Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

As I posted, I recently made a hiking trip to Mount Mitchell State Park with my son Joseph.  Along the way (during a visit to a store to pick up some souvenirs for my son’s friend), I saw this sign.

“Firearms and lethal weapons are prohibited except by permit.”  Now, this causes a whole host of problems, and so let’s begin our discussion.

First of all, North Carolina is a traditional open carry state, and there is nothing in any statute that excepts the state parks as being areas where one cannot open carry or stipulates the manner of carry, whether a handgun or long gun (rifle or shotgun).  Furthermore, hunters carry firearms into the park all the time, hunting mostly for black bear during the summer and fall.

This all caused me to research the regulations, or at least, the publicly available statements by the park service, concerning firearms in North Carolina state parks.  I landed on this web site, where we read the following concerning firearms.

Firearms and other weapons are prohibited except that those with a proper permit may possess a concealed handgun in permitted areas and under the requirements of North Carolina G.S. 14-415.11. All firearms and weapons are prohibited in state park visitor centers and park offices.

This makes it sound as if firearms are prohibited unless they are concealed, since it is only under those conditions that a permit is legally required.  In other words, it appears that this statement on the park web site is a spurious prohibition of open carry in contravention of state law (which does not speak to the issue of open carry, and simple carry of a handgun in a holster has never been considered carrying a weapon “to the terror of the public” or brandishing a weapon).

The statute to which this statement refers (North Carolina G.S. 14-415.11) simply makes it clear that “Any person who has a concealed handgun permit may carry a concealed handgun on the grounds or waters of a park within the State Parks System as defined in G.S. 143B-135.44.”  It says nothing about prohibition of open carry, in parks or anywhere else.  Nor does any other North Carolina statute speak to the issue of open carry.

So this leaves us with only two apparent options for interpretation of the signage and the statement on the park web site.  The first option is that it is intended to be an end run around the legislature who has not spoken to the issue of open carry in state parks, or anywhere else for that matter.  The state park service is making up their own laws.

The second option is that this signage is a mistake, but even more than that, contains material false information and is therefore unlawful due to its false and misleading information.  Frankly, either option means that the park service is behaving in an unlawful manner, where they are making up their own laws, or simply communicating material false information to park visitors.

Which is it, and is the park service aware of their unlawful behavior on this issue?

New York Upstate:

TABERG, NY – Don Hall was sitting in his living room watching TV with his girlfriend about 9:30 p.m. earlier this year when he was startled by flashing police car lights in his driveway.

Hall met the Oneida County sheriff’s deputies in the driveway, worried that they were bringing bad news about a family member.

Instead, the deputies produced an official document demanding that Hall, a 70-year-old Vietnam veteran who is a retired pipefitter, turn over his guns to them on the spot. On the document Hall said he was described as “mentally defective.”

When Hall told police he’d never had any mental issues, Hall said, deputies told him he must have done something that triggered the order under the New York state’s SAFE Act.

The deputies left that night with six guns – two handguns and four long guns.

Hall, who lives in the Oneida County hamlet of Taberg, hired a lawyer and secured affidavits from local hospitals to prove he hadn’t been recently treated. At one point, he was told he’d have to get some of his guns back from a gun shop.

Eventually, his lawyer convinced a judge that authorities had him confused with someone else who had sought care and that his weapons should never have been seized.

To this day, no one at a hospital or the state and local agencies involved in taking Hall’s guns has admitted to Hall that a mistake was made, explained what happened or apologized. A county judge did acknowledge the mistake and helped him get his guns back.

Hall said the ordeal was frustrating.

“I was guilty until I could prove myself innocent,” Hall said. “They don’t tell you why or what you supposedly did. It was just a bad screw-up.”

Under what legal authority Hall’s guns were confiscated is in disagreement.

Hall and his lawyer said they are convinced his guns were taken as a result of a report under the NY SAFE Act. The New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act was adopted in 2013 after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newton, Conn.

The law includes, among other things, a provision for health providers to report patients that they believe are a risk to harm others or themselves.

The state Office of Mental Health, however, found Hall’s case was reported through a system set up by the federal Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, said James Plastiras, a spokesman for the state mental health office. That law, adopted in 1993, is named after James Brady, who was shot by John Hinckley Jr. during an attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

The federal law includes a provision that requires a hospital or medical facility to report anyone who is involuntarily committed or has been ruled mentally defective by a court or similar legal body.

A hospital reported to the state Office of Mental Health that a person had been involuntarily admitted to a mental facility, Plastiras said. That information was passed onto the FBI for inclusion on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, he said.

[ … ]

Once the state Office of Mental Health is alerted through either law, the staff checks records held by the state Department of Criminal Justice Services to see if the person has any guns.

Any matches go to the state police to verify that the identity of the person matches the identity of the gun owner. Once confirmed, the state police takes the case to a local judge who issues an order to confiscate the person’s weapons. Local police usually are dispatched to confiscate the weapons.

One thing the state and Hall and his lawyer agree on is the misidentification that lead to Hall’s guns being seized appears to have started when Hall was confused with some other patient at risk.

The day after Hall’s guns were seized in February, he called the gun licensing office in Oneida County. When he told them his guns were wrongly taken, he was told he could attend a hearing in a few weeks.

Instead, Hall called lawyer John Panzone, who advised him to get depositions from every local hospital stating he had not recently been treated. Panzone hoped the affidavits would prove Hall couldn’t be the person initially reported to be at risk.

Hall said he and his girlfriend, Connie Heidenreich, spent the next day visiting three Utica-area hospitals to get the statements.

Hall said the only time he had been a patient at any of the hospitals was four years ago when he had a sleep apnea test at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.

At St. Elizabeth’s, Hall said a clerk looked up his name and read him a Social Security number. He said it was slightly different than his. “She turned white as a ghost,” Hall recalled.

Panzone believes another patient from Oneida County with Hall’s name was treated at the hospital and flagged for a mental health issue. Somehow that man’s Social Security number got mixed up with Hall’s, thus creating the error, the lawyer said.

The YouTube video of this report can be found here.

First of all, I don’t want to hear another word about how oath-taking LEOs will respect the constitution and refuse to obey unconstitutional orders.  The confiscation order was clearly unconstitutional and immoral and yet the LEOs enforced it upon command.

Second, I don’t care that the person who made the screw-up was a hospital employee.  She was an organ of the state when she made the reporting, and if I had that job I would resign.  When you do things like this you are in effect a government employee.

Third, consider what has happened in this report.  A man who is a war veteran had his weapons confiscated because someone submitted his name as having an admission to a local hospital for a mental malady.  Now listen closely.  Even if this was correct (and we know from the facts of the case that it wasn’t), we’ve already demonstrated conclusively from the reports of mental health professionals that mental illness has no relationship to propensity for violence, and that violent behavior cannot be predicted by mental health professionals because of this.

The case is closed.  There is no longer any debate on this issue.  Moreover, we know from scientific studies that limiting access to firearms of the mentally ill does not reduce suicide deaths.  For some progressives who simply want to worship the totem pole of mental health and behavioristic psychology, and who are well intentioned, they refuse to listen to the science behind their incorrect perceptions of the world.  They want to bow down and worship at the altar of the local witch doctor, or the psychiatrist, as if he knows how to make everything better.

But for most people, they know better than to believe that violence is related to illness rather than moral maladies and evil, and yet they throw out the red herring of mental illness anyway in order to cover over their real intentions, which is yet another gun control and confiscatory scheme.

That’s what happened here.  The SAFE act is anything but safe, because it protects no one and places peaceable, law abiding men in harm’s way.  But there are hundreds like it around the country, where guns cannot be purchased unless LEOs sign off on forms that include mental health information, or send out confiscation orders upon command from their superiors over anything from family problems to alleged abuse by some pissed off spouse.

Those LEOs will confiscate guns just like the LEOs in this report.  Don’t doubt it for one minute.  Be prepared.  And if you believe in God, family and the second amendment, and especially that the second amendment is about amelioration of tyranny, you are in danger of being judged mentally incompetent.  There are thousands of Soldiers and Marines who served faithfully who are in the NICS today because someone said they have PTSD.

Finally, note that every time the government – local, state or federal – involves themselves in a program, they are a fuck-up.  They cannot get anything right, except for running a military, and most of the time they don’t even do that well.  A lot of bad men make it to staff and flag officer level, and if you think we have thinking men running the show at the Pentagon, take a look at the two campaigns of “armed social science” we had in Iraq and Afghanistan, believing that we could force Muslims to accept liberty and freedom with COIN tactics, men who love tyranny and the yoke of oppression more than life itself.

And the progressives want to put the government more fully in charge of your health care.  Think about that for a moment.  Let that wash over you.  Incompetent fools and clowns like the ones described above want to make decisions on health care for your families.

The Columbus Dispatch:

Under a bill in the legislature, elected officials in Ohio could take hidden guns into government facilities where other people are banned from carrying weapons.

Rep. Nino Vitale said House Bill 310, which he introduced this week, is intended as a self-defense measure for elected officials.

“The political climate is unfortunately extremely extreme,” the Urbana Republican said. “There are a lot of places in government where we’re simply not protected.”

Vitale cited the shooting last month at a congressional baseball practice in Virginia as an example of the heightened threats against lawmakers. Vitale said he has been threatened, called names and followed from the Statehouse.

Vitale, a concealed-carry trainer, said the measure would apply only to elected officials who have a concealed-carry permit.

He said his legislation might contribute to civil discourse.

“If someone knows someone can defend themselves, they might keep their rhetoric at an acceptable level,” Vitale said.

But even some gun-rights advocates argue that the legislation would create a special class of concealed-carry permit holders by allowing elected state and local officials to carry guns on government property while other citizens are prohibited from doing so.

Jim Irvine, executive director of the Buckeye Firearms Association, questioned what makes lawmakers more deserving of expanded concealed-carry rights. His organization is reviewing the legislation before taking a formal position.

I don’t have to see the legislation and I can take a formal position right now.  If the legislation exempts only elected officials and not everyone, then kill it.  I oppose it in all its forms, for all time, and in any manifestation.

Firearms Policy Coalition:

In today’s Wrenn v. District of Columbia decision (a related case, Grace v. District of Columbia, was consolidated with Wrenn on appeal), a lawsuit helmed by civil rights attorney Alan Gura and backed by the Second Amendment Foundation, the Court held in relevant part that D.C.’s “good-reason” handgun carry ban laws were unconstitutional:

Of course, the good-reason law isn’t a “total ban” for the D.C. population as a whole of the right to bear common arms under common circumstances. After all, it allows some D.C. residents—those with a special need—to defend against threats both common to everyone and specific to themselves.

But the ban on ownership struck down in Heller I also made “minor exceptions” for certain sorts of owners, who could then defend their homes to the hilt. 554 U.S. at 570 n.1. That made no difference to constitutional review of the ban, see id., for a simple reason: the point of the Amendment isn’t to ensure that some guns would find their way into D.C., but that guns would be available to each responsible citizen as a rule (i.e., at least to those no more prone to misuse that access than anyone else).

So if Heller I dictates a certain treatment of “total bans” on Second Amendment rights, that treatment must apply to total bans on carrying (or possession) by ordinarily situated individuals covered by the Amendment. 

This point brings into focus the legally decisive fact: the good-reason law is necessarily a total ban on most D.C. residents’ right to carry a gun in the face of ordinary self-defense needs, where these residents are no more dangerous with a gun than the next law-abiding citizen.

We say “necessarily” because the law destroys the ordinarily situated citizen’s right to bear arms not as a side effect of applying other, reasonable regulations (like those upheld in Heller II and Heller III), but by design: it looks precisely for needs “distinguishable” from those of the community.

So we needn’t pause to apply tiers of scrutiny, as if strong enough showings of public benefits could save this destruction of so many commonly situated D.C. residents’ constitutional right to bear common arms for self-defense in any fashion at all.

Bans on the ability of most citizens to exercise an enumerated right would have to flunk any judicial test that was appropriately written and applied, so we strike down the District’s law here apart from any particular balancing test. 

***

So our approach, briefed by all the parties, is also urged by Heller I and coheres with Heller II. It’s narrower than any other basis for decision but not ad hoc.

And it would avoid suggesting what Heller I implicitly denies: that some public benefits could justify preventing people from exercising the law-abiding citizen’s right to bear arms for self-defense given the risk and needs typical of, well, law-abiding citizens. 

We pause to draw together all the pieces of our analysis: At the Second Amendment’s core lies the right of responsible citizens to carry firearms for personal self-defense beyond the home, subject to longstanding restrictions. These traditional limits include, for instance, licensing requirements, but not bans on carrying in urban areas like D.C. or bans on carrying absent a special need for self-defense.

In fact, the Amendment’s core at a minimum shields the typically situated citizen’s ability to carry common arms generally.

The District’s good-reason law is necessarily a total ban on exercises of that constitutional right for most D.C. residents. That’s enough to sink this law under Heller I. 

***

To watch the news for even a week in any major city is to give up any illusions about “the problem of handgun violence in this country.” Heller I, 554 U.S. at 570. The District has understandably sought to fight this scourge with every legal tool at its disposal.

For that long struggle against gun violence, you might see in today’s decision a defeat; you might see the opposite. To say whether it is one or the other is beyond our ken here.

We are bound to leave the District as much space to regulate as the Constitution allows—but no more. Just so, our opinion does little more than trace the boundaries laid in 1791 and flagged in Heller I. And the resulting decision rests on a rule so narrow that good-reason laws seem almost uniquely designed to defy it: that the law-abiding citizen’s right to bear common arms must enable the typical citizen to carry a gun. 

We vacate both orders below and remand with instructions to enter permanent injunctions against enforcement of the District’s good-reason law.

Circuit Judge Karen Henderson dissented, arguing in a footnote that:

Although I assume that the Second Amendment extends to some extent beyond the home, I am certain the core Second Amendment right does not. The application of strict scrutiny—let alone my colleagues’ application of a categorical ban—is, in my view, patently off-base.

I’ve always thought that Scalia left much undone in his Heller decision, and the appeals court is doing his work for him in this ruling.  Perhaps Heller is all he could get the Supremes to agree to.

Unfortunately, however, this won’t be the end of it.  D.C. will come up with something equally unconstitutional, and I’ve noted before that similar federal courts have ruled in favor of “may-carry” laws in states such as New York, Massachusetts and Hawaii.  There is much more to come, and all of this confusion could have been avoided by a more robust Heller decision.

In the mean time, how dark for a person like Henderson, whose world and life view distinguishes between “to some extent” and “core.”  How sad and abusive towards other women who are left defenseless in the face of assault by her vacillation.

Glenn Reynolds also provides some links.

Lindsey Graham is at the helm.

“At a press conference with U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., to unveil the “Dream Act” — which would provide pathways to citizenship for certain undocumented immigrants brought to the country illegally as children — [Sen. Lindsey] Graham described a moral imperative for his president and his party.”

[ … ]

And those intent on “fundamental transformation” are counting on Americans’ innate decency to allow them to continue with the fraudulent reshaping of the Republic and its laws. As for anyone who might object, most of those can be chilled by smearing them as xenophobes and racists, as if observable and demostrable truths are only for bigots.

You can call me whatever you wish – it makes no difference to me.  And this has nothing whatsoever to do with race.  I’ve explained this before.

“For historical reasons to do with the nationalisation of the land under Lázaro Cárdenas and the predominant form of peasant land tenure, which was “village cooperative” rather than based on individual plots, the demand for “land to the tiller” in Mexico does not imply an individual plot for every peasant or rural worker or family. In Mexico, collectivism among the peasantry is a strong tradition … one consequence of these factors is that the radical political forces among the rural population are on the whole explicitly anti-capitalist and socialist in their ideology. Sometimes this outlook is expressed in support for guerilla organisations; but struggle movements of the rural population are widespread, and they spontaneously ally with the most militant city-based leftist organisations.”

One of the reasons for this reflexive alignment with leftism has to do with the the mid-twentieth century and what the Sovient Union and allied ideologies accomplished.  South and Central America was the recipient or receptacle for socialism draped in religious clothing, or in other words, liberation theology.  Its purveyors were Roman Catholic priests who had been trained in Marxism, and they were very successful in giving the leftists a moral platform upon which to build.  This ideology spread North from South and Central America into Mexico, and thus the common folk in Mexico are quite steeped in collectivist ideology from battles that were fought decades ago.

Collectivists are statists, and statists require state control as part of their world and life view.  They long for their slavery, a key part of which is the complete inability to effect self defense or to hold tyranny accountable.  Venezuela is a notable exception at the moment, but we’ll see where that goes.

Since McCain is out of commission at the moment, Lindsey Graham has to take the wheel and guide the ship of self destruction.  Is it any surprise that the only other lackey Graham could get to stand with him is Durbin?  Oh, other republicans want to destroy America too, but at least they aren’t stupid enough to stand there and say so in public right now.

Ignoring the science that informs us that gun confiscations don’t prevent suicide, Massachusetts lawmakers are flirting with more progressive dreams of utopia.

BOSTON — Supporters of new gun laws and opponents clashed Tuesday over a bill that would allow guns to be temporarily seized from people deemed at high risk of hurting themselves or others.

Rep. David Linsky filed the legislation, which would add Massachusetts to a handful of states that allow firearms to be seized by a court-issued civil order at the request of families, law enforcement officers or some health care providers.

“There is no way, if a family member goes to a police department or court, there is no legal way to remove the firearms from the house,” Linsky said. “We can close a loophole in the Massachusetts court system.”

The Joint Committee on the Judiciary heard testimony on dozens of bills under the umbrella of “crime legislation” at a crowded public hearing, including two gun suppressor bills.

Ahead of the hearing, Linsky held a lobby day to showcase support for his bill. He is pushing for the establishment of what the bill calls an extreme risk protective order. California, Washington, Connecticut and Indiana have similar laws, according to gun law advocacy groups.

“Gun law advocacy groups.”  Is that what Everytown and Bloomberg have told them to call the controllers now?  Gun law advocacy groups?  So they’re still the controllers, no matter what you call them.  You can’t put lipstick on a pig and get anything but a pig.

Jim Wallace, the executive director of the Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts, opposes the protective order bill. He said it does not do enough to address what happens after a firearm is taken away from an at-risk person.

“You’ve got somebody who has an issue, you’ve got to drag them through this process which is going to aggravate the issue and then you’re going to take away their civil rights, and then what?” Wallace said. “What are we doing for them? Nothing.”

That’s the wrong reason to oppose this proposal, Jim.  The right reason is that it violates the constitution, which is the covenant under which we all agreed to live, and that constitution is based on God-given rights.

Wallace said the bill “does not tackle the issue of mental health” and raised questions about whether a person deemed an extreme risk should be permitted to do other things like drive a vehicle or handle chemicals.

“And here’s one nobody wants to talk about: If they’re not a citizen, are they immediately deported? Unfortunately the bill is a good soundbite but it’s not a good solution,” Wallace said.

The bill’s supporters argue extreme risk protective orders could lead people to connect with the mental health services they need.

Gun law advocates hissed as Wallace testified for two gun suppressor bills alongside National Rifle Association spokesman John Hohenwarter and American Suppressor Association President and Executive Director Knox Williams. The bills were filed by Rep. Josh Cutler and Rep. Paul Frost.

They hissed because that’s what vipers do.  I made a mistake when I compared them to pigs.  They are more like pit vipers, and you can’t put lipstick on pit vipers either and get anything but a pit viper.

Chelsea Police Chief Brian Kyes and Arlington Police Chief Fred Ryan offered joint testimony against the suppressor bills, saying they put officers and communities at risk.

“This is common sense that the great General Court should oppose this legislation,” Ryan said. “If we increase the volume of suppressors on the streets of commonwealth, we increase the likelihood that they’ll be diverted to illicit use.”

About a dozen communities in the state rely on ShotSpotter, a technology designed to detect gunfire. Kyes said suppressors would hamper the effectiveness of the tool by making gunfire more difficult to detect than it already is.

“They do a pretty good job, not a great job. There’s no way in the world it could pick up something with a suppressor,” Kyes said. “Suppressors would impede public safety.”

If this was true, it would be only because no one besides LEOs can carry weapons in Massachusetts, leaving people defenseless in the face of violence.

Angus McQuilken, a member of the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, said before the hearing the suppressor debate isn’t about hearing protection at all. He argued gun manufacturers are hoping to expand into a new market to boost sales.

“This is about the money. What is it almost always about when the gun lobby is trying to advance legislation? It is about the money.

It’s all about the money.  No shooter, like me or the ones who read this web site has ever advocated for suppressors because, you know, they help hearing protection and make it possible to shoot with ear plugs without ear muffs, thus avoiding the difficult cheek weld and get better eye relief.  So says the controllers.

Good Lord.  What an entanglement of ass clowns.  Say, what firearms manufacturers are still ensconced or headquartered in Massachusetts anyway?  Why are they still there?  Don’t they know that we don’t like the controllers?

Phys.org:

The finding contrasts with some depictions of gun violence prevention groups as “anti-gun.”

“When people talk about the ‘gun debate,’ it typically revolves around gun rights supporters and anti-gun people with no one in the middle,” said Aimee Huff, an assistant professor in OSU’s College of Business.

“We found these groups are in the middle. They strike a balance between individual rights and responsibilities to reduce death and injury.”

The study is one of the first to look at American gun violence prevention groups (GVPGs), many of which have formed in recent years after events such as the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

The study is based on two years of analysis of nine gun violence prevention groups, some of which are focused nationally and others regionally or locally. The researchers interviewed leaders of the groups, attended their rallies and training sessions, talked to state legislators about them, monitored their social media pages and analyzed media coverage focused on them.

The consumer culture researchers sought to unpack the messaging of these groups, whom they describe in the paper using pseudonyms to protect their identities. They wanted to understand who the groups focus on, how they reach those people and the outcomes they hope to achieve.

They found that the groups position themselves as supporters of the Second Amendment, direct their messages to the middle-ground majority and communicate the everyday toll of gun violence using non-polarizing language.

[ … ]

The researchers conclude: “It is neither possible nor necessary to precisely identify the impact of GVPGs in these changes, but we assert it is reasonable to assume that they play an important role.”

I see.  An “important role” (I felt the freedom to put that in quotes since the cited link puts ‘gun debate’ in quotes).  I also put “researchers” in quotes in the title too.  I don’t believe that these people are researchers at all.  In fact, I doubt they have ever found a cure for cancer, developed new methods in computational fluid dynamics (CFD), developed new critical heat flux correlations, or conducted Charpy V-Notch testing on new materials.

The poor, poor gun controllers.  They are so maligned they needed some (ahem) “researchers” to tell people they are just like you and me, only more reasonable.  After all, they only want to control the ammunition you buy, dictate the bullet material, force “smart guns” on you, dictate the magazine capacity, and eventually take away your guns.

But take heart, they are people too.  And so misunderstood.

Dave Hardy at Of Arms and the Law links a very in depth and insightful commentary and analysis of the National Firearms Act (NFA).  Dave comments concerning SBRs.

In 1934, they were treated as gangster weapons, although I don’t ever recall hearing of gangsters using them. They tended to have their fights at pistol or shotgun range, not at 100+ yards. Originally the minimum barrel length was 18″; then the government discovered it had sold millions of M-1 carbines as surplus, and they had 16.5″ barrels. So the minimum length was reduced to 16″. Which did a nice job of showing how arbitrary it was.

If you follow the link you’ll get to the scholarly paper (PDF), and I highly recommend it to you.  It would be nice if my readers would tackle this document and make some salient points.  There are a lot of observations I could make but just don’t have the time or energy.

One thing I will observe is that on PDF pages 500 and 521, it’s noted that a “pistol” is defined as follows.

[A] weapon originally designed, made, and intended to fire a projectile (bullet) from one or more barrels when held in one hand, and having (a) a chamber(s) as an integral part(s) of, or permanently aligned with, the bore(s); and (b) a short stock designed to be gripped by one hand and at an angle to and extending below the line of the bore(s).

While some shooting instructors may invoke off-hand or one-handed shooting as a small part of their efforts because of possible hand-to-hand combat situations, reaching for reloads, attempting to keep an attacker from taking the slide out of battery, or other reasons, this is usually what we might call “beyond design basis.”

No instructor in his right mind today would actually teach that it’s appropriate or preferable to shoot a pistol or revolver with a single hand.  That’s how much the science has evolved since passage of the NFA.

It’s an old, antiquated, worthless, useless, tangled, self-contradictory, laughable abomination, and the more the Congress and Senate (and by extension, the ATF) hang on to this ridiculous document, the more absurd they look.

As usual, reader remarks concerning the study are welcome.

No, not you.  I’m talking to Jeff Sanders writing for PJM.

I have just completed the ALICE training course on dealing with an active shooter situation. If your business has not gone through this, you need to get them on board. Immediately. This is simply some of the best training I have ever been through. And it does not involve using firearms at all.

We have all heard about the tragedies at Columbine, Sandy Hook, Aurora, and Virginia Tech where an active shooter massacred people. Sadly, this sort of thing is probably not going away any time soon. How should people caught in this situation respond? Not everyone is going to carry a gun. (I am a concealed carry weapons instructor and strongly support the 2nd Amendment. But let’s face it, many people simply are not going to carry, and many should NOT carry a firearm.)

Very, very few people will dedicate the necessary amount of time and training to be able to shoot an attacker without accidentally shooting innocent people. And even if you are armed and trained, it would be incredibly difficult to react fast enough and track down the killer and eliminate the threat. There is training, however, that uses our natural God-given abilities that even children can use, and it’s in the ALICE training seminars.

“ALICE” is the acronym for a series of responses: Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate. You do not need to do all of these responses, or in the order spelled out in the acronym. You do whatever your situation demands at the moment.

Oh good Lord!  I’m so tired of hearing this claptrap I don’t know what to do except call it out for the bullshit it is.  It’s effective bullshit for the masses, just witness the comments at the linked article, or the link that sent me there to begin with.  Let me explain what this is all about.  Security contractors know that the progressive heads of corporations won’t allow their employees to carry firearms for self defense, but those same employees also know that run, hide and fight is ridiculous and sets them up to be sheep led to the slaughter on the altar of those progressive dreams of utopia.  What to do?

Enter, “Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate.”  It sounds so much better, right?  Except there is no difference since employees are unarmed and helpless.  The money quote is this: “Very, very few people will dedicate the necessary amount of time and training to be able to shoot an attacker without accidentally shooting innocent people. And even if you are armed and trained, it would be incredibly difficult to react fast enough and track down the killer and eliminate the threat.”

That’s a lie and the writer knows it, as does every security contractor who purveys this bullshit (or if he actually believes it he has poor judgment).  We’ve seen otherwise, from the young lady who had a gun to her head, reached down, unholstered her firearm, and shot the assailant.  Or consider the elderly folk who have acted in self defense, most of them essentially untrained.  I’m not advocating getting no training.  What I am advocating is that it’s possible to defend your life without the supposedly super Ninja warrior stress control training that infantry goes through.

And the notion that the police are trained to that standard is absurd.  Most police never discharge their weapons in self defense.  Neither, for that matter, do Soldiers and Marines who aren’t infantry.  That is a myth.  The bottom line is that if you are left unarmed by your employer, you are left as sheep to be slaughtered on the altar of the progressive utopian dream.

And every security contractor who teaches corporate security knows it.  Every … single … one.

American Spectator:

Gun-rights activists often express the view that Americans will not easily give up their rights to gun ownership even if the laws eventually outlaw — or at least greatly restrict — the freedom of individuals to own firearms. The scenario they depict is bleak but simple: When armed agents come to their doors to confiscate people’s arsenals, some of those people can be expected to fight back.

Advocates further assume widespread public support for private gun ownership and expect prominent Second Amendment organizations and Republican legislators to raise hell whenever gun regulations start approximating confiscation.

The experience in California, in particular, suggests an entirely different scenario.

From what I’ve seen, the public often will support aggressive new restrictions. Gun owners will meekly hand over their weapons to agents. Gun-rights groups will quietly protest, but have little sway. Republican legislators will make things worse as they try to prove their commitment to taking guns out of the hands of “criminals.” The erosion of our fundamental gun rights will take place so slowly that few will protest too much.

The latest example involves Proposition 63, a statewide initiative that mandates background checks for ammunition purchases and prohibits the possession of large-capacity ammunition magazines. The state already banned the sale of magazines that hold more than ten ammo rounds in 2000. As a federal judge explained in a recent ruling, starting July 1, “any previously law-abiding person in California” who owns such a magazine “will begin their life of crime.”

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I’ve called this the “infrastructure of confiscation.” Law-enforcement officials are mostly for it, of course. They want to know who owns guns when they are called to a home for a disturbance. “The presence of a legally owned possessed firearm bought to protect the home may get totally innocent people killed by the police who casually use SWAT for drug search warrants especially if they register,” said the late Joe McNamara, the former San Jose police chief and fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

After that tragic Connecticut shooting, the state passed a far-reaching firearms registration law. TV stations reported that gun owners lined up around the block to comply with the new requirements. Of course, that’s so. Most gun owners, myself included, are law-abiding folks, who almost certainly and properly would peacefully follow any new laws that were passed.

Well, he’s certainly right about the infrastructure of confiscation.  Note that if the fedgov knows you have a firearm in the house, any police attention, spurious or not, will most certainly result in danger for you and a dead dog, if you have one.

But as for lining up to turn in weapons, I’m not so sure this analysis is correct.  While some people did, the whole regulatory scheme in Connecticut and New York (SAFE Act) was so onerous that they saw massive non-compliance.  I suspect that the SAFE act will always be used after the fact to add other charges when they have arrested someone for another crime, not for the purpose of door-to-door gun confiscations.

What do you say?  Is this analysis in the American Spectator accurate, or has he missed the boat and failed to understand the resolve of the remaining patriots among us?