Katie Pavlich, “If Operation Fast and Furious wasn’t about pushing for more gun control, then why is the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a group with strong oppositions to the Second Amendment, coming to Attorney General Eric Holder’s defense?”
That’s a very good question.
And in case you don’t recognize the name Ms. Pavlich literally wrote the book on Fast and Furious. It’s a good book. Both Ry and I liked it.
Concurrently, the nation’s total violent crime rate has dropped 18 of the last 20 years, to about a 41-year low. The nation’s murder rate has dropped to about a 48-year low. Polls show that support for gun control has fallen, support for the Second Amendment has risen, and gun ownership is higher now than any time since 1993. The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010).
The Brady Campaign’s response? Go even further off the deep end.
…
We’ve all heard the popular 19th century axiom, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” It’s good advice in some circumstances, but the Brady Campaign would have been better off with the advice of W. C. Fields: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.”
NRA-ILA
June 29, 2012
Learning Pains at the Brady Campaign? Pain, Yes. Learning, No
[This ties in with something Sebastian and I have commented on before. The anti-gun people are being “damn fools”. If the anti-gun people weren’t out there pushing their agenda we would spend more time on safety training instead of politics. If they wanted to reduce accidental injuries and deaths due to poor gun handling then they should become NRA certified firearms instructors and make classes available at affordable prices. If they wanted to reduce violent crime they should teach personal protection classes.
The world would be a better much place if they joined us instead of fighting us.—Joe]
You have to wonder how far the anti-gun movement could have gotten if they had been honest, instead tricking the American people into gun control through deception and subterfuge. What’s even more amazing to me, faced with the utter failure of their movement, like a one-trick pony, they keep doing the same thing.
Sebastian
June 29, 2012
Concealed Carry Killers
[As I have said before the anti-gun movement has a culture of deceit to the point deception has become institutionalized within their organizations. They sometimes don’t even bother to hide it.
But to address Sebastian’s wonderment, their bag of tricks only contained deceit so all they can do is keep performing the same trick again and again or else give up. And giving up you life’s work is not something that you can easily do. But with the information age their kind will, just like the KKK, gradually fade away into the dustbin of history as they fail to recruit enough replacements for those that leave the movement through retirement.—Joe]
Social bigotry is bad enough when practiced by the media and the gun prohibition lobby but when it becomes the official policy of an elected government panel, it then becomes necessary, if not imperative, for the courts to intervene.
Alan Gottlieb
Second Amendment Foundation founder and Executive Vice President
SAF LEGAL ALERT: SAF SUES ALAMEDA COUNTY FOR CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATION
June 26, 2012
[Social bigots must not be allowed to violate the inalienable rights of people. This case is no different than if the county Board of Supervisors’ had refused to allow a Christian, Muslim, or Jewish bookstore to open and must be dealt with just as severely.—Joe]
From my viewpoint it appears Zimmerman’s case is getting stronger with every new bit of evidence released:
Prosecutors released more evidence in the George Zimmerman case Tuesday afternoon including an unredacted police report and the results of a voice stress test given the day after he shot Trayvon Martin.
The supplemental discovery was released at 1 p.m. and includes video and audio recordings of police interviews with Zimmerman, a 29-page Sanford Police report without statements redacted and an exemption list that notes redactions to the evidence.
…
The video released by prosecutors shows the same reenactment with additional footage of detectives asking Zimmerman about his injuries.
In the short clip, Zimmerman points out cuts and bruises on his head but says he wasn’t injured elsewhere.
“He was just focused on my head,” Zimmerman says.
In the stress test, Zimmerman answered “No” when asked “Did you confront the guy you shot?” He answered “yes” when asked “Were you in fear for your life, when you shot the guy?”
The examiner concluded Zimmerman was telling the truth.
The way I read the “tea leaves” is that the prosecution and perhaps even the media is slowly preparing the public for an acquittal or perhaps even dropping the charges.
How heartless do you have to be to laugh about the tragedy of this country’s deepening epidemic of spoon crime?
Brennan Bailey
June 25, 2012
From an email thread at work. This was in response to someone who said, “ROF, LMAO” in response to this picture (the origin may have been this comment): 
[Yes. We gun owners are heartless and have no sympathy for those made fat by the spoon manufactures and their evil lobbyists who block commonsense spoon control.—Joe]
From Mike at work:
I brought my then youngest (who is now the middle) daughter to the range at 8-years old and she absolutely loved it. Safe gun handling was taught at least a week before we went. By the time we were at the range she knew what to do and had respect for the rifle. To this day she still asks me “when are we going to that range?” Check out her “straight and off the trigger” finger.
Here are pictures of Mike:
More pictures of Lily:
From looking at these pictures the thought occurs to me that if our opponents were smart enough they may actually have had a rational reason for banning rifles with “collapsible” (length adjustable) stocks. This makes it more difficult for the young to shoot. Even if they didn’t think it through it is a good argument against such restrictions. Hence our side could and should demand, “Think of the children!”
Some people see phalluses and penises everywhere they look. It’s either penis envy or hatred of penises, I’ve yet to figure out which.
In the end, it’s a homophobic play to shame supporters of gun rights out of their beliefs. “Guns mean you’re gay” isn’t going to work, but some people will never figure that out. Never.
cherokeeprogressive
June 23, 2012
The Washington Monument is a phallic symbol. Skyscrapers are phallic symbols. Guns are NOT.
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
There is from what is actually a pretty decent conversation going on in the Democratic Underground.—Joe]
I thought we knew what we were fighting for, and against. I thought we were in favor of the right to keep and bear arms. I thought we understood what a right means and how it works in the world. Instead, it seems we have Chief Runs-with-a-Premise in charge of setting our narrative (and the fact that it seems we even have a narrative, meaning repetitions of the same fool nonsense over and over, is fairly disturbing in itself).
I thought we had dispelled the left’s highly imaginative premise that says a criminal can’t get a gun (and therefore can’t hurt anyone) unless our “lax” gun laws “allow” criminals to get guns, but it turns out that most of us are embracing that very premise with regard to Fast and Furious, and embracing it with relish.
Posit; You see a video of some jihadists sawing the head off of a captured American. Is your first reaction; “Well Goddamit, I want to know who made that saw!!! We must also find out who sold that saw and see to it that they are punished. Enough is enough! Enough of these lax saw laws! The National Saw Association is just as guilty of murder as anyone!” Really?
No, Young Grasshopper; check your premises. Please. It’s not about where the saw came from is it? Yet that’s the very case you’re making against Obama, Holder and the gang. You are ceding one of the primary, false premises to the Enemy. Stop it!
The Mexican drug gangs get their guns any damn where they want to, and they sure don’t need anyone in the U.S. for that. They will kill one way or another, and they will get their guns one way or another (and our drug Prohibition law will ensure that this never stops– Oh yes, our drug laws, gun laws and gang are inseparable, though you thought this three way, authoritarian-feeding racket was all about “helping people”, reducing crime, or some such blather).
Grasshopper; are you listening? Snap out of it, Man!
The point is; Our President along with his carefully hand-picked attorney general, the BATFE and the FBI, collaborating with Mexican gangsters, initiated a fraud against the American people. They initiated and perpetrated a fraud so as to garner support for more infringements on Americans’ right to keep and bear arms.
If you want to point out the deaths from infringements on Americans’ gun rights, point to the multitudes who’ve been victimized in gun free zones, or anywhere or any time someone who would have had a gun for defense was prohibited by law from having a gun for defense, and died or was seriously injured or otherwise victimized as a result. THAT is your body count.
We need look no farther than here;
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/crim/242fin.htm
Read those words very, very carefully. I now doubt that many of you have been paying a lot of real, serious attention. I believe that you’ve been caught up in the game, or with your blogs and radio show businesses, or something else I don’t know about.
Read. The. Words.
Forget about what you feel, or the business aspect, or the silly political game or whatever it is you’re playing, or what you want to see and hear verses what you actually see and hear. I’ve been seeing a trend among our ranks– a lot of assuming, inferring and…I don’t know what to call it except failing to understand the basics and failing to see and hear what’s being written and said, and I don’t like it. I don’t want to be everyone’s friend, or accepted in this or that group or whatever, so I can say it– you’re missing the point and it’s sad.
And you Republicans; Why is it so damned difficult to see a crime, CALL IT a crime, and prosecute it as a crime? Seriously. Wasn’t that supposed to be your job? I mean, isn’t the fact that we have downright criminals in high places in our government pretty much an overriding concern? Get busy, you slackers! Or do you have too much to hide, yourselves? Or are you just cowards? I think we’ve had just about enough of cowards in government, haven’t we?
ETA: It seems the DOJ took down the link, so here are the words, right in your lap;
DEPRIVATION OF RIGHTS UNDER COLOR OF LAW
Summary:
Section 242 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.
For the purpose of Section 242, acts under “color of law” include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the their lawful authority, but also acts done beyond the bounds of that official’s lawful authority, if the acts are done while the official is purporting to or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. Persons acting under color of law within the meaning of this statute include police officers, prisons guards and other law enforcement officials, as well as judges, care providers in public health facilities, and others who are acting as public officials. It is not necessary that the crime be motivated by animus toward the race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin of the victim.
The offense is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any.
TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 242
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnaping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
There is no economic sliding scale for the right to engage in constitutionally protected activities. The richest and poorest among us, as well as those individuals in-between, all have the same rights under the constitution. We hold that, as the ordinance could apply to virtually any pair or group of people engaged in a common activity, the ordinance is overly broad.
Appellate Judge D. Michael Swiney
Tennessee Court of Appeal
Street preacher wins battle against Maryville permit ordinance
June 19, 2012
[This was in regards to $50 permit being required by the city of Maryville Tennessee in order to exercise your First Amendment rights in public.
Via Say Uncle who asks, “So, we should get rid of the fees associated with getting a permit to carry a firearm?”—Joe]
To date, no gun-control scheme of any sort has ever been proven to deliver even minor reductions in crime, accidents or suicides in any nation. Even if restrictions were to reduce some aspect of crime, they could not be justified because they undermine both the individual right to self-defense and the collective right to political self-determination.
Jeff Knox
June 14, 2012
Chinese plot to strip Americans of firearms–Jeff Knox explains how communist ideals converge in both Asia and U.S.
[And yet those that would ban guns keep trying. One could claim they are ignorant or have evil intent. But I think both are somewhat rare. As near as I can tell the vast majority of anti-gun people are mentally defective.—Joe]
[T]his court finds that the strict scrutiny balancing test would be the most appropriate test to apply in the instant case, since “the right to possess guns is a core enumerated constitutional right” and Section (b)(3)(iii) of the Chicago Firearm Ordinance completely restricts that right.
Samuel Der-Yeghiayan
United States District Court Judge
Gowder v. City of Chicago (N.D. Ill. June 19, 2012), Page 24.
[Strict scrutiny!
The Brady Campaign, VPC, CSGV, and others are on the wrong side of history. They are no different that those advocating for ignoring or repealing the 13th Amendment years after it was passed.—Joe]
Today Attorney General Eric Holder had a 20 minute meeting with Rep. Darrell Issa about the failure of Holder to comply with subpoenas for documents in Fast and Furious.
Apparently the meeting went something like this:
Issa: Turn them over or tomorrow we will hold you in contempt of congress.
Holder: I’ll let you peek at them if you will agree before you ever see them to stop the investigation after you have seen them.
Issa: I think we are done here. We’re voting on the contempt charge tomorrow.
Holder (direct quote to the media): “The ball’s in their court. We made what we thought was an extraordinary offer.”
Imagine for a moment that you or some gun shop owner had sold and/or given thousands (not the hundreds like the article erroneously says) of guns to criminal organizations who used them to murder hundreds of people include at least one if not two government agents. After finding out about it the prosecutor lets you stay out of jail and asks you a few questions and turn over documents and emails to find out who your accomplices were. You sort of comply but just enough to avoid claims that you are completely uncooperative.
Had you told the prosecutor you would turn over some more documents on the condition they stop the investigation before they ever saw the documents, what do you think the reaction would have been?
What is extraordinary here is that Issa didn’t have Federal Marshalls rip his jacket and shirt off, tie him face down on the table, stuff a copy of the subpoena in his mouth, give him 30 lashes with a bull whip, then tell him there would be a whipping every day at 9:00 AM until he fully complied or his flesh had been stripped off and his bones were polished clean.
I understand why Issa didn’t do that but had it been me I would have being showing extraordinary restraint had I only done that in the face of that level of contempt for the law and Congress. Prohibitions against “Cruel and unusual” punishments would just seem inadequate had they been able to even just read my thoughts. “Crimes against nature, humanity, and being an inspiration to Satan” would probably come up in my trial just for a glimpse of what I would have been thinking.
Americans are peace-loving people, but if you start up with us, we’re going to kick your butt.
Raffy Mulivor (12 years old)
June 16, 2012
This was when he was asked to explain the meaning of the arrows and olive branch in the eagle’s claws on symbols in the Great Seal of the United States.
[Via email from his father Phil Mulivor, author of Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms–Joe]
In many cases, this fascination with guns is phallic compensation.
epkklk851
June 1, 2012
Comment to Privileging The Lie, Gun Violence Prevention Edition
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]
We in the gun rights community have often complained the gun laws in this country are far too obscure and complicated. You almost have to be a lawyer to be able to understand all the complicated ways you can break the law merely by assembling your firearm with parts made in the wrong country, driving too close to a school you didn’t even know was there, or even having a piece of brass caught in the tread of your shoes.
But when even the lawyers get things wrong and people are in prison even though the law they are accused of breaking did not apply it’s way past time to do a major overhaul of the laws. When the prosecutors are aware there are people in prison who should not be there and they don’t even notify the prisoners it’s time to prosecute the prosecutors:
Federal prosecutors in North Carolina have been aware for nearly a year that dozens of North Carolinians currently incarcerated in federal prisons should not be there, but they have done next to nothing to help them, and in at least once case are actually trying to prevent an innocent man’s release, according to an investigation by USA Today.
The fundamental reason these and other innocent people are in prison is because the anti-gun people pushed for and obtained firearms laws that created victimless crimes. It’s time to wipe our law books clean of all victimless crimes.
There was, and is, a conspiracy to infringe the right to keep and bear arms under the color of law. Those responsible should be charged and prosecuted. People in jail who are clearly known to be innocent cannot be tolerated.
From Lima Ohio:
Around 30 people were hurt, some seriously, when a woman drove her car into a street party in Lima, Ohio, Friday night.
“It was unreal. There were bodies, and shoes and jewelry,” The Lima News reported Amee Truesdale as saying. “They took many, many people to the hospital, and two or three of them looked seriously hurt … I saw men pick up that car and move out a gentleman that was pinned underneath.”
The driver, who reportedly had a dog with her, was parked five feet from the town’s main square when she accelerated rapidly, a police spokesman told NBC News.
Following this violent act will the Violence Policy Center follow up with media releases about the driver of the car having a drivers license despite a history of mental illness? Will the Brady Campaign be asking how the driver gained possession of the car? Will the CSGV demand that only the police and government officials be allowed to posses assault vehicles?
I can tell you the answers right now. No, no, and no. Those organizations are composed of people who have mental defects and cannot understand that both cars and guns are inanimate objects which have no volition of their own. They still adhere to the ancient belief that objects not people should be punished.
And this is why those organizations should be, and are being, left in the dustbin of history.
By the time Gross gets to arguing against a new bill that would force states to recognize each other’s concealed-carry permits — an issue on which I’m sympathetic to his position — it’s awfully difficult to take him seriously. Even putting aside that he calls the bill the “George Zimmerman Armed Vigilante Act.”
Remember, this isn’t some random clown blogging for the Huffington Post; it’s the president of a leading gun-control group. If these are the best arguments the anti-gun movement can put forth, our Second Amendment rights are safe indeed.
Robert VerBruggen
June 13, 2012
‘The NRA’s Dark Vision’?
[Yes, these are the best arguments they can put forth and they are indeed pathetic. But politics is rarely about good arguments about the merits of the legislation. Yes, good arguments about the merits of the proposed law contribute but as much as anything it is arguments about acquiring and maintaining political power that win the legislative votes.
Hence our rights and freedom are never truly safe. Eternal vigilance and frequent demonstrations of our political muscle are required.—Joe]
This is what happens when you get too far down the slippery slope:
“No one should have the right to own a handgun except the police,” said Susan Martin, speaking at a news conference on the anniversary of her son’s death.
“Handguns are easy to hide and are used, with few exceptions, for one purpose only: to wound or kill someone,” she said.
Martin and his friend Dylan Ellis, 26, were shot dead in a parked SUV in Toronto’s entertainment district on June 13, 2008. The killing has so far remained unsolved.
A deadly shooting rampage at Toronto’s Eaton Centre this month once again cast a spotlight on gun violence in the city, and several officials joined in on Wednesday’s call for a crackdown on firearms.
Coun. Adam Vaughan said plans to improve public safety — including a proposal to outlaw the sale, storage and use of munitions in Toronto — were under discussion before the attack that killed two people and injured five others.
“I wish we didn’t need a recent example to convince anybody that action is needed,” he said.
“There is no rational reason to have a bullet in a crowded city, a friendly neighbourhood or a shopping mall,” he said.
They do not offer evidence of their assertions. At a certain point in the debate they “don’t need any stinking evidence”. They can just vigorously assert something is true and it will be accepted and they don’t even need to respond to the rare challenge to their claims.
