Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day–Daniel G. Jarcho

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The handgun ban is a reasonable restriction, because handguns constitute a unique class of firearm that have an unmatched ability to cause violence and kill human beings.


Daniel G. Jarcho
Brief of Violence Policy Center and the police chiefs for the cities of Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Seattle as amici curiae in support of petitioners in D.C. v. Heller.
[Handguns cause violence? Unmatched in their ability to kill human beings?


And all this time I would have thought it was atomic bombs (super novas probably outperform A-Bombs but they haven’t actually been demonstrated on human inhabited planets that I know of) that were unmatched in their ability to implement violence and kill human beings. And that is why I was accepting of “reasonable restrictions” on atomic weapons. But now that the Supreme Court says handguns are protected by the Second Amendment and, according to Mr. Jarcho, atomic bombs are less dangerous than handguns I guess that means atomic bombs should be protected as well.


I’m glad Mr. Jarcho was able to clear that little misunderstanding up for me. I’ll be consulting his work more frequently from now on to make sure I don’t make some future similar mistake in my classification of weapon systems. Now, where is a nearby public range where I can rent an atomic capability artillery piece and buy some ammo for it? I want to evaluate some possibilities for the next Boomershoot.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Cedric T

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Guns got to go! Too many redneck, bible toting racist with them. There honestly is no need for anyone to have a gun, for any reason. Hunting included. Obama said he would get rid of guns and he will. Last season for hunters. Enjoy while you can.


Cedric T
THE AGENDA: GUN CONTROL
November 19, 2008 10:05 AM
Chicago, IL
[Μολὼν λάβε Cedric. Μολὼν λάβε!–Joe]

Quote of the day–Sick in the U. P.

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I won’t apologize for concluding that anyone who supports the free and unfettered possession of deadly weapons is sick in their head. Why in God’s name should the Democratic party, or any organization dedicated to improving the lives and future of Americans, give up on the idea of gun control? Has mental illness spread so far in our country that the concept of curbing violent death by gun is no longer viable?


Here’s my take: all gun owners should immediately submit themselves for psychiatric examination, to determine the extent of their illness and begin treatment before they do harm to someone.


Rifled, single-shot hunting weapons aside, this country should immediately consider laws making the possession of any handgun or assault weapon evidence of serious and dangerous mental illness, and anyone having such a weapon on their possession should be subject to immediate immobilization, hospitalization and confinement for treatment. The sale of — or display with intent to sell — any handgun or assault weapon to a private citizen should result in that person’s inventory being seized and immediately destroyed, and the seller hospitalized immediately for treatment. Any factory producing handguns or assault weapons caught selling their product to private citizens should be closed, their corporate officers hospitalized, and the inventory destroyed.


Sick in the U. P.
Oct 27, 2008 06:07 PM
In a comment to this article: Why we all need the Democrats to abandon gun control
[Sounds like some people are in full support of sending us for an extended stay in the reeducation camps. I wonder if he realizes what it would entail to get 80 million (or even a significant fraction) armed people to the camps. I would like to suggest it is they that need to seek psychiatric help.–Joe]

Can you say “black market”?

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From admittedly “not the wisest person in the world“:



One way to probably lower gun use would be to make the price of the bullet higher. I think one bullet should cost almost as much as a gun and I think bullets should be sold individually.


I feel that if people had to pay a lot more for bullets, they wouldn’t buy them as freely.


I’m not the wisest person in the world, but I know if people had to pay $100 just for one bullet, people would think twice about how important it really is to kill themselves or other people with that bullet.


The black market starts appearing when the tax on something goes above 15%. $100 for a single round is on the order of 20,000%. Her suggestion would work about as well as the prohibition against recreational drugs and probably would use much of the same supply chain.


Jeff has other comments.

Quote of the day–Alan Korwin

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He says “these” firearms (Clinton included normal magazines like police use for protection), belong on “foreign battlefields.” God help us if they’re needed on domestic battlefields against a government confiscating rights. Mr. Obama — I know these people. Disarm criminals, mobilize robust support, disarm the public, mobilize robust resistance. Please choose wisely.


Alan Korwin
November 13, 2008
Hope for Obama’s Gun Bill
[“Battlefields” appear to be a theme recently. I wonder why.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Fred LeBrun

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I have absolutely no use for protecting those trafficking in illegal guns. Even those who would do so on principle. Street guns, slithering from state to state, do too much harm.

 

Fred Lebrun
November 12, 2008
Lock, load and try taking aim at the illegal handguns
[This is from a guy that claims to support gun ownership. This was the first instance I had heard of guns slithering. I would have thought they sort of hopped when the slide release was disengaged. But maybe this “street gun” he talks about is some new type that I’m not familiar with.

 

Regardless of their mode of locomotion Lebrun has a very naive viewpoint of the world. He thinks the following would somehow be a good idea and wouldn’t be a problem for gun owners:

 

…a national identification system for handguns. A computerized system that would be accessible to all law enforcement agencies, and that would standardize the requirements for handgun ownership coast to coast.

 

What he apparently doesn’t understand is there is already a Federal standard requirement for handgun ownership coast to coast. It’s called the Second Amendment. And even with that there are people who been chipping away at that with waiting periods (the original Brady Act), restrictions on who can purchase (age, prior felony convictions, prior domestic violence convictions and accusations), storage requirements, and types of handguns (“junk guns”, “Saturday Night Specials”, “armor piercing”, too powerful, too concealable, too many rounds). This incremental approach is what the people of the UK bought into which ultimately resulted in their complete loss of handguns.

 

It appears he is suggesting universal registration of handguns. He is hopelessly naive if he believes this will fly. He need look no further than Canada to see their gun registration failure. Then he should try to answer Just One Question.–Joe]

 

Update: Jeff and Sebastian both have posts up about the same article.

Ominous

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Remember that when Obama announced his Vice-President candidate Joe Biden he bragged that Biden was instrumental in getting the “assault weapon” ban of ’94:



Fifteen years ago, too many American communities were plagued by violence and insecurity. So Joe Biden brought Democrats and Republicans together to pass the 1994 Crime Bill, putting 100,000 cops on the streets, and starting an eight year drop in crime across the country.


CCRKBA reports:



CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said gun owners are legitimately alarmed that president-elect Barack Obama has selected virulent anti-gun-rights Democrat Rahm Emanuel as his White House chief of staff. Emanuel was “point man” on gun ban efforts for the Clinton Administration.

“Scores of Democrats, including Senator Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, assured voters over the past several months that they ‘support’ the Second Amendment,” Gottlieb stated. “Well, America’s gun owners do not merely ‘support’ the Second Amendment, we live by it every day. We value the right to keep and bear arms, and will zealously protect and defend that right, as much as we value the rest of our fundamental individual civil rights, and that is something Democrats need to understand. To think otherwise is a monumental mistake.

“Mr. Obama, whose history on gun rights is abysmal, appears to be considering his party’s most extremist gun control advocates for key positions in his administration,” Gottlieb continued. “That is not a sign of goodwill toward gun owners or their rights. It’s a red flare warning of high winds and rough weather looming on the political horizon.


David Hardy reports:



Supporting it is an insider DC tip that his people are seriously considering a federal ban or restriction on “right to carry” laws.


Countertop reports (see also this post):



Looks like the fix is in and Henry Waxman and Nancy Pelosi are going to toss John Dingell aside…


This was an easy decision for Pelosi who has long clashed with Dingell and ran Lynn Rivers against him in a primary attempt to defeat him.


The Lynne Rivers campaign was all about gun control.


President-Elect Barrack Obama is exceedingly anti-gun. His VP is exceedingly anti-gun. His Chief of Staff is exceedingly anti-gun. The pro-gun John Dingell, Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, who blocked anti-gun legislation from reaching the floor of the House is being booted and replaced with the anti-gun Henry Waxman.


It seems to me that things are shaping up to be “a Perfect Storm”.


I’ll announce my latest software project by sometime next weekend. It may come in useful if things get really ugly.

Quote of the day–Hal Herring

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For two decades, many liberals have thrived on despising the NRA and its members. Those who believe in gun control often hold enormous prejudice against those who don’t. But there are already reams of laws pertaining to the use, abuse, purchase and sale of firearms. What new regulations would the gun-controllers create, and how would they work to address the problem of gun violence? Do they want to prohibit private ownership of firearms altogether? Many would like to ban handguns, without considering just what this would entail, what inequities of power would result, and what new, potentially dangerous, powers would have to be awarded to government to accomplish it. Like activists who want to ban pit bulls, the gun-control advocates remain relentlessly unspecific about what they hope to achieve. It has become clear, too, that these advocates hold a double standard regarding the U.S. Constitution: The First Amendment is vital to the health of a free nation, as is the Fourth, but the Second is respected only by the un-evolved and the violent. Only the parts of the Constitution that their side respects are valid, in this view.


Hal Herring
October 27, 2008
Why we all need the Democrats to abandon gun control
[H/T to Jeff who has a still better quote from the comments to this same article.–Joe]

Ten Percent Increase in Gun Sales?

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Maybe.  But that 10% figure alone doesn’t account for the buying shift away from bolt actions and revolvers and into semi automatics and EBRs*.  Anyone selling semi automatic pistols and EBRs is seeing more like a 100% or greater increase in sales of those items.  Mere accessories for EBRs, I can tell you first-hand, are up 100% in sales from two months ago.  Ammo sales are up substantially too, in this “get it while you still can” market environment.


Manufacturers; If you’re making ARs, AKs, auto pistols, other self-loading carbines, or magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, you would do well to put on another shift if you haven’t done it already.


Citizens; This is a great time to learn just how much fun it can be to learn some shooting skills and to get your first gun.


One wonders if the anti second amendment rights movers and shakers understand how great they’ve been as gun salesmen, or how great they’ve been at recruiting new shooters.  Gun and gun related sales haven’t been this good since the Bubba years.  Gun ranges in populated areas are running at full capacity.  Maybe we’ll have to start renting booths at gun shows again.


*EBR = “Evil Black Rifle”.  In case you were recently revived from a years-long coma; the term applies to anything that might be included in the next “Assault Weapons” ban under ObamACORN (I just added “ObamACORN” to my MS Word spell checker dictionary.  Odd that it wasn’t there already, but I suppose this is an older version of Word. If you work for Microsoft, you might put in a memo reminding those in charge of spell checkers to make sure it’s there) and the Pelosi/Reed Congress, even if (or maybe especially if) they’re tan in color, or green, a nice pink with rainbows, dolphins, unicorns and shiny red hearts on them, etc..  We also speak of “Evil Features” like pistol grips on rifles (oh…”shudder”) or bayonet lugs, or standard capacity magazines (as opposed to the puny five or ten round capacity mags).

A job for the Queen of Snark

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Via Bruce Schneier:



New Contest: Can You Out-Lame the TSA?


Last week, in response to my article about the idiocy of airport security, the head of the Transportation Security Administration, Kip Hawley, essentially conceded the main argument of my article, which was that America’s aviation security system is not designed to catch smart terrorists, but stupid terrorists. Here’s what Hawley wrote last week:


“Clever terrorists can use innovative ways to exploit vulnerabilities. But don’t forget that most bombers are not, in fact, clever. Living bomb-makers are usually clever, but the person agreeing to carry it may not be super smart. Even if “all” we do is stop dumb terrorists, we are reducing risk.”

Not quite believable. And yet he really said it.

And so, a contest: How would the Hawley Principle of Federally-Endorsed Mediocrity apply to other government endeavors?


…


So, go to it. E-mail your entries to Goldberg.Atlantic@gmail.com.  The Goldblog reader who comes up with the funniest application of the Hawley Principle wins a subscription to the Atlantic.


Here are my entries. They are probably too close to the truth to be funny but still I figure it’s worthwhile to mock politicians in public anytime you get the chance:




  1. Gun “buy-backs”, restrictions on the type of guns, and carrying of guns don’t slow down a violent criminal any. But getting guns out of the hands of small stature women, the elderly, and the infirm will at least prevent those people from being able to go out and commit violent crimes.


  2. Hundreds of millions of meals are prepared each day in the U.S. by unlicensed food preparation people. These people prepare food for small children, the elderly, trusting family members, and unsuspecting friends. Food borne illness and accidental poisoning are exceedingly rare given the vast numbers of meals prepared without inspection by the health officials. Licensing and inspecting the professionals who prepare only a small portion of the total meals won’t stop anyone but a minority of incompetent capitalists but at least it raising the cost of doing business will encourage more people to obtain their meals from those who are unlicensed and less tainted by capitalistic inclinations.

If Tamara enters I will concede–sight unseen.

Quote of the day–Mike Baker

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This gun control effort is part of an overall government takeover by the radical left who now control the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The next part of the Obama-ACORN plan is a new military force separate from the US Armed Forces.


Obama has called for a ‘civilian national security force’ (http://www.newswithviews.com/NWV-News/www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt2yGzHfy7s) as powerful as the US military, comments that were ignored by the vast majority of the corporate media but compared by conservatives to the Nazi Hitler Youth.


Mike Baker
November 8, 2008
OBAMA AND ACORN OFFICIALS SET SIGHTS ON GUNOWNERS
[It’s interesting to me that the left compared Bush to Hitler so often when it seems to me that there are much closer ties to Hitler from several directions such as:



  • A philosophical basis (socialism)

  • Ignoring the constitution and human rights (hostility to private gun ownership)

  • Adoration of a charismatic leader

  • Organization of a “civilian” security force

  • Mandatory “volunteer” service to the state

We’ll just have to wait and see. It doesn’t appear that Bush is going to start loading people into the cattle cars anytime soon and Obama hasn’t announced plans for any “work camps” yet. So comparisons for either of them to Hitler seem to be a bit weak still.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Jim Purdy

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Why do we need so many dang guns? Wouldn’t the world be a better place with fewer weapons? I haven’t had a gun since the one I had in the U.S. Army in the 1960s.


Jim Purdy
Tulsa (11/9/2008 3:52:49 AM)
Comment to Obama win spurs gun purchases
[Try selling the idea that fewer guns would make the world a better place to these people:



Oh yeah. That’s right. You can’t convinced them of that because they are dead. They are dead because their own government murdered them. With only a few thousand thugs actually involved in the murdering of 10 million people the victims would only had needed a kill ratio of 1:100 to have completely stopped the butchery. But guess what–their government took their guns away from them with Regulations Against Jews’ Possession of Weapons. They had no effective weapons to defend themselves and you, Mr. Purdy and President-Elect Obama, want to recreate the same conditions here.


No thanks. Keep the change.–Joe]

What my neighbor said

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Laurel lives close by and recently had this to say about the Obama “transition plan” in regards to firearms:



Hey, at least you really can’t accuse me of unfoundedly predicting impending doom at this point, considering the arrogant bastard is openly flaunting his intention to wage war on my rights.


Fine. If Obama wants to see our rifles on a battlefield, we’ll give him a battlefield. Μολὼν λαβέ.


I’m done blogging for today. I have software for the battlefield to finish.

Like that will happen

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Sebastian said,



Hope/Change is soliciting feedback. Be sure to give them some.


So I went to the website and said:



The Second Amendment guarantees a specific enumerated right which is being violated by numerous state and local officials. Prohibitions against certain types of firearms such as so called “assault weapons”, prohibitions against carrying of handguns for self defense, and prohibitions against buying and selling of firearms without approval of the government are just a few of the many violations of this essential civil right. I would like for the Justice Department to enforce 18 USC 242 and prosecute the government officials involved in these violations.

Quote of the day–Alan Gottlieb

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This is still the United States, not a socialist gulag. Public money should not be given to private organizations which then turn around and utilize that funding to usurp the electoral process and erode constitutionally-guaranteed civil rights.


Alan Gottlieb
October 28, 2008
‘ACORN USES PUBLIC FUNDS TO STEAL ELECTIONS, NOW YOUR GUN RIGHTS,’ SAYS SAF
[H/T to Jeff for putting me on the trail for this one.–Joe]

Preparing to fight

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Jeff Knox tells us where he and Mike Vanderboegh agree on the idea of using arms against a repressive government.


That’s all for today. I have more software to write.

Bigot meme in public usage

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I’ve been pushing the anti-gun people as bigots meme for quite a while now (since nearly day one on my blog). Here that concept gets mentioned in a more public venue:

Sigler described Massachusetts as a tolerant state, in terms of race and sexual orientation, but criticized the state’s intolerance towards handguns, saying lawmakers are “[promoting] bigotry against gun owners.” He even proposed that because of these laws, citizens are forced to hide their guns as if they were obscene or wrong, and are ultimately treated as second-class citizens.

Good. It’s one of the few defenses we have against the next administration in the White House.

My town in a UK paper

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Nice article. Laurel has the story. There is even a picture of Sarah Palin sitting on the bed of her University of Idaho dorm room. The article is here. It starts out like this:



They tell me that about one person in 50 on the streets of Moscow, Idaho, is legally carrying a concealed pistol. A lot more have them in their cars. I rather approve of this, though I don’t think I’ll join in.

Keeping up the fight

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There are still lots of things to be done. People have a delaying action to do and a few have some attacks they can make in the short term. The Second Amendment Foundation just announced one of those attacks that can probably bear fruit:



BELLEVUE, Wash., Nov 04, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ — The Second Amendment Foundation, joined by the National Rifle Association, today filed a lawsuit in federal court against the State of Washington, seeking to overturn a state law that discriminates against legal resident aliens who own firearms by violating their Second Amendment rights under the equal protections affirmed by the 14th Amendment.


The SAF/NRA suit is joined by three legal resident aliens who face loss of jobs and firearms collections, and possible prosecution for owning a gun for self-defense when their current Alien Firearms Licenses (AFL) expire. Under a statute unique to Washington State, aliens must possess an AFL to legally possess firearms.


Also named in the lawsuit are Liz Luce, director of the State Department of Licensing and Paul D. Ayers, chief of police in Issaquah, WA where two of the resident plaintiffs live. Ayers is a defendant for not issuing concealed pistol licenses (CPL) to plaintiffs Roelof Kroes, a South African national, and Adrian Coombes, a British citizen. The other plaintiff is Philip Grady, also a British national and a resident of Everett.


Among the aspects of the case are that are interesting to me are that I know Roelof Kroes and Adrian Coombes. Roelof has been to several Boomershoots and Adrian is the guy I worked with at the FFL to get my Gun Blog 45 from Para. And of course I know people at the Second Amendment Foundation. They get money from me which is matched dollar for dollar from Microsoft.

Game over man, game over

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Obama is our next president. The Federal courts have huge vacancy rates that will be filled by Obama and the Democrat dominated Senate.


Last month I made more posts, 127, than I ever have in a single month. The extra can be attributed to Obama.


At this point talking and writing isn’t going to have much effect on our fight for freedom. It’s game over man, game over. I’m going to be spending far less time reading blogs and posting. I have a bunch of software I want to write and I’m going to be concentrating on getting that out the door instead of spending so much time with the blogs.