Tag: guns

Election 2020: Biden Gets One Thing Right, But it May Cost Him

Thomas L. Knapp

On June 5, former vice-president Joe Biden’s presidential campaign confirmed to The Hill that Biden still supports the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal taxpayer funds for abortions (with exceptions). His opponents instantly piled on, hoping to erase his commanding lead in the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential primary polls.

Abortion is shaping up as a key election issue to a degree we haven’t seen in decades.  Republican state legislatures are pushing increasingly draconian bans in a play to put Roe v. Wade before what they hope will be a more pro-life Supreme Court bench than in the past. Democratic states are pulling in the other direction, attempting to protect abortion choice over as wide a time frame as possible.

The center isn’t always the best place to be, especially in a party primary cycle. Nor, says my most cynical self, is Joe Biden especially well-known for clinging to principle over party. But in this case that’s exactly what he’s doing … and in this case he’s absolutely right.

“I will continue to abide by the same principle that has guided me throughout my 21 years in the Senate,”  Biden wrote to a constituent in 1994. “[T]hose of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them. As you may know, I have consistently — on no fewer than 50 occasions — voted against federal funding of abortions.”

Whatever you think about abortion as such, that SHOULD be a position most of us can agree on. Even Congress has agreed on it  — 44 times! They passed the Hyde Amendment in 1976 and have renewed it every year since, regardless of whether the House and Senate were controlled by Democrats or by Republicans at any given time.

Who doesn’t agree?

The National Abortion Rights Action League, which defends “access” to abortion but re-defines “access” as meaning “everyone else pays for it.”

Planned Parenthood, which wants its half a billion dollars in annual corporate welfare from Uncle Sugar dispensed without conditions.

Most of the other 2020 Democratic presidential nomination candidates, who want endorsements from NARAL and Planned Parenthood, and the campaign contributions that they expect such endorsements to encourage.

Above, I mention that the Hyde Amendment includes exceptions. Those exceptions are for rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s life. The only procedures covered by the federal funding ban are purely elective abortions, and not even all of those.

Obviously pro-life Americans have good reasons to support the Hyde Amendment. But so do pro-choice Americans, if they’re really pro-choice.

Whether or not to have an abortion is your choice.

Whether or not the rest of us pick up the check for your choice should be our choice, not Planned Parenthood’s or NARAL’s.

Stick to your guns, Joe.

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Prescription For Violence: The Corresponding Rise of Antidepressants, SSRIs, & Mass Shootings

Brian Miller

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a mass murder occurs when at least four people are murdered, not including the shooter, over a relatively short period of time during a single incident. Over the last 30 years, the United States has seen a significant increase in mass shootings, which are becoming more frequent and more deadly.

Seemingly every time a mass shooting occurs, whether it’s at a synagogue in Pittsburgh or a nightclub in Orlando, the anti-gun media and politicians have a knee-jerk response – they blame the tragedy solely on the tool used, namely firearms, and focus all of their proposed “solutions” on more laws, ignoring that the murderer already broke numerous laws when they committed their atrocity.

Facts matter when addressing such an emotionally charged topic, and more gun control legislation has shown that law-abiding Americans who own guns are not the problem. Consider the following: The more gun control laws that are passed, the more mass murders have occurred.

Whether or not this is correlation or causation is debatable. What is not debatable is that this sick phenomenon of mass murderers targeting “gun-free zones,” where they know civilian carry isn’t available to law-abiding Americans, is happening. According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, 97.8 percent of public shootings occur in “gun-free zones” – and “gun-free zones” are the epitome of the core philosophical tenant of gun control, that laws are all the defense one needs against violence.

Therefore, when the media and politicians focus their ire on guns, specifically what types of guns are used, such as AR-styles, carbines, semi-automatics, and “high capacity” handguns, in the wake of such tragedies the American public are being intentionally drawn into an emotionally charged debate about legal gun ownership (irrespective of whether the murderer’s gun was legally or illegally obtained). This debate leads them away from the elephant in the room and one of the real issues behind mass shootings – mental health and prescription drugs.

Ignoring what’s going on in the heads of these psychopaths not only allows mass shootings to continue, it leads to misguided gun control laws that violate the Second Amendment and negate the rights of law-abiding U.S. citizens. As Jeff Snyder put it in The Washington Times:

“But to ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless, and that the law will permit them to have only such rights and liberties as the lawless will allow.”

Violence, especially random violence, is a complex manifestation of various thoughts, feelings, and external factors. When a multivariate analysis of these factors is conducted, it becomes apparent that it’s not just mental health issues that are leading to such an increase. There may be an underlying substance which plays a role in a high percentage of these violent acts – the use of prescription antidepressants, specifically selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs.

At first glance, it makes sense that those involved in mass shootings may be taking antidepressants, as they’re clearly suffering from some sort of mental health issue. But the issue with SSRIs runs much deeper than just a random mental health break. These drugs are a prescription for violent crimes, and that’s a story the anti-gun media and politicians don’t want to talk about.

Continue reading Prescription For Violence: The Corresponding Rise of Antidepressants, SSRIs, & Mass Shootings at Ammo.com.

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Gun Laws Far Overstep Their Bounds

Kent McManigal

“Validly enacted laws.” This is how New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas deceptively characterizes the new anti-gun laws he wants enforced against you.

They aren’t validly enacted. They violate the Second Amendment, so they aren’t even laws.

You might imagine they don’t violate the Constitution, based on cowardly and dishonest opinions of Supreme Court justices over the decades, but they do.

The Second Amendment is clear. It’s even more clear once you’ve read the discussions that surrounded writing the Bill of Rights. There was to be no question — no laws concerning guns were to ever be allowed under any circumstances whatsoever.

The attorney general claims to be the state’s chief “law enforcement officer,” yet he orders others to break the law that guides all legislation.

He is entitled to his opinions, but not to making up his own facts.

No actions of a rogue governor, representative or attorney general can make an anti-gun law constitutional, legal, or valid. They can make threats, send letters, or hold meetings to try to force their will. They can bully other government employees and the residents of the state. It doesn’t make their lies true.

You and I both know government will do whatever it can get away with. The solution is to not allow these out-of-control officials to get away with any violation of liberty.

This violation of their oath of office should result in the immediate loss of the position; dragged from their offices in chains if they won’t leave peaceably.

If you believe I’m only passionate about gun rights, I’ll remind you I am equally opposed to prohibition, border controls, and all other violations of natural human rights as well.

If you value the Constitution you should join me. If not, you should join me anyway since anything that violates a natural human right is wrong, even when the Constitution allows it.

It’s a criminal act when public officials impose their wishes in defiance of what the Constitution allows.

Back in the 1920s, those who advocated alcohol prohibition at least passed a Constitutional amendment to make their laws Constitutional. They were still wrong, but they made the attempt to play by the rules. Those who target your liberty today don’t even go through the motions. They do what they want, secure in the knowledge that the courts will not bite the hand that feeds them.

Gang loyalty is powerful.

If government won’t, or can’t, control its appetites, it needs to be taken to the woodshed. It’s past time.

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Dumb Ideas Aren’t “Progress”

Kent McManigal

A few days ago I saw someone bringing up the 20th anniversary of the mass-murder by the evil losers at the Columbine kinderprison. They were moaning that 20 years have passed and “what progress have we made?”

They didn’t exactly say, but I’ll bet I know their idea of “progress”, and I’ll bet it is what I would consider going backward into deeper slavery.

Because I’m sure their “solution” is more anti-gun “laws” like the ones which not only failed to protect lives, but actually empowered the evil losers at Columbine (and elsewhere in the years since). “Laws” which made sure they could murder without interruption. “Laws” which made it less likely anyone would be able to fight back effectively. “Laws” which make cowering and dying official policy.

It’s not the guns. It’s never the guns. If you want to solve things like school shootings, but you think it’s about the guns you’re a moron. Anything you do will only make it worse.

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Maj Toure: Black Guns Matter (57m)

Skyler J. Collins (Editor)

This episode features a lecture by hip-hop artist Maj Toure from 2018 on the right to bear arms. He founded the Black Guns Matter movement in 2015 and advocates for 2nd Amendment education and information for urban communities. Maj has been featured in the New York Times, Breitbart News, National Public Radio, Fox News, CNN, and NRANews for his out of the box approach to 2nd Amendment advocacy.

Listen To This Episode (57m, mp3, 64kbps)

Subscribe via RSS here, or in any podcast app by searching for “voluntaryist voices”. Support the podcast at Patreon.com/evc or PayPal.me/everythingvoluntary.

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Deadlock and Partisan Bitterness

Bryan Caplan

Why does American politics seem so deadlocked?  The media mostly focuses on issues where Democrats and Republicans refuse to compromise because they strongly disagree: immigration, guns, health care.  But American politics often seems deadlocked even when both parties agree.  For example, supermajorities of both parties want to protect DREAMers, but they’ve never reached an agreement to do so.  How is this possible?

1. Transactions costs.  Hammering out a deal is hard work, so many mutually beneficial deals don’t happen.

Critique: Economists routinely appeal to these alleged costs, but how high can they possibly be?  Seriously, why should it take more than a single day for the DREAM Act to become a law?  Vote, vote, sign, done.

2. The hold-out problem.  Suppose we agree that X is good, but you want X a lot more than I do.  In this situation, it makes sense for me to demand some “compensation” from you even though we basically agree.

Critique: This might make sense for a year or two.  But if we’ve failed to reach an agreement after many years of negotiation, you’d expect both sides to moderate their demands to cut their losses.  Yes, they could conceivably be investing in their reputations for intransigence to secure favorable terms in the future, but does anyone seriously expect to see the day when one party finally submits to the other?

3. Insincerity.  For example, perhaps Republicans only claim to want to protect DREAMers in order to seem nice and reasonable.  In fact, however, they never genuinely favored the DREAM Act in the first place.

Critique: This is often plausible, but it’s hard to see it as a general explanation.  Politicians have clear incentive to lie about their goals, but why would average citizens bother to lie in anonymous polls?

4. Partisan bitterness.  The two main parties intensely dislike each other.  Like a quarrelsome couple, they could find something to fight about at a fancy restaurant on Valentine’s Day.  As a result, the two parties have trouble cooperating procedurally even when they agree substantively.

Critique: This is my preferred story.  What I wrote about divorce a decade ago cleanly explains political deadlock as well:

Unfortunately, the Coasean argument overlooks a pretty obvious fact: Couples contemplating a divorce often hate, loathe, and despise each other. We’ve all heard of stories of divorcing couples deliberately destroying objects of sentimental value to each other. Indeed, many couples in this situation wallow in petty spite; they can’t stop bad-mouthing each other to anyone who will listen.

With these facts firmly in mind, how confident are you that Coase’s zero transactions costs assumption is remotely true? At risk of sounding Austrian, transactions costs are subjective: Bargaining with your mortal enemy hurts.

If this story seems grim, I should add that bitter politics has one major advantage over bitter divorce.  Namely: Partisan bitterness throws much-needed sand into the gears of the state.  Given public opinion, amicable government is likely to be big government.  As long as political antipathy is too shallow to cause civil war, both libertarians and pragmatists should welcome it.  Will Rogers once mused, “Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.”  I’d add, “Be thankful we’re not even getting all the government both parties support.”

P.S. I’m well-aware that deadlock locks existing bad policies in place, too.  But I see little political support for repealing such policies, and broad political support for adding new bad policies.  Tragic, but that’s the world we live in.

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