Tag Archives: Holmes

Backpedaling

When we last saw Esquire’s Dave Holmes, he was whining that we won’t let him confiscate all our guns. He’s back…

…pedaling. With an extra helping of whining.

What Happens When You Write About Gun Control in America
Gun-rights activists threaten to shoot you (among other reactions).

Ooooh. Threats. Like…

“Go ahead and try, the streets will be awash in blood.”

“Good luck confiscating all those guns yourself, really hope you don’t get murdered by law abiding citizens lol.”

“Molon Labe.”

No one threatened to shoot him, or he would have included that. I see people telling him to go for it, and noting the unintended consequences of such an ill-considered action.

So… No threats.

Had any of these folks bothered to read the piece, which was only 800 words and I am not James Joyce, they would have seen the part where I said: “It won’t happen, of course. So let’s meet in the middle.” I am coming from a place of passion, but I am willing to compromise.

I read it all. I saw him start by stating his desire to take everything. I took him at his word. And some of us are tired of “compromise.” Just once, we’d like to keep our cake.

No. Now what?

Let me offer Holmes a tongue-in-cheek “compromise” on his First Amendment protected rights. I’d rather see him not write anymore. But he won’t stop, so let’s meet in the middle: He’ll be allowed one 140-character tweet (no one needs a high capacity tweet) per month. 800 word columns of mass rights violation? Maybe we could grandfather his old columns under a National Speech Act with taxes, stamp, and goverment approval. But no new ones.

I do find it amusing that Holmes views the NRA as hardcore gun rights advocates. The NRA backed the NFA, GCA, FOPA, background checks, “assault weapons” bans, ERPOs, bump-fire stock bans, and opposed constitutional carry.

Meet The Zelman Partisans, Mr. Holmes.


Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could use the money, what with truck repairs and recurring bills, since he doesn’t have a paying gig with a leftist, anti-rights magazine like Esquire. Defending human/civil rights doesn’t pay well, but it needs to be done.

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Go For It

In the wake of the Santa Fe school shooting, where an under-age scumbag stole a pump-action shotgun and a revolver to kill ten and wound more, I started seeing a different set of disarmament clarion calls. The criminal enablers are abandoning demands for bans on “assault weapons,” universal background checks, and age limits. Now it’s a flat out total ban on everything.

A typical example:

Okay, Now I Actually Do Want To Take Your Guns
Anyway, I just wanted to drop you a line and let you know that I now actually do want to take your guns.

All of your guns.

Right now.

All righty then. Start with the criminals. That should be easy; via NICS, you have a list of everyone who already isn’t allowed to have guns. A good many of them are subject to current court orders and probation/parole that will allow the police to search their homes without new warrants. Go for it. Prove you can make it work.

Hey, felons et al have been prohibited from possessing firearms for fifty years. Since they’re so compliant with the law, they probably… oh. Wait.

For fifty years you haven’t been able to disarm the criminals. 64% of firearms-wielding murderers have prior felony convictions, yet mysteriously got around of fifty years of laws meant to prevent just that.

Nearly 91% of firearms used in murders are stolen (just like the guns used in Santa Fe, stolen from a locked cabinet). Well, that’s one way around NICS (which has been in place for two decades).

Somehow, despite knowing exactly who they are (because everyone knows how accurate NICS is), you haven’t managed to get guns out of the hands of those already stripped of Second Amendment rights through adjudication.

But now you want to go after… everyone else. The 99.9978% of gun owners who didn’t commit any heinous crimes.

Just in case you evil bastards — out to ensure safe workplaces for criminals — forgot, you don’t know to the nearest 10,000,000 how many gun owners are out there. It might be 50,000,000. Or 60,000,000. Maybe 81,000,000. 100,000,000. Some think (with a fair bit of credibility) that the number is over 120,000,000; more than a third of the nation.

You don’t know how many, so you certainly don’t know who they are, much less where. And their guns? How many, what kind, and where? You don’t know. Could be 265,000,000. Might be 750,000,000.

But you’re convinced that bans are so effective. Just ban everything and the owners will be happy to give up their property. Hey, it worked for Prohibition and the War on Drugs… oh.

Allow me to clue you in:

  • People don’t like to have their property stolen, by freelance crooks or the uniformed type.
  • Since you haven’t managed to disarm the criminals, the rest of us especially won’t care to give up our defensive property.

But let’s pretend that 90% of gun owners go along with your crime enablement scheme (-giggle-). That leaves anywhere from 5,000,000 to over 12,000,000 heavily armed, noncompliant SOBs (or, HANSOBs, as I’ve referred to them elsewhere).

You’ll have to go take their guns. Kick in their doors because they’re well armed.

I’d say, “Best o’ luck, bubba,” but I don’t wish stormtroopers the best of anything. I suggest that Davie Holmes lead the first few confiscation teams to show the guys how it’s done, and to encourage them. And he’d better bring along his ban buddies to help, because the HANSOBs would have every single local, state, and federal LEO, and the entire active and reserve military outnumbered, even assuming the lowball estimate of gun owners and a silly compliance rate. (No one has gotten better than 20% compliance just on registration; and ask Mass how that bump-fire ban went; I heard they got 3. Not 3%; Three stocks.)

But if you gun grabbers choose to go that literal route, be aware of what you’re getting yourselves into.

Wait a sec: Excuse me, I need to place a bulk order for popcorn. I intend to hunker down, sit back, eat popcorn, and enjoy “The Statist-Hunting Show”. It wouldn’t be civil war; Holmes and his buds should be so lucky.

Yes, if you declare that you’re going out to hunt those nasty noncompliant gun owners (who hadn’t done anything… up till now), I consider it extremely likely they’ll return the favor. Please recall that those HANSOBs will probably include a lot of combat vets and people who can — and routinely do — pop prairie dogs in the head at a thousand yards; the guns you’d be trying to take are the guns with which they do that.

Happily for Holmes and his ilk, a lot of them will be of libertarian leanings, like me; we won’t go hunting; that would be an initiation of force. But the fervor of their self defense, should the victim disarmers make that necessary, will astonish and terrify the bastards. On the other hand, libertarian-types are probably a small minority.

Individuals, small groups. No organized “militia” you can defeat or negotiate with. Rather chaotic, in fact.

And should Dave Holmes prove to a be a cheese-nibbling chickenshit, who won’t take point, who thinks he can send out the jackbooted thugs while he rests comfortably at home, four words:

Clinton Rules of Engagement. In fragmenting Yugoslavia, Billy Jeff Clinton determined that noncombatant media, friends, associates, friends of friends were valid military targets, as they gave support to the “enemy,”

That’s another favor those HANSOBs will probably be happy to return.

Now, That’s Entertainment.

Go for it. Bell that cat.


Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found liked this post, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could use the money, what with truck repairs and bills.

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