on open carry laws

  This morning, on my way to get lowfat Greek yogurt (worthless tree-hugger that I am) and a dozen eggs, I had paused to peruse the flower selection in front of my local grocery store when I saw a man exiting a nearby pharmacy. The black bundle on his right hip was either a pistol or a bulky black cellphone with a detachable clip.
  Curious, I watched the lanky and mud-splattered chap enter his dented light-blue Honda crossover, reverse out of his parking spot at high speed, run one stop sign, and then another. I walked out into the road after he had passed, pointing at the stop sign and wagging my finger. The man slammed on the brakes, reversed to my location, and rolled down the passenger window.
  "Stop sign," I said, patting the metal octagon affectionately.
  "Do you want me to get out of this car and beat the shit out of you?"
  I chuckled and said again, Stop sign, with the adrenaline surging in my veins and my knees flexing instinctively into a fighting stance. As I backed away to gain more secure footing, I ascertained that the individual was in fact packing heat.
  With a parting, "Fuck you, motherfucker," the individual sped over to the tobacco store, where he most likely found sympathy with the nice and accommodating ladies behind the counter.

  This man broke two traffic laws in a parking-lot frequented by slow-moving septuagenarians and families with small children. He was armed with a semi-automatic, nine-millimeter pistol that likely held fourteen rounds, and the sole discernible purpose of his lawlessness and hostility was to satisfy his addiction to nicotine.
  I have discussed with a range of individuals the psychological affect of being armed. Furthermore, I have directly experienced the nearly god-like feeling one gets when one knows that there is a cold, hard, death-spitting machine tucked into one's trouserband. While I fully support the right to keep and to bear arms (a Constitutional right), I think that allowing individuals to waltz around in public with pistols on their belts can endanger the general public.
  With a firearm on your hip, you feel invincible, powerful, nearly omnipotent, for you are displaying to the world your ability to extinguish life with the twitch of a finger (whereas you would otherwise have to get your hands dirty strangling your opponent to death, to name but one method). Would the aforementioned individual have been so brash and so flippant had he not been strapped? Perhaps he might have been, and perhaps he might not have been, but allowing him to roll around town at ten in the morning in a residential area with a pistol on his belt in no way reduces his tendency to lawless and aggression; if anything, it heightens his clearly twisted sense of self-importance, and allows him to think that his agenda, no matter how trivial, trumps the bodily safety of those around him.
  This bedraggled chap might be the exception to the rule, one lone asshole in a community of otherwise law-abiding and sensible armed citizens, but, as we saw with Jared Loughner in Arizona, one individual is all it takes to get the blood flowing in the streets. So, where do we draw the line? I believe rigorous psychological examination should be a prerequisite to firearm ownership, but, since I currently reside in Pennsylvania, a state in which it is more difficult to procure booze than guns, mine is more than likely the minority opinion.
  The great travesty I see in this situation is that this individual, because of the Constitutional protection, is allowed to act in the aforementioned way, while individuals pursuing their Happiness (smoking drugs) in the privacy of their own homes, without in any way threatening demonstrably the Safety of those around them, must be in constant fear of having their doors smashed down by armed police officers executing a no-knock raid. Has our republic truly descended to a state in which the public display of weaponry is more important than the liberty to privately pursue one's Happiness?
  Woe be unto freedom. The individual has no right to do with his ultimate private property, his body, as he or she deems best fit. The right to bear Arms has superseded the right to individual Liberty. The ability to deal death enjoys a far higher standing in our society than the ability, as a fully emancipated adult, to decide how to elevate the mind. The state of affairs in our country is in shambles, our concept of Justice tarnished beyond recognition.
  Woe be unto Lady Liberty, for while she stands tall in New York Harbor clutching the Declaration of Independence with stoic pride, we have allowed: the Torch of Progress to burn out; powerful interests to place limits on our most fundamental principles, among them the pursuit of Happiness.
  Speak out. Stand up. Spread freedom.

Ultima Ratio Regum
场黑麦 John Paul Roggenkamp

on private property

or, On the individual's right to the body, the ultimate and irrefutable private property.

  Humans have bodies. Without the body, the human dies. There is no way to separate oneself fully from one's body without killing oneself. Therefore, the body is the only truly private property that man possesses. His house can be destroyed; his land taken from him; his car can crash; his clothes will fade and turn to rags; but, throughout his whole life, his body is always his private property, which by right of irrevocable possession he may affect as he pleases.
  If an individual decides to destroy her house, to smash up her car, to tear her clothes to ribbons, i.e. if she decides to do with her external private property as she sees best fit, no government agency will prevent her from altering or destroying her property unless said destruction and alteration should pose a threat to other people.
  In the United States of America, the use of external private property does not fall under federal jurisdiction, unless of course said usage poses a threat to others. Yet, the use of the ultimate private property, the body, does. It is illegal to introduce a great number of substances into the body, substances such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin et cetera, substances that can create feelings of euphoria and that expand the capabilities of the human mind. Instead of these entheogens (see here), Americans are allowed by the federal government to introduce into their bodies a number of other substances that excite the mind to a lesser extent, substances such as sugar, caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, and salt. It is not illegal to consume these substances, although over-usage of same can and very often does lead to addiction, physical disease, and death.
  Caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine together kill tens of thousands of Americans every year (see here), yet their use is unrestricted, and the federal government does not raid the homes of people using these substances. If police officers suspect that someone is smoking weed, they sometimes conduct, in appalling violation of the Constitutional protections, what are known as a "no-knock warrants" (see here), in which the smoker's property (the door to his home) is destroyed and his peace is violated by the forced entry of heavily armed officers.
  Why is this individual's home being raided? To protect him from himself? To protect those who live around him from potential harm? On average, the marijuana smoker is not a violent person; his drug of choice makes him hungry, prone to conversation, and generally happy. The alcoholic is violent, abusive, and unpredictable, and would therefore be the person who is more likely to be a threat to himself and to those around him. But I doubt a single "no-knock-warrant" has been ever issued because someone was witnessed carrying a case of beer into his house.
  Americans must be allowed to choose for themselves which substances they want to consume. We are already allowed to buy drugs like alcohol and nicotine, drugs that destroy the body and that cause inestimable harm to individuals and their families. Perhaps the greatest harm ever caused by marijuana is the removal of the smoker from society to a prison cell. Imprisonment leads to criminalization. Imprisonment breaks apart families. Imprisonment forever reduces the individual to life as a second class citizen.
  Outlaw all substances or legalize them all. Anything else is hypocritical. Anything else violates the right of the individual to do with her private property as she sees best fit. Anything else violates the essence of the Declaration of Independence, the notion that government is established: "As to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
  The incarceration of non-violent drug offenders does not effect, or create, Happiness; it destroys Happiness.
  The prohibition on substances other than those deemed acceptable by a majority of the population is un-American. We must have the right to choose how we handle our ultimate private property, our bodies. We have the freedom: to eat too much sugar, too much salt; to drink too much booze; to smoke too many cigarettes.
  The freedom to consume these substances is literally killing us. Ergo, any argument claiming that the prohibitions on substances such as marijuana, cocaine, and opium exist to protect us from harm and death are completely invalidated.
  Outlaw them all, or legalize them all.
  Let the People find Happiness where they may.

Ultima Ratio Regum.

JPR 30APR2011