Category Archives: Castle Doctrine

How Anarchists Should Confront the Enemy Within

The Challenge

In the aftermath of the most recent terrorist attacks in Paris, a commenter calling herself Mrs. Lemuel Struthers on Reason’s Hit and Run threw down the gauntlet:

What I’d really like to hear is a libertarian/classical liberal approach to approaching this problem of a minority of anti-liberals within a society engaging in war-like behavior (murder) while using the values of the society they live in to promote their ideology. The enemy within – if you will. While at the same time demographic and immigration trends tend to support the likely enlargement of populations who will tolerate and even encourage that ideology.

And, just to be clear, I was really asking how France should address its issues from a an-cap perspective, not the USA.

I take up her challenge with this post.  The post actually contains two mini essays. One about France like she asked. But first, I will start with an essay about Ancapistan… the one she said she wasn’t interested in (because the essay about France would be incomprehensible without it)! ;) » Read more

I am an anarcho-capitalist living just west of Boston Massachussetts. I am married, have two children, and am trying to start my own computer consulting company.

Reason’s Mike Riggs Interviews Radley Balko on Police Militarization

It’s been nearly a month since Radley Balko’s latest book Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces was released. Now Balko is making the rounds with the various media outlets about this subject which normally receives very little attention by the media. As one would expect, Balko has more than his share of critics particularly from the cops-can-do-no-wrong crowd but there has also been a quite positive response by at least some members of law enforcement (particularly former cops who began their careers prior to the SWAT era).

In the video below, Reason’s Mike Riggs interviews the author.

(Note: Link above is taken from Reason‘s site, so if you click through and buy it from Amazon via that link, a portion of the proceeds go to Reason Magazine.)

Radley Balko’s Book, Released Today

Just a quickie here, folks… Radley Balko’s book, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces, was released today.

It’s no secret that we here at TLP have enormous respect for the work Radley has done over the years chronicling the militarization of police and evisceration of our most cherished rights with it. It’s no surprise that when every podunk police force in the country has their own SWAT team, that those SWAT teams will be a solution in search of a problem — a problem conveniently available in the form of victimless crimes like drugs, gambling, and prostitution. Any tool is ripe for overuse and misuse, but all too often, when the SWAT team is called in, people die.

This book is one of the few that I’m actually going to buy in hardcover — I love my Kindle, and almost everything I buy is for that, but I want to have this book to easily lend after I read it.

(Note: Link above is taken from Reason’s site, so if you click through and buy it from Amazon via that link, a portion of the proceeds go to Reason Magazine.)

“Common Sense” Legislation to Curb Gun Violence?

Like most people who value individual liberty, I listened to President Obama’s speech about reducing gun violence with a great deal of trepidation. He presented several ideas such as limiting the size of magazines to 10 rounds, banning “military-style assault weapons” (i.e. any gun that looks scary to progressives who know almost nothing about firearms), and “universal” background checks for anyone trying to buy a gun just to name a few “common sense” reforms. In so many words he basically said that anyone who doesn’t favor these proposals is getting in the way of preventing future gun violence (Why even St. Ronald Reagan was even in favor of some of these proposals!)

One point of particular irritation for me is this notion being promoted by the Left that AK-47’s and other “weapons of war” should not be made available to “civilians.” President Obama rightly pointed out that these weapons with these magazines “ha[ve] one purpose: to pump out as many bullets as possible, to do as much damage using bullets often designed to inflict maximum damage.”

Well if we civilians do not “need” these weapons, why should the police have them? Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the local police also considered “civilian”? (i.e. civilian law enforcement). Why do the police “need” these awful “weapons of war” which “inflict maximum damage” to serve a warrant for a late night drug bust?* If everyone else should be limited to certain weapons with magazines containing 10 rounds or less, they too should be limited to what weapons are permissible (or at the very least, what situations these weapons should be used). To suggest otherwise would be to suggest that the police are “at war” with the “civilians” since war is all these weapons are good for.

As some who are critical of the president’s approach have correctly pointed out, these reforms would not have prevented the killing at Sandy Hook Elementary. Obama and his allies like to say “if these proposals save only one life…” but they fail to recognize that these reforms might save one life in one situation but might cost a life in another situation (such as a home invasion; the homeowner runs out of rounds due to smaller magazine capacity etc.). Most, if not all of these reforms are meaningless measures to prevent guns from falling into “the wrong hands” (at best) so that the president can say he’s “doing something” to prevent mass shootings.

Some of these proposals do seem reasonable based only on the broad outlines (as always, the devil is in the details). I don’t have a problem with person-to-person background checks** in the abstract. Why shouldn’t an individual be subjected to the same background check as when buying from a gun dealer when s/he is buying from someone who posted his firearm on Craig’s List? I would think that the seller would want to have the peace of mind and/or limit any exposure to liability for any misuse of the firearm.

There are many proposals that are being floated that need to be thought through rather than rushed through to score cheap political points. These proposals go well beyond the 2nd Amendment into areas such as free speech (i.e. censorship), doctor/client privilege (privacy), state’s rights, and more. I do think that we supporters of the right to bear arms need to try to offer up some “common sense” solutions of our own to reduce illegitimate force that either enhance liberty or at the very least, do not tread on the liberties of others.***

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The Mind of an Anti-Gun Loon

I’m a defender of the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms but let’s face it: there are some loony gun owners on our side. The anti-gun media loves to try to hold these people up as typical supporters of the 2nd Amendment, the castle and stand your ground doctrines. If they cannot find the loon they are looking for, the media can edit a segment on TV or take a person’s words out of context to make it seem as though a rational person is irrational.

What we don’t hear about much is that there are loony people on the other side of the debate. Dallin Kelson writing an article “Loganville woman jumped to the gun” in The Independent Florida Alligator is one example.

We can learn a lot about the problematic illusion-making tendencies of the discourse on guns by analyzing a recent news story from Loganville, Ga.
You may have heard about it: A lady was hiding in her attic from a burglar with her two kids and her Saturday night special when he used a crowbar to bust in on them. So she did what she had to do. Next thing you know, the creeper with them two feets who came a-creepin’ like a black cat do is on the floor full of .38 holes.

There’s an important aspect of this story I need to draw attention to at this point because it perplexes the hell outta me: He didn’t mean to violently intrude upon this family.

What? He didn’t mean to “violently” intrude? This two bit thug intended to “peacefully” intrude?

No answer. So he rings the doorbell a bunch of times, and instead of answering the door or somehow asking him what he wants, they hide and call the cops!
Now that he’s satisfied that no one is home, he begins liberating the family’s belongings in the name of the proletariat. Like any good burglar, he’s thorough, working through every room in the house until he eventually reaches the attic.

He opens the door, and suddenly a relatively harmless cat burglary becomes a violent home invasion.

I have no words.

The problematic part of how this scenario played out is not what she did in the heat of that moment. I just want to know why she didn’t, you know, answer the door in the first place.

C’mon, you gotta at least open a window and ask the dude what he wants!

Why didn’t she answer the door? Dallin, frankly that’s none of your damned business. This was her house and for whatever reason, she didn’t feel comfortable answering the door. She don’t “gotta” do anything. (Did I mention that Dallin is an English major?)

Obviously I’m not saying she deserved to have her house broken into.

Obviously? Could have fooled me.

She’s been so conditioned by the stories of murders and home invasions that populate the evening news that she immediately went into xenophobia-induced panic mode as soon as someone whose appearance was mildly threatening intruded into her comfort zone.

Whether or not the media is “populating the evening news” with murders and home invasions or that she “went into xenophobia-induced panic mode” is beside the point. In this case, this panic mode probably saved her life and the lives of her children. Her intuition was dead on. Sometimes when a stranger is banging on your door and won’t go away, he might intend to do harm to you. Just a thought.

From all appearances, this guy was trying to find an EMPTY house to break into. If she had initially responded proactively by confronting him when he was a random, annoying guy hanging around ringing the doorbell incessantly, there’s a nonzero chance he would’ve just made up some excuse and moved on.

Instead she acted in an inexplicably irrational and paranoid way. Now he’s badly wounded, maybe dying, and her kids had to watch their mother repeatedly shoot a man while he begged her, crying, to stop.

Maybe guns are good, maybe they’re bad, but this story should’ve never gotten to the point where they were involved.

Sometimes it’s easier to ask someone just what the hell they think they’re doing rather than wait for them to do it.

Yeah, if only the poor bastard found an empty home or one occupied by an unarmed woman…

Is this article just a poor attempt at satire? I hope so. On a more positive note, of the 51 comments to the article (so far) almost all of them say this writer is a moron. I have to agree.

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