A July 4 assault on liberty

This is still a developing story, and the veil of lawyer-advised silence is descending, but TJIC has again been targeted by the repressive government of Massachusetts and/or his local government. This time, they’ve dragged his fiance into it, confiscating her legally owned firearms after he applied for a new MA LTC. From Tam, who has been in direct communication with the TJIC household:

Well, TJIC got his Massachusetts FID* reissued, and has reapplied for an MA LTC**.

Now the local po-po*** is surrounding his crib, wanting to inspect the premises. Without a warrant. In the suburbs of Boston. On Independence Day.

More from Tam, in various comments to her original post:

Jenn was like “There’s a cop looking at me through the window with a flashlight and his hand on his holster!”

I’m on the phone with Jenn; she’s walking through the house with the officer. They’re seizing her guns as we speak.

They’re already in contact with counsel.

TJIC himself chipped in a little info:

I had an EXCELLENT gun lawyer on speed dial. It took half an hour to get a callback on a vacation day, but after that, he was with us every step of the way.

I repeatedly refused the cops’ requests for a voluntary walk-through of the house.

I repeatedly refused to answer any questions.

The cops repeatedly told me that if I had nothing to hide, I should just allow a walk-through, and if I was a good guy, I’d have a “conversation” with them.

In the end they illegally seized my FID (just plan CAN NOT do it, but they took it and wouldn’t give it back) and they illegally seized Jennifer’s firearms. My lawyer was appalled but not surprised.

Jennifer and I have been talking about moving out of MA in 3-6 years.

We are officially looking for real estate tomorrow; I will not spend one more day than is necessary in this totalitarian hell hole.

and

At the end, some of the cops who ransacked the house tried to shake hands with me. “No hard feelings”.

I refused and said “Gentlemen, please think about what you’re doing. On the fourth of july, the day we celebrate freedom, you stole legally owned firearms from a women who is engaged to a guy who made a joke you don’t like. You are not the good guys. You are ‘just doing your jobs’. Look in the mirror. You’re the bad guys.”

Response: “I’m sorry you feel that way. Have a good Fourth.”

My lawyer says that there’s a decent chance I may yet be arrested.

And with that, I should probably go radio silent for a while.

Words do not describe how wrong this is. Tam seems to have the direct scoop for now, keep your eyes open there for new information.

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HAVA Fundraiser Reminder

Don’t forget, Linoge’s HAVA fundraiser is still going! Get your donations in before 2359 EDT on 31MAR13 for the drawing!

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Honored American Veterans Afield fundraiser

Over at Walls of the City, Linoge is doing another fundraiser for a worthy cause, with some nice prizes. Go check it out!

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Legislative Update: US House gun bills

No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money has a good summary. Go check it out, and then start calling your legislators.

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(h/t SayUncle)

Help a fellow blogger out

I’ve been out of town and busy since about this time last week, and my internet time has been minimal. So while I’ve been aware of it, I haven’t been able to post about Tam’s recent skin-cancer diagnosis. Fortunately (for given values of ‘fortunate’), it’s “just” basal cell carcinoma, which is, as Tam so eloquently puts it, “cancer’s farm team”.

Still, cancer sucks, whether it’s  the farm team or the major league. The worst of it, though, is that Tam is (as she puts it) “self-unemployed”, and unfortunately also uninsured.

Cancer treatments are expensive.

Facial surgery is expensive.

Follow-up care for both of those is expensive.

Cancer can leave you financially hurting even with insurance. Without insurance, it can be a nightmare. Tam could use a little help (or probably a lot of help, really).

Fortunately, Tam has us. The bloggers and followers that rely on her for our daily dose of grade-A snark. Right now, there are several raffles, auctions, and other fundraisers going on to help her out JayG has a good round-up here, and Tam has a good link-farm, too. Plus, she has a tip jar on her own site that we can use for donations.

I have to wait until payday, but I will be hitting that tip jar. Let’s all chip in and give a good woman a hand, shall we?

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It’s that time again… Graphics Matter!

Linoge has Year Four of his Graphics Matter series up. And there’s a big surprise!

Anywise, as we can clearly see, firearm ownership took a marked jump around the 2008-2009 range (I wonder why?), while the total number crimes committed with firearms (CCwF) have been decreasing at various rates since 2007 and the rate of CCwF has been decreasing since 2006. Why, it is almost like the number of firearms in public circulation has absolutely no bearing on the number of crimes committed with those firearms!

Lo and behold, it does not. If we solve for the Pearson correlation coefficient for the raw numbers of firearms in circulation against the raw numbers of crimes committed with firearms, you find that ‘r’-value to be -0.45541 – a weak, negative correlation.

Then if we do what all good statisticians should do and consider rates instead of raw numbers, the rate of firearm ownership correlates to the rate of CCwF with a coefficient of -0.59906 – an arguably strong, negative correlation.

Well, okay. If you’ve been paying any attention at all, it’s not really a surprise. We see, yet again, that the anti-Rights cultists’ claims that “more guns = more crime” simply doesn’t hold up to even a simple reasoned analysis once actual evidence is taken into account.

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Desktop meme

Since my iPod rarely gets used any more beyond the occasional trip to my parents, I didn’t bother with the recent meme. Sebastian came up with a new one, though: “What’s on your desktop?” that does work for me.

That’s a pretty cool picture of Captain-General Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto from the manga/anime series Bleach. Mainly because I thought it looked cool and I like the series.

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Linoge’s “Graphics Matter” series – Year 4

Linoge has this year’s “Graphics Matter” post up. This year there’s an interesting trend visible in the newly available data for 2009.

And yet again he shows us that the hypothesis that more firearms result in more firearm-related deaths is historically and demonstrably false. It’s a moderately long read, as always, but – again, as always – it’s worth the time. Go check it out!

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Awesome shiny! Larry Correia is in G.I. Joe!

Code name: Spreadsheet.

That is just [bleeping] cool.

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(h/t Robb Allen)

Oddball joins the club!

It seems congratulations are in order for Oddball – he just got his concealed carry permit.

Congratulations! May you never actually need to use your gun.

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