Quote of the day—Jeffrey R. Snyder

Those who call for the repeal of the Second Amendment so that we can really begin controlling firearms betray a serious misunderstanding of the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights does not grant rights to the people, such that its repeal would legitimately confer upon government the powers otherwise proscribed. The Bill of Rights is the list of the fundamental, inalienable rights, endowed in man by his Creator, that define what it means to be a free and independent people, the rights which must exist to ensure that government governs only with the consent of the people.

At one time this was even understood by the Supreme Court. In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the first case in which the Court had an opportunity to interpret the Second Amendment, it stated that the right confirmed by the Second Amendment “is not a right granted by the constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.” The repeal of the Second Amendment would no more render the outlawing of firearms legitimate than the repeal of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment would authorize the government to imprison and kill people at will. A government that abrogates any of the Bill of Rights, with or without majoritarian approval, forever acts illegitimately, becomes tyrannical, and loses the moral right to govern.

This is the uncompromising understanding reflected in the warning that America’s gun owners will not go gently into that good, utopian night: “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.” While liberals take this statement as evidence of the retrograde, violent nature of gun owners, we gun owners hope that liberals hold equally strong sentiments about their printing presses, word processors, and television cameras. The republic depends upon fervent devotion to all our fundamental rights.

Jeffrey R. Snyder
1993
A Nation of Cowards
[What of the “moral right to govern” when it commits crimes to justify imposing illegal restrictions on gun dealers? It should be no different than a fireman sets fires so they can put them out. It goes beyond losing “the moral right to govern”. They should go to jail or it means those that wish to be our masters, instead of our public servants, have nothing to lose when they attempt to change the relationship. If they get caught and told not to do that they just try something else. There must be a punishment for those that violate their oath of office because otherwise the erosion of our rights will only stop when there are no more rights to be eroded.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Josh Sugarmann

When it comes to gun control, the American public is way ahead of our elected officials. Americans overwhelmingly want health and safety regulation of the gun industry. A significant percentage, in some areas a majority, favor a handgun ban and, in virtually every part of the country, more Americans favor a handgun ban than own handguns.

Josh Sugarmann
March 15, 2000
New Survey Reveals More Americans Favor Handgun Ban Than Own Handguns
[The actual number, according to Sugarmann’s own numbers is that 36.6% of the people in the U.S. asked said they support a handgun ban while 24.8% own handguns. I’m not sure why the number of people who own handguns is relevant here other than for Sugarmann to pretend to have something to crow about. Does he think that the 36.6% of the people wanting to ban handguns would be able to take them away from the 24.8% that own them? Let’s explore that a little bit.

Assuming one shot is required per person that attempts to take a handgun away. That means on the average each handgun owner needs to have about 1.5 rounds of ammo to not even need to set their beer down and get up out of the easy chair when dealing with those criminals. Of course if it were me and I had to defend my property against criminals attempting to take it from me by force I would sue the survivors and/or their estate for the cleaning service for both my home and my gun, the time lost, and the ammo I used. It’s a lot more effort that just pulling the trigger a few times and calling the cops but I think it sends a message when they have to pay for the dispatch as well as disposal costs.

In a more serious frame of mind the number of real interest that Sugarmann avoided reporting is that 63.4% did not support banning handguns. And unless you are talking about a Constitutional Amendment what does the number people wanting to infringe a specific enumerated right matter at all? If there were more people that wanted to enslave people with black skin than there were people who had black skin does it really matter on any scale you want to measure it by? In either case if someone tries to implement something that clearly over the line it’s “game on”.

Keep in mind this was over 11 years ago so it’s possible that Sugarmann has raised his estimation of the I.Q. of those that read his garbage and this now longer represents the quality of his work. But I wouldn’t count on it. He’s been in the business of deceiving the public for so long I doubt that he even knows how to be ethical.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Wayne LaPierre

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms in defense of self, family and country is ultimately self evident and is part of the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution. Reduced to its core, it is about fundamental individual freedom, human worth, and self-destiny.

We reject the notion that American gun owners must accept any lesser amount of freedom in order to be accepted among the international community. Our Founding Fathers long ago rejected that notion and forged our great nation on the principle of freedom for the individual citizen – not for the government.

The cornerstone of our freedom is the Second Amendment. Neither the United Nations, nor any other foreign influence, has the authority to meddle with the freedoms guaranteed by our Bill of Rights, endowed by our Creator, and due to all humankind.

Wayne LaPierre
July 14, 2011
NRA Delivers Remarks at United Nations Concerning Proposed Arms Trade Treaty
[The rest of the remarks are of a similar tone. It’s not that long and it’s worth reading the whole thing.

Although it would take two thirds of the Senate and an anti-gun president to get it through I have often considered a version of this treaty as the biggest threat we are facing. An anti-gun president isn’t that hard to come by and in the long term thirds of the Senate might be feasible under some circumstances.

MAIG also deserves a high ranking but their agenda is more susceptible to local political action and court challenges. A ratified treaty is a much different and more difficult beast to deal with.—Joe]

Quote of the day—bob r

If you cut out the tumor, what is it going to be replaced by?

If you kill the rabid dog, what is it going to be replaced by?

If you cut out the gangrene, what is it going to be replaced by?

If you remove the mudslide from the road, what is it going to be replaced by?

If you remove the nail from the tire, what is it going to be replaced by?

If you remove the excess fat from your ass, what is it going to be replaced by?

If you remove the worm from the apple, what is it going to be replaced by?

If you remove the slug from the garden, what is it going to be replaced by?

If you remove the hornet nest from the entry way, what is it going to be replaced by?

bob r
July 14, 2011
Comment to Random thought of the day in response to ubu52 asking, “If TSA goes away, what is it going to be replaced by?”
[As Say Uncle has said, “Same planet, different worlds”.

ubu52, and many others, have completely different base assumptions about the world we live in, politics, and human nature than I and the people I usually associate with do. This makes it hard to have meaningful discussions let alone share the same government.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Charles Heller

Follow their criminal and bloody escapades from the Ken Ballew raid debacle in 1971, to the deceit that triggered the Randy Weaver travesty in Idaho, to the incitement of violence in the horror at Waco,Texas, to the despicable acts in the John Lawmaster Raid.

The ATF, and later the BATFE, has now distinguished itself as the least disciplined, least accomplished, least effective, and most unethical “law enforcement” agency in U.S. law enforcement history.

Charles Heller
Executive Director of Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership
Gun Control – And Now For Something Completely Different
July 13, 2011
[I could see a solid case for that claim being made and defended.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Chris Cox

They don’t have the statutory authority to do it and we’ll file a lawsuit as soon as the first letters are sent.

Because the American people don’t approve of his gun-control agenda, he’s trying to circumvent Congress. The whole thing is a distraction away from the gross incompetence that we’ve seen in this Fast & Furious scandal…The truth is a $40 billion criminal enterprise is not going to be worried about paperwork violations. This is not a serious attempt at controlling the drug cartels.

Chris Cox
NRA Legislative Director
July 11, 2011
NRA: New Gun Control? We’ll Sue
[What isn’t explicitly stated is that the requiring the reporting of gun sales cannot be done by executive order. A change of this type requires legislative action.

It’s as if President Obama believes he is Dictator Obama and can go around fighting wars and creating laws without regard to the existence of the legislative branch. Oh, yeah. He might actually believe it and is doing that.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dennis Henigan

It is true that D.C.’s gun laws are, to some extent, undercut by weaker gun laws of surrounding jurisdictions, particularly Virginia. But that is hardly the fault of D.C.’s gun laws.

What we’re talking about here is possession of a lethal weapon. The fact that D.C. criminals have to import their guns from other jurisdictions demonstrates that D.C.’s strict gun laws actually work.

Dennis Henigan
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
July 11, 2011
MPD Says D.C. Gun Laws Have No Impact On City Crime
[What he says is true only if by “work” he means the intent of the law is to make it difficult to exercise your specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. If the intent is to reduce violent crime then the gun laws clearly do not work. But then almost everyone knows Henigan intent is not to increase public safety when he advocates for more restrictive gun laws.

See also this QOTD where Half-Truth Henigan says it is difficult to sort out whether high gun ownership rates cause violent crime.

As I have said before, I want to know the real reason why they continue to advocate for restrictions on guns. I want them asked that question every time they open their mouth.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Josh Sugarmann

First the NRA’s leadership murdered its parents. Now it’s eating its children. The extremist positions staked out by the NRA’s leadership are taking their toll in dollars and cents. It is clear that even the NRA’s own members can’t stomach the leadership’s extremist anti-public safety, anti-law enforcement rhetoric and actions.

Josh Sugarmann
Executive Director of the Violence Policy Center
March 19, 1997
National Rifle Association Has Been “Technically Insolvent For Several Years” New Internal Document Reveals
[And 14 years later how do the balance sheets and membership numbers of the NRA and the VPC look now? I guess Sugarmann was wrong—as is nearly always the case.—Joe]

Quote of the day—John Lott

This case can almost be viewed as if the Obama administration wanted to increase the number of American guns used in crimes in Mexico.

The timing of the “Gunwalker” case is even more troubling since the program got going at about the same time that the Obama administration was trying to claim (falsely) that American guns were showing up in a significant number of Mexican crime scenes.

Is it possible that the Obama administration pushed this program to help gin up more support for gun control in the United States?

John Lott
July 8, 2011
|he Puzzle of ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ — When Will Team Obama Come Clean About Failed Gun Program?
[Is it possible? Of course. The people in this administration are the most anti-gun set of people in the history of our country. But they could also be classified as some of the most incompetent.

I’m still undecided on whether “Gunwalker” was a method to justify support for more gun control or massive incompetence. If it wasn’t intended to justify more gun control then it was a mighty strange coincidence that we had all the “Mexican gunrunner” noise for years at the same time. Can we determine which came first? If Gunwalker started before the “OMG drug cartels have guns” meme started then I’m convinced it was a deliberate attempt to advance gun control. But if the other way around it’s still possible but less likely.

In any case I fully support the Mexicans request that we extradite the ATF, FBI, DOJ, DEA, and any other (BoomershootWife is hoping Obama was involved) criminals to Mexico for trial there on one condition. That condition is that once they get a fair trail and have served their sentences they must ship the bodies back so we can mount their heads on poles on the Whitehouse lawn as a reminder and a warning for others.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

Yesterday’s win was a wake-up call to Chicago. Today’s motion is a signal to the Illinois Legislature that the state’s total ban on carrying of firearms for personal protection is counter to both Supreme Court rulings on the Second Amendment, and yesterday’s ruling by the Seventh Circuit appeals panel that shredded Chicago’s gun ordinance. Our victory Wednesday and today’s motion are key components of SAF’s overall mission to win back firearms freedoms one lawsuit at a time.

Alan Gottlieb
SAF Executive Vice President
July 7, 2011
SAF FILES FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION AGAINST ILLINOIS CARRY BAN
[They are winning and winning big. Don’t let money be a bottleneck for SAF. Donate and help them win everywhere and every time.

I’m a Life (Defenders Club) member and donate addition money monthly. And remember that donations to SAF are tax deductible.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Shootin’ Buddy

Rocks in the Great Smoky Mountains are smarter than Paul Helmke. He is the dumbest man in the history of Indiana politics (and that is quite the accomplishment because of the heavy competition here).

Shootin’ Buddy
July 7, 2011
Comment to the post Clueless.
[I’m sure there is a great deal of truth in this statement but I’m more in alignment with Lyle on this one.—Joe]

Quote of the day–Ilana Rovner

Stung by the result of McDonald v. City of Chicago, 130 S. Ct. 3020 (2010), the City quickly enacted an ordinance that was too clever by half. Recognizing that a complete gun ban would no longer survive Supreme Court review, the City required all gun owners to obtain training that included one hour of live‐range instruction, and then banned all live ranges within City limits. This was not so much a nod to the importance of live‐range training as it was a thumbing of the municipal nose at the Supreme Court. The effect of the ordinance is another complete ban on gun ownership within City limits.

The ordinance admittedly was designed to make gun ownership as difficult as possible. The City has legitimate, indeed overwhelming, concerns about the prevalence of gun violence within City limits. But the Supreme Court has now spoken in Heller and McDonald on the Second Amendment right to possess a gun in the home for self-defense and the City must come to terms with that reality. Any regulation on firearms ownership must respect that right.

Ilana Rovner
July 6, 2011
Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
RHONDA EZELL, et al., v. CITY OF CHICAGO
[The entire ruling could be summed up as telling the city and the lower court that they reversed, “You suck and we hate you.” It’s pretty brutal. As a hint, Rovner, above, was the more sympathetic of the judges. While concurring that the preliminary injunction should be issued against the city she didn’t go quite as far as Kanne and Sykes did.

It was a pleasure to read. There was agreement with so many things we have been saying for decades. That the anti-gun people have dismissed these arguments almost without discussion and to now have a court rule with us is an extreme pleasure. Most importantly they explicitly and repeatedly use the First Amendment as an analog to the Second Amendment. I will not restrain from saying, “We and many others told you so!”

See also Sebastian’s post on the topic.

As a side note which may have some relevance, while an infant Rovner and her mother immigrated to the U.S. from Latvia to escape Nazism.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mike Summitt

You’re violent, primitive, procrustean, and mentally ill, for the most part, and I want a psychological test administered before any of you are allowed a deadly weapon, which I predict would disarm over half of you.


Mike Summitt
July 4, 2011 on Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Facebook Wall.
[It’s an attempt to dehumanizing gun owners. It’s a lot like what the white supremacists say about people of color. It’s totally without factual support and more accurately could be described as projection on his part.


It’s one of the prerequisites to genocide but don’t let that bother you. Liberals aren’t all violent all the time.


Via a reTweet by SebastianSH of GunFreeZone about their blog post.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kevin Baker

To surrender completely to the control of others – either a secular government or a religious one – control that invades every waking action, requires people unwilling to do for themselves. The first step is and must be the destruction of education. People must be prevented from thinking for themselves, from reasoning. George Orwell explained it with “Newspeak” in his novel 1984:



That preparation started in the early years of the 20th Century. Thus today we have “politically correct” speech. With destruction of language skills comes the destruction of logic skills – if you can’t read, you can’t integrate ideas new to you. In fact, new ideas are gibberish – words that have no meaning. “Politically free” is a null value to someone planted in the fields of politicism. It’s a weed.


A free society requires an informed and virtuous citizenry.


“Free,” “informed” and “virtuous” have become null terms.


The 21st Century will be a century of struggle between freedom and politicism. Polticism has two competing versions – Marxist and Muslim. Freedom?


Null term.


Kevin Baker
July 4, 2011
TL;DR
[Kevin has some good points. There are even some points that he doesn’t directly address that support his pessimistic outlook. For example, the title, “TL;DR”, is very telling. Our society changed dramatically with instant entertainment. I’m certain that television and even radio are factors in the transformation of our culture into a more ignorant one. We can be mindlessly entertained rather than improving our minds and/or our bodies or producing something of value. The idiot boxes are such a great temptation that instead of doing something productive we take another hit of the entertainment drug. And there is so many “drugs” to chose from. If one doesn’t grab you in the first 15 seconds you change the “channel” until you find one that does grab you. Instant gratification is critical to success of a “channel”. Who in their right mind would be willing to read and understand, let alone write, books like those of Locke and Hobbs (unless it was Calvin and Hobbs) when you have Grand Theft Auto, Entertainment Tonight, and meth available? Those are so much easier to understand and offer near instant gratification. Who has the time to even read a Kevin Baker post? Understand it? Bah! In the grand scheme, it’s almost no one.


The fraction of the population that is capable of that is so small and the fraction of those that would care even if they could understand it that the blip on the vote tally would be impossible to detect in the statistical noise let alone the voter fraud. And the voter fraud will always be aligned against the likes of Kevin.


I understand all that. But I still have, perhaps perverse, optimism for the outcome. While the upside of our near instant communication isn’t as obvious as the downside I still think the potential exists to ultimately prevail. Because we have the ability to communicate to thousands across vast distances at nearly the speed of light and publish we have a incredible advantage over Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Samuel Adams. They were part of a nation of just three million people and built the foundation of most powerful economic and military force the world has ever seen. We have three million or more like minded people in our country now. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are ten times that many. The problem is that those people’s voices have been drown out by the noise from the parasites clamoring for “social justice”, or “their fair share”.


There have been many great civilizations before us that collapsed and some of the causes may even be common to our own. Internal and/or external enemies, exhaustion of natural resources, over population, or even climate changes (you have heard of the little ice age, right?). But our current crises is mostly due to internal enemies with some added pressure by external enemies. As Kevin points out these are the cults created centuries ago by Marx and Mohammad. I think the Marx cultists is doing most of the damage and is the bigger threat. But I think it is possible that even they have reached the zenith of their power and may soon experience a catastrophic collapse even more rapid than our society as a whole.


What the socialist/communist/progressive masses don’t understand is that they are, as Ayn Rand pointed out, looters. And the life of an unhindered looter is only great as long as there is someone left to loot that doesn’t offer meaningful resistance. And they just looted the last “store” on the planet.


The Marxists always describe people in terms of “class”. I think there is a grain truth to be harvested from a class division of people. But it’s not the class division taught by Marx and his cult. The class division I find useful is of producers and looters. And as the economic realities of discovering the last store on the planet has already been looted the looters will either become producers or they will die off. I suspect there will be lots of dead. Most from starvation and disease and a few from being shot by the producers that finally start doing what should have been done a long time ago—protecting their property from the looters.


The instant communication channels will allow us to find other producers and identify looters. This will give us hope and it will enable our cooperation. This is the upside to our technology and may yet save our species from the great endarkenment looming over us. This is an ace-in-the hole that no civilization before us ever had available.


The looters of the future will not be so well camouflaged as the looters of today. Today they have a few leaders who wear suits and smile as they wave to the camera and ask for your vote. In the not so distant future their leaders are likely to live lives that of the last couple of years of Saddam Hussein and meet similar ends. The looters will be hungry, dirty, and run in wild packs. Without the camouflage producers will recognize them for what they are and appropriate action will be taken.


I don’t know the end result of the coming final class struggle. Maybe the looters will destroy the last of the producers and it will be another ten thousand years before a civilization can rise from the ashes. But at this point I don’t think that is a forgone conclusion. I think the producers may have to look the other way as millions of looters become beggars and then finally corpses. They may be millions of tons of rotting flesh to be cleared but the producers may be able to survive the coming apocalypse and end up with a much stronger society two or three generations from now.


Some lessons are very, very difficult to learn. But sometimes you cannot advance to the next level until you master the current level.



I just hope Gerard Vanderleun is wrong and our society can learn the lesson of this level before we have lost all our lives and it is game over.—Joe]

Quote of the day–Brian Malte

What Ohio wants to do is totally different from what we’re seeing elsewhere. It definitely goes a lot further than other states. I would say it goes further also by including sports stadiums, which is a very radical idea.

Brian Malte
Director of state legislation for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
June 18, 2011
Ohio Set to Allow Concealed Guns in Bars, Restaurants
[It’s only “radical” if they don’t look past the end of their noses. Idaho, and I believe Washington, have not had any laws against it for decades and perhaps “forever”. There isn’t a problem with it. It’s time to stop discriminating against people exercising their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.


He should, and probably does know better. I have to conclude that this is just another lie from the Brady Campaign.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Barbara Scott

You enjoy this way too much.


Barbara Scott
July 2, 2011
[No. She wasn’t talking about sex but almost.


I was mapping out my game plan with the ATF after they said something stupid. Except I think maybe they aren’t as stupid as they appear at first glance. I asked them one little question in response and instead of getting an answer back they went silent. I suspect they realize no matter what they say next it’s going to be embarrassing for them. More details if I ever get a response from them.–Joe]

Quote of the day—Tommy_G

I think it’s time to take guns out of the hands of the government. They have proved to be far too irresponsible too and should not be allowed to handle them. Time to return guns to the people, who are more responsible and know better how to use them.

Tommy_G
June 30, 2011
Comment to Dems to spin Fast & Furious probe into gun-control rally
[Certainly there is sufficient evidence to support this assertion. But I don’t think we need to go that far just yet.

[sarcasm]We just need some common sense gun regulations for them. Any government employee that is allowed to possess a firearm while on the job should be licensed with strict training requirements. All government guns should be registered. All ammunition use should be documented. All of these records must be put online and be publically available.[/sarcasm]

I’m currently listening to the Audible.com version of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (not recommended if graphic violence bothers you, some of it brought tears). The millions murdered by the police (with some help by the military) with guns is more than sufficient reason to be nearly serious about making a police officer with a gun a “shoot on sight” offense.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mark Walsh

Illinois is really important nationally. The country needs one state people can look to and see it’s still doing the right thing.

Mark Walsh
June 29, 2011
Director of the Illinois Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
Ill. likely to see fierce battle over gun control
[And if they were the last state in the union that still had legalized slavery, Jim Crow laws, or outlawed alcohol what would be the response?

Nationally both Illinois gun laws and anti-gun organizations are a disgrace and nearly irrelevant. It’s time to shame them into the dustbin of history.—Joe]

Quote of the day—kiplingsburdens

Schumer is a criminal put in power by russian mobsters and israeli criminals. What better way to further the interests of criminals than to see that those they prey upon are absolutely defenseless?

What better way to condition a population into victim-hood and perpetual oppression than to have them used to being perpetual victims without any ability to defend themselves?

kiplingsburdens
June 25, 2011
Comment to Do We Need Gun Control?
[I don’t know about the “Russian mobster and Israeli criminals” but something similar has been at least joked about in regards to Chuck Schumer for many years. And it is claimed the original intent of the Sullivan Act, a New York State gun control law, was to protect criminals.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dalai Lama

If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.

Dalai Lama
May 15, 2001
Dalai Lama urges students to shape world
[And what if your government outlaws the reasonable action of possessing and/or carrying a gun? Doesn’t that mean the government is “unreasonable”?—Joe]