Category: Anti-Gun Folks

This one is from Paul Helmke:

“There is the mythology advanced by the gun lobby of the Wild West and the individual frontiersman single-handedly holding off the British and the Indians and the bears simultaneously”

I don’t think I’ve ever done or seen a post that’s talked about the British, Indians and Bears attacking simultaneously.   I’d say that Peter Hamm needs to keep Paul away from the hard liquor, but I think this is actually carefully crafted language to make people think that what we advocate is an anachronism, and not relevant to modern society.   He also says:

He said European countries have enacted effective gun control laws and that U.S. politicians are cowed by the gun lobby as exemplified by the National Rifle Association.

I guess that’s why mass shootings never happen in Europe, or anywhere else with strict gun control.

Ah, yes.  Persuasion by insult.  The true harbinger of someone willing to engage in reasoned discourse.  One of his commenters, though, gave me a good idea:

Therefore, if gun advocates were serious about using the magic of gun possession to protect the innocent from violent crimes…

…they would advocate or even create for themselves programs to provide firearm ownership and safe use training to impoverished inner city black and Hispanic residents.

If they are not willing to do so, it is because they only intend their arguments to apply when they apply to an imagined innocent *white* population.

That’s actually not a bad idea.  I have to wonder if the people in Pro-Gun Progressive‘s neighborhood might be tired of being intimidated into letting the drug dealing scum run roughshod over their neighborhoods.  Particularly in urban settings, the good, upstanding people need to be able to defend themselves.

Of course, Saturday Night Special bans, a favorite of the gun control crowd, most heavily fall on the urban poor’s ability to defend themselves.  We’ve fought these laws time and time again, even though few of us buy those types of firearms.  If we’re such a racist bunch, you’d think we’d support a law that would disproportionately disarm the poor and minorities.

I wonder if this guy is aware of the racist history of gun control in America.

I’ll take Paul’s latest post:

A 36 year-old janitor belonging to the Aryan Nations shoots 200 rounds from two military-style semiautomatic weapons, killing his wife, a police officer and a church sexton.

Gotta get that assoication of gun ownership with racism in there eh Paul? Because if people believe all gun nuts are racist, they can continue to look down on us and give you money.

A disgruntled client of attorney Michael McKenna forces his way into a busy downtown office building, where he barricades himself inside and shoot and kills McKenna and two other employees. The shooter was killed after a gunfight with the SWAT team.

I thought guns were illegal in Chciago? How could this have happened?

A man first kills the mother of his child, then goes to his workplace and shoots three others to death before committing suicide.

Good to see all those workplace violence policies you folks have convinced HR clowns they need working out really well.

Tyler, Texas. February 2005. A gunman – wearing a bulletproof vest and a military flak jacket – shoots over 50 rounds with an AK-47 killing his wife and a bystander. The shooter’s son and three law enforcement officers are wounded in the gun battle.

What he doesn’t mention is that that the bystander that was killed saved the kid’s life by trying to take out the shooter with a .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol, which, unfortunately, doesn’t penetrate body armor.

A fired worker shoots and kills six of his former co-workers with a .38 caliber semi-automatic pistol.

.38 is a revolver caliber. They don’t make semi-auto pistols in .38. He probably means .380, but we don’t expect people advocating for gun control to actually know anything about guns do we?

An angry employee, denied vacation because of a paperwork mix-up, shoots and kills a co-worker, wounding two others before killing himself. The shooter was armed with four handguns and had spent much of his spare time shooting at targets behind his home.

We must get everyone in workplaces fearful about people who target shoot. That way they can’t find jobs anywhere, will get fired, or what have you.

John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo randomly selected victims in sniper-style shootings – one acting as a long-range shooter from the trunk of their car. Muhammad and Malvo have been linked to 20 shootings, including 13 killings, in Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, Arizona, Alabama, Louisiana, and Washington, D.C., many of which were carried out with a Bushmaster XM-15 semi-automatic assault rifle.

The rifle the DC snipers used was irrelevant. They could have used an antique bolt action rifle, because they only ever fired one shot. Good thing they didn’t, because antique bolt action rifles are much more powerful than a Bushmaster XM-15.

Wow, that’s a lot of mass shootings! Sure makes me glad I’m licensed to carry a firearm by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. You’d think it’s dangerous out there from what Paul says.

They Brady’s seem to have quietly done their press release.  Not big push for donations, like after Virginia Tech.  The headline on the latest release is, “America Again Witnesses The Cost of Assault Weapons In Civilian Hands.”  Unfortunatly for the Brady Campaign, the SKS was never covered by the federal ban, and isn’t an assault weapon under any of the state bans that I’m aware of.  It’s certainly not an assault rifle, as it was not designed by Comrade Siminov to fire automatically.

I’m glad the Brady’s don’t seem to be exploiting this tragedy like they did Virginia Tech, but they are still misleading the American people as to the true nature of the firearms they are trying to demonize.  Paul wants to know where the rifle came from, well, it’s looking like the killer stole the rifle from his step father, probably because he’s prohibited from possessing a firearm under the law, and is unable to purchase one thanks to the, clearly very effective in this instance, background checks mandated by the Brady Act.  Maybe we need to make it illegal to steal a firea… oh wait.

I’m pretty sure this Five Year Plan that Armed Canadian dug up is a hoax.  The Brady Campaign wouldn’t be so bold as to outline their long terms plans in a memo like this, nor would they write so badly.  Of course, that’s not to say there isn’t a grain of truth to what’s going on here.

While I’m almost certain this memo was written by a pro-gun person to rally gun owners into action, it has a basis in something called Brady II, which at once time was actually introduced into Congress.

… is busy spewing crap again.

… if he shot himself in the foot with one. The Brady’s are incorrect that Jay Fox had an AK-47:

In last night’s Republican YouTube debate, a questioner submitted this video of himself shooting what looks like an AK-type semi-automatic assault rifle at a target in the desert. In less than two seconds, self-identified NRA Life Member Jay Fox fires off six rounds. (Check the timing of the video yourself.)

It’s not an AK-47. You can see clearly in the screen shots that it’s not:

That’s clearly a monte carlo stock, and not a pistol grip that you’d expect to find on a Kalashnikov.

The magazine lacks the banana shape of the AK-47 magazine. Pretty clearly this is some type of .223 semi-automatic rifle. And, like we’ve been saying, any semi-automatic rifle can fire six shots quickly, even ones that are available, as this firearm would be, in all the states that have assault weapons bans because this firearm is not an assault weapon by any legal definition. And no state bans 10 round magazines.

So Paul may have thought this was a clever “gotcha” moment to introduce his admonishment that gun violence isn’t funny, but it’s another distortion. Besides, what does a guy having some pinking fun with a semi-automatic rifle in the desert have to do with gun violence? Do you think Jay Fox is going to go mow down a school next? This tells you a lot about how these people think.

UPDATE: Turns out Jay Fox is a resident of California, which bans assault weapons. So that rifle is most definitely NOT an assault weapon. Brady wants the entire country to pass a California style ban, yet they are still unhappy with this ordinary semi-automatic rifle’s rate of fire, which any self-loading firearm is capable of. Of course, they say they don’t want to ban all semi-automatic rifles, but do you believe them? I don’t.

UPDATE: I just got an e-mail from Jay Fox. It’s a Kel-Tec SU-16 rifle, which is not an assault weapon, and legal in California. He also mentioned the shotgun in the video was unloaded, and was tossed rather than handed for effect. Hey, it worked didn’t it? His video got picked. I thought it was pretty good.

Bryan Miller is ho hum about the Supreme Court taking the Heller case.  Joe Huffman and Thirdpower are already on it.  Joe says:

[The second amendment is] overwhelmingly categorical and never been used to overturn a law since it was adopted, therefore we shouldn’t take it seriously and can enact laws that violate it without concern to the constitutionality of the law. Interesting logic. So, Mr. Miller, do you advocate treating the 13^th amendment in the same way?

Read the whole thing.  I actually think Bryan is right.  The ruling won’t fundamentally be earthshaking…. over the short term.  But over the long term, I wouldn’t be so ho hum.  The first amendment similarly started out absent any earthshaking ruling, and with broad license for the government to regulate speech.  Somewhere along the line, free speech went from this:

“The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” – Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Schenck v. US, 1919

to what we have today, which are broad free speech protections that would never allow for something like the Espionage Act to stand today.  I similarly expect the early second amendment cases to resemble the early first amendment cases.  I don’t think the Supreme Court will ever bar all regulations of firearms, but I suspect the end result of this second amendment jurisprudence will probably leave us with much less gun control than Bryan Miller would like.  I agree with Joe; you’re seeing masked frustration.

It looks like The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership made sure to scrub their web site of Dennis Henigan stating that “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” before accusing the DC circuit of leaving certain parts out of the second amendment.  Why am I not surprised?

Days of our Trailers got an interesting Brady fundraising e-mail editorial by a Brady Board member:

We also need to get the message out that sensible gun laws work for all citizens, including those who own guns for hunting or self-protection. These legal gun owners need to join us to insist that the right to own firearms must be countered by sensible ownership protections. Without their support, we will never adequately address this issue, and the killing of our children will continue.

We need to work together, it’s for the children, after all. To me, they are adjusting their messaging in preparation for a likely defeat at the Supreme Court. The post Heller Brady line, assuming we prevail, will be “Of course it’s a right, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have sensible gun regulations.” Sensible gun regulations, like a total ban on functional firearms in cities. So to paraphrase “It’s an individual right, but that doesn’t mean anything!” will be the new Brady line post Heller, and we’ll continue to not take their crap about wanting to work together seriously.