Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day—Larry P. Card

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I sense a great disturbance in the Force…as if a million liberals screamed out in terror, and were suddenly told by the court to grow up already…

Larry P. Card
Comment on Facebook in regard to a comment of mine to the post May-Issue CCW struck down in California.
[But will they grow up now?

No. They will not grow up now. There will have to be many, many, more lessons taught before they will be fit to participate in a free society with the rest of us. And many will never be fit for more than prison.—Joe]

Quote of the day—jy151310

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The constitution is supposed to protect the government from the people. I can’t see how this will help.

jy151310
February 13, 2014
Comment to Ninth Circuit holds Second Amendment secures a right to carry a gun
[Sarcasm?

Maybe. But I know people that are mentally messed up enough to believe that and yet they are professionally functional.

I believe that people like this actually exist and this is part of why we have the IRS, NSA, and TSA routinely abusing their power.—Joe]

Update: It’s sarcasm.

Massive non-compliance?

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It seems so. I just wonder why anyone assumed it would be any different– They’re either liars or they’re as ignorant as a rock, or both. I suppose they never bothered to look at Canada’s idiotic long gun registry. They certainly never looked at our constitution, or don’t give a flying crap about it.

In fact, this is an example of the willful creation of new “criminals” so they can have some form of legal justification to harass innocent people, and nothing else. It’s a class D “felony”, they claim (oooh! scary!) if you don’t roll over and act like a Soviet citizen/sheep, standing in line to have your name put on a list.

What kind of felony is it when you willfully and wantonly violate your Oath of Office, acting in flagrant opposition to the United States constitution and to the basic human rights of American citizens?

I’m in favor of giving the politicians a fair trial, and then taking away their pensions and sending them all to prison, and banning them from any public position for life. That would be kind. We can make plenty of room in the prisons by pardoning all non-violent drug “offenders” and gun law paperwork “violators”.

May-Issue CCW struck down in California

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It is time to hide the sleeping pills and Tequila from the anti-gunners.

California’s “may-issue” CCW has been ruled unconstitutional. This ruling is really big. Both California and Illinois have had their infringement of the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms struck down by Federal Courts.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for other states and D.C. to hold on to their oppressive CCW laws.

Here are some quotes from the decision:

The Second Amendment, Heller tells us, secures “the right to ‘protect[] [oneself] against both public and private violence,’ thus extending the right in some form to wherever a person could become exposed to public or private violence.”

…

Writing over thirty years later in what Heller calls the “most important” American edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries, id. at 594, St. George Tucker, a law professor and former Antifederalist, affirmed Blackstone’s comments on the British right and commented further on its American dimensions. The right to armed self-defense, Tucker insisted, is the “first law of nature,” and any law “prohibiting any person from bearing arms” crossed the constitutional line.

…

We are well aware that, in the judgment of many governments, the
safest sort of firearm-carrying regime is one which restricts the privilege to law enforcement with only narrow exceptions. Nonetheless, “the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. . . . Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court [or ours] to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.” Id. at 636. Nor may we relegate the bearing of arms to a “second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees that we have held to be incorporated into the Due Process Clause.” McDonald, 130 S. Ct. at 3044.

Repeating this exceedingly important part:

Nor may we relegate the bearing of arms to a “second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees that we have held to be incorporated into the Due Process Clause.”

The Second Amendment must be respected just as much as the First, or any other article in the Bill of Rights.

This is winning. This is evidence to use at their trials.

The science is settled

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Via ‏@ItsRobbAllen we have an article about a paper demonstrating that mass shootings do not usher in a new age of gun control. In fact it is just the opposite.

Correlation is not causation but from looking at the numbers it seems pretty clear that horrific mass shootings are followed, a year or so later, by less support for gun control than just before the mass shooting.

The authors of the paper are clearly in favor of gun control. They ask, and answer, the question of how to go about “Breaking the Cycle”. The cycle being the “regression to the mean” and a continued drop in support after an initial surge in support for gun control following a particularly horrific mass shooting.

Their answer, in part, is:

To change the shooting cycle, gun control advocates must change the gun culture. But to change the gun culture, gun control advocates must explain, or at least distance themselves from the position that causes the fiercest opposition—that the Brady Campaign sees as its ultimate goal the criminalization of possessing guns. Nelson “Pete” Shields III, a founder of Handgun Control, Inc.—the aptly named progenitor of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence—openly advocated for the elimination of all handguns: “‘We’re going to have to take this one step at a time. . . . Our ultimate goal—total control of all guns—is going to take time.’ The ‘final problem,’ he insisted, ‘is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition’ for ordinary civilians ‘totally illegal.’”197 John Hechinger, a sponsor of the D.C. handgun ban and a board member of Handgun Control, Inc., put it simply: “We have to do away with the guns.”198

The anti-gun people have difficult hurdles to overcome. They must attract supporters that are willing to donate money and time to, at best, only make small incremental, paper-work type, changes to gun laws. They cannot speak or even whisper of banning guns. Without banning, and perhaps even with draconian bans, people with any smarts about them will realize “universal background checks”, “gun free zones”, and restrictive carry laws are just crazy talk. How many people are willing to spend time and money on something that only benefits their cause in some abstract way of encumbering “the gun culture”.

If they could speak of grand plans to ban guns and create a “gun free America” if only given enough money and time then they probably could get more support. But doing so increases their opposition more than their support.

So how to “change” (eliminate) the gun culture? That is another huge hurdle. There are no “anti-gun ranges” or “anti-gun shows” to take people to for fun, learning, and familiarity. A process/cycle has been identified for which the chances of the anti-gun forces breaking is very low. To disrupt the cycle requires a raising the bar to gun ownership such that the propagation of “the gun culture” is inhibited. But raising such a bar is virtually impossible at this time because of the courts and the resistance with which disruption is met with.

It’s a similar problem to that faced by those who advocate for reducing greenhouse gases which contribute to “Global Warming”/”Climate Change”. People like the benefits of those activities which produce the greenhouse gases as a side effect. Any effort to break “the cycle” of greenhouse gas production encounters very stiff resistance on the specifics of the proposed legislative action even though some polling data indicates a sizable portion of the (mostly ignorant) population agree with the vague, overall goals.

One could say that this paper settles the science on the politics of gun control. The gun control people are losing and as long as we continue expanding our culture they will continue to lose.

Random thought of the day

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To a certain extent guns are like sex. Once someone becomes sexually active they seldom voluntarily become asexual let alone anti-sexual. And so it is with people who learn to use guns in a safe and supportive environment.

Many anti-gun people are proud they have never fired a gun and vow to never shoot one. “Guns only have one purpose!”, they insist. They wear their ignorance with pride and yet demand they should legislate the rules of ownership. And so it is in some social circles in regards to sexual activities.

But most people would laugh and, at their most charitable, say, “How cute!” if monks who had taken vows of celibacy were demanding laws which regulated sexual behavior between consenting adults. “No one needs sex more than once a month!”, they might demand.

And once such people gained control government registration of each sexual union would be “just common sense” to reduce the transmission of sexual diseases. Sympathetic courts would rule that government had an interest in protecting the safety of the citizens and the registration law, no matter how unlikely to be complied with, it has a rational basis and hence overrides the non-enumerated constitutional right to privacy.

And of course many gun control advocates really are nothing but Puritans afraid someone somewhere is having fun.

Confiscation dampens enthusiasm

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Via Rusty Weiss who says:

In the clip seen below, Democrat Assemblyman Joseph Lentol can be heard pleading with McLaughlin that he not share the list “because it has the capacity to dampen the enthusiasm of compromise.”  To which McLaughlin replies, “It sure does, when we talk about the confiscation of assault weapons.”

Yes. Yes it does.

Don’t let anyone tell you, “No one wants to take your guns.”

Quote of the day—John Tkazyik

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It did not take long to realize that MAIG’s agenda was much more than ridding felons of illegal guns; that under the guise of helping mayors facing a crime and drug epidemic, MAIG intended to promote confiscation of guns from law-abiding citizens. I don’t believe, never have believed and never will believe that public safety is enhanced by encroaching on our right to bear arms, and I will not be a part of any organization that does.

…

Troubled urban areas desperately need an economy that welcomes businesses to locate and remain in our cities. Robust respect for the Second Amendment rights of the law abiding does this by discouraging theft and enhancing personal safety.

Unless Bloomberg and MAIG recognize and implement these principles, their efforts are doomed not only to fail, but also to cause further — if unintended — harm.

John Tkazyik
Mayor of Poughkeepsie New York.
February 5, 2014
Valley View: Mayoral group’s gun agenda is wrong
[If you read the comments you will find they generally don’t believe he had a true change of heart. Rather, he decided he was on the wrong side of the issue because of a shift in political winds.

Whatever.

Regardless of the reason his removal from MAIG and his public support for the 2nd Amendment his actions weakens our opponents and strengthens our side.—Joe]

Epic straight-faced satire

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This is how to do it. My hat’s off to him, and his “Citizens for a really safe Ashland.”

Law for thee, not for me

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I’m sure we are all shocked when a gun-control activist is caught with a gun. Oh, the horror, how could it happen? But when he’s caught carrying in an elementary school? That’s just another day in Buffalo, NY. He committed what was a simple misdemeanor, that was turned into a felony by a law he helped pass. The SWAT was a total over-reaction, but I hope they make him rot in jail for a LOOOOONG time. Not because I think what he did was wrong, but because it’s a law he supported and help pass to punish people exercising an enumerated right.

Schadenfreude at it’s most ironic.

Quote of the day—alcibiades_mystery

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It will be a multigenerational fight, but we will prevail.

We need to make the gunners irrelevant. Long view, long fight. Challenge everything in the long view. Harass them mercilessly in the short term. We need an ACT UP, sitting in at the gun manufacturers, shaming their spokespeople in public. And absolute frontal attack on all of gun culture beginning now and not ending until their paltry and pathetic arguments have been obliterated.

alcibiades_mystery
December 16, 2012
Comment to Obama is not going to take your guns away. We are.
[I also take a long view on this. Someday I hope this will be used as evidence in his trial.—Joe]

Not so random thought of the day

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The quote of the day by Lyle this morning caused me to do some more thinking.

I’m certain most of my readers already get this at some level but for me putting it in different words made it more clear.

Libertarians will sometimes point out that government and all laws are declaration of intent to use force. From the law that says pay a sales tax on your purchase of a pair of shoes to the law that says do not murder. In the final analysis they all mean that if you don’t do as the laws says people with guns will hunt you down and either force you to do as the laws says or punish you for your failure to do so. And if you resist they will use the guns against you.

This is true. And it is a necessary part of government and probably is a societal requirement in population groups larger than a few hundred. But what I just realized is the same observation could be used in “the other direction”. Government must be controlled so that it does not become a outlaw. This means men with guns must be willing and able to hunt down the agents of government and force them to comply with the law and/or punish them.

The Constitution is the law authorizing and governing our government and the Second Amendment is the ultimate enforcement authorization for the people to keep government within the bounds of that law.

Those that would demand we give up our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms are demanding there be no effective enforcement of the limits to government. This is no different than there being laws and courts but without a police force to enforce the laws and court decisions. And that is another example of crazy talk by those that want to infringe upon our right to keep and bear arms.

Quote of the day—Lyle

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We already have “limits” on paper and those aren’t being observed. I don’t see how anyone can believe that some new and shiny set of “limits” will fare any better. The only true limit is death or the threat of it.

How many times have we scoffed at the notion of a “gun free zone” sign deterring a criminal? A constitutional limit is exactly the same as a “gun free zone” sign – that piece of paper or parchment isn’t going to magically stop anyone, and most especially it won’t stop anyone when there are trillions of dollars and near absolute power on the other side of that piece of paper.

Lyle
Comment to Quote of the day—M.E. Thomas
[Shorter version: “A constitution without the right of the people to keep and bear arms is like a ‘gun free zone’ without metal detectors and armed guards.”—Joe]

Be prepared

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I spent some time going through the anti-gun talking points document published by the “Progressive Majority Action Fund”.

For a moment I was concerned they might have used my video in this paragraph:

In the hands of someone with practice, an assault weapon can fire almost as fast as a machinegun. You can see this on videos all over YouTube, here for example. But even without much practice, any fool can fire two rounds per second, emptying a 30 round magazine in 15 seconds or less.

But the link comes up as “This video is unavailable. Sorry about that.”

Good.

The document is filled with half-truths and outright lies “errors”. They claim suppressors (they call them silencers, which is the same term the ATF uses) and machine guns are illegal. You can buy suppressors at many gun stories in the Seattle area as well as in most other states. It requires filling out a form and the paying of a $200 tax to the ATF but they aren’t illegal.

They claim the blocking of sales via background checks is proof the background check system “works”. Well, yes. For certain definitions of “works”. Such as casting a chilling effect on the exercise of a specific enumerated right.

But to believe the background checks make people safer is crazy talk. Even the INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE AND NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES says the issue is far from settled:

Controlling access to guns through background checks or restrictions on particular types of firearms remains controversial, and the effectiveness of various types of control is inadequately researched.

Read the anti-gun document and the National Academies document and be prepared.

What was the objective?

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April 16, 2013 there was an attack on communications in the area near San Jose California. Minutes later there was an attack on a electrical power substation.

Stories on the events are here:

The WSJ February 5 version is the most complete. But it requires a subscription. Some of the most insightful information comes from this article, such as:

“This wasn’t an incident where Billy-Bob and Joe decided, after a few brewskis, to come in and shoot up a substation,” Mark Johnson, retired vice president of transmission for PG&E, told the utility security conference, according to a video of his presentation. “This was an event that was well thought out, well planned and they targeted certain components.”

…

Mr. Wellinghoff, then chairman of FERC, said that after he heard about the scope of the attack, he flew to California, bringing with him experts from the U.S. Navy’s Dahlgren Surface Warfare Center in Virginia, which trains Navy SEALs. After walking the site with PG&E officials and FBI agents, Mr. Wellinghoff said, the military experts told him it looked like a professional job.
In addition to fingerprint-free shell casings, they pointed out small piles of rocks, which they said could have been left by an advance scout to tell the attackers where to get the best shots.
“They said it was a targeting package just like they would put together for an attack,” Mr. Wellinghoff said.

Ry stopped by my office today to discuss something else and we talked about it some. Ry has friends “everywhere”. One of his friends works for one of the companies that owned some of the fiber optic cables which were cut. Indications are the perpetrators had inside knowledge about the communication system.

There have been no arrests to date. The entire operation shows good planning, execution, and post operation discipline at keeping their mouths shut.

But, as Ry repeatedly asked me this morning, what was the end goal? They didn’t really accomplish anything. Power was rerouted and there wasn’t a significant power outage. They knocked out the substation for a month but “so what?”

Ubu52 trolls with:

To me, this sounds more like one of these Patriot militias trying to start something than it does anything else. So where are the rest of the people just itching for a civil war?

Yeah. Right. And how would attacking infrastructure used by everyone help their cause? These weren’t stupid people. Next?

Mark Johnson, quoted above in the WSJ is also quoted in Foreign Policy as saying:

My personal view is that this was a dress rehearsal.

I’m skeptical. If it was a dress rehearsal then why wait so long for the main event? And it wasn’t exactly a ‘dry’ run. A successful dry run would have been undetected. This was not intended to be undetected.

The dominate speculation on the gun email list at work is foreign terrorists.

Maybe. But why not follow it up with similar attacks? It’s been nearly a year now. Does it take that long to train and coordinate a dozen teams to take down a multi-state region?

An additional reason I’m skeptical of any hypothesis of it being a dress rehearsal is that I would think they would have “burned the bridge” to their inside knowledge of the security communications with that attack. They would assume that coupon would expire within a month or two after they used it. The hardening of the electrical power substations to attacks is much more difficult than hardening the communications vaults and plugging information leaks. They would have to do the “live show” within a week or two to use the same methods as in this attack.

I proposed the following two hypothesizes to Ry which he didn’t immediately shoot down:

  1. They had something additional planned but the power didn’t go out in the target area like they figured it would so the end goal was not attempted.
  2. Proof of capability for an extortion demand but they very nearly got caught, were spooked, and chickened out on following through.

It is interesting stuff regardless of the objective.

Update: See also the Infogalactic entry.

Quote of the day—M.E. Thomas

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I understand why sociopaths can be scary — we don’t have any of the emotional barriers. But empaths can be scary too, especially when their emotional sense of right and wrong overwhelms rational barriers.

M.E. Thomas
February 4, 2014
J’Accuse: Twitter justice
[I found this incredibly insightful. She is right. “FOR THE CHILDREN!!!”, is just one example. Gun control is an example. The facts don’t matter. The constitutional limits don’t matter. Natural law and the right to self-defense don’t matter. All that matters is “gun violence.”

Their emotional sense of right and wrong has overwhelmed all rational barriers and they are willing send innocent people to concentration camps because GUNS (H/T to David Hardy):

One could make the argument that a society would be better off with sociopathic public servants who are subject to complete transparency and strictly enforced rules than empathic ones and little accountability.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Matthew

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Always will there be the cry for gun control, the weeping and gnashing of teeth to reduce the capacity of bullets capable of being fired from a gun, yet some of us seem to forget that people murdered each other long before someone thought up the rifle barrel and gun powder.

There is this resounding remark after every atrocity that invariably makes the rounds of “I don’t want to live in a world where principals and teachers have to….”

You already do.

Matthew
January 22, 2014
Securing Your Six: Teacher’s Edition
[I’ve encountered this same sort of response to gun control debates, “I don’t what to live in a world where…”.

My response was, “Utopia isn’t an option. You can either ‘check out’ or you can deal with reality.”

I just don’t get why they cannot comprehend this. Evil people exist. These evil people must be defended against. The police cannot be everywhere at all times. And even the police must, in rare occasions, be defended against. It is up to individuals to defend themselves and other innocent lives. That is a self-evident, fundamental law of human existence. These people who would have us disarmed in the absurd hope of making society safer appear to be delusional. I have no other explanation for it*.—Joe]

* Yes, there exist people who want us disarmed for evil reasons as well as those with the absurd hope of creating a safer society. I’m only referring to those who really believe disarming the potential victims is a viable solution to stopping evil people as apparently delusional.

Diminishing goals

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Two months ago CSGV had a fundraising goal of $10,000.

Last month they had another fundraiser with a goal of $5000:

From: Chelsea White
Sent: Monday, January 27, 2014 12:10 PM
Subject: FW: Visa is Funding the Gun Lobby

I wanted to make sure you saw Josh’s email from Friday and give you a first look at one of the satirical ads we will be running to educate Visa employees about their company’s affiliate (credit) card program with the NRA, which is funding lobbying detrimental to the safety of our communities.
Here’s the first ad:

CSGVVISAAd

Thanks to supporters like you, we have already raised over $1,200 dollars, which is a great start toward our goal of $5,000! Can you make a contribution to help us out?

Click here to donate $20 or whatever you can give right now.

Thank you for backing this important campaign,

Chelsea White
Director of Development
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

———- Forwarded message ———-

From: Josh Horwitz
Date: Fri, Jan 24, 2013 at 3:35PM
Subject: Visa is Funding the Gun Lobby
To: Chelsea White

Dear Chelsea,

4,780 petition signatures and 275 calls to the head of Government Relations later, and VISA is definitely starting to feel the heat.

Everyday people like you have been clear that VISA’s support of NRA lobbying activity through their affiliate card program is irresponsible and offensive.

But while we know they’ve received our message, the people responsible for this decision at VISA are still refusing to budge. That’s why the next step in our campaign is to go bigger and make sure everyone at VISA knows about the embarrassment this program is bringing their company.

We want to launch a Facebook ad campaign targeting VISA employees that will educate everyone in the company about the tremendous harm being done by the NRA VISA card.

Will you make a contribution today to help us fund Facebook ads exposing Visa’s toxic relationship with the NRA?

Our ads will target all VISA employees across the country—from the administrative assistants all the way to the CEO. You can imagine the water cooler talk that will result when the ads start showing up on their computer screens:
“Can you believe we are funding NRA lobbying against background checks?!”

“Who’s in charge of this program anyway?”
Visa won’t be able to hide its dirty little secret anymore.

We want to raise $5,000 for this campaign. Can you pitch in $20 today?
A Fortune 500 company should not be promoting and paying for an extreme, pro-gun agenda that is causing untold suffering in neighborhoods across America. Thank you for working with us to put an end to the NRA VISA card.

Sincerely,
Josh Horwitz
Executive Director
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

I already addressed their pathetic VISA campaign here. But the bigger point is that they are hoping to collect just $5000 compared to $10000 in the previous fundraiser. That’s like the equivalent of 20 entries to Boomershoot or a very poor outcome for a Friends of the NRA event. Boomershoot usually gets 65 to 70 entries. And furthermore, assuming they continue decreasing their goal by a factor of two every month, they should be down to collecting money for a dinner for two by the end of this summer.

Quote of the day—Daniel Vitalis

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Banning “Assault Rifles” is the fundamental violation of the 2nd Amendment. These are the very weapons that We The People must possess to equalize power throughout the Republic. The mainstream media continues to ask the question of “why would anyone need an ‘assault rifle?” since they are not designed for hunting. The answer, though obvious, continues to be left out of the conversation- and since many gun owners do not feel sufficiently protected by the First Amendment anymore they are hesitant to openly discuss that “assault weapons” are the last equalizer of power throughout the republic.

Daniel Vitalis
January 31, 2013
On Gun Control
[Vitalis is correct. A certain judge is going to have to be told by the higher courts about the fundamental violation of the 2nd Amendment that he is allowing to continue.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Italian Rose

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If we have enough information on gun owners to start a confiscation effort, lets get started what are we waiting for?

Italian Rose
January 21, 2014
Comment to Knowledge is Power: How the NSA bulk data seizure program is like gun registration
[H/T to Sebastian for the link to the blog post.

To answer Italian Rose’s question:

  1. It is unconstitutional.
  2. There are over 300 million guns in this country and probably 10 billion rounds of ammunition in the hands of private citizens.
  3. The majority of those guns will only be willingly given up after the owner runs out of ammo.
  4. No one wants to take point on the confiscation project.

—Joe]