#NATIONAL REVIEW ON GUN CONTROL/CONFISCATION

[jose96853]

HOLY$H!T!!!! LIBERAL GUN OWNERSHIP IS GOING UP!!!!

Well there is a story I found on FOX News who found it from The Wall Street Journal that says that pretty much liberals the (Democrats)are outpacing the Conservatives (Republicans) for 2022. They also go on to basically say that is probably why Kamala Harris is backtracking her stance from where she said in 2019 she would have mandatory gun buybacks (even though the didn’t buy them—she was…

[anthonybialy]

Self-Own the Libs

Liberals hate coping with liberalism, which you’d think might convince them something’s wrong.  But blaming everyone else is too thoroughly ingrained.  Those who pushed continual catastrophes on us seem even less pleased than pleasant people, which offers small comfort while dealing with what they think.

Culprits should be the least surprised.  Lamentably, destructors still don’t realize just who leveled everything.  Perpetrating victims really thought their ideals would spur joyous prosperity, and the fact they must suffer along with the rest of us offers little comfort.

There are ample chances to wallow in suffering during these days of voters forgetting that everything promised by Democrats is destined to turn out precisely backward.  Trying the ideas on the Cold War’s losing side is unhelpful as long as there’s no consistency.  You might think test tube fetishists who claim to embody science would oppose fighting conclusions, but getting things wrong is how they’re consistent.  Run the experiments once more to ensure they’re peer-reviewed.

Migrants are great until they migrate.  At the least, they should stop in icky conservative states on the nation’s edge.  Democrats can’t stop bragging about how much they adore making America a communal workers’ paradise minus the work.  Abolishing private property in every sense starts with erasing the border.  This is truly the land of incentives, as seen inadvertently and perversely when the Party of Kamala encourage anyone who wants to stroll on it.  Meanwhile, citizens are hassled for defending themselves or transferring a couple hundred bucks through online payment.

Your bosses thought we were all in this together, which means they inflict the same woe on everyone.  You might expect the biggest flaunters might be glad to have the guests the invited in camping on their doorsteps.  It’s not just Texas getting to add to their diversity mosaic.  All these new neighbors create a net positive, right?  The fact we don’t know permanent visitors’ backgrounds just creates opportunities to ask questions during conversations.  A country they loathe must accept anyone who wants to enter.  It’s just they have to live over there.

Sophisticated policy specialists tried treating guns as the villains.  The devices respond indifferently.  Humans holding them have no choice, according to those with an ulterior motive in diverting attention from decisions.  Struggling criminals are turned into felonious monsters by diabolical shooties.  It’s ironically their own spreading of poverty that leads to the crime they excuse, which is the worst of many ways they obliviously prove their point.

Allegedly enchanted implements only become dangerous when the virtuous aren’t allowed to have them.  Liberals demand gun control that they already have, which is not merely a sign of ingratitude.  If you think them not grasping that they successfully implemented their desired policies in numerous locales is bad, wait until you hear about the failure to stop inflation.

The body count associated with blaming guns can’t be countered by the self-righteousness of acting like one more restriction would’ve done it.  Keeping the law-abiding from discouraging attacks goes against the nation’s values and rulebook.  Free people are allowed to defend themselves, and every part of that offends Democrats.  They don’t think of themselves as free, which means nobody else gets to see themselves in those terms, either.

As with every bit of liberalism, they always need more.  There have not been enough rights unilaterally confiscated to stop a virus.  We need even higher taxes to get the economy rolling.  And the next round of gun control will finally be the one that halts criminals who obey every other law.

Moaning that pirates plunder their few remaining possessions is where controlling guns and the economy meet.  Criminals are the only ones treated as victims as presumed innocence gets taken too far.  There’s a procedure whereby those who leave evidence of committing offenses are arrested, allowed to offer a defense, then convicted if they can’t sucker jurors.  But the option gets lightly used in a time where outlaws are people who don’t surrender more to the IRS, insist on cooking with natural gas, and lie about losing elections.

We’re all as rich as each other.  That seems like a cruel trick played by a genie.  A tremendous amount of currency shows that supply and demand are applied consistently.  At least this pathetic economy has discouraged materialism.  There’s no choice.  Aspiring buyers take in more money than can be counted, which only makes trying to muster sufficient funds to buy a second slice of bread to officially finish building a sandwich.

Presuming their incredible notions would cure humanity’s sicknesses has made everyone ill.  The pushy faction got exactly the leaders they wanted spending the entirety of seized fortunes on schemes whose preposterousness mean nobody will fund them voluntarily.  That offered a pretty big clue about the ensuing results.  But betting with their own money has never interested Democrats.

Those with the worst ideas naturally oppose individuality.  Imposing their wretched ideology requires coercion, which is surely a reflection of desirability.  An accumulation of little schemes worked so terrifically in their minds that it almost seems like we shouldn’t have spoiled it by actually trying them.  Can we please stop trying them?

Blaming a robust America for other nations loathing us and toughness on crime for its existence turns out like anyone who’s good at noticing things predicted.  Fans of shock hate the outcomes their policies.  It’s nice to share common ground.  The fact Democrats hate worthless money and their new makeshift neighbors should inspire hope as a sign they’re still capable of accurately experiencing reality.  The connection is trickier, as it involves self-awareness.  Fleeing to Red States then proclaiming everything about them is swell but their politics is a good and bad sign.

[sirvivalism]

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt (the Younger), Speech in the House of Commons, November 18, 1783

Embarrassing is what I'd call watching the USA give up a right that other countries sport without the ramifications our borderline dystopian society causes by stacking trauma and delusion on the shoulders of our youth. Pathetic is what I'd call focusing millions of civillian dollars on ensuring the ability to confiscate not just a citizen's property, but their last line of self defense against starvation, predators, criminals, and the government without any proof beyond hearsay.

For twenty years I've met on the common ground of national tragedy and endured the blind rants of hundreds if not thousands of misinformed, well-intending, terrified gun control advocates. But now, as it happens in my own community, after watching the people these idiots would leave as our only line of defense concoct an absolute nightmare of incompetence in my own backyard... I really couldn't fathom how this was happening if I didn't know better; if I wasn't so sure that both sides of this supposed fight didn't water at the same trough and wish for the same power over their perceived lessers.

If you think a Republican is going to save you, if you think the NRA cares; if you think you'll ever be voting for anything but their collective convoluted brand of slow rolled oppression, look back in all those old documents you treasure written by all those founding fathers you adore and realize you're just... wrong. They are all against you. They all want you helpless. You are cattle.

"On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12 June 1823

"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stephens Smith, son-in-law of John Adams, December 20, 1787

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

"To disarm the people...[i]s the most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adooption of the Federal Constitution, June 14, 1788

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops." - Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

"A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves…and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms… To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." - Richard Henry Lee, Federal Farmer No. 18, January 25, 1788

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun." - Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

"This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty.... The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." - St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1803

"The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like law, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance ofpower is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up. Horrid mischief would ensue were one-half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong. The history of every age and nation establishes these truths, and facts need but little arguments when they prove themselves." - Thomas Paine, "Thoughts on Defensive War" in Pennsylvania Magazine, July 1775

"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Samuel Adams, Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, 1788

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." - Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833

"[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28, January 10, 1788

And let's not forget:

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country." - James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789

[go-redgirl]

Biden’s Missteps on Gun Policies

In outlining steps his administration would take on gun regulations, President Joe Biden misstated the facts on three existing policies:

Biden falsely said that “you can buy whatever you want” at a gun show with “no background check.” Federal firearm dealers at gun shows must run background checks. Private sales between nondealers are exempt from federal law.

He said states with “red flag laws” have seen reductions in suicides. But a review of research on whether the policies caused a reduction in total suicides found the evidence is inconclusive.

The president said gun manufacturers were “exempt” from being sued. They do have protections from civil lawsuits, but there are exceptions.

Biden made his remarks on April 8 from the White House Rose Garden, announcing actions he would take in an effort to reduce gun violence.

Gun Show ‘Loophole’

The president misstated the facts about background checks at gun shows.

Biden, April 8: Most people don’t know, you walk into a store and you buy a gun, you have a background check. But you go to a gun show, you can buy whatever you want and no background check.

That’s wrong. In fact, federal firearm dealers must run a background check on a potential buyer at a gun show using the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or a similar state system.

Biden was referring to intrastate (same-state) private sales between nondealers, which are exempt from background checks under federal law, although such checks are required in some states, as explained in a 2019 report by the Congressional Research Service. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia require background checks for all gun sales, even those between private parties, according to the Giffords Center, a pro-gun-control group.

In addition to the federal and state background check requirements, federal law requires private dealers to obtain a firearms license and conduct background checks if they engage “in the business of dealing firearms,” which is “defined as repeatedly devoting time and attention to purchasing and reselling guns for monetary gain,” the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said in a 2020 press release that announced three men had pleaded guilty to “unlicensed dealing” at gun shows in Texas.

“Hobbyists who sell weapons in one-off private transactions are not required to be licensed or to run background checks,” the ATF said in its release.

It is also worth noting that the CRS, in its 2019 report, said “private firearms sales at gun shows … did not appear to be a significant source of guns” for federal and state prisoners convicted of crimes involving firearms.

CRS said it reached that conclusion based on two surveys:

A 2015 survey that found about 22% of firearms transfers are “conducted privately between unlicensed persons.” 

A 2016 survey that found 56% of prisoners convicted of crimes involving firearms “had either stolen the firearm (6%), found it at the scene of the crime (7%), or obtained it off the street or from the underground market (43%).” The survey found that 25% “had obtained the firearm from a family member or friend, or as a gift” and 7% from a licensed dealer.

Effect of Red Flag Laws on Suicide

Advocating so-called “red flag laws” that seek to temporarily remove firearms from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, Biden said states that have enacted such laws “have seen a reduction in the number of suicides in their states.”

There is some evidence of reduced suicides by firearm in states with red flag laws — also called extreme risk protection orders. But a RAND review of gun studies in 2020 concluded that while a study of the effect of Indiana’s red flag law is “suggestive” that it contributed to a drop in firearm suicides, there is “inconclusive evidence for the effect of extreme risk protection orders on total and firearm suicides.”

In his remarks, Biden called on Congress to pass a federal red flag law and ordered the Justice Department to publish model red flag legislation for states to pass.

As of Jan. 1, 2020, 16 states and the District of Columbia had some form of red flag laws, according to RAND. But there is wide disparity in how those states implement the law. For example, only law enforcement officials in some states can petition for an ERPO, while other states allow family members or medical professionals to do so. In addition, some states permit ex parte ERPOs, meaning that guns can be confiscated before a person has an opportunity to challenge the order in court. There is also wide disparity between states with regard to how long the orders last. All of those factors can influence how effective those laws are, researchers told us.

“These laws allow police or a family member to petition a court in their jurisdiction and say, ‘I want you to temporarily remove from the following people any firearm they may possess because they’re a danger and a crisis. They’re presenting a danger to themselves and to others.’ And the court makes a ruling,” Biden said. “To put this in perspective more than half of all suicides, for example, involve the use of a firearm. But when a gun is not available an attempt at suicide, the death rate drops precipitously. States that have red flag laws have seen a reduction in the number of suicides in their states.”

Research published in 2018 found that Indiana’s red flag law “was associated with a 7.5% reduction in firearm suicides in the ten years following its enactment.” There was a far smaller reduction in firearm suicides (1.6%) in the immediate years after Connecticut passed its own red flag law in 1999, though the reduction increased significantly (to 13.7%) after the state upped its enforcement of the law in the wake of the Virginia Tech mass shooting in 2007.

Aaron J. Kivisto, an associate professor of clinical psychology at the University of Indianapolis and co-author of the study, told us via email, “We have sufficient data from Indiana and Connecticut to make valid inferences, although there are now many states with red flag laws where we need time to measure their effects. In IN and CT, multiple research groups using distinct methodologies have found consistent support showing that red flag laws are associated with reductions in firearm suicide. In Indiana, where firearms are involved in over 60% of all suicides, this decrease in firearm suicide was linked to an overall decrease in suicide. In Connecticut, where firearms are involved in less than 50% of suicides, the decrease in firearm suicides appears to have been generally offset by other means, resulting in no significant changes in overall suicide rates.”

In its review of gun studies and the effect of state ERPO’s on suicide, RAND said the Kivisto study was “suggestive” of a reduction in firearm suicide rates in Indiana, but cautioned against generalizing national results based on the laws in just two states.

“Although the findings for Indiana’s law are suggestive, considering the strength of this evidence and potential issues of generalizability, we find inconclusive evidence for the effect of extreme risk protection orders on total and firearm suicides,” the RAND report states.

Andrew Morral, a RAND senior behavioral scientist who led the RAND project, told us Biden is correct that in some states, suicides went down after red flag laws were introduced.

“We, on the other hand, tried to assess whether they went down because of the law,” Morral said. “That we don’t think is yet proven in a way that even skeptics should have to agree is persuasive.”

Kivisto said that while his study showed no effect following Connecticut’s enactment of red flag laws in 1999, that was “unsurprising” because the law was not being enforced in “any meaningful way” until after the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007. The fact that the data “showed no effect of the law until meaningful numbers of firearms were seized supports the causal role of the law in reducing suicides,” he said.

Kivisto noted that other independent studies of the Indiana and Connecticut laws also concluded that more suicides by firearm would have occurred if not for the red flag laws.

“Regarding the strength of the evidence … there have been two independent studies of the laws in IN and CT that have used distinct methodologies and arrived at the same general conclusions,” Kivisto said. “Although perhaps a randomized trial would provide stronger evidence, such designs are simply not feasible. Observational evidence using rigorous statistical procedures is often the best evidence available in evaluating the effects of policy, and in this case such evidence supports red flag laws as a means of reducing firearm suicide.”

While further studies are warranted on the effect of new red flag laws passed in other states, he said, given the results of the studies to date, “I anticipate that these laws will be linked to reduced total suicide in most states, where firearms account for a majority of suicides. But there hasn’t been sufficient time to evaluate these questions in states that have adopted these laws more recently.”

Legal Immunity

The president said that “gun manufacturers” were “the only industry in America … that can’t be sued” because they’re “exempt.” Gun manufacturers do have protections from civil lawsuits but there are exceptions.

As we wrote last year, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005, as described in a 2012 CRS report, “generally shields licensed manufacturers, dealers, and sellers of firearms or ammunition, as well as trade associations, from any civil action ‘resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse’ of a firearm or ammunition.” But there are six exceptions.

They include cases in which a firearm seller was negligent, the transfer of a gun was made knowing it would be used to commit a crime, and manufacturers or sellers violated state or federal law in marketing or selling a gun.

For example, the Supreme Court declined to dismiss a 2014 lawsuit the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting filed against Remington Arms Co. for the way it marketed the assault-style rifle used to kill 26 people.

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The post Biden’s Missteps on Gun Policies appeared first on FactCheck.org.

[didanawisgi]

For Heller, thank the scholarship of Joyce Lee Malcolm

Arlington, Va.– In the hours after February’s school massacre in Parkland, Fla., Joyce Lee Malcolm watched the response with growing annoyance:

“Everybody seemed to leap upon it, looking for a political benefit, rather than allowing for a cooling-off period.” As a historian, Malcolm prefers to take the long view. As a leading scholar of the Second Amendment, however, she is also expected to have snap opinions on gun rights, and in fact she often has engaged in the news-driven debates about violence and firearms. “Something deep inside of me says that people never should be victims,” she says. “And they never should be put in the position of being disarmed by their government.”

Malcolm looks nothing like a hardened veteran of the gun-control wars. Small, slender, and bookish, she’s a wisp of a woman who enjoys plunging into archives and sitting through panel discussions at academic conferences. Her favorite topic is 17th- and 18th-century Anglo-American history, from the causes of the English Civil War to the meaning of the American Revolution. Her latest book, due in May, is The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold, a biography of the infamous general. She doesn’t belong to the National Rifle Association, nor does she hunt. She admits to owning an old shotgun, but she’s unsure about the make or model. “I’ve taken it out a couple of times, but the clay targets fall safely to earth,” she says in an interview at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School in Virginia, where she’s a professor who teaches courses on constitutional history as well as on war and law.

She is also the lady who saved the Second Amendment — a scholar whose work helped make possible the Supreme Court’s landmark Heller decision, which in 2008 recognized an individual right to possess a firearm. “People used to ask, ‘How did a nice girl like you get into a subject like this?’” she says. “I’m not asked that anymore.” She smiles, a little mischievously. “Maybe they don’t think I’m a nice girl anymore.”

Back when Malcolm was a girl, she lived in Utica, N.Y. A state scholarship sent her to Barnard, the women’s college tied to Columbia University, where she majored in history. “It was a process of elimination,” she says. “I took calculus and chemistry, but history seemed the least narrow. You could study the history of math or the history of science. It had the widest scope.” She got married as an undergraduate — “people did that in those days” — and by the time she was 23, she was both a college graduate and a mom.

Malcolm wanted to continue her education. Living outside Boston, she applied to graduate school at Brandeis University, thinking that she might attend part-time. Administrators, however, talked her into the normal, full-time option. So she launched into a Ph.D. program, focusing on England in the early modern era. “I really liked the period,” she says. “It was wonderfully complex, with divisions between the rights of the state and the rights of individuals.” For her dissertation, she moved to Oxford and Cambridge, with children in tow. Now separated from her husband, she was a single mother. “It took some balancing. I’m not sure I was the best parent I could have been, but my kids grew up seeing what you can do when you put your mind to working.” (One of them is Mark Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize–winning health and science journalist at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.) In Britain, she met a Scotsman who became her second husband. She brought him back to the United States and took his surname.

Malcolm’s doctoral dissertation focused on King Charles I and the problem of loyalty in the 1640s, and much of her scholarship has flowed from this initial work. The Royal Historical Society published her first book, and she edited a pair of volumes for the Liberty Fund, totaling more than 1,000 pages, on political tracts in 17th-century England. As she researched and wrote on the period, she noticed something peculiar. “During the English Civil War, the king would summon the local militia to turn out with their best weapons,” she says. “Then he would relieve them of their best weapons. He confiscated them. Obviously, he didn’t trust his subjects.”

At a time when armies were marching around England, ordinary people became anxious about surrendering guns. Then, in 1689, the English Bill of Rights responded by granting Protestants the right to “have Arms for their Defence.” Malcolm wasn’t the first person to notice this, of course, but as an American who had studied political loyalty in England, she approached the topic from a fresh angle. “The English felt a need to put this in writing because the king had been disarming his political opponents,” she says. “This is the origin of our Second Amendment. It’s an individual right.”

As she researched, Malcolm taught at several schools and worked for the National Park Service. In 1988, she took a post near Boston, at Bentley College, a school best known for business education (and now called Bentley University). Fellowships allowed her to pursue her interest in how the right to bear arms migrated across the ocean and took root in colonial America. “The subject hadn’t been done from the English side because it’s an American question, and American constitutional scholars didn’t know the English material very well,” she says. Some Americans even resisted looking to English sources because they wanted to stress their country’s uniqueness. Moreover, law-school textbooks and courses skimmed over the Second Amendment. “The subject was poorly covered.”

Her research led to a groundbreaking book on the history of gun rights, To Keep and Bear Arms. Before it went to print, however, she faced something she had not expected: political resistance. “I had a hard time finding a publisher,” she says. After several years in limbo, To Keep and Bear Armscame out in 1994, from Harvard University Press — an excellent result for any scholar in the peer-reviewed world of publish-or-perish professionalism. “The problem was that I had come up with an answer that a lot of people didn’t like.”

The Second Amendment, she insisted, recognizes an individual right to gun ownership as an essential feature of limited government. In her book’s preface, she called this the “least understood of those liberties secured by Englishmen and bequeathed to their American colonists.” Confusion reigned: “The language of the Second Amendment, considered perfectly clear by the framers and their contemporaries, is no longer clear.” The right to keep and bear arms, Malcolm warned, “is a right in decline.”

She aimed to revive it at a time when governments at all levels imposed more restrictions on gun ownership than they do today. Many legal scholars claimed that the Second Amendment granted a collective right for states to have militias but not the individual right of citizens to own firearms. With To Keep and Bear Arms, which received favorable reviews and went through several printings, Malcolm joined a small but increasingly influential group of academics with different ideas. Her allies included Robert J. Cottrol, of George Washington University, and Glenn Reynolds, of the University of Tennessee (and best known for his Instapundit website). “I was so naïve,” she says. “I thought the idea of research was that you find information and people say, ‘Good! Now we know the answer!’”

She learned the truth in 1995, when House Republicans invited her to testify before a subcommittee on crime. The subcommittee’s ranking member was Representative Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York (and today’s Senate minority leader). In his opening remarks, Schumer scoffed at Malcolm and other witnesses. “The intellectual content of this hearing is so far off the edge that we ought to declare this an official meeting of the Flat Earth Society,” he said. “Because the pro-gun arguments we will hear today are as flaky as the arguments of the tiny few who still insist that the Earth is flat.”

Malcolm still bristles at those words. “I was a Democrat at the time,” she says. “I was raised a Democrat. I was just there to tell them what I had found out. It wasn’t a political issue for me. But the Democrats were nasty. Schumer was nasty.” After the hearing, Malcolm came to a realization: “For some people, opposition to individual gun rights is an article of faith, and they don’t care about the historical evidence.” Ever since, she has received regular reminders of this fact. In 1997, for example, Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia praised Malcolm’s “excellent study” but also erroneously called her “an Englishwoman.”

The unfortunately named legal scholar Carl T. Bogus jumped at the blunder: “Malcolm’s name may sound British, and Bentley College, where Malcolm teaches history, may sound like a college at Oxford, but in fact Malcolm was born and raised in Utica, New York, and Bentley is a business college in Massachusetts.” This irritates Malcolm. “They’re always trying to write me off because of Bentley, this ‘business college,’” she says. “It reminds me of the saying that if you don’t have the law, argue the facts; if you don’t have the facts, argue the law; and if you don’t have either, attack your opponent. The attacks have helped me grow a really thick skin.”

Along the way, the popular historian Stephen Ambrose provided Malcolm with inspiration. “He spent most of his career at the University of New Orleans,” she says, noting that it’s not considered a top-flight school. “He said he wanted to write himself to the top of his profession. It doesn’t matter where you teach. So I tried to write and write and write. You can lift yourself.”

Even so, some people continue trying to keep Malcolm down. The latest slight occurred at a symposium sponsored by the Campbell University School of Law in February, when the legal scholar Paul Finkelman equated the Supreme Court’s Heller decision with its notorious 1857 ruling in Dred Scott, which denied citizenship to blacks. Right after this provocative claim, Finkelman raised the old canard about Bentley in a bid to damage Malcolm’s credibility moments before she addressed their audience.

It didn’t matter to Finkelman that Malcolm had written her way up in the academic world’s pecking order: In 2006, she left Bentley and became a professor at George Mason’s law school, now named for Scalia. By this time, not only had Scalia praised her work, but so had other judges, including Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, who cited To Keep and Bear Arms in an opinion.

Then, in 2008, came Heller, arguably the most important gun-rights case in U.S. history. A 5–4 decision written by Scalia and citing Malcolm three times, it swept away the claims of gun-control theorists and declared that Americans enjoy an individual right to gun ownership. “If we had lost Heller, it would have been a big blow,” says Malcolm. “Instead, it gave us this substantial right.” She remembers a thought from the day the Court ruled: “If I have done nothing else my whole life, I have accomplished something important.”

A simple idea has motivated her work: “For me, trust in the common man is such a basic principle. Few governments actually allow it. They want to keep their people vulnerable and disarmed. I find it awful that people wouldn’t be allowed to protect themselves.” She also calls attention to a cultural aspect: “City people who grew up without guns think it’s just a bunch of rednecks.” She recalls an incident at Bentley, years before Heller: “I was in my office one day and a groundskeeper came up. ‘I just want to shake your hand and thank you,’ he said. What else could I have been writing about that anyone would want to thank me for?” She pauses. “There’s just so much vilification of the people who want to ‘cling’ to their guns,” she says, echoing the words of Barack Obama, who as a presidential candidate in 2008 said of rural and working-class whites — future Trump Republicans — that “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”

Malcolm is now a Republican herself. When she hears gun-control advocates say they don’t want to ban all guns — “just the ones that look scary,” as she puts it, with a tone of contempt — her thoughts turn back to Britain. In 2002, she published Guns and Violence: The English Experience. It showed, among other things, that crime rates were low in the 19th century, a period with few gun restrictions. Things are different today: Crime has worsened in the United Kingdom, while gun ownership is rare. “Britain has gone down the road of taking away guns,” she says. “And look where it got them.”

She points to a website of the U.K.’s Police National Legal Database, which includes an online forum called “Ask the Police.” One question inquires about self-defense products. Are any legal? The answer: Only one, a “rape alarm” that looks like a car remote. Its panic button emits a screeching sound. The website also warns against using nontoxic sprays against assailants. If “sprayed in someone’s eyes,” such a chemical “would become an offensive weapon.” In other words, potential rape victims can push panic buttons but must not dare to injure attackers — not with sprays, let alone knives or guns. “Can you believe it?” asks Malcolm. “They don’t let people protect themselves.”

Americans probably won’t face such a predicament, even in the aftermath of the Parkland killings and whatever reforms are enacted as a result. State legislatures have taken strong steps over the last generation to protect gun rights, and the Supreme Court has clarified the language of the Second Amendment. Even so, Malcolm is worried. “Some judges are ignoring Heller, and unless the Supreme Court agrees to hear these cases and overturn them, we’ll see an erosion,” she says. Liberals in the media and at law schools cheer on the renegades. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has called for the overturning of Heller itself, and if a single seat now held by a conservative were to flip to a liberal, she could get her way.

In the meantime, however, the right to bear arms will not be infringed — thanks in part to the pioneering scholarship of Joyce Lee Malcolm.

[jdaze-things-blog]

Food for thought if you care to read. This is not mine, but copied from another blog. However I wholeheartedly agree with it.

This is facts, not false Facebook and twitter memes

Bryce Bowling

February 21 at 9:31pm

·

Someone told me today that they were shocked that I haven't given my viewpoint on the gun debate. I was going to stay out of it, but honestly, it's been a week of the same garbage, so I'm going to speak on this briefly (well, not so briefly ..... here goes).

A Point-by-Point primer on the gun debate (from a legal gun owner and father)

I have 2 little girls in school right now. I am a member of the NRA, I shoot competitively, and I own a lot of guns. But if you told me that giving up all of my guns would ensure there would never be another child murdered by a lunatic, I would voluntarily give them up in a heartbeat. I think most legal gun owners would do the same. Would it help? No.

The only thing I have seen on TV and rampant on Facebook for the last week is how we must ban AR-15's. I've actually seen some destroying or turning in their AR-15's to law enforcement for some unknown reason.

Most people screaming for a rifle ban couldn't pick an AR-15 out of a lineup if it saved their life. Most people can't tell you the difference between automatic weapons (which, by the way, are illegal without heavy licensure) and semi-automatic. Most can't tell you what an "assault rifle" is - mainly because that's a "BS," made-up term. So, I'm going to present some facts - backed up by evidence and statistics - to help paint a picture of why banning a weapon will do nothing. I ask you gun control advocates to keep an open mind as you read (if you choose to read). But at the same time, I will offer a suggestion on something I have written the White House and our State Senator about that has the potential to help. So, here we go - facts and stats 1st:

-The USA has, by far, the highest per capita gun ownership in the world. What is per capita gun ownership? Basically, when measured by number of guns owned per 100 residents - the USA leads the list at 90. 90 guns owned per every 100 residents.

-The estimate is that a total over 360 million guns are privately owned in the US. 15 million of those 360 million are AR-15s.

-The AR in AR-15 does not stand for Assault Rifle and it doesn't stand for Automatic Rifle either. The AR stands for ArmaLite Rifle, after the company that developed it in the 1950s. "Assault" is a verb - not a noun - assault is what you do with a weapon.  I can assault you with a stick (it doesn't make it an "assault stick" or maybe it does). I own an M4 (a beefed up, full bolt version of the AR-15), and yes, for all the people that say "why do you need that?", I do hunt with it depending on the hunt. I also shoot competitively - not only with my rifles, but with shotguns and pistols.

-Have you heard that these "assault rifles" are used in the majority of homicides? I heard that - this week. On the news. Is it true? Not even close. According to the FBI, rifles of all kinds account for 3% of firearm homicides. Clubs, hammers, hands, fists and knives are all used to kill much more frequently than a rifle. According to FBI statistics, you are 3 times more likely to be stabbed to death than to be killed with a rifle.  Don't think you can mass kill with a knife? Just 3 years ago, a group of 3 men in China went on a killing spree in a train station. They killed 33 and wounded 130 more. Not a single gun was used - they only had knives.

-Contrary to what news outlets like to convey, the vast majority of mass shootings involve pistols.  How many CNN anchors have you heard this week claiming the AR-15 to be the "weapon of choice for mass shooters?" Again, more "BS." In a review of mass shootings from 1982-2012, 66 percent of the weapons used in mass shootings were pistols.  That same review found that only 14% of weapons used in "mass shootings" would qualify as an assault weapon under the definition used in a 2013 bill sponsored by Dianne Feinstien (D-Calif).

-In a secondary review of mass shootings from 1982-2017, about 1/4 of mass shootings involved a rifle (of any type - including but not limited to the AR-15), almost 1/4 of mass shootings were performed using a garden variety shotgun. Well over 1/2 of all mass shootings in that same time period used pistols only.

-The Va Tech shooter killed more than double the amount of students recently killed in Florida. He only used pistols. No rifles were used in that spree ( http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/us/16cnd-shooting.html ).

So, will banning the AR-15 do anything? No, and here's why. A person dead set on committing murder doesn't care about your law. If he can not legally buy an AR-15, he'll get one illegally, on the black market. Remember he/she is a criminal; they don't care about your law. So, let's play devil's advocate and say we confiscate, and even eliminate all AR-15s and similar rifles, and they aren't available - even on the black market. The criminal will still mass murder - using a shotgun. Remember, almost as many mass shootings have involved garden variety shotguns. So, we'll ban, confiscate and destroy shotguns. OK, the criminal will move to pistols - banning the rifle or shotguns will simply change the 66% of mass shooting being with pistol to 90+%. So, ban the pistols then. They'll move to knives, they'll go on the dark web and find instructions that allow them to make a bomb (capable of killing and maiming hundreds at a time) that they can make out of household items in less than 10 minutes.  Banning an AR-15 simply takes it out the hands of the legal gun owners. It won't keep it out of the hands of criminals - and even if it does, it will simply drive them to change the instrument. It's like taking away the truck they would use to drive to the mass shooting. They'll find another way ( maybe a box truck rented from Home Depot - https://tinyurl.com/y9p4cqlm ).

So, what about people that buy it legally and then snap? Ahh, there's where the problem lies.....and there is where we can make a difference. How?

Everyone likes to yell "gun control," but no one seems to be able to give a detailed answer on what that means (outside of ban, ban, ban!). We have gun control laws now. The problem is they aren't enforced. And now that the details start to emerge we can see how many red flags were overlooked with this kid in Florida. He told people he was going to do this. He was reported to the FBI. Twice! He was treated in a mental health facility for psychiatric illness and yet he was still able to purchase this weapon legally. That is absurd. This is the heart of the problem.

Show me a mass shooter in recent memory that has not had a documented history of psychiatric illness. I am a physician and I'm all for following HIPAA guidelines but we must lighten up on HIPAA guidelines and merge the ICD-10 diagnoses codes for mental illness from the electronic medical record to the FBI Background Check National Database so that individuals who have a history of psychiatric illnesses that predispose them to homicidal and suicidal tendencies, are kicked out of the system just as any felon would be.  If I smack my wife, she reports it, and I go a month later and try to buy a gun, I can't.  But I can threaten to kill people, actually promise to be a "school shooter," even be treated for schizophrenia and still LEGALLY purchase a firearm.

In an effort to enact some form of change, I have written both the President and Tennessee State Senator Lamar Alexander. (Who of you would have ever thought the first time I'd write our President or Senator would have been in the name of gun control?) Will it fix everything? No way, but it's a start, and it does have the power to prevent a person with schizophrenia from walking in to Bass Pro Shop and leaving with an AR-15 and 500 rounds in 20 minutes. Please recall, most every person who committed a mass shooting in recent memory obtained their gun legally.  There's no excuse for that.

Until we enforce our current gun laws and do everything possible to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, this problem will not change. And it has to change. It just simply doesn't change by targeting a weapon that looks "scary." I hope I've opened a few eyes here.

Disclaimer: These are my views. They may not be your views. I won't get in to a verbal sparring match with you over this. If you'd like to talk more about this, call me. I'll have you over to my house and we'll discuss it. I'll provide the cigars.

[davidblaska]

The U.S. Constitution is fueling a fiery hellscape?

Democrats have their playbook. It is titled “It’s Time to Fight Dirty.” For real!

Written by an associate professor of poly sci at Roosevelt University (located in greater Chicago and “committed to social justice”), It’s Time to Fight Dirty argues, in the words of a reviewer, that “Democrats should immediately use every lever they have to gum up the works in Washington to ensure they win full control of government in 2020.”

Yeah, that should do it. Sean Hannity could not have conjured a more damning indictment of the the liberal-progressive-socialist enterprise. And we thought Kathy Griffin was paranoid!

Nonetheless, Fight Dirty promises to claim pride of place on every social justice warrior’s faculty book shelf next to Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and Das Kapital.

Fight Dirty proposes nothing less than to correct “the design flaws in the Constitution.” These supposed design flaws go beyond the Electoral College, which recognizes that the country is a union of states unlike, say, France. None of its proposals have the slightest chance of passage, but here they are, anyway:

Scrap winner-take-all congressional elections and replace with a system called “ranked-choice voting” (aka “instant run-off”). (This link explains it.) They do it in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley — if that tells you anything.

Make Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico states so as to elect more Democrat(ic) senators.

Split California into seven states for the same reason. Seven!

Double membership in the House of Representatives (it’s already at 435!)

Pack the Supreme Court with more justices “and fill them with Progressives.” (Didn’t FDR try that?)

Make election day a national holiday — but only for federal employees.

Automatically register everyone to vote! Illegal immigrants? The book says EVERYONE!

Liberalism a hard sell

Carousel Bayrd

Carousel Bayrd

Missing from the Fight Dirty to-do list is anything about, you know, persuading voters of your cause. Selling your socialist ideas. Making government-funded abortion palatable to the religious. Raising taxes for “more free stuff.” Blaming police for urban crime. Confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens. Airlifting more pallets of U.S. greenbacks to Iran. Its relentless and divisive appeal to identity politics.

Besides which, if America is so irredeemably broken, if the Constitution so past its sell-by date, if the liberal-progressive-socialist cause such an impossible sell, the question arises: Who is going to implement Fight Dirty’s to-do list? 

For that reason, professor David Faris’ book is something of a Quentin Tarantino revenge fantasy (except that our acquaintances on the Left don’t have guns). Which makes it catnip to the Trump-deranged New York Times. Whom does it pick to review such an unhinged screed? Another derangement sufferer. The subhead of his own book’s title ends “ … and the conservative assault on democracy.” If that tells you anything.

One can visualize the pussy-hatted reviewer mounting the ramparts, shaking an angry fist and shouting through a bullhorn that It’s Time to Fight Dirty to counter —as he writes — “right-wing nationalists, Randian zealots, and Christian fundamentalists — all laser-focused on repealing different aspects of the 20th Century while consigning our children to spend their golden years in a fiery hellscape.”

A FIERY HELLSCAPE!

Aloha, Hawaii!

Traumatized by Trump, the Left says it’s time to fight dirty The U.S. Constitution is fueling a fiery hellscape? Democrats have their playbook. It is titled “It’s Time to Fight Dirty.” For real!

[jamesgierach]

Open Letter To Pres. Obama At His Presidential Outset

Open Letter April 16, 2009 Dear Mr. President (Barack Obama) –

The White House telephone line (202) 456-1111 is busy and you are en route to Mexico anyway, so I write this letter.

You’re doing a great job: moving to close Guantanamo, no more torture, an economic stimulus bill, rebuilding American stature and leadership around the world, loosening of travel and financial restrictions affecting Cubans and their families, a deadline to exit Iraq, stem cells for the living, etc.

But, oh my, the War on Drugs.

Please save us from the drug war. Overwhelmingly, Americans recognize the drug war for the abysmal failure that it is and will forever be. But please – don’t expand it, don’t support it, don’t defend it. End it.

The drug war has two principal shortcomings. First, it doesn’t work. Second, it worsens nearly all other serious American (and world) problems.

After 38 years of drug war, illicit drugs are cheaper, stronger and more plentiful. More and more people are locked up. More and more dollars are squandered on counter-productive programs and strategies. For example, anti-drug advertising ads, strategies aimed at keeping drug prices high to dissuade growing the drug business, destroying confiscated drugs – all serve to protect the exclusive control of drug cartels over drugs and drug distribution. Failed drug-war programs and strategies harm Americans, and that harm will only continue in two-word staccato rhythm: Plan Colombia and Merida Initiative.

Because of the drug war, the U.S.-Mexican border is too bloody, the cartels too strong, the corruption too pervasive, the overdose accidents too many, the gangs too strong, the guns too big, the profits too great, the dirty needles too common, the AIDS and healthcare cost too high, and the freedom from fear lost for too many.

It is true that Pres. Felipe Calderon has taken the American drug-war bit into his mouth and blindly run with it. And the results are in and they are devastatingly bad: many headless Mexicans, rampant Capone-like corruption, and the risk of the stability and the very control of Mexico put in play.

Mr. President, you must speak out against the drug war. Call Calderon off. Advise him that the United States is reviewing and will be overhauling its drug-war mistake. Tell him that it makes no sense for responsible, well-intended leaders to side with the drug lords, who favor drug prohibition – a prohibition that is the heart, engine and soul of the illicit drug business.

Tell Calderon, and the world, that the new U.S. drug war will be premised on a new set of ideas, including the following: prohibition doesn’t work; that drug use and abuse is a medical problem, not a law-enforcement problem; that borders and brethren are better without prohibited drugs; that we cannot afford to fritter away limited global resources on endless prison construction and wholesale incarceration; that no fence is high enough or long enough; that for a price, a high prohibition price, the ingenuity of man can overcome any and all prohibition barriers; that controlled and regulated drugs are better and less harmful than prohibited and uncontrolled drugs; and that the controlled and regulated distribution of drugs beats the alternative, drug-gang and cartel distribution of drugs.

Tell Calderon, we were wrong. Tell him, America is sorry but we misjudged how best to address the issue of drug use and inevitable sale. Tell him the war was politically popular but witless. Tell him the proof is in the pudding, in our streets, our cemeteries, schools, neighborhoods, death tolls, drug seizure size, police departments, military units and the prisons holding a Mexican drug czar and hordes of American and Mexican law-enforcement officers. The proof is seen in American trade deficits, the smile of Osama bin Laden, and every savvy terrorist world-wide. Our mistake. Mea culpa.

Tell him America, the United Nations and the world were wrong about the drug war. The beginning of a new and better Mexican-American relationship can be built on the solid rock of drug policy reform, common sense, North American leading drug policy reform that can traverse the globe. With that new foundation, there really is cause for hope. Sincerely, James E. Gierach Palos Park, IL U.S.A.

USA James E. Gierach is an attorney, former Chicago drug prosecutor and speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an international group of former drug-war cops, judges, prosecutors and other drug-war agents and veterans who now oppose the drug war as futile, counter-productive and harmful.

[oldguardaudio]

NRA News -> Gun-Banning U.S. Conference of Mayors Attacks National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity

goo.gl/E5BtFK

Wayne Lapierre NRA at HoaxAndChange.com

Donald Trump NRA @ Hoax and Change

FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 2017

SUPPORT NRA-ILA

The U.S. Conference of Mayors met for their 85th Annual Meeting from June 23-26 in sunny Miami Beach, Fla.  Continuing a tradition almost as old as the meeting, the assembled mayors schemed on how to prevent the American people from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.

This year, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio put forward a resolution expressing the USCM’s opposition to National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity legislation. The resolution was adopted, with only Mayor Billy Hewes of Gulfport, Miss. and Mayor Kyle Moore of Quincy, Ill. registering their opposition.

As one might expect, the resolution was long on rhetoric and short on facts. According to the preamble to the resolution, National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity legislation is “dangerous,” and is “completely antithetical to all of the efforts to reduce and prevent gun violence.” More broadly, the mayors contend that “gun laws play a significant role… in the rapid decline of violent crime.” The resolution was immediately applauded by former-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety.

For 30 years, whenever Right-to-Carry legislation has been proposed in a new state, anti-gun activists have made hyperbolic predictions about the “carnage” that would result. None of these predictions have ever materialized. From the advent of the modern Right-to-Carry law in Florida in 1987 to today, the country has gone from having 10 Right-to-Carry states to 42 and permit reciprocity has improved. In that time period (to 2015) the violent crime rate decreased nearly 40 percent while the murder rate fell 41 percent.

A simple glance at the FBI’s violent crime statistics shows Right-to-Carry opponents’ fears have not come true. However, most of the academic research on Right-to-Carry laws has also shown that these laws either lessen or have no effect on crime rates.

Moreover, Right-to-Carry permit holders have proven themselves to be among the nation’s most law-abiding demographics. Right-to-Carry permit revocation data from Florida and Texas has repeatedly shown that permit holders are more law-abiding than the general public.

As to USCM’s sweeping contention about the general efficacy of gun laws, the evidence does not support their claim. A 2013 memo from the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice surveyed research on several types of gun controls popular with anti-gun activists, including so-called “universal” background checks, buybacks, magazine restrictions, and semi-auto bans. The NIJ argued that such controls were largely ineffective unless paired with further severe controls, such as confiscation. Similarly, a 2004 review of gun control by the National Academy of Sciences does not support USCM’s wild conclusions.

A History of Distortions and Support for Radical Gun Control

The sort of haphazard anti-gun rhetoric USCM adopted in Miami is nothing new for the organization. For nearly 50 years, USCM has advocated for the most radical forms of gun control.

In June 1972, USCM adopted a policy resolution on handgun control that called for the abolition of private handgun ownership. The resolution stated, 

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the United States Conference of Mayors takes a position of leadership and urges national legislation against the manufacture, importation, sale, and private possession of handguns, except for use by law enforcement personnel, military and sportsmen clubs; 

Further, the resolution called on members to “educate the American public to the dangerous and appalling realities resulting from the private possession of handguns.” Not content to only target handguns, the policy also demanded legislation that “shall provide for the registration of all firearms.”

Like the latest USCM gun control resolution, a misleading preamble accompanied the 1972 policy statement. Despite the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968 only four years earlier (which outlined most of the current categories of persons prohibited from possessing firearms), the preamble charged, “gun dealers today sell to the mentally ill, criminals, dope addicts, convicted felons, juveniles….” It also contended that “handguns are not generally used for sporting or recreational purposes, and such purposes do not require keeping handguns in private homes.”

[To see the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ 1972 Policy Statement on Handgun Control, click here]

In the 1970s, the USCM held multiple national forums on handgun control and launched the Handgun Control Project, which was bankrolled by the George Gund Foundation and served to advance USCM’s gun control efforts. The project produced anti-gun books, pamphlets, and a gun control newsletter titled “Targeting in on Handgun Control.” The project also provided support to gun control activists. At their 1979 National Conference on Handgun Violence, USCM voted to create the National Alliance for Handgun Control Organizations in order to better coordinate state and local anti-gun efforts.

In this capacity USCM actively supported state and municipal efforts to ban handguns. In 1976 Massachusetts held a referendum on whether to ban handguns in the state. The measure was defeated by a margin of 2 to 1, but the U.S. Conference of Mayors published a book lionizing the anti-gun movement’s efforts in the state, titled, “People v. Handguns: The Campaign to Ban Handguns in Massachusetts.”

USCM was also a staunch advocate for Washington, D.C.’s unconstitutional handgun ban, which was passed in 1976. Following the enactment of the ban, USCM produced an analysis that purported to show the benefits of the new law. A subsequent review of USCM’s work conducted by the Congressional Research Service found “substantial evidence that the study is flawed by an inappropriate model,” and challenged its conclusions. USCM’s study was little more than anti-gun propaganda, as CRS explained, “Although the Firearms Control Act may have affected the crime rate in the District of Columbia, it is our judgment, based on the information at hand, that the study fails to establish such a relationship.”

In 1977, USCM published a book titled, “Organizing for Handgun Control: A Citizen’s Manual.” As the title suggests, the book was a how-to guide for those seeking to further the group’s anti-handgun agenda. In it, the organization took the position that the Second Amendment offered no protection to American gun owners, stating, “The amendment neither guarantees nor denies the right of individual citizens to carry guns or keep guns in their homes.” Reiterating this point, the same book accuses NRA of being “the leading self-appointed guardian of citizens’ mythical Constitutional right ‘to keep and bear arms.’” 

Further, a 1975 USCM document accused gun rights supporters of “distorting” the facts about the Second Amendment. A 1979 USCM publication told readers, “A constitutional right to bear arms does not exist,” and noted, “the Second Amendment is an anachronism today.”

Of course, subsequent legal scholarship would refute USCM’s inaccurate position, as would the United States Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago.

Another constant theme USCM’s 1970s propaganda was their contention that an increase in the number of handguns in private hands would necessarily result in greater violence. For instance, in a 1977 publication, the organization contended,

The dramatic increase in handgun homicides, robberies, assaults, suicide, and accidents can be traced to an equally alarming increase in the volume of handguns distributed to the civilian market. If the present rate of increase is allowed to continue, there will be over 100 million handguns in American homes by the year 2000. It is unlikely that future generations of Americans will be able to manage a safe and harmonious society with such a volume of killing power so readily available.

  Experience has proven this prediction demonstrably false.

Americans now own roughly 150 million handguns, and the U.S. continues to manufacture or import 6-7 million new handguns each year. FBI data shows that from 1977 to 2015 the violent crime rate has decreased by nearly 22 percent and the murder rate has fallen by 44 percent. Americans now live in a safer and more harmonious society than in 1977.

USCM’s Handgun Control Project was formally terminated at the end of 1981. However, despite the elimination of their formal anti-gun initiative, USCM has continued their attacks on the Second Amendment. 

In the 1990’s USCM supported Bill Clinton’s gun control efforts and move to bankrupt the gun industry through frivolous litigation.

In 1994, USCM supported Clinton’s ban on commonly owned semi-automatic firearms. In 2004, after government-mandated research showed that the ban did not impact crime, USCM called for an extending the ban. In 2013, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) sought to enact a more onerous version of the 1994 ban, USCM supported her legislation.

Still holding onto their antiquated Second Amendment theories when Heller reached the Supreme Court in 2008, USCM joined with Legal Community Against Gun Violence (now Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence) in a friend of the court brief that argued in favor of upholding Washington, D.C.’s unconstitutional handgun ban.

In addition to the passage of the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity, this year’s USCM meeting also featured a speech by Michael Bloomberg, where he announced that he would be giving $200 million of his vast fortune to a new city-focused policy initiative. According to the New York Times, the Bloomberg initiative “would serve in part as an extension of his advocacy for national policies that address climate change, gun violence, public health and immigration.”

It is yet unclear how Bloomberg’s new city initiative and USCM’s work on gun control might evolve. However, given the scale of Bloomberg’s new project, his friendly relationship with USCM, and USCM’s recent attack on National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity, Gun rights supporters should do all they can to inform others of this anti-gun group’s lengthy history of distortion, failed predictions, and support for the most radical forms of gun control.

A simple glance at the FBI’s violent crime statistics shows Right-to-Carry opponents’ fears have not come true. However, m NRA News -> Gun-Banning U.S. Conference of Mayors Attacks National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 2017…

[quoratopstories]

When did "gun control" become synonymous with banning guns?

Ever since the Anti-Gun Liberal Leaders, with the heavily ARMED security details, have STATED their desire to ban guns:

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D – CA) does. “Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe.” – Associated Press, 18 November, 1993. “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them; “Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in,” I would have done it.” “The National Guard fulfills the militia mentioned in the Second amendment. Citizens no longer need to protect the states or themselves.”– 60 Minutes on CBS, 5 February, 1995.

Senator Frank Launtenberg (D – NJ) did. “We have other legislation that all of you are aware that I have been so active on, with my colleagues here, and that is to shut down the gun shows.”

“The glowing praise of the “Austraila Solution” by Hillary Clinton suggests it.

Fmr. Senator Howard Metzenbaum (D – OH) did. “No, we’re not looking at how to control criminals … we’re talking about banning the AK-47 and semi-automatic guns.” – Constitution Subcommittee, 2 February, 1989

Vice President Joe “Buckshot” Biden (D – DE) does. “Banning guns is an idea whose time has come.” – Associated Press, 11 November, 1993

Representative Jan Schakowski (D – IL) does. “I believe…..this is my final word……I believe that I’m supporting the Constitution of the United States which does not give the right for any individual to own a handgun….” – Recorded 25 June, 2000 by Matt Beauchamp

Fmr. Representative Major Owens (D – NY) did. “We have to start with a ban on the manufacturing and import of handguns. From there we register the guns which are currently owned, and follow that with additional bans and acquisitions of handguns and rifles with no sporting purpose.”

Representative Bobby Rush (D – IL) does. “My staff and I right now are working on a comprehensive gun-control bill. We don’t have all the details, but for instance, regulating the sale and purchase of bullets. Ultimately, I would like to see the manufacture and possession of handguns banned except for military and police use. But that’s the endgame. And in the meantime, there are some specific things that we can do with legislation.”

Vermont State Mary Ann Carlson (D) does. “We must be able to arrest people before they commit crimes. By registering guns and knowing who has them we can do that. If they have guns they are pretty likely to commit a crime.”

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) does. ” …confiscation could be an option…”

Sarah Brady, fmr. Chairman of Handgun Control Inc. (now The Brady Campaign) does. “…I don’t believe gun owners have rights.” – Hearst Newspapers, October 1997 “The House passage of our bill is a victory for this country! Common sense wins out. I’m just so thrilled and excited. The sale of guns must stop. Halfway measures are not enough.” – 1 July, 1988…“Our main agenda is to have all guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn’t matter if you have to distort the facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed.” – The National Educator, January 1994, pg. 3, to Fmr. Senator Howard Metzenbaum

Fmr. Chancellor of Boston University John Silber did. “I don’t believe anybody has a right to own any kind of a firearm. I believe in order to obtain a permit to own a firearm, that person should undergo an exhaustive criminal background check. In addition, an applicant should give up his right to privacy and submit his medical records for review to see if the person has ever had a problem with alcohol, drugs or mental illness . . . The Constitution doesn’t count!”

Fmr. United States Attorney General Janet “Waco” Reno does. “The most effective means of fighting crime in the United States is to outlaw the possession of any type of firearm by the civilian populace.”-- Written affidavit by Fred Diamond, 1984 B’nai B’rith meeting in Coral Gables, Florida

Deborah Prothrow-Stith, of the Office of Government and Community Programs and the Community Violence Prevention Project at the Harvard School of Public Health, does. “My own view on gun control is simple: I hate guns and I cannot imagine why anybody would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered, and all other guns would be banned.”

The ACLU does. “We urge passage of federal legislation … to prohibit … the private ownership and possession of handguns.”

ACLU #47.“I now think the only way to control handgun use is to prohibit the guns. And the only way to do that is to change the Constitution.” — M. Gartner, then President of NBC News, USA Today, January 16, 1992, pg. A9.

"The NRA is Right: But We Still Need to Ban Handguns," -Josh Sugarmann the executive director and founder of the VERY anti-gun Violence Policy Center (VPC). from The Washington Monthly, June 1987

Go to: http://ift.tt/2iclvvp... and when it asks for a license number, put in: 1-54-XXX-XX-XX-00725. Then Google the address, and see what you learn.

This may both surprise and enlighten you.

Read the Democrat H.R.4269 - Assault Weapons Ban of 2015 pay particular attention to the SINGLE-SHOTS and BOLT ACTIONS "Assault Weapons" the Democrats want to ban! http://ift.tt/2iJXoYn

Read other answers by

Tim Furgerson on Quora:

Gun control: Is there any logical reason why ownership of assault weapons (rifles with features that look assault-ish) is protected by law in the US?

Why are Republicans against gun control?

Why don't gun control supporters launch a stronger campaign for the same?

Read more answers on Quora. via Quora http://ift.tt/2hS2v4e

[totalconservative]

New Post has been published on Total Conservative News

New Post has been published on http://totalconservative.com/fbi-estimates-record-number-of-first-time-gun-buyers-in-2020/

FBI Estimates Record Number of First-Time Gun Buyers in 2020

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an analysis of the FBI’s Instant Background Check System indicates that gun sales in 2020 have been so strong that they must almost certainly include a huge swath of first-time gun owners.

From National Review:

Using the FBI’s National Instant Background Check System, National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearm trade association, estimates that there were over 12 million guns bought in the first seven months of 2020 — up more than 70 percent over the same time span in 2019. This number is likely to include nearly 5 million first-time gun owners so far this year. That is probably the biggest surge in gun ownership in American history. It’s worth noting, too, that the number would likely be higher if gun shops hadn’t been trying to keep up with demand for months.

Some understandably believe that this surge in new-gun ownership could play a significant, if understated, role in the upcoming election. While it’s true that not every gun owner is a Republican and that there are gun owners who believe in strict gun control laws, there’s no doubt that the Democrats are always trying to push new and inventive restrictions on the Second Amendment. Once more people own guns, learn about them, and get comfortable with them, will groups like Everytown and Moms Demand Action lose their influence with the party?

And what about Kamala Harris, who has said outright that she wants to go confiscate AR-15s and similar firearms? How does her presence on the ticket sit with wary gun owners, many of whom undoubtedly bought just such a rifle for home protection? Are they going to willingly cast a vote for a vice president with these kinds of radical ideas? Is it so easy to vote away your own rights?

We’re just not sure the Democratic Party’s philosophy on gun control is tenable at a time like this. You can’t argue for defunding the police on the one hand and disarming citizens on the other. You can’t express support (or at least withhold condemnation) for groups like Antifa and insist that homeowners give up their protection. You can’t turn a blind eye to nightly riots in Portland, Seattle, and other cities and ask the law-abiding public to leave themselves open for invasion and attack. Even for Democrats, this is hypocrisy too sour to swallow.

Gun control hasn’t been at the forefront of the national conversation for a while, but it might be a wise thing for Trump to start bringing up. New gun owners ought to know what Biden and his radical running mate have in mind.

[fullspectrum-cbd-oil]

U.S. Supreme Court Justices Wrestle Over Dismissing Major Gun Case

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday grappled with whether to dismiss a challenge to a New York City handgun ordinance and sidestep a ruling that could lead to an expansion of gun rights.

The nine justices heard arguments in the first major gun case to come before the high court since 2010. The court’s four liberal justices indicated they believe the case is moot because New York has since amended the law.

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch were most vocal in advocating for the court to issue a ruling but other justices gave little indication of their views.

The legal challenge, backed by the influential National Rifle Association gun rights lobby group, takes aim at a regulation that had prevented licensed owners from taking their handguns outside the confines of the most-populous U.S. city.

Three local handgun owners and the New York state affiliate of the NRA – a national lobby group closely aligned with President Donald Trump and other Republicans – have argued that the regulation violated the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

New York City’s regulation was amended in July to loosen the restrictions at issue in the case, but the Supreme Court opted to proceed with the arguments anyway. The justices have said they will consider during the arguments the city’s contention that the change in the regulation has made the matter moot.

Outside the white marble courthouse, hundreds of gun control supporters held a demonstration and carried signs including some reading, “Why are guns easier to buy than a college education?” “Gun laws save lives” and “2nd Amendment written before assault weapons were invented.” They described gun violence as a public health crisis.

Maryland resident Christina Young said laws need to reflect modern society, including mass shootings.

“I have an 11-year-old daughter. I never had to worry about guns in my school when I was a kid,” Young said.

Marco Vargas, a student at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, added, “I fear that gun violence in the United States has become normalized.”

Amid the crowd, one gun rights supporter held high a large sign demanding Second Amendment rights.

Gun control advocates have expressed concern that the court, with a 5-4 conservative majority, could use a legal battle over a now-amended regulation unique to one city to issue a ruling widening gun rights nationwide.

Such a ruling could jeopardize a variety of firearms restrictions passed in recent years by state and local governments across the country, including expanded background checks and confiscations of weapons from individuals who a court has deemed dangerous, according to these advocates.

The dispute centers on New York City’s handgun “premises” licenses that allowed holders to transport their firearms only to a handful of shooting ranges within the city, and to hunting areas elsewhere in the state during designated hunting seasons.

The plaintiffs filed suit in 2013 after they were told by authorities they could not participate in a shooting competition in New Jersey or bring their guns to a home elsewhere in the state. The Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that the regulation advanced the city’s interest in protecting public safety and did not violate the Second Amendment.

GUN CONTROL LAWS PROLIFERATE

Gun control is a contentious issue in the United States, which has experienced numerous mass shootings. Since 2013, 45 states and the District of Columbia have adopted more than 300 gun control laws, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Republican opposition in Congress has been instrumental in thwarting passage of new federal laws.

New York City officials have argued that controlling guns in public takes on particular urgency in the most densely populated urban center in the United States, where the potential for violence, accidents or thefts is heightened.

The regulation dated back to 2001 when New York police tightened handgun transport rules because officers had observed license holders improperly traveling with loaded firearms or with their firearms far from any authorized range.

The city argued that the rule did not prevent training as there are plenty of ranges at which to practice within the city, and individuals could rent firearms at competitions farther afield. The rule also did not prevent homeowners from keeping a separate handgun at a second home outside the city.

The Supreme Court had avoided taking up a major firearms case since 2010, when it extended to state and local regulations a 2008 ruling that recognized for the first time that the Second Amendment protects a person’s right to keep a gun at home for self-defense.

The challengers have said that the history and tradition of the Second Amendment makes clear that the right extends beyond the home. They also are asking the Supreme Court to require lower courts to more strictly review gun curbs, with an eye toward striking them down.

The court’s ruling is due by the end of June.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

from IJR https://ift.tt/2r8rHhD via IFTTT

[anthonybialy]

Reviewing What Was Reviewed

Being told what to do blows. Everyone should agree. Sure, there are a couple laws that are probably wise to punish fraudsters and participants in unsavory violence against things and others. But an era where governors issue unilateral orders that lead to gleeful submission has rendered autonomy controversial. Diktats have helped our health except for the health part. Please notice the precedent.

Begging for protection from life's challenges is as understandable as it is idiotic. Avoiding adulting is no more appealing when it's attempted to be achieved by law. Overreach makes everyday nuisances worse in one of those cruel ironies voters never learn from or cherish. Don't you like being surprised?

A quick overview of federal operations might help those who've forgotten or never learned. Take how the Senate is supposed to chill out, which is a surprise to those who continually elect shrieking hotheads. The ostensibly dignified wing is not just at-large long-term congressmen. Representing states is important if anyone's confused why they don't see lines like on the map while driving. It's so mean how Wyoming gets two senators, as if each subdivision was important in our system or something.

The collection should bend to the will of the people, bitch those who want to impose policies that would ruin same people's lives. Constitutional scorners don't like the idea of Texas vying with New York any more than they want prices to drop with competition.

Proclamations are supposed to be a way around needing pesky legislation, at least if you tire of this endless procedure of approval. As for opinions on another division, deciding if the Supreme Court is awesome depends if it's infringing properly.

The antidemocratic cabal is viewed as horrid if it reaffirms individuals possess natural rights. Or, the guardians of humanity receive accolades if they discover an insurance mandate in a document dedicated to limited federal power. Wish good luck to the self-professed selfless who adore or loathe an institution based on if it does what they want.

Those who live here and hate everything here is about are either disingenuous or honest about how ignorant they are. For a clear example, there's a debate what packing means even though there's no debate. It's a specific term involving adding Supreme Court justices, not keeping the same quantity and adding to them as prescribed by the Constitution. Anyone using the phrase otherwise is at best ignorant, which would explain everything.

The real case is against checks and balances for those looking to streamline authority. Those looking to expand membership lust after getting their way with force that circumvents limits, which at least makes them consistent. Those upset that they lost by the rules naturally try to change them.

Super America fans don't care for the Constitution or what's been added. The amendments they don't particularly like coincidentally show the same attitude toward this nation's principles and human autonomy. Liberals would loathe the Tenth if they knew what it said.

First Amendment loathers found a way to shut down speech: they just had to control conglomerates they allegedly despise. Monolithic ether applications get to decide whether or not you can broadcast your ideas. Every notion that Hoxha believed is permitted. You can still say anything that comes to mind, silly: it'll just be to yourself. Businesses are diabolical unless they're banning Gina Carano.

I've got bad news about criminals disobeying the law. Trusting people to be armed is impossible for those who can't imagine guns being used for good. Sure, the diabolical will get weapons regardless of the rules, so it's best to let their intended prey discourage attacks. And regular people owning guns is just how this country went independent. But that's just so old white rich male slaveholders could exploit everyone else.

Violating rights for the common good is uncommonly bad. Infiltration is philosophically and practically disastrous. The pernicious framing that force is cool if it only saves one life serves as a constant excuse for confiscating rights. Disposing of the need for a warrant would result in seizing many illegal goods. I shouldn't give our overlords ideas.

Letting people sort it out themselves frightens planners even more than executive pay. The overarching principle leads to negotiating wages and prices, which works out for both sides. Similarly, trusting the virtuous to defend themselves instead of thinking paperwork between them and rights will keep criminals from acquiring weapons.

A snotty reply to anyone calling America a democracy about living in a republic nonetheless is valuable beyond pedantic triumph. Our government is designed to balancing representation with the realization that majority rules would mean voting for robbing rich jerks.

Those who claim they're deeply into caring about the people sure love imposing alleged solutions on same people. Proclaiming that free humans are compelled to buy garbage insurance hasn't helped heal any more than allegedly free college makes enrollees smarter. If you seek something universal, check awful results from deciding a government limited by nature should get to make your choices.

Bitching that the nation is designed to be oppressive is awfully peculiar for one with a Constitution that imposes strict limits. They're on government and not us, for the record. This is the one place in the world with specific tasks permitted for those reluctantly granted power. Its shrillest critics then do everything to confiscate liberty. A self-fulfilling prophecy is the only thing horrid meddlers can make come true.

[yesterdanereviews]

Amerigeddon (2016)

Film review #370

SYNOPSIS: In the near future, where the president of the United States has signed over much of the country’s power to the United Nations, the governing body secretly launches an E.M.P. at the country to disable all electronics and use the attack as an excuse to declare martial law and to confiscate everyone’s guns. A group of people band together and decide to fight against the ‘tyranny’ of the United Nations occupying forces, and defend their second amendment rights.

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Amerigeddon is a 2016 film and clearly meant to be a ‘warning’ about the dangers of Americans having their guns taken away n order for them to protect themselves against an overreaching government. The film starts off with a dire warning about the the dangers of an all powerful government, which will possess the ability to remove it’s citizen’s rights and sign them away to the “new world order”. This phrase is the typical boogeyman of the right-wing for which this film was obviously intended for to fulfil their fantasies of fighting back against their government, and it is constantly throwing the phrase out to try and make it sound as evil as possible. Using some out of context clips of politicians using this phrase (including the right wing’s other boogeyman, Barack Obama) to again create this all encompassing enemy of the people. Let’s be completely clear why this film was made: to scaremonger people about the possibility of the evil government coming to steal their guns (not that it is going to convince anyone other than those who hold those beliefs), and to fulfil the fantasies of those who think that they will one day be American heroes by using their guns to fight the oppressive regime of the new world order, or something equally implausible.

The story is set in the near-future, where the government and successive presidents have signed over most of their powers to the United Nations, who also see American citizens with guns as domestic terrorists. An E.M.P. is launched at the country and knocks out all of the power, giving the government an excuse to declare martial law and confiscate all of the citizen’s guns. Society descends into chaos as the characters find their way to each other to form some sort of resistance. It is quite apparent that this whole plot makes no sense...basically because the whole fantasy of rising up against the tyrannical new world order also makes no sense. Firstly, characterising the U.N. as an evil organisation intent on world domination is ridiculous and has no basis in reality. Secondly, what possible benefit would there be to destroying all the electronic devices in the U.S.? Given that a lot of global companies and assets are there, it doesn’t make any sense to wipe them all out. Thirdly, why would the new world order, if it really had control over all the governments in the world, feel so threatened by a bunch of ill-trained civilians in the middle of nowhere they would need to send in their army to wipe them out? Fourthly, the story is a direct copy of the film Red Dawn, while also managing to strip out anything interesting. Trying to understand the plot of this film is like trying to decipher the conspiracy theories that fuel it: it’s not possible, because they don’t make sense in the first place. They are hypothetical scenarios (fantasies) used to justify owning weapons and funding the organisations which relies on the fantasies peddled by this film.

The characters are themselves a bland cast of politicians, soldiers, and families who you would typically associate with the idea in this film: “real Americans” like  people who own ranches in the middle of nowhere. The cast is not in any way diverse, and any elements that pretend to diversify or offer alternate view points are acts of tokenism, or just turn out to be the wrong path, such as Penny’s going to a ‘liberal arts college’, only to come back home to the safety of her gun-wielding family fighting against the world’s most powerful army (seriously...). The acting is all pretty bland and stale, and there’s no originality or interesting aspects to them. This is probably intentional so that viewers can fantasise about themselves being in such a position instead, allowing them to project their fantasies into the ‘story’ with ease.

The production and special effects throughout are pretty bad. The finale is by far the worst part though, as the U.N. apparently sends a whole squad of personnel to the ranch, which consists of a few men, three vehicles and a helicopter. Again, if the world’s most powerful organisation really wanted these citizens, they would certainly overwhelm them with much more force, so again it holds no basis in reality. Also, the U.N. soldiers mostly wear blue caps with a crude U.N. logo stuck to them, and quite frankly it is ridiculous how non-threatening they look. The final fight consists of the U.N. helicopter, which clearly is just a normal civilian helicopter, against the citizen’s gyro-copter, which again in reality would stand so little chance it is hilarious. The film ends with the proclamation that they have “won the battle, but not the war...”, ominously setting up some sort of sequel, but thankfully one can hope that none shall emerge: this film is bad, in almost every aspect. I have used the term ‘fantasy’ a lot through this review, and that’s precisely what it is: a fantasy for those who think that they are patriotic heroes by amassing firearms to fight back against an oppressive government. It is a fantasy that holds no basis or credibility in reality. I would label this film as dangerous propaganda if it wasn’t so bad and unbelievably inept at getting its point across. No one is going to be convinced by the arguments in this film if you weren’t before, and for those that were it is just another hollow fantasy to indulge themselves and their bankrupt ideologies in. Terrible film about terrible ideas that can’t convey any reasonable arguments or facts.

[thisdaynews]

McConnell vows to bring up gun legislation — as long as Trump backs it

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/mcconnell-vows-to-bring-up-gun-legislation-as-long-as-trump-backs-it/

McConnell vows to bring up gun legislation — as long as Trump backs it

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s remarks came as lawmakers and President Donald Trump float a variety of ideas on guns, including “red flag” laws. | Win McNamee/Getty Images

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reiterated Tuesday that he is willing to bring to the floor gun control legislation that President Donald Trump supports and could become law.

The Kentucky Republican told conservative talk show radio host Hugh Hewitt that the White House is reviewing different proposals in the wake of mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, and that he expects to hear back next week about what Trump is willing to back.

Story Continued Below

“I said several weeks ago that if the president took a position on a bill so that we knew we would actually be making a law and not just having serial votes, I’d be happy to put it on the floor,” McConnell told Hewitt. “If the president is in favor of a number of things that he has discussed openly and publicly, and I know that if we pass it it’ll become law, I’ll put it on the floor.”

McConnell’s remarks come amid renewed discussion over stricter gun laws. In August, two back-to-back mass shootings in Texas and Ohio left at least 31 people dead, and over the weekend a gunman in Texas killed seven people and wounded more than 20 in a shooting rampage. Those mass casualty incidents have increased public outcry. Walmart, for example, said Tuesday that it will stop selling handgun ammunition. And Congress will face pressure to act when it returns next week from summer recess.

Among the ideas under discussion are so-called red flag laws, which would allow a family member or a law enforcement official to petition a court for an order to take guns from individuals who may be a threat to themselves or others. But Democrats say those laws are not enough and have called on McConnell to bring up the House’s universal background checks bill, which passed earlier this year. That bill so far has no Republican support.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) renewed calls for McConnell to bring the House bill to the floor after the Hugh Hewitt interview.

“It’s time to lead on this issue,” Schumer tweeted. “Put the House-passed background checks bill on the Senate floor for debate and a vote.”

Another proposal under discussion is legislation from Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that would expand background checks to all commercial sales. But that bill has failed twice in the Senate, and it’s unclear whether it would gain enough Republican support to pass.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Tuesday called for the Senate to pass his bill with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), that would increase funding for the National Instant Criminal Background Check System database and would focus more on mental health. But that measure, which was introduced as an alternative to Manchin-Toomey, had previously failed in the Senate.

“Had Grassley-Cruz been passed in 2013, had Harry Reid [and] the Democrats not filibustered it, there is a very good possibility the Sutherland Springs shooting could have been prevented,” Cruz said, referring to a 2017 shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas that left 26 people dead.

Cruz accused Democrats of playing politics on gun safety legislation and said that “regulating every private transaction” would not reduce gun violence.

“The 2020 presidential candidates are openly embracing gun confiscation now, mandatory federal government confiscation of private firearms owned by law abiding citizens,” Cruz said. “That doesn’t prevent crime but it does appease the Democrats’ big money backers.”

Trump has gone back and forth on supporting background checks. After the shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Trump tweeted that “serious discussions are taking place between House and Senate leadership on meaningful background checks.” But he later reportedly told Wayne LaPierre, the chief executive of the National Rifle Association, that background checks were no longer on the table. After the shooting this past weekend, Trump made no mention of background checks and instead called for changes to the U.S. mental health system.

“I will say that for the most part, sadly, if you look at the last four or five, going back even five or six or seven years — for the most part, as strong as you make your background checks, they would not have stopped any of it,” Trump said over the weekend.

In addition to discussing gun legislation, McConnell again said that he would fill a Supreme Court vacancy if one came up during the presidential election. Democrats are still seething over McConnell’s decision to block President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland from receiving a hearing in 2016. But McConnell insists the situation was different because Democrats controlled the White House and Republicans controlled the Senate.

“You have to go back to 1880 to find the last time, back to 1880s to find the last time a Senate of a different party from the president filled a Supreme Court vacancy created in the middle of a presidential election,” he said. “There was nothing I did that was, would not have been done had the shoe been on the other foot had there been … a Republican president and a Democratic Senate.”

Read More

[didanawisgi]

For all the coverage and discussion sparked by the Parkland shooting, the two sides of the debate have retreated to their respective corners.

Parkland happened. Again, America watched in horror as children fled from a murderous school rampage. Immediately, the usual fingers were pointed at the usual suspects. The media coverage was wall-to-wall. But what followed was different from the aftermath of other school shootings. A national town hall was scheduled, a day of protest drew hundreds of thousands around the country, and calls for gun control filled the airwaves. Kids took the lead, at least in the eyes of the general public. A movement seemed poised to effect change.

More than two months down the road, one wonders if that change has really materialized. It seems more likely to me that, despite relentless media coverage of Parkland’s student activists, the respective sides have simply dug in again. What follows is a distillation of conversations I’ve had with gun-control advocates of various stripes over the past month. See if it sounds familiar.

Gun-control advocate: The time has arrived. America is ready for change. School shootings have finally become intolerable. Even Fox News devoted serious coverage to our Washington rally.

Me: The testimony of the Parkland students and families was heart-wrenching. Every parent – every human being — can only attempt to imagine their pain.

Advocate: Empathy is one thing, but Parkland was a tipping point. The message is, “No more mass shootings, whatever it takes.”

Me: I agree with the “no more.” But guns weren’t the sole cause of this shooting. The FBI and local police were grossly negligent — multiple warnings over many years were missed or ignored, and the armed officer on the scene chose not to enter the school and engage the shooter.

Advocate: Police inaction and incompetence are legitimate concerns, but far less important than controlling weapons of war.

Me: Not so fast. Did you catch what went down at Great Mills High School in southern Maryland 34 days after Parkland? There, a bad guy with a gun was confronted by a good guy with a gun. The shooter killed himself after being shot by a school resource officer. No obsessive cable-news coverage followed. No rallies were scheduled. It was a one-day story. The facts did not fit the chosen media narrative.

Advocate: A classic right-wing response. It seems there are never enough guns to please your side. But this time, even red-state America is paying attention. Public opinion is turning. The NRA is on the wrong side of history.

Me: Most gun owners have no problem with reasonable restrictions on bump stocks and other commonsense measures to keep guns out of the hands of felons, the mentally ill, and otherwise irresponsible individuals. For example, Senator Rubio has introduced a bill that would require the FBI to notify local law enforcement whenever a “prohibited” person is rejected from an attempted gun purchase. That seems sensible.

Advocate: We are not interested in “small ball” changes. The problem is guns. There are too many of them, and there’s too little regulation. It’s time to act.

Me: But so many well-intentioned gun-control measures inevitably penalize the law-abiding. Recall that criminals are forbidden from possessing firearms in the first place. Any law that requires a felon to register a firearm or submit to a background check or other legal process is unenforceable; the government cannot require prohibited persons to incriminate themselves.

Advocate: That is a good debate point but ignores the gun culture that defines us. America is no longer a rural society — the Wild West has come and gone. Most countries (and cultures) do not glorify gun ownership. Some have successfully confiscated private weapons, including assault weapons. These societies suffer far fewer gun-related accidents and deaths.

Me: What is an assault weapon?

Advocate: It’s . . . a semi-automatic dressed up with combat accoutrements.

Me: At the end of the day, a semi-automatic is a semi-automatic — and there are tens of millions of them in this country. If you want to ban all of them, just say so.

Advocate: I’m saying so.

Me: What about Justice Stevens’s recent call to repeal the Second Amendment?

Advocate: He shouldn’t have written that. We know your side will run with it as “proof” of our agenda, and the NRA will raise money from it.

Me: Still, isn’t it fair to say many progressives would at the very least support national gun registration?

Advocate: What can I say? We wish America looked more like Sweden.

Me: America is not Sweden. You cannot redo culture (try as you might). Gun ownership has always been a central tenet of our culture, symbolic of freedom from government.

Advocate: As I said, the Wild West is history. Dodge City is a suburb. The threat of homeland invasion is non-existent. Yet our urban areas are suffering from a gun epidemic!

Me: No, our urban areas are suffering from a crime epidemic!

Advocate: You just don’t get it. More guns equal more death!

Me: No, you don’t get it. More guns equal less crime.

Advocate: Whatever. 2018 will be a turning point. Democrats will run on an unabashedly anti-gun platform. The merchants of death will be demonized at every opportunity. Our base is enthused. We will win.

Me: Good luck with that. Proposals like a national gun registry are non-starters with the vast majority of Americans.

Advocate: I would feel so much better if the government knew the whereabouts of every firearm in this country.

Me: This is going to be a long year . . .