Category Archives: authoritarian swine

authoritarian swine, gun control, guns

Well, bye!

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Has anyone ever seen any problem at a gun show that required a mass police presence? Me neither. There have been a few accidents here and there, but nothing criminal that required an armed police response in recent memory.

That’s why a Pennsylvania Mayor’s hilariously impotent temper tantrum in response to an upcoming NRA-sponsored gun show’s refusal to fork over a 60 percent increase extortion in fees to hold the show in Harrisburg is so perplexing. Specifically, Mayor Eric Papenfuse is refusing to provide police security for the show.

Harrisburg police have provided security for the annual Great American Outdoors Show, scheduled this year for February 6-14, in the past. Mayor Eric Papenfuse said that the decision not to offer the department’s services this year was motivated in part by the NRA’s opposition to the city’s gun control policies.

“We have an epidemic of gun violence,” Papenfuse told WHTM. “It’s no secret that the NRA has worked against the city’s interests repeatedly over the past year causing us to spend tens of thousands of dollars to defend common sense gun ordinances. We don’t need to be doing them any favors.”

The NRA has already been paying Harrisburg $600,000, but Papenfuse wanted more ostensibly to provide police protection for the gun show. Police protection from what? Your guess is as good as mine. It’s probably Papenfuse’s passive/aggressive effort to close down the gun show by refusing to offer armed security. As if anyone really cares…

This is equally hysterical coming from a guy who in December 2012 pled guilty to exceeding the speed limit by 15 mph in a 25 mph zone – probably a residential one.

MDJCourtSummaryReport

Hey, Eric! Did you know that nearly 34,000 people died in motor vehicle accidents in 2014? That makes your speeding through what was probably a residential neighborhood much more dangerous than the gun shows with their handful of 2014 accidents! It also makes your histrionic claim about children’s safety just a bit disingenuous, don’t you think?

Ooops!

In any case, I doubt that police presence at the gun show in Harrisburg will be needed.

Nice try, dimwit.

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authoritarian swine, gun control

About those “Executive Orders”: What really changed

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Despite all the talking heads babbling about executive orders on “gun control,” there aren’t any. In fact, all I can find are a new FFL guidance pamphlet from the ATF, two versions of a “white paper,” officially “Presidential Memoranda,” and a Health and Human Services proposed rule change.

So what changes happened, or are going to happen?

Defining “dealer”: The ATF pamphlet, DO I NEED A LICENSE TO BUY AND SELL FIREARMS?, is getting nearly all the attention, with ignorant commentators claiming the “gun show loophole” is closed and dealers will have to get licenses. In fact, many people including myself expected that Obama would attempt to redefine “dealer.” According to the ATF publication, nothing changed.

18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(1)(A), 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(21)(C), and 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(22) already defined “dealer” (the key phrases are “predominantly one of obtaining livelihood and pecuniary gain” and “regular and repetitive purchase and disposition”). The ATF “guidance” merely reiterates that.

What to expect: Nothing. Sort of. Keep reading.

Investigations: “ATF has established an Internet Investigations Center (IIC) staffed with federal agents, legal counsel, and investigators to track illegal online firearms trafficking and to provide actionable intelligence to agents in the field.”

What to expect: Look for a lot more gun show stings. The ATF will be busting people for “dealing” even when they know the person is not legally required to be licensed. They don’t plan to win in court; they plan to destroy people through horrific legal expenses incurred fighting malicious prosecution. That’s why Barrycade is looking for an additional 200 ATF kitten-stompers.

Trusts: Rule-changes in progress to clarify that using a firearms trust doesn’t dodge “prohibited persons” restrictions. So far as law goes, this may even be a good thing in that the ATF has been selectively applying that at whim, sometimes revoking trusts retroactively. On the other hand, the ATF lives on whim, and this probably won’t really help.

What to expect: Continued confusion, and delays in establishing firearms trusts. Lawyers will be happy with their new Lexuses and Beemers.

Firearms Loss Reporting: To hear plastic-haired TV heads tell it, there’s a new requirement for FFLs to report lost or stolen firearms. No such thing; the reporting requirement has been there for years (not even counting simply recording inventory in the bound book). Supposedly this change clarifies that the licensee shipping the gun has the responsibility to report the loss. That’s no change, because the firearm is never in the inventory of the recipient until he receives it. The FFL in whose inventory the firearm is has always been responsible.

What to expect: Not much. FFLs with inventory responsibility already had a vested interest in knowing where their guns went.

Prohibited persons: This is a nasty one. Per the white paper: “Current law prohibits individuals from buying a gun if, because of a mental health issue, they are either a danger to themselves or others or are unable to manage their own affairs. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has indicated that it will begin the rule-making process to ensure that appropriate information in its records is reported to NICS.”

Current law prohibits persons from buying a gun if adjudicated a danger to themselves or others. Not because some SSA bureaucrat said so, due to someone having physical issues that make managing financial affairs difficult.

What to expect: Loss of rights by a large class of people. Cheering by idiots.

HIPAA & More Prohibited Persons: The HHS rule-change proposal is especially dangerous; probably the worst of all these actions. Currently, HIPAA forbids most disclosures by HIPAA-covered entities (doctors, nurses, insurance companies, hospital, etc) of patient data. There are large LEO loopholes, of course. The rule-change would eliminate much of the privacy protection and allow any HIPAA-covered entity to report directly to NICS and condition believed to be disqualifying. They could report adjudicated findings of mental incompetence. But they could also report suspected drug abuse, suspect domestic violence, and suspected any other disqualifying condition. Without proof, without adjudication, without any due process conditions.

What to expect: You told your doctor you’ve been feeling depressed? He may pick up the phone when you leave and abrogate your rights, without you knowing until you buy a .22 plinker for Junior. Of course, a prohibited person attempting to purchase a firearm is a felony… too bad.

Now imagine that your doctor is a dyed-in-the-wool believer in the AMA’s war on RKBA, and wants an excuse to disarm all his patients.

NICS: Throwing more money at NICS, supposedly hiring more people to man the phones, and extending working hours 24/7. Wonderful; more bureaucrats. If you are dependent on background checks, this –theoretically — is a good thing; FFLs would appreciate decreased phone-wait times.

What to expect: Hopefully, shorter wait times. We’ll need that with the brand new surge in sales triggered by the Salesman-In-Chief.

Smart Guns: Oh dear Bog… President Unicorn Dreams will direct the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security to research, develop, and promote the use of smart guns. I can save them plenty of time and research bucks right now: Replace all firearms held by all three department with Armatix iP1s. There. Done. And all the anti-war, anti-police, anti-rights protesters are happy.

What to expect: Lucrative R&D contracts, but no workable solutions until technology in general advances greatly.

Summary: Essentially, all the rhetoric comes down to this: A bunch of claims that they’re cracking down on “gun violence” while doing almost nothing new, but setting the ATF loose to conduct more more questionable operations. But hidden in the bureaucratic rule-making is the plan to let any health professional render nearly anyone a prohibited person by slandering them as “crazy.”

No.

Your move.

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authoritarian swine, gun control, gun grabbers, guns

Just follow the money

18 Comments

I wrote recently about Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring’s unilateral move to ban reciprocity. Virginia, according to Herring’s diktat, will no longer recognize concealed carry permits from 25 other states.

The reaction from pro-rights advocates has been vicious, and in retaliation, the Virginia GOP has moved to defund Terry McAwful’s executive protection unit. Virginia state senator Bill Carrico proposed a budget amendment that could strip the anti-gun McAwful, who apparently has no problem working to disarm the very people who are the source of his power, and who has no problem using those same taxpayers’ money to protect his own worthless hide, of his protective detail. “If he’s so afraid of guns,”Carrico said, “then I’m not going to surround him with armed state policemen.”

However, it is instructive to see to whom McAwful and Herring are truly beholden, and John Richardson at No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money did just that.

Would it surprise anyone to know that both McAwful and Herring are beholden in no small part to former New York mayor and statist imbecile Michael Bloomberg? I didn’t think so.

Lo and behold the top donor to his campaign for Attorney General was none other than Independence USA PAC. They gave $1,292,417 of in-kind donations to his campaign. The money went for media production and advertising buys. To put this into perspective, the next two highest donors gave approximately half this amount each. The only candidate to get more money from that PAC was Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA).

Bloomberg-2-777x437And would it surprise anyone to know that Independence USA PAC is Bloomberg’s personal vendetta against our Second Amendment rights, and is dedicated to helping to elect candidates who support stricter gun-control laws? It was founded in October 2012 by Michael Bloomberg, and, so far, has been entirely funded by the former New York City mayor, according to FactCheck.org.

When your politicians are paid for by nosy, authoritarian, meddling nanny statists this is what you can expect. Bloomberg bought himself Virginia’s governor and attorney general. Now all he needs to do is say the word, and they will bend over.

Meanwhile, criminals will continue to carry Glocks in their sagging pants, while law-abiding citizens from out of state will simply switch to open carry, as is legal all over the Commonwealth.

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authoritarian swine, gun control, gun grabbers, guns

Well, we could have had Mark Obenshain…

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Mark Obenshain ran for Virginia’s Attorney General in 2013 and lost by a tiny, slim margin to a leftist, anti-Second Amendment authoritarian tool named Mark Herring, because apparently Virginia’s voters were somehow scared that their lady parts would be under the control of the EEEEVILLLL Republicans.

I know Obenshain personally, and he’s a solid pro-gun politician and a decent guy. Herring, on the other hand, is a statist nutbag who hasn’t met an anti-gun regulation he didn’t like. It is under his and Terry McAuliffe’s reign (Thanks, Trump, you buffoon, for giving thousands to elect that Clinton crony in my state!) that Virginia will no longer honor concealed carry permits from 25 other states.

Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) announced Tuesday that Virginia will no longer recognize concealed carry handgun permits from 25 states that have reciprocity agreements with the commonwealth.

Under the policy, Virginians with a history of stalking, drug dealing or inpatient mental-health treatment cannot obtain a permit in a state with comparatively lax laws and carry a handgun legally at home.

Herring said severing the out-of-state agreements can prevent people who may be dangerous or irresponsible from carrying a concealed handgun.

Note the severe amount of stupid in that last statement. Herring actually thinks (if it can be called that) criminals who don’t obey laws in other states will miraculously obey Virginia’s.

Thanks a lot, vagina voters! You’ve given us authoritarian swine, for whom this is likely only the beginning! If they have their way, Virginia will soon be getting an “A” from the Brady Center, and you will be defending your giblets from armed thug invasion using only a spork and a cell phone.

I guess out-of-staters will simply open carry, as is legal all over the state.

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authoritarian swine, gun control

Precedent

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FAA Finally Admits Names And Home Addresses In Drone Registry Will Be Publicly Available
The FAA finally confirmed this afternoon that model aircraft registrants’ names and home addresses will be public. In an email message, the FAA stated: “Until the drone registry system is modified, the FAA will not release names and address. When the drone registry system is modified to permit public searches of registration numbers, names and addresses will be revealed through those searches.”

“Wait, what’s that got to do with RKBA, or Jews, or whatever?” I pretend to hear you mutter.

Let’s take it a step at a time. The Federal Aviation Administration, in response to a few incidents involving RC drones near aircraft — none of which caused deaths, injuries, nor even an aircraft crash — issued a new, retroactive rule requiring a national registration database of nearly all drone owners. [ding]

Lacking new legislation to authorize this, the FAA simply, and arbitrarily, redefined toys to be aircraft requiring registration. [ding ding]

Despite telling prospectively compliant drone owners that their personal data (name, address) would be kept private, in fact, they plan a publicly searchable database. [ding ding ding]

“So what?” you might wonder. Hopefully not though, since I’d expect regular TZP visitors to be ahead of me here.

President Barrycade has stated his intent to issue executive orders to implement gun control, since he lacks legislation to do so.

Reportedly, one element of this will be to — again, lacking new enabling legislation — simply redefine occasional sellers as “dealers”. Bound books, 4473s, NICS checks, ATF inspections, and all. [ding]

Hey, it worked for the FAA, and they don’t even have an executive order. [ding ding]

The ATF already has their searchable FFL database. [ding ding ding]

Since Obama and other blood-dancers have stated publicly that they wish to crack down on private sales, it seems safe to assume this will be in one EO or another. But what if he emulates the FAA a little more closely?

Imagine “redefining” all firearms as NFA items. Just like toys became airplanes. Or how atmospheric plant food became a pollutant.

Or how a shoe string became an NFA machine gun.

Registration. Permission slips. Inspections. And maybe that database would become publicly searchable, too. Oh, well; for once we might be glad of ATF incompetence.

There is precedent for registering undesirables.

Fortunately, there’s an easy answer to any such moves.

No.

Your move.

Backing up those brave words might be a little harder, but let me leave you with two quotes.

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family?”
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

The sheer immorality of victim disarmament aside, one would hope every government thug out there would stop to consider all the possible ramifications of kicking in several million doors because the occupants are well armed.
– Carl Bussjaeger

When the law is twisted by arbitrary, unilateral redefinitions, there is no law to break.

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authoritarian swine, gun control, hoplophobia, Politics

Executive Orders, Watchlists, and Rights Violations — Oh My!

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So in the wake of the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Obama’s curiously limp Oval Office speech, the latest call — by everyone from (pardon me while I laugh) “conservative” Donald Trump to “progressive” Big O himself — is to deny gun rights to anyone on the no-fly list.

Or is it the terrorist watch list? Even the politicians screeching most stridently in favor of this latest political fad don’t seem to have any idea that the no-fly list and the terrorist watch list are two different things.

Two very similar things, granted. Two lists created arbitrarily out of the fears and fantasies of bureaucrats. Two lists filled with flawed, incomplete, and often irrational data. Two lists that often produce laughably awful injustices.* Two lists it’s nearly impossible to get removed from. Two lists that are maintained in undemocratic secrecy. Two lists that are worlds removed from the due process protections of the Bill of Rights.

But different. Really.

One state governor — unsurprisingly it’s Dannel Malloy of Connecticut — has even vowed to issue an executive order ensuring that none of those pesky terrorists in his state can buy guns. Which list of terrorists he plans to use remains muddled.

Malloy is, of course, not the only one promising to sling orders about. Valerie Jarrett reports that Obama is finalizing his long-awaited executive order on guns. That should be exciting. And ineffective.

Because that’s the thing

All these faddish measures won’t work. You know that. But it’s the ways in which they won’t work that are fascinating.

They won’t work to prevent terrorist attacks of course. (The San Bernardino murderers weren’t on these lists, and the female of the pair had even been vetted and passed by immigration officials despite the fact that she and her future hubby were already merrily chatting away about jihad and mayhem before the fedgov welcomed her to the USA.) But they also won’t work for their real purpose, which is to keep us from buying guns.

AND — most telling of all, I think — they won’t even work for their political/PR purpose, which is to display the peacock feathers or sound the rooster crows of politicians.

Other than a few diehard fanbois and grrls is anybody — anybody? — the least bit impressed with Obama or Malloy? In your wanderings about town (or about the Internet) do you hear anybody saying, “Yeah, boy, they’re really gonna stop those dirty, rotten gun owning terrorists now?” or do you hear gun owners lamenting, “Oh no, this time my guns and I are really done for! I’m so scared!”

Riiiight.

Sure, all this order-slinging is anti-constitutional, dictatorial, and in violation of both the letter and the spirit of the Bill of Rights. Sure, arbitrarily putting people on government lists to be punished is creepy. Sure, using those lists to deny basic rights is everything bad you might ever want to say about it. And potentially dangerous.

If politicians get away with this, it will inspire them to treat us even more ill. Conceivably, there would be very little, at some future moment, to stop an anti-gun politician or bureaucrat from data-dumping the whole U.S. census into some list and declare in the fashion of the Soup Nazi, “No rights for you!”

All true. And effectively already in process.

But they’re only doing it because they’ve already lost. Not only lost the gun-rights battle (because, if nothing else, 3D printers are about to nullify every gun law on the planet). But because they’ve lost us. Our respect. Their credibility. Our belief that governments “represent” us or even can represent us. Their power to control us. This is increasingly true on both right and left. It’s been true in the libertarian center for decades.

We are watching not political peacocks displaying their grand feathers or roosters strutting about the chicken yard. We are watching political fish flopping about on a dock, hooks in their mouths, eyes wide with panic.

—–

* Although it’s sadly not true that 72 employees of the Department of (Achtung!) Homeland Security are on the lists. Because surely thousands of these agents are a greater danger to both our liberty and our security than many of the people who actually are on the lists.

—–

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, So Much Stupid!, You can't fix stupid

NYT uses front page to spout inanities

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Okay, it’s not exactly news that the New York Times spouts nonsense, especially when it comes to guns and gun rights. But when the senile old hag venerable Gray Lady prints an editorial on its front page for the first time in 95 years — and that editorial (obviously sparked by this week’s jihadi-team murders in California) is 100% dedicated to spewing obvious silliness on guns — it’s worthy of note.

TZPNYTFrontPageEditorial_121415

Here are a few selected gems from the editorial:

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection.

Yes, confusing plain old semi-auto with full-auto again just based on the scary appearance of the rifles shown in media photos.

No mention of the emerging information that the murdering jihadis in San Bernardino may have broken the law both attempting to modify their weapons and, of course, in going out and slaughtering people. As if they’d ever care what “civilians” are legally allowed or not allowed to do.

So what do you want, NYT? Another ugly-gun ban like the one we already had for 10 years, which didn’t accomplish one thing except to create new criminals out of the formerly law abiding?

Well, yes, that appears to be precisely what the NYT wants, because they then go on to say (emphasis mine):

Opponents of gun control are saying, as they do after every killing, that no law can unfailingly forestall a specific criminal. That is true. They are talking, many with sincerity, about the constitutional challenges to effective gun regulation. Those challenges exist. They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did.

But at least those countries are trying. The United States is not.

“At least those countries are trying.” So let me get this straight. As long as you make a really sincere try at things that deprive people of freedom while doing absolutely zero, nothing, nada, zip, bupkis to protect lives … it’s okeydokey. It’s good.

Take even more freedom. Leave people vulnerable to even more death. It’s all to the good as long as you do something.

The shrieking old bat Gray Lady continues:

It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.

As usual no plan is outlined for drastically reducing numbers and eliminating large categories.

That this is a) impossible and b) would require stormtroopers bearing large numbers of those very categories of scary weapons (even for a vain attempt) is a fact too untidy for the front page of the New York Times. So no, let us delicately sidestep any actual thinking about any actual plan for “reducing” and “eliminating.” We don’t want to consider what would actually end up being reduced and eliminated, now do we?

But not to worry! Because you see, no untidiness would be required:

It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

Yes, despite the fact that the censorious, dried-up old biddy Gray Lady opens and closes her editorial by implying that Americans who support gun rights and own ugly guns are “indecent,” we nasty folk would simply turn over our weapons for the good of humanity.

I can envision us now, patiently lined up outside our local police stations or firearm melting centers by the thousands, little American flags waving from the barrels of our Evil Black Rifles, patriotic gleams in our eyes as we wait to surrender these indecent, macho, insurrectionist arms for destruction.

TZP_Poster-The-German-Student-Fights-for-the-Fuhrer-and-the-People

Yes, there we are, converted into Times believers simply by passage of yet another law. Because of course this law, unlike all other laws the world has ever known, has shown us in a “clear and effective” way the evil that we have been harboring in our gun cabinets and in our hearts. So we have repented and with the fervor of new converts are delighting in “giving up” all that the Times dictates we should give.

And a new day dawns in which nobody — nobody! — ever again commits mass violence because the tools to do so have been made clearly and effectively illegal!

Hooray and hallelujah for our glowing future! The sun will shine upon us forever, its pure radiance never again dimmed by the blood of innocents. Our Glorious Leaders will protect us with their Great Wisdom. And we are proud — proud! — to surrender our evil, knowing we will forever be protected and kindly led by those Above Us.

TZP_Stalinist-youth

—–

It must be so, right? Because the NYT thought their words were brilliant enough, original enough, revelatory enough, and necessary enough to write a front-page editorial for the first time since 1920. Surely they wouldn’t have resorted to such drama merely to spout cliched and bloody nonsense.

(H/T Jim Bovard for the inspiration)

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authoritarian swine

Medal of Freed… I don’t think that word means what you think it means

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Obama awarded the Medal of Freedom to seventeen people; among them were wannabe gun banner Barbra Streisand and Steven Spielberg who famously retroactively removed guns from his ET film. Both Jews who don’t get it. Spielberg, as the director/producer of Schindler’s List, has no excuse of ignorance.

On the bright side, Jewish-Israeli conductor Itzhak Perlman seems to have stuck to what he’s good at: music. But other than that liberty provides a situation where he can safely do so, I don’t see what that has to do with ‘Freedom’.

Officially, that medal recognizes ‘an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.’ I’ll allow that Streisand and Spielberg could get in on the basis of cultural offerings (that’s pushing it a bit for has-been crooner Barbra), along with Perlman, but their insistence on disarmed, defenseless victims directly counters security and peace. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, another reliable gun-banner was also recognized.

Hmm. The late Shirley Chisholm, another gun control nut, got one. There’s former congresscritter Lee Hamilton, whose Center On Congress appears to favor some restrictions. William D. Ruckelshaus: I don’t know his position of defensive arms, but his DDT-banning EPA has certainly killed a few people. James Taylor flat-out says we need to sacrifice freedom. Yep, Gloria Estefan, too. I rather suspect that Sondheim hates this gun.

Time to rename that award the Presidential Medal of Political Convenience.

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 grabbers, Politics

Trump is a tyrannical weasel, part 2,434

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In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, there’s been a lot of talk about terrorism, how to prevent it, how to fight it, and how to protect Americans. Even the DC Dominatrix Cathy Lanier has accidentally acknowledged that the citizens are the first line of defense against an attack. Of course, she continues to keep them disarmed, but admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, right?

Presidential candidate Donald Trump has placed himself square in the middle of the conversation with another idiotic statement on guns. This time, he stepped on his own winky with golf cleats by claiming that those on the terrorism watchlist should be denied their right to keep and bear arms.

shrug_chart_final1Now, I’ve always thought Trump was a fascist uber douche. Now, that has been confirmed. While I agree terrorists should be prevented from purchasing firearms (also caught and clubbed to death with spiked cricket bats), many of the people on the watchlist are hardly terrorists.

Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database—a watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments—more than 40 percent are described by the government as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” That category—280,000 people—dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.

These are people who have been convicted of nothing. They have been placed on this list, because according to the source, the standard the government uses to put people on a watchlist is “reasonable suspicion” to determine whether someone is a possible threat.

Because the government tracks “suspected terrorists” as well as “known terrorists,” individuals can be watchlisted if they are suspected of being a suspected terrorist, or if they are suspected of associating with people who are suspected of terrorism activity.

These are the people Trump wants to deprive of their rights. These are the people Trump would disarm and render vulnerable to everyone from terrorist to marauding thug. These are the people whom Trump wants to label as “enemies of the state” without due process, and without so much as an official set of charges.

Trump needs to go away. Far away. He shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the White House or anywhere near government service writ large. He’s a national embarrassment, who doesn’t understand policy and is merely running for president to stroke his own violently large ego.

It’s hard for me to believe that roughly a quarter of Republicans think this narcissistic weasel somehow deserves to be president! But then again, I think he appeals to the meathead faction of the GOP – you know – the ones who sit in their trailers, drinking cheap beer, scratching their shriveled raisins and screaming about how illegal aliens are taking their jobs, while the meth cooks on the stove.

Yes, I’m being intentionally inflammatory. That said, would anyone in all seriousness consider casting their vote for someone who is proud of his desire to stomp on people’s rights without due process?

So much FAIL!

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authoritarian swine, gun control, self defense

Complicity: Accessories before, during, and after the fact

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In reaction to known terrorists using illegally obtained automatic weapons, grenades, and improvised explosives, the EU wants to crack down on honest people possessing semiauto firearms. That includes national registries of all firearms and firearms owners (i.e.- the honest folk who obtained their defensive arms lawfully), and collating the national registries into an EU-wide registry. Where have we heard that before?

These ‘leaders’ not only cannot protect their people, they want to ensure their people can’t protect themselves. Call it bureaucratic job security. G-d forbid people should realize they don’t need government ‘protectors’.

In the Paris attacks, the stadium was a gun-free zone which somehow failed to repel explosives. The Bataclan concert hall was a gun-free zone which again failed to repel psychotic goons with guns and explosives. In America, some 92% of mass shootings occur in gun-free zones, or what the more knowledgeable call ‘target-rich environments’.

Which is more evil? Terrorists who kill innocents, or the politicians and bureaucrats who knowingly and deliberately make it easier and safer for the terrorists to commit atrocities?

In a sane world, any politician who imposed any gun-free zone, claiming it will magically repel bullets with a Star Trekish deflector field, would be tried and convicted of terrorism. He’d spend the rest of his life making restitution to the victims of his policy.

Anyone who would impose a defense-free zone on an entire continent should be executed for war crimes.

This commentary first appeared in the November 23, 2015 TZP Alerts newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter (see left sidebar, or scroll down if you’re using a smart phone) for more first-look exclusive content, and for news links you don’t see here.

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