Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day—Jeff Snyder

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The essence of the “weapon of choice” argument is that, because criminals and madmen use these guns to commit crimes, the law- abiding must give them up. But to ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless, and that the law will permit them to have only such rights and liberties as the lawless will allow.

By criminalizing an act that is not wrong in itself the purchase and sale of a firearm the ban violates the presumption of innocence, the principle that insures that government honors the liberty of its citizens until their deeds convict them. By completely banning the sale of assault weapons to prevent crime before it occurs, the law effectively and irrebuttably presumes that all who want such a weapon are no better than murderers or madmen, forever ineligible to acquire these firearms.

Obviously, a law which restricts the liberty of the innocent because of the behavior of the guilty, that rests on principle that the conduct of criminals dictates the scope of liberty the law will allow to the rest of society, in no sense “fights” crime. It is, instead, a capitulation to crime, born of a society in full-bore retreat from crime, a society fearful of and desperately accommodating itself to crime.

Jeff Snyder
August 25, 1994
The Washington Times, page A19.
Who’s Under Assault in the Assault Weapon Ban?
[H/T to Craig in the comments.

This same argument can be used against almost any law that presumes to “prevent crime” rather than punish acts which injury others. I’m specifically thinking of I-594 in Washington state but the application is far broader.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dana Loesch

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Anti-Second Amendment advocates argue that because violent criminals have black market access to firearms, law abiding innocents should not. They argue that because rapists and murderers may illegally possess firearms the law abiding innocent women and men should not carry them. They don’t defend your Constitutionally protected choice and instead better enable the choice of criminal to make you a statistic.

They want to be able to have a choice as what to do after you’ve been raped. But want to restrict your choices of how to prevent your rape.

Dana Loesch
Hands Off My Gun: Defeating the Plot to Disarm America
[I recently finished listening to this book and was quite impressed. Usually in a book of this type I find little new material and a significant number of errors. That was not true in this case. I seem to recall one minor error but I didn’t write it down and I don’t recall what it was now.

I addition to detailing her personal fights with anti-Second Amendment advocates, such as Piers Morgan and Shannon Watts, she articulated sound arguments and gave insightful analysis to both the principles and factual data regarding the right to keep and bear arms.

I have many more QOTDs in the queue from this great book. Thank you Ms. Loesch.—Joe]

Desperate

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Via Weer’d Beard we have this from Baldr Odinson:

JustBecause

It’s not exactly Markley’s Law but it’s close.

When they have all but given up on concealed carry and resort to insults like this about open carry you know they are getting really desperate to get even temporary attention and have completely lost relevancy.

Quote of the day—Tam

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Wow, Mark, that was nearly wrong in every particular! It bordered on fractally wrong, in that every little piece, taken by itself, was as wrong as the whole.

Tam
December 7, 2014
Sigh
[I read Mark Morford’s troll piece and briefly considered blogging about it. But I prefer to blog about things that either no one has noticed yet or that I have a quasi-unique viewpoint on. And this piece has been well covered by many others. This is just a small sample:

I had completely dismissed it as blog material. Morford is just too easy of a target and I have dealt with him at length before. Then I read the last sentence I quoted above of Tam’s. Wow!

I have seen this sort of thing many times before but didn’t have a name for it. Fractally wrong. I like it. I like it a lot.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Travis Dodge‏ @MWTravesty

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What about my right to not live in fear of my fellow citizens? Is that moot because you have a boner for guns?

Travis Dodge‏ @MWTravesty
Tweeted on October 16, 2014
[It’s (sort of) another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from Linoge.

Dodge obviously doesn’t understand rights when he says he has a “right to not live in fear”. There are people afraid of gays, blacks, and Jews as well as gun owners. But that fear doesn’t allow them to infringe upon our rights.—Joe]

Quote of the day—AllynF

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The cheap and easy availability of guns in any home in America makes it very easy for criminals to get their hands on as many weapons as they choose. All they have to do is break in and steal them and create their free market of stolen guns on the street –quite the active and ongoing enterprise. Shhhhhh…this is a truthful point that upsets Conservatives if you even dare to bring it up and burst their bubble. They like to pretend that there is no cause and effect that results from that.

AllynF
December 6, 2014
Comment on Gun Control, Real Time with Bill Maher.
[Got that? Criminals “get their hands on as many weapons as the choose” because private citizens possess guns in their homes. The specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms is the root of all problems with guns.

If banning the private possession of something would solve the problems associated with it then banning alcohol, cigarettes, and recreational drugs would solve problems too. AllynF has no respect for the Bill of Rights, no concept of guns being useful for the protection of innocent life, and at best a tenuous connection with reality.

Don’t let anyone ever get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Remington clarification

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Here are some of the headlines from the lamestreet media (phrase stolen from Alan Korwin):

Never trust the media to get things right. Especially in relation to firearms. Here is what Remington says, via a Tweet from greenmeanie:

HOUSTON, Dec. 6, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — On Dec. 5, 2014, papers were filed seeking approval of a proposed settlement of two economic class-action lawsuits of certain Remington bolt-action centerfire firearms that contain either a Walker trigger mechanism, or a trigger mechanism which utilizes a “trigger connector.”

The filings triggered multiple news reports that mistakenly conveyed the proposed agreement in significant fashions that require immediate clarification.

  • These settlements are not recalls.
  • These settlements are not any admission that the products are defective or unsafe.
  • These settlements are an opportunity for any concerned consumers who have the Remington Model 700, Seven, Sportsman 78, 673, 710, 715, 770, 600, 660, XP-100, 721, 722 and 725 rifles with either a Walker trigger mechanism, or a trigger mechanism which utilizes a “trigger connector” to have Remington install a new trigger.
  • The benefits under the settlement, including the trigger replacement program, will not be in place until after court approval of the settlement and full notice will go out at that time.

    • This culminates from extensive mediator-supervised negotiations between lawyers for those concerned about the triggers and Remington, who while denying there is any cause for concern, always desires to ensure that its customers are satisfied with Remington products.

    A joint press release will be issued to better explain details of the proposed settlement.

    For further information, contact: Mark Lanier at wml@LanierLawFirm.com; 800-723-3216

    SOURCE Lanier Law Firm

    Quote of the day—williamdiamon

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    To suggest a criminal will submit to a background check has to be the worst argument for gun-control ever, it requires a disconnect from reality.

    williamdiamon
    December 5, 2014
    Comment to Gun Control Leader Unfazed By Gun Transfer Event
    [See also Background checks.—Joe]

    Which is better?

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    This is a slight refinement from something son James and I discussed a few days ago.

    When debating which is a better political system we can point to many instances where anti-freedom systems (communists/socialists/progressives/fascists/theocracies/kingdoms/dictatorships/etc.) have been implemented and review the outcomes of those experiments. A significant proportion of those experiments have resulted in a tragedies of epic proportions. A short list from the last 100 years includes USSR, China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Nazi Germany, and Romania.

    So what are the worst examples of a freedom based political system and how do those compare to the worst of the anti-freedom? I don’t know what my political opponents would give for examples. Would it be the United States? If so, then that little debate would be settled in two minutes or less. Why risk those tragedies when the worst you can do with a freedom based system is so much better?

    Taking that tactic a little further we can also ask the question, “What are the best outcomes of a particular type of political system?” For a freedom advocate the United States surely would be near the top of the list with the probable additions of Canada, and many of the countries of Western Europe. I suspect the anti-freedom advocate will include many of the socialist leaning, but generally free countries, of Western Europe.

    Rate each of the various countries on some scale from good to bad. This can be used to create a chart with upper and lower bounds of the outcomes. It might look something like this:

    GoodVsBad

    So, which system is the better choice? The answer is obvious.

    This technique can be use to compare just about anything. In general compare the upper and lower bounds of the two (or more) proposals being debated.

    Comparing gun control utopias to gun owner utopias will be left as an exercise for the reader.

    Quote of the day—NRA-ILA

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    the attempted commercial introduction of the Armatix has floundered so badly that it remains the sole example that Brady can cite as even approximating a “smart gun.”  Thus, were it to trigger the New Jersey law, the result would surely collide with the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller.  There, the Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to possess arms “in common use at the time” for lawful purposes.  Even the Brady Campaign cannot seriously argue that all handguns other than the iP1, an $1800, 10- shot pistol chambered in .22LR, are not commonly used for lawful purposes.

    NRA-ILA
    December 4, 2014
    N.J. Attorney General Rejects Brady Campaign Bid to Trigger Handgun Ban
    [Elaborating even further, it seems likely the entire NJ law will declared unconstitutional simply because it makes illegal those guns which are in common use.—Joe]

    Defying I-594

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    Via Chris Knox who says, “A merrily upraised middle finger to #gunsense” and David Codrea (Activists defy new Washington gun law to demonstrate its unenforceability):

    Quote of the day—Alan Korwin

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    What it shows though is the power of setting the narrative, and that’s done in print on paper, even in these days of the Internet.

    And The New York Times and their cronies control it and do it. Despite reality, despite the ludicrous absurdity of their claims about so-called assault weapons that can’t even be defined, they were able to twist the national civil-rights debate about guns into a knot for ten years, and then only fess up ten years later. Two decades lost to mythology — by “the paper of record.”

    Alan Korwin
    December 3, 2014
    “The Assault-Weapon Myth” (NY Times Headline)
    [It’s only by perpetuating the culture of deceit that they win.

    It’s time to prosecute the perpetrators.—Joe]

    Oleg Volk on I-594

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    Totally coincidental and entirely appropriate, considering the email I received last night, this morning Oleg sent me this (the picture is of Barron):

    bro_I594_5034hires

    He also posted about I-594 on his blog.

    I would like to make a minor correction to his text. We didn’t lose any rights with I-594. We have specific enumerated rights, supposedly protected by the Second Amendment and the State of Washington Constitution, being infringed by I-594.

    I want the perpetrators prosecuted.

    I-594 fears confirmed

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    I received an email from a reader with a attached document from the State of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife dated December 2 and addressed to “Hunter Education Instructors” with the subject of “Analysis of Initiative 594.”

    The part of most interest to me is the following:

    Although we are still evaluating I-594, it does not initially appear that student-to-student transfers of firearms would fall within the general WDFW exemption for law enforcement agencies. For students under eighteen, however, temporary firearms transfers for educational purposes are exempt if the student is under the direct supervision and control of a responsible adult (such as a Hunter Education Instructor) who may lawfully possess firearms. Students eighteen and older are not entitled to this exemption. However, regardless of the age of the person, temporary transfers that occur at an established, authorized shooting range are also exempt, if the transfer occurs, and the firearm is kept at all times, at the range. If adult student-to-student transfers are not exempt, then adult students may, without triggering I-594’s background check/transfer requirements—

    • Use inert firearms or air rifles (which do not meet the definition of a firearm); or
    • Hand their functional firearms to an instructor who then hands it to the other student.

    In summary, the transfer/background check exemption I- 594 applies to the following transfers of firearms to or from WDFW Hunter Education Instructors while in formal volunteer status for WDFW and acting within the scope of their authority for purposes of the Hunter Education Program:

    • Between WDFW employees and Hunter Education Instructors
    • From one Hunter Education Instructor to another Hunter Education Instructor
    • Between Hunter Education Instructors and NGOs
    • Between Hunter Education Instructors and students

    WDFW is the “State of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife”. The volunteer instructors to WDFW are considered “law enforcement” or else they would not receive the the exemption described above. And notice that students are not allowed to transfer the guns between themselves. They must transfer the gun to an instructor who then transfers it to another student.

    Private instructors, such as myself, would not have an exemption unless we were at an “authorized range” (“authorized” is undefined). We cannot do classroom work that involves gun handling at any location other than an “authorized” range. Even then it is in doubt unless we are using the guns that are “kept at all times” at the range.

    So, now you have it. All those proponents of I-594 said we were alarmist and crazy for saying things like this would require a background check. Now we have word from the State of Washington that says, in essence, “You gun nuts were right about I-594 and the anti-gun people lied to get it passed.” But that is to be expected. Anti-Second Amendment people have long had a culture of deception.

    Update: The complete letter is posted here.

    Update2: It is important that you also read The Cluemeter: Washington State violates the Letter of Initiative 594. It appears that WDFW may have misunderstood the definition of “law enforcement officer” as it applies to I-594.

    Quote of the day—Josh Sugarmann

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    While the NRA portrays itself as protecting the ‘freedom’ of individual gun owners, it’s actually working to protect the freedom of the gun industry to manufacture and sell virtually any weapon or accessory.

    Josh Sugarmann
    Executive director of the Violence Policy Center
    December 1, 2014
    Connecticut dodges answers on Sandy Hook school tragedy
    [I find it very telling that ‘freedom’ is in quotes.

    Sugarmann has no respect for, and perhaps does not even recognize the existence of, individual freedom. If he did then he would recognize that the freedom of individual gun owners is dependent upon there being a free market offering for sale the types of firearms the individual wants.

    For example, would we have freedom of religion if the book publishing industry were only allowed to publish religious texts if they were consistent with Islam? Protecting the freedom of the gun industry to design, develop, and manufacture whatever gun or accessory there is a market for protects the specific enumerated right of the individual to keep and bear arms of his choosing. Sugarmann has clearly stated he does not want individuals owning handguns or “assault weapons.” This rhetoric is a means to that end.—Joe]

    Quote of the day—samsingh

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    Ammunition is not protected under any stretch of any amendment.

    samsingh
    December 1, 2014
    Comment to L.A. City Council tentatively approves new gun control measures
    [This constitutional scholar has further study to do.—Joe]

    Gun ownership numbers

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    Via David Hardy we have:

    telephone surveys result in numbers that are significantly too low, as by an eighth to a tenth, even when the ownership is completely legal.

    These were old studies (1990 and 1995) but let’s assuming they are still valid.

    This is where gun ownership is legal and doesn’t count situations such as Chicago or D.C. where gun ownership is highly problematic. So lets go with the “low by an eighth” number or:

    0.875 x OwnershipRate = ReportedRate
    OwnershipRate = ReportedRate/0.875
    OwnershipRate = 1.14286 x ReportedRate

    The reported rate for 2014 is 34% so the true ownership rate is approximately 39%.

    Quote of the day—Sandra Lägel‏ @WittyGentlelady

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    Of course. You guys have the freedom 2 kill 1 another with your penis extensions. Congrats!

    Sandra Lägel‏ @WittyGentlelady
    Tweeted October 16, 2014
    [It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a tweet from Linoge.—Joe]

    Quote of the day—L.Bearer

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    The problem we have is not with death, so much as it is the violence, which is ironic since we seem to want to curb the very right and the very tool that protects us from said violence.

    L.Bearer
    January 20, 2013
    Comment to Please Take Away My Right to a Gun
    [I have nothing to add.—Joe]

    Where are Bloomberg, Brady, etc. now?

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    After all the Ferguson shooting “protests”, property damage, injuries, and general mayhem from all the people coast to coast why aren’t Bloomberg, Moms Demand, The Brady Campaign, and the other violence prevention groups speaking out? They usually are dancing in the blood before it has even had time to cool. If they were as interested in preventing violence in general as they are with preventing “gun violence” they would be demanding the repeal of the First Amendment and an end to open government.

    If we had a government truly doing it’s job in violence prevention when Wilson shot his attacker they would have brought in a sanitation crew that would have cleaned up the mess and confiscated any video that showed up. Then, as needed, they would have brought in for “questioning” anyone that said anything about the incident. That’s what the Gulags are for. It should be a police matter and not a citizen concern. Those common sense, reasonable changes to our laws would prevent almost all violence of this nature.

    That these groups aren’t demanding that sort of infringement on the First Amendment tells you something about them. It tells you they are hypocrites and/or they know they need to destroy the Second Amendment before they can move on to the First Amendment.

    I am inclined to believe it is a matter of destruction of the Second before the First Amendment. This is because they aren’t demanding changes in the law with regard to the police shooting someone. They apparently don’t have a problem with the police possession of guns. They just don’t want private citizens to have guns. Guns in the possession of police will come in handy when they move on to infringing the First Amendment.