Month: July 2015

Bearing Arms lead the weekend news cycle with a story about the Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence Ownership encouraging their followers to SWAT people who carry firearms and abuse the 911 system. This does not surprise me, given that CSGV are the rabid dogs of the anti-gun movement, and their followers are even more rabid. It’s interesting that one of their followers notes that the police department “laughed at me”, and CSGV encourages her to “call them again.”

They do realize that abusing 911 is a crime, do they not? In Pennsylvania it’s a third degree misdemeanor. They do realize that 911 is for emergencies, and not for political revenge against people they don’t like, do they not? Do they think tying up the resources of our first responders over something that is not a crime is really responsible behavior? They don’t care. They are zealots and extremists. They try to call us those things, but don’t let them get away with it.

I’ve been watching the story of the Marine and Navy Officer using personally owned side arms, carried against military regulation, to return fire against the active shooteer. I’ve been reluctant to report on it, because I would hate to find out later, like so much of what is reported in a mass shooting, that it wasn’t true. It’ll probably be a while before we really know. What has interested me in talking about this story is how often I’m seeing in comment sections of news articles about this story, variants of: “Well, so much for that ‘good guy with a gun’ myth the ammosexuals keep babbling to us about.”

Aside from being highly disrespectful to the fallen Marine’s service and sacrifice, no one ever argued that a gun is a guarantee that you’ll prevail over a bad guy every time. We know gunfights can be lost. We know that people die in war, despite having the ability to shoot back. This is a straw man argument, because no one on our side ever made it. The shooter in this case was indeed stopped by good guys with guns, when enough of them showed up to overwhelm him (presumably, we really don’t know much yet).

I’ve found myself saying this to anti-gun folks over and over again: “Can you please argue against what we actually believe, rather than the caricature you’ve constructed in your head about what we believe?” It would also be nice if they’d pay a little respect to the “good guys with a gun,” who if all this pans out, acted heroically in defense of their fellow soldiers and sailors, with one giving his life. I’m half expecting the gun control crowd to demand a court-martial of the naval officer for violating the regulations on carrying guns.

John Richardson notes that Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action has been claiming victories that probably aren’t. A lot of FFLs, especially big box retailers, have traditionally refused sales under default proceeds. We had talked about this even before Bloomberg’s people latched onto the issue, in the context of getting rid of POC states. I could totally see Watts calling up these outfits, which have never done default proceeds, and after confirming they didn’t, declare victory to her supporters. This is also likely part of the plan to energize her supporters to put pressure on Cabela’s, which apparently will do default proceeds. Hopefully Cabela’s is wise and smart enough to know who butters their bread, and it’s not Shannon Watts or any of her foaming-at-the-mouth supporters. They will no doubt remember gun owners nearly killing Smith & Wesson for conspiring with the enemy, and will be wise enough to completely ignore this Bloomberg funded non-issue.

The reason default proceeds exist, and need to exist, is because without them, all the a petulant Administration would have to do to shut down gun sales entirely is take the NICS system offline.

They had appealed the judgement against them originally, but now they are dropping the case entirely. I am very disappointed that the Brady Center has decided against donating more money to pro-Second Amendment causes, but I thank them for the $100,000 they are already pledged to donate. If the Brady Center had decided to just donate that money to the NRA directly, well, $100,000 isn’t enough to get you the gold jacket, but it would have been enough to get them into the Alexander Hamilton Society. As it is, with the way the voting is going, the Brady Center’s donor dollars will only get them as far as the Thomas Paine Society, and hell, even I rated for that one year.

Bloomberg’s mouthpiece tells about the dangers of our military personnel being armed. Every argument against military personnel being armed are the exact same arguments they used to fight concealed carry for civilians. None of those chicken little predictions have come to pass anywhere it’s been tried. If the military brass are so worried about their soldiers carrying, how about a compromise: any soldier who holds a concealed carry permit from any state is permitted to carry a firearm in federal facilities or military bases openly or concealed.

Bloomberg’s mouthpiece brings up the Posse Comitatus Act, but we’re not talking about arming soldiers to act as law enforcement, we’re talking about allowing them to be armed for their own protection and for the protection of those around them.

State governors are already starting to act, while the federal government is responding that recruiters should step up security by closing blinds. These days it’s really hard to tell the difference between real news and parody.