Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

AP:

The win will give Democrats control of the legislature and governorship for the first time in 26 years. Democrats have pledged to pass new gun restrictions and raise the minimum wage once in power.

It’s going to happen most places in America.  This is just the first wave.  It’s a shame, really.

I know good people in Virginia, in the mountainous areas, around Damascus, where they can barely contain their animosity for the progressive policies in Northern Virginia.

But here we are.  The “Army of Northern Virginia” is now a bunch of nanny state controllers who want to implement communism.

I’m sorry to my readers in Virginia.

News from the Northwest.

Law enforcement reviewed surveillance video and observed a man, later identified as Huricks, walk into the store and steal a pack of cigarettes during the first investigation. The video captured Huricks leaving the store. As he did, the clerk grabbed a baseball bat and went to the front door. Cameras from the store’s exterior captured Huricks, while outside, pointing what appeared to be a firearm at the front door, according to the district attorney’s office.

[ … ]

The Oregon State Police Crime Laboratory determined the homemade firearm seized was capable of being a deadly weapon.

And see there, that’s one more reason gun control will never work.  Prohibition never works.  Ask the boys from the hills in Franklin County, Virginia, about that.

Silliness.

“They should not tell everything they’re going to do. If you’re going to take people’s guns away, wait until you get elected — then take the guns away,” she said. “Don’t tell them ahead of time.”

Oh, is that how it works?  Hey, I’ve got news for you, cat-lady.  That horse left the barn decades ago.  We all know by now.

Go back to your cat-lady stuff.

Ammoland.

If we can identify the mentally ill people that are suicidal, I think that is another conversation that is worth having.

I said, “We shouldn’t take some guns from all people; we should take all guns from some people,” but I think an important part of that is that it is the people we all agree shouldn’t have guns. I am not looking to be prescriptive there as much as I am looking to find where that common ground is.

We’re going to have a hard time finding that common ground, Dan.  The problem is that ” … efforts to limit firearm access only for persons with a mental health condition (including substance use disorders) or those who previously attempted suicide would prevent few suicide deaths by firearm.”

It just doesn’t work the way you’re saying it works.  And besides that, if we agree to agree on just a tiny little bit, like say, on a category of prohibited persons, who’s to say you won’t expand that list of prohibited persons to include someone who believes in Jesus, or believes in the RKBA?

No, I think forty years ago that speech would have worked.  It’ll probably work today with Wayne and the other folks in Fairfax.  But history has taught us that the words and meaning of the 2A are unalterable and not up for negotiation.

From reddit/firearms.

Court jury questionnaire. Part 26. “Do you own firearms or have you owned firearms? Do you feel strongly one way or the other about them?”

This questionnaire makes it clear on the top page that ANYTHING you write down on the sheets are publicly searchable by individuals and media.

Talk about having people admit to the state they own firearms.

The best response seems to be this one from a redditor.

Ask the clerk quietly and politely to speak to the judge. Explain your reservation to the questionnaire and that it infringes upon your 4th amendment right to be summoned by the court to then be questioned about the free exercise of your constitutional rights and your personal property and since it’s under threat of perjury if you lie, it’s also a 5th Amendment issue.

Judge will tell you to have a nice day and excuse you quietly because one potential juror in a pool isn’t worth the work and they don’t want people who are competent anyway.

Do not divulge anything to the state.  They don’t have a right to know what you have or why you have it.  If readers have a better answer, feel free to weigh in.  Perhaps a lawyer could help us out.

The Trace.

Mexican authorities were outgunned by criminal cartels in two notable incidents this month. In both cases, the criminals were armed with high-powered .50-caliber firearms. First, on October 13, in the state of Michoacan, a police convoy was ambushed with .50-caliber sniper rifles, leaving 13 officers dead and nine wounded. Four days later, in the state of Sinaloa, the government was forced to abandon an operation to arrest the son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, after his henchmen assaulted the authorities with both sniper rifles and truck-mounted machine guns.

“We are seeing a full-out criminal insurgency in Mexico right now,” said Robert Bunker, an international security expert who teaches at the Army War College Strategic Studies Institute and has written about the use of .50-caliber rifles by Mexican cartels.

Often, the weapons come from the United States, where civilian sales of high-caliber sniper rifles are unregulated in all but three states.

Oh.  So we’re going to do this again?

Okay.  It might be just a wee bit interesting if it really meant anything.  And if it did, the only thing it would mean for me is that the FedGov needs to close the border.  I mean really close it.  To all traffic, both human and vehicular.

But that’s not what this is about.  The Trace wants you to think that if we just have more gun control we might be able to help the Mexican government, something I couldn’t care less about and isn’t even on my radar screen.

But where to weapons in Mexico really come from?

Ever wonder where Mexican drug cartels are getting all their weapons? After all, since 1972, the most power rifle that you can buy in the country is a .22 caliber weapon. Yet, Mexican drug cartels have grenades, grenade launchers, and fully automatic guns. We have been collecting some quotes on where Mexico gets its guns.

1. “Most cartels buy in bulk, and the weapons are coming from places like Nicaragua and other South American countries. Also Asia and some from the Middle East,” a Tijuana-based police authority who requested anonymity explained. “And, another factor is the CNC machines making uppers in clandestine shops in Mexico.”
2. “These kinds of guns — the auto versions of these guns — they are not coming from El Paso,” [Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol] said. “They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don’t get these guns from the U.S.”
3. Fox News: The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

So there’s that.  But don’t confuse them with the facts.

Guns.com.

A federal judge last week dismissed a claim from bump stock retailers who sued the government for damages they incurred after having to destroy their inventory.

The plaintiffs include two companies as well as two individuals who in all lost 74,995 bump stocks to the ban which took effect in March. The case, filed in a Washington, D.C. federal court, argued that the ban’s requirement that bump-stocks be surrendered or destroyed within 90 days, with no opportunity for registration, violated the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment which states that private property can’t be taken for public use without compensation.

The court didn’t see it that way.

“The law is different in this case because the government, as the sovereign, has the power to take property that is dangerous, diseased, or used in criminal activities without compensation,” said Senior Circuit Judge Loren A. Smith in his nine-page ruling. “Here, ATF acted properly within the confines of the limited federal police power.”

Smith, appointed to the federal bench in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan, said the $500,000 claim under the Tucker Act would be different “if the government confiscated a gun legally possessed by a person not committing a crime,” but argued that “machine guns,” which was how bump stocks were reclassified, are not protected by the Second Amendment.

First of all, machine guns, since they are used for military purposes, are absolutely protected by the second amendment.

Second,this is called “begging the question.”  I hate it when writers misuse the term “begging the question.”  It doesn’t mean that something necessarily brings up a question, as many writers assume.  It is a formal logical fallacy.  It’s circular reasoning, or proving the presupposition.  Bump stocks were declared machine guns.  Now that they have been declared machine guns, they can be regulated as such, so argues the judge.  That’s like declaring your skin to be green, and for proof reverting back to my declaration.

That’s not the issue.  The issue was and is whether the FedGov ever had the right to declare bump stocks to be machine guns in the first place, and then do they have the authority to take it without compensation.  So much for “judges.”  So much for Reagan.  So much for the constitution.

The constitution, which is merely a covenant, is unimportant to these people.  The FedGov can declare anything they want to be illegal, take it, and ignore appellations in court.  The constitution is a dead document.  The covenant has been broken.  It is null and void, like when a spouse cheats.

David Codrea.

In it we learn how “the public health establishment threw science into the wastebasket, confusing microbiology and pathology with sociology and politics.” Faria shows us how the corrupt “public health model” of “gun violence” is really social engineering, not science, how to spot and debunk fraudulent “studies,” and how the American Medical Association has discarded the scientific method to instead push partisan politics.

Doctors need to focus on the healing arts, the amelioration of pain, and the care of individuals.  National policy is best left to others.  We don’t need or want their help.

Via reader Joe, this terrible report.

Last Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr issued a memorandum to all U.S. attorneys, law enforcement agencies and top ranking Justice Department officials announcing the imminent implementation of a new “national disruption and early engagement program” aimed at detecting potential mass shooters before they commit any crime.

Per the memorandum, Barr has “directed the Department [of Justice] and the FBI to lead an effort to refine our ability to identify, assess and engage potential mass shooters before they strike.” The Attorney General further described the coming initiative, slated to be implemented early next year, as “an efficient, effective and programmatic strategy to disrupt individuals who are mobilizing towards violence, by all lawful means.” More specific information about the program is set to follow the recent memorandum, according to Barr, though it is unclear if that forthcoming document will be made public.

Barr also requested that those who received the memorandum send their “best and brightest” to a training conference at FBI headquarters this coming December where the DOJ, FBI and “private sector partners” will prepare for the full implementation of the new policy and will also be able to provide “new ideas” for inclusion in the program.

Perhaps the most jarring aspect of the memorandum is Barr’s frank admission that many of the “early engagement” tactics that the new program would utilize were “born of the posture we adopted with respect to terrorist threats.” In other words, the foundation for many of the policies utilized following the post-9/11 “war on terror” are also the foundation for the “early engagement” tactics that Barr seeks to use to identify potential criminals as part of this new policy. Though those “war on terror” policies have largely targeted individuals abroad, Barr’s memorandum makes it clear that some of those same controversial tactics will soon be used domestically.

Barr’s memorandum also alludes to current practices by the FBI and DOJ that will shape the new plan. Though more specifics of the new policy will be provided in the forthcoming notice, Barr notes that “newly developed tactics” used by the Joint Terrorist Task Forces “include the use of clinical psychologists, threat assessment professionals, intervention teams and community groups” to detect risk and suggests that the new “early engagement program” will work along similar lines. Barr also alludes to this “community” approach in a separate instance, when he writes that “when the public ‘says something’ to alert us to a potential threat, we must do something.”

As I’ve said before, “Ouija boards, palm readers, witches, warlocks, carnival fortune tellers, tribal witchdoctors, and “small changes that might foretell violence.”

It’s all the same thing to me, and if you have any sense at all, you too.  The Bible clearly says that those guilty of divination will not inherit the kingdom of heaven, and that the Lord hates such people (Galatians 5:19-21, Leviticus 19:24-32, Deuteronomy 18:9-15, Jeremiah 27: 9-19, Exodus 22: 18-19, 1 Samuel 15:23, Isaiah 2:5-8).”

God will not bless these designs.  No, I’m not saying they won’t catch a person here or there they think might have done something had it not been for the cops on their doorstep.  If you’re vision is that short-sighted, you need spectacles.

I’m saying something much deeper and more extensive.  When a country sacrifices it’s unborn, arms the state, tries to disarm it’s people and render them incapable of defense, and allows forcible conversion of children to Islam in its schools, God has turned His back on that people.  That brings a whole host of awful things down.  God is sovereign, the only lawgiver.  He will not be mocked.

We are at the end of an era.  America is “storing up wrath” for itself (Romans 1:5), and that means the righteous will suffer earthly pains in the wake of God’s judgment on the wicked.  Those who have a salvific relationship with Christ will face the doom of earthly judgment (even if not heavenly judgment) along with everyone else.

We’re all headed for hard times, folks.

And just to make sure you’ve got this, William Barr is Donald Trump’s AG.  Trump managed to implement red flag laws without red flag laws.  He said he would do it, and the plans are in place.  This is your president.  He owns this.  You don’t think Barr is acting on his own, do you?

News from Maine.

Leaders of the Maine Legislature voted against allowing seven different gun-related bills to be introduced in the next legislative session.

The bills, sponsored by number of different lawmakers, would have included improving public school security and creating a new child endangerment crime for those who fail to lock up stored firearms.

Gun-control advocates were critical of leadership’s votes, some of which broke along party lines.

[ … ]

The Legislature’s 10-member Legislative Council reviewed 399 proposed bills on Wednesday and voted to exclude all but 133 of them – including the gun-related measures – from the session that begins in January. The council, which comprises the minority and majority leadership in both House and Senate, as well as the speaker of the House and the Senate president, includes six Democrats and four Republicans.

[ … ]

A bill that would have banned the distribution of assault weapons without proper authority was defeated on a 4-6 vote while another that would have required all gun owners to buy liability insurance for their weapons was defeated unanimously.

Other bills that were rejected sought to redefine machine guns and ban assault-style weapons outright. Also rejected was a Republican proposal that would allow retired law enforcement officers who are cleared by the federal government to carry concealed firearms on school grounds.

It’s good to see the leftists get the comeuppance from time to time.  But don’t get cocky.  It’s only defeated for now.  The statists never sleep in their designs for total control over your life.