Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

Mike Vanderboegh:

Chicago Police and ATF Form Intelligence Center To Fight “Three Percenters”

Right.  Like the three percenters are the problem in Chicago as opposed to say, the gangs and black-on-black violence.  I’ll tell you what.  Drop by, you Chicago police officer (“Dr. Suess”) who argued with me over e-mail about how I was going to beg for your help one day to “protect me,” and tell me who commits crime in Chicago?  And tell me why you aren’t out running down the gangs, you coward?  This is all a ruse, a smokescreen to send money to Chicago, the home of criminal Eric Holder.

David Codrea:

True to form and right on cue, “progressive” pundits who feed themselves pushing citizen disarmament and other ways of subverting true egalitarian power sharing are out in force, blaming everyone outside their collectivist echo chamber for the actions of two misfit killers.

Of course they do.  And be sure to read David’s rundown of the couple’s ejection from the Bundy Ranch.  As for the “pundit,” he doesn’t bother me a bit.  Only people who don’t believe in anything need the government to tell them what to think.

Kurt Hofmann:

Sunday evening, Nia Sanchez went from being Miss Nevada to accepting the crown for Miss USA … Ms. Sanchez, who has a fourth degree black belt in taekwondo, recommended that women learn how to defend themselves.

You mean someone has been named to this position who didn’t give the answers common to a sophomore in international studies at Dartmouth or American University?

I see that Eric Cantor has lost.  It isn’t just his treason concerning immigration and amnesty that concerned the people of Virginia.  Remember is gun control schemes.  Gun owners never forget.  Never.  And watch out, Paul Ryan.  You guys are two peas in a pod.  And perhaps you will suffer the same fate one day.

David Codrea:

A New York television station’s news programming has dropped all pretenses of unbiased reporting and relegated itself to being a purveyor of anti-gun propaganda.

“PIX11 is taking a stand against gun violence,” the station announced in a commercial promoting its involvement “teaming up with local leaders and the families of victims to make June gun violence awareness month.”

David invokes what the administration says about “authorized journalists.”  I think it’s a good thing when so-called journalists finally drop the pretense.  At least this is a bit of honesty about things we all knew.  And as for authorized journalists, that just goes to show that they think about the first amendment what they think about the second: some pigs are more equal than others.

Kurt Hofmann:

Speaking of their desire to disarm people, that of course serves their purpose in more than one way. Not only is citizen disarmament their desired end, it’s also a means to that end, because the more “gun free” zones, there are, the fewer people permitted the means to effective self-defense, and the more they can be limited in whatever firepower they are permitted to have, the less likely it is that the next killer will be stopped before he racks up a big, exploitable body count.

Hey.  To make an omelet a few eggs must be broken.  It’s the cost of doing the king’s business.

Mike Vanderboegh:

Game and fish belong to the king.

And what did commenter Josh say about the notion of New York SWAT teams culling deer in that sorry state? “Only the King’s men may hunt the King’s deer in the royal forest.”

MSNBC:

When I launched Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, I understood I would encounter opposition from those who took issue with my view – the same held by most gun owners – that firearm safety and responsibility go hand-in-hand with our Second Amendment rights.

I knew that sometimes these debates would get heated. In fact, I’ve always welcomed and embraced debate. That said, I’ve also always vowed to remain civil and to avoid cruel, ad hominem attacks in my work as a gun violence prevention advocate.

Unfortunately, as several recent incidents chronicled in Mother Jones make clear, a number of people on the extreme other side of this debate have shown they have no interest in adhering to a similar pledge.

[ … ]

When it comes to protecting our children, our families and our communities from gun violence – moms will never give up.

Yea.  We won’t either.  And we have the guns.

As a perfect followup to Concerning The Nigerian Christian Girls (albeit coincidental), a Nigerian named Emmanuel Onwubiko weighs in on the issue of gun control in Nigeria.

Section 33[1] of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 [as amended]clearly says that every Nigerian has the inalienable right to life. How then do you safeguard this sacred constitutional right to life in a situation of near-anarchy which has exacerbated with the arrival, over four years now, of armed Islamic terrorists  known as Boko Haram? These terrorists invade towns and villages killing, maiming and destroying innocent lives and property of Nigerians and the security forces seem clearly unable to provide security for all people.

The Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, told the British Broadcasting Corpo­ration (BBC) television in an interview con­ducted on May 9, 2014 that North-East Nigeria was such a large expanse of land. This is interpreted to mean that the soldiers should not be expected to be everywhere in the three states under emergency rule in the terrorism-prone Adamawa, Yobe and Borno States. If the states that are under partial emergency are not sufficiently protected, do you expect that other states would be protected?

Little wonder then that in the North-West and North-Central, armed hoodlums suspected to be Fulani herdsmen have been on the rampage, killing people and destroying many villages.

May 8, 2014, the online version of The Guardian newspaper of the United Kingdom reported that of as many as 300 people were killed close to Nigeria’s border with Cameroon, while the Islamist group continued to hold more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls.

The writer continues with an analysis of other countries which allow the ownership of guns, concluding that the crime rate is much lower than in Nigeria.  He concludes with this.

In these jurisdictions, there are evidence that crime rates are minimal but in Nigeria where government disallows people from bearing firearms except the useless hunting Dane guns for the village hunters, armed hoodlums have wasted hundreds of thou­sands of innocent lives and these lives would have been saved if Nigerians of sound men­tal state with clean criminal records were li­censed to carry firearms.

Will the Nigerian Government stand idly and watch as armed hoodlums decimate Ni­gerians in their thousands before it can do the needful to legalize individual firearms own­ership under certain regulations? My take is that the Nigerian Government must liberal­ize firearms ownership in Nigeria as one way of safeguarding right to life since the armed forces and police have proved seriously chal­lenged and unable to be everywhere to pro­tect the lives of Nigerians and the constitu­tion makes it imperative that the security and welfare of every citizen is the primary duty of government. A stitch in time saves nine.

What do Nigerian genocide and gun control have in common?  One enabled the other as a catalyst or at least a contributing cause, if not the root cause.  And thus the solution is simple.

David Codrea:

Titled “Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed eCollection eComments Requested; Report of Multiple Sale or Other Disposition of Certain Rifles,” and assigned OMB Number 1140–0100, the 60-day notice abstract declares “The purpose of this information collection is to require Federal Firearms Licensees to report multiple sales or other dispositions whenever the licensee sells or otherwise disposes of two or more rifles within any five consecutive business days with the following characteristics: (a) Semi automatic; (b) a caliber greater than .22; and (c) the ability to accept a detachable magazine.

In the updates and comments, there is still some question as to just how far this goes.  Does this codify the requirement only for border states or does it expand it to all FFLs?  Either way, the ATF is overreaching, a feature of every agency in the Obama administration and a symptom of a larger more pernicious illness.

Kurt Hofmann:

The reporting requirement was imposed by raw executive fiat. A similar requirement for multiple handgun purchases, in contrast, is mandated by federal law. A blatantly unconstitutional law, to be sure, but at least that requirement has the thin veneer of legitimacy of having received the blessing of Congress.

At least when the communists in Congress have been involved, part of the constitution has been followed (albeit neglecting the most important part – our protections in the Bill of Rights).  But the ATF knows that there is no constitutional provision for what it is doing.

WRSA has a must read piece on more police piggishness, oddly enough by Mark Steyn.  Read every word of Mark’s article.  And there is this.

The District Court found for the coppers, and so did the Fifth Circuit, ruling that “Get your fucking hands off my mom” constituted a “verbal threat” and, from a guy on his knees 15-20 feet away, “an immediate threat to the safety of the officers” – rather than (as we approach Mother’s Day) what ought to be the sentiment of any self-respecting young man seeing somebody physically assault his mom.

The district court and the officer who perpetrated this evil had better watch their six should they ever do this to my wife of mother.

I had to miss Mike on Alan Colmes, but there is this.

Acrimonious, but fun. My favorite line: “You know, I’ve been warning about the possibility of civil war caused by government bad conduct for the past 20 years, but it wasn’t until I started mentioning that collectivist senators were putting their own testicles at risk that people started paying attention. I think I must have accidentally put my finger on where you fellers worship — if you can stand THAT mental picture.”

Alan Colmes and his radio show?  Worthless.  The telephone call in?  Pennies.  Mike’s line: Priceless.

Finally, if you want some pure gun porn, look here and here (be warned, it will take you a while).

The Washington Post:

BOB SCHIEFFER: “Does it bother you or does it worry you that we may be going backwards, that we’re going back to the day of the OK Corral and the old West where everybody carried a gun? Is that where we’re headed here?”

FORMER SENATOR RICK SANTORUM (R-Pa.): “You know, everybody romanticizes the OK Corral and all of the things that happened. But gun crimes were not very prevalent back then. Why? Because people carry guns.”

– exchange on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” April 27, 2014

The Hollywood version of the Wild West is at the core of this exchange on Face the Nation, so perhaps it’s time for a history lesson. One-time presidential candidate Rick Santorum asserted that gun crimes were low back then because people had the right to carry guns. But he actually has the story backward.

The 1881 gunfight in Tombstone, Ariz., was actually sparked by an effort to enforce the town’s Ordinance No. 9:  “It is hereby declared unlawful to carry in the hand or upon the person or otherwise any deadly weapon within the limits of said city of Tombstone, without first obtaining a permit in writing.”

That’s right, City Marshal Virgil Earp and his brother Wyatt were attempting to enforce a gun-control law that cowboys were evading — a law that was rather common in the West, according to historians.

Notice that the writer didn’t link scholarly reference for the notion that this was “a law that was rather common in the West.”  That’s because he can’t, and that’s because it wasn’t.

Notice how the writer’s prose drips with indignation at what he thinks he knows.  This is amusing, but you aren’t left as educated about the facts as he claims after reading his prose.

The real story is much more complicated, involving the intrigue of a woman, corrupt deals between alleged bad guys and alleged good guys, threats, innuendo, goading, and the desire for power as an elected official wrapped up into a surreptitious plan that ultimately led to the shootout.

Yes, gun control was a part of the issue, but take note that Americans won’t give up their guns, especially in the face of abusive law enforcement.  This is one good takeaway for us all, as well as the fact that snide commentaries from the main stream media aren’t as educated as they think they are.

Perhaps someone else I regularly read alerted me to this, but if so, I certainly overlooked it.  This one slid under the wire with me.  Comments close at midnight on April 7th, so these comments will have to suffice.  Prince Law Offices filed an objection to the rulemaking, and their filing is worth reading.  They observe that “few in the Firearms Industry wanted to take a stand against this new notice of proposed rulemaking.”  Perhaps so, but I’m not in the “industry.”  And I do indeed take a strong stand against this rulemaking.  Herein are my comments to the ATF.

The ATF is not the appropriate bureau of the executive to make decisions on adjudication on metal health of any sort.  Furthermore, even qualified individuals disagree with the notion that this will ameliorate crime or other nefarious uses of firearms.  Witness the following list of experts.

Dr. J. Michael Bostwick, Mayo Clinic: “We physicians generally do not know enough about firearms to have an informed conversation with our patients, let alone counsel them about gun safety.”  He continues by arguing:

• Even if every mentally ill person in the country were registered, the system isn’t prepared to handle them — and only about half of the states require registration.
• Only about 10 percent of mentally ill people are registered — and these are people who have been committed, they’ve come to attention in a way that requires court intervention.
• Literature says the vast majority of people who do these kinds of shootings are not mentally ill — or it is recognized after the fact.
• The majority of mentally ill people aren’t dangerous.

Dr. Richard Friedman: ” … there is overwhelming epidemiological evidence that the vast majority of people with psychiatric disorders do not commit violent acts. Only about 4 percent of violence in the United States can be attributed to people with mental illness.”

Dr. Barry Rosenfeld: “”We’re not likely to catch very many potentially violent people” with laws like the one in New York.”

Dr. Steven Hoge: “One reason even experienced psychiatrists are often wrong is that there are only a few clear signs that a person with a mental illness is likely to act violently.”

And National Journal notes the following.

Perhaps most important, although people with serious mental illness have committed a large percentage of high-profile crimes, the mentally ill represent a very small percentage of the perpetrators of violent crime overall. Researchers estimate that if mental illness could be eliminated as a factor in violent crime, the overall rate would be reduced by only 4 percent. That means 96 percent of violent crimes—defined by the FBI as murders, robberies, rapes, and aggravated assaults—are committed by people without any mental-health problems at all. Solutions that focus on reducing crimes by the mentally ill will make only a small dent in the nation’s rate of gun-related murders, ranging from mass killings to shootings that claim a single victim.  It’s not just that the mentally ill represent a minority of the country’s population; it’s also that the overlap between mental illness and violent behavior is poor.

Attempts to restrict firearms ownership for the rightful and God-granted purposes of self defense suffer from lack of legitimacy (since ATF isn’t the right place for such rules to be born) and outrageous prejudice and bigotry, evil features of mankind’s sinful nature that have no place whatsoever in American society.

Since propensity to violence isn’t in any way able to be correlated to mental health issues, and since the mentally ill do not in large measure commit acts of violence at a higher rate than those who are supposedly mentally sound, this rulemaking is unjust and no more than an abortion.  Violence is a function of evil rather than mental soundness, something that an ATF questionnaire or doctor’s examination cannot quantify or repair.

Esquire:

What is not working, as Secretary Hagel formulated it, is America’s gun culture. All of these mass shootings took place with privately owned weapons purchased without any sort of serious screening or taken from their rightful owners — a mother or a father, by theft or murder. In essence, you can be a complete and total nutcase and acquire a gun pretty easily …

here is where I think it is time to make my first realistic suggestion on this topic. I already tried polemics, and that got mostly nowhere. So what I put forward is a practical suggestion stemming from my time in the States last month.

Last month I was traveling, in part with my wife and daughter, and I began to notice something. There were a lot more concealed weapons there than I remember seeing before. Four times in the space of just a few days I noticed men carrying pistols under their shirts, in restaurants, stores, and even in a children’s play area of a shopping mall. This craze, which seems new to me because I have been serving overseas for so long, is taking place not just on the streets or in bars, but in family restaurants and places where we all shop. So that is a part of the solution.

What we need to do is make owning guns impractical for everyone. The simple solution for this is not a new law or judicial ruling. It is “voting” with our wallets.

I started to do it last week when I was in a nice seafood restaurant that had food that was so good I was thinking of writing it up and also telling my friends about the place. As an out-of-the-way joint, they could certainly use the free publicity, though they certainly pulled in their share of locals for a blustery Sunday morning. Then I saw the guns.

Nope, not going to do it, I decided on the spot. And I am also not going to bring my kids or my wife in there ever again until they decide that guns are not allowed in their restaurant. And that, friends, is the solution.

I’m not sure what Bateman means when he says “complete and total nutcase.”  Nutcases have had guns before, witness Bateman himself.  But as Bateman knows full well, he is being a prejudiced bigot by defining mental health issues as revolving around propensity to violence when so many mental health professionals know better and have said so.

But this isn’t the point that should have grabbed your attention.  Notice that he began with the killing at Fort Hood, and ended with advocating that people use their purchase power to keep guns away from restaurants.  But only law abiding people would honor a law which stipulates that they not carry in an establishment, and so Bateman has targeted people who would willingly not carry in order to punish law-breakers like the Fort Hood shooter.

Bateman’s gun control isn’t about stopping shootings or reduction of crime.  It’s about his collectivist political beliefs, and he knows it.  And just to top it off, he is a liar and knows it.  He doesn’t really want making the ownership of guns impractical for everyone.  He wants the state to have plenty of them.  He just wants it to be impractical for you and me.

Prior:

Response To Robert Bateman Concerning Guns

The Iraqis, Their Weapons And Gun Control

The Blaze:

On July 9, 2013, a bill to recognize Illinois gun owners’ right to carry concealed firearms was passed by both chambers of the state Legislature. Illinois became the last state in the nation to allow public possession of concealed guns.

Gun control advocates warned that high-crime areas, like Chicago, would only see more violence if residents were allowed to carry guns in public.

In reality, the opposite may be happening.

On Tuesday, the Chicago Police Department announced that the city experienced its lowest murder rate since 1958 in the first quarter of 2014. There were 6 fewer murders than the same timeframe in 2013 — a 9 percent drop — and 55 fewer murders than 2012, police said.

Further, there were reportedly 90 fewer shootings and 119 fewer shooting victims compared to last year. There have also been 222 fewer shootings and 292 fewer shooting victims compared to the first quarter in 2012.

[ … ]

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy called the drop in crime a “trend.” He attributed the drop to the “talent level of individuals” on the police force, “intelligent policing strategies” and other programs. He did not mention the concealed carry law.

It makes sense, of course, but here is the problem with such reports.  John Lott is mentioned, and he continually makes claims about the prevalence of guns being inversely proportion to crime.

Whatever.  I’ve made the point that what happens to society at the macroscopic level is immaterial.  My rights involve me and my family, and don’t depend on being able to demonstrate that the general health effects in society are not a corollary to or adversely affected by the free exercise of them.

It’s insidious and even dangerous to argue gun rights as a part of crime prevention based on statistics because it presupposes what the social planners to, i.e., that I’m part of the collective.

Complete … total … unmitigated … emotional … meltdown.