USA First

September 28 2011

Today, after several years of legal maneuvering, the Oregon Appeals Court decided that the rules the Oregon University System has had in place to ban lawful carry of firearms on their property are invalid.

The opinion ( http://oregonfirearms.org/pdfs/ousvsofef.pdf ) reaffirmed what we have always held to be true. The law is the law.

This is a very important day for gun rights in Oregon. Our Educational Foundation brought this suit ( http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2009/08/gun_rights_advocates_sue_over.html )after Jeffery Maxwell, a Marine Corps veteran, was unlawfully arrested on the campus of Western Oregon University while in possession of a handgun for which he had an Oregon concealed handgun license.

WOU’s outrageous abuses of Maxwell are well documented, and now we have at least some vindication.

Looking at the response ( http://oregonfirearms.org/pdfs/Chancellor%27sStatement.pdf )of the school system, it is clear that they will do all in their power to circumvent the decision of the court, and we are confident that this battle is by no means over. But today’s ruling is clearly a victory for gun owners, a victory for the Oregon Firearms Educational Foundation, and most of all, a victory for every one of you who stood by us, and, by your extraordinary generosity, allowed us to see this through. To each of you, we offer our thanks and gratitude.

Of course, there will be the predictable response by some of the more extreme anti-rights politicians, so we need to prepare for the up coming battles, but for now, congratulate yourselves on a hard-earned victory.

We also want to thank those in the legislature who stood up for the rights of Oregonians as this issue played out.

Below is the most important part of today’s decision.

Although the State Board of Higher Education is an arm of the state, it is not the Legislative Assembly. And while, as noted, the State Board of Higher Education has general authority to control and manage its property, ORS 351.060, and to enact administrative rules, ORS 351.070(4)(b), no argument can be reasonably made that OAR 580-022-0045(3)–which regulates the very subject expressly preempted by ORS 166.170(1)–was “expressly authorized” by the Legislative Assembly. See ORS 166.170(1). Therefore, we conclude that OAR 580-022-0045(3) is an exercise of an “authority to regulate” firearms that is not expressly authorized by the Legislative Assembly, and that it is preempted by ORS 166.170(1).1 Accordingly, the rule exceeds the agency’s authority, ORS 183.400(4)(b), and is invalid.

OAR 580-022-0045(3) held invalid.

http://oregonfirearms.org/alertspage/2011/09.28.11%20ous.html

In light of a recent poll showing America’s distrust of the national media, I thought I would pick a topic for a case study. What better topical study is there when exploring the media’s methods and concerns than with the Tea Party?

My approach was simple. I took data from 2010 and up to this point in 2011 based off key word searches in Google. For example, In 2010 I searched “Tea Party and racists” and pulled the number given from its search engine. On a positive side, as you can see from the chart, spending was a major keyword associated with the Tea Party in 2010. My, though, how the change a year makes.

In 2011, the tea party/racists word association climbed to over one million results, an increase from the year before.

The tea party/terrorists word association increased by over 10 million results from the year before.

As one would expect, tea party/spending word association dropped from over 17 million hits in 2010 to just over 300,00 heading into the tenth month of the year.

Some limitations to my approach

As I searched through the fist couple of pages of results, it became apparent that not every headline used “racism” or “terrorists” negatively. For example a writer at National Review Online or Big Government may use those two words in a headline, but it would be so to point out some ridiculous claim made by a blogger or media personality, etc. However, the fact that it must be done, that the words “racism” and “terrorists” are so commonly associated with the Tea Party around the web, and that point become moot. Because instead of laughing the assortment of yahoos who make these claims off the planet, conservatives and civic minded people busy themselves with defending the accusations.

The Tea Party has become victim to extreme media bias. A hostile media, though unpopular, can still help shape its public image. Throw in the fact that liberal members of Congress carefully select word usage for maximum effect, which guarantees a long shelf life in the news cycle, and the Tea Party’s detractors get free media to vent their disapproval.

Some of the Tea Party’s recent disapproval can almost certainly be attributed to those facts.

http://biggovernment.com/jbradley/2011/09/28/media-treatment-and-the-tea-party/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BigGovernment+%28Big+Government%29

Barack Hussein Obama wants to be able to shutdown the internet…

http://schotlinepress.wordpress.com/2009/04/20/do-you-want-barack-hussein-obama-and-his-cronies-to-have-the-power-to-shut-down-the-internet/

http://www.patriotactionnetwork.com/forum/topics/obama-wants-control-of-the?commentId=2600775%3AComment%3A1526316

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=93966

Barack Hussein Obama long form birth certificate published on the white house web site is forged…

http://www.examiner.com/exopolitics-in-seattle/washington-times-report-newly-released-obama-birth-certificate-forensic-forgery

http://thecomingcrisis.blogspot.com/2011/04/obama-long-form-birth-certificate.html

http://www.rense.com/general93/rank.htm

http://www.wral.com/golo/blogpost/9512551/?d_comment_order=forward&d_full_comments=1&d_comments_page=2

The name Kenya did not come into play until 1963….
So how could it be in 1961 on a birth certificate a place of birth is listed as Kenya before it was even a country named Kenya???

http://sherriequestioningall.blogspot.com/2011/04/here-is-problem-with-obamas-birth.html

By ROBERT FRANK

As Brad Williams walked the halls of the California state capitol in Sacramento on a recent afternoon, he spotted a small crowd of protesters battling state spending cuts. They wore shiny white buttons that said “We Love Jobs!” and argued that looming budget reductions will hurt the Golden State’s working class.

Mr. Williams shook his head. “They’re missing the real problem,” he said.

The working class may be taking a beating from spending cuts used to close a cavernous deficit, Mr. Williams said, but the root of California’s woes is its reliance on taxing the wealthy.

Nearly half of California’s income taxes before the recession came from the top 1% of earners: households that took in more than $490,000 a year. High earners, it turns out, have especially volatile incomes—their earnings fell by more than twice as much as the rest of the population’s during the recession. When they crashed, they took California’s finances down with them.

Mr. Williams, a former economic forecaster for the state, spent more than a decade warning state leaders about California’s over-dependence on the rich. “We created a revenue cliff,” he said. “We built a large part of our government on the state’s most unstable income group.”

New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois—states that are the most heavily reliant on the taxes of the wealthy—are now among those with the biggest budget holes. A large population of rich residents was a blessing during the boom, showering states with billions in tax revenue. But it became a curse as their incomes collapsed with financial markets.

Arriving at a time of greatly increased public spending, this reversal highlights the dependence of the states on the outsize incomes of the wealthy. The result for state finances and budgets has been extreme volatility.

In New York before the recession, the top 1% of earners, who made more than $580,000 a year, paid 41% of the state’s income taxes in 2007, up from 25% in 1994, according to state tax data. The top 1% of taxpayers paid 40% or more of state income taxes in New Jersey and Connecticut. In Illinois, which has a flat income-tax rate of 5%, the top 15% paid more than half the state’s income taxes.

This growing dependence on wealthy taxpayers is being driven by soaring salaries at the top of the income ladder and by the nation’s progressive income taxes, which levy the highest rates on the highest taxable incomes. The top federal income-tax rate has fallen dramatically over the past century, from more than 90% during World War II to 35% today. But the top tax rate—which applies to joint filers reporting $379,000 in taxable income—is still twice as high as the rate for joint filers reporting income of $69,000 or less.

The future of federal income taxes on the wealthy remains in flux. The top tax rate is 35%, following the Congressional tax battle last year. But in 2013, the rate is scheduled to go back to 39.6% unless Congress takes further action.

State income taxes are generally less progressive than federal income taxes, and more than a half-dozen states have no income tax. Yet a number of states have recently hiked taxes on the top earners to raise revenue during the recession. New York, for instance, imposed a “millionaire’s tax” in 2009 on those earning $500,000 or more, although the tax is expected to expire at the end of 2011. Connecticut’s top income-tax rate has crept up to 6.5% from 4.5% in 2002, while Oregon raised the top tax rate to 11% from 9% for filers with income of more than $500,000.

As they’ve grown, the incomes of the wealthy have become more unstable. Between 2007 and 2008, the incomes of the top-earning 1% fell 16%, compared to a decline of 4% for U.S. earners as a whole, according to the IRS. Because today’s highest salaries are usually linked to financial markets—through stock-based pay or investments—they are more prone to sudden shocks.

The income swings have created more extreme booms and busts for state governments. In New York, the top 1% of taxpayers contribute more to the state’s year-to-year tax swings than all the other taxpayers combined, according to a study by the Rockefeller Institute of Government. In its January report downgrading New Jersey’s credit rating, Standard & Poor’s stated that New Jersey’s wealth “translates into a high ability to pay taxes but might also contribute to potential revenue volatility.”

State budget shortfalls have other causes, of course, from high unemployment and weak retail sales to falling real-estate values and the rising costs of health-care and pensions. State spending has expanded rapidly over the past decade. California’s total spending grew from $99.2 billion in 2000-01 to a projected $136 billion in 2010-11, not including federal funds, according to the state Department of Finance. Though California’s spending slipped by 15% during the recession, it has since returned to near prerecession levels.

Some states may get a lifeline this year from the financial markets. Starting late last year, California, New Jersey and others began seeing higher-than-expected income-tax revenues and capital-gains revenues, suggesting the start of the next boom cycle. Still, because many states based their spending plans on the assumption that the windfalls from the wealthy would return every year, they are now grappling with multibillion-dollar shortfalls.

A recent study by the Pew Center on the States and the Rockefeller Institute found that in 2009, states overestimated their revenues by more than $50 billion, due largely to the unexpected fall-off in personal-income taxes. Sales and corporate taxes have also fallen, but they account for a much smaller share of tax revenue in many states.

Tax experts say the problems at the state level could spread to Washington, as the highest earners gain a larger share of both national income and the tax burden. The top 1% paid 38% of federal income taxes in 2008, up from 25% in 1991, and they earned 20% of all national income in 2008, up from 13% in 1991, according to the Tax Foundation.

“These revenues have a narcotic effect on legislatures,” said Greg Torres, president of MassINC, a nonpartisan think tank. “They become numb to the trend and think the revenue picture is improving, but they don’t realize the money is ephemeral.”

Kicking the addiction has proven difficult, since it’s so fraught with partisan politics. Republicans advocate lowering taxes on the wealthy to broaden state tax bases and reduce volatility. Democrats oppose the move, saying a less progressive tax system would only add to growing income inequality.

In a blog post called “The Volatility Monster,” California Democratic State Sen. Noreen Evans wrote that “the true response to solving the volatility problem is to make sure Californians are fully employed and decently paid. Preserving the state’s progressive tax system is fundamental to combating the rising riches at the top and rising poverty at the bottom. Flattening our tax system would simply increase this already historic income inequality,” she wrote.

U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock (R., Calif.) has for years advocated a flat tax in California to reduce volatility and keep high-earners from leaving the state. “California has one of the most steeply disproportionate income taxes in the nation,” he said. “A flatter, broader tax rate would help stabilize the most volatile of California’s revenues.”

Rainy-day funds, which can help bail out governments during recessions, have also run into political opposition or proven too small to save state budgets. A study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that effective rainy day funds should be 15% of state operating expenditures—more than three times the state average before the crisis. Massachusetts, which saw a 75% drop in capital-gains collections during the recession, won plaudits from ratings firms and economists for creating a rainy-day fund in 2010 using future capital-gains revenues.

Economists and state budget chiefs say the best hedge is better planning. Budget staffers in New York, for instance, now spend more time studying Wall Street pay and bonuses to more accurately predict state revenues. The state’s budget director avoids overly optimistic forecasts based on a previous year’s strong growth.

“We’re glad we have the revenue from the wealthy, and we want to encourage these people to stay and prosper,” said Robert L. Megna, budget director for New York state. “But we have to recognize that because you have them, you’ll have this big volatility.”

The story of Mr. Williams, the former chief economist and forecaster for the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, shows just how vulnerable states have become to the income shocks among the rich, and why reform has proven difficult.

In the mid-1990s, shortly after taking the job, Mr. Williams discovered he had a problem. Part of his job was to help state politicians plan their budgets and tax projections.

A lanky, 6-foot-4-inch 58-year-old, with piercing blue eyes and a fondness for cycling, Mr. Williams prided himself on his deep data dives. The Wall Street Journal named him California’s most accurate forecaster in 1998 for his work the prior decade. He and his team placed a special focus on employment and age data and developed their own econometric models to make improvements.

Historically, California’s tax revenues tracked the broader state economy. Yet in the mid-1990s, Mr. Williams noticed that they had started to diverge. Employment was barely growing while income-tax revenue was soaring.

“It was like we suddenly had two different economies,” Mr. Williams said. “There was the California economy and then there were personal income taxes.”

In all his years of forecasting, he had rarely encountered such a puzzle. He did some economic sleuthing and discovered that most of the growth was coming from a small group of high earners. The average incomes of the top 20% of Californian earners (households making $95,000 in 1998) jumped by an inflation-adjusted 75% between 1980 and 1998, while incomes for the rest of the state grew by less than 3% over the same period. Capital-gains realizations—largely stock sales—quadrupled between 1994 and 1999, to nearly $80 billion.

Mr. Williams reported his findings in early 2000, in a report called “California’s Changing Income Distribution,” which was widely circulated in the state capital. He wrote that state tax collections would be “subject to more volatility than in the past.”

Mr. Williams wasn’t the only one noticing the state’s dependence on the wealthy. Economists and governors had for years lamented the state’s high tax rates on the rich, and in 2009 a bipartisan commission set up by then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recommended an across-the-board reduction in income-tax rates and a broader sales tax to reduce the state’s dependence on the wealthy. The income-tax rate on Californians making more than $1 million a year is 10.3%, compared to less than 6% for those making under $26,600. Combined with the rising share of income going to the top, the state’s progressive rates amplify the impact of the income gains or losses of the wealthy.

California’s dependence on income taxes has also grown because of its shifting economy. Income taxes now account for more than half of its general revenue, up from about a third in 1981. Because the state’s sales and use tax applies mainly to goods, rather than faster-growing services, it has declined in importance. The state’s corporate tax has also shrunk relative to income taxes because of tax credits and other changes.

By the late 1990s, Mr. Williams realized that his job had changed. California’s future was no longer tied to the broader economy, but to a small group of ultra-earners. To predict the state’s revenue, he had to start forecasting the fortunes of the rich. That meant forecasting the performance of stocks—specifically, a handful of high-tech stocks.

He pored over SEC filings for Apple, Oracle and other California tech giants. He met with the financial advisers to the rich, asking them about the investment plans of their clients. He watched daily stock movements and stock sales reported by the state’s tax collectors.

Working with the state’s tax collectors, he did a geographic breakdown of capital gains. The vast majority were in Silicon Valley.

“We knew there was a bubble,” he said, “We just didn’t know when it would fall, or by how much.”

After the dot-com bust, the state’s revenues from capital gains fell by more than two-thirds, to $5 billion in 2003 from $17 billion in 2001, while personal-income taxes fell 15% over the same period. The recession created a mirror image of the boom, with the wealthy leading the crash and dragging tax revenues down with them. By 2002, California had a budget shortfall of more than $20 billion.

The deficit lingered for years, but its lessons seemed to be quickly forgotten in the state capital. By 2005, California was enjoying another surge in spending fed by the incomes of the wealthy.

Mr. Williams started warning of another government crisis. In 2005, he released a report stating that the state’s tax revenues could vary by as much as $6 billion in a single year, and that such swings were “more likely than not.” He recommended several potential reforms, including flatter income-tax rates, “income averaging,” which allows the wealthy to spread their tax payments for unusual windfalls over a longer period of time, and a rainy-day fund.

His proposals failed to gain any traction with the legislature. Many Democrats refused to consider tax hikes on the middle class and lower rates for the rich. In 2009, voters rejected a proposed spending cap, which among other things, would have helped to create a rainy-day fund.

One of the leading advocates for such a fund is Roger Niello, a former Republican assemblyman who has long been among the top 1% of state earners. He and his family own a chain of luxury car dealerships, and during the recession, his income fell by more than half because of the decline of auto sales. Though he’s still “fine financially,” he said, his personal experience taught him that “people in this income group have the most variable incomes.”

Darrell Steinberg, the Democratic leader of the state senate, agrees that the dependence on the wealthy is “one of our most fundamental problems.” Yet he concedes that his own spending priorities—including a large expansion of mental-health programs funded by a millionaire’s tax—have added to the current mismatch between revenues and spending.

“I have no regrets given the number of people we’ve helped,” he said. “But I guess you could say I did my part with spending.”

As time went by, Mr. Williams became increasingly frustrated. To do his job properly, he had to predict the stock market. “And that’s impossible,” he said. He also felt that all of his research and warnings fell on deaf ears. In 2007, he decided to retire, and he now he works for a consulting firm.

“I was a broken record,” he said. “I just kept saying the same thing over and over. And with my job, there was no real pleasure in being right.”

—Vauhini Vara
contributed to this article.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704604704576220491592684626.html

The budgets of states like California and New York have been blown to hell since the financial crisis, and even in the lukewarm “recovery,” they’re miles from being balanced.

Why?

One big reason, Robert Frank points out in the WSJ, is that these states depend enormously on the welfare of their richest residents.

Almost half of California’s income taxes come from the top 1% of earners. In New York, the percentage is now 41%, up from 25% in 1994. In Connecticut and New Jersey, the top 1% pay more than 40%.

Being so dependent on super-rich people is great when times are good, because revenues soar. But the trouble is that the earnings of super-rich people are super-volatile, so when times are bad, or even mediocre, tax revenues plummet.

If governments approached budgeting the way smart people would, they would run massive surpluses in boom times, thus storing acorns for the inevitable winter ahead. But if our government officials have demonstrated anything over the years, it’s that they are utterly incapable of doing this. Instead, they look at the revenues in the boom times and think “WOW! We’re rich! We can spend every penny of that and more!”

And then the boom times end and deficits explode.

This phenomenon is especially acute in states in which huge portions of the total tax base are paid by super-rich people, because the incomes of super-rich people are wildly volatile.

In a boom year, for example, a successful Wall Street managing director might make $5 million. In a crappy year, he or she might make $1 million. Both of these incomes are otherworldly when compared to what normal folks make, so it’s no surprise that most people are in favor of socking it to the rich. But with said managing director paying a big slug of those incomes in taxes, the hit to the state’s budget is huge.

All of which is to say: There’s a downside to socking it to the rich.

For budgets dependent on the incomes of super-rich people to remain sustainable, government officials have to see the huge revenues in the boom years for what it is: Temporary.

And everything we know about government in this country suggests that that will never, ever happen.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-is-california-broke-because-they-tax-the-rich-2011-3#ixzz1Hoo3F4QP

MICHAEL REAGAN: Is Obama Doing to the U.S. What My Dad Ronald Reagan Did to the Soviet Union?

By Michael Reagan

Published March 11, 2011

Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Mike Mullen put it bluntly: “The biggest threat to our national security is our debt.” He added that, in 2012, America will pay $600 billion in interest on the debt—about what we spend on national defense.

Our adversaries are well aware of our vulnerability. More than a year ago, Chinese communist General Luo Yuan told the state-run Xinhua News Agency that China should attack the U.S. “by oblique means . . . such as dumping some U.S. government bonds.” (China currently holds about $1.16 trillion of U.S. debt.)

Today, America is precariously balanced on an economic knife edge, thanks to the run-amuck spending of the Obama administration. What is the government doing about its mounting debt? So far, it’s just printing more money.

On February 28, Bill Gertz reported in the Washington Times on a Pentagon assessment of vulnerabilities in America’s financial system. The report, “Economic Warfare” by analyst Kevin D. Freeman, is the stuff of nightmares. It details how foreign adversaries could launch a financial terrorist attack against the U.S., leaving no fingerprints.

“The new battle space is the economy,” Freeman told Gertz, adding that America placed itself in jeopardy through “massive public debt.” Freeman noted, “This is the ‘end game’ if the goal is to destroy America.” The Chinese military, he said, has long advocated “the potential for an economic attack on the U.S.”

Even if the Chinese don’t collapse our economy, we seem bent on doing it ourselves. On March 2, Bloomberg quoted Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, who warned that the Fed is “monetizing debt” by purchasing U.S. Treasury bonds—action that will surely produce inflation. Bloomberg called Hoenig “the lone dissenter” from the Fed’s purchase of $600 billion in U.S. securities. The Fed currently holds a record $2.54 trillion in U.S. debt.

Wall Street insider Michael J. Panzner warns that our economic woes signal decline—and approaching death. America, he says, is “afflicted with the overspending and overborrowing disease that has long been a distinguishing feature of . . . dying empires.”

Free market economists will tell you that Obama is running an age-old scam—stealing our wealth by printing more money. Thomas Sowell points out that government-engineered inflation “is a quiet but effective way for the government to transfer resources from the people to itself, without raising taxes.” Sowell echoes Milton Friedman, who years ago observed, “Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.”

Is President Obama deliberately trying to throw our economy into an inflationary spiral? After all, an inflationary crisis tacked onto the ongoing financial crisis amid a looming Middle East oil crisis is a recipe for doom. The idea of an American president tipping America into a Great Depression is unthinkable—isn’t it?

Maybe not. Remember the words of Obama’s technology czar, John Holdren, who told students in April 2010, “We can’t expect to be number one in everything indefinitely.” Holdren also co-authored a book called Human Ecology, which advocates deliberately weakening the U.S. economy and redistributing America’s wealth to other nations as part of a “massive campaign . . . to de-develop the United States.”

David Walker warns in “Comeback America,” “Many of us think that a superpowerful, prosperous nation like America will be a permanent fixture. . . . We are too big to fail. But you don’t have to delve far into the history books to see what has happened to other once-dominant powers. . . . America presents unsettling parallels with the disintegration of Rome” including “the growth of fiscal irresponsibility by the central government.” Are we already entering the final stages of decline?

In my book “The New Reagan Revolution,” I tell about sharing a stage with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 2005. I told the audience how my father, Ronald Reagan, deliberately collapsed the Soviet economy in the 1980s, resulting in the fall of Soviet communism. I turned to Gorbachev and asked, “Tell us, Mr. Gorbachev—how bad was the economy in those days?”

He replied, “Oh, Michael, it was so bad! Can you imagine Russian women not being able to buy pantyhose? We were so bankrupt, I had to appoint a pantyhose czar to smuggle pantyhose into the Soviet Union!”
The audience erupted in laughter. It was funny in 2005. Today, I’m not laughing.

How did Ronald Reagan consign the Soviet Union to the ash heap of history? He deliberately bankrupted the Soviets—and their society imploded.

Here’s what frightens me: Everything Ronald Reagan did to the Soviet Union, Barack Obama is doing to America today.

Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan and a political consultant. He is the founder and chairman of The Reagan Group and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his website at www.reagan.com. Portions of this column are adapted from his book “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press).

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/03/11/michael-reagan-obama-doing-dad-ronald-reagan-did-soviet-union/?intcmp=obnetwork#

MAIL-ORDER AMMO BAN RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Thank you to everyone who supported the NRA’s position on AB962 and never lost faith in our efforts.

Paul

>>>>>>>>>>

H. Paul Payne
NRA Liaison to the Executive Vice President
3565 La Ciotat Way
Riverside, CA 92501
(951) 683-4NRA Office
(951) 779-0740 Fax

Fighting for the restoration and preservation of the Second Amendment, right here in California, since 1989!

>>>>>>>>>>  

COURT GRANTS NRA / CRPA FOUNDATION MOTION, INVALIDATES UNCONSTITUTIONAL AMMUNITION REGULATION STATUTE THAT WOULD HAVE BANNED MAIL ORDER AMMO SALES & REQUIRED AMMO SALES REGISTRATION

In a dramatic ruling giving gun owners a win in an National Rifle Association / California Rifle and Pistol (CRPA) Foundation lawsuit, this morning Fresno Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Hamilton ruled that AB 962, the hotly contested statute that would have banned mail order ammunition sales and required all purchases of so called “handgun ammunition” to be registered, was unconstitutionally vague on its face. The Court enjoined enforcement of the statute, so mail order ammunition sales to California can continue unabated, and ammunition sales need not be registered under the law.

The lawsuit was prompted in part by the many objections and questions raised by confused police, ammunition purchasers, and sellers about what ammunition is covered by the new laws created by AB 962. In a highly unusual move that reflects growing law enforcement opposition to ineffective gun control laws, Tehama County Sheriff Clay Parker is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. Other plaintiffs include the CRPA Foundation, Herb Bauer Sporting Goods, ammunition shipper Able’s Ammo, collectible ammunition shipper RTG Sporting Collectibles, and individual Steven Stonecipher. Mendocino Sheriff Tom Allman also supported the lawsuit.

The ruling comes just days before the portion of the law that bans mail order sales of so called “handgun ammunition” was set to take effect on February 1, 2011. The lawsuit, Parker v. California is funded exclusively by the NRA and the CRPA Foundation. If it had gone into effect, AB 962 would have imposed burdensome and ill conceived restrictions on the sales of ammunition. AB 962 required that “handgun ammunition” be stored out of the reach of customers, that ammunition vendors collect ammunition sales registration information and thumb-prints from purchasers, and conduct transactions face-to-face for all deliveries and transfers of “handgun ammunition.” The lawsuit successfully sought the declaration from the Court that the statute was unconstitutional, and successfully sought the injunctive relief prohibiting law enforcement from enforcing the new laws.

The lawsuit alleged, and the Court agreed, that AB 962 is unconstitutionally vague on its face because it fails to provide sufficient legal notice of what ammunition cartridges are “principally for use in a handgun,” and thus is considered “handgun ammunition” that is regulated under AB 962. It is practically impossible, both for those subject to the law and for those who must enforce it, to determine whether any of the thousands of different types of ammunition cartridges that can be used in handguns are actually “principally for use in” or used more often in, a handgun. The proportional usage of any given cartridge is impossible to determine, and in any event changes with market demands. In fact, the legislature itself is well aware of the vagueness problem with AB 962’s definition of “handgun ammunition” and tried to redefine it via AB 2358 in 2010. AB 2358 failed in the face of opposition from the NRA and CRPA based on the proposal’s many other nonsensical infringements on ammunition sales to law abiding citizens.

Constitutional vagueness challenges to state laws are extremely difficult to win, particularly in California firearms litigation so this success is particularly noteworthy. Even so, an appeal by the State is likely, but the Court’s Order enjoining enforcement of the law is effective – February 1, 2011 – immediately regardless.

Despite this win for common sense over ill-conceived and counter productive gun laws, additional legislation on this and related subjects will no doubt be proposed in Sacramento this legislative session. It is absolutely critical that those who believe in the right to keep and bear arms stay informed and make their voices heard in Sacramento. When AB 962 passed there was loud outcry from law abiding gun owners impacted by the new law. Those voices must be heard during the legislative session and before a proposed law passes, not after a law is signed. To help, sign up for legislative alerts at http://www.nraila.org/ and http://www.calnra.com/ and respond when called upon.

Seventeen years ago the NRA and CRPA joined forces to fight local gun bans being written and pushed in California by the gun ban lobby. Their coordinated efforts became the NRA/CRPA “Local Ordinance Project” (LOP) – a statewide campaign to fight ill conceived local efforts at gun control and educate politicians about available programs that are effective in reducing accidents and violence without infringing on the rights of law-abiding gun owners. The NRA/CRPA LOP has had tremendous success in beating back most of these anti-self-defense proposals.

In addition to fighting local gun bans, for decades the NRA has been litigating dozens of cases in California courts to promote the right to self-defense and the 2nd Amendment. In the post Heller and McDonaldlegal environment, NRA and CRPA Foundation have formed the NRA/CRPA Foundation Legal Action Project (LAP), a joint venture to pro-actively strike down ill-conceived gun control laws and ordinances and advance the rights of firearms owners, specifically in California. Sometimes, success is more likely when LAP’s litigation efforts are kept low profile, so the details of every lawsuit are not always released. To see a partial list of the LAP’s recent accomplishments, or to contribute to the NRA or to the NRA / CRPAF LAP and support this and similar Second Amendment cases, visit http://www.nraila.org/ and http://www.crpafoundation.org/

C.D. Michel
Senior Counsel

Direct: (562) 216-4441
Main: (562) 216-4444
Fax: (562) 216-4445
Web: http://www.michellawyers.com/

180 E. Ocean Blvd.
Suite 200
Long Beach, CA 90802

http://nramemberscouncils.com/caspecial/ab962dead.shtml

This essay appeared on the website Watts Up With That on January 15th, 2011www.wattsupwiththat.comand is free to redistribute and republish so long as a link is provided back to

the website.

 Unequivocal Equivocation – an open letter to Dr. Kevin Trenberthby Willis EschenbachI would like to take as my text the following quote from the recentpaper (PDF, 270k also on web here)Given that global warming is “unequivocal”, to quote the 2007 IPCC report, the null 

by Dr. Kevin Trenberth:

Logical thinking is the process in which one uses reasoning consistently to come to a conclusion. Problems or situations that involve logical thinking call for structure, for relationships between facts, and for chains of reasoning that make sense.

“Scientific facts are not open to debate or opinion because they are evidence and/or physically based. Moreover a debate actually gives alternative views credibility.”
–Dr. Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) a U.S. publicly funded research center…

A fact which is “not open to debate” is by pure definition NOT a scientific fact. It is an axiom of faith for the adherents of one particular faith. And the entire purpose of science is to bring in alternative views for some form of debate or counterpoint.

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

I would like to take as my text the following quote from the recent paper (PDF, 270k also on web here) by Dr. Kevin Trenberth:

Given that global warming is “unequivocal”, to quote the 2007 IPCC report, the null hypothesis should now be reversed, thereby placing the burden of proof on showing that there is no human influence [on the climate].

The “null hypothesis” in science is the condition that would result if what you are trying to establish is not true. For example, if your hypothesis is that air pressure affects plant growth rates, the null hypothesis is that air pressure has no effect on plant growth rates. Once you have both hypotheses, then you can see which hypothesis is supported by the evidence.

In climate science, the AGW hypothesis states that human GHG emissions significantly affect the climate. As such, the null hypothesis is that human GHG emissions do not significantly affect the climate, that the climate variations are the result of natural processes. This null hypothesis is what Doctor T wants to reverse.

As Steve McIntyre has often commented, with these folks you really have to keep your eye on the pea under the walnut shell. These folks seem to have sub-specialties in the “three-card monte” sub-species of science. Did you notice when the pea went from under one walnut shell to another in Dr. T’s quotation above? Take another look at it.

The first part of Dr. T’s statement is true. There is general scientific agreement that the globe has been warming, in fits and starts of course, for the last three centuries or so. And since it has been thusly warming for centuries, the obvious null hypothesis would have to be that the half-degree of warming we experienced in the 20th century was a continuation of some long-term ongoing natural trend.

But that’s not what Dr. Trenberth is doing here. Keep your eye on the pea. He has smoothly segued from the IPCC saying “global warming is ‘unequivocal’”, which is true, and stitched that idea so cleverly onto another idea, ‘and thus humans affect the climate’, that you can’t even see the seam.

The pea is already under the other walnut shell. He is implying that the IPCC says that scientists have “unequivocally” shown that humans are the cause of weather ills, and if I don’t take that as an article of faith, it’s my job to prove that we are not the cause of floods in Brisbane.

Now, lest you think that the IPCC actually did mean that ‘humans are the cause’ when they said (in his words) that ‘global warming was “unequivocal”‘, here’s their full statement from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary For Policymakers (2007)  (PDF, 3.7 MB):

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level (see Figure SPM-3).

Despite the vagueness of a lack of a timeframe, that is generally true, but it says nothing about humans being the cause. So he is totally misrepresenting the IPCC findings (which he helped write, remember, so it’s not a misunderstanding) to advance his argument. The IPCC said nothing like what he is implying.

Gotta love the style, though, simply proclaiming by imperial fiat that his side is the winner in one of the longest-running modern scientific debates. And his only proffered “evidence” for this claim? It is the unequivocal fact that Phil Jones and Michael Mann and Caspar Amman and Gene Wahl and the other good old boys of the IPCC all agree with him. That is to say, Dr. T’s justification for reversing the null hypothesis is that the IPCC report that Dr. T helped write agrees with Dr. T. That’s recursive enough to make Ouroboros weep in envy …

And the IPCC not only says it’s true, it’s “unequivocal”. Just plain truth wouldn’t be scientific enough for those guys, I guess. Instead, it is “unequivocal” truth. Here’s what “unequivocal” means (emphasis mine):

unequivocal: adjective:  admitting of no doubt or misunderstanding; having only one meaning or interpretation and leading to only one conclusion (“Unequivocal evidence”)

Notice how well crafted Dr. T’s sentence is. After bringing in “global warming”, he introduces the word “unequivocal”, meaning we can only draw one conclusion. Then in the second half of the sentence, he falsely attaches that “unequivocal” certainty of conclusion to his own curious conclusion, that the normal rules of science should be reversed for the benefit of … … well, not to put too fine a point on it, he’s claiming that normal scientific rules should be reversed for the benefit of Dr. Kevin Trenberth and the IPCC and those he supports. Probably just a coincidence, though.

For Dr. Trenberth to call for the usual null hypothesis (which is that what we observe in nature is, you know, natural) to be reversed, citing as his evidence the IPCC statement that the earth is actually warming, is nonsense. However, it is not meaningless nonsense. It is pernicious, insidious, and dangerous nonsense. He wants us to spend billions of dollars based on this level of thinking, and he has cleverly conflated two ideas to push his agenda.

I understand that Dr. T has a scientific hypothesis. This hypothesis, generally called the “AGW hypothesis”, is that if greenhouse gases (GHGs)  go up, the temperature must follow, and nothing else matters. The hypothesis is that the GHGs are the master thermostat for the globe, everything else just averages out in the long run, nothing could possibly affect the long-term climate but GHGs, nothing to see here, folks, move along. No other forcings, feedbacks, or hypotheses need apply. GHGs rule, OK?

Which is an interesting hypothesis, but it is woefully short of either theoretical or observational support. In part, of course, this is because the AGW hypothesis provides almost nothing in the way of a statement or a prediction which can be falsified. This difficulty in falsification of the hypothesis, while perhaps attractive to the proponents of the hypothesis, inevitably implies a corresponding difficulty in verification or support of the hypothesis.

In addition, a number of arguably cogent and certainly feasible scientific objections have been raised against various parts of the hypothesis, from the nature and sign of the forcings considered and unconsidered, to the existence of natural thermostatic mechanisms.

Finally, to that we have to add the general failure of what few predictions have come from the teraflops of model churning in support of the AGW hypothesis. We haven’t seen any acceleration in sea level rise. We haven’t seen any climate refugees. The climate model Pinatubo prediction was way off the mark. The number and power of hurricanes hasn’t increased as predicted. And you remember the coral atolls and Bangladesh that you and the IPCC warned us about, Dr. T, the ones that were going to get washed away by the oncoming Thermageddon? Bangladesh and the atoll islands are both getting bigger, not smaller. We were promised a warming of two, maybe even three tenths of a degree per decade this century if we didn’t mend our evil carbon-loving ways, and so far we haven’t mended one thing, and we have seen … well … zero tenths of a degree for the first decade.

So to date, the evidentiary scorecard looks real bad for the AGW hypothesis. Might change tomorrow, I’m not saying the game’s over, that’s AGW nonsense that I’ll leave to Dr. T. I’m just saying that after a quarter century of having unlimited funding and teraflops of computer horsepower and hundreds of thousands of hours of grad students’ and scientists’ time and the full-throated support of the media and university departments dedicated to establishing the hypothesis, AGW supporters have not yet come up with much observational evidence to show for the time and money invested. Which should give you a clue as to why Dr. T is focused on the rules of the game. As the hoary lawyer’s axiom has it, if you can’t argue facts argue the law [the rules of the game], and if you can’t argue the law pound the table and loudly proclaim your innocence …

So now, taking both tacks at once in his paper, Dr. T. is both re-asserting his innocence and proposing that we re-write the rules of the whole game … I find myself cracking up laughing over my keyboard at the raw nerve of the man. If he and his ideas weren’t so dangerous, it would be truly funny.

Look, I’m sorry to be the one to break the bad news to you, Dr. T, but you can’t change the rules of scientific inquiry this late in the game. Here are the 2011 rules, which curiously are just like the 1811 rules.

First, you have to show that some aspect of the climate is historically anomalous or unusual. As far as I know, no one has done that, including you. So the game is in serious danger before it is even begun. If you can’t show me where the climate has gone off its natural rails, if you can’t point to where the climate is acting unusually or anomalously, then what good are your explanations as to why it supposedly went off the rails at some mystery location you can’t identify?

(And of course, this is exactly what Dr. T would gain by changing the rules, and may relate to his desire to change them. With so few examples to give to support his position, after a quarter century of searching for such evidence, it would certainly be tempting to try to change the rules … but I digress.)

But perhaps, Dr. T., perhaps you have found some such climate anomaly which cannot be explained as natural variation and you just haven’t made it public yet.

If you have evidence that the climate is acting anomalously, then Second, you have to show that the anomaly can be explained by human actions. And no, Dr. T., you can’t just wave your hands and say something like “Willis, the IPCC sez you have to prove that what generations of people called ‘natural’, actually is natural”. There’s an arcane technical scientific name for that, too. It’s called “cheating”, Dr. T., and is frowned on in the better circles of scientific inquiry …

(N.B. – pulling variables out of a tuned computer model and then proudly announcing that the model doesn’t work without the missing variables doesn’t mean you have established that humans affect the climate. It simply means that you tuned your computer model to reproduce the historical record using all the variables, and as an inevitable result, when using only part of those variables your model doesn’t do as well at reproducing the historical record. No points for that claim.)

Third, you have to defend your work, and not just from the softball questions of your specially selected peer reviewers who “know what to say” to get you published in scientific journals. In 2011, curiously, we’ve gone back to the customs of the 1800s, the public marketplace of ideas — except this time it’s an electronic marketplace of ideas, rather than people speaking from the dais and in the halls of the Royal Society in London. If you won’t stand up and publicly defend your work, it’s simple – you won’t be believed. And not just by me. Other scientists are watching, and considering, and evaluating.

This doesn’t mean you have to reply to every idiot with a half-baked objection and a tin-foil hat. It does mean that if you refuse to answer serious scientific questions, people will take note of that refusal. You must have noticed how such refusal to answer scientific questions totally destroyed the scientific credibility of the website RealClimate. Well, they’re your friends, so perhaps you didn’t notice, but if not, you should notice, here’s an example. (PDF, 147K) Running from serious scientific questions, as they make a practice of doing at RealClimate, makes you look weak whether you are or not.

And Always, you have to show your work. You have to archive your data. You have to reveal your computer algorithms. You have to expose everything that supports and sustains your claims to the brutal light of public inquiry, warts and all.

Dr. T., I fear you’ll have to get used to the sea change, this is not your father’s climate science. The bottom line is we’re no longer willing to trust you. You could publish in the Akashic Records and I wouldn’t believe what you said until I checked the figures myself. I’m sorry to say it, but by the actions of you and your colleagues, you have forfeited the public’s trust. You blew your credibility, Dr. T, and you have not yet rebuilt it.

And further actions like your current attempt to re-write the rules of science aren’t helping at all. Nor is trying to convince us that you look good with a coat of the finest English whitewash from the “investigations” into Climategate. Didn’t you guys notice the lesson of Watergate, that the coverup is more damaging than the original malfeasance?

Dr. T, you had a good run, you were feted and honored, but the day of reckoning up the cost has come and gone. Like some book said, you and the other un-indicted co-conspirators have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting. At this point, you have two choices — accept it and move on, or bitch about it. I strongly advise the former, but so far all I see is the latter.

You want to regain the trust of the public, for yourself and for climate science? It won’t be easy, but it can be done. Here’s my shortlist of recommendations for you and other mainstream climate scientists:

•  Stop trying to sell the idea that the science is settled. Climate science is a new science, we don’t even have agreement on whether clouds warm or cool the planet, we don’t know if there are thermostatic interactions that tend to maintain some temperature in preference to others. Or as you wrote to Tom Wigley, Dr. T,

How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter.  We are not close to balancing the energy budget.  The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not!  It is a travesty!

SOURCE: email 1255550975

Curious. You state strongly to your friend that we’re not close to knowing where the energy is going or to balancing the energy budget, yet you say in public that we know enough to take the most extraordinary step of reversing the null hypothesis … how does that work again?

At this point, there’s not much about climate science that is “unequivocal” except that the climate is always changing.

•  Don’t try to change the rules of the game in mid-stream. It makes you look desperate, whether you are or not.

•  Stop calling people “deniers”, my goodness, after multiple requests that’s just common courtesy and decency, where are your manners? It makes you look surly and uncivilized, whether you are or not.

•  Stop avoiding public discussion and debate of your work. You are asking us to spend billions of dollars based on your conclusions. If you won’t bother to defend those conclusions, don’t bother us with them. Refusing to publicly defend your billion dollar claims make it look like you can’t defend them, whether you can or not.

•  Stop secretly moving the pea under the walnut shells. You obviously think we are blind, you also clearly believe we wouldn’t remember that you said we have a poor understanding of the climate system. Disabuse yourself of the idea that you are dealing with fools or idiots, and do it immediately. As I have found to my cost, exposing my scientific claims to the cruel basilisk gaze of the internet is like playing chess with Deep Blue … individual processors have different abilities, but overall any faults in my ideas will certainly be exposed. Too many people looking at my ideas from too many sides for much to slip through. Trying anything but absolute honesty on the collective memory and wisdom of the internet makes you look like both a fool and con man, whether you are one or not.

•  Write scientific papers that don’t center around words like “possibly” or “conceivably” or “might”. Yes, possibly all of the water molecules in my glass of water might be heading upwards at the same instant, and I could conceivably win the Mega-Ball lottery, and I might still play third base for the New York Yankees, but that is idle speculation that has no place in scientific inquiry. Give us facts, give us uncertainties, but spare us the stuff like “This raises the possibility that by 2050, this could lead to the total dissolution of all inter-atomic bonds …”. Yeah, I suppose it could. So what, should I buy a lottery ticket?

• Stop lauding the pathetic purveyors of failed prophecies. Perhaps you climate guys haven’t noticed, but Paul Ehrlich was not a visionary genius. He was a failure whose only exceptional talent is the making of apocalyptic forecasts that didn’t come true. In any business he would not have lasted one minute past the cratering collapse of his first ridiculous forecast of widespread food riots and worldwide deaths from global famine in the 1980s … but in academia, despite repeating his initial “We’re all gonna crash and burn, end of the world coming up soon, you betcha” prognostication method several more times with no corresponding crashing burning or ending, he’s still a professor at Stanford. Now that’s understandable under tenure rules, you can’t fire him for being a serially unsuccessful doomcaster. But he also appears to be one of your senior AGW thinkers and public representatives, which is totally incomprehensible to me.

His string of predicted global catastrophes that never came anywhere near true was only matched by the inimitable collapses of the prophecies of his wife Anne, and of his cohorts John Holdren and the late Stephen Schneider. I fear we’ll never see their like again, a fearsome foursome who between them never made one single prediction that actually came to pass. Stop using them as your spokesmodels, it doesn’t increase confidence in your claims.

•  Enough with the scary scenarios, already. You’ve done the Chicken Little thing to death, give it a rest, it is sooo last century. It makes you look both out-of-date and hysterical whether you are or not.

•  Speak out against scientific malfeasance whenever and wherever you see it. This is critical to the restoration of trust. I’m sick of watching climate scientists doing backflips to avoid saying to Lonnie Thompson “Hey, idiot, archive all of your data, you’re ruining all of our reputations!”. The overwhelming silence of mainstream AGW scientists on these matters is one of the (unfortunately numerous) reasons that the public doesn’t trust climate scientists, and justifiably so. You absolutely must clean up your own house to restore public trust, no one else can do it. Speak up. We can’t hear you.

•  Stop re-asserting the innocence of you and your friends. It makes you all look guilty, whether you are or not … and since the CRU emails unequivocally favor the “guilty” possibility, it makes you look unapologetic as well as guilty. Whether you are or not.

•  STOP HIDING THINGS!!! Give your most private data and your most top-secret computer codes directly to your worst enemies and see if they can poke holes in your ideas. If they can’t, then you’re home free. That is true science, not hiding your data and gaming the IPCC rules to your advantage.

•  Admit the true uncertainties. The mis-treatment of uncertainty in the IPCC reports, and the underestimation of true uncertainty in climate science in general, is a scandal.

•  Scrap the IPCC. It has run its race. Do you truly think that whatever comes out of the next IPCC report will make the slightest difference to the debate? You’ve had four IPCC reports in a row, each one more alarmist than the previous one. You’ve had every environmental organization shilling for you. You’ve had billions of dollars in support, Al Gore alone spent $300 million on advertising and advocacy. You’ve had 25 years to make your case, with huge resources and supercomputers and entire governments on your side, and you are still losing the public debate … after all of that, do you really think another IPCC report will change anything?

If it is another politically driven error-fest like the last one, I don’t think so. And what are the odds of it being an honest assessment of the science? Either way the next IPCC report won’t settle a single discussion, even if it is honest science. Again, Dr. T, you have only yourself and your friends to blame. You used the IPCC to flog bad science like the Hokeyschtick, your friends abused the IPCC to sneak in papers y’all favored and keep out papers you didn’t like, you didn’t check your references so stupid errors were proclaimed as gospel truth, it’s all a matter of record.

Do you truly think that after Climategate, and after the revelations of things like IPCC citations of WWF propaganda pieces as if they were solid science, and after Pachauri’s ludicrous claim that it was “voodoo science” to point out the Himalayan glacier errors, after all that do you think anyone with half a brain still believes the IPCC is some neutral arbiter of climate science whose ex-cathedra pronouncements can be relied upon?

Because if you do think people still believe that, you really should get out more. At this point people don’t trust the IPCC any more than they trust you and your friends. Another IPCC report will be roundly ignored by one side, and cited as inerrant gospel by the other side. How will that help anyone? Forget about the IPCC, it is a meaningless distraction, and get back to the science.

That’s my free advice, Dr. T., and I’m sure it’s worth every penny you paid for it. Look, I don’t think you’re a bad guy. Sadly for you, but fortunately for us, you got caught hanging out with the bad boys who had their hands in the cookie jar. And tragically for everyone, all of you were seduced by “noble cause corruption”. Hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s happened to me too, you’re not the first guy to think that the nobility of your cause justified improper actions.

But as far as subsequently proclaiming your innocence and saying that you and your friends did nothing wrong? Sorry, Dr. T, the jury has already come in on that one, and they weren’t distracted by either the nobility of your cause, nor by the unequivocal fact that you and your friends were whitewashed as pure as the driven snow in the investigation done by your other friends … instead, they noted your emails saying things like:

In that regard I don’t think you can ignore it all, as Mike [Mann] suggests as one option, but the response should try to somehow label these guys a[s] lazy and incompetent and unable to do the huge amount of work it takes to construct such a database.

Indeed technology and data handling capabilities have evolved and not everything was saved.  So my feeble suggestion is to indeed cast aspersions on their motives and throw in some counter rhetoric.  Labeling them as lazy with nothing better to do seems like a good thing to do.

SOURCE: email 1177158252

Yeah, that’s the ticket, that’s how a real scientist defends his scientific claims …

w.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/15/unequivocal-equivocation/#more-31727

Please read this eloquent and profound letter and pay close attention to the last paragraph.

The U.S. Supreme Court just reaffirmed All Americans right to keep and bare arms and ruled against the Chicago gun ban, I offer this letter (written by a Marine) that places the proper perspective on what the gun means to a civilized society.
    
     The Gun is Civilization
     by Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)
     
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.
     
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
     
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.
     
The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
     
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed.
     
People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
     
Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.

People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.
     
The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.
     
When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation… and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
     
     By Maj. L. C audill USM C (Ret)
     
So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.

Sitting in on a March 1 Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) press conference regarding global warming and heavy snowfalls, I couldn’t help feeling like the chairman of the Senate committee questioning mafia capo Frank Pentangeli in Godfather II. The chairman, listening incredulously as Pentangeli contradicts a sworn written statement he had earlier given to the committee, waves the written statement in the air and protests, “We have a sworn affidavit — we have it — your sworn affidavit…. Do you deny that confession, and do you realize what will happen as a result of your denial?”

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report was as straightforward as Frank Pentangeli’s earlier confession that he had killed on behalf of Michael Corleone. “Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms,” IPCC reported.

That was in 2001. Now, however, with an unprecedented number of major winter snowstorms hitting the northeastern U.S. during the past two winters, the alarmists are clamming up and changing their tune faster than Tom Hagen can fly in Vincenzo Pentangeli from Italy to aid his brother in his time of trouble.

Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground, and Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, explained to the media at the UCS press conference why they believe global warming caused the heavy snowfalls in the northeast these past two winters. Masters and Serreze obviously are weather experts. They may be right. Other weather experts, such as John Coleman, co-founder of the Weather Channel, and Joseph D’Aleo, the first director of meteorology at the Weather Channel, disagree with Masters and Serreze. It is also possible that Coleman and D’Aleo are right.

During the question and answer portion of the UCS press conference, I quoted the IPCC Third Assessment Report and asked Masters and Serreze if they were saying IPCC was wrong on the science.

“I would say that we always learn,” replied Serreze. “Have we learned a great deal since the IPCC 2001 report? I would say yes, we have. Climate science, like any other field, is a constantly evolving field and we are always learning.”

While I believe the weight of scientific evidence favors Coleman and D’Aleo, the larger importance of the UCS press conference is not whether global warming causes – in effect – more winter, but what the press conference illustrated about the alarmists’ oft-repeated assertions that “the science is settled” and “the debate is over.”

The IPCC Third Assessment Report was as straightforward as one can get asserting that global warming would cause a decline in heavy snow events. As the Senate chairman would say, while waving the IPCC report, “We have it….” But now that real-world evidence has proven IPCC wrong, the alarmists have pulled an about-face and are claiming global warming is causing more frequent heavy snow events.

Regardless of whether global warming is causing more heavy snow events, the alarmists’ about-face on snowfall calls to mind other alarmist global warming assertions that were supposedly “settled science”, but that were subsequently refuted by real-world climate conditions. The alarmists used to claim global warming was causing more hurricanes, but real-world data show hurricanes have fallen to historically lows levels.

The alarmists used to claim global warming was causing the retreat of Kilimanjaro’s mountain snowcap, but scientists now understand that local deforestation is the culprit. IPCC claimed in its 2007 assessment that global warming would likely melt the Himalayan glaciers by 2035, but IPCC now admits there is no scientific basis for such an assertion. IPCC claimed in its 1990 assessment that global temperatures should rise 0.6 degrees Celsius between 1990 and 2010, yet NASA satellite data show global temperatures warmed by merely half that amount, at most.

For years, alarmists have claimed “the science is settled” and “the debate is over.” Well, when was the science settled? When global warming would allegedly cause Himalayan glaciers to melt by 2035, or now that it won’t? When global warming would allegedly cause fewer heavy snow events, or now that it will allegedly cause more frequent heavy snow events?

We could ask Frank Pentangeli, but Frankie Five Angles is no longer talking.

James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News.

http://blogs.forbes.com/jamestaylor/2011/03/02/global-warming-alarmists-flip-flop-on-snowfall/