If you are an anti-gun person that says something stupid in public, and I mock you for it on my blog, don’t expect me to take it down just because it shows up in Google searches.
If you are going to attack me and millions of other NRA members and gun owners then you are going to have to pay the price for your bigotry.
Gun buy-back programs should offer penis enlargement pills in exchange for 30-round mags. Go right to the root of the problem. #p2 #tcot
Kevin Cole (@kcole0)
Tweeted on February 3, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]
If a politician can’t be trusted to respect your 2nd Amendment rights how can they be trusted with any of your other rights?
I have to give Barack Obama credit — he’s done a lot more to keep guns and ammo off of store shelves than any president in history.
Sebastian
July 21, 2013
Inflation
[I wonder if he is proud of that accomplishment. I’m sure that was his goal coming into the presidency. But the anti-gun people don’t seem to be any more happy with him that the pro-gun people.
It’s odd how that works out. Isn’t it?—Joe]
No matter how much the advocates of gun control get, it will never be enough.
David T. Hardy
July 18, 2013
Why Gun Owners Are Right to Fight Against Gun Control—The anti-gun crowd doesn’t want “compromise.” They want confiscation and control.
[Via David and Bitter.
Brady Campaign board member Joan Peterson has confirmed this is true, repeatedly.—Joe]
This Holder speech tells me that Holder, one of the main leaders of this Government, just advocated FOR the predation of his Government ON it’s own people, and he framed that advocacy in racial terms.
US Attorney General Eric Holder has just approved of violence by blacks on other races. President Obama now must decide to remove Eric Holder from leadership, or admit that he, too, supports race-based Government predation.
We may have just seen the line between simple bad leadership and outright Tyranny crossed here, with our Government having just clearly expressed tyrannical intentions.
Rivrdog
July 17, 2013
Comment to Quote of the day—Eric Holder
[While I agree there are tyrannical implications this is far from the first “line to be crossed”.
Examples:
These are just a few examples of a large set of “lines of significance” which have been crossed.—Joe]
Update: There are so many that I forget them… Add the IRS scandal and giving guns to the drug cartels to justify gun bans in the U.S.
Separate and apart from the case that has drawn the nation’s attention, it’s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods.
…
By allowing — and perhaps encouraging — violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety.
Eric Holder
U.S. Attorney General
July 16, 2013
Holder wades deeper into Zimmerman battle, calls for review of ‘stand-your-ground’
[Does it “sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods” when the police stand their ground against a thug that threatens them or other innocent life? Or do they have a duty to retreat, as Holder thinks private citizens should, as well? If not then why the difference?
If this is “separate and apart from the case” then why bring it up now? I am suspicious that Holder is of the opinion that self-defense should be deprecated and the Zimmerman/Martin case is a convenient vehicle to further that agenda.
There are hints in Holders words above that indicate he believes all human lives are of equal value. This is not true (H/T to Robb’s Tweet). This is a collectivist mindset which, in essence, regards people as little more than cattle. The meat and milk from one cow is just as good as the meat and milk from another cow.
The thug threating to cause grievous bodily injury to an innocent life has reduced the value of their life to something less than their victim. When one or the other lives are certain to suffer severe harm the innocent victim is fully justified in using deadly force, risking the life of the aggressor, to defend themselves. This is a very individualist rights approach to the situation. The collectivist either does not understand the concepts or rejects them. In their mind damaged meat is damaged meat.
There is nothing wrong with “escalating” in self-defense when in a “violent situation” when an innocent life is put in jeopardy. I have seen what backing down to aggressive animals on the farm does. They get more aggressive because the behavior was successful in achieving their goals. If you can safely do so you must stand up to them, put them in their place, or get rid of them. If you don’t they will rule the barnyard. The same is true with aggressive animals on the street. Either Holder doesn’t understand this or his agenda includes violent thugs dominating innocent people in public.—Joe]
The result of overcriminalization is that prosecutors no longer need to wait for obvious signs of a crime. Instead of finding Professor Plum dead in the conservatory and launching an investigation, authorities can instead start an investigation of Colonel Mustard as soon as someone has suggested he is a shady character. And since … everyone is a criminal if prosecutors look hard enough, they are guaranteed to find something eventually.
Overcriminalization has thus left us in a peculiar place: Though people suspected of a crime have extensive due process rights in dealing with the police, and people charged with a crime have even more extensive due process rights in court, the actual decision of whether or not to charge a person with a crime is almost completely unconstrained.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds
July 2013
Columbia Law Review: Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything Is a Crime
[This would appear to be the goal of those that wish to “prevent gun violence”. Government prevents there being a victim by prosecuting people for victimless crimes. An example is the prosecution of people for being in possession of gun in addition to prosecution of people who injure innocent people with a gun.
This makes a certain amount of sense but only if there is no value to the victimless act being prosecuted. The prosecution of severely drunk drivers has little downside because driving while drunk has a high risk of injuring innocent people with very rare benefits.
Even if firearm possession is legal the more laws there are regulating the possession of firearms all the better it is for government to “prevent gun violence”. When Huffman’s Rule of Firearms Law results in nearly every gun owner at risk for decades of prison time, without a single victim, we have serious potential for abuse and even a police state.
In order to claim prosecution of gun ownership is a net benefit one must demonstrate gun ownership has little value to society and/or a large societal cost. Small minds will present an argument of vigorous assertion that this is true. But a more compelling argument can be made that thoughts are more dangerous than guns. For example The Communist Manifesto and some religious books have been used as tools to kill and injure far more innocent people than firearms in the hands of private citizens.
The concept of “preventing crime” is a very risky and dangerous path to tread. We are already too far down this path and we should reverse course rather than continue to, what I fear is, a genocidal conclusion.—Joe]
They need a 30 round clip to get an erection. @sampuzzo @2enchantu @abynorml @mahvros27
TruthtoConservatives (@ToConservatives)
Tweeted on February 4, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
H/T to Janelle for the email.—Joe]
There can be no doubt after the Not Guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman that murder has now been legalized in half of the 50 states.
…
The acquittal of George Zimmerman is confirmation that the American promise of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” will continue to be squandered until the NRA’s pernicious stranglehold on our legislatures is broken. Lawmakers in states with “Stand Your Ground” laws should immediately repeal these cancerous blights on American values, law and tradition.
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
July 14, 2014
CSGV STATEMENT ON VERDICT IN ZIMMERMAN TRIAL
[It’s no wonder CSGV is irrelevant and fading away.
A jury found Zimmerman not guilty of both murder and the lesser charge of manslaughter. Yet CSGV, without the benefit of seeing all the evidence and testimony seen by the jury, is convinced he committed murder. A jury that took only 16.5 hours of deliberation to reach that conclusion. It was no surprise to nearly all the trial observers. The evidence clearly supported the conclusion that the shooting was in self-defense.
The wild claim of murder is the same as that by other anti gun people who claimed the Boston Marathon terrorist shooting at the police, and shortly thereafter shot by the police, was a “gun violence victim.” Apparently these people live in a world where everyone shot and killed are murder victims. The only thing that could make it more clear is if they declared Gary Gilmore a “gun violence victim.”*
Their world and reality only intersect to the extent that we can sometimes understand the words, but not the substance, of what they are trying to say.—Joe]
*Someone should ask Joan Peterson about this.
It isn’t eternal vigilance the residents of Illinois need, it is eternally outraged aggressiveness against their own government.
mikee
July 11, 2013
Comment to Three Yards And A Cloud Of Dust…
[It isn’t just in Illinois that this is needed. And there are lots of things to be outraged about.
The judge that forced Illinois to allow people the “bear” part of “keep and bear” arms didn’t prohibit the state from requiring someone to get a permit to exercise a specific enumerated right. Reading a book, even the most dangerous ones such as The Communist Manifesto, doesn’t require a permit. Worshiping the god(s) of your choice doesn’t require you to register with the state. And you don’t have to get the local sheriff to sign off on you exercising your right to have a lawyer present when you are being questioned by the police. The BATFB (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Books) can’t declare book as failing to meet a “religious purpose” test and forbid it being imported as they can with a gun that doesn’t meet its “sporting purpose” test.
Gun owners are like a child so badly abused that they are grateful just to be given a few scraps of bread in a bowl of water. The abuse has been going on for so long and so extensive that it is difficult for us to imagine what a “normal life” would be like.
Talk to someone that has lived in an abusive relationship for decades and then got out. Even after a year they will still marvel some little thing they are so grateful for but is really a normal human interaction. While in the relationship they didn’t, and probably couldn’t realize, that was another instance of abuse in their relationship. And probably just as, if not more, important is that the abuser absolutely does not see it as abuse. No matter how many times they are told, no matter how much data is supplied the abuser will insist the victim deserves it and no abuse is actually occurring.
It’s easy for someone from Idaho to see the abuse in New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts. It’s much more difficult for the people being victimized to see it. And the legislators advocating even more abuse cannot imagine why the victims complain.
Just like an abusive parent or spouse whose actions result in the injury and death of those innocents under their control these abusive politicians, who infringe upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms which also results in the injury and death of the innocent, need to be arrested and given appropriate punishment.—Joe]
I have no idea what the cartoonist was thinking. This makes absolutely no sense what so ever to me.
The right to keep and bear arms is an explicitly enumerated right in the Bill of Rights on equal ground with the rights listed on the sign. “Union rights” are not explicit in the Constitution or BOR but some aspect of a union have implicit protection such as freedom of association. But how do gun rights threaten any aspect of the other rights or of someone wishing to be a member of a union?
My best guess is the cartoonist has crap for brains. Does anyone have a better idea?
It’s not just the Chicago gun ban that was defeated by the Constitution. The ban on public carry was defeated as well.
Stuff it Handgun Control Inc. (now calling themselves The Brady Campaign in public while retaining HCI for more private discussions).
It is time for Illinois residents to join citizens in every other state. If Gov. Quinn and other gun prohibitionists need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, where all civil rights – including the right to bear arms – are recognized, that’s their fault. They tried to transpose the Second Amendment from a fundamental civil right to a heavily-regulated privilege, and that is not what the court ruling allowed him to do.
We welcome Illinois to the United States of America.
Alan Gottlieb
July 9, 2013
SAF APPLAUDS ILLINOIS LAWMAKERS FOR OVERRIDE VOTE, COURT COMPLIANCE
[I’m not sure it’s really valid to say they have entered the U.S. It’s more like they are in quarantine. They still need to rid themselves of their gun control infections but they are making progress and I do welcome that.—Joe]
Via Weerd.
As Weerd points out this is a straw man argument.
I also wonder if there is some “Freudian slip” in regards to almost all the triggers looking more like fishhooks than a real trigger. The overweight gun owners is an almost universal stereotype (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and of course the original classic first gun cartoon I clipped from a newspaper, and wrote the editor about, from the mid-1990’s).
It’s true that guns are successful conflict resolution tools. But the nature of the conflict for which they are appropriate and advertised for would be more along the lines of, “Home Invasion Deterrent”, “Personal Protection on the Street”, “Grizzly Bear Repellent”, and “Rodent Population Control”. Nothing on the entire set of NRA web sites or in any of their literature would even hint at any of the things this cartoons explicitly claims.
Our enemies cannot succeed on the basis of facts and things we claim. As one anti-gunner finally admitted, “You … are too strong for me. By that I mean a great compliment. Your knowledge of the subject is too great for me to compete with.” They must, by necessity, live in an alternate reality where they think we say things that we do not and then gleefully shoot down their imaginary foes.
Inspired by:
Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it’s not an individual right or that it’s too much of safety hazard don’t see the danger of the big picture. They’re courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don’t like.
Alan Dershowitz
Quoted in Dan Gifford
The Conceptual Foundations of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in Religion and Reason
62 TENN. L. REV. 759 (1995)
We can elaborate by saying:
Foolish people who legislate, make a case in public opinion, or create case law for the restriction or extermination of any of specific enumerated right enable the extermination of not just the Bill of Rights but the entire constitutional principle of government.
A day to celebrate freedom by going across state or county lines to buy fireworks because they’re illegal where you live.
Say Uncle
July 4, 2013
Happy Independence Day
[You shouldn’t really have to say more than that convince people that we are no longer free. You shouldn’t have to tell them the size of soft drinks in NYC is restricted. You shouldn’t have to explain Obama Care. You shouldn’t have to tell them about the New York SAFE act. You shouldn’t have to tell them our government is collecting data about every phone call and every letter mailed. You shouldn’t have to tell them that if you carry a cell phone the government can obtain your location with a few clicks on a website.You shouldn’t have to tell them the government says it has the legal authority and resolve to use unmanned drones to kill U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without trial or warning.
The scary thing is even if you tell people all of that they will do little more than shrug and turn back to finish watching the latest episode of American Idol, take another swig of beer, or another toke on their joint. They should be getting signatures for the recall petitions, spoofing encrypted email from government officials to overseas terrorists, and getting small arms training.—Joe]
All you Bambi killers out there that want to tote around your rifles in your truck gun racks should grow up. Guns are for killing and killing for sport is immoral. If you have to hunt to eat fine buy a gun but if you aren’t native or Inuit or live in outer nowheresville stick to paying darts or bingo. Guns and the people that love them are dangerously stupid.
Bill
1:54 PM, June 27, 2013
Comment to Quebec court decision moves Ottawa closer to fully scrapping long-gun registry
[Every sentence of this rant could be the target of a blog post explaining in great detail why the commenter is either willfully ignorant or stupid himself. I don’t have the time or the interest to do that so I’ll just point out that it is good to know what he thinks of gun owners. He wants to control people and confine us to “playing darts or bingo” and he must dehumanize us to do that. He believes he is a “superior moral authority” and that should give him the authority to do with us as he commands with the government doing the dirty work of implementing his policies.
Mr. Bill should attempt to do his own dirty work.—Joe]
Senator Schumer, America’s leading anti-gun legislator has just confessed that there are not enough votes to pass his universal background check bill. But what if there were? How futile is a proposal to have background check on all NEW guns sales for a nation which already has an estimated backlog of 319 million? Well, if that were adopted today, and Senator Schumer lived to be 400 years old there would still be upwards of 300 million guns for which there were no background checks.
Don B. Kates
June 11, 2013
Futile, Stupid Gun Control Proposals
[Background checks are just a first step. Schumer and everyone of any intelligence on both sides of the gun control debate know this. And most everyone knows background checks are pointless. Registration and, ultimately, confiscation are the real goals.—Joe]
Via email from Joey D.
But of course it is irrational to expect people to be rational.
And for those that are unwilling or unable to behave rationally we defend our guns with guns.