Category Archives: Gun Rights

Just say “NO!” to crime prevention

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The video posted here reminded me of something important.

This lept out at me like a cat with firecrackers exploding at its feet;

“The question is…how do we prevent people from committing crimes in the first place.”

No it isn’t. NO IT ISN’T!

The question IS; how do we protect liberty and dispense justice equally and reliably? The concept of crime prevention doesn’t even belong in the conversation, that is, if we’re talking about legislation, which we are.

How many people understand this? It’s there in that pledge, thingy; “…with liberty and justice for all.” Note the absence of any mention of crime prevention in the Pledge. You don’t find it in the declaration of Independence either, unless by “crime” we mean government overreach (in THAT case it’s in there, and I’m all ears if we’re having a conversation about preventing government overreach).

You can in theory have liberty and justice, OR you can have “crime prevention” legislation, but they cannot exist simultaneously. They’re mutually exclusive. The former defines a free state and the latter a police state.

The term “liberty and justice for all” takes crime as a given, a fact of life (if there’s no crime, there’s no need for a justice system). It’s an acknowledgement of the obvious – that people can do bad things. Because people can do bad things, we need our liberty protected and we demand justice. The term enshrines our right to self defense, free speech and all the rest, and promises a system of correct, organized, consistent and predictable retaliation (justice) for criminal acts.

I don’t think this is widely understood anymore. It certainly isn’t taught, and yet it is at the core of American Principle. Liberty and justice are two sides of the same coin. Crime prevention legislation is an entirely different coin, of a currency we want nothing to do with. I could say this a thousand different ways, but who gets it?

No, Little Grasshopper; crime prevention is the excuse of every police state. Having your rights respected and protected and having a proper justice system is the best condition of government you could ever ask. The prevention part is a combination of individual self defense and moral leadership, and neither of those are government business. That’s your job as a citizen. Crime prevention is your job. If it could be done with government force, (and all the worst places you can think of) would be crime free.

Plastic guns are easy, try paper!

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Via an email from Paul K. we have instructions on how to make a working gun out of paper. I have duplicated the instructions here for archival purposes.

I really, really, have serious concerns about using one of these. I can see where the radial strength might be adequate when using a small gauge shotshell but the recoil could still be a problem. There is no breachface and stock to prevent the shot shell from pushing the nail (firing pin) and perhaps the case-head into/through your hand.

Use at your own risk and remember that the extent of my obligation should this result in you or a friend of yours dying an unnatural death is to nominate you for a Darwin Award. If, and only if, I am in a generous mood when I learn of your date with fate.

Handguns in England

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Via Guns Save Life we have this poll result from England:

Vote now: which bill would you like to see introduced in the Commons?
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total Votes: 9,726

 

It would be nice to have a scientific poll on the topic. Certain events can and do rapidly change the political climate. It could be the mindset of the subjects have changed because of the brutal murder of a soldier while bystanders watched and took pictures. You would have thought the steady rise in crimes committed with guns in England and Wales (from 2009) would have been sufficient:

The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year  –  a rise of 89 per cent. 

In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold. 

In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled. 

…

Only four police forces – Cleveland-Humberside, Cambridgeshire and Sussex – recorded falls in gun crime.

But clearly it wasn’t. We should encourage them and provide examples of how to develop a healthy gun culture. Perhaps we can speed up the recovery of their sick culture which disarms and punishes victims and enables predators.

Sometimes people take a long time to grasp reality but that doesn’t mean reality doesn’t grasp them immediately.

Quote of the day—Alexa Fritts

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The National Rifle Association’s position and concerns will be made very clear when we file our lawsuit.

Alexa Fritts
Spokeswoman for the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action
May 15, 2013
Signing of Md. gun control bill to launch new legal battles, fight for public support
[This same quote is also attributed to “Jacqueline Otto”. It is possible that it was written by someone else or even a committee. But still, I like it.—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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AssaultWeaponBullElk

There are so many things wrong with this that I wouldn’t even try to enumerate all of them but here are the first two that come to mind:

  1. “Assault weapons” use a medium power round that would be either illegal (in many states) or unethical to use for harvesting an animal as large as a bull elk. The use of such a rifle would most likely result in the animal being wounded and getting away. It would not reduce it to a bag of bloody, shredded, meat.
  2. An image that properly illustrates “The civilian need for military-style assault weapons” is one like this:

Update: A better image from S Andrew Nicol:

TheCaseForCivilianOwnershipOfMilitaryStyleWeapons

Quote of the day—deeambro

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Is it true that a man who needs an assault weapon to feel like a man is just compensating for the lack of something else? You know what I mean guys.

deeambro
February 4, 2013
Comment to Assault Weapons Ban Likely To Die So That Broader Gun Policy Legislation Can Live
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

The cause of genocide

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…and of mass killings, and most wars.

It has been the thesis on this blog that disarmament has lead to more death by violence than any other single factor. I submit that such an assertion misses a critical point.

This is hard to put into words. Criminals, evil, exists everywhere and in all times. What separates times of relative peace from times of chaos and mass death then? I submit that it is resolve. A state of mind.

Tam recently spoke of a seeming dichotomy between Europe’s tendency toward docility or complacency and Her capacity for mass killing on a grand scale. I say that they are the same thing.

The willingness to go along to get along, the fear of making waves, the unwillingness to stand up and draw a line in the sand, and more importantly the lack of understanding or embracing of basic principles…together, THAT is the cause of chaos and mass death. Disarmament, while critical to the end of mass killing, and being a virtual guarantee of it, is but a symptom of that cause. The criminal element need but wait for the time to strike, meanwhile preaching peace at the cost of freedom. That includes the criminal element that always lurks in the halls and offices of government.

How else do you explain a thousand Jews guarded by a pathetic few Germans, while no one organizes a rush against the guards to easily overpower them? It wasn’t merely the lack of arms, but the lack of hutzpah THAT RESULTED iN the lack of arms. This is currently the state of all of Europe, the UK, and it’s becoming the case in the U.S.

I recently heard a phrase that will stay with me for the rest of my life. “The most powerful weapon of the oppressor is the the mind of the oppressed.” — David Masters quoting Stephen Banta

Intimidation is in the mind of the intimidated, not in the mind or the hands of the bully. Guns are only a factor in the hands of those who aren’t easily intimidated. For the easily intimidated, guns are pretty well worthless. Discuss.

Later we can talk about who’s the more easily intimidated, the self sufficient individual or the desk jokey politician with a team of interns.

Quote of the day—Zelman and Stevens

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Unarmed minority groups die when the armed majority decides to kill them.

Aaron Zelman and Richard W. Stevens
Death by “Gun Control”: The Human Cost of Victim Disarmament
Hartford, WI: Mazel Freedom Press, 201
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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From here:

NRA_Senseless

Not just anti-gun but anti-free speech as well.

Thanks to the cartoonist for showing us their true colors.

Quote of the day—Brooke Anderson

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The measure would repeal Chicago’s assault weapons ban and put public safety at risk.

Brooke Anderson
Spokesman for Illinois Governor Pat Quinn.
May 23, 2013
Quinn skeptical of Ill. House concealed-carry plan
[So tell me where is the murder rate higher? Is it in cities that don’t have a “assault weapons” ban like Seattle, Dallas, or Miami? Or is in Chicago?

I suppose it does depend upon your definition of “public”. My guess is that Anderson and Quinn are concerned with the safety of their primary constituents—the criminal elements of Chicago. And that includes those holding government office.—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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From here:

NRA_Insanity

I don’t think I have ever heard it was “one tiny step”. But certainly a good case can be made that gun control was required for every genocide.

But the cartoonist isn’t really concerned with the facts. He just wants to dehumanize gun owners. Which, by the way, was also a requirement for nearly every genocide.

Quote of the day—Michel & Associates, P.C.

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In the 16 years APPS has been an active state program, 12,000 firearms have been confiscated – about 750 each year. Yet the APPS database shows 40,000 known firearms in the hands of 20,000 prohibited owners, most likely non-violent first offenders. Stated differently, in sixteen years APPS has removed 23% of the known firearms and 0% of the unregistered guns in gang member pockets.

Michel & Associates, P.C.
Memorandum of Law
May 23, 2013
[APPS stands for “Armed Prohibited Persons System”. APPS is California’s technology for matching gun registration records against people who have had their gun ownership rights restricted.

Some of the stories of the abuses of the system will make your blood boil. All the more so because the system doesn’t (and can’t) remove the guns from people that don’t register them to begin with. And if you are familiar with Haynes v. United States you know that violent convicted criminals cannot be charged with the crime of failure to register their guns. But the average person who has never even seen the inside of a courtroom can and will be prosecuted for failure to register their firearms.

It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s just the law you must obey.—Joe]

Trailer for “Assaulted: Civil Rights Under Fire”

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The following is the trailer for the movie some of us helped via Kickstarter last year:

The official website is here.

From the email I received from them this afternoon:

The clock is ticking as our June 20th theater debut nears. We plan to have “Assaulted: Civil Rights Under Fire” play in limited release in more than a dozen markets across the U.S. And, if one of those dozen markets is not yours, you can actually request to set up your own viewing party through our distributor, TUGG (http://www.tugg.com/titles/assaulted-civil-rights-under-fire). More details to come.
In the meantime, check out the “Assaulted” trailer on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDziWcKQxr8.
And, would you believe that the one and only Ice-T is our narrator!
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DeadPatriot and like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deadpatriotfilms.
And, for some fun reading, here’s a link to a FOXNews.com interview with “Assaulted” executive producer and director, Kris Koenig:

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/05/23/about-assaulted-civil-rights-under-fire-new-star-studded-documentary-looks-at/?intcmp=features

Thanks for your support.

-The Assaulted Team

Quote of the day—My Gun Culture (@mygunculture)

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When you blame objects instead of actions, there’s always a new object to blame…

My Gun Culture (@mygunculture)
Tweeted on May 15, 2013
[The more cynical among us will claim this is intentional. Controllers need laws to make more criminals so they can control people easier. I tend to think people like this are just stupid and/or have mental problems.—Joe]

Who’s paranoid now?

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Someone is putting up posters on Capital Hill near Seattle. This is an area that has a demographic that is considerably more gay than other areas. Here is a sample:

1369074009-gay_gun2

The QR code takes you to www.a-human-right.com.

From the Stranger:

It’s hard to know who’s responsible for putting the posters up all over Capitol Hill. “Nale Dixon,” who’s credited for drawing the cartoon of the gay couple, returns no search results online. The pro-gun website is run by a dude named Oleg Volk, “An American,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s responsible for papering the hill with them. Without someone to credit, it’s impossible to glean the posterer’s intentions.

Perhaps being courted by a traditionally right-wing, conservative movement is refreshing and progressive, but it could also just be really effective concern trolling. What better way to make people feel unsafe in gay-friendly Capitol Hill than by slyly referencing homophobia and hate crimes in pro-gun propaganda plastered on every street corner?

Wow! It’s “impossible to glean the posters intentions” without someone to credit? Are we two worlds each speaking a language the other cannot understand?

They see someone pointing out the utility of being able to defend yourself using a firearm as being “concern trolling”. Would they think the same of advertisements for self-defense classes teaching Kun-Fu instead of Gun-Fu?

The comments are pretty “good” too:

7 These posters are tone deaf to the point of being offensive. I don’t appreciate my rights and concerns being exploited to make a ham-fisted point about gun laws.

15 It’s not that strange when you remember that the “traditionally conservative movement” in question is not in fact an organic movement but an industry lobby group with a lot of deeply emotionally invested fans/customers. These aren’t campaign posters; they’re advertising.

23 Oh, for crying out loud. The joke is on you. This is akin to the anti-gun ads masquerading as pro-gun ads by encouraging women to arm themselves to protect their reproductive rights. The intent here is to point out to pro-gunners that they are arming everyone, not just those who agree with them.

Are these guys in need of psychiatric help for their paranoia or is there that big of a cultural divide? In any case that they see simple messages such as these as some sort of capitalistic/right-wing/homophobic plot it means I’m not sure we actually have a common basis for communication.

Quote of the day—Sen. Joe Manchin III

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The bottom line is, Hop, you can’t stop government; you can’t stop this great country, you can’t stop the entrepreneurial spirit.

Sen. Joe Manchin III
May 17, 2013
Collateral Damage: ‘Heck no’ the IRS mess ‘doesn’t help us’ on gun control, Manchin says
[The bottom line is, Senator, you are incoherent and don’t understand the purpose of the Second Amendment. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to stop government when it has become oppressive and I believe it can stop government. And if you push too hard trying to implement gun control there is a good chance we will end up running the experiment to find out which of us is right about government being stoppable.

H/T to This Ain’t Hell and Daniel Greenfield who have their own comments.—Joe]

Interview with Defense Distributed’s Cody Wilson.

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(of 3D printed gun fame)

On theBlaze TV last night. You can watch the video at the link there.

Of course, if you were a Blaze TV subscriber you’d have seen it, and much more, Monday night.

Quote of the day—Remy Marco

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You are a small man who needs to hold a gun to make you feel like a man because you are such a pussy. Clinging to your guns, with fear in your heart that the big, bad, govt will take them away must leave you sleepless many nights. How fucking pathetic can you possibly be.

Why don’t you do us all a favor and stick your gun in your mouth and blow your brains out.

Remy Marco
Email to Connecticut Carry on May 8, 2013.
[Another example of a violent anti-gunner. It’s in their nature.—Joe]

If you’re looking only at tactics you’re missing the point

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Seen here about this;

“We’re right and our opposition is wrong. When lobbying for a cause, make sure your cause is right and just and is historically supportable. Having it already enshrined in the constitution is a big plus. Otherwise, even huge amounts of money and millions of warm bodies are going to have a difficult time getting support for your provably wrong (and unconstitutional) ideas. There is no substitute for being right.”

There are cases wherein you can never “figure out” (by tactics alone) how a person or movement achieved a particular aim. The American Revolution comes to mind. Those without principles may look at it every which way they know how and never understand it, because they’re looking in the wrong places. You can study it all your life and never be able to apply it to your own cause. It can (and does) drive people quite insane.

No, Young Grasshopper; you can not have a pet cause that you want to shove down Americans’ throats, and then “study to see how the NRA did it”.

It is not so much the “how” as the “why”.

Quote of the day—Kelly Peters

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May your children be shot and bleed out in your arms.

Kelly Peters
Email to Connecticut Carry on May 8, 2013.
[Why are anti-gun people so violent? Oh yeah! Now I remember. It’s in their nature.—Joe]