Date ►►► May 11, 2014

Abuse Misuse

Hatched by Sachi

Once again, former Arizona representative and gun violence victim, Gabrielle Giffords, was on Capitol Hill promoting her proposed new gun control bill. Her new scheme would bar gun possession for even a temporary domestic violence restraining order, even when the order is issued prior to any actual investigation.

"Women's lives are at stake," says Gabby Giffords (should that be Grabby Giffords?).

"'It’s just common sense that someone who is the subject of a temporary restraining order shouldn’t be able to buy a gun,' said [Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT, not yet rated), one of Giffords' allies]."

Who can argue with taking a gun away from a man who abuses a woman? Why, it's just common sense!

Not so fast; when a liberal says We must protect [fill-in-the-blank victim], it's time you reach for your ten-gallon bottle of grains of salt. There are a lot of flaws -- or cynical hidden agendas -- in this proposed bill, as Brian Anderson points out in his column linked above on Downtrend:

  1. "Under this law, someone who is accused, but not convicted, loses their 2nd Amendment rights."

    If a vindictive partner decides to accuse her partner of domestic violence, that alone can trigger taking his guns away, whether he's guilty or innocent.

  2. "[W]hen police confiscate firearms, they tend not to want to give them back. Even after someone has cleared their name, they run into roadblocks in trying to regain their lawfully owned guns."

    Evidently, the "solution" to a temporary restraining order -- is permanent firearms confiscation!

  3. "When cops confiscate firearms, they don’t take very good care of them."

    A person with a very expensive gun collection can lose thousands of dollars due to ruined guns and lost accessories; and police have no obligation to compensate the innocent victims of wanton gun seizures.

But there is a far more sinister aspect to Giffords' proposal, one that she is careful never to mention: Who exactly does Mrs. Gifford really target when grabbing guns?

She sure as shootin' doesn't want to restrict confiscations just to convicted felons, because that's already on the books. Nor does she target only violent abusers who are placed under a permanant restraining order, because that too is already the law of the land.

As we shall see, Gabby Giffords has a slightly more expansive target of who should lose gun rights...

On Giffords' own organization's website, the Orwellian sounding Americans for Responsible Solutions, we can read her deep thoughts on guns:

The majority of mass shootings in the United States involve instances of domestic violence. Women in the United States who are targets of domestic abuse and stalking are at an increased risk of gun attacks, and are more than three-and-a-half times as likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner. A gun in a household with a history of domestic violence also increases the risk that a woman will be killed there by 20 times compared to households without guns. And compared to women in other high-income countries, women in the United States are 11 times more likely to be murdered with a gun.

Where do these statistics come from? From the clear, blue sky, evidently.

But leave that aside; consider the innocuous sounding word "household": Why did she focus on a "household" with a domestic violence history, rather than hold the individual abuser responsible for his or her own actions? She could have said, "when a domestic abuser has a gun, it increases the risk that a woman will be killed by that gun more than 20 times" or something like that (if such statistics actually existed).

Clearly, if you remove all the guns from the household, that necessarily includes removing the victim's gun along with the perpetrator's. That leaves a now disarmed woman trapped with a much larger, stronger, and more violent man, who is now enraged by having his guns seized. I'm sure Giffords knows full well that a stronger perpetrator can assault or kill a victim with other weapons or even his bare hands. The former congresswoman seems content with this outcome.

Shall we make it more explicit? Here is another section from the aptly named ARS's manifesto:

Americans for Responsible Solutions supports a range of policies that would protect women from gun violence, including:

Expanding background checks to cover gun show, internet, and other private sales;

Adding misdemeanor crimes of stalking, harassment or sexual assault to the list of persons prohibited from possessing a firearm;

Prohibiting all domestic abusers from access to guns, including dating and former dating partners; and,

Prohibiting the sale of firearms to domestic violence abusers who are under restraining orders by encouraging faster record reporting into NICS, leading to better enforcement.

"Prohibiting all domestic abusers from access to guns, including dating and former dating partners?" Wouldn't that include confiscating guns from the victim's home, even if she no longer lived with the abuser, so long as he still has a key? She would then be a "former dating partner" from whom the abuser could have "access to guns."

So unless the victim calls a locksmith to put new locks on all her doors and windows, she herself can be disarmed by the state, on the pretext of saving her from herself.

Disarming women in their own homes; that'll protect women for sure!

Never be fooled by what anti-gun zealots say; loook instead to their actions. This proposed bill was never about protecting women, else they would encourage, or at least allow, women to keep their own firearms to protect against the abuser returning with a knife, baseball bat, or a garrote. It is instead just another back door for taking guns away from law abiding citizens.

Allowing criminals to roam the streets committing crimes, with or without guns, does not threaten Democrat power; they love criminals, because they can always use them to demand more, stronger, and more intrusive government (and use 'em again to cast fraudulent votes for Democrats). But armed citizens are a terrific threat... because Democrat power depends upon making ordinary people helpless; they must beg for help from big, bigger, biggest government.

That's how the State metastasizes, like a cancer, into every last nook and cranny of what used to be the Land of Liberty.

Hatched by Sachi on this day, May 11, 2014, at the time of 12:15 AM | Comments (5)

Date ►►► May 1, 2014

Kindling Some Hot Fun, or How to Spark a Revolution

Hatched by Dafydd

By now, nearly everybody has played around with "e-paper," electronic paper, as in book readers like Amazon's Kindle or Barnes & Noble's Nook. Without getting into the electronic weeds, very, very, very tiny charged beads, bubbles, or flakes -- black on one side and white on the other -- can be electromagnetically flipped or moved. Using this technique, these flips or moves can create a pattern, similar to the pixels you're looking at right now. (Only it looks a lot more like a printed book or magazine and less like a back-lit computer screen.)

The resolution isn't great, and I haven't seen any good color e-paper readers; but I'm sure high-resolution, full-color versions will be available in a few years.

Bear in mind, e-paper isn't really paper; it's just a clear material used to hold the microscopic beads in place, while still allowing you to see them. The material can be flexible and durable. At the moment, existing systems cannot change pixels as rapidly as can LEDs and other back-lit displays; but that's just an engineering detail. Fairly soon, I'm sure that ultra-fast, high-res, billion-color e-paper displays will be embedded into all kinds of products.

When that happens, I predict that manufacturers will swiftly realize the staggering potential: No longer will they have to make products (phones, toothbrushes, vases) in several different colors; customers will be able to program whatever color and pattern they choose. They can take over the creative task of "skinning," or coloring the outside, of virtually any product.

The buyer will pick up a "vanilla" phone (cell or home), for example, then program it to be Shockingly Pinko. Or Hi-Ho Silver. Or Tiger-Tiger In the Night. Easily bored or wishy-washy consumers could program their phones to change at an alarming rate, like a screensaver. It's all just electromagnetic pixels anyway! (And by that time, I'm sure the colors and images will be as vivid and smooth as the best magazine-quality ink-jets.

But wait, there's more: Why not skin a whole car? Get your Porsche SUV in any external variety you desire -- from standard colors like red or blue, to Psychedelic Joplin, to Naughty Nudies dancing across the side panels.

Cars could sport adverts, and maybe even get sponsored for a small fee. (Enough to pay for gasoline?)

But oh dear... what about the future of law enforcement? Imagine the coppers trying to track a fleeing suspect who can change his entire color scheme a hundred times a second. Ouch!

Would the police have to develop other methods of tracking a vehicle? It's likely that in the very near future, consumer products will be "tagged" by microscopic strands of DNA, making it very easy to prove who actually owns some item (and virtually impossible to crack, given the staggering number of potential DNA "codes"). Could the cops develop a method of reading such DNA tags from a distance? If so, they could track a car no matter what barrage of colors and patterns the crook uses in his getaway.

But if the police can track a criminal's car or a stolen car, what would stop them from tracking undesirables, dissidents, or critics of the government? In the technology war between tyranny and freedom, one side (aggressor or defender) is generally "up", while the other is comparatively "down." But in this case, it looks almost like a Bundy standoff.

Tim Leary once said, the only way to prevent government from discovering your secrets -- is to have no secrets. Whatever you believe, say, or do, do it upfront and unafraid, pledging your lives, your fortunes, and your sacred honor.

But be prepared to stand your ground and defend your principles; nobody rides for free.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 1, 2014, at the time of 11:20 PM | Comments (3)

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