Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day—Jeffrey Goldberg

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Gun-control advocates, and their friends in Congress and state legislatures, must admit to themselves that the fixes they propose are mainly symbolic. There is a striking timidity to the gun-control movement. America is awash in guns — about 300 million are now in private hands. Mainstream, incremental, gun control measures, if enacted, would not reduce the number of guns in society, and they would only work at the margins of the problem. In other words, laws that would have prohibited the Newtown killer’s mother from acquiring her weapons would have been more helpful.

Jeffrey Goldberg
December 20, 2013
Jeffrey Goldberg: Why Newtown didn’t change America
[If you read his entire post you will discover Goldberg has a good understanding of the gun politics. The only thing he messes up above where he expresses his belief that “laws that would have prohibited the Newtown killer’s mother from acquiring her weapons would have been more helpful”.

He apparently does not understand a couple of things. It’s too bad because that understand is critical to his reaching the correct conclusion. Those items are:

  1. Firearms are used to protect innocent life. Hence any restrictions on firearms must take into account the reduction in benefits as well as the reduction in risks.
  2. Prohibiting firearm ownership to people with no propensity to commit violent illegal acts, such as the Newton killer’s mother, would not be “helpful” in the sense Goldberg might imagine it. In addition to the Constitutional issues flooding the courts there would be significant percentage of existing gun owners that would choose to act outside the law to demonstrate just how “unhelpful” they could be.

I applaud Goldberg’s call to gun control advocates to recognize they are mainly symbolic and do not advocate for practical benefits. But he still needs addition education and, contrary to the gun control advocates, I think he is rational and honest enough to learn.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mike Weisser

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Advocacy organizations can play an important role in any public debate regardless of their size. But the trick is to figure out who you’re really talking to and whether or not they will listen to what you have to say. If Moms wants to have a real impact on the argument over guns, why don’t they talk to gun owners and stop wasting their energy on convincing people who don’t need to be convinced? And you don’t talk to gun people by throwing up a website or a Facebook page and ‘invite’ them to post a comment or engage in a chat. Maybe that strategy works when you’re selling a product, but it’s rank arrogance to confuse marketing a product with marketing an idea.

Mike Weisser
December 29, 2013
The Confrontational Gun Control Strategy That Just Might Work
[The anti-gun people have an incredible amount of arrogance. And ignorance. And profound disregard for the U.S. Constitution.

Don’t expect them to ever understand why they do and should loose the battle they are fighting. They have mental problems and even as they are swept into the dustbin of history by the legislatures and the courts they will still believe they are right. Their mindset does not, and will never, have a significant difference from that of the KKK of the last century. We are the “gun n***ers” of the 21st Century and they want us “put in our place”.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Paul‏ @hairymodelwanaB

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The only reason men want a gun in their pocket it because their penis doesn’t work, be a man not a weak excuse for one

Paul‏ @hairymodelwanaB
Tweeted on May 17, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

And what does Paul think the reason a woman would want a gun in their pocket I wonder. Penis envy?

Occam’s Razor would suggest self-defense is the better answer.—Joe]

Soul sucking

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While at Wade’s yesterday Barb overheard someone asking about purchasing a suppressor. After we left I gave her more details about the process.

  • The creation of a trust or sign-off by local law enforcement.
  • The submission of paperwork to the ATF.
  • The nine months to a year wait for the ATF to process the paperwork.
  • The background check for the people on the trust.
  • The $200 tax stamp.
  • The 4473 and background check when you pick up the suppressor.

Her comment was, “That’s a soul sucking experience.”

Yup. You have to have your soul sucked in order to exercise a specific enumerated right. This isn’t the way this country is supposed to be run.

Quote of the day—Archer

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The Brady Campaign meeting is the CSGV meeting is the Moms Demand [something] meeting. Hand the microphone to the next person, and you’ve got the next meeting.

Archer
December 13, 2013
Comment to Small goals from small minds.
[There is a lot of truth to that.—Joe]

A kids gun

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Barb spent soon time in Idaho with me this week. Dad wanted her to see how much better the room in basement was since she was there the last time. After Dad showed off the improvements I saw something in the gun cabinet I wanted to show her.

WP_20131227_002

It was the old Winchester 32-20 that had hung on the wall of my bedroom for many years as I grew up. It had belonged to my grandfather and my Great Uncle Walt (Grandpa Huffman’s brother) had shot his first coyote with it when he was 10 years old.

Under some of the more repressive laws in this country it is banned as being an assault rifle because it has a capacity of greater 10 rounds. But as it was originally used it was a great gun for kids because of it’s light weight, relatively low cost to shoot, and light recoil.

Quote of the day—Unarmed Barista (@GunzAreBad)

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@Rivers513 handguns kill more than the assault murder guns. I’m going after them all #GunSense

Unarmed Barista (@GunzAreBad)
Tweeted on December 16, 2013
[Yeah. Tell me again that, “No one wants to take your guns.”

This may be a troll account so this may not be as good as example as I thought it was.—Joe]

Quote of the day—“Guest”

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Nothing more disgusting than a female gun nut.

“Guest”
June 2013
Comment to Children and Guns: The Fear and the Reality
[You disgust them and they want to take your means of self defense away. It sounds to me like someone is channeling the KKK.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Anonymous Reader

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I hope that CNN and Fox News and ABC and all of the news outlets broadcast live feeds from the destruction of the guns once they are criminalized. We’ll have trash compactors reducing the guns to pieces of unrecognizable metal. The death-worshipping guns nuts will be watching TV, tears streaming down their cheeks, shrieking “OUR GUNS! OUR GUNS!” Their children will ask them what time supper is, and they will backhand them across the face and shout “DON’T TALK BACK TO ME! THEY’RE DESTROYING OUR GUNS!”

Anonymous Reader
July 26, 2001
Comment to The Terrible Truth About Gun Owners
[This is what they think about people who exercise the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.

Merry Christmas.—Joe]

More guns = less crime, part 22

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From Reason comes a report of a study about An examination of the effects of concealed weapons laws and assault weapons bans on state-level murder rates. Their conclusion, unexpectedly of course, is that assault weapon bans don’t do squat, and limiting the legal ownership and carry of guns for self defense (or, presumably, other purposes) increases crime rates. I’m sure we are all shocked that enforcing and encouraging defensive passivity and defenselessness encourages criminals, but there you have it.

Quote of the day—Predator

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Interestingly, and not surprisingly coming from The Left, he is advocating capital punishment for possessing a philosophy rather than committing an act. Looking at history, that appears to be a constant.

That said philosophy is supported by, and adheres to, centuries of documented, established rights, which in turn is supported by the natural laws of this particular planet, is irrelevant to him; it is the philosophy he considers so dangerous.

This is certainly a real stretch – for the moment, anyway – but at what level does such a threat constitute basis for justifiable defensive action? For now it’s just talk; I suspect as political power waxes and wanes it may not always be.

Predator
December 19, 2013
Referring to This is what they think of you
[To answer the question, it depends upon what your definition of “justifiable defensive action” is.

I consider defensive training, stocking up on ammo, and keeping my home location difficult to find “defensive action” and more than justified by the current enumerable threats to my philosophy, person, and family. If you are talking about using deadly force as the “justifiable defensive action” then the answer is when the threat is eminent and of a nature that it would result in death or permanent injury to an innocent person.

Other than that I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—rich roberts ‏@boris3324

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@UnitedLiberals It’s what Ben Franklin would of wanted. #NRAdicklesswonders

rich roberts ‏@boris3324
Tweeted on May 16, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday via a Tweet from Linoge!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Clayton Cramer

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Watching Aborn’s attempt to define fear of gun bans as paranoid while arguing in favor of gun bans makes me disinclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the leaders.

Clayton Cramer
December 17, 2013
Not Trying to Ban Guns – Except When We Are
[H/T to Say Uncle.

The problem is they have mental problems. They literally cannot see they contributed to the situation.

I have a lot of experience dealing with this sort of “thinking”. Stacy, my counselor for dealing with this sort of thing, explained this was one of the symptoms of personality disorders. The essence of the explanation applicable in this context is as follows:

If you tell a normal person their actions contributed to a particular situation or result and suggest changing their behavior might result in a better outcome they will respond with something like, “I think I understand, I will try your suggestion next time.” The person with a personality disorder cannot see they contributed to the situation in any way. They never did anything wrong and will refuse to change their behavior.

There is no point in trying to have a logical discussion with these type of people. Your only productive recourse is to “set boundaries”, tell them you will not tolerate their irrational behavior, and then enforce those boundaries. As difficult as this is in interpersonal relationships it’s even more difficult when these people have political power, the power of government force, over you. This is why we have the 2nd Amendment. It is the last ditch resort to enforcing boundaries.

Further complicating the issue is that when you enforce those boundaries “the crazy” may get far, far worse. They can and will do extremely destructive things. In interpersonal relationships this is one the paths by which people get murdered by their abusive spouse.

Gun owners have a lot in common with abused spouses and should be aware things can very rapidly get much much worse.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Italian Rose

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Like ever other civilized first world nation civilian ownership of guns needs to be banned in this country so we can enjoy the freedom from gun violence as they do.

Italian Rose
December 11, 2013
Comment to How gun control is losing, badly (in charts)
[You don’t have to squint very hard to imagine this is sarcasm. But given the context (the Washington Post) I don’t think it is.

And I would imagine our Rose also advocates banning recreational drugs, including alcohol, so we an be free from drug abuse. That worked out so well the last few times it was last tried.*—Joe]

*That last line is sarcasm.

Second Amendment Foundation kicks additional butt

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In the grand scheme of things it’s a small win, but we’ll take what we can get;

CITY OF SEATTLE SETTLES SAF PUBLIC RECORDS LAWSUIT FOR $38,000

BELLEVUE, WA The Second Amendment Foundation has accepted a $38,000 settlement from the City of Seattle for the city’s failure to release public records about the city’s gun buyback in January.

As part of the agreement, the city has acknowledged that it did not promptly or properly provide all of the documents sought by SAF under the Public Records Act. SAF was represented by Bellevue attorney Miko Tempski.

“It is a shame that this had to drag out so long,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “but the important thing is that the city, and outgoing Mayor Mike McGinn’s office has been held accountable for sloppy handling of our request. One would have thought the city had learned something earlier this year when the police department had to pay the Seattle Times $20,000, for also not providing requested documents.

“Maybe the citizens of Seattle can consider this a Christmas gift from the departing mayor,” he remarked. “This would not have been necessary had McGinn’s office done its job.”

SAF had pursued e-mails and other documents related to the January buyback, which was conducted in a parking lot underneath I-5 in downtown Seattle. The operation was something of an embarrassment that even Washington Ceasefire President Ralph Fascitelli had advised against, the recovered e-mails revealed.

Earlier the city had supplied some of the requested documents, but a story in the Seattle P-I.com revealed there were other materials that had not been provided to SAF by Mayor McGinn’s office.

“It seems hard to conceive,” Tempski said, “how you could accidentally overlook hundreds of documents and how that could be unintentional.”

“The settlement,” said Gottlieb, “will help SAF continue its legal work. Hopefully, we will see better performance from a new city administration in January.”

Bureaucrats care very little when they’re playing with other people’s money, but eventually they get booted out of office for their douchebaggery.

What the Seattle government critters were trying to hide through their obfuscation of course is that gun “buy-backs” (as if they were ever their guns in the first place) are nothing but a cheap, stupid sham. They knew they’d be called on it, so they were willing to take their very slim chances in court at the citizens’ expense.

At a minimum, the settlement should come of out their salaries. That is after they’re arrested for using their position in an attempt to chill the exercise of a constitutional right.

How about a printer and ink “buy-back” as a means of “fighting” counterfeiting? Yeah; shockingly stupid. Insane, actually, if anyone were to think it could ever help anything.

If you trust people who do this sort of thing to hold positions of power there is something wrong with you.

Hey; let’s have a Koran “buy-back”, after which we’ll show videos on the evening news of those Korans being shredded for recycling. “Getting these Korans off the streets is another way to help save lives” the announcer would say, as a flock of doves is released. Surely that’ll put a big dent in the jihadist threat, right? Same reasoning. Same anti constitutional behavior. Same insanity.

They have it back asswards of course; crime (both the freelance and the official kind) is the reason we must at all times protect the right to keep and bear ams.

I gave quite a bit (for me) to the SAF this year. How about you?

Quote of the day—Stephen Halbrook

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Yet no good cop would assume that criminals register guns. Now we know that D.C. police don’t check the gun registry when on the way to a crime scene, and the reason for registration collapses.

Stephen Halbrook
December 11, 2013
Attorney for Dick Heller in “Heller II”.
MILLER: Dick Heller challenges D.C.’s gun registration scheme, files for quick ruling in Heller II
[H/T to Sebastian.

It’s abundantly clear the only reason for registration is to cast a chilling effect on the exercise of specific enumerated right and to aid in later confiscation. These people don’t just need to have their laws slapped down in the courts.These people should be prosecuted.—Joe]

Wrong hands, right hands… uh, say again?

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Assault-weapons_2

I shamelessly copied this from Ace, who copied it from Bookworm, who found it on FB. Seems to be on-topic.

This is what they think of you

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Via email from Col. Milquetoast who says, “Phillip Adams is an old Australian lefty with a newspaper column and a radio show. And apparently a bit of a totalitarian streak”.

Adams’ Twitter profile says, “Broadcaster, columnist, presenter of Late Night Live on ABC RN.”

Adams wrote this column on September 10, 2011:

It was widely accepted that her attempted assassination was triggered, no pun intended, by the verbal violence of US politics – such as the “lock ’n’ load” rhetoric of gun-totin’ Sarah Palin, whose campaign literature literally targeted political opponents, depicting them in the crosshairs of telescopic sights.

While sticks and stones break bones, words can never hurt? Manifestly untrue.

…

The massacre in Arizona that almost killed Giffords killed six others – and the appalled reaction almost killed off Palin’s campaign. Let this and Norway remind us to turn down our political volume and venom. It’s not enough for Abbott to tell us he “doesn’t entirely agree” with vile placards being waved at right-wing rallies. He must denounce them. And when an Alan Jones suggests that Gillard should be drowned in a hessian sack? With memories of his role in the Cronulla riots, he should he sacked.

…

Today, words. Tomorrow, sticks and stones. And the day after that?

It might have been “widely accepted” by those who do not require evidence to form their beliefs but it wasn’t accepted by most people. But that is mostly beside the point.

The main point is that he then demonstrated his total lack of an irony co-processor, or perhaps an overactive hypocritical gland, by tweeting the following:

Tweeted December 14, 2013 3:53 PM:

Biggest US death toll?Not Iraq or A’stan but the war waged within the US by the Invincible NRMA.Seems to gain strength with every massacre

Tweeted December 14, 2013, 3:58 PM:

The target of the US war on terror should be those NRMA nutters-who outgun and outmaneuver every challenger from POTUS down.And always have

Tweeted December 14, 2013, 3:59 PM:

The charnel house of Charlton Heston

Tweeted December 14, 2013, 4:05 PM:

Oops. NRA. Brain dulled by medication

Tweeted December 14, 2013, 4:07 PM:

National Ratbags. National Racists

This is a broadcaster with ABC who thinks “The target of the US war on terror should be those NRA nutters”. You, as a NRA member and gun owner, are to be give special treatment. This is not the special treatment afforded to others exercising a specific enumerated right but the special treatment of military assaults, detention without trial, and drone strikes.

How would ABC handle it if he were to say something similar about blacks, Jews, feminists, or gays?

Quote of the day–Sen. Ed Markey

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We need a ban on assault weapons. We need to stop the flow of high magazine clips, like the ones used in Aurora and Newtown.

Sen. Ed Markey
December 16, 2013
Markey calls for assault weapons ban
[H/T to NRA News for the Tweet.

If it weren’t so common I would say it is ironic that someone so ignorant of firearms that they say something like “stop the flow of high magazine clips” thinks he knows enough about them to make firearm law. But I suspect ignorance of the subject matter and the desire to use force to impose your will on those that are not ignorant are highly correlated. Think of school bullies versus the nerds, the KKK versus people of color, and Anti-Semitists versus Jews.

Philosophically, Senator Markey has a lot of close and dangerous company throughout all known history. And this is why we need to protect our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. It is a last ditch safeguard to protect innocent people from ignorant bigots with power like Senator Markey.—Joe]

A good first step

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In Bloomberg’s Business Week, of all places, Paul Barrett suggests:

As for the BATFE, drastic reform seems warranted. Why not take the agency’s better agents and fold them into the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under new leadership, and then just get rid of the bumblers who continue to make a mockery of federal law enforcement?

From a purest standpoint I would prefer that all the functions currently “performed” by the ATF be handled at the state level, if at all, and the ATF (pseudo) functionality be completely eliminated at the national level but I understand the political reality of smaller steps.

Politically the situation may be even more nuanced. At one point, many years ago, certain Second Amendment lobbyists actively worked to save the ATF because they could be more easily controlled because of their “F-Troop” reputation. As repulsive as it may be that may still be the case.

That a mainstream media outlet is advocating for the elimination of the ATF is significant. That alone is a good first step.