Antis
Starbucks Boycott
The National Gun Victim’s Action Council (NGAC) is organizing a nationwide boycott of Starbucks because they refuse to ban legal guns in their establishments.
There’s a lot of blah blah blah in that press release. One bit not mentioned is the number of shootings in Starbucks by gun owners legally carrying. One is pretty much forced to assume that it’s so low as to undermine the NGAC’s position.
When Murdoc wants some fancy coffee, he usually hits Biggby’s because of the side of the street its on. He’ll start making a couple of extra left turns to get a Starbucks once in a while if this boycott takes off.
Mt. Rainier Shooting
Rummell note that some are Cashing In on shooting of a park ranger in Mt. Rainier National Park:
What really got my fur up was this quote from the news article linked to earlier.
It has been legal for people to take loaded firearms into Mount Rainier since 2010, when a federal law went into effect that made possession of firearms in national parks subject to state gun laws.
Bill Wade, the outgoing chair of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, said Congress should be regretting its decision to allow loaded weapons in national parks. He called Sunday’s fatal shooting a tragedy that could have been prevented. He hopes Congress will reconsider the law that took effect in early 2010, but doubts that will happen in today’s political climate.
So a disturbed young man who willfully gunned down four people in the city, someone who fired upon park rangers and killed one in order to make a mad dash into the woods, would have refused to enter the park if there was a law against bringing firearms there?
Why don’t they just allow guns in national parks but make shooting park rangers illegal?
Also, from a CNN story on the incident:
The suspect “pulled up, did a U-turn, jumped out and fired on the two ranger vehicles and shot them through their vehicles,” according to Bacher. Camiccia was not hit, but Anderson was shot in her vehicle. Anderson apparently did not have a chance to draw her weapon.
“If I was sitting in that car or anyone here, we would be dead. There’s nothing she could have done,” said Troyer, from the Pierce County sheriff’s department. “That guy had something … high-powered enough that, from any amount of distance, nobody is going to win that gunfight.”
I wonder what’s behind that “…” in “something … high-powered”? And if anyone is surprised that a gun can shoot through a car. Without knowing what editing was done, it’s hard to tell what the sheriff was really saying about “high-powered” weapons.
Meanwhile, a link from the CNN story’s page: Cops: Babysitter chops up girl, 9, w/hacksaw, Hides head in freezer.
I haven’t watched the video of the story, but I wonder if people are calling for hacksaw control.
(No, I don’t…)
Condolences to the family of the ranger. She was just doing her job.
Willfully Ignorant
Antis, Once Again, Conveniently Using Their Own Facts
The Second Amendment was written at a time when the United States was little more than jungle with bandits, savage Indians and wild animals that we needed to protect ourselves from. Yes, and to hunt food. We have long outgrown that kind of life.
That is all true.
But none of it has anything to do with WHY the Second Amendment was written.
Talk About Paranoid…
Sebastian observes And They Say We’re Fearful
Eugene Kane in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Before today, I never had to worry about encountering covertly armed strangers during my daily routine.
That, boys and girls, is as stupid a thing as you’ll ever read. If he really thinks he’s never encountered “covertly armed” people before during his daily routine, he’s ignorant. Let’s hope he’s just pretending to be ignorant.
With concealed carry laws in effect, I can’t be too lax about casual encounters anymore. I have to remind myself to be aware of any sudden movements or suspicious behavior by individuals while in public space.
Why wouldn’t anyone be “aware of any sudden movements or suspicious behavior” at any time, regardless of whether you think they’re armed or not? This is a fake paranoia.
Even driving back and forth from home to work takes on a new relevance. I have to make it a point to be more courteous to fellow motorists and exhibit extreme road courtesy in all situations.
Mr. Kane pretends to be unaware that more people are killed in cars by cars than they are by gun crime.
I’m going to have to start watching for the hunched-over posture that could signal a concealed gun carrier.
Maybe a telltale bump or protrusion under their clothing. Of course, as it gets colder, that’s going to be a lot more difficult to decipher.
If anyone has really been so cluelessly unaware of suspicious behavior, highway dangers, or telltale bumps under clothing, there’s nothing more that a few people legally carrying guns is going to do. Though it’s tough to know for sure, I suspect he’s playing dumb to try to prove some sort of point.
In the end, though, I think he shifts from playing dumb to actually being dumb:
Yes, the tavern; the law says you can carry a concealed weapon in a bar as long as you’re not drinking.
I suspect some folks will obey that law about as well they do drunken-driving statutes.
This is one of the things that I find so telling about those who wring their hands over gun laws. They pretend that gun law will help, but they will readily admit that they don’t think other laws help other issues.
Critics of the right to keep and bear arms often claim that gun owners want guns because they’re so afraid. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. Even when it’s wrong.
The Gun Buyback Loophoole
Oregon: Gun turn-in pits Ceasefire against collectors with cash
Only 43 people turned in unwanted guns Saturday at Ceasefire Oregon’s latest community collection event, in the Veterans Memorial Coliseum parking lot.
Compared to 152 last year. And competition probably had something to do with it:
[Gun collectors] lined up at the parking lot’s two entrances, hoping to convince people driving in to sell them their guns rather than hand them over to police for destruction. Each gun turned in to police earned a $50 Fred Meyer gift certificate.
The gun collectors waved signs at cars approaching the lot, reading: “I buy guns, $50-$200 cash.”
By the end of the day, the collectors said they had managed to buy 10 to 15 guns that otherwise would have been turned in and destroyed.
Some guy turned in a practically-new Glock, still in its original box for a $50 grocery store card. Clear thinking on his part.
But I imagine some guys got some good deals, and the sellers got a better deal than the authorities were going to give them. And it didn’t cost taxpayers one single penny.
Liz Julee, a Ceasefire Oregon Educational Foundation board member, looked at the men and women at the parking lot entrances and refused to accept that they were there only to add to their gun collections.
“I think it’s political,” Julee said. “I think it’s unfortunate that they feel they need to have an oppositional presence.”
I doubt too many people really care what you think is unfortunate, Liz. Really. After all, it’s not like Ceasefire Oregon is un-political. You don’t like it? Get the laws changed so people can’t sell their private property to other people.
Via TTAG.
Norway Weapons
Sebastian: Norway Killer Used Mini-14 and Glock 17
Days of our Trailers: Media Matters Lying. But he repeats himself.
Arma Borealis: Killer didn’t use Dum Dum Bullets
Sebastian again: VPC has a new white paper out “The Glock: A Favorite of Mass Shooters.” And also cops.
‘We know it failed, they know it failed.’
The Assault Weapons Ban: How Silly Was It? (Part Two)
Bob Owens on Pajamas Media.
Also see Part One here.
What the gun control lobby doesn’t want you to know
Meant to post this a while back but didn’t get around to it until I noticed it linked somewhere today:
The Unconcealed Truth About Carrying Guns
Steve Chapman writes about the discussion of concealed carry in Illinois and the predictions of blood running in the streets that the antis are making. Murdoc hasn’t always agreed with everything Chapman has written, but on this one I’ll give a thumbs up.
36 states now have “shall issue” concealed carry and 4 more don’t require a permit at all. Only 2, Illinois and Wisconsin, have no form of concealed carry permit available for normal folks.
Uninformed. As usual.
Banning Assault Weapons: Time For The NRA To Admit It’s All About Lifestyle
Some guy named Aaron Epple writes:
When George W. Bush quietly allowed the federal assault weapons ban expire in 2004
Wait. George W. Bush allowed the ban to expire? How? Did he veto the bill extending it?
That’s right. No bill made it out of Congress. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was voted down 8-90 in the Senate with an amendment to extend the AWB. The bill, without the amendment, passed 65-31, the following year.
Okay. Next sentence:
When Jared Loughner killed six people in 15 seconds with a Glock 9 equipped with a thirty-round magazine last month
Wait. A Glock 9? With a 30-round magazine? The weapon was a Glock 17 and he had a 33-round magazine.
This guy can’t even do the most basic simple research into his lead paragraph, yet he feels like he’s in a position to tell all the rest of us which parts of our God-given and Constitutionally-protected rights us citizens should be allowed to exercise.
The rest of his column pretty much goes downhill from there.
This is a gem from Susan in the comments section, though:
He has set out what those of us who don’t buy into the gun culture think about the subject.
To which Murdoc responded:
Yes he has. He starts his argument with statements about what happened that are just plain uninformed and show that he didn’t spend ten seconds on the internet to learn anything before deciding to tell everyone else which parts of which God-given Constitutionally-protected rights they should be allowed to have.
I’d say that he has EXACTLY set out what those who don’t buy into the so-called “gun culture” think.
From: Department of You Really Can’t Make This Shit Up
Shootings provide new opportunity
So says Lisa Price, Co-Founder of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence (NCGV).
She supports the “bill to ban magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of bullets.”
Via SailorCurt.
The 2A is a ‘Complication’
Sebasitan writes about a Car Analogy Epic Fail in the New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof. Now, one of the Murdoc’s favorite pastimes is discussing gun control with those who say gun ownership should be like car ownership and make all sorts of driver’s license analogies. Good times.
But this is Murdoc’s favorite bit of the Kristof op-ed:
Granted, the Second Amendment complicates gun regulation (I accept that the framers intended for state militias, and possibly individuals, to have the right to bear flintlocks). [emphasis Murdoc's]
First, I love it how the self-evident God-given rights of all humans which are merely legally guaranteed in the US Constitution are simply “complications” when they don’t fit the view of the critic. Those pesky human rights; if not for all of that life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness jazz, we could really get things done.
Secondly, I have a true, heartfelt appreciation for the opinion a journalist who argues that Revolutionary-era documents defining what the government can and can’t do only meant as applicable to Revolutionary-era technology and society. Especially when he argues it on the internet.
“Arms” in the Second Amendment means “flintlocks only” as much as “freedom…of the press” in the First Amendment means “set and printed on hand-operated presses and distributed via horse-drawn transport and manual labor.”
As I noted on Sebastian’s blog, I doubt that Kristof is really that dumb or really believes any of that. He just thinks his readers are and that he can get away with it.
He goes on to argue
But even among those favoring a broader interpretation, the Second Amendment hasn’t prevented bans on machine guns
Which is sort of meaningless because “those favoring a broader interpretation” aren’t the ones who created the ban on machine guns. That’s like arguing that “even among those in favor of same-sex marriage, it is still illegal in most states” supports the idea that gay marriage bans are legally fine.
And, for the record, Murdoc thinks the Founding Fathers meant machine guns, bayonet lugs, pistol grips, and shoulder things that go up.
Deep Thoughts from ‘The New Internationalism’
Further Thoughts on Gun Control
…just because gun controls are likely to be politically unpopular does not make them any less necessary. It is true that the United States possesses a much stronger gun culture than that found in Europe, and once guns have been purchased, it appears incredibly difficult to see them removed from circulation, and this is a real shame. The assault weapons ban should be reinstated because it reduced the overall number of assault weapons in circulation (even if it didn’t eliminate them altogether) while the elimination of open-carrying laws would limit the number of hand-guns within public venues. People should not be allowed to brandish weapons in public places, and the whole idea of allowing concealed weapons is, at best, an utterly insane idea because it places the general public at a whole of increased risk.
