Category: Safety

If Gun Control Saves Lives, Then Why are California and New York State so Dangerous?

A few disturbed young men want to become famous by killing innocent people. Each time they try, we are told that we need to take guns away from honest citizens. That proposal isn’t new. Gun-prohibitionists passed severe gun-control laws decades ago in a few Democrat controlled states. Let’s see if that made us safer. Based on recent evidence from New York State and California, it did not.

You don’t have to take my word for it when I say that California and New York have strict gun-control laws. Take the opinion of the Giffords gun-control group funded by anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Giffords gives California an A rating and New York an A-.

Laws like this are why-

  • There are many models of firearms that ordinary citizens can’t own in New York and California.
  • Ordinary citizens must pass background checks when they purchase a handgun at a gun store or at a gun show. In California, there is also a mandatory background check before we may buy ammunition. New York proposed similar ammunition restrictions.
  • California has a mandatory ten-day waiting period after we submit our background check and before we may take possession of our firearm. There is also an additional one-gun-a-month restriction. New York also requires a license before we are allowed to own a handgun.
  • Both states have a magazine capacity limit that reduces the number of cartridges that a firearm magazine may hold.
  • Both states have “Red Flag laws” that allow family members, romantic partners, schoolteachers, doctors, and the police to request that we be disarmed. We are not present when a “Red Flag” hearing is held to confiscate our guns.
  • Both California and New York require statement of “demonstrated need” before honest citizens like us are granted a permit to carry a concealed firearm in public. In many cities, those permits are only given to judges, politicians, and to campaign donors. The rate of concealed carry is far lower in New York State and in California compared to the rest of the US.
  • Schools are “gun-free” zones and even school staff are disarmed.

We were told that gun-control would keep us safe. Last year, California had the most active-shooter incidents of any state in the nation. This year, we saw mass-murders and attempted mass-murders in New York state and even in New York City.

How could these gun control laws fail so badly? Here are a few of the many reasons that gun-control fails time after time-

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Stupid is as stupid does

New York Democrats already looking to revise just-passed ban on body armor

New York Democrats have a history of acting before they think, especially when it comes to guns and gun control measures. In 2013 lawmakers rammed the SAFE Act through the legislature, only to find that many of the elements of the gun control legislation were completely unworkable in practice. The ban on magazines that can hold more than seven rounds, for instance, ultimately had to be changed to allow for gun owners to use ten-round magazines, though they’re only allowed to load seven rounds of ammunition (a law that’s impossible to proactively enforce). The SAFE Act was also supposed to require background checks on all ammunition sales, though nearly a decade after its passage that element of the law has yet to go into effect.

New York lawmakers similarly rushed through a package of nearly a dozen new measures after the recent targeted attack on a Buffalo grocery store, including a new ban on the purchase of some types of body armor. Supposedly the new law is meant to prevent mass killers from protecting themselves against returning fire from police, but as some critics have pointed out, the type of body armor worn by the suspect in the Buffalo shooting isn’t actually covered by the new law.

A law hastily enacted by state lawmakers after the attack restricts sales of vests defined as “bullet-resistant soft body armor.”

Soft vests, which are light and can be concealed beneath clothing, can be effective against pistol fire. Vests carrying steel, ceramic or polyethylene plates, which can potentially stop rifle rounds, aren’t explicitly covered by the legislation.

That has left some retailers confused about what they can and can’t sell — and lawmakers talking about a possible fix.

“I know you said soft vests, but what about hard armor plates, plate carriers, or armors that aren’t vests, but clothing that provide protection. Is that also prohibited? It is so vague,” said Brad Pedell, who runs 221B Tactical, a tactical gear and body armor store in New York City. He said his store tends to sell more hard-plated armor than the soft type being banned.

… Pedell says many customers at his New York City store buy the armor for their own protection.

“It’s disappointing because residents are just scared, and they come to us because they are scared, and we offer help that makes them feel more confident, that they won’t get stabbed or injured or potentially killed,” Pedell said. “The fact (lawmakers) are taking that away, for whatever purpose they have in their minds, I find that really sad and unnecessary and morally wrong.”

Yeah, well, this is what happens when lawmakers are so intent on “doing something” in response to a shooting that they don’t think about the unintended consequences of their own actions. The suspected killer in Buffalo was wearing body armor? Well then, better ban it. Never mind the fact that ban will impact law-abiding citizens who want to protect themselves far more than it will thwart criminals from wearing body armor; there is virtue to be signaled here. And rather than recognizing the errors of their ways, supporters of the new ban say they’re ready to “fix” it if necessary.

Assemblymember Jonathon Jacobson, a lead sponsor of the legislation, told The Associated Press he would “be glad to amend the law to make it even stronger.”

… New Yorkers are still allowed to own body vests and purchase them in other states, though Jacobson, a Democrat, said he would work to eliminate that option during the next Legislative session in January.

“We wanted to get things done as quickly as possible, and not let the perfect get in the way of the good,” said Jacobson. “Like all laws in New York State, we always try to make them better in the future. Of course we’ll try to make this law better.”

The only way to do that would be to scrap this law entirely, which isn’t going to happen as long as Democrats have a majority in the statehouse in Albany.

Will We Choose Hard Work to Protect Our Children in School?

Set aside what you imagine about guns and protecting students at school. Keeping our kids safe is hard work. It is ugly and almost always unappreciated. We don’t want appreciation for what we’ve been forced to do if a murderer comes to school. It is far better to be known for what we prevented. Defending our students from media-fueled narcissistic psychopaths is a dull job. Being present every day so you can stop a murderer is easily ignored because it is out of sight. Contrast that grinding job with the one-click solution of “gun control”. Gun-control politicians say they can put a few more words on paper, hold a few press conferences, and it will be as if evil simply went away.. or did it? We’re conducting several large-scale social experiments at the same time. Our children’s lives depend on what we do.

Each day brings us something new. Our children live in a world where they are exposed to millions of online “friends” they’ve never met. Many of these friends might not even be real people. These online identities influence how our children think and feel. I’m not sure about the benefits, but the downside has been a surge in both narcissism and anorexia. Today, our children constantly compare themselves to an image on a small screen.

We also have millions of children growing up in broken homes. Many of these children are raised by the entertainment media and by electronic games. That isn’t good for healthy children, let alone the children who lack a healthy mom and dad. We also know that we are not all the same and that electronic games are catastrophic for some people. These gamers already feel alienated to an unusual degree. They think they deserve more recognition. Immerse these fragile youngsters into hundreds of hours of violent first-person roll-playing games, and something happens. The psychopaths eventually think to themselves, ‘I’d kill to get this much attention.’ Our voracious news media is ready to oblige. That is new.

In contrast, firearms have been a part of society for a relatively long time. We have lived with guns for at least the last four centuries. We’ve lived with semi-automatic rifles for over a hundred years. The so-called “assault rifle” is over 80 years old. What changed is that we’ve never grown up with mass media in our pocket 24-7 starting when children are 6 years of age. We don’t know what that does to people, and we’re conducting the real-time experiment on our children and on our society. We learn new things every day.

We’ve seen the mass media turn the last murderer into an instant celebrity by giving him a multi-million-dollar publicity campaign. The next murderer notices the attention poured on the last murderer. That creates a new generation of “celebrity-murderers”, a term that didn’t exist as little as two decades ago. We’ve seen over 80 copycat murderers after the attack on Columbine High School, but that data is now several years out of date.

Not only are our children ill-prepared to deal with the media, but adults and politicians do only a little better. The public is influenced by the most outrageous claim that can be taken from a situation or statement. The media and unscrupulous politicians feed us a series of false choices. Please consider each of these claims for more than a minute and you can easily see a context in which each statement is clearly right. You can also see a context in which the claim is clearly wrong.

  • You don’t care if our children die since you won’t disarm everyone,
    • but we’ve seen mass murders where firearms are banned.
  • It doesn’t help to put mental health counselors in school because we have to insure patient privacy and confidentiality,
    • but we’ve seen mental health counselors help, and we’ve also seen counselors be completely ineffective at identifying and treating violent patients.
  • Violence isn’t the answer,
    • but we have to use violence as necessary to stop the attacker or else we’ll perpetuate the next cycle of media-fueled murderers.
  • Don’t turn the murderer into a media celebrity,
    • but we have the right of free speech and freedom of the press.

Let me say it again that we are not all the same. Psychopaths are part of our population and always have been. We’ve seen the behavior of psychopaths change in our modern media environment. Today we see psychopaths target innocent victims in gun-free zones because that behavior rewarded by the mass media. Examined in hindsight, the murderers spent years happily planning their attacks. The threat of celebrity-violence is increasing as a greater number of fragile children are immersed in electronic media, and news outlets reward the latest murderer with greater and more sensational coverage.

We should be hungry for facts about protecting our children. Of course, we worry about what would happen if we allowed volunteer staff to be trained and then to go armed at school. But we already know what happens. We already have millions of man-hours with trained and armed-school staff on campus. Despite what we imagine, these staff have not had firearms accidents at school. More importantly, we have not seen a successful attack at a school when trained and armed school staff were present. We need to set our fantasies aside.

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Second Amendment still as relevant as in 1789

People are clamoring for oppressive and dangerous gun laws.

So-called common-sense laws like universal background checks and red flag laws that even proponents admit would not have stopped any of the shootings motivate their desire. All with hidden elements that will unfairly and oppressively affect the law-abiding and honest.

There are typically over 2,000 children each year who die from child abuse. There are thousands more who die of various preventable causes. Where is the moral outrage?

How about the thousands of teens who die needlessly of drug overdoses? Where is the moral outrage? Where are the demands for more laws regarding abuse, securing the border or stopping the influx of fentanyl, heroin and other drugs?

The purpose of the Second Amendment is not fighting our military, hunting, target shooting or even defense. The purpose of the Second Amendment is deterrence. Pure and simple.

A single armed individual can deter dozens of heavily armed law enforcement officials, as we saw recently in Texas, yet an unarmed individual is easily taken into custody at five in the morning by 20 or so heavily armed storm troopers while CNN films the entire affair.

There has been no gun confiscation because millions of firearms are owned by law-abiding citizens. This is the deterrence that the founders knew would be needed when corruption ultimately prevailed in Washington.

Corrupt politicians along with their naïve cohorts on both sides of the aisle are in a dead heat to make firearms ownership too complicated, too difficult and too expensive for the average individual.

If successful, only the elite will have armed security. The rest of us will be statistics for politicians to pontificate about when they talk down to the unwashed and ignorant masses, begging them for law and order.

I’m not willing to compromise on this because compromise is just losing at a slower rate. When it comes to individual liberty and rights there can be no compromise — especially when the proposed compromises do nothing to address the mentally ill, the evil, the criminal and those intent on doing harm.

Every proposed encroachment on our rights is just that — an encroachment with no net benefit.

While many have compromised on perversion, distortions of reality, acceptance of idiocy, alternate realities and indoctrination of their children, I for one will not compromise on the Second Amendment … period.

You’re being lied to about “mass shootings”. Here’s the truth. – and it’s loaded with USDOJ-funded research.

The latest data on mass shootings from the National Institute of Justice of the US Department of Justice and the Rand Corporation.

There are no standard definitions of mass shootings. There are no easy answers.

Source

National Institute Of Justice-Rand

Article

I was interviewed on a national television show about research-based answers to mass shootings. Beyond condemning those involved, I stumbled. I knew that there were few (if any) firm answers or guidance.

That’s not the case for some doing similar interviews. Many are quick to promote firearm controls or red flag laws or suggest that there are effective answers. That’s simply not the case. The complexities and price tags for the proposals are immense.

For example, we within the justice system acknowledge our inability to keep track of convicted-fingerprinted felons and maintain accurate records. There are vast inaccuracies. Now, we want to do national or state databases for those with ever-changing mental health conditions?

It will be a logistical and financial nightmare with probable ACLU challenges. It’s not going to work beyond those committed to institutions and even then, conditions change.

As of this writing, the latest Congressional proposals are available via CNN.

It’s time to examine the best available data on the subject. Note that varied definitions of mass shootings and whether they were public (inferring unknown victims) or private (inferring known victims) will be difficult to follow. Previous research suggests that most victims of mass shootings were known to the shooter.

There are few firm conclusions based on research. Policy issues are elusive. The emphasis is on assault weapons when the overwhelming majority of mass shootings involve handguns (while noting that many mass shooters carry a variety of weapons).

You’re going to get different policy perspectives from different groups, see Politico.

Policy Solutions to Address Mass Shootings was offered by the National Institute of Justice and Rockefeller Institute of Government in August of 2021.

The Best Available Data

What “is” useful is a 2021 document from the National Institute of Justice of the US Department of Justice and the Rand Corporation (one of the best crime-related research organizations in the nation) summarizing what we know and don’t know about mass shootings. What’s below is from that document. It’s a tool kit for understanding “and” responding to mass shootings.

Most will be a bit frustrated by the lack of clarity as to what constitutes a mass shooting, who commits them, their mental health issues, and what can be done.

Those in law enforcement are exasperated by the national call for cops to be guardians, not warriors which seem wildly misplaced because law enforcement is expected to enter a mass shooting and stop the shooter, which requires endless tactical training and equipment.

In an earlier article, I point out that the great majority of what we call gun violence is street-level violent crime, not mass shooters. I suggest that the explosion of media coverage of mass shootings is somewhat misplaced; the vast majority of victims of gun violence are people of color and society has become immune to that violence.

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Well, I’m actually a bit surprised. Pelousy apparently got the word to get the SCOTUS security bill voted on.

27 Dems voted against increased security for Supreme Court justices days after Kavanaugh threat

The House passed a bill Tuesday to increase security for Supreme Court justices’ immediate families, with 27 Democrats voting against, less than a week after a man was arrested for allegedly plotting to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The bill that’s now headed to President Biden’s desk for final approval provides for 24-hour protection for Supreme Court justices’ families, similar to what is already provided for some members of the executive and legislative branches.

The House voted 396-27, approving a measure that had already been passed by unanimous consent in the Senate in May just days after a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion suggested it intends to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Democrats who opposed the bill argued that it also needed to include protection for court staff, including clerks, and their families.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., boasted in an Instagram video on Saturday about initially blocking the bill.

“I wake up this morning and I start to hear murmurs that there is going to be an attempt to pass the Supreme Court supplemental protection bill the day after gun safety legislation for schools and kids and people is stalled,” she said in the video. “Oh, so we can pass protections for us and here easily, right? But we can’t pass protections for everyday people?” she continued. “I think not.”

All those who voted “no” on the Supreme Court Police Parity Act on Tuesday were Democrats. They are:
Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio
Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y.
Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo.
Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas
Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y.
Rep. Chuy Garcia, D-Ill.
Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas
Rep. Joshua Gottheimer, D-N.J.
Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz.
Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.
Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Mich.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif.
Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J.
Rep. Marie Newman, D-Ill.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J.
Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J.
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J.
Rep. Albio Sires, D-N.J.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.
Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif.,
Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.

Observation O’ The Day

On the one hand, this is despicable. On the other, as the Court ponders Second Amendment rights, it’s an illustration of how the authorities withhold police protection from unpopular groups, using the threat of tolerated “private” violence to serve their own ends. A good reason to be able to defend yourself.
–Professor Glenn Reynolds

Pelosi again declines to pass SCOTUS safety bill.

It Seems the Democrats Kinda Sorta Want a Conservative Justice to Get Killed.

As we sit around waiting for Gropey Joe Biden to denounce the assassination attempt of Justice Kavanaugh, it becomes obvious why he hasn’t. He and the bolshie Democrats seem to want a conservative justice from the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to die or retire. That would make the commie takeover almost complete. And what better way to make that happen than to make it easy to do?

FAST FACTS:

  • A SCOTUS memo about kicking the abortion debate back to the states was leaked earlier this year. Protestors began to march outside the homes of various conservative justices.
  • The Biden admin refused to denounce the protesting taking place at the homes of the justices.
  • A man armed with a gun, knife, pepper spray, and zip ties was arrested outside of Justice Kavanaugh’s house.
  • The Senate unanimously voted for more security for SCOTUS justices but House Democrats refuse to advance the bill.

“This is where we are,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stated from the floor of the Senate: “An assassination attempt against a sitting justice or something close to it.” McConnell continued, “This is exactly the kind of event that many worried that the unhinged, reckless, apocalyptic rhetoric from prominent figures ​toward the court ​going back many months, and especially in recent weeks, could make more likely.” ​

When McConnell said “unhinged, reckless, apocalyptic rhetoric from prominent figures ​toward the court​ ​going back many months,” he was likely referring to New York’s leading shape-shifter, Chuck Schumer.

But House Democrats, in a new and yet unsurprising level of slimy, lizard-person-like turpitude, have decided to sit on their filthy hands rather than protect conservative justices. What could go wrong?

For starters, anyone who watched the Democrats’ brownshirts, Antifa and BLM, torch the country with near impunity realizes that killing, burning, and looting is okay for Team Donkey.

Lefty politicians and district attorneys made anarchy easy for the rioters. Leading Democrats like Kamala Harris were eager to assist the Marxy frondeurs.

PINKO-RAMA! Almost 50% of Portland rioters who were arrested had their federal charges dropped. Awww, did some poor Antifa prags get cuffed? That’s okay, Kamala Harris pimped for some mad stacks to get those insurrectionists bailed out of the hoosegow.

Most of the mainstream news peeps are ignoring the fact that the die-hard leftist whackjob who traveled from California to kill Kavanaugh had zip ties with him. He wanted people bound and defenseless. Perhaps killing wasn’t the only demonic plan he had in mind.

The would-be assassin, comrade Nicholas Roske, told the FBI he wanted to kill Kavanaugh because he was upset over the Dobbs v. Jackson leak and the Uvalde shooting as well. He believed Kavanaugh would loosen gun control laws. Never mind that the Supreme Court doesn’t “loosen” laws.

Conservative justices have a target on them. Here’s why:

  • The president refuses to condemn the protesting taking place outside of the justices’ homes.
  • House Democrats are stalling more security for justices.
  • Local law enforcement officials refuse to arrest the protesters, despite the attempt on Kavanaugh’s life, and even though protesting outside a SCOTUS justice’s house is illegal.

Biden, House Democrats, and even the local cops (or whoever is telling them to stand down) are creating the perfect storm for an assassination. On every level, the justices are sitting ducks.

None of this is an accident. It’s the next step in the Democommies’ plan to take over the United States. If a conservative justice resigns or dies, the Democrats have full control.

It’s gonna be a hot summer.

Guns Kill People, and Tyrants with Gun Monopolies Kill the Most
In the long term, disarmament often leads to mass murder by government.

My forthcoming article in the Gonzaga Journal of International Law examines the comparative risks of too little gun control and too much gun control. Here’s the abstract:

What are the relative risks of a nation having too many guns compared to the risks of the nation having too few guns? Comparing and contrasting Europe and the United States during the twentieth century, the article finds that the United States might have suffered up to three-quarters of million excess firearms homicide over the course of the century—based on certain assumptions made to maximize the highest possible figure.

In contrast, during the twentieth century Europe suffered 87 million excess homicides against civilians by mass-murdering tyrannical governments. The article suggests that Americans should not be complacent that they have some perpetual immunity to being subjected to tyranny.

The historical record shows that governments planning mass murder work assiduously to disarm their intended victims. While victim resistance cannot necessarily overthrow a tyrannical regime, resistance does save many lives.

Part I describes tensions in some treaties, declarations, and other legal documents from the United Nations and the European Union. On the one hand, they recognize the legitimacy of resistance to tyranny and genocide; on the other hand, the UN and EU gun control programs seem to make armed resistance nearly impossible.

Part II contrasts homicide data for the United States and Europe during the twentieth century. First, data about homicides from ordinary crimes are examined. Based on certain (incorrect) assumptions that bias the figure upward, if the U.S. had the same gun homicide rate as Europe’s, there might have been 745,000 fewer deaths in America during the twentieth century.

Next, Part II looks more broadly at homicide, to include homicides perpetrated by governments, such as communist or fascist regimes. In Europe in the twentieth century, states murdered about 87.1 million people. Globally, governments murdered well over 200 million people. The figure does not include combat deaths from wars.

As Part III explains, totalitarian governments are the most likely to perpetrate mass murder. The Part argues against the complacent belief that any nation, including the United States, is immune from the dangers of being taken over by a murderous government. The historical record indicates that risks are very broad. Globally, only eight  nations maintained democratic self-government for the entire twentieth century. The refusal of many Republicans in 2020 and many Democrats in 2016 to accept the presidential election results is one of many signs that American democracy is presently in peril.

Part IV shows that governments intent on mass murder prioritize victim disarmament because they consider it to be a serious impediment to mass murder and tyrannical rule.

Finally, Part V examines the efficacy of citizen arms against mass murdering governments. Citizen arms are most effective as deterrents. However, even without changing the regime, armed resistance can accomplish much and save many lives, as the twentieth century shows. Examples include Jewish resistance to the Nazis, Armenian and Assyrian resistance to the Ottoman Empire, Tibetan resistance to Chinese Communist invasion, and the Nuban resistance to the Sudanese regime.

The Conclusion suggests that the UN and EU should adopt a more balanced gun control policy, recognizing the value of citizen arms in protecting the public from tyranny and mass murder.

The article does not argue for or against particular gun control laws, other than gun registration; as the article shows, gun registration often facilitates gun confiscation.

This is not ‘journalism’. This is theater. And it’s deceitful theater at that.
Can you count how many lies were told?

Well, when all they have is deceit

The Left’s Artificial Inflation of Mass Shooting Numbers

Left-leaning media outlets like CNN and The Washington Post claim there have been hundreds of mass shootings this year alone. The real numbers are much lower.

The figures they use are based on data from the Gun Violence Archive which currently clocks the number of mass shootings in 2022 at 251, on par with the number of shootings on their record this time last year.

The FBI does not have numbers yet for 2022, but in 2021 they reported 61 active shooter incidents. Only 12 of those were considered mass killings according to the federal definition which says three or more deaths constitute a mass killing. The GVA, on the other hand, reported 692 mass shootings in 2021. That’s more than 11 times greater than the FBI’s official recorded number.

The culprit of the difference between the two agencies’ numbers is that the FBI gathers data on active shooter incidents and the GVA counts mass shootings. The two terms have slightly different definitions. However, the FBI’s active shooter data contains comparable information to the GVA’s mass shooting data.

In fact, the difference between how the FBI defines an active shooter and how the GVA defines a mass shooting reveals how the larger numbers provided by the GVA’s data collection criteria can be twisted by the left to spread fear and further their gun-grabbing agenda.

The GVA says a mass shooting occurs when there are “Four or more shot and/or killed in a single event [incident], at the same general time and location not including the shooter.” They also note the way they collect their mass shooting information (via GVA):

GVA uses a purely statistical threshold to define mass shooting based ONLY on the numeric value of 4 or more shot or killed, not including the shooter. GVA does not parse the definition to remove any subcategory of shooting. To that end we don’t exclude, set apart, caveat, or differentiate victims based upon the circumstances in which they were shot.

GVA believes that equal importance is given to the counting of those injured as well as killed in a mass shooting incident.

The FBI does not define Mass Shooting in any form. They do define Mass Killing but that includes all forms of weapon, not just guns.

In that, the criteria are simple…if four or more people are shot or killed in a single incident, not including the shooter, that incident is categorized as a mass shooting based purely on that numerical threshold.

Note that the GVA definition of a mass shooting does not have a threshold number of deaths required to define an incident of gun violence as a mass shooting.

The FBI defines an active shooter as follows (via FBI):

One or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.

The FBI also looks at the inclusion of the following features to determine whether or not an incident is an active shooter event (via FBI):

Shootings in public places, shootings occurring at more than one location, shootings where the shooter’s actions were not the result of another criminal act, shootings resulting in a mass killing, shootings indicating apparent spontaneity by the shooter, shootings where the shooter appeared to methodically search for potential victims, shootings that appeared focused on injury to people, not buildings or objects.

In their reported numbers of active shooter incidents, the FBI does not include incidents of gun violence that result from the following (via FBI):

Self defense, gang violence, drug violence, contained residential or domestic disputes, controlled barricade/hostage situations, crossfire as a byproduct of another ongoing criminal act, an action that appeared not to have put other people in peril.

These criteria make the FBI’s definition of an active shooter much more exclusive. Because of the GVA’s broad definition of a mass shooting, they would count incidents fitting the above descriptions as mass shootings so long as four or more people were injured or killed.

In other words, if someone was attacked by multiple criminals and shot the attackers out of self defense, the GVA would consider it a mass shooting. If four or more people were shot in an incident of gang violence, the GVA would consider it a mass shooting, and so on.

These sorts of shootings are no less significant, but by labeling every incident of gun violence affecting four or more people a “mass shooting,” the Left makes it sound like acts of violence on the same scale as Uvalde or Buffalo happen every day.

The term mass shooting has strong connotations that are not applicable to most of the shootings in the GVA’s numbers. As Katie wrote, referring to something as a mass shooting implies a lot more than the number of people shot.

All violent crime should be cause for concern and the GVA’s numbers reveal violence is no small issue in the United States. But untruthfully referring to so many of these incidents of violent crime as mass shootings is just a fear-mongering tactic used by the Left to push their agenda of greater government control over law abiding citizens.

The Power to Tax and Regulate Guns is the Power to Disarm Women and Minorities

The world has changed. Racial minorities are buying guns for lawful self-protection more than ever before. Urban women are the fastest growing segment of legal gun owners. That is wonderful news and long overdue. Tempering that good news are the unfortunate conditions in our inner cities that may have provided new motivations to own a gun. Recently we’re seeing gun-prohibitionist Democrats propose huge taxes on guns just as minority members of society become gun owners. We’ve seen this political behavior before, and politicians repeat behavior that works. It looks like Democrat politicians are doing it again, and racism and political advantage are always wrapped in the excuses of public safety.

Home Defender by Oleg Volk, image used with permission

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Because the AR-15 Can Deter a Mob
Americans deserve the chance to protect themselves from rampaging mobs and (God forbid) the government itself if tyranny arises.

*****

Now to the point. This is not a piece about dealing with misinformation. Official efforts to combat “misinformation” are laughably political and partisan. This is about gun control. Why do Americans need AR-15s with a high capacity magazine? Because too often, mobs inflamed by planted rumors are allowed (even encouraged) to rampage through American communities. Ask Kyle Rittenhouse. The AR-15 is a jury-approved tool of self-defense against a mob of attackers.

Mobs like these don’t materialize in a vacuum. Tyrants, dating back to the Romans, have employed mobs to influence politics. Mussolini, Mao, Hitler, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran, all developed an “on and off” switch for their street goons. And no, it’s not different when the mob is inflamed by social justice concerns. Every mob since before the Romans claims to be fighting for justice of some kind.

Recall that Kamala Harris rather conspicuously pledged to “stand by” Kenosha rioters and helped raise money for Minneapolis rioters who burned down an entire police facility. Biden excused the Kenosha riots on the grounds of “the original sin in this country . . . slavery, and all the vestigages of it.” One should not hold one’s breath for help from the Biden Administration if one’s city descends into chaos.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey and Kyle Rittenhouse have demonstrated that the AR-15 with a conspicuous high-capacity magazine is the appropriate tool to deter a mob (in the case of the McCloskeys) and may be wielded as a legitimate instrument of self-defense (in the case of Rittenhouse). And, as I pointed out in 2020,

Americans can also see that powerful rifles are turning up in the possession of violent rioters and looters. In this video, one can clearly see Raz Simone, then a noted leader within Seattle’s ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,’ handing out an expensive, tricked-out AR-15 to a complete stranger.

Simone somehow went from an Airbnb host to a Tesla-driving, arsenal-distributing mogul in the space of a few weeks. As shown in this video, a militant left-wing militia group called NFAC . . . staged an armed protest in Kentucky during which an accidental discharge wounded three people.

Unfortunately, we live at a time when social and legacy media help agitators spread lies to incite mob violence. And for a variety of reasons, one may not be able to count on law enforcement to engage a violent threat. Once the threat materializes, it’s possible that the police will “maintain a perimeter” while “waiting for equipment and backup,” while people continue to die. Jurisdictions governed by the Left have been particularly brazen about selective protection based on politics. The University of California recently was forced to settle a lawsuit charging that UC Berkeley withheld security and protection from conservative speakers.

Americans deserve the chance to protect themselves from rampaging mobs and (God forbid) the government itself if tyranny arises. And they should not take for granted that their Republican representatives will stand firm to protect these rights.

Things are different now. Gun confiscators are willing to weather the backlash of moderate gun owners to achieve their greater objectives. Indeed, the hopeless condition of their midterm prospects leaves them with little to lose. It’s in the air. The NRA is bankrupt and compromised. Anti-gun forces (not all of them Democrats) control Congress and the White House. And before you count on the Supreme Court, remember the mob now knows where each of the conservative justices live. The Second Amendment has never been in greater peril.

Constitutional Rights vs. Ideological Rights

On 31 July 1982 I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign, and domestic. Today I am the Executive Director of the American Constitutional Rights Union (ACRU).

As a career military serviceman and combat veteran, I believe the oath that I took then has no statute of limitations.  As a Member of Congress, that oath was my guiding principle and light, as the Constitution is our rule of law.

The U.S. Constitution was established to restrain the powers of the federal government.  As a matter of fact, when you read Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution you will find the (18) enumerated duties of the legislative branch, the most powerful of our three branches of government.  Article II and Article III lay out the duties, qualifications, duties, responsibilities and scope of the executive and judicial branches.  Our founders intentionally described and limited the federal government.

Unfortunately, the left does not subscribe to these limitations.  Today there exists competing philosophies of governance — constitutional conservatism and progressive socialism. Leftists do not believe in the absolutism of the Constitution, our rule of law, and certainly not the ideal of constitutional rights. Leftists believe in the dangerous concept of ideological rights.

The left in America embraces an ideal that is the antithesis of our constitutional rights. They believe their ideology defines our rights.  They believe they can grant and take our rights away.

I find very disconcerting the repeated assertion by the current occupant of the oval office, Joe Biden, that no amendment to the Constitution is absolute.  His current focus is the Second Amendment, whose language is quite simple and forthright.  His line has been parroted by many progressive socialists, elected officials and media pundits.

The Second Amendment is part of our individual Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. It is established in our founding documents, along the principle of natural rights theory, that our unalienable rights and all individual rights come to us from our Creator God, the Judeo-Christian God. They do not emanate from the government, and that is codified in our Declaration of Independence which Thomas Jefferson referred to as the “laws of nature and nature’s God”.

Here we have the President of these United States of America who took an oath to uphold the Constitution declaring our constitutional rights are not absolute.

The left tells us that we have a right to healthcare. We have a right to free college education. We have a right to change our gender.  None of these are enumerated rights, but they are ideological rights of the Left.

Once upon a time, during the Carter administration, the Left told us that every American had a right to own a home. They passed legislation called the Community Reinvestment Act which led to the subprime mortgage crisis and financial meltdown some 30 years later.  Just last week a Democrat Congressman from Rhode Island publicly stated that he deemed constitutional rights as bovine excrement. Yes, a US Congressman who is supposed to have taken an oath to the Constitution says constitutional rights are BS!

Now you can see why we need an organization called the American Constitutional Rights Union?

If no amendment to the Constitution is absolute, then I guess the left wants to make me a slave again? Recall, Democrats did not support the 13th and 14th Amendments. Today, this same group, who now embraces socialism and Marxism, is promoting economic enslavement.

If the left in America is able to define our rights based upon their ideological agenda and have it enforced by the rule of the mob…America faces dark days ahead. And if the Left is successful in disarming the American populace, their sponsored mob, Antifa, will leverage coercion, threats, intimidation, fear, and violence against anyone not in compliance.

If the progressive socialist left does not like our Constitution, they can go through the amendment process. Passing ideologically based laws, or issuing edicts, orders, mandates, and decrees, does not override our constitutional rights.

Recall, our respective States would not ratify our constitution until it had an individual Bill of Rights. The 10th Amendment clearly states, “All the powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the States and to the People.” If the 10th Amendment is not absolute, then the leftists in America become the repository of all power in America.

America is the longest running Constitutional Republic because of individual constitutional rights…not rights based upon progressive, socialist, statist, Marxist ideology.

Steadfast and Loyal.

Feminist Naomi Wolf takes the red pill and takes the first tentative steps on the path to see reality

BLUF
Without the brilliantly-conceived and clearly-worded Second Amendment, without the deterrent to state and transnational violence of responsible, lawful, careful and defensive firearms ownership in the United States of America, it is clear that nothing at all will save our citizens from the current fates of the people of China, Australia and Canada; including the children; who are facing — unarmed, defenseless as their parents sadly are — even worse fates, perhaps, still ahead.

Rethinking the Second Amendment

I wrote this essay some weeks ago, but I kept waiting to publish it til tragic mass shootings were no longer in the news. But that day looks as if it will never come, so I am publishing it anyway, with grief and mourning for those lost to gun violence, as we must nonetheless have this difficult conversation.

The last thing keeping us free in America, as the lights go off all over Europe- and Australia, and Canada – is, yes, we must face this fact, the Second Amendment.

I can’t believe I am writing those words. But here we are and I stand by them.

I am a child of the peace movement. A daughter of the Left, of a dashingly-bearded proto-Beatnik poet, my late dad, and of a Summer of Love activist/cultural anthropologist, my lovely mom. We are a lineage of anti-war, longhaired folks who believe in talking things out.

By the time I was growing up in California in the 1960s and 1970s, weapons were supposed to have become passe. When I played at friends’ houses in our neighborhood in San Francisco, there were posters on the walls: “War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things.” Protesters had iconically placed daisies in the rifle barrels of unhip-looking National Guardsmen.

We were obviously supposed to side with the daisies.

Weapons were archaic, benighted — tacky. A general peace was surely to prevail, in the dawning Age of Aquarius.

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Food security is national security and a crisis is coming.

I first drove the semi on my family’s farm when I was around 12 years old. My dad and I were leaving the field with a full load of corn, when he told me to take the wheel, giving his only advice before climbing down: “Make your corners wide.”

From my family’s farm to the State Committee for the USDA Farm Service Agency to the House Agriculture Committee, I have worked in agriculture in some capacity since I could walk. Now as South Dakota’s governor, I serve alongside a third-generation cattle rancher, Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden. We are the only farmer-rancher pair to lead a state’s executive branch, and we are both deeply concerned: America’s food supply system is at risk.

To keep our food supply consistent and affordable for all families, it is essential that no one else controls it. When another nation controls your food, it controls you. Our leaders recognized this threat and put in place risk management tools and programs to ensure Americans would never go hungry because of a foreign entity’s influence.

But for years now, foreign countries have been investing in our food supply chain, buying up the chemical and fertilizer companies that make American agriculture possible. Purchasing processing facilities, they have introduced vulnerability into the food supply chains Americans rely on to eat. Today, China is buying up millions of acres of land across the United States, following the same blueprint they have used in other countries for years.

While Americans have awakened to China’s military expansion and its grab for critical minerals worldwide, we have not yet realized our strategic vulnerability when it comes to our nation’s food supply.

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THE Red-Headed libertarian™ Profile picture

The Second Amendment was inspired by British plans to disarm every American.

A part of you probably already knew this, but didn’t have the details.

I’m about to chill you to the bones And give you every piece of evidence you need moving forward. So buckle up.
It began In 1768, “the freeholders” led by John Hancock and James Otis, met in Boston at Faneuil Hall and passed several resolutions. Including “that the Subjects being Protestants, may have Arms for their Defense.”

The royal governor rejected this proposal.

So this petition was circulated under the pseudonym “A.B.C.” (Who was more than likely Sam Adams)Image
Shortly after Sam Adams’ petition was circulated, per the Boston Evening Post, (Oct. 3, 1768) British troops took over Faneuil Hall.

And per The New York Journal, (Feb. 2, 1769) they ordered colonists turn in their guns.Image

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