Tag: Gun Rights

The Importance of Educators in the Gun Rights Movement

A movement is only successful if public opinion can be swayed to favor that movement. This is true of the civil rights movement, the movement to repeal marijuana prohibition, and the gun rights movement. Often people mistakenly believe that political action is the most important pillar of a movement but political action only manifests when sufficient public support has developed. Consider the movement to repeal marijuana. On November 6th the voting public of Washington and Colorado voted in favor of repealing marijuana prohibition. This outcome was only made possible because educators managed to sway public opinion against marijuana prohibition. What isn’t seen by many is the fact that repealing marijuana prohibition is also unnecessary. So many people oppose marijuana prohibition that almost anybody wanting to smoke it can do so. In fact public opinion is so opposed to marijuana prohibition that individuals who smoke it can openly discuss their violation of the state’s decree without concerning themselves with repercussions.

Let’s consider the gun rights movement. During, what I will refer to as, the dark age of gun rights laws restricting gun rights were being passed into law without much resistance. A prohibition against certain semi-automatic rifles was passed as was a law restricting who federally licensed dealers could sell firearms to. Few individual states allowed non-state agents living within their borders to carry firearms. Eventually things began to change. When the “assault weapon” ban expired no serious effort was made to renew it. Few efforts have been made to make firearm sales between non-federally licensed individuals illegal. All but one individual state (which will almost certainly join its 49 brethren within 180 days) have some mechanism for non-state agents to legally carry firearms and the number of states with no restrictions on who can carry a firearm has been continuously increasing. What we’re seeing is a manifestation of public opinion being swayed from favoring gun control to opposing it.

How was public opinion swayed though? People living in the United States didn’t just wake up one day and say “I now oppose gun control.” The swing in public opinion was accomplished through the diligent efforts of educators in the gun rights movement. When I say educators I don’t me K-12 teachers or college professors, I mean the individuals who dove through all data pertaining to gun rights and presented logical deductions derived from that data. Gun rights educators studied and presented historical and legal arguments for gun rights, gun-related crime statistics, and issues relating to self-defense and gun safety. Through their tireless efforts arguments made in favor of gun control were demonstrated to be false. More and more people were beginning to realize that gun control was a folly and either began to support gun rights or held no strong feelings either way. Without the efforts of gun rights educators things today would likely remain as they were during the dark ages of gun rights.

Political action was merely a manifestation of the change in public opinion. In fact political action would have been rendered almost entirely unnecessary in due time. This is because as public opinion began to turn more towards gun rights laws restricting or prohibiting the exercise of those rights would have been rendered irrelevant. What could the state do if a majority of individuals began carrying firearms without getting state permission? The state would attempt to punish a handful of individuals here and there to set an example but they would leave the vast majority of carriers unmolested. This is what the state has been relegated to when enforcing the marijuana prohibition and speed limits.

As I stated before most people who want to smoke marijuana do so in spite of the law and are even willing to publicly say that they disobey the state’s prohibition against marijuana. Most people seem to be willing to exceed the speed limit as well. Driving with “the flow of traffic” usually implies exceeding the speed limit since most drivers exceed the speed limit. Police officers often don’t bother issuing citations unless a driver is exceeding the speed limit by at least five or ten miles per hour. Such excesses are generally higher than the amount most drivers are exceeding the speed limit by and therefore can be enforced to some degree. Outside of those cases very few people out of the total number of people exceeding the speed limit receive any kind of punishment from the state.

I argue that education is far more important than any form of political action because political action will never even manifest without education. Education is the catalyst to change whereas political action is merely an officiation of a change in public opinion. In actuality political action usually ends up being an admittance by the state that enforcement of one of its decrees is no longer possible. This was the case with alcohol prohibition, is currently the case with marijuana prohibition, and will eventually become the case for gun rights if educators in the movement continue performing their task successfully. At some point in our future laws restricting gun rights will be repealed because they are no longer enforceable. Most states will enact, what is commonly referred to as, constitutional carry in response to the public’s general support for individuals right to carry a firearm. Items currently regulated by the National Firearms Act, likely starting with suppressors, will no longer be so restricted. Even the requirement that federally licensed dealers only sell to state-approved individuals will eventually go away.

The gun rights movement must strive to make the enforcement of restrictions against gun rights unenforceable. Whether restrictions become unenforceable through political action or because a majority of individuals blatantly violate those restrictions is unimportant. A change in public opinion will lead to the latter and the latter will lead to the former. It is the job of gun rights educators to encourage that change in public opinion that will make the rest of the dominos fall.

Members of the New York Police Department Need Additional Firearms Training

People who read the title of this post and instantly think about the incident earlier this year where members of the New York Police Department (NYPD) injured nine bystanders while attempting to gun down one individual who wasn’t currently acting aggressively are probably saying “No duh!” The conclusion in the post title wasn’t my own, it was the conclusion of a writer at the New York Times. Let’s look at the charges being made against the NYPD:

This year, there has been an unusual string of questionable and highly public shootings. It began in February, when a narcotics officer in the Bronx chased an unarmed teenager named Ramarley Graham into his building and killed him in his bathroom. The most recent came in October, when a veteran detective shot Noel Polanco, an Army National Guardsman, during a traffic stop on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens. In the intervening months, the police: fatally shot Darrius H. Kennedy as he waved a knife at tourists in Times Square; injured nine civilians near the Empire State Building while shooting Jeffrey T. Johnson moments after Mr. Johnson shot a former colleague; shot Mr. Bah; and accidentally shot and killed Reynaldo Cuevas, 20, a bodega worker who ran into an officer while fleeing from a robbery in the Bronx.

For a city run by a man who continuously implies that individuals outside of the state’s employ are irresponsible with firearms they sure have a lot of police officers who have acted irresponsibly with firearms. Seeing the extent of NYPD’s training it becomes apparently where the issue lies:

Some of Mr. Kelly’s troops disagree, going so far as to approach reporters with unsolicited views. One officer, who joined the force with a military background and spoke anonymously because he feared reprisals, said the problem was training. The department has “a factory line” approach to weapons training in which officers “get the basics — breathing, trigger control,” but not much else, he said. “It’s very brief, minimal.”

“Firearms training is important — it’s very important,” the officer concluded. “And it’s something that is not taken seriously.”

There are seven firing ranges at Rodman’s Neck, from Adam Range to George Range, and on most days, they crackle with the reports of weapons shot by new recruits or by officers who must requalify twice a year with an accuracy rate of no less than 78 percent in target practice.

Of the people I know who carry firearms a vast majority of them have training that is far more extensive than that received by members of NYPD. This really puts a hole in the claims gun control advocates often make regarding the insufficient training received by carry permit holders and the superior training received by police officers. The training received by members of the United State’s largest police force seems entirely inadequate, especially when you consider the job police officers are expected to perform (namely using their firearms against people who disobey the state’s decrees).

The Last Domino Standing Against Legalized Firearm Carry Fell

Zerg593, via Twitter, informed me that Illinois, the last individual state to completely prohibit non-state entites from legally carrying firearms, now has 180 days to craft legislation to allow non-state entities to legally carry firearms:

In a huge win for gun-rights groups, a federal appeals court in Chicago Tuesday tossed the state’s ban on carrying concealed weapons and gave Illinois’ Legislature 180 days to craft a law legalizing concealed carry.

“The debate is over. We won. And there will be a statewide carry law in 2013,” said Todd Vandermyde, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association.

In a split opinion (see below), the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling in two cases downstate that upheld the state’s longstanding prohibition against carrying concealed weapons.

The court’s decision can be read here. This case further demonstrates the value of innovation as it was made possible by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), the organization that decided to use the court system to advance gun rights instead of relying on political lobbying. I think it also demonstrates the general swing of public opinion from supporting gun control to either opposing it or holding no strong feelings regarding it. Something people often fail to consider is the value of public opinion. Even though judges are supposed to ignore public opinion and rule on the letter of the law their rulings are generally crafted in manners that at least attempt to appeal to public opinion. Consider the ruling in McDonald v. Chicago where the Supreme Court rules that Chicago’s ban on handguns was illegal under United States law but didn’t rule out “reasonable” restrictions on gun rights. Although the decision granted gun rights activists what they wanted it didn’t ignore the desires of gun control advocates. Public opinion is swinging in the direction of expanding gun rights but hasn’t reached a point where most people are willing to oppose all restrictions on gun rights.

Even though I don’t want to denigrate this victory I feel the need to point out two caveats. First Illinois could still maintain a prohibition against legal carry by carefully crafting legislation. Making carry permits $10,000 would effectively ensure only the wealthy enjoy the right to legally carry a firearm in Illinois and a restriction against recognizing any other state’s carry permits could make this ruling irrelevant for everybody living outside Illinois. Only time will tell and any such restrictions can be challenge in court if they arrise. Second the defense has 180 days to appeal the decision, which would take the case to the Supreme Court. This victory hasn’t been finalized yet but it’s certainly a move in the right direction and overall I believe it’s extremely positive. Illinois has been one of the most entrenched holdouts in the fight for gun rights and a hole has just been made in their armor. The trick will be turning that small hole into a massive one, which I believe will inevitably happen in time.

James Yeager, A Demonstration of Emotional Argumentation

Linoge at Walls of the City brought James Yeager’s recent shenanigans to light. For those of you who don’t know him, James Yeager is a Tennessee firearms instructor that is extremely opinionated. He’s passionately argued in favor of putting cameramen downrange during live fire exercises and believes all guns should be Glocks. Now he’s trying to prove his manliness by challenging online individuals to duels. As Linoge points out in his post dueling is prohibited by the Tennessee constitution so Yeager is doing a marvelous job of disregarding the law. Disregarding the state’s laws is not something I care much about but it is interesting to see a firearms instructor doing it so blatantly. Generally firearms enthusiasts argue that law-abiding citizens should be granted the right to keep and bear arms but will often support prohibiting criminals from owing firearms.

I usually care little about ongoing drama regarding “celebrities” (Yeager is a kind of celebrity in the firearms community) but Yeager’s actions are a great demonstration of a personality trait I find annoying. Yeager is one of those individuals who accepts what he believes unconditionally and is willing to go so far as to challenge individuals to duels in order to prove his devotion. This is a trait commonly found in gun control advocates. Regardless of the amount of evidence showing the futility and dangers of gun control, advocates for restricting gun rights will refuse to change their stance. Big government advocates are another group that generally rely on emotional arguments. When you attempt to explain the damage big government programs do to an economy, how the constant creation of new laws leads to the imprisonment of nonviolent individuals, or the inherently violent nature of the state they merely ignore you and write you off as a kook. I generally attribute such staunch devotion to a lack of knowledge (either intentional or unintentional) of deductive logic.

When people call Yeager a coward it strikes an emotional nerve. Instead of reviewing his actions to determine whether or not they may appear cowardly to a third-party he attempts to bully his opponents with threats of violence. Seeing his reaction to those who criticized him for allowing a cameraman to be downrange during a live fire exercise further demonstrates his reliance on emotional argumentation. He didn’t acknowledge that putting a cameraman downrange during a live fire exercise is extremely dangerous and entirely unnecessary, he merely attempt to justify why he was right and everybody else was wrong without presenting any logical justification for why putting a cameraman was downrange during a live fire exercise was either safe or necessary.

The gun rights movement has succeeded because it has primarily relied on deductive logic instead of appealing to emotions. People in the gun rights movement have done an amazing job of combing through homicide data, self-defense data, and other data related in any way to firearms and presented the implications of that data. Ultimately this has lead to a change in opinion of guns in the United States. We no longer face attacks against gun rights from the majority, instead it is only a handful of extremely devoted gun control advocates who still continue to make any real effort to restrict gun rights. In the end deductive logic leads to success while emotional appeals, when they work, are only effective for a short period of time.

Ironically Yeager has displayed the primary characteristics of the people he claims to oppose. When he believes something he refuses to be swayed or even consider the arguments against what he believes. Instead of giving logical reasons for why he supports his beliefs he resorts of threats of violence in the hopes it will shut his opposition up.

Shooting in New York City Demonstrates the Futility of Gun Control… Again

New York City is known for its rather stringent gun control laws. This isn’t surprising since the city is ruled by Michael Bloomberg who also heads Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), an organization dedicated to the abolition of private firearm ownership. While Bloomberg and MAIG constantly parrot about the need for stricter gun control laws, New York City continues to suffer from shootings. Yesterday a man was fatally shot in Central Park:

The shooting happened shortly before 14:00 EST (19:00 GMT), when an unidentified man opened fire at the corner of 58th and 7th Avenue.

The gunman fled by jumping into the passenger seat of a waiting vehicle that drove away, US media reports said.

Officials say the 31-year-old victim was brought to St Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The shooting took place in a busy area of Manhattan not known for shootings or crime.

It happened close to Central Park and high-profile shops, as well as the Time Warner building, home of CNN’s New York studios.

From the facts currently being reported (which are always subject to change) it appears as though the shooting was a hit job. Regardless of the shooter’s motivations this event demonstrates once again that gun control is a futile pursuit. Even with very strict gun control laws New York City suffers from multiple firearms-related homicides at year. To make matters worse getting a carry permit in the city is almost impossible unless you are wealthy or politically well-connected. Restricting access to carry permits lowers the cost of committing violence, which increases the likelihood of violent crime occurring.

Tragedies are Only Avoidable Through Constant Vigilance

It’s never enjoyable to read a story about a child being killed. Yesterday in Minneapolis a child came across one of his parent’s firearms and shot his brother to death:

A 2-year-old boy was fatally shot Wednesday afternoon in a Minneapolis home by his 4-year-old brother, who got ahold of a handgun that “accidentally discharged,” police said.

As expected many advocates of gun control are using this tragedy in an attempt to advance their cause. Whenever a story like this appears in the news they claim that it demonstrates the danger of owning firearms in a home with children. What these stories actually demonstrate is the need for constant vigilance on behalf of parents. There are countless dangers strewn about every household that could cause death to a child. Cleaners and medications can kill a child who happens to ingest them. Electrical outlets offer danger if a child managed to insert a metal object into one. Stairs can cause a great deal of harm to a child if they fall down them. The number of dangers in the average household are mind boggling.

In each of the above mentioned cases parents must take precautions to protect their children. Cleaners and medication should be stored out of reach of children, electrical outlets should be covered, and gates should be placed at the tops of stairs. Firearms are not different. If you have young children in the house you should store firearms out of their reach. That doesn’t mean you have to store firearms unloaded and separate from ammunition but it does mean any defensive firearms you want to leave loaded should be kept in a quick access safe. You should also educate your children about firearms, specially teach them to be responsible around them.

Stories like this should reinforce the concern parents must have regarding safety and not just when it comes to firearms.

Reducing the Cost of Inflicting Violence on Employees

AutoZone employee Devin McClean used his personal firearm to protect his employer’s property. Such a deed would be seen as noble to many but the higher ups at AutoZone rewarded the diligent work of their employee by firing him:

After AutoZone employee Devin McClean stopped a serial thief from robbing the local auto parts store in York County, Virginia, some hailed him as a hero, but not the head honchoes at AutoZone. They saw McClean’s actions as a reason for termination.

[…]

An Autozone representative told a local news channel that the company has a zero tolerance policy for employees bringing weapons into their stores.

I’m not going to spend a great deal of time chiding AutoZone. Their stores are their property and that means they get to make the rules. What I am going to spend time discussing is the ramifications of AutoZone’s actions.

AutoZone has officially notified the world that their stores can be generally considered weapon-free zones. This means that individuals wanting to rob AutoZone stores or to inflict physical harm against AutoZone employees can be reasonably assured that little threat exists to them. The cost of committing violence in AutoZone stores has been reduced meaning the likelihood of violence being committed in those stores has increased.

What are the negative consequences of allowing employees to carry weapons at their place of work? There is the potential of frightening customers if the weapon is seen by there is no risk of any harm coming to an employee or the property. The possibility of customers being frightened by an employees weapon could be handled by a policy that states all employee carried weapons must remain concealed at all times. A mandatory concealment policy would alleviate the risk of frightening customers while keeping the cost of performing violence up. Unfortunately the higher ups at AutoZone have decided to opt for the lose-lose scenarior where employees that arm themselves must face the risk of being fired while criminals know that AutoZone stores are unlikely to offer much in the way of resistance.

Comparing Apples to Orangutans

The spillover of politics into circuses continues to approach the level of full retard:

Whitlock spoke out against the NFL’s handling of the aftermath of Jovan Belcher’s suicide and gun issues in his Sunday FoxSports.com column. During Martin’s podcast, he likened the NRA to the Ku Klux Klan and tied the group to the dangerous street culture that unfortunately dominates “so many black youths.”

I’m not the biggest fan of the National Rifle Association (NRA) myself but comparing them to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is, at most, a blatant attempt to use shock and awe in place of actual argumentation. Granted shock and awe is an effective strategy when one attempts to win hearts and minds but it’s a strategy that requires some subtlety and believability. When you attempt to make a connection between a group you dislike and a group that is almost universally disliked you need to find some common ground. In the case of Whitlock’s comparison he attempted to connect the NRA with the KKK by claiming the NRA is responsible for the culture that, as he says, dominates black youths. This comparison, to put it very nicely, is a stretch.

First Whitlock’s implication requires the assumption that gun rights causes the violent culture that, according to Whitlock, dominates black youths. An easy way to test this theory is to see if there are any places where gun rights are severely restricted or nonexistent that also have a high rate of youth violence. Chicago is such a place. Even though Chicago has very strict gun control laws they also have a very high rate of youth violence. Considering this it’s difficult to connect gun rights to youth violence.

Second Whitlock’s implication requires ignoring the starkly different methodologies used by the NRA and KKK to advance their causes. In the name of advancing gun rights the NRA promotes hunting, self-defense, and firearm safety education. The NRA also spends a great deal of time and money lobbying politicians and working to get proponents of gun rights elected into political offices. In other words the NRA uses mostly nonviolent (using the state is almost violent in some regard) strategies in order to advance its cause. On the other hand the KKK has a history of using violent tactics such as lynching African Americans and destroying property to promote its cause of white supremacy.

Third Whitlock’s implication requires ignoring the vastly different causes each organization is attempting to advance. The NRA’s primary goal is to advance gun rights for the entire American population while the KKK’s primary goal is to make other racial and religious groups subservient to white christians. While the NRA is working to expand liberties that KKK is working to retract liberties.

Whitlock’s implication is asinine and fails to even establish a believable connection that would assist him in his desire to use shock and awe. In his zeal to demonize guns and gun owners Whitlock lost focus of his initial cause, opposing violence, and became obsessed with an object that he associates with violence. This is a common trap individuals fall into when they become too obsessed with an object or action they associate with their initial cause. Opponents of violence become obsessed with weapons instead of acts of violence, opponents of human trafficking become obsessed with prostitution instead of sex slavery, and opponents of racism become obsessed with speech instead of the idea that one race is somehow superior to another. Losing focus of your initial cause will lead you down the path to ruin and open you up to scathing criticism from amateurs that operate blogs.

Charges Against Sung-Ho Hwang Dismissed

Earlier this year police arrested Sung-Ho Hwang for legally carrying a firearm. What made the case even more interesting was Mr. Hwang’s status as a lawyer. Not surprisingly, considering Mr. Hwang was a lawyer and partaking in an entirely legal activity, all charges against him have been dismissed:

Sung-Ho Hwang, president of the New Haven County Bar Association, was charged with breach of peace and interfering with police after officers said they found a loaded handgun in his waistband. Police say he had a permit to carry the weapon but didn’t comply with their commands.

Hugh Keefe, Hwang’s attorney, said prosecutor David Strollo agreed to drop the misdemeanor charges Monday. Strollo cited his clean record and that although police were yelling to put his hands up, Hwang didn’t know they were police because of the flash lights in his eyes, Keefe said.

[…]

Hwang said he brought the gun to protect himself late at night. Hwang, 46, said he was cooperative.

“When baseless breach of peace and interfering charges are brought against people that have a right to carry, it really threatens our constitutional right to bear arms,” Hwang said in August.

I think Mr. Hwang’s situation demonstrated two things. First it demonstrates how reactionary police officers are. Although Mr. Hwang wasn’t doing anything illegal or even showing signs of aggression the police decided to overreact, storm the theater, and hold him at gunpoint because of the situation in the Aurora, Colorado theater that happened slightly earlier in the year.

Second it demonstrated that the police will find something to charge you with if you’ve caught their eye. Since Mr. Hwang was carrying a firearm lawfully the police couldn’t charge him with illegally carrying a firearm so they did the next best thing. They charged him with breaching the peace because he didn’t cooperate with unwarranted police aggression. Even though there were no grounds to hold Mr. Hwang at gunpoint the police did so and then charged him for not submitting to their unwarranted, and I would say unlawful, aggression.

Politics and Sports Don’t Mix

Politics doesn’t mix well with entertainment venues such as sports. Sports are the circuses of our era that help to distract the people from the reality in which they live. Once in a while somebody in the world of sports opens their mouth on a political issue and raises all kinds of havoc. Bob Costas decided to be one of those people and gave a speech advocating gun control during a halftime show during a football game:

You want some actual perspective on this? Well, a bit of it comes from the Kansas City-based writer Jason Whitlock with whom I do not always agree, but who today said it so well that we may as well just quote or paraphrase from the end of his article …

Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. In the coming days, Jovan Belcher’s actions, and their possible connection to football, will be analyzed. Who knows?

But here, wrote Jason Whitlock, is what I believe. If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.

Obviously Bob Costas doesn’t know his job is to distract the serfs from politics, not remind them of it. The Romans knew that the secret to keeping the people docile was to give them bread and circuses. So long as the people were fed and entertained they were very willing to roll over and let the Roman government do as it pleased. The average American isn’t much different, which is why politics is such an incredibly caustic thing to mix with sports.

Not only did Costas perform the sin of mixing politics and sports but he did a lousy job of it. His speech made the typical gun control argument that firearms increase the rate of violence. That claims is false. The fact is gun control does the opposite of what its proponents claim. By reducing the number of individuals that have ready access to firearms gun control decreases the cost of performing violence and therefore makes violence a more acceptable risk than it otherwise would be.

Keep the politicians out of the circuses less the people be reminded about how bad they’re getting screwed.