June 2016 – Page 5 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Color Me Shocked: Shooter Not On Terror Watch List

The Hill is reporting the Orlando mass murderer wasn’t on the FBI’s terror watch list, so this is yet another example of people immediately proposing solutions that wouldn’t have solved the problem:

â€œHe was watch-listed with the opening of the preliminary investigation and he was taken off the watch list when the investigation was closed,â€ Comey told reporters.

The shooter cleared multiple and thorough background checks because of his role as a security guard, and even if the Dems got their way and had passed “terror watch list” legislation, this guy still would have been cleared by the system. As Glenn Reynolds noted, “Itâ€™s almost like the people proposing these things are more interested in disarming ordinary Americans.”

I’ll be honest, given past guidelines from DHS on domestic terrorists, I just don’t trust the federal government with this kind of power. Sure, I’m concerned about the due process element too, but why should I trust them when that’s their guidelines?

Does it Matter That The Shooter Used an MCX?

I really don’t have high expectations when it comes to the media and guns, howeverÂ I really don’t expect the media to grok the difference between an AR-15 and a Sig MCX, which is apparently what the Pulse nightclubÂ shooter used. Yes, I get it’s not an AR. But it looks an awful lot like one, and from an end user point of view, they function the same. Any argument you’re going to make against the AR-15 you can make against the MCX just as effectively, and the rhetoric to support civilian ownership of both is identical. So practically speaking, what difference does it make?

Time to Pressure Pat Toomey

The antis are putting the pressure on Senator Toomey to embrace the terror watch list bill, or face ads saying the Senator supports arming terrorists. Be sure to call Pat Toomey’s office and persuade him. Tell him you have no compunctions about leaving him off your ballot in November if he turns. Say this even if you plan already to not vote for him because of his past sins. I believe in redemption if he rediscovers where his interest lie.

â€œPat Toomey has worked to allow suspected terrorists to buy guns in this country and that is just an outrageous position,â€ McGinty, challenging Toomey in one of the countryâ€™s most critical Senate races, said in a telephone interview. â€œOf all the kind of tough issues, this one should not be a tough call.â€

Unless you don’t believe people should be stripped of fundamental constitutional rights because of being put on a secret government list, where only the FBI knows the criteria to get on, and there is no process for getting off. I appreciate it if Senator Toomey would stand up for due process of law and for the Heller and McDonald decisions. This gets to the fundamental core of how we treat fundamental constitutional rights. Toomey can’t turn on this issue and still claim to believe in the Second Amendment. I know civil liberties are currently out of style with the American left, but someone has to stand up for them.

NRA Out With a Statement

Chris Cox has an editorial in USA Today. In the past, NRA has blacked out, but this response was pretty quick:

The terrorist in Orlando had been investigated multiple times by the FBI. He had a government-approved security guard license with a contractor for theÂ Department of Homeland Security. Yet his former co-workers reported violent and racist comments. Unfortunately, theÂ Obama administrationâ€™s political correctness prevented anything from being done about it.

I still stand by my earlier observation that because our political opponents came out all over the place, rather than staying on message, they once again sabotaged themselves. When you start talking gun bans, our people listen very carefully, and then get very angry and start melting the phone and e-mail systems of their local politicians. They don’t stop paying attention just because it takes the other side a while to get on message.

I think it’s important to point out this guy was a licensed security guard for DHS. This is the kind of guy even pretty extreme gun control folks agree should be allowed to have a gun, even if the rest of the proles are disarmed. Push that point.

Seen on the Internets

I’ll offer this with no comment:

ClintonMeme

Gun Control Proponents Against Ergonomics

In the coming days, a lot of you are going to be having conversations with friends and family, and I think it’s important to get your facts right. I see a lot of people saying the AR-15 is no more deadly than a handgun. In a mass shooting scenario, tactics matter much more than the choice of weapon. The Virginia Tech mass murderer, the worst mass shooting in history until Saturday, managed to do that with two ordinary handguns. But it’s not quite accurate to say a handguns and rifles are equal in lethality.

Bullet for bullet, rifles are generally more powerful and thus more deadly than handguns. It is accurate to say that the AR-15 no more or less lethal, bullet for bullet, than any other rifle chambered in the same caliber. It is accurate to say that the .223 Remington / 5.56x45mm (NATO designation) is a medium powered cartridge.

So what makes the AR-15 different? As a rifle goes, it has fantastic ergonomics. I have a lot of different rifles of military pedigree, and the ergonomics on most of them are pretty terrible. Even the venerable M1 Garand is pretty awful ergonomically, even though it’s far more powerful bullet for bullet than the AR-15. If I had to pick a military rifle that I would rank on my “enjoy shooting” list, the M1903A3 would probably rank not too far behind my AR-15s, and ahead of the M1 Garand.

The ergonomics of the AR-15:

The pistol grip makes it easy to control
It’s low recoil impulse, due to aligning the barrel with the stock, makes it easy to bring the sights back down on target.
Easy to understand sights (even easier if you use one of the newer holographic sights).
Intuitive safety (selector in the military M16/M4)
Intuitive drop free mag release. You can have another magazine in your hand coming up when you drop the emptied one.
Intuitive bolt release to slap the bolt carrier home once the magazine is inserted.

It is very easy to teach an untrained person to land accurate shots with an AR-15. I’ve seen people go from awkward to landing decent shots with just a few hours training (and I’m a horrible trainer!). In addition to the ergonomic features, proper ammunition won’t over-penetrate and risk hitting bystanders. This is why police departments have almost universally adopted the AR-15. This is why it’s become the standard in NRA high-power competition and 3-gun competition. This is why the AR-15 is now chosen often by civilians for home-defense. It’s also, unfortunately, why mass shooters choose it. The features that make the AR-15 easier for a novice to shoot accurately also make it easier for mass killers, most of whom are novices. There is probably some role that the media plays in suggesting it’s “the mass killer’s choice,” but that’s the truth of the matter. Could using a shotgun be more deadly? Sure. But the recoil of a shotgun is punishing, and the ergonomics of most shotguns aren’t remarkably good. I almost never bring out shotguns for novices unless they express a specific interest in shooting trap or skeet.

I think we rest on pretty firm ground to argue that firearms should be easy for novices to use. Unless you’re a seasoned competitive shooter, most gun owners, most police, and most people in the military are novices. They can exercise a base level of competence and safety when running their firearms, but Annie Oakley they are not. We should not be banning semi-automatic rifles, which truly aren’t especially more deadly than other semi-automatic rifles, just because they are easy for novices to use. This gets back to the base argument of gun control vs. gun rights: should arms belong only to the special elite, or is it a birthright of all citizens?

Orlando Terrorist Attack Roundup

This is basically splitting two ways, with the right blaming an inept foreign policy and radical islam, and the left blaming American Christians for promoting a culture of hate, blaming guns, and blaming pretty much everyone except the jerk off who did the shooting. If we are vigilant, I believe we can weather this. Here’s some of what’s being said:

“After Orlando, We Must Ask How Our Society Got This Way”

You First, Whoopi: “‘The View’ Talks Orlando; Whoopi Goldberg Tells Second Amendment Supporters to ‘Back Off’” There’s one person who’s responsible for this act, and that guy is dead. American gun owners are sick to death of having this shit pinned on us, and we’re not going to take it anymore.

Kansas City Star: “Gun industry, NRA leaders and Congress have enabled killers in America.” Any time they try to make this about “the gun industry” or “gun lobby” they are marginalizing your voice and marginalizing you.

Hartford Courant: “Ban Assault Weapons Now.” They are doing the same thing they did after Sandy Hook. This will awaken our people in huge numbers and they will get nothing.

President Obama is pushing the gun control issue hard.

“Orlando Shooter Used Same Weapon as Past Mass-Shooters: The AR-15”

“Orlando shooting changes US presidential election” Notice a pattern? They aren’t calling it Orlando Terrorist Attack.

“Obama warned just 11 days ago that an ISIL sympathizer could get a gun in the US”

“Nobody needs an AR-15: The Orlando massacre teaches us (again) that we must ban semi-automatic human killing machines”

“The AR-15: the most popular rifle in the US”

“Trump says assault weapons needed for protection”

“Clinton calls for ban on â€˜weapon of warâ€™ AR-15 assault rifle”

Clinton on Orlando Terror Attack: ‘We Can Not Fall Into The Trap Set By The Gun Lobby’

Christie Todd Whitman: “From what we know now, the shooter had acquired his automatic weapon legally just days before the shooting. Who, besides law enforcement and the military, really needs a fully automatic weapon?Â Â Really.” Please educate yourself, Governor. This was not a fully automatic assault rifle here. This was not a weapon of war. She was elected in part because of Jim Florio’s assault weapon ban, then promptly proceeded to do nothing when she got into office.

Of course she does: “In Wake Of Orlando Shooting, Clinton Suggests Broader Terror Watch Lists” We’ll all be suspected terrorists before too long. And who’s to stop them?

Bob Casey’s New Gun Control Plan

Sen. Bob Casey who ran a campaign to get the support of gun owners changed his tune quite a while ago. He’s on board with the sweeping semi-auto bans, private sale bans, and magazine bans.

Now he wants to make gun owners a felon if they are even suspected of potential crimes – beyond the standard “terror watch list” restriction which could end your right to possess firearms just for having the same name as some person who may not have even visited this country.

Convictions, evidence, and watch list status are no longer required under the plan he announced today. Let someone give your name as a suspect in some crime that happens to include a victim in a protected class, and you lose your Constitutional rights.

“The Hate Crimes Prevention Act would prohibit the purchase, possession or shipment of a firearm by anyone convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime or who received a hate crime sentence enhancement, and prohibit the sale of firearms to anyone reasonably suspected to be guilty of a misdemeanor hate crime. “

(Link via Reason.)

Turning Point: Election 2016

Despite Sebastian’s early read that, as an unambiguously terroristic act, the massacre in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando would not cause the same level of blame as Sandy Hook, my Facebook feed this AM tends to disagree. While that’s a pile of anecdotes rather than data, the blood was still warm when the dance started, and it started with the old classic tune of “This Was The NRA’s Fault,” and the chorus is “AR-15s should be banned and all other firearms strictly restricted, because nothing less will work.” They’re either attacking the BG check system because the shooter was allegedly a wife-beater and mentally unstable and still was able to get a firearm, or ignoring that he passed a BG check in the first place. And pointing out that he was investigated by the FBI for terroristic ties (without mentioning that the investigation was dropped for lack of evidence).

(All are ignoring that he passed separate BG checks to become a licensed armed security guard – a BG check that should have been more in-depth than the NICS check, I would expect. OTOH, I don’t know FL lawÂ and company policy there; perhaps all they do is a NICS-equivalent check. Which seems sloppy).

The result is that the Democratic Party has increased their bet on “gun control is a winner!” By doing so, they’ve put defenders of the Second Amendment on deadly ground. My gut read is that Trump’s chances just got better.

France Not a Developed Country?

Shannon Watts is such a horrible Public Relations person, I’m surprised Bloomberg was impressed with her. Everyone and their mother knows about the shootings in Paris and Belgium, unless they live in caves:

Dear Congress: This isn't happening in any other developed nation. DO YOUR JOB! #PrayForOrlando #MassShooting #Orlando

— Shannon (@shannonrwatts) June 12, 2016

John Richardson points out:

The attack by Muslim terrorists at Le Bataclan in Paris which killed 130 and wounded hundreds more is off of Shannon’s radar because it doesn’t fit her gun control narrative. France, by the way, had very, very strict gun control laws as does Belgium where many of those terrorists obtained their weapons.

Terrorists are going to kill people. It is what they do …

Shannon was beating the drum for terror watch list legislation even before all the facts were in.