Via email from Barron
With such smart people as opponents, delivering such clever arguments, we might as well give up right now.
Or, we could just add them to the list of people who resort to Markley’s Law in the first few seconds of discussion and laugh at them.
I’d had it backwards this whole time. I’ve told town hall participants and reporters in the media that we can protect the Second Amendment and also protect people’s lives. What these kids have taught us is their right to learn, their right to go home, their right to live is supreme over any other right. We should put that first.
Rep. Eric Swalwell
D-California
Questions and answers with the lawmaker who wants your assault weapons
[In other words, the Second Amendment is null and void because he says so. And unless we get a good SCOTUS ruling in the next five to 10 years his vision could be the way it plays out.
His end game is something we need to think about. No door-to-door confiscations. If you get caught with a gun you go to jail. Sure, you can hide it and get away with it for a long time. But you someone will sell you out, a relationship will turn sour, or you’ll get in an accident as you drive to the deep woods to shoot it. We loose that game because the culture will slowly die.
So what do we do? Show up at the first guy’s trial with 100’s of people open carrying AR-15? Burn down the court house?
I’m not sure that is the best way to win friends and influence people in the way we want them influenced.
My best approach is “sanctuary states”. States which refuse to cooperate with the feds on these sort of issues. But that can escalate with blocking of Federal grants and other money. And that is just the start.—Joe]
Via email from JavaMan:
I was driving the other day and thinking. I do that a lot lately. And I came upon a convoy of “weekend warriors” – National Guardsmen, I believe (I don’t think it was Regulars, although I could be wrong) and later on the trip back home as I was thinking about the anti-gunners argument that “No-one should have an military style weapon… what with it’s ‘high capacity clip’ and pistol grip, etc…”
Maybe you’ll see where I”m going with this.
Following that reasoning no one should have a vehicle or any other equipment that can perform as well or better than anything the military has. Like cars that go 70, 80 or more MPH! We should all be limited to 50 mph as a military convoy is on the highway! And why would anyone need a 4X4 … only the military should have those. And then there are the various Hummers out there.
I know, just a wild and crazy thought but I though may be you could consider it when someone posits “no one should have something that the military might have” argument.
I think the argument is sound. But logical arguments are not the currency of our opponents. Hence it will have no more value to them than if we offered a $100 bill to a caveman in hopes he wouldn’t hurt us. He would probably take it as an insult, club us over the head, and take our pocket knives while leaving our corpses to be eaten by the vultures and maggots.
Given the chance, anti-gunners would do the modern day equivalent.
We need responses the caveman will understand.
Anti-gunners don’t like you. They don’t just want to take away your guns. They want to take away your rights. They want to humiliate you. They want to force you to obey. They want to bring you to heel. Why do you think they care that so-called “Red Flag Orders” or “Extreme Risk Protection Orders” or “Gun Violence Restraining Orders” violate more than your Second Amendment rights?
…
But anti-gunners don’t want to prevent violence by unstable, dangerous people. They just want to take guns.
Sean D Sorrentino
Facebook post, May 9, 2018
[H/T Sebastian.
Sean makes a good case.—Joe]
Via Sean D. Sorrentino who has his own comments on the topic:
I consider myself a libertarian but I wouldn’t say this is what I want. The “Metro Gun Share Program” would appear to be something operated by the city or county. I think it should be a private enterprise endeavor.
I’m glad to see this:
The National Rifle Association sued New York state officials over what it described as a “blacklisting campaign” targeting companies that try to do business with the group.
The organization filed a complaint Friday in Syracuse federal court accusing New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state Department of Financial Services of abuses of regulatory power aimed at stifling the gun-rights advocacy group’s right to free speech.
Earlier this month, the state financial services department fined insurance broker Lockton Cos. $7 million and a unit of Chubb Ltd. $1.3 million over an NRA-branded insurance program called Carry Guard. The agency claimed the program illegally permitted gun owners to receive liability coverage even if they were charged with firearms-related crimes. Carry Guard has been criticized by gun control advocates as “murder insurance.”
While I think it has to be done I can’t imagine the district court gives it much more time than it takes to say, “Case dismissed!”. This, almost for certain, will have to go to SCOTUS to get any traction. I just hope we get one or more friendly justices there by the time it arrives.
2nd AMENDMENT: The gateway drug to freedom addiction.
GraySkies
Signature line used in a forum post on February 16, 2018
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
If you can fight you generally don’t have to. When skillfully integrated, the ability to respond with aggression and violence decreases rather than increases the probability that actual aggression will become necessary. If you say “No!” early in the cycle of oppression and you mean what you say which means you state your refusal in no uncertain terms and stand behind it then the scope for oppression on the part of oppressor will remain properly bounded and limited. Forces of tyranny expand inexorably to fill the space made available for their existence. People who refuse to muster appropriately self protective territorial responses are laid open to exploitation as much as those who genuinely can’t stand up for their own rights because of a more essential inability or a true imbalance in power.
Naïve, harmless people usually guide their perceptions and actions with a few simple axioms: people are basically good; no one really wants to hurt anyone else; the threat (and certainly, the use) of force, physical or otherwise, is wrong. These axioms collapse, or worse, in the presence of individuals who are genuinely malevolent.
Jordan B. Peterson
2018
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
[Daughter Jaime and I share an account on Audible and generally pick books that we are both interested in and then discuss them. This was one of the books she picked that, from the title, I wasn’t particularly interested in. Even after she said that this was a book that she was putting on a list for her son to read when he got older I just didn’t have any interest. But then, I ran out of books on my phone and decided to at least start it rather than immediately go searching for another book.
I am extremely pleased with what I found.
Among other things Peterson is a psychologist. In this book, what he tells us is how our minds work and how to make them work better.
What Peterson says in the quote above works on many scales on many topics. From the personal, to the political, to the international. The grand scope of this would not come as a surprise if you read the chapter. He tells us the knowledge in this quote was learned by animals 100 million years before the arrival of dinosaurs. It is an essential part of all animals today.
Extrapolating only the smallest amount you realize what he says is an argument for the right to keep and bear arms. It is instructive on how to retain our rights.—Joe]
Via a tweet by Firearms Policy:
One of the largest public pension funds in the nation voted Wednesday to use its financial might to pressure gun retailers across the country to stop selling military-style assault weapons and accessories like rapid-fire “bump stocks” used at the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting.
The $222.5 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System said it will try to unseat board members at companies that resist and could dump its stock in those retailers if they still refuse to conform to laws already in effect in California.
These people should be prosecuted for conspiracy to infringe upon the rights of the citizens of the United States.
It is ridiculous to suggest guns are part of the solution to knife violence.
Dr. Karim Brohi
May 7, 2018
At NRA Convention, Trump Slams Gun Control Laws in France & U.K.
[Apparently this crap for brains doctor has never heard the phrase, “Never bring a knife to a gun fight.”
I would like to suggest the good doctor should visit a USPSA match in the U.S. carrying a knife and see how much knife violence is possible.—Joe]
On the left, victimhood is a prime source of authority, and discourse revolves around establishing one’s intersectional credentials and detailing stories of mistreatment that reinforce them. Within the ecosystem of the left, demonstrating that you have suffered harassment or microaggressions is a big win. But among the country as a whole, the dynamic is very different.
Jonathan Chait
April 22, 2018
Democrats Have Great Female Presidential Candidates. They Need to Avoid the Victim Trap.
[The Brady Campaign and other anti-gun organizations repeatedly make this error. Apparently they don’t seem to understand that when they use someone who was shot in a mass shooting as their spokesperson they are not presenting someone who is an authority on solutions regarding those type of events. The truth is they are being represented by someone who is an expert victim with no experience as a victor.—Joe]
I carried a gun all the time. I used to have a Mac-10, I used to have a .44, a 380, a 9 millimeter.
Those gangs, those criminal people, that want to do criminal thing they will go to the black market and purchase the gun.
Hieu Nguyen
Former San Jose gang member
May 6, 2018
San Quentin Inmates Join The Gun Control Debate
[Others interviewed also spoke of how easy it is to buy a gun via the black market.
What found most interesting was that the author thought it insightful to ask people who made such poor decisions they ended up in prison what they thought what public policies should be.
But, this is San Francisco. Perhaps they were just making sure the criminals would still have plenty of job opportunities.—Joe]
There is no clear correlation whatsoever between gun ownership rate and gun homicide rate. Not within the USA. Not regionally. Not internationally. Not among peaceful societies. Not among violent ones. Gun ownership doesn’t make us safer. It doesn’t make us less safe. The correlation simply isn’t there. It is blatantly not-there. It is so tremendously not-there that the “not-there-ness” of it alone should be a huge news story.
BJ Campbell
March 13, 2018
Everybody’s Lying About the Link Between Gun Ownership and Homicide
[Via email from daughter Jaime.
For people who care about practical outcomes but think rights and constitutional law are irrelevant this article may be influential.—Joe]
Via email from daughter Jaime.
Do the same math … we see a 37% chance that any American of average life expectancy will experience at least one nationwide violent revolution.
This is a bigger chance than your floodplain-bound home flooding during your mortgage.
…
Following the same procedure, we can see that even over an 18-year span we have a 10% chance of violent revolution, which is an interesting thought experiment to entertain before you have kids.
He goes on to look at it from several other viewpoints and shows the above estimate is probably low. It’s easy to argue the odds are MUCH higher. And furthermore, things change very rapidly making it difficult or impossible to prepare once you are almost certain you need to prepare.
The only people being hurt are people like Rhode who want to be law-abiding citizens but are thwarted by rules that keep them from doing something they should lawfully be able to do.
But then again, it’s California. What do you expect?
Tom Knighton
April 29, 2018
Olympic Medalist Files Suit Against California Over Bullet Control
[It would seem that in California the only hope we have are the courts.
It is very clear the intention is to harass and have the ability to imprison innocent gun owners at their whim (see Ayn Rand quote). It has nothing whatsoever to do with public safety. Now, if the courts see it that way and decide to intervene instead of cheer the authoritarians on remains to be seen.—Joe]
Today, the State of New York did one of the most despicable acts ever perpetrated by any state by asking New York banks, financial institutions and insurance companies to stop doing business with the gun and ammo industry.
While it may not make a difference to New York, Hornady will not knowingly allow our ammunition to be sold to the Government of the State of NY or any NY agencies. Their actions are a blatant and disgusting abuse of office and we won’t be associated with a government that acts like that. They should be ashamed.
Steve Hornady
President of Hornady Manufacturing Company
April 23, 2018
Hornady stands up to State of New York
[I just ordered 500 Hornady bullets for reloading in response to this announcement. I’ll order more if the price stays competitive and they work out well.
I’ve had this sort of restriction on the use of Modern Ballistics since it’s creation over 20 years ago. Not that I have any means to enforce it.
It’s nice to see big players doing something similar with at least some ability to make it stick.—Joe]
The AR-15 is modelled after a military grade M16 assault weapon. It’s designed to be able to shot at a long distance, with high-capacity magazine attachments that can spray many, many bullets in rapid fire, at a velocity that’s three times that of a regular pistol and can shoot the front and back through a helmet.
Kris Brown
Co-president of Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun Violence
April 30, 2018
How The Gun Lobby Uses Van and Knife Attacks To Shut Down Gun Control And why experts are calling bullshit on it.
[Yet another example of where they have ignorance, drama, and deception.
We have SCOTUS decisions, data, and inalienable rights.—Joe]
Scary stuff:
I already use cash for any gun related purchase that isn’t online.
But what really needs to be done is to prosecute these people who are conspiring to deny people their constitutionally protected rights.
A measuring device. And not a measuring device for one’s hands. Kinda like a huge pickup truck, lifted, with humongous tires. Ask any woman what that means.
LeAnne L @sindereyla
Tweeted on April 22, 2018
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
Via a tweet from Jonathan @CorrelA_B.
We have SCOTUS decision. They have Junior High insults.—Joe]
The NRA is a danger to this nation and to the police.
John Legend @johnlegend
Tweeted on April 27, 2018
[For certain definitions of “this nation” he is correct.
One must necessarily conclude Legend’s definition is a nation in the process of becoming a police state.—Joe]