From Hard Pass @HardPass4, via a tweet from Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras:
There is a little too much truth in this.
Category Archives: Gun Rights
Easier to Blame the Guns?
Quote of the Day
Guns have always been a part of American culture, but mass shootings have not. Nor has divorce, social media addiction, SSRIs, or nihilism in general.
Violence is the symptom of a much deeper problem in this country.
It’s just easier for the left to blame the guns than the culture that they’ve created.
MIA @_Mama_Mia10
Posted on X May 6, 2023
I’m just certain it goes beyond a simple easy to blame issue. I believe a significant portion of those people who want to ban private gun ownership are that mindset because they have a utopian vision of a defenseless population they can control. The others who go alone with that mindset of gun banning but don’t see the tyranny they are enabling are useful idiots.
Baby Steps
Quote of the Day
A Democratic-appointed judge recently barred a federal agency from enforcing a pistol brace rule for millions of members of the National Rifle Association (NRA) as the appeals process continues.
U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton in 1998, sided with the gun rights group in a ruling handed down on Friday. Last year, the NRA filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which argued that the agency’s measure introduced last year to reclassify the pistols equipped with braces as short-barreled rifles is unconstitutional.
Maura Zurick
April 2, 2024
Democrat Judge Exempts NRA Members From New Gun Rule (msn.com)
It’s a rather small step, but it is a step in the right direction. And it sets a precedent nibbling on the NFA.
And just as important it was so obviously an infringement that a Democrat judge saw it as unconstitutional.
They Want You Dead
Quote of the Day
From: ron <ron@svnpy.com>
Sent: Monday, April 1, 2024 5:03 AM
To: joe
Subject: You are still a redneck Idaho farm boyI hope you have not reproduced. The USA already has plenty of stupid and ignorant people like you.
When you shoot yourself, please take out all your family members first–this would raise the average IQ in Trumpland.
—
M. Ronald G. KIRCHEM8 rue Campagne Première
Bâtiment C (Staël)
Apt. 343 (4ème étage)
75014 Paris, Île-de-France
La République françaiseKIRCHEM: +33 (0)7 72 42 44 34
I suspect the email address has been compromised (the content is for a doctor in California). The name is likely fake or deliberate misdirection.
One of the most fascinating and telling things about people like this is they believe they can read the minds of others. You can search this blog all you want but you won’t find any support for Trump.* Yet this guy believes I am a Trump supporter. The belief that you can read other people’s minds is a strong sign of mental health issues.
Also interesting is how they claim to believe they know my IQ and that of my family members and are confident it is below average in “Trumpland”. My three children and I have IQs that range from 125 to 155. The three grandchildren also appear to be in the same range. Mr. KIRCHEM’s estimation of the IQ of people in “Trumpland” is much higher I would have guessed.
I could make other observations but all you really need to know is that they want me and my children, and probably you and yours, dead.
Prepare appropriately.
* I did make predictions about his actions which I approved of. Months before she died, I predicted he would successfully replace Ginsberg on the Supreme Court with a pro-constitutional judge.
We Need Common Sense Knife Laws
It isn’t the availability of the weapons, it is the criminal intent of the perpetrator:
4 people killed and 7 wounded in stabbings in northern Illinois, with a suspect in custody
Four people were killed and seven were hurt when a man went on a stabbing rampage Wednesday across multiple locations in a northern Illinois community, authorities said.
But the reporter can’t help but think of the guns:
Not all of the victims found at multiple addresses in the city had stab wounds and none were shot, according to Redd.
Citation Needed? No. Trials!
Quote of the Day
ASSAULT WEAPONS ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR SELF DEFENSE AND ARE NOT WELL-SUITED FOR HUNTING, SPORTING, OR ANY PURPOSE OTHER THAN MASS KILLING.
Hernandez and Epps, Garcia, Amabile, Bacon, Brown, deGruy Kennedy, English, Joseph, Lindsay, Mabrey, Ortiz, Rutinel, Velasco, Willford, Woodrow
Colorado House of Representatives
HOUSE BILL 24-1292
Considering that most of my rifles, all my shotguns, and two of my .22 caliber pistols* are considered “assault weapons” and that I have fired 10s of thousands of rounds in practice and competition with them without once being involved in a mass killing I can say with great certainty that they are deliberately lying.
This is pure evil. I look forward to their trials.
* Oddly enough my Limited Division USPSA pistol, a STI DVC chambered in .40 S&W, with 18 rounds magazines does not appear to be considered an assault weapon.
Concern About the First Amendment Hamstringing the Government
Quote of the Day
My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the federal government in significant ways in the most important time periods.
…
And so I guess some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country, and you seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information.
…
So can you help me? Because I’m really – I’m really worried about that because you’ve got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances from the government’s perspective, and you’re saying that the government can’t interact with the source of those problems.
Ketanji Brown Jackson
Justice of SCOTUS
March 18, 2024
Judge Jackson’s ‘chilling’ First Amendment comments leave Jonathan Turley ‘very concerned’ (msn.com)
I’m reminded of something I thought the NRA had repeatedly published. But I can’t find it now. The closest I could find was this:
You know why there’s a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one.
It would be best for everyone if SCOTUS understands this. As the people of Scotland are learning, if not vigorously defended, free speech is easily lost:
The police and the CPS have agreed the following definition for identifying and flagging hate crimes:
“Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on a person’s disability or perceived disability; race or perceived race; or religion or perceived religion; or sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation or transgender identity or perceived transgender identity.”
There is no legal definition of hostility so we use the everyday understanding of the word which includes ill-will, spite, contempt, prejudice, unfriendliness, antagonism, resentment and dislike.
A Different View of Reality
Quote of the Day
Gun capitalism is legitimized through the kind of bill President Biden signed into law in 2022. The bill authorized things like new money for mental health and red flag laws — which are good, but also inherently signal that gun consumerism is perfectly legitimate and can continue so long as we make sure the guardrails are there.
The U.S. is one of the few if not the only country in the world that approaches gun policy in that particular way. I think that until we are ready to confront gun capitalism, we’re going to continue in the cycle that we find ourselves in.
Ben Tumin
March 19, 2024
Why Is There a Gun Problem in America? The Gun Capitalists Are Partly to Blame | Teen Vogue
*
I used to read some of the small communist newspapers I found laying around in downtown Seattle. They had the same twisted view of reality. Capitalism was unquestionably to blame for all the evil in the world.
Prepare and respond appropriately.
* Image from Gun Control: Good for the Noble, Bad for the Greedy – Imgflip
They Hate the First Amendment Too
It is not about guns. It is about control.
Several social media companies were ordered by a New York state judge to face four lawsuits seeking to hold them responsible for helping enable the avowed white supremacist who killed 10 Black people in 2022 at a Buffalo, New York grocery store.
Justice Paula Feroleto of the Erie County Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the more than 40 plaintiffs could try to prove that Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)’ Facebook and Instagram, Reddit, Google’s YouTube and other platforms were designed to addict and radicalize users like the shooter, Payton Gendron.
…
“We must hold accountable every single bad actor that prepared and equipped the shooter to target and kill members of Buffalo’s Black community,” said Eric Tirschwell, executive director of the gun control advocacy group Everytown Law, which filed two of the lawsuits.
I am reminded of Quote of the day—Joseph Stalin.
Returning to the Stone Age
Quote of the Day
Those who want to outlaw drugs must first outlaw, among other things, chemistry and horticulture.
Those who want to outlaw strong cryptography and cryptocurrency must first outlaw, among other things, math and computer science.
If it was even possible to get rid of guns, drugs, and crypto — it isn’t, but if it was — the politicians who want to do so would have to figure out how to get us to give up everything modern, from the bicycle to the automobile to the microcomputer to the smart phone to most of the food we eat to accomplish their objective.
They’d have to outlaw Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), the set of fields that they’re constantly complaining not enough students are going into.
Thomas L. Knapp
March 16, 2024
Opinion: ‘Gun Control’ is a call for returning to the Stone Age – Newton Daily News
There is a lot of truth in this but one must realized it isn’t really about banning these things. As Ayn Rand pointed out, it is about controlling people.
Copilot Unable to Create a Graph Which Contradicts the Narrative
Copilot on a Pragmatic Approach to Private Gun Ownership
I tested Microsoft’s AI, Copilot on violent crime and restrictions on private gun ownership. It refused to admit the obvious correlation.
Copilot Caught up in Lies
I tested Microsoft’s AI, Copilot on the 2nd Amendment. It could not seem to get its story straight.
You’re Just a Big Baby Gun Wacko With a Small Dick
Quote of the Day
You want to talk about a single person to avoid the reality that no one has taken away your 2nd amendment rights. No one has taken away your guns. No one is trying to take away your guns. You’re just a big baby gun whacko with a small dick.
Secret Lair Arcade (@LairArcade)
Posted on X, May 19, 2023
It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier!
I don’t know what color the sky is in their universe but we can be certain our political reality does not match their delusions and/or lies of the political landscape.
Check out No one wants to take your guns for a quick and easy refutation of their primary assertion.
Those Who Would Outlaw Weapons
Quote of the Day
Those who would outlaw weapons must first outlaw the knowledge of weapons. And those who would outlaw the knowledge of weapons must outlaw knowledge itself.
Similarly, civilization consists of more than just impressive public buildings and a battery of arbitrary rules. Its continued existence depends absolutely on the day-to-day good will of each and every individual. History (especially recent Soviet history) proves that this good will depends on how well individual rights are respected. Alienate the individual, lose his good will, and you lose civilization itself.
Think I exaggerate? Take another look at Beirut, Los Angeles, or the World Trade Center.
Every day we learn again how dependent we’ve been all along on individual self-restraint. Self-styled liberals label this lesson “terrorism” because it makes them feel better and helps them to forget until tomorrow. But it doesn’t matter what they call it. In sufficient numbers, disaffected individuals become armies of chaos, reducing whole civilizations to archaeological rubble. And, as with most violence in our culture, it is self-styled liberals who will make it happen here.L. Neil Smith
Armies of Chaos (lneilsmith.org)
Gun “Buybacks” Are For the Feelings
Quote of the Day
Given the empirical evidence, police agencies may use gun buyback programs not with the expectation of reducing violent crime, but to satisfy the public’s expectations. When serious crime problems occur, mayors and police chiefs are under pressure from their constituents to ‘do something dramatic and effective’ about the violence.
Scott W. Phillips, et al.
November 1, 2013
An Evaluation of a Multiyear Gun Buy-Back Programme: Re-Examining the Impact on Violent Crimes
Via Gun buybacks: Findings from decades of research (journalistsresource.org).
In other words, to make the general public feel better.
I suppose in some ways it does make me feel a little better. I almost always feel better after a good laugh.
There’s Only One Law
Quote of the Day
There’s only one law. Don’t be a Tutsi, when the Hutus show up.
MTHead
March 10, 2024
Comment to Too Many Lies to Bother Refuting Them
There is a lot packed into that statement.
Read up on the Rwanda genocide for more details. Or Lethal Laws for things common to all genocides and how to prevent them.
This is short version of the story applicable to this quote:
- The Tutsi were a minority, about 15% of the population. The Hutus were about 85% of the population.
- The Tutsi were the favored race by the German colonizers.
- The Hutu developed a hatred for the Tutsi who controlled the government for decades.
- Gun control prevented the Tutsi from having effective tools of self defense.
- A relatively small set of young male, radical, Hutu murdered up to as many as 1,000,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu using machetes as their primary weapon.
What I think are the important points to remember about all genocides are:
- A small part of the population, something like 1% to 3% of the population do the actual killing.
- The victims almost always vastly outnumber the murderers.
- All genocides since the start of the 20th century were enabled by gun control.
Aaron Zelman, author of Lethal Laws makes this claim (IIRC):
All genocides require three things:
- Government.
- Hate.
- Gun control.
Government and hate will always exist. The elimination of gun control is the only way to prevent genocide.
With that in mind, reread the words of MTHead’s and prepare appropriately.
They Should Do Better Checking
Quote of the Day
Last time I checked words didn’t kill people. I’m sorry that your manhood is threatened unless you have a firearm on your hip but with all these children needlessly dying something has to change.
Chicagoooose @Chicagoooose
Posted on X, May 17, 2023
It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier!
This is deliberately deceptive framing. Technically they are correct about words. Just like guns, words don’t kill people kill people. But that does not mean words/ideas are not dangerous.
As pointed out by Stalin, words/ideas are more dangerous than guns:
Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don’t let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?
See also Crazy talk.
Chicagoooose should do better checking. But if they did, and they took their research to heart, they wouldn’t be against private gun ownership unless they were a genocidally inclined tyrant.
Too Many Lies to Bother Refuting Them
Quote of the Day
The sociological question of how societies can prevent gun violence is not any great mystery. Fewer guns mean fewer gun deaths.
Andrew C. McKevitt
November 7, 2023
Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America
Via The real origins of America’s gun culture (msn.com).
I don’t have time to elaborate on all of the things wrong with these two sentences but I’ll give a quick outline.
- “Gun violence” and “gun deaths” are not relevant measurements unless your goal is elimination of private gun ownership. If you are to insist on ignoring the principals of gun ownership being a specific enumerated right, then “violent crime” is the proper measurement of the hinted at downside to private gun ownership.
- The number of privately owned guns is not positively correlated with violent crime.
- Restrictions on private gun ownership is positively correlated with genocide.
- Not all “gun deaths” are murders or suicides. Many are justified homicide. Some are even praiseworthy homicide. That McKevitt doesn’t make a distinction is very telling. It is deliberate deception.
There is a lot more to be said, but I’ll leave that up to commenters.
Tool of Deception in Anti-gun Playbook
Quote of the Day
Blackshear, a Dayton Democrat, now calls modern rifles “mass casualty weapons,” as though the gun, rather than some deranged criminal who might create mayhem, is somehow responsible for a hideous crime. According to a news release from his office, his bill is a response to a tragic 2019 shooting in Dayton’s Oregon district.
Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
March 6, 2024
CCRKBA: OHIO REP. BLACKSHEAR INVENTS NEW TERM TO DEMONIZE GUNS | Citizens Committee For The Right To Keep And Bear Arms
As pointed out by Alan Gottlieb:
The gun prohibition movement has tried the terms ‘assault weapons’ and ‘weapons of war,’ and even ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ Now, all of a sudden, Rep. Blackshear has come up with something new to incite the same old anxieties anti-gunners have always had over the fact that Americans like firearms and dislike the efforts to ban them.
Anti-gun people are always trying to put lipstick on their pigs. It’s just another tool of deception in their playbook.