conza:

“A most important truth about money now emerges from our discussion: money is a commodity. Learning this simple lesson is one of the world’s most important tasks. So often have people talked about money as something much more or less than this. Money is not an abstract unit of account,…

“Well does the State know Mao’s dictum: “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” The rulers realize that the only way to retain their control over the people is to monopolize the firearms. The powers-that-be perceive that the people can never exercise their right to be free if they have no might to be free. Thus it is in part by gun control that Big Brother perpetuates his hegemony.”

It’s a broad base in the US now pushing for gun control laws. Not only Democrats, but also Republicans are proposing and supporting measures. California Democrats have already introduced legislation that would mandate background checks and one-year permits for anyone looking to buy ammunition. The one-year permit creates an amazing hassle for owners, but would not deter anyone looking to plan a quick hit from doing so. Clearly, the push for gun control has little to do with preventing tragedy. California is not the only state moving to control the sale of ammunition, as Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey have done the same. The laws generally require a background check and an annual $50 permit to buy any ammunition whatsoever.

The National Rifle Association, a front group designed to hold captive the public opinion of gun owners, has announced it will reconsider its position of steadfastly fighting nearly all federal or state gun control legislation. Forty percent of households own a gun, and it is clear that there is broad resistance to curtailing 2nd Amendment gun rights. In Ohio, Governor John Kasich, a Republican, announced plans to sign legislation enabling people to keep guns in their cars at the Statehouse garage and make it simpler to renew licenses and carry concealed weapons. “I think as we move forward, whatever we do, we don’t want to erode the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens,” the governor said.

Of course, the media is pushing for gun control legislation. While it is illegal to show pictures of troops arriving home in coffins, they are showing images of the funerals of the elementary school children massacred Friday. This is not to say they don’t have the right to show the images, but revealing considering the forbidden troop photos.

Now is the time to buy instruments of self-defense, like guns. Things are now on swift-footing in the US to curb your right to bear arms. But, what outlawing guns and ammunition will do is create demand on the so-called “black market,” referred to here at TDV as the “free market.” Bitcoin retailer Silk Road admins will see the amount of guns and ammunition moved over the platform increase.

About a year-and-a-half ago Senator Joe Manchin demanded the website Silk Road be “shut down immediately.” But, the free market website Silk Road has boomed ever since, with $22 million in annual sales.

Similar to Silk Road is The Armory, which was broken off from Silk Road by Silk Road admins so as to spread their risk. On the Armory, you could buy guns, ammo, bulletproof vests and explosives online. The weapons were purchased in Bitcoin, which means buying and selling with privacy. Though now defunct due to lack of a healthy market, one can reasonably expect similar options in the very near future.

To access these sites, one must access Tor, which is very good and is improved over time, but does not totally ensure anonymity. Staying away from a Windows operating system and becoming familiar with Linux is crucial. Using Linux will make you more efficient on your computer.

With Tor Browser, you can now easily access the once mysterious Tor Network. Once the Tor browser is running you will need to direct it to the Silk Road URL so you can create an anonymous profile. Make sure your username and password are new.

laliberty:

I’m going to ask you all a question. Weapons for what? To fight against whom? Against the Revolutionary Government that is backed by the entire population?

Weapons for what? Is there a dictatorship here?

Are they going to fight against a free government that respects the rights of the citizenry?

Now that there is no censorship, and that the press is entirely free, more free than it’s ever been, and having the assurance that it will continue to be forever without there ever being censorship here again?

Today, that the entire population can gather freely? Today, that there’s no tortures, or political prisoners, or assassinations, or terror? Today, that there’s nothing but happiness, that all the traitorous leaders have been sacked in the trade unions and that there will be immediate elections in all the trade unions?

When all the rights of the citizen have been restored, when an election is being planned in the briefest time possible, weapons for what? Hiding weapons for what? To blackmail the President of the Republic? To threaten to disturb the peace? To create gangster organizations? Are we going to return to gangsterism? Are we going to return to daily shootouts in the streets of the capital?

Weapons for what?

Hopefully, no additional comment is necessary.

[W]henever there is a mass shooting, or other gun incident that snags the headlines, [plenty of people] do their best to exploit the tragedy and push for laws that would, well, take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it.

There are a lot of problems with this approach, but one of the most significant is this one: It doesn’t work. One of the interesting characteristics of mass shootings is that they generally occur in places where firearms are banned: malls, schools, etc. That was the finding of a famous 1999 study by John Lott of the University of Maryland and William Landes of the University of Chicago, and it appears to have been borne out by experience since then as well.

In a way, this is no surprise. If there’s someone present with a gun when a mass shooting begins, the shooter is likely to be shot himself. And, in fact, many mass shootings — from the high school shooting by Luke Woodham in Pearl, Miss., to the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo., where an armed volunteer shot the attacker — have been terminated when someone retrieved a gun from a car or elsewhere and confronted the shooter.

Policies making areas “gun free” provide a sense of safety to those who engage in magical thinking, but in practice, of course, killers aren’t stopped by gun-free zones. As always, it’s the honest people — the very ones you want to be armed — who tend to obey the law. …

Gun-free zones are premised on a lie: that murderers will follow rules, and that [honest people who carry concealed weapons] are a greater danger to those around them than crazed killers. That’s an insult to honest people. Sometimes, it’s a deadly one. The notion that more guns mean more crime is wrong. In fact, as gun ownership has expanded over the past decade, crime has gone down.

Fortunately, the efforts to punish “the people who didn’t do it” are getting less traction these days. The Supreme Court, of course, has recognized that under the Constitution, honest people have a right to defend themselves with firearms, inside and outside the home, something that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit recently acknowledged in striking down Illinois’ gun-carry ban. Given that gun-free zones seem to be a magnet for mass shooters, maybe we should be working to shrink or eliminate them, rather than expand them. As they say, if it saves just one life, it’s worth it.

The generations that claimed independence from the King of England and his empire did so because they understood that all men are created equal, and that all men – all human beings – have rights that are inalienable and intrinsic and timeless, rights granted by the Creator. Chief among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The Declaration goes on to explain why we have government at all. It’s a simple reason. Governments are instituted among men, by men, and derive power from the consent of the governed for one reason: To secure these God-given natural rights.

Let me repeat – government exists only to secure our rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

So what happened since then?

First – the Constitution itself, when offered at the end of that long hot summer in Philadelphia was very much the work, to use Bastiat’s phrase, of cunning and artful political leaders. Their assigned task was to improve upon the Articles of Confederation – specifically addressing issues of central government funding, and of interstate standardization of trade and tariffs.

Instead, the doors were locked, the Articles – which had functioned well and had survived and thrived for a dozen years, were discarded, and a document establishing a central and unified government for the 13 colonies was drafted.

The 9^th and 10^th amendments were demanded as a weak remedy to a Constitution that seemed to grant ultimate power to a distant capitol. These two amendments were demanded by the Anti-Federalists to ensure that the Republic was not a Kingdom in disguise; that the President and the Congress were not a King and his court all over again.

That these amendments were written on paper did not limit them. As we see in the wording of the 9^th Amendment – this enumeration of rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people. Imagine, a government that does not deny our rights, and beyond that, does not disparage, belittle, mock, and laugh at them!

The daily abuses of the Department of Homeland Security, the American presidents’ kill lists and free speech zones, and 30 thousand drones flying over our country operated by local, state and federal law enforcement and spy agencies don’t seem to fit in or under the Constitution. The many property abuses we face every day, from illegal searches of our papers, computers, and phones to actual takings and condemnations of land and property, tell us in no uncertain terms that the federal government is disparaging our natural rights. It tells me our modern government has nothing but contempt for our life, liberty, and property. It has nothing but contempt for, as Bastiat defines it, our life, our faculties, our production and our individuality.

Where are we today, 221 years after the Bill of Rights was made the law of the land right here in Richmond? We have a million pages of laws, and less liberty than any generation before us. We have more taxation and less representation than any previous generation. But we do have a rallying cry – written into the supreme law of the land, a cry for liberty and prosperity.

The Bill of Rights is not an agreement, a contract or a conditional grant. It is a statement of a common and factual natural law. Men are born free. We are born free. We are born free, to live free, to create and produce freely as we are led and blessed to create and produce, to care for and protect our own property, our environment and our families, to trade peaceably with others, and to worship and express our individuality, our faith, and our liberty in a thousand ways. Government exists by our consent, and serves only to protect our rights.

I believe the Bill of Rights is the natural companion to the Declaration of Independence. May both of these documents inspire us all to seize the day, and live free. May the Bill of Rights guide us in our lives and work, focus our prayers, broaden our dreams, and lead us to end the tyranny, and restore our badly damaged Republic.