Update: For some reason, my questions have disappeared.
Had to reenter all but one question. Seems to be working now.
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I’m presenting another survey. Unlike past polls, this one is not directed at the RKBA/Firearms community, although anyone and everyone is welcome to participate.
But I would very much appreciate it if you distributed it far and wide, to the general population. Specifically those who allegedly poll in favor of new “gun” control laws.
Pretty impressive eh?? Especially since it seems that TV and advertisers seem to delight in portraying men as foolish and incompetent, sort of window dressing to the family.
Dumbing down Dad: How media present husbands, fathers as useless
It’s not hard to find. If you watch TV, then you’ve most likely witnessed the portrayal of the modern-day husband and father as lazy, incompetent and stupid.
Just these three characteristics are sure to bring to mind one commercial or sitcom that personifies this type of man.
Or perhaps TV sitcoms’ working-class fathers depicted as ‘bumbling,’ ‘incapable,’ study finds
An analysis of 13 fathers in 12 recent TV sitcoms and their 699 interactions with their minor children showed that working-class fathers continued to be depicted less positively than middle-class fathers, said study author Jessica Troilo, assistant professor of child development and family studies at West Virginia University.
This follows the kind of pattern seen, wherein TV working-class fathers are typified as “kind of bumbling” and “incapable,” compared to middle-class fathers, Ms. Troilo said.
Not mine. My dad was John Wayne, Roy Rogers and Pa Walton all rolled into one. He thought if I wanted to learn to rebuild a carburetor, put on tie rod ends or throw a football I should learn and he taught me. He did insist my sisters and I all knew how to safely change a tire.
But I watched a few of these hero dad videos with interest. A friend of mine had posted a similar compilation on Facebook and it got me to thinking. These guys have lighting quick reflexes when it comes to saving their kids, and sometime the kids of others. But what about the mindset? Because that matters.
I thought about the stories that come everyday, when men are hero husbands and dads, and they all had one thing in common. Every single one of them. If I give you a snippet, can you figure it out??
The father told police the gunman turned the gun on his family, at which point he pulled out his own handgun and shot the robber.
The sheriff’s office says the homeowner woke up to his dogs barking and the back door open. The homeowner reportedly armed himself and approached the back door. He then saw that Yang was armed with a firearm so the homeowner fired his gun and hit the suspect twice.
The homeowner’s wife and his two children were both home during the altercation.
Yang dropped his weapon and dropped to the ground but got up and ran away from the home. Yang reportedly went to other houses looking for help, and Collinsville police later found him lying in the street not far from the home he tried to break into. Investigators found multiple firearms.
While on the phone with 911, police say the intruder continued making threats on the family and trashing items inside the house, then we’re told he attempted to run towards one of the rooms.
At that point investigators tell CBS11 the father fired at the unidentified man killing him inside the home.
Police also say the suffered a stab wound from the intruder who was armed with a knife.
The harrowing ordeal unfolded on Tuesday night when Amber Brackney was leaving her home in Baker, Florida, and noticed that her driveway was blocked by mysterious barrels.
Rather than get out of the car, Brackney called her father, Terry Brackney, 51, who was inside the home and attempted to navigate around the barrels, which police believe might have been intentionally placed in an effort to snatch the teen.
As his daughter got around the barrier, Terry Brackney heard some strange sounds coming from outside and immediately grabbed his gun and jumped into action, according to a police report from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.
“After spotting some individuals trying to force their way into his garage, he fired three shots and the intruders fled into the woods,” the report read. “He later learned they had unscrewed some of his security lights.”
A family in Houston, Texas, was relaxing in their home Sunday when three armed men suddenly entered and demanded money. Before the intruders could steal anything, however, the father used his own firearm to shoot two of them. The third intruder ran away from the scene and is still at large.
Yes, I could go on with more examples, but I’m sure you have all figured it out by now. They were all wearing Justin cowboy boots! Naw, just kidding. They were all armed and prepared and willing to do any and every thing necessary to protect their families.
You would think that the media would celebrate these sorts of rescues as they do the ones in the videos. But they do not. It seems they will warble on about how risky, how dangerous, how lucky they didn’t accidentally shoot their child or spouse instead of the undocumented house-guest. But John Lott has an interesting column that points out just how politicized the FBI became under sotero/obama.
A 2014 FBI report claims that only once between 2000 and 2013 did a concealed handgun permit holder stop a public shooting (they claimed to look at all cases where guns were fired in public that weren’t part of a gang fight or some other crime). This single case occurred in Winnemucca, Nevada in May 2008, when a customer with a permit fatally shot an attacker who had just killed two people. They didn’t even include the 2007 church shooting in Colorado Springs, where a killer had already taken two lives at the church before being stopped by a permit holder.
This false claim just shows how politicized the FBI became under the Obama administration. Many times, police, sheriffs, and prosecutors have gone on the record and credited permit holders with saving many lives. These attacks didn’t get national news attention, but they would have been on front pages everywhere if a permit holder hadn’t intervened.
He goes on to list other cases, and here is the link to the study from the FIB he references.
I think that there is just something hardwired into us, that as adults we protect the young, weak and vulnerable, or those with whom we have a connection. Be it children, siblings, elderly parents, friends and yes, our pets. They are like human children, only furrier, or with feathers.
But if you want or need more motivation to carry the most effective tool to protect your kith, kin and kitty, there is a great column by John Conner called “Why Do You Carry A Gun?” It is well worth reading.
I know it isn’t Father’s Day, but really, shouldn’t there be more than one day a year to say thank you to the hero fathers that save kids from baseball bats, drowning, falling off horses, into pits and tie our shoe laces and teach us to change tie rod ends? I think so. I wish I told mine more.
It has been noted that telephone surveys are probably a poor way of determining firearms ownership rates as gun owners are hesitant to tell random strangers what valuables they have in their homes, and — in the face of ongoing threats of more restrictive gun ownership laws — even less likely likely to tell the government.
Yet companies are marketing devices like smart televisions and electronic personal assistants that act as 24/7 audiovisual monitoring devices, and people appear to be snapping them up. Facebook is releasing “Portal,” a personal assistant optimized for social media and instantly communicating with family members like big brother.
All the data collected — potentially including imagery of personal possessions in your home, or discussions of such — by these devices is subject to scrutiny by the provider and “authorized” third parties, and to court subpoenas and warrants. As Internet-connected computers, they are also potentially vulnerable to third party hacking.
As a gun owner, would you buy and use one these devices?
After every high profile shooting, the usual suspects dance in the blood and cry out for a solution to “gun” violence. Somehow, knife, baseball, and fist violence don’t rate.
The proferred “solutions” always involve more rules and laws that restrict the rights of people who didn’t do it. Laws that, oddly enough, won’t apply to the folks perpetrating the violence. They specifically blame the innocent for the acts of criminals.
Laws that regulate things that had nothing to do with the shooting.
Laws that already don’t work.
When rational people point that out, the gun people controlling victim disarmers plug their ears and run around chanting, “Nyah, nyah; can’t hear you!” and claim we don’t have any better ideas.
Yes. I do. I’ve mentioned them a time or two over the decades. And for the disarmers’ convenience, here they are. Three basic reforms that would fix most of the “gun” (and other weapons) violence: incarceration, education, and defense.
Incarceration
End catch and release sentencing policies for violent criminals. If they’re that dangerous, you don’t need to be putting them back on the street. Repeat felons would not be eligible for plea bargains. Victim restitution must be included.
End “3 strikes” style sentencing guidelines that actually encourage criminals to escalate (i.e.- two time loser kills next victim to eliminate witnesses).
Reform sentencing guidelines to promote rehabilitation. Regardless of sentence length, the criminal will not be eligible for parole or release until he has successfully completed a course of study. For first offenders without a high school diploma, that can be a General Equivalency Diploma program. For repeat offenders and those who have a high school diploma or GED, it will be a trade school such as welding, machinist, mechanic. Also acceptable will be a college degree program in hard sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) or engineering. Soft sciences (sociology, psychology, etc.) or liberal arts that prepare one for a career as a minimum wage barista will not qualify. Some industries or businesses might sponsor training programs, for a source of skilled workers who they’ve had a chance to observe improving their lot.
Instead of eliminating questions about criminal history from job applications, we could add, “And what new useful skill are you bringing me from that experience?”
Divert money from victim disarming “gun” control programs to increase staffing and training in parole offices, if we keep that. The goal there is to have sufficient parole and probation officers to properly supervise and counsel their subjects. Parole/probation should require gainful employment or continuing — successful — education (maintain C average, for instance).
Education
The public school system is broken. Taken over by education majors who’ve rewritten the rules to require an education major to be a teacher, rather than a degree in the subject(s) taught. Schools focus on socialization over learning. They’re full of the latest, ever-evolving theories of teaching subjects they do not understand The result is high school graduates who are not literate enough to fill out a job application or capable of balancing a check book. Too often those people — otherwise unemployable — fail at boring unskilled labor and turn to lucrative crime like drug dealing.
Schools must abandon social justice, and teach basic skills: reading (to the point of reading a novel and comprehending it), writing (to the point of drafting a comprehensible resume cover letter), mathematics (balancing a check book and estimating whether you’ve got enough gas in the tank to reach your destination), basic science (basic laws of motion, enough biology to under what allosomes do in mammals, enough chemistry to understand why mixing vinegar and baking soda doesn’t make a great cleaning product, and why there’s no such thing as chemical-free food). I had a science teacher who believed that potatoes have zero calories.
Classes that teach actual life skills like old style home economics, shop, and basic firearms safety are good.
English. English. English. Classes must teach and be taught in English. English has been the defacto majority language in the US for a very long time. If a person cannot function in English, she’ll be severely limited in employment and life opportunities.
America does not have the educational resources to hire qualified teachers in every subject for every possible at-home language. We cannot have parallel English/Spanish/Somali/Arabic/whatever curricula. If a student does not function at an age appropriate level in English, that student should be placed in a remedial English class until she achieves a level which allows her to successfully participate in the regular curriculum.
I knew two women at a company whose first language was Spanish. One woman only had a few words of English and had worked in her section for years. She could not get promoted up. As a new hire, I had to read instructions for her and show her how to do her job. She was not stupid; she simply never bothered learning English.
The other woman was fluent in spoken and written English. Since she was able to read technical manuals and parts diagrams, she was immediately hired in another department at a much higher wage.
If a Somali won’t learn English, he’ll most likely be restricted to his local Somalian community, with limited employment opportunities. Perhaps all he’ll be able to do for a living is sell drugs to his neighbors, in competition with folks who will shoot it out over turf.
End peer promotion. You aren’t protecting someone’s self-esteem by promoting him to a higher level where he’s going to fail again. Hold him back until he learns. If he’s ashamed to share a class with younger folks, he can work harder.
If he works hard enough, he can test to see if he is ready to rejoin his former classmates in the more advanced class. He can be proud that he accomplished something himself, instead of it being given to him. Maybe he’ll learn to appreciate that over a sense of entitlement.
For that matter, any student who believes herself to be ready can take the tests for high school graduation; if she passes — regardless of age — she gets her diploma and walks out.
It wouldn’t break my heart to see it made a felony to graduate a person who is functionally illiterate after twelve years of “schooling.” My sisters — 2 and 4 years older than I — taught me to read before I started school. We have “teachers” far less effective than a couple of untrained little girls.
Self Defense
The last time a nuclear weapon was used in combat on this planet was fifteen years before I was born. Like it or not, one reason for that was deterrence. Mutual Assured Destruction was… ahem, overkill, but no one dropped nukes because they didn’t want anyone replying in kind.
Criminals, being human, too, also realize this. There have been multiple surveys of inmates which showed that, given a choice of targets, criminals will choose to avoid a potential victim they believe may be armed. I have personally heard convicted felons state that flatly.
I also saw a dayroom full of inmates who were watching a news report on “gun control.” Their consensus was that gun control, and firearms bans in particular, would be a good thing. One inmate gleefully noted how helpful it would be to disarm victims, and “I’ll always be able to get a gun when I’m out anyway.”
Please note that “studies” allegedly showing lower rates of violence or crime in places with stronger “gun” control typically lump in suicide with real crime, exclude violence with other implements, or use artificial — nonexistent, that is — “synthetic states” for comparisons. Cherry-picking time frames is also popular.
The reality is otherwise. Baltimore has strong “gun” control laws, and the highest murder rate in the country at more than 55 per 100,000 people. That’s worse than Venezuela or cartel-ridden Mexico. For that matter both Venezuela and Mexico have very restrictive gun laws.
Licenseless New Hampshire and Vermont generally vie for the last nationwide slot for homicides and violent crime.
So the ability of noncriminals to defend themselves will reduce violent crime; through deterrence and — if widespread — Darwinian selection. Dead would-be killers are rarely recidivists.
So…
National reciprocal carry is a good idea. National “constitutional carry” is better.
A national Stand Your Ground (SYG) law that places the burden of proving guilt on prosecution, rather than requiring an honest defender to prove his innocence, is good. If a criminal killer says, “I didn’t do it.” the burden of proof is on the prosecution. If a lawful gun owner says, “I did it in self defense.” the burden shifts to him sans SYG.
The police must stop regarding a holstered or slung weapon as probable cause for stopping, questioning, and too often shooting noncriminals. Particularly when they, ironically, have holstered or slung weapons. Lawful gun owners make up such a tiny fraction of a percent of firearms-wielding murderers that being in possession of a car is as much an indicator of criminal intent as gun possession.
Divert money from useless gun “buybacks” to free firearms classes for the community. More people trained will mean more honest people carrying (deterring criminals who’ll probably have to move to Baltimore), and even fewer firearms accidents.
Kill the National Instant Check System (NICS). It doesn’t work. Really, they don’t. Mostly because criminals usually get their guns from their own social networks. Not even at gun shows or online sales.
But lawful gun owners who want protection from bad guys, don’t really want to inadvertently sell guns to bad guys. So put the thumb-twiddlers at NICS to work on “Blind Identification Database System” (BIDS). Either allow private sellers access to the system, or pay dealers to run the checks without paperwork (unless someone fails, maybe).
Establish “firearms assistance” programs for poor but honest folks who can’t afford guns, ammunition, and practice. If abortion, nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, is a right worthy of subsidy, certainly protection should be supported.
We need more ranges, too.
Local and state governments could promote self defense, and raise money for it, by running gun lotteries. Pow’R Ball, if you will. Prizes could be high end defensive tools, ammunition, accessories, gift cards, and range memberships.
There you have it the — already declining — problem of “gun” violence (all criminal violence) largely solved.
1. Teaching people the things they need to function in an honest society.
2. Providing second chances and skills to those who slip and survive.
3. Providing skills and equipment to those who want to stop the real violence.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
Not exactly RKBA, but too funny not to share.
Turn up your sound so you can hear everything.
“Oh, f##k, f##k.”
“I’m going to jail.”
“Please? Please?”
“Please? I’m sorry.”
“Help?”
But note: the clerk was on the phone as soon as she realized what was happening. And it took the police 10 minutes to arrive. 10 minutes can be a long time when you’re in danger and counting on someone else to save you. Fortunately, she had her act together and got everyone else out of danger.
Oh. And, uh, pro tip: shooting security locks open generally only works in movies.
So the talk of the town is the GAO’s Internet Firearms Sales report.
That would be the one — commissioned by anti-human/civil rights activists Elijah Cummings [D-MD]and Elizabeth Warren [D-MA] — in which the GAO attempted to purchase guns on the Internet while posing as prohibited persons.
They made 72 attempts on public sites. All failed. Twice, they thought they’d succeeded only to discover they were scammed; folks took their our money and never shipped guns.
Go figure. Gun owners who often are gun owners because they want protection against bad guys are generally not going to knowingly provide guns to bad guys.
Well, they had to come up with something for Congressional weasels, so they went to the “Dark Web,” to sites specifically set up for illegal black market transactions. They skipped the part about claiming to be prohibited persons.
And still only succeeded twice, out of seven attempts. I have no doubt that Cummings and Warren will present that as a 29% success rate rather than 2.5%.
If it’s really that high. One firearm they purchased was billed as an Uzi converted to full-auto. The report notably says, “If the firearm meets the NFA’s definition of a machine gun, the seller’s prior possession of the Uzi, and the shipment to our agent, likely violated federal law.” Which means they aren’t sure they got what they ordered.
Interestingly, while the report mentions prices paid in other online stings, they neglect to tells us how much they paid for an old AR-15 or a dubiously “converted” subgun.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
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Man, the things you find just before sunset on Fridays.
Israel to pay for 10 Plagues?”
Ahmad al-Gamal, an Egyptian columnist for Egyptian daily Al-Yawm Al-Sabi, advocated in the newspaper on March 11 that Egypt sue the State of Israel for damages caused by the 10 Biblical plagues,“We want compensation for the plagues that were inflicted upon [us] as a result of the curses that the Jews’ ancient forefathers [cast] upon our ancient forefathers, who did not deserve to pay for the mistake that Egypt’s ruler at the time, Pharaoh, committed,” the cranky journalist wrote, according to a translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Wait… Wouldn’t the statute of limitations have run out at least a couple thousand years ago?
Is there a liability exception for acts of G-d?
And how does modern Egypt have standing to sue for something that happened to Ancient Egypt? There’ve been a few changes in populations and governments since then.
Should Israel countersue for slavery reparations?
Inquiring minds want to know.
We’ve discussed the große Lüge of victim disarming gun people controllers. Another lie on the list is this one:
NRA Unveils Drivable Gun That Doesn’t Require Registration Or A License To Operate
Again, NFA items not the point (just as tanks and ICBMs aren’t). Firearms are grossly under-regulated in the United States by comparison with other nations who (surprise!) have far less problems with gun violence.
“Gulliver” appears to be the author of that failed attempt at satire. “Gulliver” also appears to have bought the big lie.
Let’s see how “under-/unregulated firearms are. I’ve done this in abbreviated form in the past, but this will be a little more detailed.
[“Gun Culture” types can stop here; you know this, more than likely. This column is for the less-informed like “Gulliver,” whoever s/he/ze/zyr/&tpen/@/it may be.]
Manufacturing
Naturally, a firearms manufacturer has to comply with all the same rules that any other manufacturer faces: OSHA, EPA, labor law, finance… it’s a long list, which is why we have to import a lot of stuff; regulatory compliance makes it too expensive to actually make a lot of stuff in America these days.
Moving on, we have firearms specific laws and regulations. First, you need a Federal Firearms License to build guns for sale. Usually that will be a Type 7 FFL. Maybe.
Let’s say you had a potentially great idea for a system that disperses fire retardant chemicals over an area. You think it’s just the thing for suppressing forest or grass fires on the perimeter. Fire departments and ranchers will love it. Your system is a 40 millimeter “grenade” full of said chemicals, fired from a light weight polymer launcher.
Whoops. 40mm makes that a “destructive device.” Now you need a Type 10 FFL. And you’ll mostly be able to sell it to governments; tougher for volunteer fire departments of ranchers. Manufacturing the rounds for the launcher also requires a Type 9 FFL, so it’s no good contracting out just the launcher while you assemble the ammunition.
So you scale it back to 37mm. It’s less effective than 40, but better than nothing.
Or maybe you say the heck with it, and move on to a different product. Howa bout a short self defense shotgun with a 14 inch barrel? If you put a standard shoulder stock on it, it becomes a short-barrel shotgun, and buyers will need a market-limiting tax stamp. If you put a pistol grip on the same exact action, it’s magically not. You aren’t sure why, since smoothbore pistols are “Any Other Weapons” (AOW) and require tax stamps. But the ATF made a ruling. (Ghu save the buyer if he puts a shoulder stock on it without getting a tax stamp.)
That’s too complicated, so you decide to enter the light weight polymer defensive pistol market. You have a fantastic design that makes even the slide nonmetallic. This will be easy to to carry on a daily basis.
But is it too light? Federal law bans the production of nonmetallic “undetectable” firearms, even if the dense polymer shows up in x-rays. If your metal barrel is underweight, you have to build in a chunk of nonremovable metal, raising the weight of your previously light weight sidearm.
The heck with it, let’s just make a cute little pistol out of metal, that looks like a cell phone. Except that might be an AOW, too; so you’d better submit a sample to the ATF and get a ruling.
Hmm… how ’bout a simple little pen shaped gun (made of metal, of course). You’d best submit your design to the ATF again.
Argh! All right. Conventional pistol, with the action simplified to make it cheap to machine.
Wait. You didn’t make that an open bolt design, did you? That’s a machinegun. I know it’s just a semiautomatic-only, but new open-bolts are automatically machineguns now, under firearms regulations.
Good Bog, you’re trapped in a regulatory maze, and you haven’t even built anything yet!
OK, screw it. You’ll build a simple autoloader pistol. Reverse engineer a Raven with enough differences not run afoul of any patents, and better quality. Good to go.
So you start building guns. Which have to be marked: manufacturer, serial number, caliber. You’re CNC milling these, so you do the marking during initial milling to minimize the process.
Bad move. Every firearm you make — and it’s a firearm once marked — has to be logged in the books for ATF inspection. Yes, inspections. If you make one and it fails quality control testing, and you destroy it, you have to log that, and prove you destroyed it.
So you mark it afterwards. No, no, no! You can’t do that. If firearms are not marked, that’s illegal, too. You’ll just have to guess at what point in production the serial numbers are required. Good luck complying with that rule.
Umm… you did do the marking in the approved font, in the regulated size, and to the specified depth? Right?
But somehow you manage. Your firearms are ready to ship. You exchange FFL paperwork with distributors across the country (under firearms laws and regulations, you can’t ship to end buyers). And away you go!
Wait a minute there, bud. You didn’t design that pistol for a round which the ATF considers armor-piercing (this week), did you? Back to the drawing board.
So it’s finally ready for prime time. Keep your fingers crossed.
State Laws and Regulations
First, you need assorted state (and possibly local) licenses to operate. Not just any old manufacturer licensing; that and licensing specific to firearms. There be additional zoning laws to keep firearms manufacturing out of areas where other manufacturing is allowed. Forget being within miles of a one room schoolhouse in the country.
You can’t just start shipping out federally legal guns to anywhere. Some states will require you to submit samples for evaluation and approval. Massachusetts wants to be sure they’re “safe” and don’t look too much like weapons they banned that complied with their rules but also looked too much like guns they don’t like.
California will do the same and more. Is the gun too small? Too big? Will it pass drop testing? Did you remember to submit a sample of every single variation you make? That means if you offer the pistol with black plastic grip panels and pink plastic grip panels, you have to submit two complete pistols in both colors. We’re aren’t sure how color makes a difference, but we aren’t smoking what the California legislature smokes.
Whoops! Your pistol doesn’t microstamp pistol-identifying data on the case of each round fired, in two places. Yes, we know the technology doesn’t yet exist to do that, but California apparently has really good weed.
So you just scratch off some large potential markets and just ship a firearm that complies with physical reality to the sane parts of the country. Or…
You could say the hell with manufacturing. Eliminate the need for FFLs and all that garbage. You go back to your plastic pistol design and tweak the 3D printing files so the design complies with all federal laws (minimum metal content, and such), and sell those on the Internet. You can draw on the Defense Distributed Ghost Gunner market; they have the mill, you can supply really cool printer files, right?
You’re going to prison for violating ITAR arms export laws and regulations. Yep, more of those “grossly under regulated” laws and regs.
At this point, maybe you’re thinking that firearms manufacturing is too tough and you’ll just say the hell with it and make something safe. Like shoelaces.
Sorry, that might a machinegun, too. Better get an FFL anyway, just in case the ATF changes the rules again.
Back to just selling legal pistols in the safe parts of the US.
The Retail World
So — complying with all federal and state laws and regulations — you sell a shipment of Super-Concealed Thug Slayer pistols to a distributor. Distributor checks laws and regs and sells some to a fully compliant retail FFL (yes, another federal firearms license). The retailer follows all laws and regs and logs the guns into his bound book for ATF inspection.
The FFL dealer also has state and local laws and regulations to deal with. Some zoning laws keep him out of cities altogether. If someone builds a church a thousand feet away, he might be forced to relocate or close. He’ll be required to install security systems beyond that required for banks or jewelry stores. He’ll be required to pull all his merchandise off the shelves and lock them in a safe in a back room after hours, even if the cases are unbreakable and the store has roll-down blast-proof shutters. He might be required to install anti-vehicle barricades to prevent thieves driving a stolen car through his store front.
The dealer is required to be a mindreader or precognitive, capable of determining whether a customer who meets all legal requirements is really a straw-purchaser, or might commit mass murder years down the road, or if the ATF overrides a NICS denial to allow an unlawful sale so they can pretend to “entrap” someone. He’ll be required to provide unlicensed mental health counseling for potentially suicidal customers; he’ll be required to be an unlicensed psychologist to make that diagnosis.
Joe Citizen walks into the Isher Weapons Shop and likes your gun. He presents state-issued photo ID, fills out a multi-page form swearing that he is allowed by the feds to purchase a firearm. As required, he informs the feds of his race. In some states, Joe will also present his license to merely own a firearm (more PPYI, fingerprinting, photos, taxes and fees, probably training). The dealer calls the FBI to complete a prior restraint on the would-be buyer’s constitutional rights requiring him to preemptively prove his innocence.
If the buyer is lucky, the FBI will approve the sale. If he isn’t lucky, they might make him wait a few days for approval/denial. If the FBI doesn’t respond in three days, the dealer has the option of completing or killing the sale. If the buyer is really unlucky, the FBI will declare him a prohibited person and deny the sale.
Joe Citizen, being a law-abiding type, can’t understand why the sale was denied. Assuming he isn’t in one of the states that requires the dealer to report him to the police (whereupon he’s arrested, charged, jailed, etc.), he files an appeal of the denial. Maybe he knows that virtually all NICS denials are false positives, and it’ll all get straightened out. Some day. Maybe. Because there’s a backlog of tens of thousands of unprocessed appeals.
But we’ll back up; Joe was legal and got his new defense pistol. He takes it home and locks it in a safe (per state “safe storage” laws, with ammunition locked away in a separate safe). Because he has not yet also gone through the PPYI check, fingerprinting, photographing, mandatory training by state-approved/licensed instructors, and paid the taxes and fees for a separate carry license for that specific firearm in his state (even though he’s already licensed for the Super-Concealed Thug Slayer with blue grip panels. Bog save him if he lives in Hawaii, where his license is only good in one county and he’ll have to try to repeat the process in every county to which he might travel.
Well, perhaps. In some states, there’s a mandatory waiting period before he can take his new pistol home. He still has to pay for, but he must wait. Even though the point of the federal NICS “instant background PPYI check” was to eliminate waiting periods. He must wait to prevent him from doing anything impulsive with that gun. He must wait even if he already owns a dozen guns with which he could act impulsively. Because of grossly under-regulated guns.
The “End User”
But finally Joe takes it home. After registering it, depending on state. Hopefully with ammunition he purchased after yet another round of PPYI checks, in some states.
And that night, some goblin breaks in, murders Joe, gets into the safe, and steals that Super-Concealed Thug Slayer you built and sold. Goblin steals a Ford Escort, uses it to plow down a bunch of pedestrians, then uses your product to finish off the survivors.
What’s that got to do with you? It’s your fault. Not Ford’s fault, even though Goblin used a Ford. Not the Ford dealer. Not the Ford’s owner. But it is Joe’s fault for negligently storing the gun in a safe that the Goblin could get into after Joe negligently let himself be murdered. Thanks goodness you excluded California sales, or Joe’s estate might be prosecuted for dead Joe failing to report the stolen firearm.
It’s the dealer’s fault for following all local, state, and federal laws. Ditto for the negligent distributor. And most especially you, Mr. Manufacturer, for making and marketing a weapon to kill people.
“But the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act protects me if I followed all the rules and someone else misused my product,” you cry. “Why not sue Ford?”
Possibly they’ll get around to it, though it seems unlikely. But you engaged in “negligent marketing.” By obeying the grossly under-regulating state and federal laws and regulations that damned near kept you out of the market in the first place.
Welcome to the wonderful world of unregulated firearms. Next week, we’ll talk about the laws, regulations, and rules surrounding ammunition for those unregulated guns. If my head doesn’t explode; I may need a Federal Explosives License from the ATF for that.
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
While much of the world celebrated New Years Eve as the start of a fresh new civil year, it is not the same for Jews. Remember, the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, began at sunset on September 20th, 2017. New years eve is also known as Sylvester night. Sylvester night has long been known as a scheduled pogrom night. This column explains it very well. But here are some salient points.
This evening was, once the calendar settled on December 25th as Christmas, calculated to be the night preceding the circumcision of the child born in the “little town of Bethlehem”, therefore a call for the local peasants to engage in drinking, making merry and killing Jews.
Darkness along with the silence before a storm reigned in Jewish shteitls (small villages) that night in an attempt to make it harder to find defenseless victims, barricaded behind the flimsy doors of their huts. Torah study, which was done by the light of candles, was thus impossible.
As opposed to random pogroms and other manifestations of Jew hatred, this was a predictable yearly date.
A “Yerushalmi”, i.e. someone who lived in the Old City of Jerusalem before the State of Israel was declared, once told me that in this part of the world they would barricade their doors on Easter Sunday, knowing that the traditional Christian procession would often end in rioting against the local Jews.
Sylvester was Pope from January 31, 314 C.E. to December 31, 335 C.E. His Saint’s Day is the day he was buried, and it falls on December 31 of every year, that is since the civil solar calendar was straightened out (the Jewish calendar is a lunar one).
“On New Years Day 1577 Pope Gregory XIII decreed that all Roman Jews, under pain of death, must listen attentively to the compulsory Catholic conversion sermon given in Roman synagogues after Friday night services. On New Years Day 1578 Gregory signed into law a tax forcing Jews to pay for the support of a ‘House of Conversion’ to convert Jews to Christianity. On New Years 1581 Gregory ordered his troops to confiscate all sacred literature from the Roman Jewish community. Thousands of Jews were murdered in the campaign.
“The Israeli term for New Year’s night celebrations, Sylvester, was the name of the ‘Saint’ and Roman Pope who reigned during the Council of Nicaea (325 C.E.). The year before the Council of Nicaea convened, Sylvester is said to have convinced Constantine to prohibit Jews from living in Jerusalem.
I know that’s a lot of quoting, but I think you understand what I mean when I say it’s not the same New Years Eve commonly thought of. I want to compare history with today. Easy one first, Jerusalem. This is actually the most cheerful one of the lot. While perhaps the media would have you believe that the Arab world is united standing behind the Falestinians, that is not at all the case. They are not. Now, the UN, that is another story. No matter who it is, if Israel is involved, the UN stands behind them in condemning Israel. If Israel were invaded by something out of the movie “Independence Day” or “Men In Black” the UN would unite behind the space invaders who want to destroy all of humanity to condemn Israel. Iran slaughtering it’s citizens? Yawn. And the Israeli politicians are finally, perhaps, beginning to act like all of Israel, is well, Israel. There were two good bills passed. The United Jerusalem bill and the bill calling for Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. You should check out the link on the United Jerusalem bill just to see the jaw dropping beautiful picture of Jerusalem they used with the article. So this New Years does show some good things happening as compared to the past.
Now let’s look at the part about Pope Gregory and his tax forcing Jews to pay for a house of conversion. France it seems has decided to open a special tax branch, to investigate Jews only. Yep, secular France is going after Jews with their very own tax branch. From Pamela Geller
My various sources in Paris tell me it is life for Jews in France is intolerable. The large spike in Muslim immigration has made the terrible – the horrible. Daily humiliations and the constant threat of violence are their constant companions. And it is widely known that going to the police is pointless. The police have long turned a blind eye to the war on country’s Jews.
So that part is about the same, except they attacks and killing seems to be coming from the imported Muslims and the tax part is coming from the government. Not both from the same source, not that who it comes from affects the outcome much.
So regarding at attacks, let’s look at another country which is becoming Muslim dominant, jolly old England, and specifically London. London proudly did the politically correct thing and elected a Muslim mayor. Not sure that they think it turned out all that well, well at least the law abiding citizens may not. We know islamic terror has been up under Mayor Sadiq who dismissed it as part and parcel of living in a big city. Raheem Kassam has a good column on how that’s played out for Londoners as crime has skyrocketed.
It would seem that while Christians attacking Jews has dropped way off, in fact I don’t know of any recently, there may have been, I haven’t heard of it, muslim attacks have not decreased at all, in fact they are increasing I would say.
Which brings me to a particular attack that occurred recently in Jerusalem. The was an attack against two Jewish kids in Jerusalem. In case you don’t know what a 2013 EASY attack looks like, here ya go.
A pack of Falestinians attack and the crowd grows ever bigger, even the “kids” get in on the fun. A game the whole family can play it seems.
In this particular attack, the victims were beaten. They reported it to the police, who opened an investigation and caught the “arab youths” or as we might call them, “thugs”. This column was from Arutz Sheva.
I found out later from another column that someone shared there is a bit more to it than that. They were forced to convert to Islam, to praise the terrorist organization Hamas, and curse the State of Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And all the while it was being video taped. In addition to going to the police, they went to the legal organization Honenu. Forced conversion version 2018. Side note, this is no big deal as it’s been going on in Germany and America for awhile, just minus the beating part.
Boston Public School Teaching Islamic Conversion Prayer to Elementary Students
Children Forced to Recite ‘Allahu Akhbar’, Learn Muslim Prayer by Heart
Lawsuit: Public school forced my child to convert to Islam
This attack violated their body and their soul. Shades of Pope Gregory. Of course, the Pope is still attacking Jews, so that hasn’t changed.
I would maintain the Haredi are easy targets. Their clothing sets them apart, and it’s well known that they have no military service, and so no self defense skills. Unless of course they are attacking a lone female IDF soldier who attempts to clear them out of the road when they are blocking traffic.
Why they didn’t do that when they were attacked by the arabs I don’t kno….yeah, I do.
They don’t know their enemy. Reminiscent of Moshe Feiglin asking a the Chief of Staff who the enemy was, Hamass or the tunnel and the the Chief of Staff couldn’t answer.
My answer of course is predictable. I think all the Israeli citizens, well, all citizens, need to be allowed to carry concealed. Moshe, of course agrees with me. From August 2016 Give the Good Guys Guns and from May 2014 Gun Control? Or Citizen Control? Some governments view us as the enemy. We are not. They don’t know who their enemy is. We are people that don’t wish to experience a modern day Sylvester night. The government and the liberal leftists with their paid bodyguards think normal little people, us unwashed masses are “dangerous”. I would ask why they think that? What is it they want to do that they think we will resist, and they want to remove the most effective means of resistance we have? The tools that make us dangerous. They haven’t yet figured out it’s what’s in our head, not our hand that makes people dangerous. Dangerous. Reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend not all that long ago. A person can be dangerous, and they can be good or evil. It’s not that fact that they are dangerous you need to fear. It’s whether they are good or evil. I want to be dangerous. I want to have the ability to protect myself and my family. I want to be dangerous, I have no intention of kneeling on the ground reciting islamic conversion sentences. I want to stand on my own two feet and scream Shema at them and have them run. His point was, we have to know who we are, and what we are. To me, being dangerous is an asset. I have no desire to huddle behind a flimsy door afraid to have a light on. I have no desire to see a modern day Sylvester night, no matter who is perpetrating it.
New year, new start. I will give you this by Rabbi Johnathan Sacks, Five Ideas for Life. We are all here for a purpose I believe. We all have something we were meant to accomplish. I believe we are happiest when we know what that is and we are fulfilling that purpose. We have to know ourselves. So my goal for this year is to become better at my purpose, for my soul to become closer to what G-d created it to be. I want to be a child that makes him smile as he thinks, ah, she is catching on. I want to be dangerous, and I want to lose that ten pounds.
And so to help you stay dangerous, I have a little goodie for you. Stephen Wenger who wrote DEFENSIVE USE OF FIREARMS is making the book available as a free download! This fantastic book is out of print, so this e-version is a great way to start your new year. Thank you Stephen for permission to share!
I wish you all the bright promise the new year can bring, with hope, happiness, dreams fulfilled and all the good things that matter to you. And may you all stay dangerous, because whether it is New Years Eve or Sylvester night, depends on us.
Bob Ault wants to ban…
Something.
Now is the time to discuss gun control: Letter to the Editor
We need sensible gun legislation now. We need to ban military style assault rifles, bump stocks and high capacity magazines now, and then move on to pass legislation for universal background checks for all gun sales, which is supported by 90 percent of Americas.
But he’s confused as to what. Is it insanely expensive, highly regulated, taxed, and registered assault rifles of very limited quantities? Or is is nonexistent “military style assault weapons“? If the latter, can he inform of us of what country in the world generally issues semiautomatic rifles to its regular troops?
He tells us that that 90% of Americas [sic] want unconstitutional prior restraint of a constitutionally protected right through universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence — PPYI (“background checks,” is his term). Can he tell us in what state such PPYI was actually approved by 90% of the population when put to a vote? I can’t help but recall polls predicting Jeb Bush would win the Republican primary, Clinton would defeat Trump, Moore ahead of Jones, or… heck, everyone knows Dewey beat Truman.
Can he tell us how PPYI would have stopped the Mandalay Bay murderer, who passed such checks; the Sutherland Springs killer, who passed such checks because the Air Force never reported his involuntary committal or domestic violence conviction; or the Sandy Hook murderer who bypassed checks by murdering his mother and stealing her guns? Can he explain how prohibited persons can be required to self-report their unlawful attempt to obtain firearms, which would be in violation of the Supreme Court’s Haynes decision?
Since Bob Ault believes there is no need for civilians to have weapons such as that possessed by the Sutherland Springs killer, does he believe the man who stopped the killer with his own AR-pattern rifle should instead have let him go to keep killing?
Can Mr. Ault explain, should a ban on semiautomatic rifles be enacted, how he expects to identify gun owners when mere estimates of their numbers range from 55 to 120 million; or to find the rifles when estimates of firearms in civilian hands range from 265 to 750 million?
If Ault’s solution involves kicking in the doors of 125 million households to search them all — in case they’re heavily armed — will he personally volunteer his jackbooted services?
[An abbreviated form of this column was sent to Cleveland.com as a Letter to the Editor in response to Bob Ault’s letter. It was not printed.]
Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.
