While I'm ecstatic to see the unanimous opinions of the Supreme Court supporting individual rights, the question remains: how far and deep will the effects be felt?

Does it mean we'll see every gun regulation on the books wiped tomorrow? I'd love to be able to order guns from a catalog. I should be able to buy a silencer for $100 so I don't have to worry so much about my hearing. Drop-in auto sears should be $20 and legal.

In short, I should be allowed to own whatever I want, and I should not have to justify it to the government. That's the way our system was intended to work.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Continued »

Oral arguments in DC vs. Heller took place this morning, and though the Supreme Court may not have made up their minds, their inclinations seem quite clear:

(…) the right to keep and bear–I'm sorry. It's one right: to keep and bear, not two rights, to keep and to bear.

Justice Stevens to General Clement, DC vs. Heller, Oral Arguments 03/18/08, p. 38

Audio has been released and is streaming (rm) from CSPAN. A transcript (pdf) is available here.

Continued »

I received my hardcopy of this today. I splurged and ordered the limited-edition, which has a second disc entitled, Quaristice (Versions).

I expected the second disc to be a set of one-off remixes, but it turned out to be quite different. To put it bluntly, this is the record Quaristice should have been.

My primary complaint with the album was that the individual pieces were too short, and that it lacked a sense of overaching structure. That's not the case here.

Eleven tracks from the album proper are represented, reworked and expanded. In almost every case, they benefit tremendously. While Quaristice felt like it had quite a bit of filler, this disc seems both more disciplined and better developed.

Continued »

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

The Supreme Court will hear DC vs. Heller starting at 10:00AM on March 18th. Petitioner and Respondents will each have 30 minutes to make their arguments.

What's interesting is that they will be releasing the audio of the proceedings (Souter has forbidden video cameras in the courtroom) on the same day. Check with Oyez, where it should be available for download.

If you're just tuning in, 31 state-level Attorney Generals have filed a brief [pdf] in support of individual rights, and Dick Cheney has signed on to Congress' brief, indirectly breaking ranks with the President, who'd tasked Solicitor General Clement to call for "closer scrutiny" in the Court's deliberations.

It's somewhat disappointing that Clement will get 15 minutes to argue his point, irrespective of the time limits imposed on Petitioner and Respondent.

But, I guess that's politics. Still, we've now got 46 briefs in our corner, while supporters of the DC ban have 20.

Continued »

As of today, their FFL is renewed:

License Number:
1-54-XXX-XX-XX-00725

Expiration Date:
03/01/2011

License Name:
SUGARMANN, JOSHUA ALAN

Premise Address:
1730 RHODE ISLAND AVE NW #1014
WASHINGTON
DC – 20036

I received a message back from Lee Brown at the Virginia office. The reason it took the ATF so long to get back to me is that there are no FFLs registered in Washington DC, and my query had to be transferred to the Virginia office (the 154 prefix is for VA, 158 is GA).

It is effectively impossible to get an FFL in DC. DC Code Ann. §§ 7-2502.01-7-2506.01 bans possession, sale, transfer, manufacture, purchase or repair of handguns, and it is forbidden to sell ammunition within the District. I'm trying to find the relevant statutes, but you must have a "retail dealer" license to sell any goods in DC, and no license can be given for selling things that are banned.

It is possible that he stores the weapons off site in Virginia, and I am checking the validity of that.

Continued »

First, the good news. Neil Gaiman reads this site, which is really quite a compliment, since the man is one of my favorite authors.

He's worked in several genres, but I first came across his work when he was collaborating with Dave McKean in the classic Sandman series. The two did several books together, my favorite being the strange and moving Mr. Punch. He collaborated with Terry Pratchett in Good Omens, and he's written several great novels, including American Gods.

William Gibson, one of the defining authors of the "cyberpunk" movement and author of the classic Neuromancer, also reads here.

I'm also referenced on this very odd site. I'm not sure what's going on, but the idea that ninjas may be acting on an extraterrestrial level certainly gives me pause.

Continued »

Everyone who's been abroad has seen the Ugly American. They're tourists. They flaunt the local laws, they mock any customs they don't bring with them, and they get offended because not everybody in the world speaks English.

Then they throw a self-righteous hissy fit because their rudeness doesn't get rewarded.

The good news is, you don't have to travel to a foreign country to see this animal in the wild. You just have to take a look at what the gun culture has turned into right here at home.

If you're new to it, great. Welcome aboard. Bear in mind, you're entering a culture with roots and customs going back several centuries. We've got rules, they're important, and not following them could get someone hurt of killed.

We're a bit sensitive about that sort of thing, as you could imagine.

Continued »

While the Left is trying their best to assure the Supreme Court that the 2nd Amendment only speaks to States' relations with the Federal government, I thought I'd include the Founders' thoughts on the matter.

"(…) and that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms."

Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, August 20, 1789 quoting Propositions submitted to the Convention of this State by the Honorable Samuel Adams, Esquire.

Continued »

The smoke hadn't even cleared from Steven Kazmierczak's massacre before the Brady Campaign and VPC started using it as a springboard for their agenda. Both groups blamed supposedly lax firearms laws for the shooting.

What they failed to mention is that Illinois has some of the strictest laws in the country when it comes to guns.

You want a waiting period? Illinois has one. It's 72 hours for handguns. You want all sales registered? They've got that. Individual cities can (and do) ban guns. In fact, it's virtually impossible to transport a gun across the state without running afoul of one local ordinance or another. They've closed the fictional "gun show loophole," and the state does not have any provision for civilian carry of firearms, concealed or otherwise.

Continued »

There's really nothing special about this record, except for the fact that it's stunningly good. In itself, that's quite daring these days.

If you're making electronic music, it seems you need a manifesto of sorts. The whole scene is fractured into more subgenres than anyone could track, each with its own set of rules and practices.

Take the early glitch-hop work of Prefuse 73, the micromanaged chaos of Autechre, or the gliding layers of guitar loops in Fennesz. An artist is known for their techniques as much as they are their sound. The whole thing is an unremitting, steely-eyed march forward, sometimes at the expense of making music that's simply enjoyable on a basic level.

You can't get away with just making good music; you've got to be doing something revolutionary. And sometimes that gets just a bit tiring.

Continued »

Josh Sugarmann, director of the Violence Policy Center (VPC) has a Federal Firearms License (FFL). This is the same guy who raised fees on FFL applications and drove home dealers out of business, claiming

The FFL is a public safety scandal created by the very agency charged with enforcing federal firearms laws. By giving a federal gun-dealing license to virtually anyone who can come up with $30 and isn’t a convicted felon, ATF has put criminals in the business of selling guns.

Yet, according to the BATFE database, Sugarmann has held an FFL for at least a dozen years.

Continued »

They save me from wading through nuggets of wisdom like this, from akryr@hotmail.com:

WTF?!?!! I try to register on your site but it doesn't work…98% of the world uses Explorer, so get over it LOL! It's only like 10% use Firefox!

No, really. Some people really have nothing better to do with their time. This is why I don't cater to IE on the site. It just brings out the worst in people. To those who insist on using it, I have only one thing to say:

perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'