It could be this was ignorance of the investigators or a communications error somewhere along the way but a fact checker or someone should have caught this before it went public:
When investigators arrived they found shell casings from a .380 magnum and an AK-47 at the scene in the 3900 block of North Lansing Place.
A “.380 magnum”? That would be something like a 9mm Lugar, right?
CBS is reporting that the ATF has been deliberately letting gun runners take guns into Mexico since 2008! I find that very interesting.
If I were a paranoid person I would be tempted to say it was all an elaborate plan to justify making U.S. gun laws more restrictive to “solve” the problem the U.S. government created.
I love exploring questions like this. “Common sense” laws that nearly everyone agrees with end up being in conflict with each other:
The Oregon Supreme Court Thursday debated whether a state statute is at odds with federal law in a case involving a Medford marijuana patient who was denied a concealed weapons permit.
Appearing before nearly 200 law school students, the seven justices convened at Willamette University College of Law in Salem and focused on whether the statute conflicts with the intent of the federal Gun Control Act of 1968.
We’ve been talking about this for several years here. Who can tell us how Rand Paul utterly failed in this interview;
ETA; YouTube imbedding has been disable for this video, but you can still see it here.
Letterman make a pretty good attempt at it, but Paul is left like a deer in the headlights and didn’t even make the attempt. As Rand herself would say; “Blank-out.” Then she would go on to explain how the self described conservative voices are the worst, most deadly enemies of conservatism.
I give him a C minus as a junior high school student. He did show having done some homework and some listening in class, but I’d flunk him from high school. Maybe it was just nerves, but I don’t buy that. You don’t forget your main point– the thing you’ve ostensibly been striving for all your professional life. I kept waiting for it– fully expecting it, but alas. Maybe he’s just another Republican.
Anyone?
HT to theblaze.com
Interesting isn’t it, how the left has always hated America-loving Bible Thumpers, but has no problem at all with America-hating Koran Thumpers?
West would make a great president, I’m thinking. Too bad the video isn’t subtitled. The CAIR rep, when confronted by West, I think, responds; “Hakkalakka, Muhammad jihad! Derka derka!” but I can’t quite make it out so I’m not sure. The CAIR people aren’t accustomed to having anyone correct their ridiculous assertions. I guess they’ll have to start learning on the job.
Hat tip to Glen Beck, who mentioned this on the radio this morning.
There sure is a lot of talk about it, but little discussion of it. Where is it written that public service employees (formerly known as public servants) have a right to collective bargaining? Regular citizens have rights. Government employees have responsibilities. Do your job and quit yer bitchin’ or get out and get a real job– start your own business. Whatever. Just shut up and go away. We never really needed most of you in those public positions in the first place.
I’m not so sure we should ever allow them to organize. That’s what regular folks do, once in a while, and even then their employers have the right to collectively fire them.
Surely the public servants’ “right” to collective bargaining should come with the right to be collectively fired. Maybe it’s time to grant them the latter, over there in Wisconsin.
Somehow an angry rent-a-mob of Marxist beatniks and global “One Big Union” socialist revolutionaries demanding more goodies from the pockets of taxpayers doesn’t sit right. They’re certainly not what they want to be– equal in principle to civil rights marchers. Not even remotely.
Since they’re pissed off at the state government and trying to stifle the democratic process therein, shouldn’t we be calling them Angry, Anti Government Protestors? I’ll say they’re just exactly the same as Timothy McVeigh. What the hell; they’re incipient terrorists. If it’s good for the goose…
I say fire the lot, eliminate half the positions permanently, and cut all state taxes by half. Tomorrow. That would do for a start. There’d be some breathing room for new start-up business and a rapidly shrinking deficit. I don’t see a down side.
For being published in a San Francisco newspaper this is a fairly balanced article claiming Texas will soon ease the restrictions on both students and professors exercising their right to keep and bear arms on college campuses.
I have been reading some of the anti-gun people’s thoughts on the events in Egypt recently and a particular theme appeared.
From Colin and Andy Goddard:
If instead of staging peaceful demonstrations, Egyptian protesters been armed with guns, it is highly likely that the Egyptian military, equipped with billions of dollars worth of weapons supplied free of charge by our own government, would have retaliated. That would have produced massive casualties among both the armed and unarmed Egyptians.
From Brady Campaign board member Joan Peterson:
If things had gone otherwise and the military had decided to side with President Mubarek instead of the people, what good would pistols and shotguns have done against tanks and machine guns? I say, not much. It would likely have elevated the violence and increased the potential for deaths and injuries.
This theme bothered me but I didn’t quite have the words to express my discomfort. Then I found them here. This is from Reuben Ainsztein’s book Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe page 585:
The Jewish leaders, however, rejected the offer, arguing that if they behaved quietly the Germans might deport and murder 20,000 or 30,000, perhaps even 60,000 of them, but it was inconceivable that they should destroy the lot; while if they resisted, the Germans would certainly do so.
I fully agree that going to the street in a massive, anticipated to be peaceful, protest while being openly armed is generally not a good idea. I agree that making every reasonable effort to avoid violence is a good idea. It does not follow that the general population is better off without owning firearms the government is unaware of. It does not follow that once the government begins killing innocent people that non-violence is the best response.
The anti-gun people may be channeling the thoughts of the Jews prior to the Final Solution but the Jews hindsight is surely superior and it is those thoughts you should attempt to channel.
de·MOC·ra·cy – Noun – 1. The takeover of a state government by a state employee’s union, often resulting in ever increasing tax rates, and the eventual bankruptcy of the state.
They’re actually shouting, “Freedom! Democracy! Unions!” as though the three were compatible, while the democrats refuse to allow a vote. All this over a proposal that might get their 3.6 billion dollar budget deficit down to 3.3 billion. In two years.
Via theblaze.com we find Noam Chomsky (yeah, that Noam Chomsky) wants what happened in Egypt to happen in Wisconsin, stating that the governor has “eviscerated” democracy in the state;
The blatant rejection of all reason is on parade.
The term has often been one that garners respect, as though the public servant is someone donating his or her time out of a sense of duty and purpose. “Serving” the public and milking the public are somewhat different concepts though. Someone who makes over $100K in a small town public school, for example, with a nice medical insurance policy and a nice pension is a “servant” while someone doing much the same thing in the private sector for half the pay and no pension, supporting himself while paying the taxes to support the Public Servant, is not a servant at all. The private entrepreneur is “greedy”. Right? Greed and the profit motive are one in the same thing, right? That’s what you’ve been taught, I bet.
What do you call a group of public servants, coercively funded, that has been organized, has huge political influence, and is currently helping to bankrupt several states? Is that public service, or is it something else?
Some state governments are starting to realize that the gravy train for the selfless public servants is running dry– that something major needs to change. The response from the selfless servants is that they’re taking to the streets.
I’ve been saying for years that public education, by its very nature and structure, was destined to become a de facto political party (which of course it is) with one of its goals being the indoctrination of the students to a certain political and world view amenable to the desires of the government/education complex. It’s a given. It’s an inevitability. A guarantee. A system based on coercive funding, that would teach and promote the principles of liberty, and the protection of property rights that are fundamental to liberty, would be in a perpetual conflict of interest. That cannot last. I did not last.
That has been considered an ultra-extremist point of view by many. You just don’t say those things in mixed company. I’ve also pointed out that the fastest way to lose a friend who’s complaining about his “small budget” or “low pay” in a public position, is to tell him he can always quit, get a job in the private sector and find out exactly what he’s worth. You’d better step back before you say something like that, because violence will be on his mind. Who’s more “extreme”; the person stating a simple truth, which is obvious to anyone who’s operated a business, or the person who wants to punch you in the face for saying it? If a simple truth is now to be considered extreme, what does that say about the current state of our culture?
So it has came to pass, that the teachers have taken to the streets, bringing their students with them (and you said public education was never about indoctrination. No; couldn’t be. That would be bad, and we all know that teachers are saints) to demand more goodies from a state that they helped bankrupt. To hell with the state government. To hell with the governor who’s trying to keep the state out of bankruptcy. To hell with everything and everyone; we want more goodies! To hell with the public! (Look at the signs they’re carrying)
These are our sefess “servants” who care about nothing in the world but the common good, and we’re going to be seeing a lot more of this sort of thing from them. It is an inevitability, where ever and when ever we have the arrogance to believe that WE can get away with having a coercion-based system, because WE can afford it, because WE are so very, very smart and compassionate. This is going to keep happening as sure as you are reading this, and it is going to escalate. This is the result of our “Compassion“.
Have you noticed that the very word “conspiracy”, like so many words, no longer means what it means?
Last night as I was listening to a conservative talk show, the host demonstrated this by saying; “This isn’t a conspiracy– it really happened”.
I may have to add an entry to the Left-Speak Dictionary. Conspiracy – that which does not exist. Something unreal. Any irrational assertion.
The transformation is so advanced that even mostly rational, well-educated people are using it in the left-speak form.
It’s no longer necessary to include the “theory” afterward, either. You use “conspiracy” by itself and it means the same thing; “Oh, that’s just a conspiracy” is now proper English in some quarters, for describing a ridiculous theory. What are we to call a collaboration between two or more people then? How about “fred”? “It’s a fred, I tell you! A fred!” What are we to call an assertion that there may be a collaboration between two or more people? A fred blop. “I do not subscribe to your fred blop, Mr. Wilson, for the following reasons….”
Insurance against financial hardship in the event of an expensive medical emergency is how “healthcare”. “Yeeahh; it’s a bummerrr, Dude– I don’t have healthcare.” If healthcare is now insurance, what do we call insurance?
Make that two new entries.
I’d like to have a lot more gay (formerly cheerful and/or exuberant) intercourse (formerly any interaction, often especially conversation) with you here, but sometimes it’s difficult to get in the mood. All the hope (formerly communist revolution) that’s been breaking out is getting me down. I believe the evidence suggests that there is a greater-than-zero probability that it is the result of a collaboration between two or more people. Does that make me “paranoid”?
Make that three.
When I heard of “ghost cities” I first thought of places like Detroit– a city essentially bombed out by leftist policies. Instead there are all these stories of empty cities being built in China.
I don’t know what to think. On one hand the stories could be a hoax, but then I realize that communists do the stupidest things imaginable already, over and over, and they never seem to learn anything. Why not build an empty city?
That’s always the problem, isn’t it? It’s hard to tell when a leftist is making fun of himself or being serious, or when someone parodying leftists or telling the truth about them. There really isn’t any clearly definable difference.
Why is Mayor Bloomberg concerned about law enforcement in my county? Maybe I should send undercover deputies to New York.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio
January 31, 2011
[I think I might like that. Go Joe!—Joe]
That’s the assertion of all leftists (communists, socialists, Fascists, Nazis, the KKK, Progressives, or whatever it is they prefer to be called this week). Here’s one of the super duper smart people (Chuck Schumer) discussing the horrible things (naturally) that will ensue if the socialists don’t get their way, and the Three Branches of Government that all have to get along. Rather than imbed the video, I link to Schumer’s comment here, to show that Reasoned DiscourseTM has broken out on YouTube (at the time of the this post, comments are turned off there).
To summarize the ultrasmart senator’s comments; our creditors want us to go farther in debt, and the three branches of government are the House, Senate, and the President. Oh; and we have to “…pay the debt ceiling…” Well it’s good to know that the smart people are in charge of ordering us around. I’d hate to be pushed around by a fool.
This, says I, is why we can’t allow the smart people the power to make our decisions for us. Don’t tell anyone (it may be too uncomfortable for some of the sensitive types) but some people are so stupid that they actually believe they’re smarter than most everyone else. What is it that’s said of those who have such problems– that they’re usually the last to know?
I suppose New Yorkers like Schumer because he brings them lots of booty. Or they think he does.
I just finished reading the ATF Study on the Importability of Certain Shotguns. Say Uncle and Sebastian already have posts up so check those out too.
My take away is that the ATF have a tough job in trying to enforce the import restrictions on firearm not suitable for sporting purposes. They struggle with how to define “sporting purpose”. They concluded IPSC and USPSA don’t qualify because those sports didn’t exist when the 1968 Congress passed the law and hence they must have meant the types of sports common at the time. In this case originalism works against us. If you recall the 1998 report (I probably have it around someplace I remember reading it and getting upset at the time) they pointed out that if the “sporting purpose” restriction is to mean anything at all then it must be a rather static definition. If it were not then some sport could be invented such that the restricted gun was particularly well suited for that particular sport and the restriction would have to be lifted. Hence the law would become meaningless.
I understand where they are coming from and once you accept they are tasked with enforcing this stupid law they are probably taking the most rational approach. For this reason I mostly give them a pass on this issue. Our real beef should be with Congress and possibly the courts.
Yes, it seems like the “sporting purpose” requirement should be easy to get thrown out by the courts because the Heller decision said the Second Amendment wasn’t about duck hunting—it was about self-defense and the militia. Hence any firearm that was useful for self-defense and military service (as per the Miller decision as well) would be explicitly protected by the Second Amendment. In the recent study they explicitly call out military purpose shotguns and accessories as being grounds to forbid the importation of them. Just exactly backwards from Miller and Heller. There might also be an “unconstitutionally vague” approach that could be used here too.
But to a large extent taking things to court is like rolling the dice unless you have lots of case law backing you up. In our situation there is probably a lot of case law against us and it will have to be evaluated at a higher level before things go our way. Hence I think the first thing that should be done is to get to Congress to remove the “sporting purpose” language from firearms law. The worst case downside of failure with this approach is things don’t change. In the case of taking things to court the worst case downside is that we get some terrible precedent established that is difficult or impossible to get out from under and it affects far more firearms than those being blocked from importation.
One of the most interesting sections of the study is actually a little off topic.
The following is from page 2 when discussing the background of the sporting purpose language:
This section addresses Congress’ concern that the United States had become a “dumping ground of the castoff surplus military weapons of other nations,” in that it exempted only firearms with a generally recognized sporting purpose.
I read this to mean that congress was trying to protect domestic manufactures from competition by foreign nations. Although I suppose it could also be interpreted as a concern that foreign nations would be able to more easily upgrade their equipment by getting cash for their old gear.
If this pundit is to be believed President Obama’s state of the Union speech will be one of unity not divisiveness. This is great news for gun owners and a slap in the face to the Brady Campaign who has been begging him for some attention.
Of course it could be the pundit considers restrictions on firearms to be non controversial but I’m certain President Obama knows better.
If the pundit is correct about the tone then I believe we are in good shape and Robb is going to be needing to send out few special Sad Panda bears later this week.
The following was written entirely by Leon Harris for publication on this blog.
You may have heard the recent news story about Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords. She was shot (along with several other bystanders) while making a public appearance in Tucson just a few short weeks ago. The gun in question: a Glock. While many are quick to say that such a powerful handgun should be blacklisted on the American market, they are probably not aware of just how prevalent this gun is in our culture. In fact, the Glock 9mm is one of the most popular handguns in circulation today, owned not only by private citizens, but considered the preferred firearm of police officers across the country. There’s no denying that this gun has mass appeal, and when you look at the particulars, it’s easy to see why.
The company that makes this gun is located in Austria, but even gun enthusiasts that support locally-made products will likely find this firearm attractive. Not only is the weapon semi-automatic (making it legal to own and a lot of fun to fire), it is also lightweight and extremely reliable. Made from composite plastic, Glocks are much lighter and easier to handle than their competitors (although other features are similar to any number of comparable firearms). However, this one outstanding innovation has helped to catapult them to the top of the heap.
It is for this reason that they are extremely popular with law enforcement. For a long time, it seemed that being on the right side of the blue line meant playing a constant game of catch-up as the criminal element always seemed to possess bigger and better weapons. When the Glock hit the U.S. market in the ‘80s, it was like a godsend for police officers. They seized upon the weapon as an equalizing force to confront gangs and other criminals that had been one step ahead before. And it performed admirably, so much so that nearly two-thirds of any given police force carries them as a personal sidearm to this day.
Of course, the law wasn’t the only element to recognize the allure of the Glock. Gun-toting law-breakers also claim this firearm as a weapon of choice (although most criminals won’t hesitate to supplement their arsenal with fully automatic guns and other illegal weapons). And of course, the average man about town might also house such a weapon in his home for both protection and recreational purposes. After being shot, Gabrielle Giffords herself admitted to owning a Glock, claiming to be “a pretty good shot”.
Although Glocks have garnered some media attention for their lethal force and rapid action, making them only one of many controversial firearms, they remain one of the most popular guns in the world today. And the fact that they are endorsed by law enforcement officials bodes well for their continued circulation, despite the fact that a few criminals and nut-jobs are trying to ruin it for everyone. As handguns go, you can’t get much better than the Glock. They have, in many ways, revolutionized how we look at firearms, and to suggest that they be sent to legal detention because of a few heavily publicized incidents is not only unacceptable, but likely an impossible scenario.
Leon Harris writes for Silencer Co where you can find a variety of the highest quality suppressors tailored to your needs.
If the president doesn’t get involved then it’s not going to convince anybody in Congress or the Senate.
Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy
January 19, 2011
Empty Barrel
[I would have thought it would depend more on Congresswoman Giffords who was shot. But who am I to know? Obama could give it some momentum too but my read of things is that he will stay out of it.—Joe]
In a dramatic ruling giving gun owners a win in an National Rifle Association / California Rifle and Pistol (CRPA) Foundation lawsuit, this morning Fresno Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Hamilton ruled that AB 962, the hotly contested statute that would have banned mail order ammunition sales and required all purchases of so called “handgun ammunition” to be registered, was unconstitutionally vague on its face. The Court enjoined enforcement of the statute, so mail order ammunition sales to California can continue unabated, and ammunition sales need not be registered under the law.
Update: Of course what they will attempt to do is to require all ammunition sales to be registered. But that will be a tougher battle than the one they fought to get just handgun ammunition registration through the legislature. And if it passes it will be vigorously fought in the courts too.
I wonder why there is such a disconnect with people’s thought processes.
The shooter in Tucson had mental problems which may have been made worse by heavy marijuana use. Some people wanting to “do something” started talking about banning the magazines of greater than 10 rounds. How many of those same people never even thought that such a ban would be no more effective than the ban on marijuana that same guy was using? How could they possibly think that such a ban would be effective when the ban on marijuana is not effective?
People apparently don’t realize that “bans” don’t eliminate something. They only provide a legal means of punishment for those that get caught with the banned item. The banned object or substance does not cease to exist. As near as I can tell people imagine they will be transported into some sort of fantasy land where the banned item dematerializes or something.
Once you realize that bans only provide for punishment of those that get caught you can see that bans to “prevent” some greater society harm are unlikely to be successful. The “ban” of murder precludes the proposed ban of more than 10 round magazines of being of any significant use. The only consequence is that it makes murder “double ungood” or some such thing.
This leads me to conclude that in proposing 10 round magazine limits the Brady Campaign leaders must think possession of normal magazine capacities are on the same order of magnitude of evil as murder. If the possession is insignificant on the “evil scale” the additional law is of no benefit because the “ban” on murder has the issue covered. But they don’t think the ban on murder is sufficient, hence the evil inherent in possession normal magazines must be some significant proportion of the evil inherent in murder.
Either that or they just don’t have the thought processes to think clearly.