Don’t Ever Let Them Get Away With Calling You a Racist

It’s not often I’ll get involved in the comments at Raw Story, since they aren’t really much above Gawker in the slime pits of the Internet, but a hit piece they put out on Colion Noir really pissed me off. First, is the misleading headline. He never said that. But some of the comments, including one person pasting a picture of an Oreo cookie, struck me as just outright racist. Others were more couched, but equally racist, such as suggesting this is all being orchestrated by “devious white people,” because Colion can’t be expected to hold his own opinions, you know. You see that theme repeated a couple of times. Colion is “shilling” for the NRA. He can’t possibly have come to his opinions on his own, I guess. Certainly he did not have a highly successful YouTube channel long before NRA even approached him. No sir! He’s a “dancing puppet.” who “sold his soul.” He’s a “token.”

Yeah, right. We’re the racists? Sure. I’m not the one who thinks opinions need to have a color.

Again with Misdirected Anger

Latest quote from Andy Parker is “They messed with the wrong family.” Who’s they? The murderous scumbag who actually messed with your family saved the taxpayers the trouble of a trial by offing himself as the police closed in on him. I did not mess with your family. Neither did the NRA, or it’s 5 million other members. We didn’t do anything except express our opinions and advocate for a cause we feel is important. By the same token, I’m not responsible for every drunk driving accident because I oppose alcohol prohibition, and think 18 year olds ought to be allowed to buy a beer. Would you blame the other NRA, the National Restaurant Association, if he had used a meat cleaver? Exxon if he used gasoline? Would you go further and say that people who drive and consume gas, or people who have a meat cleaver in their home kitchens “messed with the wrong family?”

Look, I’m sorry your lost your daughter. I really am. If I could go back in time and stop it, I would. But I didn’t mess with you, dude. I didn’t do anything to you. And I’d sure appreciate the same courtesy.

Bloomberg’s Mouthpiece: New Orleans Exaggerated by NRA

This is unbelievable. Bloomberg’s “The Trace” web site has shown itself very adept at building straw men so they can tear them down, but this takes the cake. Their argument seems to be that because the gun confiscations after Katrina weren’t universal, that means that NRA is exaggerating. The city confiscated approximately 800 firearms in the wake of Katrina. No one at the time ever argued it was a mass confiscation. We were aware at the time that many of the confiscations were carried out by “out of town” law enforcement.

But hundreds of Americans have their civil rights violated at the time they most need them, and no big deal, right? Note how Bloomberg’s Mouthpiece goes into detail later about bizarre conspiracy theories, and then tries to conflate mainstream gun rights opinions with them.

Frank Talk About Grief

I have to admit I just don’t understand how some people go through the grieving process. For me it’s a deeply personal thing and not something with which to involve the rest of the world outside of immediate family and close friends. When my mother died when I was 20 years old, I found all the attention surrounding the funeral to be more stress inducing than the actual loss itself. I was happy when all that was over. But hers was not a sudden and unexpected death. It was untimely — she was 43 — but she had been fighting the cancer for years.

I imagine sudden an unexpected is a different experience, and I’m sure burying a child is more difficult than burying a parent. But it’s very difficult to understand how grief could manifest itself in attention seeking behavior. For that reason, I don’t really understand Andy Parker, the father of the anchorwoman who was murdered on live television. A former candidate for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates, he’s seemed to seek out the limelight in the wake of the murder of his daughter. He has vowed to take on the NRA. I can actually understand that, even I think the anger is misplaced. Someone’s bound to shove a camera in your face after a high-profile incident like this, and I can understand lashing out in anger, especially when the person responsible took his own life rather than allowing the victims family to get any sense of justice. But then he goes and demands to know why key politicians aren’t calling him, then stating later in another press interview saying he’s going to buy a gun himself. He’s been writing op-eds in the Washington Post. It’s been reported in the news Parker has been in contact with Bloomberg’s people and Giffords. It’ll be interesting to see if which group, if any, will pick him up.

At the risk of sounding completely cold hearted, this behavior strikes me as very odd for someone mourning. Perhaps I just don’t understand it. Everyone grieves differently. But I have been around more than enough grieving people in my lifetime to, I think, declare this a very strange way of going about it. I’ve seen people who use the opportunity of deaths, marriages, births, etc, and attempt to make such public events all about them. But we usually think of those people as insufferable boors, don’t we? I’m not saying that’s what we’re seeing here, but if this is one of many means of grieving, I sure would like to understand it. It’s very difficult to wrap my head around making a media spectacle, and blaming your own tragedy on millions of fellow Americans who had nothing to do with it, and who also believe it’s awful and senseless.

Wal-Mart Ending Sales of AR-15s

They claim it’s a business decision. You can see an interview with Wal-Mart over at The Firearm Blog. People there seem skeptical that it’s purely a business decision. I can see why people are skeptical, but I’m willing to take them at their word. First, we know that sales of ARs have been off. The Great Gun Rush is over. Second, when I’m in the market for an AR, I’m generally not thinking Wal-Mart. The type of folks who buy guns at Wal-Mart probably aren’t going to be the type to move ARs off the shelf unless there’s another panic. I don’t have difficulty believing this is indeed a business decision, and not due to pressure from anti-gun groups.

Busybodies Gonna Busy: Petition to Ban Kids From Shooting Machine Guns

Our opponents are circulating a petition to ban minors from shooting machine guns. I’m going to agree that starting the kids off on machine pistols is pretty irresponsible, as we’ve seen from at least two tragic accidents. It’s far better to start the kids off on something belt fed. It would seem they believe this puts us on a weak footing:

Now, opponents of the petition will have to explain why the right of a 9-year-old to shoot an automatic weapon is so important.

“My read on pro-gun activists right now is they are facing tremendous cultural pressure, and being asked tough questions that they weren’t five years ago about … how extreme the pro-gun movement has gotten,” says Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence in Washington.

Except I’m not going to accept the premise. This is not about gun rights, primarily. The issue is bigger than that. This is about the rights of parents to raise their children in the manner they see fit, provided they aren’t abusing them on putting them in grave danger. Letting a kid shoot, even shoot a machine gun, is statistically less dangerous than letting them play football. It’s none of anyone’s business where, when, or how a parent teaches their child to shoot. The state has no business poking its snout into parental choices like this. None!

“Laws say that children can’t drink, can’t drive, can’t vote. But they can shoot fully automatic assault weapons. That hasn’t changed,” Mr. Vacca’s oldest daughter, Elizabeth, says on the petition.

In many states, they can, under supervision of parents. The states that absolutely prohibit minors from drinking (like Pennsylvania) I think are wrong, and I would advocate repealing those laws. European children don’t seem any worse for wear for having more tolerant laws in this respect. Children can drive motor vehicles, if it’s not on public roads, and voting doesn’t have anything to do with the freedom of parents to raise their children how they see fit.

When you make something illegal for minors to do, you’re really limiting the parental freedoms of parents, and inserting the state into the parent child relationship. The people pushing this petition should answer why they also are not banning children from participating in other organized sports, or riding bicycles, which have astounding rates of injury. Sports contribute to 21% of all the traumatic brain injuries among American children. Every year approximately 50 children die in sports related injuries. Statistically, the shooting sports are safer than golf. The folks pushing this need to explain why they are singling out a relatively safe activity, while ignoring other sports that are far more dangerous.

Weekly Gun News – Edition 12

We missed last week, since it was such a slow week.

Gun News:

Now we have another high profile mass shooting (sort of) on our hands, this one captured live on TV. This one looks like a case of a disgruntled employee. I typically don’t write much about mass shootings these days because the reporting is generally so bad, almost nothing turns out to be correct. More on that over at Bearing Arms. I couldn’t agree with Pat Rogers more.

Speaking of that, we had a few heroic Americans and a Brit who saved France once again. Good show.

NRA continues it’s original mission: teaching Yankee soldiers how to shoot straight.

Dave Hardy: Brady’s Empty Suits. Dave has been intimately involved in this fight since the beginning, and is a font of knowledge on the movement and it’s history.

Reminder: Bloomberg is targeting Maine. Having lost in the legislature, he’s taking it to the ballot, where his billions can overcome our grassroots energy and numbers. I’d note there are a lot more options available to us to fight back in Maine than in many of the western states.

Taking on the City of Seattle’s “Gun Violence Tax.” It pretty clearly violates preemption.

Finding the NRA in Ireland.

Not your father’s NRA.

Sandy Hook families file campaign finance complaint against NRA. NRA is calling it frivolous. They were willing to admit that they had made a mistake before when that Yahoo article came out, so I’d say it’s a safe bet this is frivolous.

Social Security Administration: We’re not going to add everyone with a representative payee, just some people. They are starting to walk back the proposal. Good.

The FBI is beginning an investigation of Kathleen Kane. She’s a Clinton ally, so possibly the White House won’t mind steamrolling her too much either, right along with Hillary’s campaign.

Expanding the category of prohibited persons is one of the gun control movements major strategies right now. This is pretty clearly going to have a disproportionate affect on the gun rights of minorities, which is probably the idea, to be hoenst.

Some easements for folks facing “Gun Violence Restraining Orders” in California. There still isn’t enough due process involved with these GVROs.

Hey, Vivek Murthy is an unapologetic gun control advocate. Who knew?

I get tickled pink to see gun control groups like Coalition to Stop Gun Violence tripping all over the politically correct obstacles the social justice movement has thrown up. They helped make this bed, so now they can lie in it.

Media outlet in Connecticut shocked to find there are 328 “assault rifles” in their town. Hate to tell you, there are a lot more than that. That’s only what people registered, and compliance with the registration law was almost nonexistent.

Again, I’m glad there are liberal gun owners out there. You should be getting behind Sanders and pushing him back to the side of gun rights, which is where I think his instincts lie. He needs some cover from the howling anti-gunners on the left. If you’re not willing to vote gun rights, you’re not really of any political use to the movement.

The shooting sports are coming back to high schools. This is a big deal in terms of winning the culture war. I won’t be satisfied until schools in New York City have rifle teams again.

I’ve seen this meme going around in the media, probably driven by Bloomberg’s group. Public opinion matters, but only to the degree you can scare politicians with it. There’s also the bandwagon effect. As long as we keep voting the issue, we can overcome public opinion. Here’s another one. This WaPo article is a bit more balanced.

Australia is going to allow lever action shotguns. Note that they call these “rapid fire.” Once they get the semi-automatics, then they’ll call simple repeaters “rapid fire,” and then try to get those banned. Then muzzle loaders can go under “large caliber.”

Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey is trying to convince everyone that gun control works. Show some faith in action, Senator. Take a stroll through Dorchester at 2AM without your security detail. I mean, Massachusetts has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. What do you have to worry about? It’s working great in Britain too.

Just Guns:

The AEK-971, “the dark horse of the Russian next-generation individual weapons trials”

This is quite a staple gun. But hey, gun control works!

Tam gets a Smith & Wesson Bodyguard .380 up to 1235 rounds before it malfs for want of a cleaning. I’ve been looking for a better pocket gun for a while, and looking at all the options available today. I thought that Smith & Wesson had taken the pocket gun to the next level with the BG .380. This will move acquiring one up on my short list.

Off Topic:

The Institute for Justice does God’s work for civil liberties in this country. Real civil liberties, not some of the fake ones the ACLU imagines and defends.

Glenn Reynolds on Donald Trump: “The candidate he most resembles, actually, is Barack Obama, circa 2007.” I’ve been thinking that too.

Jacob notes that Hillary is a “but it’s her turn,” candidate. That almost never turns out well. But since Hillary’s candidacy is imploding, they are warming up Uncle Joe in the bullpen. It’s his turn too.

Gun Control Folks Polishing the Turd Again

First it was “handgun ban,” but people rejected the idea thoroughly in very liberal Massachusetts. Then it was “handgun freeze,” but Californians overwhelmingly rejected that idea. Then it became “handgun control,” and when that got nowhere, they switched to trying to ban scary looking long guns. Then Third Way came along with “gun safety.” After that didn’t work, “gun violence prevention” became the rallying cry. Then back to “gun safety” when Bloomberg’s people came in and must not have realized people didn’t fall for it the first time around. Now it looks like they are trying out “gun responsibility.”

Same bullshit, no matter what you call it. Keep trying to polish that turd. We are not fooled.

Second Amendment Extended to Non-Residents by 7th Circuit

Despite the fact that the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment right was a fundamental right, there is still an open question about whether or not it’s a fundamental right of personhood, like freedom of speech, or a citizenship right that can be restricted to non-citizens, like voting. Preexisting Supreme Court precedent essentially made Second Amendment rights for permanent residents a slam dunk after Heller and McDonald, and we’ve seen the courts have been favorable to that idea. For non-resident aliens, it’s a different matter. If it’s a citizenship right, then they can be barred from exercising that right, the same way they can be barred from voting.

Most of the rights protected in the Bill of Rights are fundamental rights of people. The idea of voting being a right at all was an alien concept until very recently. The 7th Circuit recently ruled that non-citizens have the right to bear arms, but that 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(5) was a permissible restriction. This makes me question whether or not someone in the country on a non-immigrant visa, but here legally, would have a reasonable chance of challenging 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(5)(B). Remember, it is technically illegal (felony illegal, in fact) to take a foreign national who is not here on an immigrant visa shooting. This is not usually enforced, but it is the law.

I would imagine an originalist analysis would have to look at the public understanding of the right at the time of ratification. The issue there is the concept of an illegal immigrant may have been foreign to the population at the time. Prior to about the late 19th century, there was virtually no federal laws controlling immigration, yet as early as 1798, Congress did pass a law that allowed for deportation of aliens that were “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.” Of course, it also restricted free speech and was roundly condemned by Thomas Jefferson. We know them as the Alien and Sedition Acts. It wasn’t until the 1870s and 1880s with the Page Act and Chinese Exclusion Act that Congress asserted a power to control immigration as well as naturalization at the federal level. You had Congress exercise at least some level of control over immigration with the Steerage Act if 1819, but that was just a reporting requirement. Prior to the existence of the United States, many of the colonies had their own immigration laws, most of which encourage immigration from Britain and Germany, but largely excluded Catholics. I’ve read articles arguing that Congress originally had no power to legislate on immigration, which would leave it up to the states. A question is how many states did so. But I’m also not sure that just because Congress didn’t exercise that power until 1875 didn’t mean they weren’t understood to have it.

My feeling is that the founding generation probably understood non-resident immigrants to have full Second Amendment rights, but in today’s political environment that seems untenable.

This Kathleen Kane Drama Couldn’t Get Any Weirder

Apparently Kathleen Kane has an evil twin, who is in some legal trouble of her own:

Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s twin borrowed $200,000 from an FBI agent who was living with her and then kicked him out the door, the agent says in a civil lawsuit filed in Lackawanna County.

Kane’s twin is being sued because apparently that was the guy’s life savings, and he’d like it back. Classy. Meanwhile, apparently Kathleen Kane has used her evil twin to throw off the press. Maybe her next defense will be that it was her evil twin all along!