Let’s Get The Facts Right

President Biden claimed on Monday night that more children die from guns than any other cause. Let’s look at the numbers.

Snopes states:

An analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a research nonprofit, that relied on 2020 data compiled by the CDC found that firearms were the No. 1 cause of death for children and teens in the U.S. Those deaths included accidents, suicides, and homicides. The analysis found that in 2020 alone, gun-related violence killed 4,357 children (ages 1-19 years old) in the U.S. By comparison, motor-vehicle deaths accounted for 4,112 deaths in that age range.

By comparison, in 2020, Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, counted more than 930,000 abortions in the U.S. in 2020.

I don’t think guns are the biggest threat children face.

One Lesson Learned From October 7

On Friday, The Jerusalem Post posted an opinion piece about one of the conditions that led to the death of so many Israelis on October 7. On November, I reported that in Israel only 2 percent of the population is armed (article here). That may be rapidly changing.

The article at The Jerusalem Post reports:

Over the past month, more than 200,000 Israelis have filed applications for gun licenses – permits to own and carry a firearm. Given the spike in Palestinian terrorism over the past 18 months and the Hamas massacres of October 7, this is not surprising and is even welcome. I think that every Israeli grandmother should now pack a pistol.

In saying so, I am shocking myself, because I grew up in a Western liberal society where gun-toting was rare and frowned upon. If anything, it was the passion of far-right rednecks who were viewed from afar as irresponsible. The Americas are plagued by too much gun violence, with regular shotgun and machine gun shootings by deranged people in malls, schools, campuses, playgrounds, and even occasionally churches and synagogues.

Furthermore, in this country to which I immigrated many decades ago, guns were considered the province of the military, into which we send our sons and daughters to serve. Soldiers coming home for the weekend with their sophisticated and scary-looking rifles are a regular sight, and troops in the streets to secure major holiday pedestrian traffic and tourist sites are commonplace (and necessary), especially in Jerusalem.

In other words, this country is seemingly well protected by its large citizen-based army, police force, para-military forces, and penetrating intelligence forces. It is not necessary for the average citizen in Israel – men and women – to be armed. Or so it seemed.

The time when every Israeli working in agricultural fields or walking to work in Tel Aviv needed to have a loaded gun is over, or so we thought. The time when every Israeli needed to display instant readiness to repel attack had passed, or so we thought.

I believe that a well-armed civilian population of Israelites living on the Israeli borders would be a deterrent to another October 7-style attack.

What Second Amendment?

Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about Joe Biden’s plans for his gun-control policies.

The article reports:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden reiterated his Second Amendment stance, saying he will ban “assault weapons and high-capacity magazines” if he wins the election.

“It’s long past time we take action to end the scourge of gun violence in America,” Biden tweeted Sunday.

“As president, I’ll ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, implement universal background checks, and enact other common-sense reforms to end our gun violence epidemic,” he added.

…On his campaign website, Biden states his administration would require background checks for all gun sales and would ban the manufacturing and sales of “assault weapons.”

“Joe Biden will enact legislation to once again ban assault weapons. This time, the bans will be designed based on lessons learned from the 1994 bans. For example, the ban on assault weapons will be designed to prevent manufacturers from circumventing the law by making minor changes that don’t limit the weapon’s lethality. While working to pass this legislation, Biden will also use his executive authority to ban the importation of assault weapons,” his site states.

Former Vice-President Biden has stated that he will work with Beto O’Rourke to solve the gun problem.

This is Beto ORourke’s statement on his policy on guns:

“Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” he said during a Democratic presidential primary debate last September when asked, “Are you proposing taking away their guns? And how would this work?”

“I am if it’s a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield. If the high-impact, high-velocity round, when it hits your body, shreds everything inside of your body, because it was designed to do that so that you would bleed to death on a battlefield and not be able to get up and kill one of our soldiers,” he added.

So after the Democrats defund the police, who are charged with protecting the average citizen, they will then move to disarming the average citizen so that he can’t protect himself. Wow.

Just for the record, The Second Amendment states:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It sounds to me as if there is some serious infringement being planned.

Losing The Right To Defend Yourself

There is little doubt that the couple in St. Louis who brandished weapons to defend their home would have met a very different fate had they not had those weapons. They would have become another fatality statistic caused by the protesters (rioters). Well, according to some of the people in charge in St. Louis, it was their job to be killed and their house trashed.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about the latest chapter in this story.

The article reports:

St. Louis police have applied for warrants in the case of the Central West End couple who pointed guns at protesters on their street.

St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden on Tuesday told News 4 they applied for warrants but did not elaborate on what those warrants allege or who they are against. The guns were turned over to police as evidence.

“The hostility is what I noticed,” Hayden said. “I don’t want to see guns out when people are very hostile and angry at each other. Those are recipes for violence, so again we applied on warrant, there’s been follow up information and we are waiting on the decision on the warrant application.

The incident – which went viral around the globe, happened Sunday, June 28 when a large group of people were headed to a protest calling for St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson to resign.

…During an interview with 5 On Your Side’s Casey Nolen on Tuesday, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Chief John Hayden said the department has turned over an ‘unlawful use of a weapon’ case to the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office.

Hayden said it will now be up to the prosecutor’s office.

How can you not be hostile or angry when someone threatens to murder you, rob your house and kill you pets? Missouri has a fairly expansive Castle Doctrine, so the couple was well within their rights to defend their home. It would have been better if the police had arrived and chosen to defend the home, but they didn’t, so what was the couple supposed to do? I hope any prosecution will be thrown out of court as soon as it is brought. Anyone faced with death threats (as they were) by a mob would have defended themselves in some way.

When Law And Order Are Out Of Order

Yesterday Todd Starnes posted an article at Townhall about an incident near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The article reports:

Mrs. Smith’s 7-year-old son had just completed a zoom class from the den of their home when she received an urgent email from her son’s first grade teacher.

It just so happened that the little boy had recently been gifted a toy gun and the child had placed his “new favorite thing” on the table next to the computer.

“Another parent had been very uncomfortable by the fact that the gun had been in view of the zoom call,” Mrs. Smith said on my radio show. “It’s such an innocent thing that someone used to make a judgment and an accusation.”

A few hours after they received the email, there was a knock at the front door. It was the police.

“The police officer came to our door right after breakfast and asked us to step outside of our home as a result of the zoom call,” she told me.

Mrs. Smith’s husband tried to explain to the officer that there were no guns in the house – other than the toy gun that their son had received. 

“He essentially lectured us on child safety and the fact that our children are too young to interact with any guns and weapons,” she said.

The officer said it did not matter that it was a toy gun and he continued to lecture the couple. 

“I said, this is a toy. No one is unsafe in our home. Everyone is safe and well and healthy,” she said. “They took it very seriously as if there was some sort of chance we had weapons in the home.”

The article concludes:

Mrs. Smith said her children were terrified by the police visit.

“They were scared their parents were going to go to jail that day for something that was completely untrue,” she said.

The family was not cited and there were no follow up visits from authorities, but they were definitely shaken by the ordeal.

“What really troubled me was the fact that someone made a claim, an accusation with zero facts,” she said. “It was completely bogus and it left our kids really scared.”

Life is returning to normal for the Smith family, but they have made one important decision regarding education.

“We opted out of zoom calls,” she said.

The German government perfected the process of snitching on neighbors during the 1920s and 1930s – leading up to World World II. It’s horrifying to imagine that such tendencies might exist in modern day America.

There are a lot of disturbing things here. Why didn’t the ‘concerned’ parent just call the parents without getting the police involved? Why were the police concerned about a toy gun–haven’t they got better things to worry about? Has it occurred to anyone that when children grew up playing cops and robbers with guns that there were fewer mass shootings?

 

A Subtle Way To Infringe On A Constitutional Right

“America’s 1st Freedom” is a magazine distributed by the National Rifle Association. I am not including a link to the article I am posting about because I can’t find the article electronically although it is in the April 2020 issue of the magazine.

The title of the article is “The New Gun-Control Activism.” It deals with the strategy those who oppose the right of Americans to own guns are using to limit the availability of guns to Americans.

The article notes:

Last year, for example, Connecticut State Treasurer Shawn Wooden, who commands $37 billion in public pension funds, announced plans to pull $30 million worth of shares from civilian firearm manufacturer securities. Wooden also intends to prohibit similar investments in the future and to establish incentives for banks and financial institutions to adopt anti-gun protocols. The proposition was immediately praised by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and other Connecticut politicians who view the divestment from five companies–Clarus Corp., Daicel Corp., Vista Outdoor Inc., Olin Corp., and ammunition maker Northrop Grumman–as a step toward reducing gun violence.

…Wooden also requested that financial bodies disclose their gun-related portfolios when endeavoring to wok with the treasurer’s office. Wooden subsequently selected tow firms, Citibank and Rick Financial Product (both had expressed the desire to be part of the “solution on gun violence”), to take on the roll of senior bankers in Connecticut’s then-forthcoming $890 million general obligation bond sale.

Technically I guess this is legal. It is a very subtle infringement on the Second Amendment and would be very difficult to prove in court. It is also not a new approach. During the Obama administration, the administration put in place guidelines that prevented gun dealers from getting business loans from banks.

On May 19, 2014, The New American reported:

Following the Obama administration’s “Operation Broken Trust,” an operation that began just months into his first term, the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force was created initially to “root out and expose” investment scams. After bringing 343 criminal and 189 civil cases, the task force began looking for other targets.

The task force is a gigantic interagency behemoth, involving not only the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI, but also the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Postal Service, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and the U.S. Secret Service.

The next target for the task force was credit card payment processors, such as PayPal, along with porn shops and drug paraphernalia stores. In 2011, it expanded its list of “high risk” businesses to include gun shops. Peter Weinstock, an attorney with Hunton & Williams, explained:

This administration has very clearly told the banking industry which customers they feel represent “reputational risk” to do business with….

Any companies that engage in any margin of risk as defined by this administration are being dropped.

In 2012, Bank of America terminated its 12-year relationship with McMillan Group International, a gun manufacturer in Phoenix, and American Spirit Arms in Scottsdale. Said Joe Sirochman, owner of American Spirit Arms:

At first, it was the bigger guys — gun parts manufacturers or high-profile retailers. Now the smaller mom-and-pop shops are being choked out….

They need their cash [and credit lines] to buy inventory. Freezing their assets will put them out of business.

That’s the whole point, according to Kelly McMillan:

This is an attempt by the federal government to keep people from buying guns and a way for them to combat the Second Amendment rights we have. It’s a covert way for them to control our right to manufacture guns and individuals to buy guns.

With the Obama administration unable to foist its gun control agenda onto American citizens frontally, this is a backdoor approach that threatens the very oxygen these businesses need to breathe. Richard Riese, a senior VP at the American Bankers Association, expanded on the attack through the banks’ back doors:

We’re being threatened with a regulatory regime that attempts to foist on us the obligation to monitor all types of transactions.

All of this is predicated on the notion that the banks are a choke point for all businesses.

How you vote matters.

I Think He Needs To Do Some Work On His People Skills

Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air today about a recent Joe Biden event in Detroit.

The article reports:

Say what you want about the inevitable Joe Biden presidential nomination, but at least it will be entertaining. At least, it will be as entertaining as arrogant ignorance ever gets, a combination that Biden has mastered over long decades in the public eye. Biden went stumping for votes in a Detroit auto plant today, a natural venue for campaigning thanks to the Obama administration’s rescue of GM and Chrysler.

Instead, Biden got caught up in a gun-control argument with a worker who accused him of “actively trying to end our Second Amendment right.” Biden offered a pungent reply — “You’re full of s**t!” — and then things got really testy:

…Biden denies in this clip that he wants to confiscate anyone’s guns. One week ago, though, Biden publicly proclaimed that he would put Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke in charge of his gun policy, a former presidential aspirant who explicitly called for gun confiscations by law enforcement following an assault rifle ban.

The Second Amendment may be a problem for Democrat candidates. Recent statements by all of the presidential candidates and many legislators have advocated gun buy-backs (a polite word for gun confiscation). There are a lot of people in America who value their Second Amendment rights either for hunting or for self-protection. I think most voters are smart enough to see the writing on the wall–that we will lose our Second Amendment rights under either a Democrat President or a Democrat Congress. And I do think Joe Biden needs to work on his people skills.

Prepare For A False Flag Operation Tomorrow

My source for this article is the Canada Free Press, but I have come across this story elsewhere.

The article at the Canada Free Press reports:

The Internet is rife with rumors that antifa will march shoulder to shoulder with pro-gun protesters about to descend on Virginia’s capital tomorrow—including one claiming that it will be antifa activists wearing red MAGA caps and NRA garb this time.

If true, pro-gun protesters should take lots of pictures for uploading to the ‘Net during the event—because it will be the first time the anarchists appear anywhere without their signature masks:

…On Friday State Senator Amanda Chase issued a warning to those attending the Monday rally.

“We are being set up!” (Gateway Pundit, Jan. 18, 2020)

“Senator Chase wrote this on her Facebook page.

“I want you to be aware of how we are being set up.

“If people show up wearing any kind of uniform, patch or other symbol on their clothing signifying they belong to a militia and something goes wrong, you could/will be held as a domestic terrorist.

“If anyone steps out of line, all it takes is one person, it may even be a government plant….if that plant does anything to disrupt the rally, you could/will be arrested as a domestic terrorist.”

“They have labeled us as potential domestic terrorists for a long time now.

“…The groundwork has been laid to brand you as a domestic terrorist.

On January 16th, The Daily Caller reported:

“I think it’s been pretty important for us to focus on the fact that gun control in America has a legacy of racist enforcement,” an Antifa Seven Hills spokesperson called James, a self-identified anarchist who withheld his real name for fear of getting doxxed, told Vice. “Like taking guns away from black people, because black people were perceived as a threat to property and the sanctity of the state.”

“This is our fight as much as anyone else’s,” James continued. “It’s our state, and we are left largely out of the debate. The presence of an armed left is not discussed, it’s not understood.”

To the “armed left,” gun control represents the rise of a police state and the oppression of minorities made powerless by disarmament, but it’s a class issue as well.

When people fail to study the intention of the Founding Fathers in writing The Bill of Rights, they become very confused about what the Second Amendment represents. The Second Amendment was put in place to arm citizens against the type of tyrannical government they had just fought a revolution against. Every American is covered by the Second Amendment–there is no race involved. The charge of a legacy of racism needs to be looked at in context. America has made some mistakes in the area of race, but race does not define our country. America was one of the first countries to end slavery, and unfortunately slavery continues today in some of the countries that have oddly enough been named to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

Be very careful about what news you believe about Virginia in the next week. The possibilities of media mischief and false flags abound.

This Could Happen Here

The BFD is a New Zealand newspaper. On January 20, the paper posted an article written by someone who personally experienced the consequences of New Zealand’s gun control law (the Search and Surveillance Act 2012).

The article reports:

On Thursday evening, I was just finishing up dinner with my two oldest kids. My wife was feeling unwell and feeding our four-week-old baby in bed. I had just gotten the icecream out for the kids when the doorbell rang.

I opened the door to see a number of police officers outside. They served me with a search warrant under Section 6 of the Search and Surveillance Act 2012. Half a dozen armed police officers swarmed in the front door (holstered sidearms only) as several more ran around the sides of the house. They later called for more backup as the house was larger than your average state-house drug lab. I got the impression that they’d never had to raid a middle-class suburban house like mine before. Everyone on the property was detained, read their rights, and questioned separately. I opted to call a lawyer who advised me to refuse to answer any questions.

The warrant claimed they had reason to believe I was in possession of a prohibited magazine fitted to a “.22RL lever-action rifle. Blued metal, brown wooden stock.” The officer told me I had posted about it online, which I had—in my public written submission against the Firearms Amendment Act passed last year. That submission was shared on several blogs and social media. I had used the firearm as an example to prove the legislation was not targeting “military-style assault weapons” as the media, prime minister, and her cabinet repeated ad nauseum. The vast majority of firearms affected by the legislation were just like mine.

I thought nothing more of my little example to the select committee. It was no longer in my possession when the police raided my house. They departed empty-handed after turning the place inside out for ninety minutes and left me with my firearms and a visibly shaken wife who broke down in tears. Thankfully, the kids didn’t quite get what was going on—but I realised after that they had gone to bed without icecream.

For anyone like me who does not know a whole lot about guns, the article describes the rifle:

I’ve been vocal about the amnesty being a disaster, and the police were rather open about the failure of the whole process. Maybe if they stopped raiding innocent people’s houses there might have been some more good will? They implied that they’d keep having to raid the houses of people I knew until the firearm turned up. This is for an A-Category firearm, which I have no reason to believe is fitted with a prohibited magazine! Are these the kind of intimidation tactics now the norm in New Zealand? Are we going to accept this in a first-world democracy?

This is for a lever-action .22LR that’s designed to hit paper or be used to hunt bunnies. What happened to going after the “weapons designed to kill people” as the police minister Stuart Nash has claimed?

The implications of this are rather stunning. I took the photo and publicised the details about this firearm as part of the select committee process. This good-faith evidence was used by the police as a justification for their raid. Do we now live in a country where public evidence given to a select committee will be used against you to suit the political purposes of the police?

Anyone who’s publicly talked about or posted a picture of their grandfather’s little .22LR pump/lever action can get raided, as these rifles all had 10+ capacity prior to the draconian new rules. Admitting you had one a year ago is reason enough to warrant a raid on your property today.

I guess the bunnies’ lobby decided to ask the government to confiscate the weapons used against them.

On a serious note, this could easily happen in America and may be happening soon in Virginia.

Really Bad Advice

I don’t watch The View. I watched a few minutes once and realized instantly that it was simply not something I wanted to spend time watching. However, occasionally the ignorance of our Constitution illustrated on that television show is simply astounding.

Fox News posted an article today that illustrates that ignorance.

The article reports:

Politicians seeking to confiscate guns from Americans shouldn’t share their plans with the public beforehand and should seek to maintain an element of surprise, Joy Behar said on “The View” Monday.

Behar was discussing former 2020 presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat from Texas, and said it was foolish of him to announce his plans for gun confiscation before he was elected. She advised all politicians to go after the country’s guns after they’ve assumed office.

Co-host Meghan McCain also weighed in on the issue and said O’Rourke has poisoned the well and scared off independent voters from the Democratic party.

“They should not tell everything they’re going to do. If you’re going to take people’s guns away, wait until you get elected — then take the guns away,” she said. “Don’t tell them ahead of time.”

“I will also say that his stance on gun buybacks — Mayor Pete said it was a shiny object that distracts from achievable gun reform,” she said earlier in the interview. “That clip will be played for years… with organizations that try and scare people by saying that Democrats are coming for your guns.

“[Beto] also made some statements about religious institutions getting their tax-exempt status removed from them because they didn’t support same-sex marriage,” McCain continued. “He did a lot of, like, battleground culture war, and he ran as the most left, most woke candidate and look where he ended.”

The Second Amendment is not a cultural issue–it is an integral part of the Bill of Rights, a document written to limit the power of government–not the power of citizens. The ladies on The View need to take a basic civics course.

Hasn’t He Read The U.S. Constitution?

The Washington Examiner posted an article yesterday about some recent remarks by presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke.

The article reports:

Beto O’Rourke said he would use the criminal code to back up his proposal to confiscate AR-15s and other “weapons of war” from Americans.

“If we’re able to pass mandatory buybacks and I’m able to sign that into law, then I fully expect our fellow Americans to turn in their AR-15s and their AK-47s,” the former Texas congressman said in a Thursday CBS News interview when asked if his policy was “too retroactive.”

O’Rourke continued his answer by saying there would be criminal consequences if people were to “persist” in holding onto their weapons.

“For anyone who does not and is caught in possession or seen in possession of one of these weapons of war — one of these instruments of terror, that weapon will be taken from them, and they will be fined. And if they should persist in continuing to use and to buy these weapons, then there will be other consequences in the criminal code.”

The Democratic presidential contender said earlier this month that under his administration, police would “visit” AR-15 owners who did not cooperate in turning their guns in voluntarily.

“I think there would be a visit by law enforcement to recover that firearm and to make sure that it is purchased, bought back so that it cannot potentially be used against somebody else,” O’Rourke said about the possibility that gun owners might not submit to voluntary buybacks.

It’s interesting that the candidates seem to be focused on AR-15’s. An AR-15 is a semi-automatic weapon that fires one bullet at a time. The AR stands for ArmaLite, the original manufacturer of the weapon. It is a scary looking gun, but even if you support taking guns away from Americans, there is no reason to focus on that particular gun. It is legal to own an AK-47 as long as it was manufactured before 1986. There are also paperwork requirements involved with owning this particular gun.

However, all of the above is simply irrelevant. The Second Amendment states:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms was to protect the people from a tyrannical government–like one that wanted to forcefully take away their guns. What Beto O’Roarke is proposing is exactly what the Second Amendment was written to prevent.

Searching For The Truth Regarding Guns

Yesterday American Greatness posted an article detailing some of the lies the American people are currently being told about guns.

The article reports:

There’s a lot to unpack here about so-called “assault weapons.” The first challenge is the absence of any fixed legal definition of what constitutes an “assault weapon.” Numerous state laws have defined the phrase as everything from paintball guns to all semiautomatic firearms to Remington 11-87 shotguns, the latter famously used by former presidential candidate John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Labor Day in 2004 to demonstrate his legitimately good trap-shooting skills.

The vague term “assault weapon” is distinct from an assault rifle, however, which refers to a rapid-fire, magazine fed rifle that allows the shooter to select between semiautomatic (requiring you to pull the trigger for each shot), fully automatic (hold the trigger and the gun continuously fires) or three-round-burst modes. Assault rifles are, for all intents and purposes, already banned in the United States. More on that shortly.

The next lie is that the assault weapons ban worked:

Except it didn’t. “There is no compelling evidence that it saved lives,” according to Duke University public policy experts Philip Cook and Kristin Goss. A 2004 Department of Justice study found no evidence the ban had any effect on gun violence, stating “should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.” Other studies have found no statistically significant relationship between “assault” weapons or large-capacity magazine bans and homicide rates.

There is also substantial misunderstanding surrounding what the Assault Weapons Ban, which passed in 1994 and sunset in 2004, actually did. It didn’t ban anyone from owning an “assault-style” (again, an undefined term) weapon. All magazines and weapons produced before the ban were grandfathered in, and some companies actually ramped up production of the soon-to-be-outlawed firearm components, drastically increasing ownership of what lawmakers were seeking to reduce.

The article mentions:

Also, given the frequently cited claim that “assault weapons lead to more murder,” it’s worth pointing out that at least 730,000 AR-15s (not an assault rifle, but more on that in a bit) were manufactured and legally sold while the Assault Weapons Ban was in effect, and the national murder rate declined.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. We are being sold a bill of goods by people who want to take our Second Amendment rights away.

The article concludes with information about the shooting that recently occurred in Odessa, Texas:

The shooter was also prohibited under federal law from owning a firearm because a court previously had found him mentally unfit. He evidently had tried to purchase a gun in January 2014 but failed because the nationwide criminal background check system had flagged the mental health determination.

The federal Firearms Transaction Record, form 4437, required for all gun purchases, asks “have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective or have you ever been committed to a mental institution?” Falsifying the form is a crime.

It was later revealed the shooter had a criminal record that included pleading guilty to criminal trespassing and evading arrest, both of which are misdemeanors in Texas. He did not receive jail time, but instead got two years of probation.

The Odessa shooting was a horror. But existing laws prevented it from happening sooner. And the fact that he got a gun at all tells us what common sense already teaches: motivated criminals don’t abide by laws.

As my boss, former U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said recently, the breakdown of the culture is more responsible for mass shootings than the availability of the guns themselves. There are myriad reasons for this, but lawmakers, he noted, need to set a better example for how to treat people before rushing to strip Second Amendment rights from the rest of us.

If guns are illegal, people who follow the law will not have them. If guns are illegal, people who do not follow the law will have them. It’s that simple.

Ignoring Our God-given Rights Enumerated In The U.S. Consitution

Yesterday Townhall posted an article that illustrates the problem with the ‘red flag’ laws currently being discussed by gun-control advocates. The article tells the story of Jonathan Carpenter, a Florida resident.

The article reports:

According to Ammoland, Jonathan Carpenter received a certified letter from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services saying his concealed handgun permit had been suspended for “acts of domestic violence or acts of repeat violations.”

Carpenter was forced to go to the Osceola County clerk’s office to have a form filled out stating he wasn’t the person law enforcement was looking for. At that point, the clerk instructed Carpenter to speak with the sheriff’s office.

Ammoland reports:

The Sheriff’s office supplied Carpenter with a copy of the injunction. In the statement, the plaintiff stated that she rented a room out to a “Jonathan Edward Carpenter” and his girlfriend. She alleged that this Carpenter was a drug dealer who broke her furniture and sold her belongings without her permission. He had a gun, and she feared for her life. She was not sure if the firearm was legal or not.

Carpenter had never met the woman in question and never lived at the address listed in the restraining order. Moreover, other than being white, he looked nothing like the man the terrorized the woman.

The man in question is 5’8. Carpenter is 5’11. The alleged drug dealer is 110lbs. Carpenter is over 200. The man has black hair. Carpenter is completely bald. Last but not least, the man in question is covered in tattoos, and Carpenter only has a few.

Even though it was evident they had the wrong man, Carpenter was forced to hand over his firearms. There was no hearing or any kind of court proceeding.

Read those last two sentences again.

The article concludes:

Carpenter’s firearms had to remain in police custody until the plaintiff can say, in court, that he’s not the man that she filed a complaint against. He’d then have to petition the court to get his firearms back…and he would have to bear the cost. Carpenter will get his day in court later this month. 

What’s happening to this man is the exact instance Second Amendment supporters have worried about. This very instant is what we’ve talked about, time and time again. What if Carpenter needed to defend himself between now and his court date? He couldn’t, because the government failed him. He’s having to prove himself innocent in a country where everyone is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

The ‘laws’ used to confiscate Mr. Carpenter’s firearms are not constitutional. This nightmare scenario would be frequently repeated if ‘red flag’ laws are passed. Mr. Carpenter is innocent until proven guilty. He was not treated that way.

A List The Media Has Failed To Mention

Over the weekend we had two horrendous shootings–one in Texas and one in Ohio. We also had the usual carnage in Chicago which no one seems to mention anymore. There will be calls to limit the number of guns in America and calls for ‘red flag’ laws and calls to confiscate guns from any suspicious person. There will be lists of the dead and the injured. But there will be one list that you won’t see in the mainstream media.

Today The Daily Signal posted a list of a handful of the many times law-abiding citizens have used their firearms in defense of their rights or the rights of those around them. The article links to the January, February, March, April, May and June examples.

The article lists the July examples:

July 3, Summerville, South Carolina. Concerned neighbors went to check out loud noises that they thought might be someone breaking into the local church, only to discover a very drunk trespasser roaming through a nearby backyard.

The drunk trespasser began attacking one of the neighbors, who then shot the drunk man in self-defense after his warning shot went unheeded.

Law enforcement officers determined the neighbor acted justifiably, and the drunk man is facing charges related to the incident.

July 5, Danville, Kentucky. A homeowner held a would-be thief at gunpoint until law enforcement arrived, after investigating why his gate intercom rang at 4 a.m.

The homeowner looked outside and saw that his vehicles had been moved, then found the cars parked away from the house, with the thief still inside one of them.

July 10, Summerfield, Florida. A disabled 61-year-old homeowner kept his AR-15 loaded by his bedside after a suspicious interaction earlier in the day with a man who was looking through the sliding glass door on his back porch.

When the homeowner awoke to loud noises that night, he grabbed his rifle just in time to defend himself from four armed men who had broken into his home.

He killed two of the armed intruders and sent the other two fleeing, until they were tracked down by a police K9 unit. Despite being outnumbered and wounded himself, the homeowner survived.

July 11, Tampa, Florida. A pastor, joined by a deacon, held an intruder at gunpoint for nearly 10 minutes after responding to the church’s alarm system and discovering a man who had used a brick to break in. The intruder was in the process of stealing electronics from the place of worship.

July 15, Phoenix. A retired military law enforcement officer acted quickly to defend himself and his family against a home invasion, drawing his handgun from his bedside table and chasing the intruder out of the house.

After running, the suspect broke into another home and attempted to sexually assault a woman before being arrested by police, who the first homeowner had called.

July 16, San Diego. A man armed with a knife broke into a home and began stabbing the 54-year-old homeowner until the homeowner’s son was able to intervene, shooting and killing the attacker with his father’s gun.

The home invasion caused some residents to question the logic of a proposed local ordinance that would require gun owners to keep their firearms locked in a safe or left inoperable when not on their person.

July 17, Oneida, Tennessee. A man rushed to his mother’s home after receiving a phone call from the mother’s caretaker about hearing suspicious talking from other parts of the house.

He discovered a woman in the process of burglarizing the home who was armed with a pocket knife, and held her at gunpoint until police arrived.

July 24, Rochester, New Hampshire. A father, whose two young children were in the car with him, spotted a would-be burglar while pulling up in the driveway of his home.

The father confronted the man and held him at gunpoint while waiting for law enforcement. He told reporters that while he wished he had not needed to draw his gun in the presence of his children, he hopes it taught them a valuable lesson.

“I don’t carry a gun to kill people. I carry a gun to neutralize threatening situations,” he said.

July 27, High Point, North Carolina. A woman fatally shot an ax-wielding man who broke into her property and charged at her. The man had assaulted the same woman earlier that night but was able to elude police.

July 29, Prospect, Kentucky. A homeowner brandished his handgun to chase away a man attempting to break into his home. The incident was captured by a security camera, and the homeowner believes that the presence of the firearm allowed him to scare off the suspect without putting himself in danger.

July 31, Nashville. An Uber driver defended himself and his passenger by shooting a man who opened fire on the driver’s vehicle. The man—who had a long history of violent crimes, including armed robbery—said he had felt “disrespected” by the Uber driver’s passenger and followed the car to exact revenge.

Neither the passenger nor the Uber driver was harmed, but the perpetrator was later treated at a local hospital for wounds to his chest and arm.

The guns are not the problem. The people holding them can be. Any restriction on gun ownership runs the risk of taking the guns away from law-abiding citizens and allowing criminals, who don’t follow laws, to have them. Disarming a population does not decrease crime–it increases it. I am also very suspicious of a government that wants to disarm its population. An armed population is one of the things that keeps government power in check.

Does The North Carolina Legislation Really Want To Protect School Children?

I do not consider myself a person interested in guns although I am married to a person who grew up hunting and handling guns all his life. However, I am not against armed citizens. I don’t believe our crime problem is guns. I believe our crime problem has more to do with people not respecting the basic rules of an ordered society. I have also learned over the years that the only way to stop an evil person with a gun is to have an armed citizen protecting other citizens. That is why I support H216 which was introduced into the North Carolina legislature on February 28, 2019.

H216 is a simple two page law. This is the bill:

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED AN ACT TO AUTHORIZE CERTAIN MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY OR STAFF OF A SCHOOL TO CARRY A HANDGUN ON THE SCHOOL GROUNDS TO RESPOND TO ACTS OF VIOLENCE OR AN IMMINENT THREAT OF VIOLENCE.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION1.This act shall be known as “The School Self-Defense Act.”

SECTION 2.G.S.14-269.2 reads as rewritten:

Ҥ 14-269.2. Weapons on campus or other educational property.

(a)The following definitions apply to this section:

(3a)Volunteer school faculty guardian. –A person who (i) is a member of the faculty or staff of a school, (ii)is a full-time or part-time employee,and (iii) possesses a valid concealed handgun permit issued to the person in accordance with Article 54B of Chapter 14 of the General Statutes.

(3b)Volunteer school safety resource officer. –A person who volunteers as a school safety resource officer as provided by G.S.162-26 or 16G.S.160A-288.4.

(g)This section shall not apply to any of the following:

(8) Subject to the condition set forth in subsection (m) of this section, a volunteer school faculty guardian, while on the grounds of the school the person is employed by or assigned to, who meets all of the following requirements:

    1. Successfully completes 16 hours of active shooter training in the School Faculty Guardian program developed and administered by the North Carolina Criminal Justice Education and Training Standards Commission pursuant to G.S.17C-6(a)(21).
    2. Submits to the chief administrator of the school on an annual basis written notice that the person continues to possess a valid concealed handgun permit issued to the person in accordance with Article 54B of Chapter 14 of the General Statutes.
    3. Provides evidence satisfactory to the chief administrator of the school on an annual basis that the person has demonstrated proficiency with the type of handgun and handgun retention system used.

d.When on school grounds, only possesses the handgun during the conduct of his or her duties.

e.Except when responding to an act of violence or an imminent threat of violence at the school, keeps the handgun concealed at all times while on the school grounds. For purposes of this subdivision, the term “violence”means physical injury that a reasonable person would conclude could lead to permanent injury or death.

    1. Submits to annual drug testing.

(m)The governing body or entity of a school may opt out of the authority granted under subdivision (8) of subsection (g) of this section and prohibit a person from possessing a handgun pursuant to the authority in subdivision (8) of subsection (g) of this section on the grounds of the school or schools under its control.”

SECTION 3.G.S.17C-6(a) reads as rewritten:

“(a)In addition to powers conferred upon the Commission elsewhere in this Chapter, the Commission shall have the following powers, which shall be enforceable through its rules and regulations, certification procedures, or the provisions of G.S.17C-10:

(21)Establish and administer the School Faculty Guardian program, which provides active shooter training to volunteer school faculty guardians, as defined under G.S.14-269.2.”

SECTION 4.The provisions of G.S.143C-5-2 do not apply to this act.

SECTION 5.There is appropriated from the General Fund to the North Carolina Criminal Justice Education and Training Standards Commission the sum of five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) in nonrecurring funds for the 2019-2020 fiscal year to be used to cover costs incurred in establishing the School Faculty Guardian program required under G.S.17C-6(a)(18), as enacted by Section 3 of this act.

SECTION 6. Section 5 of this act becomes effective July 1, 2019. The remainder of this act is effective when it becomes law.

Note that the teacher participation is voluntary. Also note that there is training involved. Since many of our teachers are military veterans, I think they would be well-suited for the training. Note that schools have the opportunity to opt out of the program.

Something else to consider:

 

  • Arming faculty reduces school shootings: A new study entitled “Schools that Allow Teachers to Carry Guns Are Extremely Safe: Data on the Rate of Shootings and Accidents in Schools that Allow Teachers to Carry found that:
    • Zero school shootings at schools with armed faculty: During hours when armed teachers would logically be present, none of the schools with armed faculty experienced school shootings.
    • A significant increase in school shootings at schools which do NOT allow armed faculty: Between 2001 and 2018, the number of school shootings at schools which did not allow armed faculty more than doubled.

Calling your North Carolina legislator to vote this bill out of committee and on to the floor for a vote would be a really good idea. The website to get names and phones numbers and email addresses is ncleg.gov.

 

 

This Really Shouldn’t Be A Surprise

A few years ago, I moved from Massachusetts to North Carolina. There was some culture shock. One part of that shock was the gun culture of some of the South. I grew up in a house where no one hunted, so the whole gun thing was very foreign to me. One of the first things I did was to take a gun safety course to education myself. I learned a lot and began to understand why the Second Amendment is so important to our freedom. Unfortunately the leaders in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have not yet gotten that message.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted the following headline, “Boston Mayor’s Office to Force Doctors to Identify and Document Patients Who Own Guns.” Wow. What is the Mayor’s office doing collecting information from doctors?

The article reports:

Here are three of the top goals for health care legislation outlined by his office:

Involving doctors in gun safety: This act would require medical professionals to ask patients about guns in the home, and bring up the topics of gun safety. The goal, Boston Police Commissioner William Gross said, is to identify those at risk for domestic violence, suicide or child access to guns in order to guide people to mental health counseling, resources or other help. “We’re just asking them to help identify ways to save lives,” Gross said.

The fact that a patient owns guns would not be put in their medical record, and is not intended to have physicians help solve crimes.

Chief of Health and Human Services Marty Martinez said that while the program is already common practice at many of the city’s community health centers, legislation would broaden the program statewide.

Does anyone actually believe that gun ownership would not be made part of a patient’s medical record? If the measure is supposed to save lives, what action are the doctors supposed to take after they have determined that a person has guns in the house?

I may be paranoid, but this seems like a back door approach to finding out who has guns so that the guns might be taken away later.

How Is This Legal?

A website called Bearing Arms posted an article about Boulder, Colorado, earlier this month. It seems as if some of the city officials have forgotten the Second Amendment.

The article reports:

Residents of Boulder, Co., have until December 27 to “certify” their “assault weapons” or remove the firearms from city limits. Those who fail to comply could face fines, jail time, and confiscation and destruction of their firearms, according to the Denver Post.

Boulder police say they have certified 85 firearms since the city council passed an “assault weapons” ban in May. Residents who already owned prohibited rifles, pistols, and shotguns were given the chance to keep their firearms by certifying prior ownership with police. The council also voted unanimously to ban “high-capacity” magazines and bump stocks.

“My hope is that we will see more bans at the state level and one day at the federal level so these weapons will no longer be available,” Councilman Aaron Brockett said in May.

What? Generally speaking, ‘certification’ is the prelude to confiscation.

The Second Amendment states:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Keep in mind that the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution) were put in place to limit the power of the federal government. Those amendments were necessary in order to get all of the thirteen colonies to sign on to the U.S. Constitution. The Bill of Rights limits the power of the government–it is not intended to limit the power of American citizens.

This is an instance where a state resident, a state official or state legislature needs to step in declare this ban and registration program unconstitutional and send the case through the courts. This law should not be allowed to stand.

When You Don’t Understand The Problem, You Won’t Find The Right Solution

Breitbart posted a story today about high knife crime rates in Britain.

The article reports:

Trauma surgeons have warned that Britain’s knife crime “epidemic” is putting the National Health Service (NHS) under strain, as figures revealed the number of incidents reached a record high of more than 40,000 last year.

The Daily Telegraph reported the 40,147 knife offences recorded in England and Wales — the highest figure since records began in 2011 — marked a 57 per cent increase from the figure for 2014.

Knife crime has risen for four consecutive years since 2014, when then Home Secretary Theresa May curbed the use of stop and search — a policing tactic officers insist saves lives but which is branded “racist” by campaigns that globalist financier George Soros’s international grantmaking organisation Open Society Foundations has bragged about funding.

…”It’s across our urban centres, not just London. It’s a disease we need to work closely together to try to control as best we can,” said Adam Brooks, a consultant surgeon based in Nottingham, where the audience heard his major trauma centre had treated as many young knife crime victims aged 15-25 in the past five months as it had in the whole of 2017.

Generally speaking, British citizens do not own guns. Generally speaking, British policemen do not carry guns. Because guns are scarce in Britain, criminals have used knives. The problem is obviously not the weapon–it is the criminal intent on committing a crime. Banning guns has not helped to protect citizens, it has simply limited their ability to defend themselves.

It should also be noted that the change in the law had a negative impact on public safety. Calling people ‘racist’ to intimidate them might get results, but the results are not in the best interest of the public.

Time To End My Naivety

I am relatively  new to the south. I lived here for a few years as a child, but have been away a long time. Thirty-five years in New England left me immersed in a culture I was not really aware of until I left. Southern culture includes guns, gun safety, hunting, and other forms of recreation and personal protection that are totally alien to me. Recent events have convinced me that it is time to embrace that aspect of the culture of my new home.

I love steak. As far as I am concerned, steak comes from a styrofoam and plastic package in the supermarket meat section. By faith I accept that and refuse to look past the obvious. Until recently, I believed that my safety was the responsibility of the local and state law enforcement people and that they would adequately do their job. I still believe that they do their job to the best of their ability, but it has occurred to me that I need to look past the obvious and begin to take some responsibility for my own safety.

The shootings in Paris and in California both took place in locations with strict gun laws. In both cases, the shootings occurred in gun-free zones. I believe that the end result would have been different in both cases if one of the intended victims had been armed. Despite the fact that the news is reporting today that the weapons used in California were legally purchased between 2007 and 2012, gun controls in California have supposedly taken those weapons off the streets. Obviously, not everyone in areas where certain (or all) guns are banned is interested in following the law.

I am not enthusiastic about learning to shoot and learning to defend myself, but on the other hand, I definitely have a vested interest in my own safety. At least temporarily, I believe that we have reached a place in America where good people have to take responsibility for their own safety. Unfortunately, the police cannot be everywhere at once, and there are obviously some people in this country who want to do us harm. Historically speaking, police will tell you that most murder victims are murdered by family members or people they know. This means that as long as you are careful in choosing your friends (and hopefully have upstanding family members) you are unlikely to be a victim of a killer. Since Paris, San Bernardino, and other incidents involving members of the military on American soil, that has changed. It is time to put away our naivety and learn to protect ourselves. Hopefully at some time in the future, the threat of terrorism will be gone, but it will still be to our advantage to know how to defend ourselves.