Category Archives: Gun Rights

Progress

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A few years ago I went looking for material related to guns in the workplace and couldn’t find anything except “keep guns out of the workplace”.

Times have changed. Now we have classes for HR weighing both sides of the issue:

Deciding whether to ban guns in the work place is an incredibly controversial and potentially polarizing issue between employers and employees, and between ‘pro- gun rights’ versus ‘pro-gun restrictions’ advocates. But it is a decision which cannot be avoided: an employer may face potential risks if it decides to ban guns, and it may face potential risks if it decides to not ban guns. The issue is complicated by constant changes in gun laws and restrictions throughout the United States. You will learn about the latest legal developments which impact this controversy. This live audio conference shall also provide you with a strategy for making the most informed decision, in light of the law and their circumstances.

Quote of the day—Sarah Connor

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Some good things came out of that fiery inferno: By the end of the day, April 19, 1993, I was a recovering liberal, ready to bear arms.

Sarah Connor
April 19, 2012
Comment to April 19, 1993: Where were you when Waco burned?
[I have a similar story but it started a little bit earlier.

I had bought my first gun in December of 1992. It was just an SKS but it was a beginning. This was in large part because of the helplessness I felt at Ruby Ridge a few months earlier. It went down just a few miles from my home at the time and there was nothing I could do. I didn’t have a firearm of any type and I had zero training.

Just the siege at Waco confirmed I was going down the necessary path. I didn’t have to wait for the outrage of the burning. The only doubts I had were whether I had started my journey soon enough and if I had enough money and time to complete it in time. In May of 1995 I got a contracting job at Microsoft that paid a lot of money and gave me easy access to high quality training and a nearby indoor range.

I was shooting USPSA matches in early 1995. I shot in a lot of steel plate and pistol league matches from 1995 through 1999. I went to my first dynamite shoot in May of 1996. I bought my STI Eagle in late 1997. I went to the USPSA Area 1 Championship in June of 1998. I won the Intermountain Tactical Rifle Championship in July of 1998. The first Boomershoot was in October of 1998. I took a class in long range precision rifle shooting in early 1999. Hundreds of people have participated in Boomershoot. They acquired the equipment and skills to hit one minute of angle targets out to 700 yards.

I and hundreds, if not thousands, are ready. It was Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the 1994 Clinton Gun Ban that motivated us. But what the really means is that almost for certain our equipment and skills will not be required for that method of last resort.—Joe]

Defensive gun use

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I’m glad the statute of limitations has expired on this Defensive Gun Use in Chicago.

No shots fired nor was a gun even brandished. But it qualifies as a DGU in my book. It enabled a bystander to have the confidence to get involved.

Quote of the day—Cynthia Kounaris

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There is no anti-gun group with enough money to defeat the pro-gun money. There is a lack of will and desire to confront this issue in the state and federal government and no strong anti-gun leadership from either party. The only way left to fight the gun industry is through the voices (and votes) of the American people.

Cynthia Kounaris
April 17, 2012
Guns Help People Kill People
[And the American people have spoken. NRA membership is at or near an all-time high. The NRA annual meeting this year set a new attendance record. And 68% of the American people have a favorable view of the NRA.

Ms. Kounaris, the problem for you is that there aren’t enough people on your side of the issue. And the reason you don’t have many people is in a large part because gun control advocates can’t answer Just One Question. The anti-gun groups don’t even have a way to join on their websites. They have no real membership in the sense of the pro-gun groups. It’s time to educate yourself and join one or more of the winning teams.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Honus

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Anybody openly carrying a gun into Starbucks (or anywhere else) to “make a point” or “exercise a right” is inherently unqualified to carry a weapon. This is a fundamentally improper use of a firearm.
 
Like your dick, you only take out your gun if you are prepared to use it. You don’t openly carry it into a coffee bar to scare the liberals. This identifies you as a cheap tin can that shouldn’t be allowed near anything as powerful as a Model 29 or to use the other common penis substitute, a Porsche Turbo Carrera.

Honus
March 4, 2010
Comment to Open Thread: Penis Substitutes At the Ready!
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

Perhaps we should replace congress

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As much as I detest people that think it is legitimate to make laws based on majority rule when it should be a matter of principle it is reassuring when the majority aligns itself with principles:

Most Americans support the right to use deadly force to protect themselves – even in public places – and have a favorable view of the National Rifle Association, the main gun-lobby group, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
The online survey showed that 68 percent, or two out of three respondents, had a favorable opinion of the NRA, which starts its annual convention in St. Louis, Missouri, on Friday.

The approval rating for Congress is currently running about 12%. I claim this is in a large part because they have no principles, only policy positions which change about as often as their dirty laundry that keeps showing up in public.

This leads me to believe the appropriate thing to do is replace congress with the Board of Directors and senior members of the NRA.

I did not know that

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With the strict gun control implemented in Mexico I did not realize the Mexican Constitution has a right to bear arms clause:

The inhabitants of the United Mexican States have a right to arms in their homes, for security and legitimate defense, with the exception of arms prohibited by federal law and those reserved for the exclusive use of the Army, Navy, Air Force and National Guard. Federal law will determine the cases, conditions, requirements and places in which the carrying of arms will be authorized to the inhabitants.

I would be willing to bet the Brady Campaign would almost be willing to accept a “guaranteed” right “protected” thusly. The VPC wouldn’t of course. But giving the Brady Campaign a reason to disband would be appealing.

But I’m inclined to go with the “shall not be infringed” version and have the Brady Campaign disband because we have accomplished all our goals in the U.S. and have moved on to protecting the right of people to keep and bear arms in other countries.

Quote of the day—George Bernard Shaw

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Martyrdom’ is the only way a person can become famous without ability.

George Bernard Shaw
[I wonder who he was talking about. Colin Goddard of the Brady Campaign comes to mind but the timeline doesn’t quite work.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mitt Romney

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We need a president who will stand up for the rights of hunters and sportsmen, and those seeking to protect their homes and their families. President Obama has not. I will. And if we are going to safeguard our Second Amendment, it is time to elect a president who will defend the rights President Obama ignores or minimizes.

…

And if we are going to safeguard our Second Amendment, it is time to elect a president who will defend the rights President Obama ignores or minimizes.

…

This president is moving us away from our Founders’ vision. Instead of limited government, he’s leading us toward limited freedom and limited opportunity.

Mitt Romney
April 13, 2012
Romney touts support for gun rights at NRA

romney-AP120413035813_244x183

Photo credit: AP Photo/Michael Conroy
[Since Romney is a politician and his lips were moving I question how firmly, if at all, he believes what he says and whether he will remain true to these campaign promises. But he is saying some of the words gun owners and freedom lovers want to hear.

I want to hear that he is going to do more than play defense (“defend the rights”). I would prefer that he say something along the lines of what Newt said a short while later to the NRA (H/T to Bitter). We should be expanding the scope of the right to keep and bear arms to the rest of the world via the UN. That means a strong offense, not just defense.

For those of you who question the validity of that last sentence by Romney please see my QOTD-Barack Obama from October 28, 2008 with further info from Kevin.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sebastian

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There’s no politician in the world that wants to write off the votes of 5 to 6 million Americans out of the gate.

Sebastian
April 10, 2012
The Dreams of Bloomberg
[I’m reminded of something Chris Cox (NRA top lobbyist) said, “They don’t fear me. They fear you.”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Don B. Kates Jr.

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The argument that an armed citizenry cannot hope to overthrow a modern military machine flies directly in the face of the history of partisan guerilla and civil wars in the twentieth century. To make this argument (which is invariably supported, if at all, by reference only to the American military experience in non-revolutionary struggles like the two World Wars), one must indulge in the assumption that a handgun-armed citizenry will eschew guerrilla tactics in favor of throwing themselves headlong under the tracks of advancing tanks. Far from proving invincible, in the vast majority of cases in this century in which they have confronted popular insurgencies, modern armies have been unable to suppress the insurgents. This is why the British no longer rule in Israel and Ireland, the French in Indo-China, Algeria and Madagascar, the Portugese in Angola, the whites in Rhodesia, or General Somoza, General Battista, or the Shah in Nicaragua, Cuba and Iran respectively–not to mention the examples of the United States in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It is, of course, quite irrelevant for present purposes whether each of the struggles just mentioned is or was justified or whether the people benefitted therefrom. However one may appraise those victories, the fact remains that they were achieved against regimes equipped with all the military technology which, it is asserted, inevitably dooms popular revolt.

Perhaps more important, in a free country like our own, the issue is not really overthrowing a tyranny but deterring its institution in the first place. To persuade his officers and men to support a coup, a potential military despot must convince them that his rule will succeed where our current civilian leadership and policies are failing. In a country whose widely divergent citizenry possesses upwards of 160 million firearms, however, the most likely outcome of usurpation (no matter how initially successful) is not benevolent dictatorship, but prolonged, internecine civil war.

Don B. Kates Jr.
Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment
Michigan Law Review 82 (1983): 204-273.
[Via Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms by Philip Mulivor.

This is along the same lines as what Lyle described as the Plausible Threat.

It’s worth noting that the estimate of 160 million firearms in the U.S. was in 1983. The estimate is nearly double that now.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lyle

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That of course was its only purpose from the outset, so we’ll have to call the program a complete success.

What?– You believed the stuff about “protecting public safety”? No, see, that’s the just the selling point. That’s that charming, handsome man with his arm in a cast, Ted Bundy, asking you get in his van. Forget the assertions. The actual goal is something else entirely. That’s how communists (and serial killers) roll. It’s always a ruse.

Lyle
April 6, 2012
Comment to Gun card chaos: FOID foibles in IL
In response to “The only success of FOID cards is the successful persecution of gun owners.”
[Many, perhaps even most, of the people advocating for restrictions on firearms believe it will improve public safety. But at the top they know better. I’ve been listening to them and even meeting them face to face for many, many, years. Listen to and read carefully the words of gun control politicians Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein, and Bill Clinton. Listen and read carefully the words of the top leaders of the anti-gun activists. The smart articulate ones. Not the rambling incoherent ones. They know the truth. They know it’s not about public safety. It’s about buying votes, gaining power, and control of the general population.

For a long time I have wanted to get a meme started, “What is the real reason?” But apparently we are not quite ready to ask that question. And for the population at large, and gun control advocates in particular, gun ownership laws are not something that is subject to reason.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brady Campaign

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Although the exact number of Americans killed by gun violence in the 20th century will never be known, it is now all but certain that it will, by any measure, vastly exceed the number of Americans shot and killed on battlefields since 1900.

Brady Campaign
December 30, 1999
MORE AMERICANS KILLED BY GUNS THAN BY WAR IN THE 20TH CENTURY–1.4 Million Known American Firearms Casualties Since 1933
[What the Brady Campaign either is ignorant of or willfully ignoring is that during that same time frame countries without the right to keep and bear arms murdered about 170 million innocent non-military lives in the 20th Century.

There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.

The trade-off is not between guns being readily available to individual criminals and guns being banned and hence as difficult to obtain as other banned items like recreational drugs. The trade-off is between freedom and tyranny. It’s between losing a million innocent people in century due to criminal acts of individuals and losing 100 million people due to criminal acts of governments.

The founders of the this country understood and placed the security of a free state above the risk from individual misuse of arms:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Firearms in the hands of the people are a plausible threat to would-be tyrants and hence a “safety net” for freedom.

Gun control in this country was implemented to make it easier to suppress slaves, former slaves, and the descendants of slaves. That is a shameful heritage for the advocates of gun control.

The Brady Campaign is a small and small-minded organization that does not represent the people of this nation or it’s values. It’s time they faded away into the dustbin of history like their small-minded ancestral cousins, the KKK.—Joe]

More on the Plausible Threat

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This is in response to Joe’s QOTD here by JFK

JFK’s concept is what I’ve dubbed the “Plausible Threat” influence in human interaction.  Reagan referred to it as “Peace Through Strength”.  My Plausible Threat concept is of the same nature, but is much more broad.

Why does someone do some something he doesn’t want to do, when he is told to do it?  Why does someone avoid doing something he wants do to, when told not to do it?  Often it’s because he sees a plausible threat of some kind looming over him, which will harm him in some way if he doesn’t tow the line.  It applies in all sorts of interactions and life decisions.  In some cases there is a moral factor, wherein a person’s conscience is more prominent in the decision making process.  In other cases it is the plausible threat that tips the scale.  In yet other cases the plausible threat is not enough, and a person or group will act in spite of it, i.e. it’s a gamble wherein the perceived benefits are deemed greater than the perceived threat.  The threat could be anything from minor social tension to global nuclear annihilation.

Our second amendment is, in part, to guarantee a natural right, but also it is to ensure a plausible threat as insurance against growing tyranny. 

We’ve seen on TV shows like Survivor what most people will do for a million dollars.  What would some people or groups of people be willing to do for several trillion dollars, their own army, and the power to substantially control millions of people?  It would take a very plausible threat indeed to dissuade the sort of motivations we’re seeing in that arena, and we have a long way to go before the whole of the people are armed well enough, organized well enough, and act in such a way as to dissuade the sorts of tyranny already in place, and the sorts that we have yet to see.

Quote of the day—Quiddity

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I’ll give you my cold, dead dick when you take it from my gun-wielding hands!

Quiddity
March 4, 2010
Comment to Open Thread: Penis Substitutes At the Ready!
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]

NBC producer fired over Zimmerman call

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As you probably have heard the call of Zimmerman with the police that NBC aired on the Today Show was edited such that Zimmerman appears to say, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.” This was not how it happened and a producer was fired over this. Good. The damage this deliberate slanting of the news could have been been millions of dollars in property damage and even people ending up dead from riots. As it is the tremendous amount of time and energy expended by people basing their actions on falsified information is incalculable.

The story is an AP story and is spreading rapidly. It certain deserves exceedingly wide coverage. Perhaps tensions can be reduced and people will look more closely at all the facts related to this event. And long term I hope more people verify stories reported by the media before taking extreme action.

Some of the news outlets reporting this story:

Quote of the day—President John F. Kennedy

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We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

President John F. Kennedy
January 20, 1961
Inaugural Address
[The “we” and “them” Kennedy was referring to were the United States and the communists of the world. But the sentiment has broader application.

It also applies to the people of a nation and a government delegated certain powers by those people. And if you think of “arms” as lawyers and financial resources it also has application to those with whom you enter into contracts with.

And if “arms” were a metaphor for “votes” the first sentence, but not the second, could have immediate application to the NRA, SAF, and other gun rights organizations and politicians versus the anti-gun organizations and politicians.

I had hinted at something similar with a very narrow application over 16 years ago but Kennedy says it more clearly and with broader application.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Amanda Wilcox

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It wasn’t a failure of laws. I just don’t see how our gun laws could have stopped something like that.

Amanda Wilcox,
Lobbyist for the California chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
April 6, 2012
California’s tough gun laws could not prevent Oakland tragedy
[It’s nice to see the Brady Campaign admitting gun laws cannot stop mass shootings but she still has some pretty significant symptoms of Peterson Syndrome.

Did you noticed she said “It wasn’t a failure of laws” but then in the next sentence she says she doesn’t see how gun laws could have stopped the shooting. One or the other of those statements has to be false.

The corrected statement should be:

Our gun laws have failed. Our gun laws cannot stop something like that. The best known way to stop an active criminal shooter is for another person to shoot back. As long as our gun laws make it difficult or impossible for potential victims to defend themselves these tragedies will continue to happen.

But the Brady Campaign has a vested interest in the blood of innocent people running in the streets. If they were more rare their funding would dry up and they would cease to exist. Hence they give out sound bites that at first glance support their warped view but upon closer examination cannot even maintain coherence from sentence to sentence.

See also Say Uncle and the comments to his post.—Joe]

Liberty is Not on Trial

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Don’t forget it.  This is (partially) in response to the QOTD below.

The argument for liberty is primarily a moral one.  Many people focus on cause and effect.  We could dig into detail after detail, analyzing this and that cause and this and that effect.  In that pursuit, yes, we will find much evidence in favor of liberty.

But liberty is not on trial.  Oh no, Young Grasshopper.  This may be news to most people, but it is the socialist/communist/Fascist (statist) bloc that is on trail.  I hereby accuse it of willfully conspiring to perpetrate envy, hopelessness, fraud, grand larceny, stagnation, decline, anger, hate, conflict, assault, battery, chaos, and mass murder.

It is not up to us to defend liberty as such.  We who support and uphold it are the plaintiffs, see?  Liberty needs no defense in that sense, because it has done nothing wrong.  It needs to be taught, yes, but if any fingers of blame are to be pointed, they should be pointed at the statists, and if any defense need to be mounted, let the accused try to defend their crimes.  Let them point back and leer at us— but always understand that they are the accused and we are (liberty is) the injured party.

Ultimately it comes down to the fact that Man, by nature, yearns to be free.  Sure; with our liberty intact, we do vastly better than we ever do without it, but the argument is primarily a moral one.  Right and wrong.  Freedom verses force.  Choice verses coercion.  Good verses evil.  America was founded on that principle.  Isn’t it time we strive to understand, and then to fulfill America’s Promise of Liberty?  For once?

The plaintiff doesn’t walk into the courtroom with a defense attorney at his side.  He may need a good prosecutor, but he doesn’t need a defense.  Republicans of course have never understood it.  A plaintiff or a procesuter who is constantly defending himself, with the perpetrator sitting in judgement, is a blithering fool.

Quote of the day—Windy Wilson

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Their words and the things they choose to defend prove again that the Brady Center is not merely rooting for the criminal element, they are offering to hold their coats and act as lookout during the murder, rape or robbery of the law abiding citizens.

Windy Wilson
April 5, 2012
Comment to Quote of the day—Gura & Prossessky.
[While I do not believe people of the Brady Center intend this to be the result I am certain this is the unintended consequence of their actions.

Many of these people have no rational belief system and some don’t even have a grasp of what rational thought is but some do. My model for those who have a quasi rational belief system is that they are only vaguely aware of these unintended consequences.

Those of us on the side of individual rights are willing to accept the unintended consequences of freedom. Those unintended consequences include crimes and accidents involving firearms.

As Thomas Sowell made very clear in one of his essays from the 1980s (read Compassion Versus Guilt, and other Essays) and in a great many of his other writings and lectures, “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”

The proper question then becomes, “Which set of tradeoffs is better?” And digging still deeper, “How do you measure ‘better'”? But as near as I can tell our opponents are unwilling, or perhaps unable, to even acknowledge there are no solutions. Yet the real debate should be at least three levels deeper.–Joe]