Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

Pacific Standard:

Why do so many Americans own handguns, and resist the regulation of firearms? “Protection” is the most common response, but who (or what) exactly are they protecting themselves from? And why do fact-based arguments, such as the reduction in crime rates and the dangers of having a gun in the house, fail to change minds?

Newly published research provides a partial answer. It finds handgun ownership is motivated by two distinct impulses: “The specific perceived threat of assault, and a diffuse threat of a dangerous world.”

A research team led by University of Groningen psychologist Wolfgang Stroebe reports that second, vague notion of potential peril is the stronger of the two—and the one most resistant to rethinking.

“Handgun ownership and advocacy is, at least in part, a psychological phenomenon,” the researchers write. “Gun ownership is predicted by various levels of perceived risk”—including the difficult-to-dislodge belief that the world is a menacing place.

[ … ]

“This could make it difficult to conduct persuasion campaigns aimed at dissuading handgun owners of the need to own a gun (or support limitations on gun ownership),” they write. That’s because “a broader system of beliefs about the nature of the social world, and what people are like, is extremely difficult to influence.”

Such mindsets are learned in childhood, and tend to shape one’s thinking for the rest of one’s life.

If you believe that sin is the moral malady and affliction of mankind, the psychologists don’t know what to do with you.  The world must surely be a safe place, because just shut up.  They are looking for ways to retrain your thinking, but sadly you’ve learned this behavior and world view in childhood.  They find it difficult to dislodge.

Have you ever seen a profession so disconnected from reality as this one?  You may as well consider them Voodoo practitioners and witchdoctors.

Via Codrea, this from The Kansas City Star Editorial Board:

Guns and the mentally ill and physically fragile just don’t mix.

Okay, so prove it?  You’ve made a strong statement concerning who has and doesn’t have rights, so prove it?

Given that I’ve quoted more mental health professionals than I can count concerning the fact that the mentally ill suffer no increased propensity to violence when compared to others, that the mental health profession doesn’t have the tools to engage in behavior prediction, and that the mental health profession cannot bear the burden people like this want to place on their profession, I think I an entitled to an explanation.  You, editorial board, waxed educated and know-it-all, so it’s time to put up or shut up.  I’m listening and waiting.

Finally, I’m wondering about this notion of the physically fragile not being allowed to have guns in the view of the Kansas City Star Editorial Board.  Does that mean that the editorial board would prevent the very people who needed guns the most, women and the elderly, from being able to defend themselves?  Are they that crass and morbid that they want to see innocent people injured or killed because they are physically more fragile than others?  Is this the logical outcome of Margaret Sanger’s philosophy of eugenics?

And do they go as far as Hamilton Nolan with Gawker?  Are they trying to lampoon and humiliate the weakest among us?  Are they really that dark and twisted?

The News & Observer:

John “Curly” Brazelton of Havelock, a former Marine who belongs to a hunting club, said in an interview with The N&O last week that everyone in his hunting club opposes the idea of eliminating concealed-carry permits.

“We all have them,” Brazelton said. “We have the best law in the country right now.”

Hmm … “the best law in the country right now.”  What we have is a ‘statist, “mother-may-I,” here is some money, may I please exercise my God-given rights, pretty please, here is all of my records of my entire life, please, please like me, please, pretty please’ system of intrusion of our rights.

I told you so.  Fudds are not your friends.

Breitbart:

Handler told THR:

Obviously, [the state of] gun control in this country is totally unacceptable, and the gun lobby is so strong and so powerful that anytime a celebrity can bring attention to this cause — among many other [causes] — you know it’s an easy thing for anyone to do. We’re way behind the times in terms of gun control in this country, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere anytime soon. Our voices just need to keep getting louder, and the people that make an impact need to really just step up and stick their necks out a little bit more.

THR then pointed to the NRA’s support of Trump during last year’s campaign campaign and Trump’s pro-Second Amendment stance then and now. Handler responded, “People need to be louder than ever with this president and his relationship to the gun lobby. He doesn’t give a s—about people. He doesn’t care about anybody.”

“Nobody is trying to take away your guns. If you want to go shoot, you know, whatever, in the woods, that’s fine, but it’s a hobby,” she told THR. “If your hobby is [affecting] innocent people being killed all the time, children included, don’t you think you should reconsider the lack of restrictions placed on your hobby?”

Okay, Chelsea, so I assume that you and your parents have sworn off any armed security for yourselves, forever, for the rest of your lives, right?  Let me know if my assumption is wrong.  Because if I’m wrong, then you and your handler and parents are just lying, hypocritical crap weasels who want protection you deny to others – because you don’t give a shit about people.

WRAL.com:

Raleigh, N.C. — A House committee voted Wednesday in favor of a bill that would eliminate North Carolina’s requirement that people obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

House Bill 746 creates “parity” for people who are allowed to carry guns openly but suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of the law if they put on a jacket and cover up their holstered sidearms simply because they lack a concealed carry permit, said sponsor Rep.Chris Millis, R-Pender.

“This bill would allow law-abiding citizens to be able to carry concealed, regardless of obtaining the mandatory government permit, and this ability to carry concealed is only in places where it is currently allowable to openly carry a firearm,” Millis said, noting 13 other U.S. states have similar rules on the books.

Concealed carry permits are issued through a county sheriff’s office, which conducts a criminal background check and looks for records of mental illness or incapacity. The requirement has long been a sore spot with gun rights advocates, who say it gives sheriffs too much power to deny gun owners what they say is their constitutional right to carry a concealed weapon.

Grass Roots North Carolina has worked hard for this bill, and I certainly support it.  I also enjoyed meeting GRNC face to face at the recent gun show in Charlotte, and was pleased to hear that some of them read my articles.  But this bill isn’t all that it seems.

Oh to be sure, it’s potentially carry without a permit, but let me ask you a question?  Why would this be the case?

The North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association has taken no position on the bill, but said it’s pleased legislators didn’t also move to revoke permits required to buy handguns. County sheriffs are a key voice in the debate because they issue handgun permits.

The North Carolina Sheriff’s Association has taken no position on the bill.  They couldn’t care less.  It tells you why right in that single sentence.  To give you a little background, at one time the CLEO had to issue both permits to carry and permits to buy a handgun.  The permit to carry involved a lot more than permits to buy, including a comprehensive review of medical records that you must turn over to the CLEO.

They still do that, and they also still issue permits to buy handguns, but oops, what do you know, unintended consequences and all, the CLEOs need more time and more money and more personnel because that mental health screening that was previously done for CHP holders – yea, that one, well, they do it for all handgun purchases now.

So just to buy a handgun requires one and the same process as a CHP holder goes through.  Recognizing constitutional carry is a bit of a ruse and misdirect when they have just now incorporated the full CHP process into handgun purchases.  While several months ago some state senators waxed confused and apologetic over the behemoth new system they didn’t know they were creating, it’s almost as if they planned this whole thing to begin with.

Pardon me if I don’t get giddy over constitutional carry in North Carolina.  Get rid of the communist CLEO permitting system for handgun purchases and then I’ll think you’re actually doing something about liberty in North Carolina.

News from Bowling Green:

Wearing a Class B uniform – the type of uniform with a badge embroidered on a polo-style shirt – Robinson entered the theater with friends, including some children who were looking forward to seeing the show. He was met by an employee who told him company policy forbids off-duty law enforcement officers from wearing guns into the theater.

He explained he was on his lunch break until 4:30 p.m. The employee responded by saying he could stand in the lobby until that time but still had to remove his gun before going into the theater.

“I got refused service at a movie theater,” Robinson said. He said he was “flabbergasted.”

I couldn’t care less that you’re a LEO.  I fully support the idea that you’re just like us, not better.  I fully support their right to tell you not to carry, as well and your and my right to boycott their theater because of their policy.  What I don’t support is your right to carry in that establishment if they don’t recognize mine.

By the way, as for this fear you have of attacks for which you’re unprepared?  How does it feel?  You see, wearing a uniform is only one of the things that could get you attacked.  The list is long, including color of your skin, length of your hair, whether you’re wearing head covering if you’re a woman (if you live in Dearborn, Michigan), or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This problem you have with being unarmed and unable to respond to attack is the very same problem we face if we can’t carry.  Join the club.  But don’t expect sympathy from these quarters.

So says Dave Nagle:

The four arrived around noon at Union Station, having taken the train down that morning from New York. They ate lunch and then debated whether to complete their task or simply go back home. Three wanted to stop, but the fourth was adamant and said she would do it herself. She started walking up the hill to the Capitol and the three reluctantly followed.

Hey Dave, I’m right there with you concerning the issue of people shooting in the most unexpected places and the most unexpected times.  But there are problems with your analysis.

The issue of open carry has nothing whatsoever to do with your commentary.  The things you address are also applicable to concealed carry, because there is no practical difference between open and concealed except that in one case you can see the weapon if you happen to notice.  So I think this entire argument is completely fabricated and fake.  I don’t think your problem is with open carry.

But the unexpected shootings can occur anywhere, on the street corner, in a restaurant, at a gas station, or in the work place.  And see, there is nothing that makes you different from us even though you would like to think there is.  You’re not more special than we are, and the House and Senate chambers aren’t anything special to us.

In fact, let’s drive this point a little further.  What if you are so unspecial to us and given the nanny state, brooding hen, control freak governance you want to have over everyone at their expense and on their hard earned tax dollars, we consider your work loathsome and disgusting?  Grok that, Dave?

What if we don’t want you to have special protections or be able to grant yourselves special security compared to everyone else?  What if we want you to live with the very same laws you create for other people, meaning that if people cannot conceal carry because of you, then you don’t get to either, and you don’t get your very own security?

And what if the open carry law you advocate effects everyone, including you, and LEOs, and you don’t get any extra, additional or special security?  What if we just don’t care enough about what you do to grant you security on our tax dollars?

I know I’ve given you a lot to think about, Dave.  Please feel free to post a comment and tell us what you think.

So says Alex Yablon at The Trace.

When José Luis Hernández was a boy, his hometown of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, had its share of gangs, neighborhood toughs who used knives to claim turf and settle scores. As he came of age, a new generation of criminals took over. These crews worked with international organized crime rings, and they carried guns.

“I started seeing guys around town that weren’t just local gangs,” Hernández says. “They were sicarios” — professional killers working for the drug cartels — “armed better than the police. They’d have AK-47s.”

As Honduran gangs grew ever more well-armed and difficult to police, they gave young men like Hernández an impossible decision: join up, or be marked for death. In a single month, one gang in San Pedro Sula tortured and murdered as many as eight minors who refused to enlist. Across the small country, according to official counts, nearly 50,000 people were murdered between 2008 and 2015. In several of those years, civilian homicides reached a rate of 80 per 100,000 residents — a higher rate than recorded at the height of the Iraqi insurgency. Eighty percent of Honduran homicide victims were shot.

“With all the violence” Hernández says, “I didn’t have a choice” but to flee north to the United States. “I call it a forced migration.”

He made one unsuccessful attempt to get to the United States in 2005, then journeyed north a second time the next year, hopping a Mexican freight train line known to migrants as La Bestia (The Beast) for the tendency of riders to be maimed or killed while riding it. Clinging to the train in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, Hernández fainted and fell. The train severed a leg, an arm, and half of one of his hands as it rolled on without him. He was hospitalized for more than a year in Mexico before being deported back to his home country.

Hernández again braved the trip to the United States in 2015, as part of a larger group of disabled Hondurans calling themselves themselves the Caravan of the Mutilated. This time, they reached the border crossing at Eagle Pass, Texas, where they sought and received asylum.

“We had nothing to lose,” Hernandez says of his reason for undertaking the arduous passage, “and a lot of hope to achieve something” by escaping Honduras.

Federal immigration statistics show that Hernández and his caravan are part of a tidal wave of Central Americans driven north by violence in their home countries. The flow became a humanitarian and political crisis in 2014, when the Department of Homeland Security apprehended nearly 480,000 people at the southern border, including tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors. In 2016, another 400,000 people were captured by the Border Patrol in southwestern states.

Dramatically reducing immigration to the United States is a pillar of President Donald Trump’s agenda. He announced his candidacy with warnings about undocumented Latino migrants bringing drugs, violence, and rape. He has secured $341 million in federal spending for the first phase of a promised 20-foot-high wall to keep them out, and requested $1.6 billion more to extend the barrier. Arrests of undocumented immigrants, the majority of whom lack records of other criminal offenses, are up 38 percent during the first three months of the Trump administration, a crackdown designed to deter would-be migrants from entering the country. Recent reports say the Border Patrol is refusing to admit asylum seekers like Hernández, in violation of international law.

But experts say Trump’s tactics could amount to a finger plugged into the dike, halting people at the border without addressing the reasons why they flee to America.

Ah yes, and now we’re down to the root of the issue according to Alex.  There isn’t enough American gun control, for if there were, we wouldn’t be the recipient of such overwhelming immigration.

No mention is made of the fact that our borders are virtually open.  No mention is made of the fact that progressives want the immigrants for votes, and republican elites want them as workers for Monsanto and Archer-Daniels-Midland on our middle class tax dollars when they go to the local ER for routine medical care.

And no mention is made of the fact that we in America have more guns per capita than anywhere else on earth, and yet we aren’t attempting to migrate South, are we?  No question is posed, “If guns fuel immigration, then why aren’t Americans trying to leave?”  No mention is made of the cultural and moral problems that underlie the entire machine sending migrants North, or of the fact that Mexico and the Central American countries want to ship their criminals and impoverished here for us to take care of.

Because.  Just because.  Shut up.  Alex doesn’t want to deal or traffic in facts or even Sunday School level logic.  No, if we just had more gun control, the entire problem would dissipate overnight.

What a dumb ass.  Or liar.

David Codrea:

One might if one had zero knowledge of guns, of gun design and of defensive gun uses. Left unacknowledged are inconvenient realities like the fact that the harder the trigger pull, the more inaccurate the gun, a problem the New York Police Department (and those they shoot and/or miss) has experienced since the bureaucrats imposed a 12-lb. trigger pull requirement (resulting in a 15% hit ratio). Serrano has not offered how making a gun less accurate makes it safer.

Have you ever tried to use a gun with a 12 pound pull?  I haven’t, but close.  I believe it had around an 8-9 pound pull.  It belonged to someone else, and I believe I managed to saw the left arm off the target silhouette.

I don’t think the NYPD needs any more help in learning how to shoot badly.  Leave it to progs to design dumb laws intended to super-manage lives rather than punish criminals.  By the way, David also links an NRA piece on the S&W sellout that I have never seen.

KTTS.com:

City officials in Ozark are discussing a possible ban on concealed weapons in certain places.

People in Missouri can carry a concealed weapon without a permit in most places. Police departments and a few other places are still off limits.

“However, you can carry a concealed weapon in city hall if it’s not posted,” says Ozark city attorney Dave Collignon.

One city official asked someone with a concealed weapon to leave Finley River Park. Guns are allowed at the park though. That’s what started the discussion amongst city council members.

The plan is to further limit where concealed weapons are allowed and to make a list for people of places having a concealed weapon is not allowed.

When men and women get charge of someone else, there is virtually no limit to what they are willing to dictate.  I’ve seen church elders and deacons want to dictate what people wear, what they say, how they act, how they address them, and on and on the list goes.  Rulers reflexively turn into tyrants.  That’s why in my own view of church government I’ve become a Congregationalist.  I’ve never seen the “rulership” form(s) of church government function well or become anything other than a laughingstock or tyranny.  Not ever.  Not even once.

The same is true concerning civil government.  It doesn’t matter that these people aren’t national leadership, or weren’t elected at the state level.  They want the power to tax, determine matters for the local schools, signage, roads, utilities, and tell you when and where you can effect life-saving self defense or defense of someone else.

Tyrants, one and all.  In case you ever wondered, this is why we need preemption laws.  Right here.  And the next town full of little communists, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one.  No town, city, or municipality has ever relaxed laws or regulations compared to state law.  They are all more restrictive.  If you find an example to the contrary, tell us about it and I’ll retract this statement.