Category: Anti Civil Rights ideas & “Friends”
U.S.A. – -(AmmoLand.com)- In the wake of the midterms, it is time to take a sober assessment of what the major threats to our Second Amendment rights will be. Legislative threats at the federal level are off the table through 2020, and quite possibly through 2022. But that doesn’t mean the Second Amendment is out of the woods.
The fact is, the threat to the Second Amendment has become more and more multi-faceted over the last 25 years. Recently, the threats are multiplying. Here’s a rundown.
State Legislation
In deep blue states, more anti-Second Amendment legislation is coming. You can bet on it. Exact details will be determined and may shift depending on events. But this is a threat faced before and it is one that is non-existential.
Initiatives
These have been used – most recently with I-1639 in Washington State – to enact legislation that was defeated in the legislature by the grass-roots advocacy of Second Amendment supporters. This threat holds the potential to negate the usual grass-roots advocacy – and this type of battle is tailor-made for Bloomberg’s billions to blanket the airwaves with the usual lies.
Silicon Valley Censorship
Legislation and initiatives (as well as court rulings) can be devastating, but they are not existential threats to the Second Amendment. Silicon Valley’s increasing thumbs on the scale, though double standards in enforcing terms of service, as well as their juggling of search results, and the potential to carry out de-platforming against Second Amendment supporters (just wait – that will be a demand soon) could knock us off the field.
When Second Amendment supporters make their arguments and can spread facts and logic to counter mis-reporting by the media, they generally win these fights. Mobilizing voters and volunteer support for candidates also gets done online. If Silicon Valley can shut that off, Second Amendment supporters will be in a huge bind.
Cutting off Financial Services
Another existential threat is taking place in the boardrooms of big banks and payment processors. When anti-Second Amendment legislation has been defeated (or pro-Second Amendment legislative leaders don’t even bring it up for a vote), some banks and payment processors have begun to decline financial services to gun companies who don’t accept the Bloomberg agenda.
While at the present time, it is only some banks, and limited to manufacturers, the threat could very well be expanded. Indeed, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who won re-election this Tuesday, has been waging a campaign to get banks and insurance companies to drop the NRA. The goal: To bankrupt the largest organization defending our right to keep and bear arms.
Boycotts and Stigmatization
This is a slow-burning threat that could become existential. Companies have, in the past, offered affinity discounts to the NRA (and many other groups). Most people who join the NRA don’t do it for those, but for their commitment. Those became news as many companies ended them in the wake of the Parkland shooting.
Eric Holder once famously declared that they needed to brainwash people against guns. That’s not exactly true. What they are doing is brainwashing people to falsely equate the NRA with domestic terrorists and as child killers. An outed NRA member working at a company could soon find himself ostracized – or terminated. References would dry up. Sadly, only California, D.C., and New York state forbid discrimination on the basis of political viewpoint. Passage of these laws across the country may be necessary.
These threats will not go away just by wishing, it will take a long, sustained effort. The battle for our Second Amendment rights is ongoing – so get ready to pitch in. Join the NRA, support NRA-ILA and NRA-PVF, and show your fellow Americans who we as Second Amendment supporters really are.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
Categories
Sad but true!
Just so you know what the Weasels record really is & not what they say! Grumpy
2018 CANDIDATE RATING SCORECARD
Candidates who have established a voting record, either in the office for which they are running or in another elected office, are evaluated primarily based on that voting record. However, sponsorship of pro or antigun legislation and other such factors can affect their grade.
If an incumbent or challenger has not established a voting record or demonstrated his or her position in some other way, that candidate is evaluated on his or her responses to the GOA 2018 Federal Candidate Questionnaire or public statements.
Every candidate, whether an incumbent or challenger, begins with an “A” and is then downgraded for each antigun position or vote.
If an incumbent or challenger has not established a voting record or demonstrated his or her position in some other way, that candidate is evaluated on his or her responses to the GOA 2018 Federal Candidate Questionnaire or public statements.
Every candidate, whether an incumbent or challenger, begins with an “A” and is then downgraded for each antigun position or vote.
Pro-Gun Leader: introduces pro-gun legislation.
– Pro-Gun Voter: philosophically sound.
– Pro-Gun Compromiser: generally leans our way.
– Leans Our Way: occasionally.
– Pro-Gun Voter: philosophically sound.
– Pro-Gun Compromiser: generally leans our way.
– Leans Our Way: occasionally.
– Leans Anti-Gun: usually against us.
Anti-Gun Voter: a philosophically committed anti-gunner.
Anti-Gun Leader: outspoken anti-gun advocate who carries anti-gun legislation.
Not rated: Refused to answer his or her questionnaire; no track record.
Anti-Gun Voter: a philosophically committed anti-gunner.
Anti-Gun Leader: outspoken anti-gun advocate who carries anti-gun legislation.
Not rated: Refused to answer his or her questionnaire; no track record.
SORT BY:
But do liberals still want to count to ten?
By Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA/Creative Commons
The more ambitious liberalism has become in its efforts to transform the United States, the more it has run up against one intransigent circumstance after another.
For eight years, the idol worship of Barack Obama gave liberals confidence that they could remediate society and reeducate the citizens. But reality isn’t political. It doesn’t obey the principles of progressives. Some facts aren’t pliable.
1. The economy is roaring under the Trump tenure. It’s no surprise that this fact lands on the list. GDP and the stock market are up and unemployment and food stamp claims are down.
If those trends happened under Hillary Clinton, journalists would gush and bow, but instead we get quibbles and warnings of what the future may hold.
Ezra Klein even argued that with such a low unemployment rate (3.8%), Trump’s economy should be performing much better than it is. In other words, even good news is bad news in the liberal mind.
2. People like walls. Progressives want open borders and limitless migration, and that may please the renowned professor who grew up in one city, went to school 1,000 miles away, took a job in yet another state, and lectures and does research in Europe each year.
But most people want a home and they want security. They believe that good fences make good neighbors, that a country without walls isn’t a country. Walls reinforce the pride of ownership, too. When liberals decry walls, they belittle the sense of place that people find comforting and meaningful.
3. Men and women are different. You wouldn’t think this obvious fact would be controversial, especially one backed by vast biological and social science findings. (See here and here.)
But liberals are now committed to the elimination of sexual difference. That’s why they have lionized the trans- individual. Difference leads to unequal outcomes, they believe, and so it must be attributed to patriarchy, not to nature.
They can’t accept scientific evidence that women tend to prefer working with people, men with things. They must, instead, insist that the population of engineers must be 50 percent female.
4. The LGBT population is tiny. This is an inconvenient fact in that liberals wish to remove any implication of abnormality from non-heterosexual individuals.
But the Centers for Disease Control count the LGBT group less than four percent. If we subtract bisexuals from the cohort (liberals rarely highlight them), the rate falls under three percent.
When 24 out of 25 people act in one way, we can’t help judging them normal and the other one abnormal.
5. Different groups have different abilities, on average. This proposition makes liberals very nervous, as shown in their response to IQ discussions.
We don’t have to enter the nature vs. nurture debate, however, to find evidence of average differences between racial groups. Whether they are biological or social/cultural, those differences are in some areas significant and steady, and the liberal demand that they disappear has been repeatedly frustrated.
On the crucial yardstick of academic achievement, for instance, gap between blacks and whites hasn’t closed for many years (see scores for 12th graders here), and the standard answer given by progressives (“systemic racism”) has no solid science to support it.
The more liberals refuse to consider other causes of achievement gaps such as single-parentage and cultural differences between races, the more obtuse and ideological they sound.
6. The traditional family is best. Just this week a study came out showing that being a child of divorce cuts in half the likelihood of that child earning a college degree. That’s just one of hundreds of studies demonstrating worse outcomes for children from broken homes.
The infamous “Life of Julia” ad for the Obama 2012 campaign peddled a feminist myth contrary to this mountain of evidence, showing that a woman needn’t worry about finding a man to help raise her child. She can do it just fine all by herself. See here, though, for a list of ills suffered by children in fatherless households.
7. Women are outdoing men. The “War-on-Women” motif worked well for Democrats for a time, but it collapses as soon as we look at educational trends. In 2015, women earned 55 percent of all bachelor’s degrees.
In 2016, more women went to law school than men, and one year later women surpassed men going to medical school. In nursing school, too, they still outnumber men nearly ten to one. Furthermore, at the doctoral level, women have earned more PhDs than men for many years now, and there are 135 of them for every 100 men in graduate programs.
8. The “deplorables” have good reason to mistrust their betters. It’s not just that politicians, economists and financiers, artists and entertainers, academics and intellectuals have failed so often in the 21st century to act as good stewards of their respective domains.
It’s also that the men and women of the street now know exactly what the elite think of them. You can’t trust people who despise you.
9. Religious people lead better lives. It’s been a long time since Hollywood presented faith in God and regular churchgoing as the basis of happiness.
But in measures of well-being, believers keep coming up stronger than non-believers. They are also more charitable. The findings run against the left’s determination to chase staunch believers out of the public square because, supposedly, they are nasty and biased.
10. Donald Trump is not racist. The charge won’t go away because it has intimidated conservatives and Republicans for so long.
But more Hispanics voted for Mr. Trump than for Mitt Romney, and a recent poll put the president’s approval rating among African Americans at an astounding 36 percent.
Trump has been in the public eye, too, for 30 years, and he’s worked with thousands of people of all different kinds in different ventures. Racists can’t hide under that kind of exposure. If Jim Brown doesn’t think Donald Trump is a racist, nobody else should, either.
__________________________________
I posted this one just to piss some Folks off! Grumpy
Categories
Yeah right!
7 Anti-Gun Myths That Need to Be Debunked ASAP
7 Anti-Gun Myths That Need to Be Debunked ASAP
Since the tragedy at Sandy Hook elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, America has been embroiled in a renewed gun control debate. In the Information Age there can be a lot of misinformation, and gun control is unfortunately no exception. Here are some of the ways you are being misled.
1. “Assault Weapons”
The term “assault weapon” is a made-up political term. AR-15’s are not military rifles; so unscrupulous politicians refer to them as “military-style assault weapons.” ‘Style’ – as in cosmetic appearance – is the only true word in that description. The Military uses the M4A1 carbine rifle, which looks outwardly very much like an AR-15, but they do not have the same functionality; AR-15s are not machine guns, though the terminology used is meant to imply they are. Senator Diane Feinstein (R-Calif.) says AR-15’s are designed for killing as many people in close quarters combat as possible, when in fact the AR-15 is an intermediate to distance rifle with a range of 400-600m. Feinstein and others claim AR-15’s are not used for hunting; but in fact there are dozens of varieties of AR-15 used for hunting everything from varmint/small game to deer, elk, and dangerous game. The AR-15 is not the weapon of choice for most mass shooters according to James Alan Fox, a highly respected criminologist from Northeastern University in Boston; handguns are. In fact, rifle homicides comprise a very small amount of homicides, accounting for less than 3% of homicides (323 out of 12,664 in 2011) mass shootings or otherwise.
2. “High Capacity Magazines”
Some politicians would have us believe that so-called “high capacity” magazines are responsible for a wave of death sweeping the nation. Academic, scholarly research shows the vast majority of homicides average four shots with less than 10 shots fired. While the Aurora shooter infamously used a 100-round magazine drum, these are novelty items that are prone to jam. In fact, it did jam probably saving lives. But mass shooters don’t need 100-round magazines to commit atrocity – the shooters at Virginia Tech and Columbine used 10-round magazines, they just brought a lot of them (17 and 13 respectively). James Alan Fox states mass shooters often meticulously plan their attacks in advance; a high capacity magazine ban will not deter them as Virginia Tech and Columbine illustrate.
3. Gun Show “Loophole”
Several people, including President Obama have stated that 40% of guns were bought via “gun show loopholes.” This is not true. For one, the term “gun show loophole” implies that people are deviously getting around something when in actuality; it is just selling personal private property and is not illegal or nefarious.
Additionally, private sales may not actually occur at a gun show at all. More important than loose terminology is that this claim is based on a study from 1994 of 251 people. The Washington Post evaluated this claim with the study’s original authors and says the president distorted the truth. The actual range is 14%-22% with a plus or minus error margin of 6%.
This means the final accurate range of this study is as low as 8%, but no more than 28%; neither figure is 40%. Further, it’s implied that closing private sales would solve the issue of criminals obtaining guns; it doesn’t. It fails to address illegal trafficking and straw man purchases.
A Department of Justice study indicates that 78.8% of criminals get guns from friends or family (39.6%) or from the street/illegally (39.2%). To this point, the FBI states there are 1.2 million gang members in U.S. and that gangs illegally traffic guns as addition to narcotics.
4. Mass Shootings Are Not Increasing:
Former President Bill Clinton, Mother Jones and others have claimed that mass shootings are increasing. Once again not true. James Alan Fox’s analysis of the Mother Jones‘ study indicates they left out mass murders which made it seem there was an increase after the Federal assault weapon ban expired (they’ve updated their story since).
Some mass murders receive more media attention than others, however the number has been consistently about 20 annually since 1976. The number dead from these mass shootings fluctuates from about 25 to 150, depending on the year (Fox’s chart is shown above).
In 2012, it was less than 100. Though tragic, this represents a fraction of 1% of homicides. In recent years, homicides by raw number peaked in 1991 at 24,700; it’s dropped in half since, and the homicide rate per 100,000 people today is less than it was even in 1900 (see below).
5. Anti-Gun Organizations Lump in Suicide & Injuries With Crime Data:
After a mass murder shooting anti-gun organizations like the Brady campaign inevitably call for gun restrictions; these organizations also cite gun violence data other than crime data to include suicides and injuries.
This is misleading. Although accidents and suicide are public health concerns, it is disingenuous to include them with homicide in response to a horrific crime. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), suicide rates have crept up slightly 2000-2009, but are still lower than the rate per 100,000 from 1950-1990.
It’s not accurate to say guns contribute to suicide causal factors since the rate is lower now. And ultimately, legislation aimed to prevent crime by banning weapons and limiting magazine capacity has no reasonable connection to either suicide or accidents.
We ought to compare apples to apples: suicide with suicide prevention, accidents with safety programs, and homicide with policy that would realistically reduce homicide.
6. Too Many Are Being Killed:
This statement is political gaming and wordplay. How many dead would be okay? Who wouldn’t want less murder? Ideally, zero would be the goal, but that begs the question of how to prevent any tendency of violence in humans.
This phrase is not only meaningless in terms of contributing to policy that achieves a positive end result, but also dangerous in that the appeal to emotion runs the risk of circumventing genuine solution in favor of sound byte.
It makes sense to try to achieve goals with policies other than those proven to be ineffective, as the previous Federal assault weapons ban was. Lastly, homicides are at an all time low.
7. False Zero-Sum Dichotomy – “Either/Or”:
Famous anti-gun rights advocate New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, “I want the Congress to have to stand up and say ‘I’m with the NRA and support killing our children’, or ‘No'” (Time magazine, January 28, 2013, p.30). On CNN’s Piers Morgan, Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said, “the NRA is enablers of mass murder.”
This overly simplistic incendiary rhetoric does nothing to further our national discussion, and falsely frames the debate as a zero-sum, winner-take-all, ‘either/or’ proposition – either you hug a gun or hug a kid, but you couldn’t possibly be for both gun rights and your child’s safety.
That is preposterous. The NRA is not “the gun industry,” and preservation of the Second Amendment is not of interest only to gun manufacturers. Nearly half of NRA funding comes from individual donors.
The NRA is comprised of average people who want safe neighborhoods, schools, and streets. Rather than offer ridiculous false dichotomy and grandstanding, we should be looking for genuine solutions.
BONUS: We Need More Laws:
This is the granddaddy lie. We already have a lot of laws. It’s illegal to kill your mom, steal a gun, take that gun onto school property, forcibly break and enter, and murder kids.
We already have laws preventing mentally ill & felons from obtaining guns, and we have a background check system (NICS). The Sandy Hook shooter was denied to legally purchase a gun because of the NICS system.
We tried a federal assault weapons ban (AWB) before. What we do need is better enforcement of existing laws. Congress has not fully funded NICS. Many states do not fully report felony and mental health data to NICS.
The Justice Department only prosecutes a fraction of those who criminally falsify background check forms. We desperately need to engage in genuine discussion about real solutions to the violence problem. These solutions are not likely to yield instantaneous results, or win the next election cycle; yet it is what we would do if we were serious about addressing the issue.
The underlying causes include: gang activity, which accounts for 48-90% of violent crime depending on jurisdiction; drug abuse, the single biggest predictor of violence with-or-without mental illness; concentrated urban population and poverty; and mental illness, including de-institutionalization, treatment and intervention, and other facets of mental health.
NY College Summons Student To A Meeting For Holding Unloaded Guns In Off-Campus Video
BROOKVILLE, N.Y, – -(AmmoLand.com)- He held a gun. Then his college held a meeting.
In another shot to individual rights on college campuses, administrators at Long Island University Post called a student to a mandatory meeting after he posted photos and videos to Facebook showing him legally holding unloaded firearms at an off-campus event hosted by Cabela’s, the popular outdoor sporting goods chain.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education today is calling on LIU to acknowledge that mandatory administrative meetings about non-threatening social media posts chill individual rights.
“By calling in a student for a mandatory meeting about photos of his participation in a recreational gun event, Long Island University has sent a message to its entire student body: Watch what you say,” said FIRE Senior Program Officer Sarah McLaughlin. “Universities that promise to protect free speech should not hold mandatory meetings for students who engage in it.”
TAKE ACTION: TELL LONG ISLAND UNIVERSITY TO RESPECT STUDENT EXPRESSION
According to LIU, another student complained that junior Anand Venigalla “might have violent intentions,” seemingly due to his participation in the Cabela’s event. LIU’s director of student engagement contacted Venigalla on Aug. 7, saying it was “imperative” they meet as soon as possible. The administrator later told FIRE that the meeting was not an investigation, but warned Venigalla that it was mandatory.
FIRE first wrote to LIU on Aug. 31 to express its concerns about the school’s violation of its commitment to free expression, pointing out that “students cannot be summoned for questioning every time they post a photo of themselves engaging in recreational firearm use.”
During Venigalla’s meeting with LIU, the director also brought up an essay he wrote for a class on war, terrorism, and justice in November 2017. Venigalla mentioned in the essay that political violence against authorities, but not civilians, can be justified in certain situations, citing the Boston Tea Party as an example. It is not clear how the administration obtained the essay. The director also questioned Venigalla about a Facebook comment expressing disappointment over losing an election for a student government position, in which Venigalla said the Greek life system wields too much political power on campus. For LIU administrators, apparently three examples of constitutionally-protected speech somehow warrant a mandatory meeting with administrators.
“Free expression matters because it is through the unrestricted expression of ideas that we learn and grow in wisdom,” Venigalla said.
LIU, apparently realizing that their case against Venigalla was meritless, declined to investigate further. However, campus inquiries like this chill expression. Though LIU is private and not bound by the First Amendment, it is legally and morally bound to honor the promises it makes to students.
TAKE ACTION: TELL LONG ISLAND UNIVERSITY TO RESPECT STUDENT EXPRESSION
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of students and faculty members at America’s colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience — the essential qualities of liberty.
