Posse Incitatus

Love the earth? Buy a gun

The Freep has an interesting and surprisingly unbiased article about how increased sales of firearms and ammunition is netting Michigan a huge revenue windfall.

Of course the Posse has been following the bullet bubble for some time, but this does point out something that most (non-rural) people don’t know:  Hunters are great for the environment.

Both hunting and fishing improve wildlife habitat and therefore the environment as a whole.  The direct benefit is of course to limit the wildlife population and thus preventing destructive overgrazing (not to mention vehicle collisions).  But taking a deer, rabbit or other animal does more than thin the population: it also provides food.

Each wild animal that we remove from the wild means less reliance on commercial animal production, which also puts an increasing strain on the environment.  It’s a win-win:  one less deer in the woods = one less potential accident = less need for commercial meat production.

Want to reduce your carbon footprint?  Eat a deer. [Note: I could care less about carbon, but it is fun to turn the environmental arguments against themselves.)

Call this the direct benefit.

The article outlines the indirect benefits: money for habitat preservation and restoration.  Anyone who has ever bought a license and wandered Michigan’s fields and lakes knows that sportsmen have always been outstanding practical environmentalists.  If the water is fouled or the ground polluted, game animals can’t flourish.  Conservationists (which means an environmentalist with a brain) get this.

Moreover, they develop a love of nature and the environment that is personalized and realistic.  Most environmentalists love the earth only in the abstract – they have no real tie to it.  They think animal frolic and play and that without Man, there would be no suffering or hardship.  The notion that life in the wild is a constant struggle to them – “red in tooth and claw” is entirely alien.

With Christmas approaching, we'd like our readers to share how they are going to help the earth.  What piece are you buying?  I'll get things rolling by announcing that I recently purchased a vintage Sig Sauer P226 to be featured in a gun review shortly.

What are you getting?  You are getting a new gun, right?  You do love the earth, right?

 

End the college victim zones

The gun rights front has been somewhat quiet in Michigan of late, which is both good and bad. On the plus side, the gun controllers are no longer making noises about repealing the shall-issue law.

On the downside, there are still several reforms that need to be implemented. One of the foremost would be scrapping the stupid and wasteful pistol registry.

Even more importantly, though, we need to get rid of Michigan’s Victim Zones. These are state-designated areas where concealed pistol licensees can’t carry. These are essentially game preserves for homicidal maniacs looking at creating a new body-count record.

The Fort Hood massacre should have made it clear to everyone that banning guns from specific areas doesn’t make them safer. If a sprawling military base packed with combat veterans and ringed with layers of security can’t stop a shooter, a putting a sign on a movie theater or college campus classroom won’t do it, either.

State Sen. Randy Richardville introduced a bill in August to end the campus prohibition. Good for him. But the bill needs to go farther. All of the exclusions should be removed.

If private property owners wish to establish their own Victim Zones, they have the right to do so, provided they post it. They should also bear liability costs for any loss or injury resulting therefrom. This would also allow the public the right to “vote with their feet” and go to other venues.

Michigan has had shall-issue for years and the random, crazy “wild-west” shootouts predicted by the gun control lobby simply haven’t happened. There is no reason to believe that they will if more of the state is opened up to trained, law-abiding citizens who wish only to defend themselves.

For those that are interested, the hearing on Senate Bill 0747 will take place on Tuesday, Dec. 8 at 1 p.m. in room 210 of the Farnum Building, which is the Senate office building across from Lansing’s tallest building (used to be call the Michigan National Tower, but the name has changed a couple of times since then). Anyhow, show up and voice your support and maybe we’ll make Michigan safer.

The Freep: last refuge of the dinosaur liberal

When I saw the title of this Detroit Free Press editorial, I thought: "Maybe the Freep editorial board will surprise me - maybe they've figured it out."

Of course not.

Read the whole thing and notice the use of charts and graphs to buttress their case that the only way Michigan can get back on track is to raise taxes.

You see, if only we had a graduated income tax, say like California or New Jersey, our revenue problems would be solved!

How do we know this?  Why a liberal lobby group says so!

The Michigan League for Human Services calculated that creating a three-tier tax (3.9% under $20,000, 4.35% to $60,000, $6.9% above $60,000 for single filers) would raise $600 million in additional taxes. The current flat rate is 4.35%.

Sure that would happen.  Once.  And then, as the punitive effect of the tax rate took hold, rich people would start to leave the state.  Tax revenues would decline and our state would be even poorer.

This is already what is going on.

If one examines those colorful graphs, the story they tell is a compelling one, but not for the reasons the Freep editorial board thinks it is.

Income inequality is growing because people are unemployed.  The way to stop this is to get the unemployed people jobs, not punish those that still have them.

Seriously, you would think that at some point these folks would get a clue - that they would be capable of thinking one step beyond their theory to what someone would actually do once taxes go up:  earn less or leave.  Indiana would be happy to have them.

Look at that proposal again: it imposes a 3-percent pay cut on "rich people" who earn more than $60,000.  Three percent.  So if you earn that magic $60,000, you get to see your pay cut by $1,800.  Yeah, that will stimulate economic growth.

Look at that another way:  If you make over $60,000 and move to Indiana, you get a 3 percent pay raise.  I could stand being a Hoosier.

Of course, not everyone can pack up and leave.  Only the wealthiest - i.e. the people we need to tax the most - can go.  So they will, leaving the state with less people and less wealth.

What makes this even more amazing is that we already tried this - and guess what?  Well, I'll let the editorial speak for itself:

Except for 2008, when the income tax was restored almost to the 1990s rate, no year has matched 2000.

That's right: we raised taxes and revenues fell.  The Freep's bold idea:  Do it again, only bigger!

Somewhere, maybe in the reptilian part of their brains, liberals understand that if you tax a behavior, you get less of it.  This is why they love "sin" taxes on beer and cigarettes. 

"Why people shouldn't smoke and should drink less, so if taxing reduces these things, it is a social good."  Liberals understand this argument, and use it all the time.

The same thing applies to economic activity.  If you tax it,  you get less of it.  Yet liberals can't seem to make the connection.

I note that the editorial correctly notes that Michigan will have to amend its Constitution to make this change.  I also note that they omit mentioning the previous attempt to change the Constitution in favor of locking in pay increases for teachers (euphemistically known as "education funding") went down in flames.

The ruin of Michigan

Last week I found myself in the City of Flint. For those not from Michigan, Flint is like Detroit without the charm. Flint was basically a factory town from its beginning – it lacks the fine old Victorian architecture that redeems many of the other crumbling rust belt towns. Flint is essentially a vast expanse of weedy tract housing and decaying factories.

To be sure, there are nice neighborhoods on the outskirts, but as one nears the urban core, there is a steady progression of insecurity. The houses tell the tale.

First they start boasting chain link fences and “Beware of Dog” signs. The storm doors on the front of the house are reinforced with a heavy lock.

Then bars start appearing on the windows. Finally, there are no windows – the houses are derelict.

You know you are in a tough neighborhood when the churches have bars on the windows and their parking lots are surrounded with razor-wire fences. That’s Flint.

I was reminded of that when I saw this article in the Detroit Free Press. The old Packard plant, abandoned for decades, periodically gets set on fire. It is now so  structurally unsound that firefighters can only venture inside during daylight hours.

It says something about the priorities of government when they allow ruins like this to decay for decades and do nothing about them. This goes beyond “broken windows” policing - it’s ‘broken cities’ territory.

And it is why we have languished.

We in the Great Lakes State got fat, fat off of decades of affluence. We seriously believed that we could give our children high-school educations and then send them to the factory, where they would make $50,000 a year plus overtime for 30 years, after which they’d get lifetime health benefits.

It really was a paradise, and even those who didn’t work directly for the industry benefitted. The state’s coffers were flush with business taxes. We thought of ingenious ways to tax the heavy industries here: we taxed their payrolls, the health benefits they paid out, the property they owned, the machinery they operated and (of course) the products that they sold.

From this largesse we built a mighty edifice of government: village, township, city and county – they all grew plump on our prosperity. Some of our cities even created their own income taxes – so they could afford fleets of cars, cushy benefits, comfy retirements.

In the end, it was all a dream. As the academics like to say: trends that can’t be sustained won’t.

We let our ruins pile up for years and ignored them. During the 1990s boom, the decay in the urban core deepened, but everyone moved to the ‘burbs and ignored it. Now it’s spreading and we don’t have the money to deal with it.

Something’s got to give – we cannot go on as we have. I expect nothing from Governor Granholm. She’s had six years to do something and all she has accomplished is sound bites and tax hikes. She got elected expecting to do what she did as the Attorney General: hold news conferences and announce sweeping projects that everyone felt good about but never followed up on.

No, it will be up to the next governor to pick through the wreckage and find a new direction. There is a lot of ruin in a state, and Michigan has more than most.

Just drive to Detroit and see.

So much for GM

Count me among the masses that have zero confidence in Government Motors.  I actually come from a GM family - three generations worth.

Not any more.  I don't know if my cousin's husband was one of the lucky ones to be "restructured" out of a job, but the company is dead to me.  Soon it will be dead, period, though not before it sucks down a huge amount of taxpayer money.

Needless to say, it didn't need to be this way.  If GM had gone the conventional route, it would have kept its board, its leadership and its bondholders would have gotten a lot more money.  Moreover, it would have been independent.  Now it is a government patronage gig, divorced from the market or conventional accountability.  Who elects the management?  Does the CEO have to be confirmed by the Senate?  Nope, it's just like the old Imperial Provinces - subject to Caesar and Caesar alone.

Just when Michigan thought it might finally come out of the crapper, we got flushed down again.

A gun control learning curve?

We've been somewhat pessimistic about whether the Obama administration is foolish enough to push gun control, but this column by the Wall Street Journal gives us renewed hope:

No fewer than 27 Democrats voted for Mr. Coburn's amendment [to allow loaded firearms in federal parks], and the ayes included Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is up for re-election in Nevada next year.

It's not much, but we'll take it.

Meanwhile, closer to home, Michigan's gun laws got a little more sensible.  Public Acts 194, 195, and 196 of 2007 remove the requirement that pistols purchased in Michigan be physically inspected by local law enforcement.  It is now sufficient to mail the forms in.  This is an improvement, though given our current budget crisis, it seems a good time to simply eliminate the worthless pistol registry outright.

Still, if a heavily Democrat House and Democrat Governor (who, lest anyone forget, originally vowed to overturn Michigan's shall-issue concealed carry law by ballot initiative) will sign on to this, it is indicative that gun control isn't viewed as a winning issue even in a rapidly bluing state like Michigan.

This is not to suggest that we should become complacent.  As the WSJ article indicate, gun control is still a deeply held value for the liberal Democrat leadership in Washington.  No, our goal should ultimately be to achieve such a consensus in favor of gun rights that the issue disappears altogether -after the gun control laws have been repealed, of course.

Wherein the Posse eats a steaming plate of crow

I have a heaping plate of crow before me. I shall do the honorable thing, and dig in.

The speed with which this administration has struggled to repeat every Democrat mistake has caught me completely by surprise.

Here we are in April and we’ve already combined the foreign policy of Jimmy Carter, the spending of LBJ and now the paranoia of Bill Clinton.

One of the curious inconsistencies of liberalism is the way it treats hostile regimes with such patience and deference whilst giving loyal Americans nothing but contempt.

It is quite simply impossible to imagine such a strongly-worded report being issued against the actual enemies of the United States – Cuba, Iran, North Korea or Al Qaeda and militant Islam.

I cannot even conceive of an Obama administration document calling on increased scrutiny towards Saudi-funded mosques or illegal border crossings from Mexico.

Yet courageous combat veterans? Why they are nut jobs just waiting to explode. Gotta watch ‘em carefully.

I wonder if the liberals who now run Homeland Security are aware that this kind of nonsense creates a self-fulfilling prophesy: By treating innocent citizens as terrorists, you encourage them to become criminals.

For the past seven years I’ve heard nothing but hysteria about how BusHitlerEnronCorp was creating a national security dictatorship. I guess blithering idiots like Andrew Sullivan are now doing a big “I told you so,” about this DHS memo, which is not only untrue, but utterly ludicrous.

After all, Wasn’t Barack Obama – the Law Professor, the Civil Libertarian, the Good Democrat – wasn’t he the one who was going to dismantle this police state? Sorry, you don’t get to the Nelson ‘ha-ha’ simply because your guy turns into a hypocrite.

All of this brings me to the inevitable feast of crow. I was wrong.

I honestly thought that a consensus of common sense had emerged about gun control even amongst the Democrats. I thought “Hey, if true liberals like Gov. Jennifer Granholm aren’t pushing this, it’s got to be a dead issue.”

Granholm, you will recall, was the state attorney general (and obvious governor-in-waiting) when Michigan passed its shall-issue law. She organized the opposition and even pledged to mount a ballot initiative to overturn it, but wavered in the face of public support.

When July 1, 2002 rolled around and gun violence actually dropped, the public literally reversed itself on the issue. That is, support for shall-issue went from 35 percent in favor and 55 percent opposed to 55 percent in favor and 35 percent opposed.

As governor, she signed a mourning dove hunting bill and then strengthened the Castle Doctrine. Again, if she thought there was anything to be gained from gun control, she would have pushed it here. She didn’t – and she’s not exactly a political genius.

But Obama seems to have completely missed the bright flashing billboard erected by Bill Clinton and Al Gore which reads “PUSH GUN CONTROL AND YOU WILL LOSE CONGRESS.”

I was complacent. I admit it. I had things to do, kids to spend time with, a wife I adore and basically Better Things To Do. With the kids being so small, getting time to go to the range was difficult. Firearms purchases fell below things like getting the plumbing fixed or buying a bike for the Junior Posse Members.

Now I see my folly. Friday, I went to the Novi Gun show and was amazed.

Prices are high. Michigan is in a deep trough, the worse economic funk since I was a wee lad and we don’t have Reagan to help pull us out of it. Yet gun prices are high, really high. There were a ton of people there for a Good Friday, and the NRA was doing brisk business.

The Posse therefore rededicates itself to more gun blogging – more advocacy, more common sense to refute the lies of the gun control crowd and more gun reviews.

Crime, punishment and the Era of Obama

Over at Ann Althouse's blog, there's a post about how British officials are just beginning to figure out that home burglary is a serious crime.

In the comments,a self-identified Democrat tries to make the argument that the burglary rate in the US is actually higher than that in the UK, and therefore Americans are hardly ones to criticize.

Unfortunately for him, the numbers don't back up what he says.  The FBI page he links to has the following chart which gives US residential burglaries as 42,324 - quite a bit short of the 280,000 which occurred in a nation with 1/5 of our population.  When this is pointed out, he quits the field.

Elsewhere in the comments, there are some shots taken (metaphorically of course) against the Obama administration and the looming prospect of gun control in the US.  This is supposed to happen because the Dems control Congress and, on Tuesday, the presidency.

While I am not one to take threats to liberty lightly, in this case I think the fears of 2nd Amendment supporters are (mostly) unfounded.  I believe this for several reasons.

1.  The Dems aren't suicidal.  Their leadership is hard left, but the rank and file of the party now understands that guns cost them control of Congress 14 years ago.  The Democrats gained control by winning marginal and conservative-leaning districts.  Gun control - which is about as unpopular as it has been in 30 years - will cost them many of these new seats.

2.  The debate has shifted.  Michigan is circling the drain right now, and is piling tax upon regulation in an effort to drive all jobs from the state.  Even so, gun control is dead here.  Gov. Jennifer Granholm hasn't lifted a finger against guns, and since her administration began, the "Castle Doctrine" has been enshrined as the law of the state.  The duty to retreat when attacked has also been eliminated.

If a state like Michigan - which is increasingly under the heel of the Democrat boot - isn't pushing gun control, you know it must be a dead issue.

3.  Obama isn't suicidal.  He wants to have two terms.  He wants to be popular.  Pushing gun control could cost him North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, as well as Congress. 

4.  Obama has nothing invested in it.  As a newcomer to the political scene, he doesn't have that much invested in gun control (or much of anything, honestly).  Personally, the man is an enigma wrapped in a mystery shrouding opportunism. 

5.  The Supreme Court made it almost impossible.  Yes, the feds can play regulatory games, but the courts are no longer the slam dunk that they were pre-Keller.

I also think that the Obama is going to feel personally pressured not to appear soft on crime, that as the First Black President, he's keenly aware of the stereotypes of black politicians being soft or tolerant of crime.  He does not want to be the "hip-hop" president, or a federal version of Kwame Kilpatrick.  While he addended a Black Nationalist church, he is every inch a liberal bourgeois bohemian.  The current print edition of Wine Enthusiast (which which sithkitten subscribes) has him on the cover and highlights his "1,000 bottle home wine cellar."  He's not exactly living the Thug Life.

Indeed, he's more comfortable in a country club than most Republicans.

Thus, as a propertied man with propertied friends, crime is not something he's going to take lightly.

I am still anxious about what he will do, but on the question of gun rights, I don't think he will be much of a threat.

Let them sink

The Posse is probably one of the few voices in Michigan that thinks the bailout of the Big Three is a stupid idea.

For eight years, this state has sat spinning its wheels, hoping that somehow the clock would turn back.  It won't.

Michigan was once an industrial powerhouse, a state that dominated world production of iron ore, copper and automobiles.  We did that based on the inherent advantages of our state: natural resources, water and rail communications, and of course the organizing genius of our industrial leaders.

We've been coasting on Henry Ford's handy work for 40 years.  Enough already.

What is needed is some creative destruction, a reinvention of the industries we have and an embrace of new ones.

Yet Michigan's leadership has basically decided to emulate Herbert Hoover: erect trade barriers, raise taxes and hope for better days.

This bailout is just more of the same - a desperate effort to preserve an unsustainable status quo.  It won't work.

The Big Three are in fact too big to fail - they have too much value to be dismantled and destroyed.  What they need is a wide-ranging reorganization, something that can only happen if they go bankrupt.

Let them go.

Farewell, Kwame

Amidst the swoon over Sarah Palin's speech (I'm watching it on YouTube, seems pretty good), folks may have overlooked that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has finally copped a plea and will resign.

Kilpatrick's story is a true tragedy.  He had every advantage, and had he shown any sort of restraint, he might have gone far.  Alas, like the hero of a Greek tragedy, his hubris was his downfall.

What makes this even more of a tragedy is that it could have ended in March.  Had Governor Granholm actually been willing to make a decision, this whole sordid affair would have been over months ago.  A new administration would be in place, and Detroit could finally limp forward.

Alas, if there is one characteristic of the Granholm administration, it is that it avoids making decisions as long as possible.  To be sure, politics was a large part of her reluctance, which only makes it more pathetic.  For six long months we've had the mayor of our largest city serve as a worldwide laughing stock.  The state unemployment rate is moving into double digits, and yet we're told that the movie industry, or or maybe "cool cities," or some other gimmick will turn things around.

[Remember, this is a woman who said that Michigan needed to produce the "next Google," apparently unaware that both of Google's founders attended that one school in Ann Arbor.  They knew Michigan's business climate all too well.]

Michigan is a purple state, arguably bluer than it was four years ago since so many of the people interested in working have left.  Yet in this strangest of campaign years, it may go red simply because there aren't a lot of other options.  Kwame's gone, and with that bit of drama winding down, people may finally notice that raising taxes hasn't jump-started the state economy, nor has it even balanced the budget. 

Hopefully McCain will make that point when he visits.

In the meantime, Kwame will be cooling his heels in the county jail.  The "Hip-Hop Mayor" will have become just another thug.