Quote of the day—David French

Faced with a generation of defeat in the gun debate, the Left is increasingly turning to one of its favorite weapons in the culture war, stigma. It’s mobilizing its tribe — including progressive corporations, Hollywood, and the mainstream media — to not just make policy arguments but also to shame and insult Americans who disagree. The goal is to make gun ownership culturally toxic.

But shame is weaker than love. Gun owners who’ve experienced a threat possess or carry a weapon because they love their families. Teachers who wish to carry a weapon at school do so because they love the kids under their care. These folks know that their responsible gun ownership makes their communities and families safer.

Why does the Left keep losing the gun debate? Because it’s hard to persuade any man or woman to surrender an unalienable right — especially when exercising that right helps preserve the most vital right of all, the right to live.

David French
March 5, 2018
Why the Left Won’t Win the Gun-Control Debate
[It’s hard to win a debate when you are being shouted down by an angry mob or going into hiding because you and the lives of your children are being threatened.

It may not be long until the “debate” goes non-linear and gun owners will be required to use a much louder voice to get their points heard. It’s too bad the restrictions on suppressors haven’t been lifted yet.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sunny BoycottNRA ❤ @srfuzy

Why are we even giving her the time of day…@DLoesch is a female version of Hitler.. who knew in one Presidency term we’d have a male and female modern day HITLER

Screenshot_20180316-074946

Sunny BoycottNRA ❤ @srfuzy
Tweeted on March 16th, 2018 and deleted by the morning of March 17th.
[You have to wonder… is it profound ignorance that enabled Sunny to concluded that HITLER is a generic insult like “pond scum” or “jerk”? Or do they live in some sort of delusional reality where Hitler didn’t confiscate firearms before sending “the deplorables” to the death camps?

In any case, two things are clear:

  1. It is very telling when they have insults and we have SCOTUS decisions
  2. Rule #3, SJWs always project.

—Joe]

This is what they think of you

From Scientific American:

Who is buying all these guns—and why?

The short, broad-brush answer to the first part of that question is this: men, who on average possess almost twice the number of guns female owners do. But not all men. Some groups of men are much more avid gun consumers than others. The American citizen most likely to own a gun is a white male—but not just any white guy. According to a growing number of scientific studies, the kind of man who stockpiles weapons or applies for a concealed-carry license meets a very specific profile.

These are men who are anxious about their ability to protect their families, insecure about their place in the job market, and beset by racial fears. They tend to be less educated. For the most part, they don’t appear to be religious—and, suggests one study, faith seems to reduce their attachment to guns. In fact, stockpiling guns seems to be a symptom of a much deeper crisis in meaning and purpose in their lives. Taken together, these studies describe a population that is struggling to find a new story—one in which they are once again the heroes.

I find it interesting that every person in my sample of gun owners fails to match the profile they give on almost every one of the negative characteristics they claim dominate. Some might match on one negative characteristic, and some on another, but none that I can think of match on more than one. I wonder how they obtained their sample and how many gun owners claimed to not be a gun owner and avoided participating with their study.

And, if someone claims this is justification for implementing gun control, this is an admission that gun control is sexist and racist.

In any case, this is what they think of you. Let them keep thinking this. It will be a bigger surprise for them when reality smacks them in the face.

Constitutional protection won’t matter

John Robb has presented us with an extremely interesting scenario:

Weaponized social networks have seized control of the political process from the traditional political parties and their media gatekeepers. They are in charge now and, more importantly, they are rapidly evolving. Getting more powerful with each passing day.

This effort gets teeth, and the capacity to impact millions of people simultaneously, through a list. A list of gun owners. A list built in part using leaked/stolen government data and through the reporting of friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and more. A list that is potentially stored in a blockchain for durability and enhanced with rumors (statements or pictures of people on the list that makes them look dangerous). With this list in hand, network members would then turn up the pressure on individuals:

  • Employers would refuse employment or fire individuals who own guns, in the name of workplace safety, at the urging of other employees.
  • Parents would put pressure on schools to ban the parents who own guns from attending school functions or put in place extra security at schools targeting children living in gun owning households.
  • With pictures and and a little open source facial recognition software, anyone on the list could be IDed by anyone with a smart phone.

Get the picture? In short, everything from getting access to a building to renting an apartment to getting a date could get very hard for reputed gun owners to do nearly overnight.

All without legislation or government regulations.

Scare you a bit? It should.

I can see this happening in leftist enclaves but in the vast area of the country where guns and gun owners are accepted. The boycotts and shunning only work when those your are shunning are a small enough minority that you don’t really need them. Are they going to boycott most of the farmers, miners, and others who supply their water and energy?

That boycott won’t last more than a week and the payback may be far more than they bargained for.

And when the mobs surround the homes of gun owners I see visions of the shopkeepers with rifles on top of their buildings during the L.A. riots.

And what about the police? They are generally on our side even though their political overlords may not be. Will they be “unable to identify” the person who drove off the rioters attempting to torch someone in their car.

But, even in the best case imaginable above, the better result is to never get into the situation. Gun owners all need to “come out of the closet” and make it clear we are normal people. We do not have blood on our hands from the school shootings. We did not create the victim disarmament zones. We offer calm, rational, solutions and our opponents offer angry mobs.

Quote of the day—Norman Yarvin

A well-regulated death squad being the best defense of a tyrannical government, the right of the government to selectively enforce disarmament laws shall not be infringed.

Norman Yarvin
May 3, 2000
Tag line to his post in rec.guns about Cooper’s Rule 1.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Lies and ignorance are the best they can muster

Lots of examples here but the conclusion is:

If “gun control” extremists actually want to ban “weapons of war”… why are they not calling for actual weapons of war to be banned with their zombie “assault weapon ban”?

And if all they want to do with this rotting, shambling piece of legislation is only ban “weapons of war” – as they’ve been trying to proclaim for nearly a month now – then why is all that other stuff included in the blast radius?

Perhaps they have no idea what they are talking about.
And perhaps they are being… less than honest.

To answer the question, it is because lies and ignorance are the best they can muster.

Quote of the day—Oleg Volk

Gunowners cannot afford to give up anything at all — to do otherwise would be to condemn themselves and their whole families to immediate and dire peril. Both sides know it, and government bullies dare not deal a small injury to their constituents…some hold out for the opportunity to strike big, others try to encroach by degrees.

Oleg Volk
March 15, 2018
The impossibility of surrender
[Or, as Rolf pointed out to me, “If these fancy politicians treat the people this poorly when you’re armed to the teeth, just imagine what they’ll be willing to do once they’ve taken away all your gun.”—Joe]

Management lesson

My boss at work just finished up some management training and shared the following video with our team.

If you tilt your head just a bit you can map the lessons of this video into the the form of our U.S. Constitutional government as it was originally intended.

It also helps you realize why an authoritarian system of government will always underperform a liberty based form. It’s about decisions being made where the information is. And furthermore, you only have to squint just a little bit to see why, individual gun ownership must remain an individual choice.

Quote of the day—Carl Bussjaeger

#NEVERAGAIN is not yours to use to distort reality. It certainly isn’t yours to use to reaccomplish the Nazis’ evil; disarming the undesirables all over again.

Be honest: The hashtag slogan you really want, that truly represents your goals is

#FinalSolution

It isn’t going to work this time around, Latter Day National Socialists. Because we do understand “Never Again,” and you aren’t dealing with 6,000,000 disarmed men, women, and disposable children. There are tens of millions of us who have a sneaking suspicion of your intent should you ever manage to render people helpless, and we declined to be… rendered.

“We knew. We told ourselves we didn’t. But we knew.”

So do you. Now, at least. You have no excuse.

Carl Bussjaeger
March 5, 2018
#NEVER AGAIN
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

A politician who understands our issue

Via email from daughter Jaime I received a link to this March 2, 2018 speech by Nick Freitas, delegate to the Virginia house of Representatives.

I sometimes think politicians don’t have a clue about much of anything. This guy does a good job on our issue:

Some of the comments from YouTube:

This guy is brilliant, articulate and dead right. On all counts. Logic, truth and facts are his friends, as they are the deadly enemies of the Left.

imxio

I was waiting for a bald eagle to land on my shoulder during that speech.

Peator

Democrats walked out during the speech, claiming they were offended. Dems are such a joke.

GlobalVortex

We need to push sanctuary cities and sanctuary states for undocumented AR15s. Stop the breaking up of innocent ARs from their families.

DH Gaston

The day the adult stood up.

Larry Hickey

Lies and deception

Senator Dianne Feinstein is still lying in her efforts to achieve her goal of completely disarming the population:

The falsehood that is most frustrating, however, is that Democrats have no ideas to counter this violence. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

The first is getting military-style assault weapons such as the AR-15 off the streets.

These weapons fire much faster than typical hunting rifles. They fire rounds that are also deadlier than those fired from a hunting rifle. A Parkland radiologist noted that an AR-15 round may leave an exit wound “the size of an orange.” These weapons are designed to kill people, not animals.

There are other lies and deceptions in the article but this serves as a good example.

If you follow her “deadlier” link you find it doesn’t compare the ammo typically used in AR-15s to ammunition used in hunting deer, elk, moose, etc. She is giving the impression that she has supporting evidence for her lie but no such evidence exists and is absurd that such evidence can exist. If it were true then most hunters would never purchase the more expensive ammo used to bring down a 1000 pound moose. And if hunting ammo can kill a 1000 pound moose then you have to realize it can easily take down a 150 pound human.

And this analysis doesn’t even take into account the unspoken premise that killing people is something to be prevent. Murdering people is illegal and rightly so. Killing a violent criminal in the act of causing permanent injury or death to an innocent person is not only justified it is frequently praiseworthy. So, if someone insists on accepting Feinstein’s false claim, tell them, “Then that is justification for private citizens to own these types of firearms. We need the best tools available to defend ourselves from criminal attacks. Why would anyone demand we have inferior tools to defend our lives and the lives of our children?”

Quote of the day—Stephen P. Halbrook

The Supreme Court ruled in D.C. v. Heller (2008) that the Second Amendment protects the arms that are typically possessed for lawful purposes by law-abiding citizens. That includes the AR-15. Yet because negligent government actors failed to prevent a massacre, the cry goes out to ban this rifle.

The expired 1994 Clinton ban on “assault weapons”—a propaganda term for modern sporting rifles—had zero effect on crime. A Department of Justice study verified that. Yet a similar ban is now advocated because government failed to act and prevent the murders.

Stephen P. Halbrook
March 2, 2018
Blame for Parkland Rests with Local School Officials and FBI Ineptitude
[There is no escaping the conclusion that the majority of people who want gun owners disarmed have reasons other than a reduction in violent crime.

Don’t trust anyone that wants you disarmed. If you have no intent to harm innocent people then only reason they could have to disarm you is because they wish to do something to you that you wouldn’t allow if you were armed.

This meme also has a good point.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Liberalitarian

AR-15s should be illegal, but that is just a start. Any gun made to kill only humans at a rapid rate should be illegal. What is needed to kill a deer should be the max. Single shot, 6 round magazines. Begin confiscating everything else in a buy back program and make us like Australia.

Liberalitarian
March 7, 2018
Comment to ‘March for Our Lives’ gun control rally to draw thousands across US: Everything you need to know
[Their handle should be “Authoritarian” instead of “Liberalitarian”.

Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—⚜️Lynn⚜️ @lindeeloo_who

An AR-15 is just a civilian dick extender that people that never had the balls to enlist and Veterans with combat weapon separation anxiety use to make themselves feel big and bad during their weekly gun nut circle jerk in Bubba’s garage.

⚜️Lynn⚜️ @lindeeloo_who
Tweeted on March 6, 2018 (and later deleted)
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

Would this be based on personal experience or is this just another one of those delusional rants we get from anti-gun people?—Joe]

Something new from an anti-gun advocate

Via email from Drew Rinella we have What I Saw Treating the Victims From Parkland Should Change the Debate on Guns:

On Wednesday night, Rubio said at a town-hall event hosted by CNN that it is impossible to create effective gun regulations because there are too many “loopholes,” and that a “plastic grip” can make the difference between a gun that is legal and one that is illegal. But if we can see the different impacts of high- and low-velocity rounds clinically, then the government can also draw such distinctions.

As a radiologist, I have now seen high-velocity AR-15 gunshot wounds firsthand, an experience that most radiologists in our country will never have. I pray that these are the last such wounds I have to see, and that AR-15-style weapons and high-capacity magazines are banned for use by civilians in the United States, once and for all.

I’m almost pleased the anti-gunners have come up with a new idea. After being involved in this issue for almost 25 years I have never heard this one before and it has become almost boring to slap down the proposals put forth. But, there is a reason this idea has never been openly proposed before.

This idea should work “well”. Almost all centerfire rifles produce velocities which cause the types of wounds she is concerned about. Banning all such rifles would produce an “interesting” response. The millions of hunters who have long thought “They will never come after me because <reasons>” will suddenly be activated, become vocal advocates, and vote with a ferocity we have not seen since the civil war. And if defeated in the political field, well, the ferocity might just continue to rival the previous civil war in other areas where the hunters have a significant advantage over their antagonists.

Quote of the day—Weer’d Beard

Self Defense is a natural HUMAN behavior.

Those who are against self defense are by definition inhuman in their actions.

Weer’d Beard
March 8, 2018
Comment to Quote of the day—Anonymous
[I like this line of reasoning.—Joe]

Einstein agrees

Sometimes you just have to shake your head in wonder and the inability of anti-gun people to process numbers:

Concerned for his life, he retrieved a 28mm pistol from his car, loaded it, tucked it into his waistband and returned to the waiting room, where he called police to report that he was in a dangerous situation and needed protection. His pistol was a model that fires high-velocity rounds, similar to a rifle.

Correction: An earlier version of this post mistakenly referred to a 28mm gun as a .28mm gun.

How difficult is it for the writer, proofreader, and/or editor to engage a little bit of common sense and think about what a 28mm gun would look like? There are 25.4mm in an inch, so this pistol, “that fires high-velocity rounds, similar to a rifle” would fire projectiles well over an inch in diameter at rifle velocities.

These people could not have possibly even seen a modest number of pistols. Furthermore if they had ever fired a common .30 caliber rifle they would know that a pistol firing a projectile greater than 3.5 times the diameter (and at least ten times the mass) would cause extremely serious injury to the shooter.

That they discovered they had an error with the caliber and managed to “correct” it with an even more egregious error indicts to me they do not care about the truth. Which leads me to something Albert Einstein said,

Wenn es sich um Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit handelt, gibt es nicht die Unterscheidung zwischen kleinen und grossen Problemen. Denn die allgemeinen Gesichtspunkte, die das Handeln der Menschen betreffen, sind unteilbar. Wer es in kleinen Dingen mit der Wahrheit nicht ernst nimmt, dem kann man auch in grossen Dingen nicht vertrauen…

When the issue is one of Truth and Justice, there can be no differentiating between small problems and great ones. For the general viewpoints on human behaviour are indivisible. People who fail to regard the truth seriously in small matters, cannot be trusted in matters that are great.

The only reasonable conclusion is that Einstein would have agreed with us that anti-gun people are not to be trusted with truth and justice.

Quote of the day—Anonymous

THERE IS NO REASON TO OWN A GUN. The only thing a gun is good for is killing people. I am so happy to finally be rid of my Rifle and AR-15 and i think Trump is heroic for attempting to clamp down in guns.

Anonymous
March 1, 2018
I just proudly turned in my guns
[I guess this settles it then. Since I have fired, approximately, 150,000 rounds without killing anyone it proves my guns were malfunctioning the entire time.

And furthermore Anonymous apparently believes there is never any instances when it is praiseworthy or even appropriate to kill someone.

Anonymous has crap for brains.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Crazy talk?

It’s absolutely amazing the crazy things some people claim to believe:

Democratic Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith said on the House floor that he was voting against the legislation, explaining that while he considers some of the legislation’s gun-control provisions reasonable, “they’re not enough.” He said the measure fails to address the root causes of mass shootings, including the ready availability of semiautomatic weapons and large-capacity magazines.

How can anyone believe, “the root causes of mass shootings” include “the ready availability of semiautomatic weapons and large-capacity magazines.”? Are the availability of syringes and surgical tubing the root causes of heroin overdoses? Are the ready availability of trucks and diesel the root causes of terrorists driving through crowds?

This is crazy talk or deliberate deception?

I think this is deliberate deception and manipulation of the language in an attempt to infringe upon a specific enumerated right. This criminal should be prosecuted.

Quote of the day—Michael Z. Williamson

So your argument is, “We’ve already violated this amendment to the point where all you have are very basic infantry weapons, and now we’re claiming those aren’t effective without the stuff we’ve already banned, so it’s reasonable to ban that, too.”

And I’m saying, we need to fix the entire problem, which we both recognize, and eliminate those laws so veterans (and determined civilians who for whatever reason were unable to serve), can have the weapons they need so we CAN fight tanks and planes in such an emergency.

The only people who could possibly object are the kind who want to send tanks and planes against civilians.

Michael Z. Williamson
March 2, 2018
Destroying Gun Control Myths, Part 1: “You Can’t Fight Tanks And Planes With Rifles!”
[I love the insight and clarity Williamson gives the issue.—Joe]