Desperately Grasping at Straws

Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment, And by the way, if – if she gets to pick her judges, [there's] nothing you can do, folks. Although, the Second Amendment people – maybe there is. I don't know. But I tell you what: That would be a horrible day if – if Hillary gets to put her judges in.

The Progs are so neurotic and obsessed with guns that the above quote was taken as an assassination threat. I have only two words for you:

GET REAL. 

Army orders Recruiters to call police on armed citizens

Photo: Aldaron

For what? Exercising their 2nd Amendment rights? Need I remind you?

I, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God

Just be grateful you're still thought worthy of protection.

Stars & Stripes 

Second Amendment Supremacy

By Hugh Farnham

Most articles about this basic right come from an almost apologetic standpoint.  They beg you to listen to reason, with well thought out logic.  I'm not going to do that.  

I'm not going to argue how guns save lives, or protect property and liberty.  Instead, this is completely triumphant - like General Patton parading down a boulevard with blocks of  troops behind him. 

Face it, gun-grabbers.  Your 80-year war on guns has failed.  Not only are there more guns per capita, but the reasons why we have this right are now well understood by most gun owners.

Firearms ownership in America,  by the numbers:

114 Million Handguns

110 Million Rifles

86 Million Shotguns

(and uncounted millions of firearm war trophies never registered...)

If each firearm had an average of 50 rounds, that would be over 15 Billion rounds of ammunition.

An Arsenal of Freedom.

Let's assume, for argument's sake, the gun-grabbers unveiled a technology that could allow them to find and confiscate 90% of these guns.  That would still leave over 30 million guns in the hands of some very pissed Americans, as Boston T. Party has pointed out.

Name me a current government program that accomplishes 90% of their mission.

Or to take it further, let's assume 100% of existing guns and ammunition could be confiscated.  Do you know of someone with an indexing lathe?  Do you have white residue growing on your basement walls (saltpeter)?  A bag of charcoal? You get the idea.

There is no way that confiscation will work.  Ever.  That was the intent of our founding fathers:  the populace would always be better armed numerically than any standing army. 

I've hit targets out to 500 yards with just iron sights using WWII ammunition and a British .303 Enfield.  Many guns and ammunition today will still be usable into the 22nd Century.

The liberals have pulled every trick in the book, every propaganda piece possible, and tried outlawing firearms completely.

Sorry, it didn't work.  Their worst nightmare happened:  the American people re-discovered their roots and reasons for firearms.  Then they headed to the nearest gun store and purchased all the black guns they could afford.  They are still doing it at a record pace.

Ammunition manufacturers are pumping out rounds like a wartime economy; still the store shelves are empty.  Prices of some calibers have quadrupled over the past ten years - mainly due to demand.  

All that these central-government types have done is awaken a sleeping giant.  They have lost this war and the 2nd Amendment remains.

You've lost the war, you sad fascist.

Lies, Damn Lies and Liberal Statistics

Liberals never let a good tragedy go to waste.  The bigger the better.  The latest shooting in Aurora, Colorado has the gun-grabbers again railing against our liberties while the blue staters confect dubious statistics to make themselves feel better.

First came the liberals' favorite go-to pseudo-conservative, David Frumble.  Mr. Frumble compiled data that showed, among other things, that voting for John McCain caused gun violence, and voting for Barack Obama prevents it.

All his "data" really showed was that where there are more guns, there are more incidents involving them.  More cars = more accidents, more free speech = more people being offended, more unprotected sex = more venereal disease.  Earth shattering, isn't it?

There are many problems with his numbers, which to be fair, he admits don't prove causation (but let's get them out there anyway to feed the frenzy!)

For example, Illinois voted for Obama and Mr. Frumbles claims it has a lower than average gun death  statistic (more on that lie in a minute).  However, if you disaggregate the data, it reveals just the opposite.  Chicago voted overwhelmingly for Obama and it has some of the worst gun violence in the nation.  Crime centers Springfield, Decatur, Peoria and East St Louis also voted heavily for Obama.  The rest of the state went for McCain or for Obama just narrowly, but is almost free of gun violence.  Add in that Chicago has a severe gun ban, while downstate Illinois does not, and you see just how meaningless such liberal twaddle is.

Massachusetts is More Violent than Colorado

But let's get down to the hard numbers.  What liberals conveniently avoid is overall violent crime statistics, because they do not correlate with gun laws or number of guns per capita.

A liberal from Massachusetts snarked that she was glad she lived there and not Colorado. If she was referring to crime rates and gun deaths, she is deluded:

2010 Firearm Murders per 100,000

Colorado: 1.28
Massachusetts: 1.78
New York: 2.64
Illinois: 2.81
US Average:  2.84

2009 Violent Crime Rates per 100,000

Colorado: 340.9
New York: 385.5
Massachusetts: 465.6

Chicago:  1041
US Average:  439.7

While Colorado does have more gun assaults, Massachusetts, Illinois and New York all have more more overall assaults of all categories.  So I guess they feel better being assaulted by bludgeoning and stabbing than with a gun.  

Those states also have more gun murders than Colorado.  

The gun control cities of New York, Boston, Chicago and DC also have overall murder rates higher than Denver...

2011 Murder Rates per 100,000

Denver: 5.4
New York: 6.3
Boston: 10.1
Chicago: 15.9

So these progressive cities may console themselves that even though they have higher murder rates than Denver, at least they have good gun control laws.

So no matter how you slice it, the progressive, enlightened, liberty-emasculating, gun-fearing states of Massachusetts, New York and Illinois are more violent than gun-loving, cowboy Colorado, even in the category of gun violence. The truth hurts, libs.

Examining the empirical evidence and hard statistics from the FBI and the US Census Bureau reveals a weak correlation at best between strict gun laws and lower gun violence, and there are many outliers on both sides.

More importantly, there is no correlation between strict gun laws and overall crime and violence.

Instead of letting someone explain it to you, go investigate for yourself!

FBI - Crime in the US
IL Atty Gen
NY Times - Colorado Gun Laws
Atlantic - America's Most Dangerous Cities
Crime Rates by State
Gun Crime 2010
Wikipedia - US Cities by Crime Rate 2010

America Condemns Itself to Guantanamo

Today I offer you a few news snippets you can put in the handbasket our government is going to hell in...

Picture this...

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the federal government secretly encouraged angry bomb throwers to engage in irresponsible and incendiary language in the hope of using the ensuing violence to argue for controversial new speech restrictions.

That didn't really happen.  I made it up.  I wish someone had made this up, but it's all too true...

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales. (CBS News)

The ATF is a rogue organization and should be disbanded, along with the entire Heimatlandsicherheit, and Janet Napoleaonitano should be exiled to the island of Elba, along the Minister of Injustice, Eric Holder.

Government actions to steal our 2nd Amendment rights are un-American because they are unconstitutional.   The people and the states promulgated the US Constitution to charge the federal government with protecting our natural rights.  It is now consciously doing the opposite.

Imagine if a government conspired to take away your 4th Amendment rights...  Wait, that's already happened...

You see, such plots and false flag operations (real or imagined) can only work if our constitutional rights are no longer held sacrosanct.  The fact that nefarious progressive forces see our rights as debatable and ripe for the snatching tells me we are already in danger.

CBS News - Government used Fast and Furious
IBD - Just as we suspected

New York Police State of Mind

A US Marine combat vet faces 15 Years in jail for bringing a gun to New York city. He thought he had the law straight, and freely surrendered it when entering a pubic building that had a sign posted stating no guns allowed. That's when he was busted. Since our law enforcement at all levels no longer cares about criminal intent, they are simply making the world safe from responsible gun owners who voluntarily surrender their weapons when asked.

Feel safer, you bed-wetting gun grabbers? Now, if cops could only figure out how to get criminals to give up their guns...

ICE Deports American Citizen

Customs officials deported a teenage girl, while MS-13 gang members here illegally roam free like they own the place. So how will more government fix this? The cheeky young lass gave false information to ICE agents, so they sent her to Colombia, even though that country has never in its history had anyone named Jakadrian... 

This is what an inept and dysfunctional government does when it can no longer catch real criminals: It turns on its own citizens.

Here’s a simple test: Does a law result in more liberty for citizens, or less?

There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who would expand and defend personal liberty, and those who would circumscribe it. Emperor Obama belongs in the latter category, but discussing Obama rolling up the constitution and smoking it is getting old...

HR 1540 gave us a clear view of who the liberty-lovers are, and who the stone-cold statists uber alles are. Posse Comitatus is out the window.

There was a time not too may years ago when I would look to certain politicians as a litmus test or shorthand for right and wrong. "If Allan West voted for it, it must be OK!" Well, not anymore.

Are our politicians really so intellectually bereft that this is all they can come up with?

Hundreds of billions spent on intelligence and national law enforcement agencies, and we have to resort to declaring the United States a war zone with US citizens as enemy combatants, subject to indefinite detention and military tribunals?

This sickens and horrifies me, moreso because it does not sicken and horrify good conservatives like Allen West and others. The enemies of the people who voted for this police state nightmare should be shipped off to Guantanamo. Or better yet, put them on Castro's side of the fence so they can see the result of such laws.

And I am pissed that I find myself in agreement with Al Franken.

Al Franken – Why I voted Against NDAA
CATO – NDAA Still Troubled
Emperor Obama Trashes the Constitution
NDAA House Vote
NDAA Senate Vote

Finally, on the lighter side...

Chevy Dolt: It's Not a Recall, It's a Reunion!

Artistry of Chicago Ray

Government Motors (GM) is launching a customer service campaign, which is similar to a recall, on all 8 of the Chevrolet Volts it has sold in an effort to address possible battery fire issues.

We don’t like the word, “recall,” said a GM Spokesman. "We prefer to think of it as a reunion. Come back to the place where you took your financially foolish but morally superior stand! Relive the excitement while we perform some minor enhancements that could keep you from dying in a car fire!"

Ron Paul's popularity with young people is legend…

...If they would only put down the bong and go vote he might have a chance…

Looters and Shooters

British man stripped by thug

What happened to the British bulldog?

Stripped naked, unable to fight back. An apt metaphor. Cameron's government is talking water cannons when they should be deploying machine guns and restoring the right to keep and bear arms.

This is not a slap at Great Britain. It’s a lament. We’re not far behind.
 

The End of Progressivism

Is it any wonder looters on Main Street and Wall Street are running rampant? They've lived off of government-confiscated loot for so long now, can you really blame them for cutting out the middleman?

Self-Defense: An Inalienable Right

The 2nd Amendment isn't for hunting.  It's for shooting people who are threatening your life, liberty and property.

When the progressive constituency turns rabid, ordinary citizens must have the means to defend themselves. The absolute right to bear arms is a logical extension of the natural rights to life, liberty and property.

Statesmen from ancient Rome to the American Revolution laid the foundation in law for the right of self-defense. America's founders were influenced by these classic philosophic teachings and the European tradition derived from them.

"Civilized people are taught by logic, barbarians by necessity, communities by tradition; and the lesson is inculcated even in wild beasts by nature itself," wrote the great Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero.

"They learn that they have to defend their own bodies and persons and lives from violence of any and every kind by all the means within their power." ( Claremont Institute)

Think we should surrender our self-defense rights to the state?

 OK, then riddle me this: Does the family of a murder victim have a legal right to sue the state for failing to use its police powers to prevent the murder?

American courts have ruled again and again that police have no duty to protect individuals from deadly assault. The only alternatives for a person in such danger are to rely on the mercy of criminals or to carry a gun illegally. No one should be forced to break the law to exercise a basic right. (Claremont Institute)

Your only recourse is to your natural right of self-defense. Take that away (violate it) and you have deprived a free person of the fundamental right to life. Welcome to progressivism!

For an interesting and understandable legal discussion of the right of self-defense, see Volokh - Jim Lindgren

Related Western Hero post:  Dead and Paralyzed Criminals Commit Less Crime

Congratulations Utah!

The Brady anti-gun nuts have come out with their annual scold of "irresponsible" states who refuse to jump on the gun grabber bandwagon.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence this week gave Utah, Arizona and Alaska all scores of zero, and said they “do not have a single common sense gun law on their books.”  (Salt Lake Tribune - Utah Scolded for Gun Laws)

Utahans are taking the news like the rugged westerners they are...

“I’m glad we got a zero from that group. I actually wish we would get a negative score from them — like an F-minus-minus,” said Rep. Curt Oda, R-Clearfield

I hear that.  I was ashamed to see Colorado tied for 17th best on the Brady list.  Must be because of the Mile High Crime city of Denver's restrictive gun laws.

Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman — who this year passed a bill to make the Browning-designed M-1911 handgun the official state firearm — chuckled when he heard that the Brady Campaign gave California the highest score for gun laws among the states.

“Would the head of the Brady Center feel safer walking down the street at midnight in Salt Lake City or in south central Los Angeles?” he asked.

Statistics Show Liberalism is a Mental Disorder

"Crazy" Utah, has less gun crime than "responsible" California.  Alaska has even less.

How about Arizona?  Only in firearm robberies and assaults does California beat Arizona.  California still has a higher firearm murder rate than mean ol' Arizona.  So despite California's multiple violations of people's 2nd Amendment rights, it is still more violent than the Brady Bad Boy States of Utah, Arizona and Alaska.

Vermont, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Idaho have some of the overall lowest gun crimes in the nation, but none cracked the Brady Top 20.

Anti-gun liberals are willfully ignorant
There is no correlation between gun laws and gun crimes.  Indeed, by definition, criminals break the law.  The data does show that restrictive gun laws leave law-abiding citizens unarmed and vulnerable, just the way criminals like their victims. 

Salt Lake Tribune - Utah Scolded for Gun Laws

Concealed carry is serious business

Anti-gun progressives just don't get it, and they won't be happy until the state has disarmed everyone

According to bed-wetter William Saletan, we’re lucky. He tells the story of armed citizen Joe Zamudio, who heard the shots coming from the Safeway that fateful Saturday when a congresswoman, a judge, a nine-year old girl, and other innocent victims were gunned down in cold blood...




 

This is a much more dangerous picture than has generally been reported. Zamudio had released his safety and was poised to fire when he saw what he thought was the killer still holding his weapon. Zamudio had a split second to decide whether to shoot. He was sufficiently convinced of the killer's identity to shove the man into a wall. But Zamudio didn't use his gun. That's how close he came to killing an innocent man. He was, as he acknowledges, "very lucky."

That's what happens when you run with a firearm to a scene of bloody havoc. In the chaos and pressure of the moment, you can shoot the wrong person. Or, by drawing your weapon, you can become the wrong person—a hero mistaken for a second gunman by another would-be hero with a gun. Bang, you're dead. Or worse, bang bang bang bang bang: a firefight among several armed, confused, and innocent people in a crowd. It happens even among trained soldiers. Among civilians, the risk is that much greater.

We're enormously lucky that Zamudio, without formal training, made the right split-second decisions. We can't count on that the next time some nut job starts shooting.

BULLSPIT!

Only a gun-fearing, thumb-sucking big-government sheeple could draw such a conclusion. In fact, a reasonable person draws the exact opposite conclusion from the story. Two armed citizens acting not like the trigger-happy cowboys that populate the cringing imaginations of gun-grabbers, but two men taking measure of the situation and acting on the side of prudence and caution.  The total absence of such fanciful stories Saletin conjures is a glaring refutation of his conclusion.

We do not have concealed carry citizens shooting up crime scenes, killing innocent bystanders and other would-be rescuers. I just hasn’t happened. I can say that with confidence without doing my characteristic research. Had even one such event ever occurred in the last 30 years, the liberal media would still be shouting through bullhorns about it.

Mr. Zamudio’s story, combined with the absence of Saletin’s fearful fantasies, proves that Americans are adults and can be trusted with their rights, including the right to arm themselves.

If gun restrictions are so effective, why do “gun free zones” like New Jersey and California experience more gun violence than free-carry states like Arizona, Montana and Colorado?

http://www.slate.com/id/2280794/