Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

The Federalist:

Read the rest by Sean Davis.  The whole thing is a very bad idea for increased federal government surveillance and control, except it’s on steroids.  In this case, the federal leviathan would use this bill, if passed, as a tool to circumvent due process rights.

As I have said before:

I’m a Christian who believes abortion is murder, who supports secession, who has a negative view of the U.N., who stockpiles ammunition (as his budget allows), who believes in the right to bear arms, who is deeply concerned about immigration (and not just illegal immigration), who believes in the militia, who opposes the “new world order,” who believes that Islam is a fairy tale concocted by an evil pedophile for the purpose of keeping his roving band of murderers and thugs together, who believes that the American way of life is under attack and has been for a very long time …

I am either on such a list or should be, according to the federal leviathan who wants to control the souls of all of its subjects.  As for really bad people who should purchase guns, Form 4473 should stop that, in specific question 11k.  And if terrorists aren’t in the country illegally, then what’s the real problem here?  Me and the rest of America, or our open border policies?

Oh, and gosh, looky here at just who in the GOP field of candidates likes the idea of a database of “terrorists who aren’t allowed to buy guns?”  You guessed it.  It’s Trump.  Why do you need a database if you are going to seal the borders and make everyone go home like Trump claims?  ‘Nuff said.

David Codrea:

She also sided with ATF in ruling “the Second Amendment does not extend to the unrestricted manufacture, distribution, sale, or purchase of firearms or their parts,” that regulation of the parts is “presumptively lawful …  ‘fall[ing] outside the historical scope’ of the Second Amendment,” and that ATF’s action “places only a marginal burden on the right to bear arms in self-defense of one’s home.”

Those are precisely the actions to which the second amendment extends, and the judge has turned the second amendment on its head.

David Codrea:

A gun is without a doubt the most difficult product to legally buy in New Jersey,” Nappen replied when asked to comment for this article. “Nothing else requires a lengthy state and federal application, fingerprinting, background check, mental health records check, letters of reference, payment of fees, a waiting period, and written approval by a Chief of Police before a purchase of a constitutionally protected consumer good can happen.

Hey, isn’t that New Jersey governor dude running for some national office of some sort?

New Jersey senate may mandate display of smart guns in gun stores, as well as minimum inventory.  Yea.  This is what the progressives mean when they talk about giving the thing a chance.  They don’t mean letting the market dictate what happens.  They mean government bullies bossing you around.

From reader Mack, are millennials the new brown-shirts?  Yes.  Children of hippies.  The offspring of progressives are always Fascists.

Here is Daily Kos himself:

So if those countries, awash in weaponry, couldn’t stop those terrorist attacks, then what kind of moron thinks that it would’ve made a difference in Paris?

The reality is that Paris-style attacks are surprisingly simple to carry out. It’s a blessing that they’re not more common in the West. So rather than try to create an oppressive surveillance state or pretend that more guns are a solution to anything except a lack of death and mayhem, perhaps we could focus on addressing root causes?

And maybe, just maybe, we can even try not being the root cause in the future? Crazy shit, I know.

Of course, stopping terrorist attacks isn’t the point.  Controlling borders is more to the point, i.e., not letting people in like MS13, cartel enforcers, and Syrian, Somali and other radicalized Islamic immigrants.  But you know that.

What we see in Markos is sad, pitiable, even repulsive self-loathing.  It seems like something I shouldn’t be watching, done in the privacy of his own bedroom.  But as unseemly as this is, I can’t turn away, like driving by an accident without looking at the carnage.

Markos thinks he’s responsible, or if not him directly, his kind, or his ilk, or those who share his skin color who don’t think like him, or something like that.  Only he could tell us for sure.  But ISIS is apparently someone’s fault other than ISIS.  This is the progressive sickness, to be sure.

Every sin isn’t really a sin, just a dysfunction cause by bad white Americans and colonialists and Patriarchal bigotry and wealth densification within certain demographics, and so on and so forth.  It must be tiring to live with progressive guilt and outrage.  And I’m sure based on what I know about ISIS that if we left them all alone, they would be okay just beheading women and children in Iraq and Syria and killing young people in Paris.

As for Markos and his revulsion towards guns, I share it.  I don’t want Markos to have a gun either.  Ever.  I want Markos to be as defenseless as he wants everyone else to be in the face of danger.  Markos and I actually agree on something.  As for me, I will always have weaponry.  Markos is probably smart enough to know that we would never give it up without a fight.

David Codrea:

She was one of the celebrity signatories of a Handgun Control, Inc. (that’s what the Brady Campaign called itself before they figured it would be smarter to hide their true intentions) “Open Letter to the NRA.” She’s fine with using the coercive power of the state (meaning they can shoot you if you disobey them) to impose gun and magazine bans, one-gun-a-month limits and waiting periods, just so long as her precious hindquarters are protected.

Case in point: when an “undocumented” intruder attempted to “migrate” to her property some years back, he wasn’t greeted with unconditional love. He wasn’t treated with dignity and respect.

Madonna’s armed security shot him.

As long as the horrible knuckle-dragging, mouth breathing monkeys do the work of stopping the bad people, she can be free to do the moral preening at our expense.  LEOs and security guards understand that’s how the elite see you, don’t you?  Knuckle-dragging monkeys.  They don’t respect you.

Marco Rubio is a globalist.  But we knew that already.  The reason he had to “change his position” is because it was unpopular with the electoral base.  The reason he didn’t think that way to begin with is that he never really believed what the electoral base believes.

Mark Steyn on saddy-saddy-sadcakes.

Mexican cartel gunmen cross the border into Texas and disappear.  You didn’t think ISIS was the most immediate threat to the safety of your family, did you?

Sun-Times:

Twitter wasted no time recirculating Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s infamous post-Charlie Hebdo shooting tweet which said, “Isn’t it interesting that the tragedy in Paris took place in one of the toughest gun control countries in the world?”

While Trump was getting blasted (again) for that tweet, The Daily Beast posited that getting AK-47s into France, a country with hugely restrictive gun laws, most likely came though in the black market in Eastern Europe where “a Kalashnikov or a rocket launcher can be acquired for as little as 300 to 700 Euros.”

But what about here in the U.S.? If terrorists here wanted to buy guns, would they be able to?

The short answer: Probably, yes.

Yea, it’s another one of those articles.  Listen, collectivists.  A man intent on getting a gun will always be able to get a gun.  Or steal one.  Or make one.  Gun control doesn’t work with terrorists and criminals.  But you knew that already, didn’t you?  That isn’t why you want gun control, is it?

Tom Ricks writing at Foreign Policy:

I’ve been reading a lot of early American history lately. The more I read, the more I think that the gun is central to our history. So yes, controlling guns is literally “un-American,” in that it runs against the grain of our past.

Even so, I think we need to do something about guns, especially in the hands of the insane. Part of the problem is that everyone is partly nuts sometime. And some people are bigtime nuts much of the time. Other countries have crazy people too, but they don’t make it so easy for them to get weapons in their crazed hands.

Tom is a former journalist with the Washington Post, and long time military writer who has corresponded with me only once, and then just briefly.  Like everyone else at Washington Post (and Foreign Policy), he is a progressive.

So there you have it, the progressive mind on gun control.  “Everyone is partly nuts sometime.”  Never mind that Tom doesn’t give a clinical definition of nuts, and never mind that he hasn’t demonstrated that anything related to what the mental health professionals consider to be mental dysfunction has anything whatsoever to do with violent behavior.  It does not, as we’ve seen again, and again, and again.

He goes even farther, saying that some people are “bigtime nuts,” and we are left to wonder again what is the clinical definition of bigtime nuts.  Then he self-identifies as a rube and a dimwit.  The recent attacks in Paris demonstrate how easy it is to perpetrate evil if the perpetrator is motivated.  No country can compete with France for onerous gun control.  But more to the point, Tom may not be saying it, but he knows that the real problem with gun crime in America is crime in the black community, gun or not.  He is willing to make it tougher to get those awful guns for everyone in order to solve a problem that is primarily associated with the inner city black community.

I wonder if Tom is concerned enough about the black community to cause an American civil war over gun confiscations, or to see a government that has lost any semblance of control because no one observes its laws?  Does he really think we’re going to go along with more gun control?  Finally, I am left wondering if Tom wrote this piece when he was partly nuts or bigtime nuts?  For the record, I’m not nuts.

PolitickerNJ:

At a Tuesday candidate forum in LD24, Assemblyman Parker Space, who is up for reelection this year, declared: “There is nothing better than an unregistered gun, believe me.”

Westword.com:

Earlier this week, we shared new reports about the investigation into Noah Harpham, who police say shot and killed three people before dying in a gun battle with officers. A neighbor, Naomi Bettis, said she’d called 911 after seeing Harpham with a gun but was told there was nothing police could do owing to open carry laws; see our previous coverage below.

Now, the Colorado Springs Police Department has responded with a detailed account of what took place during the ten-minute period between the first 911 call and a second, during which Bettis revealed that a man, later ID’d as bicyclist Andrew Myers, was dead, and also released audio of the conversations in question. We’ve shared the links here.

The CSPD insists that the first report wasn’t shrugged off. However, it was initially given a lower priority because lives weren’t thought to be at risk.

Bettis’s first call came in at 8:45:40 a.m., with the department noting that it “reported a suspicious male walking into a building carrying gasoline cans and a rifle” on the 200 block of North Prospect Street in the Springs.

The emergency response technician, or ERT, speaking with Bettis initially classified the report as a “priority 3” — near the middle of its six-point prioritization system. (Priority 6 is the least threatening designation, priority 1 the most serious.) However, about one minute into the two-minute call, the ERT upgraded the circumstance to a priority 2 under the theory that Harpham might be planning to commit a burglary.

Regarding the open-carry mention, here’s the transcription: “Well, it is an open carry state, so he can have a weapon with him or walking around with it. But, of course, having those gas cans does seem pretty suspicious, so we’re going to keep the call going for that.”

To listen to the first 911 call in its entirety, click here.

And commenter John P. Koury blames open carry laws.

Was walking into Walmart on 8th, two guys right ahead of me strapped with handguns. Mentioned it to the clerk, who started quoting open carry laws and said that it was their God given right. I walked out.

How does anybody know if these guys were robbers, thugs, angry punks or just bad-looking so called “good guys”? Open carry is nuts. If you are so paranoid that you think you have to carry a gun wherever you go, you probably are too unstable to have one.

And if open carry had been illegal, the shooter, if he had in fact decided to perpetrate evil, would have used a pistol, or several pistols, or an SBR hidden under a coat.  The caller wouldn’t have called in because there would have been nothing to call about, and hence no one could have blamed open carry.  Said another way, if open carry had been illegal, the shooter wouldn’t have carried openly else he would have been caught before perpetrating his evil action.  Evil men aren’t mentally deficient and unable to reason – they are just evil

Do you see the point?  Let’s use Aristotle’s categories in metaphysics and ontology to help us.  Open carry is an accident of this event, not essential to it.  It was essential to the shooter to be evil and to have shot.  The mode of transportation for himself or his weapon was not essential.  Understand?

As for Johnny boy, he doesn’t get to decide whether my carrying a gun disqualifies me from carrying a gun (Johnny needs to study tautology a little better, no?).  Because … I have guns and can stop Johnny.  Understand?

Central Maine:

I agree that gunfire is a loud noise. What is curious is what is the actual benefit of making that noise less audible?

Is it to avoid hurting the shooter’s ears? Is it to not scare off nearby wildlife? Is it so people don’t know a gun is being fired in their immediate area?

Understandably, when James Bond wants to do away with an evil villain, it’s to his benefit to do so with a bit of stealth.

The state of Maine just passed a law that allows people with possibly no conceivable training in firearms to carry one among unknowing people. Before this law, people who wanted a concealed weapons permit had to be totally vetted by a number of state agencies, including the state police and/or their local police chief. Now it’s go to a gun shop, pick up a 9mm and a shiny concealed holster, and off they go.

The insanity continues with lessening the sounds of a firearm being used nearby. That means game wardens would have less opportunity to arrest night hunters, neighbors wouldn’t be sure how far away they are from guns being fired, and careless hunters would have more opportunity to fire closer to neighborhoods than legally allowed.

As a past hunter and active skeet shooter, I wear ear protection, practice safety to the highest degree and am well-versed in the safe handling of firearms. I wish I could say the same for the masses that tramp through the woods and walk into public places with a seriously dangerous machine that they may not know how operate, thus causing potential danger to themselves and an unknowing public.

A quiet gun. No one seems to have a viable answer for why we need one, except that it might mean more sales for gun sellers.

Well thank you Mr. Fudd.  With friends like you, who needs enemies?  Actually, I jest.  I consider you the enemy.  In fact, come to think of it, I think you’re lying.  I don’t think you’re really a past hunter and active skeet shooter.  You sound just like a collectivist, statist windbag who’s making things up for the sake of drama.

But if you are, you got yours, didn’t you?  And you don’t trust anyone with guns except you, your Fudd buddies, and the cops, even if we all lose our hearing, outside or inside at the shooting range.  Do you?  And don’t give me that crap about wearing hearing protection.  We both know better.

We both know that even with ear plugs and muffs, it’s better for us all to have suppressed weapons.  It’s better for our quality of life as we grow old, and it’s better for long term health costs for our progeny who must watch over us.  But that doesn’t matter to you, does it?  You’d rather sacrifice our hearing, preferring that Mr. Fudd pal around with other Mr. Fudds in the woods once a season, and go shoot clays a couple of times a year.  Are you a member of an an exclusive country club too, Mr. Fudd?

Does the encroachment of technology scare you, Mr. Fudd?  Does freedom offend you?  Good.  I hope you’re appalled at the likes of me.  As I said, I consider you the enemy, just like the collectivist windbags.  So don’t bring up anything else about being a hunter and clay shooter.  I’m not interested.

The Guardian:

When President Maduro launched a disarmament plan in 2014, and security forces were also ordered to destroy weapons seized during the police operations, the government’s intention was to reduce violence by making it harder for people to obtain guns. His predecessor had already made private gun ownership illegal in 2012.

But these actions have only increased interest in the people allowed to carry weapons. “There are now fewer deals in black market arms but that has made anyone in uniform a more popular target for criminals than before,” says Eliseo Guzmán, the general commissioner of the Miranda state police force. “They will identify a police officer and take away his life just to take his gun.”

A sad case study in the law of unintended consequences, yes?  Do government control freaks really think that laws against guns will ensure the guns are only in the hands of government enforcers?  Really?  Could they be that naive?

Take Action:

To: Florida Commission on Tourism and the Florida tourism industry

Florida is a favorite vacation destination for many families. But the state is now considering giving gun owners with concealed-carry permits the right to openly carry their firearms anywhere they want in public. Please stop the open-carry bill from moving forward, because families don’t want to vacation in a state where people are openly carrying their weapons.

Sincerely,

[Your name here]

Oh bullshit.  Open carry was commonplace with the bus drivers (and others in Wyoming) when we visited Jackson Hole for a week last winter.  There were plenty of families there, and women, children and effete men didn’t run for cover screaming, regardless of what the “Moms Rising” want you to think.

Hey, now that I think about it, given South Carolina State Senator Larry Martin’s opposition to S.C. open carry based on tourism in Charleston, he thinks just like a “Mom Rising.”  Or effete man.  Because he is.  An effete man, that is.