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.

‘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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

President Potato is Wrong

President Biden made a speech on gun control in New York. He said that

When the [Second] Amendment was passed, it didn’t say that anyone could own any kind of gun and any kind of weapon. You couldn’t buy a cannon when this Amendment was passed, so there’s no reason why you should be able to buy certain assault weapons.

President Joe Biden on gun control

The Amendment didn’t say that, for two reasons: First, the Amendments to the Constitution don’t say that people can do anything. The Amendments say that the GOVERNMENT can’t do things. The government can’t infringe on the right keep to bear arms, is what it says. Second, people DID own cannons. Privately organized and funded artillery companies in the colonies date all the way back to the 1630s. A century later, in the 1740s, there are records of Benjamin Franklin helping organize artillery companies while stressing that they were made completely of volunteers and armed at their own expense.

One of the driving forces behind the first major battles of the Revolutionary was because the British soldiers were coming to confiscate privately-owned arms – including cannons and mortars – such as ones that were being held by veterans of the French and Indian War as war trophies.

In fact, there were people who owned entire warships. See my post on this from 2013.

During the course of the Revolution, approximately 1,700 letters of Marque were issued to privateers. In the War of 1812, President James Madison issued more than 500 letters of Marque to privateers. These letters of marque created what was, essentially, legal piracy, and it was sanctioned by the government and even deemed necessary. So how did these privateers arm their vessels? With cannons that they purchased as individuals.

Our colonial navy had approximately 1,200 cannons on board less than 65 ships. The privateers, on the other hand, had almost 15,000 cannons – all privately owned.

The National Firearms Act of 1934, which is, by far, the most restrictive piece of Federal legislation related to the ownership of arms, says nothing about cannons. It wasn’t until 1968 that things we regard as modern artillery were regulated further when ‘destructive devices’ were added to the law.

But muzzleloading cannons, like the ones used during the Revolutionary War remain conspicuously absent in any legislation. You could buy a cannon as an individual in the Revolution era, and you can still buy one today as an individual.

The President then went on to say that the DOJ will be issuing restrictions on guns made at home within the next few weeks, what he calls a “National ghost gun enforcement initiative.” He also took a shot at the “assault weapon” boogieman.

You know, futures cut short by a man with a stolen Glock with 40 rounds. A magazine with 40 rounds. And it’s really a weapon of war. One of the things I was proudest of years ago when I was in the Senate, I was able to get these weapons and the size of magazines outlawed, that got changed, got overruled, but I don’t see any rationale why there should be such a weapon able to be purchased. It doesn’t violate anybody’s Second Amendment rights to deny that.

President Joe Biden on the ’94 Assault Weapons Ban

The law didn’t get overruled. It expired. Because the law had a ten year expiration date built into it.

The President is also claiming that outlawing weapons doesn’t violate your right to own them. Since when?

Illegal Search

My wife and I recently had a date night. One of the places we went was to the Amway center to see comedian Gabriel Iglesias. When we entered the arena, we had to pass through magnetometers. I believe that this is illegal. Let me explain:

The Amway center is owned by the City of Orlando. They prohibit all weapons using this rule:

Although by state law, the City cannot regulate the admission of patrons with weapons, the vast majority of private event promoters who use the Amway Center do not allow patrons with weapons to be admitted to their events.

Every event that I have attended there has used those magnetometers. I sure would be interested in seeing the process for this. I am betting that there is a ‘standard contract’ that is signed that allows the city to hide behind this legal figleaf of claiming it is what the promoters want. Something like “sign here, this is our standard contract” and the contract has a clause in it that says “I promise not to allow anyone with weapons into my event.”

Why? Because Orlando is run by that fucking left wing asshole Buddy Dyer, who hasn’t seen a restriction on gun ownership that he doesn’t like. He has openly stated that he wants all guns to be illegal within the City of Orlando.

I also want to remind everyone that it is not illegal to enter this facility with a weapon. It is only illegal if they discover that you have a weapon, then ask you to leave, and you refuse. So I roll the dice and try anyway. Let’s just say that it is indeed possible to enter the Amway arena with weapons (plural) and not get caught.

Liberals on Rittenhouse

A liberal who admits that he didn’t watch a single moment of the trial, and who admits that he knows nothing about criminal law, is full of opinions on the Rittenhouse case, and claims that it sets a bad precedent: That anyone can pick up a gun and declare that they can go a “police a protest.”

He goes on to claim that this is an assault on free speech, because people will be intimidated because people can “show up with a gun” to stifle protests.

He claims that a person shows up to a protest with a gun is guilty of manslaughter, because a reasonable person should know that “something bad can happen” as a result.