A Pretty Picture to Enjoy

Enjoy.

Connecticut Selectmen Vie for Attention Whoredom

Amazing development.  The Selectmen of Weston, Connecticut have promulgated a potential ordnance that has the intent of making ownership of weapons so expensive and irritating that they hope people will give them up.  And who are the objects of these new laws designed to protect The People(tm)?  A bunch of affluent, crusty old white folks whose criminal exploits tend more to the white collar than the violent.  They present no danger to adjoining towns and none to themselves.  

Jesus wept.  What these clowns are doing is saying to the criminal element (you think anybody wants to rob a bunch of rich white guys in rural Connecticut?   Nahhhhhh.) that there exists, in Weston, a bunch of prospects for theft, burglary, home invasion and what have you and they are unarmed. 

Now we all know that this idiotic proposal is not going to happen.  Weston is a small town and can not afford the lawsuits that are going to ensue.  In fact, the very existence of the possibility that such legislation would be considered by the Selectmen is ample grounds for a claim of malfeasance and the basis for rapid recall.  It is likely that the Selectmen in question will be doing something else this time next year.  Also, the State of Connecticut takes a dim view of having it's prerogatives usurped by a bunch of small time political hacks.

So we need to ask "why?".  

I will tell you why.  The Selectmen think that this is their chance for stardom.  That in the Liberal firmament they will stand out as beacons of rectitude.  That they will force their neighbors to forgo personal defense in favor of trust in their Police and local Government.

Pardon me for a moment

The people responsible are below.  Drop them a line

First Selectman, Gayle Weinstein   GWeinstein@westonct.gov

Selectman, David Glenn Muller        DMuller59@gmail.com

Selectman, Dennis H. Tracey III        D.H.Tracey@gmail.com

A Letter to My Representatives

Dear Senator/Congressman

I am as upset and outraged as you by events in Aurora Colorado and Newtown Connecticut.  My greatest fear is that these horrific events will spur legislation that is ill considered and too much the product of political opportunists who believe, as Rahm Emanuel does, that: 

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

The entities and individuals who would like to disarm Americans or make gun ownership and use onerous to the point that many would give up their interests have been waiting for an event such as occurred in Connecticut to put laws and rules and regulations in place that will create a slippery slope to the elimination of private ownership of firearms.  Why do I say this?  Because the proposals have nothing whatsoever to do with the events that transpired.

- high capacity magazines are irrelevant.  Even a person with moderate practice can reload very quickly
- semi automatic firearms are marginally more destructive than firearms with other methods of loading.  
- restrictions on superficialities (bayonet lugs, flash suppressors and so on) criminalize appearance with no benefit to anyone

Some proposals that I have heard would make collecting of American military weapons impossible.  Others create hurdles to ownership (including excessive costs) that are simply not fair and are redolent of the tactics employed by white supremacists to disenfranchise blacks in the Reconstruction south.  

I think that if we take a step back and consider what makes a good law we will all benefit.

• There must exist a real problem that law can address
• Certain behaviors cannot really be controlled by government and in many cases government has no right to interfere in the first place.  This covers a broad range of human behaviors and ignoring this invariably results in yet more laws and rules all of which are equally ineffective.  
• The law itself must address specific, relevant issues
• Outlawing bayonet lugs, for example, when assaults by a fixed bayonet are nonexistent is an example of a law that concerns itself with an irrelevant triviality.   Limiting the size of magazines (not "clips", those are different things) is silly since any semi practiced shooter can swap smaller capacity magazines at a rate that obviates the intent of such a law.  This is a perfect example of "feel good" legislation: laws that do nothing but make for good sound bites.
• The law must be enforceable
• Demanding that guns be locked up implies that the forces of government can check whenever they choose.  Do you think that that will happen?  Then why say it?  Perhaps providing discounted gun safes would be a better idea.
• It must be possible to accurately asses the impact of the law
• Being unable to see an effect because the data is "noisy" or incomplete signals the existence of a bad law implemented for feel-good reasons.  Lack of measurable impact with good data in hand signals a very ill conceived law.  The impact of the assault ban in NJ is unmeasurable yet it goes on.
• There must be a method in place at the time of creation of a law for it to lapse or otherwise be removed if it does not work
• Funny how many silly laws still exist.  

We have bad law in place that was implemented too soon after a tragic event whose existence is an embarrassment to those of us who value our Constitution and the processes that it defines.  The Patriot Act, or at least certain aspects of it, comes to mind as an example.

I think that we should all take a step back and consider what happened in Connecticut and Colorado and think about the aftermath.  I, for one, am very concerned with the treatment by the Media of these events.  Sadly, the Media rarely looks inward yet there are experts who suggest that the proximal cause for outrages such as we experienced are contributed to by the glorification of these events.  Glorification means wall to wall coverage in the most vulgar possible way.  Glorification also means the breathless approval of the latest blood soaked work of Tarantino.   There is plenty of blame here to go around and not all of it rests on gun owners.

I hope that this note lends a considered element to the discourse that you are engaged in and that it reflects the complexity of the problem.

Cordially,

Michael James Cobb

Journalistic Responsibility

Just came across the front page review for the darling of the left's heart throb, Sean Penn's new film.

The New York Times, who is on a one paper crusade to disarm the American public extols this film and features this image on their front page.  The New York Times, a paper that takes no personal (corporate?) responsibility for the glorification of violence nor the coarsening of our society.

Shame.

And why?  Because they fear the intrusion of government into their constitutionally protected sphere.  God forbid that their content be regulated, God forbid that someone ask "do we really need that?"  or "are we as a society better off without such crap?"

Firearms violence is complicated, the arms themselves are part of the problem.  The other part is the role that the media, like the Times, play in creating an environment that is conducive to horrors such as those that occurred in Aurora and Newtown.

The Times (as with other media) revels in calling the kettle black and is proof against the irony of their position.

Amusing cartoons about a serious subject.

Stolen from Dan Mitchell's very excellent blog.  Though I suspect that he too stole them.

Gun Violence and the Media

Since the horrific events in Connecticut, I have been giving a lot of thought to questions about gun control, our media and the future.  

I think that everything that I want to cover is going to take a while to gel in my mind so it will appear somewhat episodically in this blog.  To start, though, I would like to comment on the media's treatment of this event.

We have many killings, many mass killings both here and in Europe and elsewhere in the world. All of these events are covered by the media.  Does such coverage yield more violence?  Of course it does, that is Pathology 101. The monsters perpetrating these outrages are looking to make their pathetic lives more than what they are as they exit them.  At least one professional has commented on the way to treat these events in the media:

• If you don't want to propagate more mass murders...
• Don't start the story with sirens blaring.
• Don't have photographs of the killer.
• Don't make this 24/7 coverage.
• Do everything you can not to make the body count the lead story.
• Not to make the killer some kind of anti-hero.
• Do localize this story to the affected community and as boring as possible in every other market. 

You can check out the credentials of Dr. Park Dietz on Wiki.  He knows what he is talking about.  Having said that (and the truth of what he claims is palpable, isn't it?)  reflect, please on the coverage of the Aurora and Newtown shootings.  

Responsible?  Over done?  You judge but bear in mind that the news media does not generate revenue by being responsible,  they generate money by selling papers or magazines or, increasingly, getting hits on their sites.  If they can be responsible and generate loot, great!.  If they have to fall short, however, they will let dignity and responsibility and common sense fail before they will take a money hit.  So what we see is wall to wall coverage with little regard to content.  As Rush Limbaugh said a few days after the event, not one thing he reported on the day of the event was true.  But every media outlet was reporting!!  

This brings us to my favorite failed media outlet, the New York Times.  Since the day after the Connecticut shootings, the Times has run page one stories on gun control   Every day.  At least one story plus editorial.  Every day.  Their anti-gun agenda is now on full display and they are frothing at the mouth.  It does make one wonder what is not getting reported or how their agenda slants other stories.  Lately they have come out questioning the right of citizens to carry weapons on their persons, legally.  When an intrinsically dishonest entity such as the Times calls for a "review" of existing processes or questions whether something or other ought to be allowed they are, in fact, taking a position that what the current situation is is wrong and they oppose it.  The Times may well be the newspaper of record in the United States but it is also scandalously doctrinaire on certain subjects.  Among these is gun control.  I think that it is fair to say that any article whatsoever that bears, even tangentially, on private ownership of weapons, will be biased.  

In closing, let us take a quick look at the generally dismal stock performance of the New York Times during the week since the Connecticut shootings.

Stock Price for the New York Times

As I said earlier, the business of the media is business and we can see that the blood coverage that the Times has engaged in is correlated with a bit of a bounce in the net worth of old "Bud" Sulzberger (majority shareholder) and his minions.  When the Times sanctimoniously states that gun companies make blood money, remember this chart.  The Times, cynically, is making a fortune on the backs of the people whose misfortune they want you to believe they care about.

Yeah.  And I have a bridge for you to buy.


Later

MJC

Posting names of gun owners

The idiots at the Gannett paper, Journal News, thought that it would be amusing to post the names and addresses of every gun owner in their distribution area, Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties. I wrote a cute comment, reproduced below.

This reminds me of an actress past her prime doing soft core porn to generate a bit more interest. Print news is dead and anything that they can do to generate notoriety will be done. In the present case they did something that, while legal, is simply wrong. Wring and stupid. And they put us all at risk for a cheap PR trick.
In any event the personal contact information for all concerned at the paper can be found at:http://christopherfountain.wordpress.com/

We should all know everything about everybody, right Ms. Lambert (n.b. Editor)?

Let me draw your attention to this link: http://christopherfountain.wordpress.com/ it goes to a blog that has posted the home addresses of the staff at the Journal.  Fair play I think.

You and I don't need the Journal News, or the NYT or any specific source of news and information.  That is because God gave us the Internet.  The world is at your fingertips and you don't need the filtering of the old established sources of information.  Gannett was founded in 1906, BTW.  

In their desperation to be profitable and relevant  the dinosaurs in publishing have used absurd tricks like pay walls and distasteful journalistic practices.  Our pals at the one daunting Time Magazine recently had this as a from cover:

What can one say except 

Time.  Can you imagine?  Henry Luce is spinning in his grave and probably would love to come back and kick some ass.  

Back to the fools at the Journal News.  Posting the names of gun owners is bad.  Because you can do something does not give you license to do it,  knowing that is what distinguishes a responsible adult from a child.  I am sure that the Editor,  Ms. Lambert, is not fool and knew just what she was doing.  She was hoping that the notoriety would get her a job in a major market.  Let's face it, Rockland County, N.Y. is not exactly Big Apple territory.  We can only hope that her management will see this silly and dangerous trick for what it is and make sure that this person, of questionable control over her career advancing impulses, is kept far from major markets where she could do real harm.

In any event, public record is public record and I hope that the information regarding Journal News employees is disseminated far and wide.  That is because  contrary to conventional wisdom, two wrongs often make a right.

Adios.

MJC