who was able to spare his crew and ship and move the venue to a lifeboat.  Finally, thanks to the Navy, Phillips was kept at sea which made his eventual rescue so much more easy.  

We also had the luck that this pirate takeover took the pirates by surprise since the usual script, a passive surrender by the crew, did not occur.

But, the ante is now raised.  Unless there is strong follow-up resulting in the repeated forceful repellings of pirates by American flagged and/or crewed ships, these pirates are going to specifically seek out American ships if for no other reason than to kill Americans in revenge.  The long term result is that the American military is going to need to more than double down in supressing piracy along the Horn of Africa.  This is going to include action at sea and direct military intervention against the pirate’s land bases.

The pirates lost nothing last Sunday.  The three pirates killed were bottom feeders in the pirate chain of command; completely expendable.  Nor, did last Sunday’s rescue, measurably dent the pirate operations; certainly not the profitability of these piracy operations.

Unless, the US Navy significantly ramps up its operations, there’s just too much money for last Sunday’s setback to serve as a deterrent.  Moreover, this money isn’t just buying a lot of cars, whores and booze for the pirate warlords.  A significant fraction of this money is making its way into the hands of Islamic terrorists.  These pirate warlords only exist at the sufferance of what passes for governmental authority in Somalia.  A sufferance purchased by cutting Islamic Imperialism in on the profits.

Which brings us to the final point.  Self defense.  Like something that fires lead; not those idiot devices like slippery foam that sounds like a project out of the Dangerous Book for Boys.  I suspect that part of the successful repelling of the pirates off of the Alabama was facilitated by a stray pistol or two in the duffels of the Alabama’s crew.  Oh yes, those things aren’t allowed by company policy so we’ll probably never know.  But, especially when its your butt on the line, gun restrictions and guns laws are largely observed in the breach.

Now, every American is now going to carry a particularly steep price on his head; those that aren’t killed outright when the next American flagship is successfully boarded.  Which means that our government is going to have to actually trust that individual Americans can defend themselves responsibly.  (A fact more than amply supported by our experiences with “shall-issue” concealed handgun permits.)  We are going to need to arm our merchant ships and our merchant marine.  A modern naval cruiser traveling at 35 knots (about 40 mph) is going to be unable to respond fast enough.  That means that this high seas criminality is going to have to be dealt with on a “retail” level.  That is, merchant crews, trained to spot a boarding and, with lethal force, repel such boardings.  The administration and State Department is going to have to insist that armed merchant ships and armed American merchantmen will be allowed access to foreign ports.

Also, handling piracy on an immediate level has a way of preventing these incidents from blowing up into major international crisises.  Imagine how much different the history of the last eight years would be if the pilots of the four 9/11 airliners were armed.  Everyone used to make a big deal about resisting a hijacking.  And, guns, heaven forfend!  We’d have airliners blowing up and crashing out of the sky!  Which was just what happened on 9/11.  In the same fashion, there would be no international incident with an American warship involved had the Maersk Alabama been armed.  Just the bodies of four dead pirates to be quietly kicked overboard.  

Obama better enjoy last Sunday’s victory.  It isn’t going to last long unless he’s willing to follow through.

 

 

 

Obama and the Tyranny of the Majority

Here’s Obama, on September 15th in Colorado (hat tip; Hugh Hewitt):

“The bottom line is this. If you’ve got a rifle, you’ve got a shotgun, you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not taking it away. Alright? So they can keep on talking about it but this is just not true. And by the way, here’s another thing you’ve got to understand. Even if I wanted to take it away, I couldn’t get it done. I don’t have the votes in Congress.”

from Jake Tapper

Get that: “I don’t have the votes in Congress” to take away your guns. Rights are secured by the Bill of Rights. They are not granted by our government. It seems, in Obama’s world view that rights secured by the Second Amendment only exist until Obama can cobble a congressional majority to restrict or eliminate them. And, this comment came in the context of the post-Heller world.

Here again we have the UN Secretary General, vying for for the Oval Office, with an attitude towards the US Consittution that befits a tin-horn dictator from the third world. Rights are gifts of the state. Rights can be voted in and out of existance merely by rounding enough votes in the House and Senate.

This was another unguarded phrase that speaks volumes of the man and his attitudes. Are the freedom of speech or free assembly to be treated in a similar cavalier way? With Obama, I suspect so. Here’s some of Michelle Obama’s thoughts on her husband, the prospective UN General Secretary of the United States:

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

We have a man who has very definite ideas as to how our society should be ordered. You may not be “isolated” or “cynical.” You will never be “allowed” to be “uninvolved.” You are commanded to “engage.” This speaks of a man with very little tolerance for any objections to his Orwellian world view. So plan to show up for your required daily “Two Minutes of Hate.”

There’s also a serious prospect that the “fairness doctrine” will be re-established if Obama can pony up the votes; so much for the First Amendment.

There is a real litmus test regarding a politician’s respect for the limits of governmental power; the Second Amendment. It is the canary in the coal mine. What you do to the Second Amendment can, shall and will be done to the rest of the Constitution.