Author: henrymoore

Senate Democrats want Crazies with Guns out in the Street

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You may have heard or read somewhere that there is a Senate amendment to ObamaCare that prohibits the government from registering guns and ammunition.

Well, the amendment (3276, Sec. 2716) is real, but what it says, as any fact-checking site worth its salt will tell you, is slightly different. It just says that certain other provisions in ObamaCare shall not be construed as the authority to do this. It is not an actual ban on doing it.

Ironically, all the liberals whining about guns and mental health and how Republicans hate sick people and want the insane to run through the streets heavily armed is turned upon its head. Continue reading →

I Have Been Summoned (Poll!)

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So I have Jury Duty tomorrow morning. Early. I don’t know any of the details of the trial. I’ve been dreading it all week long but have gradually come to accept that there is no way out of it (or at least out of showing up the first day) so I might as well make the most of it. The problem is I don’t know what to expect. Will the lawyers cross examine me first? Or did that form I filled out a few months back suffice to make me a good juror (this is Montana after all, I’m sure we don’t have big-city standards)? I don’t think the form contained enough information about me for the prosecuting and defense teams to decide I am a good juror.  So I am inclined to think that there will be additional questioning. And if so, that would be my ticket out of it because if just one team of attorneys thinks that I would make a decisive, respectable, impartial juror, the court will probably dismiss me. And I would likely never be summoned again. To be honest, I don’t think I would make a “good” juror because I don’t like authority all that much. Not cops. Not judges. Not elected officials. And I absolutely loathe lawyers with rare exception. If they ask my opinion about any of of these things should I tell them or hold back?

Should I be honest (assuming they ask me the right kinds of questions) and tell them I think their courtroom — no, their entire system — is running a racket? This would basically be the cowardly way to reclaim my rights to my own person because they can’t do anything to you for expressing an opinion. The less cowardly way would be to refuse to show up, but that could put me in a world of trouble since all commands handed down by the state are in essence backed by the barrel of a gun. Talk about judicial fiat! (Pardon the monetary lingo.) Continue reading →

Pigeonholing Pigs

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[I thought of three other less offensive titles: Generalizing Gendarmes, Caricaturing Cops, Stereotyping Smokey. But I had already made up my mind.]

As you no doubt know, especially if you are a reader in the LA area, there is a crazed ex-cop on the loose by the name of Christopher Dorner. I think it is only a matter of time before Dorner is caught. We don’t know how that will play out. But it probably won’t be as simple as arresting James Holmes (Aurora, Colorado theater shooter). This piece is not intended to be about that, and so it will gradually move away from it. I bring it up at all only because its writing was prompted, in part, by an argument I had with someone about whether a shooter such as Christopher Dorner, that is, a cop is more dangerous than a shooter who isn’t a cop. I stated that, naval and police training aside, I thought that he was because cops tend to have a mentality of being above the law (I think this is not the result of them becoming police, but rather the reason they become police), which makes them psychologically more capable of calculated brutality than just some civilian who goes nuts. This was back when the story first came out although many important details were already known. His manifesto was one of those details so I knew what he was about and that he probably wasn’t going to be shooting people at random. He has targets. So, in that sense he is less dangerous to most people around him than a random shooter would be.

But probably more dangerous in the context of a manhunt. A shooter with a mission and a plan, even if his plans are in the process of being thwarted, is more dangerous than a guy who has already emptied his clip in a crowded theater or a school and then tries to slip away. The guy that just opens fire at random might kill more people than the guy with a few targets in his sights, but he is no longer in control of the situation. And if he is stopped before he can empty his clip, he might never have really been in control in the first place. If there are any cops or armed civilians around, he will be stopped, often before he can cause as much damage as he otherwise could have, given his arsenal. Continue reading →

Hating Energy Dependence, Not Loving Energy Independence

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I have been working on this piece since November 30th. I wrote the bulk of it on the first day, and most editing since has been cosmetic. It is related to a project I am helping a friend with, although that is not the reason I wrote it. I don’t often blog about things that recently happened, and when I do bring up current events it is usually in a very general way. The same is true about this post as well. Still, gas prices have been falling, where I’m located at least, ever since before Thanksgiving. A gallon of regular has been stuck at $2.94 for a week or more now and I begin to wonder if they’re not ready to go back up again. Mentioning that is the best I can do to tie to any recent goings-on to the material below, which I hope you, the reader, enjoy, as it is my very first official Notes on Liberty contribution. Thanks again, Brandon, et al.

What’s so bad about Energy Dependence?

Contrary to what one might be led to think, energy independence need not be the opposite of energy (inter)dependence. Likewise, contrary to what many advocates of free markets and free trade will say, energy dependence (perhaps not their choice of words), is not a good thing. Energy interdependence certainly can be a good thing, but in today’s world I can’t agree that every instance of it always is.

The argument in support of energy interdependence runs, energy is cost-effective so long as it is abundant, therefore, the more suppliers of energy we have, the better. But the statement can also lead to another conclusion: therefore, the larger the size of the supply, the better. What this should mean is a very large domestic supply is as good or better than simply a large foreign supply. This does not mean they aren’t both good. And of course, the more suppliers there are the greater the potential for competition to lower prices, but I suspect that it is much easier to get competition amongst a few suppliers in a free (well, sort of) country than it is to get competition amongst several suppliers in an unfree world. Continue reading →