World News
The Right to Own a Gun Isn’t Just for Americans
Institutions can only last so long in a cultural milieu that is becoming increasingly hostile toward private property and personal freedoms.
Penned by José Niño at Mises.org
The United States is unique for its tradition of gun ownership, which often shocks foreigners and leaves them in a state of disbelief at how ubiquitous firearm ownership is. Moreover, the idea of people carrying firearms almost seems unreal to many. Indeed, gun ownership is as American as apple pie and will not go away so easily, much to the dismay of the most rabid of gun control proponents.
Just look at gun sales since the covid-19 pandemic lockdowns took place. In the first six months of 2020 alone, 10.3 million firearm transactions went through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). From January to October, 17.2 million background checks were conducted, which surpassed the 2016 record of 15.7 million.
In short, gun ownership in America won’t go away so easily. It’s a firmly established tradition that has its roots in practices that go back to the British Isles. The Assize of Arms of 1181 issued by Henry II obligated all freemen of England to possess and bear arms in service of the king.
Further, Ryan McMaken has observed that America’s militia system drew a considerable amount of inspiration from the Levellers—English libertarian-minded reformers who were advocating for a decentralized militia that stood against the British Crown’s efforts to centralize political power in the mid-seventeenth century.
The “folkway” of firearm ownership made its way to the American colonies, where it took on a more radical twist and became a unique part of the American experience. Through its codification in the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms became an integral civil liberty and a unique aspect of American political culture that has largely withstood government overreach. But now there’s reason to believe that this concept will likely be going international.
Will Europe Embrace Gun Rights?
Switzerland has traditionally been one of Europe’s outliers on firearms, thanks to its well-established custom of firearm ownership, which dates back to the Middle Ages. However, that is gradually changing due to a voter-approved initiative in 2019 which clamped down on the ownership of certain firearms the European Union deems dangerous. Bullying from the EU likely contributed to this outcome: the supranational entity revoke passport-free travel for Swiss nationals if they rejected a ballot initiative that would have harmonized Swiss firearm regulations with the EU’s draconian restrictions.
Although Swiss voters have set the country back on gun policy, there are now renewed calls for liberalized gun laws following a high-profile terrorist attack in neighboring Austria. The imminent threat of terrorism on the European Continent and the limits of law enforcement’s ability to protect citizens makes proposals such as liberalized gun ownership more alluring to certain members of the Swiss political class.
On the other hand, countries like the Czech Republic have been moving in the other direction. The Czechs have confronted the EU’s overreach in a bolder manner during the last few years. Back in June 2017, the Czech government announced its support for a plan to codify individual firearm ownership for the purpose of self-defense in its constitution as a response to the passage of a restrictive amendment to the EU’s European Firearms Directive.
This law applies to all twenty-seven EU member states and heavily restricts EU citizens’ ability to purchase and own firearms. The Czech effort to enshrine the right to self-defense in its national charter was able to make it past the lower house of the Czech Parliament but could not receive the final green light in the Senate.
Efforts to expand gun rights in the Czech Republic did not go quietly into the night after this initial loss. They were renewed once again in 2019 after thirty-five members of the Czech Senate introduced a bill to modify the Czech Constitution’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. At the moment, the bill is still being debated in the Czech Parliament, but there is increased optimism regarding its passage. The Czechs are likely aware of their history as part of Czechoslovakia, a Soviet satellite state that suffered its fair share of political repression at the hands of the Soviets. They will not take chances in relying on supranational governing bodies micromanaging their security affairs.
Although the EU’s reaction to a potential passage of a pro-gun bill will likely be hostile, such confrontations should be fully embraced. Disputes between political jurisdictions can often yield dynamic policy results and could put the idea of liberalized gun ownership on the map in a region where these discussions have been noticeably absent. Not only has the Czech Republic changed the firearm policy discourse within its jurisdiction, but it may also inspire other countries, notably its fellow members of the Visegrad Four, to follow in its footsteps. The Visegrad Four, which is made up of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, has already established itself as a contrarian political alliance within the EU on issues of mass migration and overreach by Brussels. It can continue to stir the pot by using the Czech Republic’s behavior as a guiding standard and challenging Brussels on gun policy.
Other Countries Are Changing Their Firearm Policies
Under the leadership of controversial former interior minister Matteo Salvini, Italy also lightened its firearm restrictions. In 2018, the Italian government relaxed laws on firearm licensing and the kinds of firearms Italians can legally possess. The following year, Italy approved a law allowing Italians to use firearms in self-defense against home invaders. In the Western Hemisphere, Brazil relaxed its restrictions on firearm ownership after the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. According to a New York Times report, firearm sales have been on the rise under Bolsonaro’s administration, which has not only loosened its gun laws but has actively used the bully pulpit to promote gun ownership as a means of taking on crime. Perhaps we’re witnessing an international pro-gun movement begin to take root. Whether it’s out-of-control crime or the perceived threat of terrorist acts, many countries are beginning to recognize the validity of civilians having easier access to firearms. If these trends hold, the US may no longer be the sole country that respects firearm ownership.
The West May Not Be So Exceptional
Due to how radicalized political culture is becoming in the US and the pervasiveness of anti-gun tropes in the media and popular culture, it may be just a matter of time before anti-gun public policies start becoming a reality across America. Institutions can only last so long in a cultural milieu that is becoming increasingly hostile toward private property and personal freedoms.
To its credit, the West has not fully bought into the global governance model that many political elites wish to impose on it. The West still nominally maintains a competitive nation-state structure that lets countries experiment with regard to political decisions. Several countries in central and eastern Europe have taken advantage of this and have blazed their own paths while the rest of the West flounders in a sea of statism.
This harkens to a speech that Mises Institute president Jeff Deist gave in Vienna last year in which he called upon followers of the Mises Institute to look eastward—the Balkans, the Baltics, Eastern Europe, and even Asia—for saner political climes. Many of these former Soviet bloc and satellite states have not been as infected by the mind virus of political correctness and its mutant offspring of “wokeism,” which have engulfed developed countries in the West. The experience of going through communism not only broke down and hardened these populaces but also made them skeptical of any radical efforts to reengineer society from the top.
With the developed West buying into woke thought control, mass surveillance, exploding debt, and a greater state role in the economy, other countries will have to step in and assume the mantle of political rationality in this era of mass delusion.
World News
The CEO Of Blackstone Is Warning That “A Real Shortage Of Energy” Will Cause Social Unrest All Over The Planet
And as energy prices escalate, that will push all prices throughout our economic system higher and higher and higher.
We are facing an unprecedented global energy crunch. Demand for energy is continually rising, and the production of energy is not keeping pace. One of the biggest reasons for this is that large financial institutions have become extremely hesitant to fund any new energy projects that will add more carbon emissions to the environment. Instead, they want to fund projects that will help us transition to the new “green economy”, but meanwhile we are getting to a point where we will soon see widespread shortages of traditional forms of energy. So now we all get to suffer. A lack of oil is pushing the price of gasoline to alarming heights, shortages of natural gas are already causing tremendous disruptions in Asia and Europe, we are being told that we are facing a propane “armageddon” this winter, and supplies of coal have dropped to dangerously low levels around the world.
In other words, we are potentially heading into the most painful global energy crisis in modern history.
When CNN asked Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman about this, he openly admitted that we are “going to end up with a real shortage of energy”…
Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman warned Tuesday that high energy prices will likely set off social unrest around the world.
“We’re going to end up with a real shortage of energy. And when you have a shortage, it’s going to cost more. And it’s probably going to cost a lot more,” the private-equity billionaire told CNN International’s Richard Quest at a conference in Saudi Arabia.
When the power goes out, people are not going to be happy.
And people are really not going to be happy if it goes out for an extended period of time.
According to Schwarzman, we will soon see “very unhappy people” all over the globe…
“You’re going to get very unhappy people around the world in the emerging markets in particular but in the developed world,” Schwarzman said at the Future Investment Initiative. “What happens then, Richard, is you’ve got real unrest. This challenges the political system and it’s all utterly unnecessary.”
Sadly, he is right that this global energy crisis did not have to happen.
If the global elite had continued to fund traditional energy projects at the pace that was needed, we could have avoided this nightmare to a very large degree.
But traditional forms of energy are now being shunned, and billions of people will suffer as a result.
Meanwhile, prices throughout our economic system continue to rise at a very alarming pace. Just check out what has been happening to the price of turkey…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, released data recently showing the average wholesale price of Grade A frozen 8- to 16-pound turkey has spiked by 21.91% since last year. That means what cost $1.15 per pound a year ago will now ring at at $1.41. And just for context, the same would have cost 96 cents in 2019 and 84 cents in 2018.
If math isn’t your thing, that’s a 68% wholesale price increase in just two years.
Overall, we are being told that this upcoming Thanksgiving will be the most expensive Thanksgiving that any of us have ever experienced…
Matthew McClure paid 20% more this month than he did last year for the 25 pasture-raised turkeys he plans to roast at the Hive, the Bentonville, Arkansas, restaurant where he is the executive chef. And Norman Brown, director of sweet-potato sales for Wada Farms in Raleigh, North Carolina, is paying truckers nearly twice as much as usual to haul the crop to other parts of the country.
“I never seen anything like it, and I’ve been running sweet potatoes for 38 or 39 years,” Brown said. “I don’t know what the answer is, but in the end it’s all going to get passed on to the consumer.”
Unfortunately, more price hikes are on the horizon.
In fact, Kimberly-Clark is opening warning that they are going to be boosting prices even higher…
Prices of toilet paper, diapers, facial tissues and paper towels will likely rise in coming weeks as Irving-based consumer giant Kimberly-Clark warned Monday that inflation and supply chain concerns aren’t “likely to be resolved quickly.”
So I would stock up on paper products while you still can.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, inflation is eventually going to get far worse than what we witnessed during the 1970s.
At this point, even many top Democrats are warning that high inflation is with us to stay. Here is one recent example…
Former President Barack Obama’s chief of global development on Tuesday predicted inflation was here to stay, despite the Biden administration’s protestations to the contrary.
Prices “will go higher, and the Fed has misread the inflation dynamics in a big way,” former Global Development Council Chairman Mohamed El Erian said in an afternoon interview with Fox News’ Sandra Smith, adding that the Federal Reserve was “still hostage to this notion that it’s transitory.”
And the shortages that we are currently experiencing are ultimately going to get worse too.
Right now, we are already facing the worst shortage of alcoholic beverages since the 1930s. When asked about his empty shelves by a reporter, one gas station owner said that he has “never seen anything like this”…
Supply chain issues are impacting the alcohol supply in the U.S., and it’s making alcohol more expensive and difficult for bars and liquor stores to get.
“I have so many empty shelves. In the two years of doing this, I’ve never seen anything like this,” gas station chain owner Ali Ali said.
As I discussed yesterday, now Biden wants to take countless more truck drivers off the road, and that will make our supply chain headaches a whole lot worse.
And as energy prices escalate, that will push all prices throughout our economic system higher and higher and higher.
Yes, all of this is really happening.
This is not a drill.
We are in the early chapters of a full-blown economic meltdown of epic proportions, and nothing will ever be the same after this.
If you want to keep waiting for conditions to “return to normal”, you are going to be waiting for a really, really long time.
We have entered a truly horrible nightmare, and there will be no waking up from this.
World News
Georgian Protesters Storm LGBT Office, Tear Down Pride Flags And Replace Them With National Flag
Will Biden target them with drone strikes in order to spread “our values?”
Georgian protesters on Monday forced the cancellation of an LGBT pride march after storming the office of an LGBT lobby group, tearing down their pride flags and replacing them with Georgia’s national flag.
This is what anti-imperialism looks like:
#Georgia 🇬🇪: a man on a scooter reportedly tried to drive into a group of journalists as they were reporting on the anti-pride violence in #Tbilisi.
— Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) July 5, 2021
Source: https://t.co/SpUIIzAzRa pic.twitter.com/HSffPvAoVL
From Reuters, “LGBT+ campaigners in Georgia call off pride match after office attack”:
LGBT+ campaigners in Georgia called off plans to stage a pride march on Monday after violent groups opposed to the event stormed and ransacked their office in the capital Tbilisi and targeted activists and journalists.
Activists launched five days of LGBT+ Pride celebrations last Thursday and had planned a “March for Dignity” on Monday in central Tbilisi, shrugging off criticism from the church and conservatives who said the event had no place in Georgia.
[…] Video footage posted by LGBT+ activists showed their opponents scaling their building to reach their balcony where they tore down rainbow flags and were seen entering the office of Tbilisi Pride.
[…] Campaigners said some of their equipment had been broken in the attack and that they had been forced to cancel.
Will Biden target them with drone strikes in order to spread “our values?”
World News
Pfizer vaccine losing effectiveness amid Delta variant surge, Israeli Health Ministry says as it mulls 3rd shot & new restrictions
In addition to booster shots, health officials are also mulling whether to revive some pandemic restrictions.
Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine has dropped to 64% effectiveness in preventing infection amid the spread of the Delta variant in Israel, the Health Ministry said, as officials consider the need for booster shots and new restrictions.
The vaccine fell to 64% effectiveness in preventing symptomatic infection over the last month, the Health Ministry reported on Monday, noting that the decrease coincided with the rapid spread of the more contagious Delta variant across Israel. However, health officials said the Pfizer shot still offers strong protection against severe illness and hospitalization, reporting 93% efficacy.
While the ministry did not give the previous figures in its statement, a report published in May said the Pfizer vaccine was 97% effective against severe illness after two doses. In March, private Israeli researchers also found the immunization to be 91.2% effective against any level of symptomatic infection.
The new data comes amid a small surge across Israel, where the number of active cases hit 2,766 on Monday after 369 new infections, with the Delta variant believed to make up more than 90% of the overall total. As of July 4, around 70 patients were hospitalized, half of them in serious condition, compared to 21 with severe illness on June 19.
The fast spread of the Delta variant, which was first observed in India, has prompted Health Minister Nitzan Horowtiz to order two medical studies looking at the need for a third vaccine dose, saying they would provide “vital information” to policymakers. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office added that the studies will “evaluate the efficacy of the vaccine and the rate at which it wears off over time.”
While nearly 60% of Israel’s population of 9.3 million have received at least one dose of the Pfizer vaccine – helping to bring daily infections down from their peak of around 10,000 in January – cases are still cropping up among the immunized. Last Friday, more than half of the new infections reported were in patients that had been vaccinated, according to Ynet, underscoring the need for further study.
In addition to booster shots, health officials are also mulling whether to revive some pandemic restrictions, most of which were lifted in March, as well as bringing back some version of its coronavirus ‘passport’ system, the Jerusalem Post reported. An indoor mask mandate had previously been dropped, but was brought back in late June as daily cases began to accelerate.
Foreign travelers could also face additional testing and quarantine protocols in the coming weeks, though the Health Ministry has yet to make a decision.
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