Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

Massad Ayoob:

For April 2019, the question was what to do if the police showed up at your home with a warrant authorizing them to seize your firearms.  You can find it here.

Spoiler alert: their unanimous advice is “Don’t resist.  Allow them to take the weapons. Sort it out later in court.”

So at the risk of being too simplistic, this isn’t really a viable long term strategy because red flag laws are subject to the whims of the court, and the color of your eyes may disqualify you from owning firearms.  Massad Ayoob still believes in the “American Justice System.”  I believe in that too, just without the word justice.

Wirecutter saw this one too, and titles it And to think I used to like this guy.  Eh … I never really liked him.  I never saw why folks thought he was so special.

News from New Mexico:

Counties in several states, including Colorado and Illinois, have passed similar resolutions recently in opposition to newly passed or potential gun restriction measures.

Balderas, a Democrat, wrote in a letter to the state’s law enforcement agencies that it was their duty to enforce the measures.

“As law enforcement officials, we do not have the freedom to pick and choose which state laws we enforce,” Balderas said, according to The Albuquerque Journal.

So that’s his strategy.  Consider that.  A “prohibited person.”  Who might that be?  Someone who stole a weapon?  A convicted violent felon?  No, someone (person A) who, in the privacy of their own home or in a parking lot somewhere, sold a gun to another person (person B), and that other person (person B) committed a crime with it.

In this case, apparently the attorney general will allow, or even assist, the families of victims of the violence perpetrated by person B to file suit, presumably civil suit, against the Sheriff of the county in which the transaction took place.

And said transaction was supposed to be known by the Sheriff of that county – exactly how?  I see Castle Rock v. Gonzalez and Warren v. District of Columbia being pertinent here.  And I think the attorney general and victims’ families will lose in court.

Nice try.

Politifact: “Let’s make something clear: The Nazis did deny guns specifically to Jews. But, given the size of their forces and their methods of confiscation and extermination, this is a trivial factor. The notion that it would have made any difference is unreasonable.”

Let’s make one thing clear: yes they did.  This isn’t even a variant of the old “Nazis had gun control for all, not just the Jews” argument.  It’s the same thing, just rehashed on Politifact.

We’ve dealt with it before.  The Nazis used the very firearms registry that had been created to disarm “enemies of the state.”  Jews were included on that list, as were many Christians.  The Nazis hated Christians as much as they did Jews.

That’s why you should ignore Politifact.  Nothing they do is right.  They get everything wrong, as if they’re actually trying to do that to be a joke.  Snopes is their equal.  Both sites are complete trash, as are their “researchers.”

News from South Carolina:

Bills on either side of the gun debate have gone nowhere. That includes legislation by Sen. Marlon Kimpson, D-Charleston, to extend the FBI background check period from three days to five days — versions of which he’s pushed in every session since the 2015 shooting at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church, when nine black parishioners were gunned down. Kimpson managed to get a hearing last month, but the bill didn’t advance. Neither has any other bill expanding gun background checks in this gun-friendly state. But neither have various “constitutional carry” bills that would allow adults to carry a gun, openly or concealed, without getting a weapons permit.

South Carolina = California = New York = Hawaii = New Jersey.

I know that hurts my SC readers.  That one is a kick right to the balls.  I’m sorry.  But I have to tell the truth.

David Codrea:

It’s a sign of the age of fake “toxic masculinity” that New Zealand men would so readily give up their guns. We’re talking about a people whose ancestors tamed a wilderness now being evacuated in panic from a music festival after someone misidentified a tattoo as a sign of “right-wing extremism.”

[ … ]

She knows that because in 2008, she was elected president of the International Union of Socialist Youth, an affiliate of Socialist International, which unsurprisingly is “heartened” by the March for Our Lives “movement” and its young useful idiot figureheads.

Among IUSY’s goals: “Building a new world order” (just like George H. W. Bush called for at the UN).

“We strongly point out that the right to migrate freely in the world is fundamental,” IUSY declared in its 2009 resolutions, speaking in that case to the European Union.

Oh really?  Unlimited migration is a “fundamental right?”    If so, then I demand you give me chapter and verse from the Holy Scriptures where God stipulated that countries have no right to control over their borders.  I’m waiting.  And I’ll eat my hard hat if you can do it.

Is there any doubt that unlimited migration is a pretext for disarmament and government control over every aspect of life?

Reuters:

“I don’t think we need military-style weapons in our society. I definitely don’t need them in my job,” he says. “It’s like driving around in a Ferrari, you don’t need it.”

Yea, you’d better check that nice bolt action long gun you’re sporting, boy.  For military snipers the world over, that’s a military gun.  It’s used differently than the AR-15 which is for CQB.  That’s a stand-off weapon.

Sooner or later, the government won’t allow you to have it.  Say, right about the time somebody sits in a tower or tall building or the bush somewhere and shoots enough humans to cause emotional outrage.

When you let the government go after other people because you aren’t affected, not only is that selfish and cowardly, it’s bad strategy.

Via Uncle, this.

Most local and area law enforcement agencies aren’t seeing a flood of bump stocks, attachments that allow shooters to continuously fire semi-automatic weapons, being turned in as a result of a federal ban that went into effect a week ago.

Only one agency reached by The State Journal-Register had reported a bump stock being turned over.

As of March 26, owners had 90 days to surrender the devices to local law enforcement agencies or to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or to destroy them on their own.

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a one-sentence order upholding the ban.

In October 2017, a gunman used a bump stock to rain gunfire down from a Las Vegas hotel room, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds of others at a country music festival.

The novelty of the device — and some say its inaccuracy — have made it a bit of rarity among gun owners.

“I don’t think it’s a popular item,” said Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell, adding that none have been turned into his office.

“It’s a possibility (some could still be turned in). I don’t know how many were purchased in Sangamon County, and we don’t track the sales.

“You’re going to have a few holdouts. There were gun owners who were adamant that this was part of their Second Amendment right to keep it.”

“What I’ve found out about bump stocks is that they’re unique,” Morgan County Sheriff Mike Carmody said.

Carmody’s office also hasn’t handled any since the ban, though he expects the issue to come up in conversation with gun advocates.

Carmody also said he was unsure if owners would strictly adhere to the ban, but “I guarantee that anyone who has a bump stock knows the law.”

Menard County Sheriff Mark Oller said the only bump stock turned into his office was done so weeks before the ban took effect.

“Someone was going through a person’s estate (when it was found),” Oller said. “It had never been used. It was still in the package.

“It’s not surprising that only one was turned in because I don’t think there are many out there.”

Yea, you keep telling yourself that.  Nationally, some 550,000 of them.  But here’s the real question, Sheriff.  If America is going to make felons out of innocent and peaceable men, what’s the purpose in stopping with bump stocks?  Why not SBRs, suppressors and fully automatic weapons?

From a reader, news from Virginia.

Though one of the men in the group was ineligible to buy a gun — and had been previously convicted of making a false statement on a firearm consent form — he made the purchase without a hitch.

Police took the video footage from the gun store in the course of investigating a homicide, according to search warrants filed in Danville Circuit Court.

Days after seeing the video, police found the man riding in a Buick with a Glock 45 tucked under his seat — a round in the chamber — and a magazine on him. Court records show police arrested and charged him with possessing a gun as a non-violent felon, carrying a concealed weapon and felonious possession of ammunition.

Though federal and state laws prohibited him from possessing ammo, there were no background checks required to buy it, as there are when purchasing a gun at a store.

In fact there is no background-check infrastructure in the state to stop a felon from purchasing ammo, Virginia State Police public relations manager Corinne Geller said.

The state police handles background checks for firearms purchases, referring applications to the Virginia Firearms Transaction Center in Richmond. The center combs through four state databases and one national database maintained by the FBI to check a buyer’s criminal history, mental health history, protective orders and other disqualifying factors when they go to buy a gun.

But of course.  Instead of reversing the unconstitutional gun sales background checks, since they don’t stop crime, just expand it to ammunition as well.  When a process fails, double-down on it, the progressive way.

They are eventually going to implement a new AWB, and they will eventually come after ammunition too.  Without ammunition, a gun is a paperweight.  Get it now while you can.  Otherwise, red flag laws may sweep you into their net.

By the way, I fear that the good folks of Virginia are going to fall victim to the progressives in Northern Virginia, just as North Carolina has to Mecklenburg and Wake Counties.

News on Pete Buttiegieg:

Buttigieg, an Afghanistan war veteran and lieutenant in the United States Navy Reserve, could become America’s first openly gay president. If it wasn’t apparent from how much money he’s raised so far, he’s gained an incredible amount of momentum since launching his presidential exploratory committee on January 23, 2019. When it comes to key issues like gun control, Buttigieg has made it clear over the years where he stands: He supports universal background checks, and knows that mental health contributes to America’s gun violence epidemic.

[ … ]

“Joined bipartisan Mayors Against Illegal Guns to do something about need for common sense gun safety. #NowIsTheTime.”

“I’m with the majority of Americans (& gun owners) who agree with @POTUS that we need universal background checks to help #StopGunViolence.”

[ … ]

Buttigieg is a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan group within the Everytown network that’s comprised over 1,000 mayors advocating for gun safety. Think: Advancing policies and practices that reduce firearm suicides; and minimizing shootings by the police. After Parkland, he supported the young people within his community demanding that our country ends gun violence.

[ … ]

We had an assault weapons ban in this country in the 90s. I would like to see more research on the effect it had. I do think we need to draw a line. Look, compatible with the Second Amendment, there are some restrictions. Somewhere between a slingshot and a nuclear weapon, we’ve decided that the American people would draw a line. Whether, for example, an AR-15 is on this side or that side of the line, I’m skeptical that it belongs in our neighborhoods in peacetime, but let’s at least have a healthy national debate about what’s best for keeping our families, our homes, and our schools safe.

Yea, as if there isn’t a healthy national debate already on this very subject.  Any time a progressive wants to have a “healthy national debate,” she is lying.  One already exists, and they know it.  What they want is draconian gun controls.  They want to occupy the throne of God, who alone grants rights and issues duties.

This candidate is the progressive’s wet dream.  Don’t count him out by a long stretch.  It’s messy-hair Bernie, creepy-Joe, or confused Beto, versus a guy who is gay, a veteran who can trot out pictures of himself in uniform, and believes in gun control.  He hasn’t been in politics long enough to have heavy baggage, so money is pouring into his campaign.

I say again.  Don’t count him out.

Remember our little scuffle with Lucian K. Truscott IV?

Apparently he got his pink panties in a wad over others [I presume he isn’t referring to me in his followup] fisking his piece.  So he now comes with Youuuuu might be a gun nut if …. (I know, some editor at Salon should have told him to stop doing drugs and rewrite the title).

I don’t care what they say. That’s not a civilian weapon. That’s a weapon designed for use by the military to kill human beings. The thing costs $1,249.95. It is, of course, sold on the open market to any civilian who walks in with the scratch to buy one. The people who buy weapons like this are, strictly speaking, gun nuts.

[ … ]

But less than one percent of our population is in the military. The rest of us are civilians, and these things are being marketed and sold to civilians. They use of the term “tactical” to yank at the heartstrings of arm-chair warriors, to make them feel like they’re buying something big and powerful. “Tactical” is a purely macho word. It’s used to appeal to gun nuts. Sadly, it seems to be working.

I am a gun owner. My guns are locked away in a storage locker right now. I own a 12 gauge Remington pump-action shotgun, a .32 revolver, a .38 revolver, a .22 bolt action rifle I inherited from my grandmother, and a .177 bolt action rifle my brother gave me. I’ve never owned a semiautomatic weapon. Not even one. The last one I shot was an M-14 in the Army in 1965.

I come from a military family. You would think a family of Army officers would have owned a lot of guns. You’d be wrong. My father owned the 12 gauge pump-action shotgun I inherited from him and the .45 caliber Army-issue Colt pistol he inherited from his father. My grandfather, a four-star general, owned two guns: the .45 pistol he gave to my father in 1951 when he left for the war in Korea, and the German Luger taken from Field Marshal Albert Kesslering, commander of Nazi forces against whom grandpa had campaigned the Fifth Army in Italy.

That’s it.

The whole commentary is so emotional, disjointed and hysterical that it’s really difficult to boil it down to a few quotes, but I’ve tried.  Here you get the gist of this.

A man who has never seen combat is trying to tell you that if you want semi-automatic weapons, you’re nothing but an “arm-chair warrior,” a tacticool LARPer who wants to hurt people.

A man who received an other than honorable discharge from the U.S. military is trying to trot out his creds having shot an M-14.

A man who was caught making $600 worth of long distance telephone calls on a stolen credit card is posturing the military history of his honorable family to tell you you’re some kind of nut.

A man who never intended to deploy to Vietnam nonetheless parasitically sucked off of the good will of the American taxpayer for his education, and then got out because they threatened to send him to war.

Here at this web site we debate and discuss the theological and philosophical roots of the American system, the God-given duty of self defense, and the necessity of the amelioration of tyranny to preserve human life, among many other things.  We try to dive into the deeper issues of mankind, ethics, epistemology, truth, and justice.

So in summary, thanks Salon.  If this is the best you can do, we’ll continue our scholarship unabated.  You can keep your shrieking cowards.  But do please try to do a better job of editing poor Lucian next time.  He rambles so much it sounds sophomoric.