Archive for the 'Second Amendment' Category

Presumably, it all starts at the top.  Individual contributors always seem to take on the attributes of their management, and this is more or less true in government.  The laughability index for the D.C. council pegged high when they relied on “experts” at the Brady Center for testimony concerning their assault weapons ban.  I have demonstrated that the AR is a legitimate home defense weapon.  Moreover, I have also demonstrated that the alleged concern over mass shootings from assault weapons is simply a canard.  First of all, there just aren’t enough such events to be statistically significant in the U.S.  Second, the expected carnage fails to obtain (for any shooter who intends evil, the choice of tactics seems to be the use of multiple weapons rather than certain kinds of weapons or high capacity magazines).  And D.C. officials seem to prefer that law abiding citizens simply become victims rather than engage in self defense (arguably, self-defense is a basic human right).

Emily Miller of The Washington Times has extensively documented her travails in her attempt legally to obtain a firearm.  As a firearms owner, concealed handgun permit holder and second amendment rights writer, I can observe that it has been a sad string of tales about one problem after another in her quest.  The D.C. Police Department has supplied demonstrably false information concerning the transport of firearms (it would have been better had Emily called me for counsel), demonstrably false information concerning the purchase and transport of ammunition, and so on the list goes.  It really has reached the level of professional malfeasance.

A more recent D.C. Police fiasco concerns application of alleged D.C. rules for transporting firearms in D.C.  The alleged rules do not conform to ATF regulations for such transport, but that doesn’t seem to bother the D.C. Police Department.  All of these instances of over-reach, malfeasance, ineptitude and lack of knowledge and training are enough to convice the wary traveller simply to stay away from D.C.  It isn’t worth the bother.  But it does show a thematic approach to law enforcement in D.C., and thus a pattern of behavior emerges for the Police Department.

The abusive treatment reached a climax in a recent SWAT raid that Emily recently covered.

While Army Sgt. Matthew Corrigan was sound asleep inside his Northwest D.C. home, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) was preparing to launch a full-scale invasion of his home. SWAT and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams spent four hours readying the assault on the English basement apartment in the middle of the snowstorm of the century.

(This is part two of a four part series on Sgt. Corrigan’s case. Click here to read the first story.)

The police arrested the veteran of the Iraq war and searched his house without a warrant, not to protect the public from a terrorist or stop a crime in progress, but to rouse a sleeping man the police thought might have an unregistered gun in his home.

It all started a few hours earlier on Feb. 2, 2010, when Sgt. Corrigan called the National Veterans Crisis Hotline for advice on sleeping because of nightmares from his year training Iraqi soldiers to look for IEDs in Fallujah. Without his permission, the operator, Beth, called 911 and reported Sgt. Corrigan “has a gun and wants to kill himself.” 

According to a transcript of the 911 recording, Beth told the cops that, “The gun’s actually on his lap.” The drill sergeant told me he said nothing of the kind, and his two pistols and rifle were hidden under clothes and in closets, to avoid theft.

So around midnight, the police arrived at the row house at 2408 N. Capitol Street. Over the next two hours, several emergency response team units were called to the scene, calling in many cops from home.

[ … ]

When the police wouldn’t accept Sgt. Corrigan’s word that he was fine, he was forced to leave his home and surrender. When he stepped outside, he faced assault teams with rifles pointed at his chest. He immediately dropped to his knees, with his hands over his head. 

Officers in full protective gear zip-tied Sgt. Corrigan’s hands behind his back and pulled him up from his knees, forcing him into a large tactical command center called the “BEAR” which was parked at the staging area. 

Although police did not read Sgt. Corrigan his Miranda rights, they questioned him inside the tactical truck.  They asked the Iraq veteran basic questions about his life from various angles to get him to admit to owning guns. He remained silent about his two handguns and one rifle, which he had not registered after moving into the city. 

Suddenly a police commander jumped in the truck and demanded to know where Sgt. Corrigan put his house key. He refused. 

“I’m not giving you the key. I’m not giving consent to enter my house,” Sgt. Corrigan recalled saying in an interview with me last week at D.C. Superior Court after the city dropped all 10 charges against him. 

“Then the cop said to me, ‘I don’t have time to play this constitutional bullshit with you. We’re going to break your door in, and you’re going to have to pay for a new door.’”

“Constitutional bullshit.”  That’s the way the D.C. Police see consitutional protections, apparently.  The D.C. Police ransacked his home, but there is this one very important statement that sets the tone for the entire night.

Police Lt. R.T. Glover was pleased with the seven hour operation that resulted in finding three unregistered guns in D.C. In his report to Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, he concluded that, “as a result of this barricade incident, there are no recommendations for improvement with respect to overall tactical operations.”

Uh oh.  There’s that word.  Tactical.  The SWAT team that night had “tactical operators” who were “operating tactically,” and it all needed an overall review of the “tactical operations.”  The tactical operators were likely wearing Tru-Spec tactical pants, carrying drop holsters and body armor, and thought they were going to engage in room clearing operations just like they think they have seen on television coverage of Iraq.

With a son who actually did room clearing operations in Fallujah, Iraq, with the 2/6 Marines, I can supply a perspective concerning these kinds of “tactical operations.”  Actually, it is his own perspective.  So, you want to be an operator?  Good.  Sign up, take the training, fly across the pond, and do it for real.  If you are a police officer in the U.S., you should first and foremost see yourself as a peace officer.

That night it would have been perfectly reasonable to send over a couple of uniformed officers (common uniforms, shirts and ties), knock on the door, and then communicate their concerns: “Sir, we received a phone call concerning a potential problem or disturbance in this area, and we would like to sit and chat with you for a few minutes.  May we come in, or perhaps you would like to come down to the precinct to chat with us?”

But with the increasing militarization of police activities in America, this is rarely good enough any more.  But the police aren’t the military, and even if they were, such tactics are inherently dangerous.  Poor Eurie Stamps perished in a mistaken SWAT raid due to an officer, who had no trigger discipline, stumbling with a round chambered in his rifle and shooting Mr. Stamps (due to sympathetic muscle reflexes) who was prone on the floor.  Mr. Jose Guerena was shot to death in his home in a SWAT raid that looked like it was conducted by the keystone cops.  Such tactics are also dangerous for the police officers conducting the raids.

Among the other problems with these tactics is that they are being used as pranks (or even worse) by anonymous callers (see also here and here).  Finally, it’s good that Mr. Corrigan didn’t have a dog in the house.  It has become routine practice to kill dogs on raids like this as a precaution.  Thus, mistaken or not, dogs perish as a matter of course.  All of this occurs while courts look the other way and pretend that it’s all necessary for law enforcement to perpetrate such things on the civilian population.

Again, presumably this all starts at the top.  The D.C. Council can set more reasonable expectations for firearms, and jettison the sophomoric notion that more laws and regulations make it harder for law-breakers to break the law.  Setting the standard for the D.C. police, if they want a safer district in which to live, they can make it clear that gangs won’t be tolerated in D.C.  The D.C. Police Department can then focus their energies on entering gang turf, making their presence ubiquitous, and doing the police work to shut down the gangs rather than terrorize law abiding citizens who exercise their second amendment rights.

But such an approach would require bravery.  After all, law abiding citizens won’t fight back, so it’s easy to bully them.  Going after gangs means charges of racism, discrimination and brutality, with perhaps some real need to use the tactics to which Lt. Glover refers with known violent felons.  So does the D.C. council perform for the people as a show, or do they really want a safer district?  What about the D.C. police?  Do they want to take down criminals or pretend to be soldier-boy and push around innocent, non-combative citizens?

David Bosco at Foreign Policy wonders if the proposed U.N. small arms treaty is worth the trouble.  Naturally, he assumes that some kind of good will come out of it.  Eric Sapp at Huffington Post is so self assured that it’s a good thing that he has invoked religion to prove his point, although he commits the genetic fallacy, i.e., aligning supporters, as if the fact that someone agrees with him makes him right.

More clearheaded, Ted Bromund writing at Heritage makes the case that the treaty isn’t what they claim it to be.

There are quite a few reasons to be concerned about the U.N.’s pending Arms Trade Treaty. It poses a number of risks to the Second Amendment and, more broadly, it is based on the completely fallacious belief that all the world’s nations are actually serious about controlling the illicit arms trade. If they were, of course, no treaty would be necessary. What the treaty will end up doing is making the arms trade more dangerous, by giving the world’s dictator states an internationally-recognized right to import and export all the guns they want to.

[ … ]

There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the arms trade. One is that lots of nations supply arms to terrorists and dictators as a matter of policy, or because they simply want the money. Another is that many of the world’s nations do not control their own borders, or their own territory, and so are in no position to control the arms trade. Neither of these problems will be addressed by a treaty that, according to its own draft text, is supposed to be “non-discriminatory.” In other words, the treaty is at once supposed to encourage nations to be more discriminatory in their arms exports to other nations, and to be applied without discriminating against anyone. The U.S. is not going to leave the Second Amendment issues aside, but even if it did, the treaty’s internal hypocrisy is an excellent reason to believe that it’s not worth backing.

Bromund is being kind.  The treaty is a monstrosity and shouldn’t even be considered for ratification.  The treaty wants to distinguish between civilian and military weapons, a notion that went out more than twenty years ago, a problem which also undermines the usefulness of the gun control act of 1968 and related ATF studies.  The treaty authors also want to control ammunition, want a national gun registry (which Canada finally rejected and jettisoned), want ballistic fingerprinting and microstamping of all firearms, desire un-transferability of firearms, and so on.  The problems are too numerous and extensive to outline.

Not only does this treaty intrude on the second amendment rights of American citizens, and not only is it hypocritical in its intent, it would target the very country who abides by its laws and allow the perpetrators justification for their own actions.  The treaty is just one more progressive, micromanaging, over-controlling, statist solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.  We’ve seen ten thousand like it, and as long as the U.N. gets funding and a home from the U.S. government, we will see many more instances of this kind of busy-body meddling into the affairs of American citizens.

This is just rich.

Less than three months after he was robbed at his vacation home in the Caribbean, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has been targeted again — this time by burglars at his Washington, D.C., house.

Breyer’s property was raided May 4, The Washington Post reported Thursday, with cutlery and candlesticks worth about $3,500 taken.

Unlike the February robbery in Nevis — where Breyer and his house guests were threatened with a machete by a gardener who took $1,000 — no one was home during the Washington robbery. A housekeeper discovered the crime scene.

A Supreme Court spokeswoman said no court documents were taken.

The robbery comes a month after Congress allocated nearly $1 million to hire 12 new Supreme Court police officers, according to The Hill.

Breyer had been among the group pushing for that greater protection after U.S. District Judge John Roll was among six people killed in a gunman’s rampage at a Tucson shopping mall last year, which seriously wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 12 others.

We’re talking about the Supreme Court Police who are specifically designated to protect the court.  So Breyer, who dissented in Heller v. D.C., and McDonald v. Chicago, and who doesn’t believe that the second amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms, wants more police protection at the taxpayers expense, because, you know, “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

Just rich.

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin has just signed Senate bill 1733 into law allowing open carry in the state of Oklahoma.  More specifically, Oklahoma is now a licensed open carry state.

The measure, Senate Bill 1733, allows those who are licensed to carry a firearm under the Oklahoma Self Defense Act to openly carry a weapon or conceal it.

It also allows a property owner to openly carry a handgun on his or her land. No concealed carry permit would be required.

To receive a license under the Oklahoma Self Defense Act, applicants must take a firearms safety and training course and submit to a background check by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Those convicted of felonies and certain misdemeanors may not receive a handgun license.

The measure takes effect Nov. 1.

Oklahoma is the 25th state with either “permissive open carry” laws, or no permit required, or “licensed open carry,” which requires a permit. Oklahoma now joins Utah, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Hawaii and Massachusetts as a “licensed open carry” state.

“As a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and a gun owner myself, I’m happy to sign this bill into law and grant law-abiding citizens the ability to openly carry firearms,” Fallin said. “Senate Bill 1733 sends a strong message that Oklahoma values the rights of its citizens to defend themselves, their family and their property. It does so in a responsible way, by requiring those citizens who choose to ‘open carry’ to undergo both firearms training and a background check.”

As I have discussed, I both conceal and open carry, and still prefer the way it is in my home state of North Carolina.  I must have a concealed handgun permit to conceal, and open carry is legal without a permit (and we have no “stop and identify” statute).  However, this qualifier to open carry in Oklahoma is minor, and doesn’t trouble me.  In North Carolina as in every state, a background check is necessary for purchase of a gun anyway, and the only additional requirement to open carry in this case is the day-long class.  Every gun owner should take such a class whether s/he carries or not.

As with those of us who already recognize these civil rights, Oklahomans will find that women and children don’t run in fear, screaming for their lives once they see a weapon.  And the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police smile and wave at me when they observe me.  Your state won’t turn into the Wild, Wild West, and the only real requirement is that the Police departments be properly educated on the new law so that they can recognize these rights.  On rare occasions, dispatchers might have to inform callers that it is legal to open carry.

So with those stipulations, Oklahoma is hereby welcomed to the club as a “free” state.

Related: The Open Carry Debate

U.S. News is hosting a debate over open carry.  First, Lindsay Nichols.

Private citizens should not be allowed to carry firearms openly in public. The open carrying of firearms on the street and in places like restaurants and parks intimidates the public, wastes law enforcement resources, and increases the risk that someone will be injured or killed from the accidental or intentional use of firearms. In response to these dangers and an aggressive “open carry movement” in California, in 2011 the California Legislature banned the open carrying of handguns. Other states should consider similar action.

When individuals openly carry firearms in public, other citizens may become concerned about impending crime and contact the police. In this way, the open carrying of firearms causes a waste of law enforcement resources, but more importantly, it threatens public safety.

How the risk of an inadvertent or accidental discharge is greater with open carry than concealed carry Ms. Nichols doesn’t say.  Besides, the notion that it may be inconvenient for folk would not seem to be a promising line of argument before most courts.  Whether something is legal would be the more important question.  Not much there to see.  On to Mr. Ralph Shortey.

The debate over how some may carry a firearm for protection can only be discussed when the foundation for the carry provisions has been fairly set. Most conceal and carry laws restrict a right that is guaranteed by the Constitution. To say that you may only carry a firearm if you have paid a certain amount of money to the government for a licensing fee and then submit to regulation would be equivalent to telling the press that they must abide by certain rules and pay for the right of free speech.

I recently had a debate with a friend who told me that everyone has the right to defend themselves and that gun control does nothing to infringe on that. The issue this brings up is a very simple one. If you are attacked by an unarmed assailant, and you are yourself unarmed, then for the most part you have the right to self-defense. However, if the assailant is armed or is otherwise stronger, bigger, or faster than you, then the government has guaranteed through regulation that you are not only unarmed but also an easy target. “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” It seems like this should be easy enough to understand.

Let’s assume, however, that the carry provisions we are talking about are fair in their access to every citizen. The first question that must be answered is, “Why does the government think it has the right to tell a law-abiding citizen how they may go about protecting themselves?” Some may feel that the best way to defend yourself is by letting the criminals know that you are not an easy target. Most criminals look for the easiest and quickest route to their goal. There is nothing that will slow a criminal down faster than seeing a loaded gun at the ready.

And here, law abiding citizen is the key.  Courts have upheld the idea that states have the right to examine the background of a would-be firearms owner to ensure that they are in fact law-abiding.  McDonald versus Chicago seems to indicate that the requirements cannot be obstructionist, but must be the minimal regulations that accomplish the goal.

I’ve already discussed my own experiences with open carry.  “I open carry, and as I have mentioned before, and women and children don’t run off screaming in fear, and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, who are well-educated and comprehensively trained, simply wave and smile as they go past me while openly carrying my weapon.  The issue has to do with bigotry and prejudice, not concocted or fabricated problems that it causes.”

I open carry because I simply hate IWB holsters and sweating my weapon like I do when I go outside in the summer with my weapon concealed.  I am not trying to prove a point so much as I simply find it much more convenient to open carry than conceal carry.  The people I’m around never seem to mind.

If people mind, it’s usually the police.  Witness an open carry club in Missouri.

The only issue I have with this example is that, unfortunately in a very strange decision, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of stop and identify statutes, and Missouri is a stop and identify state.

But the real issue doesn’t have anything to do with open or concealed carry.  The real issue is that this debate is yet another subterfuge to the real aim of the anti-firearms extremists, i.e., the eradication of all firearms from the possession of law abiding people.

At National Review, Robert VerBruggen does a nice job of fisking Jill Lepore’s piece in The New Yorker on the history of the second amendment and gun control.  I’ll leave it to Robert to supply you with the data on how firearms and the second amendment were seen and interpreted in early America.  But the mistake I see with most second amendment detractors is that the claim that the right to firearms ownership resides with the states because of the word “militia” dismisses the context and thus miss the point.

The second amendment makes no sense whatsoever if individuals didn’t own firearms.  The militias were made up of individuals who owned firearms and thus brought them to bear on issues of the state and oppressive authorities.  The ubiquity of firearms in colonial America means that individual ownership was presupposed with the second amendment, even if not specifically addressed.

But as to the warp and woof of Lepore’s piece, all you need to know about it is this silly quote:

Inside, there’s a shop, a pistol range, a rifle range, a couple of classrooms, a locker room, and a place to clean your gun. The walls are painted police blue up to the wainscoting, and then white to the ceiling, which is painted black. It feels like a clubhouse, except, if you’ve never been to a gun shop before, that part feels not quite licit, like a porn shop.

Seriously?  This passes for serious journalism these days?  The best part of [VerBruggen’s] piece was the following comment: “The most shocking part of this article is that people still read the New Yorker.”  Apparently, people still do.  Lepore’s piece is breathlessly fawned over and pushed at The Daily Beast, The Atlantic Wire and other sites.

There seems to be no end to the articles, discussion threads and posts pointing to the fact that Obama has not issued any new firearms laws since his administration took over in Washington.  This cynical post is but one more example.  True enough, Romney, as I have pointed out, has a bad reputation with second amendment advocates like me.  So when Romney recently addressed the NRA, it leaves the door open for charges of duplicity and – let’s go ahead and say it – flip flop.

Mitt Romney drew a warm reception from the National Rifle Assn. on Friday as he attacked President Obama for “employing every imaginable ruse and ploy” to restrict gun rights, which Romney pledged not to do if elected in November …

“In a second term, he would be unrestrained by the demands of re-election,” Romney told a crowd estimated at 6,000 in the cavernous Edward Jones Dome. “As he told the Russian president last month when he thought no one else was listening, after a re-election he’ll have a lot more, quote, ‘flexibility’ to do what he wants.  I’m not exactly sure what he meant by that, but looking at his first three years, I have a very good idea.”

Referring specifically to the right to bear arms, Romney said: “If we are going to safeguard our 2nd Amendment, it is time to elect a president who will defend the rights President Obama ignores or minimizes. I will.”

But there is this:

Even before Romney’s speech, the Obama campaign hit back with a statement attacking the presumptive GOP nominee, along with a hefty file of news clippings intended to show that he had a checkered history on gun rights.

“The president’s record makes clear the he supports and respects the 2nd amendment, and we’ll fight back against any attempts to mislead voters,” said campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt. “Mitt Romney is going to have difficulty explaining why he quadrupled fees on gun owners in Massachusetts then lied about being a lifelong hunter in an act of shameless pandering.  That varmint won’t hunt.”

Again, true enough. Romney has some explaining to do on the campaign trail.  But understanding why Romney is speaking before the NRA and Obama is not requires only that one understand the people with whom Obama has surrounded himself.  The President cannot pass laws, but the President can do two things that are unique to the office.  He can appoint judges, and he can fill positions in the executive branch of government.

Forgetting for a moment scandals such as Fast and Furious, there are four individuals that define Obama’s views of firearms and the second amendment.  First, let’s consider Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Perhaps the most startling aspect of the Supreme Court opinions in McDonald v. Chicago was the dissenters’ assault on District of Columbia v. Heller. Not only did Justice Stephen G. Breyer vote against extending the Second Amendment to state and local governments, he also argued forcefully and at length for overturning Heller and, therefore, for turning the Second Amendment into a practical nullity. Ominously, Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the Breyer dissent – contradicting what she told the U.S. Senate and the American people last summer.

Regarding the key issue in McDonald – whether the 14th Amendment makes the Second Amendment enforceable against state and local governments – Justice Sotomayor resolutely refused to tell the senators how she might vote. So in voting against incorporating the Second Amendment, Justice Sotomayor was not inconsistent with what she had told the Senate. But regarding Heller, her actions as a justice broke her promises from last summer.

The Breyer-Sotomayor-Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissent urged that Heller be overruled and declared, “In sum, the Framers did not write the Second Amendment in order to protect a private right of armed self defense.”

Contrast that with her Senate testimony: “I understand the individual right fully that the Supreme Court recognized in Heller.” And, “I understand how important the right to bear arms is to many, many Americans” …

To the SenateJudiciary Committee, Justice Sotomayor repeatedly averred that Heller is “settled law.” The Associated Press reported that Sen. Mark Udall, Colorado Democrat, “said Sotomayor told him during a private meeting that she considers the 2008 ruling that struck down a Washington, D.C., handgun ban as settled law that would guide her decisions in future cases.”

Next, consider Obama’s nominee for head of the ATF, Andrew Traver.  John Richardson does a good job of examining the larger aspects of the Traver nomination within the context of his history.  But the single most telling thing about Andrew Traver is his work with the Joyce Foundation, and specifically, his positions in the report entitled Taking A Stand: Reducing Gun Violence In Our Communities.  Among the other onerous regulations on firearms manufacturers and owners, they would require ballistic fingerprinting of all firearms, otherwise called “microstamping.”  But the single most bracing position taken by this study group has to do with federal oversight of the firearms manufacturing industry.

Congress should enact legislation to allow federal health and safety oversight of the firearms industry.

Unlike other consumer products, domestically manufactured firearms are not subject to any design standards to reduce risk to the user or protect the safety of the general public and those sworn to protect them. Moreover, unlike other consumer products, no federal agency is empowered to require a remedy in the case of a defectively designed or manufactured firearm.

The lack of health and safety oversight is particularly worrisome given the manufacture and sale of firearms that pose a unique threat to law enforcement and the general public, such as high-caliber handguns that can penetrate bullet-resistant vests, anti-personnel military-style assault weapons and .50 caliber sniper rifles that can penetrate armor plating from a mile away.

This oversight and regulation would involve the Centers for Disease Control, ATF, Justice Department and other federal organizations.  However controlling and oppressive this would be, the third example that should interest us involves Obama nominee for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Caitlin J. Halligan, who in her tenure as Solicitor General of the State of New York, attempted to hold firearms manufactures and retailers responsible for crimes committed with guns. In 2006, Halligan also filed a brief arguing that handgun manufacturers were guilty of creating a public nuisance.  This caused an almost incredulous rejection by the New York Court of Appeals.

“The New York Court of Appeals has never recognized a common-law public nuisance cause of action based on allegations like those in this complaint. Moreover, other jurisdictions have dismissed public nuisance claims against firearms manufacturers on similar or other grounds… In light of the foregoing, we believe it is legally inappropriate, impractical and unrealistic to mandate that defendants undertake, and the courts enforce, unspecified measures urged by plaintiff in order to abate the conceded availability and criminal use of illegal handguns.” (People Of The State Of New York v. Sturm & Ruger Co., 309 A.D.2d 91, 2003).

Finally, there is the example of Eric Holder, who believes the following about firearms.

From rejection of the Supreme Court decision in Heller v. D.C., to advocacy for federal control over firearms manufacturers, to attempts to bankrupt firearms manufacturers with lawsuits, Obama’s friends have a storied and ugly history concerning their views on the second amendment.

The NRA knows full well Romney’s history on firearms and the second amendment.  But the circumstances that give credibility to Obama’s promises to implement gun control “under the radar,” or explain the ATF’s rejection of the import of almost 800,000 M1 Carbines from South Korea aren’t speculative either.  Obama is certainly aware of the anti-firearms positions of his appointments and nominees, for the contrary is simply impossible.  And people in such positions can effect policy, regulations and legal decisions for a generation.

This is Obama’s intent – at least, there is no other explanation.  To the NRA, Romney is a slightly to moderately uncomfortable ally.  Because of his chosen company, Obama must be seen as the enemy.

UPDATE: Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the attention.

H. Lee Sarokin, writing at Huffington Post,waxes emotional over the effects of gun violence in America, using the example of Trayvon Martin as the springboard.  Rather, he wants you to wax emotional.  The comments range from the delusional (e.g., more regulation would mean less gun violence), to the badly mistaken (people hunt with fully automatic weapons – can you imagine such a thing?).  Sarokin himself mixes in some bad statistics, or allusion to things that statistics in fact do not prove, but the beginning paragraph is the best part of the commentary.

When innocent people are gunned down in schools or offices or when someone like George Zimmerman shoots and kills Trayvon Martin, how do members of the NRA and gun-advocates truly feel? I really want to understand. I think I understand the desire to have a gun for self-defense or sport. But when a gun owner sees statistics such as these, how do they react?

“Statistics such as these” made me think of this sad and recent case near Orlando.

A tip to Crimeline has led to the arrests of two men in a brutal beating that occurred a week ago in the Midway community east of Sanford.

Julius Ricardo Bender, 18, and Yahaziel Isaac Israel, 19, face charges of attempted first-degree murder, burglary with assault or battery and armed burglary.

The victim, a 50-year-old Winter Springs man whose name has not been released, is on life-support at Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Deputies were called to the area of Lincoln Street and Beardall Avenue about 6:30 p.m. March 26 to investigate a report of a man being beaten, Seminole County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Heather Smith said.

They found the victim in the woods on the north side of Lincoln Street.

According to arrest affidavits:

A witness told deputies he heard someone screaming for help and saw two men pull the victim from his vehicle. He said he watched as one man held the victim and the other beat him in the head with a hammer.

After they dragged the victim into the woods, the men drove away in his sport utility vehicle, which was later found abandoned about a half-mile away on Garbo Jack Lane.

Beaten into a coma with a hammer.  In fact, this isn’t as uncommon as one might think.  In March of 2012, Jun Hyuk Chang beat his father to death with a hammer in or near LA.  In July of 2011, Jean Simon beat his stepdaughter to death with a hammer in NYC.  In July of 2011, Tyler Hadley beat both of his parents to death with a hammer in Port St. Lucie and then threw a party with the bodies of his parents still lying on the floor.  In 2008, Clayton Jerrod Ellington killed his wife and two twin boys with a hammer in DeKalb County.  In November of 2011, Craig Stephen Frentzel was found beaten to death with a hammer in St. Louis.  In September of 2011, Benjamin Singleton was beaten beaten to death with a hammer in Myrtle Beach, S.C.  Then there was poor little Zander Martino who perished after being beaten with a hammer in Las Vegas.  From the very young to the old, Jessie James Durham beat his great-grandmother, 78-year-old Elizabeth Armismier, to death with a hammer in Campbellsville in February of 2012. Violence is even perpetrated against dogs and cats with hammers.

In order to obtain my concealed handgun permit, I had to give the Sheriff of Mecklenburg County permission to access all of my medical records.  Any admisions to any hospital for substance abuse or mental health issues would have been reason to have denied my permit.  I also had to have a background check and have many other records examined for the sake of public safety.

Given the easy availability of hammers – I can go to Home Depot, Lowes, or even Walmart and purchase a hammer with no background check whatsoever – I am calling for the increased regulation of carpentry tools.  Given the outrage of hammers and the fact that anyone can purchase them just about anywhere, what reasonable person could oppose such a thing?  And finally, studying these cases of beatings with hammers actually made me sick to my stomach.  I want to know how everyone feels about all of these senseless acts of violence perpetrated with the weapon to which we commonly refer as hammer?  How does it make you truly feel?

Emily Miller has documented quite a fiasco at The Washington Times concerning her attempt to legally procure a handgun in D.C., even after the Supreme Court Heller decision.  The most recent direction to her from the D.C. police (concerning ammunition) was incorrect, as was their counsel concerning whether she could conceal or open carry her weapon into Virginia (I could give much better counsel).  But even though the D.C. council recently voted to relax firearms regulations (a rare victory for gun owners in D.C.), the contumacious atmosphere in D.C. towards gun owners remains.  Now, officials want D.C. residents simply to become victims.

But one doesn’t have to go all the way to D.C. to find such things.  Recall Sheriff Wright in Spartanburg County, S.C., who after a sexual assault recommended that women obtain guns and concealed carry permits?  Well, not all is well in Spartanburg politics.

In late October, Sheriff Chuck Wright, reacting to recent violent crime, told Spartanburg residents to arm themselves, but have those comments impacted crime rates?

Numbers provided by the sheriff’s office tell two different stories when it comes to crime trends.

For instance, from October 31, 2011 (when the sheriff urged people to get guns) through January 24, 2012, certain violent crimes spiked, while others stayed the same or even dropped, as compared to the same time period the year before.

From 10/31/2011 – 1/24/2012 there was one murder, 21 forcible rapes, 28 robberies, and 95 aggravated assaults (any assault where a weapon was used or where there was a serious injury).

A year earlier between 10/31/2010 – 1/24/2011 there were four murders, 21 forcible rapes, 42 robberies, but 66 aggravated assaults.

So after the sheriff’s comments, the murder rate decreased, the rape rate stayed the same, robberies decreased, but aggravated assaults spiked.

Whether the dramatic increase (450%) of concealed weapon permits since the sheriff’s comments played a role in those numbers, no one can be for sure, not even the sheriff.

“But I guarantee you there are fewer victims out there,” Wright said Wednesday.

But Wright has begun to receive criticism from other elected officials who say the sheriff is sending the wrong message.

“To continue to promote a climate in which we’re asking or even advocating for an increase in concealed weapons permits then you’re asking for an increase in weapons themselves,” said Spartanburg County Councilman Michael Brown.

Brown called the sheriff’s continued remarks “irresponsible” and said law enforcement should be the ones enforcing the laws.

Brown further said “I think it’s irresponsible, irreprehensible (sic) and of course incendiary if you keep on making these types of comments.”

Now, I’m fully capable of finding the first and second moments of a set of statistical data, as well as inferring conclusions from it.  But to do this is the play the social engineer’s game.  When they invoke groups of people and social affects rather than personal liberties and rights, they require something that even God Himself doesn’t require (Exodus 22:2).  They require that you sacrifice your personal safety and security for the benefit of select interest groups.

Because this invades your personal rights and the security of your family in order to effect certain socially engineered ends (those ends themselves being in question), this is fundamentally an evil thing.  It is redistribution from one segment of society to another, but this time on the most personal and valuable level imaginable.  Your own life.

The State of Utah is close to jettisoning bigotry and prejudice associated with firearms.

Utah residents may be one step closer to being able to carry their firearms with them wherever they go. Wednesday the Utah House of Representatives passed House Bill 49, an open-carry law that would make it legal for a resident to carry a gun in plain sight.

HB 49, sponsored by Rep. Paul Ray (R-Clearfield) says that in the absence of threatening behavior, the lawful possession of a firearm or dangerous weapon, whether visible or concealed, cannot be considered in violation of municipal ordinances and government entities cannot give citations for disorderly conduct or a enforce dangerous weapon laws.

But bigotry and hatred die hard.

Summit County Sheriff Dave Edmunds said that he is against the bill because it would complicate the job of his officers. According to Edmunds, it is unreasonable to allow someone to carry a weapon in plain view if they are not an officer.

“The world is becoming an increasingly violent place and firearms in plain view frighten people,” Edmunds said, adding that while he is against the bill, he is a big firearms proponent and a strong believer in the Second Amendment. “I have never had a problem with someone who holds a concealed weapons permit; in all my years as Sheriff I have never encountered a problem with those people. You should be allowed to carry a weapon in public but you need to go through the proper channels.”

Edmunds, who is president of the Utah Sheriff’s Association, said the group as a whole is against the bill.

Park City Police Chief Wade Carpenter said he is against the bill as it is currently drafted because it takes away law enforcement’s right to enforce disorderly conduct codes if a person carrying a weapon causes shock and alarm to citizens in a public place.

Some police officers are even more crass and bold about their bigotry.

… says Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank, a bad guy with a loaded weapon can do “a lot of damage very fast.”

He said that in his 20 years as a policeman, “we’ve had very few problems and concealed-weapons holders. It’s not a big issue.”

But open-carry is different, he adds. For example, a law enforcement officer openly carries a weapon for its “intimidation factor. In law enforcement, that’s the message you send.”

Civilians who openly carry weapons are another matter. “Is this person’s intent to do harm, or is he just carrying a gun? It puts police officers in a very awkward position,” he said.

You know, because only police officers can be trusted with weapons, and especially ones that can be seen by others.  It’s the “intimidation” factor.  And it causes me to wonder how many more LEOs think this way.

Except that this is fake … make believe … fantasy land.  The issue is a red herring.  I open carry, and as I have mentioned before, and women and children don’t run off screaming in fear, and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, who are well-educated and comprehensively trained, simply wave and smile as they go past me while openly carrying my weapon.  The issue has to do with bigotry and prejudice, not concocted or fabricated problems that it causes.

And speaking of civil rights, I notice that South Carolina is pressing forward to show that they are a gun-friendly state.

Firearm enthusiasts might have something more to look forward to than sales at the mall this Black Friday if one Upstate lawmaker gets his way.

Rep. Mike Pitts (R-Laurens) put a proviso in this year’s budget that would reinstate a three-day gun tax holiday the weekend after Thanksgiving. The holiday, called “Second Amendment Weekend” was introduced at the start of the recession in 2008 to encourage buying but was cancelled last year because of the state’s shrinking budget.

This year revenues are higher than expected and Pitts said that the $13,000 of sales taxes the state won’t get from guns that weekend is really a drop in the bucket of a $22.5 billion budget.

Plus there’s a huge increase in the sale of other items like camouflage hunting gear, boots and ammunition that bring in more tax revenue and pump profits into small businesses.

Right.  A tax holiday.  How about Representative Pitts supporting  the same bill we discussed in Utah making it acceptable to open carry in S.C. (I have proposed this before).  South Carolina has the dubious distinction of being similar to California in prohibiting open carry.  Would Rep. Pitts move into the twenty first century in rejecting bigotry and supporting our civil rights?

From LA Times Editorial.

Virginia is for lovers — of guns. Last week that state’s Senate, newly under Republican control after a GOP  election surge in November, overturned a 20-year-old law that barred residents from buying more than one handgun a month. Why? Apparently because in Virginia, deadly firearms are like Lay’s potato chips — you can’t stop at just one.

Virginia’s refusal to close the notorious “gun-show loophole” has long been criticized by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who frets that relatively tough regulations in his state are undermined when criminals can easily purchase firearms in other states and bring them into New York. In fact, similar worriesabout interstate gun-running were what prompted Virginia’s Legislature to restrict handgun purchases in 1993. But with Republican lawmakers and two Democrats from rural districts eager to make a statement about gun rights, the state Senate approved the repeal by a 21-19 vote, and Gov. Bob McDonnell is expected to sign it.

Backers say they’re just trying to bring Virginia’s laws in line with those in other states, pointing out that only California, Maryland and New Jersey have monthly limits on handgun purchases. Moreover, they say the ban isn’t effective because it doesn’t apply to groups such as police officers and holders of concealed weapons permits. But that’s a reason to strengthen the law, not to repeal it. And we have yet to hear a gun-rights advocate articulate why any law-abiding citizen has a compelling need to buy more than one gun a month. Criminals sometimes need to get their hands on a lot of guns at once to pull off a big job or to keep gangs well-armed; citizens who want to protect their homes from intruders have no such imperative.

A more colorful way of phrasing that point came from state Democratic Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, who noted to the Richmond Times-Dispatch that if a Virginian had bought one handgun a month from the time the ban was enacted until today, he would have 240 guns. “If you need more than 240 handguns, then I would submit something’s wrong with you. Something’s gone wrong in your life,” he said.

I’m sure that armies of criminals await this change in the law to run down to their local Sheriff, apply for a weapons permit, purchase hundreds of weapons, and then pull off the robbery of the century.  The only problem is that Saslaw’s hysterical objection has nothing to do with the real problem behind the the law.

The issue pertains to much more mundane things that tend to dominate the lives of real, law-abiding citizens.  For example, if someone gets a bonus check or tax refund once per year, and the surplus tends to get gone if it isn’t spent quickly (you know, on accoutrements- and odds and ends associated with home ownership), he might need to purchase more than a single weapon in one month.

Or perhaps someone finds a good deal on multiple weapons he has been watching for some time.  Waiting a month would mean watching the deal disappear.  Or perhaps someone wants to invest in something that isn’t losing its value and is actually fun to bequeath to his children and grandchildren.  Or perhaps he is simply a collector and aficionado, and happens to have the money to invest in weapons.

In any of theses examples (and many more), Mr. Saslaw has rudely impugned the character of the gun owner.  If I could only own 240 handguns (not to mention long guns), well, that would be awesome, and I would do it in a heartbeat if I had the money.  And according to the bill, it would be none of Saslaw’s business.

I like the idea of Mr. Saslaw having nothing to do with how I or his constituents spend money.  Oh, and as one of my colleagues at reddit.com/r/guns points out, Seung-Hui Cho bought both of his guns in a Virginia gun store and was subject to the 1 handgun a month law.  Perhaps Mr. Saslaw needs to worry himself with things other than how his constituents spend their money.  Perhaps being Enid Strict isn’t the real purpose of his office.

Now, I was thinking, as for those 240 handguns I want …