Gun Confiscation
U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)-The war on guns marches on. Instead of concentrating on real solutions like getting rid of “gun free zones,” focusing on mental health, and allowing teachers to carry guns the mainstream media pushes “common sense” gun laws. These proposed laws are anything but common sense.
“Texas shooting suspect’s choice of guns complicates debate over assault rifles,” reads the headlines in the Chicago Tribune.
The Texas shooter used a revolver and a shotgun to kill ten students. The Chicago Tribune article highlights that only the most extreme gun grabbers want to ban shotguns and revolvers. At least publicly. The article quickly points to the Las Vegas and the Parkland shootings to show more people died there.
“The reason most mass shootings are conducted with assault weapons is that shooters know full well what weapon to select, if they want to kill the most amount of people in the shortest amount of time possible, and that’s an AR-15-style gun with a large-capacity magazine,” the article quotes Avery W. Gardiner, co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “If this shooter had had one of those, quite likely there would have been more deaths and injuries. But we don’t know.”
Gardiner is living in a world of hypotheticals. This tactic is one of the most commonly used techniques by the left. When a tragedy happens that proves your theory wrong, instead of accepting the evidence and reevaluating your theory, you change the reality by using hypotheticals. “It was bad, but it could have been really bad.”
Michael E. Diamond of NBC News calls gun culture a “dysfunctional mess.” They know the respect veterans have in the gun world, so they wheel out a vet who is anti-gun. They do this for two reasons. First, being in the military, the vet speaks from a place of authority even though this vet admits he really didn’t use a gun in the military.
The Second reason is that they want to try to frame it that every veteran agrees with the one outlier. Just look at the headline “The Texas school shooting reminds America what vets already know: civilian gun culture is a dysfunctional mess”
He encourages people not to listen to the NRA or other pro-gun groups. Instead, he wants people to look to vets. I would be willing to bet that most vets do not agree with Diamond. So, what he really means is that he wants people to listen to him.
He starts by pointing out that most soldiers are unarmed. He uses this fact to push that most people should be unarmed. He says that only MPs are armed on base. He points out that professional soldiers get extensive training with firearms. He suggests that civilians should be required to get the same amount of training as the military. Also, he says that the military tracks their ammunition and firearms. I track my guns as well. Most gun owners do.
His great solutions are to impose military-style regulations on civilian populations. Without saying as much, that would mean a gun confiscation for everyone besides the police. He finishes the article by reminding people that he fought for our country in Desert Storm (even though he didn’t see combat) so we should listen to him.
The Atlantic runs the headline, “It’s the Guns.” Right away you know where this story is going.
What “The Atlantic” does is throws various misleading stats from anti-gun groups at the reader in hopes that they don’t actually look into them. Anytime you see statistics you have to take them with a grain of salt.
I once had a professor who told that class that you can use statistics to prove anything you want. He took the same study and framed the stats in two different ways. The results were polar opposites. This “statical jiu-jitsu” is what David Frum of The Atlantic is doing.
The United States is a big country. We have over 300 million people. That is a hell of a lot more people than most countries in Europe. This fact alone means that you can’t use raw numbers. You have to use per capita numbers. According to the Crime Research Prevention Center, you are 27% more likely to be killed in a mass shooting in the EU than in the US, but that doesn’t fit Frum’s narrative.
He then goes on to attack gun owners. He calls us irresponsible. He points out that most gun owners don’t feel the need to inform visitors that there are guns in the house. “Hey come in! By the way, I have an AR15 and a Glock in a safe downstairs.”
Then there is an article in “Deadline” attacking movie posters. The author, Michael Cieply, thinks that Han Solo holding a blaster on a Star Wars poster is damaging to our kids. Yes, a blaster from Star Wars could be making our kids the next mass shooter.
He claims Chewbacca has the space equivalent of an assault rifle. He goes after other movies posters as well. For example, the hilarious poster from Deadpool 2″. That poster shows a cartoon Deadpool riding a unicorn with a gun.
Adam Swiderski, of Syfy, writes that he is very anti-censorship, but he thinks that the movie industry should look at their movies and tone down the guns. Yes, in one breath he says he is anti-censorship then in the next asserts that the entertainment industry should censor itself.
The most ridiculous article I ran across was one from Jill Lawrence of “The USA Today.”
The headline reads, “Would the Founders want our kids to die in school shootings like Santa Fe? I doubt it.”
She says that the Founding Fathers were unbound by the past and wouldn’t let something like that pesky Second Amendment get in their way. She claims since a lot of the signers of the Constitution had children that died that they would support gun control. Later she claims that The Second Amendment was put in place to control slaves.
“Does anyone think they would expect us to live by a 230-year-old document,” She asks referring to the Constitution.
My response would be an astounding “Yes!”
I do believe the Constitution should bind us. That 230-year-old document is the bedrock of our country. It stops people like Jill Lawrence from trampling on our rights. If the founding fathers were alive today, they wouldn’t change a damn thing in that Masterpiece.
About John Crump
John is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC and is the co-host of The Patriot News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%’ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on the history of the patriot movement and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss or at www.crumpy.com.
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Top 10 machine guns
If you really want to piss somebody off. Then turn the Volume up to full emergency war power on the one!
Grumpy
Attachments area
Having been there a few times. I can safely say that this State is just as wild & crazy as California. Maybe even slightly more!
Enjoy
Grumpy
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RPA QUADLOCK .300 WIN MAG
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Who Doesn't Like a Judge?
Jacob Sullum | May 23, 2018
Last week the House of Representatives, by a margin of more than 10 to 1, approved a completely gratuitous, blatantly unconstitutional bill that would make assaulting a police officer a federal crime. The lopsided vote was a bipartisan portrait in cowardice that vividly showed how readily politicians forsake their oaths of office to keep their hold on power.
The Protect and Serve Act prescribes a prison sentence of up to 10 years for anyone who “knowingly assaults a law enforcement officer,” thereby “causing serious bodily injury,” or “attempts to do so.” Such conduct is, of course, already illegal in all 50 states, and there is no reason to think local law enforcement agencies are reluctant to arrest and prosecute people guilty of it.
Nor does the problem addressed by the bill seem to be on the rise, notwithstanding all the overheated talk of a “war on cops.” The number of law enforcement officers who are feloniously killed each year is small and volatile, but according to the FBI it dropped by 30 percent last year, and the average for the last 15 years (51) is lower than the average for the previous 15 (65).
In any event, the Constitution does not give Congress the authority to fight local crime, and the interstate angles mentioned by the bill are so oblique that they could justify federal prosecution of pretty much any assault (or attempted assault) on a cop. If the alleged assailant drove on an interstate highway or used a weapon produced in another state, for instance, that would be enough to make a federal case out of it.
“A tenuous connection to economic activity cannot transform a criminal law that has nothing to do with economic activity—and that is explicitly for the purpose of public safety—into a regulation of interstate commerce,” the House Liberty Caucus noted before the vote. “If it could, the Commerce Clause would destroy the Constitution’s design for a very limited federal role in criminal law enforcement, covering only a few crimes that are clearly federal in nature.”
The Protect and Serve Act explicitly allows federal prosecution of someone who is acquitted in state court, or who is convicted but receives a penalty the Justice Department deems too light. According to the Supreme Court’s “dual sovereignty” doctrine, such serial prosecutions do not violate the Fifth Amendment’s ban on double jeopardy, but they clearly offend the principle of fairness embodied in that rule.
These issues should be familiar to anyone who has followed the debate over federal prosecution of hate crimes, which occur when the victim is picked “because of” his “actual or perceived” membership in a protected group. The Senate version of the Protect and Serve Act takes that analogy and runs with it, targeting assaults and attempted assaults committed “because of the actual or perceived status of the [victim] as a law enforcement officer.”
Under that bill, someone who takes a swing at a guy he mistakenly thinks is a cop has committed a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison—even if he misses. This approach, which takes a page from the “Blue Lives Matter” laws that at least four states have adopted in recent years, effectively punishes people not just for their conduct but for their anti-cop attitudes, just as hate crime statutes effectively punish people for their bigoted beliefs.
In addition to these problems, the possibility of federal felony charges based on garden-variety tussles between cops and people they detain, on top of state charges for assault and resisting arrest, gives police more leeway to abuse their powers. The Protect and Serve Act would protect and serve cops who hassle innocent people or use excessive force, giving them a new legal threat to use against their victims.
With 35 brave exceptions, these objections did not faze the House, where “Defend the Constitution” was no match for “Stand With the Blue.”
“A tenuous connection to economic activity cannot transform a criminal law that has nothing to do with economic activity—and that is explicitly for the purpose of public safety—into a regulation of interstate commerce,” the House Liberty Caucus noted before the vote. “If it could, the Commerce Clause would destroy the Constitution’s design for a very limited federal role in criminal law enforcement, covering only a few crimes that are clearly federal in nature.”
The Protect and Serve Act explicitly allows federal prosecution of someone who is acquitted in state court, or who is convicted but receives a penalty the Justice Department deems too light. According to the Supreme Court’s “dual sovereignty” doctrine, such serial prosecutions do not violate the Fifth Amendment’s ban on double jeopardy, but they clearly offend the principle of fairness embodied in that rule.
These issues should be familiar to anyone who has followed the debate over federal prosecution of hate crimes, which occur when the victim is picked “because of” his “actual or perceived” membership in a protected group. The Senate version of the Protect and Serve Act takes that analogy and runs with it, targeting assaults and attempted assaults committed “because of the actual or perceived status of the [victim] as a law enforcement officer.”
Under that bill, someone who takes a swing at a guy he mistakenly thinks is a cop has committed a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison—even if he misses. This approach, which takes a page from the “Blue Lives Matter” laws that at least four states have adopted in recent years, effectively punishes people not just for their conduct but for their anti-cop attitudes, just as hate crime statutes effectively punish people for their bigoted beliefs.
In addition to these problems, the possibility of federal felony charges based on garden-variety tussles between cops and people they detain, on top of state charges for assault and resisting arrest, gives police more leeway to abuse their powers. The Protect and Serve Act would protect and serve cops who hassle innocent people or use excessive force, giving them a new legal threat to use against their victims.
With 35 brave exceptions, these objections did not faze the House, where “Defend the Constitution” was no match for “Stand With the Blue.”
Ohio Self Defense Reform Bill Passes House Committee
Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- Ohio bill HB 228 has passed out of the House Federalism and Interstate Relations Committe on a seven to three vote. The vote was along party lines, with seven Republicans voting for the bill and the three Democrats voting against the bill.
The Ohio legislature is looking to reform Ohio law on self-defense. Currently, Ohio appears to be the only state where the burden of proof in a self-defense case rests with the defender. When a person claims self-defense in Ohio, the defender has to prove that they acted in self-defense. In nearly every other state, the burden of proof is on the prosecution. They have to prove that the defender did *not* act in self defense. From the nraila.org:
HB 228 would place the burden of disproving a self-defense claim onto the prosecution, similar to how it is in almost every other state. Further, House Bill 228 would expand the locations that a person has no duty to retreat from before using force to defend themselves under both civil and criminal law.
Arizona flirted with this reversal of the traditional burden of proof for a decade. Prosecutors lobbied the legislature and reversed the ordinary burden of proof in 1996. It is much easier for prosecutors to obtain a conviction when the burden of proof is shifted to the defendant.
Harold Fish paid the price for the prosecutor’s power grab.
Harold Fish killed a man who was charging at him and yelling that he was going to kill him. The first investigator on the scene reported it was such an open and shut case, he classified it as self defense and did not arrest Harold. The county prosecutor did not like that assessment, so they replaced the first investigator and arrested Harold Fish.
After much public outcry, involving three separate bills passed by the Arizona legislature to change the law, a long appeals process, two vetoes by Democrat Governor Janet Napolitano (a former prosecutor), $700,000 dollars spent on legal defenses, and three years in prison for Harold Fish, the trial court was found to be in error, and Fish was freed. He died three years later.
It is this type of abuse within the legal system that HB 228 is meant to prevent.
Prosecutors in our society have enormous power. They can lie. They can recruit false witnesses. They can have obvious conflicts of interest. They can repeatedly bring prosecutions against people who have committed not crime, for personal reasons. The Supreme Court has ruled that they can not be sued for any of this. They have absolute immunity.
Prosecutors have incredible levels of power. Shifting the burden of proof in self defense cases away from the defendant is a small step in placing limits on that power.
Jim Irvine of Buckeye Firearms says that Ohio is the only state in the United States that has this burden of proof placed on the defender. From buckeyefirearms.com:
“Ohio is the ONLY state in the U.S. with this absurd requirement for burden of proof,” said Jim Irvine, Chairman of Buckeye Firearms Association. “It has been talked about in legal seminars around the country for years. It is an embarrassment to Ohio.
“People under attack should be able to defend their life. They should not have legal hurdles to jump before acting to defend themselves. They should not be second-guessed for years over a decision they were forced to make in a second. Ohio law should protect the victim, not the aggressor. This bill corrects this problem with Ohio law.”
HB 228 has 34 sponsors in the House, and one in the Senate. The Ohio House (the legislative assembly) has 99 members, of which 66 are Republicans. The Ohio Senate has 33 members, of which 24 are Republicans.
The Ohio governor is Republican John Richard Kasich, Jr.
Governor Kasich has been making noises about supporting various restrictions on gun ownership. Those restrictions include outlawing private sales, allowing police to confiscate guns on the basis of basis of “gun violence protection orders” without any due process, and others. It is unknown if Governor Kasich would sign this self defense reform bill.
©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Link to Gun Watch
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.