Category Archives: Gun Rights

Quote of the day—Joseph T. Salerno

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What is wonderfully surprising is the spontaneous emergence of a pure gold currency in a remote region of southeastern Venezuela around the towns of Tumeremo and El Callao. The region abounds with precious metal ores and has a long history of luring prospectors and miners seeking their fortunes. Today, however, many of the larger mines are controlled by the government military, which is battling local gangs and guerillas. Despite the violence and lawlessness, jobless Venezuelans from far and wide are flooding into the area to work in thriving illegal mines in exchange for payment in gold nuggets. As a result, gold flakes, which are peeled off raw nuggets with hand tools, have become the currency of choice in the region with prices for commodities and services quoted in grams of gold. Half a gold gram buys you a one-night stay in a local hotel, while a meal for two at a Chinese restaurant and a haircut will cost you a quarter of a gram and an eighth of a gram, respectively. The gold flakes are carried in people’s pockets—usually wrapped in the nearly worthless bolivar notes. While some shops are equipped with scales to weigh the gold flakes, most sellers and their customers have become so familiar with the flakes that they evaluate them by sight. For example, the barber and his customer who transacted for the haircut agreed that three gold flakes equaled the one-eighth gram price (approximately $5.00). Gold is also starting to penetrate the nearby cities, such as the regional capital Ciudad Bolivar, as stores in shopping malls gladly accept the gold in exchange for dollars from miners who are seeking to cash out.

Joseph T. Salerno
October 28, 2021
Venezuelans Turn to Gold Nuggets as the Local Currency Implodes
[From reading the article you can see how the use of other precious metals would also be a useful currency as well. Brass, steel, and copper jacketed lead would seem to be quite useful in getting and maintaining access to the mines and protecting private mints.

This may be coming soon to a country near you. Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Chilling effect

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I hope the whole “chilling effect” concept is expanded to include 2nd Amendment rights. This is, of course, part of the intent of FPC in their amicus brief as outlined here.

This will greatly expand the number of oppressive laws struck down in the following court cases. It could even be leveraged to get rid of registration and background checks.

Via a tweet from Law Firm of SolitaryPoorNastyBrutish&Short @AubreyLaVentana.

Quote of the day—John Hayward @Doc_0

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When the central State grows all-powerful, there is no reason to do the hard work of persuasion or humbly respect the “right to refuse” because it no longer exists. We should reclaim that which separates slaves and serfs from free men and women.

John Hayward @Doc_0
Tweeted on October 29, 2021
[We are long past the time when the reclamation should have begin. I fear we will have to endure the continuation of the dreadful path we are on to the point where the “central State” suffers economic collapse and/or revolution.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Erik Ortiz

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When the trial opens of Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois teenager accused of gunning down two men and wounding a third during nightly unrest last summer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, one word won’t be allowed to describe those who were shot: “victims.”

Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder, however, ordered that other words could be used — “rioters,” “looters” or “arsonists” — if Rittenhouse’s defense attorneys can provide the evidence that they had engaged in those acts.

Erik Ortiz
October 27, 2021
Rittenhouse judge in spotlight after disallowing word ‘victims’ in courtroom
[More could be said about the wording of the article, but the bottom line is that this is great news for Rittenhouse.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Star-Ledger Editorial Board

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When he was in the state Assembly, Jack Ciattarelli voted against banning 50 caliber weapons, those military-grade exterminators that can sever limbs and puncture armor. These are the weapons of choice for urban warfare, and a skilled sniper can use it to take down light armored vehicles, helicopters, or even a taxiing airplane — from nearly a mile away.

Star-Ledger Editorial Board
October 25, 2021
Ciattarelli and guns: A history of misfires
[And how many 50 caliber “military-grade exterminators” are used in any type of criminal violence each year in the U.S.? Rounding to the nearest 0.1 percent, the answer is zero.

Because they have no principled argument, no legal argument, and no practical argument they lead with what they do have a huge advantage with, their lies and deception. It’s in their culture.—Joe]

The mind of an anti-gun advocate (@Pigdowndog)

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See also A process failure aka Peterson Syndrome and truth and falsity for more glimpses inside their minds.

From the comments to Quote of the day—Pigdowndog @Pigdowndog. Please be cautious in extrapolating these results to other people, especially if they come from a different country and/or demographic.

My quick look for more information on Pigdowndog resulted in moderate confidence he is in the range of 75 to 85 years old, lived a number of years in southern France, and I have high confidence he currently lives Southwest of London.

In my initial QOTD post, I said “Simple logic for simple minds.” I way over estimated his ability to think logically. Sorry about that. But he arrived on scene and didn’t take long to correct my error. Here is the evidence:

pkoning on October 18, 2021 at 6:42 am said:

You mean the UK, where a defenseless MP was murdered just days ago by a knife wielding religious fanatic?

Toastrider on October 18, 2021 at 6:50 am said:

And that’s with knife control in England.

Lulz.

Pigdowndog on October 23, 2021 at 3:09 am said:

There is no knife control in the UK apart from an age limit to buying them which is wholly sensible.

You’re right about the murder of an M.P. being tragic but that doesn’t mean that he should have been armed.

Even if he was do you think he would have had a chance to reach for the gun before the knife struck?

It’s real life, not Hollywood.

Thankfully those horrendous events are rare over here unlike over there.

Joe on October 23, 2021 at 10:01 am said:

I still would like to know what color the sky is in your universe. It’s very clear we do not live in the same reality. In my universe U.K. law states:

The maximum penalty for an adult carrying a knife is 4 years in prison and an unlimited fine. You’ll get a prison sentence if you’re convicted of carrying a knife more than once.

Basic laws on knives
It’s illegal to possess a banned knife or weapon. It’s also illegal to:

bring into the UK, sell, hire, lend or give someone a banned knife or weapon
carry any knife in public without good reason, unless it has a manual folding blade less than 3 inches long
sell a knife to anyone under the age of 18, unless it has a manual folding blade less than 3 inches long

The list of banned knives is long and includes batons and blowpipes.

Pigdowndog on October 24, 2021 at 2:44 am said:

You conveniently left out;
“carry any knife in public without good reason, unless it has a manual folding blade less than 3 inches long”
“use any knife in a threatening way”
“Lock knives are not classed as folding knives and are illegal to carry in public without good reason.”
All sensible sanctions as our knife crime is far too prevalent.
Your gun crime also is far too prevalent but your government just turns a blind eye to the consequences of allowing anyone to possess a killing machine.
I’m more than happy that we have protections in place that attempt to solve the problem rather than allow the carnage to carry on regardless of the outcome.

At first I was a bit perplexed. Is this someone suffering from Alzheimer’s and can’t remember what they said just the day before? It could be. But we’ve seen inability to follow logic or respond logically from Joan Peterson who I doubt was at the age where Alzheimer was a likely explanation.

After thinking about it some I am more inclined to believe they are not suffering from Alzheimer’s or other dementia. If that were the case I think the clues would show up in his twitter posts.

The weird inability to think logically and conform their claims to the hard reality is common in anti-gun people. Many of them simply do not accept reality. How else do you explain this?

Yesterday morning he claimed, “

There is no knife control in the UK apart from an age limit to buying them…

After I linked to and quote U.K. listing numerous knife regulations on the carry of knives and the bans of many common knives he came back less than 24 hours later and said I had “conveniently left out” further knife regulations. What? There is no knife control but when I don’t list all the knife laws he claims some sort victory by adding to the list of controls that supposedly don’t exist?

He then doubles down on the contradictions. Yesterday, referring to a stabbing, he said:

Thankfully those horrendous events are rare over here…

This morning he claims:

our knife crime is far too prevalent

There are other things I could point out but this should be more than sufficient to draw the appropriate conclusion.

These are symptoms of someone with mental problems. It may not be dementia but things between the ears are not in working order. It’s almost certainly Peterson Syndrome.

Quote of the day—John R. Lott & Rujun Wang

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Three states that have detailed race and gender data for at least a decade show remarkably larger increases in permits for minorities compared to whites. In Texas, black females saw a 6.3 times greater percentage increase in permits than white males from 2002 to 2020. Oklahoma data from 2002 to 2020 indicated that the increase of licenses approved for Asians and American Indians was more than twice the rate for whites. North Carolina had black permits increase twice as fast as whites from 1996 till 2016.

From 2015 to 2020/2021, in the four states that provide data by race over that time period, the number of Asian people with permits increased 93.2% faster than the number of whites with permits. Blacks appear to be the group that has experienced the largest increase in permitted concealed carry, growing 135.7% faster than whites.

John R. Lott & Rujun Wang
Crime Prevention Research Center
October 6, 2021
Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States: 2021 (alternate link here)
[People demanding more restrictions on concealed carry permits, or the existence of such permits to begin with, are racist.—Joe]

Good news

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Independent from the morality and constitutionally of abortion Texas S.B. 8 needs to go down in flames. As expressed by a FPC brief (from here):

This case is important not because of its specific subject matter of abortion, but instead for Texas’s cavalier and contemptuous mechanism for shielding from review potential violations of constitutional rights as determined by this Court’s precedents. It is one thing to disagree with precedents and seek their revision or reversal through judicial, congressional, or constitutional avenues; it is another simply to circumvent judicial review by  delegating state action to the citizenry at large and then claiming, with a wink and a nod, that no state actors are involved.

From Amicus‘s perspective, if pre-enforcement review can be evaded in the context of abortion it can and will be evaded in the context of the right to keep and bear arms. While the political valences of those issues seem to be opposites, the structural circumstances are too similar to ignore. As with Roe and Casey, many States view Heller as wrongly decided. Those States, with the help of many circuit courts, have showed an ongoing refusal to accept the holding in Heller and a continuing creativity in seeking to circumvent any protections for, and to chill the exercise of, Second Amendment rights.  It is hardly speculation to suggest that if Texas succeeds in its gambit here, New York, California, New Jersey, and others will not be far behind in adopting equally aggressive gambits to not merely chill but to freeze the right to keep and bear arms.

The First Amendment would also be subject to almost immediate attack if the Texas scheme were allowed to stand.

I suspect SCOTUS also sees the danger because:

The Supreme Court Court acted quickly to grant certiorari before judgment in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson and United States v. Texas, the two primary challenges to S.B. 8, the controversial Texas abortion law.

…

This is an important legal question that extends well beyond the issue of abortion. It could, for example, implicate the federal government’s ability to challenge state-level Covid policies (as both the Trump Administration and Biden Administration threatened to do, although concerning different sorts of policies).

H/T to Law Firm of SolitaryPoorNastyBrutish&Short @AubreyLaVentana for the tweet alerting me. I knew about the Texas law and the risk. I did not know about the FPC getting involved.

Quote of the day—Kimberly McHale

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Not once does Abbott ever mention any actual gun policy change to help this from happening again. He especially doesn’t acknowledge the passing of his new permitless gun carry law that directly affects Texans’ ability to easily access guns more than ever.

Sen. Ted Cruz has also echoed similar sentiments and never touched on the actual issues that have led to the increase in school shootings throughout the state and country.

It is apparent that these politicians’ thoughts and prayers are not enough anymore. We must also hold our government to a higher standard. They must provide better laws, policy change, and gun regulations to our state and country. Our students, parents, and school faculties deserve better than just a familiar script of empty promises without any real changes ever being made.

Kimberly McHale
October 20, 2021
When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough
[Not once does McHale ever mention that gun control has never increased public safety. Not once does McHale ever mention that more government control is sometimes the wrong answer. Not once does McHale ever mention someone are willing to shoot innocent people is not going to be deterred by a legal requirement to get a permit to carry. Not once does McHale even mention that infringing specific enumerated rights is a felony punishable by death.—Joe]

Useful numbers

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I find some numbers very useful.

From pages 12 and 13 in Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States: 2021 (alternate link here):

There are three relevant sets of numbers from the Pew survey:

— 30% of American adults say that they own a gun.

— 72% of the people who own a gun, say they own a handgun or a pistol.

— 11% of handgun owners say that they carry all the time, 26% say they carry most or all the time, and 57 percent say that they carry at least some of the time.

With a little multiplication, we find that:

— 2.4% say that they carry all the time.

— 5.4% carry most or all the time.

— 12.3% carry at least some of the time.

To summarize, the total number of permits in the US is at least 21.52 million. Add in people who legally carry without a permit, and the number clearly becomes much larger. While 8.3% of the adult population has permits, the percentage of Americans who say that they carry most or all the time is about 5.4%.

What does this mean in practice? It means that in most places where people are allowed to carry a concealed handgun, there will be someone carrying a concealed handgun. If the probability that any one person has a concealed handgun permit is 5.4%, in a room with 10 people (assuming that the probabilities are independent), the probability that at least one person will have a permitted concealed handgun is 43%. In a room with 20 people, that probability goes up to 67%. With 40, that probability rises to 89%.

I usually express it a little differently. I would translate and distill the numbers above into, “On average, about one out every 19 people you pass on the street is carrying a firearm.”

You cannot comply

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Via Matthew Bracken:

ComplyYourWayOut

You can vote your way in but you have to shoot your way out.

Quote of the day—David Codrea

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The Patriots at Lexington and Concord who refused government arms confiscation orders were all criminals in the eyes of the law. Coincidentally, their firearms all qualified as “ghost guns.”

… there is no reason for the government to infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms unless it is going to be committing tyrannical offenses.

David Codrea
October 18, 2021
‘Ghost Gun’ Comments Show Sheriff Can’t Imagine Freedom
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

History buff

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Via Rolf and @LaughtingEyes::

HistoryBuff

Right to Bear Arms

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Via email from Rolf:

Recommended Age Range: 4-12

The Right to Bear Arms is a tool designed to assist parents in teaching children about the Second Amendment and constitutional liberties.  It highlights the time Charisma Cat attempted to take over the forest by using tricks, social shame, and manipulation to convince other animals to give up their teeth and claws.  Only the Bears refuse to surrender their arms.  You can guess what happens next.

I just ordered a copy for a Christmas gift for my grandson.

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

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Nothing more clearly illustrates gun control lack of success than the situation in King County. It is reflective of the national trend revealed in the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2020, showing murders up by 30 percent nationwide. If restricting the gun rights of law-abiding citizens worked, this should not be the case.

Alan Gottlieb
CCRKBA Chairman
October 13, 2021
KING COUNTY, WA MURDER SPIKE TYPIFIES NATIONAL GUN CONTROL FAILURE
[Gottlieb’s statement presumes facts not in evidence. Namely, that the goal of gun control advocates is a reduction in violent crime.

Gottlieb knows their goal has nothing to do with reduction of violent crime. He said so 25 years ago. But the useful idiots and the mainstream media (yes, I’m repeating myself) believe that is the reason for and the achievable result of gun control.

I think it’s long past time to make the useful idiots aware of the truth and have them confront the liars. It would be a good first step toward the trials.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Pigdowndog @Pigdowndog

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The “you” was generic. If anyone thinks they need a gun for ordinary daily living then that’s the very definition of paranoia. You’re wrong, I don’t want to ban a specific type of rifle, I want all guns banned for the general public. Fewer guns, fewer gun incidents. Simple logic

Pigdowndog @Pigdowndog
Tweeted on October 10, 2021
[Simple logic for simple minds. Logic only gives you correct results if you have the appropriate data.

Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Memorandum of Understanding

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The ability of law enforcement agencies to share crime gun data across state lines will assist in their efforts to detect and deter gun crime, to investigate gun crime, and to identify and apprehend straw purchasers, suspect dealers, firearms traffickers, and other criminals.

Memorandum of Understanding
October 7, 2021
MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING AMONG THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, THE STATE OF NEW YORK, THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, AND THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT CONCERNING RECIPROCAL SHARING OF CRIME GUN DATA
[See also here.

Heavy sigh. There is so much fail (presuming good intention of the document writers) in this document. In just the short quote above it presumes several facts not in evidence:

  1. It presumes crime is a gun problem rather than a people problem. As Col. Jeff Cooper (IIRC) pointed out if you could eliminate all the guns you would still have a crime problem. If you locked up all the criminals you wouldn’t have a gun problem.
  2. It presumes some sort of magic happens when sharing data beyond criminal investigations (which is already possible without this MOU).
  3. It seems to presume there is some sort of advantage for criminal gangs to bring guns from out of state to sell in the individual states. But how can there be an advantage for a criminal in New York to obtain a gun from New Jersey and simultaneously there be an advantage for the criminal in New Jersey to obtain a gun from New York? Once the criminal commits a violent crime with (or without) a gun in either state they can be prosecuted for that crime regardless of where they obtained the gun.

But the presumption of good intentions is not justified.

One has to conclude, once again, that this isn’t about crime. It’s about demonizing gun ownership and terrorizing gun owners. If a gun is stolen from an innocent person this may assist the political criminals in the respective states to harass the victim of the property theft. They can and almost certainly will, be accused of selling the gun to criminals. I’ve known people who have had a dozen or more guns stolen. If a half dozen or more guns sold to a single person show up at crime scenes then law enforcement from these states are likely to be to making a very unpleasant visit to the innocent gun owner.

It’s clear these politicians view innocent gunowners as their enemy and it takes little imagination to believe they view the real criminals as their allies in their war against private gun ownership.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Pam Carlson (@PamCarlson3)

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Big man sticking up for the tiny penis crowd trying to sic his tiny penis followers on me.  Better hope this doesn’t go the way you want.  Twitter has a harassment policy, you know.

Pam Carlson (@PamCarlson3)
Tweeted on September 27, 2021
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

This was in response to my blog post which automatically posted a link to it on Twitter.

I found this hilarious! She starts out by harassingly gun owners with childish insults. I merely quoted her and pointed out she appeared to be incapable of bringing anything but childish insults to the discussion. I did not advocate or even suggest anyone engage with her. In response, she projects her harassment of us as harassment of her and continues harassing us.

Liberalism is a mental disorder.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Puertorro in the US + (@wisemagius)

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Hope one day you realize all you are is a deluded gun-runner.

You wrap yourself in a thin veneer of an imagined higher cause, ignoring the blood of innocents on you, all because of some tools you worship.

Puertorro in the US + (@wisemagius)
Tweeted on October 3, 2021
[This is what they think of you.

Of course it’s projection. Far more innocent people have been murdered because criminals had a legal monopoly on weapons than when weapons were legally available to all.—Joe]

Quote of the day—sploosh @SploooshSploosh

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Frail Penis Coalition rails against president from 20 years ago to cover up their frail penises.. Doesn’t this get tiresome when there are 400 million guns in the US?

sploosh @SploooshSploosh
Tweeted on September 26, 2021
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! H/T to In Chains @InChainsInJail.

When the advocates for the criminals attempting to infringe upon a specific enumerated right have nothing but childish insults you know they are getting really desperate for quality workers. Are these people unpaid interns? Or are they registered sex offenders who cannot get any other job?

It doesn’t really matter. We have SCOTUS decisions they have nothing.—Joe]