Antigun

Phobia

This couple is so phobic about guns, they are freaking out about their daughter having a pistol safe for securing her diary from a snooping brother.

The problem: The black box turns out to be a gun safe! (A friend of my husband told us.) We’re not worried that she has a gun; she helped organize a school rally to tighten our state’s gun laws. But she refuses to give up the safe, and we don’t want it in our house. Help!

Pathological.

By Divemedic, ago

Property Rights

The Hill is claiming that state law should protect the rights of homeowners by having ‘no carry’ gun defaults on private property. AWA over at GunFreeZone agrees. Here is one of the few times that I disagree with the lads over at GunFreeZone. In the interest of full disclosure, this is what he said:

I believe in both our right to self defense and our property rights. I personally have a rule that on our property if we are having a gathering of people that are not all gun people that concealed carry is allowed but open is not. We have some friends that are to scared of firearms to even look at them in person. That’s fine.

If a business wants to limit firearm possession in their place of business to criminals only, that is their choice.

Let me explain why I disagree.

When I was in high school (many, many years ago) my football coach used to explain to us the difference between involvement and commitment:

When you eat breakfast, the chicken that provided the eggs is involved, but the pig that provided the bacon is committed.

Coaches, especially in the south, have a way with words. Although it is a bit outlandish, my coach’s words reveal an important truth: it is easy to be involved with something, but it takes a lot more to be committed to it. So it is with liberty and rights.

When a company opens a location, the owners of that company risk very little. They have only risked a relatively small amount of money in the endeavor, and are insulated from any personal risk by the very nature of corporate law. If anything should go horribly wrong, the only thing that the nominal owner stands to lose is his investment cash. In other words, stockholders are chickens that are only involved with the business.

It is for that reason that companies make decisions that affect only the bottom line. After all, they are there to protect the owners’ interests, and the only interest the owner has is to get his investment money back with a little extra for his risk. It is this truth which allows government to use the law of unintended consequences to control a business without seeming to.

Let’s apply this to gun laws: As a government entity, I pass a law allowing people to carry concealed weapons, but I place a clause in the law allowing a business owner to opt out of the law. Many property rights people will applaud this law, and think that property rights are protected.

The problem is in the law of unintended consequences. Other laws hold a property owner liable for any act that they allow to take place on their property, but hold them harmless from those acts as long as the property owner has taken reasonable steps to prevent that act. You see the position that you have just placed a corporation in, don’t you? The business is now liable for the actions of any concealed carrier that they allow onto their property, and held harmless for the actions of armed killers, as long as they post a sign that says “no guns.”

The right of property owners has already been shredded. No property owner who wants to avoid a potential multi million dollar lawsuit would allow concealed carry.

Decision making process:

Will I be held liable if CCW shoots someone? Yes

If I prohibit carry, will I be held liable if a criminal kills my customers?
No

Post signs prohibiting carry

Back to our breakfast analogy: The corporate business owners, wanting to protect the only skin they have in the game are our chickens. The business posts the signs banning CCW. The public who frequents that business is now at the mercy of the armed criminals who know that they are now safe to practice their trade, and the business is safely insulated from all liability when it happens.

Congratulations, guns are now banned in public, and you have just cheered them on as they used your rights to make bacon.

I have been making that case for over a decade. That is why I have ignored these signs.

There are those who say that the person could always choose to shop elsewhere, but since the law is the law everywhere, there is no real choice. Very, very few business owners will choose to take the chance of facing a multimillion dollar award.

By Divemedic, ago

Closer to CW2

After SCOTUS declared Maryland’s AWB and magazine ban unconstitutional, the Marlyand AG has refused to comply.

Democrat Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh was defiant: “Military-style firearms pose grave risks to public safety, as recent mass shootings in other states have made clear. Despite the Bruen ruling, the state’s law remains in effect. Marylanders have a right to be protected from these dangerous weapons.”’

Three of the four boxes have failed. The government is refusing to comply with its own laws. What else is left?

By Divemedic, ago

Not Accepting the Blame

A man with 14 convictions for dealing drugs left his gun in reach of an 8 year old, who then used it to shoot a pair of small children. One of the children died.

Then leftists predictably leave out the drug dealing part and try to blame the gun.

Roderick Dwayne Randall, who is a 14 time convicted felon, left his sleeping girlfriend and the young children in a motel room. Randall’s 8-year old found the gun in a closet and fired a shot. The bullet struck and killed a 1-year old girl and injured a 2-year old girl. He then fled the room with his drugs and gun before returning.

Randall was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, two counts of culpable negligence, tampering with physical evidence, and failing to store or leave firearm in a required manner.

Imagine my surprise to see that his is black. Another criminal in a race that is filled with them. The sheriff said he has 129 pages of criminal history, 28 previous felony charges and 14 felony convictions.

I suggest a few more charges. First, the girlfriend. She should be charged with child endangerment for living with her children in a dive motel with a convicted drug dealer and his drugs. Get the remaining child away from her, where it will have a chance at a decent life.

I, as a responsible gun owner, am not taking the blame for some drug dealing scumbag’s criminal actions. Democrats are sitting here passing red flag laws, while they can’t even keep dudes with 14 felonies from owning guns. Tell me how gun control works so well.

By Divemedic, ago

Redefining the Language

One of the big complaints of the left is that SCOTUS is not reinterpreting the Constitution to suit the modern desires of the American public. Politico writes an extensive article, complaining that originalism is a new invention of the court:

Should a 21st century society really interpret its Constitution by the standards of 1787 — an era before the introduction of semi-automatic weaponry, steam power, penicillin, automobiles, trains, electric lights and indoor plumbing?

Using Politico’s logic, we could easily ignore the First Amendment by claiming that it doesn’t apply to electronic communication. Nothing could be further from the truth. Allowing the courts to simply redefine the meaning of the Constitution to suit whatever their beliefs are at the time makes those nine robed justices into a ruling committee with a lifetime appointment, a sort of American Politburo. Such a setup is pure nonsense.

The founders of this nation recognized that situations would arise with the nation that would require that the Constitution be rewritten, then there is a process for that: write an Amendment.

The amendment process is difficult, and purposely so. The first step is to propose an amendment. That requires a two thirds vote of both houses of Congress. (Or the legislatures of two thirds of the states) That means 290 representatives and 67 senators must vote to propose the amendment. Once that amendment is proposed, it goes to the states for ratification. Three fourths of the states’ Legislatures must then approve the Amendment. That requires 38 states’ legislatures’ approval.

If you can’t get that level of approval, then obviously you don’t have a mandate. If you can’t get a mandate, what makes you think that you can start and win a civil war?

Nevertheless, Politico goes on to try and discern the founders’ intent in writing the Second Amendment and offers this as proof:

James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights, twice introduced state legislation in Virginia that would impose penalties on any individual who “bear[s] a gun out of his inclosed ground, unless whilst performing military duty.”

What they fail to mention is that the proposed law that Politico claims Madison attempted to introduce was not a gun control law. It was a hunting regulation, and the prohibition on the carrying of arms was a penalty for hunting deer out of season and not a general prohibition for the bearing of arms. Let me quote it for you:

Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that it shall not be lawful for any person to kill, hunt, or course any wild deer whatever, not being more than twelve months old, or in any year called bissextile or leap year; or to kill, hunt or course in any other year, a wild buck, after the first day of December, and before the first day of August, or a wild doe, between the first day of January, and the first day of October following, unless such deer, at the time, be found within the inclosed land of such person, or be wanted for food, on the westside of the Alleghany ridge of mountains. Whosoever shall offend against this act, shall forfeit and pay, for every deer by him unlawfully killed, twenty shillings, one half thereof to the use of the commonwealth, and the other half to the informer; and moreover, shall be bound to their good behaviour; and, if, within twelve months after the date of the recognizance he shall bear a gun out of his inclosed ground, unless whilst performing military duty, it shall be deemed a breach of the recognizance, and be good cause to bind him a new, and every such bearing of a gun shall be a breach of the new recognizance and cause to bind him again.

A Bill for Preservation of Deer, 18 June 1779, James Madison (emphasis added)

So what Madison was promoting was actually a form of what we today would call probation. Instead of Politico’s point, I would argue that this actually makes the opposite point. The person who was caught poaching deer would be penalized by not being permitted to carry weapons outside of his own property for a period of one year, unless for military duty. This indicates to me that the remainder of the time, a person is free to carry arms off of their own property when not in military service.

If one wanted to dive deeper into Madison’s feelings on democracy, you would only need to read his essay, “Vices of the Political System,” detailing the flaws of the Articles of Confederation. Madison’s wrote that one of the largest problems with the Articles was that tyrannical majorities in the states passed unjust laws violating the rights of numerical minorities. Especially vexing was the oppression of religious dissenters in Virginia, which caused Madison to become the leading advocate for the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

As a result, Madison drafted the Virginia Plan. The Virginia Plan was a framework that was a population weighted state representation plan that became the basis for our entire system of government. (Of course, we destroyed that when we passed the 17th Amendment.) The reason why this is important is to illustrate that Virginia would NEVER have joined the Union if the Bill of Rights hadn’t been passed. Madison felt that the Second Amendment was central to prevention of the tyranny of the majority.

The article by Politico is an out and out lie about, well, everything. There is no point arguing with someone who is lying about the facts. This is an indication that they are not arguing in good faith and are taking their position with the intent of ruling over you.

By Divemedic, ago

Reading Comprehension

New York has come up with a genius plan for circumventing the recent SCOTUS decision: they want to declare all of NY a “gun free zone,” this proving that they haven’t actually read the decision. If they HAD read it, they would know that SCOTUS already rejected that argument:

That said, respondents’ attempt to characterize New York’s proper-cause requirement as a “sensitive-place” law lacks merit because there is no historical basis for New York to effectively declare the island of Manhattan a “sensitive place” simply because it is crowded

By Divemedic, ago

Breaking SCOTUS Decision

SCOTUS releases decision in NY pistol case, ruling that New York’s means test is unconstitutional. The decision can be found here (pdf alert). A couple of money quotes:

Indeed, the Court recognized in Heller at least one way in which the Second Amendment’s historically fixed meaning applies to new circumstances: Its reference to “arms” does not apply “only [to] those arms in existence in the 18th century.”

Here is another gem where SCOTUS declares that we have a right to bear arms outside of the home:

The Court has little difficulty concluding also that the plain text of the Second Amendment protects Koch’s and Nash’s proposed course of conduct—carrying handguns publicly for self-defense. Nothing in the Second Amendment’s text draws a home/public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear arms, and the definition of “bear” naturally encompasses public carry.

There are also some phrases that may come back to haunt gun owners because they discuss historical restrictions that form the basis of what the court would find constitutional. For example:

the common-law offenses of “affray” or going armed “to the terror
of the people” continued to impose some limits on firearm carry in the
antebellum period.

It seems like the court is saying that either concealed or open carry must at a minimum be permitted:

In the early to mid-19th century, some States began enacting laws that proscribed the concealed carry of pistols and other small weapons. But the antebellum state-court decisions upholding them evince a consensus view that States could not altogether prohibit the public carry of arms protected by the Second Amendment or state analogues.

or this one that I can see as the foundation for a challenge to “assault weapons”:

The statutes essentially prohibited bearing arms in a way that spread “fear” or “terror” among the people, including by carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

There is a lot here, and a further review by someone more knowledgeable than I is needed. One thing is for sure: the lower courts will be visiting this topic for years, but at least we have a win for gun rights.

By Divemedic, ago

Getting Help

Back in 2012, I posted about something from my past that applies to the whole “red flag” debate. I’m going to repost it here.

2003

Three minutes after the initial call to 911, we arrived at
the front of a small, well-kept house, a typical one for the area. There
are toys scattered about the yard, undoubtedly left there by a small
child.

The first through the door, I arrive in a rush and take in
the scene. Even now, nineteen years later, that image is burned into my
memory as clearly as if it were yesterday. There is a small child lying
on the couch in the living room, a small pitiful figure, his skin is a
mottled gray. He is covered in water and appears lifeless.

An adult male is standing next to the couch. He is soaked from the waist down, his clothing disheveled; his eyes red-rimmed, he looks like a wild man. I will not find out that this man was the child’s uncle for
another fifteen minutes.

I pick up the child, and he is cold. He does not stir, even when I harshly pinch his arm. I move to the door to the safety and privacy of the truck.

On the way out to my ambulance, I quickly look him over. He is about three years old, 12 kilos or so. Lying lifeless in my arms, he doesn’t appear to be doing very well. He isn’t breathing and has no pulse. My mind already computing drug dosages and accessing protocols, I reach for my radio and called in a “code” to the dispatch center.

I place my lips over the child’s mouth, and give gentle breaths. Chest compressions. Breaths.

We arrive at the truck, and I select the proper sized ET tube, and slide
it down his throat. My partner begins squeezing the bag, and I start an
IV.

I place him on the monitor, and I note that he is in asystole. Not good.

I spent the next 40 minutes fighting the battle that I knew we had lost before we even arrived.

As the helicopter flew away, taking with it the small, pitiful body once
so full of life, so precious to all who knew him, his Uncle approached
and asked me what he should tell his brother. He wanted to know how to tell a man that his baby boy drowned in a backyard pool while his Uncle took a shower. He then put his head on my shoulder, wrapped his arms around me and cried for the next ten minutes.

I went back to the station, numb. I didn’t know what to feel. All I knew was that I was empty, spent. In the weeks that followed, I had a harder and harder time going to work and functioning. I finally told my supervisor, who referred me to CISM. I was in therapy for that call for a while. It was hard to deal with. I even took anti-depressant medication for about 6 months. It was tough living with the ghosts of that call. I still get teary eyed sometimes when I think about that day, about what I could have done differently. Normal reactions, I think, to such a tragedy.

There are those who would deny me the right to own a firearm because I feel pain at the loss of a child. They wish to see people lose their rights without a hearing or a trial, simply because they sought help when they needed it. Millions of Americans seek therapy, take anti-depressants, and own firearms. None of them killed anyone yesterday.

No, they claim that being depressed at the thought of holding a dead child, at failing in the attempt to save his life, at having to console his mourning caregiver is an abnormal reaction that makes you a potential homicidal killer who needs to be stripped of his rights.

Those same people argue that it is completely sane for a parent to hire a doctor to surgically remove a child’s penis, because that child says he wants to be a girl today, even though that same child believed that he was a robot yesterday and a T-rex last week.

They argue that you can hire a lawyer, go to a hearing, and fight to try to get your rights back. The easier answer?

Suffer in silence.

Isn’t that what they claim is wrong with forcing trannies and fags to stay in the closet?

By Divemedic, ago