Charlotte Observer.

I write in support of the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2023. I’m a gun owner and target shooter. My guns came from licensed firearms dealers after passing background checks. It’s essential that background checks are conducted and done before an individual acquires a firearm.

The proposed bill requires that all gun transfers go through a federal firearms dealer with exceptions for gifts or transfers between family members, sharing at a range or hunting. No rights are infringed with this legislation. The language of the bill specifically prohibits the creation of a registry.

Preservation of our rights requires common sense regulation. I urge my representatives in Congress to support the Background Checks Act of 2023 and ask everyone else to do the same.

Malcolm Smith, Charlotte

I suspect Malcolm is a liar and impostor.  But then I suspect that about all such people who begin with “I’m a gun owner and I support [blah blah] gun control bill.”

If he’s not an impostor then he’s a tool and goober.  Either way we’re not too concerned with Malcolm.  This is yet another media attempt to press a narrative.  How do I know?  Because Malcolm’s letter is just that – a letter to the editor.  He’s a nobody.

And yet, his brief letter to the editor at the Charlotte Observer hit the Google news feed, as if it’s important.  After so many years of doing this I’ve learned a thing or two about how this all works.  The legacy media presses a narrative, and if they need a stooge in Charlotte to make headlines about how good so-and-so is, they’ll fabricate him out of whole cloth, or if they don’t have to, they’ll elevate his opinion to the headlines like it’s a big deal.  So what’s the big deal?

Congresscritters have reintroduced yet another universal background check bill, called the Bipartisan Background Checks Act.  It has the support of Everytown, Giffords, and every other gun control group.

But no one actually believes that criminals are going to purchase guns via a Form 4473, and the only people this affects are peaceable law-abiding men who the FedGov want to monitor.  That’s the whole point.

So this failed last year with the Democrats in control of the House.  It will certainly fail again this year.  No GOP House member wants to go on record right now backing a UBC bill.

The whole point of the post is to alert readers to the continuing efforts to infringe on your rights.  The collectivists aren’t satisfied with the results of Bruen, and don’t care about any of that.  They want your guns.

There are no good gun bills unless they undo gun control and abolish the ATF.

And maybe universal background checks too.

One Republican senator and one Democratic senator are hoping they can find some common ground on gun reforms that will garner enough Republican support to pass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate …

Republican Senator John Cornyn and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy will meet virtually on Tuesday to “see if we can agree on a basic framework” about how to go forward on gun legislation proposals, according to an aide to Cornyn. An aide to Murphy confirmed the senator “is participating in tomorrow’s meeting and will be holding meetings throughout the week.”

[ … ]

“So red flag laws are on the table. Background checks, expansion and on the table, as well as things like safe storage of guns. I think we can get something done, but we don’t have a lot of time.”

One republican congressman is even open to a renewed AWB.

Is anyone surprised by any of this?

First up, I had failed to mention that David Codrea did a followup at Ammoland on the commentary Rob Pincus co-authored supporting universal background checks.

Second, Anthony Garcia, president of Save The Second, ostensibly a Rob Pincus organization, wrote a commentary at Ammoland defending Rob, or so it seems from his words.  He pleads for unity.

I am sure by now most of you have read Rob Pincu’s article. And if you haven’t read his co-authored article with Dan Gross and only the commentary about it then I would highly suggest you go read it and listen to his videos about it. Nearly all the attention that has been focused on the article has revolved around his discussion of background checks.

What this article has done is laid bare the state of the Second Amendment community. And this has shown us that there is a demonstrable lack of unity, far too much knee-jerk reactionism, and little to no focus placed on messaging and narrative. A portion of Rob’s article was related to those last two topics, narrative and messaging, yet no attention has been paid to them. Ironically, controlling the narrative is one of the few ways that we will win and something that everyone can play a part in. Let’s discuss these topics one at a time, beginning with unity.

Gun control extremists and proponents of citizen disarmament have shown us for decades why it is important to maintain a united front. They have maintained an appearance of unity through thick and thin, regardless of nearly any scandal that comes out against one of their own, and they have plenty of legislative and cultural victories to show for it.

We must stay on point with our messaging and not allow ourselves to be distracted by internal politics.

There, you have the gist of it.

But the problem is that a discussion about whether we are going to support a bill that effectively creates a national gun registry isn’t about internal politics.  We covered that in my response.  This commentary by Garcia reeks of a demand for agreement with Rob, with the tool of extortion being the appearance of lack of unity.

But the lack of unity wasn’t created by me, or most of my readers.  It was created by Rob.  One cannot simply defenestrate one of the core doctrines of liberty and then demand agreement with those who love liberty by simply appealing to unity.

This has been the trick of traitors, quislings and turncoats for millennia.  It has occurred that way in politics (witness the tide of collectivism in America over the past 150 years), the church (witness here the agreement of the mainline Presbyterian church [PCUAS] with the Auburn Affirmation in 1924, and in gun control (witness the push towards UBC, a renewed AWB, permitting schemes, etc.).  Many more thousands of examples could be given.

The example of the Auburn Affirmation should be telling.  It reads at the beginning, “An Affirmation
designed to safeguard the unity and liberty of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America Submitted for the consideration of its ministers and people.”  Unity, they said.  Unity means everything.

In that document, the ministers and elders of the PCUSA denied that the Scriptures are the word of God (they only “contain” the word of God), denied the deity of Christ, denied … They had the audacity to affirm that “The doctrine of inerrancy, intended to enhance the authority of the Scriptures, in fact impairs their supreme authority for faith and life, and weakens the testimony of the church to the power of God unto salvation through Jesus Christ.”  A bolder lie cannot be imagined.

Concerning the person and work of Jesus, they affirm that “we are united in believing that these are not the only theories allowed by the Scriptures and our standards as explanations of these facts and doctrines of our religion, and that all who hold to these facts and doctrines, whatever theories they may employ to explain them, are worthy of all confidence and fellowship.”

This all led to the separation of the PCA and OPC from the PCUSA.  And unity in politics has led to the separation of the people from the controllers.  And we must separate from Rob Pincus and anyone else who affirms that UBC must be approved.  Amos 3:3 rhetorically asks, “How can two walk together unless they be agreed?”

They can’t.  And we cannot walk with Rob Pincus, or Mr. Garcia for that matter.  Unity in error is no unity at all.  No, we can’t all just get along – not when core values are at stake.

Here is the last question: Is this the sort of commentary we should expect from Ammoland in the future?

I have not seen a significant number of things eye-to-eye with Rob Pincus.  I’ll offer one brief example, i.e., shouldering stabilizing braces on AR pistols.  I recall Rob’s counsel of his viewers and readers not to shoulder stabilizing braces (this was before the latest ATF “interpretation”), and his reluctance (and even refusal) to do videos showing such tactics.

On the other hand, I have long said that you should do what feels natural and what you find necessary.  There are many legitimate reasons for firearms ownership: sporting, range shooting, competition precision shooting, self defense, collecting, and on and on the reasons could go.  It’s no more the business of the state to interest itself in your what firearms you own than what forks you have in your kitchen drawers, or how or why you have them.

But if you have a firearm with which you intend the use of home defense, and it has a stabilizing brace, if you need to shoulder the weapon to best use it, then do so.  Your responsibility is to your own life and the lives of your loved ones, not an ATF interpretation.

So I have had a difficult time trusting Rob, for whatever reason.  This latest commentary at Ammoland adds to that mistrust.  He co-authored a piece on common ground with Dan Gross, Former President of the Brady Campaign.  I will quote extensively.

Although many other issues have understandably dominated the news cycle, we are at a critical moment for guns. Over the last year, gun sales have reached unprecedented levels, as have gun-involved homicides, and the House has recently passed H.R. 1446, The Enhanced Background Check Act of 2021, which is currently being debated in the Senate. Recently, a wave of tragic mass shootings has put the gun issue in national headlines as President Biden has called on the Senate to pass the background check bill, adding that he supports a ban of “assault weapons.”

We are two advocates, activists and leaders from opposite sides of the “gun debate” who have come together because we both believe we are at a make-or-break moment. Suffice it to say, there is plenty that we disagree on, but for anyone with the genuine goal of reducing the number of preventable gun deaths in our nation, we believe we have an opportunity for real impact that has not existed in years and, if we are not able to seize it, it is likely to have negative repercussions for years to come.

Stop there.  This is strong language.  It means that Rob thinks that unless the policy recommendations that we are forthwith to read in the commentary are implemented, there will be negative repercussions.  No one is holding a gun to Rob’s head.  He appears to desire what we are about to read.  There seems to be no other reason to suspect that we need to “seize” the opportunity before us (Biden is president, the senate is split).

To expect meaningful and lasting change, we must first change the entire conversation, from one defined by politics to one defined by our common values and goals. This is not just a matter of deciding whether to call it “gun control,” “gun violence prevention,” “responsible gun ownership” or “gun safety.” It is about advocates, leaders and the media considering, far more than they have in the past, the narrative they are helping to create. It is about those who really care about impact, changing that narrative from one that is too-often divisive and counterproductive to one that genuinely unites the American public and provides the foundation that is necessary for real, lasting and fundamental change.

I have a bit of an issue with the notion of having “common goals” with progressives.  Philosopher Cornelius Van Til flatly debunked the idea that Christians can have a common goal or common starting point with unbelievers.  Now, this isn’t a theological debate, but the point is salient.  One doesn’t come into a conversation with neutrality.  There is always a set of presuppositions involved.  For the progressive, this is 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.

This is true at least for the commoner.  For the controller, they want a monopoly on violence.  This is the starting point.  There is no common ground with them.  But we must continue.

Fortunately, the policy area with the most synergistic message is also the one that represents what we believe is the greatest potential for impact: Expanded Background Checks. The overwhelming majority of gun owners have already accepted that anyone engaged in the business of selling guns commercially, should be required to conduct a background check. At the same time the two of us believe that many private transfers, such as gifting a gun to a family member or letting a fellow member of a gun club borrow a firearm for a competition or hunting event should be legal and remain a private transaction outside of government regulation. We believe any expansion of the Background Check requirement should be focused on transfers to strangers. Sure, there are some important details to work out around exceptions such as specific definitions of “strangers,” and exceptions that would make it impossible for the government to compile a comprehensive list of gun owners; but we are confident that there are solutions that can make a huge impact if we stick to the principle and message of only keeping guns from the people we all agree shouldn’t have them. This is also how to “walk the walk” in terms of demonstrating that we are not trying to limit gun ownership among responsible gun owners and how to give substance and true credibility to the claim of respecting gun owners and the Second Amendment.

It’s wrapped up in nice words like “Expanded Background Checks.”  It’s padded to reduce the impact.  The claim is made up front that people support it, which if true, would obviate the need to say it all the time.

But make no mistake about it, Rob Pincus has come out in favor of universal background checks.  He, along with the former president of the Brady Campaign, supports it.

Thus Rob has in a single commentary thrown away what little he had left of his credibility as a defender of the RKBA.  I’m sure he’ll go on with his tactical training business, but for me, I do not see him as a credible defender of liberty.

For the record, I support the liberty to conduct person-to-person transfers of firearms of any sort.  We had this discussion at the dinner table a few nights ago, and I laid it out at the beginning by saying that I believe felons have a RKBA.  They have as much right to self defense as I do.

Eyes opened wider, and I explained what we all know to be true.  If a felon cannot be trusted to own a firearm, then a felon cannot be let out of prison to purchase fertilizer at the local Tractor Supply.  Besides which, felons guilty of murder, rape or kidnapping should be executed.

So, I suspect, ends the relationship of the 2A community with Rob.  I hope it was worth it for him.

UPDATE: I see that the editor has found it necessary to “apologize” for printing the article.  A quick note to the editorial staff.  Don’t worry about it.  If you publish enough, you’ll offend someone.  Ask me how I know?  I found this commentary useful even if I didn’t agree with its contents.  It’s useful because I know where Rob stands now.  That means you did the right thing.

FPC.

Bill/Issue: HR 1446, HR 8, Untitled Senate Bill

Position: Strongly Opposed

Summary: These bills are all designed to implement a nationwide registry of your firearms, setting the stage for gun confiscation.

The floodgates have opened on gun registry legislation, with three bills introduced in one day designed to force Universal Background Checks on gun transfers. And one of these anti-gun bills – HR 8 – already has support from Republicans.

Due to Democrat control of the House, Senate and White House, this should be a RED ALERT for gun owners. Indeed, there are even reports that these bills could be moved to a full vote sometime NEXT WEEK!

That’s right, Nancy Pelosi and her cronies are prepared to move these anti-gun bills through at lightning speed, shortening a process that normally takes months into just a few days or perhaps even hours. Therefore, it is URGENT that you take action.

Republicans and Democrats are prepared to work TOGETHER in order to force registration of your guns in preparation for possible ATF action, confiscations and more. We CANNOT let them get away with this collusion.

So continuing this line of discussion, what they’re saying is that republicans are preparing to be a sellout (but what else is new?).

… sadly, GOA has received reports from pro-gun congressmen that some Republicans are looking to “clean up” the bill and make it palatable.

[ … ]

This is where the Pelosi-backed H.R. 8 comes in: It would require Brady Checks through dealers — and 4473’s — on virtually every private firearms transaction in the country.

And guess what? Now they will have a national gun registry that will tell them who you are, where you live, and what guns you own.

As I’ve said, I expect at least Rubio, Romney, Cornyn, Murkowski and Collins to jump in on this in the Senate, and it will probably be impossible to stop this in the House.

Of course, this is the holy grail for the controllers.  AR-15s are small potatoes compared to a national gun registry.

Until passage of the bill, person-to-person transfers are legal, and thus form 4473 does not constitute a national gun registry.  We’ve had our debates on this, and of course form 4473 is an infringement, but UBC is where the controllers want all of this to go.

You stand warned.

Read this article carefully.

Despite this slight downward trend, expanding background checks still enjoys 93 percent support in the latest poll. That support has remained relatively consistent, with the Quinnipiac poll finding the same level of support in June 2016 as in August 2019 and the ABC/Washington Post poll finding the same level of support in May 1999 as in September 2019.

As I said, carefully.  I’ve always told you this was a load of crap, and the author, Stephen Gutowski, does a good job of showing why.

However, while expanding background checks to cover intrastate used gun sales between private individuals has enjoyed consistently high support in polling, it has been far less popular when proposed as ballot initiatives.

Both Nevada and Maine voted on universal background check initiatives in 2016. While Quinnipiac polls put support for the policy at 93 percent in June 2016, neither initiative came anywhere close to that level of support. Nevada’s initiative passed with only 50.45 percent support—a victory of 0.9 percent. Maine’s universal background check initiative failed, with 51.8 percent voting against it.

Nevada’s initiative, which required the FBI to conduct background checks on private sales, was never implemented. The state attorney general determined there was no way for Nevada to force the federal agency to conduct the checks. Instead, Nevada Democrats passed a similar bill along party lines this year that implemented universal background checks without using the problematic language.

The results came despite gun control proponents massively outspending gun rights proponents in both states. Gun control groups involved in the races spent a total of $25,373,391.76 while gun rights groups spent $7,898,134.10—a threefold advantage for the gun control groups.

So what you’ve learned isn’t just that the statists want you separated from your firearms.  You already knew that.  They fear you, and thus they want you unarmed.  What you’ve learned is that they’re lying when they tell you that 93% of the American public wants you disarmed and wants a national registry of guns.

And also what you’ve learned is that when these pollsters and the democrats try to sell that to Trump, they’re trying to separate him from his voting base for the upcoming election.  Whether Trump, who believes in literally nothing at all, believes this crap polling remains to be seen, 3D chess and all that claptrap from the fanbois.

Time.com.

An aide tracked down LaPierre, and soon LaPierre’s voice was coming through the gray speaker phone on the Resolute Desk. Trump and aides ran down the list of actions the White House is considering. The White House tried to impress upon LaPierre that Trump was “in a good place” and had staff working on the proposals who were concerned about the Second Amendment, mental health, and solving the problem of mass shootings, the senior White House official said.

“What we are talking about is meaningful background checks that would actually go to prevent [shootings like] Sandy Hook or El Paso or Parkland. Those are things we can work on that have cause and effect,” a second White House official told TIME. “This wasn’t Wayne LaPierre dictating to us. We were telling him, ‘Here are the things we are looking at, how big of a fight are you going to put up?’ For most of them, he was like, ‘Whatever you say.’ For a couple, he said, ‘I don’t know about that, I haven’t seen that one yet.’”

[ … ]

But by Wednesday, Trump’s tune had changed. “I have an appetite for background checks,” he said.

Sounds like Wayne didn’t put up much of a fight.

Yahoo.com.

Trump confirmed that he discussed background checks with Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association, but he disputed news reports that he told LaPierre that background checks were off the table.

“I have an appetite for background checks,” Trump said from the White House South Lawn as he departed for an event in Louisville, Kentucky. “We’re going to be doing background checks. … We’re going to be filling in some of the loopholes.”

Hmm .. “loopholes.”  Sounds like he’s adopted the gun controllers’ lingo.

Very well.  One term president.  Can you sense that excitement to go out and vote among the people three years ago ebbing away?

In Utah.

After a rash of mass shootings last month, Gov. Gary Herbert said Wednesday all gun control measures should be on the table for discussion.

Speaking at his monthly KUED news conference, the governor specifically mentioned proposals such as expanded background checks and age limits. He also brought up extreme risk protection orders, or “red flag” laws, which allow law enforcement to temporarily confiscate the weapons of someone deemed a danger to themselves or others.

“I think all of those things are going to be at the heart of the discussion,” Herbert said, adding that “we need to take some action.”

So readers in Utah may want to prepare for this.  The more disappointing one for me is Greg Abbot.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday raised concern about private firearm sales but didn’t commit to crack down on them or act on gun control issues following a meeting on ways to prevent mass shootings such as the El Paso attack that killed 22 people.

[ … ]

Right now there is nothing in law that would prevent one stranger from selling a gun to a terrorist, and obviously that’s a danger that needs to be looked into,” Abbott said.

Yea, that’s exactly what happens in 99% person-to-person transfers.  A stranger sells a gun to a terrorist.

As I said, Abbot is the real disappointment here.  I wouldn’t have guessed this of him, but here we are.  It’s the thing to do – something needs to be done, and right now.  So since terrorists don’t announce their intentions or wear shirts identifying themselves, we’ll just have to prohibit Bob from selling Frank that gun he always wanted to buy from him.  Unless, of course, the FedGov gets their say, and their cut.

There is a stir among gun rights advocates – or at least, presumed gun rights advocates.  On the one hand, there are the open carriers and opponents of I-594 and their advocates in the state of Washington (and other places like Texas and New York where even Sheriffs are recommending that your thrown your SAFE act pistol permit recertification invitation in the garbage), and on the other hand are Alan Gottlieb, Dave Workman, Bob Owens (who seems like a late comer to the pragmatic approach), and many of their readers.  See for instance this article at Zelman Partisans, this one by Bob Owens, and this article, this article, this article, and this article from Mike Vanderboegh.

As you might be able to guess from my history, I am not an advocate of pragmatism.  I have been a vocal and uncompromising opponent of universal background checks (and anything that enables such statism) from the beginning.  But before we rehearse and and expound on the reasons for my opposition, first let’s survey the pragmatists.  Bob Owens’ prose is stunning.

A small group of long gun open carriers lacking the discernment, basic common sense, and the political savvy of your average garden snail made complete fools out of themselves as they dangerously brandished firearms in the Washington House gallery last week during I-594 protests …

… knuckle-draggers like those pictured above don’t understand the long-game, and can’t grasp that the average citizen thinks that a person carrying a long gun to a protest of any sort is most likely unhinged.

We need to do a better job of patrolling our own, folks, because if we don’t find a way to control these cretins, the forces of gun control will be certain to exploit them for every bit of political capital that they can.

“Garden snail” … “knuckle-draggers” … “fools” … “cretins.”  These are words for open carriers normally reserved for web sites like Mother Jones, Balloon Juice, or perhaps Salon.  I am an open carrier (at certain times), and while this example is atypical of open carriers, it’s important to remember that even if it is perceived to be theatrical, it has context and it was provoked.

Earlier this summer, Rep. Jim Moeller took to Facebook and issued what some gun-rights advocates perceived as a challenge.

“I will refuse to conduct the business of the state as long as any ‘open carry’ nuts (are) in the gallery,” Moeller, D-Vancouver, wrote on his Elect Jim Moeller Facebook page.

Open carriers have experience with open carry of weapons being legal but also being bullied about their choices, or even worse, put in an unsafe position because of their legal choices.  It’s also important to remember that while open carry may not appear to be the norm today, it wasn’t always this way in America.

In the colonies, availability of hunting and need for defense led to armament statues comparable to those of the early Saxon times. In 1623, Virginia forbade its colonists to travel unless they were “well armed”; in 1631 it required colonists to engage in target practice on Sunday and to “bring their peeces to church.” In 1658 it required every householder to have a functioning firearm within his house and in 1673 its laws provided that a citizen who claimed he was too poor to purchase a firearm would have one purchased for him by the government, which would then require him to pay a reasonable price when able to do so. In Massachusetts, the first session of the legislature ordered that not only freemen, but also indentured servants own firearms and in 1644 it imposed a stern 6 shilling fine upon any citizen who was not armed.

When the British government began to increase its military presence in the colonies in the mid-eighteenth century, Massachusetts responded by calling upon its citizens to arm themselves in defense.

Weapons were used for hunting, self defense, and yes, amelioration of tyranny.  It wasn’t too many days ago that we rehearsed the jihadist attack on Charlie Hebdo and the goofy “reenactment” that the boys from TTAG did.  And goofy it was, but I did have the good sense to observe that “when defending against attackers with foreknowledge and rifles, you would rather have foreknowledge and rifles yourself.”

Islamists are being given sanctuary in the U.S., and Islamic calls to prayer are heard over loud speakers in Detroit, Michigan (and have been for about a decade now).  Beyond that, tens of millions of Hispanics and Latinos have flooded across the border, some of whom included very violent gang members who have been so bathed in violence and death that they are said to perpetrate it not only for the sake of crime, but for the sake of the violence itself.  Some strategists see the capability to conduct criminal operations and perpetrate violence to be far greater among the cartels than any Middle Eastern or Asian Islamic group.

As if the potential need for self defense isn’t enough, America now has two hundred trillion dollars of unfunded liability, now has full orbed socialized medicine, and has aborted more babies than Hitler killed Jews.  The time would have come and already left that the founders of this great nation would have put their foot down and drawn a line in the sand.

But as a community we still seem to be asleep, or at least comfortably deluded.  The most instructive and educational of all of the links I have provided above comes not from the authors, although some are very good, but from the comments.  Consider this one.

As an advocate of freedom, I’m dismayed at the flawed thinking of so many not so responsible gun owners disregarding the efforts of so many responsible citizens that are trying to preserve and restore our 2nd Amendment rights. Many gun rights advocates are working hard to encourage responsible and knowledgeable leadership out of our legislature. The few that want to use a firearm as a tool of intimidation or civil disobedience will make it even more challenging for the rest of us to convince our representatives that an armed society is indeed a polite society.

Next, consider this.

While open carry may not be ‘illegal’ in a particular case, doing so is not often the right thing to do.  There was a time that, even here in California, we could sling a rifle across our shoulders and ride a motorcycle out to the range and no one freaked out. Then, we had the ‘open carry’ crowd start trying to attract attention, gathering in large groups and parading around, getting loud and vocal and,in general, acting like prissy little drama queens. As expected, people reacted.

The first commenter also slammed the open carriers for horrible muzzle control.  I am not defending poor muzzle control, and if they were brandishing or threatening in any way, they need to learn the rules of gun safety and mature a bit before doing this again.  That is both illegal and unsafe.  But that’s a side show compared to the real issue.  To the first commenter convincing his representative is what it’s all about, even though that hasn’t worked to stop socialized medicine, abortion and oppressive taxation.  From the land of make believe we come to the second commenter, for whom the problem started not with collectivists pressing down with statist gun control laws and regulations, but with open carriers who exercised their rights to carry (and what would have been the catalyst for just such a “display” as suggested, he doesn’t say – it just started happening one day I suppose).  Then there is the hand-wringer, what I consider to be the capstone of the anti-open carry argument.

While I support the concept of unfettered right to bear arms, the reality in most of these “United States” is that one’s appearance on the street with a handgun openly strapped to one’s belt is unsettling to the hordes of liberals out there, and their reaction is definitely averse to our rights, and a threat that they perceive, to them.

Whenever CCW is an available alternative, we should prefer it, and avoid any display of firearms to those idiots who oppose our rights. The objective is not to prove some point, it is to be safer and to be better able to defend ourselves and our families, and CCW serves both objectives well.

Someday perhaps, most Americans will recognize that carrying a gun is not a bizarre fetish, but is a commitment that Americans make, in order to be free, and to incidentally guarantee the freedom of those who do not understand. That day has not yet come, and will come more quickly if we avoid unnecessary confrontation.

I yearn for the day when every housewife can choose to openly strap on a handgun when she goes grocery shopping, or to the mall. Until then, CCW is a better pathway to our freedom.

That day will “come more quickly if we avoid unnecessary confrontation.”  Finally, from the delusional to the defeatist.  Consider Sebastian.

I have no problem with the “I Will Not Comply Crowd.” I live in a state with a similar regime to Washington for handguns, and it’s probably one of the most ignored laws in the commonwealth. I have no problem with civil disobedience.  I don’t disapprove of what the sticks have been doing in Connecticut, because I don’t think there’s anything we carrots can do to help the Nutmeg State, for the time being. We’re challenging the law in federal court, and maybe, maybe down the road we could federally preempt it using Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. That’s thin gruel, and I recognize that. But we are trying, and I think over the long run we have a good chance of being successful.

The big strategic question of gun rights in the last two years of the Obama Administration is how we defang Bloomberg, because he, without a doubt, is the single biggest threat our gun rights have faced since the 1990s. He’s not going to be intimidated by sticks; he has enough money to hire his own private army to protect him if he wishes. He’s not going to be concerned with carrots either, because most of us aren’t billionaires, and don’t have the money to throw around the political process that he does. So what do we do?

And this brings me to my main points.  Background checks are not a problem because they currently constitute a national gun registry.  If you recall my previous discussion on the subject, I played “devil’s advocate” to see just how close the ATF could come to such a monster.  I am still skeptical that the schema is in place (or could be put in place without a lot of additional pain and work).  But the danger in universal background checks is twofold.  First, it would indeed put the procedures and protocol in place for a national gun registry.  Second, it makes the government the ultimate arbiter of God-given rights.

There is an intensely moral element to control of this sort.  Gun control is evil, a sign and symptom of wicked rulers.  Sebastian doesn’t think so.

I really don’t like it when churches insert themselves into political matters under the guise that these are really spiritual matters. Murder, rage, and vengeance — these are all matters of the spirit. Gun control is a matter of politics.

But to the educated man or woman, politics is ethics, which is a category of philosophy, or a description of a comprehensive world view, including metaphysics and epistemology.  It’s all related, and has to do with how you know what you know, how you assign truth value, and what lies beyond the physical.  That which is so intensely moral is not ripe terrain for compromise.  And a proper anthropology – a right view of mankind – knows that “the heart [of man] is deceitful above all things, and is desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).  Only God understands it, and all attempts by men to divine the intentions and correct the maladies of the heart end in despair and failure.

Lastly, there is an element of eschatology in these demurrals from the pragmatists.  They see failure where many see potential success.  But fear not, God has always had His remnant, and He will not allow liberty to perish from the earth.  The chains always fall off, sometimes by His mighty hand, other times by using us as secondary causes and only by the utmost of peril to our lives, health and wealth – but always by His kind providence.

As much as I detest the propensity to compromise, especially out of fear of defeat, and as much as I loath Gates, Bloomberg and their minions, I don’t think what they do is all that significant.  Nor do I think that Gottlieb is all that significant.  He will be irrelevant in future circles of lovers of liberty, and I don’t think he will sway many minds.  Rather, with one commenter to this piece by Clair Wolfe I think that “the seed of the larger problem lies in the troubling correlation between politically and socially conservative people and their acquiescence to, even active subservience to, authority” (see here also my Foundation of Liberty).

And as much as I am accused at times of “preaching to the choir,” I think that the choir is a rather small ensemble of singers.  The problem is one of heart, or moral fiber, and of faith.  The collectivists turn to the state as their god, and the rulers mutually enjoin the people into the herds who need the state to determine the difference between right and wrong for the great unwashed masses.

Thus, most people would have no basis on which to demur if the state decided to kill every third man named Jerry before NFL games as a sacrifice to the football gods.  Utilitarianism has a very dark side.  For those who would oppose it with force but with no foundation, they are no different than Machiavelli.  The salient and important question is whether the people will wake from their slumber in enough time to prevent the degree of pain that can come from this conflict.  There is a massive cultural and religious war going on in America, and gun control is one front in that war.  People will gird their loins and engage now, or suffer the consequences later.

As I’ve discussed before, I have never believed in holding rights hostage to favorable statistics outcomes.  See also Kurt Hofmann on this issue.  However, for the weaker among us who don’t believe in much (i.e., politicians), and for those who reflexively stick their finger in the wind to see which way it’s blowing, public opinion seems to matter.  And thus there is utility in information like this.

Less than half of Americans, 47%, say they favor stricter laws covering the sale of firearms, similar to views found last year. But this percentage is significantly below the 58% recorded in 2012 after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, spurred a nationwide debate about the possibility of more stringent gun control laws. Thirty-eight percent of Americans say these laws should be kept as they are now, and 14% say they should be made less strict.

The percentage favoring stricter gun sale laws in the two years since Newtown occurred has declined despite steady and tragic high-profile shootings in the U.S at schools, malls and businesses. This past week, shootings occurred at a Seattle-area school and of police officers in Sacramento and Placer County, California. Amidst events like these in 2014, and the resulting calls for stricter gun sale laws, the 47% who favor stricter laws is just above the historical low of 43% measured in 2011.

Ten years ago, three in five Americans (60%) said they favored stricter laws regulating the sale of firearms, but support fell to 44% in 2009 and remained at that level in polls conducted in the next two years. Days after the Newtown shooting, support for stricter gun sale laws swelled. Since 2012, however, Americans have retreated from those stronger attitudes about the need for more gun control, and the percentage of Americans who say the laws should be less strict — although still low — has edged up.

These findings come from a new Gallup Poll Social Series survey, conducted Oct. 12-15.

Universal background checks and waiting periods have never been associated with “reductions in homicide rates or overall suicide rates,” and readers know that I’ve never bought the idea that 90+ percent of the American public wants universal background checks.  It’s was a myth before and it’s a myth now.

So I don’t want to hear another damn word about how 90% of the public wants increased gun control at the point of sale, or trying to plug the mythical “gun show loophole” or “internet loophole” which are fabricated phrases for person-to-person sales.  Not another … damn … word.