Category: RKBA

“At the end of the day, the real problem isn’t that the NICS wasn’t robust enough to handle the surge.
No, the problem was that millions of Americans decided to buy guns. They recognized that it was on them to protect themselves and now they wanted the means to do so.”

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Progressives Think People Buying Guns Is A Loophole

Not too long before the entire nation shut down due to COVID-19, gun stores started seeing a surge in sales. Many people who had never considered buying a gun in the first place decided maybe they should rethink it. Some were concerned about crime increasing due to the virus. Still others, Asian-Americans, were concerned ignorant morons would blame them for the disease. Still others had different concerns.

Regardless, gun sales soared and have been consistently high ever since.

Now, we know that many of these gun buyers went to gun stores, which means they’re required to undergo a background check and have any required permits before buying.

For some, that’s not enough. The increase in gun sales is somehow evidence that our gun laws are too lax.

Almost immediately after governors began to issue orders in early March directing nonessential businesses to close and individuals to stay at home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, news stories began to emerge of increased traffic at gun stores. One photo of a line of buyers outside of a California gun shop is likely to become one of the most recognizable images from this moment in modern American history. Anecdotes emerged of individuals who had never considered buying guns before rushing to gun stores to make their first purchase, motivated by the fear and uncertainty of this unprecedented moment. Since this early reporting, data have confirmed a dramatic increase in the number of guns purchased during the pandemic. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the federal agency responsible for conducting background checks for gun sales, revealed that nearly 2 million guns were sold in March—the second highest monthly number since these data have been tracked. April gun sales were nearly as high, with an estimated 1.6 million guns sold—a 71 percent increase over April 2019. The trend in gun sales continued in May and June; June saw the biggest increase yet, with an estimated 2.3 million guns sold.

Just as the coronavirus pandemic has exposed gaps within the U.S. health care and economic systems, the surge in gun sales during this period brings to the forefront weaknesses in the current laws and systems governing the sale and ownership of firearms and ammunition. Far too many gun sales are allowed to proceed without background checks, and gun owners face minimal legal requirements to ensure that guns are handled and stored safely. These gaps in the law create risks for all U.S. communities vulnerable to gun violence, and both federal and state policymakers should take this opportunity to strengthen these laws to help reduce gun violence.

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Pro-Second Amendment Measures Take Effect Today in Indiana

Indiana residents will start enjoying expanded gun rights beginning July 1, as the new amendments to the concealed carry laws take place. Republican representatives Jim Lucas and Ben Smaltz sponsored House Bill 1284 during the last legislative session, which Gov. Eric Holcomb signed the bill in April.

The new legislation will allow residents of Indiana to carry firearms in a church compound even if it is located within a school ground. The only exemption is if the owner of the compound has a different firearm policy. Religious leaders will no longer be tied to the state’s restrictions in deciding whether people can carry in church.

CCW permits will also be free of charge. The free permit will last for five years. The lifetime permit however will still have a fee.

The same act gives gun owners the right to use their firearms in self-defense without fear of unnecessary lawsuits from justified cases of self-defense. Many victims are always victimized by gun control laws that persecute them for defending their lives.

The measure will award attorney fees for victims who are unfairly prosecuted for using their firearms in defense. When cleared, most individuals are unable to recover their costs despite having been the actual victims of the crime. Unnecessary lawsuits after self-defense cause the victims to suffer twice and be punished for stopping criminals.

CCW applicants will also register to vote while applying for their licenses at the police stations. This provision will ensure more participation in elections, thus ensuring more gun owners vote to protect their constitutional rights.

‘TL DR”, No.

But other research has found different outcomes. The state of California has had a comprehensive background check law on the books for 10 years. Researchers at UC Davis School of Medicine have studied gun violence in CA during that period and found there was no change in the number of gun homicides or gun suicides. The researchers use the term “comprehensive background check” instead of universal background check. And another study by the same authors found that the repeal of comprehensive background check laws in Tennessee and Indiana had no effect on gun homicides or suicide rates in either state.

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Do Universal Background Checks Prevent Gun Violence?

Under current federal law, licensed dealers are required to run background checks on all gun purchases prior to making sales. But this law does not apply to private gun transactions between individuals either in person or online, potentially providing a “loophole” for prohibited persons to legally obtain firearms. While polls show widespread support for universal background checks, there is mixed evidence that requiring UBCs for all gun sales would prevent or reduce gun violence….

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You want to defund the police? You have to let the people have guns.

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House Resolution 1013: Resolving that jurisdictions seeking to dismantle or reduce funding for the jurisdiction’s police force should not unduly burden residents who seek to defend themselves.

Russ Fulcher R-Idaho:

Resolving that jurisdictions seeking to dismantle or reduce funding for the jurisdiction’s police force should not unduly burden residents who seek to defend themselves.

Whereas the killing of George Floyd was a horrific and despicable act;

Whereas racism in any form is wrong and should not be tolerated;

Whereas adequate and accountable police departments are vital to helping people to defend themselves and their property; and

Whereas the right to defend oneself is a God-given natural right enshrined in the Constitution and upheld in English common law and recent Supreme Court cases: Now, therefore, be it that –

(1) any jurisdiction in the United States, which seeks to dismantle or reduce funding for a police force, should undertake a review of its local rules to ensure such rules do not place an undue burden on its residents who seek to defend themselves, including the legal purchase of a firearm and any training services such individuals choose;

(2) such a review should be based on the standards set forth by the Supreme Court in the cases District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, which confirmed the Second Amendment to the Constitution to be an individual right and that no law can prohibit an individual from possessing and using a firearm in the home for self-defense; and

(3) any jurisdiction which seeks to dismantle or reduce funding for police agencies must ensure they remove rules that hinder individual gun ownership or access to firearms.

 

 

Black and White Americans are embracing the Second Amendment

The gun control crowd isn’t having a good year.

Americans have been buying firearms at a phenomenal pace. From January through May, the FBI conducted 15.2 million background checks on people purchasing guns through licensed dealers — an increase of 3.7 million over the number of background checks during the same period last year. First-time buyers have accounted for an estimated 40 percent of gun purchases in 2020, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation — and of those new gun owners, 40 percent have been women.

For months, news accounts have reported on the nationwide surge in gun sales. The soaring demand for guns has led in turn to soaring prices for gun stocks. Shares of firearms manufacturers like Smith & Wesson and Ruger have sharply outpaced the broader stock market.

All this was happening before Americans learned about Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police offier who killed George Floyd on May 25, or saw the video of Gregory and Travis McMichael, the two Georgia men — one an ex-cop — who gunned down Ahmaud Arbery after seeing him jog past their home. Black Americans in particular have been getting a pointed lesson in the value of their Second Amendment right to bear arms, and translating that lesson into action.

Hence the “explosion in the number of Black gun owners nationwide,” as David Dent reports in The Daily Beast. The National African American Gun Association, which began in 2015 with a single chapter in Atlanta, now comprises more than 100 chapters with 40,000 members — 10,000 of whom joined within the past five months.

They include not only recreational shooters, but new owners like Iesha Williams, a young mother who, Dent writes, was persuaded by recent events to acquire a gun “as a form of protection against racial violence.” Black gun ownership is as essential today as it was in 1892, when Ida B. Wells wrote that “a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every Black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.”

The gun-control lobby, which includes a vast swath of the mainstream media and the Democratic Party’s leadership, has for years sought to make it harder for ordinary Americans to acquire guns and insisted that firearms in private hands pose an intolerable risk. “Hell, yes!” declared an impassioned Beto O’Rourke last September during a Democratic presidential primary debate. “We’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.” The partisan audience roared its approval, but O’Rourke’s candidacy expired six weeks later.

Millions of Americans instinctively grasp that private ownership of guns makes them safer. But advocates of more gun control never see it that way. When Michael Bloomberg was asked in January about a Texas church where a massacre was aborted when a 71-year-old parishioner shot and killed the gunman, his response was that guns are for police. “It’s the job of law enforcement to have guns and to decide when to shoot,” said Bloomberg. “You just do not want the average citizen carrying a gun in a crowded place.”

Only cops should have guns and decide when to shoot? Try telling that to the families of Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, Botham Jean, Tamir Rice, Laquan McDonald, Michael Dean, and Walter Scott, all of whom were killed when cops — whether from recklessness, incompetence, or racism — decided to shoot.

Of course the great majority of cops are neither racists nor thugs. But even the most dedicated police officers cannot always be there to provide protection when it is needed. The Second Amendment exists in part for just that purpose, as persecuted minorities have had good reason to know.

The denial of the right to own weapons reinforced the racial repression of America’s first centuries. In its infamous Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court ruled that if African Americans were considered US citizens, the Second Amendment “would give to persons of the negro race … the right … to keep and carry arms wherever they went.” Gun control’s racist roots run deep. Before the Civil War, a multiplicity of laws barred slaves from owning weapons and permitted free Blacks to do so only with a court’s approval. In the Jim Crow era, states found other ways to disarm Black Americans. They heavily taxed handgun sales, for example, or permitted pistols to be sold only to sheriffs and their deputies — a category that often included KKK terrorists.

“The Second Amendment is always revitalized when we feel threatened,” writes David Harsanyi in the current National Review. Between the Coronavirus pandemic, the killing of George Floyd, and the recent wave of riots and looting, this is an alarming moment in American life. Black and White Americans, millions of them, have chosen to meet the moment by arming themselves. The hoplophobes may disapprove, but this is what the Second Amendment is for.

“I’ve often suggested stocking up on three metals: gold, silver, and lead.”
So have I.

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MSM OUTLETS ARE “ANGRY” THE LOST CONTROL OF THE GUN CONTROL NARRATIVE

At least one major mainstream media outlet, the LA Times, has been reportedly “angry” that gun sales have shot up because of the tyrannical takeover of government in response to the COVID-19 panic they induced. Apparently, fear can have effects on the public that the MSM and government do no want – more self-reliance.

According to a report by Big League Politics, the LA Times is “throwing a fit” that other humans are buying weapons to defend themselves against the obvious tyranny. Remember, this follows their theme. The more dependent you are on them and the system they set up against you, the easier you will be to control. Taking your self-defense into your own hands was never a part of their plans. In fact, the LA Times editorial board described the increase in gun sales as follows:

Since the start of the pandemic, Americans are buying more guns. The FBI says it conducted a record 3.7 million background checks for would-be gun buyers, a loose proxy for firearm sales, in March as lockdown orders spread across the nation. In April the checks dropped to 2.9 million but rebounded to 3.1 million in May. The monthly average for 2019 — itself a record year for background checks — was 2.4 million. So even as we get fresh studies connecting possession of firearms with increased risk of gun violence, accidental shootings (usually by children) and suicides, we are adding more firearms to the nation’s already numbingly large privately owned arsenal of some 300 million guns (no reliable count is available) owned by about a third of the population. -LA Times

The board goes on to say that this amount of gun sales can be considered “madness.”

Breitbart News reported Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting’s chief economist Jurgen Brauer noted “the ratio of handguns to long-gun sold…[set] a new record of 1.94” in April. That ratio “[broke] the previous high of 1.84 set just one month ago.” The uptick in handgun purchases are indicative of a populace feeling like an extra layer of self-defense in warranted.

I’ve often suggested stocking up on three metals: gold, silver, and lead.

LA County Sheriff to Increase Concealed Permit Issuance by 400 Percent

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva revealed Wednesday his plans to increase the issuance of concealed carry permits by 400 percent.

Getting a concealed carry permit in L.A. County has been difficult in past years, regardless of the sheriff in charge.

On February 14, 2013, Breitbart News reported that the carry permits may have been disproportionately given to friends and donors of Sheriff Lee Baca.

LA Weekly noted that people securing the hard-to-come-by permits included:

• Emerson Glazer: the son of the man who developed the Del Amo Fashion Center mall in Torrance, gave Baca “basketball tickets and gift baskets.”
• Stan Shuster: the owner of a cigar room, gave Baca “shirts and golf balls.”
• Michael Yamaki: “is among Baca’s best friends.”
• George Chilingar: gave Baca $750 worth of Persian rugs.
• Hollywood producer Arnold Kopelson: “gave Baca ballet tickets in 2004″
• Singer James Darren: “gave Baca some CDs and a photograph.”
• Jeweler Nagapet Boyadgian: “gave Baca a $500 contribution in 2010.”
• Arthur Kassel: “hosted a birthday party for Baca.”

On December 26, 2017, Breitbart News reported that an audit by the California State Auditor showed there were only 197 concealed carry permit holders in Los Angeles county. At that time the county had a population of 10.2 million, and only 197 of those residents were permitted to carry a handgun for self-defense.

But in the current climate, where residents feel endangered in their neighborhoods and where rioters set fire to police vehicles in the street, Sheriff Villanueva is making clear he plans on increasing the issuance of concealed carry permits.

Fox LA’s Bill Melugin tweeted: “L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said he expects to begin increasing the amount of concealed carry permits he issues by as much as 400%. CCWs are notoriously difficult to obtain in LA.”

 

Indiana: Law Eliminating Fees for a License to Carry a Handgun Goes into Effect July 1st

Next Wednesday, sections of House Bill 1284 (2019) will go into effect.  A five-year License to Carry a Handgun will now be free to obtain.  In addition, applicants will have the option to register to vote while applying.  ​Removing barriers for lawful carry in Indiana, including taxes and fees, is significant for many Hoosier gun owners that desire to carry for the defense of themselves and others.  A full outline of the law is below:

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