In the wake of the Zimmerman verdict, the use of lethal force and when it is appropriate is a subject of great controversy. With that in mind, when do you believe lethal force is justified?
Category Archives: Guns & The 2nd Amendment
Blue Sky Poll: Guns for the poor!
As I was researching open carry laws, an idea came to me. What if the police resold confiscated guns to the underprivileged, but lawfully able masses?
Guns are expensive, and a lot of poor people are simply forced to do without one for protection. But using similar criteria to other government entitlements, police could resell these guns to people who can’t afford a new gun and help these folks out?
The money raised could help the community a bit, the cops could also engage with these people by teaching them proper safety and usage as well as building trust and respect between the police and the underprivileged who are often wary of law enforcement. Plus, we wouldn’t be destroying valuable property that many underprivileged people could really use since their communities are often the most dangerous. A lesson we should have learned with the Cash For Clunkers fiasco.
Or I could just be crazy.
But this is my first blue-sky-thinking poll, so chime in and tell me what you think. Comment below if you wish to elaborate.
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Let’s Protect The Victims, Not The Felons
This may not seem very libertarian of me to some, but often we have our own unique views of liberty. Some libertarians are anarchists who believe in no rule of law whatsoever. But much like socialism; anarchy relies on the notion that people will always do the right thing, which is obviously unrealistic. Under anarchy, those who don’t respect the rights of others would be brought to justice solely by vigilantism; a scary proposition. As such, like socialism, anarchy would never work if we are to maintain a civilized society.
So as a logical libertarian, I feel there is a need for police to protect one person’s constitutional rights from another who might infringe upon them. If this occurs, then government applies commonly accepted justice to the offenders. However, the power to protect ourselves must remain with the people first.
Here’s the part where I think my opinion may be somewhat unique and controversial. While I consider myself a humanitarian, I draw a very clear and concise line on the lives I respect.
It stops at people who would willingly infringe upon my rights; such as rapists, murderers, molesters, and other violent felons. If someone breaks into my home in an attempt to take my life or property, I feel they’ve voluntarily forfeited their rights, and I will kill them with little remorse—a scenario most castle doctrines allow. I am always content to read about such attackers getting killed by either the police or their victims; it’s the epitome of swift justice.
Having liberty means that you have the right to take risks. You should be able to sky-dive, smoke a cigarette, drive without a seat belt, or drink a 20-oz soda (despite his excellency King Bloomberg’s wishes) if you so desire. So then in my opinion, if someone decides to engage in a felonious act against another person, whatever happens to them during that act was the risk they took in doing so.
If a man decides to rape a woman, and she shoots him in the back as he climbs off of her and runs away, you expect me to believe that she’s done something wrong? Yet by law, she is a murderer.
I was disgusted last year to read about disabled veteran Jonathan Lowe being prosecuted, despite being the victim, because he stabbed a man to death who violently attacked him. How can any reasonable person consider this justice? The reason given was that the attacker had gotten up and was fleeing when Jonathan grabbed him and stabbed him, but I don’t care. Jonathan’s reaction was purely understandable.
The issue with many lawmakers and pacifists is that they’ve never been a victim of a violent crime, nor seem to appreciate the reaction it induces in even the most altruistic people. It requires unfathomable hubris to assume that they know how people will react in such a situation if they’ve not experience such an attack themselves. Controlling one’s instincts, emotions, and resultant actions after such an event is nearly impossible.
Humans have an innate sense or instinct of self-preservation. No matter how hard we might try to suppress it, we will react in an uncontrollable manner to stay alive. Don’t believe me? It is virtually impossible to commit suicide by holding your own breath. You’ll either breathe despite your best efforts not to, or you’ll pass out and then take a breath once you’re unconscious.
We’re unfairly penalizing people for succumbing to this instinct in a situation that they did not cause nor create. Once your life is threatened, unless you’re a soldier or police officer trained to stay calm in life-threatening events, temporary insanity will often ensue as you fight to stay alive and destroy that which threatens you. Anyone who has ever been violently attacked knows this.
With all that in mind, I am proposing victim protection legislation that would involve the following:
- Duty to retreat laws should be abolished and prohibited at all levels.
- Stand-your-ground-legislation should be a constitutionally enumerated right.
- A carry-conceal permit from one state should be recognized by all states, just as a driver’s license currently is.
- Committing an unprovoked felony would constitute a total forfeiture of rights under the law during the commission and escape of the felony by the felon.
- The state, nor the perpetrator and their family should ever be allowed to criminally or civilly prosecute a victim, Samaritan, or officer who retaliated against the felon, no matter what injuries the felon may have sustained as long as the actions were committed during the commission of, or the fleeing from, the crime scene. If the felon escapes visual contact, only then should the victim or defender be required to cease any attempt to retaliate and allow the police to take over. as to stop vigilantism.
- If someone retaliates recklessly, such as shooting a fleeing felon on a city street, the original victim could be charged for discharging a weapon within city limits or other applicable crimes, but the victim could not be charged in any way for a crime against the felon.
I specified “unprovoked” so that random bar fights and other escalations that started off civilly and grew to a felony would be treated differently. My act should only pertain to violent felonies involving premeditated intent, not flared tempers.
One of the reasons crime is so prevalent is that criminals have too many protections under the law that embolden them. If more Americans armed themselves, and more would-be felons were killed by people who stood up to defend each other, then would-be-criminals who are on the fence about committing a felony might think twice.
I have a great amount of respect for our people in uniform overseas and on America’s streets. But I’m sick of the police telling me that I should allow myself to be victimized because the felon has rights too.
If the police had a 100% prosecution rate, if a victim’s property was always returned in tact, and the victim never suffered permanent bodily injury or emotional damage, maybe I could go along with giving the felons rights. But conviction rates are around 80%, and that’s only when they are able to find and arrest a defendant. Plus, property loss along with physical and emotional injury are the norm.
So with respect Mr. Police Officer or politician that thinks I should be bound by law to behave rationally when faced with an irrational attack—f*** you. I’ve been the victim of a violent crime twice in my life, and both times wasn’t armed. To this day, I regret not being able to retaliate against those thugs, and that was decades ago. Hopefully there isn’t a third, but if there is, armed with my pistol, I intend to be severely more prepared. Best of luck to my attacker (not really), but be assured I’ll be calling the police to send the coroner, not asking for them to come save me when they can get around to it.
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Why can’t I have a nuclear weapon?
In the course of endeavoring for reasoned debate, I often find people who either do not understand the word reasonable, or simply can’t be bothered with reason. These days, they’re often referred to as internet trolls. People who love to use hyperbole, ad hominem attacks, and sometimes, just plain old personal insults to make their point.
In 
making the case for why the Armalite AR-15 should not be subject to some sort of ban, one of those folks asked me a question that was clearly born of hyperbole with the intent of destroying my arguments for why one should be allowed to own such a weapon. On the face of it, it’s actually a poignant question, but the tone of his asking it suggested he wasn’t interested in an answer; he felt the question was redundant, rhetorical, and had proved his point with no further dialogue needed.
The 
questions is often used by gun control zealots, and always given with the same smirky attitude that defines the fringe of any party who aren’t interested in debate, but merely getting you to agree with them. The question was this:
If you can have an AR-15 legally, why can’t you have a nuclear weapon?
After which, he snidely said, “yay, nukes for us all!” This of course being the point I knew he wasn’t interested in an answer.
When ![nuclear-missile-in-silo[1]](https://logicallibertarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/nuclear-missile-in-silo1.jpg?w=300&h=225)
he first asked the question, I realized I’ve heard this before, and if I truly believe in ultimate liberty, then why would I not support allowing citizens to own a nuclear weapon? Being someone who strives for consistency in my beliefs, how do I reconcile this question without violating my ideology of liberty?
I’ve made it clear that I am not an anarchist, I am a libertarian. A person who believes in limited government, not a total lack of it. For me, the roles of government are defined as people employed by the populace to protect our rights. In my opinion, anything the government does outside that realm is oppression. This responsibility of government I’ve enunciated is where his argument falls apart.
I personally own an AR-15, and have easily shot thousands of rounds through it at a shooting range and other safe environments. No one has ever died, nor even been hit by a bullet fired from my gun. As such, I can make an argument that I can own and use an AR-15 without being a harm to anyone by virtue of having done so repeatedly. The only person at risk is the guy who thinks my TV should be his TV and has no qualms about attempting to make it so.
However, while I am not a nuclear physicist, I am pretty comfortable in claiming that I could likely not detonate a nuclear weapon without likely threatening the rights to life, liberty, and/or property of another. So the line is pretty simple to me as to what weapons should be legal versus those that must be banned.
If the weapon is one that can be used without harming others, you should have the right to own it—period. If however, that weapon or item is a danger to society with little to no ability to be used without harming someone, it must remain illegal as it is a threat to the rights of another. If you could own a piece of property so remote and isolated from the world that you could detonate an H-bomb on it without risking anyone’s life but your own, then frankly, I’d be OK with it.
So there you have it, a logical answer to a question many assume has no reasonable answer, and consistency in my beliefs about liberty are still in tact. Next question!
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We need science, not knee-jerk reactions
Previously, I showed that stats don’t add up when making the case that gun owners are dangerous. Conservative estimates show that for every one person who murders with a gun in a given year, there are approximately 100,000 that own guns without incident—1:100,000 does not a pattern make, by any standard.
I do not subscribe to the, do-something-even-if-it’s-wrong mantra. If the desired outcome is a positive result, doing the wrong thing is fundamentally illogical, and will in all likelihood make matters worse—the infamous Washington DC Gun Ban is a prime example.
When children die, it’s always tragic. Being the intelligent beings we humans are, it’s in our nature to solve problems—that’s a basic part of our evolution. A tragedy such as Sandy Hook would push anyone to action, even if that action was contrary to their own long-held beliefs.
For instance, the famous skeptic Dr Michael Shermer, someone whom I greatly admire and partially credit for shaping my way of thinking, wrote this article in January of 2012, only to reverse course a bit in the wake of this recent tragedy; he now compassionately asks for a restriction on guns.
I respect the passion with which people have decided to come out in favor of banning so-called “Assault” rifles (a made up term), their concern is understandable. The fact that someone famous for always putting logic over passion like Dr. Shermer can change his opinion shows this issue can move anyone.
But, I believe removing guns from law-abiding and sane citizens will only save one potential victim while making a potential victim out of another. It seems more of a knee-jerk reaction than a logically deduced solution.
We know how many lives were ended by guns, however we can never know the lives saved because a killer was stopped by a good Samaritan with a gun.
For instance, if the Sandy Hook shooter had been shot by a teacher immediately after killing his first victim, there would have been no way to know he would have went on to kill 25 more. As such, you should be wary of anyone who says they have data proving that guns kill more lives than they save. Such numbers are purely theoretical and often swayed by the writer’s opinion.
One common attack levied at gun control dissenters is, “Yes, let’s do nothing.” Sadly, this is a straw man argument that does nothing to further intelligent discussion. Most rational people are not proposing we do nothing, certainly not me. So making that statement towards gun control skeptics as if we advocate doing nothing, then attacking us for being do-nothing people is insulting and wrong.
So in the wake of this awful tragedy, I am proposing we use good science to improve this issue.
In order to keep this story reasonably short, I’m going to focus on spree killers such as the Sandy Hook shooter (for the record, I am purposefully not mentioning the name). If we are to get serious about reducing all violent crime, repealing “vice” laws against certain drugs, gambling, prostitution, etc., is needed. We know this because repealing prohibition worked, yet for reasons of religious ideology, we continue to ban many other victimless crimes because zealots consider them to be immoral.
One of the traits that seems very common amongst spree killers of any type, whether they use a gun, bomb, arson, or any other deadly means of attack, is that they often had a documented history of mental illness and/or psychopathic behavior.
Based on this information, I believe there is usable data that is not being fully taken advantage of. What I am proposing is that the American Psychological Association (APA) have a convention where an open invitation is sent to any psychiatrist who has treated a patient who went on to commit these heinous acts. ![americanpsychoass[1]](https://logicallibertarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/americanpsychoass1.jpg?w=300&h=300)
Those doctors would confer and collect data about common traits that were exhibited amongst most or all of the attackers they worked with. This data would be published in medical journals for other mental health professionals to review and provide relevant feedback. The APA would then assemble a list of traits they feel are consistent among spree killers while ruling out those traits that were consistent among killers and non-killers alike. Once we have done this, we should have a reasonable collection of warning signs that can be shared with the public so that we can be aware of what to look for amongst society.
This approach is similar to what was asked of us after 9/11 where the public was given warning signs to look out for to prevent terrorism. If a family member, friend, or acquaintance is behaving in a manner consistent with the behavioral patterns of these killers, we can be more prepared to act.
Gun owners like me for instance, might lock up our guns in a secure safe or remove them from the house altogether. We could call a local medical health facility about what we’ve seen to determine if the person in question may need evaluated. If the person has already been diagnosed and prescribed medication for their issues, we must be diligent about reporting if they go off their meds, which may result in violence.
One look at the Giffords shooter’s (Also not mentioning his name) YouTube videos was rather convincing that the man needed help. I feel that if mental health professionals worked harder at getting info to the public about what to look for and when to report it, the caring among us would do exactly that, and unlike gun bans, lives could be saved with few deadly unintended consequences.
Murder rate statistics of the United States show we are well below average among the rest of the world, so being an alarmist is hyperbole at best—we are not experiencing an epidemic, and immediate action isn’t needed. Other studies have shown that violent crime is simply in steady decline around the world. As we evolve as a species, we become more intelligent, and less violent.
But politicians use hyperbole to advance a political agenda like Gordon Ramsay uses swear words to make a point. There is no epidemic, spike in violence, or reason for panic. What is needed are clear thinking medical scientists applying the scientific method towards mental health issues, then educating the public on how best to deal with them.
As a libertarian, I cringe at the notion of government locking someone up on the premise they might be a threat before they’ve actually done anything wrong. So I believe incarceration should only be done at the behest of licensed medical professionals, and there should be appeals in place to help these people get a second opinion if they feel they are being unfairly detained.
While I’m advocating for advancements in mental health science, and using those advancements to identify threats and potentially get them out of society until they are no longer deemed a threat, it is imperative that like our prison system, we take every step to not detain someone who is of little threat to society.![519x361[1]](https://logicallibertarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/519x3611.jpg?w=300&h=208)
Logical Americans must demand we use science, not knee-jerk reactions and politically motivated legislation to solve our problems. There’s a reason we have cures for thousands of diseases, rovers on Mars, and mobile phones the size of a playing card—it’s called the scientific method. Unlike politicians and hyperbole, it leads to truths and it actually works—let’s stick with it.
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Illogical Arguments That Destroy Your Rights
As we consider how America should respond to recent gun violence and other issues in our country, those eager to take away constitutional freedoms from millions of law-abiding citizens to thwart future bad acts of a few, often resort to tried and true arguments with little concern for the fact they are completely illogical.
For instance, if you’ve been watching the gun debate recently, one critic of gun rights, CNN’s Piers Morgan, routinely states that no one can make an argument why people need guns such as the Armalite AR-15 platform (contrary to belief, the A is for Armalite, not assault). This statement would only be relevant or logical in a country where freedom is not the default.
I cannot stress enough that in a free country, the starting point is that everything should be legal. From there, we make a case with a well-reasoned argument where We the people agree that something should be made illegal because one person’s right to do it infringes on the rights of another.
So as we move into the well-reasoned arguments for criminalization and regulation, let me outline one that is commonly improperly formulated; the cause-and-effect argument.
Starting with the aforementioned gun debate, some argue that gun owners are dangerous people. However, a proper analysis of the numbers clearly refutes this. There are approximately 80 million adults in America who own guns and nearly 11,000 criminal gun deaths. That means that 0.01% of gun owners kill, leaving 99.99% who don’t. So by no proper mathematical analysis can you argue gun owners are unsafe when for every one killer among us gun owners, there are 9,999 who are not.
Another similar false cause-and-effect argument is that marijuana is a gateway drug. People assert that by virtue of using marijuana, the drug triggers the user to gravitate to harder and more dangerous drugs. The first issue with this argument is that studies show alcohol is usually the drug that addicts of harder drugs start with. Once bored with that, they may gravitate to marijuana, then harder drugs after that. But because alcohol is legal, it is often removed from the dialogue.
But the reason alcohol and marijuana are the drugs people usually start with in the first place is by virtue of their abundance in the marketplace. They are simply the ones most readily available, and therefore, the ones people most often initially experiment with.
But I want to focus on these cause-and-effect arguments as they are completely backwards. In order to argue cause-and-effect, we first start with the cause (in this case marijuana users) and then see how many effects (harder drug use) result. But, the opposite is occurring.
Let me give an example to prove my point. We know that all Boston Celtics are basketball players, but not all basketball players are Boston Celtics—thousands in fact are not, nor ever will be. So those making the marijuana gateway drug cause-and-effect argument falsely are arguing that by virtue of being a basketball player, you are likely to become a Boston Celtic. While many kids with a basketball in their hands might love this notion, there are almost infinitely more with broken dreams and a regular job.
While I have never used marijuana, I happen to know many habitual users. They’re in the millions across America, so I’m sure you do to.
Like me, I would hope you’ve noticed that most of them have used it for years without ever graduating to cocaine, meth, or anything else. So I’d like to think you knew all along this argument was wrong, but simply hard a hard time refuting the math people gave you because you weren’t aware of their flawed methodology. Now that you realize it’s a false premise, you’ll be better prepared to refute such nonsense in the future.
As a poker player, I’ve seen how such arguments destroy liberty and ruin lives. Look no further than online poker’s infamous Black Friday. Thousands of American rounders were literally forced into unemployment as they were denied their rights to earn an honest living playing a game of skill based on the cause-and-effect argument that gambling ruins lives and therefore should be regulated or outlawed completely.
First let me point out that poker isn’t gambling—it is a game of skill. It has even been ruled as such by the federal government since 1986. So we have people who falsely consider poker to be a game of random chance, who then make it illegal using another false argument of the backwards cause-and-affect.
Millions of people visit casinos every year without losing their house, car, or child’s college fund, yet because every gambling addict who did lose everything started in a casino, the significantly greater portion who can responsibly lay a few bucks on the line get punished. We can no longer enjoy the one form of entertainment that might actually pay us back.
So next time someone uses the false cause-and-effect argument to take away your rights, I hope this will help you to be better prepared to take them down by destroying their poor methodology. More importantly, the next time someone says to you, “Why do you need that gun, drug, etc.?,” you can respond by saying something like this:
This is a free country, I don’t have to make such an argument—everything should be legal here. The onus is on you to make a case for making it illegal by explaining how me enjoying that freedom infringes upon your rights. If you cannot make such a case, we’re done here.
If we’re lucky, they will either have an epiphany and embrace freedom like you and I, or they will remain swathed in a blanket of ignorance and intolerance as they wrongly argue to oppress you by using false arguments and logical fallacies under the guise that it’s “For your own good.”
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Gun Owners and Women Drivers Must Be Stopped!
Sadly, anti-gun nuts have reached a new low in America. They’ve decided that your personal information as a gun owner should be made public, regardless of the risk it imposes upon you. Apparently, exercising your rights under the Constitution is now akin to being a sexual predator to these zealots since they feel in both cases, the public should be aware of who you are and where you live.
The Journal News in New York, in order to further its hateful agenda, decided to publish the locations of all registered handgun permit holders in the Westchester and Rockland counties without disclosing any logical reason for doing so. So it merely appears motivated by a desire to put those who applied and were granted a permit for a handgun at undue risk as if they are by default, a danger to society.
I certainly love the US Constitution, and am quite in favor of freedom of the press, but this clear invasion of people’s privacy has to be a sign for Americans to stand up against pervasive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, which allowed this data to be disclosed in the first place.
If attaining a permit is considered a matter of public record, then where does it end? If I’m driving down the highway and I see a beautiful woman I’d like to meet; I can’t take down her license plate and file a FOIA request to get access to her address and phone number in order to more easily stalk her. That would be a huge violation of privacy, and no one outside the rapist community would support that. The government has her information since she applied for a drivers permit, but that shouldn’t mean I have the right to know that data.
So let me give a similar analogy to what has transpired here. Imagine I decided to request drivers license information for all females in the district and published their names and addresses. Maybe I think female drivers are dangerous just like this newspaper thinks gun owners are dangerous. Therefore, I want you to be protected from these dangerous women drivers.
Both cases involve people asking for information about lawful citizens who have done nothing wrong, but instead merely applied for a driving permit or a gun permit. Since there are a greater percentage of deaths by car in relation to car owners as there are deaths by gun rational to gun owners; clearly we need to know who has a license to drive, right?
Obviously I’m being facetious, stats show women are generally very good drivers, just as stats show gun owners are rarely violent. But my argument against women drivers is EXACTLY the same as the anti-gun zealots arguments against lawful gun owners. For every one of them who wrongfully harms someone, there are thousands upon thousands who have never, nor will never harm an innocent being. Yet these sanctimonious people have decided that if one gun owner is bad, they must all be. There’s a word for that kind of nonsense; B-I-G-O-T-R-Y.
Reasonable and intelligent people just agree to disagree, but the anti-gun zealots that do these kind of things can’t bring themselves to do that. If you don’t agree with them, in their mind, you’re the most hateful S-O-B on the planet, and they have no qualms about destroying you; feeling better about themselves for having done so.
To them, gun owners are pure evil, and these journalists feel like Batman thwarting the Joker by taking them down. Responsible gun owners have been politely agreeing to disagree with those who don’t want guns for years. Charleton Heston never went to a anyone and tried to force them to buy a gun, yet these people are trying to force us to give up ours.![joker_and_batman_by_moroteo56-d3g54v9[1]](http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/131/b/9/joker_and_batman_by_moroteo56-d3g54v9.jpg)
Responsible journalists used to go after a scoop and expose corruption, as in the Watergate scandal. They did mountains of work and networking, gathered evidence, corroborated that evidence, and made sure that what they wrote was fair, accurate, and accomplished noble goals like protecting the people from a corrupt government.
The hacks of today however, are too often a cult that worships their lord and savior currently residing at the White House. Instead of protecting the people from an oppressive government, they protect the government from the people revolting against an overreaching government by suppressing stories of corruption, while at the same time attacking the Americans who would stand and fight against such a corruption.
I’ve heard if you want to make Pecan Pie, you have to crack a few nuts, and some gun owners have decided that’s just what they’ll do. For example, the folks who made this yard sign below apparently decided to strike back against anti-gun advocates who take issue with their right to bear arms, and I’m sure in the wake of this story, there will be others:
I think it’s logical to assume that criminals looking to steal a gun have just been provided a list of places a gun is likely to be found that probably isn’t as well protected as a gun shop. If they can case the place and catch the homeowners away—pay dirt!
So now that every lawful gun owner has legitimately been put in harm’s way, turning the tables sadly seems to be the only thing gun owners can do to get their attention. But I cannot condone putting the lives of these people needlessly at risk either—it seems hypocritical.
The sign above would make it clear to any would-be-robber, molester, and murderer, which house his odds of success are greater at and level of danger is less at. I understand the “eye for an eye” concept at play, but it still seems wrong.
With any luck, these are severe overreactions after a national tragedy that will subside as cooler heads prevail, but nonetheless, us responsible gun owners cannot just continue to allow ourselves to be abused by anti-gun wing nuts. However, instead of striking back as the in the above picture, I hope gun owners will instead look to solidify Constitutional liberty by calling for serious modifications to FOIA regulations all across the nation. It should be done so that private information is not disclosed under any circumstance, outside the investigation of a crime, unless that information may be infringing upon the rights to life, liberty, and property of another individual, such as the aforementioned sexual predators.
We cannot have liberty if we do not have privacy, and even anti-gun nuts deserve theirs. Sadly, while many people who don’t care to own a gun wouldn’t dream of exposing their gun owning neighbors to something as disgusting as this, there are the irrational hate mongers in the media who have no reservations about it. Instead of resorting to dangerous games, I hope gun owners will take the high road and demand our government be better caretakers of our private information. Because lawful citizens of all kinds should never be allowed to be put at risk by political rivals in order to further a political agenda.
The Logical Libertarian™ 