Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day–Alastair Reid

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Looking for temporary Edens is a perpetual lure certainly not confined to writers, who sooner or later discover that the islands of their existence are, in truth, the tops of their desks.

Alastair Reid
Whereabouts–Notes on Being a Foreigner, Page 73.
[The same applies to socialists, progressives, and liberals (but I repeat myself). Anti-gun people also attempt to set sail for their imaginary island oblivious to or deliberately ignoring the fact that so many similar voyages ended in genocide. And those voyages that have not yet ended in genocide did not find Eden or even a better place than the one they left. I wouldn’t mind it so much if they didn’t insist, at the point of a gun, that others join them on their own version of Voyage of the Damned.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Colin Moore

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…[S]uch ideas have merit in Hillary’s world, where even little victories lead ever closer to the big prize: no guns, just government.

Colin Moore
January 21, 2010
Ban by baby steps
[As Secretary of State Mrs. Clinton has influence on the gun ban treaty and will probably do whatever is possible to push us closer to her version of utopia–a world without private ownership of arms.

This part of the reason I push so hard on the bigotry and “specific enumerated right” issue. We need to putting pressure on foreign governments that infringe their citizens rights as well. Canada, England, and Australia would be first on my list. It’s a human right and we should be sending the appropriate messages when any government infringes on this right. And part of that message should be Col. Cooper’s view on the topic.–Joe]

New shooter report

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I had been putting Ian off all week. Last week I told him Monday evening should work. I had forgotten about the previously made plans to have dinner with James and Kelsey.

I didn’t even offer Tuesday because that was the evening Barb was showing up from Idaho.

Tentative plans were made for Wednesday but those were scrapped when some tentative plans for dinner with some friends I expected to fall through didn’t.

Thursday I loaded up my car with over a thousand rounds of ammo, three handguns, a rifle, and some other gear. I parked off across the street (Microsoft doesn’t allow guns on campus) and that evening Ian and I went to Wades where I have a lifetime membership.

I went over the NRA three safety rules and he asked some questions about the NRA. The answers amounted to a brief history of the NRA. and NRA-ILA.

As he filled out the new shooter paperwork I paid the guest fee and purchased a USPSA practice target.

I started him out on a Ruger Mark II at about three yards:

Then an Olympic Arms AR-15 at seven yards:

Then S&W .22 revolver at three yards:

Then my STI Eagle 5.2 chambered in .40 S&W at three yards:

This is his single action revolver results (the double action results were just as good):

But he did well with .40 S&W too (the smaller holes are from the AR-15 at seven yards):

This is at seven yards with the .40 S&W:

We picked up the brass and as we drove to his bus stop I explained the economics and custom load benefits of reloading. It was during the drive he said the words I made my QOTD.

Another day, another oppressed minority from another country liberated (see also representatives from China, Canada, India, and Taiwan).

What you don’t read in the MSM

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The headline reads, “Groups rally for, against gun control in Va.” I kept looking in the article for how many were on each side. I’ve commented on this before, but the recap is short. In the past when I have been to protests and rallies the pro-gun people outnumber the anti-gun people up to 1000:1 and always at least 10:1. But the article didn’t say what the numbers were. It just said:

Later in the day, far fewer gun control supporters wrote the names of those killed or injured in gun violence on hearts made from construction paper and placed them into a basket before lying on the grass outside the Capitol for three minutes to signify the time it takes to purchase a gun.

A commenter gives us the answer:

2,400 v 24… For every one person against the bill of rights, there was 100 for it…

On a logarithmic scale that was about average.

One has to wonder why the votes in the legislatures don’t have similar ratios. The bigots/special interest groups apparently have pull far beyond their representation in the people at large. And it is the MSM failing to report the facts that help them get away with that.

Quote of the day–Daniel Johnson

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If gun people and libertarians want to reject the benefits of American society and live freely, independently and unfettered on their own, they should look for caves in Montana and, if they’re full up, Afghanistan probably has vacancies. They’ll definitely need their guns there.

Daniel Johnson
January 20, 2010
The Second Amendment Fantasy and How Americans Have Been Taken In
[I find it interesting that Johnson and his ilk cling to their beliefs after all nine of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices found that the right to keep and bear arms was and is an individual right. And then they want us to leave when the facts don’t suit them. But then, what else can you expect from bigots?–Joe]

New Jersey gun advertisements are regulated

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If you don’t use the proper words in an advertisment for a gun New Jersey you are a “disorderly person”.

If I were somehow persuaded to sell guns to the victims of New Jersey it would be on such a scale and for such purposes that it would go much beyond being a “disorderly person”. They would think of me as they did those that sold guns to the Indians 150 years ago.

Quote of the day–Thomas Carlyle

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I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Thomas Carlyle
[Nor do I.

However you will frequently read of the anti-gun people proclaiming with great satisfaction that such and such a poll shows “the people” want “assault weapons” banned or the “gun-show loophole” closed.

So what is it? Do they believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance?

I am quite sure that is not the case. We have direct evidence the anti-gun people deliberately prey on the collective ignorance of people. Like other con-artists their success depends on coming up with new scams with which to fool their victims as their old scams are exposed.–Joe]

Israel and Guns

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I know there’s a perception that in Israel, by golly, practically everyone has guns and that makes for great security.  They may have an effective military.  I don’t know.  When was the last time it was really tested?

From our friend in Israel, we get a more accurate picture of how the government treats private gun ownership there;

Friends:

Something new has been inserted into the firearms regulations here.

When your rifle (includes all .22 caliber rifles, even Olympic small bore .22s and air-guns) license comes up for renewal, if you are not an active member of the new Israeli Rifleman Association– a new branch of the Israeli Shooting Federation arisen out of the ashes of the Civil Guard Sharpshooters Association in 2009 – you must turn your rifle into the police or get a licensed firearms dealer to carry it on his “books” for you or sell it. 

1. Since no one can obtain a rifle license, you can’t find anyone entitled to buy your rifle. 

2. I know of almost no gun dealer who wants the headache, even for a fee, of having to deal with the Ministry of Interior inspectors about having “your” gun on his book.  Even though it is “kosher.”

3. Turning your rifle(s) into the police, because your license to possess (even exclusively in your home) your private and valuable property is not renewed because of an administrative decision not to renew it, is confiscation.

And they will send the anti-terror unit of the Border Police to knockdown your door and destroy your home in the process of taking your rifle and you will be arrested and carted away – the TV cameras will be rolling and the newspaper photographers will be snapping photos of the event – you can be sure that the police will invite the media.

If you are a member of the new Rifleman Association you must be “active.”  The Ministry of Interior regulations define active as you participating in a minimum of 5 national competitions per year.

GOD BLESS THE SECOND AMMENDMENT and the entire Bill Of Rights!  Things Israel lacks.

Enjoy the Shot Show.

Howard

This resembles the UK more than it does our popular ideas of what Israel is supposed to be.

U.N. and guns

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NRA News video on the U.N. plans for gun control.

The destruction of those firearms I find as, or more, disturbing as I would the burning of books.

As I have said before I regard this as one of the largest threats to our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. And contrary to what some people say I don’t think the response by people will involve actively resisting. The first steps, should such a treaty get passed would be registration of firearms. I don’t think people would take up arms on a large scale to oppose this. It would be more like Canada where they, in a large part, ignored the law.

This would mean that ammo sales would go down, practice would go down, recruiting of new shooters would go down, and within a generation or two the game would be over. Registration must be vigorously opposed and defeated in the legislatures and in the courts. Should such a treaty passed the enforcement of the treaty must be resisted with all the enthusiasm you would any other law that violates my Jews In The Attic Test.

Irrational fears

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The anti-gun bigots sometimes accuse us of irrational fears. I can’t immediately think of any cases where there isn’t at least some truth to the fears expressed but I suppose the accusation could be valid in some cases.

However the anti-gun mind is overflowing with fears that are so numerous and totally lacking in a rational basis they are not only laughable but they are being slapped down in court about it:

When Tarrant County College denied a student the right to stage an empty holster protest in April 2008 at the South Campus, officials feared someone would use the event to bring a weapon on campus.

“There was certainly the expectation that someone was going to show up with a gun in a holster,” TCC interim Chancellor Erma Johnson Hadley said under cross examination during a trial in federal court Thursday.

School officials had the concern even though they had no evidence that anyone would, and U.S. District Court Judge Terry Means told her — when she couldn’t provide any proof of why she thought someone planned to do so — that free speech cannot be limited on the basis of an “undifferentiated fear.”

“I can’t see any tangible basis for this fear,” Means said.

I am sometimes not nearly so gentle with bigots like this. I insist they inhabit the real world and the leave their lunatic ravings at the funny farm. I say something like, “Facts. It’s what reality is made of. I suggest you check it out.”

Quote of the day–Oscar Wilde

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People fashion their God after their own understanding. They make their God first and worship him afterwards.

Oscar Wide
From Hesketh Pearson, Oscar Wilde, His Life and Wit (1946) via The Great Thoughts (link is to the 2nd Edition, mine is the 1st Edition–1985) compiled by George Seldes.
[Although the list is essentially without limit my favorite examples are socialism, environmentalism, and gun control.–Joe]

Quote of the day–John Bolton

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The administration is trying to act as though this is really just a treaty about international arms trade between nation states, but there’s no doubt – as was the case back over a decade ago – that the real agenda here is domestic firearms control.

There’s never been any doubt when these groups talk about saying they only want to prohibit illicit international trafficking in small arms and light weapons, it begs the whole question of what’s legal and what’s not legal. And many of the implications of these treaty negotiations are very much in their domestic application. So, whatever the appearance on the surface, there’s no doubt that domestic firearm control is right at the top of their agenda.

After the treaty is approved and it comes into force, you will find out that it has this implication or that implication and it requires the Congress to adopt some measure that restricts ownership of firearms. The administration knows it cannot obtain this kind of legislation purely in a domestic context … They will use an international agreement as an excuse to get domestically what they couldn’t otherwise.

John Bolton
Former Permanent U.S. Representative to the United Nations
Quoted by J.D. Longstreet January 15, 2009 in The UN To Take US Guns?
[I don’t know if this is a real threat or not. My initial inclination is that the current Senate would refuse to ratify it. But I just don’t know for certain.

Long term I do fear this sort of approach to gun control because it requires fewer people to agree to it. Just the President and 2/3s of the Senate. But how would that work if the treaty said “You must register and track all guns” but the House of Representatives refused to pass a law requiring that? How could a treaty be enforced against individual citizens without U.S. legal code defining the offenses and the punishments?

Would the U.N. send in troops to enforce it? If so I know some people who refer to this sort of situation as having unlimited license to hunt “blue helmeted elk”.–Joe]

Proposed ‘assault weapon’ ban in Washington state

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I posted a little something on it yesterday and last month I told you why it is DOA. But I’ve been getting email (thanks Carl and Barron) and I decided to dig into it a little bit more.

From the bill itself (emphasis mine):

(20) “Assault weapon” means:

8 (a) Any semiautomatic pistol or semiautomatic or pump-action rifle

9 or shotgun that is capable of accepting a detachable magazine, with a

10 capacity to accept more then ten rounds of ammunition and that also

11 possesses any of the following:

12 (i) If the firearm is a rifle or shotgun, a pistol grip located

13 rear of the trigger;

14 (ii) If the firearm is a rifle or shotgun, a stock in any

15 configuration, including but not limited to a thumbhole stock, a

16 folding stock or a telescoping stock, that allows the bearer of the

17 firearm to grasp the firearm with the trigger hand such that the web of

18 the trigger hand, between the thumb and forefinger, can be placed below

19 the top of the external portion of the trigger during firing;

20 (iii) If the firearm is a pistol, a shoulder stock of any type or

21 configuration, including but not limited to a folding stock or a

22 telescoping stock;

23 (iv) A barrel shroud;

24 (v) A muzzle brake or muzzle compensator;

25 (vi) Any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that

26 can be held by the hand that is not the trigger hand;

27 (b) Any pistol that is capable of accepting a detachable magazine

28 at any location outside of the pistol grip;

29 (c) Any semiautomatic pistol, any semiautomatic, center-fire rifle,

30 or any shotgun with a fixed magazine that has the capacity to accept

31 more than ten rounds of ammunition;

32 (d) Any shotgun capable of accepting a detachable magazine;

33 (e) Any shotgun with a revolving cylinder;

34 (f) Any conversion kit or other combination of parts from which an

35 assault weapon can be assembled if the parts are in the possession or

36 under the control of any person.

37 (21) “Detachable magazine” means a magazine, the function of which

is to deliver one or more ammunition cartridges into the firing

2 chamber, which can be removed from the firearm without the use of any

3 tool, including a bullet or ammunition cartridge.

4 (22) “Barrel shroud” means a covering, other than a slide, that is

5 attached to, or that substantially or completely encircles, the barrel

6 of a firearm and that allows the bearer of the firearm to hold the

7 barrel with the nonshooting hand while firing the firearm, without

8 burning that hand, except that the term does not include an extension

9 of the stock along the bottom of the barrel that does not substantially

10 or completely encircle the barrel.

11 (23) “Muzzle brake” means a device attached to the muzzle of a

12 weapon that utilizes escaping gas to reduce recoil.

13 (24) “Muzzle compensator” means a device attached to the muzzle of

14 a weapon that utilizes escaping gas to control muzzle movement.

15 (25) “Conversion kit” means any part or combination of parts

16 designed and intended for use in converting a firearm into an assault

17 weapon.

Notice that some pump action guns are considered “assault weapons” by these bigots.

Notice that the firearm has to have a detachable magazine and any of the evil characteristics. In the 1994 Federal AWB it had to have two of the additional characterisitics.

Notice that muzzle breaks and compensators are considered evil enough to make a firearm an AW. That would appear to make all Glock “C” models outlawed under this proposal.

And people like Dennis Henigan (Lethal Logic chapter 3) claim there is no slippery slope.

The line about “any tool, including a bullet or cartridge” appears to be in severe need of rewriting. I can’t make sense of it as it stands. I’m sure the Seattle bigots heard the California bigots whining about the manufactures making “California legal” firearms with a receiver that allows the magazine can be removed with a cartrige used as tool and hence complies with the law. I guess they didn’t hear about the ring worn on your finger than does the same thing.

Also of note is that the grandfathering of existing ownership is more than little harsh:

16 (5) In order to continue to possess an assault weapon that was

17 legally possessed on the effective date of this section, the person

18 possessing the assault weapon shall do all of the following:

19 (a) Safely and securely store the assault weapon. The sheriff of

20 the county may, no more than once per year, conduct an inspection to

21 ensure compliance with this subsection;

22 (b) Possess the assault weapon only on property owned or

23 immediately controlled by the person, or while engaged in the legal use

24 of the assault weapon at a duly licensed firing range, or while

25 traveling to or from either of these locations for the purpose of

26 engaging in the legal use of the assault weapon, provided that the

27 assault weapon is stored unloaded and in a separate locked container

28 during transport.

So in order to exercise your specific enumerate right to keep bear firearms in common use (most of my firearms would be illegal by this definition) you have to allow the sheriff to annually inspect your firearm storage–with no guidance on what is considered “safely and securely”.

A person would not be allowed to transport the firearm under any number of important situations such as to the gunsmith, a hunting trip, out of state for sale or as a gift. Let alone carry one on a daily basis as I do.

And what is it with “duly licensed firing range”? A search of the Washington State Department of Licensing website turned up nothing.

Also note that a couple of the bigots who proposed the law wrote an error filled opinion piece in the Everett Herald.

As other have said–we win because the other side is stupid. They are apparently nearly completely blinded by their own bigotry. But isn’t that nearly always the case with bigots?

Quote of the day–Asguard

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A sniper rifle, a M16 and an automatic hand gun are only designed to kill people, it cant cut your steak or make a nice stew. There is NO legitimate use for them PERIOD.

Asguard
November 10, 2008
Comment to 8 year old murders father and friend…
[Nice proof by vigorous assertion.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Dave Workman

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Voter frustration has a way of becoming voter fury when lawmakers stick one hand in their wallet and the other hand in their gun cabinet.

Dave Workman
January 13, 2009
Bill introduced to ban so-called ‘assault weapons’ in Washington State
[This bill defines certain pump action rifles and shotguns as “assault weapons” as well as ordinary semi-autos.

Vote the bums out!–Joe]

Quote of the day–mikecope

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The only thing a gun is good for is killing and maiming people and animals. It is especially bizarre that several people professing to be Christians are keen to get their hands on the means to kill and maim. Would Jesus have packed an assault rifle?

…

You should also consider that a lot of this weaponry stuff is not about rights or owning arms, but SELLING arms, and making money out of it. Always follow the money.

mikecope
March 3, 2009
[First off, apparently he forgot that Jesus said:

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

Matthew 10:34

But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Luke 19:27

Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

Luke 22:36

Second, it is spoken like a true communist. It’s the greedy capitalist that is responsible for everything they think of as evil in the world. It’s that unchallenged assumption–“Money is the root of all evil.”

I prefer Ayn Rand’s claim “Money is the root of all good.”–Joe]

Quote of the day–Marie

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I find that people who are so enamored with guns are people who feel powerless in some way and have to prove something to world about how big, important and special they are.

…

Guns are a hideous necessity for law enforcement, but should never be in the hands of anyone else.

Marie
Oct 29, 2009
[Just so you know what some people thing of you and your specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Dmitry Orlov

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So, what is there for them to do? Forget “growth,” forget “jobs,” forget “financial stability.” What should their realistic new objectives be? Well, here they are: food, shelter, transportation, and security. Their task is to find a way to provide all of these necessities on an emergency basis, in absence of a functioning economy, with commerce at a standstill, with little or no access to imports, and to make them available to a population that is largely penniless. If successful, society will remain largely intact, and will be able to begin a slow and painful process of cultural transition, and eventually develop a new economy, a gradually de-industrializing economy, at a much lower level of resource expenditure, characterized by a quite a lot of austerity and even poverty, but in conditions that are safe, decent, and dignified. If unsuccessful, society will be gradually destroyed in a series of convulsions that will leave a defunct nation composed of many wretched little fiefdoms. Given its largely depleted resource base, a dysfunctional, collapsing infrastructure, and its history of unresolved social conflicts, the territory of the Former United States will undergo a process of steady degeneration punctuated by natural and man-made cataclysms.

Dmitry Orlov
February 13, 2009
Social Collapse Best Practices
[I was reminded of this after reading Roberta post The Greater Depression. I snorted in laughter when I read the last line of her post but then it took me several minutes for me to give Barb the context so she could get the joke. She claims it was worth it.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Thomas Jefferson

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When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

Thomas Jefferson
[This was going to be a response to some gun fearing wussy who had objections to my statement here. But no one took the bait and someone else brought up what Jefferson said in the comments before I did.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Peter Masundire

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How could he be in charge of Seattle’s gun-prevention programs?

Peter Masundire
January 5, 2009
A Democratic activist in South Seattle.
Gun guy packs heat in message
Referring to Seattle mayor’s gun adviser, Mark Pursley.
[It’s nice for them to admit that is what the position is intended for. And it’s also nice to know the guy in that position has at least some sympathy for our position.

H/T to Mike and Ry for the email pointer.–Joe]