Category Archives: Gnashing and Wailing

The gun grabbers are forever promising “blood in the streets” whenever we remove their unconstitutional anti-gun laws. They imagine that we live in a world where the only thing keeping average people from murdering each other over parking spots on Black Friday is anti-gun law. Violence Policy Center (“Where Doing Violence to Your Constitutional Rights is Our Policy”) publishes their “study,” Concealed Carry Killers!!!111Eleventy!™ (No link for them) in a weird attempt to frighten the non-gun owning segment of the population into believing that concealed carry permit holders are somehow a threat to the Xanax and boxed wine crowd that makes up the online “activist” base of the gun grabber militia.

Unfortunately for their gun hating ways, VPC’s “study,” is riddled with errors, misdirections, and ends up being an unsuccessful attempt to conceal the fact that concealed carriers are some of the most law abiding people on the planet.

When you dive deep into the actual cases, you find most of them have nothing whatever to do with concealed carry. People who murder their family members in their own home do not need a concealed carry permit to do so. People who kill themselves, likewise. And people who use rifles, shotguns, and other firearms that aren’t suitable for concealment can hardly be blamed on a “permissive” concealed carry permit system.

There’s even one memorable case where they claim a North Carolina CHP holder murdered a cop in Florida. Just one problem. I have a copy of the last CHP database released by North Carolina. This copy of the CHP database includes every single person who has ever so much as applied for a CHP in NC between 1 December of 1995 and 29 September 2013. The killer’s name does not appear at all. He not only didn’t have a CHP, he never even applied for one. But his name still appears on VPC’s Concealed Carry Killerz! list.

Today, however, we find out that the gun grabbers will be warming up their blood dancing shoes. They’ve finally found a NC CHP holder who murdered someone in a public place where it would have been illegal for him to carry without his permit.

NEW HANOVER COUNTY | The handgun a Wilmington man used to exact revenge on his business partners before killing himself was legally purchased.

(Suspect*), 62, was already in possession of a concealed carry permit, so neither a background check nor a waiting period was required when he bought the purple .380-caliber Ruger from BullZeye Shooting Sports on Market Street about 3 p.m. Friday, said New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Jerry Brewer.

I have checked that last copy of the CHP database and he does indeed appear on it. His CHP is listed as valid (as of 29 September, when the CHP database was most recently released) and would have expired in September of 2017.

The murder occurred in a public place, at a gas station, and it would have been a Class 2 Misdemeanor for the murderer to have carried this handgun concealed into public to commit what is clearly a premeditated ambush murder. He attempted to murder the victim’s female companion** and succeeded in murdering her unborn child. The punishment for a Class 2 Misdemeanor for a first time offense in NC can be as much as 30 days in County Jail. There are only two possible punishments for premeditated murder, a Class A Felony, in North Carolina. Life without parole, or death. After the passage of North Carolina’s “Unborn Victims of Violence Act,” murder of an unborn child is also a Class A Felony. So that’s two Life without paroles, or two death penalties. If the woman ends up dying that’s three, but if she lives, that’s attempted murder, which is a Class B1 Felony, for which the minimum possible punishment is 12 years in State prison. I sincerely doubt that the extra 30 days in County lock up would have deterred him. Anyone with half an ounce of sense would agree with me on that.

What’s interesting to me is that the killer in this case went and purchased a new firearm to commit these murders. Much will be made of this. The news report is pretty clearly pointing at the lack of “cooling off” period for the purchase of a handgun. But ask yourself. Is it likely that a person who has a NC Concealed Handgun Permit doesn’t already own a handgun? I doubt it. Is it likely that a person who stalked and murdered a man, attempted to murder that man’s female companion, and murdered her unborn child, couldn’t have bided his time until he had the weapon he wanted? I don’t think so.

According to the story, he also applied for and received three “Pistol Purchase Permits.” I have no idea why anyone would do this as a CHP acts as a PPP when purchasing a handgun in North Carolina. But it does point out that the suspect could easily have purchased the murder weapon without having a CHP.

In the end, the murderer took the coward’s way out. He’s saved us the difficulty of putting him to death for his crimes. That’s too bad. I would have cheerfully put a rope around his neck myself.

*It has long been the editorial policy of this blog not to publish the names of criminals and suspects of crimes. Criminals do not deserve fame for their crimes.

**The story doesn’t give a relationship between the murdered victim and the female passenger that is currently in critical condition. Rather than assume, I have chosen to style her as “the victim’s female companion” with no attempt to imply any relationship beyond the fact she happened to be accompanying him on the trip to the gas station. I join with everyone else in praying for her speedy recovery.

Sometimes the Left just baffles me. I think it comes from the years they have invested in not thinking. As Evan Sayet says:

So they’re convinced that since all of these ideas of man have proved to be wrong, the real cause of war, pov­erty, crime, and injustice must be found–can only be found–in the attempt to be right.

If nobody ever thought they were right, what would we disagree about? If we didn’t disagree, surely we wouldn’t fight. If we didn’t fight, of course we wouldn’t go to war. Without war, there would be no poverty; without poverty, there would be no crime; without crime, there would be no injustice. It’s a utopian vision, and all that’s required to usher in this utopia is the rejection of all fact, reason, evi­dence, logic, truth, morality, and decency–all the tools that you and I use in our attempts to be better people, to make the world more right by trying to be right, by siding with right, by recognizing what is right and moving toward it.

So let’s look at a case in point. The breathless reporting from North Carolina’s very own far Left “Think Tank” NC Policy Watch. In their recurring report “The Follies,” they get all weirded out that the Henderson Sheriff is thinking about building a sort of Emergency Preparedness group. Naturally it means the Republican Sheriff is going all Reich Wing Fascist on the poor unsuspecting residents of NC.

“Henderson sheriff explores emergency ‘posse’”

That’s right, a posse. The paper reports that Henderson County Sheriff Charlie McDonald has created a Citizens Preparedness Division “in keeping with the right that a sheriff has to deputize a posse.”

The story goes on to report that posse will not be armed—well probably not.

Division members are not authorized to carry guns when assisting the department, McDonald said, “unless there was an exigent need to deputize personnel for a specific crisis event.”

It’s not clear what qualifies as an exigent need or specific crisis event in the eyes of the sheriff, but the posse is being trained and may be armed, just in case.

Seriously? The Sheriff wants to raise and train himself a group of emergency volunteers to help out in emergencies and the Leftist loons at a “Think Tank” go all Black Helicopter Crowd?

Let’s specify that I’ve certainly learned my lesson from the George Zimmerman trial. I will never be party to a neighborhood watch. I’ll cheerfully call the cops if I see someone robbing my neighbor’s house, but I’ll never give our political enemies the chance to scream “WANNABE COP!” when they’re trying to hang me for defending myself. So the chances of me being party to a Sheriff’s “Citizen’s Preparedness Division” is about nil. But why is the Left so bent out of shape that he’s trying to involve citizens in their own disaster preparedness?

I tracked down the Asheville Citizen-Times story they were referring to.

Experts disagree on whether he is crossing a line in training civilians.

The training could create liability for the department, said Professor Maria Haberfeld of John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, a leader in the field.

One of her colleagues said the training amounted to a civilian police academy, the type common in American policing.

McDonald, who is running for election, has the blessing of the county manager and the chairman of the county Board of Commissioners, which controls his department’s funding.

His political rival, Democrat Marty Katz, blasted the program in an interview with the Citizen-Times.

He said counties already have disaster plans that often rely on the National Guard, or surrounding counties, for help.

“I don’t think there is a page in there that says take your private posse out and go defend your cities,” he said. “On every single level, that is a disaster waiting to happen.”

Ahh, I see. In addition to defaulting to their basic assumptions of “Government employee: Good, Citizen: Bad” they are attacking the currently appointed Sheriff as a way to help out the Democrat challenger. It’s like a Leftist perfect storm.

The Left hates the idea that you might be competent to take care of yourself. They want you to be dependent upon government services at all times and especially reliant on government in a crisis. If you know that you can handle yourself for a couple of weeks in an emergency, you are less likely to willingly hand over more of your rights to a government that likes to scare you with disaster fear-mongering. If you worry that the least little disruption to normal life will kill you, you’re willing to hand over all your rights.

They hate you. They hate that you might just be willing to step up and help your neighbor instead of waiting for the government teat to come by your house and give you a little taste.

They’ll turn us all into beggars ’cause they’re easier to please
They’re feeding our people that Government Cheese

Did you know that “Armor-Piercing” ammunition for AR-15s isn’t legal to possess? Neither did I. But helpfully, a “lawyer for the Sheriff’s Department” down in Fayetteville told the media just that.

The Cumberland County deputy who was injured in a shoot-out with a murder suspect last week was shot with armor-piercing bullets, a Sheriff’s Office spokesman said Thursday.
…
“This guy was using armor-piercing rounds, which aren’t legal to possess,” said Ronnie Mitchell, the lawyer for the Sheriff’s Office.

Umm, NO. Just NO.

There is a federal law against possessing PISTOL bullets that are made of certain materials which would make those PISTOL bullets likely to penetrate police vests, but there are no laws against rifle ammunition that’s considered “Armor-Piercing.”

Armor piercing ammunition
18 U.S.C., § 921(a)(17)(B)

A projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium; or

A full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile.

The term “armor piercing ammunition” does not include shotgun shot required by Federal or State environmental or game regulations for hunting purposes, a frangible projectile designed for target shooting, a projectile which the Attorney General finds is primarily intended to be used for sporting purposes, or any other projectile or projectile core which the Attorney General finds is intended to be used for industrial purposes, including a charge used in an oil and gas well perforating device.

And no one in the media bothered to question this incredible assertion. Not the reporter, the editor, the fact checkers, no one.

What’s the bet that the bullets in question were garden variety M855 “green tip” bullets and the lawyer knows even less about bullets than he does about law?

Poor Andrea. She’s so desperately afraid that NC Concealed Handgun Permit holders will no longer be banned from having a gun in their car when they are on a college or university campus.

For instance, the House will take up a bill today that will allow people with concealed carry permits to bring their guns onto campuses across the state as long as they store the guns in their vehicles.

You have to read her parade of horribles.

The students, however, can be a bit mystifying. They vomit a lot after football games. On the sidewalks. They sometimes drive onto nonexistent driveways, also known as lawns, and other times into trees. They laugh really loud at 3 a.m. and frequently have to be told to put their garbage into cans rather than on the yard. Then they have to be asked to roll their garbage cans away from the street. Things that are incomprehensible to the average adult often strike them as tres amusant. Like one morning, after a football game the home team won, I discovered that some wag had placed a condom over the street-crossing button at Cameron and Merritt Mill. Why? Who knows? It’s just the kids these days. They’re bright and shiny and full of mischief, same as they ever was.

Yeah, because that’s a good reason to deny adult CHP holders their right to carry a firearm.

You start to wonder if they live their whole life assuming that, except for them, no one on the planet is smart enough to get out of their own way.

News flash: The people on college campuses are not “children.” They are adults. The vast majority of undergrads are not even eligible for CHPs, because they are not 21 years old yet. But apparently the antics of college students are enough to deny adults their rights. Because college.

Notice I don’t say gun owners, because most gun owners are in fact, interested in preventing gun violence and support common sense measures that would allow this country to do so. No, I’m talking about highly reactive, anxious people who call someone a “gun grabber” because she supports universal background checks. I’m talking about people who react to every comment on gun violence prevention with anger and alarm. Geez, if you’re the ones packing heat, why so touchy?

We gun owners are touchy because people like her are doing whatever they can to make it more difficult and more expensive to exercise our civil rights. These gun haters don’t think blacks should be polite to the KKK, so why do they think gun owners should be polite to the gun haters?

Stick your “new civility” where the sun don’t shine.

You can bet that the anti-gun forces are going to spin out of control on this one.

A secretary of state’s investigator, working with U.S. Homeland Security agents, seized 1,559 mostly counterfeit Chinese parts for rifle accessories when they raided a Cary home earlier this month, according to a search warrant made public Tuesday.

So what exactly did they sieze from a home in the Containment Area for Relocated Yankees?

Inside, Davis told Manning, were parts marked as coming from A.R.M.S., Inc., a Massachusetts company that makes equipment for mounting sighting scopes on rifles, particularly the M-16/M-4 military assault rifles and the AR-15 civilian equivalent.

Davis contacted the company, and a senior executive there pronounced the seized mounts to be counterfeit, Davis said.

In the garage at Daybreak Bluff Drive, the returned warrant says, agents found an array of telescopic sights, mounting equipment for sights, several flashlights marked as known brands that can be mounted on rifles for tactical use and other gun grips, butts, butt pads, bipods for supporting the barrel in precise shooting situations and other gear.

It sounds like a bunch of stuff that wouldn’t be interesting except it can be attached to a rifle. If it was counterfeit doggie chew toys it would be more dangerous, but probably wouldn’t be reported in the press.

It’s horrible, I tell you! Those EBIL NRA people blocked a qualified judge!

Halligan is widely viewed by attorneys on both sides of the aisle as impeccably qualified to sit on the bench. So what’s the problem? It turns out that while working in the New York Attorney General’s office Halligan wrote a brief supporting the efforts of her boss, Andrew Cuomo, “to make gun manufacturers legally responsible for some of the violence in New York, a position that the National Rifle Association opposed. The N.R.A. punished Halligan for doing her job for New York, and the Senate Republicans followed.”

I can’t imagine why the NRA called upon Senators not to confirm an anti-gun lawyer to what amounts to the Junior Supreme Court.

Are Leftists really this transparently stupid? Or are they just lying and hope you aren’t smart enough to know the difference?