Category Archives: Second Amendment

It’s Time to Push Back

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Jazz Shaw has a post up at Hot Air about the latest trial balloon from the gun grabbers, firearm insurance. As others have pointed out, this is simply an attempt to make legal gun ownership more expensive. And as has been noted by others, the fact that the Progressives are having to float this kind of idea is a sign that they understand that they have lost the main argument for gun control with the public at large.

OK, if we’re winning, it’s time to push back. We probably can’t get a repeal of some of the more obnoxious portions of the Gun Control Act of 1968, but we can propose some “common sense” solutions.

For example, it’s clear that Gun Free Zones are essentially attractive nuisances not unlike swimming pools. We require owners to fence off their pools or face, in some instances, strict liability for the danger to someone (such as a child) who falls in and drowns. Why not require that the owners of Gun Free Zones either provide adequate protection for invitees who enter their property or be held strictly liable for the invitees’ safety? That’s a common sense approach that lets a hoplophobic property owner choose how he wishes to exercise his right to have a Gun Free Zone. Of course, this might have an effect on his liability insurance rates.

Just an idea.

Second Amendment Rallies

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Today, there were rallies at several state capitols to show support for Second Amendment rights. Nice Deb has coverage here. Even with the rotten weather, roughly 1,000 folks turned out in Trenton, NJ! Wow.

The Maryland legislature had hearings on gun control earlier this week. There was a substantial turnout in Annapolis of gun rights supporters. Coverage here.

Dread Pirate #BrettKimberlin and the Second Amendment

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There’s a post up on the Justice Through Music Project front page blog (No, I won’t link to it.) taking Ted Nugent to task for standing up for the Second Amendment while on Piers Morgan’s show on CNN.

Apparently, we have to solve our gun safety problem with out inconveniencing gun owners in any way shape or form. I don’t know if we could do that Ted.

Now, I don’t know for sure, but I’ll bet that was written by Brett Kimberlin. Assuming that he is currently obeying the law, TDPK is not a gun owner. As a felon, he is barred by state and federal law from possessing a firearm, so he wouldn’t suffer any further inconvenienced from stricter gun laws.

Of course, he hasn’t always obeyed the law, especially the Gun Control Act of 1968. When he was arrested for drug smuggling in Texas, he was already a prohibited person because of his perjury conviction. Yet, he had several firearms in his possession when he was busted. His having guns while a felon is a worked example of a fundamental flaw with gun control—criminals don’t obey the law.

Guns, Cops, and the Posse Comitatus Act

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Herschel Smith has a good post over at Captain’s Journal that examines the question of “When did the Left fall out of love with guns?” His answer is that the Left still loves gun–their guns.

Yes, the left still loves guns. There is no other reason for the fawning acceptance of the vulgar SWAT raid tactics in which innocent men like Mr. Eurie Stamps get shot and killed. These tactics are repeated all across America every day.

The left just doesn’t love guns in the wrong hands, and anyone who isn’t an agent of the state is the wrong hands. Listen to Representative Jim Himes (D – CT) tell you why high capacity magazines are still necessary in government hands.

There is absolutely no justification for weapons that were made for the explicit purpose of killing lots of people quickly to be in the hands of civilians.

Let that wash over you again. “Killing lots of people quickly” and “civilian hands.” The two don’t go together.

The police are civilians. If the arms the Progressives want to ban don’t belong in civilian hands, then the cops shouldn’t have them. After all, as was asked by a gun owner in New York, “Who are the police at war with?”

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: OK, let’s say that civilians shouldn’t have these arms, but that the police need them. One solution would be to make the police part of the military, but that would require repeal (or severe amendment) of the Posse Comitatus Act. Well, if we’re going to let the military do policing, the current civilian police forces are redundant. Some of the cops could be rolled into the Army and the rest laid off. Think of the budget savings!

Also, think about what happened the last time we used a military force for law enforcement. Reconstruction. How did that turn out?

As long as we’re looking at history, what has been the outcomes of trying to restrict the possession of things rather than outlawing criminal behavior. Prohibition. Did That result in more or fewer societal problems? The War on Drugs. What has that done for crime?

Given that neither a bottle of booze nor a joint can shoot back, how much violence could we expect as a result of creating a black market in firearms?

UPDATE–Prof. Reynolds writes:

Why are you afraid of the Constitution? The answer, of course, is that the political class doesn’t want citizens. It wants subjects.

UPDATE 2–Or as Hubert Humphrey said:

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. … [T]he right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.

Don’t Know Much About History

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I’d better start off by saying that I’ve got nothing against teachers. In fact, I come from a family chock full of them. Both of my grandmothers, my mother, four of my aunt, an uncle, several of my cousins, my father, my brother, and I were at one time or now are teachers at the K through grad school level.

Having said that, it’s no surprise to me that the education bureaucracy forgets the inconvenient lessons of history. The Washington Times has a piece up about Maryland elementary school kids being suspended for playing war or being otherwise armed with an extended index finger and cocked thumb.

[M]y son, who is in elementary school in Howard County was playing “war” with friends when a recess monitor warned them to stop shooting with their fingers “because guns are violent.”

The piece goes on to note how teaching a generation in Europe to “study war no more” set that continent up for the horrors of 1939 through 1945.

Now, I look forward to time when the world will be pacified, but it doesn’t seem to be here yet. In the meantime, we’re going to continue to need those rough men that Orwell wrote of who guard us while we sleep. Even if it could work, any sort of educational alchemy that tries to turn snips and snails and puppy dog tails into sugar and spice and everything nice is the sort of stupid idea that only a public school administrator could conceive.

Yet Another Unfair Argument

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Arma Borealis uses the unfair rhetorical device of logic applied to facts to argue for subway control for New York City. He has a particularly compelling argument for limiting subway car capacity to no more than seven riders who have passed a background check.

Oh wait? You mean, there are downsides or costs to such a policy that outweigh the benefit of saving a life? You do understand that if you are opposed to halting or severly restricting all subway service, you are a cold, uncaring evil Nazi who hates the children, right?

Well, if it’s for the children, …

UPDATE–Mayor Bloomberg was unavailable for comment.

If It Just Saves One Child …

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A reader from Western Maryland writes:

A thought occurred to me while catching up on my daily reading. With all the rhetoric over gun control being spewed out and the constant claim that “if it saves just one life”, then why not throw it back in their face with abortion. If it will save just one life, shouldn’t abortion be overturned. Fifty-five million lives have been murdered in 40 years vs how many from guns. We can even treat Planned Parenthood like high capacity clips, or better yet, like McDonald’s use to advertise on their signs, “Over 50 million served.”

I can hear the argument from the left stating that it’s just tissue matter and doesn’t really count, but why is it considered as such when in the animal kingdom it’s not? How many babies have been aborted during the third trimester and didn’t Obama support such procedures. Again, if just one life is saved? Just saying …

Gun Control and Math

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Jonah Goldberg has a column over at NRO that touches on the “if it saves just one life” fallacy often used to support gun control and other nanny state meddling in our lives. He cites the example of the FDA bureaucrat who had a 100 percent success rate in avoiding the approval of an unsafe drug by refusing to approve any drugs for four years.

If something saves one life, it may also cost many more. But that’s math. And using math is an unfair rhetorical device according to many on the left.

Getting Our Priorities Straight

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This infographic is floating around the Internet, and even Politifact admits that the statistics are accurate (H/T, Hot Air).Whatiskillingfolks

Note that hands and feet are a much greater public safety issue than rifles. Now, the Second Amendment secures our right to arms, but it says nothing about hands. Indeed, it says nothing about legs either. Therefore, if politicians were serious about reducing murders, they would be introducing legislation to restrict the use of hands and feet. Furthermore, they should be considering severe penalties for illegal use of a hand or foot, up to and including confiscation.

After all, that works in such enlightened jurisdictions as Saudi Arabia.

Doing the Same Thing Again Expecting a Different Result

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New Jersey adopted what sponsors described as “the most stringent gun law” in the nation in 1966; two years later the murder rate was up 46% and the reported robbery rate had nearly doubled.

In 1968, Hawaii imposed a series of increasingly strong gun controls, and its murder rate tripled from a low of 2.4 per 100,000 in 1968 to 7.2 by 1977.

In 1976, Washington, D.C. enacted one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. Since then, the city’s murder rate has more than doubled while the national murder rate has declined.

Chicago has the broadest restrictions on firearms of any place in America and had over 500 murders in 2012.

So why is it that politicians like Martin O’Malley, Andrew Cuomo, Dianne Feinstein, and Barack Obama want to enact laws of the sort that have made crime rates worse in the past?

UPDATE—One of the effects of more restrictive gun laws (or the threat of them) has been push back by voters (aka “the little people”), even in blue states. Jackie Wellfounder tweeted this and several other pictures of a Pro-2A rally in Annapolis today:jw20130119

UPDATE 2—Nice Deb has posted nice pictures of rallies in Albany and other state capitals.

Gun Appreciation Day

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I would like to express my appreciation for the following guns:

A Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver, a Browning High Power pistol, a Model 1911A1 pistol, and an M14 rifle—these saved my life at one time or another while I was serving in Viet Nam.

A Colt Detective Special revolver, a Smith & Wesson 645 pistol, and a Winchester Model 1200 Stainless Police shotgun—these have kept various situations from becoming life-threatening by forcing aggressive people to consider the cost of further aggression.

A Thompson/Center Contender pistol, a Marlin 1895 rifle, and a Browning BPS shotgun—these have put free-range organic meat on our family’s table.

Gun Control and Racism

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Not many people know that the oldest civil rights organization in the U. S. is the National Rifle Association. Even fewer know of its informal working alliance with the NAACP in the South during the ’60s.

Here is a some history about how the NRA helped the members of an NAACP chapter in Monroe, NC, defend themselves. The money quote from the post (emphasis mine):

When the Klan arrived, instead of finding the good doctor alone with his family they found the house fortified with sandbags and guarded by armed men who knew how to use their weapons. A firefight ensued.
The Klan and their police support were no match for the local NRA members. The NRA members drove off the attackers inflicting unknown causalities on the raiders.

But, of course, these days we can always trust the government to protect us.

Questions I Ask of Folks Favoring Gun Control

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1. I’ve survived a gunfight; have you?

2. I’ve run out of ammunition and had to change magazines during a gunfight; have you?

3. Why do you want to limit the ability of a law-abiding citizen to survive being attacked by a criminal?

4. Have you ever fired a pistol or revolver?

5. Have you ever fired a rifle?

6. Have you ever fired a shotgun?

7. What kind of firearm is easiest to use in a confined space?

8. What kind of firearm is easiest to shoot accurately?

9. Why do you want to limit a citizen’s ability to choose the safest and most effective firearm for his particular circumstances?

10. What kind of ammunition is most likely to incapacitate the person shot while reducing the danger to bystanders?

11. Why do you want to limit a citizen’s ability to choose the safest and most effective ammunition for his particular circumstances?

12. Are you a hoplophobe?