Last year, van Nieuwenhuyzen v. Sniff set up the Ninth Circus for the dilemma of upholding a gun control law or shooting down sanctuary cities.
Now federal Southern District of California Judge Roger T. Benitez has made a ruling in Duncan et al vs. Becerra that, once appealed by the state of California, likewise presents the Ninth with a little problem. Benitez has found California’s 10-round magazine limit to be unconstitutional.
Ah, but the way he wrote it. You have to like a ruling that begins
“Individual liberty and freedom are not outmoded concepts.”
And then the introduction: He cites three self-defense cases in which women needed more rounds.
The Ninth is likely to reverse Benitez, based on past history. And then we get to note that it means they want women dead.
Beyond the introduction, the ruling is rather dry reading, but worth the effort for Benitez’ analysis. He notes the irony of California’s law.
Perhaps the irony of § 32310 escapes notice. The reason for the adoption of the 19 Second Amendment was to protect the citizens of the new nation from the power of an oppressive state. The anti-federalists were worried about the risk of oppression by a standing army. The colonies had witnessed the standing army of England marching through Lexington to Concord, Massachusetts, on a mission to seize the arms and gunpowder of the militia and the Minutemen—an attack that ignited the Revolutionary war. With Colonists still hurting from the wounds of war, the Second Amendment guaranteed the rights of new American citizens to protect themselves from oppressors foreign and domestic. So, now it is ironic that the State whittles away at the right of its citizens to defend themselves from the possible oppression of their State.
Exactly.
He spends a great deal of time explaining why the law is inconsistent with Heller, and why this law fails, not just strict scrutiny, but even intermediate.
In light of the ongoing bump-fire ban cases, I found a few other points interesting.
Plaintiffs who have kept their own larger capacity magazines since 1999, and now face criminal sanctions for continuing to possess them, no doubt feel they have been misled or tricked by their lawmakers.
[…]
In an analogous First Amendment case, the Supreme Court called this approach turning the Constitution upside down.
Sound familiar? Those once-lawfully owned stocks suddenly making people into criminals. I don’t know offhand if Guedes or the other bumpfire cases cite Federal Election Comm’n v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449, 474–75 (2007) or Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002), but they should.
Benitez addresses “legislative deference,” too. In this context, that is the deference a court would owe the lawmakers who presumably carefully study matters before crafting law (giggle if you wish; that’s the theory). He tosses that in Duncan, because this law was passed by public referendum. No deference owed.
In Guedes et al an issue is what deference courts owe unelected bureaucrats who change legislative intent. None, I think.
After dozens of pages explaining why unsourced, anecdotal “expert” witnesses, mischaracterized laws, misstated rulings, arbitrary thresholds, and nonsensical exceptions are bovine excrement, Benitez concludes
This decision is a freedom calculus decided long ago by Colonists who cherished individual freedom more than the subservient security of a British ruler. The freedom they fought for was not free of cost then, and it is not free now.
Freedom over security. I am astonished to see that from a judge in California. The Ninth will soil their black dresses.
I expect all the Californian police-staters are going to have trouble wrapping their minds around that. To be perfectly clear:
1. Defendant Attorney General Xavier Becerra, and his officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and those persons in active concert or participation with him, and those duly sworn state peace officers and federal law enforcement officers who gain knowledge of this injunction order, or know of the existence of this injunction order, are enjoined from enforcing California Penal Code section 32310.
2. Defendant Becerra shall provide, by personal service or otherwise, actual notice of this order to all law enforcement personnel who are responsible for implementing or enforcing the enjoined statute. The government shall file a declaration establishing proof of such notice.
Paragraph 2 is a thing of beauty. Not only is the judge tossing the law, he has made AG Becerra personally responsible for making sure every LEO is the state knows it’s the law. If this were to stand — and that alone will make the Ninth want to reverse — then anyone busted in the future for a 15-round mag by some local yokel cop, who says he didn’t know, has grounds to sue Becerra, even if charges are eventually dropped.
This is obviously a good thing, but don’t get too comfortable. This is a ruling by a District court. In the Ninth Circuit. All things considered, I expect the Circuit to reverse and remand.
Depending on plaintiff’s resources, this will most likely need to go to the Supreme Court. Given the varied magazine limits in assorted jurisdictions, SCOTUS should grant cert. Will they? The post McDonald record isn’t encouraging, especially last week’s decision to deny a stay in the bump-fire ban.
Stay tuned.
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In keeping with April First traditions of foolery, the DC Court of Appeals denied the Guedes et al appeal for a stay on the bump-fire ban.
It is 86 pages of legalese, which you may read at your leisure. Much of it addresses the legal aspects of Whitaker’s signing the rule, and administrative issues raised. The meat that I believe most TZP readers want to see boils down to this statement.
But the Rule reasonably distinguishes binary-trigger guns on the ground that they require a second act of volition with the trigger finger. The release of a trigger is a volitional motion. But merely holding the trigger finger stationary—which is what operation of a bump stock entails—is not.
Volitionally operating your finger counts. Volitionally operating your entire off hand and arm does not. Thus, inert hunks of plastic are machineguns. As is any light-trigger firearm which might be fired with an involuntary and nonvolitional muscle twitch, or sympathetic squeeze. Essentially, any unintended — nonvolitional –discharge proves your firearm to be a machinegun.
Equally infuriating, and more dangerous, is the way they dismissed all arguments against the ATF simply redefining words and changing intent. That’s peachy. Law no longer means anything whatsoever except what an unelected bureaucrat says it does, and is subject to arbitrary change. Your broken down Trabant can be a main battle tank. Better start your NFA paperwork.
There is no law.
There is no constitution.
You’ll also love the part where the lunatics in black dresses (which I hope come standard with built-in straitjackets) find that retroactively declaring bump-fire stocks to be machineguns is not a retroactive action. The Queen would be envious of their reality-denial skills.
The one glimmer of sanity is found in the dissent by Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson.
“Unlike my colleagues, I believe the Bump Stock Rule does contradict the statutory definition and, respectfully, part company with them on this issue.”
And for good reasons. Sane and logical reasons. This is the first time I’ve seen a judge diagram a sentence in a ruling.
For the reasons detailed supra, I believe the Bump Stock Rule expands the statutory definition of “machinegun” and is therefore ultra vires. In my view, the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their challenge and I would grant them preliminary injunctive relief.
Sadly, every other judge who has ruled on a bump-fire stock case to date believes otherwise. Even the majority (possibly unanimous, as no dissent was listed) of the Supreme Court saw no need to stay the ban. I am not optimistic as to the final outcome.
Of the case(s), or the country.
I fear the oathbreaking majority idiots have moved us another day closer to Open Season.
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Caution: I have found no news reports confirming this, but the claims strike me as credible.
It is important to note that, as best I can tell, at this time, the only “ban” is on sales. Possession is not yet banned, although it is planned.
Got suggested I pop this up but whilst at work this morning, I hear a voice ask for me by name. I turn around and there’s 2 police officers.
Needless to say workmates were shocked too see me taken into a room for a chat and these guys were quite nice about it but wanted to know what my partner and I have.
Was polite and freely told them plus we were waiting on further buyback details and advice at this time. Also let them know due to having been days away from both of us submitting our E cat application our E cat safe is installed and floor plated as per the reccommendatons. (So stored legally in an odd stroke of luck)
It seems to depend on the officers, but they are reportedly not stopping with gathering data.
A Mate of mine had the cops turn up at his house on sat after an image a friend of his had posted on Instagram holding his a cat ar15 got reported. They asked to see his safe and he complied. They confiscated his ar15 as well as his semi 22 although they Admitted they werent sure if that would be effected under the new law and suggested he may get it back. They gave him a police property form with all details of what they were holding and took the guns with them
And if they can’t reach owners, they attempt to get other people to rat them out.
This is second hand from someone who attended their 2 day shoot over the weekend. Wairarapa gun club had a talk on the weekend about firearm security whilst on club grounds. Locked vehicle etc. It was also mentioned that there evidently have been instances of police turning up at clubs wishing to inspect firearms and licences. NZCTA evidntly recommend politely refusing as under current legislation without a warrent this is illegal. Questions have also evidently been asked “do you know what guns other members have” it was pointed out that it is liiegal at present to divulge what firearms another person holds.
The fact that the police are attempting to discover what people have is interesting.Depending on the news report, the coming ban is anything from “military-style semi-automatics” (an NZ legal term roughly equating to a California “assault weapon”) to all semi-automatic firearms.
MSSA’s must be licensed and registered (roughly equivalent to the American NFA). But the police don’t seem to know who has them. It sounds like their registration system is working about as well as California’s.
Unofficial reports have it that NZ is running short of PVC pipe. And gun stores are running out of A Cat semi-autos. The police are going to need metal detectors and ground penetrating radar to document those.
Sadly, this hasn’t stopped with unlawful searches and seizures. There are news reports of a fatality. The police say it was suicide. But they also say:
“Members of the public who heard what they thought were explosions were hearing police deploying gas at the scene.
What brought this on? The official version is that the man’s son posted a years-old picture of an Airsoft gun on social media. That necessitated a raid on his home.
After a stand-off with the man in his truck, he was found dead of a stab wound or wounds.
So far, NZ gun owners say they intend to be polite when dealing with police. But the sense I get is that may change with more unlawful seizures, or another convenient suicide.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could really use the money, what with truck repairs (too late; I’m selling the truck) and recurring bills. And the rabbits need feed. Truck insurance, lest I be forced to sell it. Click here to donate via PayPal.
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“Imagine the deaths if the shooter [Las Vegas] had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get. Our grief isn’t enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA, and work together to try to stop this from happening again.”
“Durn tootin’, great shootin’. Cool dude sertin’ he’s 2nd Mendment rahts. Hell yeah! Every country has its psychopaths. In US they have guns.” [Mocking misspellings in the original].2
Richard Dawkins, author and famous atheist.
“The NRA, a vile organization with a sinister, deadly grip on America’s lawmakers, bought Trump’s silence when they backed him during the election campaign.”3
Piers Morgan
“After Sandy Hook and Las Vegas, what is the rationale for any civilian owning an assault rifle and high capacity magazine?”4
Barbara Streisand
“How long do we let gun violence tear families apart? Enough. Congress & the WH should act now to save lives. There’s no excuse for inaction.”5
Joe Biden, former Vice President
“I’m not an ordained minister; I’m not a theologian, but these guys [NRA] are going to hell.”6
Lily Eskelsen Garcia, sixth grade teacher, Utah, and Vice President National Education Association [NEA] the nation’s largest teacher’s union.
Television news reporters often refer to semiautomatic rifles as “assault weapons,” say guns “go off accidentally,” infer AR15s are capable of full-automatic fire, employ the phrase “gun violence,” and display background screen icons (Browning High Power for example) in reports on violent assaults even when the weapon used was a knife. If journalists are going to bang on authoritatively about something, shouldn’t they know what they’re talking about? Considering network news is for many people their sole source of information, isn’t it important for journalists use proper terminology? Improper use of terms can confuse and mislead the public with respect to laws, regulations, and the types of firearms owned by citizens. I’ve dropped notes to journalists apprising them of proper terms when they used them incorrectly and all responses were cordial. Scott Goldberg of ABC News who incorrectly claimed bump stocks turned semiautomatic rifles into machine guns, refused to respond. Chris, a reporter in the Kansas City news market, agreed that news reports employ biased terminology. He revealed when discussing firearms, incorrect terms are actually provided through press releases issued by Police Public Information Officers relative to a crime under investigation and in scripts written by producers. Journalists are also guided by playbooks listing approved vocabulary that reflect political bias. For example abortion supporters are called “Pro-Choice” even though the choice promoted is abortion and opponents, who call themselves Pro-Life, are instead labeled “Anti-Abortion” or “Anti-Choice” hardly neutral or objective. Chris revealed he was chastised by his boss for saying “illegal alien” instead of the approved term “undocumented immigrant.” Job security enforces compliance.7
Perhaps at no time in American history has the meaning of words mattered more. Consider how for the past 50+ years the Left’s agenda driven political ideology has shaped America. Their control over public education is monolithic, they own pop-culture, the movie, music, and entertainment industries, dominate print and broadcast journalism, influence Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish denominations, and have invaded professional sports. In public education, they write the narrative and point of view allowed to be taught to such a degree, classrooms are little more than indoctrination centers. As a teacher I came up against the Liberal’s hegemonic sway over what kids are taught and their ‘Edstapo’ goons on constant prowl for heretics and dissenters (especially true in SocialIST studies departments). There are ways of being burned at the stake without using fire. Spoon feeding a biased curriculum to an unknowing gullible captive audience is bad enough but perhaps worse is what they leave out. Political Correctness, invented by Stalin,8 dictates what kids are taught on every issue from global warming, immigration, economics, the Constitution, and gender bending, to the meaning of the 2nd Amendment. Not taught the other side? They don’t even know one exists!
For years I’ve warned regardless of how many 2nd Amendment victories are won, America is always a mass shooting and Supreme Court appointments away from losing everything. Fewer Americans than ever today grow up exposed to firearms whether through hunting, target practice, or competition. Their source for information on firearms comes from pop-culture, news and social media, and public education all dominated by liberals hostile to the 2nd Amendment. At some point in their life, an individual is responsible for searching out the truth on any issue. But it doesn’t work that way. Americans are too intellectually lazy to bother. Rather than the rebuke so richly deserved for indolent self-inflicted ignorance, with patience and perseverance the great-unwashed must be educated. Hence this primer. Based on statements in the news and social media, to some degree non-gun owners seem to believe anyone can walk into a gun store, hand over cash, and walk out a few minutes later with a firearm. Is this true?
Only those legally eligible can purchase firearms and only in the state of their residence. Age requirements apply; 18 for rifles and shotguns, 21 for handguns, and they must present a valid drivers’ license. If expired, suspended, revoked, or they moved without updating the address on their license, purchase is denied. Everything is in order, can they now buy a gun? No. They must complete federal form 4473 providing identifying information; name; date and place of birth, social security number, and so forth. Next they’re required to answer a series of questions including who is the actual purchaser of the firearm. Buying it for someone else, a “straw-purchase,” is prohibited. Additional questions include; are they a convicted felon, under felony indictment, a fugitive from justice, drug user, dishonorably discharged from the military, renounced their citizenship, in the country illegally, not a U.S. citizen, subject to a restraining order, or if they have been convicted of domestic violence, misdemeanor or not. A yes answer to these questions means they cannot buy a firearm. An untruthful answer is a felony punishable by federal prison, fines, and loss of the right to own firearms, vote, and hold state or federal jobs…forever. Suppose they lie?
Once form 4473 is completed and signed by a customer, gun stores must call the F.B.I.’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Police agencies and the military are required by law to provide information on prohibited individuals to the F.B.I. who, in turn, enter it into a centralized data base. Upon receiving a request for authorization to sell a gun from a Federal Firearms License (FFL) holder, the F.B.I. searches its data base determining if the intended purchaser is not legally prohibited. It’s the F.B.I. who authorizes or denies sales. Suppose a buyer has no criminal record but is mentally unstable? Information on those adjudicated through a legal process as “mentally defective” or having been institutionalized, is also entered into the F.B.I.’s data base and they will be denied purchase. Can’t an FFL just skip all this?
Commercial gun sales can only be made by FFLs. Information on each firearm they receive through purchase, trade, and so forth, must be entered into a logbook along with information as to whom it is ultimately sold. Logbooks are subject to random inspection by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, and Firearms [BATF]. Whether storefront or homebased, FFLs must be able to account for every gun taken in and or sold. Data entry discrepancies may lead to revocation of the FFL and felony prosecution. If the business is sold or closes, logbooks and all 4473 forms are transferred to the BATF, a form of registration. If denied purchase at a gun store, can’t prohibited persons buy firearms at gun shows through some kind of “loophole?”
Gun show promoters lease venues for their events in turn renting space to FFLs, often gun stores. All laws and requirements with respect to buying and selling guns apply at gun shows. Private sales may occur but typically comprise hunting rifles, shotguns and relics. Police officers and AFT Agents are often on hand supervising compliance. Only a miniscule number of criminals purchase firearms at gun shows. Typically they obtain them through burglary and theft. But what about these machine guns we keep hearing about. Can’t anyone walk in and out of a gun store with machine guns?
In 1934, Congress passed the National Firearms Act [NFA] regulating various firearms and devices commonly known as “silencers,” but its main focus was submachine guns, those capable of firing continuously with one pull of the trigger. Submachine guns were not banned. Instead, owners paid a $200 stamp tax and registered the firearm with the federal government.9 The Gun Control Act [GCA] of 1968 was interpreted by the BATF to prohibit the importation of fully automatic firearms by civilians. In 1986, the GCA was amended by the Hughes Amendment (Representative Charles Hughes, Democrat New Jersey) prohibiting civilian possession of full-automatic firearms manufactured after 19 May, 1986. To sell and or purchase firearms covered by the GCA, individuals apply for and obtain a special license from and register the firearm with the federal government paying required fees.10 Title I FFL’s pay a Special Occupation Tax to sell full-automatic firearms. This elevates them to title III hence the common but inaccurate term “class III license.” GCA applicants must meet all legal requirements for ownership, submit to a 6 to 12 month BATF criminal background investigation, provide finger print cards and passport sized photos, pay a $200 stamp tax, and register the firearm with the BATF. Because no full-automatic guns produced after May of 1986 may be sold to civilians, their pool is extremely limited translating into stratospheric prices.11 The idea, as my son says, that “some edgy teenager” can afford one is preposterous. Although not an edgy teenager, add me to the preposterous list.
Yes, the sear portion of an AR, and other semiautomatic rifles, can be cut and modified to allow for full automatic fire. But, there will be no selective fire option. It can now be fired only fully automatic. Anyone caught with such a modified weapon faces 10 years+ in a federal prison, loss of the right to ever be in possession, let alone own, firearms, loss of the right to vote, and hundreds of thousands in fines. May I make a recommendation to anyone considering this modification? Don’t. You will get caught. It’s possible to modify or buy an already modified sear. It’s a small piece of metal and, as long as it’s not installed in a rifle, no problem, right? Wrong. Mere possession of a sear, modified to allow fully automatic fire, is considered the same as possessing a fully automatic rifle with all the same penalties. You will get caught. Once again, don’t do it. If you must fire one, patronize a gun range that rents these rifles. They’re fun but you’ll probably leave realizing how impractical they are for self-defense. Sustained controlled accurate fire? Yeah, sure.
Not every gun owner in America supports let alone belongs to a pro-2nd Amendment organization or gun club, not even close. Nevertheless, when the Left attacks and besmirches these organizations, they serve for liberals as surrogates for all gun-owners and that means you. The Left works off an old and well established ideology and doctrine; the will of the individual must be bent to and subordinated to will of the state. Private ownership of firearms has no place in such a world view and neither do inalienable rights. It’s our job to educate family, friends, and neighbors about the truth because it will not happen in tax payer financed public schools and universities.
22 Emily Zanotti, 2 October 2017, “Insane: The Worst Twitter Responses To The Tragedy in Las Vegas,” The Daily Wire, at www.dailywire.com/news/21/02/10/2017.
55 Alexander Kacala, “From Lady Gaga to Taylor Swift, Celebrities Respond to Yesterday’s Las Vegas Attack,” at http://hornetapp.com/stories/las-vegas-attack/amp/
66 Todd Woodward, Editor, “Downrange: “Teacher, Leave Gun Guys Alone,” Gun Tests 8 (August, 2013), 2. Lily Eskelsen Garcia is the vice president of the National Education Association, America’s largest teacher’s union which is also a major donor and supporter of the Democrat Party. She was speaking before a Netroots Nation Conference attended by 3,000 “progressive activists” leaders in the drive to forge a Leftwing consensus in public education curriculum in the classroom and political activism without.
77 Email from Chris, “AK-47 ‘Assault Rifle,” KCTV 5 News, 6 December, 2007 to the author.
88 Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, The VENONA Secrets (Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2000), 58.
99 David Higginbotham, “Gun Laws 101: Nations Firearms Act of 1934,” Guns.com at ww.guns.com/2013/01/03,
The suit announced Friday alleges that U.S. Patriot Armory violated New Jersey’s consumer fraud laws when it advertised and sold gun parts to an undercover investigator last month.
The investigator bought parts for an AR-15 assault rifle.
New Jersey bans purchases of gun parts for use in making firearms with no serial numbers, called “ghost guns.” It’s also a crime to possess an unregistered assault firearm in the state.
First off, a nonfirearm transaction in California is subject to New Jersey law? I don’t think so.
There are a couple more problems. Let’s take a look at the law. The relevant section is this:
Purchasing firearm parts to manufacture untraceable firearm. In addition to any other penalty imposed under current law, a person who purchases separately or as a kit any combination of parts from which a firearm may be readily assembled with the purpose to manufacture an untraceable firearm is guilty of a crime of the third degree. Notwithstanding the provisions of N.J.S.2C:1-8 or any other law, a conviction under this subsection shall not merge with a conviction for any other criminal offense and the court shall impose separate sentences upon a violation of this subsection and any other criminal offense.
Fine; it’s unlawful for someone in New Jersey to purchase the parts. Sort of. It says nothing about the seller.
But the intent counts, too. The intent of the purchaser must be to assemble an assault firearm. Was it the intent of the undercover investigator to assemble such a firearm? Please say, “Yes,” because for once they didn’t include a law enforcement exemption. The investigator should be charged.
Ah, but what if the purchaser of parts lawfully own a firearm, and he wants to stock replacement parts for repairs? At least in this law, that’s perfectly lawful. Intent matters; mens rea.
For this to fly at all, the investigator would have had to specifically tell U.S. Patriot Armory that he was buying the parts with the intent of violating New Jersey law, making it a co-conspirator. Otherwise, for all the company knows, it was selling to a licensed individual building a lawful serialized gun, or repairing one.
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Obviously the only possible reason to oppose control is because we hate people. It couldn’t possibly be that we want the ability to defend our families and ourselves. Neat trick; demonizing gun owners as unfeeling bastards who don’t value life, while virtue-signalling his own “concern.” Qasim Rashid is a human/civil rights-violating piece of… work, who tries to steer the argument by taking his — entirely unfounded —assumption as fact.
And oh-so-well informed.
I still remember when my older brother wrote to us from US Marine Corps bootcamp to tell us that he’d earned the expert rifleman badge for his firearm. It was the highest possible award that the Marines offered.
The Marines might disagree with that, unless he was attempting to say — rather poorly — that it is the highest rifle marksmanship award.
Rashid also appears fond of another common gunpeople control tactic: The strawman argument.
Those who oppose responsible gun legislation claim that gun laws won’t work because criminals will still find a way to get guns. By such logic we shouldn’t have any laws at all because, after all, criminals will break them.
That’s comparatively clever, because uses part of the truth, to tell a lie of omission. In fact, we note that criminals will still get guns because the laws his slimy ilk propose always target honest gun owners, not the actual criminals. That last part is rather important. It’s particularly important for victim disarmers to ignore: Never once has any anti-gun legislator (or wannabe like Rashid) ever even attempted to answer the question of how [insert dumbass infringement imposed on honest people] will adversely impact criminals who already obtain arms through unlawful channels.
That question is always guaranteed to result in silence.
More strawmen.
Who can honestly claim that domestic abusers and violent felons deserve easy access to firearms?
Is Rashid proposing that? Because I don’t know any pro-Second Amendment people arguing to arm violent criminals.
Half-truths are another standby for scumbags like Rashid. Let’s see what else he trots out.
After the 1987 Hungerford mass shooting left 16 dead, England enacted meaningful gun reform. England has experienced one mass shooting since.
And 89 dead in vehicle, bomb, and knife attacks. And there were zero mass shootings in the 20th century prior to the Hungerford incident. Based on the fact that the next came after those “meaningful” reforms, you could as easily argue the reforms contributed to the second 20th century occurrence.
But we have to disarm the people, because only government agents can be trusted… Uh oh.
If we go back to 19th century England, all the mass shootings were committed by the government. 18th century: all by government. 17th: government forces again.
After the 1995 Port Arther [sic] mass shooting left 35 dead, Australia enacted responsible gun legislation. Australia has experienced zero mass shootings since.
Wrong. At least 8, since Port Arthur,and sixteen more massacres by other means, accounting for more deaths than the shootings.
Here’s a meaningless “factoid” that sounds impressive, if you don’t actually know a damned thing about the topic.
And after the 2009 Winnendon school shooting left 16 dead, Germany enacted responsible gun legislation. Germany has experienced only one mass shooting since.
Let’s examine that. In post-reunification Germany, there have been 5 mass shootings. From unification to Winnenden, there was an average of 5.6 years between those, with the longest gap being 9.5 years. From Winnenden to the 2016 Munich shooting was 7 years. I really don’t think there’s a trend supporting his alleged point, since the greatest period between shootings was before his “responsible” laws. As with the English “example,” a pedant could easily argue that the changes in German laws made mass shootings more common, on average.
Gaming the assumptions, lies, half-truths, and strawman arguments. It’s as if Rashid were trying to create the ultimate victim disarmament fable. All he left out was bogus “research” with synthetic control groups.
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“As a military servicemember, would you exercise illegal force against American civilians to enforce an “assault weapon” ban?”
Commenting continues, and two individuals debated military intervention.
One said that military personnel might be willing to act against civilians.
“It can’t happen here!” Go to Sand Creek and tell that to the tormented spirits there. (The 154th anniversary is a mere ten days away.)
The Sand Creek Massacre was an action by the United States Volunteers in which as many as 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho were slaughtered, mostly women and children.
Another commenter noted that Sand Creek was a poor analogy to confiscating firearms from Americans.
Sand Creek was done by militia, with about as much training as we give a first-year JROTC cadet (freshman in high school) today, if that. And they were NOT attacking their own people: they were attacking “savages” who were considered even less human by the average gold miner or saloon bum than them darkie slaves down South in 1864.
Give that man a cigar: “they were NOT attacking their own people: they were attacking “savages” who were considered even less human.”
One reason I hope/suspect that a majority of military personnel would decline to participate in Presedential-hopeful Eric “Duke Nukem” Swalwell’s wetdream of deploying troops and nuclear weapons against gun owners is that we aren’t outsiders like those Native Americans were to the murderous militia in 1864.
Yet.
But victim-disarmers are working on it. They are working to demonize honest gun owners.
Lunatic Bernie Sanders supporter — but I repeat myself — attempts to assassinate Republicans? It’s the VNRA’s fault.
Sheriff, school system, and FBI let a known criminal shoot up a school? Gun owners want dead children.
Demonization isn’t enough. They need to eradicate any positive depiction of gun ownership, leaving only criminal violence. If you only ever hear about criminal misuse, of course you’ll think that’s the only use.
So Democrats shut Steve Scalise out of their gun control hearing, allowing only victim-disarmers to testify.
Facebook essentially bans any positive mention of guns. You can’t even advertise a gun safe, because it wouldn’t do for folks to realize that honest gun owners are actually interested in properly storing firearms (not “safe storage, which is code for “successfully disarmed”). “Everyone knows” that gun owners are irresponsible rednecks who have to be forced to be safe.
But if you really want to eradicate the “gun culture,” you have to make it a crime for children to post pictures of themselves with firearms, BB guns, or toy guns. Expunge any evidence of the idea that responsible firearm handling, and family tradition, is even possible. Don’t let kids see their friends having fun with anything gun-like. “Pictures, or it didn’t happen” takes on a whole meaning.
Another way of making gun owners look bad is to make us look out-of-sync with other Americans. Polls and surveys. The classic “90% of real Americans want universal background check,” when no public referendum has actually cracked 60% even where it has passed.
Some years back, the University of North Massachusetts New Hampshire claimed a survey of NH residents showed 96% percent. That seemed unlikely so people asked to see the raw polling data. UNH refused to share it. I was unable to locate anyone — pro- or anti-RKBA — who admitted to participating in the survey.
And in the next election, voters ousted the Democrats who tried to impose UBCs. Fake data, to convince people that gun owners are just wrong.
Sometimes the polling data is so obviously fake as to be laughable. Pew(ie) Research did a survey that purported to show that the VNRA has 14,125,392 members, more than half of whom want UBCs. That’s just 2.35 times as many as the VNRA’s most inflated claim.
Worse yet, are the claims that gun owners are actively meddling to prevent “making this a safer state.”. Gun owners are an active danger to everyone else, see?
The message: Gun owners must just be a few strange, dangerously weird people if they oppose common sense and safety. Gun owners aren’t like real people. They don’t matter.
What about those close to me? I took an informal family poll that left me reeling. I learned my relatives have guns. They store weapons in hidden chambers inside homes where we gather; they possess permits to carry concealed weapons and take target practice; they have friends who bring guns to church in case the congregation should need shielding; they are prepared to “protect my family no matter who comes through the door” and readying themselves for a “major environmental act.”
Gun owners are so marginalized that this woman was shocked to discover her own family had guns. For sensible reasons. Only white oppressors (and gangbangers and other murderers) have guns. To think otherwise leaves her “reeling.”
At least she was only left stunned. The “gun owners aren’t human” indoctrination has taken so strongly in others that they openly advocate or plan to kill people. The Washington punk who threatened to kill sheriffs to enforce gun control. Alison Airies, who wants summary public executions. Gun controllers SWATting gun owners. An anti-gun activist threatening to kill pro-gun people, including a legislator, in a hearing (and note that she was only ejected, not arrested… because threatening evil gun people’s live doesn’t warrant arrest anymore).
Representative Duke Nukem’s threat was neither hyberbole nor joke. It was trial balloon to determine if the marginalization of gun owners was complete yet, to the point that they can begin to “Sand Creek” us.
Jews have experienced this before. Jewish gun owners should expect the worst.
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The net result is a first time ever Win-Win for both sides. Gun control advocates will get a robust, comprehensive system that closes all the loopholes far more effectively than universal background checks. Gun rights advocates get a system that doesn’t infringe upon their rights. Everyone gets a process that stems the flow of firearms into the hands of those who should not have them, which dramatically reduces gun misuse and lowers the political controversy.
All things for all people. Sure.
If you don’t understand the basics of blockchains, here’s an introduction. The TL;DR is that a blockchain is a decentralized database that permanent tracks entry of data and changes to the data. You’re likely slightly familiar with Bitcoin, which uses the technology. It was supposed to protect privacy, and prevent “counterfeiting” of the electronic cash. Some folks liked it because transactions were private even from the IRS.
In fact, FAABS is firearms registration.
Police will use the serial number of the confiscated firearm to initiate a request on FAABS. Since the original owner on all firearms on FAABS is the government entity with the highest authority (very likely the ATF), the request will be made to the ATF.
And there’s the first problem. To enter your firearm into the FAABS blockchain database, you have to report your possession of the firearm to the ATF. And we all know we can trust the ATF to not keep a copy of the application in their own little database.
FAABS is reliant on the transition of the FBI from doing reactive, point of transfer background checks to doing pre-emptive, daily license status suspensions and reinstatements.
Ah, so there’s also an FBI database of gun owners linked to FAABS. Owner registration.
The government cannot find out how many or what guns anyone owns without the willing cooperation of the owner.
That’s funny. The author claims that’s because the police would need a barcode freely offered by the owner in order to access the firearm record. But once a day, that FBI database is going to update the blockchain record of each firearm tied to that owner… which means they know how many guns (and what kind) each person owns.
Sure, if the government doesn’t keep any of those records, you’re safe. Right?
That’s what those folks who thought Bitcoin could hide their holdings from the IRS believed. I never did.
New Bitcoins are generated by “mining.” Mining is actually computers running verification checks on the blockchain; errors in blockchain copies, making sure the latest transactions are correct, reconciling multiple copies of the blockchain. It takes a fair bit of computing power, so the folks doing it are compensated with a Bitcoin for a certain amount of work. The tricky part is that miners — who can be anyone — now have the entire blockchain at their disposal. I saw no reason the government couldn’t set up as a miner to get that information, then instead of mining, run an analysis on the data to see who had what funds.
Guess what. The IRS has been doing just that since at least 2015. The company Chainalysis is dedicated to analyzing blockchains and ferreting out data.
So even if the ATF, for the first time in its existence was honest and followed the rules this time, and didn’t keep registration records… they don’t need to, because all they have to do is a blockchain analysis.
To use FAABS requires the gullible to download a smartphone app — no doubt from the ATF web site — to their personal tracking device, readily identifiable to the owner. By merely downloading the app, you’d identify yourself to the ATF as a gun owner. I’m sure we can trust them not to save that information either.
Hmm. Does the app handle multiple firearms per owner? Does it have a list to choose from when that cop demands you prove you’re the owner? Is the list encrypted and password protected?
And I’m sure it would never occur to the feds to code their FAABS app to do other things, like sending unencrypted data to a third party (other than the buyer and seller)… like the ATF.
As is the case with every gun control proposal, FAABS also fails to address the existing black market in firearms, which is the source of more than half of firearms used in crimes (and nearly all the rest from other channels that avoid background checks). Once again, we have a scam meant to lull honest people into trusting the government with a firearm and owner registry, while leaving the criminals conveniently armed.
Oh, hell no.
Honest gun owners, who typically own guns as protection from bad guys, have a personal, vested interest in not providing guns to bad guys. But looking at confiscation schemes in multiple states, we also have an interest in not being tracked. The simplest way to achieve both would be a toll-free number; enter the buyer’s SSAN, DOB, and last name. Get back an automated yes/no, and a confirmation number which the anonymous seller keeps in case the cops come calling.
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Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!
So International Women’s Day was a few days ago. This international woman spent it working.
I had a conversation with a girl friend recently. She said her boyfriend teases her about being a “manly woman” because she is able to do all kinds of things for herself without asking the help of a big strong man. I guess he thinks that would be him, snerk. Since I’m about 12 years older than she is I told her back in the 70s or so, that was called being a feminist. You could grow up to be whatever you wanted to be. Women became lawyers instead of the legal secretary, they became doctors instead of the nurse, they started becoming fire fighters and paramedics. Now when it comes to farming, the women have often, probably usually, worked as hard as the men. So really, the feminists were a bit behind the times there. But in general, it was more of a opening up of career choices. I still remember a interview with Stefanie Powers in which she talked about being with William Holden because she loved him and chose to be, not because she “needed” him. There were female police officers, female investigators and they carried guns, used them and it was part of the job.
My my, how feminism has deteriorated. As has the Demoncratic party, the party of “tolerance” as long as you agree with them. The party of “diversity”, as long as you hold all the opinions they tell you to. The party of “freedom”, as long as you are content with the scraps they are willing to let you keep. A few years ago when I wrote for another group it was gently suggested to me that I quit chewing up demoncrats and spitting them out in my columns. I was astonished. They are tasty with BBQ sauce, and besides, I could see what they were becoming. To be a demoncrat you have to sign on to their party platform. Which means you must be in favor of defenseless citizens. A demoncratic candidate may tell you they “support the Second Amendment” and maybe they do. But if they have any hopes of any committee appointments or advancement within the party, or support of the party, they will tow the line.
President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Violence Against Women believes that arming women in domestic violence situations is key to their safety, despite experts’ warnings that the introduction of guns into abusive relationships can imperil victims.
Shannon Lee Goessling, a former Florida prosecutor, has argued that women in domestic violence situations should take up arms against their abusers.
Perhaps President Trump doesn’t fully grasp the concept of being a misogynist?
Carol Bowne knew her best shot at defending herself from a violent ex was a gun, and not a piece of paper. And it was paperwork that left her unprotected when Michael Eitel showed up at her New Jersey home last week and stabbed her to death, say Second Amendment advocates, who charge local police routinely sit on firearms applications they are supposed to rule on within 30 days.
More recently there was a group of male legislators in New Hampshire that wore pearls to a hearing on confiscate guns first ask questions later “Red Flag” laws. A group of harpies lead by astro-turfer Shannon T.Watts were “outraged”, upset, angst ridden, miffed, full blown hissy fit pitching over it. Then a bit more came to light. Far from being anti-women or mocking towards women, these men had the audacity to believe that all people have rights. You don’t take things away from people because you don’t like the things they have. Unless you’re Mikey Bloomberg and it’s a 32 oz. Soda pop. Then you do. But gun rights activist Kimberly Morin of the Women’s Defense League of New Hampshire set the record straight.
Online, members of the Women’s Defense League of New Hampshire, a pro-guns organization, have said Watts and other Moms Demand Action members have it all wrong: the pearls symbolize opposition to the bill itself and support for the Second Amendment and the Women’s Defense League — support for women, not denigration of them.
“The PEARLS are in support of the Women’s Defense League. Women who ACTUALLY PROMOTE GUN SAFETY and WOMEN’S RIGHTS,” tweeted Kimberly Morin, president of the group.
Morin told a local newspaper that they’ve been wearing pearls for this reason since 2016. She accused Watts, who lives in Colorado, of being an out-of-state “paid hack” who is lobbying for gun control legislation from afar and whose group doesn’t understand local politics. In a day-long Twitter offensive, Morin also called the Moms Demand Action volunteers “harpies,” a reference to a creature from Greek mythology that had the body of a bird and the head of a human woman.
The harpies of course, don’t think women should have the chance to choose which defensive tool they can wield to their best advantage in being safe. Boy howdy, that’s some “open-minded” isn’t it?
Speaking of open minded, the Occasional-Cortex has chimed in on the gun control debate. Being the good little socialist-communist she is, she is keeping a “list” of her enemies and harangued the Demoncrats that didn’t vote lock step on gun control as San Fran Nan wanted. Occasional-Cortex apparently can’t read about what is going on in Venezuela these days. But considering she’s a “Post Turtle” and how she got where she is, hardly shocking. She won an audition…..
Which probably explains why she thinks her “Green new/raw deal” is great.
The Occasional-Cortex speaks
Not only is she arrogant, she’s easily led. From the founder of Greenpeace believe it or not.
Demoncrats were once a time thought of as the party of Jews. As demoncrats celebrate their incredible diversity with the addition of 3 antisemitic women it is becoming ever more obvious, they never were in the first place. Its the new position of the left, and it’s not just an American phenomena. Democrats’ Support for Israel in Rapid Decline. Israel, the one and only Jewish state in the world. The left has no problem with the many muslim states (including Franceistan, Germanyistan, Swedenistan and Englandistan) only the one Jewish state it seems. One of these things is not like the other?
But hey, they’re women, and now they’re powerful, so celebrate right? Sexist much?
The daughter told the emergency dispatcher the man was hitting her mother and was trying to shoot her mother. The woman took the phone from her daughter and related what happened.
“I asked him to leave,” she said to the emergency dispatcher. “He will not put his hands on me or my children. He’s still in my house. I tried to do this nicely.”
When the dispatcher asked the woman whether she shot the man, the woman said, “Yes ma’am, I did…. He needs an ambulance.”
What happened to “If it saves just one life”? Was that mother’s life not important? The children’s lives not important?
I ask you, what in all that above is cause to celebrate anything about International Women’s Day? Well, excepting Kimberly Morin. These women have done nothing good, noble or even mildly helpful! Where is the feminism in putting other women in a position where they are less secure and able to defend themselves? Ok, they’re women, so what?
I say if we’re going to celebrate women’s day, that we have models of good, courageous, noble women to hold up. Not just some flotsam or jetsam that someone tripped over. So I’ll give you some amazing women.
17-year-old Lepa Radić was a Bosnian Serb who fought with the partisans during WWII but never got to see the Nazis lose the war. In February 1943, Lepa was captured. The Nazis tied a rope around her neck but offered her a way out. All she has to do is reveal her comrades’ and leaders’ identities.
Lepa responded:
“You will know them when they come to avenge me.”
AMAZING: #Kurdish female soldiers dancing in #Raqqa after defeating ISIS, on streets where #ISIS bought and sold women. A great video!
These kinds of women, now these women deserve celebrating and being remembered!
I’m not all that crazy about “Women’s Day”. I think there are fine and noble people of both genders that should be celebrated. The idea of celebrating people just because they are women regardless of how they act as humans bothers me. Perhaps when they have “International Men’s Day” I’ll rethink the issue. Feminism has become a perverse image of what it was supposed to have been. Instead of truly empowering women, it strives to weaken them, to instill a victim mindset. The left’s idea of power is wearing a stupid pink hat with ears or a hashtag. Geez. Maybe I’m just cranky and need to spend some time with my emotional support animal.
I’ve mentioned the problem with highly variable firearm homicides numbers in the FBI UCR vs. the CDC’s WISQARS. For 2017, the UCR claims 10,982 firearms homicides, while the CDC says 14,542, 32% higher. Part of that is reporting.
The UCR is based on reported numbers from law enforcement agencies. But not all report.
The CDC, though…
The CDC numbers are based on emergency department reports, using ICD-10 codes. But, like the FBI, they don’t…use data from every hospital. In fact, they pick out just 60 hospitals and use their reports as a proxy for the country. It’s rather like Rasmussen pseudo-randomly surveying 1,000 people in hopes of picking a representative sample of all Americans, and extrapolating from there.
And that’s a huge problem.
If more of the sample hospitals are in places like Chicago, Saint Louis, or Baltimore, it skews the results, because those locations have a disproportionate number of firearms homicides compared to Alamogordo, New Mexico. If you assume everywhere has a firearms homicide rate like Baltimore, you’re going to extrapolate an unrealistically high number. Maybe even 32% higher than what the FBI says.
Problem, right?
I’ve barely started.
First, a 60 hospital sample is ridiculous when there are 6,210 hospitals in the US.
CDC samples fewer than 1% of hospitals.
Second, there is no good reason to do a 60 hospital sample. Or a 600 hospital sample.
To comply with the federal HIPAA law, since October 1, 2015, every HIPAA-covered entity — every hospital — in the nation reports every single gunshot wound, by ICD-10 code, to the government. All 6,210. For Every. Single. Patient. ICD-10 is just the latest iteration. They have been collecting this data for years.
The CDC doesn’t need to sample, then guess at the total number. The total number for every hospital in the country is already at their disposal. At most, they might have to make extremely minor adjustments for occasional coding errors. But since Medicare/Medicaid and insurance payments are based on the reported codes, the existing system already checks for coding errors. Damned few should slip past insurance companies dead set on paying out the least they can.
In fact, they have more data than just “gunshot injury.” ICD-10 breaks it down by intent (accidental/self, accidental/other, suicide, homicide) and weapon (machinegun, rifle, shotgun, handgun, other). There is a separate code for each possible combination. More codes if multiple weapons. More codes for where on the body the injury is. The admission data (which they get) includes age, race (with more choices than the 6 given in WISQARS), gender. They have the hospital location for geographic distribution of injuries.
And it isn’t just fatal injury, all those code options are there for nonfatal injuries.
With the available data, the CDC can sort for “white males, 18-24, shot in lower back, in Kalamazoo, fatal and non-fatal” and give you the exact numbers.
I’ve played with the WHO ICD database, and the available data is amazing.
So why isn’t the CDC simply using the raw data, instead of sampling and extrapolating? Is it too difficult to get to get the data for research purposes?
No. ICD is designed for researchers to use, by intent. Medical people hate it because — to make any possible injury/illness in which a researcher might someday be interested — there are upwards of 150,000 different codes to choose from; want to know how many people are bitten by large dogs vs. small; it’s there.
There’s only one reason for the CDC to forego using the entire database as intended, and cherry-pick a handful of “representative” hospitals.
Because the raw data doesn’t support the laws the victim-disarming gun controllers want.
The raw data would tell us who is getting shot. With what. What the victims’ demographic and geographic distribution is. Combined with the UCR, it would tell gun controllers which criminals to target, and how. All the things the CDC pretends it can’t do.
The CDC has to lie about injury reports to rationalize targeting honesty gun owners who don’t commit the crimes.
Added: In a comment below, MC notes that WISQARS Fatal and Nonfatal Injury reports come from differing datasets.
WISQARS Nonfatal is sourced from the NEISS All Injury Program run by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
NEISS does base their estimate on the sampling I speak of. NCHS appears to use the full data, so WISQARS Fatal should be accurate.
This still leaves the question of why the available full dataset is not used for both. I suspect it is a matter of bureaucratic empire building- the CPSC started doing injury reports through their system a long time ago, and don’t want to relinquish it.
I thank MC for clarifying the difference between the two data sources.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could really use the money, what with truck repairs and recurring bills. And the rabbits need feed. Truck insurance, lest I be forced to sell it. Click here to donate via PayPal.
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Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
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