Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

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.

But wait, that’s not the whole story.

Governor Asa Hutchinson has informed the Arkansas State Police that he believes a 2013 law made open carry of hand guns the law of the land in Arkansas and they should act accordingly.

There is, as yet, no definitive court case that substantiates this view of the law. Ever since its passage, a debate has raged over the law’s meaning. Some contended it was merely meant to be a technical correction to Arkansas law that long had allowed the carrying of weapons on a “journey,” but not in all circumstances. Gun advocates argued that the wording validated open carry. Critics argue that such an expansive view might override some of the restrictions in law on where concealed weapons may be taken.

The governor’s letter comes as he faces a challenge in the Republican primary from Jan Morgan, a gun range owner who’s depicted Hutchinson (a former spokesman for the NRA) as somehow soft on guns (she was critical of some limitations added to the campus carry legislation, among others). His opinion carries no force of law, but the directive to an executive agency will have the effect of guiding state troopers, as indicated by a notice sent yesterday to troopers by Col. Bill Bryant, director of the State Police.

Context: An off-duty trooper in 2014 arrested a man who was carrying a weapon in a Searcy Walmart. He was acquitted of an obstruction of governmental operations misdemeanor charge, but lost a lawsuit at the circuit court level in which he sought to have his concealed carry permit restored. Judge Wendell Griffen rejected James Tanner’s argument that the 2013 law allowed open carry so long as no unlawful intent was present. The judge called that interpretation “senseless.” The judge ruled Tanner wasn’t entitled to get his license back because he openly carried a concealed weapon as a permit holder and refused to provide identification to an officer who asked for it. That case has not been appealed, court records indicate.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge issued an official opinion in 2015 that indicated open carry was legal in Arkansas, but she also commented that confusion about the 2013 law suggested clarification would be useful. Her predecessor, Dustin McDaniel, had opined the law was only a technical correction, not legalization of unlimited open carry.

Rutledge also enumerated these caveats about open carry:

* Law officers can freely question anyone openly carrying a weapon about their purpose.

* Other statutes prohibit open carry in certain circumstances — in government buildings such as the Capitol, for example.

* Private property owners are entitled to keep firearms off their property, and armed people who refuse to leave can be prosecuted for trespass.

* The law doesn’t affect concealed carry statutes. All carrying concealed weapons still must comply with permitting and other requirements.

By “soft on guns,” Morgan means that Asa isn’t the gun rights supporter he purports to be.

Hutchinson hasn’t been hard enough on the gays and the transgenders; he once took a meeting with gun control advocates; he wouldn’t sign a meaningless anti-Sharia law bill; he’s supported the continuation of the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.

Arkansas is in fact a stop and identify state, but only for loitering.  The judge that decided the case against the open carrier, Wendell Griffen, is clearly an idiot and communist.  Expect the police to ignore the governor’s edict and work towards their communist ends.

As for the governor’s race, I don’t know what will happen.  But Arkansas is as much a mess as every other state.

And they’ll leave our bump stocks alone.

Gun Owners of America (GOA) is decrying the latest push from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) for bump stock gun control, contending that part of the solution is to defund the ATF altogether.

The GOA’s statements come after the DOJ announced that the ATF is weighing whether to redefine the term “machinegun,” so as to include accessories that do not convert semiautomatic firearms into automatic ones. This would place firearm accessories like bump stocks on par with actually firearm conversion devices, therefore bringing an entire new category of firearm accessories under the auspices of the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). Placing such accessories under the purview of the NFA would require bump stock owners to pass a background check, be fingerprinted, photographed, and pay a $200 tax to the federal government.

GOA executive director Erich Pratt told Breitbart News, “Gun Owners of America will rally its members in opposition to any proposed restrictions on bump stocks by the ATF.  GOA holds that any such limitations are unconstitutional and would open the door to additional regulations, even while doing nothing to stop evil people from committing heinous acts.”

Well, of course that’s true.  The way to stop the unconstitutional infringement the mere existence the ATF poses is to entirely defund the ATF, forcing the bureaucracy to send all of its employees pink slips.  It won’t happen because the Senate and Congress believes in this infringement just like the executive does.

By the way, you’re aware, aren’t you, that the ATF is preparing to fold in bump stocks to the NFA?  The reddit link on this can be found here.