Come Back with a Warrant

Indiana is the first state that has finally taken away one of the special privileges its state agents enjoy:

Indiana is the first U.S. state to specifically allow force against officers, according to the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys in Washington, which represents and supports prosecutors. The National Rifle Association pushed for the law, saying an unfavorable court decision made the need clear and that it would allow homeowners to defend themselves during a violent, unjustified attack. Police lobbied against it.

[…]

“Public servant” was added to clarify the law after a state Supreme Court ruling last year that “there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers,” he said. The case was based on a man charged with assaulting an officer during a domestic-violence call.

Young cited a hypothetical situation of a homeowner returning to see an officer raping his daughter or wife. Under the court’s ruling, the homeowner could not touch the officer and only file a lawsuit later, he said. Young said he devised the idea for the law after the court ruling.

The Supreme Court, the sole entity granted permission to interpret what Constitutional protections we serfs enjoy, ruled that us serfs had no right to defend ourselves against unlawful state agent activity. This ruling shouldn’t come as any surprise, the Supreme Court has a long history of upholding the statists’ agenda, but it’s nice to see Indiana basically gave the ruling a huge middle finger.

It’s also not surprising to see that the police lobbied against this law as it does put a barrier between their act of performing an unlawful entry and killing any dogs in the home. I’m glad to see this law passed. I believe all should be equal under the law. Whether the person unlawfully breaking into my home at two in the morning is wearing a state-issued costume or not should be irrelevant.

Now that we know the real story let’s take a look at a heavily editorialized version of this story:

Indiana legalizes shooting cops

We’re off to a good start.

Hold onto your holsters, folks: shooting a cop dead is now legal in the state of Indiana.

Oh you adorable little gun control zealots and you’re purposeful omission of details in an attempt to make the story sound evil and scary when it’s not. “Shooting a cop dead” isn’t legal in Indiana unless that cop is unlawfully entering your property. There is a vast difference between the two statements.

The rest of the article mostly reads like the one I first linked to but the openings were just too good to go without comment.

Possible Hope in Fast and Furious

How long as the Fast and Furious scandal been known about? It’s been a while and the House Oversight Committee is finally moving to hold a hearing on whether or not Eric Holder should be nailed for contempt:

(CBS News) CBS News has learned the House Oversight Committee will vote next week on whether to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. It’s the fourth time in 30 years that Congress has launched a contempt action against an executive branch member.

This time, the dispute stems from Holder failing to turn over documents subpoenaed on October 12, 2011 in the Fast and Furious “gunwalking” investigation.

[…]

However, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., says the Justice Department has refused to turn over tens of thousands of pages of documents. Those include materials created after Feb. 4, 2011, when the Justice Department wrote a letter to Congress saying no gunwalking had occurred. The Justice Department later retracted the denial.

“The Obama Administration has not asserted Executive Privilege or any other valid privilege over these materials and it is unacceptable that the Department of Justice refuses to produce them. These documents pertain to Operation Fast and Furious, the claims of whistleblowers, and why it took the Department nearly a year to retract false denials of reckless tactics,” Issa wrote in an announcement of the vote to be released shortly. It will reveal the vote is scheduled for Wednesday, June 20.

Will anything come of this? I’m not holding my breath. With the exception of a handful of members of Congress, it appears as though the legislative body has been less than apathetic in pursuing Fast and Furious. On the other hand this ruling could be a big deal during the election and the Republicans have a vested interest in ruling Holder in contempt. As the Republicans hold the majority of seats on the committee and have a vested interesting in holding Holder in contempt something may actually come of this. Of course state agents are also vested in protecting one another from prosecutions related to their criminal activities so the House Oversight Committee may not vote to hold Holder in contempt, doing so may cause the Democrats to seek revenge by calling the Republicans on one of their criminal activities. This is the problem with organized criminal entities, reform is almost impossible because everybody has dirt on everybody else. Ruling Holder in contempt would also interfere with the state’s move to push gun control forward, which was, at least one of, the goals of Fast and Furious.

This will be an interesting case to continue watching to say the least.

Gun Control Zealot Editorialization

Reading articles by gun control zealots is interesting because they’re often laced with countless editorializations that attempt to make a case for disarming the people. Take this recent case from Wisconsin where a 75 year-old man shot a 16 year-old kid because the older man thought the kid stole his firearm collection:

75-year-old John Henry Spooner from Milwaukee, WI, appointed himself judge, jury and executioner when he gunned down a 13-year-old boy whose only crime appeared to be…his appearance. The victim, Darius Simmons, was black, unarmed and brutally shot in front of his now grief-stricken mother.

At issue was a gun collection, which had been, according to Spooner, stolen. Simmons lived next door. Spooner confronted Darius, who was in sixth grade, and his mother, Patricia Larry, when the boy was moving a garbage can in the front yard. Darius denied involvement in the theft. In fact, he was in school at the time of the robbery, but that answer was unsatisfactory to Spooner, who proceeded to point his 9mm handgun at Darius.

[…]

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Spooner was upset that his neighborhood had turned from a majority Caucasian neighborhood to a mixed-race neighborhood. Darius and his family had recently moved next door to Spooner.

There is some editorialization that attempts to build a case of racism against Spooner, something we saw in the Zimmerman case. Speaking of the Zimmerman case, the author of this article doesn’t forget to make a spurious editorialization to play on the death of Trayvon Martin:

Wisconsin does have both Stand Your Ground and Castle Doctrine laws on the books, although it probably be even more difficult for Spooner to make the case that he was under any sort of threat than it will be for George Zimmerman, the killer of Trayvon Martin.

The article attempts to convince the reader that Spooner was a racist who gunned down an unarmed black teenager for the sole reason that the teenager was black. Because of the Zimmerman case I won’t believe any such accusations unless absolute proof is brought forward. Let us not forget that both MSNBC and CNN were caught fabricating evidence to make Zimmerman’s motivation appear race-related. The media has shot what little credibility it may have once had when it comes to reporting the facts in any crime that involves a black individual being shot by a person of a differing race.

Not only has the author attempted to make this shooting appear race related but it attempts to make the Zimmerman case entirely race related. The paragraph should read, “Wisconsin does have both Stand Your Ground and Castle Doctrine laws on the books, although it probably be even more difficult for Spooner to make the case that he was for the racist murder Zimmerman who had no claim of self-defense whatsoever.” Seriously, if you’re going to editorialize go big or go home. Either way the author forgets to bring up the fact that evidence exists supporting Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense. Of course it took ages for this evidence to come to light because it didn’t fit the media’s narrative, and it’s possible Spooner’s action was legitimate self-defense and we’ll only learn of evidence supporting such a claim much later down the road, and it won’t be reported to any extent.

Let’s take a look at another recent story written by a gun control zealot:

BAD boy swimmers Nick D’Arcy and Kenrick Monk have sparked outrage after they posed with high-powered weapons in a US gun shop.

The pair smiled and looked smug as they handled automatic pistols and pump-action shot guns similar to those used in the Port Arthur massacre.

[…]

Mr Crook said Monk was holding the same pump-action shot guns used by Martin Bryant, who murdered 35 people in Port Arthur in 1996.

D’Arcy was pictured holding semi-automatic pistols, similar to those used by Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui.

The only story here is that two Australian Olympic swimmers went to an American gun shop and took a picture of themselves holding firearms while exercising poor trigger discipline. I forgive the poor trigger discipline simply because they are from a hoplophobic country where firearms training is probably suppressed as much as firearms. After all, you don’t want the peasants to familiarize themselves with firearms or they might find out they enjoy shooting and thus demand the strict firearm laws be struck from the books.

The author of this article tries to make this non-story appear to be a scandalous one but tying the swimmers to two massacres. According to the article the weapons were similar to those used in the Port Arthur massacre and the Virginia Tech massacre. Since no logical argument can be made for gun control proponents must appeal to peoples’ emotions. They must pull at your heartstrings and rely on your fear in order to push their agenda.

These articles are perfect examples of gun control zealots editorializing stories to push their agenda. Because of these editorializations they’ve taken potentially serious issues and turned them into irrelevant gibberish that people have become entirely desensitized to due to the constant Chicken Little claims that never pan out. Editorializations have also made the media entirely unreliable, credibility cannot be granted to organizations that continuously lie in order to push an agenda. Thankfully the people have become wise to these tactics and are no longer buying the gun control zealots’ malarkey. You idiots advocating gun control screwed yourselves in the end. While lying worked in the short term people eventually woke up and called you out. When you refused to back down after being called out people recognized you for the cheats you are and began ignoring you. In all honesty I should thank those of you who editorialized in an attempt to push gun control, you lies basically did gun rights advocates’ work for them. Instead of having to argue ideas gun rights advocates’ merely had to point out your lies, which destroyed your credibility. Victory was handed to all of us in the gun community, by yourselves, on a silver platter.

Shocking Fast and Furious News

Absolutely shocking evidence has arisen that shows high-ranking state officials actually knew about Fast and Furious:

A House investigative committee said Tuesday it has obtained new information from wiretaps related to the Obama administration’s Operation Fast and Furious that suggests high-ranking officials know more than they are telling Congress about the flawed weapons sting.

“The wiretap applications show that immense detail about questionable investigative tactics was available to the senior officials who reviewed and authorized them,” Issa said in a June 5 letter to Holder. “The close involvement of these officials — much greater than previously known — is shocking.”

Who would have guessed that there was corruption afoot? That was a rhetorical question, the entire Fast and Furious operation was nothing but a corrupt state scheme meant to bring in more gun control measures.

When Obama told the Brady Campaign that he was going to work on gun control under the radar everybody assumed he was either placating the gun control zealots or was going to promote gun control through some form of nation campaign. I don’t think anybody expected he would go so far as to authorize an operation that would get people killed and then try to cover the entire mess up. Then again we shouldn’t be too surprised that a psychopath, who ordered the assassination of two American citizens without any form of due process, also authorized an operation that was obviously going to cost lives (what other outcome could have come from arming violent drug cartels).

This new evidence is damning. Not only does it demonstrate higher ups knew about the operation but is also demonstrates that they outright lied about having such knowledge. It also shows the complete disregard for human life the current administration holds. Anybody could have told you what the outcome of arming violent drug cartels was going to be, yet the current administration decided it was OK. I’m sure they feel the ends justify the means.

If You’re in Venezuela Get Out Now

If I have any readers in Venezuela, something I doubt but anything is possible, get the hell out of there:

Until now, anyone with a gun permit could buy arms from a private company.

Under the new law, only the army, police and certain groups like security companies will be able to buy arms from the state-owned weapons manufacturer and importer.

I’ve covered the situation in Venezuela before. Every time they’ve tightened restrictions on private gun ownership crime has only continued to go up. I’m assuming the Venezuelan state isn’t composed entirely of idiots so there must be another reason they’re moving to ban private firearm ownership, and I can guarantee their plans aren’t going to be good for the people living there.

If you living in Venezuela I can only urge you to flee and if you’re unable or unwilling to flee you must not comply with this prohibition. Keep your arms, hide them in the deepest hole you can find that is still accessible to you. Do not willingly be suckered into putting yourself entirely at the mercy of the state, especially since the violent crime rate is so high. Let us not forget the history of gun control:

The Turkish Ottoman Empire established gun control in 1911. It then proceeded to exterminate 1 and a half million Armenians from 1914 to 1917.

The Soviet Union established gun control in 1929. Subsequently, from 1928 to 1953, 60 million dissidents were imprisoned and then exterminated.

China enacted gun control laws in 1935. After the communist takeover, from 1948 to 1952, 20 million Chinese, unable to defend themselves, were murdered.

Nazi Germany fully established gun control in 1938. That helped the government to round up 13 million defenseless Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally ill and impaired human beings. Many were imprisoned in concentration camps, then destroyed.

Guatemala passed gun control laws in 1964. Then, from 1964 to 1981, 100,000 defenseless Mayan Indians were exterminated.

Uganda established gun control measures in 1970. Predictably, from 1971 to 1979, 300,000 defenseless Christians met a similar fate.

Cambodia established gun control measures in 1956. Subsequently, from 1957 to 1977, 1 million Cambodians met their deaths.

I’m guessing Chavez is either worried about winning the next election, a situation that may require him to seize absolute control and abolish the sham democracy, or he’s planning on doing a massive confiscation of wealth. Venezuela is a Peoples’ Paradise after all and Peoples’ Paradises usually use wealthy individuals as boogeymen to distract the proles from the state’s actions. The wealthy end up being accused of exploiting the working man and keeping wealth tied up so it can’t go to help those in need. Once the people are fired up and ready to accept any action taken against the wealthy, the state moves in, confiscates the wealth, and keeps it while claiming it’s going to be distributed to help those in need.

This is What Winning Looks Like

Andrew Rothman, Vice President of the Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance (MNGOCRA) was good enough to e-mail me a few days ago to alert me that Minnesota would soon be exceeding 100,000 carry permit holders. Along with this notification Andrew also sent me the breakdown of permit holder statistics by age range:

21-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 80-89 90-99 Total Percentage
Total Male 11,618 14,984 16,906 19.996 16,068 5,680 784 34 86,070 86.8%
Total Females 1,830 2,350 3,098 3,509 1,939 391 28 1 13,146 13.2%
Percentage Male 86.4% 86.4% 84.5% 85.1% 89.3% 93.6% 96.6% 97.1%
Percentage Female 13.6% 13.6% 15.5% 14.9% 10.8% 6.4% 3.4% 2.9%
Percentage Age 13.9% 17.5% 20.2% 23.7% 18.1% 6.1% 0.8% 0.04%

Raw numbers are boring though so let’s display some charts. What’s that you’re asking? I actually went out of my want to make charts? Heck no, these were also provided by Andrew who is obviously a far more productive man than I am. First we have the overall breakdown of permit holders by age range:

Not surprisingly the majority of permit holders are male although I’m sure a bunch of gun control advocates are going to point to this and claim it’s part of the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) secret conspiracy to war on women or something. In reality woman just aren’t as apt to enter the shooting sports or obtain carry permits although that is changing as woman become the fastest growing segment in the firearms market. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the male to female ratio change over the next several years. The next chart Andrew was good enough to send me was a breakdown of permit holders by age range:

The two largest age ranges are 50-59 and 40-49 although the age ranges between 21-29 and 60-69 are fairly evenly broken down overall. What I believe is the most interesting chart is the one that breaks down permit holders by county:

By far the highest percent of permit holder density per country population is in the more rural areas. This makes sense since firearm ownership and thus awareness is more common in rural areas than urban areas. In Minnesota people living in rural areas are more likely to be introduced to firearms than people living in urban areas. Because of this people in rural areas are generally more comfortable around firearms while those raised in urban areas have often had the misguided claim that firearms are bad crammed down their throats. As the firearm market grows I’m betting the density map will being changing as the number of gun owners in urban areas increases.

The final chart Andrew sent to me shows the percentage of females by age range:

It appears the percentage of female permit holders is pretty much in line with the percentage of permit holders by age range. Once again I’m guessing this chart will change as the number of female gun owners increase. In fact I would bet the percentage of female gun owners in the age ranges of 21-29 and 30-39 will increase are a faster rate than the other age ranges.

No matter how you look at the data one thing is clear, the number of permit holders in Minnesota is increasing. As much as it dismays the gun control zealots people are no longer listening to their malarkey claims. Gun sales are up, permit holders are up, and the influence of the gun control advocates is waning.

Going Armed Becoming More Popular with Women in India

Woman are the fastest growing demographics for firearm sales in the United States and more are getting their carry permits every day. It’s nice to see the United States doesn’t hold a monopoly on armed women, women in India are arming themselves as well:

When Dr Harveen Kaur Sidhu travels from her home in an upmarket neighbourhood of the north-western Indian city of Chandigarh, she always slips her lightweight .22 revolver in her bag. The gun is a new purchase – Sidhu got her licence only a year ago – but now the 33-year-old dentist won’t travel without it.

“I don’t have faith in the police to protect me. There are so many attacks on women these days. It’s everybody’s right to defend themselves. I think all women who are vulnerable should be carrying guns,” Sidhu said. She is not alone. A growing number of well-off, educated Indian women are turning to firearms for protection.

The trend is part of a broader growth of gun culture in the land once known for the non-violent principles of Mahatma Gandhi.

Stories like this put a smile on my face. Gun control advocates will obviously take that quote, twist it, and use it as irrefutable proof that I support women being attacked to push my agenda but that’s entirely false. The reason stories like this make me smile is because there are now more people out there who are armed and thus the risk involved in perpetrating violent crime has increased.

Robert Heinlein once wrote, “An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” Perpetrating a crime, like anything else, is done after determining the risks compared to the rewards and finding the rewards worth the risk. When a mugger robs somebody on the street that mugger had determined the act of armed robbery was worth the risk of the victim defending him or herself. When you increase the number of armed individuals you also increase the risk of perpetrating a crime. As the risks associating with perpetrating a crime increases the number of crimes committed decreases.

Another part of this story I want to address is the following:

There are estimated to be 40m guns in India, the second highest number in the world after the US. Licences are hard to obtain and most are illegal weapons, many manufactured in backstreet workshops. Ownership levels per capita remain low – three guns for every 100 people in India – but there is strong anecdotal evidence that middle-class interest in firearms is rising fast.

Many who promote gun rights are careful to clarify they only mean for law-abiding citizens. Paragraphs like the above make them squirm because they see so many people arming themselves illegally yet want to support those peoples’ actions. I’ve mostly given up tossing the “law-abiding citizen” caveat on my statements regarding gun rights. The bottom line is states often place numerous restrictions between individuals and their right of self-defense meaning the only way one can defend themselves is unlawfully. For example, the paragraph above states that a majority of firearms in India are illegally owned. Illegal by what regards? The state’s regards.

To quote Martin Luther King Jr., “One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” Laws prohibiting individuals from exercising their right of self-defense are unjust and should not be obeyed. When a woman in India arms herself against the wishes of the state she should be cheered. According to the state she may be unlawful but according to any decent person she is performing a just act.

The Open Carry Debate Rises Again

Caleb over at Gun Nuts Media has stirred up the shooting community by posting a video of Rob Pincus and James “I put cameramen downrange during live fire exercises” Yeager bitching about open carry. Once again those who support open carry are debating against those who oppose it. Let me solve this debate.

Does the act of open carrying hurt anybody? I don’t mean some imaginary definition of hurt, like hurting a “cause” or somebody’s feeling, I mean actually physically hurting somebody. No? Then it’s not a problem, is it?

That’s it, the argument is over as far as I’m concerned. You can claim that people who openly carry a firearm are harming the cause of gun rights, but that’s really an irrelevant statement because those who oppose the right to carry a firearm are going to oppose it regardless. Their problem lies with the fact that they don’t like guns, they’re afraid of guns, and unless you get them beyond that point they’re going to oppose legalizing the carrying of firearms. Getting people beyond their fear of firearms requires normalizing firearms in their eyes. Instead of the magic black boxes that are capable of dealing death we must introduce opponents of gun rights to the fact that firearms are machines, no different than automobiles. We must demonstrate that firearms aren’t evil, they have no consciousness, they are merely tools in the hands of people.

Fighting amongst each other isn’t going to help promote gun rights, in fact I bet that fighting amongst each other does far more harm to gun rights than any act of openly carrying firearms could ever manage. Seeing proponents of gun rights fighting with one another causes outsiders to question our ideals even more.

California Looking to Ban More Firearms

If you’re living in California I have one simple question: Why? Is it your job? It won’t be there much longer with the way California’s economy is going. Do you like living on the coast? There’s coastline is many other far freer states. Do you just like having more and more of your freedoms stripped from you by the California government? If that’s your reason then you most certainly should stay.

Earlier this month gun control zealots were stirring up dust about California’s so-called bullet button loophole. Because of this a senator wanting to boost is status has decided to introduce legislation to ban firearms with so-called bullet buttons:

“When I saw the news I was absolutely horrified,” said State Senator Leland Yee, referring to a CBS5 report about the so-called bullet button.

It’s a modification that enables the magazine of a semi-automatic rifle to be removed quickly, with the tip of a bullet. Removable magazines in combination with other features like a pistol grip and telescoping stock are banned under California law. But the bullet button is legal because it doesn’t work with your finger, so the magazine is considered “fixed.”

The modification has allowed military style rifles like the AR-15 to proliferate in the state, something Senator Yee said has got to stop.

“It is extremely important that individuals in the state of California do not own assault weapons. I mean that is just so crystal clear, there is no debate, no discussion,” said Yee.

That’s why the Senator is introducing a bill to ban the bullet button.

“What I am proposing is to essentially prevent any mechanism that would allow the conversion of an assault weapon into a way that you can fire these magazines upon magazines without effort,” he said.

You can tell Yee is a gun control zealot because he has outright stated that “there is no debate, no discussion.” He doesn’t give any justification because as far as he’s concerned it’s a self-evident fact. To him the people of California are subjects and must bow to his will and obey his commands.

This also demonstrates that no gun control law will satisfy the advocates. Every time a law has been enacted to control some firearm or feature the gun control advocates wanted controlled they have come back for more. First it was just a ban on “obviously” dangerous weapon such as machine guns and explosives, then they demanded all felons be prohibited from owning guns, then they wanted background checks and waiting periods on all firearms purchases, then they wanted to ban rifles with a list of arbitrary features, and now they’re demanding more.

Fortunately gun control advocates haven’t been having a great deal of success outside of California but they have had success in California. If your a gun owner, heck if you’re a person who enjoys freedom of any kind, abandon California. The entirety of the United States is becoming more and more of a police state every day but it’s still freer than California.

Push to Prohibit Stand Your Ground Laws Federally Abandoned

No sooner did several Democrats introduce a bill (named after Trayvon Martin of course, can’t let that crisis go to waste) to repeal stand your ground laws federally it has been rescinded:

Democrats backed off of their effort Tuesday to offer a “Trayvon amendment” to pressure states to drop their stand-your-ground laws after learning it was likely to be ruled out of order under the evening’s rules for debate on the House floor.

Rep. Keith Ellison, Minnesota Democrat, said he will still try to force a debate at a more “appropriate” time in the future, saying action is demanded by the case of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager who police said was shot dead in a street encounter with a neighborhood watch volunteer.

The Ellison amendment would have docked federal criminal justice grants to states that have stand-your-ground laws, which allow residents to use deadly force to respond to an attack without first having to retreat.

No debate is needed, stand your ground laws are basic common sense. Why should I be forced to face possible prison time because some punk decided to attack me outside of my home? Why should I be subjected to possible criminal charges because some schmuck fabricated a way I could have fled a location where I was attacked? Why should be I prohibited the right to self-defense in a life threatening situation?

I’m not at all surprised that an idiot like Ellison (why do these idiots have to be from my state) introduced a bill that would further disarm individuals and benefit violent criminals. Let’s face it, Ellison isn’t concerned about stand your ground laws. The Trayvon Martin case is the perfect platform for one to boost their political career. Public opinion has ruled Zimmerman guilty or murdering Martin so any politicians who can successfully exploit the tragedy is looking to get a little boost at the polls. This is pure exploitation plain and simple.