Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

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.

David Frum:

Charlottesville, however, marks a new era of even bolder assertion of the right to threaten violence for political purposes. Gun carriers at the so-called “Unite the Right” rally acted more like a paramilitary force than as individual demonstrators. They wore similar pseudo-military outfits, including body armor. They took tactical formations to surround the site of the expected confrontation. According to Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, “They had better equipment than our state police had.” (The state police have disputed that claim.)

Frum doesn’t apply his missive to law enforcement, because of course, he retains and reserves the lawful use of force only to them (progressives only believe in a monopoly of force), and because he knows that his suggestion that “Society receives the putative benefit of citizen carry only if the potential criminal does not know which potential victim might be armed” is tactical nonsense, and that law enforcement wouldn’t allow such stupidity to be applied to them.

Frum no more knows that the benefit of open carry doesn’t obtain like concealed carry any more than he knows the reasons men openly carry (e.g., to keep from sweating their weapon, because permitting only applies to concealed weapons, because concealing a weapon is uncomfortable, because concealing your weapon is tactically inferior to openly carrying it, because some men may not like their only holster options for concealed carry, etc., etc.).  He only pretends to know these things.  No one attending the inside-the-beltway cocktail parties he does actually carries a gun, so he wouldn’t know.

But let’s “cut to the chase,” shall we?  Forgetting about all of that, this is just the lead up to what Frum really wants, which is to justify his statist views that no violence is ever justified against the state.  He should have written an essay entitled “Why The War Of American Independence Was Immoral” or “Why Dietrich Bonhoeffer Was Wrong To Oppose Hitler,” and I would have respected him more.  At least he would be honestly stating his views.  With this article, like so many others he writes, he gets to unload on open carry in America, appealing to the progressives in the circles in which he runs, without ever really being forced to examine the logical consequences of his own prose.

Consistency isn’t the hobgoblin of small minds.  It’s the stuff of life, and it makes people dismiss your prose as the meanderings of an idiot when you don’t force yourself to think about what you’re writing or saying.  He beclowns himself, he embarrasses himself, and he only hurts himself, but he is too stupid and lazy to figure out why he is ridiculed by most readers.

ABC:

John Howard’s gun laws are collapsing, gun control advocates say, as they compile a stocktake on states and territories’ compliance with the National Firearms Agreement.

The agreement — which is non-binding, and underpinned by state and territory firearms laws — was negotiated by the then prime minister in 1996 after 35 people died in the Port Arthur massacre.

Preliminary findings from Gun Control Australia’s report on the issue indicate a “chain reaction” has been speeding up since 2008. The organisation’s chair, Samantha Lee, told the ABC that changes often began with gun lobby wins in NSW.

“As one of the bigger states passes laws to water down their legislation, the other states are following suit … the result being, our national approach to gun control is eroding,” Ms Lee said.

The audit is set to be released next month, and comes as states and territories are moving to implement an update of the agreement signed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) last December.

The main outcome of that review was tougher restrictions on lever-action shotguns, after an uproar about the arrival of a new weapon, the Turkish-made Adler A110.

The Adler came in 5- and 7-shot versions, with the latter banned for import by federal justice minister Michael Keenan in 2015.

Shooters were outraged at the ban, believing there was no new technology in the Adler, and no evidence that lever-action shotguns were being used in crime.

The backlash from shooters has been so strong that some states and territories may baulk at implementing the revised national agreement. So far, only NSW and the ACT have implemented it.

Coalition governments have fractured over the ban, with several federal National Party MPs supporting a disallowance motion by Senator David Leyonhjelm in November, and Liberal MLC Peter Phelps crossing the floor when the enabling legislation reached the NSW Parliament in May.

NSW Police Minister Troy Grant took a public stand against the tougher restrictions until he resigned as deputy premier late last year, at which point NSW fell into line with other states and signed up to the revised agreement.

Mr Grant said at the time that he was standing up for the rights of law-abiding gun owners, and did not believe there was any evidence that lever-action shotguns were more dangerous than other weapons available to recreational shooters.

But Background Briefing can reveal that before his resignation, he received — and then overrode — confidential advice about the contentious laws from his own police force.

The heavily redacted advice, signed off by the NSW Police Firearms Registry and obtained under freedom of information laws by NSW Greens justice spokesperson David Shoebridge, says that improved technology means that lever-action shotguns “are now similar, in terms of their rapidity, to pump-action shotguns”.

Pump-action shotguns are highly restricted under the National Firearms Agreement.

Although the document did not make any recommendation, Mr Shoebridge said the clear implication of the expert police opinion was that circulation of lever-action shotguns should be just as restricted.

Okay, so we’re talking about lever action shotgun tube magazine capacity.  They’re not even close yet.  They have a long way to go, the police will always take the side of the controllers, and the non-binding nature of the national agreement (a fact which I didn’t know) give an avenue for replacement of the local and state leaders to turn back the real control over handguns, semi-automatic rifles and other weapons.

John Stossel:

Have a gun license? Plan to bring your gun to my hometown? Don’t.

Mean New York authorities will make your life miserable.

Patricia Jordan and her daughter flew here from her home state of Georgia. She wanted her gun nearby for protection.

Jordan obeyed all the Transportation Security Administration’s rules: She put her gun in a locked TSA-approved case with its bullets separate. She informed the airline that she had a gun. The airline had no problem with that.

In New York City, she kept the gun locked in her hotel room. She never needed it, but her daughter told me, “I was glad she brought it just in case something did happen.”

When leaving the city, Jordan followed the TSA’s rules again. At the airline counter, she again told the agent she wanted to check her gun. But this time, she was told: “Wait.”

“Next thing I know, they’re getting ready to arrest me,” she said.

Her daughter was crying, “Please don’t arrest my mom!” But New York City cops arrested her, jailed her and told her she was guilty of a felony that mandates a minimum 3 1/2 years in jail.

Jordan’s ordeal is not unique. Roughly once a week, New York City locks up people for carrying guns legally licensed by other states.

Another Georgia visitor, Avi Wolf, was jailed although he didn’t even have a gun. He just had part of a gun—an empty magazine—a little plastic box with a small metal spring. He brought it to the city because it wasn’t working well and he thought a New York friend might repair it. He couldn’t believe he was being arrested.

“Somebody could’ve done more damage to an individual with a fork from McDonald’s,” Wolf told me.

Wolf, too, checked with the TSA beforehand. They said, just declare it to TSA agents. So he did.

“I’m telling them… I have a magazine here. It’s empty, no bullets… Next thing I know they’re pulling me over to the side, they’re like, ‘Do you know what you have in your bag?!’ ‘I know what I have in my bag, I told you what I have in my bag.'”

Following TSA instructions didn’t do Wolf any good. “Fast forward about an hour and it was four Port Authority police there. The chief of LaGuardia airport is there, [as if] they thought they found somebody trying to do 9/11 repeat,” he says.

“They asked me if I had a gun license. Of course I had a license. I’m from Georgia, and everybody there’s got a gun license. And they’re like, well, sir, you’re going to be getting arrested now.”

Wolf and Jordan spent less than a day in jail, but each had to pay lawyers $15,000 to bargain the felony charge down to “public disorder.”

Gun owners know to steer clear of New York – the entire state, not just New York City.  The TSA works with transportation of firearms (and they don’t do that very well).  They cannot possibly tell you the laws of the state you plan to visit.

In New York, the entire state, you cannot have a handgun on your person.  Not for self defense, not for any reason.  The best policy is not to visit New York – the entire state – for any reason, at any time.  Ever.  New York is a shit hole.  The same goes for Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, California and Hawaii.

Oh, by the way, besides Remington and Kimber, what firearms manufacturers are still in New York?  Why hasn’t Remington and Kimber shut their doors to operations in the state of New York?  That’s the only remaining question to me.