2011 – Page 57 – Shall Not Be Questioned

IHOP Killer Had History of Mental Illness

Keep on eye on this story. I would be very surprised if Sencion was not well known to police for previous mental illness problems. I would be surprised if there is not a history of observational holds, followed by release because he was not an imminent danger.

So far his prediction would seem to be bearing out:

Family members told authorities that Sencion had a history of mental problems dating back to age 16, the official said.

Also this:

Eduardo Sencion, 32, had been taken into custody in South Lake Tahoe in 2000 under a California law that allows police to hold a person who presents a danger to themselves or others, South Lake Tahoe police spokesman Lt. David Stevenson said.

There’s no background check system that’s going to work to disarm mentally ill people like this if authorities refuse to act. Even under California law, this would only have disabled him from buying a firearm for five years. Being held under this particular California statute is not a federal disqualification, nor should it be, since the amount of due-process afforded is very low.

Our opponents will hew and haw that we must turn the country into a giant padded cell, rather than making sure authorities and the mental health system understand the importance of getting these people proper mental health treatment, and, when necessary, getting them off the street. It’s not going to do us any good if they switch from using guns to matches and gasoline. You have to get the mentally ill off the streets, or this kind of thing is going to continue occurring.

Warm Bodies Wanted

Some of you may know we’re hosting a Bucks County Friends of the NRA event in a week, next Thursday, September 15th at 5:30PM. But this is a new event, and we’re running short on the numbers needed to make the event a success. If you live in the Philadelphia Metro Area, and you can spare some time to come help out NRA’s shooting programs, we’d love to have folks attend. We are going to try to have an SiH table, if enough folks are interested in attending. There are raffles, and because attendance is pretty low, the chances of walking away with a gun are going to be a lot higher than at some more established dinners. But even if you don’t walk away with a gun, it’s for a good cause.

For those not familiar with the Friends programs, the money raised at these events goes straight to shooting sports programs. It doesn’t go to pay salaries, or to NRA’s political activities. Half the money raised by PA Friends’ dinners stays here in Pennsylvania to support shooting programs here. If you look at the programs Friends’ supports, it’s basically aboutÂ getting more guns into the hands of kids, which has a well known effect on our opponents.

If you’d like to buy a ticket, or get a friend to buy a ticket, you can follow the link here. Bitter and I would be most appreciative of anyone who can come.

It’s a Matter of the 14th Amendment

The Heller decision pretty clearly and unambiguously said that there was a Second Amendment right to bear arms, in addition to keeping them in the home. The McDonald decision incorporated that Second Amendment right through the 14th Amendment, so that it applies to both federal, state and local governments equally.

Cliff Schecter, a ~~paid shill~~ strategic advisor for Mayor Bloomberg’s group of illegal mayors, apparently has never heard of it. Let me remind Mr. Schecter of an important part of the 14th Amendment, from Section 5: “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” I would like to note the language of H.R. 822:

(3) The Congress has the power to pass legislation to protect against infringement of all rights protected under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

(9) Among the purposes of this Act is the protection of the rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed to a citizen of the United States by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Regardless of all the policy hysteria in Mr. Schecter’s op-ed, constitutional rights trump all but the most dire policy arguments. The fact of the matter is, anyone who’s not disqualified for crimes committed from exercising their right ought to be able to do it without regards to state borders. My right to free speech, free religion, or right be free of unreasonable searches and seizures does not appear and disappear as I move from state to state. Why is the Second Amendment any different?

But I understand why Schecter is working this issue, because it scares the hell out of Mayor Bloomberg. Well, tell your boss, Mr. Schecter: we are coming for his city’s gun laws, and we’re going to be relentless in this. We’re going to lay waste to the 20th century gun rights monstrosity that has been erected in New York City. Those laws are, and always have been, unconstitutional. There’s no amount of hewing and hawing on his part, or on the part of people he’s paying to hew and haw on his behalf, that’s going to stop us.

Putting the Blame Where it Belongs

Bob Barr, who sits on the NRA Board of Directors, notes that it’s time to get some real leadership at ATF, but unlike the gun control groups, puts the blame where it really belongs:

Only after last yearâ€™s midterm elections did the president rise from his lethargy and submit a name to the Senate. It was a name certain to raise the ire of the firearms community; and not surprisingly, it did. Andrew Tarver, former head of the ATFâ€™s Chicago Field Division, has met with serious opposition from the GOP and the National Rifle Association because of his anti-firearms bias.

Yet, rather than working with his opponents to find a candidate on which both sides might agree, Obama has simply ignored the matter and allowed ATF to drift leaderless for nearly three years.

We’ve said Traver is unacceptable, but that seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Our opponents think ATF needs a solid director. I don’t think the rest of us disagree. But that requires a bit of give and take, and so far the Administration, and its allies in the gun control movement, only want to take. This is typical of their attitude, but it’s not helping ATF get adult supervision. Why is it so hard to find another nominee, who’s more acceptable?

Get Your Blood Dancing Shoes On …

… it’s another Tragedy Hoedown! Our opponents have been busy since yesterday using the latest mass shooting in Carson City to promote their political agenda. CSGV wants to know how the mentally ill individual got an AK-47. If I had to wager, the guy has a history of mental illness that has gone unreported by his family and by the authorities, if he’s had run-ins. But rather than our opponents focusing on what’s wrong with our mental health system, that so many people who need help are not getting it, they’ll push the gun control agenda, because that’s what they are about. The gun violence thing is just a nice candy coating to help the policy prescriptions go down, and make everyone else thing they are just such nice and caring people. I believe they are caring people. They care a lot about getting those icky guns out of our society.

But there is, so far, some lessons for the gun community in this.Â We know that there was an armed person at the scene:

“I wish I had shot at him when he was going in the IHOP,” said Swagler, who owns Locals BBQ & Grill. “But when he came at me, when somebody is pointing an automatic weapon at you â€” you can’t believe the firepower, the kind of rounds coming out of that weapon.”

I don’t blame the guy for not running in and being a hero, but this is a pretty typical fear reaction. The solution to this is training, and lots of it. I will admit this is a case where I should follow my own prescription more than I do, because I don’t feel I’ve been training enough these days. I haven’t been to a practical shooting competition in quite a while. Competition is the best way I’ve found of learning to shoot under pressure. Most importantly, it lets you know what you can and can’t do under stress, and conditions your reactions. A lot of people who carry a gun regularly are honestly just pretending. They aren’t really serious about being prepared to use it. It’s not a talisman, it’s a tool, and if you’re not confident in using it, this is probably how you’re going to react.

UPDATE: Another report has him taking cover in his restaurant. If that’s the case, he did not have a shot he failed to take. The report I linked made it sound like the shooter was coming toward him, and he did not take the shot out of fear. Like I said, I don’t blame the guy for not charging in to be the hero; that’s what SWAT teams with rifles and body armor are for.

Who Gets Gun Permits in the Garden State

Apparently city councilmen who are otherwise disqualified from owning a gun:

Camden Police Chief Scott Thomson signed off on two gun permits in July for a Camden city councilman with a criminal record that bars him from purchasing a firearm under state law, according to law enforcement sources and documents.

I should note this is probably just a permit to purchase, rather than to carry, which are issued by judges in New Jersey rather than police chiefs. Our opponents will tell us that New Jersey’s background check system is among the most thorough in the nation, but yet this still made its way through.

Momentary Setback

No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money is reporting on a loss in District Court. I think we’re probably going to lose in District Courts a lot. What matters is losing in higher courts. This will be appealed. Even if, on appeal, the case loses, it may still create a circuit split that will force the Supreme Court to make a final decision.

A Constitutional Crisis Over Abortion

I have to agree with Dave Kopel here, on the position of several GOP hopefuls that the 14th Amendment could be used to ban abortion:

Moreover, the next President is going to have to address a fiscal crisis that will devastate the United States economy soon if it is not solved. Dealing with the fiscal crisis is going to be quite difficult politically, in part because there are many millions of people who benefit from the current, and unsustainable, levels of federal spending. The tax consumers may be very highly resistant to any reduction in the amount of money that flows to them. So there will be no shortage of national division and acrimony. Thus, 2013 would be an especially bad time to precipitate a constitutional crisis over a social issue.

Aside from that, social conservatives ought to realize that the financial crisis, and coming fiscal crisis (if we do not get spending under control) is a greater threat to families and family values than any social issue we currently face.

What you’re seeing now, early in the primary season, is that the GOP hopefuls are wary of firing up the SoCon base against them, so they are pandering to it. Depending on libertarians to save you in a primary is not generally a winning formula, because libertarians eschew organization.

Labor Day – Celebrate Unions or Else….

It seems that the Left in Pennsylvania has decided that no one is allowed to discuss anything on Labor Day that doesn’t celebrate unions or involve planning for an outright class war on Republicans & the upper classes. This came out in force yesterday when Congressman Charlie Dent posted about his opportunity to meet with a local Marine who came home from Afghanistan and the Congressman was attacked for celebrating his safe return. (Click the image to enlarge.)

My first thought, “Why is Joe Hackett hating on our military?” Of course, it’s another Tim Daly. One that you might assume is a hardworking blue collar union guy based on his rhetoric. You’d be oh-so-wrong.

Tim Daly owns an advertising firm and lives in Yardley, Pennsylvania, a town with a median family income of more than $103,000 and homes with a median price of about $333,000 as of 2009. Yardley is a nice little place, so good for Tim Daly for getting his graduate degree and settling in a comfortable, fairly wealthy suburb of Philadelphia. In addition to not being an oppressed union worker, Daly is also decidedly not a constituent of Congressman Dent. (I’m not a constituent. I just follow him to see what he’s saying on issues I care about, not to pick fights about whether we are allowed to honor members of the military.)

Oh, but it gets better. Mr. Daly has some interesting allies that come to back up his attacks on the Congressman for honoring those who serve our country.

Wow. All of this hate just because Congressman Dent thought it would be great to celebrate with a local service member. But, Mr. Millar’s rants are apparently familiar to those in the Reading area.

According to The Pennsylvania Progressive, Millar, a self-proclaimed Marxist, has a reputation for using “irrational, intellectually dishonest logic” and was described this way in a debate last year:

He makes these leaps of logic with no foundation and impugns the character of others with no basis in fact. He then further impugned his own character by constantly interrupting Brown violating the rules of the debate and calling him a liar.

It shouldn’t be any surprise. According to the reviews on Rate My Professor, his students report that he regularly holds it against them in their grades if one disagrees with him and he spends his class time ranting about politics instead of teaching. One of the more positive recent reviews that says he is “average” notes that he will “inspire you to think like a communist.”

It’s absolutely disturbing that these people take pride in announcing that military members who put their lives on the line are not worth even acknowledging on a day they perceive to be about celebrating the downfall of the “upper class.” As Wyatt said on Twitter last night: “This Labor Day, remember those who don’t get the day off: our armed forces, police officers, and firefighters.”

Grenadewalker

This scandal is getting stranger by the day, as it’s revealed that the US attorneys released a man who confessed to making IEDs from black market grenades and converting semi-auto weapons to automatic weapons.. As Mad Saint Jack says, clearly we have to close the Grenadeshow Loophole.