Category: RKBA

Everytown Law: It’s Totally Constitutional To Close Gun Stores Right Now

For years, Everytown for Gun Safety has presented itself as a moderate “gun safety” group that isn’t interested in stripping Americans of their rights, but is only in favor of “commonsense gun safety” regulations. Now they’re exposing that lie all by themselves. In a time of uncertainty, and during an emergency, Everytown is doing everything it can to prevent Americans from acquiring firearms and ammunition. There’s nothing common sense about that. Their position has nothing to do with gun safety and everything to do with keeping as many Americans as possible unarmed and defenseless when more Americans than ever before are choosing to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

Nor from what I’ve seen.

Will COVID-19 kill the Constitution

Jacob Sullum
The great American jurist St. George Tucker, writing at the beginning of the 19th century, called the right to armed self-defense “the true palladium of liberty” and “the first law of nature.” But California Gov. Gavin Newsom thinks that right, guaranteed by the Second Amendment, is optional.

After Newsom ordered “nonessential” businesses to close in response to the COVID-19 epidemic, he let local sheriffs decide whether that category included gun dealers. Newsom’s decision, which allowed Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva to unilaterally ban the sale of firearms and ammunition, illustrates how readily politicians ignore constitutional rights in the very circumstances where they matter most.

Villanueva’s ban, which several gun rights groups challenged in a federal lawsuit last Friday, was inconsistent with recent guidance from the Department of Homeland Security as well as the Second Amendment. In an advisory published on Saturday, the department added firearm retailers to its definition of the “essential critical infrastructure workforce,” which Newsom explicitly exempted from his order.

On Monday, Villanueva, who describes himself as “a supporter of the Second Amendment” but also suggests that keeping guns for self-protection is irresponsible, rescinded his ban, citing the new federal guidelines. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, whose business closure order initially covered gun stores, likewise recognized them as “essential” after seeing the federal advisory.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf also deigned to allow firearm sales, but only after three members of the state Supreme Court said that “it is incumbent upon the Governor to make some manner of allowance for our citizens to continue to exercise this constitutional right.” Notably, that rebuke came in a dissent from a March 22 decision summarily denying a challenge to Wolf’s violation of the Second Amendment.

The reversals by Murphy and Wolf, who are now allowing firearm sales by appointment and in compliance with social distancing rules, show that shutting down gun stores was never necessary to curtail transmission of COVID-19. But their reluctance to respect the Second Amendment and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s unwillingness to intervene do not bode well for civil liberties at a time when many people seem to think that fighting the pandemic trumps all other concerns.

To “save the nation” from COVID-19, Cornell law professor Michael Dorf argued two weeks ago, Congress should suspend the writ of habeas corpus, an ancient common-law right that allows people detained by the government to demand a justification. Yet the Constitution says that “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”

Although neither of those circumstances applies, Dorf suggested that the spread of the COVID-19 virus from other countries to the United States could be construed as an invasion. While “no one knows” whether the courts would accept that interpretation, since “Congress has only ever suspended habeas in wartime,” Dorf said, “there is reason to think that the courts would dismiss a habeas case following nearly any congressional suspension.”

In a recent survey of 3,000 Americans, the University of Chicago’s Adam Chilton and three other law professors found bipartisan agreement that “now is the time to violate the Constitution,” as they put it. The survey asked whether the respondents would support various constitutionally dubious policy responses to the epidemic.

Sizable majorities of both Democrats and Republicans favored confining people to their homes, detaining sick people in government facilities, banning U.S. citizens from entering the country, government takeovers of businesses, conscription of health care workers, suspension of religious services and even criminalizing the spread of “misinformation” about the virus. “Even when we explicitly told half of our sample that the policies may violate the Constitution,” Chilton et al. report, “the majority supported all eight of them,” including the speech restrictions.

“After the threat has subsided,” the law professors conclude, “Americans must recognize any constitutional violations for what they were, lest they become the new normal.” By then, it may be too late.

Go look in a mirror and you will see who your real ‘First Responder’ is.

Coronavirus Clobbers Cops and Suddenly Second is First Fallback

Reports are surfacing in several jurisdictions about the number of police officers testing positive for Coronavirus, underscoring the importance of the Second Amendment among people who might have been indifferent about the right to keep and bear arms…until now.

Over the weekend, TIME magazine reported that “about 700 New Jersey police officers have tested positive for the coronavirus.” Acting State Police Supt. Col. Patrick Callahan said more than 700 officers have been quarantined at home.

However, the Philadelphia Inquirer subsequently reported that Callahan had “overstated” the number. The newspaper noted that “while 1,272 officers had been ‘quarantined,’ the actual number of those testing positive was 163. In addition, it said that 1,435 officers were ‘out for other reasons,’ but did not elaborate.”

The Sun reported Monday “Almost 5,000 (New York) cops are currently out sick as the coronavirus crisis continues to ravage New York with fears looming of disorder on the streets. The number of police officers out sick on Sunday amounts to nearly 14 per cent of the 36,000-strong force.”

The Associated Press reported “More than a fifth of Detroit’s police force is quarantined; two officers have died from coronavirus and at least 39 have tested positive, including the chief of police.”
The story also revealed “Nearly 690 officers and civilian employees at police departments and sheriff’s offices around the country have tested positive for COVID-19, according to an Associated Press survey of over 40 law enforcement agencies, mostly in major cities. The number of those in isolation as they await test results is far higher in many places.”

Altogether, these reports reinforce the argument made over the weekend by Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, which has filed a lawsuit in New Jersey to reopen gun shops and shooting ranges. He says the same principle applies nationwide, where police manpower shortages might translate to problems for the public, despite official insistence they have things under control.

“This is exactly why the Foundation lawsuit to force New Jersey to re-open gun stores during this emergency is so important,” Gottlieb said. “People need to be able to obtain the means of self-defense in times such as these. This is why the right to keep and bear arms is essential.

“The Second Amendment wasn’t written for duck hunters,” Gottlieb added. “The right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution to assure every citizen has the means to defend himself or herself when help may not arrive in time, or maybe not arrive at all.”

Since the COVID-19 outbreak began more than two weeks ago, anecdotal reports of citizens rushing to gun stores to purchase firearms and ammunition have surfaced, suggesting many people were buying guns for the first time. The Second Amendment in essence became their first fallback.

Alarming to gun owners from one coast to the other has been the widespread shut downs of police agency services including fingerprinting for concealed carry license or permit applications. Some agencies are accepting renewals only, deciding to suspend new permit applications. This has already resulted in one lawsuit in North Carolina, filed by SAF, the Firearms Policy Coalition and Grass Roots North Carolina.

Several other lawsuits are under consideration, Gottlieb hinted in a telephone conversation late last week.

Not all that long ago these types were having conniptions about people who were using the wrong ‘gender pronoun’.
A real crisis apparently brings things into a clearer perspective, and from the überproggie New Yorker magazine, no less.

Choose Your Weapon

As shoppers stock up for a potential Armageddon, an Oregon gun store has sold out of ARs and .308 rifles, many of which went to first-time liberal buyers.

There was no complimentary hand sanitizer for the concerned customers of Gorge Guns, in Hood River, Oregon, on a recent Friday. Erika Bales, the shop’s twenty-nine-year-old owner, wasn’t worried about the virus. “I figure, just let nature take its course,” she said. Her customers were less nonchalant. Bales, who had a neat manicure and a number of tattoos, said that, days earlier, people had begun realizing that “everyone’s buying things and everything’s gonna be gone.” The resulting rush was, for her, unprecedented. She was out of ARs and .308 rifles. A few shotguns remained, and she told shoppers that they could saw them off, to a legal length. “Obama didn’t even bring in these numbers,” Bales said.

At noon, a woman in her sixties came in. She wore plastic gloves and had a scarf wrapped around her face, and she traced a wide arc around the only other non-employee in the store. “I’ve been doing this since the beginning of March,” she said, referring to her protective gear. “I don’t feel sick at all. I’m self-quarantining.” She left her house only for essential activities. This was one. “I’m buying a gun,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

She went on, “My son was a little upset about it.” (He preferred his bow and arrow.) “I’m old and I live alone, and we don’t know if there’s going to be civil unrest. The world is not the same.” She added, “It didn’t have to be this way.” Unlike many of the shop’s regulars, she was no fan of Trump: “He’s a divider all the way. First he said, ‘Five people have died, big deal.’ Now he’s saying, ‘I always knew it’d be dangerous.’ ” Talk turned to Portland. “It’s a ghost town,” a young woman said. Her name was Rosemary, and she was helping Bales out, since the restaurant where she waited tables had closed.

“I don’t like to go in cities anymore, anyway,” the customer said.

“But these rumors about them putting this country in full lockdown are inaccurate,” Rosemary said. “It’s a scare tactic. It’s not like all of a sudden we’re gonna wake up one day and everyone is sick and the whole world is ending.”

“I don’t know,” the customer said. “The exponential growth is happening.”

“If anything, we’re definitely repopulating, if nobody is at work,” Rosemary said cheerily. “We won’t have a shortage of humans, that’s for sure.”

Bales helped her customer choose a weapon. (“Pick three,” the customer told her.) As Bales rummaged around, the customer said, “I’m going to have a soldier train me. A friend of my son’s.” Bales returned with the first option. “A .22 Mag,” she said. “Holds thirty rounds.”

The customer peered at the gun.

“It’s a Kel-Tec PMR-30,” Bales said.

“I like the color of it,” the customer said. “It’s not black.” She picked it up. “It feels good. And it’s got a safety. I’m going to take this one. You’ve got ammo for it, right?” Bales nodded and noted a few of the gun’s features. “As long as you’re accurate, it’ll do damage,” she said.

“This is just going to be for close range,” the customer said. “In my house. If it happens.” (Asked what “it” was, she said, “In two months, if the cities are starving, they’re gonna come out. And I understand that.”) Bales piled boxes of ammunition on the counter. “I’ll take them all,” the customer said. She ducked outside to get her wallet from the car.

“I think she’s a liberal,” Bales said, once the door closed. “There’s so many coming in. First-time-gun-owner liberals. I’ve probably seen ten this week. It’s so funny, because I hope it just turns them on to liking the Second Amendment. I mean, the Constitution was created for a reason. To protect us.”

The customer returned. The bill was nearly seven hundred dollars, including electronic ear protection and sixteen boxes of bullets. She could come back and pick up the gun once her digital background check cleared. The customer asked, “If I don’t get approved, what happens?”

“You already got approved,” Bales said, glancing at a computer, with some surprise.

“O.K.! Can I take it?”

“Yeah. Some people go through fast.”

The new gun owner asked if there was a shooting range nearby. She asked if she needed a concealed-carry permit. She asked how to carry the gun out. “I can’t believe this!” she said, stepping into the world with her brand-new gun.

Constitutional Carry in Idaho is Now for All Americans

U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- Fantastic news for Idaho’s gun-loving citizens and supporters of the Second Amendment nationwide – Idaho just passed HB 516 allowing Constitutional Carry in the great state! The following passage in HB 516 makes it abundantly clear, that ID citizens have the right to keep, bear and carry arms without any permit whatsoever.

18-3302. CONCEALED WEAPONS. (1) The legislature hereby finds that the people of Idaho have reserved for themselves the right to keep and bear arms while granting the legislature the authority to regulate the carrying of weapons concealed. The provisions of this chapter regulating the carrying of weapons must be strictly construed so as to give maximum scope to the rights retained by the people.

In August 2013, DEFCAD released the public alpha of its 3D search engine, which indexes public object repositories and allows users to add their own objects. The site soon closed down due to pressure from the United States State Department, under the pretense that distributing certain files online might violate US Arms Export ITAR regulations.

From 2013 to 2018, DEFCAD remained offline, pending resolution to the legal case Defense Distributed brought against the State Department, namely that ITAR regulations placed a prior restraint on Defense Distributed’s free speech, particularly since the speech in question regarded another constitutionally protected right: firearms. While the legal argument failed to gain support in federal court, in a surprise reversal in 2018, the State Department agreed that ITAR did in fact violate Defense Distributed’s free speech. Therefore, for a brief period in late 2018 DEFCAD was once again publicly available online.

Shortly thereafter, 20 states and Washington DC sued the State Department, in order to prevent DEFCAD from remaining online. At its core, this new suit (correctly) cited a procedural error: the proper notice had not been given prior to enacting the change in how ITAR applied to small arms. As such, DEFCAD was once again taken offline, pending the State Department providing proper notice via the Federal Register.

On March 28, 2020, DEFCAD once again became publicly available online

Gun-Rights Activist Releases Blueprints for Digital Guns
Cody Wilson calls the move impervious to legal challenge

A U.S. technology company made thousands of digital-gun files publicly available, including blueprints that will enable users to make plastic guns with three-dimensional printers, a scourge of gun-control advocates.
Cody Wilson, a director of the company, Defcad, has waged a multiyear legal battle against the federal government over the right to share 3-D-gun-related materials. This was the third time he has released such files, but the first time he has abided by U.S. foreign export controls online, using what he said are digital verification tools to ensure legal file downloads.
Mr. Wilson said he believed his release of the files would be “impervious” to legal challenge and would help normalize the distribution of such material for easy download in the future.
Mr. Wilson is offering access to the files for an annual fee of $50, characterizing his service as “Netflix for 3-D guns.”
His opponents quickly condemned the action, saying that he is bypassing federal gun laws, including those providing for background checks of gun buyers. Foes are also concerned about the proliferation of 3-D-printed guns, which don’t have serial numbers, making it difficult for law-enforcement officers to track them should they be involved in a crime.
“The biggest concern with 3-D-printed guns and the technical data for them is that they’re not traceable,” said Kelly Sampson, counsel at Brady: United Against Gun Violence, a gun-control group. “It’s a huge loophole and opportunity for people who would otherwise be unable to access firearms to be able to do so.”
Federal law generally permits the manufacture of guns for personal use.
The State Department, which oversees the distribution of 3-D-gun blueprints, regardless of export intent, has the responsibility of scrutinizing Mr. Wilson’s new effort. The department declined to comment.
Mr. Wilson said he is fighting the imposition of limits on personal freedoms and that he expects people to download the 3-D-gun files not necessarily to manufacture guns, but “as a form of internal resistance.”
“For me, this is a political battle,” Mr. Wilson said.
Mr. Wilson first alarmed lawmakers when his company, Defense Distributed, published 3-D-gun design files in 2012. In 2013, the State Department ordered him to take down the plans.
The Obama administration ultimately reasoned that the files could be downloaded by foreign nationals and were thus classified as exports regulated by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR, a U.S. control on the export of defense and military technology.
Mr. Wilson had run afoul of laws designed to control sales for export, not those restricting domestic transactions.
Mr. Wilson engaged in a lengthy legal fight with the federal government, ultimately prevailing in 2018 when the State Department amended its policy and allowed the files to be posted, issuing Mr. Wilson a license to do so.
President Trump waded into the discussion that summer, writing on Twitter that he was “looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public. Already spoke to NRA, doesn’t seem to make much sense!”
Mr. Wilson again published the plans on his site, before a group of 19 state attorneys general brought suit against him in Seattle federal court. U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik issued an injunction ordering Mr. Wilson to take down the plans.
In his ruling, Mr. Lasnik wrote that Mr. Wilson aimed “to arm every citizen outside of the government’s traditional control mechanism.”
Mr. Wilson said he had been waiting for a long-planned transfer of 3-D-gun oversight from ITAR to the Commerce Department to go through before reissuing the blueprints. Commerce Department oversight is in some respects more lenient than that of ITAR, as it isn’t subject to congressional approval.
But when a new suit was brought in Seattle federal court last year, blocking the transfer of 3-D guns to the Commerce Department’s oversight list, Mr. Wilson charted a new course.
Instead of openly publishing the plans, he said that he would now first vet people who would like to download them, ensuring that they are U.S. citizens or legal residents and that they are located within the U.S., maintaining compliance with ITAR export rules.
To achieve this, Mr. Wilson said he would employ four levels of security, including IP geolocation and proxy detection and technology developed for credit bureaus and anti-money-laundering specialists.
“The internet is not an airtight, hack-proof system,” Ms. Sampson said. “Even some of our most secure databases are vulnerable. It’s not quite living in reality to assume that you can 100% secure information that’s online.”
Mr. Wilson’s proposed system can’t prevent people who download blueprints from sharing them with others, including with those outside the U.S. “I can only tell them that it’s against the law to do so,” Mr. Wilson said.
Nevertheless, Mr. Wilson said his approach adheres to export rules. “I’m a compliant part of the system,” he said.
Defcad has so far made 3,680 files available. Mr. Wilson said that the site will ultimately offer more than 25,000 files, the great majority of which will be for traditional guns and gun components. Many of those are already in the public domain.
Mr. Wilson, who lives in Austin, Texas, timed his Friday release to coincide with the anniversary of the 1836 execution of several hundred soldiers in the Texas revolution in the town of Goliad.

 

Remember the NRA tweet with the vid of the black woman sitting in a wheelchairs holding the AR pistol? Well, Bloombergs idjits went ballistic. I figure they understood all to well just how powerful the message was.

Moms Demand Action is grasping at straws during this pandemic, but their cronies are getting dirty

Moms Demand Action published this:

While NRA Board MembersUse the Pandemicto Further Racist Narratives, Spread Conspiracy Theories, and Dismiss the Seriousness of Coronavirus, the NRA is Fear Mongering to Sell Guns
As Americans shelter in place to flatten the curve of coronavirus, the NRA is fear mongering about the pandemic to sow division and sell guns. Last Friday, the NRA released a video urging Americans to buy guns to protect themselves during the coronavirus pandemic, saying, “You might be stockpiling up on food right now to get through this current crisis. But if you aren’t preparing to defend your property when everything goes wrong, you’re really just stockpiling for somebody else.”

“Racist Narratives”? Really????

How is a disabled African American woman who took the actions to protect herself “racist”?

Further, Americans are buying firearms to protect their home due to uncertainty in a crisis situation. Fact is, Moms Demand Action’s allies are attempting to enact BS “emergency declarations” to stop firearm sales during the pandemic. One famous example is in Champaign, Illinois, in which the city council gave the mayor the power to ban the sale/transfer of firearms and ammo. Mom-At-Arms obtained emails via FOIA proving that the mayor is a Bloomberg (MDA) stooge as well.

“You can’t shoot a virus” The Crap-For-Brains Sheriff said. What-An-Idiot. He knows what people are buying guns for; Self Defense. It’s just that he can’t stand the fact the people are realizing that ‘the authorities’ aren’t going to be there when things go from bad to worse and they will have to be their own First Responders.

LA County Sheriff halts efforts to close gun stores after county counsel intervention.

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles County Sheriff told FOX 11 on Tuesday night that enforcement efforts to close down local gun stores have been suspended after intervention from the county’s legal counsel.

Sheriff Alex Villanueva told FOX 11 reporter Bill Melugin that county counsel Mary Wickham issued an opinion that gun stores can be classified as essential businesses under the Governor’s statewide executive order.

Sheriff Villanueva everything is now in “limbo”, and added he reached out to the Governor’s office to get clarification on how gun stores should be classified, but never got a response.

Up until the legal opinion, Villanueva said a majority of gun shops were complying with his order to close down.

The Sheriff maintained that he believes gun stores should not be open to the general public right now because he feels there are too many first time buyers making panic purchases of guns they don’t know how to operate and they aren’t familiar with California’s strict laws.

“You can’t shoot a virus,” Villanueva said.

West Virginia: Gov. Justice Protects Second Amendment

Governor Jim Justice’s recent Executive Order No. 9-20 designates “firearm and ammunition suppliers and retailers” under “Essential Businesses and Operations,” exempting them from being shut down during this state of emergency. In doing so, Gov. Justice reaffirms that the Second Amendment is the law of the land while other jurisdictions are using the pandemic as an excuse to strip Americans of their fundamental right of self-defense.

In addition, Gov. Justice signed House Bill 4955 into law today. It reduces the current $75 fee for a LCDW to $25 and eliminates the fee for honorably discharged military veterans. West Virginia already allows law-abiding adults to carry a handgun to defend themselves without first having to pay fees or obtain government permission, but that ends at the state line. Many West Virginians still choose to get a LCDW in order to exercise their right to carry in other states that recognize West Virginia’s permit. This fee reduction helps ensure that West Virginians of any financial means are able to defend themselves when traveling.

Yes, You Need a Gun During the Virus Scare..and After

You want to have a gun before you need it.
Advocates of armed defense have been saying that for decades, though recent events underlined their point.
Last month, sentencing reforms in some states effectively decriminalized theft under about $900. We saw stores stripped by flash-mobs of shoplifters.
Police refused to investigate a “misdemeanor” crime even though the total loss may be tens of thousands of dollars.

Those sentencing revisions also let more serious criminals out of jail without bail.
The revolving door of injustice spun pretty fast after that. Last week, some cities let convicted thugs out of jail because of a flu virus. States closed gun shops and promise to arrest you if you leave your home. Police in some cities refuse to respond to theft in progress due to risk from public contact. Yes, you need a gun.. and a lot more.

These recent headlines highlight an obvious fact. These events let us see that we are on our own. If we’re attacked, the police arrive after we’ve gotten to safety, after we’ve made the call to 911, and if law enforcement has personnel available to help us. It is up to us to defend ourselves and those we love until the police arrive.

That realization changed last week, but only by a matter of degree. Now we’re in the middle of a virus scare and police may or may not respond to our calls. Today, law enforcement in many cities are refusing to come to the scene of the crime if the criminal threat is gone. As you’d expect, crime increases when criminals are not pursued, arrested, jailed, charged, and prosecuted. Today, you are at a greater risk, but you were never completely safe.

Many people wanted to believe that they’d be safer if they were unarmed. Our experience with armed citizens says otherwise, and so do the recent headlines. Many people who were only vaguely aware of self-defense now see the need for a personal firearm. I’m sorry, but for many of you it is too late to become armed defenders.

First, you’d need a gun. Some states said that gun shops were “non-essential businesses” so they were told to close their doors. We’ve seen panic buying that emptied store shelves. If you wanted a gun, now you’re too late.

You thought you needed a gun, but you also need a holster, ammunition, and cleaning supplies for that firearm. Some states require a permit before you may buy a gun. Some states also stopped processing those firearms purchase permits. If you’re not ready now, then you’re too late.

You want to protect yourself and your family, but two thirds of aggravated assaults happen away from home. That means that you might need a permit to legally carry a firearm outside your front door as you walk to the mailbox. States that disregard the right of self-defense have stopped processing those concealed carry permits.

The advocates for armed defense have been warning you about these infringements for years, and now you’re too late.

You thought that owning a gun would make you safer, but a firearm is useless without the skills to use it. Fortunately, defending your family from thugs coming up the stairs doesn’t take a lot of skill. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of skill to defend your family from several thugs converging on your family between the parked cars in the grocery store parking lot at night. If you haven’t developed the skill then you’re depending on luck, and there are usually several attackers.

How did you get here? The public receives the public policies for which they voted. Now, you’re paying the price with your family’s safety. I hope you’re one of the lucky ones and no one is hurt.

I like that you want to defend your family. Now defend the right to do so. The right of honest citizens to keep and bear arms should not be infringed. This virus scare will pass, but the infringements on your rights of armed defense will remain.. until you remove them. Don’t wait until November. Secure your rights before you need them. Become politically active now, or the rights you lost will be lost forever.

Iowa State Senator Celsi is a demoncrap. Need I explain more?

Research on firearms contradicts senator; guns used in defense are a deterrent

State Sen. Claire Celsi’s anti-gun column, published in the Register’s community editions on March 17, is filled with distortion.

Her biggest whopper is that “the rate of suicides in the United States is 10 times higher than any other country on Earth.” In fact, the United States annual suicide rate typically ranks in the 30s.

She claims that the proposition that good guys with guns stop crime is a fantasy. In fact, successful defensive use of guns is more common than their use in crime. The National Academies of Science found: “Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence …. Almost all national survey estimates … of annual uses range from about 500,000 to more than 3 million …in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008. … Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

Celsi misleads by lumping together all firearms deaths, as if accidents, homicides and suicides were the same thing, to write that “rates of death from firearms among ages 14 to 17 are now 22.5% higher than motor vehicle-related death rates.”

In fact, an apples-to-apples comparison shows that the 2018 accidental death rate from firearms among ages 14 to 17 is 0.23 per 100,000, while the accidental death rate for motor vehicles for that group is 6.48 per 100,000. The rate of death for firearms accidents among ages 14 to 17 is actually 96% lower than motor vehicle-related accidental deaths rates.

The unintentional firearms fatality rate, now 0.15 per 100,000, has declined over 94% since records began to be kept in 1903. Fatal gun accidents rank as one of the lowest causes of injury.

While the number of privately owned guns increased 92%, from 185 million guns in 1993 to 357 million in 2013, the firearms homicide rate decreased by 49%. Firearms homicides increased from 2015 to 2017, but decreased in 2018, a trend expected to continue for 2019.

There is an increase in suicides, but the problem is far more complex than the presence of firearms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that, while the number of suicides increased from 1999 to 2014, the percentage of suicides committed with firearms decreased during the same period. Assuming that each of the 24,432 firearm suicides in 2018 involved one firearm per suicide, those 24,332 guns represented less than one-hundredth of 1 percent of the 357 million firearms in America.

As for Celsi’s proposition that “good laws will keep us safer,”  economist John Lott found “stricter gun laws are associated with more total deaths from homicides and suicides.”

If someone living in one of those states with strict gun control laws is so far behind the 8-Ball that they’re trying to buy a gun now, well….stupid is not too mild a word to use about them.

No Cops to Save You, but Too Bad You Couldn’t Get a Gun to Protect Yourself

You might not have wanted a gun before, but now you do. You’ve seen the empty shelves in grocery stores. You read in the news that some police departments are taking longer to respond because of the outbreak of the Wuhan virus.

Some police departments are conserving their resources and only responding to critical incidents in progress. The whole situation sounds unbelievable until you read that unarmed shoppers in California were robbed of their groceries. That is why many people decided they suddenly needed a gun for self-protection. Some gun stores reported a five-fold increase in sales.

The Federal National Instant Background Check system reported processing three times the number of applications compared to a year ago.. if you could get a gun at all. Many citizens who wanted to buy a gun ran into our bizarre gun-control scheme and were disarmed. That wasn’t all they learned.

These gun buyers discovered that buying a gun legally wasn’t as easy as they thought. After you’ve passed your state and federal background checks, then the gun buyer must wait an additional ten days if you’re a resident of California. You’ll wait an additional 14 days if you live in Hawaii. In theory, there is only a six month wait to get a permit to purchase a gun in New Jersey, but New Jersey stopped processing applications. There, the good guys are disarmed by gun-control.

Lots of new gun buyers found out that the mainstream media lied to them. They discovered that you can’t buy a gun online. They found out that democrat politicians lied when they said it is easier to buy a gun than to buy a book. These new gun buyers crashed head-first into the 23 thousand firearms regulations we have in the US. That system isn’t easy for anyone.

In theory, these regulations prevent a known criminal from getting a gun. In practice, the bad guys get their guns the same way they get their drugs; the criminals get their guns illegally. These thousands of regulations disarmed the honest citizen who wants to obey the law.

How does disarming the honest citizens make us safer?
Millions of new gun owners and their families are now asking themselves that very question.
The practice and theory of gun-control are wildly different. Gun control laws are not designed to do what the politicians say they do. Gun-control laws are designed to put a politician in front of a camera while he reads a glowing press release. The politician slaps a wonderful sounding title on more regulations that don’t stop crime any better than the last ink-on-paper did. The news media nods with approval and refuses to ask for evidence that this charade really works. The media stays silent because their job depends on being invited to the next press release.

When this political-theater is presented to us in the news, most of us didn’t ask how gun-control was supposed to keep us safe. For millions of us, that changed last week. Today, more of us are asking that question as the recent wave of want-to-be gun owners were disarmed.

Gun-control has never stopped crime. Gun prohibition was designed to stop you from protecting yourself while pretending to make you safe. Now that you’re threatened, you are supposed to go pay a politician for an exemption, or pay so the police will protect you after you were denied the tools of self-defense.

That scheme is tried and true. It is as old as politicians and prohibition. Many citizens didn’t believe that gun-control worked that way until they saw it with their own eyes.

Now they know.. and so do you.

Too Much Freedom & My Ability to Say, “NO,” & Instantly Enforce It

How do I explain it?

Contrary to leftist dogma, I don’t carry a concealed pistol in public because I secretly harbor some surreptitious desire to shoot criminals, any more than I keep a fire extinguisher in my home and vehicle because I harbor some consuming desire to put out fires.

I consider these practices, both involving sensible emergency/safety equipment, to represent reasonable and prudent precautions. Ones we all sincerely hope never become necessary.

Anyone even vaguely familiar with what we all laughingly call our “Justice System” knows and understands the legal, financial, and emotional trauma that invariably attends any shooting incident, regardless of participants, circumstances, nor outcome. It is the last thing any rational person, including me, ever wants to become involved in!

Yet, I carry a concealed pistol, so that I can place absolute limits on what people can do to me and those in my charge.

So that I can say “No,” and have that single syllable represent more than just platitudinous rhetoric, more than just a “feel-good” cliche.

As a sovereign American Citizen, I can say, “No,” and be in a position to personally, instantly enforce it, with lethal finality, upon my own summary command and judgment.

Few other civilizations trust citizens with such personal authority.

That is because, in most nations, even most Western nations, the term “citizen” is little more than a cynical euphemism! Most “citizens,” even in the West, are actually “subjects.” Subjects who have no rights, and who may enjoy only those precious few “privileges” casually bestowed upon them by the ruling elite, privileges that can be granted, or withdrawn, at a whim.

Not surprisingly, such “subjects” are routinely, arbitrarily crushed to earth and trampled upon by criminals, criminals from both the public and private sectors.

Not here in the United States!

In this Republic, a “Bill of Privileges” is found nowhere in our Constitution.

Here, we sovereign citizens have rights, and our rights are not benightedly dribbled-out to us by arrogant politicians. We are endowed with them by our Creator! Our Founding Documents say so, in unmistakable terms.

So here, self-defense is the right of every citizen. And, not just with fences, locks, alarms, warning signs, and clever rhetoric.

Our personal right of self-defense extends to lethal force.

This right has teeth, and without it, the rest are illusory.

Accordingly, this right must ever be protected from sleazy neo-Marxists who, occasionally peering-out from behind their ecumenical cadre of heavily-armed bodyguards, profess to worry about us mere citizens having “too much freedom!”

A Lot of People Are Finding Out You Can’t Just Buy a Gun Online

First came the panic buying of hand sanitizer.
Then, people panic bought toilet paper.
Now, food shelves are emptying and  firearm and ammunition sales are through the roof. The COVID19 outbreak might be bad for the stock market, but it’s certainly been a boon for very specific sectors of the economy. The gun industry, used to such boom/bust cycles, knows how to respond – but other sectors might not be so acclimated.

Here at Omaha Outdoors, we’ve been inundated with inquiries from out-of-state folks – many from California – asking if we can ship them a gun directly. The answer is, of course, no. Despite what politicians and many in popular media claim, you can’t buy a gun online and have it shipped to your house. Well, you could, if you were a federally licensed firearm dealer (or federally licensed curio and relic collector) and your home was your place of business. Other than that, no, you can’t buy a gun online and have it shipped, especially across state lines, to your home.

What you’ll need to do to buy a gun from us is order it on our online store and select an FFL, a federally licensed firearm dealer, during the online checkout process. We ship the gun to the dealer near you – presuming the firearm and its accessories are legal in your area – and you visit the dealer to fill out the required ATF Form 4473 and undergo the federal and any applicable state background checks. Some states might require a waiting period – sure to be a sore point at a time when people feel the need for a gun to protect themselves NOW. Only then can you take your new firearm home.

We’re not alone in noticing that usually anti-gun people are suddenly very interested in having guns. On Twitter, Robert Evans wrote, “The sheer number of normally anti-gun people who have reached out to me about buying a firearm in the last week is wild.”

And my friends who work at other gun stores have seen a crazy surge in gun buying too, with one noting that their one-day sales total exceeded Black Friday by 25%, and that 75% of buyers were purchasing their first gun. He said, in explanation, “People need to protect their toilet paper.” Another friend noted that the amount of brass cased 9mm they usually sell in a month was gone in the first week, and that everything else would be sold out soon too if things continued at this pace.

We’ve all been told to practice “social distancing” in the coming months. Firearms are, in a way, the ultimate method of enforcing social distancing. I just hope all these new gun owners learn how to safely use their guns – and that they never need them for their intended purpose.