Category: RKBA

Like actors have any claim to authority.
How does; No, work for you Matthew?

McConaughey calls for background checks, waiting periods, & more.. but don’t call it “gun control”

No, the actor and native of Uvalde, Texas wants you to think of his laundry list of proposed new laws as “gun responsibility” instead.

To his credit, Matthew McConaughey doesn’t call for an outright ban on any firearm in his USA Today op-ed, but there’s still plenty of talk of “reasonable compromises” and “commonsense solutions” in demands for a host of new gun laws that he claims will “immediately reduce the gun violence tragedies that have become too common in our country.”

McConaughey lays out four new measures he wants to see in place: universal background checks, a ban on sales of modern sporting rifles to adults under the age of 21, the establishment of “red flag” laws in all 50 states, and an undefined waiting period on all sales of semi-automatic rifles.

Integrating gun safety training, safe storage proposals, and bolstering school safety are also beneficial, but are not government-only solutions. Companies, private organizations, and responsible gun owners have a big role to play.

I want to be clear. I am not under the illusion that these policies will solve all of our problems, but if responsible solutions can stop some of these tragedies from striking another community without destroying the Second Amendment, they’re worth it.

This is not a choice between guns or no guns. It’s the responsible choice. It’s the reasonable choice. It’s a quintessentially American choice: Where I have the right to be me, you have the freedom to be you, and we have the responsibility to be US.

To find common ground on this issue, both sides are going to have to answer the call and reach for the higher ground of our collective responsibility.

Business as usual isn’t working. “That’s just how it is” cannot be an excuse. The heinous bloodshed of innocent people cannot become bearable. If we continue to just stand by, we’re living a lie. With every right there comes a duty.

For ourselves, our children, and our fellow Americans—we have a duty to be responsible gun owners. Please do yours and protect the Second Amendment through gun responsibility. It’s time for real leaders to step up and do what’s right, so we can each and all just keep livin’.

The simplest argument against McConaughey’s recommendations are that each and every one of his proposals are already law in the state of California, which, according to the FBI, had the highest number of active shooter incidents in the country last year. If he truly believes that his “reasonable” and “responsible” measures will have an immediate impact, he should at least be able to explain why they’ve failed to do so in the Golden State.

Then there’s the fact that many people don’t actually view this measures as “reasonable” at all, especially once they start to look at the fine print. Universal background checks typically poll well, as McConaughey himself noted, but when voters actually have a chance to approve them, the results aren’t anywhere close to the 80-90% support shown in public opinion polls. Maine’s voter referendum in 2016 failed to get 50% of the vote, for instance, while Nevada’s referendum that same year squeaked by with 51% of the vote. Since then Maine’s violent crime and homicide rates have continued be among the lowest in the nation, while shooting and homicides have continued to increase in Nevada, particularly around Las Vegas.

Southern Nevada’s largest law enforcement agency, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, handled 185 of last year’s killings, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

Homicide Lt. Ray Spencer, in a recent interview, attributed the busiest year since he began heading the unit in 2018 to easy access to guns. He cited loaded firearms found in nightstands and cars.

“The access juveniles and criminals are able to get to firearms is concerning,” he said. “That’s probably the biggest reason on what’s driving our homicide numbers is that guns are so easily stolen and accessible.”

Criminals will find a way to illegally get ahold of guns even in states with “universal background checks” on the books, and because there’s no way to proactively enforce the law requiring private person-to-person sales to go through a federally licensed firearms dealer, these laws have little-to-no deterrent effect on preventing or reducing violent crime.

In his op-ed, McConaughey acknowledged that “the need for mental health care, school safety, the prevalence of sensationalized media coverage, and the decaying state of American values are all long-term societal factors that must be addressed,” but claimed that we “don’t have the luxury of time” to deal with those underlying issues. Why not, if they’re actually going to be more effective at preventing these types of attacks than the gun control solutions he’s offering? I’d argue it’s much more reasonable to address our mental health crisis and school security than passing gun control laws that are all too often ineffective, unconstitutional, or both.

I don’t fault McConaughey for reaching for what he believes are “reasonable” responses to the horrific murders in Uvalde, but a gun control solution to this issue only takes us further away from but both realistic and reasonable strategies to stop these kinds of killings; better enforcement of the laws on the books (including violent crimes), improving access to mental health treatment (both in-patient and out-patient options), and ensuring that our most vulnerable are protected from attack on school grounds while recognizing the right of the people to bear arms in self-defense.

Because they know they’d lose

Murphy rules out assault weapons ban, new background checks in Senate plan
Among the proposals on the table are investments in mental health care and school safety and “modest but impactful” changes in gun laws, said Sen. Chris Murphy.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy, who is helping lead Senate talks on gun control, said lawmakers don’t plan to bring any bill to the floor that would ban assault weapons or include comprehensive background checks but are actively working on legislation that would include a range of other measures.

“We’re not going to put a piece of legislation on the table that’s going to ban assault weapons, or we’re not going to pass comprehensive background checks,” Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But right now, people in this country want us to make progress. They just don’t want the status quo to continue for another 30 years.”

He’s right about the ‘status quo’ Gun control laws must be repealed.

Among the items currently on the table are investments in mental health care and school safety, red flag laws and changes to strengthen the background check system, said Murphy.

Gun-Control’s Latest Contradiction with Charles C.W. Cooke

No Compromise on Guns

Here is my proposed gun control compromise following the latest attack on children that millions of us did not commit. Ready? You gun fascists can kiss my Schumer and we keep our guns. In fact, let’s also repeal the National Firearms Act and impose national constitutional carry. I think this compromise fairly balances our respective legitimate interests regarding guns. Our legitimate interest is maintaining the capacity to deter and defeat tyrants and criminals. Your legitimate interest in limiting our ability to do so is non-existent.

There are several Republicans who are apparently eager to come to a compromise on guns with the Democrats, whose ultimate goal is to rule unchallenged over a nation of disarmed, supine Canadian serfs. Some are lawyers, which explains why they are in Congress and not raking in bucks lawyering. If I went to one of my clients and suggested, “Okay, I propose we resolve this matter by giving the other side a lot of money and getting nothing in return,” I would have to find an alternate income stream too.

The idea of a compromise involves getting something you want but giving away something to get it. So far, so good – that’s how negotiating works. But the key point is to get something you want. Here, what we get is that we lose less than they want us to ultimately lose. Instead of banning “assault rifles” completely – every healthy, law-abiding adult citizen should have a real military assault rifle, but that’s a tangent – the proposed “compromise” seems to be just to ban them completely for some younger adult citizens. See, I’m missing the part where we get something in return instead of merely losing less. But the durwoods of the softcon wing of the GOP seem pretty eager to fail less spectacularly than they might otherwise and call it a victory.

Of course, this effectively buys into the premise that there is something wrong with guns. There is not. Guns, as I point out in my new book “We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America,” are an essential element of any free society. Australia gave up its guns and look at them. Canada, too. Nah, I say we unreservedly reserve our ultimate veto over tyranny.

People who wish us ill wish the opposite. Recently, Chris Hayes, the bespectacled nimrod who holds the briefcase of the slightly more masculine Rachel Maddow at MSNBC, recently simpered that a lot of Americans insist on keeping their guns to fight tyrannical government agents. Well, yeah. Exactly. Nothing gets by him. Weird that he would reach back about 250 years to oppose the Revolutionary War, but whatever. Sissies gotta siss.

The unspoken premise of the people outraged that the citizenry wants to retain the ultimate veto on government power is that they are the ones who will be wielding that government power. And you need to wonder why they want us disarmed.

Actually, you don’t. You lived through COVID and know.

In support of this noxious notion come some establishment people waving their credentials on Twitter around like you should simply defer to them. One is a major general who used to run my alma mater, the Infantry School at Ft. Benning. According to the general, he gets it. He knows that these are weapons of war and that we civilians don’t need them. Well, not so much.

As much as I love generals [INSERT THEATRICAL EYE-ROLL HERE], I must point out some problems with the two-star’s premise. A major general typically commands a division of about 15,000. He is a conductor of organized violence, operating in the macro. Of course, he understands what a 5.56mm/.223 round can do. You know who else knows what a 5.56mm/.223 round can do? Me and every other vet who ever shot one, as well as the 20 million or more Americans who own AR-15s and the tens of millions of others who have used them. So, there’s no special expertise there.

We know those rounds can hurt people. That’s why we want them. To hurt bad people if deterrence fails. That’s why in the LA Riots, the Army gave me a 5.56mm rifle to carry. I just think everyone else should get the same protection I had.

The general goes further than mere technical details and opines that such weapons do not belong in the possession of anyone outside the military, where, presumably, people like him can control their use. But that’s not a technical issue for which he is offering his expertise. That’s a policy issue. Why is a former (but sympathetic) government official under the impression that his past position gives him some sort of special expertise that we should defer to in terms of foundational constitutional policy, i.e., whether or not citizens should have the capacity to resist violent tyranny? The answer is that he doesn’t, and the fact that guys like him are presumably the ones who would be called upon to carry out the dirty work of a tyrannical government (in the remote but potential scenario where that might happen in the future) actually makes him the very worst person to opine on the policy.

But you are supposed to be dazzled by the stars and submit. You can be sure there are GOP dummies just aching to, held back only by Mitch McConnell – the frustrating Murder Turtle who nevertheless is no dummy – whispering in their ears that screwing us over on guns is just about the only thing that can turn an electoral environment of $6 a gallon gas and public school groomers into a Republican rout.

No, this is not the time to go soft. This is not the time to indulge the perennial Republican disease of craven spinelessness in the face of Democrats and their regime media minions screaming lies about them. This is the time to say “No.”

No compromise on our rights. Not now. Not ever.

Biden’s Inner Trudeau: On Guns, the President seems to be Operating Under the Wrong Constitution

Below is my column in The Hill on the calls for gun bans after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas. The massacre has already been used as the basis for calls to end the filibuster, pack the court, limits on gun ownership, and outright bans. One member called for all of the above. The rhetoric is again outstripping the reality of constitutional and practical limits for gun control. Last night, President Joe Biden formally called for banning “assault weapons” while repeating the dubious claim that an earlier ban sharply reduced mass shootings.

Here is the column:

In our increasingly hateful and divisive politics, there are times when our nation seems incapable of coming together for a common purpose. Tragedies — moments of shared national grieving and mutual support — once were the exception. Yet one of the most chilling aspects of the aftermath of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, was how the moment of unity was quickly lost to political posturing.

Politicians have long admitted that a crisis is an opportunity not to be missed — the greater the tragedy, the greater the opportunity. After the mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket, New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) called for censorship to “silence the voices of hatred and racism.” After the Uvalde massacre, some Democrats renewed calls for everything from court packing to ending the Senate filibuster.

The most immediate response, however, was a call for gun bans. Vice President Kamala Harris got out front of the White House by demanding a ban on AR-15s, the most popular weapon in America. Then President Joe Biden created a stir by suggesting he might seek to ban 9mm weapons.

Such calls are not limited to the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government is introducing legislation to “implement a national freeze on handgun ownership.” He said Canadians would no longer be able “to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” adding that “there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives.”

The difference between the push in the two countries is the existence of the Second Amendment in the United States — a constitutionally mandated “reason” why Americans are allowed to have guns; they don’t have to prove it to the government.

While the White House subsequently tried to walk back his comments, Biden saying there’s “no rational basis” to own 9mms and AR-15s sounds like he’s channeling his inner Canadian.

There is now a strong majority for gun control reforms. However, politicians are once again ignoring what is constitutionally possible by focusing on what is politically popular with their voting base.

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NY Times gets it right: polls showing support for gun control doesn’t mean the votes are there

How many times have you seen a news article talking about how most people support gun control? I know I’ve seen it a ton over the years. The media and politicians latch onto poll numbers as if they’re sacrosanct, telling us this proves the public supports them.

Then the election rolls around and gun control doesn’t seem to make a blip on the radar.

Over at the New York Times, they decided to delve into just why that is.

It’s one of the most puzzling questions for Democrats in American politics: Why is the political system so unresponsive to gun violence? Expanded background checks routinely receive more than 80 percent or 90 percent support in polling. Yet gun control legislation usually gets stymied in Washington and Republicans never seem to pay a political price for their opposition.

There have been countless explanations offered about why political reality seems so at odds with the polling, including the power of the gun lobby; the importance of single-issue voters; and the outsize influence of rural states in the Senate.

But there’s another possibility, one that might be the most sobering of all for gun control supporters: Their problem could also be the voters, not just politicians or special interests.

Oh, blaming the voters, right?

Not really.

You see, the argument being made isn’t that the voters are somehow wrong, but that issue polling is, well, useless.

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‘Killing Weapon’? So he wants what; Nerf Guns with marshmallow bullets? Using any gun is using a ‘killing weapon’. That’s why they’re referred to as a class of ‘deadly weapon’
And, again, it’s not about ‘need’. That comes from communism.
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”
— Karl Marx

“It’s a killing weapon, and we don’t need them.” Sisolak blasts assault weapon ownership at rally

****

Sisolak claimed assault style weapons weren’t designed for self defense calling them “weapons of war” not protected under the second amendment.

“The nonsense that it’s a right, well then why isn’t it a right to have a rocket launcher, or to drive a tank instead of a car,” he said……..

In point of fact, you can have a rocket launcher and a fully armed tank, as well as artillery. All it takes is money, and in the case of explosives, proper storage. And yet these mental midgets get elected to high office.

99.99% of NICS denials are not prosecuted because they are false denials.

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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BLUF
Disarmament, national or personal, is not a moral stance, but the abandonment of morality.

Gun controllers have had a field day with the inaction of the Uvalde cops, but it never occurs to them that’s who they are, standing around, wringing their hands and waiting for someone to tell them what the plan is, so they don’t have to make any difficult choices in the face of a crisis.

Gun control is the moral idiocy of the irresponsible blaming those who have taken responsibility.

The Moral Idiocy of Gun Control
Is it more moral to own a gun or to pay someone else to do it for you?

I was chatting with a horrified Swedish visitor who described a visit to Nevada.

“There was this grandmother, an elderly lady, and she took out a gun from her purse,” he told me, shaking his head.

We were having this conversation in a city which had racked up 77 shootings in just one month.

Few New Yorkers legally own guns. The NYPD has issued around 40,000 handgun permits in a city of over 8 million. That’s around one handgun for every two-hundred New Yorkers.

Don’t assume that the parts of the city with the most guns are the most dangerous.

The vast majority of handgun permits are in Staten Island, which has the lowest crime rate in the city, as opposed to the Bronx, with the highest. Manhattan has few legal guns relative to its population while the white working class areas of Brooklyn have some of the most legal guns.

The Daily News, which interviewed a criminologist as part of its anti-gun crusade, found that he was “puzzled”. “Some people see a mugging in the Bronx, and they want to get a gun on Staten Island,” he argued. “That’s not rational, but some people really want guns.”

Perhaps one of the reasons that there are fewer muggings in Staten Island is that more of the folks there can prevent them. Muggers, like most predators, prefer victims who don’t fight back.

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It Took Two British Civil Wars to Plant the Seeds of American Liberty

In the previous installment of this series, I gave the historical and religious background of the English Civil War — which planted the seeds of every significant institution that would take root in American soil. As we noted before, there were many concrete issues at stake in the struggle between the Crown and Parliament.

Rural people, gentry, nobles, high-church Anglicans, and persecuted Catholics feared that the power of Parliament would benefit city-dwellers, merchants (including slave-traders), nouveau riche speculators, and radical Protestants. So they rallied behind the efforts of monarchs such as James I and his son Charles I to increase the king’s own power, independent of Parliament.

This led them to support a political theory which James I called “the Divine Right of Kings.” On this view, the king embodied the law itself, which was identical to his will. Obedience to God required obedience to His appointed ruler on earth, leaving no justification for resistance or revolt. As David Kopel notes in The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action, James’ theory was new to Englishmen. It was quickly denounced both by Calvinists and Catholics.

Ancient Absolutism, Revived

The theory had ancient precedent. The absolute power of Roman emperors, oriental monarchs, and other pre-Christian rulers was still the norm outside of Europe even in the 17th century. It was only the collapse of the Western Roman empire that allowed for much more decentralized political institutions to emerge. The rediscovery of Roman law during the Renaissance gave monarchs a powerful, prestigious weapon in their quest to consolidate power.

Feudal barons would zealously guard their independence throughout the Middle Ages, yielding concessions from kings like the Magna Carta. The Church would assert her rights, and protect her vast institutional wealth and land-holdings, wielding moral authority over the people.

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“Do Something” Is Not A Serious Policy And Will Not Prevent Mass Shootings

Just to point out that people who believe NICS and other ‘background checks’ actually check into a person’s background are misinformed at best. All that happens is a check is made to see if the person has been entered in the FBI’s list of prohibited people; felons, mentally defective, etc.
You want a real check into your background? Submit an SF-86 form when applying for a job that requires a security clearance.

Opinion: Put more guns in the hands of older people

In the aftermath of this most recent rash of crazed shooters killing innocent citizens and children while they are going about their normal lives, it is urgently incumbent upon all our lawmakers in Raleigh and Washington, to give North Carolina’s senior citizens a fighting chance to defend themselves against the increasing numbers of evil killers just itching to get into a crowd and open fire.

One thing our legislatures can do now is enact a law allowing seniors — 65 and above — to carry a concealed weapon without a license or other restrictions — in addition to “Open-Carry” laws already on the books in many states.

Here are a few common sense reasons to pass this law ASAP:

1. Very few crimes are committed by this age group and many — if not most — seniors are living on fixed incomes and can’t afford expensive classes, licenses, or other legal obstacles to carrying a concealed weapon for self-defense.

2. The same thorough background checks that apply to everyone else should also apply to seniors and anyone with a history of mental illness and convicted felons should not be allowed to carry a weapon.

3. All mandatory testing, training, fingerprinting, firearms safety and proficiency courses should be waived as most seniors have had many years of experience using a gun safely.

4. Since seniors are generally not any kind of threat and the least likely of all citizens to commit a crime, arming our seniors would enhance the public safety of all of America’s population.

This looks like they want the proposed laws to be so ludicrous they know it will never pass in the Senate. Typical grandstanding.

Pelosi’s gun control package defines a high-capacity magazine as 10 rounds

The gun control package proposed by House Democrats identifies “high-capacity” magazines as holding 10 rounds or more.

The proposed new limit on ammunition clips is part of the six-piece gun-control package that the House Judiciary Committee is marking up Thursday during an emergency meeting……….

Because there are Enemies, Foreign and Domestic

As I posted back in March

Here’s the reason why we will retain our arms. Morons like this who either forgot, or never believed the oath of office they took. Now foresworn this one is.

As the former Commanding General of the Infantry Center at Fort Benning and Chief of Infantry, I know a bit about weapons. Let me state unequivocally — For all intents and purposes, the AR-15 and rifles like it are weapons of war. A thread:

Those opposed to assault weapon bans continue to play games with AR-15 semantics, pretending there’s some meaningful differences between it and the M4 carbine that the military carries. There really aren’t. 2/

The military began a transition from the M16 to the M4, an improved M16, some years ago. The AR-15 is essentially the civilian version of the M16. The M4 is really close to the M16, and the AR-15. 3/

So what’s the difference between the military’s M4 and the original AR-15? Barrel length and the ability to shoot three round bursts. M4s can shoot in three round bursts. AR-15s can only shoot single shot. 4/

But even now, you can buy AR-15s in variable barrel lengths with Weaver or Picatinny rails for better sights and aiming assists like lasers. Like the military, but w/o the bayonet. 5/

But our troops usually use single shot, not burst fire. You’re able to fire a much more accurate (deadly) shot, that way. Note: you can buy our Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight on Amazon. So troops usually select the same fire option available on AR-15. 6/

That is why the AR-15 is ACCURATELY CALLED a ‘weapon of war.’ It is a very deadly weapon with the same basic functionality that our troops use to kill the enemy. Don’t take the bait when anti-gun-safety folks argue about it. They know it’s true. Now you do too. 7/7

He apparently can’t even realize now that he contradicts himself in the same speech.

This is not about taking away anyone’s guns… Here’s what we have to do: ban assault rifles and high capacity magazines. –SloJoe

 

SO YOU WANT TO REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT

Jabba the Hutt Michael Moore thinks it’s time to repeal the Second Amendment.

“Who will say on this network or any other network in the next few days, ‘It’s time to repeal the Second Amendment?’”

Bad idea, Lardo Calrissian.

You can’t repeal the Second Amendment, any more than you can repeal any of the other nine. It was a package deal, you see, an absolute prerequisite to ratifying the main body of the Constitution. Repeal one, you repeal them all. Do that, and you repeal the whole Constitution — and with it, any legal authority that the government has to exist (let alone repeal the Second Amendment).
— Alexander Hope

That comes from chapter five of Hope, by Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith. The style makes me think that particular passage was penned by Neil (and it seems like he had a stand-alone essay to the same effect), but I don’t believe Aaron would have let that go into their co-authored novel unless he agreed with it.

As a casual student of history, who has read much about the ratification of the Constitution, I also agree.

Lose one, lose them all. Lose it all.

I suspect that Moore, and most Dims currently in DC — and far too many Repugnicans, as well — would be happy to lose the few remaining Constitutional limits on their power. They don’t particularly care about “legal authority” just power.

The problem is… if our wanna-be tyrants are no longer restrained by that pesky Constitution, neither are the people.

The people pissed off at senseless bans, and illegal ballot drop boxes, might just decide that turning to constitutionally-enabled courts — who already defecate on individual rights at the slightest provocation — really isn’t necessary.

Voting out scumbags, and voting in new replacement scumbags who promise to use KY while screwing us? Why bother with that discarded constitutional process? Wouldn’t high-velocity lead be cheaper and faster? Not to mention proactively educating would-be replacements.

Court-blessed “constitutional” takings of property? Get rid of the Constitution and former property owners might resort to ex-constitutional re-takings, enforced with ropes and lamp posts.

Lose one, lose them all. Moore himself might want to consider the ramifications of chucking his First Amendment protections to defame folks for a buck. The people might decide, lacking that lost constitutional recourse, to go bowling for lying documentarians.

Get rid of the Constitution, and the people’s  pretend recourse… and they might stop pretending they do.

Maybe the tyrants will be counting on the out-numbered police to prop up their post-Constitution regime. How many officers would continue to be willing to do that once they’ve lost “constitutional” sovereign immunity, and the people know it?

Perhaps the Constitution has only been an illusory paper restraint on government. But it has been a potent symbolic restraint on the people, preventing them from eliminating abusive politicians and government agents out of hand. I do not truly comprehend the willingness — nay, the eagerness of the Left to go there, to surrender that protection, given the likely consequences.

We’d be starting from scratch, with new rules written by the survivors.

Democrats are selective in which shootings matter

Before I get started, let me make it clear that I know there are some pro-gun Democrats. I don’t think there are any left in Congress these days, but among the voters, there are. In what follows, I’m not talking about them and they should be excluded from this.

However, for the rest, which happens to be something like 90 percent-plus of all Democrats, this all applies.

What applies, you ask? How about the fact that while anti-gun Democrats will scream to high heaven about a Uvalde or a Buffalo, they only seem to care about certain tragedies. Why is that?

Because only certain tragedies help advance their agenda:

Democrats are silent after more than 30 people lost their lives this weekend to violent crime waves that continually sweep through the nation’s cities.

Why hasn’t President Joe Biden, who recently visited Uvalde, Texas, after 19 children and two adults died in a school shooting, tweeted something or planned trips to Nebraska, Illinois, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania, where violence and shootings took the lives of dozens of people including children?

Why hasn’t Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke executed another political stunt at a local press conference somewhere to call attention to a rise in domestic altercations that escalate into shootings? Mostly because none of the violence was politically advantageous for them.

The violence that took the lives of dozens of Americans over Memorial Day weekend either did not involve firearms such as AR-15s, which the left has openly admitted they want to confiscate, or occurred under the wrong conditions for grandstanding. Democrats pick and choose which tragedies to milk for their anti-gun agenda based on how much political leverage firearm-related deaths grant them.

It’s not wrong, folks.

Think about how many people die every weekend in gun-controlled Chicago. The numbers tend to be staggering, and we hear relatively little in the mainstream national media about that. Why don’t we? Because it not only fails to advance their anti-gun agenda, it actually undermines it.

Illinois has many of the measures Democrats have pushed for at the federal level, and none of it has seemed to do a damn thing. While officials are quick to blame other states for their problems, the truth is that gun control simply doesn’t work.

So what happens is that Democrats become selective in their outrage. They lash out when it’s convenient and stick their heads in the sand when the incident isn’t.

Think about how quickly Sacramento dropped from the headlines. A couple of criminals who had guns illegally, one of which had a full-auto switch which is even more illegal. Everything about it proved that criminals will keep getting guns no matter what you do.

It was a big story before we knew it was one of gun control failing. Now, Democrats and their allies in the media like to pretend it never happened.
But Buffalo and Uvalde? Those aren’t going anywhere because they get to demonize the AR-15.

See, all tragedies are awful, but for anti-gun Democrats, it’s only awful enough to talk about when it advances the narrative.

The state with the most restrictive gun laws had the most active shooter incidents last year

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is out with a new report on active shooter incidents across the United States last year, and there are some significant findings worth talking about, including the fact that several of the incidents were stopped by armed citizens.

The report details 61 “active shooter incidents” last year, which the agency defines as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in ai populated area.” Specifically excluded are acts of self-defense, gang and drug-related shootings, and domestic incidents, as well as “crossfire as a byproduct of another criminal act”. And while gun control activists invariably point to these types of attacks as justification for their attempts to criminalize the right to keep and bear arms, the report’s data suggests that gun control doesn’t serve any sort of preventative benefit to stopping these attacks.

According to the report, the most restrictive state in the Union when it comes to gun control laws also led the way in the number of active shooter incidents. California had six such incidents last year, more than any other state, though Texas and Georgia were close behind with five such incidents reported in each state. Active shooter incidents were reported in 30 states altogether, up from 19 states in 2020, with a total of 243 Americans killed or wounded in the attacks.

The FBI report notes that in 17 of the 61 incidents, law enforcement “engaged the shooter,” while there were six incidents where citizens either “engaged” the attacker or where “citizen involvement impacted the engagement.” It’s unclear to me what differentiates those two categories, because in both cases there were armed citizens who put a stop to the attack or prevented any further bloodshed.

One example of “engagement” noted by the FBI was the attack at a Metarie, Louisiana gun store in February of 2021, in which a suspect shot and killed two people and wounded two more before he was shot by multiple armed employees of the business. An example of “citizen involvement” in the FBI report was the shooting at an Agrex grain elevator in Superior, Nebraska last October when a recently fired employee left the building only to return a short time later with murder on his mind.

NSP said [the suspect] made his way into the door and shot a manager, Darin Koepke, 53, twice in the chest and the arm, the former of which was fatal. Roby said [the suspect] shot Koepke again as he lay on the floor.

The entire shooting event lasted under 20 seconds, according to NSP, and was briefly halted due to the gun jamming. NSP said [the suspect] fired a total of five rounds in the incident.

NSP said there were eight employees in the building at the time and others outside. Roby said supervisors were on scene during the shooting due to the termination and other employees were there “because they worked there.”

Roby said Koepke likely saved “countless lives” by barricading a door.

In addition, troopers say the man who returned fire did prevent it “from becoming even worse.”

Troopers say the Nuckolls County Attorney will not prosecute the man who returned fire.

…  “The Nebraska State Patrol considers all the survivors of this terrible incident to be victims,” said Capt. Jeff Roby.

Roby said NSP would not be naming the man who returned fire “and actively stopped this active shooting event. That man’s quick actions likely saved lives.”

Of the six incidents in which civilians either “engaged” or “involved” themselves in stopping the active shooter, four of them involved the defensive use of a firearm (the other two involved citizens tackling the shooter after five people were shot, and an Idaho teacher who talked a 12-year old girl into giving up a gun that she had used to shoot three people at a middle school). None of the incidents involving armed citizens took place in “may issue” states, by the way.

Just two of the 61 incidents covered in the FBI’s report took place at a school, with three other incidents unfolding at other government buildings. The vast majority of these targeted attacks took place in “areas of commerce” (32 incidents) or “business environments open to pedestrian traffic” (28 incidents).

The FBI report also notes what the agency calls an “emerging trend involving roving active shooters”; individuals who shoot in multiple locations and in some cases over multiple days, though it didn’t provide any details on exactly how many of the 61 incidents could be classified as such.