Thursday, December 31, 2009

2009 Hall of Fame

1. Zach Wamp - The tweet heard around the world.

2. Chris Broughton - A triple play. First, he demonstrates why you can't trust MSNBC. Second, he demonstrates that 3%ers come in colors other than caucasian. And third, he helped keep open carry in the news after...

3. William Kostric - He brought open carry to the forefront of the national media and generally caused all the anti-gunners to get their knickers in a permanent twist. That works for me

4. Tom Coburn - Senator Coburn's amendment to the credit card bill ensured that state concealed carry laws applied to national park land in that states. So now whenever an Obama supporter claims that gun rights have "expanded" under Obama, you can reply by saying, "Only because Tom Coburn made him do it."

5. Paul Markel - For this quote about compromising with gun controllers and essentially being the polar opposite of Jim Darnell: "Can you placate a lion by letting him eat only your foot?"

And that quote should be the Quote of the Year for 2009. Every time the gun controllers beg and plea with you to give in to just one more restriction, remember that quote. Refuse to offer your foot. For 2010, be stubborn like a jackass and kick that lion in the mouth. Say no to any and all legislation that is not aimed solely at those who break the law.

2009 Hall of Shame

1. Jimmy Carter - Apparently thinks anyone who owns one of the most popular, yet least abused firearms in the nation wants "to kill policemen or go to a school or workplace to see how many victims we can accumulate before we are finally shot or take our own lives." Who would have thought a peanut farmer would have a peanut brain?

2. MSNBC - A black man carries a gun and becomes an angry white person through the magic of television.

3. Eric Holder - Mexico, a country with a corrupt government and an even more corrupt police force has GTS. Apparently, the solution is to ban American's guns. Because if you ban guns in America, the drug cartels (organizations that own speedboats, submarines, airplanes, and helicopters) will never be able to get guns anywhere else. It's brilliantly stupid. No wonder Eric's been put into Joe Biden's soundproof room.

4. Fort Benning - Terrorists also eat food. Therefore, anyone who eats food is a terrorist.

5. Jim Darnell - With friends like this, who needs Josh Sugarmann? A real, live, breathing concern troll. At least someone was smart enough to delete his tripe before it cost them their entire subscriber base.

Mark Twain once said, "The trouble isn't that there are too many fools, but that the lightning isn't distributed right." Personally, I don't think there is enough lightning.

So for 2010, may the lightning be both plentiful and accurate. Especially around Washington D.C.

5 Things to Leave Behind in 2009

1. "Common Sense" - Anything preceded by the phrase "Common Sense" is more often than not, not.

2. Freaking out over Open Carry - It's legal. Get over it. This goes for both anti-gunners and pro-gunners.

3. Caring about Mexico - It was a cesspool before the assault weapons ban, it was a cesspool during the assault weapons ban, and it continued to be a cesspool after the ban sunset. Reinstating the assault weapons ban will not fix a single problem in Mexico.

4. The notion that the Second Amendment is about the National Guard or any other government organized force - The Heller case has been ruled for over a year now and all 9 justices agreed that the Second Amendment is an individual right, not a collective right.

5. "I believe in the Second Amendment, but..." - At that point you should just stop talking, because you're about the render the first half of your sentence irrelevant.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Gov. Quinn makes another move in the right direction.

After passing a good "gun control" law, Gov. Quinn follows it up by doing something i'm a huge fan of: Keeping criminals locked up.

Via HuffPo
Gov. Pat Quinn announced today that he is ending a controversial prisons policy that accelerated good behavior credit for new inmates and led to some inmates spending just a few weeks in the state lockup.


Personally, i'm not a fan of good behavior programs. You're locked up because your bad behavior outside of prison was deemed a detriment to society. And since your good behavior inside of prison doesn't benefit society, it shouldn't be credited towards an early release back into society.

If you don't want to be in prison, try exhibiting good behavior outside of prison and avoid getting locked up in the first place.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Let me introduce you to Rambo.

Strong language and general idiocy warning. Not work safe:


So the next time Bloomberg, Helmke, Sugarmann, et al. get on the cross, remember Rambo.

Rambo is the guy who won't register his guns. In fact, he legally is exempt from doing so. Rambo is the guy who won't get a concealed carry permit. Rambo is the guy who won't pay higher taxes on guns and ammunition.

Rambo is the guy who shoots The Children© (who are more often than not, younger versions of Rambo). Rambo is the guy the gun controllers will never write about, but count his crimes as one of the many sins of gun owners. Rambo is what the gun controllers will call "gun culture". Rambo is the one whose burden you will carry. Rambo is the last person who will ever be blamed for gun violence.

And most importantly, Rambo is probably the reason many people own and carry guns.

If you've got the stomach for more of this idiocy, continue. But keep in mind, the Rambos of the world are more than just gang members or criminals. They are just as much enemies of your freedoms as the most brazen gun controllers.

Friday, December 18, 2009

WA lawmakers seek to ban semi-automatic weapons.

Not that it has any chance of passing, it's worth mentioning just to point out that old lies die hard.

The ban would cover semiautomatics designed for military use that are capable of rapid-fire and can hold more than 10 rounds. Semiautomatics designed for sporting or hunting purposes wouldn't be banned.

"If they're used in the army, used in the war — that's what this ban is about," said Ralph Fascitelli, the board president of Washington Ceasefire.


First off, the Second Amendment wasn't drafted to protect sporting equipment. Historically, owning a gun for sporting purposes was a fringe benefit of owning a gun for more practical reasons such as putting food on the table and putting bad people on the ground. E.g., "I own a gun for putting holes Redcoats/Commies/Zombies. It just happens to be fun putting holes in barrel lids." Buying guns for purely sporting reasons is a recent development in history.

Second, the only semi-automatic weapons currently in use by the military are shotguns and handguns, many of which ironically fall outside of this proposed ban. Semi-automatic rifles have been used by civilians for over 100 years, despite no longer being standard issue for any military for quite some time. So to push this ban as somehow banning military weapons is disingenuous.

Then they engage in the "nuke fallacy":
"We don't allow people to own tanks or bazookas or machine guns, and very few people think that that's an unreasonable restriction," he said.


Despite the fact you can own a tank, tanks, bazookas, and machine guns have never been in common use outside of the military. In other words, those things really are military weapons. To liken semi-automatic rifles which have been designed and manufactured for civilian use to military weapons that were designed and manufactured for military use is a very big stretch.

She also said she doesn't believe such a ban would violate the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.


Actually, depending on the way the ban is written, it could be a violation of the Second Amendment. If it's like the defunct Clinton ban, then it won't be a violation, as the ban only restricted a number of certain features. And if it's a Chicago/DC style ban, then it is mostly definitely a violation of the Second Amendment. And with the Heller ruling, the Second Amendment now protects weapons in common use, which includes many of the semi-automatic weapons they want to ban.

And she closes with:
"Did the framers of our Constitution ever envision something like a semi-automatic weapon?" she asked.


The framers of the Constitution were educated men. Just as most educated people today know that technology progresses with time, i'm certain the framers were no exception. Many of them lived to witness the progression of rifled barrels, so firearm innovation would be no surprise to them.

An additional bit of information comes via Dave Workman and the FBI's Uniform Crime Report. Apparently, only two people have been killed by rifles of any kind.

Since, Washington can't claim to be plagued with assault weapon violence, what is the true motivation behind this ban? Taking into account the name of this proposed ban (The Aaron Sullivan Public Safety and Police Protection Bill), could this be a case of memorializing someone with a bad law?

Anti-snitching = anti-gun = pro-criminal.

Stigma of 'snitching' creates a street code of silence that hampers Chicago cops.

Though the streets have long been governed by a code of conduct that discourages cooperating with cops, the anti-snitching mind-set gained momentum with the release of an underground DVD in 2004. Its staying power was enhanced through song lyrics, apparel and Web sites such as whosarat.com.


As if Chicago didn't have enough problems to burden the rest of the country with, add to it the idiotic "anti-snitching" movement. But how is the anti-snitching movement anti-gun?

Any behavior that enables criminality, whether it's people on the street not snitching, politicians protecting gang members from harsh sentencing, women not being more selective with who they mate with, or men not sticking around to properly raise their children, will always result in more calls for gun control.

The so-called "leaders" of these broken, dysfunctional communities will never turn to the people they lead and say, "Hey, perhaps we need to start looking at ourselves." No. Instead, they will blame the responsible, upstanding members of society, including gun owners, for all their social ills.

If some kid on the south side of Chicago decides to join a gang and shoot another kid, who will be blamed? Is it the fault of the kid who procured the firearm and pulled the trigger? Nope. Is it the fault of his father who decided he'd rather be in a gang himself than raise his child? Nope. Is it the fault of the mother who knew the father was no good before she got in bed with him? Nope. Will it be the fault of the community members who refused to snitch? Nope. Will it be the fault of the decades worth of liberal, welfare-state politics that created this entrenchment of social dysfunction? Of course not. Is it the fault of some guy 300 miles away who bought a semi-automatic handgun at a gun show? You betcha!

And Mike Bloomberg, Richard Daley, Paul Helmke, and Josh Sugarmann are banking on the fact that a large portion of this country is stupid enough to believe it. That is why every time there is a shooting by some dysfunctional youth, from a dysfunctional home, in a dysfunction community, ran by dysfunctional leaders, the first thing they do is wag their fingers in contempt at... Well... The functional people. Namely, gun owners. And when they call for more gun control legislation, they always look to the functional communities to make the sacrifice. After all, it's for The Children©.

And while it's nice to have politicians and groups like the NRA to stand up against further burdening the law abiding people of this country, why will none of them stand up and state the real cause of the problem? Is it because they fear being politically incorrect? Has this country finally reached the point where we're afraid to blame people for their actions? Staying quiet on the matter is only going to encourage the very behavior that needs to be stopped.

So not only do the members of these broken communities need to start snitching, our politicians need to start snitching as well. Silence has never solved any problem.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Oath Keeping in action.

Taken from the Oath Keepers' "Declaration Of Orders We Will Not Obey".

1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.

The attempt to disarm the people on April 19, 1775 was the spark of open conflict in the American Revolution. That vile attempt was an act of war, and the American people fought back in justified, righteous self-defense of their natural rights. Any such order today would also be an act of war against the American people, and thus an act of treason. We will not make war on our own people, and we will not commit treason by obeying any such treasonous order.

Nor will we assist, or support any such attempt to disarm the people by other government entities, either state or federal.


Via the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner, here is an example of Oath Keeping in action.

The Larimer County Sheriff will refuse to help enforce any concealed carry ban at CSU, student government officials said Wednesday, but permit holders packing heat and the Sheriff's office have little to worry about if student government has any say in the matter.

At its weekly Senate meeting, the Associated Students of CSU passed a resolution supporting the school's existing policy allowing concealed weapons on campus by a vote of 21-3, with one senator abstaining.

[ . . . ]

During discussion of the resolution, Sen. David Ambrose, who helped draft the document, read an e-mail statement by Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden saying Alderden's office would "not hold or detain a valid permit holder who violates that policy, nor would his department have anything to do with enforcing that policy."

Alderden also said he did not believe unelected university officials have any authority to enact such a ban, which would "directly counter" Colorado law.


Good job, Sheriff Alderden.

Now if the time ever comes when the government, either state or federal, attempts to deny people the right of self-defense, let's hope Sheriff Alderden and other LEOs take that same stand.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Another shooting in the fiefdom of Bloomberg.

At least this time, it's the criminal that was shot.



Of course, the media couldn't wait to sling the hyperbole by giving reports of machine pistol wielding street peddlers when in reality the weapon in question was nothing more than a semi-automatic handgun stolen from a woman in Virginia.

Neither the Tiahrt Amendment nor lack of registration prevented law enforcement from tracing the gun to its original owner. But that's not going to stop Money Mike from getting on the cross.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

If she lived in England...

She'd be the criminal and the guy breaking into her home would have been the victim. Actually, if she had lived in England, she probably wouldn't have even had a gun. Luckily, she didn't live in England and the worst outcome never came to be.

The police weren't able to reach her in time, so she had to use a firearm to defend herself from a violent intruder. Those who think gun owners are trigger-happy and just waiting to shoot someone over the smallest sleight should listen to this 911 call.



Far from an angry man with a gun, this woman exercised great restraint towards her intruder. The only angry man in this situation was the one without the gun. Unsurprisingly, this angry man had a criminal record.

So it's not angry men with guns who are a problem. It's angry people period, those with guns and without guns who are the threat to society. The inability to recognize this fact is the failing of the pro gun-control pseudo-intellectual types.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

A good "gun control" law.

Why? Because, it focuses on the criminal, not the tool, and avoids further erosion the rights of law-abiding people:

Gov. Pat Quinn signed a law today to require prison time for street gang members convicted of possessing a loaded gun in a public area.



Essentially, it's not so much a gun control law as it is a criminal control law. Of course the Brady Campaign, VPC, and other usual suspects are deafeningly silent on this development as it does not aid them in their goal to disarm the populace.

Maybe there is hope for Illinois now that they no longer have Barack Obama standing up for criminals (See: "No extra penalty for gang association")

Personally, I would revise the law to not only include loaded guns, but unloaded guns and ammunition as well. I would also add a mandatory sentence length of at least 20 years to ensure that by the time they are released, their gang associates on the outside are either dead or have done something productive with their lives.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Sugarmann: Too early to call Kansas CCW a success because no one has been shot.

Yes. That is his real justification.

In 3 years of allowing concealed weapons, Kansas CCW holders have failed to shoot people over parking spaces and fender benders (that's according to Josh's own data, to which he contests that the real numbers have to be higher). Therefore, Josh Sugarmann thinks it's too early to call Kansas CCW a success. But as soon as a CCW holder shoots someone (and it will eventually happen due to the "law of averages"), I have no reason to believe Josh Sugarmann won't think it's too early to declare CCW a failure. Or as Josh succinctly puts it, "... past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results."

And that is why his logic is truly baffling, if there is even logic to be found here. It's akin to saying, "It's too early to call the fire department a success because it's only a matter of time until a fireman commits arson."

Josh Sugarmann's "score keeping" (with rather low scores relative to the total number of CCW holders) is nothing more than another one his many attempts to attack the lawful possession and carrying of firearms.

Despite Josh Sugarmann's attacks, in the entire history of CCW, not a single state has so much as pondered legislation to repeal their CCW laws. That's because crimes committed by CCW holders, such as the ones Sugarmann documents, are extreme rarities. Statistically irrelevant and non-issue.

Friday, December 4, 2009

A man robbed not once, but twice.

Here is a tale from the formerly Great Britain.

A pensioner who left two children "very frightened" after he went to his door with a gun because he heard a noise outside has been fined £367.


That doesn't sound so bad, right? You're probably envisioning some dusty old codger waving a rifle around at a bunch of kids try to retrieve their ball from his yard. Who wouldn't want to fine someone like that.

At an earlier hearing fiscal depute Ruth Ross-Davie said: "It was about 9pm when Knight was in his home and he heard a noise outside of his door and his response to that was to take one of his guns out with a view to frightening whoever was making a noise outside of his door.


OK. That makes sense. A guy hears noise outside of his house and goes to investigate. Not the wisest thing to do, but understandable.

Apparently, the boys were "very frightened". Surely, Knight was waving the gun in the air and pointing it at these two boys, right? Well... No.

The court heard the two boys saw Knight even though he did not see them and were "very frightened".


Surely, Mr Knight had a good reason for toting this dangerous weapon around his house.

He added that the weapon Knight had taken out was a Winchester Rifle with a long barrel and was not capable of firing.

Mr Robertson said Knight, who has poor eye sight, had become paranoid after he was robbed and his neighbours were robbed in their own home.


That seems like a good reason to have a gun. Although, i'd want a functioning firearm. So far, Knight hasn't done anything that I would consider worthy of legal punishment.

The defence agent added Knight knew that whatever provocation he had taken the wrong course of action.
The court also heard Knight was planning to sell his home and move into sheltered accommodation.


Of course it was the wrong course of action. This is England. Anything involving a gun, even a non-functioning gun, is the wrong course of action.


Sheriff Elizabeth Jarvie QC told Knight she took account of his previous good record and the unusual circumstances in the case.
She added that his fine would have been £500 but she had discounted it to reflect his early guilty plea.

Knight's guns have also been forfeited.


And there you have it. An old man who has been robbed hears a noise outside his house, arms himself with a non-functioning gun, and goes to investigate it only to be robbed by his government.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

This is why you lock them up. Part III

By now, everyone has heard of Maurice Clemons. The now dead child molesting ex-con who was a person of interest in the execution of 4 Seattle area police officers. Naturally, the gun controllers begin their "blood dance". But some in the media are smart enough to see the real problem.

Clemons is just another in a long line of violent, repeat offenders, who if still locked up up, would have never been able to commit their latest heinous crime.

Increased restrictions on guns might have saved the lives of those four police officers. Keep in mind, Clemons was already breaking numerous firearm laws by simply possessing a firearm. However, the surefire way to have prevented those officers' deaths and even Clemons own death was to never have let Clemons out in the first place. Anyone with a record as long and brutal as his should have stayed locked up.