Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day–Jim Scoutten

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I’ve always thought there are some events that shouldn’t get National TV coverage.


Jim Scoutten
March 7, 2009
Producer and host of Shooting USA
Boomershoot coverage?
H/T to Ry (via email as well as his blog), followed by Kevin (email and blog), Say Uncle, Robb (email and blog), Phil, and Sebastian.
[I am a little insulted. Boomershoot got positive coverage from Newsweek, KING 5 Evening Magazine (Seattle television show), Outside Magazine, and numerous other media outlets (that list is just a partial listing). If he doesn’t think we are appropriate for national TV coverage he is mistaken. We can and have handled national media before and done quite well.


It just so happens another national TV show is planning to attend this year anyway. I also got a request for permission from a participant doing a video with smaller audience. Boomershoot should be well represented in the media this year. The gun blogger list of participants alone is impressive.


Like I said, I’m a little insulted but Scoutten is missing out more than Boomershoot by his decision.


Thanks for all the support guys but I don’t really think it’s necessary to do a Zumbo on him. He’s not saying Boomershoot should be banned or anything. He just doesn’t think it is something he wants to present to the public.


In his followup comment he says he doesn’t want put anything “on TV that could alarm the anti-gunners”. I disagree. I am of the opinion that alarming them over Boomershoot then making fools of them is the more appropriate tactic (ask me sometime in private how we have baited them but they failed to take the bait). But if he doesn’t want to do that I don’t see a reason to attack him over that judgment call.–Joe]

Another back-door registration scheme

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Sometimes, as with the “one gun a month” schemes, it is a little difficult to see the sneaky way the anti-gun owner bigots try to get universal gun registration. But with this one they only barely lower the profile:



Local Law “A” for 2009 would tightly regulate “in the interests of public safety” all ammunition sold in Albany County. Not just ammo for handguns, which already is closely monitored by state law, but all rifle and shotgun ammunition as well. Hunting and target shooting ammo, basically. Anyone buying rounds or shells, even .22s, would have to show identification, declare the gun and have its serial number registered with the ammo seller. The buyer would have to state his intent of use, and could be refused the purchase. The ammo seller, at the same time, would be required to keep records for 10 years.


Registration of guns and gun owners over the years has cost people billions of dollars (two billion in Canada alone in the last decade or so) and about 100 million innocent lives (in genocides from Africa to the Ukraine). The number of crimes solved through the use of gun and gun owner registries is asymptotically close to zero.


In Canada if you ask the gun grabbers how many crimes the police have solved through the use of the gun registry they will subtly change the subject and say, “The registry is used thousands of times each day.” or some such thing. Yes, the registry get a thousands of hits each day by the police. But it just part of a standard query on a person. That doesn’t mean it provided any useful data. And it certainly doesn’t mean it helped solve a crime. John Lott spoke at the 2000 Gun Rights Policy Conference and told us that in Hawaii the police estimate they spend 50,000 hours per year of police time involved in registration efforts. Most of which is paperwork. Yet when you talk to the police they can’t identify even one crime where this has helped. Guns are virtually never left at that crime scene. It’s not in my notes but I recall Lott telling us that when pressed hard enough Canada can support the claim that there was one crime solved through the use the registry which has been, in one form or another, in use for decades.


So if a gun registration scheme has literally only a one in a million (or less) chance of solving a crime what do you think the real reason the gun grabbers keep pushing for registration? I can only think of four possible reasons:




  1. They are ignorant


  2. They are stupid


  3. They are insane


  4. They want to confiscate the guns

In regard to #1, they have been told again and again. Any ignorance on their part is incredibly willful.


In regards to #2, if they are smart enough to count votes they are smart enough to count crimes solved. It is not because they are that stupid.


In regards to #3, this might be true in some cases. They are so blinded by grief over the loss of a loved one that they are not thinking rationally. But this is not the case for the vast majority of gun grabbers.


In regards to #4, this is the only answer I can come up with that makes any sense. Those that want to register firearms and/or their owners so they can enable the elimination of gun ownership.


Molôn Labé.

Facts? Who cares?

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From a reader submitted editorial:



But in Iowa, when a gun discussion was brought up, it referred to hunting and those scraggly guys wearing the camouflage and driving the rusted Ford pickup. Instead of hearing about which person got shot over the weekend, I was hearing something along the lines of “Boy, I ‘m going to gut that coon I shot on Sunday and hang it up in the garage!”


Great stereotype you got there buddy. Did you learn all about the validity of stereotypes while you were attending Klan orientation?



The Brady Campaign is a U.S. organization that supports both gun control and gun owners’ rights.


Can anyone name just one gun control law the Brady Campaign opposed? Does the KKK support both n****r control and civil rights? How can this person think that is even possible?



If Obama is able to pass stricter gun laws, hunters will suffer and be at an uproar. If Obama doesn’t change anything in regards to gun control, those grieving mothers and communities will be screaming in his ear, asking why he hasn’t done anything about it.


The classic bolt action deer rifle and shotguns used for bird hunting are the furthest down on Obama’s list and as a class of guns are probably the least used in crimes. I don’t expect Obama will even hint at restricting them. Rifle ammo, maybe. But not the firearms.


Such ignorance! Why aren’t they embarrassed to have their words seen or heard in public?

Quote of the day–Tracy Ambeau Hanson

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Do we really need a gun-fashion police? I just want to be able to exercise my Second Amendment rights without interference from the District government.


Tracy Ambeau Hanson
March 9, 2009
SAF CHALLENGES D.C. HANDGUN BAN SCHEME



[The above picture is from David. See also more on the lawsuit story from David. I find it incredible amusing SAF found a woman of color as the plaintiff in a case about discrimination against a gun that is the wrong color. How much more blatant can the discrimination be before people start realizing the people attempting to infringe our right to keep and bear arms are bigots?


Thank you Ms. Hanson, SAF, and Calguns Foundation.


SAF is getting monthly, tax deductible, donations from my paycheck with matching donations from Microsoft. What are you doing to help?-Joe]

Substance or Hypocritical Posturing? Which one works for you?

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The following started as my comment at Say Uncle, but I decided it needed its own post.  It’s in response to the now age-old maneuver of calling for more enforcement of existing anti-gun laws rather than passing more, and considering ourselves clever negotiators.  It doesn’t matter who said it recently.  It’s been said for many years;


“…should enforce existing laws rather than propose additional laws they said could infringe on Second Amendment rights.”


Additional laws “could” infringe?  What; existing laws couldn’t infringe on Second Amendment rights?  Not a single one of them?  Next time someone’s house is busted into, guns are confiscated and destroyed, lives are turned upside down over a technical violation when no one has harmed or threatened any other person, you’ll be perfectly OK with that?  It’d be great, so long as no one bothers you with more laws?  You thought Ruby Ridge was cool, and you want more of the same, so long as it’s convenient for you?  You want to keep innocent people in jail over paper-work errors, or over an inch of barrel length or a quarter inch of buttstock?  Would that make you a proud supporter of the second amendment or a sadistic and immoral jackass with anti American tendencies?  You decide.


Lets put this into perspective; “The Justice Department should enforce existing laws against negroes rather than propose additional laws that could infringe on Civil Rights.”


That sounds stupid as all hell, doesn’t it?  How many people would take that as a pro Civil Rights stance and call for more of it?  Yet we have been conditioned over the years to think that’s perfectly acceptable language when discussing second amendment rights.  Any politician says something stupid like that and we think, “Yeah, Baby!  You tell ’em!  That guy’s on OUR side, Man!”


Oh, how far we have fallen.


Would we sit idly by and accept a federal department of alcohol, tobacco, negroes and explosives (BATNE)?  Do you like the juxtaposition there?  Lovely, isn’t it?  Should anyone sit by and accept such a thing as an inevitability, and proudly claim that as a clever, politically “reasonable” stance?


If you reject the idea that gun restrictions equal crime control, and instead believe (as do I) that gun laws are not only counterproductive to their stated goals and an attack on liberty, but unconstitutional, you don’t call for more enforcement of them.  What would be the point in that, unless it’s an unprincipled attempt to appear “reasonable” to people who know nothing of the issue and nothing of the constitution’s history?  For that matter, what law enforcement officer who has taken an oath to the constitution could in good conscience enforce any gun laws against peaceable citizens?


Are we trying to appeal to the sensibilities of idiots at the expense of our credibility, at the expense of the constitution, at the expense of reason, at the expense of public harmony, and at the expense of liberty?  Yeah; that makes us look like geniuses.  Sure it does.  Or cowards.


It’s hypocritical.  It’s McCainian (to perhaps coin a new term).  It’s relying on ignorance for public support.  It’s what Republicans do when they listen to their super-smart advisors.


Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to clean my guns.  And to “fondle” them.  You know, ’cause I have a small penis or something.

Democrats–the party of gun control

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Alan Gottlieb via CCRKBA says:



“Once again,” he said, “Democrats are revealing themselves as the party of restrictive gun control. If the citizens of Washington, D.C. have a right to full congressional representation, they also have a right to own the firearm of their choice. For Democrats to argue that one right is more important than another – especially after last year’s Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment – they are engaging in world-class hypocrisy.”


…

“Democrats argue that the right to representation is not related to the right to keep and bear arms,” Gottlieb said, “but that’s nonsense. This country was born because our founders were being taxed without representation, and because British troops tried to disarm the citizens. Those issues are just as equal today as they were 230 years ago, and Democrats on Capitol Hill need to understand that.”


I keep wondering how close we are to the taxes and disarmament thresholds of another country being born. The Democrats may also be the party that creates a revolution.

Good name but bad association

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Via Say Uncle news from New York City (emphasis mine):



On Tuesday 03/03/09, at approximately 12:00, members of the NYPD’s Firearms Suppression Division executed a search warrant at 864 Jewett Ave., within the confines of the 120 PCT. Upon conclusion of the warrant, a total of 80 firearms had been seized from within the home. One individual was taken into police custody and charged with Criminal Possession of a Weapon.


“Firearms Suppression Division” should be the name of a successful corporate entity and never associated with a police department. Can you imagine the screams of protest, and rightly so, if the NYPD also had a “Faggot Suppression Division” or “Jew Suppression Division”?


Those boys in blue need a serious spanking. 18 USC 242 comes to mind as a good first step.

D.C. now wants statehood

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Because the Senate told them they are going to have to abide by the Second Amendment the D.C. City Council now wants the district to become a state. Do they think that will change things? Just because Alabama and Mississippi are states doesn’t mean they can disregard the 13th Amendment.

Engaging the enemy

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Via an email from Gullyborg:



This is hot news here in Oregon and it needs to be spread across the blogosphere:


http://oregonwarvets.typepad.com/owva_blog/2009/02/owva-prepares-to-litigate-against-western-oregon-university.html


My friend Greg runs OWVA. He is committed to providing Maxwell with whatever help he needs to sue the crap out of WOU. But it will take money, so please post about this and encourage readers to contact OWVA to contribute to the Maxwell case.


Basically a retired Marine was legally carrying a pistol while attending Western Oregon University. He was suspended for a year for exercising his rights and “In addition to his unlawful discipline, WOU humiliated the 30 year old, veteran Marine by mandating that he receive psychiatric evaluation and write a ten page paper on civil obedience before his readmission into the university.”


The WOU bigots are the ones that need to fired, prosecuted under 18 USC 241, receive a psychiatric evaluation, and write a ten page on respecting civil rights. Help Oregon War Veterans Association make it so.

Recognition of Second Amendment a nightmare

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D.C. may have to give some recognition to the Second Amendment and the Heller decision and what do the anti-gun bigots have to say about it? They think it’s “a nightmare”:

What should have been a day of celebration last Thursday turned into a nightmare for the District, however, when the Senate approved its version of the “D.C. House Voting Rights Act” S. 160, with an amendment drafted by the National Rifle Association (NRA).

I wonder if they also think recognition of the 13th Amendment was a nightmare as well?

Update: I left the following comment:

And those other states with the “weaker gun laws” have much lower rates of violent crime.
There is Just One Question that needs to be answered:
Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?
The answer is no. Violent crime rates were not improved (unless you cherry pick the data very carefully) in D.C. after the gun ban. And after asking that question for over four years I have yet to get an answer which any anti-gun person would be proud of.
One has to wonder what the real motive of people associated with anti-gun organizations is. We know restrictive laws on firearms don’t make people safer so what is it they hope to accomplish?
I can only conclude they are of the same type of mindset that would have screamed the 13th Amendment was going to be a “nightmare” as well. Hence, I am lead to believe the anti-gun organizations of the 21st century are the equivalent of the KKK of the 20th century.

Comments are moderated so “reasoned discourse” will break out in 3, 2, 1, …

Update2: After five hours the comment has still not appeared.

Update3: After nearly 57 hours the comment has still not appeared but other comments, supporting their position, left after mine have shown up.

How nice

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The ATF trains dogs to detect explosives. This is obviously useful for bomb searching and post blast investigation. But there are some things I didn’t know and don’t exactly approve of (emphasis mine):



The ATF explosives detection canine, a graduate of ATF’s 10 week explosive detection training program, has been conditioned to detect explosives, explosives residue, and postblast evidence. As a bonus, because of their conditioning to smokeless powder and other explosive fillers, ATF trained explosives detection canines can detect firearms and ammunition hidden in containers and vehicles, on persons and buried underground. With the assistance of support systems such as the National Response Team, Explosives Technology Branch, ATF Laboratories, Certified Explosives Specialists, and the ATF Firearms Branch and Tracing Center, the ATF canine program is producing a viable tool to assist law enforcement with their war on violent crime.


Such a bonus.


With roughly 40% of the population exercising their 2nd Amendment rights the ratio of false positives (innocent people “caught” exercising a specific enumerated right) to true positives (people with criminal intent) is going to be extraordinarily high. Those false positives will be singled out for searches and general harassment. If the dogs were being trained to detect Jews, gays, or some other minority would the government be posting it on their website?

Quote of the day–Alan Korwin

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Greg D., an average Joe and friend on the east cost reports: “Funny story (sad really), we have been trying to buy extra .380 here in SC and also in GA and it is non-existent. Everyone who carries is stocking up. But I was in Maryland — where no one but a friend of the governor can carry, and the shelves were full.” According to anonymous economists, this is caused by the law of supply and demand. Knowledgeable insiders report that president Obama is trying to repeal that law.

Alan Korwin
March 2, 2009
Ammunition Scarce Somewheres
[With all due respect to Mr. Korwin I fairly certain president Obama believes he already has repealed almost all economic laws.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Alan Korwin

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The congressman’s media release about his letter uses the tired tirade about this being a “no-brainer… requiring no legislative action,” to “protect our brave police,” and a “market flooded with imported, inexpensive, military-style ‘assault’ weapons.” He fails to note that assault is a type of behavior, not an imported product.


The public is able to get the fine value-priced merchandise as kits, parts imports, reassembled models with some American-made parts, and as curios and relics. Criminals found with the firearms, which even the New York Times has said are bulky and unpopular with street gangs, are subject to immediate arrest and imprisonment — completely apart from gun type or nation of manufacture.


Part of a larger racist scheme to ban guns for anyone but the rich, it is a new twist on the discredited and now abandoned “Saturday Night Special” schemes (remember those?), and “junk gun” schemes (remember those?) that would outlaw firearms in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, largely populated with people of color, where they really need the guns for self defense and protection against rampant government-sponsored crime from its war on some drugs.


Alan Korwin
March 1, 2009
Affordable Rifle Ban
[When someone says something is a “no-brainer” in relation to gun laws they are usually right. No brains were involved.–Joe]

Words have meaning

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You would think that professional writers would know words have meanings and this is nonsensical unless you also believe the Robocop or Terminator movies represent reality:



The U.S. State Department said on Friday that U.S.-purchased or stolen weapons account for 95 percent of Mexico’s drug related killings, and that Mexican cartels are increasingly carrying out contract killings in the U.S.


But of course from the following it’s apparent facts are irrelevant to this writer (gun shows have the same laws and most state do not have registration):



Mexican cartels often pay U.S. citizens to purchase assault rifles or other guns at gun shops, then sell them to a cartel representative at a U.S. gun show, where registration rules are much less stringent and the gun sale can’t be easily traced.


I have to conclude the writer is clueless, has an agenda against the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights or both.

Mike is making progress

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Mike Brown is the Idaho Sport Shooting Alliance lobbyist in Boise and he announced, as did the Apex of The Triangle of Death (info on the Triangle of Death), the good guys advanced another few yards in the battle for gun owner rights.


If that passes and is signed by the Governor it will ease some of my Boomershoot worries.

Sad but realistic

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I rather surprised the New York Times actually printed this story since they can never say anything good about private gun ownership on their editorial page.


It’s sad that the woman is facing, in essence, a loss of innocence. But she also goes through her thought process and is realistic about why she needed to buy her first gun:



Back in late September, when my bank stocks began to tank — slowly, then all at once, as Hemingway described going broke — another wall in my life began to crack, as rumors of break-ins rattled my peaceful neighborhood in Allentown, Pa.


…


A few weeks ago, my husband went away on business, and after two sleepless nights starting every time the old steam radiators knocked, I finally decided I wanted protection.


Jimmy took me to the Army-Navy Store on Grape Street. It was 11 o’clock on Sunday morning, and 15 normal-looking — I was relieved to see — people were leaning on the gun counter at the back of the store. Jimmy explained the differences between the Glocks, semiautomatics with magazines, and the Smith & Wesson revolvers with six bullet chambers. The clerk told us a lot of handguns were out of stock; arms sales around the country have been increasing in inverse proportion to the collapsing economy and in response to the unsubstantiated buzz that the new administration is going to tighten gun control.


“You want a revolver, to start,” Jimmy said. I pointed to a dull pink Charter Arms revolver with a two-inch barrel: the Pink Lady. It looked like a toy. Jimmy laughed. “You don’t want a pink gun.”


I watched the woman at the counter next to me test the feel of several Glocks while the young girl with her thumbed an electronic game. Then finally I picked out a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, “the gun I started with,” the clerk said. I handed him my driver’s license and filled out the paperwork. He left us to run my license number through a criminal-records system called QuickCheck. Two minutes later I was qualified and, between gun and ammo, $762 poorer. The revolver I bought has a black handle and a four-inch stainless-steel barrel. There’s nothing pink about it.

What if he said he was gay?

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Via Say Uncle I found out some college professors will call the police if you advocate exercising your Second Amendment rights to defend innocent life:



On October 3, 2008, Wahlberg and two other classmates prepared to give an oral presentation for a Communication 140 class that was required to discuss a “relevant issue in the media”. Wahlberg and his group chose to discuss school violence due to recent events such as the Virginia Tech shootings that occurred in 2007.


Shortly after his professor, Paula Anderson, filed a complaint with the CCSU Police against her student. During the presentation Wahlberg made the point that if students were permitted to conceal carry guns on campus, the violence could have been stopped earlier in many of these cases. He also touched on the controversial idea of free gun zones on college campuses.


That night at work, Wahlberg received a message stating that the campus police “requested his presence”. Upon entering the police station, the officers began to list off firearms that were registered under his name, and questioned him about where he kept them.


They told Wahlberg that they had received a complaint from his professor that his presentation was making students feel “scared and uncomfortable”.


That’s all it takes to have someone call the police on you? And furthermore the police didn’t tell the bigot, “Get over it.”? What if a student had announced they were gay? That could have made some people “scared and uncomfortable”.


I wonder if the college has some sort of policy against “creating a hostile environment” that could be applied to Professor Anderson.

Quote of the day–Trica Nixon

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You can’t underestimate the power of fear.


Trica Nixon
[I was inspired to post this one after reading Jeff’s post and this line in particular, “If hoplophobe describes a fear of guns, what’s the Latin word for fear of pro-gun voters?”–Joe]

Just backward

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How would you deal with someone that got everything exactly backward? When they want the car to stop they step on the accelerator and when they want to go they step on the brake. Instead of washing their hands before meals they soil them in the most foul manner possible. They put water on the campfire that is keeping them warm and they put gasoline on the Christmas tree fire in their living room.


I would have to conclude they are insane. And unless there are some sort of drugs or therapy available for their condition they should be locked up for the protection of themselves and others.


But that’s doesn’t appear to be an option in this case where the political leaders of D.C. are demanding Congress commit an unconstitutional law and object to the a law that brings them in line with the constitution on another matter:



D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and D.C. Council members disagree with that conclusion. They furiously protested the firearms amendment.


“The District of Columbia leadership is fully united in its opposition to unwarranted amendments that would dramatically damage the District’s carefully revised gun law and expose the District to great harm through the undoing of its laws,” D.C. Council President Vincent C. Gray and Council Member Phil Mendelson, chairman of the council’s public-safety commission, said in a letter to Congress released yesterday.


In a statement after the Senate’s vote, Ilir Zherka, executive director of D.C. Vote, a lobbying group, said the city has passed a “significant hurdle in our fight for full democracy for DC residents.”


But he added of the gun amendment: “If anything, this amendment has strengthened our resolve to continue to fight for the rights of Washingtonians. Congress repeatedly treats the District as a testing ground for flawed, dangerous legislation. This has to stop – and we’ll keep fighting to ensure that the bill signed into law is not tainted by this amendment.”

Cranking it down another notch

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The Brady Campaign is now pointing out the rate of fire with a semi-auto firearm can approach the rate of a fully automatic firearm.


One has to assume this fact will be used to argue that semi-auto firearms should be treated like fully automatic firearms. In other words newly manufactured firearms of this type should banned from sale to private citizens and the ones currently in circulation should be heavily taxed and licensed.


Just wait until they find out that in the hands of an expert revolvers and lever action rifles can be fired as fast or faster than a semi-auto in the hands of amateur. Soon they will be calling bolt action rifles and single shot pistols the “weapons of choice” for drug runners, mother rapers, father stabbers, and father rapers.