Barack Obama is a person

The White House recently released a photo of Obama skeet shooting.  Along with it was a strange-sounding bit that it could only be used for news and not manipulated.  Clearly a blatant attack on free speech!  Or is it?

I don't see what legal weight the caption has.  Perhaps copywrite, in which case, the problem is the limits of copywrite and fair use, not that a tyrannical president is running a cult of personality.

On the other hand, he is a person.  I think people have rights on how their images are used.  Of course if he put, and enforced, that limit on every image of him then that would be a problem.  But surely a person is due some amount of deference, not as president, but as a person.  It is not merely his photo in terms of intellectual property, but his image.

Of course such an appeal to human decency and respect is nowhere in the Constitution.  Were we to follow the Constitution and nothing else we'd be left with little more than the lowest of human vulgarity and anarchy.  Murder isn't even banned and surely there is a precedent in that second amendment.  My point is that the Constitution is a floor.  Maybe a foundation as well.  We should stand on it and build up from there, not sit on the floor screaming at anyone who builds anything.  I don't think the Founding Fathers intended for us to sit on the floor.

We could all get up in arms, literally or figuratively.  We could make a fuss.  Or we could ask questions.  What does that caption actually mean?  Do they plan to enforce it?  Is it even there at Obama's request?  Is it boilerplate phrasing stamped on everything?  Who cares?

My theory is that it is there, that Obama put it there personally.  On his last day in office he will repost that image, edited, with the big letters "YOU GOT TROLLED" typed over it.  The mouseover text will be "wtf is wrong with you?"

Magical criminals and anarchy

Step 1: Someone shoots a lot of people.
Step 2: Someone else calls for gun restrictions.
Step 3: Someone else says "criminals don't follow laws."
Repeat endlessly

Given the prevalence of the third step, I am getting scared.  Criminals don't follow laws.  Ever.  In fact, any attempt to restrict their activities only harms us more.  Apparently criminals are magical beings who do not merely attempt to defy laws with varying degrees of success, but are in fact entirely immune to them.

Given that criminals are magical law-immune beings and therefore laws only affect law-abiding citizens, then it is clear that there should be no laws.  Consider this: if we restrict guns, then only criminals will have guns, and all criminals will have guns, because that's what they do: break every law.

But why stop there?  I'm worried about theft.  If someone robs my apartment, how can I get my stuff back?  The police will take too long to investigate.  Instead, I should find the person I think did it and take it back.  When you criminalize taking things without permission, only criminals will take things without permission.

While we're at it, get rid of laws on bribery, since all they do is hold back us non-bribing citizens.  Apply the same logic to all forms of corruption, but of course they'd not be corruption if they were legal and considered acceptable.

Alternatively, it might be that Step 3 was stupid and in fact, criminals are not magical.  It is possible that there are links between the legal and illegal markets.  It is possible that discouraging straw purchasing will reduce the supply of illegal guns.  It is possible that fewer legal guns will reduce the potential for stolen illegal guns.  It is possible that "enforcing the existing laws" could help, and it is possible that "enforcing the existing laws" is a blatantly deceptive false argument when delivered by the same people who do everything they can to prevent the enforcement of existing laws.

Stray bullets are a thing

Safety devices sometimes cause people to act more recklessly.  For some people, this makes the safety device less safe overall.

I don't think this means we should ban motorcycle helmets.

But what about guns?  They're cited as everything from safety device to tyrant protection.  The latter is completely absurd (ask the Saudis about all their guns, but I suggest not questioning their local family of tyrants).  The former?  Maybe.  The statistics on crime all mixed.  Earlier I proposed running simulations on arming teachers as a way to get something more specific than generic crime.

But let's get back to the helmet.  If you drive your motorcycle recklessly because you think you're safe, am I harmed?  Well sure, I am harmed by the increase in recklessness if you cut me off and damage my bumper, but the fact that you get yourself killed is not a harm to me, ignoring psychic costs because those are potentially infinite and all-encompassing.

Now let's imagine that your recklessness is with a gun.  Shoot the bad guy?  Fine.  I'm not going to debate whether shooting someone who is stealing your wallet is okay (though if they're in your house, that's your house).  What about the misidentified person?  What about the strange thing that bullets don't hit a person and magically stop?  What about imperfect aim?

Notice how those all aren't your problem or the assailant's problem: they are the problem for everyone else.

Guns might help in a few specific situations.  They might cause harm in others.  These should be looked at altogether, rather than cherry-picking the one time when someone happened to be saved by one, or harmed by one.

Simulating the effectiveness of guns

As far back as I can remember, any time there is a mass shooting, there are always these two generic responses, among many others: "gun control/ban would have prevented it" and "more guns would have prevented it."  The general logic of each is that one tries to stop the shooter from ever becoming a shooter and the other tries to stop the shooter once he's started.  Of course no law has the total intended effect, so the first idea would in practice act as a reducer, not eliminator.  And the second, well that's what this post is about.

Why not run some simulations of the effect of particular staff having weapons available?

Make someone the shooter.  Make a bunch of people students or whoever is the victim in the particular incident.  Make a few people the armed but otherwise normal members.  The shooter tries to maximize body count or reach some goal and escape, whatever was the goal at a particular incident.  The victims try to survive.  The armed members try to keep victims alive.

On the most basic level, it would be just a custom first-person shooter level.  If we want to make it more advanced, go all the way up to actual training exercises used by military and police, though obviously the first is a lot cheaper.

Run multiple trials.  That's key: get a sample of more than one, so we can see not just how a particular incident turns out, but how they turn out in general.  Find the trend.  See what the average is, just as we'd do in a scientific experiment.  That's the goal, to see whether adding guns helps, harms, or has no overall effect, in a manner similar to a drug trial.

 I would not make this open to the general public.  Making it a training ground for shooters would defeat the purpose.

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Florida's Stand Your Ground law creates a legal paradox.  Our legal system assumes innocence until guilt is proven.  Fortunately, it also has a 'limbo' state of being a suspect, so that when there is sufficient reason to suspect a lack of innocence, the police can apprehend a suspect.  This serves a few purposes, such as preventing escape and making destruction of evidence more difficult.  It may also protect the person.

That's why I think the safest thing for George Zimmerman is a trial.  Arrest him, put him on trial, and see what a jury decides.  He's already lost in the court of public opinion.  He has a bounty on his head, from a ridiculous almost entirely irrelevant fringe group, but it's there.  With tensions so high, with so much hatred flowing, I can easily imagine him being murdered.  Arrest would get him away from that.  A trial would put the backing of the state behind his innocence (if he is), rather than the legal assumption of innocence, which people don't accept very well, particularly when he very clearly did kill someone.  If he is found guilty, then he would receive an appropriate sentence, rather than vigilantism.

But let's return to the event itself and puzzle over the innocence.  We could interpret the Florida law two ways.  One way is just the plain perception of danger.  If someone perceives that they are in danger, they get to protect themselves without any need to retreat.  This is obviously an absurd interpretation because there are far too many situations in which someone may feel threatened, and note that I use the word feel, to distinguish from the reality of whether there is danger or intended threat.  Under this interpretation I could leave a dozen bodies during a five minute walk.  Maybe that homeless man is going to steal my backpack.  Maybe that black man walking in my direction is going to try the same.  Who are those young people there?  They might be drunk and dangerous.  It's very easy to feel threatened.

If we instead restrict the law to actual threats, something which can be proven without needing a mind-reader, then the shooting ends up being much different.  Now we have opposing assumptions of innocence.  If we assume Zimmerman is innocent, then we must be assuming that Trayvon is guilty because he would have been the aggressor.  If we assume Trayvon is innocent, meaning that he was not attacking or threatening Zimmerman, then we're assuming that Zimmerman is guilty of shooting an innocent person.  There is an interpretation of the event which I've not seen covered much: that Zimmerman was following Trayvon, which would make Trayvon the one who can feel threatened, so that even if he had attacked Zimmerman, he would be covered by the stand your ground law while Zimmerman would be an aggressor who escalated the situation without legal justification.

They cannot be simultaneously innocent, though we act as if they were by granting both of them innocence by default.  The law, and the way it has been interpreted, does this as well.  It doesn't care if there is an actual threat or danger.  It only goes by feeling.  That means that Zimmerman is innocent of murder even if he shoots an innocent person because all he had to do was feel.  That's a strange law.

This is where retreat requirements become useful.  If I retreat and the perceived threat follows, if I run and it runs, that's something more than a feeling, that's an action.  Chasing is an aggressive act.  A retreat requirement essentially generates evidence which supports the innocence of the defender and acts a buffer against biases.  A scary homeless man might just be my perception, but if a homeless man chases me, now the fear is justified (or at least more so than if we're just walking in the same direction).  A retreat requirement protects him from my unreasonable fear while also protecting me legally if I am forced to act.  Similarly, 'castle' laws which allow individuals to use deadly force within their own homes provide this buffer.  If someone is in my home without my invitation, something is clearly wrong.  Assuming locked doors, which if you have a gun handy at home, I'd guess you lock your doors, anyone in your home is either there by invitation or there by force.  Defense is clearly warranted and a retreat requirement for your own home would make no sense at all.

The streets aren't our homes.  They are public property (usually) and as such, are subject to different social and legal rules.  It seems to me that on public property, "avoid shooting people unless necessary" is a pretty good rule.

Part of why gun laws are such a problem

We're not all talking about the same thing, we should not be talking about the same thing, but we think we are. Huh?

I am highly in favor of gun control. Near where I live. It's a big city with a pretty high amount of gun crime. Innocent kids die far too often. It's terrible.

Now before you get up in arms about liberals taking your guns, let me ask you, where do you live and what sort of guns?

Do you live in Texas or one of the other 48 states which are not the one in which I live? If yes, then I don't care much about your laws.
Do you want a hunting rifle? Go for it.
Do you live in the southern part of my state which is more rural and therefore can make the case that the police are too far away? If so, you're effectively in a different state, so I have no interest in your guns.

Almost no one wants to take away your guns, they just don't want to die. But that's hard to get across in a nation filled with pundits and the god damn NRA. They don't like subtleties such as different laws in different places (since they have different needs and cultures). Those hurt their brains. Instead they like to scream about a handgun ban in Chicago restricting your rights in... let's say Kentucky. When someone talks like that, recognize them as either idiots or power-hungry and uncaring. They don't give a shit about you or your safety, only about tricking you into voting or them or sending them money.

Moving on...

There was a failed bill which would allow people to carry concealed weapons across state lines, making their permits valid in other states with permits. Correction: it was a bit tacked onto a military funding bill. Yes, someone is trying to sneak their own flawed ideas into the legislation that funds the soldiers that keep us safe. Shameless. Unfortunately those who added the piece and voted for it were not immediately removed from office (or at least reprimanded and less likely to be re-elected) for clearly putting pandering to special interests (remember the NRA?) ahead of their duty to keep our nation functioning and advancing. Here's the problem with the idea: it was stupid. Fine, I'll elaborate.

By making a permit from one state valid in all states, it would effectively make a national standard and that would be the lowest standard. Would you like it if the next state over gave permits to child molesters? I'd expect not. It's also not likely to happen, so let's set aside that bit of hyperbole, but retain the meaning: do you want permits given out by the lowest standard? It gets worse though.

This is a clear violation of states' rights. If your representatives, or possibly even a direct vote, sets certain standards, that is the choice of your state. Under this law your choice would be erased, replaced with the choice of some other state. The only exception being the state with the lowest standards; they'd get to replace the will of voters in every other state.

I understand the sentiment that a person's personal protection should not vanish for crossing state lines. I even support it. However this was not the way to do it. A better way would be to encourage states to create standards, maybe different ones within and between states so that suitable individuals can move freely and safely between states as needed. Streamline the process for getting a permit in another state if you already have one.

Cooperation between states will yield a much better process than a bloated national legislature selling their votes on a piece of legislation which tramples states' rights.

Guns will not go away in America and I don't want them to go away. Sadly, this is how the debate is framed, between gun nuts and sissy liberals who want us all defenseless. There is not only a middle ground, there is also room for each extreme in local and state laws. Don't be fooled into thinking that anyone is forcing you to do anything, or that they have the right.