So nice when they provide such clear photography for future positive ID
The presidents of West Virginia University and Marshall University penned a joint letter to legislators opposing the bill in late January.
“We believe that our boards of governors are best suited to decide whether guns should be permitted on campus,” the letter reads. “We therefore do not support statewide campus carry.”
The presidents of West Virginia State University, Concord University and Shepherd University wrote a separate letter saying they strongly support the Second Amendment but “have serious reservations about the significant public safety challenges” that the bill would present.
“Introducing firearms into this already challenging environment could have unintended consequences,” the letter says, referencing increased suicide rates and concern that the presence of firearms could stifle the free exchange of ideas.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting reported that at a public hearing last week, 40 people spoke and nearly everyone opposed the bill.
Marshall University professor Chris White said the bill doesn’t have enough safety measures in place. Formerly a Marine Corps infantryman, he referenced months of training that military and police officers go through “to earn that Second Amendment right and carry those weapons in public.”
“None of those safety controls will be imposed on our students or anybody else who comes on to campus,” White said, according to WVPB.
I was lucky this phobia wasn’t around when I was in school, because I spent a lot of my time in high school art class sketching guns.
The only thing more predictable than boys being fascinated with weapons is them eventually sketching one in class. But that’s not allowed anymore.
What is it that makes a little boy — practically straight out of the womb — take an interest in weapons and emulate gun-toting, swash-buckling heroes? Even doctors aren’t sure. As one pediatrician told me about my then 16-month-old son who turned every stick into a sword, “We don’t know why. They just do it.”
If you’ve raised a little boy, you know what I’m talking about. And the only thing more predictable than them being fascinated with weapons is them eventually doodling one in class. An alien with a laser gun. An elf with a sword. Rambo with a machine gun.
When they do, they’ll encounter a host of school polices banning images of weapons, ostensibly to prevent school shootings and other violence. Some make exceptions for historical context (such as a Revolutionary War soldier with a bayonet).
If your child is lucky, he’ll be told to put the drawing away. If he’s unlucky, he’ll be sent to the principal’s office and then to the school counselor, where he may even be given a suicide assessment.
No Drawings with Guns Allowed
My first encounter with this type of policy was when my youngest boy came home from a Fairfax County, Virginia, elementary school with his shirt inside out. On the front was an image of a Lego Ewok holding — eek! — a tiny axe.
I recently encountered this policy again with my 10-year-old son. He had gotten in trouble for drawing a police officer holding a gun. A police officer.
Author’s son’s drawing.
In an email, my son’s teacher said she explained to him that drawing weapons in class is not allowed and encouraged him to “stick to dragons and landscapes.”
Bill filed in Illinois to ban "armor plates, body armor, and military helmets." All existing items would have to be declared to the state police, and current police, retired police, and private security guards would be exempt. https://t.co/QvsS2pV2mJpic.twitter.com/HBRncq8R7H
The Associated Press, or AP, is supposed to be unbiased, though we’ve all seen countless examples of them being anything but.
That’s especially true regarding matters pertaining to the Second Amendment.
These days, the right to keep and bear arms may have a firmer foundation on which to rest following the Bruen decision. It’s rather clear that there can be no total gun ban and that any restriction has to conform to a particular framework that won’t be easy for any law.
A landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment is upending gun laws across the country, dividing judges and sowing confusion over what firearm restrictions can remain on the books.
The high court’s ruling that set new standards for evaluating gun laws left open many questions, experts say, resulting in an increasing number of conflicting decisions as lower court judges struggle to figure out how to apply it.
The Supreme Court’s so-called Bruen decision changed the test that lower courts had long used for evaluating challenges to firearm restrictions. Judges should no longer consider whether the law serves public interests like enhancing public safety, the justices said.
Under the Supreme Court’s new test, the government that wants to uphold a gun restriction must look back into history to show it is consistent with the country’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
In several instances, judges looking at the same laws have come down on opposite sides on whether they are constitutional in the wake of the conservative Supreme Court majority’s ruling. The legal turmoil caused by the first major gun ruling in a decade will likely force the Supreme Court to step in again soon to provide more guidance for judges.
“There’s confusion and disarray in the lower courts because not only are they not reaching the same conclusions, they’re just applying different methods or applying Bruen’s method differently,” said Jacob Charles, a professor at Pepperdine University’s law school who focuses on firearms law.
Sure, there’s a bit of confusion. The Bruen decision has set a stage most courts have never seen before. They now have to consider whether the Founders would have approved of such a law by looking at whether or not they approved of something similar during their own time.
But is it really a bad thing?
The only downside is that it’s taken us this long to get to this point. While the AP is apparently concerned that the status quo has been upturned, I’m more upset that the status quo was allowed to become the status quo in the first place.
It’s just insane that it came to this.
Yet here we are. We now have an opportunity to right the ship and put the onus on things back where they were. No longer can courts just claim it’s in the government’s interest to restrict our rights – something they’d never say about the First or Fourth Amendments, it should be remembered – but must instead look at the matter objectively and compare it to historical precedent.
The AP may lament this “turmoil,” but I only lament that we didn’t have this upheaval a long time ago.
Is there any more of an obnoxious protest movement than the one propagated by the climate cult? They glue themselves to roads and pour soup on famous works of art, all the while never having to reckon with the fact that their predictions of doom have been continually disproven by the passage of time.
Remember Al Gore’s now-defunct doomsday clock? Or the claim that the Arctic would be ice-free by now? And did polar bears ever go extinct? There’s also another cataclysmic event on the way, as prophesied by the church of climate.
Sen. Josh Hawley got a taste of that on Thursday when a climate protester rushed the stage he was speaking from. Watch until the end because he does a good job turning the tables.
Someone just ran on stage and interrupted Josh Hawley's speech at the Heritage Foundation.
The whole rushing-the-stage thing is bad enough. It shows a profound disrespect for basic boundaries while highlighting the clinical narcissism these climate protesters possess. Everything must revolve around their obsession, and conveniently, that obsession seems to involve defending China a lot. That’s exactly what this woman did as she screamed “China is not our enemy,” while being dragged out of the room to the laughter of the audience.
Isn’t it strange that Greta Thunberg never goes to Beijing and that so many in the climate movement want to let China off the hook for leading the world in carbon emissions?
Ask yourself, who benefits the most from the world shifting to “renewable” energy? That would be China, which provides or controls much of the rare earth materials needed to produce things like batteries and solar panels (neither of which are renewable, by the way). Someone should really look into how much of the climate cult is being funded by Chinese interests, wouldn’t you say?
Returning to the clip, Hawley makes a really good point at the end of it.
HAWLEY: It’s interesting. This administration wants to use the climate crisis as a justification for its agenda in Ukraine and elsewhere. Maybe they ought to visit with that gal.
That’s exactly what’s going on. John Kerry, Biden’s climate czar, has already made it clear that the administration is going to ignore human rights abuses, if it means getting a “climate” deal done with China. Never mind that such deals are worthless and amount to absolutely nothing.
Then there are the connections between the Biden family and the Chinese to consider. It just so happens that the president’s climate agenda plays right into the hands of Xi Jinping. What a coincidence, right? Thankfully, Republicans are finally pushing back, and there seems to be an anti-China consensus forming. That’s going to put Chicom-simping Democrats in an awkward position going forward.
Oregon – The Oregon Court of Appeals [lead by Judge James Egan, Chief Judge at Oregon Court of Appeal] has struck down the Second Amendment Sanctuary Ordinance in Columbia County, an ordinance Oregon Firearms Federation has been defending with Gun Owners of America.
In his vicious attack, Judge Egan equated ordinances protecting the Second Amendment with white supremacists and anti-semites.
In the opening page of his opinion, Egan attacks the ordinance and the people who argued for it saying :
“In other words, Intervenors came before this court and referenced UN mandates, which as explained below is a well documented trope meant to invoke white supremacist, antisemitic fear of a takeover of our country by outsiders and minorities who are manipulated by an elite class of supervillians.
On occasion, however, individual members of the court must call out illegitimate quasi-legal arguments and theories for what they are-viz., antisemitic and racist tropes.”
On page 6 of his screed, he titles one section: “The Antisemitic and Racist Origins of the Ordinance.”
He claims that constitutional sheriffs “embrace racist and white nationalist ideologies.”
Democrat California Sen. Dianne Feinstein appeared unaware of her own retirement announcement Tuesday, telling a group of reporters at the Capitol that she hadn’t made a decision on her future despite announcing just hours before that she would not be seeking reelection in 2024.
According to multiple reports, a Feinstein staffer quickly notified the senator that a statement had already been made on her retirement, prompting her to say she was unaware the information had been released.
Reporters present for the interaction quickly took to Twitter to report on Feinstein’s apparent confusion.
Asked by reporters about her announcement to resign, @SenFeinstein says “If I haven't made that decision, I haven't released anything.” A staffer then told the senator that a statement had been released. Feinstein responded saying “I didn’t know they put it out.”
“Asked by reporters about her announcement to resign, [Feinstein] says ‘If I haven’t made that decision, I haven’t released anything.’ A staffer then told the senator that a statement had been released. Feinstein responded saying ‘I didn’t know they put it out,’” one reporter wrote, later clarifying he meant “retire” instead of “resign.”
“Feinstein on her retirement: ‘I haven’t made that decision. I haven’t released anything.’ Staffer: ‘We put out the statement.’ Feinstein: ‘You put out the statement? I didn’t know they put it out,'” another wrote.
The second reporter later corrected her reporting by saying that it sounded like Feinstein said, “I should have known they put it out” rather than “I didn’t know they put it out.
According to another report from Raw Story, which included an audio clip of Feinstein speaking to a reporter, she wasn’t aware that she was retiring at all.
“Oh, no, I’m not announcing anything. I will one day,” Feinstein told the outlet in an interview only an hour after her retirement was announced.
This isn’t the first instance in which Feinstein’s memory and cognitive abilities have been questioned. Last year, a number of her Senate colleagues anonymously expressed concern that her memory was fading and that she no longer had the ability to serve.
Fox News Digital reached out to Feinstein’s office for comment and received a statement from a spokesperson attributing the confusion to the timing of the retirement announcement.
“The senator approved it going out today, just confusion on timing. The senator was out of the office for votes, a meeting, lunch and more votes when the announcement was sent,” the spokesperson said.
On Saturday, I wrote about the 230,000 children who failed to show up for class when public schools reopened after the pandemic. It’s a tragedy without parallel in American history as many of the no-shows are very young — K through 3rd grade. Critical skills learned in early education were not taught to these kids, who are now hopelessly behind.
The pandemic didn’t necessarily cause the problem. It exposed problems that already existed and were exacerbated because of incompetence and, as it turns out, wrongheaded teaching.
Consider the fact that 65% of American fourth-grade students can barely read. This is a result of a radical shift to a new way of teaching children how to read.
What was wrong with the old way? Well, it was old.
When somewhere like the AP or any news organization starts talking about gun control stories, there’s always some level of poor understanding involved. That’s almost to be expected. After all, even under the most charitable interpretation of what’s going on, the reporters covering these stories and commentators discussing them aren’t exactly experts on firearms.
So, it’s not shocking they’d get some things wrong here and there.
The Republican-led House in Missouri on Wednesday voted against a proposal to ban minors from openly carrying firearms without adult supervision in public.
The proposal failed by a 104-39 vote, with only one Republican state representative voting in support of it.
Democratic state Rep. Donna Baringer told the Associated Press that police in her district were concerned about “14-year-olds walking down the middle of the street in the city of St. Louis carrying AR-15s,” and are demanding change.
“Now they have been emboldened, and they are walking around with them,” Baringer said regarding concealed carry by children in Missouri. “Until they actually brandish them, and brandish them with intent, our police officers’ hands are handcuffed.”
Now, to start off with, it seems pretty straightforward. A bill banning minors from carrying openly without adult supervision is something that even many gun rights advocates might consider supporting. Many won’t, though, and mostly because such a law is way too broad. Many of us went hunting on our own as kids and such a measure may restrict one’s ability to do that.
But then things get wonky with where the AP goes next.
Open carry and concealed carry are very different things, though neither should be restricted. What does a 2017 concealed carry measure have to do with a refusal to pass a blanket prohibition on teens carrying firearms without an adult right there with them?
Nothing.
Then again, this is the AP. There’s absolutely no reason they wouldn’t mention such a thing, likely in hopes of people conflating the two.
However, there are reasons why this bill didn’t go anywhere, and it had nothing to do with some strong desire to see 14-year-olds marching down the streets of St. Louis with AR-15s.
Not that I’d legitimately expect there to be any significant reporting on just why that is.
After all, in that entire piece, there’s exactly one quote from anyone who opposed the bill, despite the story being about the measure’s defeat. Instead, it’s all about how hard it is to pass gun control in Missouri.
And the AP thinks we still believe they’re unbiased? That’s downright hilarious.
Look, if parents are doing their job, the chances of Junior carrying a gun openly in public without their permission is effectively nil. It’s just not going to happen. If they’re not going their job, there’s no law in the world that will stop it from happening. That’s just the hard facts of life.
SANTA FE — Bennie Hargrove’s twin sisters started middle school afraid to get out of the car.
Their older brother, then 13, was shot and killed 1 1/2 years ago by a Washington Middle School classmate, police say, who’d taken a handgun from home.
The family’s story was among those shared Thursday as New Mexico lawmakers passed a bill that would make it a crime, in some circumstances, to store a firearm in a way that allows a child to get it.
The House endorsed the legislation on a 37-32 vote, sending it to the Senate. Some Democrats crossed party lines to join Republicans against the bill.
“This bill is about keeping children safe,” Rep. Pamelya Herndon, D-Albuquerque, said, alluding to Bennie’s death. “We had two minors. One had access to a gun and one is dead.”
The measure triggered a combative three-hour debate in the House as Republican legislators contended the bill inappropriately targeted law-abiding gun owners. They also expressed frustration as Herndon wouldn’t offer a “yes” or “no” answer to some questions.
Rep. Stefani Lord, R-Sandia Park, said the language in the bill was too vague to give gun owners an understanding of what conduct would be illegal. She added that it could endanger someone who needs quick access to a firearm for protection.
“It’s not fair to the survivors of domestic violence who fear for their life,” Lord said.
Rep. Bill Rehm, an Albuquerque Republican and retired law enforcement officer, said the bill is particularly problematic for police officers. He said he “didn’t put up my gun” after coming home from work but that his children knew never to touch it.
“For us to legislate how the rest of the responsible citizens of the city must act because of an irresponsible person is not good policy,” Rehm said.
The proposal, House Bill 9, would make it a crime to store a firearm in a way that negligently disregards the ability of a minor to access it.
Criminal charges could be brought only if the minor later brandishes or displays the firearm in a threatening way or uses it to kill or injure someone.
It includes some exceptions to intended to protect good-faith efforts to safely store a firearm.
Adult gun owners, for example, couldn’t be charged if they’d stored the firearm in a secure container or other place a reasonable person would believe is secure; the firearm was locked and inoperable; the minor broke into the home; or the gun was used in self-defense.
Someone needs to figure out what in the wide world of dystopian Buck Rogers in the 25th Century sci-fi fantasy world is going on in Maryland’s legislature. Antigun lawmakers there are advancing legislation that would require firearm manufacturers to attach RFID trackers to each and every firearm so government officials could track their whereabouts at all times.
Not only is this a clear invasion of privacy rights and Constitutional protections against illegal search-and-seizure, this is an idea that’s not even technologically possible. This is the stuff of Hollywood – and antigun politicians that don’t understand the first thing about firearms or manufacturing processes.
Maryland’s Delegate Pam Queen introduced HB 704, a bill titled, “Firearms – Tracking Technology.” The bill’s description reads:
Prohibiting a person from engaging in a certain bulk firearm transfer unless each firearm that is part of the transfer contains a certain embedded tracker; requiring a seller or other transferor who engages in a bulk firearm transfer to transmit to the Secretary of State Police certain information; providing that a violation of the Act is a civil offense and subject to a fine of up to $2500; and requiring the Secretary to establish a certain database to store information about each bulk firearm transfer in the State.
The “embedded tracker” would be required to be fixed to the firearm frame or receiver, emit unique tracking information and not be readily capable of being removed, disabled or destroyed without rendering the firearm inoperable or destroying the frame or receiver. To be clear, Delegate Queen would require that embedded tracker to emit this unique information to Maryland’s State Police for permanent storage in a state-run database. Anyone not complying with this is subject to $2,500 in fines.
Big Brother Would Watch
What this bill does would be nothing short of state authorities peering into an individual’s gun safe. The state would also know when and where a firearm would be moved – whether that’s for hunting, a day at the range target shooting or when and where an individual is legally carrying a firearm for licensed concealed carry. This bill would require firearm manufacturers to create and include these trackers on firearms. Those exercising their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms would be required to forfeit their Fourth Amendment Constitutional right to privacy and their right protecting them from illegal search-and-seizure, since the state would automatically collect and store this information in real time. This legislation would also call into question Fourteenth and Fifth Amendment protections of Due Process, since it requires the government to collect information on Americans simply exercising their Second Amendment rights. And this legislation would have a chilling effect on the exercise of Second Amendment rights as Marylanders would be less likely to lawfully purchase a firearm to avoid the invasion of privacy.
That’s not even taking into consideration the technological hurdles that would be required to meet this requirement. Makers of so-called “smart guns,” or authorized-user technology that is supposed to allow owners to fire guns through the use of RFID emitters, fingerprint recognition or passcodes or other technology, haven’t been able to produce a safe and reliable model. The Obama administration made this a priority and the Department of Justice (DOJ) couldn’t identify a working prototype that was capable of testing.
It was only in the past few decades that laws criminalizing domestic violence came to be widespread and enforced. But now, the U.S. is in danger of backtracking on that legal framework precisely because of the nation’s historical legacy of turning a blind eye to domestic violence.
On Nov. 10, 2022, a judge in the Western District of Texas struck down the federal law that prohibits access to guns for people subject to domestic violence protection orders. He did this based on a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, NYSRPA v. Bruen, which held that, to be constitutional, a firearm restriction must be analogous to laws that were in existence when the country was founded. In other words, disarming domestic abusers violates the Second Amendment because those types of laws didn’t exist at the founding of the country.
In a separate, but related, case, the 5th U.S. Circuit of Court of Appeals on Feb 1. sided with the Texas judge, ruling that the federal ban was unconstitutional. The Justice Department has indicated that it will appeal.
At present, federal law prohibits persons subject to final – rather than temporary – domestic violence protection orders from purchasing or possessing firearms. In addition, 39 states and the District of Columbia have similar prohibitions on their statutes, with many expanding the restrictions to include individuals under temporary, or ex parte, orders prior to a full hearing.
Ruling that these laws are unconstitutional will put mainly women and children in danger. More than 50% of women who are murdered are killed by intimate partners, and most of those homicides are committed with guns. A 2003 study found that when an abusive man has access to a gun, it increases the risk of intimate partner homicide by 400%.
Moreover, 68% of mass shooters have a history of domestic violence or killed an intimate partner in the mass shooting.
Enforcement of gun restrictions is spotty, with further research needed as to how systematically they are ordered and whether restricted individuals relinquish firearms they already possess. Nonetheless, research shows that firearm restrictions on domestic violence protection orders save lives. Multiple studies conclude that these laws are associated with an 8%-10% reduction in intimate partner homicide.
Specifically, there are statistically significant reductions in intimate partner homicide when the firearm restriction covers both dating partners and those subjected to temporary orders. This decrease is seen in total intimate partner homicide, not just intimate partner homicide committed with guns, nullifying the argument that abusers will use other weapons to kill.
Moreover, these laws have broad support across the country – more than 80% of respondents to two national polls in 2017 and 2019 said they favor them.
Americans – whether male or female, gun owner or non-gun owner – tend to agree that domestic abusers should not be able to purchase or possess firearms while they are subject to a domestic violence protection order. Most seem to realize that such reasonable restrictions serve the greater good of keeping families and communities safe.
A disregard for data
The ruling in Texas was based on an originalist legal argument rather than the data. Under the judge’s interpretation of the Bruen decision, because colonial law – written before a time when women could vote, let alone be protected in law from violent spouses – didn’t restrict domestic abusers’ gun rights, then it simply isn’t constitutional to do so now. In effect, the ruling, should it stand, would mean the U.S. is unable to escape the nation’s historic legal disregard for domestic violence.
It also disregards the harm that allowing domestic abusers to keep hold of guns does. Multiple studies demonstrate that domestic violence firearm restriction laws are effective and savelives.
That research shows that, should the Texas ruling stand, people who suffer abuse at the hands of an intimate partner are at greater risk of that abuse being deadly.
Lisa Geller, director of state affairs at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, contributed to this article.
CLAIM: During the State of the Union Address President Joe Biden claimed mass shootings tripled after the “assault weapons” ban expired.
VERDICT: Misleading/Mostly False.
Biden said, “In the ten years the ban was law, mass shootings went down. After we let it expire, in a Republican administration, mass shootings tripled.”
It should be noted that Biden has made this claim before, in one form or another, following a high-profile shooting.
He did so on May 24, 2022, following the Uvalde elementary school attack. The Washington Post quoted him saying, “When we passed the assault weapons ban, mass shootings went down. When the law expired, mass shootings tripled.”
Ironically, the Post also called Biden’s claim into question:
Biden claimed that mass shooting deaths tripled after the law expired. He appears to be relying on a study of mass shooting data from 1981 to 2017, published in 2019 in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery by a team led by Charles DiMaggio, a professor of surgery at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. That group found that an assault weapons ban would have prevented 314 out of 448, or 70 percent, of the mass shooting deaths during the years when the ban was not in effect. But the data used in that study has come under attack by some analysts.
…The new mass-shooting database shows that there were 31 mass shootings in the decade before the 1994 law, 31 in the 10 years the law was in force (Sept. 13, 1994 to Sept. 12, 2004) and 47 in the 10 years after it expired. As noted, some of that increase stems from population growth.
Breitbart News reported that the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) released a report in 2004, as the “assault weapons” ban was coming to an end. The information in that study dovetails perfectly with the Post’s observation, inasmuch as the NIJ researchers could not credit the “assault weapons” ban with any of the reductions in crime or shootings which were sporadically reported elsewhere.
The Washington Timesquoted University of Pennsylvania professor Christopher Koper, author of the NIJ report, saying, “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.”
The NIJ report continued, “The ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”
The NIJ report put matters into perspective by pointing out that “assault weapons” were “rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban.”
Biden’s claim about mass shootings tripling and the sunset of the ban being causal is misleading, because no reliable connection between the end of the ban and an increase in shootings has been made.
Biden’s claim is also mostly false because the information from sources like the NIJ explicitly indicates the “assault weapons” ban cannot be credited with a drop in gun violence to begin with.
memory loss.difficulty concentrating. finding it hard to carry out familiar daily tasks. getting confused. struggling to follow a conversation or find the right word.being confused about time and place.mood changes.
The Second Amendment sure looks easy enough to understand. Some have tried to make an art out of misreading it, of course, by focusing on the militia clause at the beginning, rather than literally any other part of the text.
Still others don’t even get that far. They know roughly what the amendment is supposed to be about, but they don’t really get that it draws a hard line in the sand on guns.
I understand that many citizens cling to their individual right to bear arms, as guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment. However, there have been many instances in which people have sacrificed their rights or been inconvenienced in order to save lives.
Many people were upset when laws were passed requiring seat belts and motorcycle helmets. After 9/11, there were many policies enacted that effectively restricted some of our freedoms. I remember years ago a man tried to board an airplane with a bomb in his shoe. Because of that, we must remove our shoes to be screened at airports.
The writer, unsurprisingly, goes on to call for gun control.
Look, there’s a big difference between seat belt and helmet laws and gun control. There’s also a huge difference between dealing with TSA and gun control.
None of those laws actually interfere with your rights, particularly with regard to one’s constitutionally protected rights. They might make you do a few things you’d rather not, but you can still generally go anywhere you want.
Gun control is nothing like that at all. This isn’t an inconvenience, it’s the state determining what we can and cannot do with regard to protecting ourselves and our families.
This letter writer starts by talking about the mass shootings in California, but he fails to note the very laws he’s demanding simply didn’t work. They didn’t stop either shooting.
What we can see here isn’t a cogent statement of reality, but someone who clearly doesn’t understand the Second Amendment at all.
But the underlying problem is the same. This individual isn’t some raving exception who doesn’t comprehend what the masses get. He’s representative of a large number of people who really do think gun control is little more than an inconvenience.
For them, it’s easy to dismiss the bloody history of the 20th century with its genocides as something that simply couldn’t happen here. I’m sure Jews living in the Weimar Republic thought the same thing, or those living in Cambodia prior to the Khmer Rogue taking over, or the Armenians living under Turkish rule. They likely thought nothing would happen to them, and they were correct right up until the moment they weren’t.
Guns in this nation make damn sure we don’t have to be that trusting and hopeful.
Then we have the fact that most guns used on a day-to-day basis appear to be used defensively. Good people use these guns–the very guns the writer wants to see banned–to protect themselves.
Removing those guns? That’s not an inconvenience. Over a long enough time, it’s a death sentence for someone.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) posted a video to Twitter on Saturday in which she pushed an “assault weapons” ban in response to two shootings carried out with pistols.
Klobuchar cited the January 21, 2023 Monterey Park shooting (11 killed) and the January 23, 2023 Half Moon Bay shooting (seven killed).
She did not mention that both shootings occurred in stringently gun-controlled California, which has had an “assault weapons” ban since the 1990s. Nor did she mention that both shootings were carried out with pistols.
Klobuchar did, however, push for more gun control.
Breitbart News reported that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) blasted “weapons of war” after the suspected Half Moon Bay shooter used a handgun in his attack.
CBS News noted that the suspected shooter “drove himself to the substation located between the two businesses and surrendered to deputies.” They pointed out that the weapon used was “a [semiautomatic] handgun.”
Oservation O’ The Day
” ‘It’s the guns. It’s always been the guns,’ said Lisa Geller, a public health researcher at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University.”
Adapting the quoted logic…
The US obesity problem is “the forks, it’s always been the forks.”
Distracted driving deaths are “the phones, it’s always been the phones.”
Hmmm… that makes the action the fault of an inanimate object rather than the person wielding the object.
That’s literally the logic from someone at Johns Hopkins.
What an absurd and obviously flawed way to spin the problem statement.
They are two people separated by decades and thousands of miles, but united in one tragic fact: Both made national news in January after authorities said they committed horrific gun violence.
The contrast – like many facts about America’s gun violence problem – is both striking and predictable. This doesn’t happen in other countries, experts say. It happens much more frequently in the U.S., but often hidden from public view. Children, in particular, are far more likely to shoot themselves, a friend or family member accidentally, usually inside a home.
“It’s the guns. It’s always been the guns,” said Lisa Geller, a public health researcher at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University.
While other wealthy countries have similar levels of interpersonal violence, the United States stands alone when it comes to shootings. An average of 110 Americans die daily from gun violence, far above the rate of gun deaths for any comparable nation. The U.S. has about 12 gun deaths for every 100,000 residents, almost four times the rate of the next-highest country, Switzerland, according to experts.
Jews eat kosher, Muslims have halal, Hindus eschew meat, and many Christians fast during Lent. So naturally, the fastest-growing religion today — earth and climate worship — is developing its own faith-based dietary restrictions.
“Climatarians” (also called “reducitarians” or “climavores”) are people who make their food choices based on how what they eat will impact the earth, with the aim of reducing their carbon “foodprint.” The Earthist version of original sin is that, simply by living, people commit climate sin every time they eat, breathe, travel, and heat or cool their homes. Naturally, the younger generations are the most pious Earthists, having been recently exposed to the most evangelical Earthist education system yet.
“Climavores, as you might expect, follow a diet less defined by ingredients—unlike veganism, for example,” global consulting firm Kearney informs us. “Instead, Climavores actively make food choices based on climate impacts, practicing climate-conscious eating based on a series of dietary trade-offs intended to benefit the planet.”
Climavores see beef, lamb, and cheese at the very top of the environmental damage scale; pork is in the middle, followed by chicken and eggs. Plants of all kinds typically have the lowest impact. …
Most Climavores eschew labels, viewing climate-conscious food choices paired with their efforts to “live and shop green” beyond food as a meaningful way to personally impact environmental outcomes. Our survey found this is especially true among younger consumers. Respondents 18 to 44 years old were up to twice as likely to consider the environmental impact of their food choices.
And as the older faiths are gradually supplanted by the Church of the Climate, societal changes are in the works that reflect and support the new religion. Axios reports:
Food manufacturers, restaurants, and supermarkets are racing to cater to the zeal for lower-carbon eating choices, which has people eschewing plastic packaging, ingredients flown in from afar, and foods that are environmentally damaging to produce. …
Terms like “climatarian” are getting newfound attention from corporate America as young consumers gravitate toward what they perceive as “green” diets.
“By 2030, our routine food choices will be climate-directed,” advises a report from consulting firm Kearney. “The companies that mobilize now will win the future of food.”
Supermarket chain Fresh Market is among the many food prognosticators that declared “climatarian eating” a top trend for 2023.
Back in the bad old days, righteous folk censured people who lived outside Christian proscriptions, and with good reason — things like theft, adultery, sloth, and single parenthood lead to issues that hurt all of society. Under the same reckoning, prepare to be judged for your apostate food choices. Ordering a big, fat steak in a restaurant may earn you glares from fellow diners who have been taught that your dinner hurts them by causing droughts and heatwaves or something.
But Leftists are nothing if not authoritarian, and soon the choices will be made for you. More from Kearney:
Every two years like clockwork, her staff dusts off the same old bill, changes the title to match the year, and resubmits it. It will never go anywhere, and everyone knows that, but it’s her pet bill ever since the old ’94-’04 ban didn’t have the votes to get re-enacted. This will go on until she either finally decides to retire, or one day doesn’t wake up.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced legislation Monday to ban “205 military-style assault weapons by name” and prohibit transfer of “high capacity” magazines.
Feinstein cited the January 21, 2023, Monterey Park shooting as the impetus for the reintroduction of the “assault weapons” ban.
She said, “We were tragically reminded this weekend of the deadly nature of assault weapons when a shooter used one to kill 11 people and injure 9 more at a Lunar New Year celebration in California.”
However, Feinstein’s proposed ban would not have prevented the suspected gunman from possessing the gun used in the attack.
In addition to banning the “sale, manufacture, transfer and importation” of 205 specific firearms, Feinstein’s bill requires “a background check on any future sale, trade or gifting of an assault weapon covered by the bill.” (This would apply to guns grandfathered in, if the bill were to become law.)
Her bill also contains an addendum to “[prohibit] the sale of assault weapons to individuals under 21.”
The alleged Monterey Park attacker was 72 years old and Monday’s alleged Half Moon Bay attacker was 67 years old.
