The Bookshelf: Shoot Deer

Manosphere-affiliated blogger Tim, has created an introductory ebook on hunting deer, called, in blunt style, Shoot Deer. He gave me a copy to review.

I am a beginning hunter; I went out by myself this fall for the first time.  For my first hunt, I simply drove out to the nearest crown land, parked at the side of the highway and walked a few hundred meters into the bush til I found a small clearing. I then sat on the ground in small dip leaning back against a tree and waited, shotgun in hand. Probably not the most effective way of harvesting anything, but it was a learning example for next time (while hoping not to get lost in the woods), when I plan to prepare a bit better.

As could be expected, I didn’t catch anything, which was somewhat frustrating as I could hear scraping/crunching within shooting range, but couldn’t see anything through the trees. I would move a bit closer, wait 5-10 minutes, then move again, but it always was just out of sight. In retrospect, it was probably just another hunter and we were simply spending a few hours hunting each other.

Other than that attempt, I’ve never hunted and I don’t really know anybody who hunts, so the topic of this book really appealed to me. Learning a few tricks of the trade would be handy.

And that, this book provided. It had a lot of information on deer hunting. I can’t tell you if its correct or not, as I don’t have the proper experience, but what he writes makes sense and he seems to give due consideration to methods of which he disapproves.

There a lot of things in here I simply would never even have thought of. As one small example, he talks of finding special detergent to wash camo, as most detergents make clothes brighter, something you do not want for your camo.

The book cerainly delivered on its main purpose of providing solid information for beginners on deer hunting. I plan to re-read it again closer to the next deer season.

The major problem I had with the book is Tim focuses a lot of the book on maintaining private hunting property, especially in the first half of the book. He devotes 8 chapters to the topic and only two to alternatives.

For a beginner, its quite the expense to purchase a decent chunk of land for hunting. I live in an area that’s not overly expensive, but checking Kijiji, the cheapest hunting land is $12k for 40 acres. Although, that might be cheap for real estate, that’s quite a bit of upfront investment for a beginner. (I wish I had $80k to spare, there is a lot of beautiful land I could get on Kijiji).

I think the book would have been better for beginners if it had a bit more on hunting on public land (although, maybe public land isn’t as abundant in the US as it is in the western Canada). It would also have more flow if the property chapters were more towards the end of the book rather than right near the front.

That being said this book is excellent and I wish I had had it this summer. There’s a lot of information, and it all seems good. The book is written in a conversational, first-person tone which fits well enough. It also looks well edited for self-publishing; there were few typographical errors and none that interrupted the flow of the book.

At $8 for about 200 pages, the price is good for the amount of information presented.

Recommendation:

If you’re thinking of starting deer hunting, this will be a gecent book to helping you get started or to give you a some information on what’s involved in hunting. Pick up Shoot Deer, but skip the chapters on property ownership (unless of course, you plan to purchase property right off the hop).

If you’re not interested in deer hunting this is obviously not going to be all that useful.

If you’re interested in more information on deer hunting, check out Tim’s blog, Shoot Deer.

Also, Tim, I would suggest putting up an easy to see link to your book on Amazon on your blog; I didn’t see one.

Anti-Gun Neurotics

I came across this piece about a neurotic woman who buys a gun. (h/t: Tam) Just read these choice excerpts:

Walking into the kitchen to refresh our drinks, I noticed my purse with the 9mm Glock still inside it. I’d forgotten to lock it up! Panic set in as I realized my teen son was playing videogames just 10 feet away. What if he’d decided to get the socks I’d bought him from my purse while I was out on the deck? Thoughts raced through my mind and I pondered how I’d just straddled the fine line between being a responsible gun owner and an irresponsible idiot whose 15-year-old just accidentally shot himself or someone else with my gun.
…
Now all I think about are the sounds I hear at night. I lie awake thinking: “Is someone breaking in? How fast can I get to the gun? Will they hear me? How much time do I have before they get to my bedroom? What if they go to my son’s room first? Will I shoot them in the face or heart or stomach?” And then I think: “How in the world would I live with myself knowing I took a life?”

Sometimes the thoughts intensify and I can’t sleep at all. Mostly, the gun in my house causes me an anxiousness and fear that’s draining. And it leads to some questions that have no easy answers.
…
Another question: How accessible should the gun be when I’m home? A few nights ago, my son came home late, forgot his key, and knocked on the door. My first thought was, “Should I go get the gun?” I didn’t know who was on the other side of the door, and I was scared to find out as adrenaline surged through my body. I’m glad I didn’t get the gun because when I opened the door, I would have been a nervous, untrained mom pointing a gun at my son. The wrong split-second decision on my side would have been deadly.
…
Since having the gun I’ve had two repairmen, a carpet cleaner, and a salesmen in my home. If the gun’s for self-protection, it’s not going to do any good in the safe, but it’s not really practical to have the gun pointing at them as they work. How else would I eliminate the element of surprise if I were attacked? Suspiciousness and fear of people is new to me, and I don’t like it.
…
When I got to the second floor I became nervous, and the Oprah episode where a man attacks a woman alone in a situation just like this played in my head. I thought about the 9mm in my purse as I clumsily continued down the stairs in my skirt and heels. He followed me. I looked back at him so he knew I knew he was there (like Oprah’s expert suggested.) I thought: “Should I pull the gun out? Should I point it at him?” I realized the gun wouldn’t do me any good because he was behind me. My heart racing, we finally got to the lobby door where the man simply passed by me. I’d grown paranoid. He wasn’t the bad guy I perceived him to be, and the gun did not make me safe.
…
An untrained permit holder like me shouldn’t be allowed to carry a concealed gun in states that at least require training and safety classes. <b>I was actually relieved to have a break from the gun and the constant thought, attention, and worry it required of me.

This is absolutely insane. Her neurotic paranoia is astonishing to behold. She repeatedly blames it on the gun (in bold), ie. she believes a chunk of inert metal has power to control her emotional state, but its obvious to anyone with two working brain cells that her mental problems (assuming they aren’t just made up for the story) go a lot deeper than that.

What kind of extreme emotional instabilities does someone have to have to even briefly consider pointing their gun at a professional repairman they invited into their home on the almost non-existent chance he might start violence. This kind of paranoid insanity boggles the mind.

I thought the gun would make me feel more powerful, more confident, and less fearful. I was wrong. All I felt was fear. Physically taking the gun out of the safe and putting it in a holster on my hip literally reminded me that I was going out into a big bad scary unsafe world. There were days when I put the gun back in the safe and stayed home because it simply took too much energy to be scared. It was easier to be at home without the worry and responsibility of being “the good guy with the gun.” My awareness of looming tragedy was abundant. If I had to pull the trigger, my life, the person I shot, both of our families, and all who witnessed it would be changed forever.

This women lives in fear, but it has nothing to do with the gun. The gun only focused her fear on a single issue. Her fear is a base part of her mental make-up, it defines her, but she normally manages to disperse her fear into a generalized low-level paranoia by avoiding situations where she would have any ability to respond to it. The gun gave her the ability to be responsible and to respond, focusing her general pervavise fears onto a single object.

Which brings me to my point: maybe the anti-gun nuts are right, in a way.

Maybe the reason anti-freedom advocates hate firearms and hate freedom is because they are neurotic, paranoid, and incompetent and they know it. The freedom-haters know they would be grossly irresponsible if they owned a gun due to their mental insufficiencies.

Maybe many of the freedom-haters hate freedom because they know they would make horrible choices if they were free. They then project their own inabilities on the rest of the world and assume everybody is as thoroughly inadequate as them.

If I was as crazy as this woman, there is no way I would let myself near a gun. If I thought everybody else was as mind-meltingly unbalanced as her I would seriously reconsider my position on gun freedoms. Thank goodness most of us are more mentally stable than this.

I hypothesize that anti-freedom advocates are simply mentally unbalanced people who project their instabilities on others. In that kind of bizarro world of insane people, gun control would only make rational sense.

It seems like another case of leftists fearing themselves more than anything.

I think the last paragraph is the most telling part of the piece:

I felt a huge sense of relief the day I got rid of the gun. I no longer had to worry that my teenagers or their friends would use my gun when I wasn’t home. I didn’t have to worry that I would be in a situation where I would make a choice about taking another life. I didn’t have to worry that my gun would be stolen out of my car and then used to murder someone. And I didn’t have to worry that one day I would get a diagnosis or have a personal crisis and have a gun on hand to turn on myself.

This woman hates choice, she fears choice, she fears consequences.

This woman is a child afraid of the world who wants a father-figure (in this case the government) to make the big scary world and its cruel choices to go away. She is the very definition of a natural slave.

Read that again and think on it: “I didn’t have to worry that I would be in a situation where I would make a choice about taking another life.”

This women would rather suffer robbery, rape, or death than be forced to make a choice and live with the consequences of that choice. She would rather have death than responsibility.

Maybe I was wrong earlier on in this post. Maybe, the primary drive behind gun-hating is not a gun-hater’s self-awareness of incompetence, but rather fear of responsibility.

Maybe the freedom-haters fear responsibility so much, they would rather live and die as cowering slaves than have to make choices themselves.

Maybe natural slaves are just born natural slaves.

****

Other thoughts tangential to the main point:

In a way, her post supports expanded gun freedoms. If someone as thoroughly neurotic as her can own a gun for a month with no one getting hurt, maybe guns aren’t all that dangerous.

I noticed my purse with the 9mm Glock still inside it. I’d forgotten to lock it up! Panic set in as I realized my teen son was playing videogames just 10 feet away. What if he’d decided to get the socks I’d bought him from my purse while I was out on the deck? Thoughts raced through my mind and I pondered how I’d just straddled the fine line between being a responsible gun owner and an irresponsible idiot whose 15-year-old just accidentally shot himself or someone else with my gun.

I know I already posted this quote above, but I would like to highlight that she thinks her 15-year-old is irresponsible enough to blow himself away should he happen to come across a firearm.

I don’t know how she raised this kid, but sweet mother of Hades, is she really such an incompetent parent that her 15-year-old doesn’t have the basic commonsense to not immediately shoot himself if he stumbles across a gun? Given this article, it might be a possibility, but wow.

Maybe, instead of being a paranoid nut, she should teach her kid (and herself) proper firearm care and use (not to mention basic responsibility and commonsense). It might be more effective.

I learned that some gun owners aren’t very nice when you write something they don’t like. After my first post appeared on the Ms. Magazine site, I was called an “idiot,” “stupid,” “immoral,” “clueless,” “a coward,” and “dangerous.” One woman suggested I put the gun in my mouth and pull the trigger—and several tried to reveal my home address on the moderated comments section.

An incompetent, paranoid woman runs a smear campaign against normal, law abiding people, painting them as violent, dangerous, and incompentent, then she’s surprised when the same people she’s smearing react negatively. The nerve of them.

She ends with this:

My experiment was 30 days of my personal experience. I’m just a mom who wanted to see what it felt like. Now I know.

She has no idea what a regular gun owner feels like, because most of us are not incompetent and paranoid. I know I have never thought about shooting the repair man for repairing my furnace.

As well, most gun owners actually try to learn how to use their weapon before carrying it.

Natural Slaves and their Penile Deficiencies

One thing I’ve always wondered about is anti-freedom advocates’ huge obsession with penis size.

Every time the gun control debate rears it’s ugly head, the freedom-hater’s go-to attack is mocking the hypothetical penis size of those who believe in freedom. Just look at this recent round of attacks based upon hypothetical penis size I came across.

Do freedom-hating manginas really obsess about their own penis size so much they can’t help but speculate on the sizes of others’?

Do freedom-hating women really feel so much penis-envy that they have to make every gun control debate about their own lack?

Why do natural slaves fret so much about penis size?

Why are natural slaves so insecure? (To ask the question is to answer it).

****

Also, it’s interesting to note how these penis-shaming tactics are all coming from pro-feminist sites. These sites would be death on fat-shaming, but trying to shame a man for his hypothetical dick size? That’s a great tactic.

The hypocrisy of those who say they believe in “gender equality” is sometimes breath-taking.

****

Anyway, I measured my penis a few years ago out of curiosity (don’t ask; I was horny, procrastinating, and my tape measure was sitting beside my computer). I was 6″ (+/- 1/8″) long when fully engorged.

According to wiki, average penis size is about 5.1-5.9″ when fully engorged.

So mine is not monster-sized, but respectably above average. Although, it is probably only averagely proportional to my above-average height.

Anyway, I know, objectively, my stance has nothing to do with penis size.

So, feel free to shame away freedom-haters. Objective fact hates you.

****

Also, natural slaves, take note: gun owners are happier, earn more, feel less outrage, feel more self-reliant, are more generous, and are more loving.

So, natural slaves, shame away, you’re only showing your own insecurities.

We know you lack in life.

We know you’re angry, unhappy, selfish, dependent individuals who can’t even comprehend the idea of ‘live and let live’.

We know you hate yourself. We know that you don’t believe your life is worth protecting. We know you don’t value yourself.

Trust us, we know.

We understand. We’ve all had those moments.

But you don’t have to keep your slave mentality.

Go to the range one day, rent a gun. Shoot off a few dozen magnum rounds and a couple hundred .22LR rounds. You’ll enjoy it.

Buy your own gun. Practice with it. Becoming competent at something feels great. Knowing you are capable of defending yourself is an awesome feeling. Being self-reliant is amazing.

You don’t have to live in fear and dependency. Take your destiny into your own hands.

Cast off the shackles of your mind. You no longer have to be a slave.

You can be free.

Establishment Conservatives and their Wives

I was reading this piece on the NRA (h/t: Instapundit). It charts the evolution of the NRA from a sportsmen lobby to the tyrant-fighting machine it is today. Anyway, while reading I noticed this line describing the old guard establishment NRA before they were ousted by the grassroots (emphasis mine):

The moderates felt rejected by both the NRA hard-liners and the Washington elite.

“Because of the political direction the NRA was taking, they weren’t being invited to parties and their wives were not happy,” says Jeff Knox, Neal’s son and director of the Firearms Coalition, which fights for the Second Amendment and against laws restricting guns or ammunition. “Dad was on the phone constantly with various people around the country. He had his copy of the NRA bylaws and Robert’s Rules, highlighted and marked. My father and a lot of local club leaders and state association guys organized their troops.”

Everybody knows about the phenomenon of conservatives going the capital (or New York), rejecting their roots and become properly behaved house conservatives, representing some version of liberalism-lite as conservatism. The establishment conservatives are the bane of the conservative movement.How much of this trend is due to social pressue?

Once in the big city it must be difficult for conservatives to move in the social circles of the chattering classes filled with bigoted leftists, freedom-haters, and socialists.

How much of the spinelessness of establishment conservatives is because their wives don’t get invited to parties?

If you, your wife, and your family were being socially excluded and all that was necessary to get in the “in” crowd was to be more “reasonable”, how long would most remain “unreasonable”? How long could you put up with your wife’s complaints about your low social status and not being able to attend all the events “everybody is going to”?

I have no data, but it’s interesting to think about.

Could conservatives and conservative organizations create a conservative social circle in the political and cultural capitals that rivals the network of the chattering classes? If conservatives had their own events “everybody was going to” and wives regularly got invited to parties hosted by conservatives would we have less trouble with spineless establishment conservatives becoming one with the Cathedral?

Just a thought. Remember, it’s often the little things we don’t notice that matter lot.

Shame back

I’ve previously linked to the personal information on the Sentinel editors and reporters who published the names and addresses of gun owners in their areas. Here’s the link again.

Now, the wannabe tyrants and their lapdog enablers (lapsheep?) will use any methods possible to bully, abuse, and shame those who enjoy being free.

Thanks to the web, information is now more public than ever, so us regular free folk without newspapers and comfy editing jobs can now shame back. So, please distribute this information as wide as possible.

****

Gawker has published the names of gun owners in New York. This is public information, so they see no problem with this.

So now, in the interests of journalism, here’s some more public information.

John Cook, 39, is a senior editor of Gawker and the writer of the article publishing gun owner’s information.

His work e-mail address is: john@gawker.com
His Twitter is: http://twitter.com/johnjcook

His work address is: 210 Elizabeth Street, Fourth Floor, New York, NY 10012

His home phone #: (718) 369-8243

His home address is: 528 16th St,Brooklyn, NY 11215-5912

His wife is Allison Benedikt, 35, who is an editor for Slate. They got married in 2003 and have two lovely kids.

http://urbangrounds.com/wp-content/uploads/John_Cook_gawker.png

Here’s a lovely public account of John and his wife’s personal struggles.

“In the fall of 2018, all of our kids will finally be in public school, and we will have the $5,000 we pay in child care every month back in our bank account.”

Speaking of children, did you know that John was a bully back when he was in school? I guess some things never change.

Did you know New York Public School 154 is only a block from 528 16th St?

****

Did you know Gawker got death threats? I definitely disapprove of threatening violence or enacting violence on private individuals. Do not commit random violence; it hurts the cause. Information is a better weapon.

Do not threaten violence: fight fire with fire. They invade our privacy, but the internet can invade theirs better.

****

Fox has aired the Gawker’s founder’s phone number and e-mail. (H/T: Instapundit) Pass it on:

Nick Denton

Phone number: 646-470-4295
E-mail: nick@gawker.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicknotned
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/nicknotned

The Price of Freedom

Now that a respectful amount of time has passed, here is my obligatory post on the Sandy Hook massacres. May God take His children to rest in His grace.

As is usual for these types of events, most seem to want a convenient scapegoat for the massacre.

Guns are easy to blame, but tools have no volition of their own.

Some blame mental illness, but only the perpetrator’s psychologist can possibly speak to that. Mental illness might explain some of it (or it might not, I’m no psychologist) but most mentally ill people do not shoot up a school.

Some blame cultural entertainment products: violent video games, movies, etc. Although, I’ve seen less of it this time around than when Columbine occurred, it’s still as silly as it was then.

Some blame the media for giving fame to losers. While achieving infamy may be a contributing reason to public violence, this again strips the perpetrator of their own volition and begs the question: why did the perpetrator choose to pursue infamy over the lives of others and continued living?

Some blame the sidelining of males, while others blame the loss of male privilege. I’ve warned about this trend in the past, but it only shows a trend; most males do not engage in such nihilistic violence.

Essentially, it seems everybody uses these kind of events to simply confirm the validity of their pre-existing bugaboos. I am guilty of this as well.

In the end, I think the most likely societal explanation is simple probability. In any society of 300+ million people, there will be some people at the nihilistic violence end of the bell-curve. This is not a societal trend, it is simply probabilistic reality.

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Instead of looking for some great cause to blame, let’s put the blame where it belongs: the perpetrator.

Adam Lanza was a free individual, with his own will. and his own moral decisions to make.

He made them.

People have their own values, their own goals, their own choices to make.

They have agency, they are not simply the products of culture. People, even the mentally ill, are not empty cyphers of whatever societal trend we fear. They are human they make choices.

We should not dehumanize them.

We should not dehumanize Adam Lanza.

He made his choice.

Adam Lanza chose to shoot his mother, little Emilie Parker, baseball fan Jack Pinto, young Dylan Hockley, and 25 other individuals, may they rest in God’s peace.

Adam Lanza saw the mother who raised him and killed her. He saw the innocence of young ones and decided to snuff it out.

He chose to end dozens of young lives and destroy hundreds more.

Societal forces didn’t kill these people, Adam Lanza did.

****

If we look at all the great causes, no matter which it is, the “answer” is always the same: less freedom.

Guns are deadly: ban them and take them from law-abiding citizens.

The mentally ill are dangerous: lock them up against their will and drug them.

The entertainment and cultural industry is perverse and degenerate: institute content controls.

The media are vicious, amoral, parasitical vultures: regulate the press.

Males are losing their place in society: re-institute enforced patriarchy.

Males are angry at their loss of privilege: indoctrinate them further.

And on and on.

One person in 300+ million* commits a heinous act and everybody cries for the upending of society, for the expanded regulation of behaviour of other people. (Funny how it’s always other people that have to be regulated).

Because of these extreme, outside the normal events, everybody must be controlled. Somebody must do something to prevent these future black swans.

Something must be done, the government has to act. We have no idea what specific actions, but do something, anything. We have no proof any of these suggested actions will be helpful, but do them anyway. We have no rational basis for believing any of these actions will actually prevent the next nihilistic individual from committing extreme violence, but action must be taken.

Please do something, anything so that the placebo can give me back my piece of mind.

I can’t rest unless I know someone better than me is actively looking like they are doing something that vaguely resembles protecting me from extremely low-probability danger.

Fie on that.

Nothing should be done.

Shut the hell up and stop using dead children as political pawns for your anti-freedom crusades.

Shut the hell up and stop letting your mindless fear and inability to control your own peace of mind dictate society.

****

School massacres and other mass acts of nihilistic violence have been occurring since before there was a public school system and have occurred in many different countries and cultures. They have occurred with firearms and without. They have occurred whatever regulations may or may not have been in place. This is not a problem solely of our time and culture. It is not a problem of our regulations or lack thereof. It is not a problem of whatever other bullshit pre-existing ideological war you want to fight on the graves of dead kids.

It is a problem of individuals.

Some individuals choose to do evil things.

Adam Lanza did.

Adam Lanza was free to choose, and choose he did.

****

Here is the thing we must understand:

Sandy Hook was the price of freedom.

The freedom to make choices is the freedom to make bad choices, to make evil choices.

The only way to eliminate bad choices, is to eliminate freedom.

It is horrifying, but it is reality.

The only way to stop another Sandy Hook is to completely give up our freedom, to submit ourselves wholly and completely to another’s control.

The only way to stop bad choices, is to completely remove the ability to make choices.

However horrible 28 deaths is, on a societal level the loss of freedom is even worse.

Freedom is naturally a frightening thing, the comfort of giving up our right to choose, to let others choose for us, can be tempting. Do not give into the fear.

Individuals should be free to make choices, even if those choices may be frightening and may lead to suffering.

Individuals should only be punished or controlled for bad choices once they have actually made them.

Anything else is tyranny.

Sandy Hook is the price of freedom, but it is a price that must be paid; the alternative, a world without freedom and choice, is worse.

****

* If we include others who’ve engaged in nihilistic acts of public mass violence, it’s probably “only” on the order of one in tens of millions. I’m not going to calculate exactly, but still one person out of a few dozen million is still a very low probablility occurance.

Free John McNeil

Here is a story of a travesty of justice committed against a black man named John McNeil who was defending himself in his own home. It comes from a liberal website (the Root is an off-shoot of Slate dedicated to black issues).

In this article, the Root (not to mention the NAACP)  defends the castle doctrine, defends the right to self-defence, and even talks somewhat positively about the NRA and gun ownership. The Root, as is typical of a liberal website, has generally been hard on gun ownership and self-defence. Even though they reject “stand your ground” in the article, it is a less vehement rejection than is normal and it is somewhat amazing that liberals are even defending the castle doctrine at all.

It seems Salon, another left-wing website, had an article about this a few months back, where they also seem to almost support the castle doctrine.

Check out this other article from the Root asking why the NRA is not supporting the self-defence and firearms rights of a women who fired a warning shot. That is a good question, why isn’t the NRA on this?

Lovers of liberty should note these articles, they present a great opportunity to promote gun freedoms. Those who value freedom and firearms should be all over the cases of those like John McNeil.

From this article, it seems that, at least for the Root, black liberals will side with race over ideology. If we bring this story (and similar stories) to the front we can score a major victory for self-defence rights.

Gun control laws originated in historical attempts to oppress and enslave blacks by denying them their freedoms to own firearms and defend themselves and some blacks still recognize the link between freedom and firearms today because of this.

If we push this story (and other similar stories in the future), we can show blacks that gun control laws are not in their best interest, and will be used as tools to oppress them. If this story can get the NAACP (which has fought against gun freedoms in the past) to defend self-defence as per the castle doctrine (even if they still won’t defend “stand your ground”), there is the chance to bring a large portion of the black population into supporting gun and self-defence freedoms.

If we could get a major Democratic voting block arguing for gun freedoms, this could change the entire gun control debate on the left. Imagine liberals and Democrats trying to criticize the NAACP for their position on gun control. Imagine the George Zimmerman controversy again, but with blacks on the pro-freedom side.

Think about it. If we can force the story of John McNeil into the national consciousness, we can force liberals into a quandary: they will be forced to argue (either directly or indirectly) for the legitimate right to self-defence and firearm ownership through the castle doctrine for Patrick McNeil. Either that or they will be forced to go against the NAACP and argue for keeping John McNeil in jail for defending himself and his family.

So, I ask you all to pass around the story of John McNeil. Argue for his self-defence rights. My blog and readership is small, but some of my readers probably have more influence than me, so use that influence to help John McNeil win his freedom and to show the inherent oppression and injustice of gun control and self-defence restrictions.

Free John McNeil.

Firearms are Freedom

I have recently purchased a number of guns. This was a pain-in-the-ass process due to Canada’s over-bearing gun laws, especially concerning handguns.

There are a number of reasons I put myself through this process, including the usual, such as I want to take up shooting, hunting, self-defence.

Although, not so much for self-defence. I don’t think I would use a gun to defend my home, I would try to use a different method if possible. I own and train with numerous bladed and blunt weapons that I would probably use before the gun. Not because I have any moral problems with shooting an intruder, but simply for legal reasons.

The Canadian legal system is often stupid when it comes to self-defence, such as this recent case where a man defended his home from being firebombed. For his troubles he was arrested, had is guns confiscated, faces jail time, and is still through going through the courts months alter (while the person firebombing his house was not arrested).

I would avoid using my firearms simply to avoid the legal hassles that come with using firearms, especially given that I take martial arts and have numerous other weapons lying around my house. This is not perfect, as the state jealously guards its so-called monopoly over “legitimate” force and will try to punish any who may try to use legitimate force themselves, but firearms just add an extra layer the tyrannical will be able to use against you.

Self-defence aside, these reasons are all good reasons for owning a firearm, but they are not the most important reason, which is freedom.

A man cannot call himself free in any meaningful sense of the word unless he owns a firearm. If you do not own a firearm, you are, as Elusive Wapiti would say, a sheeple.

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All power essentially comes down to force.

Political scientists and sociologists will talk about the different types of power, whether power comes from authority, from legitimacy, from material resources, etc., but essentially it all comes down to who holds the guns.

The elected official may have the authority of legitimacy, but if not supported by the arms of the police and military, his authority means little. The wealthy man  may have the power of resources, but if not protected by the arms of police and his own bodyguards, it could be taken from him by armed men at any time. The demagogue may have the power of persuasion, but if his followers do not have arms, they are prey for those who do.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. – Chairman Mao

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Freedom comes from power.

Hippies, pacifists, and other such morally bankrupt idealists may talk about peace and freedom while decrying violence, suggesting that somehow you can have either of the former without being capable of the latter, but are only able to do so because heavily-armed police and military protect their ability to say stupid things from people who aren’t so disconnected from reality.

The simple fact is, if you want to be free to act, you must have the power of taking action. If you want to be free, you must have the power to defend and protect your freedom.

Today, power means guns.

Owning a gun is essentially saying, I am free, and I have the power to protect my freedom.

Anybody who wants to take your guns away from you or prevent you from having guns, hates you and hates your freedom. They want to disempower you and take away your ability to protect yourself, your loved ones, and your freedom.

You cannot call yourself free in any real sense of the word unless you possess a firearm.

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Guns are not the only material prerequisite for freedom.

To truly be free, you must be able:

1. Have the ability to learn, develop, and transmit ideas, for ideas shape the world. Up until about 10 years ago books, free speech, and a free press were the primary instruments of this freedom. Today, the internet is.
2. Have power to act on those ideas. Power comes from force and for the last few centuries, force comes from guns.
3. Be mobile to be able to move to where those ideas require. For the last century mobility has come from cars.
4. Have a place of your own where others are not able to tread without your permission. This has always come from private property ownership.

If you do not have the internet, firearms, a vehicle, and your own property (or have the ability to acquire them which you have temporarily forgone), you are not fully free.

Anybody who tries to limit your ability to acquire or access these hates your freedom and, by extension, hates you.

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Owning a firearm is an assertion of your freedom and your power.

There is no single action you can take that shows the elites they don’t fully control you better than to arm yourself.

That is why I bought a firearm collection.

Violent Crime and Gun Ownership: Stats

Number of guns: 260 million

Number of gun owners: 80 million

Number of Homicides using firearms: 8,775

Number of white persons: 241,747,756

Number of homicides by white persons: 4,849

Number of black persons: 40,445,666

Number of homicides by black persons: 5,770

Number of males: 151,781,326

Number of homicides by males: 9,972

Number of females: 156,964,212

Number of homicides by females: 1,075

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Odds of any particular gun being used to murder you: 0.0034%

Odds pf any particular gun owner murdering you: 0.0110%

Odds of any particular white person murdering you: 0.0020%

Odds of any particular black person murdering you: 0.0142%

Odds of any particular male murdering you: 0.0066%

Odds of any particular female murdering you: 0.0007%

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Draw your own conclusions.

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(All numbers for in the US and, where applicable, per year: most numbers for 2010)