2015 – Page 12 – Shall Not Be Questioned

“Something We Should Politicize”

Obama gives the thumbs up to exploitation of tragic events for political purposes:

Of course, he also repeats the lie that mass shootings are more common in America than in other countries. Most of the statistics he mentions are basically all lies. We must continue to fight him. We must ensure he gets nothing;Â not one inch more of our rights. That battle will start in Oregon.

And note folks, when he throws out “Great Britain” and “Australia” as examples of “doing something” he’s talking about mass confiscation. There is no mixing words about that. Britain and Australia tried to solve the problem by making the most common types of firearms that people have in this country illegal, and then confiscating them from their citizens. Don’t ever let these people tell you they don’t want to take away your guns. Their words say otherwise.

And the Award for “Dumbest Thing I’ve Read All Week” Goes to …

… Lauren Holter of Bustle, who points out the evils of the National Rifle Association for, before the mass shooting, mind you, sending a tweet showing how to get a good sight picture. Because I guess people who are into shooting just shoot wildly around the range, consequences be damned. Completely ignoring NRA’s 144 year history of teaching marksmanship, which is its primary mission (the political stuff exists only because people won’t fucking leave us alone), she then goes on to accept Bloomberg’s claim about school shootings hook, line and sinker, even though these claims have been debunked even by left-leaning fact checkers.

While the NRA focused on how shooters can improve their aim, 10 people were killed in Oregon because a school shooter knew how to aim a gun. It’s quite simple really â€” mass shootings always involve at least one gun.

Congratulations, that is officially the dumbest thing I’ve read all week. But don’t despair, there’s sure to be a lot stupid thing flying around the media until the Storm of the Century of the Year pushes all this off the front page, so maybe you’ll get topped.

Shocking News: Hillary Doesn’t Like Gun Rights

I’m always ambivalent about whether Hillary Clinton saying something anti-gun is really news. Is there anyone who thinks Hillary favors gun rights? Perhaps they might remember Hillary trying badly to run to the right of Obama on guns in 2008. There may be some remote tribesmen in New Guinea who are unaware that Hillary Clinton is anti-gun. But for the rest of us, I think this comes as no surprise:

Hillary Clinton slammed the Supreme Court as â€œwrong on the Second Amendmentâ€ and called for reinstating the assault weapons ban during a small private fundraiser in New York last week, according to audio of her remarks obtained by theÂ Washington Free Beacon.

This is my shocked face. I had no idea Hillary Clinton was an enemy of Second Amendment rights. No idea she supported assault weapons bans! I figured it wouldn’t be too long before Hil was out on a hunt with Sarah Palin sporting an AR in .308. Good thing we have the media around to keep us informed.

Mass Shooting at Community College in Oregon

Keep in mind that early reports are almost always wrong, but clearly this is a major mass shooting event. You can expect our opponents to immediately begin exploiting this tragedy. Remember that Oregon is controlled by anti-gun Democrats. This could be the end of the Second Amendment in Oregon if Oregon gun owners don’t start immediately mobilizing to counter what is no doubt coming.

Christie Pardons More Gun Owners, Tripped Up by Draconian NJ Laws

Chris Christie has been trying to convince gun owners he’s not like all the other New Jersey Governors and politicians on gun issues, and to be honest, he’s not. Today he pardoned three more people, otherwise law abiding, who happened to run afoul of New Jersey’s draconian gun laws. Chalk it up to wanting to do better among GOP primary voters, but no other New Jersey governor has been willing to pardon honest citizens who mistakenly run afoul of their gun laws. These are not isolated incidents. These kinds of cases have been happening in New Jersey at a pretty regular frequency for years, and often these people just end up rotting in jail, their lives and families destroyed. So I will give Christie credit where it is due.

A tip of the hat to Charles C.W. CookeÂ over at National Review, who broke the story.

The Atlantic: Gun Rights and Slavery Go Hand in Hand

I was wondering when Saul Cornell, former director of the now defunct Second Amendment Research Center, would show his face again. SARC was a Joyce funded effort to promote anti-Second Amendment scholarship to counter the voluminous pro-Second Amendment scholarship that had started dominating academia. The two disparate points of view came head-to-head in the Heller decision, and not a single justice accepted Cornell’s points of view.

I guess now that the Supreme Court has sufficiently signaled that it would not defend the Heller and McDonald decisions, and with Bloomberg throwing millions of dollars around to promote biased and flawed research, Prof. Cornell must might figure it’s time for him to come back on the scene. At “The Atlantic,” Cornell co-authors “The Slave-State Origins of Modern Gun Rights.” There’s an accompanying paper here.

His argument is as bogus as his previous anti-Second Amendment research partner Carl. Cornell completely glosses over the fact that the origins of gun control also come from the slaveholding South, in the form of attempting to disarms slaves and free blacks. Pro-Second Amendment scholarship has consistently shown that a significant concern for the drafters of the 14th Amendment was protecting the rights of free Blacks to keep and bear arms. Why would they have been concerned about this if there was such a culture of gun control in the North? Cornell points out that several Northern states had laws against going armed in an offensive manner. Yes, you could not legally carry a pistol and rob a bank with it, but that’s a different animal than carrying a firearm without ill intent.

Cornell clearly believes, and probably correctly, that the next big showdown is going to be over the right to bear arms, rather than merely keep them. If a Democrat wins in 2016, he’ll probably get his wish to redact that part of the Bill of Rights. Probably his wish to redact the whole Second Amendment and overturn Heller and McDonald. I believe the other side is very emboldened these days. If I had Bloomberg’s money to spend, and a supportive White House, I would be too. In the coming months and years, it is incumbent on us to be ready to mobilize to teach them once again that they are on the wrong side of history, and that they cannot win.

Carry Your Guns, People!

This is a lengthy article from Foreign Policy about the terrorist attack on the Westgate MallÂ in Nairobi in September of 2013, but I’d suggest it ought to be required reading for gun folks:

Far from a dramatic three-day standoff, the assault on the Westgate Mall lasted only a few hours, almost all of it taking place before Kenyan security forces even entered the building. When they finally did, it was only to shoot at one another before going on an armed looting spree that resulted in the collapse of the rear of the building, destroyed with a rocket-propelled grenade. And there were only four gunmen, all of whom were buried in the rubble, along with much of the forensic evidence.

We’re fortunate that our military and police forces are far better than armed looters, but that’s not to say you can be guaranteed a quick and competent response if the situation goes extremely pear shaped.

During the roughly three-and-a-half hours that the killers were loose in the mall, there was virtually no organized government response. But while Kenyan officials prevaricated, an unlikely coalition of licensed civilian gun owners and brave, resourceful individual police officers took it upon themselves to mount a rescue effort.

Well, that kind of destroys the narrative for the gun control crowd, doesn’t it? When the shit hit the fan, it was armed individuals who stood up and got the job done. Of course, they and their ilk are doing everything they can to ensure something like that can never happen in this country.

No, I Did Not Die in the Popeocalypse

The dead air has honestly been for lack of news, and I’ve gotten to the point in blogging I hate just producing useless filler (you know, like this post). There’s way too much of that out there, and it wastes your time and mine. Speaking of the Pope visit, as anyone with half a brain could have predicted, turnout was way lower than expected, and there are businesses that lost a lot of money. Restaurants were told to expect to be very busy, probably figuring a communion wafer is hardly even a light afternoon snack. But the crowd disappeared as soon as Frances did.Â Now the finger pointing begins! I was out in the Harrisburg area this weekend, partaking in the grand tradition of my Huguenot ancestors: running away from Catholics. Even out there, the signs were flashing advisories that might as well have said, “Danger! Pope Visiting Philadelphia!”, like Godzilla had come ashore and was heading inland. Nonetheless, the light turnout didn’t prevent the Secret Service from turning security into a mess.

The Onion had some commentary on the visit here, and here. That’s funny right there. I don’t care who you are.

Hopefully tomorrow we’ll have non-pope news. It’s been quiet, almost too quiet on the gun front. Every time I worry about a sagging news cycle, I’m reminded that December 2012 was also a sagging news cycle, and I’ve learned to be careful about complaining about a lack of news.

Weekly Gun News – Edition 15

We here in and around Philadelphia are anxiously awaiting the popeocalypse. Being non-catholic, I have no plans to go into the city to engage in any pope watching. The way the media has been portraying it around here, you’d think it’s going to be mass hysteria, hence why people have adopted the popeocalypse hash tag. My prediction is everyone will be scared away by predictions of chaos, and the crowd will be much smaller than expected. With that out of the way, let’s get to the news:

Pope Frances once again gets on his arms manufacturer bandwagon. I should remind you that the pope has an armed guard who use guns that were manufactured by someone. It was this gun, this gun, and this gun that helped take down Hitler. Pope Francis strikes me as a naive figure, in a way that John Paul II assuredly was not.

This proposal from the City of Missoula, Montana almost certainly violates the state preemption law. They are trying to find whatever hole they can to bring back the idea of local regulation of firearms. That way, gun owners, who can’t possibly know thousands of local laws, can more easily be imprisoned where people like Bloomberg think we belong.

Mike “the gun guy” is looking at the bright side of the Heller III ruling. I don’t think anyone on our side claimed it was a victory. I personally don’t think registration or training should be allowed as a prior restraint on purchasing a firearm, and registration should be flat out unconstitutional. As I said, partial win. The court rightly saw gun rationing for what it is, at least.

Half of all Americans think the government is a threat to freedom. I guess we’re all insurrectionists now, or at least half of us are, by CSGV’s standards.

There’s often a lot more to these stories of victimhood if you dig.

Trump’s policy position on guns isn’t too bad.

NRA endorses State Senator John Edwards in Virginia. This is the guy CSGV lead a pathetic protest against. Well, let’s see you deliver some hurt, CSGV. The game is on. Can you hurt Edwards where it counts? At the ballot box?

NRA is being investigated in Connecticut after anti-gun group complains. NRA maintains they have followed the law on this matter.

A win for knife rights in New York.

New Jersey lawmakers fail to override Chris Christie’s veto of a gun control bill.

Lawsuit over campus carry in Missouri tests how far strict scrutiny can go. They recently passed an enhancement to the RKBA provision demanding the courts apply strict scrutiny.

More radical nonsense from Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. I’ll join with Bob’s reiteration that their coalition partners should be aware of what they are doing. This is not mainstream, Â this is a crazy train position this group is taking, and CSGV is far from the only one.

Florida isn’t processing as many new applications for gun permits. Better reciprocity is probably also contributing to this. Florida only gets me about 3 more states than my PA license does, but since Delaware is one of them, I hold on to it.

The recall petitions for Oregon legislators who voted for gun control have failed. Generally speaking, you’re going to get some signatures dismissed. Groups usually collect at least 20% more than they need. Perhaps they were running out of time. Gun control groups are saying this shows the tide us turning in their favor.

Campus Carry is on the move in Florida.

SayUncle: “On lights and guns”

RPG v. bullet proof glass.

Elizabeth Price Foley: “The House GOP would be well advised to stop fighting its own base, listen to them, and select someone from the House Freedom Caucusâ€“which has been fighting Boehner tooth and nailâ€“who would unify the party with its own voters. Someone like Raul Labrador, Mark Meadows, or Jim Jordan.” Don’t count on it.

Why gun control isn’t at the heart of Black Lives Matter: “Stricter gun laws could do more harm than good to poor, black communities, experts and activists say.” The left have been conspiring to screw poor minority communities out of their Second Amendment rights for years, and then turned around and tried to convince them they are better off for it. I’m glad to see people waking up.

Townhill: Toomey walks the high wire on gun control.

Best News I’ve Heard in a While

John Boehner is stepping down as speaker, and resigning from Congress. Maybe now we have a prayer of getting some opposition to this Administration from Congress. I can’t say I’m optimistic though. Boehner, more than anyone, I think deserves the blame for the Trump phenomena. Boehner has been so easy on Obama, you almost have to wonder what kind of dirt they have on him. Good riddance, I say.