Our gun laws completely miss the mark when you realise the chance of any one of Australia’s 800,000 licensed gun owners committing murder are so minuscule that you are more likely to die from a bee sting.
Carlo Di Falco
May 5, 2016
Talking Point: Gun control laws the biggest con job in our nation’s history
[Even aside from the violation of the natural right to defend yourself, the anti-freedom side doesn’t have sufficient data to support a plausible argument for public safety.—Joe]
BACKGROUND CHECKS or ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN hasnt worked so far , you can tell by everyday shootings and increasing gun deaths ,theres only one way to deal with it ,BAN THEM ALL there aint no time for HALF-MEASURES ,RADICAL LAWS AND CHANGES NEED TO BE MADE
HIDIPUS BAN THEM ALL
May 6, 2016
Bill Clinton Recalls Enacting Gun Control Measures as a Proud Moment at Celebrity-Filled Gala
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
In the Seattle area where self defense use of guns is still legal:
The drama unfolded at about 2:50 a.m. when the 44-year-old husband, his wife and two daughters, age 19 and 11, were awakened by the noises of someone yelling and kicking at the front door of their home in the 100 block of NE 174th Street, according to Shoreline police.
The homeowner grabbed his 9-mm handgun as his oldest daughter called 911 and the family locked themselves in a back bedroom of the house, said Sgt. Jason Houck of the King County Sheriff’s Office.
…
The husband, hearing the breaking glass, left the bedroom with his gun. He went to the front of the home, where he saw the suspect standing just outside the front window and door, which were broken out by lawn furniture that the suspect had thrown through.
As the suspect began advancing toward the homeowner from just outside the smashed-out door and windows, the homeowner fired two rounds, hitting the suspect once in the upper right thigh, Houck said.
…
Police say the homeowner and his family were shaken up by the ordeal. No charges of any kind are expected to be filed against the homeowner.
While things turned out okay, unless there is more to the store, I would tend to say the husband should not have left the bedroom. He put himself at greater and unnecessary risk by advancing toward the bad guy. Let them come to you through the “funnel” of the door. This give the cops more time to arrive and deal with the situation as a team and possibly end the situation without shots being fired. Also, it might be said, his accuracy could use some improvement.
They did do some things really well. They moved, as a group, to a back bedroom. One person called 911 while another deployed the gun. Most importantly, they had a gun and it was accessible.
Think through possible scenarios ahead of time. If you do this you are more likely to have a plan that only needs minor changes should the real thing come down.
Mike Volkerding asks this question for five points:
Please tell me how many of these violent criminals are members of the NRA…thanks.
Williem Stone answers a question requiring a number with a statement instead:
All of them, since having a gun means being in the NRA.
Later, with another five points available, Stone explains why looking at data is irrelevant in determining the level of violence in Australia:
Guns=violence. No guns, no violence. It’s simple.
Stone gets another zero for a total of 0/10 on the test.
That is the type of “thinking” our opponents engage in. Rational thought and data is irrelevant to their world view. When their world view does not intersect with real world data and rational thought you have fewer good options in dealing with them. But recognizing what options are available is useful because you now know to not waste time on other options.
The only real solution would be to ban the sale of all semi-automatic rifles. All rifle purchases should be relegated to single shot, bolt-action receivers.
John Charles Lemr
April 24, 2016
California’s half-measures on guns and ammo clips won’t work
[H/T to Sebastian.
Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
From Firearms Policy Coalition in California:
Earlier this morning, Senate and Assembly Democrats “gutted and amended” 4 bills that were stalled and changed them into 4 brand new, ANTI-GUN measures.
“Gutting and amending” is the controversial practice of stripping out a measure’s contents and replacing it with entirely new language, for a new issue, well into the legislative process.
Here is a list of the new bills and what they will do:
- AB 156: Formerly dealt with global warming, but now places restrictions on ammunition and will be authored by Asm. Kevin McCarty and Sen. Kevin deLeón.
- AB 857: Formerly addressed greenhouse gasses, but now restricts curios, relics, and home-built firearms. It will be authored my Asm. Jim Cooper and Sen. Kevin de Leon.
- AB 1135: Formerly centered around creating the Kings River East Groundwater Sustainability Agency, but is now a broad gun ban. This will now be authored by Assemblymembers Marc Levine and Phil Ting.
- AB 1511: Formerly dealt with energy conservation, but now criminalizes loaning firearms. It is now authored by Asm. Miguel Santiago.
In doing this, they have totally skirted the legislative process. It is shameful that elitist politicians would invoke such secretive procedures in an effort to shove even more gun control down our throats.
But it is not surprising.
Correct. This sort of thing is what we have come to expect. I watched with shock and incredible anger as the Speaker of the House keep the voting open for an extra 10 or 15 minutes past the vote expiration time to get enough votes for the Federal “Assault Weapon” ban in 1994. The Hughes Amendment, banning new sales of machine guns, was “passed” on a voice vote in the early morning hours despite requests for a recorded vote. The anti-gun people have a long and sordid history lies and deception. It is just how they do business.
I can overlook the ignorance of the average “person on the street” who is anti-gun. But I know the politician and anti-gun groups continuously engage in deception and trickery to get their way. I do not forgive them. They should be prosecuted.
As everyone expects May 1st is a day of violence in Seattle:
Hurling rocks, bricks and even Molotov cocktails, anti-capitalist protesters clashed with police in downtown Seattle Sunday, as May Day mayhem erupted again following a peaceful march.
By 10:30 p.m., at least five officers had been injured and at least nine people had been arrested, Seattle police reported. One injured officer suffered a gash to his head when he was struck by a rock.
Police said Monday that all five officers were at home recovering from their injuries.
The city unleashed a massive deployment of police officers in riot gear — on foot, on bicycles, on horseback and in vehicles — to control the crowd of dozens of masked-protesters who began massing in Westlake Park for the unpermitted march shortly after 5 p.m.
This is across the street from where I used to work. I’m glad I don’t work there anymore.
As soon as they started lighting up the Molotov cocktails I would have given the green light to the snipers. But this is Seattle and they like communists.
Notice they call them “anti-capitalists”? They want to avoid associating lawless, violent, behavior with their political leanings.
These people can’t win a debate with ideas. The can’t demonstrate a better way of life in the places their ideas have been implemented. What do they have left? Violence. It’s the political currency of the left. And it’s why we need our guns.
The evidence is clear that AW bans fail rational basis scrutiny because AWs are seldom criminally misused relative to more readily accessible weapons. The disproportionate minimum sentences in California’s AWCA law relative to much more dangerous weapons suggests a panic reaction that is hardly rational. The comments of journalists, elected officials, and gun control activists reveal bigotry that makes Colorado Amendment 2 seem pretty calm by comparison. Even the courts are reduced to arguing that perceived benefit as opposed to actual benefit is a sufficient reason to uphold bans. There is no way to hold that AW bans which deny a fundamental right, as Heller determined the Second Amendment to protect, survives the “rational basis” standard of scrutiny.
Clayton E. Cramer
April 13, 2016
Assault Weapon Bans: Can They Survive Rational Basis Scrutiny?
[This is a well researched paper and brings to light some fascinating information. An example is the ruling upholding the Chicago AW ban. Cramer rewords a section of the ruling and explains as follows:
The same reasoning could have been applied to uphold the constitutional provision struck down in Romer: “Colorado voters may be irrational in their bigotry against homosexuals, but if it reduces their perceived risk of homosexuals being given free rein to molest children, that’s a substantial benefit.” Clearly, when the courts argue that feeling safer is a legitimate reason to do something that makes no real difference in public safety, this is the definition of irrational. It makes people feel better, but without any actual basis in fact.
Numerous other examples of irrationality abound. It’s great fun to go through the enumerations of the crazy talk of our opponents.—Joe]
Via Dave Workman we have this article in the Kitsap Sun:
Since January 2013 through the end of April, the only period for which the department has data available, the number of women license-holders in Kitsap grew about 71 percent, to 6,419 from 3,748.
In other words, at the beginning of 2013, in Kitsap there were about four men with the license for every woman with the license. As of last week, the gap shrank to about three men with the license for every woman.
Statewide, the number of women holding the license increased nearly 62 percent, to 129,428 from 80,016. Washington state has 535,596 people with active concealed pistol licenses.
And in the state’s most urbanized areas, women are increasingly becoming licensed to carry pistols. King County saw the number of women holding the license grow by nearly 39 percent during the same period.
Workman also points out:
Washington state has added more than 25,000 new concealed pistol licenses during the first four months of this year…
This is known as winning.
Guns are the ULTIMATE phallic symbol. No item in our society looks, and even functions more like a penis than a handgun.
Shaun King @ShaunKing
Tweeted on December 5, 2015
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
Via a Tweet from Michael Z Williamson @mzmadmike.—Joe]
An arbitrary list, with no checks and balances, no functional controls or due process of any kind, will deny our fundamental constitutional civil and human rights. The man currently in the White House is calling for the list. You’re insane if you object, he says.
By implication, if you can’t buy a gun, you certainly aren’t free to possess any of the firearms you already own, right? Someone should come and take all those dangerous guns away from you because they must be contraband. You’re too dangerous to own them.
Alan Korwin
February 19, 2016
Obama Announces No-Buy List for Guns
[If the government can, which they do, add people to a secret list without notification, justification, or chance to defend yourself and prohibits you from exercising a specific enumerated right they are in possession of tool which enables an end-run around the constitution.
If you think there is nothing wrong with this then what is your argument as to why the government couldn’t just as well say you may only exercise “constitutionally protected” rights if you are on their secret list?—Joe]
From David Hardy on the Waco investigation:
The House Committee on Government Reform hired Carlos to examine the tapes. Unfortunately, he died from a heart attack (a weakness that ran in his family). The Committee thereupon issued statements that he’d never given them a report, that they were about to fire him, and essentially disavowing everything to do with him.
There was one problem with that story. Carlos had faxed me the report right after he gave it to the committee and briefed its staff. He found there were indeed gunshots. In fact, he pieced together an encounter. A Davidian appeared to throw something at an armored vehicle, and the something went off with a quick burst of heat. The hatches on the vehicle opened, some people dismounted, and fired in the direction of the fleeing Davidian. The battle went on from there. Carlos told me that as he played and paused the video for the congressional staffers, explaining what they were seeing, they looked like they were sucking on lemons.
Reading David’s series of posts on Waco is bringing back some very unpleasant memories and way too much adrenaline:
What the government did to Randy Weaver and his family and what they did at Waco are a why I purchased my first gun, why I’m involved in the gun rights movement and why there is Boomershoot.
Never again.
Today President Obama said:
As I said in January, these commonsense steps are not going to prevent every tragedy, but what if they prevented even one?
This is incredibly simple minded thinking. There are tradeoffs involved in nearly everything. In this case the tradeoffs include:
I think it is very telling President Obama and his anti-freedom cohorts haven’t proposed increased gun safety instruction. This demonstrates this isn’t about safety. This is about increasing the price of guns and making firearms less user friendly.
@NRA @Bradybuzz there would be 0 child gun accidents if we banned guns which is the good thing to do
Basepaul Season @paulbensonsucks
Tweeted on April 12, 2016
[Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
King Obama sees political trends he doesn’t like, knows that Congress can’t do anything about it because the public doesn’t want it to, so he does it by himself by executive decree.
Tyler Durden
January 9, 2016
Americans’ Positive Perception Of NRA Soars As Obama Escalates Gun-Control Agenda
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
A government which cannot protect its citizens has no right denying them the means to protect themselves.
Richard Feldman
1984
At the Bernie Goetz news conference in Manhattan when he was the NRA/ILA rep for the Northeast.
Via email from Feldman
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
If you believe more gun control by your government is going to save lives, you are being naïve. The champion of all the mass killings in this world is always a tyrannical government.
Where I came from, China had killed thousands of the students by its own government during the massacre of Tian An Men square in 1989. I surely wish my fellow Chinese citizens back then had guns like this one I am holding in the picture.
I am a Chinese immigrant and an American citizen by choice. I once was a slave before and I will never be one again.
I will always stand with my AR, no matter what my President signs with his pen.
Lily Tang Williams
Facebook post on January 5, 2016
Mr. President, How’s that hypocrisy working out for you? Perhaps you would like some prejudice and bigotry to go with it? Oh! That’s right, your plate is already overflowing with those as well.
I received an email the other day:
Hello Joe.
My name Is Yachdav. I’m part of an Israeli team that developed a unique gun lock called ZORE X.
Our bullet shaped lock prevents the gun from being charged and when unlocked it ejects by just charging the gun. It also notifies the gun owner if someone tampers with their gun. Is this something you’d write / post about?
We believe ZORE X will save many lives by both preventing unauthorized use of guns and at the same time making guns more accessible for their gun owners when they need them.This is our website: http://zore.life/
This is 1 minute a video showing our lock: http://zore.life/youtubeI’m attaching some material about us. I’d be happy to send you more information about ZORE if you’d like.
Thank you very much,
Yachdav
I watched the video and was bit annoyed with the falling brass without primers from the simulated gunfire but my only real concern was battery life and how they handle the dead battery situation. I read their FAQ and found:
What if my battery runs out, will my gun disable with no way of opening it?
No.
- Your battery will last for more than a year.
- Three months before your battery drains, ZØRE will send you notifications, reminding you to change your battery.
- One month before the battery drains, when unlocking ZØRE, it will not allow you to re-lock without changing the battery.
- In addition, you are able to set your ZØRE to open automatically before draining out.
- If your battery drains out nonetheless, you are able to connect an external battery to give it power, enabling you to dial your code and open it.
And:
What if someone removes the battery from my ZORE?
That is impossible – as long as your gun is locked, no one can remove the battery from your ZORE. The battery is only accessible when ZORE is open.
The battery is accessible only when ZØRE is open. Therefore, when your gun is locked, no one can take the battery out of your ZØRE.
All my concerns about “smart guns” (this isn’t really a smart gun, but it achieves some of the worthy goals of them) were well addressed except for the potential to have them become government mandated. I liked the phone app that tells you if someone has moved (probably accelerometer based, it doesn’t use GPS) your gun. The app also allows you to unlock the gun remotely and helps you train to get to your gun and unlock it quickly.
It would appear to be a good solution for many situations.
Update: I received another email after they read my blog post above. Here is most of the email:
It is important for me to say that the option of government mandating it is something we gave a lot of thought to.
We wanted to make sure there’s no [way] to force anyone to use it – that’s how we came to the conclusion we must separate the lock from the gun itself (or from the magazine – anything that’s involved in actually using the gun).
We’re a company that strongly believes in freedom – and ZORE X’s market is people who make the choice of locking their gun, enabling them a reliable and fast to remove solution. For those who don’t lock their gun – ZORE X is irrelevant. We are making a notification-only device that might be relevant for some of those people – but we intentionally avoided making a products that could [not] bring with it any type of legislation.
I’m attaching pictures of the ZORE Watchdog.
Thanks again,
Yachdav
We now have a speaker for the Boomershoot 2016 dinner this Saturday. It will be Brian Keith. I’ve mentioned him here before:
I just read his outline and I’m okay with it. He includes me in a list of “gun rights heroes” which makes me uncomfortable but other than that I think it should be excellent.
