The preceding gets this:

This is the same kind of historical revisionism that tries to paint the 2nd Amendment as some slave patrol scheme in the vein of the Aptly named Dr. Bogus whose revisionist history “The Hidden History of the Second Amendment” includes Section 1, part K literally titled: “The Absence of Direct Evidence”.

Advocates of such false history also try to misconstrue the statements of Patrick Henry before the Ratifying Convention in Virginia from June 5th, 1788.

You can read the full speech here.

You’ll see none of what Bogus suggest regarding the 2nd Amendment being for slavery present there.

All the Judicial, Statutory, and Historic evidence from the 17th Century to Modern day supports the individual right to keep and bear arms unconnected to militia service.

Being a direct descendant of the English colonies American law is based off of the English model. Our earliest documents from the Mayflower compact to the Constitution itself share a lineage with the Magna Carta. Even the American Bill of Rights being modeled after the English Bill of Rights.

The individual right, unconnected to militia service, preexists the United States and the Constitution. This right is firmly based in English law.

In 1689 The British Bill of Rights gave all protestants the right to keep and bear arms.

“The English right was a right of individuals, not conditioned on militia service…The English right to arms emerged in 1689, and in the century thereafter courts, Blackstone, and other authorities recognized it. They recognized a personal, individual right.” – CATO Brief on DC v Heller

Prior to the debates on the US Constitution, or its ratification, multiple states built the individual right to keep and bear arms, unconnected to militia service, in their own state constitutions.

“That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State” – chapter 1, Section XV, Constitution of Vermont – July 8, 1777.

“That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state” – A DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OR STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA, Section XIII, Constitution of Pennsylvania – September 28, 1776.

Later the debates that would literally become the American Bill of Rights also include the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

“And that the said Constitution never be constructed to authorize Congress to infringe on the just liberty of the press, or the rights of the conscience; or prevent of people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless when necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceful and orderly manner, the federal legislature for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers, or possessions.” – Debates and proceedings in the Convention of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1788. Page 86-87.

The American Bill of Rights itself was a compromise between the federalist and anti-federalist created for the express purpose of protecting individual rights.

“In the ratification debate, Anti-Federalists opposed to the Constitution, complained that the new system threatened liberties, and suggested that if the delegates had truly cared about protecting individual rights, they would have included provisions that accomplished that.  With ratification in serious doubt, Federalists announced a willingness to take up the matter of  a series of amendments, to be called the Bill of Rights, soon after ratification and the First Congress  comes into session.  The concession was  undoubtedly  necessary to secure the Constitution’s hard-fought ratification.  Thomas Jefferson, who did not attend the Constitutional Convention, in a December 1787 letter to Madison called the omission of a Bill of Rights a major mistake: “A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth.”

In Madison’s own words:

“I think we should obtain the confidence of our fellow citizens, in proportion as we fortify the rights of the people against the encroachments of the government,” Madison said in his address to Congress in June 1789.

Madison’s first draft of the second Amendment is even more clear.

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.”

Ironically it was changed because the founders feared someone would try to misconstrue a clause to deny the right of the people.

“Mr. Gerry — This declaration of rights, I take it, is intended to secure the people against the maladministration of the Government; if we could suppose that, in all cases, the rights of the people would be attended to, the occasion for guards of this kind would be removed. Now, I am apprehensive that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the Constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous and prevent them from bearing arms.” – House of Representatives, Amendments to the Constitution 17, Aug. 1789

Please note Mr. Gerry clearly refers to this as the right of the people.

This is also why we have the 9th Amendment.

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

Article I Section 8 had already established and addressed the militia and the military making the incorrect collective militia misinterpretation redundant.

Supreme Court cases like US v. Cruikshank, Presser v. Illinois, DC v. Heller, and even the Dredd Scott decision specifically call out the individual right to keep and bear arms, unconnected to militia service.

This is further evidenced by State Constitutions including the Right to keep and bear arms from the Colonial Period to Modern Day.

“The Constitutions of most of our states assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, both fact and law, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person; freedom of religion; freedom of property; and freedom of the press. in the structure of our legislatures we think experience has proved the benefit of subjecting questions to two separate bodies of deliberants; …” – Thomas Jefferson’s letter to John Cartwright, on June 5th, 1824

Cornell is being purposefully mendacious.

 

Cornell’s article was a republished one on Yahoo.
Of interest is the last informational paragraph which notes:

As a researcher at the John Glenn School of Public Policy at Ohio State, Cornell was the lead investigator on a project that was funded by a grant from the Joyce Foundation to research the history of gun regulation. Part of the research cited in this essay was done under that grant.

The Joyce Foundation is well known as a rabid antigun group. Cornell is known for it too. With such open bias, why should anyone expect any other ‘results’?

Anti-Gunners Attempt To Re-Write 2A History

What did the Founding Fathers think about our right to keep and bear arms? According to historian Saul Cornell, founders like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison would be far more likely to side with Everytown for Gun Safety than the National Rifle Association if they were alive today, because in Cornell’s view, the early republic was chock full of restrictions on gun owners.
In a new piece at The Conversation, Cornell lays out five types of gun laws that he says the Founders wholeheartedly embraces, starting with gun registration laws.
Today American gun rights advocates typically oppose any form of registration – even though such schemes are common in every other industrial democracy – and typically argue that registration violates the Second Amendment. This claim is also hard to square with the history of the nation’s founding. All of the colonies – apart from Quaker-dominated Pennsylvania, the one colony in which religious pacifists blocked the creation of a militia – enrolled local citizens, white men between the ages of 16-60 in state-regulated militias. The colonies and then the newly independent states kept track of these privately owned weapons required for militia service. Men could be fined if they reported to a muster without a well-maintained weapon in working condition.
What Cornell is describing isn’t a registration of privately owned firearms, and he provides no evidence whatsoever that the various colonies actually kept track of the rifles and muskets owned by militia members. Cornell is correct when he says that those mustering for militia service could face fines if their firearm wasn’t well maintained, but that has nothing to do with any sort of registration or list of guns in the hands of private citizens.
Next, Cornell claims that the Founders loved the idea of restricting the right to carry. For this argument, Cornell reaches way back to English common law and claims that there was no “general right of armed travel” at the time of the adoption of the Second Amendment. Were there any actual bans on traveling while armed? Cornell doesn’t cite any specific examples, though he is correct when he points out that by the mid-1800s many states had either banned or limited the practice of carrying concealed. What he doesn’t point out is that by attempting the manner of carrying arms, those same lawmakers were tacitly acknowledging a more general right to carry.
The Fordham University historian also argues that the Founders would also have been opposed to “stand your ground” laws, even though the Castle Doctrine had been a part of common law for centuries by that point.
The use of deadly force was justified only in the home, where retreat was not required under the so-called castle doctrine, or the idea that “a man’s home is his castle.” The emergence of a more aggressive view of the right of self-defense in public, standing your ground, emerged slowly in the decades after the Civil War.
I’m honestly not sure where Cornell gets the idea that deadly force was only justifiable in the home. I can think of one very famous case from the 1770s where that wasn’t the case. Most of the British soldiers who opened fire on a crowd of angry Bostonians who were throwing chunks of ice and razor-sharp oyster shells at them on March 5th, 1770 were ultimately found not guilty of murder because a jury found that they were acting in self-defense (two others were convicted of manslaughter).
Cornell goes on to claim that the Founders were on board with storage laws, based solely off of a 1786 ordinance in Boston that required guns had to be kept unloaded. His last assertion is that “the notion that the Second Amendment was understood to protect a right to take up arms against the government is absurd. Indeed, the Constitution itself defines such an act as treason.”
To wage an offensive war against the United States is indeed treason, as defined by Article III of the Constitution. To take up arms in defense of a tyrannical federal government, on the other hand, was most certainly acknowledged as a right of the people by the Founding Fathers. Here’s James Madison writing in Federalist 46.
Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.
Saul Cornell has likely forgotten more history than I’ll ever know, but he’s off-base in asserting that the Founding Fathers embraced the idea of restricting the right to keep and bear arms. There’s simply no evidence to support the idea that the laws pushed by gun control activists today, like bans on commonly-owned firearms or magazines; gun licensing; gun rationing; or bans on carrying firearms would have found favor with the Founders or the early Americans who argued against ratifying the Constitution until a Bill of Rights was included and the pre-existing right of the people to keep and bear arms was protected.

Thousands of Colorado Residents Without Heat After Attack on Gas Service

The FBI has joined a criminal investigation of what police said appears to be an “intentional attack” on gas service lines in Aspen, Colorado, that left thousands of residents and businesses without heat as temperatures in the skiing mecca plunged to near zero degrees.

Work crews are scrambling to restore gas service, and local authorities handed out electric space heaters to residents still without heat Tuesday, as a storm is forecast to bring up to 8 inches of snow in the Rocky Mountains region this week. Temperatures are forecast to fall to 2 degrees in Aspen on Tuesday night, according to the National Weather Service.

Aspen police said the apparently coordinated acts of vandalism occurred Saturday night at three separate Black Hills Energy gas line sites, one in Aspen and two elsewhere in Pitkin County.

At one of the targeted sites, police said they found the words “Earth first” scrawled, and investigators were looking into whether the self-described “radical environmental group” Earth First! was involved.

NURSE WHO TOOK COVID-19 VACCINE TESTS POSITIVE FOR COVID-19

It’s still 2020, and you cannot make this stuff up.  A nurse who has already taken the COVID-19 vaccine has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus over a week after taking the vaccine that is allegedly supposed to prevent this “disease”.

According to a report by NCTV, Matthew W., a nurse at two different local hospitals, said in a Facebook post on December 18 that he had received the Pfizer vaccine. He went on to tell the ABC News affiliate that his arm was sore for a day but that he had suffered no other side-effects. Until now.  Now, the side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine appears to be COVID-19.

Six days later on Christmas Eve, he became sick after working a shift in the COVID-19 unit, the report added. He got the chills and later came down with muscle aches and fatigue.

He went to a drive-up hospital testing site and tested positive for COVID-19 the day after Christmas, the report said.

Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist with Family Health Centers of San Diego, told the ABC News affiliate that this scenario was not unexpected. –NCTV

So did the World Health Organization doctor finally tell the truth?

WHO Chief Scientist: There Is NO EVIDENCE That The Vaccine Will Prevent Infection

If you’ve been paying attention, you know by now that this vaccine has nothing to do with health or prevention of disease, and everything to do with control and manipulation of the mass of humanity.

But the authoritarians say that the nurse just needs a second shot of this DNA altering vaccine and then he’ll be protected from COVID-19.  “We know from the vaccine clinical trials that it’s going to take about 10 to 14 days for you to start to develop protection from the vaccine,” Ramers said. “That first dose we think gives you somewhere around 50%, and you need that second dose to get up to 95%,” Ramers added.

Notice the use of the words “we think”? They don’t know. And they don’t care. They just need everyone to line up for two shots. Anyone who somehow still believes this vaccine was created for a statistically irrelevant virus to protect them from the .05% chance of dying so they can have a much bigger chance when taking this vaccine may be a lost cause at this point.  If you haven’t figured this out yet, you may never do so.

Dawn Wells, Mary Ann on ‘Gilligan’s Island,’ Dies at 82

Dawn Wells, the girl-next-door actress and former beauty queen who played the sweet Mary Ann Summers on the iconic CBS sitcom Gilligan’s Island, died Wednesday morning. She was 82.

Wells died in Los Angeles of causes related to COVID-19, her publicist announced.

Other than Tina Louise, Wells was the last surviving member of the regular cast of the Sherwood Schwartz-created show, which featured three women and four men marooned on a desert island after their three-hour boat tour off the coast of Honolulu went inexplicably awry.

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A Perfect Storm Seeks Destruction of the US.

As 2021 dawns, the war on our culture moves into high gear.

The opportunistic intersection of the resistance to the Trump presidency, the rise of the monopolistic tech giants, the spurious panic over the psychologically weaponized CCP virus in the form of COVID-19 and its concomitant loss of personal freedom, the neo-Marxist hijacking and worsening of race relations, and the legalistic undermining of U.S. laws and institutions have all evolved into a perfect storm of destruction that not only threatens the future of the United States, but actively seeks its destruction.

Call it cancel culture writ large…………

As I’ve long said, on the left there is no idea too stupid or inimical for them to take seriously and act upon—that’s the very essence of so-called Critical Theory—and we ignore these lunatics at our continued peril. For them, too much is never enough, and once they’ve fixed a destructive “principle”—Homer must go!—in their minds, there is no other cultural destination than straight off the cliff and into the wine-red sea for everybody.

Again, no surprise: The ideological bowdlerization of our cultural patrimony has been going on for decades; as a young critic nearly 50 years ago I observed that, once started on their project of revisionism and revenge, the iconoclastic cultural sappers wouldn’t rest until they had exhumed all the deceased objects of their animosity and hanged their corpses. I stand by the prophecy.

I’m often asked: Once they’ve accomplished the destruction of Western civilization in the name of the “marginalized,” with what do they propose to replace it? Ancient Chaldea? Ming Dynasty China? Wakanda? Or the Amazonian wonderland of Wonder Woman?

My answer, like Michael Corleone’s to Senator Geary, is this: nothing. Or, to quote another famous movie line, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

And so, in the name of “health,” they mask and muzzle us, restrict our freedom of movement and faith in the open defiance of the Constitution, vilify our culture, proscribe our words and thoughts, erase the canons of our arts and literature, destroy the middle class and their sources of livelihood, and tell us it’s for our own good. Because we’re so incorrigibly bad.

They’re not just trying to cancel Odysseus, or Shakespeare, or even Trump anymore, they’re trying to cancel you. What are you going to do about it?

This is ‘hubris’. The arrogance of excessive self confidence. It’s often seen in the ultra-ultra wealthy because they believe their success is due to their total genius. It’s seen in Bloomberg’s, Gates’, and other gazillionaire’s gun control mania . They think that because they’ve been super successful in one venue that they certainly should be in anything else and they should be a greater voice in how society is ‘managed’. If asked, their standard reply is a variation on the theme; ‘If my idea is so stupid, why am I so rich?’
Well, just because they got rich marketing computer software, or financial dealing doesn’t mean they have answers to all the worlds problems. It merely means the ones who think they do, have had a major character flaw exposed.

Bill Gates Had a Plan to Stop Global Warming—Until Science Got in the Way

For some reason, the corporate media and global foundations believe Bill Gates has the answer for everything. They listen to him talk about epidemiology and vaccines. I am not sure becoming a billionaire by stealing someone else’s operating system and requiring outside help to build it makes you an expert in either of these areas, especially after you’ve put out a product as bad as Windows Vista.

But that is not all. In addition to yammering about COVID-19 and how we need to change the world as a result of a pandemic that was less than the Chinese Communist Party would have us believe, now Gates believes he can block out the sun—to save the world from global warming, of course. Is there nothing he can’t do? According  to Reuters:

Harvard University scientists plan to fly a test balloon above Sweden next year to help advance research into dimming sunlight to cool the Earth, alarming environmentalists opposed to solar geoengineering.

Open-air research into spraying tiny, sun-reflecting particles into the stratosphere, to offset global warming, has been stalled for years by controversies – including that it could discourage needed cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

In a small step, the Swedish Space Corporation agreed this week to help Harvard researchers launch a balloon near the Arctic town of Kiruna next June. It would carry a gondola with 600 kg of scientific equipment 20 km (12 miles) high.

The Harvard Project is called the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPex). To most of us, it sounds like a project that will severely tick off the stratosphere. And opponents of the project fear it will. They fear these projects will lead to attempts to engineer climate with artificial sunshade. The sunshade would essentially consist of blowing a bunch of dust into the stratosphere.

No one knows what this could do to life on earth because it is an insane proposition. We could end up living in a world that looks like the set of Dune. Or causing unknown changes to weather patterns. Dust is a well know respiratory irritant. What if it floats back down to earth?

Or we could freeze our tails off since we are in what is called a solar minimum, projected to last from now until 2053. The last time this happened, in the Middle Ages, we went through what is known as the Little Ice Age. But the geniuses in the climate cabal want to assure you that means nothing; we will still see global warming. Never mind that science can’t accurately predict the weather, and none of them were around in the Middle Ages. They just know, so shut up.

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Attempted home invasion robbery leaves 2 fatally shot, 2 others wounded in Riverside County community

Gunfire exchanged between residents and people who broke into their home in La Cresta, west of Murrieta, early Saturday morning left two people dead and two others wounded, authorities said Monday, Dec. 28.
Investigators believe a number of suspects — it wasn’t immediately confirmed how many — forced their way into a home on 37000 block of Calle de Lobo and attacked one of its residents, Riverside County Sheriff’s officials said in a news release. Shots were fired during the altercation, and four people were hit.
Deputies were summoned at 4:01 a.m., and found two people dead when they arrived, Sheriff’s officials said. One decedent was a suspect in what the agency called a botched home invasion robbery. Information was not immediately released on the second person who was fatally shot.
A second suspect in the robbery and one other person who was shot were taken to a hospital. Details regarding the severity of their wounds was not immediately available.
Sheriff’s officials believe at least one more suspect fled in a car. A detailed description of any possible outstanding suspect or vehicle was not available Monday afternoon.
Those shot were identified only as males, their ages were not immediately disclosed.
Authorities asked anyone with information regarding the shooting and robbery to contact Sheriff’s Investigator Stites at 951-245-3300, or Investigator Button at 951-955-2777.
The identities of those who died were withheld pending the notification of their relatives.

Woman shot during break-in at Kenmore storage facility

KENMORE, Wash. – A woman was shot early Monday during a break-in at a Kenmore storage facility, sheriff’s officials said.

The incident unfolded at about 12:45 a.m. as deputies and medics responded to a report of a shooting at People’s Storage in the 6900 block of NE 181st Street in Kenmore, said Tim Meyer of the King County Sheriff’s Office.

A woman was found at the scene with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound. She was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for treatment.

A preliminary found that the resident caretaker at the facility interrupted the woman as she was attempting to break in and steal items.

At some point, the woman pulled out a gun. The caretaker, who was also armed, responded by firing a single shot and striking the woman in the shoulder, Meyer said.

The woman will be booked into the King County Jail once she is released from the hospital.

 

House fire overnight after shooting near scene of deadly Sunday night home invasion in Port Arthur

PORT ARTHUR, Texas — Port Arthur Police are investigating a house fire that happened around midnight on Tuesday at the same home where three people broke in and held a family at gunpoint Sunday night.

An eyewitness tells 12News a neighbor saw smoke and flames coming from the home and dialed 911. Nobody was home when the fire started. Right now, the cause is unknown.

Less than 24 hours after the scary home invasion in Port Arthur, police were back near the scene Monday evening.

According to investigators, shots were fired Monday in the 2500 block of 18th Street. On Sunday night, investigators said a 29-year-old man shot and killed one of three people holding his family at gunpoint in their own home. Continue reading “”

Store clerk shoots man attempting to rob convenience store

TUNICA,Miss. — Unexpected shots were fired when a young man attempted to rob a Mississippi convenience store, Tunica County Sheriff’s Office reported.

According to police, at exactly 6:42 p.m. on December 23rd, they received a call about an armed robbery at a local store.

The suspect walked into the store with a handgun and demanded money from the store clerk, police said.

During the robbery, the store clerk shot the suspect who then fled out of the store, per reports.

Forensics used the evidence and determined that 22-year-old Joshua Johnson of Horn Lake, MS is the person responsible for the crime.

The evidence also led them to a home where they learned that someone dropped him off at a nearby hospital for treatment.

Officials said there will be criminal charges against Johnson as this investigation is ongoing.

Homeowner shoots burglary suspect 3 times in north Houston

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A burglary suspect was shot three times in the leg by a homeowner early Sunday in north Houston, according to police.

It happened at a home in the 6500 block of Jensen around 3 a.m.

Police said the homeowner went outside with a gun to investigate the noises he said he heard coming from his backyard.

That’s when he found a man breaking into his shed.

Officers placed tourniquets on the burglary suspect, and he was taken to the hospital. Police said he is expected to survive.

“I’m not exactly sure what he was thinking, but he was inside the shed taking some items from the owner when the owner came outside,” a police officer said.

Woman Shoots Suspect Who Forced Way Into Home And Assaulted Her On Christmas

STOCKTON (CBS13) – A man involved in a dispute with his neighbor was shot after allegedly pushing his way into the woman’s apartment and assaulting her and her family on Christmas Day, the Stockton Police Department said on Saturday.

The neighbor, a 29-year-old woman, was confronted by the suspect and engaged in an argument, police said. This happened just before 2:45 p.m. on Friday in the 1700 block of Quail Lakes Drive.

Stockton police said the suspect, a 32-year-old man, forced his way into the woman’s home and began the assault, which prompted the woman to shoot the suspect. His identity has not yet been released.

The suspect was taken to the hospital to be treated for what police described as a non-life-threatening gunshot wound.

Stockton police said the case was handed over to the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office. No further information was released.

Another one of these ‘not on the radar’, ‘very personable’, ‘quite out of character’, ‘no known motive’.

NASHVILLE EXPLOSION: Anthony Warner died in explosion, was ‘bomber,’ authorities say.

Anthony Q. Warner, 63, has been identified as the “bomber” in the Christmas day explosion in Nashville by U.S. Attorney Don Cochran.

Cochran announced the update to the investigation in a Sunday afternoon news conference.

“Anthony Warner is the bomber. He was present when the bomb went off, and he perished in the bombing,” Cochran said.

DNA found at the scene was matched to samples taken at another location searched by investigators, TBI Director David Rausch said Sunday. The TBI was involved in testing the evidence.

Because they had identified a suspect, investigators said they were able to match samples to a potential family member quickly.

At this time, officials said there is no indication that anyone outside of Warner was involved in the explosion. Authorities reviewed hours of surveillance footage and they say they only saw Warner.

A motive in the bombing has not been released and is still under investigation according to FBI Special Agent for Public Affairs Doug Korneski.

The types of explosives used in the bombing were still under investigation, authorities said. The FBI said Warner wasn’t on the radar of authorities before Friday’s explosion and declined to deem the explosion an act of terrorism.

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The good news about guns in America

Once upon a time, as a Democrat who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was such an anti-gun fanatic that I donated to the Brady Campaign. Thankfully, I saw the light after Hurricane Katrina (when seconds counted, the police were days away), and have made up for my past bad judgment by being an NRA member, using my writing abilities to promote the Second Amendment, and helping the bottom line at several local gun stores. That’s why it gladdens my heart to tell you one of the good things about 2020: It was a banner year for gun sales!

When it comes to guns, the anti-gun crowd lacks imagination. To them, guns exist for one purpose: To murder people or, occasionally, to kill people accidentally. If you take away guns, they “reason,” you will take away murder and accidental deaths.

People with a deeper and more nuanced understanding support the Second Amendment because they understand that guns don’t commit murders or cause accidents. They are tools and lack agency. People who want to murder someone will commit murder with or without guns. And people who are careless can always kill someone else with everyday objects (e.g., cars, wine bottles, etc.).

While guns lack agency, they confer empowering agency on the people who hold them. Having a gun allows people to oppose oppressive government, as happened during the American Revolution. Guns give women the ability to fight back against predators bigger and stronger than they are. Guns allow people to defend themselves and their property when the civil government collapses, as happened after Hurricane Katrina. Guns allow ordinary people to make crime too costly for criminals. Guns allow good people to take down the bad guys quickly in what can otherwise become a mass shooting situation. Guns give those far from grocery stores the ability to feed themselves. And as sports enthusiasts know, guns are fun when used safely and appropriately.

Guns work in a society that has more good people than bad. And despite the “if it bleeds it leads” approach that has characterized the American media for more than 100 years, and that has escalated appallingly in the last 20 years, most Americans are good people. They are infinitely more likely to defend each other than to kill each other.

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Man with concealed carry permit shoots and kills robbery suspect inside Chicago cell phone store

CHICAGO – A man was shot and killed while trying to rob a cell phone store in Chicago on Saturday, police said.

The would-be robber entered the cell phone shop on the 3400 hundred block of West Chicago Avenue in Humboldt Park around 7 p.m.

A man on the scene shot the robbery suspect in the chest and abdomen, police said. It is not clear if the man was the owner, employee, or another customer.

Police said the shooter, 29, had a valid concealed carry permit.

The robbery suspect was transported in critical condition to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police confiscated the robbery suspect’s gun and the gun belonging to the concealed carry permit holder.

Driver shoots man during attempted Denver carjacking; witness shares account

DENVER — A man allegedly involved in two Denver carjackings was shot by one driver he was trying to rob, according to the Denver Police Department.

It started around 6:30 a.m. Thursday with a carjacking at Speer Boulevard and Colfax Avenue. The man who was involved in the carjacking then tried to carjack another driver in the area of Buchtel Boulevard and Downing Street, according to police. The driver at the second location shot and wounded him.

The injured man took off in the original car taken from Speer Boulevard and Colfax Avenue, police said. Officers found him around 8 a.m. in the 2100 block of S. Ash Street in Denver.

Alex Valdes witnessed the initial carjacking at the intersection of Speer and Colfax. He said he chose to call 911 after seeing other bystanders drive away,

“I just witnessed a carjacking [and] I see nobody reacting. It takes no energy to call 911.”

The man who was shot was taken to the hospital. The investigation is ongoing.

String of armed robberies ends with suspect shot at corner store in Rochester

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A string of armed convenience store robberies that started in Victor ended on Thurston Road in Rochester Wednesday night, when an employee of Angelo’s Grocery Store shot the suspect.

That’s according to Rochester police, who say the suspect — a 25-year-old Rochester man — is in custody.

Investigators say the suspect began by robbing a Kwik Fill in Victor and then robbed a FastTrac on West Ridge Road and a Family Dollar on Dewey Avenue. They say the suspect was shot while attempting to rob Angelo’s Grocery. The timeline is as follows:

3:38 p.m.: robbery at Kwik Fill in Victor (a suspect and vehicle description was broadcast to RPD)
6:49 p.m.: robbery at the FastTrac at 375 W Ridge Road
7:07 p.m.: robbery at the Family Dollar at 706 Dewey Avenue
7:26 p.m.: attempted robbery at Angelo’s Grocery and Deli at 579 Thurston Road
While attempting to the last of the robberies, RPD officials said the store owner produced a legally owned hand gun and fired at the suspect, striking him. The store owner stayed on scene until police arrived.

“The first sergeant on the scene was by herself but did a great job taking the male suspect who had been shot into custody, as well as detaining the two clerks from the store,” said RPD Captain Naser Zenelovic. “She recovered two handguns, one from each person. You can imagine how stressful that was.”

Rochester police say the suspect is being treated at Strong Memorial Hospital and is expected to recover. The investigation is ongoing.

Gas station worker kills armed robber

New Orleans Police say an armed robber is dead after holding up a New Orleans gas station.

“The NOPD has determined this incident to be a justifiable homicide,” Public Information Officer Juan Barnes said. “A store employee produced a gun and exchanged fire with the armed subject. The armed subject was struck and later died on scene, as a result of injuries sustained in the shooting.”

He says the suspect had walked behind the checkout counter and threatened the employees and then fired his gun.

“Through investigation, NOPD Homicide Unit detectives determined that while inside of a business at the location, the decedent had grabbed a drink out of the wall cooler. He then walked towards the front of the checkout counter, subsequently he goes behind the counter. At this time, the decedent pointed a gun towards the direction of the employees, threaten to harm them and then fired a round in their direction.”

15-year-old suspect shot in attempted carjacking, search continues for second suspect

UPDATE — Pensacola Police has provided the following statement in regards to the attempted carjacking Wednesday morning.

We do not anticipate any charges against the victim in this incident as it is a Stand Your Ground type case. The suspect who was shot is in critical condition, and he is 15 years old. The victim is 80 years old. We are still looking for the second suspect.

PENSACOLA POLICE DEPARTMENT
PENSACOLA, Fla. (WKRG) — Officers with the Pensacola Police Department are searching for a suspect following an attempted carjacking on West Brainerd Street.

Investigators say the homeowner was in his driveway around 11pm, locking his cars for the night when two men approached him and tried to steal his car. One of the suspects pulled out a gun. The victim then pulled out his own gun and shot at the suspects.

Both men ran away. One of the victims turned up at a house on N Street with a gunshot wound. His injuries are non-life-threatening. The homeowner was not injured and it appears that the suspects never fired their guns.

And with that increase in sales, also goes an increase in ammo sales.

Americans Bought Approximately 21 Million Guns in 2020, Sales up 73%

At this point in December it is already apparent Americans bought approximately 21 million guns this year, an increase of 73 percent over the number purchased in 2019.

ABC News quotes figures from The Trace to report the estimated 21 million guns sold and claims the buying surge is the result of a “perfect storm” consisting of “the pandemic, economic recession, civil unrest and a divisive presidential election.”

They spoke to a mother of three named Trish Beaudet, who explained she has never owned a gun before but is now buying one for herself and one for her 25-year-old daughter.

Beaudet said, “I’ve never owned a gun. I’ve never wanted a gun. I’ve never had a gun in my home.”

She then pointed to the chaos in the streets and on the news, lamenting:

It really bothers me when I watched things on the news, when you talk about the riots, and the looting, and the violence that’s happening. Pulling a gun is the last thing I ever want to do, but I want to know that if I need to protect myself, my family, my, you know, my children, that I can do that.

Continue reading “”

There is a reason I refer to them as demoncraps

Why Working With Democrats On Guns Is Impossible

Right now, political division is extremely high. I don’t want to say it’s at an all-time high because, well, there was that little tiff back in the 1860s that suggests it might have been a tad worse back then. I mean, 620,000 American lives lost is a bit worse than the rioting we’ve seen in the last few years.

Yet, anyone with eyes can see that it’s still pretty bad.

Many are issuing calls for unity, for us coming together and working with one another. Of course, this comes after four years of #resistance and all that, but whatever.

The problem is, when you don’t really understand why some divisions exist, it’s easy to make light of the issues. Take this one, for example.

If your dog won’t stop chewing on the furniture and you work with it to chew its toys are you suddenly on the level of your dog for still allowing the chewing?? Of course not! This is literally how simple and idiotic the arguments that happen on Capitol Hill are. Let’s take gun rights for example:

Democrats don’t want to see people get killed. Republicans don’t want people’s rights infringed on. So suddenly, any Republican who supports any kind of gun legislation wants to take everyone’s guns and any Democrat who wants to compromise is a murder-permitting disgrace.

This also works the other way though too. This means that Democrats now must signal that they are okay with taking guns and that Republicans must signal that they don’t support gun laws. Which, of course, further contributes to the polarization because now each side has a reason to fear that extreme because it’s real now.

Not only that but, if anyone on our side is working with the other side, they must have switched viewpoints because there’s only two and they’re so different. Get the picture?

Sure, if you look at it through a microscope, it appears that way.

When you understand the subject in totality, though, not so much.

See, when we say that anti-gunners want to take away our gun rights, it’s not based on fearmongering or a misunderstanding of their position, but a firm understanding of history. Continue reading “”