Each month when I write about our right to keep and bear arms, it’s difficult to predict what the state of play will look like by the time this article hits your mailbox. This is especially so when it comes to the dizzying array of fake news from an opposition that is not only increasingly desperate but also increasingly detached from reality.

This time, however, The Washington Post made it easy. In July, the Post published a story that is so ridiculous, so outlandish in its shading of the truth, that it may very well take its place alongside Rolling Stone’s timelessly ludicrous “expose” on America’s five most dangerous guns (i.e., pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns, and derringers). The story ran under the headline: “Gun-control advocates pushed back a tough year at the state level, and they’ll take the win.”  The basic premise of the Post article is that gun control is “winning” because it’s not losing as badly as it conceivably could.

That’s right. According to The Washington Post—maybe America’s second-most prominent nationwide newspaper—“gun control” is “winning” at the state level in 2017.

…

The Post article glosses over the fact that the ratio of pro to anti-gun bills actually signed into law at press time was 20:1. Only in the modern era of fake news running amok would that ratio result in the clear loser proclaiming victory and the media reporting it as true.

Chris Cox
August 25, 2017
Gun Control Advocates, Cheered on by the Media, Claim Victory in Losing
[This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. We’ve know for a long time anti-gun people can’t even do numbers, let alone arithmetic.—Joe]

They say we need a “conversation” on guns in America. A common sub-argument is that pro-gun people need to stop saying “No” every time those who prefer a disarmed populace suggest more restrictions on the honest folks who didn’t kill any innocents in Newton.

We already had that conversation.

We had it in 1791, and settled the issue with the second amendment to the Constitution protecting a preexisting right to keep and bear arms. Gun banners being the whack-a-moles of civil rights violation, we had that conversation several times: Cruikshank and Presser come to mind.

More recently, we again had that conversation in 2008, when the Supreme Court pointed out that yes, the second amendment really does protect an individual right to keep and bear arms in Heller.

Chi-town pols didn’t like that, so we had the conversation yet again in 2010. The Supreme Court again pointed out that arms really are a right, and that it really is an individual right, in McDonald.

Victim disarmers are slow learners, forever doomed to riding the short bus through life, so we had the conversation yet-a-frickin’-gain in 2012: Moore v. Madigan, in which a federal judge had to lecture the poor, cognitively-challenged pols of Illinois (who have trouble even finding the short bus) in small words that, WHACK-upside the head “Pay attention, dipsticks; we told you it’s a right of the individual people, so stop screwing with it.”

And here we are: Once more, idiots who shouldn’t be on the streets without a guardian to wipe the drool off their faces, change their diapers, and keep them out of the road, are calling for the “conversation”. Like whiny children pestering exasperated parents over and over and over and over for a coveted-but-terribly-bad-for-you present, they keep ignoring the settled issue. “But China does it. What can’t we make all the citizens helpless, too?” they pontificate petulantly. (Yeah, China does it. That’s why their lunatic had to cut up those 22 Chinese schoolchildren with a knife a few days before Newton. Guns bans sure solved China’s violence problems.)

We had that conversation, and explained in words that anyone with an IQ greater than their shoe size should have been able to comprehend: “the security of a free state”, the right to life and liberty, self defense. At this point, anyone who doesn’t—or won’t—get it probably falls into one or more of three categories:

• whining mental incompetents
  

• those with a “professional” need to ensure a steady supply of helpless victims for violent predators
  

• and those with a more extensive agenda

You might abbreviate those as morons, criminals, and traitors. None of which are really interested in reasoned conversation.

Carl Bussjaeger
July 14, 2017
We Had That Conversation
[I hinted at this in the post, Been there. Done that. Let’s move on. That was almost exactly five years ago. Our opponents are ignorant, stupid, and/or evil.—Joe]

Michael Hammond, legislative counsel for Gun Owners of America, claimed that “he’s ‘probably’ the guy who, after the Newtown massacre, killed the bipartisan bill that would’ve required background checks on commercial sales of guns. He had ‘a very big role’ in designing opposition in the Senate.” That’s too bad. I would have preferred a guy who “probably” pushed through legislation so that not one more person since that massacre was ever shot in the United States. Let’s work toward that — keeping everyone safe and preventing any danger of anyone being shot ever again. We need gun control.

David Fallick
July 24, 2017
We need gun control
[If Fallick believes there is legislative action possible such that “not one more person since that massacre was ever shot in the United States” he has to be the all-time winner of the Crap for Brains award.

That is industrial grade stupidity.—Joe]

It’s about the gun lobbies, the people who — you know, it’s all about money in people’s pockets — the people who argue this and say, “We want our rights to guns.” Nobody is trying to take away your guns. If you want to go shoot, you know, whatever, in the woods, that’s fine, but it’s a hobby. If your hobby is [affecting] innocent people being killed all the time, children included, don’t you think you should reconsider the lack of restrictions placed on your hobby?

Chelsea Handler
June 6, 2017
Chelsea Handler Talks Gun Violence, Activism and Kathy Griffin
[Amazing! The stupid and/or ignorance is so abundant she has trouble expressing it.

The gun lobbies she refers to represent gun owners, not gun manufactures. How can it be “all about money in people’s pockets”? It’s not.

“Nobody is trying to take away your guns”? Wrong.

“It’s a hobby”. No. It’s a natural right which is specific enumerated for protection against government infringement.

“Don’t you think you should reconsider the lack of restrictions placed on your hobby?” No. Don’t you think you should reconsider your speaking in public when you are so profoundly stupid and/or ignorant?—Joe]

Update: I’d like to add that it’s called The Bill of Rights. Not The Bill of Hobbies.

If there’s one thing gun owners in America don’t need, it’s the star of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” telling them whether or not they can own and operate firearms.

Zachary Leeman
Just What We Need: Kim K Calls for Gun Control
[I think what is happening is a perverted form of “argument by authority”. If someone has a high status/visibility they are viewed, by some, as being an authority regardless of the subject matter. I suspect it is “hardwired” into our brains and served a valuable evolutionary purpose. Just because someone is well known, that, obviously, does not make them a subject matter expert. But at some level it satisfies a need for an authority opinion on the subject.

When, in high school, I first noticed this sort of thing I thought it was one of the most bizarre things I had ever heard of. Decades later during the I-676 campaign our anti-gun opponents used the approach and I was confused. Who, I wondered, would care whether some well known, but ignorant and/or stupid, person supported a law. Our side ended up doing the same thing and I still thought it was weird and felt rather “soiled” to be associated with that. But now, decades later, I realize that advertising uses celebrity endorsements all the time and they wouldn’t do that if wasn’t effective. If it works, it’s not stupid.

I still think it’s weird but I now think of it as a quirk of our brain evolution. Most people do not have a process by which they can accurately determine if something is true or false. Having such a process is an, in evolutionary timescales, extremely recent development. A quick and dirty test to determine truth of falsity that improved the odds of a correct determination by 20% is a huge evolutionary advantage over a ecological niche competitor. And quick and dirty test can even beat out competitors which use a more rigorous test that takes much longer. Hence even when more rigorous tests are available something as stupid as getting your firearms law recommendations from Kim Kardashian will feel entirely appropriate to people who appear to function normally. This is because it works often enough that they don’t remove themselves from gene pool.—Joe]

I’M NOT AGAINST GUNS AND I’M NOT AGAINST PEOPLE OWNING GUNS. AFTER WHAT HAPPENED TO ME IN PARIS, I KNOW HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO BE SAFE AND TO HAVE ARMED SECURITY. ALL OF MY SECURITY TEAM IS ARMED, BUT THEY ALSO SUPPORT STRICTER GUN CONTROL LAWS AND BELIEVE THAT WE SHOULD RESTRICT ACCESS TO FIREARMS FOR PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS, ANYONE PREVIOUSLY CONVICTED OF A MISDEMEANOR, THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN SUBJECT TO A TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER AND THOSE AT A HIGHER RISK OF COMMITTING GUN VIOLENCE.

I HOPE THAT WE WON’T BECOME NUMBED BY THE INCREASING NUMBER OF GUN-RELATED TRAGEDIES WE SEE ON THE NEWS. WE ALL HAVE A VOICE AND A RIGHT TO FEEL SAFE, TO BE PROTECTED FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE A THREAT, PARTICULARLY WHEN HANDED A DEADLY WEAPON. I WANT TO HELP BUILD A SAFER FUTURE FOR MY CHILDREN AND I BELIEVE TOGETHER WE CAN FIND WAYS TO DO THAT, WHILE STILL PROTECTING THE RIGHTS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

Kim Kardashian
June 2, 2017
FAVS
[Via Elle.

I recognize the difficulty the anti-gun people have in getting knowledgeable people to support their side, but they really should keep highly visible dimwits on a shorter leash. This dimwit is advocating for the denying someone convicted of shoplifting a jar of baby food 30 years ago their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. On top of that she believes she has a right to feel safe and to be protected.

However, the topper is that one paragraph after advocating for the explicit infringement upon the rights of people she claims, “we can find ways to do that, while still protecting the rights of the American people”. You can’t find ways to infringe upon the rights of people while protecting their rights.

This conclusively demonstrates she has crap for brains.—Joe]

The silencers are an accessory to make up for the loss of guns sales since President Obama left office.

They’ve sold the Barbies, and now they need to sell the Barbie Dreamhouse, and the Barbie shoes, and the Barbie car. That is essentially what suppressors are.

Shannon Watts
Founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America
May 29, 2017
Gun lobby seeks to calm fears about silencers
[Watts and her left wing ilk apparently believe that money is the motivation for everything and/or that motivation by money it is an evil impulse. Hence by lying about the NRA being primarily monetarily rewarded for firearm related sales Watts thinks it will generate more support for her position. All it really does is demonstrate she is clueless and/or has evil intent.—Joe

Update: It occurs to me that this is also about insulting gun owners. She is dismissing our exercise of a specific enumerated right as the equivalent of “playing with dolls”. ]