People of the gun was a project of Jeff Soyer, who has been blogging for a long time. By “long time,” meaning I was reading Jeff before I blogged. He stopped blogging for a while, but came back to it. I’m guessing someone else picked up People of the Gun. He started this years ago, back in 2007. I am among those people, Second row, linked under the old blog name. That picture was taken in West Texas, out near Jayton, not long after I started blogging. I have a friend whose family has a ranch out that way. Good times. Damn, that was a long time ago, or so it seems now.
Month: January 2013
The List
This! I’m pretty much screwed if this shit gets real. I’ve been outspoken and vocal, and have not taken much effort to hide who I am. But it can’t make us afraid to speak. They don’t have the money or the resources to put all of us in prison. If you’ve bought a gun in the past 40 years, you’re in “the list.” Get over it. Get active.
Reaping What The Media Sows
The Journal News is to blame for this: “Officials say two burglars used a ladder to break into the home to try and steal legally-owned guns out of the homeowner’s safe.” The actions of the Journal News, and their gun control fellow travelers is not, and has never been about preventing gun violence. Their actions are about ostracizing and shaming gun owners, and if helping criminals put guns into the hands of other criminals is a cost society has to pay to deliver that shame, then so be it. I’m sure the assholes at the Journal News would be happy to explain how it’s our fault for owning guns in the first place.
Hat Tip to Reader Harold.
NRA History From the WaPo
Dave Hardy notes that this WaPo article is balanced, and factually largely correct. Dave has been in this fight since nearly the beginning, so he’s who I generally turn to for stories on things which happened before my time (which was most of it).
Compliance With Gun Restrictions
This is a few weeks old, but well worth reading. I had missed it over the holidays.
Gun Control in Connecticut
You get one shot. That’s it. Back to 1776 with you! They really are keeping up the nonsensical charade they aren’t out to take our guns. It’s really quite comical at this point.
Elvis Syndrome
Tam describes the phenomena here. I haven’t been covering the James Yeager issue very much, because on one hand, I think such pronouncements are unhelpful, but on the other hand, there’s a lot of folks out there on the left that don’t realize the seriousness of what they are proposing. I much prefer the Wyoming approach for pushing back against the feds than I do actions by lone wolves or private militias acting outside any lawful authority.
There are many people out there who feel the same way James Yeager does, even if they exercise more judgement than to put it on YouTube, and probably would not seriously follow through on their anger. But the anger is there, and not all of them are suffering from Elvis Syndrome. Like I said earlier in the week, I’ve seen some ordinarily serious people talking about things are getting uncomfortably close to their line in the sand, and it may be worthwhile for people on the left to know these people are out there. How many Americans are you willing to jail and murder to achieve your fantasies about a gun free society? How many?
I ultimately endorse the Wyoming approach because I think the answer for most people is “none.” They aren’t serious enough to escalate this to that level, so I don’t believe it’ll be necessary. The Wyoming approach provides a lawful framework for a confrontation, which does not necessarily have to escalate into violence. It is far more responsible than the approach originally advocated by Yeager. The first step is to beat gun control back politically at the federal level, and failing that, to beat federal gun control back through our state governments by demanding they nullify a clearly unconstitutional law. The Second Amendment may not have its own tanks, but the Federal Judiciary doesn’t have them either. Our federal system works through cooperative action between the federal government and fifty separate sovereigns. Mutual cooperation is fundamentally essential for the scheme to work. If that cooperation is withdrawn, it becomes nearly impossible for the federal government to maintain enforcement of an unpopular law, even if the states do nothing at all other than withdrawing cooperation. States that have recently legalized pot should also take note of this.
CAP Recommendations On Guns
The Center for American Progress, basically the left’s equivalent of Heritage Foundation, is going to be submitting its own proposals for gun control, including:
CAP’s proposals — which include requiring universal background checks, banning military-grade assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and modernizing data systems to track gun sales and enforce existing laws — are all but certain to face stiff opposition from the National Rifle Association and its many allies in Congress.
What keeps killing me is a few months ago, they were thinking this issue was toxic to Democrats, and now it’s suddenly a winning cause. What changed isn’t the culture, it’s their coalition. It reminds me of something Jim Geraghty said the day after the election:
Ari Fleischer points out the silver lining is that so far, Romney is winning independents. That’s not a silver lining, that’s worse news: Democrats don’t really need independents anymore.
That’s exactly right, and I have a feeling I will be returning to that thought often over the next four years.
How to Handle Piers Morgan
I thought this young man did an admirable job of handling Morgan.
Even when they are actively proposing confiscation …
… they swear up and down they aren’t going to take our guns. I guess she didn’t get the memo that the plan is now to take our guns.