This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists

  • Gabby Giffords: 2d Amendment is war against women

    Gabby Giffords: 2d Amendment is war against women

    Gabby and a gun

    So, former Congresswoman, Gabriel Giffords who has made it her life’s work to grab guns from law abiding citizens took to the pages of CNN this week to declare that gun laws endanger women because of this dude in Houston, Ron Lee Haskell who tragically murdered 4 children and two adults.

    This month, just outside of Houston, a man police say had a history of abusing and threatening women got his hands on a gun and executed six members of his ex-wife’s family — including four children. On that day, local law enforcement officials believe he was on his way to hunt down other family members when, thankfully, they ended his rampage.

    In our country, it’s a sadly common story: An abuser or stalker gains access to guns and destroys the lives of women and families in our communities.

    That’s why it is time for Congress to address this lethal mix of domestic violence and guns. Our leaders must pass laws that prevent stalkers and abusers from accessing guns to intimidate, hurt or kill women.

    While I agree with her that criminals who have been proven so in the courtroom, Haskell is the wrong example to use. According to Salon, who actually asks the question in their headline “How Did He Get a Gun?” without answering it, Haskell was under a restraining order;

    To no one’s great surprise, Haskell had been arrested for domestic violence in 2008, and his ex-wife filed a protective order against him in 2013. All of which leads to the question: Considering the laws put in place, both on federal and state levels, to prevent domestic abusers from getting guns, how did Haskell get one?

    While we don’t know yet if the gun Haskell used was legally obtained, Hannah Levintova and Dana Liebelson put together a chilling report at Mother Jones that shows that, due to multiple loopholes that the NRA fiercely lobbies to protect, “his case appears to be the latest example of how easy it remains for domestic abusers to possess firearms, thanks to weak legislation.”

    Yeah, well, there’s form that every gun buyer fills out when he buys a gun, the ATF-4473 which asks questions in regards to that. Here’s a copy;

    atf 4473

    See the question down there in paragraph (h)? It asks if you are subject to a restraining order. Question (i) asks if you’ve EVER been convicted of domestic abuse – so the answer to Salon’s question is “He got the gun illegally” because of a gun control law. No matter how Haskell got the gun – it was illegal already.

    So, Giffords continues;

    Between 2001 and 2012, more women were shot to death by an intimate partner in our country than the total number of American troops killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. That is a national shame.

    Fortunately, the momentum is on our side. On Wednesday, the Senate will hold its first-ever hearing on domestic violence homicides and the use of gun violence against America’s women. Many of our elected leaders are calling for new protections for those who are subject to abuse. States are already taking bipartisan action. And Americans support these laws by staggering margins.

    Since she’s using the example of Haskell and not telling us the truth about how he got a gun, it seems reasonable to me that no more laws would have helped in that case, unless they want to pass a law that expedites permission for a woman to arm herself if she’s been threatened.

    Currently, federal law prevents people who are under domestic violence protection orders or have misdemeanor domestic violence convictions from accessing guns. But even though increasing numbers of couples are choosing to marry later in life, the law hasn’t been extended to address dating partner abuse. And convicted stalkers can still get guns.

    Well, the question on the ATF 4473 says “intimate partner”, it doesn’t say “wife” “ex-wife” or “gay lover” – “intimate partner” seems to me to address “dating partner abuse”, there, Gabby.

    Common sense says that these dangerous loopholes should be closed now. Congress has the power to do it.

    Like the gun show loophole needs to be closed.

    My problem with this law is not that I want women to be less safe, the gun control activists want to relieve people of their gun rights without Fourth Amendment protections of due process. They want to take away people’s guns rights by simply filing a piece of paper with the court – it’s happened once to me but it wasn’t a domestic situation. It was pure vindictiveness. It amounted to punishment without my day in court.

    And what’s the point anyway if there are already laws on the books? I wouldn’t trust this Congress to change toilet paper rolls in the men’s room, let alone let them write gun laws – and Gabby Giffords is good example of the disingenuous denizens of that legislative body.

  • Nicholas Kristof: Our Blind Spot About Guns

    In the pages of the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof writes an opinion piece titled Our Blind Spot About Guns. Kristof isn’t the brightest bulb, we’ve talked about some of his idiot pieces before. Like the time he thought that we should cut our military, back in 2010 and again the following year when he advocating for a tax hike using the Clinton model. So what’s the little fellow want now? Well, gun control of course.

    If we had the same auto fatality rate today that we had in 1921, by my calculations we would have 715,000 Americans dying annually in vehicle accidents.

    Instead, we’ve reduced the fatality rate by more than 95 percent — not by confiscating cars, but by regulating them and their drivers sensibly.

    We could have said, “Cars don’t kill people. People kill people,” and there would have been an element of truth to that. Many accidents are a result of alcohol consumption, speeding, road rage or driver distraction. Or we could have said, “It’s pointless because even if you regulate cars, then people will just run each other down with bicycles,” and that, too, would have been partly true.

    Well, you can see where he’s going with his mud puddle deep intellect – if we regulate cars, why don’t we regulate guns the same way? Um, we already do regulate guns. Of course, before he gets there, it’s a lot of blather about how courts overturned attempts to regulate drivers and automobiles. How horses were frightened and noisy mechanical beasts roamed unchecked through the dusty streets at a high rate of speed. Finally, we accepted regulation of automobiles – so would we finally accept increased regulation of our firearms.

    Kristof recognizes that that pesky 2d Amendment gets in the way of his theme, but that doesn’t stop him from plunge headlong into the morass. He writes;

    There are similar technological and behavioral fixes that can ease the toll of gun violence, from expanded background checks to trigger locks to smart guns that recognize a thumbprint, just like my iPhone does.”

    Some of these should be doable. A Quinnipiac poll this month found 92 percent support for background checks for all gun buyers.

    He overlooks the questions in that poll where interviewees respond almost evenly on whether we need stricter gun control. The question that the poll people asked folks in regards to background checks was “59. Do you support or oppose requiring background checks for all gun buyers?” and it got 92% supporters and most gun buyers already submit to background checks.

    The next question in the poll is “60. Do you support or oppose laws to prevent people with mental illness from purchasing guns?” an almost equal percentage, 89%, support that proposal. So any rational person would come away from that series of questions with the belief that Americans support backgrounds checks if they caught people with mental illness in that net. But not Kristof;

    These steps won’t eliminate gun deaths any more than seatbelts eliminate auto deaths. But if a combination of measures could reduce the toll by one-third, that would be 10,000 lives saved every year.

    Less than 1% of guns that were bought at gun shows that would be subject to the gun control laws that Democrats tried to pass last year are used in crimes according to the Center for Disease Control. How that would reduce the toll of gun deaths by a third is beyond me.

    Gun manufacturers have been including trigger locks with new firearms for years – does Kristof suggest that the police check my guns in my home to see if I’m using trigger locks on my guns? As long as we’re trashing the 2d Amendment here, we might as well toss aside the 4th as well.

    Like I said, Kristof is a dim bulb, but in several cases, folks feel better about themselves when they advocate for some of his proposals, so I’m just getting out in front of the stank ass hippies in regards to this smelly garbage.

  • Bloomberg ad sends opposite message

    The Bloomberg group Everytown for Gun Safety made this video to make the issue of restricting domestic violence about guns, but it seems to have the opposite effect. A woman is being stalked by her ex-whatever so she calls the police and before the police arrive, he takes the child and shoots the woman. From FoxNY;

    New York News

    Of course, if the stalker had a hammer or a screwdriver or a heavy vase, the police still wouldn’t have arrived in time to rescue the woman, so the ad seems to advocate for women to arm themselves. Well, to a rational person, anyway.

  • Gun Prosecutions Fall 25% under Obama

    Gun Prosecutions Fall 25% under Obama

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    The Washington Times reports that federal prosecutors are taking fewer criminals to task for their use of firearms in crimes.Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse analyzed the data at the request of the Times and found that, although this administration talks tough about gun crimes, their actions speak louder;

    U.S. attorneys have been slowing gun prosecutions even further, with 2,598 brought in the first seven months of this fiscal year. The pace of activity puts the Justice Department on track to prosecute the fewest ATF cases since 2000, well before the drug gang wars in Mexico sharply increased violence on both sides of the border.

    “We have this irony. The Obama administration, which is asking for more in the way of gun regulations — in terms of increased background checks for private sales and at gun shows — is actually prosecuting less of the gun laws already on the books,” said Robert Cottrol, a gun control historian at George Washington University. “For a lot of people, there’s more ideological cache harassing Bubba at the gun show than getting a handle on gun crime.”

    Well, they like writing legislation and it’s harder to control the behavior of people who don’t follow the laws – but controlling people who obey the law makes them feel like they’re accomplishing something. But people who obey the law, by definition, aren’t the problem. That’s why the trolls come in here and scold us for clinging to our guns and blocking legislation – they can’t assuage their guilt, they’re not “doing something, anything”. And it’s our fault.

    Thanks to Old Trooper for the link.

  • Beretta USA packs their bags

    Robert sends us a link to the Beretta USA website that announces that they’re moving lock, stock and barrel to Tennessee. Previously, Beretta was only moving the manufacture of some guns to Tennessee, but they changed their minds, I guess;

    “During the legislative session in Maryland that resulted in passage of the Firearm Safety Act of 2013, the version of the statute that passed the Maryland Senate would have prohibited Beretta U.S.A. from being able to manufacture, store or even import into the State products that we sell to customers throughout the United States and around the world. While we were able in the Maryland House of Delegates to reverse some of those obstructive provisions, the possibility that such restrictions might be reinstated in the future leaves us very worried about the wisdom of maintaining a firearm manufacturing factory in the State,” stated Jeff Cooper, General Manager for Beretta U.S.A. Corp.

    “While we had originally planned to use the Tennessee facility for new equipment and for production of new product lines only, we have decided that it is more prudent from the point of view of our future welfare to move the Maryland production lines in their entirety to the new Tennessee facility,” Cooper added.

    The transition of production from Beretta U.S.A.’s Maryland facility to the Tennessee facility will not occur until 2015 and will be managed so as not to disrupt deliveries to Beretta customers. Beretta U.S.A.’s production of the U.S. Armed Forces M9 9mm pistol will continue at the Accokeek, Maryland facility until all current orders from the U.S. Armed Forces have been filled.

    So, Governor Marty O’Malley’s blindsiding gun owners and dealers in Maryland had consequences. Wiki says the plant in Maryland has about 400 employees. And O’Malley has his eye on the White House or the Naval Observatory.

  • Chicago ordered to pay NRA’s legal expenses

    The Washington Times reports that the court has ordered the city of Chicago to pay the National Rifle Association’s legal costs in a recent case;

    The NRA had challenged a Chicago law banning gun sales within the city limits that a federal court ruled unconstitutional in January.

    Chicago also paid the NRA $600,000 in legal fees following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 ruling that the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms applies to the states.

    And they still haven’t learned with their unnecessarily complex attempt at restructuring their laws so no one will ever be able to comply with the new rules. But, hey, it’s only taxpayer money, right?

  • Philip Bump: Americans overwhelmingly support background checks on guns. Why doesn’t Congress?

    So, this fellow, Philip Bump, writes in the Washington Post “Americans overwhelmingly support background checks on guns. Why doesn’t Congress?”. His cute little piece is based on a Quinnipiac poll taken July 3rd, 2014 and the question that was asked was; “59. Do you support or oppose requiring background checks for all gun buyers?” The poll analysis is;

    American voters support 92 – 7 percent, including 92 – 6 percent among gun owners, requiring background checks for all gun buyers. Support ranges from 86 – 11 percent among Republicans to 98 – 2 percent among Democrats.

    Mr Bump writes;

    People support background checks. But opponents of expanded background checks, who see that expansion as a form of gun control, have been effective at linking the two. Combined with the political power of groups like the National Rifle Association, that’s enough to keep Congress from doing anything at all.

    See, that’s two different things. Folks were asked if they support background checks for all gun buyers. But Mr. Bump is talking about “expanded background checks”. As the law stands now, with the exception of some private sales, all gun buyers are subjected to background checks. If I was asked if I support background checks I’d answer in the affirmative – I do. I don’t want criminals, minors and the mentally deficient to be able to buy guns. Do I want the government to be able to have a system in place that could be later turned into a gun registry? Nope. And that’s why the gun control bill failed in the Senate last year.

    Bump can complain and complain about the NRA, but the NRA is made up of people like me, and it’s the loudest voice legal gun owners have on the issue. It’s no different that the American Legion or VFW that gives veterans a voice on our issues.

    The poll also asks; “60. Do you support or oppose laws to prevent people with mental illness from purchasing guns?”

    And the numbers are about the same; 90/91% for Republican/Democrat. 89/88% for men/women. 91% of people with a gun their household support it. So why isn’t Congress acting on that portion of gun control? Certainly, the NRA doesn’t oppose keeping the mentally ill from owning guns. So what’s the problem Mr. Bump? And why didn’t you mention that in your silly little unnecessary graphics? I know what 92% means, I don’t need pictures.

    Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.

  • Phony Vietnam veteran introduces bill to suspend 4th Amendment protections

    Phony Vietnam veteran introduces bill to suspend 4th Amendment protections

    The Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution reads;

    The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

    Basically, it says that you have the right to due process before the government can take your stuff. Well, that phony Vietnam veteran, the Senator from Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal has introduced a bill in the Senate which will abrogate that right for gun owners simply because they’re accused of violent behavior whether it’s true or not. Especially in restraining order matters;

    Temporary restraining orders generally are given for a two-week period to allow time to set up a court date for the accused to defend himself or herself before a judge.

    Under these proposals, firearms could be taken during that period — as opposed to current law which only allows for that to happen when someone is convicted of domestic violence or subject to a final restraining order.

    Yeah, if I was intending to do harm to my neighbor, but I knew that he had a gun, all I’d have to do is go down to the local courthouse, swear out a restraining order, and then, voila, he’s disarmed.

    In fact, it’s happened to me twice in the last year in retaliation for stolen valor busts here at TAH. I suspect that one restraining order was filed just so I would lose my guns so a particular mentally deficient fellow could confront me at my home. The other douche nozzle did it just to harass me. Which is easy to do, actually – you just go the courthouse, tell a tear-filled story and swear to it, whether you’re lying or not, and the order gets issued. In fact, you’re subject to the order without knowing about it.

    But, yeah, who would have thought that a Valor thief would think that it’s perfectly cool to suspend Constitutional protections. The gun grabbers think it’s a great idea.

    [DC Council Woman Mary] Cheh said in an interview that the high degree of danger that a domestic partner faces right after seeking help “weighs in favor of getting the gun first — for a short period of time — and then sorting it out later.” She said that, “It’s not right to say they don’t have due process. They don’t have it right away. Under a temporary restraining order, they will have to give up their guns for 14 days.”

    The Democrat said her bill is “perfectly consistent with due process” because it allows for the accused to defend themselves in court, even if that defense is delayed. Cheh, who is a constitutional law professor, said she has “complete confidence” that her bill would be upheld by the courts.

    I have complete confidence that, if the same method was applied to abortion rights or environmental regulations, Cheh would be opposed. Only when it’s applied to gun owners does it seem reasonable. I’d be interested in seeing the statistics which would point to a need for this law. I suspect that it’s just another attempt at making people feel safer without actually doing something. And as long as it’s only those evil lawful gun owners who are sacrificing their Constitutional rights, what’s the big deal? Right?