and you can expect to get raided by police and child protection authorities. Well, at least if you live in the butt crack of America (aka New Jersey).
My question: where is Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) in this mess?
Archive for Gun Rights
Gun Control Meets its Match: Technology
In one of the most valiant efforts at attacking windmills, Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) is trying to ban the production of ammunition magazines with 3-D printers.
Aside from the Constitutional issues–Rep. Israel’s efforts are an infringement not just on the Second Amendment, but also the First Amendment–this is an exercise in both futility and stupidity.
First of all, 3-D printer technology has the potential to be a great economic game changer. How? It will soon be possible for almost anyone–with sufficient skill–to become his or her own manufacturing company with low capital investment. This will spawn innovation on so many fronts, and drive real economic growth by literally creating home-grown manufacturing in ways no one would ever have thought possible.
Secondly, the 3-D printer will become for firearms what the World Wide Web was/is for pornography.
For those who are old enough to remember, there was a time that both sides of the pornography debate were in a stalemate over the “community standard”. As a result, more liberal communities allowed lots of “adult bookstores” whereas others used zoning laws to keep such establishments in check. When people wanted to purchase porn, they had to buy it in public unless they could afford to pay through the nose for cable television.
But the World Wide Web fundamentally changed the game: pornography became easily-accessible to the masses. Today, a large amount of it is available for free. In fact, the pornography industry–for many years–literally drove the development of technology for the Web. Early advancements in e-commerce, for example, were driven by the demand for porn on the Web.
(NOTE: I am not defending porn here; just stating the reality for what it is.)
3-D technology is that same type of game changer for manufacturing of all types, including firearms. While the technology is itself very pricey and still in its infancy, it will go the way of computer technology: precision and potential will increase dramatically and prices will also fall.
This will spawn a whole new wave of innovation in a variety of products, including firearms. The production of all-polymer weapons, customized ammunition, and accessories of all types, will be possible for anyone with the imagination.
And it will be almost impossible for the gun controllers to contain.
That is because if you cannot control the printing press, then you cannot control what one produces with that press, no matter how hard you try.
And given that the government will soon run out of money, their capacity to regulate anything will greatly diminish, as the capacity of the masses to innovate and produce will expand.
It will be checkmate.
The Speech Wayne LaPierre Should Have Given
My fellow Americans,
First, let me take this time to express profound sorrow and empathy for the families of the children, teachers, and school staff who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It is an absolute catastrophe that any child–let alone twenty–would be forced to leave this world through such a violent, cowardly, unconscionable act.
In the midst of this tragic event, let us also take some time to recognize those involved who represent the best of America. Several teachers and staff–who literally threw themselves into the line of fire–performed acts of extraordinary bravery and heroism. In the military, they award the Medal of Honor for such acts of valor. We must recognize such actions, which are above and beyond the call of duty.
It is from this standpoint that I raise a most important issue: I would rather be here celebrating lives saved, rather than mourning lives lost. And I would venture to say that most Americans feel the same way.
While the teachers and administrators were heroic in every sense of the word, I would rather be here to recognize them–living and unharmed–for having stopped the Sandy Hook shooter before he had a chance to enter the school.
Sadly, that was not possible in this case, because Sandy Hook Elementary School–like so many schools throughout America–is a so-called “gun-free zone”. As a result, no one at the school was equipped to protect others from a determined, active shooter.
It is my hope that, as a country, we would rethink this issue, as–irrespective of your views regarding gun control–not even the most Draconian legislation that is being bandied about would have stopped this shooter. He had no criminal record, not even a misdemeanor; he had not been adjudicated as mentally defective. While much has been said of his use of a semiautomatic rifle, the fact is that he could have done the same damage–with fewer pulls of the trigger–with a standard pump-action shotgun that is used by hunters and target shooters all over the country.
Yes, we must do a better job equipping ourselves to deal with such shooters.
At the same time, it is also imperative that we embrace the very principles that make the United States a unique country. Not the least of these principles is the fact that we are founded on personal responsibility.
While we at the NRA oppose governmental gun control, we also take personal responsibility very seriously.
If you own firearms of any type, safety is your responsibility.
Sadly, the Sandy Hook shooting was a tragic failure of personal responsbility. While I do not wish to pile onto the mother of the shooter–after all, she is among the dead–the fact is that she did not lock her weapons even though she knew she had an adult in her home who had social and mental issues.
If you choose to own firearms, you owe it to yourself and your community to take care of them responsibly. That means keeping them locked if you have children in the home. That also means either locking them away–or not having them at all–if you have mentally-defective or irresponsible people living in your home.
As we uncover the details that led to the shooting, there will undoubtedly be liability issues. Some of those may be ultimately decided by judges and juries.
Still, it should not have come to this. As a country, we must take such tragedies as this and apply the hard lessons here. Safety is your personal responsibility.
While policy wonks and representatives from various organizations will take this opportunity to call for more laws, I would encourage Americans to look at this soberly and consider: is more government the answer here?
Toward that end, I would answer with an emphatic no.
Cutting through the raw emotions and the hysteria created by 24-hour news outlets, it is established fact that, in spite of expanded gun rights in almost every state in the union, gun-related homicides are down–over 30%–over the last 32 years.
This is in spite of a diverse country, with more firearms per capita than most countries in the free world.
It would do us well to provide a more sober examination of the firearm-related homicides, and I would call on Congress to have full public hearings on this issue, and allow for the truth to be told.
I also call on states and local governments to revisit this “gun-free zone” paradigm, and consider ways–that require no federal intervention–to provide more robust security for schools, theaters, malls, and other public venues.
It has been proven that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a firearm is a good guy who has a firearm. Our Second Amendment was written in order to ensure that good guys could arm themselves.
Had the staff at Sandy Hook Elementary had such options, we would be here celebrating their heroism, not mourning their loss.
It is my hope that such heroes–who live among us–would have the ability to save even more lives.
As Americans, we owe them that.
President Obama and the Law of Unintended Consequences
In the wake of various high-profile mass shootings–the Aurora, CO theater, the Oregon Mall, Sandy Hook, and the assault on the New York firemen–President Obama has sought to impose a “meaningful ban on assault weapons”, ostensibly to keep them off the street.
If that were his true intention, he has already failed miserably. Over the past month, there has been an absolute run on semiautomatic rifles above .22LR caliber. This has only guaranteed that more of those rifles are now in civilians hands. In fact, many people who would have never considered owning a semiautomatic rifle are now proud owners of AR-15s, AK-47s, or other variants of rifles that fire those calibers. And the prices for the ammunition–especially .223 caliber–are now running at about a dollar per round.
(NOTE: I have no gripe with civilians buying said firearms; in fact, I welcome it. Will some of those folks be bad guys with malevolent intentions? Probably. Almost all, however, are seeking to protect themselves from a government that has shown to be less-than-trustworthy, or perhaps a potential breakdown of local government.)
There also seems to be a very significant number of folks–including women–seeking concealed carry licenses. Last Saturday, MrsLarijani took a concealed carry class. Every student in the class was female.
At any rate, had Obama simply kept his mouth shut and left gun rights alone, you’d have an order of magnitude fewer assault rifles on the street today.
Quote of the Day
from Professor Hale:
I already specifically look for the label “not legal in California” before I buy a firearm. If it’s legal in California, I don’t really want it.
Yep.
Bumpy Ride Ahead
I’m not a Spring chicken; I’ll be 46 in less than 2 weeks. But I never thought I’d live to see the day where our White House is on the verge of launching the worst attack on American freedoms since the Wilson Administration.
I was born during the Vietnam era. While that was not a war for my generation, I probably would have found myself opposing the war while having nothing to do with the nutjobs who screamed, “Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh!” and spat on our troops. The problem was not our troops–who were fighting a war for which they did not ask–but rather the policy wonks and their Commander-in-Chief.
Still, for all of the faults of JFK, LBJ, and even Nixon, Ford, and Carter, none of them had an interest in assaulting the firearm rights of Americans in the manner that the current President seeks to do. (The Gun Control Act of 1968, travesty that it was, pales in comparison to what Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has on the table, let alone the threats of gun-control-by-executive-order by our Vice President on behalf of his boss.)
I was in 8th grade when President Reagan was shot. I remember his recovery, and watching the speech he made to the joint session of Congress in his return. He could have used his own shooting as a perch to attack “gun violence” and demand more gun control. But he didn’t: he lauded the Secret Service agents who performed valiantly; he lauded the physicians who treated him; he read some of the well-wishes from children; he empathized with the family of James Brady.
In short, Reagan kept his eye on the ball, and cooler heads prevailed. In fact, five years later, he would sign the Firearm Owner Protection Act of 1986, which–in spite of the restrictions on production of machine guns for civilian use–provided badly-needed protections for Citizens who were having their rights attacked by government at all levels. (I mean seriously: before FOPA, duck hunters were being prosecuted for simply driving through the wrong counties. And the ATF’s abuses were so bad that even the DEMOCRATS were recoiling in horror.)
My point: back then, we had a President who kept things in perspective, sought to keep government out of our business, and promoted the best of America. He didn’t do everything right, but he had a grasp of what was really important. AS a result, we were a better country in 1989 than we were in 1981. THAT is how the Cold War was won.
But Obama is literally destroying this country with his threat of gun bans. I’ve never seen things this bad across the board. Every gun store is sold out of semiautomatic rifles, something I’ve never seen in my lifetime. He is taking recent tragedies and using them to promote a fascist, totalitarian agenda that has disaster written all over it. While the left will complain, “Oh come now, government will never try to confiscate guns,” one has reason not to trust them. After all, the Department for Homeland Security has enough ammo to supply every employee of said agency with over 2,000 rounds of .223 ammunition. And we have no idea who is on the “terrorist watch list.” Moreover, we have government entities who have sought to classify everyone from NRA members to Ron Paul supporters as potential “domestic terrorists”.
Against the backdrop of a government that seeks to regulate what you put in your mouth, I’d say that is plenty good reason not to trust government.
What angers me though is not Obama: he is doing exactly what I expected he would do. Nor is it Feinstein: she is doing exactly what I expeted she would do. We all know where Obama, Bloomberg, Feinstein, Schumer, and all their lackeys stand.
No…what makes my blood boil is the inaction by Republican leaders: where the heck is House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)? Where the heck is Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)? Other than our fine Senator–Rand Paul–where are the conservative voices in elective office?
And what about the military leaders who wear the uniform and have sworn to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic? Why aren’t they pulling the President back and telling him, “Mr. President, you need to cool it with your gun agenda. Not only are you on the verge of promoting a societal breakdown from which it will take decades to recover, you are committing an act of war against the American people. For the sake of this great country, knock it off!”?
It is glaringly obvious that we no longer have two parties; what we have is a bicameral fascist system where leaders only disagree on the degree of fascism. The military leaders–with perhaps a few exceptions–are just suckups to the President, as the real leaders have been “retired”. If you expect the Joint Chiefs of Staff to advise the President to knock it off, that will happen about five minutes after Hell freezes over.
I told MrsLarijani that I never imagined that the end of our Republic could happen in my lifetime. But–as the son of an Iranian immigrant of Kurdish ancestry who knows quite well what happened in Iran in the 1970s–that is a very real possibility.
Is it a conspiracy, or is government really that stupid? There was once a time when I would have answered no on the first and yes on the second. Now, it could be yes on both.
The next four years are going to be quite bumpy.
Boehner, Ryan, Obama, and The Never-Ending Fiscal Cliff Charade
Conservatives had better wake up, smell the napalm, and identify the real enemy to their lives and livelihoods.
It isn’t President Obama. Sure, he is no hero to the Constitution. Sure, he cares not about personal liberties or free markets. Sure, he opposes gun rights, supports abortion (even at taxpayer expense) and gay “marriage”. But let’s be honest here: he’s not selling anyone out. In fact, Obama is promoting the very agenda he has promised from day one.
Nor is it Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is recovering from a plane crash in Iranbout with the stomach flu that resulted in a concussion. Sure, she’s a socialist liberal repackaged as a moderate. But…seriously? She is the Left’s version of Pat Buchanan, only not as skilled a wordsmith. Every time she gives a speech, she pisses off more people than she inspires. This is why she couldn’t beat a one-term Senator for the nomination of her own Party in 2008.
Nor is it Sen. Dianne Feinstein (R-CA) or her ilk. Sure, she’d ban–and confiscate–every firearm in America if she could get away with it. But–seriously–if any such gun ban gets passed, it will take far more than her to get it done.
That leads me to the very enemy of the American people: the political leaders who will sell everyone down the river, as they speak of their great accomplishments. They will piss on your back, and tell you it’s raining.
I’m talking about those who claim to be on your side. Like Rep. John “Sobbing Johnny” Boehner (R-OH). Like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). These are the “conservatives” who gave us TARP. They are the “conservatives” who gave us the bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, General Motors, and Chrysler. They are the “conservatives” who gave us Medicare Part D under Bush, and lifted nary a finger when Bush expanded government beyond all recognition.
My point here is that your real enemies are not your enemies; they are your “friends”.
Sadly, there are very few friends of the Constitution in either House of Congress. Of those–such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)–few have made a forceful case for immediate, drastic spending cuts and a fundamental reduction in the size and scope of government. Even Sen. Paul has spoken in terms of balancing the budget slowly, when in fact the problems are so severe that major cuts must be made now. (Note: Rand Paul needs to make his case now. If he walks the straight and narrow, he will be the best anti-establishment chance since Reagan.)
If The Fiscal Cliff Charade–which gives us over $600 billion in taxes but only $15 billion in spending cuts–is a portrait of things to come, things are not looking good.
The President wants to take up gun control as soon as this Cliffhanger has passed.
If the GOP response here is any indicator of how they will handle the Second Amendment, I’d say we need to get ready for our “friends” to roll over on us.
Right Sentiment, Bad Ruling
While the NRA is lauding today’s ruling by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals–which strikes down the Illinois ban on concealed weapons and orders the legislature to pass a law allowing for it within 180 days–the ruling is terrible.
(1) Like the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision in 2004 regarding gay “marriage”, it is yet another case of the Judicial branch of government usurping the power of the Legislative branch. This is not a check-and-balance; it is a power grab.
(2) The Court has made a ruling that makes the exercise of Constitutional rights contingent on an act of the Legislative branch.
What the Court SHOULD have done:
(1) Strike down the Illinois ban as Unconstitutional;
(2) Affirm that (a) the 2nd Amendment allows for BOTH open AND concealed carry, (b) the rights are not dependent on an act of the Legislature, and (c) in accordance with the 14th Amendment, they can only be revoked through DUE PROCESS OF THE LAW.
Now That We Nabbed the Boston Bombers…
On Friday night, the FBI called a press conference–with the Boston PD and told us:
(a) The Boston Marathon bombers are both accounted for;
(2) they are brothers, raised in Idaho;
(3) they were Tea Party activists, the older brother being a teacher at First Baptist Church;
(4) they were planning additional attacks on abortion clinics, and a large finale at a federal building, in order to make a statement on Tax Day.
Oh, wait, that narrative didn’t pan out, much to the chagrin of the left.
In actuality, it was more like this:
(a) they were brothers, born in Chechens born in Dagestan;
(b) the older brother–a Gold Gloves boxing champ in Massachusetts–was a recent convert to a radicalized Islam;
(c) the FBI–told by Russia that the older brother had been in bed with radical Islamists–investigated the lead and found nothing (or so they claim);
(d) the younger brother became a Naturalized Citizen last year, on September 11 of all dates.
When I saw the pictures last Thursday, I immediately had them pegged as Middle Eastern or Southern European. I had the latter part correct, and this angle makes it tougher for us: a lot of those Dagestanis, Khazaks, and Chechens can be just as radical as the Jihadist from Mecca, only they don’t “look the part”. Being Europeans, they can blend in with other Eastern and Southern Europeans: Greeks, Turks, Russians; Hungarians; Bulgarians.
At this point, I’m not of the opinion that these guys were part of some larger anti-American conspiracy. The more I read of it, the more I’m convinced that (a) the older brother–Tamerlan–went ballistic over having his Olympic aspirations dashed, and (b) Tamerlan influenced his younger brother to join him in his envy-fueled rage.
Their attack was not particularly well thought-out;. While the bombs were placed strategically, they apparently gave little thought to their exit strategy. Had they the brains, they would have been on a plane for Russia within two hours after the blasts. They would have been in the remote portions of Dagestan or Chechnya by the time the FBI released the photos. They’d be long gone, and–by the time the feds figured out who they were–they’d be way behind the curve.
Now what about the conspiracy theories?
(1) While the FBI may have dropped the ball, I would not be too hard on them here. It is likely that the Russian government provided enough information to let us know that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a problem, but not enough information to amount to actionable intelligence.
(2) A reputable source–University of Mobile coach Ali Stevenson–indicated that he was told it was just a drill. This, of course, has added fuel to the conspiracy fire. My take: the folks who told him it was a drill didn’t know what they were talking about; they could have been stunned by the surreal nature of what was transpiring. Coach Stevenson received bad information.
(3) Some photographs indicate that Navy SEALs–current or former–were working security. This means nothing. It is likely that some current or former SEALs were working for xE (formerly Blackwater) or a similar private outfit to provide security for what was a high-profile event. I doubt these guys would intentionally allow a terrorist attack to happen. Special Operators tend to be a very patriotic bunch, and would have a marginal interest in taking out bad guys. It is what they do.
(4) as for the Saudi guy, he could easily have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. While deporting him was probably not the wisest move, that does not make a compelling case that this was an inside job.
Hopefully, we’ll get to the bottom of things. What did the FBI know, and when did they know it? What did they do with what they knew?
And while law enforcement is getting good marks for tracking these guys down, some of us also have taken note of their warrantless searches of homes, their confiscation of property, and their imposing of martial law on an entire locality. Hard questions need to be asked, and appropriate folks need to be held to account. Apologies need to be made, and appropriate properties–including firearms and munitions–returned.
But the group with the most egg on their faces is the American Left: they were convinced that the bombers were white, Christian Tea Party activists, when in fact the bad guys were Islamist thugs from a region of the world known for Islamic thuggery.
That leads me to another question: why the hell are we taking in people from these parts of the world?