gun control

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The Need To “Act”

October 2, 2017 by 4 Comments

I received a text this afternoon from the Brady Campaign regarding the mass casualty event in Las Vegas. They are urging people to contact Congress and ask for more gun control. You can see the screenshot of it below.

Let’s look at what we know and what we don’t know.

Do we know the name, age, and race of the murderer?

Yes. However, I make it a policy of this blog never to grant mass murderers the pleasure of having their name become infamous. He was a white male aged 64.

Do we know the number of victims?

Yes. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the latest count is 58 killed and at least 515 wounded.

Do we know why the murderer did this?

No. As far as it has been reported, there has been no manifesto, no suicide note, and no indications as to why the murderer decided to commit this evil act.

Is it terrorism related?

While ISIS has claimed responsibility for this calling it a lone wolf attack by someone who had recently converted to Islam, the FBI has discounted this. However, as Andrew McCarthy at the National Review noted, the murderer did terrorize the community.

Do we know what type of firearm or firearms he used?

No. They have been variously reported as .223 and .308 caliber rifles along with the AK-47.

How many firearms did he have?

Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo told the press officers found 10 rifles in the murderer’s room. The Wall Street Journal reports, however, the number at 18-20.

Did he have fully automatic rifles?

The best answer is maybe. He may have had a full-auto rifle or he may have had a bumpstock or GAT crank. There is debate on this and no one has reported conclusively on this issue. He was reported to have been a multi-millionaire with multiple homes and two airplanes. He could have afforded to buy legal NFA machine guns but we don’t know.

Do we know how the murderer obtained his firearms?

No. Update: ABC News reported on their evening news that at least some of the firearms were purchased from a gun store in Mesquite, NV after the requisite NICS check. They are not a Class 3 dealer.

Do we know how the murderer died?

Yes. He committed suicide as the police were breaching the door to his room.

Did the murderer have a criminal record?

No. His late father, however, was a convicted bank robber and had been on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. The father had escaped from Federal prison and did try to run down FBI agents with a car. He died in 1998.

What firearms law would have prevented this?

Put bluntly, none. The killer had a clean record and had no reported history of mental illness. He would have passed even the strictest of background checks including those required to purchase NFA items. Moreover, given his financial resources, he could have obtained any sort of weapon on the black market. A determined lone wolf with his resources will always be able to cause death and destruction. In this case it seems the killer put a good deal of planning and money into getting the right location at the right time.

Policy made in haste rarely is good policy. We should resist any and all efforts to use this tragedy as the basis for new gun control laws. The Rahm Emanuel “never let a tragedy go to waste” days should be over and they should stay over.

Ben Shapiro at the Daily Wire puts it very well in this post from earlier in the day.

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Here, Let Me Rewrite That For You

May 18, 2017 by 2 Comments

Imagine you recently got this email. It came from either the buggy-whip manufacturer’s association or Earth First. Either way, they were anti-automobile because cars don’t fit their agenda. In other words, while they are being chauffeured around in stretch limos, they don’t want the roads crowded with the likes of you.

Here’s the email:

For the first time in a decade, auto sales are down in the United States.

So it’s no wonder deregulating mufflers is at the top of the automobile manufacturers lobby’s agenda. They need to find new ways to make money, regardless of the cost to our communities, and making this policy priority a legislative reality would mean big business for auto manufacturers.

But here’s the dangerous truth: if mufflers were deregulated and sold without any oversight, they could be sold without background checks. And when that happens, they can easily get into the hands of dangerous people. That puts us all at risk, because mufflers make it more difficult for law enforcement to locate speeders, and easier for criminals to quietly escape.

But it appears Congress may move forward on the deregulation of mufflers anyway. But before they do, we have a chance to make our voices heard:

Sign our petition calling on Congress to REJECT any legislation that would deregulate the sale of automobile mufflers.

Automobile mufflers can cost anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to up to $2,500 for the most expensive muffler sold by Quiet Cars. This is big business.

But the profits to a few manufacturers will never be as important as the safety of our communities across the country. That’s why making your voice heard is so important.

You are probably thinking that mufflers are a good thing and you’d be right. Among other things they reduce noise pollution. You won’t be woken up in the middle of your afternoon nap anymore when an unmuffled car drives by your house.

Of course, the real email from Mark Kelly aka Mr. Gabby Giffords of Americans for Responsible Solutions (sic) is talking about silencers and suppressors for firearms. My rewriting of his email was to show just how ridiculousness of his position. I could go on but I think you get it.

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Searching WikiLeaks

November 7, 2016 by

I spent some time this afternoon searching The Podesta Files at WikiLeaks. John Podesta is the chairman of the Hillary Clinton campaign, a former counselor to Barack Obama, Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton, and former head of the Center for American Progress. The Podesta Files are the product of a hack of Podesta’s various email accounts.

The Podesta Files are an inside look into the Clinton political machine and make for interesting reading. For example, the search term “gun control” shows 236 emails that discussed it. Other variants of that search term such as “gun violence” and “gun safety resulted in 344 and 120 emails respectively. Even Ladd Everitt, formerly of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (sic), is mentioned in one of the emails.

One exchange that really caught my eye – and I haven’t done extensive searching yet – was between Podesta and a Robert Wolf of 32Advisors. Mr. Wolf’s firm is a strategic intelligence and advisory firm. Mr. Wolf was named one of the 100 Most Important People in Finance for 2013 by Worth Magazine. He is the former Chairman and CEO of  the Wall Street firm UBS Americas. He also served on a number of advisory boards and councils in the Obama Administration. To put it bluntly, Mr. Wolf is a mover and shaker, a high flyer and rainbow rider, and the consummate insider.

From an email dated October 7, 2015 in which Podesta and Wolf are arranging a meeting:

From:john.podesta@gmail.com
To: rwolf@32advisors.com
Date: 2015-10-07 19:40
Subject:


Supposed to do a presentation in 5 minutes. Free after 8:30 but on a train.
Probably could do a few minutes at 6:30. Either work for you?
On Oct 7, 2015 5:34 PM, “Robert Wolf” wrote:

> How you looking now or tonight
>
> On Oct 7, 2015, at 12:16 PM, John Podesta wrote:
>
> Call me at 2:00 if it still works. 202-999-0738.
> On Oct 6, 2015 6:40 PM, “Robert Wolf” wrote:
>
>> John-
>>
>> Appreciate you coming back to me as I know how jammed you are. Great day
>> for the Secretary yesterday –especially gun control & Benghazi response. As
>> an fyi- my wife Carol works at Sandy Hook Promise with the woman Nicole who
>> the Secretary introduced.
>>
>> Best times for me tomorrow are 930am, 2pm or 5pm. May be best for me to
>> call you.
>>
>> Agenda:
>>
>> 1. Meeting w the Secretary & best way to interact directly with
>> her (seldom of course).
>>
>> 2. Best way forward to integrate & interact with the team
>> (economics, business, surrogate, debate…).
>>
>> 3. VP Biden update.
>>
>> Speak soon,
>>
>> RW

The Nicole mentioned is Nicole Hockley who is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Sandy Hook Promise. Mr. Wolf’s wife Carol is the Senior Development Manager. I presume that means her job is to secure funding for this gun prohibitionist organization.

What intrigues me about this email stream is the linkage between gun prohibitionists, their organizations, and those in (or formerly in) high finance. We all know about Michael Bloomberg but this email string shows it goes deeper than just him.

As a totally irrelevant aside, I found my first cousin Joe Paduda mentioned in a couple of Podesta’s emails from 2008. Joe runs a health care consultancy in New York and runs in the Democratic health care circles. Every family has to have a black sheep, I guess.

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“Don’t NYC My Maine Gun Rights”

September 24, 2016 by 1 Comment

My late father lived in Maine for many years after he retired from the Army. Even though he was a born and bred Tar Heel he was accepted by the locals. He lived in Medomak which is on Muscongus Bay.

I spent my (first) honeymoon in the Rangeley Region at a camp on Mooselookmeguntic Lake. Rosanne and I gave serious consideration to moving to Maine. We joined the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and took a local paper. We never did make the move but I still love the State of Maine. I guess that is why I am so afraid for them with Bloomberg’s money trying to buy gun control there.

Ginny Simone does a good job of showing how Bloomberg and his money is trying to buy the election. I’m glad that there are organizations like the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine. politicians like Gov. Paul LePage, and others like my friend Genie Jennings who will be speaking at GRPC fighting this tooth and nail.

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So What If They Outlawed The Bullet Button

July 3, 2016 by 5 Comments

The gun prohibitionists in California thought they were sticking it to gun owners when they banned the “bullet button”. The two bills signed on Friday by Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) which banned the “bullet button”, AB 1135 and SB 880, have very similar language. The laws said that to be exempt from consideration as an “assault weapon” the firearm must have a fixed magazine.

(b)  For purposes of this section, “fixed magazine” means an ammunition
feeding device contained in, or permanently attached to, a firearm in such
a manner that the device cannot be removed without disassembly of the
firearm action.

Darin Prince, the inventor of the original Bullet Button, responded with something that will drive the gun prohibitionists nuts because it fits within the letter of the law yet allows you to replace a magazine very quickly. It may not be as quick as what I can do in a free state but it seems every bit as quick as a “bullet button”.

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California Gun Owners Get Screwed — Again

July 1, 2016 by 4 Comments

Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) did his usual splitting of the baby with regard to gun control bills today. He signed six and vetoed five. As per the usual lately, gun prohibitionists won much more than they lost and the Constitution was spit on once again.

The bills signed creates a registry of ammo owners, bans loaning of guns between family members and friends, bans the bullet button, adds non-violent misdemeanors as a prohibiting factor for gun purchases, and, last but not least, bans possession of all magazines with more than a 10-round capacity. On this last measure there is no grandfathering of existing magazines.

Brown said he was signing these bills “to enhance public safety by tightening our existing laws in a responsible and focused manner”. Of course, none of these bills would prevent further terrorist attacks like in San Bernardino or Orlando.

The release below from the Firearms Policy Coalition gives more details:

California Governor Jerry
Brown Guns Down the Constitution
Governor Jerry Brown signs 6, vetoes 4 gun
control bills that were passed by the California Legislature yesterday.
SACRAMENTO – This
morning, four-term Governor Jerry Brown conspired with other members of the
State’s corrupt one-party majority to make it easier for criminals and
terrorists to kill innocent people, said civil rights advocacy organization
Firearms Policy Coalition.
Brown signed six and
vetoed four of the eleven anti-gun, pro-terror bills that were passed by the
Legislature yesterday. (Note – there was a 5th anti-gun vetoed – AB1176)
The “Gunpocalypse”
legislation signed by the Governor today will create new criminal liabilities
affecting millions of law-abiding people, cost the state tens of millions of
dollars in new fees and fines, and eviscerate fundamental, individual rights.
“These are
constitutionally-illegitimate laws passed by a patently illegitimate government
that had the audacity to attack and criminalize millions of its own people in Stalin-esque
fashion,” said Firearms Policy Coalition President Brandon Combs.
“We expect mass
non-compliance with these laws and encourage good, peaceful Californians to
carefully consider the risks of voluntarily identifying their firearms, magazines,
and ammunition to law enforcement officials, especially the California Department
of Justice.”
The Legislature
suspended nearly every procedural rule to rush these anti-gun, ISIS-enabling
bills through to Brown before he left for Europe, a place that may have served
as the model for his unconstitutional firearm policies.  Now that the first phase of their year-long
campaign to support violent criminals and terrorists is complete, the members
of the Legislature who passed the bills have left Sacramento for a month-long,
taxpayer-funded vacation.
“The Legislature ignored
every rule in the book to fast-track their civilian disarmament agenda and herd
the people into a state-wide gun-free-zone,” said Craig DeLuz, the director of
public and legislative affairs for Firearms Policy Coalition.
Continued DeLuz, “There
are still a dozen anti-gun bills pending in the Legislature, and while Governor
Brown’s actions today were disturbing, Firearms Policy Coalition and our
members will continue to fight to defend and restore the Second Amendment in
California.”
With Senate Bill 1446¾ a statewide,
confiscatory ban on lawfully-possessed “large-capacity” magazines¾law enforcement interests
once again cut shady deals to exempt their retired members from the long reach
of the new gun control laws.
Earlier this year,
Firearms Policy Coalition, two other civil rights groups, and a number of
individuals filed a federal civil rights lawsuit–captioned Garcia v. Attorney General Kamala Harris–that challenges
California’s gun law exemptions for retired law enforcement officers on
Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection grounds.
“Jerry Brown and the
California Legislature have openly declared war on gun owners and the Bill of
Rights,” continued Combs. “By signing the bills that he did, Governor Brown
showed us that he has no respect for the rule of law, reason, or law-abiding
people. I submit that he and his ilk deserve the same contempt in return.”
“The government would be
wise to remember that there are more California residents with guns than there
are government officials to take them away. To coin a phrase, ‘come and take it’,”
Combs concluded.
The Governor signed the
following bills today:
·                 
AB 1135 (Levine): Bans common and constitutionally-protected
firearms that have magazine locking devices.
·                 
AB 1511 (Santiago): Criminalizes loaning of firearms between
personally known, law-abiding adults, including family members, sportspersons,
and competitors.
·                 
AB 1695 (Bonta): Makes a non-violent misdemeanor a prohibiting
offense.
·                 
SB 880 (Hall): Bans common and constitutionally-protected firearms that have
magazine locking devices.
·                 
SB 1235 (de Leon): New restrictions on ammunition purchases;
creates a DOJ database of ammunition owners.
·                 
SB 1446 (Hancock): Statewide confiscatory ban on all lawfully-possessed
standard-capacity ammunition feeding devices that hold more than 10 round;
exemption for retired police
The Governor vetoed the
following bills today:
·                 
AB 1673 (Gipson): Would have redefined “firearms” to include
objects that are not firearms
·                 
AB 1674 (Santiago): Would have banned buying more than one firearm of
any type within a 30-day period
·                 
AB 2607 (Ting): Would have dramatically expanded the reach of
secret “Gun Violence Restraining Orders”
·                 
SB 894 (Jackson): Would have re-victimized victims of theft by
criminalizing the failure to report lost and stolen firearms

AB 857 (Cooper), which would require that serial numbers be
placed on un-serialized firearms manufactured going back 50 years and on all
new home-built firearms, is still pending. 
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CCRKBA Calls Out Sit-In Democrats

June 23, 2016 by

Alan Gottlieb of the Citizen’s Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms that the Democrats no longer represent the ideals of a free society. Due process to them is just something that stands in the way of their gun prohibitionist goals.

Alan’s full statement is below:

Dems No Longer Represent Ideals Of A Free Society

BELLEVUE, WA – While Capitol Hill Democrats staged a symbolic “sit-in” today in the House chambers to demand action on new gun restrictions, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said these lawmakers clearly define by their actions how far the party has strayed from the ideals of liberty their predecessors stood for.

“Democrats in the 1960s used sit-ins to expand Constitutional rights,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb recalled. “But today, they are using a sit-in to restrict those same civil rights.”

While Democrats professed to be interested in curbing gun-related violence, he said, their true motives are aimed more at eroding not only firearms rights, but the right of due process. Clearly, Gottlieb asserted, the sit-in is a carefully-choreographed attempt to fool the public into believing that it is right to pass legislation to strip someone of their rights without any criminal charge, much less a conviction, by placing them on a secret “watch list” without benefit of due process.

“Their party no longer represents the ideals of a free society,” Gottlieb said. “Democrats who are participating in this exhibition think they symbolize the frustration of American citizens. What they’re really symbolizing is the fact that they have been sitting down on the job rather than addressing the genuine threat of worldwide terrorism that has once again erupted in this country while Democrat Barack Obama sits in the Oval Office.

“Instead of demanding direct action against dangerous Islamic extremists,” he continued, “they’re distracting the public by pushing gun control measures that they know would not have prevented Orlando, Boston or San Bernardino. But it creates the deceptive impression that they are doing something, when in fact they are doing less than nothing by trying to penalize the wrong people.

“This is an insult to many of us that participated in sit-in demonstrations to extend civil rights a generation ago,” he added. “Many of us were armed to protect participants from the Ku Klux Klan and other bigots. We were also armed with the facts, something that today’s gun prohibitionists know little about. This demonstration is a disgrace, but today’s crop of Democrats don’t seem to care.”

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One Way To End A Sit-In

June 22, 2016 by 2 Comments

Anti-gun Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) tweeted this out picture of the Democrat’s sit-in of the House of Representatives floor. They are demanding a vote on gun control.

Here’s a suggestion for Speaker Paul Ryan and the Republican leadership. Be kind to those aging Democrats. I’m sure they are thirsty and you don’t want them fainting from dehydration. Send them some water or even some energy drinks (full of caffeine).

Make sure you provide them with a lot of liquids. Insist that they continue their sit-in for many more hours and don’t let them leave. I assure you that those old male Democrats with their old man bladders are going to start to get really twitchy sooner than later. I don’t care how much Flomax or Toviaz they are taking for BPH and OAB.

Trust me, it’ll work.

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Tweet Of The Day

June 13, 2016 by 4 Comments

I don’t know Ann aka Grasshoppah but I think her tweet hits the nail on the head. What does it say about those in power and those who are seeking power, i.e. Hillary, that they would let one Islamofascist’s actions be their reason (or excuse) for suppressing our God-given rights? What does it say about us as a country if we let them?

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More Bad News Out Of California

June 10, 2016 by

Gunpocalypse Round II will come for California gun owners on Tuesday, June 14th, as another round of anti-gun legislation will come up for a vote before the relevant committees. The release from the Firearms Policy Coalition with more details is below.

GUNPOCALYPSE, ROUND 2
California Legislature to vote on 11 anti-gun
bills in one day.
SACRAMENTO – On Tuesday, June 14th  at 9A.M., the California Legislature will
hear the most anti-gun bills it’s heard in one day; spread out over both houses
and three different committees The only description that seems appropriate is
“Gunpocalypse”. This is the second round of the same push to turn the law-abiding
into overnight criminals— aka Gunpocalypse: Round 2.
“Anti-gun legislators are playing a dangerous
game of chicken with our civil rights”, says Craig DeLuz, the Director of
Public and Legislative Affairs for the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC). “They
are ignoring their own rules, while playing fast and loose with the facts; all
to see who can beat Gavin Newsom in being the first to take away our Second
Amendment Rights.”
DeLuz is referring to a three-way race between
Senate Pro Tempore Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), Assembly Speaker Anthony
Rendon (D-Paramount) and Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, who’s trying to qualify an
initiative for the November ballot; to see who can get their package of
anti-gun-owner bills passed into law first.
Sen. de Leon’s package of bills, most of which
will be heard in the Assembly Committee on Public Safety on Tuesday June 14th,
includes:
  •  SB 880 (Hall): Bans common and
    constitutionally protected firearms that have magazine locking devices.
  • SB 894 (Jackson): Re-victimizes victims
    by criminalizing the failure to report lost and stolen firearms.
  • SB 1235 (de Leon): Restrictions on
    ammunition purchases, creates a DOJ database of ammunition owners.
  • SB 1407 (de Leon): Retroactively requires
    serial numbers to be placed on firearms dating back at least 50 years.
  •   SB 1446 (Hancock): Confiscation of
    lawfully acquired, standard capacity ammunition feeding devices.
  • SB 1006 (Wolk):  University of California taxpayer funding for
    gun control research. (This bill will be heard the same day in the Assembly
    Committee on Higher Education.)

Meanwhile, at the same
exact time Asm. Rendon’s collection of bills will be heard in Senate Public
Safety. That package consists of:

  • AB 1664 (Levine): Bans common and
    constitutionally protected firearms that have magazine locking devices.
  • AB 1673 (Gipson): Redefines “firearms” to
    include items that are not firearms.
  •  AB 1674 (Santiago): Bans buying more than
    one firearm within a 30-day period.
  • AB 1695 (Bonta): Makes it a crime to
    fail to report a gun lost or stolen.
  •   AB 2607 (Ting): Dramatically expands
    who can request a Gun Violence Restraining order.