Back in the grim days following the Columbine High School atrocity, I pushed hard for the “Israeli model” of armed school personnel. After the Maalot massacre, an all-volunteer program was put together for school personnel and family members of students who were trained by Israel’s civil guard and reported to school with concealed handguns. It was fabulously successful in both stopping and deterring armed terrorist attacks on schools. The concept has much in common with the hugely successful FFDO (Federal Flight Deck Officer) program for armed airline pilots. (It matters not whether the “terrorist” in question is motivated by religious zealotry, politics, or madness. What matters is that a protector with a gun be in place to stop the evildoer with a gun.)
After the recent Sandy Hook atrocity, not only did the NRA come up with a plan for something similar here (while also pushing for more armed police assigned to educational institutions as SROs, or School Resource Officers), but we’ve seen similar plans actually implemented in places like Texas, Utah, and Arkansas. It is a solid, realistic approach to a genuine problem.
I call your attention to an excellent little book published in December of 2012, “School Administrators Guide To Practical Handgun Training.” The author is Richard Rosenthal, a retired lawman with an impressive 40-year career behind him. The first half of that was twenty years with the NYPD. There, he worked Homicide and Narcotics, served as a helicopter pilot, and spent many years teaching at the Firearms and Tactics Unit, which is where I first met him long ago. Retiring after putting in those twenty, he spent a like period as Chief of Police in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.
Having dealt with school administrators as a chief of police, Rich understands their thinking. His credentials make it clear to them that he’s not some sort of right-wing lunatic, and give him credibility in certain circles where gun enthusiasts simply will not be listened to by decision-makers. Rich is not only a master firearms instructor, but a shooting incident survivor himself. His advice on vetting and training armed volunteers and managing such a program is absolutely spot-on.
I highly recommend “School Administrators Guide to Practical Handgun Training.” It’s available for $19.33 plus shipping here.
The pundits say that gun owners are a smaller-than-ever minority, and that a majority of American homes are “gun-free.” (I hate that phrase, “gun-free.” No, guns are not vermin. Anything which sounds that helpless as “gun-free” can’t be A Good Thing.)
Let’s look at some recent statistics, though. The National Shooting Sports Foundation reports their recent survey of gun dealers that in 2012, about 25% of their sales were to first-time gun owners.
My friend and colleague Dave Workman – such a solid resource that I find myself linking to his stuff more often in this blog than any other source – observes that some 15,000 new concealed carry permits were processed last month in his home state of Washington alone. The list of permit holders increased by more than 60,000 there since May of 2012. http://www.examiner.com/article/cpl-figure-skyrockets-15k-a-single-month.
Brother Workman quotes another outstanding source of solid information, Howard Nemerov of PJ Media, who in turn cites a recent Gallup poll showing that 47% of American adults have firearms at home. http://www.examiner.com/article/waning-gun-culture-u-s-may-be-myth?cid=db_articles . Sounds like a pretty substantial “minority” to me.
Obviously, density of gun ownership is a regional thing. You’ll have fewer guns in Manhattan high-rises, and more in rural farmhouses and on Western ranches, where guns are working tools as well as self-defense implements.
And, let us not forget, a whole lot of folks don’t want to tell strangers that they have guns, whether or not the stranger has identified himself or herself as a pollster. The media has, for decades, stigmatized gun owners. Besides, who wants to announce having in their house one of the very few things besides prescription drugs that thieves can peddle in the underworld for more than their intrinsic value, instead of pennies on the dollar?
We aren’t an overwhelming national majority, but we sure aren’t the weak and fading shadow the Prohibitionists wish we were.
Dave Workman ( left), Mas (center) and Tom Gresham (right) show how anti-gun media reacts to statistics favoring gun owners.
This is a story about the rapid evolution of a technology that has forced the American legal system to play catch up. Cody Wilson, a 25 year old University of Texas Law student, is an advocate for the open source production of firearms using 3D printing technology. This makes him a highly controversial figure on both sides of the gun control issue. MOTHERBOARD sat down with Cody in Austin, Texas to talk about the constitution, the legal system, and to watch him make and test-fire a 3D-printed gun.
Pulled in to the driveway at 2 AM after not having slept in my own bed since the night before Easter. It was a coast to coast run: got my segments for the next season of Personal Defense TV filmed in California, taught a couple of 40-hour armed citizen classes, was in Houston for the whole three days of the annual NRA conference, and spent a week in Chicagoland for the annual conference of the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors.
This month marks 39 years for me as a part-time but fully sworn police officer. (Doing it part-time staves off burnout.) I was an armed citizen before they pinned my first badge on me, and will be one after I leave The Job, and with one foot in each world I think I may have a pretty good handle on how the two actually interrelate.
At ILEETA, I was attending a course on interdicting active mass-murderers when it was announced that the universal background check bill sank in the Senate, and witnessed the audience of police instructors burst out in spontaneous applause. At the NRA annual meeting, I saw countless cops – many in uniform – on the floor in the conference center interacting with the gun enthusiasts. Across the street, where a relatively miniscule group of anti-gunners had gathered to protest, the cops seemed to keep their distance from those folks. NRA had a strong presence at the vendor expo at ILEETA, and one of the training presentations focused on a police department which provided NRA-based training to their community, with the tuition going toward the department’s own officer training budget. The “Brady Bunch” was, as usual, notable by its absence there. Oh, and the PDTV filming? We did the live fire segments on a police department tactical shooting range, thank you very much.
The ammunition shortage, caused by panic buying which was in turn triggered by a White House- and media-driven full court press for meaningless gun legislation, has had a profoundly negative impact on police firearms training as well as on law-abiding citizens who own guns. Yes, there is much in common between our armed citizens and our cops, both of whom realize at a boots-on-the-ground level that the problem are criminals, not guns.
Now I’m home, in a community where both the Chief of Police and the County Sheriff recently stated on the front page of the local paper that they’re four-square behind armed citizens and against meaningless “gun control” legislation. I for one find that reassuring.
Originally posted at American ThinkerPlan B is not just a controversial morning-after pill; it's also an effort on Michelle Obama's part to paint anyone who doesn't agree with her husband's restrictive gun measures as people who are willing to force children to live their lives in terror. Michelle attempted to paint that picture during an interview with Lee Cowan on "CBS Sunday Morning," when she dredged up sob stories from her gun violence visit to Chicago last month.
The first lady said that after delivering her speech on gun violence in April, she was amazed at the extent to which Chicago's children were forced to live in subjugation to the fear of being shot. Thus, the unspoken premise of Michelle Obama's comments is that the cure for children in Chicago being dominated by the fear of being killed by a stray bullet is to subjugate the entire nation's Second Amendment rights.
Michelle shared that students at Harper High School in Englewood, Illinois told her, "Every day they wake up and wonder whether they're going to make it out of school alive." Mrs. Obama said, "I mean, every single kid worries about their own death, or the death of someone, every single day." Michelle Obama uttering those words is a prime example of liberal duplicity. This is a woman who supports 3,500 babies a day being aborted, and she's preaching to us about teenagers who, no thanks to her or her husband, miraculously made it out of the womb alive -- not making it out of school alive?
To add insult to injury, Mrs. Obama then said "we" have an "obligation to these kids" to try again. When Mrs. Obama uses words like "obligation to these..." anything, it's a clear sign that hubby, on behalf of some victimized group, believes he is bound to a higher authority than Congress and is probably out searching desperately for some way to circumvent the law.
Michelle Obama, savior of America's children, then pointed out, "We have millions of kids living in these kinds of circumstances who are doing everything right." What she forgot to mention was that, despite restrictive gun laws already in place, children living in Chicago "who are doing everything right" will still be victimized by those in Chicago, children or otherwise, who will continue to do everything wrong.
Bordering on tears, the first lady went on to say: "And we, as a nation, have to embrace these kids and let them know that we hear them, and see them." Disregard that "we as a nation" part, because rest assured, Mrs. Obama believes that no one except her and her husband hear and see the fearful children of Chicago. And only those who adhere to the liberal vision have the power and authority to quell anxiety by finding a way to restrict the ability of the nation's gun owners to exercise their right to "keep and bear arms."
Ratcheting up the sympathy factor yet another notch, Michelle then shared with a sycophantic Lee Cowan that "One kid told me he felt like he lived in a cage, because he feels like his community is unseen, unheard and nobody cares about it." What that caged kid probably hasn't realized just yet is that the first lady of the United States comes to Chicago regularly to use the "unseen, unheard" and uncared-for children of the Windy City as stage props to help push a progressive gun agenda.
Speaking of guns, Barry visited Mexico where, thanks to him and Eric Holder, it's even worse than Chicago when it comes to gun violence. Careful not to mention beheadings and machetes in his speech, Obama did suggest to a rapt audience of Mexican students that gun control would save lives on both sides of the border. Ohhh... so that explains why the president decided not to control gunrunners taking illegal high-capacity rifles from one side of the border to the other.
In a rare moment of honesty, Obama did acknowledge his own involvement in supplying Mexico with guns when he said, "Most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States." No Shiite, Sherlock.
Then the president gave the crowd an impromptu refresher course on the U.S. Constitution, saying, "I think many of you know that in America, our Constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms. And as president, I swore an oath to uphold that right, and I always will." While pushing amnesty in Mexico, what he didn't do was explain how United States immigration law works. Trawling for future voters, the president chose to conveniently skip that particular lesson.
Instead, immediately following the mini-course on the Second Amendment came the 'but' portion of the president's speech, which is also known as the unofficial 'Obama clarification.' That's where an unspoken 'but' cues the president to insert an addendum that corrects what he perceives to be one of the fundamental flaws in the Constitution.
Obama then said "At the same time (which is really a 'but'), as I've said in the United States, I will continue to do everything in my power to pass common-sense reforms," (which are really 'Barack Obama-approved modifications') "that keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people," (that would be law-abiding Americans) "that can save lives here in Mexico and back home in the United States. It's the right thing to do."
Sorry, Mr. President, it's a little too late to 'do the right thing.' Why wasn't that option proposed prior to illegally arming drug cartels with AK-47s? Who knows, maybe some of those guns have even made their way up to Illinois where your wife is now claiming we need to make an effort to "embrace... hear and see" Chicago's terrified children who live each day in fear of being shot.
This is a powerful and historic video. It was edited from various media sources after the tragic 1989 Stockton schoolyard shooting. It shows that after a quarter of a century, the "gun controllers" still use the same old method. They create an hysterical media atmosphere in order to affect polls and scare politicians into passing gun control laws that do nothing but give criminals a greater advantage while limiting the freedom of law-abiding citizens.
Dan Rather, the former CBS News anchor who was fired after reporting President George W. Bush dodged the draft based on fraudulent documents, offered a full defense of President Obama and slammed his critics. Rather said it is difficult to be "nice" to Obama's critics because they want to "cut his heart out and throw his liver to the dogs." Newsbusters reminds us this is the second time Rather has made this comment. The first time was on Chris Matthews' show on MSNBC, of course.
Glenn Reynolds talks to Michael Barone about President Obama's failure to push gun control legislation through the Senate. Has Obama lost his persuasive abilities, or is he asking too much from congress and the American people? Could the real problem be that President Obama has never encountered true dissent in his political life? Find out.
Liberals wasted no time politicizing the Boston Marathon terror attack. They used this horrific bombing to turn America against itself. But what does this act of senseless terrorism teach us about the gun control debate, and the efforts of some like Senator Feinstein to restrict Second Amendment rights? Find out what AlfonZo Rachel thinks.
Now Congress is a bunch of “shameful” liars, according to President Barack Obama because the Senate didn’t vote for a slew of gun control amendments he demanded. In his remarks about the Senate gun bill’s demise, Obama took his hypocrisy and insults to new heights, revealing an arrogance of power we haven’t seen since President Richard Nixon’s Watergate.
Never mind that some Democrat Senators voted against the expanded background check proposed by Senators Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Joe Manchin (D-W.VA), Obama lambasted Republicans. “90 percent of Republicans in the Senate just voted against that idea,” said Obama. He added, “the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill.”
No, not the National Rifle Association (NRA), Republicans and Democrats told the American people they didn’t think this sprawling bill with all its amendments would do anything to prevent gun violence.
“Would it have prevented the most recent acts of gun violence? In all likelihood, no,” said Senator John McCain, even though he supported the Manchin-Toomey amendment for expanded background checks at gun shows and other commercial sales.
Who do you think Obama is referring to when he uses the word “allies” of the gun lobby? Republicans. Throughout his remarks, Obama castigated and insulted both Republicans and Congress, as if he was running an empire and they were his subjects.
“So all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.”
“But we can do more if Congress gets its act together.“
Seriously? Does Obama think insulting Congress, which makes up a third of government, is the best way to accomplish immigration reform and come to an agreement with Republicans on the government’s budget? In his gun outrage, Obama kissed his second term goodbye.
Obama might have more luck with Congress if he treated them like an equal partner rather than lecturing members like children how bad they are or telling them what to do as though they were pupils to his will. Equally disturbing was the president accusing the gun lobby and its allies of “spreading untruths about this legislation” and being “better financed.” What a crock! When things don’t go Obama’s way, suddenly the definition of the democratic process is changed.
If anyone spread untruths about a piece of legislation, it was Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid about Obamacare. They lied how much it would cost. And the American people had no idea what was in the over 2,000 pages of the bill because as then-Speaker Pelosi said in 2010, “we have to pass the bill to see what’s in it.”
As for Obama accusing the NRA of being better financed then Democrats that’s disingenuous also. Obama founded Organizing for Action, which he claims is a non-profit but looks and smells just like a Super PAC replete with a donate button. Perhaps it’s time for Obama to do some truth telling and stop thinking Americans are stupid.
But the biggest slap in the face Obama gave to anyone in his White House gun rant was to black America. Everyone recalls the tragic story of Hadiya Pendleton being gunned down in Chicago January 29th, days after performing at Obama’s 2013 inaugural. The city of Chicago, from which Obama hails and represented as a U.S. Senator, is plagued by gun violence, specifically black on black gun violence.
Yet, Obama never mentioned Hadiya in his remarks or the grim statistics of blacks killing and being killed by guns at a higher rate than whites. He uttered the word Chicago once. But Obama referred to the tragedy of Newtown and Gabby Giffords. Obama invited parents of the 20 slain kids of Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown Connecticut to fly on Air Force One but never offered Hadiya’s parents a flight.
The fact is the Senate bill never had a chance. It was so larded down with amendments and emotions intended to grab headlines that it fell under its own weight. This president truly thinks he’s special because he’s the first black president (and may be our last) and Congress must bow to his will. He’s got a lot of learning to do.
When I heard the news that the Senate had failed to pass a Universal Background Check, I was at a police seminar on the topic of active shooters. The panelists had agreed that “active shooter” was a poor descriptor, one noting that some attackers use other weapons, such as the blade-wielder in the recent Texas case. (And, of course, the Boston Marathon bombing was fresh in everyone’s mind.) Another panelist, a retired SWAT lieutenant who has responded to such things for real, pointed out that an active SHOOTER is what it takes to stop an active MURDERER.
When a retired police chief on the panel announced that he’d just received a text that the UBC had failed to make it through the Senate, the police audience erupted into applause. So much for the idea that cops all want to restrict your gun ownership. The real cops know where the problems are, and that they ain’t coming from people like you.
Alas, the White House is out of tune with that reality.
A very angry Chief Executive declares that Senators who see reality and prevent what’s best described as “the tyranny of the (uninformed) majority” have somehow subverted the process. He then manages, with practically the same lungful of air, to spout bogus statistics and simultaneously accuse those who told the truth of willful deception.
My favorite part was watching Vice President Biden’s face, in the Senate chamber during the vote and at the President’s side during the above-mentioned press conference shortly thereafter. The man does one hell of a good Grumpy Cat impersonation, and one “safu” on the Internet has come to the same conclusion.
"You got Michael Moore, Nick Kristof, Chris Matthews and others tossing blame at everyone. My gut says when you go political early, it’s more ego — a desire to score points against people you dislike.
Joy Reid at MSNBC even used the attack to hit on George Bush, and then there is Salon’s David Sirota, who writes, quote, ‘Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American.’
You mean like the Occupy Wall Streeters on trial in Cincinnati? Or Bill Ayers, the nutty professor? I don’t think David meant that at all. Even though the only difference between Ayers and Boston was that Ayers’ bombs went off earlier."
First Lady Michelle Obama recently headed home to the Southside of Chicago where she dipped her perfectly exercised toe into the gun violence debate.
Mrs. O arrived in the city that has enacted the most stringent gun-control laws in America to address local business leaders on the problem of gun violence. Oddly, Michelle forgot to consider the possibility that gun legislation is the reason for the high percentage of gun-related deaths in Chicago.
Richard A. Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, believes that “The gun laws in Chicago only restrict the law-abiding citizens and they’ve essentially made the citizens prey.”
Yet the anti-gun Left keeps on keeping on in the push to make it even more dangerous for law-abiding citizens to defend themselves. The Left’s argument is that stricter gun laws outside of Chicago would ensure that fewer illegal guns make it into Chicago. It’s sort of like the liberal argument that freezing weather is proof of global warming.
David Spielfogel, senior adviser to Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel, agrees and argues that “Chicago is not an island. We’re only as strong as the weakest gun law in surrounding states.” So in other words, if nothing else works to convince Americans to willingly relinquish their Second Amendment rights, what might do the trick is having Michelle Obama stress that dead children in Chicago are only dead because of relaxed gun laws in other states.
That sort of rationale coincides with the bizarre legalistic belief that if you remove junk food from school cafeterias and vending machines, when the chubby kids leave school grounds, rather than mainlining Fluffernutter, raw string beans will become their after-school snack of choice.
And so it seems that the anti-gun lobby is firmly convinced that the cure for gun violence is to nationalize what has failed so miserably in Chicago. Which raises the question: What is it about the Obamas that if something isn’t working, they work on it even harder?
Even more stunning is that supporters of an administration that purposely funneled guns into Mexico are now blaming Chicago’s crime rate on guns making their way into the Windy City from outside the city limits.
Speaking to concerned business leaders, Mama Obama compared herself to “a walking angel” who, soon after attending Obama’s Second Inauguration, was tragically cut down while talking with friends in Vivian Gordon Harsh Park.
After Hadiya’s murder, Michelle rushed to Chicago to attend the teen’s funeral and invited her parents Nate and Cleo to sit beside her in the State of the Union sky box. Excelling at the liberal practice of exploiting death for political purposes, Mrs. Obama reminded her audience that in Chicago burying a child is not unusual and that young people are killed after “wandering onto the wrong street… [or]… standing on their own porch.”
About Hadiya’s funeral, Michelle said:
"Let me tell you, it is hard to know what to say to a room full of teenagers who are about to bury their best friend…I told them that there is a reason that we’re here on this earth, that each of us has a mission in this world, and I urged them to use their lives to give meaning to Hadiya’s life."
Clearly, Mrs. Obama believes she has a “mission in this world,” and that that self-appointed mission involves assisting her husband in mitigating the Constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans. So to accomplish that goal, posing as an anti-gun raconteur Michelle relayed the heart-wrenching story of Hadiya’s untimely death.
According to Shelley O, “Hadiya’s family did everything right, but she still didn’t have a chance.” And so, because Cleo and Nate couldn’t keep their child safe, liberals like Michelle Obama who hold the collective view that our children are their children plan to step in to implement legislation they mistakenly believe saves lives.
Hey somebody, please tell Michelle Obama that while she was in Chicago speaking to business leaders about eliminating gun violence, an unarmed lunatic in Texas stabbed 14 people with a knife.
In Chicago, the first lady’s work was to get business leaders to agree that in the long run the survival of a future little Michelle Obama far outweighs the preservation of the tenets and freedoms that have abided for two centuries in the US Constitution.
The first lady’s purpose in going to Chicago was not to discuss reality, nor was it to reveal intriguing autobiographical insights about how she and Hadiya Pendleton are a lot alike. Instead, the true purpose of the trip was to prod America further along the road toward a society whose power-hungry government claims it’s attempting to eradicate gun violence by disarming its people.
Late last January, a Fox commentator noted that CNN had turned into a 24/7 “gun control” telethon. And now, on the evening of April 9, I sit here watching what CNN has called a two-day special devoted to exactly that topic.
It is focusing on background checks. No surprise: the gun prohibition movement nationwide has lasered in on the exact same thing. They’ve been doing it for a while, ever since they realized that both the “assault weapon ban” and the “high capacity magazine ban” are being increasingly recognized as illogical and meaningless…as, indeed, they were proven to be the last time they were enacted.
The “opening shot” of the “two-day blast” (puns intended) centered on Gabby Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly. Before she was shot by psycho Jared Loughner, Rep. Giffords was a conservative Democrat who staunchly supported gun owners’ civil rights. She owned a Glock 19 pistol exactly like the one Loughner used, and to their credit, her husband admitted that. He also admitted that he and his wife owned a slightly larger capacity version of the same gun, the Glock 17, which he fired obligingly at a backyard plinking range for the CNN cameras.
The Glock 19 pistol holds 15 rounds in its standard magazine, and the Glock 17 contains 17 rounds when its standard magazine is full. Each will take one more round in the firing chamber when fully loaded. Kelly made a big point of the fact that Loughner had used extended 33-round magazines in the weapon he used in the massacre.
Interesting, that, though Giffords and Kelly have now become icons in the “gun control” movement that wants to limit everyone to 10-round magazines (and New Yorkers to only 7), neither seems to have even symbolically given up their standard capacity magazines “evil high capacity assault magazine clips.”
“Sean AZ” commented in the last blog entry below this one that it looked to him as if the backstop Kelly was shooting at on CNN was unsafe. And in a previous entry here I commented on the disingenuous hypocrisy Kelly demonstrated recently in his purchase of a “high capacity assault rifle,” to wit the SIG version of an AR15. (The gun shop where he bought it refused to complete the transfer. When I am next in Tucson, I want to shake the hand of the gun shop owner who made that decision.)
So far in this particular stage of the “we gotta have universal background checks” CNN marathon, it appears that folks think we gun people want it to be legal for criminals to buy guns on the street, or have their girlfriends buy guns for them. Nothing could be further from the truth. That’s already against the law, and has been for a very long time, and it’s us gun people who rage against the Obama/Holder Justice Department’s failure to prosecute more than a token number of criminals who do so. So far, even Anderson Cooper, the point man on this particular CNN blitz, doesn’t seem to be aware of the quicksand of creating felons out of a husband who leaves a gun at home with his wife, or parents who bequeaths a family heirloom gun to heirs, which lies in some of the currently suggested “background check” legislation passes. (Please see the blog entry below this one.)
To Cooper’s credit, while he’s obviously not “pro-gun,” he’s trying to show both sides like a professional journalist, in stark contrast to his fellow CNN denizen, Piers Morgan. Having been forced out of his journalism career in England by a hoax he perpetrated as a journalist, and a phone-tapping scandal, Morgan gets about half the ratings Anderson does. Anderson has already, honestly, brought out the fact that Loughner PASSED a background check when he bought the gun he later used that terrible day in Tucson.
My heart goes out to Gabby Giffords. It pains me to see what the brain damage inflicted on her by a monster has done. I can only wish she’d been carrying her own Glock 19 on that day, and seen the evil little monster in time to stop him.
In recent days, we’ve seen a senior proponent of the full capacity magazine ban reveal that she didn’t have a clue how either magazines or stripper clips worked, and neither apparently did her research assistants.
It was a moment of absolutely monumental cluelessness. It’s as if a denizen of Capitol Hill was pushing legislation to limit how much fuel you could have in your vehicle’s tank, and to limit your family car to low speed…and you discovered that the legislator had never driven an automobile and didn’t know a steering wheel from a spare tire. Not long before that gaffe, we saw Governor Cuomo push through the SAFE Act in New York State, not only limiting the public to seven cartridges in the magazine but crafting the legislation so sloppily that he and his minions didn’t realize they had written it to apply to police as well. This sort of thing reflects a level of ignorance on a par with the politician who, last year, made it clear he thought an island would tip over if too many people were located on one side of it,
or the candidate last year who declared that women’s bodies had some magic mechanism that kept them from getting pregnant if they were raped.
Such things should be taught in civics classes, as a warning to the electorate.
In the wake of it all, thankfully, more middle-of-the-road citizens are re-examining the whole “assault weapons/high capacity magazines” propaganda blitz, and seeing the mendacity and futility hidden therein. Yet pundits still tell us that the shining hope of the gun prohibitionists is “reasonable, common sense universal background checks.” Here, stalwart gun owners’ civil rights activist David Kopel explains all the bad stuff that hides in the proposed legislation: National Review.
Originally posted at American ThinkerPresident Barack Obama is firmly committed to pushing an anti-gun agenda. He's so steadfast in his conviction that he was willing to fly, on his $180K per hour magic carpet, the families of the children and school workers that perished in Newtown, Connecticut all the way to Washington DC. After breakfast, Sandy Hook family members participated in a mini anti-gun-violence, sympathy-fueled arm-twisting session where, in an effort to persuade reluctant senators to sway his way on the issue of gun control, the grieving were exploited.
The president's current argument is that sweeping legislation is needed because 32,000 people in America die each year from gun-related violence, many of whom are children. Yet, Obama's carelessness with the truth omits the fact that 32,000 people make up only 0.01% of the American population.
Pressing the Senate to pass a bill whose ultimate goal is to curtail gun ownership because children die from gunshot wounds would be like lobbying for a bill to outlaw household cleaning products because every year thousands of children die as a result of accidental poisoning.
The truth is that in comparison to other causes of death, guns are responsible for a relatively small percentage of fatalities. Even so, the president remains focused like a laser on passing unpopular legislation and using the prevention of death as an excuse to restrict constitutional freedom and limit the sale of firearms and firearm accessories. For good measure, Obama also insinuates that any American unwilling to acquiesce to his anti-gun viewpoint might be harboring nefarious intentions.
And so to accomplish his goal of watering down the power of the U.S. Constitution, Barack Obama thinks portraying himself as the compassionate champion of dead children is his best bet. Yet isn't it true that Obama couldn't even save the lives of four adults in Benghazi, let alone 20 little ones in Newtown? For Barack Obama to portray himself as some sort of thwarter of untimely death is ludicrous. Moreover, an avid abortion advocate talking in memoriam about the lost lives of children is another example of this president's use of disingenuousness to divert attention from failed policies whose ramifications affect the 99.99% of those whose lives will never be touched by gun violence.
If preventing death were really Obama's goal, then he'd address the much larger number of Americans who die for reasons other than lethal gunfire.
For instance, what about the 600,000 Americans who perish annually from heart disease, or the 575,000 who succumb to cancer? On behalf of all the American children whose lives are negatively impacted (if not snuffed out) by these diseases, why hasn't children's advocate/gun-control crusader Obama stressed the urgent need to fund cancer and heart disease research?
Thus far, even though there are approximately 120,000 deaths each year from all kinds of accidents, to date the families of the 32,000 dead car accident victims have not been invited to fly on Air Force One to Washington DC to address the US Senate about preventing fatal car crashes.
And then there are the 50,000 Americans a year who succumb to pneumonia and flu and the 30,000 who die annually from a little-known but highly preventable hospital-acquired bacterium called C-Diff, or Clostridium Difficile.
If Barack Obama believes that 0.01% of the population is too many to die from gun violence, then the same should hold true for seasonal flu and C-Difficile. But it's 10 weeks into his second term and so far Barack has yet to campaign on behalf of controlling the growing problem of deadly super bugs.
If the families of the Sandy Hook victims earned a ride on Air Force One and had an opportunity to plead their case before the Senate for stricter controls on gun ownership, why not also fly the grieving parents of 8-month-old Charlee Mackenzie Ratliff, who, while recovering from surgery to repair a hole in her heart, died in May of 2010 after acquiring a deadly case of C-Diff?
Charlee's mom and dad could come to Capitol Hill to address controlling the spread of bacterial infections that are killing the very young, those with weakened immune systems, and the elderly in hospitals and nursing homes across America. Why not invite the Ratliffs to raise awareness on how, in the coming years, limited Obamacare monies will inevitably lead to an increase in the threat of fatalities resulting from hospital-acquired infections?
Speaking wholly about curtailing Second Amendment rights, at the University of Hartford in Connecticut, Barack Obama delivered an ardent plea for Americans to pressure their local representatives to support stricter gun-control legislation. The president's words could have also been applied to the heartbreaking deaths of victims who've lost their lives from causes other than gun violence.
If you're an American who wants to do something to prevent more families from knowing the immeasurable anguish that these families know, now is the time to act. Now is the time to get engaged, to get involved, to push back on fear, frustration, and misinformation. Now is the time to make your voice heard from every state house to the corridors of Congress.
Based on those sentiments alone, the only conclusion one can glean from the president's selective concern is that either Obama only cares about the lives of specific children, or what we've surmised all along is being confirmed: the president is exploiting the gun-death issue with an explicit goal that has nothing to do with averting premature death. In other words, once again, Obama is blatantly lying by omission, which is just a fancy way of saying that in the overall scheme of advancing progressive policy, the president couldn't care less about who dies or how.
@Project_Veritas investigators urge Piers Morgan, Oprah Winfrey's production company (Harpo), and Robert DeNiro's production company (Tribeca) to help ban all guns from past and future movies. With some disturbed murderers citing violent movies as the impetus for their crimes, would Hollywood elites agree to remove guns from their flicks #ForTheChildren? Or would money and fame supersede their malleable ideology?
First published by Northwest Asian Weekly, Seattle, March 23, 2013Following the Sandy Hook shootings, gun control is back on the books, with Obama and like-minded people pushing for an “assault weapons” ban. They decry such weapons as high-capacity, high-powered arms designed to specifically kill people, implying the 2nd Amendment is for hunting.
Yes, weapons kill. That is their purpose. For good, they kill other animals for meat and kill criminals, enemies, terrorists, or tyrants and their soldiers. America was born and remains free through force of arms. Realize, too, pacifists live by the grace of warriors.
Think “assault weapons” (semiautomatic rifles) don’t have a defensive purpose for civilians? Think again. In April 1992, Korean business owners armed themselves with AR-15s and AK-47s in South Central Los Angeles when riots occurred following the acquittal of four white policemen in the Rodney King beating. Businesses were being burned to the ground and police were nowhere to be found. As Richard Rhee said, “Burn this down after 33 years? This is my market and I’m going to protect it.”
The 2nd Amendment is not about hunting. It was framed because the colonists had fought a war against tyranny. Tyrants confiscate weapons. General Gage, Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in North America, had confiscated weapons from citizens in Boston and then later tried to confiscate arms and ammunition in Concord and Lexington in April 1775. That ignited the Revolutionary War. If hunting is implied at all, then the implication is to hunt tyrants and their minions.
Another specious claim by liberals is that the Founders would never have allowed semiautomatic rifles to be owned by private citizens. Well, consider this. King George’s redcoats are coming down the road intent on pillaging and killing colonists in an attempt at subjugation. Wow! Should the colonist go get his bow and arrow or should he get the most up-to-date weapon he can so as to repulse this attack and, hopefully, survive?
The founding generation spent blood and lives fighting tyranny. They wanted to ensure that the progeny of their genes would remain a free people and that their ideas would become a beacon of freedom to the world.
Hence, the Constitution was born, the greatest document ever conceived by man. The Founders were touched by God. The 2nd Amendment provides teeth for all the other rights in the Bill of Rights.
A recent New York law, pushed by Governor Andrew Cuomo (D), requires registration of assault weapons.
Cuomo favors gun confiscation. If that occurs, many liberals, like Cuomo, mistakenly expect American gun owners to relinquish their guns, as the citizens of the U.K. and Australia did. The liberals will be abetted by the news media, who will show Joe Gunowner turning in his weapons, making America a safer place.
Not so. Many American gun owners hold the 2nd Amendment near and dear to their hearts, a principle they will fight and die for. If gun confiscation becomes law, three things can happen. One, nothing changes because the law cannot be enforced. Two, if enforcement begins, civil strife will ensue, perhaps with martial law. (Think Prohibition—and alcohol wasn’t even guaranteed by the Bill of Rights — with its black market and widespread lawlessness.) America will now have become a more dangerous place, not only for gun owners, but also for the general population at large, as well as for law enforcement personnel, the National Guard, and the military—the latter three who will be tasked with enforcement. Though all of the latter three have sworn an oath to the Constitution, including the 2nd Amendment, there will always be myrmidons. Third, in the worst case scenario, civil war will erupt. Last time, 600,000 Americans died.
As Larry Correia wrote in his WordPress gun-rights blog, “How many of your fellow Americans are you willing to have killed in order to bring about your utopian vision of the future?”
We can work to reduce gun violence by imprisoning criminals, executing convicted murderers, institutionalizing violently unstable people, and arming teachers. We don’t need to make more gun laws, thus making the uber-majority of gun owners criminals.
Gun control advocates had best tread carefully. Many New York gun owners have blogged that they will not register their assault weapons under Cuomo’s new law. So, the ball is in Cuomo’s court.
America, overall, is a safe, peaceful place. The idealistic vision of registering, banning, and confiscating weapons to make America safer may, instead, slide us down a slippery slope toward civil strife and, perhaps, civil war.
Back in the grim days following the Columbine High School atrocity, I pushed hard for the “Israeli model” of armed school personnel. After the Maalot massacre, an all-volunteer program was put together for school personnel and family members of students who were trained by Israel’s civil guard and reported to school with concealed handguns. It was fabulously successful in both stopping and deterring armed terrorist attacks on schools. The concept has much in common with the hugely successful FFDO (Federal Flight Deck Officer) program for armed airline pilots. (It matters not whether the “terrorist” in question is motivated by religious zealotry, politics, or madness. What matters is that a protector with a gun be in place to stop the evildoer with a gun.)
