Sociopaths in public life

What if there was a way to identify the bad apples before they go postal?  

If only we had a test!

Then we might be able to identify psychopathic, sociopathic,  histrionic, narcissistic, borderline, paranoid  personalities before they do their damage. 

A land of liberty must always balance the extremely high value of individual self-determination against the extremely low possibility that the average sociopath might go full pissed off postal jihadi.  Err on the side of freedom and accept some collateral damage is wisest.

Still... 

A note in the file might help law enforcement triage their welfare-check stops when they have complaint after complaint about some individual. 

Every time I receive a voter information pamphlet I think how much more informative than personal statements would be to have in addition each aspiring public servant's score on the PCL-R.  It might serve to weed out some of the worst before they are able to do their worst, anyway.

Public policy kills more people (1788 per day in USA in 2014) than guns or knives or any other thing. That killing goes on every day on a massive scale.  And that's just one kind of murderous public policy.  (Consult your average Venezuelan for other examples.)

Test all candidates for public office. Publish the results. Let's start there.  It's time we enacted common sense measures to help stop the violence.  Once we get the politicians sorted out, we can talk about testing some of the discipline-problem kids in schools; by then we should have more reasonable policy makers to carry the torch of liberty as well as "safety."

Calls for tighter screening for mental illness make me nervous.

The legacy news media loves to focus its spotlights on instances of violence that tickle their socio-mythic Gräfenberg spot.  When what they term a "mass murder" has occurred, the bass beat booms out, the disco lights start to flash, and the spotlights converge, and the blood dancing begins.  That's sick, really.  Probably mentally ill. 

Immediate conjecture about the Motive of the perpetrator ensues.  My bet is that Motive is something the media types learned from cop shows on TV, and that most of them could not define Motive, nor come up with a story about what Motive has to do with the etiology of a crime event.  As I understand it, Motive is irrelevant as to the fact of guilt in a court of law.  If the facts are substantiated, you will be found guilty of vandalizing your neighbor's car with no regard to why you did it.  Yet Motive continues to be a sparkly bauble to the media magpies. 

Then, eventually, we hear those magpies accuse the perpetrator of insanity.  He's crazy.  Mentally ill.  Those who seek Safety Above All call for gun control, knife control, insanity control. 

"We need better ways to screen out those who pose a danger to society."

Oh, really?  Listen to what you're saying.  Do you really want to go there?

Calling a spoiled liberal-gone-wrong "mentally ill" is an affront to our millions of mentally ill who suffer and function, more or less, every day all around us, and who even in their darkest moments of depression or self-harm, would never cross the line into homicide.

Look at the history of the 20th Century.  Who were the greatest mass murderers?  Governments -- far and away, more than all the wars, hugely and in a wholesale manner that would be unimaginable and unbelievable were it not for the gut-wrenching  fact of the number of those culled by socialist regimes during that bloody century -- the seekers of the perfect society, destroyed their own. 

You're more likely to go on vacation somewhere and get killed by a falling coconut than walk around America and get killed by a kid with a grudge.  But you're far more likely to be killed by a powerful socialist state.  So I for one do not want to give my progressively more socialist government any more information about myself than necessary.  And my health records are not necessary, except in specific cases of competency at law, and similar situations.  And mental health records are health records.  No one's visit to a psychologist should be subject to a review by some Safety Bureau. 

If we value the life part of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," then access to the means of defending life is a necessary condition of a free society.  A free society entails some risk.  Sorry, no promise that All is Safe Here.  Regardless of FDR's rhetoric, you don't have a right to feel safe.  You have a right to pursue your own happiness by making yourself safe as you care to -- without running over my right to pursuit of happiness. 

When the Safety Bureau, by whatever name it comes to be called, begins to screen out the rights of the mentally ill, it's only a tiny baby step to screening out the lives of the odd, the weak, the undesirable.  The perfect (and perfectly safe) society always ends with people being thrown into the ovens and the killing fields.

Don't go there. 

No apparent motive

Another guy went into a victim-disarmament zone 17 December 2013 and shot some people.  This time, in a Reno hospital.

The editorial perspective evident in the language of the New York Daily News is typical of the journalist genre: 

"The bloodthirsty madman terrified patients and medical workers alike when he shot five rounds just after 2 p.m. in the urology department of the Center for Advanced Medicine building of Renown Regional Medical Center.  The investigation will be complicated: Cops have already interviewed 29 witnesses to the frightening shooting spree, but have not yet uncovered a motive or pieced together a clear time line of events."

The emphasis is added. Some (is it red-flag or is it yellow-journalism) terms of art are underlined.  The bold-and-italic is the crux of this blog entry.

In the first place, let me make it clear that the ability to plan and carry out a detailed course of action is not a mark of madness in the criminal law sense.  The decisions that the shooter brought into action were certainly not normal, but the actions themselves are no indication that the perpetrator was not in control of his wits and actions during the crime.

In the second place, the news always makes it sound like "motive" is a very narrow term of art from the more Agatha Christie form of police detective stories.  In detective novels, the gumshoe looks for someone who stands to gain materially, or sought revenge to a harm inflicted by a particular individual.  For example.  But in real life, motive is pretty open and obscure.  What is tonight's motive for eating Chinese instead of Mexican? 

Let's stop looking for an Agatha Christie motive for these shooters.

You know the motive.  He was pissed off.  Angry.  And weak.

Sarcasm is the protest of people who are weak. But what if nobody is listening to your snark?  I didn't say it was a rational motive, just that it was a motive.  I didn't promise that the act motivated by this motive would be proportional to the harm, just that it would be a motive.

These shooters are royally pissed off.

They seem as a rule to be fatherless weaklings whose fantasy world grows as a defense against the "real" world that punishes them for being defective girls.  Until they decide to do something manly.  Only it isn't, really, but they have no idea how a man should act.  They know it has something to do with autonomy, though, something to do with being the master of you own destiny.  So they move in a fatal direction.  Masters not of their lives, but masters of death -- their own and a few others. 

The whole scenario sucks so bad.  And is so rare.  Another failed child tried to prove he was grown up, all at once.  And failed at that. 

Maybe if these things were accompanied by less fanfare and limelight, we could go a longer time before the next failed man-child tries to do the same thing.

People who know nothing about statistics can also lie

Newtown school shooter Adam Lanza played video games.  (Well doesn't everybody?)

But now it's a big deal.  Conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt on 19 March 2013 maintained at length that it is now known that "violent video games" produce violent school shooters, and that in fact the makers of the video games could / should be sued for damages by survivors of Sandy Hook Elementary victims -- because a reasonable person would conclude that playing a game leads to sociopathic behavior and homicide. 

"He didn’t snap that day, he wasn’t one of those guys who was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it anymore,” the man said. “He had been planning this thing forever. In the end, it was just a perfect storm: These guns, one of them an AR-15, in the hands of a violent, insane gamer. It was like porn to a rapist. They feed on it until they go out and say, enough of the video screen. Now I’m actually going to be a hunter."  The person who said this is identified as "[t]he man to whom I spoke, a tough career cop who did not wish to see his name in the newspaper" by writer Mike Lupica in the New York Daily News.

Well there you go.  

See, reporters and anonymous cops know how the mind works. Little boys who stare at curvy pictures become rapists; players of video games become mass murderers.  Except they don't.  What's the p-value on that "porn to rapist" factotum?  Probably nearly null.  But I bet it's greater than the p-value for gamer to murderer. 

The idea that artists -- authors (even blog authors), movie makers, and video game producers included -- are to be held liable for the insane acts of art consumers, is itself insane.  When legislators or regulators get an idea like that, it is dangerously insane.  Think of the chilling of creative activity.  Think of the Taliban-style enforcement. Thought Police.  They know better.  Like that anonymous cop quoted in the New York Daily News.  He knows better, just ask him. 

I don't for a moment believe the gamer-to-murderer hypothesis.  I'll tell you one thing I do believe.  History.  There is  a strong p-value for the transformation of Big Government to Genocidal Regime.  

Platelet Theory

About 40 years ago I had an accident with a power tool.  An immortal and infallible teenager working for a general contractor who did home remodels, I got into a shoving match with a bottom-of-the-line Skil brand 6" circular saw.  The dull blade bound up, kicked back, bounced off my torso, and back into my left hand.  This was going to require stitches.

As it turned out, no tendons or bones had been terribly damaged.  Many stitches and many years later, it's good as new, plus the added features of having a Wizard Grade lightning-shaped scar on the second knuckle of my left thumb, plus the ability to predict rain 36 hours in advance.  (Don't ask me how it works, but I can feel it.)

But here's what I want to focus on today:  on the way to the Emergency Clinic, the bleeding stopped.

In a battle between skin and steel, skin always loses.  Blood will flow.  But the instant the bleeding starts, it also starts to stop.  At least the body attempts to stop the loss of blood.  Clotting agents being present in sufficient number, and absent high pressure arterial bleeding, the bleeding will stop.

Here's the point.  One platelet cannot stop the bleeding.  But a whole bunch can.  At least they can do their microscopic damnedest to stop it.

What I'm really talking about is Gun Control.

What good can one armed citizen do against the might of a tyrannical government?  That question is used to pooh-pooh the idea that Joe Citizen's right to keep and bear arms was spelled out in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States because Joe just might have to do something to stop a Government Gone Wrong.  One armed citizen -- what good can that do?  Might as well turn all those guns in and trust to the benignity of the controlling power.  What good can one armed citizen do when the bloodletting starts?

What good can one platelet do when the bleeding starts?  

We The People act in unison to defend as well as originally to create these United States.  And yes the fact that the people are free to keep and bear firearms is important every day, whether called into action  or not.  Only by being extremely numerous and widely spread can the body politic be adequately protected by these platelets of freedom.

The President's Wish List

Here is the press release, with my comments interspersed after the •bullets•.

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
EMBARGOED UNTIL THE START OF THE PRESIDENT’S REMARKS
January 16, 2013

Gun Violence Reduction Executive Actions
Today, the President is announcing that he and the Administration will:

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
• Wait, don't they do that already? If not, why not?  After four years of President Obama at the head of the Executive Branch, doesn't an oversight like this look kind of bad?

2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
• "Information" -- like confidential patient-doctor disclosures?  I thought these people used to support a right to privacy.

3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
• "Incentives" sounds like new Federal spending.

4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
• "Dangerous people" sounds like more marginalization of veterans, women, elderly...

5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
• It goes like this:  The neighbors call the cops because of a loud argument across the street.  The local Domestic Disturbance unit shows up.  "May I come in?," the officer asks.  Unless you say, "I do not consent to a search," Domestic Officer Babs is going to be followed by Black-and-white Unit Officer Bubba, who will do a thorough search and interrogation and take your property.  Just in case.  This proposal  adds another hurdle to the already lengthy process of reclaiming property seized from innocent people.

6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
• I know, how about publishing a letter TO the BATFE letting them know it's not okay to give machine guns to Mexican drug gangs? (ahem*fast-and-furious*ahem)

7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
• Good idea.  We should have a national organization that advocates for safe and responsible gun ownership and sportsmanship.  We could call it the American Citizens Rifle, Shotgun, Pistol and Revolver Association -- but that's too long, so let's just call it the National Rifle Association!  Right.

8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
• This means Japan-style storage laws:  the few who get a firearm must store it disabled, and with its ammunition in a separate secure place.  In other words, it will be permissible as long as it is in a condition that is useless to you.  "Safety" means safe for crime perpetrators and tyrants.

9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
• Wait, they don't already do this?  (see note on No. 1, above)

10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
• Children are dying! We haven't a moment to lose! Quick! Write a report! Yeah, that'll work.  And again, make information available to law enforcement? Seriously?  Don't they do that already?  Helpful tip to DOJ:  I hear there's this thing called the internet...

11. Nominate an ATF director.
• Why has it taken this long?  (Better question:  Why do we even HAVE a BATFE?) What's the Chief Executive been doing, golfing?

12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
• Another committee, another program, more money, and doesn't do anything.  Besides, in Texas, Utah, and others, "proper training" takes place at the gun range.  It's common sense...

13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
• "Preventive enforcement" sounds creepy.  Orwellian creepy.  I can guess who will be on the enemies list. 

14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
• Oh for God's sake.  First it's, "Children are dying! Not a moment to lose! We must act without delay!" -- and then it becomes clear that what they mean by act is not what most people mean.  They take it to mean that they can use this opportunity to further their stranglehold on the Republic by shoving crime in under the Health Care apparatus.  Issue a memorandum indeed.  "Active shooter! He's got a gun!" -- "Don't worry, Ma'am, I have here a Presidential Memorandum!"

15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
• "Gun Safety Technologies" is Violence Policy Center jargon for micro stamping, biometric owner-only guns, and other Seussian fairy tales.  They're like zombies, they just keep coming back.

16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
• Here we are about a millimeter away from "Clarify that the Obamacare requires doctors to document guns in patients' homes". 

17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
• And this has to do with school shootings because... WTF?

18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
• When I hear "incentives" my brain tells me "more federal spending programs".

19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
• Here we are about a millimeter away from saying that the Federal Government will get to mandate whether teachers can be armed in Utah. 

20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
• If the people that are going postal are doing it because of a lack of mental health care, then this might make some sense -- in the long run.  But what is it doing in this list of things-I'm-about-to-wet-my-pants-if-we-don't-do-something-now-to-save-the-children?

21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
• See, Pelosi wasn't lying when she said we had to pass it to see what's in it. 

22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
• Did somebody just mention an unfunded mandate?

23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.
• Nothing like being lectured on mental health by a couple of ultra liberal nutcases.

- - - -
That's all the spur-of-the-moment stream-of-consciousness crowndottery for now.

This is the MEDIA.

"Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!"  Habakkuk 2:15 (KJV)

Oh, would that there be woe to those who flood the eyes and ears with their liquor that goes down so easy and strips away the natural defenses of free and reasonable persons.  Hard cases make bad laws.  But that never stops them.  With purring, luscious come-on pillow talk; with constant repetition of the Party Line; with shrieking and wailing to drown out anything else; with a Dialogue and a National Debate and a Cause -- for the children! -- they replace deliberation with de-LIBERATION, and strip the decent protections of freedom.  One by one the garments hit the floor, and there the poor drunk stands defenseless, shameful, wondering how it came to this.  Too late the drunkard wonders where he made his wrong move. 

It's time we have a national debate about guns, they say.  We HAD that debate.  That's what makes them so irate.  The pro-gun people won.  Most states have "shall issue" concealed carry laws and less crime.  The Supreme Court states in black and white that the second amendment to the United States Constitution recognizes the right of individual persons to keep and bear arms.  "More guns" equals "less crime" wherever it is tried.  (And vice versa: look at the crime rate in the place formerly known as "Great" Britain.)  All this new noise since Friday is the same old noise, and the same old noise-makers.  Bloomberg.  Schumer.  Feinstein.  The rest of them. 

Here, have a drink, sailor.  New in town?  Drink the kool-aid.  My place or yours? 

Restoring the Springfield 1903 Rifle

It's a freedom thing. 




Earlier this year I finished turning a "sporterized" Springfield '03 rifle back into something like its original military configuration.  The hardware pieces were accumulated over the course of many years.  Numrich had in their inventory a "new, unissued" stock and handguard, I finally worked up the courage to begin. 

The "new, unissued" M1903A1 stock looked like it had spent the last 60 years or so in a damp basement.  It had what looked like marks of roots on it, but the wood was sound.  With many hours of fitting and sanding, the action fit and functioned.  Half a dozen coats of boiled linseed oil (per military specification!) actually produced a better looking product than I had feared.



One of the peculiarities of the '03 and '03A1, of course, is the rear sight, shown here with the folding elevator down in the "battle sight" mode.



Designed by someone's feuding in-laws, this item's staggering complexity is surpassed only by its truly inhuman range of adjustment.



It is not your imagination -- the sight really does parallelogram toward the left -- to allow for the drift due to bullet spin.  There may be a Coreolus Effect adjustment, or one for the precession of the equinoxes, for all I know.

Another item that strikes the modern user as quaint is the magazine cut-off, shown here to the left of the rear receiver ring in the center position which allows removal of the bolt.



With the magazine cut-off in the "magazine off" position (lever swivels down toward the stock), the bolt cannot be drawn back far enough to clear the back of the top round in the magazine.  In this mode, the rifle functions as a single-shot rifle.  The rounds in the magazine, according to period manuals, are thus "held in reserve".  All five of them!



With the magazine cut-off in the "magazine on" position (lever swivels all the way up), the bolt comes back far enough to allow the top round to be pushed forward and into battery.  When the last round is expended, the rear of the magazine follower prevents the bolt from moving forward.  The magazine may then be charged with single rounds or a five-round stripper clip. 



Here's the muzzle end.  The thin front sight blade makes a fine target sight.  The picture includes the front sling swivel and bayonet lug band.  You may be able to see the "flaming bomb" ordnance proofmark behind the front sight.





The Springfield in military configuration has a forward barrel band that retains the front handguard retaining band, holds the "stacking swivel", and mounts the bayonet lugs.



The latch in the slot at the rear of the bayonet handle slot fits between the two sections of bayonet lug.  When attached, the hilt loop slips over the muzzle and the handle slot slips onto the lugs.



Here's the end that sends forth the hurt to the enemies of freedom:

Pre-WWI Rifle Round

 At first glance I thought this antique rifle round was a 6.5mm Carcano, because of the long round-nose cupronickel jacketed bullet. Head stamp reads DWM / 1913.  Measurement (and Cartridges of the World) confirmed what Google would also confirm: the relic is a 7mm Mauser, date of 1913, made by Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken in Baden, Germany.  Nearly a century old!