Category: Gun Rights

… can go pound sand, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never understood the left’s concern with Europeans frowning on the state of our domestic affairs.

Miguel does a pretty admirable job of taking down this particular meme.

Going mainstream enough to be featured in Popular Science, who note that “it’s pretty clear that making weapons at home using 3-D printers from commonly available materials is going to become much more commonplace in the near future.” And yet our opponents keep pretending that gun control can work. They don’t think criminals are going to be able to hit print?

A new poll has some encouraging aspects, but this is not:

For this survey, respondents were shown three pictures of firearms and asked whether they should be available to every American who is eligible to own firearms, or only to the police and other authorized persons. These weapons were reportedly used in last month’s mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado.

A majority of respondents believe the .40-calibre Glock handgun (63%) and the Remington 870 shotgun (58%) should remain accessible to every American who is eligible to own firearms. However, 73 per cent of Americans—including sizeable majorities of Republicans (66%) and gun owners (61%)—believe the AR-15 rifle should only be used by the police and other authorized persons.

This is the only poll I’m aware of that was done by picture. You can see the methodology here. The people were selected from among this pool of people to get a representative sampling, but I’d also note that I don’t think most gun people would be the types that would sign up for something like this. Regardless of how representative the sample actually is or isn’t, there are pretty clearly a lot of gun owners we’re not reaching with facts. How many of them thought they were looking at a machine gun? If any were fooled, we’re clearly not doing our jobs.

Bloomberg notes that NRA sent out a fundraising letter three days after the shootings in Colorado. Those of us who are members will laugh at this, since three days is probably about par for the course with NRA mailings:

“The future of your Second Amendment rights will be at stake,” the letter said. “And nothing less than the future of our country and our freedom will be at stake.”

Sounds like a pretty typical fundraising e-mail to me.

The letter dated July 23, which was sent to NRA supporters including to people in Colorado, doesn’t mention the gunfire during the showing of the new Batman movie July 20 in Aurora, Colorado.

Probably because it was scheduled to go out long before the shooting.

The letter drew criticism from the Denver-based Colorado Ceasefire Capitol Fund, a gun-control advocacy group, whose president Eileen McCarron called it “very insensitive.”

“Couldn’t they have waited at least a week, especially here? People’s souls are really wounded,” she said.

Given that NRA had exactly bupkis to do with mass shootings (last I checked, they don’t advocate such things), why is it insensitive? NRA is constantly sending this stuff out to members. This is just another case of anti-gunners playing the victim card, and trying to blame the tragedy on ordinary gun owners.

UPDATE: Extrano’s Alley notes that tragedy hasn’t stopped the anti-gun groups from fundraising. Yeah, we’ve seen that before too. They can get away with it, though. They are victims, and have absolute moral authority when it comes to this issue.

From an article appearing in English in the Korean media:

Institutions, businesses, groups and the public are prohibited from possessing or transacting firearms according to the law, which also banned lending, smuggling, destroying and self-producing firearms.

Those who violate the rules, resulting in “stern consequences,” are subject to administrative and criminal liabilities, the North says in the law.

Experts say the establishment of such acts is part of Kim Jong-il’s efforts to tighten control of the society and maintain strict order following his nomination of his third and youngest son Kim Jong-un to be his successor in early 2009.

“North Korea appeared to have tried to strictly regulate firearms under the circumstances where former leader Kim’s stroke in 2008 could lead to a chaos in the society,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies.

We’re constantly told how utterly useless small arms and personal weapons are against governments that have planes and tanks, but its amazing how eager pretty much every despot has been to control who has firearms and for what. Certainly the despots themselves feel they have something to be concerned about with firearms in civilian hands, or in this case, even in non-civilian hands.

Also note the mention of homemade (“self-producting” in the badly translated article) firearms. If it’s a problem enough to mention, you can bet it’s being done. And this is in a totalitarian country where the state controls all aspects of life.

How do our opponents think it’ll ever work here? And do we even want it?

Blames the NRA. In this case, the guy didn’t have a permit for a pistol he was carrying, and had drugs on him. But it’s perfectly legal to tote any rifle on SEPTA if you’re going shooting, to or from your place of business, or for any reason at all if you have a License to Carry. In fact, I have a friend that lives in Philly, doesn’t have a car, and has a registered M16. How does the DA think he transports it? Maybe Seth Williams should spend more time prosecuting actual criminals for misusing firearms, and spend less time fretting that certain activities are legal, there might be some crime reduction in that City. This guy had drugs and guns. That’s a no no, so nail him for that. But there are firearms like this on SEPTA all the time, and it’s legal. Get over it.

Guns are very seriously restricted in China, yet a mass killer armed with a simple knife killed eight, and wounded five. China has a problem with mass killings with knives. The article points out there was a rash of these in 2010 with 20 killed and 50 wounded.

Where there is a will, there is a way. We keep being told by our presumptuous betters how ridiculous we are with that statement, but experience seems to bear it.

Debra Maggart was defeated by her primary opponent, pretty overwhelmingly. No word yet on whether her shrunken head will be added to the decor in Chris Cox’s office*. Word I heard from folks in Tennessee was that upon assuming a leadership position with the newly GOP house, she seemed to believe she could take gun owners for granted, and apparently wasn’t shy about telling them that. A strategy of primary challenging intransigent Republicans in an area where Democrats are also likely to be reasonable on the gun issue is a wise one.

* For our humor challenged friends in the gun control movement, this is what we call a joke. Chris Cox does not actually have a shrunken head collection in his office.