Antigun

My Thoughts on Uvalde

Anther shooting, and the left is predictably dancing in the victim’s blood before the scene is even cleared or the families of the dead are notified. It’s so predictable: calls for gun control that would not have mattered. The current calls are for universal background checks (in other words, gun registration). This young man who did the shooting had a clear record, would have passed a background check, and a proposed BG check law would have done nothing.

No, every shooting and its victims are simply political fodder to advance a political agenda. The left doesn’t give a rip about the victims, except to the extent that they can be used to advance that agenda, truth and facts be damned. As we proved just this week on this very blog, the left doesn’t care about facts, logic, or the truth.

To debate the left about gun control is a complete waste of time, because they won’t listen. So I just won’t do it. You want gun control? No. Your move.

No, what I want to talk about is social media’s responsibility for this shooting. He was a troubled child that grew into a troubled young man. The clues were there, but as often happens in these cases, no one said anything. Word is, the shooter posted pictures of his guns to social media, and said that a shooting was coming. He actually told one woman it was coming.

In the hours leading up to the killings, the shooter reportedly showed off his guns to an LA-based woman via his Instagram page, taunting that he was ‘about to do’ something.

When the woman asked what, he said: ‘I’ll tell you before 11.’ He began shooting at noon.

The school had purchased technology to monitor social media, but it apparently didn’t work.

So now we come to the point I am trying to make. I have been tossed into Facebook jail dozens of times. Sometimes within minutes of posting something that didn’t agree with their leftist viewpoints. So how can a person post threats to carry out a mass shooting, and Instagram (the site where the threatening posts were made) didn’t notice?

The technology exists for social media companies to monitor what people post. We know it, because they have done it for the past several years. Why don’t they report these things? The only possible answer is that they don’t because they WANT more shootings so the dead victims can be used to advance their agenda.

By Divemedic, ago

Licensing Update

My post from earlier this week on the proposal for national firearms licenses needs a bit of a follow up. Slate has jumped on their usual antigun bandwagon to write a screed in support of this plan. As expected, it hits every tired lefty talking point.

They claim that the AR15 is “two hundred times more lethal than the revolutionary muskets that helped win the American Revolution.” Of course, they ignore the fact that they published this article on the Internet, a speech platform that allows 1,000 times more child pornographers to exist than did handwritten bills of Benjamin Franklin, with the point being that changes in technology to not erode individual rights.

The authors at Slate refer to adherence to the Constitution as “originalist fantasy” as if the very document that grants power to the government in the first place were some piece of paper that can be ignored at the whim of a government official. In that, they are correct: the Constitution CAN be ignored by government officials. The founders knew that, which is why the RKBA exists in the first place. They knew that, one day, this very attitude was likely to take hold, the people themselves would need to take action, and access to arms would be necessary to right the wrongs of government tyranny. The article continues:

Alito appears to have gathered his facts about guns and subways from old Charles Bronson movies, not the meticulously documented evidence about gun violence and regulation supplied in the public health brief filed in the case. Unfortunately, Alito and the court’s new originalist majority appear to have difficulty telling fact from fiction. Indeed, instead of consulting history, as originalist theory requires, the justices seem perfectly happy to parrot the propaganda dished out in briefs bought and paid for by the NRA and other extremists gun rights groups.

Note that they attack Alito and the court. This is all a continuation of the attacks that are needed for the left to pack the court, and Alito is a target of their ire, especially in light of Alito’s own attacks on Roe v. Wade in his leaked opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. That particular event has made him the current political enemy number one of the left. I would daresay that he is about to overtake Trump as the left’s most hated man in America. The very next paragraph is a large tell:

It is bitterly ironic that the arguments and logic that Justice Alito put forth in his leaked draft opinion in Dobbs

The opinion that the 2A protects RKBA is referred to as a “libertarian gun rights fantasy” that confuses James Madison with Dirty Harry. What they forget is that Dirty Harry wasn’t a citizen trying to protect himself from government overreach, he was a cop who was enforcing his own version of the law using firearms and a monopoly on force that have largely been denied to the citizens he was sworn to protect.

The article attempts to make the case that states after the Civil War were “empowered by this recognition of express constitutional authority to robustly regulate arms in public, dozens of states and cities enacted laws limiting guns in public, including good cause permitting schemes similar to that in New York,” while leaving out that many of those laws were enacted to prevent the now freed slaves from having access to firearms.

Let the court decide that Americans actually have gun rights, let them actually decide that women don’t have a Constitutional right to kill their children, then follow that with their inability to pack SCOTUS to change it, and you will see a left that becomes insanely violent. Remember how they scream like petulant children when Trump defeated HRC? Remember that it was then that the left began systematically trying to destroy Trump by using the power of the swamp?

I used to think that CW2 would be triggered when the left pushed the right too far. I feel that I may have been wrong. It will be the left that kicks off CW2, and SCOTUS just might be the catalyst.

By Divemedic, ago

National Licensing

Democrats are proposing a license issued by the DOJ in order to purchase, possess, or obtain a firearm. In order to get this license, you would need to be at least 21 years old, pass a written and practical exam, be fingerprinted, and prove your identity.

Can you imagine of Republicans initiated a similar plan for voting registration, obtaining an abortion, or receiving welfare?

Not only is this unconstitutional, but I will not obey. This merely lets the feds know where all of the firearms are for when the confiscations begin. Nope. Not now, not ever.

By Divemedic, ago

The Only Winning Move

The left is using the shooting in New York and is going to come at us with every gun control move that they have. There is nothing that they love as much as pools of blood that they can joyously dance in while they call for more control that everyone knows will not work.

  • You could counter their arguments by pointing out that the US, despite having more guns in private hands than the rest of the world combined, still has fewer homicides than half of the nations in the world.
  • You could argue that, even in nations where guns are banned, suicide rates are much higher than the US. The US has a combined suicide/homicide rate of 16.6 per 100,000 while South Korea, where firearms are virtually illegal, has a rate of 29.8. Canada, where there is severe gun control and handguns are virtually illegal: 18.3 per 100,000.
  • You could argue that the US counts all deaths where one person kills another as homicides, while some countries like Australia only counts a death as a homicide if someone is arrested and charged for the killing. Unsolved murders don’t count. Murders where the killer is already dead don’t count. This skews the statistics.
  • You could also argue that population density has a larger correlation to homicide and suicide rates than does gun ownership.

At one point or another, we have all made each of these arguments in gun control debates. They are based upon logic and facts, and backed with scores of studies and mountains of statistical evidence.

And they are always ignored.

The left bases its arguments on emotion and catchphrases. The don’t care about science, don’t care about evidence, unless it is convenient to do so in support of their position. All other facts are ignored. Arguing something like this is a waste of time. I know, because I have wasted my time like this for decades.

As they say in War Games, the only winning move is not to play. So don’t.

I will not turn in my guns. Just in case you feel that confiscating them is the answer and you send the cops over to take them, there are two outcomes of that plan.

  1. You will lose a lot of cops. Eventually, the cops will stop taking the chance.
  2. You won’t get anywhere near all of the guns

So my answer to gun laws is this: No.

Your move.

By Divemedic, ago

‘Ghost’ Gun

Governments are jumping on the boogieman of so-called ‘ghost’ guns, which as you all know, are privately made firearms. That isn’t how they are defining it, though. Just like how the anti-gunners redefined “assault weapons” to be a moving target that no one really can define or understand, ghost guns are a made up term that can mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean.

Cities are passing bans against possessing or even looking longingly at ghost guns, which they are defining as any gun without a serial number. This casts a wide net that will capture such things as C&R firearms. Many firearms made before GCA68 became the law of the land do not have, and were not required to have, serial numbers. To engrave a collectable firearm with a serial number would destroy its value, while not engraving that firearm with a serial number makes you a criminal.

Yet passing a law that prohibits privately made firearms will do as much to stop criminals as it did to stop illicit drug dealers. When a person can make a submachine gun for less than $100 of Home Depot parts and some common hand tools, there is little that can be done to stop them. They are making firearms in caves in Pakistan, and in the jungles of the Philippines:

By Divemedic, ago

Well, Well, Well

The sheriff’s office in Santa Fe has released a video showing that not only did Alec Baldwin point a firearm at his camerawoman, he had his finger on the trigger when he did it. The raw footage from the day of the incident shows Baldwin practicing his draw. He draws multiple times with his finger on the trigger, and at 2:34, you can see him thumb the hammer back and pull the trigger. (hat tip to Emily Post)

I don’t expect that this will cause any Greek philosophers to admit they were wrong, but this seems to prove that my initial position was correct:

Alec Baldwin took a firearm that he didn’t bother to check to see if it was loaded, pointed it at someone, and pulled the trigger. These acts resulted in the death of another person. This makes that person’s death the result of his (and possibly others’) negligence. Her death, her blood, is on his hands. Saying that “he wasn’t trained” doesn’t absolve him of his responsibility for what happened, any more than it would absolve him if he crashed a plane he was flying without first receiving pilot training.

By Divemedic, ago

Antigun Republican

Florida’s District 28 contains Winter Springs and Oviedo. Your state Representative is Davis Smith, a Republican. He is also opposed to open carry.

Open carry is publicly wearing a sidearm wherever you want in the state. … And there are some states that have it. I don’t believe open carry is right for Florida. Why? Because those European tourists spend, you know, seven times as much…South American tourists spend four times as much as American.

Our economy…does everybody like not having an income tax in Florida? Yeah. So we have a sales tax and our economy is tourism. And cultures that don’t grow up with guns, don’t have the NRA and gun safety…The NRA is the single largest gun safety organization in the United States. That’s why I’m a life member of the NRA.

And so, for business reasons, I don’t think that open carry is right for Florida. Constitutional carry, or permitless carry, is different and I’ll tell you, I’m undecided on the issue. I’m open, and if the bill gets filed and we’re gonna hear it, you’re welcome to come talk to me and lobby….

Just because the Democrats are your enemy doesn’t make Republicans your friend.

By Divemedic, ago

The Clock is Ticking

So now that I have had a chance to review the new ATF gun grab, I can say that I anticipated much of what was in there. However, there is one part that I must admit not being adequately equipped for. Upper receivers are now considered to be firearms, as are 80 percent lowers. This creates a national problem for the USA, as well as a personal problem for me.

Since uppers are now firearms, and any unserialized firearm that comes into the possession of any FFL must be serialized, this is going to be a big problem. Unless an FFL holder is an 07 (manufacturer), it looks like the serial number has to come from the ATF itself. This will cause every handgun slide and every AR upper to be serialized (registered) with an ATF provided serial number. This sets up a nationwide firearm registry.

If I am correct about this, this creates a real problem for every gun owner in the country. This kind of registration has only one purpose: confiscation.

Now I anticipated 80 percent lowers becoming firearms. The uppers, I did not. Over the past year, I have managed to amass a good number of 80 percent lowers and stripped uppers of the AR15, Glock 19, and the AR308 varieties. A <classified> number of them have already been converted into firearms. Due to supply chain issues, what I have is a mismatch between the number of uppers and the number of lowers. Some of that has been corrected, but I am stuck on others. I need a few Glock uppers (slide assemblies), and a small number of AR308 uppers. I can’t find bargains right now on either one. They are all out of stock or so expensive that I just can’t justify it.

The clock is ticking. I have just a few weeks to secure what I need, create the firearms, and cache them before it becomes a crime.

By Divemedic, ago

New Gun Laws

Biden’s ATF released new gun laws today. I tried to get a quick read on its impact, but that will be impossible. The released document is nearly 400 pages long, and is a complicated, confusing mess that will take lawyers and the courts years to settle. Read it for yourself (pdf warning) as I have hosted it here at Sector Ocho for your convenience.

The Biden administration has, through the ATF, completely circumvented Congress and rewritten US law.

My initial opinion on this new law is that it is vague and open to numerous interpretation, which is exactly how the ATF has always done business. For example, it defines an externally visible housing or holding structure or one or more fire control components to be considered as a frame or receiver. Examples of fire control components may include but are not limited to any of the following parts: bolt, bolt carrier breechblock cylinder, firing pin, hammer, striker, slide rails or trigger mechanism.

Does this mean AR upper receivers and slides for handguns will begin to be considered as firearms too? It’s quite possible!

This will be a mess.

By Divemedic, ago