Category: RKBA

This election will determine future of private gun ownership in US
JOHN LOTT

This past week, President Trump claimed the election will determine the future of private gun ownership in the United States.

He’s right. And Montana voters’ choice for the U.S. Senate looks set to determine its balance of power. If they gain control, Joe Biden and Senate Democrats promise to eliminate the filibuster, allowing them to pass any legislation they want with a simple majority vote.

But the Senate won’t just determine what gun control legislation gets passed — it will also determine what judges get confirmed.

There are few issues that divide Democrat- and Republican-appointed judges more consistently and completely than gun control. President Trump’s 200 federal judicial confirmations have only just brought the courts into balance, with Democrat-appointees still controlling circuit courts for 24 states plus D.C.

The states Democrats control judicially are ones that they also tend to control legislatively. These circuit courts approve any and all of the regulations they get passed, no matter how flagrantly they infringe on the right to keep and bear arms.

Don’t expect the Supreme Court to restrain these courts. All four Democrat appointments claim people don’t have a right to self-defense. Indeed, they have already noted they will vote to overturn the court’s 2008 Heller and 2010 McDonald decisions. Those rulings merely ensured the government could not completely ban guns.

Four Republican-appointed justices clearly care about the right to self-defense. But they won’t take up gun control cases for fear Justice John Roberts will side with the liberal justices. He has already done so on religious freedom cases, DACA and Obamacare.

Montana’s two current senators are sharply divided who should be on the courts. Sen. Jon Tester voted for Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, who do not believe there is an individual right to self-defense. He opposed Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, who support that right.

Sen. Steve Daines has voted the opposite way.

If Gov. Steve Bullock replaces Daines this November and gives Democrats control of the Senate, that means more judges in the vein of Sotomayor and Kagan.

California shows us what the future of gun ownership can look like. For example, no one has figured out how to meet the state’s requirement for micro-stamping — a technology by which firing pins will supposedly imprint a unique identifying code on each shell casing. Even if someone could implement this expensive technology, a criminal could circumvent it by simply filing down the pin or replacing it. But handguns that don’t meet these impossible regulations will soon be banned. Given the 9th Circuit Court’s liberal bent, unless Trump fills another Supreme Court vacancy, California’s restrictions will likely be upheld.

This year, the Democrat’s convention platform is focused on a radical gun control agenda. It advocates licensing for gun owners, allowing gun makers to be held liable whenever someone uses a gun to commit a crime or cause an accident, and banning some types of semi-automatic guns based on appearance rather than on function. Neither Tester or Bullock have made any public comments opposing this platform.

Bullock attacks “Dark Money groups like the NRA, who are spending millions to try to divide this nation and thwart progress.” but he never criticizes the vastly greater amounts that New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg spends. While the NRA spent $18.9 million on all campaigns in 2018, Michael Bloomberg put up $110 million just for congressional campaigns, even more than that on state legislative races across the country.

Montanans cherish their freedoms. It would be ironic if Montanans provide the deciding votes that kill the Second Amendment and Americans’ right to defend themselves and their families.

BLUF:
Discounting the unlikely conclusion that the law targeted a problem that never existed, a more realistic explanation is that criminals are no more impeded by this law that they are by any other and that the experience in New Mexico replicates what happened following the passage of I-594 in Washington State.

A year after the effective date of I-594, there were no arrests, no prosecutions, and no convictions under the law. “Despite public records requests to agencies around the state, we can find no record of any enforcement of this new law in the year since it took effect,” said Alan Gottlieb of Washington State’s Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. “The only discernible impact of the law has been to inconvenience honest gun owners …”

New Mexico’s Background Check Law: A Year in Review

Back in 2013-14, failed presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg was joined by other billionaires –Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, and Nick Hanauer–in pouring millions of dollars into the campaign to pass Initiative 594, a so-called “universal background check” law, in Washington State. Proponents of the initiative promised that the law was an effective and easy way to keep “firearms out of dangerous hands” and would make “a huge difference when it comes to the rate of gun violence in a state.” Continue reading “”

“I live for this event. I really do,” Moner said. “There’s nothing like seeing a woman pull the trigger on a firearm for the very first time. It’s like a light just goes off in her. It’s a moment of enlightenment.”

Detroit Women Flock to Gun Training.

Tanisha Moner has had a gun pointed at her twice in her life. Once by two strangers who kidnapped, robbed, and sexually assaulted her when she was 17. And, again, by another robber as she worked a management shift at a restaurant.

The traumatic experiences left her scarred, afraid of guns, shuddering at the sound of a firework and popped balloon. That changed the day she decided to face her fears and showed up for a gun-carry class at a local range.

“Succumbing to your own fear is the only thing that can stop you from doing anything you want to do,” Moner told the Washington Free Beacon.

She said that first gun-safety training class years ago helped her overcome her fear and ignited a passion to help others overcome their own fears. Continue reading “”

WHY “LARGE CAPACITY MAGAZINES” ARE IMPORTANT

Massad Ayoob

We recently discussed here the Ninth Circuit’s decision that limiting private citizens to a magazine capacity of ten rounds was unconstitutional.

The Court referred to them as LCMs, Large Capacity Magazines. We gun people call them Standard Capacity Magazines since that’s what so many of the firearms in question – handguns, rifles, and even shotguns – were originally designed for.  It continues to amaze me that people whose critical thinking skills are otherwise intact can’t “get it” on this issue.

First, of course, is the utter stupidity of believing that criminals who are prepared to commit murder and face life in prison without possibility of parole, or even capital punishment, will somehow be deterred from breaking a magazine limit law. But let’s look at the common questions of “Why do private citizens need more than ten bullets to defend themselves? And if they do, why can’t they just reload, or carry more guns?”

For one thing, most home defense guns are stored in secure places and not carried on one’s person when at home.  A home invasion can happen in seconds. When you grab the gun, it’s unlikely you’ll have time to grab more ammunition: what’s in it at the start is probably all you’ll have until it’s over, one way or the other.  Do you want the two rounds in a Joe Biden Signature Model double barrel shotgun against three or more armed home invaders?

For another, violent criminals running on adrenaline and often drugs and alcohol can soak up bullet after bullet before they run out of blood or a lucky hit short-circuits their central nervous system.  More bad guys wear body armor today than in the time of John Dillinger: current news shows violent Antifas wearing it openly.  And surgical bullet placement for a single bullet in tense life-or-death circumstances is more the exception than the norm.

Magazine limits have a disproportionate, disparate impact against the elderly and the handicapped.  It’s hard enough for someone in a wheelchair to get to a gun at all, never mind packing spare magazines or extra guns. And how does the wheelchair-bound victim get to cover to reload in any case? I can testify from experience that arthritic hands slow you down, too. How much of a nightmare is it to run out of ammo when you’re trying to save your family from a home invader? This article will give you an example.

If your state has a magazine capacity limit, the recent Ninth Circuit decision cited above offers some hope for the future. If your state allows you to have standard capacity magazines, fight like hell to keep them when, as they eventually will, Prohibitionists attempt to prohibit them.

 

Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy

This casebook is the first and only traditional law school casebook to cover the subject. It provides a comprehensive treatment of cases and materials before and after the U.S. Supreme Court s landmark cases in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010), which affirmed the constitutional right to private firearm possession and use, and made the right enforceable against the states. From days of Anglo-Saxon King Alfred s militia in the eighth century through the latest cases on electric stun guns and 3-D printed firearms, this casebook covers all aspects of firearms law, policy, and regulation. Rather than looking at arms laws in isolation, the book pays careful attention to changing contexts in race, class, religion, technology, and politics. It is ideally suited to law school courses on firearms law, the Second Amendment, criminal law, jurisprudence and legal history.

Key Benefits:

  • Comprehensive coverage of all aspects of firearms law, from early English origins to present-day debates.
  • Ideally suited for a dedicated law school course in firearms law and the Second Amendment.
  • Supplemental materials on the website will provide a continuing research resource, tracking the most current developments in firearms law, regulation, and policy.
  • Five online chapters on firearms and status, the philosophy of citizen arms bearing, international law, comparative law, and an in-depth explanation of firearm and ammunition functionality.

BLUF:
The ad bombardment is expected to take aim at eight key states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas.
So, if you’re there, get ready up for a gun-demonizing onslaught designed to “change your mind.” And know where it comes from: a man with a lot of money who couldn’t buy popularity to get the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, but is, nevertheless, intent on pulling strings.

Bloomberg Wants to Buy Your Right to Bear Arms

Michael Bloomberg failed to win much Democratic support in his expensive quest (spending an estimated $1 billion of his personal fortune) to secure the 2020 nomination for president, but the former New York City mayor is continuing to push his unrelenting gun-control agenda with lots of money.

He has plenty of it, and has no problem using it in an attempt to buy peoples’ freedom.

On Monday, Bloomberg confirmed that he is going to spend $60 million of his own money—a drop in the pan for a man worth in surplus of $50 billion by some estimates, but unfathomable funds to us commoners—to aid Democrat candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives across the country who would vote to restrict our right to keep and bear arms.

The $60 million is being poured into digital and television ads. It will also include a dump of funds to the House Majority PAC, connected to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has already gushed that the Bloomberg injection “was pivotal to our success two years ago.” Continue reading “”

And the number one state with most NICS checks so far this year is…….

Dwarfing all other states, FBI data show Illinois had 4.6 million background checks for guns in first seven months

(The Center Square) – Illinois topped the list of all states for firearm background checks so far this year, and is already on pace to blow last year’s numbers out of the water. And reports persist of people waiting beyond the three-day waiting period to pick up the guns they’ve purchased.

There are also more than 143,000 Firearm Owner Identification, or FOID card, applicants still waiting for their cards to be processed by Illinois State Police.

A state Representative says this is tantamount to civil rights being infringed.

Monthly records from the FBI’s NICS Firearm Background Checks report show in the first seven months of the year, there have been nearly 4.6 million checks. That dwarfs every other state, with only Kentucky coming close with 2.2 million checks from January through July. Continue reading “”

BLUF:
During his acceptance speech, the former vice president declared “This is a life-changing election that will determine America’s future for a very long time.”
For American gun owners, no other remark more clearly defined what is at stake.

Biden’s Anti-Gun Agenda Would Turn Right into Privilege

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- Democrat presidential hopeful Joe Biden has plans for the constitutionally enumerated right to keep and bear arms: If elected in November, his intention is to turn the Second Amendment into a heavily-regulated government privilege, say critics, and it’s spelled out at his website.

Remarkably, Biden made no reference to his plan during his acceptance speech; a cornerstone of his campaign, yet he avoided it like exposure to COVID-19. Only his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, referenced his leadership role in passing the 1993 ban on so-called “assault weapons” during the Clinton administration, as part of her acceptance speech.

Otherwise, both Democrat challengers steered clear of gun control.

Headlined ‘The Biden Plan to End Our Gun Violence Epidemic,” Biden’s 3,430-word plan is explained in detail. Continue reading “”

Nothing really new to this, just a reiteration of their standard operational crap-for-brains disregard for clearly enumerated rights.

Democrat Party Platform: Ban Online Ammo Sales, License All Gun Owners

The 2020 Democrat Party platform is rife with gun controls that include an all-out ban on online ammunition sales and a push to require every state in the Union to license gun owners.

The 2020 platform also continues a pledge to secure universal background checks, which have existed in California since the 1990s and are currently in place in New York, New Jersey, and other states rife with gun violence.

Gabby Giffords’s gun control law center reports 13 states in total have such checks.

The Democrat’s platform also pledges a ban on online gun sales and efforts to prohibit “some individuals convicted of assault or battery to buy and possess firearms.” Additionally, Democrats will “ban the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high capacity magazines” and “pass legislation requiring that guns be safely stored in homes.”

The platform also makes clear Democrats want to open gun makers up to lawsuits by “repealing the law that shields gun manufacturers from civil liability.” This is a reference to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (2005), which was put in place to protect gun makers from frivolous lawsuits in instances where the guns in question were legally made and legally sold.

Joe Biden has long campaigned on repealing the PLCAA and opening gun makers up to lawsuits.

On February 24, 2020, Breitbart News reported Biden speaking in South Carolina, referencing gun makers and saying, “I’m going to take you down.”

Maine Republicans hold 2nd Amendment rally

AUGUSTA, Maine (WABI) – A group of Maine Republicans is highlighting the right to keep and bear arms.

At a rally Tuesday morning, supporters of President Trump expressed the importance of maintaining their second amendment rights.

This comes after Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden announced his running mate as California Senator Kamala Harris.

Attendees of the rally fear that the election of Biden will lead to their second amendment rights being taken away.

One activist explained what firearms mean to the state of Maine.

“The firearms issue crosses party lines, we’re one of the freest states in the nation, the recognition of our rights to keep and bear arms has been opening up and broadening over the last 20 years and that’s only because of bipartisan efforts,” said activist Jeff Zimba. “So, here in the state of Maine running on an anti-gun ticket isn’t gonna play off as favorable to one party or another it just isn’t a popular idea here in the state of Maine.”

The Maine GOP Chair also spoke to the importance of guns for hunting and target practice.

Virginia Militia rallies in Richmond to protect gun rights

RICHMOND, Va. — An open carry rally organized by the Virginia Militia marched through downtown Richmond on Tuesday.

They then rallied outside the Siegel Center, on the campus of VCU, where state lawmakers were holding a special session of the Virginia General Assembly.

They’re speaking out against potential action lawmakers might take that they see as an infringement to their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

“The tyrannical head of Virginia’s current legislation continues to infringe and chip away at our rights,” the group posted on Facebook. “Calling multiple special sessions within one fiscal year to pass law after law of new restrictions against the law abiding citizens of our state. We must not give them an inch, we must not take our attention off for a second.”………

BIG LEAGUE GUNSFLASHBACK: Kamala Harris Called Mandatory Gun “Buyback” Confiscation A “Good Idea”

During her failed campaign for the presidency, California Senator and newly minted Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris appeared to endorse Beto O’Rourke-style gun confiscation. Harris called the notion of mandatory “buyback” gun confiscations a “good idea” in an interview with Bloomberg News, following the lead of another Democratic contender, Beto O’Rourke.

Harris, who endorsed the policy when speaking after a campaign event in New Hampshire, qualified that additional details had to be resolved to enact mandatory buybacks, but made it clear she expressly supports the notion of mandatory confiscation buybacks

“I think it’s a good idea… We have to work out the details — there are a lot of details — but I do,” responded Harris when asked about her potential support for Beto O’Rourke’s aggressive gun seizure agenda. “We have to take those guns off the streets,” she said of the millions of legally owned semiautomatic firearms in civilian hands.

Harris’ entry into the Democratic ticket possibly signals Joe Biden’s most cogent embrace of the gun confiscation policies long favored by the neoliberal extremist element of the Democratic Party, which go a step further than most liberal gun control policies in actively mandating that law-abiding patriots who own so-called “assault weapons” surrender their guns to the government.

Biden has previously stated that he plans on appointing Beto O’Rourke to “take care of the gun problem” in his administration when he’s office. He appears primed to surround himself with the most draconian anti-gun confiscation enthusiasts as President.

Record-Setting Interest in Self-Defense

Two trend lines related to our issue have diverged in a remarkable way that indicates that firearms and the 2nd Amendment are fundamental American mainstays. We’ve covered the string of record-breaking NICS background check numbers since the onset of the pandemic, and July NICS data continues that trend. New data from Gallup shows that gun control has slid further down Americans’ list of most important issues, and a deeper dive into NICS data suggests that new gun owners and the need for self-defense are driving the 2020 surge. Continue reading “”

Readers respond: Gun rights aren’t ‘so-called’

A recent letter writer believes Americans’ “so-called ‘gun rights’ ” should be included in the national conversation on violence. (“Include gun control in the conversation,” Aug. 3). The right of Americans to own and carry guns is far from “so-called.” They are enumerated in the U.S. Constitution and in Oregon’s Constitution and have been recognized and upheld by the Supreme Court with the Heller decision in 2008.

As of this writing, Portland has recorded its deadliest month in the past 30 years (“Portland police record highest number of death investigations in single month in more than three decades,” July 30). Stabbings, shootings, assaults and home invasions are a regular occurrence. There is a call for law enforcement to be defunded, and ineffectual leaders have hobbled the police bureau for their own political gain. Gun sales are at an all-time high, background checks take many days instead of several minutes, and ammunition is in short supply. This is a result of concerned Americans wishing to protect themselves from violent criminals when local governments refuse to.

One can be displeased by the fact that Americans enjoy a unique right to self-preservation, but to deny the Second Amendment and falsely claim the right to keep and bear arms as “so-called” is intellectually dishonest. Law-abiding gun owners have every right to arm themselves. Thankfully, the Founding Fathers added no provisions in the Bill of Rights protecting the timid from never encountering things that make them uncomfortable or that offend delicate sensibilities.

Norwood Paladin, Portland

More Americans are realizing government and the police can’t, or won’t  protect you.

Although I have always been a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, I never advocated that everyone should get a gun. I did support and continue to support freedom of choice in owning and possessing firearms. But now, it is time for every law-abiding American citizen to be armed. Learn how to properly use a gun and how to safeguard it.

Our Country is at a crossroads. We stand to lose everything near and dear to us if we don’t pay to heed to the threats directed against us, bearing down relentlessly on all of us.

It is the responsibility of all citizens to safeguard their own life and safety and that of their families, and to preserve our Republic as the founders intended; to protect it from the insinuation of tyranny that the Radical Left would dare impose on Americans.

THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT PROTECT YOU! YOU MUST PROTECT YOURSELF!

As a NYPD veteran police officer, and Adjunct Professor/Lecturer of Police Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, National Rifle Association Certified Firearms Instructor (pistol, rifle, and shotgun), and Training Counselor, and active member of the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors, and lifetime resident of New York City, I have dedicated my life to the preservation and strengthening of our cherished Second Amendment. This is no easy task, especially today, as we see constant, concerted, vigorous attacks on the fundamental right of personal defense with firearms. Continue reading “”

could ?
They’re wishing it ain’t so.
And if we’ve learned anything, when a demoncrap says it isn’t politics, it certainly is.
Everything to them is politics.

Attempt to dismantle NRA could push gun rights into 2020 debate

******************

James denied her actions were politically-motivated in an interview with CNN Thursday.

“It’s not politics at all,” she said. “This investigation began in 2019 and the complaint lays out all the allegations and facts and the conclusions of law… I have a duty and an obligation and a responsibility to follow the law and to ensure the mission of non-profits, including the NRA, are protected.”

With November’s election looming, though, the political ramifications are difficult to ignore. President Donald Trump—who was endorsed by the NRA last month—immediately touted the lawsuit as a reason for gun rights supporters to back him over presumptive Democratic nominee former Vice President Joe Biden.

“Just like Radical Left New York is trying to destroy the NRA, if Biden becomes President your GREAT SECOND AMENDMENT doesn’t have a chance,” Trump tweeted Thursday. “Your guns will be taken away, immediately and without notice. No police, no guns!”………..

 

Even people who are against our RKBA are concerned about this.

New York’s attorney general shouldn’t dismantle the NRA

The attorney general of New York has sued to seek the dissolution of the National Rifle Association, alleging fraud and abuse in the way the NRA’s chief executive and other officials ran the operation. Given that the NRA has played such a powerfully destructive role in U.S. politics, fighting against gun regulations that demonstrably save lives, it’s tempting to react with applause.

Yet even liberals who oppose the NRA’s mission should take a deep breath and ask: Do we really want an elected attorney general to try to destroy a prominent nongovernmental organization that is arrayed on the other side of the political spectrum from her? What if this were Alabama and the organization were the NAACP? Or Tennessee and the ACLU?

If an organization has really fallen into a condition of fundamental corruption, a state attorney general can demand that it get new leaders, or replace its board of directors and its management in their entirety. Maybe New York Attorney General Letitia James is prepared to settle the case against the NRA with that sort of an organizational overhaul. Continue reading “”

When even anti-gunner, Dershowitz is concerned…….
I see it as 1/2 concerned about the 1st amendment and 1/2 about
‘Sauce for the Goose is Sauce for the Gander’

The case against the NRA must be politically bulletproof

By ALAN DERSHOWITZ

The announcement that the attorney general of New York has filed suit against the National Rifle Association and looking to shut it down raises potentially serious constitutional concerns. I am no fan of the NRA. Politically, I think it wields too much influence against reasonable gun control, which I support as consistent with the Second Amendment. It is too closely connected with the profitability of gun manufacturers. It advocates positions and supports candidates, even if indirectly, that I believe undercut our safety.

I will never contribute to the NRA and I will generally vote against candidates it supports. But to paraphrase Voltaire, I will strongly defend its right to be wrong. The NRA is entitled under the First Amendment, to advocate these views and to petition the government for what it regards as a redress of grievances under the Second Amendment. Continue reading “”

Violence Spikes in Washington’s King County, Bastion of State Gun Control

King County, Washington is in the midst of a violent crime spike as the office of Prosecutor Dan Satterberg is reporting the first six months of the year saw more people shot than in any of the previous four years over the same time period.

There is no small irony in this, because King County, which encompasses Seattle—headquarters to the billionaire-backed Alliance for Gun Responsibility, a gun prohibition lobbying group—is something of the bastion of Pacific Northwest gun control. Continue reading “”