My view of guns is simple. I hate guns and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered, and all other guns would be banned.
Deborah Prothrow-Stith
Dean of Harvard School of Public Health
[I found this on numerous sites but I was unable to find a date or context for it. Reading biographical information on her indicate it would be in character though. If someone happens across relevant information on this quote please let me know.—Joe]
Gun nuts are domestic terrorists, and I have no patience or sympathy for domestic terrorists who want to trample the rights of the rest of us, just so they can pretend they are Wyatt and Morgan Earp.
alyce7
May 29, 2014
Comment to Memo to gun-control advocates: Even Elliot Rodger believed guns would have deterred him
[And just what do you suppose alyce7 thinks should be done with “domestic terrorists” like me and you?
Keep your guard up. The Second Amendment is about protecting ourselves from people like them.—Joe]
The 10-round limit is a reasonable common sense restriction that should be adopted nationwide. I think, myself, that the 10 round limit is way too liberal. First, you could only hunt in most jurisdictions with 5 rounds in a magazine, so a more reasonable restriction would be a 5-round magazine not a 10. Additionally, since all repeating firearms and handguns are considered terrorist grade weapons, the American Civilian should be regimented to single shot drop breach long guns and break in half single shot shotguns
Italian Rose
May 30, 2014
Comment to The history of magazines holding 11 or more rounds: Amicus brief in 9th Circuit
[We’ve seen the words of this fruitcake before (and here and here). Even though a case could be made for it I can’t believe this is sarcasm. Apparently they have no respect for the Bill of Rights or basic moral principles.
And just what do they think should be done with all the existing guns in private hands that don’t conform to their tyrannical view? Don’t let anyone tell you that no one want to take your guns.—Joe]
No private individual must not be in possession of ANY gun ever, only those who are to protect us and are trained, with very few exceptions like rifles only (always locked up and registered for hunting & large farms that can prove they are needed to protect their cattle or.? So, absolutely no guns will mean a drastically reduced deaths. Any one who thinks contrary does not respect life. Period! Is mentally disturbed & a murderer!!!
Hans vlasveld
May 29, 2014
Comment to 7 Lies We Need to Stop Telling About Gun Control in America
[Got that? If anyone doesn’t think as he does about the right to keep and bear arms they are mentally disturbed and a murderer.
So what do you suppose he thinks should be done with us? It’s got to be one of the psych ward, prison, or execution, right? So, is he going to be taking point on the visit to my house?—Joe]
As for handguns, assault-style weapons, etc., let’s have a flat-out ban. Beyond the histrionics of the gun lobby, there is no defensible reason for such weapons to be a part of our culture. They exist for one purpose: to kill.
Scott Martelle
May 28, 2014
You say gun control doesn’t work? Fine. Let’s ban guns altogether.
[H/T to Sebastian.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you no one wants to take your guns. This is from the Los Angles Times’ Opinion Staff.
He dismisses the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms with:
One can hope that the court will someday go further than its recognition that the 2nd Amendment is not an absolute right and determine that rampant gun ownership is a public safety threat. And that Congress will push legislation that recognizes that the heavy societal costs of gun ownership outweigh any 2nd Amendment pretense to the right to own guns.
He dismisses self-defense with:
Impossible to measure because of a lack of trustworthy data.
This is even though his cited source, Paul Barrett, says the lower limit on estimated defensive gun use in the U.S. is about 100,000/year which exceeds the murders by a factor of ten.
It is apparently beyond his ability to accept the realities of the Supreme Court ruling that firearm in common use, and handguns in particular are protected. This is in the ruling he linked to! Then after realizing numbers and simple arithmetic are apparently beyond his grasp we could suggest he look to the “success” of banning things which have far less benefit and probably more harm, such as recreational drugs. How did the prohibition of alcohol work out? And the continuing ban of hardcore recreational drugs? Maybe he would like to extend the bans of those things harmful to other things such as tobacco? How does he think that would turn out? We already have a large black market in cigarettes because of the high taxes on them.
But we shouldn’t bother speculating. He obviously has crap for brains and is incapable of extrapolating past the end of his nose.—Joe]
The NRA is primarily in it for money and profit, and have demonstrated that they don’t give a SH about you and your family. They are not protecting your gun rights to have a gun (because no one is trying to ban all guns) – they are protecting THEIR PROFITS. Keep being ignorant and voting with them, and see how far it gets you . . .
reality
May 26, 2014
Comment to Shooter’s rage at women too familiar in America
[“reality” appears to be living in an alternate reality because in my universe the NRA is a nonprofit organization, does a lot to protect our right to keep and bear arms, and there are a lot of people who want to ban all guns.
I wonder what color the sky is in their world.—Joe]
The type of gun control we have now doesn’t work. We need to outright repeal the 2nd Amendment.
The_One_Pc
May 24, 2014
Comment to Sheriff: Gunman killed 3 people at home before going on rampage
[If laws aren’t working then those laws need to be repealed. You don’t double down on something you admit isn’t working.
The drug control laws aren’t working either. What does he advise to remedy that problem?
Or how about the laws against people under 21 drinking alcohol? What does he recommend for that?
Even though the guy has crap for brains, don’t let anyone tell you no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
There is no longer any defensible argument for a constitutional right to own a firearm, if there ever was.
Zack Beauchamp
February 20, 2014
Ban the Second Amendment: Imagine the Second Amendment didn’t exist, and try arguing for a constitutional right to gun ownership. You will fail.
[H/T to Kurt Hofmann.
Self defense, one of the easiest ways to argue it to most people is dismissed with:
The second argument in favor of untrammeled gun ownership, a right to self-defense, is equally incoherent. For starters, there’s no reason that, in a civil society, the right to defend yourself implies the right to defend yourself however you’d like. A basic part of government’s job is to limit our ability to hurt others; assuming the absolute right to self-defense constitutes, in Alan Jacobs’ evocative phrasing, “the absolute abandonment of civil society.”
Here you can see some of his incredibly scary mindset. “A basic part of government’s job is to limit our ability to hurt others”. Wow!
It’s that same old prevention instead of punishment argument. In my mind one of the characteristics of a free society is that you are free to make mistake, or be evil, it’s just that you will suffer the consequences of your actions if you do. Except in extreme outlier cases, such as true weapons of mass destruction, the government should not ever be granted the power to prevent ordinary people from doing whatever it is they want to do. In terms of citizen/citizen interaction government power is only granted to punish those that infringe upon the rights of others.
Beauchamp’s mindset is that of one who yearns for an all powerful, all seeing, all protective government. A government with widespread informants which interrogates and tortures people in response to anonymous or torture induced testimony. That is the only way you can even hope to approach a preventive model for citizens hurting others.
Beauchamp should study history rather than yearn for an utopia who’s quest has resulted in the murder of 10’s of millions by their own government in the 20th Century.—Joe]
The only constant in gun deaths is the presence of guns. Remove the guns you remove the gun deaths. Sounds great to me.
Ed Suspicious
May 11, 2014
Comment to John Oliver nails it on gun control
[Ahhh yes, the great “gun death” argument. As if everyone that dies from a gunshot wound is a tragedy and there is no benefit to gun ownership.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that no one wants to take away your guns.—Joe]
I’m against the mentally ill obtaining guns. You know…like NRA members.
Benny @Brios82
Tweeted May 8, 2014
[This is what they think of you. If you are a NRA member that is proof that you are mentally ill.
Never let anyone tell you that no one wants to take your guns away. Or send you to a mental institution. The political left loves mental institutions and gulags.
I’ve been listening to The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I Solzhenitsyn. Scary stuff because of the easy parallels to the political left in our country right now. It’s surprisingly easy to listen too even though it is a 75 hour audible book.—Joe]
We should repeal the Second Amendment.
Jerry Large
April 30, 2014
Common sense calls for repeal of Second Amendment: Guns will continue to be a problem until we remove their Constitutional shield.
[H/T to Sebastian.
Apparently he doesn’t realize the Second Amendment shields the Constitution.
He, as a person of color, should also read Negroes with Guns. I’ve commented on it before (and here). Ry loaned the book to me and told me he thought it should be required reading in our schools. I can’t say that I disagree with that. It has some very powerful stuff in it.
Isn’t it odd that some of the classes of people that would, and have, benefited the most from bearing arms are the same that are so opposed to the Second Amendment?—Joe]
At the rate we’re going, we’re going to have so many people with guns everywhere, fully licensed, fully validated, in settings where [one] could be in a movie theater, and they don’t like someone chewing gum loudly or talking on their cell phone and decide they have the perfect right to defend themselves against the gum chewer or cell phone user by shooting.
Hillary Clinton
May 6, 2014
Hillary Clinton pushes gun control, Obamacare
[I find it very telling that her concern is about the number of people with guns. Does she also worry about the number of people exercising their First Amendment rights? And does she think it would be appropriate to license and “validate” people that exercise their First Amendment rights?
And since she used the example of a movie theater does she also worry that if people don’t have their mouths locked shut before they enter a theater that they might yell “FIRE!” when there is no fire?
With bigotry and prejudice this severe Ms. Clinton is unfit to serve in public office. She doesn’t want to be a public servant. She wants to be a tyrant.—Joe]
Banning guns for people that had any drug conviction is rational and common sense. We should also ban guns from anyone who received a DUI or had their drivers license suspended for any reason. People who are late on their bills should also not have guns and the mental health provision should be if you have ever as much as ever spoke with a counselor you should not possess guns.
Italian Rose
April 21, 2014
Comment to A gun control law that even the Massachusetts attorney general’s office thinks is unconstitutional (as applied in two cases)
[As I started reading the comment I was certain it was sarcasm and that would be made more clear by the end. But it wasn’t. Then I looked at the name, Italian Rose. Oh! They have been featured here before (and here).
I’m still not entirely sure whether it should be tagged as sarcasm or not.—Joe]
@SPQRzilla @wallsofthecity if there is inconsistency in gun laws it was created by a lax TN government. Remove inconsistent by removing guns.
John Hayes
Tweeted on April 15, 2014
[Don’t ever let anyone tell you no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
The Usian love of guns. Basically all the immigrants from Europe left because they had small penises and were forced to leave their countries because women would laugh at them. In the New World they could play around with guns and religion to compensate for this and to impress the girlies.
So taking away a gun from a small dicked Usian is tantamouint to emsaculating him and thus the howls of outcry it produces.
Only countries with males who are secure about their dick size tend to ban guns for example the UK.
“Richard Nixon”
July 26, 2001
Comment to The Terrible Truth About Gun Owners
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
“Usian” is their code word for people in the United States. “Richard Nixon” is the handle for someone other than President Richard Nixon who died in 1994.—Joe]
Yesterday’s shooting at a major tourist attraction in the nation’s capital provides stark proof that no one is safe in any public place; not in school, in church, or at the zoo; until we deal with our nation’s gun problem. And the only rational response is a national ban on handguns.
Josh Sugarmann
April 25, 2000
Shooting at National Zoo Latest Proof of Need for Handgun Ban
[Don’t ever let anyone tell you that no one wants to ban guns.—Joe]
The N.R.A. objected to the letter’s support for a federal ban on the sale of assault weapons and ammunition, a buyback program to reduce the number of guns in circulation, limits on the purchase of ammunition, mandatory safety training for gun owners, and mandatory waiting periods before completing a purchase.
…
These sane, mainstream proposals will not prevent law-abiding citizens from acquiring and keeping firearms.
THE EDITORIAL BOARD of the New York Times
March 17, 2014
The Gun Lobby’s Latest Bizarre Crusade
[And as long as it is possible for law-abiding citizens to acquire and keep firearms the NYT editorial board will insist further infringement is “sane and mainstream”. What they don’t address is that such infringement does not accomplish any worthwhile goal and is clearly unconstitutional. They want bans on guns and ammunition in common use.
Don’t ever let anyone get away telling you that “no one wants to take your guns”. The Editorial Board of the New York Times is just one of many that have repeatedly said they do want to take them.—Joe]
Update: A comment from Mark Alger:
John Lott’s scholarship demonstrates clearly that restrictions on gun ownership do not have a positive effect on violent crime. That is to say, reality does not comport with the writer’s claim that infringements on the RKBA is sane, as they ignore the facts — reality. And, given that the overwhelming majority of We the People support RKBA, the outlook is NOT mainstream; it’s fringe, extremist, backwater. But, what’s dispositive is that RKBA **is** a right, long recognized in common law, infringed or abridged only by tyrants, and (almost an aside) recognized and protected as such by our Constitution. I therefor urge you to add this post to the crap for brains category.
Done. “Crap for Brains” category has been added.
Via the Daily Caller we have this letter from Diane Feinstein to President Obama:
The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500Dear Mr. President:
During your State of the Union address, you stated that you want to make 2014 a “year of action.” We write to urge you to take immediate action to address the significant number of assault weapons that are being imported into the United States in contravention of federal law. We respectfully request that you take steps to ensure that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) fully enforces the ban on the importation of these military-style firearms.
A provision of the Gun Control Act of 1968, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 925(d)(3), prohibits the importation of firearms that are not “generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes.” In recent years, however, importers of firearms have taken advantage of ATF’s interpretation of the “sporting purposes” test to evade the import ban. In 1998, the Department of the Treasury — which then housed ATF — issued guidance that interpreted the import ban to prohibit only semiautomatic rifles that use magazines originally designed for a military rifle. Many semiautomatic firearms on the market today do not have a military origin but are modeled closely after military firearms. These military-style firearms are not prohibited under the current import ban, even though they are functionally equivalent to prohibited rifles with a military origin. In addition, the Treasury Department’s 1998 guidance allows foreign-made firearms to be imported into the United States without military features, even though these firearms have the capacity to fire multiple times in quick succession without the need to reload and can easily have military features attached.
As a result of the Treasury Department’s unnecessarily restrictive interpretation of the sporting purposes test, imports of military-style weapons have increased dramatically in recent years, helping to fuel deadly gun violence along the Southwest border and in neighboring Mexico. According to data obtained from the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission and analyzed by The Center for Public Integrity, 2.96 million rifles and handguns were imported into the United States in 2009, more than double the 1.32 million firearms imported in 2005. In January of this year, Russia’s Kalashnikov gun maker announced that it plans to sell in the United States up to 200,000 rifles and shotguns, many of which are designed after the Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle. An analysis by the Violence Policy Center found that more than 700 Romanian AK-47 variant rifles were identified in 134 federal gun trafficking prosecutions involving illegal smuggling from the United States to Mexico and other Latin American countries.
For example, one imported Romanian AK firearm, the WASR-10, was carefully designed to exploit the sporting purposes test and has become a favorite of the gun traffickers that profit by arming Mexican drug trafficking organizations. The importer of the WASR-10, Century International Arms, circumvents the import ban by taking the following steps: First, the company imports the inexpensive weapon without any military features, to avoid contravening the ban. Next, the weapon is disassembled, and American-made parts are added, to make the weapon “American-made,” not “foreign-made.” The magazine well is also modified to accept higher capacity ammunition magazines. Finally, assault features — which would be illegal if added to a foreign-made weapon — are added to the now-American-made weapon, rendering the weapon an assault rifle for all practical purposes. The resulting firearm is then sold on the civilian market, either to be used in violent acts here at home or smuggled across the border into Mexico.
WASR-10s have repeatedly been found in the arsenals of top drug kingpins and their associates. For example, at least one WASR-10 was used in May 2008 to kill eight police officers in Culiacan, Mexico, a city in the northwestern part of the country. An analysis conducted by The Center for Public Integrity found that, over the last four years, WASR-10 rifles comprised more than 17% of the firearms recovered at Mexican crime scenes and successfully traced back to the United States. In all, according to a memorandum by the Council on Foreign Relations published in July 2013, over 70% of the 99,000 weapons recovered by Mexican law enforcement since 2007 were traced to U.S. manufacturers and importers.
We urge ATF to close the loopholes that allow the importation of military-style weapons into the United States. Such an approach should, at a minimum:
- Prohibit importation of all semiautomatic rifles that can accept, or be readily converted to accept, a large capacity ammunition magazine of more than 10 rounds, regardless of the military pedigree of the firearm or the configuration of the firearm’s magazine well;
- Prohibit semiautomatic rifles with fixed magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds;
- Prohibit the importation of the frame or receiver of any prohibited rifle, regardless of whether it is incorporated into a fully manufactured firearm;
- Prohibit the practice of importing assault rifles in parts and then constructing the rifles once they are in the United States by adding the requisite number of American-made parts;
- Prohibit the use of a “thumbhole” stock as a means to avoid classification of a rifle as an assault rifle; and
- Prohibit the importation of assault pistols, in addition to assault rifles.
We urge you to review enforcement of the sporting purposes test and take the necessary regulatory steps to stop the importation of all military-style, non-sporting firearms, and the assembly of those firearms from imported parts. We have endured too many funerals and mourned the loss of too many innocent lives to accept less than full enforcement of the import ban. Thank you for your attention to this important issue.
Don’t let anyone tell you no that one wants to take your guns. Diane Feinstein does.
We really need to get rid of the “sporting purpose” clause of GCA68. It shouldn’t be that hard, should it? It’s more crazy talk to insist that a gun can be built and sold in the U.S. without issue but that same gun is somehow inappropriate to import.
Via Cemetery’s Gun Blob:
Free availability of guns is madness. Ban them all!
There is so much stupid in the thread that I could only deal with one or two sentences of it at a time.
As we know the number of guns in private hands as increased dramatically in the last decade or two while the crime rate has fallen so the availability of guns is beyond my comprehension why someone would think it is madness and demand they be banned. On the other hand believing it to be practical or wise to attempt enforcing a ban on them is madness.
But what I really want to know is; In what alternate universe can we find these free guns?
Following the gun and magazine restriction news I didn’t like who things were playing out. Looked like there were way to many ways to make it turn ugly all around. While I’m sure someday tyrants will need to be used as tree-watering sources, I’d really rather not have it happen during my life- revolutions are expensive. I thought of a possible path out after watching this clip.
Stage an arrest of a “known offender” as a test case. Arrange for someone with an “unlawful” magazine and a barely illegal rifle (maybe something like a Nylon 66, or whatever the most innocuous technically illegal arm you can find) who is retired and can afford to spend a little time in jail. Roll the cameras, arrest and charge him, and have everyone on the scene know what’s going on so that nobody gets shot. Get him before a judge that day, and have a temporary order to put a hold on the law until it can be officially decided by a court. That gives the police an out to not enforce the law, but it also gives the citizens an out because it can’t be held over them for anything else so things do go all Waco on anyone. It gives everyone time to “let the court sort it out” without claiming any unnecessary lives. It also gives time for a new legislature to be elected if needed, because it will become a more well-understood topic by a broader range of the population.