Category Archives: authoritarian swine

authoritarian swine, Elsewhere, genocide, hatred of Jews, Inspiration, Israel, Jewish history, resistance

Let My People Go, That they may hold a feast to me

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1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” 2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” 3 Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.” 4 But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.” Exodus 5:1-4 Shemot 5:1-4

Tomorrow begins Pesach.

The original Pesach began when G-d decided his children had suffered enough of living in a land different than that he allotted to them. G-d sent Moshe to those in power over them to let them go and worship him as he had instructed them.

Pharaoh said “NO, it would threaten the Al-Aqsa mosque”. Actually that’s crap. Pretty much the same crap that muslims have been saying violently for years now. Long since before Israel was re-established as a state.

A quick history lesson. The first Temple was built by King Solomon in 957 BC. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC. Construction on the Second Temple was authorized by Cyrus the Great and began in 538 BC. It was completed 23 years later under the reign of Darius the Great. See the Purim story for more on this little gem. It was destroyed again by the Romans in 70 AD.

Mohammed the founder of the religion of pieces known as Islam lived from 570 AD – 8 June 632 AD. Around 613 AD he started preaching Islam. The first two Al-Aqsa mosques were built in 705 AD and 780 AD. They were destroyed by earthquakes. The third and still standing was built in 1035 AD. It is the 3rd holiest site is islam, and interestingly, at least to me, is there are Arab scholars which say that the mosque located on the Temple Mount is NOT the Al-Aqsa talked of in the Koran, it is not in the right location.

So, just in time for Pesach, the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic UN branch, specializing in anti-Israel actions, known as UNESCO has released a new resolution. It denies Jewish connection to the Temple Mount. You know, the Temple that was constructed to replace the Tabernacle Moshe built in the desert? But it goes a lot further than that. It

refers to Israel as the “occupying power” at every mention and uses the Arabic al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram al-Sharif without ever calling it the Temple Mount, as it is known to Jews. The text does refer to the Western Wall Plaza but places it in quotation marks, after using the Arabic Al-Buraq Plaza.

And

The resolution accuses Israel of “planting Jewish fake graves in other spaces of the Muslim cemeteries” and of “the continued conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the so-called Jewish ritual baths or into Jewish prayer places.”

Currently on the Temple Mount, holiest site in Judaism and holy to Christians, THIRD holiest site to muslims (if it is the right mosque, debate on that) Jews and Christians are NOT allowed to pray, recite verses from our Tanakh/Bible or wear any religious or Israeli symbols on our clothing. The Israeli police, yes Israeli will arrest you in a heartbeat. Yours or anyone’s. The muslim waqos, (hmm, may have left an “f” out of that somewhere) make sure the screaming harridans can yell “allah hu akbar” at visitors and safely stash rocks and incendiary devices to throw in their sacred Al-Aqsa. Pretty much like most Synagogues and Southern Baptist Churches, right?

Ok, I’ll stop. But the point is, Pesach began when the children were told to go and worship HaShem as he had commanded and the ruling powers tried to prevent it. Thousands of years later and what has changed? Moshe Dyan, you were an IDIOT!

But, there was a Pesach, and tomorrow night there will be a Pesach and I believe HaShem has still got a plan and has this covered. And so I will wish you Happy Passover, Pesach.

חג פסח שמח

 

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authoritarian swine, Elsewhere, genocide, gun control, gun grabbers, guns, hatred of Jews, Israel, Jewish history, resistance

73 years ago today, Warsaw

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Today, 73 years ago began the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Some say it ended on May 16th, but there are other sources that say that it lasted on until fall. But the Jews in the ghetto held out longer than the nation of Poland.

The thing was, everything had been fine in Poland. Until it wasn’t.

Weapons of survival
Weapons of survival
Photo from the Ghetto Fighters House in Acco, Israel

As candidates debate how best to get America disarmed, this is worth remembering.

Not only were there precious few weapons available, most of the Jews in the ghetto didn’t know how to use them.

But I will leave you with something strong, proud and brave.

Zog nit kein mol- Jewish partisan song, but that’s Yiddish.

THIS, is Hebrew!

NEVER.AGAIN.

 

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authoritarian swine, Elsewhere, gun control

Russia: History repeats itself

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Cross-posted at the Liberty Zone with slight modifications.

I’ve been trying to find this article in English, but for some reason, all I find is really crappy translations of what is actually written. Those of you who read Russian can head over to the first link.

Does this look a bit Big Brother-ish to you?
Does this look a bit Big Brother-ish to you?

Bottom line: Russian President Vladimir Putin has created a “National Guard” (Нацгвардия), but it’s not like the National Guard we’re accustomed to. While Putin claims this armed force, which incorporates some of the Interior Ministry troops, is created specifically to address terrorism, transnational organized crime, and arms trafficking in the country, it as a way to continue consolidating power in the presidency. It is a ministry-level organization that falls directly under the control of the President.

“If you have noticed, this decision is not simply related to detaching the interior troops from the Interior Ministry. But this has been done so that this new structure will now concentrate all that is connected with firearms. This refers to various kinds of security provision and the authorization system [to get the right to possess firearms], ensure oversight of private security firms and this also refers to interior troops proper,” Putin said.

Yes, I know the translation sucks, but think about this for a moment. The Russian president, who already has been well on the path to grabbing power, censorship, stringent nationalism, and violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of his country’s neighbors, is now creating himself a little army that’s focusing not just on terrorism and TOC, but also firearms trade. By the way, the Russian Federation in November 2014 eased firearms restrictions to allow its citizens to carry firearms for self defense, but now Putin is controlling some pretty powerful military troops who focus internally.

Call me crazy and untrusting, but I wouldn’t want any government – especially not an authoritarian crap weasel like Putin – having control of his own little army that can be used against the citizenry, and given Russia’s pivot back toward statism in the past few years, this Нацгвардия is more than concerning.

We view the right to keep and bear arms as a bulwark against tyranny. The fact that Putin has now created an armed entity, controlled solely by him, to focus on “all that is connected with firearms” should tell you everything you need to know about where that nation is headed internally. No, it is not becoming a free nation. Those of us who were mildly surprised and gratified when the Russian government loosened gun laws a year and a half ago can go back to being disgusted. Russia is still ruled by a cunning authoritarian with the aim of subjugating those around him to his will. And the best way to do that, is to use the military (I don’t care what you call them – internal troops, security troops, national guard, whatever) to ensure that the people’s right to keep and bear arms is tightly regulated and controlled.

Because as the Russian economy swirls the drain, and as Russia becomes a more and more aggressive force toward its neighbors, you can be sure that the regular people’s lives will be more controlled and more miserable. And the Russian government needs to ensure that the people don’t use their right to remove the source of their misery with armed force.

Everything old is new again.

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authoritarian swine, gun control, gun grabbers, guns

Merrick Garland on gun rights: Not just no, but HELL NO!

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garlandThe Zelman Partisans strongly opposes President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the United States Supreme Court.

This is not just because a new Supreme Court Justice should be nominated by the next President of the United States – no matter who wins that office – and not someone who is committing a “hit-and-run” on the Supreme Court on his way out the door with the rest of the nation left to deal with the consequences for years to come.

This is not just because the American people should have the opportunity to express their views on the next Supreme Court Justice at the ballot box by their choice of POTUS.

This is because Merrick Garland would be a steadfast, true voice that would tip the nation’s highest court in the direction of total destruction of our gun rights.

Erich Pratt, executive director of the group Gun Owners of America, said Mr. Obama chose a “radical leftist” in Judge Garland despite promises to nominate a consensus candidate.

“He supported the D.C. gun ban in 2007, thereby showing he opposes self-defense and opposes the right to keep and bear arms,” Mr. Pratt said.

That 2007 case, Parker v. District of Columbia, ultimately became the landmark Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller. Before it reached the high court, it was heard in Judge Garland’s circuit, and a three-judge panel ruled that the D.C. handgun ban was unconstitutional. Judge Garland wasn’t part of that decision, but he did join three other judges in trying to have the full court get a chance to overturn the ruling.

National Review digs further into Garland’s anti-gun views.

Garland voted… to uphold an illegal Clinton-era regulation that created an improvised gun registration requirement. Congress prohibited federal gun registration mandates back in 1968, but… the Clinton Administration had been “retaining for six months the records of lawful gun buyers from the National Instant Check System.” By storing these records, the federal government was creating an informal gun registry that violated the 1968 law. Worse still, the Clinton program even violated the 1994 law that had created the NICS system in the first place. Congress directly forbade the government from retaining background check records for law abiding citizens.

Garland’s lack of respect for the people’s fundamental rights is unacceptable. The Obama Administration was obviously a failure at implementing much of the gun control plans it was pushing, even though it consistently used every tragedy to its advantage.

So now Barack Obama is trying to preserve his statist, anti-gun legacy by nominating a Supreme Court Justice who would do it for him.

No. Just no!

Barack Obama has already foisted one obviously biased Justice on the rest of us – a Justice whose support for ObamaCare was well known, and who did not recuse herself when King v. Burwell was argued in front of the Supreme Court.

We certainly don’t need another Justice whose grasp on the Constitution is tenuous and definition of “objectivity” only involves issues with which he agrees.

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authoritarian swine, gun grabbers, Media, You can't fix stupid

“Hey, Moron”

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EJ Montini hates it when people tell him the truth.

He is a moron, at least when he babbles about victim disarmament.

Montini: “Hey, moron, name one ‘common sense’ gun law”
“Hey, moron, name me one ‘common sense’ gun law, let alone a bunch. You can’t, can you? Because all you want to do is confiscate everybody’s weapons. That’s the only ‘common sense’ gun law liberal pissants like you want. Admit it! And by the way, I called you a moron earlier because I thought if I called you a (expletive) – which is what you are – you wouldn’t keep reading.”

Okay then.

Fisking time; let’s see how sensible his proposals are:

  • The one I mention most often is a universal, no loophole, no exception background check on every gun sale.
    That isn’t sensible until he proposes a way to enforce that on criminals who bypass universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence checks by purchasing stolen guns on the street from other criminals. They don’t comply now. And they don’t have to.
  • It’s been shown in poll after poll that a vast majority of Americans – up to 90 percent – support it.
    Except that when that 90+% claim was put to the test in an Washington [edited to correct state] referendum, only 60% voted for it. In New Hampshire, the claim was 94%, but the surveyors refused to release their raw data to prove it, and the folks there keep electing (and reelecting) folks who vote it down. (Oddly enough, I have never been polled on that subject, except by a couple of painfully obvious push polls in which I refused to participate. I never found anyone — not one, pro or anti — who claimed to have participated in the NH “survey.”)
  • We could ban the sale or possession of armor piercing and hollow-tip bullets, and we could limit magazines to 10 bullets.
    So he doesn’t want rounds that penetrate too much, but he doesn’t want rounds that limit penetration. “Sensible.” As stated, that isn’t going to fly with anyone. Pretty much any rifle round is “armor penetrating” (unless you only count Level 4+), and armor penetrating handgun ammunition is already banned at the federal level and in several states; it doesn’t seem to have had much effect on crime rates. Defenders and hunters want expansion because it’s more effective, generally, than solid rounds.
  • We could codify in law a wider access to mental health records in order to prevent individuals with serious illness from buying weapons.
    Oh, goody. Let’s start by looking at his health records. If he has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear by putting his unredacted files on the Internet. In fact, we already have laws in place to handle the dangerously disturbed. Those who have been adjudicated a danger to self or others are prohibited persons. Or do you just want to do away with the due process part of depriving people of human/civil rights. Did he get a mental health exam before exercising his 1st Amendment right to write that column?
  • We could repeal the idiotic 1996 congressional budget amendment that prevents the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from doing studies on firearms ownership and the effects on public health.
    There is no such research ban to repeal. Wouldn’t it have been “sensible” for MorMontini to figure that out before spouting off?
  • We could expand gun-owning restrictions to more individuals convicted of crimes like domestic violence, stalking and more.
    Those convicted of domestic violence (and any crime punishable by a sentence of more than a year in prison) are already prohibited persons. You know, like the recent Kansas shooter, who was a convicted felon, under a restraining order, who bypassed PPYI checks. “And more…” Maybe we could add “practicing journalism without a license” to that list.
  • We could establish a national waiting period for gun purchases.
    Who could possibly object to that, right? Certainly not Ms. Bowne. Anymore. I wonder what Montini is planning to do, if he needs to be sure his friends and family can’t get a defensive tool quickly.
  • Finally, a law limiting angry impulse responses to news columnists might be helpful. At least to me.
    Well, it’s clear that he wants violations of 1st Amendment free discourse, so I guess he’s cool with the journalist licensing plan.

So long as Montini is determined to sound like an uninformed moron intent on destroying individual human/civil rights (obviously starting with the First and Second Amendments) people are bound to keep thinking he is one.

No.

Your move, Montini.

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authoritarian swine, gun control, gun grabbers, guns, Politics, Sellouts and traitors, So Much Stupid!, Voting

Hate In America

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I watched part of a TV show last night, reminding me why I seldom watch TV, that and lack of time.

The show was on Investigation Discovery, and out of the two stories covered, one of them was the shooting at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park. The criminal was an American Nazi. There was a video clip in the show of him sitting in the back of a police car yelling “heil hootler”! Yeah, actually I did mean to misspell it. Petty, I know. Pictures of him doing the hootler salute, the nazi flag, clips of his speeches and the whole 9 yards. Did he hate Jews? Oh yeah. He was asked if he was sad none of the victims he shot were Jewish. No, he considered those he shot Jewish collaborators. Was he an insane madman? Darn skippy.

All sounds like a well covered show, right? You would be wrong.

The show was about lionizing something called the Southern Poverty Law Center, an evil institution run by your typical flaming liberal Morris Dees.

Let me tell you a little bit about the SPLC from something that was on the national radar a few years ago in 2009. It happened in the state of Missouri, but it made waves across the nation when people found out.

The Missouri Highway Patrol issued a report to their troopers called the MIAC report. It was issued by the Missouri Information and Analysis Center (MIAC), a branch of the state’s Highway Patrol. This scholarly paper warned their officers to be wary of the following people that represented a danger to the officers and the public in general.

Christians, political conservatives, patriots, pro-lifers, libertarians, gun owners, and constitutionalists and militia members. Those that display Constitutional Party, Campaign for Liberty, or Libertarian material, such as bumper stickers. These members were usually supporters of former Presidential Candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr.

Any car sporting a pro-life, pro-free speech, pro-Second Amendment bumper sticker was to be viewed with extreme caution.

And where would the Missouri Highway Patrol get such a insane memorandum? Why, from the SPLC. Who never met a group of conservatives or conservative candidate they didn’t label as a threat or a hate group.

After a huge outcry from enraged conservatives and conservative lawmakers the MO HP retracted their report and the blame flinging session began.

Other states had reason to be concerned. The MO HP is part of a “fusion center”. They assimilate and disseminate information to state and local agencies. At the time, the federal Department of Homeland Security’s Web page entitled “State and Local Fusion Centers” said

Many states and larger cities have created state and local fusion centers to share information and intelligence within their jurisdictions as well as with the federal government….

In 2009 DHS “had deployed intelligence officers to state fusion centers in: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin.

I’m sure there are more now.

It was the prelude to what happened a couple years later.

It started with a request from the Social Security Administration jointly with the ATF, for the entire list of Missouri Concealed Carry permit holders as part of an investigation. An investigation which was dropped the minute the ATF received the list of all Missouri CCW holders. The request was made of the Missouri Department of Revenue. The Mo Department of Revenue, which illegally as in against Missouri Law, but at the direction of Gov. Jay Nixon had begun implementing REAL ID. The Mo DOR attempted to mislead the legislature by not telling them the ATF had been part of the requesting agencies. It is against the law to supply a list of gun owners to the Federal Government.

So who would break the law like that? The Missouri Highway Patrol.

Testifying before a Senate committee, Highway Patrol Col. Ron Replogle said the concealed guns list was given to an investigator looking into potential fraud involving Social Security benefits for the disabled. But he said the investigator never was able to read the encrypted information and ultimately destroyed the computer discs.

Republicans expressed concern that the privacy rights of Missouri residents are being infringed, but members of Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon’s administration insisted there was nothing wrong with the information sharing.

Now just a word about that encrypted disc that Replogle said they sent. It was NOT encrypted, it was in a password protected excel file. The password was included in the cover letter. The cover letter that was sent WITH the discs. The cover letter that was sent with the discs via REGULAR mail.

For fun you can listen to this interview with Sen. Kurt Schafer with Dana Loesch on The Dana Show.

Why would the Mo Highway Patrol do such a thing? Well, obama syncophant jay nixon directed them to, and after all, gun owners are the enemy, right?

So back to the TV show. The “courageous” Morris Dees who has armed security people at his home recounted an incident where intruders gained access to his grounds. He related the story of getting his guns, and his daughter had a .22 she was a good shot with, and they huddled together with their guns in their safe room till the danger had been resolved.

I kid you not.

I can’t make this stuff up. And now the SPLC is probably going to have this dam darn TV show telling uninformed people that this is a great group. Peachy, just swell.

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authoritarian swine, Elsewhere

Democracy is dead. Long live the dictator.

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Not.

More and more, I believe that a lot of universities should close their doors forever, their buildings be razed, and salt sown in the earth. It might be a good idea to go over the ruins with a flame-thrower, just to sure.

From Oxford University Press:

Bang, bang — democracy’s dead: Obama and the politics of gun control
When it comes to gun control and American politics then maybe – just maybe – could there be a case for a benevolent dictator who understands that the ballot and bullets, just like guns and safety, just don’t mix?

No. There isn’t.

I carry a gun for safety, as do at least 14,134,740 other Americans (that doesn’t count those who lawfully carry without a license). It seems to work since the American violent crime rates are at their lowest in decades, unlike the UK, where you have to fudge your allegedly low crime rates by failing to report 20% of the crimes, and by not even counting a murder until after an investigation, arrest, trial, and conviction; under the UK system, if a killer is never caught, they never add the death to their statistics. Given that their cops had to cede entire ‘no-go zones’ to the criminals, it seems justifiable to think the real crimes are astonomical.

And I might add that America is not a straight democracy. This is a representative constitutional republic. That means that unless you gin up the votes to amend the Constitution, there are some things you cannot do even if a ‘majority’ supposedly want it. As a British subject, who “was once, for a very short time, a member of the British Army but had to leave because he did not like guns or loud bangs,” I wouldn’t expect Flanders Flinders to grasp that subtle difference. As a “Professor of Politics,” writing on American politics, he certainly should.

What doesn’t mix is a ‘benevolent’ dictator and guns in the hands of the people. We set it up that way deliberately.

Given that Flinders wants to impose another dictator on America, I think we should hang on to our guns. We certainly should not send them to quivering cowards frightened of loud noises the next time their victim disarmament policies get the best of them.

Ed. note: This commentary appeared first on 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!

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authoritarian swine, gun control, You can't fix stupid

Unintended Consequences

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The title has been used, but victim disarming wanna-be tyrants seem deadset on providing an endless stream of appropriate legislation. One of the most recent is this:

The alarming phenomena of homemade firearms and their ease of access without any scrutiny, has led me to introduce two pieces of legislation in the House – the Homemade Firearms Accountability Act and Home-Assembled Firearms Restriction Act. These two bills would mandate anyone who intends on legally manufacturing their own firearm to obtain a registered serial number to be affixed on the firearm and would block the sale of any form of do-it-yourself firearms parts or kits – especially those currently being sold over the internet. It is my hope to draw attention to the too often overlooked issue of homemade firearms and include these firearms in the national discussion on gun control. For once we may be able to have a proactive approach in protecting the American people from an emerging threat rather than retroactively lashing out after great damage and loss has already been done.
 – Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.)

Starting with HR 376: Home-Assembled Firearms Restriction Act, the PRK’s ill-informed, ethically-challenged congresscreep wants to ban gun kits for home use. But kit being tough to define when one is that box-of-rocks dumb, he bans basically anything that could possibly be used to contruct a semiautomatic firearm.

Like… steel pipe, sheet metal, blocks of metal, nails, springs, rivets, iron oxide and aluminum,and even plastic bags.

Looks like Home Depot is going out of business. And I guess we will see the return of paper grocery bags. Finally. (Luckily, Honda only obsessed over semiautos, or paper would be gone, too, as I’ve seen single use paper shotguns which were confiscated from prison inmates.)

As an aside, 376 also prohibits marketing or advertising castings and blanks. Gotcha covered, dimwit. (Amazon has pulled that listing, but expect more elsewhere.)

Next up is Honda’s HR 377: Homemade Firearms Accountability Act, stripped to basics, requires all ‘homemade’ firearms be registered and serial numbered. It’s a repeat of ‘Ghost Gun’ Honda’s HR 5606 from the last session.

On the one hand, it assumes that gangbangers and thugs, who have been assembling gadgets like these…

… for pretty much since the dawn of firearms, will suddenly exclaim, “Oh, darn! I need to run down to my local FFL and register my crude zip gun.” C.R.I.M.I.N.A.L.

On the other hand – and here’s where consequences raise their little heads – up to now, a home-built firearm, like an AR built from an 80% lower blank, could not be sold. No record, no serial number, no sale. Under GG’s bill, your handicraft project can be sold down the line, if you need the cash to build a better gun. You can’t go into the manufacturing business, sans FFL, but this moves your little science project into the ‘occasional personal sale from collection category. If anything, this will get more 3D printed and CNC milled goodies out into the wild.

On the amusing side, Honda is mandating the individual FFLs issue their own ‘unique’ serial numbers,without specifying a format that identifies a serial number set by FFL. Assuming this managed to get passed, some 50,000 FFLs could all uniquely (in their shop, anyway) SN 1, SN 2… SN 51998.

You could see a lot of homebrewed ARs with the identical serial number 666.

Perhaps Honda should have thought of opening up the ATF’smanufacturers’ registry to personal builders, so those numbers would be unique.

Not satisfied with banning virtually all metallic and plastic materials in the world, our deeply paranoid compulsive bill sponsor wants to ban body armor. HR 378: Responsible Body Armor Possession Act bans ‘enhanced body armor.’

WTF is ‘enhanced body armor,’ you ask? It is any “body armor, including a helmet or shield, the ballistic resistance of which meets or exceeds the ballistic performance of Type III armor”. Plain English: anything rated for rifle rounds. Since the vast majority of freelance criminals don’t bother with rifles (less than 2.5% of all firearm deaths, 2013 last year available), who is it that he wants to be sure can kill you?

Consequence of this one? A whole lot more citizen research into homemade ballistic plates. No doubt, the quivering mass of fear will sponsor yet another bill to ban that. (I should send him an email claiming that someone is 3D-printing armor.)

Honda is bound and determined to render you helpless, depriving you of active and passive defense. The real unintended consequence of these bills is that more and more people understand precisely that.

Added: Lest you think that the idea of common items getting caught up by Honda’s vague language, take a look across the pond in the UK.

Breaking: Policing and Crime Bill will criminalise possession of common tools
(a) the person has in his or her possession or under his or her control an article that is capable of being used (whether by itself or with other articles) to convert an imitation firearm into a firearm, and
(b) the person intends to use the article (whether by itself or with other articles) to convert an imitation firearm into a firearm.

Dremel, drill press, file…

Anyone believe the gun grabbers in DC are any smarter?

Ed. note: This commentary appeared first on 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!

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authoritarian swine, gun control, gun grabbers, guns, hoplophobia

Maryland’s Scary Black Gun Law: Back to the Drawing Board

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scary black gunsRemember when former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, who during a Democratic debate (his pathetic campaign has thankfully and quietly faded into the annals of historical obscurity) got into a screeching argument with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton about who among them is the biggest enemy of American gun owners?

Remember how O’Malley and his gun-grabbing monkeys in the Maryland legislature rammed though the “Firearms Safety Act” assault weapons ban, which had nothing to do with actual safety?

That’s the one upheld by an activist judge last year, because she soiled her frilly, pink panties at the thought of scary, black guns being legal in the state, even though they were almost never used to commit crimes.

That judge has been issued a slap on the judicial nuggets by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Maryland’s assault weapons ban implicates its citizens’ core Second Amendment rights and must be reviewed under a more rigorous judicial standard than the one used by a judge who upheld the law’s constitutionality, a divided federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

[…]

The appeals court said Maryland’s law affects the constitutional right to possess firearms for self-defense and home protection by banning virtually an entire class of weapons commonly owned by law-abiding citizens. In 2012, the number of semi-automatic rifles manufactured and imported into the United States – and banned by the Maryland law – was more than double the number of Ford F-150 trucks sold, the appeals court said.

I want to stress that the court didn’t rule on the constitutionality of said law, but did say that the judge who issued the ruling on the Scary Black Guns ban issued a ruling that “conflicts sharply with rulings of other federal appellate courts.”

What? You mean to tell me that standards pulled randomly out of a petty statist Clinton appointee judge’s fourth point of contact, influenced by her own  prejudices without any knowledge about these guns, and armed with nothing but an uninformed opinion, don’t represent sufficient reason to deprive Americans of their rights?

You mean “Well, I think these guns are scary, so I’m upholding their ban” is not sufficient legal standing to shred the Constitution?

Look at my shocked face!

Of course the gun-grabbing authoritarians in Maryland aren’t done yet. There’s a chance they will appeal this case to the Supreme Court. There’s no length to which they will not go to infringe on the People’s right to keep and bear arms!

But for now, at the very least, we have a ruling that recognizes that bigotry and ignorance are not standards by which the constitutionality of a law should be judged.

The entire decision is here (h/t This Ain’t Hell) if you want to read it.

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authoritarian swine, gun control

It isn’t the gun people’s loophole

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The “gun show loophole.” You’ve heard about it over and over and over and…

If you’re a gun guy, you get annoyed and explain that there is no such thing as a “gun show loophole” that lets unlicensed dealers sell guns at shows without background checks. After all, 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(1)(A) says that anyone engaged in the business of selling guns must be licensed (and thus must run background checks). It doesn’t matter whether that FFL sold the gun in his store, at a gun show, online, or in a back alley at midnight.

So… No loophole, right? The victim disarmers are simply lying to confuse the ignorant about occasional private sellers and dealers. Yes, but…

There is a loophole. But it’s the government’s loophole. 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(21) defines “engaged in the business”: a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms, but such term shall not include a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms;

If you’re making repetitive sales to make money, you’re a dealer and must get a license no matter where you conduct your business. Occasional sales, liquidation of a personal collection, maintaing and tuning a hobbyist’s collection… none of that requires an FFL because you clearly aren’t a dealer.

Where’s the “loophole” that lets a dealer skip background checks?

In the 1990s Prez Billy Jeff Clinton decided there were too many Federal Firearms Licensees. In short, a bunch of folks who would normally be considered hobbyists or collectors had gotten FFLs so that if the occasion arose, they could make a little profit, and because it made interstate shipping easier. Note that they still had to do all the record-keeping, reporting, and checking as any FFL with a store on main street.

But Cigar-Boy and the ATF didn’t like that situation: 250,000 FFLs meant it was convenient (and competitive) for honest people to lawfully purchase arms. So they changed the definition of “engaged in the business” to “engaged in enough business, and in the right places.”

Worked out of your home? Scratch that FFL. The ATF began coordinating with local zoning authorities and you had to prove your home was zoned (or a variance granted) for a business, even if you only did business at gun shows.

Didn’t sell enough guns in a year to make a profit? You’re just a lowly collector, not really in the business. There’s goes another FFL.

And that’s when the ATF started with the insane form 4473 enforcement: wrong color pen used to fill it out? Lose your license. Customer wrote “Y” instead of “Yes”? Lose your license. Bound book got updated the next morning rather than at closing in the evening? Yep, another FFL bites the dust.

We went from roughly 250,000 FFLs in the 1990s to approximately 50,000 today.

FFL-chart

But let’s say you got a zoning variance for your home business. You do a lot of business; in fact, you make a decent fortune every year selling guns at shows across the midwest. Your paperwork is perfect. You won’t even release a firearm after the three-day background check hold if you don’t hear back positively. Sure was a good thing you got that FFL, eh?

Nope. Because you got trapped by the ATF’s loophole.

ATFform7-Gun-Show-Loophole

Yes, take a look at item 18a on the ATF form 7. Despite doing business, the ATF will not issue you a license. They pulled out of their asses invented a new condition not in law: a physical store front.

Gun shows don’t count. Except when they do, when people whom the ATF told weren’t really dealers got busted anyway. For doing what the ATF said was okay.

The Gun Show Loophole: ATF: “You’re a dealer any time we need some publicity and arrests for promotion points.”
Now, after decades of the Clinton rules on dealers, President TelePrompter says he’s going to make those terrible “gun show dealers” get FFLs so they have to run background checks. I hope he remembers to tell the ATF to take that restriction off of 18a, and start accepting those applications.

If so, I’ll think about getting a license myself. I’ve run across some particularly good deals on guns that I could have turned around for a profit. It might be nice to be able to take advantage of that without the ATF busting me. History suggests that 200,000 other people would also consider it.

Somehow, when if the number of FFLs increases five-fold, I don’t think the extra 230 NICS workers are going to be sufficient.

FBI background checks Dec 2015_0

A five-fold FFL increase probably won’t translate into a five-fold NICS traffic increase, but somehow I don’t think they be able to keep up. (Something to bear in mind when you hear about bills to increase the NICS-delay time to 25 days and beyond.)

In fact, I don’t think the ATF will issue those licenses. Instead of letting people operate legally as they wished to do, it’s far more likely that they’ll crack down further on the honest folks they’ve been denying FFLs. That’s why Barrycade is authorizing an additional 200 ATF goons, instead of clerks to process applications.

Obama’s self-admitted goal is not to get more dealers licensed and into compliance. Clerks would do that. He’s just looking to crack down on honest sales.

“It’s a little bit harder to get a gun.”
[…]
“It may be a little more diffult and a little more expensive. And the laws of supply and demand mean that if something’s harder to get and a little more expensive to get then fewer people get them.”

Barry, allowing me to introduce you to another little economic tidbit:

The black market
When he makes transactions difficult and expensive, he makes the black market cost effective. It worked for the War On (Some) Drugs. Fortunately for honest people who want defensive tools, the black market for firearms is already well established.

Now there’s a loophole.

“Smitty,what do you think of these trick rules the new Head has thought up? Should we knuckle under, or make a squawk”?

“Squawk? What for?” Smythe gathered up his tools. “There’s a brand-new business opportunity in each one, if you only had the wit to see it. When in doubt, come see Smythe — special services at all hours.”
Robert A. Heinlein, Red Planet

If he’s crazy enough to reverse the Clinton rules, we can make him look darned silly. Not just salesman of the year, but FFL recruiter of the century.

Sadly, he won’t. That’s talk. The real clue is: 200 new agents, not 200 clerks.

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