A Right Delayed is a Right Denied

Jeff Soyer notes an article out of Connecticut that Gov. Dannel Malloy’s Sandy Hook Advisory Commission plans to suggest mental health “suitability screenings” for gun owners and sellers in their state.

Later in the article, they note that the commission that has been meeting since January 2013 still doesn’t have any of the medical records for Adam Lanza. If a commission ordered by the state governor can’t get records together in 18 months, how long will they make “applicants” to own or sell guns wait while they attempt to gather records?

The final report with formal recommendations is due this summer, so I’m sure that every gun control dream will be listed.

Are Guns Effective Protection from Tyranny?

The Volokh Conspiracy invited guest blogger Ivan Perkins to talk about his book, “Vanishing Coup.” Judging from the comments, this went over like a lead balloon with Volokh readers:

Thus, new gun regulations are necessary for many reasons, including the long-term preservation of our Constitution. The widespread availability of high-powered military-grade weaponry does not keep us secure from tyranny — in fact, it increases the probability that one day, our great-grandchildren will live under thuggish warlords and tyrants.

It’s funny, because if you look at his analysis of countries that haven’t had coups, most of them have strong traditions of allowing civilians to be armed. The United States and Canada have among the most armed civilian populations in the world. Britain’s population, which he holds out as an example of guns not making a difference in stability, have until only very recently been well armed, and still rank in terms of world standards.

Britain had one of the strongest traditions of armed citizens until the past few decades. Norway, Sweden and Finland have strong traditions of civilian gun ownership. South Africa’s restrictions on firearms are also very recent. Traditionally South Africa put few restrictions on civilians owning and carrying firearms. None of these countries, save Japan and possibly the Benelux countries have the kind of gun free populations he imagines. In fact, these stable countries contain some of the most heavily armed populations on the planet.

He also uses the specter of what’s going on in Mexico as an example of where widespread gun ownership leads. Is he joking? Legally, guns are difficult to obtain in Mexico. The only progress the government has been able to make against the cartels has been when local communities, sick of being terrorized, armed themselves illegally and started fighting back against the cartels. Mexico is not a shining example of the effectiveness gun control has on a nation’s stability, unless you’re living in a cave, or perhaps an ivory tower.

On the 226th Anniversary of Ratification

Dave Hardy notes was done with the expectation there would be a Bill of Rights, which they hoped would contain:

XI. Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or to infringe the rights of conscience.

XII. Congress shall never disarm any citizen, unless such as are or have been in actual rebellion.

Now the other side, particularly Professor Adam Winkler, would be fond of jumping on the last part as evidence that our founders supported gun control. I don’t think that has ever really been in question, but let’s not pretend that there was, in colonial times and in the Early Republic, anything resembling what modern gun control advocates propose.

The latest book out on this subject, which I mentioned here and am in the process of reading, relies upon the fact that in the debates, the founders were singularly unconcerned with arguing the self-defense angle to keeping and bearing arms. This is mostly true, but they did talk about it, and some states even have it enshrined in their RKBA provisions. You can certainly make a compelling narrative that the founders were only concerned with the distribution of military power, and not self-defense, but it requires overlooking some very glaring evidence that the right was indeed meant to protect private self-defense, as well as the militia as an institution.

Some News Links, You Can Has!

Still billing at the client this week, so blog time will still be tight this week. I hate having to give you guys the short shrift, but if our clients didn’t have crises they needed to be saved from, we wouldn’t have business. At least the commute is pretty good. The client is in New Jersey, only about 25 minutes away on a route that doesn’t clog with traffic during rush hour. My normal office, which I go to twice a week is an hour away with no traffic. Except that there’s rarely no traffic. Today I’m working from home so I have a bit more schedule flex, so I can give you a news dump:

Harry Reid might bring up gun control again in the Senate. Go for it Harry. I’d suggest right before the election.

Democrats in pro-gun states don’t want any help from Gabby.

Hey, it turns out gun control wasn’t so popular in Colorado after all. Now the Guv’s saying his staff made him do it.

Why are anti-gunners so violent? I don’t like the OCT people either, but I don’t wish death on them.

The tin foil hat crowd is going to have a field day with this one. He must have discovered too much, like how the CIA is training mass shooters, or something like that.

Miguel describes the CSGV philosophy quite accurately.

Civil Rights victory in Florida.

Turns out the disparity in school blocking software between pro and anti-gun sites is because people actually read pro-gun sites.

A new gun blog. Not often I get to say that these days. I don’t know if fewer people are bothering, or it’s just harder for them to come to my attention.

Andrew Cuomo’s troubles continue. A lot of his troubles are coming from the left, but gun control isn’t going to save him.

Remember, where the government thinks gun ownership is a privilege, it’s probably most wise not to screw around.

Another bill that Chris Christie needs to veto, an ivory ban. No grandfathering. Even mammoth ivory would be banned. We must do what we can to save the mammoths!

I think the idea of an enhanced permit to carry is OK for some states. In others, I’d worry it would immediately start the discussion of why it wouldn’t be a good idea to just require it for everybody. I’d be wary of it in Pennsylvania. This state is not as pro-gun as people think it is.

Remember, this is what our opponents think of us.

Open Carry in Texas is already being used in Florida as a reason not to legalize it there.

Throwing good money after bad in Illinois. Most politicians want to be seen as “doing something.” What they count on is that voters won’t look hard enough to realize that “something” is complete bullcrap. Sadly, in most cases, this works.

Preemption in Florida is working. We’re trying to get a similar law passed here in Pennsylvania. Our bill doesn’t go as far as Florida, but it does give incentives for local communities to get their illegal ordinances off the books.

A review of the latest book disparaging the Second Amendment. I have a copy, and I plan to review it as soon as I finish it.

Salon and hew and haw all they want, but the media had to backpedal from their earlier statements. Everyone knows when you use school shootings in a certain context it implies a mass shooting. It was dishonest, the way it was presented, and Everytown got called out on it.

Judge dismissed charges against a Maryland homeowner who shot a home invader. They argued he should have called 9-1-1. It never should have even gotten that far.

High-capacity, 1855 style.

Redefining Freedom & Ignoring History

This is where I come to post the things that will get me in trouble on Facebook. :) Today’s topic: redefining freedom & ignoring history.

Someone mentioned a lineage group that I might be interested in for women with ancestors in New England, and I probably should not have laughed at the description to “perpetuate the ideals and spirit of the indomitable men and women of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts who laid the foundations of our nation’s civil and religious freedom.” Ahem.

Let’s talk about that “foundation of…religious freedom” from the New England colonies because I’m pretty sure that the foundation isn’t anything like what we consider freedom today. I’m not a historian, but as I recall, those early settlers largely came here for their religious freedom, but not to celebrate or recognize anyone else’s religious freedom. In fact, the New England states were some of the most fierce in trying to force people to a particular religion or into funding religion with taxes whether you wanted to or not. From the Library of Congress:

Religious taxes were laid on all citizens, each of whom was given the option of designating his share to the church of his choice. Such laws took effect in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire…

In other words, it reminds me of many New England states now – you’re free to live in the way they tell you to live. The New England states, with the exception of Rhode Island, even had official religions into the 19th century. The Congregational Church was the established religion by the government of Massachusetts until 1833, New Hampshire until 1819, and Connecticut until 1818.

Not even Vermont, rated as the least religious state in the union now, had any sort of foundation of what we would call freedom of religion since only men who would “profess the protestant religion” could serve office. In fact, that was pretty much a given across New England even though other states were already cutting back, like Pennsylvania which only asked that you believe in some form of God. From what I’ve read, it’s actually the Southern states that pushed for the separation of church and state that would actually give us something closer to the foundation of the freedom to worship or not worship that we know today.

So, while I have no issue with the particular lineage society, I really, really hope that they aren’t making any significant effort to truly “perpetuate” religious freedom as our New England ancestors of colonial/early statehood days knew it. I, personally, would just like to leave that view of “freedom” behind.

Continue reading “Redefining Freedom & Ignoring History”

Pennsylvania Gets a Gun

Or, rather, we’ll get our official state firearm soon according to pro-gun attorney Josh Prince who reports that the Governor is expected to sign the bill designating the Pennsylvania Long Rifle as the state gun. We previously covered the bill here, including the fact that it’s pissing off the anti-gunners.

No Second Amendment Protection for Hunting

A group of hunters tried suing Pennsylvania over the Sunday hunting ban and one of their claims was a Second Amendment protection. Yesterday, a U.S. District judge tossed the lawsuit.

Kane said she could find no proof that courts have extended Second Amendment protections to include recreational hunting.

The hunters raised several other arguments, including religious discrimination, but the judge said the hunters could not prove the Sunday ban violated their religious freedom.

I kind of figured the case would end up dismissed. This has to be handled legislatively, and Virginia is the model for chipping away at it until it the ban finally falls.

Bloomberg is Buying Calls to Congress, and It’s Working

What do you do if you’re Mike Bloomberg and Everytown, and have a boatload of money but not really any substantial grassroots? Well, you buy phone calls to Congress:

The majority of the money paid for the call goes to a gun safety movement called Everytown. Sometimes, organizations benefitting from a campaign (like Everytown) make the calls themselves, but individuals can also sign up to become paid callers for campaigns, garnering a base rate of $1 per call.

Unfortunately this is working. NRA is currently noting Congress is only hearing from their side. I think there’s a tendency among gun owners to think if we got through Sandy Hook, this latest wave of mass shootings shouldn’t be a concern. But that is unfortunately not how this works. The other side has been fired up, in my opinion through a combination of the latest mass shootings and the nonsense going on in Texas. They money being dumped into the issue is all helping as well.

A lot of gun owners have no idea how tenuous this stuff can be. The gun control crowd made a lot of mistakes after Sandy Hook. They’ve learned. They are going to be less ambitious, less bombastic, and will build support slowly going forward. They will keep at this until they get what they want. A Republican Congress is not a guarantee nothing gets passed. They will turn on us in a heartbeat if they think they’ll get away with it. We have to call.

See www.nraila.org/writeyourreps or call 202-225-3121. We benefitted greatly in the past decade by there being no money in the gun control movement. Bloomberg can single handedly dump more money into the issue than all of us combined. We have to pay mortgages and feed families. The only thing we have he can’t compete with is our collective voices, but we have to exercise it to make a difference.

School Bias – Getting Grades for No Dissent

A Connecticut school filters out all Republican and issue group websites that are commonly associated with GOP supporters, including pro-Second Amendment websites while gun control websites were all approved.

Even more interesting is that the student was attempting to look up the material while conducting the research for an assigned classroom debate. It’s awfully interesting that the school, which made it partisan when it opted to ban the official GOP website while allowing the Democratic website, is grading students for their participation in “debates,” but refuses to allow them to see any alternate viewpoints to present to their peers.

It’s even more interesting that the student only reported the incident to the media after notifying school authorities and he noticed that they refused to fix the blatant bias. Even now that the media is on the story, they only say that they “appreciated hearing the comments” and he raised an accusation that might warrant an investigation. But, hey, it’s just the tax dollars of Connecticut voters shutting down access to information from different political views – no big deal and nothing to see here…