Category: Crap For Brains

Guest opinion: Todd Buchanan: Do we really need assault weapons for self-defense?

We just passed the first anniversary of the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. One month following that horrific event, in the case of New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, the Supreme Court set a new, restrictive standard for Second Amendment cases.

No longer will it suffice to demonstrate that a gun regulation is narrowly tailored to address a compelling governmental interest. Instead, it must be shown to be consistent with the national tradition of gun regulation.

This was an innovation, though Justice Thomas, in the majority opinion, asserted that the 2008 case of District of Columbia v. Heller had established the precedent by expressly rejecting “means-end scrutiny” in Second Amendment cases. Justice Alito had first made that claim in his plurality opinion in McDonald v. Chicago in 2010.

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Everytown is staffed by the stupid.

New Jersey Politicians Enact Largest Gun Ban in U.S. History

When Governor Murphy and the New Jersey Democrats rushed a flurry of gun laws through the legislature last June of 2022, one of the laws rammed through was under the guise of banning guns with no serial numbers.

This law banned millions of rifles, shotguns, handguns, hunting guns, target shooting guns, military surplus guns, and virtually ALL muzzleloaders, black powder guns, antique guns, air guns and BB guns.

N.J.S. 2C:39-3 N screenshot 5-25-2023

There are NO exceptions and there is NO grandfathering. This was the largest gun ban ever passed in the history of the United States.

The law bans ALL firearms with a “…firearm frame or firearm receiver …which is not imprinted with a serial number registered with a federally licensed manufacturer…”

The term “firearm frame or firearm receiver” means the part of a firearm that provides housing for the internal components.

For ANY firearm to be legal in New Jersey, it must now meet two criteria established by this law:

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CBS News shows why no one should take the media seriously

We here at Bearing Arms have no pretension of being unbiased. As a result, you folks reading this have an idea of where we stand on issues. For those who agree, that’s why you’re here. For those who don’t, you know to filter things through the appropriate lens.

But places like CBS News still want you to think they’re unbiased.

That gets harder and harder every single year. Especially with headlines like this: “Texas senator continues to call for common sense gun safety laws”

Now, let’s start by noting that a Texas state senator continuing calls for gun control is newsworthy to some degree, especially in light of the Uvalde anniversary.

The subject matter is arguably appropriate and as this is labeled as “local news” on the CBS News site, it makes sense. Yet that label also presents a bit of a problem.

See, one of the first things you need to do if you’re going to at least pretend to be neutral is leave your editorializing out of the headline.

For anti-gun folks, they don’t see an issue. Pro-Second Amendment folks, though, can see it plain as day. The phrase “common sense gun safety laws” isn’t an official term rooted in neutrality. It’s the exact way gun control organizations frame the laws they’re trying to push onto the American people.

Had the reporter for CBS News put the phrase in quotations, then he’s just repeating what the senator may have said. Instead, it’s presented to the world as if this is an established fact. I hate to break it to him, though. It’s not.

Take the policy measures mentioned in the piece:

At a 45-minute news conference Gutierrez hosted at the Capitol earlier this month he said, “Every time something happens it’s something else and he’s got a solution for this that’s not related to the common denominator which is guns.”…

In an interview with CBS News Texas earlier this month, Gutierrez told me none of his gun safety bills received a hearing in the Senate, including a raise the age bill, universal background checks, and red flag laws. “It’s very clear here the Republicans’ position on gun reform they don’t want to try.”

Raising the age to buy an AR-15 only looks like it might prevent something bad from happening in a case like Uvalde, but the truth is that most people in that age group who buy those rifles do so because they want something they can use to defend themselves. Raising the age limit won’t stop bad people from getting guns–how many mass shooters have we seen who were too young to own any firearm?–but it will stop these law-abiding adults from owning guns.

That’s just common sense.

Universal background checks only look like a common sense gun measure because the media has done such a near-universal job of making them look like one. They don’t discuss how this doesn’t actually impact black market gun sales, it only inhibits law-abiding citizens transferring guns to one another. That’s literally all it does.

Red flag laws have tons of problems, problems which the media refuses to challenge proponents on. Besides the oft-cited due process concerns, there’s the simple fact that you’re saying someone is too dangerous to exercise their constitutionally protected rights but is just fine walking around on the streets.

Where’s the common sense there?

CBS News editorializing these policy measures as common sense doesn’t change the fact that they’re not. All it does is make it impossible to take anything else they say seriously on the issue of guns.

Their lack of neutrality is clear; so clear that even those on the fence about whether the media is biased should be able to see it for themselves.

Want to know why the polls look to be against us? It’s because the entire media apparatus is doing stuff like this.

This is why the media will never understand gun owners

Most people who read stuff here are either gun owners or know someone who owns a gun. At the very least, they’re sympathetic to having one.

Not counting the hate readers, of course.

The media, however, is full of people who don’t own guns, don’t know anyone they know has them, and perhaps more importantly, don’t want to know anyone who is a firearm owner.

And yet, they routinely write crap like this:

The story of a Pennsylvania church blessing AR-15s made the rounds on traditional and social media last week. The ceremony at the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary ministry in rural Newfoundland, PA, was widely ridiculed as bizarre and out of touch, but once you take away some of the theatrics, how different are these worshippers really from millions of Americans and the NRA?

The answer, it turns out, is not that much.

WhoWhatWhy went to Newfoundland twice last week, attended the gun-blessing ceremony and saw some things that the rest of the media seems to have missed.

Now, the church in question is the Unification Church, whose members are often called “Moonies” after the founder, Rev. Hyung Jin (Sean) Moon.

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Observation O’ The Day:
Well, maybe it’s that ‘lizard sized brain’ you say you have that inhibited your intellectual development past moron level. What a hypocrite of an editor, sitting behind your desk, using rights protected by the 1st amendment to denigrate rights protected by the 2nd.

As Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit put it:
The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed—where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.
Fortunately, the Framers were wise enough to entrench the right of the people to keep and bear arms within our constitutional structure. The purpose and importance of that right was still fresh in their minds, and they spelled it out clearly so it would not be forgotten.

From my cold dead hand: Gun groups perpetuate militia myth to keep whatever arms they dream of

About the Second Amendment: I have questions.

I cannot wrap my lizard-sized brain around the notion that the reason for people to keep and own guns is to protect against tyranny.

Spare me the historical discourses about the establishment of the Second Amendment, because I realize a bunch of a rag-tag colonists rose up against the lobsterbacks and sent the British running.

That was when the average firearm for both sides could take more than a minute to load one bullet or any other trash you could find to pack down the barrel. Saying Americans should still own any gun or as many as they want isn’t the same as saying we rose up once with muskets, swords and cannons. One is set against a historical backdrop when dysentery and smallpox killed as many soldiers as bullets. Today’s backdrop is set against a scene of unspeakable firepower often used against innocent citizens, many times kids at school.

One was in defense of an entire country; the other, killing for the sake of killing – and quickly.

Everyone has accepted that the primary reason for accepting guns everywhere is because of the concept that those same firearms may be needed to fight against a tyrannical government.

Few, though, really question how sound that rationale is.

You see, I am all for keeping my guns for a lot of different reasons, but I’d rather say it’s for self-defense before tricking myself that I am just a soldier-in-waiting for the government to go full-tyranny on the country.

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Like Vermont has a problem.

Vermonters, lawmakers await decisions on contentious gun reform bills

MONTPELIER, Vt. — One year after the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Vermont lawmakers looked back on firearm-related bills passed in the 2023 session that they believe will make Vermont a safer state.

One of those will implement a mandatory 72-hour waiting period from the time you purchase a gun to when it enters your possession.

“When somebody has the impulse to buy a gun and use it for a sinister purpose like maybe a school shooting or something like that, or if they intend on harming themselves, those 72 hours can be so vital,” Rep. Conor Caser, Executive Director of GunSense Vermont, said.

Some believe the bill violates the Second Amendment and is unconstitutional. Gov. Phil Scott has not said he will veto the bill but has expressed strong concerns in recent weeks.

“I don’t doubt that if this goes into law that there will be a constitutional challenge,” said Scott.

However, the governor is expected to sign off on a bill that strengthens penalties on straw purchases and the defacing of serial numbers on firearms, which lawmakers believe will reduce crime in and out of state.

“They go in and buy them [guns] and then trade them for drugs, and the folks who can’t possess obviously have the firearm. And we’ve seen them used in crimes in other states,” Sen. Richard Sears said.

It remains clear that lawmakers will not agree on the policies of all the bills, but both sides of the aisle say the fact that three firearm reform bills made it to the governor’s desk this session is something they have never seen before.

“Passing three is a first, I must say, but the dynamics have changed also in the last 15-20 years. The makeup of the body, the numbers in the body, you’ll see on most of those bills they are predominately supported by Democrats,” Rep. Patrick Brennan, a Republican, said.

Sears believes public tragedies such as what happened in Uvalde also played a role.

“I think Vermonters’ views of firearms have changed dramatically due to the mass shootings we’ve seen in other states such as Uvalde a year ago,” Sears said.

Most bills passed by the Senate and House within the last two weeks of the session, including the two firearm bills, have still not officially made it to the governor’s desk as the legislative council finishes the process of looking them over.

Once they do, Scott will have five days to make a decision on whether to sign them or not.

Joe Biden isn’t speaking coherently enough to fact-check him

If he didn’t bear the title of president of the United States and you met Old Joe Biden in any social setting, you’d smile and nod and not try to make any sense of what he was saying, because it would be abundantly clear that this is a man who is not in full possession of his faculties. But the poor WhiteHouse.gov transcript wonks have to try to turn Old Joe’s dementia-addled ramblings into something remotely approaching sense and accuracy, and he had them working overtime at a G7 Summit press conference on Sunday.

Observation O’ The Day

It’s clear this crook cannot function, which begs the question, who is running things & making decisions? Kamala? Um, no. Nancy’s gone. Klain is gone. Jill? Maybe. Either way, it’s clear nobody elected the actual boss(s), whomever that may be & the press remains uninterested

“OUR CHILDREN WILL NEVER SEE SNOW”

The scientific method works as follows: 1) You come up with a hypothesis. 2) You look for the implications of the hypothesis. What will be the case if the hypothesis is true, but will not be the case if the hypothesis is wrong? 3) You carry out observations or run experiments to find out whether the facts implied by the hypothesis do or do not obtain. 4) If you find that a fact implied by the hypothesis is indeed the case, it provides support for the hypothesis. If you find a number of such facts to be true, as implied by the hypothesis, then you may have strong support. 5) But it is not conclusive: if a fact or condition implied by the hypothesis is shown by observation or experiment not to be the case, then the hypothesis is refuted, and you go back to the drawing board.

Global warming hysteria is politics or religion, not science. This conclusion follows from the fact that the global warming models have generated many predictions that turned out to be wrong. A single wrong prediction is enough to disprove a model. Numerous, consistently repeated failures mean that the model is a joke.

The global warming models predict that rising temperatures will cause a precipitous decline in snowfall. Thus, alarmists like Dr. David Viner of the University of East Anglia, the main center of global warming research and propaganda, predicted 23 years ago that:

…within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.

This prediction, like so many others generated by defective models, has failed to come true. In fact, there has been no decline in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the last 50 years:

Speaking for myself, I will add that my four children have come of age during this time when alarmists assured us that snow was about to stop falling, and they have not lacked for winter fun. This year, we had a long, cold, snowy winter and a late spring. We had an unseasonably late snow storm on April 1 that dumped massive amounts of heavy, wet snow on the Upper Midwest, bringing down many trees, including one that narrowly missed my house.

If the global warming alarmists actually cared about science, they would admit that their models have proved to be wrong, apologize, and shut up for a while. But the imperative of left-wing politics allows no respite from their misguided labors.

Fact Check: New Mexico’s Democrat Gov. Claims an AR-15 Is an ‘Automatic Weapon’

CLAIM: During Friday’s airing of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) claimed an AR-15 rifle is an “automatic weapon.”

VERDICT: False. AR-15s are semiautomatic firearms.

Grisham made her comments during a discussion of the May 16, 2023, Farmington, New Mexico, shooting that left three people dead.

CNN identified the Farmington gunman as an 18-year-old male and noted his family had worried about his mental health. He used three different guns in the attack and was ultimately killed by police.

One of the guns was an AR-15, which Grisham described as an “automatic weapon.” She said:

Frankly, no one that isn’t in the military — this is a weapon of war — or a trained police department, in my view, no one in America who isn’t in one of those two situations should own an automatic weapon. There is no reason to own one of those.

Contrary to Grisham’s assertion, AR-15s are semiautomatic firearms. They fire one round, and one round only, per trigger pull.
The AR-15 has a safety on the lower that allows the owner of the gun to switch between “safe” and “fire.” Automatic weapons, on the other hand, have a select fire switch that allows the owner of the gun to switch between “safe,” “semiautomatic fire,” and “automatic fire.” (In some cases the choice is a three-round burst of auto fire instead of unlimited auto fire.)

M16s and M4s are exampled of automatic weapons with the select fire switch.

M16s and M4s are actual “weapons of war,” but the AR-15 is just a semiautomatic rifle that shoots one round per trigger pull.

Grisham’s claim that an AR-15 is an “automatic weapon” is false.

Barking mad Nebraska State Senator really wants you to know that she’s pro-trans.

I don’t know whether it is an overstatement to suggest people with “gender dysphoria” have a mental illness, or whether there is a social contagion at work (like the anorexia epidemic among young women a couple decades ago that ultimately faded out to a large extent), but scenes like this state legislator in Nebraska aren’t reassuring that there’s a rational defense of the trans-phenomenon. (Wonder what she will do when told that Trans World Airlines went bankrupt 30 years ago. Probably another screech about capitalism or something.)

This video is about one minute long, but it seems much longer.

I have not often seen stupidity of this level. It’s like the concept of the black market doesn’t even enter the thought process since it might hash the narrative.

The ability for innocent people to have guns DIRECTLY allows perpetrators to purchase firearms as well. If you do not get to have one, a school shooter doesn’t get to have one as well.
— Lesser G

Maine Democrat Wants Gun Control for “Abnormally Dangerous Assault Style Weapons” But She Doesn’t Know What That Means

In a public hearing by the Maine Legislature’s Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning, Rep. Rebecca Millett (D-Cape Elizabeth) struggled to clearly define the terms “abnormally dangerous” and “assault style weapons” in relation to her proposed bill to hold firearm manufacturers liable for damages inflicted by people who use their products.

WATCH: Rep. Rebecca Millet Crumbles Under Question From Rep. John Andrews

Rep. Millett’s LD 1696, “An Act to Create a Civil Cause of Action for Persons Suffering Damages Arising from the Sale of Abnormally Dangerous Firearms,” would allow firearm manufacturers to be held liable for the manufacturing, marketing, importing, wholesale or retail sale of a firearm that is considered “abnormally dangerous” and causes “unreasonable risk of harm to public health and safety” in Maine.

Millett began her testimony before the Judiciary Committee by saying that every industry other than firearm manufacturers are held accountable through civil liability. She gave the examples of toy manufacturers selling defective toys, and toxic fumes in buildings.

Millett went on to blame the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) for allowing firearm manufacturers to be knowingly irresponsible in their distribution of firearms and to “recklessly skirt” federal regulations.

The PLCAA is a federal law which prohibits civil liability actions from being brought against firearms and ammunition manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers for damages resulting from crimes committed with their products.

Under the PLCAA, firearm manufacturers may still be held civilly responsible for damages caused by defective products, breach of contract, criminal misconduct, or any other direct responsibility for the damages in question.

Millett said that her proposed bill would only apply to “abnormally dangerous” firearms, not those made for self-defense, hunting, or recreation.

Millett hopes that her bill will compel firearm manufacturers to stop selling to dealers who fuel the criminal market, and encourage basic safety measures among manufacturers and retailers.

However, upon taking questions from members of the Judiciary Committee, Millett struggled to answer seemingly basic questions about the terminology used in her proposed bill and claims made in her testimony.

When asked by Rep. John Andrews (R-Paris) to define “abnormally dangerous,” Millett said that any “assault style weapon” would fall under that category.

Rep. Andrews asked Millett to point to where in her proposed bill “assault style weapon” was defined, and Millett was unable to provide a definition.

Sen. Anne Carney (D-Cumberland), Senate Chair of the Judiciary Committee, asked Millett to provide a citation on the claim that firearms were flowing from manufacturers to criminal dealers. Millett was unable to provide a citation for this claim.

John Andrews asked Millett to give an example of any firearm manufacturer who does not go through the federally mandated process of selling firearms to federally licensed dealers. Millett was unable to give any examples of any firearm manufacturers violating federal law.

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CAUGHT! Biden using fake data to gaslight Americans on mass shootings
Biden proves once again he’ll do anything to win his war on our guns.

Joe Biden has always struggled with the truth. Whenever he wanders off script and speaks extemporaneously, he invents personal anecdotes — boldfaced lies, actually — in which he assigns himself the starring role.

Whether he’s getting arrested in South Africa for trying to bust into Nelson Mandela’s prison cell, or bravely confronting AR-toting hunters in a Delaware swamp or going toe-to-toe with the arch-criminal, CornPop, no one actually believes him or takes his tall tales seriously. It’s just Joe being Joe, right?

But when Biden’s lies are actually signed and set into type, it’s a bit more serious. He loses his normal litany of excuses: he was tired, he was confused, he misread the teleprompter, he was sundowning.

In an editorial published Sunday in USA Today and reprinted in scores of other newspapers, the Fabulist-in-Chief dropped a whopper — even for someone who has lowered the presidential-truthfulness bar so significantly.

The editorial was titled, “President Biden: I’m doing everything I can to reduce gun violence, but Congress must do more.”

Most of Joe’s opus we’ve heard many times before. AR-15s are bad, so is anyone who owns one. Red flag laws and universal background checks will save the world. Congress needs to do more by banning “assault weapons” and standard-capacity magazines, and of course his ubiquitous: “For God’s sake, do something.”

But then there’s this: “We need to do more. In the year after the Buffalo tragedy, our country has experienced more than 650 mass shootings and well over 40,000 deaths due to gun violence, according to one analysis.”

The hyperlink whisks readers to the Gun Violence Archive — a blatantly anti-gun nonprofit we debunked years ago for their fake news.

Founded in 2013, the GVA has become the legacy media’s source of choice for mass shooting data because they hype the numbers. The GVA came up with its own broad definition of a mass shooting. Anytime four or more people are killed or even slightly wounded with a firearm, the GVA labels it a mass shooting, and politicians, gun control advocates and the legacy media treat their reports as if they’re pure gold. For example, according to the GVA there were 417 mass shootings in 2019. The FBI says there were 30, because it uses a much narrower and more realistic definition.

USA Today’s vaunted fact-checkers never balked at Biden’s use of the fake GVA data. They use it too, as does CNN, MSNBC and FOX News, so they didn’t question the President’s numbers, even though they equate to nearly two mass shootings per day. They were just happy he chose their struggling newspaper to publish his biased screed.

To be clear, if anyone actually believes Biden wrote this editorial himself, I’ve got an ocean-front property in Rehoboth Beach to sell them, complete with a $500,000 taxpayer-funded wall. Lately, Biden has difficulty even reading much less writing. He spars daily with the teleprompter, and the teleprompter usually wins. Of course, he didn’t write the editorial, but that doesn’t matter. It bears his byline: “Joe Biden is the 46th president of the United States,” so he gets the credit and/or the blame. That’s the way the presidency is supposed to work.

That Team Biden would have to juke the stats to buttress their latest anti-gun hit piece is no surprise. They’re getting desperate. No one is listening. Guns are still flying off the shelves, especially ARs, and Black females are now the largest gun-buying demographic, because they realize Biden’s rants are hollow and won’t protect them or their families.

Biden’s editorial should be seen as a warning: He will do anything it takes to win his war against our guns, including gaslighting the American people with fake news. That, too, is no surprise.

Supreme Court Decides Against Early Intervention in Illinois AR-15 Ban Case

The Supreme Court has declined to issue an emergency injunction request against an Illinois city’s “assault weapons” ban on Wednesday.

The request was made by the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR), which has challenged a ban on AR-15s and similar firearms enacted by Naperville, Illinois. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who oversees the circuit the case is filed in, requested a brief from the city in defense of its law after the gun-rights group asked the Court to intervene because a lower court upheld the ban.

“The application for a writ of injunction pending appeal presented to Justice Barrett and by her referred to the Court is denied,” the order in NAGR v. Naperville reads.

Barrett’s request for a brief in the case opened the possibility that the Court might be willing to jump the line and block the city’s ban on an emergency basis. That would have been a rare move, which the Court also declined to do in two recent Second Amendment cases challenging New York’s latest gun restrictions. The Court taking the less aggressive path of allowing the case to play out on the merits in the lower courts before deciding whether or not to get involved represents a setback for gun-rights advocates who had hoped they could achieve a quick win on the issue of assault weapons bans.

Naperville said it is “pleased” with the decision and vowed to continue defending its ban.

“The City’s ordinance is intended to protect the health and safety of our community,” Linda L. LaCloche, director of communications for the city manager’s office, told The Reload. “We will continue to defend the ordinance against legal challenges and expect future court decisions as the legal process runs its course.”

The case against Naperville’s ban is separate from the newer statewide ban. Naperville enacted its ban in August 2022. State lawmakers passed their ban in January 2023. Both have faced significant backlash from gun-rights supporters but the statewide ban has come under even more intense scrutiny since its passage.

The statewide ban has since been ruled unconstitutional in state and federal court, though those rulings have since been stayed by higher courts. Oral arguments in the case against the statewide ban were heard at the Illinois Supreme Court yesterday. It has also faced backlash from a majority of Illinois sheriffs who say they won’t enforce the ban because they consider it unconstitutional.

The Naperville ordinance has fared better by comparison. A federal district judge denied a preliminary injunction against the Naperville ordinance in February, and the Seventh Circuit rejected NAGR’s request to block enforcement of the law while its appeal is being processed. Now, the Supreme Court has done the same.

The Court’s denial of NAGR’s request in the Naperville case was done without any comment or noted dissents. That sets it apart from one of the emergency injunction denials in the New York Second Amendment cases. In Antonyuk v. Nigrelli, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, noted the Court’s decision not to intervene on an emergency basis reflected its deference to lower court proceedings rather than an endorsement of New York’s new gun restrictions.

“I understand the Court’s denial today to reflect respect for the Second Circuit’s procedures in managing its own docket, rather than expressing any view on the merits of the case,” Alito wrote.

The pair said the New York law in question presents “novel and serious questions under both the First and the Second Amendments” and went on to praise the district court’s ruling against much of the law as “a thorough opinion.” It noted the Second Circuit Court of Appeals had issued “unreasoned summary stay orders” against the injunctions in Anyonyuk and several other cases involving the New York law before encouraging the plaintiffs to refile for emergency relief if the lower court drags its feet.

“Applicants should not be deterred by today’s order from again seeking relief if the Second Circuit does not, within a reasonable time, provide an explanation for its stay order or expedite consideration of the appeal,” Alito wrote.

In NAGR v. Naperville, none of the justices said anything about the district court’s decision to uphold the city’s ban on the sale of AR-15s and other popular firearms. That provides less insight into how the justices may feel about the case itself beyond agreeing not to get involved at this point.

NAGR did not respond to a request for comment on the Court’s denial.

Comments O’ The Day

Again, just like in NY SCOTUS has chosen their procedure preferences over the rights of millions of Americans

Justices will not get involved with lower courts giving the anti-gun states whatever they want. We get screwed until a case on the merits reaches cert petition.