A different mindset in regards to a pedestrian that had an altercation with a car and then was nearly beaten to death by the car passengers:

Perecorp:

Lesson: Watch out for cars. Keep your mouth shut and keep walking.

masa:

Isn’t it great that Washington is a shall-issue state where any law abiding citizen can, in 30 days, get a permit to carry a concealed firearm?

And we have places to practice close by- Wade’s in Bellevue, Champion Arms in Tukwila- where you can rent guns to figure out what handgun is right for you.

It is your responsibility to protect yourself- the police are always a few minutes away, while the bad guys are right here, right now.

If you are outnumbered, or your attacker is stronger than you, a handgun is the only reasonable choice for self defense.

What if the man who was attacked had a woman with him? Would he try to hold off the 4 attackers while she ran away?

The cost of training and carrying a handgun is small compared to falling prey, or letting your friends and family fall prey, to the predators that roam our city.

Which mindset serves as a deterrent to thugs and which encourages them?

But watch out. If you were carrying and you antagonized the people in the car, encouraged them to fight you, then pulled the gun when they took up your offer you could likely (and rightly so) be charged with a crime. If you are involved in a shooting make sure you are the innocent victim.

Via a direct email from masa who also said:

Perhaps you could encourage your readers to leave comments more often, even on places like the Seattle Times that we may not normally read.

It’s an Onion video but those that remember the hatchet job done by the media and anti-gun bigots against Winchester “Black Talons” about 10 years ago will find this only slightly more outrageous:

Manufacturer Recalls Hollow Point Bullets That Fail To Explode Inside Targets

Thanks to hunter006 for the email tip.

Far too often when I write about the ATF it is because they said something stupid or did something illegal. But here is an article that mentions an ATF spokesman saying something that I agree with. I had to read the entire article twice to make sure all the law enforcement types were saying all the right things. And apparently there are people in the media willing to not spin it to fit their agenda. Reading between the lines a little bit it appears the writer and/or editor might have had the usual agenda but law enforcement didn’t play along:

“Guns never start out illegal,” said Earl Woodham, a spokesman with the ATF. “A human being makes it illegal. A gun has never killed anybody without assistance.”

Woodham said “wannabe tough guys” illegally acquire guns in a variety of ways, ranging from burglary, to pilfering at a friend or family member’s house, to black market purchases. “Most times they will get them from someone they know,” he added.

“For a juvenile, if your goal is to get a gun, they are probably pleased with any gun they can get,” Woodham said. “A gun is a desirable gun if it will fit in your hand.”

I’m still of the opinion that ATF (and E) should be a convenience store but if we ever get to the point where we are prosecuting those working as regulators of a specific enumerated right a fair prosecutor should take evidence such as the above when deciding whether to press charges or not.

Typical. One set of laws for us and no laws for them.

Not only do police officers (and a district attorney) buy machine guns for person use from the police department but the police department is fighting the Freedom of Information Act requests:

The court case is the result of a Freedom of Information Law request filed by the Times Union more than three years ago. The city denied the newspaper’s request. Last year a state judge ordered the documents released yet allowed the city to redact the names of officers from the records. The newspaper appealed.

In its initial denial, the city said the release of the records could endanger the lives of officers because the guns were used to fight crime.

However, more than a year later in August 2007 the Times Union reported the guns were purchased illegally by officers for personal use, at tax-exempt prices, and that they had never been used for official duties.

The city subsequently changed its court argument to say the documents should not be released because they were ”personnel” files and therefore exempt from disclosure under a state law that shields police officers employee files from public disclosure. The Albany Police Officers Union joined the case at that point and has cited the fact officers may have engaged in illegal behavior to buttress their argument that the documents are therefore personnel records.

Still, no officer has been fired, disciplined or passed over for a promotion as a result of being implicated in the scandal, according to several departmental sources. Also, the city, in its legal papers, said officers cannot be held accountable for misconduct that is more than a year old.

“Cannot be held accountable for misconduct that is more than a year old?” So they just have to make sure the bodies of all the women with babies in their arms they shoot with the machine guns aren’t found for at least a year?

The ironically named “Freedom State Alliance” has this to say:

With over 30,000 gun deaths in the U.S. each year — including the 4 police officers shot and killed in Oakland, California on March 21st — an appropriate response to this carnage should be bold and comprehensive policies to prevent further homicides, suicides and unintentional injuries.

…

Meanwhile, little is being done to address the elephant in the room: the 280 million guns already in circulation and how to reduce this staggering number. Although there are some good gun laws in place, thanks in large part to the tireless efforts of gun violence prevention advocates and survivors, there has been little success in addressing the sheer volume of guns.

…

Japan is a good case in point as to why fewer guns make a difference. With a population of 128 million people, it is estimated that Japan has fewer than 400,000 legally owned guns resulting in a total of 22 gun murders in 2007 according to Japan’s National Police Agency.

The United States on the other hand has a population of 306 million, 280 million guns and over 12,000 gun homicides each year. Even if, for arguments sake, we were to more than double Japan’s population to match the U.S. population, that would leave Japan with just over 50 gun homicides compared to America’s over 12,000 gun murders. It’s shameful.

America needs to decide what kind of country it wants to be. Do we want to be a nation willing to be bullied by an extremist lobby and misguided in our way of thinking about our nation’s gun problem?

I find it very telling the one-man show at the “Freedom State Alliance” (FSA) refers to “the extremist lobby” which is composed of several million members of the NRA, hundreds of thousands with SAF and CCRKBA. And 10 of millions of people that are members at local gun clubs and ranges. I probably have more people attend Boomershoot each year than the “Freedom State Alliance” can count as members.

I find it very telling that the FSA looks at only the GUN related homicides in Japan and not the total homicide and suicide rates which paint a very different picture when compared to the U.S.

I find it very telling that FSA uses the number 30,000 dead. Because that includes legally justified defensive shootings by police officers and private citizens! In order to get the numbers up FSA uses praiseworthy uses of firearms–then they spin it to be something negative.

I find it very telling the FSA laments the number of people exercising a specific enumerated right. What would the the response of the general public if the KKK were whining about the number of blacks running around free and unregulated instead of being slaves?

What this tells me is the FSA is a bigoted organization that must spin and deceive in their attempts to get traction on the destruction of a critical portion of our Bill of Rights.

Interesting perspective on the shooting of the police officers in Oakland:

This time, instead of the Gaza Strip in the Middle East, we’re talking about the MacArthur Strip in East Oakland. Instead of the occupation force of the Israelis in Palestine or the Americans in Iraq or Afghanistan, the low income Black communities in America are dealing with the police, FBI, ATF and DEA, to name a few. Instead of a suicide bomber or a sniper holed up in a building, Lovelle turned out to be a suicide sniper who used a gun instead of a bomb to take out enemies of the community.

I wonder how tolerant of that sort of attitude the MSM would be if it were some “gun-nut” or religious group who holed up and shot it out with the police.

I take that back. I don’t need to wonder. I remember the MSM treatment of Ruby Ridge and Waco. And in the case of Ruby Ridge the DOJ agreed with the “gun-nuts”–the FBI was way out of line.

I just posted a comment to this article. My comment was:

I have just one question (https://blog.joehuffman.org/2004/12/14/just-one-question/) for you:

 

Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?

The website response was:

This discussion is moderated. Your post will be displayed when a moderator has reviewed it.

I wonder if it will really will be displayed.