Frequently the anti-gun bigots claim that since “strict gun laws are the norm in most countries” we should have similar restrictions in our country. If that were, in fact, a valid basis for implementing laws then when this country was founded we would have had a state religion and a king.
And suppose slavery was the norm in most of the world. Would that be justification to implement slavery in this country?
Via Dave Hardy we have a view from the other side.
I haven’t read the entire thing yet but I found this interesting (page 4):
Ironically, the surge in gun purchases coincided with an ammunition shortage in the U.S. in 2009. Industry experts estimate that close to 12 billion rounds of ammunition were sold that year, up from average annual sales figures that lie somewhere between 7 billion and 10 billion.
First off, I don’t see anything ironic about ammo sales increasing dramatically at the same time as gun sales go up.
But more importantly–think about those numbers. 12 billion rounds of ammunition is almost enough for two rounds for every person on the planet!
If it were true, as some bigots claim, that guns and bullets (or some knives) are only good for killing people then nearly all those bullets must have been defective. Or as Eric Shelton says, “If handguns cause crime, mine’s defective”. The violent crime rate did not go up in proportion to the gun or ammunition sales. Hence it cannot be truthfully claimed that “gun availability” increase violent crime.
All I can do is pray that all the publicity will make them want to decide to take down the ads — so we can sue!
Alan Gottlieb
Founder, Second Amendment Foundation
September 3, 2010
San Francisco may start gun fight over pro-firearm ads
[It’s about this ad (here is a link to the photographer and larger pictures of the posters):
It is, as McCullagh writes, because:
A San Francisco transit agency spokesman says the city is investigating whether pro-gun ads, which an advocacy group recently purchased, should have been posted in transit stations this week.
The city’s policy on such ads is strict but clear: It says that “no advertisement” shall “promote the use of firearms.”
Have these people forgotten they live in the United States instead of someplace like Cuba or North Korea? I can’t imagine the courts siding with the want-to-be tyrants in San Francisco on this issue. Establishing more precedent for freedom is a very good thing.
Do not forget this is their goal:
Even toy guns must be destroyed. There is no common ground with these people.
It’s nice to know the money I have been donating (matched dollar for dollar by Microsoft) is being put to good use. SAF and friends haven’t been winning all their court battles but they sure have been making good progress with their objective to “win back our firearms freedoms one lawsuit at a time”.—Joe]
In his 99-page article, Professor Bogus reviews wide-ranging evidence including an analysis of Madison’s original language and an understanding of how he and other founders drew on England’s Declaration of Rights. Madison’s concern, Professor Bogus concludes, was not hunting, self-defense, national defense, or resistance to governmental tyranny but slave control.
…
During the panel discussion, all three experts said that “The Hidden History” has dramatic implications for the contemporary debate over gun control. Rather than applying to individual gun ownership, the three agreed, the Second Amendment is rooted in the political battle over control of militia forces and ratification of the Constitution. This history, which has been endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court, is often ignored by modern day pro-gun lobbyists.
Violence Policy Center
Second Amendment Rooted in Southern States’ Control of Slavery, Academic Experts Say
May 15, 1998
[Odd isn’t it? This “hidden history” didn’t get any traction 10 years later when all nine of the U.S. Supreme Court justices agreed the Second Amendment protected an individual right. Perhaps the evidence Professor Bogus presented was, well, bogus.—Joe]
Recently I have been seeing the anti-gun people almost begging for mercy and asking for “common ground” (see also Paul Helmke):
I am quite sure there is common ground somewhere. Can we get there? Can we talk? Can we agree on just a few things?
…
Can we get together and do what’s right? Can we agree that too many people are shot to death in our country? Can we agree that some common sense laws make sense and won’t affect those who are law abiding and want to own their guns and carry their guns? Can we agree that there are actually a few places where we don’t actually need guns? Can we agree that gun violence is a public safety and public health problem? Can we agree that stopping the injuries and deaths caused by guns is a social justice issue?
What they do not seem to understand (or just a likely do not want to admit) is that any of the laws they advocate which would “prevent gun violence” are prior restraint on a specific enumerated right and have a chilling effect on the exercise of that right. We can no more find common ground on this topic than we can find common ground with someone who would demand we get government approval before buying a book, dating someone of the same sex, or marrying someone of a different race. And in fact a better legal case could be made for the last two examples because they are not specifically enumerated rights.
These people are weasels that have no interest in finding common ground, playing fair or even pretending their laws “won’t affect those who are law abiding” and only affect criminal when they are in the drivers seat. They need to be, and deserve to be, politically exterminated and their leaders sent to prison.
The guy yesterday that held people hostage at Discovery Channel making demands that they “save the planet” by having a programing agenda that advocated for the voluntary extinction of humans (thanks to Ry for sending me the link to his webpage) will be dismissed as a nut case. This is probably valid but perhaps further consideration should be given to the topic. Don’t forget that not only did this nut case base his philosophy on the work of Al Gore but so did Ted Kaczynski.
We have known for a long time that anti-gun activists have strong violence tendencies. And such things as John Cusack’s “I AM FOR A SATANIC DEATH CULT CENTER AT FOX NEWS HQ AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICES [OF DICK] ARMEY AND NEWT GINGRICH-and all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS” is not all that uncommon.
And of course all the great genocides of the last century were under leftist regimes.
The Animal Liberation Front, and Earth Liberation Front are two of the top domestic terrorist organizations in the U.S. and are, obviously, liberal. Add in the Weather Underground, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Symbionese Liberation Army, and lots of other leftist terrorists going back to at least the 1960s and you realize that while they don’t have a monopoly on illegal violence they dominate to such an extent they might as well have a monopoly.
Why are liberals so violent?
My hypothesis is that at some level they know that is the only method by which they can achieve their goals. They, almost by definition, believe in the power of government to “do good” no matter what domain they enter into. They believe in central planning and “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” But as George Washington said, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master.” Government is force. It is violence. Every dictate of the government is backed up with people with guns who job it is to force compliance.
Those who want to expand government, by definition, want to expand the use of force to achieve their goals. It should therefore come as no surprise that liberal individuals and groups are inclined to use violence to further their goals even outside the domain of government.
This also might explain why most liberals are opposed to the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. It explains why they keep insisting, long after the courts have ruled otherwise, that the Second Amendment only protects the power of a state to arm itself independent of the Federal government. The explanation is that they see the willingness inside themselves and those they associate with to use violence and they fear it. They believe they, and everyone else, might use violence in an unethical manner if allowed the tools and the opportunity. They believe in the wisdom of “the central committee” to temper the violent impulses they believe the individuals to have.
This might also explain why liberals accuse the others of violence tendencies. They are projecting the worst fears about themselves onto their opponents.
These violent tendencies can be dealt with at the individual and small group level via the police and the legal system and amount to noise in the big picture of things. It’s at the governmental level that we have genocides with millions dead in the span of a few years. It is at the government level that we must enforce strong restrictions on their power to deliver violence against individuals. This is why we have a constitution that (by design, not in practice) limits governments to a small set of enumerated powers and the Second Amendment to stop a runaway government from becoming tyrannical. One might even be able to make the case that the Second Amendment isn’t only not about hunting–it’s about protecting us from liberals.
Update (6/16/2016): The Orlando Florida gay nightclub shooter was a registered Democrat.
More examples from here:
In 1865 a Democrat shot and killed Abraham Lincoln.. President of the United States.
In 1881 a left wing radical Democrat shot James Garfield President of the United States who later died from the wound.
In 1963 a radical left wing socialist shot and killed John F. Kennedy President of the United States.
In 1975 a left wing radical Democrat fired shots at Gerald Ford, President of the United States.
In 1983 a registered Democrat shot and wounded Ronald Reagan, President of the United States.
In 1984 James Hubert, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 22 people in a McDonalds restaurant.
In 1986 Patrick Sherrill, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 15 people in an Oklahoma post office.
In 1990 Jame Pough a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 10 people at a GMAC office….
In 1991 George Hennard a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 23 people in a Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen , TX.
In 1995 James Daniel Simpson, a disgruntled Democrat shot and killed 5 coworkers in a Texas laboratory.
In 1999 Larry Asbrook, a disgruntled Democrat shot and killed 8 people at a church service.
In 2001 a left wing radical Democrat fired shots at the White House in a failed attempt to kill George W. Bush President of the US.
In 2003 Douglas Williams a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 7 people at a Lockheed Martin plant.
In 2007 a registered Democrat named Seung – Hui Cho, shot and killed 32 people in Virginia Tech.
In 2010 a mentally ill registered Democrat named Jared Lee Loughner, shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed 6 others.
In 2011 a registered Democrat named James Holmes went into a movie theater and shot and killed 12 people.
In 2012 Andrew Engeldinger a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 7 people in Minneapolis.
In 2013 a registered Democrat named Adam Lanza..shot and killed 26 people in a school in Newtown CT.
Sept 2013.. an angry Democrat shot 12 at a Navy ship
1968 James Earl Ray… worker in George Wallace’s presidential campaign(Democrat), shot and killed Martin Luther King…..`
June 2016 Registered Democrat, Omar Mateen, murdered 49 people and wounded more than 50 others at the Orlando nightclub Pulse.
Update 1/7/2017:
One scientist confirms the claim that leftist are violent and has a different hypothesis as to why:
Update June 19, 2017: Surveys show that criminal prisoners who identify as Democrats outnumber all other political affiliations combined by a factor of more than two to one.
Update February 27, 2018: See also Elaboration on the inherent violent nature of the modern liberal.
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
Ben Franklin
Also attributed to a motto found among Thomas Jefferson’s papers.
[You would think that with all the data supporting the concept of the right to keep and bear arms as a legitimate method of last resort to overthrow a tyrannical government the anti-gun people would give up trying to scare people into giving up that specific enumerated right. It didn’t work when the Democrats in the deep south tried to “scare the white folks” about all the terrible things that would happen if people with dark colored skin weren’t closely controlled after the civil war. So why would they think it would work when Democrats from the west coast and the Northeast try to scare people about the exercise of rights that have existed since before this country was created? —Joe]
The Brady Campaign is proudly touting an interview they did with United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan:
Duncan is from Chicago, the nearly gun law utopia of the Brady Campaign. While he praises the Brady Campaign for “all their hard work” he avoids any indication that he is aligning himself or the administration with their agenda.
If you attend the Gun Rights Policy Conference and listen to the politicians there they will be very direct in their support of the right to keep and bear arms. That an administration official who came from Chicago is avoiding support of the Brady Campaign agenda is exceedingly noteworthy.
It’s also noteworthy that the Brady campaign has disabled comments for their video. Reasoned Discourse is a requirement for their agenda.
…the California Justice Department’s Criminalists Institute conducted a survey of all the crime labs in the state, trying to determine how many so-called “assault weapons” were seized, and how many were used in violent crimes, during 1990. Those forensic labs, which included 22 state-run units, have all the data concerning the guns used in crimes in the state.
According to the 1991 Helsley internal memo, those involved in pushing the “Roberti-Roos’ bill—including some of the state’s highest-ranking police administrators, the Senate President, one of the most-powerful members of the assembly, and the Attorney General, himself—had made the deliberate decision not to seek information from the crime labs.
Helsley wrote: “Information on assault weapons would not be sought from forensic laboratories as it was unlikely to support the theses on which the legislation would be based.”
The current Justice Department apparently wishes it hadn’t asked the laboratories for hard information either, for the data—with responses from the labs covering two-thirds of the state’s population—shows there is no significant problem. The DOJ has refused to provide their draft summary of the results, but has released the raw data, in compliance with the state’s freedom of information law.
According to reliable sources the survey showed that of all firearms confiscated, less than 5 percent were guns in the Roberti-Roos list. And of guns involved in violent crimes, only six-tenths of one percent were “assault weapons.”
Neal Knox
January 31, 1992
The “Assault Weapon” Hysteria
From The Gun Rights War, page 273.
[f they knew an assault weapon ban would not, could not possibly, reduce crime the what was the real reason for wanting an “assault weapon” ban?
That was over 18 years ago. Why do organizations like the Brady Campaign still advocate for such a ban? Just what could possibly be the real reason?
This book is a wealth of information for gun rights activists. But I have a love/hate relationship with it. The articles go back 40 years. 40 years of fighting against this kind of stuff! The deliberate deceptions and misrepresentations of the anti-gun people has been constant. I love to see the history but I hate it that we still are fighting the same battles against, apparently evil, and obviously lying, people. We currently have them on the run in the courts. We need to drive a stake in the heart of this beast this time. We need to do that both legally and culturally. Make them the 21st century cultural equivalent of the KKK. Because that is what they are.—Joe]
Bigotry is terrible no matter where or when it happens. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when it happens in a place like San Fransisco. At least no one has been bashed in this latest incident.
As much as I would like to confront them I’m pretty sure Ry has the right idea.
We must throw the infantile model of “the people are under the cops as a
baby is under his or her parents” in the dustbin and instead transition to
a model of “you’re adults, you’re free to act as adults, and we both trust
you to be adults and assist us in our job of identifying crooks when necessary.
We also both believe in and support your right to stop the
thugs on your own in lawful self-defense should it become necessary, God forbid,
and we will not only cease and desist from interfering with that right we will
start encouraging you to exercise it.“
While there are few if any places in the United States where the victimless
crime view has been adopted, there are plenty where law enforcement both
respects the right of the people to self-defense and recognizes that
they need the common citizens more than the citizens need them,
especially if and when the government teat of “everyone can suckle all they
want” disappears.
Where I live is one such area in this country – if things get “really bad”
around here I’m quite certain the common man will be standing
shoulder-to-shoulder with local law enforcement agencies toward the same aligned
goal – stopping the Zombies from eating the citizens.
For Chicago to achieve that it’s law enforcement community is going to have
to quit treating the citizens like infants whom it can rob candy from any time
it feels like it.
Genesis
August 26, 2010
Janet’s Heart Is In The Right Place
[Via email from Chet.
There is a lot more of interest in the post. He explains why the cops are so hated in some areas of the country, why this is a bad thing, and how to fix it.–Joe]
The vote on Elena Kagan’s confirmation to the Court, along with the previous
year’s confirmation vote on Sonia Sotomayor, are critical for the future of the
Second Amendment. After careful consideration, the NRA-PVF announced today that
it will not be endorsing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for re-election in
the 2010 U.S. Senate race in Nevada.
Via the Apex Of the Triangle of Death:
NRA Washington is doing an open house at the Norpoint Range in Arlington on the weekend of Sep 4th and 5th. I know that’s a holiday weekend, however if you could put the word out to your contacts that we need a few volunteers to help me staff the table that would be fantastic. I’ll be there all day Saturday and Sunday, ideally I’d like to have 4 people a day for 2 hours each, that way we can break the times up a bit.
If you know of anyone in that area (north of Seattle) that would be interested in hanging out in a gun shop all day, have them shoot me an email!
Regards,
Caleb N Giddings
NRA Campaign Field Representative
317-445-9332
caleb at gunnutsmedia.com
I actually will be driving through Arlington on the 4th (to here) but I’m pretty sure my wife has plans for me other than hanging out at a gun range for a couple hours. I will be pack’in in the park for the weekend though.
Via Thirdpower I find out Illinois governor Pat Quinn is running ads attacking his opponent. His opponent apparently claims to have no problem uphold his oath of office in relation to the Second Amendment.
As is typical for anti-gun bigots the comments are disable for the video.
I ran across this post today and had to read the bold (added by me) section below twice to make sure I read it correctly:
Private, unlicensed gun sales are currently exempt from federal background
checks and sales retention requirements, such as purchases at gun shows, some of
which are (conveniently?) attributed to robberies of homes, cars or dealer
stores.Surprisingly, only seven states and the District of Columbia require gun
owners to report their guns lost or stolen – another reason for the need of
national standards.By some counts, of an estimated 300M guns in the U.S., there are close to 4
million assault weapons. The number of undocumented gun owners and their
unregistered guns in this country may surpass the numbers of undocumented
immigrant workers. All of the above infringe upon the rights of law-abiding
Americans.
What???
What sort of perverted definition of “right” does this guy have? And to further confound things this is on the website of a lawyer who specializes, among other things, in criminal law. A lawyer who apparently has read the Bill of Rights sufficiently close to know you have right to an attorney and to not incriminate yourself. But yet, yesterday, still wasn’t aware that the Second Amendment guarantees a specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.
He compares “undocumented gun owners” to “undocumented immigrant workers”. Where is the “clue bat”? “Undocumented workers” entered the country illegally and are working here illegally. Gun ownership with or without “documentation”, in of itself, is a guaranteed right and is not illegal.
I wondered, “What could possibly get this guy so confused?” I then noticed his address. It is Oxnard California. They drink a lot of Kool-Aid down there.
There is anecdotal evidence that the banning of traditional ammunition would have an adverse impact on government bureaucrat populations.
Tamara K.
August 26, 2010
No.
[If properly expended I’m pretty sure Tamara and friends have enough “traditional ammunition” on hand to make a noticeable impact on said populations.
I would also like to make mention of the fact that I’ve seen her shoot a rifle offhand at targets 200 yards away:
You don’t want her to “saddle up and bust caps” unless you have a surplus of body bags and bureaucrats with a desire to have them matched up.–Joe]
How do you know he’s not a robot sent back in time by Skynet to disarm the resistance before it starts?
wfgodbold
August 24, 2010
Referring to Robb Allen’s idea for a screenplay of a Terminator sequel where Paul Helmke goes into the future to try to explain to the resistance why they shouldn’t be using guns.
[I had not thought of that! That makes as much sense as any other reason I can come up with for why Helmke does what he does. We all know that the real reason for gun control cannot be crime control.–Joe]
So. You thought you could avoid those intrusive airport technological strip searches by not flying on a commercial plane? You thought they were just were doing that to “other people”? You thought it was okay to look the other way as your Fourth Amendment rights were violated when you flew on an airplane. It was all in the name of “safety”, right?
Via Andy Greenberg (via an email from Chet), coming to your neighborhood soon:
Gee, I wonder why they didn’t show any people in that video? Oh! Andy has some pictures of that too:
That is through vehicles. I would expect the walls of your home will be just as revealing. Imagine what you look like when you are just walking down the sidewalk.
Expect lots of “security sweeps” for the womens basketball and volleyball tournaments. We can’t be too careful with our precious women at risk.
The phrase “concealed means concealed” now means nothing. And since we let them get away with it at airports what’s so special about a public street now? Some terrorist could kill just as many people at the convention center as they could on an airplane. So why shouldn’t the convention center have the same security theater as the our airplanes?
I’ve pointed this out before but what Pastor Martin Niemöller said about the Nazi’s and what Sebastian observed, “What goes around comes around.” is very true.
You play a very risky game when you make exceptions to fundamental principles.
Linoge pulls a couple paragraphs out of the same NRA-ILA post for his QOTD. That is good stuff but I liked this part:
…with no correlation between LCAV’s ranking and the states’ widely divergent
firearm-related death rates, no recognition of the fact that most
firearm-related deaths are suicides, the frequency of which cannot be restrained
by any gun control law, and no recognition of the fact that the world is still
waiting for any evidence that any gun control law on the planet has ever
prevented individuals or regimes from committing crime.
Emphasis mine.
That is the essence of my Just One Question.
Nice!
There is certainly a tendency for nation with restrictive gun laws to authorize additional powers to the police to violate the ordinary rights of privacy … .
Paul H. Blackman
From the book From My Cold Dead Fingers–Why America Needs Guns, Third Edition (“Final Chapter”), page 130 by Sheriff Richard I. Mack.
[I would like to believe that as we push back the infringements on our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms that we can also make progress on our infringed rights to be free from unreasonable search, seizure, and our right to privacy. Can the people at large be educated to understand the general principle of limited government is applicable to both the keeping of arms and the right to privacy? Generalization appears to be a difficult thing for most people. They don’t seem to understand political principles. They get involved in “issues” without understanding the principles. The “War on Drugs” is no different in principle than a “War on Guns”, or a “War on Poverty”. Yet you rarely see people espouse positions that are philosophically consistent.
Oh well. One issue at a time is all I can handle. And taking on the issue of philosophical inconsistency is just too big and too nebulous.
The TSA is next on my list after we essentially win the battle over guns. It might be a decade or so but I think we will get there.–Joe]