Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

David Codrea:

Next up on the Mother Jones hit list is the somehow objectionable fact that opening up the market will create significant new economic opportunities. Horrors.

But that’s important to them.  They don’t want firearms or firearms accessories manufacturers to make money, and they are willing to use any and every means to shut them down.  That the constitution and free market allows them is irrelevant.  They know better.

Besides, this hit list is no different than the one crafted by Amanda Marcotte at Salon.  When nothing really works as an objection, throw in everything but the kitchen sink.  You can always tell it when the controllers themselves think they have a bad case.  They line up ten leaky buckets, hoping that the combination of them will hold water.  It doesn’t.

Dana Milbank:

The days are growing colder, and soon millions of American hunters will pursue a time-honored tradition. They will load their automatic weapons with armor-piercing bullets, strap on silencers, head off to the picnic grounds on nearby public lakes — and start shooting.

If you do not immediately recognize this pastime as part of America’s heritage, then you are sadly out of step with the current Republican majority in Congress. On Tuesday, a House panel takes up the “Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act of 2017,” which promises “to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing and shooting.”

Among these recreational enhancements:

●Allowing people to bring assault guns and other weapons through jurisdictions where they are banned.

●Rolling back decades-old regulations on the use of silencers.

●Protecting the use of armor-piercing bullets.

●Easing importation of foreign-made assault rifles.

●Protecting the practice of baiting birds with grain as they migrate and then mowing them down.

But more and more hunters are finding that conventional earplugs and muffs are not adequate for today’s weapons — for example, quail hunting with an M777 howitzer or grouse hunting with an FIM-92 Stinger missile launcher.

Hmm … Quail hunting with a Howitzer.  Poor, poor Dana Milbank.  Poor, metrosexual, hand-wringing, paranoid, bed wetter Dana Milbank.  Hey, I notice that you have a history of asking people to write your articles for you.  Did you get Jennifer Mascia or someone else at Everytown to write this one for you, Dana?

If you don’t know that it’s always time to enjoy the shooting sports in America, you’re not out of step with the GOP.  They couldn’t care less.  You’re out of step with most of the American public in “flyover country.”  You’re a chattering class resident of the beltway.  You eat the food that the dirt people grow, so you depend on the dirt people for your very life.

And if you don’t like the idea of killing geese, you can let them ensconce in your yard and foul it up.  They can’t walk two steps without shitting.  Mean, nasty critters.  I hate them.

They are, after all, the king’s forests and king’s parks, never forget.

Valihura also pressed Durstein about an individual’s right to carry a gun for self-defense, which he argued is less acute in a park tent or cabin than in a person’s home. Durstein said the trade-off for banning guns is a commitment by the state to provide law enforcement in state parks.

“Your own regs state that camping is at your own risk, state forests are a public use area and there are no after-hours, nighttime or weekend security,” Valihura noted.

With no evidentiary record to draw on, Justice James Vaughn also wondered about the protection being afforded park visitors.

“We have no idea how much police security is actually provided in these state parks, do we?” Vaughn asked. “I’ve been in them. Occasionally you’ll see a ranger go by, something like that, but I don’t seen any police presence in there.”

Why the hell does the legal system keep promulgating this idiotic myth that the police are there to protect anyone?  They aren’t, and they know it.  And the police know it.  The only people who don’t know it are the peasants who think the police will come to their rescue.

Remember.

In the 1981 decision in Warren v. District of Columbia the D.C. Court of Appeals concluded that it is a “fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.”  In Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005), the Supreme Court declined to expand any requirements for protection and ruled that the police cannot be sued for failure to protect individuals, even when restraining orders were in place.

Your life depends on it.  When in a non-permissive environment you may have to improvise, but improvise you should.

News of St. John.

I’m scared. Those are words I never thought I would write when referring to St. John. But I’m scared. We’re only four days into this mess, and we’re hearing some awful things. For starters, Joe’s Rum Hut was broken into the day after Irma hit. The ATM was stolen. They attempted to get cash out of the register, but it was empty as Joe’s closed for season earlier this month. The ATM next to Cruz Bay Landing was stolen. The ATM at the ferry dock was stolen. Scoops has been broken into. St. John Insurance has been broken into. They hold almost all of the insurance policies on this island. Makes you wonder the intentions of that burglary, doesn’t it? Dolphin Market in Coral Bay was looted the very first night. The very first night. We heard this morning that the Customs building in Cruz Bay was broken into and that guns were stolen. We heard that there was at least three robberies at gunpoint on Gifft Hill. This is not St. John anymore. I’m not sure what it is. What I do know is that I am scared. My friends are scared. And we don’t know what to do.

Last night I was able to go home. What I failed to mention was that we had to install a bar on the inside of our door so no one could break in. This is our new reality. Last night, for the first time since moving here, I was afraid to walk down the streets of Cruz Bay. And it was only 6:30 p.m. People are getting desperate, and desperate times call for desperate measures from some unfortunately. We are only on day four. What’s going to happen next?

I have seen absolutely no aid today except a few boxes of MREs walking down the street. I haven’t seen one helicopter land today. We hear help is on the way. Let’s hope so. We need the military. We need men and women guarding our streets with guns. Our police force does nothing. They sit in their cars and yell at people over the loudspeaker. I kid you not. They’re not even helping with traffic in areas where it’s needed. You know who is? Our homeless people. Our homeless people are directing traffic, and our police are not. Let that sink in for a minute. Several police officers can be seen constantly at Ronnie’s Pizza – our new cell phone spot – and they’re scrolling through Facebook rather than patrolling our streets. Im (sic)shocked they actually got out of their cars for that. I took pictures and I cannot wait until I have internet so I can share them with the world.

We need help. We need the United States government to step up. We need military. We need security. We all survived this monster storm. But will we survive the aftermath? No one knows. And that’s not me being dramatic at all. That, unfortunately, is the new reality of St. John. This is no longer paradise. This is no longer my happy place.

Ah, the wonderful police.  People still believe the myth that the police are there to protect and provide security.  It’s all a lie, so says the U.S. court system.  Understand that.  Your life depends on it.

Neither is it the job of the U.S. military to protect you or your family.  That’s your duty, your responsibility, your God-given right.  These poor people are in a place where they cannot effect that security because guns are not allowed for the peaceable and law abiding citizens, only the criminals.

I’m always of two minds when I hear reports like this.  On the one hand, I have compassion (what normal man wouldn’t have compassion for these people or people in situations like that), and I want the criminals killed.  Not imprisoned, but killed.

Similar thoughts sweep over me when I hear of criminals and gangs dominating cities where gun control is king.  I feel especially sorry for those who want to defend their families but can’t because they live in places where the collectivists rule.

On the other hand, there is nothing more basic and dutiful that the protection of family and life, and if you live in a place where that protection cannot obtain because the collectivists rule you, then you need to get out of there.  That goes for the U.S. Virgin Islands, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, California or Hawaii.

Relocating, pulling up roots and leaving is hard, and nearly impossible in some circumstances.  But you either have to fight the good fight and win, or you have to leave.  Fighting the good fight and losing, while no reflection on you or your character, is the same as not fighting at all.  Either way, you lose and cannot effect the protection of your family.

At some point, you have to be willing to cut your loses and move on.  I feel sorry for the woman writing the blog.  I’m sure her report is accurate.  I feel compassion for her plight.  But if change doesn’t come, and very soon, she has to cut her ties to the place and people and move on.

David Codrea:

“Why haven’t we seen movement over either 38 or 2909 since the horrific events in Virginia?” Walters asked, noting the Republicans control the House and the Senate and both Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appear to be blocking bills advancing the right to keep and bear arms.

“You know what?” Massie replied, “The Speaker told me he didn’t think the timing was right. And I think this is the exact timing to bring this bill.”

Paul Ryan is a traitor.  This isn’t a change or shift for him.  He has always been a gun controller in the superlative degree.

It’s nice to see that David got a mention at Instapundit.

David Codrea:

“U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp signed an emergency order allowing the seizure of private guns, ammunition, explosives and property the National Guard may need to respond to Hurricane Irma,” Michael Bastasch reported Tuesday at The Daily Caller.  “The order allows the Adjutant General of the Virgin Islands to seize private property they believe necessary to protect the islands, subject to approval by the territory’s Justice Department.”

David updates the article with an attempt at damage control that actually makes matters worse, essentially saying that not only can they do this, they regularly do it as a matter of course and they have the right to do it.  At least that’s the way I read it.

I’ll point out a few things.  First of all, there is the British Virgin Islands and the U.S. Virgin islands.  The two are not the same thing, and this is occurring in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  Second, while the people there are technically considered U.S. citizens, they aren’t treated that way.

For example, the U.S. Code (48 U.S. Code 1561) outlines a bill of rights for their citizens that doesn’t include any hint of bearing arms.  This seems to me to be ripe the litigation before the SCOTUS, but apparently that’s for another time.

Third, even though no one can effect change in the confiscation at the moment, this does go to show the first reflex of collectivists.  And you do understand how they know who has firearms, don’t you?

Finally, in a somewhat related vein today I saw a discussion thread at reddit/r/firearms that needs to be addressed.  When responding to a post that compared these confiscations to those post-Katrina, one commenter said this.

No, what happened in Katrina was very different. The order in Katrina was given by the local police superintendent, not the governor. As well, the overwhelming majority of those confiscated in New Orleans were abandoned in houses or forfeited upon being rescued when people were taken to refugee sites. By in (sic) large if a person wanted to stay in their home with their gun, they could.

This is simply a lie, and the commenter knows it.  The comment sounds like it was written by a LEO or former LEO, but it’s wrong in the superlative degree.  There were weapons confiscations done forcibly, i.e., without owner consent, and those weapons were either never gotten back or were in such bad shape (having been cared for poorly) that they were non-functional.

They were returned only because the NRA sponsored a lawsuit to force return of the weapons.  Those confiscations were conducted by local police and military contractors (insert groups like DynCorp here), with supplemental manpower and backup provided by the Louisiana National Guard under the command of Russel Honore, who is proud of his gun confiscation efforts during Katrina.

CNN:

No one will bear the burden of those tragedies more heavily than our police. Under the CCRA, cops would have to patrol our streets surrounded by hidden, loaded guns. They would have no way to confirm whether an out-of-state permit is legitimate and no database to check on the status of those permits. And because many states don’t even require permits to carry, the NYPD would have to take armed individuals at their word.

So police officers are against this bill. Prosecutors, like me, are against this bill. Who would actually be for this bill? I can offer one answer: ISIS.

I’m glad he brought up ISIS.  It’s Vance who is aligned with ISIS, not gun owners.  Remember?  One of the first things ISIS did when they took any area was to outlaw firearm ownership and confiscate them.  ISIS is big on gun control, just like New York City officials.

As for turning New York into the Wild, Wild West, I don’t think anybody has anything to worry about from concealed handgun carriers.  It’s the NYPD we all have to worry about.  Given their < 20% hit rate, if they’re shooting at you, then you don’t have much to fear.  If they aren’t but are just shooting, then find a hole, crawl in it, and pray.  Or run.

On the other hand, you can just stay out of shitholes like NYC like I do.

Rolling Stone:

In 1980, the nation’s gun-violence epidemic hit close to home for Rolling Stone when John Lennon was gunned down by Mark David Chapman. For the magazine’s founder, the slaying in New York sparked a now-four-decade commitment on the gun issue. “It all started with Lennon,” says Jann S. Wenner. “That tragedy. Trying to make sense of it. Or make something good come out of it.” Within months, Wenner had launched the Foundation on Violence in America, a nonprofit that began a public-education campaign, including PSAs starring Oprah Winfrey and Walter Cronkite. But momentum quickly stalled. “It became obvious that the beginning and end of this was the NRA,” Wenner says.

So I guess nobody mattered except John Lennon.  Nice people, they are.  But what they ran smack into was us.  The NRA is sometimes effective, sometimes not, and could be much more effective if they would end their stupid rating awards to politicians for poor voting records.

What Rolling Stone gets wrong on this is what all of the other progressives get wrong.  We won’t let them take our guns, no matter what else obtains.  The NRA thinks the way they do because we do, not vice versa.  The NRA is merely a manifestation of our political power, but there is so much untapped power there.

Rolling Stone lost.  Don’t put a pretty face on this, guys.  It makes you look stupid.

David Codrea:

The ABA’s House of Delegates approved a resolution recommending disarming American citizens based on accusations of “hate crimes” and being a threat, the American Bar Association announced Tuesday. Despite due process concerns raised by some who still view the Constitution as an impediment to total and arbitrary “progressive” rule, Resolution 118B passed by one vote.

While the resolution calls for “documented evidence,” that’s an arbitrary term and has no bearing on the quality of the evidence or of its admissibility. What is to be “verifiable” is a “procedure to ensure surrender of guns and ammunition pursuant to a restraining order” and a means to report resulting restraining orders to state and federal authorities to preclude the accused from buying guns and ammunition.

Instead of meddling in the affairs of other people, learn to be good lawyers, or figure out how to enforce ethics in the legal community.  God knows it needs it.  Just like doctors who want to question patients about guns in the home.  Good Lord.  You’d think they have enough medical problems to worry about, like whether they made an error that day that will cost someone their lives.  The error rate in the medical community is higher than in nuclear power, the airline industry or the pharmaceutical industry.

I wonder how many innocent people are in prison, or guilty people are running free when they should be in prison, because lawyers don’t know how to do their job?  Hey, I have an idea.  Go mind your own damn business.

John Feinblatt of Everytown:

When militia members and white supremacists descended on Charlottesville, Va., last Saturday with Nazi flags and racist placards, many of them also carried firearms openly, including semiautomatic weapons. They came to intimidate and terrify protesters and the police. If you read reports of the physical attacks they abetted, apparently their plan worked.

They might try to rationalize their conduct as protected by the First and Second Amendments, but let’s not be fooled. Those who came to Charlottesville openly carrying firearms were neither conveying a nonviolent political message, nor engaged in self-defense nor protecting hearth and home.

Plain and simple, public terror is not protected under the Constitution. That has been the case throughout history. And now is the time to look to that history and prohibit open carry, before the next Charlottesville.

Historically, lawmakers have deemed open carry a threat to public safety. Under English common law, a group of armed protesters constituted a riot, and some American colonies prohibited public carry specifically because it caused public terror. During Reconstruction, the military governments overseeing much of the South responded to racially motivated terror (including the murder of dozens of freedmen and Republicans at the 1866 Louisiana Constitutional Convention) by prohibiting public carry either generally or at political gatherings and polling places. Later, in 1886, a Supreme Court decision, Presser v. Illinois, upheld a law forbidding groups of men to “parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized.” For states, such a law was “necessary to the public peace, safety and good order.”

In other words, our political forebears would not have tolerated open carry as racially motivated terrorists practiced it in Charlottesville. They did not view open carry as protected speech. According to the framers, the First Amendment protected the right to “peaceably” — not violently or threateningly — assemble. The Second Amendment did not protect private paramilitary organizations or an individual menacingly carrying a loaded weapon. Open carry was antithetical to “the public peace.” Lawmakers were not about to let people take the law into their own hands, so they proactively and explicitly prohibited it.

Today, the law in most states is silent on open carry — and because most states do not explicitly prohibit it, it becomes de facto legal. Because it is legal, open-carry extremists take full advantage of this loophole, typically operating up to and even past the limits of the law. They carry everywhere, and the predictable result is the open carry of semiautomatic weapons in Charlottesville.

“They came to intimidate and terrify protesters and the police.”  This is so ass backwards on so many accounts it needs to be addressed.  First of all, the police weren’t intimidated.  Period.  The police have automatic weapons, MRAPs, and other weaponry that the militias didn’t have.  Feinblatt isn’t considering the possibility that the police were complicit in the whole thing.

But complicit in what?  The protest was by the militias, not Antifa.  They had permits, Antifa didn’t.  They were peaceable, Antifa wasn’t.  I said Feinblatt isn’t considering the possibility that Antifa and the police were on the same side, but in reality, he probably knows it and doesn’t want a conflict to go to waste to craft his anti-gun message.  But the point wasn’t to intimidate, but to protest.  Their carbines didn’t even have rounds chambered.  I’ve tried to consider whether I would have allowed myself to be put in those circumstances without a chambered round, and I think the answer is a resolute no.  The militias showed great restraint, contrary to the picture painted by Feinblatt.

Next, consider his statement that “Historically, lawmakers have deemed open carry a threat to public safety. Under English common law, a group of armed protesters constituted a riot, and some American colonies prohibited public carry specifically because it caused public terror.”  Prove it.  And when Feinblatt tries to prove it, consider what we already know.

In the colonies, availability of hunting and need for defense led to armament statues comparable to those of the early Saxon times. In 1623, Virginia forbade its colonists to travel unless they were “well armed”; in 1631 it required colonists to engage in target practice on Sunday and to “bring their peeces to church.” In 1658 it required every householder to have a functioning firearm within his house and in 1673 its laws provided that a citizen who claimed he was too poor to purchase a firearm would have one purchased for him by the government, which would then require him to pay a reasonable price when able to do so. In Massachusetts, the first session of the legislature ordered that not only freemen, but also indentured servants own firearms and in 1644 it imposed a stern 6 shilling fine upon any citizen who was not armed.

When the British government began to increase its military presence in the colonies in the mid-eighteenth century, Massachusetts responded by calling upon its citizens to arm themselves in defense. One colonial newspaper argued that it was impossible to complain that this act was illegal since they were “British subjects, to whom the privilege of possessing arms is expressly recognized by the Bill of Rights” while another argued that this “is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defense”. The newspaper cited Blackstone’s commentaries on the laws of England, which had listed the “having and using arms for self preservation and defense” among the “absolute rights of individuals.” The colonists felt they had an absolute right at common law to own firearms.

But Feinblatt says “colonies.”  What colonies, when?  Prove it.  I want proof, Feinblatt.  Be specific.  As for his notion that the militia didn’t carry their weapons for the purpose of self defense, so the second amendment cannot apply (“The Second Amendment did not protect private paramilitary organizations or an individual menacingly carrying a loaded weapon”), he misses the point of the second amendment, or more specifically, he really knows the point but wants you to miss it.

The second amendment is specifically about what he says it is not.  It is about the amelioration of tyranny, not personal self defense.  But since he reserves the right of collective violence only to the state, he never applies his missive to the police, who were complicit in the sins of Charlottesville.  He applies it to the only peaceable, law-abiding men there that day.  Because night is day, black is white, and every day is backwards day to the progressive.

Regardless of the moral backwardness of Everytown and their ilk, you should expect that our battle to ensure legal open carry in all fifty states will get infinitely harder, and there will be many attempts to reverse the open carry laws already on the books.  You can count on it.