Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day—Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

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And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Volume One) page 13, footnote 5.
[I agree with this review on Amazon:

The writing style is captivating. To some extent, it has been a series of references about how certain people or groups of people were arrested and/or executed. All too easy how people disappeared without a trace and no one even missed them and couldn’t do anything if they wanted to. And the petty, heartless, political and bureaucratic reasons people were arrested makes one closely reconsider his day-to-day activities.

Chilling, as you can see the roots of this activity growing in our country daily.

It will take a while to finish all 3 volumes, but I plan on gradually finishing. It’s hard to read too much at once as your jaw gets tired of dropping constantly and your brain can only take so much astonishment at once.

I am only about a quarter of the way through the first volume (of three) so there may be other things that strike me more profoundly. But so far it is that nearly all believed “in the system”. That once “they” got things straightened out the arrestees would be set free and they would go home. This was even in cases where the NKVD was arresting 25% of an entire town. The NKVD had quotas to meet. And there was always multiple laws they had broken and would be charged with. Just as there are in our country today.

Because of this belief in the system they not only did not resist—they cooperated. At the request of the arresting NKVD they would even tiptoe out of their apartments so as to not wake their neighbors.

I would like to believe that if a similar situation came about in our country that my only attempts to be quiet would involve the use of a sound suppressor for my firearms.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Benny @Brios82

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I’m against the mentally ill obtaining guns. You know…like NRA members.

Benny @Brios82
Tweeted May 8, 2014
[This is what they think of you. If you are a NRA member that is proof that you are mentally ill.

Never let anyone tell you that no one wants to take your guns away. Or send you to a mental institution. The political left loves mental institutions and gulags.

I’ve been listening to The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I Solzhenitsyn. Scary stuff because of the easy parallels to the political left in our country right now. It’s surprisingly easy to listen too even though it is a 75 hour audible book.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jerry Large

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We should repeal the Second Amendment.

Jerry Large
April 30, 2014
Common sense calls for repeal of Second Amendment: Guns will continue to be a problem until we remove their Constitutional shield.
[H/T to Sebastian.

Apparently he doesn’t realize the Second Amendment shields the Constitution.

He, as a person of color, should also read Negroes with Guns. I’ve commented on it before (and here). Ry loaned the book to me and told me he thought it should be required reading in our schools. I can’t say that I disagree with that. It has some very powerful stuff in it.

Isn’t it odd that some of the classes of people that would, and have, benefited the most from bearing arms are the same that are so opposed to the Second Amendment?—Joe]

Quote of the day—Hillary Clinton

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At the rate we’re going, we’re going to have so many people with guns everywhere, fully licensed, fully validated, in settings where [one] could be in a movie theater, and they don’t like someone chewing gum loudly or talking on their cell phone and decide they have the perfect right to defend themselves against the gum chewer or cell phone user by shooting.

Hillary Clinton
May 6, 2014
Hillary Clinton pushes gun control, Obamacare
[I find it very telling that her concern is about the number of people with guns. Does she also worry about the number of people exercising their First Amendment rights? And does she think it would be appropriate to license and “validate” people that exercise their First Amendment rights?

And since she used the example of a movie theater does she also worry that if people don’t have their mouths locked shut before they enter a theater that they might yell “FIRE!” when there is no fire?

With bigotry and prejudice this severe Ms. Clinton is unfit to serve in public office. She doesn’t want to be a public servant. She wants to be a tyrant.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Robert J. Avrech

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In the wake of the Jew-hating shooting in Kansas, the National Council of Young Israel, an Orthodox network, is urging Jews, on the last days of Passover, not to walk home alone from synagogue.

With all due respect to Young Israel, that advice is just silly and only reinforces victimhood.

Do you honestly think that a Jew-hating murderer is going to be deterred by two or more unarmed Jews strolling to or from synagogue?

Robert J. Avrech
April 20, 2014
Young Israel Urges Jews Not To Walk Home Alone
[I see nothing wrong with two more people walking together to protect one another. The real point is that when there is significant risk of being attack being unarmed is taking an unnecessary risk.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Moms Demand Action

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Moms Demand Action supports the 2nd Amendment, but we believe common-sense solutions can help decrease the escalating epidemic of gun violence that kills too many of our children and loved ones every day. Whether the gun violence happens in urban Chicago, suburban Virginia, or rural Texas, we must act now on new and stronger gun laws and policies to protect our children.

Moms Demand Action
Web page, as of April 28, 2014
[I find it very telling that if they enumerate what they think are “common-sense solutions” they don’t make them easy to find on their web site. I couldn’t find them. If they really had solutions don’t you think they would announce them all to the world? What this means to me is they are running an emotional appeal, as they have already admitted, and will push whatever restrictive law they believe has a chance of passing. Facts and logic aren’t their tools in trade.

From reading their press releases and get the facts web pages it appears that for starters they want to stop public carry, ban modern sporting rifles, ban standard capacity magazines, and eliminate “stand your ground laws”. And if they were successful doing that you can be sure they would find a lot more “common-sense” restrictions they support.

I have to conclude Moms Demand Action demands are mostly hysteria and wonder if the traditional cure for it wouldn’t bring us all some relief.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Michael Schaus

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Deciding that they should organize a protest outside of the NRA annual meeting in Indianapolis, gun control advocates “flocked” to show their disdain for American gun-owners… But, there was only one problem: With a mere 25 people deciding to show up for the rally, the “protest” looked more like an OFA global warming meeting.

Apparently, two dozen people was the absolute most the anti-gun group, Hoosiers Concerned About Gun Violence, was able to gather for the afternoon… Heck, I could probably attract a larger crowd by handing out high-capacity sodas on any given afternoon.

Michael Schaus
April 28, 2014
Bloomberg Is His Own Worst Enemy on Gun-Control
[David Hardy was there and took a picture with his cell phone (they blocked his video camera). I cannot count more than 25 in his picture yet “Moms Demand Action” claim there were “More than 100…”. And in the comments JT Niggle points out that on their Facebook page they claim “over 300”. They do have a picture up that might have 100 people in it but there is no way they have 300.

Anti-gun people almost always seem to have a problem with numbers. This is just one more example.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Cliff Schecter

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LaPierre, of course, is never held responsible for this rhetoric, even though it is not too much of a stretch to say that its repetition in all of the NRA’s magazines, radio show, emails, newsletter, speeches, on Fox News, and on right-wing talk radio and beyond clearly contributes to the killing everyday American citizens and members of law enforcement.

Cliff Schecter
April 28, 2014
Preparing for War in Indianapolis: Inside the NRA Plot to Terrify America
[And is Schecter ever “held responsible for this rhetoric” intended to promote the infringement of a specific enumerated right?

Imagine the outrage (and it would be appropriate) if Schecter had a similar screed about Muslims, women, blacks, or homosexuals. He would be (inappropriately)hounded out of a job if not investigated for hate speech.

As you can expect from anti-gun people they are all about the control of others but not of themselves.

As Sebastian said:

 

Don’t you find it telling that when he talks like this about the constitutionally protected class of gun owners you hear nothing but crickets from the those who claim to promote tolerance? This is just another data point that it’s not about tolerance. It’s about control. They want you either assimilated into the collective or banished to the gulags. It’s up to us to make sure there is at least a third option.

This is why there is Boomershoot.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Malcolm Harris

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During Michael Bloomberg’s three terms as mayor of New York, he loved nothing more than to lord over the nation’s largest city. Now he’s just a normal civilian multibillionaire, sitting right below the prime minister of India on the Forbes list of the world’s most powerful people — a lowly position that is no doubt a source of immense personal disappointment. Short of patrolling New York’s parks in a spandex bodysuit to inflict vigilante justice on cigarette smokers and super-sized Slurpee drinkers, what’s a rich ex-mayor to do?

Luckily for Bloomberg, in American politics, controlling sublime amounts of capital is its own qualification, and lavishing it on pet issues counts as philanthropy. And this time, without an elected office to use for a pulpit, he’s going to need that money: After attacking tobacco and soda, Bloomberg is coming for guns.

Malcolm Harris
April 25, 2014
The real reason Michael Bloomberg cares about guns
[I think I found this via a post on Facebook but I can’t find it now to give the appropriate credit.

Bloomberg loves power and ordinary people having access to guns erodes some of that power.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Charles C. W. Cooke

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The National Rifle Association is successful because it is popular, because its members are highly engaged, because it is defending a right that is enumerated in the nation’s founding document and a tradition that is cherished by members of both major political parties, because its opponents routinely embarrass themselves with their hysteria and with their lack of rudimentary knowledge about the topic at hand, and, most of all, because it is a single-issue organization that maintains its focus.

Charles C. W. Cooke
April 27, 2014
The NRA’s Next Challenge: Its Success
[H/T to bitterb.

There are other problems with success as well. You get lazy. An organization can rot from the inside and only have an empty shell that looks imposing but doesn’t have the inner strength to take on the next opponent.

This is why I think it is good that the NRA has competitors for the dollars and grassroot minds of gun owners, such as SAF, CCRKBA, hundreds of state organizations, and even GOA and JPFO.

I want each of these organizations to be constantly thinking and working to improve themselves. They should be constantly asking themselves, “How can we be more successful in crushing the enemies of the Second Amendment? How can we repeal ineffective, stupid laws that infringe upon the rights of innocent people?”

NRA and gun owners in general are headed in the right direction but our current set of infringing laws and oppressive public sentiment has been decades in the making and it will probably be decades more before the likes of The Brady Campaign, Bloomberg and friends, The Violence Policy Center, and Coalition to Stop Gun Violence are as despised as much as the KKK are now. The NRA, and gun owners in general, need to keep the final goal in mind as well as fighting and winning the individual battles.

As Cooke points out this will require some focus and discipline. It would be easy for a lot of the supporters of the NRA to dilute its power by branching out into issues such as abortion, homosexuality, and racial issues. Our opponents recognize this as our softest spot and frequently attack it. Don’t make their jobs easier. The issue is the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. As soon as our opponents veer to another topic call them on it. Announce they must be admitting defeat on the topic at hand. If the best they have are dick jokes and absurd claims of race or a “war on women” then most people will recognize the crazy rants for what they are.—Joe]

Quote of the day—James Dawson

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No need for new gun laws, but will you please make all NRA Members, including you, take a Mental Test!

If this was to happen, you and 96% of NRA Members would fail a mental test.
BTW, you already failed..

James Dawson
April 24, 2014
Comment to The battle over gun policy: Old fight, new strategies
[This was in response to “Kim Jong” who said:

States/counties that issue CCWs have statistically lower crime rates. The more guns in the hands of ordinary citizens the more empowered they become against gun toting criminals who don’t care what the gun laws are.

Jong made a calm, rational, claim of fact and is told that he would fail a mental test on the basis of this statement. And the anti-gun side says we are preventing there being a national conversation on guns. Wow!

This “Progressive” wants to make all NRA members take an mental test. What is the moral, political, constitutional, or common law justification for anyone or organization having such power?  For someone to believe what he believes means I do not have any words for him. It is simply not possible for me to have a conversation with someone with whom I have no common basis to communicate. He is an alien life form who intends to destroy me and our culture and should be treated as such.—Joe]

Studying “gun violence”

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CNN is no friend to the Second Amendment so it comes as no surprise they published such a biased piece on gun control. But I continue to be amazed at how widespread the prejudice and bigotry extends into so many aspect of our culture.

Even if you were to concede they had some sort of constitutional authority to exist how can the National Institute of Health think it has any business studying criminal use of firearms?

NIH has and will continue to fund research to inform prevention programs related to firearm violence,” agency spokeswoman Renate Myles said. “Studies designed to develop and evaluate firearm injury prevention activities are part of larger efforts to develop more effective public health education programs.

Would it be appropriate for the NIH to be fund research on Muslim/Christian/name-a-religion violence and develop religion injury prevention activities? Or how about developing free speech injury (such as inciting to riot) prevention activities?

Why can’t these people understand? Government has no business preventing crimes in this sense. You don’t prevent people from falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater by gagging them as then enter the theater. You punish those that cause injury after the injury has occurred. Anything else is prior restraint and has been clearly decided as unconstitutional.

ATF cultural heritage

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I saw this tweet from the ATF this morning and the picture stuck with me.

What sour looking faces they have. Is it because they hate their jobs? Is it because they hate people who drink alcohol? Something else?

Whatever the reason I can’t help but wonder if the prohibitionist culture is still alive and well at the ATF. Alcohol and tobacco are still regarded by many as at least somewhat “sinful”. By lumping firearms in with them doesn’t that create some sort of “guilty by association”? The FBI and your local police force deal with people as potential problems. People commit crimes and are fined and/or sent to jail as needed to punish them.

If alcohol and tobacco are considered harmful substances and must be controlled then is any stretch to think it would better if they were banned? Certainly a ban on alcohol reached a critical mass in popularity during the early 20th Century. The “founding fathers” of the ATF were the enforcers of that ban. This Tweet could lead one to believe the some people in the current organization are proud of their “founding fathers”.

I remember discussions about potential bans on cigarettes in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. And handgun bans were certainly being discussed during the same time frame. Wouldn’t the agency charged with regulation of these “sins” attract people more inclined to them being banned?

They may have changed their name but I can’t help but wonder if culturally it still is the “Bureau of Prohibition”. Certainly their anti-gun supporters want them to be that and it would explain some of the nasty things they have done to gun sellers and owners.

Cut the budget not expand it!

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The NSSF wants the Office of Enforcement Program and Services (EPS) of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to be increased.

While their goal is appropriate, decreasing the wait time for processing National Firearms NFA forms, there is a much better solution. They should eliminate the requirement for the NFA forms and delete the EPS from the federal budget.

I realize repealing the NFA isn’t politically feasible at this time but I submit that making sale of NFA items contingent upon filing a 4473’s and a NICS check might be. The NFA form processing is essentially the same thing. It’s just common sense to eliminate the redundant system that is currently running 10 months behind doing what takes no more than a few minutes in your average gun store.

Also of note is that in the same NSSF post they report:

ATF’s troubled eForms system being taken down until further notice.  Users of the system were told by ATF in an email that “The eForms software is not performing to our expectations. As a result, we are taking the eForms system down until further notice.

Anytime the government gets involved in a software project, anything actually, you should expect it to be “troubled”. I’ve written software for the government and I know others who worked in software development at other facilities. It’s not surprising the ObamaCare exchanges and the ATF’s eForms system are unusable. Even after working at Microsoft and knowing how the software development processes could be improved it just didn’t seem possible for the government to adapt those improvements.

If you want something degraded and destroyed without being directly blamed for it the best way to do that is get the government to “improve” it. I submit gun control and ObamaCare as my prime examples.

Do they spit in leftover food too?

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Bitter reports NYC requires the buyers of their empty brass from the police ranges to destroy it so it cannot be reloaded.

The mayor’s office defends this policy:

Phil Walzak, the press secretary to Mayor Bill de Blasio, said: “As a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Mayor de Blasio has pledged to protect our people and support the national movement for common sense gun control. Limiting the sales of bullet shell casings and lead to metal recyclers supports our overall commitment to public safety.”

So… it’s just “common sense gun control” to make ammo more expensive for the civilian market?

I see. They really don’t get the part of the Heller decision where they said the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right.

This story reminds me of something I read in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. One woman did not want her slaves to eat the same food as her family so at the end of the meal she would spit in the leftovers before the cook and maid could share it with their families.

It appears the politicians of New York City have an attitude toward gun owners similar to that of some slave owners in the 1800’s. I’m not surprised. As Daniel Webster said, “There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”

Quote of the day—Italian Rose

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Banning guns for people that had any drug conviction is rational and common sense. We should also ban guns from anyone who received a DUI or had their drivers license suspended for any reason. People who are late on their bills should also not have guns and the mental health provision should be if you have ever as much as ever spoke with a counselor you should not possess guns.

Italian Rose
April 21, 2014
Comment to A gun control law that even the Massachusetts attorney general’s office thinks is unconstitutional (as applied in two cases)
[As I started reading the comment I was certain it was sarcasm and that would be made more clear by the end. But it wasn’t. Then I looked at the name, Italian Rose. Oh! They have been featured here before (and here).

I’m still not entirely sure whether it should be tagged as sarcasm or not.—Joe]

Ignorance of basic security principle

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I can’t recall anyone every accusing our anti-gun opponents of being well-informed or smart. And there is good reason for that. We have a lot of evidence they the have no clue in regards to criminology, constitutional law, firearm terminology, existing firearm law, or how firearms work.

Robb Allen seems to be leading the mockery (and here, and here) this week but there is no shortage of things to be mocked and people mocking them.

But the ignorance and stupidity go much deeper and has far greater consequences than a few idiots who think a barrel shroud is “the shoulder thing that goes up” or don’t know that bullets, not cartridges, leave the muzzle of a gun.

It is nearly a fundamental tenet of security that if the bad guy has physical control of your hardware and essentially unlimited time then there is no security mechanism that cannot be defeated. Yet Democratic Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts has introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate demonstrating that he is entirely ignorant of this basic security principle:

S.2068 calls for grant money, up to $2 million, for companies, individuals, and states, to research technology that would lead to the personalization of firearms.

A personalized handgun, according to the bill, is a firearm which:

  • enables only an authorized user of the handgun to fire the handgun;
  • was manufactured in such a manner that the firing restriction described is incorporated into the design of the handgun;
  • is not sold as an accessory;
  • and cannot be readily removed or deactivated.

The bill calls for institutions such as schools and companies to apply for grants for technology to personalize both new and old firearms.

The plan, according to the text of the legislation, is to completely transform the firearms industry with regard to handguns over the next several years.

According to the bill, “Beginning on the date that is 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, no person may manufacture in the United States a handgun that is not a personalized handgun.”

It says later that, “Beginning on the date that is 3 years after the date of enactment of this Act, no person may distribute in commerce any handgun that is not a personalized handgun or a retrofitted personalized handgun.”

The law would essentially make it illegal to make or sell a gun that is not personalized, new or old.

If this became law and was not gutted by the courts it would stop the legal sale of handguns in the U.S. to private citizens. I cannot imagine that is is possible to build such a gun let along retrofit existing guns to function this way. Hence it would not be possible to legally sell a handgun.

Probably the easily way to defeat such technology is to provide a false “authorized user” signal. At some point in the mechanism there will be a sensor that obtains information about the user. If this sensor is replaced or bypassed then fake data can be supplied such that the “authorized user” always appears to be present.

If for some reason that method is not practical then the mechanics of the firing mechanism can be attacked.

Any such gun will have to have a power source, probably a battery. The power source can either be removable or it can be easily destroyed hence removing the source of power. Without power the device must fail in such a way that it cannot be fired or else the “firing restriction” mechanism would have been “readily deactivated”.

The “firing restriction” can work in one of two ways. It could be something that blocks the firing mechanism in some way like a firing pin or hammer block on many guns. Or it could be something that is removed from the firing mechanism in some way like a transfer bar on some guns.

In either case jamming the “firing restriction” in the position where the gun is operational will deactivate it.

In any case the only thing Senator Markey has done with the introduction of this bill is demonstrate, yet again, that the anti-gun conspirators, like most criminals, have crap for brains.

Some questions don’t make sense in a free society

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Things you don’t hear:

  • When someone has an accident while driving drunk: Where did they get their booze?
  • When someone dies from lung cancer: Where did they get their cigarettes?
  • When someone won’t let their kids be immunized for religious reasons: Where did they get their Bible?
  • When someone robs a bank: where did they get the getaway car?
  • When someone goes free when everyone is pretty sure they committed the crime: Where did they get their lawyer?

Well… Maybe you will hear that last question. But it’s because people want to make a note of it in case they need a good lawyer someday.

So why, in a free society, after a crime was committed with a gun would someone seriously ask, “Where did they get their gun?”

I can only think of two reasons. Either they don’t think we have a free society or they don’t want us to have a free society.

Quote of the day—Sten Deadio

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Yeah we get it gun nuts…”yer rahts” are WAY more important than the rights of innocent victims of gun violence, and even though you zealots absolutely SPAZZ if people are allowed to vote without twelve federally-approved IDs, you think it’s just too Communistic to require you to PROVE who you are to buy a WEAPON OF DEATH.

Sadly, you will only learn the pathetic and embarrassing stupidity of your stance the hard way…like when you lose a loved one to a criminal who bought his gun at a gun show…you know, the way the overwhelming majority do?

Sten Deadio
February 2014
Comment to Supreme Court rejects NRA appeals
[This is a typical, error filled, caricature of what they think of you.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mary Sanchez

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Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been the best membership recruitment tool the NRA could hope for: a walking, talking, Big Gulp-banning embodiment of government overreach. And look what he’s done now, given the NRA yet another gift on the eve of its national convention.

Mary Sanchez
April 18, 2014
Bloomberg’s The Wrong Guy To Lead Gun Safety Push
[She’s anti-gun but she’s not politically stupid.—Joe]