Category: Crap For Brains

Insurance isn’t “the way forward” on guns

When San Jose passed an insurance requirement for gun owners, many people figured that was a new frontier they could exploit in their war against the Second Amendment.

The fact that the requirement basically just said you should have homeowner’s insurance didn’t really do much.

But it was sold as if it were the answer.

Now, an insurance-focused publication reports that a poll shows many believe it’s the answer on guns.

According to a recent ValuePenguin survey, 75% of Americans believe that gun owners should be required to have liability insurance on their firearms.

This finding suggests that insurance companies could be a possible solution to gun control. Gen Zers, those earning more than $100,000, and parents with children younger than 18 were among the most likely to support insurance requirements.

Additionally, 82% of Americans think that gun owners should be held accountable for how their guns are used. This sentiment was especially prevalent among parents with children under 18, as well as millennials.

Divya Sangameshwar, an insurance expert with ValuePenguin, believes that insurance may be the smartest way to push for gun control. “Insurers have always led the way when it comes to safety,” Sangameshwar says.

Except actual accidents with guns are relatively rare, especially compared to things like auto accidents, fires, or pretty much everything else covered by insurance.

Where guns take lives are either through suicide or intentional homicide.

Guess what’s not going to get covered by any insurance? Exactly.

Insurance does not ever cover an intentional act. I can’t run someone on purpose with my car and expect Geico to foot the bill. That’s going to be on me, as it should be.

Similarly, with guns, liability insurance isn’t going to cover any intentional act. It won’t cover a homicide and it won’t pay out with a suicide.

Further, it’s unlikely that anyone polled understands that. I’d expect a publication named Insurance Business to at least understand the practicalities of trying to implement some kind of requirement like that and at least mention that.

Then again, a lot of people think gun accidents are a lot more common than they are. Still others likely think gun owners should be on the hook for firearms that are stolen from them for some idiotic reason. They apparently think the insurance would cover the misuse of a stolen firearm, but it won’t.

Look, I get that people want to find solutions to the violence we see on the news every single day.

What I don’t get is why people can’t get beyond trying to punish law-abiding citizens for the actions of those who are anything but.

An insurance requirement is just another step, another hurdle designed to keep guns out of the hands of anything but those financially better off while doing little to nothing to actually reduce crime. It’s insane that we’re even having this discussion in the first place.

Then again, we live in Clown World where anyone can just up and decide to come up with restrictions that have no basis on reality.

This crap-for-brains is nothing more than petty politics. They’re against it simply because it’s something they see as opposite to their politics

‘Level of ignorance is embarrassing’: Dems push to ban silencers they claim are designed for discreet murder

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) reintroduced the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, which would ban the importation, sale, manufacturing, transfer, and possession of gun silencers or suppressors.

Menendez, a founding member of the Senate Gun Violence Prevention Caucus, took to Twitter to tout this gun control effort and in the process proved that he knows very little about that which he seeks to regulate.

“Gun silencers are designed to suppress the sound of gunfire from unknowing victims and reduce the chances they can run, hide, and call the police,” the Democrat said in a statement. “I’m reintroducing the HEAR Act to prevent these deadly devices from making shootings even more dangerous.”

U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) reintroduced the legislation in the House and she was no better informed.

“Silencers are not tools of self-defense, they are tools of murder. They have no legal application, which is why law enforcement officials around the country have called for their elimination,” Coleman said. “The HEAR Act will save lives and is part of the common sense approach to firearms legislation that has widespread support among voters on both sides of the aisle.”

Dana Loesch, a former NRA spokesperson, took to Twitter to call attention to their “level of ignorance.”

“Tell me that you have NO IDEA what silencers do without telling me you have no idea what silencers dSo. Holy wow, this level of ignorance is embarrassing,” she tweeted, before explaining,  “They’re literally required for hunting [in] Britain to protect hearing. It merely reduces decibel levels to that of concert PA system. Moron.”

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Delaware: Federal District Judge Finds Unusual Way to Ban Semi-Auto Guns & Magazines

On March 27, 2023, Judge Richard G. Andrews of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware issued an opinion that denied the request for a preliminary injunction to stop enforcement of the State of Delaware’s unconstitutional ban on some semi-automatic rifles and standard capacity magazines.

Judge Andrews dug deeply into his interpretive consideration to find a way to deny the request for a preliminary injunction.

With the clear guidance given by the Supreme Court in the Bruen decision to clarify the Heller decision on the Second Amendment, Judge Andrews performed some mental gymnastics.

The Bruen decision told lower courts to stop using the convoluted “two-step” framework to decide Second Amendment cases. The “two-step” frame was widely criticized as a way for the lower courts to treat the Second Amendment as a “second-class right” in the Bill of Rights.

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Now Comes ‘Equitable Grading’ to Dumb Down Our Children.

The Wall Street Journal  reports on a growing trend in high schools to ditch homework and move to an “equitable grading” system, which is supposed to measure whether a student knows the classroom material by the end of a term without penalties for behavior like skipping class.

“We’re giving children hope and the opportunity to learn right up until [the class is] officially over,” said Michael Rinaldi, the principal at Westhill High School in Stamford, Conn.

But some students and teachers in Las Vegas claim that some kids are gaming the system and that equitable grading ignores accountability.

“If you go to a job in real life, you can’t pick and choose what tasks you want to do and only do the quote big ones,” said Alyson Henderson, a high-school English teacher there. Lessons drag on now, she said, because students can turn in work until right before grades are due.

We’re really setting students up for a false sense of reality,” Ms. Henderson said.

Equitable grading still typically awards As through Fs, but the criteria are overhauled. Homework, in-class discussions and other practice work, called formative assessments, are weighted at between 10% and 30%. The bulk of a grade is earned through what are known as summative assessments, such as tests or essays.

Extra credit is banned—no more points for bringing in school supplies—as is grading for behavior, which includes habits such as attendance.

The system is set up to give laggards and the terminally lazy as many chances as possible to pass a course. The scale starts at 49 or 50 so that if a student misses a few assignments they won’t just give up and fail. They will still have a chance to pass as long as they complete other tests and essays.

“There’s an apathy that pervades the entire classroom,” said Samuel Hwang, a senior at Ed W. Clark High School in Las Vegas. Hwang has spoken out against the grading changes, saying they provide incentives for poor work habits.

Erin Spata, a science teacher at Westhill High in Connecticut who favors the change, said her students are moving away from constantly asking how many points an assignment will be worth and instead understand the importance of practice work, whether or not it is counted toward the final grade.

So at least the teacher’s students aren’t bothering her about insignificant stuff like a student’s progress in the class and other, you know, teacher stuff.

What I’ve come to realize with all this equity BS in schools is that the cream will still rise to the top. No matter how hard the DEI crowd tries to “level” scholastics, the really smart kids will continue to shine.

The problem with that is that kids who are in the middle of the pack or slightly lower will be left behind. They will still want to go to college, however, and in order to stay in business, colleges are also dumbing down coursework, cheapening a college degree even further.

This cancerous attitude is turning primary and secondary education into factories of uneducated and barely educated students. What will America look like when DEI has done its work and we’re all “equal” in our ignorance?

After 53 [now 54] Earth Days, Society Still Hasn’t Collapsed.

Cassandra in Greek mythology was the Trojan priestess who was cursed to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. Ideological environmentalism features a cohort of reverse Cassandras: They make false prophecies that are widely believed. Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 classic, The Population Bomb, prophesied, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” Ehrlich continues to predict imminent overpopulation doom.

Another reverse Cassandra was Rachel Carson who warned in her 1962 Silent Spring of impending cancer epidemics sparked by humanity’s heedless use of synthetic pesticides. In fact, even as pesticide use has risen, rates of cancer incidence and mortality have been falling for 30 years.

On the occasion of the 53rd Earth Day, let’s take a look at the prophecies of another reverse Cassandra, the Club of Rome’s 1972 The Limits to Growth report by Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William Behrens. The book and its dire forecasts were introduced to the world at a March 1972 conference at the Smithsonian Institution. Let’s focus primarily on the report’s nonrenewable resource depletion calculations. The 1973 oil crisis was widely taken as confirming the book’s dire scenarios projecting imminent nonrenewable resource depletion.

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HANSON V. DC: “LARGE CAPACITY” MAGAZINE BAN

I’ve only been up for a couple of hours (as I begin typing), and the news is already full of stupidity that I’ll need to address. I’ll lead off with a case challenging Washington, DC’s “large capacity” magazine ban, Hanson v. DC. The judge, one Rudolph Contreras, denied a preliminary injunction against the ban. His… reasoning is… remarkable. Or something; I’m trying to be somewhat polite.

A weapon may have some useful purposes in both civilian and military contexts, but if it is most useful in military service, it is not protected by the Second Amendment.
[…]
[Large capacity magazines] are not covered by the [2A] because they are most useful in military service.

Oddly, Contreras cites HELLER in making that point. I can’t find that argument in HELLER, which was largely about whether non- military weapons could be regulated, and how, but there is this.

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M–16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large.

Rather the opposite of Contreras’ weasel-wording, eh? Indeed, HELLER even cites the earlier MILLER, which establishes that militarily-useful arms are protected by the Second Amendment.

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.

Having chucked decades of SCOTUS precedent already, Contreras proceeds to demonstrate an amazing lack of judicial awareness of current events and Supreme Court decisions. Now that he’s established in his own deluded mind that standard capacity magazines are not 2A-protected, he addresses whether this particular restriction of such magazines is permissable.

WARNING: If you’re drinking, swallow before proceeding, for the protection of your screen.

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Illinois assault weapons ban still in effect after appeals court denies injunction

A federal appeals court Tuesday ruled to keep an Illinois state-wide “assault weapons” ban in effect, denying a request from a business owner who claims the ban is unconstitutional.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided to uphold a lower ruling by U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall, who found the ban to be “constitutionally sound,” despite the request for an injunction, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Robert Bevis, a firearms store owner in Naperville, is appealing the gun ban signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Jan. 10. He contends it fails to meet a legal standard on what guns can and cannot be banned previously set by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bevis requested the appeals court to block the ban for himself and other business owners affected by the law so that they can resume the sale of the impacted firearms.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed legislation banning the sale of guns classified as assault weapons, rifle magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds and pistol magazines capable of holding more than 15 rounds in the state on Jan. 10, 2023.

The legislation was introduced in January, six months after a shooting at the Highland Park Fourth of July parade left seven victims dead and wound more than 48 others injured.

The ban includes penalties for anyone who “Carries or possesses… Manufactures, sells, delivers, imports, or purchases any assault weapon or .50 caliber rifle.” Anyone who legally possessed such a weapon was required to register it with state police.

It also includes penalties for anyone who “sells, manufactures, delivers, imports, possesses, or purchases any assault weapon attachment or .50 caliber cartridge.” It also bans any kit or tools used to increase the rate of fire of a semiautomatic firearm.

The legislation also capped the purchase of certain magazines for several weapons.

Gov. Pritzker, a billionaire Democrat, signed the controversial bill shortly after.

The attorneys who are representing Bevis, who owns and operates Law Weapons & Supply in Naperville, Illinois, argue their client has suffered because of the ban and that he may have to close his business.

In the lower court ruling, Judge Kendall ruled that “because assault weapons are particularly dangerous weapons … their regulation accords with history and tradition,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Bevis’s lawyers dispute this interpretation and instead argue earlier Supreme Court rulings clarify weapons must be found to be “dangerous and unusual” to be banned, per the report.

Because certain rifles are “commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” they do meet the legal definition of “not unusual,” and thus cannot be banned, they argued, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Several legal challenges remain underway against the state’s ban.

The Biden 10-Step Plan for Global Chaos.

Why is French President Emmanuel Macron cozying up to China while trashing his oldest ally, the United States?

Why is there suddenly talk of discarding the dollar as the global currency?

Why are Japan and India shrugging that they cannot follow the United States’ lead in boycotting Russian oil?

Why is the president of Brazil traveling to China to pursue what he calls a “beautiful relationship”?

What happened to Turkey? Why is it threatening fellow NATO member Greece? Is it still a NATO ally, a mere neutral, or a de facto enemy?

Why are there suddenly nonstop Chinese threats toward Taiwan?

Why did Saudi Arabia conclude a new pact with Iran, its former archenemy?

Why is Egypt sending rockets to Russia to be used in Ukraine?

Since when did the Russians talk nonstop about the potential use of a tactical nuclear weapon?

Why is Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador bragging that millions of Mexicans have entered the United States, most of them illegally? And why is he interfering in U.S. elections by urging his expatriates to vote for Democrats?

Why and how, in just two years, have a confused and often incoherent Joe Biden and his team created such global chaos?

Let us answer by listing 10 ways by which America lost all deterrence.

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Smith: The NRA Has Won and America Is Stuck in a ‘Doom Loop’ of Gun Buying

[O]ne would think supporting policies that let Americans carry any type of gun, anywhere, at anytime would be a losing proposition for any politician, much less one who wants to be president.

And yet as I listened to Trump — and the parade of equally craven Oval Office hopefuls who preceded him onstage — I began to realize that he just might be right in his political calculation. Because, far from losing, the NRA seems to be winning. In fact, it might already have won, polls be damned.

Why would I believe such a thing?

It’s not because of the nonsense I heard longtime NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre spout last week, including that the Founding Fathers created the 2nd Amendment so that, from “the day you’re born,” Americans have the “God-given right” to carry a gun for self-defense that cannot be infringed upon.

Nor is it because, as former Vice President Mike Pence told the NRA faithful, “freedom is under attack,” and Americans are determined to not let the government take their guns. I’ll spare you the stories of people I know who think this so fervently that they’ve buried boxes of semiautomatic rifles and ammunition in their backyards.

I believe it because of what I’ve seen and heard in liberal California over the past few years — and how similar it is to what I saw and heard at the NRA convention in the conservative state of Indiana last week.

Consider that the past three years have been the most profitable in modern history for gun manufacturers, even as the country has been plagued by mass shooting after mass shooting. …

Of course, this was the NRA’s grand plan all along, this having America armed to the teeth. It’s a lobbying organization for gun manufacturers, after all. Under the veneer of patriotism is just naked greed.

Aside from the true believers, like the woman in the red, white and blue pants, I have to think most Americans know this by now. We were under no obligation to follow the NRA’s grand plan. LaPierre didn’t force us to buy more guns. Republicans didn’t make people start carrying sidearms to the mall like we’re sidling up to a bar in an old western.

Sure, the NRA has made it easier to do all of this. But I don’t think we can blame the gun lobby for the number of people in coastal California who, as CalMatters reported, are rushing to capitalize on last year’s Supreme Court ruling that made it easier to get a concealed carry license before state lawmakers can close the loophole.

We made these choices. And now it appears we’re stuck in a San Francisco-style “doom loop,” when the sheer number of guns owned by Americans, and the violence and death they cause, is prompting still more Americans to buy more guns, leading to more violence and death, and so on.

So as much as I applaud Gov. Gavin Newsom for taking on the NRA and its political lackeys in his so-called Campaign for Democracy, we’re going to have to fix a lot of this ourselves. Somehow we’re going to have to break our addiction to guns. 

— Erika D. Smith in Trump and the NRA Might Be Right About Guns — And We Mostly Have Ourselves to Blame

They’re not stupid. They know what they want is useless for what they say it’s for, so what they really want is something else – disarm the populace because they know that what they really want to do will likely get them shot.

Democrat Congressman Pushes Gun Control Policy that Would Not Have Prevented Kentucky Bank Shooting

Kentucky House Rep. Morgan McGarvey (D) pushed for more background checks Tuesday, the day after a portfolio banker shot and killed five people with a gun he acquired via a background check at a local gun store in Louisville, Kentucky.

Breitbart News reported that Metropolitan Louisville Police Department Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said the portfolio banker got his gun “legally” from a Louisville dealer on April 4, 2023. Passing a background check is a federal requirement for getting a gun from a dealer.

On Tuesday, Rep. McGarvey used his time during a press conference to push to expand background checks to also include sales not made by dealers:

McGarvey’s background check push would not have prevented the attack on Louisville’s Old National Bank, as the attacker already complied with all gun controls in acquiring his firearm.

Breitbart News also noted that Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg (D) used the press conference to make support for gun control a litmus test for supporting the police.

Well, when he’s lived his whole political life as one big continuous lie, this is not unusual.

PRESIDENT BIDEN GOES ALL OUT (FALSELY) ON GUN CONTROL AGAIN

President Joe Biden wasted little time calling for gun control following the tragic murders of six innocent Americans by a mentally unstable person who was known to be a threat. Similarly, White House Spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre demanded a litany of gun control in a press briefing following the tragedy in Louisville, Ky., before the basic facts of the incident were known.

Less than two weeks after a transgender student shot her way into The Covenant School in Nashville, Tenn., the president tweeted his gun control call.

“Congress must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require safe storage of firearms, eliminate gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability, and require background checks for all gun sales, and state officials must do the same,” President Biden said. The Tweet was accompanied by a graphic saying, “Ban Assault Weapons.”

He’s conceded there isn’t much more he can do on his own for gun control.

What’s The Truth?
The president’s desire to ban so-called “assault weapons” is never-ending, even though he runs into resistance from his own party, not to mention a majority of Americans. The data doesn’t support a ban on the more than 24.4 million legally-owned Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs). The president got pushback.

“First define what an ‘Assault Weapon’ is before you demand to ban it,” one Twitter user replied. That’s a good point. The administration has never defined what they mean by “assault weapon.” The president’s first and failed nominee to be director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) David Chipman, became flustered in his U.S. Senate nomination hearing when questioned before admitting, “Senator, there’s no way I could define an assault weapon.” Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives also flub firearm terminology when debating gun restrictions on law-abiding Americans. Similarly, the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas was unable to define what an “assault weapon” is, even though he supports banning them.

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
aaaaaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
He’s wrongheaded about why – quite normal for a leftist bordering on full commie – but I don’t care as long as they give up and shut up.

The Grim Truth: The War on Guns Is Lost

…..That’s something that people who support gun control measures need to understand: The war is lost. There is no conceivable way for things to change for the better within the next 20 to 30 years, short of a national divorce. There is no way to change hearts and minds of Republicans or the courts. There is no way to change who is in office in most states. There is no way to replace who sits on the courts quickly or change conservative disdain for stare decisis……

 

No one believes this

Bower: No One Needs Guns Today Because We Have Police and the National Guard.

 

Republicans won’t vote for gun control legislation for three main reasons: They receive hefty campaign contributions from NRA and gun manufacturers. They’re afraid of being voted out of office by their gun-loving constituents. They honor Second Amendment rights above all other Constitutional rights.

…The Constitution was written at a time when there was no police force. There was no National Guard. It stands to reason citizens were given the right to keep and bear arms; if threatened, they were the militia. Today, if we need protection, we call the police. If government officials determine a crowd is getting too threatening, they send in the National Guard. They don’t call on individual citizens to come out and lend help with their guns.

Doing nothing about gun violence is unacceptable. There have been 130 mass shootings just since Jan. 1. The number one cause of death of American children and teens is gunshot wounds. Sixty-three percent of Americans want more gun controls. Republicans always fall back on the excuse that gun violence is a mental-health problem; which by the way, they don’t fund adequately. They call for more security to barricade children inside their school buildings. Republicans’ lamest excuse for inaction? “We’ve already done about all that can be done.” …

The idea that guns are carried openly on the streets in several red states is obscene. Iowa doesn’t even require a permit to open carry. I saw a photo recently of a guy with an AR-15 strapped across his back while standing in line to buy a can of pop at a convenience store.

This is just sick

— June Bower in Column: This Is a Republican Problem