If it ever comes to the point where they’re using GPR, we have long passed the point of having needed to be using .gov penetrating lead.
Bobby
January 21, 2013
Comment to Not intended for underground use.
[GPR is ground penetrating radar.
I have nothing further to add.—Joe]
Shall Not Be Infringed. Period. End of discussion.
Look, every Politician KNOWS this.
Leon Panetta KNOWS this.
So does Obama, Bloomberg, Cumo and everyone in the NY State Legislature as well as every Supreme Court Justice living and dead.
Ginsburg, Stomayor, all of them.
They KNOW this is what the Second Amendment MEANS, what its intended to DO…
And they DESPISE IT WITH A PASSION because it gets in their WAY.
These people are EVIL, not stupid.
And its long past time we just said it, and moved on.
Let THEM do the “catching up” for a change.
ALL of the guns are OURS.
None of the guns are YOURS, capice’
You want them?
Come and GET THEM.
Cause we’re DONE talking about it.
The Root ’83
January 18, 2013
Comment to Does ‘Gun Show Loophole’ Actually Result in Gun Crime?–Statistics do not point to criminals using this tactic.
[Clayton E. Cramer responds with, “You are giving the left credit for intelligence that just isn’t deserved.”—Joe]
It will not effect hunting or sporting firearms, instead the bill will protect hunters and sportsman.
Senator Dianne Feinstein
January 24, 2013
Feinstein: Goal is to Dry Up the Supply Of Weapons Over Time
[Ignore the “effect” instead of “affect” error. That could have been the reporter not Feinstein. Instead concentrate on “the bill will protect hunters and sportsman”.
Thank you Senator Feinstein, that line should go down in history with other memorably phrases such as the following:
I am of the opinion that Senator Feinstein has fully mastered doublethink. What she did here demonstrates her contempt for the true meaning of the Second Amendment.
This quote should be used as evidence at her trial.—Joe]
If it’s the best thing I’ve read all day, why after all should I be prevented from posting it here just because I happen to be the one who wrote it?
Seen in comments at Uncle;
“Machineguns are in common use by military, and AS SUCH they are protected by the second amendment. Actually, if it is or can be considered an “arm” it is protected by the second amendment (the second amendment doesn’t have any qualifiers, exceptions or modifiers in it).
One might be able to make the case that strategic weapons like nukes and other WMDs are not, but even then you may be running afoul of the balance-of-power concept embodied in the second amendment.
In the American Revolution there were private owned war ships, were there not? Those would be analogs of our modern aircraft carriers and destroyers.
And don’t give me court precedent bullshit. If precedent defines (redefines) our rights, it means that any and all rights degrade and evaporate over time. No thanks. I’ll stick to original principles.”
There is a common error committed by our side. It is the use of arguments along the lines of, “Machineguns are ALREADY banned [and so leave our semiautomatics alone].” That’s a bit like saying to the alligator, “You already ate my buddy (and I didn’t like him a lot anyway) and so you should therefore leave me alone (I guess because your appetite should already be satisfied, or something…)”
In fact, if they can ban the most common small arms used by military and police, and get away with it, they can certainly ban everything else, just as the alligator can eat you some time after it ate your buddy. The fact of the matter has been established, so at best you’re only arguing over the details of the infringements at that point.
The Hughes Amendment to FOPA of 1986 should be rendered null and void, followed by GCA ’68 and NFA ’34.
The gun control advocate view of the Second Amendment is a house of cards – nay, a rather extensive castle of cards. Removing the foundation, which consists of factual errors, causes the whole to crumble.
David E. Young
January 13, 2013
Second Amendment Intent / Right to Keep and Bear Arms Explained
[Of course this depends on having an originalist view of Constitutional law. People who prefer to redefine words and intent as the “need” suits them don’t really care. But it is interesting that the anti-gun people, even in SCOTUS legal briefs will pretend to be originalists and make catastrophic errors or believe others won’t notice their deliberate attempts at deception.—Joe]
There are some fascinating results in this poll (my cached copy is here, H/T to Brennan from work). Keep in mind all of these results are post Newtown. I have selected the poll results I find the most interesting:
Q: Do you think tougher gun laws can help stop things like the Newtown school shooting, or do you think the people who commit these kinds of acts will always find the guns to commit violent acts?
A1: Tougher laws can help stop acts—22%
A2: People will always find guns—71%
A3: Laws help, but still find ways—5%
A4: Don’t know—1%Q: Would there be less violent crime in the United States if:
A1: Guns were banned—28%
A2: More law-abiding people had guns—58%
A3: Don’t know—15%Q: Does anyone in your household own a gun?
A1: Yes—52%
A2: Now—44%
A3: Don’t know/refused—5%Q: If the government passed a law to take your guns, would you give up your guns or defy the law and keep your guns?
A1: Give up—22%
A2: Defy law—65%
A3: Don’t know—13%
All of the numbers have profound implications but look at that last one.
65% say they would defy the law! And my guess is that a fair number of the people in the “Don’t know” category said something of the equivalent of “None of your business.”
Hmmm…. there are about 315 million people in the U.S. 52% (households, not people, but still…) have guns so that is about 150 million people with guns of whom 65%, ~100 million, say they would defy the law. As of 2006 there were about 800,000 police officers of all jurisdictions. That means that if all the police sided with the government they would still be outnumbered by about 125 to 1.
Don’t bury you guns. Tell them Molon labe!
Via email:
Greetings,
SPC introduces it’s line of full size metal wall silhouettes. Shown is a Remington 870 that looks great on the wall of any gun room, den or shop.
The Plasma cut steel units are available rough as well as finished and painted.
SPC has heard of individuals burying full size silhouettes as decoys to throw off ground penetrating radar or imaging metal detectors that might be used by criminals to locate weapons, however SPC silhouettes are designed to be enjoyed on the wall, and SPC will not warranty silhouettes that have been buried.
SPC also has wall silhouettes of magazines, handguns and can do custom work as well.
For more info go to http://minisentryalarm.wordpress.com/
Regards,
Dennis Evers
dennis@thepocketpartner.com
I am of the opinion if you bury most or all of your guns to keep them safe from confiscation it is mostly a victory of the mind rather than something particularly useful. Putting out a few decoys might be useful though. And if you put them on the property of an anti-gunner it might even be entertaining.
I can easily buy a hand gun or a rifle without restriction. It is absurd that someone like me could ever have access to such dangerous weapons.
MY
Sonoma
January 19, 2013
Comment to Please Take Away My Right to a Gun
[Many people have said something to the effect, “They want to take other’s people’s guns away because they believe other people are the same as they are.” I never really expected to find someone who admitted that.—Joe]
Wendy Button almost begs Please Take Away My Right to a Gun.
After the civil war there were slaves that didn’t want their freedom either.
Just because a few people want their rights taken away from them doesn’t mean the rest of us do, that it is the right thing to do, or that we won’t fight to keep them.
Let’s stop mincing words; Let progressives — not all but certainly many — stop feigning tolerance for a gun culture we abhor and rampant gun ownership we cannot comprehend.
Mark Ridley Thomas
January 17, 2013
Supervisor for the Second District in Los Angeles County
The National Rifle Association Is Correct: I Do Want Your Guns
[First off, his admission should be used as evidence at his trial.
Second, if he has that tough of a problem with comprehension why isn’t he in an institution of some sort instead of public office?
Third, H/T to Say Uncle.—Joe]
Doesn’t it seem more than a little messed up when Pravda is urging us to never give up our guns, telling us we are wrong to go down the Marxist path while the New York Times is urging us to give up the constitution?
Trying to cut to the chase; there are two possible reasons that I can see, why a rogue government (and let’s be honest– that’s what we’ve had for some time now) would want to limit ammunition capacity. One would be simply to irritate and harass their political opposition, putting a few innocent people in jail now and then as a bonus. The other would be to limit the ability of the citizenry to fight against mass attacks (two or more assailants).i.e. to promote the ease of government attacking citizens. A possible third reason, going along in part with the first, would be to generally degrade society with more complex laws, more bureaucracy and more violent crime (criminals will have 30 round mags, but law-abiders won’t).
Any or all of those motivations would appeal naturally to any authoritarian, and to anyone who sees the founding of the U.S. as a problem (unfair, unjust, etc.)
If anyone can think of another reason, I’d like to know it.
ETA, 1-18-13; I’d thought of another, hoping maybe someone would chime in with it, and Publius pretty much, sort of did in comments here, though it’s not the way I would have put it. That motivation being to control the framework of the conflict (between liberty and authoritarianism), to keep us fighting THEIR fight and not ours. On that they have done a most excellent job– I bet you can find a million words, just today, about details of this or that proposed restriction and how it will not “work”. Well, it is working– they’re keeping us talking about THEIR ideas. As I’ve said before and elsewhere; it is a subtle yet crucial tactic, though most every little kid understands it. You see that bratty kid fussing loudly at his mother in the supermarket? He knows how to keep his mom off balance, off kilter, off her game, distracted, irritated, embarrassed, until he gets something from her (recently I noticed one such brat pause in his “tantrum” to look around and make sure he was getting a reaction from bystanders, then resume his fake tantrum, thus demonstrating that he understood exactly what he was doing). HE set the agenda, the framework of the conflict, not his mom. That one should have occurred to me foremost. It goes along with number one, but the distinction is between simply wanting to irritate your opposition on one hand, because you dislike them, and maintaining control of the whole discussion’s very framework on the other. The communists are experts at this.
Governor “Common Sense” Cuomo is a stumbling, bumbling example of the kind of person emotionally unsuited for high office, a fact the flaws in the draconian SAFE Act will show over time as unintended consequences catch up to bad legislation.
Bob Owens
January 17, 2013
Oops. Were there not LEO magazine exemptions in the rushed NY SAFE Act?
[H/T to Chris Knox who retweeted thegunwire.
The only thing I can add is that anyone who advocates for gun control is emotional, logically, and philosophically unsuited for any public job above toilet scrubber.—Joe]
H/T to Jon H. from the gun email list at work.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. After all he is a politician and he is from Chicago:
A South Side alderman is asking for City Council hearings on an unorthodox gun control measure that would allow for GPS tracking of firearms.
WBBM Newsradio Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports Ald. Willie Cochran (20th), a former police officer, has suggested that global positioning system chips be embedded in new guns, and retrofitted on existing firearms, so they could be located if they go missing.
“Just like if your car gets stolen, OnStar can tell you where your car is. If your gun gets stolen, and you report it, we should be able to find that gun,” he said.
Your car has a battery that weighs 40 pounds and is recharged every time you use the car.
You cellphone is a better analogy but doesn’t make his case any better. A cellphone has a standby time of, at most, a few days and requires a service provider such as AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, or Verizon in order to report it’s position.
That doesn’t even take into account that a criminal who steals one with a GPS will remove the battery or destroy the electronics.
One of the better comments I read on the site:
The difference between stupidity and genius: Genius has it’s limits, stupidity doesn’t, case proven by Willie Cochran.
Stupidity this strong should cause him to burst into flames hot enough to melt tungsten. The reporters that didn’t call him out on the stupid should smolder.
Gun control is prior restraint. Since prior restraint for the First Amendment is unconstitutional it is also unconstitutional when applied to the Second Amendment.
The classic example of falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater can be extended to illustrate.
Prior restraint would be requiring a gag on everyone as they enter the theater because someone might falsely yell fire.
The solution we have is to punish those that do, not gag everyone who enters the building.
“Gun free zones” are the same sort of thing. You must leave your gun behind because it is feared that you might use it in a criminal manner.
The solution must be that we punish those that injure innocent people and we must not attempt to prevent all people from using their gun at all.
One might claim that the risks are so high that prior restraint is justified as in drunk driving laws. There are two counters to that. 1) Driving is a privilege, not a specific enumerated right; and 2) Only in extremely rare cases does driving drunk have any benefit to society.
And even if we were to accept crime prevention is a valid means to protect innocent life we have problems. Does that mean to prevent rape we should castrate all the men? How about sewing all vaginas shut so women can’t engage in prostitution? Or removing eyes so people can’t engage in voyeurism? And to prove I’m not stuck on sex crimes, we can prevent fights by shackling the hands and feet of everyone. We can prevent drunk driving and public drunkenness by banning alcohol. Slander can be prevented by removing people’s vocal cords. Libel can be prevented by banning publication of, well, everything. And while we are at it we can prevent theft by abolishing private property.
Crime “prevention” is a very hot button for me. There is no limit to the evil that can be justified and/or enabled once you accept the premise that it is acceptable to prevent crime by restricting liberty.
The very name of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence demonstrates they are a very misguided and dangerous organization.
We are better than this.
Via a Tweet by Chris Knox who says, “I do so love a happy ending”:
A comment by celticwarrior916:
That locked door you opened… was for your protection. Not mine.
Sebastian wonders about the executive order “Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.”:
Does this mean that we can just get the check without the 4473?
I was informed by the ATF of the letter (here is my private copy) at 12:03 this afternoon.
The answer is no.
I cannot begin to tell you how many memories, flash-back and déjà vu moments I’ve had…
Youth brigades with full indoctrination programs and training to rat on all non-conformists, including their own families, mandatory service of up to 2 years in some sort of “service corps” for “mandatory national service” (which ultimately will turn out to be work brigades needed for cheap slave labor), nationwide police force with full military capabilities and numbers surpassing it and all the “patriotic” work they will be doing like income verification (making sure you’re not living above your means), suppression of free speech and all other basic rights, midnight roundups and arrests, impromptu inspections of homes/businesses/vehicles with no need of any kind of search warrant, unlimited detention at the slightest suspicion of illegal activities (guess how many things will still be legal by then) and so on, so forth.
Just a recommendation: start showing these proposals to the people you know from the old communist block and then take notes. Most of them can tell you from memory what the road map will look like.
Adrian Bogdan
January 15, 2013
From the gun email list at work.
[While the context was the anticipated attack this morning on gun rights by the President Adrian was actually referring to a different article. Still, the road map could be similar.
Other people don’t exactly have a “warm and fuzzy” feeling over the current activities of our public servants either.
It’s interesting to hypothesize parallels to the Palmer Raids which could be used in our current situation:
The Justice Department launched a series of raids on January 2, 1920 with follow up operations over the next few days. Smaller raids extended over the next 6 weeks. At least 3000 were arrested, and many others were held for various lengths of time. The entire enterprise replicated the November action on a larger scale, including arrests and seizures without search warrants, as well as detention in overcrowded and unsanitary holding facilities. Hoover later admitted “clear cases of brutality.” The raids covered more than 30 cities and towns in 23 states, but those west of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio were “publicity gestures” designed to make the effort appear nationwide in scope. Because the raids targeted entire organizations, agents arrested everyone found in organization meeting halls, not only arresting non-radical organization members but also visitors who did not belong to a target organization, and sometimes American citizens not eligible for arrest and deportation.
The Department of Justice at one point claimed to have taken possession of several bombs, but after a few iron balls were displayed to the press they were never mentioned again.
About 10,000 were eventually arrested.
Also the Japanese (and lesser known Italian and German) internment camps are also examples worthy of using for potential parallels.
And, of course, it was a liberal/progressive administration in charge at the time of both the Palmer Raids and the internment camps.
The way it could come about is as follows. There will be widespread noncompliance and heated talk about the “common sense” legislation when the next tragedy occur. Then, particularly if it involves a government entity, those most vocal will be targeted even when they had nothing to do with the violence.
Our Federal government hasn’t passed a budget in, what, three years now? There is significant political tension over the debt and debt ceiling
In times of discontent the government needs scapegoats. Gun owners are now the designated scapegoats. It’s could turn into an extremely rapid escalation of events. The more we complain and the more we resist the more valid the claims that “we can’t be trusted with weapons of war” may appear. They then “have to” confiscate them to preserve our “democracy” (I know it’s a republic but they won’t admit that).
I can see the sound bites now:
Sure, virtually no one is talking about stuffing people in cattle cars right now. But five weeks ago we didn’t, and most probably couldn’t, imagine we would be seeing seven round magazine limits being law, or a full-court press for a more restrictive “assault weapon” ban at the Federal level.
Things sometimes happen extremely quick. The Rwandan genocide went from moderate tension to mass murder in 30 minutes. Many other events of historical significance went from moderate tension to massive human rights violations over the course of a just a few weeks or months. And, of course, it will be for the children.—Joe]
What if the president were to publically announce they were going to sign an executive order to “research” the detrimental effects of free speech or Christianity? Or how about the prohibiting the reading of material from international sources that had no “sporting or scientific purpose”?
Why can’t people see how disturbing it is that a single person has the power to place restrictions on a specific enumerated right? It’s a really bad precedent to allow.
Yesterday I had lunch with Barb L. and as I was giving her an overview of our current political situation something crystalized and I thought I would share, in more detail, that insight.
I have been a gun rights activist since 1995 and have seen the fight from the perspective of someone “in the trenches”. In this post I want to give the 10,000 foot view of the battle.
Gun ownership is under more pressure with draconian laws affecting more people than I have ever seen. And I remember watching the TV news as the gun control act of 1968 was being debated. A month ago gun rights activists were on the offense and making steady progress. We would have minor losses and advances would be slowed or temporarily stopped but we would use what we learned from the failure and reapply the next legislative or court session. The anti-freedom people were on the defensive and operating with severally restricted finances. That changed on December 14, 2012.
One tragedy, implemented by a mentally ill man, put us on the defensive again. That tragedy is used by both the politicians and the anti-freedom activists as the reason for the latest push for gun control. It was the spark that ignited the Gabby Giffords anti-gun Political Action Committee two years after she was shot by another mentally ill person. It is the justification for the committee on “gun violence” headed by V.P. Biden.
I completely understand the grief and the urge to prevent such terrible tragedies but there is something that truly scares me about the political reaction to these tragedies.
Let’s take a look at some of the proposed anti-freedom legislation.
The Federal government wish list formulated by V.P. Biden isn’t public yet but it is expected to include essentially the same things along with numerous executive actions such as increased gun control “research” and enforcement of existing laws.
What is particularly striking and scary to me is that none of the firearms restrictions would have prevented the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting or even reduced the death toll. The facts are that the shooter had 15 to 20 minutes without serious resistance by someone with a gun. Even if he fired three rounds for every one of the 26 people murdered that would have only required 10 magazine changes with a limitation of seven rounds per magazine instead of the three with 30 round magazines. Suppose a magazine change on an AR-15 style rifle requires five seconds (with practice it requires far less). Had he been limited to seven rounds per magazine it would have taken him, at most, an extra 35 seconds to execute his foul deeds.
Even if all semi-automatic firearms were banned, and unavailable, the reloading of a six round revolver is also easily (with some practice) accomplished in less than five seconds. Suppose it was 12 reloads instead of the three. This requires, at most, 45 more seconds.
A total of something on the order of 100 rounds were used. A typical practice session of mine is on the order of 300 rounds. A typical weekend class is on the order of 1000 rounds. A one day pistol match is on the order of 150 rounds. Any “alerts” the police receive will be totally without meaning.
The shooter did not obtain his guns through a private sale. He murdered his mother with her own guns and took them.
Weerd Beard has more examples with a broader historical scope but arrives at the same conclusion, in many instances the firearms restrictions proposed and passed into law would not have prevented the tragedies that inspired the law.
If the Sandy Hook shooting is the motivation and none of the solutions being so vigorously being pushed would have in any way prevented the tragedy then what is the real reason? I can only come up with two different hypotheses to explain the politicians demands for more firearms restrictions:
If it is the first then what could those ulterior motives be? From U.S. history we know the motivation for restricting firearm access to the native Indians, the slaves, and blacks in general was to the extreme detriment of those populations. Internationally the same was true in Russia in 1918, the German Weapons Control Act of 1938, in China throughout the 20th Century, and in many other instances. The people in control of the government had sinister plans for the disarmed populations.
If it is the second then there is no predicting what these people might do next. And there is every reason to believe they will act in ways that will be to the extreme detriment of the whole of society.
This realization should shake the U.S. population to its very core. This should be like the moment you see in the movies when someone realizes that the person standing in front of them is either very evil or very crazy. It should make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and a chill run down your spine.
This is not, and cannot be, about preventing the shooting of elementary school children. This is about sinister and/or irrational people in control of our government who are trying to take your means to defend yourself and your family away from you.
Do you trust a government like that? And what do you do about it?
