Sent to me through the Patriot net.
NONE from Wyoming or Texas!! Any from your state??? Over the weekend, we came four votes away from the United States Senate giving our Constitutional rights over to the United Nations. In a 53-46 vote, the senate narrowly passed a measure that will stop the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.
The Statement of Purpose from the bill reads To uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.
The U.N. Small Arms Treaty, which has been championed by the Obama Administration, would have effectively placed a global ban on the import and export of small firearms. The ban would have affected all private gun owners in the U.S., and had language that would have implemented an international gun registry on all private guns and ammo.
Astonishingly, 46 of our United States Senators were willing to give away our Constitutional rights to a foreign power.
Here are the 46 senators that voted to give your rights to the U.N. We call this the "List of Ass Hats"
Baldwin (D-WI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bennet (D-CO)
Blumenthal (D-CT)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Coons (D-DE)
Cowan (D-MA)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Franken (D-MN)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hirono (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kaine (D-VA)
King (I-ME)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murphy (D-CT)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schatz (D-HI)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Udall (D-CO)
Udall (D-NM)
Warner (D-VA)
Warren (D-MA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
Notice that these are all Democrats, including the two Independents who thinly disguise their liberal, anti-constitutionalists views with an "I" as opposed to a "D" next to their name.
People this needs to go viral. These Senators voted to let the UN take our guns. They need to lose the next election. We have been betrayed. 46 Senators Voted to Give your 2nd Amendment Constitutional Rights to the U.N.
Pass this on to ALL of your contacts far and wide!!! These people need to be Immediately removed from office as soon as possible!!!!!! Tarring and feathering would also be nice!!!
Cowboys and the Tea Party political movement have a lot on common. Both believe in individual responsibility; judging a man by his actions not words; and, both are disgusted with government intrusions into our lives and particularly our God given rights.
Showing posts with label Gun Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gun Rights. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Monday, June 17, 2013
Governor Scott of Florida Suspends County Sheriff Over Gun Rights
From an article titled - "Florida Governor Suspends Sheriff For Standing Up For 2nd Amendment", posted on June 10, 2013 by Ben Bullard on PersonalLiberty.com, I have to throw the bullshit flag on Governor Scott as he apparently does not understand the concept of law enforcement officer discretion nor the second amendment. And all this in the shadow of Attorney General Eric Holder and all his misdeeds and mal-feasance.
Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott has suspended the Sheriff Nick Finch of the State’s least-populous county (Liberty County) after he allegedly set free a man who’d been arrested for possessing a weapon without a permit.
Nick Finch, sheriff of Liberty County near the State’s Alabama-Georgia border, faces a 3rd-degree felony charge for official misconduct after evidently destroying or altering the paper trail that began when one of his deputies brought in a motorist who had two handguns in his car.
The motorist, Floyd Parrish, didn’t have a concealed-carry permit and was subsequently charged with carrying a concealed deadly weapon. Car carry is legal in Florida for those without a conceal-carry permit, but the law stipulates such firearms must be securely encased or not readily accessible for immediate use – two stipulations which Parrish allegedly didn’t meet when he was pulled over in Liberty County.
Parrish stayed in jail until Sheriff Finch arrived, accompanied by the suspect’s brother. Finch allegedly spoke to both men about the incident before ordering that the charges be dropped and Parrish be released.
According to the JCFloridian, Finch allegedly told the deputy who’d arrested Parrish that he “believed in 2nd Amendment rights” and instructed jail staff to return his confiscated firearms.
But the Florida Department of Law Enforcement learned of the incident, which occurred in March, and obtained an arrest warrant for Finch. He was arrested and booked into the Liberty County jail last week before being released on his own recognizance. Gov. Scott has since suspended Finch and temporarily installed a regional agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as acting sheriff.
Finch’s arrest for exercising his judgment in protecting another citizen’s Constitutional freedom has drawn anger from both locals and 2nd Amendment advocates throughout the U.S.
One Liberty County man said Finch may have been a sitting duck among longtime power brokers in a good old boy network,“[s]ince he’s considered what people consider an outsider and not from Liberty County, that they finally railroaded him out. In my personal opinion he was doing his job and people didn’t like it.”
Though Finch has not commented on his arrest, his attorney has said it’s ridiculous to construe the sheriff’s actions as anything but proper defense of his constituents’ Constitutional rights.
“The records at the jail show exactly what happened in this case and the records speak the truth. The sheriff looked at the facts and said ‘I believe in the second amendment and we’re not going to charge him.’ That is not misconduct at all. That is within the Sheriff’s prerogative whether to charge someone or not,” said attorney Jimmy Judkins.
Dean Garrison of DC Clothesline agrees:
With so many Sheriff’s offices making strong pro-2nd Amendment stands in 2013 this is a situation that was bound to happen. The Sheriff had every right not to charge this man. The 2nd Amendment of the constitution should supercede any Florida law. “Shall Not Be Infringed” still means something to men like Nick.
The whole case will surely become about the documents. If Nick Finch destroyed the documents they will make an example of him for all of us to see. They have been waiting for this opportunity. This case will not be prosecuted to the extent that Nick Finch did not understand the 2nd Amendment. They will try to get him on a technicality.
Pro-2nd Amendment law enforcement officials all over the country need to take note. They are looking for any backdoor they can to try to shut you down. This story should be national news soon. My hope is that Finch did not destroy the documents and this case can be heard on its real merits.
Nick Finch was elected sheriff of Liberty, a county of only 8,400 people, in November of last year.
Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott has suspended the Sheriff Nick Finch of the State’s least-populous county (Liberty County) after he allegedly set free a man who’d been arrested for possessing a weapon without a permit.
Nick Finch, sheriff of Liberty County near the State’s Alabama-Georgia border, faces a 3rd-degree felony charge for official misconduct after evidently destroying or altering the paper trail that began when one of his deputies brought in a motorist who had two handguns in his car.
The motorist, Floyd Parrish, didn’t have a concealed-carry permit and was subsequently charged with carrying a concealed deadly weapon. Car carry is legal in Florida for those without a conceal-carry permit, but the law stipulates such firearms must be securely encased or not readily accessible for immediate use – two stipulations which Parrish allegedly didn’t meet when he was pulled over in Liberty County.
Parrish stayed in jail until Sheriff Finch arrived, accompanied by the suspect’s brother. Finch allegedly spoke to both men about the incident before ordering that the charges be dropped and Parrish be released.
According to the JCFloridian, Finch allegedly told the deputy who’d arrested Parrish that he “believed in 2nd Amendment rights” and instructed jail staff to return his confiscated firearms.
But the Florida Department of Law Enforcement learned of the incident, which occurred in March, and obtained an arrest warrant for Finch. He was arrested and booked into the Liberty County jail last week before being released on his own recognizance. Gov. Scott has since suspended Finch and temporarily installed a regional agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as acting sheriff.
Finch’s arrest for exercising his judgment in protecting another citizen’s Constitutional freedom has drawn anger from both locals and 2nd Amendment advocates throughout the U.S.
One Liberty County man said Finch may have been a sitting duck among longtime power brokers in a good old boy network,“[s]ince he’s considered what people consider an outsider and not from Liberty County, that they finally railroaded him out. In my personal opinion he was doing his job and people didn’t like it.”
Though Finch has not commented on his arrest, his attorney has said it’s ridiculous to construe the sheriff’s actions as anything but proper defense of his constituents’ Constitutional rights.
“The records at the jail show exactly what happened in this case and the records speak the truth. The sheriff looked at the facts and said ‘I believe in the second amendment and we’re not going to charge him.’ That is not misconduct at all. That is within the Sheriff’s prerogative whether to charge someone or not,” said attorney Jimmy Judkins.
Dean Garrison of DC Clothesline agrees:
With so many Sheriff’s offices making strong pro-2nd Amendment stands in 2013 this is a situation that was bound to happen. The Sheriff had every right not to charge this man. The 2nd Amendment of the constitution should supercede any Florida law. “Shall Not Be Infringed” still means something to men like Nick.
The whole case will surely become about the documents. If Nick Finch destroyed the documents they will make an example of him for all of us to see. They have been waiting for this opportunity. This case will not be prosecuted to the extent that Nick Finch did not understand the 2nd Amendment. They will try to get him on a technicality.
Pro-2nd Amendment law enforcement officials all over the country need to take note. They are looking for any backdoor they can to try to shut you down. This story should be national news soon. My hope is that Finch did not destroy the documents and this case can be heard on its real merits.
Nick Finch was elected sheriff of Liberty, a county of only 8,400 people, in November of last year.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Mayor Bloomberg Wants to Re-Interpret the Constitution
It seems like the liberals politicians will use any reason to turn the argument around towards an anti second amendment push. A rational person cannot think that more gun control laws will have anything to do with safety either from terrorists or criminals, as he only people obeying laws are NOT the terrorists or criminals. And don't forget, Mayor Bloomberg is the same elitest, socialist snob who thinks he knows better than anyone else.
The following is an Legislative Alert from the National Rifle Association.
According to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the recent terror bombings in Boston require a new interpretation of the Constitution to give the government greater power to protect
"The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry," Bloomberg said during a recent press conference. "But we live in a complex world where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change."
According to a Breitbart.com article, the anti-gun Bloomberg claims that recent attacks on the Second Amendment have left him confident that such re-interpretation is possible.
"The Supreme Court has recognized that you have to have different interpretations of the Second Amendment and what it applies to and reasonable gun laws," Bloomberg said. He employs the tactic of incrementally "lowering the bar" by suggesting that Americans should be willing to give up a degree of freedom in exchange for a degree of security.
"It really says something bad about us that we have to do it. But our obligation first and foremost is to keep our kids safe in the schools; first and foremost, to keep you safe if you go to a sporting event; first and foremost is to keep you safe if you walk down the streets or go into our parks," he said. "We cannot let the terrorists put us in a situation where we can't do those things. And the ways to do that is to provide what we think is an appropriate level of protection."
Bloomberg would do well to remember what Benjamin Franklin had to say on the subject back in 1775: "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
The following is an Legislative Alert from the National Rifle Association.
According to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the recent terror bombings in Boston require a new interpretation of the Constitution to give the government greater power to protect
"The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry," Bloomberg said during a recent press conference. "But we live in a complex world where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change."
According to a Breitbart.com article, the anti-gun Bloomberg claims that recent attacks on the Second Amendment have left him confident that such re-interpretation is possible.
"The Supreme Court has recognized that you have to have different interpretations of the Second Amendment and what it applies to and reasonable gun laws," Bloomberg said. He employs the tactic of incrementally "lowering the bar" by suggesting that Americans should be willing to give up a degree of freedom in exchange for a degree of security.
"It really says something bad about us that we have to do it. But our obligation first and foremost is to keep our kids safe in the schools; first and foremost, to keep you safe if you go to a sporting event; first and foremost is to keep you safe if you walk down the streets or go into our parks," he said. "We cannot let the terrorists put us in a situation where we can't do those things. And the ways to do that is to provide what we think is an appropriate level of protection."
Bloomberg would do well to remember what Benjamin Franklin had to say on the subject back in 1775: "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Friday, April 5, 2013
15 Year Old Girl a Proper Witness for Gun Rights
Courtesy of the Maryland Minuteman and You Tube. This girl presents an educated, articulate and common sense face to gun owners. She OWNS the politicians she was speaking to - you go girl!!
Post Script: This young lady is being interviewed on Fox News as I post this. Smart girl! Too bad her idiot elected law makers are teaching her that that because you are an adult doesn't mean you have any sense.
Post Script: This young lady is being interviewed on Fox News as I post this. Smart girl! Too bad her idiot elected law makers are teaching her that that because you are an adult doesn't mean you have any sense.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Maryland Legislators Schooled Over Gun Rights
Testimony in Opposition of Maryland Senate Bill 281 from Darren Mellors, Executive Vice-President of LWRC International.
My name is Darren Mellors, Executive-Vice President of LWRC International. LWRCI manufacturers rifles in Cambridge MD in Dorchester County. Our customers are the U.S. Government, law enforcement agencies nationwide, and allied governments that are sanctioned by the U.S. Department of State. We also sell a line of commercial products to qualified law abiding U.S. and Maryland citizens, until recently in all 50 states.
I am in the unique position to offer factual testimony to this legislature on behalf of the 300 families that depend on us for skilled employment; the various contractors that provide services and products for LWRCI; and the law abiding citizens of MD who are being vilified by your proposed legislation. Vilified may sound to be a strong word, but infringing on the rights of select group of citizens in response to the illegal, evil acts of a deranged individual or career violent criminals is the very definition of the word.
I also represent my mentor; the owner of LWRCI and consummate entrepreneur Mr. Richard Bernstein. He not only started LWRCI, but many other successful ventures in MD that have created an estimated 3000 jobs over the last 40 years by estimation of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. His record of job creation on the eastern shore of MD is second only to Mr. Frank Purdue. He single handedly made Salisbury MD the center of Microwave Filter Technology manufacture for the world with K&L Microwave, and Lorch Microwave. Other examples of his success were BAI Aerosystems, Salisbury Pewter, Matech (Machining Technologies) along with many commercial real estate developments on the eastern shore.
Mr. Bernstein is also very active in our MD community being a large contributor to Salisbury University, and the namesake of the Bernstein School of Business. He has been given entrepreneurial, and community service awards, locally, nationally, and internationally. His entire ethos is focused creating jobs and building value in a company through local people, most starting from small ventures.
Facing these 20 gun bills, he is now put in a position to abandon his home, many of his MD employees and his proud legacy to move his ventures to a state that does not ask that productive member of society fall on a sword as a scapegoat for inaction by its government against the prosecution of criminals for gun crimes. There is also apparent malaise by the government to addressing serious mental health care deficits in MD and an apparent disregard of its citizen’s Constitutional rights under the second amendment.
To understand the consequences of passing this legislation, you must know what is at stake. LWRCI’s rate of job creation over the past 7 months has been approximately 10 new jobs per month. We have expanded the business through three MD counties with employees numbering 300. Then there are the employees of businesses we subcontract to, like Eastern Plating in Baltimore County. We do so much work with Eastern Plating; LWRCI has a resident employee in house.
LWRCI will bring in excess of $130 million dollars into Maryland this year. This money is put to work in Dorchester County, one the most economically distressed Counties in MD, and the money is spread throughout the state through subcontract work to Maryland businesses, the purchase of capital equipment and technical services, the rental of properties, contracting construction for expansion, employee’s payroll dollars and corporate taxes. The millions of dollars we bring from outside of MD into the state do more to stimulate the economy than any scheme legislators or members of the State and Federal executive branches ever could.
We have invested every dollar back into expansion and growth. We invest in our employees, training them in high tech skills like machining, programming, drafting and other skilled jobs. We use the Maryland institutes of higher education offering tuition reimbursement to our employees. Our goal from the first day of operations was to expand and build something of value, not take annual dividends. We have invested in Maryland, our communities, and its people.
In Feb of 2012 LWRCI signed a $109 million dollar 18 month contract with the Government of Saudi Arabia, sanctioned by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Congress. This is the largest direct commercial to foreign government sale of firearms in the history of the ATF Exports Branch. $109 million dollars of foreign money coming into Maryland to a company that is five years old. In these economic times, this is a story that the Department of Business and Economic Development can be very proud of. New jobs; developing a workforce; and stimulating the economy.
We are successful because we offer and innovative product that is the best in the world. We have been awarded more than nine U.S. Patents in the past five years, and have as many pending.
Like our colleagues from Beretta, LWRCI is Maryland success story that this legislature and the Governor should be proud of. Success in these uncertain economic times should be celebrated and encouraged. While the U.S. manufactures fewer and fewer products, and U.S. exports to the world dwindle, the world still looks to the U.S. to secure its people and their countries borders with American firearms under the direction and supervision of the U.S. Department of State. We supply rifles to DOD, DOJ, DOC, DHHS, and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency to name a few federal agencies. We have supplied hundreds of local and state law enforcement agencies rifles to protect our law officers and the public they serve. Countless U.S. citizens buy our commercial rifles for the same reasons our government and international customers do. For sport or defense, people want and have the right to own the safest, highest quality product they can get. We have a noble job that we are proud of and take very seriously.
Our company success, and the success of our employees should be celebrated as a model to economic growth and civic responsibility. Instead manufacturers and our industry are vilified with the introduction of this legislation to ban cosmetic features of a certain type of rifle. Modern rifles are functionally no different or more dangerous than any other firearm. If you think they are, you need to educate yourself, and not by watching the latest Die Hard movie or Piers Morgan.
We already work in the most highly regulated industry in America. There are more than 20,000 domestic laws relating to firearms. As a company we are diligent to follow them to the letter of the law. Yet the Maryland Legislature, whom have already passed some of most extensive state firearms regulations in the union are attempting to pass further non-sensical laws that will do nothing to improve public safety.
Instead, these laws punish law-abiding citizens, and strip them of their rights. This law will push firearms into the black market to felons and criminals on to the streets as it did in Canada, the UK and Australia. Law-abiding citizens are faced with deciding whether to comply with an unconstitutional law or be labeled felons. Once passed, citizens with no legal method of disposing of these firearms will invariably create a black market with off the books sales with no checks, balances or regulations. Maryland seems doomed to repeat mistakes of the past while ignoring the core issues.
Our representatives should be alarmed with the fact that current firearms regulations are not enforced or prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Prince Georges and Baltimore City have some of the worst violent crime in the country despite having severely restrictive firearms regulations. Criminals responsible for gun crime should be brought to justice with the full veracity of our courts and laws. Criminal recidivism is common and encouraged by the lack of serious consequences to those who commit crimes with firearms, or obtain them illegally. Despite all of this crime concentrated in densely populated urban centers, gun violence in America in general is at a level lower than it was during the 10 years of the 1994 Federal “Assault Weapons Ban” and close to levels not seen since the 1960’s.
The Connecticut judicial system, legislators, an ineffectual gun ban, a broken mental health system and law enforcement did not prevent a deranged and disturbed individual from taking the lives of innocent children at Sandy Hook Elementary. The rifle found at Sandy Hook was already banned in that state. Our MD legislators are looking to do more of the same with political fanfare about improving public safety.
As parents, as citizens, we demand our government address the real issues, and protect our children and us. Not vilify it citizens by stripping them of their rights to put on a political show. We ask you address the real issues of crime control and comprehensive care for the mentally ill.
When the MD Department of Transportation buys our product to protect bridges and infrastructure from terrorism, the State refers to them “patrol rifles.” When a law abiding MD resident buys a rifle after filling out no less than 3 state and federal forms, including an Authorization to release Mental Health medical records, the state calls them “assault rifles.” They are simply rifles. Rifles made to be ergonomic, made of lightweight materials, made to be safe to shoot, made to be accurate. Not expressly made to “assault” anybody.
By the end of this hearing, you will all understand that by-product category, these firearms rarely used in crime. I can give you my own LWRCI statistic to add to the other statistics you will hear. We have shipped over 60,000 rifles to qualified buyers, and not once in 5 years we have been in business has an ATF trace been associated with an LWRCI product being used in a crime.
I came here to share this information on behalf of many Marylanders. We are asking ourselves a question everyday. Is it intent of this legislation to cause a mass exodus of law abiding citizens and productive companies? These citizens and companies will be forced to leave either on moral grounds, business grounds or both. These are the same people that are the core of civic responsibility and contribution to our community and state and its economy. How can LWRCI stay in MD and produce rifles, pay taxes, create jobs, and stimulate the economy when its government intends to restrict the rights of its own citizens? Aside from the moral issue, the citizens of this country would not forgive the hypocrisy of LWRCI staying despite passage of this legislation.
The legislation as written seems to be window dressing for political gain by a few in the face of ineffective crime control. The real issues of public safety as they relate to gun violence go largely unanswered. The MD government is making it clear through its actions with this legislation that we, nor Beretta nor other firearms manufacturers are welcome in MD. It sends the message that this is not the State to expand in.
This legislation also sends a clear message to MD citizens that wish to exercise their rights under the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution; that they are no longer welcome in MD. For criminals, it will be business as usual. As such, if this unconstitutional ban passes as written, we will comply with your wishes and move our companies out of Maryland along with as many employees and their families that wish to go.
Respectfully,
Darren Mellors
Executive-Vice President
LWRC International, LLC
My name is Darren Mellors, Executive-Vice President of LWRC International. LWRCI manufacturers rifles in Cambridge MD in Dorchester County. Our customers are the U.S. Government, law enforcement agencies nationwide, and allied governments that are sanctioned by the U.S. Department of State. We also sell a line of commercial products to qualified law abiding U.S. and Maryland citizens, until recently in all 50 states.
I am in the unique position to offer factual testimony to this legislature on behalf of the 300 families that depend on us for skilled employment; the various contractors that provide services and products for LWRCI; and the law abiding citizens of MD who are being vilified by your proposed legislation. Vilified may sound to be a strong word, but infringing on the rights of select group of citizens in response to the illegal, evil acts of a deranged individual or career violent criminals is the very definition of the word.
I also represent my mentor; the owner of LWRCI and consummate entrepreneur Mr. Richard Bernstein. He not only started LWRCI, but many other successful ventures in MD that have created an estimated 3000 jobs over the last 40 years by estimation of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. His record of job creation on the eastern shore of MD is second only to Mr. Frank Purdue. He single handedly made Salisbury MD the center of Microwave Filter Technology manufacture for the world with K&L Microwave, and Lorch Microwave. Other examples of his success were BAI Aerosystems, Salisbury Pewter, Matech (Machining Technologies) along with many commercial real estate developments on the eastern shore.
Mr. Bernstein is also very active in our MD community being a large contributor to Salisbury University, and the namesake of the Bernstein School of Business. He has been given entrepreneurial, and community service awards, locally, nationally, and internationally. His entire ethos is focused creating jobs and building value in a company through local people, most starting from small ventures.
Facing these 20 gun bills, he is now put in a position to abandon his home, many of his MD employees and his proud legacy to move his ventures to a state that does not ask that productive member of society fall on a sword as a scapegoat for inaction by its government against the prosecution of criminals for gun crimes. There is also apparent malaise by the government to addressing serious mental health care deficits in MD and an apparent disregard of its citizen’s Constitutional rights under the second amendment.
To understand the consequences of passing this legislation, you must know what is at stake. LWRCI’s rate of job creation over the past 7 months has been approximately 10 new jobs per month. We have expanded the business through three MD counties with employees numbering 300. Then there are the employees of businesses we subcontract to, like Eastern Plating in Baltimore County. We do so much work with Eastern Plating; LWRCI has a resident employee in house.
LWRCI will bring in excess of $130 million dollars into Maryland this year. This money is put to work in Dorchester County, one the most economically distressed Counties in MD, and the money is spread throughout the state through subcontract work to Maryland businesses, the purchase of capital equipment and technical services, the rental of properties, contracting construction for expansion, employee’s payroll dollars and corporate taxes. The millions of dollars we bring from outside of MD into the state do more to stimulate the economy than any scheme legislators or members of the State and Federal executive branches ever could.
We have invested every dollar back into expansion and growth. We invest in our employees, training them in high tech skills like machining, programming, drafting and other skilled jobs. We use the Maryland institutes of higher education offering tuition reimbursement to our employees. Our goal from the first day of operations was to expand and build something of value, not take annual dividends. We have invested in Maryland, our communities, and its people.
In Feb of 2012 LWRCI signed a $109 million dollar 18 month contract with the Government of Saudi Arabia, sanctioned by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Congress. This is the largest direct commercial to foreign government sale of firearms in the history of the ATF Exports Branch. $109 million dollars of foreign money coming into Maryland to a company that is five years old. In these economic times, this is a story that the Department of Business and Economic Development can be very proud of. New jobs; developing a workforce; and stimulating the economy.
We are successful because we offer and innovative product that is the best in the world. We have been awarded more than nine U.S. Patents in the past five years, and have as many pending.
Like our colleagues from Beretta, LWRCI is Maryland success story that this legislature and the Governor should be proud of. Success in these uncertain economic times should be celebrated and encouraged. While the U.S. manufactures fewer and fewer products, and U.S. exports to the world dwindle, the world still looks to the U.S. to secure its people and their countries borders with American firearms under the direction and supervision of the U.S. Department of State. We supply rifles to DOD, DOJ, DOC, DHHS, and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency to name a few federal agencies. We have supplied hundreds of local and state law enforcement agencies rifles to protect our law officers and the public they serve. Countless U.S. citizens buy our commercial rifles for the same reasons our government and international customers do. For sport or defense, people want and have the right to own the safest, highest quality product they can get. We have a noble job that we are proud of and take very seriously.
Our company success, and the success of our employees should be celebrated as a model to economic growth and civic responsibility. Instead manufacturers and our industry are vilified with the introduction of this legislation to ban cosmetic features of a certain type of rifle. Modern rifles are functionally no different or more dangerous than any other firearm. If you think they are, you need to educate yourself, and not by watching the latest Die Hard movie or Piers Morgan.
We already work in the most highly regulated industry in America. There are more than 20,000 domestic laws relating to firearms. As a company we are diligent to follow them to the letter of the law. Yet the Maryland Legislature, whom have already passed some of most extensive state firearms regulations in the union are attempting to pass further non-sensical laws that will do nothing to improve public safety.
Instead, these laws punish law-abiding citizens, and strip them of their rights. This law will push firearms into the black market to felons and criminals on to the streets as it did in Canada, the UK and Australia. Law-abiding citizens are faced with deciding whether to comply with an unconstitutional law or be labeled felons. Once passed, citizens with no legal method of disposing of these firearms will invariably create a black market with off the books sales with no checks, balances or regulations. Maryland seems doomed to repeat mistakes of the past while ignoring the core issues.
Our representatives should be alarmed with the fact that current firearms regulations are not enforced or prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Prince Georges and Baltimore City have some of the worst violent crime in the country despite having severely restrictive firearms regulations. Criminals responsible for gun crime should be brought to justice with the full veracity of our courts and laws. Criminal recidivism is common and encouraged by the lack of serious consequences to those who commit crimes with firearms, or obtain them illegally. Despite all of this crime concentrated in densely populated urban centers, gun violence in America in general is at a level lower than it was during the 10 years of the 1994 Federal “Assault Weapons Ban” and close to levels not seen since the 1960’s.
The Connecticut judicial system, legislators, an ineffectual gun ban, a broken mental health system and law enforcement did not prevent a deranged and disturbed individual from taking the lives of innocent children at Sandy Hook Elementary. The rifle found at Sandy Hook was already banned in that state. Our MD legislators are looking to do more of the same with political fanfare about improving public safety.
As parents, as citizens, we demand our government address the real issues, and protect our children and us. Not vilify it citizens by stripping them of their rights to put on a political show. We ask you address the real issues of crime control and comprehensive care for the mentally ill.
When the MD Department of Transportation buys our product to protect bridges and infrastructure from terrorism, the State refers to them “patrol rifles.” When a law abiding MD resident buys a rifle after filling out no less than 3 state and federal forms, including an Authorization to release Mental Health medical records, the state calls them “assault rifles.” They are simply rifles. Rifles made to be ergonomic, made of lightweight materials, made to be safe to shoot, made to be accurate. Not expressly made to “assault” anybody.
By the end of this hearing, you will all understand that by-product category, these firearms rarely used in crime. I can give you my own LWRCI statistic to add to the other statistics you will hear. We have shipped over 60,000 rifles to qualified buyers, and not once in 5 years we have been in business has an ATF trace been associated with an LWRCI product being used in a crime.
I came here to share this information on behalf of many Marylanders. We are asking ourselves a question everyday. Is it intent of this legislation to cause a mass exodus of law abiding citizens and productive companies? These citizens and companies will be forced to leave either on moral grounds, business grounds or both. These are the same people that are the core of civic responsibility and contribution to our community and state and its economy. How can LWRCI stay in MD and produce rifles, pay taxes, create jobs, and stimulate the economy when its government intends to restrict the rights of its own citizens? Aside from the moral issue, the citizens of this country would not forgive the hypocrisy of LWRCI staying despite passage of this legislation.
The legislation as written seems to be window dressing for political gain by a few in the face of ineffective crime control. The real issues of public safety as they relate to gun violence go largely unanswered. The MD government is making it clear through its actions with this legislation that we, nor Beretta nor other firearms manufacturers are welcome in MD. It sends the message that this is not the State to expand in.
This legislation also sends a clear message to MD citizens that wish to exercise their rights under the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution; that they are no longer welcome in MD. For criminals, it will be business as usual. As such, if this unconstitutional ban passes as written, we will comply with your wishes and move our companies out of Maryland along with as many employees and their families that wish to go.
Respectfully,
Darren Mellors
Executive-Vice President
LWRC International, LLC
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Some Gun Companies support the Second Amendment
You would think all gun companies support the second amendment,...but I have a theory that some companies,...the major companies who make their living selling guns to the government aren't about to piss off that government, be it the state or federal government.
This was sent to me via e-mail, which evidently came from Brietbart.com:
......In a turning of the tables, liberty minded gun makers and companies that supply firearms, accessories and ammunition have determined that they have had it with anti-gun governments at the city, state and Federal levels, even if it means lost revenue. Several companies have announced that they will no longer be supplying equipment to hostile governments, police forces or first responders. New York and California have become the prime targets, making an example of out-of-touch politicians who continue to trample upon the Constitutionally protected rights of their citizens to keep and bear arms.
Breitbart compiled a list of statements from several of these companies:
LaRue Tactical
Effective today, in an effort to see that no legal mistakes are made by LaRue Tactical and/or its employees, we will apply all current State and Local Laws (as applied to civilians) to state and local law enforcement / government agencies. In other words, LaRue Tactical will limit all sales to what law-abiding citizens residing in their districts can purchase or possess.
Olympic Arms
Due the passing of this legislation, Olympic Arms would like to announce that the State of New York, any Law Enforcement Departments, Law Enforcement Officers, First Responders within the State of New York, or any New York State government entity or employee of such an entity – will no longer be served as customers. In short, Olympic Arms will no longer be doing business with the State of New York or any governmental entity or employee of such governmental entity within the State of New York – henceforth and until such legislation is repealed, and an apology made to the good people of the State of New York and the American people.
Extreme Firepower Inc, LLC
The Federal Government and several states have enacted gun control laws that restrict the public from owning and possessing certain types of firearms. Law-enforcement agencies are typically exempt from these restrictions. EFI, LLC does not recognize law-enforcement exemptions to local, state, and federal gun control laws. If a product that we manufacture is not legal for a private citizen to own in a jurisdiction, we will not sell that product to a law-enforcement agency in that jurisdiction. Templar CustomWe will not sell arms to agents of the state of New York that hold themselves to be "more equal" than their citizens. As long as the legislators of New York think they have the power to limit the rights of their citizens, in defiance of the Constitution, we at Templar will not sell them firearms to enforce their edicts. Templar Custom is announcing that the State of New York, any Law Enforcement Departments, Law Enforcement Officers, First Responders within the State of New York, or any New York State government entity or employee will no longer be served as customers.
York Arms
Based on the recent legislation in New York, we are prohibited from selling rifles and receivers to residents of New York. We have chosen to extend that prohibition to all governmental agencies associated with or located within New York. As a result we have halted sales of rifles, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, machine guns, and silencers to New York governmental agencies.
Cheaper than Dirt
Recently, companies such as LaRue Tactical and Olympic Arms have announced that they will no longer sell prohibited items to government agencies and personnel in states that deny the right to own those items to civilians. It has been and will continue to be Cheaper Than Dirt’s policy to not to sell prohibited items to government agencies and/or agents in states, counties, cities, and municipalities that have enacted restrictive gun control laws against their citizens. We support and encourage other companies that share in this policy. Alex Newman at The New American writes:
The recent surge in companies refusing to do business with lawless governments hostile to citizens’ rights may have been partly inspired by Ronnie Barrett, owner and CEO of Barrett Firearms Manufacturing. His company, which produces among the most popular .50-caliber weapons in the world, refused to sell the firearms to officials or agencies in California after lawmakers there some years ago banned civilian ownership of the high-caliber guns.
“It’s hard to believe we live in such a dark time that someone has actually banned a single shot rifle. But as you will see, this is the cleverest of all gun bans, and the end goal is civilian disarmament, the confiscation of your tools of liberty, your rifles,” the respected CEO wrote in a piece at the time explaining his company’s boycott. “Barrett cannot legally sell any of its products to lawbreakers. Therefore, since California’s passing of AB50, the state is not in compliance with the US Constitution’s 2nd and 14th Amendments, and we will not sell nor service any of our products to any government agency of the State of California.”
Gun rights activists celebrated the decisions of the four companies to stand up for the rights of Americans. Analysts expect more firms to stand up soon, noting that otherwise, gun owners may choose to purchase from other manufacturers in the future. Across America, state governments,sheriffs, and even some city and county governments are working hard to protect the right to keep and bear arms regardless of any unconstitutional federal “laws” or edicts from President Obama to the contrary. Activists say it is time for all gun makers to join the effort or potentially face a boycott themselves.
While the big three manufacturers of firearms that sell to the New York Police Department, Glock, Smith & Wesson, and Sig Sauer have not come on board, Freedom Outpost, as well as, Guns Save Lives encourage them to do so.
Not only is the Federal government out of its mind concerning Second Amendment restrictions, but so are thestates, including more Democrats in New Jersey putting together a package of 20 sweeping gun-control billsthis week with a vote scheduled for February 21. While some naively think that Christie would veto such legislation, don’t hold your breath. Not only has he called for gun control to be a national discussion, but New Jersey has the second toughest gun control statutes in the country.
While not enacting new gun control measures, he has not set out to repeal them either, claiming that the existing laws are sufficient. Take time to contact gun manufacturers and voice your support for them to stop selling to governments (City, County, State, or Federal) hostile to the Second Amendment rights of citizens.
GLOCK, Inc. 6000 Highlands Parkway Smyrna, GA 30082 USA Phone: 770-432-1202 FAX: 770-433-8719
SIG SAUER, Inc. 18 Industrial Drive Exeter, NH 03833 Phone: 603-772-2302 Fax: 603-772-9082 publicsafetysales@sigsauer.com globaldefensesales@sigsauer.com
Smith & Wesson 2100 Roosevelt Avenue Springfield, MA 01104 Phone: 1-800-331-0852 Fax: 1-413-747-3317 qa@smith-wesson.com
Additionally, here is the contact information for Remington: Remington Arms Company, LLC 870 Remington Drive P.O. Box 700 Madison, NC 27025-0700 TEL: 1-800-243-9700 Fax: 1-336-548-7801 info@Remington.com
This was sent to me via e-mail, which evidently came from Brietbart.com:
......In a turning of the tables, liberty minded gun makers and companies that supply firearms, accessories and ammunition have determined that they have had it with anti-gun governments at the city, state and Federal levels, even if it means lost revenue. Several companies have announced that they will no longer be supplying equipment to hostile governments, police forces or first responders. New York and California have become the prime targets, making an example of out-of-touch politicians who continue to trample upon the Constitutionally protected rights of their citizens to keep and bear arms.
Breitbart compiled a list of statements from several of these companies:
LaRue Tactical
Effective today, in an effort to see that no legal mistakes are made by LaRue Tactical and/or its employees, we will apply all current State and Local Laws (as applied to civilians) to state and local law enforcement / government agencies. In other words, LaRue Tactical will limit all sales to what law-abiding citizens residing in their districts can purchase or possess.
Olympic Arms
Due the passing of this legislation, Olympic Arms would like to announce that the State of New York, any Law Enforcement Departments, Law Enforcement Officers, First Responders within the State of New York, or any New York State government entity or employee of such an entity – will no longer be served as customers. In short, Olympic Arms will no longer be doing business with the State of New York or any governmental entity or employee of such governmental entity within the State of New York – henceforth and until such legislation is repealed, and an apology made to the good people of the State of New York and the American people.
Extreme Firepower Inc, LLC
The Federal Government and several states have enacted gun control laws that restrict the public from owning and possessing certain types of firearms. Law-enforcement agencies are typically exempt from these restrictions. EFI, LLC does not recognize law-enforcement exemptions to local, state, and federal gun control laws. If a product that we manufacture is not legal for a private citizen to own in a jurisdiction, we will not sell that product to a law-enforcement agency in that jurisdiction. Templar CustomWe will not sell arms to agents of the state of New York that hold themselves to be "more equal" than their citizens. As long as the legislators of New York think they have the power to limit the rights of their citizens, in defiance of the Constitution, we at Templar will not sell them firearms to enforce their edicts. Templar Custom is announcing that the State of New York, any Law Enforcement Departments, Law Enforcement Officers, First Responders within the State of New York, or any New York State government entity or employee will no longer be served as customers.
York Arms
Based on the recent legislation in New York, we are prohibited from selling rifles and receivers to residents of New York. We have chosen to extend that prohibition to all governmental agencies associated with or located within New York. As a result we have halted sales of rifles, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, machine guns, and silencers to New York governmental agencies.
Cheaper than Dirt
Recently, companies such as LaRue Tactical and Olympic Arms have announced that they will no longer sell prohibited items to government agencies and personnel in states that deny the right to own those items to civilians. It has been and will continue to be Cheaper Than Dirt’s policy to not to sell prohibited items to government agencies and/or agents in states, counties, cities, and municipalities that have enacted restrictive gun control laws against their citizens. We support and encourage other companies that share in this policy. Alex Newman at The New American writes:
The recent surge in companies refusing to do business with lawless governments hostile to citizens’ rights may have been partly inspired by Ronnie Barrett, owner and CEO of Barrett Firearms Manufacturing. His company, which produces among the most popular .50-caliber weapons in the world, refused to sell the firearms to officials or agencies in California after lawmakers there some years ago banned civilian ownership of the high-caliber guns.
“It’s hard to believe we live in such a dark time that someone has actually banned a single shot rifle. But as you will see, this is the cleverest of all gun bans, and the end goal is civilian disarmament, the confiscation of your tools of liberty, your rifles,” the respected CEO wrote in a piece at the time explaining his company’s boycott. “Barrett cannot legally sell any of its products to lawbreakers. Therefore, since California’s passing of AB50, the state is not in compliance with the US Constitution’s 2nd and 14th Amendments, and we will not sell nor service any of our products to any government agency of the State of California.”
Gun rights activists celebrated the decisions of the four companies to stand up for the rights of Americans. Analysts expect more firms to stand up soon, noting that otherwise, gun owners may choose to purchase from other manufacturers in the future. Across America, state governments,sheriffs, and even some city and county governments are working hard to protect the right to keep and bear arms regardless of any unconstitutional federal “laws” or edicts from President Obama to the contrary. Activists say it is time for all gun makers to join the effort or potentially face a boycott themselves.
While the big three manufacturers of firearms that sell to the New York Police Department, Glock, Smith & Wesson, and Sig Sauer have not come on board, Freedom Outpost, as well as, Guns Save Lives encourage them to do so.
Not only is the Federal government out of its mind concerning Second Amendment restrictions, but so are thestates, including more Democrats in New Jersey putting together a package of 20 sweeping gun-control billsthis week with a vote scheduled for February 21. While some naively think that Christie would veto such legislation, don’t hold your breath. Not only has he called for gun control to be a national discussion, but New Jersey has the second toughest gun control statutes in the country.
While not enacting new gun control measures, he has not set out to repeal them either, claiming that the existing laws are sufficient. Take time to contact gun manufacturers and voice your support for them to stop selling to governments (City, County, State, or Federal) hostile to the Second Amendment rights of citizens.
GLOCK, Inc. 6000 Highlands Parkway Smyrna, GA 30082 USA Phone: 770-432-1202 FAX: 770-433-8719
SIG SAUER, Inc. 18 Industrial Drive Exeter, NH 03833 Phone: 603-772-2302 Fax: 603-772-9082 publicsafetysales@sigsauer.com globaldefensesales@sigsauer.com
Smith & Wesson 2100 Roosevelt Avenue Springfield, MA 01104 Phone: 1-800-331-0852 Fax: 1-413-747-3317 qa@smith-wesson.com
Additionally, here is the contact information for Remington: Remington Arms Company, LLC 870 Remington Drive P.O. Box 700 Madison, NC 27025-0700 TEL: 1-800-243-9700 Fax: 1-336-548-7801 info@Remington.com
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
A New Pro Gun Argument from a Marine
As the Supreme Court heard arguments for and against the Chicago Gun Ban, this man offered you another stellar example of a letter (written by a Marine), that places the proper perspective on what a gun means to a civilized society. Interesting take and one you don't hear much. Read this eloquent and profound letter and pay close attention to the last paragraph of the letter...
"Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it. In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunken guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat -- it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force, watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... And that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act."
By Maj. L. Caudill, USMC (Ret.)
So, the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.
"Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it. In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunken guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat -- it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force, watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... And that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act."
By Maj. L. Caudill, USMC (Ret.)
So, the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Legal Immigrant Supports the Second Amendment
Henson Ong - Legal Immigrant's speech on the 2nd Amendment at a Gun Violence Prevention Working Group Public Hearing in Hartford, CT on January 28th, 2013.
Mr. Ong, a legal immigrant who described himself as an American by choice, calmly and succintly destroys the anti-gun arguement especially on civilian versions of military weapons. Apparently much of crowd agreed with him based on the applause. Yeah, Mr. Ong gets it.
Mr. Ong, a legal immigrant who described himself as an American by choice, calmly and succintly destroys the anti-gun arguement especially on civilian versions of military weapons. Apparently much of crowd agreed with him based on the applause. Yeah, Mr. Ong gets it.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Decorated Army Veteran Arrested in NY For Possession of 30 Round AR Magazines
Decorated Army Veteran Arrested in NY For Possession of 30 Round AR Magazines. According to wwnytv.com, on January 7th, and published by GunsSaveLives.net, 32 year old Nathan Haddad was arrested when police discovered five 30 round (standard capacity) AR-15 magazines in his car during a vehicle check.
Haddad was charged with five counts of third degree criminal possession of a weapon and arraigned in Watertown town court.
Looks like any other crime report under New York’s draconian gun laws.
However, here is where things get interesting. According to Haddad’s brother, Michael Haddad, Nathan though the magazines were “pre-ban” which would have made them legal in New York. Currently, in New York, you can possess magazines over 10 rounds if they were made before the state’s first Assault Weapons Ban (however, 2 weeks ago New York passed another law completely banning these magazines, but that law is not in effect yet).
Also to add to the plot, Nathan Haddad is a decorated army veteran, serving 12 years in the Army, multiple deployments to Afghanistan, and numerous honors. Nathan was discharged for medical reasons after being injured during special forces training in South Korea.
Remember how David Gregory illegally possessed an AR-15 magazine in Washington DC, during a broadcast? Gregory was never charged, never made to sit in the back of a police car, never finger printed, has no arrest record, and prosecution was certainly never on the table. This is a perfect example of gun laws only applying to normal citizens and not the rich or famous.
Now Nathan’s brother is asking for help to raise funds for his brother’s defense. Over $8,000 has been raised in the 23 days since Nathan’s arrest. If you’d like to check out the donation page, here is the link (note, we are not associated with the donation process, it is managed by Michael Haddad): http://www.gofundme.com/1tkukc
Likewise, Cowboys and Tea Parties has no connection to, nor has validated the above donation site.
Haddad was charged with five counts of third degree criminal possession of a weapon and arraigned in Watertown town court.
Looks like any other crime report under New York’s draconian gun laws.
However, here is where things get interesting. According to Haddad’s brother, Michael Haddad, Nathan though the magazines were “pre-ban” which would have made them legal in New York. Currently, in New York, you can possess magazines over 10 rounds if they were made before the state’s first Assault Weapons Ban (however, 2 weeks ago New York passed another law completely banning these magazines, but that law is not in effect yet).
Also to add to the plot, Nathan Haddad is a decorated army veteran, serving 12 years in the Army, multiple deployments to Afghanistan, and numerous honors. Nathan was discharged for medical reasons after being injured during special forces training in South Korea.
Remember how David Gregory illegally possessed an AR-15 magazine in Washington DC, during a broadcast? Gregory was never charged, never made to sit in the back of a police car, never finger printed, has no arrest record, and prosecution was certainly never on the table. This is a perfect example of gun laws only applying to normal citizens and not the rich or famous.
Now Nathan’s brother is asking for help to raise funds for his brother’s defense. Over $8,000 has been raised in the 23 days since Nathan’s arrest. If you’d like to check out the donation page, here is the link (note, we are not associated with the donation process, it is managed by Michael Haddad): http://www.gofundme.com/1tkukc
Likewise, Cowboys and Tea Parties has no connection to, nor has validated the above donation site.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Sheriff Clarke say's Arm and Protect Yourself
In the PSA, Sheriff David Clarke says, “With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option. You could beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. But are you prepared?”
He goes on to say, “You have a duty to protect yourself and your family. We’re partners now. Can I count on you?”
Jacob Schneider is a firearms instructor at the MGS Group — attached directly to the Shooters Shop in West Allis. He is happy someone has finally spoken up about the need to own a gun.
“He is saying we are responsible, in a lot of cases for our own personal safety,” said Schneider.
“If he does not feel he is capable of doing this, and he’s not qualified to take on this role of public safety, he should resign and he should do it today,” said Jeri Bonavia of the non-profit Wisconsin Anti-violence Effort.
Bonavia says Clarke is asking citizens to become vigilantes.
“To issue a blanket statement that people should be out there, arming up, and taking care of safety matters that really law enforcement officials are trained to do, is just irresponsible,” said Bonavia.
The office of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said in a statement: “Apparently Sheriff David Clark (sp) is auditioning for the next Dirty Harry movie.”
Clarke fired back with his own statement. It read: ”Several years ago a tire iron-wielding suspect beat Mayor Tom Barrett to within inches of his life. I would think that he would be a lot more sensitive to people being able to defend themselves in such instances. A firearm and a plan of defense would have come in handy for him that day.”
On their Facebook page Friday afternoon, Greenfield Police noted to its residents, “The decision to arm yourself with a firearm is a very personal and private decision that should not be driven by fear that our officers will not respond to your calls for help.” The post urges Greenfield residents to consider taking a concealed carry class, hunter safety and education course, or even take part in the city’s Citizen Police Academy.
The PSA is one in a series of ads being run by the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office. The other ads address drunk driving and texting while driving. The ads will be running on multiple radio stations within southeast Wisconsin.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Ann Coulter on Stopping School Shootings
Wow! Great article by one of our favorite conservative woman, titled "WE KNOW HOW TO STOP SCHOOL SHOOTINGS", by Ann Coulter published Wednesday Dec 19, 2012. Wish we would have found it earlier.
In the wake of a monstrous crime like a madman's mass murder of defenseless women and children at the Newtown, Conn., elementary school, the nation's attention is riveted on what could have been done to prevent such a massacre.
Luckily, some years ago, two famed economists, William Landes at the University of Chicago and John Lott at Yale, conducted a massive study of multiple victim public shootings in the United States between 1977 and 1995 to see how various legal changes affected their frequency and death toll.
Landes and Lott examined many of the very policies being proposed right now in response to the Connecticut massacre: waiting periods and background checks for guns, the death penalty and increased penalties for committing a crime with a gun.
None of these policies had any effect on the frequency of, or carnage from, multiple-victim shootings. (I note that they did not look at reforming our lax mental health laws, presumably because the ACLU is working to keep dangerous nuts on the street in all 50 states.)
Only one public policy has ever been shown to reduce the death rate from such crimes: concealed-carry laws.
The effect of concealed-carry laws in deterring mass public shootings was even greater than the impact of such laws on the murder rate generally.
Someone planning to commit a single murder in a concealed-carry state only has to weigh the odds of one person being armed. But a criminal planning to commit murder in a public place has to worry that anyone in the entire area might have a gun.
You will notice that most multiple-victim shootings occur in "gun-free zones" -- even within states that have concealed-carry laws: public schools, churches, Sikh temples, post offices, the movie theater where James Holmes committed mass murder, and the Portland, Ore., mall where a nut starting gunning down shoppers a few weeks ago.
Guns were banned in all these places. Mass killers may be crazy, but they're not stupid.
If the deterrent effect of concealed-carry laws seems surprising to you, that's because the media hide stories of armed citizens stopping mass shooters. At the Portland shooting, for example, no explanation was given for the amazing fact that the assailant managed to kill only two people in the mall during the busy Christmas season.
It turns out, concealed-carry-holder Nick Meli hadn't noticed that the mall was a gun-free zone. He pointed his (otherwise legal) gun at the shooter as he paused to reload, and the next shot was the attempted mass murderer killing himself. (Meli aimed, but didn't shoot, because there were bystanders behind the shooter.)
In a nonsense "study" going around the Internet right now, Mother Jones magazine claims to have produced its own study of all public shootings in the last 30 years and concludes: "In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun."
This will come as a shock to people who know something about the subject.
The magazine reaches its conclusion by simply excluding all cases where an armed civilian stopped the shooter: They looked only at public shootings where four or more people were killed, i.e., the ones where the shooter wasn't stopped.
If we care about reducing the number of people killed in mass shootings, shouldn't we pay particular attention to the cases where the aspiring mass murderer was prevented from getting off more than a couple rounds?
It would be like testing the effectiveness of weed killers, but refusing to consider any cases where the weeds died.
In addition to the Portland mall case, here are a few more examples excluded by the Mother Jones methodology:
-- Mayan Palace Theater, San Antonio, Texas, this week: Jesus Manuel Garcia shoots at a movie theater, a police car and bystanders from the nearby China Garden restaurant; as he enters the movie theater, guns blazing, an armed off-duty cop shoots Garcia four times, stopping the attack. Total dead: Zero.
-- Winnemucca, Nev., 2008: Ernesto Villagomez opens fire in a crowded restaurant; concealed carry permit-holder shoots him dead. Total dead: Two. (I'm excluding the shooters' deaths in these examples.)
-- Appalachian School of Law, 2002: Crazed immigrant shoots the dean and a professor, then begins shooting students; as he goes for more ammunition, two armed students point their guns at him, allowing a third to tackle him. Total dead: Three.
-- Santee, Calif., 2001: Student begins shooting his classmates -- as well as the "trained campus supervisor"; an off-duty cop who happened to be bringing his daughter to school that day points his gun at the shooter, holding him until more police arrive. Total dead: Two.
-- Pearl High School, Mississippi, 1997: After shooting several people at his high school, student heads for the junior high school; assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieves a .45 pistol from his car and points it at the gunman's head, ending the murder spree. Total dead: Two.
-- Edinboro, Pa., 1998: A student shoots up a junior high school dance being held at a restaurant; restaurant owner pulls out his shotgun and stops the gunman. Total dead: One.
By contrast, the shootings in gun-free zones invariably result in far higher casualty figures -- Sikh temple, Oak Creek, Wis. (six dead); Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va. (32 dead); Columbine High School, Columbine, Colo. (12 dead); Amish school, Lancaster County, Pa. (five little girls killed); public school, Craighead County, Ark. (five killed, including four little girls).
All these took place in gun-free zones, resulting in lots of people getting killed -- and thereby warranting inclusion in the Mother Jones study.
If what we care about is saving the lives of innocent human beings by reducing the number of mass public shootings and the deaths they cause, only one policy has ever been shown to work: concealed-carry laws. On the other hand, if what we care about is self-indulgent grandstanding, and to hell with dozens of innocent children being murdered in cold blood, try the other policies.
Online Remarks from Ann's column:
You cannot ban crazy or stupid, but you can Arm yourselves against them.
When Seconds count, cops are Minutes away.
You left out the Azana Spa in Wisconsin where three unarmed women were killed and four unarmed women were wounded. The sign on the door the killer used for entry read: "No Firearms Allowed".
As a Democrat, it's a rare instance when I agree with Ms. Coulter. This time I am with her 100%.
The article brings up an interesting point. She says, in all of the examples, that the shooters surrendered as soon a weapon was aimed at them and that all instances happened in "no-gun zones".
Violent crime is curbed when the criminal knows that his victim may fight back.
She is correct & in many cases the gunman commits suicide when they fear the police or someone is closing in. So imagine if a few arms brandished 5 minutes before the police response time occurs. Probably save some additional carnage.
When Florida enacted its conceal carry law robberies went down by 80% because the bad guys didn't know who was carrying so they then aimed at foreigners coming off cruise ships and areas frequented by overseas tourists and those incidents went up per capita.
In the wake of a monstrous crime like a madman's mass murder of defenseless women and children at the Newtown, Conn., elementary school, the nation's attention is riveted on what could have been done to prevent such a massacre.
Luckily, some years ago, two famed economists, William Landes at the University of Chicago and John Lott at Yale, conducted a massive study of multiple victim public shootings in the United States between 1977 and 1995 to see how various legal changes affected their frequency and death toll.
Landes and Lott examined many of the very policies being proposed right now in response to the Connecticut massacre: waiting periods and background checks for guns, the death penalty and increased penalties for committing a crime with a gun.
None of these policies had any effect on the frequency of, or carnage from, multiple-victim shootings. (I note that they did not look at reforming our lax mental health laws, presumably because the ACLU is working to keep dangerous nuts on the street in all 50 states.)
Only one public policy has ever been shown to reduce the death rate from such crimes: concealed-carry laws.
The effect of concealed-carry laws in deterring mass public shootings was even greater than the impact of such laws on the murder rate generally.
Someone planning to commit a single murder in a concealed-carry state only has to weigh the odds of one person being armed. But a criminal planning to commit murder in a public place has to worry that anyone in the entire area might have a gun.
You will notice that most multiple-victim shootings occur in "gun-free zones" -- even within states that have concealed-carry laws: public schools, churches, Sikh temples, post offices, the movie theater where James Holmes committed mass murder, and the Portland, Ore., mall where a nut starting gunning down shoppers a few weeks ago.
Guns were banned in all these places. Mass killers may be crazy, but they're not stupid.
If the deterrent effect of concealed-carry laws seems surprising to you, that's because the media hide stories of armed citizens stopping mass shooters. At the Portland shooting, for example, no explanation was given for the amazing fact that the assailant managed to kill only two people in the mall during the busy Christmas season.
It turns out, concealed-carry-holder Nick Meli hadn't noticed that the mall was a gun-free zone. He pointed his (otherwise legal) gun at the shooter as he paused to reload, and the next shot was the attempted mass murderer killing himself. (Meli aimed, but didn't shoot, because there were bystanders behind the shooter.)
In a nonsense "study" going around the Internet right now, Mother Jones magazine claims to have produced its own study of all public shootings in the last 30 years and concludes: "In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun."
This will come as a shock to people who know something about the subject.
The magazine reaches its conclusion by simply excluding all cases where an armed civilian stopped the shooter: They looked only at public shootings where four or more people were killed, i.e., the ones where the shooter wasn't stopped.
If we care about reducing the number of people killed in mass shootings, shouldn't we pay particular attention to the cases where the aspiring mass murderer was prevented from getting off more than a couple rounds?
It would be like testing the effectiveness of weed killers, but refusing to consider any cases where the weeds died.
In addition to the Portland mall case, here are a few more examples excluded by the Mother Jones methodology:
-- Mayan Palace Theater, San Antonio, Texas, this week: Jesus Manuel Garcia shoots at a movie theater, a police car and bystanders from the nearby China Garden restaurant; as he enters the movie theater, guns blazing, an armed off-duty cop shoots Garcia four times, stopping the attack. Total dead: Zero.
-- Winnemucca, Nev., 2008: Ernesto Villagomez opens fire in a crowded restaurant; concealed carry permit-holder shoots him dead. Total dead: Two. (I'm excluding the shooters' deaths in these examples.)
-- Appalachian School of Law, 2002: Crazed immigrant shoots the dean and a professor, then begins shooting students; as he goes for more ammunition, two armed students point their guns at him, allowing a third to tackle him. Total dead: Three.
-- Santee, Calif., 2001: Student begins shooting his classmates -- as well as the "trained campus supervisor"; an off-duty cop who happened to be bringing his daughter to school that day points his gun at the shooter, holding him until more police arrive. Total dead: Two.
-- Pearl High School, Mississippi, 1997: After shooting several people at his high school, student heads for the junior high school; assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieves a .45 pistol from his car and points it at the gunman's head, ending the murder spree. Total dead: Two.
-- Edinboro, Pa., 1998: A student shoots up a junior high school dance being held at a restaurant; restaurant owner pulls out his shotgun and stops the gunman. Total dead: One.
By contrast, the shootings in gun-free zones invariably result in far higher casualty figures -- Sikh temple, Oak Creek, Wis. (six dead); Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va. (32 dead); Columbine High School, Columbine, Colo. (12 dead); Amish school, Lancaster County, Pa. (five little girls killed); public school, Craighead County, Ark. (five killed, including four little girls).
All these took place in gun-free zones, resulting in lots of people getting killed -- and thereby warranting inclusion in the Mother Jones study.
If what we care about is saving the lives of innocent human beings by reducing the number of mass public shootings and the deaths they cause, only one policy has ever been shown to work: concealed-carry laws. On the other hand, if what we care about is self-indulgent grandstanding, and to hell with dozens of innocent children being murdered in cold blood, try the other policies.
Online Remarks from Ann's column:
You cannot ban crazy or stupid, but you can Arm yourselves against them.
When Seconds count, cops are Minutes away.
You left out the Azana Spa in Wisconsin where three unarmed women were killed and four unarmed women were wounded. The sign on the door the killer used for entry read: "No Firearms Allowed".
As a Democrat, it's a rare instance when I agree with Ms. Coulter. This time I am with her 100%.
The article brings up an interesting point. She says, in all of the examples, that the shooters surrendered as soon a weapon was aimed at them and that all instances happened in "no-gun zones".
Violent crime is curbed when the criminal knows that his victim may fight back.
She is correct & in many cases the gunman commits suicide when they fear the police or someone is closing in. So imagine if a few arms brandished 5 minutes before the police response time occurs. Probably save some additional carnage.
When Florida enacted its conceal carry law robberies went down by 80% because the bad guys didn't know who was carrying so they then aimed at foreigners coming off cruise ships and areas frequented by overseas tourists and those incidents went up per capita.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Lindisfarne To Sandy Hook: The Tragedy of Wishful
This article, Lindisfarne To Sandy Hook: The Tragedy of Wishful was sent to us and linked to the article published on the American Thinker.
By Richard F. Miniter
I pull up in front of our town's little savings bank branch, drop out of the door and when my boots hit the pavement reach under my shirt and the remove the Smith & Wesson Model 28 .357 which I then put under the seat before locking the truck. "What are you doing Grandpa?" my granddaughter asks walking around from the other door.
"Here's a word of advice cupcake. It's never a good idea to walk into a bank with a gun." I don't always carry it. It's a big piece of iron but it's the same gun I carried long ago as a police officer, I'm very comfortable with it and sometimes I get a feeling when about to leave the house and after a moment's hesitation, take it along. And that day was one of those.
The next stop after the bank was her school and when we walked in together I left it locked up under the seat again. Not because I was worried about violating the Federal Gun Free School Zones Act because, and while most school teachers and administrators don't understand this, there are exceptions and I'm one. Instead I left the gun under the seat because I would give those school teachers and administrators the vapors if they even suspected I was armed. Guns are evil most of them seem to feel. Not only mine. The guns of the police they'd summon to their aid are bad too. The make believe guns boys play cowboy with are bad too, even the gun a second grader might pencil in when drawing a picture of an "army man" is evil. It's a key tenet of their wishful thinking.
And a very strange brand of wishful thinking it is. Because instead of hoping for something to come their way, they're wishing for nothing to happen. Its symbol might be a monkey with it hands over its eyes because it's principal doctrine is that if you can't see any evil, refuse to see any evil, then it doesn't exist. Of course it's only a variation of the old notion that if you don't look a lion in the eye he won't charge. But it's what these people believe. Which is why that school, like many other schools run by similar believers once prohibited any discussion of 9/11, any videotapes, photographs or indeed any reference to it at all. Again if you don't see evil or don't learn about it, talk it out, try to learn the lessons it teaches you, then it doesn't exist, won't have any power over you. Can't.
Without any evidence at all that they're right, indeed in the face of any number of horrible examples proving them wrong, they cling to this belief. Because on some level they believe they want to convince themselves that they're "better than that", better than Beslan, better than Columbine, better than those awful images of people jumping from the twin towers. That they're different somehow. Special.
Which means that they will not suffer armed fathers or grandfathers around children as it "sends the wrong message."
And so I leave the gun under the seat.
But educators should know something about history. Because this is an old story and has its roots in a tragedy every bit as compelling as Sandy Hook School. The story of Lindisfarne.
An island connected to northern England's coast by a tidal causeway. A holy place, in fact its name today is Holy Island and 1300 years ago it was Christendom's most prominent experiment with what we today would call a Gun Free School Zone. But what happened there should have proved for all time that covering one's eyes, pretending that demons don't exist, that you're somehow "better than that", is worse than futile. Criminally worse.
Lindisfarne was a monastery, renowned for its non-violence, dedicated to learning, to the idea that in the tumult of the early Middle Ages, man could, should be, was "better than that." Gloriously "better than that." And for a while people believed along with them in this "right message" and endowed Lindisfarne with riches, sang its praises in ten thousand churches.
Its ruins today are still a beacon atop a spire of high rock, surmounted by sheer stone walls, far above the everyday concerns of this world.
But they are ruins because one dark night in the eighth century Lindisfarne's rock and walls were scaled by Vikings holding their swords in their mouths. Demons out of the northern seas who chased the unarmed monks from room to room in the monastery, butchering them for sport, sacking their golden altar and trampling their precious books underfoot. An event which shook Christendom to its core.
Why did it happen? Quite simply because the killers were drawn by the defenselessness of the place, by Lindisfarne's "right message", by the fact that Lindisfarne abjured violence and trusted as school administrators trust today, in never looking the lion in the eye.
Above all by the fact that Lindisfarne would not suffer the presence of armed men who might defend it.
Today most of us don't even remember that there once was such a place. Even though we keep repeating the same mistake it made. We don't remember what we should have learned then; that weakness will, sooner or later, summon horror.
As Adam Lanza was summoned to Sandy Hook School.
Chose the one target where he had the best chance of not encountering armed citizens, a gun-free school zone. Just as the Vikings didn't choose to assault one of the many fortified castles chock a block with armed men elsewhere on the coast but instead chose Lindisfarne. Just as Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold didn't choose a gun show to assault, a rodeo, a police station but instead chose Columbine.
I'm not certain what the solution is. No one wants schools to become armed camps with sandbagged revetments, passwords and barbed wire. Besides the evil one is a liar painted with many tongues and so the monsters who wish to kill children often adopt other techniques. Walter Seifert in Cologne Germany constructed a flame thrower he put to use through an elementary school's windows burning to death eight students, two teachers and horribly maiming many others. You have the three men who buried an entire school bus load of children in California. You have poisoners, knife wielding maniacs, stranglers, bombers, kidnappers and pedophile killers.
Instead it strikes me that any solution has to be rooted in natural affinity. The relationship of parent to child, neighbor to neighbor, grandparent to grandchild. Not in the fatuous belief that stone hearted killers will obey the resolutions of school boards, the acts of Congress or indeed do anything but laugh at any amount of wishful thinking.
In this vein there is an interesting sidebar to the Revolutionary War. That fact that while the British and the Tories and Indians found it relatively easy to break our militia in the open and massacre them, the same militia could not be defeated in the woods. The reason was that when the militia couldn't see their officers, let alone listen to them tell them where to stand, neighbors, fathers, sons, cousins and uncles broke ranks and gathered together. And after the battle had been joined wouldn't leave each other. Wouldn't desert their wounded son or their neighbor's body and so the British found them impossible to budge.
Considering this point one might recall that at Columbine there were no such bonds which could gather and stop Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Nor was one considered necessary. Instead there were only rules grounded in a lot of wishful thinking. Rules which Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold ignored and so despite a surplus of bravery among individual teachers and students, there was an armed sheriff's deputy on duty who heard the first shots and didn't run towards them as he would have if they were his children. There was the school principal clueless about the murderers, who couldn't recall Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold student walking the halls in black trench coats in the days prior to the killings and threatening other students. We can believe his testimony or not but one thing we know for sure is that he wasn't looking for any lions to stare down.
Finally there were the despicable parents of Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold who ignored or were oblivious to the collection of weapons. Mothers and fathers in authority over their children who simply wished nothing bad would happen.
And so the concept of a gun free school zone established by authority turned out to be as much of a joke at Columbine as it was the other day in Newtown, Connecticut. Just as the same idea was shown a farce at Lindisfarne 1300 years ago.
But yet, these children have fathers and numbered among them men who will protect their children and know how to do it.
Now I understand that public education today is a determinedly feminine institution. But they have tremendous leeway under the law and so one thing they school administrators and teachers might consider doing is admit the fact that they have no more idea on how to physically defend children than they do about how to build a space shuttle with their second grade paper doll scissors. But among the parents of their pupils are many men who do have that experience and training. Former or current police officers, soldiers and Marines. People who've been shot at and who've shot. Had to winkle armed men out of a closed room and take them down. Men who will deter evil by their presence.
So for once why can't some hapless school administrator call them in? Ask them what they would do to keep these children safe? Their children safe. And then heed what they say. Do what they say.
It is all so sad. But the bullet ridden bodies of those little angels and angelic teachers in Newtown should show us that wishful thinking won't work, has never worked and will never work. If it did, we'd only have to wish those children back.
Wouldn't we?
Richard F. Miniter is a former local Chief-Of-Police and the author of THE THINGS I WANT MOST, The Extraordinary Journey Of A Boy To A Family Of His Own, BDD, Random House. He can be reached at miniterhome@aol.com
By Richard F. Miniter
I pull up in front of our town's little savings bank branch, drop out of the door and when my boots hit the pavement reach under my shirt and the remove the Smith & Wesson Model 28 .357 which I then put under the seat before locking the truck. "What are you doing Grandpa?" my granddaughter asks walking around from the other door.
"Here's a word of advice cupcake. It's never a good idea to walk into a bank with a gun." I don't always carry it. It's a big piece of iron but it's the same gun I carried long ago as a police officer, I'm very comfortable with it and sometimes I get a feeling when about to leave the house and after a moment's hesitation, take it along. And that day was one of those.
The next stop after the bank was her school and when we walked in together I left it locked up under the seat again. Not because I was worried about violating the Federal Gun Free School Zones Act because, and while most school teachers and administrators don't understand this, there are exceptions and I'm one. Instead I left the gun under the seat because I would give those school teachers and administrators the vapors if they even suspected I was armed. Guns are evil most of them seem to feel. Not only mine. The guns of the police they'd summon to their aid are bad too. The make believe guns boys play cowboy with are bad too, even the gun a second grader might pencil in when drawing a picture of an "army man" is evil. It's a key tenet of their wishful thinking.
And a very strange brand of wishful thinking it is. Because instead of hoping for something to come their way, they're wishing for nothing to happen. Its symbol might be a monkey with it hands over its eyes because it's principal doctrine is that if you can't see any evil, refuse to see any evil, then it doesn't exist. Of course it's only a variation of the old notion that if you don't look a lion in the eye he won't charge. But it's what these people believe. Which is why that school, like many other schools run by similar believers once prohibited any discussion of 9/11, any videotapes, photographs or indeed any reference to it at all. Again if you don't see evil or don't learn about it, talk it out, try to learn the lessons it teaches you, then it doesn't exist, won't have any power over you. Can't.
Without any evidence at all that they're right, indeed in the face of any number of horrible examples proving them wrong, they cling to this belief. Because on some level they believe they want to convince themselves that they're "better than that", better than Beslan, better than Columbine, better than those awful images of people jumping from the twin towers. That they're different somehow. Special.
Which means that they will not suffer armed fathers or grandfathers around children as it "sends the wrong message."
And so I leave the gun under the seat.
But educators should know something about history. Because this is an old story and has its roots in a tragedy every bit as compelling as Sandy Hook School. The story of Lindisfarne.
An island connected to northern England's coast by a tidal causeway. A holy place, in fact its name today is Holy Island and 1300 years ago it was Christendom's most prominent experiment with what we today would call a Gun Free School Zone. But what happened there should have proved for all time that covering one's eyes, pretending that demons don't exist, that you're somehow "better than that", is worse than futile. Criminally worse.
Lindisfarne was a monastery, renowned for its non-violence, dedicated to learning, to the idea that in the tumult of the early Middle Ages, man could, should be, was "better than that." Gloriously "better than that." And for a while people believed along with them in this "right message" and endowed Lindisfarne with riches, sang its praises in ten thousand churches.
Its ruins today are still a beacon atop a spire of high rock, surmounted by sheer stone walls, far above the everyday concerns of this world.
But they are ruins because one dark night in the eighth century Lindisfarne's rock and walls were scaled by Vikings holding their swords in their mouths. Demons out of the northern seas who chased the unarmed monks from room to room in the monastery, butchering them for sport, sacking their golden altar and trampling their precious books underfoot. An event which shook Christendom to its core.
Why did it happen? Quite simply because the killers were drawn by the defenselessness of the place, by Lindisfarne's "right message", by the fact that Lindisfarne abjured violence and trusted as school administrators trust today, in never looking the lion in the eye.
Above all by the fact that Lindisfarne would not suffer the presence of armed men who might defend it.
Today most of us don't even remember that there once was such a place. Even though we keep repeating the same mistake it made. We don't remember what we should have learned then; that weakness will, sooner or later, summon horror.
As Adam Lanza was summoned to Sandy Hook School.
Chose the one target where he had the best chance of not encountering armed citizens, a gun-free school zone. Just as the Vikings didn't choose to assault one of the many fortified castles chock a block with armed men elsewhere on the coast but instead chose Lindisfarne. Just as Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold didn't choose a gun show to assault, a rodeo, a police station but instead chose Columbine.
I'm not certain what the solution is. No one wants schools to become armed camps with sandbagged revetments, passwords and barbed wire. Besides the evil one is a liar painted with many tongues and so the monsters who wish to kill children often adopt other techniques. Walter Seifert in Cologne Germany constructed a flame thrower he put to use through an elementary school's windows burning to death eight students, two teachers and horribly maiming many others. You have the three men who buried an entire school bus load of children in California. You have poisoners, knife wielding maniacs, stranglers, bombers, kidnappers and pedophile killers.
Instead it strikes me that any solution has to be rooted in natural affinity. The relationship of parent to child, neighbor to neighbor, grandparent to grandchild. Not in the fatuous belief that stone hearted killers will obey the resolutions of school boards, the acts of Congress or indeed do anything but laugh at any amount of wishful thinking.
In this vein there is an interesting sidebar to the Revolutionary War. That fact that while the British and the Tories and Indians found it relatively easy to break our militia in the open and massacre them, the same militia could not be defeated in the woods. The reason was that when the militia couldn't see their officers, let alone listen to them tell them where to stand, neighbors, fathers, sons, cousins and uncles broke ranks and gathered together. And after the battle had been joined wouldn't leave each other. Wouldn't desert their wounded son or their neighbor's body and so the British found them impossible to budge.
Considering this point one might recall that at Columbine there were no such bonds which could gather and stop Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Nor was one considered necessary. Instead there were only rules grounded in a lot of wishful thinking. Rules which Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold ignored and so despite a surplus of bravery among individual teachers and students, there was an armed sheriff's deputy on duty who heard the first shots and didn't run towards them as he would have if they were his children. There was the school principal clueless about the murderers, who couldn't recall Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold student walking the halls in black trench coats in the days prior to the killings and threatening other students. We can believe his testimony or not but one thing we know for sure is that he wasn't looking for any lions to stare down.
Finally there were the despicable parents of Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold who ignored or were oblivious to the collection of weapons. Mothers and fathers in authority over their children who simply wished nothing bad would happen.
And so the concept of a gun free school zone established by authority turned out to be as much of a joke at Columbine as it was the other day in Newtown, Connecticut. Just as the same idea was shown a farce at Lindisfarne 1300 years ago.
But yet, these children have fathers and numbered among them men who will protect their children and know how to do it.
Now I understand that public education today is a determinedly feminine institution. But they have tremendous leeway under the law and so one thing they school administrators and teachers might consider doing is admit the fact that they have no more idea on how to physically defend children than they do about how to build a space shuttle with their second grade paper doll scissors. But among the parents of their pupils are many men who do have that experience and training. Former or current police officers, soldiers and Marines. People who've been shot at and who've shot. Had to winkle armed men out of a closed room and take them down. Men who will deter evil by their presence.
So for once why can't some hapless school administrator call them in? Ask them what they would do to keep these children safe? Their children safe. And then heed what they say. Do what they say.
It is all so sad. But the bullet ridden bodies of those little angels and angelic teachers in Newtown should show us that wishful thinking won't work, has never worked and will never work. If it did, we'd only have to wish those children back.
Wouldn't we?
Richard F. Miniter is a former local Chief-Of-Police and the author of THE THINGS I WANT MOST, The Extraordinary Journey Of A Boy To A Family Of His Own, BDD, Random House. He can be reached at miniterhome@aol.com
Sunday, December 23, 2012
The Gun Control Debate
There is a lot of gun control debate back and forth on the news and in Congress following the murders committed by a mad man at Sandy Hill Elementary School which took the lives of 20 children and 7 adults.
However as high profile as mass murders seem to be they are actually on the decline, if you don't add 3,000+ deaths that Obama and Eric Holder are responsible for with Fast and Furious.
From an Associated Press article, by Helen O'Neill, posted on The Blaze, we learn that: While the perception in the wake of this year’s mass shootings has been that such acts are on the rise, the Associated Press found that it’s actually the exact opposite when you look at the data on a macro level, “There is no pattern, there is no increase,” says criminologist James Allen Fox of Boston’s Northeastern University.
He (Fox) adds that the random mass shootings that get the most media attention are the rarest. While mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s.
And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, says.
Chances of being killed in a mass shooting, he says, are probably no greater than being struck by lightning.
From NewsMax, an article by David A. Patten concerning an interview with College Professor and Gun Law Expert Dr. John R. Lott:
Gun Expert Lott: Let Teachers Carry Arms, Ban Gun-Free Zones to Halt Mass Shootings
Banning gun-free zones and allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons could help eliminate mass shootings at schools, John R. Lott, one of the nation's leading gun experts, tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview Saturday.
Lott, an author and college professor, told Newsmax that gun-free zones become “a magnet” for deranged killers who hope to burn their names into the history books by running up a big body count.
Lott’s landmark book "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws" is in its 3rd edition. He told Newsmax there is a “very good chance” the Connecticut school shooting could have been averted, if teachers there were permitted to carry concealed handguns.
It is no accident, he said, that mass shootings repeatedly have occurred in designated gun-free zones, which attract lunatics looking to murder as many souls as possible before they turn their guns on themselves.
Newsmax: Dr. Lott, your work suggests people are more secure, rather than less so, when firearms are readily available in society.
Dr. Lott: Simply telling them to behave passively turns out to be pretty bad advice . . . By far the safest course of action for people to take, when they are confronting a criminal, is to have a gun. This is particularly true for the people in our society who are the most vulnerable.
Newsmax: The media typically spins these mass shootings as an American phenomenon. They suggest we ought to be more like Europe, with strong gun control, because then we would not have these problems. Is that
Dr. Lott: No. Europe has a lot of multiple victim shootings. If you look at a per capita rate, the rate of multiple-victim public shootings in Europe and the United States over the last 10 years have been fairly similar to each other. A couple of years ago you had a couple of big shootings in Finland. About two-and-a-half years ago you had a big shooting in the U.K., 12 people were killed.
You had Norway last year [where 77 died]. Two years ago, you had the shooting in Austria at a Sikh Temple. There have been several multiple-victim public shootings in France over the last couple of years. Over the last decade, you’ve had a couple of big school shootings in Germany. Germany in terms of modern incidents has two of the four worst public-school shootings, and they have very strict gun-control laws. The one common feature of all of those shootings in Europe is that they all take place in gun-free zones, in places where guns are supposed to be banned.
Newsmax: Can you give readers an example of an incident where a teacher or authority-figure with a gun was able to thwart a violent shooting?
Dr. Lott: There was the university case in the Appalachian law school. You had the K through 12 in Mississippi and the one in Edinboro, Pa. You had New Life Church [in December 2007] — you had 7,000 parishioners there when the person broke into the church with about a thousand rounds of ammunition.
But there was a woman there, a former Chicago police officer who had gotten a concealed handgun permit because she was being stalked by her ex-husband. She had asked permission from the minister there to be able to carry a concealed handgun. She was worried if she couldn’t carry it at the church there, that she would be vulnerable going to and from the church. She shot at him 10 times, wounding him, and he committed suicide . . . These types of cases occur all around us, and they usually don’t get much attention, especially if they are stopped before people are injured or killed.
Newsmax: How can society prevent such mass shootings, or are they avoidable at all?
Dr. Lott: About 75 percent of the time when these attacks occur, the killers themselves die at the scene. Even the times when they don’t die, it seems pretty clear their intent was to die, but they just couldn’t bring themselves to commit suicide, pull the trigger, and shoot themselves at the last moment.
But in their warped mind, what they want to do is commit suicide in a way that will get them attention, so people know who they were when they were here. I’s a pretty sick idea, but if you read the documents that they leave, the diaries and the video tapes, it is pretty clear that these guys know that they get more attention the more people they can kill.
So their goal is to try to kill as many people as possible. So there are two issues here. One is focusing on the attention. And I think it’s pretty clear that . . . if people stopped mentioning their names — I'm not saying that’s possible — that’s one thing that would reduce their incentive to go and commit these crimes.
The second thing is to give people the option to protect themselves. One of the things I’ve written about recently is the attack at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater. There, you have seven movie theaters that were showing the Batman movie when it opened at the end of July.
Out of those seven movie theaters, only one movie theater was posted as banning permit-concealed handguns. The killer didn’t go to the movie theater that was closest to his home. He didn’t go to the movie theater that was the largest movie theater in Colorado, which was essentially the same distance from his apartment as the one he ended up going to. Instead, the one he picked was the only one of those movie theaters that banned people taking permit-concealed handguns into that theater.
The problem is, whether it is the Portland shooting earlier this week, or the Connecticut shooting Friday, or the Sikh temple attack in Wisconsin, time after time these attacks take place in the few areas within a state where permit-concealed handguns are banned. It’s not just this year, it’s all these years in the past. And at some point people have to recognize that despite the obvious desire to make places safe by banning guns, it unintentionally has the opposite effect.
When you ban guns, rather than making it safer for the victims, you unintentionally make it safer for the criminals, because they have less to worry about. If you had a violent criminal stalking you or your family, and was really seriously threatening you, would you feel safer putting a sign up in front of your home stating, “This home is a gun-free zone.”
My guess is you wouldn’t do that. And I’ve never run into any gun-control proponents who would do that either. And the reason is pretty clear: Putting a sign there saying this is a gun-free home isn’t going to cause the criminals to say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to break the law, so I’m not going to go in and attack these people.’ It encourages them to do it. It serves as a magnet for him, if he’s going to engage in this attack, that that’s the place where he is going to engage in, because he finds that it is going to be easier to do it there.
Yet every time we have one of these mass shooting incidents, it renews the call from the media and the left for banning guns.
I believe that the people who are pushing for these gun controls are well intentioned. I think they’re wrong. I think the things they’re going to make life more dangerous. But it’s understandable. If you see something bad that happens, and it happens with a gun, the natural reaction is: ‘Well, if I take the gun away, bad things won’t happen anymore.’ The problem is you have to realize that when you go and ban guns, you may only take them away from good law-abiding citizens and not the criminals. And to disarm good law-abiding citizens . . . you just make it easier for crime to occur, not harder.
You also have to think about self defense. They say bad things happen with guns. But the news rarely covers people using guns defensively to stop crimes from happening. And that has a huge impact on people’s perceptions about the costs and benefits of guns.
Newsmax: So can you give us a correlation between crime rates in jurisdictions that try to ban concealed guns and the crime rate in those that do not?
If you look over past data, before everyone that was adopting [concealed carry laws], you find that for each additional state that adopted a right-to-carry law . . . you’d see about a 1.5 percent drop in murder rates, and about 2 percent drop in rape and robbery . . . Just because states are right-to-carry doesn’t mean they’ve issued the same number of fees. You have big differences in states’ training requirements.
The bottom line seems to be when you make it costly for people to get permits, fewer people get permits. You particularly price out people who live in high-crime urban areas from being able to get permits, and those are the ones who benefit the most from having the option to defend themselves.
Newsmax: Do gun free zones invite these attacks?
Dr. Lott: Yes, they’re magnets for these attacks. They make them more likely. These gun-free zones are really tiny areas within a state, and yet that’s where these attacks occur time after time.
Whenever you see more than a few murders taking place, the odds are almost a hundred percent that they are going to occur at a place where permit-concealed handguns are banned. And they were doing it, ironically, in an attempt to try and make people safe. But the problem is it is law-abiding citizens who obey those bans, not the criminals.
Look at Virginia Tech, for example, where we had 32 people killed. If you were an adult with a concealed handgun permit, you could take your permit-concealed handgun virtually anyplace in the state, except for universities and a couple of other places. There are hardly any gun-free zones in Virginia. And yet, if you were a faculty member and you accidentally carried your permit-concealed handgun onto university owned property there, and you got caught, you were going to get fired and your academic career would be over.
You're not going to get an academic job anyplace in the country. Same thing with the students: If you get expelled for a firearm-related violation, your academic career is over. Those are real penalties. Those people’s lives are going to be dramatically changed. But if you take somebody who is a killer . . . you would be facing 32 death penalties or 32 life sentences, plus other charges. And the notion that somehow the charge of expulsion from school would be the key penalty that would keep them from doing it, not 32 death penalties, is absurd. It just doesn’t make any sense . . . It represents a much bigger real penalty for the law-abiding good citizens than it does for the criminals there.
So we have to think about who is going to be obeying these laws. And it’s true for gun-control laws generally. One of the things I try and do in "More Guns, Less Crime" is show what happens to gun rates when guns are banned. It would be nice if things were that simple, that going and banning guns would eliminate crime.
But what you find happening is murder rates and violent crime rates go up. And the question is why. It’s a pretty simple answer: Because the law-abiding citizens are the ones who turn in their guns, and not the criminals.
Newsmax: Would it be a good idea to have teachers who have concealed carry permits in the schools, to better protect kids?
Dr. Lott: I’m all for that. I’ve been a teacher most of my life. I’ve been an academic. I have kids in college still, and kids below that. It’s not something that I take lightly. But it’s hard to see what the argument would be against it.
People may not realize this, but we allowed permit-concealed handguns in schools prior to the ironically named Safe School Zone Act. And no one that I know has been able to point to a single bad thing that occurred, not one.
We changed the law, and we started having these public-school shootings. So I don’t think they got the intended result that they were hoping for with that type of ban. Right now, [some jurisdictions] allow you to carry concealed-permit guns in the schools. There are not a lot of them. But there are no problems that have occurred with any of those states, either.
Newsmax: Could arming teachers and getting rid of gun-free zones have averted a tragedy such as we saw in Connecticut?
Dr. Lott: Well, I think two things would happen. One is, we see the way these killers search out places where people can’t defend themselves. So I think there’s at least a very good chance that if it is known teachers and others there would have permit-concealed handguns, it would have dissuaded the attack from occurring to begin with. Secondly, even if he did attack, it would be by far the safest course of action.
See how armed person stops potential massacre in theatre
The amount of time that elapses between when the attack starts and when someone can get to the scene with a gun is very important in determining what the carnage is going to be. The faster you can get somebody [there], the more you can limit it. If you could get the police there in 8 minutes, which would be record time, that would be an eon for people who are there helplessly having to face the killer by themselves with no protection.
See where Teachers Carry Guns
However as high profile as mass murders seem to be they are actually on the decline, if you don't add 3,000+ deaths that Obama and Eric Holder are responsible for with Fast and Furious.
From an Associated Press article, by Helen O'Neill, posted on The Blaze, we learn that: While the perception in the wake of this year’s mass shootings has been that such acts are on the rise, the Associated Press found that it’s actually the exact opposite when you look at the data on a macro level, “There is no pattern, there is no increase,” says criminologist James Allen Fox of Boston’s Northeastern University.
He (Fox) adds that the random mass shootings that get the most media attention are the rarest. While mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s.
And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, says.
Chances of being killed in a mass shooting, he says, are probably no greater than being struck by lightning.
From NewsMax, an article by David A. Patten concerning an interview with College Professor and Gun Law Expert Dr. John R. Lott:
Gun Expert Lott: Let Teachers Carry Arms, Ban Gun-Free Zones to Halt Mass Shootings
Banning gun-free zones and allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons could help eliminate mass shootings at schools, John R. Lott, one of the nation's leading gun experts, tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview Saturday.
Lott, an author and college professor, told Newsmax that gun-free zones become “a magnet” for deranged killers who hope to burn their names into the history books by running up a big body count.
Lott’s landmark book "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws" is in its 3rd edition. He told Newsmax there is a “very good chance” the Connecticut school shooting could have been averted, if teachers there were permitted to carry concealed handguns.
It is no accident, he said, that mass shootings repeatedly have occurred in designated gun-free zones, which attract lunatics looking to murder as many souls as possible before they turn their guns on themselves.
Newsmax: Dr. Lott, your work suggests people are more secure, rather than less so, when firearms are readily available in society.
Dr. Lott: Simply telling them to behave passively turns out to be pretty bad advice . . . By far the safest course of action for people to take, when they are confronting a criminal, is to have a gun. This is particularly true for the people in our society who are the most vulnerable.
Newsmax: The media typically spins these mass shootings as an American phenomenon. They suggest we ought to be more like Europe, with strong gun control, because then we would not have these problems. Is that
Dr. Lott: No. Europe has a lot of multiple victim shootings. If you look at a per capita rate, the rate of multiple-victim public shootings in Europe and the United States over the last 10 years have been fairly similar to each other. A couple of years ago you had a couple of big shootings in Finland. About two-and-a-half years ago you had a big shooting in the U.K., 12 people were killed.
You had Norway last year [where 77 died]. Two years ago, you had the shooting in Austria at a Sikh Temple. There have been several multiple-victim public shootings in France over the last couple of years. Over the last decade, you’ve had a couple of big school shootings in Germany. Germany in terms of modern incidents has two of the four worst public-school shootings, and they have very strict gun-control laws. The one common feature of all of those shootings in Europe is that they all take place in gun-free zones, in places where guns are supposed to be banned.
Newsmax: Can you give readers an example of an incident where a teacher or authority-figure with a gun was able to thwart a violent shooting?
Dr. Lott: There was the university case in the Appalachian law school. You had the K through 12 in Mississippi and the one in Edinboro, Pa. You had New Life Church [in December 2007] — you had 7,000 parishioners there when the person broke into the church with about a thousand rounds of ammunition.
But there was a woman there, a former Chicago police officer who had gotten a concealed handgun permit because she was being stalked by her ex-husband. She had asked permission from the minister there to be able to carry a concealed handgun. She was worried if she couldn’t carry it at the church there, that she would be vulnerable going to and from the church. She shot at him 10 times, wounding him, and he committed suicide . . . These types of cases occur all around us, and they usually don’t get much attention, especially if they are stopped before people are injured or killed.
Newsmax: How can society prevent such mass shootings, or are they avoidable at all?
Dr. Lott: About 75 percent of the time when these attacks occur, the killers themselves die at the scene. Even the times when they don’t die, it seems pretty clear their intent was to die, but they just couldn’t bring themselves to commit suicide, pull the trigger, and shoot themselves at the last moment.
But in their warped mind, what they want to do is commit suicide in a way that will get them attention, so people know who they were when they were here. I’s a pretty sick idea, but if you read the documents that they leave, the diaries and the video tapes, it is pretty clear that these guys know that they get more attention the more people they can kill.
So their goal is to try to kill as many people as possible. So there are two issues here. One is focusing on the attention. And I think it’s pretty clear that . . . if people stopped mentioning their names — I'm not saying that’s possible — that’s one thing that would reduce their incentive to go and commit these crimes.
The second thing is to give people the option to protect themselves. One of the things I’ve written about recently is the attack at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater. There, you have seven movie theaters that were showing the Batman movie when it opened at the end of July.
Out of those seven movie theaters, only one movie theater was posted as banning permit-concealed handguns. The killer didn’t go to the movie theater that was closest to his home. He didn’t go to the movie theater that was the largest movie theater in Colorado, which was essentially the same distance from his apartment as the one he ended up going to. Instead, the one he picked was the only one of those movie theaters that banned people taking permit-concealed handguns into that theater.
The problem is, whether it is the Portland shooting earlier this week, or the Connecticut shooting Friday, or the Sikh temple attack in Wisconsin, time after time these attacks take place in the few areas within a state where permit-concealed handguns are banned. It’s not just this year, it’s all these years in the past. And at some point people have to recognize that despite the obvious desire to make places safe by banning guns, it unintentionally has the opposite effect.
When you ban guns, rather than making it safer for the victims, you unintentionally make it safer for the criminals, because they have less to worry about. If you had a violent criminal stalking you or your family, and was really seriously threatening you, would you feel safer putting a sign up in front of your home stating, “This home is a gun-free zone.”
My guess is you wouldn’t do that. And I’ve never run into any gun-control proponents who would do that either. And the reason is pretty clear: Putting a sign there saying this is a gun-free home isn’t going to cause the criminals to say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to break the law, so I’m not going to go in and attack these people.’ It encourages them to do it. It serves as a magnet for him, if he’s going to engage in this attack, that that’s the place where he is going to engage in, because he finds that it is going to be easier to do it there.
Yet every time we have one of these mass shooting incidents, it renews the call from the media and the left for banning guns.
I believe that the people who are pushing for these gun controls are well intentioned. I think they’re wrong. I think the things they’re going to make life more dangerous. But it’s understandable. If you see something bad that happens, and it happens with a gun, the natural reaction is: ‘Well, if I take the gun away, bad things won’t happen anymore.’ The problem is you have to realize that when you go and ban guns, you may only take them away from good law-abiding citizens and not the criminals. And to disarm good law-abiding citizens . . . you just make it easier for crime to occur, not harder.
You also have to think about self defense. They say bad things happen with guns. But the news rarely covers people using guns defensively to stop crimes from happening. And that has a huge impact on people’s perceptions about the costs and benefits of guns.
Newsmax: So can you give us a correlation between crime rates in jurisdictions that try to ban concealed guns and the crime rate in those that do not?
If you look over past data, before everyone that was adopting [concealed carry laws], you find that for each additional state that adopted a right-to-carry law . . . you’d see about a 1.5 percent drop in murder rates, and about 2 percent drop in rape and robbery . . . Just because states are right-to-carry doesn’t mean they’ve issued the same number of fees. You have big differences in states’ training requirements.
The bottom line seems to be when you make it costly for people to get permits, fewer people get permits. You particularly price out people who live in high-crime urban areas from being able to get permits, and those are the ones who benefit the most from having the option to defend themselves.
Newsmax: Do gun free zones invite these attacks?
Dr. Lott: Yes, they’re magnets for these attacks. They make them more likely. These gun-free zones are really tiny areas within a state, and yet that’s where these attacks occur time after time.
Whenever you see more than a few murders taking place, the odds are almost a hundred percent that they are going to occur at a place where permit-concealed handguns are banned. And they were doing it, ironically, in an attempt to try and make people safe. But the problem is it is law-abiding citizens who obey those bans, not the criminals.
Look at Virginia Tech, for example, where we had 32 people killed. If you were an adult with a concealed handgun permit, you could take your permit-concealed handgun virtually anyplace in the state, except for universities and a couple of other places. There are hardly any gun-free zones in Virginia. And yet, if you were a faculty member and you accidentally carried your permit-concealed handgun onto university owned property there, and you got caught, you were going to get fired and your academic career would be over.
You're not going to get an academic job anyplace in the country. Same thing with the students: If you get expelled for a firearm-related violation, your academic career is over. Those are real penalties. Those people’s lives are going to be dramatically changed. But if you take somebody who is a killer . . . you would be facing 32 death penalties or 32 life sentences, plus other charges. And the notion that somehow the charge of expulsion from school would be the key penalty that would keep them from doing it, not 32 death penalties, is absurd. It just doesn’t make any sense . . . It represents a much bigger real penalty for the law-abiding good citizens than it does for the criminals there.
So we have to think about who is going to be obeying these laws. And it’s true for gun-control laws generally. One of the things I try and do in "More Guns, Less Crime" is show what happens to gun rates when guns are banned. It would be nice if things were that simple, that going and banning guns would eliminate crime.
But what you find happening is murder rates and violent crime rates go up. And the question is why. It’s a pretty simple answer: Because the law-abiding citizens are the ones who turn in their guns, and not the criminals.
Newsmax: Would it be a good idea to have teachers who have concealed carry permits in the schools, to better protect kids?
Dr. Lott: I’m all for that. I’ve been a teacher most of my life. I’ve been an academic. I have kids in college still, and kids below that. It’s not something that I take lightly. But it’s hard to see what the argument would be against it.
People may not realize this, but we allowed permit-concealed handguns in schools prior to the ironically named Safe School Zone Act. And no one that I know has been able to point to a single bad thing that occurred, not one.
We changed the law, and we started having these public-school shootings. So I don’t think they got the intended result that they were hoping for with that type of ban. Right now, [some jurisdictions] allow you to carry concealed-permit guns in the schools. There are not a lot of them. But there are no problems that have occurred with any of those states, either.
Newsmax: Could arming teachers and getting rid of gun-free zones have averted a tragedy such as we saw in Connecticut?
Dr. Lott: Well, I think two things would happen. One is, we see the way these killers search out places where people can’t defend themselves. So I think there’s at least a very good chance that if it is known teachers and others there would have permit-concealed handguns, it would have dissuaded the attack from occurring to begin with. Secondly, even if he did attack, it would be by far the safest course of action.
See how armed person stops potential massacre in theatre
The amount of time that elapses between when the attack starts and when someone can get to the scene with a gun is very important in determining what the carnage is going to be. The faster you can get somebody [there], the more you can limit it. If you could get the police there in 8 minutes, which would be record time, that would be an eon for people who are there helplessly having to face the killer by themselves with no protection.
See where Teachers Carry Guns
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Critical Second Amendment Ruling
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled this week that it is unconstitutional for Chicago to treat people with non-violent misdemeanor convictions the same as convicted felons.
The NRA-supported case, Gowder v. Chicago, involves plaintiff Shawn Gowder, who was convicted as a first-time offender for mere possession of a firearm in violation of Illinois law in 1995. His misdemeanor record did not block him from getting a state Firearm Owner's Identification card, so he could still legally possess a gun in Illinois. Nonetheless, when Mr. Gowder, who lives in a high crime area of Chicago, began the process to legally acquire a handgun to keep in his home for self-defense (a process required following the McDonald decision), the Chicago police denied his application.
Mr. Gowder sued the city, maintaining that Chicago's law banning non-violent misdemeanants from possessing guns in their homes for self-defense is unconstitutionally vague, and that it violates the Second Amendment. "This ruling sends a powerful message that the Second Amendment cannot be eliminated by a city ordinance," said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox. "This ruling, in its defense of the Second Amendment and its call for clarity on this issue, shines a light on the long-running efforts of the City of Chicago to deny residents the right to keep firearms for self-defense. This ruling is a victory for the people of Chicago and for gun owners everywhere."
Federal District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan found the city's ordinance unconstitutionally vague because it "does not provide a person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited." That's because the ordinance denies permits to persons convicted of "unlawful use of a weapon." But, while Mr. Gowder was convicted under a state law that refers to "unlawful use of a weapon," that law also applies to people who merely possess firearms.
The court also agreed with Mr. Gowder's Second Amendment challenge, finding there was no evidence that Mr. Gowder is "a risky person or embodies the type of violent citizen" not entitled to exercise the right to arms. And, as the court pointed out, non-violent misdemeanants were not historically prohibited from possessing guns, either in 1791 when the Second Amendment was passed, or in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment applied the Second Amendment to the states. In a thorough and scholarly analysis, the court made clear that it would reach this same conclusion under any standard of review that might be applied; however, the court rejected an intermediate level of scrutiny for infringements on the core Second Amendment right, holding that those should be subject to the highest level of review.
Other provisions of Chicago's ordinance remain under scrutiny in the NRA-supported case of Benson v. City of Chicago, which is now pending before a different judge in the same court.
"Molon Labe" - "Come and Get Them" has become a motto for law abiding gunowners who would die than give up their guns. For the Molon Labe shirt showing the picture at top, and other Patriot wear, go to http://www.gadsenandculpeper.com
Saturday, January 21, 2012
The Gun Is Civilization
As the Supreme Court heard arguments for and against the Chicago, IL Gun Ban, this man offered you another stellar example of a letter (again, written by a Marine), that places the proper perspective on what a gun means to a civilized society.
Interesting take and one you don't hear much. . . . . .Read this eloquent and profound letter and pay close attention to the last paragraph of the letter....
"The Gun Is Civilization" by Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.
The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunken guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.
People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force, watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.
The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret.)
So, the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Do You Own a Gun?
Attorney General, Eric Holder, has already said this is one of his major issues. He does not believe the 2nd Amendment gives individuals the right to bear arms. This takes literally 2 clicks to complete. Please vote on this gun issue question with USA Today. It will only take a few seconds of your time. Then pass the link on to all the pro- gun folks you know. Hopefully these results will be published later this month. This upcoming year will become critical for gun owners with the Supreme Court's accepting the District of Columbia case against the right for individuals to bear arms.
Here's what you need to do:
First - vote on this one.
Second - Send this link to other folks and have THEM vote - then we will see if the results get published.
The question is: ”Does the 2nd Amendment give individuals the right to bear arms?"
Results as of 4 January 2012:
Yes: 97%
No: 2%
Undecided: 1%
Number of Votes cast: 9,914,916
Again, the link to the Poll is here.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Old Texas Story
This is an old story out of Texas.
Seems a guy makes a rolling stop at a stop sign and gets pulled over by a local policeman. Guy hands the cop his driver's license, insurance verification, plus his concealed carry permit.
"Okay, Mr. Smith," the cop says, "I see your CCW permit. Are you carrying today?"
"Yes, I am."
"Well then, better tell me what you got."
Smith says, "Well, I got a .357 revolver in my inside coat pocket. There's a 9mm semi-auto in the glove box. And I've got a .22 Magnum derringer in my right boot.
"Okay," the cop says. "Anything else?"
"Yeah, back in the trunk, there's an AR15 and a shotgun. That's about it."
"Mr. Smith, are you on your way to or from a gun range...?"
"Nope."
"Well then, what are you afraid of...?"
"Not a damned thing..."
If you don't get this story,....then never mind.
Seems a guy makes a rolling stop at a stop sign and gets pulled over by a local policeman. Guy hands the cop his driver's license, insurance verification, plus his concealed carry permit.
"Okay, Mr. Smith," the cop says, "I see your CCW permit. Are you carrying today?"
"Yes, I am."
"Well then, better tell me what you got."
Smith says, "Well, I got a .357 revolver in my inside coat pocket. There's a 9mm semi-auto in the glove box. And I've got a .22 Magnum derringer in my right boot.
"Okay," the cop says. "Anything else?"
"Yeah, back in the trunk, there's an AR15 and a shotgun. That's about it."
"Mr. Smith, are you on your way to or from a gun range...?"
"Nope."
"Well then, what are you afraid of...?"
"Not a damned thing..."
If you don't get this story,....then never mind.
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