Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day—Molly Carter

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What has the 20th Century shown us about gun control? That an unarmed country is not a safe country. That when citizens don’t have the right to bear arms, governments can and do grow too large and become a threat to their people. That in the 20th Century, governments murdered four times as many people as those that were killed in all the world’s wars during that same time period. That millions more people were killed by their own governments than by criminals.

Molly Carter
American Gun Ownership: The Positive Impacts of Law-Abiding Citizens Owning Firearms
[The first publication of this essay is unclear to me. It was sometime in 2019 or earlier. I found it on many sites with the most recent being Zero Hedge (via email from Tony P.).

Reading it I was struck by so many references to materials from the 1990s that I suspected it was over 20 years old. Even the quote above appears it may have been derived from an article written by the late Mike Vanderboegh in June of 1999. This, however, does not detract from the substance. The truth is still the truth.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tana Senn

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I’ve never thought about it.

Tana Senn
Washington State Representative, 41st District
February 22, 2020
This was in response to the question, “What sort of gun law do you think would violate the Washington State constitution?”
[The Washington State constitution says:

SECTION 24 RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.

My guess is that she has never read it. Another guy at the town hall meeting asked a related question and she went off with something about the militia. Which, of course, might have been relevant if we didn’t have the Washington State constitution protection for the right to keep and bear arms clause and the Heller decision. The Heller decision, of course, making it very clear the militia clause does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to the militia.

I got the last question of the meeting and I decided to directly ask her to address the Washington State constitution clause. The QOTD above was the beginning of her response.

The rest of her response was about hunters, she has “no problem” with hunters—as long as they don’t use “military type guns” which are only for hunting humans. She was a bit more hesitant but also said she didn’t have a problem with people who wanted to have a gun to defend themselves.

But, of course, the Washington State constitution does not give lawmakers a “military type gun” loophole to write laws restricting individual possession and use of firearms.

I find her response very telling.

If she has never concerned herself with the limits to the power she has under the constitution this isn’t going to stop. Whatever restriction she and her type can get passed this year or next, or the year after is just another step toward the practical, if not literal, elimination of the right.

I was telling someone else about what Senn said and I got a surprising response:

Crazy must run in the family.

It turns out that Senn is is a first cousin, once-removed of former Washington state Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn. Deborah Senn had a reputation such that many people suspected she was a sociopath and perhaps had other psychology issues.

My live tweeting of the meeting:

This should be good evidence. I hope she enjoys her trial.—Joe]

Quote of the day—UBY: @ZubyMusic

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Nazism was attempted once. It killed 6 MILLION+ people and the ideology was abandoned. Those who promote it are rightly shunned.

Communism has been attempted multiple times, in multiple nations. It has killed 100 MILLION+ people. Yet many still think it’s a ‘good idea’.

UBY: @ZubyMusic
Tweeted on February 20, 2020
[It’s amazing the price people are willing to pay for “free” stuff.

It would appear to me that the only way to avoid repeating the many lessons in the history of communism and socialism is to increase the cost on those who attempt to implement it rather than on those it is implemented on.

Never give up your guns.—Joe]

It’s back….

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Two days ago I reported the good news that an oppressive gun control bill severely restricting magazines with capacity more than 15 rounds was defeated.

In the comments John Hardin suggested:

they could just convert it into an Appropriations bill, which has a longer deadline

This is exactly what they did:

A proposal to ban the sale of high-capacity gun magazines in Washington died after not receiving a vote by a key deadline Wednesday evening, but gun-control advocates quickly reloaded with a new proposal.

House Democrats failed to put a bill up for debate that would have banned magazines holding more than 15 rounds. It needed to pass the House by Wednesday to continue being considered in the 2020 session.

The bill was pulled from consideration by the full House after Republicans filed 120 amendments to be debated before a final vote on the bill could be taken, Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma said.

…

Later Thursday a new bill calling for a ban on the sale of magazines holding more than 15 rounds was filed in the House with a provision that would allow it to ignore the deadline.

Along with the policy that limits the number of rounds, it also calls for a buyback program that would compensate gun owners who turn in as many as five high-capacity magazines to the Washington State Patrol between this July 1 and June 30, 2021. To pay for the program, it proposes repealing the tax exemption for the sale of precious metals or bullion.

Bills that require the state to spend money or levy new taxes aren’t subject to Wednesdays if they are included in the General Fund budget. The House and Senate will release their supplemental budget proposals Monday.

I find it “interesting” they plan to tax sales of precious metals to pay for the confiscation of our magazines.

My representative and Senator have a townhall meeting tomorrow:

10:00 – 11:30 AM
Saturday, February 22
Bellevue College
Room N201
3000 Landderholm Circle SE
Bellevue

. I plan to attend. I already submitted questions via a webpage they provided.

Quote of the day—Lyle

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The underlying message in such talk of “gun violence” and “felons with guns” etc. is that violence, per se, is not the problem. If violence were the problem then the particular weapons being used wouldn’t be the central focus as they are now. They wouldn’t even be an issue.

Turning the populace into cattle, for the benefit of the “common good” (the rulers’ good) is the issue, and that means there must be disarmament.

So of course this is not, and has never been, about crime or violence or “public safety”. In the minds of the power-mad, common criminals are not the problem. Rather, YOU are the problem which needs to be “solved”; the more principled, peaceful, law-abiding and productive citizen patriot. The truth is a threat. You are the threat.

Lyle
February 20, 2020
Comment to Quote of the day—ReelFun.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—ReelFun

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the shooters in seattle a week ago have over 60 felonies between them and several each with firearm convictions. Why are they out of jail and on the street with more guns after those convictions? anyone with more than one conviction with firearm should be in jail for decades, not on the street after 30 days. Start there and there is all the data you need. put in jail felons with firearms period.

ReelFun
February 19, 2020
Comment to Pass bills to reduce firearm violence through research, limiting magazine capacity
[Truth. But, almost for certain, it will never happen in Seattle.

One of the reason this suggestion is almost never heeded by the progressives is because such criminals are their demographic. Remember, felons in prison who identify as Democrats outnumber all other political affiliations combined by a factor of two to one. Another reason is that firearm restrictions are not about reducing violent crime. It’s about making the average citizen more dependent upon the state and giving power and control to the government.—Joe]

Washington office of firearm violence prevention

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Via email from Luis we have this:

This bill just passed the senate, the implications are that, is almost certain that it will passed the house and become law.

This is a tax payer funded, new agency, to take your 2nd amendment rights, capable of issuing  grants to Bloomberg gun control organizations.

Heavy sigh.

If it were an agency with a charter to prevent criminal violence I won’t mind too much. But the way it is worded they could easily conclude that eliminating the use of firearms for self-defense is a positive goal and spend taxpayer money to achieve that goal.

Quote of the day—Julia Musto

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Criminal justice reform is a lot like gun control. It’s not about changing the rules for everyone. It’s about selectively enforcing them along political lines.

So for example, the left will lecture you for hours about gun crime and how afraid they are of guns and they hate guns and guns are bad. But they don’t really feel that way. They oppose stop and frisk, which saved thousands of lives by taking many thousands of guns off the street. But they’re totally opposed to that.

Meanwhile, they’re working deep into the night, for example, to disarm law-abiding Virginians in rural Virginia who commit essentially no violent crime and are a threat to no one.

They’re not for gun control. They are for punishing people who don’t vote for them, and the same thing is happening here.

The left doesn’t want criminal justice reform. If they did, they’d be on Roger Stone’s side. No. What they really want is to send their political enemies to jail and that’s what they’re trying to do.

Julia Musto
February 15, 2020
Tucker Carlson: Roger Stone case is about the left wanting to send political enemies to jail
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—David Kopel

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Tiers of scrutiny (strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, and the variants thereof) might sometimes be appropriate for judicial review of non-prohibitory gun regulations. Under Heller, bans on common arms are categorically unconstitutional, without need for use of the means-ends balancing tests of strict or intermediate scrutiny.

David Kopel
February 12, 2020
What arms are “common”?
Amicus brief challenging California rifle ban
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Washington state anti-gun bill action

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From the NRA ILA:

This week, two bills have been pulled from the House Rules Committee and are eligible for a vote at any time. Please contact your Representative and ask them to oppose House Bills 2240 and 2623!

House Bill 2240 bans the manufacture, possession, sale, transfer, etc. of magazines that hold more than fifteen rounds of ammunition. This bill is strongly supported by the Governor and the Attorney General. These so called “high capacity” magazines are in fact standard equipment for commonly-owned firearms that many Americans legally and effectively use for an entire range of legitimate purposes, such as self-defense or competition. Those who own non-compliant magazines prior to the ban are only allowed to possess them on their own property and in other limited instances such as at licensed shooting ranges or while hunting. Restricted magazines have to be transported unloaded and locked separately from firearms and stored at home locked, making them unavailable for self-defense. Anti-gun legislators are attempting to bring HB 2240 up for a floor vote on Sunday.

House Bill 2623 prohibits an individual from possessing firearms if they are convicted of the misdemeanor crime of unlawful aiming or discharge of a firearm. This poorly conceived legislation even applies to airguns and slingshots and has no exception for an individual aiming or discharging a firearm for self-defense purposes in a location that would have otherwise not been authorized.

Their web page on this makes it easy contact your representatives with a prewritten letter. You can also edit the letter to make it more personal.

Quote of the day—Rolf

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That’s the problem with too many rules: it rewards gaming the system more handsomely than actually being good, useful, productive, and wise.

Rolf
February 15, 2020
Comment to Quote of the day—Karlyn Borysenko
[Excellent observation!

Perhaps some elaboration is worthwhile. More rules restrict those who are rule followers. But those who are more “flexible” will see the advantages of bypassing the rules and do so when they cannot compete with the rule followers or desire the profits obtainable by disobeying the rules more than the safety of following them.

Those willing to bribe, blackmail, and threaten those who enforce the rules have an even greater advantage over those who follow the rules. And in fact, want even more rules created to hinder their competitors even more. And, of course, the enforcers and creators of rules/laws are more likely to become and/or attract corrupt people the greater the potential for profit from excess rules.

California state Sen. Leland Yee is a prime example.—Joe]

It has to be deliberate

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Last Monday Seattle passed a ban on evictions during winter months.

Sometime last week I read about the ordinance proposal and with zero emotional content to avoid a biased response mentioned it to Barb to see if what was obvious to me would be recognized by her as well. Her reaction was:

What? That’s crazy! Did that actually pass or did someone just propose it?

Good. It’s not just me.

We discussed it a bit. We concluded the action has to be deliberate. They have to know the side effects of this feels-good law will be the raising of rents to cover the loss of rent from those who abuse the loophole in the law.

You can see it in the laws that make it more and more difficult to acquire and use firearms to defend yourself against violent criminals. You can see it in the refusal to prosecute property crimes. You can see it in the use of the legal system to prosecute political enemies while giving political allies a pass.

As I have said before, these people are deliberately trying to destroy society.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Gary North

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The reason why gun control advocates want this right overturned is because they are in favor of centralized political control. They believe that their class, namely, the intellectual class, is in control of the agencies of civil government. For the most part, this assumption is correct. They assume that their class, and only their class, has the wisdom to allocate weapons. They believe that their class alone possesses the right to determine which citizen has access to weapons, under which circumstances, and for how long.

In effect, the gun-control advocate is rather like a medieval knight in the 15th century. He resents the fact that weapons are becoming cheaper, and that the common man who joins the Army becomes a threat to his social class, and therefore to his social standing. He resents the fact that his weapons no longer give him a monopoly of violence. Weapons have come onto the market, and these weapons can be used effectively by commoners who do not spend decades of training in their use.

Gary North
December 24, 2012
In Defense of the Second Amendment
[H/T to Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras for bringing this to my attention.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Fred Guttenberg

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Under no circumstance in no place in this country is the Second Amendment under attack.

Fred Guttenberg
February 11, 2020
CNN Gives Anti-Trump Heckler Forum to Bash Trump
[Delusions are often functional.

The reality is:

  • Laws which ban the possession of firearms by adults over 18 years old are infringements.
  • Laws which ban the public carry/bearing of arms in public are infringements.
  • Laws which require the permission of the government before purchase are infringements.
  • Laws which require registration of arms are infringements.

There are 10s of thousands of such laws. Someone who claims there is no attack on the Second Amendment is either delusional, ignorant, stupid, and/or telling a deliberate lie. In this particular case I’m going with delusional.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brian Moran

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Assault weapons are not protected by the Second Amendment because they are weapons of war.

Brian Moran
Virginia Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security
February 11, 2020
Virginia House passes ‘assault weapon’ ban
[Mr. Moran, SCOTUS disagrees with you. See US v. Miller, 1939.

Pass such a law and we will be seeing you in court. And, eventfully, I plan to enjoy your trial.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

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We’re grateful to the 18 attorneys general for joining the amicus, on behalf of the residents of their respective states. The right to bear arms does not end at the Illinois state line, and untold numbers of citizens from other states have occasion to travel to or through Illinois and they should not be expected to leave their right of self- defense at the border.

Alan Gottlieb
Chairman of SAF
February 9, 2020
45 American states ‘illegally affected’ by 1 state’s serious gun control: 18 attorneys general join fight against firearm restrictions
[The case before SCOTUS is here. It is scheduled to be in conference 10 days from now.

My quick review of the case leads me to believe Illinois is looking for excuses to not allow other state residents to apply for conceal weapon licenses. Their excuse is that they require proof the out of state resident isn’t disqualified by reason of felony conviction or mental health reasons. They claim::

while the Illinois State Police have direct access to information about the criminal and mental health history of Illinois residents, they lack access to such information about nonresidents.

I find that “interesting”. If someone were to move to their state and become a resident, do they magically have their databases filled with criminal and mental health history? If so, I’d like to learn their magic. I have some databases of my own I would like kept update by such means.

I didn’t read all the briefs, or even any in their entirety, but I did not see them address the issue of why someone so dangerous they cannot be allowed to carry a firearm is allowed to walk their public streets unescorted or obtain other dangerous items like gasoline and matches. If they are so concerned about people they consider dangerous because they don’t have databases entries on them why don’t the stop all traffic at the state border and demand their criminal and mental health records before being allowed entry? It’s because it’s the excuse, not the reason, to deny out of state people their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.

 The petitioners bring up a related point with this:

Respondents claim it is impossible to know if the non-resident carrying in Illinois, who has a concealed carry license in her home state, who is trusted to carry in her vehicle on Illinois roads, on Illinois private property, on Illinois firing ranges and hunting grounds, is nonetheless too dangerous or mentally ill to carry for self-defense and exercise her Second Amendment right anywhere else in the State.

The go on to destroy the fraudulent claim.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dan O’Kelly

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If you have a problem with the truth, who’s the bad guy?

Dan O’Kelly
February 7, 2020
Former ATF agent at center of legal dispute over AR-15
[The answer should be obvious. The problem is that the truth is a problem for a lot of people and they will insist the truth teller is the bad guy. Worst than that telling the truth can make you the enemy. And frequently it’s not just the enemy of one or a few people. You can be enemy of the state. In some countries that can get you prison or even death sentence.

O’Kelly is telling the truth and making himself the enemy of a lot of people. Fortunately, in this country he is unlikely to earn official sanctions from the government even though he is certainly making a lot of people in government very uncomfortable.

I wish him well in his continued truth telling.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dave Ellis

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Why a certain sector of elected officials, whose job is to serve the public, are hellbent on trampling individual rights, boggles the minds of clear thinking folks. I believe it has to do with power and control. The battle over gun control is not really about guns; it is about control.

Dave Ellis
February 3, 2020
St. Lawrence Co. gun owners seek to declare 2nd amendment sanctuary
[It may boggle your mind at first. But gradually it makes sense as you see it all around you. And what cements it is when you discover that not only do some people think like this:

And it is a thrill; it’s a high… I love it; I absolutely love it.  I was born to regulate.  I don’t know why, but that’s very true.  So as long as I’m regulating, I’m happy.

But, a lot of people think like that. They absolutely get off on coming up with ideas for controlling other people “for their own good”. Some people even literally believe they need to be in control of other people’s money because they know how to spend it better than the people who earned it.

These type of people are those who seek political office. And they are the type of people who should be kept away from the levers of political power. And when those type of people became too numerous and too powerful, that is why we have the Second Amendment.—Joe]