The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.
– Joseph Story, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice

Cynical Publius

Looking for black people in this video. Not finding them.

See, in DC the worst crime is in predominantly black neighborhoods. 41% of the DC population is black.

So where are all the black people in this “protest”?

I’ll tell you why there are so few: DC’s black population is the primary beneficiary of Trump’s incredibly effective crackdown on DC crime.

These “protesters” are all white Democrat self-appointed “elites” who live in crime-free Northwest DC (or the DC suburbs) in their $2mm+ homes.

White Democrats feel a congenital need to virtue signal, even if it means killing black people. Then they go home in their lululemon yoga pants, Allbirds loafers and Subaru Forester, where they open a $200 bottle of wine and celebrate themselves over all the “good” they did today.

Sickening.

You may not like guns, and choose not to own one. That is your right.
You might not believe in God. That is your choice.
However, if someone breaks into your home the first 2 things you’re going to do are:
1) Call someone with a gun.
2) Pray they get there in time.
– Unknown

Wonder how that affects being able to enlist at 17?

DC Appeals Court: Adults Under 21 Are Covered by Second Amendment, But Can’t Have Guns

Do adults under the age of 21 have the right to keep and bear arms?

Since they’re adults, they should. After all, it’s one thing to say children can’t buy firearms, but people who are responsible for themselves in pretty much every other aspect of their lives are a different matter.

Yet many places restrict those under 21 from actually enjoying the full benefits of their Second Amendment rights.

In the District of Columbia, which is a microcosm of how little gun control actually does to stop crime, they have a total gun ban for those under 21. That ban has been challenged and was recently ruled constitutional. The local DC appeals court–not the federal appeals court in DC, just for clarification–just upheld the ruling with an…interesting argument.

So, by operating under the assumption that adults under 21 are, in fact, part of “the people” covered by the Second Amendment, they still find a gun ban constitutional?

How does that make sense?

As the FPC put it later:

Right?

The sad part is that I see the so-called logic being employed. If the right to own guns implies the right to purchase them, which many of us have argued more than once, as have the courts, then the inverse would seem to be true. If you don’t have a right to buy them, as was ruled previously, then the implication is that you don’t have a right to own them.

Hence, the DC restrictions being upheld.

But NRA v Bondi, which is the case cited, was an 11th Circuit decision, not a Supreme Court decision, so I’m not sure about the wisdom of basing everything on that, especially as the DC Circuit Court of Appeals covers the DC area. Of course, it’s not like that court would rule differently.

Personally, I think the 11th Circuit blew it.

While there is a legitimate case for the constitutionality of age limits, the argument that people who are old enough to enlist, sign contracts, and vote in our nation’s elections is bizarre to me. Especially as some want to lower the voting age still further, all while saying younger people are too reckless and irresponsible to exercise a fundamental, constitutionally protected right.

And then to extrapolate it out to justifying a ban on even the possession of firearms by people in that age group is absolutely horrifying to me. Especially as the age limits are often defended as saying these folks still have their Second Amendment rights, they just can’t buy a gun. This, however, makes it very clear where that argument can and will lead.

Here’s hoping someone steps in and lowers a much-needed smackdown on this absolute BS.

Tennessee of all places…

Skrmetti appealing gun law decision

(The Center Square) – Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is appealing a ruling by a Gibson County Chancery Court that said two Tennessee gun laws were unconstitutional.
The laws prohibited carrying firearms in state parks and carrying a gun or club with the “intent to go armed” and use it for violence or aggression.

Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation and three Tennessee residents sued the state, saying the laws violated their right to bear arms.
Skrmetti said his office was asking the chancery court for a stay pending appeal because the court’s ruling was broad and went too far.

“It entirely invalidates two gun laws, even though those laws are constitutional in some situations,” Skrmetti said. “For example, it’s obviously constitutional to prohibit a 10-year-old from bringing a semiautomatic rifle to a rec league basketball game or a drunk with a shotgun from staggering down Broadway or through Market Square or across Shelby Farms. But the Court’s ruling appears to legalize this in Tennessee.”

The ruling by the Chancery Court is causing confusion, Skrmetti said in the appeal.

“Plaintiffs’ counsel has already advised the public that ‘the entire law enforcement network in Tennessee [is] on notice’ and ‘attempts to enforce these two statutes’ by any official ‘should give rise to claims of federal civil rights violations,’” Skrmetti said. “Law enforcement is rightly loath to choose between tempting ruinous civil rights lawsuits and carrying out their duty to protect the public. And there is no doubt: because of its refusal to adhere to its own judicial limits, this Court’s order would leave large gaps in the General Assembly’s efforts to protect the public.”

Rep. Chris Todd, R-Madison County, said he wanted Skrmetti to appeal the decision but not because Todd opposes it. He called the opinion “one of the most thorough, well-reasoned, and well-written decisions we’ve seen.”

Sen. London Lamar, chairwoman of the Tennessee Senate Democratic Caucus, said she supports the decision to appeal the decision.

“These long-standing gun safety laws are constitutional and they exist for a reason: to give law enforcement the tools they need to protect the public,” Lamar said. “If the lower court’s ruling is allowed to stand, it will tie the hands of police officers — even when they encounter someone with a loaded assault rifle parked outside a children’s park. Officers wouldn’t even be allowed to question that person’s intent until it’s too late. That’s not freedom. That’s a recipe for tragedy.”

I think it’s quite possible she got her set of talking points mixed up.

There’s no such thing as a good gun. There’s no such thing as a bad gun. A gun in the hands of a bad man is a very dangerous thing. A gun in the hands of a good person is no danger to anyone except the bad guys.
– Charlton Heston

September 5, 1925

Well, this would have been Dad’s 101st birthday. He only missed it by 5 weeks and 4 days.
Of course, we’re saddened by his passing, but how can anyone really be grieved as he made a record, not likely to be equaled much less surpassed, by being the first of both sides of his family, checked going back to the late 17th century, to make it to 100 years old and well over that?

*cough* Declaration of Independence *cough*

Image

This moron is the type of domestic enemy we swear oaths to defend the nation against. And he’s a Senator.
Since he doesn’t agree with the quotation, even though he may reside in the U.S. and even have been born here, he is not an American since these are some of the fundamental first principles the nation was founded on.

Well, he’s got several things wrong from the start. (pretty much standard for those with a Harvard education)  The most egregious about the 2nd amendment. It ‘allows’, or ‘gives’  nothing. The people already had RKBA before the U.S. was the U.S. The whole of the Bill of Rights are restrictions on government powers as written by the very authors in its own preamble

Democrats need to drop calling for gun bans and ask these two questions

Another day, another mass shooting — and yet another instance of our politicians failing to keep us safe from gun violence. We see pictures of mothers running barefoot to schools trying to get to their kids. We are told to give “thoughts and prayers” for children who were shot while literally praying. We are told there needs to be bans on guns in a country where there are more privately-owned guns than there are people.

As a liberal, I have lost complete faith that even the most caring Republican will do anything of value to stop gun violence in this country. The Republican (read gun lobby) position is that the more guns that are on the streets, the less safe it is, then we can bilk taxpayers for police budgets while getting people to buy more guns because it’s less safe.

We can see that in the “solution” that President Trump has for crime. But Trump’s use of the National Guard and federal agents walking around major cities won’t do anything to take guns off the street. That would not be profitable for the gun lobby.

But also, as a liberal, I have watched Democrats do the same song and dance over “common sense” gun laws that seem to lack common sense and are about as likely as Kanye West and Taylor Swift recording a duet together. As a gun owner myself, I often scoff or shake my head in confusion over the fact that Democrats could easily get the upper hand on the gun control debate by dropping the insistence on gun bans. They should instead be solely focused on gun trafficking and restrictions based on criminal convictions and mental health issues.

When you go out to the general public and say you want to ban guns you are destined to not get any traction.

Let’s put the whole Second Amendment aside for a moment. Owning a gun is a different experience in different parts of this massive country. I have lived in two Republican counties. When I lived in Waco, Texas you definitely needed a gun, especially when you went out into the boondocks. The police were far away and you could deal with anything from a criminal to a wild animal, so a gun would come in handy.

I now live in Orange County, Calif., where I feel no need to have a gun when I leave the house. There just isn’t a need (for me anyways).

When you scream about gun bans, that message will not resonate at all in either place. I may feel safe in California, but others don’t live in the nice community that I do. And going out into rural areas outside of Waco, you would be dumb not to have protection. Although people in both Texas and California want mass shootings to stop, we know that screaming for gun bans is a non-starter all over the country. And yet, Democrats will continue to scream for them.

It is time for a different approach. Democrats need to ask just two questions in order to get the legislation needed to bring down gun deaths.

First, does the Second Amendment give you the right to sell guns to a criminal?

Second, should a person diagnosed with schizophrenia be allowed to purchase a gun?

The Second Amendment clearly allows citizens the right to bear arms. Every single gun ban proposal runs face-first into that pesky part of the Bill of Rights, which is why many proposals to ban firearms fail.

Democrats need to get rid of this pie-in-the-sky notion that one day the Second Amendment will be repealed, or that Americans will wake up and turn in hundreds of millions of firearms. Instead of challenging gun ownership, they should challenge specific types of sales.

This is not a revelation. There have been calls to end gun show loopholes and private sales for a while. However, thanks to Trump’s insistence that federal law enforcement and National Guard get involved in local law enforcement, there is now an opportunity for Democrats as well. The NRA’s most hated federal entity is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Democratic governors should all invite ATF agents to come to their cities and insist that they go after gun traffickers, giving them a lot of latitude to do so.

The argument is sound. You have the right to bear arms, but you don’t have the right to sell arms to a felon, a drug dealer, a cartel member, a gang member, a terrorist, a foreign entity or other any other nefarious individual. Take that on the campaign trail and see Republicans try to explain that they are against that logic.

The best Republicans have come up with is “there is nothing you can do,” which is about as lazy as one can get. Especially since most firearms used in homicides are illegal or started off as legal and are somehow trafficked into criminals’ hands.

The second question is also politically incorrect but should be asked anyway. We know that the vast majority of gun deaths are suicides and that some mass shooters exhibit signs of mental illness. Again, the idea of red flag laws have been floated before, but the fear is that it is a gun ban as opposed to a question of safety. So, Democrats need to stop worrying about offending and be specific about whom they want to ban gun sales to.

“Should someone who is schizophrenic be able to buy a gun?” carries a lot more weight than: “We need red flag laws.” Identifying mental illnesses associated with suicides and mass shootings will force Republicans to answer why they want someone with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder from owning a gun. Is this politically correct for Democrats? No. But politicians who are committed to reducing gun violence should not worry about offending people.

The Democrats have a huge opportunity to save lives, while not infringing on people’s right to bear arms. They need to stop focusing on gun bans and instead get aggressive on trafficking and mental illness restrictions. They should force Republicans to answer the following two questions: Why are you okay with gun trafficking? And why are you okay with mentally ill people buying guns?

Sticking with those two questions might finally break the political deadlock and this ridiculous cycle of shooting, thoughts and prayers, speeches, no action, and then dealing with another shooting.