The gunman who opened fire on a GOP baseball team in Virginia had a local storage locker with more than 200 rounds of ammunition that he visited daily, including less than an hour before he shot more than 60 times at the team during a morning practice June 14.
I sometimes reload 200 rounds in the morning before I go to work. And then I shoot that many or more at the range at lunch time.
This explains why he got so few solid hits. He didn’t practice enough. But they don’t even suggest anything along those lines.
[sarcasm] I wonder what their intended point is? [/sarcasm]
To me this demonstrates their ignorance and/or maliciousness.
A law found to discriminate based on viewpoint is an “egregious form of content discrimination,” which is “presumptively unconstitutional.” … A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.
This should give gun owners protection against having their Second Amendment rights infringed upon because they belong to some extremist group such as the NRA or the Republican party.—Joe]
The idea that right-leaning citizens, let alone congressmen, should have a right to defend themselves against left-wing antifa thugs, whether on a baseball field, in a mall, in a nightclub, or on a college campus, leaves them cold.
So, it comes as no surprise that Democrats are opposed to people being allowed to carry guns for self defense. They are at risk of, literally, losing voters.—Joe]
Incidents like the Virginia and San Francisco shootings inevitably lead to a debate over gun control. Here again the media, politicians, and advocacy groups play their scripted roles. The media quote Republicans and conservatives repeating their claims that tougher gun-control laws wouldn’t have prevented the Virginia shooting, because the shooter could have obtained the gun illegally. And, they add, gun control undermines our liberties.
To provide “balance,” the media quote Democrats and gun-control advocates, repeating their claims that this specific shooting, and the epidemic of mass shootings, would be dramatically reduced if we restricted the sale of guns and ammunition, including sales across state lines, because shooters often obtain guns in states with lax laws and bring them to states with tough laws.
Peter Dreier
June 16, 2017 The Virginia Shooting Isn’t About Bernie. It’s About the Right’s Embrace of Guns.
[I’m more and more convinced that, as Michael Savage says, Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder. I haven’t read his book but I took a college class on, and have experienced enough, abnormal psychology to recognize it. In this case it is conclusive because he cannot see that his political beliefs contributed to the bad results. One thing common to all personality disorders is that, in their minds, they didn’t contribute, in any way, to a bad outcome. It is always someone else’s fault.
With that mindset he goes on to describe a delusional world that is nearly unrecognizable to normal people.
This nut job, Dreier, not only gets things wrong, but he gets his “facts”, essentially, backwards. In this case the guns were purchased legally in a state, Illinois, with some of the most strict gun control laws and brought the gun to a state with much more relaxed laws. Although I didn’t quote that portion of the article, he repeatedly claims the gun was an AR-15 (it was actually an SKS). Furthermore, gun sales across state lines are already restricted.
This idiot thinks he knows what his writing about but his story is very nearly wrong in a fractal way. There is no attention given to fundamental principles, he does not address the infringement of specific enumerated rights, his conclusions are wrong, the theme is wrong, the paragraphs are wrong, nearly every sentence is wrong, and some of the words are wrong.
[A]bout the nominee for the Secretary of the Army, Mark Green. All I need to know is that he believes an armed citizenry is a check and balance on the government, and that therefore citizens should be allowed to own anything the military has, including ships of war.
Terry McAuliffe (D) called for gun control. McAuliffe called for more background checks and ending “gunshow loopholes.” McAuliffe said 93 million people are a victim of gun violence a day.
“This is not what today is about but there are too many guns on the street,” the governor said Wednesday morning. “We lose 93 million Americans a day to gun violence.” “It’s not just about politicians, we worry about all of our citizens,” he said.
“Why are you bringing it up? People are going to criticize that you are bringing up gun control at this time?” a reporter asked.
“I’m talking about it today. This is a very serious issue,” he replied.
McAuliffe repeated the 93 million number once more before he was corrected by reporters.
“With 93 million people a day it’s just something,” McAuliffe said before reporters jumped in.
Even if you give McAuliffe some serious slack and let him get away with saying he really meant 93 per day then he is including suicides and legal shootings by police and private individuals protecting innocent life. This is deliberate deception on his part.
When someone is anti-gun then numbers, arithmetic, and math, not to mention constitutional law and political philosophy, are a threat to what is really important to them. That is their delusions and their desire to control other people.
Once people start taking responsibility for their own safety, they begin to move away from the progressive lie. Even if they still hold such beliefs, they will find themselves labeled as heretics because personal responsibility is anathema to progressivism.
The good news is that those of us who value autonomy and liberty will welcome them in with open arms.
Calling all Internet Wayback Gun Rights History Nerds:
In the spring of 2000, Million Mom March (an extension of Brady Gun Control & Co.) published a media kit on their website, MillionMomMarch.org.
The kit contained talking points for even organizers, fact sheets (wrong, of course), and other guidelines. Most notable was a clear warning to never debate pro-gun opponents.
The Million Mom March took place on May 14, 2000. Unsurprisingly, a million people did not showup. Not even close.
I used to have a copy of their 2000 media kit (maybe it was called an “organizer kit” or something like that) on my computer waaayback, but that’s long gone. Can someone out there dredge up their media packet from ages ago? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Heston? Bueller?
It’s about the gun lobbies, the people who — you know, it’s all about money in people’s pockets — the people who argue this and say, “We want our rights to guns.” Nobody is trying to take away your guns. If you want to go shoot, you know, whatever, in the woods, that’s fine, but it’s a hobby. If your hobby is [affecting] innocent people being killed all the time, children included, don’t you think you should reconsider the lack of restrictions placed on your hobby?
“It’s a hobby”. No. It’s a natural right which is specific enumerated for protection against government infringement.
“Don’t you think you should reconsider the lack of restrictions placed on your hobby?” No. Don’t you think you should reconsider your speaking in public when you are so profoundly stupid and/or ignorant?—Joe]
Update: I’d like to add that it’s called The Bill of Rights. Not The Bill of Hobbies.
Hypothesis are easy to generate for almost any topic. And in a surprising number of cases people are so confident in them they think testing them is pointless.
“If people carry guns there will be blood in the streets!” Nope, not really.
“A ban on ‘assault weapons’ will make people safer!” The data indicates otherwise, “the ban might reduce gunshot victimizations. This effect is likely to be small at best and possibly too small for reliable measurement.”
“The more education about sex and birth control the lower the teen pregnancy rate.” Surprise! Maybe not:
The reigning orthodoxy among public health officials is that the more government spends on sex education the fewer teen pregnancies there will be. Now, however, British researchers have found empirical evidence that appears to demonstrate the exact opposite.
In findings published in the Journal of Health Economics, Nottingham University Business School Professor David Paton and Liam Wright, a research assistant at the University of Sheffield, found budget cuts to sex education classes may have contributed to lower rates of teenage pregnancy in England.
Paton’s study compared changes in the rate of teen pregnancy with the change in the annual funding of teenage pregnancy services for 149 English local authorities between 2008 and 2014.
To their surprise, the researchers found that after sex education budgets were slashed, teen pregnancy rates fell by 42.6 percent.
Of course if you read that closely you should notice the data it is not about “more education” but “more government spending on sex education”.
I’m reminded that for many decades the USSR attempted to increase farm production and failed. While, during the same time period, the US government attempted to decrease farm production and failed.
I am of the opinion all laws intended to modify human behavior should be tested to make sure they achieve the stated benefits with minimal undesired side effects and are an effective use of resources. If they don’t, then the law should be repealed. But, as we know, politicians are more interested in increasing power and virtue signaling than in using government to improve the lives of citizens.
The VCDL Board of Directors, after careful consideration, has decided that the recent ruling dismissing the VCDL case against Katie Couric, et al, CANNOT STAND!
The lawsuit has far reaching implications for all Americans. If the media can be allowed to change a person’s words to suit the media’s own needs or beliefs, then a grievous blow will have been struck against the very core of the freedom that the United States stands for!
NO! We are going to fight this because too much is at stake.
Today, I have directed VCDL’s attorneys to move forward with the appeal to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, where it will be heard by a three-judge panel “de novo” (which means the merits of the case will be heard anew with no consideration of the judge’s ruling that recently dismissed the case).
…
If you wish to contribute to help covering VCDL’s legal fees, click here:
I’m not a lawyer but it would appear to me that it’s going to be a tough case to win. Apparently the bar they have to get over is:
Despite Couric’s admission, Judge Gibney dismissed the defamation suit against her last week. He ruled that the depiction of VCDL members did not meet the threshold of making them appear “unfit as a gun rights advocacy organization.”
I’m all for making anti-gun people pay a price for their lies and deception and I don’t know of any better hills to take a stand on, but it would be best if you had a good chance of winning the battle.
It’s never a “used car’’ but rather a “pre-owned vehicle.’’ Instead of “torture,’’ it’s “enhanced interrogation methods.’’ There are some things you just don’t say — and Rep. Elizabeth Esty is here to tell you why, at least in terms of the gun debate.
Esty told audience members at a Pride Fund event Wednesday to always sub in “gun safety’’ for “gun control,’’ lest you lose the support of 15 percent of men.
By framing the issue as “safety” they avoid the negative connotations of “control”. Nevermind that it is extremely rare any of them have ever taken a gun safety class, let alone advocate that people take such a class.
What we’re seeing is a long term trend as Americans rediscover their love of guns and shooting. This is catastrophic for the antigun movement.
David Hardy June 5, 2017 Additional confirmation of a theory [At the USPSA range officer class last weekend a data point was mentioned that supports this view. The observation was made that local USPSA matches have a lot of people in them. The last match I was at (May 21st USPSA match at the Marysville Rifle Club) had 108 shooters.—Joe]
If there’s one thing gun owners in America don’t need, it’s the star of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” telling them whether or not they can own and operate firearms.
Zachary Leeman Just What We Need: Kim K Calls for Gun Control
[I think what is happening is a perverted form of “argument by authority”. If someone has a high status/visibility they are viewed, by some, as being an authority regardless of the subject matter. I suspect it is “hardwired” into our brains and served a valuable evolutionary purpose. Just because someone is well known, that, obviously, does not make them a subject matter expert. But at some level it satisfies a need for an authority opinion on the subject.
When, in high school, I first noticed this sort of thing I thought it was one of the most bizarre things I had ever heard of. Decades later during the I-676 campaign our anti-gun opponents used the approach and I was confused. Who, I wondered, would care whether some well known, but ignorant and/or stupid, person supported a law. Our side ended up doing the same thing and I still thought it was weird and felt rather “soiled” to be associated with that. But now, decades later, I realize that advertising uses celebrity endorsements all the time and they wouldn’t do that if wasn’t effective. If it works, it’s not stupid.
I still think it’s weird but I now think of it as a quirk of our brain evolution. Most people do not have a process by which they can accurately determine if something is true or false. Having such a process is an, in evolutionary timescales, extremely recent development. A quick and dirty test to determine truth of falsity that improved the odds of a correct determination by 20% is a huge evolutionary advantage over a ecological niche competitor. And quick and dirty test can even beat out competitors which use a more rigorous test that takes much longer. Hence even when more rigorous tests are available something as stupid as getting your firearms law recommendations from Kim Kardashian will feel entirely appropriate to people who appear to function normally. This is because it works often enough that they don’t remove themselves from gene pool.—Joe]
Centuries upon centuries of Islamist aggression and murder, and it’s the internet’s fault. Your freedom, and mine, is to blame.
One report claimed some fifty shots were fired by police to stop three Muslims armed with knives. I could understand that number of shots if they’d been taking return fire, but against knife wielding punks it seems like an awful lot of shooting.
At least one person was wounded by police gunfire. When that happens (and it sometimes will) and it’s a police bullet, it is a footnote. If a regular concealed carry holder in America were to do the exact same thing, never mind that lives were saved; the howls of accusation would last for weeks.
Practice on moving targets. Aerial clay targets are good, if you can find a place to do it safely;
With only a knife, it is relatively easy to murder innocent, unsuspecting people, in a country that talks about freedom and rights but has forcibly disarmed its citizens and practically turned self defense into a crime.
The Brits have invited this upon themselves with their idiotic policies and their embrace of Progressivism, and we in America are not far behind. They’ll ramp up their police state, clamp down on the internet (control of which has been coveted by authoritarians since its inception) spend more of their tax payers’ wealth, and accomplish next to nothing.
Once again, as always it seems, at least one of the perpetrators was known to the British security network. The result of that knowledge was that they were able to say, after the fact, that they’d been watching that person.
The only way jihad will ever stop is if they’re all convinced that it is utterly hopeless, or foolish, or morally wrong, to continue. There are several ways to accomplish that end, only one of which involves a commitment to total extermination. Theresa May eluded to one of them, but I don’t believe that there is currently a government on this planet that is either principled enough or committed enough, or politically capable of any of those ways.
Maybe it’s not really a government’s problem to solve. What was that saying? Something about a people, or ideology, or process, which created a problem will never be the one to solve it.
I’M NOT AGAINST GUNS AND I’M NOT AGAINST PEOPLE OWNING GUNS. AFTER WHAT HAPPENED TO ME IN PARIS, I KNOW HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO BE SAFE AND TO HAVE ARMED SECURITY. ALL OF MY SECURITY TEAM IS ARMED, BUT THEY ALSO SUPPORT STRICTER GUN CONTROL LAWS AND BELIEVE THAT WE SHOULD RESTRICT ACCESS TO FIREARMS FOR PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS, ANYONE PREVIOUSLY CONVICTED OF A MISDEMEANOR, THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN SUBJECT TO A TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER AND THOSE AT A HIGHER RISK OF COMMITTING GUN VIOLENCE.
I HOPE THAT WE WON’T BECOME NUMBED BY THE INCREASING NUMBER OF GUN-RELATED TRAGEDIES WE SEE ON THE NEWS. WE ALL HAVE A VOICE AND A RIGHT TO FEEL SAFE, TO BE PROTECTED FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE A THREAT, PARTICULARLY WHEN HANDED A DEADLY WEAPON. I WANT TO HELP BUILD A SAFER FUTURE FOR MY CHILDREN AND I BELIEVE TOGETHER WE CAN FIND WAYS TO DO THAT, WHILE STILL PROTECTING THE RIGHTS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
I recognize the difficulty the anti-gun people have in getting knowledgeable people to support their side, but they really should keep highly visible dimwits on a shorter leash. This dimwit is advocating for the denying someone convicted of shoplifting a jar of baby food 30 years ago their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. On top of that she believes she has a right to feel safe and to be protected.
However, the topper is that one paragraph after advocating for the explicit infringement upon the rights of people she claims, “we can find ways to do that, while still protecting the rights of the American people”. You can’t find ways to infringe upon the rights of people while protecting their rights.
This conclusively demonstrates she has crap for brains.—Joe]
Convicted criminal and anti-gun Rep. Chaka Fattah (D–PA) is the just the latest in the parade of disgraced anti-gun legislators who’ve been evicted out of office for getting caught acting as if the laws don’t apply to them. Fattah was found guilty on all of the 23 charges the feds laid against him, including racketeering, money laundering, and fraud. The Pennsylvania lawmaker has had a rich and thorough history of attacking the Second Amendment. Fattah was named by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) as vice-chair of a gun violence task force due to his record as a supporter of the “assault weapons” ban and “high-capacity” magazine ban. Fattah has also called for expanding background checks on all gun sales. This record has earned him F’s from numerous gun rights organizations. Now, he’s been sentenced to 10 years in prison. Fattah will begin his prison term Jan. 25, 2017.
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, once a towering, respected figure in policing, was sentenced Friday to three years in federal prison for his role in a scheme to obstruct an FBI investigation of abuses in county jails, marking an end to a corruption scandal that has roiled the Sheriff’s Department for several years. The anti-gun former sheriff is now #WearingOrange!
The availability of specific classes of firearms where the evidence clearly demonstrates that such weapons present an unreasonable risk of death and injury should be severely restricted.
Weapons regulated under the National Firearms Act–including silencers, “destructive devices” such as missiles used in grenade and rocket launchers and land mines–should be banned from future sale.
Weapons that fall within the definition of assault weapons should be banned in the same manner as were machine guns in 1986, and no new versions of assault weapons should be made.
Handguns should be banned from future sale except for military and law- enforcement personnel.
Calling all Internet Wayback Gun Rights History Nerds: