Category: RKBA

Constitutional Carry Bill Headed to [Ohio] Governor’s Desk

On Wednesday, March 2, 2022, the Ohio House voted 57-35 to pass Senate Bill 215, sponsored by Sen. Terry Johnson.

About an hour later, the Senate concurred with a vote of 24-8. This means the bill now moves to the Governor’s desk!

The bill seeks to make a concealed handgun license optional in Ohio. It also clarifies how and when a person must notify law enforcement about carrying a firearm, so that an officer simply asks.

We are at a historic moment in Ohio legislative history. This is the closest we’ve ever been to passing a bill to make the licensing process optional for concealed carry of a firearm. Bills have been presented in former legislative sessions, but have not advanced.

If the Governor signs this bill, we’ll have Constitutional Carry in Ohio law in about 90 days!

Buckeye Firearms Association declared this our #1 legislative priority for the 134th General Assembly and have been working on an almost daily basis to make Constitutional Carry a reality in Ohio.

As of the publication of this article, 21 other states have some form of Permitless Carry, and Ohio is poised to become number 22. Stay tuned.

The 2nd Amendment isn’t about deer hunting, and everyone including SloJoe knows that, so what he did was simply insult everyone.

Biden calls for ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines in SOTU speech
Several called Biden out for ‘lying’ on guns

President Joe Biden renewed his call for the banning of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in his State of the Union address.

“I ask Congress to pass proven measures to reduce gun violence,” Biden said during his first official State of the Union Address on Tuesday night. “Pass universal background checks. Why should anyone on a terrorist list be able to purchase a weapon? Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”

“You think the deer are wearing a kevlar vest?” Biden said, going off the pre-released transcript of the speech.

Biden added a call to “repeal the liability shield that makes gun manufacturers the only industry in America that can’t be sued.”

“These laws don’t infringe on the Second Amendment,” Biden said. “They save lives.”

Biden’s comments immediately received criticism from conservatives on social media who have often accused his administration of attempting to infringe on the Second Amendment.

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The article is out of date on current events, but the point is these anti-self defense politards shot themselves in the foot when trying make a saint out of a thug backfired on them. Another of their deceits is conflating and insinuating all homicides as criminal to pump the numbers, when a homicide is simply defined as one person killing another, and includes those determined to be justifiable.

Stand your ground laws proliferate after Trayvon spotlight

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The “stand your ground” self defense law had been in effect in Florida for more than six years when it became part of the national vocabulary with the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012. When the 17-year-old was fatally shot, Florida was still one of the few states with the law that removes the duty to retreat before using deadly force in the face of danger.

Now, upwards of 30 states have some form of the law and recent research indicates they are associated with more deaths — as many as 700 additional firearm killings each year, according to a study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study found a national increase of up to 11% in homicide rates per month between 1999 and 2017 in those states with stand your ground laws. The largest increases, between 16% and 33%, were in southern states including Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Louisiana, the study found.

States colored in red or orange below have some form of Stand Your Ground law.

“These findings suggest that adoption of (stand your ground) laws across the U.S. was associated with increases in violent deaths, deaths that could potentially have been avoided,” the study’s authors concluded.

Advocates for the laws, especially the National Rifle Association, have argued they act as a crime deterrent by ensuring a person can protect themselves and others against a would-be assailant.

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Are Ukraine’s armed citizens making a difference?

One of the go-to arguments of gun control advocates who try to portray our Second Amendment as an outdated anachronism is that armed citizens just wouldn’t stand a chance against the might of a modern military force bristling with tanks, missiles, and even nuclear weapons (looking at you, Eric Swalwell).

The armed citizens of Ukraine, however, are helping to put that argument to rest. So far the nation has defied expectations and has continued to to resist the Russian invasion, repelling many of the attacks against the country’s biggest cities, and the country’s Territorial Defense Force, which includes many individuals who were simply private citizens a couple of weeks ago, is having an impact, according to Ukrainian officials.

“In the city itself, the territorial defense detachments are working quite effectively,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidential chief of staff, said in a statement Saturday morning. “It turned out that people are coming out, defending their homes. It wasn’t expected by analysts of the Russian General Staff.”

I don’t think it was expected even for some of those who’ve shown up to volunteer, many of whom may never have thought about defending their country with a gun until last week but who are now heading down to their nearest recruitment center.

Men from their 20s to late 50s, from a range of backgrounds, showed up. Igor, 37, an economist for an online retailing company, who didn’t want his last name published for safety reasons, stood in line for his gun. He spoke at barely a whisper and his lips trembled. The dull thud of bombs or artillery could be heard in the distance.

“I never served in the army or with the police or anything,” he said. He said he hoped to be able to figure it out. He was worried, he said. “But people who are really afraid are sitting at home. They aren’t out here now.”

“Everybody in our country needs to defend — women, girls, everybody,” said Denis Matash, 33, the manager of Milk, a Kyiv nightclub, standing in line with about 50 other men at the recruitment center. “I don’t think they understand where they came,” he said of the Russians. “Look at what is happening here.”

Grigory Mamchur, 40, who works as a male strip dancer at the Milk nightclub, part of the now shuttered but once booming nightlife scene in Kyiv, was also in line for a Kalashnikov.

“There wasn’t even anything to think about,” Mr. Mamchur said. “We will defend the country however we can. This could be our last chance.”

The Territorial Defense Force and the private citizens who are taking up arms against their country’s invaders can’t thwart the Russian military on their own, but they can and have made life hell for Russian troops. In addition, the massive mobilization of civilian volunteers serves as a psychological boost for Ukrainians and is helping to obliterate the argument made by Vladimir Putin that the Ukrainian campaign is about “liberating” a grateful populace from their democratically-elected overlords.

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Poll: Majority Feels Safer ‘Knowing There’s A Gun In The House’

Contrary to what the gun prohibition lobby would have America believe, a new Rasmussen survey released Friday shows that a majority of American adults who say someone in the house owns a firearm (61%) “feel safer knowing there’s a gun in the house.” majority feels safer with gun

Rasmussen learned that 36 percent of poll respondents admit they or someone in their household owns a gun. In recent years, anecdotal evidence suggests that gun owners refuse to acknowledge they have a gun in the home, as they are either worried about social stigma or simply believe it’s nobody’s business.

The survey of 1,000 U.S. American Adults was conducted on February 17 and 20, 2022, by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence, the veteran polling company said.

According to Rasmussen, “Of those who live in gun-owning households, majorities of both men (62%) and women (59%) say they feel safer knowing there’s a gun in the house.” The survey also revealed, “More whites (42%) than blacks (30%) or other minorities (28%) say they or someone in their household owns a gun.”

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, in 2020 and 2021, millions of Americans purchased firearms for the first time.

As one might expect, gun ownership falls mainly along political lines. Rasmussen’s survey found “Republicans (44%) are significantly more likely than Democrats or those unaffiliated with either major party (both 34%) to say they or someone in their household owns a gun.” The poll also revealed, “More men (42%) than women (32%) say they live in gun-owning households. However, a majority (58%) of men under 40 say they live in homes without firearms.”

And here’s something startling: “Entrepreneurs are more likely to live in gun-owning households than either government employees or private-sector workers.”

Over the past several days, Headlines from southeast Europe provide more reason for Americans to appreciate their Second Amendment rights. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in the Ukrainian government reportedly handing out firearms to citizens to mount a defense against Vladimir Putin’s army. In the United States, such a situation would hardly be necessary thanks to the Second Amendment protection of the right to keep and bear arms.

War in the Ukraine Has Strengthened the 2nd Amendment in the U.S.

If you held any doubts about the importance of the 2nd Amendment the war in Ukraine should serve as a prime example as to why the “right to keep and bear arms” is absolutely vital to the security and peace of the Nation. It may be too little too late, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made the announcement yesterday that all citizens who wish to arm themselves in defense of the country may do so.

More than that, the Ukrainian government/military would supply the weapons. At this time thousands upon thousands of Ukrainians are arming themselves and are ready to fight alongside their military in defense of their country. Had this right been protected by a constitution and in place prior to the invasion they would have been armed already and better prepared to defend their lives and country. By loosening the firearm laws in the country the Ukrainian government has at least given their citizens and country a fighting chance.

To those who doubted the meaning, intent, or reasoning of the 2nd Amendment what’s happening in Ukraine should settle that argument. An armed citizenship is near impossible to conquer and control. In the United States, an enemy foreign or domestic would have to get through all of our military branches, all the reserves and guard units along with an armed populace in order to even occupy the country, much less conquer it.

It’s frustratingly funny that people, “anti-gun” people, always remark that there’s no need for citizens to have arms and that the 2nd Amendment is outdated. They continually say it’s ridiculous to think that a private citizen with a gun could do much in defense of the country. Well, oddly enough that’s exactly how our country began. A group of armed men tried of the tyranny they were living under got together and fought back, with arms. I’m sure the British at the time thought like our “anti-gun” crowd, and like them were dead wrong.

Within minutes of the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian government immediately put the word out about arming its citizens. So to those who constantly state that it’s the government’s job to protect and defend us, it clearly shows without us, it’s a non-reality. Relying solely on others for protection is to be utterly defenseless and victim-bound. Without the means to protect yourself and others, you are at the mercy of those who would seek to do you harm and even those sworn to protect you. This is the heart of the Second Amendment.

The 2nd Amendment has never been about hunting, or really even self-defense. It’s about having the means to protect our freedom, liberties, and the ability to use arms against tyranny, both foreign and domestic.

That’s what it’s all about and what we’re seeing in Ukraine definitely affirms this, at least to those who are paying attention anyway. Hopefully, some lessons will be learned and those who in the past wished to eliminate or further restrict our rights to keep and bear arms will better understand the intent of our Founding Fathers, the architects of freedom and framers of our constitution had in mind when writing it.

Lastly, the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution DOES NOT grant rights. It recognizes and upholds the rights that were given to us at birth by our creator, which is why they’re called “Inalienable Rights.”

The primary purpose of the Consitution and Bill of Rights is to restrict the government’s “infringement” of rights, which preexisted the documents in the first place. So any argument about changing any of the amendments in the Constitution is completely invalid. Our rights aren’t given to us by the government, we were born with them. This means you CAN NOT take away what you haven’t given!

News networks ignore Ukraine’s gun rights push

Ukraine is dealing with a lot right now, but one of the smarter things they did was recognize that an armed populace is an asset. They expanded gun rights in the Eastern European nation leading up to the invasion, though, in fairness, guns weren’t completely forbidden there, either.

However, the major news networks seemed to have completely ignored this during their coverage of the buildup.

On Wednesday, hours before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukrainian, the Rada (parliament) advanced legislation that would allow more Ukrainian civilians to own firearms as they stared down the bear that was eager to wage war on and conquer them. It’s another obvious example of why civilian firearm ownership is important and vital for a free people, yet it wasn’t worth any airtime on the broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) that night or Thursday.

Citing local Ukrainian reporting, The Reload’s Stephan Gutowski reported: “274 of the country’s 450 elected representatives voted for the bill, according to local media outlet Ukrinform. The bill would formalize the country’s gun laws, allow more civilians to own and carry guns, and allow them to be used for self-defense in more places.”

The Canada-based CTV noted the move came on the eve of, “[o]ne of Europe’s worst security crises in decades” after “Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized two areas of eastern Ukraine as independent and ordered troops to be deployed to eastern Ukraine.”

NBC Nightly News did note this distribution of weapons but not the expansion of gun rights on Thursday. Yet reporter Erin McLaughlin spoke with a member of the Ukrainian parliament who’s never shot a weapon before but was among those ready to take up arms:

And most of the media failed to note the legal moves prior to the invasion. Why?

Well, the answer is pretty simple. These are the same networks that play host to people who tell us our AR-15s are useless against tanks and attack helicopters. They don’t want us to see that, on the eve of the invasion, a sovereign nation turned to armed citizens to help defend their homes.

They don’t want people seeing the kind of scenarios the Second Amendment was meant for play out on their television screens.

In truth, they’d much rather keep us ignorant of how Ukraine recognized that they needed those armed citizens if they were going to have any hope of fending off the invasion of a more powerful neighbor.

If we recognize that fact, many would be far less hesitant to back things like assault weapon bans or magazine restrictions.

They’d see one of the scenarios the Founding Fathers feared and recognized the role armed citizens can play. They’re doing so in Ukraine, but they could just as easily have to do so here.

Our right to keep and bear arms is something that any invader has to fear.

The networks, however, would rather you not think about that because they want people to view guns only as something to fear, not something that can be used to protect.

POLL: 91.8% Of Americans Would Carry Out ‘Red Dawn’ Style Attacks If The USA Was Invaded

Many Americans would be willing to take up arms to defend our country against an invasion.

The results weren’t close at all. Of the 7,029 voters, 91.8% of people voted that they would take up arms to defend the USA.

 

Who the hell voted no in this poll? Imagine voting against repelling an invasion! It sounds like 8.2% of voters are future collaborators.

We all know how that worked out for Daryl in “Red Dawn.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Any military that tries to invade and occupy America is in for a bloodbath unlike anything we’ve seen before.

The population is well-armed, our terrain is incredibly friendly to the home team and the fact we are surrounded by two oceans would give us plenty of time to prepare.

In case you think I’m kidding about this, I used to run around with a Ruger 10/22 dreaming about shooting communist invaders, and there are millions of other people in this country who did the same.

NY gun proposal appears poised to adapt to Supreme Court decision
A Brooklyn lawmaker has proposed legislation that seeks to limit where firearms could be legally possessed, with a separate SCOTUS ruling upcoming.

NEW YORK — A Brooklyn lawmaker appears ready to adapt to a potential Supreme Court decision that could impact the process of getting a concealed carry license in New York.

Assembly Bill 8684 was introduced by Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon (D) back in January. It suggests placing limits on where firearms can be possessed including most public transportation, food, and drink establishments and at gatherings of 15 people or more. The bill has no co-sponsors in either the State Senate or Assembly, which would be necessary to move it forward, but gun advocates and constitutional experts are already signaling the bill may not hold water.

“In most cases where individuals have a constitutional right officials are not allowed to have discretion whether you’re able to exercise that right,” explained 2 On Your Side Legal Analyst Barry Covert.

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CCRKBA: ‘UKRAINE CRISIS UNDERSCORES IMPORTANCE OF SECOND AMENDMENT’

BELLEVUE, WA – The overnight invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops underscores the importance of the Second Amendment to the defense of freedom in the United States, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“While we’ve seen reports that the Ukraine Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) has voted to ease restrictions allowing civilians to carry arms outside their homes,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “in our country this has been the constitutional law of the land since our nation was founded. The right of the people to keep and bear arms has protected this country since the beginning, and what is happening right now in Ukraine should be a lesson to all of those who push for citizen disarmament and a ban on private gun ownership how perilous that would be.”

Russian troops crossed the Ukraine border overnight, and world leaders are now scrambling to respond. The action is being universally condemned throughout the western world, but only in the United States is there good cause to appreciate the fact that average private citizens enjoy a constitutional protection to be armed.

“Our Second Amendment was enshrined in the Bill of Rights by men who had just fought a war for independence,” Gottlieb observed. “They returned to their homes from battlefields, not from some deer hunting camp. The right to keep and bear arms has never been about shooting ducks, but about protecting our right as citizens of the greatest nation on earth to defend our homes and families immediately against the kind of international outrage now unfolding in eastern Europe.

“The gun prohibition lobby would have America become vulnerable to such aggression as we are now seeing on television screens from coast to coast,” he continued. “This isn’t some action movie Americans are watching, this is real life, and it vividly illustrates why so many of us fight day and night to protect and defend our Second Amendment rights.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the good citizens of Ukraine,” Gottlieb stated. “We can only hope that gun prohibitionists, or at least their supporters in the establishment media, learn something from this tragedy. To live in peace, one must always be prepared to defend it.”

Mere calls to end violence little more than theater

In most towns across the nation, you’ll find a community theater. There, locals will perform various shows that might have originated on Broadway but now find themselves on Main Street.

My wife spend an awful lot of her time volunteering and performing at one such theater here. I’ve taken a few trips across the boards myself over the years. I’m not going to insult theater folks in the least. Some of my favorite people are theater people.

But there’s a type of performative theater I keep seeing, and that’s those who basically use their performance to look like activism. I’m talking about people who do things like this.

Survivors, anti-gun violence groups and community leaders gathered Wednesday to tell Indianapolis to put the guns down.

Many of them live with the trauma of gun violence daily.

“Enough is enough,” said Deandra Dycus. “When are we going to get tired of seeing the daily news reports? A good doctor or a bad shooter is why my son survived when a stray bullet flew through the window and pierced him in the back of the head.”

They’re telling people to put their guns down.

Honestly, can anyone point me to a single person who heard such a call and thought, “Oh, crap! I didn’t realize me shooting up the city was a problem. My bad!” anywhere? Anywhere at all.

Now, I get that Dycus lost his son to such violence. He’s probably just looking for some way to prevent anyone else from going through what he did. But not everyone who gets involved in such “calls” has that excuse.

Then there are those who take their theater a few steps further, such as this gentleman from Michigan.

A 76-year-old community activist is crawling from Battle Creek to Kalamazoo to call for an end to gun violence.

Bobby Holley set out on the 23-mile trek Monday morning. Inching along the wet and icy road with pads strapped to his hands and knees, he said he’s crawling for a cause.

“To get attention to the issues,” he said. “If I walked, that wouldn’t get no attention… (Instead) I’m a person crawling, begging on his hands and knees to stop the violence.”

He wants to “get attention to the issues?”

I’m sorry, but is anyone unaware of the problem of so-called gun violence? Anyone? Seriously, no one is sitting there watching the news and thinking, “Holy crap! You mean people kill other people? And they use guns a lot of the time? I had no idea!”

It’s not happening.

Holley likely means well, and at least part of his crawling is to get attention on unsolved murders–something everyone knows exists but rarely thinks about–but he’s still just performing.

Something I’ve noticed through the years is that the people who make a big thing of their activism are rarely the people actually on the ground doing work. That’s because being on the ground, in the streets, trying to change things is hard work and you don’t have time for virtue-signaling nonsense.

But who gets the headlines? Who gets calls for media interviews? It’s self-aggrandizement in more cases than not, and the media eats it up.

Constitutional Carry in doubt after Indiana committee guts legislation

The good news for Indiana gun owners is that Constitutional Carry legislation passed out of a key Senate committee on Wednesday. The bad news is that it’s no longer a Constitutional Carry bill.

HB 1077 had already passed out of the House with an overwhelming majority, but its future is very much in doubt in the state Senate after an eight-hour hearing of the Judiciary Committe left the bill stripped of its original intent.

As amended, House Bill 1077 would keep the permit requirement in place to carry a handgun in Indiana. However, it would enable qualified candidates who have applied for a permit to carry a handgun without a license until they receive their permit. The idea is that this would end complaints about delays in the permitting process.

The amendment to gut the bill just narrowly passed by a 6-5 vote, splitting the Republicans on the committee. Every Democrat voted to gut the bill. Shortly after, the committee unanimously voted to advance the bill to the floor. Some were unhappy with the bill, but voted to keep it moving.

Now, this doesn’t mean that Constitutional Carry is officially dead in the Indiana legislature. It’s possible that the bill will be amended once again to restore the permitless carry provisions once the legislation comes up for debate on the Senate floor, though many law enforcement agencies and gun control groups are going to continue their efforts to kill the bill, even if many of their arguments don’t make much (gun)sense.

Critics say there should be a vetting process.

“We will have people walking on our street never vetted by law enforcement, never receiving a background check with loaded firearms around our children,” Jennifer Haan with Moms Demand Action in Indiana said last month.

There are already people doing that right now in Indiana, and if they’re not legally allowed to own a gun they’re not legally allowed to carry it. That wouldn’t change under the Constitutional Carry language in HB 1077. The only difference would be that those who can legally possess a gun in their home could also lawfully carry it in public without the need for a government-issued permission slip.

Gun control activists weren’t the only ones making some odd arguments in opposition to the bill.

Officers also said individuals would have to background check themselves if the permit requirement was nixed, and might not know they aren’t qualified to carry a handgun. Detective Matt Foote from the Fort Wayne Police Department, said 14% of those who applied for permits in his community in 2021 were denied.

That’s actually already an issue. If you don’t know that you’re a prohibited person and you fail a NICS check, you could be charged with a crime for attempting to purchase a firearm (though under federal law prosecutors must prove that you knowingly tried to purchase a gun you weren’t allowed to possess). The responsibility of ensuring that you can lawfully carry already lies with the gun owner, and that wouldn’t change if HB 1077 became law.

Constitutional Carry still has a chance in Indiana this year, but if it’s going to get across the finish line gun owners and Second Amendment activists need to contact their senators and urge them to restore HB 1077 to its original intent when it reaches the Senate floor.

More than 20 states have already adopted Constitutional Carry, and none of them have seen any cause to repeal the law and return to requiring a license to carry (though every Constitutional Carry state with the exception of Vermont still maintains a “shall issue” licensing system for gun owners who want to be able to legally carry in states with reciprocity agreements). Indianans are no less responsible than the residents of Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Utah, West Virginia, and the other states that have permitless carry laws already in place. The big question now is whether Indiana lawmakers are as supportive of the 2A rights of residents as their counterparts in nearly half of the states across the nation.

Nice plan, but realistically, it’ll go nowhere unless you can get a lot of demoncraps to go along with it. Since we know that won’t happen, this is grandstanding, but that is politics.

Rep. Roy Introduces Bill to Close Loophole in National Firearms Act

WASHINGTON—On Tuesday, Rep. Chip Roy (TX-21), alongside more than twenty colleagues, introduced the No Backdoor Gun Control Act. This legislation would remove “Any Other Weapon” (AOW) from the definition of a firearm under the National Firearms Act (NFA), ensuring that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) could not use the AOW section to violate Americans’ Second Amendment rights. This is especially important should legislation that removes short-barreled rifles and short-barreled shotguns (SBRs, SBSs) from the NFA be enacted. Closing this loophole is an important step forward in reining in the ATF.

“Bearing arms in self-defense is a human right. It is evident from the ATF’s behavior that, under Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, the agency is hellbent on attacking the Second Amendment through every means at its disposal. I am grateful for my colleagues’ work in Congress to remove short-barreled rifles and shotguns (SBRs, SBSs) from regulation under the National Firearms Act. However, should that legislation be successful in doing so, the NFA’s ‘Any Other Weapon’ provision would still allow an anti-gun administration to use the ATF to unilaterally regulate these firearms, and, more importantly, target their owners. The No Backdoor Gun Control Act would close this notable loophole and help protect law-abiding gun owners,” Rep. Roy said.

“The federal government has no business taxing and registering privately owned firearms with a catch-all term like “Any Other Weapon” or AOW. With the Biden Administration weaponizing definitions from the draconian National Firearms Act of 1934 to ban as many as 40,000,000 lawfully acquired guns like AR-15s, Rep. Chip Roy’s repeal of federal AOW regulations could not come at a better time,” said Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs, Gun Owners of America.

The No Backdoor Gun Control Act:

  • Removes AOWs from the definition of a firearm under the NFA
  • Ensures that AOW owners are treated as having met requirements of state licensing laws that reference the NFA
  • Requires the DOJ to destroy AOW registration records

The legislation is cosponsored by Reps. Daniel Webster (FL-01), Lauren Boebert (CO-03), Tom Tiffany (WI-07), Louie Gohmert (TX-01), Ted Budd (NC-13), Dan Crenshaw (TX-02), Marjorie Taylor Green (GA-14), Ken Buck (CO-04), Michael Cloud (TX-27), Matt Rosendale, (MT-at-Large), Jody Hice (GA-10), Ralph Norman (SC-05), Scott Perry (PA-10), Alex X. Mooney (WV-02), Randy Weber (TX-14), Diana Harshbarger (TN-01), Jeff Duncan (SC-03), Bob Good (VA-05), Jeff Van Drew (NJ-02), Thomas Massie (KY-04), Michelle Fischbach (MN -07), and Mary Miller (IL-15).

This legislation is supported by Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the National Association of Gun Rights (NAGR).

A Well-Regulated Militia… Ukraine Gives Guns to Citizens ‘To Defend Our Country’

The Ukrainian government will give weapons ” to anyone who wants to defend the country”, it has said, in the aftermath of Russia expanding its war in the country’s eastern territory.

Amid reserve forces being mobilised and sent to fight the expanding Russian occupation of Ukraine’s eastern territories, the Kyiv government is taking steps to dramatically increase the supply of available fighters, promising to hand weapons to anyone willing to take up arms in defence of the nation. Joining the resistance is simple too, the government says — all you need is your passport and a willingness to fight.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made the call on Thursday morning, hours after Russia’s Putin announced his forces would be entering the Ukrainian territories it had declared to be independent republics, using the alleged widespread presence of neo-nazis in the region as a pretext for military action.

Addressing the Ukrainian people, Zelensky said: “We will give weapons to anyone who wants to defend the country. Be ready to support Ukraine in the squares of our cities.”

As Breitbart News has already reported, the Ukrainian armed forces have a considerable stockpile of weapons relative to its number of soldiers and comparatively low levels of legal civilian firearm ownership.

Government press agency Ukrinform followed up these remarks, quoting the President as having said that this process of giving out weapons to civilians to defend the nation had already commenced and would be extended to anyone to wants, and is able, to defend Ukraine.

Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov gave clear instructions for how citizens could get involved, saying the state had “simplified all procedures” and that volunteers need only take their passport. In return, he said: “We give weapons to all patriots who are without hesitation ready to use them against the enemy!”.

The general invitation for Ukrainians to take up arms to defend themselves from Russian aggression comes after weeks of developments leading to this point, including civilian volunteers receiving training from the nation’s Territorial Defence establishment, the army reserve. While pictures from these official training sessions have been flashed around the world, there has been controversy surrounding programmes conducted by extremist groups like the Azov Batallion, which gained some press interest for training a “babushka battalion”.

President Zelensky has locked horns with Azov groups in the past, demanding they surrender illegally held weapons in 2019.

Yesterday, Ukraine’s parliament passed a bill considerably liberalising ownership of firearms for civilians and making explicitly clear this change in law was in response to the dangers the country faced. As reported, the bill “establishes the basic rights and responsibilities of individuals”, liberalises ownership, but also “increases the responsibility for their illegal use”.

Civilian gun shops had sold out of some popular models such as AR-10 and AR-15 rifles this week.

Having crap-for-brains is why and that appears to be a life long affliction

Bad arguments in favor of gun control persist

For proponents of gun control, there are tried and true arguments they trot out whenever they need them, and by “tried and true” I mean “tired and wrong.”

Over and over again, we see these arguments used, with almost no pushback from the mainstream media. After all, they’re the ones making these arguments.

Take this op-ed from the Star Tribune:

Gun regulation long has been the third rail of American politics. But the increase in murders, accidental shootings, suicides, armed carjackings and robberies, as well as the ongoing tragedy of mass shootings, shows the urgency of changing course. A responsible gun safety regulatory system would reduce crime and save lives.

Consider how we regulate cars. There are lawful uses for both guns and cars, but both are deadly when misused.

With cars, we require operators to be trained and licensed. We register every vehicle, and re-register each when it’s transferred to a new owner. We require liability insurance. We also require safety modifications and regulate how and where cars are driven.

Except that’s an inaccurate comparison. You only have to do any of that if you drive the vehicle on a public road. If you keep it confined to your farm, you’re not required to do any of that.

Further, the right to keep and bear arms is a constitutionally protected right. Cars, not so much. The courts have ruled that driving is a privilege, not a right, so comparing regulations surrounding a privilege to the lack of regulations for a right isn’t asinine, it’s idiotic.

But it’s bound to get better, right?

Don’t hold your breath.

For guns, there is no licensing, no training requirement, no registration, no insurance, no safety equipment required. This enables criminals to obtain guns with no background check, no waiting period — no means of enforcement at all.

Except that every FFL holder conducts criminal background checks on every firearm they sell.

“Oh, but private sales-”

Sure, in theory, but do you know how criminals tend to get guns? Via the black market, which is never going to conduct a criminal background check. Remarkably few buy from law-abiding gun owners looking to lawfully sell a firearm, so it’s a non-issue.

Yet the hits don’t stop there. Oh no, we get this classic gem:

The U.S. Constitution explicitly says “well-regulated” when referring to gun rights, yet the gun lobby opposes any form of gun regulation. The courts have said that reasonable restrictions may be placed on the possession of firearms. The National Firearms Act of 1934 effectively banned machine guns from most private ownership. Since that time, the “Tommy guns” of the Al Capone era and other fully automatic machine guns have not been used in mass killings or other crimes.

Oh, goodie, the “well-regulated” argument.

Talk about nonsense.

Look here, Sport. The phrase “well-regulated” meant nothing more than “properly functioning,” such as a well-regulated clock. The term didn’t mean then what it means now and there’s been a lot of actual scholarship supporting that fact.

Plus, more importantly, the right explicitly says “the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” That’s a contradictory clause unless “well-regulated” meant something differently at the time. It’s unlikely such a contradictory amendment would have been added by our Founding Fathers who desperately were trying to build a nation of laws.

But the author doesn’t care about that. He just wants to see new gun control passed, claiming it saves lives. Except, a look at the UK’s homicide rate before and after they passed gun control shows that it doesn’t really.

So not only are his arguments bad, even the facts work against him.

Grabbing Guns Won’t Reduce Urban Violence
Firearm seizures are ineffective, and gun possession arrests are frequently unjust

If you want to reduce gun violence, New York City Mayor Eric Adams thinks, you need to go after guns. His plan relies heavily on disrupting gun trafficking, seizing guns, and arresting people for illegal gun possession.

This strategy is unlikely to work. Worse, the focus on gun possession arrests, if it fails to distinguish between people who pose a real threat to public safety and people who carry guns for self-protection, will compound the injustice of systematically denying city dwellers their Second Amendment rights.

“It is estimated that as many as 2 million illegal guns were in circulation in New York City in 1993,” the Justice Department reports. Last year, the New York City Police Department seized about 6,000 guns; even at that unusually high rate, three decades of seizures would not have made much of a difference.

Given that reality, attempts to disrupt the supply of guns are not a very promising approach either. For crime guns in New York, the average time between initial sale and confiscation is nearly 12 years.

Philadelphia, like New York, has recently seen sharp increases in homicides. But law enforcement officials in that city are rightly skeptical that gun seizures or supply-side measures are an effective way to tackle the problem.

Between 1999 and 2020, according to a January report from a committee that includes local police officials and Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, nearly 13 million guns were legally sold in Pennsylvania, an average of more than 1,600 a day. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies seized an average of 22 guns per day.

“With so many guns available,” Krasner says in the report, “a law enforcement strategy prioritizing seizing guns locally does little to reduce the supply of guns.” And if that strategy “entails increasing numbers of car and pedestrian stops,” he warns, it “has the potential to be counterproductive by alienating the very communities that it is designed to help.”

As in New York, the Philadelphia report notes, “most guns used and/or recovered are those purchased a long time ago, indicating that attempts to limit the future supply of guns now will not impact the current gun violence crisis.” The report’s analysis of 100 shootings confirms other research finding that criminals typically obtain guns through illegal transfers or theft, sources that would not be affected by new restrictions on sales, such as expanded background checks.

Data from Baltimore, another city where homicides have risen in recent years, likewise cast doubt on the effectiveness of Adams’ strategy. Based on 31 years of homicide and gun-seizure data, a Battleground Baltimore report published last week concludes that “seizing ‘illegal’ guns does not reduce violent crime, although gun seizures and gun possession arrests remain metrics frequently cited by police.”

Arresting people for illegal gun possession is not just ineffective; it is frequently unjust. Krasner says gun possession arrests “must be targeted to distinguish between drivers of gun violence who possess firearms illegally and otherwise law-abiding people who are not involved in gun violence.”

When “people do not feel protected by the police,” Krasner notes, they may “view the risk of being caught by police with an illegal gun as outweighed by the risk of being caught on the street without one.” Before he was elected, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg expressed a similar concern.

“We need to recognize that not every person charged with possessing an illegal gun in New York City is a driver of violence,” Bragg said on his campaign website. “My dad had an illegal gun not because he liked guns or because he was ‘dangerous’; he had a gun because of crime in the neighborhood.”

Bragg has since retreated from that stance, echoing Adams’ determination to vigorously prosecute people who carry guns without the government’s permission. But law enforcement agencies cannot redeem their failure to protect public safety by locking up people who respond to that failure by exercising the constitutional right to armed self-defense.

Bill would reimburse defendants who shoot under self-defense

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A panel of lawmakers introduced legislation that would strengthen Idaho’s “stand your ground” law by requiring counties to reimburse anyone charged in a slaying if a judge or jury concludes they acted in self-defense.

Sen. Christy Zito, a Republican from Hammett, said the proposal is needed to protect people like Kyle Rittenhouse, who used an assault-style rifle to shoot three people during a street protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020. Rittenhouse killed Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, but he said he acted in self-defense. A jury last year acquitted him of multiple charges including homicide.

“The way our political world is looking more and more every day, we need to make sure that our citizens are protected beyond any shadow of a doubt so if they do indeed take human life, they’re protected from that,” Zito said told the House State Affairs Committee.

Zito, who is sponsoring the proposal along with Rep. Priscilla Giddings, a Republican from White Bird, said the bill includes “immunity and reimbursement for justifiable homicide.”

The immunity and reimbursement wouldn’t apply if the person knew or reasonably should have known that the person they are using force against is a police officer, Zito said.

If enacted, the legislation would require the county or prosecuting state agency where the person was charged with a crime to reimburse the defendant for “all reasonable costs” if they are found not guilty by reason of self defense. Reasonable costs would include lost wages, the costs of any lost business opportunities and legal costs including bail, expert witness fees, attorney’s bills and other expenses.

The bill also includes a “safety net” to protect defendants if they are sued by victim in a self-defense case, she said.

The proposal was introduced on a unanimous vote.

Yes, I also think such could happen (anything’s possible), but 1, We’re not Canada and 2, I think that if SloJoe, or anyone else for that matter, tried to enact the sort of ’emergency measures’ martial law as Trudeau did in Canada, for anything short of global thermonuclear war, what would result is exactly what TPTB are scared to death of.

BARR: A Canadian-Style ‘Emergency’ Could Easily Happen Here

On Feb. 14, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave Canadians a Valentine’s Day present, invoking the draconian “Emergencies Act” and suspending a wide range of civil liberties otherwise enjoyed by his countrymen.
Lest Americans conclude that our constitutional republic is safe from such facially dictatorial actions, they should know that under existing federal laws and the laws of every state, the president or a governor could take similar “emergency” action at any time they decide an “emergency” presents itself. COVID has demonstrated this is spades.
Regardless of whether a real emergency exists prior to a president or governor invoking such powers, and regardless of whether such declaration is for a statutorily limited time, consequential damage to the fabric of a free society results. At a minimum, declaring an “emergency” and suspending individual liberties serves as a “warning” to citizens that they had best be careful what they say and do in the future.
Trudeau’s actions in declaring a “national emergency” because of an irksome, but peaceful, trucker’s strike should cause Americans to pay far closer attention to “emergency powers” laws here at home. Doing so might force some of our countrymen to question the abject fear that has undergirded much of public policy in the United States since the terror attacks of 9/11 — made far worse by the manner in which governments at all levels have responded to the COVID pandemic in the past biennium.
From a practical standpoint, as we see in Canada, it matters little whether the declaration of the “emergency” fits clearly within the four corners of the emergency law that is invoked. What matters is the presence of circumstances in which an elected leader is able to stoke the flames of fear and anger in a sufficiently large segment of the electorate, so that the invocation of the law seems to constitute a reasonable response.
Once an “emergency” law is on the books of the sovereign entity, whether of a state or the federal government, all it takes is a “stroke of the pen, law of the land” (to quote former Bill Clinton adviser Paul Begala) to unleash the awesome powers at that sovereign’s disposal. Just watch the videos emerging from Ottawa to see how quickly the nightmare unfolds once the document is signed.
The actual form of the government declaring the emergency is of little consequence. Abuse of emergency powers can happen in a representative democracy such as ours just as easily as in a Canadian parliamentary system. Moreover, Republicans often are just as likely to play the “emergency powers” card as are their Democrat counterparts. It was, after all, Republican President Donald Trump who, in March 2020, invoked the powers of at least three federal “national emergency” laws to meet a perceived COVID emergency threat.
Granted, many emergency declarations by state and federal officials are focused toward and limited to natural disasters, such as hurricanes or floods, and used primarily to free up government assistance. However,  the actual powers nestled within those laws are frighteningly expansive. For example, a U.S. president arguably could, among other actions upon declaring a “national emergency “ (not expressly defined in federal laws), seize control of the internet pursuant to a 1930s era communications law or freeze individuals’ financial accounts in reliance on 1970s era laws.
At the state level, Second Amendment supporters will recall law enforcement officers in New Orleans seizing, at times forcibly, over 1,000 lawfully owned private firearms in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Even though subsequent legal action undertaken by the NRA and other gun-rights groups successfully challenged the seizures, many firearms never were returned to their owners.
Even today, with medical and scientific evidence clearly demonstrating that lingering COVID hazards are not dire and are manageable, many government agencies, including public schools in jurisdictions across the country, are refusing to hand back all the “emergency” powers they grabbed in early 2020.
Founding Father James Madison had it right when he wrote in Federalist 57 that placing the powers of all three branches of government in the hands of one entity (whether a prime minister, a governor or a president) is “the very definition of tyranny.”
Today, 234 years later, tyranny is still tyranny, even if it is only “temporary.”
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Alabama House Passes Permitless Carry Bill

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – The Alabama House passed a proposal Tuesday to allow people to carry concealed handguns without a state permit.

House Republicans have named the handgun bill as a priority for the year.

The bill would do away with the requirement to get a concealed carry permit to carry a handgun concealed under clothes or in a purse or bag when they go in public.

TPTB want the ‘unwashed’ disarmed because we’re a long term threat to their controller dreams. They’re not ignorant of history where the pitchforks, rope & torches have often come out in response to their tyranny.

Is the Gun Dangerous, or is it the Criminal?

The world is fascinatingly complex yet important truths are often simple. We shouldn’t take that too far since most simple answers are also wrong or incomplete. That tension helps make life so interesting as we try to understand the world around us. For example, we saw violent crime increase in the last few years. Should we try to keep violent criminals away from guns, or should we try to keep violent criminals away from us? Is the tool dangerous or is the person dangerous? Let’s look at both ideas and see if there are any simple answers to be found.

When we look for simple solutions we see that criminals use guns to commit violence. That sounds like the case is closed but there is more evidence to uncover. If we keep looking then we find that innocent victims also use firearms to stop violence. That means the answers are not black and white but shades of gray.

When we look at all firearms we see that a vanishingly small fraction of the guns owned by civilians were used in violent crime each year (1 in 1400). Now we look deeper and find out that honest citizens used a firearm for self-defense over 1.6 million times a year. That is more people than live in New Hampshire or Hawaii. Each year, more people use a firearm for self-defense than the population of Wyoming and Vermont combined. Armed defense is common.

Proportions matter when we’re looking at shades of gray. We use a firearm for self-defense six times more often than a firearm is used in violent crime (5.98). Good guys with guns save lives. That is both simple and true.

Is safety that simple?

Despite the facts that guns overwhelmingly stop crime, New York State legislators passed a law to lets the public sue gun manufacturers because criminals used a “dangerous” gun that the manufacturers released into the public. That obviously misses the target of reducing crime. Either those New York lawmakers missed the facts or they didn’t care about honest citizens who defend themselves. Politics is obviously complex.

When we look at how criminals behaved, we see that most violent crimes (85%) didn’t involve a firearm at all. Said another way, if we would magically disarm everyone, that wouldn’t hamper the vast majority of violent criminals. Instead of reducing crime, disarming the innocent victims makes it easier for the criminals and would lead to more violence.

Young men commit most violent crimes. Young men are stronger than old men, and far stronger and faster than most women. Disarming women and the elderly makes them much more vulnerable to violent criminals.

Few of us want that. Disarming the good guys hurts honest citizens who want to protect their family. That isn’t an abstract theory, but common practice as we use a gun for self-defense over a million times a year.

Let’s step away from the soundbites. Look at human nature instead and think of the people you know. Some of the people you know are completely trustworthy while others are not. Some resist any temptation while others can’t be trusted with a penny. We are not all the same. When it comes to violence, some of us are a danger to others and most of us are not. It is the person who is a danger to others rather than the tools they use. Again, that is both simple and true.

Violent criminals are not like us. Most of us will never commit a violent crime, yet we know that a few people will victimize others. Most murders are committed by a few hitmen in drug gangs. 64 percent of felons who served time for a violent crime were re-arrested. 41 percent of violent criminals were later re-convicted of subsequent crimes. 34 percent of them were re-incarcerated. Some people practice a life of violent crime.

Shades of gray matter and a violent criminal is 500 times more likely to re-offend than a firearm is likely to be used in a violent crime.

In contrast, firearms manufacturers built a product that we overwhelmingly use to save lives in armed defense. If we’re looking for people who increase the risks for all of us, then let’s sue New York politicians, judges, and prosecutors who put dangerous recidivist-criminals back on our streets. Now that will save lives