Category: RKBA

So what else is new?

Harris Might Own A Gun, But She Doesn’t Represent Gun Owners

Vice President Kamala Harris shocked a lot of people when she said she owned a gun during the debate last week.

Well, in the most technical sense, sure.

However, that doesn’t absolve her from her many anti-gun sins, so to speak.

ABC News debate moderator Linsey Davis referenced the vice president’s flip-flopping on mandatory gun buybacks, which amount to confiscation, during one question that was more about changing policy positions generally than it was about the Second Amendment specifically.

Near the end of the debate, Davis asked, “You wanted mandatory buybacks for assault weapons. Now your campaign says you don’t,” Davis said before asking Harris why so many of her policy positions had changed, according to The Reload.

Vice President Harris didn’t address the question and was only forced to respond later to a criticism by former President Donald Trump warning voters that if elected, the vice president would have “a plan to confiscate everyone’s gun.” She jumped in with a comment that caught viewers’ attention.

“And then this business about taking everyone’s guns away, Tim Walz and I are both gun owners,” Vice President Harris stated. “We’re not taking anyone’s guns away. So stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.”

The vice president’s remark about being a gun owner drew attention. She practically never mentions being a gun owner in all her calls for more gun control and the only reference before is a glancing mention in a 2019 CNN interview. Not surprisingly, Second Amendment supporters were skeptical of her statement.

“So now Harris owns a gun? Ha, I’d love to know what kind/caliber and how often she trains with it,” competitive shooter, GunsOut TV founder and CNN commentator Shermichael Singleton posted on X.

Now, the truth is that there were previous reports of Harris owning a gun. As a former prosecutor in a city like San Francisco, it’s not overly surprising that she’d have a gun. A lot of prosecutors do, and for what should be pretty obvious reasons. It’s not like there isn’t some potential of such people to be targets, after all.

But there are gun owners and gun owners.

See, no nation has a complete and total gun ban. There’s always a way for some people to have a firearm and Kamala Harris is one of those people who will be able to get a gun no matter what the laws are.

What she’s advocating for are laws that will inhibit regular people, the actual gun owners, from having them. Both she and her running mate might own guns, but they’d gladly see us relegated to revolvers and pump-action shotguns for protecting our family while the criminals are running around with semi-autos and those converted to full-auto.

As for her response to Trump, she might not be taking everyone’s guns, but she most definitely wants to take some of them from us. I don’t care what she says, I’m not buying that suddenly she figures a mandatory buyback is a bad idea. At best, she knows it’s never going to happen so she won’t push for it anymore. It’ll come back the moment she thinks she can get away with it and we all know it.

I think the best way to view it is that Kamala Harris isn’t really a gun owner so much as someone who owns a gun.

The latter group figure they’re the exception, that they can be trusted with one but aren’t so sure about everyone else, so they should be restricted. The former recognizes that in order to protect their right to keep and bear arms, everyone else’s needs to be protected as well.

There’s no world I can imagine where anyone remotely like the Kamala Harris we’ve all seen would fall into that camp.

Federal Judge Upholds Gun Ban: What This Means for the 2nd Amendment

In a recent case out of Hawaii, a U.S. District Court has upheld a federal gun ban, denying a motion to dismiss the indictment of Christopher Chan, who was charged with unlawfully possessing a machine gun and a short-barreled rifle. Judge Derek Watson, appointed by President Obama, ruled that these types of firearms are not protected under the Second Amendment. While the court’s decision isn’t surprising, given the political landscape in Hawaii, it raises critical issues about how the Second Amendment is being interpreted today.

The Case: U.S. v. Christopher Chan

The case stems from an incident where Christopher Chan was found in possession of a short-barreled rifle and a machine gun. These are firearms that, under the National Firearms Act (NFA), must be registered, and in this case, they weren’t. Chan’s legal team argued that the charges violated his Second Amendment rights, asserting that these firearms are “arms” protected by the Constitution. They also challenged the Commerce Clause, arguing that Congress didn’t have the authority to regulate the possession of these firearms.

However, Judge Watson’s decision struck down both arguments, claiming that neither the short-barreled rifle nor the machine gun falls within the scope of the Second Amendment’s protection. This ruling is significant because it highlights the ongoing tension between federal gun laws and the constitutional right to bear arms.

Continue reading “”

Blue States Can’t Ban Your Guns So They’ll Punish You For Using Them.

Try as they might, blue cities and states can’t seem to ban their citizens’ guns. They’ve enacted handgun bans, “assault weapons” bans, registration mandates, taxes, and levied confiscatory fees on guns, ammo, and carry permits. As a result, they’ve been challenged at every turn by those who take the Second Amendment at its word. And then Bruen came along and made the job of civilian disarmament even more difficult for aspiring tyrants.

What’s a gun-banner to do then? Simple. Make life hell for anyone who dares to use a gun they own, particularly in self-defense. Look no further for an example than what happened last night in Newton, Massachusetts.

A group of people were holding a peaceful pro-Israel rally when a Hamas supporter began yelling at them from across the street. The Hamasnik, who apparently couldn’t abide free speech being exercised in his presence, ran through traffic and assaulted one of the Israel supporters, jumping on him as his back was turned.

Watch video of the altercation here . . .

It’s hard to imagine a clearer case of self-defense after the Hamas supporter tackled a man who has been identified at 47-year-old Scott Hayes of Framingham, Massachusetts. It’s been reported that Hayes is a lawful gun owner and permitted carrier, though the police investigation is ongoing.

Continue reading “”

No. Trying to harm me, or mine is immoral.
Not possessing the means to stop someone trying that

Catholic News Site: Gun Ownership is Immoral

Whether someone owns a firearm or not is a personal decision. I respect how people reach that decision just so long as it doesn’t involve trying to make my decision for me. That includes people who decide that they think owning a gun is immoral. If they confine that to themselves–saying it doesn’t fit with their view of morality, for example–then no worries. If they say that my owning one is immortal, then we have an issue.

Most folks have the good sense not to take that position. They might think it, but they know that they’re going to stir up some hate and discontent by openly saying it.

It’s even worse when they use the worst possible examples to justify it.

And that’s just what the former president and editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service did when he decided to write a piece for a Catholic website with the headline, “Is it time to talk about the morality of gun ownership?”

It starts with this:

Imagine yourself in your house. A neighbor is banging on the front door and yelling. Or there are noises outside, a car window being smashed. What do you reach for?

Susan Lorincz reached for a gun. Embroiled in a dispute with her neighbor, Lorincz, standing behind a locked and bolted metal door, fired a bullet through the door, killing Ajika Owens, single mother of four.

Jason Lewis reached for a gun and went out at 3 a.m. to investigate when he heard noises on his street. Three teens were breaking into cars. When he yelled at the kids, he thought one of them was running toward him. He fired, killing 13-year-old Karon Desean Blake.

Lorincz is white. Lewis is black. Both victims were black. Lorincz lives in Florida, Lewis in Washington, D.C. Both were convicted in August of manslaughter and face years in prison.

The two stories are exhibits A and B in the madness that has overtaken a country in which there are more guns than people, a country which is unique among advanced countries for the number of deaths caused by guns, a country where lethal violence is considered option No.1 for self-protection of life and property.

Of course, this is a great example of cherry-picking examples to back up your position.

However, he doesn’t acknowledge the people who have used firearms to defend themselves; people who would be dead had they been unarmed. It happens more times than the alternative he presents here.

But with this as the initial framing of his piece, writer Greg Erlandson adds:

If guns weren’t involved, if fear wasn’t a factor, if the nightmare threat scripts that run in our minds hadn’t kicked in, Owens and Blake would be alive today. Instead of a gun, Lewis might have picked up a phone. Instead of a gun, Lorincz might have called 911.

The truth is that we’ve become the monsters in our own nightmares. We buy guns for security, yet feel ever more insecure. We buy guns because we feel threatened, yet we become the threats, not just to others, but to ourselves. More than half of all gun deaths in the United States are suicides. Guns are highly efficient at one thing: projecting a bullet into a neighbor, into a kid, into one’s own head.

No one feels secure: not us, not our neighbors, not our police. So, we buy still more guns. We play out Hollywood tropes, cop show scenarios in our minds. And every now and then, innocents die.

Lorincz and Lewis never planned to kill. They never planned to spend a decade or two in prison for taking someone else’s life. But the gun became the crutch, the protection that they leaned on instead of calling the police or relying on one’s neighbors. The gun is one more symbol of our isolation masquerading as self-reliance.

So clearly, Erlandson’s position is that gun ownership is, in fact, immoral. It’s immoral. He argues that lawful gun ownership is fueling our insecurities, which leads to more people buying guns, creating a vicious cycle.

Yet he ignores the fact that as gun ownership increased year after year for decades–and guns aren’t consumables that wear out quickly, so every gun purchase generally puts more guns in law-abiding hands, often new ones–the homicide rate decreased.

Taking the life of someone who represents no harm to you is immoral. No one argues otherwise.

But I fail to see there being any inherent morality to being a victim, either. There’s no moral superiority in lying dead in a puddle of your own blood simply because you refused to have the means to defend yourself.

Including a couple of examples of manslaughter doesn’t negate the legions out there who have successfully defended themselves with a firearm and done so when their lives were legitimately on the line. Of the two examples Erlandson gives, only one of them was potentially ambiguous enough to actually be applicable to his point.

“But you can call the police.”

The police often show up just in time to draw a chalk outline around your body when someone is threatening your life.

Yes, when someone is stealing from your car, call the cops. When they’re yelling outside and you’re scared, call the police.

When they’re trying to come into your home, knowing you’re there, things are different. Would Erlander have preferred this Texas family be slaughtered by a guy with a machete as they waited for the police to arrive? That’s just one of a legion of armed citizen stories we’ve covered here at Bearing Arms since the site first launched. These are people who fall outside of Erlandson’s ideas of morality, as do I and most of you.

Well, of course under Bruen’s Text History and Tradition test, ALL guns ban laws are unconstitutional

Court Rules Federal Machinegun Law Cannot Be Justified under Bruen

A district court in Kansas has ruled that the federal law prohibiting the possession of “machineguns” failed the test set out in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen (2022). “The court finds that the Second Amendment applies to the weapons charged because they are ‘bearable arms’ within the original meaning of the amendment. The court further finds that the government has failed to establish that this nation’s history of gun regulation justifies the application of 18 U.S.C. § 922(o) to Defendant.”

The case is United States v. Morgan, No. 23-10047-JWB (D. Kan. Aug. 21, 2024; the ruling was modified slightly on August 26). The defendant, Tamori Morgan, was charged with two counts of possessing a “machinegun” (a machinegun, and a full-auto switch “machinegun conversion device”) in violation of federal law.

That law, 18 U.S.C. § 922(o), makes it a crime, with some exceptions, to possess a “machinegun,” defined to include “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.” Unlike other definitions in 26 U.S.C. § 5845, this lacks any reference to weapons that use the energy of an explosive to fire a projectile.

Continue reading “”

You can’t stop the signal when the horse is already out of the barn

Law enforcement leans on 3D-printer industry to help thwart machine gun conversion devices
Justice Department officials are turning to the 3D-printing industry to help stop the proliferation of tiny pieces of plastic transforming semi-automatic weapons into illegal homemade machine guns on streets across America

WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials are turning to the 3D-printing industry to help stop the proliferation of tiny pieces of plastic transforming weapons into illegal homemade machine guns on streets across America.

The rising threat of what are known as machine gun conversion devices requires “immediate and sustained attention,” U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Friday. That means finding ways to stop criminals from exploiting technology to make the devices in the first place, she said.

“Law enforcement cannot do this alone,” Monaco said during a gathering in Washington of federal law enforcement officials, members of the 3D-printing industry and academia. “We need to engage software developers, technology experts and leaders in the 3-D-printing industry to identify solutions in this fight.”

Devices that convert firearms to fully automatic weapons have spread “like wildfire” due to advancements in 3D-printing technology, according to Steve Dettelbach, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. His agency reported a 570% increase in the number of conversion devices collected by police departments between 2017 and 2021.

“More and more of these devices were being sold over the internet and on social media, and more and more they were actually just being printed by inexpensive 3D printers in homes and garages everywhere,” Dettelbach said.

The pieces of plastic or metal are considered illegal machine guns under federal law but are so small they run the risk of being undetected by law enforcement. Guns with conversion devices have been used in several mass shootings, including one that left four dead at a sweet sixteen party in Alabama last year.

The devices “can transform a street corner into a combat zone, devastating entire communities,” Monaco said.

Monaco on Friday also announced several other efforts designed to crack down on the devices, including a national training initiative for law enforcement and prosecutors. The deputy attorney general is also launching a committee designed to help spot trends and gather intelligence.

Reasons for Concealed Carry: My Interview with a Psychopath

By Will Dabbs, MD

In this article, Dr. Will Dabbs discusses why he carries a firearm for self-defense. The article includes discussing a real person with a serious mental illness. Real names have not been used. Nothing in this narrative is intended to disparage or stigmatize those who might suffer from any medical condition. However, it is a dangerous world. It behooves one to face potential danger with his or her eyes open to the risks they might face.

Crazy is a lyrically overused term these days. Psychiatrists institutionally despise that word. Labels are passe in today’s enlightened society. Such antiquated terminology invariably foments subconscious bias.

The reasons for concealed carry in the United States generally relate to self-defense. For each person, that reason is different and can be intensely personal.

What most people mean when they use the word “crazy” is psychosis. Distilled to its essence, this just means disconnected from reality. People with schizophrenia, for example, typically hear voices or, more rarely, see things that are objectively not real. The age of onset is typically late teens or early twenties. The experience is uniformly horrifying for all involved, particularly the patient.

Continue reading “”

Kostas Moros

A lot of people foolishly believe that the gun control movement’s motivation is a misguided but good faith desire to stop criminal violence.

While that’s true of some people who have been personally affected by gun-related crime, for the party leaders and financiers of the left, it’s not really true. If stopping crime were the big concern, they wouldn’t embrace so many policies that quickly release violent criminals back into society.

Criminal violence isn’t the real target, the fact that broad gun ownership is a check on the erosion of other liberties is. What is happening in the UK and Brazil right now is much harder to do in the US. Millions being armed is a major deterrent to it.

Everything the modern American Democrat party does makes sense when you realize the goal is to turn us into docile and harmless western Europeans.

Harris-led office, ATF stonewalling probe into ‘collusion’ with anti-gun group lawsuit: House Oversight chair
Both the White House and ATF have turned down multiple House Oversight inquiries into charges of ‘collusion’ with Chicago’s lawsuit against Glock

Vice President Kamala Harris is campaigning on what she characterizes as a record of a tough former prosecutor. But a White House office she has “overseen” may have focused less on gun crimes and more on targeting a legal gun manufacturer.

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee says the Biden-Harris administration is stonewalling an investigation into potential “collusion” with a gun control group founded by billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to boost Chicago’s lawsuit against Glock Inc.

Since June, neither the White House nor the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, better known as the ATF, has responded to multiple inquiries from the committee.

The ATF missed its most recent deadline to respond to the committee on Wednesday, Aug. 28.

“The American people should be very concerned that, rather than prosecuting criminals, the Biden-Harris White House is colluding with anti-Second Amendment groups, and rather than responding to serious congressional requests with transparency, the White House is choosing to not comply with our request,” Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital.

The committee has been investigating the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention’s communications with the Everytown for Gun Safety regarding a lawsuit by the city of Chicago against Glock, a firearms manufacturer.

Continue reading “”

Shooting Straight with John Lott

The mainstream media likes to use federal statistics as hooks for their one-sided gun-control narratives. The thing is, many of those statistics are suspect, even those from various federal agencies. The Crime Prevention Research Center’s (CPRC) work goes deep into how factual this “official data” is.

Indeed, when I reached out to John Lott, president and founder of the CPRC, he talked about his time working as a senior adviser for research and statistics at the Office of Justice Programs—a Department of Justice division that doles out about $5 billion in grants each year—during the Trump administration and about his research into crime and gun ownership. He has a lot to say about the statistics these agencies publish. As crime is an important topic in this upcoming election, we decided it was time to speak with Lott about how politically skewed these numbers from federal agencies can be.

Continue reading “”

Gun Owners for Harris Highlight Lie of ‘Second Amendment Democrats’

“We can prevent gun violence while also supporting the Second Amendment,” a Giffords-sponsored “sportsmen’s” effort lies. “Gun Owners for Safety unites hunters, sport shooters, and collectors who want commonsense gun laws.”

Giffords, of course, along with all the other major gun prohibitionist groups, has endorsed Kamala Harris, who will sign whatever anti-gun legislation the Democrats succeed in passing and go for what they can’t through executive action. And then she’ll reshape the Supreme Court. That’s some “commonsense support.”

It’s never hard to find “Fudds” who are enthusiastic about voting for citizen disarmament pushing politicians and throwing fellow gun owners under the bus. A prime example is Harris’ Vice President pick, Tim Walz, once “A” rated and endorsed by the NRA. But while low information voters are being gaslit into thinking the Second Amendment can be ‘respected’ while it’s being eviscerated, a striking inequity is being revealed.

There is no parallel “pro-Second Amendment Democrat” movement happening. That’s because there’s no such thing as one.

Where are Second Amendment Democrats for Trump?

Experience shows they prioritize other issues above the right to keep and bear arms, meaning they really don’t understand it to be a right at all. This was unequivocally proven years ago, when I conversed with the head of the Second Amendment Democrats.

After all kinds of weasel-wording and Molon Labe-ing, he finally could not deny the one truth that ultimately defines them:

Under no circumstances will Amendment II Democrats support Republican candidates who run against anti-RKBA Democrats. We are, after all, Democrats.

I don’t know (or care) whatever happened to them, but do note there is a Facebook group that goes by that name, a group you can join with all of 19 members that doesn’t look like it’s been active for years. They offer further confirmation that there’s no such thing as what they claim to be:

Hello everyone. Who do we all think will be best on the 2nd Amendment of the current field? My guess is Bernie Sanders, though I suppose Amy Klobuchar has represented the most constituents with guns.

I agree that Bernie is the best bet. Not sure if Buttegeig would prioritize gun control like Booker or Warren.

Personally I feel like Buttigieg is the best candidate for president and to run against Trump, but not sure how I feel about any of their stances on gun control. There are so many issues.

It’s not my top priority either…

Obviously.

It’s not for the Giffords Fudds, either:

The History of Bans on Types of Arms Before 1900
Restrictions on carry, minors, and misuse were the norm — not bans

Controversial arms are nothing new in the United States. During the 19th century, there were widespread concerns about criminal use of arms such a Bowie knives, slungshots, blackjacks, and brass knuckles. The full history of state, territorial, and colonial laws about controversial arms is detailed in my recent article for Notre Dame’s Journal of Legislation, The History of Bans on Types of Arms Before 1900, coauthored with Joseph Greenlee.

Because the article is thorough, it is enormous: 163 pages of text, and 1,563 footnotes. The student staff for volume 50 of the Journal of Legislation was spectacular. Not every law journal has staff who could handle such a megillah, let alone a staff that whose meticulous cite-check would improve the article.

The mainstream American approach to controls of the above arms were: 1. bans on concealed carry; 2. limits on sales to minors, such as requiring parental permission; and 3. extra penalties for misuse in a crime. Sales bans were the minority approach, and possession bans very rare.

From 1607 through 1899, sales bans for nonfirearm arms were:

  • Bowie knife. Sales bans in Georgia, Tennessee, and later in Arkansas. Georgia ban held to violate the Second Amendment. Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243 (1846).
  • Prohibitive transfer or occupational vendor taxes in Alabama and Florida, which were repealed. Personal property taxes at levels high enough to discourage possession by poor people in Mississippi, Alabama, and North Carolina.
  • Dirk (a type of fighting knife). Georgia (1837) (held to violate Second Amendment); Arkansas (1881).
  • Sword cane (a sword concealed in a walking stick). Georgia (1837), held to violate the Second Amendment. Arkansas (1881).
  • Slungshot or “colt” (most typically, a lead weight held in the tip of a flexible bludgeon). Sales bans in nine states or territories. The Kentucky ban was later repealed. Illinois also banned possession.
  • Sand club or blackjack. New York (1881), (1884), (1889), (1899).
  • Billy. New York (1881), (1884), (1889), (1899).
  • Metallic knuckles. Sales bans in eight states, later repealed in Kentucky. Illinois also banned possession.
  • Cannons. No bans. Restrictions on discharge without permission in a variety of municipalities.

American bans on possession or sale to adults of particular types of firearms were:

  • Georgia (1837), all handguns except horse pistols. Held unconstitutional in Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243 (1846).
  • Tennessee (1879) and Arkansas (1881). Bans on sales of concealable handguns. Based on militia-centric interpretations of the state constitutions, the laws did not ban the largest and most powerful revolvers, namely those like the Army or Navy models.
  • Florida (1893). Discretionary licensing and an exorbitant licensing fee for carry of repeating rifles. Extended to handguns in 1901. The law was “never intended to be applied to the white population” and “conceded to be in contravention of the Constitution and non-enforceable if contested.” Watson v. Stone, 148 Fla. 516 (1941) (Buford, J., concurring).

Earlier this month, the en banc Fourth Circuit, by a 10-5 vote, upheld Maryland’s ban on common rifles dubbed “assault weapons.” Judge Wilkinson’s majority opinion cited the article 16 times, and Judge Richardson’s dissent cited it 9 times. Bianchi v. Brown, 2024 WL 3666180 (4th Cir. 2024) (en banc).

The article has also been cited in three U.S. District Court opinions supporting the claims of Second Amendment plaintiffs. Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc. v. Platkin, 2024 WL 3585580 (D.N.J. July 30, 2024); Miller v. Bonta, 699 F.Supp.3d 956, 981 n.86, 987 n.107 (S.D. Cal. 2023); Duncan v. Bonta, 695 F.Supp.3d 1206, 1242 n.177 (S.D. Cal. 2023). And in a Third Circuit dissent disagreeing with Second Amendment claims. Lara v. Commissioner Pennsylvania State Police, 91 F.4th 122, 144-45, 147 (3d Cir. 2024) (Restrepo, J., dissenting).

As the cites indicate, judges can disagree about how strictly or broadly to draw historical analogies, and about what sorts of laws create an established tradition at a given level of generality. It is at least helpful, I hope, that judges can have access to a common set of facts about the historical regulation of controversial arms.