VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 12/2/15

[OakRidgeStars]

VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 12/2/15

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Not yet a Virginia Citizens Defense League 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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VA-ALERT archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/727/=now
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1. More Lobby Day Team Leaders needed - 2nd Request
2. Richmond gun show was packed in November
3. Delegate Scott Taylor calls on McAuliffe to drop his state-agency gun-ban
4. Now Falls Church tries to illegally prohibit NOVA Firearms from opening a store there
5. Universal Background Checks and magazine limits didn’t stop Colorado mass shooting
6. Police Union wants to carry at NFL games, Katie Povich speaks up for CHP holders
7. DC Police Chief tells citizens to fight back in an “active shooter" attack, but how can we in DC?
8. The Party of Gun Control’s latest devious measure
9. Party of Gun Control asks Obama to sidestep the Constitution for gun control
10. [DC] Good guys are packing guns illegally in DC, too
11. [TX] A look at a defense-of-another scenario in Texas [VIDEO]
12. CMP to sell government 1911s to public!
13. For a night, McLean is center of gun-debate universe
14. At VA gun show, pushing back against blame
15. 73 year old pulls gun in effort to locate store robber
16. Another massacre, another charade
17. [TX] Armed robbery suspects vs. Texan with a concealed handgun
18. [OR] Common response after killings in Oregon
19. Leaked audio: Hillary Clinton loses it
20. Newspapers count gang violence as 'mass shooting'
21. Campus carry 'the common sense solution'
22. Clarissa mis-explains it all [VIDEO]
23. Seven gun control myths that just won't die
24. AUSTRALIA: At least 2 dead in shooting outside police building

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1. More Lobby Day Team Leaders needed - 2nd Request
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Our first request for volunteers to lead our VCDL teams on lobby day (Jan 18, 2016) generated about half the needed responses.

If you can help us by leading a team of member-volunteers on an assigned route to lawmakers’s offices to distribute our legislative
information packets, please send an email to Dennis O’Connor at dennis@vcdl.org

If you’ve attended Lobby Day over the years, you are who we are looking for!


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2. Richmond gun show was packed in November
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I received this from Mike Wilburt, the VCDL Richmond Gun Show Coordinator:

I just wanted to give you a quick report on this past weekend's gun show in Richmond, and thank the volunteers who worked the event with me.

The terrorist attacks in Paris, and McAuliffe's recent anti-gun-freedom executive orders, were hot topics this past weekend, and certainly contributed to the crowd and our results at the Richmond Gun Show, Nov. 14-15.

We sold more renewals and new VCDL memberships than we did during the past three Richmond shows combined. Additionally, lots of VCDL gear was sold and the show attendees were generous with their donations. On top of that, about 170 people signed up to receive the VA-Alert emails.

I want to thank our terrific VCDL Richmond volunteers: Keith Bailey (who drove down from Reston and stayed overnight in a local motel so he could help), Charles Winkler, Albert Shank, John Miller, Richard Roberts, Bob Greene, Evan Smith, Randy Wachman and Harry Trimble.

Gun shows are such a vital part of letting Virginia gun owners know that there is a powerful organization working hard on their behalf right here in their home state.

The next Richmond gun show is scheduled for January 23-24, 2016. I encourage VCDL members in the Richmond area to mark their calendars and volunteer to work the VCDL table.


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3. Delegate Scott Taylor calls on McAuliffe to drop his state-agency gun-ban
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Thanks to EM Leyla Myers,

http://www.richmond.com/opinion/their-o ... c0428.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/jtl9dkm

[SNIP]

“It behooves Americans — Virginians — to use the best right we have for protecting our families and ourselves: the Second Amendment. Governor McAuliffe should immediately rescind his politically motivated and shortsighted executive order banning guns in state buildings and should support my legislation to allow citizen soldiers of the National Guard to utilize their concealed carry permits in recruiting stations.”

—

And here is what a real governor does. In Texas, their governor tells mayors they cannot ban carry in government buildings INCLUDING COURTROOMS EXCEPT WHEN THEY ARE IN USE, while our governor blocks Virginians from carrying in state agencies, not because there was any danger, but just because he wants to look good for Hillary Clinton.

Thanks to member Clayton Vieg for the link:

http://www.chron.com/news/politics/texa ... 651772.php

or

http://tinyurl.com/gs4hrre

Greg Abbott tells mayors they can't ban guns in city halls
By Lauren McGaughy

AUSTIN -- Texas mayors cannot prohibit the concealed carry of handguns in city halls and other government buildings even if they contain security-sensitive areas such as courtrooms, according to Gov. Greg Abbott.

Abbott, the former attorney general, last month told his successor Ken Paxton that under a new law that went into effect Sept. 1, city, county and agency leaders must allow concealed handgun license holders to carry their weapons into government buildings.

The Abbott memo was sent in response to letters from Hays and Tom Green County officials asking Paxton to clarify when and where they can continue to ban concealed carry in their facilities. News of the memo was first reported by Austin's Community Impact Newspaper.

READ ABBOTT'S MEMO TO PAXTON

Under the new law, state and local governments only can ban concealed guns in buildings that fall into a narrow "gun-free" category, including courthouses, polling places, hospitals, public schools, airports and racetracks. Austin Mayor Steve Adler has interpreted that to mean he can ban guns in all of City Hall because the building hosts court proceedings.

"You don't allow concealed guns in courthouses, and city hall hosts a downtown community court once a month," Adler communications manager Jason Stanford said Monday. "You can't have guns here unless you're a cop."

Abbott disagrees. Concealed carry should only be banned from the area of city hall that hosts the community court, he said in his memo, and only when the proceedings are actually happening.

The new law "makes it unlawful -- upon pain of civil penalties -- for a state agency or political subdivision to completely bar entry to a governmental building unless the entire building is" a gun-free zone as designated by state law, Abbott's memo said. "When the 'court' is located inside a multi-purpose government building, however, Texas law allows a state agency or political subdivision to ban handgun licensees from only the portion of the building that qualifies as 'premises' of the 'court.'"

Janice Evans, chief policy officer in Mayor Annise Parker's office, said the city only bans concealed carry in the city council chamber. Houston City Hall does not house courtrooms or host court proceedings, she added.

"I'm pretty sure our policy abides by the state law," said Evans, who said her office will follow up with more details on how it interprets the new law later Monday.

Paxton's office has acknowledged it received Abbott's memo, and said it is not unusual for him to weigh in on opinions requests. He has done so five times since the new attorney general was sworn in in January, said spokesperson Cynthia Meyer.

"Our opinions committee welcomes briefs from interested parties and the public on pending requests," she said.


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4. Now Falls Church tries to illegally prohibit NOVA Firearms from opening a store there
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NOVA Firearms is opening a store in Falls Church. Their business license was approved. But the Falls Church City Business Revenue Auditor, Ossama Khamis, told NOVA Firearms that he is the only person to issue the final license and he refused to do so! The problem is that, in his opinion, NOVA Firearms was too close to a City Park, the City Government Buildings, and a private school (St James Catholic School).

NOVA Firearms lawyer has written a letter to the City and advised them to stop interfering with the operation of NOVA Firearms, or else.

Here is an article on the situation and a formation of a group to oppose NOVA Firearms. Thanks to member Les Johnson for the link:

http://fcnp.com/2015/11/24/citizens-gro ... ar-school/


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5. Universal Background Checks and magazine limits didn’t stop Colorado mass shooting
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Thanks to member Clayton Rhoades for the link:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... shootings/

or

http://tinyurl.com/hlncxza

Colorado: Expanded Background Checks, ‘High Cap’ Mag Ban, High Profile Shootings
by AWR Hawkins 28 Nov 2015

Colorado has expanded background checks, a “high capacity” magazine ban, and two high profile shootings within a month’s time.

One of the shootings took place on Halloween, when Noah Harpman opened fire on the streets of Colorado Springs, killing three innocents before being killed by police. The second happened on November 27, when Robert L. Dear opened fire from inside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, killing two civilians and University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) police officer Garrett Swayzee.

These shootings came roughly two and a half years after Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) signed multiple gun controls into law in reaction to the July 2012 Aurora theater attack and the December 2012 attack on Sandy Hook Elementary. Among the laws signed were expanded–or universal–background checks, a ban on “high capacity” ammunition magazines, and new rules on how long a gun can be out of the owner’s possession before another background check is required for him or her to get it back.

The expanded background checks in Colorado are the exact same checks that are being pushed at the national level. Likewise, the “high capacity” magazine ban is similar to “high capacity” magazine bans being pushed at the national level and in certain states and municipalities around the country.


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6. Police Union wants to carry at NFL games, Katie Povich speaks up for CHP holders
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Katie Povich asks a great question: If the NFL ends up allowing off-duty police officers to carry at games, why not CHP holders, too?

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavli ... y-n2086947

or

http://tinyurl.com/hqpg4sh


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7. DC Police Chief tells citizens to fight back in an “active shooter" attack, but how can we in DC?
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The Washington DC Police Chief said that in an “active shooter" attack, citizens should fight back. But, she controls the definition on what is considered a “need” to get a DC CHP and she makes it all but impossible (all of 48 permits issued so far).

So, while terrorists have guns, all we would have is our hands and feet to fight back in DC.

Thanks to member David Custer for the link [VIDEO]:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/when-callin ... nt-enough/

‘"Your options are run, hide, or fight,’ says Lanier. 'If you're in a position to try and take the gunman down, to take the gunman out, it's the best option for saving lives before police can get there,’ she tells Cooper.”


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8. The Party of Gun Control’s latest devious measure
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Using a secret list to deny gun rights.

Thanks to Rick Evan for the link:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... asure.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/o9d8ymo

[SNIP]

"The bill by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., would have the attorney general compile names of known and suspected terrorists, likely drawing from huge lists the government already keeps. Federally licensed gun dealers would be barred from selling firearms to people on that list if government officials believed they planned to use the weapons for terrorism.

"Do you see the glaring problem here?

"The attorney general would make a list based on data the government already has amassed. Or, potentially, based on anything else for that matter. Perhaps the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of troublesome people would serve as a guide. Who knows? Bottom line, if your name appeared on that mysterious list (intentionally or unintentionally due to errors, which routinely occur), then you would be unable to buy a gun.

"Wow. I have to hand it to the Democrats. They’ve devised a strategy that combines gun control, faux window dressing concern about national security, and the likely targeting of law abiding American citizens who might wind up on The List."


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9. Party of Gun Control asks Obama to sidestep the Constitution for gun control
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The ends justifies the means, even if it means shredding the Constitution and making the President our king.

This appears to be the model Governor McAuliffe is using to advance his gun control agenda -- sidestep the General Assembly.

Thanks to EM Dave Vann for the link:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... n-control/

or

http://tinyurl.com/zgp5rrf


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10. [DC] Good guys are packing guns illegally in DC, too
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It’s a sad situation when good people have to break the law to be able to protect themselves. It is shameful for government to target decent people exercising a constitutional right, while ignoring criminals.

Thanks to member Brian Sheaffer for the link:

http://www.wusa9.com/story/news/local/d ... /75461922/

or

http://tinyurl.com/ost8svh


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11. [TX] A look at a defense-of-another scenario in Texas [VIDEO]
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DO NOT FIRE A WARNING SHOT! What this woman did, is legal in Texas, but it is NOT in Virginia. The man was fleeing and cannot be stopped by deadly force here in Virginia. And that warning shot - where did that round end up?

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/11 ... m=Firewire

or

http://tinyurl.com/j6tz3yp


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12. CMP to sell government 1911s to public!
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And VCDL is a CMP affiliated club!

Thanks to member Bill Albritton for the link:

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015 ... mpaign=rss

or

http://tinyurl.com/z7e82um


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13. For a night, McLean is center of gun-debate universe
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Member Terrell Prude, Jr. emailed me this:

http://www.insidenova.com/news/arlingto ... a0219.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/pgj9uhl


For a night, McLean is center of gun-debate universe
Pro-, anti-gun activists pack meeting on firearms store
October 9, 2015

A standing-room-only crowd of anti-gun protesters and gun-rights supporters – some of whom openly carried handguns and at least one rifle – filled the main hall at the McLean Community Center on Oct. 7 to learn what the McLean Citizens Association (MCA) could do about a firearms store’s relocation near a McLean school.

The likely answer – not much – left some dissatisfied.

The brouhaha began Sept. 26 when NOVA Firearms moved to 1389 Chain Bridge Road, which is next to Franklin Sherman Elementary School and less than a half-mile away from where the store had been for two years.

The store’s opening drew protesters who objected to its proximity to the school. Supervisor John Foust (D-Dranesville) said in a statement that the shop conformed to the law, but added he would try to persuade the owners to end their lease and relocate again.

MCA president Jeff Barnett did not permit commentary from the crowd and instead persuaded the board to form a temporary ad-hoc committee to study what, if anything, could or should be done about the situation.

Barnett urged those on both sides of the issue to respect each another. Parents with children at Franklin Sherman Elementary believe the store’s proximity undermines child safety, Barnett noted.

But the store’s owners have rights as well and are complying with all zoning rules, as well as local, state and federal laws, he said.

“We have a challenge without an easy solution,” Barnett said.

MCA members Rob Jackson, Louise Epstein, Liz Baird and Steve DelBianco will serve on the committee, which will produce an interim report for the next board meeting in November.

Some MCA members doubted the committee could find a solution for the store.

“It is absolutely legal,” said board member Sally Horn.

(A Republican strategist attending the meeting said county supervisors likely won’t be able to ramp up gun-store rules. State code Section 15.2-915 prohibits localities from regulating firearm purchases, ownership and storage more strictly than state statute, he said.)

The audience, watched by a Fairfax County police officer, largely complied with Barnett’s wishes, but often asked MCA members to speak more loudly. One audience member demanded to know if an opponent at the meeting was allowed to carry weapons openly at the community center.

“He is in compliance with the law,” the police officer responded.

“He” probably was Terrell Purdé Jr., a tall, strapping man carrying a .357 Magnum revolver in a hip holster and an old Finnish-made Mosin Nagant M39 rifle slung over his shoulder.

Purdé, who lives outside the McLean area but often goes shopping there, said he does not usually carry the rifle openly and always leaves its bolt open to reassure bystanders the weapon is unloaded.

NOVA Firearms, which had been turned away from a location in Arlington, moved to the new McLean site so it could provide more firearms-education classes, said co-owner James Gates. The site’s landlord has been supportive, even in light of the protests held when the store opened, he said.

“We were kind and polite and let [protesters] exercise their rights. If that’s ever threatened to be taken away, we’ll help defend it,” he said. “There may be a lot of loud support against us, but there’s a very large, silent majority supporting us.”

The store offers a variety of firearms and accessories, from revolvers and semi-automatic pistols to shotguns, rifles and suppressors. (Those seeking that last item must obtain a tax stamp from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and undergo an extensive background check by that agency, which could take up to one year, depending on the backlog, Gates said.)

Unlike some gun stores, NOVA Firearms does not have an on-site shooting range. No weapons loading is permitted in the shop and employees zip-tie and secure all purchased firearms before they are taken out of the store, he said.

While the store could release firearms to buyers if background checks are not completed in five days, NOVA Firearms always waits for the results to come back cleanly before giving the weapons to customers, Gates said.

Audience members on both sides weighed in after the meeting.

“I don’t care what your position is on guns, why does it have to be bordering an elementary school, with all that’s been going on in this country?” asked McLean resident Lynne O’Brien. “I’m appalled that we don’t have regulations about that in Fairfax County. I’ve never been so disgusted to live here.”

Many gun supporters at the meeting came from all around Virginia, as well as Maryland and Washington, D.C., O’Brien said.

Marilyn White, a 42-year McLean resident, said the store is “bringing in an element we’ve never had before in McLean.”

State Sen. Barbara Favola (D-31st) and Del. Kathleen Murphy (D-34th) attended the meeting in support of the store’s protesters.

“You shouldn’t have guns for sale in the back yard of a school,” Murphy said. “Nobody gave them trouble at the other location.”

Herndon resident and firearms instructor Judy Rudek came to the meeting wearing a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol in a hip holster.

“I’ve been to the store and I want to support them,” she said. “I think the free market should decide. Having [the store] next to school grounds is no more dangerous than across town. They are heavily regulated and in compliance with the ATF. They’ve not done anything wrong.”


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14. At VA gun show, pushing back against blame
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/at ... story.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/nt53pwk


At Virginia gun show, pushing back against blame
By Joe Heim
October 3, 2015

Pop!

At the Nation’s Gun Show in Chantilly, Va., on Saturday, in a cavernous warehouse filled with thousands of customers and tens of thousands of guns, the sharp sound snaps a few heads.

“We’re going to have to have a discussion about those balloon animals,” Annette Elliott, the show’s organizer, said wearily.

Forgive Elliott — and everyone — if nerves are frayed in this era of weekly mass shootings. She, too, has become familiar with the ritual of gun violence in America, but hers comes with a personal twist. Another week. Another massacre. Another round of calls from reporters asking what can be done and who is to blame for the country’s deadly gun culture. After the latest rampage, which ended with 10 dead, including the shooter, at Umpqua Community College on Thursday in Roseburg, Ore., she is hearing the questions again.

“We’re being put out there like it’s our fault,” Elliott says. “But what we’re selling is an inanimate object. And I don’t know what the response is except to arm yourself to protect yourself.” As gun opponents ratchet up the calls for more controls and more regulations, gun owners and sellers have no choice but to push back, she says. The fault, she says, lies with a mental health system that doesn’t have enough resources and with the media which, she says, gives mass killers all the attention they crave.

The frustration with the media is a theme sounded by many of the visitors and merchants at the show.

“These nuts do this seeking publicity. And the media promotes it,” says Jerry Cochran, 60, of Cedar Bluff, Va., who owns Trader Jerry’s, one of the largest gun sellers at the event. “This is a coward who never did anything, and now look, his name is everywhere.”

The Nation’s Gun Show is held seven weekends a year at the Dulles Expo Center. More than 12,000 people will pay $13 each this weekend to scour aisles and aisles of approximately 100,000 guns being sold by 270 exhibitors.

It is a sea of weaponry with almost every imaginable hand-held instrument of destruction on display: machine guns, rifles, shotguns, pistols, semi-automatics, stun guns, knives, machetes, bayonets, switchblades. Even a few hatchets.

The crowd is mostly men, but there are also families, babies in strollers, grandparents. The number of women coming to the nearly 5,000 gun shows held each year around the country has grown by about 20 percent since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to Elliott, who says her company, Showmasters Gun Shows, is the second-largest gun-show organizer in the nation.

Guns and ammo aren’t the only items proffered. Holsters for concealed carry weapons are everywhere. Camouflage clothing, too. Gas masks. Confederate battle flag belt buckles, towels, clocks, pillows, bandannas. A sign at a table selling body armor urges buyers to act soon: “Body Armor will soon be banned! Federal ban on body armor.”

T-shirts for sale cater to the crowd, mixing pro-gun messages with patriotic imagery:

“Don’t tread on me”;

“Pro God Pro Life Pro Gun”;

“I’m a shooter, not a fighter”;

“Gun Chick.”

Some T-shirt messages are wordier. One reads, “An unarmed man can only flee from evil and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.” That’s a shirtful.

Almost all of the visitors interviewed at the gun show Saturday said that gun policies are not responsible for mass shootings and efforts to further restrict access to guns will only hurt responsible gun owners.

“Taking guns away from people is no solution,” says Cathy Boarman, 60, of Southern Maryland. Boarman describes herself as a country girl who grew up in a gun family. The problem, she says, is mental health, not guns.

“You never know when someone is going to flip,” she says. “I’m sorry for all the people who got hurt. But are you going to take all the cars off the road because people get killed in car crashes?”

A young man walks past carrying an AR-15 pistol and an AR-15 rifle slung over his shoulders. He’s wearing a T-shirt with “No Hope” emblazoned on the front, lyrics from a song by the band Defeater.

“Banning guns is the wrong approach,” says Dylan, 22, of Round Hill, Va., who declined to give his last name because of privacy issues. “They should be asking why we have such a violence problem in America, not a gun problem. We just have a more violent culture. It’s sad and tragic, but there’s no way to prevent it.”

Chris Cherry, 36, of Upper ­Marlboro, Md., brought his mother, Janace Ferguson, to the gun show. Ferguson, 62, also of Upper Marlboro, said she is thinking about buying her first gun because she wants to feel safer when she is home alone.

“I don’t think I could kill anyone, but maybe just scare them,” she says. Her son doesn’t see any solution that would end the threat of mass shootings.

“If you take away guns, you’re not giving responsible owners a way to defend themselves,” he says. “And you can’t give everyone a gun because then it would be like the wild, wild West.”

The worst move the government could make would be to try to eliminate guns altogether, he says.

“If there is a total gun ban, that would start a civil war in the United States,” Cherry said.

After the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Conn., where 26 children and school staffers were killed in December 2012, President Obama and Democrats tried to introduce gun-control measures. The threat of making it harder to legally buy guns bumped up sales in 2013 as customers moved to purchase guns and ammunition before any restrictions were put in place. That spurred gun buying and background checks for sales in 2013 that hit 21,093,273 — a record, according to an FBI report.

As someone who has heard the arguments against guns for years, Elliott knows that battle lines have been drawn, and she, too, sees little hope for a compromise that would please both sides. For her, the disagreements are fundamental.

“I don’t think President Obama and the anti-gun activists are speaking out for political reasons,” she says. “I hope they’re not. I think they actually believe that access to firearms will reduce crimes. But the truth is that it is greater access to firearms that has reduced crimes. And that isn’t going to change.”


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15. 73 year old pulls gun in effort to locate store robber
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Just a reminder - as CHP holders we are not the police and don’t need to be locating robbers or enforcing the law. The gun we carry is for the most important reason of all: self-defense and that’s pretty much it.

Member Craig Rupert emailed me this:


http://www.richmond.com/news/local/crim ... 1f182.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/o8xqnny


73-year-old Walmart customer pulls gun in effort to locate store robber
by Mark Bowes, Richmond Times-Dispatch
October 5, 2015

CHESTERFIELD -- A man who robbed the Walmart Neighborhood Market at gunpoint this morning on Hopkins Road prompted a 73-year-old customer to retrieve her own gun in an attempt to locate the suspect, police said.

The customer didn't catch the bad guy, however, and was placed in investigative detention until officers determined she wasn't involved in the holdup. Police apprehended the suspect after he ran off the road during a pursuit.

The incident unfolded about 10 a.m. when police were alerted of a robbery at the Walmart store at 5700 Hopkins Road.

The suspect displayed a firearm and made off with some cash. After witnesses provided officers with a description of the suspect’s vehicle, an officer spotted the car in the area and initiated a traffic stop, police said.

But the suspect's vehicle made contact with a pursuing officer's cruiser and did not stop, so a pursuit began.

The chase ended when the suspect veered off the road in area of Belmont Road and Chippenham Parkway. He was apprehended without injury to him or police.

The suspect's identity was not immediately released. He was charged with robbery and police said other charges are pending.

Officers responding to the Walmart located the 73-year-old customer armed with a handgun in the store. Police said she was openly carrying her firearm and also had a concealed carry permit.

She told officers that she retrieved her handgun and was attempting to locate the robbery suspect, but at no point did she encounter the gunman. She was released.


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16. Another massacre, another charade
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Member Paul Kent emailed me this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/pjrmdt2


Another massacre, another charade
By Charles Krauthammer, Opinion writer
October 8, 2015

There’s the cycle of poverty. There’s the cycle of violence. And then there’s the cycle of gun talk. It starts with a mass shooting. Gun-control advocates blame the deaths on gun-control opponents, who argue, in turn, that none of the proposed restrictions would have had any effect on the incident in question. The debate goes nowhere. The media move on.

Until the next incident, when the cycle begins again.

So with the Roseburg massacre in Oregon. Within hours, President Obama takes to the microphones to furiously denounce the National Rifle Association and its ilk for resisting “common-sense gun-safety laws.” His harangue is totally sincere, totally knee-jerk and totally pointless. At the time he delivers it, he — and we — know practically nothing about the shooter, nothing about the weapons, nothing about how they were obtained.

Nor does Obama propose any legislation. He knows none would pass. But the deeper truth is that it would have made no difference. Does anyone really believe that the (alleged) gun-show loophole had anything to do with Roseburg? Universal background checks sound wonderful. But Oregon already has one. The Roseburg shooter and his mother obtained every one of their guns legally.

The reason the debate is so muddled, indeed surreal — notice, by the way, how “gun control” has been cleverly rechristened “common-sense gun-safety laws,” as if we’re talking about accident proofing — is that both sides know that the only measure that might actually prevent mass killings has absolutely no chance of ever being enacted.

Mere “common-sense” regulation, like the assault weapons ban of 1994 that was allowed to lapse 10 years later, does little more than make us feel good. A Justice Department study found “no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.”

As for the only remotely plausible solution, Obama dare not speak its name. He made an oblique reference to Australia, never mentioning that its gun-control innovation was confiscation, by means of a mandatory buyback. There’s a reason he didn’t bring up confiscation (apart from the debate about its actual efficacy in reducing gun violence in Australia). In this country, with its traditions, public sentiment and, most importantly, Second Amendment, them’s fightin’ words.

Obama didn’t say them. Nor did he seriously address the other approach that could make a difference: more aggressive psychiatric intervention. These massacres are almost invariably perpetrated by severely disturbed, isolated, often delusional young men.

Yet even here, our reach is limited. In some cases, yes, involuntary commitment would have made a difference. Jared Loughner, the Tucson shooter, was so unstable, so menacing, that fellow students at his community college feared, said one, that he would “come into class with an automatic weapon.” Under our crazy laws, however, he had to kill before he could be locked up.

Similarly, the Navy Yard shooter had been found by police a few weeks earlier in a hotel room, psychotic and paranoid. They advised him to get psychiatric help. Advised. Predictably, he fell through the mental health cracks. A month later, he killed 12 and was killed himself, another casualty of a mental-health system that lets the severely psychiatrically ill — you see them sleeping on grates — live and die wretchedly abandoned.

The problem is that these mass-murder cases are fairly unusual. Take Roseburg. That young man had no criminal history, no psychiatric diagnosis beyond Asperger’s, no involvement in public disturbances. How do you find, let alone lock up, someone like that?

There are 320 million Americans. Schizophrenia affects about 1 percent of the population. That’s about 3 million people. Only a tiny fraction are ever violent — and predicting which ones will be is almost impossible.

Loner, socially isolated, often immersed in a fantasy world of violent video games. There are myriad such young men out there, but with different ages of onset, in different stages of derangement. Only a handful will ever harm anyone. What to do? Forcibly apprehend them, treat them, put them on perpetual preventive parole? By the tens of thousands?

Committing the Jared Loughners would have an effect. But even they are the exception among the shooters. Yet “common-sense” gun control would do even less. Unless you’re willing to go all the way.

In the final quarter of his presidency, Obama can very well say what he wants. If he believes in Australian-style confiscation — i.e., abolishing the Second Amendment — why not spell it out? Until he does, he should stop demonizing people for not doing what he won’t even propose.


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17. [TX] Armed robbery suspects vs. Texan with a concealed handgun
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I think you know what happened. But, here’s the story if you wish to read it anyhow:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/10 ... urned-out/

or

http://tinyurl.com/nkwt69z


Armed Robbery Suspects vs. Texan With a Concealed Handgun — Guess How That Turned Out
by Jason Howerton
October 9, 2015

A Texan killed one suspected robber and injured another after Houston police say they attempted to rob him as he walked down the street late at night, KTRK-TV reported.

The suspects reportedly confronted the would-be victim with a gun — but they weren’t prepared for what would happen next.

The man, a concealed carry permit holder, pulled out his firearm and opened fire on the robbery suspects.

One of the robbers was killed and the other was injured and taken to the hospital.


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18. [OR] Common response after killings in Oregon
**************************************************

Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/us/or ... llege.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/o74plj5


Common Response After Killings in Oregon: ‘I Want to Have a Gun’
By JACK HEALY and JULIE TURKEWITZ
October 7, 2015

ROSEBURG, Ore. — A week has passed since J. J. Vicari huddled underneath a desk while gunshots exploded in the classroom next door. Now he is thinking about guns. Not about tightening gun laws, as President Obama urged after nine people were killed at the community college here. But about buying one for himself.

“It’s opened my eyes,” said Mr. Vicari, 19. “I want to have a gun in the house to protect myself, to protect the people I’m with. I’m sure I’ll have a normal life and never have to go through anything like this, but I want to be sure.”

Mr. Obama plans to visit Roseburg on Friday to meet the grieving families of yet another gun rampage, but many people here are bristling at his renewed call for stricter gun laws. In some ways, the rampage at the college by a 26-year-old student, Christopher Harper-Mercer, has actually tightened the embrace of guns in a rural town where shots at rifle ranges echo off the hills and hunters shoot deer and elk through the fall.

Some families touched by the violence and students who fled gunfire said they now feared that the kind of bloodshed seen inside Classroom 15 of Snyder Hall at Umpqua Community College could happen anywhere. Some said they were planning to buy guns. Others said they would seek concealed-weapons permits. Others, echoing gun advocates’ calls for more weapons on campus, said the college should allow its security guards to carry guns. A few said they thought that stricter gun control laws could have averted the massacre.

Even Mr. Obama’s visit has stirred fiercely polarized responses. Some residents and the publisher of a local weekly conservative newspaper said he was not welcome and accused him of using the town’s anguish to advance his gun-control agenda.

The language got so angry that on Tuesday, the mayor and other city officials put out a statement saying they welcomed Mr. Obama and “will extend him every courtesy.”

And while the mass shooting here has pushed some people toward wanting to arm themselves, it has also pushed others in the opposite direction. Students like Devon Paasch, 36, whose writing teacher, Lawrence Levine, was among the victims, said the killings had intensified her belief that the country needed stricter gun laws. Ms. Paasch was not on campus that morning because she slept through her alarm; she has spent the past week tilting among grief, guilt and a fear of returning to school.

“No kind of gun control is going to stop everything,” Ms. Paasch said. “But in a situation like this, it could have saved 10 lives.”

The debate has rolled across a conservative, timber-producing region where flags are at half-staff and roadside signs solicit prayers for the victims. From a wooded gun range south of town, to City Hall, to KC’s Exchange, where Carolyn Kellim sells handguns and ammunition out of her home, people insisted that the actions of Mr. Harper-Mercer, who was armed with six guns and spare ammunition magazines, would not displace guns from their place in local life.

“That’s why we have guns: We don’t have the government dictating when to get on our knees,” said Ms. Kellim, 86.

After the shooting, gun-control groups and national news media skewered Sheriff John Hanlin of Douglas County, which includes Roseburg, for a letter he wrote to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut. In it he said, “Gun control is NOT the answer to preventing heinous crimes like school shootings.” But in church pews and coffee shops, many residents said they still believed he was right. Online, some are using to back him.

A community college student has started a petition to allow concealed weapons on all campuses, echoing hotly disputed arguments from national gun groups that mass shootings could be stopped by more “good guys with guns.” In 2011, an Oregon court said public colleges could not ban guns from campus.

Umpqua Community College’s code of conduct banned guns “without written authorization,” and students said some of their classmates were able to carry guns on campus because they had concealed weapons permits. One of them, John Parker Jr., an Air Force veteran, told MSNBC that he was armed when the attack happened but did not intervene. He said SWAT officers might have mistaken him for a killer.

“This just shows you, you have to have a way to protect yourself,” said Makayla Thomas, 19, who raced into a student center when the attack started and huddled there until the police arrived. “It’s happened once. Who knows what can happen?”

Jamie Skinner, 34, a former girlfriend of Chris Mintz, the Army veteran who blocked the door to a classroom at Umpqua Community College and was shot by Mr. Harper-Mercer, said in an interview last week that the massacre in Roseburg would not change her opinion that owning guns was important. Ms. Skinner has worked as an armed security guard, and said she and Mr. Mintz went to shooting ranges for recreation.

“We are a weapons family,” Ms. Skinner said. She and Mr. Mintz have a 6-year-old son, Tyrik, who has autism and who also influenced her attitude toward guns. “I like to have the ability to protect myself and my child,” she said.

But Ashley Schmidt, 28, said the horror she heard through the walls of the classrooms had nudged her toward supporting rules that would regulate guns the way cars are. She was in Classroom 14 in Snyder Hall when the shooting started and ran out amid a storm of gunfire, yelling “Gun! Gun! Gun!” at a girl in the hallway whose earbuds had blocked out the noise.

Ms. Schmidt said she opposed “taking guns away,” and lamented that there was no foolproof way to keep guns away from criminals or would-be mass murderers.

“I’ve always felt like there is nothing I can do,” she said, referring to school shootings. “But I see this country falling apart.”


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19. Leaked audio: Hillary Clinton loses it
**************************************************

Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:


http://freedomoutpost.com/2015/10/leake ... ree-zones/

or

http://tinyurl.com/q66c5rn


Leaked Audio: Hillary Clinton Loses It – Bashes Supreme Court & NRA Over Second Amendment - Fails to Mention Gun Free Zones
by Tim Brown
October 2, 2015

In what can only be described as the ravings of a lying lunatic, Hillary Clinton was captured in an audio recording at a New York campaign fundraiser blasting the Second Amendment, the National Rifle Association and the Supreme Court over the Second Amendment.

During her rant she claims that she doesn't believe the NRA represents most gun owners and the majority of Americans. Consider that the NRA has 5 million members and many tens of millions who support the organization to some extent. While that is not the majority of members, there are many things that gun owners agree with the NRA on, so I have no idea where Clinton is coming up with this claim.

However, Clinton went on to expound that she would take on the NRA like her husband Bill.

"I was proud when my husband took [the National Rifle Association] on, and we were able to ban assault weapons, but he had to put a sunset on so 10 years later. Of course [President George W.] Bush wouldn't agree to reinstate them," said Clinton.

Clinton's comments came just a week prior to people being murdered in cold blood, who were disarmed by her stupid husband's policies of "gun free zones." I wish someone would ask her about that little piece of pretended legislation.

"I'm going to speak out, I'm going to do everything I can to rally people against this pernicious, corrupting influence of the NRA and we're going to do whatever we can," she added.

She claimed that the NRA has "so intimidated elected members of Congress and other legislative bodies that these people are passing the most absurd laws."

"The idea that you can have an open carry permit with an AK-47 over your shoulder walking up and down the aisles of a supermarket is just despicable," she said.

Why is that absurd? Why can't people do that? Contrary to popular opinion and Clinton's, the right to keep and bear arms applies to that, as well as carrying a handgun. Personally, I wouldn't walk into the store with an AK on my back, because it would be rather bulky, but I would not infringe on a law-abiding citizen doing it.

I could point out that throughout the past century the NRA also helped to erode the rights of gun owners too, which is why I'm glad there are other pro-gun organizations stepping up to help keep them in check to preserve the God-given right to keep and bear arms.

She then went even broader in her attack on the Constitution.

"We've got to go after this," Clinton continued. "And here again, the Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment. And I am going to make that case every chance I get."

The specific thing she was speaking of regarding the Supreme Court is the case of District of Columbia v. Heller. That was the famous case that found a handgun ban in DC was unconstitutional.

Clinton, who has absolutely no problem having men with handguns, as well as semi-auto and fully-auto rifles protect her, does not want the same rights for Americans that are protected under the Second Amendment. She wants to infringe on those rights and she is telling the American people she that is what she wants to do as president.

Her socialist political opponent Bernie Sanders is pretty pitiful when it comes to the rights of gun owners as well and doesn't follow the Constitution in his thinking. In July, he told CNN's Jake Tapper, "People in Vermont have a greater right to carry guns than people in Chicago or Los Angeles." Animal Farm, anyone?

As for the NRA, Executive Director of the pro-gun's legislative division said, "Hillary Clinton just doesn't get it. The NRA's strength lies in our five million members and the tens of millions of voters who support the Second Amendment. A majority of Americans support this freedom, and the Supreme Court was absolutely right to hold that the Second Amendment guarantees the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms."

Anyone seeking to limit rights protected under the Second Amendment should not be considered for the office of the President of the united States.


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20. Newspapers count gang violence as 'mass shooting'
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Bloomberg’s money and his conference on how the media should report “gun violence” in action:

Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:


http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism ... -shooting/

or

http://tinyurl.com/nl53th7


GUARDIAN, WASHINGTON POST COUNT GANG VIOLENCE AS ‘MASS SHOOTING’
by AWR HAWKINS
October 9, 2015

The Guardian and The Washington Post are reporting sky-high numbers of “mass shooting” incidents in America over the past few years while scholarly studies and Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports show a very low number of incidents, relatively speaking.

For example, the Guardian reports 994 “mass shooting” incidents over the past 1,004 days and the WaPo reports one a week since January 2013 while the CRS reports a pattern of 4.4 “mass public shooting” events a year and University of Alabama’s Adam Lankford shows about 1.95 such shootings a year over a 46-year time span.

How can such a discrepancy exist? It exists because the CRS and Lankford use the standard criteria of four deaths to determine a mass shooting while the Guardian and the WaPo are relying on an outlet called Shooting Tracker, which does not even require a fatality in order to count a crime as a mass shooting. It simply finds instances where four people were wounded and label it a mass shooting.

This opens the door for gang or other criminal activity to be counted as a “mass shooting” incident and drive the figures through the roof.

For example, on October 2 the Guardian listed 994?mass shooting” incidents over the past 1004 days and the list was rife with gang and street violence. It contained a September 28 drive-by shooting on Chicago’s south side and an August 9 shootout which the Detroit News described as being between drug dealers. The list also contained a January 23 fight in Boston’s Jamaica Plains neighborhood in which WCBV reported shots rang out and six were wounded. All of these instances and numerous others just like them are counted as “mass shooting” incidents right along with actual, planned “mass shootings” like the one James Holmes carried out in the Aurora movie theater in July 2012.

This is how The Guardian elevates the number of “mass shooting” incidents and it is the same method the WaPo uses to claim “there’s been no calendar week without a mass shooting during Obama’s second term.”


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21. Campus carry 'the common sense solution'
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:


http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... shootings/

or

http://tinyurl.com/off3ev3


LAW PROFESSOR: CAMPUS CARRY ‘THE COMMON SENSE SOLUTION’ TO CAMPUS SHOOTINGS
by AWR HAWKINS
October 9, 2015

On October 9 Charles Haywood–Purdue University associate professor of business law–contended that “the common sense solution” to campus shootings is campus carry, a mechanism that allows students and faculty the legal avenue of being armed on campus for self-defense.

Haywood has been teaching at Purdue for eleven years. He said that after the Umpqua Community College attack it dawned on him that his students are sitting ducks and he would “be helpless to defend them” if someone stormed his classroom.

Writing in The Exponent, Haywood said he has a concealed carry permit but is not allowed to carry his gun on campus for self-defense. He says the time has come to do away with this ban so that law-abiding citizens have a fighting chance in the event of an attack.

Haywood admitted that emotion plays into decision making when guns and school campuses are discussed in the same sentence, so he is asking people to step back and think rationally about campus carry. He offers three questions for people to ask themselves: “What’s the problem Purdue’s policy is designed to solve? What are the benefits of the policy? What are the costs?”

He quickly shows that the problem with banning campus carry is the simple reality that criminals do not recognize the ban, therefore it “will never stop premeditated murders, whether small or mass.” So it does not solve anything.

As to the second question–which was partially answered with the first question–Haywood points to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers which show “[concealed carry] permit holders commit crimes at a rate of 22.3 crimes of any type per 100,000 people, compared to a rate of 3,813 per 100,000 people in the general population.” In others, they are characterized by law-abiding tendencies.

He says this shows that people who want campus carry banned to keep concealed carry permit holders from committing campus crimes really have no evidence to support their position.

Lastly, Haywood addresses the cost of banning campus carry at Purdue thus:

As to costs of banning concealed carry, on a normal day there are minimal costs. [But] it’s on the not-normal days that the costs become incalculable. A nearby concealed carry holder at Umpqua, a college that formally banned all guns, could have ended the shooting. If Chris Mintz, who charged the gunman and got shot seven times, had instead had a gun, the Umpqua story would have ended differently.

These points are all part of Haywood’s rational appeal for campus carry at Purdue, And when you get down to it, what Haywood is really doing is simply asking the university to give law-abiding students permission to defend their lives in the face of danger.

Haywood said: “Concealed carry holders have stopped and deterred shootings numerous times around the country—just never in ‘gun free’ zones like Purdue, where no law-abiding person has a gun.”


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22. Clarissa mis-explains it all [VIDEO]
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Gun safety “experts" Moms Demand Action, once again shows they have no idea what “gun safety” really is.

http://bearingarms.com/clarissa-mis-exp ... ty-advice/

or

http://tinyurl.com/o67bso5


CLARISSA MIS-EXPLAINS IT ALL: Melissa Joan Hart Join Guns Control Cult, Screws Up Gun Safety Advice
by Bob Owens
May 6, 2015

Melissa Joan Hart has been one of the more successful child/teen actors, surviving two separate television shows (Clarissa Explains it All; Sabrina, the Teen-Aged Witch) without losing her mind and going full Miley Cyrus.

She then found continued success as an adult in Melissa & Joey, though it has been announced that the sitcom is ending it’s run after four seasons.

Hart has now (unwisely) associated herself with Moms Demand Action, the disreputable gun control group with serious and serial credibility problems, as they begin another propaganda campaign.

Sadly, while much of the video makes sense and appears to have been pulled from advice provided by the NRA’s Eddie Eagle and firearms training programs and NSSF’s Operation ChildSafe campaigns, it still manages to fail on a spectacular number of levels.

As my friend Miguel points out at the cheekily-named Gun Free Zone blog, the “safe storage practices” shown in the video (above) are anything but safe:

We begin the usual blabber of guns are bad and yes you have a right but no you don’t (responsibilities!) and we follow with Mr. NYPD on Loan To Moms, a Beretta, a gun lock and a small gun safe, looks good.

Next, NYPD Officer unloads the Beretta. Still fine.

Next, he places the magazine inside the safe…

And locks the safe? Huh? So, what happens to the gun?

Ohh, the cable lock…about time too.

And that is it. I guess the gun stays OUTSIDE the safe.

So either MDA is going to provide a safe, a gun lock and a cop to every household, or somebody again did not do its homework by interpreting the “secure your gun and ammo in different places” in a rather bizarre manner. I can give you the double redundancy of having the cabled gun inside the safe, but locking the ammo and leaving the gun out? Oy!

Make sure you visit Miguel’s site for the images accompanying this bizarre demonstration of “gun safety,” and the rest of his take-down of this video.

Miguel hammers the technical failures in the video solidly, but the problems with the “Be SMART” campaign is structural in nature, and goes well beyond just a few minutes on film.

While the campaign is called “Be SMART For Kids,” the campaign is entirely focused on adults alone, which is a clear and obvious path to failure that anyone who actually understands the issue knows right off the bat.

For guns safety to actually work, children must be actively engaged and learn gun safety… something that the gun prohibitionist group refuses to acknowledge, as it requires firearms education, and there is a strong chance that people who are educated about firearms will learn to enjoy them responsibly, which make it impossible for Moms Demand to lie to them successfully.

How can they promote prohibition if people are actually educated?

Therein lies the reason Moms Demand will never be able to have an honest and effective gun safety campaign.

Perhaps instead of hiring an out-of-work actress to pay lip service to firearms safety in a manner than isn’t safe, Moms Demand should have simply pointed to a much more intelligent video done by a group and a mom who really understands gun safety intimately, Julie Golob.

If I ever want advice on sitcom acting or talking to animatronic cats, Melissa Joan Hart is one of the first people I’d consider calling.

If I’m seeking competent advice about how to keep children safe around firearms, however, I’d rather get advice from someone who actually understands all the issues, like Julie Golob.

Julie understands that children must be part of the gun safety conversation.

Moms Demand has dropped the ball, yet again, and it’s sad that Melissa Joan Hart has chosen to participate in a group that is agitating for gun prohibition, and refuses to do what is necessary to promote real gun safety.


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23. Seven gun control myths that just won't die
**************************************************

Member George Overstreet emailed me this:


http://thefederalist.com/2015/10/07/7-g ... -wont-die/

or

http://tinyurl.com/q39643m


7 Gun Control Myths That Just Won’t Die
The debate over gun control and gun rights would be more productive if both sides focused on the facts instead of pushing myths about America's gun laws.
By Sean Davis
OCTOBER 7, 2015

After every shooting, politicians and activists rush to the cameras or their keyboards to tell people exactly what should be done to stop mass shootings in the future. Gun control proponents demand more gun control. Gun rights advocates dig in their heels and explain why new laws won’t stop evil people from doing evil things, especially when current laws aren’t adequately enforced.

Unfortunately, the debate between the two sides is rarely illuminating, as it usually devolves into tired recitations of worn-out talking points about the issue. These talking points are invariably littered with myths and factual inaccuracies. Here are 7 myths about gun control that just won’t die.

1) The ‘Gun Show Loophole’ Allows Anyone, Even Criminals, To Get Guns

In reality, the so-called “gun show loophole” is a myth. It does not exist. There is no loophole in federal law that specifically exempts gun show transactions from any other laws normally applied to gun sales. Not one.

If you purchase a firearm from a federal firearms licensee (FFL) regardless of the location of the transaction — a gun store, a gun show, a gun dealer’s car trunk, etc. — that FFL must confirm that you are legally allowed to purchase that gun. That means the FFL must either run a background check on you via the federal NICS database, or confirm that you have passed a background check by examining your state-issued concealed carry permit or your government-issued purchase permit. There are zero exceptions to this federal requirement.

If an individual purchases a gun across state lines — from an individual or FFL which resides in a different state than the buyer — the buyer must undergo a background check, and the sale must be processed by an FFL in the buyer’s home state.

What does exist, however, is a federal exemption for sales between two private, non-FFL residents of the same state, regardless of whether that transaction happens at a gun show or not. The identity of the parties involved in the transaction, not the venue of the sale, is what matters under federal law. This federal exemption makes perfect sense: there’s no federal nexus for a purely private transaction between two private individuals who reside in the same state. Many states, including Oregon, Colorado, and Illinois, have enacted universal background checks in order to eliminate the exemption for same-state private firearms transactions.

Federal universal background checks may or may not be a wise idea — the U.S. Senate in 2013 explicitly refused to enact them — but referring to the federal exemption for private, same-state sales as a “gun show loophole” is misleading and factually inaccurate.

2) Nobody’s Demanding Gun Confiscation

We’ve all seen how this one plays out. In the wake of a shooting, a politician demands “common sense gun regulations.” Gun rights supporters then respond with something along the lines of, “He just wants to take our guns!” That criticism is then followed by mockery from various corners of progressive blogdom that no, you stupid hick, nobody wants to take your guns.

In 1996, Australia confiscated guns. It didn't work there and it wouldn't work in America. http://t.co/ks4wjml3Ch
National Review (@NRO) October 5, 2015

But that’s not true. A number of progressives do actually want to take your guns.

TPM’s Josh Marshall finally admitted earlier this week that progressives care a whole lot more about gun confiscation than they do about nibbling around the edges of existing gun laws.

“In other words, yes, we really do want to take your guns,” he wrote. “Maybe not all of them. But a lot of them.”

He’s not the only one. There’s also E.J. Dionne at the Washington Post, who scolded Republicans for refusing to endorse a nationwide gun confiscation program similar to one instituted in Australia in the mid-1990’s.

It’s not just leftist bloggers pushing for gun confiscation, though.

Take the president of the United States, for example. After the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, President Barack Obama made a statement that “we should politicize” shootings. He then cited radical gun confiscation laws in Australia and Great Britain as examples that the U.S. should follow:

We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of ours — Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it.

The intent of Obama’s reference to Australia’s nationwide gun confiscation law, its ineffectiveness notwithstanding, couldn’t have been more clear. Yes, they really do want to take your guns.

3) Buying A Gun Is As Easy As Buying Groceries

Last March, President Barack Obama was asked about guns during a press conference, and he responded by saying, “It’s easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable.” Ignoring for the moment that the president does not understand the difference between a clip and a magazine, his claim is not true.

It is not easier to buy a gun than it is to buy a fresh vegetable, or any canned vegetable for that matter. Never in my life have I been required to fill out federal form 4473 and have the cashier run a background check on me before being allowed to buy an onion.

There are no federal laws requiring onion dealers to register with the federal government prior to selling onions. There are no state laws requiring that you apply for and receive an onion purchase permit, complete with background check, prior to purchasing an onion. There are no onion waiting periods or limits on how many onions you can purchase within a certain period of time. Nor are there, to my knowledge, any state or local laws prohibiting the possession of onions in schools or government buildings.

Firearm manufacturing and sales are highly regulated by the federal government. Numerous complicated laws govern virtually every aspect of the process. Anyone who has purchased a gun before can you tell you in great detail that it is not as easy as buying a vegetable at a grocery store. It is an expensive and time-consuming process.

Some people may think gun control is a great idea and that it should be harder to buy a gun than it currently is, but they should refrain from suggesting that legally purchasing a firearm is easier, cheaper, and less time-consuming than buying a carrot. Because it’s not.

4) Concealed Carriers Don’t Prevent Mass Shootings

“Do armed civilians stop mass shooters?” the liberal magazine Mother Jones asked in 2012. “Actually, no.”

Mother Jones justified its assertion by citing its own analysis that of the 62 mass shootings between 1982 and 2012, not one was stopped by a civilian with a gun. Shocking, right? Not really, once you consider the logical fallacy underlying the Mother Jones claim.

The fact of the matter is that shootings that happen in an area where concealed carriers can immediately respond don’t generally become mass shootings. It’s a bit like saying locked doors and alarms don’t prevent burglaries by only citing burglaries that happened in buildings with no locked doors or alarms as proof of your thesis. It’s no coincidence that so many mass shootings happen in areas declared to be “gun-free zones” by authorities.

Instances of concealed carriers stopping shooters in their tracks are too numerous to count. Here are just a few examples found from a few seconds of Googling.

July 27, 2015:

A 62-year-old man with a gun in each hand fired at four people – including a 1-year-old boy – before a civilian with a concealed carry permit returned fire and wounded the shooter, cops told FOX19.

April 20, 2015:

Authorities say no charges will be filed against an Uber driver who shot and wounded a gunman who opened fire on a crowd of people in Logan Square over the weekend.

The driver had a concealed-carry permit and acted in the defense of himself and others, Assistant State’s Attorney Barry Quinn said in court Sunday.

A group of people had been walking in front of the driver around 11:50 p.m. Friday in the 2900 block of North Milwaukee Avenue when Everardo Custodio, 22, began firing into the crowd, Quinn said.

The driver pulled out a handgun and fired six shots at Custodio, hitting him several times, according to court records. Responding officers found Custodio lying on the ground, bleeding, Quinn said. No other injuries were reported.

September 22, 2015:

A 63-year-old autoworker with a concealed weapons license shot a gunman who was robbing a Warren, Michigan, bank, according to Fox 2 Detroit.

Concealed carriers can’t be expected to stop every shooting, just as police can’t be expected to prevent all crime. It is a fact, though, that concealed carriers regularly put an end to violent shootings.

5) The Second Amendment Only Applies To Muskets

This trope is a popular one among gun control advocates who imagine themselves as strict constructionists when it comes to Constitutional interpretation. Piers Morgan, the failed CNN host and British tabloid editor accused of hacking into celebrity voicemails in search of tabloid gossip, is the foremost advocate of the notion that the Second Amendment protects only the rights of Americans to carry muskets:

Friends don't let friends follow in Piers Morgan's footsteps. pic.twitter.com/eMyzlowSYC
Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 4, 2015

As Carol Roth noted, the refusal of the Founding Fathers to precisely name the types of arms which citizens have a right to keep and bear was intentional. The same can be said of their refusal to constrain our right of free expression to quill pens and bulky printing presses. The Second Amendment protects our right to own handguns just like the First Amendment protects our right to criticize the government using the Internet.

Both the text of the Second Amendment and the intent behind it are clear: the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Law-abiding citizens have the right not only to own weapons, but to carry them as well. The Second Amendment isn’t about muskets or bayonets. It’s about the right of a free people to defend themselves with arms if necessary.

6) Gun Violence Is Skyrocketing

If you’ve spent any time on social media, you’ve seen the lamentations: gun violence is skyrocketing. It is an epidemic. Constant TV coverage of shootings can certainly make it seem that way. But the truth of the matter is that gun violence is actually way down. It hasn’t skyrocketed; it’s plummeted.

A 2013 study from the Pew Research Center found that gun violence had fallen by nearly 50 percent since its 1993 peak:

Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49% lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation’s population grew. The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993. Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall (with or without a firearm) also is down markedly (72%) over two decades.

A 2014 analysis from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) showed a significant decline in violent crime over the last five years:

In 2013, the latest year for which complete data are available, the number of homicides in which a firearm was involved totaled 8,454, representing a 12 percent drop compared to the number of gun homicides in 2003. And the 2003 figure represented a 41 percent drop from the gun homicide total in 1994, the earliest year for which data are readily accessible on the FBI’s website.

All told, the number of gun homicides in the U.S. has fallen by nearly 50 percent over the last two decades. Any amount of violent crime is too much, but it’s wrong to assert in the face of all evidence that gun violence in the U.S. is skyrocketing.

7) Gun-Free Zones Prevent Gun Violence

Nothing represents wishful thinking in the face of evidence like the proliferation of so-called gun-free zones. These are areas in which guns have been explicitly banned by law, or banned by property owners or local authorities. They are almost always accompanied by a sign notifying passersby that guns are banned on the premises. The intent behind the idea of gun-free zones is simple and noble: what better way to prevent gun violence than by banning guns?

Unfortunately, the reality of human nature tends to stomp all over those good intentions. Time and again, deadly mass shootings occur in gun-free zones. Why? Because the evil mind intent on wreaking havoc wants nothing more than the ability to do so without getting shot back. What better place to go than a gun-free zone?

The sad fact of the matter is that gun-free zones are anything but.

The Oregon shooting happened in a gun-free zone. The Lafayette movie theater shooting happened in a gun-free zone. The Chattanooga shootings happened in gun-free zones. The Ft. Hood massacre even happened in a gun-free zone, believe it or not.

Gun-free zones may be backed by pure intentions, but the reality is that they just end up being soft targets for evil killers hellbent on destruction.


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24. AUSTRALIA: At least 2 dead in shooting outside police building
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I thought gun control was supposed to stop these kind of things.

Member David Custer emailed me this:


http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/10/02 ... ports-say/

or

http://tinyurl.com/nffyo3o


At least 2 dead in shooting outside police building in Australia, reports say
by FoxNews.com
October 2, 2015

At least two people are dead after a shooting outside a police headquarters in Australia on Friday, according to published reports.

The Daily Telegraph Australia reports a lone gunman shot and killed a police IT expert outside New South Wales state Police headquarters in the Parramatta section of western Sydney The gunman was subsequently shot and killed by police, according to the newspaper.

Police confirmed that a major operation was taking place between Hassall Street and Charles Street near the police headquarters. They advised the public to avoid the area. Sky News Australia helicopter footage spotted bodies covered in sheets near the police building.

Real estate agent Edwin Almeida reportedly told the Australia Associated Press that he saw a man with a gun screaming and pacing up and down the side of the building, before seeing a body next to him. Sky News Australia reported that the gunman was wearing a black gown.

“We looked out the window, saw security guards and what appeared to be a plain clothes police officer with gun drawn pointing at the person that was now lying on the floor surrounded by a pool of blood,” he said.

Seven News reports the shootings happened outside a daycare that police force families use for their children. A witness told the station they heard “four shots fired first then there was a silence of about 10 to 15 seconds and then there was another four shots.”

The Daily Telegraph reported police had warning of an impending attack through intelligence sources. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that every state police officer had been directed to wear their weapons at all times this week, even at their desks.

NSW Police headquarters is the home of the State Crime Command, which includes the homicide, drug, Middle Eastern organized crime and gang squads, according to Seven News.



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