Someone should point out to the cartoonist that guns are an evolved issue and that it is easy to demonstrate the gun is civilization. Furthermore at the time of the wooly mammoth weapons of the day were spears, bow and arrows, and clubs. It would appear the cartoonist would prefer we revert to such primitive times. I find this very confusing. But then, I frequently find people with crazy ideas confusing.
New Jersey authorities operate like the state is their personal fiefdom when it comes to gun permits and that needs to change. The rights of people like Mr. Almeida should not be subject to the arbitrary discretion of public officials for whom no reason will ever be good enough.
Alan Gottlieb
February 23, 2015
SAF Funds Challenge to New Jersey Carry Law
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Aside from the false stereotype of the overweight, goofy looking, flannel shirt wearing, gun owner there is a fair amount of truth in this.
Well-regulated as defined by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Heller decision is close to what the cartoonist says (Heller pages 23 and 24) :
… the adjective “well-regulated” implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training. See Johnson 1619 (“Regulate”: “To adjust by rule or method”); Rawle 121–122; cf. Va. Declaration of Rights §13 (1776), in 7 Thorpe 3812, 3814 (referring to “a wellregulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms”).
Of course the cartoonist intended to portray the NRA as ignorant and ridiculous but instead demonstrated their own ignorance and prejudice. You should not be surprised. It is “par for the course”.
I bet your motorized wheelchair & floral colored moomoo’s are off the hook. U got any in camo?@BigFatDave big fat sloppy tub of dickless goo
Donnie Brasco @D0NNIE_BRASC0
Tweeted on December 19, 2014
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from BFD @BigFatDave.—Joe]
Ry sent me an email with a link to this collection of gun cartoons. A few are duplicates of my collection but there a bunch of new ones as well. I’m going to be posting the ones I’m fairly certain are new to this blog starting with:
Not-so-smart? So perhaps our brainiac cartoonist could answer the following questions:
The answers are:
And furthermore the NRA and most gun owners don’t have a problem with the existence of “smart guns”. They have a problem with and correctly do object to the mandating of “smart-guns” on Second Amendment grounds.
“Smart guns” aren’t smart except in some very limited circumstances. This cartoonist isn’t very smart and should seek help for their prejudice.
As late as 1733 gentlemen of Virginia were said to be naked when they went in public without their swords. They appear not to have gone naked in this sense very often.
David Hackett Fischer
1989
Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: A Cultural History)
[What does this tell you about the original intent of the Second Amendment?—Joe]
The worst part of the US is that even though the mass voices arguing against you have the combined IQ of a toddler, their votes are worth just as much.
That country needs some actual leadership to remove the guns and violence. Let the retards revolt and shoot them down with the very weapons they love so much and save countles innocent lives for the future.
Sir Malta
January 6, 2015
Comment to 3D-Printed Guns Are Only Getting Better, and Scarier
[I would like to suggest Sir Malta improve his spelling, grammar, and measurements before he insists those opposing regulation of 3D printed guns “have the combined IQ of a toddler”. But perhaps if he persists in his desire to murder us it is better that he just keep thinking that.
Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.
Via email from Jack M.—Joe]
Conflating crime and individual rights is a sign of hoplophobia, a serious mental illness. This calls for an intervention and medical treatment for PBS staff, not propaganda film production. Maybe they could show good faith and publicly sign up for a permanent personal felony-level gun ban, just to be safe.
Alan Korwin
January 12, 2015
PBS scraps ethics, assaults civil-rights group (NRA)
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Via the Firearms Policy Coalition:
In another victory for Second Amendment civil rights by attorney Alan Gura, a United States District Court found a provision of the Gun Control Act of 1968 unconstitutional as applied to some people who, like the plaintiff in the case, are currently law-abiding and not felons, adjudicated as mentally defective, or have a violent criminal history.
This is the second ruling striking down parts of GCA ‘68 in as many weeks.
It’s taken us 47 years to do this but we are finally making progress.
Via email from Ry we have this:
Five of Idaho’s universities and community colleges have spent more than $1.5 million to beef up security after the law allowing concealed weapons on campuses was approved, and the schools expect total costs to top $3.7 million for the year.
…
The concealed carry law, passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor last year, took effect July 1. It permits retired law enforcement officers and those people holding the state’s enhanced concealed-carry permit to bring firearms to campus, but bans weapons in dormitories and buildings that can hold more than 1,000 people, such as sports or concert venues.
…
The bill sponsored by Sen. Curt McKenzie, R-Boise, passed by better than 2-1 margins in the House and Senate. A fiscal note accompanying the legislation predicted minimal “fiscal impact associated with posting signage at public entertainment facilities.”
But the schools say they have had to add new staff, provide for training and purchase new equipment.
How did the concealed carry law change their security requirements? The only way this makes sense is if one were to believe that retired cops and people with enhanced, as opposed to standard, concealed weapons licenses are more of a threat than people with no license to carry or standard CWLs.
I think it is very telling that the article doesn’t allow comments.
This like a public restaurant complaining about the costs of segregating their customers after being forced to serve non-whites. These people are either idiots or emulating the KKK on principle.
His evidence is here.
Barb says I’m easy too. But that is in a much different context.
DicklessGunNut @jgpetruna @Mark8065413 @KentAtwater @Frostviper @TANSTAAFL23 @BigFatDave @CJSmith7880 @gunmaster0702
AynRandsTeeth @AynRandsTeeth
Tweeted December 19, 2014
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from Linoge @wallsofthecity.—Joe]
When I held my own gun for the first time in my life in this country, I felt empowered and for the first time, I felt free.
If the Communist government took my gun rights away, why are you limiting my gun rights in Colorado? Are you becoming communists? I hope not. I lived under tyranny for 24 years, I do not want to ever live under it again.
Lily Tang Williams
February 2, 2015
Testimony to the Colorado Legislature
[H/T to Catalina Kelly.
I don’t think the transcript is quite right but it is close. The part I quoted starts at about 3:40.
When you hear her voice it is even more powerful than the words alone.—Joe]
Essentially the vast majority of the existing population is already suffering to one degree or another under the present day rule. And they are doing nothing to free themselves from their oppressed condition. Other than the very small minority who will join the rebellion when hope surfaces with the insurgency, the majority will remain either neutral (meaning frozen in fear glued to their propaganda mind control devices) or will rise to defend their shepherd……or at the very least their meal ticket. The ultimate enemy of a revolution is not the oppressive government it is attempting to overthrow, but the general population it is trying to ‘free’.
Cognitive Dissonance
February 8, 2015
The Paradox Inherent in Any Slave Nation Revolution — Even When the Sociopaths Lose They Win
[This post has some interesting insights for those who yearn for a rapid revolution. A case can be made that successful revolutions (those that actually change things as opposed to merely substituting one tyrant for another) must occur in the cultural rather than at the point of a gun.—Joe]
Even though I was just commenting for laughs, and don’t really think all gun enthusiasts have tiny pee-pees (actually, they’re sociopaths), I was happy to be of service.
formerChild
February 12, 2015
Comment to How All Your Favorite Liberal Blogs Muffed The Yoga Pants Bill (Which Does Not Exist)
[This is what they think of you: If you are a gun enthusiast then you are a sociopath.
Good to know. Keep that in mind because it will be just one of the many justifications they would use as they herd you into the “education” camps.—Joe]
As I mentioned in the QOTD this morning last night I attended a presentation entitled Active Shooter Preparation by the Bellevue Washington Police department at the Newport High School.
The presenter was Officer Scott Montgomery who usually is a traffic cop but is also on the SWAT team and is a “certified active shooter instructor”.
It was a relatively small group attending. I was fairly close to the front making it difficult to see everyone and didn’t take a close inventory but I expect it was about 30 people.
At the time the Columbine massacre happened police training was that the police should secure the area and wait for the SWAT team to arrive and possibly enter the building. Of course the shooters had long since run their course by the time SWAT entered the building. This was a wakeup call and police training changed in response.
The training now has long been that the school should go into “lockdown”, people hide wherever they can, and they wait for the police to arrive. Upon the arrival of three or four police officers they would form a team and enter the building to engage the shooter. No active shooter incident has ever been stopped by such a multiple officer team.
At the Marysville Pilchuck High School shooting there were students on the football field when the shooting started in the cafeteria. The school went into “lockdown”. The people on the football field went back into the school toward the shooter because that is what you do in a lockdown situation. They were following their training.
Active shooters evolved their tactics and so both the police and private citizens need to evolve as well. The Virginia Tech shooter took advantage of the lockdown and upped it one. He brought his own lock and chain. He went into a classroom, locked the doors shut, and started shooting them.
He had practiced this. We know this because people at the gun range where he practiced reported, when interviewed after the Virginia Tech event, they he did something very odd when he was at the range. He put his targets on the ground in rows. He then walked down the “aisles” with a gun in each hand and shot the targets as he walked by.
Montgomery told us they train using Simunitions in actual schools that are about to be remodeled or torn down. He stressed that even though they train for active shooter situations in a school they cannot be there in time to prevent horrific outcomes. “You are the first responders.” he said. If you do nothing, that is wrong. Fight, flight, and freeze are very natural responses. If you have children under your care you will probably not leave them. It is against our nature to fight. Almost no one practices fighting. Hence, if you have not thought about the situation you almost for certain will freeze. You just won’t know what to do.
You need to think about these things now, frequently, and prepare yourself mentally to do something other than freeze.
What private citizens need to do is think about all the “What if?” cases and plan for them ahead of time. What will you do? What are your options? How many exits are there in your situation? Don’t just think of the doors. Windows can be broken and dropping from a second story window is probably going to result in fewer injuries than waiting for a bullet to find you as you hide under a desk.
Teachers of younger students are particularly resistant to “losing track of a child”. “What if they get lost out on the street?” He response to this is, paraphrasing, “Which would you rather have, a lost kid on the street with every cop in the state converging on the site or the kid at immediate risk of being shot? We can find the kid on the street in the next hour. We can’t protect them from a bullet in the next minute.”
He told us that in police academy they were taught there are three types of people, “Sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs”. Most people are sheep. The police are clearly the sheepdogs. But you don’t have to have a uniform to protect your flock.
An active shooter is a dynamic event. Things change rapidly and the police cannot tell you what is going to be the best action to take. The people on the scene right then and there have to adapt to the situation and take appropriate action based upon the information available to them:
People need to develop a survival mindset: Awareness and preparation are key:
Make a decision:
This is the new mindset people must develop. It is not a static decision. Adapt to the changing situation.
If you have to fight allow yourself to have a “righteous anger”. You can be a “mother bear”. If you attack do it with a full commitment until the threat no longer exists. You may have to take their life.
Your mindset is important. His mindset which he encouraged others to have, “I’m not going to give my life for someone else. Someone else is going to have to take my life.”
DHS produced a video to teach the new mindset:
He was generally okay with it but with some minor issues. The two issues I remember were that it portrays women, but not men, as inclined to freeze. Men freeze too. Women can and will fight. This is particularly true when defending children.
The first police to arrive will be extremely single minded. They will not be friendly. They will not help you. They may yell at you and/or push you aside. Their mission will be to engage the shooter as quickly as they can so the total number of victims can be minimized.
When you encounter the police show your hands. Don’t worry about having a cell phone in it. It is very unlikely they are going to mistake your cell phone for a gun and your cell phone may come in handy later.
They will be doing active shooter response training, similar to fire drills, with the schools. It’s not quite the same thing and the results will never be as good, but keep in mind that in the last 50 years they have been doing fire drills no student has ever died in a school fire. Training works.
Much of the presentation seemed to presume there was a single shooter. I asked something like the following, “I realize Columbine was a somewhat unique event but there were two shooters and they used explosives as an significant component of their attack. Does this change your training?”
Montgomery said 67% of the active shooters in this country have been a single person. But they train for multiple shooters and even well planned team attacks such as a terrorist group might implement. It doesn’t change the mindset of the private citizen much. Events are dynamic and you won’t have perfect information. Yes, you may be running away from a shooter into an ambush but you are running away from a known threat. Be prepared to change your actions based on new information.
Someone else asked about the layout of the school and the risk of all the students exiting into the common area. It is surrounded on three sides by the building with a hill overlooking it (the eastern part of the parking lot). School officer Greg Mills explained they have timed the various paths to exit the buildings and can exit in reasonable times to other areas.
I then pointed out, paraphrasing, “I think was in Arkansas in the late 1990s where two shooters pulled the fire alarm and then waited in the tree line with rifles for when the students came out into the open. A similar attack at Newport might look inviting.”
Mills also addressed this. He said that during fire drills he is not responsible for evacuation of the students. He immediately exits in that direction and looks for “anything out of place”. He said, paraphrasing, “I might be the first one shot, but we are aware of that risk and try to address it.”
I was tempted to ask about private citizens with firearms because strictly speaking the presentation wasn’t just about active shooters in schools. But I decided not to. First off it is illegal for private citizens to have a firearm on school property and this was primarily a presentation for parents and students. Secondly this is a tremendous change in attitude from cowering and waiting for the police. If this new mindset takes hold then private citizens with guns to defend themselves and their children will come naturally. The culture is changing and the law will follow.
H/T to Sebastian and a tweet from Firearms Policy.
This court victory is not on the scale of Heller or McDonald but it is still huge.
Firearm Policy describes it in a rather obscure manner:
The Court issued its order granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment. It is therefore ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and DECREED that Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED. The Court DECLARES that 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(3), 18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(3), and 27 C.F.R. § 478.99(a) are UNCONSTITUTIONAL, and Defendants are ENJOINED from enforcing these provisions.
SO ORDERED on this 11th day of February, 2015.
For reference purposes 18 U.S.C 922 is here* and 27 C.F.R. § 478.99 is here**.
But as Sebastian elaborates:
This case challenged the ban on interstate transfers of handguns through an FFL.
…
The court applied strict scrutiny, and despite the government’s attempts to argue they needed the restriction in order to prevent criminals from circumventing state guns laws, the judge wasn’t buying it. What’s also very interesting is that he argues that the Brady Act changed the game for the GCA ’68 restrictions, with the idea that in an era of instant background checks, some GCA requirements cannot stand up to strict scrutiny.
Furthermore, the court said the interstate sale of handguns would not pass intermediate scrutiny either.
GCA ‘68 is under attack and just lost on a major issue. This has huge implications to Washington State residents and other suffering from repressive regulation in their home state. If you can go to a more free state and buy a handgun then you can bypass home state registration by keeping the gun out of state. You also avoid the expensive and difficult to obtain permission to purchase a gun as you thumb your nose at the local tyrants. All those guns banned by California, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York will now become extremely difficult to enforce.
Assuming this is upheld upon appeal and applied nationwide it will be interesting to see what sort of response the state legislators come up with. Will they attempt to make it illegal for you to purchase a gun in another state? In my case I can easily, and correctly, claim I keep any gun purchased in Idaho in Idaho and don’t “import” it back to Washington state. Then what? How is this different from someone visiting Washington or Colorado and purchasing some Marijuana?
Other GCA ‘68 restrictions that I suspect will soon be subject to attack is the restriction upon imports and the “sporting purpose” restrictions.
Can the government legally prevent you from importing a book when similar books, perhaps differing only in the edition or type of cover, are available for sale in the U.S.? Of course not. It makes no sense. The same with importing of firearms. I could see there being legal grounds for the government to impose taxes on such imports but they couldn’t be exorbitant.
The “sport purpose” test has to be almost in imminent jeopardy of falling. What constitutionally protected right can be dependent upon it having a “sporting purpose”. Constitutionally protected rights are not for sport.
* 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(3):
It shall be unlawful … for any person, other than a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector to transport into or receive in the State where he resides (or if the person is a corporation or other business entity, the State where it maintains a place of business) any firearm purchased or otherwise obtained by such person outside that State, except that this paragraph (A) shall not preclude any person who lawfully acquires a firearm by bequest or intestate succession in a State other than his State of residence from transporting the firearm into or receiving it in that State, if it is lawful for such person to purchase or possess such firearm in that State, (B) shall not apply to the transportation or receipt of a firearm obtained in conformity with subsection (b)(3) of this section, and (C) shall not apply to the transportation of any firearm acquired in any State prior to the effective date of this chapter;
18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(3):
It shall be unlawful for any licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector to sell or deliver – … any firearm to any person who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe does not reside in (or if the person is a corporation or other business entity, does not maintain a place of business in) the State in which the licensee’s place of business is located, except that this paragraph (A) shall not apply to the sale or delivery of any rifle or shotgun to a resident of a State other than a State in which the licensee’s place of business is located if the transferee meets in person with the transferor to accomplish the transfer, and the sale, delivery, and receipt fully comply with the legal conditions of sale in both such States (and any licensed manufacturer, importer or dealer shall be presumed, for purposes of this subparagraph, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, to have had actual knowledge of the State laws and published ordinances of both States), and (B) shall not apply to the loan or rental of a firearm to any person for temporary use for lawful sporting purposes;
§ 478.99 Certain prohibited sales or deliveries.
(a) Interstate sales or deliveries. A licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector shall not sell or deliver any firearm to any person not licensed under this part and who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe does not reside in (or if a corporation or other business entity, does not maintain a place of business in) the State in which the licensee’s place of business or activity is located: Provided, That the foregoing provisions of this paragraph (1) shall not apply to the sale or delivery of a rifle or shotgun (curio or relic, in the case of a licensed collector) to a resident of a State other than the State in which the licensee’s place of business or collection premises is located if the requirements of § 478.96(c) are fully met, and (2) shall not apply to the loan or rental of a firearm to any person for temporary use for lawful sporting purposes (see § 478.97).
I’m not going to give my life for someone else. Someone else is going to have to take my life.
Scott Montgomery @BvuePD
Bellevue Washington Police Officer
February 10, 2015
Said during the presentation of Active Shooter Preparation at Newport High School in Bellevue Washington
[I went to this presentation half, maybe even three quarters, expecting the presentation to urge people to lockdown the building and hide under desks. This tactic was explicitly rejected.
I will have a full write up later today but the short version is that I was very pleased with what the police are now advising people to do in an active shooter situation.
They have explicitly rejected the concept of people acting like “sheep” and wait for the paid “sheepdog” to arrive and save them. Yes, he used “sheep”, “wolves”, and “sheepdogs” as labels. They are advising people think for themselves and mentally prepare to do what is best for themselves and other innocent life.
The above quote was given in the context of his mindset and that of his fellow officers when engaging an active shooter. And that should a private citizen have to fight they should have the same mindset.—Joe]
The other day I was unpacking some boxes with targets in them. Some people might say I have a problem with collecting targets but I know that I can quit any time I want.
I sorted them and stored most of them in a cabinet. A bunch of random stuff went in a pile to for my next trip to the range. but there was one from JPFO I just couldn’t take to the range. And as near as I can tell they don’t sell it anymore. But Barb correctly says, “You don’t get to be your own museum.” And since I don’t really have a good place to store it anyway I scanned it:
It is copyright 1991.
There are predatory people around, and if we don’t kill them, they will kill, rape, rob and do anything else to us that they feel like. I know. I’ve dealt with them. There IS no education or reform package that works on them short of death. The recidivism rate for sociopaths after death is given is 0%.
CombatMissionary
June 19, 2014
Comment to The Naive Idiocy of Teaching Rapists Not To Rape
[While a little bit simplistic there is a lot of truth in this.
The counter arguments include that there are sociopaths who are socially functional and don’t break the law any more than the population at large. And putting predators in prison reduces their predatory scope even doesn’t “reform” them.
That said when said predators are in the act of a violent crime using lethal force to defend against them, even if it results in the death of the predator, is a praiseworthy act. And a good argument can be made such an outcome is preferable to the predator going through the legal system.—Joe]
