Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

NRO:

More of that “90 percent” nonsense debunked, this time in the Washington Post. Did Republicans really end up on the wrong side of a landslide issue?

Not so much, according to a new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll. Yes, a plurality (47 percent) describe themselves as either “angry” or “disappointed” about the failure of the gun legislation but 39 percent call themselves “relieved” or  ”happy” about what happened. That’s a far cry from the 90-ish percent support that expanding background checks – the centerpiece of the proposed legislation — enjoyed.

Some percentage of people can’t name the President or Vice President.  Frankly, I’m surprised that the numbers don’t overlap (for example, 60% of all people are pissed off about the failure of gun control, 60% of the people are relieved about its failure).

The polls don’t mean anything, and the 90%+ meme was always a lie told to bolster support for their plans.  I’ve told you before.  The only poll that matters is the one where people have to open their wallets.  It gets serious when people have to spend money.

The New Yorker in a piece on The Tsarnaevs and Their Guns:

At nineteen years old, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wasn’t old enough to legally own most guns. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, at twenty-six, was, but he reportedly didn’t hold the permit that Massachusetts requires of gun owners. But according to published reports, there were at least four on the scene in Watertown: an M4 carbine rifle, which is, the Times notes, “similar to ones used by American forces in Afghanistan,” along with two handguns and a BB gun (the only one that Dzhokhar could have legally owned). If nothing else, these facts ensure that the Tsarnaevs’ names won’t just come up in relation to the discussion about immigration reform that is taking place in Washington right now, but in the ongoing debate about gun control as well.

 Some on the right have already begun arguing that the fact that the Tsarnaevs apparently owned their guns illegally is evidence that gun laws simply don’t work. “Since they didn’t obey the laws already on the books, maybe more laws for them to ignore would have helped,” Doug Powers wrote for Michelle Malkin’s Web site. “Maybe a separate law with slightly different wording that had ‘seriously, pay attention to this one – we’re not kidding’ written in bold would have gotten their attention.” Many other conservative bloggers have expressed similar sentiments over the past day.

That the Tsarnaevs had guns doesn’t “prove” that criminals disobey the law and that guns laws don’t work.  We knew that anyway.  Violation of laws is a function of the fact that someone is a criminal.  Furthermore, the problem isn’t that the author of this petty piece doesn’t know “how the Tsarnaevs got their guns.” He doesn’t know this information any more than he knows my favorite color or what I ate for lunch today, and none of it is any of his business.

The real problem is the way this article has been framed, and the stated assumption that any of this has a part in the “ongoing debate about gun control.”  That they had guns may be analogous to the fact that they may have had parking tickets, but it just isn’t related to the use of bombs to kill and maim innocent people.  Only the left could turn this event on its head like this, and rather than debating and discussing the religious motivations for the action, debate how inanimate objects sitting in their clauset at home should affect the rest of us because of something completely unrelated to those objects.

Courtesy of WRSA, Matt Bracken surveys the world history of forcible disarmament, and discusses the current state of the DHS.

That the DHS exists is a lamentable fact, a sad testimony to power grabbing by the statists.  By the way, the militarization of the police, including home invasions by SWAT teams, has added absolutely nothing to your safety or the general security of our this nation.

No right that you give up, no encroachment by the state, and no amount of money and manpower can keep you safe.  That’s your job for your family.

Tyranny deserves a response, and David Codrea outlines the first one for us.

Addressing a responsive and enthusiastic crowd yesterday at a Connecticut Citizens Defense League Second Amendment rally held at the State Capitol in Hartford, citizen journalist and right to keep and bear arms activist Mike Vanderboegh summed his message for responding to “gun control” edicts with four words, “Defy. Resist. Evade. Smuggle.”

“I’m a smuggler,” Vanderboegh began his speech.

[ … ]

“On Thursday I smuggled a half-dozen 30 round AR-15 standard capacity magazines into Connecticut in deliberate disobedience of the new state diktat,” he “confessed,” admitting that act is a “‘D’ Class felony.

David also relates some of his own expriences in this article.  It certainly does my heart good to see this.  It’ll be interesting to see where this goes, but I titled this smuggling as a first reponse to gun laws for a reason.  The state of Connecticut doesn’t want to see what will happen if they begin the process of gunning down men in their homes for having guns and magazines that the tyrannical rulers forbid.

This is true for more reasons that I will outline here, but I’ll mention just one, and it’s a more theoretical reason and one that should concern the state a great deal.  No tyrannical state lasts forever.  The rulers end up ruling by and from fear (they want the people to fear them, and they end of fearing the people), and the healthiest nation-states are the ones which understand balance, gracefulness, wisdom and the need both to understand their people and provide them with the liberty that is required for people and nations to flourish.

The state of Connecticut doesn’t need to be in the pitiable position of having its people entirely lose respect for its lawmakers.  There is after all a reason for the existence of the state, i.e., punish legitimate criminals like theives and murderers, and provide for interstate commerce.  On the other hand, arresting, or worse, imprisoning or killing men who follow the constitution and keep their weapons is tyrannical and will further ratchet up the violence and brinksmanship.

Mike Vanderboegh is not in a bad position.  Mike has been clever enough to place the state of Connecticut in a bad position, and the best action for them at this point is to rescind their ridiculous gun laws.

Courtesy of Michael Bane.

For the progressives among us, I know what you’re thinking, or at least what you want your fellow progressives to think.  It took on all the hallmarks of a major defeat, the gun bill fiasco did.  Your President, your progressives in the Senate, and the turncoat Republicans all conspired to push your agenda, and it crashed and burned.  You’re heartbroken and outraged at the same time.

You’ve tried to convince yourself that it wasn’t really the defeat it seemed.  The tactics are to blame.  “While an A rating from the NRA has long been a point of pride for politicians, MAIG is hoping its grades soon will carry the same weight to ensure votes and donations. The Mayors Against Illegal Guns Scorecard will incorporate the voting records, bill co-sponsorships, and public statements of members of Congress to determine a letter grade, NRA-style. MAIG will look at politicians’ stances on high-capacity magazines, background checks, and state authority to establish standards for concealed carry.”

So the evil NRA just outdid you at your own game.  Copy their tactics, you will.  It must be the tactics, for it couldn’t be that America doesn’t want your gun control.  Yet another tactic you’re investigating is to convince yourselves that the NRA isn’t really as powerful as they seem.  You will talk enough to make people comfortable with your plans.  But you can’t decide if you’ve got the clout.  Joe Manchin even admitted “ff the NRA didn’t score this, we would’ve had 15 more votes.”

And oh, there are the excuses.  Poor Michael Hirsh has perhaps the best one.  ” … it is practically a iron law of politics that the larger the interest group—in this case, the 90 percent of all Americans who want background checks—the less likely it will be able to mobilize against a smaller, more organized and passionate interest group, such as the National Rifle Association.”  Nine out of ten people can’t win anything against the one holdout.

But Michael concludes that with enough money, threats, and primaried Senators, you should be able to construct a Senate that is more conducive to your interests.  So we’re back to the NRA tactics again – because, you know, it couldn’t be that people aren’t interested in your proposed gun control measures.  Surely 90%+ of the people think like you do, sensible people, who just didn’t play a role against that evil behemoth, the NRA.  Everyone was bullied by those monsters from the NRA, Wayne and Chris.

I know, you don’t want to believe that the polls are badly misleading when they ask about those ethereal platitudes, as opposed to when the specifics are presented, complicating things for you.  You don’t want to believe it even when your own press tells you this.  So the 90%+ number must be right, and the evil NRA is to blame, or your own tactics, or lack of money, or something like that.  It cannot be that the people aren’t interested in your gun control measures.

So you hate the evil NRA, and harbor even worse thoughts for the gun manufacturers who makes these ever improving products of death, convince Americans that they need them, and hand over the propaganda points to the NRA.  They all must be stopped, you think.

True enough, Wayne and Chris get beaten up a bit in the media, but that’s okay.  We gun owners expect them to take it, and pay them well for it.  We don’t feel too sorry for them.  But there is something that you really don’t understand about all of this, and I feel a bit apprehensive in telling you this, rather like I am divulging our secrets.  But I just have to say these things.

The way it really works is different than you think.

The NRA is hearing from its constituency (that would be us), and the firearms manufacturers do our bidding.  We’re the boss.  A firearm hasn’t been fully vetted until it hits the American civilian market (the military forces its folks to use the bidder of choice), and the manufacturers respond to us.  They make what we want.  They earn our money, and if you think that we sit back and wait for the manufacturers to tell us what to think, just ask Smith and Wesson what happened as a result of their agreement with the Clinton administration.

We send Wayne out with his talking points.  We set Chris up to succeed in the printed media.  They’re our front men.  But we know things you don’t.  You see, we have the guns.  We know gun owners … we know them at work and church and in our neighborhood.  We talk to them.  We see them at the range, we discuss things, we learn from each other.  We know that this 90% number you’ve thrown around isn’t right.  It’s an outright lie.  These 9 out of 10 gun owners you’re talking about just don’t materialize in reality.  We know.  We’re around gun owners every day.

The hard realities of life are sometimes difficult to digest.  But the reality is that we own the NRA.  You’re directing your hatred at the wrong folks.  The firearms manufacturers make what we want.  We keep them financially strong.  The Senators aren’t really afraid of the NRA or Smith and Wesson or Ruger.  They are afraid that smart analysts will figure out what they’re really doing and the gun owning public will be well educated in the finer legal points of the proposed laws.

They may be spewing their hatred for the NRA, but it’s us they really hate.  We are the overlords.  We are gun owners, and you don’t control the gun base you thought you did.  All your base are belong to us.  Make your time.

The collective erupts.

  Bette MidlerVerified account ‏@BetteMidler

Today, the US SENATE VOTED AGAINST 91% OF THE COUNTRY THAT WANTS BACKGROUND CHECKS. WE ARE TAKING NAMES, MOTHERFUCKERS!!

The Hill:

The Senate delivered a devastating blow to President Obama’s agenda to regulate guns Wednesday by defeating a bipartisan proposal to expand background checks.

It failed by a vote of 54 to 46, with five Democrats voting against it. Only four Republicans supported it.

Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Max Baucus (Mont.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Mark Begich (Alaska) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) voted against it. Reid supported the measure but voted against it to preserve his ability to bring the measure up again.

GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Susan Collins (Maine), Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Mark Kirk (Ill.) voted “yes.”

[ … ]

The failure of Manchin-Toomey means the broader bill still includes Democratic language passed by the Judiciary Committee to establish universal background checks. That language failed to attract a single Republican vote during the panel markup, and conservative Democrats such as Manchin and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) have said they cannot support the package without changes to the language on background checks.

The Senate’s failure to expand background checks means the three pillars of Obama’s gun control agenda have stalled. The chamber is expected to also reject proposals to ban military-style semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.

The amendment perished in an ignominious, shameful way as it should have.  But it isn’t over yet.  I’m not referring to the balance of the proposals – and that’s an issue we need to watch – but the future mass shooting.  There will be one.

Furthermore, remember that totalitarians don’t give up.  They have longevity and fortitude, but ours has to be stronger.  Let it be so.  May God help us in our endeavors for liberty.

The Hill:

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) on Wednesday pushed for lawmakers to enact expanded background checks and dismissed fears from conservatives that the bill would infringe on the rights of law-abiding gun owners.

“I support background checks, I support universal background checks,” said Giuliani on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

He said he had no concerns the government could use information from potential firearm purchasers to keep tabs on law-abiding owners.

“I have no fear as some people do that government’s going to use that,” he said.

Just another Northeast elitist advocate of the collective.  One more reason he’ll never be President.