David Codrea:

“Demographic Death’ of NRA Just Another Big Media Myth,” economist, author and Crime Prevention Research Center Founder and President John Lott writes in a “Perspective” piece for Investors Business Daily.

He’s addressing a Washington Post analysis by UCLA School of Law Professor and author Adam Winkler, which claims changing demographics will diminish the National Rifle Associations’ political influence.

We don’t know true gun ownership rates and how they have changed because we can’t rely on people admitting true gun ownership to pollsters, Lott argues.  What we do know is “concealed handgun permits and gun sales have soared.”

We also see support for “gun control” has fallen in spite of currently experienced demographic changes, more people believing they are safer with a gun in the home, and a rise in urban gun ownership, including among blacks, Lott tells us.

[ … ]

The question Lott could have addressed, but did not, is how are all these people he and Winkler are talking about voting?

Good Lord!  What kind of dope is John Lott smoking?  Regular readers know I soured on John Lott from way back, and then his argument with me over open carry in Texas (along with his chicken little “the sky is falling” attitude about what we might lose in Texas if we support open carry), put me over the edge.  He’s as much of a negative influence on the gun rights community and a sellout as Alan Gottlieb.

Bet you didn’t know there was such a thing as a .9 mm gun, did you?  Honestly, you would think respectable outfits would require that their writers know at least a little bit about their subject.  But this is Salon, not a respectable outfit.

This is an awesome thing, but you need to get yourself a serious fighting rifle, ma’am.  An AR-15 will do just fine.

Rush Limbaugh comes along in his thinking, but he’s not quite there yet.  He should have articulated that the reason we don’t like Hispanic laborers paid low wages isn’t because hard workers deserve more, it’s because we don’t want to fund their health care, SNAP and welfare for the benefit of corporations (which is nothing more than corporate welfare).  Furthermore, Rush hints at it, but doesn’t say it and may not see it as clearly as we do.  Our attitude is one of scorched earth.  Burn it all down.  If the GOP is as much of a sellout this cycle as it has been lately, then end the pain and suffering now and burn it all down.

An interesting exchange occurred between David Kopel, Joyce Malcolm, et. al., and another professor on carry of guns in England.  The first volley appeared at The Washington Post, and while I won’t quote in its entirety, I will quote at length and send you to the article for the conclusion.

Should D.C. residents have the same right to the licensed carry of defensive handguns as the people in most states? That is the issue currently before the D.C. Circuit, in Wrenn v. District of Columbia. The D.C. government lost on this issue in federal district court. D.C.’s brief to the D.C. Circuit argues that “For as long as citizens have owned firearms, English and American law has restricted any right to carry in populated public places.” According to the brief, the pre-existing right to arms, which was protected by the Second Amendment, “did not encompass carrying in densely populated cities.” Further, D.C. says that in the 19th century, carry prohibitions were widespread in the United States. An amicus brief on behalf of Michael Bloomberg’s organization “Everytown” makes similar claims.

In an amicus brief filed this week, several legal historians, including me, dispute the D.C. and Bloomberg claims. Besides me, the amici are Joyce Malcolm (George Mason Law; the leading historian on the history of English gun control and gun rights), Robert Cottrol (co-appointment at George Washington in Law and in History; a specialist in the history of race, including the racial aspects of gun laws),  Clayton Cramer (author of three books and many articles on the history of firearms law in Early America and the 19th century) and Nicholas Johnson (Fordham Law; most recent book is Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms). Our attorneys were Stephen Halbrook and Dan Peterson. Halbrook has a 5-0 record in the U.S. Supreme Court, all on firearms law cases, and is himself a leading scholar on the legal history of the right to arms.

The claim that there was a general prohibition on the carrying of arms is based on the 1328 Statute of Northampton, which D.C. characterizes as a public carrying ban. As our brief explains, the case law is contrary to such a broad interpretation of the 1328 Statute.  For example,  Sir John Knight’s Case (1686) said that the statute applies only to “people who go armed to terrify the King’s subjects.” There was a lot of weapons-carrying in England, partly because of public duties, such as keeping “watch and ward,” as well as required target practice (in longbows and muskets) at the target ranges that every village was required to maintain. The peaceable carrying of arms was an ordinary thing to see, not a terrifying one.

In the American colonies, nobody appears to have thought that they could not carry arms because of a 1328 English statute. Rather, the colonies mandated gun carrying in certain situations, such as when traveling or when going to church. To the extent that a few early states (and later, D.C.) enacted statutes expressing common law restrictions on arms carrying, the statutes (like the common law) only applied when a person did so “in terror of the country.” (D.C. 1818 statute; similar language in the states). In the colonial period, and in the first 37 years of independence, there were no restrictions on concealed carry. Several states enacted concealed carry bans thereafter, but of course these did not limit open carry. Moreover, our first “four Presidents openly carried firearms.” The notion that they, or anyone else, thought Americans were prohibited from doing so by a 1328 English statute is implausible.

To this, Priya Satia responds at Slate.

Doing so is crucial in a gun case now before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals: Wrenn v. D.C. The case is critical for Washington residents but also more broadly as the pro-gun lobby challenges laws in cities across the country. The District of Columbia argues that English and American law has always permitted restrictions on the right to carry guns in populated public places, tracing this tradition to the 1328 Statute of Northampton, which generally prohibited carrying guns in public. The District argues that the Second Amendment and its English precursors did not allow unfettered public carrying in densely populated cities, and thus the District may restrict it.

A group of legal historians has disputed this interpretation in an amicus brief filed this month, followed by an essay in the Washington Post by David Kopel, adjunct professor at Denver University’s law school. They claim the English Bill of Rights of 1689 superseded the 1328 statute and that, “There was a lot of weapons-carrying in England.” Thus, they conclude, D.C. residents have the right to carry guns in public. But their English history is wrong, as are their conclusions about public carry in the nation’s capital.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688–89 established a Protestant monarchy in England under William and Mary, ending the reign of the Stuarts. The Bill of Rights codified the constitutional limits on the new monarchy, including a provision guaranteeing Protestants (but not Catholics or Jews) the right to bear arms. But political realities overrode this provision. The new monarchy remained vulnerable to “Jacobites” seeking to restore the Stuart dynasty, with French and Spanish backing. This danger meant the British state could not permit widespread gun ownership.

The new monarchy’s disarmament laws built on laws passed after the Restoration of 1660, when the Stuarts returned to power after 11 years of republican rule and were similarly concerned with political stability. A 1670 statute had limited firearms possession to the noble and rich, although even their arsenals were subject to search and seizure at sensitive moments. A series of game laws from 1671 through 1831 dramatically reduced the number of people permitted to hunt, empowering gamekeepers to search for and seize unauthorized firearms. Smuggling laws also made carrying arms grounds for arrest. An armed militia was active through the 1680s, but not the 80 years that followed. Through the 1740s, its arms were locked in royal arsenals and distributed only at assembly. The government’s success at disarming the population made the militia superfluous, since its entire purpose was to prevent an armed rising against the government.

And I think you see where this argument is going, i.e., justifying law enforcement use of weapons to the exclusion of everyone else, even the military.  I wrote to Dave Kopel for a rejoinder, and he declined saying he had too many “irons in the fire,” but that “among its errors are conflating anti-hunting laws (which continued after 1689) with laws against defensive gun ownership.”

He also sent me to Joyce Malcolm, who is also busy but reminded me of her piece in Financial Times (I cannot locate the URL except at Free Republic).

Self-defence, William Blackstone, the 18th century English jurist, wrote, is a natural right that no government can deprive people of, since no government can protect the individual in his moment of need. The English Bill of Rights of 1689 affirmed the right of individuals “to have arms for their defence”. It is a dangerous right. But leaving personal protection to the police is also dangerous, and ineffective. Government is perilously close to denying people the ability to protect themselves at all, and the result is a more, not less, dangerous society.

I won’t rehearse the details of the debate.  But one thing stands out to me in this exchange, and it’s Kopel’s statement that “The notion that they, or anyone else, thought Americans were prohibited from doing so by a 1328 English statute is implausible.”  This is an important observation, so let’s unpack it a bit.

From my pedestrian point of view (from my coursework in philosophy, history and apologetics in seminary), I’ve always claimed that the best way to understand what the founders intended was to observe their lives and understand what they did or didn’t think their words meant.  Look to the culture, context and milieu which created these men and their views.  I have cited the public and open carry of weapons to which Kopel refers.

In the colonies, availability of hunting and need for defense led to armament statues comparable to those of the early Saxon times. In 1623, Virginia forbade its colonists to travel unless they were “well armed”; in 1631 it required colonists to engage in target practice on Sunday and to “bring their peeces to church.” In 1658 it required every householder to have a functioning firearm within his house and in 1673 its laws provided that a citizen who claimed he was too poor to purchase a firearm would have one purchased for him by the government, which would then require him to pay a reasonable price when able to do so. In Massachusetts, the first session of the legislature ordered that not only freemen, but also indentured servants own firearms and in 1644 it imposed a stern 6 shilling fine upon any citizen who was not armed.

When the British government began to increase its military presence in the colonies in the mid-eighteenth century, Massachusetts responded by calling upon its citizens to arm themselves in defense. One colonial newspaper argued that it was impossible to complain that this act was illegal since they were “British subjects, to whom the privilege of possessing arms is expressly recognized by the Bill of Rights” while another argued that this “is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defense”. The newspaper cited Blackstone’s commentaries on the laws of England, which had listed the “having and using arms for self preservation and defense” among the “absolute rights of individuals.” The colonists felt they had an absolute right at common law to own firearms.

And further:

Their laws about children and guns were strict: every family was required to own a gun, to carry it in public places (especially when going to church) and to train children in firearms proficiency. On the first Thanksgiving Day, in 1621, the colonists and the Indians joined together for target practice; the colonist Edward Winslow wrote back to England that “amongst other recreations we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us.”

The ownership and carry of weapons was virtually ubiquitous in colonial America.  It was so for the purposes of hunting, defense against animals, and defense against men.  As my own professor C. Gregg Singer has pointed out, news reports, primary source literature and eyewitness accounts are the best information on colonial America.  All information and data points to the expectation of the duty of self defense, rather than a prohibition of such.

Moreover, while I concede that it’s interesting what English law had to say about ownership and carry of weapons, it isn’t determinative.  We follow the constitution, and in particular, I have asserted before that rights to ownership and carry of weapons follows God-given stipulations, the constitution flowing from it’s basis in this moral history.

If Satia’s goal was to persuade me that I could look to England to find basis to reject ownership and carry of weapons, the goal wasn’t met.  The attempt was an abject failure.

Twice now I have hiked the battlefield trail on King’s Mountain (as well as miles of other trails in that park) with my children, even though my children were grown when I did it.  It’s always educational to remember what once was and what used to be.  On Monday I hiked this trail with my beautiful daughter, Devon.

I have seen many homeschoolers on the trail with parents, reading literature and learning real American history, when men were free, rather than the fabricated crap and lies they learn in public schools that passes for history, taught by the collectivist lemmings.  I have never seen a public school class there.

One placard in particular has always caught my attention.

This distinguished race of men are more savage than the Indians, and possess every one of their vices, but not one of their virtues.  I have known … these fellows (to) travel 200 miles through the woods never keeping any road or path, guided by the sun by day, and the stars by night, to kill a particular person of the opposite party (George Hanger, British officer formerly attached to Ferguson’s provincial corps).

Would we win the war of independence today?  Do such men exist, who would travel 200 miles through woods, day and night, to engage fellow countrymen in a battle for freedom?

Mike Vanderboegh:

… what I didn’t notice until after a discussion with a long-time friend is what a gift Winkler has made us with this confession in the same article:

The fastest-growing minority group in America is Latinos. Between 2000 and 2010, the nation’s Latino population grew by 43 percent. Hispanics, which make up 17 percent of the population today, are expected to grow to 30 percent of the population in the coming decades. Gun control is extremely popular among Hispanics, with 75 percent favoring gun safety over gun rights.

It is impossible to overstate the favor that Winkler has done us by this triumphalist bragging about the “demographics gonna get yo momma” message to the NRA. This collectivist’s inadvertent confession not only confirms their evil, confiscationist intentions but it absolutely condemns the NRA’s “single-issue” avoidance of the illegal invasion threat. My partner in thought crime David Codrea has been banging this drum for some time now, only to be ignored or ridiculed by the NRA partisans on the Internet.

Yes, David has indeed (although I’m hesitant to link them because of my new policy of not linking Examiner), and so have I, here, here, here and here.  It’s important to understand, as I have explained, that this isn’t some cooked up, half-ass theory.  There is a very specific reason for their political proclivities.

“For historical reasons to do with the nationalisation of the land under Lázaro Cárdenas and the predominant form of peasant land tenure, which was “village cooperative” rather than based on individual plots, the demand for “land to the tiller” in Mexico does not imply an individual plot for every peasant or rural worker or family. In Mexico, collectivism among the peasantry is a strong tradition … one consequence of these factors is that the radical political forces among the rural population are on the whole explicitly anti-capitalist and socialist in their ideology. Sometimes this outlook is expressed in support for guerilla organisations; but struggle movements of the rural population are widespread, and they spontaneously ally with the most militant city-based leftist organisations.”

One of the reasons for this reflexive alignment with leftism has to do with the the mid-twentieth century and what the Sovient Union and allied ideologies accomplished.  South and Central America was the recipient or receptacle for socialism draped in religious clothing, or in other words, liberation theology.  Its purveyors were Roman Catholic priests who had been trained in Marxism, and they were very successful in giving the leftists a moral platform upon which to build.  This ideology spread North from South and Central America into Mexico, and thus the common folk in Mexico are quite steeped in collectivist ideology from battles that were fought decades ago.

Hispanics and Latinos are collectivists from way back.  Their priests have trained them in statist thinking, and this to their own demise.  In other words, they can no longer see how their cultural and political choices harm them, if they ever could.

Sadly, the NRA is today good for nothing more than a fairly good magazine once a month.  As for Winkler, he has made a fatal error in judgment.  Like other leftists, he thinks that gun owners are monolithic and controlled by the NRA.  To them, we are reactionary and able to be turned by the winds of wording, able to be controlled like the hive controls its own.  They think this way because it’s impossible to imagine a world view without central command issuing orders.  This is good news.  It’s always better when the enemy underestimates your power and resolve, and misjudges your character.

David Codrea:

Are You Sleeping, Bourgeoisie (Traditional American song, sung in rounds to the tune of “Frere Jacques”). Are you sleeping, Are you sleeping, Bourgeoisie, Bourgeoisie, And when the revolution comes, We’ll kill you all with knives and guns, Bourgeoisie, Bourgeoisie …

I think he doesn’t understand what that word means – i.e., revolution.  He uses it, but I think he is seriously out of touch with reality.  You bring it bad boy.  Let’s see how long your “revolution” lasts.

Here is a Boston jerk.  And I didn’t say thanks to you for anything, especially the idea that your boot-licking attitude would have served you well during the revolution.  You haven’t earned the right to clean the toilets of the men who led the separation from King George, much less to take credit for their actions.  Jerk.  I’ll never go within two hundred miles of Boston.  As far as I’m concerned, they live in a different country than me.

Topo maps for free.  This could come in very handy.

Austrian town drowns in migrant trash and feces.  But they must endure it for the children.  Er … there are no children.  They must endure it because of … something.

Muslim migrants in Germany take selfies with stolen goods.  This is coming to our shores.  You understand that, right?

Finally, there is this.  But ask you self honestly, is this any worse than the MS13 gang members El Salvador is shipping North across our border?  Pay close attention to the English subtitles.

Courthouse News Service:

(CN) – The Eighth Circuit revived a wrongful death claim against the Remington Arms Company stemming from a 2008 hunting accident in which a South Dakota man died.

The man’s wife, Carol O’Neal, sued Remington in December 2011, claiming a defect in a bolt action rifle the company manufactured caused it to misfire, killing her husband.

On November 9, 2008, O’Neal’s husband, Lanny, loaned a Remington Model 700 .243 caliber bolt action rifle to his friend, Mark Ritter.

Ritter later told investors that after spotting a deer, he moved the safety lever to the fire position and without his pulling the trigger, the rifle discharged. The bullet hit Lanny O’Neal, traveling through his stomach, spleen and left lung.

Despite their immediately calling 911 and getting O’Neal taken to a hospital, he died later that afternoon.

His widow claimed that Remington was aware a defect in that particular model rifle would cause it to fire without pulling the trigger once the safety lever was released.

She cited that minutes from a 1979 Remington safety subcommittee meeting, at which the defect in certain guns manufactured before 1975 was discussed and a possible recall considered. However, that meeting ended with attendees deciding against a recall because it would have required Remington to gather some 2 million guns ,when only 20,000 were known to be susceptible to the condition.

Remington argued that O’Neal couldn’t prove that the defect that caused the rifle to misfire was present at the time of it being manufactured. According to the gun maker, an alteration to the gun after purchase could have caused the misfire.

Complicating matters was that O’Neal, after being denied by two lawyers in her quest to pursue a wrongful death claim, had the gun destroyed because it reminded her of the tragedy. It wasn’t until several months later that she learned of the possible defect.

A federal court granted Remington’s motion for summary judgment, but the Eighth Circuit on Wednesday overturned that ruling, sending the case back to federal court.

In a 2-1 decision, the three-judge panel found that since South Dakota law allows a plaintiff to prove a defect through circumstantial evidence, O’Neal had presented enough circumstantial evidence to prove the defect was present at the time of manufacture.

“The fact that the subject rifle was used many times without incident from the mid-1980s through November 2008, and then suddenly inadvertently discharged, is consistent with the unpredictable manifestation of the inherent design defect in the Walker trigger,” U.S. Circuit Judge Kermit Bye wrote for the majority.

“In sharp contrast, if the subject rifle had been modified or altered prior to the mid-1980s in a way which would cause it to discharge when the safety lever was moved from the safe position to the fire position without the trigger being pulled, it is highly unlikely the rifle could have been used as many times as it was over the span of the next twenty-plus years without incident,” Bye said.

Oh dear.  This just gets worse and worse.  I’m not commenting on the gunsmithing accuracy of the court’s decision.  The problem is that Remington didn’t come clean on the Walker Fire Control System when they knew about it, they hid it, denied it, and sent their lawyers to argue with victims.

This was their destiny, and they chose it when they decided to be lawyers rather than engineers and gun manufacturers.  It was their destiny.

Other Resources:

Belk_Certification

Belk_Objection

Belk_Supplemental_Report

Prior:

Poking The Dragon

Update On The Remington 700 Settlement

Things You May Not Have Known About The Remington Walker Fire Control System

Salon:

As a teen I watched Chris Rock brilliantly address America’s gun problem during his Bigger and Blacker stand up. “We don’t need gun control,” Rock pleaded to a packed house, “We need bullet control––if bullets were $5000, people would think before they shot some one! You gotta really piss someone off for them to dump $50,000 worth of bullets in to you!” And just like the crowd, my brother, some friends and I erupted in laughter.

Rock was definitely on point, $5000 bullets would be great but I’d take it a step further––I believe that being shot should be requirement for gun ownership in America. It’s very simple. You need to have gun, like taking selfies with pistols, can’t live with out it? Then take a bullet and you will be granted the right to purchase the firearm of your choice.

[ … ]

Bullets are extremely hot and they hurt. I saw them paralyze, cut through faces, pierce children and take life. I have friends, relatives and loved ones be gunned down. Guns break apart families and ruin lives. Other than giving a coward the heart to stand tall, what’s the positive part of gun ownership? Other than the people in rural areas who use them to hunt for food, I have only seen them destroy, both in the suburbs and in our inner cities.

[ … ]

Gun praisers are just like the people who were in favor of slavery back in the day–– the elite, lazy and ignorant who weren’t being beaten, raped or in the field doing the work, so they were perfectly okay with involuntary servitude, which is a problem and why I think gun owners need to feel more––they need a taste of the other side.

So if you love guns, if they make you feel safe, if you hold and cuddle with them at night, then you need to be shot. You need to feel a bullet rip through your flesh, and if you survive and enjoy the feeling­­––then the right to bear arms will be all yours.

Listen here, young’ un.  You’re just projecting the ugly, black-on-black violence onto others in a refusal to take responsibility for the social, theological and familial problems in the black community.  As we all know, criminal violence with guns in America today is primarily a black-on-black problem.  You know it, I know it, and everyone knows it.

And you don’t get to set the rules for when I can use weapons for self defense or what weapons I choose.  Rights are granted by God, not horrible writers who craft their dung in effete, metrosexual rages fit only for rap concerts.  You want to be a man?  You want to show how tough you are?

Good.  Go to the black community and tell them to stop taking handouts and having welfare babies by fathers who will never be there.  Tell them to stop blaming other people for their problems.  Tell them to shut the gangs down and go home to their families.  Tell them to shut down that hideous rap “music” with its lyrics about rape, violence and hedonism.  Tell them to return to God and put away the things of the world.

I doubt you will, because you are the real coward – a coward too scared to face down his own problems.  As for me, I’ll keep my guns.  You can try to take them any time you feel froggy.

HNGN.com:

Legal firearm owners in Maine are now allowed to carry concealed handguns without a permit in the state thanks to a new law effective Thursday.

The statute, referred to by Second Amendment rights advocates as a “constitutional concealed carry,” applies to both residents and non-residents who are 21 or older, or military members age 18 or older, reported the Associated Press. That means that anyone who is not otherwise banned from possessing a firearm can now carry a concealed handgun in the state without a permit.

The law also authorizes a person to possess a loaded pistol or revolver while in a motor vehicle, trailer or other vehicle being hauled by a motor vehicle.

[ … ]

The police chief of Portland, the state’s largest city, issued a warning Thursday, saying that police officers and the community are now much less safe due to the law.

“This is a poor piece of legislation that we’re all about to suffer through,” Portland Police Chief Mike Sauschuck said, according to local news station CSH6 Portland.

Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming and Kansas have passed similar laws, while Vermont has never required a concealed carry permit. New Hampshire also passed a similar law to the one enacted in Maine, but it was vetoed by Gov. Maggie Hassan.

Butt-hurt, the police chief is.  It’s simply appalling in his mind that “the only ones” might not be the only ones recognized to carry a weapon, and they get no control over it, except insofar as the state issues permits to purchase.  But small steps are better than no steps at all.

Here’s a prediction (and the wonderful thing about predictions is that people remember them and those making the predictions can be held to account).  There is no suffering about to happen.  The Portland police chief is telling fairy tales and make-believe.  And he should be the one held to task when I’m proven to be right.

Ema O’Connor has done a poor job of answering the questions, so I thought I would help her.

Q: Every time there is a mass shooting, President Obama makes a passionate speech about the need for gun control. And yet it never happens. Why? Does he not have the power to drive through change?

A: That’s easy.  We aren’t subjects of the crown.  That problem was handled more than 200 years ago by men who, not coincidentally, had guns.

Q: Would you say the majority of Americans want stricter gun control laws? If so, how come it hasn’t happened yet?

A: That’s easy.  It’s a lie promulgated by the elitist media who want America to be like obedient insects living in a collectivist hive.  The majority of Americans don’t really want more gun control.

Q: How did the gun lobby become so powerful?

A: We have guns.

Q: Gun rights advocates: What is their explanation for why the U.S. has a much higher rate of gun deaths than comparable countries? Or do they just not talk about it?

A: Gun violence is primarily a black-on-black issue.  Were it not for many of the entitled, inner city blacks who have been taught through the fourth, fifth and sixth generations now to expect handouts and never take responsibility, you wouldn’t have even asked the question.  This question is more properly posed to the elitist, collectivist, urban chattering class.  Let them explain to you why they chose to create a class of inner city criminals.

Q: What do gun rights advocates say the “well regulated” bit in “well regulated militia” means?

A: Capable of shooting and engaging other field combat tactics well.

Q: How easy is it to get a gun license in America? What’s the process?

A: Not easy enough.

Q: In a number of cases, the gunmen responsible for mass shootings have had criminal records and documented mental health problems, and yet they were able to purchase firearms legally. How does that happen?

A: Mental health issues don’t predispose one to violence.  You must mean how does an evil man obtain weapons.  With money.  Although not asked, why does an evil man obtain weapons?  To perpetrate acts of evil, as it has been from Genesis 2 onward.

I’m glad I could be of assistance.

Huffington Post:

In 2012, 986 mass shootings ago, I wrote these words: “”In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.”

Now it’s time to talk about guns.

In the wake of the Umpqua Community College shooting, I had the unenviable task of appearing on CNN to defend the shooter’s mother, Laurel Harper, for sharing an entirely legal interest in firearms with her son.

Legal, but stupid.

Should Harper be blamed for her son’s actions? Of course not. Millions of parents share an interest in guns with their children. Harper did not have a crystal ball that could predict her son would become a mass shooter; in fact, it could be argued that mothers are the worst people to ask about their children’s weaknesses, because we prefer to focus, like Harper did, on our children’s strengths. Harper, who is grieving the loss of her son, the tenth victim of the shooting, couldn’t predict a mass shooting any better than anyone else can.

But was Harper irresponsible in how she owned and stored her guns? The clear answer is yes. Not because her son had a mental illness. Because all parents who own and store guns in their homes are irresponsible, regardless of whether anyone in the family has a mental illness.

What causes mass shootings? The same thing that causes 61% of all deaths by gun violence (suicides): easy access to guns. If no one in your family has suffered the negative effects of gun ownership, it’s not because you are a “responsible gun owner.” You are just lucky.

[ … ]

Our Founding Fathers were reasonable men. They surely never imagined a country where an amendment designed to keep the British from invading, at a time when guns could only fire one shot at a time with questionable accuracy, would lead to almost weekly mass shootings of innocent citizens.

I hope that Laurel Harper will join moms across America in demanding action from Congress on gun control. I’m one of those moms. Please don’t shoot me.

Our founding fathers were criminals and seditionists in the eyes of the British government.  And if they had the chance, they would have used any weapon at their disposal to shorten the war and ensure victory.  Your propositions are ridiculous.

Furthermore, storing guns isn’t any more dangerous than, say, storing typical household cleaning supplies, which can also kill you.  You just have to be responsible.  And no, I don’t believe in federal laws concerning the storage of household chemicals.  There is no inalienable right to wise parents.  Your propositions are ridiculous.

As for “please don’t shoot me,” I’m certainly okay with that, as long as you don’t come into my home and attempt to confiscate my guns.  Do we agree?