Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

Lizzy’s Law.  It would require certain things of S.C. gun owners.

“In the autumn of 2006, Elizabeth “Lizzy” Hafter, a 22-year-old graduate student, was shot twice in the head while she studied on a mountain overlook in Virginia. The man behind the trigger had stolen the murder weapon and the car he was driving from his roommate in Georgia, the first act of a multistate crime spree that left several people dead across the South. The roommate did not report the thefts to police for nearly a week, precious time lost to investigators.

“He could have been stopped if the gun owner had only reported the gun and car stolen,” Hafter’s mother, Joanne, wrote in a letter to a lawmaker in the years after her daughter’s death.

The letter was part of Joanne Hafter’s shoe-leather crusade to hold gun owners accountable for failing to promptly inform police about the theft of their weapons.”

She is imagining that.  She just made it up.  She doesn’t know if anyone doing any particular thing that day could have been stopped.  But the controllers want you to know they’re watching you.

On the other hand, there are hearings on constitutional carry in S.C.

On Tuesday, January 30^th, the South Carolina state Senate Judiciary Committee will be hearing Senate Bill 449 to enact constitutional carry.  Please contact committee members today and urge them to SUPPORT this legislation.  Click the “Take Action” button below to contact committee members.

Sponsored by Senator Shane Martin (R-13), S. 449 would allow law-abiding adults to legally carry a firearm without first needing to obtain a Concealed Weapons Permit (CWP).  Self-defense situations are difficult, if not impossible, to anticipate.  Accordingly, a law-abiding adult’s right to defend themselves in such situations should not be conditioned by government-mandated time delays and taxes.  The CWP will still be available for those who wish to take advantage of reciprocity agreements when traveling to other states.

Okay, this is all well and good enough.  But where is open carry in all of this.  WHERE IS OPEN CARRY IN ALL OF THIS?

Has it fallen off the radar, and if so, why?  Are citizens in South Carolina letting their senators forget about open carry?  Because it will piss me off if this goes yet another session without approval by the senate and house.

The Washington Times:

TV host Mike Rowe likes to illustrate how attitudes have changed over the years by recalling the time he and a classmate brought a gun to his high school in Baltimore — not just any gun, but a sniper rifle.

“We walked in the school, had the gun over my shoulder, walking down a crowded hall and the principal saw me and said, ‘Hey, what do you have there?’ And I handed it to him and said, ‘It’s a Mauser. Check it out. It’s an old German sniper rifle,’” Mr. Rowe said.

The principal was impressed with the firearm and their plans to tinker with it in metal shop, he said.

“He said, ‘Bring it by the office when you’re done. I’d love to look at it when you’re finished,’” Mr. Rowe recalled. “That’s 1979 or 1980. Where I grew up, we saw the guns in the back of the truck. They were there in the gun racks in the high school parking lot.”

“I think most things are down to mental health. I think a lot of giant issues get missed because we confuse the cause with the symptom,” he said, adding that the basic issue behind shootings is “terrible judgment.”

After properly and correctly observing that the culture and morals of the country have changed for the worse, Mike then proceeds to unravel his whole argument.  I’ve often said that if you want to truly understand what you think the root cause of something is, pose your remedy to ameliorate the condition.  Then you’ll be able to backtrack to your real problem.

Mike’s problem is that he feels that there are mental health issues, and I guess he wants a gigantic psychiatric program run nation-wide to figure out who is the one who will make “terrible judgments.”

Not one word about evil, sin, moral choices or a country that has rejected God.  Because apparently he doesn’t believe in such things.

You can keep your gun-control psychiatrists, Mike.  I don’t want them or need them.

Kirkland Reporter:

A proposed bill would add harassment to a list of domestic violence crimes for which someone can have their firearm rights revoked.

SB 6298, sponsored by Senator Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, adds harassment crimes in a domestic violence setting to existing law. The bill was heard on Tuesday.

Under both existing law and the Dhingra’s bill, a person must be convicted of a domestic violence felony or gross misdemeanor to have their firearm rights revoked.

Harassment, which is a gross misdemeanor, not a felony, would be included under the bill. Harassment includes physical threats or threats that instill reasonable fear and are likely to be carried out.

“We can’t ignore that these threats are promises to a victim,” Chris Anderson, director of the Domestic Violence Unit for the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, said.

Protective order cases, he said, often show patterns of domestic abuse, threats, and harassment that can be more serious than individual incidents reported in 911 calls.

“The most statistically significant thing we can do is remove firearms from the situation,” he said.

Anderson also said that because felony level domestic violence cases are sometimes hard to prove, the court might settle for a plea-bargained misdemeanor. Including misdemeanors, the bill would more accurately represent a perpetrator’s past history of violence.

Washington state already has a law prohibiting those convicted of domestic violence from owning a gun. That includes felonies like assault, stalking, death threats, or violating a protection order. When someone is convicted of a crime, he or she must surrender any firearms to the court. In 2014, the legislature enacted a law that someone must surrender their firearms to the court when there is a protection order issued against them. He or she can, however, petition the court to restore those rights.

Here is what she wants you to think is going to happen.  A man and woman separate, and the man calls his wife up and says something like this.  “I’m going to find myself a sniper’s hide and take you out when you walk out the door.”

In reality, it will be applied like this.  The word of the woman is all that will be needed.  No evidence beyond this will be required.  Furthermore, it might be something like this.  “I’m going to pick up my things because I need them.”

But Manka Dhingra is a social justice warrior.  It will pass in Washington because it’s just California North.  So goes the great Western American redoubt.

Via reddit/r/firearms:

I’m a female in my early 30’s in a european country where guns are absolutely forbidden.

Whenever I talk to my friends and express my opinion about firearms they get ballistic and enraged about my views, calling me all sorts and seeing me as a paranoid monster who contributes with my views to gun related deaths and crimes. I think it makes them feel more sophisticated to hate arms.

The general ideology here is that guns are bad and it’s good they are forbidden for own sake.

But I don’t understand why I don’t have the right to protect myself should anything happen. Forks can also be used as a deadly weapon, and you don’t see them banned or made illegal. It’s about common sense. But why can a burglar get in my house to rob me and I can’t have the right to a gun for basic protection? How many women, and men, could have saved themselves had they had a gun? How many people raped could have shot their attacker had they had the right to own a gun?

Having a gun doesn’t mean I’m gonna use it lightly or gonna shoot someone in an argument or in the heat of the moment.

I just want a weapon to protect myself and my loved ones.

About 2 years back, while working in a bar, someone came in to rob us, yielding a knife, it was a very scary experience but luckily a couple of boys from the local rugby team were there for drinks and could manage to stop him, we called the police but the guy got away.During the chaos he repeatedly threatened to rape and kill my coworker and I and said he’d come back to get us.

The police didn’t do much since the guy got away, they just drove around in their car to see if they could find someone matching the description we gave.

And he indeed came back another day after closing the bar at night when we were alone, but my coworker saw him before he could get in and closed the bar doors, then called the police.

Until the police arrived he stayed outside throwing tables and chairs on the terrace against the bar window, banging on the door, screaming he was gonna rape and kill us and detailing how, calling us names, saying he had followed us home and knew where we live.

Again the police came with the sirens on, so the guy run away again. We told the police we feared he’d do something to us and they saw we had a few huge kitchen knives placed all over the bar counter for protection, they advised against it and said we could get in big trouble if we actually used the knives, so we asked if we could buy a couple of pepper sprays for protection, but the police informed us they were illegal to use and could again get us in trouble. Same with teasers or any other weapon for protection.

We went and bought a couple of pepper sprays anyway, we had to give our ID in the shop where they registered we had bought them, because they are legal to buy but illegal to use.

During the next weeks we were lucky to have friends who would stay in the bar with us at closing time and would walk us home. Both my coworker and I quit a couple of months later for unrelated reasons, but I’ll never forget what is like having to go to work fearing some crazy weirdo would attack or rape us. I didn’t mention he was identified by the rugby guys as one of the members of a local gang, which made it scarier. We felt real fear for our lives.

That’s when I started feeling more passionate about guns and the right to protect myself. How come some weirdo can come to rob us, threaten to kill and rape us, and our only protection measure is calling the police and hoping they catch him?

We couldn’t even protect ourselves with a pepper spray, how outrageous it is that someone could hurt me and I have to let him because I have no other means to protect myself? So, I very much envy other countries where people can feel safe should anything bad happen, they have the means to protect themselves and their families.

Now I carry a 5 inches pocket knife and a pepper spray in my purse at all times, even knowing if I got attacked and used it to defend myself, I could potentially end up in legal trouble. I’d also get in trouble if I’m randomly searched by the police, since it’s illegal to carry a knife. But I rather pay a fine than being raped and not having a weapon to defend myself. Again my friends think I’m dramatic and should I get raped or attacked that’s why we have a judicial system, to put them people in jail. And then they say you can’t live like a paranoid, living in fear. But don’t see it that way, I acknowledge crimes happen and to me, the logical measure is to have protection, I don’t think I’m a ‘paranoid’ I think I’m aware of the world I live in and my right to have protection should be respected and encouraged.

As as side note, someone in my town who also had a bar and lived above it, got robbed one night, when he heard noise downstairs and realized he was being robbed, he got a crowbar, went downstairs and beat the shit out of the thief, seriously damaging him, I don’t remember the details but the guy got sent to the hospital badly injured. Now guess who ended up in jail for a long time? The bar owner, for using excessive force and bludgeoning him. Nothing happened to the thief, nothing, no time, nothing!

The system is f***** up in my country and I am being denied the right to protect myself. The system is in favor of all the wrong people, giving them advantage by depriving us the right to own firearms.

Now, I’m not a gun fanatic, when I speak about this people compare me to gun fanatics and stereotype me. Now, I lean towards the left (if any), I respect everyone, I pay my taxes and do everything by the book, I work, pay my bills, you have your opinions, I have mine, mine are not better than yours, just mine. You have the right to believe what you want, so do I, but we both have the right to protect our family and loved ones.

Being pro-gun doesn’t make me a kkk hillbilly with no teeth.

The entire continent has lost its soul.  They cannot even construct an argument for defense of their lives as being made in God’s image.

David Codrea links this Ammoland piece by Jeff Knox.  Boy is this some disturbing reading.  I cannot possibly rehearse all of the dirty laundry there, but there is this titillating little fact that may catch your interest.

Heston won that election by four votes, and immediately left the meeting to jet back to LA and appear on a radio talk show, during which he repeatedly stated that it was inappropriate or civilians to own AK47 type rifles. He eventually learned his script better, and the following year stepped up to become President of the NRA.

Embarrassingly, I didn’t know that.  Well then, Charlton Heston was a traitor, clear and simple.  I need no other evidence.  Jeff also discusses Adam Kraut, whom he supports for the board, and after reading his response to Marrion Hammer, I do too.

As for me, you could easily guess my own position.  Marrion Hammer can go traffic in her lies and misdirection somewhere else.  I’m not impressed in the least.

There is a deep, dark problem within the NRA.  Their history is a divided one, and their traitorous actions (e.g., the Hughes amendment) have harmed the firearms community, and I might also point out something I have before.  By outlawing the manufacture of machineguns after 1968, which the NRA didn’t fight, and also by the existence of the National Firearms Act, the engineering and design of open bolt firearms essentially ceased within the United States.  This has weakened the U.S. military and possibly lead to deaths of service members on the field of battle.

I cannot cipher the NRA willingness to hop in bed with traitors unless they are in fact traitorous themselves.  Let’s assume for a moment that the NRA actually chose to wield their power on Capital Hill.  Let’s assume for a moment that the this forthcoming bump stock ban wasn’t the NRA’s idea.  Let’s assume for a moment that they informed every Congressman and Senator that they expected a vote on this, and that the vote would be tallied and scored, with NRA money behind their efforts to primary enemies of the second amendment.

In other words, let’s assume that the NRA was doing its job.  Wayne Lapierre could be literally one of the most powerful men in Washington.  The red carpet would be rolled out for him everywhere he goes.  Who wouldn’t want that?  But instead of this, we see that the board is so discombobulated that it cannot accomplish anything of value or worth, and Wayne and Chris continue their deconstruction of the second amendment unabated.  Note this comment on Adam’s piece by Rob Pincus.

The Board of Directors is far too large and almost completely powerless, but voting out the Status Quo Old and voting in the new is what it needs.

Creating a large board and hamstringing their efforts with rules is the surest way to render them powerless.  What happens if the NRA sells us out over bump stock bans and other future gun control laws (I also suspect Marrion Hammer is the reason we don’t have open carry in Florida)?  Well, the gist of various comments from TTAG sums it up nicely for me.  If the NRA doesn’t do an about-face, and that, very soon and very quickly, and without any more of our money, they need to be destroyed.

They need to be finished as an organization.  They can turn their board over to the Fudds for gun control, or some other such nonsense group, and go broke for all I care.  But if they don’t do a U-turn, they will have no more of my money or attention.  This war needs to get ugly, and fast.  I realize that many of my readers have already come to the same conclusion long ago.

This is the wisest 17 minutes you’ll spend today.

NECN.com:

Gun owners in Massachusetts are being warned if they own bump stocks, they have two weeks to get rid of them.

The Massachusetts legislature voted last year to ban them and Feb. 1 is the deadline to comply or face criminal charges.

“This is not a joke,” said Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners Action League. “A violation of this new law is up to life in prison.”

Wallace says many bump stock owners may not be familiar with the new law, and a warning from Massachusetts state officials to gun owners — despite being dated Dec. 18 — only went out Friday, more than a month later.

[ … ]

There are no exceptions.

The collectivists in the great Northeast have threatened bump stock owners with life in prison for owning one.  Do I have readers in Massachusetts?  Do you own a bump stock, and if so, what are you going to do about this?

David Codrea points out an article by Alex Yablon that appears on the face of it to be quite fair and impartial, but David points out to me that he is a Bloomberg apparatchik and relishes pointing out dissension in the gun ranks.  Whatever.  There is a lot of dissension and if you haven’t seen it you haven’t been looking.  With friends like we have, who needs enemies?  Hey, here’s a quick note to Alex.  If he really wants to be impartial and fair, I invite him down to my neck of the woods to go shooting at a local range.  Will he take me up on the offer?

At any rate, David has made his remarks on the proposed rulemaking on bump stocks.  I’ll get to it before the deadline, but I’m still expecting some help from readers.  To date there hasn’t been much input.

There is more.

“When I was 18, I was arrested and charged with felony retail theft for theft of $479 worth of clothing at a Chicago mall,” a young man whose name  I’m withholding told me in a recent email. “State law of Illinois says any value of retail goods above $300 is a felony.

That was a bad decision, no way around it. He regrets the hell out of it, and has since striven to learn from his poor choice and to lead a productive and law-abiding life. But now he’s a “prohibited person,” forbidden by law to touch a gun. And unless he can figure out a legal way around that, it’s a life sentence.

Well, he has a God-given right to defend his life like anyone else.  I’ve made known my views on the alleged “debt” criminals have to society.  It’s a myth statists and collectivists like to tell.  There is no debt to society.  If a person steals, he should become the slave of the offended until the debt has been paid threefold.  The debt is to the offended.  If he rapes, kidnaps, or murders anyone, his life should be taken by the community.  This concept would clear out the prisons, yes?  And if someone refuses to become the slave of the offended until his debt is paid, put him into the pit with the murderers and rapists and fill it up with stones, with the first one being tossed in by the offended.  How about some Biblical justice for a change?

Remember when the hurricane came through and the communist who is governor of the U.S. Virgin Island ordered seizure of guns and ammunition?  We discussed it.  Well, he’s at it again.

U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp renewed a highly controversial executive order in January that allows the National Guard to seize arms from everyday civilians.

The executive order Mapp extended on Jan. 2 was first issued in September. The order declares that the U.S. Virgin Islands is in a “state of emergency” and gives the adjunct general power “that may be required by the military forces for the performance of this emergency mission.”

Mapp told The Daily Caller in a December 2017 phone interview that the national guard is “not authorized to take arms and munitions from civilians,” and said those that continue to think the order authorized that power are being “foolish.” While Mapp continues to make the same assertion when questioned about the order, the language of the text explicitly authorizes the seizure of arms and ammunition.

The governor said in the Jan. 2 order that the nation is still in a state of emergency following the devastation brought on from Hurricanes Irma and Maria. The order also says that the “state of emergency declared effective 12:01 a.m. on Sept. 5, 2017  is hereby renewed, and such State of Emergency, along with all terms previously declared in the order.” That would include the language authorizing the seizure of arms, ammunition and other property.

And it doesn’t even matter.  As I’ve previously noted, confiscation of guns and ammunition is irrelevant when you’re not allowed to have any to begin with.  Communists gotta’ be communists.  It’s what they do.  Can a leopard change it spots?

Tucson.com:

But the attorney who crafted it for Republican state Rep. David Stringer said that still won’t let Arizonans keep their “bump stocks” if the federal government declares them illegal.

The legislation spells out the kind of firearms the state believes are necessary for those who are members of the state militia. Existing Arizona law already says that automatically includes all “able-bodied citizens of the state” between 18 and 45.

And just to be sure that folks who turn 46 don’t lose their gun rights because of new federal laws, HB 2057 also would expand the definition of the militia to remove the maximum age. But it would add a new requirement that they be “capable of acting in concert for the common defense.”

The measure — and a companion constitutional amendment — were introduced by Stringer who said he wants to ensure that whatever occurs in Washington doesn’t interfere with the right of law-abiding Arizonans to possess firearms.

But Stringer left it to attorney Michael Taylor, who has some expertise in the area of gun rights, to come up with the actual language. And Taylor said it is crafted to conform to a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have upheld gun rights.

Courts will never decide in your favor, sir.  Never.  The festooned, robed tyrants will always decide for more communism.

That’s why this is toothless and powerless right out of the gate.  If you’re not willing to enforce this Arizona law by arresting ATF agents who enter the state and throwing them in the state penitentiary, and protecting your citizens by allowing them to purchase guns and ammunition regardless of form 4473 (which the FedGov will use to its advantage), then you’re setting your citizens up for illegalities and yourself up for failure and complete embarrassment.

You’re a loser.  Unless you act like you have some guts about this thing.  I have confidence you won’t do that, and neither will your fellow statesmen.