RKBA – Page 126 – MILESFORTIS

Media Hysteria over Efforts to Protect 2nd Amendment

CNN is on the warpath against politicians and gun rights activist organizations for defending the Second Amendment against efforts to erode the right to keep and bear arms, especially when remarks from Joe Biden are singled out.

In a lengthy report Friday, CNN focused on West Virginia Republican State Rep. Brandon Steele, who has been pushing a “Second Amendment Preservation Act” that would “bar state or local police from enforcing new federal gun restrictions the Biden administration might adopt.”

While the story notes Steele has acknowledged the Biden administration has been so far unsuccessful in pressing what was a sweeping gun control agenda unveiled early in 2020. It is an extremist package that includes a ban on so-called “assault rifles,” waiting periods on handgun purchases, so-called “universal background checks” and regulate semi-auto rifles the same as full-auto machine guns.

The story asserts gun rights groups and politicians have been “gunning up fears that Biden wants to… ‘erase the Second Amendment’ and come to people’s homes and take away their guns.”

CNN recalls a Fox News piece that talked about how Second Amendment groups hit the airwaves with a message that if Biden “can force a needle in your arm, he can take away your gun.” That message was sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation, an organization often overlooked by the establishment media, which is content with demonizing the National Rifle Association. NRA had nothing to do with the message.

CNN declared in its report, “The inflammatory rhetoric surrounding these new laws, critics says, is similar and even connected to claims of 2020 election fraud and pushback against Covid-19 vaccine or mask mandates in that they rely on a denial of reality.”

Perhaps it is CNN that is denying reality. The SAF messages broadcast earlier this fall included quotes from Biden during a CNN Townhall in which he admitted he has been working to prohibit not only semi-auto rifles, but 9mm pistols.

At the time the message ran on some 20 different cable networks, Alan Gottlieb, SAF founder and executive vice president, said in a statement, “Over the past eight months since taking office, Joe Biden has evolved from being an annoying gun control advocate to a dangerously ambitious gun prohibitionist. He hasn’t simply climbed on the gun ban train, he’s now the engineer, portraying so-called ‘gun violence’ as a public health epidemic. He’s perpetuating a myth invented by the gun ban lobby to demonize guns, their owners and the Second Amendment that protects their right to keep and bear arms.”

The CNN story quotes Alexandra Filindra, described as “a political science professor at University of Illinois, Chicago, who studies gun politics, disinformation and social media.” She intimates gun rights defenders as being “part of an ideological system, [and believe] that the other side — in this case, the Democrats — are devious and intent on taking political rights away and imposing a socialistic tyranny.”

The Second Amendment does not protect a “political right.” It protects a fundamental right enumerated in the Constitution, gun rights advocates would respond.

But after Tuesday’s devastating election results for Democrats, whose only bright light seems to be the victory of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy while a Republican truck driver operating on a shoestring budget just beat the leader of the state Senate Democrats, probably will put gun control on the back burner, if not the shelf. Virginia voters replaced Democrats with Republicans in all three statewide races including the governor’s race. In Minneapolis, voters soundly rejected an effort to defund and dismantle the police department. In Seattle, voters rejected candidates who had advocated to defund the police.

It just might be a forecast of things to come next November at the mid-term elections. The rush toward the far left by radical anti-gun Democrats just hit a speed bump, and people behind the efforts to protect the Second Amendment were partly, if not largely responsible.

Comment O’ The Day
Remember..
The Marxists have two main goals:
1. Destroying America
2. Replace her with a China style techno-fascist state.
Gotta see the big picture folks.
The Marxist Dems intend these results of their policies.

Businesses Leave and Crime Increases While Massachusetts Legislators Pass More Gun Control Laws.

A new study confirms Massachusetts gun control laws achieved “no effect” on reducing violent crime even though legislators promised they would.

Politicians earn support by promising constituents they’ll focus on a few key issues and delivering results. Antigun lawmakers in the Bay State achieved a rare trifecta-failure by curtailing voters’ Constitutional rights, eliminating hundreds of jobs and failing to make a dent on violent crime and enhancing public safety.

Predictable Results

Nearly 600 members of the public attended a July 2014 Massachusetts Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security on a massive gun control expansion considered by the legislature. Oddly, the proposal sought to ban modern sporting rifles (MSRs) that the state already banned in 1998. It also included a provision to implement rules allowing law enforcement to decide “may issue,” “suitability standards” regarding who can purchase not only handguns, but also shotguns and rifles, regardless of whether the buyer passes a NICS background check.

A month later, then-Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick signed the bill and Massachusetts House Speaker Democrat Robert DeLeo praised it, saying the package will “make Massachusetts one of the safest places in the world.”

At the time, Bay State Republican and Second Amendment advocate Rep. George Peterson said of the gun control package, he “didn’t find anything that will have an appreciable effect on gun violence. These are more restrictions on lawful gun owners.”

A new 2021 deep-dive study by researchers at American University proved Rep. Peterson clairvoyant, concluding that the gun control package has “not reduced gun violence and gun crime at all in Massachusetts.”

Continue reading “”

Volunteer militia holding self-defense courses for women

DINWIDDIE, Va — On Saturday, Nov. 6, the volunteer militia Dinwiddie Civil Defense will be offering a self-defense class for women beginning at 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. with a 45 minute lunch break (enrollees must bring their own lunch). Cost to enroll is $40.

The class will cover six topics including: self defense as a state of mind, situational awareness, self defense hand to hand, self defense with non lethal weapons, self defense with lethal weapons (including information on conceal carrying) and home defense.

In-person instruction on the methods most effective in freeing oneself from a violent altercation will be given differing from many instructions which circulate in the online world.

Among the advice given by the group is not to strike a foe in a self defense situation, poorly placed blows may hurt the one doing the striking more than the receiver, the best course of option is to leave the scene as composedly and rapidly as possible, target the attacker’s hands if they are preventing a victim from leaving.

The course will also feature a presentation on recent crime statistics along with presentations by trained members of the group on how to handle hand-on-hand altercations. Some time will be spent on a range where trainees can learn how to handle and draw a gun as well as when the best situations are to use them to avoid escalating a situation.

“The reason I’m teaching this is because we have good community-minded people that are pretty well-trained, skilled and active in all sorts of security and personal protection,” said Rick Pyle, communications director of the Dinwiddie Civil Defense. “We see a lot of bad advice going around that is more geared toward getting people in trouble than helping them.”

Common forms of violence directed at women can include rape and sexual assault, various forms of harrasment and domestic violence involving an intimate partner.

According to ncadv.org, one in four women experience severe intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner contact sexual violence, and/or intimate partner stalking with impacts such as injury, fearfulness, post-traumatic stress disorder, use of victim services, contraction of sexually transmitted diseases. One in three women experience some form of physical violence by an intimate partner including a range of behaviors including slapping, shoving and pushing.

“The main thing that sparked this was I had several ladies around town ask me if I could teach them how to use different types of guns,” said Pyle. “A lot of advice is very poor and not practical. It assumes that a woman has been training for hours a week or is very calm at the moment.”

DCD is a community organization consisting of “community-minded” people who assist in various efforts and training in the area; much of it includes self-defense training. Some members are EMTs and the group has provided medical services in the past. The group also conducts training for outdoors preparedness such as how to set up a tent or cook one’s own food.

In February of this year, following the ice storm that left thousands without power, DCD provided upwards of 25 people to pull residents out of ditches, clear downed trees, assist those in emergency situations and provide transportation to those in need.

Those interested in taking the self-defense course for women can message DCD on their facebook page or on their telegram @dinwiddiecdf.

“Our primary focus is how to avoid putting yourself into a place where you could get hurt,” said Pyle. “If you know how to avoid certain scenarios, having situational awareness as a state of mind can help you avoid any undesirable situation.”

The Framers Knew the Risks of Keeping and Bearing Arms are Far Outweighed by the Benefits.

Gun rights advocates argue their constitutional rights are being infringed. Erik Jaffe, an attorney for Schaerr Jaffe who represents the Firearms Policy Coalition, which submitted a brief in this case, said people treat Second Amendment rights differently because they are afraid of guns.

“Let’s ask the question, are they being consistent in how they apply constitutional principles to that right,” Jaffe said in a phone call. “I understand they don’t like the right and I understand people are terrified of guns, I get that. … People are terrified of all kinds of things, yet if it were speech, we would never, never let courts get away with what they’ve gotten away with in New York and California.”

Yet another brief in the case was filed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz and 24 fellow Republicans including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who take an originalist view that individuals should be able to carry guns in public because the framers of the constitution said so.

“The inclusion of an individual right in the Constitution reflects the Framers’ determination not only that the benefits of guaranteeing that right outweigh the costs, but that no future legislature— including Congress—should have the ability to second-guess that determination,” their brief states.

The senators’ brief argues the framers understood the gun violence risks posed by the carrying of guns and decided to allow it anyway so the court should follow that precedent despite arguments that allowing more guns on the streets leads to more gun violence. They argue that the benefits outweigh these risks.

“In short, the Framers and ratifiers of both the Second and Fourteenth Amendments knew that the risks and benefits of arms — criminal misuse and defense against the same—were inextricably intertwined in the very concept of “bearing” arms,” the brief states. “They weighed those considerations and chose a broad right to keep and bear arms, rather than broad discretion to disarm the public, as not only the best solution, but one to be enshrined as the supreme law of the land — above any contrary choice made through mere legislation.”

— Kelsey Reichmann in Justices barreling into gun rights standoff have little precedent to guide them

Fact Check The Left: Let’s Dive into This ABC News Piece About the Assault Weapons Ban

They just don’t care. Maybe that’s where we got off the wrong foot in our counteroffensive concerning false media narratives on firearms and the Second Amendment. It was never about being accurate. It was about the narrative. We saw that explicitly and in its mature form when the Russian collusion nonsense was in full swing.

The media has long mucked up firearm lexicon and legal precedent. Most of the things the media and the anti-gun Left want are already laws. The rest is beyond extraneous that will do nothing but hurt law-abiding Americans’ ability to exercise their constitutional rights. It also won’t enhance public safety, hence the proposed ATF ban on pistol brace stabilizers. All this will do is put 10-40 million Americans in legal jeopardy for doing nothing wrong. And with the Biden presidency crashing and burning, the media has decided to rehash another lie about the so-called assault weapons ban.

First, it’s a fake term. Second, it’s been repackaged yet again as a law that curbed violent crime. It didn’t. It was a trash law, but there were perks. It helped destroy the Democratic Party during the 1994 midterms and forever split the party on the issue. That’s why after Sandy Hook, an amendment to reimpose it in the failed Manchin-Toomey bill was easily defeated. It was a bipartisan legislative skinning, to be honest. That didn’t stop ABC News from peddling this myth:

…in 1989, an AK-47 was used to kill five children at a Stockton, California, elementary school, leading California to become the first state to enact an assault weapons ban, Klarevas said. That was followed by two other high-profile mass shootings with semiautomatic pistols — one in San Francisco and one on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train — in 1993.

Those shootings were the impetus for the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, signed into effect by President Bill Clinton in 1994, stopping the manufacture, sale, transfer and possession of these types of firearms.

The federal law led to a decrease in gun massacre incidents where six or more victims are killed, Klarevas wrote in a report he issued last year as an expert witness in a federal court case challenging California’s ban on assault weapons. When compared to data from 1984 to 1994, the U.S. saw a 43% drop in gun massacre deaths and a 26% decline in gun massacre deaths involving assault weapons in 1994 to 2004, according to his report.

The federal ban was not renewed by Congress and expired in 2004. Gun massacre incidents involving these weapons then skyrocketed from 2004 to 2014, jumping 167% compared to the 10 years the federal law was in effect, Klarevas’ report said, and active shooter incidents with different guns overall have been steadily climbing over the last two decades, according to FBI data, which does not break down murders by exact model of gun used.

While there’s no federal assault weapons ban now, Washington, D.C., and seven states — California, New Jersey, Hawaii, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York — have banned the possession of certain kinds of these firearms, and the rules vary state to state. According to Klarevas’ report, “In the past 30 years, accounting for population, states with assault weapons bans in place experienced 54% fewer gun massacres involving the use of assault weapons and 67% fewer deaths resulting from such attacks perpetrated with assault weapons.”

In the decade after the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was enacted in 1994, the U.S. saw a 43% drop in gun massacre deaths, according to one report.

After it expired in 2004, the report said gun massacre incidents involving assault rifles skyrocketed 167%. https://t.co/h33TImwWu5

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 27, 2021

You get the gist. The law curbed violent crime. It did not. For starters, rifles and shotguns aren’t used in most firearm-related crimes and homicides. It’s not even close. Second, even liberals who have combed through the numbers honestly know that the assault weapons ban being a major vehicle in crime reduction is a myth. Take Lois Beckett’s piece in The New York Times seven years ago:

…in the 10 years since the previous ban lapsed, even gun control advocates acknowledge a larger truth: The law that barred the sale of assault weapons from 1994 to 2004 made little difference.

It turns out that big, scary military rifles don’t kill the vast majority of the 11,000 Americans murdered with guns each year. Little handguns do.

In 2012, only 322 people were murdered with any kind of rifle, F.B.I. data shows.

The continuing focus on assault weapons stems from the media’s obsessive focus on mass shootings, which disproportionately involve weapons like the AR-15, a civilian version of the military M16 rifle.

Banning sales of military-style weapons resonated with both legislators and the public: Civilians did not need to own guns designed for use in war zones.

On Sept. 13, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed an assault weapons ban into law. It barred the manufacture and sale of new guns with military features and magazines holding more than 10 rounds. But the law allowed those who already owned these guns — an estimated 1.5 million of them — to keep their weapons.

The policy proved costly. Mr. Clinton blamed the ban for Democratic losses in 1994. Crime fell, but when the ban expired, a detailed study found no proof that it had contributed to the decline.

The ban did reduce the number of assault weapons recovered by local police, to 1 percent from roughly 2 percent.

“Should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement,” a Department of Justice-funded evaluation concluded.

Most Americans do not know that gun homicides have decreased by 49 percent since 1993 as violent crime also fell, though rates of gun homicide in the United States are still much higher than those in other developed nations. A Pew survey conducted after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., found that 56 percent of Americans believed wrongly that the rate of gun crime was higher than it was 20 years ago.

Now, granted violent crime has spiked due to Democrat-run cities gutting cash bail and declaring all-out war on law enforcement. It’s nowhere near 1993 levels, but it has become a topic on the minds of voters. The fact that most Americans didn’t know gun crime had dropped 49 percent since 1993 and remained that way even after the ban lapsed is a media oversight. The liberal media didn’t do their jobs because—well—it went against the narrative.

It’s handguns you want to target if you want to get heavy-handed on gun crime but look at the polling regarding a handgun ban and you’ll see why no one will touch it. It’s insanely unpopular and unconstitutional. And ABC News also had a piece about handguns being the most used firearm when it comes to homicide, so stop lying guys. The data is there. They ignore it. It’s about the narrative for them, so this ABC News piece is straight garbage—but there are enough liberal dolts who will believe this tripe.

As with anything now, expect most, but not all, pieces from these guys to be intentionally misleading.

“Although there has been no direct empirical evidence linking sexual dysfunction (SD) with gun ownership, speculation has been widespread and persistent for decades.” ?

That ‘speculation’ has actually been nothing more than Junior High School ‘Boy’s room’ level insults from those who have nothing better to use in their anti-gun/anti-civil rights screeds.
That these researchers went to the trouble to finally dump it out on the trash heap of ideas where it should have been the first time it was put forth is to be appreciated.

Sexual Dysfunction and Gun Ownership in America: When Hard Data Meet a Limp Theory

On track for the next permitless carry state?

Ohio House committee passes bill allowing for concealed carry of guns without training

COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio House committee passed legislation Thursday that would allow most Ohioans who are 21 years of age and up to lawfully carry a concealed firearm.

Current law allows Ohioans to carry concealed weapons after completing eight hours of training and submitting an application to their county sheriff, who conducts a background check. House Bill 227, if passed, would remove the training and application requirements for anyone who is of age and not prohibited from carrying a weapon by state or federal law.

Over each of the last six years, about 3,900 concealed carry permits on average were either suspended, revoked or denied, according to data from the Ohio Attorney General.

The legislation would also remove Ohioans’ duty under current law to notify police officers that they’re carrying a weapon if they’re stopped in traffic. HB 227 only requires them to notify officers about the weapon if they’re asked.

Passing “permitless carry,” as the legislation is commonly referred to, would forward a steady march of loosening Ohio’s gun laws. Ohio’s concealed carry program launched in 2004 and required 12 hours of training at the time. In 2006, lawmakers passed a bill blocking cities from passing gun control laws stricter than those of the state at large. Republicans passed a “stand your ground” bill last year that removes the legal duty to first seek retreat from a confrontation before responding with deadly force.

The push toward permitless carry comes as gun violence hits record highs. In 2021 so far, 694 people have been killed and nearly 1,600 have been injured in shootings in Ohio, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks media reports of shootings around the U.S.

The legislation passed without much fanfare from Ohio’s House Government Oversight Committee. House Majority Leader Bill Seitz, R-Green Twp., said he was convinced of the need to pass the legislation by gun lobbyists from the National Rifle Association and the Buckeye Firearms Association.

Rep. Tim Ginter, a Salem Republican who also works as an ordained minister, mentioned that the legislation clarifies that people can carry concealed weapons in a house of worship, as many of his parishioners do.

“If you attend the church that I pastor, just be aware that there’s probably a lot of people in there with handguns,” he said.

House Democrats on the committee opposed the legislation. They tried, without success, to amend two anti-gun violence provisions into the bill. One would require background checks to purchase firearms at gun shows and from private sellers. Another would allow judges, if petitioned by family or law enforcement, to temporarily seize weapons from people experiencing mental health crises.

Rep. Paula Hicks-Hudson, the ranking Democrat on the committee, called the legislation “short-sighted” and divisive.

“This extreme legislation doesn’t make Ohio any more gun friendly,” she said. “Instead, it makes it a lot less safe for all of us, including gun owners.”

The gun lobby has been pushing for permitless carry in Ohio for at least 10 to 15 years, according to Buckeye Firearms Association’s top lobbyist Rob Sexton. In an interview, he framed the issue around the constitutional right to bear arms and downplayed the existence of a relationship between loosened gun laws and gun violence.

“The law has been liberalized over the last 15 years toward the goal of fully realizing what the Constitution says, and we still haven’t seen the corresponding bad behavior by regular, law abiding gun owners,” he said. “So no, I don’t believe this change will make that happen either.”

In Ohio, the state supreme court holds that the constitutional right to bear arms does not guarantee the right to carry a concealed weapon.

“There is no constitutional right to bear concealed weapons,” wrote Justice Paul Pfeifer in a 2003 majority opinion.

The U.S. Supreme Court is also set to hear oral arguments Nov. 3 on the constitutionality of a New York law restricting concealed carrying of weapons in the state.

Richelle O’Connor, an activist with Moms Demand Action, said the outcomes of the policy are simple: More people with guns they aren’t trained how to use equals more gun violence.

“If more guns made us safe, then we would be the safest country in the industrialized nation, and we are not,” she said.

After the hearing, Moms Demand Action issued a news release citing two studies linking permitless carry laws to increases in violent crime. A 2018 working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research authored by researchers from Stanford and Columbia universities found states with permitless carry laws experience roughly 15% higher rates of violent crime 10 years after adoption than they otherwise would have. Other research published in the American Journal for Public Health found that permitless carry laws were associated with 11% increases in handgun homicide rates.

Twenty-one states allow inhabitants (residents only in North Dakota) to carry a concealed weapon without a permit, according to a count from the U.S Concealed Carry Association. This includes neighboring states of West Virginia and Kentucky.

Permitless carry bills are advancing in other conservative-controlled statehouses around the U.S. including Wisconsin and Alabama and recently passed in Tennessee and Texas.

Standing firm on the Second Amendment

The right of American citizens to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and those who choose to lawfully exercise this right should be at liberty to do so.

Firearms play an important role in daily life for many West Virginians. The beautiful Mountain State is home to many who use their guns to hunt, for sport or to protect their homes.

No matter the reason an individual has for owning a firearm, the laws of the land — in no uncertain terms — state they may do so.

Perhaps one of the most important phrases in the Constitution with regards to gun ownership is the very clear provision that this right “shall not be infringed.”

Someone needs to highlight those four words for the current presidential administration, one that stands poised to restrict lawful gun ownership like no U.S. President has done before.

The Biden Administration has already urged enactment of new “red flag” laws, which can allow the confiscation of firearms without due process, and proposed broadening the definition of short-barreled rifles and adding even more burdensome background checks to those already in place.

Our office led a 20-state coalition in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling that allowed federal regulators – without congressional action — to outlaw bump stocks, a popular, legal rifle accessory that aids gun owners with limited hand mobility.

Criminalizing ownership of legally purchased bump stocks would result in more than 500,000 of these devices being destroyed or surrendered by their owners. The new regulation allows the Biden Administration to impose serious fines and imprisonment for anyone possessing such a firearm accessory.

Our office is also leading a 20-state coalition in pushing back against another onerous proposal by the Biden Administration, one that greatly expands the authority of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and expands the definition of a receiver, the already heavily regulated part of a firearm that houses its firing mechanism.

Myself and other state attorneys general argue that President Biden’s new rule could put many parts manufacturers out of business and that it improperly grants bureaucrats at the ATF unconstitutional and unrestrained discretion over which parts are subject to regulation and criminalization.

We have also urged the U.S. Supreme Court, in concert with 24 state attorneys general, to push back against a court ruling that would permit states to outlaw ammunition magazines that are currently legal in more than half the nation, including West Virginia.

Our office fervently fights to protect the Second Amendment rights of responsible gun owners. We have expanded our concealed carry reciprocity agreements with numerous states, allowing West Virginians with concealed handgun licenses to lawfully cross state lines with their firearms.

Gun violence and the senseless death attributed to it should pain all Americans. However, the malevolent acts of a select few should never be a catalyst for stripping law-abiding masses of their Constitutional rights, especially their right to self-defense and to bear arms.

I will not allow the far left to run roughshod over our citizens’ gun rights. If President Biden follows through on his overbroad and far-reaching proposals, we will take swift legal action.

We must tell President Biden we want no part of his proposed gun grab and stand firm on defending the Constitutional rights of our citizens to help West Virginia reach her full potential.

(Patrick Morrisey is the Attorney General of West Virginia.)

Law Professor Misfires On NYSRPA v. Bruen

It’s going to be nearly impossible to address and report on every single solitary bit of non-sense that’s coming from the anti-freedom caucus as we approach November 3rd. Next Wednesday has been marked up as a proverbial “judgement day” for those who wish to keep the citizenry unarmed, as the arguments in NYSRPA v. Bruen will be delivered.

It’s almost as if the concerted effort and universal message from those that wish to enact their will on others, is that what they say will somehow be gospel if they repeat it enough. That might be true about lies, repeating them enough they become fact, but at least in this country we do have legal precedent and historical accounts to lean on. Versus the very scientific “feelings” which the freedom-grabbers use to “prove” their often baseless claims. Take for example an Assistant Professor of Law from Southern Methodist University and his claims:

The stakes in one of the most significant Second Amendment cases in U.S. history are high.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, expected by mid-2022, could declare a New York state restriction on carrying concealed handguns in public places unconstitutional.

Such a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, which include a National Rifle Association affiliate, could loosen gun regulations in many parts of the country.

Ruben, the Assistant Law Professor must not have gotten the memorandum about other “most significant Second Amendment cases in U.S. history.” Yes, he’s correct in asserting that the stakes are high, however this is beyond dramatic. I don’t know if Ruben studied Heller in law school himself, or if they talk about Heller, at Southern Methodist University, but I’d say that case was pretty significant.

We all know that Heller and subsequently McDonald dealt with the complete prohibition of the possession of handguns in certain jurisdictions. I think a complete prohibition trumps the fact that the Bruen case only really applies to the last few hold-out bad actors that don’t recognize the Second Amendment in its full form. How many states is that really? By the books, we’re talking about nine states that are “may-issue” when it comes to carry permits. Of those nine states, the worst offenders on actually not issuing permits, or having really bad jurisdictions that don’t, are: California, Hawaii, New York, and New Jersey. Those four states are the worst offenders.

To have Ruben say that “a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs…could loosen gun regulations in many parts of the country” leads me to believe he needs to go to geography class. Four states is not “many parts of the country”. Mathematically that’s 4/50 or 2/25 or 8%. I can see 8% equating to “many parts.”

Ruben reassures us though.

In my view as a Second Amendment scholar, this case is also noteworthy in that how the court reaches its conclusion could affect the Second Amendment analysis of all weapons laws in the future.

Sir, agree this can affect the Second Amendment analysis of weapons laws in the future. I can hardly accept you as a “Second Amendment scholar”. If you’re a “scholar”, who owns you and funds your “research”? Your analysis is biased. Turn in your sheepskin or get a refund. Our scholar goes into the history:

In 1911, after an increase in homicides, New York instituted a handgun permitting system. In 1913, the permitting system was amended to address concealed carrying.

For more than a century, someone seeking to carry a concealed handgun for self-defense in the state has needed to file a permit application showing that they have what the law calls “proper cause.”

To obtain an unrestricted permit, applicants must “demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community,” such as by showing they are being stalked.

Yes, in 1911 the Sullivan Act. was implemented in New York. For those of you looking for a “scholarly” way of presenting that information, you now know it’s called the Sullivan Act. The history of this section of law is much more complicated than “an increase in homicides”. More accurately, it’s laid out in this Post article:

In 1911 — in the wake of a notorious Gramercy Park blueblood murder-suicide — Sullivan sponsored the Sullivan Act, which mandated police-issued licenses for handguns and made it a felony to carry an unlicensed concealed weapon.

This was the heyday of the pre-Prohibition gangs, roving bands of violent toughs who terrorized ethnic neighborhoods and often fought pitched battles with police. In 1903, the Battle of Rivington Street pitted a Jewish gang, the Eastmans, against the Italian Five Pointers. When the cops showed up, the two underworld armies joined forces and blasted away, resulting in three deaths and scores of injuries. The public was clamoring for action against the gangs.

Problem was the gangs worked for Tammany. The Democratic machine used them as shtarkers (sluggers), enforcing discipline at the polls and intimidating the opposition. Gang leaders like Monk Eastman were even employed as informal “sheriffs,” keeping their turf under Tammany control.

The Tammany Tiger needed to rein in the gangs without completely crippling them. Enter Big Tim with the perfect solution: Ostensibly disarm the gangs — and ordinary citizens, too — while still keeping them on the streets.

In fact, he gave the game away during the debate on the bill, which flew through Albany: “I want to make it so the young thugs in my district will get three years for carrying dangerous weapons instead of getting a sentence in the electric chair a year from now.”

I don’t expect Ruben to be reading the New York Post, however I do expect him to be familiar with the facts laid out in the extensive piece. The piece gets at the crux of all the issues in may-issue systems:

Sullivan knew the gangs would flout the law, but appearances were more important than results. Young toughs took to sewing the pockets of their coats shut, so that cops couldn’t plant firearms on them, and many gangsters stashed their weapons inside their girlfriends’ “bird cages” — wire-mesh fashion contraptions around which women would wind their hair.

Ordinary citizens, on the other hand, were disarmed, which solved another problem: Gangsters had been bitterly complaining to Tammany that their victims sometimes shot back at them.

Yeah, convenient. This all speaks for itself and holds true today.

What else did Ruben have to say in his love-letter to anti-freedom?

In considering Bruen, the Supreme Court will focus on the meaning of an important precedent: District of Columbia v. Heller.

When the Supreme Court issued its Heller ruling in 2008, a 5-4 majority struck down Washington, D.C.‘s ban on the possession of handguns in the home. The court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms.

This is where we’re going to have to part ways widely dear sir. True, in Heller, it was the first time THE COURT held the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. That’s because prior to that, the matter did not really surface. At least not in such an in your face kind of way. This leaves me to wonder if Ruben, or any of the anti-freedom caucus members have ever actually read the Second Amendment. I know there is so much squabbling over this “militia” thing and what on earth “regulated” means, but that does not change the largest portion of the amendment, the who. Who’s rights shall not be infringed?

…the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

I don’t know how much more plain English the founders could have made that statement. The progressive push to say that the Bruen case may reduce restrictions and all this other hogwash is grossly inaccurate, as the court has an opportunity to right a wrong. A restoration of rights that were infringed upon for over a century. Any “scholar” should be able to figure that out.

No anti-freedom caucus rant would not be complete in 2021 if somehow Trump was not brought up. Kudos! Ruben for working that in there.

Chief Justice John Roberts has steered his colleagues toward narrow rulings before. But he will hold little sway if the three justices former President Donald Trump appointed team up with Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, the court’s two other conservatives, on a far-reaching majority opinion.

Trump conferred with the NRA before nominating Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett – all of whom received the gun group’s blessing.

The ruling will underscore the significance of their presence on the court.

Yes Eric, this is significant. It’s also sad. It’s sad it took Trump to step up to the plate and find justices that are willing to read the plain language of the amendment, and possibly hold that it’s meaningful. I’m quite interested in Ruben’s scholarly view on the matter of this case after an opinion. I’m always in need of a good chuckle.

We’ll have to see. Waiting until June of next year or so is much better than the 100+ years of infringement we’ve been dealing with. At least we’ll know where we stand…as citizens or subjects.

Ignorance Isn’t Why We Don’t Bend Over For Gun Control

Gun control has been an issue in American politics for decades. Back in the 1970s, there was a concerted push to try and ban handguns. After all, they were used in most crimes and you didn’t need them for hunting. Of course, hunting wasn’t what the Second Amendment was about, but that argument was still a thing.

And that wasn’t even the start of the discussion.

Since then, the debate has continued to varying degrees. Today, we’re in the midst of still more gun control talk. And it seems some believe that the only real reason we don’t advance their anti-Second Amendment agenda is ignorance.

This is from a piece titled: “Dumbass nation: Our biggest national security problem is America’s ‘vast and militant ignorance’”

With apologies to Paul Simon, and despite all of the information available to the mortal man, there are still millions of Americans who currently believe they’re gliding down the highway when in fact they’re slip slidin’ away.

As President Biden prepares to travel to Europe to meet with the Pope and our NATO allies next week, there remains a huge national security problem for him to grapple with, one that hasn’t been addressed in any meaningful fashion for many years.

It is the root cause of our problems with China. It’s why some people don’t want to get vaccinated. It’s why some people still gleefully follow Donald Trump. It explains why Congress can’t get together in a bipartisan fashion to deal with infrastructure, health care and gun control.

It’s why we have problems understanding climate change.
It explains voter suppression.
It’s why “critical race theory” has become controversial, why elements of our population on the left and right are at war with each other and why some believe the earth is flat and the Holocaust didn’t occur.
It’s why some of us believe we’re still the “No. 1” nation in the world when — other than having the largest military — we clearly lag behind other major nations in many critical factors.
More than anything else it explains why we fail.

Of course, the reason we don’t accept their will on gun control is that we just don’t know any better.

Granted, I look at all the same studies they do. I read all their arguments and do so each and every day. To believe that I, as an example, oppose gun control because of some kind of ignorance is, well, ignorant.

See, I know the studies they cite, but I also recognize the problems with the studies. That supposedly massive support for background checks? The questions are written in a way that respondents likely think they’re talking about the current system we have in place. I did more than look at the media reports and accept them at face value. I actually read the study.

The whole “you’re four times more likely to be shot if you have a gun in the home” thing? That study didn’t differentiate between lawful gun owners at criminals who happened to have guns. That’s a significant oversight since criminals are engaged in activities that may result in them being shot while the lawful gun owner doesn’t.

I read that study too.

And here’s the thing: I’m not alone.

Those of us who support the Second Amendment do so from a position of knowledge. We understand both what our Founding Fathers intended with regard to the right to keep and bear arms. More than that, we understand the limitations of the studies cited by anti-Second Amendment types as well as the studies they like to pretend don’t exist. Those are the studies that show guns are used more often to save lives than take them, the studies that show gun ownership reduces crime and that gun control doesn’t work.

And more than that, we hold our elected officials accountable.

The reason there’s been no bipartisan deal on gun control is that Republicans want control of Congress again. Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Kevin McCarthy both recognize they can’t do that until gun owners trust them to protect our rights. Bending over for gun control isn’t going to help them and they know it.

None of that comes from ignorance, though. It comes from a firm understanding of the facts.

Biden’s Folly Armed the Taliban, But He Still Wants Your AR-15

A long the long, dusty roads that connect Afghanistan’s city of Mazar-e-Sharif, capital of Balkh province, to the country’s northern neighbor of Uzbekistan, I saw remnants of Afghan army uniforms, as well as beaten-down Humvees and armored personnel carriers. This was in the immediate aftermath of Balkh province’s fall to the Taliban in August, but within a week, such high-priced goods—courtesy of the United States taxpayer—were simply picked up after being abandoned and shuffled into the new regime’s burgeoning arsenal.

Indeed, members of the brutal outfit wasted no time in recovering the billions-of-dollars-worth of equipment left behind by the fleeing, defeated Afghan National Security Forces. Moreover, the Taliban foot soldiers were quick to start showing off the loot; many even took and sent selfies posing with their new American guns. In Kandahar—the symbolic birthplace of the Taliban—U.S.-funded military hardware was paraded through the streets.

And, according to news reports, in the rare cases a citizen possessed a firearm, the Taliban quickly stripped them of it. “It is terrifying,” one resident in the freshly fallen Kandahar city said to me from his home, which he had barely left for weeks on end. “We weren’t even allowed to buy a single small gun to defend ourselves. Now, this.”

The hard-line Islamic insurgency now has its hands on everything from guns and ammunition to night-vision equipment, helicopters and heavy weapons. It is all courtesy of Washington’s chaotic and hasty withdrawal from a country that was clearly unable to stand on its own feet despite reassurances from the Biden administration, decades of training Afghan military and police forces and gargantuan sums of money tossed its way.

Even more disconcerting is that the Taliban were able to seize and keep their U.S.-financed arms right under the nose of the Americans, with little being done to recapture or destroy the weapons that had tumbled into dangerous hands.

The U.S. military at least disabled some of its high-powered goods just prior to departing Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) in one small attempt to make sure they didn’t add to the terrorist stockpile.

Matériel the Biden administration left behind for the Taliban

Meanwhile, law-abiding Americans must ask why the Biden administration did nothing to stop the Taliban—and the terrorists in their ranks—from getting actual “weapons of war,” even as Biden and anti-Second Amendment extremists are doing all they can to take ordinary semi-automatic rifles away from American citizens.

On the campaign trail, both President Joe Biden (D) and Vice President Kamala Harris (D) pledged to enact more onerous Second Amendment restrictions. Now, national security adviser Jake Sullivan has been forced to admit that the Taliban has recovered a “fair amount” of U.S.-provided military equipment and that they “don’t have a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defense materials has gone.”

“We don’t have a sense that they are going to readily hand it over to us at the airport,” Sullivan said wearily, prior to the final evacuation of HKIA by American forces.

Intelligence estimates suggest that the Taliban now possesses thousands of armored vehicles and hundreds of aircraft, along with countless guns. Additionally, over the course of the war, the U.S. supplied the now-defunct Afghan forces with hundreds of thousands of small arms and millions of rounds of ammunition. One of the biggest reasons why the Taliban was able to capture key terrain so quickly toward the end of the Afghanistan fall was because they were able to scoop up and use the U.S. weapons.

Yet, the Biden administration doesn’t think Americans can be trusted with the freedom to protect themselves. Instead, Biden thinks American citizens should have to entirely rely on the government to protect them. In June, the Biden team asked the U.S. Senate to “ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.” In stark contrast, no one on the Biden team seems too disturbed by the number of Afghans who will suffer at the receiving end of U.S.-issued weapons inside the beleaguered country.

It should also be stressed that whatever happens in Afghanistan does not stay in Afghanistan. And whatever the Taliban possesses now will not likely remain solely in their bloodied hands. The Haqqani network, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, is considered a branch of the Taliban, and has already been put in charge of running Kabul’s security. Kabul’s new leadership is also closely aligned to the few hundred al-Qaeda personnel still operating in Afghanistan.

Adding insult to injury are the disturbing ground reports and imagery indicating the moving of arms and machinery to Iran, where these weapons could be used against American interests in Iraq.

The region has a robust black market that is used by all sides of the equation; meaning that there is little doubt the weapons will be bought and sold to members of the even-more-brutal ISIS-K affiliate that also operates in the region. In addition, the Taliban is already showing signs of leadership struggles and internal power plays, multiple sources warn, which means that splinter terrorist groups, including elements even more hard-line and vicious than the Taliban, could pose additional international security threats in the weeks and months to come.

Chillingly, the Taliban may now be the first terrorist organization with an air force, and the Biden team is unwilling to do anything about it. Instead, they continue to go after the guns used by law-abiding American citizens to protect themselves and their loves ones.

I’ll say that using the First Amendment to protect a lie is a threat to the whole Bill of Rights.
The – well known to be leftist hacks- editors of The Atlantic see the ability of their political enemies to defend their rights as a problem for the advancement of their agenda…..and it is.

The Second Amendment Has Become a Threat to the First

Many Americans fervently believe that the Second Amendment protects their right to bear arms everywhere, including at public protests. Many Americans also believe that the First Amendment protects their right to speak freely and participate in political protest. What most people do not realize is that the Second Amendment has become, in recent years, a threat to the First Amendment. People cannot freely exercise their speech rights when they fear for their lives.

This is not hyperbole. Since January 2020, millions of Americans have assembled in public places to protest police brutality, systemic racism, and coronavirus protocols, among other things. A significant number of those protesters were confronted by counterprotesters visibly bearing firearms. In some of these cases, violence erupted. According to a new study by Everytown for Gun Safety and the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), one in six armed protests that took place from January 2020 through June 2021 turned violent or destructive, and one in 62 turned deadly.

These kind of data fill a void in ongoing debates about the compatibility of free speech and firearms at protest events. For example, is the phenomenon of armed protests new? Is it frequent? The open display of firearms at public protests, including long rifles and what are sometimes called “assault-style rifles,” is a relatively new phenomenon. Although many states allow firearms in public places, until recently few Americans have openly toted firearms to political demonstrations. The Everytown/ACLED study examined thousands of protests, showing a marked uptick in protests at which people were visibly armed following the police murder of George Floyd. It found that at least 560 events involved an armed protester or counterprotester. Loose state firearms laws are part of the explanation for this phenomenon. The incidence of armed protests was three times higher in states with expansive open-carry laws, the study noted.

Such research makes much clearer the implications of open carry for public safety, public protest, and constitutional democracy. Some have argued that open carry will make protests safer. In fact, tragedies were far less frequent at protests that did not involve firearms, the Everytown/ACLED research revealed: One in 37 turned violent or destructive, and only one in 2,963 unarmed gatherings turned fatal.

In short, the visible presence of firearms increases the risk of violence and death when exercising one’s First Amendment rights. The increased risk of violence from open carry is enough to have a meaningful “chilling effect” on citizens’ willingness to participate in political protests. Research thus far has focused on open display of firearms, but further study is needed to evaluate the public safety concerns that may still be present when protesters or counterprotesters bring concealed firearms to demonstrations. In addition, concealed carry may not have the same chilling effect; it’s possible that without weapons visible, protesters will not be deterred. But at the same time, merely knowing that people might be armed could keep people away from public protests.

Diana Palmer, one of the authors of this article, conducted a study on the impact of open carry of firearms on the exercise of protest rights, and confirmed what common intuition suggests but included some surprises. The study found that participants were far less likely to attend a protest, carry a sign, vocalize their views, or bring children to protests if they knew firearms would be present.

Participants were asked about their willingness to participate in protests in two groups. In the control group, firearms were not mentioned in the questions. In the experimental group, they were. The questions did not specify whether the participants were visibly carrying firearms or not. The participants in the experimental group were much less willing to participate in expressive activities than participants in the control group to whom firearms were not mentioned.

That hesitation was present regardless of respondents’ political ideology. It was experienced by gun owners and nonowners alike. Survey respondents’ explanations as to why they would refrain from participating in protests where arms are present revealed the significant chilling effects of guns at protests. Among other things, respondents indicated:

I feel like I would be antagonizing [firearms carriers] and that could lead to me being injured.

If they started shooting, I would be concerned they would target me for what I said.

I’ll let the people with the guns do the talking.

Nothing is important enough to be shot over.

Some open-carry proponents insist that they bring firearms to protests to defend themselves against potential violence or to ensure that the First Amendment rights of all participants are respected. However, the Everytown/ACLED study concluded that 77 percent of armed protests during the observed period were “driven by far-right mobilization and reactions to left-wing activism.” The study also found that 84 percent of armed protesters at Black Lives Matter protests were counterprotesters from extremist groups such as the “boogaloo boys,” the Proud Boys, and other right-wing groups. Rather than being motivated by self-defense or civil-rights concerns, the decision to carry a gun tends to follow far-right political ideology.

Whatever the motives of firearms carriers might be, the clear social perception of would-be participants is that armed protests are unsafe. That finding is crucial to understanding the potentially devastating effect that bringing guns to protests can have on the exercise of First Amendment rights.

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether there is a Second Amendment right to carry firearms and other weapons in public places, a question it has yet to weigh in on. A pending case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, involves restrictions on concealed-carry permits. To decide it, the Court will need to determine whether the Second Amendment applies outside the home. As the studies show, the answer has profound implications not just for public safety but also for constitutional democracy. As courts and legislatures consider gun regulations, they ought to bear in mind not just the physical dangers of armed protests but also the social harms associated with them. For many—perhaps an increasing number of—Americans, participation in armed public protests may simply not be worth the risk. Even if public protest survives, only those willing to risk their life, or who are inclined and able to carry weapons in defense of their own right to protest, may want to participate. Rather than serving as a democratizing means of expression, protest may become an armed contest and the exclusive preserve of the non-peaceable. Most concerning is that public protest as we know it may cease to exist at all. That would deprive Americans of participating in one of the greatest traditions of this country: expressing their views, engaging in public life, and advocating for democratic change.

CNN Once Again Shows How Leftists Miss the Point on Gun Control

A CNN opinion columnist recently revealed she knows as much about the gun issue as Alec Baldwin does about gun safety (too soon?). Author Jennifer Tucker recently published a piece titled “Now that guns can kill hundreds in minutes, Supreme Court should rethink the rights question,” in which she argued that the types of firearms one could carry should be limited even further.

In the piece, Tucker referred to the “Theoretical Lethality Index” (TLI), which was developed by a U.S. Army colonel named Trevor Dupuy, who conducted a study in 1964 to examine the effectiveness of various weapons. The study produced a table in which various weapons are ranked by how many strikes can they can achieve in an hour. For instance, a mid-19^th century rifle could strike 102 times while a World War II-era machine gun could strike 3,463 times, making it the more lethal weapon.

Tucker seems to indicate that certain guns like the AR15 have the potential to be exceedingly lethal firearms. She writes:

In the 20th century, bullets became smaller and lighter, enabling soldiers to carry more, while design changes increased the damage they caused upon entering the human body. Today, the highly popular civilian AR-15 is a vastly different and substantially more lethal machine than the flintlock muskets that were in use when the Founders crafted the Second Amendment.

The author continues, recalling the tragic Las Vegas shooting which occurred in 2017 when a gunman murdered 58 people and injured 850 others within a span of 10 minutes. “This would have been physically impossible for a single shooter to do in 1791,” she writes.

Then, she makes an argument typical of anti-gunners: The Founding Fathers did not anticipate the evolution of weapons. She argues:

If the Constitution had been written in the 1880s instead of the 1780s, the Framers would have been much more aware of the pace of innovation. The Founders lived in an era when they could be forgiven for thinking that “a gun is a gun is a gun,” because — as the TLI shows — the killing power of the basic flintlock hadn’t changed in the previous 150 or so years. Dramatic changes occurred, however, during and after the Civil War.

The author insists that “given the rapid technological change we’ve seen in firearms over the last century and a half, the notion that guns should be viewed equally across all times and places is logically flawed.”

She goes on to contend that “just as courts don’t regard the bleeding and purging of patients as the gold standards of health care … “common sense dictates that the law must take into account technological change in firearms.”

Her overall point can be summed up in this statement:

There is room for looking at the lethality of modern firearms when considering the constitutionality of gun regulation. The court implicitly acknowledged this in its Heller decision when it stated that machine gun bans were acceptable. It’s a difficult concession to explain unless the court is considering the modern capabilities of firearms outside of the historical scope of regulation.

The Supreme Court is set to adjudicate what could be a landmark case when it comes to gun rights. The judges will review New York Rifle & Pistol Association vs. Bruen, which is a case targeting New York’s gun licensing scheme. The plaintiffs allege that the state’s approach to deciding who is allowed to possess a license to carry a firearm violates the Second Amendment.

In her piece, Tucker argues:

Weapons designed with an ever-increasing capacity to kill large numbers of people in battle, with long barrels and large-capacity magazines, have no place in public spaces, supermarkets, and shopping malls — not on the grounds of a generic right to self-defense. When it takes up this new gun case, the Court should take technological innovation into account and acknowledge that guns are now exponentially more lethal than they were when the Constitution was written.

We’ve heard these arguments before, haven’t we?

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Do tell……………

New study finds little effect from Massachusetts gun control measures on violent crimes

A new study from American University found that the tightened gun-control measures that went into effect in Massachusetts six years ago had little effect on the violent crime rate in the state, raising questions about enforcement of these laws.

“Gun violence remains at the forefront of the public policy debate when it comes to enacting new or strengthening existing gun legislation in the United States,” said Janice Iwama, assistant professor of justice, law, and criminology at AU, who conducted the study. “Yet the political polarization and relatively limited scholarly research on guns and gun violence make it difficult for policymakers and practitioners to enact and implement legislation that addresses the public health and safety issues associated with gun violence.”

The study, published in Justice Quarterly, used modeling and FBI data from 2006 to 2016 to examine the impact of the 2015 gun law on crimes including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

The law, enacted in the wake of the Sandy Hook, Conn., school shooting by former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, paved the way for the creation of a web portal for gun dealers to check the validity of a firearm license and track sales and transfers of firearms. It also tightened requirements for background checks on the sale of firearms and licensing procedures.

Iwama, who authored the study, noted that the entire country, including the Bay State, experienced a drop in crime since the 1990s. Still, Massachusetts had 287,000 violent crimes from 2006 to 2016, including “198,402 aggravated assaults, 70,361 robberies, 19,107 rapes, and 1,698 instances of murder or non-negligent man-slaughter.”

About 1% to 5% of adult residents in each Massachusetts county have a firearms license.

She found that a one percentage point rise in denied licenses and denied licenses due to unsuitability increased robberies by 7.3% and 8.9%, respectively, after the new law took effect. For every other type of violent crime, including rape, murder and aggravated assault, she found no statistically significant change.

Iwama suggested the issue could be caused by uneven enforcement of the laws across counties, an overall lag in enforcement and/or because residents are obtaining firearms in neighboring states with looser gun laws. She recommended that policymakers revisit the legislation to ensure it’s being property applied and enforced.

The Brit MP got stabbied by a moslem jihadi import, but **Giffords** tries to use this BS article to push for more gun control over here.

**Not Giffords herself, her handlers. Anyone with one more functioning synapse one can listen to her speak for more than 5 words and can tell she’s nothing more than a cabbage head ChattyCathy pull the string doll, which makes the odds she can write such an article as this highly unlikely.

Opinion: Gabby Giffords: The stabbing of a British MP is another example of how violence eats away at democracy

As the stabbing of Amess makes all too clear, the problem of politicized violence is endemic around the world. But in the United States, this problem is exacerbated by our tragically lax gun laws……………

I’ve got a phone number for them to call – 800 CRY BABY

To Gun Grabbers’ Horror, 2020 and 2021 Have Been the Perfect Storm of Arguments in Favor of Gun Rights.

I’ve spent much of the past six months interviewing people across the United States in the leadup to the [New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen] case—part of research for a book I’m writing about the cultural and racial effects of U.S. gun laws. Although I uncovered a wide range of opinions, these interviews have given me a greater appreciation for the ways that high-level political games become grounded in the ostensibly “organic” political instincts of everyday Americans.

Among conservative white gun owners in the South and Midwest, I found there is often reflexive support for the idea that northern and urban gun-control laws should be overturned. This was true even for many interview subjects who had never been to the cities in question—and particularly so when I explained that the case centers around gun laws in New York. “New York—well that says it all right there,” a Tennessee Uber driver in his fifties told me. “Hell yes I would want to carry my guns in New York [should I ever go there],” said a Michigan real estate agent in her forties. For these and other conservative interviewees, gun laws in cities like New York represented symbolic northern affront to their notion of uninfringed liberties (“It’s my constitutional right to carry anywhere I want”)—and in places where they imagine they would need to defend themselves against threats from racial others (“I might get carjacked!”).

But I also found a surprising current of pro-gun sentiment among a not insignificant minority of people who identified as liberal and who lived in the very cities in question—especially among people under forty. “Criminals have guns, so why shouldn’t we?” a thirty-seven-year-old white woman art dealer in Brooklyn told me. “Why should police have all the guns?” asked a twenty-six-year-old Black male programmer from Manhattan. A thirty-three-year-old white woman realtor from Boston explained that “hopefully this will make it easier for my friends and me to take shooting classes.”

These types of replies reflect an almost perfect storm of factors that have hardened, enhanced, or shifted attitudes toward guns in 2020 and 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in near-apocalyptic levels of anxiety and mistrust. In the early months of the pandemic, guns and bullets flew of the shelves as quickly as Purell and toilet paper—spurred by then President Donald Trump’s alarmist rhetoric that urged supporters to “save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”

Gun sales then rose by over 300 percent in the aftermath of the May 2020 killing of George Floyd and the protests that followed—both among protesters concerned about police violence and among white people with deep fears of racial protest. Not missing a beat, the NRA ramped up efforts to sell more guns to communities of color. When they stood on their St. Louis lawn waving guns at passing protesters, Mark and Patricia McCloskey became the clown-car villains of the left—but heroes of the castle-doctrine right. All the while, gun manufacturers retained unprecedented immunity from lawsuits, and (thanks to the Trump administration) expressly pro-gun justices [presided] over ever-more courthouses across the country—including the Supreme Court.

Evidence suggests that even people from groups that have historically been the strongest supporters of gun control began packing heat as a result of these cultural shifts. Ranks of liberal and Democrat gun owners grew exponentially in 2020 and 2021. Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah describes the “allure” of guns and gun groups for Black women “feeling a need to protect ourselves in an anti-Black and misogynistic society.” Armed Black self-defense—the very thought of which was once a rationale for white anxiety, Black oppression, and stricter gun control—has witnessed a revival as a viable movement of people who are “Black and up in arms.”

The confluence of these factors has led even many supporters of gun regulation to question its utility or, worse, to despair that gun control is a “lost cause.” “What are we even doing? America feels like it’s moved on from this issue,” a GVP organizer and activist in Nashville told me, even as shootings and deaths spiked in the city.

— Jonathan M. Metzl in The Supreme Court Is Poised to Put Politics Ahead of Gun-Violence Prevention

Welcome to the Party, Pal!

Polimath (and others) are feeling the same oppressive weight of the government boot on their necks that America’s gun owners have been feeling ever since the introduction of the Sullivan Act.

“Just give up a little bit of your rights, and you’ll make the rest of us feel safer” has been the motto of the gun control movement since day one. Now that same logic, (if you want to equate emotion of feeling safe as logic) is being applied to public health as a whole, and people aren’t liking what they’re hearing.

Stephen Kruiser once said that firearms are the gateway drug to freedom. In this case, however, firearms ownership is the canary in the coal mine. What big government and runaway political corruption have been doing to our freedoms under the Second Amendment, they’re now doing to every other civil right as well.

Welcome to the party, everyone. Don’t say we never tried to warn you.

Ohio Republicans pass bill to ban gun store closures during emergencies

Republicans in the Ohio Senate passed a bill 23 to 7 Wednesday that says local governments can’t close gun stores or confiscate firearms during riots or other states of emergency.

“During the COVID pandemic, it became evident that local, state and federal governments have sweeping powers when it came to emergencies,” Sen. Tim Schaffer, R -Lancaster, said.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine carved out an exemption for gun stores in his stay-at-home orders, but other states did not.

“Therefore this bill is critical to proactively define the limits of government’s power to further abuses,” Schaffer said.

Senate Bill 185 would also ban local governments from invalidating concealed carry licenses or closing down shooting ranges.

Current law allows local governments to prohibit the sale or transportation of “firearms or other dangerous weapons” such as crossbows and knives when suppressing a riot or “when there is a clear and present danger of a riot.”

SB 185 would eliminate that provision for everything except dynamite and other explosives.

And that’s a problem for Democrats like Sen. Cecil Thomas, a Democrat from Cincinnati’s Avondale neighborhood.

“You’re denying local governments the ability to protect their communities as they deem appropriate,” Thomas said.

Groups like the Ohio Municipal League opposed the bill in committing, saying it would violate the home rule authority of local governments.

“The Ohio Constitution grants Home Rule authority to municipalities in recognition that a government closest to the people governs best,” Ohio Municipal League Director Ken Scarrett said earlier this month. “Each city and village should be equipped to serve and protect the interests of their communities.”

SB 185 now heads to the Republican-controlled Ohio House for consideration.

Gun-Shy Writer Has Second Thoughts About Defenselessness

Since the start of the pandemic and the corresponding Great Gun Run of 2020/2021, we’ve seen millions of Americans embrace their Second Amendment rights for the very first time, and not all of them are conservatives worried about their individual freedoms being taken away. There’s been a rise in the number of self-described liberals with a growing interest in gun ownership over the past 20 months or so as well, including Samuel Ligon, a novelist and teacher at Eastern Washington University.

Ligon recently wrote about what drove him to take class on basic firearms handling as he debated buying a gun, and as it turns out, it was conservative 2A activists that had the biggest impact on him.

This was a few months after the BLM demonstrations in Spokane, Washington, when the militia was out at night with their guns and camouflage costumes. Kate and I saw them on TV and Twitter, in Spokane and all over the West, men with assault weapons ready for war.

I’d seen them in Olympia, too, armed citizens asserting their rights. The third-grade teachers would usher their students back to the buses, their Capitol tour abruptly over. This was before the Capitol grounds were fenced, before people started shooting each other during weekend protests. In August, Kate and I saw a guy at the Country Store shopping with his wife and toddler with a gun on his hip, a posture I found idiotic, intimidating, infuriating. He was why I wanted to go to gun school. I hated him for walking around like that.

I didn’t tell Kate I was going for weeks, and when I did tell her, she didn’t say much. In fact, she didn’t say anything. I considered canceling, but it had been so hard to get a spot. Everyone wanted to go to gun school. The pandemic — or something worse, whatever it was that had been tearing us apart for years — was working our fear, making some of us conclude that we might have to shoot somebody soon, which is what we mean when we talk about self-defense.

For Ligon, it was the armed response to the “demonstrations” that made him want a firearm for protection, but for many others, it was the riots, looting, and violence in cities from coast-to-coast that made them think about their Second Amendment rights for the first time in their lives. And even after the riots and demonstrations subsided, the violence has remained. Ligon doesn’t say anything about the crime rate in Spokane influencing his desire to own a gun, but homicides in the city doubled in 2020 compared to 2019, and I don’t think the “militia” was responsible for any of them.

But it wasn’t just Ligon who was interested in picking up a firearm. His brother told him he’d bought a gun. His brother-in-law admitted he’d bought a shotgun, though he hadn’t yet purchased any shells.

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