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Gun Victims Action
9:17 AM 14 February 2012
Via Bitter
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]
Calling Ladd Everitt an expert on gun laws is such an oxymoron that it borders on incomprehensible.
John Richardson
Consult An Expert!
March 9, 2012
[Everitt is with the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
This is almost a trend. Yesterday I quoted a former police officer saying Brian Malte at the Brady Campaign didn’t know what he was talking about.—Joe]
Mr. Malte needs to ask for a refund from his History Teacher. The Constitution says nothing about Permission in regards to the 2nd amend.
As an FTO for my department I stressed that the officer safety dictates to the officer that everyone he/she meets is carrying.
My hat goes off to every state that passes “constitutional carry’ laws, joining my state (WY) and the state I policed (AK) prior to retiring.
kraigwy
March 8, 2012
In response to “They want a gun in every nook and cranny in society with no permission needed and no background check,” Malte said, adding, “This is just a recipe for disaster.” in the article 12 States on Path to Guns Without Permits.
[“Malte” refers to Brian Malte, the director of state legislation for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
So here we have a former police Firearms Training Officer telling the Brady Campaign they don’t know what they are talking about.
That’s par for the course.—Joe]
[C]an I please also move to the universe where Ladd Everitt, Josh Horwitz, and Dennis Henigan are machine gun collectors?
Sebastian
March 8, 2012
Weed Legalization: Surreal Edition
[A close second for QOTD from the comments of that same post was by Oliver Perry who said, “You wouldn’t want to live in that universe-Huffman would be head of the Brady Campaign and Baker would be head of CSGV.”
This reminds me of an alternate universe I once hypothesized where the NRA was evil and the Brady Campaign represented the good guys.—Joe]
If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country … The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre
February 5, 1794
Report on the Principles of Political Morality
[Via Bill Whittle:
Via Kevin Baker’s The Slaughter isn’t a Bug, It’s a Feature.
Read that again:
Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country.
That is what emanates as a natural consequence from those that believe if only the 1% (or 10% as President Obama’s good friend Bill Ayers believed) were responsible for the problems of the rest of the population were “taken care of” utopia could be achieved. The method for dealing with these “troublemakers”, as Whittle above points out, is frequently the murder of tens of millions of people. And as Kevin points out, this is a “feature” not a “bug” in the mind of the self-anointed.
And that is Why Boomershoot.—Joe]
It’s extremely rare that I am pleased with anything Washington Ceasefire does. But I find this moderately pleasing:
New ads asking you to think twice about gun ownership are showing up on Metro buses…
…
Ceasefire spent $50,000 on the bus signs…
The ads are trying to change the minds of people about exercising their specific enumerated right to keep keep and bear arms. That’s going to be a really tough sell. And to what end? The only way that can have a detrimental effect is if they can get a critical mass in the legislature through the shift of public opinion. They are advertising in districts they already “own” legislatively. The best they can hope for is to keep from losing some of that support.
It is going to be a especially difficult sell since they are using bogus statistics. Only one researcher has come up with their claimed conclusion, “When you have a gun in the home, you are 22 times more likely to kill a family member or a friend than you are an intruder”. Other researchers disputed it. And the wording of the conclusion is such that it is very misleading. It assumes the only valid use of a firearm is if it is used to kill an intruder. Brandishing or a wounding that results in the protection of innocent life or property doesn’t count with this metric.
So… keep pouring that money down the toilet Washington Ceasefire. Your end is near and I am pleased you are hastening that day.
Ignorance is no excuse, it’s the real thing.
Irene Peter
[Especially when it is deliberate. Which means the great majority of anti-gun people are “the real thing”.—Joe]
It’s not a good day for the remaining anti-gun people (all 10 of them). From Denver:
The Colorado Supreme Court has struck down a gun ban by the University of Colorado Board of Regents that had prevented students from carrying concealed handguns on campus.
A citizen may not be required to offer a ‘good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right’s existence is all the reason he needs.
Benson Everett Legg
U.S. District Court Judge
March 2012
MARYLAND RULING A ‘HUGE VICTORY’ FOR SECOND AMENDMENT, SAYS SAF
[This is absolutely HUGE!!!
Ruling here.
Who wants to donate to the Tequila fund for the new Brady Campaign President?
I’ll donate a $0.10 to the Brady’s for Tequila and $100 to SAF to keep the Brady Campaign crying into their booze.—Joe]
Update: As George R. on the gun email list at work said after he donated $50.00, “Take that Sarah Brady!”
How many Billion people in the world Don’t carry a gun? Ever. And live to tell about it. They don’t get the shit kicked out of themselves day in and day out, and most important they most likely have normal sized genitalia.
Ruckus
March 4, 2010
Comment to Open Thread: Penis Substitutes At the Ready!
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
How many billions of people in the world don’t use their fire extinguisher, smoke detector, or car seatbelt and live to tell about it? Yet it’s going to be rare that people make fun of them for possessing those safety items.
How many people wish they were carrying a gun when they were mugged, raped, or kidnapped?
And how many of those nearly one hundred million people that were murdered by their own government in the 20th Century wished they had a gun as they were lined up at the ditches waiting for the bullet to the back of the neck, starving in concentration camps, or arrested in the middle of the night and taken to a basement cell for execution?—Joe]
Most of the the time when you see or hear the phrase, “If you don’t play the game, you don’t get to make the rules” it is referring to the Pope making (Catholic) law in regards to sex.
It occurs to me that phrase would be equally applicable to anti-gun people demanding “safe storage”, gun and/or gun-owner registration, and magazine capacity restrictions.
Officer Friendly obeys the laws of physics and cannot travel at the speed of light and reach you in time. What do you do during that long moment between when you realize the life of your family is in jeopardy and when the cops actually show up?
Me? I do a press check.
Robb Allen
March 2, 2012
When seconds count
[Works for me!—Joe]
There essentially are no restrictions on guns or ammunition. There are several organizations, local, national and worldwide, providing guns and ammunition to minors and to the poor, either for free or at subsidized prices, often without parental consent, even to the point of covering up for criminal use of guns in some cases so as to maximize the number of kids with access to guns. It is a human right after all. A right is a right, and that’s that. If you so much as question it, you are against children and against human rights in general, you backward-minded Neanderthal, redneck ignorant Nazi bastard. There are gun training programs in most public schools, with free ammunition available if a kid goes to a school counselor to ask for it, saying that his parents are denying him his right to ammunition.
There’s the background. It is firmly entrenched in our culture, hardly anyone is questioning it, those who do are never taken seriously, and for sure it is not threatened either by this Congress or any foreseeable one.
Then; proposed new federal legislation adds to all of the above by forcing tax payers to pay for free guns and ammunition, for the asking, nationwide. Anyone objecting to this new bill is accused of wanting to “ban guns”, denying the poorest people and the children their second amendment rights. If you can’t get it for free, immediately, any time, anywhere, your right to it has thereby been denied, QED, so without this new bill, even with everything in the first paragraph untouched and safe for the future, the second amendment is effectively banned. Poor, sobbing victim after poor, sobbing victim is paraded in front of the in-depth news show cameras to tell their stories of woe and despair arising from a lack of access to ”affordable” guns and ammunition, and the pundits have nothing but sympathy for them, and the serious understanding that can only come from having had similar experiences of their own.
Now; it is by that same resoning, in that same sort of environment, that Rick Santorum and others are accused of wanting to ban birth control.
Focus, People. Santorum may be the spawn of Satan for all I know, but neither he nor anyone else of any prominence wants to ban birth control. This entire issue was manufactured by Democrats to divert attention from the Obama economy and other Obama atrocities because they believe that “social issues” are the Republicans’ weakness and they want to keep the discussion focused there. Some among us have actually fallen for it even though it’s been used a thousand times before in broad daylight. Please get a grip.
Now I will point out that when we of the pro liberty mindset want a human right respected (one that‘s actually in the constitution, for example) we don’t demand that certain goodies be given to us as part of a government program at taxpayer’s expense and we don’t demand it be given to kids against their parents wishes. The proof of whether a “right” is really a right is that a true right never demands anything from anyone else other than non interference.
Belief is the death of intelligence.
Robert Anton Wilson
[I’m reminded of Ann Landers who said, “No one has the right to destroy another person’s belief by demanding empirical evidence.”
I’d also like to remind people that those that respect everyone’s beliefs have no respect for the truth.—Joe]
The bearing of arms is the essential medium through which the individual asserts both his social power and his participation in politics as a responsible moral being.
J.G.A. Pocock
Historian, describing the beliefs of the founders of the U.S.
From The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition
[Another one via Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms by Philip Mulivor.—Joe]
This is something I wrote for the gun email list at work. Most of the people on the list live in California so I slanted it a little bit in that direction but I think it has application for a much broader audience.
I realize the situation is much different in California than in the states I spend most of my time (Washington and Idaho) but we are winning. We have been winning a bunch of court battles. We have been winning some political victories (carry in National Parks and in checked bags on Amtrak, carry in 49 states, fines for cities and elected officials in Florida who violate state preemption, etc. etc.). The anti-gun organizations are in financial trouble. And probably most importantly we are winning public opinion (see the most recent Gallup poll on guns).
As much progress as we have made elsewhere California and a few other states are still are a cancer that can spread if not treated. Don’t think that those of us in the free(er) states are unaware of the importance of these trouble spots or that we are neglecting the situation. And we are making progress in California. As you folks are probably even better aware than I SAF and CalGuns are making progress in the courts. I’ve spent a lot of time with Alan Gottlieb and Alan Gura and I am convinced they are more than competent and have plans that have a reasonable chance of success.
The blogosphere is also doing what it can to change things in California. Through the cooperation of Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned I was interviewed by a reporter for the Los Angeles Times yesterday. I was a bit apprehensive as the LA Times has been far from friendly to gun owners in the past. This report was fair and did not take advantage of some things I said which could have sounded poorly out of context. Although she didn’t mention it in the article her mother has even been to Front Sight!
I suspect California gun owners can make a difference by “coming out of the closet” now. I understand the risks but the rewards can be significant if done correctly.
One thing I would like to suggest is that gun owners/clubs reach out to traditional media. Boomershoot has had some remarkably good coverage (the KING5 Evening Magazine video on Boomershoot was even nominated for an Emmy). Boomershoot has some draw and some PR talent (not me) that most gun organizations can’t take advantage of but they can help gain public acceptance of gun owners without too much effort.
Find local news outlets that have a local events sections and get your IPDA/USPSA/Cowboy-Action/Steel-Challenge/Bowling-Pin/Bulleye/High-Power/whatever match listed. After the match write up a story (my PR person says, somewhat cynically, “Reporters are lazy. If you want their support do their work for them.”) about the match results and send it to the local news organizations. If you have something a little different you might even get them to send a reporter. Cowboy Action frequently qualifies as “different” enough. Action Pistol (IPDA/USPSA) matches provide an opportunity for this as well. I created stages for a USPSA match that addressed a visit by Fred Phelps to the area and made it into the local newspaper and the AP. That led to an interview for an article in the Seattle Times. A YouTube video of a Gabby Giffords themed concealed carry side match to a USPSA match generated nearly 8000 views and the rage of anti-gun groups and even got the attention of a Brady Campaign Board member who said, “These folks could have just sat back and shut up.”
If a news article has errors about guns (.357 caliber Glocks and 40mm handguns are my favorites) contact the reporter. Ask if they would like to attend a “media day”. Invite a number of media organizations and if you get a decent response set up a ½ day class (Keep it short! They won’t want to invest a whole day) to teach them the basics of gun types, gun vocabulary, gun myths, and gun safety. Print and bind some nice copies of the NSSF writers guide to give them (NSSF may have some for sale or distribution, you might check with them before printing your own). Include some range time with a .22 with options for larger calibers for those that are interested.
Carefully select your media guides. Good looking professionals of both sexes and various ethnic backgrounds will help dispel the stereotypes they may have of gun owners. Train your people! Prepare them for loaded questions. When media is expected at Boomershoot we have designated media contacts and since our people are spread all over the country do training via email discussions. We have a media guide FAQ (with our own inside humor) to help prepare our people. And except for those in the media who we know are gun friendly (I.E. Michael Bane of Shooting Gallery) we have a media guide with them at all times. We successfully handled a Newsweek reporter who, as near as we could determine, exclusively reported on terrorism, both international and domestic.
If you decide to head down this path let me know if I can help. My Boomershoot PR person currently has some health issues that sometimes prevent timely responses but if anyone thinks they could benefit from some help I will be glad to share what I have learned and pass on the tougher problems to an expert.
If you are in or near New York City on March 9th this would be something interesting to attend:
The Fordham Urban Law Journal will host its Volume XXXIX Symposium, titled “Gun Control and the Second Amendment: Developments and Controversies in the Wake of District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago,” on Friday, March 9 at Fordham Law School in New York City.
The event will be divided into the following panels:
· The Effect of the Supreme Court’s Gun Control Restrictions on Crime Rates
· The Scope of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Post-Heller and McDonald
· Urban Exceptionalism and Modern Conceptions of the Militia
It includes some well-known names of people who are supportive of gun rights such as Don Kates, David Kopel, and Gary Kleck as well as some heavy hitters of the opposing team.
A bit off topic, but what is “Urban Exceptionalism”? I wasn’t able to find a quick answer to that.
John Harrigan at NewHampshire.com has his own version of Just One Question:
Whenever anyone tries to draw me into the gun-control controversy, I ask this: Given the nation’s estimated 200 million guns, how are we going to keep them out of the hands of scofflaw criminals who could then prey on a law-abiding, disarmed citizenry? This is only one question in a complex matter, but until someone with a grip on reality provides an answer, that’s it for me.
I find it interesting he has a similar rational to mine for creating and using the question.
There are not many news outlets more hostile to gun ownership than MSNBC.
Or at least that is the way it used to be. Here we have an article in MSNBC telling us how much fun you can have with machine guns in Las Vegas:
You may want to set your sights on Las Vegas’ newest attraction, Machine Guns Vegas (MGV), which opened its doors Monday. Part gun range, part ultra-lounge, MGV invites visitors to grab the automatic weapon of their choice — Uzis, AK-47s and more — and get in touch with their inner gangster or SEAL Team Six commando.
“You’d be amazed at the number of people who come to Vegas and want to shoot a machine gun,” said co-owner Genghis Cohen. “It’s an experience you can’t have in a lot of places in the world.”
Gun ranges, of course, are nothing new but MGV puts a decidedly Sin City spin on the concept, a reflection, in part, of Cohen’s background in the city’s nightlife industry. He originally came to Las Vegas from his native New Zealand to open Tabu, the über-hip lounge in the MGM Grand.
MGV takes a similarly stylish approach, albeit an alcohol-free one, complete with leather furniture, hardwood floors and a bevy of “Gun Girls” led by model and U.S. Air Force veteran Jeannie Duffy.
I’m a little concerned the “Gun Girls” have the potential to reduce acceptance by women. But while she is quite attractive at least the picture of Duffy doesn’t show an excessive amount of skin or promise jiggle with the machine gun recoil:
In conformance with the naming of fire, flood, and collision insurance the policy that pays out in the event of your death should be called “Death Insurance”.
“Life Insurance” is what you should call your carry handgun.
Update: I woke up at 3:30 the next morning realizing it probably should “Life Assurance”. Then I found the comment from Publius who suggested “life ensurance”. But I can’t find a definition for “ensurance”. [shrug]