Tag: Gun Rights

How to Handle Gun Buy Backs

Gun buybacks have always baffled me. First of all the name buyback is deceptive as it implies the person “buying back” the firearm was the original owner. Since the state was never the owner of the firearms it isn’t buying back firearms, it’s simply buying them. It would be more accurate to call these programs gun buys. More and more individuals are beginning to use the state’s “buyback” program against them. Following this proud tradition gun owners in Oregon attended a gun “buyback” and competed with the state by offering more money for firearms:

They were among a group of gun buyers who’d staked out periphery positions as a firearms “turn-in” took place inside the parking lot. The Ceasefire Oregon Education Foundation conducted the turn-in for four hours. Gun owners could turn in a weapon to foundation volunteers, who were assisted by Portland police with handling the weapons for eventual destruction. In return for each operable gun, owners received the gift card.

“I believe the majority of people would not show up here today,” said foundation volunteer Liz Julee, “if they did not want their gun removed from circulation.”

Obviously Julee doesn’t understand how markets work. People exchange only when they feel as though they’ll come out better in the end. Many people who turn in firearms at these “buyback” programs value the gift card more than the firearm that they never use. Few, if any, are attending because they want to get guns out of circulation (if that was what they wanted to do they could just destroy the firearms themselves). While Julee’s knowledge on the working of markets is lacking several gun owners used their knowledge of how markets work for fun and profit:

But a minority clearly knew that the price point began at about $80 cash to sell their weapons to West or to a handful of other buyers on the sidewalk. The group did not venture into the parking lot to solicit potential sellers, having been instructed by Portland police at last year’s event to keep their distance.

West, 22, traveled from Medford. One of his first purchases of the day, a Remington Nylon 66 22-caliber rifle, was for $20. He immediately resold it for $100 to another gun buyer, Darren Campbell of Salem, who recognized the firearm as worth potentially triple what he paid.

West and Campbell both said they were purchasing guns largely because of their resale value. Other buyers said they purchased guns on a principle — to prevent the firearms from going out of circulation — but all the buyers interviewed had at some awareness of the firearms’ true resale value.

In the end the seller of the Remington 66 was better off because he or she valued the $20.00 more than the firearm. West was better off because he valued the firearm more than the $20 knowing he could sell the firearm for more than he paid. The final purchaser of the firearm was better off because he valued it more than his $100. In the end everybody was better off, which is why markets are amazing.

It’s great to see the free market working against the state, especially when it comes to gun “buybacks.”

Possible De Facto Carry Coming to McLean County in Illinois

It appears as though de facto carry may be coming to McLean county in Illinois as the McLeon State’s Attorney General has stated he will not prosecute individuals who carry a firearm:

Bloomington, IL (Guns Save Life) – McLean County State’s Attorney Ron Dozier is set to announce publicly today, Monday, August 2o, to the media and residents of McLean County, Illinois, his decision not to prosecute Firearm Owner Identification Card holders who are arrested for merely possessing a concealed weapon in violation of Illinois’ prohibition on law-abiding residents carrying the means with which to protect themselves.

In essence, with Dozier’s decision, gun owners may be able to use their FOID card as a de facto carry permit in that county.

It’s nice to see that there are a few individuals working for the state that have common sense and the backbone to disobey the state’s decrees. Even though this is good news and I commend Dozier for his refusing to enforce an idiotic law the state has many ways to deal with dissidents:

His purpose in making the announcement, he cautions, isn’t to encourage folks to disregard the laws, particular pertaining to firearms, but to send a message to the Governor and legislators “who continue to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court decisions”.

Now, as we mentioned earlier, word of this announcement has been filtering around. Word has it the Illinois State Police is borderline apoplectic. “We can’t have a bunch of untrained people running around with guns!” seems to be their attitude. We know this statement is nothing but a canard as the Illinois State Police does not support private individuals with training above and beyond the average police officer carrying firearms here in Illinois.

Whether or not the Illinois Attorney General can and is willing to prosecute individuals carrying firearms in McLean Country would be interesting to know.

Carry Permit Holders to the Back of the Bus

Not only is the University of Colorado Boulder segregating permit holders into “separate by equal” housing but one of the university’s instructors has state he will cancel any class that is attended by a lawfully armed student:

The state Supreme Court has made it clear that the University of Colorado can’t stop students with concealed-carry permits from bringing their guns to campus. But the chairman of the Boulder Faculty Assembly says if he ever discovers that any of his students are armed, class is over.

CU physics professor Jerry Peterson — speaking for himself Monday, not the faculty group he leads — said he wants his students to feel safe to engage in classroom discussions that could be controversial.

“My own personal policy in my classes is if I am aware that there is a firearm in the class — registered or unregistered, concealed or unconcealed — the class session is immediately canceled,” Peterson said. “I want my students to feel unconstrained in their discussions.”

In other words if there are any “undesirables” attending his class Peterson will cancel it. I wonder if his list of “undesirables” includes more than permit holders. Will he cancel class if there are homosexual or minority students present? Perhaps he’ll cancel class if a Jew or Muslim is present. I’m curious to know just how far Peterson’s bigotry goes.

Peterson’s stance should be a boon to students who are unprepared for class. Any student who fails to complete an assignment on time or isn’t prepared for a test need only accuse his neighbor of lawfully carrying a gun, at what point Peterson will cancel the class and the unprepared student will buy himself time (by the way, if you’re attending one of Peterson’s classes I highly recommend doing this).

Segregation Never Left

People mistakenly believe that segregation was eliminated from our society with the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Segregation never left, the targets have merely changed throughout time. Anybody on the sex offender registry, regardless of the reason they were put onto the list, finds themselves cast into areas outside of arbitrarily defined radiuses from school properties. Felons, regardless of the violation that put them on the felony list, find themselves segregated from gun stores and voting booths. Now, as Uncle points out, permit holders wanting to attend Colorado universities are now being tossed into “separate but equal” living spaces:

The University of Colorado Boulder today announced it is amending housing contracts to ask students who live in undergraduate residence halls and hold a Colorado concealed carry permit, or CCP, to forgo bringing a handgun to campus. The campus also will accommodate those who hold a CCP in a graduate student housing complex off the main campus, provided the permit holders store their weapon in a safe within their dwelling when they are not carrying it.

The university also is asking residence advisers and faculty who live in university housing to sign the same housing agreement as a condition of their residence in these facilities.

Emphasis mine. You have to love the language, holders of carry permits will be “accommodated” as if they somehow have differing needs than students that don’t holder carry permits. What is this really about? Control. The administrators of the University of Colorado Boulder don’t like guns or gun owners and, like any good statist on a power trip, demand the students comply with the administration’s desires. After being defeated in court the administrators had to change their tactics. The Colorado Supreme Court merely ruled that carrying firearms on campus couldn’t be prohibited, it didn’t say that students holding valid carry permits couldn’t be tossed into a ghetto off campus.

What can be done to fix this problem? Another court case could rule that students with valid carry permits can’t be segregated but that will merely require the school administrators to find another way to penalize permit holders. The root of this problem is the fact that school administrators can find out which students hold valid carry permits. Thus the real issue here is that a registry of permit holders exists. These registries need to be abolished and the right to bear arms must be acknowledged as an extension of self-ownership instead of a state granted privilege.

When All You Have is a Hammer

When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. That’s what a few doctors are proving in their advocacy to treat gun control as a public health issue:

Is a gun like a virus, a car, tobacco or alcohol? Yes say public health experts, who in the wake of recent mass shootings are calling for a fresh look at gun violence as a social disease.

What we need, they say, is a public health approach to the problem, like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago, even as the number of vehicles on the road rose.

One example: Guardrails are now curved to the ground instead of having sharp metal ends that stick out and pose a hazard in a crash.

“People used to spear themselves, and we blamed the drivers for that,” said Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine professor who directs the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California-Davis.

It wasn’t enough back then to curb deaths just by trying to make people better drivers, and it isn’t enough now to tackle gun violence by focusing solely on the people doing the shooting, he and other doctors say.

The analogy is flawed from the beginning. Take the given example of guardrails, they mention how people used to get impaled on them so the guardrails were redesigned. What do such incidents have in common with acts of violence? Little. We make changes in guardrails, automobiles, chainsaws, etc. safer to prevent injuries in accidents. Violence isn’t accidental, a person who initiates violence against another is making a conscious purposeful action. The shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin weren’t the result of a person failing to pay attention to trigger discipline and accidentally shooting people, it was the result of two individuals who decided they wanted to bring violence against their fellow human beings.

Between 1990 and 2009 the number of annual automobile accidents ranged from a high of 39,386 in 1990 to a low of 30,797 in 2009 [PDF]. Part of the reason the number of accidents resulting in fatalities has been diminishing isn’t due to stricter automobile control laws but increases in safety features. Such actions work when the result of fatalities are accidental in nature. When the actions are purposeful increasing safety features doesn’t work because individuals wanting to cause harm will bypass said safety features. Gun control is an attempt to create safety features around firearms in the form of background checks, mandatory mental evaluations, etc. and people willing to harm others will also bypass these “safety” features.

When the threat is purposeful action the only real way of protecting yourself is purposeful action. You can’t stop an enraged ex from killing you by simply passing a couple of laws. Killing people is already illegal so somebody willing to kill has already demonstrated a willingness to ignore the law. In such cases you must have a means of defending yourself, of taking purposeful action. When measures are put into place to control access to firearms they merely prevent those willing to obey the law from obtaining said firearms. In other words gun control puts the lawful at a disadvantage while advantaging the lawless. To compare gun control to redesigning guardrails, it would akin to welding six foot spikes onto guardrails once it was shown people were being impaled on the current design. The redesign would put those involved in collisions with guardrails at a disadvantage while not affecting those don’t collide with guardrails.

I understand doctors deal with health issues and therefore they are biased towards seeing everything as a health issue. In this case they need to take a step back and analyze the issue. Violence doesn’t stem from accidents or making poor health decisions, it stems from some people wanting to hurt other people. The failure isn’t on the patient’s end, there is seldom anything the patient can do to prevent it.

Fast and Furious Just Got More Interesting

Operation Fast and Furious has been one of the most entertaining episodes of Politics: The Reality Television Show for Suckers but many viewers have been expressing concern that the writers are running out of fresh ideas. The end of season cliffhanger has been Eric Holder’s refusal to comply with Congress’s investigation and people have been trying to figure out what the Attorney General is so afraid of having revealed. My friend Kurtis has brought some information to my attention that could tell us what’s in store for next season. A high ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel has come forward with claims that the United States government has been arming the cartel and allowed them to sell drugs unhindered:

A high-ranking Mexican drug cartel operative currently in U.S. custody is making startling allegations that the failed federal gun-walking operation known as “Fast and Furious” isn’t what you think it is.

It wasn’t about tracking guns, it was about supplying them — all part of an elaborate agreement between the U.S. government and Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa Cartel to take down rival cartels.

The explosive allegations are being made by Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, known as the Sinaloa Cartel’s “logistics coordinator.” He was extradited to the Chicago last year to face federal drug charges.

Zambada-Niebla claims that under a “divide and conquer” strategy, the U.S. helped finance and arm the Sinaloa Cartel through Operation Fast and Furious in exchange for information that allowed the DEA, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies to take down rival drug cartels. The Sinaloa Cartel was allegedly permitted to traffic massive amounts of drugs across the U.S. border from 2004 to 2009 — during both Fast and Furious and Bush-era gunrunning operations — as long as the intel kept coming.

The pleadings in The United States of America vs. Vicente Jesus Zambada-Neibla [PDF] are an interesting read. Needless to say this entire political fiasco would begin to make sense if Zambada-Neibla’s accusations hold up. The United States government has a long history of working with enemies of enemies. They went so far as to provide military training and money to the Khumer Rouge regime, which was noted for having killed between 1.4 million and 2.2 million civilians. Furthermore the United States government loves granting and then protecting monopolies. Considering those two facts it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that Fast and Furious was done to armed the Sinaloa Cartel in order to help them secure their monopoly against other drug cartels. The fact that Fast and Furious could also be used to advance the cause of gun control may have been seen as a happy benefit.

After reading this I believe people will be tuning in for the next season of Fast and Furious.

Defending Yourself on a Bike

Minneapolis has a well developed biking culture. One cannot drive in the city without seeing numerous cyclists on each road and the city has even paved several trails exclusively for the use of bikers and pedestrians. One of the more popular trails is call the Greenway and is also known for being unsafe to travel during nighttime hours. Incidents of assault and robbery happen periodically and there has even been an incident of numerous individuals ganging up on and assaulting a cyclist.

If you’ve ever ridden the Greenway you can understand why it’s a hotspot for assaults and robberies. The trail is located at the bottom of a ditch and is secluded from nearby buildings and roads. Several bridges dot the trail, each having several cement pillars one can lay in wait behind for unsuspecting travelers. At several points the trail is notably narrow and maneuvering room is nonexistent if somebody attempts an ambush from either side. This is a crucial point to note for cyclists because any strong impact from the side means an imminent meeting between the cyclist and ground. Unlike the people driving cars on the streets above, cyclists and pedestrians lack a surrounding cage of steel, plastic, and glass to protect them from would be attackers. Another disadvantage cyclists and pedestrians have when compared to motorists is the fact that a cyclist’s and pedestrian’s ability to run away from danger vanishes once they’ve impacted the ground.

In an attempt to reduce the number of incidents on the Greenway the Midtown Greenway Tail Watch Coalition (MGTWC) was created. MGTWC is a group of volunteers that ride the trail and attempt to add extra sets of eyes on the bike trail. They’re of little help for somebody being attack though since their guidelines [PDF] specifically state that volunteers are forbidden from intervening in a situation and from carrying weapons. In other words they can watch you get your ass beaten but they can’t actually attempt to intervene without breaking MGTWC rules. The only thing MGTWC members can do, without breaking their guidelines, is call the police. Due to the way the Greenway is constructed there are only a handful of access points from the above streets and that will affect police response times. In general you’re on your own even longer on the Greenway than on the above streets.

What can a traveler of the Greenway do? There are several steps you can take to protect yourself while traveling the Greenway. First and foremost, don’t travel the Greenway after dark. Everywhere the Greenway can access the above streets can access. In Minneapolis cyclists have equal rights on the streets as automobiles so there is no reason one must use the Greenway. Lake Street parallels the Greenway and can be ridden instead. For pedestrians there are the sidewalks that line Lake Street, and there is even a bridge cyclists and pedestrian can use to cross the Lake Street/Highway 55 intersection. Unlike the Greenway, Lake Street is well lit, almost always populated, and has fewer effective ambush points. There is the additional risk of being hit by an automobile although such incidents are rare as far as I know.

Another point to consider is whether or not your should stop. One of the incidents that occurred on the Greenway on June 25th details what can happen if you stop:

9:00 a.m. on June 25th. Reports that two groups of juveniles, one group of females and one group of males, were throwing rocks at bicyclists. One 17 year old male bicyclist stopped and was surrounded by a group of youth, then assaulted and robbed of an ipod.

Don’t stop. When you stop you make yourself vulnerable and any attempt by another to make you stop could be a trap. One of your best advantages while on a bicycle is speed, you’re going to be faster than anybody on foot and if you ride regularly there is a good chance that you’re going to be faster than many of the thugs on bikes. Keep your speed up.

What happens if you’re on the ground? At this point things become very dangerous because it’s likely that you’ve been injured from the fall. Just because you’re down doesn’t mean your out though. Even if you’re knocked off of your bike there are still several things you can do to protect your person. Krav Maga Minneapolis teaches self-defense classes aimed specifically at cyclists. I can’t testify to the effectiveness of such classes as I’ve never taken one but I’ve seen the class recommended by several cyclists so it’s something to look into. It’s also a good idea to carry some kind of defensive spray while riding a bike. Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) spray is useful for deterring both two legged and four legged (and there are four legged critter running around) attackers and is light enough to not make the weight weenies cry too much.

Let us also remember that Minnesota is a shall-issue state. If you apply for a permit to carry, pass the required class, and aren’t a prohibited person the state must issue you a permit. I can hear a few people reading this article going, “A gun? Where the Hell am I going to conceal a gun when I’m on a bike?” Worry not readers! Not only is Minnesota a shall-issue state but once you have a permit you can legally carry a gun openly. This is what I do. If you see a man on a red and black 29er mountain bike with a Glock 30SF strapped to his hip it’s probably me (feel free to say hi). Minneapolis isn’t very friendly towards open carry and people who see you openly carrying a gun on the Greenway are likely to call the police and the police are likely to stop and harass you. Don’t let them intimidate you, the state of Minnesota has preemption on gun laws and local municipalities cannot prohibit carry or forms of carry. They may bully you with the hopes of getting you to stop carrying a gun but there is no reason for you to submit to such antics, they have no legal ground to stand on. You can kindly inform them that if they were doing the job they promised to do you wouldn’t need to carry a gun so they can get you to stop if they can guarantee no further attacks will happen in the future (and deliver on that guarantee).

A firearm is the most effective means of defending yourself once you’re on the ground. Martial arts are effective if you’re assailed by one unarmed individual and not severely injured from the fall. OC spray is also limited in the number of attackers and it can deal with and carries the risk of not actually deterring your attackers. A firearm can be operated from the ground, in many states of injury (even if one of your arms is broken), and can engage multiple attackers. On top of that, if the number of people openly carrying on the Greenway increased dramatically it’s quite possible the number of attacks would decrease as well. Nothing deters a criminal like armed individuals.

I know the traditional cyclist culture and the traditional gun culture often clash but that shouldn’t be the case. Gun rights activists urge people to legally arm themselves, especially if they’re vulnerable to attack, and cyclists are vulnerable to attack, especially if they travel the Greenway.

Minnesota GOCRA Releases Gun rights Ratings for Primary Candidate Elections

Minnesota’s primary election is going down tomorrow and many of you may be wondering where the candidates stand on the issue of gun rights. To answer that question the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance (GOCRA) has released their gun rights grades for candidates in this state’s primary elections.

In a move that must have been specially crafted to reinforce my view of politics I notice that all three of the primary candidates in my senate district are rated F or F* (which indicates that the candidate didn’t care enough to actually fill out GOCRA’s survey and is usually a pretty clear indicator that the candidate has no love for gun rights). My house district faired a little better since only one of the two candidates have an F rating.

This Witch Hunt will be Interesting

Mr. Hwang had police officers draw firearms on him before arresting him because he was peacefully minding his own business. As it turns out Mr. Hwang is a lawyer, which means this case is likely to get very interesting:

Sung-Ho Hwang (pictured at left), a 46-year-old lawyer and president-elect of the New Haven County Bar Association, was arrested Tuesday night at an evening showing of the latest Batman movie at the Criterion. Three patrons saw him carry a gun into the theater and— on the heels of a mass shooting at an Aurora, Colo. screening of the same movie last month—called the cops. They swept into the theater and charged Hwang with breach of peace and interfering after he allegedly refused to obey orders to show his hands.

Arresting a lawyer that wasn’t doing anything illegal is a good way to find yourself at the business end of a rather nasty lawsuit. The article does state that Mr. Hwang was arrested for refusing to obey the police officers’ orders but those orders, which were for everybody in the theater to raise their hands and submit to a pat down, weren’t lawful and thus shouldn’t have been obeyed. It would be like your neighbor coming to your home and demanding you give him $50.00 for no reason at all. In such a situation you should rightly ignore your neighbor’s demands.

Adding a little spice to the story it appears as through the mayor of New Haven, Connecticut is a little despot:

At a 4 p.m. press conference Wednesday, Mayor John DeStefano and Police Chief Dean Esserman stood behind the cops and condemned Hwang’s behavior. DeStefano said people shouldn’t carry guns into dark movie theaters.

“Just because something is legal, doesn’t make it right,” DeStefano said.

Emphasis mine. Whether something is right or not has no relevance to this case, the only thing that matters is whether or not Mr. Hwang’s actions in the theater were legal. Since he possessed a valid carry permit it was legal for him to carry his firearm into that theater and therefore he shouldn’t have been arrested by the police. In fact I question the legality of sending police officers into a theater and having them demand every patron stand up, raise their hands, walk out of the theater in a single file line, and submit to a warrantless search of their persons. If anybody should be considered criminals in this case it’s the New Haven police officers.

The Inevitable Outcome of Attempting to Rob a Gun Store

In general gun stores are heavily armed and the owners rarely tolerate shenanigans like trying to drive a car through their storefront:

One man is dead and two are recovering after being shot by a gun store owner during a burglary of his business Thursday morning.

Stephen Bayazes Jr., 57, told officers that he and his wife were asleep in an apartment at the back of the business, Guns & Ammo Gunsmith, 522 Edgefield Road, shortly before 4 a.m. when he awoke after hearing a loud crash and the activation of a silent alarm.

Bayazes grabbed an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and found three men loading guns into a van that had crashed through the side wall of the store.

After hearing the men yell to kill him, Bayazes shot one 30-round magazine of .223-caliber bullets before retreating to his bedroom to reload, he later told officers.

Obviously these criminals were rocket scientists. This story also answers the gun control advocate’s question regarding the need for AR-15s. Sometimes you have a group of criminals who drive their van through your storefront and having semi-automatic rifle is pretty useful.