RKBA – Page 107 – MILESFORTIS

Judge Napolitano is too kind. Actually she doesn’t have blinders on. She’s just another wanna-be tyrant who complains about the Constitutional restrictions on goobermint like they all do.

BLUF:
The governor has blinders on. She complains of too much freedom. In New York, there is too little.

Blaming the Constitution

Within hours of the tragic killings of 10 Americans — nine Black and one white — in a Buffalo supermarket by a deranged white racist last week, the governor of New York began calling for infringements upon personal liberty. First, she argued that social media platforms were somehow liable for these killings since they provided a platform from which the killer could reinforce his hatreds and on which he could manifest them.

Then, she argued that hate speech and incendiary speech should be prosecuted. Finally, she attacked the U.S. Supreme Court, which is about to rule on a challenge to New York’s restrictive concealed carry laws. She said twice that “New York is ready for you.” It is unclear just what she meant, but the implication was that she’d find a way around whatever the court rules.

She uttered a bitter constitutional mouthful.

From the writings and mental history of the gunman, we know that he was and is deeply disturbed. Police brought him to a mental hospital after he made threats at school, and his hatreds were posted on dark websites. Nevertheless, New York gun laws — among the strictest in the country — did not stop him from lawfully purchasing a rifle and the ammunition with which to use it.

The gun control crowd, personified by the governor, makes critical errors in its arguments and shows material misunderstandings of fundamental liberties.

Its critical error is a mistaken belief that someone willing to commit mass murder will somehow comply with gun regulations. It doesn’t matter to the killer what the gun laws are; he will find a way to attempt to kill. What matters is a set of laws with which law-abiding folks do comply, the effect of which is to neuter their ability to defend themselves.

This column has steadfastly maintained that the only language mass murderers respect is their own — violence. Only violence against them, or its serious imminent threat, will stop them.

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There’s a reason why gun control fails after mass shootings

In the wake of any mass shooting, we hear a lot about gun control. Proponents of it argue we simply need to embrace it to make such shootings a thing of the past. It just hasn’t worked out for them.

Over at Axios, they decided to lament this fact by pointing out all the times gun control failed to materialize after a mass shooting.

What they miss is that there’s a reason it didn’t pass in pretty much all of those cases.

Sandy Hook, December 2012

After the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, in which 26 victims — including 20 children — were killed, Congress proposed a bipartisan bill expanding background checks for gun buyers, a ban on assault weapons and a ban on high-capacity gun magazines.

Part of the reason that didn’t pass was that the killer didn’t purchase his gun. He murdered his own mother and took an AR-15 that she lawfully purchased–and underwent and passed a background check for–to use it to carry out that particular atrocity.

Expanding background checks wouldn’t have prevented such an attack.

Charleston church, June 2015

When a white man opened fire at a Black church congregation in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine people, Democrats proposed legislation to tighten background checks.

Democrats sought to eliminate what became known as the “Charleston loophole,” which allows people with incomplete background checks to purchase guns after three days, Politico reports.

And that remains because going beyond those three days is too much of an infringement on people’s Second Amendment rights.

What people have to remember is that the three-day window was put in place to appease gun rights advocates who worried that people could be long-term denied the ability to purchase a firearm simply because their background checks never came back.

The three-day window remains because no one trusts the government enough to take it away.

San Bernardino, December 2015

A shooting at a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health holiday party killed 14 people and injured 22 others.

One day after the shooting, the Senate rejected two gun control proposals introduced by Democrats on background checks, the Washington Post reports.

California pass universal background checks in 1991. The killers in this case still acquired weapons illegally and without undergoing a background check.

Why pass more of what clearly didn’t work?

Pulse Nightclub, June 2016

The proposed bills would have prevented people on the federal terrorism watch list from buying guns and closed loopholes in background check laws, per the Times.

And that one failed because there’s no due process on the terrorism watchlist. You can be added for any reason and aren’t told you’re on it. Getting yourself removed is a nightmare.

Plus, the terrorism watch list is a list of names. There are no other identifiers. So if a terrorist named Tom Knighton exists somewhere on Earth, I don’t get to purchase a firearm under this rule.

Yeah, it’s an absolute mystery why this didn’t pass.

Look, you’re starting to see how this goes, and Axios does continue.

For example, they bring up Atlanta and how background check bills didn’t pass despite President Biden calling for just that, but the shooter in that one actually passed a background check. They tie this to Boulder, but he also passed a background check.

Time and time again, there’s a mass shooting, then lawmakers make demands for laws that wouldn’t do anything to stop the attack, but would do wonders for infringing on people’s rights.

Look, gun control isn’t the answer to this. Especially since the two high-profile attacks we saw last weekend were both in heavily gun-controlled states.

Gun control doesn’t pass because, in each of these cases, it’s clear that the laws proposed wouldn’t have done a damn thing. Further, each of these is actually something of a black swan event, meaning they’re not the norm, despite people trying to pretend they are.

So I’m actually OK with inaction from Congress on this. Frankly, I prefer inaction in Congress on most things, but especially here.

There are better ways to handle mass shootings than infringing on the rights of the non-shooters, especially when it’s clear that infringement wouldn’t have stopped diddly.

But they said nobody wants to take your guns.
And actually, if there were magically, mystically, no guns, life would return to the world of ‘main force’ where might makes right and the stronger rule over the weaker. The world “BG” – before guns – had a much higher murder rate than after they became reliable. That’s her world with swords

Sick of Massacres? Get Rid of the Guns. [hah]

Gail Collins

[it’s sooo nice they provide pictures for positive identification]

A) Toughen background check laws
B) Limit the sale of semiautomatics to people with hunting licenses
C) Good Lord, just get rid of them
Yeah, C does simplify things, doesn’t it?

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Manchin gives Democrats a reality check on gun control

Democratic lawmakers are calling for new gun control legislation in the wake of the racially motivated massacre in Buffalo, New York, last weekend, but once again Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is standing in the way of the most fervent progressives.

President Joe Biden went to Buffalo on Tuesday and visited with the families of 10 people who were killed and three others wounded by a white supremacist gunman. In a speech, the president denounced the attack as an act of “domestic terrorism,” condemned white supremacy, and renewed calls for a federal ban on so-called “assault weapons.”

“There are certain things we can do. We can keep assault weapons off our streets. We’ve done it before. I did it when I passed the crime bill,” Biden said, referring to the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which included a 10-year assault weapons ban.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), also speaking in Buffalo Tuesday, vowed that Democrats would “work towards finally ridding our streets of weapons of war.”

But Manchin, speaking to reporters shortly before Biden spoke, gave his realistic assessment that in the 50-50 Senate, the only gun control legislation that has a chance of passing is a bipartisan compromise on background checks that previously failed. That bill, named for Manchin and his chief co-sponsor, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), would expand federal background check requirements to all advertised commercial sales, including sales at gun shows and over the internet.

“I support the Manchin-Toomey, I’ve always done that,” Manchin told reporters, according to The Hill. “The Manchin-Toomey is the one. I think if you can’t get that one, then why try to do something just for basically voting for the sake of voting?”

While some Democrats want action on a universal background check bill that passed the House in March last year, the West Virginia moderate has previously said that bill goes too far because it would extend to private transactions, such as those between neighbors, hunting buddies, or even family. The Manchin-Toomey bill exempted those transactions.

“The best piece of legislation that we’ve ever had, that most people agreed on, was the Manchin-Toomey. We didn’t infringe on anyone’s rights privately,” Manchin said.

But if Manchin-Toomey was the bill “that most people agreed on,” that wouldn’t mean much — the bill failed in 2013, coming six votes short of the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster at a time when a stronger Democratic majority held the Senate. Only two Republicans voted for it, Toomey and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

It is far more unlikely that 10 Republicans would cross the aisle to vote for any sort of gun control bill this year, especially before the midterm elections in November.

Gun control groups issue new (and impotent) demands to D.C. Democrats

A day after the number two Democrat in the U.S. Senate publicly stated that he doesn’t see a reason to hold a vote on any gun control proposals because they’re doomed to failure, a coalition of 38 gun control organizations (who knew there were that many?) is demanding that Congress not only vote on, but approve Joe Biden’s gun ban and more.

The gun control activists laid out three demands for the Democratic-controlled Congress, none of which are likely to happen. First, the gun control lobby wants the House to approve spending $750-million on “evidence led Community Violence Initiatives”, which is on top of the roughly $2-billion that was approved in Biden’s “American Rescue Plan”. Just a few days ago the White House even issued a call for these groups to apply for grants because the money is there for the taking. Nancy Pelosi might be willing to go along with this demand, but I doubt there are 60 votes in the Senate.

The second demand from the gun control groups is House passage of “legislation banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines,” which is also going nowhere in Congress. Nancy Pelosi, who put a universal background check bill on the floor of the House for a vote, hasn’t pushed for a similar vote on Biden’s gun ban plan, and while that could change, any bill that would pass the House is going to die in the Senate.

The gun ban fans are also specifically calling on the Senate to “live up to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s pledge to hold a Senate debate and vote on legislation expanding background checks to all gun purchases and addressing the Charleston Loophole,” though oddly they don’t say anything in their demand letter about the Senate voting on Biden’s gun ban and compensated confiscation scheme.

“Following the most recent racist act of domestic terrorism in Buffalo, New York and the increase in gun
violence across the country, we are calling on you to immediately do everything and anything in your power to live up to the promises you make to voters every election year,” the groups wrote in their letter.

The groups also asked the Biden administration to answer the calls of survivors and “establish a White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention in order to expedite the government’s response and issue further executive actions that will save lives.”

“With voters expressing concern about public safety and rising crime, you have a moral and political
responsibility to fight for the safer future you promise Americans on the campaign trail every election season,” the groups wrote.

The White House has resisted that particular demand for well over a year now, and new press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked again yesterday about the idea, but was decidedly non-committal in her response.

Q Further on the issue of guns: Gun prevention groups or gun violence protection groups — prevention groups, rather — have been pressing the White House to start an office of gun violence protection. Is that something that President Biden is considering, particularly in light of this most recent attack?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So I would have to go back to the team and see if that is something that’s actually on the table. I have not heard of that. I could understand why that is being requested or asked, especially what we have been seeing these past — this past weekend. I just don’t have anything more to share or preview or anything to —

If Jean-Pierre hasn’t heard about the idea, then that means no one in the White House is seriously talking about it, because that particular demand has been made for well over a year. My guess is she knows far more than she was willing to disclose in a press gaggle; namely that the White House has no plans to acquiesce to this particular demand from their anti-gun allies.

I’ll confess that I’m a little surprised that Biden hasn’t thrown the gun control lobby this particular bone to appease them, but whatever internal politics are in play seem to have kept that option off the table. Still, with Congress a dead-end for their anti-gun agenda at the moment (and likely for the next two years as well, begging the White House to help make them relevant is the best option the gun control lobby has left.

Follow the Science, Unless it Leads Where You Don’t Want to Go

Researchers in California have published the results of a study evaluating the effectiveness of so-called “gun violence restraining orders” (a.k.a. “extreme risk protection orders” or “red flag” orders). Assembly Bill 1014, was enacted in California in 2014, and since then, 19 states and the District of Columbia have adopted similar laws.

Authors of the study, Firearm Violence Following the Implementation of California’s Gun Violence Restraining Order Law, include Garen Wintemute, the director of the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center and a “key contributor” who helped draft AB 1014.

Very briefly, these laws create a mechanism that allows a family member, police officer, or some other third party (in California, this includes coworkers, school employees, and teachers) to file a petition in court, supported by allegations that the person named in the petition, at some point in the future, poses a danger to themselves or others by possessing or having access to a firearm. If the court is satisfied that there is some potential of future harm, it issues an order authorizing police to take away all firearms the person owns or controls, and prohibiting the person from possessing or acquiring firearms while the order is in effect. The initial court process may be “ex parte” (without any notice to, or an opportunity to respond by, the affected person) or a full hearing on notice. In California, the ex parte order has a minimum duration of 21 days. Once confirmed in a full hearing, the “temporary” order is in effect for up to five years, although orders may be renewed indefinitely.

The researchers examined whether implementation of the California gun violence restraining order (GVRO) law was associated with decreased rates of “firearm assault” or firearm self-harm between 2016 (when AB 1014 took effect) and 2019. They compared the post-GVRO rate of firearm violence in San Diego County (chosen because it had a “high GVRO uptake” or incidence of GVROs) with the estimated outcome in a synthetic control unit (a combination of California control counties weighted to match the firearm violence trend in San Diego, 2005-2015, as closely as possible). The researchers “hypothesized that the GVRO law would be associated with a reduction in firearm violence.”

The results, though, showed that the GVRO law had no impact – “we found no evidence that GVRO implementation was associated with decreased firearm assault or firearm self-harm at the population level in San Diego.” The researchers sought to qualify this result by noting that the findings could be “partially explained by access to firearms through the underground market,” or “could reflect a true absence of association or limitations of our study; further research is needed to determine which of these is the case.”

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More People Dead as Gun-Control Fails in New York State

Time and again we’ve seen crazy murderers target unarmed citizens in New York City and New York State. A few weeks ago, a black man deliberately attacked white people on the New York City subway. We saw a white teenager deliberately go hunting for blacks and Jews in Buffalo last week. Sadly, the response of New York politicians is the same each time. Despite the extraordinary gun-control laws already in place, New York Democrats think the solution is to disarm more law-abiding citizens. It is hard to look at violence but it is more dangerous to think that more ink-on-paper will keep us safe next time.

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What he also wants is for the reinstitution of the Obammy era program of listing Veterans and Social Security recipients who get their monthly payments sent to a fiduciary who manages the person’s finances to be entered as a prohibited people in NICS.

In Buffalo, Biden calls for gun control that’s already law and didn’t work

Joe Biden brought his confusing anti-gun rhetoric to Buffalo, Tuesday – a city still grieving the loss of 10 good souls who were cut down Saturday by a hell-bound madman.

Even though most of the victims have yet to be buried, Biden didn’t hesitate to use the solemn occasion as an opportunity to advocate for more gun control, in this case another federal “assault weapon” ban.

“There are certain things we can do,” Biden told the grieving crowd. “We can keep assault weapons off of our streets. We did it before and violence went down.”

Even the FBI has acknowledged that the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that Biden referenced, which was a part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, did little to deter or prevent crime.

Besides, New York already has a stringent “assault weapon” ban, as well as every other anti-gun law Biden has ever called for. They’re codified into state law, yet none of them worked.

The mass murderer was not stopped by New York’s SAFE Act, which bans AR-15s and similar weapons. The state’s ban on standard-capacity magazines didn’t stop him, nor did the New York’s mandatory background check requirement or its Red Flag gun-confiscation law.

New York State Police were called to the gunman’s high school last June because he threatened to commit a mass shooting during the school’s graduation ceremonies. He was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital for an evaluation, and was released after a day and a half. However, this did not trigger New York’s red-flag law, which should have stopped him from purchasing a firearm.

Rather than infringing upon the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens, Biden should focus on why yet another mass murderer was “known to law enforcement,” yet no action was taken before he began killing people.

Why New York’s ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban Didn’t Stop the Buffalo Massacre
The problem is not sneaky entrepreneurs who sell accessories; it’s legislators who ban guns based on functionally unimportant features.

The suspect in the mass shooting that killed 10 people at a Buffalo grocery store on Saturday used a rifle that was widely described as an “assault weapon.” With certain exceptions that don’t apply here, that category of firearms is illegal in New York. Yet The New York Times reports that the shooter legally bought the rifle from a gun dealer in Endicott, New York. How is that possible?

It turns out that the rifle, a Bushmaster XM-15 ES, was not an “assault weapon” at the time of the purchase, but it became an “assault weapon” after the shooter tinkered with it. The details of that transformation illustrate how arbitrary and ineffectual bans like New York’s are.

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Studies Find No Evidence That Assault Weapon Bans Reduce Homicide Rates

New York state has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation and it didn’t make one itty bit of difference, so crap-for-brains Goobernor believes crims will somehow obey more laws.

NY Gov. Wants More Gun Control in State with Tough Restrictions

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul used the weekend mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket to demand “stronger” gun control laws in a state that already has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, and President Joe Biden will fly the city on Tuesday, likely to make the same plea.

According to WIVB News, Hochul told reporters during a Sunday press conference, “I continue to call on Washington to do just some basic things that we’ve done here in New York. I also call on the Supreme Court, which is actually considering rolling back some of the protections that were put in place here to protect New York citizens from gun violence.”

The high court is expected to hand down a ruling on New York’s restrictive “good cause” concealed carry permit requirement by the end of June.

The Associated Press is reporting that Biden and his wife will go to Buffalo to “grieve with the community.” Biden, a perennial gun control advocate during his nearly half-century inside the Beltway, is expected to call for new gun control measures.

Ten people were killed in what authorities are saying was a “racially motivated” attack. The suspect, an 18-year-old, was armed with an AR-15 rifle, according to published reports. There were other guns in his car, WIVB said.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday to declare, “So I think people all across this country have to rise up. They have to speak more loudly and more clearly that there must be gun control in this country. This is a uniquely American phenomenon. These mass shootings don’t happen in other countries across the world. We have to ask ourselves — and more than ask ourselves, we have to take action to stop it, to stop it after this Buffalo, New York incident, to make sure that other communities, that other families don’t go through this again.”

WIVB quoted Gov. Hochul acknowledging, “What was used was not purchased legally in the state of New York. The basic gun was, but the high-capacity magazine associated with it had to come from another state because it is illegal in the state of New York. We need a smart national policy. And let’s start with something that’s — what I would say — is in the no-brainer category after Sandy Hook. Shame on this county, shame on Congress at that time, for not passing something as basic as a background check.”

However, Congress years ago passed a background check requirement. The National Instant Check System (NICS) has been in operation since November 1998. New York adopted the SAFE (Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement) Act under Hochul’s predecessor, anti-gun Democrat Andrew Cuomo, in 2013.

BECAUSE IT WORKED WELL IN CHICAGO: DEMS SEEK CHICAGO-STYLE GUN CONTROL NATIONWIDE

Lawmakers from Illinois last week introduced bicameral legislation on Capitol Hill that would make unlicensed gun possession illegal.

The move, billed as a way to stomp out gun crime, doesn’t target gun criminals. Instead, the Blair Holt Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act would outlaw unlicensed firearm ownership and the transfer of firearms without such a government-issued permit, then direct the U.S. Attorney General to create a federal registry for sales tied to fingerprint-based nationwide criminal background checks.

The measure was introduced in the U.S. Senate as S.4184 by Sen. Tammy Duckworth and in the U.S. House as H.R. 7730 by Rep. Bobby Rush. Both lawmakers are Illinois Democrats with offices in Chicago. Both have been endorsed in the past by a variety of national anti-gun groups, which have given them platforms for support.

According to a hyperbolic joint release by their respective offices, the proposal is modeled in part after the controversial Illinois Firearm Owners Identification Card statute. FOID cards are seen by some in the Land of Lincoln as obsolete and, while they haven’t proven to prevent criminals from getting guns, they have sometimes delayed law-abiding citizens from getting them by months. Notably, courts have also found the FOID process flawed and potentially unconstitutional.

Of note, on the trail to the White House in 2020, Joe Biden endorsed such mandatory gun owner licensing as a part of his platform, to the accolade of assorted gun control groups.

BLUF:
It’s time for the U.S. to quit the Programme of Action. And while we’re at it, we should quit the U.N. ammo group and make it clear that, no matter what the U.N. does about bullets, we won’t try to apply its foolish ideas here.

UN Gun Control Program Runs Amok Again

More than two decades ago, the United Nations created a program to curb the trafficking of small arms. It’s done nothing but fire blanks. So now, the U.N. wants to control bullets.

In 2001, the United Nations started the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. Its next meeting will be held in New York from June 27 to July 1.

The Programme isn’t a treaty. It’s a political gathering that’s meant to encourage voluntary cooperation. It meets every other year to produce an outcome document that’s politically (but not legally) binding.

It’s supposed to work by unanimous consent.

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The Programme has achieved very little, if anything. That’s not just my view. The U.N. secretary-general said so in 2008. New Zealand said so in 2012. Its supporters said it was “firing blanks” in 2014. In 2018, the Red Cross said that governments in the Programme talk a lot, but do nothing.

In practice, that suits most of the U.N. fine: All the nations get credit for participating in the Programme while actually doing nothing, while the Programme focuses on peripheral issues, such as 3D-printed guns.

This year, the rumor is that the Programme’s president wants it to focus on banning toy guns. (No more water pistols for your kids, says the U.N.)

If the nations in the Programme genuinely wanted to help control the illicit trade in small arms, it could in theory be modestly useful.

For example, it could seek to eliminate the “Chinese exemption,” under which Beijing is exempt from the requirement to put serial numbers on its firearms, which makes Chinese guns difficult to trace.

But instead, the Programme focuses on irrelevant distractions—and on breaking its own promises.

In 2018, the Programme broke its rule of unanimity to approve an outcome document that added ammo over U.S. protests. The Programme wasn’t supposed to include ammunition. And adding it serves no useful purpose.

The idea of putting numbers on, and trying to trace, individual rounds of ammunition is nonsensical. The resulting database would have trillions of entries.

Most of the Programme’s member nations can’t and don’t even meet their existing commitments. But that didn’t stop the United Nations from adding ammo.

The U.S. does most of the work of running traces on firearms, providing expertise, and giving aid to upgrade foreign recordkeeping through the Programme.

But if the U.S. is going to do most of the work and simultaneously going to have the Programme’s rules broken against it, there’s no reason for us to continue to participate in it.

There are now more good reasons than ever to quit. When the Programme voted to include ammo in 2018, it lined itself up with a U.N. working group. That group’s report came out late last year, and it’s a bureaucrat’s fantasy.

It calls for the negotiation of “a set of political commitments” to “concentrate on through-life ammunition management.” In other words, an entirely new Programme of Action, focused just on ammo.

“Through-life” ammo management may sound innocuous, but isn’t. Here’s what it means, in the U.N.’s own words:

States would reduce security risks by encouraging ammunition producers, where feasible, practicable and consistent with national legislation, to maintain effective accounting and record-keeping systems that permit the retrieval (by serial, batch, or lot number) of detailed sales and transfer records. Ideally, such records should be digital, easily retrievable, and held for as long as feasible.

Translation: The U.N. wants manufacturers of ammo to number their bullets. Then the U.N. wants to track where and to whom every bullet in the world is sold or sent. The U.N. also wants to track who sells to whom. And it wants all those records digitized, easily accessed, and kept forever.

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Should Anti-Gunners be Held Accountable for Dangerous Gun Laws?

Once again, just like Finestein’s ‘Assault Weapon’ ban.

Congressional Democrats introduce gun licensing bill

The state of Illinois requires every lawful gun owner to get a Firearm Owner Identification Card. You can’t have a gun without out and you have to jump through the hoops to lawfully get one.

They also have the city of Chicago, where violent crime is rampant. It seems gun licensing doesn’t actually help as some want to believe.

In fact, two Illinois Democrats believe it so hard that they want to make it federal law.

May 11, 2022 Press Release WASHINGTON — U.S. Representative Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) reintroduced the Blair Holt Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act, today, to help reduce firearm violence in Illinois and across the country. This legislation would prohibit unlicensed firearm ownership and the transfer of firearms without a valid firearms license, as well as direct the U.S. Attorney General to establish and maintain a federal record of sale system and conduct fingerprint-based nationwide criminal background checks — which could have prevented the gunman who killed five people in Aurora, IL in 2019 from acquiring the firearm he used in the shooting.

Of course, it should be remembered that as I noted previously, it hasn’t done jack to stop the violence in Chicago.

Further, the shooter in the Aurora, IL case was a convicted felon who actually passed the FOID background check and NICS check

Whoops.

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Senators Threaten Court-Packing – Again – As Americans Embrace Their Second Amendment Rights

The unauthorized leak of a draft abortion opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court has Democrats up in arms (again) about packing the U.S. Supreme Court. This isn’t a new argument and one gun control advocates publicly pitched before.

Senators are openly calling for court-packing again and that’s before the Supreme Court has rendered a final opinion on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen or finalized the opinion of the leaked abortion draft decision. Even before the nine justices heard arguments on the New York case challenging the states arbitrary and restrictive “may issue” concealed carry permit criteria, there were calls for court-packing.

U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) filed an amicus brief in NYSRPA v. New York supporting restrictive gun control but took arguments beyond supporting the law with threats to upend the court’s structure. That case was ultimately declared “moot” by the Supreme Court after New York City altered the law to avoid the Court striking down the law.

“Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.’ Particularly on the urgent issue of gun control, a nation desperately needs it to heal,” Sen. Whitehouse wrote.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) led a 2019 letter excoriating court-packing threats and urged the justices to render opinions based on Constitutional interpretations, not public opinion polls. The letter was signed by 53 Republican senators.

“It’s one thing for politicians to peddle these ideas in Tweets or on the stump,” Sen. McConnell wrote. “But the Democrats’ amicus brief demonstrates that their court-packing plans are more than mere pandering. They are a direct, immediate threat to the independence of the judiciary and the rights of all Americans.”

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Vermont: Suppressor Hunting Bill Passes Legislature

[Yesterday] morning, the Vermont State Senate passed an amended version of S. 281 – legislation that includes a provision to make The Green Mountain State the 41st state to allow the use of suppressors while hunting. The suppressor hunting language, which was championed by Representatives Pat Brennan (R-Chittenden-9-2) and George Till (D-Chittenden-3), was added to S. 281 during the floor debate in the House of Representatives and subsequently passed on May 10th. The bill now heads to Governor Phil Scott (R-VT) for his signature. Once enacted, the new law will take effect on July 1st.

“It is my pleasure to announce that with today’s passage of S. 281, the legislature has taken a tremendous step forward towards expanding the right of hunters to use suppressors in the field,” said Rep. Brennan, Co-Chair of the Vermont Legislative Sportsmen’s Caucus. “For the past seven years, law abiding citizens in Vermont have enjoyed suppressor ownership, but their use has been restricted to sport shooting at ranges only. With the passage of S. 281, Vermont outdoorsmen and women finally have the ability to protect their hearing and the hearing of the youth hunting community as well. This bill was a long time in the works, but it has finally come to fruition thanks to the cooperation of many, most especially the Department of Fish and Wildlife and its Commissioner.”

The American Suppressor Association has been fighting for suppressor rights in Vermont for a decade. Over the years we have helped draft legislation, provided written and verbal testimony, and hosted multiple live-fire suppressor demonstrations for legislators, law enforcement officers, and the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. In 2015, legislation introduced by Rep. Brennan legalized the ownership of suppressors in the state, but not their use in the field. Today’s passage of S. 281 brings us one step closer to full suppressor legalization nationwide.

“What Representatives Brennan and Till have accomplished is nothing short of extraordinary,” said Knox Williams, President and Executive Director of the American Suppressor Association. “It highlights the value of hard work, persistence, and bipartisanship. There should be nothing controversial about protecting hearing. We could not have asked for better partners in the fight for your suppressor rights.”

Comment O’ The Day
The gun-buying spree was a RESULT of the murder spike and a reaction to the demonstrated knowledge that if mostly peaceful pink-haired Antifa Zombies came crawling through your window, the police would not only be unable to help, but would refuse to do so if the opportunity arose.

The New York Times Uses a CDC Report on Homicides As an Excuse To Attack Private Gun Ownership

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday issued a report on the recent surge in the U.S. gun homicide rate, which rose by a third between 2019 and 2020, from 4.6 to 6.1 per 100,000 residents. The article, which was published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, notes that “several explanations have been proposed,” including “increased stressors (e.g., economic, social, and psychological) and disruptions in health, social, and emergency services during the COVID-19 pandemic; strains in law enforcement-community relations reflected in protests over law enforcement use of lethal force; increases in firearm purchases; and intimate partner violence.”

The New York Times predictably plays up that passing reference to “increases in firearm purchases.” The rise in gun homicides, the Times says, “corresponded to accelerated sales of firearms as the pandemic spread and lockdowns became the norm.” The Times explains that “Americans went on a gun-buying spree in 2020 that continued into 2021,” although sales have since returned to their usual level. It cites an estimate by gun violence researcher Garen Wintemute that “there remain roughly 15 million more guns in circulation than there would be without the pandemic.”

In 2017, according to the Small Arms Survey, American civilians owned more than 393 million firearms. Purchases in 2018 and 2019 added an estimated 27 million guns to that stock of weapons. If sales in 2020 had been similar to sales in the two previous years, they would have added another 13 million or so. Assuming Wintemute’s estimate is in the right ballpark, the “gun-buying spree” that worries the Times amounted to a further increase of about 3.5 percent. Although Times reporters Roni Caryn Rabin and Tim Arango seem to think that’s a plausible explanation for a 33 percent increase in the gun homicide rate, it’s not clear why.

It is demonstrably not true that more guns in circulation automatically results in more homicides. The number of guns owned by Americans rose steadily throughout the period, beginning in the early 1990s, when the U.S. homicide rate fell precipitously, a downward trend that has only recently abated. As the CDC notes, the reasons for the 2020 jump are unclear, although it is widely assumed that the massive disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic had something to do with it.

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The Trace is pushing to create a database of all gun owners nationwide.
For ‘gun violence’ research…yeah right

The NRA Knows It’s Impeding Gun Research

AS WELL IT SHOULD FOR THIS TYPE OF ~~RESEARCH~~ INTIMIDATION!

A year before gun rights groups sued to stop California from collecting information on firearms ownership, the NRA’s chief researcher acknowledged that its advocacy prevents accurate studies.

This story was published in partnership with the Los Angeles Times.

NICE OF THEM TO PROVIDE POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION FOR FUTURE USE

California has long played a pivotal role in the study of gun violence, maintaining a unique repository of detailed information on gun owners that it shares with researchers.

The National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups have filed lawsuits challenging that established practice. The lawsuits come as researchers confront an uptick in gun-related deaths, driven by a surge in homicides. They were filed a year after the NRA’s research director acknowledged at a private meeting that the group’s opposition to gathering such data has severely hampered gun violence research in the United States.

With narrow exceptions, all firearms transactions in California must go through licensed dealers, who relay information on purchasers that includes name, address, and date of birth to the California Department of Justice.

For over 30 years, the DOJ has shared this data with public health researchers, who have used it to try to untangle the connections between gun ownership and homicides, suicides, and other violence. They say this baseline information is key to understanding the risks and benefits of having a gun and, ultimately, to reducing injuries and deaths.

“California is special,” said David Studdert, a professor and gun researcher at Stanford Law School who focuses on the intersection of law and public health. “It’s not possible to do this kind of work elsewhere in the country. You need to be at the individual and household level to make the connection between the gun and a violent outcome. You can’t measure what you can’t see.”

THE REST OF THE ARTICLE IS STANDARD OPERATIONAL ANTI-GUN/ANTI CIVIL RIGHTS BS AND DOESN’T MERIT THE RESPECT TO POST IT.

Washington “ghost gun” arrest kills narrative

he state of Washington has passed a “ghost gun” law that will go into effect later this year. We’re told it will stop criminals from building their own firearms and keep guns out of the hands of bad people.

However, the arrest of a Vancouver man raises some serious questions on that front.

A man living in Vancouver, Washington was charged with illegal firearm possession on Monday. Authorities say they seized at least five ‘ghost guns.’

According to the FBI Seattle Division, 46-year-old Joao Ricardo DeBorba, a Brazilian National with multiple convictions for domestic violence assault, was arrested Friday on eight counts of illegal possession of firearms. He is being held at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac pending further court proceedings.

Authorities say last week, law enforcement served a search warrant at DeBorba’s residence and seized five firearms that did not have serial numbers or manufacturers’ marks. Three of the so-called “ghost guns” were AR-15 style rifles and the other two were handguns, all believed to have been purchased online. In addition to the guns, authorities found a large amount of ammunition, a workbench with firearms parts and tools, firearm silencers, magazines and gun cases.

Now, that last sentence is important.

You see, we’re told we need laws against so-called ghost guns so people like DeBorba can’t get firearms. It’s why Washington state passed its law against homemade firearms.

But this guy had suppressors.

Suppressors, aka “silencers,” are heavily restricted under federal law. You can’t just walk into a gun store and purchase them lawfully. You have to jump through all the hoops you’d have to in order to buy a machine gun.

And yet, he had suppressors just laying around, apparently. Suppressors. Plural.

That means he skirted federal law not just once but multiple times.

Now, if he’s willing and able to do that for something like a suppressor, do you really think that keeping him from lawfully buying ghost guns is really going to stop him from trying to get firearms? Do you think it’ll stop anyone?

Of course it won’t. It never has and it never will.

Criminals, by their very nature, do what is illegal. They might be, at most, inconvenienced by the law, but they’re almost never stopped by it. The only people stopped are the law-abiding folks who don’t represent a problem in the first place.

Washington state is banning “ghost guns,” but they couldn’t even stop suppressors from being obtained. Those aren’t legal off the shelf anywhere in the US, but they can stop kits and 3D printed parts from being obtained across state lines?

Seriously?

This just reinforces the idea that gun control is really just a willful self-delusion that allows people to believe they can stop criminals with just one more law. This despite the fact that it has literally never happened in the whole of human history.

At best, you drive it underground. Then, criminals get to profit from it. You get more violent crime from it. You create new criminals from it.

But you never, ever actually stop it. It’s time some lawmakers learn that lesson.