Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day–Rep. Daryl Metcalfe

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Local elected officials are not above the law, and I think it’s arrogant and disrespectful of the citizens of this state when you have a local elected official who thinks they can pass any law they want willy-nilly.

Rep. Daryl Metcalfe
February 25, 2012
Gun bill could put Allentown on defensive–NRA wants owners of firearms to take cities with reporting laws to court.
[It’s no different than if a city were to pass a law prohibiting interracial or gay marriages. The state possess the sole power to regulate marriages and in this case as well as many others the state has the sole power to regulate firearms. City politicians that think they have the power regulate firearms have a lot in common with those that discriminate against other minorities and should be dealt with in the same manner and public scorn.—Joe]

New gun blog

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Guns-n-Eyeballs by TankerGrunt.

Quote of the day—Bryan Miller

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This is another win win for the NRA and it’s buddies in the gun lobby.

The Banksters buddies crush any opposition to them, so they can continue to fund the gun manufacturers, which in turn soaks our communities with guns, blood, and death.

Bryan Miller
Using the alias “BantheNRA“.
November 15, 2011
Comment to N.Y. judge rules against Occupy Wall Street protesters, upholds decision to dismantle Zuccotti Park encampment
[For many years Miller was the director of CeaseFire New Jersey until it went belly up.

His alias demonstrates his contempt for the First Amendment as well as the Second.

But most importantly the comment above demonstrates Miller apparently hasn’t been taking his anti-psychotic medications. He, and most anti-gun extremists, live in an alternate reality all their own.—Joe]

Quote of the day—John R. Lott Jr. & Gary Mauser

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The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Chiefs of Police have not yet provided a single example in which tracing was of more than peripheral importance in solving a case.
 
The problem isn’t just with the long-gun registry. The data provided above cover all guns, including handguns. There is no evidence that, since the handgun registry was started in 1934, it has been important in solving a single homicide.

John R. Lott Jr. & Gary Mauser
February 20, 2012
Death of a Long-Gun Registry
[H/T David Hardy.

Don’t ever forget the story of the Belgium Corporal. The only thing a gun registry is good for is confiscation.

When someone suggests gun registration is a good thing you know they are ignorant, stupid, and/or evil. You should determine which and deal with them appropriately.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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Since is it illegal for the government to keep records of someone who exercises their First Amendment rights it should also be illegal for a government to keep records of someone who exercises their Second Amendment rights.

Can you imagine the outcry if the government demanded you fill out the equivalent of a 4473 and undergo a NICS check before purchasing a printer for your computer, start a blog, or write a letter to the editor?

The Second Amendment deserves as much or more respect than the First Amendment and we need to get that point across.

Quote of the day—Roberta X

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Why apply prior restraint to a Constitutionally-protected right, then? Barring stupidity, deliberate ignorance or outright insanity, … unreasoning prejudice is the only motive.

Roberta X
February 21, 2012
Running The Numbers
[For a simple one-word answer “prejudice” is close enough and probably should be used in those contexts where sound bytes are important. But the real answer is probably much more complex. There is more than a little ignorance, a fair amount of stupidity and a lot of near insanity as well. Read about Peterson Syndrome for a more complete story on that mix.

But what Roberta left out was hatred, maliciousness, and evil. There are those that would disarm us because they know that if we have arms we will forcefully resist their final ultimate solution to what they believe to be the problems of the world.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Anne Laurie

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Starbucks? This is your bold, patriotic idea of a dangerous venue in which to flaunt your precious Second Amendment pacifiers? Because laptop-wielding hipsters are soooo freaking terrifying? Because the baristers are armed with… scalding hot milk foam?

If your gun is a tool, it is something to be treated with the respect you’d show any potentially dangerous tool. Somehow I don’t see a spontaneous uprising of lumberjacks carrying chainsaws and construction workers flourishing jackhammers at the local Starbucks, because this is the real world, not a badly scripted porno movie. Semi-retired CPAs who listen to a lot of Rush Limbaugh, please copy.

Anyone who has to demonstrate his political allegiances by flashing a gun at a Starbucks has presumably decided that it’s too risky to “support the Second Amendment” at a Dunkin Donuts… where the professional security forces hang out. Or even at the local McDonald’s, where some safety-conscious mommy at the ball pit would be liable to give you a very hurtful talking-to.

Anne Laurie
March 3, 2010
Open Thread: Penis Substitutes At the Ready!
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

From the title to any hint of substance in the post itself Laurie demonstrates her total clueness of what the Starbucks conflict was about.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ronald Reagan

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Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

Ronald Reagan
[The freedom to ingest whatever mind altering chemical you desired was lost in the last century. They had to have a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw alcohol, But for some reason they didn’t bother with giving themselves the power to ban Marijuana, heroin, or “magic mushrooms”. Politicians just assumed they had the power and almost magically they did have the power.

The same thing almost happened with firearms. From GCA68 to AWB ‘94 (slightly more than a generation) we came within a hair breadth of losing the freedom guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment.. It’s possible we did loose a part of it (machine guns and destructive devices) to not be recovered in out lifetime–if ever.

There is a lesson to be learned here. It’s a slippery slope and minor, almost tolerable, infringements must not be tolerated.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Elias Isquith

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I’m a great example of why it is that the NRA simply mops the floor with its opponents when it comes to influencing DC. As Bloomberg rightly notes, they — gun fetishists or simply Second Amendment absolutists — care way, way more. In fact, it’s not uncommon for that to be the only thing an NRA member cares about. A lifetime of political activism funneled into simply one tiny and, I would argue, frivolous niche.

Elias Isquith
February 17, 2012
Mike Bloomberg And The Politics Of Gun Control
[Regardless of his distain for gun owners there is a certain amount of truth in his statement. Many of us are willing to vote for (or against) someone strictly on the basis of their stand on specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. Yes, many of us use the Second Amendment as a strong indicator of a politician’s support for freedom in general. But conversely the anti-freedom people could claim the same thing with a sign change, “If a politician supports gun ownership then you know he is not going to support the type of government that is going to send all the people we don’t like off to the reeducation camps.” But for some reason it doesn’t work for them that way.

It is my suspicion the anti-freedom people can only succeed when they are deceptive. They have to hide their true intentions. They have to express their goals in terms of free unicorns for everyone instead of jack-booted thugs crushing human skulls. Raw anti-freedom simply doesn’t generate that many votes. Gun owners understand that guns are a strong indicator, and a requirement, of free society. Hence we do care more about guns and are willing to vote on that single issue.—Joe]

Astute observation

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Commenter FlyGuy at Robb’s points out that many articles of safety equipment such as seat belts, child safety caps, fire extinguishers, etc. are mandated by government. But yet many governments attempt to ban or heavily regulated another article of safety equipment—firearms.

As he says, “Very eeenteresting…”

Quote of the day—Brandoch Daha

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In real life, you solve problems by breaking them down into smaller problems that are trivial by themselves. But if you respond to crazy circular logic by refuting each step as you go along, you lose track of the fact that you’re actually talking to a crazy person, and you lose the argument. Because by the time you’ve proven to a anti-gunner that he’s not Napoleon, he’s already telling you, with equally invincible conviction, that he’s Jesus. So you ask him if he was in fact born in a manger, and he tells you that Buckingham Palace is in fact a manger, you redneck, and before you’re done explaining what a manger is, he’s already tired of being Mary Queen of Scots, at which point you’re like “Wait, Buckingham Palace was built after she died!”, and you know what he says?

“Kiss me, Josephine, I’ve beaten Wellington again!”

Brandoch Daha
February 16, 2012
Comment to Fear driven society
[Awesome!

It reminds me of one of the responses to Just One Question, “What colour is orange: True or False?”

Many of these people are truly nuts and cannot be reasoned with. They simply don’t have the mental capacity. We should be alert for the signs then change our method of engagement or stop entirely when the crazy becomes apparent.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Patrick Kerkstra

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The gunfight is over, and the cities lost. The question is: Do they realize it yet?

Patrick Kerkstra
February 14, 2012
Cities facing a tough fight on gun control
[If they were to think about it rationally they cannot help but realize it. But most are probably in denial. Those that are not in denial have only moved to the anger stage. They have quite a way to go before reaching acceptance.

Even though Kerkstra has arrived at the correct conclusion he doesn’t seem to consider that it is even plausible that guns are useful for protection. To him, “guns represent a plague, not protection”.

A suggestion to Kerkstra: answer Just One Question then get back to me.

I’d leave a comment for him but it appears they have implemented “Reasoned Discourse”.—Joe]

I asked once nicely—Now what?

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On February 3rd Linoge sent me an email telling me that CSGV was using daughter Kim’s picture from the Too Many Victims video on their blog in a manner that erroneously shows gun owners in a poor light. He suggested I might want to ask them to remove it.

On February 6th I did just that:

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 9:46 AM
To: Ladd Everitt
Cc: Kimberly Frederick
Subject: Please remove my daughters picture.

Neither my daughter nor I gave you permission to use her image on the left sidebar of this web page: http://csgv4.blogspot.com/. Please remove it.

Use of the entire video is fine because it includes the proper context.

Thank you.

-joe-
https://blog.joehuffman.org/
http://www.boomershoot.org/
http://www.modernballistics.com/

Sent via Windows Phone Seven.

On February 10th I received a reply:

From: Ladd Everitt
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 9:08 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Cc: Kimberly Frederick
Subject: RE: Please remove my daughters picture.

Joe,

Thanks for your email.  We’re running this by our attorneys and will get back with you soon.

Best regards,

Ladd Everitt
Director of Communications
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
1424 L Street NW, Suite 2-1
Washington, DC 20005
W:  [deleted by Joe for privacy reasons]
Cell:  [deleted by Joe for privacy reasons]
Email:  [deleted by Joe for privacy reasons]
Website:  www.csgv.org
Twitter:  http://twitter.com/CSGV
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/CoalitionToStopGunViolence/

It is now five days later and I still have not heard back from them. Although I am capable and willing to get my own attorney involved are there some “magic words” involving copyrights I need to invoke that might “encourage” them to remove the picture without the involvement of my lawyers?

Thanks.

Quote of the day—BobG

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It’s not his fault he made a bad drawing; he’s only used to seeing them head-on at eye level.

BobG
February 15, 2012
Comment at Say Uncle on why the drawing of a penis on my bumper sticker was nearly unrecognizable.
[Ellen’s comment was pretty funny too.—Joe]

Starbucks Appreciation Day report

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As today was Starbucks Appreciation Day (see also posts by Robb Allen, Say Uncle, Sebastian, Tamara, and Thirdpower <-MUST READ) as well as Valentine's Day Barb took the bus into Seattle to have lunch with me. The first thing we did was visit Starbucks where I bought a "Red Velvet Whoopie pie" on the recommendation of Sebastian plus a $50 Starbucks card for Barb and a $40 card for daughter Kim:

WP_000477

Barb took a picture of me in front of the store with my NRA Life Member patch and the receipts:

WP_000476

We went on to have lunch at a nice restaurant and I made a Tweet about our purchases at Starbucks. After lunch I purchased another $40 Starbucks card online for daughter Xenia who lives in Alaska. I Tweeted the total amount spent and it was Retweeted by three others.

That was a total of $131.64 we spent at Starbucks today. By all accounts the attempted boycott of Starbucks was a huge failure and I’m proud to have contributed to that.

Thank you Starbucks for respecting our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms and state laws.

Update: I posted the following message to Starbucks Corporate:

My wife and I visited one of your stores today in support of your refusal to bow to pressure from anti-gun rights activists who attempted a boycott of your store today. I am the blogger who started the “buycott” of your stores two years ago and happily contributed again this year. I purchased a total of $131.64 today (mostly in gift cards) and blogged about it here: https://blog.joehuffman.org/2012/02/14/starbucks-appreciation-day-report/

Thank you again for not getting involved. Keep doing what you do best–supplying a product that is enjoyed by millions.

Update 2: February 15th.

I was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times this morning about this blog post and the “buycott” of Starbucks. The main thrust was “Why did you do this?” I think it went well.

However there was some discussion of open carry and desensitization of people to the presence of guns in public and I may have messed up on this topic. In general I think there is little to be gained by this from a political perspective. There are cases where it does make sense but those cases somewhat rare. The decision to carry opening in public places needs to be carefully considered and evaluated on a case by case basis. I wrote a rather long blog post about open carry as a political statement and should be referenced before latching on to what may appear as a blanket statement by me against open carry.

Update 3: February 15th, 3:25 PM.

The Los Angeles Times article is online now. My fears were not realized. The reporter accurately reported what was said and did not take liberties.

Update 4: February 16th.

The Global Post also quotes me (via the LA Times).

Quote of the day–Kenn Blanchard

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During this time in American history, possession of a firearms was illegal for a person of color. This racism is the base of gun control today.

Kenn Blanchard
February 14, 2012
Maryland vs Moses – The Antebellum Madea
[It’s one of the dirty little secrets of gun control. Nearly all gun control laws in this country had their origins in the insistence that “those people” should not be allowed to posses guns. Most of “those people” had black skin, but sometimes they were from Ireland, and sometime they were from Italy or some other place. But the bottom line is people in power decided some minority with a different skin color or ethic background were not worthy to exercise the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.

I hear it even today with code words to hide their prejudice. I’ve had people tell me things like, “I don’t see a problem with people like you having guns but the people in the inner cities just can’t be allowed to have them.”—Joe]

Markley’s Law defacement

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I don’t know exactly when or where it happened but someone defaced the bumper sticker on my vehicle:

MarkleysLawBumperSticker

It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

Quote of the day—Steve H.

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http://oag.ca.gov/firearms/fsdcertlist

This is the URL where many of my dreams go to die.

Steve H.
February 7, 2012
[The URL is to the list of the gun California allows you to own.

What if the URL were to the list of religious or political philosophy books the government allowed you to own and/or read? How long would that survive constitutional challenges?

Via the gun discussion email list at work.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jacob Sullum

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Every time an advocate of gun control promises not to impair the recreational activities of hunters, he demonstrates his contempt for the values underlying the Second Amendment, implying that the issues at stake are trivial.

Jacob Sullum
Reason December 1995: 50-55
Via Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms page 60.
[Or as Weer’d Beard said, “George Washington didn’t cross the Delaware River to get to his duck blind.”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
[And we see that today in the way Washington D.C. and Chicago cling to their oppressive gun laws.—Joe]