Does anybody else here still get JPFO alerts? Didja notice the one they sent out this evening? On the day of the week that, until two weeks ago, belonged to the highly principled, always incisive David Codrea?
From Bloomberg.com.
Advocating having armed guards at every exit in theaters, supermarkets, malls, and other public spaces. (Yeah, and you wanna pay $30 for your movie tickets, do you? And ten bucks for your loaf of bread?)
Because, you know, security works so well in airports. (The author really said that. He did.)
And what would be the main purpose of these guards at every entrance and every exit to every public venue in the good old Land of the Free? To make sure no armed citizens can ever enter.
Bravo, JPFO! Such a firm statement of the individual right to keep and bear arms. Such an up-to-the-minute news “alert.” Such a hard-hitting, uncompromising think piece. No nerfing here, nosirree.
Don’t you hate when you’re right- about something this tragic, I mean?
Yep. It’s a sad, sad thing. But no surprise.
I should also add that this smurfy article was the full content of the alert. There was no preface saying, “OMG, we know it’s three years later, but we just found this completely idiotic anti-gun piece that everybody needs to see.” The article appears either to represent JPFO’s current viewpoint or at least to represent what JPFO now considers to be provocative and worthwhile thinking on the issue of “gun safety.”
If it doesn’t, then I’d expect to see a screaming apology and explanation on Monday.
Two thoughts.
1) JPFO Staff Meeting?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zpgjyn7dgk#t=35
2) Likewise, in International News…
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/192594#.VQOVLeEYEsI
The governments are shifting their responsibilities and costs to their disfavored peasants, making sure that when they finally leave, they are milked dry. Bloomburg and Gottleib are “down wit’ dat”, as long as they get a piece of the action.
I still get the “alerts,” but don’t usually read them anymore, unless it’s one from Kurt. Wonder how much longer he’s going to hold out there. Wouldn’t be surprised if this pretty much does it for him.
Somehow, I don’t see the armed guard thing going over very well here in Wyoming. 🙂 Or a lot of other places. Sounds like SAF drivel, not JPFO. And I note that Gottleib has never answered the questions or made a statement at TZP. Oh well… what a surprise. Not.
I’m not sure Kurt can afford to leave, unfortunately. But I agree he’s probably hurting everyday from his association with the new, nerfed JPFO. And I agree he’s the only thing worth reading in the alerts.
And yeah, as to the armed guards, the idea is awful in more ways than it’s possible to count. Y.B.’s link about European Jewish organizations being bankrupted by the need to hire “security” (since they have no individual power of self-defense) shows just one of the bad-stupid aspects of hired guns.
While I wouldn’t quite go so far as to call (privately-funded) armed guards an awful idea, since it is market-based after all, it certainly is the inferior solution. I compared the two alternatives in this piece:
http://strike-the-root.com/going-unarmed-is-antisocial-act
Paul — The biggest awfulness is JPFO sending this pathetic anti-gun drivel out as an “alert.”
Whether private businesses want to hire security guards or not is one question. JPFO advocating (or appearing to advocate) keeping armed citizens out of businesses and public places is quite another issue.
Also, please note that the specific purpose the writer envisions for these security guards isn’t to respond in emergencies. It’s to keep all armed citizens out of public places.
The article is based on a number of brain-dead premises (e.g. that all future mass murders will follow the exact pattern of the Aurora theater massacre; that businesses need and can afford full-time security guards at every exit). The author simply seems to have come up with something he thinks is a bright idea and blatted it out without further thought. But at heart it’s written from a paranoid fear of all guns and all gun owners. And that JPFO would “alert” that as if it represented worthwhile thought is just shameful.
Denmark’s main Jewish organization said last Saturday it had faced a growing security threat since 2005 but that the government had been reluctant to provide it with more funds to cover its costs.
Who could see that coming, given the rich tradition of governments protecting Jews from anti-Jewish minorities? (Said tradition = One emperor who, to protect his wife, amended an extermination law to allow Israelites to take up their own swords in self-defense.)
If the Jewish Federation or the Israeli government were to set up a segregated non-profit agency exclusively for security for Jewish European institutions – and the accounting was carefully vetted with checks and balances I am sure that you could raise tens of millions of dollars.
Because European governments, which won’t allow individual Jews to defend themselves, would happily agree to have a “private Jewish army” fighting a civil war within their borders.
that businesses need and can afford full-time security guards at every exit
Back when castles and walled cities were all the rage there was a defensive perimeter v defended area problem. Walls require fighters. Even if you put every able-bodied person in the society on the wall, there isn’t enough living space inside the wall for the families necessary to provide those fighters.
Protecting a mall/school/government building/hospital/utility station/church/whatever entrance takes at least two armed guards per shift, times four shifts. Eight people times the number of such entrances in the U.S. If everybody in the population was a security officer, it wouldn’t be enough. Adding population won’t solve the equation either, since more people need more mall/school/government building/etc. entrances.
Then, as we found out in the Navy Yard, there’s the whole “uniformed armed guard” = “firearm source” problem.
Of course there is the high-rise option, but we’ve seen how well that works.
OMG!!! Renta cops with attitudes,and Ive met my share,believe me,is beyond the pale.
And JPFO sent out this nonsense,incredible!!!!
No thank you,I dont need a police state to ‘protect me’
That G is a total loss without any redeeming social value,what a bankrupt person.I hope people are seeing through him.
Claire, I agree with your other points about the article.
As to whether armed guards are effective or not, efficient or not, that is a decision of the person buying the protection services.
My main problem with the notion of buying protection services, is how easily it slides over into justifying the state. If buying protection services was considered disreputable, and irresponsible, then the state would have a more difficult time justifying its existence.
I also have to note what Joel wrote at the end of his book, “The Last Faithful Man”:
“With blood, the ability to shed blood, came power… A king, surrounded by only a few devoted cutthroats, commanded the will of thousands. The mob could easily tear the king and his guardians to pieces, losing only a few lives in the process. But it did not. The members of the mob convinced themselves instead that the will of the king was their own will…”
Just how different is a person buying guards for defense, from a king surrounding himself with cutthroats? Not very different. I believe this was the genesis of all states, and not the usual one that many people (Rothbard?) have posited, that a gang moved in and took over.
Interesting notion that “purchased security” could be the origin of the state. I always just assumed the gang hypothesis to be correct. Of course they aren’t mutually exclusive. A gang doesn’t have to move in from outside. A local “capo” could more likely just start hiring the best muscle and — voila!
Even within our own history, the rent-a-cops that we mock now had very statelike functions. The Pinkertons come to mind:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_%28detective_agency%29
I’m sure Ayoob is -thrilled- with this idea… more opportunities for cops to cause problems which we mere Mundanes daren’t judge the for, more money for new Cop Equipment to clutter up the Police Officer Station until they need to take tire-track-dog-smellin’-prints, and a new set of semicaptives to search, sieze, and harass. And all without having to tolerate one more scary ol’ packin’ Granny!
Not that I blame him, of course… I wouldn’t fancy being the poor Purplebelly wo had to tell Mama Liberty to unstrap. No sirree, not me…
“I wouldn’t fancy being the poor Purplebelly wo had to tell Mama Liberty to unstrap. No sirree, not me…”
🙂 I’ll second that!
“A local “capo” could more likely just start hiring the best muscle and — voila!”
Yes. All you need to do is add one more feature: mission creep. Originally the hired help might have been purely defensive in nature. But the “best” were the guys who could “make things happen”. You know, like leaning on people, etc…
The outsider gang scenario has the added difficulty of making it hard for the peons to identify with them.
(later)
Well I was poking around and found this:
http://www.amazon.com/The-History-Government-Earliest-Times/dp/0198208022
Well if you don’t have $999 for a new copy (heh) or even $295 for a used one, here it is online for free (a Dutch site for some reason). I guess it wouldn’t hurt to read up on this stuff rather than just speculate on it!
https://books.google.nl/books?id=aEziNfjinnMC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA172&focus=viewport&hl=nl#v=onepage&q&f=false
Dang, there’s no free lunch! That link I gave has gaps, like from page 121 to 158.
Paul brings up an interesting point IMO, about private defense mechanisms degenerating into State-like entities. It’s why there’s no reason to suspect that the free purchase of defense in the current environment will yield anything different than the statist mess we’ve already got. Efficient immorality is still immoral.
Nope, nothing changes until those who want to live their own lives as they choose actually do it and defend their own choices, whatever that takes. And choose to allow the same for others, duh. Without the NAP–which itself is just a choice–none of it will amount to a hill o’ beans. “Philosophy moves the world.”
Meanwhile I can’t see anything about JPFO except that a clown turned it into a circus, which was entirely anticipated. No surprises there.
Claire,
I’ve been a fan for years. I have both” Bad Attitude” and”101 Things to Do” and enjoyed them both. Because of 101 Things, I joined JPFO seven or eight years ago. I liked it under Aaron Zelman. I was in CCRKBA for a while but thought Alan Gottlieb was a little too much like the NRA, “the sky is falling, the sky is falling, send me money.” I’m sorry Aaron died, he seemed to be a good man.
My membership in JPFO is up and I’m not going to renew. Aaron wanted to abolish the BATFE and Alan just sent out a notice saying getting rid of BATFE would be a mistake, Devil we know as opposed to the Devil we don’t, and that the FBI would be worse. I don’t agree. Am I wrong?
I’m a III% patriot and think we are getting closer to the second time in your famous sentence. Keep up the good work.
Mark, thank you for the kind (though also sad) comments.
I think the more everybody sees of the new JPFO, the more we know how important Aaron was. It’s like watching pygmies trying to walk in the shoes of a giant.
If you want to hold on to that JPFO membership money a while longer, The Zelman Partisans may soon have something to interest you. Much going on behind the scenes right now. Can’t say more, but I’d expect an announcement within the month.
And while I 100% agree that the BATFE should be crushed into the ground and never allowed to rise again, the piece you’re referencing was (I believe) by Kurt Hofmann. He’s the only really hardcore gun-rights advocate left at JPFO now that David Codrea has left. I like and trust Kurt and I don’t think he meant it quite the way Alan Gottlieb might mean it. I think he was only saying “if the functions of the BATFE are going to continue, then it’s better to have them performed by known-incompetent, untrustworthy idiots than have them shifted to another agency.” But. I know Kurt well enough to say that if he had his druthers he’d join us in cavorting on the ATF’s grave.