Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

Recall that I requested arming orders for the Louisiana National Guard during Katrina in July of this year.  This would aid in studying just who ordered the Guard to be armed, what their mission was, and why they confiscated firearms from the public.

On July 22, I received this note from the Louisiana National Guard.

Dear Mr. Smith:

The attached letter is to acknowledge receipt of your Freedom of Information Act request dated July 20, 2014 requesting records of arming orders for the Louisiana National Guard during the response to Hurricane Katrina.  This request has been assigned the case number FA-14-0006.

We will make every effort to provide the responsive records as soon as possible.  All communications concerning this request should be identified with the above reference number and addressed to the address shown above.

If you have any questions regarding your request, please contact the undersigned at (___) ___-____, fax (___) ___-____, or via email at mackenzie.g.eady.mil@mail.mil.

Mackenzie G. Eady
Administrative Services Division
(Office) redacted …
(Mobile) redacted …
(Fax) redacted …

To date I have heard nothing from the Louisiana National Guard.

David Codrea:

That was all part of a well-planned and funded effort to expand “action group” efforts to the states reported in this column, initially in July of 2013, and warned of again in December of last year because no one else seemed to be noticing. It’s hard to organize against developing threats if the existence of where they are and how they’re structured is unknown.  Significantly, the KTNV “legitimate news media / real reporter” story mentioned none of this.

Of course not.  The main stream media is owned and operated, at least ideologically, by the DNC.  And notice how the collectivists work.  As I’ve remarked before, they work from the top down.  They need Gates’ and Bloomberg’s money, “leaders” like Mr. Obama, and propagandists to tell them what to think and how to speak (the MSM).  It represents a stark difference with patriots, and it’s why the collectivists always think the NRA tells us what to think and what to do.  But the nefarious plots from high up will continue until good men decide to act.

Kurt Hofmann:

Interestingly, the reporting requirement expansion request was worded subtly differently from the language of the initial requirement. This time, nothing was said about the two or more sales being made to the same buyer. This is in marked contrast to the language of the initial request, which explicitly stated that the reporting requirement is operative only if the same buyer purchases two or more of the firearms in the five business day time frame. In other words, the BATFE seems to have been seeking the power to demand the details of every sale of so-called “assault weapons” from any store that sold more than one of them in a five day period.

This is indeed interesting, and it’s a good analysis by Kurt.  So the expansion of power sought via federal register as opposed to law-making was even more extensive than previously thought.  As for the temporary retreat by the BATFE, Kurt is right.  “Can a leopard change its spots?”

The Seattle Times:

Now, a Washington State Patrol spokesman says people won’t be arrested for exchanging guns.  “We don’t think that we could prove that that’s a transfer,” said Bob Calkins, spokesman for the patrol.

Right.  And so what does this make of the idiotic rule that was just passed by voters (as opposed to representatives voting on laws)?

In Dayton, SWAT was called on an earlobe biter.  And no, this isn’t a joke headline.

WGRZ.com:

BUFFALO, NY – Buffalo Police say they’re determined to get more guns off the streets and now they’re checking to see whether pistol permit holders have passed away and what happened to their gun or guns.

During a press conference last week regarding weapons brought in illegally from Pennsylvania, police officials told reporters their biggest problem with weapons in crimes seems to involve guns that are stolen in burglaries from homes.

They feel that, in some cases, families are holding on to weapons even after the person who bought them originally has died.

So now they’re actually looking for those situations.

“We recently started a program where we’re cross referencing all the pistol permit holders with the death records, and we’re sending people out to collect the guns whenever possible so that they don’t end up in the wrong hands,” said Police Commissioner Daniel Derrenda.” Because at times they lay out there and the family is not aware of them and they end up just out on the street.”

Some police agencies give families of the deceased permit holder 15 days to sell or transfer a weapon or weapons held with the permit to another permit holder or a dealer.

Forget passing down heirlooms to family members, or bequeathing cherished things to those you love.  The state has decided to send the Gestapo to collect your stuff.  Instead of calling it “stealing private property,” which would land you or me in prison, they do it all under the rubric of protecting the safety of the public.  That’s always the stated reason, no?

The Bible has strong words for those who would mistreat and take advantage of widows and orphans.  Men like this are the lowest of the low, and God will judge them for their actions.  Those men have no right to weeping and gnashing of teeth on judgment day – they have been warned concerning their sin.

David Codrea:

“The law did prohibit Jews and other persecuted classes from owning guns, but this should not be an indictment of gun control in general,” Alexander Seitz-Wald wrote unbelievably in a Salon hit piece, as if that made it all OK then, because non-threats to the regime could still have them. And it wasn’t just guns forbidden to “persecuted classes,” as a JPFO analysis of the November 11, 1938 (the day after Kristallnacht) law reveals.

[ … ]

To those who would “whistle past the graveyard of history,” deny that brutal tyranny could ever happen here, and call talk of armed defense against it unsupportable and even treasonous, where in history is any civilization guaranteed stasis? Has not despotism and mass destruction plagued every civilization that preceded ours? Is it not, in fact, still commonplace throughout the globe? By what suspension of reality, by what denial of the observable and the probable, by what art, device or magic are we sheltered few immune from catastrophe?

Yea, I’ve discussed the silly notion too that gun control wasn’t part of the stock and trade of the Nazis since they allowed their supporters to have guns.  The salient point is that gun control isn’t gun control if it forbids every one from having guns.  Someone always has guns.  The point of gun control is to make sure that only certain people have guns.  You understand that, don’t you?  By arguing like they do, the collectivists fall into our trap and stipulate to our definitions.

As for the final paragraph I’ve lifted, this is David at his best, waxing philosophical.  This prose is just that good.  If you don’t read anything else today, go over to David’s place and read this piece.

Kurt Hofmann:

In other words, the heat and pressure that previously had to be contained by the plastic barrel and breech of a printed gun is now instead contained in a thick steel cartridge case. Moreover, although, as the article acknowledges, the cartridge cases require some painstaking machining, they can be used over and over. Crumling is not manufacturing ammunition for sale, as doing so would require a federal license, although he has said that he would be willing to obtain such a license if there is sufficient interest in the rounds. If he sold only the steel cases themselves, without loading them with a bullet, the propellant powder, and the primer, the license would be unnecessary.

I had wondered what they were going to do about the high chamber pressures for such a firearm (approaching 55,000 – 60,000 psi).  Now you know.  Kurt is doing a great job of watching this issue.  I sense frustration with the ATF, like there is someone or something somewhere they don’t control.

Via Mike Vanderboegh:

Or in other words, the federal government stole the property of a peaceable and law abiding businessman.

David Codrea:

The point I was trying to make is the Bill of Rights gives and grants no rights. It merely defines some, but not all rights, which the Founders correctly viewed as preexisting to the government they were establishing. That understanding was further solidified in the 1875 Cruikshank decision (and repeated in the 2008 Heller decision), when the Supreme Court noted, “The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.

For having the cheek to point that out, along with citing the debate between the Federalists and anti-Federalists on the need for a Bill of Rights in the first place, I was called “a Trojan horse” a “clown” and an “idiot.” I “sound[ed] like an anti-gunner.” Even if I was right, I shouldn’t have written what I did, because it might somehow tip off the anti-gunners to use the information against us, and “if this kind of article or information appears again, refund my money and cancel my subscription.”

Sorry, but I’ve got to do it once more, and this time risk being labeled a Begala puppet, to boot.

The Second Amendment does not “give” us the right to rebel against civil and military authorities. Focus on the word “give”.

Well, if people are too stupid to read with their brains in gear, then ignore their dumb ass comments.  David’s point is important.  Yes, I believe that the second amendment stipulates certain things, and that it speaks to the states as well.  But in focusing on the second amendment I believe that we ignore the important things to our peril.

I have always said my rights are granted by God.  I believe in God, not the second amendment.  My beliefs are not subject to the vicissitudes of judicial interpretation or the latest trends in literary deconstruction.  Read all of David’s piece – with your brain in gear.  I’ll mention one semi-related thing about Ms. Joni Ernst.  I have heard twice now that she endured and commanded a “combat deployment” in Iraq.  Her political opponent may have been a putz, but according to the record, she commanded a logistics group who moved supplies from Kuwait to Baghdad.  I’m sorry, but there’s a huge difference between what my son did in Fallujah and what Ms. Earnst did in wherever she was at the time.  For me to believe that she had a “combat” deployment I need to see the Army equivalent of the Marine Corps Combat Action Ribbon.

Kurt Hofmann:

These developments have prompted AWR Hawkins, writing for Ammo Land, to ask, “Are Millionaire-Funded State-Level Initiatives the Next Phase of Gun Control?”  If so, it’s a very dangerous new phase for gun rights advocates, because it would take the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms, and hold it hostage to the popularity contest of the vote. We live not in a “democracy,” as we’re so often told, but in a republic, in large part because the Founding Fathers had the wisdom to take certain policy options off the table–off limits no matter how popular they are. As John Adams reminds us …

And you have to go visit Kurt to see what the great John Adams said.  Good on Kurt.  No innate right – and I claim my rights are granted by God whether they are recognized by the state or not – should be left for a vote.  See my take on holding rights hostage to favorable statistical outcomes, and also see Kurt on that same subject.

David Codrea: “Just a chest full of ammo makes the medicine go down … medicine go doowwwnnn …, but David doesn’t sing it for us.  I don’t know about you, but I have a problem with that.

David asks, is Facebook deleting gun pages?  Could be, but I wouldn’t know for sure.  I deleted my Facebook account.  When they asked me why, I told them Mark Zuckerberg is a horrible person.  I haven’t heard back from them.

Mike Vanderboegh posts concerning Fast and Furious.  We all knew it – that the program wasn’t a “botched operation” as the talking heads and pampered class likes to say – that it was designed all along to justify a demand letter on long gun sales, or better yet, what I really think, more laws from a Congress too damn stupid to know what was really going on.

Charles C. W. Cooke passes on the fact that recently elected Greg Abbot in Texas said he will approve a Texas open carry bill when it crosses his desk.  So what are you waiting for, Texans?

By the way, in the same Cooke article linked above, Charles says concerning I-594, “This will presumably be touted as a great victory. But it’s really not. For a start, universal background checks represent the most modest of all the Left’s aims in this area. This was not a ban on “assault” weapons, which remain legal in Washington. It was not a reduction in magazine sizes. It was not a ban on open carry. Instead, it was a law that requires residents of the state to involve a gun dealer when they transfer a weapon to another resident within the state. (Transfers between immediate family members and between spouses or domestic partners are exempt.) I’m against these rules because I think that they are pointless and because they seem invariably to ensnare innocent and unaware people. Nevertheless, the significance of Washington’s having adopted the measure should not be overstated.”

Ahem … um.  Charles.  Dude.  What the hell is wrong with you?  As recently as October 2, you thought differently.

I think there are two big threats at the moment. One is the continuing attempt to criminalize firearms that look a certain way, these so-called assault weapons. I have an AR-15. It looks like a machine gun, but it’s not. It’s no different than my hunting rifle. It’s just lighter. It’s more customizable, and it’s easier for my wife to shoot because of that. That gun has, in some states, been banned for those reasons. There’s no material difference whatsoever. The second threat is, I think, from these universal background checks.

I disagree with the November 5 Charles C. W. Cooke, but I agree with the October 2 Charles C. W. Cooke.  I too think that universal background checks pose an extreme threat to our liberty.

So now.  Would the real Charles C. W. Cooke please stand up?

News and views from the North:

The Second Amendment had been obsolete and inconsequential for more than a century. But in the last half a century, the Second Amendment is viewed as a sacrosanct document by the National Rifle Association leaders and gun advocates. Many regard it as their 11th Commandment.

[ … ]

The NRA leadership say it does not tolerate “infringing.” However, the federal government in the 1930s, passed the National Firearms acts with the assistance of ( hard to believe) the NRA. These laws “infringed” upon the Second Amendment and the right of the people to have submachine and military type arms. Who is to decide what are military guns — the NRA or the U.S. government? The NRA claims the AR-15 is not a military weapon. Nonsense!

We must step back, and realize that we are quite fortunate that our rights are being “infringed” upon. What kind of world would it be if we did not have laws to control our right to travel, to drive a car, to drink liquor, or smoke tobacco, or the right of freedom of speech in a crowded theater?

Gun rights also need to be “infringed.” It’s hard to find one right that isn’t. We want and need our rights to be infringed for the security and safety of ourselves and our children.

The writer is a resident of Sandy Hook who apparently wants his freedoms to be curtailed, and since he must endure this for the sake of his sense of security, he wants you to endure it too.

I agree with him.  It’s ridiculous to define the AR-15 in such a way as to conclude it’s not a military weapon, if only they would give us selective fire capabilities, huh?  But as for what defines a military weapon, he wants to know who gets to decide?  Well, I can answer that question so that we won’t sit around and squabble over trivialities.  I get to decide.  Anything that has ever been or could ever be used in the course of fighting is a military weapon.  That means bolt action guns (the Army and Marine Corps still use bolties for sniping), shotguns (the Marine Corps used shotguns for room clearing in Now Zad, Afghanistan), cross bows, long bows, clubs, knives, handguns of all sorts (and I hate that I can’t find any examples of revolvers used recently in OIF and OEF, but I do like me some good revolvers), slingshots, and fists.

As for the fact that some kids were shot at Sandy Hook, that’s really too bad.  I didn’t perpetrate the crime, and I am in no way responsible.  If you want to move to a place that’s even more controlling than the U.S., I would suggest China.  I don’t know how long that will last.

As I’ve discussed before, I have never believed in holding rights hostage to favorable statistics outcomes.  See also Kurt Hofmann on this issue.  However, for the weaker among us who don’t believe in much (i.e., politicians), and for those who reflexively stick their finger in the wind to see which way it’s blowing, public opinion seems to matter.  And thus there is utility in information like this.

Less than half of Americans, 47%, say they favor stricter laws covering the sale of firearms, similar to views found last year. But this percentage is significantly below the 58% recorded in 2012 after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, spurred a nationwide debate about the possibility of more stringent gun control laws. Thirty-eight percent of Americans say these laws should be kept as they are now, and 14% say they should be made less strict.

The percentage favoring stricter gun sale laws in the two years since Newtown occurred has declined despite steady and tragic high-profile shootings in the U.S at schools, malls and businesses. This past week, shootings occurred at a Seattle-area school and of police officers in Sacramento and Placer County, California. Amidst events like these in 2014, and the resulting calls for stricter gun sale laws, the 47% who favor stricter laws is just above the historical low of 43% measured in 2011.

Ten years ago, three in five Americans (60%) said they favored stricter laws regulating the sale of firearms, but support fell to 44% in 2009 and remained at that level in polls conducted in the next two years. Days after the Newtown shooting, support for stricter gun sale laws swelled. Since 2012, however, Americans have retreated from those stronger attitudes about the need for more gun control, and the percentage of Americans who say the laws should be less strict — although still low — has edged up.

These findings come from a new Gallup Poll Social Series survey, conducted Oct. 12-15.

Universal background checks and waiting periods have never been associated with “reductions in homicide rates or overall suicide rates,” and readers know that I’ve never bought the idea that 90+ percent of the American public wants universal background checks.  It’s was a myth before and it’s a myth now.

So I don’t want to hear another damn word about how 90% of the public wants increased gun control at the point of sale, or trying to plug the mythical “gun show loophole” or “internet loophole” which are fabricated phrases for person-to-person sales.  Not another … damn … word.

News From Australia:

Tougher legal measures against people who supply illegal firearms have been announced by the SA Government.

Attorney-General John Rau plans to extend measures he announced back in July, to include people complicit in firearms crime.

Under previous plans, serious firearms offenders would face mandatory jail terms and there would be few circumstances where a sentence could be suspended.

Mr Rau said the Government would now extend the measures to complicity.

“This means anyone who sells or supplies an illegal firearm will be liable for any offence committed by the person to whom they provide the firearm,” he said.

“So if you provide someone with an illegal firearm and that person commits murder using that weapon, you will also be charged with being an accessory to that crime.”

Mr Rau said the toughening of measures had been prompted by the murder of Adelaide teenager Lewis McPherson in 2012 and the recent jailing of the man who sold the gun to the killer.

“The purpose of this of course is to make it very clear to those people who trade in firearms you are accountable for the harm that these illegal firearms are causing in our community,” he said.

Follow the link above.

Judge Paul Muscat said guns should be totally banned to prevent them from falling into criminal hands.

He said the 1996 guns buyback scheme in the wake of the the Port Arthur massacre had not removed illegal firearms from the community.

“Our community now lives in fear of offenders armed with firearms. In the wrong hands, guns are deadly,” he said.

He said most licensed gun owners took the responsibility seriously, but guns still had no place in a civilised society.

“In my view, the possession of firearms serves absolutely no legitimate purpose in our society … people want guns, they do not need them,” he said.

“Even a licensed firearm owner can misuse a gun under the wrong circumstances. They are human after all, prone to making errors of judgment.

“The sooner firearms are totally banned, the better off our society will be. No-one should be able to keep guns at their home [as] many guns end up being stolen from licensed owners.

Rather than go after the gangs and criminals who use firearms for harm, the law goes after anyone who sells guns, and don’t let this fool you.  This means firearms dealers as well.

This is what cowards do.  They go after the peaceable rather than the violent.  They are scared of the violent, so it’s easier for the bullies to beat up on the ones who won’t fight back.

David Codrea:

A blues music video lampooning Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper made its debut Sunday evening on Salem Radio Network’s nationally syndicated “Armed American Radio” program with host Mark Walters. “Hickenlooper Blues,” which highlights the way the reelection-seeking chief executive has contradicted himself on Colorado’s politically toxic new gun laws, is being released on the heels of admissions by no less a source than Bloomberg News that the governor “faces [a] voter gun-control backlash.”

This issue of backlash is important.  In New York, for instance, voters are not “getting over” the recent gun control initiative there.  For all of you politicians out there who are flirting with the idea of universal background checks and other such idiotic measures like gun prohibitions, just remember.  Gun owners never forgive, and never forget.  If you cross the line to the dark side, you can never come back.

Thanks to David Codrea for compiling the information in the report (and humorous lyrics).

Salon:

It’s one thing to accept and understand that plenty of reasonable and responsible people own guns and that is their constitutional right. It is another to be so outrageously afraid of legitimate and sane restrictions that you have a situation in which it is entirely permissible to carry a loaded weapon into an event that carries a threat that the people attending it will “die screaming.”

It is terrifying enough to face a barrage of harassment and threats and continue to work and speak out. It’s harder when what ought to be fairly straightforward safety precautions cannot be taken because of permissive gun laws. This isn’t what freedom looks like. This is what the Second Amendment trouncing the First does. And as Sarkeesian explains it, “To be clear: I didn’t cancel my USU talk because of terrorist threats, I canceled because I didn’t feel the security measures were adequate.” 

The writer is of course talking about the cancellation of the feminist speech at the Utah State University due to a threat, or for reasons as explained above (in protest of “permissive gun laws”).  Ignoring the fact that the two paragraphs cited directly contradict each other and offer differing accounts of the concern, occasionally collectivists open up their true thinking to the world.  We all know what they really believe, but it’s nice to be able to point it out to those who don’t follow these issues.

On the one hand, collectivists like this want universal background checks and talk about things like “plenty of reasonable and responsible people own guns and that is their constitutional right.”  But she didn’t request or advocate that only those who had been issued concealed handgun permits be allowed to carry (trusting in not only the background check, but approval by their CLEO).  She wants no guns at all to be allowed, meaning that she doesn’t really trust approval granted through the background checks or concealed handgun permit.

Collectivists can’t have it both ways.  Either the background check is trustworthy or all guns are a menace, meaning that not even LEOs should be carrying.  On the other hand, perhaps she has inadvertently admitted what we all know.  She doesn’t really care about universal background checks.  That is only a vehicle to a national registry, the next step forward to national control.