The news media hype mass murders like sports. They generate excitement using continuous coverage, announcer-like intensity and narratives, names and backgrounds of “contestants,” manisfestos and quotes, play by plays, tactics and gear, video and photos, comparisons with other contestants, and scores. Regardless of intention, the news media are strongly encouraging copycats.
But it doesn’t stop there. The news media then use the carnage as propaganda to push an agenda — to disarm the population at large — which would result in millions of defenseless law-abiding citizens everywhere at the mercy of an infinitesimal percentage who desire to be their mass-murderers. Again, regardless of intentions, the news media are pushing for broader playing fields with more targets, higher scores, and greater notoriety for mass murderers.
(At this point, it’s worth remembering that the greatest mass murderers are governments, a risk that increases dramatically with civilian disarmament.)
There is hope. A few countries have seen the light. They have directed their news media to change their coverage of mass murders — and their news media have complied, with minimal coverage, non-hyped language, no emphasis on the perpetrators, just a presenting of facts about the event and moving on. In those countries, mass murders have dropped to zero or nearly zero.
In the US, our news media is only getting worse. Hearing such intense, ongoing, sports-like coverage of the latest horrific events is not just personally sickening, it is quite literally sickening our country. It is doing nothing to help alleviate the problem and may, in fact, be escalating conditions.
We have to demand better. We have to demand a similar change from our news agencies — but without usurping the 1st Amendment.
Parkland “survivor” Hogglet needs his 15-minute-fame fix again.
David Hogg suggests compromise on gun control
“If this plan ends up in Congress, and they say a gun registry is a nonstarter or the assault weapons ban and mandatory gun buy back program are nonstarters, OK. Then maybe we start talking about reclassifying them and making sure you have the right permitting in place where you can still go and use them,” Hogg continued. “But people aren’t going to have nearly as easy accessibility to them to go and commit mass shootings as they are currently.”
Reclassifying semiautomatic firearms as NFA machineguns is registry, dumbass.
compromise [ kom-pruh-mahyz ]
noun
a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands.
Hogglet’s “compromise” offers nothing to human rights-respecting gun owners in exchange for giving up or registering tens to hundreds of millions of firearms. Allowing people to beg permission, pay a $200 bribe, and register to keep their property is not compromise.
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As I am sure you noticed — unless you were lucky enough to be away from radio, television, Internet, or gossip — we just had a bad weekend. If you were — momentarily — fortunate enough to miss it, two socialist chumbuckets gunned down a lot of innocent people. As I write, the tally is 29 dead (so far; more victims are in critical condition), and dozens more wounded, in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.
Mainstream media latched onto a manifesto (let me know if the link goes dead; we need to know the enemy) purportedly written by the El Paso bucket o’chum, and declared him to be a pro-Trump white nationalist who hates immigrants. The actual manifesto paints a picture of an anti-capitalist, envirowhacko (he cites The Lorax) socialist who wants to get rid of immigrants to make implementing universal basic income more palatable, and wants to reduce the nation’s population to a “sustainable” level. He wanted all this long before Trump came on the political scene. Before pages got edited, he appeared to be a registered Democrat. He used a WASR-10.
The Dayton asshole was a self-avowed socialist, who wanted to impose socialism on everyone whether we want it or not. He advocated for more gun control. He allegedly made “hit” and “rape” lists in high school. He murdered his sister and her boyfriend and seven more people. He was a registered Democrat. His weapon was an Anderson Manufacturing AM-15.
Naturally the media labeled both incidents white nationalist domestic terrorism, and returned fire on the Second Amendment, joined by politicians and pundits. Trump is calling for “strong” background checks.
Both of the scum purchased their weapons lawfully and passed NICS checks. Just like Gilroy Garlic Festival SOB.
My news feeds are full of examples, but let us focus on one from the New York Post, a call for an “assault weapon” ban.
Come up with answers. Now. Beginning with the return of an assault weapons ban.
We know: That label doesn’t actually describe a clear class of guns. And that some studies show that the last ban, in effect from 1994 to 2004, had a limited impact. But that simply means the next ban should be better written, with a clear definition focused on factors like firepower — rate of fire, muzzle velocity, etc. — not on cosmetic features.
Rate of fire. Where have we heard that before? Should the NYP’s suggestion be adopted, at a minimum, that would ban every semi-automatic firearm.
The shootings prompting this call reportedly used .223 Remington (Dayton) and 7.62×39 (El Paso), despite the media hype, those aren’t all that fast (or powerful) compared to common hunting rounds. If we take 2349 FPS as the threshold, then the NYP ban would eliminate anything chambered for nearly every common hunting round. Fudds, beware; this time they are coming for your guns.
If both of those proposals were adopted, and depending on the arbitrary “rate of fire” chosen, that would probably ban every repeating firearm: semi-automatic, bolt, lever, pump, or revolver. You’d be left with single-shot, pistol- or varmint-caliber firearms.
If you’re lucky.
Yes, they’re coming for all semi-autos.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment protects the right to own “guns in common use.” That doesn’t cover the semiautomatic weapons regularly used only in mass shootings.
100 MILLION honest gun owners didn’t kill anyone with 16 MILLION AR- or AK-pattern weapons over the weekend. 100 million people certainly didn’t kill anyone with 393+ million firearms.
But let’s punish them all for the actions of two chumbuckets with two guns.
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This is deliberate lies. Conflation, willfully mischaracterizing SCOTUS precedents.
Last week, I called out Beth Alcazar for accepting the victim disarmers’ große Lüge of conflating assault rifle with arbitrary “assault weapon.”
This is why. The Dishonorable Josephine L. Staton misapplied intermediate scrutiny in Rupp v. Becerra, a challenge to California’s “assault weapon” ban. This oath-breaking piece of… work ruled against the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgement, and granted Becerra’s.
The conflation lie shows up immediately.
Thus, in 1999, the AWCA was amended to allow legislators to define a new class of restricted weapons according to their features rather than by model. Under the 1999 amendments, a weapon was an “assault rifle” if it had “the capacity to accept a detachable magazine,” and any of the following features:
Right there, she falsely states that the law was about assault rifles, which leads her to claim…
Indeed, the Court concludes that semiautomatic rifles are virtually indistinguishable from M-16s.
Since the differences — receiver milling, bolt group, trigger group, and select-fire capability had been explained to the court, she is flat out lying. She rationalizes with something about which The Zelman Partisans have been warning you: rate of fire.
In enacting the now-defunct federal ban on assault rifles, Congress found that their rate of fire––300 to 500 rounds per minute–– makes semiautomatic rifles “virtually indistinguishable in practical effect from machineguns.
In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms.
Yet another outright lie. In HELLER, SCOTUS most carefully noted that the Second Amendment protects a preexisting right.
The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.
Pp. 22–28.
(c) The Court’s interpretation is confirmed by analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed the Second Amendment. Pp. 28–30.
(d) The Second Amendment’s drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms.
Pp. 30–32.
(e) Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court’s conclusion.
Moving on to another lie…
Because the Court concludes that semiautomatic assault rifles are essentially indistinguishable from M-16s, which Heller noted could be banned pursuant to longstanding prohibitions on dangerous and usual weapons, the Court need not reach the question of whether semiautomatic rifles are excluded from the Second Amendment because they are not in common use for lawful purposes like self-defense.
But now that the “Honorable” Judge Malfeasance has equated semi-automatic ARs to select-fire M-16s, another Supreme Court precedent comes into play: MILLER.
In Miller, SCOTUS found that — because no one showed up to counter the prosecution’s ridiculous claim that the military doesn’t use short-barrel shotguns — short-barrel shotguns could be regulated under the NFA. Weapons suitable for militia use could not be regulated.
Staton has just ruled that semi-automatic AR-15 are military weapons. Under MILLER, the possession of them by individuals (See HELLER) is most certainly protected by the Second Amendment.
Reading her ruling alternates between infuriating and mind-numbing.
A pistol grip increases a shooter’s ability to control the rifle and reload rapidly while firing multiple rounds.
I have no idea what a pistol grip on a rifle with a forward magazine well has to do with reloading, but I’m not a lobotomized federal judge.
Regarding adjustable stocks…
Further, the shorter the rifle, the easier it is to conceal
Apparently she chooses to ignore statutory limits on the “concealability of rifles, since the minimum length of a non-NFA rifle is 26 inches.
Finally, flash suppressors reduce the flash emitted upon firing and aid a shooter in low-light conditions while also concealing his or her position, especially at night
Flash hiders don’t hide the flash from others. They don’t “conceal” the shooter’s position.
As discussed throughout, that the rifles are more accurate and easier to control is precisely why California has chosen to ban them.
Then ban sights and rifling, since they make all firearms more accurate. Legalize full-auto — nay, make full-auto mandatory, since, as this dishonest scum notes:
automatic fire “is inherently less accurate than semiautomatic fire.”
Clearly California, and Staton, wants firearms to be as inaccurate as possible, for the sake of public safety.
For the foregoing reasons LIES, MISCHARACTERIZATIONS, MISINTERPRETATIONS, AND ARBITRARY DECLARATIONS the Court GRANTS the Attorney General’s Motion for Summary Judgment and DENIES Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment.
Fixed it for you.
For this ruling alone, Staton should be impeached. Then indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced for malfeasance in office.
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Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!
Beth Alcazar, writing at USCCA, has bought one of the victim disarmers’ biggest lies.
The Constitution Didn’t Intend for Us to Have So-Called ‘Assault Rifles’
Interesting how people have infiltrated our reference tools and inserted interpretations. Well, so be it, then. Here’s my interpretation: An assault rifle is any kind of rifle being used by an evildoer to attack someone. In other words, it’s a weapon that a violent person is using to harm or kill others. (Or, to use the active voice and clarify the subject and who is actually taking the action of the verb: The term “assault weapon” refers to a violent person using a gun to assault people.)
No, no, no.
An assault rifle is a real thing: a select-fire rifle chambered for an intermediate-power cartridge. The term — and the class of weapon — dates back more than seven decades. You no more get to change the definition than a snowflake gets to call “speech I disagree with” violence.
Then there’s “assault weapon,” which generally means absolutely nothing. In certain jurisdictions, the term is defined in law, but one state’s ordinary rifle may be another state’s “assault weapon.” and vice versa. It’s arbitrary and confusing.
By deliberate intent.
As best I can tell, the term “assault weapon” originated with victim disarmer Josh Sugarmann in 1988.
“The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these guns.”
Congratulations, Alcazar; you just bought Sugarmann’s große Lüge. What’s next; are you going to adopt George Skelton’s “Mass-Shooting Gun” terminology?
* The Supreme Court somewhat disagreed in MILLER; holding that the Second Amendment only protected our right to military weapons. As no one showed up to counter the prosecution’s ignorant claim that short-barrel shotguns aren’t used by the military, the Court rolled with that.
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To read the headlines would be to weep for the death of sense and freedom in New Zealand. To do the math is to laugh for joy.
New Zealand’s first week of firearms buy-back successful: police
The first full week of New Zealand’s firearms buyback and amnesty, which aims to remove the most dangerous weapons from circulation, has produced a strong turnout as events roll out nationwide for the first time.
“Momentum is slowly starting to build as community collection events are held across the entire country,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said in a statement after 25 public firearm collection events were held over the past week, including seven held on Sunday.
How successful? Of a rough estimated 1.5 million subject firearms (I’ve seen WAGs ranging from 1-2 million), they got 3,275 guns.
0.22% compliance. Oh, yeah; New Zealanders are just rushing to surrender their arms.
Lessee, that’s 25 turn-in events. I had previously noted that — based on the low-ball one million guns guess — that they needed to get 3,861 guns per event. I guesstimated that they got 338 at the first event, just 8.75% of the per event number they needed.
Their per-event average is now down to 131, or 3.4%. The “best” turn-in, in Auckland, got 405 guns; 10.5%.
I had seen reports that “reimbursement” could go as high as 95% of new value. This report says 70%. I’m sure that’s helping folks decide to blow them off. I wonder how much of that is malicious compliance, with owners turning in inoperable beaters.
Assuming the turn-in rate doesn’t continue to drop, it’s only going to take them 38 years to get all those guns.
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For those discomfited by my point of view, and for liberals that entails maniacal hatred, don’t get your Garanimals’ training undies in a twist. I’m in the extreme minority. I’m so “old-school” and normal, nothing more than shirt and trousers will ever emerge from my closet and I managed to reach middle-age sans tattoos, never involved in drugs, and without carnal knowledge of Madonna. Is that rare or what? I’ve never won a popularity contest either and am not about to start now. So why sweat me? Like-minded Americans could fit in one room without a shoe horn.
Unbeknownst to me how, I was added to the email blast alert list of Democrat Party Panjandrum Nancy Pelosi known affectionately in some circles as Bela Pelousy. My first impulse was to hit delete and unsubscribe followed by multiple showers and a round of antibiotics. Wait a sec. Imagine the immense loss in entertainment value not reading lunatic emails penned behind the Tofu Curtain by Bela’s neo-Bolshevik scribes out in California. I reconsidered. Pouring a beverage and popping popcorn, I began reading. Hysterical. What a hoot. I stopped laughing. Radical Trotskycrats couldn’t fund-raise through preposterous wild-eyed frothing at the mouth emails, spewing claims unmoored from reality, unless significant numbers of the Great Unwashed are gullible and ignorant enough to believe such rubbish. Or went to public schools. Or both. G-d help us all.
Based on radio and television discussions, online articles, and conversations with Millennials, in general they seem to oppose abolishing the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. But they also tend to support so-called “assault-rifle” bans and believe safer guns and more training are the remedies for “gun-violence.” If true, their knowledge of firearms and understanding of crime issues needs to be addressed. What is the best approach?
All too-often Millennials propose gun control laws whose underlying premise is grossly naïve; people are incompetent with respect to self-defense so shouldn’t fight back against criminal attack. And “because,” they claim, an armed woman is more likely to shoot herself than the bad guy, she should submit to rape. Could these gutless arguments stem from an unwillingness by TSNAGs (Typical Sensitive New Age Guys) to shoulder a responsibility once embraced by men; protecting society’s most vulnerable? Is cowardice behind their claim disarming all but cops will create safer communities? Making matters worse, people proposing more gun laws sometimes know little or nothing about guns. They employ incorrect terms, trade in urban legends, and rely on internet disinformation. Maybe they ask where’s the safety on Ruger’s GP100, call AR15s “assault weapons,” refer to magazines as “clips,” claim anyone can walk in and out of a gun store in five minutes with a machine gun, say the Constitution “gives” us the right to keep and bear arms, or claim gun-registration will never lead to confiscation. Can gun-owners be faulted in believing when a liberal man marries a liberal woman, it’s a same-sex marriage? How does one address their ignorance and misinformation? Understandably those in the self-defense community often respond to the ill-informed with insults but, is this the best approach with Millennials? Is treating them as lunkheads for not knowing what the rest of us were taught the best way to win converts? No. Instead, with gentleness and patience, take them under your wing. Guide them to a saving knowledge of the truth about self-defense. Teach them the 2nd Amendment protects the right to save their lives and those of loved ones from bad guys who’d take them in a second without remorse. They’re smart. As they learn, questions will arise and your answers will lead to more questions and soon you’ve taught them what used to be common knowledge. Let’s start here.
Deceitfully calling them “assault-weapons,” and “assault-rifles,” liberals would ban America’s rifle, the AR15/AR10 and their derivatives. But these are semiautomatic not assault-rifles, (no firearm is classified an assault weapon). They comport with the type of firearm Alexander Hamilton had in mind observing in Federalist #46 that an armed citizenry is the chief bulwark against infringement and oppression by a federal government, and an army it might raise for that purpose.1 Those calling for “safer” guns and more training are apparently unfamiliar with firearms. Considering approximately 124 million people own about 270 million guns,2 (or more), and there were 505 deaths due to “accidental or negligent discharge of a firearm” in 2013,3 (not even half of a half of a half of a percent, you get the drift) safe gun handling is not a problem in America. Would guns complicated by additional safety devices and more training impair the thugs shooting up Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia,4 and Washington, D.C. among others?
In the past several decades, various firearm manufacturers began attaching unnecessary function-retarding devices (magazine disconnect safety) aimed at fending off slip-and-fall lawyers, buying goodwill among anti-gunners, and saving from themselves, people too stupid to unload their gun before cleaning it. Remarkably, even self-defense gurus piled on teaching CCW holders not to carry guns with personal hand-loaded ammunition because it made them appear more blood-thirsty. Editorialists for firearm magazines, gun forums, pro-gun attorneys, and those training citizens at various shooting schools and academies echoed these proscriptions as well. These admonitions took on the life of hoary old clichés everyone accepts but never questions. With all due respect to ThePersuaders, as a policeman, when I heard someone utter the cliché; there’s a fine line between love and hate, it was always after husbands or boyfriends beat, stabbed, or murdered their wives or girlfriends. There is a huge chasm between love and hate. I am no fan of hoary clichés. If you get worked up over what comes next, keep in mind, drugs, tattoos, Madonna, extreme minority…
I’m acquainted with the PARDs (Pistol Rescue Doctors) who perform operations transforming liberal guns into conservative guns. They surgically remove from pistols magazine disconnect “safeties,” an unnecessary handicapping mechanism. I realize liberals enjoy taking sharp objects to everything from fences to babies, but, in this case, patients emerge from operating rooms feeling much better. These surgeons have rescued pistols from both domestic and foreign marques. A minimally invasive procedure, each gun is able to return to a normal life the same day, without prescription Opioids. What is this safety? A magazine disconnect safety prevents a pistol from firing unless a magazine is firmly inserted and locked in place. It doesn’t matter if the magazine is loaded with rounds or not. Unless the magazine is in place, the pistol is inoperable.
In an ongoing campaign to limit the type of firearms which may be sold and possessed, down to, well, none, California created an ever evolving list of “safety” features and attributes firearms must have in order to be legal in the Rainbow state. To the ever shrinking list of legal guns was added in 2007, the requirement of a visual and tactile loaded chamber indicator and a magazine disconnect “safety.”5 It remains unclear how such mechanisms reduce crime by identifying, apprehending, and bringing violent criminals to trial. In order to continue marketing guns in California, and placate lefty anti-2nd Amendment politicians (the beard and ponytail crowd), Sturm Ruger and Smith & Wesson (metal pistols) added magazine disconnect “safeties” not typically found on pistols manufactured by Beretta, CZ, Glock, H&K, FN, SIG Sauer, Springfield, and 1911A1s, or Smith’s modern plastic pistols.
Self-anointed “gun-experts,” among the most insufferably arrogant people I’ve ever encountered, and Neosporin scraped knee spraying worry warts argue that, before cleaning a pistol, someone might forget to check to see if it’s loaded and suffer a negligent discharge [ND] with tragic consequences. Do they assume everyone, other than them, is too ignorant, stupid, and irresponsible to safely handle guns so as many function retarding devices as possible must be added to them? The rarity of gun-accidents puts a lie to this notion. For everyone I’ve trained with, at police and public ranges, the approach is much the same. Training is 100% focused on safety. A standardized step by step protocol is taught and pounded into the heads of new shooters. Range Masters are unforgiving. 1) all guns are considered loaded, 2) guns at all times must be pointed in a safe direction, 3) shooters must know their backstop meaning, what you’re shooting at and the dangers of shooting in that direction, 4) don’t touch or load guns until conditions are safe to do so, 5) When done firing, place the pistol on the bench, table, etc. with the slide locked back and the ejection port up so anyone can see if it’s loaded. Rounds, fired or not, are ejected from the cylinder of revolvers and the gun is placed on the shooting table with the cylinder propped open for inspection, 6) before disassembly for cleaning, the pistol’s magazine must be out, the slide locked back, and the chamber inspected to ensure no rounds remain in the gun, 7) never point even a disassembled gun at anyone, 8) when unloading an unfired gun, whether back from the range or a day of concealed carry, you must account for each round. By always following these or similar steps in the same order, they become part of what’s known as “muscle memory.” Simple. For those finding these steps too complex or mentally challenging, no amount of safeties will make their firearms safe. For them a safe gun is none at all. But don’t punish the 99.99% who handle firearms responsibly with useless feel-good beanbag lava lamp “safety” devices. An on-line Ruger Forum reveals there are Henny Pennys among gun-owners.
Magazine disconnect safety deactivation opponents argue, although removing them makes pistols no less safe, the why of it would not be understood by juries. Others contend that, even in cases where use of deadly force is justified, prosecutors will use removal to paint defendants in the worst possible light. Forum member ‘Sandlapper’ wrote; “It is a safety device you are removing and I’ve always thought safety and gun are too (sic) words that worked well together.” When another forum member asked if this had ever been an issue in a court case, removal opponent ‘Storm40’ delivered what he thought was the coup de grace citing People v. Superior Court (DU) Los Angeles County, (1992). In this case, an LAPD ballistics expert testified the snub-nosed Smith & Wesson revolver used in the shooting case had been crudely altered and it’s “trigger pull dramatically reduced.” Storm40 added that the revolver’s “safety mechanism” didn’t function.6 Having fired snub-nosed revolvers from Colt, Sturm-Ruger, Smith & Wesson, and Taurus over the years, I never encountered a “safety-mechanism,” left-wing novelist Stephen Kind notwithstanding.
Great Scott, has America descended so deeply into Henny Penny emasculation that the blood of America’s rugged, individualistic, and self-reliant forefathers has evaporated from everyone’s veins? Have Neosporin wielding moms patrolling playgrounds ever vigilant for scraped elbows turned Americans into the sky is falling ninnies?
Back in the day, a young man’s first car was typically a tired old jalopy. He soon went to work tossing out performance inhibiting parts replacing cams, intakes, carburetors, exhaust manifolds, and gears with those designed to wring from the car its true performance potential. At least outside of Palo Alto. When liberal environmentalists, who pee their pants at the mere mention of horsepower, employed the tyrannical power of government to foist all manner of unconstitutional performance crippling “pollution” devices on cars, sons and daughters of pioneers and settlers did what free people always do. They chucked them. None of their modifications rendered cars any less safe. Whether driving a 1974 Ford Pinto pumping out 80 horsepower or a 2018 Dodge Demon with 840 screaming horses on tap, what makes cars safe or unsafe is how they’re operated. For those driving sewing machines (electric cars), time among aficionados of real cars is highly recommended…and fun.
Removing magazine disconnect safeties does little to alter trigger pull weight on hammer or striker fired pistols and renders them no less safe. With Ruger’s SR9, removal actually smooths trigger press resulting in a more accurate gun. No one wants to shoot innocent bystanders. Won’t prosecutors use this modification to vilify defendants? Let’s be frank. If a prosecutor has charged you in a self-defense case, they want your scalp. Ethical or not, fair or not, they’ll throw anything they can at you to win conviction. District Attorneys are politicians. Even If you do everything right; approved factory ammo and a totally bone-stock gun, and you’re a pillar of the community completely justified in the use of deadly force, a D.A. who chooses to bring charges will so blacken your character and reputation, your own family won’t recognize you. Trial lawyer Gordon Cooper, an experienced attorney who represents gun-owners, observes the legal system is biased and stacked against gun-owners. And that’s whether you tuned your gun to be more efficient or not. In his experience, “many law-enforcement officers, district attorneys, and even jurors seem to think that if you own or carry a firearm, you are inherently guilty in some way.”7 It won’t matter whether or not you added clearer sights, replaced the grip panels for a better fit, had a trigger-job to improve a horrendous pull weight, Cerakoted the frame for rust prevention, or removed a magazine disconnect “safety.” Ultimately the issue to be decided is, was the use of deadly force justified? Prosecutors attempt to load juries with as many gun-ignorant Oprah watching malleable Neosporin nitwits as possible. It’s the defense attorney’s responsibility, through the voir dire and trial process to block this and provide expert counter-witnesses. As to Ruger Forum member Sandlapper’s cliché about guns and safety going together, Confiscationists use the words “gun” and “safety,” together all the time. Are you going to allow those who know nothing about and or hate guns, dictate what does or doesn’t belong on your gun because the word “safety” is attached to it? For liberals “safety” means national gun-owner registration, restrictions, bans, forced-buy backs, and confiscation. Is that what you want, Sandlapper? If you allow Confiscationist Henny Pennys to build a “safe” gun, chances are it won’t fire. Messages on T-shirts, bumpers stickers, and social media pose a much greater threat to a defendant in a self-defense case than a finely-tuned gun.
Ruger Forum member “Spring” noted disconnect “safety” removal does not lighten trigger pull and the same dire warnings were applied to gun-owners using hollow point rounds; they’re “designed to kill” and make gun owners appear “blood-thirsty.” You’ll get hammered by prosecutors if they discover you used hollow-points in your self-defense gun, people warned. Another Forum member observed that, with respect to the California snub-nosed revolver case, modification of the revolver’s trigger was not an issue and played no role in determination of guilt or innocence. Two women were engaged in a physical altercation (sounds like a high school cafeteria at lunchtime), one turned to leave, and the defendant shot her in the back of the head.8 Anyone with a modicum of common sense knows immediately what the defendant did wrong. If not, don’t touch a gun until you get some serious legal training.
As much as I respect Massad Ayoob, I take issue with his admonition against disconnect safety removal.9 As a policeman, I and other officers were issued Smith & Wesson Model 19 revolvers. By the 1980s, new specimens typically came with heavy gritty triggers and large wooden grips. It was routine for officers to replace wooden stocks with rubber grips, change the sights, and pop for a department legal trigger job. Like performance mods on a car, this didn’t make the gun any less safe, it simply ran better.
Prosecutor: “Isn’t it true officer Goldstein, getting an action job indicates you intended to shoot the deceased?”
Goldstein: “No, pulling the trigger does.”
Gaston Glock’s masterpiece has no magazine disconnect safety and is perhaps the most customizable pistol on the market. From slide hold-open levers, magazine release buttons, springs, barrels, slides, name it, the performance of off the shelf guns can be greatly enhanced. This can make for more confident and accurate users. Ultra-light triggers aside, in self-defense situations, employing a finely tuned and accurate gun means less chance of bullets striking unintended targets. Gun owners who experiment with various loads are more likely to know which bullets might over or under penetrate in given situations allowing them to choose wisely. This makes them and the gun safer.
It’s possible, sitting in a car, at a desk, or reaching for items on grocery store shelves, to bump the magazine release button just enough to unlock the magazine of some pistols. With the magazine still in the well, nothing appears amiss. Attacks by criminals are often sudden and violent, allowing victims but a second to pull their gun and fire in self-defense. Only, the gun won’t fire. The magazine is unlocked. What about the fact a round is already chambered. It won’t matter. The gun is inoperable due to the magazine disconnect safety. For naysayers who might argue this would probably be a rare occurrence, how rare will it be if it’s you? Gun Writers note most attacks and self-defense uses of pistols occur at handshaking distances. Suppose a scumbag makes a grab for and gets his hand on your gun and, in the ensuing struggle, the magazine release button is bumped sending the magazine flying. No sweat, you still have one in the pipe. Weren’t you paying attention? Without the magazine locked in place, the pistol is inoperable. While the Scrote is stabbing you with a knife or bludgeoning your skull with a crowbar, you’re on hands and knees, scrambling around on the sidewalk, trying to find the ejected magazine so it can be re-inserted into the pistol to make it work. Only, you won’t be able to do that. Because you’re dead.
Finding time and money to practice frequently at the range is a challenge for anyone. “Dry-firing” is a method for practicing trigger skills, hand and eye coordination, and building muscle memory. Third generation Smith & Wesson pistols, alloy and steel models, had hammers and a double action trigger pull weight designed to build great forearms. Like a revolver, one can practice “staging” the overly heavy trigger learning to control and fire it at the proper “break” enhancing accuracy and effectiveness. But this requires lots of practice, including long dry-fire sessions. To dry-fire these hammer fired Smiths, one has two options; thumb back the hammer and pull the trigger but, it won’t drop without the magazine in place (Smith 908, for example), or rack the slide. But the slide can’t be racked to the rear and returned to battery if an empty magazine is in place. The slide has to be retracted, allowed to return to battery, and then the magazine re-inserted. Unless you thumb the hammer with a magazine in place, if you dry fire 50 times, you’ll have to repeat this process 50 times. But that’s impossible with magazine disconnect safeties. It’s the same for striker-fired pistols. Dropping the magazine, working the slide, reinserting the magazine, pulling the trigger, and repeating is not conducive to training and, we have a magazine always in the gun. Wouldn’t it be safer during dry fire practice for a magazine not to be part of the equation?
For those clinging to the, what’s the harm with more safeties argument, how many will be enough? At what point does the firearm’s intended purpose become compromised? The way to improve driving skills is through practice, not making it harder for people to drive their cars. In both cases, firearms and automobiles, one learns a set of safety protocols from which not to deviate. I am aware of a man who was killed when the jack holding up the car he was under failed. Anyone who works on cars learns early on this is a hideously dangerous no-no. The same “everyone knows you don’t do this” type of maxim also applies to guns. Those who violate safety protocols, face tragic consequences. The good news is, most of us do follow them.
What would guns designed by Henny Pennys look like? Big and heavy, festooned with a padlock, proof all 29 warning labels were read, owner fingerprint keypad, microphone and voice recognition software, chip reader, DNA blood-sample collection needle, video-screen on which to take a required test, google search for any racist, sexist, bigoted, etc. comment ever made on social media, and an automatic call to the FBI for authorization to use the gun.
In America, when a respected greybeard in the 2nd Amendment and shooting community theorizes from his pedestal this or that handgun modification could be used by prosecutors to hang an innocent person, other sages nod in cross-pollinating agreement. Soon the theory circulates becoming accepted wisdom one dares not question. In the real world, rounds fired at violent attackers in self-defense, from .380s to .44 Magnums, don’t automatically drop knife or gun-wielding Scumbags like a sack of potatoes. You’re in a fight for your life. You must do whatever it takes to prevail. Failure means you die. But, snivels the Henny Penny, they’ll say when you fired your gun, you meant to kill the bad guy with the knife.10 When it comes to saving lives, we can’t let fear mongering and the massive egos of firearms “experts” cripple our ability to defend ourselves. We can’t allow Confiscationists to normalize hamstringing guns with function inhibiting devices in the name of “gun safety” and “sensible laws.” None of this will hamstring violent criminals but may cost you your life.
11 Clinton Rossiter, Editor, The Federalist Papers, #46 (New York, N.Y., A Mentor Book from New American Library, 1961), 294-300.
22John R. Lott, Jr., More Guns Less Crime, Third Edition, (Chicago, Illinois, University of Chicago Press, 2010), 1.
1010 People who rob, rape, and murder, are intentional predators. Unlike animals whose predation is based on feeding, these predators are motivated by evil hence monsters and no longer part of the family of man and should be treated as such.
Interesting. To read the headline, you might think New Zealanders were eagerly swapping their guns for cash. Lessee…
This article guesstimates the number of firearms at 1-1.5 million. I’ll roll with that even though 1.5 million is the low end of other estimates I’ve seen.
Let’s say there are a mere one million guns to be turned in. There will be “more than 250” turn-in events; call it 259.
To get all the guns, they need to average 3861 per event. Oddly enough, while this story gives the number of people turning in guns (169), it doesn’t say how many guns were turned in. But they shelled out around NZ$430,000 ($288,000) to those 169.
NZ$2544/US$1705 per head. The payment is based on firearm age, and never goes more than 95% of market value as I understand it. So let’s say that was two guns per sucker.
338. That is: 8.75% of the average 3861 they need to get all of them.
That’s some compliance rate. And that’s the “best case.” “Worst case” is a mere 4.4%, based on another high end estimate I’ve seen.
Hmm. That could be a million torqued off gun owning voters. Given that 2017 election turn-out was 2.6 million, 2020 elections in New Zealand could be as interesting as in the US.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
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Ahh, the double standard of the left. What they think should be shown on every TV set 24 hours a day. For example, a women telling lies about a man whom the left disagrees with would get wall to wall coverage. When she changes her story or admits the truth, not so much. When it involves actual physical attacks on someone they disagree with, that, they cover up.
The hypocrisy has just been strong of late.
In the world of (un)social media and big tech:
It seems Ilana Mercer has been locked out of Twitter of late. Was it her latest column about Logic being disallowed? It used to be the old joke about Fathers needing shotguns to defend their daughter’s honor from randy young lads. Now it seems dog owners need them to defend their dog’s honor from illegal immigrants. But, blocked out she is. As she points out, part of the price you may have to pay to get back in, or at least what they lead you to think, is that if you surrender your cell phone number to them. Then they may let you back in. Of course, once they have it, well. The US government of course wants to know everything about everyone at all times, and this was long before this administration. Anyone remember the tale of Lavabit? Lavabit was founded as an alternative google and the privacy concerns that were arising. The government can’t stand for you to have a private conversation on your own phones or email. U.S. May Outlaw Messaging Encryption Used By WhatsApp, iMessage And Others, Report. But then, google is already spying on you. Review: Google Chrome has become surveillance software. It’s time to switch.
But back to Ilana for a moment, locked out of Twitter. What does Twitter find acceptable? Apparently antifa. Antifa has a un-throttled, unblocked account. I’m guessing they aren’t losing followers due to a Twitter algorithm. Antifa has been a busy little pack of cowardly cupcakes the last few days. In case you aren’t familiar with Andy Ngo, he is a journalist in the Portland OR area. He recently put up a story about a woman being randomly attacked along with this comment, this is from 2 or 3 days ago.
Exclusive video. This happened this week in Portland, Ore. with absolutely no media coverage. Steps away from the iconic Voodoo Doughnut in downtown, Daniel Tuski Bertrand suddenly attacks a woman. Her eye socket was ”crushed,” says a source. The man was only charged with a misdemeanor & released without having to pay bail.
Also apparently the Portland mayor is not too distressed about the crime. Apparently Andy with Quillette, is known in the Portland area. He was attacked by a Twitter approved antifa mob. I guess throwing milkshakes with quick drying concrete in them on people (conservative only) and shooting them with silly string, beating them up (only allowed if they are wearing something conservative looking like a patriotic shirt) is fine by Twitter. And it seems several very obnoxious leftists have been openly calling for violence against conservatives on Twitter and that doesn’t seem to cause a problem for @TwitterSupport either. For the people experiencing it, it is. Twitter approved antifa also stole his camera, before they sent him to the hospital. Note the two tolerant leftists who seem to think it is perfectly acceptable to throw milkshakes at people they don’t like and chase them. Chew on that one. The left thinks there is a class of people it is ok to attack in public and chase down and assault. That will just be the start. This isn’t the right side of the political spectrum, it’s the left. The virtue signaling left.
Apparently there were no police around to intervene. As in many liberal cities, it seems the police just aren’t around. Or as in the case of the Berkeley riots, were told not to intervene when conservatives were attacked. But what makes this odd, is Andy is gay, and Asian. So a pack of bandana clad (to show how tough cowardly you are, you hide your face) mostly white boys physically attack a gay Asian man, chase him like a pack of wild animals and the response from his brethren and sisters in the mainstream media_______crickets. Victims of course are mandated not to have a gun to defend themselves, by the left of course. Strict gun control in Portland, because if it saves “just one life”, unless of course it’s Andy Ngo by defending himself with one. Maybe we need #MilkshakeControl? Was that a large extra-capacity #AssaultMilkshake?
Twitter of course will ban the associated accounts, just kidding.
But that brings us to google. Will it show up in google searches? For how long and how far down the list? Of course, google may have supplied antifa with the concrete and milkshakes. Turns out google not only runs gmail, youtube, a pretend search engine, they also have gprotest, gantifa if you will. You know, g out of gmail, and antifa? G-antifa. Seems James O’Keefe has been busy, again.
They are also becoming the electronic media arm of the #Demoncratic party. It seems the muckty mucks at google have decided President Trump was a horrible mistake. And they are determined to prevent that from happening ever again. Because they know better than you. Seems google is to the left of even Fauxcahontas politically. Believe it or not. Google exec caught on hidden camera saying that they will stop Trump’s re-election
In the video, Gennai said that she opposes Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to divide up Google. Gennai said, “I love her but she’s very misguided, like that will not make it better it will make it worse, because all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation, it’s like a small company cannot do that.”
And while they whine about Russian collusion, they are actively planning to corrupt elections. At least a couple states are now giving driver’s licenses and voting cards to illegal immigrants.
The media has such a lockstep view of perceptions of they will push, allow the edited story in the public arena.
For example recently the NY Slimes #FakeNews, ran a story about a restaurant in South Africa and made the purpose of the article about racism. They think a restaurant allowing anyone to eat there is the most upsetting thing facing the white South African farmers? I suspect it’s them, their families and their livestock being butchered and cut up alive, and their land confiscated is a bigger concern, but, it is the Slimes. All the news that’s fit to print, unless of course it’s about Six Million Jews being murdered in Europe. And the good friend of the Jews, Roosevelt-Demoncrat, sending Jews escaping back to Europe to be murdered. And just like the Slimes didn’t want to see it was the peace loving Germans committing the atrocities back then, and so they didn’t tell the world, they really haven’t changed much. With the Slimes politics and political correctness comes before news. Dangers from peace loving illegal immigrants to citizens, especially Jewish ones is not something the Slimes is really leading the way on.
The BESA Center reported in 2018, “Sweden has taken in the highest number of migrants in western Europe as a percentage of population. Most immigrants come from Muslim countries where societies are permeated by extreme anti-Semitic prejudices. The authorities there promote Jew-hatred as national policy. Sweden can thus be characterized as a major importer of anti-Semites out of humanitarian motives.”
Well, humanitarian except for it’s Jewish citizens.
And another big importer of Antisemitism? What from Germany?
A year ago, 951 cases of anti-Semitic incidents had been reported in the German capital. The episode in the Steglitz park comes a few days after another boy was attacked in the Prenzlauer Berg district in Berlin for wearing a kippah.
And that’s in just the capitol. I don’t think the Slimes has changed much in the level of honesty in their reporting the danger to Jews in Europe. Or America either for that matter. Plus the Slimes persist in calling nazis right wing. They aren’t. For not the last time, I’m sure, nazis are socialists, like AOC. They are left wing, big government control, not individual rights. Not as far left as communists like Bernie, but but left wing, not right.
And so while the left bills itself as tolerant, accepting, and caring about people, they actually are the party that believes in using government control, physical violence, surveillance, propaganda, and media lies and misdirection to control a disarmed populace. What information they do not want you to know, especially about making informed voting choices, they will hide. They will stifle the voices with which they do not agree, because they are not worthy of being heard. Your private information? They will suck up, gather and store like a vacuum cleaner bag. They will spy on you like the NSA.
“There was a female, 10 years old, who was found with 20 different types of semen inside her body. She was dispatched to a family member. The girl who was with her who was supposedly a family member was not really a family member, just someone who bought her from her family in Guatemala. These are real problems that exist here on the border. There are some people who are trying to leave jugs of water out here for them. A lot of these people come to this country needing help,” the professional stated.
Migrants are obtaining “Rent-A-Kids,” and since Border Patrol cannot perform DNA tests to determine if children are related to adults most of the human traffickers get into our country.
Ahhh the “compassionate, caring” AOC preventing policies that could help some of the kids.
I thought I’d share a video of her when she recently heard about hula hoops. As per usual, perhaps she should seek more information before declaring herself an “expert”.
They seem to be referencing a recent Quinnipiac poll. We’re going to take a closer look.
48. Do you support or oppose stricter gun laws in the United States?
Support 61%
Oppose 34%
DK/NA 5%
As usual, I’ll say that means little, because the general population (from personal observations and conversations) knows little about existing laws. That’s why we see legislators entering bills to make domestic violence offenders prohibited persons, and to make it illegal to manufacture and undetectable guns… even though both have been the law for decades.
But accepting those numbers for the moment, drill down to the specifics.
49. Do you support or oppose requiring background checks for all gun buyers?
Support 94%
Oppose 4%
DK/NA 2%
More than a third of the population opposes stricter “gun laws” but want universal background checks?
50. Do you support or oppose requiring individuals to obtain a license before being able to purchase a gun?
Support 77%
Oppose 19%
DK/NA 4%
More than a third of the population opposes stricter “gun laws” but want licensing?
51. Do you support or oppose a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons?
Support 63%
Oppose 33%
DK/NA 4%
Ah ha! numbers that roughly match at last. But even less meaningful than question 48. What’s an “assault weapon”? No two jurisdictions that have such a thing define it the same way. How many people who “support” a ban think they’re talking about AK-47s and M-16s? How many realize common AWB proposals would ban their hunting rifle?
Setting aside the silly contradictions of alleged responses to those questions, let’s see how they went about asking folks. And where.
The overall adult sample is weighted to recent Census data using a sample balancing procedure to match the demographic makeup of the population by region, gender, age, education and race.
Weighted by region. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, done correctly. But… region? Not state? What are the “regions”?
https://poll.qu.edu/regional-definitions/
Regional Definitions
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York City, New York State, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin.
15 “regions,” representing just 14 states. New York City gets equal billing. All the selection is biased towards Democrat holdings, don’t you think?
Considering the population densities, they’ve selected regions guaranteed to provide a Democrat bias’ A huge swathe of the country doesn’t get polled at all.
Ever.
The methodology told what states they used for this poll, but I got curious as to how extensive the problem might be. Searching their site for other states, I found their search tool.
16 states total. That’s it. Biased toward Dem and swing states. Searching for Georgia polls (all) for “gun control” yields…
Zilch. They don’t survey Georgia on the topic. Georgia, where roughly 1 in eight adults has a concealed carry license, and there’s at least a shotgun in damned near every home.
If any other state is there, I can’t find it.
I now understand why Quinnipiac polls have always been so far twisted to the Left.
While a more blatant way of biasing a poll, it’s far from the only technique. Several pollsters tried to get the youngest — and more likely to be liberal and ill-informed — potential voters.
“For the landline sample, interviewers requested to speak with the youngest male member of the household who is at least 18 years of age; if there was no male in the household, interviewers requested the youngest female.”
If you want to survey people to see what new laws they want, do it this way.
Quinnipiac’s — and those other offenders’ — technique are best suited to obscuring the truth, not finding it.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
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