Quote of the Day

When a large slice of the public believes that crime is out of hand and most offenses go unpunished, some people inevitably take the law into their own hands.

Worryingly, we’re seeing more signs of that phenomenon in Chicago, with three separate episodes over the last weekend in which would-be victims proved to be both armed and willing to fire at their assailants. Four people who police said were attacking these concealed carry holders were shot and wounded, all of them critically.

…

But the majority of Chicagoans, we’re convinced, don’t feel any safer when they read stories of good-guy-with-a-gun responses to street crime. They may feel some satisfaction when street criminals feel the same level of fear their would-be victims do. But overall, it’s not a healthy environment in a city — where by definition people live close together — when gun-packing citizens become more the norm than the exception.

This is not to pass judgment on those who for their own protection go through the steps necessary to get a concealed carry permit and then take advantage of the legal rights that license gives them.

…

Surely, our public officials, no matter what side of the criminal-justice-reform divide they’re on, can agree that the growing risks of more ordinary citizens taking responsibility for their own safety at the point of a gun isn’t a healthy development.

The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune
June 6, 2024
Editorial: Potential victims are shooting back. This should raise alarms for Chicago public officials. (yahoo.com)

Even ignoring that someone shooting in self-defense is not “taking the law into their own hands”, this is a little warped.

It seems as if they really want to say how bad it is that people can carry guns to defend themselves. And if only public officials would do their job then we could get those icky guns out of the hands of the unclean common people without so much fuss.

Quote of the Day

The National Rifle Association is not what it used to be, and that’s created a gap. And what has gone into the gap are a bunch of further-right organizations that are trying to take the mantle of the NRA by being as extreme as possible. Foremost among them is the Firearms Policy Coalition. Friday was a real moment for them. It’s one of the most extreme groups; it uses extraordinarily violent rhetoric. And it’s putting out material that’s getting blessed by a majority opinion of the Supreme Court. You have to take a step back and look at where we are—I don’t think that’s anything you could imagine happening even 10 years ago.

David Pucino
Legal director of the Giffords Law Center
June 15, 2024
The group rewriting America’s gun laws for the Supreme Court Is Worse Than the NRA. (slate.com)

I was already convinced the FPC deserved my support. You don’t need to oversell them.

I know I shouldn’t be surprised but I was amazed at the projection, lies, and deception presented in this interview. Here is an example:

Justice Clarence Thomas’ majority opinion is rooted in historical misrepresentations and utterly implausible manipulations of the statutory text.

The link leads to these claims:

Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion for the court tortures statutory text beyond all recognition, defying Congress’ clear and (until now) well-established commands.

…

Thomas adopted a highly technical interpretation of the statute that does not align with its text. A “single function of the trigger,” he wrote, does not mean a single pull of the trigger, but rather a complete “cycle” of the spring-loaded hammer inside the gun. Because the hammer (rapidly) resets to its original position between shots, Thomas concluded, “bump firing” involves more than “a single function of the trigger.”

Deception and lies. It what they do because it is the best they have to bring to the debate.

Quote of the Day

#2A TERRIBLE ERROR BY ANTI-GUN SCOTUS JUSTICES. Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake. In today’s Cargill/bump stock opinion, the below statement from Sotomayor/Kagan/Jackson will have major implications for AR-15 ban cases. Their dissent reads: “Within a matter of minutes, using several hundred rounds of ammunition, the [Vegas] shooter killed 58 people and wounded over 500. He did so by affixing bump stocks to COMMONLY AVAILABLE, SEMIAUTOMATIC RIFLES.” In my view, this is a devastating legal admission by the left that AR-15s are “in common use” and cannot be banned under Heller/Bruen.

Mark W. Smith/#2A Scholar @fourboxesdiner
Posted on X, June 14, 2024

While I think it is an error on their part, I don’t think the legal implications are as clear cut as Smith implies. His claim presumes the justices will be consistent with previous writings. I could easily see Sotomayor/Kagan/Jackson saying “in common use” when they see that to their advantage as in the bump stock case. If the guns are in common use and easily simulate fully automatic firearms, then commonly available is a bad thing. In a future case, involving an “assault weapon” ban, claiming they cannot be consider in common use because they are less than 5%* of all guns in the U.S. It is “whatever is needed to justify my conclusions”, not what the word of law says, or what I said yesterday.

But, the important thing is that we should celebrate the elimination of the bump stock ban and the slap down on the ATF claiming they can rewrite the law. This is a great precedent and will be useful in many other cases.

In related news, I received a text message from lawyer friend Mike B.:

I find it charming that Sotomayor explains how to bump fire an AR-15 in her dissent. How far we’ve come.

* I asked Copilot, “What percentage of all firearms in the U.S. are of a type similar to the AR-15?” Copilot responded with:

As of the data available, AR-15s and similar semi-automatic rifles, often referred to as Modern Sporting Rifles, account for an estimated 19.8 million units¹. Considering the total number of firearms in civilian possession in the U.S. is around 434 million, AR-15 style rifles make up approximately 4.6% of all firearms in the country. This percentage is based on the figures indicating that about 30.2% of gun owners, which is about 24.6 million people, reported owning an AR-15 or similarly styled rifle². It’s important to note that these numbers are estimates and the actual figures may vary. The AR-15 style rifles have seen a significant increase in production over the years, rising from around one percent of all firearms produced in the early 1990s to almost a quarter in 2020³.

Never mind that Copilot’s logic is faulty**. I can’t imagine those justices really care anyway.

** if 24.6 million people own AR-15s, the total number of AR-15 should be at something closer (or greater than) 24.6 million, I think it is unlikely there are 4.8 million people sharing ownership of a rifle which is not canceled out by millions of others owning two (or ten) AR-15s.

Quote of the Day

“No single action can solve the entirety of a gun violence epidemic,” he said. “But together, our efforts–your efforts–are saving lives. You can help rally a nation with a sense of urgency and seriousness of purpose. You’re changing the culture. And we’ve proven we can do more than just thoughts and prayers. This is more than thoughts and prayers. You’re changing politics.”

President Biden then departed for his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, where earlier today his son Hunter Biden was found guilty of three gun-related felony charges.

T.J. Muscaro
June 11, 2024
Biden Touts Measures to Curb Gun Violence | The Epoch Times

Oh, the irony…

Some people expect President Biden will pardon his son. If he does, I don’t think it will be until after the election in November. I think a more likely scenario is the appeal will result in some narrow ruling which gives Biden, and only Biden, a pass.

In only the most unlikelist of circumstances will Biden’s appeal result in overturning existing gun law on Second Amendment grounds in such a way that it will benefit the average gun owner.

Also note President Biden claims gun control is saving lives, but they never supply the evidence to back up such claims.

Quote of the Day

Gun rights politics — i.e., defending your Second Amendment — is not a spectator sport. The people determined to destroy your rights play dirty, because in their book the end justifies the means. When you are in a nasty fight, expect somebody to accuse you of hitting “below the belt.”

Your response can be a simple: “Well, I didn’t think there was anything down there I was going to hurt.”

Dave Workman
April 26, 2024
Confront The Lies (jpfo.org)

The end justify their lies. It is part of their culture.

Quote of the Day

As a professor who studies the economics of violence and illicit trades at the University of San Diego’s Kroc School of Peace Studies, I think this law could have important ramifications.

That agency, part of the Justice Department, is tasked with making American communities safer.

The ATF focuses on those products because, while legal, they can cause significant harm to society – in the form of drunken driving, for example, or cancer-causing addictions. They also have a common history: All have been associated with criminal organizations seeking to profit from illicit markets.

Alcohol and tobacco products are thus usually subject to state excise taxes. This policy is known as a “Pigouvian tax,” named after 20th-century British economist Arthur Pigou. By making a given product more expensive, such a tax leads people to buy less of it, reducing the harm to society while generating tax revenue that the state can theoretically use to offset those harms that still accrue.

California, for instance, imposes a US$2.87 excise tax on each pack of cigarettes. That tax is higher than the national average but much lower than New York’s $5.35 levy. California also imposed a vaping excise tax of 12.5% in 2021.

Of the three ATF product families, firearms have enjoyed an exemption from California excise taxes. Until now.

Topher L. McDougal
University of San Diego
May 28, 2024
California is about to tax guns more like alcohol and tobacco — and that could make a dent in gun violence (goodgoodgood.co)

Even if you want to ignore the unconstitutional taxing of a protected right, I find the following things very telling:

• He claims the BATFE has the control of those products because of safety issues. This conveniently ignores the history of starting out under the Department of Treasury because it was all about the taxes on alcohol, tobacco,and NFA firearms.
• If you read the source article, while tallying all the costs he ignores all the benefits of private firearm ownership.
• He uses the total number of homicides as a cost while ignoring many of those homicides are justified. Which means each of those justified homicides represent one or more innocent lives saved.
• He includes all suicides by firearm as a cost, which assumes none of them would have occurred if it had not been for the access to guns. I.E., he is assuming no other means of suicide would have been substituted in any of the cases.

In other words, he is lying by omission.

Of course he lied! You should not be surprised. It is part of their culture.

Quote of the Day

I spent an hour putting the data together. If I figured out that guns ownership has an insignificant effect on the murder rate then so did the researchers paid for by anti-gun billionaires. This data means that they knew. It means they lied to please the people who paid them.

Rob Morse
May 26, 2024
See for Yourself if Guns Cause Murder (jpfo.org)

Of course they lied! It is part of their culture.

Quote of the Day

If the Biden regime gets four more years, they are coming for your guns,

In my second term, we will roll back every Biden attack on the Second Amendment.

Donald J. Trump
May 18, 2024
Accepting N.R.A. Endorsement, Trump Pledges to Be Gun Owners’ Ardent Ally – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

And what about the Trump attack on the Second Amendment? Is everyone supposed to overlook the bump stock ban under the Trump administration?

I’m not saying a Biden second term would be better than a Trump second term. But casting the contest as voting for the lesser of two evils would have a fair amount of validity.