Pirates and Emperors

Via Opinione.

Robert Hicks

FishyJay sent me the link to the New York Times article about the death of civil rights leader Robert Hicks.

Someone had called to say the Ku Klux Klan was coming to bomb Robert Hicks’s house. The police said there was nothing they could do. It was the night of Feb. 1, 1965, in Bogalusa, La.

The Klan was furious that Mr. Hicks, a black paper mill worker, was putting up two white civil rights workers in his home. It was just six months after three young civil rights workers had been murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.

Mr. Hicks and his wife, Valeria, made some phone calls. They found neighbors to take in their children, and they reached out to friends for protection. Soon, armed black men materialized. Nothing happened.

Less than three weeks later, the leaders of a secretive, paramilitary organization of blacks called the Deacons for Defense and Justice visited Bogalusa. It had been formed in Jonesboro, La., in 1964 mainly to protect unarmed civil rights demonstrators from the Klan. After listening to the Deacons, Mr. Hicks took the lead in forming a Bogalusa chapter, recruiting many of the men who had gone to his house to protect his family and guests.

These were incredibly heroic men. But what do they have to do with today's gun rights movement? I've always found it to be a laughably silly analogy to compare the gun control folks to the KKK. Is that what we're talking about?

Another question comes to mind. Are gun owners who refer to the Deacons and Mr. Hicks role in history as somehow significant to their modern movement completely free of racism? Is the stereotype gun owner, the middle aged white man with a beer belly who hates blacks, a myth? Is there no reality to it?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Lock Up Your Guns

The gazettetimes.com offers some good advice for gun owners.

ALBANY - While gun ownership is popular among many Linn County residents, gun safes, comparatively, are not.

"Most people keep them in their dresser or a nice case, like a piece of furniture - it looks good but provides no protection for the gun," said Linn County Sheriff Tim Mueller.

There were at least five gun burglaries in Linn County in a three-day period this week.

"Burglars are going to take what is easy to steal and easy to get rid of," Mueller said. "Guns, unfortunately, are on the top of that list."

Thieves may be keeping the guns for themselves as protection or trading them for dope, in part because pawn shops are required to call the Oregon State Police and verify that the serial numbers on guns they accept do not match those of firearms listed as stolen.

Problem is, police and deputies say, many gun owners don't keep track of serial numbers.

The victim of a burglary this week on Upper Calapooia Drive could only describe the two firearms stolen from her home as a ".25 automatic pistol" and a ".22-caliber revolver."

Make, model and serial number were listed as "unknown."

I believe that's Albany Oregon, if I'm not mistaken. Two very interesting things come from the first part of this article. One, that gun owners have to start taking more responsibility in the storing and securing of their weapons, and two, that we need a national gun registry.

Most people don't write down their credit card numbers or their car serial number and keep them in a separate place, just like most gun owners don't do that with their guns. I guess people presume that "it won't happen the them." A gun registry would solve this problem.

A Ruger pistol was reported stolen Wednesday from an unlocked pickup parked in the 700 block of Queen Avenue Southeast. Although the owner didn't have a serial number, the store that sold him the gun, Bi-Mart, was able to retrieve the number from its records.

Though many of the hundreds of firearms in the Linn County Sheriff's Office evidence locker were seized during drug busts and weren't stolen, law enforcement officers believe some belong to local folks.

Examples like this make you wonder. How could someone leave a gun in an unlocked vehicle? My answer to this is a bit harsh, I admit. I say stupidity like that should be answered with immediate disqualification to own guns. The Gazette article goes on in a softer tone, but with good advice.

When it comes to protecting your guns, advice from law enforcement is simple: write down serial numbers and other identifying characteristics and lock up your firearms when you are not with them.

"The average Linn County criminal is not going to be able to get into a gun safe," Mueller said. "Their objective is to get in, get what they can and get out of there as quick as they can.

"It's like leaving a purse in the front seat of a car. Some people just make it too easy for criminals to take those things."

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Teaching Gun Safety in Schools

Fox News reports on the proposed gun-education program in Virginia.

A new law will require Virginia's education department to come up with a gun-safety curriculum for public elementary schools that incorporates guidelines from the NRA.

A new law will require Virginia's education department to come up with a gun-safety curriculum for public elementary schools that incorporates guidelines from the NRA.

The law allows local school divisions to offer gun-safety education to pupils in kindergarten through fifth grade. While each school board can decide whether to offer it, those that do must use the state curriculum -- which will include rules used by the NRA's Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program.

One voice of opposition put it this way.

"I personally don't think firearm safety has a place in the schools," Lori Haas, spokeswoman for the Virginia Center for Public Safety, told FoxNews.com. "That's up to the parents to teach that at home."

Haas, whose daughter is a survivor of the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, said her group is outraged that state lawmakers are placing "a burden" on the state school board that it didn't ask for.

"For the general assembly and governor to dictate to the board of education in writing curriculum is not their area," she said, calling the law a "freebie to a special interest group."

What's your opinion? Is Lori Haas right that it's not the State's place to determine the curriculum?

What do you think the proponents of this bill think about sex education in schools? Virginia's got a lot of that fundamental Christian thing going on, doesn't it? Could it all add up to their wanting to teach kids about guns but not about condoms? That would be funny.

Please leave a comment.

David Kopel on Mayor Bloomberg

Sebastian seems to think David Kopel wrote a brilliant article in the Denver Post about Mayor Bloomberg.

I thought the article was so much mind-reading and doomsday predictions. Many of the complaints got a big "so what?" out of me. Here's an example.

But under the Bloomberg bill, every person who sells a gun just once at a gun show can be put in a permanent federal database. Suppose a man who owns seven guns rents a table one weekend to sell three guns, to pay for his family's summer vacation. Bloomberg requires that the gun show promoter keep a record of that person, and allows the federal government to collect those records.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Properly Shared Responsibility

The Palm Springs Desert Sun posted an article about possible charges for the dad of a gun-toting 12-year-old.

A gun that a Thermal elementary school student brought to class this week belonged to his father, an investigator said Friday.

Officials are now filing charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, unsecured storage of a gun and child endangerment against the sixth-grader's parents, Riverside County sheriff's deputy Herlinda Valenzuela said.

According to investigators, on Thursday, the 12-year-old Coachella boy brought an unloaded semi-automatic handgun to Westside School, 82-225 Airport Blvd.

A teacher found the gun and ammunition after learning about them from another student, Valenzuela said.

Now, that's what I'm talking about. Why is that so difficult in the rest of the country? For crying out loud, in Arizona they would have charged the kid as an adult and not said a word to the dad.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

A 1st Amendment Consideration

The Dallas Morning View posted a very interesting opinion piece. Much has been written and discussed about the possible abuse of the 1st Amendments rights that may be going on, but this is the first time I've heard it put quite like this.

We simply must ask: How do we deal with the Palins, Bachmans, Becks and Limbaughs, who subtly encourage violence in their subdued but widely heard rhetoric?

If Glenn Beck were Muslim, would we take him off the air? Would Michelle Bachmann be subject to intense scrutiny?

I believe the answer is yes, and lest we want to be a nation of hypocrites, we simply have to look at the elephant in the room and examine just how much of a security threat these individuals and others represent.

What's your opinion? Could a Muslim Imam from Detroit get away with some of the things Glenn Beck says?

Please leave a comment.