You may not have heard of Eric S. Raymond

by Smitty

  But his style is spot-on. Emphasis mine:

  Occasionally people will show up on the channel looking for project-related help. Some of them become semi-regulars on the channel because they’re often working technical problems for which the project is part of the solution. One of these guys hopped on the channel last night while we happened to be in the middle of a firearms digression, listened for a bit, and then started to spout.

  “Why do you guys think you need firearms?” “Criminals will just take them from you and use them against you.” “They’re useless for anything but killing.” “You can’t seriously think they’re a deterrent against overreaching governments, the cops will just come for you you first.” And on and on and on, the same factually and historically ignorant babble civilian firearms owners are wearily used to hearing - as if civilian firearms had not been culturally and politically decisive in hundreds of struggles for freedom, from the American Revolution clear down to short-stopping Communist counter-coups in Russia and the Baltic States as recently as the 1990s.

  I listened to the others on the channel offer polite, reasoned, factually correct counterarguments to this guy, and get nowhere. And suddenly…suddenly, I understood why. It was because the beliefs the ignoramus was spouting were only surface structure; refuting them one-by-one could do no good without directly confronting the substructure, the emotional underpinnings that made ignoramus unable to consider or evaluate counter-evidence.

  The need, here, was to undermine that substructure. And I saw the way to do it. This is what I said:

  “You speak, but I hear only the bleating of a sheep. Your fear gives power to your enemies.”

  Ignoramus typed another sentence of historical ignorance. My reply was “Baa! Baa! Baaaaa!”

  And another. My reply was more sheep noises, more deliberate mockery. And you know what? A few rounds of this actually worked. Ignoramus protested that he wasn’t a sheep. At which point I asked him “Then why are you disarmed?”

  *CRACK*

  The conversation afterwards was completely different, and ended up with ignoramus speculating about meeting with one of our regulars in his area to do things with firearms.

  I learned a valuable lesson last night. I’m not normally a fan of mockery and attacks on a man’s character over reasoned argument. But when the real issue is in fact the man’s character - specifically, when the issue is where he fits in terms of Dave Grossman’s seminal essay on sheep, wolves and sheepdogs - then that’s the level on which the argument has to be conducted.

US Foreign policy applications are left as an exercise for the reader.

The ad Obama doesn't want you to see

Instapundit has a roundup of news and commentary about Obama's (over)reaction to this ad. He's very vulnerable on the Second Amendment, and I don't think we'll see Obama going to Ohio to do the John Kerry "can I get me a huntin' license here" trip.

The Best Defense

Armed mom chases off two intruders:

Hunley, who is 5-foot-3, emptied her handgun, firing four shots at the intruder. The gunman ran out the front door. Neither Hunley nor her daughter were hurt during the exchange of gunfire.

Robert Waters (who lives in Ocala) will no doubt save this story for his next sequel to The Best Defense: True Stories of Intended Victims Who Defended Themselves With a Firearm.

(Via Hot Air Headlines.)

Yeah, baby!

NRA to pony up $40 million vs. Barack Obama.

SCOTUS: VICTORY!

Supreme Court overturns DC gun ban.

UPDATE: The Hill reports:

The 5-4 decision handed down Thursday is the Supreme Court’s first major Second Amendment ruling in nearly 70 years. It declared unconstitutional a D.C. law on the books for more than 30 years.

About doggone time, too!

UPDATE II: Associated Press:

The court’s 5-4 ruling strikes down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision goes further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact.

The ruling is online in PDF format. Comment by Allahpundit:

So as I understand this, you have a right to own a handgun, a shotgun, a rifle or some other weapon you’d buy either for home defense or hunting, since that’s how a colonial-era militia operated. Live by the originalist sword, die by the originalist sword.

Very good, very good. Looks like a solid victory for the Second Amendment. Wonder if it guarantees your right to shoot a child rapist?

UPDATE III: This ruling ends many years of secret civil disobedience in DC. For years, I have advised women in Washington to ignore the ban and carry a "lady gun" (e.g., a small .32 automatic) in their purse. "Better to be judged by 12 than carried by six," as they say. Given the notorious incompetence of DC police, the chances of a woman in the District actually getting busted with an unlicensed pistol are probably smaller than the chances of her getting raped and murdered.

Hugh Hewitt says this court decision is good news for Mitt RomneyJohn McCain.

UPDATE IV: Justice Stevens, in his dissent, relies heavily on Joseph Story's Commentaries. This is bogus, first of all, because the Commentaries are not the Constitution. Story was not present at the Founding (he was only 10 when the Second Amendment was ratified) and did not have complete access to all the debates surrounding the Second Amendment, or to the papers of George Mason, the principle author of the amendment. So for Stevens to cite Story as authoritative and superior to the plain "shall not be infringed" of the amendment itself, is pretzel logic.

Secondly, in other contexts, liberals like Stevens routinely disregard the essentially conservative views of Story. If it were up to Story, certainly the court would never have invalidated the death penalty for child rapists. Stevens' citation of Story as the ultimo dictum on the Constitutional is thus profoundly dishonest.

Some creme broulee, sir?

UPDATE V: One of Michelle Malkin's readers makes this observation:

Prediction: Unlike the 5-4 Boumediene vs. Bush decision [the Gitmo case], which the MSM hailed as "landmark" [and] "historic" because it rebuked Bush, this 5-4 decision will be spun as a decision by the "conservative" Supreme Court, which was "controversial," "fractured" or "splintered." Anything to cast doubt on the decision.

Indeed. I've never understood why so many of my journalistic colleagues, who treat the First Amendment as if it were divine writ, nevertheless despise the Second Amendment and gun owners. I suspect it's mainly because nowadays most journalists are a bunch of neurasthenic wimps who've never won a fistfight.

UPDATE VI:

"Today's decision marks a new era for gun rights in America. By protecting an individual's right to keep and bear arms, the Second Amendment ensures that all Americans are able to participate in sporting activities, hunt, and protect themselves and their families. . . .
"Where crime rates are high, a gun may be the only means for law-abiding citizens to safeguard themselves and their families. Lawful gun ownership deters an untold number of crimes every year."
-- Bob Barr
Libertarian Party presidential nominee
and National Rifle Association board member

No word yet on what Obama thinks about Justice Scalia and those four other hillbillies bitterly clinging to their guns.