Archive for the 'Second Amendment' Category

Here is Senator Feinstein’s proposed law.  Of course, the remarkable thing is that not a single aspect of the law would have stopped the Connecticut shooting, or the Colorado shooting for that matter.

Magazine size is irrelevant, since the shooter was unimpeded (which is the core problem anyway).  Registration of firearms is also irrelevant, since the firearm owner was fully legal (the firearm was stolen and then used to perpetrate another crime).  Finally, grandfathering firearms is also irrelevant, since this firearm would clearly have fallen under such a stipulation (which Feinstein sees as necessary to pass the law).

Also note that the old issue of “sporting purposes” is back in the framework.  Recall what I said about such a test.

The ATF must decide what is the “sporting purposes” category by populating the list with examples, and then make the claim that such-and-such an example is deemed to be or not to be a “sporting purpose” because it is or isn’t on the list.  It reasons in a circle.

And moreover:

While ATF lawyers might disagree, for something to have a “sporting purpose” means nothing more than it can be taken to the range and operated by the owner to his or her entertainment or training.  The shooting skills – whether for official competitions such as IDPA or 3-Gun, or for unofficial activities such as regular range visits for the purpose of betterment at the science of firearms operation – are sports.  All of them.  Period.  This is non-negotiable.  If it is a firearm, it has a sporting purpose.

But then again, this isn’t really about sporting purposes, or safety, or public concerns, is it?  It’s about government control, as such progressive laws always are.  Gun control has always been about gun control.  Progressives aren’t liberal.  They’re statists and control freaks and micro-managers and social engineers.  This proposed law is another testimony to that.

According to one of the “experts.”  Here is his brief resume.

Thomas Nolan, a lecturer at Tufts, spent 27 years as a Boston police officer before earning an Ed.D. from Boston University. When he was with the Boston Police Department, Nolan was a member of the elite mobile operations patrol unit and worked in the Youth Violence Strike Force. He ended his law enforcement career as a lieutenant and shift commander in the patrol division. He taught criminal justice at Boston University from 2004 to 2011, and then was a senior policy and program analyst at the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in Washington, D.C. This fall he taught a course in the Experimental College called Forensic Behavioral Analysis.

Ooooo .  He’s an expert, so let’s hear him in his own words, inteview format.

Tufts Now: What was your experience with guns as a police officer?

Thomas Nolan: If you are hired as a police officer in Massachusetts, you cannot carry a gun until you have at least 80 hours of training and have fired 1,000 rounds, so you have become intimately acquainted with that weapon. But for the general public in most of the country, no training is required. I can sell you a gun at a gun shop, and I have no idea if you can shoot it or what you want to do with it. It’s like selling someone an iPod.

[ … ]

What about the rest of the country?

When I worked for the Department of Homeland Security and traveled to many places around the country, when the topic of guns came up, I would ask trainees how many did not have a gun and no hands went up. In many places, people seem to feel there is an obligation that you have to protect yourself against some kind of attack from intruders, whoever they think that might be. And some people who are extremists have the mindset that this is the only way we have to protect ourselves from the federal government coming into our lives and communities and taking over everything, including their guns. Of course, that’s a crazy, irrational thought. But don’t be surprised to see a rush on buying weapons soon, because the topic will come up in Congress and people fear there will be a ban.

Some say if more people had guns, they could prevent such mass murders as occurred in Newtown or in the Aurora movie theater shootings, because an armed person could kill the murderer.

If we armed people, the carnage would increase exponentially. Take the Aurora movie theater shootings, for example. If we had people in the audience who were armed, it’s safe to assume there would be an exchange of gunfire, but it would not necessarily result in the death of the shooter, who in this case had on body armor.

So let’s stop and examine what he has said.  First of all, the shooter in Colorado was not wearing body armor.  Period.  He is communicating myth that he has heard over news networks.  The shooter was wearing a tactical vest, but it didn’t include soft armor or hard plates.  And if he had been, how does it make the police more qualified to deal with it anyway?

Oh yea.  There’s the issue of training.  You know, only the police are qualified enough with their firearm to be competent to carry one.  They have fired 1000 rounds with their issued weapon.  Except that I have fired many more than 1000 rounds with every one of my weapons.  So according to Nolan, it’s better if a moviegoer simply sits in his chair and hopes that he isn’t shot!  Literally, it’s better to allow a shooter to pick off people like ducks in a shooting gallery than it is to attempt to stop him by an armed citizen.  Leave the shooter alone, says he.

But we’ve dealt with this before, although with statistics.

I am not willing to concede at all that a concealed carrier would be so ineffective against someone trying to take his life.  But for the sake of argument, let’s stipulate his case, or worse.  Let’s assume that a law enforcement officer would be 30% effective against a shooter, that a shooter in a crowded place would be no more than 25% effective with his shot placement, and worst of all, that a concealed carrier would be no more than 20% effective.

Terry’s argument is this: I am willing to subject my family to a shooter at 25% effectiveness for the duration of time it takes a LEO (at 30% effectiveness) to arrive on the scene, usually 10 – 15 minutes, rather than have a concealed carrier attempt to deal with the shooter at 20% effectiveness, because of the fact that a concealed carrier might also harm me or my family just like the police might harm me or my family.

It’s worse than nonsense.  It’s irresponsible nonsense.  But hey, whoever said that I am not easy to get along with.  If I’m ever in this situation with Terry’s family and I have gotten my own out of harm’s way, I will oblige Terry’s edict.  I’ll leave the shooter alone for Terry to deal with unarmed.  As they say … as you wish.

Finally, Mr. Nolan is only saying that the threat of home invasions is crazy and irrational because it’s never happened to him or his family.  And because he hasn’t read my articles, where I detailed some six and then nineteen home invasions that were easily found over the course of several minutes of searching.  And … Mr. Nolan is only saying what he is about home invasions because he doesn’t care about the safety of you or your family, caring more about his own ideological and political views.  That’s how the entire article should be studied, if you study it at all.  In fact, that’s the way you should treat all such diatribes.  These guys aren’t experts.  They’re just political hacks masquerading as researchers, and so are the people who print this piffle.

David Codrea has an interesting post on police and their view of assault weapons.

State Police Supt. Col. Steven G. O’Donnell said Monday they’d like to see a reinstatement of the ban on the sale of assault weapons…O’Donnell said assault weapons have one purpose, to kill people in war. He says civilians should not have assault weapons. [More]

So that’s why you guys have them, Steve? To have your standing army make war on and kill “civilians”?

Yet another indication of this elitism is seen up North.

We’ve landed on a revelation concerning Chris Christie.

“What role does the media play in terms of the violence we see on television and the movies? And the violent video games that I think desensitize our children to the real effects of violence. So I think we have to have a national discussion,” said Christie on New Jersey 101.5fm’s “Ask the Governor,” a monthly call in show.

When asked if gun control was an issue as well, Christie said “gun control absolutely has to be part of that discussion too.”

Christie said New Jersey has the second toughest gun laws in the nation, behind New York. “I’ve been a supporter of that as governor and will continue to be,” he said.

Jumping on the bandwagon, is he?  Or not.

In his first campaign for elective office in 1995, Christie based his bid for the state Assembly on supporting New Jersey’s assault-weapons ban.

Christie is a gun-grabber from way back.  He has Presidential aspirations.  But he will never be President because he doesn’t believe in the second amendment.  Well, in addition to the fact that he is a loud mouth blowhard.

We’ve discussed the notion that guns are evil.  Silly idea, that is.  Larry Pratt goes on the record on this very idea with Piers Morgan.

On the heels of the tragic Newtown, Conn. school shooting which left 26 people dead, this evening “Piers Morgan Tonight” invited Larry Pratt to the program to share his strong perspective on the firearm debate.

“Since we have concealed carry laws in all of our country now, people can get a concealed firearm. And yet, we have laws that say not in schools,” the Executive Director of Gun Owners of America said. “And so in the very places that have been sought out by monsters such as the murderer of these adults and children, we’re saying, ‘no, we don’t want you to be able to defend yourself. It’s better that you just sit there and wait to be killed.’ And we find that morally incomprehensible.”

Pratt says he’s deeply disturbed by the anti-gun supporters. It’s “deeply disturbing, that the desire to defend life has been so cast aside. And to whatever political correctness views guns as the ultimate evil. Evil’s in our hearts. Not in the guns.”

The staunch defendant of the Second Amendment tried to explain that the gun problems in America occur solely where guns aren’t allowed. “The problem occurs, sir, in those areas precisely where we have said no guns. The problem doesn’t occur where the guns are allowed freely to be carried to be used by people. There we have very low murder rates.”

Well, of course.  Gun free zones are anything but that to the criminals.  Pratt is to be commended for going on the record with an ignorant, preening, self-righteous douchebag like Morgan.  And as if directly on cue, we learn today that the shooter in Connecticut was a devil-worshipper (from a British newspaper, no less, because American newspapers don’t report the news any more).

The NRA wants to contribute and be helpful in the national conversation, apparently.  Listen carefully.  Negotiation and vacillation have never brought law-abiding believers in the second amendment any good whatsoever.  Like it or not, Pratt is telling the truth.

There is a crescendo in incivility, with gun owners being called everything from stone age vigilantes to tinfoil hat Bircher NRA peckerwood with a long gun.  This is the social media equivalent of the posturing over guns that is occurring on the political scene, but it matters because it emboldens the politicians.

Democratic Senators are threatening a new “assault weapons” ban, something openly pursued by Senator Feinstein immediately after the election.  But in addition to the known anti-firearms politicians, the movement has gained supporters from the ranks of those whom we all knew were anti-firearm, but who persuaded the electorate otherwise.

A growing number of lawmakers – including a leading pro-gun senator – called on Monday for a look at curbing assault weapons like the one used in a massacre at a Connecticut grade school, a sign that attitudes toward gun control could be shifting.

Senator Joe Manchin, a conservative West Virginia Democrat who has earned top marks from the gun industry, said Congress and weapons makers should come together on a “sensible, reasonable approach” to curbing rifles like the one used in the killings Friday of 20 young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

A hunter and member of the National Rifle Association, Manchin said the availability of such high-powered weapons does not make sense and called on the gun lobby group to cooperate with a reform of the nation’s gun laws.

A 10-year U.S. ban on assault weapons expired in 2004.

“We’ve got to sit down. I ask all my friends at NRA – and I’m a proud NRA member and always have been – we need to sit down and move this dialogue to a sensible, reasonable approach to fixing it,” he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.

“Never before have we seen our babies slaughtered. This never happened in America, that I can recall, ever seeing this kind of carnage,” said Manchin, an avid hunter who once ran a campaign ad showing him firing a rifle at an environmental bill. “This has changed where we go from here.”

Historical scholarship may not be his strong suit.  In 1927, Andrew Kehoe used explosives to attack a local school in Bath, Michigan, apparently being disgruntled over paying higher taxes to fund that school.  Thirty eight children were killed, with one family losing three.  Nearly every family in the town of 300 lost a child.

The only gun Kehoe carried was used to light one of the explosive charges.  The only weapon used by Timothy McVeigh was explosives.  But the point is not to show that it can be worse.  Those poor souls who search for answers in guns, mental illness, and societal problems will search in vain.  The problem is evil, and it is one of the oldest philosophical issues known to man.

The proximate answer for those who would perpetrate violence on you or your loved ones is to respond by stopping them.  Shopping malls, schools, public buildings, parades and other activities and places are often “gun free zones.”  This means that only the criminals have guns, and thus they are unimpeded in their nefarious aims.

The Connecticut shooter, as I pointed out, could have perpetrated his evil acts with single action revolvers and bolt action rifles if he had desired.  No one could stop him, and that’s the problem.  No one could have stopped the criminals who attacked Mr. Bayezes and his wife without the use of a rifle that will be illegal under the Ms. Feinstein’s proposed ban, along with a 30-round magazine.  He emptied one magazine and retreated to find another.

Mr. Bayezes did what what we all should have done, for we all have a moral duty to defend self and family.  Sacrificing the best home defense weapon because someone may use it to perpetrate acts of evil is like being forced to return to horse and buggies because there are 40,000 vehicle accidents every year.

But along with the factual silliness of being worked up over fully automatic weapons (which were not used) and other misdirects, there are nonetheless very clear plans being deployed for sweeping bans.  The Democratic Senators want it, Obama has said that he wants it, and communist China agrees.  The voters in West Virginia who thought they were voting for a conservative or defender of the second amendment got hoodwinked.  Manchin has declared that he is no defender of the second amendment, and the Democrats are getting their support lined up.

The proposed ban may not end with guns.  Token conservative David Brooks has floated the idea of an ammunition ban.  No doubt the Democrats have included this in their plans, but it must make them feel confident to see a “conservative” agree with them.

Don’t be deceived into thinking that you can buy them now while they’re legal and keep them.  Feinstein has made it clear there will be no grandfather clause in her version of gun control.  Besides, grandfather clauses are problematic anyway.  The federal government may not need to enact confiscatory policies immediately.

For example, they may make all or some of our weapons illegal, along with their high capacity magazines, and then empower gun ranges, local law enforcement officers, and gunsmiths to confiscate any illegal component they find, while they also call the ATF.  You may end up in a federal penitentiary if you take your firearms to the range or use them in self defense.

Make no mistake about it.  There is a war on guns and ammunition.  It wasn’t stated by advocates of the second amendment, but it has landed squarely in our laps.  Obama will never have more power than he does now, right after the election, still controlling the Senate, and right after a horrible event such as in Connecticut.

Gird your loins and prepare for the battle if you care about the second amendment and your rights under the constitution and God.  Now is not the time to be weak, weary or squeamish.  In many ways the progressives and statists have been waging this war for years, while many second amendment advocates have sat on the sideline.  It’s time for everyone to play in the game.

UPDATE: Thanks to David Codrea for the attention.

Prior:

The Wrong Way To Argue About Assault Weapons

Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense

No One Needs ARs For Self Defense Or Hunting?

Do We Have A Constitutional Right To Own An AR?

Dreams Of International Gun Control

In Come And Get My Assault Weapons, we talked about threats to “come after” the assault weapons owned by “Stone Age Vigilantes” such as me.  The bigotry and incivility only continues to escalate.  On Friday, Mother Jones’s Adam Weinstein said the following:

As a 3rd-gen. gun collector, I say you can have ’em. Now. And go after every tinfoil hat Bircher NRA peckerwood w/a long-gun, too. Now.

As I said before, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.

As seen on Facebook.

But see Jeff, I think you’ve overlooked one problem.  If you don’t believe in “assault weapons,” then you don’t have any.  I have them, and you don’t.  How are you going to get them from me?

As Glenn Reynolds replied to similar threats, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.

That’s the plea, of course, when gun control advocates wax on concerning their views about how to save the world, one gun at a time.  The articles written with this meme are too numerous to cite, but one recent commentary stands out as particularly bad.  The author inveighs at the end:

Perhaps now is a good time for a reminder that the flood of guns onto our streets and in our homes is a hazard to all of us. Our cultural tolerance of ubiquitous guns is killing us. If nothing else, perhaps one memorial we might offer for the memory of Kassandra Perkins is to begin to talk about guns in our culture, and what we can do to change things.

Exactly how there is a “flood” of guns on the street we don’t learn, and why it’s a hazard to us all isn’t explained.  I handle my firearms in a safe manner, as do most of the owners I know.  Furthermore, in spite of the sweeping net they wish to cast for all gun owners, I have never even once felt the urge to shoot any loved ones.  If the author or her commenters have felt this urge, they shouldn’t purchase a gun, and I support their right not to purchase a gun.  As I’ve said before, “Crime is a moral decision, value judgment and social and cultural phenomenon.  It isn’t related to the existence of guns, and if guns weren’t available, they will use hammers.  Gun control laws cannot raise children to believe in values.”

But while there isn’t time to address all of the awful arguments in this commentary, the comments are most interesting, and a few different types seem to appear.  First, there is the argument from ignorance.  Ann Olivier says “nobody needs an AK 4(7) for self defense. They should be outlawed.”  Of course, Ann knows no such thing.  She doesn’t know anything about what response to a home invasion is required of the homeowner in order to stay alive.

Don’t forget that I have documented 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-man home invasions all over the country that could have been stopped with weapons and high capacity magazines.  Perhaps the most remarkable case came with Mr. Stephen Bayezes.  In order to survive the attack by three home invaders, he emptied a 30-round magazine and then had to retreat to his bedroom and grab another.  Mr. Bayezes needed a rifle and high capacity magazine, and it’s likely that in order to survive, Ann would too.

Analogous to the argument from ignorance is the argument from fantasy.  Tom Blackburn has this silly daydream.

He is sitting at a table in the bar when a gunman, armed to the teeth, starts shooting up the place. Our hero turns over his table and reaches for his own gun. Unfortunately, the table leg catches in the hem on his pants, and he can’t get his weapon out of his pocket. The gunman sprays his part of the room and our hero notices the table is not stopping the bullets. He rolls to his right, freeing up his pistol, which goes off, shooting a hole in his pants. Suddenly he is deafened by a fusillade fired by another armed self-defender, which attracts the gunman’s attention to his side of the room. He rolls further to his right to a spot behind the end of the bar, pulls himself up on one knee and draws a bead on the gunman. He fires just as a police officer, responding to the shots, steps in the way and wounds the officer. His fellow cops put down heavy fire on our self-defending citizen, hitting him in several places, while the gunman makes his escape.

Tom ends his fantasy with the notion that this gun owner “saw the light” and advocated “sensible” gun control policies, but the general thrust of the story has already been set.

While we don’t know the color of the sky in Tom’s world, we do know that it isn’t the same as the real one.  In Tom’s world, the police aren’t really ten to fifteen minutes away, there are right around the corner ready to respond to his every whim.  They are concerned most about his safety rather than their own, and thus they won’t wait on the SWAT team to arrive.  They will charge ahead into gun fire to save Tom.

And in Tom’s world, the NYC police department doesn’t discharge 84 rounds at a single shooter, missing with 70 of them.  The police are perfect shots, and they perfectly respond to all situations regardless of the level of stress.

In Tom’s world, those who carry firearms are just goobers who cannot tie their shoes correctly, much less be trusted to defend their own lives with a firearm.  In Tom’s world, they would much rather leave the shooter alone, duck behind chairs and pray that the shooter doesn’t aim for them than have some law abiding citizen respond to stop the carnage.  Tom would rather risk your life and the lives of your loved ones than allow you to carry a weapon to stop the death.  Tom doesn’t care about you.

It’s difficult to respond to this sort of pathology because it is based on irrational fear, bigotry and fantasy.  But rest assured, it is indeed based on fantasy.  The facts show that shootings are best stopped by individuals carrying weapons than by the police.  Tom is unaware that the Supreme Court has decidedly ruled that police are under no obligation to assist you or even to stop crimes during their commission.  They are obligated to respond once the crimes have been committed (past tense).

Another observation is that while this publication is ostensibly a Christian publication, it’s remarkable how few Christians have developed a consistently and holistically Christian world and life view.  The gospel becomes social work, soteriology becomes bettering mankind by laws and regulations (ironically, a distinctly Islamic view), and Christ was a passive doormat upon whom people could walk.  These things aren’t true, and a good starting point for understanding what the second amendment is about can be found in my own Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense.

Finally, back to the meme of the article, I’ve seen this same appeal almost every day for the last year.  And I’ve written on guns for just as long, as have most of the gun bloggers in my own blogging community.  Lisa Fullam, the author, wants to have “the conversation about guns.”  Lisa has apparently been absent for the last year.  We’ve been having this conversation, again, and again, and again, and again.  It isn’t that we’re not having it.  We disagree, and what Lisa and her ilk want is for us to agree with them.  And their real complaint isn’t that we’re not having the conversation, but that second amendment advocates are winning it.

From the Union Leader, Manchester, New Hampshire.

At a community meeting in Bedford Thursday, a resident asked the police chief under what circumstances a resident could use lethal force against a burglar.

“Say you’re asleep, you hear a noise, glass breaks, you hear somebody in there, you know they don’t belong,” said the resident, who didn’t provide his name. “Are you expected to ascertain whether they’re armed if you have the ability to take them out legally?”

Joking that he’s not a lawyer but has been accused of being one, Chief John Bryfonski sidestepped the question, saying it’s inappropriate for him to provide a legal opinion.

“The RSA is there,” Bryfonski said. “I think that folks should read it. Understand it. If they don’t fully understand the aspects of the use of force or deadly physical force by a civilian . . . then you should seek your own legal guidance.”

The meeting was called a week and a half after an assault at an upscale Bedford home. Dr. Eduardo Quesada and his wife, Sonia, were both hurt in the attack, which occurred after they entered their home. Quesada, an anesthesiologist at Elliot Hospital in Manchester, was in critical condition and remains hospitalized. His wife was released last week.

I’ll tell you what.  I wouldn’t live in a place where one has to wonder if a home invader is armed or attempt to ascertain his purpose before acting in self defense.  The Castle doctrine should be a part of the legal and regulatory framework of every state in the nation.

Any man who invades my home, assuming I can get to my weapon, is a dead man before the first question can be asked.  People tend to have very odd views of how such a thing is all going to go down, but there won’t be occasion for banter, conversation or ascertaining intent, and if you’re not careful and you have your weapon too far from your reach, there may not even be time to defend your own life or the lives of your loved ones.

Any legal framework that doesn’t recognize this and allow for defense of the home isn’t funny, or cute, or needful of legal counsel, or complicated.  It’s also not the occasion for stupid jokes.  It’s immoral.