Trigger Warning: The referenced column is written by a left-wing whacko acting professor at the People’s Republic of Kommiefornia’s UC-Davis, and is published in The Atlantic.
I don’t know what constitution Aaron Tang — who purports to be a “Constitutional law & education law prof” — teaches, but he should bone up on the United States Constitution. If he taught anywhere but the University of California – Davis, I’d call that fraud. But he’s par for the anti-rights course there.
Probably because the right to keep and bear arms is specifically mentioned in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and education is not. check for yourself; no mention of education, learn, teach, school, university, college, or anything else education-related. (While we do speak of an Electoral College, that term doesn’t actually appear in the Constitution; only “electors.”)
If the courts treated education the same “generous” way they do Second Amendment rights, you might need a license to go to school, minors wouldn’t be allowed to go to school, you’d need to pass a background check before every class, you might be allowed one class per month, and you’d be limited to a low-capacity tenth grade education. The Department of Education could arbitrarily ban knowledge of algebra and imprison you for knowing it. You might be allowed to go to college, but only after paying $200 for the permission slip that would come eight or nine months later, and local law enforcement would be informed. Depending on your major, even with the permission slip you would not be allowed to attend a college or university established after 1986.
Spearheaded by new leadership at the NRA in the late 1970s, gun-rights activists engaged for decades in an effort to persuade the Supreme Court to recognize an individual Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-defense at home. The Court ultimately enshrined that right 12 years ago in D.C. v. Heller, displacing a long-standing consensus to the contrary.
Tang clearly didn’t read Heller, or he’d have seen Scalia’s many, many citations of Supreme Court cases, law, and history supporting the individual right. The Supreme Court has been recognizing an individual right of the people since at least 1857.
At first glance, the gun-rights movement and the pursuit of educational equity seem to have little in common. But they in fact share an approach: Both promote arguments that rely on what are called “implied” or “unenumerated” constitutional rights.
Oh, really?
Article II: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Article II, Two, 2. Numeral. Enumerated.
The argument for a constitutional right to train at any shooting range is far from obvious. The Second Amendment speaks of a right to “keep” and “bear” arms, but says nothing about a right to train or practice.
I’ll grant that the words “train” and “practice” don’t appear, but please note that “well regulated Militia.” What did “regulate” mean when that was written?
regulate: 1. to adjust by rule or method 2. to direct
What the heck kind of well regulated, ordered, prepared, methodical militia is untrained, unpracticed? Certainly not the sort specified by the Second Militia Act of 1792 which required militia members (each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective states, resident therein, who is or shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years) to arm themselves with militarily suitable firearms and equipment.
That every citizen so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter,How to be armed and accoutred. provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack.
Aaron Tang is clearly at UC-Davis because the heads of every other law school in the country were smart enough not to hire the ignoramus.
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Senator Fauxcahontas Warren, the wannabe-commie dictator out for genocide through mandated “carbon-free” (not -neutral, -free) energy and housing, has decided to start with the Gun Culture. Her horrific gunpeople control bill ( SB 3254) has everything a police state tyrant could possibly want, including the neutered kitchen sink. How bad is it? Well, her House co-conspirator is high-on-helium Hank “Tippy” Johnson, noted loon and midget/giant cage match fan.
I could write pages about Warren’s “assault weapon” ban, but let’s just say that unless your semi-auto rifle somehow made it onto the approved list, it’s most likely banned. All it takes is that it can accept a detachable magazine and one of several other features. The kicker is that “pistol grip” is one of them. And what, pray tell is a pistol grip?
‘‘(46) The term ‘pistol grip’ means a grip, a thumb-hole stock or Thordsen-type grip or stock, or any other characteristic that can function as a grip.
If you can hold it, it has a grip.
There is a grandfather clause for existing arms lawfully possessed.
There’s so much more in that bill that I cannot cover it all in less than the 260 pages of the original. But I do want to address the new universal firearm owner licensing part.
‘‘§ 932. License to own firearms and ammunition ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—Except otherwise provided in this section, it shall be unlawful for any individual who is not licensed under this section to knowingly purchase, acquire, or possess a firearm or ammunition.
Elsewhere, I have written about the new tactic adopted by gun-controlling victim-disarmers: writing laws that make compliance impossible. This is yet another effing example. This license would have a training requirement, which includes a written test on law, and a “hands-on testing, including firing testing”. That “Except otherwise provided” does not include an exception for license training and testing; therefore possessing a firearm in a class or test to obtain a license would be illegal. No license = no gun = no test = no license.
While those currently in lawful possession of firearms do not require a license for those firearms, you’ll still need to get a license for any newly acquired firearm first. But new owners? Not anymore. Gun ownership would lawfully end with this generation.
Assuming you’ve jumped through all the fake Indian’s and Georgian village idiot’s hoops, the license is still may issue. On top of all the usual prohibited person restrictions, they added another qualifier: “unsuitability.” This is… similar to “red flag” orders. If the ATF doesn’t want to issue a license, they go to a judge and tell them your aren’t suitable and -gavel bam- you’re a prohibited person.
Where “unsuitability” differs from a “red flag” order is in the standard of evidence. ERPOs require an unsubstantiated allegation — no proof required, because proof would be grounds for an arrest anyway — that a person currently poses a possible threat to himself or others.
“Unsuitability” actually manages to limbo its waybelow that.
other existing factors that suggest that the individual could potentially create a risk
Suggest”
“Could”
“Potentially
Did you ever criticize Warren or Johnso… Wait. Did you ever not criticize either of those moronic motherhumpers?
Or, as an astonishingly ignorant psycho (don’t click that unless you can spare the brain cells) emailed me a couple of days ago:
“Those who really really want a gun are the very ones who really really should not be able to get a gun.”
— rackjite
I’m sure you’ve heard that sentiment — that anyone who wants a gun is unsuitable to have one.
Or… I’ve publicly related stories of times when muggers decided I was a threat to them sufficient to decide to run away. I’ve demonstrated that I’m potentially a threat to the Democrats’ core constituency. No license for me.
What about you?
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My opposition to Red-Flag laws has been steadfast countenancing no exceptions. Until now. Liberal Time Magazine’s Girl, er um “Person”1 of the Year’s trembling quivering rage-filled Greta Thunberg, who should be starring in H. P. Lovecraft inspired movies, could be that one exception. Ghostwriters and Handlers, please, do not allow Greta near sharp objects or anything that goes bang. Perhaps parents should be scheduling counseling sessions rather than enabling Greta’s delusions of imminent human extinction. Scandinavia once gave the world Vikings. What happened?2
From the Great Depression, mass starvation, to man-created global warming, the Left needs crises with which to menace people. Only through scare tactics terrifying the masses can they evoke reaction based on emotion rather than reason. People who have lost their minds seldom make good decisions. Since the Second World War, the Left, either through ideological compatibility or supreme naïveté, has promoted notions the way to deal with adversarial nations (Communist dictatorships) and people is through non-violent appeasement. Leftists are moral relativists rejecting concepts of good and evil. Therefore global and personal conflicts result from misunderstandings not malevolent intentions. Because people have “issues”, not problems, conflicts can be resolved without anyone having to accept blame or facing consequences. All Stalin needed was a couch, a good listener, and a hug. Today, if the puny underweight wretched victim of bullying stands up to his tormentors, school administrators suspend him along with the thugs. Through its evangelists teaching in public schools, the Left has indoctrinated Americans to reject notions of self-reliance and taking responsibility for their own safety. Lockdowns, shelter-in-place, hide under your desk or in your home…Hence, they grow up to despise the Second Amendment. They are aghast at the idea citizens can own guns and decide when and where to use them in self-defense. Appearing on Fox’s Martha MacCallum Show in response to the Fort Worth Texas church shooting, Democrat strategist Doug Schoen argued people are not competent to carry guns for personal defense. This he added, should be left to the police who, coincidentally, were not there.3 The Left hates the Second Amendment for two reasons; first, it exposes their unwillingness to stand up to bullies and criminals whether on American streets or as heads of State. Think, Justin Trudeau. Second, it is an obstacle to the Great Project.
Whether taking the name Liberal, Socialist, Progressive, Central Planner, Democratic-Socialist, and so forth, Statists are determined to dismantle the Second Amendment either through abolition or redefining it out of existence. Until accomplished, it remains the single greatest impediment to The Project begun by 19th century American Progressives and European Socialists. Its central imperative is to bend the will of the individual completely to the volition of the State to plan, control, and regulate every aspect of human existence. And, the Left is the State. Because altering the Constitution has proven un-doable, the Left has chosen to redefine the Second Amendment as they did the Commerce, General Welfare, Necessary and Proper, and Supremacy clauses until they mean the opposite of their intent. For example they claim owning firearms is dependent upon membership in a federal (Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines) or State (“National” sic Guard) standing army. This claim could not be more wrong.4
Proponents and enemies of the Bill of Rights have debated the Founders’ meaning of “militia” ad nauseam. Rehashing it here would seem superfluous. That is, if its enemies were not using mass media, popular culture, and public dis-education to peddle lies conjoined with an American public too intellectually lazy to read and think for itself. As a recovering public school teacher, I can attest to the pervasiveness of this mental lassitude.
Mises Institute’s Ryan McMaken writes that the Founders’ idea of a militia was not one comprised of “unorganized amateurs”, called up by local authorities, to address insurrection or invasion. Instead, it was to consist of men between a certain age range, proficient in arms, possessing some degree of training in military discipline and tactics, a system of choosing officers, subject to call up by State or local authorities, and under civilian control.5 McMaken’s conclusion is problematic. In the 1740s, the French, perennially at war with England, established a large fort at Louisbourg near Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. From there the French threatened New England with invasion and provided safe haven for pirates and “cruisers” who raided its fishing villages and naval commerce. Finding the British unwilling to act, in 1744 New England raised an army of unorganized amateurs including commoners, farmers, merchants, fishermen, and so forth. With little or no experience, these New England boys executed a successful amphibious landing under difficult conditions, besieged the fort for three months, and forced the French to surrender.6 During the French and Indian War, the British could not have defeated the French without the assistance of colonial militia troops, amateur soldiers who fought as local units under American command.7
On 1 October 1768, in a lead up to what became the War of Independence, Britain dispatched 700 troops led by General Thomas Gage from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Boston. His orders were to suppress resistance to British commerce, trading, and tax laws.8 A month later (8 November 1768), King George III declared Bostonians to be in rebellion against English law and government. British political and military leaders drew up plans to subdue the insurrection.9 They employed their standard method of subjugation; round up, jail, and execute the rebellion’s leaders and door-to-door searches for arms and munitions in private hands. Colonials often stored gunpowder in storehouses outside of town due to its volatility. In order to prevent the Red Coats from seizing it, locals formed militias to guard them. In Virginia, Patrick Henry led the Hanover Independent Militia Company comprised of armed locals independent of the Governor’s control. They comprised the nucleus of resistance against British forces. Other colonies replicated this strategy.10
In 1774, British soldiers marched from Boston into the countryside to seize colonial supplies of gunpowder and weapons in Charlestown, Cambridge, Medford, and Salem. Forty thousand militiamen met the British, called “Bloody Lobsterbacks”, by locals, at Charlestown. These amateurs drove them back to Boston without firing a shot.11 British confiscation of private arms led to the “shot heard round the world”, the British march on Concord and Lexington, Massachusetts, to seize arms.12 Among the militiamen awaiting the British attack were farmers, craftsmen, mechanics, gentlemen, laborers, slaves, dairy farmers, and veterans of the French Indian War. Americans gave as good as they got forcing the British back to Boston.13
McMaken contends, “Gun Rights advocates fixate” on the latter part of the Second Amendment, “The people having a right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” as the rationale for private ownership of arms separate from militia membership. He asserts the Second Amendment’s purpose was to guarantee that States “would be free to raise and train their own militias as a defense against federal power and as a means of keeping defensive military force available to Americans while remaining outside the direct control of the federal government”.14 He is correct state militias are supposed to be outside federal control but his assertion the militia is the primary focus of the Second Amendment is incorrect. The Second Amendment clearly contains two independent parts that framers could have fashioned into separate amendments. In fairness to McMaken, his purpose was to demonstrate State Militias are to be independent of federal control and that the so-called “National” (sic) Guard is a standing army and a gross violation of the Constitution.
Drafters wrote definitions of a militia into State Declarations of Rights and later into the federal and State Constitutions from 1791 on. They typically refer to “the mass of ordinary citizens, trained to arms” who would be available for call-up by State or local authorities, and to which was often appended an age range for those subject to service. Founding Fathers from Patrick Henry, George Mason, John Adams to Thomas Jefferson made clear the purpose of the Second Amendment was “that every man” be armed.15 Was this not so that the people would be equipped for militia service if needed? True but only in part. The Founders clearly saw that as an auxiliary advantage. However, the stress was that all men possess the right to keep and bear arms and government in no way have the power to infringe on this right or disarm the people. During debates over ratification of the proposed Constitution (1788) at the Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry declared, “The great object is that every man be armed…Everyone who is able may have a gun”. Zachariah Johnson added, “The new Constitution could never result in religious or other oppression because ‘the people are not to be disarmed of their weapons”. Not militias, people. At the Massachusetts’ ratifying convention, Samuel Adams stated, “That the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience, or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms”.16 Again, these rights, freedom of speech, religion, and arms belong to individuals, not states or any other form of organized political entity including militias.
Many States, including Arkansas, Colorado, Missouri, and others specifically state people have an individual right to keep and bear arms and it is not tied to membership in a militia, military, or any form of security force.17 The Founders knew Americans opposed standing peacetime armies (as we have today) and that States were reluctant to cede any of their sovereignty to this new untried federal system of government. They also knew government, like an irresistible force of nature, attracts to it men of ambition, those craving power, and men with no moral scruples. Therefore, they added the militia phrase. States would retain the means to resist federal usurpations of their power and infringement against the liberties of people. Under the proposed Constitution, the federal government, facing a national emergency such as invasion or insurrection, could request the states call up their militias. Governors would send them to federal authorities who in turn would arm, equip, and organize them into a standing army. The States would retain the right to choose officers commanding their militia units. Once the crisis was resolved, militiamen would return to their respective states and mustered out of service. Constitution or not, efforts to “federalize” (actually, “nationalize”) State militias placing them under presidential control began almost at once just as so-called Anti-Federalists had warned.18 The individual right to possess arms was always a separate issue.
English philosopher John Locke’s Treatises On Government were widely read (1689) in the colonies. He argued man had a “natural” (G-D given) right to life, liberty, and property. Inherent in each is the right to the means of defending it.19 Under the supervision of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.20 Drawing on many widely held philosophical and theological roots; Jefferson wrote that all rights are individual and a gift from G-D. Among them are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (property, wages, and the fruits of one’s labor). Rights imputed by Divinity are inherent in the nature of each individual’s humanity. People are born already possessing these rights. A right to life presupposes a right to the means of defending it.21
The Second Amendment employs the words “right” and “shall not be infringed demonstrating it refers to “a right that is already assumed to exist” (which comports with the Declaration). It does not say, “The people shall have a right to keep and bear arms.” The amendment recognizes but does not grant the right” [emphasis in the original].22 Requirements to join the military, a militia, or engage in a government specified activity in order exercise a right would negate that right. Any regulation, red tape, or hoops one must jump through before accessing a right is a gross infringement and, again, negates it as a right. Governments can in no way qualify a right. No vote by a majority of one’s neighbors to limit a right in any way is legitimate. In addition, people cannot through constitutions or laws, “agree to an infringement on their rights”.23 This is because of the inherency of rights. Only Divinity can alter or abolish rights divinely created. So why does the Second Amendment continue to confound people?
George Mason’s proposed draft of the amendment read, “That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state”.24 Madison’s version read, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well-regulated militia being the best security to a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person”.25 Madison, like Mason and other Founders, wanted it understood that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right separate from membership in any form of militia. For example, those objecting to military service on religious grounds, still possessed the right to keep and bear arms. This would not be true had the right been dependent on being in a militia. Madison’s intent “is clear not only from his wording, but also from his notes for his speech proposing the amendment”. He states it pertains to an individual right which his “colleagues clearly understood the proposal to be protective of individual rights”. Massachusetts delegate Fisher Ames wrote that among other rights, that of bearing arms “to be inherent in the people”. Writing under the name “A Pennsylvanian” in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, Madison’s friend Tench Coxe argued that the delegates wrote the Second Amendment to “guarantee the right of the people to have ‘their private arms’ to prevent tyranny and to overpower an abusive standing army or select militia”. Madison read Coxe’s articles and agreed, the amendment pertained to an individual right.26
So much, did the Founders write about the Second Amendment; its meaning is beyond question. These documents and writings are available to anyone. On what basis can opponents of an individual right interpretation justify their position? Simple. The truth is unimportant. Only the Great Project matters. All narratives, including history, must be made to fit and support it. Like a starfish turning a clamshell over searching for a vulnerability by which to penetrate its defenses, so too do enemies of the Bill of Rights search for weaknesses. They find it in contemporary American’s unfamiliarity with grammatical construction.
It is important to keep in mind, of the Bill of Rights none refers to “States having rights”. Each refers to a right of the people. These are individual rights. To argue the Second Amendment applies only to members of a military organization turns it into a State not individual right. We have clearly seen that was not the Founder’s intention. If the Founders had intended military or militia membership dependency in order to own or possess arms, “Why would they say, ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”? Madison and those who shaped the amendment’s wording “chose to put the militia reference into a dependent phrase” choosing “the weakest possible construction by using the participle (word formed from a verb) ‘being’ instead of writing say, ‘Since a well regulated militia is necessary…” The militia wording’s weak form demonstrates its framers listed it as a right of states. “The main independent clause” of the amendment reads, “The people’s right to have guns ‘shall not be infringed”.27
An independent clause is a stand-alone sentence dependent on nothing. The militia part of the Second Amendment forms a dependent phrase. It cannot stand alone by itself containing a subject, verb, and complete thought. Therefore, it is secondary in importance to the main independent clause. The words; “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” would mean what by itself? The words; “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” would mean what without the first part of the amendment? People have a right to keep and bear arms. By reversing this order, the amendment’s drafters made emphatic that the independent clause was its most important part. “The Founders correctly intuited that in a bill of rights (list), the last thing the reader should have ringing in his mind’s ear is the absolute prohibition on infringement of the natural right to own guns”.28
If the Bill of Right’s enemies read America’s founding documents and writings, they know the truth. None of that matters. What does matter to them is total disarmament of American citizens. The Great Project cannot culminate until that happens. Toward that goal, the end always justifies the means.
11 Unlike men and women since the dawn of time, those on the Left are stymied when it comes to determining their sex, of which, there are but the two aforementioned options.
22 As with the Marjory Stoned Man Douglass high school “useful idiots,” Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, David Hogg, et al, the Left cowardly uses kids as stooge props, their youth supposedly giving them and their terribly immature and uninformed rantings an unassailable immunity against critique. Isn’t this what Muslim terrorists do, hide behind children?
33 Martha MacCallum Show, FOX News, 31 December 2019.
44 Sheldon Richman, “Reading the Second Amendment”, The Freeman 2 (February 1998), 112.
66 Marvin Olasky, Fighting For Liberty And Virtue: Political and Cultural Wars in Eighteenth Century America (Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway Books, A Division of Good News Publishers, 1995), 93.
1616 Stephen Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right (Albuquerque, New Mexico, University of New Mexico Press, 1984), 73-75.
1818 Edwin Meese III, Matthew Spalding, and David Forte, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, (Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2005), 139-143.
2020 Clarence B. Carson, A Basic History of the United States, Volume I: The Colonial Experience 1607-1774 (Wadley, Alabama, American Textbook Committee, 1987), 182-183.
2121 Forrest McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (Lawrence, Kansas, University Press of Kansas, 1985), ix, 60-63. See also, Gary T. Amos, Defending the Declaration (Brentwood, Tennessee, Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., 1989), 35-74, 117-118.
2222 Sheldon Richman, “Properly Interpreting the 2nd Amendment” Human Events (June 16, 1995), 16.
According to the more lurid propaganda now circulating, the Virginia National Guard will be going door-to-door, searching homes, seizing firearms, leaving law-abiding gun owners vulnerable to attacks by criminal hordes and organized gangs such as MS-13.
Casey hangs around some odd web sites if he’s seeing that. Despite my extensive reading on firearms policy and law, I haven’t run across claims that will happen. I have seen analyses of ramifications of filed Virginia legislation.
Relax. It’s not going to happen. Probably there’ll be some changes to gun laws, and some long-overdue tightening of statutes that were increasingly relaxed during two decades of Republican rule.
But nobody’s going to be going door-to-door seizing firearms. And any legislation that passes is likely to be quite familiar to Virginia’s 8.57 million residents.
Consider just two major proposals on the table.
So he ridicules the possibility of bans and confiscation, and supports his position by bringing up firearm purchase rationing and the elimination of state firearms law preemption, as if that’s all that’s being proposed.
Let me bring up another bill that was filed. I can’t think of how Casey missed it, given the very subject he mocks: VA Senate Bill 16: Assault firearms and certain firearm magazines; prohibiting sale, transport, etc.. Since the Democrats have the house, senate, and governorship it seems likely this will pass. I hardly expect the senate majority leader to let it die… since Sen. Dick Saslaw himself is the original sponsor.
That bill completely bans several large classes of common firearms. There is no grandfathering. No “buyback” provision to compensate owners for their loss. Casey somehow hasn’t noticed this. What did he think prompted Rep. Don McEachin to say, “Ultimately, I’m not the governor, but the governor may have to nationalize the National Guard to enforce the law”?
That was no “idle, ill-thought-out comment.” That was a carefully crafted proposal made in a planned interview with a national media outlet, in response to most of the state’s counties and towns announcing that they would not enforce that law if passed.
Sure, afterwards, the governor claimed the bill would be amended to grandfather in existing firearms so long as the owners register them like good little serfs. But 1) it hasn’t been amended, 2) no substitute bill with grandfathering has been filed, and 3) the governor is already budgeting for personnel to enforce SB 16, and for an increased corrections budget for people incarcerated under the proposed — and not even passed yet — gunpeople control laws.
When governor, senate majority leader, and a congresscritter tell us that they are going to try to take guns, tell us how many millions of dollars they plan to spend trying to take guns, tell us how many people they plan to hire to try to take guns, and tell us how much money they expect to spend to imprison those that don’t want their guns taken…
Virginians should take them at their word, Casey’s clumsy attempt at dismissal through obfuscation and misdirection not withstanding.
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Article 1 – The Legislative Branch Section 1 – The Legislature All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Article 1 – The Legislative Branch Section 7 – Revenue Bills, Legislative Process, Presidential Veto All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.
Bills originating in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives become law immediately, the House and Senate not having a say, and such bills not being subject to veto by the President.
(Italicized text added by ATF fiat.)
I always wondered how the ATF was going to deal with Franklin Armory’s Reformation. That’s the firearm which bypassed existing law by creative design. It appears to be a short-barreled rifle, but — while it has lands — it isn’t rifled; the lands are straight.
But it isn’t a shotgun because it isn’t a smoothbore. Nor is it an Any Other Weapon because it isn’t really concealable, nor does it fit any of the other AOW definitions. Franklin Armory came up with something not envisioned by the crafters of the NFA or Gun Control Act of ’68.
A normal person, yet who for some odd reason does think government should regulate firearms, might think, “Well heck; that’s like a law specifically addressing animal- or wind-powered transport, and along comes the motor car. We need Congress to pass a new law for new gadget.”
Normal people don’t work at the ATF.
Frankly, I expected the ATF to declare it to be concealable and thus an NFA Any Other Weapon, just as they declared bump-fire stocks to be machineguns, bypassing unconstitutionally bypassing Congress. But they’re on a roll now, so…
Without any enabling legislation whatsoever, the ATF has invented out whole cloth a brand new, non-NFA class of firearms.
The GCA/SBS: Gun Control Act Short-Barreled Shotgun.
The ATP Firearms and Ammunition Technology Division (FATD) has examined the Reformation firearm for purposes of classification under the applicable provisions of the Gun Control Act (GCA) and the National Firearms Act (NFA). During this examination, FATD determined that the straight lands and grooves incorporated into the barrel design of the Reformation do not impart a spin onto a projectile when fired through the barrel. Consequently, the Reformation is not a “rifle” as that term is defined in the GCA and NFA. 1 Moreover, because the Reformation is not chambered for shotgun shells, it is not a shotgun as defined in the NFA.2 Given these determinations, the Reformation is classified as a shotgun that is subject only to the provisions of the GCA (i.e., it is not a weapon subject to the provisions of the NFA).3
Under the provisions of the GCA, if a Reformation firearm is equipped with a barrel that is less than 18-inches in overall length, that firearm is classified to be a short-barreled shotgun (SBS).4 When a Reformation is configured as a GCNSBS, specific provisions of the GCA apply to the transfer of that firearm from a Federal Firearms Licensee (FPL) to a non-licensee, and to the transport of that firearm by a non-licensee in interstate or foreign commerce.
A whole new class, with whole new rules. They don’t even have forms to address this unlawful, unconstitutional Frankensteinian firearm fiat. Therefore, all sales have been ordered stopped.
Under the GCA, a non-NFA firearm would be subject to just the already burdensome rules: bound book, prohibited persons, background checks, et cetera. No NFA tax stamp.
The GCA/SBS will require special permission — somehow differing from the NFA tax stamp — from the US Attorney General (tell me again how Trump was going to save the Second with his appointees?) not just to purchase, but even to transport your own firearm across state lines.
Hey, why not? The EPA seized power to regulate carbon dioxide. At least they did it by classify exhalations — plant food — as a pollutant, an existing class in existing law.
The ATF is the third chamber of Congress. There is no Constitution.
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Andrea Chamblee wants her some gun control, and she ‘s mad that State Sen. Bobby Zirkin “slow-walked” a universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence bill. But the funny part is why she wanted that passed.
…the bill that would make it illegal for already disqualified people to obtain rifles and shotguns at gun shows and other transfers. (emphasis added)
She thinks it’s legal for prohibited persons (“disqualified people”) to obtain rifles and shotguns.
So I tweeted to her that it’s been unlawful for prohibited persons to obtain firearms for decades Try to keep up. And that’s where it started getting funny.
From the NRA website:
“Maryland does NOT regulate the sale of rifles or shotguns and no permit is required to purchase a rifle or shotgun that is not an “assault weapon.” Nov 12, 2014
Keep up. Dumazz? Liar? Both!
Yes, in a discussion of prohibited persons, she’s citing the VNRA on Maryland state laws on long gun regulation. I cited 18 U.S. Code § 922(g), Gun Control Act of 1968. And laughed at her carefully considered and mature use of language.
Her response:
So the NRA webpage is lying? Whine to Putin.
Ok, Boomer?
-face palm- She still doesn’t grasp that she’s looking at the wrong reference. And I’ve got no clue what Putin has to do with this. Maybe she thinks 18 U.S. Code § 922 is a Russian law. Does that “§” look Cyrillic to you?
The “OK, Boomer” is great. That’s the first time anyone has pulled that on me. And this time seems a little… odd.
Unless she’s led a particularly hard life, I’d say she could easily be older than I. Somehow, I thought I’d first hear it from a Millennial or whatever they’re tagging younger folks as.
If Andrea wants to be a gun control activist, she really should learn something about gun control. I referred her to our Gun Culture Primer.
I needed those laughs. GunPeople controlling victim disarmers aren’t usually so entertaining in their ignorance.
UPDATE: Holy Moley. Andrea Chamblee thinks MD Crim Law Code § 5-622(b) & 18 U.S. Code § 922(g) are a Russian conspiracy pushed by Putin, and that it’s actually lawful to sell rifles & shotguns to prohibited persons.
Is that really her, and she’s that fugbuck nuts? Or has someone hacked her Twitter account?
You know it’s legal to sell it to him. You’re just spreading Russian propaganda on behalf of Putin. Putin has figured out how to murder Americans. He just has other Americans do it. Other Americans who spread hate and conspiracy theories like you
If that’s Chamblee, and not some prankster trying to make her look bad, she’s in need of some serious professional help.
UPDATE 2: I’m heartbroken. </sarc>
I guess that was the real Chamblee. Hopefully someone will get her some help.
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Liberal media’s bouffant coxcomb chattering class bemoans the fact most women elected to Congress are Democrats thereby suggesting Republicans are the party of sexist misogynists as claimed by bitter harridan Hillary Clinton. It is true most women in Congress are Democrats1 but what the princes of pompous pontification ignore is Republican women often lose to Democrat males in general elections. It’s not Republicans voting against them. Genitalia plays no part in my voting. I’d climb over a pile of limp celery stick Republican males like Kit Bond, John McCain, Jeff Flake, John Kasich, Mitt Romney, and Pot-Peddler John Boehner any day to vote for a Phyllis Schlafly.2 Female Republican candidates are likely to be conservative, a serious enough offense, but worse, some commit the unpardonable sin according to Leftist Holy Writ; they are Christians. Against this horrific threat, the Democrat Party Machine swings into action deploying its myrmidons; Hollywood’s Big Donors, spokesboob actors and actresses, radical environmentalists (Crypto-Marxists), feminists (Crypto-Marxists), radicalized college youth (Crypto-Marxists), liberal media, and union and race voters. Blacks and Hispanics in large urban areas typically vote against one of their own if she is a Republican. And who are the misogynists?
Liberals have accused conservative males debating liberal females of “picking on thegirl” if they “come on too strong”. Just ask Rick Lazio who lost to Hillary Clinton in their New York Senate race (2000).3 Conservative males now face an additional quandary. Do they “go easy” on liberal males in political debates? After all, with liberals, you never know when ‘he’ might come out a ‘she’. Lest anyone consider this an attack against Democrats on behalf of Republicans, read on.
Conservative radio talk show host Joe Pags recently interviewed Texas Republican Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick (23 September, 2019) about the latter’s support for universal background checks. Patrick proclaimed fidelity to the Second Amendment with a ‘but’…an affirmation followed by an equivocation is a negation…as was the case. Sure enough, Patrick argued in favor of total, 100%, universal background checks (UBC’s). His rationale was, since 90% of guns purchased already involve a background check, what’s the harm in extending it to the remaining 10%? In support of his proposal, Patrick claimed the people now avoiding background checks, presumably his 10%, do so because they cannot legally buy firearms. He said UBC’s would end this practice.4
Next Patrick asserted “gun-merchants” are getting rich selling firearms to persons who cannot legally buy them charging $4000 dollars for a $2000 dollar gun. Because of their ineligible status, “customers” have no choice but to pay huge markups. Patrick said UBC’s would shut these gun merchants down. In addition, he declared UBC’s would also stop and end public mass shootings because they would prevent the mentally ill from buying guns. Patrick believes suspects in recent mass shootings were legally able to buy guns even though health officials had adjudicated them to be mentally unfit. When Joe Pags (Pagliarulo) observed Second Amendment “hard-liners” might object to Patrick’s proposal, the Lieutenant Governor said the Second Amendment guarantees people the right to “bear” not “sell” their guns.5 Wow. Where to start? Trying to follow Patrick’s “logic” is like untangling twine after an explosion in a string factory.
If an unknown number of people are not subject to background checks, how does Patrick know what percentage are, let alone 90%? What is 90% of an unknown number? Is this the “new math?” He didn’t say. Private transfers between family members, friends, and acquaintances are not subject to background checks and hence not recorded. Again, how can Patrick quantify an unknown quantity? This is an important question because he grounds support for UBC’s on the claim since so many people are already subject to background checks, no one would notice if extended to the rest. Sort of like being covered with poison ivy and getting one more bump. Even if Patrick’s numbers are correct, when has the “everyone else is doing it” ever been a compelling argument? Would it be valid to argue, because government has suppressed 90% of American’s First Amendment rights, what is the harm in surrendering the rest? At the risk of being crass, would a rescuer tell the victim of a shark attack; “Well, he got most of your leg so, you might as well let him have the rest”? Imagine its pre-W.W. II Berlin. Jacob hears a harsh banging on his door. He opens it to find goons standing there dressed in black uniforms trimmed in ominous silver runes.
“Your guns, give them to us now!” barks one of the goons.
“But why, gun ownership is legal” responds Jacob.
“Ninety percent of the other Jews have handed theirs over. What could be the harm if you do too?” says the goon.
If the people surrender any portion of a right to the government, will government ever cede it back? Would not any rationale for the government to seize a portion of a right also be equally compelling with respect to it taking the rest? Ten percent of a bad idea is still a bad idea let alone ninety percent.
I wish Pags had asked Patrick how UBC’s would force ineligible persons to submit to background checks. If a person is ineligible, they are ineligible. Most criminals obtain firearms through the black and secondary markets. This includes theft and straw purchases wherein eligible individuals buy firearms on behalf of those who are not. Who are Patrick’s “gun-merchants”? If he knows, why doesn’t he alert the Texas Department of Public Safety? Those willing to break the law selling contraband, be it untaxed cigarettes, bootleg music CDs, drugs, guns, and so forth, have and always will regardless of prohibitions and legal sanctions. Experience, history, and the facts contradict Patrick’s arguments. How could the number two man in the Texas Republican Party make such an ill-conceived and dangerous argument?
Contrary to what Patrick believes, the law already prohibits individuals from buying or possessing firearms if the Courts and or mental health officials have determined them to be mentally “defective”. In addition, the law requires officials to report such adjudications to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Anyone purchasing a firearm through an FFL is required to fill out form 4473. This an affidavit swearing they do not fit in any prohibited class listed on the form (felons, domestic abusers, illegal aliens, drug users, mentally unfit, etc.). Lying on this form is a felony. The FFL then calls the FBI’s NICS who determine if the customer is eligible to purchase the firearm. How does Texas’ Lieutenant Governor not know this? If individuals, barred by law from buying firearms, resort to the black market already operating outside the law, how would they be stopped by universal background checks?
I like Joe Pags but have to ask; what is a Second Amendment “hardliner?” Are they people who believe in an individual right to keep and bear arms, that the Second Amendment means what it says, and that one cannot compromise rights endowed by G-d? ? I’m a homicide hardliner. I reject exceptions to laws prohibiting anyone from illegally taking my life. Am I extreme? Liberals use “hardliner” to cast opponents as unreasonable in order to soften up the rest of gun owners to accept compromises. With all gun laws, each compromise leads to a diminution of rights.
According to Patrick, although the Second Amendment guarantees a right to keep and bear arms, those arms are not your private property. If one does not have the right to sell his or her property, then someone else does. Who is that? Government? If the latter, your arms must belong to them. The Declaration states people have a right to life and it is a gift from G-D, not one created by man or his laws. Inherent in this right is also a right to the means to protect it. The Fourth and Fifth Amendments recognizes the individual’s absolute right to own private property and dispose of it as they see fit. Firearms are private property. Crypto-Confiscationists argue, however, because firearms possess an intrinsic potential for lethality, exceptions to Second Amendment and property rights are valid. Baseball bats, knives, ice picks, meat cleavers, hammers, hatchets, axes, arrows, staves, and so forth also possess intrinsic lethal potential. This is no facetious comparison. The FBI reports that murderers kill more people with knives, hammers, clubs, and feet each year than rifles. In 2018, 297 people were killed with rifles, 1,515 were killed by murderers using a knife, 443 were murdered by killers using hammers, clubs, and blunt objects, and 672 were killed with “fists, feet and other ‘personal weapons”.6 The law can impose harsh consequences for irresponsible behavior but government cannot abridge an individual’s 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendment rights based on potential lethality of property owned. More importantly, American government, constituted as “federal”, cannot pass “national” laws.7
James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” writing in Federalist #39 noted a national government has authority over the “individual citizens” along with “an indefinite supremacy over all persons and things.” Under this system, “supremacy is completely vested in the national legislature” that has total control over city, county, and state governments as well as all commercial and other activities within the states. However, the United States has a “federal” not a “national” government. Its jurisdiction extends only to powers delegated to it, and enumerated, by the states.8 In Federalist #45, Madison wrote; “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects such as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which the last, the power of taxation, will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concerns the lives, liberties, and properties of the people”9 [emphasis mine]. Oops, the “federal” government has no Constitutional authority to establish any form of “national” background check law in the first place! It is sad those calling themselves Republicans and conservatives know so little about the Constitution.10
Lieutenant Governor Patrick predicates his failure-doomed proposal on two false notions near and dear to liberals; 1) the mere existence of firearms “causes” violent crime and 2) Individuals engaging in “hate” or “hate-speech” are dangerous to others, mentally ill, and the ones who commit public mass shootings. In the first case, the solution is simple; eliminate firearms thus ending violent crime, so they say. In the second, “red-flag” and stop mentally unstable persons from possessing arms or have police seize those they possess.
First, there is no correlation between the degree of access to firearms and the degree of evil in a person’s heart. Intent to inflict pain, great bodily injury, and murder germinate from within the individual not from proximity to implements of harm. In addition, access to firearms, including by teenagers under 18, was relatively unregulated before the 1960s. People could purchase firearms through the mail. “Federal” (sic) background checks did not exist, yet public mass shootings, were rare. Each decade of the twentieth century, until the 1970s, “had fewer than 10 mass public shootings with one in the 1950s. The rise began in the 1960s with six, followed by 13 in the 1970s. This upsurge spiked in the 1980s with 32 public mass shootings jumping to an unimaginable 42 in the 1990s even though access to firearms was increasingly regulated and controlled by the government following the Gun Control Act of 1968.10 What changed?
It began in 1947 with Everson versus Board of Education (330, 1, 18, 1947) in which the Supreme Court illegally amended the Constitution inventing the doctrine of “separation of church and state”. Through the Court’s tortured interpretation, it granted Liberal Humanism the means to drive G-d, its greatest foe, from the public square.
In the 1960s, moral relativism, the notion that all values are “relative”, that there is no good and evil or right and wrong, or moral absolutes became the dominant philosophy in America. Books like, I’m Okay, You’re Okay and The Pathology of Normalcy became wildly popular along with the philosophy of “do your own thing”. Simon and Garfunkel’s prophets wrote, “G-d is Dead” on subway walls. The humanist left, the equivalent of cultural acid, declared concepts of right and wrong to be judgements and those holding to them to be judgmental. If notions of morality are relative, “who are you to impose your values on me” became the battle cry of those destroying Judeo-Christian based Western Society. In order to force cultural and moral relativism on everyone, liberal humanists worked through “modern” left teachers and the Courts to drive G-d and Judeo-Christian based values from schools. For decades, Public Dis-Education has taught notions of morality and even truth are merely social constructs. How then could the consequences surprise anyone? Religion’s decline in the role of people’s lives, disintegration of the family, loss of respect for law and order and spike in violent crime, massive drug use, wild promiscuity, murdering unborn babies, normalizing sexual perversion, school and public mass shootings, and a rise in suicides. And all this would be solved by more background checks?
Patrick’s claim that all public mass killers were/are known to have been mentally unstable and dangerous is problematic. Most recent mass killers, with exceptions, did not exhibit a “specific profile” that would have identified them as potential murderers. An FBI Study (2013) revealed only 25% of mass murderers had previously been diagnosed with a serious mental illness. However, many of the others had displayed behavior considered hostile and anti-social.11 Laws designed to prevent violent crime before it happens by nature must be anticipatory. They rely on “red-flags” triggering a response from the courts and police. Who and on what basis determines what constitutes a red flag resulting in the police seizing a person’s arms? Therein lies the rub. Short of actions requiring incarceration in the Puzzle Factory, what constitutes behavior triggering these responses? According to the “Left”, hate speech should be a “Red-Flag” because it is de facto “proof” of mental instability and potential for violence. But what is hate speech? The Left defines it as anyone holding to Biblical morality, opposition to the invasion of the US by illegal aliens, belief in limited government, and a demand government follow the original intent of the Constitution. In short, opposition to any part of the left’s agenda.
Criminals and the mentally unstable are already prohibited from buying and possessing firearms. Universal background checks will do nothing to stop the ineligible from obtaining them. Nor will they stop criminals from buying guns on the black market. UBCs serve two purposes. First, a misguided attempt to buy off Confiscationists through compromise. Second, when UBC’s fail in their intended goal, Liberals will argue it’s because gun laws didn’t go far enough and what is needed is total gun registration. This too will fail and again the Left will say it’s because “We didn’t go far enough”. Guess what they’ll call for next. Support no sell-outs regardless of political party.
22 Phyllis Schlafly was a giant in the conservative movement. She led the battle against “me-too” males in the Republican Party, fought the radical feminist and homosexual movement, and worked to expose leftwing bias in schools. The Left, in conjunction were their useful idiots in the liberal media, pop-culture, and public diss-education,have done all in their power to flush her down Orwell’s Memory Hole.
77 Teaching Government for years, I never encountered a student who knew the difference between a federal and national government or why it even mattered. Using primary sources, I addressed this ignorance for which I was summarily punished by Administration and colleagues in the SocialIST Studies Department.
88 Clinton Rossiter, Editor, The Federalist Papers (New York, N.Y., A Mentor Book from the New American Library, 1961), 244-245.
1010 I explained the difference and significance between a “national” and “federal” government to self-avowed conservatives for years. All listened, few cared. To one in particular stocking up on supplies because Constitutional abandonment will lead to collapse, I supplied primary source and scholarly articles. He refused to read them and called me, and those like me, “deranged a**holes.”
Lately, I’ve seen gunpeople controllers repeating a factoid about crime guns, traces, and the need to crack down on evil licensed dealers: 1% of dealers are responsible for 57% of all crime guns.
Revoking licenses for gun dealers who break the rules. Only 1% of gun dealers are responsible for 57% of guns used in crimes. My Administration will direct the ATF to prioritize oversight of dealers with serial compliance violations — and then use its authority to revoke the license of dealers who repeatedly violate the rules.
And that’s a real statistic, straight from the ATF.
Just 1.2 percent of dealers — 1,020 of the approximately 83,200 licensed retail dealers and pawnbrokers — accounted for over 57 percent of the crime guns traced to current dealers in 1998. And just over 450 licensed dealers in 1998 had 10 or more crime guns with a time-to-crime of three years or less traced to them. ATF is now targeting enforcement and inspection resources at these dealers, as well as making crime gun trace analysis available to criminal investigators.
Using data from 21 years ago. And do note the bold-face portion, where they explained –19 years ago — that they were already going after those dealers, and expanded their process to make it easier for investigators to catch new potential troublemakers.
Problem solved. Warren is — as happens so often with these victim disarmers — behind the times, demanding what already is.
I did wonder if there’s an updated version of that statistic. Since the ATF is addressing the issue, it seemed like they might mention the percentage of “bad” dealers occasionally. Sadly, that statistic is not mentioned in the ATF’s annual “Firearms Trace Data” report
The 2000 report is the last time I can see that the ATF published the statistic. Since they working on the problem, I suspect any real rogue FFLs were shut down, and there simply aren’t scary enough numbers for further demonization. Hence, Warren using 21 year old data.
So the next time you see that just tell the person:
“I beg your pardon, but that stat is from a nineteen year-old report, using data from 1998. The ATF began taking action against those dealers back then. It hardly seems likely they’re still at it. Try to keep up.”
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Yours, theirs, doesn’t matter. Progressives are all in for the ideology of control. Be it whether or not you can have a 32 ounce soda pop or an AR-15. And yes, Mikey Bloomberg financier of the astro-turf Everytown for gun safety, is gearing up to run for President. It’s about control because without control they don’t have the power they are striving for.
Soda Bans
They are trying so desperately to peddle the bill of goods known as “It’s for the children”. But it really isn’t you see.
All those “Red Flag” or Preemptive prove your innocence or extreme risk orders of protection? No matter what you choose to call it by, it stinks. It is gun confiscation without due process from someone who has done nothing. In most cases they are engaging in mind reading. Or in some cases, just vindictive behavior.
In the case of the Bucket O’Chum school terrorist at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, he had given a wealth of signs, but due to a policy put in place during obama’s term there had been no consequences for his previous criminal behavior. The same with Trayvon Martin. Recently there was a juvenile in Baker County in Fl. who had made threats against his classmates and teachers. He had a plan all written out. He showed it to another student who told authorities. He was taken into custody by authorities before he could carry out any of his heinous plan. But I found this interesting.
“MAKE SURE THE TEACHERS ARE DEAD,” he ranted in a notebook. “Then rinse repeat.”….
The boy’s plan described killing teachers and fellow students in chilling detail. To maximize the carnage, he’d deploy an arsenal of knives and guns at a pep rally or some other high-traffic venue. He calculated he’d have nine minutes before squad cars and medics could reach the scene. He wouldn’t be acting alone, he hoped, having recruited at least three schoolmates who, like him, were “100% down that they might die that day.”
They try to hoodwink us, telling us there is no time to spare to ensure someone’s rights are upheld, Baker act won’t do. Must have confiscation without due process, without facing your accuser in court.
So about those nine minutes.
At the recent attack at Saugus High School, the Bucket O’Chum began firing and his pistol jammed. Although according to the Daily Mail he used a .45 caliber semi-automatic rifle, which he removed from his backpack. Heck of a backpack. But they are British, and MSM, so #FakeNews. What do they know about firearms? But it was a regular semi-automatic pistol. And it jammed. He cleared the jam and safely continued on firing secure in the knowledge he had plenty of time. He counted his shots saving the last one for himself. Help was only moments away,
Three off-duty police officers, who had just dropped off relatives at the school, were the first responders on the scene: a detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and police officers from Inglewood and Los Angeles.They were joined within a minute by uniformed deputies on duty from the sheriff’s station in Santa Clarita, as well as a sheriff’s deputy who works at the school as the school resource officer.
But the help was needed within seconds.
This being Kalifornia, I wonder if the off-duty police officers will be reprimanded for carrying their weapons into the school? The school resource officer was one of the last to arrive. I’m not criticizing him. He is one man, he can’t be everywhere. He’s not like Scott Peterson, the “Coward of Broward” who stood by outside the building, or former Sheriff Steve Israel who supported him. He was just the last to arrive. When seconds count the police are only moments away. If it saves just one child, right Mad Mommies? Right harridans of The View? Well, yeah, as long as it doesn’t involve anyone but the bad guy having the gun. How much quicker could the response have been had there been an armed teacher near by?
Laurens County, Georgia doesn’t intend to ever have to look back and wonder. They have began arming and training their teachers. They intend to do everything, politically correct or not, to protect the children from harm. I like the sign outside the school.
Outside every school building in the county is a yellow sign that reads, in part: “Warning. Staff members are armed and trained. Any attempt to harm children will be met with deadly force.”
Seem straightforward to me.
Like the shooting in a Duncan Oklahoma Walmart parking lot recently. The first two victims died, then a good guy with a gun put a stop to further carnage. But, there was a good guy, a regular citizen there, with his gun. Or as the Daily Mail would call it, his semi-automatic rifle.
But to progressives, it’s not really about protecting children, if it saves just one life is a bunch of schiff. What is the message taught at schools? Violence is always wrong, if there is a fight and you defend yourself, you get in trouble (and suspended) same as the person who started it. Don’t fight back, just tell a teacher. Since Jews are being attacked all over the world now, some just for wearing a Kippah and the charges are often ignored, or even dropped. This is not working out well. I recently heard an interview with Schmuel Hacohen “Super Jew”, on the Tamar Yonah show. He relates a story about his father decking a man when he was young. His dad was a scientist, but he still knew how to fight. Afterwards when young Schmuel was bubbling over about it, he father told him he was not proud of what he did. “Violence is not a good thing, it is not always a bad thing, sometimes it is a necessary thing.” We now have generations of children who only use violence to bully and intimidate, those that would stand up for themselves against it are vilified. And just in case someone would be inclined to fight back, or step in, they must have you disarmed and deprived of your most effective defense weapons. Only criminals are allowed to have those.
The episode of the Tamar Yonah show that followed was an interview with Eitan Fischberger, Israel Campus Coordinator for CAMERA on Campus and Aviva Rosenschein, CAMERA’s International Campus Director. They told of what it’s like on college campuses for Jewish students and those that would stand up for Israel against the lies being told, and against the bullying. Sometimes by their professors. They address the false information being put out by Jewish Voices for Peace, Peace Now, the BDS BS movement, J-Street, If Not Now and others. Far too many Jews have become disconnected an apathetic about Israel. There is one Jewish Nation, if you allow it to be destroyed, where are you planning on going as antisemitism increases? France? England? Have at it.
But some young Jews are defying the herd. And doing it brilliantly. The fact that he needs to write under a pseudonym is too bad. But I understand why he feels he must. The lad is a student of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, HY’’D. Rabbi Meir’s father was close friends with Zev Jabotinsky. My Shimshon’s middle name is Zev. Many many of Rabbi Meir’s predictions have sadly come to pass. He believed Jews should be living in Israel, and that Jews should be able and willing to defend themselves. The writer laments that Betar is no longer around. I do as well. I’m an American Jewish teen and believe we need to teach self defense. It’s a good column.
My one and only (so far) multimedia column for The Zelman Partisans is a reading of a letter by Rabbi Meir Kahane, Dear World
Progressives see the same events we do, but they are determined to double down on their policies of leaving the innocent helpless and at the mercy of someone else showing up to help them. It doesn’t matter if it is there children, your children or parents, or you. No one must be allowed to defend them. They continually attempt to force law-abiding gun owners who have committed no crime to pay the consequences of people who have already committed several. It gets in the way of their ideology, and they love that way more than anything or anyone else. Why are they willing to sacrifice innocent souls on the alter of their ideology? Power.
Ron Berler has a plan to end gun violence. To his credit, he does realize that almost no one is going to voluntarily turn in their guns, not even in “buybacks.” He’ll go about a little differently.
If you’re drinking anything, go ahead and swallow. Set your cup down. You’ve been warned so I accept no responsibility for moisture-damaged screens or keyboards.
Today, one can walk into a gun shop and purchase, for instance, a .22, .38 or .44-caliber handgun. Most firearms are built to accommodate one size round only. Here’s what would happen if the manufacture of today’s standard-size rounds were outlawed, and .21, .37, or .43-caliber rounds took their place: Eventually, gun owners would run out of the old ammo, and their weapons would become paperweights.
Yep. A ban on manufacturing today’s cartridges would seriously inconvenience some folks I know.
Fresh attention could be paid to newer, research-vetted strategies, such as the universal adoption of smart-gun technology and limiting the size of rounds available to civilians.
Why should a law-abiding citizen spend hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars to replace one’s gun collection?
Gun manufacturers could offer a six-month window for any person eligible to turn in their old weapons and receive a partial rebate toward the purchase of new ones. For manufacturers and retailers, these sales would amount to a windfall of epic proportions.
Obama would approve. The NSSF probably would, too. But I don’t see owners rushing out to replace their effective firearms with government-mandated less effective chamberings.
Police and military would keep their current firearms and ammuntion, manufactured and distributed under strictest control.
I’m quite sure that will keep standard ammunition and firearms out the hands of the peons. Maybe. Kinda. Sorta. More or less.
Law-abiding citizens could still own guns. And that is all the second amendment promises. It does not prohibit federal or state governments from regulating the type of weapon one may own.
The Supreme Court disagrees. In Heller, SCOTUS found that the government cannot ban common defensive firearms. In McDonald, they rule that the restriction on government included the states.
But Miller is the case that will prompt Berler to piss his panties. The Court ruled that the Second Amendment specifically protects the right of the people to keep and bear militarily useful firearms (Miller’s short-barrel shotgun could be regulated under the National Firearms Act because it wasn’t shown to be used by the military).
Stick to “youth issues,” Berler. Maybe you know something about that subject.
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Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
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