it’s irrefutable

Posted on April 4, 2013 by greg

I’m a relatively smart guy. You know what the problem is with being a relatively smart guy? The problem is it’s hard to believe that other people can be so incredibly fucking stupid.

I know that sounds arrogant, and that bothers me. But it doesn’t alter the fact that there are some astonishingly stupid people out there — and some of them are in Congress. The depth and breadth of their stupidity is so massive it can’t be covered in a single blog entry. It can’t be covered in a single book. There are people in both houses of Congress who are stupid on an encyclopedic scale; it would take multiple volumes to cover the extent of their stupidity. But right now I’m just thinking about their stupidity on the current United Nations Arms treaty.

Senator Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, Pretty Fucking Stupid

If you’re not aware of it, the U.N. has spent the last seven years banging out an agreement that will establish some minimal controls on the international gun trade. We’re talking about tanks, military drones, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers, AND small arms sold in bulk. The controls are based on whether the weapons “will be used to break humanitarian law, foment genocide or war crimes, abet terrorism or organized crime or slaughter women and children.” It’s aimed at curbing the major arms dealers, the corporations (and nations) that deal in bulk weapon sales.

The treaty was passed, 154 to 3. The three nations that voted against the treaty? North Korea, Syria, and Iran. The U.S. approved the treaty, but it needs to be ratified by Congress. And here comes the stupid. There are a LOT of Republicans (and, sadly, some Democrats) who are siding with North Korea. Why? Because, despite all the evidence, this nitwits believe the U.N. treaty will inevitably lead to the confiscation of firearms from gun owners in the U.S. That is some serious stupid, right there.

Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah, Pretty Fucking Stupid

“I am gravely concerned this treaty will infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of American gun owners.” — Senator Jerry Moran

“I have great concerns that this treaty can be used to violate the Second Amendment rights of American citizens.” — Senator Mike Lee

“This U.N. treaty takes away Constitutional authority; it diminishes the Constitution, it gives up Constitutional rights to a U.N. authority that should not exist. Anyone who votes for this U.N. treaty is violating their oath to support and defend the Constitution. It’s that simple.” — Representative Louie Gohmert

Let me just repeat the purpose of the treaty. It’s to make it more difficult for major arms exporters to sell weapons in bulk to governments or political movements or other military entities who are likely to use those weapons to 1) violate humanitarian law, 2) engage in genocide or war crimes, 3) engage in terrorism or organized crime, 4) or slaughter women and children.

Representative Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Incredibly Stupid

Representative Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Incredibly Fucking Stupid

The treaty would have NO effect at all on anybody’s ability to walk into a gun shop and buy any gun they can afford. In order to believe the treaty would somehow infringe on the Second Amendment, you’d have to be really paranoid and pretty fucking stupid.

How paranoid and fucking stupid? Paranoid and fucking stupid enough to believe the treaty includes provisions to ban people 55 and older from owning a weapon. That notion is circulating widely among conservatives. NO, I’m NOT making this up.

Why do they believe that? Because 1) U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is said (I can find no record of this statement) to have expressed an opinion that people who’ve been “adjudicated mentally defective and persons with attenuating cerebral faculties” probably shouldn’t own weapons because they could be a danger to themselves. And because 2) somebody in Amnesty International pointed out that research shows “a significant majority of gun-related suicides, accidental shootings, non-fatal negligent discharges are perpetrated by persons 55 and over.” So therefore: 3) the United Nations is going to seize the guns of everybody over age 55, and that’s just the first step to 4) confiscating ALL THE GUNS.

I know, I know…that defies any semblance of normal logic. But logic is weak armor against stupid, especially when stupid is driven by fear. Want proof? Here’s Rep. Gohmert’s argument against limiting firearm magazines to ten rounds:

“[W]hy would you draw the line at ten? What’s wrong with nine? Or eleven? And the problem is once you draw that limit; it’s kind of like marriage when you say it’s not a man and a woman any more, then why not have three men and one woman, or four women and one man, or why not somebody has a love for an animal?”

Got that? If you limit ammunition to ten rounds pretty soon people will be marrying goats. And that slippery slope will inevitably lead to laws requiring us to speak French and eat soft communist cheeses. You can’t refute that logic.

seriously, do something

Posted on March 31, 2013 by greg

Remember when all those six year old kids were shot and killed while at school in Connecticut? Remember how that was going to change everything? Remember the outrage and the horror and how finally the government would get its shit in order and do something about gun violence?

And remember how the National Rifle Association said that horror and outrage was just an emotional response to a tragedy and people would quickly forget.\?

The NRA was right. They were right when they said the outrage and horror was an emotional response — because you’re supposed to be fucking emotional when a couple dozen six year old boys and girls are slaughtered. If you don’t have an emotional response to children being shot 150 times in five minutes then you’re some sort of fucking Terminator.

This Tom Latham, my Congressman - I wrote him, I called him

This is Tom Latham, my Congressman – I wrote him, I called him

And the NRA was right when they said people would forget. Congress has basically abandoned the assault-style weapons ban. Admittedly, that legislation wouldn’t do much good — but it would do any harm. Even a little good is better than no harm. Congress is facing a difficult struggle to pass a watered down universal background check, and might not even be able to pass a straw buyer law. Despite the overwhelming support of the public, Congress may just stand around with its thumb up its collective ass. Again.

And you know why? Because Congress is scared of the NRA and they’re not scared of you. Because the NRA is leaning on Congress and you’re not. Because the NRA is speaking directly to the people who’ll vote on the legislation and you’re not.

This is Tom Harkin, one of my Senators – I called him, I wrote him

Oh, you’re answering polls and saying you want effective legislation passed. You’re on Facebook sharing articles on gun violence and ‘liking’ photographs insulting the NRA. But who gives a rat’s ass about that? You’re not calling or writing your Congressional representatives and telling them that your vote in the next election depends on their vote on commonsense gun safety legislation.

Don’t blame Congress if this legislation fails. Blame your ownself. You can have an impact, but only if you’re willing to take a few minutes and do something. And folks, it really only takes a few minutes.

If you don’t know who your representatives are, you can get that information here. The most effective way to reach your representative is write an actual letter. Like on paper. With an inkpen. Put it in an envelope and mail it. Seriously. That shit gets read. And it carries weight. But if writing a letter cuts too deeply into your day, use the telephone. A phone call is the second most effective approach. Email? Not very effective at all. And those mass email petitions are almost totally worthless.

This is what you do: give them your actual name. Tell them your zip code, so they can be sure you live in their district (if you can’t vote for or against them, they’re not going to care what your opinion is). Clearly identify the specific issue you’re contacting them about, let them know you feel strongly, and let them know your vote is on the line.

This is Chuck Grassley, one of my Senators – I wrote him, I called him

We get the government we deserve, sad to say. So for fuck’s sake, people, do something. Write your legislators. Call their offices. It won’t take long and it won’t cost much money.

Do it even if you don’t think it will do any good. One of my legislators is Chuck Grassley, as big an asshole as you’ll ever meet. He’s opposed to even the most reasonable limits on firearms, and there’s nothing I can say that will change his vote. I wrote him anyway. I called his office anyway. Because if this jerk is purporting to represent me, then I’m damned well going to make my positions clear to him.

My other congressional representatives both support sensible gun safety measures. So I called and wrote telling them how much I appreciate their efforts and they can count on my vote and my support. They like hearing that.

Here’s the thing: we don’t have to get every vote. We just need to get enough votes. We just need to convince a few moderate Democrats and Republicans that they don’t have to kiss the NRA’s ass. But they’re not going to act unless we do.

a couple of quick thoughts on marriage equality

Posted on March 26, 2013 by greg

First thing this morning I got an email from an acquaintance calling me out for not supporting marriage equality by changing my Facebook profile photo to the equality sign.

“i assumed you supportd marriage equality. but you didn’t change your fb profile pic. whats up with that.”

What’s up with that is pretty simple. I do support marriage equality but I don’t feel like I need to change my Facebook profile photo to prove it. I think it’s extraordinarily cool that so many folks have changed their Facebook profiles. It’s just not me, though.

Same sex marriage has been legal here since 2009, when the Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously there was no legal basis for denying a same sex couple the right to marry. It’s a done deal here. Ain’t nobody been hurt by it — which is no surprise to anybody but bigots. There are still some Republicans who try to pass legislation reversing the court’s ruling, but basically same sex weddings have become routine here. Nobody notices.

Another thing — all those polls saying a majority of the American public approves of same sex marriages. That’s great and all, but really public opinion shouldn’t be the arbiter of whether or not a thing is right. Same sex couples ought to be able to marry whether the public approves of it or not. It’s just the right thing to do.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad attitudes are changing. Today and tomorrow are important days in the struggle for marriage equality. But regardless of what the Supreme Court decides, I’m absolutely confident that marriage equality will eventually happen. It’s inevitable. Sooner is better than later, of course, and I’d love to see SCOTUS make a sweeping decision that it’s unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples the right to marry. But if they don’t, then we’ll just have to keep on fighting. Because it’s going to happen.

In the meantime, though, here:

troublemakers are my heroes

Posted on March 22, 2013 by greg

I’ve been noodling around with computers for about a million years. Seriously, a million years in tech terms. I bought my first computer in the autumn of 1982. It looked like this:

It was a Kaypro II. State of the art, motherfucker — portable (only 26 pounds), with a 9-inch monitor (the Osborne only had a puny ass 5-inch monitor), a CP/M operating system, and two (yes 2) internal disk drives that could handle those sweet 5 1/4 inch floppy disk each of which was capable of holding 195k of data. Arthur C. Clarke had a Kaypro II. It cost me about US$1500. A few months later I bought a Hayes 300 baud modem; I could put the telephone receiver into a coupler and magically connect with a Bulletin Board System in Boston.

That’s what we had. BBS’s. There was no Internet, no World Wide Web, no information superhighway, no cyberspace — just a green phosphorus monitor linked by telephone to a bulletin board.

Back then I was a geek. I took computers apart, fixed them, replaced and upgraded motherboards and disk drives. But along the way I lost interest in the tech and became more intrigued by the culture and the utility of computers.

Now when I need to do something technical — like, say, hook up my laptop to an external monitor — I have to ask somebody how it’s done. Or find a YouTube video to explain it to me. And when I’ve needed that information, this is who I generally turned to:

Adria Richards. Smart, funny, relaxed, smart, easy-going, knowledgeable, and smart. She’s all over the tech world. If you haven’t heard of her, it’s because you haven’t paid attention.

Richards recently attended a Python development conference called PyCon (okay, here’s where I have to admit I don’t have a fucking clue what Python is). In one of the sessions, a couple of guys behind her began making jokes about ‘forking’ and ‘big dongles.’ You know, the sort of humor common among fourteen year old boys.

I’m a guy. I was once a fourteen year old boy. I still am, sometimes. I know I’ve made similar jokes in my life — because all guys are capable of being idjits. But somewhere in the growing up process I learned not to make jokes around strangers who might be uncomfortable with them. It’s just good manners, right?

This is what Richards says about the incident in her blog:

I was going to let it go. It had been a long week. A long month. I’d been on the road since mid February attending and speaking at conferences. PyCon was my 5th and final conference before heading home.

I know it’s important to pick my battles.

And that’s usually what happens, isn’t it. Men say something offensive, women stay quiet about it. They stay quiet because making a fuss will get them labeled as humorless lesbians who hate men. If women say something, they’ll make men feel uncomfortable that they said something that made the woman feel uncomfortable. And the women will then be punished for making the men feel uncomfortable. You know this is true.

So women usually let it go. But this time was different. Richards didn’t let it go. This is what happened:

I saw a photo on main stage of a little girl who had been in the Young Coders workshop.

I realized I had to do something or she would never have the chance to learn and love programming because the ass clowns behind me would make it impossible for her to do so.

Okay, that’s overly dramatic. Those two guys wouldn’t make it impossible for the girl in the photo to learn and love programming. But guys just like the guys behind Richards would certainly make girls just like the girl in the photo feel they didn’t belong in the techno-boy’s club.

So Richards sent a tweet describing the situation and asking the PyCon staff to resolve it. And hey, they did. They escorted the two guys out of the session (and, presumably, told them to grow the fuck up). Richards had stood up for herself and women in tech, the guys had been properly put in their place, and the green grass grows all around, all around.

That should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t (otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about it). In her tweet Richards had also included a photo of the guys who were making the jokes. As a result, one of the guys was fired from his job. His company issued a statement, including the following:

[A]s a company that is dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior, we conducted a thorough investigation. The result of this investigation led to the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go.

That seems an over-reaction. I suspect it would have been more appropriate for the CEO of the company to sit the guy down and tell him not to be such a dick in the future. But here’s something to remember: it was the company that fired him — not Adria Richards.

When word of the firing began to spread, Richards became the villain of the story. Her blog was hit with a Denial of Service attack. She received rape and death threats on Twitter (those tweets have been deleted by Twitter). The company she worked for, SendGrid, also became the target of DoS attacks, shutting it down.

So SendGrid fired Adria Richards. They released a statement:

SendGrid supports the right to report inappropriate behavior, whenever and wherever it occurs. What we do not support was how she reported the conduct. Her decision to tweet the comments and photographs of the people who made the comments crossed the line. Publicly shaming the offenders—and bystanders—was not the appropriate way to handle the situation.

After Richards was fired, the DoS attack stopped and people could access the SendGrid site again.

There is, of course, a huge furor in the tech world over this. I won’t bother repeating all the arguments and counter-arguments; they’re easy to find, if your interested (and they’re all represented in the comments on Richards’ blog post). I’ll just say this.

Adria Richards over-reacted. And yay for her for doing it. The only way to change culture is for some people to push back and push back hard. They’ll get punished for it, they’ll be called names, they’ll be labeled as troublemakers. But it’s the troublemakers who initiate change. The only way to overcome systemic discrimination and bigotry is to make a huge fuss.

The civil rights marchers and freedom riders of the 1960s were troublemakers. The first wave of feminists were troublemakers. If troublemaking gay men and lesbians hadn’t pushed hard against the boundaries of hetero-culture, same-sex marriage wouldn’t be a reality in some states (and eventually throughout the U.S.).

Adria Richards got fed up and acted. Did she act wisely? Maybe not. I don’t care. She acted and she caused trouble (even if she didn’t mean to). She shook the foundation of tech culture by telling the guys it’s way way way past time to stop being 14 year old boys.

After this, any guy who publicly makes those sort of jokes at a professional conference will be doing it knowingly and deliberately just to be offensive. And that, folks, is how mainstream bigotry gets driven to the fringes.

cowardice

Posted on March 20, 2013 by greg

First, a confession. I’d originally planned to write about my ambivalence regarding the ‘assault-style weapons’ ban. I don’t believe banning those weapons would have any real effect — certainly not on crime in general, and probably not on mass killings.

I may be ambivalent about the proposed legislation, but I’m NOT ambivalent about the way it’s been dropped by Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader. If the legislation had been given a vote and failed, I wouldn’t be upset. If it had succeeded, I wouldn’t be upset. But to refuse to even offer it up for a vote? That upsets me.

Harry Reid – Senate Majority Leader, Coward

Here, according to Politico.com, is the reason:

Reid’s decision highlights the tightrope walked by the majority leader in governing the gun control issue. Trapped between the White House and rank-and-file Democrats who support broad gun control legislation following the shootings last December in Newtown, Conn., Reid must also be mindful of red-state Democrats up for reelection in 2014 who favor gun rights.

Why? Why must he be mindful of red-state Democrats up for re-election? Shouldn’t he be mindful of the citizenry they’re supposed to represent? The most recent ABC News–Washington Post poll found 57% of the nation supports the proposed ban. The University of Connecticut–Hartford Courant poll had the very same result. Quinnipiac found 54% supported the ban, and Pew found 56%. Hell, even a recent poll in Texas (which revealed 39% of those polled want to see President Obama impeached) showed 49% support for an assault-style weapons ban.

I’m not suggesting the majority is always correct. Clearly, they’re not. Nor do I believe legislators should always do what the majority of their constituents want. Legislators should vote their own conscience, even if it goes against the will of their constituents. But I am suggesting they should vote on the issues their constituents think are important.

They want a vote on the proposed weapons ban.

Bushmaster .223

Refusing to bring the proposed legislation to the Senate floor for a vote is, in my opinion, an act of cowardice. It’s not about representing the citizenry; it’s about political expediency. It’s about wanting to stay in office. It’s about putting their personal considerations before those of the people they’re supposed to represent.

So, why am I ambivalent about the legislation itself? I wrote something about the topic back in December, so forgive me if I partly repeat myself. Basically, I don’t see any evidence that banning the 157 assault-style weapons listed in the law will have an impact on mass killing.

Since the first assault-style weapons ban was put into place in 1994, there have been 44 mass killings (see the note below). Relatively few of those involved assault-style weapons. I don’t think there’s much doubt that, given a choice, mass killers would prefer to use assault-style weapons — but the sad fact is, folks who are intent on committing mass murder will use whatever weapons they can get their hands on. Mass killers don’t choose assault-style weapons because they’re better at killing people — they’re not. They choose those weapons because they fit in with the Mass Killer Aesthetic. They look scary.

Anders Behring Breivik, poster boy for the Mass Murder Aesthetic

That’s the same reason mass killers (and especially the younger ones) tend to dress in similar ways — camouflage or all-black tactical outfits. These guys plan these crimes in advance, including how they’re going to dress. They make deliberate fashion-based decisions. They know how mass killers are supposed to look. Popular culture has taught us the elements of Mass Killer Fashion. Assault-style weapons are the weapons of choice because they complete the look. But in the end, the most common weapons used by mass killers since 1994 has been the semi-automatic pistol with a high capacity magazine.

You want to pass a law that will have a real and measurable effect on mass killings? Pass the universal background check. Pass the ban on magazines holding more than ten rounds. And give the BATF enough funding and personnel to do its job. That will make a difference.

In any event, when the public wants these measures enacted, the refusal to bring them to the floor of Congress for a vote is an act of political cowardice. Harry Reid should be ashamed of himself. He should have to explain to the families of the victims of the Newtown School murders why he’s failing to put the legislation to a vote.

But I’m willing to bet he doesn’t have the balls to do that either.

Nathan Van Wilkins – not a mass killer

Editorial note: How do we define a mass killing? It’s generally defined as one in which at least four people unknown to the shooter were killed. This, of course, excludes all those mass killings in which family members or ‘loved ones’ were among those killed. It also excludes failed attempts at mass murder. For example, in January of this year Nathan Van Wilkins opened fire in downtown Tuscaloosa, Alabama with an AK-47 variant; 17 people were injured, but nobody died, so this incident is only a mass shooting, not a mass killing.

happy anniversary, clarence earl gideon

Posted on March 18, 2013 by greg

Let’s say all police officers and all criminal prosecutors are sincere and honest. We know that’s not true, but bear with me a while. Let’s also say the police only arrest people they’re convinced are guilty, and that prosecutors only bring cases against defendants they truly believe committed the crime with which they’re charged. That’s probably closer to being true, but it’s still got a healthy bit of fantasy in it.

Let’s also acknowledge that even the most sincere and honest police and prosecutors occasionally make mistakes. For the sake of argument, let’s be generous and say the police and prosecutors are correct 98% of the time.

That necessarily means that even the most honest and sincere police and prosecutors are wrong 2% of the time. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it.

Greg Bright - wongly convicted of murder; served 27 years

Greg Bright – wrongfully convicted of murder; served 27 years

In 2010, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 1,484,530 arrests for violent crimes. We’re talking murder, manslaughter, rape, armed robbery, aggravated and simple assault. If the police arrested the right person 98% of the time, it means they mistakenly arrested around 30,000 innocent people in 2010. That’s eighty people every single day on the calendar, arrested for violent crimes they didn’t commit.

And those are just the arrests for violent crimes. Add in property crimes, drug offenses, and social order crimes like prostitution, liquor violations, indecency and the like, and you end up with 13,122,110 arrests in 2010. Applying the same 98% rule, it means more than a quarter of a million innocent people were arrested in the U.S. in 2010.

The reality, of course, is uglier. Much uglier. Nobody believes the police arrest the right person 98% of the time. Nobody believes that every police officer and prosecutor is sincere and honest. Those are fantasies.

Michael Morton - wrongfully convicted; served 25 years

Michael Morton – wrongfully convicted of murder; served 25 years

Now think about those poor bastards who are arrested and prosecuted for crimes they didn’t commit. When a person is being prosecuted for a crime, it’s listed on court dockets in this way: The State of Wherever versus Defendant Whozis. That actually means what it says. For example, if you’re going to trial in Wyoming (the least populated state in the Union), all the resources of the State can be arrayed against you. All those uniformed Wyoming police, all those detectives, all those lawyers and those forensic experts and those evidence technicians and those lab geeks — every one of them could be used in an effort to convict you.

What do you, the defendant, have? A defense attorney. Maybe an investigator, if you’re lucky. If you’ve got money, you can hire a team of defense lawyers and investigators, but you’ll never have anything like the resources available to the prosecutor. Still, if you’ve got money you’re in significantly better shape than somebody who’s poor. If you’re poor and accused of a crime, brother you’re in serious trouble. And it’s getting worse.

Darryl Burton - wrongfully convicted of murder; served 23 years

Darryl Burton – wrongfully convicted of murder; served 24 years

This is where our boy Clarence Earl Gideon comes into it. He was born in 1910, in Mark Twain’s old hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. Gideon was basically Huck Finn without the charm. He quit school in the 8th grade and ran away from home. He was a petty thief for much of his life. He did time in Missouri, Kansas, and Texas — mostly for minor larcenies. He moved to Florida in the late 1950s. In 1961 the owner of the Bay Harbor Pool Room noticed that five dollars in change and a couple of bottles of beer were missing from his fine billiards establishment. A witness said he saw Gideon leave the pool hall with a bottle of wine and bulging pockets.

Gideon, with his history of theft, was arrested and prosecuted. Since he had no money for a lawyer, he had to defend himself in court. He asked the judge if he could have a lawyer to help him. The judge said no. Gideon was convicted, of course, and sentenced to five years in prison. He was 50 years old at the time.

Clarence Earl Gideon

While in prison, Gideon began reading about the legal system. Among the things he read was the Bill of Rights — specifically the 6th Amendment, which includes this:

…the accused shall enjoy the right to…the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Gideon wrote the FBI, essentially saying “Dude, I didn’t get any of that assistance of counsel stuff.” The FBI wrote back saying, “Well, that’s a shame. Sorry.” Gideon wrote the Supreme Court of Florida. “Dude, that assistance of counsel business? I didn’t get any of that.” The Supreme Court of Florida wrote back. “No, really? It sucks to be you.” Finally Gideon wrote to the Supreme Court of the United States. “Seriously guys, no assistance of counsel. WTF?” The Supreme Court wrote back. “Yo, Clarence, tell us all about it.”

Think of how remarkable that is. An uneducated prison inmate sent a hand-written (in pencil, no less) request to the highest court in the land, asking for justice — and they listened. More importantly, they acted.

Alan Northrop – wrongfully convicted of rape; served 17 years

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s unanimous verdict in the case of Gideon v. Wainwright (Louie Wainwright was the director of the Florida Division of Corrections). That ruling changed the way criminal law was practiced in the United States. Gideon said you had the right to an attorney, Miranda said the police had to tell you about that right. Every time you watch a cop show on television and hear “You have the right to an attorney; if you can’t afford one, one will be appointed for you,” you can thank Clarence Earl Gideon.

In principle, the Gideon decision guaranteed that every person accused of a crime had the right to be represented by competent counsel. Justice Hugo Black wrote:

Reason and reflection require us to recognize that, in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided to him.

What Justice Black failed to consider is that ‘reason and reflection’ generally get kicked in the ditch by politics. In theory, the law may require poor folks be given a competent attorney. Of course, in theory the police and prosecutors always arrest and prosecute the guilty party. Theory, like ‘reason and reflection,’ tends to end up bloody and confused in the ditch.

George Allen, Jr. – wrongfully convicted of rape/murder; served 30 years

A half century after Gideon, the entire indigent defense system is pretty much fucked up and getting worse. The system has never been adequately funded (paying lawyers to represent poor folks has never been a very high priority), but in this era of drastic cuts in state budgets, indigent defense funding it getting it in the neck.

Remember, some of these people are innocent. Greg Bright, the man in the first photograph, was convicted of murder based on the testimony of one eyewitness who claimed to have seen the crime from her apartment window. If the defense had had the resources to hire an investigator, they’d have found the witness had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, had a history of visual and auditory hallucinations, was a heroin addict, and lived in an apartment that didn’t overlook the crime scene. One day of competent investigating would have saved Greg Bright 27 years of prison.

Here’s the really scary part: Bright was convicted at a time when indigent defense had better funding than it has now. The reality is that if you’re poor and you get arrested and charged with a crime, you’re not very much better off today than Clarence Earl Gideon was fifty years ago.

fed up

Posted on March 11, 2013 by greg

This evening a small town in Maine will vote on an ordinance requiring “all households to have firearms and ammunitions to protect the citizens.”

We’re talking about Byron, Maine. Population about 140. You may be asking yourself why such a small town in rural Maine needs an ordinance requiring their citizens to own a firearm. Simple. According to Head Selectman Anne Simmons-Edmunds.

“We’re fed up.”

What are they fed up about? They’re fed up about the government telling them what to do. You may be asking yourself “Isn’t the Head Selectman a member of the government, and isn’t this ordinance an example of the government telling them what to do?”

Anne Simmons-Edwards (center) with other Byron Selectmen

Silly rabbit. It’s the Federal government they’re worried about. You know…Uncle Sugar. The Big Tuna in Washington, D.C. That government. The one with the negro who’s secretly planning to take all the guns away from the 140 good people living in Byron, Maine.

We’re trying to prevent someone from coming into our town and trying to restrict our rights. It’s time to tell the government, ‘Enough’s enough. Quit micromanaging us.’

No wonder they’re fed up. Micromanaging is a matter best left to the individual state. Everybody knows that.

Of course, in 2011 the Maine legislature passed a law barring municipalities from adopting firearm regulations. So legally, any ordinance requiring the 140 good people of Byron to own a gun wouldn’t have any legal standing.

So maybe micromanaging is a matter best left to local governments. Sure, that’s got to be it. The State or Federal government can’t just force people to do something they don’t want to do. That’s the job of the local government. Besides, who could possibly object to owning a gun?

Bruce Simmons & his ,40 caliber friend

To be fair to Ms. Simmons-Edmunds (who is not only Byron’s Head Selectman, but also serves as a police officer in semi-nearby Dixville and as an animal control officer for both Dixville and Mexico — the small town in Maine, not the independent nation found somewhere south of Texas) and the other Byron Selectmen, the local ordinance wasn’t entirely their idea. It was proposed by former Byron Selectman Bruce Simmons (why yes, he is Ms. Simmons-Edmunds’ father). His reasoning?

“The president, in January of last year, passed an executive order giving Homeland Security the right to go into your house, grab you without a warrant and take you away. And no one will ever see you again.”

There you go. Nobody wants to be taken away and never seen again. Sadly, Simmons couldn’t identify that executive order, but he’s pretty certain it exists. Therefore it’s critically important for the good people of Byron to be required to have firearms AND ammunition in their homes in order to defend themselves from being taken away and never seen again.

Sure, you scoff. But it’s a real danger. The good people of Byron are at risk of being taken away and never seen again because they own guns, and the negro in the White House wants to take away their guns. So of course, they need to mandate owning a gun in order to keep the government from taking away their…no, wait. Okay, they need to have guns because if they didn’t have guns, then Homeland Security would…no, wait. If they didn’t have guns, then Homeland Security wouldn’t…no, that can’t be right either.

I don’t know. Shut up. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the 140 good people of Byron, Maine are fed up. And what do you need more than anything else when you’re fed up? Guns and ammunition.

Who can argue with that?

hellish world

Posted on March 7, 2013 by greg

Yesterday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the proposed ban of some assault-style weapons, Senator Lindsey Graham conjured up the NRA’s most popular nightmare scenario. He asked Attorney General Eric Holder to imagine:

[A] lawless environment where you have a natural disaster or some catastrophic event and those things, unfortunately, do happen. And law and order breaks down because the police can’t travel, there’s no communication. And there are armed gangs roaming around neighborhoods. Can you envision a situation where if your home happens to be in the cross-hairs of this group that a better self-defense weapon may be a semiautomatic AR-15 versus a double-barrel shotgun?

Holder politely pointed out that his example posed a purely a hypothetical situation. To which Graham replied:

Well, I’m afraid that world does exist. I think it existed in New Orleans, to some exist in Long Island, it could exist tomorrow if there’s a cyber attack against the country and the power grid goes down and the dams are released and chemical plants are discharges…

Graham may think it existed, but he’s wrong. No, it didn’t happen on Long Island after Hurricane Sandy. And no, it didn’t happen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. There was looting of commercial areas during each of those natural disasters, to be sure. Grocery stores and convenience stores were hard hit, as were shops selling electronic goods. Gun shops were also looted, as were stores selling high-end sneakers.

But armed gangs roaming around neighborhoods targeting individual homes? Nope, just didn’t happen.

Senator Lindsey Graham crushing an imaginary zombie’s skull

Could it happen? Sure, anything is possible. IF the power grid goes down and IF the dams burst and IF all the chemical and nuclear plants all go haywire and IF society totally collapses, then after every downtown shop and store has been looted, and after every strip mall has been looted, and after every suburban corner convenience store has been looted, then I suppose armed mobs might start roaming neighborhoods and invading individual homes. But that’s a scenario from a zombie apocalypse, not a logical basis for implementing public policy.

Nevertheless, that’s the argument the NRA keeps making and so it’s the argument offered by Lindsey Graham and other Republicans. Compare Graham’s comments to those of Wayne LaPierre:

After Hurricane Sandy, we saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia. Looters ran wild in south Brooklyn. There was no food, water or electricity. And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not get home at all.

It doesn’t matter that this “hellish world” didn’t exist. The NRA wants you to believe it did in the hope that 1) you’ll buy more guns and 2) you’ll buy still more guns.

What Lindsey Graham wants you to believe could happen in your neighborhood

It’s all about fear, isn’t it. Fear that somebody somewhere wants what you have, and is willing — even eager — to take it by violence. Fear that a segment of the population is just waiting and hoping for some sort of disaster to strike so they can take your stuff. Research has shown that fear of social disorder is related to fear of dark-skinned people, so basically the fear Graham and the NRA want you to experience is the fear that minorities will come to a white neighborhood and fuck things up.

What’s more likely to happen in your neighborhood

Here’s a true thing: civil disorder following a sporting event takes place more often than civil disorder after a natural disaster. The photograph above was taken in 2011, in Vancouver, British Columbia after the Canucks lost the seventh game of the Stanley Cup to the Bruins. This was in Canada, people. This happened in the most civil and polite nation on the entire fucking planet. Almost a hundred and twenty people were arrested during and after the riot — nearly three times the number of people arrested following Hurricane Sandy.

There are, in my opinion, some valid arguments to be made against the assault-style weapons ban. But self-defense and home protection in the event of civil disorder isn’t one of them.

You want to deter people from breaking into your home? You want to keep your family safe from intruders? Buy a dog with a loud bark. Better yet, go to the local animal shelter and adopt one. A dog will offer more protection and be more reliable than an firearm. And it will love you without reservation. Ain’t no gun will do that.

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