Tag Archives: Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

Massachusetts Says Something Positive About The Second Amendment

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On Wednesday, Bearing Arms reported the following:

As FPC (Firearms Policy Coalition) Action Foundation’s Cody J. Wisniewski said on Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co yesterday, since the Bruen decision was handed down by the Supreme Court last year we’re starting to see lower courts around the country start to take the Second Amendment a little more seriously. While we’ve still seen some egregiously awful misreadings of Bruen over the past twelve months, we’ve also seen some major successes, including one case out of Massachusetts that addresses the fact that in many states, your right to keep and bear arms stops at the state line.

As The Reload’s Jake Fogelman reports, a Massachusetts judge recently concluded that the state’s prohibition on non-residents bearing arms for self-defense without first obtaining a temporary license to carry is a violation of their Second Amendment rights; a stunning development in a state where lawmakers are currently trying to obliterate the 2A rights of gun owners inside the borders as well.

“An individual only loses a constitutional right if he commits an offense or is or has been engaged in certain behavior that is covered by 18 USC section 922,” Judge Coffey wrote on August 3rd in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Dean F. Donnell. “He doesn’t lose that right simply by traveling into an adjoining state whose statute mandates that residents of that state obtain a license prior to exercising their constitutional right. To hold otherwise would inexplicably treat Second Amendment rights differently than other individually held rights. Therefore, the Court finds that GL. 269, sec. (10a) is unconstitutional as applied to this particularly situated defendant and allows the motion to dismiss on that ground.”

The ruling could have significant implications for determining the scope of the right to carry a firearm in public. It is one of the first legal decisions to address gun-carry rights across state lines since the Supreme Court recognized a general public carry right in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen last June. It could fuel gun-rights advocates’ push for the right to travel in all 50 states with firearms in public, also known as “national reciprocity.”

The defendant in the case, Dean Donnell, is a legal resident of New Hampshire. New Hampshire is a permitless gun carry state, meaning anyone 18 years of age or older who can legally possess a firearm may carry it in public openly or concealed. It also issues carry permits to residents for reciprocity purposes. However, Massachusetts does not honor New Hampshire permits.

Judge Coffey’s order does not specify whether or not Donnell had a valid New Hampshire permit, only that he “was in compliance with his home states laws on the possession of the firearm” when Massachusetts charged him. The law under which he was charged, GL. 269, sec. (10a), creates a mandatory minimum sentence of 18 months in prison for anyone convicted of possessing a firearm in public without a license.

Judge Coffey wrote that Donnell’s conduct was “clearly covered by the Second Amendment.” Therefore, under the standard of review set in Bruen, he said the Government of Massachusetts needed to show a historical tradition “relating to disparate treatment of nonresidents” to uphold the law.

Wow. Please follow the link to the article for further details. This is an amazing decision–particularly in Massachusetts.

Protecting our Freedom

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On Thursday, The North State Journal posted an article about a bill introduced in the North Carolina House of Representatives that would prevent credit card companies from tracking gun and ammunition purchases.

The article reports:

A bill filed in the North Carolina House seeks to block credit card companies from attaching flags or codes to firearm and ammunition purchases. 

House Bill 564, Second Amendment Financial Privacy Act, was filed earlier this month by Reps. Reece Pyrtle (R-Rockingham), Edward Goodwin (R-Chowan) and Charles Miller (R-Brunswick). Joining the primary sponsors of the bill is House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Kings Mountain).  

If enacted, the bill would amend current statutes by adding a new article to prohibit financial institutions from using a firearm code in connection with payment card transactions involving a firearms retailer in the state and from knowingly maintaining a record of persons in the state who own firearms. 

“No financial institution shall knowingly maintain a record of individuals residing in this State who own firearms,” according to the bill.  

The measure would also allow the state’s attorney general to assess civil penalties of up to $10,000 for each violation after notice is given and a hearing is held. There are also civil actions individuals can take with the same penalty limit for each violation plus attorneys fees and court costs. The civil actions would have a three-year statute of limitations. 

The bill cites merchant codes (MCC) created for firearms retailers by the Switzerland-based International Organization for Standardization in September 2022. 

There is no reason for the government to know which citizens have guns or ammunition and what kind of each they have. This is a definite infringement of our Second Amendment rights, and the bill needs to pass to stop any tracking immediately.

There Are Many Forms Of Gun Control–None Of Them Constitutional

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The Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution 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.”

Let’s put this in context. This is part of the Bill of Rights–a document that protects the God-given rights espoused in the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution is a document that limits the rights of government and protects the God-given rights of citizens. The right to bear arms was inserted to keep the people armed to prevent another tyranny like the one they had just escaped. The Second Amendment limits the government–not the citizens.

On Thursday, Breitbart reported:

Beginning in April 2023, Discover will become the first credit card issuer to track gun purchases made by their cardholders.

On September 11, 2022, Breitbart News noted that Visa caved to pressure from gun control groups and New York Democrats, agreeing to flag gun and ammo purchases via a new sales categorization. The Associated Press observed that Mastercard and other major credit cards also agreed to flag gun sales.

On March 2, 2023, the Independent Journal Review (IJR) reported that Discover will be first among credit card companies to track gun sales, inasmuch as the company will begin doing so in April.

Make no mistake–this is not a good thing. First of all, criminals who commit gun crimes do not generally purchase their guns legally using a credit card. This will only track legal gun owners, who are highly unlikely to commit gun crimes.

In 2016, The National Review reported:

In the study, led by epidemiologist Anthony Fabio of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health, researchers partnered with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police to trace the origins of all 893 firearms that police recovered from crime scenes in the year 2008.

They found that in approximately 8 out of 10 cases, the perpetrator was not a lawful gun owner but rather in illegal possession of a weapon that belonged to someone else. The researchers were primarily interested in how these guns made their way from a legal purchase — at a firearm dealer or via a private sale — to the scene of the crime.

So what is the usefulness of tracking legal gun sales? Why would anyone want to do that? That is a very good question.

Common Sense And Protecting The Second Amendment

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A few weeks ago, at a House Oversight Committee hearing, the Democrats continued their assault The Second Amendment. On Monday, Breitbart posted an article about those hearings.

The article reports:

Smith & Wesson president and CEO Mark Smith released a statement Monday pushing back against House Democrats, noting that “a Smith & Wesson firearm has never broken into a home.”

Smith’s statement comes just weeks after Daniel Defense CEO Marty Daniel and Sturm, Ruger, and Co. CEO Christopher Killoy testified before a House Oversight Committee hearing as Democrats criticized firearm makers’ marketing tactics and profits.

Highlights of the hearing included Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) asking Ruger to agree not to sell certain types of ammunition, to which Ruger CEO Killoy responded, “We do not sell ammunition.”

At another point in the hearing, Committee chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) claimed gun manufacturers “sell the weapons of choice to mass murderers.”

But Breitbart News pointed out that gun manufacturers do not sell guns to individuals,  They sell guns to wholesalers and distributors, who, in turn, sell them to federally licensed dealers, who, in turn, sell them to citizens who pass a federal background check.

Mass murderers are not limited in their choice of weapons. Timothy McVeigh used fertilizer. Are we going to ban the purchase of fertilizer?

The article includes a statement by the CEO of Smith & Wesson, Mark Smith:

Smith & Wesson declined the invite to testify before the committee.

However, company CEO Smith released a statement Monday that “politicians and their lobbying partners in the media” have criticized Smith & Wesson for years.

Smith then alluded to Democrats’ anti-police policies, saying, “Some have had the audacity to suggest that after they have vilified, undermined and defunded law enforcement for years, supported prosecutors who refuse to hold criminals accountable for their actions, overseen the decay of our country’s mental health infrastructure, and generally promoted a culture of lawlessness, Smith & Wesson and other firearm manufacturers are somehow responsible for the crime wave that has predictably resulted from these destructive policies.”

The article concludes:

Smith then pointed out that guns do not commit crimes, rather, people do: “To be clear, a Smith & Wesson firearm has never broken into a home, a Smith & Wesson firearm has never assaulted a woman out for a late-night run in the city, a Smith & Wesson firearm has never carjacked an unsuspecting driver stopped at a traffic light.”

The problem isn’t the guns.

Punished For Doing Your Job Well

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On Saturday, The Daily Wire reported that the attorneys who argued the concealed carry case before the Supreme Court were forced to retire from their law firm.

The article reports:

The lawyers who won a major Second Amendment case before the U.S. Supreme Court this week got even less than a pat on the back from the white-shoe law firm they work for – they were forced to quit.

Paul Clement and Erin Murphy, the lawyers who successfully argued against New York’s law restricting conceal-carry gun permits, were told by Kirkland & Ellis they had to stop representing Second Amendment plaintiffs or find another firm. In a Wall Street Journal article, the duo explained how their celebration was cut short.

“Having just secured a landmark decision vindicating our clients’ constitutional Second Amendment rights in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, we were presented with a stark choice—withdraw from representing them or withdraw from the firm,” they wrote. “There was only one choice: We couldn’t abandon our clients simply because their positions are unpopular in some circles.”

The article concludes:

The decision has implications for at least eight other so-called “may issue” states, where bureaucrats have the final say in whether a citizen merits a permit. In New York, the law was used to render concealed carry handgun permits nearly impossible to obtain.

Clement, who served as the U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush, and Murphy, also an experienced appellate attorney, were partners in the firm. But they wrote that they were resigned to leaving after being told they can’t take on Second Amendment cases.

“This isn’t the first time we have left a firm to stick by a client,” they wrote. “What makes this circumstance different is that the firm approved our representation of these clients years ago, and dropping them would cost the clients years of institutional memory. More remarkable still, in one of the cases we were asked to drop, we prevailed in the Supreme Court on Thursday.”

We are in danger of losing our Republic.

The Beat Goes On…

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Anyone who has been paying attention for the last few years knows that there are some politicians who would love to take the guns away from law-abiding American citizens. I won’t speculate on their specific motives, but I am cynical enough to believe not all of them actually believe that separating Americans from their guns will make anyone safer.

On Friday, Just the News posted an article about a new law proposed in California that would make owning a gun an expensive proposition in California.

The article reports:

A California state senator introduced legislation that would require gun owners to obtain liability insurance for the “negligent or accidental use” of their firearms, according to a press release from her office.

State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, introduced SB 505 in hopes that California would become the first state in the country with this kind of law in place.

“Guns kill more people than cars. Yet gun owners are not required to carry liability insurance like car owners must,” Sen. Skinner said in a press release Thursday. “Why should taxpayers, survivors, families, employers, and communities bear the $280 billion annual cost of gun violence? It’s time for gun owners to shoulder their fair share.”

Skinner’s office describes the gun insurance required by SB 505 as “similar to car insurance.” Her office says that under the bill, gun owners would:

Be held civilly liable for property damage, injury, or death resulting from the use of their firearms Have to obtain liability insurance that covers losses or damages resulting from negligent or accidental use of their firearm, including property, damage, injury or death Have to obtain proof of gun insurance, keep that proof with their firearm, and produce it when asked by a peace officer during the course of a lawful detainment.

In other words, let’s make gun ownership so expensive and so inconvenient that no one will own a gun (except for criminals who don’t follow laws). That makes absolutely no sense and would probably increase the crime rate astronomically (see Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City for examples of cities with strict gun control laws).

Now is the time to fight to keep our Second Amendment strong. Those who would separate law-abiding citizens from their guns do not have our best interests at heart.

This Sounds Good, But It Is A Mistake

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If a camel’s nose gets under the tent, the rest of the camel will soon follow. That is actually a good warning. It’s a shame our Republican legislators in Washington have either not heard it or choose to ignore it. They are also choosing to ignore the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which states that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’

On Sunday, NewsMax reported the following:

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, including enough Republicans to overcome the chamber’s “filibuster” rule, on Sunday announced an agreement on a framework for potential gun safety legislation.

The bill included support for state “red flag” laws, tougher background checks for firearms buyers under 21 and a crackdown on a practice called “straw purchases” but not other limits Democrats and President Joe Biden had advocated such as raising the age for buying semiautomatic rifles to 21 or new limits on assault-style rifles.

Ten Republicans signaled their support for the preliminary deal, indicating the measure potentially could advance to a vote on passage and overcome roadblocks by other Republicans who oppose most gun control measures.

The talks that led to the framework followed a series of high-profile mass shootings in the United States, including one at a school in Uvalde, Texas, last month that killed 19 young children and one also in May in a Buffalo, New York, supermarket that killed 10 Black victims.

What the Senators do not seem to realize is that people who are intent on breaking the law (murder is, after all, against the law), do not follow gun laws. All that will happen as a result of this bill (assuming it will be passed) is that it will be more difficult for law-abiding citizens to get guns. That is the scenario the Second Amendment was passed to prevent. Red flag laws are unconstitutional because they do not allow for due process. They are also very easily abused. This is a bad bill.

The article continues:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, issued a statement calling the plan “a good first step” and one that would “limit the ability of potential mass shooters to quickly obtain assault rifles by establishing an enhanced background check process for gun purchasers under age 21.”

Schumer said that he wanted to move a bill quickly to a Senate vote once legislative details are worked out.

The United States has the highest rate of firearms deaths among the world’s wealthy nations. But it is a country where many cherish gun rights and its Constitution’s Second Amendment protects the right to “keep and bear arms.”

According to a Politifact post of March 20, 2018:

The main study of intentional homicides is performed by the United Nations’ Office of Drug Control. The UN warns against cross-national comparisons because of the differences in legal definitions of intentional homicides and recording practices.

Our count of the UN’s data placed the United States ninth in intentional homicides. We used the most up-to-date count for each country and territory, which included data anywhere from 2007 to 2015.

As the country with the third-highest population size, however, experts told us the number of people killed is not a very useful metric.

Controlling for population size, most criminologists use the per 100,000 metric. By that standard, we found the United States ranked 94th.

When we counted only the countries for which the UN had 2015 data, the United States ranked 73rd. That’s still far from the top ten.

Lied to again.

 

Revealing The Slippery Slope

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One of the actual good points of having Joe Biden as President is that he accidentally tells the truth when he wanders off of the teleprompter. He recently did that in regard to what he would like to do about gun laws. Townhall posted an article on Monday with a very telling statement by President Biden.

The article reports:

President Biden raised eyebrows on Monday when he spoke about what he considers sensible restrictions on “high-caliber weapons” in the wake of the horrific mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last week.  

The president recalled visiting a trauma hospital in New York, where he explained doctors showed him X-rays of gunshot wounds that were caused by different firearms. 

“They said a .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out — may be able to get it and save the life,” Biden told reporters outside of the White House. “A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.”

He went on to claim “there’s simply no rational basis for [high-caliber weapons] in terms of thinking about self-protection, hunting.”

Well, actually, that’s not true. If you need to protect yourself from someone who is going to harm you, you want a bullet that will actually stop them. If someone is stupid enough to attack you, they deserve whatever bullet will stop them. Particularly as a woman, I want a high enough caliber to stop a person before they can get to me.

The article notes:

So while most Democrats have targeted what they call “assault weapons” in the wake of the mass shooting, Biden appears to be setting his sights on handguns, too, which isn’t the first time he’s singled out one of the most popular firearms in America.

The article concludes:

He also repeated a false claim about the Second Amendment and cannons.

“The Constitution, the Second Amendment was never absolute. You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed,” Biden said. “I think things have gotten so bad that everybody is getting more rational about it.”

The Washington Post has previously given him four Pinocchios for this claim, noting that no federal law existed about which types of weapons private citizens could own.

“Some readers might think this is a relatively inconsequential flub. But we disagree,” The Washington Post wrote last year. “Every U.S. president has a responsibility to get American history correct, especially when he’s using a supposed history lesson in service of a political objective. The president’s push for more gun restrictions is an important part of his political platform, so he undercuts his cause when he cites faux facts.

“Moreover, Biden has already been fact-checked on this claim — and it’s been deemed false,” fact checker Glenn Kessler continued. “We have no idea where he conjured up this notion about a ban on cannon ownership in the early days of the Republic, but he needs to stop making this claim.

Evidently facts don’t matter to Democrats when they are attempting to take gun rights away from Americans. No Republican who votes for any more gun laws should be re-elected in November. Let’s just enforce the laws we have.

Stopping The End Run Around The Second Amendment

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It is no secret that there are number of blue states that do not support the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Many of those states have at various times passed laws to try to limit the Second Amendment rights of Americans or to find a way to take guns away from law-abiding Americans. In March 2021, I posted an article about one such incident. An article posted in May 2021 was about the Supreme Court decision regarding the incident.

On Thursday, Breitbart reported the following:

The Ninth Circuit federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the coronavirus lockdowns of gun stores in Ventura County, California, violated constitutional rights.

The case, McDougall v. County of Ventura, was appealed to the Ninth Circuit after the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California rejected a claim that Ventura County’s coronavirus orders closing gun stores, ammo shops, and gun ranges violated Second Amendment rights.

The article concludes:

Vandyke and Kleinfeld also noted, “Not only did Appellees fail to provide any evidence or explanation suggesting that gun shops, ammunition shops, and firing ranges posed a greater risk of spreading COVID19 than other businesses and activities deemed ‘essential,’ but they also failed to provide any evidence that they considered less restrictive alternatives for the general public.”

Judge Ryan Nelson was the panel’s dissenting voice.

The case is McDougall v. County of Ventura, No. 20-56220 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

It should be noted that The Los Angeles Times reported the following in February 2020:

Trump has now named 10 judges to the 9th Circuit — more than one-third of its active judges — compared with seven appointed by President Obama over eight years.

“Trump has effectively flipped the circuit,” said 9th Circuit Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., an appointee of President George W. Bush.

…Trump’s rapid transformation of the circuit courts — three others went from a majority of active judges appointed by Democrats to Republican majorities — was accomplished with the support of Senate Republicans.

Nominations of appellate judges may no longer be blocked by filibuster, and Republican Senate leaders have declined under Trump to follow the practice of allowing an appointee’s home-state senators to veto the president’s choice.

“Trump has set all records for the number of appellate appointees,” said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias.

The most important legacy of President Trump may be judges in the circuit courts who will protect the rights of Americans that are enshrined in our Constitution.

This Would Be Funny If It Were Not So Serious

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One of the problems with the political left’s claim that January 6th was an insurrection is that none of the ‘insurrectionists’ had weapons. The only person shot was an unarmed civilian by a policeman, and there are a lot of questions surrounding the incident. I somehow think real insurrectionists might have been armed. I also wonder why they are called insurrectionists when there is public video showing the police waving them into the building. But a narrative is a narrative I guess. At any rate, the political left is not done with January 6th. Their next step is somewhat unbelievable.

Yesterday BizPacReview posted the following:

The FBI has previously stated that no firearms were found in connection to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, but despite that contention, the media is now breathlessly reporting that authorities have found guns in the homes of protesters.

“Numerous people arrested in connection with January 6 have also had weapons in their homes, including this latest case just today — 3 pistols and an AR-15,” Mother Jones explosively tweeted in reference to an NBC report.

“Some January 6 defendants, including additional Oath Keeper members charged with conspiracy, have lied to investigators and went to significant lengths to destroy evidence of their communications related to the insurrection, according to court documents. Others have kept weapons in their homes in violation of pretrial orders. And some defendants have threatened future attacks,” they reported.

The defendants have not been found guilty of anything yet. They still have Second Amendment rights. I seriously doubt the part about future attacks since there was never an attack to begin with.

The article continues:

NBC New York is reporting that a man named Antonio Vuksanaj was arrested Thursday in connection with the Jan. 6 protest on federal trespassing-related charges. An AR-15 as well as three other guns were allegedly found in his home. The media outlet notes that it is unclear if these were his and if they were possessed legally. It should have been fairly simple for a major media outlet to find out if that was or wasn’t the case but it apparently doesn’t make for as good a headline.

Vuksanaj was turned in by a tipster and has pleaded not guilty. He’s facing trespassing and disorderly conduct-related charges which don’t appear to have any connection to possessing firearms. Nevertheless, outlets such as Mother Jones are seizing on the fact that he had guns at home which may or may not have been perfectly legal.

The article also notes:

Sanborn (Jill Sanborn, an FBI official) contended at the time that nobody from the riot was facing weapons charges, though a firearm was recovered from a van containing Molotov cocktails found near the Capitol. It is not publicly known whose van that was and if those involved were actual protesters taking part in the riot.

Please follow the link above to the article. The tweets in response to the Mother Jones article are hilarious. Mother Jones needs to go back to her days of Acapulco Gold and give up on the magazine.

Mislabeled

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On May 3rd, The Bulletin (an Oregon newspaper) reported the following:

A Bend Police Department officer will be investigated for allegedly violating policy by wearing a keychain connected to a far-right group while in uniform on Saturday.

Bend Chief Mike Krantz did not identify the employee, though Cpl. Josh Spano is the officer seen in a photograph circulating on Reddit and Facebook. Attached to the front of Spano’s service vest is an item reading “molon labe” in Greek lettering, a phrase associated with the far-right Three Percenters militia.

The “molon labe” item and its letters appear to be larger than Spano’s name tag on his vest.

First of all, “molon labe” translates as “come and take [them].” The expression is used in reference to the government attempting to take guns away from citizens who have a lawful right to own them. Secondly, the Three Percenters is neither far-right or a militia group.

According to a 2018 article in USA Today:

It’s a diffuse, bottom-up militia, according to a Politico profile, with the group itself claiming inspiration from the “rough estimate” that only 3% of American colonists took up arms against the British forces. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, calls Three Percenters an “anti-government” group with chapters claimed nationwide. 

A statement explaining the movement claims it’s “not a militia” and “not anti-government,” but exists to “to reign in an overreaching government and push back against tyranny.”

Again, there is no militia made up of Three Percenters. I would not consider Politco an objective source.  I am afraid we have reached the point where supporting the Second Amendment makes you far-right.

The officer was wearing a keychain attached to his service vest with the slogan on it. I suppose that might be enough to investigate him, but this seems like more of the cancel culture to me.

What Second Amendment?

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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.

Conclusions Not Based On Facts

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Bearing Arms posted an article today about the game the media plays comparing apples and oranges in order to infringe on our Second Amendment rights. The latest example the media is sighting is Iceland.

This is a recent quote from NBC News:

Like many of his countrymen, Olaf Garðar Garðarsson is eager to get his hands on a rifle.

But he can’t just walk into a store and buy one. Instead, he is sitting through a mandatory four-hour lecture on the history and physics of the firearm.

This is Iceland — the gun-loving nation that hasn’t experienced a gun-related murder since 2007.

“For us, it would be really strange if you could get a license to buy a gun and you had no idea how to handle it,” says Garðarsson, 28, a mechanical engineer. “I would find it very odd if [a gun owner] had never even learned which is the pointy end and which is the trigger end.”

Iceland is a sparsely populated island in the northern Atlantic. Its tiny population of some 330,000 live on a landmass around the size of Kentucky.

St. Louis, Missouri, which has a population slightly smaller than Iceland’s, had 193 homicides linked to firearms last year.

Icelanders believe the rigorous gun laws on this small, remote volcanic rock can offer lessons to the United States.

I have no problem with gun safety classes. I took one when I moved to North Carolina because I realized very quickly that the culture in North Carolina regarding guns was very different from that of Massachusetts. But I took that course by choice. No one forced me to do it. I think those courses are a good idea. I think forcing people to take them is a bad idea. Our gun crimes haven’t come from citizens who would be willing to take those courses. Even if we banned guns totally, criminals would still find a way to get them. Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, but it also has a very high rate of murder by gun. The only reason a politician wants to take guns away from citizens or infringe on citizens’ rights to have guns is to increase the power of the government and decrease the power of citizens to prevent government overreach.

The article further reminds us:

Iceland and the United States are very different when it comes to key issues, namely those of culture. Iceland is culturally homogenous, with 94 percent of its population coming from Norse or Celtic roots and only six percent coming from some other group. Because of this, the Icelandic culture is easily dominant, making those who come from other cultures step up and adhere to the social rules of their new nation as much as the civil and criminal rules. The fact that the culture has been there, more or less, for over a thousand years solidifies that in a lot of minds. While that culture has changed over the years, it’s still there, and it drives society.

Meanwhile, the United States is culturally diverse.

What works for Iceland won’t work for America. Our culture is very different. Iceland is essentially a socialist country. As you drive through the countryside, all of the houses look alike–there are no houses that stand out with creative designs. It is a much more homogenous society than America. Our freedom and diversity are part of what makes us great. When the media says that Icelandic gun laws would work in America, they are doing both countries a disservice.

 

“We Don’t Want To Take Your Guns,” She Said

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There are millions of legal gun owners in America who have committed no crimes. They have guns because they hunt or because they feel the need to be personally responsible for their own safety. The vast majority of them have broken no laws and have no intention of breaking any laws. Unfortunately there is also a black market in America for guns where people who cannot pass background checks can obtain guns. If gun laws are made more strict, the legal gun owners will feel the impact–the illegal gun owners will feel no impact. In essence, restricting gun ownership only increases the number of unarmed potential victims. Somehow some members of Congress have forgotten the Second Amendment and ignored the consequences of taking guns away from law-abiding citizens.

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about one Congresswomen who has forgotten her oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution.

The article reports:

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) used an April 2 Fox News Live appearance to announce that she is preparing to introduce legislation to create a federal law allowing firearm confiscation orders.

Such laws, generally referred to as Extreme Risk Protection Orders, are already in place in California, Indiana, Oregon, and other states, and Dingell believes the ability to seize firearms is crucial for pubic safety.

…Dingell stressed that seizure of firearms must occur in a way that protects due process, but she did not explain how such protection is possible. In California an order to take guns can be issued without the gun owner even knowing. And in Indiana, the state on which Dingell is basing her federal legislation, individuals who have their guns seized have approximately 14 days to go to court to “make a case” to get them back.

The Salt Lake Tribune summed up the Indiana law, “In Indiana, law enforcement can confiscate weapons without a judge’s order. The gun owner must ask the court to get the weapons returned.”

Extreme Risk Protection Orders have proved a popular gun control response to the February 14 Parkland school shooting. However, it is difficult to believe such orders would have prevented that attack. On February 23, 2018, Breitbart News reported, “The family with which [Cruz] was staying repeatedly called the police on him in November 2017 but refused to file charges when sheriff’s deputies arrived. A member of the family with which Cruz was staying explained away Cruz’s erratic behavior by saying he ‘had been suffering significantly from the loss of his mother’ earlier in the month.”

In other words, Nikolas Cruz received sympathy from the family with which he lived and at least one member of that family, in turn, inclined police toward non-action as well.

Nikolas Cruz had a troubled history at school. Had this history been property reported, he would have failed a background check and been unable to buy a gun. We don’t need more gun laws–we need to better enforce the ones we have. Also–there is nothing to say that Nikolas Cruz would not have been able to obtain a gun illegally if he had been prevented from buying one legally. It should also be noted that the law that made schools gun-free zones was passed in 1990, making schools a soft target for a shooter. That is the law that needs to be re-examined–not the gun laws that were not correctly followed.

Why American Need To Keep Their Guns

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As I write this, there are a number of bills going through Congress banning various rifles, magazines, etc. Most of the weapons being banned are being banned out of ignorance–they are scary looking or are distantly related to military rifles–they are not military rifles and do not have the multiple firing capability of military rifles, but they look like them. A lot of Americans are not familiar with the various types of guns, and these laws make sense to them. These laws do not make sense in relationship to the Second Amendment and what it was about. These laws also have no relationship with the horrific event in Florida–none of these laws would have made an ounce of difference. One of the things Congress wants to ban is high-capacity magazines. According to The Daily Wire (on Friday), the Florida shooter only used 10-round magazines because the larger magazines would not fit in his duffel bag. The Daily Wire also noted that jamming is a major problem with the AR-15 platform if the weapon is not properly cleaned.

Does anyone really think that if the AR-15 had been banned that the shooter would not have used another type of gun? Also, why are we focusing on the gun when it is very obvious that had the shooter’s previous problems with the law been reported, a thorough background check would have prevented from buying a gun? I don’t know whether or not that would have stopped him–criminals seem to be able to get their hands on guns, and other weapons have been used in attacks on students. Taking guns away from innocent people solves nothing. Making sure mentally ill people who have shown that they are dangerous don’t get guns would be a much better approach.

So why do we need the Second Amendment?

On March 1st, The Blaze posted a statement from Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice explained to the ladies on The View:

“Let me tell you why I’m a defender of the Second Amendment,” she began.

“I was a little girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the late fifties, early sixties,” she explained. “There was no way that Bull Connor and the Birmingham Police were going to protect you.”

“And so when White Knight Riders would come through our neighborhood,” she said, “my father and his friends would take their guns and they’d go to the head of the neighborhood, it’s a little cul-de-sac and they would fire in the air, if anybody came through.”

“I don’t think they actually ever hit anybody,” she continued. “But they protected the neighborhood. And I’m sure if Bull Connor had known where those guns were he would have rounded them up.”

“And so, I don’t favor some things like gun registration,” she said to a suddenly silent crowd.

“That said, it’s time to have a national conversation about how we can deal with the problems we have. It’s not going to be any single fix to the terrible events at Parkland,” she concluded.

The Second Amendment is there to protect Americans from a government that may not protect them. It is there to give Americans the ultimate responsibility for their own safety and the safety of their families.

The following is a quote regarding World War II:

I would never invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass. — Admiral Yamamoto

There is no proof that this quote is real, but you get the idea–a country with armed, trained citizens is in a much better position to protect itself from both internal and external threats. Those who are trying to ban scary-looking guns are a threat to America’s freedom and are attempting to do something unconstitutional. What happened in Florida was tragic, but disarming law-abiding citizens will not solve anything.

One Benefit Of An Armed Citizenry

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Fox News is reporting today that two dangerous inmates who escaped from a prison in Georgia have been apprehended.

The article reports:

Tennessee Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Bill Miller said late Thursday that the homeowner caught Donnie Rowe and Ricky Dubose trying to steal his vehicle.

Miller says the escaped Georgia inmates had crashed a car while being chased by law enforcement and fled on foot into woods along Interstate 24 near the rural community of Christiana.

Miller says something alerted the homeowner that people were outside his home and he saw the men trying to steal his vehicle. The trooper says the homeowner held the two at gunpoint with a neighbor he called until the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department could get there to arrest them.

An armed citizen, using his gun responsibly, held the men until the police could get there. Actually, the Second Amendment was designed to protect the American citizens from a tyrannical government that might arise in the future, but this case illustrates that there are some other advantages to having an armed citizenry.

There Are Still People Trying To Undo The Second Amendment

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Yesterday I posted an article about the State of Connecticut‘s attempt to make gun ownership very expensive. Well, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has come up with its own idea of how to make using your gun very expensive.

The Daily Caller reported yesterday:

A gun bill in Massachusetts is looking to expand gun restrictions in the state through additional taxes on lawful gun owners.

The legislation, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Cynthia Creem, is one of many she said she has filed every state senate session in order to “to make it harder and harder” to obtain a gun, she told Wicked Local Newsbank.

Not only would the bill impose a 4.75 percent surcharge “on sales at retail of all ammunition, rifles, shotguns, firearms or parts thereof” on top of the licensing fees, the state’s 6.25 percent sales tax and the 11 percent federal excise tax; it would also require virtually all firearm sales to take place through a licensed dealer, with an additional charge for private gun sales, require gun owners to use fingerprint scanners to deactivate the weapon when the technology becomes available and bans .50 caliber weapons outright with a hefty fine and possible jail time if someone is found in violation of the law.

The money raised by this scheme would go into the Firearms Violence Prevention Trust Fund, which the bill establishes. Wow! Penalize gun owners to create more bureaucracy!

The article further reports:

Gun activists in the state are outraged by the sweeping legislation, especially since research shows that crime rates either are not affected or increase over time with more gun restrictions, according to the Crime Research Prevention Center.

“What’s the problem we’re trying to solve?” Jim Wallace, executive director of the Massachusetts Gun Owners Action League, told Wicked Local Newsbank. “Is it political, perceived or real? It seems it’s always been political.”

Frustration with the legislation also includes the belief that lawful gun owners seem to be punished for the transgressions of criminals, people who would find an illegal way to obtain a gun no matter what the law says.

Okay. Let’s look at this a minute. When law-abiding citizens cannot afford guns because the State Legislature has made it very expensive to buy or own one, do you think criminals will still have guns? This is Massachusetts’ attempt at an end run around the Second Amendment. The way our government was set up, the states have the right to disregard a law that is made that does not comply with the U.S. Constitution, but what do you do when the state itself is attempting to undermine a freedom guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution?

Why The Second Amendment Matters

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WISTV  (Columbia, South Carolina) posted a story on Sunday about a shooting in a nightclub. Four people were wounded by the gunman, but there is more to the story.

The article reports:

Deputies said 32-year-old Jody Ray Thompson pulled out a gun after getting  into an argument with another man and fired several rounds toward a crowd that had gathered out in front of the club.

“His rounds struck 3 victims, and almost struck a fourth victim, who in self-defense, pulled his own weapon and fired, striking Thompson in the leg,” Lt. Kevin Bobo said.

Bobo said the man who shot Thompson has a valid concealed weapons permit, cooperated with investigators, and won’t be facing any charges. 

The man who shot Thompson was exercising his Second Amendment rights and probably save the lives of many people. When everyone is armed, crime (and carnage) goes down.

 

Hypocrisy At Its Worst

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In 2013, USA Today posted the results of a survey taken of members of Congress that owned guns. Oddly enough, many of those Democrats (26 or so) were involved in the sit-in protesting the fact that Congress was not willing to pass any laws impacting current gun laws. As I have previously mentioned, the Democrats filibustered two of the gun laws that were introduced, staged the sit-in, and used the sit-in as an opportunity to raise money. A website called Heatstreet has the full story.

We need to be very careful about passing any legislation that limits the Second Amendment rights of Americans. At a time when our borders are not secure and there are many people entering the country with ill intentions, Americans need to be trained in how and when to use firearms to protect themselves.

The Obama Administration’s War On Guns

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The Daily Signal posted an article today about the efforts of Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah to unravel the government’s Operation Choke Point.

The article reports:

“Under President Obama’s reign, the DOJ has abandoned its longstanding tradition of staying out of politics and has instead become a partisan arm of the White House,” Cruz said. “The Obama administration initiated Operation Choke Point to punish law-abiding small businesses that don’t align with the president’s political leanings. The DOJ should not be abusing its power by trying to bankrupt American citizens for exercising their constitutional rights.”

The bill, called the Financial Institution Customer Protection Act, bans federal agencies that oversee banks from requesting or ordering banks to terminate customer accounts “unless the regulator has material reason.”

The measure also requires banking regulators to put in writing any “formal or informal” requests for account termination, and requires those regulators to file an annual report to Congress regarding those requests. To scale back Operation Choke Point or any similar initiatives, the bill also amends the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989.

I have written articles about the impact of Operation Choke Point before. You can use the search engine at the top of the page to find them. Operation Choke Point is an obvious example of government overreach. Gun ownership is a right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and the government has no right to interfere with that right. Operation Choke Point is one of several back door methods the Obama Administration used to attempt to take guns away from lawful gun owners. Had they come up with a plan to take guns away from unlawful gun owners, I might have been willing to listen.

The article further reports:

An identical version of the bill passed the House of Representatives 250-169 in February with bipartisan support.

According to government documents, Operation Choke Point was designed by the Justice Department in 2012 to “attack Internet, telemarketing, mail, and other mass market fraud against consumers, by choking fraudsters’ access to the banking system.”

The Justice Department carried out the program by using its investigative powers and partnering with federal regulating agencies such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that provide formal guidance to banks.

Since the program’s inception, many gun sellers, pawn shops, and short-term lenders reported their bank accounts being shut down.

…If the bill passes the Senate, it will then head to Obama’s desk for approval.

Hopefully one of the first things the next President will do (regardless of who is elected) will be to cut back on some of the abuses of power that have gone on during the Obama Administration.

Reciprocity Gun Rights Restored In Virginia

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The Times News in Kingsport, Tennessee, reported today that Virginia will again recognize concealed carry permits from other states, including Tennessee and Kentucky. This action reverses a decision by the Virginia Attorney General which nullified reciprocity agreements with twenty-five states.

The article reports:

On Tuesday the issue brought 9th District Congressman Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, and Tennessee Rep. Phil Roe together in Bristol in a border declaration of defiance to slam Herring’s decision and advocate Virginia live up to its agreements.

When the two House colleagues learned of the agreement, they issued a joint statement praising resolution of the matter.

“Like many of our constituents, we were frustrated by Attorney General Herring‘s confusing and unworkable decision to no longer recognize out of state concealed carry permits. Put simply, we believe your Second Amendment right does not stop at a state line,” Griffith and Roe said.

The statement referred to the pair’s visit to Bristol last week to discuss the effects Herring decision would have “on our constituents who regularly cross state lines — some who do so by simply walking across the street — as well as local law enforcement tasked with carrying out the policy.”

There is little doubt that the decision to nullify reciprocity agreements would have resulted in a lawsuit fairly quickly. As Congressman Griffith stated, “… your Second Amendment right does not stop at a state line.” This was an example of a state Attorney General trying to put in place a law that was clearly unconstitutional.

 

Making It Difficult To Exercise Your Rights As A Citizen

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The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution 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.

Our Founding Fathers understood that at some point the American people might need to be armed to protect them from a government determined to take away their freedom. Unfortunately, some of our cities are moving to take away the freedom of their residents.

The Lowell Sun in Massachusetts posted an article last Tuesday about some changes that are being made in the city of Lowell regarding gun possession.

The article reports:

A new firearms policy will go into place despite a final plea from gun-rights advocates Tuesday for looser restrictions.

The policy requires anyone seeking a license-to-carry to take a gun-safety course. Anyone applying for an unrestricted gun license must state in writing why they should receive such a license, and to provide additional documentation, such as prior military or law-enforcement service, a prior license-to-carry permit, or signed letters of recommendation.

…Taylor (Police Superintendent William Taylor) did agree to work with one resident, a trained firearms-safety instructor, to help shape a training course applicants will be required to take. The trainer, Randy Breton, strongly criticized Taylor moments earlier for what he said was intentionally expensive training to dissuade anyone from applying for a gun permit.

“It’s beyond ridiculous,” Breton said of courses he looked into. One costs $1,100 over five days, and another doesn’t offer any sessions through the rest of the year in Massachusetts.

Does the Police Superintendent really believe that having to write an essay will prevent criminals in Lowell from getting their hands on guns? I can’t believe this will have any positive effect on the crime rate in Lowell. All that the Police Superintendent will succeed in doing is disarming the citizens so that they cannot defend themselves against criminals with illegal weapons. I also believe that this policy is unconstitutional, so we should look for a lawsuit to be filed quickly.

Can The Second Amendment Be Overturned By Executive Action?

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ABC News is reporting today on President Obama’s plan to use an executive order to begin to limit gun rights among Americans.

The article reports:

President Obama plans to announce executive actions he will take on gun control on Tuesday, a source told ABC News.

Obama had announced during his weekly address Friday that he planned to discuss gun control options with Attorney General Loretta Lynch after he returned from his Hawaiian vacation, which ended today.

“A few months ago, I directed my team at the White House to look into any new actions I can take to help reduce gun violence,” he said in the address. “And on Monday, I’ll meet with our Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, to discuss our options.”

The White House had previously announced the Justice Department was examining unilateral action the president could take on gun control, and would be making recommendation.

Gun sales during the Obama Administration have skyrocketed. Gun sales in America have increased since the San Bernardino shootings.

The thing we need to remember here is that a lack of guns by law-abiding Americans does not make us safer. The move for better background checks is the beginning of the effort to register guns. Historically that has been the move that preceded gun confiscation. Note also that most of the shootings involving multiple victims have occurred in ‘gun free’ zones. The shooters knew that the people they attacked would not be armed and they would not meet immediate resistance.

Keep in mind as you hear this debate that there is a Second Amendment that upholds the right of private citizens to own guns. Law-abiding citizens owning guns makes us safer–it does not put us in danger. Hopefully Congress will stand up for the U.S. Constitution in this debate.

This Is Ridiculoous

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I realize that there is a small group of people in America who oppose the Second Amendment. Some of them understand it, but don’t understand the reasoning behind it, and some simply have no idea why it is there. Occasionally it is somewhat amusing to watch the gyrations of the people who oppose guns.Today Hot Air posted a really good example of people going over the edge on the subject.

The article reports:

Three dozen online retailers will no longer be able to sell realistic-looking toy guns, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Tuesday.

Schneiderman reached a settlement with 30 online toy gun retailers who sell their products through Amazon.com. The third-party retailers have sold over 5,000 imitation toy guns in New York, and they are illegal because they did not meet state safety standards, he said.

“When toy guns are mistaken for real guns, there can be tragic consequences,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “New York state law prohibits the sale of imitation weapons that closely resemble real guns.”

…We may not be able to put the actual criminals in jail at a reasonable rate, but by golly we’re going to stick it to those toy retailers. The 30 or so retailers are paying fines which total more than $27K. (That’s on top of his move back in August when he nailed Amazon, Kmart, Sears, Wal-Mart and ACTA for $300K, so if nothing else the state coffers are getting fatter.) If these scofflaws want to peddle their dangerous wares in the Empire State in the future they will have to be colored “white or bright red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink or purple.”

I realize that occasionally mistakes are made, but I refuse to believe that toy guns are a major part of any gun problem. However, you notice that this new law will provide money for the state. The law serves two purposes–it pleases a certain political group and it provides money for the state. Unfortunately, it does nothing to deal with criminals with guns.

Please Listen To The Entire Statement From Senator Feinstein

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Please listen to the entire statement from Senator Feinstein.  As Senator Cornyn points out, PTSD sufferers are already prohibited from owning weapons by law. It is horribly unfair to accuse all veterans of having PTSD.

The transcript of the video is at C-SPAN:

Our military is well trained and can be trusted with guns. It bothers me that there are people in our government who seem to be trying to undermine the rights of veterans to buy and possess firearms.

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