What, only 3 dead children?
Gun owners had better step up their war on elementary school-age children and babies. They’ll never get them all only shooting three at a time.
jumkey
December 17, 2011
Comment to Sheriff: 5 dead in Ill. murder-suicide
[I don’t think any comment beyond the post category of “Crap for brains” is necessary.—Joe]
The anti-rights cultists’ logic fails: on the one hand, we are supposedly high-strung, hair-trigger murderers just waiting for any and all excuses to “whip out our pieces” and go on a shooting rampage, but on the other hand, “gun control” extremists feel quite comfortable insulting and attacking us on a regular basis.
Linoge
December 12, 2011
Comment to Quote of the day—lonewolfwisconsin.
[Made QOTD at the suggestion of Windy Wilson.
It’s a good point but I’m sort of dulled from the continuous expose to the irrationality of anti-gun people. These people live with one foot into an alternate universe where the potentialities of their active imaginations are just as real, if not more so, than reality itself. I wish there were a way to make it sink in that potentialities are not actualities.
We are constrained to live in the real world. Neither the utopia they try to legislate nor the “gun-owners will start shooing over parking spaces” universe they imagine are supported by the evidence gathered from all the different legislative experiments run in all the states and the Feds in the last several decades.
Being unconstrained by reality is probably good for art but makes for very poor public policy.—Joe]
The NRA should be referred to as the Assassin’s Lobby, since their advocacy primarily helps arm terrorists and mass-murderers.
edgeninja
December 2, 2011
Comment to Gun Ad Likens Obama To Hitler, Other Dictators.
[It’s good to know what they think of us. This should also be a hint as to what will happen to us if our political power becomes too weak.
Perhaps that explains why the terrorist watch list is so large. They are putting all 4.3 million NRA members on it.—Joe]
I had to go talk to my guns just now to let them know If I let them walk that they will be responsible for the violence they cause.
Liberals kill me by their complete lack of logic and reasoning abilities. They are like children.
Hence my talking to guns like they were children.
Conservative4Ever
December 9, 2011
Comment to Gunwalker goes “legal” … again
[He is insulting children. By the age of four my children had better reasoning abilities that some of the anti-gun people I’ve dealt with.—Joe]
By all accounts guns and associated gear are a big sellers for Christmas this year. Here is what one article says:
A sale for a basic Russian-made rifle — priced to move at $79.99, bayonet included — was targeted at bargain shoppers buying gifts for a first-time shooter.
“I’ve had little old ladies come in… and buy them by the crate for gifts for all the men in the family,” he said. “Across the board, we used to sell to men, adult men, ages 18 to 45. Now we’re advertising to everybody.”
According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, handgun production and imports more than doubled between 2005 and 2009 to 4.6 million, as changes in many laws have relaxed restrictions on carrying such weapons. Gallup’s annual crime poll in October showed record low support for a handgun ban for civilians. It was also the first time the poll found greater opposition to a ban on semiautomatic guns or assault rifles than support for such a restriction.
Say Uncle said Cheaper Than Dirt was running ads on the radio in his home town. I’ve been hearing them on a Seattle radio station too.
This made me wonder; What would be an appropriate gift for someone still aligned with The Brady Campaign? Mailing them a gun is out because that is still illegal. Ammo would be pointless because they probably don’t own any guns. Tequila has it’s appeal but a little birdy once told me someone at the Brady Campaign had a really bad drinking problem already and it wouldn’t be appropriate to tempt them. I can understand the temptation to give whiskey and sleeping pills but the humor would probably be lost on them. A one-way ticket to the “gun-free” utopia of the U.K. would probably be well received but it’s too expensive. I could see a Sad Panda being acceptable but it’s a little “down” and I think they really need something to cheer them up after all they have been through the last few years.
Therefore I believe some suggestions for a name change would be the ideal Christmas gift. With a name change they could have a chance of starting over without so much anti-gun baggage. They already changed their name from oppressive “Handgun Control Inc.” to the neutral sounding “The Brady Campaign”. It’s now time for something positive. They already say they are defending the Second Amendment (H/T to Sebastian) so here are my suggestions:
Second Amendment Supporters: The plan would be to beg for a buyout from The Second Amendment Foundation. But a SAF audit would find their computers are so old they are still running Windows 95, they are behind on the rent for their office space, Dennis Henigan doesn’t have a clue what Alan Gura is talking about, and the only the people on their mailing list that have donated any money in the last two years are a few people on the board of directors who stopped payment on the last check they gave them.
Handgunning and Running for Fun and Profit: They could start out helping the ATF run guns into Mexico then transition into USPSA/IPDA training.
And my favorite suggestion is Gunowners Anonymous: Initially they could offer to help people with their “gun addictions” but when no one shows up they could transition into a service to anonymize gun purchases.
Rumor has it that Sarah Brady is being put forward by the Shooting Industry Magazine as “saleswoman of the decade.” It is quite obvious that Sarah has done more to boost the sale of personal arms than any person in recent memory, and she should be appropriately honored.
Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries
Vol. 2, No. 4
22 March 1994
[This is in response to Ken in the comments here who suggested Clinton popularity and success meant people didn’t buy guns for fear they would be taken away shortly. And that the surge in sales at about the same time as Obama was elected were due to the Heller decision and not the threat of Obama.
But it that were true then why was there a big surge in sales during the first part of the Clinton presidency? I was there at the time. I was one of the people buying my first guns. Nearly everyone I talked to about guns were buying things they were afraid would soon be outlawed.
If you read the book Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun
As was widely reported at least ten days ago Dennis Henigan was in denial about the number of guns being purchased. He has a lot invested in that belief because The Brady Campaign has repeatedly said gun ownership is on the decline:
The report they quote was published by the Violence Policy Center. The VPC relied on gun data from the General Social Survey (GSS) conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago.
The tabular data agrees with the VPC report. But what is interesting is (as of 2001):
Trends in Gun Ownership
The proportion of households with a firearm has been in slow decline over the last quarter century (Table 6). In the early 1970s about 50% of adults lived in households that kept a firearm. This now has fallen about 34-35%. Similarly, the percent of adults living in a household with a gun fell from a high of 51 % in 1977 to a low of 32-33% in 2000-2001. These declines are partly the result of a decrease in household size. From 1980 until 1997 the proportion of adults personally owning a gun held steady at about 29%. However, since then even this level declined to about 22-24% of adults personally owning a gun.
One of ways people can “cheat without lying” with these statistics is to choose which number make their case look better when there is actually another variable that is changing. In this case the size of household affected the numbers.
In tough economic times households tend to get larger and hence the likelihood of someone owning a gun in the house could increase without the actual number of people owning guns increasing. Hence during good economic times the anti-gun people could chose to report declining “gun in the household” number while ignoring the fact that gun ownership on an individual basis was essentially constant.
I was unable to obtain the percentage of adults that own guns from the GSS data. Perhaps someone else can see a way to do it.
What is very interesting that I was able to get from the data is the number of people that refused to answer the question, given that a gun was in the house, “DOES GUN BELONG TO RESPONDENT?”
| Year | Percent Refusing |
| 1991 | 0.0 |
| 1993 | 1.4 |
| 1994 | 0.6 |
| 1996 | 0.8 |
| 1998 | 1.0 |
| 2000 | 3.6 |
| 2002 | 2.4 |
| 2004 | 3.6 |
| 2006 | 4.7 |
The number of people that refused to answer the question about a gun in the home was smaller but had a similar trend:
| Year | Percent Refusing |
| 1991 | 1.2 |
| 1993 | 0.6 |
| 1994 | 0.9 |
| 1996 | 0.4 |
| 1998 | 0.4 |
| 2000 | 1.3 |
| 2002 | 0.9 |
| 2004 | 1.4 |
| 2006 | 1.7 |
I would expect the upward trend to continue in 2008 and 2010 because of the mass buying associated with the election of President Obama.
I’m not sure that I have a good explanation for why the Gallup Poll reported gun in the home rate is much higher than reported by GSS (for the most recent GSS year I could find, 2006, is it 42% versus 34.5%). My speculation is that people are more trusting of Gallup than of a much lesser known organization located in an extremely anti-gun city such as Chicago. If that is true then one must also conclude that at something on the order of 5.8%* of the gun-owners lied and said “No” when asked if there was a gun in the house rather than merely refused to answer the question.
* 5.8% is obtained from (42% – 34.5%) – 1.7%
This post is essentially all plagiarized from various people on the email discussion list at work about this event (more details can be found here):
A pistol discovered in a passenger’s carry-on bag was accidentally fired inside the Atlanta airport, grazing a police officer, authorities said on Monday.
Security screeners at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport spotted the .22-caliber pistol Sunday via an X-ray machine and notified Atlanta police, Transportation Security Administration spokesman Jonathan Allen said.
Authorities said the gun was loaded with five rounds of ammunition known as “snake shot,” which typically is used to kill small animals. As a police officer tried to remove the rounds while pointing the weapon at a screening table, the gun was unintentionally fired, according to an incident report.
…
The passenger, a 43-year-old Georgia man, was arrested on weapons charges and remained in jail early on Monday. He told police that he “travels to Florida often on business and keeps the weapon on him for protection, not to kill anyone but in an attempt to scare people off,” the report said.
It was stupid to attempt going though the TSA screeners with a firearm. It was stupid for the police officer to fire the gun. It was stupid to carry snake loads for self protection against humans. It was stupid to carry a firearm to only scare people.
These people need to get laid. The persistent fears of some authority coming to take their guns (see: power, virility, agency) speaks to a rather deep seated insecurity of impotence and phallic malfunction. I don’t mind someone owning a handgun for protection of property or self, but the stockpiling of assault rifles either means they’re borderline, paranoid sociopaths or they’re desperately overcompensating for some other shortcomings…
ContrarianbyDefault
December 2, 2011
Comment to Gun Ad Likens Obama To Hitler, Other Dictators.
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!—Joe]
Guns are designed with one purpose only: to kill. Ending a life is the purpose of a gun. The argument that it’s preventative, that it’s the “well it’s either me or the guy coming through my door” mentality, or that guns create a safer society is just plain wrong. Guns are designed to kill. A specially designed piece of metal, slotted into another piece of metal and projected at incredible speeds at another person is designed to kill. There is no way to deny, refute, or get around this simple fact. So why are guns allowed? Why do we as a society accept these dangerous weapons into our community?
Christopher Merken
December 8, 2011
Another Virginia Tech Shooting, and What Should Be Done About It: It’s time to take a stand against gun violence
[Heavy sigh. Here we go again.
I’ve fired about 100,000 rounds through my guns without killing anything but two deer and a rattlesnake. By his logic my guns must have malfunctioned with nearly every shot.
He offers no studies to support his assertions. The best he can do is proof by vigorous assertion.
He asks, “Why are guns allowed?” as if that which government does not allow is forbidden. He apparently missed out on the high school government class where it was taught that government is only allowed certain enumerated powers and the people retain all other rights and powers. He has it exactly backward.
He’s got crap for brains.—Joe]
Although from my viewpoint I don’t see a lot of progress being made in Australia the gun control people are screaming bloody murder:
David Shoebridge says NSW has gone backwards on gun control.
As near as I can tell the problem for these people is that people are following the law and buying guns:
Figures obtained by The Sunday Telegraph show there are 188,885 people on the NSW Police Firearms Register, just short of the estimated 200,000 licence holders pre- the Port Arthur massacre, which triggered changes to gun laws.
NSW Greens described the increase as “alarming” and gun control groups warned that more and more firearms would end up on the black market.
“The trend is all one-way in NSW; that is, more guns and more gun owners and that is a dangerous trend,” NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge said.
“There’s a real concern where we are developing a gun culture here in NSW. A good part of the problem comes from the influence of the Shooters Party and the Gun Council here in NSW. We need this government to stand up to the gun lobby to restrict access, particularly to handguns, and ensure the current restrictions remain in place.”
It’s interesting and revealing that this politician wants to reduce the number of gun owners rather than just restrict the type of guns and that owners be licensed and their guns registered. It was the hope that the restrictions would decrease the number of gun owners. The ultimate goal of the anti-gun people must be, always has been, and always will be a complete ban.
I am sick and tired of you pussygunboys crying about your gunpowder and calling everyone names. You can now carry your precious guns anywhere, and there has been NO ATTEMPTS to restrict gun ownership in over 50 years. Just go to your KKK meetings and shutthehellup.
lonewolfwisconsin
December 2, 2011
Comment to Gun Ad Likens Obama To Hitler, Other Dictators.
[No attempts in over 50 years? So that would be since 1961.
lonewolfwisconsin must be from an alternate universe where the NRA aligned themselves with the KKK instead of the blacks defending themselves from the KKK. In that alternate universe none of the following gun restrictions and bans succeeded or thousands attempts occurred:
Either this is convincing proof that alternate universes exist or lonewolfwisconsin has crap for brains.
I’m going with crap for brains unless lonewolfwisconsin can demonstrate they are a disoriented time traveler from sometime prior to about 1865 (I know there have been periodic gun control attempts since at least the end of the Civil War).—Joe]
Natanel is a Buddhist, a self-avowed “spiritual person,”a 53-year-old divorcee who lives alone in a liberal-leaning suburb near Boston. She is 5-foot-1 (155 centimeters) and has blonde hair, dark eyes, a ready smile and a soothing voice, with a hint of Boston brogue. She’s a Tai Chi instructor who in classes invokes the benefits of meditation. And at least twice a month, she takes her German-made Walther PK380 to a shooting range and blazes away.
They give two token paragraphs to The Brady Campaign and a couple more to other anti-gun people but their arguments ring hollow with all the other very positive coverage.
And the icing that makes it so sweet is that it is on Bloomberg News.
Via daughter Xenia and Idaho gun lobbyist Mike Brown (who says, “Time for plan ‘B’”) we find that, pretty much as expected, the University of Idaho gets to keep banning guns on campus:
A state judge ruled Thursday in favor of the University of Idaho in a lawsuit challenging the school’s restrictions on keeping firearms in on-campus housing.
The ruling was handed down by 2nd District Judge John Stegner in a case brought by second-year law student Aaron Tribble. He filed his lawsuit in January, claiming that the university’s ban on firearms at his on-campus apartment infringed on his constitutional rights.
The university bans firearms on campus, but students are allowed to store and check out their guns at a police substation on the Moscow campus.
University attorneys said that Tribble agreed to waive certain rights when he entered into an agreement to live on campus — an argument that the judge agreed with, the Moscow-Pullman Daily News reported (http://bit.ly/szuuZ4 ). The judge wrote the state Board of Regents has a right to regulate and maintain a safe environment on campus.
Mike and I have had many long talks about this lawsuit and the issue of guns on Idaho campuses. While the lawsuit was with the best of intentions it probably wasn’t the best way to approach the problem. Mike thinks we have a much better chance fixing this problem going through the legislature. We came close last year but there are highly charged emotional issues that need to be carefully addressed. We will be trying again this year. Part of the plan may include a private Boomershoot party for the legislators.
It’s a small world.
In addition to this being in the town where I have my Idaho home, everyone in our immediate family and many in our extended family went to college here. Daughter Kim still attends and will graduate in June. When in grade school Kim was good friends with one of Judge Stegner’s daughters. Stegner was the judge on the one trial I where I was on a jury. If Tribble appeals it probably will go before appeals court Judge Karen Lansing. Karen is my cousin. When growing up we lived 0.75 miles apart and she used to read me books when I was very little. The hillside where all the long range targets for Boomershoot are placed is owned by Karen’s brother.
It was feared that the Massachusetts gun confiscation was the prototype for confiscation throughout America.
David B. Kopel
December 2, 2011
How the British Gun Control Program Precipitated the American Revolution
[Kopel is referring to incidents in 1775 but the words could have just as easily applied to the late 20th Century.
The people of Massachusetts went to war against their government because of gun control in 1775 yet Massachusetts politicians lead the way for gun controllers of present day. I keep thinking they should be charged with treason but I doubt I could get much traction with that meme.—Joe]
I just finished reading David Kopel’s paper How the British Gun Control Program Precipitated the American Revolution. I found it fascinating. It was like an exciting short story but with lots of footnotes.
There is a lot of great material in it and my QOTD for tomorrow will come from it.
What follow are some of the highlights.
In 1777 when British victory seemed likely Colonial Undersecretary William Knox drafted a plan entitled “What Is Fit to Be Done with America?” It included the following:
The Militia Laws should be repealed and none suffered to be re-enacted, & the Arms of all the People should be taken away, . . . nor should any Foundery or manufactuary of Arms, Gunpowder, or Warlike Stores, be ever suffered in America, nor should any Gunpowder, Lead, Arms or Ordnance be imported into it without Licence . . . .
Imagine how different things would be today had the British won. Kopel convincingly presents the case (Patrick Henry’s speech of March 23, 1775 is just a hint) that the American citizens knew this was coming and was a significant, if not major, motivation for rebellion.
I especially like this (page 32):
The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits the import of any firearm which is not deemed “sporting” by federal regulators. That import ban seems difficult to justify based on the historical record of 1774-76, or on District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, both of which hold that, while sporting uses such as hunting are part of the Second Amendment, the “core” and “central component” of the Second Amendment is self-defense.
And this (page 32):
Laws which aim to disarm the public at large are precisely what turned a political argument into the American Revolution. Sometimes, legislative history will frankly reveal that the purpose of an anti-gun law was to discourage gun ownership in general, or that the law was based on hostility to gun ownership. This is the case for New York City’s pistol licensing fees. Everywhere in New York State, the fee for the issuance or renewal of a handgun permit is $10 (plus a separate $95 fee for a fingerprint check for first-time applications). But in New York City, the fee is over $340, payable every three years. The explicitly stated purpose of allowing the New York City government to charge extra fees was to discourage handgun ownership in the City.
In Alameda County, California, the five-person County Board of Supervisors banned gun shows on county property at the behest of a Supervisor who complained that her previous efforts to ban gun shows had “gotten the run around from spineless people hiding behind the constitution.” She explained that the County should not “provide a place for people to display guns for worship as deities for the collectors who treat them as icons of patriotism.” Nevertheless, the Ninth Circuit upheld the ban because the other supervisors who voted for the ordinance might have had legitimate motives.
He concludes with:
Gun ownership simpliciter ought never to be a pretext for government violence. The Americans in 1775 fought a war because the king did not agree. Americans of the 21st century should not squander the heritage of constitutional liberty bequeathed by the Patriots.
As I have said before, public servants who advocate gun control must have forgotten they are servants or intend to change the relationship.
I now read in David Kopel’s new paper, How the British Gun Control Program Precipitated the American Revolution (via Say Uncle):
The ideology underlying all forms of American resistance to British usurpations and infringements was explicitly premised on the right of self-defense of all inalienable rights; from the self-defense foundation was constructed a political theory in which the people were the masters and government the servant, so that the people have the right to remove a disobedient servant. The philosophy was not novel, but was directly derived from political and legal philosophers such as John Locke, Hugo Grotius, and Edward Coke.
This is good news from the ATF:
Since 1998, the Gun Control Act (GCA) has prohibited certain nonimmigrant aliens from receiving or possessing firearms or ammunition that have a connection to interstate commerce.
…
Recently, the Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, (OLC) has informed ATF that its interpretation of the scope of persons prohibited by section 922(g)(5)(B) is overly broad. That is, OLC determined that the prohibition contained in section 922(g)(5)(B) does not extend to all nonimmigrant aliens present in the United States, but only extends to aliens who were admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa. Some nonimmigrant aliens, including most Canadian visitors, as well as aliens admitted under the Visa Waiver program, are allowed to be present in the United States without a nonimmigrant visa. Those aliens, and others who are lawfully in the country without a visa, are not within the scope of the GCA prohibition. This interpretation of the scope of persons prohibited by section 922(g)(5)(B) extends to the scope of transfers of firearms by sellers (including Federal firearms licensees) under 922(d)(5)(B).
The way I read this is that more visitors to our country will soon be able to legally purchase and use firearms while they are here. This will mean they can defend themselves as well as participate in the shooting sports. This is a good thing for spreading freedom around the world. Plus it’s probably going to make anti-gun people cry.
When even the ATF makes anti-gun people unhappy you just have to smile and think maybe things still might turn out okay.
The Guardian (U.K.) is either living in the past, is willfully ignoring the evidence and news, or is engaged in deliberate misinformation. I have to conclude the later because of the extreme anti-gun bias of people in the U.K.) and the following evidence:
“The United States is the easiest and the cheapest place for drug traffickers to get their firearms, and as long as we are the easiest and cheapest place for the cartels to get their firearms there’ll continue to be gun trafficking,” said J Dewey Webb, the special agent in charge of pursuing weapons traffickers in Texas at the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
…
87% of firearms seized by Mexico over the previous five years were traced to the US. Texas was the single largest source. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, told Congress last month that of 94,000 weapons captured from drug traffickers by the Mexican authorities, over 64,000 originated in the US.
Kristen Rand, director of the Violence Policy Center, is quoted extensively. No pro-gun organizations were quoted.
And, of course, the reason all this gun trafficking occurs is because of the evils of capitalism:
“Why does this arms business continue?” Calderon said in June. “I say it openly: it’s because of the profit which the US arms industry makes.”
“Reasoned discourse” has of course been implemented. No comments are allowed.
If this isn’t enough to convince you they are engaged in deliberate misinformation watch the video in the article. From the music to the images of bullet holes, piles of drugs and money, and text they chose they make it very clear they believe the gun laws of the U.S. are evil.
The Department of Justice used Operation Fast and Furious to manufacture gun crimes, and then used those crimes to argue for more gun restrictions. If this sounds eerily like the cliche of a mob protection racket to you, you’re right on the money. This is racketeering, and those DOJ officials responsible needs to face a criminal trial under RICO statues.
Bob Owens
December 7, 2011
ATF used Fast and Furious to argue for new gun control measures
[Further mob like in their behavior was that gun dealers had the threat of ATF retribution hanging over their heads if they didn’t go along with the ATF mandated behavior they believed to be wrong and endangered innocent life.
When is the special prosecutor going to be appointed to clean up this mess?—Joe]