Another Australia Day produced the usual litany of protests, street marches and demands to "change the date", "change the name" and otherwise destroy the national day.
Isn't it curious that people who don't share Australian values, people who have grievances (real, manufactured or imagined) about Australian culture and values, can't create their own special days and events and celebrate them in their own ways? Even if the other 97% of Australians don't share their views, we would respect their right to have them. A right that, ironically, was won (at great cost in blood and treasure) by the same Australians who's memory and culture these people disrespect.
Instead, they do everything they can, encouraged by the "intellectual elite", aided and abetted by the media, and approved by the authorities, to disrupt and spoil the day for everyone else.
They don't build or create. They just destroy.
https://www.xyz.net.au/quote-of-the-day-changethedate-push-coming-from-greens-not-aboriginals/
https://www.xyz.net.au/alien-invaders-ever-changethedate/
Australia's is a great place. If it was the violent, racist, (insert favorite adjective)-phobic, misogynistic shit hole these moronic protesters claim it is, then why are they clamoring to come here, or bring even more people here?
https://www.xyz.net.au/australia-day-tribute-to-australia-the-first-fleet-and-our-shared-history/
Friday, January 26, 2018
Thursday, January 25, 2018
On Gun-control
John Greer remarked that there can be no rational discussion on this subject, until both sides relinquish the beliefs that firearms are either talismans of Liberty or icons of violence.
Firearms are tools, nothing more, nothing less. They're designed and built to do one thing and one thing only: They deliver kinetic energy (a lot of it!) to a target, via a projectile moving at high velocity. What those projectiles are fired at, is wholly and solely the responsibility of the person holding the gun.
I distrust statistics because the numbers can be (and usually are) manipulated so instead, I prefer to ask "Has this been tried before, and what was the result?"
Does easy access to firearms cause crime? The answer to that, surprisingly, is "yes".
Q: Who has the easiest access to more (and deadlier) guns than anyone else?
A: Government!
Q: Who kills more people with guns than anyone else?
A: Government!
It's conservatively estimated that more than two hundred million people have died, as a direct result of the actions of governments, in the last century. Governments are, far-and-away, the "heavyweight champions" of mass-murder.
But gun control advocates say that only governments should have guns?!
Every government in history, that has disarmed its citizens, has ended up murdering them.
This is the rationale behind the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The "Founding Fathers" weren't starry-eyed idealists. They were hard-nosed realists with a thorough knowledge of history, who wanted to prevent the government they were creating from following the normal course of history and turning into a tyranny. So they sought an effective way to prevent this from happening.
Disarming everyone in a society is physically and logistically impossible. Disarming some people only guarantees that those still armed (including governments), will dominate, exploit, abuse and murder those who are.
An armed population is the most effective, least-expensive, check on government excess.
Gun control advocates want the private ownership of all firearms, prohibited. With a 100% failure-rate, Prohibition is arguably the most failed and discredited public policy initiative in all history. Prohibition has never delivered on the promises of those who promote it. But it has reliably produced (and continues to produce) two outcomes: It encourages a black market in the prohibited thing, which subsidizes organized crime and in so-doing, it harms the people it's proponents claim to be helping.
How's the "war-on-drugs" going? Have we "won", yet?
Firearms can be used for defence as well as offense. In the U.S. there are roughly 60 thousand crimes (including murders) committed annually, where guns are involved. This, in a country where there are an estimated 300 million lawfully owned firearms. Only one firearm in every two thousand is used to attack. What do you suppose the other 299 million (and change) guns are being used for? What do you suppose is the number one reason in the U.S. that people buy a firearm? Self-defence! (This is also the #1 reason why criminals arm themselves!) The number two reason? Hunting! The number three reason? Target shooting!
Gun control can't logically have any effect on crime because it targets the wrong demographic - law-abiding people who own and use firearms legally. Restricting the rights of the law-abiding to curb the actions of criminals, is like kicking your cat, to stop your neighbor's dog barking.
Gun-control advocates claim that criminals obtain their firearms from the legal market (licensed firearm owners). Yet, only one in fifty firearms recovered from crime scenes or seized from criminals in Australia, can be traced back to any registered owner. (And the bulk of those that are, were reported stolen.) Where do the other forty nine (most of which, can't be purchased legally anyway) come from?
Every man-made thing has been used as a weapon at one time or another. Someone was murdered with a fishing-rod near Melbourne, three or four years ago. Evil will find a way.
One of the more bizarre claims made (or often inferred) by gun control advocates, is that simply holding a firearm changes a person's personality - that anyone could turn into a killer if the means to kill is placed in their hands. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard someone remark snidely "how many people am I going to shoot?" when I reveal my preferred sporting activity. I think this reveals several disturbing things about the people who make statements like this. They base their assessment of how others would react on how they, themselves think/feel. Since they can only know the content of their own minds, I think it reveals latent homicidal/suicidal tendencies. There's no way I'd let someone who expressed ideas like this, even near a firearm. It also exposes them as elitist authoritarians - they believe they have the right to decide what others can (or can't) do, based on what they believe is "good" (or "bad"). This attitude reveals that gun control advocates view everyone (themselves included) as children - too immature/irresponsible to be trusted with anything as dangerous as firearms, or even to be educated about the potential dangers they pose and how to handle them safely.
Hardly someone fit to have a say in formulating policy.
Firearms are the greatest "equalizer" in history. No other invention gives a 60 kilo woman the power to stand up to a 120 kilo thug, like 1 kilo of "shootin' iron". And, it doesn't make any difference, if both are armed.
If prevention is preferable to cure, as the common wisdom says, what's the best way to prevent crime? Answer: to deter crime. And how do you do that? Gun control advocates will say "the Law". But they're confusing deterrence with prevention. Prevention is something that physically stops a crime from being committed, like a locked door or a razor-wire barrier. Deterrence, is something that gives the criminal a compelling reason (see below) to abstain from committing a crime. The Law does nothing to prevent crime and it's not a deterrent either, except to the already law-abiding. All that the Law does, is prescribe penalties after the crime has been committed, if the criminal is caught.
Criminals don't obey the law! But, like all predators, they have great concern for their personal safety, so they target the weak and the helpless - those who present the least risk of injury to the criminal in the commission of the crime. Firearms are the ultimate deterrent, because the criminal has to balance the reward of committing the crime against the risk of facing an immediate, lethal response.
Every "mass-shooting" incident in the U.S. in the last five years (with the exception of the incident in Las Vegas) has occurred in a "gun-free zone". In other words, the perpetrators all chose targets that were guaranteed to be unarmed and helpless. (The Las Vegas shooter was a sniper, against which, there's no effective deterrent or defence.) Gun crime is highest in those places where the legal ownership of firearms (and the right to use them in self-defence) is most restricted. On the other hand, the crime rate in Kennesaw, Georgia - where everyone is required by law to be armed - is almost non-existent.
Crimes that don't happen, aren't reported. But anecdotal evidence suggests that in places in the U.S. where citizens are permitted to carry firearms for self-protection, criminals are effectively deterred by the mere knowledge that their intended victims are (or could be) armed. Thousands of such cases occur every month. Why do you think the Police and security guards wear their service pistols openly?
Beyond their uses for hunting and sport, it's in their deterrent effect that you find the true power (and value) of firearms.
Firearms are tools, nothing more, nothing less. They're designed and built to do one thing and one thing only: They deliver kinetic energy (a lot of it!) to a target, via a projectile moving at high velocity. What those projectiles are fired at, is wholly and solely the responsibility of the person holding the gun.
I distrust statistics because the numbers can be (and usually are) manipulated so instead, I prefer to ask "Has this been tried before, and what was the result?"
Does easy access to firearms cause crime? The answer to that, surprisingly, is "yes".
Q: Who has the easiest access to more (and deadlier) guns than anyone else?
A: Government!
Q: Who kills more people with guns than anyone else?
A: Government!
It's conservatively estimated that more than two hundred million people have died, as a direct result of the actions of governments, in the last century. Governments are, far-and-away, the "heavyweight champions" of mass-murder.
But gun control advocates say that only governments should have guns?!
Every government in history, that has disarmed its citizens, has ended up murdering them.
This is the rationale behind the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The "Founding Fathers" weren't starry-eyed idealists. They were hard-nosed realists with a thorough knowledge of history, who wanted to prevent the government they were creating from following the normal course of history and turning into a tyranny. So they sought an effective way to prevent this from happening.
Disarming everyone in a society is physically and logistically impossible. Disarming some people only guarantees that those still armed (including governments), will dominate, exploit, abuse and murder those who are.
An armed population is the most effective, least-expensive, check on government excess.
Gun control advocates want the private ownership of all firearms, prohibited. With a 100% failure-rate, Prohibition is arguably the most failed and discredited public policy initiative in all history. Prohibition has never delivered on the promises of those who promote it. But it has reliably produced (and continues to produce) two outcomes: It encourages a black market in the prohibited thing, which subsidizes organized crime and in so-doing, it harms the people it's proponents claim to be helping.
How's the "war-on-drugs" going? Have we "won", yet?
Firearms can be used for defence as well as offense. In the U.S. there are roughly 60 thousand crimes (including murders) committed annually, where guns are involved. This, in a country where there are an estimated 300 million lawfully owned firearms. Only one firearm in every two thousand is used to attack. What do you suppose the other 299 million (and change) guns are being used for? What do you suppose is the number one reason in the U.S. that people buy a firearm? Self-defence! (This is also the #1 reason why criminals arm themselves!) The number two reason? Hunting! The number three reason? Target shooting!
Gun control can't logically have any effect on crime because it targets the wrong demographic - law-abiding people who own and use firearms legally. Restricting the rights of the law-abiding to curb the actions of criminals, is like kicking your cat, to stop your neighbor's dog barking.
Gun-control advocates claim that criminals obtain their firearms from the legal market (licensed firearm owners). Yet, only one in fifty firearms recovered from crime scenes or seized from criminals in Australia, can be traced back to any registered owner. (And the bulk of those that are, were reported stolen.) Where do the other forty nine (most of which, can't be purchased legally anyway) come from?
Every man-made thing has been used as a weapon at one time or another. Someone was murdered with a fishing-rod near Melbourne, three or four years ago. Evil will find a way.
One of the more bizarre claims made (or often inferred) by gun control advocates, is that simply holding a firearm changes a person's personality - that anyone could turn into a killer if the means to kill is placed in their hands. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard someone remark snidely "how many people am I going to shoot?" when I reveal my preferred sporting activity. I think this reveals several disturbing things about the people who make statements like this. They base their assessment of how others would react on how they, themselves think/feel. Since they can only know the content of their own minds, I think it reveals latent homicidal/suicidal tendencies. There's no way I'd let someone who expressed ideas like this, even near a firearm. It also exposes them as elitist authoritarians - they believe they have the right to decide what others can (or can't) do, based on what they believe is "good" (or "bad"). This attitude reveals that gun control advocates view everyone (themselves included) as children - too immature/irresponsible to be trusted with anything as dangerous as firearms, or even to be educated about the potential dangers they pose and how to handle them safely.
Hardly someone fit to have a say in formulating policy.
Firearms are the greatest "equalizer" in history. No other invention gives a 60 kilo woman the power to stand up to a 120 kilo thug, like 1 kilo of "shootin' iron". And, it doesn't make any difference, if both are armed.
If prevention is preferable to cure, as the common wisdom says, what's the best way to prevent crime? Answer: to deter crime. And how do you do that? Gun control advocates will say "the Law". But they're confusing deterrence with prevention. Prevention is something that physically stops a crime from being committed, like a locked door or a razor-wire barrier. Deterrence, is something that gives the criminal a compelling reason (see below) to abstain from committing a crime. The Law does nothing to prevent crime and it's not a deterrent either, except to the already law-abiding. All that the Law does, is prescribe penalties after the crime has been committed, if the criminal is caught.
Criminals don't obey the law! But, like all predators, they have great concern for their personal safety, so they target the weak and the helpless - those who present the least risk of injury to the criminal in the commission of the crime. Firearms are the ultimate deterrent, because the criminal has to balance the reward of committing the crime against the risk of facing an immediate, lethal response.
Every "mass-shooting" incident in the U.S. in the last five years (with the exception of the incident in Las Vegas) has occurred in a "gun-free zone". In other words, the perpetrators all chose targets that were guaranteed to be unarmed and helpless. (The Las Vegas shooter was a sniper, against which, there's no effective deterrent or defence.) Gun crime is highest in those places where the legal ownership of firearms (and the right to use them in self-defence) is most restricted. On the other hand, the crime rate in Kennesaw, Georgia - where everyone is required by law to be armed - is almost non-existent.
Crimes that don't happen, aren't reported. But anecdotal evidence suggests that in places in the U.S. where citizens are permitted to carry firearms for self-protection, criminals are effectively deterred by the mere knowledge that their intended victims are (or could be) armed. Thousands of such cases occur every month. Why do you think the Police and security guards wear their service pistols openly?
Beyond their uses for hunting and sport, it's in their deterrent effect that you find the true power (and value) of firearms.
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