Indiana Law Gives Citizens Legal Right to Shoot Out-Of-Control Cops

-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently the State of Indiana has passed a law allowing citizens to use deadly force against out of control officers of the state, including police officers, who unlawfully enter their home. This is a very touchy subject, especially for conservatives. Can we as law and order types agree that such a deadly force law is a good idea? Or should we defer to the police at every instance?

Well, I can’t speak for all conservatives, of course, but for me, I can’t agree with this law more.

Now, before you get all crazy about how I just don’t understand law “enforcement,” let me warn you that my father, a man I dearly love and respect, was in police work for most of his adult life. I am proud of his service. For the most part I respect and sympathize with our officers of the law. So,l et’s get beyond that.

So, while I most certainly sympathize with our law officials, I sympathize with our founders’ vision and the natural rights they invoked more than I do the expectation that officers of the law can act with impunity. That is why I put “enforcement” in quotes. Properly constituted our law officials don’t “enforce” anything. They really only investigate crime, they don’t and shouldn’t proactively try to “enforce” anything as that implies the power to stop something that has yet to occur.
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Indiana Law Gives Citizens Legal Right to Shoot Out-Of-Control Cops”


New Worry: RFID Tracking Chips in Firearms?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Italians have caused an outrage among American firearms customers. A Italian company named Chiappa Firearms sent out a press release (in Italian) last week announcing that it will soon be putting inside each firearm it manufactures an RFID chip (Radio Frequency Identification) meant to track quality control, inventory, and shipping. American gun owners and consumers were whipped into a frenzy of suspicion and fear that government agents will be able to use these RFID chips to track their firearms. But what are the facts and will these RFID tags become common with all firearms manufacturers in the near future?

First of all there is a lot of fear about the capabilities of governments to use RFID chips for nefarious purposes. These are devices that can radio information to someone with a device as inexpensive as $250 and without any “approval” needed for the reading. These chips can relay all sorts of information from location, to detailed records of all sorts.

There are several different kinds of chips but most uses require non-powered chips that can only be read at short distances. In other words we are told that a satellite orbiting in space cannot read a non-powered RFID chip from that distance. Some chips can only be read for a few feet others a few meters.

Despite all the poo pooing that advocates of RFID chips release to ease people’s minds, this identification technology is far easier to misuse than any other ID technology ever invented. But that does not make RFID chips all bad, either.
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New Worry: RFID Tracking Chips in Firearms?”


Slippery Slope 2: A Water Slide With Govt’s Bid to Control America’s Waters

-By Warner Todd Huston

Not long ago I wrote a piece on how the law often becomes a slippery slope when in the hands of judicial activists and radicals that look to the law in order to warp it to their agenda. Today I have a different example of that warping of law except this is one from the legislative side in Congress. This time Congress is attempting to take under its control all water in the United States, even that which sits on or under privately owned lands.

Senator Russ Feingold (D, Wis.) has introduced S. 787, legislation that is meant to help alleviate the confusion that has occurred for litigants since the 1972 passage of the Clean Water Act. Since ’72 a series of confounding decisions have put agencies and users in a quandary as to the implications of the act and its authority.

Unfortunately, Feingold’s revision of the bill makes matters worse. Oh, sure it solves the question of authority, alright. But it solves it by seeming to claim that the federal government controls all of America’s waters. From the puddle in your back yard, to the aquifer under your property, to the stream on your land, to every last rivulet, farm pond (even man-made ones), and navigable waterway, it’s all Uncle Sam’s if the over broad language in this bill is to be believed.

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Slippery Slope 2: A Water Slide With Govt’s Bid to Control America’s Waters”