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]
Becoming a burden on society is not a problem of liberty and private property. It’s a problem of socialism where one person is forced to take care of someone else. That being the case, the government, in the name of reducing health care costs, assumes part ownership of you and as such assumes a right to control many aspects of your life. That Americans have joyfully given up self-ownership is both tragic and sad.
Walter E. Williams
2009
Who May Harm Whom?
[Via Lyle in the comments.
Read the whole thing. I think the concepts presented have the ability to shut down, in my favor, many of debates that I sometimes get into.—Joe]
Today’s checkpoint was designed four decades ago to stop hijackers carrying metal weapons. We need a process that responds to today’s threat. It must amalgamate intelligence based on passenger information and new technology. That means moving from a system that looks for bad objects, to one that can find bad people.
Giovanni Bisignani
June 15, 2011
The future of airport security?
[Today daughter Xenia and her army husband went through TSA on their way to Alaska. One of his checked “bags” (a large plastic “tote”) had the locks broken so TSA could search the contents. He was also singled out for special attention. He opted for the “feel me up” search rather than the “naked body scan”.
The U.S. government trusts him to fight terrorists in the sandbox using some very expensive equipment and with the lives of the men under him and around him but they have to feel him up before he can fly on a commercial flight with his wife and her cat?
I think I know where to find the “bad people”.—Joe]
I recently correlated Black homicide rates from the CDC with Brady Campaign report cards 2001-2007. Brady evaluated states on how well they implemented gun control laws. The result shows that more gun control correlates with higher Black homicide rates and lower Caucasian homicide rates.
Most of Brady’s reports graded states on “A” to “F”, though that’s recently been replaced with stars. In any case, it conveniently divided states into quintiles. When comparing Quintile 1 (most gun control) with Quintile 5 (least gun control), Blacks averaged 20.7% higher homicide rates in states with the most gun control, while Caucasian rates averaged 64.1% lower.
Gun control still benefits Caucasians and harms Blacks, just like it did before and after the Civil War.
Garry McCarthy just happens to be Caucasian (picture here). For that matter, so’s Brady president Paul Helmke.
Just a curious coincidence, no doubt.
Howard Nemerov
June 24, 2011
Chicago’s top cop: ‘Federal gun laws are racist’
[See also this QOTD.—Joe]
I wish you were right about the timing being appropriate for banning and impounding guns in the USA.
Unfortunately, the gun nuts are claiming that if there had been another person with a gun handy at the Gifford shooting he or she would have saved the lives of those killed and prevented Giffords from being almost killed.
These people are mad and there will never be a good time. It just has to be done when someone has the guts to do it.
The argument used by the NRA types that guns are needed for self-defense is farcical. There is almost never a gun-related death reported in which a gun was used by a person defending themselves. The vast majority occur in the home among family members or various criminal shootings.
I cannot think of a single good reason for anyone in the USA to have or carry weapons.
SantaMoniker
June 24, 2011
Comment to Time to target gun control
[SantaMoniker must have blinders on or have a severe inability to think because I can think of millions and millions of reasons. And that doesn’t even include possession by the police and the military.—Joe]
Former three-term Fort Wayne Mayor Paul Helmke said Thursday he’ll step down July 10 as president of the Brady Campaign and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Angela Mapes Turner
June 23, 2011
Helmke to leave Brady Center–Former mayor undecided about next step
[I have been wondering why he continued to stay on when we have them outnumbered, outsmarted, out financed, and of course (literally) outgunned. It turns out he gave them a five year commitment when he signed on. July 10th is the end of that commitment.
They are going to find it difficult to get someone to replace him with the current political climate. I think they should just close up shop and say, “I’m sorry, we were wrong.”—Joe]
Gunwalker’s objective was never intended to be a “legitimate law enforcement interest.” Instead, it appears that ATF Acting Director Ken Melson and Department of Justice senior executives specifically created an operation that was designed from the outset to arm Mexican narco-terrorists and increase violence substantially along both sides of the Southwest border.
Success was measured not by the number of criminals being incarcerated, but by the number of weapons transiting the border and the violence those weapons caused. An ATF manager was “delighted” when Gunwalker guns started showing up at drug busts. It would be entirely consistent with this theory if DOJ communications reflected the approval of the ATF senior officials they were colluding with — but as we know, Holder’s Department of Justice refuses to cooperate.
Bob Owens
June 20, 2011
Mega-Scandal: Was ‘Gunwalker’ a PR Op for Gun Control?
[This claim falls into the category, “Too Good To Be True” for me. I really want to believe it but it’s going to take a lot more data for me to be really convinced.
I hope investigators continue to dig and find the truth. If the claim above is true then I hope the perpetrators can and will be prosecuted.—Joe]
My hope is that the recent hearing will further expose the ATF’s and Attorney General Eric Holder’s assaults on law-abiding gun owners, and more people will start questioning the need for unconstitutional agencies like the ATF that exist solely to infringe on American citizens’ God-given right to keep and bear arms.
Ron Paul
June 21, 2011
Rep. Ron Paul slams Obama over gun scandal, Second Amendment
[This is a little weak. The words “right to keep and bear arms” should be replaced with “rights”.
At least that would be a good start. Calls for tar and feathers would gain further support from me.—Joe]
Dad Passed Away This Morning at 10 AM.
…
The Hospice nurse, Kim (whom he really liked) was with him. No pain, he was awake but just relaxed and passed on.
Dennis R. King
June 20, 2011
Via email regarding the death of his father, Louis Ray King, my only true uncle, my mother’s brother.
[When I was in California last week I had hoped to visit Uncle Lou because I knew he wasn’t going to be around much longer. But he wouldn’t have recognized me and it was too far away to make it over there between my business and my flight schedule. I spent the two hours I had with Dennis.—Joe]
Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she’ll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she’ll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she’ll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she’ll give you her heart.
She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit.
Unknown
Via email from Karen.
[I looked around some for the author of this but didn’t find much except that it has been around since at least 2008.
However amusing this is I’m not convinced it’s entirely true. I gave Barb a Windows Phone 7 and a Jeep for Christmas and I would expect I should have received a new computer and a truck in return but Valentines Day and Father’s Day have come and gone without any sign of her multiplying and enlarging either one.
And another thing—being a physical therapist means she has to maintain her credentials as a poor lover by using ice to take the swelling down. So that is another case where she doesn’t “multiple and enlarge” what is given to her.
But I won’t be surprised if I receive a ton of crap tomorrow morning when she reads this.—Joe]
I often wonder how the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun organizations can be so ignorant about guns.
Then I find myself thankful that they are because it makes their arguments so much easier to refute.
cloneboy
June 17, 2011
[Well… most of the time they don’t really have an argument. They just demand that “something be done”. But their ignorance of the subject matter does make the task of slapping them down easier. I think their ignorance is willful. They literally don’t think it matters. They just “know”. They believe things and claim their opinions are just as valid as anyone else’s. This is not true but many of them are lacking the ability to determine truth from falsity so they don’t really understand when we attempt to correct their process errors. Furthermore they don’t care that they don’t know how to determine truth from falsity. This results in us having to live on the same planet but in essentially different universes.—Joe]
Does anybody not know that the most dangerous place in the world is a gun-free zone?
Ted Nugent
May 2, 2011
We must turn up the heat against ‘America hating’ Obama and the gun control lobby, says Ted Nugent
[I will admit there are some places that could be considered “gun-free zones” that are safe compared to some places where guns are allowed. But if you are talking statistical means rather than overlapping tails of particular bell curves then Nugent’s presumption is correct. And the answer is most people, including most anti-gun politicians know this. The reason the politicians continue to be anti-gun vary but none of the answers are acceptable in a free society.—Joe]
I ask the acceptance, by your son, of a keep-sake from me. It is an article of the tackle of a gun-man, offering the convenience of carrying the powder & shot together. I presume he is a gun-man, as I am sure he ought to be, and every American who wishes to protect his farm from the ravages of quadrupeds & his country from those of biped invaders.
Thomas Jefferson
August 15, 1816
Letter to Payne Todd.
[Every American ought to be a gun-man.
Update that to include women and it’s “case closed”.—Joe]
If government is the solution; Then it is highly probable that government created the problem in the first place.
Dennis R. King
2004
[Dennis is my cousin. Until yesterday it probably had been close to 20 years since I had seen him. He had framed this and put it on the wall of his home. I thought it qualified as QOTD material. Living in California with all the examples to chose from he talked at length about how messed up the government is. Frequently the rants extended to the Federal Government and Washington State government where his brother lives. I had a very pleasant visit.—Joe]
Firearms are only as good or evil, or as decisive, as the one brandishing them. Yet, every week, federal, state, and city lawmakers and politicians propose a Rubik’s cube of laws diminishing the Second Amendment–laws impinge on the God-given right and responsibility of every human to self-preservation.
It’s our responsibility to remember the purity and simplicity of The Constitution. That it’s a document intended for eons based on simple truths, and though can be added to, cannot, must never, be modified to meet the whims and agendas of political fancy.
To do so is not only counter to the vision of the founders of the United States of America, it also risks our sliding further down the slope of corruption and elitism that infests the governments of Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia.
Cork Graham
June 14, 2011
Third Culture Kid Learns Respect for the Second Amendment
Cork Graham is a former CIA paramilitary operations officer and combat photographer, who wrote the international best-selling Vietnam prison/treasure hunt memoir The Bamboo Chest.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
The long-gun registry is a massive Liberal policy failure and it needs to end. It makes no sense to force law-abiding individuals with firearms’ licences to register their long guns. It makes no sense to believe the registry will prevent a gun crime taking place.
Candice Hoeppner
Conservative MP
June 10, 2011
Gun registry Time to scrap it
[The problem is that liberals don’t judge their policies by the facts. They judge them by their intentions. It is as if intentions are all that matter. The “war on poverty” intended to improve the lives of the of the least “fortunate” in society but created many more “poverty stricken” people than it “lifted up”. Gun control was intended to prevent and/or fight violent crime but it enables more violent criminals to work in victim disarmament zones.
Because of their insistent on only considering intent and not results they report numbers that only reflect their views. One of the most blatant is their reporting of the “success” of the Brady Act requiring background checks. They report the total number of people prevented from purchasing a firearm. They do not report the number of people denied a firearm who should have been allowed. They do not report that violent crime rates did not improve as a result of the background checks.
As I have said before, they are either unwilling or unable to distinguish between their hypothesis and their conclusions. If Canada is able to undo the much hated long gun registry via the political process it will be something of a miracle. Outside of the U.S. it is extremely rare for repressive gun laws to be repealed without violence.—Joe]
History is on the side of progress, on the side of socialism.
fabian_solutions
June 12, 2011
Comment to American Way: Sarah Palin email frenzy backfires on her media antagonists.
[I think someone needs their anti-psychotic drugs adjusted.—Joe]
Michael Barnes’ stature and experience with important national and international political issues made him the inevitable choice to lead Handgun Control and the Center at this critical time. As we work towards the next generation of sensible gun laws, we need a leader with vision, with understanding and with the courage to take on the gun lobby. Michael Barnes is that leader, and I am overjoyed to welcome him to our crusade.
Sarah Brady
February 3, 2000
HANDGUN CONTROL, CENTER TO PREVENT HANDGUN VIOLENCE NAME FORMER CONGRESSMAN MICHAEL BARNES NEW CEO
[And how is that crusade working out for you Ms. Brady? And what would that “next generation of sensible gun laws” be?
I know what the pro-gun people were working on in 2000. We were working on advancing shall-issue concealed carry laws. We are almost done with that and now we are working on our “next generation of sensible gun laws”—Constitutional Carry.
My advice to the Brady Campaign is to give it up. The Constitution is on our side, the courts are on our side, and the people are on our side. Handgun Control Inc. is dead and no matter what you rename it the organization belongs in the disgraceful anti-freedom dustbin of history like the KKK, the Communist Workers Party, and American Nazi Party.—Joe]
Although some government officials may wish otherwise, protected speech is called “protected” for a reason. The courts will safeguard it at the financial peril of those who violate the Constitution. Parody cannot be criminalized, and those who create parody cannot be treated as criminals.
Erica Goldberg
June 7, 2011
Court Holds Prosecutor Personally Liable for Unconstitutional Search of Student Who Created a Parody Newsletter
[H/T Say Uncle.
Someday we need to leverage this ruling or others like it into legal action against those that violate our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.—Joe]
There is no legal basis to the idea that the Second Amendment protects the right of an individual to take up arms against the government.
Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence
June 7, 2011
The Truth About ‘Second Amendment Remedies’: How to Counter Insurrectionist Arguments
[I see. Are they saying there is no law, no act, no outrage so terrible that the individual has no legal option but to endure it?
It seems to me people of that mindset are inviting a future which resembles the worst of our past and the most dystopian of our visions. When the police are again the KKK and the police battalions become executions squads will the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence still be advocating for compliance?
I can only see two possible reasons for these people to make such claims. Either they are either incredibly naïve useful idiots or they are advocates for tyranny.—Joe]