gun owners have no place in the democratic party. they’re good people, yes, but they must get rid of their guns.
sporks
December 21, 2012
Comment to How to Ban Guns: A step by step, long term process
[Sounds like a plan sporks. Let me know how your project turns out with the Democrats in Alabama, Idaho, Kentucky, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming.—Joe]
As nearly everyone already knows there is an experiment in progress in southern California. I would like to share the design of the experiment and the questions I hope to answer.*
After Columbine law enforcement had to reevaluate how they responded to this new situation. Their training was for a “hostage situation” and they handled it as such. Of course this was completely the wrong response. They didn’t even have a name for the type of event. It is now called “an active shooter” and the tactics and training have been modified to respond in a much better fashion. The D.C. snipers comes close but those two were of below average intelligence and had only a moderate amount of military training between the two of them, no law enforcement training, no knowledge of how law enforcement would respond, attacked random private citizens, and attempted to extort money which resulted in important clues being left behind.
This too will be something almost completely new to the police. No known data can be confidently extrapolated to this new situation.
I wanted the subject to be a black lesbian with a strong affinity for leftist politicians. This would deflect the knee jerk “angry right-wing white male” response from the gun hostile media and politicians. But finding one in possession of a variety of firearms, the skills to use them, plus a law enforcement and military background proved too difficult on the tight schedule. The substitution of a black male was considered adequate.
The location of the experiment was chosen as California because of the large geographical area with repressive guns laws. A multi-jurisdictional response is expected to yield a more confused and less effective response by law enforcement. A minimal set of variables were desired in the initial experiment.
New York and New Jersey were also considered but were rejected for the following reasons:
The Los Angles police department also is one of the largest, outside of New York City, in a repressive gun law environment. This gives us important data on the effectiveness of extensive hardware and well developed command and control.
The existence of the repressive gun laws was important to demonstrate that the laws are useless or at least any effect they have still leaves the subject with sufficient opportunities.
Plus my parents honeymooned in the Big Bear Lake area and I have always wanted to visit.
Although further experiments will be required for confirmation, the data will be used to extrapolate the expected outcomes from a small team targeting a police force. Multiple team information is desired but it is not expected to accurately extrapolate from this one experiment.
I would caution other experimenters to not attempt drawing conclusions from this experiment as to the expected results if it were politicians, the media, a corporation, or other group instead of law enforcement being targeted. The dynamics, mindset, strategy, and tactics of being the target versus protecting a target are different and probably cannot be accurately accounted for without actually running the experiment.
*Yeah, right. If I had the mind control technology to do something like this from 1000 miles away with no contact with the subject I would a be a multi-gazillionaire. Furthermore the entire world would have a free-market economy with free-minds and the political discussions would be over who had the purest principles and which politicians best exemplified the principles expressed by Ayn Rand, Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, and Robert Higgs.
Most sites do not have the entire text of the “manifesto” of the former LA Cop on the rampage in California. The part where he praises left-wing politicians and anti-gun policies is missing. It’s almost as if the media don’t want people to know that someone on the left is on a violent rampage. If it were a someone with even a hint of right-wing leanings that would be in the headlines.
I found my version of his manifesto here.
My summary, if you don’t have the time to read it all, is as follows:
He is really pissed off about being fired. His side of the story is that he reported another officer kicked a handcuffed suspect. He claims a video of the suspect confirms his side of the story. A hearing determined he was lying and he was fired over it. There were also confrontations with other officers who used the n-word.
There is a large section outlining how he is going to kill a large number of police officers and their families for the injustice inflicted upon him. The only way he will stop is if the LAPD issues a public apology and says it was wrong to fire him. He calls out a number of people and groups as “high value targets”. He claims private citizens, unrelated to LAPD officers, and law enforcement from other agencies will be safe if they leave him alone. He won’t hunt them as he will the officers and families of the LAPD.
He claims he owns AR-15 carbine(s), Remington precision rifle(s), suppressors, and a .50 BMG. He has military training and scored high in marksmanship both in the military and in the police force.
That was in the first half of the document. The second half is praise for various public figures and his friends. Some of it is of the form “good-bye, sorry to leave, I will miss you”. Almost all the politicians are democrats with anti-gun policies which he praises.
Some selected anti-gun quotes:
- “All of these small arms are manufactured by Cerberus/Freedom Group. The same company responsible for the Portland mall shooting, Webster , NY, and Sandy Hook massacre.”
- “Mia Farrow said it best. ‘Gun control is no longer debatable, it’s not a conversation, its a moral mandate.'”
- “Sen. Feinstein, you are doing the right thing in leading the re-institution of a national AWB.”
To me it seemed there was a bit of a disconnect between the first part and the second. Perhaps he was in a different mood. It seems as if he was sad and saying good-bye rather than angry and plotting revenge in the earlier part.
As illustrated by the gun cartoon I posted the other day the anti-gun people don’t understand the issue. That is just a sample of one but without much effort you could find hundreds of instances where our opponents insist we value our hobbies/profits over the lives of children or we own guns to compensate for inadequate “sexual equipment”.
They certainly do not understand why we own guns. And they don’t even come close to knowing how we think.
About 10 years ago I was talking to someone from the CIA who managed a group of psychologists. He was explaining how difficult it was for people in the U.S., even in the intelligence community, to understand how our Muslim adversaries thought. He told me, “They think differently than we do. It’s even possible they think differently than we can think.”
It may be that we have the same sort of problem with the anti-gun people and they with us. After all, many of the things they say sounds like crazy talk to us. And they insist what we say is “crazy talk” as well.
They believe that a bunch of uneducated, beer bellied, red necked, slack-jawed, hillbillies wouldn’t stand a chance against the U.S. military if it came down to a confrontation between a tyrannical government and us. But is that claim true?
They are certainly wrong in their assumptions about the demographics of gun ownership and I believe they are wrong about the outcome. And would all, or even most of the military follow orders to fire upon their fellow countrymen? Or would they switch sides and bring their equipment with them? As others have pointed out, “That guy with a S&W .38 leading a popular revolt might actually have air support.”
Furthermore there are approximately 80 million gun owners in the U.S. About 4.25 million of them are members of that “extremist” group known as the NRA. What our opponents don’t, and perhaps can’t, understand is that the reason a good number of the gun owners that don’t belong to the NRA actively reject joining is because 1) The NRA isn’t “extreme” enough for them; and/or 2) They don’t want to be on “that list” if the government ever demanded the NRA membership list.
Any idea how many members of Al Qaeda the U.S. military are fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan? According to intelligence estimates reported by the New York Times in 2010 the answer is “fewer than 500” in Afghanistan and “more than 300” in Pakistan. A 2011 article in the Wall Street Journal put the number in the range of 200 to 1000 with “affiliated fighters or funders” making up thousands or tens of thousands.
How’s that war turning out for the U.S. military? Are they going to wrap that up and come home in the next couple of weeks?
Any idea on the resources Al Qaeda can bring to bear compared the resources several million U.S. gun owners can bring to the fight? I’ll give you just a few clues.
Private citizens typically consumed 10 to 12 billion rounds of ammunition per year. But current domestic production (including that used by the military and law enforcement) is about 1 billion rounds per week and it is being purchased so rapidly it is difficult to find any on the shelves. I know individuals that have nearly 1 million rounds of loaded ammunition and/or components in their possession.
Gun manufactures are running at near maximum capacity and have a backlog of months or even a year or more. During the 1990’s Bill Clinton and Sarah Brady were considered “gun salesmen” of the decade. But, using NICS data as a rough estimate, during 1999 and 2000 private gun sales were roughly 9 million per year. In 2012 it was over 19 million. At least 19 million guns were sold to U.S. private citizens in 2012. For the duration of the time NICS has been keeping background check records from November 30th, 1998 to December 31, 2012 there have been over 160 million checks/gun sales.
Numerous other differences between a fight with Al Qaeda and a fight with U.S. gun owners should be obvious and will be left as an exercise for the reader.
Our adversaries insist we do not stand a chance against a tyrannical government. Aircraft, tanks, and artillery would, they say, make any such fight short and pointless on our part. But it has been a truism of all wars except for the Japan mainland, where U.S. troops were being prepared for an invasion, “boots on the ground” were required to win. And I have talked to enough current and former military people to believe that “heavy equipment” won’t be particularly useful or last long without a lot of ground support and a safe haven from which to maintain and deploy the equipment.
They believe we would and should just turn over our guns without a fight should the government pass a law to do so. I would say their spreadsheets have some errors but I’m nearly certain they don’t think that way. Numbers, and facts in general, are not their area of expertise.
Another thing they believe is only a few people would take up arms against our government. But Bob Owens has a different view:
It is my contention that gun sales above the mean of that during the Bush years represent committed gun owners who didn’t buy the gun just to have it registered and/or taken away a few months or years later. The mean number of NICS checks during the Bush years is a little less than 9 million per year. Hence one may reasonably conclude there have been a minimum of 10 million gun sales made “in preparation for war” during 2012 alone.
That’s a lot of boots, guns, and ammo on the ground on our side. And I didn’t even get into the training our side has. Compare that to the resources the anti-gun people can bring to bear. Yet it appears President Obama may be deliberately trying to start a civil war.
So tell me. Which side is crazy to believe they will come out on top of a violent conflict?
See also The Mathematics of Countering Tyranny.
I expect smugglers to hide guns inside bales of marijuana. How would Customs find them?
Clayton E. Cramer
Comment to Does ‘Gun Show Loophole’ Actually Result in Gun Crime?–Statistics do not point to criminals using this tactic.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Isn’t it interesting that what the artist believes and reality are so divergent?
Or is it the artist knows the truth and is attempting to misinform others?
Ignorance or ill-intent? That is the question.
We are better than this. We are well-informed and well-intentioned.
If the penalty for possession of a normal capacity magazine is greater than or equal to the punishment for murder of a law enforcement officer then what should be the expected outcome when the police attempt to arrest someone with low moral standards (or a highly principled Second Amendment advocate) in possession of such a magazine? Keep in mind that if you are, say, 60 years old, a seven year sentence means your life is essentially destroyed because you will be unemployable and probably with no means of supporting yourself when you are released.
I’m reminded of Lessons of the 20th Century.
Unintended consequences can be surprisingly harsh.
In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.
Robert Higgs
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
It started when I was a small child. I knew I was somehow different from many of the other children I played with. As I grew older, I sensed the difference – while other boys played football or dreamed about their first car, I’d collect my .22 and some ammo and stroll down to the rifle range on our farm to go plinking. When I became a teenager, my Dad’s gift of a .30-06 triggered a familiar tugging sensation. On my 21st birthday, when I received a Colt Trooper for a birthday present, I knew.
Like many millions of similar unfortunate Americans, I suffer from Ballistically Induced Penis Enlargement Syndrome (BIPES). Endowed with small penises (or in some cases, no penis at all) sufferers of this malady feel a psychological imperative to compensate for penis size by the acquisition of firearms.
Unfortunately, in a liberal world that enthusiastically embraces other sexual identity crises, those with BIPES find themselves the butt of ridicule and mockery. None would dare mock a member of the LGBTQ community – in fact, there are special hate speech laws that provide extra protections for this group. Taxpayer monies are spent to surgically correct the physical configurations of women who want to gain a penis, or men who want to discard a penis.
Yet, within this liberal Utopia of sexual identity empathy, victims of BIPES – a group that outnumbers the LGBTQ community manyfold – and even intersects it in some cases – are outcasts. How can liberals be so unfeeling? Why does this bigotry against such a widespread, yet innocuous medical condition prevail? No protections exist for hate speech against gun owners, who ironically have the skills and means to act upon violent threats efficiently and effectively, but patiently endure the threats and epithets. The treatment for BIPES victims is heavily taxed, restricted, and constantly threatened with eradication. And if, by some chance, a gun is used in a crime, the entire community is threatened with extinction. If a lesbian commits a sex crime, is there a liberal outcry to ban dildos?
It’s time for the tide to turn. BIPES sufferers need to embrace our affliction and demand our due. With gender-change operations costing tens of thousands of dollars, and the cost for AIDS treatments spiraling upwards, is it too much to ask for BIPES patients to also receive the treatment we so desperately require? With quarterly to yearly treatments, BIPES can be controlled. Many BIPES patients struggle to find funds for treatment. Some go without. In a nation where every other sexual malady has become a matter of public health concern, with funding available for treatment, the relatively low cost of treating BIPES should not be a concern.
Help treat BIPES, provide us with the treatment we need. Cease the mocking.
End the embarrassment and embrace us in your liberal fold.
A Barrett .50 is worth a year of compensation – please help.
Via email from Mike B. we have a letter from the mayor and city council of Moscow Idaho advocating for a kitchen sink full of gun restrictions including an “assault weapon” ban, magazine restrictions, ballistic fingerprinting, armor piercing ammo ban, explosives ammo ban, recording ammo sales, mandatory safe storage, waiting periods, elimination of private sales, restricting the number of firearms purchased in a given time period, and all guns be sprinkled with fairy dust daily.
It appears the zombie infection broke out far from the front lines. Don’t worry. We know how to handle it.
The fundamental difference between them and us is that we think they are stupid, and they think we are evil. Thinking we are evil justifies, in their minds, all the offenses and abuses they heap on us.
It’s been a good thing that this division existed, though, for a long time. I say that because when we think we have confronted evil, we destroy it.
Phelps
February 4, 2013
Comment to Quote of the day—Sebastian
[He has some very good points.—Joe]
Never underestimate the stupidity or gullibility of people.
I’m not sure if Moan-ami thinks we are gullible or they are just incredibly stupid. But who could believe these two contradictory thoughts in their head at the same time? Let alone say them in consecutive sentences?
Nobody is trying to take away your gun rights. Just military style assault weapons and limiting magazine gun clips.
Those guns and features most subject to attack are those in most need of protection, and are protected, by the Second Amendment.
The anti-gun people keep changing the definition of an “assault weapon”. Is it two or one “evil features”? Does it have 10 or seven round capacity? Does it have to have a pistol grip or just a thumbhole stock?
All you need to know is what the ultimate definition will be. When RebelNOTRacist asked:
Please define for me what you mean by “assault weapon.”
Gail Cornelius candidly responded with:
Anything that is no[t] muzzle loaded.
If Freud were alive today, he just might contend that gun-obsessed guys in America never made it out of the phallic stage. With such a fun plaything, who would want to—right? If you substitute “penis” for “gun” in our national discourse, you’ll understand the gun thing. The right to bear a “gun.” Obama’s not going to take away my “gun.”
…
Gun owners contend that they should have the right to a concealed carry and should be able to stand their ground, in other words, whip it out whenever they feel threatened or whenever they feel like it period. Whip it. Whip it good.
If you’re reading this and you’re filled with indignation, you may just need a high-capacity gun to make up for your shortcomings. In the meantime, I’d recommend some good old fashioned Freudian analysis to move past the phallic stage.
Ann Tinkham
January 23, 2013
Freud and the Right to Bear Arms
H/T to timmytink (@timmytink) who, on January 30, 2013, tweeted:
If you substitute “penis” for “gun” in our national discourse, you’ll understand the gun thing. poplitix.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/fre…
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
Amazingly enough there is a lot more in her blog post. What isn’t amazing is that my friendly comment congratulating her on becoming QOTD for a Markley’s Law Monday was in moderation for a while then deleted (Reasoned Discoursetm!). Anti-gun people are so predictable. It’s no wonder we have names for their behavior. I’ll bet evidence of Peterson Syndrome would be easy to find too.
She really gets into the gun equals penis thing. I started wondering if it was penis/gun envy or simple deprivation. It doesn’t really matter though. Dr. Joe’s cure for everything should solve her problems.—Joe]
Gun control advocates really do not understand the fire they are playing with, with much of what is being proposed. How many millions of Americans are you prepared to imprison? How many are you prepared to kill? What is the count of ruined lives, broken families, and ruin are you willing to inflict to try to achieve your rainbow farting unicorn utopia where every gun turns into a flower? Widespread disrespect for the law by millions of Americans is not going to bring that about, and in fact, may only serve to create larger unregulated markets, and far more willingness to engage in law breaking people would not be willing to engage in under normal circumstances.
Sebastian
January 28, 2013
Gun Control Requires Our Willing Compliance
[Another way to look at this is that people generally “play by the rules” as long as the rules are reasonable and the other side plays by the rules as well.
If the rules are unreasonable and/or the other side does not play by the rules people get angry and have a strong tendency to ignore the rules. They “play” rough and play to win by any means possible. The new New York State “rules” for gun owners are completely unreasonable. They were pushed through without input from those most affected and are a gross violation of the Second Amendment “rule”.
The other side in this political contest shouldn’t push us so far that we decide to play to win by any means possible. They wouldn’t like us when we get angry.—Joe]
For a long time I never really understood battered person syndrome where someone would stay with, go back to, or find a new partner that also abused them. Why couldn’t they see what everyone else thought was obvious? How could they think that was normal?
I understand better now. Even though I’m not a psychologist I’ve dealt with a number of crazy people in my life and I’m getting pretty good at recognizing “crazy” when I see it and what to do about it. This book helped a bunch: Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder.
It turns out a close parallel can be drawn between those that tolerate and even seek abuse in their personal relationships and our current relationship with the anti-gun people and our governments.
Read this and look at the parallel:
Since the victim is not at fault and the violence is internally driven by the abuser’s need to control, this self-blame results in feelings of helplessness rather than empowerment. The feeling of being both responsible for and helpless to stop the violence leads in turn to depression and passivity. This learned depression and passivity makes it difficult for the abused partner to marshal the resources and support system needed to leave.
We are told that “gun violence” is our fault. We are abused for something we had nothing to do with. We are told we must change and tolerate yet another abusive act. But no matter how much we concede, no matter how much abuse we put up with they always come back and abuse us more.
It’s driven, as in the battered person syndrome, by the abuser’s need to control. It is not because of anything we have done wrong.
We are dealing with a form of insanity and we tolerate it.
You don’t think so? Let me give some examples (see also this blog post).
The anti-gun people want to outlaw guns that are “small and easily hidden”. They want to outlaw “.50 caliber sniper rifles” that are large and powerful . They want to outlaw guns that are “deadly accurate”. They want to outlaw guns that can be used for “spray shooting from the hip”.
You would think that perhaps a gun that fires an intermediate cartridge and is of medium weight and is not easily hidden would be acceptable to them. Nope. Such a gun, when capable of full auto” was called an “assault rifle” by the Germans during WWII. The anti-gun people, utilizing their talent for twisting words and preying on the ability of the public to be easily confused, banned these type of guns as “assault weapons”.
These intermediate power, intermediate size, with intermediate rates of fire, semi, not fully, auto guns were called “assault weapons” and banned.
So some guns are too big. Some guns are too small. But no guns are “just right”. Some guns are too accurate. Some guns can be wildly “sprayed”. But there are no guns that are “just right”.
That’s crazy talk!
To anti-gun people and the press even a hundred rounds of ammunition found in the trunk of a car or in someone’s home is cause for concern. If the police decide to search someone’s car or home the finding of a few hundred rounds of ammunition will nearly take the breath away from the talking heads in the media. If it was within a few blocks of a school they make sure the implication is that each one of those rounds could, and should, be translated into the intent of the gun owner was to kill at least that many children.
This fascination with the number of rounds of ammo reached the point that in 1994 the U.S. Congress was contemplating requiring an arsenal license for people that had more than 1000 rounds of ammunition. There was talk of something similar again after the Newtown Connecticut shooting.
If I am going to the range for practice it is about 400 rounds per handgun and 100 for a rifle. If I were to go to a regional match I would take at least 1000 per gun. If I were to attend a weekend class the minimum round count is typically about 1500.
1000 rounds and they want to require a special license? I can put 1000 rounds of .22 LR in my coat pockets. Do they want me to license my coat?
And even in the most horrific mass shootings only something on the order of 100 rounds are fired. How could a restriction on owning more that 1000 rounds possibly make any difference?
That’s crazy talk!
Of what benefit is it for guns to be registered? I’ve blogged about this many, times before. It is exceedingly costly and contrary to what you see on T.V. and at the movies it has near zero impact on solving crimes. But still the anti-gun people insist on gun registration.
That’s crazy talk!
If there were a very clear correlation between highly restrictive gun laws and lower violent crime, suicide, and/or accidental injury or death by gunshot then we could have a meaningful discussion about the merits of firearm regulation. But despite over a 100 years of gun regulation in this country there still isn’t any conclusive data any of the gun laws have improved public safety in any of the instances where they have been implemented.
A decent case can even be made there is more violent crime where firearms are banned. Yet in response to a mass shooting in yet another “gun free zone” they demand still more “gun free zones”.
That’s crazy talk!
I’ve blogged about this too. But the more succinct version can be expressed in two sentences.
Background checks to prevent some people from gaining access to firearms is like checking ID to prevent underage drinking and smoking. How long does it take your average high school dropout to find a way to light up while drinking a beer?
Yet even most gun rights activists and gun rights “leaders” don’t object to something that is expensive, time consuming, and open to abuse.
The anti-gun people want to expand a system that clearly doesn’t and can’t possibly work any better than ID checks for underage drinking and smoking.
That’s crazy talk!
Who needs to buy more than one Bible a month? Why do Bible owners get all upset about the minor inconvenience of restricting people to just one Bible a month? It would cut down on trafficking of Bibles from states with lax Bible laws to those with strict Bible laws.
Is that crazy talk? Yup. It’s also crazy talk when you substitute “gun” for “Bible” in that paragraph.
[If you want to claim Bibles aren’t “responsible” for killing people like guns are then substitute “Koran” or “Communist Manifesto” and reevaluate before you engage me in that debate.]
The anti-gun people want waiting periods before someone can take home a newly purchased gun. When asked why, even in the age of nearly instant background checks, they said they wanted a “cooling off period” so people wouldn’t buy a gun when angry or depressed and used it to harm someone else or themselves without having a few days to think about it.
It that were true then why did they insist on waiting periods even for people that already owned dozens of guns?
That’s crazy talk!
It’s not going to get any better if we continue to tolerate this misbehavior. It’s not in the psychology of the individual that batters their partner and it’s not in the history of governments.
We are better than this.
We must do something about this bad relationship. We need to recognize we are enabling it and we need to place the blame where it really belongs. Only then can we have a normal, healthy relationship. But most of all we have to recognize we have made only feeble attempts at “couples counseling” (the courts) when we probably should be trying to “get out of the relationship”.
I submit that every politician, federal or otherwise, who runs on a claim of support for the 2nd Amendment should be faced with the following question:
What gun control laws will you work to repeal first?
I look forward to a day when gun haters are forced to debate the question of how they can reasonably accommodate our demands. If that day does not come, and soon, our defeat is inevitable.
Brennan Bailey
January 31, 2013
From the gun email list at work.
[Only in rare cases can you win a battle or a war if you only defeat the attacks of your enemy. To win you must eventually go on the attack.
When you attack you are better able to chose their weakness which is far superior to defending your own. That is why we made progress on concealed carry for the last 20 years. Their denial of the right of self-defense was their greatest weakness. Prior to this strategy our opponents were close to banning handguns. The names of our opponents reflected this. Examples include National Coalition to Ban Handguns and Handgun Control, Inc. They say, in their own strategy documents, they should delay the attack on handguns in favor of an attack on “assault weapons” because of lack of progress.
“Assault weapons” were a softer target than handguns even though they had more interest in banning handguns. Our attack on their denial of a right to self-defense is a good part of the reason they could not make further progress on the handgun front.
With our success on the concealed carry and self-defense front we were able to make progress in the culture war and in the courts. We now need to find a new weakness to attack while continuing the attack in the courts on their continued denial of the right to self-defense.
At this point I don’t have any clearly winning ideas for a new front to attack. The most plausible would seem to be:
The problem with the suppressor front is that it probably doesn’t motivate the vast majority of gun owners.
The problem with attacking the NICS check is that background checks seem like a great idea on the surface. It’s a “no-brainer” at first and even second thought. This will generate even less support from the majority of gun owners than making suppressors easy to obtain. It will be difficult to convince even strong gun rights activists background checks are pointless.—Joe]
You cannot claim to defend the second amendment while supporting or openly accepting the NFA of ’34 and GCA ’68. Or background checks. It makes absolutely no sense.
Progressive president FDR knew exactly what he was doing. Before 1934 you could buy a Thompson sub machinegun by mail order with no paperwork. Or a BAR. Or an M2, et al. The second amendment said so. It was understood. The convenient ruse was Prohibition. Never let a crisis go to waste. Prohibition naturally led to gang warfare, widespread corruption and a general degradation of society, just as the “War on Drugs” does today. Then, as now, the violence and degradation guaranteed by a profitable, government-enforced monopoly for criminals is used as a tool to intimidate you into accepting infringements on your rights. It isn’t so much a conspiricy as a natural progression for those in power.
You don’t HATE children, do you? Of course not, and so you must give up more of your rights, and your children’s rights. Remember that, Grasshopper; this “for the children’ or “for the good of society” crap demands giving up not just yours but your neighbors’ and your children’s rights – so now who hates children? Who hates your grandchildren? Since you gave up THAT little bit (NFA, GCA, NICCS, et al) you have ceded the enemy’s point. You’ve agreed that restrictions on gun ownership are a legitimate and sensible way of addressing crime. You’ve proven to everyone that, under the right pressures, you’re willing to give up more, and more and more, until you’ve forgotten what the right was in the first place. Which is where we are now. You’re dancing someone else’s dance and you don’t even know it. It works so well that many of us are afraid to articulate the true meaning of the second amendment in public, for fear of being branded as extremists. That cheap, transparent game is as old as the hills, but it’s so effective, over and over again, that many of you reading this are still falling for it. Cowards. Don’t think that your clever rationalizations make you less of a coward. You’re clever cowards.
If we allow ourselves to be suckered by proposals for “mental health” screening for gun purchases, for example, just watch how quickly the number of people being determined to have “mental health” issues starts to climb, and climb, and climb exponentially. Don’t ask later, in bewilderment, (NRA) how it could have come to such a state of affairs. It will. And you will have helped it along (which means you’re crazy, which means you can’t have guns ; )
No, Young Grasshopper; the only way to fix this is to rediscover Original Principles, then articulate them clearly, then stand our ground, and then win it all back. The enemy wins through subtle lies, mind tricks, degradation, intimidation, smear, and outright lies. We are better than this. We win with the truth, and with the courage to stand up for it.
Background checks to prevent some people from gaining access to firearms is like checking ID to prevent underage drinking and smoking.
How long does it take your average high school dropout to find a way to light up while drinking a beer?
I haven’t said much on the Feinstein “assault weapon” ban because at the Federal level I don’t think it has that great of chance at passage. That isn’t the case with “universal background checks”. I therefore have put some effort into addressing the stupidity of background checks.
I am, however, going to give a token effort to the “assault weapon” ban.
Surprisingly the Violence Policy Center is our friend here. This was from September 13, 2004 in response to the expiration of the previous AWB:
…renewal would have done little to stop this flood of assault weapons. Conversely, the end of the ban only makes official what was already known: assault weapons are readily available in America. The only difference is that the arbitrary distinction between pre- and post-ban assault weapons is now gone.
They are admitting that the 1994 AWB made no difference and that the renewal of it would make no difference either. Since then there have been millions of “assault weapons” sold to the general public and tens of millions of magazines for them. So just exactly what do they think the benefit would be to an AWB today? Either they must advocate for something like confiscation or they must concede such a ban will have near zero effect in “stopping the flood”.