Archive for the 'Second Amendment' Category

The Blaze:

A sheriff in Washington state responded Monday to a controversial comment made by one of his deputies two weeks ago during a charity event.

Jerry Moffett, a deputy in Spokane County, Washington, was caught on tape at the Holiday and Heroes event during which some officers took underprivileged children shopping while others stood outside meeting and greeting those attending. But one woman who spoke to Moffett decided to record the interaction. In the video, the woman asks Moffett about the department’s Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) military-style vehicles.

“I’m thinking that is totally appropriate in Iraq but what kind of a situation in the U.S. would you see that happening?” the woman asked Moffett.

The deputy responded by saying, “We’ve got a lot of Constitutionalists and a lot of people that stockpile weapons, a lot of ammunition. They have weapons here locally.”

The Sheriff made a followup comment.

Knezovich said there is “no way” the equipment will be used on any law-abiding citizen. ”It will never be used to take your guns away,” he told the outlet. The outlet noted Moffett is a 20-year veteran of the force and an Army veteran … KXLY reported that Knezovich has since admitted that Moffett’s word choice could have been better, suggesting “extremist” would have been more appropriate than “Constitutionalist

Far from being shocked, disappointed or aghast at the comment by Moffett, I’m pleasantly surprised at his honesty.  It’s always a good thing when the truth comes out.  There is no reason for such equipment on police forces across the nation except for use on the people of America.  Moffett’s candid response reminds us of this truth.

I’m also pleasantly surprised that the Sheriff brought up his time in grade on the police force and his military background.  My own son believes that former military should try to avoid law enforcement if possible.  There are good men who are former military, and there are bad men who are former military.  Moffett is a bad one, and there is no justification for worship of the military.  I know what my own son answers to the question, ‘Son, will you fire on American citizens?’  He would sooner fire on his commanding officers who issued such an order.

Mike Vanderboegh was called a radical right-winger.  Hey, radical right-winger, constitutionalist or extremist.  It’s six one way and half a dozen the other.  As for Moffett, we know where he stands, and it’s because of people like him that we are constitutionalists and stockpile weapons.  Bring it, Moffett.

Timothy Carney:

Naturally, Democrats and the Left have tried to pry Southerners away from their guns and religion. Gun control has largely been a culture war effort for Democrats. “Some of the southern areas have cultures that we have to overcome,” was Congressman Charles Rangel’s explanation for why gun control was both needed and difficult.

The Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten cursed the Second Amendment as “the refuge of bumpkins and yeehaws who like to think they are protecting their homes against imagined swarthy marauders desperate to steal their flea-bitten sofas from their rotting front porches.”

So let’s deal with the second amendment yet again.  To be sure, the second amendment was written within a certain cultural context of unorganized militia who used their own weapons, weapons they had to defend themselves and their families against both animals and men, as well as provide for themselves.  So one might argue for the notion that the presupposition necessary for the second amendment to make any sense at all is private ownership and use of guns.  But this requires deductive thought, and progressives aren’t big on that.  So in legal debating terms, I will stipulate, and I won’t press the issue because I want to make another more important point.

Progressives have yet to pick up on the fact that we don’t believe the second amendment gives us rights to defend ourselves or homes.  They would be much more aghast at the truth, but their blindness keeps them from seeing the truth.  God gives us rights, the state only recognizes those rights.

But more importantly, the second amendment says nothing about defense of persons or the home during the normal course of life.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with that.  I have a right anyway to defend myself and my family with any weapon I choose, so says God.  The second amendment says something different.  It says that the state recognizes that God gives me the right to shoot people who would take away our guns – like Gene Weingarten – through the skull, even if their taking is approved by the state.

Guns.com:

With the stroke of a pen Tuesday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) turned a controversial bill into law that will allow third parties to sue municipalities over local gun codes stronger than the state’s.

The measure, added as an amendment to a metal theft bill, had passed the state legislature earlier this month by wide margins. It allows groups such as the National Rifle Association to stand in for local citizens in challenging gun city and county control ordinances stronger than the state’s own laws in court.

With Corbett’s signature, the new law will take effect in 60 days, potentially dozens of strict city and county firearms laws under the gaze of gun rights groups such as the NRA, who called the bill Tuesday, “the strongest firearms preemption statute in the country.”

Now for federal threats:

Members of Congress who want to infringe on your right to keep and bear arms will never give up. Fortunately, through our states we can effectively render any new federal gun laws powerless by using a legal doctrine upheld repeatedly by the Supreme Court.

This is done by depriving the feds of any enforcement assistance by local law enforcement agencies in their state, a doctrine known as “anti-commandeering.”

Essentially, it provides that state legislation can prohibit state law enforcement from aiding the federal agencies attempting to enforce federal gun laws.

In other words, the federal government cannot require a state to carry out federal acts. The federal government can pass a law and try to enforce it, but the state isn’t required to help them.

Is this legal?

It is according to the US Supreme Court. For 150 years it has repeatedly affirmed the constitutionality of anti-commandeering laws.

Relevant court cases include:

* 1842 Prigg v. Pennslvania: The court held that states weren’t required to enforce federal slave rendition laws.

* 1992 New York v. US: The court held that Congress couldn’t require states to enact specified waste disposal regulations.

* 1997 Printz v. US: The court held that “the federal government may not compel the states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program.”

* 2012 Independent Business v. Sebelius: The Court held that the federal government can not compel states to expand Medicaid by threatening to withhold funding for Medicaid programs already in place.

What do you notice to be common between these articles concerning advocacy for state’s rights?  Answer: turning to the courts for moral and legal justification.

The new law in Pennsylvania would be impressive if only it had prepared the infrastructure to send state law enforcement after local authorities if they didn’t observe our rights.  Nullification of local regulations combined with spending some quality time in the hoosegow for the local politicians would send a strong signal to those who would ignore the law.  Frankly, I cannot imagine a weaker state government than one which passes a law only to have cities and townships ignore it, and then have to turn to the courts to tell the local authorities to obey the state laws.  It’s embarrassing and scandalous.

And turning to the federal courts to tell ourselves that it’s okay to ignore the federal authorities when their edicts violate the covenant upon which they are supposed to labor and lead is equally embarrassing.  More than simply not aiding federal authorities in their totalitarian measures, state law enforcement ought to be sent to arrest said federal authorities, throw them in the state penitentiary, and throw away the key.

The Bang Switch has a must read on gun control in France, lengthy, but well worth reading.  Some of it is highly detailed in the legalities of firearms ownership in France.  There are many salient points for gun control in America, but this quote encapsulates the spirit of the article.

This French writer is telling you what the American left is saying concerning their ultimate aim.

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it.  The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them.

This lefty writer at Daily Kos couches a total gun ban in terms of safety, but even if he believes in this state sponsored utopia, most on the left know that it’s a lie.  In the end it’s all about control over people.

This is why universal background checks and a national gun registry gain no traction in the gun community.  We don’t believe the lie of public safety, and we know your ultimate aim.  We will never relent.  We will never register our guns.  We will never turn in our guns.  We will never be put on a list.  We will fight a gun registry with all of our might.

As the philosophers would say, these truths hold “positive epistemic status.”

So says Professor David Gushee of Mercer University.  He says, “That’s not Biblical reasoning; that’s cultural reasoning.”

To which I responded this way directly to Professor Gushee.

Would you care to respond this my article on this subject (it’s one of many)?  Stay orthodox, please.  No deconstruction or other oddball views.

I haven’t heard back from the professor.  I don’t expect to.

DelmarvaNow:

Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis’ views about how to enforce the stringent gun laws Maryland passed last year have gone viral.

In a video and print interview with a student journalist, published to YouTube on Aug. 21, Lewis says he’s no fan of government intervention in limiting the constitutionally-protected right to possess firearms.

“As long as I’m the sheriff in this county,” he says in the video, “I will not allow the federal government to come in here and strip my citizens of their right to bear arms. I can tell you this, if they attempt to do that, it would be an all-out civil war, no question about it.”

In another video on YouTube, from Delaware television station WRDE, Lewis offered a clearer critique of Maryland’s latest gun control law, the Firearms Safety Act of 2013, which was passed in the wake of the December 2012 massacre of elementary school students in Newtown, Conn.

“Who am I to tell them what they should or should not protect their families with?” Lewis asked on WRDE. “Who am I to tell them they shouldn’t have a magazine with 30 rounds behind the door when some thug is trying to break into their home? … If you start coming into people’s homes to disarm them solely because you believe they don’t have a Second Amendment right to bear arms, you better stand by. It will be, without a doubt, a civil war.”

The number of Sheriff’s deputies any county has cannot possibly wage civil war on anybody else.  As for everyone else (i.e., gun owners), that’s a different story.  And yes, gun confiscations will cause civil war.

I think the Sheriff gets it.  All county Sheriffs are advised to take a lesson from Sheriff Lewis.  It may save you and your deputies from heartache in the future.

 ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.

David Codrea:

I’m not going to sit here and try to patch up differences people have with Gottlieb. I’ve had them myself in the past, and I’ll be surprised if I don’t have them again. I have good friends who can’t stand him, and think I’m being duped by not joining them in that assessment, and for giving him credit when I think it’s due him.

Here’s the thing: I’ve talked to the guy many times, face-to-face, on the phone, and via email conversations, and it’s easy for those who have not to draw a portrait based on the impressions of others who may not have.

I had a good relationship with Aaron Zelman, too. Guess what: I didn’t agree with him on everything, either.

And I’m not going to condemn Claire Wolfe for taking an action I know to be principle-based and required no small amount of courage, even if I’m not embracing her conclusions. She would not take a paycheck for her final article. That tells you something.

I don’t presume to be smart enough or influential enough to play peacemaker in this. What I’m interested in doing is helping, and seeing that positive efforts toward liberty are promoted and supported. So all I can do is that which I’ve said from the start, from before the JPFO news became public knowledge: I will continue my efforts for the organization until such time as someone tells me they don’t want me to, or until I come to see that my faith has been misplaced.

If I feel further association is untenable due to changes in organizational principles, interference, censorship, control issues, you name it, I’ll bail too.

Please go read David’s entire assessment.  He ends with this: “And yeah, I get that all I may have done here is get supporters of both sides mad at me.”

It’s a hazard of the job.  I’m convinced that half of my readers (or more) stay pissed off at me most of the time.  I’ve got readers who regularly read my prose for the purpose of increasing their hatred of me.  David has run with the big dogs for a while now.  I’m doubt that he will be persuaded by reaction from the readers.

Here is my take – for whatever it’s worth.  I’ve gotten extremely mad at the NRA for endorsing Harry Reid before (or did they simply say nice things about him?).  It makes no difference to me.  Yet I’m still a member – begrudgingly.

One has to consider the limits of his patronage of a given organization very carefully.  Alan Gottlieb has a fundamental problem of perspective, and a fundamental divide with me given his (past) support of universal background checks.  Alan forgets why the progressives want it.

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it.  The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them.

And yet Alan was prepared to give on this non-negotiable point.  That tells me everything I need to know about Alan.

But I don’t have relationships with corporations or organizations.  If I did, I would have already divorced the NRA.  I have relationships with people, and two people I consider friends write for JPFO: David Codrea and Kurt Hofmann.

As long as David and Kurt are writing for them, I’ll continue to link there.  I know in my heart of hearts that both would rather starve than sell out gun owners, even though I know no such thing about Alan Gottlieb.  When the time comes that I see articles at JPFO advocating universal background checks, regulation of semi-automatic firearms, magazine capacity limits and the like, I’ll separate myself from them and link no more.

Like David, I believe that He and Kurt have a right to eat too.  I’ll help as much as I can, even thought it may not be much.  In the mean time, I feel no compunction whatsoever to support organizations or corporations with my money.  If you think differently, don’t waste your time trying to convince me that you’re right.

Listen, I’m doing as much as I can do sending the NRA my small amout just to see the progressives have a nervous breakdown thinking that the evil gun group is telling its members what to do and what to think.  That’s about as far as I can bring myself to go.  Any other help will be to an individual, not a corporation.

So there you have it.  On the one hand, I won’t send the JPFO my money.  On the other hand, I won’t seek a separation either.  I’ll take a wait and see attitude, expecting David and Kurt to lead the way telling us what they’re experiencing at that organization so that I can make a more educated assessment.

Mike Vanderboegh: Police shoot and kill an Ohio dad, 22, holding a BB gun in Walmart.  I say prosecute them for murder.  If I did that I would be in the state penitentiary.  They should be too.  One long term solution is to legalize open carry everywhere, at all times.

Matt Bracken has an outstanding piece up at WRSA on The Islamic Jihad Conquest Formula.  Matt hits the nail on the head.

David Codrea:

“A citizen will lose his appeal if the Attorney General can prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, not that the individual poses a risk, or that the person is a terrorist, or even that the person is under investigation; rather, the Attorney General must only demonstrate that the person has been placed on a terror watch list,” Titus continued.

“Once that has been proven, a process which affords the citizen no due process, no right to appeal, nor guarantees any reasonable notice or information to the actual fact that the citizen is on a terror watch list, the appeal is over and the citizen loses his Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms,” Titus elaborated. “The individual will not have a chance to introduce evidence of mistaken identity, abuse of Executive discretion or mount any other meaningful defense.”

Oh my.  This seems like more inside-the-beltway rulemaking gone awry.  Perhaps they put this in the federal register, perhaps not.  Perhaps they kept it out with approval of the rubber-stamp FISA courts.  Either way, you can bet that this is more infringement.

And speaking of David, he says he doesn’t like to go around link-whoring his articles.  He isn’t posting to Facebook anymore, but that’s fine with me because I make WoG a stop several times a day to see what David is saying.  David is a nice guy so he doesn’t like to link-whore.  I’m not, and I don’t mind it at all.  Traffic means that even if it is a poor article, my Google page rank increases, sending more traffic and increasing my voice of advocacy.  I do this for advocacy, not for ego (or at least, so I say).  I don’t really care what you think about me, but I want you to listen to my views because I want to change your mind.  But for David, he deserves to make a living at this, and I ask that you stop by every day to see what you can do to send him traffic.

Kurt Hofmann:

Frum notes that about 42 percent of police deaths this year were by gunfire. Whether that statistic is intended to justify the shooting death of unarmed Michael Brown, or the outrageously heavy-handed efforts to quell the unrest (a task now being handed off by the heavily militarized police to the actual military, as the National Guard is brought in), we can only guess.

Frum also asks if anyone thinks that “things [would] be better in Ferguson if the demonstrators were armed.” Well, some of the brutalized demonstrators might.

Perhaps the most chilling of this series of tweets was his observation about the supposed law enforcement need for heavy body armor:

Fewer guns in hands of the policed ==> less need for body armor on those who do the policing …

Oh good grief.  We just can’t get away from Frum can we?  Visit Kurt’s piece to see his full analysis.  As for my comments, I think that David Frum is an idiot.  And I think he’s chicken little.  And I think he should feel bad about himself.

Even the NYT is asking Who Will Stand Up For Christians?  Well, not the Christian church.  As I have pointed out, they don’t give a damn.

David Codrea:

“Suppose, for example, that a new, unregulated and highly lethal weapon were developed before a statute was enacted,” the Center speculated, arguing “the weapon would not be protected because it would not be in common use.”

In other words, every new development in personal weapons technology will, by default, be denied to We the People by the very body charged with facilitating a citizen militia and expressly forbidden from infringing with the right of the people to keep and bear arms. That the authorities have it in common use won’t matter. So much for Founding intent. So much for freedom.

So no new weapons developments are included under the rubric of the second amendment?  Do these judges give their decisions even the slightest review for logic, constitutionality and feasibility (new weapons developments are often vetted and proven in the civilian market, or in other words, where the money is, before it ever gets to the standing army (which the constitution said nothing about).

Kurt Hofmann:

Surprisingly, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) counts itself among those who believe the brutal suppression of Ferguson is grossly excessive, according to their press release:

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) is closely watching the situation in Ferguson, Missouri and we are deeply disturbed by what we see unfolding there. Our hearts go out to the family of Michael Brown, Jr. as they deal with an unimaginable loss.

What makes this surprising is that CSGV has long defended virtually unlimited power of government, to the point of denying the legitimacy of armed resistance against a government rounding up citizens for the concentration camps.

Don’t bother them with issues of logic.  To them, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, whereas for most normal people, it’s the way life must be lived.

Mike Vanderboegh:

A leaked document from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis predicts increased “anti-government violence over the next year.” The document says the inspiration for violence is Cliven Bundy’s Bunkerville standoff with the Bureau of Land Management from earlier in the year.

I would have rather thought that the standoff at Bundy’s ranch was a symptom rather than the inspiration or catalyst?  I guess it goes to show how detached the elites are.

David Codrea:

Can you imagine how Rolling Stone would howl if someone from the “right” were to call for “Second Amendment remedies” against, say SEIU, or the Southern Poverty Law Center or Everytown? Or Organizing for Action? How does Yawn feel about his guy singling out “the corporatized wing of the Democratic Party” — the folks like Wenner, who put Obama, Pelosi and the entire leadership in office — for the same treatment?

They would howl and wouldn’t think a thing about the hobgoblins of inconsistency.  After all, progressives only think something is terrorism when they disagree with it.

In a 2013 e-mail, physics professor Bob Lange wrote that the Benghazi attacks were “not terrorism.” He explained, “It is not terrorism to kill representatives of a government that you are opposed to.” Bringing the conversation back to Israel, he noted, “If an Israeli soldier protecting a settlement is killed by Palestinian militants, it is not terrorism.”

Kurt Hofmann:

If, after all, government officials do not fear the wrath of an armed citizenry, the deterrent effect provided by the Constitutional guarantee of the people’s ability to deny a “government monopoly on force” has failed. If the government insists on ignoring both the Constitutionally imposed limits on its power, and disregarding armed citizens’ ability to enforce those limits, the only option remaining is for we the people to actively refresh the tree of liberty.

Sounds exactly right to me, and I agree with every bit of the sentiment expressed by Larry Pratt, including the unction (and good judgment) with which he communicated it.