The Razor

Sometimes I think the Wife likes to pretend she’s Kato and I’m Inspector Closeau, ambushing me when I least expect it, but instead of unleashing a barrage of karate chops and kicks, she assaults me with her liberal “logic.” “Why on earth do you need a 30 round magazine?” I fumbled with my answer and failed to convince her, or more accurately, failed to provide a solid counterargument.

This article at American Thinker provides such a counterargument and explains why I need a 30 round magazine.

Police instructor Masaad Ayoob’s The Truth About Self Protection adds an incident in which a female police officer saw a crazed gunman murder a woman, who then shot her as well before she could do anything. “She lay helpless as she watched a neighbor empty a .22 rifle into the killer; the neighbor then had to club the madman down with the empty rifle, again and again, before he succumbed.”

My brush with Pure Evil that sent me scurrying to buy the 30 round magazines in the first place came in a scenario with 4 armed attackers. A 10 round magazine would have allowed me 3 rounds for half the group, 2 rounds for the other half. On a cold, foggy night scared out of my wits I am simply not that good at math. A 30 round magazine, on the other hand, would have provided me with 8 rounds for three attackers and 6 rounds for the remaining one, giving me much better odds. That night I wanted a curtain of lead to separate those I was protecting from the bad guys, and such a curtain only comes from large capacity magazines.

UPDATE: And here’s why I need an assault rifle.

Now it’s undeniable, Senator Dianne Feinstein to the contrary notwithstanding, that semi-automatic weapons such as the AR-15 are extremely well-adapted for home defense—especially against a crime that is becoming more and more popular among criminals, the home invasion. Over the past two decades, gun ownership has increased dramatically at the same time that crime rates have decreased. Combine this with the fact that most gun crimes are committed with stolen or illegally obtained weapons, and the formula to decrease crime is clear: Increase the number of responsible gun owners and prosecute to the greatest extent possible under the law those who commit gun-related crimes or possess weapons illegally.

This is an old story, but one of the most chilling of it’s type that I’ve ever read.

Bailey said the gunmen started counting bullets. “The other guy asked how many (bullets) he had. He said he had enough,” said Bailey.
That’s when one student grabbed a gun out of a backpack and shot at the invader who was watching the men. The gunman ran out of the apartment.
The student then ran to the room where the second gunman, identified by police as 23-year-old Calvin Lavant, was holding the women.
“Apparently the guy was getting ready to rape his girlfriend. So he told the girls to get down and he started shooting. The guy jumped out of the window,” said Bailey.

I remembered this “counting bullets” incident while reading Thomas Sowell’s piece: Guns Save Lives.

Surveys of American gun owners have found that 4 to 6 percent reported using a gun in self-defense within the previous five years. That is not a very high percentage but, in a country with 300 million people, that works out to hundreds of thousands of defensive uses of guns per year.

Yet we almost never hear about these hundreds of thousands of defensive uses of guns from the media, which will report the killing of a dozen people endlessly around the clock.

It’s easy to show the faces of innocent people gunned down during violent crimes. It’s much more difficult to show the pictures of those saved, those alive today who wouldn’t be without a gun to protect themselves such as those students who survived being raped and murdered 4 years ago all because one of them carried a gun.

It’s also impossible to show the faces of those alive today because a gun deterred a crime. As Sowell notes in his piece, the mere flash of a gun is enough to turn the tables on a criminal, possibly saving not only the gun owner’s life but the criminal’s as well.

Gun control advocates should consider their position carefully. If they are successful, are they willing to bear the weight of those killed who couldn’t protect themselves on their consciences? Are they willing to tell the grieving parents of these students that it’s all for the best that their children died because they were not allowed the fundamental human right of self-protection?

Powerline analyzes a pro-gun control study and finds it undermines its own argument that stricter gun laws decrease gun homicides.

But there is more: note that Fleegler’s study covers all 50 states, but leaves out the District of Columbia. Why do you suppose he chose to do that? Because the District has 1) some of the nation’s most draconian gun laws, and 2) the highest murder rate in the country, higher even than Louisiana’s. In 2011, the District had a firearms homicide rate of 12.46 per 100,000. Now let’s redo Fleegler’s math, with the District counted as one of the ten strictest jurisdictions. We now have an average rate of 4.0 gun homicides per 100,000 in the ten most anti-gun jurisdictions, and a gun homicide rate of 3.5 per 100,000 in the ten jurisdictions with the fewest gun regulations, even if we include the outlier, Louisiana.

Based on those numbers, you could argue that strict gun laws cause more gun violence. I wouldn’t necessarily go that far; I think it is fairer to say that Fleegler’s study doesn’t prove anything at all, but suggests, at least, that draconian gun laws are ineffective when it comes to homicide–which, after all, is what those laws are primarily intended to prevent.

When outliers like DC and Louisiana are removed, there remains a statistically significant bump in suicides caused by firearms. But even that raises questions:

Most people–most liberals, certainly–would say that a person has a right to commit suicide if he is determined to do so. If guns are the suicide weapon of choice, and it is easy to see why they are for most people, why should the state try to make its citizens use other, more difficult or painful means?

Like abortion, guns are a fact of life in America. No one forces you to have a child in this country just as no one forces you to own a gun. Anti-choice gun zealots aren’t going to be swayed by Powerline’s counterargument, but for those of us who are pro-choice gun owners, it provides more support for our position (not that the #2 amendment in our Constitution should need support, but hey, these are troubling times.)

In the “I’m so glad I live in the South” file today… The state of Colorado passed a law banning CCW on college campuses. Instead women are being advised to pee or vomit on their attackers.

Evidently state rep Joe Salazar believes that women can vomit at will but can’t shoot straight. “And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop—pop around at somebody.”

Of course this isn’t the first time a state politician got in trouble on the topic of rape. Missouri congressman Todd Aiken famously quipped that “legitimate rape” rarely caused pregnancy. Colorado rep Joe Salazar just proves that Rape is a bipartisan issue.

CO Rep. Joe Salazar (D) and MO Rep. Todd Aiken

Sorry guys, but if I had a daughter she’d be carrying a Glock 17. I’ve seen the aftermath of college rape and it’s not funny or a lighthearted affair. The mere flash of a gun would deter all but the most suicidal rapists. Thanks to Salazar and his fellow Democrats women in Colorado won’t have that choice.

Congratulations Joe, the rapists of Colorado thank you.

Update: I’m starting to wonder if the Democrats in Colorado are smoking something funny because they’re acting stupid. Sen. Evie Hudak (D) told a rape survivor that a gun wouldn’t have done her any good. Guess she should have tried puking or peeing on herself.

After introducing a plan to ban 150 different types of guns and high capacity magazines, Sen Diane Feinstein tweeted, “The bill will NOT affect hunting or sporting firearms. Instead, the bill protects hunters and sportsmen.” Congressman Rick Nolan (D-MN) , speaking on Face the Nation, defended the legislation, saying he didn’t need an assault rifle to shoot a duck. Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) also supports the legislation saying hunters don’t require assault rifles to kill game.

I’m always somewhat bemused when gun control advocates talk about hunting, as if the 2nd amendment is the right to eat meat, while the word “hunt” or “hunting” does not appear anywhere in the Bill of Rights. In fact by that logic one doesn’t need any type of gun to hunt; a bow and arrow or a flint-tipped spear can take down a deer just as effectively. The 2nd Amendment has absolutely nothing to do with hunting; it is much more powerful than that.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Never has a single sentence caused so much controversy. The late SCOTUS Chief Justice Warren Burger once criticized the amendment on the MacNeil-Lehrer news hour, claiming it was poorly written and a disaster for the country. Like many liberals he believed the amendment applied to organized state militias such as the National Guard. The original Bill of Rights lays out the rights granted to the People of the United States by the Creator, it does not give rights to government, whether state, local or federal. As for the definition of militia, Buckhorn provides reference to Title 10 United States Code section 311:

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard. (b) The classes of the militia are – (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

So if you are a male American between the ages of 17 and 45, guess what? You’re part of the militia, and while Title 10 USC Sec 311 defines the National Guard and Naval Militia as “organized,” the 2nd Amendment does not begin “A well organized Militia.” Besides the “unorganized militia” is just a class of militia according to Title 10 USC Sec 311 so we don’t have a situation where one group of people bears arms and another does not. And better yet, like all the Bill of Rights the “right of the people” derives not from government or any sovereign, but from God – just as the rights to assembly, free speech and freedom of religion do. That undermines the idea put forward by gun control advocates that the term “well regulated” grants power to the government to control arms. The word “regulated” today isn’t the same as it was in 1789, and replacing the Framer’s word with  modern usage would make the amendment nonsensical. How could a right granted by God be controlled by a government of man?  A better modern word would be “trained” or “provisioned”, but it’s unfair to blame the Founders for failing to anticipate the evolution of English after they have succeeded in creating a document that has withstood the test of time so well.

Reams of paper have been produced supporting or disparaging this or that about the 2nd Amendment, and brighter men than me have argued both for and against it, but my view is that the Founders of the Republic had a nation like Switzerland in mind. While gun control advocates are keen on comparing the US to the UK, Canada and Australia, nations that ban guns in most cases, they tend to ignore Switzerland. Switzerland does not have a professional army and instead relies upon civilians to participate and train in a militia. The Swiss are issued an assault rifle, currently the SIG SG 550, a fully automatic weapons that even US gun nuts can’t easily get their hands on*. The Swiss also have a very weak central government, something I believe the Founders preferred but became an idea that got lost after the North won the Civil War.

So the purpose of the militia isn’t to hunt, it’s not target-shooting, or even self-protection: it’s to level the playing field between the People and a tyrannical regime. This is something I hadn’t even realized myself until recently. In the past I’ve argued in support of gun ownership on the basis that self defense is a human right. I even have a bumper sticker on my car to that effect. But the 2nd Amendment is much more sublime. The amendment does not specify what kind of threat requires an armed population. It doesn’t say it’s necessary to protect against a foreign power, Indians, or the forces of mad King George V. It simply states that a militia is necessary for the security of a free state, and freedom is thread that is consistent throughout the documents of the period from the Declaration of Independence through the Articles of Confederation and finally, the Bill of Rights. That free state is so important that is requires a well trained and provisioned militia to secure it.

Could that threat be the tyranny of our own government? Why do you think the Founders placed it so high up in the Bill of Rights? They weren’t fools. They knew that tyrants often take power through democratic means. They recognized that power corrupts and over time any government can be corrupted from within, presenting a danger just as great as invasion from without. The 2nd Amendment therefore provides Americans with a “reset button,” allowing its citizens to resort to force of arms to remove any tyrannical government that comes to power. Such a government would possess the means of the state – billions of dollars, tanks, warplanes, and other tools of war to subjugate the citizenry, but as the American Revolution proved, and as shown by every counter-insurgency the US has participated in from the Philippine Rebellion of the 1920’s to Vietnam of the 1960’s and Afghanistan of today, superior men, arms and material do not in themselves guarantee victory.

The reality of this statement means that Americans would be fighting Americans. It wouldn’t be the first time; the greatest calamity ever to befall our nation was the Civil War, killing 620,000, the equivalent of 5.2 million Americans today, and setting the development of our nation back decades. The idea of Americans killing Americans repulses me in a way that is hard to describe. The extremes of Right and Left both celebrate the idea for the advancement of their own particular causes, and yet the very thought just makes me want to puke.

The best thing about having a “reset button” such as the 2nd Amendment is that it makes such scenarios unlikely. As my good Watcher’s colleague Joshupundit pointed out in a personal communication, extremists like Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam demand gun control because it makes it easier for them to impose their will on the majority of Americans once Americans are disarmed. “He (Farrakhan)  likes the idea of gun control because the [Nation of Islam] has it’s own channels to obtain firearms if they need them.” Ditto the American Communist Party. The masses will be disarmed but the extremists, whether inside the government or at society’s fringes, won’t be and their path to power will be unobstructed.

This reset button comes at a price. Every year Americans die by guns who would otherwise not, and it would be a grievous insult to comfort a parent who has lost a child to gunfire by saying that his or her life is the price we pay to guarantee freedom. But if we are to consider those lost by gun violence today, we also must consider those who would die under dictatorship. The 2nd Amendment minimizes the losses and insures our government’s, and by extension our society’s stability by making any serious attempt at destroying our democracy impossible due to the hundreds of millions of guns in the hands of 80 million Americans who bear them responsibly and vigilantly.
———————-

*
Most people who aren’t familiar with guns don’t understand the difference between automatic and semi-automatic weapons; at least I didn’t until I started educating myself about guns and owning them. An automatic weapon is one that continuously fires until the magazine is empty after the trigger is pulled once. A semi-automatic fires one bullet each time the trigger is pulled. Assault rifles can be semi-auto or full auto, but those under consideration for banning are semi-auto because full auto versions are highly restricted.

Automatic weapons are for all intents and purposes banned from private ownership in the US. While it is possible to get a license for one, the guns are expensive and highly regulated. Most of those I have seen in action are rented at gun ranges by guys with more testosterone than sense. Want to blow $30 in 5 seconds? You can by firing an AK-47 at full auto. In the process you’ll pretty much hit everything BUT the target you are aiming for which is why I don’t see a need for a fully auto weapon. A gun on full auto will pull up and controlling it becomes like wrestling a python, but some guys like to show off at the ranges by making noise. It makes a lot of money for the ranges and ammo manufacturers, but honestly I prefer the maxim “One shot one kill,” myself. As a result I don’t believe a ban on them tilts the playing field towards tyranny the way a ban on assault rifles would.

The gun control debate has taken a sinister turn with the publication by a Gannett owned newspaper of the names and addresses of people within the New York City area possessing a permit to own a handgun. The newspaper states the information was compiled using public records, but why? Why has the Gannett owned newspaper done this?

A journalist might answer that the public has a right to know, and I would ask him to point out that right in the Constitution. The right to bear arms is clearly laid out there, but I don’t recall seeing any right for the public to know anything. Yes the information is in the public domain, but just as the name of the editor of the Journal News, and her

The assumption is that lawfully owned weapons present a danger to public safety, and the purpose is to publicly shame the owners in the same way they publicize the sex offender registry. If the assumption were true, gun crime would concentrate highest in counties where gun ownership is most prevalent, yet urban areas such as Camden NJ, Washington DC, and Chicago have some of the strictest gun control laws on the books making legal gun ownership all but impossible yet have the highest rates of gun violence. Meanwhile counties in North Carolina, Texas and Tennessee have some of the highest per capita gun ownership rates in the country yet enjoy low incidences of gun crime.

Kneejack reactions always have unintended consequences, and the publishing of this list is no different. By listing owners of handguns one can safely assume that anyone not on this list is not armed. Criminals now know who to target and who to avoid. Criminality is like water or electricity: it always follows the path of least resistance, or what is perceived by the criminal to be the path of least resistance. It is the reason why burglars avoid homes with dogs, and why they prefer homes without burglar alarms. So by attempting to publicly shame legal gun owners the newspaper has instead helped criminals pick easier targets. Nice job guys.

When I saw this report I immediately recalled Rule 12 of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. The power behind this story chose to attack individual gun owners by name in the New York City area because they hurt, whereas the NRA as an institution does not. Some might scoff and think this is an example of “typical” gun owner paranoia, and that may have been true before we started jailing filmmakers. Answer this: Why else publish the names and addresses of private citizens, never convicted of any crimes, who legally own a handgun?

But gun owners aren’t idiots. They too can employ Alinsky’s tactics. The paper’s editor and vice president’s unusual name makes her an especially easy find on the internet. Add in some cheap information from one of the public records sites and it’s scary what one can learn about a private individual. I didn’t even try to find out personal details and still learned too much. I cannot post that info here because a) she obviously has no clue to what she has done by publishing the story and b) my conscience will not allow me to for the same reason that I will not publish information that could be used by jihadis. I have been on the receiving end of threats before, and it’s not fun but it taught me the wisdom of the old aphorism ”people in glass houses should not throw stones.” The editor/vp obviously hasn’t learned that lesson yet.

I also wonder how the newspaper and its editor would react if, say, Drudge Report  published a listing of the names and addresses of all doctors known to perform abortions in a particular area. Such information is pretty much public record, and abortion is legal in the USA just as handgun ownership is.

The Sandy Hook Massacre has allowed anti-choice forces to escalate the war against constitutional gun ownership in the United States.  For those of us who live to be free and view the Constitution as sacred as the Koran or Bible, we must learn the tactics used against us and employ them ourselves. As our President famously said in Philadelphia in 2008, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” And those are words to live by.

Update: Blogger Christopher Fountain does what I in good conscience couldn’t.

I am a proud parent and devoted husband. I rescue animals – dogs, cats and even chickens. Although I am not a vegan I sympathize with those who are because it’s hard to deny that meat involves murder. I respect life so I am against abortion but do not believe the Law should be used to prevent it making me both pro-life and pro-choice. I have no problem with gay marriage and have been blessed in my life with friends some of whom are gay.  I founded this journal because I needed to speak out against the slaughter of innocents, the men and women of all races and economic backgrounds  that died on Tuesday September 11, 2001. The events in Newtown, Aurora, and other massacres over the years as well as the thousands killed everyday around the world in the name of G-d sicken me.

I am also a member of the NRA. Now some people want to kill me because I own guns and believe that self-protection is a human right.

All I can say is one word:

Try.

After 9-11 it took me weeks before I could write about it. Days after the Sandy Hook Massacre, I still find it difficult. I feel that the world is a horrific place, and there is nothing that I can do to help it. Worse, I feel that evil is the default condition of the world, and that good is fleeting and powerless to stop it. Yes I believe – KNOW - that evil exists, and that as a result good does as well. But where I differ from my Christian, Jewish and Muslim friends is that I do not believe G-d is all powerful, that good is in control. No, I believe the Devil rules and we exist in his fiery realm. The glimpses of goodness we get in our existence are just the shattered remains of Heaven that he long ago destroyed. So when John R. Coyne, Jr says “There is evil in the world. It’s beyond mental illness, beyond gun control. It is evil,” I disagree slightly: Evil is not the exception it is the norm. Evil is to be expected, what should surprise us or challenge our beliefs is when something good happens.

Ben Stein says what I feel best, writing, “There is plenty of blood of all kinds on our hands, especially of the most innocent and blameless among us… real babies, truly innocent. God help us. Man is made of such crooked stuff that it is impossible to set him straight, said a famous philosopher. God help us.”

If only G-d could, but He can’t because He is vanquished, destroyed, reduced to mere shimmers of Grace in the heat of our hellish existence.

Update: Jed Babbin suggests forcibly incarcerating the mentally ill should be considered. Since a paranoid schizophrenic threatened to kill my wife (and she refuses to arm herself), I’m all for it. It would have also saved the poor soul who was pushed in front of a subway train in NYC. Would it work in all cases? Perhaps not but the option should be on the table.

I just came back from a patrol run on my property. When I go on patrol I go out armed, usually with a semi-automatic rifle and handgun backup. My property is mixed woodland with pasture and bears have been seen on the neighbors acreage. Not that I’d shoot one if I saw one, but I can’t be sure how the bear will react. There are also hunters who occasionally ignore the NO TRESPASSING signs on my property and it’s amazing how polite people get when they know both sides are armed.

Earlier I had spotted two pit bulls near my pond. Both looked like fighting dogs without collars with scars and wounds around their necks that come from to-the-death fights. I have written before about my feelings about pit bulls. I am not comfortable with the breed and trust them less than I do other breeds.  I have eight rescued dogs on my current roster, and none of them would stand a chance against either of these muscular fighters, so I chased them off with my SUV when I went out and after I returned an hour later got on the motorcycle, armed myself and canvassed the area looking for them.

I love animals and that includes pit bulls. I do not fault them for being who they are, and deeply despise the human beings who have bred and fought them for sport. I understand that some are valued pets and would never hurt their owners, but these two I saw on my property were not pets. They were fighters probably dumped instead of shot by their owners. But no matter what my feelings are, regardless of how much I would love to feed them and clean them up and watch them frolic and play with my pack of misfits, the reality is that if they got close to my house they would  likely decimate my pack, from the chow-shepherd mixes down to the minpin and chihuahua.  So bleeding-heart animal lover I am, I set off on my motorcycle to make sure they did not threaten my rescues and moved on, and if they stood their ground I was prepared to kill them. I hate killing animals, hate it more than anything, but Nature rarely cares about the human conscience and confronts me from time to time with threats to my family or my pack. Rest assured that at these times I do what needs to be done to protect those under my care, regardless of the pangs of my conscience.

A horror is unfolding a few hundred miles away, and while I fully expect to hear the usual calls for the confiscation of my ability to protect myself and those I care for, I am prepared to resist them. I understand the pain that causes people to respond in such a way, but I wish they would heed what responsible gun owners have been saying for decades: the solution is not to confiscate guns it is to provide them to those who we task with caring for our loved ones in our absence. We are not going to change the hearts of the insane killers who slaughter just as I am not going to turn the pit bulls who crossed my property into pets happy to join my pack. All it would take to stop such massacres is a person carrying a gun and trained in its use. In fact murders are deterred all the time by law abiding citizens wielding a gun in self-defense, but these cases rarely make the news. They usually won’t because we can never see what would have happened had the gun owner not reacted, had they not carried a weapon and used it to defend themselves, their friends or loved ones.  In such events we have a single dead criminal instead of multiple innocents, but such things ever make the inner pages of the newspaper and are often ignored completely.

There will always be pit bulls that know nothing but killing just as there will be people without souls who will do heinous acts that tear at the souls of those of us who have them. My pack surrounds me, trusting in me to protect them, and I am alert. It is all I know and what I am.

At the ripe old age of forty-something I’ve discovered motorcycles. A few months back I bought the kid a 125cc four stroke Yamaha dirt bike to have fun with over the summer. He ended up riding it for a few hours before he resumed his routine of skyping and playing multiplayer Minecraft. Now I’m the one riding the thing all the time.

I’m also a lifelong NFL fan, and I miss the old days of smashmouth football when big men used to collide into bigger men carrying an odd-shaped ball and yellow penalty flags were rare. Today I’ve become so accustomed to penalty flags that when I watch a baseball game and someone crosses home plate I wait to see if there’s a flag on the play. Seriously. I was also bored stiff half the time I watch baseball, hoping the basemen charge the mound and sack the pitcher. Yes the months are indeed long between Super Bowl and the pre-season.

I’ll admit I don’t wear any helmet while riding the dirt bike on my property. I recognize it’s extremely dangerous and because of that I have yet to put the bike down or fall. I’ve had a scare or two as recently as last night when I took a turn too sharp and braked too quickly, nearly catapulting myself over the handlebars. My son, on the other hand, has wrecked a few times but does so wearing gloves and an expensive motocross helmet. I realize it’s silly to generalize using such a small sample size as two, but I’ve talked to my son and watched him on the bike and it’s clear to me that he pushes the bike too far and takes a lot more risks wearing the protective gear than I do without it. Is it possible the same thing occurs in other sports like football?

In the Seattle-Chicago game on Dec 2, Seattle’s Sidney Rice took two shots in the head (video), one by Bears’ defender Major Wright and another when his head banged the ground as he scored. Now imagine the same play with both players wearing little or no protective gear. Would Wright have tackled Rice in the same way? I doubt it. Earlier in the game Chicago’s Earl Bennett got hit by two Seahawks and cartwheeled into the end zone. He walks away without apparent injury, but  given what we are learning about concussions in the NFL the damage does not come from a single hit but results from repetitive hits each of which may seem completely harmless at the time.

American football is a multi-billion dollar industry. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of people rely on it for their income. But the more I watch it the more I wonder how long it will be around. The murder suicide of Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jevon Belcher is no surprise for NFL sports fans who have become numb at the high price paid by players of the game. According to the New York Post, Belcher struggled with pain, prescription drug abuse, and alcoholism caused by his playing the game, and he eventually snapped. Bob Costas used his position on the air and blamed the 2nd Amendment instead of the nature of the sport that pays his multi-million dollar salary, nor the fact domestic violence resulting in death doesn’t always involve guns. Belcher was 6’2” 228lbs. He probably was twice the size of his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins and could have killed her with his bare hands had he wanted to. Bob Costas has a lot of nerve airing his liberal opinion about guns all the while collecting paychecks from the blood sport.

Courtesy: Instapundit

Is the problem prevalence guns or the nature of the sport? American football is unique in sports due to the amount of physical contact between players. Baseball players rarely run into each other, rushing home plate being the exception and the concussion danger of this play is now increasing calls to ban it. Hockey has a lot of physical contact as well and Canadian neurosurgeons are calling for a ban on body checking to protect against concussions. I simply do not see how we are going to be able to make football safer for players without making it a non-contact sport.

In the meantime people excuse the danger by saying players know the risks and are paid handsomely to take them. That’s little comfort to Belcher’s mother who watched her son kill himself or to the parents of Kasandra Perkins. The NFL will add penalties and increase pads, and the players will do what my son does when he’s on the dirt bike, push themselves even further to the point where injury is inevitable. I would like to see teams at least try to play the sport without all the protective gear to see whether linebackers and tackles dialed it back a bit before sending somebody into next Tuesday, but I’m not hopeful that would end the danger either.

So we will see men kill themselves off the field quickly like Belcher or on the field slowly all for our amusement. I enjoy the sport but my conscience is stirring and I won’t be surprised if my lifelong love the game turns into a remainder of life regret for the carnage I’ve witnessed on countless Sunday afternoons.

The following is based on a true story. Although the dialog has been edited for readability it is based on the transcripts taken from surveillance cameras that captured the incident.

The Scene: I was doing laundry in the basement when I heard the dogs barking outside the window. I looked outside and saw that they had surrounded something in the woods. Judging by the ferocity of the barking I knew it was something big, and with bears in the area I ran upstairs, told the Kid, grabbed a spotlight and opened the gun safe to arm ourselves. I like bears, especially teddy bears but out here the only type of bears we have are the hungry ones that kill dogs and attack people. Armed with an assault rifle and a Russian-made semi-automatic shotgun the Kid and I went outside. I flashed the spotlight on the dogs, and found they had surrounded a well dressed man with spectacles. I instinctively leveled my weapon and bellowed in a theatrically booming voice that I save for scaring the crap out of children or startling inattentive adults, “FREEZE!”

Man (raises hands): “Excuse me sir, I need your help.”

Me: “Do. Not. Move.” I called the dogs off, which wasn’t easy. Their adrenaline was pumping as much as mine. I advanced on the man and motioned for the Kid to stay back in the shadows in case the man tried something, or was bait for a home invasion by a group of people. He is a much better shot than I am and would have no problem taking out the old man from a distance.

I advanced closer to the man, and lowered my weapon as I recognized him. The dogs had pulled back in a broad circle awaiting my hand signal but I waved them off.

Man: “My entourage has been,well they’ve come upon some difficulties. Could I borrow yours?”

Me: “My what?”

Man: “Your entourage.”

Me (motioning around with rifle):  “You’re looking at it.”

Man: “This is your entourage.”

Me: “Mr. Rushdie, let’s move over to the deck. We can call the police from there.”

Sir Salman Rushdie (eyes widening): “You know me?”

Me: “Of course I do. I recognize you from the U2 videos. I also read the Satanic Verses.”

SSR: “Did you like it?”

Me: “Honestly, I don’t recall it much. I was on a Milan Kundera kick around the same time, and I don’t remember much of his work either. Just lots of sex and Soviet tanks. But you didn’t deserve a fatwa for it. So what brings you out this way Mr. Rushdie?”

SSR: “I was on my way to speak when my entourage was attacked by men with guns. We tried to outrun them but in the process my entourage protecting me was killed and our car crashed nearby. They are all dead. They were a good entourage. But I’ll call for another. Maybe I can still make it to my engagement. Can I borrow your phone?”

Me: “Don’t you have a cell phone? I’ve noticed you tweet a lot.”

SSR (waving an iPhone):”Ahh this thing. It’s great for texting and tweeting but it’s terrible at making phone calls.”

The Kid (keeping distance between me and Rushdie as he has been trained): “You know this guy?”

Me: “Of him. He’s Salman Rushdie. SIR Salman Rushdie. A British Indian novelist most famous for writing a novel that many felt blasphemed Islam. Scores died protesting it. Several people associated with publishing it were murdered. Rushdie himself got a death threat from the Ayatollah Khomeini who died soon after, making it impossible for the threat to ever be revoked.”

The Kid: “Sucks to be you dude.”

SSR: “Since then I have lived in hiding. Protected by my entourage of armed bodyguards.”

The Kid: “Sounds expensive.”

SSR: “No, no, not at all. I don’t pay for it.”

The Kid: “Then who does?”

SSR: “My friends, my fans, my publisher. Well, now that you ask I’m not really sure. I’ve had them for so long you see. Who pays for yours?”

Me: “I do. I buy the guns, pay for the ammo, training, dog food and vet bills.” I told my son to put down his gun and call 9-1-1. “It’s going to take awhile for the police to come.”

SSR: “The police? I cannot rely upon the police. The police will be good at investigating my death, not preventing it. That is why I need my entourage. You have no armed men?”

Me: “Just the Kid and I and my dogs. What more do you need?”

SSR (a bit panicked):  “You don’t understand. These men who are after me are bad men. They have guns.”

Me: “So do I.  I have trained to use them, reading books on them and learning from some of the best marksmen around. I also have dogs trained by an ex-Mossad agent. Some of whom now eat only kosher dog food. You know how difficult it is to find kosher dog food out in these parts?”

SSR: “I can only imagine.”  His eyes dropped down to my rifle.

Me: “You want one? I’ve got more in the house.”

SSR: “More? But there are only two of you. How many of these instruments of death does one need?”

Me: “Ask a mechanic how many tools a man who fixes his car on weekends needs. Or ask a carpenter how many the average homeowner needs to be handy around the house. They are just tools, and like tools they differ depending on the task they were designed for.” I raised the gun. “Take this American made semi-automatic rifle. It carries about 25 rounds and is extremely accurate out to about 100 yards. Now the Kid’s gun, it’s a Russian made semi-auto shotgun. It’s job is to put up a curtain of lead between you and the bad guys. Each gun is different because each has a different purpose.”

SSR: “The only purpose a gun has is designed for is to kill. And to do so as efficiently as possible. I would sooner touch a gun than a rotten corpse.”

Me: “That is a very common perception about guns, and a very wrong one. Look into the darkness surrounding us. There are things out there that seek to do us harm. For you it’s Iranian and Hezbollah agents. Me it’s the occasional bear or drugged up local. You are here by accident, I am here by choice. This is my home, a place I have chosen to live out my days in peace. I mean no one harm, and have been known to throw firecrackers to startle the bears away rather than shoot them. Ironically the firecrackers are illegal while shooting at the bears is not, but that’s the government for you.”

SSR: “You admit you chose this place. You live far from the police by choice. Perhaps you wouldn’t need guns if you lived in the city.”

Me (sighing): “No wonder Ted Nugent cleaned your clock on Bill Maher. Are you listening to yourself? The Aurora shooting was done within blocks of a police station. The cops were their literally within seconds of the first shots. Yet a dozen died. I’d have to live in a police station to be afforded the protection of the police. There are whole countries designed that way. They’re called police states, and are generally not nice places to live. I’ve lived in cities. I’ve been robbed at gunpoint a few blocks away from a police station. A man was stabbed to death in the atrium of my apartment building and another, a teenager was beaten to death with baseball bats by a gang out for some “fag bashing.” I can’t argue that America is a more violent society than other nations. But how is banning guns going to change this?”

SSR: “By taking guns out of the equation. Say you’ve been drinking and your wife comes home. She smells funny and won’t look you in the eye when you talk to her. You think she’s been out with another man. What do you do? You grab a gun and shoot her.”

Me: “Okay, take the gun out of the equation. I grab a knife and stab her 20 times in her heart.”

SSR: “That is much more difficult than pulling a trigger.”

Me: “I’m not so sure. There is something visceral about plunging a knife into a beating heart. Something primal, the smell of the blood, the shock in the eyes before they dull, the feel of the last breath on one’s cheek.”

(Silence)  Me: “I’m a writer too, only a bad one.”

SSR: “So what about Aurora? How many people would the madman have killed with a kitchen knife?”

Me: “None. He wouldn’t have used one. He would have gotten hold of guns whether they were legal or not. You know this is moonshine country and moonshine is illegal. I’ve been sober for over a decade but I know where to get some if you are interested. It’s also meth country. I think that stuff is pure crystallized Evil yet people around here have no problems finding it. So why would guns be any different? Or perhaps I didn’t want to go through all that trouble to find an illegal gun. I could do what Timothy McVeigh did and build my own bomb.”

Me: “You have to understand Mr. Rushdie that I appreciate where you’re coming from. I used to be a strong advocate for gun control and didn’t touch a gun until I was middle aged. I think I’ve changed my views because I’m coming to understand that there is real danger in this world. I hesitate to use the word “evil” again but as you have proven there are people who will do anything to get their way in the world and have no respect for the rights of others. If you write something that offends them, they are justified to kill you. If you have something they want, they are justified in taking it. If you think differently from them, you are fair game for them.”

SSR: “A failed writer, you say. Why am I not surprised with a broken monologue like that?”

Me: “My apologies. The words have never come easily for me. Gun control will not stop the Auroras, the Columbines, the Fort Hoods. All it will do is change their means.”

SSR: “How so?”

Me: “It is difficult to attribute rational motives to irrational people. But in general guns are only a means to an end for these massacres. Without guns explosives would be used, or poison gas as used by Aum Shinri Kyo in the Tokyo subway attacks and prior incidents in the Japanese countryside. The reaction is the goal, the horror, the notoriety, the pain. All these things can be achieved quiet easily with public knowledge available on the Internet and basic chemistry skills.”

SSR: “So ban the knowledge as well as the guns.”

Me: “Just as your work was banned? Is such a thing even possible? Has anything ever been banned out of existence? I have advocated for years an end to the War on Drugs. Why? Because heroin is as cheap as it has ever been on the street. Meth too. These are powerful drugs that kill thousands of people every year in my country, yet decades of bans have not stopped their availability. Banning isn’t the solution.”

SSR: “Then what is?”

Me: “I don’t know. I don’t think there is one. I think there will always be madmen among us and the least we can do is learn to protect ourselves.”

SSR: “This is what your friend Ted Nugent suggested. The solution to America’s gun problem is even more guns.”

Me: “Exactly.”

SSR: “Now it is your turn to listen to yourself. What you are advocating would lead to a free for all with people shooting each other.”

Me: “That’s the same argument I’ve heard against drugs. ‘Legalization will result in everybody becoming addicted to heroin.’ It’s not true. It didn’t happen after alcohol was legalized and it won’t happen after drugs are legalized. As for guns, people who advocate for gun control don’t understand guns or the people who have them. They don’t even try. Instead they build up acres  full of straw men to attack with no basis in reality.”

SSR: “Isn’t that what you are doing with me? Assuming that you understand where I am coming from?

Me: “I know very little about you, Mr. Rushdie, but what I did know impressed me. Someone of your stature, your native intelligence should have instinctively known that the violence issue is much more complex than simply banning guns. Maybe you’ve gotten intellectually lazy, or maybe you have forgotten that there are still people actively plotting to kill you.”

SSR: Trust me sir, I am well aware of that.

Me: Are you really? You have – or rather had – private security protecting you. For roughly the past quarter century you have received special protection that only the wealthy can afford. I’ve traveled in what used to be called the “Third World” and saw societies where the wealthy surrounded themselves with gates and walls, expensive security systems and battalions of armed security forces. Everyone else had to live with underpaid and easily bribed police who more often than not caused the crime they were employed to prevent. In almost all of these societies private ownership of guns was banned, and the people were left defenseless against criminals and their own governments. All the people, that is, except for the wealthy.

SSR: So your solution is to provide them arms?

Me: Yes.

SSR: That’s insane.

Me: I hear that all the time from advocates of gun control but no one tells me why. If I’m a robber, who am I going to target: an unarmed man or an armed one?

SSR: If you have a gun it will most likely be used against you either through accident or suicide.

Me: A spuriously sourced statistic that avoids the question. If the Aurora shooter knew that he was going to enter a theater where he had at least a significant chance of facing resistance, of being shot at, would he have done it?

SSR: You would have to ask him.

Me: I don’t think I have to. Men like him always choose soft, easily attacked targets. Schools. Churches. Public spaces where they are unlikely to face any type of resistance. When is the last time you heard of a massacre at a gun show or at an NRA shooting competition, or any event where guns abound? Even the Ft. Hood shooter chose an area where he knew the soldiers were completely disarmed.

SSR: What you suggest requires skill, and most gun owners lack such skills.

Me: How do you know? How many gun owners – besides your security guards – do you hang with? I doubt Bono carries.

SSR: Of course not because the Irish have sensible laws.

Me: Which may explain why the country is still occupied. Or at least that’s what some believe. Me? I’m not a fan of any of the terror groups Republican or Unionist. They should get down to doing what the Irish are best at, drinking and leaving the country.

SSR: How sweet of you.

Me: And what about those men you hired, those that protect you?  Men like you have always relied upon others to protect you, yet you denigrate them at every turn. Those men who died protecting you. They have people who loved them. Each was someone’s  brother, someone’s son, someone’s father. Yet you used them as cannon fodder in your own personal war.

SSR: You make me out  to be a war-mongerer? I wrote a piece of fiction, one that has been misinterpreted by Muslims who haven’t even read the book. I didn’t declare war on anyone.

Me: No you didn’t, but your actions caused one. Wars start many ways, and many begin completely innocently or unintentionally. So you found yourself in war, and instead of doing what Pym Fortuyn or Theo Van Gogh did by taking their own fates into their own hands, you outsourced it to a “rough and ready” type – someone willing to touch guns, a man willing to make the corpses that you find so repugnant.  As Churchill once said, “We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” You are nothing more than a parasite who feeds upon the honor and sense of duty of greater men then yourself.

SSR: Look what happened to those men, Fortuyn and Van Gogh. They are dead.

Me: Yes they are, but they died on their own terms. They chose to protect themselves, but did so in a society where self-protection isn’t possible. Both should have come here, a nation that is perhaps unique in the world as recognizing that self-defense is a human right. Still, they died with their beliefs intact and without denigrating those of us who value our right to protect ourselves. Unlike you.

SSR: Are you saying I should have let Khomeini kill me?

Me: Absolutely not. You can employ all the security guards you want. But where you cross the line is when you forget that all of us do not live in a cocoon of  safety and make fools of us for bearing the burden of self-protection. You seek to disarm us and subjugate us to your own power and childish attitudes towards authority.

A dull roar gradually grew as a long convoy of cars arrived, their headlights cutting through the heavy hair. One by one I counted no less than 3 black Suburbans with the entire county sheriff’s department in tow. I quickly put my rifle inside the door, as the dogs greeted the line of vehicles passing my gardens and pulling onto my driveway. I called them off.

SSR: It appears my entourage has arrived.

Me: Yes it has.

SSR: Well mister…

Me: Kirwin. Scott Kirwin

SSR: Thank you for the conversation and… protection during my time of need.

Me: Just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean that I want to see you dead.

SSR: I appreciate that.

Me:  Can you say the same about me? Shab be kheyr!

I spoke to the men briefly and soon found myself alone in the darkness, back in my own fog wrapped cocoon. What I find fascinating is the chaos of the event – any event where normality is thrown out the window. 9-11 is the best example of this. I remember the internet and phones being jammed, and rumors filling in the information void as the event unfolded in my office. I also remember watching my son play at the playground in northern Delaware and the sky’s silence because all air traffic was shut down. Usually there are at least a handful of planes in various states of takeoff and landing at Philly Int’l. For days there was nothing, and the silence hurt.

I don’t mean to imply that the two events are equivalent, just that we have a mental picture of the world and when that picture becomes scrambled it is extremely difficult to operate. I was scared but I couldn’t show it. I had a terrible hollow feeling in my gut that made my knees weak and want to shake, but I had to stay cool. I started by controlling my voice, moving slowly (I tend to speed up when I’m excited) and speaking clearly (I tend to fall into my midwestern twang). I also added a flavor of authority to it. I used to flip out before I had my kid, but since I’ve realized how important it is to keep your wits about you.

Normality seeps in and the everyday pattern reasserts itself. The events get categorized and compartmentalized over and over again until they are woven into the very fabric of normality. Then we go on, believing we have control and that tomorrow will be just as today was except with a few minor changes.

And then Salman Rushdie appears in your backyard, and normality evaporates leaving the natural order in its place. And that natural order is nothing of the sort. It is Chaos. Some refuse to believe that this Chaos exists, and when it appears they are stunned, incapable of reacting to it. Others are stunned at first, but quickly change, accept the situation, and try to adapt to it.

It’s been awhile since I posted about guns. Since moving out to the hinterlands they’ve become an integral part of my life and I don’t really think about them much except when I run low on ammo or need to clean them. But it doesn’t take much except for a trip to one of the best shooting ranges I’ve been to rekindle the gun-toting muse within, especially when she hands me the finest assault rifle I’ve ever shot, the SCAR MK16.

Image courtesy of ArmyTimes.com

Much has been written about this rifle, how SOCOM considered it as a replacement for the M4 and turned it down, and how shooters either love it or hate it. Count me in the former camp, and my only regret is that I simply cannot justify the expense to buy it, especially when I add in the cost of ammo to support the addiction that would come with the purchase. I won’t bore you with the details about the gun, and instead will let you know my thoughts on it.

Would you like to fire a .223 round, hit exactly where you were aiming 25 yards down and not feel any recoil? If so the SCAR MK16 is for you. I’ve fired .22s with more kick than this rifle, and I’d almost say you don’t feel it except you’ll feel the shockwave from the blast but not the recoil. For a novice shooter like me it was easy to fire on semi-auto and stay on target at all times. I was firing tight groups standing up with a bum elbow no less and found the recoil was nearly completely eaten up by the mass of the firearm. This was no doubt helped by the red dot scope that was mounted on the weapon, but I nonetheless felt like I was holding a giant staple gun that reached across the yards and put holes exactly where I wanted them. It was a remarkable feeling and one that I haven’t had firing any other assault rifle including the AR-15, Mini-14 and AK-47. The control I got with that weapon, perfectly balanced on my center of mass as I stood in a modified Weaver stance, made me feel for the first time in my life like I was a marksman. It was a great feeling.

A common complaint is that the gun feels cheap due to its polymer body. I have nothing against polymer, and some of my favorite guns including the Beretta CX-4 and PX-4 use them. Still there was something about the SCAR’s polymer that made it feel cheap. I felt that if I dropped it on the floor the thing would shatter. This was an irrational feeling of mine brought out by the type of polymer used on the weapon, and I didn’t test it. Still I could see why a soldier used to steel and wood would hesitate when presented with the weapon.

Overall, while the military might not be a fan of the SCAR MK16, I sure am. It was a joy to shoot, and my only regret is that my budget doesn’t justify buying one. If yours does, find a range that has one and see for yourself. Chances are you’ll agree that the SCAR MK16 is one of the finest assault weapons around.

My wife is one of the most intelligent people I know, so when she speaks about a topic, I tend to listen. It’s only fair because after two decades of marriage I tend to ignore everything else she says. When George Zimmerman appeared at his bail hearing, she walked past the sofa and said, “You don’t sympathize with that guy, do you?” I said that I’m not sure what happened the night he confronted Trayvon Martin, but that it would be up to the Court to determine that. This didn’t please her in the least, and her normally sharp mind hid behind an emotional statement. “Imagine that was your son he shot,” she said. I said that wasn’t a fair way to judge Zimmerman’s guilt or innocence. “Imagine that Zimmerman was your son accused of killing someone in cold blood when he was protecting himself.” Feeling the moment escalate I dialed back by saying that if he was indeed guilty of gunning down Martin in cold blood, he deserved a lengthy term in prison, but if he was innocent, he deserved freedom.

As I told my wife, I honestly don’t know what happened that night. When the story broke there was bipartisan outrage. I remember watching Fox News anchor Shepherd Smith have a meltdown as he referred to 17 year old Martin as a child and spoke scathingly of Zimmerman. Skittles candy was mentioned so often it sounded as if Martin was a modern-day Hansel and Zimmerman was a pistol packing Old Witch. In the heat of the moment there weren’t conservatives and liberals there were only parents, and losing a child is the stuff of nightmares that wake us up screaming and chill our blood whenever a story breaks of a child killed, especially one near the age of our own. Years ago we lost sleep over the Grossberg-Peterson baby murdered in Delaware, a baby only a few weeks younger than our own. In the years since other children have been killed in accidents or murdered, and their deaths, even to complete strangers like us, were slaps to the face, reminders of our own blessing and luck. The experience of loving a child trumps political ideology. Politics are petty and meaningless when compared to the life of a child.

But past events have taught me to question initial reports, or preferably, to avoid them when possible because they are usually wrong. It takes time for the signal of the truth to be discerned through the noise, and the more high profile the case, the noisier environment the signal hides in. In some cases, such as the Jon Binet Ramsey murder the signal is overwhelmed and the truth is never known.

What happened that night has become a screen for people to project their own biases and fears thanks to the politicization of the murder by the Obama administration, the Justice Department, and race-baiter Al Sharpton. These entities have raised Martin’s death up to the status of icon for their own political gain, and their opponents have begun to do the same. Gun rights supporters initially left Zimmerman alone to take the heat of his shooting Martin, saying that Florida’s “stand your ground” self-defense law didn’t apply because the 9-11 dispatcher suggested Zimmerman avoid confronting Martin. But as gun control advocates began using the shooting as evidence to support the rollback of such laws, they pushed gun rights advocates to take the opposite position, providing at least some support for Zimmerman albeit reluctantly at first.

Coming to gun ownership later in life I am fully aware of the arguments on both sides of the gun issue. “I think he is just a vigilante,” the wife said, and she might be right. Carrying a loaded weapon does provide a measure of power, and that power might cloud judgement and embolden some to cross the line between self-protection to armed aggression. In most cases that line is clear, and in the cases that it’s not, any decent CCW class can provide needed clarity. As one firearms instructor once told me, “Every bullet comes with a lawyer attached,” so gun owners must be more responsible than those who don’t own guns when it comes to the law and know it to the letter. Responsible gun owners also understand that carrying and firing a gun is a last resort. It is the last option when all other options have been tried and none others remain. Guns have life changing consequences, for people at both ends of the barrel, and gun owners must exercise a level of judgement that they know will have to stand the scrutiny of police, prosecutors, judges and juries and ultimately one’s conscience.

None of us was there that night, but the question remains: Did carrying a gun cloud Zimmerman’s judgement? I have been in dangerous situations both in front of the gun and behind it. In the latter case I was with a desperate stranger who claimed to have survived an horrific ordeal, and the guns provided the only protection available in the creeping minutes until the police arrived. Both instances have taught me keeping a clear head in the midst of a traumatic experience where the outcome is unknown is a challenge requiring a tremendous effort of willpower and focus. It’s easy for people to judge when they already know the outcome of an event; it’s much more difficult when you are in the middle of the event, have little or no information to base your decisions on, the police are nowhere around and it’s dark.

Zimmerman needs this trial almost as much as the Martin family does. Perhaps everyone does. We need to learn exactly what happened that night, to put ourselves in Zimmerman’s – and Martin’s – shoes, and determine exactly how and why a 17 year old kid’s life ended. But unfortunately the echoes of that night will not end with a verdict. If Zimmerman is convicted many will think he was railroaded by an administration keen to please its minority base and a special prosecutor doing its bidding. If he is acquitted, many will believe that he got away with murder, adding Martin to the long list of innocents killed by whites over the centuries abetted by a judicial system that is unfair to minorities. Zimmerman has already been judged guilty by many and innocent by others. The verdict will only confirm their beliefs in the fairness/unfairness of the System, it will not change them. As I told my wife as I watched his bail hearing, I am going to try to keep an open mind about his guilt or innocence, but it won’t be easy, I doubt it will be popular, and it may not even be possible.

Cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

There hadn’t been anything like it since 9-11. Hundreds of Americans die in a spasm of violence by terrorists wielding grenades, C4 explosives and RPG launchers – explosives that aren’t legally available in the United States and are impossible to acquire even under the counter no matter what the price. Over the course of the investigation by American authorities it is discovered that the government of Mexico has shipped thousands of military-grade weapons to al Qaeda, and that al Qaeda did what it promised to do: fill American streets with the blood of infidels.

When presented with the evidence, the Mexican authorities claim it was part of an operation to track stolen military weaponry from the Mexican army to Islamic terrorists. The American government was never notified of the sting operation until the story broke by a Mexican blogger and pictures of dead Americans filled TV screens. As the story is uncovered, Mexican authorities repeatedly lie to American investigators only to be undermined by emails and testimony by whistleblowers. Mexican President Filipe Calderón refuses to discuss the operation, code named Operación Rápido y Furioso, leaving all questions to his attorney general Marisela Morales. Morales claims that the operation was necessary to stem the flow of arms from deserters in the Mexican army to al Qaeda operatives in the United States. Yet when pressed for specifics on how the tracking was supposed to occur within the United States when the US government was never engaged, Morales blames mistakes made at the lower levels of the Federal Public Ministry (Ministerio Público de la Federación).

Perhaps the scenario described above can give you an idea how Mexicans feel about Attorney General Eric Holder’s bungled Operation Fast and Furious. While Americans focus on the death of border agent Brian Terry and the raison d’être of the operation, namely the desire for the Obama administration to enact stricter gun control laws, little has been said about the hundreds of Mexican citizens – many of them innocent bystanders – killed by the weapons the Federal government supplied to the Mexican drug cartels.

Since 2006 when President Calderón declared war on the drug cartels operating in his country, The Guardian claims anywhere between 35,000 and 60,000 have been killed in the violence. At least 5000 are missing and presumed dead. For perspective even the conservative figure of 35,000 is triple the number of Americans killed on 9-11, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the United States is roughly 2 1/2 times the size of Mexico, that conservative figure comparatively becomes 100,000 – more than all Americans killed in wars and terrorist acts since the end of World War 2. These are horrific numbers, yet Eric Holder’s Justice Department and the ATF eagerly meddled in Mexico’s internal war, putting at risk and sacrificing thousands of Mexicans for domestic political reasons. If ever the Mexican government had a completely justifiable reason to go to war with the United States, Operation Fast and Furious is it.

Attorney General Eric Holder doesn’t see things this way of course. He has called the investigation by Congress a “witch hunt,” comparing the hearings to the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950’s. After that comparison failed to undermine the efforts to expose the scandal he has resorted to claiming he and President Barack Obama are victims of racism.

Samuel Johnson once quipped that “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” If Johnson were alive today it is easy to imagine him as amending his aphorism, substituting “racism” for patriotism. Has Holder reached the end of the defense of Operation Fast and Furious that he has nothing left to play except for the race card? Does he seriously believe that people would accept his explanation and justification for the botched operation if only his skin color was different?

If what Eric Holder says is true, that those of us attacking his handling of Fast and Furious are only doing so because we don’t like black people in power, then we conservatives and Republicans must not have any problems with white people in power – namely House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Vice President Joe Biden, DNC Chairwoman Debra Wasserman-Schultz, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner. In addition we would not support black people in power like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Congressman Allen West, former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and former presidential contender Herman Cain.

Bigotry is consistent. If you hate people because of their skin color, then you are going to hate them regardless of their ideology or ideas. For a racist skin color trumps everything else. If you hate black people, you are going to hate Clarence Thomas as much as Martin Luther King jr. If you are going to call someone a racist and they aren’t consistent, then you are either wrong, a scoundrel or both.

Attorney General Eric Holder is both. Holder has crossed the line by playing the race card, and being the politician he is he must know it. Such an act can only be one of desperation at a time when the sole African-American on the Supreme Court is lionized by conservatives and until recently the leading contender for the GOP presidential nomination was a black man. Holder has shown a complete lack of decency by tarring those challenging his inept handling of the Justice Department as racist. It is the final insult and the act of a desperate man.

Attorney General Eric Holder should resign immediately. Congress should begin drawing up articles of impeachment against Holder. He has squandered what power the office he holds grants him by using it to undermine the US Constitution, supply arms to enemies of a friendly state thereby providing it with a legitimate casus belli to go to war with the United States, and playing the race card against those who dare question his actions.

Luckily for us the Mexican government sees no advantage for attacking the United States to punish us for Holder’s arming of the drug cartels, but that is little comfort to the thousands of family members of those killed by weapons supplied to the drug cartels by our government. It is also no comfort to the family of border patrol agent Brian Terry. Holder’s resignation or impeachment will not bring their loved ones back to life, but these actions will show that the United States will not tolerate illegal activities by the those occupying the highest levels of its government no matter what their skin color or party affiliation.

Some of the responses I have seen to Operation Fast and Furious attempt to portray those who support the right to bear arms as being paranoid about the government’s sending guns to the Mexican drug cartels. CBS News has documents proving that the ATF used the secret government program to justify ATF demands for laws covering multiple gun sales.

This is the rough equivalent of burglarizing houses in a neighborhood to boost burglar alarm system sales.

We aren’t being paranoid. The federal government sent arms to the drug cartels to undermine a right explicitly set in the Constitution.

Somebody needs to be fired – and then jailed. This is the United States not Russia.

UPDATE: John Hinderaker from Powerline weighs in with the ultimate question to President Obama:

(W)hy in the world did the Obama administration not just allow AK-47s and other weapons to be shipped across the border to Mexican drug gangs, but encourage and even finance such transactions, over the objections of jittery gun shop owners and its own veteran agents? If the Obama administration wasn’t trying to set up an argument for more gun control, then what was it trying to do? That question has never been answered.

As I have said before, as a kid I watched the Watergate hearings after school instead of cartoons. Later in college I watched the Iran-Contra hearings instead of getting drunk with my friends. Now I’m watching the Fast and Furious hearings and without a doubt, Fast and Furious stands out as the worst scandal of the three. Why? Because no one died from Watergate.