VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 2/25/16

[OakRidgeStars]

VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 2/25/16

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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. Antis to protest new gun store in Arlington
2. Pennnsylvania has not yet dropped recognition of Virginia?
3. What to Do With My Old Magazines (Paper, Not Plastic (Or Metal))
4. News Channel 3 looks into gun rights
5. Video of gun-controller Lori Haas saying I was “selfish” for carrying a gun for SELF-defense
6. Protestors call for gun reforms outside NRA in Fairfax
7. LTE: Gun-free zones aren't safe
8. Obama and Valerie Jarrett huddle with Bloomberg on gun control
9. House Dems lose fight to nix gun research ban in budget
10. Shocker: As gun ownership hits record highs, there's fewer murders than ever
11. US traffic fatalities, gun deaths sharply decrease
12. Why are gun rights supporters worried about bans on so-called assault weapons?
13. Syed Farook's arsenal is as American as apple pie
14. Most now oppose an assault weapons ban
15. So you wanted more background checks for guns, eh?
16. Majorities believe gun ownership, NRA's policies make us safer
17. Why war on guns failed
18. Gun control group tells followers to "swat" gun owners
19. Drone registration - Here we go again
20. CBS News clueless about guns [PHOTO GALLERY]
21. Twice as many Americans concerned about terrorism than guns
22. Delaware River felony trap
23. Sheepdog or porcupine? Or both?
24. The "weapons of war" myth

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1. Antis to protest new gun store in Arlington
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In about 2 weeks NOVA Armory (NOVAarmory.com), which is NOT related to the other NOVA gun stores, is opening a store in Arlington, just one mile south of DC.

The antis discovered the big secret <eye roll> and are on the war path.

The store is not near a K-12 school, but it is near a daycare center (oh, the horror!), which the feckless antis are considering a “school” for purposes of having something to complain about.

The antis have a petition with about 1,000 signatures, but a new pro-NOVA Armory petition is available for those wishing to sign it:

https://www.change.org/p/bromptons-at-l ... responsive

or

http://tinyurl.com/z5xk9zf

-

Here’s an article on the store:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc ... m=petition

or

http://tinyurl.com/jv5g4bv


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2. Pennnsylvania has not yet dropped recognition of Virginia?
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Gary Slider, with handgunlaw.us, sent me this:

Pennsylvania did have Feb 1 for no longer honoring VA. They pushed it back until March 1. Hopefully they will be notified and it will be pushed back until July 1.

Arizona has removed Virginia from their list but AZ honors all so it doesn't really effect VA. Louisiana has removed Virginia from their list. LA Law is very plain though. If a state honors them they will honor that state. This could just get a little touchy in a few states for VA residents until they get it all ironed out.

From PA AG's page https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/Media_a ... greements/

"Virginia - Virginia has terminated its written reciprocity agreement effective March 1, 2016: see the attached correspondence from Virginia; as further communication is received from Virginia, this website will be updated accordingly."


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3. What to Do With My Old Magazines (Paper, Not Plastic (Or Metal))
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Member Sherrill Smith made a suggestion to re-purpose old magazines. The suggestion amounted to marking out the current address and covering it with a VCDL introductory sticker (2"x4") and then leaving the magazine where others might pick it up, such as a GUN FRIENDLY doctor/dentist office or the waiting room at a barber shop. So, as a test, VCDL has had a small quantity of stickers printed for this purpose.

If a location does not mind open carry, then there is a good chance your magazine will survive.

If you like this idea, and wish to participate, let Board Member Bruce Jackson know by sending him an email at bruce@vcdl.org with the Subject: “Magazine Reload" to help it from getting lost in his inbox. Please include the following:

1. your name
2. number of stickers, up to 6
3. your address
4. city, state zip

(if you keep a standard format it helps speed the process)

And we will send you the requested stickers right away


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4. News Channel 3 looks into gun rights
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http://wtkr.com/2016/02/09/a-newschanne ... -rights-2/

or

http://tinyurl.com/jtljljl


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5. Video of gun-controller Lori Haas saying I was “selfish” for carrying a gun for SELF-defense
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This is something you may have seen last year, but many did not. A panel discussion I took part in at Channel 12 here in Richmond.

Member Mark Shinn sent me this:

Part 1:

http://www.nbc12.com/clip/11940399/rva- ... un-control

At 35 minutes and 48 seconds Lori Haas explains, "Let's make an attempt to save lives. Let's make an attempt to reduce gun violence. It's worked in other states. We've seen the results."

Surprise! The results speak for themselves. Can Lori Haas explain how gun control stopped the bloodbaths? Well?

"D.C., Baltimore City among most dangerous places in U.S.”

Rank #3 Baltimore, Maryland.
Rank #5 Washington, D.C.

http://wtop.com/local/2016/02/d-c-balti ... es-in-u-s/

-

Part 2:

http://www.nbc12.com/clip/11941977/watc ... un-control

At 11 minutes and 50 seconds Lori Haas blurts, "So this is all about selfish. 'What's best for me.'”


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6. Protestors call for gun reforms outside NRA in Fairfax
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Thanks to member Mark Shinn for sharing this link:


http://tinyurl.com/z68scwt

or

http://wtop.com/fairfax-county/2015/12/ ... n-fairfax/


Protesters call for gun reforms outside NRA in Fairfax
by Neal Augenstein
December 14, 2015

FAIRFAX, Va. — Three years after 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, about 200 protesters lined the street in front of the National Rifle Association’s headquarters in Fairfax County, demanding what they call “sensible gun reform.”

Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly, whose congressional district the NRA headquarters resides in, said he had assumed substantive gun loopholes would have been removed in the years after the Connecticut school shooting. He wondered, “where’s the outrage?”

Connolly, a Democrat, says 90,000 Americans have been shot in the intervening three years — “more than our losses in the Vietnam War.”

“In Congress, we’ve arrived at the point where a moment of silence for the latest massacre is a weekly event,” said Connolly.

Andy Parker, father of murdered Roanoke journalist Alison Parker, who was shot during a live TV report, pointed at the NRA headquarters and said the people inside were “aiding and abetting terrorism.”

With his wife Barbara beside him, Parker said most NRA members would support closing loopholes, but their leadership is unyielding.

“Sadly to say, the people inside this building, they’re just businessmen. They don’t really care about you, or your family, or your community, or frankly, even their own members. All they want to do is sell guns,” he said.


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7. LTE: Gun-free zones aren't safe
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Thanks to Board Member Dennis O'Connor for sharing his letter to the editor:


They edited my letter; I didn’t say “tribes;” I said “savages."


http://tinyurl.com/jce4f4y

or

http://www.richmond.com/opinion/your-op ... 92976.html


Gun-free zones aren’t safe
by Dennis O'Connor
December 9, 2015

Imagine an Old West frontier town within a cavalry fort. The garrison commander assembles the townspeople and informs them that he will disarm them for their own safety, because an attack is expected by the tribes on the plains who have sworn to murder every one of them.

How well are all those so-called gun-free zones working for us? It is no coincidence that almost every high-body-count massacre happens in these artificially created, victim-rich environments.


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8. Obama and Valerie Jarrett huddle with Bloomberg on gun control
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Thanks to member Walter Jackson for sharing this link:


http://tinyurl.com/oe9d8zf

or

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


Obama and Valerie Jarrett Huddle with Michael Bloomberg on Gun Control
by Charlie Spiering
December 16, 2015

As part of their continued push for more gun control, President Obama and his senior advisor Valerie Jarrett met with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to discuss the issue at the White House.

“The two discussed ways to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have access to them and what more could be done at the state and local level to help address gun violence in America,” the White House revealed in a statement.

Bloomberg, a notorious leader of nanny-state liberal policies has dedicated billions of his own personal fortune to press for gun control all across America. His efforts have been met with little success in achieving major anti-gun legislation, particularly in Congress.

In 2014, he launched a $50 million challenge to the National Rifle Association in the political midterm elections to combat the pro-gun organization’s clout.

In response, the National Rifle Association has mocked his efforts and has warned gun owners of his liberal gun-grabbing tactics.

“Even if he doesn’t run for president, Bloomberg will try to pick the president,” one recent NRA ad for the presidential election announced. “Bloomberg spends his billions backing politicians who want to take away your rights.”

Obama and Jarrett are currently conducting a review of current law for more executive action to match the renewed push for gun control after the terrorist shootings in San Bernardino.

According to the White House, Obama thanked Bloomberg “for his dedication to such an important issue.”


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9. House Dems lose fight to nix gun research ban in budget
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Thanks to member Walter Jackson for sharing this link:


http://tinyurl.com/ohyxk34

or

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/26 ... -in-budget


House Dems lose fight to nix gun research ban in budget
By Sarah Ferris
December 16, 2015

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has come up empty in her efforts to eliminate a budget rider that has halted nearly all government research into gun violence for 17 years.

The trillion-dollar spending bill unveiled early Wednesday morning keeps in place the controversial amendment, which Pelosi had told gun control groups was a priority in the budget talks. It is on page 936 of the 2,009-page bill.

The top House Democrat added the gun research ban to her list of demands for GOP leaders during budget negotiations — the only gun-related provision that she made part of the budget talks following the recent massacres in Colorado Springs, Colo., and San Bernardino, Calif.

Still, Pelosi had carefully refrained from a threat to reject the overall bill if her demand isn’t met, after a series of failed attempts at strengthening gun control since 2012.

“We must insist that we cannot have a bill leave the station that still has that ban in it,” Pelosi said Thursday at a press briefing to mark the third anniversary of the shootings in Newtown, Conn.

When asked whether it would become a line in the sand, she told reporters, "What we're saying, this is a priority for us."

Only one senior Democrat, Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), has said he will base his own vote on the gun research ban, and the chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), has said he’ll wait to see the final bill. Pelosi herself said in October that it would be nearly impossible to remove the rider while the party is in the minority.

GOP leaders were almost certain to reject Pelosi’s demand to eliminate the provision, known as the Dickey Amendment for former Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.). The namesake of the provision has since said he regrets the amendment and wished he could change the rider’s language to allow research.


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10. Shocker: As gun ownership hits record highs, there's fewer murders than ever
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Thanks to member Ray Kasey for sharing this link:


http://tinyurl.com/heazsgu

or

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christiner ... r-n2095162


Shocker: As Gun Ownership Hits Record Highs, There's Fewer Murders Than Ever
by Christine Rousselle
December 18, 2015

Gun ownership in the United States is hitting record highs, and over 100 million firearms have been sold during the Obama administration. But as Bob Owens over at Bearing Arms writes, (citing Timothy Carney)something else is hitting records, too: murder rates are at record lows.

This dramatic drop in per-capita murders to the lowest point ever recorded since the FBI began tabulating this data 55 years ago is a wonderful thing, especially as it continues to drop as more Americans own more guns that ever.

While the anti-gun left clings to the delusion that there fewer gun owners than ever based on junk polling data, we know in the real world that Americans have purchased more than 100 million firearms during Obama’s Presidency, that there are more concealed carriers than ever, and there more women, minorities, and youth involved in shooting than ever.

Funny, isn't it?


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11. US traffic fatalities, gun deaths sharply decrease
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Thanks to member David Custer for sharing this:


https://tinyurl.com/z5oubwt

or

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update ... y-decrease


US traffic fatalities, gun deaths sharply decrease
by Beatrice Gitau, Staff
December 17, 2015

Traffic deaths have dropped to the point at which they are on par with gun deaths, which are also falling, according to a newly released data.

A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that in 2014 there were 10.3 deaths from both motor vehicle accidents and gun violence per 100,000 people.

Gun deaths occur as often as automobile deaths now, thanks to a steeper drop in the rate of motor vehicle deaths in the past 65 years. Over the same period, gun deaths also dropped, but much slower rate than traffic fatalities.

Much of the reduction of traffic deaths since the 1950s is the result of a combination of safety improvements, including stricter safety regulations, better road conditions, and improved automobile technology.

The sharp decline over the last few years can also be attributed to Vision Zero, an initiative undertaken by many major American cities including New York City, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles to end all vehicular deaths within a decade or two.

In New York City for instance, traffic fatalities have fallen significantly, from 701 in 1990, to 381 in 2000, to a record low of 237 in 2011.

The recent mass shooting in San Bernardino, reports of frantic gun-buying, and the fact that more Americans now legally carry guns on the street, doesn’t necessarily mean that the country is facing increased gun violence. In fact, on the contrary, the number of people dying from gun deaths has been on the decline as well.

As Max Ehrenfreund notes in The Washington Post, there has been a “massive decline” in gun violence over the last two decades.

Premeditated mass shootings in public places are happening more often, some researchers say, plunging towns and cities into grief and riveting the attention of a horrified nation. In general, though, fewer Americans are dying as a result of gun violence — a shift that began about two decades ago.

In 1993, there were seven homicides by firearm for every 100,000 Americans, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By 2013, that figure had fallen by nearly half, to 3.6 — a total of 11,208 firearm homicides. The number of victims of crimes involving guns that did not result in death (such as robberies) declined even more precipitously, from 725 per 100,000 people in 1993 to 175 in 2013.

Older data suggests that gun violence might have been even more widespread previously. The rate of murder and manslaughter excluding negligence reached an apex in 1980, according to the FBI. That year, there were 10.8 willful killings per 100,000 people. Although not a perfect measure of the overall rate of gun violence, the decline in the rate of murder and manslaughter is suggestive: Two in three homicides these days are committed with guns.

This decline in gun violence is part of an overall decline in violent crime. According to the FBI’s data, the national rate of violent crime has decreased 49 percent since its apex in 1991. Even as a certain type of mass shooting is apparently becoming more frequent, America has become a much less violent place.

Despite research indicating that the recent spike in gun ownership hasn't led to an increase in crime, many Americans have been calling for stricter gun control laws. According to USA Today, Vice President Joe Biden is leading talks with governors, other state officials, and local leaders on developing a "bottom up" strategy to better enforce gun laws at the state and local level.

Eight in 10 Democrats favor stricter gun laws, while 6 in 10 Republicans want them left as they are or loosened, the Associated Press reported recently.

The AP notes that support for stricter gun controls often spikes after a publicized incident like a mass shooting, but often fades along with the headlines.


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12. Why are gun rights supporters worried about bans on so-called assault weapons?
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Thanks to member Walter Jackson for sharing this link:


http://tinyurl.com/jordpj6

or

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/vol ... pons-bans/


Why are gun rights supporters worried about bans on so-called assault weapons?
By Eugene Volokh
December 16, 2015

Gun rights supporters often point out that so-called assault weapons that some people seek to ban aren’t materially different from other guns that will remain allowed. I think that’s factually right (and some pro-gun-control liberals, such as my colleague Adam Winkler, agree).

Assault weapons aren’t fully automatic; they are semiautomatics, like many tens of millions of other guns out there. They aren’t unusually powerful — “assault rifles” are generally more powerful than handguns, because generally rifles are more powerful than handguns, but many ordinary hunting rifles (such as a .30-06) are more powerful than many assault weapons (such as the .223s that were used in the San Bernardino, Calif., shooting). The features that are often used to distinguish them, such as bayonet lugs, barrel shrouds, and pistol grips, don’t actually make them materially deadlier. (Magazine size may be relevant to deadliness, though it’s not clear that magazine size limits are a good idea; but in any event, magazine capacity is a separate matter from assault weapons bans as such, since large magazines can fit all sorts of guns.)

But, some say, if assault weapons are so similar to other guns, what’s the big deal about banning them? Just like the minority of criminals that uses assault weapons can switch to the other guns (an argument that the bans will be futile), so law-abiding citizens can do the same (an argument that the bans won’t harm lawful self-defense). Why get so upset about it?

Let me offer a few explanations for why gun rights supporters are indeed so worried — you can agree with them or disagree with them, but I hope you at least conclude that they are plausible.

1. To begin with, some gun rights supporters just think that people should be free to choose what devices they own — whether self-defense devices or any other devices — unless there’s a very strong reason for restricting that liberty. If you think that a ban would save thousands of lives, that may qualify as a strong reason; but if you think that a ban would be ineffectual, then you can oppose it on basic liberty grounds.

2. Beyond this, as I’ve noted over the last two days — see the Violence Policy Center post and the Charles Krauthammer post — some supporters of gun bans have argued in favor of assault weapons bans precisely because they can help lead to broader bans (such as bans on handguns). If some of your opponents think a restriction is good because it will lead to something much broader, you might be forgiven for taking them at their word.

3. Moreover, consider the political question as dynamic, rather than static. People are worried about mass shootings, or street crime, or whatever else. Many people say, “We’ve got to do something — let’s ban assault weapons.” Critics argue, “Assault weapons bans won’t do any good.” The response: “We’ve got to do something!” And then an assault weapons ban is enacted.

But mass shootings will keep on happening. Even assault weapons ban supporters agree with that; many mass shooters already use guns other than assault weapons, and even those who prefer those weapons will either keep getting them or will switch to other, comparably deadly, weapons. Assault weapons ban supporters believe that assault weapons bans will do a bit of good, not that they’ll eliminate or even vastly reduce mass shooting deaths. Assault weapons ban opponents believe the bans won’t reduce mass shooting deaths at all. No-one thinks the bans will solve the mass shooting problem.

So then what will people say? “We’ve got to do something — let’s ban [whatever guns are being used now instead of assault weapons].” Critics argue, “Such a ban won’t do any good.” The response: “We’ve got to do something — and we as a country have already decided, with the assault weapons ban, that we should try to deal with gun crime by banning various classes of guns.” After all, the argument will go, we’re not quitters; we’ve embarked on a path of trying to save lives by banning guns; whether or not one ban works, let’s try another and then another until we find something that does.

That’s the way democratic politics so often works; not in every instance, to be sure, but often enough. When a law is adopted, many people accept that it’s right, and use it as a basis for arguments by analogy. If it doesn’t seem to be working, many people don’t want to quit; they just want to try more and harder. (Consider, among other things, the first decades of the war on drugs.) Arguments against the first law often don’t work quite as well against the second and third — once the basic principle is established, further debate just seems like “haggling over the price.” And once “don’t just stand there, do something” (even when the something doesn’t seem very likely to work) is accepted as the right approach, it tends to lead to doing something else and then something more.

And this is especially worrisome to gun rights supporters precisely because the case for banning assault weapons seems so factually weak to them. If the precedent established is that we ban weapons that really are very different from ordinary guns (e.g., antiaircraft missiles), precisely because we have reason to think that they are vastly deadlier than the alternatives, then that’s not a precedent that’s likely to lead to many bans on ordinary guns. But if the precedent is for banning guns that are very similar to other ordinary guns, surely it’s reasonable to worry that other ordinary guns will be next in line.

4. Of course, if you disagree on the facts, and think that assault weapons really are materially more dangerous than other guns that would remain allowed, you can argue that assault weapons bans will save many lives and are worth the risk of setting a bad precedent. It’s just that gun rights supporters generally don’t share your view of the facts, and have a plausible argument for that factual perspective.

And, of course, if you think that other ordinary guns should be banned, then it makes sense for you try to ban assault weapons (as the Violence Policy Center and Krauthammer argued). Just don’t fault gun rights supporters for “paranoia” when the thing they fear is the very thing you’re trying to accomplish.


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13. Syed Farook's arsenal is as American as apple pie
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http://tinyurl.com/oxdq7jc

or

http://www.thenation.com/article/syed-f ... apple-pie/


?Syed Farook’s Arsenal Is As American as Apple Pie
By Jon Wiener
December 4, 2015

How unusual is it for a gun owner to have two AR-15 assault rifles and 2,500 rounds of rifle ammunition—the “arsenal” police found in the possession of Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik? Many in the media say it suggests a level of planning typical of terrorists. But, in fact, millions of Americans have that kind of “arsenal” at home. The AR-15 is the most popular gun in America—around 8 million have been sold. Two thousand five hundred rounds of ammo for the AR-15 seems horrifying to an anti-gun, middle-class liberal like me—that’s enough bullets to kill 2,500 people!—but, in fact, ammo is sold in 1,000-round boxes, and it’s not unusual for gun owners to buy several boxes when the price is low.

I asked Marc Cooper about it—he’s an award-winning journalist and a friend who’s also a gun person. Two thousand five hundred rounds? “Believe it or not, these are modest amounts of ammo,” he told me. “A gun hobbyist, a target shooter, can easily go through 500 rounds in one two-hour visit to the range. The amount found in this guy’s apartment in no way by itself indicates anything strange.”

Another friend said, “It’s like buying 48 rolls of toilet paper when you go to Costco.”

If possessing two AR-15s and 2,500 rounds of ammo makes you a terror suspect, then we need to investigate several million Americans, most of whom are older white men—and Republicans.

Pipe bombs, of course, are different; most Americans do not make pipe bombs at home.

The New York Times called Farook’s guns and ammo an “arms stockpile”; the Los Angeles Times called it a “massive cache.” The assistant director in charge of the FBI in LA said, “The amount of armaments that he had, the weapons and ammunition, there was obviously a mission here.” The San Bernardino police chief said the guns and ammunition suggest Farook was a terrorist who “may have been planning a second attack.”

How many AR-15s do Americans own? In 2013, in testimony before Congress, the National Shooting Sports Foundation offered an estimate of 5 million to 8.2 million “assault-style weapons.” USA Today in 2014 quoted a former FBI agent saying that the number at that point was “somewhere around 8 or 9 million”—and the rate of new AR-15s being produced, he said,“is just enormous.” The AR-15, one expert said, is “wildly popular.”

Police also found two 9-mm semiautomatic pistols in Farook’s rented SUV, and 2,000 rounds of ammo for the pistols back at the townhouse. That too by itself is not unusual: Guns & Ammo magazine recently called the 9-mm “incredibly popular right now.”

Reports vary on how much ammunition Farook had on hand. The New York Times reported “more than 2,500 rounds for the assault rifles” and “more than 2,000 for the pistols.” ABC news reported “6,000 rounds,” and the New York Daily News said he had “more than 7,000 rounds.” The main reason ordinary American gun owners stockpile so much ammo is that supplies and prices ebb and flow. After mass shootings, and after liberals propose restrictions on ammunition, sales go way up, and the law of supply and demand goes into effect. The peak moments for ammo price spikes came after Obama was elected in 2008, and again in 2013 when Wayne LaPierre of the NRA declared that Obama wanted to “take away” people’s guns after an armed shooter killed 20 children at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. That set off the wave of panic buying, and ammo for the AR-15 doubled in price. So it is common for gun owners to buy ammo in large lots when it is cheaper and plentiful.

New evidence shows that Farook’s wife, Tashfeen Malik, pledged loyalty to the Islamic State in a Facebook post. Together with the pipe bombs, that is much stronger evidence of terrorist plans than owning AR-15s, 9mm pistols, and thousands of bullets—because owning those guns and lots of ammo are as American as apple pie.


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14. Most now oppose an assault weapons ban [VIDEO]
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Thanks to member Walter Jackson for sharing this link:


http://tinyurl.com/hj94otv

or

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/now-oppo ... d=35778846


Most Now Oppose an Assault Weapons Ban; Doubts About Stopping a Lone Wolf Run High (POLL)
By Gary Langer
December 16, 2015

A majority of Americans oppose banning assault weapons for the first time in more than 20 years of ABC News/Washington Post polls, with the public expressing vast doubt that the authorities can prevent “lone wolf” terrorist attacks and a substantial sense that armed citizens can help.

Just 45 percent in this national survey favor an assault weapons ban, down 11 percentage points from an ABC/Post poll in 2013 and down from a peak of 80 percent in 1994. Fifty-three percent oppose such a ban, the most on record.

Indeed, while the division is a close one, Americans by 47-42 percent think that encouraging more people to carry guns legally is a better response to terrorism than enacting stricter gun control laws. Divisions across groups are vast, underscoring the nation’s gulf on gun issues.

There’s lopsided agreement on another concern: Just 22 percent express confidence in the government’s ability to prevent lone-wolf terrorist attacks, with 77 percent skeptical about it. Confidence in the government’s ability to stop a large-scale organized terrorist attack is much higher, albeit still well short of a majority -– 43 percent.

Personal fears about being victimized by a terrorist attack is not up –- it’s 42 percent now, vs. 49 percent in a Gallup poll last summer. But views on the government’s limitations, and on arming citizens, relate strongly to attitudes on banning assault weapons. Consider:

Among the roughly three-quarters of Americans who doubt the government’s ability to prevent a lone-wolf attack, 57 percent oppose banning assault weapons, vs. 41 percent in support. Those numbers are reversed among those who are more confident in government counterterrorism –- 56 percent favor banning such weapons, while 42 percent are opposed.

The split is even more striking between those who see stricter gun control as the better way to fight terrorism, vs. “encouraging more people to carry guns legally.” The former group divides 71-26 percent in favor of banning assault weapons. The latter group splits 22-77 percent, support-oppose.

The results of this survey, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, point to a shift away from the position favored by Barack Obama and others who responded to the recent attack in San Bernadino, California, by calling for stricter gun control measures. Notably, in a statistical analysis, Obama’s overall job approval rating is the single strongest factor in views on an assault weapons ban.

The president’s approval rating, as it happens, is not in great shape: 45 percent, down 6 points from October to match its low for the year, with 51 percent disapproving. He continues to get an even split on the economy, but 53 percent disapprove of his handling of the threat of terrorism, near his career high last month, and 59 percent disapprove of his handling specifically of the Islamic State terrorist group.

Change/Groups

The increase in opposition to banning assault weapons since 2013 peaks in some groups -– up 18 points among strong conservatives, 17 points among higher-income earners and 16 points in the generally more liberal Northeast. But it’s a broadly based trend. Many groups have moved from majority support for an assault weapons ban two years ago to majority opposition now: whites, 30- to 64-year-olds, suburbanites, political independents, moderates, residents of the West and Midwest, anyone without a post-graduate degree and those in $100,000-plus households.

These trends leave just seven basic demographic groups in which majorities still support banning assault weapons: women, Northeasterners, seniors, post-graduates, liberals, Democrats and blacks.

Differences among groups are extensive. Barely more than a third of men favor banning assault weapons, compared with more than half of women (35 percent vs. 53 percent). Seniors are most likely to favor banning assault weapons, while – despite their greater liberalism on many other issues – nearly six in 10 young adults oppose it. Opposition is high in rural areas (64 percent) and among those who lack a college degree.

And there are, naturally, sharp political and ideological divisions. Sixty-seven percent of liberals and 61 percent of Democrats favor banning assault weapons. Opposition, on the other hand, takes in 52 percent of moderates, 55 percent of independents, 69 percent of conservatives and 70 percent of Republicans. Opposition peaks, at 79 percent, among strong conservatives.

Group differences on responses to terrorism generally are similar to these, if less sharp. One that stands out is the extent of worry people have about being victimized: Those who are less worried divided evenly between favoring stricter gun control or encouraging more people to carry guns legally. Those who are most worried about being a victim of terrorism, by contrast, favor encouraging more people to carry guns, by more than a 2-1 margin.

Methodology

This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Dec. 10-13, 2015, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,002 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 33-23-34 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling, data collection and tabulation by Abt-SRBI of New York, N.Y. See details on the survey’s methodology here.


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15. So you wanted more background checks for guns, eh?
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Thanks to member Patrick Veltman for sharing this link:


http://tinyurl.com/pdmg4rq

or

http://freedomoutpost.com/2015/12/so-yo ... un-owners/


So You Wanted More Background Checks for Guns, Eh? The Feds Have Now Used the NICS System to Maintain an Illegal Registry of Gun Owners
by Tim Brown
December 16, 2015

Following the Sandy Hook escapade, not only did Barack Obama issued 23 executive actions which were unconstitutional (given the Second Amendment's protections of the people's rights from infringements by government), but also states such as New York and Connecticut stepped in with pretended legislation to force gun owners to register their weapons. Though there are laws against the federal government maintaining a registry of gun owners, it appears that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is being used to create a national registry, and the feds have basically admitted openly in news reports that they have been violating those laws.

According to the law that restricts the government from retaining any information on the gun owner and the firearm they are purchasing unless they are actually prohibited by law, the law reads:

"The NICS, including the NICS Audit Log, may not be used by any Department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to establish any system for the registration of firearms, firearm owners, or firearm transactions or dispositions, except with respect to persons prohibited from receiving a firearm by 18 U.S.C. 922(g) or (n) or by state law. The NICS Audit Log will be monitored and reviewed on a regular basis to detect any possible misuse of the NICS data."

So, the only people who this information would be retained on are those who are prohibited from owning a gun.

However, in a recent Washington Post article, the Government Accounting Office was cited with the following information:

"Between 2004 and 2014, suspected terrorists attempted to purchase guns from American dealers at least 2,233 times. And in 2,043 of those cases — 91 percent of the time — they succeeded."

Fortunately, Zero Hedge picked up on what is really going on here and this ties right in with the No-Fly No-Buy proposal of the Obama administration.

Upon first reading, many Americans might be glad the authorities are keeping an eye on those potential terrorists in our midst. Of course, the facts are a little different. The term "suspected terrorists" in this case means somebody on the combined terrorist watch-list. These are people that may have never been convicted or even charged with a crime. The list has expanded so much that there are around 700,000 names on the list. They include a number of journalists, former Department of Justice ethics adviser Jesselyn Radack, Nelson Mandela, and the list of non-terrorists and false positives goes on forever. Known nonviolent activists have been added to the list because there is no real justification required to be placed on it, only a "reasonable suspicion."

Even more disturbing is that to make the matches, the government must retain records on everyone, or at least have every purchase in a supposedly confidential system scanned. That data is being shared within the government, contrary to federal law. When the FBI released its figures, it went as far as saying that 2,000 known or suspected terrorists bought a pistol, sports rifle, or assault weapon. This means they are collecting information about the types of purchases as well. Just matching a name to a list would not be enough to come up with accurate data. This means the NICS program, which was promised to be free from other agencies, is sharing personal data such as name, date of birth, address, and social security number.

To be very clear, the NICS system is retaining records of legal purchases, it is sharing that information with other agencies, it is retaining and sharing information containing enough detail to match the purchaser to a government created list, and now the US government is publicizing the fact that it is doing this even though it is a violation of federal law.

According to law, the only people that information should be retained on are those who are actually prohibited from owning a gun, not those "suspected" of being terrorists. However, as you can see, our government is violating the law and they have their sights set on gun owners and their guns. This is the reason Obama is pushing the No-fly No-Buy nonsense. It is a backdoor way to label you a suspected terrorist without any proof. They just say you are and you are guilty until proven innocent in violation of the Fifth Amendment and then they will violate your rights protected under the Second Amendment as a result. By the way, make sure your governor isn't involved in this little charade.

This is why I warned about any increase in any government, whether it be background checks, armed school policemen or mental health, because all it does is increase the authoritarian hand of government. Remember, registration leads to confiscation, and confiscation leads to… well, have a read. You have been warned!


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16. Majorities believe gun ownership, NRA's policies make us safer
**************************************************

Thanks to member Bill Albritton for sharing this link:


http://tinyurl.com/qbhsorx

or

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... -us-safer/


Rasmussen: Majorities Believe Gun Ownership, NRA’s Policies Make Us Safer
by AWR Hawkins
December 14, 2015

Last week Rasmussen Reports released two polls showing majorities with guns in their homes believe they are safer for it and “American Adults” believe the policies supported by the NRA make us safer.

The poll on gun ownership was released December 10, showing that “63 percent of Americans with guns in their household feel safer.” Moreover, the younger the gun owners, the more likely they were to feel safe by having a gun in the home.

For example, “Seventy-three percent of adults under 40 feel safer with a gun in their home, compared to roughly 60% of older Americans.” And the feeling of safety derived from gun ownership is not just for men. Rasmussen says, “Majorities of both [men and women] are in agreement” regarding the safety resulting from gun ownership.

Regarding the NRA, poll results released December 8 showed that 61 percent of Americans agreed with the statement, “The NRA supports gun policies that make all Americans safer.”

Rasmussen made clear that the question did not present respondents with any particular NRA-supported policies, “But the organization is well-known – and frequently criticized by those seeking more gun control – as the strongest advocate of Americans’ gun rights.”


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17. Why war on guns failed
**************************************************

Thanks to member Albert Burckard for sharing this link:


http://tinyurl.com/zbgjtcs

or

http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ ... w=ZW50aXR5


WHY WAR ON GUNS FAILED
by Jonah Goldberg

In the wake of the San Bernardino, Calif., attack, liberals are in a total panic over guns. The New York Times broke a 95-year precedent to editorialize about gun control on its front page. But the Times seems restrained compared with the full-on meltdown at the New York Daily News, which has taken to calling the head of the NRA a “terrorist.”

I have no desire to rehash the all-too-familiar debate over whether such policies would have their intended effects or whether they’d pass constitutional muster.

But it is worth contemplating why the gun-control movement has been such a complete failure. And it might be constructive to compare the war on guns to a regulatory war liberals actually won: the war on tobacco.

For a long time, smoking cigarettes was seen as even more American than owning a gun.

Cigarettes, much like guns, were deeply tied to notions of masculinity — remember the Marlboro Man? But they were also symbols of urbane sophistication, for men and women alike (Marlene Dietrich in “Morocco,” Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”). James Bond was a chain smoker.

Now, cigarettes are so widely reviled that the MPAA includes smoking along with violence and sex in its warning language.

There are, of course, a great many reasons why we’ve seen such a remarkable shift, though medical science is probably the biggest. But there’s another factor that doesn’t get its due. Smoking was, until recently, a bipartisan habit. City mice and country mice alike would walk a mile for a Camel.

The universality of smoking made it possible to proselytize against it without unleashing a full-blown kulturkampf. Sure, conservatives and libertarians complained — often correctly by my lights — about lost liberties, but an attack on smoking, backed up by solid evidence, didn’t simultaneously feel like an attack on one cultural group by another.

Because nonsmokers knew smokers, the war on tobacco could be fought face-to-face in our homes, businesses, movie theaters, planes, trains and automobiles. Cigarette America wasn’t a foreign country. You can’t say the same thing about Gun America.

My wife grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, where gun ownership was nearly as common and natural as snow shovel ownership. I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and I never knew anyone who owned a gun.

The absence of guns in urban liberal environments leads to a kind of Pauline Kaelism. Kael is — apocryphally — credited with saying she couldn’t believe Richard Nixon won the election because she didn’t know anyone who voted for him.

Likewise, many urban liberals simply can’t imagine why anyone would want one. As a result, they’re tone-deaf in their arguments.

To urban liberals, guns are like cigarettes — products that when used as intended only hurt or kill people, and that are also low-class and crude. The Second Amendment, Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten wrote, is “the refuge of bumpkins and yeehaws who like to think they are protecting their homes against imagined swarthy marauders desperate to steal their flea-bitten sofas from their rotting front porches.”

Such smugness doesn’t help, but the real reason the war on guns has been such an abysmal failure is that guns and cigarettes aren’t alike after all. You can’t hunt or, more importantly, defend yourself or your family with a cigarette. That’s why, in the wake of San Bernardino, millions of Americans didn’t think, “We’ve got to get rid of guns.” They thought, “Maybe I should get one.” I know I did.


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18. Gun control group tells followers to "swat" gun owners
**************************************************

Thanks to member Bill Albritton for sharing this link:


http://tinyurl.com/zjl5p3a

or

http://bearingarms.com/gun-control-grou ... un-owners/


Gun Control Group Tells Followers To “SWAT” Gun Owners
by Bob Owens
December 15, 2015

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) is a radical gun control group with a long history of considering gun ownership to be near treasonous, and who routinely refers to gun owners as “insurrectionists.”

Twice this year they called upon their followers to “SWAT” gun owners.

SWATting is the practice of making a 911 call in order to draw police attention to someone you don’t suspect of committing a crime.

A SWATting call led to the death of John Crawford in Beaver Creek Ohio (the 911 caller made false claims that Crawford was loading an “assault rifle” and pointing it people, but was never charged after Crawford was killed by police). Law enforcement officers such as Sentinel, Oklahoma Police Chief Louis Ross, have been shot responding to SWATting calls.

Sadly, after being warned repeatedly about the dangers of SWATting to both law enforcement and citizens, CSGV continued promoting the dangerous practice again on Facebook today.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. If you see someone carrying a gun in public and have ANY doubts about their intentions, call 911 immediately. NEVER leave yourself, or your loved ones, at the mercy of loose guns laws that routinely arm individuals with a history of violence.

CSGV wants followers to abuse the 911 system to harass any gun owner they see, even though they don’t suspect the gun owner of committing a crime.

Even worse, CSGV followers such as Teresa McKown Anthony are aware that their 911 calls on gun owners could lead to a deadly outcome… and they don’t care.

Teresa McKown Anthony If a person has a gun, it doesn’t matter to me what color they are! I’m going to assume the worst, get away from them and call 911. I have just as much right to feel safe as they have to carry a gun. They will have to worry about the consequences of what law enforcement might do.

This flippant “well, they had it coming” mindset is indicative of the kind of poison we’ve come to expect from CSGV.


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19. Drone registration - Here we go again
**************************************************

Thanks to member Gene Brodetski for sharing this:


Attached is a short opinion piece I just wrote. Maybe it will interest you and my fellow gun owners.


Drone Registration - Here We Go Again
by Eugene B.

The recent distress of the drone operator is akin to that of the gun owner. The same mentality and tactics used on gun owners are being applied to drone owners. Exacerbating the problem, are politicians reaching for a quick answer, catering to the shallow voter, or worse, supporting government expansion for the sake of growing government.

There already exist laws to prevent unmanned aircraft from flying into restricted airspace (airports, etc.). Laws already exist to protect our privacy. As a non sequitur, and "solution" to nothing, the federal authorities are requiring people to register their property. People that simply wish to fly their aircraft in their backyard now have to be on a drone registry. What next, drone sale background checks?

As we know, those motivated to break the law will not be impeded by these new laws. They will not register their drones and will continue to do what they will with them. The only people affected will be the law abiding citizens that are now, at the very least, inconvenienced and have to pay more money to the government.

Moreover, this is yet another chip off the edifice of our civil liberties. The media and the government will have us believe that these measures are not a big deal, are in our interest, and will keep us safe. On the contrary, all these small losses of freedom add up to a very big deal. If it were in our interest, the free market would have led us there. And, registration will stop no one from acting in an unsafe manner.

I am a gun owner and not a drone owner. But, we need to combat the mentality that dictates the loss of liberty for political expediency, counterfeit solutions, and the expansion of governmental reach and power wherever we meet it.


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20. CBS News clueless about guns [PHOTO GALLERY]
**************************************************

Thanks to Doug Dyer for sharing this:

Check out this "study" by CBS News: (source: BATFE National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record)
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/most-he ... n-america/

I believe CBS is conflating NFA guns (which are very rare) with all guns. They fail to catch the obvious error that all the numbers are way too low. (Example: Florida ranks 30th with 10.2 guns per 1000 residents). I don't know why because every reporter, by now, must know there are about as many guns as people in the US.

The CBS story was re-reported by the Houston Chron, and they definitely didn't make the leap.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas ... 699460.php

Many happy returns, and call if you need duct tape for your head. Mines all wrapped up, safe and sound.


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21. Twice as many Americans concerned about terrorism than guns
**************************************************

Thanks to member Bill Albritton for sharing this:


http://tinyurl.com/p9jx7qf

or

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... ther-guns/


Gallup: More Than Twice As Many Americans Concerned About Terrorism Rather Than Guns
by AWR Hawkins
December 14, 2015

The latest Gallup poll shows more than twice as many Americans are concerned about terrorism than are concerned about “guns or gun control.”

Moreover, more Americans are concerned about the government than are concerned about “guns or gun control.”

According to Gallup, “About one in six Americans, 16%, now identify terrorism as the most important U.S. problem, up from just 3% in early November.” At the same time, the percentage of Americans who view government as the most important problem facing us is at 13 percent and the the percentage of those who view the economy as the most important problem sits at 9 percent.

Seven percent of Americans viewed “guns and gun control” as the most important issue facing the country.

Gallup’s report on the poll concludes:

The terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Paris have altered how Americans view the problems facing the U.S. Satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. dropped significantly to a 13-month low in December, and Americans’ trust in the government to protect them from terrorism is the lowest Gallup has measured. The data…show that terrorism has now become the single most-frequently mentioned issue when Americans are asked to name the most important problem.


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22. Delaware River felony trap
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Thanks to member Bill Albritton for sharing this link:

Sounds like the border between Virginia and D.C. or Maryland.


http://tinyurl.com/j6wwlrs

or

http://www.knoxgunguy.com/2015/08/delaw ... -trap.html


Delaware River felony trap
August 11, 2015

I have written over at Examiner about the trials of Brian Aitken and Shaneen Allen. They felt the full impact of New Jersey's despotic unconstitutional gun laws.

Friend, do not take you guns to Jersey. Only go there if absolutely necessary.

If you are on a jetliner that gets diverted into Newark, and you have a handgun in your luggage, your really need to do this:

If you come into possession of you luggage, do not, under any circumstances, try to check it and continue your flight.

Rent a car and drive to Philly. Resume your air travel there.

This may cause you to miss an important meeting, but its better than spending 40 days in the New Jersey's Gray-bar Hotel.

Thanks to Evan Nappen for posting this video on Facebook.


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23. Sheepdog or porcupine? Or both?
**************************************************

Thanks to member Bill Albritton for sharing this:


http://tinyurl.com/hhe64bx

or

http://www.knoxgunguy.com/2015/09/sheep ... -both.html


Sheepdog or porcupine? Or both?
by Liston Matthews
September 15, 2015

You may have heard of the Sheep, Sheepdog, and Wolf classifications of people from Lt.Col. David Grossman. In it, he likens most people to sheep, with the predators of society being the wolves, and, obviously, the sheepdogs who watch out for the sheep. From his essay:

. . . there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep. . . I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. . . There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial. . .

I heard a gentleman call in to Tom Gresham's Guntalk several years ago who likened himself to a porcupine. Note that the porcupine never bothers anyone. He just goes about his business, but, if attacked, he asks permission from no one, he just employs his natural weapons and defends himself.

Wise defensive instructors will caution you to be careful about interjecting yourself into someone else's problem. You don't always know the whole story, and could be attempting to help the wrong person. The pensive porcupine in me views that as good advice.

But . . . .

Sometimes a situation arises where the sheepdog emerges from beneath the quills. Here's a situation I experienced recently -

I was going to an office supply store with a return. I got out of my car with my package in tow, and was, I hate to admit, in condition White. I looked over to my left, and saw a person who apparently had all his worldly goods in his shouldered backpack. Obviously hoping I was a mark, he started this story about having slept only three hours, or whatever. Now, somewhere between condition Yellow and condition Orange, I gave him my steely eyed look, and proceeded toward the store.

As I started moving, I realized that he was approaching a lady who was loading her purchases into the back end of her vehicle. I was probably twenty to thirty yards away at this time. I stopped. My alert level was now up at least to a light Orange. Although out of earshot, it appeared that he was giving her a sob story, too.

I slowly began to move toward the two of them. Then I heard a voice from an SUV that had stopped by me. Not understanding what I had heard, I turned in that direction, with a quizzical look on my face. The lady in the car restated her question, "Are you watching them?"

"Yes," I replied.

After saying, "Good," she went on.

The person of concern turned and walked toward the street; the lady turned toward me; I gave her a thumbs-up sign and went on into the store. As I was taking care of my business, she came into the store with her buggy, and walked over and thanked me.

I grinned, handed her my card, and said, "You should carry a gun."

She said her husband had told her that, too.

The sheepdog carefully picked up his quill coat, put it on, and went on about the business of life.


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24. The "weapons of war" myth
**************************************************

Thanks to member Dennis Chapman for sharing this:

Here is a blog post on so called “assault” weapon ban proposals, based upon my experience in the infantry. It addresses something that gets overlooked and needs some attention.


http://tinyurl.com/jjjvd2u

or

http://dennischapmanlaw.com/the-weapons-of-war-myth/


The “Weapons of War” Myth
by Dennis Chapman
December 7, 2015

I am an Army veteran with nearly 25 years of service. I spent much of that time as an infantry officer, serving as an infantry platoon leader, as a rifle company commander, as an ROTC instructor, and as the head of a military advisory team embedded with a Kurdish Iraqi Army brigade. I don’t claim to be Sergeant York or Audie Murphy. But I do understand small-unit infantry tactics, and I understand how firearms are employed in combat. I also understand the difference between combat and crime, including mass shootings like those that have plagued us recently. My experience in the infantry tells me that gun control proposals to ban firearms with so-called “military” features are misguided at best, cynical at worst, and accordingly I categorically oppose them. This is why.

In his 6 December 2015 speech addressing the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, President Obama took the opportunity to float, yet again, a proposal that he has been pushing at least since his reelection campaign against Mitt Romney – a ban on so-called “assault” weapons, which President Obama, and others, characterize as “weapons of war,” and which he characterizes as a “commonsense gun safety” proposal. The President is hardly alone in supporting such a ban. Many other groups do as well, including the Brady Campaign. Given the visual similarity between civilian rifles popular today and their military counterparts, it is not surprising that this proposal would seem reasonable to many who are unfamiliar with firearms and unfamiliar with infantry tactics. But however intuitive it may seem at first glance, the fact is that the President’s proposal is not only not commonsense, it is actually rather arbitrary, and obviously so to anyone who cares to investigate the matter.

Military vs Civilian Firearms

Before going further, it might be useful to point out what makes a gun a military firearm. In modern warfare, the sine qua non of the military battle rifle is selective fire – that is, the ability to fire more than one round with each pull of the trigger. This is the single, essential feature that makes a military firearm more useful in combat than its civilian counterpart. The National Firearms Act calls these weapons “machineguns”, and they have been heavily regulated since 1934, and even more strictly controlled since 1986. The first true “assault rifle” is often said to have been the Wehrmacht’s STG 44, and it is to this rifle that the term itself was first applied – the Germans called the rifle the “Sturmgewehr” which translates roughly to “assault rifle.” Like all battle rifles today, the Sturmgewehr was a select fire weapon. Selective fire has been a standard feature on individual battle rifles in the U.S. military since the U.S. Army began introduction of the M14 rifle in 1959, and in Russia since the introduction of the Kalashnikov family of rifles in 1949. Select fire rifles can be either fully automatic, meaning that on automatic mode the rifle will continue to fire as long as the trigger is depressed (like the M16A1), or burst, meaning that they fire a set number of rounds with each pull of the trigger on burst mode (like the M16A2, which fired a three round burst). The AR15 and AK series rifles popular with civilian shooters today are not select fire weapons.

Whether burst or full auto, selective fire serves one function in combat – to gain fire superiority over an enemy force. Fire superiority is achieved when the enemy has been suppressed – which is to say, when one side is placing such a high volume of fire into the enemy’s general vicinity that the enemy is forced to seek cover and is thereby prevented from returning effective fire (they may still shoot back, but not very well).

Thus, it isn’t necessarily the casualty producing effect that gives fully automatic fire its greatest combat value, but rather its impact on behavior –that is, the effect of impelling the enemy to hide rather than returning well-aimed fire, thus degrading his combat effectiveness.

But selective fire – the single essential element of a military battle rifle today – is not the feature that gun control advocates are talking about when they propose an “assault” weapons ban, as this feature has been effectively (even if not completely) banned since 1986. Instead, they are focusing on other features that are just as useful for sport shooting or other civilian applications as they are in combat shooting. More importantly, as discussed below, the features they want to ban are irrelevant in the context of crime – even mass or spree shootings.

The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and Senator Feinstein’s 2013 Revival

The purported rationale for banning firearms with military features was succinctly put in a 1999 Justice Department study, where it was stated that weapons with certain features were banned under the 1994 Assault Weapons ban because they “appeared useful in military and criminal applications but that were deemed unnecessary in shooting sports”[1] (emphasis added). In other words, advocates of banning “assault” style weapons proceed on the assumption that any feature useful in combat is also useful in crime, but is not useful sport shooting; also implicit in this quote is the further assumption, that sport shooting is the only legitimate shooting application – which would apparently deem personal self-defense as a non-legitimate application. The phrasing “appeared useful” and “deemed unnecessary” speak volumes, in that it implicitly concedes that the architects of the 1994 assault weapons ban made no effort to verify what they intuitively believed – that civilian firearms resembling military firearms are more dangerous to the public than firearms bearing a more traditional “sporting” configuration.

As a former infantry officer who has a good grasp of small unit tactics and understands how to employ firearms in combat, I can state without hesitation that the assumptions which underpinned the former assault weapons ban and current proposals to revive the same are not valid. Here’s why:

The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban proscribed semi-automatic firearms that could accept a detachable magazine that had two or more of the following features (Senator Feinstein’s 2013 reprise would have narrowed it to one): A folding or telescoping stock; a pistol grip that protrudes beneath the firing action; a bayonet mount; a flash hider or a threaded barrel designed to accommodate one; or a grenade launcher. Senator Feinstein’s 2013 bill added another feature, the barrel shroud (basically, handguards covering the barrel).[2]

Only two of these features are actually strictly military in application: The bayonet mount and the grenade launcher. The risk of any serious crime epidemic involving either of these features is effectively zero. Neither has ever been used in a crime in the United States, at least in modern times, so far as I am aware. In fact, bayonet fighting is so rare even in combat that the U.S. Army discontinued bayonet training in Basic Training in 2010[3], and the last country still extensively using muzzle launched grenades (so far as I am aware) was the former Yugoslavia – and a grenade launcher without the grenades is useless anyway. Thus, of the five enumerated features that were proscribed, the ban on two of them was simply absurd.

The three remaining features – the pistol grip, telescoping or folding stocks, and flash-hiders/barrels threaded to accommodate them (four if you count the barrel shrouds in the 2013 proposal) – are commonly used on contemporary battle rifles, but they are not strictly military features. These are ergonomic improvements over the ancient traditional rifle configuration, each designed to make the weapon more comfortable and convenient for the shooter to use, and therefore more accurate and more pleasant to shoot. These benefits apply to all shooting applications, not just military ones (and, contrary to the assumption, they are in fact used in sporting applications. AR-15 rifles are widely used in match / competition shooting, and for hunting – contrary to popular belief). More important to our discussion, however, is this: While these features do make a firearm more effective in both combat and in sporting applications, they are irrelevant in the vast bulk of criminal scenarios.

The claim above likely seems paradoxical, until one examines the nature of combat, as juxtaposed against the nature of crime. For purposes of this discussion, I define combat, as relevant to a discussion about small arms, this way:

Military combat is a phenomenon wherein a group of armed combatants engage in collective fire and maneuver in a coordinated manner against an opposing armed force that is presumed to be capable of offering meaningful resistance.

The ergonomic features that proponents of an “assault” weapons ban view as “military” in nature are valuable in combat. By making the firearm more comfortable and more convenient to use, they offer the potential to improve the individual Soldier’s marksmanship. Not dramatically, usually, but to a small degree. But in a situation as fiercely competitive as infantry combat, a small advantage enjoyed by a number of Soldiers individually can have enough of an impact cumulatively to influence the outcome of the battle.

“Assault” weapons ban advocates will be quick to argue that this same small advantage enjoyed by a Soldier in combat makes the weapon more dangerous in civilian hands. But this argument is fatally flawed because it is founded upon an invalid assumption: that crime and combat are somehow similar phenomena. They are not. Whereas combat employing small arms involves opposing armed groups, crime, including mass shootings, involves something else altogether:

Violent crime, as it involves small arms, is a phenomenon wherein one or more assailants attack an unprepared victim or group of victims, who are presumed to be unarmed and unable to offer meaningful resistance.[4]

It should be obvious from these definitions that ordinarily a criminal act – including a mass shooting – is entirely different than a small unit combat action. I alluded above to the concept of fire superiority. In dismounted infantry combat, this is achieved by directing a high volume of automatic or burst fire at the enemy’s position. But in a crime, fire superiority is achieved by the mere brandishing of a firearm of any kind. When a criminal wields a firearm he almost always does so against a target or targets he believes to be unarmed. By introducing a firearm into the situation, the criminal tips the balance of power so heavily against the unarmed victims that any marginal advantage garnered through such ergonomic features as pistol grips, adjustable stocks and flash hiders is overwhelmed by and subsumed into the huge disparity of power between the armed assailant and the unarmed victim created by the mere presence of any firearm. In this scenario, one doesn’t even need a semi-automatic firearm to wreak havoc, much less one with supposedly “military” features. A bolt action rifle or revolver would be as effective (this is true even given the factor of reloading, as devices are readily available to facilitate rapid reloading of these types of arms). And remember what I wrote above – that the main value in automatic suppressive fire is in its impact on the enemy’s behavior rather than its casualty producing effect; in a criminal assault, the psychological impact is even more paralyzing, as unarmed victims are usually neither physically nor psychologically capable of doing anything more than hiding or running away, which in turn may further expose them to the criminal’s fire.

Given the irrelevance in crime of the ergonomic features some seek to ban, as demonstrated above, firearms bans based upon these features are simply arbitrary and capricious. However, advocates of “assault” weapons bans would point to another feature – detachable, “high capacity” magazines.[5] Intuitively this would seem to be the gun control advocate’s strongest point of attack. But the fact is that a shooter can change magazines very quickly – faster than most people can respond. And, as with the ergonomic features described above, magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds (or 5, or whatever number is selected) have legitimate uses in civilian shooting applications.

Given these factors, even those few crimes actually committed with so-called “assault” weapons could just as easily have been executed with other weapons, such as semi-automatic pistols. Maybe even more effectively in some instances, given that pistols can be more easily concealed and that the smaller size and weight of both their ammunition and magazines would allow a killer to carry more rounds.

Conclusion:

I believe in liberty. If you come to me with a proposal that would curtail my liberty – or that of anyone else – in any respect, it had better be soundly reasoned and the benefit must demonstrably outweigh the cost. Sensationalized spree shootings notwithstanding, only a tiny fraction of all homicides are committed with rifles of any kind – and so-called “assault” weapons are only one type of rifle. In 2011, of the 12,644 homicides and 6,996 gun homicides for which the gun type is specified, as reported by the FBI[6], only 323 were recorded as having been committed with rifles – 4.5% of the total for which the type of firearm was specified. The FBI statistics include a category of “Firearm, type not stated.” Assuming that the proportion of these homicides involving rifles is the same as the proportion where the type of firearm is known would give us a total of 395 homicides using rifles – about 4.6% of total firearms homicides and about 3% of all homicides total. According to the same statistics, the number of homicides involving rifles is less than the number of people killed by beatings with hands and fists (728), blunt objects (496), or knives/cutting instruments (1,694). And it will not do to argue that at least banning so-called “assault” rifles would have prevented the 3% of murders attributed to them: first, because the 3% figure includes all rifles of every type and not just rifles that resemble military weapons, and second because it is obvious that many, most, or even all of those who used rifles to murder would just have resorted to another firearm had the rifle not been available. In summary, the ban on so-called “assault” weapons would have no discernable impact on crime, high-profile mass-killings notwithstanding (which, after all, could just as well easily have been perpetrated with other types of guns or, in the case of the San Bernardino terror attack, with explosives). Given the absence of any discernable impact on crime, curtailing my liberty by denying me access to a popular type of firearm that I deem useful for lawful purposes is not warranted and not something I am not prepared to tolerate.


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VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc.
(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.

VCDL web page: http://www.vcdl.org [http://www.vcdl.org/]