Garmin Etrex Vista
Submitted by MostlyGenius on Mon, 05/19/2008 - 14:00
I have been using this unit for more than 4 years. It is still a good device in a great form factor, but the feature set is showing it's age.
Gun Rights and Domestic Surveillance
Submitted by MostlyGenius on Sat, 03/29/2008 - 17:31
There’s been a question rattling around my brain for a while now: Where have the Second Amendment champions been the last few years? Those in favor of liberal gun ownership laws usually speak about it in abstract terms, most commonly harmony with the land and guarantees of liberty. The first argument hasn’t been seriously challenged, but what are their thoughts these days about checks against a tyrannical government? Shouldn’t the burgeoning surveillance state be anathema to them? Isn’t this the kind of issue they should be up in arms (har) about? I would have thought the massive increases in spying and indiscriminate data sweeps would be an unsupportable infringement of their liberty.
I don't think the author has done much reading of the gun blogs. There are very real concerns within the gun community about the expansion of government, the erosion of civil rights, and domestic spying. The people on the extreme edge of the gun community are particularly vulnerable to being branded 'terrorists' or having a media moment where all of their firearms are displayed on TV as the result of some unrelated ruling or legal action. If you have enough guns to fill a folding table and enough ammo to require a dolly somebody would like to point a finger and call you an extremist.
The incremental approach to gun control has contributed to the surveillance society. Many people consider licensing, registration, and background checks to be 'reasonable' precautions against crime or terrorism. The NRA has supported some of these provisions. The NRA is not a monolithic entity, it is subject to changes of leadership and membership and try very hard to maintain a politically tenable position. This occasionally means compromises against the immediate best interests of gun owners for the sake of a fight in the longer term.
The absolutists don't like the NRA for these compromises, and they certainly don't like expansions of government power or regulation. I think it is more a matter of picking the political fights you can win at the time you can win them. Most of the population is not going to stand for the total deregulation of full auto weapons it is not a winnable fight right now. It doesn't matter that is really a non-issue as far as crime or safety is concerned.
The author of the piece correctly associates the republican party with the NRA because historically the republicans have done the least damage to firearms ownership and 2nd amendment rights. There is effectively no pro-gun movement within the democratic party, and they do not put forward very many candidates that have a truly pro-gun stance.
Link
Comments
Hi MostlyGenius - Dan here. I wrote the post as an outsider to the gun rights community so you're right that I treated it as basically monolithic. My experience had been that the NRA makes itself heard when it is active on an issue. I haven't heard anything from it on this issue, so I take it to be indifference. There may be a lot of internal conflict over it but I won't know about it. And in a sense I don't care - only the actual public stance is what gets attention. I took a very bottom line approach: I'm used to seeing it on the TV and in the newspaper when it really cares about something. I don't see it on this issue, therefore it doesn't really care.
The NRA will come out against gun registration (maybe) but that is about it. I would like to say that the NRA membership is about freedom, but truthfully, a lot of them are about hunting. A more interesting question is where is the ACLU on gun rights? It is the same sort of thing - it's not their issue (in fact the ACLU favors gun control) so they don't deal with it.
I used to write more about privacy and surveillance issues. There's some interesting ground to cover there. Toss in identity, while you're at it.
One thing about privacy and surveillance is that our allies in this fight are sometimes our oppenents on other fronts. Zoe Lofgren, for example.
-- jed @ http://freedomsight.net/
We want to know where the terrorists and crazies are, what they had for breakfast, and what they are planning on doing. What people fail to see is that it is very easy to generate a lot data that somebody has to analyze and make some smart decisions about. That person in charge of culling that data is not necessarily honest, a patriot, or above having their own agenda.
There is this idea that the government folks are out to do the right thing (we used to call it 'duty') but there are enough abuses in any bureaucracy that this absolute. unfailing, trust is misplaced. People love socialism because the enlightened leaders in government will direct their ever diligent minions to correct any deficiencies.