19 April 1993 was the first time since the Spanish Inquisition that people have been burned alive for their religious beliefs.
Alec McCol
In Soldier of Fortune referring to the Waco massacre.
Category Archives: Gun Rights
Quote of the day–George Mason
George Mason, one of our unsung framers, responding to the question, “I ask, sir, what is a militia?” Mason answered, “It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.”
George Mason
They’re biding their time
As expected, via the Washington Post:
“Unless we get some leadership from the White House, we’re not going to take this kind of political damage bringing up something that would never become law,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.), a gun-control advocate.
They are just waiting until after the 2008 election. They want to win the White House first. Then they will go after our guns.
It’s all about feeling safe
From The Roanoke Times January 31, 2006:
A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly.
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Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.”
As the evidence from today illustrates it was not actual safety. Just feeling safe. Feeling safe yielded the largest mass shooting in US history. A bunch of people lost their lives today because some politicians deprived the people of their right to keep and bear arms. Those politicians should be tried for accessory to murder.
[Thanks to Jerry. I did little more than copy and paste his email to make this post.]
Quote of the day–Joe Lockhart
From the position of the federal government, we would acknowledge that there are limits to what we can do. But there certainly should be no limits to what we try to do.
Joe Lockhart
White House spokesman
April 22, 1999
Regarding Federal role in stopping school violence (two days after Littleton CO school shooting).
[No limits? Even if they try to violate the constitution? I’m get a really bad feeling about this kind of talk.–Joe]
Quote of the day–Mac Johnson
It’s hard to argue with the mayor when one looks at the cold hard facts: today’s murder rate is just 26% higher than it was when the gun ban was put in place in 1978, down from a peak of just 128% higher in 1991 before a nationwide decline in crime driven by demographics took hold. With results like that, I’m not sure D.C. can afford to have its gun violence “decreased” any further.
Mac Johnson
Court Rediscovers 2nd Amendment, Liberals Fear Other ‘Rights’ May Soon be Found
March 15, 2007
[And the D.C. bigots are appealing the overthrowing of their gun ban.–Joe]
Quote of the day–Christopher Hitchens
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
Christopher Hitchens
October 30, 2003
Mommie Dearest in Slate
[Son James brought up this quote in a conversation we had this evening. While the quote in it’s original form was not about gun control the principle is sound in both domains. And it’s the concept is behind my Just One Question.–Joe]
Quote of the day–Gun Guys
…it’s completely legal almost everywhere for any gun owner to sell a firearm to anyone else without any background check at all. If you have a gun, you can sell it at a gun show, through the newspaper, or even online, without any sort of background check at all.
It’s currently legal to own weapons like the .50 caliber sniper rifle, weapons that no civilian should ever be allowed to have.
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Murder isn’t legal– unless you’re in a state with a License to Murder law, and you can claim that you “felt threatened” before you pulled the trigger.
In 48 states, it’s completely legal to tote around a loaded firearm beneath your clothes.
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And yet none of these people have broken the law. They’re getting away with it– but because our laws are so loose, they’re doing it completely and totally legally.
Gun Guys
April 6, 2007
Via email with the subject: “Gun Guys: Getting Away With Not Breaking the Law”
[I find it very telling that he has a problem with people getting away with not breaking the law. It reminds me of this quote by Ayn Rand.–Joe]
More gun owner harassment
Under the proposed law, gun owners would have to register with the city, even if they already have a valid gun permit. And dealers would be required to file a report every day with the chief of police, listing sales.
The measure would also outlaw the sale of higher caliber ammunition.
So what is it this is supposed to accomplish? Can they answer Just One Question before going forward with this? Of course not.
And can you imagine stink that would raised if a similar laws were proposed for some minority group other than gun owners?
Bigots. Nothing but bigotry can explain their beliefs and actions.
Quote of the day–Bob Allen
It was a day when men, recognizing the reality of evil, carried weapons that enabled them to stand in the gap for those being unjustly tormented and threatened. Virtually any man on the street could come to the aid of a victim like Clara.
That was then; this is now.
Bob Allen
April 4, 2007
How gun control trades life for death
[Clara is the woman killed in the CNN building yesterday.–Joe]
Quote of the day–Nicki Stallard
And you choose to be unarmed? To me, that just doesn’t make sense.
Nicki Stallard
Pink Pistols: The Gay Group That’s Getting Armed
Posted April 3, 2007
[Jeff Soyer, gay gun blogger at Alphecca, is quoted in this article as well.–Joe]
Give it up, it’s hopeless
A flight attendant accidentally carried a gun on board an airplane. She apparently went right through security with it. If they can’t defend against people accidentally carrying weapons on board then they sure as heck can’t defend against people that deliberately attempt to get them past security. They should investigate the alternatives and just give up this tremendous waste of money.
Quote of the day–Joe Waldron
The Personal Protection Act has succeeded in destroying the myth that legally-armed citizens are somehow a threat to the general public. We knew they were wrong, and now everybody else knows it, too.
Joe Waldron
March 30, 2007
Executive Director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
ANTI-GUNNERS WRONG (AGAIN) ABOUT MINNESOTA CARRY
Quote of the day–Kevin Baker
So when is “legislating from the bench” valid, and when not?
I would argue that two conditions must be met. First, it can and should only be done by the Supreme Court. To bestow that power on lower courts invites, if not anarchy, then disrespect for law by the citizenry. Second, any decision that violates stare decisis must be done in order to broaden individual rights and freedoms – the “privileges and immunities” of citizens – that have been improperly restricted by decades of grain-upon-grain infringement.
Someone has to have the power to say “That’s a heap,” and knock it down.
Kevin Baker
March 6, 2007
Dred Scott and Legislating from the Bench
[This is a difficult question and I am very pleased with the answer Kevin came up with. If you read the entire post you get a better statement of the problem and why this solution is correct. Government power tends to grow and “legislating from the bench” should only be done to reduce that power.–Joe]
Quote of the day–Bill Schneider
So, here’s a message for the Big Dems back in the Beltway. Do lunch with Representative McCarthy and suggest she pull her bill before any more political blood is shed and it defeats enough dems to lose Congress back to the GOP and keeps you out of the White House. And when you do squash H.R. 1022, make sure everybody knows you did it.
Bill Schneider
March 22, 2007
Guns, Sex, Lies, and Democrats
[H.R. 1022 is the latest version of the “assault weapon” ban floating around congress.–Joe]
Interesting legal analysis of Parker
I found this very interesting. I don’t have time to get into it much for reasons that will be made apparent in my next post. But here are some appetizers:
For starters, the Common Law had long – as Dr. Cavala properly noted –limitations on who can possess what type of weapons and where. The best analysis of this issue is set forth in Kates, Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment, 82 Mich. L. Rev. 204, 224, 241-51 (1983).
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The same can be said of machineguns – although they are not considered protected as being allowed in private hands for the same reason that WMD’s are not: the Common Law limited certain very lethal weapons to being in the exclusive hands of the state to avoid the defacto creation of private armies. The NRA in fact provided an expert witness on the matter at hand.
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Where the opinion will require continuing judicial supervision – in fact the appointment of a special master on remand is on the process of registering handguns in the District. That is the real issue and one that has received scant attention. The Silberman opinion did not wipe out registration – in fact it ordered it. That raises the issue of who can acquire and register handguns in accordance with the Court opinion.
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The District of Columbia for Gun Control Act purposes is considered a state (18 USC 921(a)(2)). That means that the federal rules regulating transactions between residents of different states apply. That means as to handguns that DC residents cannot outside the district, acquire handguns and bring them back into the district. Also, non DC residents cannot transfer guns to DC residents unless the transaction is brokered through a federal firearms licensee (FFL) who is licensed by BATF to operate within DC. I am told that there are no DC licensed gun shops as such. That being the case, persons who possess handguns in the District who could take advantage of the opinion is quite limited if not non existent – as noted below. It is important to note that Silberman’s ruling did not wipe out the registration provisions – in fact that was the relief requested. Rather, it wiped out the bar to registering (and thus legally having) guns. There will not be a rush to buy guns because there are no legal outlets – as of today – in the District.
Quote of the day–Herman Melville
A man of true science uses but a few hard words… whereas the smatterer in science… thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.
Herman Melville
[A similar thing occurs with people that know virtually nothing about guns. They talk of “assault weapons”, “high capacity clips”, and other nonsense things. Then these bigots claim they should be allowed to regulate such things that they don’t even know the vocabulary for.–Joe]
Quote of the day–Lyle Keeney
It makes little difference how a bigot thinks, when it is plain that they are bigots. Bigots must only be defeated. Understanding what makes them tick is of purely academic interest.
Lyle Keeney
March 20, 2007
[I was initially going to disagree with a portion of this. I was thinking that knowing “what makes them tick” could be useful in defeating them. But then I realized that would only be useful in trying to get them to stop being a bigot. Defeating them is something different. Defeat involves making them social and political outcasts. This doesn’t involve converting them to a more open mindset. Until they want to be converted there is no point in trying to convert them. They will be a lot more motivated to change their ways when they realize society at large thinks of them as some sort of lower life form on the level of pond scum which is what we must work for to defeat these anti-gun bigots.–Joe]
Longenecker on Parker v. D.C.
John Longenecker, as usual, has an article full of quotable stuff. I’ll have to wait until tonight when I have the time to add all of them to my database. Just a sample:
That’s right – Unconstitutional. It may go to the Supreme Court, but for now, it’s ruled by an Appeal Courts and it has legal significance. There is a 30-day stay of execution, I believe, and D.C. Mare Fenty has announced that his city intends to defy the court ruling and continue to enforce the ban.
Nation of laws, my eye. Don’t ever trust a liberal who ever says again that we are a nation of laws.
There is no such thing as sensible gun laws.
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Meanwhile, the court has deemed that City’s gun ban unconstitutional – especially upbraiding because the matter involves defiance of a civil right. If you preside over gun control, you break your oath of office from Day One and every day thereafter.
This is huge this way. The Second Amendment is a civil right ignored by a champion of civil rights in the nation’s capitol. What a wonderful example of the party in Congress at this time. What a wonderful example of governance in action.
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Coerced dependency is the goal in making violent crime a crisis. They think it’s leadership, but it’s really farming a crop of their own. The tragedy is that the crisis is developed with the full knowledge and utter indifference that people will be hurt when unable to defend themselves, when criminals are turned loose, but that this is somehow necessary for some far-off ultimate social justice. Or business as usual.
Quote of the day–Michael Gawenda
The key sentence of the Second Amendment reads: “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
The meaning of this sentence has been debated furiously by constitutional lawyers for at least half a century, even as the evidence mounted that the US had the highest level of gun ownership in the developed world and that gun deaths in America were at epidemic levels.
Gun control advocates argue that the sentence relates only to the right of the states and the federal government to establish armies. The NRA and most conservatives argue that it means every American has gun rights.
Michael Gawenda
March 19, 2007
Gun lobby scores a win in court
[Even giving him a pass on the statement about “highest level of gun ownershp” and “epdemic levels” what possible difference can that possibly make to the debate about what the 2nd Amendment actually means? And then giving him a pass on that how does he have enough brain power to continue breathing if he thinks it can possibly relate to the ‘right’ of the federal government to establish armies? This is the kind of warped “mind” these bigot have. They have mental problems as well as crap for brains.–Joe]