Mob action is ALWAYS extremely dangerous. This is why we have police officers who MUST enforce the law evenhandedly. We as citizens have made a deal with government that we will forgo our right to private revenge in exchange for the government providing public justice. But that’s a DEAL, not a surrender. When the government repeatedly and conspicuously fails to provide that public justice, they’ve broken the deal and they open the door to this mob scene.
Now I like seeing an “extinction rebellion” douchebag getting an ass kicking just as much as the next guy. I WANT to see them bloody and beaten, tossed down the nearest flight of stairs. This knowledge of myself is exactly why I never want to see things like this happen. I want the police to politely advise the protesters that they must immediately cease their stupidity and allow the citizens to go about their day. And when they refuse, I want to see the police climbing up on the trains and taking these idiots into custody for prosecution.
Mobs will kick a man to death because they don’t know how or when to stop. They will exact revenge for every imagined slight on whoever they’ve gotten their hands on, guilty or innocent alike. As much pure joy as I get from seeing these dickheads getting their skulls kicked in, this represents a failure of our society. This represents the government repeatedly failing to provide the public justice they promised. This represents the frustration and anger of a public that has no recourse when the deal they made with their government was broken.
This will end one of two ways. Either the government will attempt to reestablish control of the protesters, or the public will start stringing up these people, along with a few innocent bystanders who somehow “looked guilty.” The punishment will not fit the crime. I predict that the government will, in typical fashion, attempt to reestablish control of the public and let the protesters continue, which will mean some of the innocents harmed will be the police.
Who are we to be? Will we be the mob? Or will we be this woman?
Republicans have ended negotiations on a bill that would expand background checks for gun purchases because of House Democrats’ push for an impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
A Senate staffer told Washington Free Beacon reporter Stephen Gutowski that “gun legislation is dead, at least for the time being, because of the impeachment inquiry” that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday.
This is how you win on a contentious issue. You don’t stand on tables and scream “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!” You let the idiots punch themselves out and then you walk away blaming them for their own failure.
That’s not to say that your howling on social media and directly to Republican Senators wasn’t useful, it was. It scared enough Senators that it made standing up to the Dems and their gun grab efforts an attractive political position. But look closely at how this was done. The President signalled willingness to sign gun control, causing two easily predictable things.
Dems would overreach.
Gun owners would freak out and start bombarding their Senators with pro gun messages.
Had Trump said “Screw that, we’re not doing anything,” the Dems might still have tried, but we gun owners would have remained quiet, which would have scared the Senators into believing that the other side might have the votes to put them out at the next election.
You’re being played. Why? Because we gun owners are terrible at politics. We get some of what we want and then we go away and mind our own business. We are so focused on finding heresy that when the President doesn’t immediately stand on the nearest table and scream “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!” we act like he’s a traitor. So the guy who is better at making deals than anyone else needs to win, he manipulates us in order to create the conditions where he gets the deal he wants.
This might surprise you, but the UK Practical Shooting Association (UKPSA) is involved in… Practical Shooting.
I know, shocker!
What’s even more shocking is that the UKPSA has acquired five handguns plus the usual holsters and mag pouches in order for their members to practice IPSC shooting at a range in Northern Ireland.
So let me get this straight, the UKPSA bought (or were given) five pistols, put them in a gun club in Northern Ireland, and is now inviting their members to shoot these handguns in competition? And this is some sort of scandal?
Callum responds to the idiotic anti gun story in this video about the reporter and how painfully clue free he is.
This is the world that the gun banners want you to live in. After they ban the guns, they want to ban anyone from renting a gun from a gun club, taking multiple training classes to get certified, and using that gun in organized pistol competition.
They hate you. Never forget that. They can’t be bargained with. They can’t be reasoned with. They don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
One of the things Scott Adams says in his podcast is how the moments right before winning looks a lot like the moments right before losing. Let me explain how gun owners can seriously win on gun control while looking at all times like we gun owners are losing…
Now the gut reaction of most gun owners who are politically active will be “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!” But before you jump up on that table and do your best Patrick Henry impression, let me explain why this is a good idea.
Currently, only Federal Firearms Licensees (gun stores, basically) can access the NICS system in order to conduct background checks. Right after Sandy Hook, Republican lawmakers proposed a method that would allow private citizens to access NICS so they could conduct a background check before a private sale.
The Dems (driven by the gun grabbers) rejected it out of hand.
Why would they do that? If they wanted gun sales to proceed only after a background check, why would they make it impossible to conduct those checks outside of an FFL? The answer is obvious. They don’t care about the background check. They only care about getting the transfer on paper. If they don’t get the transaction written down and permanently recorded, they can’t later take that information and create the firearms registry that they actually want.
There’s an agenda here. The gun haters want to change two things about firearms. First, they want to change firearm ownership from an ordinary liability into a strict liability. Basically we treat dangerous objects like guns just like dangerous objects like cars. If someone runs into your car and your car hits another car, they guy who hit you is responsible for all the damages. They want to change that into a strict liability like for explosives. If you’re transporting explosives and someone runs into you, YOU are liable for the damage from the resulting explosion even though the other guy hit you and caused it. That’s how they want guns treated under tort law.
More importantly for this discussion, they want to reverse the burden of proof on firearms possession law. Instead of the law forcing the government to prove that someone possesses a firearm unlawfully, they want the law to force anyone in possession of a firearm to prove the firearm is possessed lawfully. Instead “innocent until proven guilty,” they want firearms ownership to be “guilty until proven innocent.” They want specific licensing and ownership documentation for anyone permitted to own a firearm and strong punishment for anyone who hasn’t complied with every jot and tittle of their licensing system. When the cops see you have a gun, it’s up to you (and your expensive lawyer) to prove that you have complied with the law and are legally in possession of the firearm.
This is what people mean when they say “firearms are a right, not a privilege.” When something is yours by right, the government cannot take it away without proving that you fall into a special case where your rights have been taken. If it is only yours by privilege, then it is you who must prove that you fall into a special case where you are permitted.
This “background check app” is what’s called a Devil’s Fork.
It’s a test. If you just wanted Background Checks, this is everything you’ve asked for. But if “Background Checks” are just a stalking horse for the universal firearms registration that you REALLY want, then this is the worst possible thing in the world.
Gun grabbers can’t possibly accept this.
But they can’t reject it either.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
They will reject it. They have to. Accepting it is an off ramp on the highway to gun banning. It throws a permanent roadblock between them and their fantasy of registering all guns, licensing all gun owners, and slowly reducing the numbers of both. It’s a stake in the heart of their long term plans.
But if they reject it, they get two things. No Background Checks at all. Their duplicity exposed for all to see.
Us: “OK, guys, you win. Here’s your background checks.” Them: “THAT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!” Us:
And then for ever after we get to beat them to death with “We offered you background checks and you refused. You don’t actually want background checks, what you really want is registration.”
Their argument will be “oh! People will just refuse to do the check!”
This was back when Starman was new to the gun control game. I doubt he would be stupid enough to give away the registration game so obviously.
The true goal here is registration of all firearms. The only way they will ever be able to prove transfers didn’t happen legally is to require all transfers to be registered with the government. That’s their end game. Registration, licensing, confiscation, enough red tape and bureaucratic nonsense to dissuade all but the most dedicated from becoming gun owners. Gun Culture dwindles down to just a few old guys clinging to their break action single shot shotguns (and maybe a Bible or two) and eventually just dies.
Robert Francis O’Rourke shot a giant freaking hole in their “No one wants to take your guns” argument, and this will shoot a giant hole in their “we just want background checks on all gun sales.” They never wanted just background checks. Background checks are just a stepping stone to their actual goals.
We need to put out weight behind this and push. Some simple app that allows us to conduct our own private, untraceable background checks before private sales. Something that doesn’t tell the FBI what guns got transferred. Something that doesn’t leave records of the check. Something like the Coburn plan.
I’ve finally gotten around to reading H.R.8 – Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019 that passed the House recently. I have a question. How many years should my friend Mike get in the Federal lockup?
The law is pretty basic.
“(t)(1)(A) It shall be unlawful for any person who is not a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer to transfer a firearm to any other person who is not so licensed, unless a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer has first taken possession of the firearm for the purpose of complying with subsection (s).
This basically says “unless you have a Federal Firearms License, you can’t give, loan, or sell your firearm to another person. If you don’t have an FFL, you have to transfer it through an FFL.
Like I said, pretty basic stuff. The interesting parts are the exceptions. What gifts, loans, or sales can happen without going to an FFL?
“(2) Paragraph (1) shall not apply to—
“(A) a law enforcement agency or any law enforcement officer, armed private security professional, or member of the armed forces, to the extent the officer, professional, or member is acting within the course and scope of employment and official duties;
Cops and the military… if they are doing cop and military stuff.
“(B) a transfer that is a loan or bona fide gift between spouses, between domestic partners, between parents and their children, including step-parents and their step-children, between siblings, between aunts or uncles and their nieces or nephews, or between grandparents and their grandchildren, if the transferor has no reason to believe that the transferee will use or intends to use the firearm in a crime or is prohibited from possessing firearms under State or Federal law;
Loans or gifts between specifically listed persons related by blood or marriage. I see that cousins are excluded. Also roommates. Also persons living together without benefit of marriage or some legal domestic partnership.
Note the use of “No reason to believe.” Not “does not reasonably believe” or some other construction to admit ordinary doubt. NO REASON. That means that later, the prosecutor will be at trial saying things like “You sure you didn’t have ANY reason? Any reason at all? Not even the smallest doubt?”
“(C) a transfer to an executor, administrator, trustee, or personal representative of an estate or a trust that occurs by operation of law upon the death of another person;
So I guess inheritance doesn’t require an FFL to wet his beak. That’s nice, I guess.
“(D) a temporary transfer that is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm, including harm to self, family, household members, or others, if the possession by the transferee lasts only as long as immediately necessary to prevent the imminent death or great bodily harm, including the harm of domestic violence, dating partner violence, sexual assault, stalking, and domestic abuse;
Oh, how nice! If someone is actually in the process of trying to murder your friend, you are permitted to hand him your gun so he can defend himself.
Here’s the problem. “Imminent” has a very specific legal meaning. It means “RIGHT NOW.” It doesn’t mean some future speculative harm. So when your girlfriend says “My ex threatened to murder me because I left him,” this doesn’t cover you if you say “here’s my AR, take it home with you and if he comes in, blast him.” Because that’s not “imminent.”
“(E) a transfer that is approved by the Attorney General under section 5812 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986; or
Oh, how nice! If I pay my $200 tax stamp to the IRS, I don’t need a background check to hand my SBR to someone else on the trust.
“(F) a temporary transfer if the transferor has no reason to believe that the transferee will use or intends to use the firearm in a crime or is prohibited from possessing firearms under State or Federal law, and the transfer takes place and the transferee’s possession of the firearm is exclusively—
“(i) at a shooting range or in a shooting gallery or other area designated for the purpose of target shooting;
So if I am on an actually designated shooting range, I can let my buddy shoot my P320, but if we’re out on his back 40 shooting tin cans and cardboard boxes, FELONY!
“(ii) while reasonably necessary for the purposes of hunting, trapping, or fishing, if the transferor—
“(I) has no reason to believe that the transferee intends to use the firearm in a place where it is illegal; and
“(II) has reason to believe that the transferee will comply with all licensing and permit requirements for such hunting, trapping, or fishing; or
What does “reasonably necessary?” Clearly the classic “crossing a fence while carrying rifles” qualifies. But can I go down to my friend Andy’s house and borrow his turkey gun so I can try to whack a turkey during the season? Is that “necessary?” Is it “reasonably necessary?” Or am I required to take Andy to the FFL and pay $50 to transfer it because we have time, so it’s not “reasonably necessary” for him to just hand it over? Inquiring minds want to know.
“(iii) while in the presence of the transferor
Oh, that’s nice. So long as I am standing right there, we’re golden. But if I wander off to use the toilet (for some reason my lady friends are less than sanguine about standing right next to me while I pee on a tree) are we both felons? There’s a choice. Creepy? Or FELON?!
So let me spin you a true story. I swear on a stack of bibles that this actually happened. It’s not something I dreamed up to illustrate a point, it’s what I’ve actually done.
Mike is a friend of The Wife’s* and mine. We’ve known Mike for more than 25 years. Mike is an Army vet and someone we’ve known through the historical re-enactment group we all participated in. In this group we fought with swords and armor in mass battles. In order to prove you were safe, you had to take a practical combat test where you fought a test bout against another known skilled fighter. In 1993 when I took that test, the person I fought against was Mike.
This is me in my armor
That’s the kind of history I have with Mike.
One day a few years ago, The Wife, who is not a gun person, said to me, “If I wanted to learn to shoot that little rifle you built to go to Appleseed, and Mike was willing to teach me, would you loan it to him so we could shoot on his farm?”
Mike owns a .410 shotgun for farm work, and he’s pretty much the definition of “guy you would want at your side if you needed any help at all,” so I’m totally OK with loaning him a gun. Hell, he was even a foster parent until he just adopted the kid. If you’re going to let someone teach your wife to shoot, you could do a lot worse than Mike. You could PAY for a lot worse than Mike.
I grabbed my Ruger 10/22, a few boxes of .22LR, hopped in my pickup truck, and roared off to Mike’s house about 45 minutes away. I handed him the rifle, the ammo, and drove straight home. The Wife said “I guess that’s a ‘Yes’ then?”
Over the course of the next two or three months, whenever The Wife went up to help out on Mike’s farm, they’d take a few minutes during lunch to shoot some paper plates or cardboard boxes out on (literally) his “back 40.” Then sometime 3-6 months after I took it up, The Wife comes home and says “here’s your rifle back” and hands me the cased 10/22.
The question I have is, how many years in Federal Prison should the three of us have gotten for letting Mike teach The Wife how to shoot my Ruger 10/22?
Under this law I committed a Federal felony by handing Mike my rifle. Mike committed a Federal Felony by handing the rifle back to The Wife. Perhaps The Wife was free and clear, because it’s not really a felony for her to give the rifle to me, but then again, she received it from Mike, so maybe that’s a felony.
In any case, all three of us would be bankrupted by the resulting legal fight. All because out here in Real America, it’s totally normal to have a guy like Mike teach your wife to shoot a Ruger 10/22 out on his farm.
*The Wife is always referred to as “The Wife” online as she does not wish her photo or her name to be bandied about among all you lovely strangers. When the old GunBlog VarietyCast Radio crew went to Atlanta, one of the house guests made drinking glasses with the logo and names on them. Mine said “Dysis’s Human,” and hers said “The Wife.”
They could have just supplied the “extremely dangerous criminal” with a Glock Fowtay, but I guess they decided that might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.
How many years in Federal PMITA prison does AOC, ‘The Squad,’ Douche Nukem, and the rest of the Left think should gun owners get for ordinary gun owning behavior?
Make them defend sending Uncle Andy to the Federal slammer for loaning his turkey gun to his neighbor. Make them defend sending Cousin Mike to the Big House for teaching his friend’s wife to shoot. Make them defend it in public and on the floor of the House of Representatives.
It just occurred to me that at no time did Scott Adams discuss the benefits of gun ownership and the Second Amendment. He only actually discussed the costs. So-called “Gun Deaths™.”
So what are the benefits?
We could try to make the case that an armed citizenry makes a rogue government less likely, or that it’s good for the moral character of our citizens to be armed. But we can’t actually quantify those things.
There are several estimates of total number of Defensive Gun Uses, from Kleck’s 2.1 million per year down to the unlikely low number from the National Crime Victimization Survey’s 55,000-80,000 per year.
That means that even the lowest possible number, which has been criticized for not being designed to count defensive gun uses, is still higher than the total number of people who are killed each year with a gun. And if you don’t consider the actual tangible benefits of fairly widespread gun ownership, your “opinion” is just a “half-pinion.”
Scott Adams (you know him as the guy who does Dilbert) offered what he considers to be ” first opinion you have ever heard on the topic of gun ownership in the United States. “
Why does he consider this the first opinion? Because in his formulation, anyone who doesn’t consider both the pluses and minuses of a particular course of action before offering their viewpoint is giving a “half-pinion.” If all you care about is the benefits, you’re not considering the costs. If all you care about is the costs, then you’re not considering the benefits. If you don’t address both, your “opinion” is not actually an opinion at all. It’s just you bloviating.
Let me preface all of this by saying that I like listening to Scott. I enjoy his Periscope talks, which I listen to as podcasts. He makes things easier to understand and he makes a lot of what’s going on in the world less infuriating. Moving on…
So, what’s my opinion? My considered opinion is I’m willing to tolerate 325 million “gun deaths” in order to preserve the 2nd Amendment. I don’t care if every last one of the rest of you go out and blow your own brains out. I’m not trading in my AR for a Walmart gift card.
Now let’s discuss his “opinion” that “gun deaths” need to fall by about half in order for him to be satisfied that the 2nd Amendment is worth retaining.
Just for the sake of argument, I’m going to use only CDC WISQARS data. We understand that what the CDC calls “homicide” does not track with the official FBI data on total murder and non-negligent homicides, but the FBI doesn’t track suicides, so we’re stuck with these numbers. You can check these numbers directly on the CDC database yourself if you’d like.
WISQARS Death by Firearm 2017
Category
Number
Unintentional
486
Homicide
14,542
Legal
Intervention
553
Suicide
23,854
Undetermined
338
Total
39,773
What would be the easiest way to “cut ‘gun deaths’ in half?
Instead of letting white men 35 and over (49.2% of all suicides, 58.7% of all firearm suicides) shoot themselves, let’s hand out helium or nitrogen cylinders, tubing, and a head bag to everyone. Hold a great big campaign. Make up some rhyme that encourages potential suicides to suck some inert gas rather than use a gun. Maybe do some PSAs with crime scene cleanup crews who discuss the mess and evidence of the agony of those who shoot themselves while contrasting that with the ease of cleanup and the total quick exit provided by inert gas.
Scott Adams says he’s a master of persuasion. Maybe he could join in the effort by helping persuade people that suicide by gun is so last year. All the cool kids are sucking helium.
Of course, suicides would skyrocket, but no one gives a shit about that. No one cares about the person who kills themselves, especially not those who cry crocodile tears over their dead bodies while using their blood to lubricate the slippery slope of gun control.
If all you care about are how many people die due to gunshot wound, then the solution is easy. If you actually give a shit about people, it’s a little harder.
Maybe, Scott Adams, you should consider giving a shit about people and not just about numbers in a chart.
I used to live in Garner, NC. When the NC CHP database was something you could get, I searched it for everyone with a Garner address. There were more than 850 people who had Concealed Handgun Permits in the city of Garner. Not “gun owners,” but people who had taken a one day class and spent about $200 total just to get permission to carry a gun. You have to assume that the total number of gun owners was far higher.
Garner had (at the time) a total police force of 56 sworn officers. The total number of officers on patrol never exceeded 12 and was usually 6-8.
How the hell are 12 people going to police a town that has 850 concealed handgun permit holders and an unknown number of gun owners unless those gun owners WANT to be policed?
We knew exactly where the Mayor lived. And the Town Manager. And every single member of the Town Council.
One phone call and we could have summoned the cops on duty to an ambush and murdered half the cops on patrol before anyone knew what was going on. Then hit the Mayor’s house. And then randomly start attacking infrastructure. And then disappear, only to pop up from time to time whacking cops or town leaders or burning down buildings.
There’s literally nothing the cops could do to stop us. Cops would have to ride two-up in cars and respond in groups. They’d have to stop short of the call location and be careful on the way in, never knowing if it was an ambush or a real call. The Town Council could never meet again in public. Never mind having elections.
And where would the State and the Feds be in all of this? Dealing with their own troubles. One town rebels and they could all descend on them like a ton of bricks. Piss off everyone and the same thing starts happening everywhere. There are 800K sworn police officers of any description in the US, from your local beat cop to the head of the FBI. There’s no possible way that 800K could force 300 million to obey.
And don’t give me any guff about the US military. They’d desert before they went to war against their own people. (as would most of the police, but let’s ignore that for now) You can’t run drones or warships without safe locations to refuel and rearm. Guess what? We know where all those places are. Where do you think the people who man these weapons live? In a secure bunker someplace inaccessible? They’re your neighbors. So are the people who move the fuel and armaments. What do you think will happen to their families if they chose the wrong side?
We obey because we want to. They police us with our consent. If that consent was withdrawn, no one could exert power over us ever. That’s the reality of an armed population. That’s why we fight to keep our firearms.
