Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day—Phil Murphy

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Good news, we have among the smartest, most progressive gun laws in the nation. That’s a fact. It’s also a fact that they can be stronger. There’s no reason why we can’t strengthen them.

…

There’s a myth out there that if you strengthen gun safety laws you somehow chip away the Second Amendment. I don’t believe that … This is not a zero sum game.

Phil Murphy
Governor of New Jersey
February 13, 2018
Gov. Phil Murphy talks gun safety at South Jersey roundtable
[From the perspective of wondering what color the sky is in his universe I would like to hear him answer the question, “What sort of law do you believe would ‘chip away the Second Amendment?’”

I am of the firm belief that the only thing which will stop the New Jersey slide down the gun control slippery slope is hitting bottom with a complete ban on all firearms and/or the arrest and prosecution of their politicians.—Joe]

Reining in the Washington Governor’s Emergency Powers

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Washington State emergency powers need to be respectful of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Firearms Policy Coalition has a form letter to sign and send to your state Senator:

Proposed floor amendment 545 to SSB 6006 repealing the unconstitutional power to arbitrarily ban firearms possession during a declared state of emergency would bring state law into compliance with current case law on the matter. Laws and declarations similar to Washington State law concerning citizen possession of firearms during a declared state of emergency have been found to be unconstitutional.

The fact our state has never acted on this emergency “power” to restrict the lawful possession of legally owned firearms has left it on the books, unchallenged, as a litigant would lack standing on this unused law.

A relic of the 1960’s, laws of this nature were enacted to empower the government against those that may choose to exercise their freedoms clearly outlined in the Bill of Rights and the Washington State Constitution.

In addition, in upwards of 600,000 Washingtonians are extensively background checked and legally certified to carry firearms by the State of Washington. Is it to be assumed that this imagined “emergency power” also extends to these individuals? If so, it would be a stunning reversal for the state to summarily revoke these licenses in such an action. There would surely be both legal and political consequences for elected officials and the state if such an action were to ever occur.

During a declared emergency when 911 response resources would surely be stretched thin, citizens would likely be on their own to defend themselves and others. As recent geological research has outlined, Western Washington is one of the world’s most dangerous earthquake zones. A large earthquake could separate citizens for days or even weeks from vital emergency services.

Tell your representative support SSB 6006 if it is amended by calling at 1-800-562-6000 and then send them an email today!

Click on the link above, fill in a few items, then click the submit button to send a very quick email.

Quote of the day—Jayjaybe

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It’s an individual hazard derived from an obsolete premise.

Jayjaybe
February 11, 2018
Referring to the 2nd Amendment in a comment to The showdown over the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act
[I’m pretty sure they lack any SCOTUS rulings to back up that assertion.

This is what they think of the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Patricia Eddington

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Some of these bullets, as you saw, have an incendiary device on the tip of it, which is a heat seeking device.

So, you don’t shoot deer with a bullet that size. If you do you could cook it at the same time.

Patricia Eddington
Assembly Woman D-NY
July 2007
[Via a tweet from Firearms Policy Coalition.

See also:

I can be pretty creative if I try. But even if I was given weeks to try I don’t think I could come up with some of the crazy things the anti-gun people say.

I used to listen to a morning D.J. on the radio which regularly featured stupid stuff that people said and did. It had a soundbite of something like, “Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.”* The things these people come up with illustrate the truth of that statement.

At times it’s mind boggling that our enemies are this stupid and yet after the fifty years I have been aware of the battle they still haven’t been defeated.

But does does explain why they push for “smart guns”? Do they recognize they are too stupid to use them without technological assistance?—Joe]

* Mark Twain said something similar.

Quote of the day—Eileen McCarron

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But too many guns in society is a root problem that spreads in many directions, including causing the deaths of law enforcement officers. The gun is such a lethal object, and it gives so much power to people doing wrong to use against someone trying to stop them.

Eileen McCarron
President of Colorado Ceasefire Legislative Action
February 6, 2018
How to end line of duty deaths in Colorado?
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.

McCarron fails to mention that a gun gives power to innocent victims defending themselves. One must conclude that McCarron does not want people have such power to defend themselves. This being a specific enumerated right it then, obviously, follows that McCarron is conspiring to deny people this right and 18 USC 241 applies. I look forward to her trial.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lucia Guzman

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We keep doing our best about moving some bills forward to rid our area of more and more guns, but we’re kind of locked in here, not being in the majority.

Lucia Guzman
Senate Minority Leader, D-Denver
February 6, 2018
How to end line of duty deaths in Colorado?
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Andrea Stewart-Cousins

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There are things that are very, very good and have worked, and we can’t just stop,

Andrea Stewart-Cousins
New York State Senate Minority Leader
February 6, 2018
New York Democrats renew call for gun control laws
[These sound like the words of a drug addict.

I guess it shouldn’t be surprising. Power is a very potent drug. And like other recreational drugs it tends to be destructive to both the user and innocent people near the addict.

The people of New York should intervene and remove her from power.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Frank Jackson

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We are reminded, through senseless tragedies, of the need to remove and keep weapons from the hands of those who should not have them.

Frank Jackson
Cleveland Mayor
January 31, 2018
Ohio Supreme Court rules against Cleveland’s efforts at local gun control
[Perhaps Jackson had a preconceived solution and, at best, a poorly defined problem statement when he started on this ill fate journey down the gun control path.

A better problem statement is:

Violent criminals with weapons are murdering innocent people.

This lends itself to a much larger solution set. Many of those possible solutions will get support from pro-gun people. For example:

  • Teach well behaved people how to defend themselves and other innocent people.
  • Increase police and prosecution resources to make criminal activity more certain of incarceration.
  • If, through due process of law, it can be determined that someone is a near certain violent threat to others keep them incarcerated and/or treat them until they are no longer a threat.

It bugs me that people say convicted felons, domestic abusers, or people on the terror watch list are too dangerous to be allowed possession of a firearm. Yet, they are allowed to be in public and purchase knives, baseball bates, gasoline, matches, drive cars and fly airplanes. People should be categorized as one of the following:

  • Low risk and have a right to be in public unsupervised
  • Moderate risk in need to be under some level of supervision while in public
  • High risk in need of incarceration
  • Extreme, permanent, risk and should be put to death (Ted Bundy who escaped several times, and was a committed serial killer when in public, would qualify)

Criminal control, not object control.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Cody Wilson

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Gun control is not dead, gun control is undead. We just keep killing it but it keeps coming back.

…

The handgun is at the center of what is protected in the Heller decision. So, whereas, AR-15’s may not ever be backed up by the Supreme Court, there’s no way of getting around, right now, the protections that the Supreme Court gave to the handgun. And so this is the core of the Second Amendment liberty as it’s currently understood.

Cody Wilson
Director of Defense Distributed
February 5, 2018
Want to Make an Untraceable Handgun at Home? Cody Wilson Can Help.
[For certain values of “understood”.

These are interesting times we live in.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Aharon Grossman

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Carrying makes you a sissy.

  • If somebody bumps you walking down the street while you are carrying, you show extra restraint and let it go.
  • If someone whistles at your girlfriend while you are carrying, you smile and shrug it off.
  • If two guys are in a scuffle and you are tempted to jump in to break it up, you don’t.
  • If somebody gets in your face about your inconsiderate parking, you use you best verbal judo to de-escalate the situation.
  • If things do get real hot, you’ll find yourself yelling, “I don’t want any trouble.” so that all the bystanders and their cellphone cameras can hear.

Aharon Grossman
January 18, 2018
Answering the question, “What should I know carrying a concealed firearm?”
[Or, in other words, “An armed society is a polite society.”—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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Have you ever noticed that “progressives”, with their claims the 2nd Amendment only protects muzzle loaders, are less than tolerant about progress in firearm technology?

Illegal hands

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As I was reading this article I started out thinking this is another example of people creating a problem statement to arrive at their desired solution. While this is true, I ended up laughing at ambiguous wording:

Hopkins study evaluates BPD tactics for gun control

…

Beilenson said there was a 45 percent reduction in repeat offenses. He added that the biggest problem was simply the number of guns in Baltimore.

“[There are] literally as many guns as people in Baltimore, mostly in illegal hands,” he said.

We have sometimes wondered when they would get around to banning sticks, stones, feet and hands. Perhaps Beilenson thinks some hands are already banned.

Quote of the day—Gil G

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When you can’t get to shoot others there’s no freedom, right?

Gil G
February 2, 2018
Comment to Gun Rights Advocates Score Victory With Latest Illinois Supreme Court Ruling
[This is what some anti-gun people think of you.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Chief Justice Karmeier

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Innocent behavior could swiftly be transformed into culpable conduct if an individual unknowingly crosses into a firearm restriction zone. The result could create a chilling effect on the second amendment when an otherwise law-abiding individual may inadvertently violate the 1000-foot firearm-restricted zones by just turning a street corner.

Chief Justice Karmeier
February 1, 2018
Ban on Carrying Guns Within 1,000 Feet of Park Struck Down
Complete decision: The People of the state of Illinois, Appellant, v. Julio Chairez, Appelle
[Chilling effect!!!!

I’ve been wanting to hear those words in a court decision in regards to the Second Amendment since before the Heller decision. I wish it was in a U.S. Supreme Court decision but I’ll take it as a first step.

Apply the legal concept of a chilling effect applied to the laws of New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, and California. This is one of the lanes on the road to victory.—Joe]

Anti-gun people say the strangest things

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Via the FPC:

TheThingsAntiGunPeopleSay

One might think this sort of thing was a “brain fart” or some slip of the tongue that occurs when under the stress of an interview or public speaking event. But I’ve seen these sort of things happen in written communication. They simply do not have the mental processes to handle rational thought. This happens so frequently we have a name for it. It is called Peterson Syndrome.

Quote of the day—TurtleDude

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I oppose stupid laws that are almost guaranteed not to apply to people causing problems.The people who push this crap … don’t even believe it will do squat about criminals. They want to pander to the slow witted sheeple and harass honest citizens whose voting patterns vex anti gun liberals.

TurtleDude
January 30, 2018
Post in the forum If gun control worked Mexico would be crime free.
[Well, those aren’t the only reason they do it, but it’s a couple of the reasons.—Joe]

How’s that going to work out?

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I have to laugh at this:

Until recently, sheriff’s deputies notified offenders they weren’t allowed to possess firearms but gave them 24 hours to turn them in.

There was no mechanism, however, to make sure that the gun was actually turned in. Local law enforcement and state law enforcement officials would go house to house to enforce the laws as resources allowed, but the
process was expensive, slow and potentially dangerous.

…

The sheriff’s office is now working with the Office on the Status of Woman and others to develop a comprehensive plan for making sure everyone required to surrender their guns does so in a manner that’s safe for officers, according to Suzy Loftus, assistant chief legal counsel for the sheriff’s office.

So, going house to house and confiscating is considered dangerous? Who would have guessed?

So, now, they are going to “develop a comprehensive plan” where people surrender their guns “in a manner that’s safe for officers”.

Wow! These people are really stupid.

Apparently they are unable to conceive of the response, “No. Your move.”

How gun control works

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From Rolf:

HowGunControlworks

As I have said before:

How long does it take the average high school dropout to find a way around the ban? Yeah, that’s right, Einstein. The average high school dropout can get all the recreational drugs they want within an hour anytime of the day, any day of the week. So just how effective you think a background check would be in reducing the abuse of recreational drugs?

Now apply what you know about the recreational drug issue to firearms. A background check is totally pointless.

A similar argument can be made for nearly all gun control. Nearly all politicians know this. They have to have some objective other than reducing violent crime because it just doesn’t work and the data supports this conclusion.

Most people who have studied this believe the real objective is to increased the dependency on government and increase the political power of government officials. This line of reasoning can be extrapolated to “so they can implement a socialist state”. YMMV.

Operation Safe Store

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Seems like a reasonable idea:

“No one wants to prevent the theft of firearms more than the licensed retailers that sell them,” said Stephen L. Sanetti, NSSF president and chief executive officer. “There is no one-size fits all solution to helping prevent thefts from firearms retailers, which is why Operation Safe Store will provide access to information and training to allow retailers to make the decisions that are right for them.”

I strongly suspect there is more to the story than what we see here.

A bit of background with something slightly off the topic at hand.

At one point there was talk of “safe storage” laws at the Federal level and states were passing such laws with alarming regularity. They were poorly written at best and frequently obvious attempts to make it prohibitively expensive, increase the hassle of owning a gun, and make it difficult or impossible to use a gun for home self-defense.

“The industry” responded by including a lock of some sort with every new gun sold. Gun friendly legislators, lobbyists, and gun owners  could then use this to convince undecided legislators, “Gun owners already have ‘safe storage’ available to them.” The “safe storage” drive was stalled and in some states even turned against the anti-gun activists.Washington, for example, passed a law removing the state taxes from gun safes.

I suspect the NSSF is politically astute enough to see some writing on the walls and is “getting ahead” of legislation aimed at making life very difficult for gun stores.

Quote of the day—Jeff Snyder

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As the Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does not trust its honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens with the means of self-defense is not itself worthy of trust. Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people. A federal law along the lines of the Florida statute — overriding all contradictory state and local laws and acknowledging that the carrying of firearms by law-abiding citizens is a privilege and immunity of citizenship — is needed to correct the outrageous conduct of state and local officials operating under discretionary licensing systems.

Jeff Snyder
2001
Nation of Cowards page 30
[This essay was originally published in 1993 by The Public Interest.

What he says we needed 25 years ago, while closer than ever before, is still not a reality. Let’s keep pushing and get this item checked off our list.—Joe]