"They have the focus of a badger guarding its den and will still react very strongly . . . if you stick your hand in there."

Stewart Rhodes jumped into my "Scaring the white folks" exchange over on Rosser's site. He left this as a comment, but I thought it deserved more prominence for the points he raises. Quoth Stewart:

Alas, I too could not resist chiming in over there in the rarefied air of supposed sophisticated economic analysis. Here was my response to the author's insinuation that Mike V. was somehow a racist for calling the NRA "Judenrat.":

Rosser said:

"Which brings us to "Judenrat" Vanderboegh, who somehow thinks he can undo his earlier remarks [equating the NRA to judenrats] by accusing me of acting like a Hitler apologist, followed by a statement apparently desiring my early death. Just what one would expect from someone who talks about "Judenrat." You don't happen to belong to the Aryan Nations do you, "Judenrat"?"

Rosser, Mike's use of the term "Judenrat" refers to Jews who did the bidding of the Nazis and actually assisted in the extermination of fellow Jews. It is not an antisemetic term, as you seem to think, but a term equivalent to "quisling" or "turn-coat." There are some who think this use of the term is unfair, but it is hardly a racist slur.

See this wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judenrat

You would know this if you had simply done a google search for the term, rather than jumping to your apparently preconceived notion that hardcore gun rights folks just MUST be racist. Where did you learn that, from Morris Dees?

By the way, I attended Yale Law School and am very familiar with Professor Ayres.

Before I realized that he was simply another anti-gun academic who was seeking to "find" evidence to support his preconceived notions (just as Lott is accused of doing in the other direction and may well have done), I actually interviewed with him for a teaching assistant position.

I did not pursue the position further after I spoke with him, as his agenda was very apparent, however, during our conversation I suggested that if he really wanted to find out whether the issuing of concealed carry permits in Florida actually increases crime (as he was very evidently wanting to show) the way to find out is to simply compile the actual record of those people who got a concealed carry permit - did they commit crimes with their legally carried guns?

If the "gun crime" supposedly goes up because these people have been given permits and are now carrying concealed in public, then it is reasonable to presume it would be because those very same people are committing crimes with those guns. That would be a direct correlation between the two phenomena.

Was there any indication that the permit holders were the ones actually committing the crimes - and in enough numbers to account for any statistical increase? It just seemed to make sense to me that if you want to avoid the problem of correlation being mistaken for causation you would look for such direct evidence, rather than just a correlative rising of crime.

Sadly, Professor Ayres just wasn't much interested in that approach. Gee, I wonder why?

There is a reason for the old saw about there being three classes of lies: "lies, damn lies - and statistics," with the later being at the pinnacle of the art-form.

One point I will grant you is that most people who feel strongly about guns are indeed single issue voters who were silent as the grave while George Bush and his minions wiped their asses with the rest of the Bill of Rights for eight years - warrantless searches, "black bagging" and extraordinary rendition, secret detention and trial by kangaroo military tribunals using secret evidence or evidence extracted by means of torture, "enemy combatant status" denial of jury trial even for citizens, and the ridiculous arguments that the president had war powers equivalent to an absolute despot, etc.

For all too many "gunny" types, so long as thy have their gun, they still think they are free, even as the police state is being erected around them. Most are as blind to the rest of the Bill of Rights as you are to the Second Amendment.

But that does not mean they are wrong about the central importance of arms to freedom. They are correct about that, just as the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were correct, and just as Aron Bielski, Jewish partisan leader was correct when he said about their fight against the Nazis: "Without a rifle you are nothing, worthless, you are waiting for death, any minute, any second."

And just as the men at Concord bridge were right about that in 1775.

I will forgive my fellow gun rights activists for not being equally passionate and vigilant regarding the rest of the natural rights of human beings protected by the Bill of Rights, and I will forgive your ignorance and blind hatred and hope that you expand your thinking about this subject.

But I also must tell you that it will not simply be a matter of whether you get your way politically/legally.

That will not be the end of the argument.

While too many have tunnel vision, with a single minded focus on their gun rights, they have the focus of a badger guarding its den and will still react very strongly (to say the least) if you stick your hand in there and try to take the one thing they still hold dear. So please don't poke them with your assault weapons ban "stick."

And that reaction will not be isolated to a few "gun nuts." For every Mike Vanderboegh you see on the web, such are merely the visible and vocal tip of a massive iceberg of defiance. Try to avoid playing Mr. Magoo and crashing into it, sinking us all into a true disaster.

Stewart Rhodes, Yale Law School class of 04. Winner of Yale's William E. Miller Prize for best paper on the Bill of Rights for research on enemy combatant status and proud founder of the Yale Law Gunners, law student shooting group (which was mostly made up of lefties who wanted to learn to shoot for the first time in their lives - and loved it!).

PS - III