Category: RKBA

Biden, Harris Use Sandy Hook to Call for ‘Gun Reforms,’ Meaning Control

Using the anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Monday called for “gun reforms” to honor the victims of the 2012 shooting that left 20 youngsters and six adults dead.

It’s what Second Amendment activists call “camo speak” for more gun control. Anti-gun Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal chimed in, according to Fox News, declaring the Sandy Hook victims should be honored with “positive action” and he expects the incoming Biden administration will “redouble the efforts against gun violence.”

Biden’s legitimacy as the next president got a boost from Republican Senate Majority Mitch McConnell, who congratulated the former vice president by declaring the Electoral College “has spoken.” The Drudge Report blared this headline: “Season Finale: McConnell Finishes Trump.”

Biden and Harris insist they want “common sense” gun “reforms,” according to the Associated Press. It all translates to the same thing, according to grassroots gun rights activists: More restrictions on law-abiding citizens that will ultimately not prevent a single violent crime involving a firearm.

Sandy Hook was the work of a single mentally-deranged individual, Adam Lanza. Prior to the shooting, Lanza murdered his mother, took her guns from a safe and headed to the school in her car. While a Connecticut news organ, The Day, editorialized for additional gun controls, a reader who signed in as Keith J. Robbins reacted.

“The Day again gives lip service to the mental health issue, the actual reason for all the incidents mentioned was a failure by the liberal mental health system,” Robbins wrote. “Newtown happened because a parent enabled a child to commit murder, she paid the ultimate price for her failure. The child should have been institutionalized, as has been documented multiple times…The Day fails to address the continued carnage in Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and we are beginning to see it in New York, those communities have extensive gun laws and continue to be run by democrats. As we see emboldened criminals, because of a lax if non-existence criminal justice system, the Second Amendment becomes more prevalent for law abiding citizens.”

The Day wants to extend the background check period from three to ten days. It wants so-called “universal background checks” for all gun transfers, except between family members—a mandate that would not have prevented Sandy Hook, since Lanza killed his mother and used her guns—and a ban on so-called “assault rifles” and original capacity magazines.

The Day editorial claims these are “some sensible reforms that are popular with the American public, including many gun owners.”

The only thing that could derail Biden’s gun control schemes would be a Republican victory in the two Senate races slated Jan. 5 in Georgia. If incumbent Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler retain their seats, the GOP will remain in control of the Senate and provide a barrier.

Eating Our Own: The Fine (Not So) Young Cannibals of the Gun Industry

Whether through articles or posts on social media the gun industry has an unfortunate tendency to readily and joyously eat its own. Toss a proverbial hot topic into the ring and suddenly it’s lions versus Christians with the lone Christian being represented by some poor guy who was “just saying.”

It’s a topic worth addressing even though it will cause more even kvetching and whining in the comment section (commonly-shared saying among writers: never read the comment section). Addressing this topic at all is likely to be called “whining”, “playing the victim card”, or – my personal favorite – “virtue signaling.”

There’s also the opposite end of the spectrum. There we have those who loudly proclaim we as an industry are being divided by the use of “divisive” speech. This often involves the originator of the discussion having asked a question or somehow challenged the status quo. You don’t dare rock the boat, because that makes you “part of the problem.”

What follows are my two cents. They’re sentiments I like to believe are shared by most of us here at TTAG. If my bluntness about this state of affairs offends you, sorry, but I’m not sorry. Continue reading “”

Gun-control activists need to stop demonizing John Lott

The recent reaction of Griffin Dix to the appointment of John Lott as an adviser to the DOJ Office of Justice Program reflects the continued inability of the gun-control advocacy community to address the fundamental issues that prevent us from making an effective response to the problem of gun violence.

Lott’s book “More Guns, Less Crime” has become a flashpoint for arguments on both sides of the gun debate. On the one hand, the book is celebrated by the pro-gun lobby as a justification for ‘stand your ground’ laws and other legal rationales for armed self-defense. On the other hand, the book is condemned by gun-control activists as error-filled propaganda that promotes the false idea that guns are an effective response to fears about personal safety and threats of crime. As a long-time member of the Brady Campaign, Griffin Dix obviously belongs to the latter group. Continue reading “”

Everytown Encourages Biden to Pursue Unlawful Executive Gun Controls

According to the December 10 report from the New York Times, Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun organization Everytown for Gun Safety is pushing Joe Biden to enact a raft of gun control by executive fiat. As much as Everytown and their would-be autocrat benefactor might wish, the U.S. Presidency is not a dictatorship. The executive actions Everytown contemplates implicate the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners and are not moored in a credible reading of federal statute.

The article noted that the group has targeted three areas for executive action. Everytown is urging Biden to further restrict the private transfer of firearms between non-dealers, force Federal Firearms Licensees (gun dealers or FFLs) to notify the FBI whenever they complete a firearms transfer following the FBI’s failure to complete a background check within three days, and further regulate unfinished firearm frames and receivers – sometimes referred to as 80 percent frames or receivers. Continue reading “”

Confirmed: left leaning gun grabbers suffer from mental illness

“Believe the science” they always say. Ok.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341609819_Mental_Illness_and_the_Left

It has been claimed that left-wingers or liberals (US sense) tend to more often suffer from mental illness than right-wingers or conservatives. This potential link was investigated using the General Social Survey cumulative cross-sectional dataset (1972-2018). A search of the available variables resulted in 5 items measuring one’s own mental illness (e.g., ”Do you have any emotional or mental disability?”). All of these items were weakly associated with left-wing political ideology as measured by self-report, with especially high rates seen for the “extremely liberal” group. These results mostly held up in regressions that adjusted for age, sex, and race. For the variable with the most data (n = 11,338), the difference in the mental illness measure between “extremely liberal” and “extremely conservative” was 0.39 d. Temporal analysis showed that the relationship between mental illness, happiness, and political ideology has existed in the GSS data since the 1970s and still existed in the 2010s. Within-study meta-analysis of all the results found that extreme liberals had a 150% increased rate of mental illness compared to moderates. The finding of increased mental illness among left-wingers is congruent with numerous findings based on related constructs, such as positive relationships between conservatism, religiousness and health in general.

Continue reading “”

3D-Printed Freedom – Part 2

What is the actual material you are printing with? Filament. It comes in a roll, usually 1 kg, and is 1.75mm thick. It is what is extruded out of the nozzle onto the print bed and makes your object. Filament comes in many different materials.

The most common and inexpensive filament is poly lactic acid (PLA). Better yet is PLA+. Both of these are made from corn as a feedstock, and do not use petroleum as an input. So if supporting corn growers of America as opposed to oil companies is something that resonates with you, so much the better.

Of note, PLA is easy to work with on a printer, does not give off dangerous fumes when heated, and can actually be composted as a waste product, if done so in an industrial composting type facility (needs the high heat to break down). As a downside, it does degrade over time in direct sun, and can deform in high heat. Don’t go shooting a PLA printed firearm full auto, or leave it on the dash in your car in the summer with the windows up, as it may warp. PLA also comes from a variety of manufacturers with other materials incorporated, such as wood, ceramic, copper, glow-in-the-dark materials, and more. These other materials can contribute useful or aesthetic characteristics depending on what you are printing. There are also magnetic iron PLA filaments, and electrically-conductive PLA filaments. Nearly all of the firearm components I refer to have been developed and tested with PLA or PLA+, and those that are not will be noted in the print instructions when you download the file. Continue reading “”

3D-Printed Freedom – Part 1

The following article is intended for educational purposes only. It is not legal advice. State and local laws vary widely, so be sure to consult them before you buy, print, or build!

“The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.” – Karl Marx

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Marxist, I just love the confused look that I get from my more “progressive” friends when I quote a little Marx at ’em, as they know I tend toward the libertarian perspective, but at least when it comes to the means of production, perhaps we can find some common ground. To wit, 3D Printing!

I admit, my concept of 3D printing was pretty hazy up until about a year ago, when a friend introduced me. I had imagined it to be strictly the province of movies and high tech prototyping labs and industry. I was wrong. At the consumer level, the price and quality of 3D printers has evolved to a level where even a cheapskate Luddite like me can afford a printer and, just as important, is capable of harnessing and possessing the means of production for less than $300 ready to go. This article is meant to give you the same introduction I benefited from, and the background and resources to investigate further whether this capability is something you can benefit from (of course it is!)

Production of what you may ask? Darn near anything you can imagine! During these days of pandemic and the associated disruption to supply chains, the ability to get desperately needed items from factories across the country and across the world has been demonstrated as fragile indeed. Hospitals and companies have turned to 3D printers to produce their needed components for ventilator circuit connectors, lab testing materials, PPE, and more. Continue reading “”

GUN OWNERS DEFEAT FEDERAL GUN CONFISCATION
Red Flag GCOs Removed from Defense Bill

While Nancy Pelosi was busy forcing Congress to vote on “Tiger King” legislation, banning the ownership of big cats, and legalizing marijuana nationwide, Gun Owners of America was busy successfully dealing the final blow to gun control.

Back in July, GOA alerted Congress when we discovered so-called “Red Flag” Gun Confiscation Orders (GCOs) buried deep in H.R. 6395, the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

But you didn’t hear this on the news. Back then, the world was busy debating whether we should rename US military bases.

The gun confiscation language lay buried on page 343 of 1427 of the NDAA.

Today, GOA is pleased to announce that this passage has been removed from the bill and that, at least for the time being, there will be no federal “Red Flag” GCOs for those subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

But this gun control could easily have snuck through Congress.

Since discovering the gun control, GOA’s team of lobbyists in Washington D.C. tracked the bill and worked hand in hand with Republican leadership, members of Congress, and the White House to ensure that this nasty gun control was removed.

Our work came to fruition late last week, when H.R. 6395’s Conference Report, discussing the results of the House-Senate negotiations, was published.

In that conference report on page 3872 of 4517 was our result.

Authority of military judges and military magistrates to issue military court protective orders

The House bill contained a provision (sec. 542) that would amend chapter 80 of title 10, United States Code, to authorize military magistrates and military judges to issue military court protective orders [against] a person subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The Senate amendment contained no similar provision.

The House recedes.

We had successfully blocked GCOs from the final bill and force House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to “recede” on her anti-gun policy goal.

Goodbye anti-gun §542!

In its place, §542 of the final bill now contains unrelated language regarding the Qualifications of Judges and Standard of Review for Courts of Criminal Appeals.

But, the fate of the 2021 NDAA is still up in the air.

Trump has threatened to veto the bill over Title 47 U.S.C. §230 reform and the renaming of military bases. However, this new Conference Report legislation is backed by a bipartisan and veto-proof majority.

We will keep you informed as this bill moves through the final legislative process.

Still, Gun Owners should celebrate the removal of gun control from this bill, as this represents only the first of many legislative battles to defeat gun control gun owners may face for the next four years.

I can’t control what someone thinks, but I can say if I think they’re stupid.

Biden’s HHS Pick Thinks AR-15s Are ‘Not In Common Use For Self Defense’

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, said AR-15s are akin to military-grade weapons and not useful for self defense in a 2019 court filing.

The AG’s statements were included in a court case that challenged California’s gun ban titled Rupp v. Becerra, in which multiple state residents sued government officials to overturn the prohibition of certain semi-automatic firearms. Becerra, an advocate for the Affordable Care Act, was announced as Biden’s pick to lead HHS Sunday, according to the New York Times. Continue reading “”

Just to remind everyone, the Supreme Court, in the Heller decision, ruled mandatory gun lock crap like this unconstitutional, and the McDonald decision incorporated 2nd amendment protection on the states.

CA city bans guns in private homes unless locked up, disabled

Gun owners in Dublin, Calif., are banned from keeping firearms in private homes unless they are kept in a locked container or disabled with a trigger lock after the City Council unanimously approved the new regulation last week.

Pleasanton Weekly reported that the ordinance goes farther than existing California laws that apply if children live in a household or if a member of a household is prohibited from having guns. It goes into effect next month.

“What we’re doing in this case is just expanding that definition beyond those two scenarios — children in the home or criminal record — and applying it to all households,” said City Manager Linda Smith.

The ordinance will be added to the Dublin Municipal Code, stating, “No person shall keep a firearm within any residence unless the firearm is stored in a locked container or disabled with a trigger lock.”

Exceptions to the ordinance include when a gun is being lawfully carried or when it is in the control of a law enforcement officer.

According to councilmember Shawn Kumagai, the regulation “will state clearly to our community that we embrace a culture of gun safety” and “safe gun storage helps to prevent unintentional and intentional injury and death of minors, helps prevent gun suicide, and deters gun theft.”

Twenty-two cities across California have implemented similar regulations, including Oakland, Berkeley, Moraga and Sunnyvale.

“It’s not about taking gun rights away from people at all whatsoever, it’s about educating, it’s about making sure that we do our part, and have an awareness out there,” said Councilmember and mayor-elect Melissa Hernandez.

Hernandez said she believed in “not only just saying it but actually doing something,” adding that the city may provide trigger locks for residents, in addition to potentially granting funding for public gun safety awareness.

Prior to voting for the new regulation, Councilmember Arun Goel said gun safety was an issue he held “near and dear to my heart.”

Goel said his son committed suicide, adding that education is needed but “part of what I’ve always been about is, when we take an action of such a nature, it should be for the fundamentally correct things, not just for stipulation of trying to do something perfunctory or lip service.”

“Systematically I agree with it, and so I’m kind of in a little bit of a confusion standpoint,” Goel said. “We can agree on safety but in the reality, how much of these are issues from lawful gun owners vs. unlawful gun owners.”

Mexico Proves More Gun Control Does Not Mean Less Crime

Recently The Washington Post published an article depicting the rampant organized crime crisis in Mexico. There is no question that the crime and violence fueled by drug cartels in our southern neighbor are major problems for Mexico, the United States and for the global community. However, the authors make a mistake typical of the gun control crowd; they blame the firearm rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution for the problems in Mexico.

Cartels are becoming bolder, showcasing weapons and drugs in videos used to not only attract potential recruits but also threaten those who might oppose them. Mexican officials who articulate their frustration in the article are very quick to blame cartel activity on their pro-gun northern neighbor and the authors are more than eager to parrot these inaccurate sentiments in the article.

The misplaced blame is unfortunate because the right solutions cannot be implemented if the problem is not correctly identified. If firearm rights are the problem, why does the United States not face a similar level of cartel-related violence? Particularly under President Trump, crimes are prosecuted. The government enforces the law. Making the United States more like Mexico, with its clearly ineffective gun control policies, will not solve Mexico’s problem and is surely not a successful model for the U.S. to follow. Continue reading “”

First-time gun buyers projected to top 8M: Smith & Wesson
Women are making up 40% of new buyers

Background checks, a metric for gun sales, are hitting an all-time high in 2020, and nearly half of the purchases being made this year are by first-time firearm owners, firearm manufacturer Smith & Wesson said Thursday.

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To date, nearly 8 million Americans have already decided to “exercise their Second Amendment rights for the first time,” chief executive Mark Smith told analysts in an earnings call.

For their findings, the company cited data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which estimated that 40% of the tens of thousands of firearm purchases in 2020 are coming from first-time owners.

Smith noted that these new purchases are further “broadening and diversifying” its consumer base and are an indicator of the long-term vitality of the industry as a whole.

Smith said NSSF data indicated that “women are making up 40% of new buyers and overall firearm purchases by African Americans are outpacing all other demographics with 58% growth in the first half of the year alone through June.” Continue reading “”

Lawmakers set to expand gun rights in Ohio, DeWine’s reform plan unlikely to pass

Gov. Mike DeWine’s package of gun reforms appears unlikely to pass the Statehouse this session, but lawmakers are poised to permit armed Ohioans to stand their ground in public settings and use deadly force in self-defense.

Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp, R-Lima, said he plans to move House Bill 796 “as soon as possible,” which could be as soon as next week.

Currently, Ohioans have a “duty to retreat” from dangerous situations, if possible, before using force in self-defense. HB796, sponsored by state Rep. Kyle Koehler, R-Springfield, would eliminate that duty. Continue reading “”

Well, it appears to me that all those ‘new guns’ in the hands of all those ‘new gun owners’ hasn’t resulted in much, if any, increase in the ooltra-ooltra violence some people believe guns – in and of themselves – cause.

The impact of Pierce County’s pandemic-related gun sales may surprise you


The bulk ammunition shelves at Columbia Gun Rack in downtown Kennewick, Wash. are mostly barren from a continued surge in purchases during the coronavirus pandemic.

Not all businesses have been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Across the nation gun stores are doing brisk business, and here in Pierce County, firearm sales have more than doubled in 2020.

Inventory is flying off the shelves, according to Damien Wongwai, owner and operator of Bull’s Eye Indoor Range in Puyallup. He told a member of the Editorial Board that first-time buyers, fueled by pandemic fears, make up a large percentage of his sales.

It’s important to remember that behind every gun purchase is a real person, with a real family, and due to the fallout of COVID-19 restrictions, they’re potentially going through a life altering experience. Gun safety measures have never been more important.

Pierce County recorded 20,181 firearms transfer applications (FTAs.) in 2019. To date, that number is well-past 44,000, and according to South Sound 911, those FTAs don’t reflect the total number of new firearms in circulation. There can be multiple weapons transferred under one application.

But do guns, guns and more guns also mean an increase in gun-related injuries and deaths? Call it the great unintended experiment of 2020, because we’re about to find out.

A study conducted this year by the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center concluded that “During the coronavirus pandemic, an acute increase in firearm access is associated with an increase in firearm violence.”

But that’s not the calculus playing out in Pierce County, not yet, anyway. Continue reading “”

Is Left Starting To Understand Where NRA Stances Come From?

The National Rifle Association is the boogieman for the anti-gun left in this country. During the recent campaigns, plenty of politicians talk about how they were going to stand up to the NRA, how they were going to put the NRA in their place.

This is the same NRA that’s embattled at every flank, of course, yet still apparently managed to pose enough opposition to prevent a $100 billion effort by Micahel Bloomberg and company from yielding any fruits. At least, that’s what happened if you believe the NRA is the only barrier to anti-gun Utopia.

However, it seems that some on the left are starting to brush up against the understanding that the NRA isn’t what they need to worry about. Continue reading “”

I’ll take: Why do lawyers always seem to find ways for their fellow lawyers to make a living?

Why Does the ABA Have a Standing Committee on ‘Gun Violence’?

Darin Scheer is a general commercial litigation attorney in rural Casper, Wyoming, where he lives on a small cattle farm with his wife. As a volunteer firefighter, he has responded to suicides and accidental shootings.

He is an [American Bar Association] delegate for his state. At the 2020 midyear meeting in Austin, Texas, he objected to a resolution in favor of stricter rules for gun permits.

“I don’t think that the ABA should be in the business of recommending one-size-fits-all, top-down requirements for an issue like this that is constitutional,” Scheer said before the House passed the resolution.

What’s often lost in the decades-long fight over gun rights and laws is that Americans’ relationship to guns differs depending on where they live, Scheer says. He says people in his community do not buy guns just for self-defense. There is a tradition of fathers passing rifles down to their sons and teaching them how to hunt. Scheer says it sometimes appears to gun owners that constitutional rights are trampled because of the “irresponsible behavior of the few.”

Is there space in the middle to meet? J. Adam Skaggs, a special advisor to the ABA’s Standing Committee on Gun Violence and chief counsel and policy director at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, says it is hard to find common ground when the gun rights side is pushing “an extremist agenda in the courts.” On the other hand, he says gun control advocates have much in common with Americans who support reasonable regulations.

“I think the central argument is that like all other rights, the Second Amendment is not unlimited and has always coexisted with strong regulations and laws,” Skaggs says. “That’s no different today than it was at any other point in history.”

SKYROCKETING MURDERS IN MAJOR CITIES UNDERSCORE GUN CONTROL DISASTER

BELLEVUE, WA – Skyrocketing murder rates in several major American cities with strict gun laws offer hard evidence that gun control isn’t just a failed policy, it’s a disaster, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

More than 700 people have been murdered in Chicago so far this year. Baltimore’s total is above 335, and Philadelphia has logged more than 450 slayings. Even relatively benign Seattle has nearly doubled the number of homicides it reported for all of 2019, a fact not lost on CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. So far this year, the Jet City has seen 55 murders, while 2019 produced 28 slayings.

“Seattle is a textbook example of horribly failed policies,” Gottlieb said. “The city council just slashed the police department’s budget following months of civil unrest, vandalism, property destruction and rising crime. Five years ago, the city adopted a gun and ammunition tax to finance a so-called ‘gun violence reduction’ program that drove business out of the city and obviously hasn’t prevented any violent crime. The city adopted a ‘safe storage’ mandate for gun owners. It has also obviously failed, and is currently being challenged in court by the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association.

“Ironically,” he noted, “the city is headquarters to a billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying group that has bankrolled two extremist gun control initiatives. The rising body count is proof positive their anti-gun-rights crusade has been an unmitigated failure.”

CCRKBA checked Seattle homicide data back more than a decade. Over the 12-year period from 2008 to 2019, the city averaged just over 24 slayings annually.

“It’s time for the gun control lobby to admit its schemes have all failed, and for the city, and the state, to change course dramatically,” Gottlieb said. “Laws that penalize honest citizens while being ignored by criminals don’t accomplish anything and they should be scrapped.

“Seattle anti-gunners like to boast about how progressive they are,” he observed. “If doubling the number of murders is their idea of progress, maybe we should all go back to living in log cabins.”

CCRKBA Director of Operations Julianne Versnel said there may be a “silver lining” to Seattle’s foolish response of cutting police funding and pushing stricter gun control.

“People living in adjoining communities will see criminals going into Seattle to commit crimes,” she said, “and leave suburbs alone.”