Tag: Gun Rights

McCarthy Going for Full Gun Ban

I’m a little late with this news but Sebastian over at Snowflakes in Hell has posted information regarding McCarthy’s draft bill to ban ammunition feeding devices above an arbitrary size.

The transfer, importation, and manufacture of any ammunition feeding device (not just magazines it seems) would become illegal under this bill. I don’t know how they could enforce who I transfer magazines to as they usually don’t even have serial numbers to identify them and thus can’t really be tracked.

Likewise many firearms would also become illegal to transfer, import, or manufacture under this law. What firearms you ask? Basically any firearm that has a fixed magazine that can store more than 10 cartridges. Spare parts for standard capacity magazines also become verboten under the law.

What is funny though is police, active or retired, are exempt from this because they obviously need to kill as many people as possible (in McCarthy’s words describing standard capacity magazines). This makes sense because when you’re the government’s enforcement body you get special privileges over the peasantry.

Advocacy for NYPD to Boycott Glocks

We all know the true culprit in the Arizona shooting was the Glock pistol with high capacity “clips.” It certainly wasn’t the person wielding the gun and shooting people. That’s why idiots in support of gun control have been attacking Glock so heavily. It seems a new layer of stupidity has arisen with with people advocating the New York Police Department (NYPD) boycott Glock pistols because they sell 30-round magazines to peasants:

“If Glock will not stop selling these magazines to consumers, then the New York City Police Department should start buying the firearms they need from a different company,” Public Advocate Bill de Blasio said.

“The New York Post editorial board has rightly argued that the Glock-manufactured 30-round magazines, like the one used by clearly disturbed Jared Loughner, present an unacceptable risk to human life, and at the same time no justifiable civilian purpose.”

So in a time of budget crisis the NYPD should dump all of their pistols and buy all new guns, parts, retrain officers, and retrain armorers just because Glock does a perfectly legitimate and legal activity of selling magazines of an arbitrary size to peasants (saying civilians isn’t correct as the police are civilians as well).

What I find really stupid is the fact people are blaming the magazine. There are two conflicted reports going around on how the shooting was stopped. Some people are claiming he was tackled when he was in the middle of a reload while others are saying he successfully reloaded but the gun jammed when chambering a new round. Likewise tackling somebody during a reload requires you to already be in very close proximity since reloading a gun is a fast operation. If somebody is more than a few feet away it’s unlikely that they’d be able to close the distance before a shooter was able to get a new magazine into their gun.

If we’re going to blame tools we need to look at other things as well. Has anybody found out what kind of car the Arizona shooter drove? We should probably attack that as well since without it he couldn’t have driven there (if he used public transportation we need to ban that instead). We did the shooter buy his groceries? If he wouldn’t have been able to eat he wouldn’t have been alive and thus couldn’t have performed the shooting, we really should go after his preferred grocery story.

Rachel Maddow Flat Out Lying

I’ve always known Rachel Maddow was a complete fucking moron but I never realized just how stupid she really was until I watched her following clip (you’ll have to copy and paste since I won’t be a referral to this idiot’s site):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908//vp/41030180#41030326

It’s Rachel Maddow on guns and it’s even more idiotic than I imagined. First she goes on a little rant about the all plastic gun that Glock was able to make. Yes you heard me right, an all plastic gun that Glock made. She claims Congress then passed a bill banning entirely plastic guns because of this magical undetectable-at-airports gun. What she is referencing (but never tells you) is the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988. Basically they law states any gun that can not be detected by a walk through metal detector is banned from being manufactured or imported into the country. The law also provided an exemption for any firearm that was already in the United States.

If the law was passed and Glock never actually made an entirely plastic gun then what was Congress doing passing any such law? Probably the same thing Wisconsin was doing when they banned electromagnetic weapons for hunting. In other words they were banning something that doesn’t exist. So where did Rachel get her firearm knowledge? Probably from Die Hard 2.

She then moves on to bitch about “cop killer bullets” (and Dick Cheney). There is no such thing as “cop killer bullets.” When people refer to such mystical things they are talking about armor piercing ammunition which is defined very specifically in the United States via the Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act of 1985. In the United States armor piercing bullets is defined as handgun bullets (rifle and shotgun ammunition is specifically exempt) constructed from specified material. It also exempts any ammunition that the Secretary of Treasury exempts for hunting purposes.

Next she asks if her audience would like an anti-aircraft weapon. HELL YEAH I would. You know how awesome it would be to own a World War II anti-aircraft cannon? Pretty awesome that’s for sure. Anyways she states that there are federal regulations against having anti-aircraft weapon in airport observation areas. This is another stupid law because I’ve been in airport observation areas and honestly there is no way to wheel and anti-aircraft cannon in there. Have you seen the size of those things? They’re not exactly small rifles.

Funny enough she’s still not done bitch about guns. She goes on to talk about how everybody is stating passing gun control in this country is impossible (which, sadly, it isn’t) but she things differently. The reason passing gun control in this country is difficult is two fold. First we have a right to keep and bear arms codified in the second amendment. Second we’ve seen gun control laws never actual prevent or lower violent crime rates they only make it more difficult for law abiding citizens to exercise their right to keep and bear arms. If something has been demonstrated not to work time and time again why should anybody take it seriously?

She then follows by making a classic anti-gunner mistake, stating the “assault weapon” ban made purchasing standard capacity magazines illegal. That’s not even close to the case. The “assault weapon” ban made it illegal to manufacture new magazines with a capacity above 10 rounds unless they were meant for military or law enforcement personnel. The Arizona shooter could still have legally purchased a previously manufactured 30 round magazine even with the ban in place. Likewise she keeps calling them clips because she’s a moron who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Then the real bullshit comes up, she claims information on gun control laws are “un-Googleable.” She also tells her audience that they shouldn’t even try to Google gun control laws but instead research them at a library. Yeah, sure. Guess what? I always find my information relating to gun laws using Google, it’s pretty easy. There isn’t some super gun lobby conspiracy to filter the Internet of all things gun law related.

If her staff can’t Google information related to gun laws she needs to fire them and hire new people. Either way that was the absolute worst piece I’ve seen done since the Arizona shooting and honestly don’t know how it could be topped.

Targeting Glock

The blame game is go and Glock is the target. Slate did a write up of Glock as a company and basically tries to make underhanded jibes that demonstrate how “evil” Glock is. They make several negative statements but never really mention anything good. In addition to that they also omit quite a bit of information that would make the article less ominous:

Second, and more important, Glocks held more ammunition than the standard-issue guns usually did at the time. With gang-driven gun violence rising, police departments decided to give the guns with the extra rounds a try. They caught on and then gained popularity in the consumer markets. (They also developed a particular cache among criminals, then broader cultural recognition, including numerous citations in rap lyrics.) By 1996, Sweeney writes, Glock had sold more than 1 million guns in America.

Yes police wanted more ammunition. What this story doesn’t tell you is the police departments weren’t upgrading from some 10 shot pistol but from six shot revolvers. Not only did Glock’s pistols hold more than six shots they were much faster to reload. But the biggest hurdle for Glock’s adoption was reliability, police were still using revolvers because they didn’t have much trouble in the way of jamming up. Glock was chosen not only because of additional ammunition capacity but also because of the reliability of their pistols.

Slate then continues to bring up other accusations made against Glock which have no bearing on the shooting in Arizona whatsoever. Of course they also have to point out how well armed we Americans are:

Several other states showed a significant sales bump. And national sales increased about 5 percent. All in all, Americans—not military or police, mind you, but private citizens—own more than 270 million firearms, about 85 guns per 100 people. No other country has such high rates of gun ownership, or absolute numbers of guns in the general population.

The insinuation is America has a high rate of gun related crimes because of how high our gun ownership is. Of course anybody who has looked into the matter knows this is bullshit as countries such as Switzerland and Finland have high rates of gun ownership and pretty low rates of violent crimes. Gun ownership rates have no correlation to levels of violent crimes in a country no matter how much anti-gunners want to believe it.

They also try to make Glock sound like a bad company because they make money:

So how profitable are companies like Glock? Again, we don’t know, because it keeps such information private. But the BusinessWeek story says Glock estimated its “profit margin per pistol” at 68 percent. And consider a major Glock competitor: Massachusetts-based Smith & Wesson, established back in the 1850s. The company’s last annual report cites a gross margin of 32 percent.

Isn’t making money the whole point of running a company? That’s like accusing a vehicle of somehow being bad because it gets you from point A to point B. You really can’t make something sound evil/bad/wrong when it’s doing the exact thing it’s supposed to. Of course to many out there making a profit is a bad thing that only evil capitalists would dare imagine doing (ironically many of the people making such accusations are rich from profits from capitalism).

Glock Sales Surge

In case you couldn’t predict the bloody obvious Glock’s sales have surged have the shooting in Arizona. The anti-gunners are spouting bullshit about this being some kind of sick desire to own the gun that killed so many people when in fact it’s not.

The reason Glock pistol sales have surged all of the sudden is most likely due to the gun control legislation ideas being pumped out by Washington. One of their own was shot and they’re out for blood meaning they’re going to go after anybody they can. A target in the cross hairs of Washington right now is Glock because they made the tools which was used by the shooter. It’s just like how Washington goes after the manufacturers of getaway vehicles when one is used to commit a crime against… never mind I forgot gun are somehow responsible for crimes while other tools are not.

Either way people want to get Glock pistols before any legislation that may make them illegal (maybe a ban on polymer framed pistols or other such nonsense) starts moving. Why would somebody want one of these pistols? Because they’re fucking amazing tools. Frankly this kind of thing happens whenever a gun is used in a high profile crime so it’s not surprising in any regard. But it’s not due to some desire to have a memento of the shooting.

Better Than Us

Our “representatives” have been positively frothing at the mouth with gun control legislation ideas. A New York “representative” appropriately named King is going to introduce legislation that makes it illegal to carry a gun within 1,000 feet of a federal official.

Of course the crazy ass Arizona shooter wouldn’t have shot Gabrielle Giffords if this law was in effect because it would be illegal to carry said gun that close to her. You know they really should just it illegal to shoot somebody as that would be kind of a catch all for these types of situations… wait it already is. I guess we just have to find that one magical law that will make murdering psychopaths reconsider their desires because that makes sense.

The other interesting thing to wonder is what will be the definition of federal official. The federal government employs a great number of people and chances are you have be closer than 1,000 feet to one without even realizing it. How will we know who are federal officials and thus who we have to keep an arbitrary distance from when carrying? Will federal officials be forced to wear some kind of indicator, maybe a “I ban guns within an arbitrary distance of me” sign, as they walk around? I doubt dip shit King put any such thought into these questions as they are concerns only of the peasants of which he rules over.

I Don’t Think the News Reads the News

Notice something wrong with this article?

They have bemoaned the state of America’s political discourse, called for leadership in toning down heated rhetoric, speculated over whether this is a turning point for Barack Obama or Sarah Palin and puzzled over the shooter’s mental state.

But one thing that has scarcely been raised is gun control.

Riiiiiight. It’s not like Feinstein and McCarthy are dancing in the blood happy that they may have a tragedy needed to push through a restriction on arbitrary capacity magazines or anything… oh wait that’s exactly what they’re doing. Wait a minutes, the article contradict itself:

But here in the US, the only regulatory response so far has been to call for a ban on the sale of high capacity magazines like the sort that Jared Loughner allegedly used in Arizona, enabling him to shoot 31 bullets from a semi-automatic handgun without having to reload.

So gun control is scarcely being raised but gun control is being raised. This makes no sense whatsoever until you realize it’s just one long anti-gun article. Those anti-gunners never were too strong on brains nor the ability to write something that doesn’t contradict itself. Hell even I can write an entire article that doesn’t forget earlier parts of itself exist.

Information on Multiple Victim Shootings

After the event in Arizona is seems people are making claims that the number of multiple victim shootings has been on the rise. Well that’s not really true:

While Thomas didn’t refer to trends over a longer period than just three years, the numbers for the longer term are murky as well. To more easily analyze Fox’s data — which goes back to 1976 — we averaged the number of incidents for each five-year period (or, in the case of 2006 to 2009, a four-year period). Here are the results:

• 1976-1980: 20.6 incidents annually
• 1981-1985: 16.8
• 1986-1990: 18.2
• 1991-1995: 23.0
• 1996-2000: 20.0
• 2001-2005: 21.0
• 2006-2009: 25.5

More to the point it seems the number of incidents has been rather inconsistent. Of course somebody will point out that the period involving the lift of the “assault weapon” also followed by an increase in these incidents I’ll point out that the period involving the implementation and enforcement of the “assault weapon” ban was followed by an increase in these incidents as well and thus we can pretty much factor out that piece of legislation as having any effect on the number of these incidents.

The article is a good read.

A Bunch of Vultures

No sooner does the news of the Arizona shooting break does New York “Representative” Carolyn McCarthy talke about introducing new gun control regulations:

Many said that people with a history of mental instability, like the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, should not be able to buy a gun — and no one should be able to buy stockpiles of ammunition used by the 22-year-old assailant.

Hold the bus. At least when you talk about magazines with an arbitrarily sized capacity you can claim it has some kind of relevance to the shooting maybe. But talking about stockpiles of ammunition? Really? How much ammunition did the man have on him? Sure he may have owned 100,000 rounds of ammunition but that doesn’t mean shit if he’s only to carry a small percentage of that. In case that dumb bitch McCarthy didn’t realize ammunition has weight and size meaning you can only carry a finite amount. So how does having a stockpile change anything? The answer is it does and McCarthy is just a fucking tool. Oh and she isn’t the only dipshit:

Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, a Democrat from Philadelphia, told CNN that he also plans to take legislative action. He will introduce a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to use language or symbols that could be seen as threatening or violent against a federal official, including a member of Congress.

Wait isn’t threatening violence against a federal official already illegal? Yes, yes it is. Don’t believe me? Well you could always try it and see where it lands you (here’s a hint, in prison). I do love how they law will only involved federal officials and not threats against lowly little peasants like you and me. After all they’re not our representatives but our rulers. We also have a fuck face from Illinois:

Another vocal supporter for gun control, Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley, told POLITICO that he hopes “something good” can come from the Arizona tragedy – perhaps discussion on a new assault weapon ban, sales at gun shows and tracing measures.

Yes because banning arbitrarily sized magazines helped reduce violence last time it was in effect… wait no it didn’t. We also have this golden quote:

“The ability to buy a weapon that fires hundreds of bullets in less than a minute,” said Quigley. “He had an additional magazine capability. That’s not what a hunter needs. That’s not what someone needs to defend their home. That’s what you use to hunt people.”

What the fuck do hunters have to do with the second amendment? Exactly nothing, the second amendment wasn’t put into place to allow hunting it was put into place to allow the citizenry to overthrow a tyrannical government. We also have a quote from another gun control nutcase:

“I’ve seen no evidence that he falls into those categories. It’s the same thing as this guy at Virginia Tech,” said Horwitz. “We can do a much better job checking people’s mental health background.”

No we really can’t “do better.” Crazy often doesn’t manifest until the person decides to, well, be crazy. No expansion of background checks will allow for every person with bad intentions to be caught. You can’t detect evil plain and simple.

You have to be appalled at these people who waste not time to swoop in on a tragedy and use the death of six people to forward their political campaign by pretending they’re looking out for your safety when in fact they’re doing the exact opposite.