Assaulting Jim Zumbo The NRA on Extremists NRA scams its members The Lionel Show AirAm Radio's ignorant, crude, ugly, air waves barbarian Dear John Ashcroft The armed populace doctrine at the DOJ The Washington Post cultivating ignorance. Gun Policy News news stories compiled daily. "Sixty Minutes" Failing its Mission NPR's Diane Rehm Civilized without Substance. A longstanding dereliction. Violence Policy Center The public health agenda falls in line with the NRA. AFL-CIO Getting it right but failing its mission in the larger struggle Militia Act of 1792 To enroll— conscript, register Return of Militia Inventory of private weapons in the early Republic reported to the President of the US History John Kenneth Rowland Lawrence Cress John K. Mahon Others Pseudohistory LaPierre's list The Quotes, the Quotes Fabricating the armed populace doctrine Libertarians, Conservatives Tenn. Law Rev., 1995 Chicago-Kent Symposium, 2000 What does the NRA want?

The former homepage through March 5, 2008, has been moved to a new file. Addressing Gun Violence contains more information. The homepage from March 5, 2008, to July 16, 2008, the most important part of which is a letter to Walter Dellinger who argued for the DC gov to the Supreme Court, has been moved to "Whither the United States of America?". There are other important observations. VII. Adolescent insolence, insurrectionist fantasies, and personal soveignty In the midst of the struggle over the modern state and the political economy of capitalism, adolescent insolence proclaims anarchic, insurrectionist fantasies on hundreds of internet bulletin boards. The adolescent insolence controls political outcomes. There is no political leadership to tell some people they cannot have their childish political fantasy. The gun rights militants need not worry. There is no constituency in the present political culture for the rule of law, civic obligation, and the contours of citizenship. We are all libertarians now. To raise these issues is like going to a assembly of over-sexed fraternity louts and preaching that the only permissible context for sexual expression is lifetime commitment in monogamous marriage. They might listen politely but would be quietly giggling. It is not as if there are not many lives and whole communities at risk. This is who we are. But, really, it has not sunk in yet that the courts have denied the very right the gun rights ideologies have to have— the right to be armed outside of the knowledge and reach of law and government. What has come out of the courts is not what they thought and hoped for. http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/ Scroll down to July 2 or go to the archive box: Among other things, all the following anti-gun laws are A-OK according to the Supreme Court: *** Mandatory licensing to purchase firearms; *** Bans on the open and concealed-carry of firearms; *** Bans on private sales of firearms; *** Bans of so-called assault weapons and other "unusual" weapons (that's the actual language Scalia uses); *** Bans on firearms on government property; *** Bans on certain calibers of ammunition; *** Bans on high-powered hunting scopes; *** One-month waiting periods; *** One-gun-a-month schemes; *** Mandatory ammunition fingerprinting. Public necessity and civic obligation have serious consequences for citizens under law and government and, by historical practice, for their private weapons. This showed up on http://elmtreeforge.blogspot.com/2008/07/other-day-kevin-linked-to-this-place.html on July 4, 2008: The Potowmack Institute does not know what PSH is. If you want a fair working definition of PSH, that place [the Potowmack Institute] is it. I especially liked the absolute horror of the idea of anyone other than the government having arms, illustrated by ... The rule of law, the state's monopoly on violence, and the state's internal sovereignty all mean the same thing. It’s kind of amazing, really, the flat terror and rage he seems to feel for the very idea of anyone telling the gummint to piss off. How anyone can read the founding documents of this country and get that, I do not know (of course, he may not consider the Declaration something people should really be aware of). The Consitution largely consists of “This the government should do; this the government may do; anything else, the government should NOT do”. What makes me think he either has not read both the founding documents, or dismisses one completely is this quote: Any hint of protection for a fundamental or procedural right to be privately armed outside of a military or militia context would validate not just a malignant, anarchic vision of social and political life but also an insurrectionist doctrine. The Constitution becomes perverted. It defines treason as the waging of war against the United States and then secures a civil right to commit the same. Several amici refer to the insurrectionist doctrine but do not emphasize the centrality of this in gun right ideologies, how widely it is adhered to, and its constitutional impermissibility. The right of armed self-defense includes the right of armed self-defense against the government itself, the same government the gun rights claimants want to secure the right. Contrast that with Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. The people who argued out and wrote and signed this took this idea very, very seriously. They were fully aware that just by attending the meetings they were committing acts that the Crown would happily have them arrested and imprisoned- quite possibly executed— for; by signing their names to this document, their lives were forfeit to the Crown if captured. ‘Forfeit’ as in ‘hanged until dead’ or ‘stood against a wall and shot’ if lucky: hanged, drawn and quartered if not. And it’s been pointed out before: they were declaring rebellion which would have them facing the most powerful, best-trained, best-equipped military force in the world. When the Colonies had been deliberately kept as weak in some ways as possible. England considered that the Colonies should be forced to buy virtually all manufactured goods from Britain, including iron, powder, shot and firearms. Which means not much in the way of materiel to fight with. But they signed anyway. You can’t say they were not aware of what was coming, many of them had fought before, knew the noise and horror of battle. And signed anyway. And yet, according to blank [must be the Potowmack Institute], it’s unthinkable that they would write a document noting the importance of the people A: having arms and B: being, in extremis, able and willing to use them against the government. ‘Fraid not, guy. This one line, to me, shows how he just doesn't(or won't) get it: The right of armed self-defense includes the right of armed self-defense against the government itself, the same government the gun rights claimants want to secure the right. That's exactly right, but he's horrified by the idea. The Declaration specifically notes 'it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government', and the Constitution specifically notes the right to arms(which all nine justices agreed is an individual right); and yet he thinks that both are to be dismissed. Enough to make you need a drink.

Here is a treatise on Personal Sovereignty

Of course, it says right there in the Second Amendment that the right of the people is the right to personal or individual sovereignty, a right in the State of Nature before there is law and government. The Founding Generation must have been in serious conflict with itself. It has been lost today that the Constitution is a frame of government not a treaty among personal sovereigns. A sovereign gives law. It does not accommodate to a law giving authority. We have no political or intellectual leadership that addresses what we have become.

So, what is it? I thought about it long and hard.

And it's this simple truth:If you f**k with me bad enough, I'll kill your ass.

What both of these quotes illustrate is the concept of personal sovereignty.

What is it? Here's a good definition:

Personal sovereignty is an issue which affects each of us as individuals and as a society, whether we realize it or not. Understanding it can help us to interpret what is going on within us and around us. Increasing it can radically transform our existence.

The word "sovereign" means to be in supreme authority over someone or something, and to be extremely effective and powerful. Therefore, it is usually applied to gods, royalty and governments. We speak of kings and queens as sovereigns (even when they are figureheads), and of the sovereign rights of nations and States.

Personal sovereignty, then, would imply the intrinsic authority and power of an individual to determine his or her own direction and destiny. If that sounds suspiciously like free will, it's because personal sovereignty and free will are the same thing.

It is, in fact, the polar opposite of statism. It is the thing that statists fear above all [link to Potowmack Institute] — a population that won't do as it's told by its betters...

This appeared October 27 on http://blog.joehuffman.org/

Potowmack Institute blind spot
I've briefly mentioned these guys before but they have updated their website for our current election. They haven't become any more connected to reality since the last time I visited:
The McCain Campaign has denounced Barack Obama for his tenuous association with William Ayers, characterized as a domestic terrorist who hates America. Sarah Palin has her own associations with those who espouse insurrectionist and secessionist doctrines. The doctrines are pervasive in the present political culture. Are these the people who love America? The problem is both embrace the National Rifle Association's childish political fantasy. A member of the NRA's National Board wrote in the Washington Post in 1989:
Twentieth century military machines are far from invincible when outflanked by armed citizen guerrillas.
http://www.potowmack.org/emerappd.html#ak47
http://www.potowmack.org/parkappe.pdf
p. 40

Ayers can only be faulted for acting out the NRA's childish political fantasy. The Obama Campaign can be faulted for the failed political leadership to turn the whole issue around on the McCain Campaign and exploit the opportunity the courts have given to bring rationality to firearms policy. See below. The gun rights militants need not worry that political and intellectual leadership will emerge anywhere else.

Their most glaring flaw in the above is they seem incapable of distinguishing between violently overthrowing our constitutional established republic (as Ayers attempted) and defending the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution from a tyrannical government attempting to infringe those rights.

As near as I can tell the person or persons at the Potowmack Institute regard all governments as equally valid and deserving of having a monopoly on the use of force. This is a false assumption. The truth is that no government is deserving of a monopoly on the use of force. No government can legitimately claim to possess powers that the individual also does not have and were granted to the government by the individuals. The individuals may grant the government a monopoly on the use of force in certain circumstances such as when declaring war on a foreign state, enforcing contracts, or punishment of criminals. But those are limited monopolies and are subject to revocation by the people.

There are other uses of force the government may never have a legitimate monopoly on such as the use of force to defend ones self and other innocents against imminent serious injury or death. Any government that claims to have a such a monopoly on the use of force is an illegitimate government.

The Constitution defines treason as the waging of war against the United States. Williams Ayers certain thought and seems to still think that he was defending through violent means freedom as defined by him and other disaffected types that he was associated with. Ayers is no different from others who will act out the childish political fantasy that they will defend through forces of arms "the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution [as interpreted by them] from a tyrannical government attempting to infringe those rights." Timothy McVeigh tried that and was executed by the same tyrannical government he sought to defend himself and everyone else against. It is not explained how the people are to keep and bear arms for insurrectionist purposes when the Parker/Heller opinions of the courts say we can have registration of gun ownership for militia call up for public duty. One such constitutional public duty is to suppress insurrections. Unfortunately, we cannot get anyone to demand that our candidates for public office clarify where they stand on this childish nonsense and commit themselves to the rule of law which means that the exercise of violence is authorized or permitted by law. The rule of law, the state's monopoly on violence and the state's internal sovereignty all mean the same thing. We have an inalienable right, a natural right, a moral right, a God-given right to take of arms to defeat a tyrannical government. It is not a civil right that can possibly be guaranteed and secured by government.

[PotowmackForum] interactive posting