The Bond Market Bust of the Early 1930s

by J. Irving Weiss (1908 - 1997)

In the early 1930s, I had one of the greatest income opportunities in history.

I could have gotten high, juicy, double-digit yields on the best bonds of the strongest companies in America. And I could have locked in those high returns for 20 or 30 years with virtually no inflation.

The yields on guaranteed government bonds were not as high, of course. But even there, the income opportunity was unusual.

Unfortunately, I missed it entirely. I made the mistake of believing the textbook theory on interest rates.

That theory was based almost entirely on the economy and inflation. When we had more growth and inflation, interest rates were supposed to go up. When we had less growth and inflation, rates were supposed to go down.

Nobody looked at interest rates as separate and apart from growth or inflation, and neither did I.

Boy, was I in for a big surprise! In fact, just as I began to watch rates more carefully, every single thing I had read about them went by the wayside.

Here's what happened: After the Crash of 1929, interest rates fell sharply, which was to be expected, because of deflation.

But then, something absolutely astounding took place: Although we were still in a deflationary era, although the economy was still sinking, interest rates began to surge dramatically.

The immediate reason: Bond markets collapsed.

However, in the early 1930s, when I saw rates surging, I didn't understand the cause. It didn't make sense because we had deflation. And with deflation, the textbooks said interest rates were supposed to go down.

So I asked myself: Was inflation coming back? Did I read the textbooks upside down? The answer to both questions was a flat "no." Yields were surging because bond prices were crashing, just like stocks. And that's when I began to look at interest rates as a powerful fundamental force in their own right, separate from the economy or inflation.

The yields on low-grade corporate bonds were the first to surge as their prices plunged. It was like an aftershock from the stock market crash.

This made sense because these were bad bonds and they traded almost like common stocks. They were issued by companies that were expected to default on their payments; and a lot of the companies did just that. So it was natural that their bonds should fall in value or even become worthless.

As always, the lower the prices, the higher the yields. And wow! Did those yields surge! They went to 15 percent, 20 percent, 30 percent, even 45 percent. But what good was it if you lost your principal?

Then high-grade corporate bonds also got hit hard. Investors feared that any company — regardless of rating — could go belly-up, and they were right!

At some companies, finances deteriorated so quickly that, by the time the analysts got around to downgrading them, they were already in the bankruptcy courts. As the price of these high-grade corporate bonds crashed, their yields surged.

And amazingly, they surged beyond their 1929 highs. Someone was obviously selling the heck out of them. But who?

You'd think that at least government-guaranteed Treasury bonds would be spared from this selling panic. They weren't. Investors sold them aggressively, driving their prices to new lows, following in the path of corporate bonds. Yields surged.

Where was all the selling coming from? One source was the U.S. Treasury itself. In the sinking economy, the government's tax revenues plummeted. So it needed to borrow more to replace the missing revenues. And that meant it had to issue more Treasury bonds — more bond supplies, lower prices, and higher yields.

But that still wasn't enough to explain it. It still didn't tell us what drove interest rates up when every textbook in existence said they should be going down.

It wasn't until later that my brother Al and I figured it out. To understand what was going on, we had to forget about inflation, deflation, money supply, the Federal Reserve, and all the theories economists swore by.

Instead, we looked at bonds like any other kind of investment — no different from stocks or commodities. When investors sold them, they went down in price. When investors bought them, they went up.

These investors didn't give a hoot about textbooks. All they cared about was the fact that they needed cash.

The banks needed cash to meet huge demands by savers withdrawing their money. Businesses needed cash to pay bills. Insurance companies needed cash to pay claims.

So the execs went to their financial VPs to dig up something they could sell off for cash.

"What's this stuff?" they asked.

"They're bonds, sir," came the answer. "They're solid investments — not like stocks."

"Can you sell 'em?"

"Sure we can. But bonds are good for bad times. You shouldn't be selling them now because ..."

"I don't give a damn if they're good, bad, or in between. Sell 'em! Raise cash!"

Thus, tremendous amounts of bonds were dumped on the market. High-grade bonds. Low-grade bonds. Muni bonds. Treasury bonds. It didn't matter what color or denomination. Everywhere, individuals, financial institutions, and businesses were getting rid of their bonds.

If they were low grade or on the verge of default, they got no more than pennies on the dollar. And even with higher grade bonds, many investors were simply throwing the baby out with the bath water, driving prices to new lows.

Looking back, I wish I could have had the foresight to convert my winnings from the stock market crash into the highest grade bonds. On top of the high yields, the purchasing power of the dollar improved. And throughout the entire Depression, bonds outperformed virtually every other investment in the world, with far less risk.

But by the time we had figured it out, the opportunity was gone. As the Depression progressed, rates fell back down again, and only those who had locked them in during that unusual period were able to enjoy the higher incomes. — J. Irving Weiss
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What Will Trigger a Bond Market Bust?

Take your pick (one or more) ...

Trigger #1. Inflation and Inflation Fears. Inflation has been so low for so long, that the complacency on Wall Street and Washington is bordering on the pathological.

Here we are — with massive surges in the price of gold, silver, agricultural commodities, and now, energy to boot — but STILL most bond investors, including the "smartest" banks and insurance companies, don't seem to bat an eyelash.

Here we are — with money supply and inflation surging in China and other emerging markets — and again, virtually no one seems to care.

These price surges are bound to pop up in the U.S. producer and consumer price indexes, which investors DO pay attention to. And when they do, an instant bond market bust is a likely outcome.


Trigger #2. Deficit Inaction. When the Congressional Budget Office recently announced that THIS year's deficit would hit nearly $1.5 trillion, bond prices fell and interest rates rose.

Bond investors knew that the Treasury would have to issue huge new supplies of bonds to finance the deficit. And they knew that big new supplies equal even bigger price declines.

What happens if the deficit balloons to $2 trillion? Another big decline in bond prices!

And what if Obama and Congress continue do little or nothing to make good on their promises of deficit reduction? Still MORE steep price declines!


Trigger #3. Dollar Collapse. Three out of every five dollars financing the U.S. federal deficit now come from foreign investors. Only two out of five come from domestic investors (other than the U.S. government itself).

Heck, the last time America was so dependent on foreign money, Benjamin Franklin was sailing to Paris to beg the French to help finance the Revolutionary War!

What happens next? As long as those foreign investors believe they'll be paid back in dollars that are worth something, they may hang on.

But as soon as they see the value of their dollars collapsing, the only rational response is to dump their holdings — driving bond prices down and interest rates skyward.



Current TBT graphic.

Thorium Reactors and "Sputternik Moments"

The People’s Republic of China has initiated a research and development project in thorium molten-salt reactor technology. A thorium-fueled MSR is best run with uranium-233 fuel, which inevitably contains impurities (uranium-232 and its decay products) that preclude its use in nuclear weapons. Currently there is no US effort to develop a thorium MSR.

The LFTR (TMSR) was first developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers between 1950 and 1975. During the last decade by The Reactor Physics Group of the University of Grenoble has renewed TMSR research. This step is highly rational for the Chinese to take. China appears to have a large thorium reserve, much of it now in the form of rare earth mining tailings. LFTRs as so efficient that they could supply China with all the energy it needs for a period of time that could stretch out for millions of years. LFTRs can be factory built and rapidly deployed in Very large numbers. A large scale LFTR program would enable China to replaced fossil fuel energy sources with nuclear power by 2050, if LFTR development had a 20 year gestation period.

There has been a grass-roots effort underway for over five years to change this. Will the US accept the challenge or allow the Chinese to dominate advanced nuclear technology too? Using a technology invented in the US 40 years ago no less! Here is a true "sputnik moment" but it seems we are destined to tilt at windmills.

http://www.itheo.org/

http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/

I find the "sputnik moment" reference amusing. Forty years ago, we walked on the moon; today, we are just walking. We have one more shuttle mission we can't seem to get off the ground and rely on the Russians to lift our astronauts into space. The Russians said, "No problem." and increased the price from $20 million to $50 million. Seems more like a "sputteringnik moment."

The Legend of the Sky Dragon and Its Mythmakers

The following discussion comes from Chapter 12 of Dr. Martin Hertzberg's recently published book “Slaying the Sky Dragon – Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory.”

There is a simple way to tell the difference between propagandists and scientists. If scientists have a theory they search diligently for data that might actually contradict the theory so that they can fully test its validity or refine it. Propagandists, on the other hand, carefully select only the data that might agree with their theory and dutifully ignore any data that disagrees with it.

One of the best examples of the contrast between propagandists and scientists comes from the way the human caused global warming advocates handle the Vostok ice core data from Antarctica (6). The data span the last 420,000 years, and they show some four Glacial Coolings with average temperatures some 6 to 8 C below current values and five Interglacial Warming periods with temperatures some 2 to 4 C above current values. The last warming period in the data is the current one that started some 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. The data show a remarkably good correlation between long term variations in temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are at a minimum during the end of Glacial Coolings when temperatures are at a minimum. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are at a maximum when temperatures are at a maximum at the end of Interglacial Warmings. Gore, in his movie and his book, “An Inconvenient Truth”, shows the Vostok data, and uses it to argue that the data prove that high atmospheric CO2 concentrations cause global warming.

Is that an objective evaluation of the Vostok data? Let’s look at what Gore failed to mention. First, the correlation between temperature and CO2 has been going on for about half a million years, long before any significant human production of CO2, which began only about 150 years ago. Thus, it is reasonable to argue that the current increase in CO2 during our current Interglacial Warming, which has been going on for the last 15,000 – 20,000 years, is merely the continuation of a natural process that has nothing whatever to do with human activity. Gore also fails to ask the most logical question: where did all that CO2 come from during those past warming periods when the human production of CO2 was virtually nonexistent? The answer is apparent to knowledgeable scientists: from the same place that the current increase is coming from, from the oceans. The amount of CO2 dissolved in the oceans is some 50 times greater than the amount in the atmosphere. As oceans warm for whatever reason, some of their dissolved CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere, just as your soda pop goes flat and loses its dissolved CO2 as it warms to room temperature even as you pour it into the warmer glass. As oceans cool, CO2 from the atmosphere dissolves back into the oceans, just as soda pop is made by injecting CO2 into cold water.

But the real “clincher” that separates the scientists from the propagandists comes from the most significant fact that Gore fails to mention. The same Vostok data show that changes in temperature always precede the changes in atmospheric CO2 by about 500-1500 years.

The temperature increases or decreases come first, and it is only after 500-1500 years that the CO2 follows. Fig 3 shows the data from the termination of the last Glacial Cooling (Major Glaciation) that ended some 15,000 – 20,000 years ago through the current Interglacial Warming of today. The four instances where the temperature changes precede the CO2 curve are clearly shown. All the Vostok data going back some 420,000 years show exactly the same behavior. Any objective scientist looking at that data would conclude that it is the warming that is causing the CO2 increases, not the other way around as Gore claimed.

It is even more revealing to see how the advocates of the human-caused global warming theory handle this “clincher” of the argument. It is generally agreed that the Vostok cycles of Glacial Coolings and Interglacial Warmings are driven by changes in the parameters of the Earth’s orbital motion about the Sun and its orientation with respect to that orbit; namely, changes in the ellipticity of its orbit, changes in its obliquity (tilt relative to its orbital plane), and the precession of its axis of rotation. These changes are referred to as the Milankovitch cycles, and even the human caused global warming advocates agree that those cycles “trigger” the temperature variations. But the human caused global warming advocates present the following ad hoc contrivance to justify their greenhouse effect theory. The Milankovitch cycles, they say, are “weak” forcings that start the process of Interglacial Warming, but once the oceans begin to release some of their CO2 after 500-1500 years, then the “strong” forcing of “greenhouse warming” takes over to accelerate the warming. That argument is the best example of how propagandists carefully select data that agrees with their theory as they dutifully ignore data that disagrees with it. One need not go any further than to the next Glacial Cooling to expose that fraudulent argument for the artificial contrivance that it really is. Pray tell us then, we slayers of the Sky Dragon ask, what causes the next Glacial Cooling? How can it possibly begin when the CO2 concentration, their “strong” forcing, is at its maximum? How can the “weak” Milankovitch cooling effect possibly overcome that “strong” forcing of the greenhouse effect heating when the CO2 concentration is still at its maximum value at the peak of the Interglacial Warming? The global warmers thus find themselves stuck way out on a limb with that contrived argument. They are stuck there in an everlasting Glacial Warming, with no way to begin the next Glacial Cooling that the data show.

But one has to be sorry for Gore and his friends, for after all, they are in the global warming business. Global cooling is clearly someone else’s job!”

I can think of nothing more inappropriate and insulting to Milankovic than having Hansen speak at a Symposium in his honor.

Changing the Climate of Climate Seances

by Willis Eschenbach

At this point, there’s not much about climate science that is “unequivocal” except that the climate is always changing.

• Don’t try to change the rules of the game in mid-stream. It makes you look desperate, whether you are or not.

• Stop calling people “deniers”, my goodness, after multiple requests that’s just common courtesy and decency, where are your manners? It makes you look surly and uncivilized, whether you are or not.

• Stop avoiding public discussion and debate of your work. You are asking us to spend billions of dollars based on your conclusions. If you won’t bother to defend those conclusions, don’t bother us with them. Refusing to publicly defend your billion dollar claims make it look like you can’t defend them, whether you can or not.

• Stop secretly moving the pea under the walnut shells. You obviously think we are blind, you also clearly believe we wouldn’t remember that you said we have a poor understanding of the climate system. Disabuse yourself of the idea that you are dealing with fools or idiots, and do it immediately. As I have found to my cost, exposing my scientific claims to the cruel basilisk gaze of the internet is like playing chess with Deep Blue … individual processors have different abilities, but overall any faults in my ideas will certainly be exposed. Too many people looking at my ideas from too many sides for much to slip through. Trying anything but absolute honesty on the collective memory and wisdom of the internet makes you look like both a fool and con man, whether you are one or not.

• Write scientific papers that don’t center around words like “possibly” or “conceivably” or “might”. Yes, possibly all of the water molecules in my glass of water might be heading upwards at the same instant, and I could conceivably win the Mega-Ball lottery, and I might still play third base for the New York Yankees, but that is idle speculation that has no place in scientific inquiry. Give us facts, give us uncertainties, but spare us the stuff like “This raises the possibility that by 2050, this could lead to the total dissolution of all inter-atomic bonds …”. Yeah, I suppose it could. So what, should I buy a lottery ticket?

• Stop lauding the pathetic purveyors of failed prophecies. Perhaps you climate guys haven’t noticed, but Paul Ehrlich was not a visionary genius. He was a failure whose only exceptional talent is the making of apocalyptic forecasts that didn’t come true. In any business he would not have lasted one minute past the cratering collapse of his first ridiculous forecast of widespread food riots and worldwide deaths from global famine in the 1980s … but in academia, despite repeating his initial “We’re all gonna crash and burn, end of the world coming up soon, you betcha” prognostication method several more times with no corresponding crashing burning or ending, he’s still a professor at Stanford. Now that’s understandable under tenure rules, you can’t fire him for being a serially unsuccessful doomcaster. But he also appears to be one of your senior AGW thinkers and public representatives, which is totally incomprehensible to me.

His string of predicted global catastrophes that never came anywhere near true was only matched by the inimitable collapses of the prophecies of his wife Anne, and of his cohorts John Holdren and the late Stephen Schneider. I fear we’ll never see their like again, a fearsome foursome who between them never made one single prediction that actually came to pass. Stop using them as your spokesmodels, it doesn’t increase confidence in your claims.

• Enough with the scary scenarios, already. You’ve done the Chicken Little thing to death, give it a rest, it is sooo last century. It makes you look both out-of-date and hysterical whether you are or not.

• Speak out against scientific malfeasance whenever and wherever you see it. This is critical to the restoration of trust. I’m sick of watching climate scientists doing backflips to avoid saying to Lonnie Thompson “Hey, idiot, archive all of your data, you’re ruining all of our reputations!”. The overwhelming silence of mainstream AGW scientists on these matters is one of the (unfortunately numerous) reasons that the public doesn’t trust climate scientists, and justifiably so. You absolutely must clean up your own house to restore public trust, no one else can do it. Speak up. We can’t hear you.

• Stop re-asserting the innocence of you and your friends. It makes you all look guilty, whether you are or not … and since the CRU emails “unequivocally” favor the latter possibility, it makes you look unapologetic as well as guilty. Whether you are or not.

• STOP HIDING THINGS!!! Give your most private data and your most top-secret computer codes directly to your worst enemies and see if they can poke holes in your ideas. If they can’t, then you’re home free. That is true science, not hiding your data and gaming the IPCC rules to your advantage.

• Admit the true uncertainties. The mis-treatment of uncertainty in the IPCC reports, and the underestimation of true uncertainty in climate science in general, is a scandal.

• Scrap the IPCC. It has run its race. Do you truly think that whatever comes out of the next IPCC report will make the slightest difference to the debate? You’ve had four IPCC reports in a row, each one more alarmist than the previous one. You’ve had every environmental organization shilling for you. You’ve had billions of dollars in support, Al Gore alone spent $300 million on advertising and advocacy. You’ve had 25 years to make your case, with huge resources and supercomputers and entire governments on your side, and you are still losing the public debate … after all of that, do you really think another IPCC report will change anything?

If it is another politically driven error-fest like the last one, I don’t think so. And what are the odds of it being an honest assessment of the science? Either way the next IPCC report won’t settle a single discussion, even if it is honest science. Again, Dr. T, you have only yourself and your friends to blame. You used the IPCC to flog bad science like the Hokeyschtick, your friends abused the IPCC to sneak in papers y’all favored and keep out papers you didn’t like, you didn’t check your references so stupid errors were proclaimed as gospel truth, it’s all a matter of record.

Do you truly think that after Climategate, and after the revelations of things like IPCC citations of WWF propaganda pieces as if they were solid science, and after Pachauri’s ludicrous claim that it was “voodoo science” to point out the Himalayan glacier errors, after all that do you think anyone with half a brain still believes the IPCC is some neutral arbiter of climate science whose ex-cathedra pronouncements can be relied upon?

Because if you do think people still believe that, you really should get out more. At this point people don’t trust the IPCC any more than they trust you and your friends. Another IPCC report will be roundly ignored by one side, and cited as inerrant gospel by the other side. How will that help anyone? Forget about the IPCC, it is a meaningless distraction, and get back to the science.

That’s my free advice, Dr. T., and I’m sure it’s worth every penny you paid for it. Look, I don’t think you’re a bad guy. Sadly for you, but fortunately for us, you got caught hanging out with the bad boys who had their hands in the cookie jar. And tragically for everyone, all of you were seduced by “noble cause corruption”. Hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s happened to me too, you’re not the first guy to think that the nobility of your cause justified improper actions.

But as far as subsequently proclaiming your innocence and saying that you and your friends did nothing wrong? Sorry, Dr. T, the jury has already come in on that one, and they weren’t distracted by either the nobility of your cause, nor by the unequivocal fact that you and your friends were whitewashed as pure as the driven snow in the investigation done by your other friends … instead, they noted your emails saying things like:

In that regard I don’t think you can ignore it all, as Mike [Mann] suggests as one option, but the response should try to somehow label these guys a[s] lazy and incompetent and unable to do the huge amount of work it takes to construct such a database.

Indeed technology and data handling capabilities have evolved and not everything was saved. So my feeble suggestion is to indeed cast aspersions on their motives and throw in some counter rhetoric. Labeling them as lazy with nothing better to do seems like a good thing to do.

SOURCE: email 1177158252

Yeah, that’s the ticket, that’s how a real scientist defends his scientific claims …

One Light Bulb at a Time

From my son, Buzzy Cox

A physics teacher in high school once told the students that while one grasshopper on the railroad tracks wouldn't slow a train very much, a billion of them would. With that thought in mind, read the following, obviously written by a good American ..

Good idea ... one light bulb at a time ......

Check this out. I can verify this because I was in Lowe's the other day for some reason, and just for the heck of it, I was looking at the hose attachments.. They were all made in China . The next day I was in Ace Hardware, and just for the heck of it, I checked the hose attachments there. They were made in USA . Start looking..

In our current economic situation, every little thing we buy or do affects someone else - even their job. So, after reading this email, I think this lady is on the right track. Let's get behind her!

My grandson likes Hershey's candy. I noticed, though, that it is marked made in Mexico now... I do not buy it any more.
My favorite toothpaste Colgate is made in Mexico .... now I have switched to Crest. You have to read the labels on everything..

This past weekend I was at Kroger. I needed 60 W light bulbs and Bounce dryer sheets. I was in the light bulb aisle and right next to the GE brand I normally buy was an off-brand labeled, "Everyday Value .... " I picked up both types of bulbs and compared the stats - they were the same except for the price.. The GE bulbs were more money than the Everyday Value brand but the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that GE was made in MEXICO and the Everyday Value brand was made in - get ready for this - the USA in a company in Cleveland , Ohio .

So throw out the myth that you cannot find products you use every day that are made right here...

So on to another aisle - Bounce Dryer Sheets...... yep, you guessed it, bounce cost more money and is made in Canada .. The Everyday Value brand was less money and MADE IN THE USA! I did laundry yesterday and the dryer sheets performed just like the Bounce Free I have been using for years and at almost half the price!

My challenge to you is to start reading the labels when you shop for everyday things and see what you can find that is made in the USA - the job you save may be your own or your neighbors!

If you accept the challenge, pass this on to others in your address book so we can all start buying American, one light bulb at a time! Stop buying from overseas companies!

(We should have awakened a decade ago...........)
Let's get with the program...... help our fellow Americans keep their jobs and create more jobs here in the U. S. A. .

Greediest Generation?

Alan Simpson calls seniors the Greediest Generation…
Here’s a response in a letter from a fellow in Montana…

“Hey Alan, let’s get a few things straight…

1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY YEARS.

2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).

3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud.

4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and your ilk pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67. NOW, you and your shill commission is proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.

5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay the bills.

6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To add insult to injury, you label us “greedy” for calling “bullshit” on your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for YOU.

1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?

2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?

3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?

4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?

It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators who are “greedy”. It is you and they who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes. That’s right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.

And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch.”

Peter "Idiot" King (R-NY)

Representative Peter King's solution to the Arizona massacre is to ban arms for 1000 feet of lawmakers. This assures the only armed persons within 1/5th of a mile will be assassins who surely will bring a knife or ice pick since guns are illegal.

Is he that big of an idiot or just thinks his constituents are? If they continue to re-elect him, they are, and truly represented by one of their own.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) seeks to restrict sales of high-capacity ammunition clips like the one Loughner allegedly used in his attack. To work around this, assassins can simply bring two automatics with 15-round clips rather than one with a 30-round clips. Apparently Rep. McCarthy is another faithful representative of the New York electorate, and an fine example offsetting the oft-heard charge that Congress is out of touch with their constituents.

Not that the Constitution means much to those in Congress, judging that they act as if were mere literature if it exists at all, but one asks which part of "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" do they not understand?

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One of the two tacklers in Tucson was carrying. The young person who apprehended the shooter ran towards the shooting. He exited Safeway confident that he could meet force with force, if needed, to find the shooter had been tackled by an elderly person that would have soon been overpowered had help not arrived. If he had not been carrying, would he have gone towards the shooting, or would the 22-year-old shooter overpowered the elderly person, reloaded and continued killing? Care to bet your life or your loved ones on that answer?

In 1991, in Luby's Cafeteria, Suzanna Hupp was not carrying because, as required by law, she left her handgun in her truck. The shooter drove into the cafeteria, killed 22 and wounded 20 more before police arrived and moved the shooter to suicide. Two of the people lost that day were Ms. Hupp's parents. She ran for the Texas Legislature and got the law forbidding concealed carry overturned. Care to talk to her about stricter gun laws?

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The Gun is Civilization
by Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.

The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.

People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.

People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.

The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)