Tag: Gun Rights

I Do Hate Backstabbers

Since their support of the Manchin-Toomey Amendment I’ve been questioning whether or not the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) is still supporting gun rights or has finally succumbed to The One Ring’s corrupting power. A post by Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned leads me to believe the latter:

We noticed SAF/CCRBKA’s booth on the NRA floor, but decided not to stop. But Think Progress did, and noticed they were handing out literature taking NRA to task over Manchin-Toomey:

But despite the bill’s (perhaps temporary) defeat in the Senate, CCRKBA doesn’t appear to be backing down — The Gun Mag, a Second Amendment Foundation publication, published an “NRA Meeting Special Issue” whose lead article takes apart the NRA’s line on Manchin-Toomey.

Many of the comments question the claim as it was posted on Think Progress. On the other hand neither the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) or SAF have refuted the claim.

It’s not wise for gun owners to support an organization that is trying to support gun control legislation and it’s even more unwise to support an organization that is trying to resurrect gun control legislation that has been put to rest. Because the charges against the CCRKBA and SAF are so severe and their previous behavior of supporting the Manchin-Toomey Amendment put their position into question I must hereby withdraw my support. If a representative of either organization is willing to come forth and refute the claim made by Think Progress I will reconsider but I will not give support to an organization that is trying to sell people down the river.

Kokesh’s Armed March in Washington DC

A couple of people have asked me about my thoughts on Adam Kokesh’s planned march in Washington DC. What makes the march worthy of conversation is that it will involve individuals marching with loaded rifles in spite of Washington DC’s prohibition against such activities.

If it was anybody but Kokesh was organizing the march I would expect an convenient excuse to cancel the event to be made shortly before it was scheduled to begin. While I’m not the biggest Adam Kokesh fan due to his abrasive nature he has proven himself willing to spit in the face of the law, which makes this event a real possibility in my mind. With that said, it sounds like the event does have a cop out, Kokesh mentions that there needs to be 1,000 participants for the event to occur. This makes sense since acts of civil disobedience require a mass of people large enough to discourage the police from moving in on the crowd.

If the event actually occurs and there are enough participants to discourage the police from interfering I think this march will go down without incident. History demonstrates that mass acts of civil disobedience, if uninterrupted by agents of the state, usually go down peacefully. However I question whether or not the event will be allowed to occur. Who’s to say that Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) won’t arrest the primary organizers of this event a few days before it’s scheduled to begin? The FBI has a history of pulling such stunts. If the FBI doesn’t pull such shenanigans and the event does occur I wouldn’t be surprised if one or more agent provocateurs were inserted into the group specifically to cause trouble. Again such tactics aren’t unprecedented. It will be important for the organizers of this event to warn participants to immediately disassociate themselves with anybody in the crowd trying to instigate violence and to actively intervene in attempted acts of violence. There are many ways for this event to be prevented from happening or twisted into something ugly if it does happen but that’s a potential risk of any acts of mass civil disobedience.

Many gun rights activists have expressed concern about the image that this kind of event could create but that’s not really a concern of mine. No matter what we do as gun owners the advocates of gun control will hate us. In the eyes of the most zealous and outspoken gun control advocates we’re vicious monsters who want nothing more than to murder every wholesome person in the world. If a bunch of gun owners perform an armed march on Washington DC the gun control advocates will scream bloody murder. If gun owners don’t perform an armed march on Washington DC the gun control advocates will still scream bloody murder. We can’t win with them so we shouldn’t worry ourselves with what they think.

I’ve also heard several gun rights activists express the fact that it will only takes one person to do something stupid for this event to turn into a bloodbath. To that I can only ask, do we really believe what we preach about gun rights? Do we not believe that an armed society is a polite society? Do we not believe that an increased presence of armed individuals increases the cost of performing violent and therefore discourages such behavior? I do believe those things and therefore am not very concerned about one of our own doing something stupid, at least not stupid enough to start a firefight. The agent provocateur risk springs to mind when fellow gun rights activists mention the risk of one of our own doing something stupid but that risk can also be mitigated as I explained above.

I have no issue with the idea of the event itself. I’m a proponent of civil disobedience because it’s the only tactic that has proven to be effective at enacting meaningful political change in this country. If the march happens it will send a powerful and simple message to anybody watching: we the people are not afraid of the state. The point of civil disobedience is to demonstrate to observers that the state’s laws are meaningless unless people are willing to obey them. An armed march on Washington DC may be the act necessary to demonstrate the state’s inability to regulate firearms or it may not. Either way it’ll be interesting to see what comes of this event. I wish the participants the best of luck and encourage them to follow examples set by previous mass civil disobedience events by remaining entirely nonviolent.

Gun Sales Up, Homicide Rate Down, Few Paying Attention Surprised

Once again reality has proven harsh to the advocates of gun control that have been warning us that blood will run through the streets whenever firearm laws are repealed or liberalized. As it turns out gun homicides are down 49% since their peek in 1993:

National rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes are strikingly lower now than during their peak in the mid-1990s, paralleling a general decline in violent crime, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data. Beneath the long-term trend, though, are big differences by decade: Violence plunged through the 1990s, but has declined less dramatically since 2000.

Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49% lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation’s population grew. The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993. Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall (with or without a firearm) also is down markedly (72%) over two decades.

As Robert Heinlein wrote in Beyond This Horizon, “An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” Advocates of gun control believe that the only way to reduce violence in society is to give the state a monopoly on gun ownership. Somebody holding a less authoritarian view on society would point out that centralizing power has, historically, be ineffective at reducing violence. Decentralizing power, on the other hand, has been far more effective at reducing violence. Even the year with the highest homicide rate in the United States can’t compare to the millions upon millions killed in countries where power is or was centralized.

Nobody should be surprised by this news. Deductive logic would lead one to understand that having more armed people in a society increases the overall cost of initiating violence. Much like predatory animals that prey on the weak and sickly, violent people prefer to prey on the unarmed.

Why Gun Rights Activists are Unwilling to Capitulate

Via Borepatch I came across an excellent article regarding gun rights by Eric S. Raymond. In the article he summed up the reason gun rights activists are unwilling to cooperate with gun control schemes:

Now comes the news that the head of the Department of Homeland Security officially thanked the Governor of Missuri for violating state law by illegally passing to the DHS Missouri’s list of concealed-carry permit holders. The Governor then lied about his actions.

The Feds, meanwhile, continue to illegally retain transfer records from federally licensed firearms dealers past the statutory time limit, among several other continuing violations of a 1986 law forbidding the establishment of a national gun registry.

The BATF also criminally violated its authorizing laws by transferring over 2000 firearms to Mexican drug gangs through illegal straw purchases (google “ATF gunwalking scandal”). Over 150 Mexican citizens and United States Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry were killed with these guns.

Meanwhile, following scandals about “drop guns” at the sites of police shootings, some big-city police forces (notably in LA and NYC) are strongly suspected of routinely using planted guns to frame suspects they can’t otherwise nail on firearms-possession charges.

Any trust that “gun control” will be administered with even minimal respect for civil rights is long gone, destroyed by the behavior of the enforcers themselves.

Why won’t those of us in the gun rights movement submit to background checks? Why won’t we agree to using gimped magazines? Why won’t we surrender our semi-automatic rifles? Because of the solution gun control advocates have chosen.

As I’ve state numerous times the primary failure of gun control is its reliance on statism. Gun control advocates want the state to pass and us its capacity for violent to enforce laws controlling or completely prohibiting non-state agents’ access to firearms. The state has proven itself to be a beast that cannot be trusted with any amount of power, especially when that power allows them to control civil liberties.

If gun control advocates were willing to seek nonviolent solutions to the issue of violence those of us in the gun rights community would likely lend a hand. Instead they have chosen to use a violent solution administered by an organization that has proven itself to be untrustworthy. A gun owner submitting to state control over guns would be akin to women submitting to abusive misogynist control over women’s rights. Nobody in their right mind would submit to an untrustworthy entity.

The 3D Printed Handgun Works

Yesterday I mentioned that Defense Distributed had announced the first handgun developed almost exclusive (the one exception is the nail that is used as a firing pin) on a 3D printer. Many people questioned if it would work or if it would explode into a million tiny plastic pieces, especially since the barrel was made of plastic. As it turns out the handgun worked pretty well:

On May 1st, Wilson assembled the 3D-printed pieces of his Liberator for the first time, and agreed to let a Forbes photographer take pictures of the unproven device. A day later, that gun was tested on a remote private shooting range an hour’s drive from Austin, Texas, whose exact location Wilson asked me not to reveal.

The verdict: it worked. The Liberator fired a standard .380 handgun round without visible damage, though it also misfired on another occasion when the firing pin failed to hit the primer cap in the loaded cartridge due a misalignment in the hammer body, resulting in an anti-climactic thunk.

Here’s a video of the test firing:

It’s obvious by looking at the gun and hearing about the failure to fire that the firearm is a prototype but, considering how quickly Mr. Wilson has been advancing the art of manufacturing firearms on 3D printers, this design will likely evolve very quickly. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a reliable, albeit ugly, design capable of firing multiple rounds by the end of the year.

At Least He Doesn’t Lie Exclusively to Us

Although I expect every politician to lie I have admit that Obama has a knack for it. Read the following excerpt from a story about Obama’s recent trip to Mexico City:

President Obama vowed Thursday during a press conference in Mexico City that the White House would continue pushing for an expansion of background checks to cover firearms purchases online and at gun shows.

“Things happen somewhat slowly in Washington. But this was just the first round,” Obama said. “I believe we’ll eventually get that done. We’ll keep on trying.”

[…]

“Frankly, what I’m most moved by are the victims of gun violence not just in Mexico but back home,” Obama said.

Then read this post from last week. Now explain to me how Obama is moved by the victims of gun violence in Mexico when he is obstructing an investigation into an operation taken by his administration that involved giving guns to Mexican drug cartels. If Obama actually cared about the victims of gun violence I would think he would want the investigation to conclude successfully.

It’s pretty dickish to tell people you feel for their plight when you’re part of the problem they’re suffering under.

I Love Living in the Era Gun Control Died

Gun rights activists are going to look back at this time period as the beginning of the end of gun control. Defense Distributed has announced the one thing that gun control advocates have feared, a handgun that can be printed on a 3D printer:

All sixteen pieces of the Liberator prototype were printed in ABS plastic with a Dimension SST printer from 3D printing company Stratasys, with the exception of a single nail that’s used as a firing pin. The gun is designed to fire standard handgun rounds, using interchangeable barrels for different calibers of ammunition.

Although the state can spend billions of dollars trying to combat printed firearms it, like the billions spent on stopping people from growing cannabis in their homes, will fail to accomplish the intended goal. Once something can be produced by anybody with minimal knowledge controlling that thing becomes impossible.

I doubt this handgun will be very robust or accurate but considering Defense Distributed indicated its intention to build an entirely printed gun last month and we have a working model this month it’s pretty easy to see how quickly this technology is going to mature.

More Gun Control Hypocrisy

According to gun control advocates the state must use its capacity for force to prevent violent people form getting guns. After the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut Mr. Obama was one of the loudest proponents of gun control so it’s pretty ironic to see that he’s now considering arming rebels in Syria:

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has acknowledged his government is no longer ruling out arming Syrian rebels.

It is the first time a senior US official has said openly that the US is reconsidering its opposition to supplying weapons to rebel forces.

President Barack Obama – who rejected such a proposal last year – said the US was now looking at “all options”.

Something tells me that the rebels receiving arms won’t have to pass a background check. If, or should I say when, the United States starts arming Syrian rebels I don’t want to hear Mr. Obama ever talk about the need to prevent violent people from getting guns ever again. You can’t be against something you’re openly endorsing.

In addition to Mr. Obama’s hypocrisy this story also demonstrates the biggest flaw in the reasoning used by gun control advocates. They demand that the state prevent violent people from acquiring guns but the state is the biggest perpetrator of gun violence and has no issue arming violent individuals so long as those individuals server a political purpose. Demanding the state implement gun control is like putting a fox in charge of hen house security.

Magpul is a Company of Its Word

When the gun control debate was raging in Colorado Magpul said they would leave the state if the bills passed. After the Colorado legislature passed the bills in question Magpul said they had begun moving their operations out of Colorado. As it turns out Magpul is a company of its word:

On Tuesday morning, the company provided a little more detail about what it was doing in a second reply to Wooldridge’s query. It specifically referenced the manufacture of its sights and PMAG ammunition magazines, which, according to its website, can hold 10 to 30 rounds.

“We have started making PMAGs outside CO for the first time ever,” the posting reads. “The sights are made outside CO. We are actively moving forward with moving other items out.”

I like companies that actually keep their word. When I can actually find Magpul magazines on the shelves again I’m going to make it a point to buy a few.

Minnesota’s Legislature Ceasing Its Pursuit of Gun Control… Until Later

With all the talk of increasing taxes I guess the Minnesota legislature has decided they’re going to rape us hard enough this year because they’re apparently ceasing their pursuit of gun control:

While that bill has moved through committee in the Senate, it has faced strong opposition from the National Rifle Association and gun-rights supporters in the Legislature. Thissen tried once to forge a compromise, which focused on background checks at private sales at gun shows.

But even that bill faced difficulty in passing the House.

“We’re not going to take up the gun bill this year,” he said. “Neither side has been willing to come to an agreement. We just need more time to work out something that’s going to work to prevent gun violence.

“I think because of the intensity on both sides of the issue, even some common-sense solutions can’t be agreed upon right now,” he said. “It’s going to have to be something we’ll continue to work on over the interim.”

I’m sure the legislature will continue their pursuit soon enough. Mr. Thissen says work must be done before a “common-sense” solution can be agreed upon. Being a man who likes to help people come together I have a proposal for a way the state can reduce the amount of gun violence in Minnesota. It’s a simple proposal and requires the state to abolish all laws prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and use of drugs not approved by the state. Doing that would prevent shit like this from happening. If the legislature is really serious about stamping out gun violence their second move would be to disband the entire Minnesota government, which is the largest perpetrator of gun violence in the state (seriously, government agents seem to have a hard-on for shooting dogs and threatening nonviolent individuals).