Amy Klobuchar Cites Two Pistol Attacks to Push ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) posted a video to Twitter on Saturday in which she pushed an “assault weapons” ban in response to two shootings carried out with pistols.

Klobuchar cited the January 21, 2023 Monterey Park shooting (11 killed) and the January 23, 2023 Half Moon Bay shooting (seven killed).

She did not mention that both shootings occurred in stringently gun-controlled California, which has had an “assault weapons” ban since the 1990s. Nor did she mention that both shootings were carried out with pistols.

Klobuchar did, however, push for more gun control.

Breitbart News reported that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) blasted “weapons of war” after the suspected Half Moon Bay shooter used a handgun in his attack.

CBS News noted that the suspected shooter “drove himself to the substation located between the two businesses and surrendered to deputies.” They pointed out that the weapon used was “a [semiautomatic] handgun.”

At least it makes his intentions clear.

Eric Burlison files his first legislation in Congress, attempting to repeal 1930s gun law

U.S. Rep. Eric Burlison filed his first legislation as a freshman member of Congress this week, aimed at stripping out gun regulations approved in the 1930s.

The southwest Missouri Republican’s “Repeal the NFA Act” would remove requirements under federal law to pay a $200 tax, register and undergo an application process to own certain firearms and accessories, including shotguns, rifles with certain length barrels, machine guns, and mufflers and silencers.

“The federal government has used the National Firearms Act for almost a century to violate law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights,” Burlison said in a statement announcing the bill. “The recent ATF pistol brace rule is just another example of these blatant attacks on the constitutional rights of Americans. The ATF-NFA sham needs to end.”

Burlison’s bill comes a month after the U.S. Department of Justice submitted a new federal rule requiring stabilizing braces and other accessories, used to convert pistols into short-barreled rifles, to follow federal laws that govern those types of weapons, including the 1934 law. He has also co-sponsored legislation that would abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF.

His legislation is unlikely to see final passage, with Democrats remaining in control of the Senate and some members advocating for more strict gun safety laws in the wake of a string of mass shootings in California. It has been referred to the House Ways and Means Committee, which is chaired by fellow Missouri Republican U.S. Rep. Jason Smith.

Burlison, when he was a member of the Missouri legislature prior to his election to Congress, was a vocal supporter of several measures loosening the state’s gun laws.

He was one of the lead sponsors for the Second Amendment Preservation Act, a 2021 bill that nullifies a number of federal gun laws and came under criticism by members of law enforcement who said it interfered with violent crime prevention and investigation efforts. Burlison has touted the bill as a nation-leading Second Amendment law.

Police say 2 self-defense shootings in Phoenix Saturday night left 2 dead

Two separate shootings in Phoenix, one on the west side and one in the central area of the city, left two men dead Saturday evening.

Just after 6:30 p.m., Phoenix police officers responded to a report of a shooting in central Phoenix, near 12th Street and Highland Avenue.

Once officers arrived, they found a man with gunshot wounds. The victim was identified as 24-year-old Aaron Duwan Frazier Jr. He died at a local hospital.

Early information indicated a man was fueling up his vehicle at the gas station when Frazier approached him with a gun and attempted to rob him. The man went back to his vehicle grabbed a gun and shot Frazier, according to police.

The man called police to report the incident. Detectives conducted interviews and collected evidence at the scene. The man was not booked into jail. The case will be reviewed further for any possible charges.

Later in the evening, in west Phoenix, another shooting occurred.

Just after 8 p.m., officers responded to a call claiming a shooting occurred near 44th and Whitton Avenues.

When police arrived, they discovered a man with gunshot wounds. He was transported to a hospital and was later pronounced dead.

Early information indicated a man attempted to enter a home when a woman inside called a family member to come help. The family member arrived and confronted the victim in front of the residence, police said.

A verbal altercation occurred, and the victim made threats to kill the man, raising a black object believed to be a gun. The family member then shot the victim claiming self-defense, according to police.

The man was interviewed by police and not booked into jail as further review of the case is pending. Evidence was collected and the investigation remains ongoing.

January 30

1649 – Charles I of England is executed for treason against England by order of the newly formed High Court of Justice, created by a special act of Parliament.

1661 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, is exhumed and ritually executed more than two years after his death, on the 12th anniversary of the execution of Charles I

1703 – The 47 rōnin, former samurai of Asano Naganori, under the command of Ōishi Kuranosuke, avenge the death of their master, by killing Kira Yoshinaka who had been assaulted by Asano, who was then forced to commit suicide.

1835 – The first assassination attempt against a President of the United States fails when both pistols of Richard Lawrence misfire due to humid conditions. President Jackson turns on the assassin and beats him with his cane until others, including Congressman Davy Crockett, come to his aid.

1847 – Yerba Buena, California is renamed San Francisco.

1862 – The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched.

1911 – The destroyer USS Terry makes the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of Douglas McCurdy ten miles off Havana, Cuba.

1933 – Adolf Hitler takes office as the Chancellor of Germany.

1945 – 126 American Rangers and Filipino resistance fighters liberate over 500 Allied prisoners from the Japanese controlled Cabanatuan POW camp on Luzon, Philippines.

1948 –Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated in New Delhi, Indian by a Hindu nationalist

1956 – Martin Luther King Jr.’s home is bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery bus boycott.

1968 – During the Tet lunar new year celebrations and cease fire, forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army launch an offensive against South Vietnam, the United States forces there, and their allies.

1982 – Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code,  called “Elk Cloner”, which is disguised as an Apple boot program.

1989 – The American embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan is closed and staff evacuated due to a civil war starting

1991 – Coalition air forces attack invading Iraqi forces in and around Khafji, Saudi Arabia, destroying hundreds of Iraqi Army tanks and armored vehicles, not to mention the crews.

2020 – The World Health Organization declares the COVID-19 pandemic to be a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’.

 

Oservation O’ The Day

” ‘It’s the guns. It’s always been the guns,’ said Lisa Geller, a public health researcher at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University.”

Adapting the quoted logic…
The US obesity problem is “the forks, it’s always been the forks.”
Distracted driving deaths are “the phones, it’s always been the phones.”

Hmmm… that makes the action the fault of an inanimate object rather than the person wielding the object.

That’s literally the logic from someone at Johns Hopkins.
What an absurd and obviously flawed way to spin the problem statement.

A child shot his teacher, a 72-year-old man opened fire in public: Here’s what that tells us about guns in America.

A 6-year-old student. A 72-year-old man.

They are two people separated by decades and thousands of miles, but united in one tragic fact: Both made national news in January after authorities said they committed horrific gun violence.

The contrast – like many facts about America’s gun violence problem – is both striking and predictable. This doesn’t happen in other countries, experts say. It happens much more frequently in the U.S., but often hidden from public view. Children, in particular, are far more likely to shoot themselves, a friend or family member accidentally, usually inside a home.

“It’s the guns. It’s always been the guns,” said Lisa Geller, a public health researcher at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University.

While other wealthy countries have similar levels of interpersonal violence, the United States stands alone when it comes to shootings. An average of 110 Americans die daily from gun violence, far above the rate of gun deaths for any comparable nation. The U.S. has about 12 gun deaths for every 100,000 residents, almost four times the rate of the next-highest country, Switzerland, according to experts.

Concentrate Where the Murders Are Concentrated

One of the principles of good public policy is to focus efforts on understanding social problems and searching for effective responses where those problems are serious, not where they are minor or missing. Local problems justify locally focused and decided policies, problems that have effects that are more widely spread justify geographically broader policies, and the broadest problems justify national policies, as illustrated by the federalism of the US Constitution, particularly the Tenth Amendment.

That such a principle is well established is illustrated by t Edgar K. Browning and Jacquelene M. Browning’s  textbook, Public Finance and the Price System, which I used when teaching my first such class over four decades ago and which said, “The key issue here is the geographic area over which persons necessarily benefit [or are harmed],” which requires that “care is needed in determining what types of policies are more suitable for local governments.”

However, that principle is often honored in the breach today, as politicians at higher-level governments are always trying to regulate and legislate issues that are more local in character. Why? It lets politicians in areas where the problems are greatest pretend they are a national problem rather than ones tied to their jurisdictions and policies. Further, the power to vote on national-level plans gives politicians representing other areas the leverage to “rent” their support for such programs in exchange for more of what they want through the legislative pork barrel.

 

Just think how many times a single event in one place starts trending, then immediately gives rise to proposals for new state or national policies as “the solution,” as is so common with issues of crime. The Monterey Park mass shooting is a good illustration. The same day it was reported in the Los Angeles Times, they ran an editorial about mass murder shootings becoming “a sickeningly frequent occurrence in America” arguing that mass shootings “have one thing in common: They have guns” and asserting that we must limit the Second Amendment in the US Constitution—not only federal law, but the highest law of the land—because “national suicide is not the compulsory price of freedom.”

The result of such broad, national responses is also poor “target efficiency,” because too little attention focuses on the more local reasons for where the problems are worse.

An excellent example of this is provided by recent research on the US murder rate by the Crime Prevention Research Center, and its president, John R. Lott Jr., whom I have known since we overlapped many years ago in the UCLA Economics PhD program. I would note that John’s work is often controversial, which also makes him a frequent subject of ad hominem attacks, because the empirical data he develops can strongly contradict what others are “selling” as the truth in some area, particularly with regard to crime. However, I have never seen him abuse logic and statistics to get a particular answer he set out to find (or was paid to, as many “researchers” are). His focus, which strongly reminds me of the work of Harold Demsetz, who taught both of us, is on designing empirical tests to differentiate among alternative explanations, then following where the evidence leads, rather than torturing evidence to create the “right” wrong answer.

Increases in homicide rates tend to be treated by state and federal politicians as if they are broadly distributed national problems to scare Americans into supporting overly broad-brush “solutions.” But Lott’s research shows instead that “homicide rates have spiked, but most of America has remained untouched.” Or as David Strom summarized the results, “There are vast swathes of the country where violent crime is very, very rare, and small areas of the country where it is common.” If that is true, we should focus our attention on those small areas, not on national policies poorly focused on where the actual problems are most severe.

Lott’s research, which used 2020 homicide data, examined the concentration of homicides in particular areas to see whether America’s increasing homicide problem is national or local. He let that data tell its story.

First, he focused on county-level data rather than national data. Some of the dramatic results he found:

  • The worst five counties (Cook, Los Angeles, Harris, Philadelphia, and New York) accounted for about 15 percent of homicides.
  • The worst 1 percent of counties (31), with 21 percent of the US population, accounted for 42 percent of the homicides.
  • The worst 2 percent of counties (62), with 31 percent of the population, accounted for 56 percent of the homicides.
  • The worst 5 percent of counties (155), with 47 percent of the population, accounted for 73 percent of the homicides.
  • In contrast, over half of US counties (52 percent) had zero homicides in 2020, and roughly one-sixth of the counties (16 percent) had only one.

Continuing his investigation, Lott looked at even finer-scale zip code data for Los Angeles County. He found that the worst 10 percent of zip codes in the county accounted for 41 percent of the homicides, and the worst 20 percent accounted for a total of 67 percent of the homicides.

From such data, Lott concluded that: “Murder isn’t a nationwide problem.” Instead, “It’s a problem in a small set of urban areas, and even in those counties murders are concentrated in small areas inside them, and any solution must reduce those murders.”

Despite the constant political and media drumbeat to portray homicides as a national problem that threatens everyone everywhere, and thus demands national solutions in line with what the political Left wants, the evidence points us in a far more local direction.

That may well explain the political reason for the volume and persistence of that drumbeat. It provides camouflage for those whose policies (and those who support them) would come under far greater scrutiny if people recognized just how concentrated homicides are and then asked what is different in those places, rather than the “blame America first” bromides they are routinely misdirected toward today.

But that means if we really cared about those most harmed by the murder rate, rather than imposing broader-than-necessary restrictions on Americans, it is important to follow the evidence so many would prefer to keep hidden.

Analysis: Whole Community Effort Needed to Combat Mass Shootings

A new U.S. Secret Service report adds to a growing body of research documenting common behavior patterns among mass attackers. It also highlights the potential for community intervention, both broadly and on a small scale, to make a real difference.

The National Threat Assessment Center’s (NTAC) report published Wednesday analyzed 173 “mass attacks”—defined as incidents in which three or more people, not including the attacker, were harmed in public or semi-public places—between 2016 and 2020. The report uncovered many patterns linking various attackers to one extent or another, but what most perpetrators had in common was striking.

More than three-quarters of the individuals who committed mass attacks exhibited concerning behaviors or shared alarming communications before carrying them out. Nearly two-thirds exhibited behaviors or shared communications that were so concerning “they should have been met with an immediate response,” according to the researchers. Roughly 60 percent of the attackers exhibited behavior that caused others to fear for the safety of the attacker, themselves, or the broader public.

Often these concerning behaviors manifested in the form of expressed threats, actively making plans to carry out an attack, more minor acts of violence, or harassing behaviors.

For anyone who has spent time following the news coverage of these all-too-frequent incidents, the study results likely won’t come as much of a surprise. Time after time, it seems reports come out of the woodwork only after an incident has already transpired, revealing troubling details from an attacker’s past that, in hindsight, should have made it all too clear what was bound to happen.

But this new report makes clear that such perception is more than just anecdotal. The data bears it out. Mass attackers do, in fact, routinely exhibit a pattern of troubling behaviors that are generally identifiable by others, whether it’s family members, friends, classmates, employers, coworkers, or law enforcement.

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IRAN AMMUNITION FACTORY HIT BY BLAST: Iranian media also report large fire at oil refinery outside the city of Tabriz.

Iran said three drones caused an explosion at an ammunition factory in the city of Isfahan late Saturday, amid fresh tensions with the West and Israel over Tehran’s military involvement in Ukraine and stalled negotiations to revive an international accord that limits Iran’s nuclear activities.

Phone footage captured by several passersby in Isfahan and posted on social media showed what appeared to be a large explosion on the side of a building on a major street.

“At around 23:30, an unsuccessful attack using micro-aerial vehicles was carried out on one of the Defense Ministry’s workshops,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding that one drone had been shot down by air defenses while two others had exploded. The ministry said the roof of one building had been slightly damaged, and that the explosion had caused no casualties.

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Comment O’ The Day:
It is amusing watching Democrats in power walk the tight rope of pretending to know everything while at the same time being completely ignorant.
Nobody believes this overt and public anti-Semite. Nobody.

I mean, politicians lie all the time, but at least she could have tried to make this one sound somewhat reasonable.

Rep. Ilhan Omar: “I Wasn’t Aware That There Are Tropes About Jews And Money”

Rep. Ilhan Omar said Sunday morning on CNN said that she didn’t know about the offensive nature of antisemitic tropes regarding “Jews and money” when she made comments that have been cited by House Speaker McCarthy as the primary reason she was removed from the House Foreign Affairs committee.

REP. ILHAN OMAR: I might have used words at the time that I didn’t understand were trafficking in anti-semitism. When that was brought to my attention, I apologized. I owned up to it. That’s the kind of person that I am. And I continue to work with my colleagues and my community to fight against anti-semitism.

Now, I’ve never compared or made any comparisons, what I was referencing was a case that was in front of the ICC. If you want to debate political differences, that’s something that we should all have the opportunity to do so, but to smear someone and their character, their love for their country and the work they get to do on a committee is wrong, and it is politically motivated. And in some cases, it is motivated by the fact that many of these members don’t believe that a Muslim refugee, an African, should even be in Congress, let alone have an opportunity to serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee….

I certainly did not or was not aware that the word hypnotized was a trope. I wasn’t aware of the fact that there are tropes about Jews and money. That has been a very enlightening part of this journey. To insinuate that I knowingly said these things when people have read into my comments to make it sound as if I have something against the Jewish community is so wrong.

To insinuate that I knowingly said these things, when people have read into my comments to make it sound as if I have something against the Jewish community, is so wrong. If you remember, when I first got elected to Congress, it was when the FBI report came out on the rise of antisemitism. As a rep-elected, the first op-ed I wrote was on that report, which I talked about how it was important for us, as a community, to coalesce around the Jewish community and fight against antisemitism.

I voted for every single resolution — no Republican can say that — condemning antisemitism. My work is clear. The collaboration and work that I do with my Jewish colleagues is very clear. The reason that the Democratic Caucus has not removed me and will not support my removal on the Foreign Affairs Committee is because I have done the work to make sure that I do not support any bigotry.

The Climate Faithful Have Developed Religious Dietary Restrictions (and You Guessed It — We’ll All Be Expected to Eat This Way).

Jews eat kosher, Muslims have halal, Hindus eschew meat, and many Christians fast during Lent. So naturally, the fastest-growing religion today — earth and climate worship — is developing its own faith-based dietary restrictions.

“Climatarians” (also called “reducitarians” or “climavores”) are people who make their food choices based on how what they eat will impact the earth, with the aim of reducing their carbon “foodprint.” The Earthist version of original sin is that, simply by living, people commit climate sin every time they eat, breathe, travel, and heat or cool their homes. Naturally, the younger generations are the most pious Earthists, having been recently exposed to the most evangelical Earthist education system yet.

“Climavores, as you might expect, follow a diet less defined by ingredients—unlike veganism, for example,” global consulting firm Kearney informs us. “Instead, Climavores actively make food choices based on climate impacts, practicing climate-conscious eating based on a series of dietary trade-offs intended to benefit the planet.”

Climavores see beef, lamb, and cheese at the very top of the environmental damage scale; pork is in the middle, followed by chicken and eggs. Plants of all kinds typically have the lowest impact. …

Most Climavores eschew labels, viewing climate-conscious food choices paired with their efforts to “live and shop green” beyond food as a meaningful way to personally impact environmental outcomes. Our survey found this is especially true among younger consumers. Respondents 18 to 44 years old were up to twice as likely to consider the environmental impact of their food choices.

And as the older faiths are gradually supplanted by the Church of the Climate, societal changes are in the works that reflect and support the new religion. Axios reports:

Food manufacturers, restaurants, and supermarkets are racing to cater to the zeal for lower-carbon eating choices, which has people eschewing plastic packaging, ingredients flown in from afar, and foods that are environmentally damaging to produce. …

Terms like “climatarian” are getting newfound attention from corporate America as young consumers gravitate toward what they perceive as “green” diets.

  • “By 2030, our routine food choices will be climate-directed,” advises a report from consulting firm Kearney. “The companies that mobilize now will win the future of food.”
  • Restaurant chains like Just Salad, Chipotle, and Panera Bread are putting “carbon labels” on their foods — and, in the case of Just Salad, adding a “climatarian” filter on its app.
  • Supermarket chain Fresh Market is among the many food prognosticators that declared “climatarian eating” a top trend for 2023.

Back in the bad old days, righteous folk censured people who lived outside Christian proscriptions, and with good reason — things like theft, adultery, sloth, and single parenthood lead to issues that hurt all of society. Under the same reckoning, prepare to be judged for your apostate food choices. Ordering a big, fat steak in a restaurant may earn you glares from fellow diners who have been taught that your dinner hurts them by causing droughts and heatwaves or something.

But Leftists are nothing if not authoritarian, and soon the choices will be made for you. More from Kearney:

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His ‘word’; well that settles it, it means it’s actually worse than we know.

Carjacking suspect in critical condition after being shot by victim

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Philadelphia police say a carjacking victim in Philadelphia shot the suspect who was trying to steal a vehicle.

It happened late Saturday night at North Mascher and West Berks streets in Kensington.

Police say the suspect approached the victim who was sitting in a vehicle.

The victim fired a gun through the windshield, shattering the vehicle’s glass and hitting the suspect in the chest.

Police say the suspect then ran to Frankford Avenue and East Palmer Street where he collapsed.

The suspect was taken to the hospital in critical condition.

January 29

1845 – “The Raven” is published in The Evening Mirror in New York, the first story published by Edgar Allan Poe.

1850 –Senators Henry Clay and Stephen A. Douglas, with the support of President Millard Fillmore, introduce the Compromise of 1850, a set of 5 laws, which reorganizes the areas of different territories, the states of California and Texas and fugitive slaves in free states.

1856 – Queen Victoria issues a Warrant that establishes the Victoria Cross to recognize acts of valor by British military personnel during the Crimean War.

1861 – Kansas is admitted as the 34th state.

1886 – Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline powered automobile.

1891 – Liliuokalani is proclaimed Queen Regnant of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the last monarch of the kingdom before being overthrown less than 2 years later.

1907 – Charles Curtis of Kansas, a member of the Kaw tribe, becomes the first American Indian U.S. Senator and later becomes the 31st vice president of the United States under Herbert Hoover.

1936 – The first inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame are announced.

1963 – The first inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame are announced.

1991 – 3 Iraqi Army divisions invading from occupied Kuwait, attack and temporarily occupy the Saudi Arabian city of Kafji, until engaged and repelled by U.S. and coalition forces.

2002 – In his State of the Union address, President Bush describes regimes that sponsor terror as an ‘Axis of Evil’, in which he includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

2009 – Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich is removed from office following his conviction on several corruption charges

2020 – The administration of President Trump establishes the White House Coronavirus Task Force under Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar.

Gotta have something for the courts to do and lawyers to bill hours for

Police save burglar who was shot by homeowner in Haines City

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — In a dramatic turn of events, police saved the life of an alleged burglar after he was shot by a homeowner in Haines City early Friday morning, authorities said.

Haines City Police Chief Goreck shared more information about the incident at a press conference Friday afternoon.

He said the homeowner and his girlfriend returned to the residence at about 1:45 a.m. and saw two strangers standing in the kitchen.

I-4 shut down 12 hours after woman’s body found, police say
Police said the homeowner, who has a permit to carry concealed weapons, drew his firearm and fired five rounds at the suspect closest to him.

The homeowner and his girlfriend fled the property with their puppy and called 911.

Police met the homeowner while he was driving to the station and questioned him. Goreck said he immediately surrendered the weapon and showed them his permit. He has been cooperating with the investigation, according to police, and is not facing charges at this time.

“Based on the totality of the evidence at this time, it does appear to be a case of Stand Your Ground,” Goreck said.

When police arrived at the residence, the suspects were nowhere to be found. Investigators collected five shell casings at the scene, and noticed a trail of blood droplets leading outside.

K9s picked up a scent and tracked one of the suspects about 100 yards away to Boomerang Park. He was found under a pavilion, suffering from four gunshot wounds.

“Even though this was a felon who had been illegally inside someone’s house, [police] immediately changed focused, changed gears, and went from a search and locate and apprehend, to saving this individual’s life,” Goreck said.

One officer rendered first aid and applied direct pressure to his wounds. Three other officers performed life-saving measures. One used a tourniquet on his leg to stop the bleeding.

“These four officers were able to save this individual’s life. They were able to stop the bleeding enough so that when he was finally airlifted to a trauma center—Osceola Regional Medical Center— that at this moment he’s still alive,” Goreck added.

Goreck said the man remains in critical but stable condition. Police were still working to identify the other suspect.

According to Goreck, the suspect who was injured is no stranger to law enforcement. His rap sheet includes arrests for grand and petit theft, burglary and loitering and prowling among other charges, Goreck said.

Police said he was found with some of the homeowner’s property. He faces charges of burglary to a residence and grand theft.

“One should expect that if you are brazen enough to enter into someone’s residence and it is not yours, with intent to commit an unlawful act, there maybe repercussions.” Goreck said. “We live in Florida, and more so, we live in Polk County, and most people are armed.”

Get Ready for Another Cynical, Useless, Gun-Control Push by Democrats

The first question any reasonable person asks after a horrible crime is, “What could have been done to stop it?” Yet after every mass shooting, gun controllers suggest unworkable, unconstitutional, completely ineffectual ideas that target people who will never commit a crime.

After the twin mass shootings in California last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom (flanked by armed guards) told CBS News more federal gun-control laws were needed because the Second Amendment is “becoming a suicide pact.” What he didn’t mention was that California has passed not only every law Senate Democrats are proposing in Washington but a slew of others. Anti-gun group Giffords gives California an “A” rating for having the “strongest gun safety laws in the nation and has been a trailblazer for gun safety reform for the past 30 years.”

California already has “universal” background checks. It has a 10-day waiting period limit for handgun purchases, a microstamping system, a personal safety test, the ability to sue gun manufacturers even if they haven’t broken any law, an age hike on the purchase of certain firearms including rifles from 18 to 21, “red flag” laws that allow police to confiscate guns without due process, a ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, among many other restrictions. Short of letting cops smash down the doors of peaceful gun owners, California has a law for it. And all it’s done is leave its citizens defenseless.

The day of the Monterey Park shooting, President Joe Biden again called on Congress to pass a federal “assault weapons” ban. So-called assault weapons have been banned in California since 1989. Last year, the state passed another bill making them super-duper illegal: SB 1327. From 1989 until today, gun trends in California mirror those of the nation at large. Which is unsurprising. The Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, despite Biden constantly claiming otherwise, did nothing to alter gun violence trends. Homicide rates began to ebb nationally before the ban was instituted. When the ban expired in 2004, and the AR-15 became the most popular rifle in the country, gun violence continued to precipitously fall — by 2014, gun homicides were the same as they were in 1963 — until the appearance of COVID.

Then again, the shooter at Monterey Park didn’t use an assault weapon. He used a Cobray M11 9mm semi-automatic gun — “one of the most useless handguns in existence” — which some reporters referred to as an “assault pistol.” It’s a scary looking, if antiquated gun (out of production since 1990) that, in this iteration, fires one cartridge with a single trigger squeeze like almost every other gun owned by civilians — including AR-15s.
The gun was already illegal in California.
As is carrying any gun into a no-gun zone.
As is murder.

After the killers of Monterey Park (72 years old) and Half Moon Bay (66) struck, Biden, naturally, called on Congress to pass legislation to raise the minimum purchase age for “assault weapons” to 21. Many mass shooters are young men, but the average age of mass shooters is 32. The number of ARs used in the commission of murder in the hands of a person under 21 is a fraction of 1%.

All mass shooters obtain guns illegally, or legally before having any criminal record (or because of a mistake by the police, as was the case in Charleston and elsewhere). Most incidents are perpetrated by young men who have exhibited serious antisocial behavior. In many, if not most, cases, the shooter is already on the cops’ radar because he has threatened others, as was the case from the Parkland shooter to the Highland Park shooter to the Half Moon Bay shooter and many, many others. In a study of mass shootings from 2008 to 2017, the Secret Service found that “100 percent of perpetrators showed concerning behaviors, and in 77 percent of shootings, at least one person — most often a peer — knew about their plan.” The best thing we can do is uphold laws that already exist.

None of this is to argue that simply because some people ignore laws, they are unnecessary or useless. It’s to argue that laws that almost exclusively target innocent people from practicing a constitutional right, and do nothing to stop criminals, are unnecessary and useless. The central problem in this debate is that Democrats believe civilian gun ownership itself is a plague on the nation, so it doesn’t really matter to them what gun is being banned or what law is being passed, as long as something is being “done.”

The other side believes that being able to protect themselves, their families, their property and their community from criminality — and, should it descend into tyranny, the government — is a societal good. They see gun bans as autocratic and unconstitutional, and, also, largely unfeasible. And they’re right.

No Second Amendment Would Render Us Powerless

America is on a razor’s edge. Three mass shootings within 48 hours have the usual liberal suspects exploiting the carnage to push gun control.

President Biden and his acolytes keep babbling the same platitude that is as smug as it is irrelevant. After a tragic shooting, Democrats keep bleating about how no hunter needs a semi-automatic weapon to kill deer.

This snide commentary shows a complete ignorance of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Second Amendment right of individuals to own guns has absolutely nothing to do with hunting. The right to own guns “shall not be infringed” by the government because that very government is why individuals own such guns.

The Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, a charter of negative liberties that protects Americans from their own government. If the government were to ever turn inward and try to commit genocide, they would face resistance from armed citizens.

The issue is not whether America’s government would ever turn inward. What matters is that without the Second Amendment, they easily could. With the Second Amendment, their task is much more difficult.

The dark reality is that the American government only exists under a threat of death to that government. This is a collective truth, not a call to rebellion. Every one of our legal 325 million citizens can remember that they individually say and do matters. If not liberty, then death.

Our First Amendment allowing us to challenge ideas and people exists only because of our Second Amendment. As Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar stated, “The framers recognized that self-government requires the people’s access to bullets as well as ballots.”

This is no antiquated concept in modern America. We have approximately 77.49 million adult gun owners. 2020 reflected the highest number of firearm sales in history, with 39,695,315 background checks for the sale of firearms and explosives. Americans own over 436.4M million guns . These are comforting facts.

Your individual conversations, vote and money matter as much as anyone else’s, all backed by the threat of the government’s demise. That is part of America’s shadow, never to be forgotten.

The United States, Mexico and Guatemala are the only three countries in the world that currently have a constitutional right to own a gun. Six other countries had a constitutional right to bear arms but repealed those laws.

America is the only country with a right to keep and bear arms without constitutional restrictions. Our Second Amendment is rare and exceptionally good.

This is why leftists remain set on trying to limit guns. Only then can Americans be fully controlled. That is not our way nor our agreement.

Every regime of death began by removing guns. The philosophy of the power of owning guns and knowing why we have them is at its essence as important as the guns themselves.

Our Second Amendment backing our First Amendment right to call out hypocrisies and lies is America’s own nuclear balance. Our government points its warheads at us. We in an act of detente point back ours collectively.

There is an inherent understanding, even in places led by tyrants: that those who go too far and try to implement tyranny in America, will one day see their power usurped, and their reign ended. This is detente for our people, not a darker position of violence. We must never forget the shadow side of our Second Amendment and its darker threat of death as a real tool for maintaining the balance of power in America.

God forbid we ever need to even think about using our arms, as citizens, against government. The Second Amendment thus still remains as a a useful reminder to those who lead us, why the Amendment was crafted in the first place – by our Founders.

Guns Don’t Kill People . . . People Kill People

Three recent mass shooting incidents in California have “gun violence” in the news again.  And most assuredly loud calls for banning guns will also be heard.

Tragedies like these three incidents make me think about a line from the 1953 film “Shane.” In the movie the lead character Shane famously remarks to Marian Starrett, ‘A gun is just a tool, Marian.  It’s no better or worse than the man using it.’

While this is true, it’s only true up to a point.  Guns are tools but they are not ordinary tools.  They were invented as weapons of war.  But they do  serve necessary and useful purposes as well.  Guns are used for hunting and other sport. They are also used for self-defense.

Guns

A number of television shows depict the reliance people here in the U.S.  have on hunting as a means of providing food.   The biathlon, in the Winter Olympics, and target and skeet shooting (clay pigeon shooting), are also  popular sports among gun enthusiasts.  And as the Heritage Foundation points out:

“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost every major study on defensive gun use has found that Americans use their firearms defensively between 500,000 and 3 million times each year.”

Case in point: On July 17, 2022 a man lawfully carrying a firearm shot and killed an “an assailant suspected of fatally shooting three people and injuring two others in an Indiana mall on Sunday evening.”  The incident took place at the Greenwood Park Mall just outside Indianapolis.  Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison called the man a “hero.”

And this brings us back to Shane’s point – a gun is no better or worse than the man (or woman) using it.  So let’s not get emotional or delusional about guns.  As the adage says, “Guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.”

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January 28

814 – Louis the Pious becomes King of the Franks on the death of his father Charlemagne

1521 – The Diet of Worms begins, with Martin Luther summoned to renounce or reaffirm his views that the Roman Catholic Church has declared to be heretical.

1547 – Edward VI becomes King of England on the death of his father Henry VIII

1851 – Northwestern University in Evanston, becomes the first chartered university in Illinois.

1902 – The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, D.C. with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.

1909 – With the exception of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, U.S. troops leave Cuba.

1915 – The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service and the U.S. Life Saving Service are merged to create the United States Coast Guard.

1922 – Washington, D.C. experiences its largest snowfall to date which causes the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre to collapse, killing over 100 people.

1956 – On CBS Stage Show, Elvis Presley makes his first national television appearance.

1964 – An unarmed United States Air Force T-39 Sabreliner on a training mission, is shot down over Erfurt, East Germany, by a Soviet MiG-19.

1980 – US Coast Guard Cutter Blackthorn collides with the tanker Capricorn while leaving Tampa, Florida and capsizes, killing 23 of the 50 Coast Guard crewmembers aboard. Of special note, 20 years later, as a result of a review of reports, 18 year old Seaman Apprentice William “Billy” Flores is posthumously awarded the Coast Guard Medal, that service’s highest award for heroism in peacetime, due to him remaining at his post to issue life jackets, saving many of his crewmates lives at the ultimate loss of his own.

1982 – US Army general James L. Dozier is rescued by Italian anti-terrorism forces from captivity by the Red Brigades.

1986 – On mission STS-51-L, the external fuel tank of Space Shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after liftoff, disintegrating the craft and killing all 7 astronauts on board.

1991 – Over Iraq, USAF Captain Donald Watrous, flying a F-15, engages and shoots down an Iraqi MiG-23

2002 – TAME Flight 120, a Boeing 727, crashes in the Andes mountains in southern Colombia, killing all 94 passengers and crew aboard.

2021 – A nitrogen leak at a Foundation Food Group poultry processing facility in Gainesville, Georgia kills 6 workers.