Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day—Abbie Vetger

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Only one in five gun owners belong to the NRA, so we think there is something else going on than just the NRA when it comes to mobilisation.

Abbie Vetger
September 2, 2018
Gun owners are more politically active, study finds
[The naiveté and lack of rigor here is astounding. Were they paid money to do this “study”?

Vetger and her colleagues need to check their work. A very simple check would have revealed the following:

Most estimates of gun ownership are between 20 and 40 percent of people in the U.S.. And this assumes all gun owners admit they own guns when they are asked by a pollster. It may be much higher than this.

The population of the U.S. is currently about 330,000,000. This means there are between 66 and 132 million gun owners in the U.S.

The NRA claims a membership of about 6 million people. Hence only about one in 11 to one in 22 gun owners belong to the NRA. Unless, you hypothesize the NRA is telling the world they have far fewer members than they actually have. For them to have such a motive escapes me.

Simple arithmetic shows any influence gun owners have must be far beyond the members the NRA influences.Assuming all the NRA’s 6 million members vote and vote as a block for the NRA agenda in an eligible voting population of about 241 million people is only about 2.5%. Sure, some political races are as close or closer than that but that isn’t enough to make a big difference and the assumption they all vote as a block is almost for certain false.

So… if the hypothesis that the NRA is the source of power is of questionable validity how about the hypothesis that gun owners a group independent of NRA members being a source of election strength? 60 to 126 million out of 241 million is about 25% to 50%. Now you are talking about some real power!

Therefore the timid conclusions reached by Vetger can be arrived at, and stated with far more assuredness, with a few minutes of searching on the Internet without going through the grant process and publishing a peer reviewed paper.

I wonder if Vetger and company were among those making projections that Hillary Clinton had a 95% chance of winning the 2016 election. If not then I expect she at least rode the same short bus to school with them.—Joe]

Political violence in the U.S.

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I recently finished a book where I found eerie parallels to the current left-wing violence in America (Days of Rage):

Probably the most time in the book was spent on the Weather Underground (also known as Weathermen). But there was also the Black Panthers, the Black Liberation Army, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and others. The author interviewed many of the leaders and participants of these violent “revolutionaries” in the writing of the book which was published in 2015. They set off thousands of bombs, robbed dozens of banks and armored cars, broke people out of prisons, and engaged in murder and kidnapping.

What I found most interesting was the white middle class students who formed the Weather Underground, for the most part, had never held jobs, and were incompetent at many basic tasks such as organizational structure, simple electrical wiring, and fixing cars. This held true when they started building bombs and blew up the house they were living in. The home was owned by the parents, away on vacation for a few weeks, of one of the members. They did know how to riot and have orgies, so, they weren’t total incompetents.

Their political philosophy and manifestos were non-sensical to most of America. In several cases people came together because they all “knew” a violent revolution was necessary because the the oppressive U.S. government had to be overthrown. They then sat around trying to figure out what cause they were taking up to rebel about. Most of the groups which where primarily white decided they were rebelling because of racism. They would have participated in the revolution because of the Vietnam war but when the U.S. pulled out they needed to find another cause. The Weather Underground political philosophy ultimate morphed a Marxist/Leninist view of utopia.

The primarily black groups thought unfair police treatment of blacks was a good cause but didn’t want much, if anything, to do with the white groups unless they had black leaders. They did allow a few white women into their groups which were useful. The women could go places and do things (for example, place bombs inside buildings) which would have drawn attention if a black had tried to do the same thing.

As is the case now, these young, naïve, idealists were financed by wealthy individuals who were sympathetic to their cause. The Weather Underground got most of their money from radical left-wing lawyers.

Also interesting was that the leaders of the Weather Underground, such as Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, lived in nice homes and ate well while “underground” but their followers lived lives of crushing poverty. One guy, at a meeting at Ayers home, opened the refrigerator and saw butter. He became enraged. He couldn’t afford biscuits to put butter on and this guy had butter. Ahh… yes. Under communism some animals are always more equal than others.

Interviewed decades after their revolutionary days they marveled at how naïve they had been. With hindsight they could see it was folly that they believed their revolution could succeed. But at the time, they just believed it.

I think there are lessons for many people of many political persuasions in this book. Political revolution requires a change in the culture of the society. If you can change the culture you don’t need the violence component. If you can’t change the culture the violence has a high chance of failure. The political left learned this in the 60s and 70s and it is long past time for others to learn this lesson too.

Quote of the day—Mr. T‏ @MrT_runner

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Do you sell plan for a plastic dick too? Because all you gun nutters are compensating for something. We all know.

Mr. T‏ @MrT_runner
Tweeted on August 28, 2018
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

Via a tweet from Jonathan @CorrelA_B.

It’s very clear what these anti-gun people use as criteria for knowledge is not related to that which the normal population uses. For other examples see here and here.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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Via email from Rolf.

ArmedVsUnarmed

Humans are, by nature, tool creators and users. The best personal defense tool ever created was the firearm. Using the best tool for the job is just natural. You aren’t against people using all natural products are you?

Quote of the day—Ramishah Maruf

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It’s time to stop using video games as a deflection from conversations about responsible gun control. Video games shouldn’t even be in the conversation because it distracts us from the hard truth: easy access to guns is the main reason for mass shootings.

It takes a special train of thought to come to the conclusion that an animated video game is more to blame for shootings than the actual weapon used. Is America really that blinded by their love for the Second Amendment?

Ramishah Maruf
August 30, 2018
Video games have no relevance to mass shootings
[It’s interesting how she substitutes one class of objects, video games, which probably didn’t have much of an effect on the mental illness of the perpetrator, for another object, firearms, which certainly didn’t cause the mental illness.

That takes a very special kind of train of thought. At first you might think her train was functioning properly then you find it was going backward.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Winnipeg Free Press editorial board

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Of particular interest to gun-control advocates are handguns and military-style assault rifles, neither of which have any real practical application for civilians, hunters or rural residents who keep firearms at hand to protect their livestock from predation.

Winnipeg Free Press editorial board
August 30, 2018
Entrenched positions won’t resolve gun debate
[The board appears to believe they are essentially a neutral party in the debate. But their claim that handguns and “military-style assault rifles” don’t “have any real practical application for civilians” betrays their bias and lack of information on the topic.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Adam Lankford

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I am not interested in giving any serious thought to John Lott or his claims.

Adam Lankford
Professor at the University of Alabama
August 2018
Shock study: U.S. had far fewer mass shootings than previously reported
[Of course not. Liars have no desire for the truth.

Lankford claimed the U.S. has more mass shooters per capita, by far, than any country. And has, what appears to be, a socialist explanation:

Mr. Lankford, who claimed to be the first to attempt a global survey, said his results suggested there was something to the American psyche that left people disaffected when they failed to achieve the American dream. He said they turn to violent outbursts with firearms.

“It may thus be the lofty aspirations and broken dreams of a tiny percentage of America’s students and workers — combined with their mental health problems, distorted perceptions of victimization, delusions of grandeur, and access to firearms — that makes them more likely to commit public mass shootings than people from other cultures,” he postulated in his 2015 paper.

He refuses to share his data and his exact methodology and John Lott, and others, easily find many more mass shootings in the rest of the world that what Lankford claims. This results in:

Mr. Lankford studied the period from 1966 to 2012 using data from the New York City Police Department’s active shooter report, a 2014 FBI active shooter report and some foreign accounts.

He identified 292 incidents worldwide in which at least four people were killed — the FBI’s definition of a mass murder. Of those, 90 were in the U.S. — 31 percent of the total among –Jooe171 countries.

…

Mr. Lott, meanwhile, turned to data from the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database and followed up with Nexis and web searches to try to catch cases that the database missed.

He said good data exist only for recent years, so he looked from 1998 to 2012 and found 1,491 mass public shootings worldwide. Of those, only 43 — or 2.88 percent — were in the U.S. Divide that by per capita rates, and the U.S. comes in 58th, behind Finland, Peru, Russia, Norway and Thailand — though still worse than France, Mexico, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Looked at from the number of victims in those shootings, the U.S. again ranks low, with just 2.1 percent of mass shooting deaths, Mr. Lott said.

Lott released his data and even sent it to Lankford. Who, of course, has an agenda to support and is “not interested in giving any serious thought” to it.

They have to lie to even attempt to win, and they know it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—map.therealbitcoin.club

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If you need a gun to protect your property you simply have too much property and lost your life already aquiring [sic] that property.

map.therealbitcoin.club
August 27, 2018
Comment to EXCLUSIVE: 3D Gun Proponent Defiant Offers Firearm Blueprints For Sale.*
[Ahhh… yes. The true nature of an anti-gun person comes to light. They are opposed to private property as well as being anti-gun. Apparently they want us all to be part of the collective.—Joe]

* Bonus: There is a humorous typo in the URL to the post:

… exclusive-3d-fun-proponent-defiant-offers-firearm-blueprints-for-sale

Quote of the day—Angela McCarthy @ninjagrrrl7734

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Please die. Preferably by gunfire. Your policies are killing so many people every week.

Angela McCarthy @ninjagrrrl7734
Tweeted on August 26, 2018
[The account has been deleted or at least temporarily suspended. Here is the screen capture (via a tweet from BFD‏ @BigFatDave):

Ninjagrrrl7734

See also a similar wish for the death of Dana’s children.

They want you dead. Don’t ever give up your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—FedUp

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I don’t really have a need to download them.

I’m just downloading them because some black robed cocksucker in Seattle doesn’t think I have the right to do it.

FedUp
August 1, 2018
Comment to Gun Controllers, Politicians and Judges Think They Can Stop the Free Flow of Information. They’re Wrong.
[Further developments here and here.

You can also get everything you want here.—Joe]

Preliminary injunction on 3-D printed guns granted

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The Seattle judge found the arguments of the tyrants more convincing than those of who yearn to be free:

The private defendants raise the more substantive argument that a preliminary injunction will impair their First Amendment rights, a loss which, “for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.” Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373-74 (1976). The First Amendment argument raises a number of challenging issues. Is computer code speech? If yes, is it protected under the First Amendment? To answer those questions, one would have to determine what the nature of the files at issue here is: are they written and designed to interact solely with a computer in the absence of the intercession of the mind or will of the recipient or is it an expressive means for the exchange of information regarding computer programming and/or weapons manufacturing? Are the export controls of the ITAR a prior restraint giving rise to a presumption that they are unconstitutional? Is the AECA a general regulatory statute not intended to control the content of speech but only incidentally limiting its unfettered exercise? Or is the government attempting to regulate distribution of the CAD files because of the message they convey? Depending on which level of scrutiny applies, does the regulation advance important governmental interests unrelated to the suppression of free speech and avoid burdening more speech than necessary or is the regulation narrowly tailored to promote a compelling Government interest?

The Court declines to wade through these issues based on the limited record before it and instead presumes that the private defendants have a First Amendment right to disseminate the CAD files. That right is currently abridged, but it has not been abrogated. Regulation under the AECA means that the files cannot be uploaded to the internet, but they can be emailed, mailed, securely transmitted, or otherwise published within the United States. The Court finds that the irreparable burdens on the private defendants’ First Amendment rights are dwarfed by the irreparable harms the States are likely to suffer if the existing restrictions are withdrawn and that, overall, the public interest strongly supports maintaining the status quo through the pendency of this litigation.

For all of the foregoing reasons, plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction is GRANTED. The federal defendants and all of their respective officers, agents, and employees are hereby enjoined from implementing or enforcing the “Temporary Modification of Category I of the United States Munitions List” and the letter to Cody R. Wilson, Defense Distributed, and the Second Amendment Foundation issued by the U.S. Department of State on July 27, 2018, and shall preserve the status quo ex ante as if the modification had not occurred and the letter had not been issued until further order of the Court.

I’m on the side of Code Is Free Speech and suggest you get your 3-D printed gun CAD files there.

Gun cartoon of the day

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NraBloodyHand

This is what Cori‏ @Fiainn thinks of you. She tweeted it August 26, 2018 at 7:52 PM.

No surprise

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The site of the mass shooting in Jacksonville today has this in it’s rules of conduct:

a. The commission of any act defined by Federal, State or local ordinances as a criminal act is prohibited. These include, but are not limited to: graffiti, property damage, defacing, damaging or destroying any real or personal property, etc.

b. Possession of a weapon, even if legally carried (except by law enforcement officers) is absolutely prohibited on Landing property

c. Using or possessing fireworks is prohibited

A mass shooting in a “gun free zone”. This comes as no surprise. It is to be expected. Most people will be hard pressed to name a mass shooting that doesn’t occur in a “gun free zone”.

Of course this won’t stop the anti-gun people from demanding the entire country be turned into a gun free zone.

Quote of the day—NRA-ILA

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The idea that the guns caused the violence doesn’t hold up. That’s like claiming The Trace is a real media outlet because they have keyboards.

NRA-ILA
August 24, 2018
What Really Drove the Early ‘90s Crime Wave?
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Gilad Erdan

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Many civilians saved lives during terror attacks and in an era of ‘lone terrorism.’ The more skilled civilians carrying weapons, the greater the chance of thwarting attacks without causalities and reducing the number of casualties.

Gilad Erdan
Israel Public Security Minister
Eradan eases gun-control rules
[Anytime, anyplace, gun regulation is reduced as well as improving the lives of the innocent directly affected it makes it more difficult for our opponents in this country to make their case.—Joe]

We lost a battle on I-1639

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State Supreme Court orders gun control initiative back on Washington’s November ballot

Washington voters will get to vote on a gun control initiative this November after all.

The Washington Supreme Court today reversed a lower court’s decision blocking Initiative 1639 from the November ballot, ruling that Secretary of State Kim Wyman does not have the legal authority to reject it.

…

State law governing the acceptance of intiative [sic] petitions is narrow, Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst said. “It does not allow for pre-election review of the form, process, subtance [sic] or constitutionality of an initiative petition,” she wrote.

Instead, it only allows a court to examine whether the petitions have the required number of signatures from voters.

“There is no actual challenge to the county of signatures,” Fairhurst wrote.

Wyman can’t be ordered to keep an initiative off the ballot “based on readability, correctness or formatting of the proposed measure printed on the back of the petitions.”

See Encouraging news on I-1639 for background material.

I look forward to someone using the argument “does not allow for pre-election review of the form, process, substance or constitutionality of an initiative petition” when the wording on the back of petition says it will ban all guns while the official wording says it will repeal all gun laws.

Liberal tears

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This made me smile:

A coalition of prominent gun control, teacher and civil rights groups is threatening legal action against the Department of Education if it moves forward with a controversial proposal that would allow states to spend federal funds on guns for school personnel.

“We are extraordinarily concerned with this dangerous, and what we believe to be unlawful, proposal under consideration to supply teachers with federal funds to buy gun for their classrooms, instead of books and school supplies,” said Giffords Law Center chief counsel Adam Skaggs, whose group, which was co-founded by shooting victim and former Rep. Gabby Giffords, is taking the lead on the potential suit.

I know this isn’t a sure thing but if it does end up being a win for us I know daughter Jaime, big fan of President Trump, is going to ask me, “Are you tired of winning yet?” My answer will be, “Nope, we have a lot more battles to win before I get tired of winning.”

In the mean time, I’ll just keep cleaning and lubricating my guns with Liberal Tears:

LiberalTears

Update: Liberal Tears are not currently available on Amazon. But they do appear to be available here.

Quote of the day—John Boch

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Lott’s report serves as nothing but bad news for Democrats who have fully embraced gun control as a campaign plank going into the midterms this fall.

John Boch
August 20, 2018
Lott: 7.14% of Americans Have Carry Licenses, Up 273% Since 2007
[Generally I think this is true. But it might help solidify their support in areas guns are already heavily regulated and support for Democrats may be weakened because of the good economic news. In heavily regulated areas people can’t imagine knowing “someone like that” who would carry a gun in public and are scared of people who exercise their right to keep and bear arms. The support of Democrats for more gun control to “protect them” from “people like that” could be a net positive in some geographical areas. On a national basis? It’s going to be a net loss.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Robert Lasnik

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You know, it’s a little bit frustrating to be sitting in this chair as a United States District Court judge and seeing this is an issue that should be solved by the political branches of government. And I really hope and wish that the executive branch and Congress would face up to this and say, it’s a tough issue, but that’s why you got into public service to begin with.

Robert Lasnik
U.S. District Court Judge
August 21, 2018
3D-printed guns: Federal judge in Seattle frustrated over case, could make decision by Monday
[My initial response was, “The issue was resolved long ago and is still resolved. There is no Federal law against 3D-printing a gun. Therefore there isn’t anything the court can say except, ‘Case dismissed.’”

But reading a little closer it appears the argument of the anti-freedom people is a little more twisted:

The legal dispute before the court centers on ITAR, a law that involves regulating the export of certain weapons — not the potential dangers that may result if criminals print out guns and later use them to commit offenses.

Okay, unless ITAR is directly challenged, which it is not, the court has to assume ITAR is valid law. And then the question, “Is the Federal government following the letter of that law?” is a fair question that is a valid for the court to get involved in.

Wilson’s lawyer has to be scoring some points with this argument:

Chad Flores, a lawyer representing Wilson, also raised the arguments that other files for 3D guns are already available online, and Wilson could simply disseminate his plans legally by other means.

My client could mail the files at issue to everyone in the country and violate no law.

Next week we find out which side is more convincing to Judge Lasnik.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ayn Rand

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Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man’s freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men. Private citizens are not a threat to one another’s rights or freedom. A private citizen who resorts to physical force and violates the rights of others is a criminal — and men have legal protection against him.

Criminals are a small minority in any age or country. And the harm they have done to mankind is infinitesimal when compared to the horrors — the bloodshed, the wars, the persecutions, the confiscations, the famines, the enslavements, the wholesale destructions — perpetrated by mankind’s governments. Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. When unlimited and unrestricted by individual rights, a government is men’s deadliest enemy. It is not as protection against private actions, but against governmental actions that the Bill of Rights was written.

Ayn Rand
1963
POV: Man’s Rights; The Nature of Government
[Via email from Stephanie.—Joe]