Year: 2012

Miguel points out our friends at CSGV are spilling more ink on ridiculous claims of no defensive gun use. They even acknowledge the DOJ study that says 80,000 – 100,000 defensive gun uses a year, but dismiss the study because “they don’t apply any value judgement to say whether they were warranted or not.”

Miguel correctly points out threatening someone with a gun who doesn’t deserve it is called Assault with a Deadly Weapon. True in Florida. In Pennsylvania it’s actually Simple Assault if you only threaten someone with a gun, but it’s a second degree misdemeanor, which is up to two years in prison. The simple fact that most of these folks weren’t charged should indicate that DGUs are real, and numerous.

Arma Borealis takes a look at Colin Goddard’s claim that he was in the army for two years, when he was an ROTC cadet for two years. This isn’t semantics I’d get too worked up over, but I was never in the military. For those that have been, I understand this kind of distinction is more important.

UPDATE: More from Chris in Alaska of Arma Borealis in the comments.

Our opponents are generally quick to tell us that the first clause of the Second Amendment is the defining one, but when a state takes steps to create itself a well-regulated militia, our opponents balk and cry foul.

So let me get this straight, I only have a right to bear arms in a well-regulated militia, who’s existence the fanatic leaders of the gun control movement are going to fight and decry when one is proposed into existence? One thing the leaders of the gun control movement need to get clear is there’s no such thing in our Constitutional framework as a militia that “would not be under the authority of both the state and federal government,” per the quote from CSGV. Any state militia is subject to being called into the service of the United States, regardless of what the Arizona Revised Statutes have to say about it.

I was ready to nail the Brady Campaign with this one, but I don’t think it’s them.  A progressive group in Ohio is piggybacking onto the shooting tragedy at Chardon High School in order to build up their mailing list. Don’t let the sympathetic words there fool you, the information they are asking for is valuable, and is meant to build up a list. While I can’t make any connection between this registrant and gun control groups, I would not be a bit surprised to find out these names will be going straight to a gun control organization. If folks out there want to start digging, this would be worthwhile if a connection could be made. Can you imagine if NRA set up an e-mail honeypot for, say, removing restrictions of guns in schools? Our opponents would be all over it, deriding the organization as monsters for so blatantly exploiting a tragedy. And you know what? They’d be right. But we’re correct to call our opponents out for their shameless exploitation.

As Thirdower points out, there’s a double standard when it comes to our opponents. It’s perfectly fine for them, leaders of the gun control movement, to exploit a tragedy for political ends. They are good guys, after all, fighting bad people like us. I’m not allowing them to get away with it. They are not good guys. The leaders of the gun control movement are horrible people, who are shameless about exploiting the tragedy of others in order to enhance their political mission and fundraising. The thoughtful and human response during a tragedy like this is thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families. I get annoyed with people on our side who are quick to jump on gun free zones even before the blood of the victims is cleaned off the floor. There will be a time for the politics, but that time has to come after the families have at least buried their loved ones.