Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day–Neal Knox

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But Mayor Daley went back to Chicago and pushed through an ordinance individually registering every gun in Cook Country. That ordinance was delayed one day because the U.S. Supreme Court had handed down U.S. vs. Haynes, which held that it was a “justifiable defense” for a criminal, prohibited from possessing a gun, to refuse to register it due to fear of self-incrimination. The Chicago city council found an innovative way to enact their registration ordinance while evading that law: Persons with criminal or mental records which prevented them from legally owning a gun were exempt from registration.

Never mind that criminals were the alleged target of that law, and that they were exempted, the city’s new registration law applied only to the law-abiding citizen with a spotless record. And it’s still the same way.…

One thing the late-Sixties gun laws and attempted gun laws accomplished was to make the state’s gun owners nervous. So when the state’s Constitution was rewritten in 1970, they helped put in a clause guaranteeing that “subject only to the police power, the right of the people to keep and bear arms would not be infringed.” That mean, according to the official documents describing the Constitution, that while guns might be subjected to certain regulations, private ownership of handguns could never be banned.

In 1982, the village of Morton Grove banned handguns. A few months ago the state’s Supreme Court, on a split decision, ruled that the ban didn’t violate the new Constitution. They explained that since Morton Grove residents could still own long guns, the prohibition against banning arms hadn’t been violated.

Neal Knox
December 12, 1983
The Drift Toward Prohibition
From The Gun Rights War, page 80 and 81.
[It’s a great book. But if you are like me you probably shouldn’t read it just before you go to bed because you will end up angry and have difficulty going to sleep.

But it’s interesting to know that the methods and attitudes of the bigots haven’t changed over the last 50 years. They lied, they ignored original constitutional intent, and they wanted to infringe the rights of ordinary citizens even though they claimed they only wanted to make it difficult for criminals to possess firearms.

The difference is that we now have a “won game” (is that phrase used outside of the chess culture?) on our hands now. We just need to keep up the pressure and drive these bigots into political and social oblivion.–Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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The artist apparently has no connection with relevant facts. The 30K deaths by gun fire (ignoring his badly phrased “gun deaths per year” which to me means that many guns die each year) includes suicides, justified homicide, and praiseworthy homicide. Furthermore there is no evidence that fewer restrictions results in more criminal homicide or suicide.


He also fails to acknowledge the human rights issues involved.


But then, bigots don’t care about facts anyway.

Quote of the day–John Boccieri

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In these difficult times, it is vital that Congress maintain individuals’ constitutional property rights. Some property rights are secure; clothing, pets, or crops can be deemed exempt from repossession. Other property rights, however, are ignored, most notably 2nd Amendment rights.


In response, I urge you to join me in becoming an original cosponsor of The Protecting Gun Owners in Bankruptcy Act of 2010. The Protecting Gun Owners in Bankruptcy Act of 2010 will allow consumer bankruptcy debtors to exempt firearms from the claims of creditors.  Specifically, the measure would permit firearms held primarily for the personal, family or household use of the debtor to be exempt from the claims of creditors under federal exemption law.


John Boccieri U.S. Representative (Democrat) from Ohio
Letter to Congress June 2010.
[I’m not so sure I like the idea of exempting all firearms from the claims of creditors. I could see some dollar value exemption, like $10K in guns and ammo but not an unlimited number of firearms or dollar value. If someone owed me $100K I would be pretty upset if the debtor could tell the judge the only thing he owned was just this one gun and the judge was required to let the guy keep it rather than pay his debt to me.


On the other hand it’s nice to see politicians (especially Democrats) thinking of ways to curry favor with gun owners. And of course putting Josh Sugarmann at risk of a aneurysm gets a few bonus points from me too.–Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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Yeah, right.


If anything gun rights activists are more upset than those that dance in the blood of these tragic events. Nearly all mass shootings occur in victim disarmament zones. Much of the loss of life and injuries could have been prevented. We are constantly trying to prevent future tragedies and people like this artist are doing their best to hinder us.

Quote of the day–John R. Lott, Jr.

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The Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center evaluate the benefits of concealed handgun laws based solely on the claimed costs — they don’t compare the cases where defensive uses occurred to the bad things that happen, but only count what they claim are the bad cases. They ignore lots of amazing defensive gun use cases. But even more bizarrely, they count legitimate self-defense cases as bad events even when no charges are filed or the permit holder is later exonerated.


John R. Lott, Jr.
July 25, 2010
Gun Control Advocates Make up Facts about Concealed Handgun Laws
[Typical. They have to lie to push their agenda.–Joe]

Quote of the day–U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson

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We’re one of two states who don’t have concealed carry. Chicago is seeing some of the worst gun violence right now — though it had some of the tightest gun restrictions.

Violence goes down when concealed carry is the law. Illinois should pass common-sense legislation.



U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, D-Crete
July 23, 2010
Gun fight looming — State legislators expected to reload laws
[Yes. Illinois should do that. When I can discreetly carry in Chicago I might actually consider visiting again. The same goes for California, Hawaii, and a few other places that I am interested in visiting.


Notice also the ‘D’ after her name. She is a friend of gun owners even though I’m sure there are some issues we will be the exact opposite of each other. But until the gun issue is settled we can ignore differences. When we have something we agree on we should work together to accomplish things. Don’t look for reasons to reject someone. Look for reasons to take advantage of their offer to help accomplish mutual goals.–Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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When a small child manages to start and drive a car, falls into a swimming pool, or down the stairs you don’t hear people demanding cars, pools, and stairs be banned. And you don’t hear people say cars, pools, and stairs kill people. Why the obsession with firearms and accidents involving them? Since I have been keeping track accidental firearm deaths have fallen from about 1500 per year to 700 per year in the U.S. And that is with the total number of guns in the country increasing.


I agree there are some legitimate things to mock the NRA about. But the slogan “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is not one of them.

How the Brady Campaign counts members

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This should come as no surprise to those who have clashed with the Brady Campaign over the years:



Well, like 2 years ago I sent an e-mail to the Brady Camp, pointing out that their section of TN gun laws contained outright lies. One specifically stated that there were no age restrictions to possessing a handgun in TN. I pointed out how rediculous [sic] their whole premise was and how they could believe an inanimate object (a gun) could CAUSE evil.


…


I told them to respond unless they knew they were wrong. So today I get an e-mail saying that thanks to members like me, the Brady Campaign is succeeding in curbing gun violence??????


Remember those 50,000 members they claim they have? As we suspected, that should be revised down considerably. Even if they try to hide their lies, we have backups.

Think it through Dennis

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Dennis Henigan tells us guns aren’t useful as a deterrence against violent crime:

Apart from the statistics, the deterrence theory poses an interesting conundrum. If criminals are deterred by the prospect that their victim may be armed, how can we account for attacks by armed criminals against other armed criminals? Why do armed drug dealers have anything to fear from other armed drug dealers? Why do armed gangs have anything to fear from other armed gangs? Pro-gun researcher Gary Kleck of Florida State University reports that street gang members are over eight times more likely to own handguns than other youths, and nineteen times more likely to be homicide victims. Drug dealers are almost four times more likely to own a handgun and six times more likely to be homicide victims. Why doesn’t their gun possession deter attacks on these criminals? Surely it can’t be true that bad guys fear only armed good guys, but not other armed bad guys.

Half-Truth Henigan, as is usual, only explores a subset of the situations. The missing part is where one side is armed and the other is disarmed. How much deterrence is there then?

It’s obvious Henigan is only a lawyer for the Brady Campaign instead of an engineer, a scientist, or a carpenter. If carpenters built houses like Henigan builds his theories of criminal behavior the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization*.

* I’m plagiarizing Wienberg’s Second Law.

Gun cartoon of the day

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The artist completely ignores all the issues of due process, inability to challenge your placement on the list, the criteria for being placed on the list, etc. It would appear the artist believes it’s “all about the profits of the gun industry” or some such thing.


As I said over in the comments at Sebastian’s place:



My model of his (and many other) claim of “gun lobby profits” and such things is that they can’t imagine individuals actually wanting a gun unless they are a criminal or they have been duped by the “evil corporations”. I could be wrong, but it seems to me a great number of them think in terms of “everything bad is due to capitalism” or even more general in that “freedom is the root of all evil”. Their vision of utopia is government planning and control of everything.


Because of this if they don’t get their way it cannot be “the fault” of the individuals. It has to be influence of the evil capitalists. Why do you think the “progressives” want to silence their opposition (most recently Fox News, in years past it was “Fairness Doctrine”)?


As one admitted Marxist told me, “I believe in the good of society over the good of the individual.” Society/Government/Intellectuals/The-Central-Committee should make the decisions. Capitalists with their influence are the only real threat to “Society” and they should always be suspect because their motives are money and not “the good of society”. Only those untainted by Capitalist urges can be trusted to be pure and good.


At least that is the way I see their delusions working.


The concepts of a “basic human right” and a “specific enumerated right” being denied by involuntary membership on secret lists somehow don’t make it past their filters.

Gun cartoon of the day

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I’ll admit there is some hostility toward the ATF by gun owners. But I have yet to meet anyone who advocates using the cartridge box at this point when we haven’t finished using the soap, ballot, and jury boxes. Yet this artist apparently thinks we are violent criminals just waiting for an opportunity to get in a shoot out with government employees.

Quote of the day–Thom Mannard

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Finally, the Court’s ruling to extend the scope of the Second Amendment has
national implications. The gun lobby is using this decision to further its
real agenda, that they want anyone to have any gun, anywhere, at any time
regardless of the proven risk to police and the public. Their unstated motive
is to enhance the profits of the gun industry by encouraging individuals to
believe they need a multitude of guns and are seeking nothing less than the
complete dismantling of our nation’s gun laws for their own political and
financial gain. Lawmakers in state legislatures and in Congress must utilize
the Supreme Court’s decision to press for common sense gun laws for the safety
and security of the America people.

Thom Mannard
Executive Director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence
June 28, 2010
Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence Issues Statement On Supreme Court Ruling Over Chicago’s Handgun Ban
[He is just repeating the same lies anti-gun people have been attempting to use for decades. Here is a quick scan of the obvious lies from just this one paragraph:

  1. I have had many “behind the scenes” conversations with multiple people placed high in the power structure of “the gun lobby”. I read nearly all their media releases. I have never heard anyone in power within “the gun lobby” even hint they want “anyone to have any gun, anywhere, at any time”. Mannard is either lying or is delusional.
  2. If there is “proven risk to police and the public” then Mannard (or anyone) should be able to answer Just One Question. Just One Question has been posted for nearly six years now. Still there have not been any answers which Mannard is likely to tout (I do have a nomination for an answer that I must investigate sometime soon–if I can just find the email they sent).
  3. The “gun lobby” that represents the gun industry and is concerned with their profits is the NSSF. They had an exceedingly small role in the Heller and McDonald decisions. The NRA (with, at best, minor roles) and SAF were the gun lobby organizations that won those decisions. The NRA and SAF are grassroots organizations that represent individuals, not the manufacturer and profits of “the gun industry”. Even five minutes of research would have clearly revealed these facts. That is, if Mannard had been concerned with facts.
  4. Mannard has motive for “the complete dismantling of our nation’s gun laws” exactly backward. If the NRA and SAF were to be totally successful, by Mannard’s criteria, then they would have destroyed their “industry”. And with it any further political and financial gain. In fact some gun rights activists accuse the NRA of not wanting to win because it would destroy their positions of power and money.

-Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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My guess is the artist had no idea what a “Saturday Night Special” is. And I’m certain they didn’t know the origin of the phrase (“Ni**ertown Saturday Night Special”) and how the legal restrictions on them came about (to disarm poor blacks).

And what about the “School Day Shooters”? Did the artist really believe people advocate shooting school children? I think some pretty bad things of the anti-gun people but I am of the opinion that most of them actually have good intentions (reduction of criminal violence). But there are so many anti-gun people who seem to actually believe the pro-freedom people intend the destruction of innocent life. I suppose it’s possible they don’t actually believe their own rhetoric. They could be just telling the big lie again and again in hope others will believe it.

But I think the most likely explanation is that they haven’t put any thought into it. So many times when I have asked some anti-gun person just one or two questions they get this blank look on their face. It’s a “deer in the headlights” look. Or perhaps a better metaphor would be that it is as if they were the Emperor who just realized they were totally without clothes.

Gun cartoon of the day

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The NRA has never proposed any such thing.

The data shows the woman’s claim is wrong.

Guns don’t kill people. People with guns kill people.

30,000 is the approximate number of people who die of gunshot wounds every year. This includes suicides, justified, and even praiseworthy homicide as well as murders.

Except for the number of people murdered at VA Tech, everything expressed as fact in the cartoon is either false or extremely misleading.

But it’s not about data. Or as more accurately, as one anti-gun person once told me, “I don’t believe your facts.”

“What facts do you have that you do believe?”, I asked. His response of, “I just don’t believe yours” ended the conversation but not for the reason he probably believed. Had I only slightly less restraint I would have had a momentary pleasure but would have gotten myself talked about.

Gun cartoon of the day

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Is there any evidence the rate of first time criminal use of guns is any higher among NRA members than the general population? I know that for concealed carry permit holders the murder rate is lower than for the general population.

 

It would appear this is just more prejudice against the NRA.

Gun cartoon of the day

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“Access to guns” is a human right. And that is what they view as the problem. There is no common ground between the rapist, or any other rights violator, and their victims. They can either stop proposing to violate our rights or not.

Gun cartoon of the day

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The artist’s familiarity with the facts is, at best, tenuous.

First off all of the NRA-ILA P.R. people I have dealt with have been beautiful young women, not overweight men. Second, those people just as horrified as anyone else about the tragic deaths of innocent people. And third, nearly all mass shooting happen in “gun free” areas with attempted mass shootings being stopped in the areas where people were allowed to defend themselves.

If the NRA had it’s way there would be far fewer “gun free” areas and far fewer mass shootings.

Ownership and use of guns and ammo are sins?

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I just have to shake my head at the person that wrote this headline.

Apparently my definition of sin (I’m with Heinlein on this one) is far different from theirs. What other specific enumerated right is considered a sin by this person? Would the taxing of churches of a different persuasion be considered a sin tax in their eyes? What about taxing writing letters to the editor? Or taxing your right to remain silent? After all, they know they can’t ban your silence so maybe they can just tax it. How does the rate of a dollar a minute sound? That is the way the got NFA34 through. They didn’t ban short barreled shotguns and machine guns–they just taxed them at a rate of $200 per transfer (in 1934 dollars!).

Of course using Heinlein’s definition of sin results in their entire set of taxes being unrelated to sin–except in the sense that the collections of taxes in itself tends to follow under the definition of sin. And I find Heinlein’s caution in regards to “strong drink” and tax collectors illuminating in this case as well.

H/T to Sebastian.

Quote of the day–Robert Heinlein

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Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other
“sins” are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful–just stupid.)

Robert Heinlein
[I’m reminded of this quote by this article.

H/T to Sebastian. Say Uncle also has a post up about it. I will have more to say in a few minutes.–Joe]

Most Compelling Testimony

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Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign reports some people thought the testimony of a survivor of the Virginia Tech shooting was “the most compelling he had ever heard”. The victim detailed the 10 minutes of horror as he and many others were shot multiple times.

I found this rather odd for two reasons:

  1. The testimony was advocating the background checks for private sales of firearms. Which the VT survivor admitted would not have made a difference in his case because the perpetrator purchased his firearms from a licensed FFL and passed the background check. Hence all the physical and emotional trauma of his ordeal was totally irrelevant to the proposed law being discussed.
  2. Apparently these people hadn’t heard Suzanne Hupp’s testimony. Because what she proposed, the right to keep and bear arms in defense of innocent life, would have saved her parents life and is far more compelling.

Sebastian has a different response to this testimony.