The Tide Is Turning On Gun Control
After two consecutive years of record violence, some on the left may be rediscovering the importance of self-defense.

Contrary to popular misconceptions, the Second Amendment did not create a right to keep and bear arms. Rather, the Second Amendment acknowledges and seeks to protect the People’s natural right to self-defense and the tools required for the exercise of that right, which obviously include firearms. This is why the amendment speaks of “the right” to arms as something already in existence and not to be infringed—rather than as something newly conferred, a point recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court.

It should not be a polarized and partisan issue. Historically, the right of armed self-defense was understood and exercised by figures who were far from conservative or libertarian, from Eleanor Roosevelt and George Orwell to the Black Panthers and Malcolm X. In a dangerous world, they understood that one’s life should not be left to the mercy of an aggressor.

In light of 2021—a second consecutive year of record violence—are some on the left rediscovering the importance of self-defense? There’s reason to think so.

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The carjacking surge in Philadelphia shows why the Second Amendment is so important

Democrats routinely disparage guns and gun ownership in this country as one of the main reasons for violent crime. As soon as there is a mass shooting, Democratic politicians beat the drums for gun control legislation.

Even now, amid a violent crime surge largely resulting from failed Democratic policies in cities nationwide, they still blame guns. Yet, what goes ignored are the incidents in which guns are used for self-defense.

People are fighting back, demonstrating the importance of the Second Amendment.

Philadelphia has had a tsunami of violent crime in the past couple of years. Homicides reached an all-time high in 2021 after nearly setting a record in 2020. Carjackings have also experienced a surge in the city, going from 225 in 2019 to a whopping 720 in 2021, CBS3 reported .

The crime wave forced the Philadelphia Police Department to publish a survival guide on what to do if confronted with a carjacking. But with the city failing to protect its citizens, some have realized they must protect themselves. As a result, there are numerous stories of citizens defending themselves from carjackings by using their legally owned guns. In these incidents (with several that do not make the news), guns saved lives.

The “good guy with a gun narrative” is widely disregarded by those on the Left in the debate over guns. They continually promote the narrative that guns are evil tools that cause nothing but destruction and the loss of human life. While this is absolutely true, so is the opposite — guns save lives. According to statistics, guns are more often used to save lives than take them.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are anywhere between 30,000 to 40,000 gun-related deaths each year, with about 60% of those being suicides. Conversely, the CDC reports between 60,000 to 2.5 million incidents involving guns to save lives. The “good guy with a gun” narrative happens a lot more than the media or agenda-driven Democratic politicians like to acknowledge. The stories in Philadelphia are just some of the most recent examples.

With people needing guns to defend themselves out of necessity, the Second Amendment is needed now more than ever. Legal gun ownership can mean the difference between life and death. At a time when Democratic politicians have prioritized the safety of criminals over the welfare of the innocent, the Second Amendment could be the difference between being the victim of a violent crime or surviving one.

A Frank Discussion of Knives for Self-Defense

This article owes a lot to Marc “Animal” MacYoung, a prolific writer and thinker about self-defense issues whose work you should really check out. One of his areas of expertise is knife fighting and the use of knives in self-defense. MacYoung presents three basic considerations for knife use in a self-defense context in his must-read article on the subject, and I’m unable to improve on them:

  • A knife is a lethal force item
  • As such its legal/moral/ethical application is narrowly allowed
  • ‘self-defense’ is a legally defined term.

Any discussion of knives for self-defense has to keep these three points in mind. Legally and morally, you’re introducing a lethal weapon into the conflict—and that may have long-lasting repercussions for everyone involved. You may not intend to do lethal damage, but that’s the trick: knives can wound or kill with a touch, and in the chaos of an assault that can happen inadvertently. Another caveat: this article is about the general use of knives in self-defense, not engaging in a knife fight with another armed person. With all that having been said, let’s talk about choosing a knife as a self-defense tool.

The first step, as always, is to get familiar with your local laws on the subject. Each state—and many municipalities—has its own laws about knives: what you can carry, where you can carry, when/how you may use them, and what constitutes the legal use of lethal force (yes, that again) for self-defense. It might be a good idea to book a consultation with an attorney. Yes, that’s expensive, but it’s best to get legal advice from a professional who is bound to act on your behalf.

The second step is to consider your self-defense plan as a whole. Personal protection does not start and end with weapons; there’s a lot that goes into conflict-avoidance and safety planning other than planning for use of force. Make sure you’ve got those bases covered.

Nor should you neglect other possible self-defense tools. Even if you have a knife, you may not be able to deploy it in time, or you may need a less-lethal tool instead. Make sure to keep those options open.

Now, let’s talk about the knife you’ll be carrying. Unless you live in a rural area, you’ll probably legally and logistically be better of with a lock-bladed folding knife, one designed as an all-purpose tool. Because that’s what it’ll spend most of its time doing. Opening boxes, cutting strings and rope, and other mundane tasks are its purview. If legal in your state, there are knives made specifically for knife fighting such as the Colonel Blade or the Clinch Pick.

Finally, you’ll need some training. Probably quite a bit of training. There are numerous systems for the use of knives in self-defense out there. One that comes to mind but I have not taken is the Edged Weapons Overview course by Shivworks. I would suggest selecting a system or school that teaches both armed and unarmed techniques—you’ll likely need both if something does go wrong. I’m a big advocate of the notion that a short-range weapon like a knife exists to give you the time and space to run, so please give that some thought.

These are just some thoughts to get you started. Please reach out to me in the comments section or via email and let me know if you have any further questions or ideas. I love hearing from you.

Where the Bad Guys Get Their Guns

So, try and guess the firearm used by the dude who took the hostages at the Texas synagogue before the FBI’s HRT helped him take the Room Temperature Challenge.

Was it:
1, A deadly AR-47 assault weapon bought at a loophole?
2, A fifty caliber sniper rifle bought from an “Iron Pipeline” crooked dealer?
3, A stolen handgun bought from a crook?

If you guessed the third option, you’re absolutely right!

According to the WaPo:

Over a roughly two-week period in Texas, Akram also searched on his phone for gun shops and pawnshops in the Dallas area, the officials said. But authorities have traced the handgun he used in the attack and think he bought it “on the street” rather than at a business. The gun’s last official sale was recorded in early 2020; it was reported stolen from a hotel room later that year, the officials said.

The Right to Defy Criminal Demands: Negligence and the Robber’s Explicit Demands

I’ve just finished up a rough draft of my The Right to Defy Criminal Demands article, and I thought I’d serialize it here, minus most of the footnotes (which you can see in the full PDF). I’d love to hear people’s reactions and recommendations, since there’s still plenty of time to edit it. You can also be previous posts (and any future posts, as they come up), here.

Let’s return to situation 3 from the Introduction: Craig comes to rob Danielle’s store; he is demanding money, and Danielle has reason to think that, if she doesn’t comply, he’ll injure some of the patrons. Does this make Danielle legally liable if she refuses to comply, on the theory that she has an affirmative duty to protect her business visitors, and failing to give in to the demands violates that duty?

No, several courts have ruled, expressly recognizing a “no duty” rule. The most prominent case is Kentucky Fried Chicken of California, Inc. v. Superior Court, from the California Supreme Court:

[A] shopkeeper does not have a duty to comply with the unlawful demand of an armed robber that property be surrendered…. Recognition of a duty to comply with an unlawful demand would be contrary to public policy as it would encourage similar unlawful conduct….

[T]he standard of a “reasonable prudent person under the circumstances” is the general standard of care [for property owners’ duty to protect their visitors]…. [But] in particular situations a more specific standard may be established by judicial decision, statute or ordinance.

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Wisconsin Assembly OKs GOP-led gun rights bills

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Assembly approved a package of Republican-authored bills on Thursday that would dramatically expand gun rights in the state, moving forward with the proposals even though Democratic Gov. Tony Evers will almost certainly veto them.

The proposals would allow people with concealed carry licenses to go armed on school grounds and in churches attached to private schools; lower the minimum age for obtaining a concealed carry license from 21 to 18; and allow anyone with a concealed carry license from any state to go armed in Wisconsin. Currently, only people with licenses from states that conduct background checks on applicants can carry concealed guns in Wisconsin.

Assembly Democrats railed against the bills during a news conference before the floor session began, saying the measures would make the state more dangerous.

“Today we vote on bills that will bring guns to our school grounds, a bill that will allow high school seniors to carry concealed weapons and a bill permitting people from out of state who would normally fail a criminal-background check to carry guns in Wisconsin. As a parent, as a teacher and as a citizen, this is terrifying,” Rep. Deb Andraca, an elementary school teacher and a volunteer with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, a group that works to reduce gun violence.

Republicans defended the proposals at their own pre-session news conference.

“Our Second Amendment rights, those are just critically important to everybody across Wisconsin,” said Rep. Shae Sortwell, who is the chief Assembly sponsor for the bill that would lower the concealed carry age. “(We want to) make sure that every adult American, whether they are visiting Wisconsin, whether they are living in Wisconsin, has the same rights under the law.”

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‘enemies, foreign and domestic‘

And this is called a ‘Freudian slip’ by one of them

BLUF:
What they want for America is rigged phony Chavista-style elections.  Jeffries just let the cat out of the bag.

Hakeem Jeffries lets the cat out of the bag about Dems’ plan for America

Sometimes, the truth gets out.

That seems to be the case with Joe Biden’s “Freedom to Vote” bill, which his fellow Democrats are shilling. Problem: One of them said too much.

Jeffries is the fifth most powerful Democrat in the House and considered the heir apparent to jurassic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  He’s a power.

His self-revision in that video, that he was talking about “César” Chávez, is total nonsense.  César Chávez was a famous labor organizer who had little to do with voting rights.  He had a job in his youth registering voters, but that’s a nothingburger compared to his claim to fame with organizing a large union and advocating for rural workers’ rights.  Hugo Chávez, by contrast, is the late, unlamented Venezuelan dictator who pioneered rigged elections under gaslighting claims, repeated on the American left, of expanding democracy for all.  Hugo was able to seize absolute power by corrupting Venezuela’s election process, starting in 2004, when he knew he was an unpopular political goner and subject to a recall referendum under his own revised constitution.

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Better place for it anyway, although T.R. was an early progressive who gave credibility to later elitist progressives with tyrannical aims, like Woodrow Wilson.

Teddy Roosevelt Statue Bound for North Dakota After Being Removed From Outside Museum of Natural History in NYC

A statue of President Theodore Roosevelt that has stood outside the Museum of Natural History in New York City for more than 80 years was removed Wednesday night after complaints of racism and colonization.

The bronze statue was removed in pieces and is expected to be shipped to the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota, The New York Times reported. It is estimated to cost $2 million for the removal process.

Biden acts much more like Putin’s puppet than Trump ever did.

Back in 2017, Walter Russell Mead wrote: If Donald Trump “were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:

  • Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
  • Blocking oil and gas pipelines
  • Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
  • Cutting U.S. military spending
  • Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran.”

Trump, of course, did none of those things, and indeed the entire “Russian collusion” narrative that the press pushed for his entire presidency has been thoroughly exploded.

But someone is doing these things, right now. I’m talking, of course, about Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., who at his shambolic Wednesday press conference gave Russia the go-ahead to invade Ukraine, though it was quickly walked back by backwalker-in-chief Jen Psaki, his press secretary.

The last time something like that happened was in 1950, when Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave North Korea what appeared to be a green light to invade South Korea. The result was the Korean War. One hopes Biden’s blunder will not bear similar consequences.

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BLUF:
It’s well past time that lawmakers recognize that the laws aren’t working except to hamstring the law-abiding citizens of this great nation, so maybe it’s time to repeal some of these stupid laws and give us a chance at standing on a level playing field with the bad guys.

Teens leaving funeral arrested for full-auto guns

Full-auto.

I’m not going to lie, I have almost no experience with machine guns. They’re too expensive for me to obtain legally, and the penalties for doing so illegally just make them another kind of expensive.

However, for some people, that second kind of expensive just doesn’t seem to be that bad. They’re mostly convinced they won’t get caught. That’s probably especially true if your age starts with a “1.”

As some teens in Minneapolis just found out, though, being young and having a weapon modified to be full-auto doesn’t protect you from arrest.

Teenage twin brothers have been charged with possessing firearms illegally altered to fire automatically and with fleeing police after leaving the funeral of a slain friend this week in Minneapolis.

According to charges filed in Hennepin County District Court, the 18-year-old brothers, Quantez and Cortez Ward, were seen riding in a vehicle from which police seized three handguns outfitted with devices called auto-sears — commonly known as “Glock switches” — that can turn the weapons fully automatic.

The brothers did not have lawyers as of Wednesday afternoon, but they were scheduled to make their initial court appearances Thursday, when the court could assign them attorneys.

Minneapolis police and Hennepin County Sheriff’s personnel were conducting surveillance at a funeral for 15-year-old Santana Jackson on Jan. 17 when they saw the brothers arrive, according to the charges. Authorities had learned earlier that they would attend and likely be carrying handguns modified to fire fully automatic.

Authorities and crime prevention workers say the modified firearms have been showing up at crime scenes with frightening frequency in recent months.

Now, this is a good time to look at gun control as a whole.

Full-auto is tightly regulated. Handguns are regulated, too. And no law allows teenagers too young to be named in the papers to purchase firearms, much less buy handguns.

And yet, here we are.

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The Rifle: Combat Stories from America’s Last WWII Veterans, Told Through an M1 Garand.

It all started because of a rifle. 

The Rifle is an inspirational story and hero’s journey of a 28-year-old U.S. Marine, Andrew Biggio, who returned home from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, full of questions about the price of war. He found answers from those who survived the costliest war of all — WWII veterans.

It began when Biggio bought a 1945 M1 Garand Rifle, the most common rifle used in WWII, to honor his great uncle, a U.S. Army soldier who died on the hills of the Italian countryside. When Biggio showed the gun to his neighbor, WWII veteran Corporal Joseph Drago, it unlocked memories Drago had kept unspoken for 50 years.  On the spur of the moment, Biggio asked Drago to sign the rifle. Thus began this Marine’s mission to find as many WWII veterans as he could, get their signatures on the rifle, and document their stories.

For two years, Biggio traveled across the country to interview America’s last-living WWII veterans.  Each time he put the M1 Garand Rifle in their hands, their eyes lit up with memories triggered by holding the weapon that had been with them every step of the war. With each visit and every story told to Biggio, the veterans signed their names to the rifle. 96 signatures now cover that rifle, each a reminder of the price of war and the courage of our soldiers.

 

BLUF:
As with any crime, and to be clear, willfully violating the Constitution is a criminal act. You have to look at motive, means and opportunity. Joe Biden has the motive to violate our rights and the means to do so. And although I believe it will happen sooner rather than later, unless fate or the 25th Amendment intervene, for the next three long years he’ll have opportunity for all the infringing he and Kamala desire.

The Question On Gun Owners’ Minds: What Will Joe Biden’s Next Pivot Be?

The Biden-Harris administration is trapped inside a hostile media spotlight, a victim of their own incompetence. They’re like a cornered animal – desperate for a way out, but clearly willing to settle for anything that would shift the public focus off of their ever-growing list of failures.

They’re a consistent bunch, that much is true. They consistently lurch from one self-inflicted crisis to another, while we pay the price for their mistakes.

It began with Joe’s unconditional surrender of Afghanistan and was followed by the Build Back Better bust and the deadly fiasco on our Southern border. Added quickly to the mix were skyrocketing inflation, lots of empty shelves, the Supremes embarrassing denouncement of a clearly unconstitutional vaccine mandate, COVID tests becoming unobtainium while omicron surged.

All the while, the filibuster remaining as strong as it was a year ago thanks to good Sens. Manchin and Sinema, and the fact that Russia is making ready to launch an invasion of the Ukraine, which could trigger a third world war, in which Joe Biden (!) would be the defender of the free world.

The Biden-Harris administration tried to get the focus off of its near-daily faux pas by uploading a Jan. 6-themed “democracy is under threat” speech onto Joe’s teleprompter. The speech caught hold of the media’s news cycle for about a day, but the respite didn’t last long, despite hard-sell attempts by Pelosi et al.

Next, Joe tried pivoting to voting rights, but when voting rights advocates themselves boycotted his speech, his pivot lost its luster. The speech itself – “Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?” – was about as easy for most Americans to stomach as a fistful of ghost peppers. It was, in fact, more of a cry for help – another what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-Joe exemplar.

Now, what has me and some of my much smarter and more experienced friends losing sleep, is trying to fathom what Joe will try next. It is time, we fear, for Joe to pivot once again toward gun control, as he did right out of the box a year ago.

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When you are so mentally gone, you are incapable of realizing that you’re actually making your opposition their campaign commercials for them…….

Second Amendment Preservation Act introduced in Iowa Senate

A bill in the state senate would establish a $50,000 fine for an Iowa city and law enforcement agency where an officer enforces federal gun regulations that are stricter than the state’s.

The bill is part of a campaign that has prompted county supervisors to designate 33 Iowa counties as “Second Amendment Sanctuaries” where federal gun laws wouldn’t be enforced by local officials if the Biden Administration or congress were to enact tougher regulations. Senator Zach Nunn of Bondurant, a Republican congressional candidate in Iowa’s third district, is the sponsor of the so-called Second Amendment Preservation Act.

“We want to protect our law enforcement officers on the front line who are serving the community, but not deputize them as agents of a department or agency to go in and infringe upon an Iowan’s Second Amendment constitutional rights,” Nunn said yesterday during a subcommittee hearing on the bill.

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No charges filed against clerk who shot alleged robbers at Rock Island vape shop

ROCK ISLAND, Ill. (KWQC) – Charges will not be filed at this time against a clerk at Blackhawks Tobacco & Vape Shop who shot two alleged robbers, killing one, Tuesday night, Rock Island County State’s Attorney Dora Villarreal said.

“After a preliminary review of surveillance video and witness interviews, it appears the use of force by the employee was justified as self-defense and for the defense of others inside the store during the robbery,” she said in a media release posted on her Facebook page Wednesday night.

Around 10:54 p.m. Tuesday, the business at 2733 18th Avenue in Rock Island was robbed by three males, Villarreal said. One of them pointed a gun at employees inside the store.

One employee was able to get a gun kept by the store owner for protection because the store had been robbed twice in recent months, Villarreal said.

The employee fired the gun several times and struck two of the alleged robbers.

One of them died from their injuries, while the other is being treated at a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

Villarreal said she is preparing to file aggravated robbery charges against the two remaining robbery suspects and that additional charges are being considered as the case remains under investigation.

New study on firearm related suicide can’t prove what we all know

A recent research letter concerning suicide by firearm highlights something that most gun owners already know. The short form of what was reported is that gun owners are not going to tell health care providers that they own firearms. Okay, that’s at least the conjecture that the authors of the paper were not willing outright say. The study involved looking at death due to suicide Between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2019 in Washington State. The paper, Patient-Reported Firearm Access Prior to Suicide Death, does put a good deal of effort in extracting information from the Washington State death records and electronic health record data they had available. Some of this data was not considered “sensitive” enough to require consent from patients.

The Kaiser Permanente institutional review board approved this study and waived the need for patient informed consent, because use of this protected health information involved no more than a minimal risk to the privacy of individuals. This study followed the reporting guideline for case series.

What did their study uncover? A good deal of statistics that seem to be consistent regardless of who’s doing the study and for the most part where. With males (86%) and whites (85%) ranking in the highest numbers of persons to die by suicide. The other statistic which brings this topic to the pages of Bearing Arms, and will continue to, 48% of completed suicides were done via firearm, and 52% via all “other means”.

In a recent conversation I had with Cam, he noted that he’s more interested in putting an end to all suicides, regardless of methods. I tend to agree with Cam on the overall goal, however I understand that this emphasis on “the gun” has to do with the lethality of potential methods. Depending on which study one is looking at, approximately 85-95% of suicide attempts with a firearm result in death. “Other” means that might be attempted result in death approximately 20% of instances. Further, the majority of people that survive a death by suicide attempt don’t go on to try again.

My big question’s always a quality of life question. Why do so many people want to end their lives in the United States? What about our society, pressures, needs, etc. cause so many people to want to end their lives? If 2/3rds of the approximate 40K deaths due to firearms are suicides, it should pull into sharp focus that in this country an individual is more than likely to use a firearm on themselves 66% of the time over another individual. All the “gun crime” reporting tends to ignore this fact.

Where does this leave us with the study? Some of their conclusions paint a picture that I don’t suspect to change anytime soon. The data the study pulled from utilized a questionnaire that asked patients if they were firearm owners or not.

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‘Take Me to Your Leader’: Sen. John Kennedy Said it ‘Would be Embarrassing’ For Aliens Arriving in America to Meet Biden

WATCH:

 

New Peer-Reviewed Study Shows Ivermectin ‘Significantly’ Reduces COVID Infections, Hospitalization, and Mortality Rates

A newly released study from Brazil of over 150 thousand subjects found that regular prophylactic use of ivermectin “was associated with significantly reduced COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and mortality rates.”

The largest ivermectin study to date was conducted in Itajaí, Brazil, between July 2020 and December 2020. It recently passed rigorous peer-review and was published this week, Dr. Pierre Kory noted on Twitter.

Background: Ivermectin has demonstrated different mechanisms of action that potentially protect from both coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection and COVID-19-related comorbidities. Based on the studies suggesting efficacy in prophylaxis combined with the known safety profile of ivermectin, a citywide prevention program using ivermectin for COVID-19 was implemented in Itajaí, a southern city in Brazil in the state of Santa Catarina. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of regular ivermectin use on subsequent COVID-19 infection and mortality rates.

Researchers invited the entire population of Itajaí to enroll in the program and compiled baseline, personal, demographic, and medical information on participants.

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