Americans should be mindful of the dangers of “emergency” decrees. History tells us that government diktats in response to man-made and natural disasters often lead to unprecedented restrictions on individual liberty that last long after the disasters are forgotten.
Stephen P. Halbrook
March 31. 2020
Will the Second Amendment Survive Coronavirus?
[I strongly agree.—Joe]
And never is the Second Amendment more important that during public unrest.
Carletta Whiting
March 22, 2020
[Never is a bit too strong of word but it’s close enough.—Joe]
We all might wish that evil men could be persuaded from their vile behavior with bleeding heart entreaties, a kiss on the cheek, or proper toilet training. But it ain’t that way, folks, Pacifism is a sickness, an actual moral perversity, and dangerous when its effects spread to anyone else beside the pacifist. You may choose to walk to the cattle car, but damn you if you let your children be led up the ramp. You must never allow any group or government to steal your right to exercise armed lethal force in a just situation.
Kirby Ferris
Research Director of JPFO
Violence solves a lot
1998
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
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]
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]
This is what the political left say about Trump supporters on national television:
America, this is what CNN thinks of you…
pic.twitter.com/puuVjRLlw1— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 28, 2020
Just imagine what they say when they think they have some privacy.
Oh! That’s right. We don’t need to imagine. We have the video.
There have now been FOUR @BernieSanders Field Organizers that were recorded praising Republican “re-education” gulags, violent revolution, and anarcho-communism.
State Directors have been locking their accounts.
The MSM remains silent. #Expose2020 pic.twitter.com/Al1tb2jI4P
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) January 29, 2020
Does anyone still wonder why they want to take our guns?
Here’s a challenge. Using your favorite Internet search engine, type in the words “No charges were filed” and see what happens. When the authors did this as part of our research, using Google we were advised that there were 925 million results.
Or try “No charges were filed in shooting” and one will find a more modest 30 million references. Even considering that there will be a multitude of repeat reports dealing with the same incidents, you are still talking about millions of self-defense uses of firearms. Some of these cases are intriguing and involve armed private citizens, while many involve police officers shooting suspects.
Alan Gottlieb & Dave Workman
2019
Good Guys With Guns, page 133
[It’s a fairly quick read. I think I did it about four hours while on a plane. I wouldn’t consider it required reading but it’s certainly worthwhile. It will enhance your collection of data for debates on the utility of gun ownership.—Joe]
At its heart, liberalism is a gnostic religion, and the essence of that religion is the believer’s faith that he possesses the means of changing the world for the better. The belief that the world must be changed requires there to be a mass of individuals whose lives are in need of change. Following this logic, it is the liberal, not those deplorables in need of change, who knows what must be changed. For liberals, there must be a mass of people in need of this knowledge for life to make sense.
Jeffrey Folks
February 24, 2018
Leftists versus the People
[Substitute “leftist” for “liberal” and “socialism/communism” for “liberalism” of course.
It’s a reasonable hypothesis that would appear, in the general case, to fit the available data. If true, we must conclude they despise the very concept of individual rights and respond appropriately.—Joe]
The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom.
Robert A Heinlein
1942
Beyond this Horizon
[This is the same character in the same book which made this famous quote.
Also, from here:
This should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer of the 20th Century. But somehow many people have not done much observing and/or have no interest in civil freedom.—Joe]
Anytime someone talks about taking away your ability to defend yourself you’re in danger.
Chad Prather
November 11, 2019
Chad Prather: ‘Anytime someone talks about taking away your ability to defend yourself, you are in danger.’
[And, as frequently pointed out by pkoning:
Never forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anyone has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn’t let him do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians.
Alexander Hope
In the novel “Hope” by Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman.
And there are a lot of people talking about taking away our ability, and even right, to defend ourselves.
Respond appropriately.—Joe]
Yes, the framers intended We the People to have “weapons of war”.
Where in the 2nd amendment does it say that civilians can have one form of arms and the govt can have the superior form?
If that were true then what type of equal playing field would that leave us with?
Antonia Okafor Cover @antonia_okafor
Tweeted on November September 23, 2019
[See also United States v. Miller 59 S.Ct. 816(1939).—Joe]
The only reason why the government would want to disarm you after 243 years is because they intend to do something that you would shoot them for.
Kathy Zhu @PoliticalKathy
Tweeted on November 7, 2019
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
There are zero reasons to believe a gun offers personal protection against a felon or any protection against any attack. Normal people don’t have the disregard for life to pull the trigger against a threat. The felon enters the scene prepared to shoot at the slightest resistance. Guns are virtually useless for personal protection.
Prosper
Posted at Democratic Underground on November 2, 2019
[Interesting. Apparently in this world view the police and military are not “normal” people. Nor are the thousands of ordinary citizens who fire their guns in self-defense each year. I think the more likely case is this is a troll.
If someone with children tries to make a such a claim ask them if they would be unable to shoot someone about to beat their young child with a club.
If they have no children of their own then ask about a mass shooter at a children’s school. Do they think they would be unable to pull the trigger if the alternative were to run away and/or watch a dozen or more children be killed?
If they are unable to pull the trigger when confronted with murderous evil in action then it is they who are not normal and should be treated as such.
Continuing on a different path…
Even if we were to grant the absurd proposition that 90% of the population can be characterized in this fashion there is still a problem. The statistics of the masses cannot justify denying the individual their right to defend themselves using the most effective tool for the job.
This type of person belongs in a collective of some sort. They apparently have no concept of the individual or individual rights.—Joe]
Gun confiscation is the goal. Gun confiscation has always been the goal. Thanks to a recent outburst by 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Robert (Beto) Francis O’Rourke, potentially millions more Americans are now aware of this fact.
NRA-ILA
September 20, 2019
Beto’s Confiscation Plan Shows Why Gun Owners Must Reject Appeasement
[This quote, from over a month ago, is nothing new. It’s mostly my lead in to this:
The NRA’s PAC raked in $1.3 million in total contributions throughout September, an increase of nearly $400,000 from its previous month, with an overwhelming majority of its cash haul coming from small donors. Of the $1.3 million, $981,277 was sent from individuals contributing less than $200. September was the fourth month in 2019 that the PAC has collected at least $1 million; it currently has $10 million on hand.
…
FEC documents show the NRA PAC brought in $50,902.20 from itemized donors before Beto’s comments on September 12—about $4,627 per day. After them, the group brought in $276,208.20—about $15,344 per day. That represents a threefold increase in daily giving to the gun-rights group.
…
The Giffords PAC, which works to elect gun-control proponents, reported just $11,000 in contributions in September, a major drop from the $195,000 it reported in August. Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund, an independent-expenditures only PAC, does not have to submit its next report until the end of the year. However, its mid-year report showed that the committee was given just $5,000, which was transferred from the group’s action fund. The Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, Inc. PAC has taken in just $18,000 this year from six donors and currently has less than $90,000 cash on hand.
…
The more than $10 million in the bank the NRA PAC ended September with is more than three times that of Beto O’Rourke, and even outpaces Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden.
There are multiple ways to spin this:
It may be insightful to read the entire Mao quote. Marxism, Socialism, Communism all require a powerful government to enforce the redistribution of food, housing, health care, jobs, etc. to the politically loyal. A government can increase their power in absolute terms by increased spending on the military and/or police. More subtly, they can increase their relative power by reducing the private ownership of guns. The second route is less costly and less likely to alarm the general population. In fact, the second route can be, and is, spun as improving the safety and security of the average person even as it makes them more and vulnerable to the abuse of government power.
It should come as no surprise the Marxists, socialists and communist running for the most powerful political positions in the world want to take your guns. And if you value your freedom, wealth, and health don’t allow these villains access to the power they crave.—Joe]
I would like Swalwell, Biden, O’Rourke, and Harris to note that what US gun owners consider play time is what a major news outlet can mistake for a major military offensive by the Forces of a NATO nation. Tell us again how resisting a tyrannical government is futile.
Carl Bussjaeger
October 14, 2019
Overwhelming Military Force
[This was in regards to what I posted about yesterday: Layers of fact checkers.—Joe]
We can’t worry about inflaming the right anymore. Their inflammation is an “itis” that has no cure and the only treatment is to excise it.
Kelly Ann Pollard (@KellyPol55)
Tweeted on October 7, 2019
[Not the “extreme right”. Not the “alt-right”. Just the “right”.
The tweet above was replied to by Mick Collins @BroknHeadphones who said:
and cauterize the wound
This is what they think of you. This is what they want done with you and your family. They no longer hide it. They use their real names.
We are at war.—Joe]
Update: Ms. Pollard responded to me on Twitter:
Mr Huffman, will you please take this tweet down and remove this reference from your blog? I was speaking as a nurse and with regards to voting. Thank you.
I declined the request and invited her to make a comment on my blog. She declined my invitation.
If she intended to refer to voting she was certainly obscure in her reference. I’m skeptical that was her real intention.
Of all the places to argue that only the government should be trusted with guns, Beto O’Rourke picked…Kent State University.
Eric Boehm
September 27, 2019
Beto Goes to Kent State, Argues Only the Government Can Be Trusted With Guns
[One might claim Beto pegged the irony meter. More careful reflection should bring to mind that leftist governments regard shooting disarmed civilians with little or no risk a feature, not a bug.—Joe]
Recently, we learned that Florida is apparently using its “red flag” law an average of five times a day.
Five times per day. That’s 1,825 people flagged per year.
…
“Red flag” goes into effect. Homicides go up. Firearm homicides go up. Suicides go up.
They don’t work. The vast majority of firearm homicides are committed by people who aren’t supposed to have guns anyway, and who will get them; generally in an unlawful fashion.
“Red flag” laws may even make suicides worse, by aggravating already disturbed people while leaving them on the loose to die by other means, and by not Baker Acting them so they get help. If I’m correct, 2019 suicide numbers in Florida may well be even worse than the significant increase of 2018.
Carl Bussjaeger
September 28, 2019
Florida Red Flag Law: How is it working out?
[Great research!
If only the facts mattered. As anti-gunner Joe Biden said “We choose truth over facts.”
These things will have be resolved in some other way than public debate and legislative action, perhaps the courts, because facts are mostly irrelevant to the political left.—Joe]
Union County high school teacher reportedly told students VP Pence should be ‘shot in the head’
A Union County high school teacher is under investigation after reportedly making threatening comments to a class of students, saying the vice president should be shot.
The Cuthbertson High School teacher called out VP Mike Pence while he was visiting NC, allegedly telling her students he should be “shot in the head.”
Leftists are inherently violent. It’s part of their nature. The 100+ million people murdered in the 20th Century by their own government were almost all victims of socialist and communist governments. It should come as no surprise those on the political left in this country want to murder their political opponents as well. And this explains the increasing shrillness to ban the guns most useful to defend ourselves from them. They are just more visible in the expression of their intents now than they have been in the last 40 years.
