Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

News from the TPRC.

Taking cues from Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday announced they would introduce legislation allowing private citizens, local governments and the state to sue reckless gun manufacturers.

The proposal is similar to a controversial measure passed by Texas lawmakers last year that allows private citizens to sue those who get abortions or assist others in getting abortions.

After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Texas law, Newsom vowed to work with the California Legislature on a bill that would allow private citizens to sue anyone who manufactures, distributes or sells an assault weapon or ghost gun kit or parts in California

Lawmakers said they have been working on the bill since the summer, and it’s modeled on law passed in New York state in July. The New York statute says industry stakeholders can be held liable for the illegal or “unreasonable” sale, manufacture, distribution, importing or marketing of firearms that cause harm to the public as a “public nuisance.”

I’m sure there will be the usual group of Californians who tell me that California still has some good folks, that we just to come alongside then and help them fight.  That may or may not be true – at some point patriots need to cut their losses.

While I’m sure my readers from California won’t like it, there’s a sure-fire way to stop this in its tracks and put an end to this silliness.

Stop selling everything to anyone.  No firearms, no ammunition, no replacement part, no cleaning kits, nothing.  To anyone.  Californians are on this list, to include law enforcement of any kind (local, county, state, or FedGov), and military.  This last part would shut down the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, Camp Pendleton, and 29 Palms.

Shut down everything.  No one gets anything if this bill passes.  No guns, no shotgun shells, no bullets, cartridges or powder.  All manufacturers, distributors and FFLs have no choice but to go out of business.  LEOs would be left with batons.

Of course, for this to be effective, all manufacturers would have to do this in unison, and that won’t happen.  The [temporary] saving grace for patriots in California is that manufacturers love money more than they love their product or their clientele.  So Californians will get their stuff, right up until California juries begin awarding $20 million lawsuits against firearms and ammunition manufacturers and they end up going out of business.

Then we all lose.

We’ll grant the point that voting in Beverly Hills was a red spot in the middle of blue, but 44% of the folks would still forcibly take guns away from ordinary people.

So what does it look like when rich people come under threat?

In Beverly Hills, even the purchase of a firearm comes with certain…expectations. The city’s only gun store, Beverly Hills Guns, is a “concierge service” by appointment only, for a largely affluent clientele. And business is booming.

Since opening in July 2020, the store has seen upscale residents from Santa Monica to the Hollywood Hills increasingly in a panic following several high-profile smash-and-grab and violent home invasion robberies. The apparent siege has brought in a daily stream of anxious business owners and prominent actors, real estate moguls and film execs, says owner Russell Stuart. Most are arming themselves for the first time.

“This morning I sold six shotguns in about an hour to people that say, ‘I want a home defense shotgun,’” says Stuart, whose store is discreetly located in a Beverly Hills office building, with no sign on the doors, down the hall from a diamond dealer. “Everyone has a general sense of constant fear,  which is very sad. We’re used to this being like Mayberry.”

That fear has the wealthiest of local gentry contemplating every more elaborate security measures: armored luxury cars, safe rooms and bullet-proof glass in their homes. One client asked about creating the “Tony Stark-level” security of a half-dozen automated drones to hover over his house, says Stuart, whose gun store is part of his larger security company, Force Protective Agency. “If you want the Gucci package, it’s going to cost money.”

The security business is experiencing a rebound after a couple of diminished years because of the pandemic. Some firms had their on-site security guards sent home for health and social distancing reasons. Not anymore. In Beverly Hills, the craving for additional security dates to the riot that followed an otherwise peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in May 2020, with unprecedented looting along Rodeo Drive that left broken boutique windows  beneath beloved luxury brands: Chanel, Dior, Gucci, Michael Kors, MCM, Ermenegildo Zegna. Last March, a $500,000 Richard Mille watch was stolen at gunpoint from a diner at the Il Pastaio restaurant.  The Dec. 1 home-invasion robbery and shooting death of philanthropist Jacqueline Avant, 81, in her Trousdale Estates home, only accelerated the arms race among the affluent.

I’m shocked.  You mean they want BLM to destroy your city but not their own?  In other news, they are demanding the police do something about it.

Los Angeles Police Chief Michael Moore announced in November he would be setting up a task force to combat home-invasion robberies, which have targeted celebrities and upscale restaurants, according to the Los Angeles Times. Moore indicated the department had not seen violent holdups “like this in decades,” The Times reported.

I wonder where this task force will concentrate their efforts?  Anyway, the rich folks know the police can’t be there all of the time.  They want shotguns.  They want Gucci protection.  They want up-armored cars.  They want drones.

If you demand the same thing, 44% of them will tell you to pound sand.

This?

Since a ban on numerous firearms took effect in May 2020, Canadians have only turned in 160 to the government  — a stunningly tiny number, considering the original government estimation of there to be some 90,000 to 105,000 outlawed firearms in Canada.

“Only 160 firearms that the Liberal government prohibited more than a year and a half ago have been deactivated or surrendered, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP),” iPolitics reported Friday.

“The Canadian Firearms Program (CFP) can confirm that, as of Dec. 9, 2021, 18 firearms (formerly classified as restricted) affected by the May 1, 2020, Order in Council (OIC) have been deactivated,” RCMP headquarters spokeswoman Sgt. Caroline Duval told iPolitics.

“In addition, there have been 142 OIC-affected firearms recorded as surrendered to a public agency for destruction since May 1, 2020,” she added.

The RCMP seemed to suggest Canadians are merely waiting for a long-promised gun buyback to be created by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before complying.

“If an individual or business were to relinquish a newly prohibited firearm or device before the implementation of the buyback program, they won’t be eligible for compensation once the program is announced,” RCMP told iPolitics last week. “Government officials are currently in the process of refining requirements and developing program design and implementation options for a buyback program.”

Oh, I see.  Canadians are merely waiting on a few dollars to relinquish their liberty, or so they say.

Or will it be something else, perhaps just saying ‘no’, and backing that up?

100,000 illegal firearms.  Good grief.  If they tried to do that with AR-15s in the U.S. (tens of millions), there would be a problem.

Any predictions on what will happen with our neighbors to the North?  Will the little boy with the hair-doo win out?

Via David Codrea, this amusing missive from Larry Keane.

The Axios/Ipsos poll asked Hispanic-Americans about their top concerns and crime and violence came in at the number two spot at 30 percent – behind only COVID worries at 37 percent. Per Axios, “The finding is a warning for President Biden ahead of next year’s midterms.” A similar Wall Street Journal poll from a week earlier showed Hispanic voters are turning away from Democrats, typically supportive of more gun control, and are now nearly evenly split between their party preferences.

[ … ]

The overlay of rising crime concerns for Hispanic-Americans and their firearm purchasing is stark. According to NSSF retailer survey data, law-abiding Hispanic-Americans purchased firearms in 2020 at a 49 percent higher rate than they did in 2019. That swing of Hispanic-Americans’ preference showed in the 2020 presidential election where former President Donald Trump’s message of law and order and support for the Second Amendment resonated. The former president garnered 10 percent more Hispanic-American vote share than he did in 2016.

The trends stood out in states like Texas and California. LaPolitica Online reported on the swing of Hispanic-Americans purchasing firearms. Rafael Cedillo owns a firearm safety business where he offers training and educational courses in El Paso wherein 2019 a murderer killed 23 people at Walmart. “It’s sad, but my business really booms after a tragic incident,” Cedillo said. The firearm buying surge left his business busy. “After the one in El Paso, my home, I couldn’t fit everyone into my schedule.”

Take careful note.  A “swing” in what party the Hispanics like (see his section headers) … they “purchased firearms at a [blah-blah-blah] higher rate (which says nothing about the previous rate or whether they believe in gun control).

This is what you do when you have nothing else to say.  I repeat what I’ve observed before.  Hispanics and Latinos favor gun control by 71% according to Pew.

Immigration is a gun rights issue.  Larry Keane is telling the wrong story.

Here is the bill.

Here is [part] of what it does to FFLs.

• Requiring physical security measures to prevent firearm theft;
• Clarifying the standards by which licensed dealers, and their employees, are assessed for purposes of license issuance and renewal;
• Repealing long-standing Appropriations Riders that have impeded enforcement of existing law by barring the ATF from using funds to require licensed dealers to conduct physical firearm inventories and prohibiting the public disclosure of firearms trace data; and
• Increasing record retention and electronic data management and sharing for background checks. “
• Require reporting of two or more rifles or shotguns purchased over five consecutive days, same as for pistols.
• Close the indicted dealer loophole, prohibiting licensees immediately upon being indicted for certain crimes from receiving new firearms or transferring any firearms in their business inventory to anyone other than another licensee or a law enforcement agency.
• Require annual inspections for “high risk” gun dealers and inspections for all other gun dealers every five years. Due to existing statutory restrictions and limited resources, only a small fraction of gun sellers are inspected annually, and a large number of those inspections reveal violations.
• Require dealer-applicants and employees trusted with the possession of firearms to undergo background checks for FFL issuance and renewal.

The controllers never sleep.  Neither can we.

By the way, can you imagine the work stoppage and inconvenience (for the large stores) of actually taking a complete inventory for a few worthless ATF agents who didn’t have anything better to do that day?  Maybe we should encourage them to eat doughnuts rather than making fun of it.

A nest of pit vipers.  This whole debacle should be shut down.  It is a den of demons, a camp of devils, and an abode of robbers and thieves.

The rules are set up to fleece the poors, rob them of their wealth, and deprive them of God-given rights, while benefitting the beltway elitists and lawyers who draft these abominations.

UBC is immoral because tries to rob God of His rightful place as the only sovereign (1 Timothy 6:15).

After passage in the House and Senate, and signature by the governor of S.C., the exception was made in the new law that cities could ban open carry in public buildings and parades.  With that exception, there has been a massive scramble to do just this.  It’s now Columbia, Greenville, Charleston, Spartanburg, and now Conway.

CONWAY, S.C. (WBTW) — Conway’s police chief supports the new rule passed by Conway City Council Monday that bans openly carrying guns in city buildings and during city-sponsored events.

The City of Conway passed the second and final reading of a new gun law following Monday’s city council meeting.

“It’s just an ongoing process of trying to get some things that would help out with some of our city buildings and venues,” Conway Police Chief Dale Long said.

The new ordinance was unanimously passed at Monday’s city council meeting.

“You cannot carry into state house, you can’t carry it into the state senators or legislators office, you can’t carry it in courthouses,” Long said. “And we just decided here in the City of Conway, there’s a need for our city buildings, like coming into the police station or go into city court.”

In November, the City of Florence also passed an ordinance implementing those same restrictions. As Conway joins it, News13 reached out to other cities to see if they had considered the same.

In a statement from North Myrtle Beach public information officer, Pat Dowling, he said: “Weapons are not allowed in city buildings in NMB, including concealed weapons. the city has not addressed open carry at city events.”

For other cities like Darlington and Hartsville, the issue has yet to come to council.

“We are still exploring the best path forward for this in the city of Hartsville to keep all of our employees and residents safe in city facilities and at events,” Lauren Baker, public information officer for the City of Hartsville, said in a statement to News13.

Long said he believes this was a good call on council’s part in keeping the community safe.

“If you’re coming to do city business and at times, there could be things that you’re not happy with the way things would go. And we just wanted to make sure that we try to de-escalate things before they could even become a problem,” he said.

But of course the police chief supports a ban, as they will support gun bans everywhere, all of the time.  And that last paragraph makes no sense whatsoever … “there could be things that you’re not happy with the way things would go.”

It doesn’t even make grammatical sense, and it doesn’t because he can’t even elucidate the concern.

But boy do we feel safer.  Guys are hiding their weapons rather than carrying them openly.

But hey, as long as they’re hidden from view, they don’t exist …

Via TTAG, this missive.

As a teacher in Northeast Ohio high schools for over 20 years, a special kind of horror fills me when I hear about bills like HB 99. Here are a few of the reasons why more guns in schools is no solution.

For us teachers, many experiences in our lives are teachable moments. There are lessons to be had in all that happens to us as individuals and as a society. The lessons we choose to learn will determine our actions. Bringing guns into our schools conveys one monumental lesson: that we should deal with violence in our society with greater threats of violence. As students go out into the world, will they take that lesson with them? Who else should carry guns? Doctors? Engineers? Nursing home employees? Is the effective solution to violence just more potential for violence?

Wait.  I’m an engineer and I carry guns!

In fact, I think it’s a grand idea if nursing home employees carried firearms, at least a few of them.  Whom else will defend the residents from home invasion.  Of course, it’s a better arrangement if there were no nursing homes and families took care of their own, but that’s a sticky wicket and very complicated.  I had an aunt with dementia who couldn’t be left alone because she had a propensity to throw hand towels down on hot stove units, so you couldn’t even take a trip to work or the store.

I am not making a comment on this particular judge – it just seems that they get so many decisions very wrong, and it’s nice to see someone get it right.

We’ve heard the quote by Mark Twain, “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” But when it comes to firearms laws, it appears that this concept has transformed into a strategy, as Nevada’s Assembly Bill 286, which banned not only 80 percent lowers, but any unfinished firearm, was deemed unconstitutional by a State Judge. So while the Governor signed into law an unconstitutional ban, the justice system eventually caught up, striking down the infringement on Nevada citizens’ human rights. In this case, Polymer80 is the unsung hero, as they put in the hard work to bring this to court.

[ … ]

In deciding to issue summary judgment, Judge Schlegelmilch held that a trial was not needed, and that Polymer80 was immediately entitled to both a Declaratory Judgment that AB286 was unduly and unconstitutionally void for vagueness, and a Permanent Injunction forever banning enforcement of key provisions in the new enactment for that reason. Judge Schlegelmilch, who upon Polymer80’s motion had preliminarily prevented enforcement of those provisions in July 2021, specifically found that Sections 3 and 3.5 of AB286 were unconstitutionally ambiguous in their language criminalizing, among other things, the possession, sale, transfer, transport, and manufacture of “unfinished frames or receivers.” Polymer80 had argued that this said criminalization would threaten its very existence. In that respect, the Court further found that the definition of an “unfinished frame or receiver” incorporated in those two Sections was exceedingly and unconstitutionally vague in its use and reliance upon various terms including, among others, “blank,” “casting,” and “machined body” that were undefined in the statute and did not have accepted common meanings.

Yea, it would have been better if the judge had told the state of Nevada to go pound sand forever, but that’s not how this works.

Never give up, never get disheartened, always fight the controllers at every step.  Counter their every move, all of the time.

Nor should you.

I heard from the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) that the Preventing Gun Violence Through Financial Intelligence Act (House Bill 5764/Senate Bill 3117) was introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate. It “aims to would require financial institutions to turn over information on firearms and accessory purchases to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for developing an advisory about the identification and reporting of suspicious activity.” This is bad legislation. Please contact your senators and congressman, to oppose it.

It’s a shame that we’re even here, but with slimy cretins like Graham, Cornyn, Murkowski, Collins, Romney and Murkowski, we’re always at risk.