I hope one day to tell “boogeyman” stories to my grandkids about how the Brady Campaign will come back and take their guns if they don’t adhere to the 3 (4) basic rules of gun safety.
IrishPirate
December 20, 2010
Brady’s going broke, telling same old lies
[Let’s make this a reality as soon as possible. It probably won’t be all that long before I have grandkids.—Joe]
And the “occassional freak” who does something like Dunblane is ACTUALLY LESS of a PROBLEM WITH A GUN than without one !
Without a gun, the Dunblane thing could have been done ‘better and more effectively’ with 2 cans of petrol – one poured round the outside of the building first, to prevent people leaving, then one inside to burn them out – it would kill everyone. (As Bomber Command how to kill thousands of people and the answer is fire, not shrapnel)
But we don’t ban petrol – we cart millions of gallons of the stuff through our city streets every day.
We SHOULD make guns a lot more accessible to the general public – as in Switzerland where EVERY adult male has an automatic assault rifle, no less.
john_u
December 12, 2010
WRONG – WE THE PEOPLE SHOULD BE ARMED !
[I find it encouraging this and a number of other pro-gun comments are showing up in a U.K media outlet. Gun rights is not completely dead over there.
I have sometimes considered analyzing crimes committed using firearms and showing there was a “better” way to have committed the crime without a firearm. The mass killings are the easiest to demonstrate this. And as john_u suggests fire is one of the better ways. Driving a vehicle through crowds of people and causing structures to fail are also “good” methods.
I have not done so for two reasons. 1) I’m hesitant to give people ideas on effective mass murder. And 2) There aren’t that many mass murders to analyze.—Joe]
O.
Joan Peterson
Brady Campaign Board Member
December 16, 2010
Response to the question, “How few murders have to be committed with firearms before the push for new, more restrictive laws ends?”
[Thanks to Bob S. and others for setting her up for and catching this.
I presume she meant “zero” rather than “Oh” but I’ll give her a pass on that. I remember when some typewriters didn’t have the digits ‘1’ and ‘0’ because you were supposed to use a lower case ‘L’ and a capital ‘o’ for them. I will not give her a pass on the intent.
Zero is not possible as long as people and guns exist. No matter how lives are saved with guns, not matter how successful “gun violence prevention” programs are, no matter how many court rules there are that the right to keep in bear arms is a specific enumerated right, this Brady Campaign Board member will demand evermore restrictions on that right.
What she is saying is that guns are somehow different than other tools used to commit murders. If she were to advocate for a position like this in regard to sticks, stones, fists, or feet she would be hauled off to the loony bin. But somehow with a constitutionally protected right at issue there exists an organization that makes her a board member.
The whole lot of them are essentially politically extinct at the Federal level because more and more people are getting a clue as to just how disconnected from reality these people are. We just need to drive them into extinction at the state and local level.—Joe]
Via John Richardson we find the anti-gun bigots attempted to do one of their usual tricks of twisting the facts. This time it was in the Chicago “assault weapon” ban and they got caught:
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Appellate Court defense of the county gun ban (Wilson, et. al. v. Cook County, et. al.) got off to a bad start when briefs filed by the county before the First District Appellate Court were found to contain factual errors. More specifically, these factual errors included the misquoting of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago cases. (The ISRA was a Plaintiff in McDonald). When these errors were brought to light by the plaintiffs, the county hastily filed a motion to withdraw the erroneous briefs in favor of amended versions. Presently, the plaintiffs in the case have moved to strike the amended briefs as the amendments do not remedy the ramifications of the misquotes contained in the original set of briefs. In fact the County may have used their own “errors” to further violate the Court’s rules and to additional arguments and bolster existing arguments in their amended brief.
“We find it interesting that the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office would blame ‘electronic errors’ for the tainting of its briefs with misquotes,” commented ISRA spokesman, Richard Pearson. “This situation is made all the more curious given that the misquotes would fundamentally alter the intent of two landmark Supreme Court decisions – D.C. v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago. In the county’s briefs, the two high court decisions are erroneously quoted as addressing ‘common handguns’ whereas the decisions, as written, do not contain the phrase ‘common handguns.’ There is a clear difference when one addresses handguns versus ‘common’ handguns in that the latter would drastically reduce the types of firearms whose ownership is protected under the Second Amendment.”
“If I were a cynic,” continued Pearson, “I’d suggest that these ‘electronic errors’ were just poorly executed attempts by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office to re-write the Heller and McDonald decisions more to Mayor Daley’s liking.”
How can anyone not see the bigotry in these actions? How is this any different than the way the politicians of 50 to 70 years ago in the deep south kept the blacks repressed? They have been shown to be in violation of the highest law of the land and yet they continue to resist conforming to it “dragging their feet” and lying every step of the way.
At what point are we going to finally send in the U.S. Marshalls and National Guard to arrest these bigots and/or force them into compliance?
In a somewhat related post see Sebastian’s post where he asks, “How long before the gig is up, and even the die hards realize it?” I think the U.S. Marshalls arresting the politicians enforcing unconstitional laws would pretty much cause even the most dimwitted to get realize the exit light was glowing.
The constitution is too long.
It should have started with “Fuck you!” and ended with “Fuck you!” In the middle it should have said, “Provide for the common defense.”
The 1st Amendment should read, “Congress will make no law” and we are done.
Jim G.
December 14, 2010
[I had lunch with Jim. Instead of the usual gun control issues we were talking about the TSA and health care. This wasn’t even the portion of the conversation where the water I was drinking spurted out my nose.
Jim has some strong Libertarian leanings.—Joe]
In Washington State it is legal to carry a pistol openly (or, with a license, concealed). But an apparently brain dead lawmaker (Representative Appleton) wants to make it illegal to carry a knife with a blade greater than 3.5 inches long.
This is entirely consistent with the Seattle ordinance that prohibits public carry of Airsoft guns and slingshots while real firearms are allowed.
I guess this could be considered the legislative command “don’t bring a knife to a gun fight” but I somehow don’t think that is what she had in mind.
Unlike section 12031, the District of Columbia law did not contain, and the Supreme Court declined to infer, an exception for self-defense. Id. The Heller Court did not reach the question of whether the law would have been constitutional had there been an exception for self-defense. See id. As a consequence, the Court declines to assume that section 12031 places an unlawful burden on the right to carry a firearm for self-defense.
Irma E. Gonzalez
December 10, 2010
United States District Court Southern District of California
Case 09CV2371-IEG (BGS), Order (1) Denying plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment, and (2) Granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment
Page 8, lines 18-22.
[Sebastian also has a post on the topic as does John Richardson.
I’m reminded of Aesop’s fable of the fox and the grapes—with a twist.
The Brady Campaign is quite pleased with this order because it says concealed carry is not a guaranteed right. But what they don’t mention is that the reason given by the judge that it doesn’t infringe is that an exemption exists for open carry. While the courts don’t always rule consistently this does imply that some sort of public carry is believed to constitutionally protected. Hence the Brady Campaign may be crowing about how sweet the grapes are because concealed carry restrictions are upheld while open carry becomes a guaranteed right beyond their reach.—Joe]
Are you a sportsman? Do you like to shoot pistols at targets? Well then get on the subway and go to Maryland. There is no problem!
Justice Stephen Breyer
December 13, 2010
Via John Richardson.
[See also the posts by Sebastian, Alan, Weerd Beard, and Say Uncle.
At what point does this right becomes infringed in Breyer opinion? What if there was only one city in the country that allowed the possession and use of a pistol in public. Suppose that one city was Barrow Alaska (300 miles NORTH of the artic circle) and that was only when there was a polar bear watch in effect (yes, they have polar bears roaming the streets sometimes). Is there still “no problem”?
As pointed out in comments to the above posts (note that Snowflakes in Hell is down and will be for at least a few more hours) this statement by Breyer can be shown to be irrational and inconsistent with the rest of the Bill of Rights by transforming the restricted object to be something other than a gun such as:
Here are some of my contributions to that meme:
—Joe]
The gun control side of America has fallen apart.
Phillip Van Cleave
From the Virginia Citizens Defense League
December 12, 2010
Death of eight-year-old becomes a symbol of lost struggle by US gun control lobby
[The struggle over gun ownership was a legal conflict between individual responsibility and group punishment. The individual is taking the lead for a while. Let us hope it continues and spreads to other areas as well.—Joe]
For a little over a year from February 2008 until April 2009 we were treated to great sarcasm and lots of speculation about who could be the author for the VPC Blog. At the NRA Convention last May it came up again—no one would admit to doing it or knew who wrote it.
It may be the author moved to the U.K. because we now have some great posts at Gun Control Network with this slogan setting the tone:
Most intensely bad gun laws are enacted in places like New York or California or Illinois, and we’ve only had the ability to sue them for a few months [since McDonald]. The idea that it’s time to throw up our hands and declare it’s over because the ink is barely dry [on McDonald] and nothing has happened except for crazy people in criminal cases [losing Second Amendment claims] is a little premature.
Alan Gura
December 9, 2010
You Must Get Gun Range Training. But You Can’t Get Gun Range Training. Shaping the future of the Second Amendment in post-McDonald Chicago by Brian Doherty
[I like to think of this as a message to Brady Campaign supporters as, “Just because you aren’t in jail yet doesn’t mean we aren’t coming for you or that we won’t get you.”
Also note that Brian Doherty wrote Gun Control on Trial and interviewed me for it. See also these excerpts from it.—Joe]
John Lennon’s son, Sean, says he really enjoys shooting guns. He also says he doesn’t people should be armed. But that might change—his girlfriend is from Georgia and “Lennon was invited down to the shooting range so that the family could see if their daughter’s new squeeze was ‘a straight shooter’.”
The more familiar he becomes with guns the more likely he is to realize his feelings toward them really are because of the misuse of the gun by a mentally disturbed individual rather than the possession of firearms by ordinary people.
Taking a new shooter to the range is an important part of winning. This example is just another small step to driving the anti-gun activists into political extinction.
We find no evidence that gun shows lead to substantial increases in either gun homicides or suicides. In addition, tighter regulation of gun shows does not appear to reduce the number of firearms-related deaths.
…
If anything, we find evidence of a modest decline in the number of homicides following the average gun show.
Mark Duggan, Randi Hjalmarsson, and Brian A. Jacob
October 2008
The Effect of Gun Shows on Gun-Related Deaths: Evidence from California and Texas
[Via email from Mark M. who sent me a link to this NYT article which referenced the paper I quote above.
Again, we have to ask Just One Question of the anti-gun people. One of the few remaining domains they believe they can gain traction on is the “gun show loophole”. Yet the evidence is that such regulation has, at best, zero benefit. If they were to base their legislative agenda on facts and reason they would be force to look at some other domain of firearm law. But from the Brady Campaign’s own website their stated goals are restricting gun shows, banning “assault weapons”, “giving law enforcement new legal authority to crack down on corrupt gun dealers” (I don’t know what this means and I’m not sure they do either), and “one gun a month” laws. Yet where and when they have been implemented none of their legislative goals has ever demonstrated an increase in public safety. Hence we can only conclude one of two things: 1) Public safety is not their true goal; or 2) Data and reason are irrelevant to them—they are bigots.
I find it interesting that although they don’t list restrictions on the carriage of firearms in public as part of their goals they do frequently whine about it and push back against it when it does come up before the legislatures. It could be that they realize that is a losing issue. They fought that battle for 25 years with the result being they slowly lost essentially the entire country:
The force of darkness has been pushed back. We must now drive it into political extinction no matter how much they whine.—Joe]
I wonder if the dinosaurs sounded this whiny when they went extinct?
Say Uncle
December 8, 2010
Classy
Referring to Josh Horwitz’s (Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence) post about the plaintiff in a gun rights lawsuit in Texas.
[And political extinction must be our goal.
It is tempting to back off of the gun rights issue and do something more fun for a change because we aren’t facing any immediate threats. But the thing is that we aren’t facing any political threats right now but there is still a significant social component of people who hate guns and gun owners. The political threat goes to near zero as soon as the social component goes a little below 50%. But slight above 50% and the threat is just as strong as ever. It is a lot like a switch. It is either On or Off. Think of the Supreme Court with the 5-4 decisions in Heller and McDonald. Had the decisions been 4-5 our world would be a completely different place today.
We breath somewhat easy today and talk of gun rights blogging being more difficult (BTW, I completely disagree) but things could rapidly change with only a few percentage points difference in our society. We need to politically and socially exterminate this menace to human rights. We do that by mocking them, comparing them to the KKK, and showing the vast majority of people the fun and benefits of gun ownership and use until their numbers are in the low single digits.—Joe]
They say that they are law abiding citizens but there’s no way of knowing that. There’s no accountability for this group.
Karen Arntzen
Of the California Brady Campaign.
November 27, 2010
Restaurant Is Stage For Debate Over Open Carry Law
[Via The Madman Raves.
I really don’t get her point.
Accountability? The open carry people she is talking about is just as accountable as she is. And just like with her when someone meets her on the street there is no way of knowing if she is law abiding.
Does she think that if the people open carrying were wearing a uniform and a badge that would make them more law abiding or accountable?
It’s as if I understand all the words she is using but I can’t make sense of her sentence.
The Madman Raves interprets it as “I believe she just called all open carry practitioners ‘criminals’.” —Joe]
The Jew Alfred Flatow was found to be in possession of one revolver with twenty-two rounds of ammunition, two pocket pistols, one dagger, and thirty one knuckledusters. Arms in the hands of Jews are a danger to public safety.
Police First Sergeant Colisle
Via an arrest report from Berlin, October 4, 1938.
He was arrested based on the above while attempting to comply with an order to turn in all firearms to the government. His firearm was legally owned and registered. It wasn’t until November 11, 1938 that the Weapons Control Act of 1938 went into effect making it illegal for Jews to own firearms. Hence, he was arrested while complying with the law at the time.
After his arrest he was turned over to the Gestapo and transported to Terezin in October of 1942. He died of starvation in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in December 1942.
Journal on Firearms & Public Policy Volume 21, Fall 2009, “Arms in the Hands of Jews Are a Danger to Public Safety”: Nazism, Firearm Registration, and the Night of the Broken Glass, pages 28 & 29.
[I am reminded of this suggestion:
The lessons of the 20th Century:
Lesson No. 1:
If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and take you someplace you don’t want to go because of who you are or what you think– kill him. If you can, kill the politician who sent them. You will likely die anyway, and you will be saving someone else the same fate. For it is a universal truth that the intended victims always far outnumber the tyrant’s executioners. Any nation which practices this lesson will quickly run out of executioners and tyrants, or they will run out of it.
Lesson No. 2:
If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and confiscate your firearms– kill him. The disarmament of law-abiding citizens is the required precursor to genocide.
Lesson No. 3:
If a bureaucrat tells you that he must know if you have a firearm so he can put your name on a list for the common good, or wants to issue you an identity card so that you may be more easily identified– tell him to go to hell. Registration of people and firearms is the required precursor to the tyranny which permits genocide. Bureaucrats cannot send soldiers to doors that aren’t on their list.
Lesson No. 4
Believe actions, not words. Tyrants are consummate liars. Just because a tyrant is “democratically elected” doesn’t mean that he believes in democracy. Reference Adolf Hitler, 1932. And just because a would-be tyrant mouths words of reverence to law and justice, or takes a solemn oath to uphold a constitution, doesn’t mean he believes such concepts apply to him. Reference Bill Clinton, among others. The language of the lie is just another tool of killers. A sign saying “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Makes You Free) posted above an execution camp gate doesn’t mean that anybody gets out of there alive, and a room labeled “Showers” doesn’t necessarily make you clean. Bill Clinton notwithstanding, the meaning of “is” is plain when such perverted language gets you killed. While all tyrants are liars, it is true that not all political liars are would-be tyrants– but they bear close watching. And keep your rifle handy.
–Joe]
I thought to myself: “Brady Bunch lady, are you serious? You’re trying to cover his sign? What, are you five years old?”
The Madman
November 29, 2010
Anti-Gunners Are Childish
[Hmmm… mental maturity of five? That sounds about right for a Brady Campaign supporter.—Joe]
So the gun control advocates, 2/3rds evil, 1/3 stupid. I would say full evil except that there are some gun control advocates who are able to learn, so not all of the ignorance is willful. Still, evil must be opposed.
American Mercenary
December 1, 2010
Evil or Stupid?
[I’m not sure I agree with this. If you read the analysis you will find that, according to him it boils it down to willful ignorance being evil.
I think before resolving this question one has to define evil. If it is defined as intentionally doing harm we will arrive at a different conclusion than if we were to agree that evil means the results are harmful and/or injurious regardless of intent.
But the end result is the same. Even if they have the best of intentions gun control advocates are harmful and must be opposed.
How we oppose the gun control advocate must be tailored to the advocate. Someone who obviously lies and misrepresents facts can be safely exposed as evil. But labeling the willful ignorance of someone with the best of intentions and perhaps the loss of an innocent loved one in their background as evil is probably going to do more damage than good.—Joe]
The mayor said the new laws break nearly two decades of what he termed “legal silence” and “legislative silence” on gun control laws to help reduce homicides and assaults in the city.
Adams noted that 4 out of 10 homicides in the city are committed with guns.
He says “legal and legislative silence” as if it were a bad thing. What if he were talking about blacks/Jews/homosexuals instead of gun ownership? The mayor should be politically skewered for this infringement just as severely as if he had pushed through laws aimed specifically at people with different colored skin who happened to commit some high percentage of the homicides.
Good intentions are not sufficient reason to infringe upon a specific enumerated right.
