I’m a Fascist… the only time people of real character show up is when the
government crushes the population with it’s heel.
Josh Baker
June 2, 1996
[He may have a point. We may also soon be able to test his claim.—Joe]
Category Archives: Gun Rights
Quote of the day—nandemosan
I don’t care how old you are. No one needs a semi-automatic rifle just as no one needs a handgun.
nandemosan
February 28, 2018
Comment to Why our blue state is more red when it comes to guns
[It appears to me that the 17 students murdered in Florida needed someone with a gun to defend them.
It is not a Bill of Needs. It is a Bill of Rights. Furthermore, as SCOTUS explained:
This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed…
The right to keep and bear arms is a natural right and will be defended just a vigorously, if not more so, as if the government were infringing the First Amendment.
Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
Facts can be confusing
This post was inspired by a cartoon sent to me by Will S.
It was only in the last few thousand years that facts and logic began to have a toehold on our understanding of world around us. Even then rational thought would lose its footing and slide back down into the dark ages for a few hundred years at a time.
My hypothesis is that there is a reason for this. Reliance on facts and rational thought created an evolutionary advantage which allowed for the survival of a greater number of less fit people. These less fit, emotionally driven, people drag society down again.
The repeated rise and fall of reliance on rational thought is like a cleaning process. Each time the gene pool was cleaned it became a more biased toward rationality and human society became more advanced.
I had hoped that we need not go through another dark age but there are times when I fear we are nearing another downward slide. How else can you explain the continued infatuation with socialism? What other political system has experienced so many attempts and resulted in so many catastrophic failures? How else can you explain the masses of people who blame private ownership of firearms for the massacres of school children when government disarmed the adults, failed to prosecute the villain prior to his attack, and failed to come to the rescue even though they were close by? The government which failed at ever step of the way is now supposed to be tasked with the job of attacking those who held no responsibility for the creating the circumstance, or failing to stop the attack. This is not the result of a rational thought process. This is crazy talk and to me is a strong indicator that the slippery slope into another dark age is only a small misstep away.
Quote of the day—J.D. Tuccille
Social media at the moment is full of gun opponents celebrating efforts to isolate the NRA and its membership. It also features gun supporters flashing images of their new membership cards in that organization. NRA members now vow economic retaliation against the companies that succumbed to similar threats from anti-gun activists. The big losers are bound to be those companies who felt obliged to publicly pick a side in the new economic phase of the growing culture war.
But pick a side, they did, and many more will come under pressure to do the same in the days to come. The political tribes are restless, and they’re eager to do as much damage as possible to their cultural enemies with the only tools left to them.
J.D. Tuccille
February 27, 2018
Culture War Is All That’s Left When Gun Policy Battles Become Pointless
[Via email from Stephanie.
Tuccille’s analysis rings true with me.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Borepatch
You meet different sorts of people who advocate for gun control. Some of them are hard core control freaks who just want to crush flyover country, but if you’re like me you don’t run across them very often. Mostly you run across people who aren’t shooters or gun owners, who haven’t thought about the issue very much, but who are disturbed about the constant media drumbeat about shootings and who just want to “do something”.
We need these people on our side, or at least standing on the sidelines. How do we separate them from the gun control pack.
My last post was how I approach this: I’m not opposed to gun control, I’m opposed to stupid and useless gun control. This is a mind virus that I’m trying to infect them with. I want to sow seeds of doubt in their minds to get them out of the gun controller’s camp and onto the sidelines. Hopefully (if the virus really takes) it will begin the process where they actually start to think about things and they may even end up on our side.
It’s a battle for the (very large) middle ground. In the long run, we’re not viable without it.
Borepatch
March 2, 2018
A Gun Rights Mind Virus
[In a lot of ways I think this is a great idea. Particularly since, as near as I can tell, all gun control is stupid and useless.
But, it ignores the principle aspect. Suppose it was found it was not “useless” to implement policy of summary execution for anyone to be caught on video committing a crime of violence, i.e. violent crime dramatically dropped. A little later lawmakers decided to extend the policy to possession of a gun or ammunition and violent crime dropped even further.
The safety net of the right to keep and bear arms just went away. Stupid? Almost for certain, particularly since summary execution is now viewed as acceptable. What next? Political speech? But the question of “stupid” is going to be subject to debate. We are now on a slippery slope well into tyranny hell with no recourse.
Bottom line is that I like it but it needs to be tempered with at least a bit of philosophy that respects the fundamental, natural, right to self-defense from both criminals and a runaway government.—Joe]
Need
The need for firearms is like the need for free speech. You need them the most when someone is trying to take them from you.*
* See also something similar I wrote in 1995 near the bottom of this post.
Insurance and magazines and the various things
Recently anti-gun people have been making a big deal about the termination of hotel and rental car discounts for NRA members. The belief that this is the reason gun owners join the NRA goes back to at least 2004 in anti-gun organizations:
There are 90 million gun owners in the United States. Only 3.5 million want the insurance and magazines and the various things you get for joining the NRA.
I wonder if there was some backroom strategy meeting where anti-gun people decided they could cause the NRA significant financial harm by destroying the relationships between these businesses and the NRA.
I have occasionally tried to get a good deal renting a car or hotel using the NRA discounts and I have never found it to be as good a deal as I could get via some other channel. Hence, my guess is that these discounts did not result in much business for the hotels and car rental agencies. So, when they were confronted by the angry mobs perhaps they figured there wasn’t that much to lose anyway. So, why have to deal with the hassle?
If they only looked at the loss of the business from people using the NRA discounts I suspect they miscalculated the total costs of that decision. Let’s make that as obvious to them as we can.
Quote of the day—National Rifle Association
The law-abiding members of the NRA had nothing at all to do with the failure of that school’s security preparedness, the failure of America’s mental health system, the failure of the National Instant Check System or the cruel failures of both federal and local law enforcement.
Despite that, some corporations have decided to punish NRA membership in a shameful display of political and civic cowardice. In time, these brands will be replaced by others who recognize that patriotism and determined commitment to Constitutional freedoms are characteristics of a marketplace they very much want to serve.
Let it be absolutely clear. The loss of a discount will neither scare nor distract one single NRA member.
National Rifle Association
February 24, 2018
NRA Statement on Corporate Partnerships
[I’m reminded of:
Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.
Niccolò Machiavelli
The Prince
1513
Either our opponents are so desperate for a “victory” of any type they are willing to throw “pebbles” at people with guns, and/or they are ignorant of human psychology, and/or they have crap for brains.—Joe]
Don’t ever let anyone tell you no one wants to take your guns
Via Allahpundit:
YouGov asked people whether they favor or oppose banning semiautomatic weapons. Note: Not semiautomatic rifles, which some might incorrectly but understandably treat as a question about AR-15s or “assault weapons.” YouGov asked about semiautomatic weapons. That means handguns too. Result:
82% of Democrats are in favor of banning semi-automatic firearms.
They followed up by asking how people feel about banning all handguns (except those issued to officers of the state, of course!), which would include revolvers. Result:
44% of Democrats are in favor of banning all handguns.
I’m tempted to retire the category “No one wants to take your guns” with this post. If some random Democrats says, “No one wants to take your guns” there is a about a 99.9% chance they know that is a lie.
More interesting Facebook stuff
Today, I posted a Random thought of the day:
If bakers of wedding cakes can be forced to bake custom wedding cakes for homosexuals because gay marriage is legal, doesn’t that mean stores which sell firearms can be forced to custom order an AR-15 for you because you are legally allowed to own one?
My blog software automatically makes a Facebook post with a link back to my blog. It did that today with the previous post but it doesn’t show up on Facebook. I have seen this before but just thought maybe there was error of some sort and the Facebook post failed. This time, I know that’s not the case.
From Statcounter:
IP: 69.171.240.16
Date: 3/1/2018 15:10
Link: http://m.facebook.com
Title: Random thought of the day | The View From North Central Idaho
Url: https://blog.joehuffman.org/2018/03/01/random-thought-of-the-day-104/
This was two minutes after my blog post went live. I knew it took a minute or two before a blog post showed up on Facebook. I thought it was probably just some sort of normal processing delay. Now I suspect my blog posts are reviewed by a human before being allowed to go live on Facebook. It could be an automated process but that shouldn’t take two minutes.
We have known for a while that Google blocks shopping searches for AR15s (compare with AR10s).
So, what can we do about this sort of crap? Any ideas that are better than boycotting them?
Update March1, 2018 19:22 PST: Another visit to my blog post via Facebook came in 14 minutes after the first one:
IP: 71.92.94.104
Date: 3/1/2018 15:24
Link: https://www.facebook.com/
Title: Random thought of the day | The View From North Central Idaho
Url: https://blog.joehuffman.org/2018/03/01/random-thought-of-the-day-104/
It could not have been because of the original version of this post or inspired because of it because this post was not made until 16:10. Although it could have been that someone saw my blog post and referenced it themselves on Facebook. This is somewhat supported by the fact that another visit occurred at 18:48:
IP: 70.178.238.137
Date: 3/1/2018 18:48
Link: https://www.facebook.com/
Title: Random thought of the day | The View From North Central Idaho
Url: https://blog.joehuffman.org/2018/03/01/random-thought-of-the-day-104/
Random thought of the day
If bakers of wedding cakes can be forced to bake custom wedding cakes for homosexuals because gay marriage is legal, doesn’t that mean stores which sell firearms can be forced to custom order an AR-15 for you because you are legally allowed to own one?
Hold on to your AR-15
Found on Gab:
Quote of the day—Jeff Snyder
It is by no means obvious why it is “civilized” to permit oneself to fall easy prey to criminal violence, and to permit criminals to continue unobstructed in their evil ways. While it may be that a society in which crime is so rare that no one ever needs to carry weapon is “civilized”, a society which stigmatizes the carry of weapons by the law-abiding – because it distrusts its citizens more than it fears rapists, robbers and murder– certainly cannot claim this distinction.
Jeff Snyder
2001
Nation of Cowards page 28
[This essay was originally published in 1993 by The Public Interest.—Joe]
Quote of the day—David Hogg
An 18-year-old that has a history of being a bad kid shouldn’t be able to get hundreds of rounds of a weapon in a matter of days.
David Hogg
February 25, 2018
Florida shooting survivor vows to stay out of school until pols pass gun reform at N.J. rally
[Even if we give the kid the benefit of the doubt and assume “rounds of a weapon” was a misunderstanding of the reporter he still is profoundly ignorant about how difficult it would be to prevent someone from obtaining hundreds, or tens of thousands, of rounds of ammunition. If he doesn’t understand this then he must also believe the war on drugs is working.
The kid must have crap for brains. But, what do you expect from a high school dropout?—Joe]
It makes perfect sense
Students Participating in Gun Control Walkout Are Arrested After They Throw Rocks, Damage Cars:
Some California students who were participating in a school walkout in response to not having nationwide gun control laws were arrested after they began to throw rocks and cause property damage.
KCRA reports at least five students were arrested on Friday after they started to jump the fence to leave school property and began throwing rocks at both civilian and police cars. According to KCRA, charges include “battery on an officer, resisting arrest, taking an officer’s baton and vandalizing vehicles, including patrol vehicles.”
You might think this ironic. But actually it makes perfect sense. Of course criminals want the public disarmed. They don’t want to get shot.
Quote of the day—Michael Z. Williamson
When someone attacks a school or other soft target, the response is going to involve people with guns. People with guns who are driving distance away are less effective than people with guns on site.
You cannot disagree with this. It is a fact. If you attempt to disagree, you’re just not living in the real world. Go see a professional, do not ever buy a gun, do not vote. You probably shouldn’t drive, drink or handle matches either. You probably need an audio track of “Breathe in, breathe out.”
Michael Z. Williamson
February 23, 2018
Why Liberals Are Wrong About School Shootings (And Everything Else)
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Interesting
This morning I responded to a Facebook comment by someone wanting more restrictions on AR-15s because of the school shootings. The person said armed teachers was the wrong way to solve the problem because training, etc. I included this picture:
And I said this was the 37th through 46th shots, in her ENTIRE life, at 15 feet. I said I could do this with any woman of sound mind and body (on average, women learn shooting skills MUCH faster than men) with two hours of her time. And give me four hours and I can get them to the point where they could pass the shooting qualification test of local police departments. I offered free training to any teacher that wanted it.
Within a couple minutes I received a notification my comment had been marked as spam and I should review the comment. I went to do that and found the comment no longer existed. I was unable to review it.
I wonder why… [/sarcasm]
Quote of the day—Marie Connor @thistallawkgirl
As a lesbian, I can relate to NRA members because I also use inanimate objects to make up for my lack of dick.
Marie Connor @thistallawkgirl
Tweeted on February 21, 2018
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
I find it very telling that we have SCOTUS decisions and they have dick jokes.
H/T to Aaron W. for the email.—Joe]
NRA membership #TweetYourNRAMembership
This morning daughter Jaime announced on Facebook that she signed up for a NRA Lifetime membership.
I’ve been a Life Member of the NRA for nearly 13 years:
If you follow the hashtag #TweetYourNRAMembership you will find thousands of new members. Many of them don’t even own a gun. They are defending freedom and our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.
If you don’t care for the NRA’s sometimes limp wristed approach to anti-gun legislation consider become a member or upping your membership status with the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, or even Gun Owners of America.
SAF does the vast majority of the heavy lifting via the courts. Read more about FPC here. GOA is “The only no-compromise gun lobby in Washington”. I have monthly deductions out of my paycheck, matched by my employer, going to SAF and FPC.
Government has its own agenda
Via a private message from Don Kaag we have this explanation for why the local police didn’t do anything about the murdering scumbag in Florida when they were told dozens of times prior to when he shot up the kids.
If These Tweets Are True, Broward FL Law Enforcement Has A LOT To Answer For!!
…
I stumbled upon was a Broward County law enforcement system in a state of conflict. The Broward County School Board and District Superintendent entered into a political agreement with Broward County Law enforcement officials to stop arresting students for crimes.
The motive was simple. The school system administrators wanted to “improve their statistics” and gain state and federal grant money for improvements therein.
So police officials, the very highest officials of law enforcement (Sheriff and Police Chiefs), entered into a plan.
…
The primary problem was the policy conflicted with laws, and over time the policy began to create outcomes where illegal behavior by students was essentially unchecked by law enforcement. Link.
Initially, the police were excusing misdemeanor behaviors. However, it didn’t take long for felonies, even violent felonies (armed robberies, assaults and worse) were being excused.
…
Only then a Parkland school shooting happened. For Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel this had to be an “oh shit” moment; but not for the reasons the media initially thought. If people start digging, they’ll discover the shooter was one of those previously excused students
…
2013/2014 – Praise for the program: Link.
2017 – The program continues. Still chasing year-over-year reductions. Worse and worse crimes being excused. Link.
2018 – Parkland School Shooting. 17 dead. Political cop (SRO) cowered from the shooter; now retiring. School board wondering ‘what went wrong’.
Entirely predictable. Link.
The specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms is an essential part of life. Government has it’s own agenda and many times that agenda has nothing to do with protecting the rights of individuals. The Second Amendment enables individuals to protect themselves from all predators. This includes four legged predators, two legged predators, and the multi-headed monster called “government”.
When the dealing with corrupt and/or predatory governments the Second Amendment is Plan B when Plan A, the First Amendment, is insufficiently convincing that change is required.