Category: Gun Rights

I just picked up this bit a news…

http://wisconsinshooters.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1338&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=&sid=0b4589a90636eb8b7de009bb48642544

There is going to be an open carry picnic in Onalaska, WI (right next to La Crosse, WI for reference) on May 17, 2009. All the information is on there. If you’re in the area you should show go.

Today I was listening to the excellent Gun Rights Advocate’s Podcast. The episode dealt with gun buy back programs and it raised some excellent points.

For those who don’t know gun buy back programs are when organizations try to “get guns off the street” by offering money for turned in firearms. Normally these are no questions asked events so any gun you drop off is fine. The amount given is usually well under the value of anything beyond a Hi-Point though.

These programs are idiotic for so many reasons. The first reason is quite simple, it’s a felony to do these. At least it would be if any one of us did it. The reason it’s a felony is because these are done without federal firearms license. In order to buy and sell a quantity of guns you need to be a dealer. What qualifies a dealer is a federal firearms license which the BATFE (formally just the ATF I don’t know when the Hell they added Explosives to the title) dole out. If you deal in firearms without one of these license (with the exception of private sales which are restricted to a specific quantity) you are committing a felony.

That’s right every time a church or school decided to use money to “get guns off the street” they are committing a felony. But they never get charged with it. I wonder why that is. I know if I went a did the EXACT same thing I’d have the BATFE blasting down my door and probably curb stomping my ass. This is a perfect example of a specific group of people being above the law.

Now the next thing you might say is what about when police departments do it? Well it’s still a felony according to the law. But more importantly then it’s YOUR tax money being used to buy the guns. Police departments are tax funded and when they do these gun buy backs they use department money (i.e. your tax money) to buy the guns. Doesn’t it make you feel good knowing your tax money is being used to rip people off?

And it is a rip off. The highest dollar value I’ve ever heard a gun buy back program off is $200.00. The only guns you can get for that price are relics or Hi-Points. I know most gang bangers won’t be using relics. And that brings up the next point, the gangsters aren’t the ones turning in the guns. The idea of these events is the “get guns off the street” in the hopes it will reduce crime. Of course this only works if the criminals turn in their guns, which they most certainly won’t. So instead of the guns being sold to a dealer for fair market value they are practically given away. And the people giving them away are usually the law abiding citizens.

So we pretty much have a series of events that require committing a felony level crime in the hopes of reducing crime. But they don’t reduce crime since the criminals aren’t the ones turning in their guns.

Anyways I encourage everybody to listen to the most recent episode of the Gun Rights Advocate’s Podcast. And the next time you see a gun buy back program going on remember a felony is being committed and if it’s the police doing it it’s your tax money being wasted.

A buddy of mine ask me a very good question, do I support any form of gun control. My answer is a definite no. I don’t support any form of gun control. But simply saying no never really answers the important part of the question, which is why.

Let us look back at the reason we have a right to bear arms in the United States. This country was founded upon us declaring independence from the British and them trying to stomp us into submission. We declared our independence because Britain was tyrannizing our fair colonies. They tried to disarm us because they knew we were getting to the point of revolt. And then a funny thing happened, we got to the point of revolt.

Upon writing the Bill of Rights the second amendment was the right to bear arms. The reason was simple, our founding fathers wanted the citizens of the new found nation to have the the ability to defend he fledgling nation. This defense was meant to be against both foreign and domestic threats. That means if our government was ever to turn tyrannical the people could overthrow them all over again. To that end I feel it was implied that American citizens should be able to own armaments equal to those of the military. In this modern age that includes machine guns.

I’m against gun registration. The reason for this is simple and was demonstrated by Britain in 1997. Gun registration is a ploy, it doesn’t keep criminals from getting guns and it rarely helps law enforcement determine who used a gun in a crime. What it does do is let the government know who has guns. Britain all but completely banned (in the case of what little didn’t get banned their severely restricted) private firearm ownership. It’s illegal to own any handgun in Britain. Before this the government required registration of all firearms, the fact is they knew where to go to confiscate the guns when they banned them. To top it all off violent crime has been skyrocketing in Britain every since the ban on guns.

Another example of this which is probably more popular is this one. Many decades ago there was a failing country. This country’s economy was in shambles, it was cheaper to burn the national currency then use it to by firewood. Eventually a man with answers was given power. He turned the economy around and helped regain the country’s previous standing in the world. The citizens were quite happy with him. Anyways this leader eventually wanted each citizen to register any firearms that they own. Of course being the man who saved their country the citizens decided to go along with it. Not too shortly after wards the government confiscated every registered gun. This country was Germany and the government at the time was the Nazis. And don’t claim Godwin’s Law here. It specifically states that you can use valid references to Hitler and the Nazi party. After the guns were confiscated of course World War 2 broke out and the Jewish population was being exterminated.

This is a perfect case of a government tyrannizing their people and the people being unable to do anything about it. It’s hard to defend yourself and your fellow countrymen when you haven’t the same tools as those doing the tyrannizing. I know a lot of people say that could never happen here in the United States. To that I say bull shit, it can happen anywhere.

The first thing people generally ask me when I say I’m against all forms of gun control is why I’m for violent criminals having guns. I’m not. I flat out don’t want any violent criminal to have any means of harming somebody else. These people have proven themselves ill suited to live in our society already. But I’m even more against the idea of punishing the lawful citizens.

In order to do background checks there needs to be three things. The first is a group to perform the checks, the second is data on everybody who is to be checked, the third is the reason to check. The first is almost always the government. The second is the scary part. Information on everybody needs to be kept, especially dealing with any past criminal behavior. Of course you only need to keep data on actual criminals, but here is the kicker data is often entered wrong. Hell you could have a prohibition against owning a firearm on your file right now and not even know it. All because somebody accidentally entered the wrong name in a database. Of course to be useful this data also has to be difficult to expunge. The third thing would obviously be the act of buying a gun. Once again we have the party doing the checking knowing who is doing the activity they are checking. That means they know the person has one or more guns. Once again we return to the above two stories.

You can’t stop criminals from getting guns. If you put laws on the books that require people get background checks you will only be having law abiding people getting the background checks. A criminal by definition is somebody who breaks the law. If somebody is willing to commit a violent crime there is no way another law requiring them to submit to a background check to get a gun is going to stop them. They will just steal what they need from a law abiding citizen. In fact this is what happens today. Most crimes involving guns are committed by criminals with stolen guns. Background checks won’t stop this, it will only hamper law abiding citizens.

The law point I’ll make is my belief that all living creatures have a right to self defense. This also means that creatures can defend themselves with any tools necessary. You only have to look at nature to see life isn’t fair. There is no way a salmon is capable of defending itself against the claws of a grizzly bear. But if the salmon had a means it would most certainly deploy it.

The same goes for the human race. The main problem with humans is our greatest predator is ourselves. That means we are generally preyed upon by creatures with the same capabilities as us. If you have a criminal with a gun wanting to kill an unarmed man there is nothing the unarmed man can do buy die. The victim can try calling the police, but it’s true what they say when seconds count the police are only minutes away. Not give that unarmed man a gun as well. He now has a fighting chance, a means of self defense.

There are a lot of unpleasant people in this world. The majority are good people though. Why should the good people who follow the law not be allowed to have the ability to defend themselves against the criminals? Even if carrying a gun is illegal criminals will do it. In fact it’s illegal to carry a gun in Chicago yet many criminals do it. Making laws restricting the right of people to carry guns in which to defend themselves only unarms the innocent. We should never punish the innocent, we should punish the guilty. And defending yourself against an aggressor is not a crime, it’s a right.

Criminals generally prey on the weak. Even since 2005 Minnesota citizens have been able to get permits to carry pistols, in fact I have one. Also ever since 2005 the rate of violent crime has been declining. Why is this? Most likely because criminals don’t like going against armed people.

To quote Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, a noted gangster, “Gun control? It’s the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. I’m a bad guy; I’m always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You will pull the trigger with a lock on, and I’ll pull the trigger. We’ll see who wins.”

He clearly states two things, first is he wants you to be unarmed, and second he’s going to have a gun no matter what.

That’s my view on gun rights restrictions. I feel everybody who either supports or doesn’t support gun rights restrictions should take a good amount of time and think of why. After all you really can’t stand for something unless you have a reason.