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Not yet a VCDL member? Join VCDL at: http://www.vcdl.org/join
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VCDL's meeting schedule: http://www.vcdl.org/meetings
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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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*** Thanks to Charles Young and Brandy Polanowski for the help compiling this alert ***
1. REMINDER: VCDL membership meeting in Loudoun tomorrow, September 21st
2. Malicious conspiracy theories on the WDBJ shooting
3. Senator Pat Toomey waved the white flag on gun control legislation
4. Article: Gun-free zones are magnets for murders
5. Correction - an extremely narrow exception in Washington State’s UBC laws for spouses/partners
6. McAuliffe could add to ranks of anti-gun voters with proposed registration change
7. Police investigating another nighttime attack of a woman in Arlington
8. [CA] California city seizes woman's guns over husband's mental health
9. [MI] Police chief: Concealed carry part of crime-fighting in Detroit
10. [PR] Guns in Puerto Rico [VIDEO]
11. Study: Concealed carry is soaring
12. The dangerous backgroundcheck lie
13. Good guy with gun stops bad guy collection
14. Non-citizens are "The People" under the second amendment split
15. Major retailers reject calls by prohibitionists to slow gun sales
16. Should your concealed carry gun have a light trigger? [VIDEO]
17. 'Mythbusters' co-host 'nearly rendered speechless' by incredible footage of pistol firing round at 73,000 fps [VIDEO]
18. [MI] Great open-carry interaction with officer [VIDEO]
19. Alan Korwin, the Accidental Gun Advocate [VIDEO]
20. 3 new, stupid, anti-gun laws and lawyers
21. What the right to bear arms is all about
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1. REMINDER: VCDL membership meeting in Loudoun tomorrow, September 21st
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EM Ed Levine has set up a membership meeting in Loudoun County:
Date/time: Monday, September 21, 7:30 pm to 8:45 pm, fellowship starts at 7 pm.
Location:
Cascades Library
21030 Whitfield Place
Potomac Falls, VA 20165
We will have some candidates for local office who will speak briefly. We will also be discussing the WDBJ tragedy, the latest push for gun control at the state and federal levels, other recent events, as well as fielding questions and comments from attendees.
This is a public library, so carry is legal.
The meeting is open to the public, so please bring family and friends to learn about and join our organization.
There is even a Facebook invite for this meeting at: http://tiny.cc/septvcdl (but you are welcome even if you are not on Facebook).
After the meeting we will have continued fellowship at a nearby restaurant for those who are interested.
Hope to see you there!
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2. Malicious conspiracy theories on the WDBJ shooting
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I am totally disgusted with a bunch of conspiracy-theory videos on the internet dealing with the WDBJ shootings. The people (for lack of a better word) who put these videos together are no better than the gun-controllers who love to dance in the blood of the innocent victims of violent crime.
The theme behind the videos is that the shooting was a fake in order to push gun control.
An example is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsENIff ... ture=share
I hate going over this tragedy in such analytical detail, but I cannot let the lies stand unchallenged.
The conspiracy theorists claim that the murderer’s video shows that the slide on the semi-automatic handgun never goes back and no casing is ejected from the gun, which would be impossible if the gun was to fire another shot. They even try to prove their case by showing the shooting in very slow motion.
Not trusting their version of the video, I got a copy of the original and stepped through it frame-by-frame. Sure enough, one of the frames shows the gun in full recoil with an empty casing appearing just above the reporter’s left elbow. In the very next frame, the casing is off screen, the slide has moved forward, and the gun has lowered back down.
To make the lie seem real, all the conspiracy theorists had to do was delete that one frame and, presto, no slide movement and no ejected casing appears.
Other conspiracy claims:
* Because the reporter was able to run and there was no visible blood, the shooting was fake. This shows total ignorance about the subject. A person who is shot, unless the shot is in the head, does not immediately show any bleeding, especially if they are hit in an area where there are clothes. Blood exploding into the air upon being shot in the torso is a Hollywood myth. And unless the bullet hits someone's head or goes through their spine, they are able to run away. Even with a shot through the heart, they can run for a short distance.
* Another theorist claims that the reporter is nodding just before she is shot on the WDBJ video feed, but is not nodding on the murderer’s footage. Again, looking at the ORIGINAL video from the murderer and NOT that provided by the conspiracy theorist, the reporter is indeed nodding her head just before the shots start.
And lastly, how could anybody pull off a fake shooting like this? For that to happen everyone that works for WDBJ, everyone that works for the hospital where the survivor was taken, the survivor, the coroner, and the police would all have to be in on it. Good luck with that.
The shooting was for real, but the conspiracy theorists do have one thing right: it IS being used to push for more gun control.
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3. Senator Pat Toomey waved the white flag on gun control legislation
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While this is good news, don’t be lulled into complacency. Those who want to control us will not stop coming for our guns.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... gislation/
or
http://tinyurl.com/oqe49sw
Senator Pat Toomey Waves the White Flag on Gun Control Legislation
by AWR Hawkins, 15 Sep 2015
Over the past weekend Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA)63% waved the white flag on the gun control legislation he and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) pushed but failed to secure in April 2013 and tried to push again and again between then and now.
The gun control push consisted of a bill to expand current background checks beyond retail sales, so as to include private sales and gun shows too. The gun rights group Pennsylvanians for Self Protection had planned a protest outside of Toomey’s Pennsylvania offices over the weekend only to be informed that there was no need because the legislation will “not be re-introduced.”
According to Politics PA, after receiving the message from Pat Toomey’s offices Pennsylvanians for Personal Protection told their members, “We will update you if the need arises for a political demonstration, but now it seems unnecessary.” The assurances that the background check push is over come after two years of watching Senator Manchin continue to look for an opening in which to reignite the gun control push, as well as Manchin’s indications that Toomey would be on board again should such an opportunity arise.
A recent CNN poll makes clear the nation’s infatuation with expanding background checks to more types of gun sales is waning. Released on September 14, the poll shows that 56 percent of registered voters lack confidence that more gun control would keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, and 58 percent lacked confidence that it would keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Yet these are two of the most common promises proponents of expanded background checks have made over the past two and a half years.
In addition to that, the CNN poll shows that up-and-coming voters—those under the age of 50—are not so sure more gun laws are needed, period. For example, “51 percent [of seniors] say it’s too easy to get a gun, while only 37 percent of those under age 50 think the same.”
Maybe Toomey saw these figures? Maybe he has known that many of the polls showing support for gun control have been a bit inflated all along? Either way, the white flag has been waved and Second Amendment supporters are breathing a sigh of relief for now.
It is interesting to note that one of Toomey’s potential Democrat challengers—Katie McGinty—does not like the position he has taken and accuses him playing both sides by supporting gun control for a time then abandoning it. McGinty said, “Sen. Toomey needs to come clean and explain why he promised a prominent anti-gun safety group that he wouldn’t re-introduce legislation that could save lives.”
McGinty did not explain how requiring everyone to pass the same background check Virginia gunman Vester Lee Flangan passed would save lives.
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4. Article: Gun-free zones are magnets for murders
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VCDL wants to get rid of “gun-free zones” in Virginia because they are dangerous. Here is an article on these killing zones.
An article by Dr. John Lott:
http://m.ocregister.com/articles/gun-68 ... ermit.html
Gun-free zones are magnets for murderers
BY JOHN R. LOTT JR. / Contributing writer
Would you post a sign announcing that your home is a gun-free zone? Would you feel safer? Criminals don’t obey these signs. In fact, to criminals, gun-free zones look like easy targets.
So why do we put up these signs in other places? The California Senate recently voted to ban holders of concealed handgun permits from carrying guns on school or university property. Gun control advocates can’t point to any problems with permit holders carrying guns in those places, but it didn’t stop hasn’t stopped them from pushing a new law.
Since at least 1950, all but two public mass shootings in America have taken place where general citizens are banned from carrying guns. In Europe, there have been no exceptions. Every mass public shooting has occurred in a gun-free zone. And Europe is no stranger to mass shootings. It has been host to three of the six worst K-12 school shootings and by far the worst mass public shooting perpetrated by a single individual.
With dozens of cases where permit holders have clearly stopped what would have been mass public shootings, it is understandable that killers avoid places where they can’t kill a large number of people.
What might be surprising is how killers often openly talk about their desire to attack where guns are banned. The Charleston killer’s first choice was to target the College of Charleston, but he chose the church instead because there were armed guards at the college.
Just a few months ago, the diary of the Aurora, Colo., “Batman” movie theater killer James Holmes was finally released. He was considering both attacking an airport and a movie theater, but he turned down the airport option because he was concerned about their “substantial security.” Out of seven theaters showing the “Batman” movie premiere within 20 minutes of the suspect’s apartment, only one banned permitted concealed handguns – and that is the one he attacked.
In late 2013, Ron Noble, the secretary general of Interpol, noted two means of protecting people from mass shootings: “One is to say we want an armed citizenry; you can see the reason for that. Another is to say the enclaves [should be] so secure that in order to get into the soft target, you’re going to have to pass through extraordinary security.”
But Noble warned that his experience taught him it was virtually impossible to stop killers from getting weapons.
Those advocating gun-free zones raise a number of concerns. They argue that permit holders will accidentally shoot bystanders. Or that arriving police will shoot anyone with a gun, including the permit holders. At colleges, fears are raised that students will get drunk and misuse guns.
Out of the innumerable cases in which concealed carry holders have stopped shootings in malls, churches, schools, universities and busy downtowns, no permit holder has ever shot a bystander.
Nor in these cases have the police ever accidentally shot a permit holder.
Gun-free zones are magnets for murderers. Even the most ardent gun control advocate would never put “Gun-Free Zone” signs on their home. Let’s finally stop putting them elsewhere.
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5. Correction - an extremely narrow exception in Washington State’s UBC laws for spouses/partners
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Item #10 in the VCDL Update on 9/16/15 ("Universal Background Checks, another example of what they did to Washington State”), contrary to what was said by the person who sent that item, spouses and partners can handle each other’s guns without needing a background check each time to do so.
But that’s it for the exemption. A son can’t intermix his guns with his father’s guns in safe. Cousins who are hunting cannot hold each other’s guns while negotiating a fence, and so on.
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6. McAuliffe could add to ranks of anti-gun voters with proposed registration change
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From thetruthaboutguns.com: http://tinyurl.com/qz62y2q
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/0 ... on-change/
McAuliffe could add to ranks of anti-gun voters with proposed registration change
By David Codrea
August 20, 2015
If you listen to The Washington Post (and why wouldn’t you?), objections to proposed changes to Virginia’s voter registration requirements are just a partisan tempest in a teapot. True, non-citizens and felons would no longer have to check boxes that would give away their ineligibility at a glance, but no problem, proponents say, pointing out they still need to sign next to fine print that they’re not disqualified from voting. . .
So what’s the big deal? After all, election officials appointed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe assure us the change will “simplify the process … to avoid rejecting otherwise eligible voters who simply overlook a box.”
What that means is not checking the boxes will no longer be considered a “material omission,” and grounds for rejecting an application. And before just accepting the excuse that a box on a form presents an insurmountable barrier for citizens who wish to vote, a bit of background information needs to be considered.
That’s because this past April, McAuliffe vetoed a bill that would have required making information available to registrars about individuals not qualified to serve as jurors due to reasons including not being a citizen, being a felon whose voting rights have not been restored, not being a Commonwealth resident or a resident of another jurisdiction, and being “adjudicated incapacitated.” His only explanation for doing so, without further elaboration, was that “additional study” needed to be done.
“Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe and his appointees to the Virginia State Board of Elections seem determined to ensure that felons and non-citizens can illegally register and vote in elections without getting caught,” a National Review Online dissection of these latest moves concludes. “Why are they doing this? Perhaps it has something to do with a recent report on the huge influx of immigrants into Virginia that appears to be turning the state blue, since a majority of foreign-born residents favor the Democratic party. The same is true for felons: Felons vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.”
And Democrats vote overwhelmingly for “gun control,” with semi-auto bans, registration schemes masked as “background checks,” and a ban on private sales all part of the party’s platform. That definitely places both the voter fraud issue and the “immigration” issue within the purview of what’s appropriate for “single issue” gun groups to consider in their candidate rankings and endorsements.
Still, say you’re a Democrat who thinks the McAuliffe voter rule change is a positive move to ensure no one who is eligible to vote is disenfranchised. Just to be consistent, then, is it safe to assume you also won’t worry about “immaterial omissions” in Section 11 of ATF Form 4473, because a purchaser still has to sign a certification? And you’ll be OK with the transfer being completed with no adverse actions against the FFL?
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7. Police investigating another nighttime attack of a woman in Arlington
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Perhaps the people of Arlington might want to reconsider their opposition to a gun store opening there.
Member Mark Shinn emailed me this:
From wtop.com: http://tinyurl.com/orzfkav
http://wtop.com/arlnow-com/2015/08/poli ... arlington/
Police Investigating Another Nighttime Attack of a Woman in Arlington
By ARLnow.com
August 14, 2015
800 block of S. Frederick Street (photo via Google Maps)Arlington County Police are investigating yet another attack of a woman who was walking alone at night.
The incident happened on the 800 block of S. Frederick Street around 10:30 last night (Thursday) and is the fifth such attack in the past month.
“An unknown male subject carrying a stick grabbed a female victim’s wrist and attempted to drag her into the woods,” according to a crime report. “The suspect fled with the victim’s cellphone after she screamed for help.”
“The suspect is described as a Hispanic male in his twenties, approximately 5’5? tall, with a slim build and short hair,” the report continues. “He was wearing black pants and a black shirt at the time of the incident.”
The nature of the attack, the description of the suspect and the fact that he was scared off by the victim fighting back are all at least somewhat similar to four other such attacks that have happened since July 25.
On July 25, a man sexually assaulted a woman while walking home near Courthouse. On July 31 a woman running on the W&OD Trail was grabbed from behind and thrown to the ground. On Aug. 1 a woman in Buckingham was also grabbed from behind and thrown to the ground. And this past Saturday, Aug. 8, a woman was approached from behind by a man who put a pillow case over her head and pushed her to the ground.
Police are “not willing to say… just yet” whether any of the attacks are related, but Special Victims Unit detectives were planning to talk to the victim today to gather additional details.
A police spokesman said ACPD has been stepping up its efforts to catch the alleged predator or predators who have been perpetrating these recent attacks, but the department can use tips from the public.
“We’re going to continue to put resources on the streets, in a plain clothes capacity along with additional patrol officers,” said Dustin Sternbeck. “We are looking for the public’s assistance with this as well.”
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8. [CA] California city seizes woman's guns over husband's mental health
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And gun confiscations continue in a state with Universal Background Checks (UBCs). Confiscations are the endgame for UBCs. We must make sure we never get UBCs here in Virginia.
Member Bill Albritton emailed me this:
From foxnews.com: http://tinyurl.com/o6clfob
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/08/23/ci ... s-lawsuit/
California city seizes woman's guns over husband's mental health
August 23, 2015
The city of San Jose seized Lori Rodriguez’s guns after her husband was forced to undergo a psychiatric exam, but now she wants them back contending that the seizure violates her Second Amendment rights.
The city took her 12 guns away in 2013. KNTV reports that she went to federal court recently to get them back. She contends in her lawsuit, which also seeks damages and an injunction to prevent future seizures, that she has a right to have guns in her home, despite her husband’s mental health issue.
“I think it’s the right for everybody,” Rodriguez told the station. “You should be able to protect yourself.”
Rodriguez lost the weapons after her husband was locked up in a hospital for a 72-hour psychiatric evaluation.
That hospital stay bars him legally from having access to weapons.
“That doesn’t mean she gives up her right to have a gun, as long as she follows California’s law that is to use a gun safe,” Rodriguez lawyer Don Kilmer said.
City Attorney Rick Doyle told the station the issue is public safety.
“Are we acting with an abundance of caution? Yeah,” Doyle said. “We’re concerned about someone having access to firearms that shouldn’t.”
Doyle said storing the guns in a locked safe doesn’t prevent Mr. Rodriguez from gaining access.
San Jose prevailed when Rodriguez challenged the seizure in state court.
“We don’t want to turn the guns over and we don’t have to turn the guns over. The courts have agreed with us,” Doyle told the station.
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9. [MI] Police chief: Concealed carry part of crime-fighting in Detroit
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EM Dave Hicks emailed me this:
From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/pbkytp2
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... n-detroit/
Police chief: Concealed carry part of crime-fighting in Detroit
By AWR Hawkins
August 22, 2015
Detroit residents are increasingly carrying guns for self-defense, and Detroit Police Chief James Craig describes an armed citizenry as part of what has been successful in fighting crime in the city.
In fact, Craig suggests other cities should take note and learn the benefit of residents who take the time to get a concealed carry license and who carry a gun to protect life and property.
In January 2014 and again in March 2014, Craig spoke to the benefits he thought Detroit would gain by more residents being armed, and he made clear that he supports law-abiding residents using guns to fight back when criminals attack. According to Political Vel Craft he said, “The message should be that, you know, people are going to protect themselves. They’re tired, they’ve been dealing with this epidemic of violence, they’re afraid and they have a right to protect themselves.”
And now–a year and a half later–Fox News reports more and more Detroit residents are getting their carry permits and Craig likes what he sees. He said, “When you look at the city of Detroit, we’re kind of leading the way in terms of urban areas with law-abiding citizens carrying guns,”
Firearm Instructor Rick Ector spoke to the surge he has seen in attendance at his training courses, referring to it as the “Chief Craig effect.” He said, “Home invasions have gone down. A huge reason was that there was a huge spate of homeowners using their guns against intruders. More people have guns and it’s making burglars cautious.”
Ector made clear that the renewed interest in concealed carry has not not been simply for men. He said, “It used to be that we would only have one or two women in a class,” he said. “Now we are seeing much, much more. This past May, I held a class where we trained 300 ladies.”
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10. [PR] Guns in Puerto Rico [VIDEO]
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The law abiding citizens of Puerto Rico recently won a big victory on the PR Superior Court and Federal Court against the mostly corrupted and ignorant government leadership of the Island. Good job by the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation.
Guns in Puerto Rico: Locked and Loaded in the Tropics.
https://youtu.be/47gxjk6U5CQ
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11. Study: Concealed carry is soaring
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:
From cheaperthandirt.com: http://tinyurl.com/ohuz6nr
http://blog.cheaperthandirt.com/study-c ... y-soaring/
Study: Concealed carry is soaring
Guest post by John R. Lott Jr.
August 16, 2015
Since President Obama’s election, the number of concealed handgun permits has soared, growing from 4.6 million in 2007 to over 12.8 million this year, according to a new study by the Crime Prevention Research Center.
Crime Prevention Research Center
The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) conducts academic-quality research on gun laws and their effects on crime and public safety.
Among the findings in the CPRC report:
The number of concealed handgun permits is increasing at an ever-increasing rate. Over the past year, 1.7 million additional new permits have been issued—a 15.4% increase in one single year. This is the largest-ever single-year increase in the number of concealed handgun permits.
5.2% of the total adult population has a permit.
Five states now have more than 10% of their adult population with concealed handgun permits.
In ten states, a permit is no longer required to carry in all or virtually all of the state. This is a major reason why legal carrying handguns is growing so much faster than the number of permits.
Since 2007, permits for women have increased by 270% and for men by 156%.
Some evidence suggests that permit holding by minorities is increasing more than twice as fast as for whites.
Between 2007 and 2014, murder rates have fallen from 5.6 to 4.2 (preliminary estimates) per 100,000. This represents a 25% drop in the murder rate at the same time that the percentage of the adult population with permits soared by 156%. Overall, violent crime also fell by 25 percent over that period of time.
States with the largest increase in permits have seen the largest relative drops in murder rates.
Concealed handgun permit holders are extremely law-abiding. In Florida and Texas, permit holders are convicted of misdemeanors or felonies at one-sixth the rate that police officers are convicted.
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12. The dangerous backgroundcheck lie
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Board Member Jim Snyder emailed me this:
From dailycaller.com: http://tinyurl.com/o9acro7
http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/14/the-d ... check-lie/
The dangerous backgroundcheck lie
By Alan Korwin
August 14, 2015
A Gun-Transfer Ban For Everytown Means Death To Liberty.
Half the media doesn’t even know it’s deceiving you when it talks about so-called “universal background check” bills. The other half knows it’s lying.
They know this code phrase means a national gun-transfer ban, plus universal gun registration — total government control over all guns held privately in America.
Without total registration, universal background checks don’t work. A comprehensive gun-owner list is the whole point of getting falsely reported “background bills” passed. One man — multi-billionaire former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg — is pushing the bills and funding operations, with shell corporations, hired hands, advertising, federal cooperation and mountains of his cash.
His goal is to make you subject to arrest if you hold someone else’s gun — a “gun transfer” — with or without a sale, like he just snuck through in Washington State. Sounds impossible but it’s stone-cold true. He did that by deceiving the public with a $10 million false advertising campaign. He told the public one thing, for a law that did something else. When people found out, after they passed it, they were furious. Too late. Let’s do this by example, so you understand what we’re talking about.
Let’s say you buy a Colt Python from some regular Joe at a gun show, or my next-door neighbor, or in a class, it doesn’t matter where. Gun-show loophole is just a buzz phrase the media uses to bamboozle — the proposed bills always cover every inch of the nation.
Loophole is a synonym for liberty. Never forget that. Gun-show liberty. Bloomberg, an anti-freedom bigot of the worst kind, hides behind a privately armed army, assaulting your right to arms, while exercising his. He wants to kill a liberty you currently have, willing to blatantly lie to get his way, spending obscene fortunes to bully us.
But I digress.
Joe says he’s the Python’s original owner, bought it at retail from Tony’s Gun Store (where you shop sometimes) and you believe him. You’ve known Joe for years and he’s always seemed like a right guy. That might all be true, or not, you have no way of knowing. You now have the Python, it’s sweet, no paperwork, cash and carry. That’s got a name. It’s called freedom. Two free people doing business. You don’t even have to buy it — if Joe just hands it to you you’re both guilty under Bloomberg’s bill.
That handoff scares the crap out of the left and gun scaredy cats because both of you might be criminals! And there’s no controls! Joe the criminal could have just sold (or handed) you, the criminal, a stolen gun and the police won’t even know! Everyone in the world might be criminals, selling each other g- g- g- guns!
What they miss of course is if new background checks were required and everyone was a criminal, the exact same deal could take place anyway, without the check, like it does now. Laws stop nothing. Law enforcement does. That’s what’s missing, insiders understand this and the “news” omits it (too conveniently), leaving voters misled. We’ve already made all of those actions illegal — the criminals, the transfer, the sale and the stolen gun. But I digress again.
Perfectly Legal
I’ve just described the private transfer of property between two free citizens in a free country, the same as the transfer of a Bible, gold coins, this publication or any legal property. In most states nationwide this is 100 percent legal. There’s no victim, no one is harmed and no crime is committed. Laws against it would ban liberties most of us currently enjoy, without affecting criminals who do all that now — even though it’s banned. All Bloomie’s new law would do is outlaw you. Anti-rights bigots and ignorami are hell-bent to outlaw these transfers for you.
Getting back to your shiny new Python, since you really have no idea where it’s been, let’s suppose several possibilities.
First, Joe is telling the truth, second Joe got the gun like you just did, from someone he knows (so he really doesn’t know its background), and third Joe stole the gun or it’s tainted in some other way (smuggled, traded for outlawed drugs, used in a crime, etc.) all of which are already highly illegal with harsh penalties. What does all this mean for you, background checks and gun registration? Will new laws requiring more government interference make anyone safer or help stop crime?
Loophole is a synonym for liberty.
Never forget that. Gun-show liberty.
If Joe, the gun and you’re all legal, which is typically the case, no amount of extra government helps anything, but it does raise everyone’s costs, diverts resources away from policing and into record keeping, and eats up time. As long as you use your sidearm righteously, no blood, no foul.
If some new private-transfer ban gets enacted, Joe and you can obey and travel somewhere during business hours, go through the red tape, pay the fees, fill out the papers, clerks in West Virginia (where the sprawling FBI campus for this has been built) enter the records, and nothing changes except — you have the Python, owned or borrowed, and now the government knows it.
There’s only one thing the government can actually do with that information besides store it. They can decide to come and take your Python, now that they know you have it, should they decide to do so. They would have to ban Pythons first though, to make the confiscations “legal.” Sorta.
But if Joe and you decide not to go through the rigmarole and just transact the property, who’s to know? Without a universal gun-registration system in place, the private-transfer background check accomplishes nothing — because there is no way to tell who owned what beforehand. The government obviously needs a list of where America’s 300 million guns are today before the system really works — they even said this themselves. And then, it just identifies innocent people who own property, with no connection to any crimes committed. How does writing everyone’s name on a government list help stop crime? (Hint: It doesn’t.)
How accurate do you think a government record of 300 million guns will be? Guns that look alike, distinguished by tiny characteristics, owned by Americans who want nothing to do with the system, with easily bollixed serial numbers in an obese inventory that’s constantly in flux, run by low-wage dead-end clerks who are tired and waiting for the Friday bell, just like any work force.
In this database — errors are felonies. If the system says Joe owns a Python and he can’t produce it with federal jackboots at his door, that’s a potential crime, and he has some jawing to do. If Joe sends anyone to your door you may admit to having it or deny it or clam up and demand an attorney.
Don’t forget, nobody here harmed anyone, this is a database problem. And I haven’t even gotten up to the part where criminals with guns cannot be part of the system — because they would have to self-incriminate to register. That’s prohibited, since they can’t have frickin’ guns in the first place.
No, the universal-background-check scam has one purpose — to control all of America’s privately owned guns. It has nothing to do with crime, blatantly violates the Second Amendment, is completely beyond any power delegated to government and should be rejected outright as an illegitimate public policy choice in this country.
A Final Thought
Bloomberg, and the leftist approach he represents, is misguided. To prevent criminals from potentially buying guns outside civil controls, they would subject everyone who isn’t criminal to submit to control, drastically reducing freedom. This is unacceptable from the perspective of liberty. Liberty is the higher requirement.
The public is guilty of nothing and cannot legitimately be subjected to such demeaning treatment. To prevent criminals from obtaining guns, they must be caught in possession, as hard as that is, which is why they are — and remain armed — historically, and possessed of other contraband despite laws to the contrary. Burdening the innocent, and drastically curtailing currently enjoyed freedoms will not improve the situation and are intolerable acts.
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13. 11 times a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy, saving lives
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And 11 times is just the very tip of a huge iceberg.
From washingtontimes.com: http://tinyurl.com/q763q49
http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimed ... un/?page=1
11 times a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy, saving lives
With tragic events such as the shooting of a bible study group at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, the stories of heroic self defense and lives saved by legal gun owners are often overlooked. Here are just a few stories of law-abiding citizens using guns to defend themselves against criminals.
In 2007, former cop and volunteer security worker, Jeanne Assam, saved the day at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Thousands of people were exiting from Sunday mass that day as the shooter opened fire. However, Assam ran toward the line of fire, killing the shooter and saving countless lives.
Alton Nolen of Moore, Okla., was charged with first-degree murder in the gruesome beheading of a Vaughan Foods worker. His rampage was halted by Mark Vaughan, a reserve sheriff’s deputy and the company’s chief operating officer, who used his personal firearm to wound Nolen.
In Garland, Texas, two gunmen opened fire outside of a Prophet Mohammed cartoon drawing contest in 2015. The swift reaction by police and security at the event prevented all but the two attackers from being killed.
In 2013, a shooter opened fire at Prince Middle School in Atlanta, Georgia. However, after wounding only one student, the suspect was disarmed by an armed guard who was stationed at the school.
An 18-year-old mother saved the life of herself and her baby in Blanchard, Oklahoma. There, a knife-wielding intruder was attempting to enter Sarah McKinley's mobile home shortly after her husband died of lung cancer in 2012. After breaking in, McKinley fired, killing one suspect and scaring the other intruder off.
A 71-year-old man saved the lives of many at an internet cafe in Florida in 2012. When robbers entered the cafe with weapons, Samuel Williams pulled out his gun and scared off the suspects.
A 69-year-old grandmother protected herself and her home in Alabama in 2010. After hearing a burglar break into her house, Ethel Jones fired three shots, wounding and scaring off the intruder, who was later arrested by police.
A pregnant mother of two saved herself and her children after two intruders entered her home in Ashtabula, Ohio. After refusing to let the two intruders in, they broke down her back door. As they proceeded up her stairs, the shot at them, hitting one intruder and scaring them both off until police arrived.
A would-be robber was shot in 2006 by an employee at Media Madhouse in Indiana. After the suspect entered the building holding a gun on an employee and demanding money, a second employee jumped into action and shot the suspect, saving both employees and customers.
72-year-old Jan Cooper saved her life and the life of her 85-year-old World War II veteran husband, who is confined to a wheelchair. In 2013, a man was breaking into the Cooper's Southern California home, when the grandmother fired one shot from her .357 Magnum Smith and Wesson revolver, which scared the burglar off.
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14. Non-citizens are "The People" under the second amendment split
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EM Dave Hicks emailed me this:
From joshblackman.com: http://tinyurl.com/ohuvwrg
http://joshblackman.com/blog/2015/08/20 ... amendment/
7th Circuit creates circuit split: Non-citizens are "The People" under the second amendment
by Josh Blackman
August 3, 2015
Writing for the 7th Circuit, Judge Wood parted company with the 4th, 5th, 8th, and 10th Circuits, and found that the Second Amendment protects non-citizens, as they are part of “the people.”
We first tackle the question whether the Second Amendment protects unauthorized non-U.S. citizens within our borders. The Amendment provides that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” U.S. CONST. amend. II. The Supreme Court has confirmed that this language confers an “individual right to possess and carry weapons.” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 592 (2008). But neither Heller nor any other Supreme Court decision has addressed the issue whether unauthorized noncitizens (or noncitizens at all) are among “the people” on whom the Amendment bestows this individual right.
Wood contends that the Framers consciously chose the phrase “people” over “citizen.”
Other language in Heller supports the opposite result: that all people, including non-U.S. citizens, whether or not they are authorized to be in the country, enjoy at least some rights under the Second Amendment. (Although it is hard to find good data about the percentage of noncitizens in the United States before 1820, see BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, U.S. DEP’T OF COMMERCE, HISTORICAL STATISTICS OF THE UNITED STATES 1789-1945: A SUPPLEMENT TO THE STATISTICAL ABSTRACT OF THE UNITED STATES (1949), available at http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/ HistoricalStatisticsoftheUnitedStates1789-1945.pdf, immigra- tion in the late 18th century was a common phenomenon. And such provisions as Article I, section 2, paragraph 2, which limits membership in the House of Representatives to persons who have been “seven Years a Citizen,” and Article II, section 1, paragraph 4, which requires the President to be “a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution,” show that the drafters of the Constitution used the word “citizen” when they wanted to do so.)
Though, who was a citizen of the United States in 1787? See my article, Original Citizenship. (I promise, it has NOTHING to do with birthright citizenship).
Further, the 2nd Amendment should be read similarly to the 4th Amendment, where “the people” also refers to non-citizens.
Heller noted the similarities between the Second Amendment and the First and Fourth Amendments, imply- ing that the phrase “the people” (which occurs in all three) has the same meaning in all three provisions. See Heller, 554 U.S. at 592 (“t has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right.”); id. at 580 (noting that “the people” is “a term of art employed in select parts of the Con- stitution,” including the First, Second, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments) (quoting United States v. Verdugo- Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 265 (1990)). An interpretation of the Second Amendment as consistent with the other amend- ments passed as part of the Bill of Rights has the advantage of treating identical phrasing in the same way and respect- ing the fact that the first ten amendments were adopted as a package.
The government contends that the noncitizen cannot be part of “the people” because he hasn’t accepted the basic obligation of U.S. society:
First, it contends that unauthorized noncitizens categorically have not accepted the basic obligations of membership in U.S. so- ciety and thus cannot be considered as part of “the people.”
The court rejected this reasoning, explaining that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right, and noncitizens can have this attachment:
In the post-Heller world, where it is now clear that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is no second-class entitlement, we see no principled way to carve out the Second Amendment and say that the unauthorized (or maybe all noncitizens) are excluded. No language in the Amendment supports such a conclusion, nor, as we have said, does a broader consideration of the Bill of Rights.
Judge Flaum concurred, and would not have reached this issue. This opinion does create a circuit split, and under circuit rules, no judge voted for en banc.
Because this holding creates a split between our circuit and the Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Circuits, ante at 7, this opinion has been circu- lated to all active judges pursuant to Circuit Rule 40(e). No judge voted to hear the case en banc.
However, the court found the conviction under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(5) to be permissible under Skoien intermediate scrutiny. And because Congress has an interest in keeping hands out of non-citizens, the conviction was upheld.
Congress’s objective in passing § 922(g) was “to keep guns out of the hands of presumptively risky people” and to “suppress[] armed violence.” Yancey, 621 F.3d at 683–84 (cit- ing S. REP. NO. 90-1501, at 22 (1968)); see also Huitron-Guizar, 678 F.3d at 1169–70 (§ 922(g)’s purposes are to assist law en- forcement in combating crime and to keep weapons away from those deemed dangerous or irresponsible). One such group includes aliens “who … [are] illegally or unlawfully in the United States.” 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5)(A). The government argues that the ban on the possession of firearms by this group of people is substantially related to the statute’s gen- eral objectives because such persons are able purposefully to evade detection by law enforcement. We agree with this po- sition: unauthorized noncitizens often live “largely outside the formal system of registration, employment, and identifi- cation, [and] are harder to trace and more likely to assume a false identity.” Huitron-Guizar, 678 F.3d at 1170. Persons with a strong incentive to use false identification papers will be more difficult to keep tabs on than the general population. (Section 922(g)(5)(B)’s prohibition on firearms possession by most aliens who are lawfully present but who hold only nonimmigrant visas reflects a similar concern. Holders of nonimmigrant visas sometimes have no address associated with them, making them equally difficult to track.)
Although showing some teeth for scrutiny, the court rejects the government’s positions that non-citizens are more likely to commit gun-related crimes.
The government also argues that § 922(g)(5) reflects the likelihood that unauthorized immigrants are more likely to commit future gun-related crimes than persons in the gen- eral population. It offers no data to support that assertion, however, and we have our doubts about its accuracy. The government extrapolates from the fact that persons who are here illegally have “show[n] a willingness to defy our law” to the conclusion that they are likely to abuse guns. This may go too far: the link to firearms is unclear, and unlawful pres- ence in the country is not, without more, a crime. See Arizona v. United States, 132 S. Ct. 2492, 2505 (2012) (“As a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain present in the United States.”). While it is a misdemeanor to enter the country improperly, see 8 U.S.C. § 1325(a), many unau- thorized immigrants—such as Meza-Rodriguez himself— were too young to form the requisite intent to violate this statute when they were originally brought to the United States. Even if this future-oriented rationale lacks support, however, the government has an strong interest in prevent- ing people who already have disrespected the law (includ- ing, in addition to aliens unlawfully in the country, felons, §922(g)(1), fugitives, §922(g)(2), and those convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence, § 922(g)(9)) from possessing guns.
Will the government seek certiorari here? It’s a close call. They won on the underlying issue, but lost on the question of the applicability of the 2nd Amendment. Such a ruling opens up other possible 2nd Amendment challenges by resident aliens who cannot bear arms. This could be the first time the federal government has petitioned for cert on a 2nd Amendment case since Heller itself!
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15. Major retailers reject calls by prohibitionists to slow gun sales
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Good for Cabela’s, Gander Mountain, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shops. They are standing up to the gun-control tyrants!
Member Billy Huckleberry emailed me this:
From bearingarms.com: http://tinyurl.com/qctkt4p
http://bearingarms.com/major-retailers- ... gun-sales/
Major retailers reject calls by prohibitionists to slow gun sales
by Bob Owens
August 19, 2015
The mass murderer* who attacked a Charleston, SC Church was able to get his firearm due to data entry errors at the local level, and was able to retain it because of bad communications between the FBI and ATF that let him possess the handgun for 62 days before the attack.
Despite these facts, gun prohibitionists in the Democrat Party and Michael Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action have been attempting to blame “flaws” in the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) for the shooting, and have been attempting to bully major retailers in to violating federal law.
So far, the retailers have stood strong in defense of their customers Second Amendment rights:
The nation’s top outfitters and gun retailers have rejected an unusual Democratic request to ignore current gun background check rules and institute their own system that anti-gun advocates believe would slow sales.
Already required to run background checks on gun buyers, over a dozen Democratic senators have asked giants Cabela’s, Gander Mountain, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shops to block sales to customers whose checks aren’t finished in the required three days.
According to the National Rifle Association, the firms have so far rejected the request.
Under current FBI rules, the buyers are allowed to get their weapon after the third day, although the check for disqualifying information through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System will continue for a total of 90 days. It’s a small number, however, since 91 percent of the background checks are completed instantly, surpassing the attorney general’s own goal.
Bloomberg’s shrill minions and their small number of allies in Congress know that their “indefinite hold” advocacy will have little to no effect on criminal behavior. Actual criminals don’t buy guns through dealers, but on the black market or through straw purchases, a fact that has been heavily documented. NICS delays are generally for partial data hits, such as having a similar name or address to a prohibited person.
How often do criminals slip through the cracks? Almost never.
The anti-gunners know more than they are telling, however. First, according to the FBI, if a background check cannot be completed within three days, “the NICS Section continues to search for the information necessary to make a final determination” and, if a person is determined to be prohibited, NICS will notify the BATFE to recover any firearms such person may have acquired. The FBI reports that in 2014, “The NICS Section forwarded 2,511 firearm retrieval referrals to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,” something on the order of about 0.1 percent of all firearms sold by dealers that year.
The moment someone does slip through the system—just 2,500 times a year—the ATF has procedures in place to hunt down the purchaser and retrieve the firearm, which they typically do within days.
If these Democrats and Bloomberg’s allies wanted to reduce the chances of someone slipping through the NICS system instead of just impeding a system that works to harass gun owners, they’d support one of several bills that have been submitted in the U.S. House and Senate that would strengthen NICS, remove the absurdity of “gun free zones” where more than 93-percent of mass attacks take place, and approve national reciprocity, so that people who can legally concealed carry will be there to help protect themselves and those around them.
As has been proven time and time again, most bad guys don’t acquire their weapons through legal means, and the only thing that stops them in the act of committing a crime is a good guy with a gun.
Unfortunately, not all of us can afford a phalanx of high-paid personal armed bodyguards and armored vehicles, Mr. Bloomberg.
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16. Should your concealed carry gun have a light trigger? [VIDEO]
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Member Billy Huckleberry emailed me this:
Good treatise on the topic
From handgunsmag.com: http://tinyurl.com/pfwczlm
http://www.handgunsmag.com/reviews/ligh ... carry-gun/
Should your concealed carry gun have a light trigger?
by James Tarr
June 6, 2013
Many people are wondering these days if their carry gun should have a light trigger. Like many small, close-knit communities, gun writers tend to follow certain belief systems and echo what other writers say about certain subjects without really looking into the source of the belief. In giving good-natured grief to fellow scribes, I often use the phrase, “Like most gun writers, you have confused your opinion with fact.”
I call these set-in-stone ideas “gun magazine gospels”—in direct contradiction to the secondary definition of gospel, which is “a thing that is absolutely true.” One of these is the dictum that carry guns should have trigger pulls over X pounds, X usually but not always being four.
This jumped out at me again recently as I was reading an article on customizing Glocks for competition shooting and saw the following about trigger jobs: “With that in mind, however, the minute that the firing pin and spring are modified, the Glock 35 becomes a competition-only gun. It is not suitable for personal protection with the trigger pull hovering around three pounds.”
My immediate reaction was, “Why not?”
The author of the article was building a gun designed for practical shooting. Practical shooting involves firing thousands if not tens of thousands of rounds in practice and during high-stress, on-the-clock competition. It requires a completely reliable gun that is drawn from a holster as fast as possible. The trigger pull in question was being modified to allow the user to make tough shots under pressure while keeping the pistol completely reliable.
How is an ultra reliable gun with good sights and a trigger that allows the user to make tough shots under pressure unsuitable for carry? Because some gun writer decades ago decreed that any trigger pulls under four pounds are not suitable for a carry gun. Why four? Why not five or 5.5 or 6.79?
I’ve got some news for you: If you can’t keep your finger off the trigger when it’s not supposed to be there, no trigger pull is right for you because you’re unsafe.
NYPD officers are issued Glocks with the “New York trigger,” which features a trigger pull nearly double the standard weight. But even that wasn’t heavy enough. There were lots of instances of negligent discharges, and at NYPD’s request Glock developed the “New York Plus” trigger. Apparently the NYPD doesn’t have the time and/or money to train its officers to keep their fingers outside the trigger guard until they’re ready to fire.
An eight- to 11-pound trigger makes a handgun much tougher to shoot accidentally. And accurately. Last August two NYPD officers fired a reported 16 rounds at a suspect outside the Empire State Building, hitting him—as well as nine bystanders. One officer was about 12 feet from the suspect, the other about 25, so we are not talking about distance shooting.
There were a number of people on the sidewalk directly behind the suspect, but considering how many bystanders were hit, it appears most of the officers’ rounds weren’t hitting the suspect.
Would lighter triggers on their Glocks have allowed them to shoot more accurately? We’ll never know, but I find it hard to believe they could do worse. (And I don’t blame the officers but rather a system that requires them to qualify only twice a year with their handguns, which is about average for police departments. How skilled a driver would you be if you got behind the wheel of a car only twice a year?)
Competition vs. Street
Does somebody want to make the argument that competition is not the street? You are correct; it is not. However, U.S. Practical Shooting Association and International Defensive Pistol Association range officers are strict about ensuring a competitor’s finger stays outside of the trigger guard except when engaging targets, whether he or she is running, reloading a pistol, whatever. Doing something over and over again is one sure way to ingrain it into your muscle memory. Doing it twice a year is not.
So why are guns with trigger pulls suitable for the “crucible of competition,” as Jeff Cooper called it, unsuitable for carry?
Short answer? They’re not—in my opinion. As long as your pistol is mechanically sound, if you keep your finger out of the trigger guard and carry the pistol in a holster that covers the trigger guard, a pistol with a “light” trigger pull is perfectly safe.
I’ve been an armored car driver in Detroit, uniformed police officer and private investigator, and I have carried a gun every day for the past 20 years. None of my carry guns have stock factory trigger pulls, and none of them has ever gone off “accidentally.”
Heck, forget me; listen to what Col. Jeff Cooper had to say about what was the best trigger pull weight on a 1911 destined for carry: “Three pounds, crisp, is the word.” A three-pound trigger on a carry gun would give a lot of gun writers—as well as trainers accustomed to dealing with people who don’t have basic safe gun handling skills—brain aneurysms, but light trigger pulls aren’t inherently unsafe. Some shooters are. I don’t think people with the proper skills need to be handicapped because the world is full of idiots.
When people talk about guns having “too light” a trigger pull, what they fail to realize is that “light” has no specific definition in the first place. Factory guns can have trigger pulls ranging anywhere from under four to more than 12 pounds. The single-action trigger pull on my SIG P226 was just over three pounds out of the box. Does that mean it’s inherently unsafe? No.
Not all types of guns are equal when it comes to the trigger pull argument, however. If you’re carrying a 1911, not only do you have to deactivate the thumb safety before firing it, there is the grip safety to consider as well. Having to physically deactivate two safeties before it’s even possible to pull the trigger adds something to the equation. I know someone who carries a Colt Commander with a two-pound trigger pull. That’s lighter than I’d want for myself, but is it inherently unsafe? Again, no.
A lot of 1911 owners carry their guns in Condition One—cocked and locked, with loaded chamber and thumb safety on—but striker-fired guns such as Glocks and Smith & Wesson M&Ps are entirely different matters. When loaded, they exist in a permanent “cocked and unlocked” state, with a partially cocked striker. There is no external safety to be found other than the lever on the trigger.
Plenty of cops have had accidental discharges into the ground (or their legs) when reholstering striker-fired guns because the drawstring of their jackets or the strap of their thumb-break holsters got wedged into the trigger guard. In such instances there is nothing to stop the pistol from firing other than the force required to actually pull the trigger. This is why a well-fitting quality holster that covers the trigger guard of the pistol is a must.
The fewer mechanical safeties on your pistol, the more you need to ensure it’s not going to go bang until you want it to. If your carry pistol is bouncing around loose in your purse, briefcase or glove box, where pens or lipstick tubes can get wedged inside the trigger guard, the last thing you want is a striker-fired pistol with no external safety to have a light trigger. Whenever possible, such pistols should be in holsters so their trigger guards are covered.
A big reason thrown out against custom or “customized” guns is that if you ever do shoot anyone, the opposing lawyer will crucify you for having an unsafe gun, a gun with a “hair trigger.” I hate to break it to you, but if you’ve done anything to your carry gun—changing the grips, sights, springs, adding grip tape or doing a trigger job—you’ve customized it, and you’re open to the same kind of legal attack.
I know a lawyer who simply added an aftermarket safety to his striker-fired gun, and in my opinion he unwittingly opened himself up to all sorts of courtroom attacks.
“Sir, your model pistol has been issued to dozens of police departments and several military units, but you apparently thought it was unfit to use as is? What are your qualifications to make that decision? If you felt the design of the pistol was inherently unsafe, why didn’t you carry a different pistol? Isn’t that irresponsible of you? Has this aftermarket safety been approved by the maker for use on its pistols?”
I’m certainly no lawyer and am not qualified to dispense legal advice, but as a private investigator and former cop I’m no stranger to the legal system, so take my opinion for what it’s worth. My response to that line of legal attack has always been that everything I’ve done to my gun has allowed me to shoot it better.
Frankly, you’re open to legal attack even if you haven’t done anything to your pistol as it came from the factory, so why not make sure you can hit what you’re aiming at—at speed and under stress?
One of the biggest legal aspects of any defensive shooting will be whether your rounds went where you wanted them to. If they did, I think any attack by the opposing lawyer on the tool you used will be merely a distraction. Even if your carry gun has a one-pound “hair trigger,” if the three shots you fired at your carjacker hit him in the dead center of his chest, I would think any argument a lawyer makes about your trigger will seem silly to a jury.
Now, on the other hand, if you didn’t hit what you were aiming at or accidentally pulled the trigger when jumping behind a car and shot an innocent bystander or yourself—then you’ve got all sorts of trouble.
When it comes to customizations, some gunsmiths will gladly testify to the safety and quality of their work in a courtroom, some not so much. Regardless, if you get a trigger job done—whether by a professional or by yourself (know your limitations)—do not carry or depend on it until you’ve shot the gun enough to prove its reliability. And by that I mean hundreds of rounds, not just a magazine or two.
My philosophy has always been to carry a gun that best allows me to hit what I’m aiming at under stress. Winning the gunfight has always been more important to me than any potential court case that may come afterward. Carry a gun that you can shoot as fast and accurately as your skill allows, and practice, practice, practice.
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17. 'Mythbusters' co-host 'nearly rendered speechless' by incredible footage of pistol firing round at 73,000 fps [VIDEO]
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From theblaze.com: http://tinyurl.com//pclupck
http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2015/08/17 ... er-second/
Mythbuster's co-host 'nearly rendered speechless' by incredible footage of pistol firing round at 73,000 fps
By Jason Howerton
August 17, 2015
“MythBusters” co-host Adam Savage was “nearly rendered speechless” by amazing video footage that captured a pistol firing off a round at 73,000 frames per second.
“Adam Savage is nearly rendered speechless by incredible slomo footage that captures a bullet being fired at 73,000 frames per second. Shot at these speeds, the video reveals a dance of pressure and fire that would otherwise be missed by the unaided eye,” the video’s description reads on Discovery’s official YouTube channel.
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18. [MI] Great open-carry interaction with officer [VIDEO]
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Member Ruslan Ketenchiev emailed me this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1G1IscWi58&app=desktop
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19. Alan Korwin, the Accidental Gun Advocate [VIDEO]
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Member George Overstreet emailed me this:
From ozy.com: http://tinyurl.com//oap63rz
http://www.ozy.com/provocateurs/alan-ko ... cate/61652
Alan Korwin, the Accidental Gun Advocate
By Meghan Walsh
August 16, 2015
Deep into an Arizona summer, it’s 113 degrees outside. The sweat beads on my neck as I fumble to press the copper-colored cartridges into the magazine. Once loaded, I slam the magazine into place with the palm of my hand. I chamber the round and assume the proper position: feet shoulder-width apart, arms in an A-formation, dominant hand gripping the 9 mm pistol. One eye closed, I narrow in on my target. Steady, steady, pop. There’s a burst of light and a casing clanks against the cement floor. Bull’s-eye, baby.
Granted, the target was only 7 feet away. But as we stand inside the shooting range, it’s still a different story when my teacher, one of the country’s most infamous gun advocates, takes his turn. Alan Korwin is a mediocre shot. It’s a little embarrassing — in fact, you feel bad for the guy. But that doesn’t stop him from offering another quick tutorial to a friend.
At 65, Korwin, with his professorial white beard and bushy eyebrows, may not be a familiar face. But you’ve likely heard his message. He’s the man millions of gun owners count on to fight for their right to bear arms. By his own count, he’s logged more than a thousand interviews with the press. Behind the scenes, he makes the rounds talking to tea partyers, state legislators and even the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, helping to shape the argument for Second Amendment rights. “He’s utterly changed the paradigm for the right-to-bear-arms community,” says Charles Heller, former executive director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. Korwin has even changed the vocabulary. Instead of gun control, it’s crime control; assault weapons are household firearms; and they’re not gun rights, they’re civil and human rights.
However you come down on one of the most controversial issues of the day, one that only gets more heated with every heartbreaking mass shooting, Korwin turns out to be quite a surprise. In some ways, he’s the ultimate accidental gun advocate. This (once) red-haired Bronx native with an English degree will tell you he’s more into funk music and bird feeders than AK-47s. Korwin stumbled into his profession serendipitously, when he discovered a whole unexplored (and lucrative) world related to firearms: the welter of laws and regulations that govern them. To him, defending the Second Amendment is just a job, more intellectual exercise than heart-thumping rallying cry for the card-carrying NRA folk.
It’s a classic lesson in how few people backing any provocative issue are the cardboard figures they seem. Korwin argues that he can leverage his unusual entrée into this world of firearms to add a measure of rationality to one of America’s most rancorous debates. We want to know: Can he?
***
Korwin’s own history probably best starts in 1986, the year he moved to Arizona. Once a scrappy city kid, he had given up working in the New York music industry to go into technical writing. While visiting Flagstaff for a Reader’s Digest conference, he and his now wife decided to elope, marrying on the city courthouse lawn. He wore white linen; she wore a Hawaiian shirt. Shortly after, the newlyweds decided to move across the country and buy a stucco house in suburban Scottsdale. Nineteen eighty-six also happened to be a turning point in the history of guns in this country.
The first restrictions on gun ownership came in the late 1960s, when the federal government put firearms beyond the reach of a certain few, such as felons and the mentally ill, and “the political lines began to be drawn in a way we would recognize today,” says Craig Whitney, author of Living With Guns: A Liberal’s Case for the Second Amendment. At first the NRA went along with some of the regulations, and, Whitney says, even proposed an automated system to screen buyers, not realizing the technology for such a thing wasn’t that far off. But the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, among other events, galvanized gun control advocates and gun rights groups alike, and eventually led to a series of laws being passed in 1986 that limited government oversight of firearms ownership.
Not long after relocating, Korwin was strolling the aisles of a Smitty’s supermarket. He came across, as will happen in Arizona, a case of guns. When he asked what he needed to buy one, the clerk responded, “How much money do you have?” “I was totally shocked by the gun culture,” Korwin says. When he started asking around about the gun laws, he was even more shocked to find that no one — not even the police — had a clue what they were. Three years later, in 1989, he published a little book called The Arizona Gun Owner’s Guide, which parsed the everyday rules around buying, owning, carrying and using guns. Now in its 26th edition, the title became an unexpected juggernaut, spawning replicas in 32 states. Korwin’s Bloomfield Press, named after the street he lives on, is now, according to Korwin, the largest publisher of gun law literature; his monthly newsletter alone has 50,000 subscribers.
Despite an overall drop in gun violence since the publication of Korwin’s first book, high-profile mass shootings have fed the virulent debate — and gun sales. After headlines about the Newtown and Aurora shootings came reports of surging firearm revenue; the industry’s economic impact grew from $13.9 billion to $17.8 billion between 2011 and 2014, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Meanwhile, as U.S. police become more militarized, the argument for Second Amendment rights has taken on more resonance, says Richard Stevens, a D.C. lawyer and author of Dial 911 and Die: The Shocking Truth About the Police Protection Myth. “When you see militarized police power growing unchecked, you see people on the right and left saying this is not right,” Stevens says.
Whether it’s because messages like Korwin’s have penetrated or one of the many other reasons, for the first time in more than two decades the majority of Americans considered it more important to protect the right to bear arms than to control gun ownership, according to a December Pew Research Center study. In just two years, between 2012 and 2014, the percentage who said firearms protect citizens from crime, rather than facilitate it, jumped from 48 percent to 57 percent. And nearly half of all gun owners claimed security as their main reason for owning a gun; that was up from 26 percent in 1999, when most reported using guns for hunting. For this anxious, security-minded market, Korwin published another slim volume: After You Shoot: Your Gun’s Hot. The Perp’s Not. Now What? (His short answer: Don’t call 911.)
***
Korwin owns firearms and sometimes carries one, but he won’t say whether he’s had the occasion to draw one. Still, he considers himself a utopian pacifist. But, unfortunately, there are what he calls the four horsemen of humanity: anger, hunger, stupidity, and wickedness. As long as humanity is plagued by such character defects, peace must be achieved through superior firepower, and freedom defended by force. When Korwin says he’s “not so much into guns as the concept of guns,” he means guns as a means to defend personal freedom. That, he says, is what’s at the core of the entire gun debate: To fight the threat of government oppression or other evil forces, the citizenry must be armed.
This is the standard libertarian take on guns, of course, but it’s also a view shared by many who are not as skeptical of the government or humanity in general, like the liberals Whitney writes about in his book. By couching his arguments in the ideals of freedom and peace, Korwin’s ideas have a wider reach. Because he “doesn’t come originally from the gun culture,” he can “speak to people who don’t share his mindset,” says Dave Kopel, an attorney, author and gun rights — oops, human rights — activist. Indeed, Korwin, who considers himself agnostic, attends an ecumenical lunch group of diverse, spiritually minded diners during which they discuss philosophical questions of God, and good and evil. “I’m weary of anyone who says they know something for sure,” Korwin says.
But when it comes to guns, Korwin says there’s no reasoning with his adversaries. It’s all heart-pulling anecdotes and flying figures about lives lost because of firearms. “The left is willing to lie to create a scenario and narrative that fits their image,” Korwin says. Yet he himself doesn’t hesitate to invoke evidential statistics or emotional imagery, as when he compares a gunless world to the Genghis Khan era. Or when I ask him about Trayvon Martin, the Black teenager who was fatally shot by a member of a neighborhood watch group, Korwin responds that the teen was a “thug” who beat the man’s “head into the cement.” (When I remind him that who touched whom first was never definitively proven, Korwin softens his tone and agrees that’s a crucial but missing element of the story.)
Speaking with the remnants of a New York accent, Korwin can offer an answer for everything on the issue of firearms. How do we protect children from accidentally shooting themselves? Make gun safety education a mandatory part of school curricula, similar to the way we teach sex ed (but no mandatory training for adults). In fact, he says, by not teaching gun safety, “the schools are negligent.” How do we shut down the illegal market? End the drug war. How do we prevent killing rampages by racist young men? Arm teachers and pastors and … everyone.
Still, as he hands me a red button that says “Guns Save Lives,” Korwin nods to the fortuity of his role. Had his first publication been, say, a glossy city guidebook, he might not have become the gun law guy at all, he says, drawing out each word. No empire of gun law books, no appearances at conferences or gun shows or before cameras and under klieg lights. Nope, Korwin says. He’d have been the “city guy” instead. Because, in the end, “you kinda just follow the money a little bit.”
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20. 3 new, stupid, anti-gun laws and lawyers
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Member George Overstreet emailed me this:
From guns.com: http://tinyurl.com//pcazarb
http://www.guns.com/2015/08/15/3-new-st ... d-lawyers/
3 new, stupid, anti-gun laws and lawyers
By Jeffrey Denning
August 15, 2015
Anti-gun laws and personalities are always in the news, but here are three breaking legal moves that have this cop, citizen and gun owner scratching his head at the shear stupidity.
1. The Los Angeles City Council mandates trigger locks
During the first part of August, it was reported that the Los Angeles City Council advanced an ordinance that would require all handgun owners to do something really stupid: keep them in a locked container or fixed with a trigger at all times in the home. Otherwise, misdemeanor.
How stupid is that? I’ll tell you how stupid it is.
It’s like saying, “Hey bad guys, I won’t have anyway to protect myself when you kick in my door because my gun is locked up. I can’t even carry my gun on my hip in a holster in my own home because that would be illegal, so come break in.”
Like a lot of gun laws, this one is just another failure in trust, but how much is institutional trust really a meaningful factor when we are talking about the lives of grown adults who just want to protect themselves? I trust that responsible gun owners will keep their guns out of the reach of children. I know that these people will keep their weapons locked up anyway (though in a manner that allows for quick access to protect themselves). All this lame ordinance does is legally disarms people in their homes and, rather literally, gives criminals the upper hand.
Oh yeah, and the week before they designed this foolish ordinance, the council also vowed to ban “high-capacity gun magazines” (which are already illegal in California).
Stupid.
2. Ohio prosecutor doesn’t understand gun recoil
While trying a police officer who shot someone at the University of Cincinnati, the prosecutor assigned to the case made some real ignorant statements about ballistics. This is what the attorney said of the cop’s actions at the traffic stop:
“He was not dragged. He fell backwards. Maybe from the recoil of the gun.”
What? He fell backwards from the recoil of a handgun? Is that even possible?
It wasn’t a .454 Casull, he wasn’t 50 pounds and, even then, it’s still just a handgun. He wasn’t shooting a M2 .50 cal machine gun.
I believe that this prosecutor watches too many movies. (Though, even Rambo could operate an M60 on full auto without falling backwards. Sheesh.) And I’m pretty sure he’s not a gun guy (and likely not pro-gun either). But, as an agent of the law and an investigator on this case, he should have an understanding of basic physics and how they pertain to modern firearms. Sounds like a clueless, anti-gun lawyer to me—just the type you don’t want.
Honestly, it makes me wonder what other baloney was slung around during that indictment.
3. California governor signs a bill banning grand juries for cops
So here’s the deal as I see it: minority rights groups, a minority legislature and a few judges decide that the grand jury who cleared the police officer in Ferguson, MO, must have been on drugs. This is the myopic view the creators of this new bill took in an effort to be more “fair and transparent” and what brought them to the decision to make a law stripping cops of the right to a grand jury in lethal force incidents.
Conversely, now cops in California won’t be getting “fair treatment” afforded to every other citizen in California. The same grand jury standard that has worked for hundreds of years throughout the US is going by the wayside in the Golden State. (Well, I think the gold is tarnished and full of dross, so it’s more of a greenish hue now.)
This is absurd. Isn’t banning grand juries against the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution? Yes, from the liberal poster-state we get another unconstitutional law. And my guess is that the wacky 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will probably uphold it… if it gets that far.
As a cop and a citizen, I feel police should be tried criminally for their transgressions. In fact, I believe that cops who aren’t justified in the use of force should be punished like anybody else—cops should not be allowed to break or abuse the law and be able to get away with it. But stripping them of the same Constitutional rights granted any citizen of the United States as this new law prescribes to rises to a whole new level of stupidity.
I think that the rights of citizens nationwide are being usurped and it’s beginning in California. If cops aren’t able to do their jobs, if citizens aren’t able to protect themselves, if the law continues to permit ignorance to parade around as expertise into its courts, we are headed toward an anarchy that could soon be rolling into your neighborhood. Do something, say something, and help to stop this madness.
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21. What the right to bear arms is all about
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Member Tom Biggar emailed me this:
http://zelmanpartisans.com/?p=1976
What the right to bear arms is all about
By Boris Karpa
August 20, 2015
One of the issues that repeats itself in practically any gun argument is the trope wherein the anti-gun party commences its argument by stating: “We are not here to take your hunting shotgun. We are here to ban some extremely dangerous firearm that is only useful for killing other people.” Many times the people who are trying to defend their gun rights are lured into attempting to argue that their firearm of choice is actually meant for sports, and not actually meant for combat or self-defense. The extent to which this line is bought by gun rights advocates is quite fearsome – I have had numerous discussions with European gun owners who told me they actually feared discussing the concept of armed self-defense in public for fear of reprisals from the government.
It is important to understand that in these cases, the antis are often not deliberately lying. They do not intend to abolish the ownership outright – and there is no European country where gun ownership has been totally abolished. Even in the United Kingdom, individuals can buy shotguns and rifles if they prostrate themselves before the state sufficiently. That said, the right to bear arms in those countries has been extinguished completely as a social institution. (While a right of course is innate, and cannot be abolished by government fiat, the practice of defensive gun ownership has been de-facto eradicated in most of Europe).
To be clear, what the anti-gunners oppose is not guns as such. They are not lying, in that sense. What they oppose is the notion of people owning weapons. To an anti-gunner, there is no legitimate application, in modern society, of private armed force. He intends to take it from you, either by outright banning the ownership of weapons, or by making it as bothersome and complicated as possible. Nobody believes, of course, that introducing ‘universal background checks’ will prevent criminals from buying guns – but it might reduce gun ownership by, say, 1%, just by making it as bothersome and irritating as possible. Nibble a bit there, a bit there, and eventually the amount of gun owners decreases – like that of smokers – until it becomes politically tenable to do anything to restrain their rights and freedoms.
At first it might appear – and millions of gun owners the world around believe this – that you can compromise with these people, after all not all of us personally own guns as weapons, if we but explain to them rationally that our guns are not weapons, we can preserve our hobby…
Every gun rights organization around the world that tried to have this as their driving strategy has been utterly crushed. The reason is simple: once you’ve accepted the narrative that the only legitimate reason to own firearms is to use them in the shooting sports, most people do not empathize with your desire to participate in shooting sports. When the average person – who does not have the shooting sports as their hobby – is offered the chance to choose between some gun control measure that is peddled as increasing the security of his children, and the right of some person he doesn’t know to engage in a strange hobby, he will only naturally choose his children’s security. (Obviously, in real life, these measures won’t make him safer, but he doesn’t have any way to know that).
Sadly, while the more advanced and knowledgeable segments of the RKBA movement have already understood this, there are still millions of people – especially outside the US – that haven’t quite grasped this concept. The lesson of the past few decades of gun rights activism is one that needs to be spread far and wide, beyond the core of the RKBA faithful.
The only meaningful strategy to defend the right to bear arms is to recognize what the Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution have meant it as: a right to have weapons, implements of self-defense with which you will fight and kill people who intend to do you harm. Self-defense is a concern that all human beings share, and if you can poise an alternate narrative – telling the listener, in effect, that the right to bear arms is the mechanism by which you mean to enhance your own safety (a desire everyone shares), and that it arguably also enhances his safety, you will be able to forge a universalist argument.
The truth is, we support the right to bear arms – and we own various guns and other implements of combat – because we recognize that there is evil in the world, and because we hope we are prepared to face it with guns in hand. If we attempt to cede our opponents’ argument, to try and haggle with them based on the false notion that our firearms are not tools of self-defense, we will end up humiliated and vanquished – as gun rights advocates around the world have been.
Only digging in on the position of the truth – yes, I defend guns because guns are useful for killing criminals and tyrants – is going to be successful. Only the truth shall set you free.
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(VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization
dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to
Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.
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VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 9/20/15
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OakRidgeStars
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Re: VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 9/20/15
As to the last item, item 21, I have never held the notion that the 2nd Amendment has anything to do with hunting.
I've never been keen on hunting. Obviously, I have no opposition to other people hunting, but activities that involve being outside in cold ,early morning hours are NOT fun for me. I hate cold and I hate mornings.
I've also never held the opinion that the 2nd Amendment had anything to do with any other shooting sport. But, then, I'm not particularly competitive, so no sport really does it for me.
So, when I was sitting in school, learning about our Constitution, I guess I really had to take a closer look at the text of the 2nd Amendment to see how it really applied to me.
It has always been about protection, for me. Protection from any entity that means to do me harm.
[ Post made via Mobile Device ]
I've never been keen on hunting. Obviously, I have no opposition to other people hunting, but activities that involve being outside in cold ,early morning hours are NOT fun for me. I hate cold and I hate mornings.
I've also never held the opinion that the 2nd Amendment had anything to do with any other shooting sport. But, then, I'm not particularly competitive, so no sport really does it for me.
So, when I was sitting in school, learning about our Constitution, I guess I really had to take a closer look at the text of the 2nd Amendment to see how it really applied to me.
It has always been about protection, for me. Protection from any entity that means to do me harm.
[ Post made via Mobile Device ]
"Send lawyers, guns, and money; the $#!t has hit the fan!" - Warren Zevon
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