Obama reelected. Now what?

In case you've been under a rock for the past few days, President Obama has been reelected. And before the votes were even counted, the usual suspects were up to their usual activities.

And with Obama unfettered by any need to be relected, we can finally take him for his word when he says things like, "Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced." Will that ban come through congress? Probably not. But if it does, I do not think he will hesitate to sign it. Or will that ban come in the form of an executive order like the Dream Act? We will find out soon enough. Just wait for the next high profile shooting. It will be the perfect catalyst for him to say, "After today's tragedy, i've decided to take executive action and ban the further sale and manufacture of high-capacity magazines."

President Obama will also have a chance to appoint at least one Supreme Court Justice. I've already explained how that's bad news.

As gun owners, we definitely live in interesting times. The vast, gun-ignorant majority that propelled Obama to victory will no doubt support any anti-gun effort of the Democratic party as long as it's couched in enough fuzzy, feel-good language about stopping crime, saving children, etc. Therefore, it's more important than ever for us to engage in outreach to the gun-ignorant, counter the lies of the gun controllers/banners, and make our presence known to our congress critters.

Supreme Court possibilities if Obama is reelected.

I've highlighted some of the standouts on the list.

via CNN:

1. Kamala Harris, California attorney general - Anti-gun. Anti-Heller decision.

2. Judge Paul Watford, 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, San Francisco

3. Judge Jacqueline Hong-Ngoc Nguyen, 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, San Francisco

4. Kathryn Ruemmler, White House counsel - Served as a Fast and Furious apologist for the White House. 

5. Mary Murguia, 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, San Francisco

6. Lisa Madigan, Illinois attorney general - A consistent harrasser of gun owners. Thinks gun ownership should be a matter of public record, thus an advocate of gun owner registration.

7. Judge Diane Wood, 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, Chicago - Supporter of gun registration.

8. Judge Merrick Garland, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit - Supporter of gun registration. Clintonite.

All you need to know about the presidential election.

Taken from the October 16, 2012 Presidential Debate

Barack Obama:

And so what I'm trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally. Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced.

Mitt Romney:

Yeah, I'm not in favor of new pieces of legislation on -- on guns and taking guns away or making certain guns illegal.

Both Romney and Obama are masters of the Non-Answer, but it seems a real answer escaped both of them that night: Obama wants to ban scary looking guns that are responsible for fewer than 2% of the homicides in this country and are peacefully used by millions of shooters for recreation, hunting and competition. Mitt Romney does not.

With those few words, they have both made my decision on who to vote for that much easier. Hopefully that decision was made that much easier for you as well.

Zero tolerance, zero sense.

I wish I could say this happened in New Jersey, New York, California, Chicago, or some other anti-gun stronghold, but this happened in good ol' Nebraska:

A deaf preschooler in Grand Island, Nebraska, has been prohibited from signing his own name because school administrators believe the gesture he uses looks too much like a gun.

"He's deaf, and his name sign, they say, is a violation of their weapons policy," Hunter Spanjer's father Brian told Channel 10/11.

Hunter uses Signing Exact English or SEE — a form of manual communication that uses modified ASL handshapes in an effort to better mimic the spoken English language.
"Anybody that I have talked to thinks this is absolutely ridiculous," Hunter's grandmother told the news outlet. "This is not threatening in any way."

The preschool, which has a strict zero-tolerance policy toward "any instrument...that looks like a weapon," would not discuss the matter, but said they were working with the parents on a compromise.

Working on a compromise? There should be no compromise. The policy is stupid and it should be a scrapped. Guns are guns. Fingers are not guns. Drawings of guns are not guns. Sticks are not guns. If something can't come out of the end of it and hurt someone, it's not a gun. It's that simple. That should be the new policy.

"The right to bear arms is the best thing to have over here.”

Northeast Oklahoma City apartment complex sweep nets eight arrests:

“It's like the devil's playground,” said Jashell Royal, 21. “Kids can't play at the park. The last time I was there, someone was running around shooting. Literally, they're crazy over here,” she said.

While the complex houses mainly women and children, boyfriends and brothers often move in with them surreptitiously and cause problems for the residents and visitors.

“If you don't have a job and have kids, it's the best place to be, but it's also the most harmful place to be,” Royal said.

She said she has been harassed by groups of men at the complex. Royal said they rove the complex in the early morning and late at night, especially when the complex's office closes for the day or when security officers aren't around.

“It's real scary because everyone over here has kids,” she said.

“The right to bear arms is the best thing to have over here,” Royal said.

Unfortunately, that right is denied if you live in public housing.

I drive by this place every day and I try to drive by as quickly as possible. I can recall one time I nearly ran over a man who was running across the street while being pursued by a man wielding a handgun. I am glad they are cleaning the place out, but it would make me even happier if those who lived there had their Second Amendment rights.

You have a right to your own opinions, but not your own facts.

Exhibit A:

This image spread through the typical anti-gun channels like wildfire without a single thought to whether it was accurate or not. To the astute observer, that selection of guns would be recognized as a list of guns available in one of the installments of the Call of Duty game franchise; A game that apparently includes several non-automatic weapons such as a revolver, sawed off shotgun, and na AA-12 shotgun which isn't even available to civilians.

Obama reaffirms his desire for an assault weapons ban.

Obama: AK-47s belong on battlefield, not streets

“I – like most Americans – believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms,” Obama said. “I think we recognize the traditions of gun ownership passed on from generation to generation, that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage. “But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers and not in the hands of crooks. They belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities,” he added.

The real Obama is back. The one that made me start this blog. Things have been slow around here, but not it looks like I will have plenty to write about between now and election night and perhaps beyond.

Snuffy Pfleger is mad.

AN ANGRY PFLEGER TO OBAMA: 'YOU WILL NOT IGNORE VIOLENCE IN CHICAGO'

Referring to the deadly shooting in Aurora, Colorado where accused James Holmes, a 24-year-old former doctoral student killed 12 people and wounded 58 others, Father Michael L. Pfleger Sunday said while he loves President Barack Obama “you will not ignore the violence in Chicago.” Pfleger asked everyone to call President Barack Obama at 202-456-1111, and ask him to reinstate the assault weapons ban and to help reduce the violence in Chicago.

Does Snuffy not realize that Chicago has an assault weapons ban? Does Snuffy also not realize that Chicago has a higher violent crime rate than most cities where assault weapons aren't banned?

Something tells me he didn't really think this through.

Protest the NRA.

Protest!

I wonder if it will be anything like the protest they had at the NRA's Annual Meeting.

Lautenberg set to ressurect magazine ban.

via HuffPo:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg set the tone when he urged the two presidential candidates to outline their policies with respect to federal gun laws. And now, Sen. Frank Lautenberg's (D-N.J.) office is saying that he plans to reintroduce legislation that would curtail the ability of a shooter to fire at length without reloading.
"If reports are correct and a high-capacity gun magazine was used to commit these awful murders, Senator Lautenberg will absolutely renew his effort to limit the availability of this dangerous firearm attachment," Lautenberg's communications director Caley Gray told The Huffington Post.

I guess it's never too early to start politicking a tragedy.

One thing I am curious about is this: Of the many Democrats and Democrat apologists who dismissed Operation #fastandfurious (which is responsible for hundreds of deaths), how many of them will manage to muster up outrage over this shooting? I'm going to say 100% of them.

And it begins.

A gunman opened fire early Friday at a suburban Denver movie theater, leaving 14 people dead and at least 50 others injured, Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said.

A horrible situation and red meat for the gun controllers/banners. Expect the usual arguments from the usual suspects (mental health screening, assault weapons, assault clips) and some new ones(civiliam access to body armor,smoke/tear gas). And with this being an election year, expect the talking heads to push guns into the election debate.


UPDATE: Piers Morgan goes first.

More Americans will buy guns after this, to defend themselves, and so the dangerous spiral descends. When/how does it stop? #Colorado
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) July 20, 2012

Larry King with a glaring error

We remain one of the few countries in the world where anyone in the world can get a gun. in this case a machine gun. This is absurd
— Larry King(@kingsthings) July 20, 2012

Wait. What? This isn't supposed to happen.

TORONTO (Reuters) - Two people were killed and 23 injured when a Toronto street party ended in gunfire late on Monday, raising fears of violent retaliation in Canada's largest city. ... The shooting raised fears about gun violence in a city that takes pride in its relatively low crime rate compared with U.S. urban centers. Canada has very strict laws controlling the use of handguns, and violent crime is usually rare. ... The murders were the 27th and 28th this year in Toronto. Detroit, a far smaller U.S. city, had 184 murders by mid-July.

A quick checklist of Toronto gun control laws: 1. Assault weapons ban? Check. 2. De facto ccarry ban? Check. 3. Liscensing of gun owners? Check. 4. Registration of guns? Check. It seems none of that worked that day.

Too little, too late.

Today, Eric Holder was held in contempt of congress.

 This means absolutely nothing. It is nothing more than symbolic gesture for congress critters to score cheap, pro-gun points. Eric Holder will continue on as an anti-gun attorney general. He won't be held legally accountable for the laws that were broken. He won't resign. He won't be fired. In fact, it will be business as usual. He's free to continue his career of making poor decisions, blaming guns, and shirking responsibility.

Congress should have stood against Holder years ago before people died.

Gun Walking for Dummies... And MSNBC'ers.

	“Wide Receiver”	“Fast and Furious”
Coordinated with Mexican authorities.	YES	NO
Authorized by Mexican authorities.	YES	NO
Legal under Mexican law.	YES	NO
Killed Mexican citizens.	NO	YES
Killed Border Patrol agents.	NO	YES
Stopped when the guns went missing.	YES	NO
Used as pretext for increased gun control.	NO	YES

I will admit, that last one can't be objectively proven, but knowing the record and beliefs of Eric Holder and Barack Obama, it wouldn't surprise me if it were true.

Chicago is deadlier than Kabul.

From HuffPo:

The war zone-like statistics are not new. As WBEZ reports, while some 2,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, more than 5,000 people have been killed by gun fire in Chicago during that time, based on Department of Defense and FBI data.

At least they are beginning to realize what the real root of their murder problem is:

The city has repeatedly said "fracturing" street gangs are responsible for the bulk of the recent gun violence. The city has deployed specialized undercover officers to units on the city's West and South Sides, as well as saturating area neighborhoods with uniformed cops.

All in all, it looks like Chicago's strict gun laws are working.

Microstamping.

Here is the video. Below it will be some highlights and my thoughts:

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1:08 - Dan Gross says this is just about catching the bad guys. That is not true. Microstamping will only be able to lead law enforcement to the original, legal purchaser of the firearm who is not always the person who committed the crime.

1:29 - S. E. Cupp leaves out the fact that gun registration is not universal. If what Bloomberg says is true about most of New York's "crime guns" coming from other states (states that aren't even considering microstamping or gun registration), microstamping will not help solve most New York crimes. Microstamping will only be somewhat effective if the gun used in the crime was bought in New York.

2:09 - Guy in a suit says gun owners are accused of crimes just because they have guns. I don't know where he gets that notion. Maybe that's the way things work under the fascist system of Bloomberg, but in the free parts of the country, that's simply not true. And even if it were, microstamping wouldn't change that. Again, microstamping can only allow you to trace a gun back to it's orginal, legal purchaser and they could just as easily (if not more easily) be falsely accused of a crime as someone who doesn't have a microstamping gun. If anything, microstamping would create an environment of gun owners being "guilty until proven innocent" as S. E. Cupp says.

3:10 - Dan Gross mentions a cap of $12.50 per gun for making it microstamping. He mentions this in relation to the cost of saving lives. The problem here is the microstamping can't save lives. In fact, it can only be effective after the crime has been committed and a life possibly ended. Again, says it will help catch bad guys. As explained previously, the bad guy isn't always the person who purchased the gun.

3:55 - Alex Wagner talks about gun advocates claiming that microstamping amounts to a gun ban. That much is true. A microstamping mandate essentially creates a de facto ban on firearms made by companies that can't afford to or simply don't want to implement microstamping technology.

5:37 - Dan Gross mentions anti-law eforcement paranoia. Speaking of law enforcement, I wonder if he can explain why guns purchased by law enforcement agencies will be exempt from microstamping laws? Is it the cost? Is it because it negatively impacts the reliability of firearms? Do they believe law enforcement officials don't commit crimes?

6:54 - Dan Gross pushes the false narrative that neither he nor the Brady Campaign advocate gun bans. Complete and utter BS. Taken verbatim from the Brady Campaign's FAQ page:

Our prioirites are requiring Brady criminal background checks on all gun sales; banning military-style assault weapons; and strengthening law enforcement's efforts to stop the illegal gun market, like limiting the number of guns that can be bought at one time.

Anyone who advocates banning any type of gun is anti-gun. There is no way around it.


Summary:

1. Even when put up against a relative lightweight like S. E. Cupp, Dan Gross seems to be just as weak and uninspiring as his predecessor.

2. Microstamping is hogwash. It can be rendered useless with a $2 tool and a few minutes of time.

3. Why are anti-gunners so adamant about this useless technology? There are two reasons. One, some antigunners are True Believers who really think this technology will accomplish it's goals of making crimes easier to solve. Two, the other more sinister anti-gunners know that any ground gained is better than no ground gained. They know that if they can get this to pass, they'll have something to wave in front of George Soros and their other sugar daddies as proof that the anti-gun lobby isn't completely irrelevant.

9 killed, more than 50 hurt.

In Chicago of course. And the scariest part of all? This is an improvement:

June 11, 2012 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says despite the weekend violence, the number of shootings is actually down compared to last year. Over the weekend, nine people were killed and more than 40 others were hurt in shootings across the city. The youngest victim to die over the weekend is Joseph Briggs, 16, who was shot to death at his home in the 6100-block of South Rockwell Street on Saturday night. He attended Gage Park High School.

Hunting with a suppressor may soon be legal in Oklahoma. (updated)

Who would be against noise pollution and protecting one's hearing? Not any rational person, that's for sure. That's why SB 1743 passed both the House and Senate relatively unopposed. via NRA-ILA:

Today, the Oklahoma House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to legalize the use of suppressors while hunting through passage of Senate Bill 1743 by a 78 to 3 vote. Last week, SB 1743 passed in the state Senate by a 44 to 0 vote. This bill now heads to Governor Mary Fallin for her consideration and approval.

Another good pro-gun bill is soon to hit Governor Fallin's desk. Hopefully she keeps up her winning streak and signs this one as well.

BTW, these are the 3 house representatives who are in favor of noise pollution and ruining your hearing:
Paul Roan*
Mike Shelton*
Ben Sherrer

* These two also voted against the recently passed open carry bill. Make sure when election day comes, you alter your vote accordingly.

UPDATE (5/25/12)
Governor Fallin signed SB 1743.

Open Carry in Oklahoma.

Thanks to the hard work of gun owners and legislators, Oklahoma has now joined the overwhelming majority of the country and become an open carry state:

OKLAHOMA CITY - Governor Mary Fallin has signed into law Senate Bill 1733, a measure that allows Oklahoma citizens to openly carry firearms. Governor Mary Fallin signed the legislation on Tuesday, May 15. The bill permits those who are licensed, or already have been licensed, to carry a firearm under the Oklahoma Self Defense Act to openly carry a weapon or conceal it. It also allows property owners to openly carry a firearm on their property without a concealed carry permit for the purpose of self defense.

Additional thanks should go to Governor Mary Fallin for signing the bill. She has lived up to her A+ NRA rating and my expectations of her.

And no thanks at all should go to the following individuals who voted against the open carry bill:

From the House:
Roan
Shelton
Virgin

 From the Senate:
Adelson
 Burrage
 Laster
 Wilson
 Ballenger
 Eason-McIntyre
 Lerblance
 Bass
 Johnson, C.
 McAffrey

 Both my House and Senate reps voted against the bill. I will be altering my voting habits accordingly.

Sen. Constance Johnson is wrong about Open Carry.

In the US News Debate Forum, Democratic Oklahoma state senator Constance Johnson writes an argument against open carry claiming that it's an invitation to chaos. Like any other anti-gun argument, none of her argument is based on facts or statistics and is instead heavily based on speculation and fear of the chaos which has never manifested itself in any other open carry state.

 The reality is that Oklahoma's Open Carry law will change very little of our current self-defense law. It doesn't allow anyone to carry guns in any new public places. No new individuals will be allowed to carry a gun. It doesn't allow anyone to brandish a gun or shoot people for any reason. The law essentially makes a concealed carry license into a concealed/open carry license. All other laws still apply. There will be no more chaos after this law than before.