For the Semper Paratus Crowd

Gun rights people often talk about being prepared.  When questioned about their decision to own and carry guns, they love to fall back on the seemingly wise mantra, it's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it.  But why don't they wear ballistic underwear  Or, tourniquet pants?



Well, they certainly would if they truly wanted to be prepared for that extremely rare possibility of finding themselves in a gunfight.  But that's not it at all. The reason they don't generally go in for these things is because, unlike guns, they don't pack the same punch where the ego is concerned.  Guns feed into the fantasy of actively carrying out violence against a perceived threat. Guns make weak men feel powerful. Firing a gun in practice provides an exhilirating rush that's just lacking in the more passive and less glamorous defensive accoutrements. Possessing a gun, and especially carrying one, provides a subconscious stimulation knowing that at any moment you could be just like Tom Cruise in "Collateral" or Liam Neesen in "Taken."

Dr. Ben Carson - More Humor on the Second Amendment

Dr. Ben Carson

Ammoland

On April 10 2015, I had the opportunity to talk with GOP Presidential hopeful Dr. Ben Carson about guns and gun rights, and he told us that the Second Amendment keeps the government from dominating the people.

Carson talked about the importance of the Second Amendment:

The Second Amendment is incredibly important for a couple of reasons. Number one, our Founders felt that our nation, if ever invaded by outside forces, would be much stronger if the people could help repel those forces. Number two, and perhaps even more importantly, is if the government–our own government–ever became tyrannical, and wanted to dominate the people, the Second Amendment guarantees the people the means whereby to defend themselves.

Texas May Ban Doctors From Discussing Guns With Their Patients

Think Progress

Under a proposed bill currently being considered in Texas, doctors wouldn’t be allowed to ask their patients whether there are any firearms in their homes — and could be subject to punishment from the Texas Medical Board if they do initiate any conversations about gun safety in the office.

The lawmaker who’s sponsoring the measure, Rep. Stuart Spitzer (R), is backed by the National Rifle Association and the Texas State Rifle Association. He believes that the federal government is inappropriately reaching into doctors’ offices to figure out who owns guns.

“Pediatricians are asking children away from their parents, ‘Do you have guns in your house?’ and then reporting this on the electronic health records, and then the federal government, frankly, has access to who has guns and who doesn’t,” Spitzer told the Texas Tribune in a recent interview. He added that asking about gun ownership is “not appropriate” in this setting.

But health professionals have long maintained that, as guns threaten to surpass car accidents as the leading cause of deaths among young Americans, it’s important to be able to broach this subject with their patients. About 10,000 kids are killed or injured by guns each year, many in tragic accidents that could have been prevented with more careful storage. Pediatricians want to have the opportunity to talk about how to safely store legal firearms to ensure they’re out of the reach of young children — especially if there are any signs of mental health issues in the home.

The Truth About Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity

Art on Issues

If facts really mattered, consider the following:

• This month in your state, just a week apart, two CCW permit holders perpetrated two separate mass shootings (Chapel Hill and Wilmington) that claimed six lives, 3 in each incident.  The Chapel Hill slaying of three Muslim students, each sustaining a gunshot wound to the head, garnered international attention.   And the Wilmington shooting claimed three lives in a murder-suicide that included the death of a pregnant woman’s fetus (she was shot both in the head and the abdomen while in the presence of her children).  There was no waiting period required for the Wilmington shooter to purchase a gun as he had a CCW permit; the weapon he used was purchased within an hour of the incident.

• Although public access to CCW permit holder identification has been blocked in many states through the legislative efforts of the gun lobby (including North Carolina), in recent years 544 incidents of non-self defense shootings by CCW permit holders (permit identified by news media) have been reported in 36 states and the District of Columbia that claimed 722 lives; included are 17 law enforcement officers and 28 mass shooting incidents resulting in the deaths of 136 victims.  As this is only what can be culled from media reports, the figures are held to be a considerable underestimate.  Does Congress really hold that hundreds of news media reports across the nation have this all wrong?  This should bear attention.

• Although there is much rhetoric about the right of ‘law-abiding citizens’ to defend themselves, examination of FBI data shows that guns are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes in the United States.   Over the past several years criminal gun homicides outnumbered justifiable gun homicides some forty-fold in our country without any reproducible evidence of an offsetting public benefit.  Another recent FBI report, using a tight set of definitions, tracked a steadily increasing number of mass shootings between 2000 – 2013, 160 in total that caused 1,043 casualties (486 killed, 557 wounded) – in only one instance did a private citizen with a firearms permit participate in the resolution, whereas many have been reported to be perpetrators of such crimes.

• Despite the word ‘Constitutional’ in the title of this legislation, it has not been held that the Second Amendment confers a right to carry a concealed weapon (reference Justice Scalia’s writing for the majority in Heller as well as Peterson v. Garcia where the US Court of Appeals for the 10^th Circuit unanimously held that the Second Amendment does not provide a right to carry concealed weapons in public).

The NRA's Voice in the Gun Debate

Protest Easy Guns

American politics has always had pockets of extremists, from the antebellum Anti-Mason Party and Know-Nothings to the Weather Underground and John Birch Society during the Cold War. In a democracy like ours, everyone has free speech rights – but not all opinions are equal or deserve equal footing.

You wouldn’t invite anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists to the table to talk health care. You wouldn’t invite the Westboro Baptist Church to the table to talk gay rights. You wouldn’t invite a white supremacist hate group to the table to talk affirmative action. And you shouldn’t invite the NRA to the table to talk guns.

Too often we see the NRA being reached for comment in news stories on gun violence when they don’t have to be. It is insulting to professionals and especially gun violence survivors to give the NRA an equal voice in news coverage, since the gun lobby smears the former and shares responsibility for the latter. The NRA are not physicians, criminologists, law enforcement or counselors; they are the gun-rights wing of the Republican Party and lobbyist wing of the weapons industry.

This is particularly disappointing when the consensus is so heavily against the NRA’s view, such as with weapons on campuses. If all the stakeholders involved – administrators, faculty, police, mental health experts, criminologists, students – overwhelmingly oppose the idea, then why voluntarily ask non-stakeholders with no expertise in higher-ed administration what they think?

Iowa Class Teaches How To Openly Carry A Baby While Carrying A Gun

Freak Out Nation

An Iowa woman is leading a baby-wearing, gun carrying workshop, because there’s nothing cuter than Second Amendment babies and we all know that guns and toddlers are a great combination.

“If you’re a mother, and if you’re an armed mother, they have to. You have no choice,” said Melody Lauer/mother-gun instructor, as if she really feels there is no other choice.

“I was actually working at both a gun store and a parenting center at the same time,” Lauer said.
She’s not trying to convince parents that they should carry a gun. Simply encouraging them to do it safely, if they choose to.

“We have seen a huge insurgence in young mothers – mothers of young children, wanting to get into firearms. And what’s happening is we don’t have instructors that are addressing their needs. So they just do it. They don’t do it right and then they end up having an accident,” Lauer said.

Who are these ‘insurgent’ mothers who are rising up against the government? She may not know the definition of actual words, but you can put the safety of your children in her crazy hands.

“If you have baby on one side, it’s best to have gun on the other side,” Lauer said as if no one knew about this concept before.

Florida Backyard Gun Range Comes Down

Guns dot com suggested by George Jefferson






Now, with the city promising to prosecute him if he uses it, and a series of increasingly violent threats, the would-be target shooter has dismantled his range.

“I’ve gotten death threats out of this. People threatening to ‘SWAT’ my house, blowing it up with a bazooka,” Carannante told the Tampa Bay Times. “It’s been kind of scary. Sleeping with one eye open.”

It sounds to me like the only real threat was that of the city "promising to prosecute him if he uses it." He certainly doesn't sound like any gun rights advocate that we're familiar with, caving in over a few threats by the neighbors. And, interestingly, the ABC video report made no mention of the supposed threats by irate neighbors.

Washington Gun Rights Activists Rally at Capitol in Olympia

Gun owners, including Garrett Bosworth, 16, center, of Yakima, Wash., pose for a selfie photo as they display their weapons in the upper gallery of the House chambers, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015, at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash. The House was not in session when this photo was taken, and members of the group went to the gallery following a protest outside the Legislative building in opposition to Washington state's Initiative 594, which requires - with only a few exceptions - background checks on all gun sales and transfers. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Local news reports

More than 200 gun rights activists, most of them carrying firearms, rallied on the steps of Washington’s Capitol on Thursday morning to protest the expansive background-check law state voters passed in November.

State legislators and other opponents of Initiative 594’s requirement of background checks on all gun sales and transfers voiced their belief that the new law unfairly infringes on their constitutional rights, and a handful of the protesters carried long guns into the public viewing gallery of the state House of Representatives just as the morning’s brief floor session ended.

A series of speakers urged the crowd outside the Capitol to work to build support to repeal Initiative 594, both by contacting their legislators and by lobbying their friends and relatives. Several I-594 opponents carried signs with messages including “Prosecute criminals not harass us” and “I will not comply” during the chilly morning rally.

“We’re not the bad guys, and they’re trying to make us the bad guys, but we let this happen,” said Adina Hicks, executive director of Protect Our Gun Rights Washington, one of several groups that organized the rally.

“Gun owners tend to be a live and let live kind of people,” Hicks said. “Can’t do that anymore.”

“This is a culture war, folks,” said Rep. Brian Blake, D-Aberdeen. “They don’t like what we do, and they want to control what we do.”

State Rep. Matt Shea, R-Spokane Valley, joined the rifle-brandishing protesters inside the Capitol and posed for pictures alongside them outside the House chamber. He declined an offer to accept a gun being handed to him without a background check. While outside, he enthusiastically told the crowd about several gun-rights bills he supports.

“Tyranny is not an option,” Shea said in a rising voice. “The right to bear arms is unalienable. It can’t be taken away by a majority vote. It can’t be taken away by the Legislature. It can’t be taken away by the Supreme Court. God gave us that.”

Hahahaha, tyranny.  Requiring a background check on private sales is tyranny. Hahahaha

Retired Cop Tries to Get His Guns Back

Fox News

A decorated retired New York cop who served in the U.S. Navy, Donald Montgomery was the owner of four guns -- a Colt .38 handgun, a Derringer .38, a Glock 26 9-mm. and a Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 380.

His troubles started when he visited a Long Island hospital in May complaining of insomnia. He was discharged with a diagnosis of “depression, insomnia” and then returned a short time later for a 48-hour stay. The lawsuit says that during that visit, staff erroneously listed him as an “involuntary admission,” triggering the SAFE Act reporting provision. Those deemed at-risk for owning guns by mental health professionals have to be reported and their names entered into a database.

The lawsuit claims Montgomery should not have been reported because he was not a threat to himself or others. The suit says a hospital psychiatrist told him “You don’t belong here” and “I don’t know why you were referred here.”

The Daily Caller reports that on May 30, a week after his hospital stay, Suffolk County sheriff’s deputies confiscated Montgomery’s guns. His pistol license was then suspended in June and revoked three months later.

Montgomery is demanding in his lawsuit that the state issue written notification to all individuals whose names have been collected in the SAFE Act database.

Last month, the Syracuse Post-Standard found nearly 39,000 names in the database and that 278 of those were gun owners who were in danger of losing their firearms. The list of 278 included 16 in Suffolk, where Montgomery lived.

Big deal. If a mistake was made about the voluntary nature of his hospitalization, the courts should straighten it out. That's if there's nothing more to the story.  The Fox News headline left out the depression part and in their typical mendacious way, mentioned only insomnia. The real question was down to whether it was a voluntary or involuntary commitment.

But what struck me is where were all the tough-talking 2nd Amendment protectors when this guy's guns were taken? I keep hearing how they will never let this happen.  Were there none of them in Suffolk County?

Propaganda and Perverting the 2nd Amendment

News Observer

Among the current jurists who voted six years ago to rewrite the Second Amendment (many of them the same as those who have rewritten the First Amendment to make the mere expenditure of campaign money into “free speech”), there are “originalists” who claim to look back to, and honor, historic meaning. They should be sent back to elementary school reading circles to learn, among other things, the logical connection between what rhetoricians call a prolepsis and its analepsis – as embodied in the two linked clauses of the Second Amendment. The liberties they take with the plain meaning of “the right to keep and bear arms” would be less harmful if they were consistent and confined the supposed original right, as their theory would seem to demand, to flintlocks.

There were no Glock pistols or AK-47s – to say nothing of Bushmaster AR-15s – in 1791.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/12/27/4427868_propaganda-and-perverting-the.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Your Guns are Worthless Against the New Superweapons of the Globalists

D.C. Clothesline

Americans have an estimated 300 million privately owned hand guns and some people present this fact as the reason why no foreign power, or even our government, could ever subjugate the people. I am compelled to disagree with this notion. Once upon a time that may have been true as World War II era Japanese Admiral  Yamamoto refused to invade the United States following his attack upon Pearl Harbor because there would be “an American with a gun behind every blade of grass”. However, if our government everbecame abusive enough that the people felt the need to rebel, there is a new generation ofsuper weapons being developed and deployed as I write these words, which would doom any rebellion that did not have the full support of the military.

The new generation of super weapons has made America vulnerable to enemies, both foreign and domestic. As a result, the window to resist martial law occupation and even an invasion is virtually closed.

Recently, I made the point that Americans were being surveilled in “Police State” America with a new generation of spy devices that were totally unimaginable. Today, America is on the verge of being suppressed by an equally sophisticated generation ofweapons that the general public would only believe would exist in the science fiction dramas of the future. Only these weapons are right here and right now!

Gun Range Santa

America's Deadly Domestic Violence Problem

10 things the gun industry won’t tell you -http://t.co/eFFtSU08As #MomsDemand #Gunsense #GunFail pic.twitter.com/wLJWZTaBSh

— GoodTwitty (@GoodTwitty) September 15, 2014

Missouri Mainly Republican Legislators Vote to Expand Gun Rights

 
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon

Yahoo
 
Missouri lawmakers expanded the potential for teachers to bring guns to schools and for residents to openly carry firearms, in a vote Thursday that capped a two-year effort by the Republican-led Legislature to expand gun rights over the objection of the Democratic governor.

The new law will allow specially trained school employees to carry concealed guns on campuses. It also allows anyone with a concealed weapons permit to carry guns openly, even in cities or towns with bans against the open carrying of firearms. The age to obtain a concealed weapons permit also will drop from 21 to 19.

A more far-reaching measure that sought to nullify federal gun control laws had died in the final hours of the legislative session in May. Gov. Jay Nixon had vetoed a similar bill last year that could have subjected federal officers to state criminal charges and lawsuits for attempting to enforce federal gun control laws.

The new regulations, which this time garnered the two-thirds majority needed to override Nixon's veto, take effect in about a month.

Mental Illness and Gun Control

 CDN

The National Institutes of Health estimates that over ¼ of persons 18 years and older in the US suffer from some type of mental health disorder. The World Health Organization indicates that this is the highest percentage in the world. Even though the statistics may be somewhat biased because mental health issues are likely reported more frequently in the United States than elsewhere, it is still an alarming number.

The issue becomes even more concerning when you combine the mental health problem with the wide availability of fire arms. There are currently about 270 million firearms in the United States, and they are relatively easy to acquire.

The NRA and the irrational cult of fire arms in our country has contributed to not allowing background checks to be implemented for people wanting to purchase fire arms.

The Old Car Comparison Just Isn't Working Like it Used To

Washington State voters look at this! We need a #YesOn594 in November. #ChecksSaveLives #MomsDemand #Everytown pic.twitter.com/mVEXab4nYP

— Cornelia (@PaladinCornelia) July 17, 2014

An observation from a facebook friend

A facebook friend observes:

I have noticed one very big difference between guns rights supporters and gun violence prevention supporters.

Gun violence prevention supporters post pictures of their dead or injured children, spouses, parents, friends...guns rights supporters post pictures of their guns.

Interesting point.

Georgia Sovereign Citizen Killed By Deputy while Trying to Take Over the Court House

Dennis Marx

Raw Story

Authorities shot and killed a sovereign citizen Friday morning outside a Georgia courthouse after he brought weapons and explosives in an attempt to take over the building.

Investigators said Dennis Marx arrived at the Forsyth County Administration Building with an assault rifle, bulletproof vest, smoke grenades, and a gas mask.

Marx also brought water and other supplies, ammunition, zip-tie restraints, and buckets of homemade explosives to the courthouse, said Sheriff Duane Piper.

“He came here with the purpose of occupying the courthouse,” Piper said.

He deployed stop sticks at the courthouse entrance to prevent other vehicles from driving closer and opened fire from his vehicle.

Marx was met outside the courthouse by a deputy – who distracted and then fatally shot him through the windshield of the man’s SUV.

The deputy, a 30-year veteran, was shot in the knee during the confrontation but was expected to recover.

Gun Nuts

The NRA - Open Carry Texas Kerfuffle

The NRA addressing the open carry fanatics in Texas

The second example comes to us from the Lone Star State, which is second to none for its robust gun culture.  We applaud Texans for that, but a small number have recently crossed the line from enthusiasm to downright foolishness.

Now we love AR-15s and AKs as much as anybody, and we know that these sorts of semiautomatic carbines are among the most popular, fastest selling firearms in America today.  Texas, independent-minded and liberty-loving place that it is, doesn't ban the carrying of loaded long guns in public, nor does it require a permit for this activity.  Yet some so-called firearm advocates seem determined to change this.

Recently, demonstrators have been showing up in various public places, including coffee shops and fast food restaurants, openly toting a variety of tactical long guns. Unlicensed open carry of handguns is legal in about half the U.S. states, and it is relatively common and uncontroversial in some places. 

Yet while unlicensed open carry of long guns is also typically legal in most places, it is a rare sight to see someone sidle up next to you in line for lunch with a 7.62 rifle slung across his chest, much less a whole gaggle of folks descending on the same public venue with similar arms. 

Let's not mince words, not only is it rare, it's downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one's cause, it can be downright scary.  It makes folks who might normally be perfectly open-minded about firearms feel uncomfortable and question the motives of pro-gun advocates.

As a result of these hijinx, two popular fast food outlets have recently requested patrons to keep guns off the premises (more information can be found here and here).  In other words, the freedom and goodwill these businesses had previously extended to gun owners has been curtailed because of the actions of an attention-hungry few who thought only of themselves and not of those who might be affected by their behavior. To state the obvious, that's counterproductive for the gun owning community.

More to the point, it's just not neighborly, which is out of character for the big-hearted residents of Texas. Using guns merely to draw attention to yourself in public not only defies common sense, it shows a lack of consideration and manners.  That's not the Texas way.  And that's certainly not the NRA way.

In summary, NRA certainly does not support bans on personalized guns or on carrying firearms in public, including in restaurants.  We think people are intelligent enough to resolve these issues in a reasonable way for themselves. But when people act without thinking, or without consideration for others – especially when it comes to firearms – they set the stage for further restrictions on our rights. Firearm owners face enough challenges these days; we don't need to be victims of friendly fire.

Open Carry Texas responding

It is unfortunate that an organization that claims to be dedicated to the preservation of gun rights would attack another organization fighting so hard for those rights in Texas. The fact is that the NRA hasn’t been able to get open carry passed in Texas since the right was first taken away from us when Jim Crow laws were passed in the 1860s, making us one of only 5 states where it is still illegal. The NRA has refused to learn for themselves how Open Carry Texas (OCT) conducts itself other than what the liberal media and Bloomberg funded gun control extremists have falsely portrayed. The real ignorance in their statement is that it was completely unnecessary. OCT – along with Come And Take It Texas, Texas Carry and Gun Rights Across America - has already changed its methods and the whole world is aware of that. The more the NRA continues to divide its members by attacking some aspects of gun rights instead of supporting all gun rights, the more support it will lose. Already, OCT members are posting pictures of themselves cutting up their life membership cards. If they do not retract their disgusting and disrespectful comments, OCT will have no choice but to withdraw its full support of the NRA and establish relationships with other gun rights organizations that fight for ALL gun rights, instead of just paying them lip service the way the NRA appears to be doing. The NRA should have instead released a statement to the effect that it applauds our groups for coming together and finding new methods to promote safe and responsible open carry.