Interview with Senator Johnny Isakson, R-GA

A couple of months ago, I received a form response (in reply to my email regarding reciprocal carry) from Senator Johnny “Crickets” Isakson, the new nickname earned through his silence when questioned about his actual RKBA positions. The Senator noted that he was a co-sponsor of that bill, which I already knew, but avoided saying what he might do to advance it.

But his form letter did tell me something else.

“I firmly believe that we do not need more gun control in America; rather, we need more criminal control. To that end, I support instant background checks on the purchase of all guns to prevent convicted felons from obtaining them, but I do not support waiting periods or the registration of any firearm.”
— Senator Johnny Isakson [R-GA], December 14, 2018, A rated by the NRA, A- by the GOA.

At that point, several Democrats had said that they would be filing bills to implement “universal background checks.” Since Isakson is on record supporting that, I decided a proper interview on the subject was in order. I sent his office a list of questions on January 3, 2019.

Receiving no response, not even an automated acknowledgement, I followed up on 1/9/2019. And again on 1/13/2019. Then on 1/15/2019. At long last, on 1/22/2019, I received a reply. I sent a request for clarification or expansion of his statement. No reply.

Let the interview begin.

1. How would you respond to those who say background checks, a requirement that a buyer preemptively prove his innocence, are a prior restraint on the exercise of a constitutionally protected right?

-crickets-

2. Research shows that approximately 93% of guns used in crimes are obtained through unlawful channels bypassing background checks (private sales between non-prohibited persons without background checks are not one of the unlawful channels). How will you shut down the unlawful transactions, thus forcing those people to turn to lawful channels and background checks?

-crickets-

3. At least 93% of NICS denials turn out to be false positives, and there is currently a backlog of tens of thousands of denial appeals. How will you fix the false positive problem, which can only increase the backlog as private sales are forced to turn to NICS?

-crickets-

4. There is an unknown, but large, false negative problem with NICS; prohibited persons listed in NICS still passing background checks. How will you fix that?

-crickets-

5. A 2017 study showed that “We cannot conclude that states that regulate private gun sales have a higher, or lower, gun homicide rate.” California, with universal background checks as part of the most comprehensive gun control laws in the country, saw an 18% increase in firearms homicides from 2014 to 2016. How would federally imposed universal background checks work better?

-crickets-

Other legislation has been entered or seems likely:

Graham has introduced an “Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO/”red flag”) bill would you support that? If so, why; and how would you respond to those who say that “preemptive” orders with after the fact “due process” are unconstitutional bills of attainder?

-crickets-

Do you support or oppose a ban on bump-fire stocks, and why? Do you consider the recent rule change making bump-fire stocks “machineguns” to be lawful?

-crickets-

Do you support or oppose national reciprocal carry, and why?

“In the 116thCongress, I have again cosponsored the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act. This commonsense legislation would protect the rights of law-abiding citizens with concealed carry privileges in their home state to exercise those rights in any other state with concealed carry laws, while abiding by that state’s laws.”

An answer! A form reply, but something.

Do you support or oppose removing suppressors/silencers from National Firearms Act regulation, and why?

-crickets-

Do you support or oppose raising the minimum purchasing for rifles and shotguns from 18yo, why?

-crickets-

Do you support or oppose a ban on any class of firearms, such as “assault weapons,” and why?

-crickets-

Is there any other firearms-related legislation you would support or oppose?

-crickets-

About all I can establish about Senator Crickets’ positions is that he’ll eventually sign on to reciprocal carry but not carry through (or it might have at least come to a floor vote last session), and that he wants ineffective, expensive prior restraint of rights through preemptively-prove-your-innocence background checks whose only real purpose can be to assemble 4473’s to identify gun owners and their firearms.

Sadly, Georgia and the nation are stuck with him until the 2022 elections.

 

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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CDC is at it again: School Homicides

On January 25, 2019, the CDC released a report on school homicide trends.

Characteristics of School-Associated Youth Homicides — United States, 1994–2018
The overall 22-year trend for single-victim homicide rates did not change significantly. However, multiple-victim incidence rates increased significantly from July 2009 to June 2018.
[…]
Overall, media reports were solely relied upon for coding demographic and circumstantial details for 80 (18.6%) of 431 incidents.

Sounds bad, doesn’t it? But…

First off, their own Table 2 gives different incident numbers. In text, they claim 431. Table 2 says says 393 single-victim incidents and 33 multi-victim incidents. That’s only 426 total incidents. So right from the start, I take issue with their “data.”

Moving on…

In fact, eyeballing that chart, single-victim incidents/deaths… appear to trend downward, from roughly .052/100K to around .034/100K; a difference of .018/100K. That’s a drop of almost 35%, which strikes me as significant.

Multi-victim incidents — over the entire period — have increased (eyeballing again) from the neighborhood of .004/100K to .010/100K.

Deaths in multi-victim incidents definitely seem to have increased significantly, from around .002/100K to .048/100K.

Now allow me to explain why that is absolutely meaningless.

By their own admission, at least 47.42% of these school incidents did not occur at school or at a school-related event. I have to guess at the number of non-school incidents. They tell us that there were 33 total multi-victims incidents. They tell us 10 people died in non-school multi-victim incidents. But they never tell us. How many non-school incidents there were. To be “multi-victim,” I’ll assume a minimum of 2, so there may have been 5 multi-victim non-school incidents. Or it could be as low as 2 incidents. Either way, nearly half the “school homicides” weren’t at school.

By their own admission, 210 people –40.85% — of the victims were not killed at school or at a school-related event.

I was hoping to find a breakout of weapons type by incident location. They don’t do that. So I went looking at their references to see if I could find the data myself. But when I saw this…

2016–17 and 2017–18 multiple-victim cases were identified through manual Internet searches using phrases such as “school shooting” and “multiple victims and school,” as well as supplementary review of web-based firearm injury data sets (i.e., Everytown for Gun Safety and the Gun Violence Archive) to identify cases matching the School-Associated Violent Death Surveillance System case definition for multiple-victim youth homicides.

Everytown for Gun Safety. Regular readers may recall that I like to play find the school shooting with Everytown’s alleged school shootings list. When I started almost a year ago, only 71% of their “school shootings” were in fact school shootings by their own definition. The last time I checked, only 40% of the listing met their own definition. At least one “shooting” hadn’t occurred at all; anywhere.

Since the CDC compiled their “school-related” homicide data from a source which gets that wrong 60% of the time, I am forced to assume that the numbers I get from this report are worse than we thought. Nearly half of these researchers’ school incidents aren’t. And the one’s that they do claim happened at school… come from sources that invent fake listings.

Dear Bog: a fake report based on fake stats based on fake news. This error-ridden CDC report on school homicides really needs to be retracted. Their discussion cites numbers that differ from their own tables, they claim one trend is insignificant when it’s actually a 35% reduction (by their own numbers), nearly half their “school-related” incidents aren’t school-related by their own data, and they used a source known to have an error rate of as much as 60%. We paid Holland $106,380 a year for this garbage?

There was a reason for the Dickey Amendment, and we obviously need to keep the CDC out of this.

 

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Oregon Firearms Federation vs Oregon Ceasefire. Who is antisemitic?

A week or so ago one of our Zelman Partisans facebook readers sent me a copy of a letter from Oregon ceasefire, a victim disarmament group.

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, today I shall address the situation.

Letter from Oregon Ceasefire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had seen an alert from Oregon’s Firearms Federation about the mask being off, but I hadn’t been aware of other very serious things that were going on with this gun rights organization. But after I read the letter from Oregon Ceasefire, my eyes were opened! It seems Oregon Firearms Federation is antisemitic according to Oregon Ceasefire! I am shocked an appalled. Antisemitism is one the rise everywhere, from Jews in Francistan that can no longer wear a Kippah in public safely to the US where two muslim women have been elected to congress. One of whom supports BDS and has made antisemitic tweets about “Israel hypnotizing the world” and the other has covered up the one Jewish state on her map with the name of a country created in 1964, same year as the Beatles by the way. Indeed, this charge of a Second Amendment rights group being antisemitic needed investigation! So, I did.

I wrote both groups, and asked what incident lead to such a charge?

I wrote Oregon Firearms Federation first. Please note, I’m not a reporter, I’m a columnist and so I have no guilt over telling them to keep up the good work.

Email to Oregon Firearms Federation

 

 

 

 

Within a minute after I wrote Oregon Ceasefire.

Letter to Oregon Ceasefire

 

 

 

 

It’s a few days later now, I’ve heard back from Oregon Firearms Federation(OFF), I have not heard back from Oregon Ceasefire.

It seems according to Oregon Firearms Federation the charge was prompted by a page that OFF had on their web site.

https://www.oregonfirearms.org/michael-z-cahana-memorial-page

Ah! Indeed the images are horrific. Horrible images of the Holocaust, please G-d may such a thing never happen again. A sane person would never want to see such images mar the pages of history. If you have a pipe freeze and break in your house due to a air leak that can reach a pipe (speaking from experience here) one would do their best to assure that such conditions will not re-occur by sealing the leak. They would not get a hammer and enlarge the hole. But then I’m me, and the hole got sealed. Oregon Ceasefire is not me. They choose to grab that hammer. It’s worth noting that when Oregon Firearms Federation emailed me back, they informed me that the page had been up for months, and apparently in an attempt to get their name back in the news, Oregon Ceasefire notified the media who promptly called the “experts” in their Rolodex that will recite what they want to hear. But please note that the Rabbi in question Michael Z Cahana has 180 degree different opinion on these matters than another Rabbi Kahane, who’s motto was “Every Jew a .22”. Rabbi Meir Kahane HY’’D הי״ד to be exact. So Rabbi Cahana in favor of defenseless victims, most certainly does not speak for us all.

But back to the matter at hand, one of the pieces of legislation, victim disarmament if you want to call it what it is, is SB0501 according to OFF.

80th OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY–2019 Regular Session

Senate Bill 501

Sponsored by Senator WAGNER, Representative SALINAS (at the request of Students for Change) (Presession filed.)

SUMMARY

The following summary is not prepared by the sponsors of the measure and is not a part of the body thereof subject to consideration by the Legislative Assembly. It is an editor’s brief statement of the essential features of the measure as introduced.

Requires person to secure permit before purchasing or otherwise receiving firearm. Specifies qualifications for permit and manner of applying for permit. Creates procedures for appealing denial of permit. Punishes receipt of firearm without valid permit by maximum of 364 days’ imprisonmen $6,250 fine, or both.

Requires person who owns or possesses firearm to secure firearm with trigger or cable lock or in locked container.

Punishes failure to secure firearm by maximum of 30 days’ imprisonment, $1,250 fine, or both.

Requires person who owns or possesses firearm to report to law enforcement agency loss or theft of firearm within 24 hours.

Punishes failure to report loss or theft by maximum of 30 days’ imprisonment, $1,250 fine, or both.

Prohibits possession of magazine with capacity to hold more than five rounds of ammunition.

Provides that person in possession of such magazine must sell or otherwise dispose of magazine within 180 days of effective date of Act. Punishes unlawful possession of magazine capable of holding more than five rounds by maximum of 364 days’ imprisonment, $6,250 fine, or both.

Requires criminal background check before transfer of ammunition. Restricts ammunition receipt to 20 rounds within 30-day period.

Prohibits transfer of firearm by gun dealer or private party until latter of 14 days or Department of State Police has determined that recipient is qualified to receive firearm.

Alrighty, now let’s take a look at some actual nazi (no, they still don’t get capital letters) gun laws.

Straight from the Book “Gun Control” Gateway to Tyranny. Let’s have a look-see, shall we? See if anything looks familiar. Remembering that the Gun Control Act of 1968 was based on nazi weapons control laws of 1938, Sen. Chris Dodd’s -D daddy Sen. Thomas Dodd -D had a copy of the nazi weapons laws that he had translated. It was on those laws that he based his gun control act.

So, Page 52

Page 52

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And page 57. Please note sections 12, 13 and 14

Please note the sections

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And last, page 81.

Page 81

 

 

 

 

 

 

As Aaron points out in the book, these gun control laws are immoral. Because they treat the law abiding citizen in this manner as a reaction to acts committed by criminals. Torah absolutely supports self-defense. Too many blather “Thou shalt not kill”. NO, and more no. It says “Thou shalt not MURDER”. Not the same thing.

So the virtue signaling Oregon Ceasefire chooses to ignore (or never learned) history. Let’s do a brief recap shall we?

How the Nazis Used Gun Control

In 1931, Weimar authorities discovered plans for a Nazi takeover in which Jews would be denied food and persons refusing to surrender their guns within 24 hours would be executed. They were written by Werner Best, a future Gestapo official. In reaction to such threats, the government authorized the registration of all firearms and the confiscation thereof, if required for “public safety.” The interior minister warned that the records must not fall into the hands of any extremist group.

In 1933, the ultimate extremist group, led by Adolf Hitler, seized power and used the records to identify, disarm, and attack political opponents and Jews. Constitutional rights were suspended, and mass searches for and seizures of guns and dissident publications ensued. Police revoked gun licenses of Social Democrats and others who were not “politically reliable.”

During the five years of repression that followed, society was “cleansed” by the National Socialist regime. Undesirables were placed in camps where labor made them “free,” and normal rights of citizenship were taken from Jews. The Gestapo banned independent gun clubs and arrested their leaders. Gestapo counsel Werner Best issued a directive to the police forbidding issuance of firearm permits to Jews.

Disarmament of the German Jews

Hitler and Gun Control

On October 4, 1938, Nazi police arrested one Alfred Flatow in Berlin. His crime: being a Jew in lawful possession of a firearm. Lawful because he had dutifully registered his guns in January 1932, complying with the pre-Hitler anti-firearm decrees of the Weimar Republic. The arresting police were probably unaware that Flatow won Gold and Silver medals for Germany in the 1896 Olympics. He had also served in the German army in the 1890s.

….

The Nazis also moved to control others who possessed weapons. Despite protests, the government banned all voluntary “shooting clubs” (Schuetzenvereine) in Germany. These clubs were popular forms of recreation across the nation, and many club leaders opposed the ban and even expressed objections to the Nazi government. As Hitler was rapidly centralizing and broadening his powers, he dissolved all local and independent shooting and sports clubs on May 10, 1933. Two weeks later, he created the Nazi-controlled German Shooting Sport Association (Deutscher Schiesssportverband), which became another mouthpiece for the Nazi government and, with war on the horizon, a source of males already trained in marksmanship.

So many of the laws advocated by Oregon Ceasefire have been implemented. What did that lead to?

I’ll let the witnesses tell you themselves.

First up, Eta Wrobel, a truly amazing woman. She wasn’t doing dishes either, or cleaning the camp. Eta was a modern day Devorah, leading battles.

Next we have Sonia Orbach.

What does Sonia have to say about this?

Why oh why does it have to get to the point you need two hand grenades? Why can’t tyrants just fear to attack citizens? Why would a woman even think like this?

Oh, that’s why.

These are far from the only two female partisans. There is a little film clip on some of them.

I understand that part of the reason Oregon Ceasefire reached out to Der Stürmer, the media was because they are losing relevance since Michael Bloomberg began shoveling money into Mad Mommies, his favorite astro-turf group. So, if all guns are evil and people will be safer if they are all banned he will no doubt be glad when that happy day comes right? Um, no. Seems Bloomberg is a elitist hypocrite.

Alumnus, major donor Michael Bloomberg wants private, armed police force patrolling Johns Hopkins University

“When you have a city that has the murder rate that Baltimore has, I think it’s ridiculous to think that they shouldn’t be armed,” Bloomberg said of the Hopkins security force.

….

A group of Hopkins students called Students Against Private Police expressed dissatisfaction with Bloomberg’s remarks. In a statement, the group said Bloomberg’s support for a private, armed police force is at odds with his other work to promote gun control

Just an FYI: The Bloomberg School of Public Health is located at John Hopkins. There moulders the academic wing of Bloomberg’s Center for Gun Policy and Research, anti-self defense, of course.

I’m actually shocked, I mean Baltimore has a Demoncrat Mayor a very strict gun control as it is. Why on earth is Bloomberg worried about high crime?

Michael Bloomberg, to quote Aaron Zelman, is a “Bagel brain”.

So, in conclusion. Is Oregon Firearms Federation antisemitic? No. They oppose laws that enabled the brutality of the Holocaust, and if you’ve forgotten just how brutal it was, or never learned, that page reminds you. A post on my Zehut list mentioned a poll conducted by Schoen Consulting found that 11% of all US adults and 22% of millennials haven’t ever heard of the Holocaust. Perhaps Oregon Ceasefire is one of them.

Is Oregon Ceasefire Antisemitic? I think so. If you can compare what they are advocating with what nazi Germany had for gun laws and the persist in doing so, I would say yes they are. I believe as you look at the rise of antisemitism world wide it’s imperative that Jews learn to shoot and be ready to do so.

To that end I reached out to one of my favorite groups, Cherev Gidon. In the wake of the Pittsburgh Synagogue attack they came on my radar. I asked a simple question, Why do you do what you do? Why are you teaching Jews and others to shoot and how to defend themselves?

Yonatan, director and founder was kind enough to answer me.

Cherev Gidon Israeli Tactical Training Academy exists for the purpose of training American Jews with Israeli combat shooting skills, so that every American Jewish community will be well armed and professionally trained with the ability to mount an effective defense against any violent attack on any Jewish community (as we saw in Pittsburgh). Our goal is to have each and every American Jew carrying a firearm with them to synagogue (and everywhere they go), so that never again will any Jew fall victim to antisemitic violence. Thankfully, our program has become incredibly popular recently, and we are actively achieving our goal of making those communities hard targets. We are currently expanding to different regions and communities across the US as a result of the unprecedented demand and we hope to be able to make our training programs easily accessible to all Jews, no matter what part of the country they live in.

And do you know what? This

beats this

Wedding rings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every day of the week and twice on Shabbat. When I wrote OFF back and thanked them for answering me, I made a comment.

Aaron

 

 

I like that.

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Let’s look a little closer at my “Baker Act” suggestion

Tuesday, I wondered why the VNRA was pushing “red flag” laws with “due process” instead of a Florida style Baker Act. After all, the Baker Act allows due process before the subject’s Second Amendment right are suspended.

In comments, JdL asked a very reasonable question.

But I’m not crazy about your proposed substitute. Why do we need any law that snatches someone off the street who has not committed any crime?

It’s a trap for the VNRA.

Proponents of red flag/ERPOs claim their only concern is getting guns away from dangerous people.

The VNRA — who backtracked slightly after the uproar over their support — claim they don’t want dangerous people to have guns, but that due process is needed. Except when it isn’t.

“I have been working with members of the Assembly and Senate to ensure they fully understand the dangers of poorly drafted red flag legislation and the due process violations that come with.”

If safety is the real motivator for these laws, “Baker Act” type laws would seem to be a better fit with the Constitution, although still problematical in its preemptive (“pre-crime“) aspect.

And therein lies my trap. For victim disarmers, whether Giffords Law Center or the Vichy National Rifle Association.

Every state and the District of Columbia already has Baker Act or equivalent laws on the books. And they’ve survived judicial scrutiny. They allow due process before permanent (or long-term) loss of rights. They provide tools to take people into custody, with probable cause as opposed to anonymous complaints, to determine if they are a danger to themselves or others.

I’m proposing nothing more than using existing laws that allow due process and do what these people claim to want.

The only thing ERPOs do that current laws and tools don’t do is violate human/civil rights without due process, with no notice. Anonymously. And then leave the possibly now angered subjects on the loose with access to other lethal weapons.

“Baker Act” style laws require probable cause for someone to be taken in evaluation (officer called, notes person behaving strangely), then a doctor establishes probable cause for committal hearing (yep, he’s crazy), then a due process hearing is held for a judge to make the determination, at which point 2A rights can be suspended.

ERPOs skip all the probable cause and due process and go straight to rights violation. As others have noted, ERPOs are just legalized SWATting.

There’s a reason they call them “red flag” laws.

So, please NRA, explain again why you back unconstitutional new laws when these tools are already in every states’ toolbox?

 

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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Baker Act vs. ERPO

There’s a fad for “red flag” extreme risk protective orders that makes the pet rock craze look rational. Even the Vichy NRA backs this supposed tool to keep guns away from “dangerous” people.

Except when they claim they don’t. Oh no, says the VNRA, we only back ERPOs with “due process.” Except when they don’t.

Why the demand for ERPOs, with their intended lack of due process? If the goal is to prevent a potentially dangerous person from harming himself or others, one could implement a Florida-style Baker Act.

The Baker Act allows an adult to be involuntarily held for mental health evaluation for up to 72 hours (12 hours for a minor). The 72 hour limit conforms to the usual 72 hour maximum that criminal suspects may be held without charges.

Neither a 72 hour questioning period nor a 72 hour mental health evaluation result in a permanent or semi-permanent loss of Second Amendment human/civil rights. In either case, a loss or suspension of rights would come only after a due process hearing (indictment or involuntary committal), resulting from the outcome of the questioning or evaluation.

It is noteworthy that victim disarmament advocates, and the VNRA, do not see any need for due process before rights are violated. In fact, typical “red flag” laws do not require that the allegedly dangerous person be taken into custody at all (the VNRA suggests this as an option available to a judge in an ex parte proceeding). The target is merely one class of weapons, not the person allegedly in need of help.

One class of weapons: firearms. Not baseball bats, knives, nor even motor vehicles, which in 2016 were implicated in almost 2,000 more deaths than firearms, even though estimates of the number of motor vehicles is 138,360,614 less than the number of firearms in America. ERPOs take firearms useful for defense, but not statistically more deadly automobiles. Not even the driver’s license.

Does that sound like something meant to ensure safety?

Another difference between a Baker Act hold (or hold for questioning) and “red flag” laws is that a person held for evaluation or questioning is allowed representation and communication. The subject of a “red flag” order never has the chance for either, because the first he knws about the order is when the police show up to seize his property, or kill him. And where is the due process for someone whose firearms are taken, because someone else was subject to a “red flag” order?

Further, standard “red flag” law language imposes a long-term loss of 2A rights even if the person is never found to require treatment, nor accused of an actual crime. Typically, the accused may petition for restoral of rights after a set period. In contrast, a criminal suspect released from custody without charge retains all of the rights he enjoyed prior to questioning.

“Red flag” extreme risk protective orders protect no one. Not the accused, not anyone else whom he allegedly might harm.

ERPOs are designed from the ground up to violate the rights of gun owners without pesky things like hearings or trial. ERPOs are legislatively and judicially blessed SWATting, no guilt required.

So why does the VNRA support “red flag” ERPOs, with ex parte proceedings instead of a simple Baker Act-style law in which no one loses their constitutionally-protected rights until adjudication has occurred?

 

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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Non-News

There was a mass killing in Oregon Saturday night. The report says four dead, two injured (not including the alleged asshole, who was killed by a deputy).

Notice I said the report. That one is still light on details, so I started checking my usual news feeds, to learn more.

ABC: No.
CBS: No.
NBC: No.

Hmm. So I checked a few more outlets. An event with seven casualties normally makes the national news.

MSN: No.
MSNBC: No.
CNN: No.

If any of those “news” services have the story, it’s buried well enough that I couldn’t find it. So I did a web search on “oregon mass killing”: Nothing. Doesn’t show up.

It’s almost as if those people don’t count, as far as the lamestream media is (not) concerned.

Drop down to the eighth paragraph in the report.

Jensen said the four people were not killed by gunfire, but did not provide further detail on their cause of death.

Added: Just for contrast, this killing also happened Saturday: 3 dead, 2 injured in murder-suicide, Jacksonville police say.

Same day, fewer casualties, but the killer used an evil gun, so it’s reportable.

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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[Update] Red Flag Orders: Weasel-wording from the VNRA

See below, for more hypocrisy.


No, for once, I’m not going to talk about bump-fire stocks (anyone who doesn’t understand that problem by now can’t, or won’t, comprehend it).

Let’s talk about ERPOs. And the Vichy NRA.

Call them extreme risk protective orders, red flag orders, gun violence protection orders, or what have you, they had been floated for years, but became particularly popular after the Parkland school shooting. Rather irrationally, since the local, state, and federal authorities had plenty of time and warnings to stop the murder before he escalated to the deaths of humans (per reports, he’d been killing animals for years). The point was to deflect attention from their own failures. If only we’d had ERPOs (in addition to unused protective orders, unused Baker Act, unused arrests/indictments/convictions for what he’d already done, maybe even ignored prohibited person status), we could have stopped him.

Of course, the VNRA was blamed, too. So the VNRA had to put up their own deflector shields. They jumped on the ERPO bandwagon. Yeah, red flag laws are a great idea!

And the knowledgeable gun community — for once — exploded.

ERPOs have a little constitutional and moral problem.

I’m going to generalize, because the specifics vary from state to state. Getting a regular protective order is relatively easy. The person who thinks they may be threatened goes to a judge and asks for an order keeping the accused away from them. The court sets a hearing date. Parties involved show up and speak their piece. The judge decides if the order is justified, and if so issues it. He may set special conditions: some monitored contact, maybe zero contact, no threats, if he sees a particular danger he may order the accused to turn in any firearms he possesses. And with the order in place, he cannot lawfully obtain another firearm.

Whoa. Wait. Full stop. I’ll bet newcomers to this thought newly empowering judges to take those guns was the point of ERPOs. Victim disarmament advocates — like the mainstream media — have certainly done their best to convey that impression. But, generally, judges already have that power.

Though adjudication, a hearing in which the accused has the chance to defend himself before hand.

ERPO laws don’t change that power. What they do change is:

  • The accused doesn’t get the chance to defend himself. He isn’t even told of any hearing before his firearms are taken.
  • The claim that the accused is dangerous doesn’t have to come from anyone who feels threatened. In fact, as some laws have been written, the accused and accuser need never have met. The accused might not even know of the accuser’s existence

The first a person has any idea that he’s been accused may be when the police show up to kill him. Some people call that SWATting. I do.

ERPOs have even been executed against people who aren’t accused of being “dangerous” (they took firearms from an innocent third party because the accused thought he might be able to steal guns from him; might, not “could”).

That is what ERPOs are. And that is what the VNRA endorsed. Initially.

When gun owners (and even the ACLU) noted due process problem with ex parte proceedings, and the whole “to be confronted with the witnesses against him” thing, the VNRA backed off. Oh, no! What we MEANT was that we back ERPOs with due process.

Specifically, the VNRA said:

Just in case they decide to retroactively edit reality, here’s a screencap showing their support for ex parte proceedings.
  • Any ex parte proceeding should include admitting the individual for treatment.
  • A person’s Second Amendment rights should only be temporarily deprived after a hearing before a judge, in which the person has notice of the hearing and is given an opportunity to offer evidence on his or her behalf.

Make up your minds, VNRA. Stop weasel-wording on the issue. Would the VNRA allow ex parte (the accused not given the opportunity to participate) hearings or not?

Again, the NRA will continue to oppose any proposal that does not fully protect due process rights. We will only support an ERPO process that strongly protects both Second Amendment rights and due process rights at the same time.

Due process is defined in 5 U.S. Code § 554 – Adjudications. It requires the subject to be informed of the hearing before it is held. That excludes any ex parte action.

And yet, the VNRA is still (as of January 8, 2019) allowing for ex parte hearings with no due process.

If the VNRA wants due process hearings for protection orders, then “red flag” ERPOs are exactly what they should oppose.

Smart people — which seems to exclude VNRA “leadership” — understand that. The framers of the Constitution certainly did.

Article 1, Section 9
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

What’s a Bill of Attainder?

A bill of attainder (also known as an act of attainder or writ of attainder or bill of pains and penalties) is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them, often without a trial. As with attainder resulting from the normal judicial process, the effect of such a bill is to nullify the targeted person’s civil rights, most notably the right to own property (and thus pass it on to heirs)
[…]
The use of these bills by Parliament eventually fell into disfavour due to the obvious potential for abuse and the violation of several legal principles, most importantly the right to due process, the precept that a law should address a particular form of behaviour rather than a specific individual or group, and the separation of powers.

No trial: Check.

Nullifies civil rights: First Amendment rights to speak in a hearing denied, Second Amendment rights to firearm denied. Check.

Takes property: Check.

Heck; 4A, 5A, 6A, and 9A gone. Check.

The VNRA officially supports unconstitutional Bills of Attainder which strip anonymously accused people of their rights and property with no due process.

The Vichy NRA officially supports Star Chamber-ordered SWATting with no due process.

Update: The VNRA is “opposing” a red flag law in North Dakota.

Not only do they fail to provide any sort of mental health treatment but they allow the state to deny law-abiding gun owners their due process of rights. If the state can deny due process to these law-abiding residents then what’s to stop them from denying any right to any group of people?”

Which is exactly why I am calling out the VNRA’s hypocrisy in supporting ex parte proceedings lacking in participation, before the deprivation of 2A human/civil rights, by the accused.

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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A simple flowchart

Everyone has flowcharts, companies have them, to perform CPR there is a flowchart, to fix a car there is a flowchart, to diagnose illness or even make financial decisions, there’s a flowchart.

So I decided I needed to make us a little flowchart. It’s another one of those things where I see two things that fit together, well, in my mind.

First off we have this story about a 25 year old woman. She was alone at a bus stop minding her own business in essentially gun free, so crime free Chicago. Or, as some call is Chi-raq.

Residents are praising the 25 year-old woman, with a concealed carry license, who shot and killed a man who was trying to rob her at a bus stop.

Surveillance video shows the woman waiting alone at a bus stop at 103rd and Wallace around 5:45 a.m. Tuesday. Police say a 19-year-old man, in a light colored hoodie, pulled a gun on the woman in an attempt to rob her.

She pulled out her own gun and shot him in the neck.

How’s about that! So that made it all the more interesting when I saw this cartoon on facebook the other day. My buddy Chris puts up great stuff. Then I’ve been watching Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries. It’s set in 1920s Australia, before it was a gun free paradise. Back when women could defend themselves. This was the first one I watched called I believe “Cocaine Blues”. Costumes are beautiful, very elegant, the cars are amazing and the music is swell. The stories are great, when watching the first one it hit me! A flowchart. A simple flowchart to determine if you value women’s lives. To be fair, it can be anyone’s life, but all these stories involve women. Apples to apples don’t you know?

So without further ado, my first flowchart.

DO YOU BELIEVE WOMEN’S LIVES HAVE  VALUE?

 

Disarmament Man Strikes again

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And for our “Absolutely”

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A Thundering Silence

I have spent the past ten and a half months trying to confirm or deny one little report.

On February 16, 2018, the Sun-Sentinel reported on an investigation conducted by Florida DCF of the scumbag who would become the Parkland murdering a$$h0le. Basically, it was just another case of the “authorities” blowing off another chance to do something about him before anyone died.

But eleven paragraphs in, I noticed something.

Cruz came under DCF’s supervision and care because he was classified as a vulnerable adult due to mental illness.

As I’ve written before, “vulnerable adult due to mental illness” is a specific legal status in Florida. It is based on a finding by a judge in a formal hearing in which the subject has the opportunity to appear with legal counsel. In short, a “vulnerable adult due to mental illness” is a prohibited person under the criteria of 18 U.S. Code § 922(d)(4). Chumbucket should not have been able to pass a background check to buy his rifle.

But it happens. Rather a lot.

To be fair, the reporters might’ve misunderstood what DCF told them. So I contacted the Sun-Sentinel to verify that part was correct. I never received a response.

Since then, in an effort to discover if that “vulnerable adult” claim was accurate, I’ve contacted Florida DCF, state legislators, Senator Grassley (when he held a hearing on the shooting), the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school public safety commission, and the world. I have received no answers either way. From anyone. Until today.

A couple of days ago, the Sun-Sentinel’s Randy Schultz wrote an op/ed. He took the position that even if their sheriff is a complete screw-up (which he is), we still need more gun control.

If chum was a prohibited person, then gun control didn’t work. Maybe we should fix what we have before piling on more. I wrote to Schultz to suggest he look into that “vulnerable adult” issue, because I’d had zero luck myself.

Schultz replied. I’ll give him that much. In fact we had quite the email exchange.

Based on published reports, the Florida Department of Children and Families investigated and determined that Cruz was not a danger to himself. It ended there.

No. The results of that investigation had no bearing on chum’s prohibited status. They investigated because he was already a prohibited person “vulnerable adult,” according to the Sun-Sentinel. Which I told Schultz.

If you mean prohibited from buying a firearm, the conditions are that a person must have been committed or adjudicated,

Yes, and if bucket-head really was a “vulnerable adult due to mental illness” that’s exactly what he went through to achieve that status. That’s why I want to know if he is: that status is achieved through adjudication of mental incompetence under Florida law.

But neither applied to Cruz.

-blink-

I gave him the Sun-Sentinel story with the original claim, and Florida and federal law cites to show that yes, it did

Correct. But the state made no no finding that he was a threat to himself.

He’s back to claiming that the investigation wouldn’t have made him a prohibited person because it cleared him. I reiterated that the investigation wasn’t done to determine if DCF should petition a judge for “vulnerable adult” staus for the a$$h0le. They were in a position to investigate him because he already was, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

You’ll have to ask the editors. I’m a freelancer.

See above: Been there, done that. They aren’t talking.

“Freelance” this: Was Cruz a prohibited person, as reported by the Sun-Sentinel, or not?

Being a reporter in the area, it should be easy enough for Schultz to check. If he was, the court record should be available. Even if sealed, that the record exists should be public. Heck, he could just talk to the original reporters and ask them to check their notes to see if that was a direct quote from DCF.

Personally, I originally thought the story simply mischaracterized Cruz’s status; reporters make mistakes. Or maybe it was correct, and I’d noticed just another governmental failure. No big deal. Except for all the dead people. I’m used to bureaucratic cock-ups.

After months of deafening silence, I’m beginning to wonder if there’s more to it.

Was Cruz a “vulnerable adult due to mental illness,” or did DCF make a series of truly amazing errors (having an adult under supervision without a judge’s ruling, making a very specific claim of that status mistakenly)?

If Cruz was a vulnerable adult, why wasn’t he reported to NICS? If he wasn’t a vulnerable adult, why does DCF have a report of an evaluation conducted of him as an adult?

If some DCF employee simply misread something, and Cruz was not classified as a vulnerable adult, why doesn’t DCF simply make the correction?

If the murderous slime was not a prohibited person, then folks like me can’t say NICS failed. Gun controllers could use that to rationalize more laws to catch folks not otherwise caught. If he was prohibited, then laws failed, and gun controllers don’t want to admit the system is at fault.

Why the silence? If he wasn’t prohibited, then that supports their gun control agenda. They could say so.

That they won’t say at all suggests to me that he was prohibited, but they can’t risk lying about it and getting caught.

 

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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Inadvertent Honesty?

I often ask victim disarming gun controllers how they expect their infringement du jour to apply to criminals who already bypass laws. For instance, I recently asked Senator Johnny Isakson [R-GA] how he expects to get criminals — who already obtain their firearms through unlawful channels around 93% of the time — to submit their black market purchases for “universal background checks;” otherwise known as preemptively-prove-your-innocence (PPYI) prior restraint of rights.

I almost never get an answer. Certainly Isakson hasn’t answered yet.

This why:

Tucker Zings Progressive’s Attempt at Comparing the Border Wall to Lawful Gun Ownership
“And to borrow the NRA’s argument though, if we put a wall up though to block out illegal, you know people from coming here to want to harm us, people who come here legally are going to be the only ones stopped by that wall because people who are going to come here illegally or to harm us are going to figure out a way around it, just like they’re going to figure out how to get guns.”
[…]
[Former aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)] Hahn laughed and then continued, “No, no. Law-abiding people will be stopped by the wall but the people who wish to break our laws will avoid the wall. That’s the right’s argument for everything! It should be accepted here too!”

Don’t build a wall, because it only stops law-abiding people.

Do pass victim disarmament laws because they only stop law-abiding people.

Masks off. They aren’t even pretending anymore. As we all knew, the laws are never intended to do anything but infringe human/civil rights. Criminals aren’t even supposed to be affected.

That’s why Democrats (and Republicans like Isakson) see no irony in announcing new PPYI legislation to “honor” Gabby Giffords, who was shot by a man who passed a background check.

 

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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