Category Archives: Gun Rights

It’s a small world

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Barb called me tonight to tell me she saw a woman open carrying in the grocery store. It looked like “the woman in Moscow who reads your blog”.


I’m pretty sure there is more than one woman in Moscow that reads my blog–considering both of my daughters and Barb are women, live in Moscow, and make mention of the things I write on a fairly regular basis. But regardless, I was pretty sure I was able to disambiguate who she was talking about. It had to be Laurel.


Barb told me she approached her (Paul Helmke and friends are wrong, normal people don’t get scared, run away or call the cops at the sight of an openly carried firearm) and asked. It turns out the guess of Laurel was wrong. Close, but wrong. It was Laurel’s sister.


Further chatting revealed that sister and her husband own the local BBQ joint. Barb was absolutely thrilled. In addition to me now smiling when she spends money at Starbucks she is convinced I will spend more money on their delicious BBQ (we have been there before and found it quite good). Barb went on to say that she just wishes Michaels and Joann would do something to curry my favor such that she could spend as much money as she wanted without me developing a frown.

Six million and one?

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Sebastian pulled the number six million concealed carry permit holders out of the MSNBC story on concealed carry.


I wonder if that number is the sum of all the permits currently issued or the number of people with permits. I doubt that anyone was able to get a complete list of all the people with permits from all the states and remove duplicates. But they might have made some estimates.


In any case, daughter Kim called me up today to tell me she received her Washington State Concealed Pistol License (CPL) today.


So depending on how the numbers were tallied it could be six million and one licenses are now issued.

Quote of the day–Rep. John Dingell

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Let me remind you this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.


Rep. John Dingell (D-MI)
March 23, 2010
Via Ed Morrissey at Hot Air (after hearing the audio on the Rush Limbaugh Show).
[I am reminded of something I said a long time ago:



Does it ever strike you as odd that some of our servants demand that they have a monopoly on certain types of weapons?


I keep thinking that they must have either forgotten they are servants or intend to change the relationship.


I think the selection of which conclusion is correct should now be obvious.–Joe]

Dilemma of Federal gun laws

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Sad story:



Being commander of the Catholic War Veterans Post 370 on Illinois 159 south of Belleville hasn’t been particularly trying for Mike Anthony — until they found the machine gun.


“In January, when they found it, the guys called and said they needed to talk to me,” Anthony said. “They showed me what they had. I thought it was a beautiful relic but I wondered what we could do with it.”


What they had was a Lewis .30-caliber machine gun, manufactured in 1917 by the Savage Arms Co. in Utica, N.Y., according to markings on the gun.


…


“I found out it was illegal to have it,” he said. “Not only that but there was a $250,000 fine and 10 years in prison. So I thought, ‘Well, it doesn’t work but previous cases showed that if it could be made serviceable, you still could get in trouble.'”


Some guys thought maybe they could give it back to the Savage company, which wanted it for its museum. But that isn’t legal either.


Instead, Sheriff Mearl Justus was able to take it off their hands, legally. But the sheriff’s department’s options are limited as well.


“We can register it and keep it, we can send it to Alton to have it melted down or we can give it to the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosive) and it will be destroyed,” said Sgt. John Fulton, administrative assistant with the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department.




Also from the article:



Capt. Charles Chandler with a Lewis gun and Lt. Roy Kirtland, seated in a Wright Model B Flyer in 1912 after the first successful firing of a machine gun from an airplane. Chandler was the first leader of the Aeronautical Division of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, which would later evolve into the U.S. Air Force:



The ATF should be a convenience store–not a government organization that destroys historical artifacts.

Quote of the day–Thumper242

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I was just told my JPFO “life preserver” shirt is “shameful and inapropriate”.


Thumper242
March 21, 2010 Via Twitter
[This shirt is going “out of print”. Only sizes “Small” and “Medium” are still available. Piss off a bigot and buy your own today.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Bob Walker

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Yesterday’s shooting, like earlier ones, dramatizes the need for tougher federal legislation. We must find a way of stopping the interstate loophole that now exists. Otherwise, would-be killers will continue to take advantage of our federal system.

Bob Walker
Feb 24, 1997
Statement of Bob Walker, Presidnet (sic), Handgun Control, Inc. Re: Shooting at Empire State Building
[Interstate loophole, newspaper loophole, the Terror Gap (and here), and of course the ever popular gun show loophole. Why don’t they just come out and say it? It is the federal system known as “The Second Amendment Loophole” that they have their panties all in a twist about.

After closing that they could start working on the First Amendment Loophole. Once they have that closed it should be a cinch to close the Thirteenth Amendment Loophole or at least enage in some “reasonable regulation” in that regard.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Maxim Gorky

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Lies–there you have the religion of slaves and taskmasters. Truth is the god of the free man.


Maxim Gorky
Russian novelist, playwright.
The Lower Depths (1902)
[From Wikipedia (link above), “The theme of harsh truth versus the comforting lie pervades the play from start to finish, as most of the characters choose to deceive themselves from the bleak reality of their condition.”


A passing thought of Half-Truth Henigan and company reminded me of this quote.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Theodore Parker

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The design of the abolitionists is this,– to remove and destroy the institution of slavery. To accomplish this well, two things are needed, ideas and actions. Of the ideas first, and then a word of the actions. What is the idea of the abolitionists? Only this: that all men are created free, endowed with unalienable rights; and in respect of those rights, that all men are equal. This is the idea of Christianity, of human nature. Of course, then, no man has a right to take away another’s rights; of course no man may use me for his good, and not my own good also; of course there can be no ownership of man by man; of course no slavery in any form. Such is the idea, and some of the most obvious doctrines that follow from it.


Now, the abolitionists aim to put this idea into the minds of the people, knowing that if it be there, actions will follow fast enough.


…


No “respectable” paper is opposed to slavery; no Whig paper, no Democratic paper. You would as soon expect a Catholic newspaper to oppose the Pope and his church, for the slave power is the pope of America, though not exactly a pious pope.


Theodore Parker
1810-1860
The Slave Power
[It seems to me that in addition to the parallels gun rights activists can draw from the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the gay rights movement of the late 1970s we might be able to get inspiration from the abolitionists of the 1800s as well.


Exceptions might be made for the emulation of John Brown.


It would appear abolitionists had similar problems with the mainstream media and Democrats as we do now.–Joe]

Why gun owners are angry

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I actually did the outline for this post in January of 2009 but it wasn’t until I read something Sebastian posted that I decided to procrastinate on something other than this post.

There are many reasons why gun owners are angry. Let me enumerate a few of them (I actually removed about a third of the items from my outline in the interests of time and space):

Goldilocks guns

I’ve blogged about this before. The anti-gun people want to outlaw guns that are “small and easily hidden”. They want to outlaw guns that are large and powerful. They want to outlaw guns that are “deadly accurate”. They want to outlaw guns that can be used for “spray shooting from the hip”.

You would think that perhaps a gun that fires an intermediate cartridge and is of medium weight and is not easily hidden would be acceptable to them. Nope. Such a gun was called an “assault rifle” by the Germans during WWII. The anti-gun people, utilizing their talent for twisting words and preying on the ability of the public to be easily confused, banned “assault weapons”.

This is why we sometimes talk about Goldilocks Gun Control (more here). It’s like the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears with a twist. There are guns the anti-gun people think are too big and too small, but there aren’t any guns that are “just right”.

What if the government treated religions like that? Are some sects of Catholicism or Judaism too orthodox? Or maybe the Baptists are too fundamentalist. Are their religions too modern or “new age”?

These are specific enumerated rights and our public servants have not been given constitutional power to take guns or religion, in common use, away from the people.

Attempting to take away something that has been guaranteed by the U.S. Government has a tendency to make the victim angry. If they don’t want us to be angry they should stop doing things like this.

The SKS is accurate, the “gun show loophole”, and other lies

I’ve blogged about this before. In the article I quoted in that link every statement of fact was wrong yet the press published it as if it were completely true. The anti-gun people tell lie after lie after lie, after lie, after lie. Even when they tell the truth it is only half-truths (see also here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here). One might reasonable think they are merely ignorant but if that were true you would not find that in each and every case the half-truth benefits their case. And still the press believes them!

Constantly lying about the law, firearms, and gun owners has a tendency to make gun owners angry. If they don’t want us to be angry they should stop lying.

1000 round arsenals

To anti-gun people and the press even a hundred rounds of ammunition found in the trunk of a car or in someone’s home is cause for concern. If the police decide to search someone’s car or home the finding of a few hundred rounds of ammunition it nearly takes the breath away from the talking heads in the media. If it was within a few blocks of a school they make sure the implication is that each one of those rounds could, and should, be translated into the intent of the gun owner was to kill at least that many children.

This fascination with the number of rounds of ammo reached the point that in 1994 the U.S. Congress was contemplating requiring an Arsenal License for people that had more than 1000 rounds of ammunition.

I’ve got news for these clueless bigots. When I shoot in a pistol match I carry about 80 rounds in magazines on my belt. When I go to the local pistol match the minimum number, assuming zero misses, of rounds needed is 150. Typically I would take at least 300 for each gun that I was going to shoot. If I am going to the range for practice it is about 400 rounds per handgun and 100 for a rifle. If I were to go to a regional match I would take at least 1000 per gun. If I were to attend a weekend class the minimum round count is typically about 1500.

The anti-gun proponents might claim that I am somewhat out of the ordinary in my ammunition consumption. They might point out someone that has been hunting every year for a decade and has always brought home their deer and is still working on their first box of twenty rounds. If someone needs 100 rounds to go hunting they shouldn’t be hunting they might say.

It’s not about hunting. It’s about being the best you can be at shooting fast and accurately. And I’m not particularly special in my ammo needs. When the other gun bloggers and I went to Blackwater Todd Jarrett told us he had 250 or 300 thousand rounds of loaded ammo and another 650,000 rounds of components. Nearly a 1,000,000 rounds in the hands of one consumer is unusual. But 1000 rounds is not.

1000 rounds and they want to require a special license? I can put 1000 rounds of .22 LR in my coat pockets. Do I need to license my coat?

If they don’t want us to be angry they should stop the talk of requiring expensive and hassle intensive requirements for common everyday activities.

Licenses, regulation, and restrictions

What if the government demanded that all homosexuals be registered with the state? How about all Muslims, Catholics, or Jews? Or how about mixed race couples?

Here’s how it might work: If you wanted to have a sexual relationship with someone of the same sex the state required you to obtain a SSIC (Same Sex Identification Card), get eight hours of training, and pay $50 every three years to renew your license.

Do you think that might make a few people angry? Do you think people might claim that was unconstitutional? If you answered yes to both those questions then congratulations! You have an I.Q. above room temperature!

That is what gun owners have to put up in many states in order exercise the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.

It gets worse. Continuing the same analogy you wouldn’t be allowed to have a relationship with someone that was too fat or too skinny. And if they were of above average “capacity” they would be banned from having a relationship with anyone but a government employee.

And of course just because you have the license doesn’t mean you could actually have any contact with your loved one outside of your home. Assuming the local government where you lived “allowed” you to have the relationship you would have worry about the ever changing laws in the next city and the neighboring states. Your SSIC is valid only in a few states and even then it could change at any time. And it is your responsibility to make sure all your paperwork (if it is even possible to get the proper paperwork) is in order.

And to top it off many simple, victimless activities that of no consequence in one jurisdiction are a felony in another.

Then assuming you have successfully navigated all the government restrictions you still have to worry about which businesses are willing to do take your money when you just want to have a bite to eat or a cup of coffee. And all the people that want people of your kind all killed has to weigh on your mind as well.

If they don’t want us to be angry they should give the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms the same respect they give the specific enumerated right to freedom of association.

Registration of guns

I don’t think I have ever seen a fictional cop show on television where firearms were not registered. They just assume that is the way it is and that is the way it should be. Fortunately that is not the case except for a handful of states. But the media creates an expectation that it is perfectly normal for all guns to be registered and the owners licensed.

Of what benefit is it for guns to be registered? I’ve blogged about this many, times before. It is exceedingly costly and contrary to what you see on T.V. and at the movies it has near zero impact on solving crimes. So why do the anti-gun people still insist on gun registration? It turns out it is good for something–Confiscation.

If they don’t want us to be angry they should stop trying to register firearms when we all know the only “benefit” of firearm registration is the eventual confiscation of those firearms.

One gun a month

Who needs to buy more than one Bible a month? Why do Bible owners get all upset about the minor inconvenience of restricting people to just one Bible a month? It would cut down on trafficking of Bibles from states with lax Bible laws to those with strict Bible laws.

Never mind that the only way to make sure someone only buys one Bible a month is if all Bible transactions are recorded and each Bible is registered.

If they don’t want us to be angry they should treat firearms ownership like Bible ownership. It’s an essential part of exercising a specific enumerated right and the government has no constitutional authority or business in restricting sales any more than they do for the Koran, the Bible, the Torah, or the Communist Manifesto.

Safety isn’t the issue

If there were a very clear correlation between highly restrictive gun laws and lower violent crime, suicide, and/or accidental injury or death by gunshot then we could have a meaningful discussion about the merits of firearm regulation. But despite over a 100 years of gun regulation in this country there still isn’t any conclusive data any of the gun laws have improved public safety in any of the instances where they have been implemented.

If they don’t want us to be angry they should be able to demonstrate a benefit or tell us the real reason for infringing on this specific enumerated right.

Self-defensive–the most basic of human rights

There is no right more universal than the right of self-defense. Every creature for all time has claimed the right of self-defense. It is the most basic and most important of all rights.

Despite the right of self-defense being so universal the anti-gun people want to remove the most effective tools of self-defense from the people that need them the most. Removing the tools of self-defense from the general population completely changes the relationship between government and the individual. It is like the farmer that dehorns his cattle. He does that to prevent them for hurting each other in fights. But then he takes responsibility for their defense from predators. He provides their health care, their food, and manages their reproduction. He also neuters nearly all the males and slaughters them as he sees fit. That is not a functional model for a free society.

If they don’t want us to be angry they must stop treating us like cattle.

Prevention

Who could possibly have a problem with an organization with a name like The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Right?

They don’t want to take your guns away, they just want to prevent gun violence.

What if their name were “The Brady Campaign to Prevent Slander” and they demanded free expression and speech be restricted to your own home, registration of anyone that wanted to exercise free speech–in their own homes, and you must submit to frequent police inspections of your home?

Oh, but they say, free speech does have restrictions on it. You can’t legally falsely shout, “Fire!” in a crowded theater. True. But you aren’t prevented from doing so by having a state approved gag installed prior to entry of the theater. If you cause injury through the irresponsible exercise of your freedom you are punished for the irresponsible actions. The same should be true for firearms.

If they don’t want us to be angry they should stop trying to prevent us from exercising our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.

Harping on the harm and blind to the benefits

The anti-gun people completely ignore or dismiss the benefits of firearm ownership. They constantly remind us of the harm but that only tells part of the story. It’s another half-truth they tell to further their cause.

Comparing to other causes of death: There is one child killed with a gun for every one million+ guns in this country and there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential swimming pools. Similar comparison can be made for car ownership.

Pro-gun people recognize that firearms are sometimes used for evil purposes and that accidents happen as well as the many benefits. The anti-gun people only see solutions while we see trade-offs.

If they don’t want us to be angry they need to acknowledge gun ownership brings benefits to society not just hazards.

Penis jokes

Many anti-gun people claim that men who own firearms have small penises and are trying to compensate with a firearm. The examples are almost endless. One could make a strong case that many anti-gun people appear to be developmentally retarded at about age of nine or 10 where children make jokes and insults about bathroom activities, bodily wastes, and penises. There are numerous examples here, here, here, here, and here.

What if women who wanted the right to vote or for equal opportunities in the workplace were laughed at and told they were just experiencing some penis envy? Do you think that would result in some anger?

If they don’t want us to get angry they should grow up and discuss the topic seriously.

Conclusion

If other specific enumerated rights were treated like firearms ownership there would likely be riots in the streets. But gun owners haven’t rioted. They haven’t called for the murders of those that insulted them. Yet similar infringement on rights has or would likely cause a major social disruption. And despite remarkably good behavior under some extremely adverse circumstances the instances of gun owners striking out in anger at these abuses is extremely rare. And what do we get for this good behavior despite substantial reasons for being angry? They use that anger as further justification to infringe upon our rights.

I think of those people who claim our anger as reason for more infringement the say way as I would a child who murders his parents and then asks the judge for leniency in sentencing because he is an orphan. After their conviction under 18 USC 241 or 242 I think their sentences should be doubled because they brought the problem on themselves.

Quote of the day–Chris Cox

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“Honesty” is not a word that comes to mind when one thinks of Michael Bloomberg, nor when one thinks of Frank Lautenberg. “Hypocrisy,” on the other hand, is a perfect fit. Lautenberg once spoke disapprovingly of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the blacklisting of people on the basis of mere allegations during the “McCarthyism” period of the 1950s and “an utterly ruthless enemy . . . who has absolutely no sense of propriety or decency while it wages war against innocent people.” But that was in 2003. If Lautenberg’s reverence for civil liberties were more than pretense, he would never have introduced S. 1317.


Chris Cox
NRA-ILA Executive Director
January 23, 2010
Gun Owners Under Watchful Eyes
[The summary of S. 1317 is “A bill to increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of firearms or the issuance of firearms and explosives licenses to known or suspected dangerous terrorists.”


The Bloomberg gang, Brady Campaign (and others) call it a “Terror Gap” that people suspected of supporting terrorism be denied the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms without due process. The due process of being able to confront their accusers and defend against the accusations in public court is an extremely important protection. You don’t want to live in a society where you can be denied your right to practice your religion, a jury trial, or the right to not incriminate yourself because your neighbor anonymously calls in a tip. It could be that the neighbor is just pissed you are in a mixed race marriage, you are gay, or you didn’t mow your lawn last week.


In a sense Bloomberg and The Brady Campaign are correct in their naming of this. Our government is less able to terrorize it’s citizens without the secret lists so in that sense the government has a “terror gap” compared to some other countries. I must conclude Bloomberg and The Brady Campaign wish to enhance the terror capabilities of the U.S. government to get it on par with other well known governments with secret lists such as the former USSR, East Germany, and Nazi Germany.


Before anyone is denied their freedom they must given a chance to defend themselves in court or else we don’t have freedom.–Joe]

Do no harm

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The Hippocratic Oath for doctors is (falsely) reputed to say “Do no harm” and I wish lawyers would take and follow such an oath. Robert Warden didn’t help and possibly hurt gun rights with his Federal Lawsuit against former Seattle Mayor Nickels about his ban on guns in city parks. It just got slapped down (dismissed with prejudice). See also the Seattle Times article.


I’m not lawyer but I’m concerned about the precedence this might have created. Yes, after the McDonald ruling most of the basis for the ruling will change but my concern is that portions of that ruling may linger and impede us for a long time.


H/T to Brian K., and Say Uncle for the pointers.


Update: Lawyer AlphaMike says, “Don’t worry about it in this case.“

Quote of the day–Eric Shelton

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Really falling in love with it.


Eric Shelton
March 12, 2010
Magazines
Referring to The View From North Central Idaho
[I’ve noticed several link to my blog from Handgun Podcast over the last few weeks and finally got around to listening. That he says he is falling in love with my blog is just fine with me. And don’t forget that I admire myself for my modesty.


I haven’t finished even one episode but anyone that feeds my feelings of self importance is going to get my attention long enough to listen for a couple episodes. I’ve downloaded all the episodes and put them on my Windows Phone 7 Series and am listening to it as I type this.–Joe]

Quote of the day–David Rittgers

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[J]urisdictions will be forced to allow some form of handgun carry, either open or concealed. Outright bans on concealed carry cited in cases from the mid-1800’s come from a time when it was assumed that only brigands carried handguns concealed, and it was an unquestioned right of the people to carry arms openly wherever they went. States and localities will not be able to delete the right to bear arms from the right to keep and bear arms.


David Rittgers
March 10, 2010
Gun Control After McDonald
[Logically, I think this is inevitable. But logically we would not have had to deal with NFA ’34, or GCA ’68 or 20,000 other insults and infringements either.


I still think this is a likely outcome but it is far from certain and it will take a minimum of two years if not five or ten to implement in all 50 states.–Joe]

Quote of the day–The Eggman

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I submit to you a request; that we remove the phrase “gun rights” from our vocabulary and replace it with the more human, and more accurate, “gun-owner rights.”

The First Amendment does not guarantee rights to printing presses as machines; it guarantees the rights of people to use printing presses, radios, televisions and the Internet without restriction.

The Second Amendment guarantees no rights to guns themselves, as they are mere machines. However, it does guarantee the right of the people to keep and bear them.

The psychology behind what may appear as a minor ‘grammatical nit’ should be clear.

It is relatively easy for most people to hate an object. You can make up lies about an object, demonize an object and attempt to regulate and control objects. You can do so without fear of insulting the object, hurting its feelings, being sued by the object or facing any repercussions, it’s just a defenseless, soulless object.

When we replace gun rights with gun-owner rights, however, the issue becomes personal. Where many people and politicians [as opposed to people] find it easy and guilt-free to demonize guns as objects, it is far more difficult to for them to demonize a large segment of the population, gun-owners, as people.

Laws can not control inanimate objects, only what law-abiding persons do with those objects. Therefore, it’s technically not gun control, or a war against guns, it’s gun owner control, and a war against gun owners.

So let us end this futile battle for so-called, non-existent gun rights and gun control, and renew the charge in support of the very real and very important rights of the people who own defensive and recreational firearms.


The Eggman
March 10, 2010
Enough about “Gun Rights” already!
http://www.the-eggman.com/
[I agree with him but I think that horse has already left the barn. Just like people calling a “magazine” a “clip” and to a less extent “cartridges” “bullets”. I still sometimes use the phrase “gun owner rights” but in my old age I’m getting weary of fighting battles I don’t believe I can win.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Paul Helmke

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The decision by Starbucks to welcome guns in its restaurants where the law permits represents a public health risk. While food-borne illnesses are estimated to kill 5,000 Americans each year, more than 30,000 of us are killed annually by firearms. Guns represent a public health threat at least as great as food poisoning.


Paul Helmke
President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
March 8, 2010
Why gun-control activists are targeting Starbucks
[Typical half-truth stuff from the anti-gun crowd.


First off, Starbucks does not have a policy to “welcome guns in its restaurants”. They have a policy of letting local, State, and Federal law be the determining factor as to whether customers may carry firearms in their restaurant. This is no different than a policy to not discriminate against mixed race couples who enter their restaurant unless the law prohibits mixed race couples from dining in public.


Second, 30,000 people are not killed annually by firearms in this country. The truth is that about 15,000 people kill themselves with firearms. In addition to that huge fraction of misrepresented deaths he is deliberately misleading his readers by including in those 30,000 people who were justifiably killed by police and private citizen defending themselves or other innocent life. Some of those people successfully defending themselves were in restaurants similar to Starbucks.


Third, Mr. Helmke makes a very large unsupported claim here by saying “Guns represent a public health threat…” Food poisoning from public restaurants has no upside. No one that I know of is advocating for more food poisoning. Carrying guns in public restaurants does have a potential if not actual upside and because of this there are people advocating for carrying guns in public in and outside of restaurants. It certainly isn’t obvious to everyone, as it is with food poisoning, that guns are “a public health threat”. Before making such a claim he should be able to show the studies that agree with him. While there are some studies that agree with him there are also numerous studies that disagree. And even the “Brady State Rankings” on gun restrictions by his own organization show no correlation to violent crime rates. I find it very telling that even when the rule-maker and scorekeeper get to make the rules and compute the score after the game is over they still don’t end up with a winning result.


Three sentences, three half-truths. That is a score worth publicizing.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Borepatch

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It may be self incriminating to say that the next idiot I hear yammer about “common sense” gun control will get my ten-and-a-half up his backside. Minus the cartridge case, which I pulled out and left at the range. The kick in the pants is only a misdemeanor; the rimfire case in the boot is a felony.

 

Borepatch
Common Sense Gun Control
March 8, 2009
[H/T to Roberta X.

 

I am of the opinion that we should pass a constitutional amendment making it illegal for there to be victimless crimes. Any politician or law enforcement officer who proposes or enforces such a law should be convicted of a felony, heavily fined, forbidden to ever receive any money derived from taxes, and loose their right to vote forever.

 

Several years ago I was traveling in California and looked up the laws in the local library (this was, essentially, pre-Internet). Among their “common sense” gun laws was a law against having a loaded gun in public. The definition of loaded was ammunition in contact with any part of the gun–regardless of whether it was the correct caliber for the gun. Hence you could have a .22 LR cartridge epoxied to the frame of your .45 caliber 1911 and it was considered “loaded” by the State of California.

 

One could make a case for the anti-gun people being incredibly stupid for things like this. But another argument could be made that they know exactly what they are doing. It makes firearm ownership so risky that people are discouraged from owning them. I call it Huffman’s Rule of Firearms Law.–Joe]

The misinformed public

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I’ve been involved in gun rights activism for over 15 years now and I know that I don’t know everything there is to know about the law, important court cases, and the history of gun control. It shouldn’t be a big surprise to me that others get things wrong but it is.


It wasn’t very long ago that I used to still hear people talk about the Brady Act which banned “assault weapons”. This is wrong. The Brady Act created the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and a five day waiting period. The waiting period provision disappeared in November of 1998 when the “instant” system went online. It was the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 which banned certain common firearms because they (mostly) were a default color of black or looked ugly to some people (technically this isn’t correct but it has a very high correlation to how it came about).


Many other people believe all guns are registered with the state and/or Federal government. This is a very common misconception in the mainstream media.


Many people believe machine guns and/or suppressors (call “silencers” by most uninformed people) are illegal. This is false. I’ve had people approach me, all concerned, at Boomershoot to tell me “someone over there has a machine gun“. My response is some variant of, “And your point is?” They appear to be shocked that machine guns are legal and that ninjas won’t be dropping from black helicopters any second. Similar things happen when people bring suppressors to the event. And that is with people attending a shooting event. You would think they would be relatively well informed.


Still, as inured as I am to the state of affairs the number and magnitude of errors in this editorial shocked me:



Chicago outlawed guns in 1982, but residents challenged the law, saying that it violated their constitutional rights. In 2008, the Supreme Court passed a 5-4 ruling on the issue; Chicago’s law was found to be in violation of the second amendment.


Of course it was the D.C. ban, not Chicago’s, that was ruled unconstitutional in 2008.



According to a New York Times article, the 2008 case, District of Columbia v. Heller, limited the federal government’s power to regulate gun ownership.


Since the two rulings, Supreme Court judges have been debating whether these decisions should apply nationally, therefore overruling preexisting state and city laws.


There was only one case, Heller, not two that the Supreme Court has ruled on.



Would this ruling overturn all the safety restrictions about where people can carry guns and who can buy them?


Even the Brady Campaign does not believe this or fear monger a slippery slope to this sort of situation.



Guns are everywhere and it’s never the safe, smart people who respect and follow the laws that lose their minds and come barging into post offices or schools to shoot innocent people.


Uhh… duh! Guns are just as common as recreational drugs. Bans on products for which this is a market are never going to be very effective. And the second part of that sentence seems particularly pointless to me. What are they trying to say?



Why should we make it easier for them to carry guns in public? While the argument behind the supporting the second amendment is about preserving our rights, what about our right to safety?


The writer apparently has not done any research on the topic or would have been aware that safety is one of the biggest claims of the pro-gun people. And “right to safety”? While it is a fairly common misconception that there is some sort of “right” to safety to ask the question is just wrong on so many levels. It presumes two facts not in evidence: 1) There exists a “right to safety”; and 2) Gun restrictions enhance safety.


I have to give the writer credit for that last sentence. That was really a piece of work. Even the classic, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” only presumes one fact not in evidence.

Quote of the day–Kimberly Johnson

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Seriously? The guy with the bullet covered gun belt is clearly trying to compensate for being a complete loser in high school. And college (if he even went). And well, now.


Kimberly Johnson
March 4, 2010
Comment about a Brady Campaign Facebook picture.
[I would like to suggest Ms. Johnson do a little research on the topic before arriving at the conclusions she desired. Other people who have done so arrived at conclusions completely different from hers. If that is what she believes then Ms. Johnson is living in an alternate reality. Facts, it’s what the world is made of. Check it out Ms. Johnson.


It even more interesting that if you hover your mouse over the pictures you will be able to read the names and labels the Brady folks have given to the gun owners in the picture:



  • didn’t get laid in high school
  • his is small 2.
  • suburbian afraid of the world
  • compensating for a small weiner

Way to be classy Brady Campaign people.


I think Mike’s comments from over 10 years ago in a different situation apply equally well here:



He uses the word “little” as a verbal bludgeon, as in his frequent repetition of the phrase “hypocritical little nitwit.”


The purpose of using the word that way is to belittle: literally, to make little. When someone is depicted as “little,” for a moment he might appear (to the flamer) to have become smaller and less threatening. When the flamer is hooked on such talk, it seems likely to me he has revealed that he’s afraid of something — and he has to make the thing that frightens him into a small, harmless, even ludicrous object. But it doesn’t work; he has to go on doing this kind of thing because he can’t stop being afraid. He’s doing it to you today; he’ll do it to another guy tomorrow. (Each time, he’ll think it is a victory for him; in fact it does nothing for him — he’s just a little slow to realize it )


Back in the days when I was very anti-gun, I tended to think of “gun nuts” as drooling, knuckle-dragging morons. Cavemen. Uneducated. Beer-drinking slobs who could barely read and who probably beat up their wives a lot. Maybe they were even all closet Nazis, eh? Etc., etc., etc. It was an image that came instantly to mind. I would talk about “gun nuts” that same way with friends of like mind. It all made such perfect sense to us.


But if ever I came across a “gun nut” in person I would be silent — especially if it was someone dressed in, say, hunting cammos. Or I might see “gun nuts” on TV and make a snide comment about them, but seeing them made me feel a bit afraid (something I didn’t reveal to other people). It wasn’t rational, but it wasn’t surprising considering how I’d been raised. It wasn’t until a long time later that I realized what I’d been doing: trying to make the “gun nuts” almost into sub-humans in my mind, and paint them as ridiculous and stupid so that they shrank in stature and were less scary to me. (But as I said, this doesn’t work. No amount of sneering made me feel less afraid.)


I have no doubt that some small percentage of “gun people” (those few who are outright fascistically-minded) “deserve” every bit of fear I had for them — then and now. But for crying out loud . . . what a stupid, prejudicial way to think about an entire group of people, with no distinctions made. It took some years to realize what a big lie there was in imagining myself enlightened and non-bigoted — all the while that I’d been thinking like a garden-variety bigot. That was one of the fun things about the ’60s and ’70s: You could fantasize that you were on a higher plane of consciousness than “those” people — and be every bit as bigoted and vicious as you thought they were. You didn’t have to hold yourself accountable, nor wonder if you weren’t being two-faced about it. By definition, as a more “enlightened” person, you didn’t have any of those problems. Only other people had such problems. It was all so convenient . . .


H/T Sebastian.–Joe]

Free gun training for Starbucks employees

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Nice! Free gun training at Front Sight Training Institute for Starbucks employees:



Front Sight Firearms Training Institute is ranked among the best places in the world to receive firearms training and self defense training.


In support of Starbucks for not buckling to the hand-wringing gun-grabbers with the Brady campaign, Washington ceasefire and the million mom march, the Founder of Front Sight, Dr. Ignatius Piazza, has decided to award the employees at Starbucks a $2,000, four day defensive handgun course!


What can the Brady Campaign offer in return?


Gun owners have all the carrots. The Brady Campaign only has a stick.


Slightly off topic is that I have a similar deal (see the link in the right column?) that I need to take cash in on sometime. Any Starbucks employees or blog readers/writers want to attend the same class at the same time?

On being a jerk

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Sebastian (mostly) and I have been defending civil behavior toward those that disagree with us.


In contrast see how Brady Campaign people treat others when they ask to be left alone. Paul Helmke says Sorry, Starbucks: You Are In This Debate. That is being a jerk and doesn’t further your cause any. Just quietly avoid them and you will be viewed far better than picketing their stores.


There is a reason the Brady Campaign is doing this–they don’t have many options.


We have enough purchasing power that we can make a major impact on our friends and opponents. The Brady Campaign cannot. They are on a downward spiral into oblivion and they need a win soon in order to have relevancy. They invested a lot into this battle with Starbucks. They were very, very public with it and to have Starbucks tell them “please just leave us alone” is a huge blow to their egos and their status. It affects their influence with legislatures and it affects their income.


The best thing we can at this point is to quietly, unobtrusively, politely buy Starbucks products. Let the Brady Campaign throw their tantrum. Nearly everyone is going to recognize them for what they are. They are jerks no different than those that would insist no blacks, Jews, or mixed race couples be served.