The Second Amendment Sanctuary movement has come to Pennsylvania, and with the growing support among citizens there’s growing backlash among the press. The latest to try to take down the movement are the editors of the York Dispatch, who seem awfully upset about something they say is meaningless and purely symbolic.
in yet another example of the privileged majority feigning minority victimhood, gun owners in rural communities nationwide are buying into the so-called “Second Amendment Sanctuary” movement. This despite the fact that:
• Even as 2019 saw a record number of mass shootings — more than 400 — Congress continues to ignore the issue of gun safety.
• The most recent substantial federal law regarding firearms — signed by President George W. Bush in 2005 — protected gun manufacturers from being sued by victims of gun violence.
Still, just the suggestion of something as mildly inconvenient — and widely popular — as, say, universal background checks for gun purchases elicits howls of opposition and, now, arguments for special protections for gun owners.
Actually, my main argument against universal background checks isn’t that they’re unconstitutional, it’s that they’re completely ineffective at reducing violent crime or even increasing the number of background checks performed. In order to even attempt to be effective, universal background check laws need a gun registry, and that’s where the constitutionality of the law comes in to play for me. I live in a state where anti-gun lawmakers just tried to turn me into a felon for keeping my AR-15, and then told me I’d be allowed to keep it as long as I registered it with the state police. I don’t think it’s crazy to believe that these same lawmakers would love to use a list of gun owners to eventually confiscate their firearms, or at least declare them felons for continuing to own them.
The Dispatch‘s editorial board is really steamed that West Mannheim Township, Pennsylvania will be considering a Second Amendment Sanctuary ordinance on Tuesday that states no town funds will be used to “interfere with a gun owner’s rights” (in the words of a Dispatch reporter). The editorial board calls it a “vague and troubling broad assertion.”
We often find ourselves arguing statistics with anti-gun people. Let’s put the conversation into perspective. I will give you some statistics and I’ll also expose the anti-gun left’s real motives for gun control. First of all, don’t you think that if someone really wanted to save lives, they would focus their attention on an area where the most lives are lost? If you’ll notice, Anti-Gunners miss that piece of logic and gravitate toward any justification for gun control laws regardless of its inability to save lives.
The gun grabbers like to use the number of 30,000 to 40,000 gun-related deaths per year but if we take out suicides, which are 60% of those deaths and we take out law enforcement-related deaths, we’re left with about 14,880 gun-related homicides. Let me add something here. After seeing the results of Australia’s gun ban, we know that suicides do not go down in the absence of guns. People find other means; just in case there are some Anti-Gunners out there still trying to blame suicides on guns.
Here’s where it gets interesting.
The majority of those gun-related homicides are gang-related. So, let’s say we didn’t have the gang problem we have in this country. If we take out gang/gun murders the number of gun-related homicides shrinks to 2,976 per year in America. here’s another interesting fact that the anti-gun left doesn’t want you to know. The majority of gang-related violence occurs in Democrat-run cities across this country, which by the way are highly gun restricted and often allow violent Illegals safe harbor. Which means, the good people living within those cities are denied their right to protect themselves against the human violence that Democrats encourage with their bad policies. Now let’s compare 2,976 gun-related homicides to some other things that the anti-gun left could be working on if they really wanted to save lives.
2,976 gun-related homicides, consisting of many different causes. None of which are caused by “the gun.”
11,000 lives lost per year in America to drunk driving accidents.
47,000 lives lost per year in America due to suicide, (bipolar disorder and schizophrenia being two of the leading causes of suicide.) Not guns. Remember, take away the guns and that number doesn’t change.
330,000 lives are taken per year in America by people committing abortion. One of the biggest causes of preventable deaths in America is abortion. Didn’t the gun-grabbers say they wanted to save lives?
Now let me give you a piece of information that the anti-self-defense crowd doesn’t want you to know. How many lives do you think are saved every year because of guns?
2,500,000 lives are potentially saved every year in America because of guns. These are called Defensive Gun Uses (DGU’s). Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean good guys killing bad guys. This most often means just the mere presence of a gun deters a bad guy. 46% of those lives saved are women. This is from a study that was done by Gary Kleck, a Florida criminologist and backed by data from the CDC.
*[Data collected from Pew Research Center, FBI Statistics, Armed Resistance to Crime Report (Kleck/Gertz), Center for Medical Progress, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.]
Why do you think the gun grabbers never share this information? Some would argue that they don’t really care about saving lives as much as they care about disarming their fellow citizens and preventing them from independently protecting themselves and their families.
Gun control is a top-down method that puts the government in charge of the lives and safety of people under the guise of “public safety.” It’s the first step in stealing the freedom our founders fought for. The anti-gun left has already decided that they are willing to give up their freedom to government.
The problem is, they can’t have their government-controlled Utopian society unless everyone gets on board. Real Americans are clearly not getting on board. In fact, just the opposite is true. People across the country are fighting back as the left-wing ideology tries desperately to embed itself into traditional America. Gun control is a way of forcing you into dependence whether you like it or not.
We’re never going to cure the evil in the hearts of killers but thanks to our Founding Fathers recognized the importance of firearms, we can stop them.
So, to the gun grabbers, do you really want to save lives? Then get to work on the real causes of human-violence and help us restore our gun rights so good people can protect themselves. Help us save lives, rather than ending them before they get a chance to take their first breath.
The 2nd Amendment is not a privilege. It’s your right.
The Oklahoma Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that could make it easier for Oklahoma teachers and school personnel to carry a firearm at school.
The bill by Republican Sen. David Bullard, R-Durant, and Rep. Sean Roberts, R-Hominy, would change requirements for teachers to be able to be armed at school.
Bullard said the rural school districts in his area want the legislation because it could take a significant amount of time for law enforcement to respond to a mass shooting on campus.
“We have students right now that are vulnerable if someone walks in with a gun,” he said. “It’s a manslaughter and there’s nothing they can do about it.”
Teachers would no longer be required to complete a 240-hour Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training certification course in order to be armed at school. Bullard said the requirement is cost prohibitive and time intensive to a point that it deters teachers from participating.
Instead, under House Bill 2336, school personnel who undergo the eight-hour concealed carry class or the 72 hours of armed security guard training would be eligible to carry on campus at K-12 schools. The personnel also would have to go through “campus-specific active shooter training” as stipulated by local law enforcement agencies.
The campus-specific training would vary based on a school’s size and layout and would be intended for law enforcement to work one-on-one with teachers or school staff who intend to be armed, Bullard said.
Senate Democrats said the legislation could result in teachers having various levels of training depending on which district they teach.
Like all would-be tyrants, as soon as Virginia Democrats took power following the last election, they began an all-out assault on the right to keep and bear arms, unleashing a package of gun-control measures intended to strip Virginians of their right to defend themselves.
The newest proposed measures include a ban on “assault weapons” such as the AR-15 and AK-47 rifles, magazines holding more than 12 rounds, and sound suppressors (“silencers”). That bill passed the House of Delegates yesterday.
As a means of reducing mass shootings, such measures are worthless. According to the FBI, in 2018, just 297 of the 6,603 gun-related murders (4%) nationwide involved a rifle of any kind. In fact, knives (1,604) and fists/kicking (656) were used to kill far more often.
The “progressive” obsession with the AR-15 is rooted in abject ignorance of all things gun related. Though they refer to AR-15s as “assault weapons” and “weapons of war,” they are neither.
“AR” stands for “ArmaLite Rifle,” after the company that designed it. Furthermore, the Department of Defense defines an assault rifle as a “selective fire” rifle that can alternate between semi- (one shot fired per trigger pull) and full-auto (continuous fire). The AR-15 is semiautomatic, firing a .223 (or 5.56) round, which is smaller and less powerful than many hunting rifles. If we ban AR-15s, why not all hunting rifles and handguns? They are functionally equivalent.
Gun grabbers claim the AR-15 is especially “dangerous and unusual,” attempting to get around the Supreme Court ruling in DC v. Heller, which found the Second Amendment protects weapons “in common use by law-abiding citizens.” But the AR-15 is the very definition of “common use” — more than 15 million AR-style rifles are currently in the hands of American citizens, and more than a million more are sold each year. In fact, one in five new firearms sold in the U.S. is an AR-style rifle.
Yet far from America turning into the Wild West, as anti-gun hysterics claim, America has become more peaceful with the proliferation of firearms. Gun crimes fell to historic lows after the expiration of the 1994 ban on “assault weapons.”
In reality, full-auto weapons have been effectively banned for civilian use since the National Firearms Act of 1934, and there have been only two deaths by full-auto weapons in the last 40 years.
But in the grand scheme of things, this is all just semantics and details. The Constitution protects our right to keep and bear arms, period, regardless of arguments and statistics.
Yet Socialist Democrats reject the meaning of “shall not be infringed.” For decades, Democrats have sought to erode or eliminate this most fundamental of human and American rights. They couch their assaults in terms like “public safety” and “commonsense gun control,” insisting that no one needs certain types of weapons for hunting and sport shooting. Untrue, but irrelevant. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with providing a firm check against the rise of tyrannical government.
In 1787, Thomas Jefferson warned of the dangers of conspiring men and asked, “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. … The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
Is it any surprise the state seal for Virginia is an image of a robed Virtus (Virtue) standing, spear in hand, over the body of Tyranny? The state motto is “sic semper tyrannis,” meaning “thus always to tyrants.”
Jefferson was a native of Virginia, and it seems many of his fellow Virginians still have the fire of Liberty, and resistance to tyranny, burning in their breasts, judging by the 22,000 gun owners protesting at the state capitol recently. Or the fact that 141 counties and cities have declared themselves “gun sanctuaries.”
After the announcement of the proposed gun-control laws, Virginia gun sales nearly doubled, with nearly 70,000 gun background checks in a single month. Gun owners continue to show up at rallies, chanting “We will not comply!”
Gun owners are by nature peaceful and law-abiding. They seek peace, but are prepared to defend themselves and their families, whether from armed intruders or a tyrannical government. That is a fact that Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam and the Democrats in the state legislature would do well to remember.
However, some are upset by this revelation. They argue that 3D printing completely renders gun control efforts null and void, as if that’s an argument for, well…anything.
3D-printed guns are dangerous because they circumvent existing policies. They are considered “ghost guns,” a term used to describe firearms that do not have an identifying serial number that can be used to match gun purchases to their owner. By law, legal firearms sold in a gun store or by a manufacturer must have a serial number. Printed guns and their parts do not.
All firearms must contain enough metal in the weapon to be able to set off a metal detector. With a 3D-printed firearm, the person printing the weapon must add that metal themselves and there is no way to ensure they have done so. In a licensed gun store, background checks are required to see if the user should be allowed to own a rifle. But with 3D-printed guns, no background checks are done and anyone can buy the blueprints and use a 3D printer to create the weapon.
Yes, that’s kind of been my point. That’s why Cody Wilson worked so hard to develop a viable 3D printed firearm. The very point was to make gun control less than useless. After all, gun control has only ever applied to the law-abiding citizen anyway.
When I was a little girl in the early 1990s, my father worked in the energy industry and often flitted off to South America. He brought us back postcards and chucherías from this faraway land of Venezuela, describing it as the most picturesque nation in Latin America. The nation was then awash in oil wealth, the highest growth rate in the region, boundless education opportunities, fine foods and world-class beaches.
It seemed a mystical paradise where nothing could go wrong. Until it did.
When I stepped foot into the embattled nation a year ago to cover the burgeoning humanitarian crisis, none of my experience in war zones prepared me for the calamity that seemed to get worse with every step across the Colombian border. Venezuela had sunk into a violent humanitarian crisis. There was next to no rule of law…….
Cúcuta, a city straddling the Colombian and Venezuelan border, had become the stuff of nightmares: a microcosm of the conflict burning Venezuela alive. Its citizens had become unable to defend themselves or their families from danger and economic ruin.
And the Venezuelans are the first to tell you that so many of them willfully surrendered their right to bear arms in the lead-up to the 2014 crackdown. They told me this as clear words of warning.
“Venezuela is paying the price for the gun ban. The civilians are unable to defend themselves from criminal actors and from this Maduro regime’s abuses,” activist and university teacher, Miguel Mandrade, 34, said from the fog-laden, barren city of San Cristobal. “The uprising would have taken a different path and a different result if civilians had the right to defend themselves with the firearms they once owned.”……..
Some 4 million have fled the profoundly impoverished nation that, as this was being written, was still led by socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro. Meanwhile, the millions left languishing inside Venezuela’s borders are starving and without critical services and medical care. Homicide and crime rates are escalating as the inflation rate soars. The government has unleashed its forces and proxy militias to wage war on a troubled and defenseless population.
But the trigger of gun prohibition wasn’t pulled in an instant. Over several years, Venezuelan authorities chipped away at individual gun rights.As they did so, crime rates crept higher and higher.
How They Lost Their Freedom
In 2002, Caracas enacted its first effort to restrict gun ownership, placing the National Armed Forces as the body to oversee the regulation of all firearms. In 2011, then-President Hugo Chávez launched a public disarmament campaign as part of his Presidential Commission on Disarmament, which was supposedly aimed at reducing gun violence. Resolutions were cemented to prohibit possessing guns during cultural and sporting events, as well as on public transportation and construction sites. A 12-month moratorium was also put in place with regard to issuing gun permits.
The following year, Caracas banned the commercial sales of guns and shuttered the doors of firearms stores across the country. It was mandated that only military, police and security forces could legally own and buy guns.
Then, in 2012, Maduro signed into law the Disarmament and Arms Munitions Control, which carried the explicit objective to “disarm all citizens.” Chávez initially ran a months-long amnesty program urging Venezuelans to swap their arms for electrical goods; however, only 37 surrenders were recorded, while more than 12,500 guns were seized by force.
The government held grandiose decimation displays in the streets by bulldozing firearms en masse in front of large crowds in a bid to demonstrate their commitment to supposedly end gun violence.
In 2014, a further 26,000 firearms were confiscated or crushed—coincidentally, Venezuela clocked in as having the world’s second-highest homicide rate that very same year. Each year that the gun-control reins were pulled tighter, murder rates increased.
In 2001, according to gunpolicy.org, 6,568 homicides were recorded in Venezuela. By 2014, that number had jumped to 19,030.
Not-so-coincidentally, the black market in weapons also began to boom, with an estimated 6 million illegal guns in the country.
“The market works through international borders, in maritime and land areas, and the government itself has been a gun provider,” said Walter Márquez, a Venezuelan historian and former National Assembly Representative. “The government took legal weapons away from private people, disarming all those who could oppose it.”……
Venezuela is a Lesson Americans Must Understand
Venezuela serves as a reminder that gun control can serve as a gateway to despotism. Some contend that not only is Venezuela suffering the consequences of failing to fight the ever-inching gun-control measures, but also of failing to create a culture that understood the importance of having a right to keep and bear arms.
“The Venezuelan population trusted the government at all times that it would always use its authority within certain boundaries, and whenever it got out, we thought it would be solved by democratic or legal mechanisms. Our political and public behavior confirmed our cultural naivety in this sense,” said Javier Vanegas, 29, a Venezuelan teacher. “We are paying the price of not having had a strong gun culture.”
Before the 2012 changes, there were only eight registered gun stores scattered across the nation of 31 million people. The process for law-abiding citizens even to obtain a legal gun permit and a firearm was a months-long ordeal hamstrung by protracted wait lines, high costs and demands for bribes. Only one department, which operated under the Ministry of Defense, had the authority to issue civilian permits.
The collectives ruthlessly oppress opposition groups, giving Maduro a cosmetic cover. When we saw them, we ran for cover.
In late 2017, when Venezuela was in the clutches of its spiraling economic catastrophe, Maduro announced he would distribute some 400,000 arms to his patriots—claiming a U.S.-led coup was coming—and the civilian population was left as sitting ducks. Since April of that year, hundreds of Venezuelans protesting the government, armed with little more than stones and paper signs, have been shot or have disappeared in retaliation.
“If citizens had access to guns, and if they had been armed since before the arrival of Chavez, it would have been, at least, a powerful obstacle to the socialist agenda,” said Vanegas. “Socialism thrives in chaos. The perfect tool for chaos in most of Latin-America is criminality. If the people had had the tool to defend themselves, instead of resorting to more state power to end the criminality (an end the government never intended to give), then, of course, it would have made a huge difference.”
In recent years, he said, the daily life of the unarmed Venezuelan has been shaped by crime.
“People have stopped going out. Businesses and businessmen and women went broke or closed shop and left. The youth began to be fearful of spending time out in the city,” Vanegas said. “I personally had one family member and two friends kidnapped for ransom.”
The stuff of nightmares quickly became normal to the likes of Vanegas, who reflected that his complacency has been shattered as his beloved country has fallen apart. Scores of ailing Venezuelans told me that even before the protests sparked five years ago, calling the police to report a crime entailed long wait times and pressure to bribe officers not only to come, but to process the case per the book. Now, even making such a call is basically useless.
One person I met on my travels in the region whispered in hushed tones that those who dare keep an old gun beneath their bed—or those who have the finances to find one on the black market—risk the punishment of 20 years behind bars. This person confessed that he kept an old revolver that once belonged to his grandfather. He worried that if he used it to save his own life, the Maduro regime would then come to take him away to prison.
A common statement from the fans of government monopoly on force is: “no civilian needs such weapons”, with “such weapons” being whatever they are trying to ban. Let’s look at this statement more closely.
The Secret Service staff are civilians. Police officers are civilians. All government organizations other than the five branches of the military are civilians. Secret Service agents have access to submachine guns like the P90 above, as well as much more powerful weapons. Why? Such arms are useful in protecting lives of the people they are trying to keep alive. Quite a few regular Americans — such as stalking victims — face daily risks at least as severe as those faced by the political elite.
The same is true of Trump’s family members.
So we have plenty of examples of civilian government employees using modern guns unavailable to the rest of the population to protect themselves. In addition to government employees, corporations (“special occupational taxpayers”) can own guns denied to the general public.
These corporations are definitely civilian structures, yet they own all kinds of high-tech weaponry far exceeding mere small arms in scope. Apparently, lots of civilians have a use for modern guns. Why shouldn’t lawful individuals be able to exercise their rights the same way?
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – A proposed bill, if passed, would allow students to have a concealed carry gun at public higher education institutions. The idea sparked conversations inside and outside the classroom at the University of Tennessee
“It makes me a little nervous, guns, in general, make me nervous, I’m just an anxious person,” Gray, a student, said.
Some students said they were indifferent about guns on campus. Many students were for the move saying it’s a means of self-defense.
The proposal states students would need a carry permit and be in compliance with state law. Some students said lawmakers could use their energy elsewhere.
“Having concealed carry, but also not having the options of suitable mental health access is not a good idea,”
Guns on campus was a hot button topic back in 2016 when lawmakers were deciding whether or not to allow faculty and staff to carry. More than 80 percent of UTK faculty, who were asked in a poll, did not want guns on campus.
The final decision was not on their side as lawmakers passed the 2016 bill.
If passed, the new bill would go into effect July 1, 2020.
Though popular belief holds that more guns on college campuses will lead to an uptick in gun violence, several universities have reported no such increase even after their states legalized the carrying of concealed weapons on school grounds.
According to the website of Armed Campuses, a pro-gun-control initiative that tracks firearm policies at universities across the country, seven state legislatures have broadly permitted concealed carry on public university grounds. Five more have instituted limited campus carry regimes. Ten states prohibit campus carry altogether, while the remainder either allow the university to set the policy or else mandate that the guns must be left in locked cars.
The College Fix reached out to multiple public universities in states where campus carry is legal. All of the schools that responded confirmed that they have seen no uptick in violence since their respective policies were put in place.
Emporia State University is located in Emporia, Kansas. Armed Campuses states that, in that state, “any individual 21 years or older who is otherwise legally allowed to possess a concealed handgun may do so in any public facility, or on any public grounds unless proper security measures are in place.”
Reached via email, Emporia State campus spokeswoman Gwen Larson told The College Fix that the school has observed no change in gun violence since that rule was instituted. “Emporia State did not have gun violence before the law changed, and there has been no violence since the law changed,” she wrote.
Asked if there had been an uptick in campus carry since the policy change, Larson responded that she couldn’t say.
“There is no way of knowing the answer to this question. Kansas law prohibits tracking people who are carrying concealed handguns or making inquiries about who may or may not be carrying,” she wrote.
No gun violence increase, no ‘concerns’ regarding campus guns
Utah’s Dixie State University, located in St. George, has also not seen any increase in gun murders or injuries since guns were allowed on campus there, according to campus law enforcement. Utah law has actually permitted campus carry for nearly a decade and a half.
Dixie State’s campus Chief of Police Blair Barfuss told The College Fix via email that there has been no “reported or observed increase with gun violence on campus” related to the state’s campus carry policy.
“DSU does restrict firearms in on-campus residential housing units, unless the individual possesses a state issued firearms concealed carry permit, which is allowed by state statute,” Barfuss said.
He added that the university, like Emporia State, “does not track who on campus possess state issued concealed carry firearm permits.”
“This would be very difficult to do due to DSU students coming from many states across the country. We have not seen any increase in reports of firearms on campus, and we have not been made aware of any concerns regarding concealed carry permit holders by students or staff, related to Utah state legal statute.”
The Fix reached out to Valdosta State University, a public university in Valdosta, Georgia, to inquire about its experiences with concealed carry. Armed Campuses says that state has permitted concealed carry on college campuses since July of 2017.
Campus spokesman Keith Warburg provided The Fix with a letter from Steve Wrigley, the chancellor of the University System of Georgia. That letter, dated May 24, 2017, affirms the general right to carry a gun on public campuses while outlining several locations in which guns are still forbidden, including residence halls as well as classrooms in which high school students are studying.
Asked if the university has experienced an increase in gun violence since the legalization of concealed carry, Warburg did not directly answer. Instead he provided The Fix with the school’s 2019 Annual Security and Fire Safety report. Data from that report show no increase in murder or manslaughter on the school’s campus from 2016-2018; in all years it was zero. Aggravated assaults on campus dropped from three in 2016 to one in 2018. Burglaries dropped from 22 in 2016 to nine in 2018.
The lack of evidence that liberalized campus carry laws lead to more campus violence stands in contrast to the often-heated rhetoric of gun control activists. The Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus, an activist group partnered with Armed Campuses, has claimed that efforts to allow concealed weapons on campus are “dangerous.” That group says it is working “to protect American’s colleges and universities.”
On its website, Armed Campuses lists a study examining campus crime rates following the passage of liberalized concealed carry laws. The study also looks at state-level and national crime statistics. The report concludes that available data “do not prove that campus carry causes more crime.” Armed Campuses did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday morning.
End game? They want to disarm the population, because they want you dead.
With another legislative session in Olympia, there is another slate of gun control bills that have conservative Facebook whipped up in a frenzy. For the umpteenth year, gun control is among the top issues when it comes to politics and that probably will never change.
We hear the same tired stats that have been thrown out and modeled for everyone’s argument. While I do like to look at some sort of basis when it comes to political topics, it almost appears facts really don’t matter anymore because you can cherry pick basically any subset of data to support your view.
A quick glance at cable news and you might think we have a huge gun violence problem since it is always being talked about. However the top killers in the U.S. for 2019 is:
647,457 dead from heart disease
599,108 from cancer
169,936 from accidents.
160,201 from chronic lower respiratory diseases
146,383 from strokes
121,404 from Alzheimer’s disease
83,563 from Diabetes
55, 673 from influenza and pneumonia
But how often do people draw opposing lines in the diabetes debate, or talk about the accident lobby? When did cable news do a wall-to-wall special report on heart disease?
Some of these causes of death due to poor life choices and poor diets. “Eat healthier” isn’t going to transition into a viable bill on Capitol Hill. Our healthcare system is hopelessly tangled, and while cancer treatment keeps getting better, we don’t have a cure. No amount of legislation is going to stop cancer. We usually don’t even think about the flu or pneumonia but they are actually big killers
When it comes to violence, there are some weird things to consider. You have definitions and terms thrown out there that aren’t clearly defined. There is no accepted definition of “mass shooting,” for example.
While the 30K+ people died in shootings is thrown around a lot in the media, the breakdown of these stats paint a slightly different picture.
In 2016, nearly 23K of these deaths were from suicides, 14K came from homicides and just 71 of them came from mass shootings.
But again this breakdown is really never presented to us by the media or politicians when discussing gun control bills. There was a recent story saying 2019 had the most number of mass shootings on record resulting in the death of 211 people combined.
It’s tragic. It’s sad to see. I’m not condoning gun violence or shrugging it. But when things get put into perspective, blunt objects kill more people a year than guns, with 443 people killed. There were 1,515 people who died in a year from knives or cutting objects. There were 672 deaths from fists, feet and other personal weapons according to the FBI. The maligned firearm – the rifle – was around 400 people.
To me, it begs the question, what good will gun control laws do if it “may” prevent 400 deaths? That doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the 30K+ deaths a year. The handgun is the biggest perpetrator of shootings and a large majority of these are people taking their own lives – which is a completely different topic to unpack. While firearms make it easier, people have many other methods that could be used to take their own lives as well.
The reality and numbers smack into what is coming from bills in Olympia and how the argument is framed. Heck the recent rally of thousands of gun rights activists in Virginia was called a “White Nationalists gathering” and the rally was portrayed as something that could erupt in violence at any point. You know what happened? Nothing. People just showed that they want to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights.
I was asked “wouldn’t you feel uncomfortable if you were among that group?”
No. No one is going to mess with an armed group of people. Gun owners to me are the people who follow the laws, and I’ve never felt uncomfortable around 2nd Amendment enthusiasts. On the flip side, a recent shooting in Seattle showed that a criminal not following gun laws currently on the books had no problem getting a firearm — again proving our government’s inability to control guns except by making law-abiding gun owners criminals with sweeping rule changes.
I’ve said before, there is plenty of dialogue that needs to happen in this country. I, for one, would like to see more gun training, gun safety courses and more teaching moments. The anti-gun movement is so patently ignorant about how guns even operate, how can they govern them? More information needs to be spread.
But gun control narratives and misrepresentations get spun. It is a perfectly suited political football. Both sides can form their ranks, talk about how the other side is either taking away rights, crazy, out of touch or hellbent on turning America into a hellscape.
But why?
With no solution reached in decades of gun debate, what exactly are the goals? Prevent 400 gun deaths out of 38K? Take guns away from law abiding citizens while criminals can still acquire guns? I would just like someone to lay out their end goals as opposed to root for their team in the debate
CAMPBELL COUNTY — Groups in Campbell and Bedford counties are now organizing militia musters. Organizers said the purpose of their county’s muster is to preserve tranquility, peace, and civil order by organizing volunteers in the event that a militia is required to defend the rights and liberties of the citizens of Campbell County and Bedford County.
The Campbell County muster is set for noon-2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 29 from 12 p.m. – 2 p.m. at Timbrook Public Library on Leesville Road.
Three Bedford County citizens including Chad Oaks, Anthony Burke and Scott Sewing came before their county’s board of supervisors at its Jan. 27 regular meeting Monday, asking for the county’s support in forming a militia, entirely comprised of volunteer citizens.
“I think a county directed, county controlled and county leadership appointed militia is something that would benefit our county at this point,” Sewing said. “I believe that it’s crucial for a citizen to possess the ability to defend themselves. I believe that and I believe that’s what the second amendment represents.”
Last month, the board approved to become a second amendment sanctuary and not enforce any stricter gun laws that are considered to be unconstitutional. Sewing, a former Marine who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, expressed his gratitude to the board for this.
“I was a part of the group that went to Richmond to stand up for second amendment rights,” Burke said. “We weren’t heard there, it’s pretty obvious with the laws that keep on passing. I am seeking to get the topic discussed however about forming a militia.”
Burke said that he has already spoken with the sheriff’s office about where everyone stands.
TALLAHASSEE — With supporters pointing to attacks on churches and synagogues, a House panel Tuesday approved a measure that would allow people to carry concealed weapons at religious institutions that share properties with schools.
The House Criminal Justice Subcommittee also approved a separate bill that would allow county commissioners, school board members and elected city officials to be armed at their public meetings.
State law generally allows people to carry concealed weapons at religious institutions, but it bars being armed on school properties. That has effectively meant that people cannot carry guns to churches or synagogues that meet at places with schools.
The measure (HB 1437) approved Tuesday would allow religious institutions to authorize people with concealed-weapons licenses to carry guns at such locations.
“Right now, if a church was located on the same property as, say, a preschool, and that preschool met from Monday through Friday, people at that church would not be allowed to carry concealed on Sunday and Wednesday night during those services, and this bill would change that,” bill sponsor Jayer Williamson, R-Pace, said.
Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey supported the proposal, saying he considers it a “property rights bill” instead of a gun bill.
FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A perjury charge has been filed against Susan Holmes, the woman who recently tried to use Colorado’s new “red flag” law to have a Colorado State University officer’s weapons confiscated.
Morris shot and killed Holmes’ son in 2017. The district attorney found the shooting to be “clearly justified.”
A petition for an extreme risk protection order requires the petitioner to have a connection to the respondent, such as being a blood relative, a marriage or domestic partner, or having a child in common with the respondent.
Under penalty of perjury, Holmes claimed she had a child in common with Morris when in fact, she does not.
On Thursday, Colorado court records showed Holmes is charged with one count of perjury and one count of attempt to influence a public servant. The latter charge is for allegedly lying to a judge.
The Larimer County Sheriff’s Office said a warrant is out for Holmes and she is not in custody. The sheriff’s office confirmed the warrant is in relation to the ERPO case.
With an unprecedented number of shootings happening around Charlotte, an increasing number of residents are turning to concealed weapons for protection.
According to North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigations, concealed-carry gun permits increased from 177,787 in 2010 to 647,553 last year. Current permit holders make up about 8% of our population – the 10th highest level in America.
All that is required to obtain the permit is an 8-hour course, a gun firing test, and a criminal and mental health background check.
The permits allows the owner to conceal their firearms in all places guns are not prohibited. It also allows NC residents to buy an unlimited number of guns with no additional background checks required for each new purchase.
YUBA CITY (CBS13) – The Sutter County Sheriff is alerting concealed carry weapons holders after a public records request prompted him to release some of their information.
Sheriff Brandon Barnes says the San Francisco Chronicle recently put in the request for information about CCW permit applications and permit holders.
The sheriff says he “personally” declined to release much of the information requested, but was advised by the county counsel to provide some data. CCW permit numbers, the names of permit holders, and the dates of issue and expiration have been released.
Exactly what the Chronicle is using the information for has not been stated, according to the sheriff’s office.
I know what they want the information for, to ‘out’ people who have CC permits no matter the denials.
On Tuesday, the sheriff’s office posted the letter they will be sending out to CCW permit holders in the coming weeks.
In response to the sheriff’s decision to publicize the Chronicle’s request and to notify CCW permit holders, San Francisco Chronicle Editor In Chief Audrey Cooper issued the following statement:
“I am deeply disturbed by how some sheriffs have handled a routine request for public information from a respected and established news outlet. As a result, they have put our journalists in personal danger for their own political gain.
“It is a journalist’s job to investigate trends, and we do not intend on publishing personal information of private citizens. Unfortunately, the sheriffs sought to play up distrust in media when it became clear that they cannot deny access to public information.”
Cooper later added the newspaper would refine its Public Records Act request out of concern for their reporter’s safety. His name will be removed. Cooper will instead use her name in the Chronicle’s request for the data.
Sheriff Barnes says he will alert CCW permit holders if any more information is requested.
Virginia Sheriff Richard Vaughan Explains Why He Won’t Enforce Gov. Ralph Northam’s Gun Control Laws
“Prior to 2014, incidents of shots fired in Seattle never topped 300,” Ammoland reported. “Since 2015—the first full year following passage of the gun control measure—the number of shooting incidents has not dropped below 300.”
The story also recalled how the Seattle City Council adopted a “gun violence tax” on the sale of firearms and ammunition inside city limits in 2015. In 2016, the city posted 18 slayings of which 11 were gun-related. In 2017, the city recorded 27 murders, including 16 involving firearms. In 2018, the number was 32, according to SPD data, and 13 of them involved guns. Last year, SPD said, there were 28 slayings.
Further demonstrating gun control’s failure are the FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics. In 2016, Washington reported 195 total homicides including 127 involving firearms. In 2017, the state posted 228 total slayings including 134 killings with guns and in 2018 there were 232 murders including 138 committed with firearms.
“We find it beyond ironic,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “that the exact opposite of what gun control proponents predicted has occurred. Their extremist agenda has failed to reduce gun-related crime as was implied when they pushed through their various measures.”
