Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

Paul Ryan is no stranger to gun control.  It’s important to remember that, and what we’re going to discuss isn’t anything new for Ryan.  As an aside, it’s remarkable that the Congress, when they lost that horrible worm John Beohner, couldn’t even break from the establishment any more than to put in a man just as connected to the establishment.  Let’s be clear – Paul Ryan isn’t controlled by the establishment, he is the establishment.  At any rate, he’s promised to give gun control a hearing in Congress.

A week after Democrats staged a nearly 26-hour sit-in demanding a vote on gun control measures, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the House will vote next week on legislation to block suspected terrorists from buying guns.

In a conference call Thursday, Ryan told rank-and-file Republicans that the House will take up a terrorism package that will include measures to disrupt radicalization and recruitment, as well as a provision to prevent suspected terrorists from purchasing guns, according to a source on the call.

It’s unclear exactly which bill will be brought to the floor.

Democrats launched a daylong protest on the House floor last week demanding a vote on such legislation in the wake of the Orlando shooting rampage that killed 49.

Ryan on the call reiterated that it’s important to ensure suspected terrorists can’t obtain guns, calling it common sense. But the Speaker said he wanted to approach the issue deliberatively to protect due process and Second Amendment rights.

The House next week will also take up a bipartisan bill by Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) that seeks to address gun violence by overhauling the mental health system. That bill recently cleared the Energy and Commerce Committee.

A Democratic source said the more controversial gun-purchase provision may be similar to a bill sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) that’s backed by the National Rifle Association.

Democrats say the Cornyn bill doesn’t go far enough since it includes a “probable cause” standard that would require law enforcement officials to prove that a gun buyer is an actual terrorist rather than a suspected terrorist.

David Codrea weighs in on this.

Define “due process.” Is it being charged, tried in accordance with laws respecting rights, and found guilty before being denied a fundamental right? Or is it some law enforcement careerist using a secret list of undetermined sources and reliability convincing a judge or panel of unknown political sympathies that some tenuous “probable cause” alibi exists?

The same concern applies to mental health-related gun prohibitions—has the “accused” been afforded the equivalent protections of a jury trial, or is someone who may be quite learned in the field of mental health and quite ignorant and opinionated about “gun control” all that’s needed to sign off on a “no guns” life sentence?

And I’ve argued the same, but quite frankly I’m becoming very disillusioned at the so-called “criminal justice system” in America, all of it, and I see no reason to believe that a trial by jury would yield anything better than an empowered federal executive.  Remember that half of America routinely votes for communists anyway, and most of the other half is often confused.

David issues this warning though.

The correct position for the Republicans to take on guns, since the only clear mandate is the right to keep and bear them shall not be infringed, is to reject all citizen disarmament attempts, and make the monopoly of violence cult fight for every inch. We know that’s the end game, so why cede any beachhead from which they WILL launch further attacks? Why make any concessions, even on a floor vote?  What, are we going to find out which politicians are anti-gun? We don’t already know?

Of course, there is no legitimate reason to pursue this any more in Congress.  As I’ve observed before, gun confiscation on a massive scale won’t happen in America.  The progressives will nickel and dime us to death, with everything from mental health checks to domestic abuse record keeping where the mere perceived threat of harm is enough to place a person on the no-gun list with all of the white patriots in flyover country who believe in the second amendment.

The thing progressives have going for them is that they aren’t purists.  They aren’t looking to get everything at once.  They are incrementalists, and will take less than perfect in their eyes in order to achieve the desired end state.  The grand progressive plan isn’t to go all in on collection of guns at once.  It’s to bleed the country dry, death by a thousand cuts.  Paul Ryan is currently negotiating what the next cut will look like.

Jurist:

The US Supreme Court [official website] on Monday ruled [opinion, PDF] 6-2 in Voisine v. United States [SCOTUSblog materials] that a state law conviction on reckless domestic assault is sufficient to bar possession of a firearm under federal law. Stephen Voisine and William Armstrong had pleaded guilty to violating a Maine statute [text] that makes it a misdemeanor to “intentionally, knowingly or recklessly cause[ ] bodily injury or offensive physical contact to another person.” When later investigations revealed that both men were in possession of firearms, they were charged and convicted under a federal law [18 U.S.C. § 922 text] that prohibits any person convicted of “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” from possessing firearms and ammunition. On appeal, the petitioners argued that, because their domestic violence convictions were based on recklessness, and not intentional or knowing conduct, they were insufficient to support the federal charge. Focusing on the meaning of “use … physical force,” the Supreme Court disagreed and upheld the convictions. Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan found that

… the word “use” does not demand that the person applying force have the purpose or practical certainty that it will cause harm, as compared with the understanding that it is substantially likely to do so. Or, otherwise said, that word is indifferent as to whether the actor has the mental state of intention, knowledge, or recklessness with respect to the harmful consequences of his volitional conduct.

So it isn’t really just physical force that’s included under the rubric of domestic violence, but it expands to “intent” and a substantial likelihood.  You don’t reckon that this will be abused by angry spouses looking to get even or inflict emotional injury do you?  You don’t reckon that “domestic abuse” will become the new crime applied to virtually every gun owner who has a domestic squabble, do you?

And as for prohibiting gun ownership for such things as the perceived “intent” to do harm, any present or future spouse is affected in a similar way as the “criminal.”  Remember that a felon or person found guilty of domestic “abuse” cannot just not own guns, he cannot even be around others with guns.  That means that homes are left unprotected, including spouses who never had anything to do with this whole mess to begin with.  It’s called the law of unintended consequences.  Or perhaps the Supreme Court intends this outcome, and if so, isn’t that a pretty picture, ladies?

Dear reader, as you know from previous posts, do not ever talk to the police.  And make sure that you and your family are on good terms, know and understand each other, and know and understand the threat that the state poses.  Do not ever turn to the state for protection, guidance or justification.

Meredith Bennett-Smith:

Now the Constitution, much like the Bible–another flawed text used for centuries as a tool of oppression and tyranny–has become a crutch for lazy leadership and moral ambiguity. It’s an excuse for cowards to masquerade as patriots. Today, the NRA treats personal gun ownership as an inviolable right, regardless of its function or purpose.

[ … ]

To be clear, I know plenty of responsible gun owners. I want hunters to be able to hunt—but not with semiautomatic weapons. And I would like people who enjoy a little target practice to be able to do so at to their local firing range—but not with semiautomatic weapons. If you want to fire 43 bullets a minute, join the military.

Just to be clear, ownership of weapons is indeed an inviolable right, but not because of the second amendment.  It is so because God says so in the very document you think was a tool of tyranny.  But the only tyrants here are you, Meredith, and those of your ilk who want to disarm others.  You are control freaks, every one of you.  The bible you criticize teaches me that any attempts I might make to control you are based in wickedness.  I don’t want to control you or anyone else.  I want you to have liberty.  But you have no liberty to remove mine.

Second, I understand that your acquiescence to bolt action rifles for hunting is merely baiting.  It’s ineffective baiting, to be sure, but it’s still baiting and you don’t really mean it.  I know that as soon as someone changes the calculus and does something a little different such as use a scoped bolt action rifle from a stand off distance as did Charles Whitman, you’ll come for the bolt action rifles too.

Third, I know that you’re a liar, and you know it too.  You don’t really want to disarm everyone, because you don’t advocate disarming the police.  You just believe in the same thing all communists do, i.e., a monopoly of force.

Finally, it gives me amusement and pleasure to point out the obvious.  You can never effect this outcome because we have the guns.  Understand?  You can’t take them from us because you eschew them and we don’t.  What?  You didn’t really think we’d give them up, did you?  And you didn’t really think those cops would want to be gunned down as they try to confiscate weapons, did you?

Yahoo:

When James Carville sat with Sarah Palin for a Politicon conversation on Sunday, he was polite. He praised her 2008 Republican National Convention speech. He even seemed to sympathize with her for being scapegoated in John McCain’s presidential campaign.

But then he challenged her on wanting to “take back the country,” a common Tea Party phrase that has morphed into Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” and their conversation quickly turned into a debate over gun control.

Carville, the Democratic strategist, said to the former vice presidential nominee: “When you say you want to take back the country, what is it you want to take back?”

“I want to take back the interpretation of our constitution that is being wrongly interpreted today,” Palin said.

“Where are we going haywire on the Constitution?” he asked.

Palin’s response: the Second Amendment.

“It is black and white, and we have a right, of course, to bear arms,” she said. “People who can interpret that to, ‘Oh that means not everybody has that right.’ Or to take certain things like ammo, ‘Well that doesn’t apply.’ Or we can get rid of AR-15s because AR-15s weren’t invented for hunting. I say, ‘Yeah, the Second Amendment wasn’t written in the case the moose turn on us.’ Of course it wasn’t mean for hunting.”

Carville, though, pressed her further.

“Do I have a right to possess a bazooka? Do I have the right to have a surface to air missile and live close to the Los Angeles Airport?”

“Well, that is such a stupid question,” Palin responded.

The Palin-Carville conversation was among a number of marquee events at Politicon, a gathering of political junkies with panels, standup comedy, film screenings and art displays at the Pasadena Convention Center.

Carville went on. “I was in the Marine Corps. I have guns. I grew up rural. Why do I need a 40-clip magazine?”

I’ll concede Carville’s point.  I can say with certainty that I don’t need a 40-clip magazine.  Depending upon what that beast is, it might even make my rifle too heavy and out-of-balance to shoot accurately.

But I reserve the right to have one whether I need it or not.  I might buy one just to have it – just as soon as I figure out what it is.  As for Carville, even the US Marine Corps graduates a Gomer ever now and then.

Prior:

High Magazine Clips And The Shoulder Thing That Goes Up

High Ammo Clips

Automatic Bullets In Rapid Fire Magazine Clips

Duck Hunting With Bullets

The Fully Loaded Ammunition Cartridge

The Washington Times:

Responding to that report Saturday morning, Mr. Healy said authorities should consider creating a new list that would only be used to restrict access to weapons, separate from other similar databases, such as the “no-fly” list that contains the names of people banned from commercial air travel.

“I would even offer a solution that you create a separate list and have the no-gun list,” Mr. Healy said. “And on the no-gun list of the watchlist you require the agent to provide a probable cause statement and take it to a judge and say ‘This is why I don’t think this individual should have a gun or be able to buy a gun.’ That way i think you have a balanced approach.”

“Not everyone on the no-fly list is going to be on the no gun list because they’re not going to have enough information,” he added. “But there were situations of subjects on the no-fly list that I believe, based on what I knew about them, I could provide enough information to a judge and say ‘This is why i don’t think this individual should purchase a gun.’”

Or in other words, the collectivists don’t care about your rights.  He traffics in concepts of power, probability, forecasts of crime, and having just enough information to convince a single man that you shouldn’t be allowed to exercise your God-given rights, subject of course, to review by no one.

I think it’s probable that Mr. Healy had personal problems growing up that are manifesting themselves in this kind of behavior, but I won’t traffic in probabilities to the extent that Mr. Healy.

Here’s something I know with certainty.  The desire for this kind and degree of control over other men is wicked and sinful, and Mr. Healy is a dangerous man because rather than suppress and deal with that wickedness he acts upon it to assuage those wicked desires.  So do others of his ilk.  Gun owners aren’t the concern.  Men like Mr. Healy are the concern.

NY Daily News:

Rifle-owning South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and a handful of his fellow Republicans are standing up to the biggest bully in Washington — the National Rifle Association.

Graham and a growing group of GOPers are getting behind a burgeoning bipartisan effort to keep suspected terrorists from buying guns, and they’ve vowed they won’t bow to pressure from the powerful gun lobby.

“On every issue, Senator Graham does what he thinks is right and lets the chips fall where they may,” Kevin Bishop, a spokesman for Graham, told the Daily News in a statement Wednesday.

Hey Lindsey, you fossilized piece of shit.  Yea you.  You don’t belong in South Carolina.  Don’t go home.  Send the moving trucks to pick up your things and tote them to one of the communist states like New York, California or Connecticut.

If Lindsey doesn’t cooperate, the good folks of S.C. have some work to do.

Monica Lindstrom:

This week Arizona Senator Jeff Flake introduced a bill to prohibit the sale of guns to persons on the No Fly list. This comes on the heels of the deadliest mass shooting in America that occurred June 12 at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. It’s not surprising to see a flurry of proposals and argument regarding gun control and gun rights after a tragedy involving firearms and typically nothing changes.

The legal argument against Senator Flake’s proposal, and others before it, has to do with due process. Since the right to bear arms is given to us by the Second Amendment to our Constitution and has been affirmed in case law, a person must have due process before that right can be taken away. In other words, they must have their day in court. They must be made aware they are on the list and be afforded the opportunity to fight their presence on the list. Currently this is not done. Those on the list often do not know they are on the list and there are few opportunities, if any, that allow them to fight the designation.

This huge hurdle was recognized and suggestions are contained in the bill that would give some modicum of due process. However, the bill has a long way to go before it becomes a law and, even then, it will face many challenges in court and will likely make its way to the Supreme Court. So, mark your calendar, you could be reading about this anticipated case a couple years from now in #LegallySpeaking.

Let’s be clear about one thing Monica.  The second amendment grants me absolutely nothing.  The constitution is a covenant wherein parties agree to honor commitments made to each other.  A covenant has all the blessings and curses and consequences appertaining to said covenant.  The second amendment, like all other rights outlined in the bill of rights, merely codifies the recognition of an already-existing right.

God grants me the right (and even duty) to go armed and conduct myself in a manner consistent with self defense.  Not you, and not the constitution, and not black robed tyrants.  That means that whatever the outcome of this “day in court” to which you refer, the right to self defense is still present because God said so.

It would actually be a service for you to warn others of your ilk that your designs for control over others will run afoul of God’s commandments.  The consequences of this are too numerous to detail here, and include effect both now and in eternity.  And tell Jeff Flake we never forget.

The Washington Post:

The Supreme Court declined Monday to review bans on a lengthy list of firearms that New York and Connecticut have classified as “assault weapons,” the latest example of the justices turning down an opportunity to elaborate on an individual’s right to gun ownership.

With an emotional debate about gun control reigniting across the street at the Capitol, the justices without comment said they would not review lower-court decisions upholding the laws.

Connecticut’s ban was expanded shortly after a gunman used one of the military-style semiautomatic weapons on the list to kill 20 students and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in 2012.

The decision Monday was not a surprise, as the justices have previously declined to review other lower-court decisions that uphold bans passed by cities and states. Maryland, California, Hawaii, Massachusetts and New, Jersey as well as many cities and towns, have similar laws. None of the legal challenges to them have been successful in lower courts.

None of the challenges have been successful (and this wouldn’t be either) because jurists today don’t believe in the constitution, and because the Heller decision gave away too much.

David French does a nice job of upbraiding people who say that the second amendment doesn’t mean what it says.

First, the history. It is simply remarkable to see liberals flood the Internet and social media with allegations that the Second Amendment either does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms or that — incredibly — that right is restricted to single-shot, flintlock muskets. All meaningful historical evidence points toward the conclusion that the Second Amendment merely recognized a pre-existing right to bear arms. This is plain from the text of the amendment, which protects the right of “the people,” and from its historical context. Indeed, writing in 1803, St. George Tucker updated Blackstone’s Commentaries to declare that the United States “may reasonably hope that the people will never cease to regard the right of keeping and bearing arms as the surest pledge of their liberty.”

This understanding is buttressed by dozens of state constitutional provisions, the vast majority of which clearly and unmistakably establish an individual right to gun ownership — not the mythical “collective” right so beloved by the Left. Alabama, for example, declares that “every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state.” New Hampshire’s constitution states that “all persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property, and the state.” These provisions aren’t part of a right-wing plot; they reflect long-defended American liberties.

But in spite of the malfeasance of jurists who deny God-given rights, I confess that I have a difficult time getting worked up over this refusal of the Supreme Court to play nice.  I know this is easy to say and much more difficult to do, but if you live in a state like Connecticut or New York where the collectivists want to control you in this way, you need to move, change the laws, or disobey the laws to arm yourself as you see fit.

Don’t expect anyone in a black robe to look out for your interests.  Interests are local, and it’s probably best that way.  You can effect change locally easier than you can nationally.

The American Prospect:

As we have yet another round of our repeated and possibly fruitless arguments about the role of guns in American society, there’s one thing I desperately want to hear gun advocates say. It’s not complicated, it would have the benefit of honesty, and it might enable us to move this debate to ground where we could actually make choices about what kind of society we want to have.

What I want to hear gun advocates say is, “This is the price America has to pay for the right some of us cherish.”

The reason I want to hear this is that on no other basic debate over constitutional rights that I can think of does one side argue that there are no tradeoffs, that exercising a particular right, even in the most extreme way, doesn’t actually involve any cost whatsoever. Only gun advocates say that.

But it doesn’t work that way.  Paul has tried to force us into a formal logical fallacy, and you can think of it as a “Hobson’s Choice” (not a Hobbesian Trap, but Hobson’s Choice), where someone puts forward what he claims to be a free choice, but where only one option is really presented.

Don’t bite on things like this.  Here is the answer.  Criminals and terrorists will get their guns anyway because only peaceable people obey the laws.  Paul knows that, and so does everyone else.  It wouldn’t matter if every gun in America was confiscated (something that would lead to bloody civil war, and which I am only granting for the sake of argument).  Weapons will still flow from across the American border.  Or another way for criminals to get their guns is to attack police, kill them, and steal their weapons.  This happens frequently in South American countries.

Another way to get weapons is to buy fertilizer.  Or gasoline.  Or any of a number of fire accelerants, or acid to throw in the face of other people (this happens more than you care to know in far Eastern countries like Japan).  You see, Paul is in that category of people who want the state to have a monopoly of force, and dresses his designs for control up in all sorts of sympathy for victims.

Don’t believe him.  He isn’t being honest about things, and you know that because he isn’t advocating that the police be disarmed.  Because all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than other animals.

Salon:

But while the ostensible pitch is self-defense, it’s also hard to escape the sense that they (sic) marketing pitch is building on the fact that the nation just got a full eyeball of what the AR-15 is capable of doing: Mowing down dozens of people in the space of minutes.

After all, they know full well that their customer base is people like Stokes, who doesn’t even really bother to hide that he includes “mass shooting capabilities” in  his assessment of what makes this gun so cool.

“The rifle’s popularity is almost certainly the main reason why mass shooters increasingly reach for it when they go on a rampage,” Stokes writes. “Think about it: if you’re planning to shoot up a room full of people, are you going to reach for a rare, exotic weapon that you have little experience with, or will you select the familiar option that’s easy to train with and that you have plenty of practice time behind? The answer, for anybody who shoots, is the latter.”

It speaks volumes about how all sense of reason has escaped the pro-gun lobby that they think that “capable of destroying a room full of people in minutes” is a defense of a gun, instead of an obvious reason why the damn thing should be banned immediately.

Well, Amanda, let’s talk about this for a moment.  First of all, you don’t really believe what you’re saying, and you know it and we know it.  If you really believed your own propaganda, you’d advocate disarming the police.  But you don’t, and you won’t.  Because you believe in a monopoly of force, despite your undertones of pacifism.  You want the state to be armed as it sees fit, so you want some people to have access to the weapons of their choice, just not all people.  Because all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than other animals.

Second, your propaganda drips with hatred and sarcasm, as if you know all about when and why someone would need a certain kind of weapon.  But I’ll bet that you’ve never shot the weapon you criticize, have you?  If so, please tell us all about it.  Otherwise, get an education.  Start by searching on the words “home invasion” every day for a month on Google news or some other aggregator, and see how may home invasions are perpetrated with two, three, or four or more men at a time, and you’ll see why Mr. Stephen Bayezes needed his AR-15.

Finally, you focus on self defense, but we all know what the real issue is, don’t we Amanda?  You know the second amendment wasn’t written about hunting, or the shooting sports, or even individual self defense (although that would be included under the rubric of what it does include).  We all know, however uncomfortable it might be for you to admit, that the second amendment is all about amelioration of tyranny.

That’s right Amanda.  Are you shocked?  Are you stunned that I said it?  Weapons are the surest means of maintenance of our liberties.  But you don’t want people to have liberties, do you?  Like all good collectivists, you want the state to decide right from wrong, issue the necessary orders for social stability, and ensure cradle to grave sustenance and security.

Don’t you, Amanda?  That’s why only the state can have guns, isn’t it Amanda?