Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

News and views from Maine:

Two accomplished and popular leaders of sportsmen have stepped up to support extension of background checks to all gun sales in Maine. Bucky Owen and Bill Vail, former Commissioners of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, will lead a group of sportsmen who support the initiative.

At a Tuesday morning press conference, representatives of the group, Maine Moms Demand Action, stood in front of boxes filled with petitions bearing the signatures of 85,436 citizens from all 503 Maine cities and towns, an impressive effort. One third of the signatures came from Maine’s Second Congressional District.

Jackie Sartoris, a MMDA volunteer, reported their polling found that 80 percent of Maine voters support the initiative. At the press conference, Bucky Owen noted that he’s been a lifelong hunter, angler, and gun owner. “We have a proud heritage of responsible gun ownership,” said Owen, a resident of Orono. “I believe strongly in the Second Amendment,” he said, “and in keeping guns out of the hands of the wrong people. This initiative includes safeguards for us and will not lead to gun registration,” he concluded.

The Act to Require Criminal Background Checks for Gun Sales requires background checks for all gun sales, with some notable exceptions. For those of us who are sportsmen, the most important exceptions are these. No background checks are required “while hunting or trapping if such activity is legal in all places where the transferee possesses the firearm and the transferee holds any license or permit required for such activity.”

This is important to me, because I loaned a firearm to two hunters in November, including the Portland Press Herald’s outdoor writer Deirdre Fleming, who were deer hunting for the first time. It would have been ridiculous to have to go through a background check in those circumstances. There is another exception for shooting ranges.

Probably the most important exception for sportsmen and gun owners is the one that exempts us from the background check if we are selling a gun to a family member defined as a husband, wife, domestic partner, parent by blood, parent by adoption, child by blood, child by adoption, sibling by blood, sibling by adoption, grandparent, grandchild, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle, first cousin, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother, half sister, or intimate partner.” A pretty comprehensive list!

I see.  So you can sell a gun to the local whore if you’ve been to bed with her, but you cannot sell a gun to that neighbor or church member whom you’ve known for thirty or forty years, who helped bury your parents, who came to all of your children’s activities, who helped you with your duties around the home, reciprocating the love you showed them?  You know, that neighbor or church member who is so trusted that he has keys to your home and visits and watches out for it while you’re away?  Yes, that’s right.  That one.

You can color me unimpressed, you two old collectivist Fudds.  I don’t care where you worked, I don’t care if you’ve hunted all of your life, and I don’t care what you think you can make the polls prove in Maine.  And as for that matter, you cannot honestly assert that universal background checks won’t lead to a gun registry.  You know you can’t, and you know that the temptation of totalitarians is always to accumulate more power and control.  So that makes you a liar.

Cara McDonough:

I ended my story by saying that I felt the only way to move forward in this debate was to talk to people who did get the gun thing. That I wanted to understand the other side because, truthfully, I’d never tried to before.

A handful of gun owners — individuals with political views very different from my own — apparently read all the way through. They got the sentiment and took me up on my request and wrote to me. Because I’d prompted the discussion, I realized I needed to follow through, so I wrote back. And we’ve been talking.

I’m not claiming that I’ve begun some sort of revolution. The back-and-forth is slow going, but we’re communicating. In some instances, the conversation has remained focused on gun policy, while other email threads have morphed into discussing personal life beyond the issue at hand.

Writing to gun owners humanized the issue for me. After feeling so hopeless, the emails made me feel better. They were the only thing that did. Talking to people who owned guns and were willing to discuss that with me in a reasonable and respectful way had some immediate, and surprising, results.

I began to get “the gun thing,” as I’d dismissively termed it. A few who wrote to me pointed out that when you live in a rural community and calling law enforcement does not necessarily result in a prompt response, owning a gun for personal safety seems prudent. I’m a product of East Coast city life and — naively, shortsightedly — had never considered this.

But here’s the thing, Cara.  You never really advocated or even intended to advocate disarming everyone.  You never really believed in gun control for everyone, because you didn’t advocate disarming cops.  That’s a problem.  That means that you believe in guns, just in what you consider “the right hands.”  You want the government to have a monopoly of force, and for others to be left defenseless against criminals and, yes, against their own government as well.

The example you cited about people in the countryside is shameful, and not only should you never have brought that up, your detractors should have kept their mouths shut because they don’t believe in gun rights either.  Gun rights are just that – rights.  They are no respecter of persons or location.  Urbanites need self defense just as much as rural folk.

As for the cops you assume would be there is you call them, you do understand that they are under no legal obligation to protect you, don’t you?  Not according to Warren v. D.C., Castle Rock v. Gonzales, and other decisions.  Legally, the police can wait until your neighbors smell your rotting corpse before sending in the medical examiner, while they go eat doughnuts.  Besides, given typical response times, the crimes are over by the time police respond.

On a larger scale, guns protect men and women from awful people like ISIS, who get off on beheading defenseless women and children, or the Taliban, who want to perpetrate female circumcision and destroy school books so that children can’t learn to read.  Guns enabled our own revolution against a tyrant in England, and guns ended Hitler’s reign of terror in Europe.

You see, you know that guns are a tool with magnificent utility, an equalizer of the evil and the innocent, of the  criminal and the righteous.  But you still want the innocent and the righteous to be defenseless, and that says something deeply troubling about your values.  I suggest a deep, quiet period of soul-searching before writing about this again.

And before you do write again, you should get up with someone like me, who can sit for several hours and show you how our side safely handles firearms, and how they can be safely deployed at the gun range.  It simply isn’t enough to write emails back and forth.  You aren’t really fully engaged in this issue yet.  You’re just nibbling around the edges.

The New Yorker:

“ISIS was telling everyone, ‘We’re all brothers,’ ” Abu Malik said. “They let people smoke and drink. At the checkpoints, they distributed presents to the kids. They ate with people, drank tea with people. They were very nice—they didn’t bother anyone. Then, a week or so after they arrived, they started confiscating weapons. They told us it didn’t matter if we’d been with the Awakening or the Army or the police—if we gave up our weapons, we’d be forgiven. Ten days later, they started taking people. Everything changed. They took my cousin. My brothers dug holes in the fields and hid. I was at my house when they came for me. It was afternoon. I saw two Hyundai Santa Fes pull up outside, and I ran out the back and jumped over the wall. That was the last time I saw my family.”

Totalitarians of all stripes have one thing in common.  The ordinary folk cannot have weapons.  Weapons are a threat to the hierarchy of rule, a symbol of power and independence, an enabler of equality.

Whether European and American totalitarians or ISIS, guns have to go.  Fascists are all the same everywhere, always, throughout history.

David Codrea:

“We have received a preliminary copy of one of the most dangerous pieces of anti-gun legislation we have ever seen,” Oregon Firearms Federation alerted its members. “This bill eviscerates due process and turns Oregon into a Soviet style collection of secret snitches!

Remember what TCJ commenter menckenlite said?  “Control freaks love psychiatry, a means of social control with no Due Process protections. It is a system of personal opinion masquerading as science. See, e.g., Boston University Psychology Professor Margaret Hagan’s book, Whores of the Court, to see how arbitrary psychiatric illnesses are. Peter Breggin, Fred Baughman and Thomas Szasz wrote extensively about abuses of psychiatry. Liberals blame guns for violence. Conservatives blame mental illness. Neither have any causal connection to violence. The issue is criminal conduct, crime. Suggesting that persons with legal disabilities are criminals shows the nonsensical argument of this politician and his fellow control freaks.”

It’s just that in this particular law, the list of government snitches who can bypass due process protections has grown to mammoth proportions.

Nice job, jerk off!

A former Marine for gun control.  Oh, it’s not worth the time for me to formally respond.  I think he’s lying.  I don’t really think he is a former anything, most of all Marine.

Gun violence.  Because people decide that’s what they want to do, not because of guns.

One commenter thinks there will be civil war in Canada if the newly elected effete boy-ruler tries to confiscate weapons.  “The province of Quebec has been the worst – where the mafia practically owned Montreal during the 30s to the 60s and the cops often looked the other way . With the muslim immigrant threat in the 21st century , the mafia days will come across ,in another 10 years,sadly,as “the good old days”. The western provinces (basically politically conservative ) are so fed up with the garbage from the East (Ontario,Quebec and the Maritimes) and their support of Justin Trudeau that there is a growing movement for a call of separation from Canada. Vancouver (on the West or “Left” coast) is viewed as being quite brain dead to any reality. Canada, far from it’s image of being composed of nice little polite “Canuckies” living in little log cabins eating back bacon ,is on the verge of much internal strife and conflict in the coming years. If Trudeau tries to grab guns in Alberta and Saskatchewan there will be “civil war”. Tough times ahead for the whole world and Canada is not exempt from it.Not by a long shot.”

Shooting a gun reaffirmed my belief in gun control:

I’ve never understood guns — why people love them so much, why they think it’s fun to shoot them, why they collect them. I was always simply terrified of guns — which was extra difficult, given that I grew up in the South, nearly surrounded by them. My mother claimed to have one tucked away somewhere in the house when I was growing up, but I never believed her, because I never saw it. My cousins used to shoot BB guns in the backyard on holidays while I would stand on the porch and watch. I went to parties in middle school and high school where we hung out in some basement next to someone’s ridiculous gun collection. As soon as anyone started to get the guns out to show them off, I hightailed it out of there. I hated being in the same room as a gun, and I didn’t want to know or understand how they worked. I didn’t think you needed to know how a gun worked, or what it felt like to use one, in order to know that they were dangerous.

[ … ]

They assured me that everything was safe, we made sure the area was clear, and I shot a gun at a target for the first time in my life. I didn’t feel a rush or a sudden sense of power. I felt nothing. I shot again. Nothing. I shot another gun, and I still felt nothing. There was no thrill here. This is what people were defending? I felt a disconnect. Sure, I’ve wielded weapons before. I taught archery for many years, I’ve chopped wood, and I’ve fenced. My entire family is military. I love so many aspects of Southern culture, and I am proud that our rights to personal property are protected in the United States.

But that moment confirmed that for me, the risks and the repercussions of owning guns greatly outweigh the fun, culture, and tradition associated with them.

Hey.  I see how this works.  If you don’t get orgasmic over guns, I can’t have them either.  Because you’re the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong and good and bad and pleasure and boredom.  Got it.

They have their own security.

I don’t even know what the 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards are.  I suspect it’s when famous people get together and present each other with some kind of awards.  Seriously.  I’ve never seen it.  But take note.  They’re anti-gun only when it comes to you.

News from Boston:

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is ramping up enforcement and oversight of the state’s gun laws, which were updated last year as a response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut.

The Boston Globe reports Healey sent out a letter Tuesday to the 350 gun dealers in Massachusetts and her office plans spot checks on Bay State gun stores to make sure they’re not selling illegal guns.

“For me, this is a public health crisis and acting to address it is a moral imperative,” Healey wrote in the letter, which was also obtained by MassLive.com. “There are simply too many guns that are too easy to obtain.”

Healey noted that there were 102,081 sales and transfers of handguns, rifles and shotguns by dealers to licensed state residents in 2014, “more than double the number from 2006.”

“You are selling more weapons to more people at a scale and at a time that demands a heightened vigilance from every dealer and employee,” she wrote.

Massachusetts gun laws, often referred to as some of the nation’s toughest measures, ban semiautomatic assault weapons and “large capacity feeding” devices, though law enforcement officers are exempt from the ban.

In her letter, Healey reminded dealers of the ban.

“At this moment of deep and justifiable anger over gun violence, you have a serious role in ensuring public safety,” she wrote.

She added: “The gun violence epidemic demands our collective action. As responsible gun dealers, I urge you to redouble your commitment to ensuring the safety of your neighbors and ask you to share any ideas you may have to increase gun safety and reduce gun violence.”

Legislators at the State House moved to strengthen the state’s gun laws in 2014 after the Sandy Hook shooting.

The updates included requiring licensed gun dealers to run criminal offender background checks on current and new employees, and post information on suicide awareness and prevention.

The update also required all personal sales and transfers of firearms, rifles and shotguns to be completed through a state gun transaction portal.

“Illegal guns”  … “There are simply too many guns that are too easy to obtain” … “You are selling more weapons to more people at a scale and at a time that demands a heightened vigilance from every dealer and employee.”

Notice the confusion in this language.  She naturally assumes that since more guns are being sold, there must be something illegal going on.  Shocked, she is.  Never heard of the free market, I suppose.  Too easy, says she.  Laws notwithstanding, of course.  Since the laws allow too easy purchase of guns, there are too many of them.  Or, since laws have been “strengthened,” it must be that “illegal” guns are being sold and the law is not being followed.  Or something.

I do indeed understand that progressives are evil, and their desire to control others a reflection of the evil in their heart.  But here there seems to be more at work.  This lady doesn’t impress me as the brightest bulb on the hallway.  In fact, she seems like an unmitigated dumbass to me.  But take note, whether it’s the AG position in Virginia or this AG, executive actions seem to be the current wave of attacks against God-given rights to self defense.

NYT:

The New York City public advocate on Monday asked federal regulators to investigate whether the gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson had made adequate disclosures in its financial statements.

In an eight-page letter, the public advocate, Letitia James, said the Securities and Exchange Commission should examine whether Smith & Wesson misrepresented or omitted information about how often its products are involved in crimes and what it has done to keep its guns out of the hands of criminals.

Shareholders would want to know whether Smith & Wesson faced heightened regulatory scrutiny or significant litigation risk, Ms. James said in the letter.

Nearly two weeks ago, a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., left 14 people dead and provoked a fresh outcry about gun violence in America. It also is the third anniversary of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults.

“With the increase in mass shootings, public concern about the proliferation of firearms has animated a national dialogue about gun control measures, interstate gun trafficking, and whether gun manufacturers should take additional steps to ensure that their products do not end up in the hands of criminals,” the letter says. “Smith & Wesson knows that it is at risk of grave reputational harm.”

Ms. James is opening a new avenue in her fight against gun sellers and makers. Earlier this month, she called on TD Bank, a big lender, to stop financing Smith & Wesson. This summer, she convinced the New York City Employee Retirement System, the city’s largest pension fund, to explore divesting itself of its holdings of gun retailers like Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Here is the letter, sponsored by the City of New York because it is hosted on a New York City web site.  Ms. James, who makes $165,000 per year at the expense of city taxpayers, and who is almost never on the job to do her job of public advocate, is using her salary, time and staff to fight legitimate, law abiding gun manufacturers by – you guessed it – regulating them to death at the hands of the *.us.gov.  What regulation, what law, what knickers-in-a-wad fabricated problem of the day, it matters not.  This is what community organizers do.  Regulators are the philosopher-kings, and we are the subjects.

No, she isn’t another Bloomberg apparatchik.  She is much more progressive than Bloomberg, and gave an anti-Bloomberg speech upon de Blasio’s inaguration so caustic that that even The New York Times berated it.  She is next-gen progressive.  And like the current administration, she doesn’t mind spending money she didn’t earn from the public coffers to battle what she perceives to be social justice warrior battles.

And we can all say with one voice, “Get a real job and mind your own damn business.  We don’t care what you think.”  I hope Smith & Wesson buries you.

Hispanic voters vow to punish the GOP.  But, but, but, I thought they were solidly in our camp, conservative, religious and all that?  Isn’t that what we were told?

David Codrea:

No doubt the press will show up, but funny thing — there’s not a lot in the “news” announcing things at this writing.  My guess is, they don’t want it to turn out like Bloomberg’s bus tour, where they kept stops secret because they didn’t want subsidized “supporters” outnumbered. Still, look for the media to give the handful of indignant zealots who do show up inordinate exposure, and to position their camera shots to make it look like the events draw widespread public participation.

It’s because they’ve lost.  No, I’m not saying stand down.  We can never stand down.  Evil knows no end until the very end, i.e., judgment day.  I’m saying that moms have lost, but as a Leopard cannot change its spots, so too the moms cannot help but be collectivists.

LEOs and gun free zones.

In a statement Thursday, Police Chief Steve Conrad expressed surprise that some of his officers weren’t allowed inside the downtown theater.

“Given today’s climate, we would think most businesses would welcome armed and well-trained police officers, on or off-duty, to help out should there be a problem,” Conrad wrote.

Oh go cry me a river.  And what about concealed carriers?  Oh, I see.  You’re more “specialer” than we are.

From Mike Vanderboegh.  This seems to me to be very important.  I might talk to my daughter the Nurse Practitioner about this.  Read it.

After watching this, I’ve decided that The Captain’s Journal will call for a ban on guns for all one-armed men born on the third Thursday of April.  After all, you never know when they will become a terror problem.

Or not.