Category: Guns

  • Liberal Logic: Self-Defense Contradicts Justice

    Liberal Logic: Self-Defense Contradicts Justice

    Let me preface this with an apology for perusing on a liberal trash heap blog (Huffington Post).  But every once and a while you need a brief glimpse into the dysfunctional minds of the people who are behind Obama’s fundamental transformation of America.

    Today, I stumbled upon an “article” that attempted to argue that defending oneself (with a gun) contradicts justice.

    Feel free to read the entire article—it’s quite short.  But here are a few of the author’s pseudo-intellectual gems:

    (TRIGGER WARNING!!)

    “using a firearm to defend oneself is not legal because if the attacker is killed, he or she is devoid of his or her rights.”

    “A gun for civilians is a weapon for a revolution and not for ordinary use. The belief that a gun is a useful tool to protect one is counterintuitive because guns get into the hands of people who use them for horrible reasons.”

    If you take some of the article’s arguments to their logical conclusions, you are left with a society of helpless victims.

    Consider the statement,

    “The main problem with the notion of self-defense is it imposes on justice, for everyone has the right for a fair trial.”

    Evidently, the author does not concern himself with the reality that “self-defense” implies an attack, and criminals don’t regard “justice.”

    Only a liberal could ignore the fact that a “criminal” has abandoned his right to due process when he chooses to attack a fellow citizen, and that law-abiding citizens would be the only victims of his imagined utopia.

    The scariest part of this article is the title, “A Revision on the Bill of Rights, Part III”—I wonder what other liberal tweaks he has in mind?

  • “. . . . individuals are just not being held accountable for gun crimes”

    Jonn published an article yesterday based on this story.  But there are a couple of points here I thought warranted further emphasis, so I’m doing a follow-up.

    First point:  IMO significantly, Chicago police are decidedly not blaming this uptick in violent crime on fallout from the SCOTUS’s decision in McDonald v. Chicago (2010).  Rather, here they’re pointing the finger squarely at the courts – who in the opinion of Chicago’s police effectively are running a “revolving-door” prison system through excessive use of probation, short sentences for violent crimes, and early release of violent felons.

    Gee.  Not holding violent felons accountable for their crimes – specifically, by letting them out of prison after only a short incarceration, or by not incarcerating them at all – leads to more violent crime from the same violent felons.  Who’d a thunk that? Well, judges (and prosecutors; more about them below), lemme tell you: anyone with even a single iota of common sense could have told you that.  And now, the police have just told you exactly the same damn thing.

    It’s not that hard of a concept to grasp.  Bad actions that have few meaningful negative consequences simply are not deterred.  Instead, they’re repeated.  And running a “revolving-door prison system” through extensive use of short sentences, probation, and early release is a classic example of “bad actions having few meaningful negative consequences.”

    Second point: what’s just as significant here IMO is what the police are not requesting be done.  Remember:  this is “we love gun control by law” Chicago.  But here, the police are not calling for new gun control laws to fix a “gun violence” problem.  Instead, here they fairly clearly say that existing laws are sufficient; it is instead enforcement of these laws that is lacking – specifically, the post-conviction consequences part of enforcement.  They’ve therefore called for sentencing that takes violent felons “off the street” for protracted periods – mandated by changes to those portions of law involving sentencing as necessary.

    Based on this last point, anyone with common sense can see that new gun laws simply aren’t necessary to fix the problem; effectively enforcing those laws already “on the books”  is what’s needed.  It’s a point Jonn’s made repeatedly here at TAH, but it’s worth repeating here again.

    I’d like to think that judges (and prosecutors:  as commenter 2/17 Air Cav observed in comments to Jonn’s article yesterday, near-universal prosecutor willingness to “plea bargain” indiscriminately in order to keep conviction rates up is a second, big part of the problem) in Illinois and elsewhere will “get with the program” here and actually start taking dangerous, violent felons off the street for long stretches of time; it’s within their power now to do exactly that at sentencing.  But I’m not holding my breath – especially since there are now proposals in Congress to reduce or do away with mandatory minimum sentences for many Federal felonies. See the Fox News link (second link above, or in Jonn’s article) for details.

  • Newtown science teacher arrested for gun

    Newtown science teacher arrested for gun

    jason-adams-mugshot1-e1459975550546

    Hondo sends us a link to Fox News which reports that Jason Adams, a 46-year-old science teacher at Newtown, Connecticut middle school was arrested for bringing a gun to school.

    Adams was detained by school security after he was seen with the gun and then arrested by Newtown police who were called to Newtown Middle School, according to Police Chief James Viadero. Adams was charged with possession of a weapon on school grounds and released.

    From, the Hartford Currant;

    After an initial investigation by police and school district administration, Adams, who has a valid pistol permit, was charged with possession of a weapon on school grounds, a class D felony.

    School officials said that Adams, a science teacher at the school, was placed on leave pending the results of their investigation. Police said that Adams had also violated a school policy.

    “This matter is very serious and troubling, both the Newtown Public School system and the Newtown Police Department took immediate steps to address the matter. The teacher was immediately detained by security personnel,” the school system said in a statement.

    While I think that school administration is over-reacting to the situation, Adams, who taught at the school since 2006, should have been aware how controversial it would have been for him to bring a gun to that particular school. It is illegal, after all. If his intent was to carry the weapon concealed, apparently he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. According to Heavy, another teacher saw him with a gun and told the security personnel at the school

  • White resentment is fueling opposition to gun control, researchers say

    White resentment is fueling opposition to gun control, researchers say

    According to an article in the Washington Post, “White resentment is fueling opposition to gun control, researchers say“, in other words, gun ownership is just more of your white privilege. According to the article these two pointy-headed brainiacs, Alexandra Filindra and Noah J. Kaplan, determined that 1000 white people are more likely to oppose gun control after they looked at pictures of black people. Yeah, you read that correctly.

    [These] findings “demonstrate that racial prejudice influences white opinion regarding gun regulation in the contemporary United States,” Filindra and Kaplan conclude. But why would that be the case?

    To explain this, Filindra and Kaplan draw on a rich body of sociological literature about the language of racial resentment, especially among whites. Racial resentment, as Filindra and Kaplan define it, is a prejudice based in the belief that blacks don’t value independence and hard work and instead push for special rights conferred by the government. It upholds whites as morally superior while ignoring the structural advantages of whiteness.

    […]

    Using the language of freedom and individualism in this way “creates this duality between a generic deserving group – could be homeowners, students, law-abiding citizens – versus the ‘special rights’ that government is giving to a ‘less deserving’ group,” Filindra explained in an interview.

    I don’t know what the Hell that means. I’m thinking that all law abiding citizens of this country have the very same rights regardless of the melanin content of their skin. The pair of pointy-headed brainiacs claim that we use the language, that calling for rights for ‘law-abiding citizens’ and not for ‘criminals’ differentiates whites from blacks. It sounds to me like Filindra and Kaplan are the ones with racist problems. All of the people that I want to protect my family from are white – do I need to name names? I own more guns now than I’ve ever owned in my life, and according to Wiki, the town I live in now is 0.30% Black, so obviously I’m buying guns to protect myself from a bunch of white people.

    [F]or a certain subset of white gun-rights supporters, particularly those who are inclined to hold certain prejudicial beliefs, messages about individualism and liberty and rights are understood in a very specific way.

    In the mind of this type of gun owner, “I am showing my white nationalist pride in a sort of generic way through gun ownership,” Filindra posits. “This is my way of expressing my ‘more-equal-than-others’ status in a society where egalitarianism is the norm. I can’t say that some people are better and some are worse in terms of racial groups. But I can show it symbolically. I can show I’m a better citizen.”

    Balderdash. I own guns because of the inherent equality of law abiding citizens in this country, not some perverted sense of “more equal”. I guess this is more of the media’s attempt to make us feel guilty about gun ownership – like a year or so ago when they were calling us cowards for owning guns. Now we’re racist for owning guns.

  • Why your kid’s doctor needs to know if you own a gun

    The Washington Post prints an opinion piece n their pages by Angelica Zen and Alice Kuo, a doctor and a professor, entitled Do you own a gun? Why your kid’s doctor needs to know. Typically, the authors assume that you’re a boob and that a doctor and a professor know more about guns, storage of said guns, storage of ammunition and general gun safety than you know. They start from a point would have been inconceivable eight years ago – being that gun ownership is a public health care issue.

    Last month, I had to jump through my ass to find a doctor willing to sign a piece of paper which said that I was fully capable of driving with my disability. It didn’t ask doctors whether I could parallel park, but if I was medically capable of driving without going into a coma. I couldn’t find a doctor willing to sign it because they were afraid that they would be held liable for any accidents that might occur. Now they want to inject themselves into the gun debate? How does that liability look?

    In 2011, after a lobbying push by the National Rifle Association, Florida passed the Firearm Owners’ Privacy Act, restricting physicians from asking about gun ownership and from counseling about gun safety in routine appointments. Potential penalties include fines, suspension and loss of a medical license. A federal judge blocked the law as an unconstitutional restriction of doctors’ speech. Then an appeals court panel overturned the ruling, emphasizing patients’ rights to own guns and to privacy.

    This Florida case is just the latest example of how the politics of guns have affected physicians’ ability to bring science to bear on what experts can see plainly: That gun violence is a public health issue.

    Yeah, well, there’s the problem – it’s not a public health issue – it’s a public safety issue. There have been a number of tragic incidents recently in which toddlers were able to injure people with firearms, the good doctor and the professor make mention of some of them in their article. But they were not incidents that doctors would have been able to predict or interceded in given an opportunity to question their patients as to their gun ownership. Doctors are no better than anyone else in discussing gun safety.

    It’s like teachers thinking that they have a responsibility to teach kids to put condoms on bananas – just because they have a lot of classroom education, that doesn’t make them experts on everything under the sun. If states want to require a gun safety program for gun owners, well, that’s fine, but authorizing doctors to question their patients about guns will only cause mistrust in that relationship, like there is not enough mistrust in that relationship already.

    Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.

  • Gun dealer may have prevented mass shooting

    John Downs, owner of Downs Bait and Guns, looked up and down James Howard, who had just passed a background check for the purchase of a rifle and decided to not complete the sale, according to KTLA;

    “From what I know of the circumstances, I believe [Downs] did prevent a mass shooting that was probably going to occur at (Ohio University) in Athens,” said Hocking County Sheriff’s Office Sheriff Lanny North. “[Howard] had an enormous amount of ammunition he was going to purchase, shotgun shells and 22-caliber rifle ammunition.”

    In fact, Downs was so sure that Howard was a risk, when Howard returned to the store after he was denied the gun purchase, Downs turned off the lights, locked the door and got his customers on the floor, while he loaded some guns to protect himself.

    According to NBC4i, earlier that day, the 25-year-old student had assaulted a staff member at the college. He was arrested at another store for burglary. He was buying ammunition for a shotgun he had just bought.

    Howard had been previously admitted to a mental health facility, but that didn’t raise a flag on his NICS background check. Only a gun dealer with a conscience prevented the arming of a nutcase. And no one had to write a new law.

  • WV’s Senate overturns Governor’s concealed weapon veto

    WV’s Senate overturns Governor’s concealed weapon veto

    Last year, the West Virginia legislature sought to make concealed carry universal for the State’s citizens. If you are a West Virginia citizen, and you can buy a gun after a background check, you can carry that gun concealed. Open carry was already universal for all gun owners. The governor, Earl Ray Tomblin, vetoed the legislation last year. Well, today, the West Virginia Senate overturned the veto.

    The West Virginia Senate on Saturday morning overturned Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s veto of the permitless concealed carry bill.

    House bill 4145 now becomes law.

    The Senate approved the veto by a 23-11 vote.

    Of course, Chicken Little Tomblin warns that we are all less safe now;

    “West Virginia’s law enforcement officers have dedicated their lives to keeping us safe and helping us in times of need, and it’s disheartening that the members of the Legislature have chosen not to stand with these brave men and women – putting their safety and the safety of West Virginians at risk. It’s unfortunate that the concerns of officers from every law enforcement branch in the state, including the West Virginia State Police and university campus police officers, have been ignored by today’s action.’’

    Of course, there are perks to becoming licensed – if you need to carry outside of West Virginia, you’ll need a CCW permit, also, thanks to the legislature a few years ago, showing a permit to a gun dealer in West Virginia, you don’t have to go through the background check phone call, because you have to have go through a background check when you renew the permit every five years. Of course, there’s not much violent crime here in West Virginia anyway, you know compared to some of our neighbors.

  • Selfie kills

    According to the Skagit County Herald, a man in Washington State killed himself while taking a “selfie” while holding his firearm.

    The man and his girlfriend were at a residence in the 46000 block of Baker Loop Road taking photos of themselves with the gun when the incident occurred, Skagit County Sheriff’s Office Chief of Patrol Chad Clark said.

    According to The State, he carefully unloaded the gun each time he took a picture of himself. I guess he carefully pulled the trigger during the photo session. According to the article 27 people worldwide have died from selfie-related accidents. So be careful out there.

    I’d submit that more accidents occur with unloaded guns carelessly. Instead of just unloading your gun, also don’t point the gun at your empty noggin, or any other useless appendage on your body, or any other person’s body. FFS.

    Thanks to 3E9 and Bobo for the link.