Archive for the 'Second Amendment' Category

Codrea:

This year’s march will honor a patriot and friend who ended his earthly struggle almost a year ago. Publisher George Gramlich asked me to inform Oath Keepers that Mike Vanderboegh’s legacy will behonored and carried on, at least in this section of Colorado.

Well, I know George Gramlich and he is a genuinely good guy.  So is David Codrea.  And so was Mike Vanderboegh.  I miss Mike an awful lot.  If I lived anywhere near the area in Colorado, I would be there.

Duncan Johnson at Ammoland:

After pro-gun posturing by Republicans in the NC Senate, it turns out they may never have had any intention of voting with gun owners on HB746. Senate leadership insisted, as long as gun owners were patient, as long as we were quiet, and we minded our “Ps&Qs,” we could count on the Senate to uphold their own Party platform, live up to campaign rhetoric, and push Constitutional Carry to the governor’s desk.

Of course the GOP has tried to kill constitutional carry, just like they tried to kill open carry in the South Carolina senate.

What’s worse, in the previous N.C. legislative session they gave CLEOs even more power than before rather than reversing the antiquated gun permitting process.  Heretofore, only CHP holders had to submit their medical records to CLEOs.  Now, every handgun purchase requires that, whether the buyer is a CHP holder or not.

Unfortunately, the only recourse for peaceable men is the ballot box.  Take action if you live in one of these two states.

Josh Horwitz at The Hill:

No matter the political leanings of the perpetrator, no matter the political climate, political violence is never acceptable.

And while language alone is not to blame for this vicious shooting (see: weak laws that allow domestic abusers to purchase and possess highly lethal weapons), we must acknowledge that rhetoric — especially rhetoric espousing a violent political philosophy — can inspire such attacks.

If Republicans truly want to address such rhetoric, however, they need to start in their own camp. Because in mainstream American politics, there is no more violent philosophy than the National Rifle Association’s longstanding embrace of insurrectionism.

I have been studying, tracking, and writing about insurrectionism  —  violent revolt against one’s government  — for years.

In my 2009 book, “Guns, Democracy and the Insurrectionist Idea,” co-author Casey Anderson and I dissect the NRA’s belief that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to commit acts of violence — specifically gun violence — against government officials.

The NRA marketed this anti-democratic, insurrectionist philosophy aggressively during President Barack Obama’s time in officer.

Using myth-based fear-mongering and race-baiting, NRA leadership perpetuated the myth that Obama was planning to confiscate guns.

Gun sales soared.

Then the NRA indoctrinated GOP leaders, asking them to buy into the concept of armed political violence and spread it to their constituents.

Republicans complied …

The gunman in Alexandria resorted to “Second Amendment remedies” to deal with the tyranny he perceived under the Trump administration and the current Congress.

There is a clear parallel between the NRA’s reprehensible philosophy of insurrectionism and gunman’s horrific act of violence — the only difference is the political affiliation.

Sure.  We all jump when the NRA says so.  This is beginning rather stupidly, but okay, if you want to discuss insurrection, let’s do that.

All relationships on earth now and forever, whether economics, marriage, church or government, should be seen in terms of covenant.  When the covenant is broken, the agreement is null and void.  Furthermore, breakage of covenants doesn’t simply exonerate the guilty.  There are blessings for oath-keepers and curses for the guilty.  Breakage of covenant invokes said curses, whether enforced by man, God or both.

We do not obtain or receive our rights from any piece of parchment.  Our rights are granted by God, and are to be recognized by men in their covenants with one another.  That’s what the constitution is – a covenant.  It has both blessings and curses appurtenant to it.

If you’ve heard what you consider to be “insurrectionist” talk of second amendment remedies by anyone today, it’s likely not associated with people like the murderer Hodgkinson.  He was a fanboi of Rachel Maddow and a progressive willing to kill people in order to increase state control.  Again, let’s rehearse what the second amendment remedy is all about.

Their experience in Presbyterian polity – with its doctrine of the headship of Christ over the church, the two-powers doctrine giving the church and state equal standing (so that the church’s power is not seen as flowing from the state), and the consequent right of the people to civil resistance in accordance with higher divine law – was a major ingredient in the development of the American approach to church-state relations and the underlying questions of law, authority, order and rights.

[ … ]

It was largely from the congregation polity of these New England puritans that there came the American concept and practice of government by covenant – that is to say: constitutional structure, limited by divine law and based on the consent of the people, with a lasting right in the people to resist tyranny.

Does that sound like Hodgkinson?  No, it’s directly contrary to his world and life view, and ideas matter.  The right to resist tyranny isn’t the same thing as the alleged right to impose tyranny of which Horwitz speaks, and this redounds to more than just his party affiliation.

Above I said that Hodgkinson was willing to kill people to impose tyranny.  Was he really, or was this a front for something else?

Teenager Cathy Rainbolt told a judge her foster father hit her in the face when she failed to mow the lawn correctly. She got hit in the face when she argued. She got hit and dragged by the hair when she tried to get away.

Her foster father was James “Tom” Hodgkinson, who is now infamous after shooting U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, two police officers and a staffer on a Virginia ballfield Wednesday. Rainbolt told the judge that Hodgkinson drank every day.

“I didn’t mark a time when (Hodgkinson) started hitting me,” Rainbolt told St. Clair County Circuit Judge James Radcliffe during a hearing Nov. 21, 2006. “It’s been hard to live with (an alcoholic) and how (he) treated me,” Rainbolt said.

[ … ]

Cathy was the first of two Hodgkinson foster children to die young. In 1996, 17-year-old Wanda Ashley Stock, who had been living with the Hodgkinsons in Belleville for just three months, drove to a lonely rural road, doused herself with gasoline and set herself on fire.

It’s fairly well known that Scalise was after human traffickers and abusers.  Was this an attempted assassination because of that?  We’ll never know, but one thing is certain, morals matter.

I’ll put the collective moral constitution of the American founders up against the creepy pervert and abuser Hodgkinson any day.  Despite Horwitz’ attempt at moral equivalence, he has hung himself on his own petard.  His selection of a hero of the left for his points about insurrection make him look like the fool and ass clown he really is.  He chose a pervert, child abuser and murderer for his moral equivalence.

That’s enough, except we are informed once again what Horwitz would do in the case of governmental genocide.  He makes it clear: “No matter the political leanings of the perpetrator, no matter the political climate, political violence is never acceptable.”

Never, says he.  Not in the case of the Armenian genocide, not to save the millions of people Stalin starved out of the Ukraine, not to save the Jews and Christians killed by Hitler’s minions, not to save the Christians who have been slaughtered in Mesopotamia.

Never.  And thus we learn all we ever really need to know about the moral constitution inside Josh Horwitz.  It’s very dark, and we’re best to stick with better men and better ideas.

The Washington Free Beacon:

Republican Congressman Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) introduced a bill on Thursday that would require Washington, D.C., to honor valid gun-carry permits from other states.

Rep. Massie said the D.C. Personal Protection Reciprocity Act was a direct reaction to last week’s attack on Republican congressmen at a baseball field in Alexandria, Va., which left four injured.

“After the horrific shooting at the Republican Congressional Baseball practice, there will likely be calls for special privileges to protect politicians,” Rep. Massie said in a statement. “Our reaction should instead be to protect the right of all citizens guaranteed in the Constitution: the right to self-defense. I do not want to extend a special privilege to politicians, because the right to keep and bear arms is not a privilege, it is a God-given right protected by our Constitution.”

Since we believe in incrementalism, a little here, a little there, I support this bill.  Good for Congressman Massie, who apparently understands that he is supposed to be a servant rather than a ruler.  Or so it would seem.

However, be warned, the progs will try to load this bill up with every spending abomination, every dollar they can float to their constituency, and if they can, national standards for permits.  If this happens, I withdraw my support.

If this bill passes without amendments and riders, then we can shoot for national reciprocity or even national constitutional carry later.

I’m not holding my breath.

David Codrea receives a visit from now defeated Rob Quist, who says this.

The real question that you all need to address is that while Mr. Gianforte puts out ads showing himself hunting, he has given buckets of money to the very groups whose main goal is to take our public lands. I feel like the NRA backed the wrong horse on this one, and having been in other states that have lost access to public lands, the bamboozle has begun. I got into this race to protect our public lands and surely you all must know that the number one reason that people no longer hunt, fish and recreate is the loss of access to public lands. Do some research about these groups he funds: Americans For Prosperity, PERC, and the Heritage Foundation, and you will see why the Montana Sportsmans Alliance PAC and the Hunters and Anglers backed me…

He got into the race to protect “public lands.”  This is all about hunting, fishing and recreating.  Because he says so.  That’s our second amendment right.

Well, if the Montana Sportsmans Alliance PAC and the Hunters and Anglers (whomever that is) actually backed him, they should be ashamed.  The Montana Sportsmans Alliance PAC and the Hunters and Anglers are welcome to drop by and explain themselves.

David Codrea:

“So please, Congressman Culberson, make the right choice and delete the Schumer amendment from this year’s Commerce-Justice-Science ‘chairman’s mark,’” GOA asks in a representative message intended for members to amplify.

I’d go a step further. I’d let Culberson know that with an “A”-rating from GOA and with an “A+” and endorsement from NRA, I shouldn’t have to be sending polite form mailers asking him to “please” do his job. He’s happy to accept gun owners support and to represent himself as a Second Amendment leader and champion.  It’s not too much to expect him to act like one and to vocally lead the charge on this, especially since it’s taking place in his wheelhouse.

Yea.  I’m damn sick and tired of good ratings for senate gargoyles and congresscritters who undercut their constituency.  Things like this are easily fixed if we just have the guts to hold our representatives accountable.

It’s also a crying shame, I might add, that a single man has this kind of power.  What an awful place, this den of pit vipers.

Forbes:

Since American citizens have the right to keep and bear arms (not just law enforcement officials, as gun control advocates maintain), it would seem to follow that they’re entitled to use their weapons when they are threatened.

More than a century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that in Beard v. United States, where the first Justice Harlan wrote that the defendant, who had been convicted of manslaughter for killing a man in a violent dispute,

was not obliged to retreat, not to consider whether he could safely retreat, but was     entitled to stand his ground, and meet any attack upon him with a deadly weapon, in such a way and with such force as, under all the circumstances, he, at the moment honestly believed, and had reasonable grounds to believe, were necessary to save his own life, or to protect himself from great bodily injury.

To codify that right and prevent people from being put on trial for reasonable, defensive gun use when a prosecutor thinks they might instead have retreated or fled, 24 states have enacted “stand your ground” statutes. Among them is North Carolina, but a recent case there shows that when prosecutors and judges want to convict a man for using his gun, the “stand your ground” law can be trampled upon.

Gyrell Lee had been celebrating New Year’s Eve with his cousin Jamiel Walker in the latter’s home. Throughout the evening, a known troublemaker, Quinton Epps, came by and argued with Walker. When Epps returned with friends and became increasingly belligerent, Lee decided that he should get his gun from his car just in case matters got worse. Lee had completed his concealed carry class and was familiar with the law on gun use.

Epps returned once more and a shouting match between himself and Walker ensued in the street. Walker lost his temper and punched Epps, at which point Epps drew a pistol and shot Walker in the stomach. Walker fell and Epps then turned his gun on Lee, who had his gun out. Lee fired and killed Epps.

Lee was subsequently arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He was a bystander who had acted in self-defense, but nevertheless local officials wanted to make an example of him.

At trial, Lee’s attorney argued that he had acted in self-defense. But in charging the jury, the judge failed to make any mention of the state’s “stand your ground” law or the defendant’s right to use force in the defense of his cousin (who had died of his wounds). The jury returned a verdict of guilty.

On appeal, the North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, holding that the trial judge had not committed “plain error” in charging the jury without bringing up the state’s “stand your ground” statute. In pertinent part, that law reads “A person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat in any place he or she has the lawful right to be if …he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another.” The Court of Appeals wasn’t convinced that the judge had made an error because it wasn’t sure that the statute applied in Lee’s case due to its uncertainty that a public street outside his home counted as “a place he had the lawful right to be.”

Good grief …

Good grief indeed.  George Leef has done a good job with this article, and I appreciate his having followed and written on this issue.  We are reminded of a number of important things in this report.

First of all, we always encounter the opposition of statists when we advocate justified and righteous laws like stand your ground.  This is the first hurdle to overcome, as it is with proposed open carry laws, constitutional carry bill, and so on.

But if we get past the gaggle of gargoyles and demons in the houses of perdition that is the Senates of most states and the U.S. Senate, we face prosecutors.  The laws may say that we are recognized as having a right to self defense, but you must understand that these lawyers have been trained in the philosophy and legal theory of Stanley Fish and Jacques Derrida.  They don’t care about your God given rights or even what the law says.  If they want to, they will prosecute you if they think they can win.  Just because.  Shut up.

Then if you get past the hurdle of what the law says or how some recent law school graduate feels that day, you have the jury with which to contend.  Remember folks.  Juries are comprised by people who, on average, voted for Hillary Clinton, or had a hard time making up their minds, or who, if they didn’t vote for Hillary and Obama before her, couldn’t think their way out of a wet paper bag or hold attention long enough to listen to legal arguments in defense of someone like Mr. Lee.

Most jury members are too caught up thinking about their favorite night time sitcom to worry over things like putting someone away for life who simply shot in self defense.  Besides, that smartly dressed lawyer said he was guilty.  We’re law and order people.  He must be guilty.

When you entrust your life to a jury, it’s usually no better than entrusting it to a crooked judge.  That’s the sad state of the American system of “justice” today.  Stay away from crowds.  Think carefully about your actions.

Archer:

“But I suppose we should thank Hill for reminding us, once again, that “Progressives” can — and will — reverse course and trade in all their “gains” at the drop of a hat once the logical conclusions start to apply to a right they don’t like.

If it weren’t for double standards, they wouldn’t have standards at all.”

Via Codrea, Gottlieb outs himself again.

“Like it or not,” Gottlieb observed, “the Courts have the final say whether you have gun rights or not.”

You can also read a related discussion thread at reddit/r/firearms.  Here is the problem.  The courts don’t have the final say on whether we have gun rights.  I appreciate that we need good judges in position, but only because we want to be peaceable men if possible.

Even if my rights aren’t observed by society, they still exist.  This is Alan’s moral malfunction.  He reflexively turns to the state for disposition of God-given rights, which I’m sure is why he has shown himself so willing to compromise in the past.

It’s pagan and statist thinking that turns to the state for cradle to grave security and for a delineation and protection of our rights.  I’ve explained this before – our rights come from God Himself, the Almighty king of heaven and earth, the maker of the universe, the one who determines what He will do with the clay vessels he creates, the only potentate and sovereign.

The constitution is a covenant by which men have agreed to live together.  We derive our authority to bear arms from God, in whose image we are made, and who Himself made war when necessary, and thus we are to protect that image.  This is His immutable law.  If the covenant within which we live does not reflect God’s laws, it is an abomination and dishonors God.  It is null and void.  Second, to the extent that it does, when we fail to live within the framework of that covenant it is null and void.  Therefore, if the government breaks covenant with the people, the government has declared itself null and void before God.

A man-made document can never … never … establish rights.  It can only recognize what has already been established by the almighty.  God grants men the right to self defense, as well as the right to enter into covenant with a government, that covenant having blessings as well as curses, just like the covenant of marriage comes with blessings and curses (e.g., divorce in the case of infidelity, which recognizes that the covenant has been broken and is null and void, cursing the one who broke it).  Self defense properly interpreted means not only personal defense from evildoers who would cause him or his family harm, but self defense from a tyrannical government.

Gottlieb couldn’t have been more wrong.  Judges are important for the opposite reason he boasts.  They are important in that they have a duty before God almighty and His laws and to honor the covenant we have made.  They don’t get to make decisions concerning whether such rights exist.  Their purview comes with duties and responsibilities, not the freedom to be cavalier, insolent or capricious.  Theirs is a terrible responsibility and they should justly fear God.  When it comes to the rights of men to defend themselves, there is only one decision of which God approves.

Psalm 2 says “The kings of the earth shall take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed … He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them” (2-3).  Isaiah 6 describes what happens when men meet God face to face.

In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. ² Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one called out to another and said,“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”  And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. ⁵ Then I said “Woe is me, for I am ruined!

To be sure, there are wicked rulers and judges, and all gun control is wickedness conducted by men bent upon evil.  Resisting them is not only acceptable, but expected and even commanded.  I’ve even demonstrated that when Jesus commanded his disciples to sell their robe and buy a sword, he was quite literally commanding them to arm themselves in violation of the law.  He was commanding them to become law breakers in order to effect self defense.  That’s how seriously God takes this issue.

The position of judge and ruler is a terrible position because they will answer before God for what they do, and if they push it far enough, they may answer before men in time and space before they ever get to God.  But always remember, if you are a ruler or judge who happens to be reading this.  The King of Kings and Lord of Lords is watching you and will judge with a righteous judgment.  There is no escape from His laws or the day of judgment, and no fealty to a document, interpretation, or political bias will be allowed as excuse or justification for your high handed sin against God.