Rangel: ‘Millions of kids’ being shot down by assault rifles – Washington Times

Rangel: ‘Millions of kids’ being shot down by assault rifles – Washington Times.

By Jessica Chasmar – The Washington Times

New York Rep. Charlie Rangel appeared on MSNBC this morning to opine about the assault weapons ban getting dropped from the Senate gun-control bill.

He made a few claims about politics as usual and the power money can have in this type of a case, but his most noteworthy comment was about his knowledge on crime statistics.

“I’m ashamed to admit it but its politics and its money, The NRA has taken this position, there is no reason, there is no foundation. There is no hunter that needs automatic military weapons to enjoy the culture of going hunting,” the Democrat told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing.

A0cohaHCQAAztNM.jpg large“We’re talking about millions of kids dying — being shot down by assault weapons,” he continued. “Were talking about handguns easier in the inner cities, to get these guns in the inner cities, than to get computers. This is not just a political issue, it’s a moral issue…”

The FBI’s 2011 data says only 323 people were killed by rifles, compared to 728 people who were killed by hands, fists, feet etc. Handguns are much more likely to be used in a homicide with 6,220 killed nationwide in 2011.

 

The War on Women – Tea Party Nation

The War on Women – Tea Party Nation.

Posted by Judson Phillips

A_Pw2EzCcAA5H99.png largeThere are actually two wars on women going on right now.  One is a faux war, created by the media.  The other is a very real war.  But since the left launches the second war on women, don’t expect to hear much about it from the drive-by media.

 What is this second war on women that no one is talking about and why should we conservatives be talking about it, regardless of whether we are male or female?

 Joe Salazar is a Colorado Democrat.  Perhaps that is the same thing as saying he is a complete sexist, raging idiot.

 Colorado was considering a bill that would forbid concealed carry permit holders from carrying their weapons on the grounds of colleges and universities.

 Salazar said that women really didn’t need guns to protect themselves if they were afraid.  After all, they might not get raped.   Or they might go off and just start shooting people for no good reason because, well who knows why.

 Women of Colorado rejoice!  Don’t worry your pretty little heads about making decisions about your self-defense because you have sexist pigs like Joe Salazar to make those decisions for you!

 Salazar is not the only idiot in Colorado.  The University of Colorado is like almost every other college and university in the nation.  Liberals control it and of course they don’t like guns.

 So what is a woman supposed to do if she is stalked or threatened by a rapist?  These bright lights think a whistle is a great defense.    Forget bringing a knife to a gunfight, these dim bulbs want you to bring a little piece of plastic to a gunfight.  Is it any wonder why American students at all levels constantly fail when compared to foreign students?

afreepeople Our children and young adults are being taught by morons.

 Conservatives learn from not only their mistakes but also other people’s mistakes.  We learned that banning guns in certain areas like college campuses does not make them safer.  It only makes it easier for criminals. 

 If a criminal is going to come on campus to rape a woman do you think he is really going to worry about another law that prohibits him from carrying a gun?  No, he is going to be jumping up, giving Joe Salazar high fives, thanking him for making the campus a target rich zone and an area where he can prey on victims without fear of running into someone who is armed and can fight back.

 Conservatives must fight these stupid laws but we also must realize something else.  Self-defense is our personal responsibility.

 whydoUnfortunately for real Americans, we are facing the increasing reality that the left is stripping our 2nd Amendment rights from us.  Perhaps even worse, the Supreme Court is becoming less than friendly for conservatives.    Cases like District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down the gun control laws of the District of Columbia.  Heller was a 5-4 decision. 

 After the way Chief Justice John Roberts folded like a cheap black robe, there is no way any of us should feel comfortable that the Supreme Court will protect our 2nd Amendment Rights.

 The battle for the 2nd Amendment is a battle we cannot lose.  The 2nd Amendment is not about personal protection.  It is about preserving liberty and stopping government tyranny.

 If you live in a jurisdiction that has repealed the 2nd Amendment, you need to think about alternatives for self-defense if you cannot carry a gun.

 Martial arts is one of those alternatives you should think about.  Martial arts has a couple of benefits.  The first is it is physical fitness.     We have to deal with the fact Obamacare is not going to be repealed.  The Republicans have made no serious effort to repeal Obamacare.  They have not even tried an incremental approach to repeal. 

 bummercare-e1352561798629The best way to fight Obamacare and avoid the death panels that will be there, regardless of what the Obama Regime says, is to be on offense.  So much disease is preventable.  If you smoke, stop smoking.  If you are overweight, change your diet and lose weight.  Get out and exercise.

 What do you do if you cannot carry your gun with you?  Are you just going to be another victim?

 Martial arts, particularly those that started in Asia were started as a response to a population that was disarmed.  If the population could not fight with weapons, they had to find another way to fight back. 

coward2 Today there are a number of very effective martial arts that will teach you how to defend yourself.  You do not have to be a teenager to take these martial arts.  Some of them emphasize the ability to fight back without being in fantastic shape.

 Combat Hapkido is one of them.  Being a small person is actually a benefit in this martial art. 

 We must fight for our rights.  But we have lost too many of those fights.  We have too many low information voters that have put Barack Obama back in office. 

 While we must fight for the best, we must also prepare for the worst.  Unfortunately for America, right now under Obama’s America, we are living in the worst of times.

 

Obama shoots himself in the foot with disputed claim of skeet-shooting – Tea Party Nation

Obama shoots himself in the foot with disputed claim of skeet-shooting – Tea Party Nation.

Posted by Victoria Knox

After President Barack Hussein Obama told The New Republic that “up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time,” everyone across the political spectrum did a double-take. Even the normally incurious Washington press corps pressed White House spokesman Jay Carney for details. When Carney had none (“I’m not sure how often he’s done that. … “There may be (a photo), but I haven’t seen it.”), even CNN was openly skeptical.

Media skepticism deepened into something appropriate to the level of suspicion usually triggered by stonewalling about a cover-up  involving gun-running to insurgents in Syria via Turkey Iran-Contra, say, FOX News interviewed a source who had been at the presidential retreat with Obama on six occasions:

“The only time he shot skeet was for President’s Cup,” said the source, referring to a shooting competition tradition involving the presidential Marine guards. “I was there. He stayed for about five minutes, and couldn’t leave fast enough.”

Skeet shooting “is very hard,” said the source. “Especially for someone not used to guns … He couldn’t have been more uncomfortable.”

 

And then, the unthinkable: Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler felt the need to look into “the White House’s curious silence about Obama’s claim of skeet shooting” and found that during the 2008 campaign, Obama never mentioned shooting any type of firearm, and that was a no-show at a campaign event featuring skeet-shooting. Further, the president made no reference to skeet-shooting at Camp David when he hosted Olympic skeet-shooting champions Kim Rhode and Army Sgt. Vincent Hancock But at the White House in September – though one article quotes a member of the Texas Christian University‘s national championship rifle team saying that Obama claimed to practice shooting a rifle with the Secret Service when they were greeted by him at the White House. Finally, there were no press reports of skeet-shooting being a recreational activity that Obama engaged in at Camp David.

 

Kessler’s verdict: “The evidence suggests that until Obama had access to a shooting range as president, he never went skeet shooting. He certainly did not speak like a politician who had once used a firearm.” In response, the White House released this photo purporting to show Obama skeet-shooting:


The WaPo reports that the photo was disseminated because “White House aides were trying to end a growing distraction just as the president plans to make a fresh push to rally public support behind his ambitious agenda to tighten gun laws,” and adds these details about the provenance of the image:

On his 51st birthday last August, President Obama hit the links with a group of buddies and then flew by helicopter to Camp David. There, he changed into jeans and picked up a shotgun. And then, before it got too dark, he started a round of clay target shooting.

The photo, taken by White House photographer Pete Souza, depicts a sunglasses-wearing Obama firing what appears to be a Browning Citori 725, the shotgun wedged against his left shoulder, a pillow of white smoke emerging from the barrel. …

The “over and under” design [of the shotgun] features two barrels, one on top of the other, allowing the gun to hold and fire two shotgun shells.

The smoke in the photo is emanating from air vents in the barrel, a feature known as “porting” that reduces recoil shock and allows for steadier aim. …

According to the Browning Web site, some of the Citori models are made in a left-handed version, with a slight bend near the butt – though it was not apparent from the photo whether the left-handed president was using one of those.

As the WaPo predicted, “the release of the photo seemed more likely to inflame passions around the issue than douse them.” For one thing, in the photo Obama is pointing the gun straight ahead, as though aiming at a stationary target, rather than towards the sky where the skeet would be sailing overhead. Adding more fuel to the social media firestorm, when the White House released the photo, it included the standard admonition that it is not to be used for commercial or political purposes and “may not be manipulated in any way.” All fine and proper, and normal procedure. But then Obama adviser David Plouffe tweeted an invitation – some say a dare – to manipulate the image using Photoshop.

The Blaze includes a selection of doctored photos, including two depicting Obama shooting the U.S. flag and Constitution. A Facebook page was also created to collect Photoshopped images of Obama’s skeet-shooting prowess that put him next to former presidential candidate Mike Dukakis in a tank, outside Usama bin Laden’s compound alongside members of Seal Team Six who killed the terrorist and riding along with the Beverly Hillbillies in their jalopy. The page includes a greenscreen shot that masks the background in the White House photo so other people can make their own visual puns. For its part, Before It’s News published a photo of Obama shooting White House Press Secretary Jay Carney for not diffusing the “distraction” before it got out of hand.

But as funny as these images of Obama are – in an LOL sort of way – the media’s ignorance about guns is equally funny – in a farcical sort of way, considering that the most powerful news organizations in the nation are simultaneously inveighing against “assault weapons” and pushing draconian NYC-style gun control laws from coast to coast. Both liberal news outlets (The New York Times and Gawker, among them) and conservative ones (notably, New York Post and FOX News) referred to the gun Obama was holding as a “rifle,” and The Associated Press described the protective gear the president wore as “headphones” and “sunglasses.” Journalists’  command of firearms is as questionable as Obama’s. 

As The Stiletto noted on Facebook, it’s galling that people who don’t know the difference between a rifle and a shotgun presume to weigh in on gun control without having the expertise to differentiate  between military assault rifles and civilian sport rifles cosmetically altered with various accessories that make them look like a military weapon without affecting function or caliber. This is analogous to a journalist who covers automobile racing looking under the hood and mistaking the performance-enhancing tweaks to the cylinder heads, camshafts and valve train of the street legal production version of the 2013 Chevy SS with the highly modified small block V-8 engine that powers its NASCAR counterpart.

 

Another liberal human shield – Tea Party Nation

Another liberal human shield – Tea Party Nation.

Posted by Judson Phillips

A_GGYrOCUAMcAQM.jpg largeLiberals, like tyrants and terrorists, love human shields.    Human shields, whether they are in war or politics have the same goal.  They want to use a person or people to stop the other side from attacking.  The strategy is simple.  The publicity blowback from the attack on an innocent person would be so severe it deters someone from attacking.

 Who is the latest liberal human shield and what are they trying to do?

 The latest human shield is former Congressman and liberal Democrat Gabriel Giffords.

 Giffords is the former Congressman from Arizona and she holds the distinction of being the least deserving person to have a navy ship named after them.

 In January 2011, a deranged man in Tucson critically wounded Giffords.  She went through an extensive rehab program and eventually returned to Congress and public life.

 Yesterday she showed up as a witness in the Senate hearings on gun control.   The fact that she was the first witness was no accident.  It was a deliberate strategy.

 Gabriel Giffords, the latest liberal human shield.

 The strategy is simple.

 No Republican would dare attack poor Gabby Giffords on this issue.  She gets to stand in front of the Senate and tell them to, “Be bold. Be courageous,” as the Senate strips Americans of their rights.

 The trap sits there, just like a split finger fastball in baseball.   The pitch looks like a great pitch down the middle and when the batter cannot resist the impulse to swing, the pitch drops out of the strike zone.

 The Obama propaganda media fawned over Giffords and was praying to the statue of Walter Cronkite that some Republican would challenge Giffords so they could make the Republican look like a bully for challenging this poor victim. 

A_Pw2EzCcAA5H99.png large The real story here is the media strategy of the left.  They do not want a debate on gun control because they know they will lose.  Americans overwhelmingly do not want gun control. 

 Of course, the left is never concerned with what the American people want. 

 There is a witness I would love to see at a Senate Hearing.  This will never happen but maybe House Republicans will show some courage and invite her.

 On New Year’s Eve 2011, 18-year-old Sarah McKinley was at home with her 3 month old child.  The child’s father had died just a week earlier.  Two men, one armed with a 12 inch hunting knife, broke into her home.  She was on the phone for 21 minutes with 911 begging them to get help as the two men tried to enter her home.

 When they finally broke into her home, she took a gun, shot and killed one of the two intruders.  The other fled.

 What would have happened that night had she not had a gun?

 Well it is safe to say those two were not trying to see the ball drop in Times Square on McKinley’s TV. 

 Another woman, Melinda Herman, probably won’t get an invitation to speak to the Senate either.  Earlier this month, she was at home alone with her two children when she saw a suspicious man.  This man then tried to break into her house.  She was on the phone for ten minutes with 911 while the man not only got into her home but also systematically worked his way through it.

 Finally he kicked the door open to the room where Melinda was hiding with her children. 

 Glock has a great series of commercials showing criminals going to commit crimes where the people own Glock pistols and the punch line of the commercial is “wrong house” or “wrong girl.”

 In Melinda Herman’s case, for the criminal it was both the wrong house and wrong girl.  She opened fire striking him five times. 

 Instead of having real Americans talk about how their gun rights saved lives, the left only wants to put up a human shield, so no one can debate them. 

 Real Americans should remind those who are allegedly our public servants that the 2nd Amendment exists not only to stop those who want to take our property but also to stop those who want to take our liberty and freedom as well.choice1

The Stuff of Third World Tyrants – David Limbaugh

The Stuff of Third World Tyrants – David Limbaugh.

2012-07-05-alexanderPresident Barack Obama is not just a radical leftist; he is obviously so ensconced in his ideology that he believes — or wants you to believe — that anyone who opposes him must have sinister motives.

One of his recurring themes is that some Republicans would work with him but can’t do so for fear of reprisal from Grover Norquist on taxes, the National Rifle Association on guns, the conservative House caucus, radio talk show hosts and your garden-variety racists, who allegedly oppose Obama just for sport.

In mid-January, Obama accused the “gun lobby” of “ginning up” fears that the federal government would use the Newtown, Conn., shooting tragedy to seize America’s guns, saying, “It’s certainly good for business.” Is that how presidents should talk?

Obama suggested that GOP congressional opposition was based not on principle but on the fear that unless it resisted Obama’s gun-grabbing schemes, it would lose its precious NRA funding. As if the American public agrees with Obama on this issue any more than it did on Obamacare. As if Obama truly cares whether the American public agrees with him on this issue (other than as a means to an end) any more than he cared about the public’s view on Obamacare.

antiIndeed, this is either record-breaking myopia or sophisticated Orwellian deception. Few things are more palpable on the political scene today than the groundswell of grass-roots support for the right to own firearms under the Second Amendment. It is intrinsic to the American character.

Obama didn’t just mischaracterize the public mood on the issue of gun control; he threw in an additional allegation of political corruption against Republicans, saying, “The House Republican majority is made up mostly of members who are in sharply gerrymandered districts that are very safely Republican and may not feel compelled to pay attention to broad-based public opinion, because what they’re really concerned about is the opinions of their specific Republican constituencies.”

Do you see the pattern here? As the leading disciple of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky, Obama must delegitimize his political opposition. He can’t just debate issues on the merits. He must “pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” We’ve seen Obama do it on virtually every policy he has promoted — from demonizing health care professionals and insurance companies in pursuit of Obamacare to taunting “fat cat banks” in his quest for financial “reform” to his defamation of “big oil” to his personal attacks on the “rich” to his savaging of Rep. Paul Ryan and other House Republicans as callous toward seniors and the middle class for daring to reform entitlements.

warning2Obama will not stand for House Republicans to be seen as good-faith opponents to his socialist agenda. He has to slander them with charges of nefarious motives. Republicans oppose his gun grab because they jealously guard their corruptly acquired congressional seats (through gerrymandering), which depend upon blood money from the NRA, which is motivated by its own lust for profits. There simply can’t be any legitimate public opposition to his position, because, by gosh, he’s the president and his views — and mandate — are superior.

Obama isn’t content just to vilify his congressional opposition. With a newfound cockiness from his re-election that even exceeds his previous levels, he has now called out Fox News and private citizen Rush Limbaugh. Alinsky’s cremated ashes must be glowing with delight.

Obama said, “If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest, then you’ll see more of them doing it.” He added, “The more left-leaning media outlets recognize that compromise is not a dirty word” and that Democratic leaders are “willing to buck the more absolutist-wing elements in our party to try to get stuff done.”

That statement alone should tell you how warped Obama’s perspective is. The congressional Democratic leadership is already so leftist and uncompromising that it doesn’t have to worry about pleasing more leftist elements. And the left-leaning media not only don’t recognize what true compromise is but also don’t hold Obama to account for his own habitual refusal to compromise.

bringyoursThat Obama is the most ideologically extreme president in history and routinely demonizes his political opponents is bad enough. But he has crossed the line in targeting the sole TV news outlet that refuses to allow his propaganda to go unchallenged and even more so in attacking commentator Rush Limbaugh for the sin of articulating the opinions of millions upon millions of American patriots who are horrified at Obama’s statist agenda.

This is the stuff of Third World tyrants, my friends. This is the MO of dictators, who want to control the media and silence any unfavorable coverage or commentary. Even liberals should be outraged at this abominable behavior. And they should have the integrity to say so.

 

 

MILLER: The high-capacity magazine myth – Washington Times

MILLER: The high-capacity magazine myth – Washington Times.

Anti-gun crowd deliberately misleads the public

afreepeopleDeception is the key component in the latest push for more gun control laws. During her soap opera press conference Wednesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein used a liberal clergyman to give her the moral high ground in her campaign to infringe on the Second Amendment.

The Very Rev. Gary Hall, dean of the Washington National Cathedral, donned his clerical collar for the all-Democrat event to say he can “no longer justify a society” that “permits the sale of high-capacity magazines designed for the purpose of simply killing as many people as quickly as possible.”

The anti-gun crowd labels any firearm magazine capable of holding more than 10-rounds “high-capacity.” It’s a scare tactic.

(This is the second of a four-part series on dispelling common gun myths. Click here to read part one, MILLER: The Assault Weapon Myth)

Many firearms come from the factory with devices that feed between 15 to 30 rounds — some hold more, some less depending on their configuration and purpose. Ten is a number chosen out of thin air for reasons of political theater. The gun grabbers use it to imply the higher-capacity magazines enable murderers to kill more people, but it doesn’t actually work out that way.

In a 2004 study for the Department of Justice linked on Mrs. Feinstein’s own website, Christopher S. Koper, a professor of criminology, reported that “assailants fire less than four shots on average, a number well within the 10-round magazine limit” of the “assault weapons” ban.

“Studies prove that the arbitrary magazine capacity restriction that was in place for a decade did not reduce crime,” Lawrence Keane, the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s senior vice president and general counsel, told The Washington Times. “In searching for effective means to reduce violence, we should not repeat failed policies, especially when they infringe on the constitutional rights of the law-abiding.”

Violent crime has decreased 17 percent since the assault weapons ban expired.

In the latest incarnation of Mrs. Feinstein’s ban, we would see the return of an ammunition limit that had no proven impact on crime while it was in effect from 1994-2004. The proposal outlaws all ammunition feeding devices — magazines, strips and drums — capable of accepting more than 10 rounds.

gun-controlOn Tuesday, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat, reintroduced the legislation he has been pushing since the shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2010 that he calls the “Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act.” The bill, which has 17 Senate cosponsors, has a companion measure in the House with the backing of Rep. Carolyn McCarthy and 58 of her colleagues.

Even though Mrs. Feinstein used to carry a handgun in San Francisco for her own personal protection, she does not realize what other gun owners know: It can take about two seconds, or less, to drop an empty magazine and insert another.

Criminals are likely to carry as many magazines as they need, but individuals with their guns concealed for self-defense purposes often aren’t able to bring extra magazines. Especially in a stressful situation, it can take several rounds to stop a dangerous criminal.

The limitation on magazine capacity is a direct handicap on the right to self-defense. Mrs. Feinstein’s entire bill infringes on the right to keep and bear arms, but her randomly selected magazine restriction is one of the most offensive provisions.

Emily Miller is a senior editor for the Opinion pages at The Washington Times.

Two-Thirds of American Gun Owners Would “Defy” a Federal Gun Ban – Leah Barkoukis

Two-Thirds of American Gun Owners Would “Defy” a Federal Gun Ban – Leah Barkoukis.

AR-15-300x176It’s safe to say Feinstein, Obama and the rest of the gun control gang face an uphill battle when it comes to limiting any Second Amendment rights. According to a Fox News poll, most Americans—both Republicans and Democrats—would defy any new laws that would take away their guns.

But on to Question 47, addressed to those with a gun in their home: “If the government passed a law to take your guns, would you give up your guns or defy the law and keep your guns?”

The response: 65 percent reported they would “defy the law.” That incudes 70 percent of Republicans, 68 percent of conservatives, 52 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of liberals.

The good news is that it probably won’t come to this. Analysis from Bloomberg shows that if a vote were held today, Feinstein’s proposed gun control legislation, which would prohibit the sale or transfer of an estimated 158 “assault weapons,” would fail to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate.

At least six of the 55 senators in the Democratic caucus have expressed skepticism or outright opposition to a ban, the review found. That means Democrats wouldn’t have a 51-vote majority to pass the measure, let alone the 60 needed to break a Republican filibuster to bring it to a floor vote. […]

The five Democratic senators from traditionally pro-gun states who have expressed skepticism about the bill are Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Independent Senator Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with Democrats, also said he opposes a ban.

Maine Senator Susan Collins, a Republican who supported similar legislation in 2004, has indicated she is unlikely to back the proposed ban in its current form.

The reality, as these and many other lawmakers recognize, is that piling on new laws won’t solve the problem. In fact, The Washington Timesanalysis of recent state laws shows “no discernible correlation between stricter rules and lower gun-crime rates in the states.” It’s time our leaders used reason—not emotion—to guide their legislative endeavors.

 

Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns? – Thomas Sowell

Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns? – Thomas Sowell 

availabilityThe gun control controversy is only the latest of many issues to be debated almost solely in terms of fixed preconceptions, with little or no examination of hard facts.

Media discussions of gun control are dominated by two factors: the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment. But the over-riding factual question is whether gun control laws actually reduce gun crimes in general or murder rates in particular.

If, as gun control advocates claim, gun control laws really do control guns and save lives, there is nothing to prevent repealing the Second Amendment, any more than there was anything to prevent repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that created Prohibition.

But, if the hard facts show that gun control laws do not actually control guns, but instead lead to more armed robberies and higher murder rates after law-abiding citizens are disarmed, then gun control laws would be a bad idea, even if there were no Second Amendment and no National Rifle Association.

The central issue boils down to the question: What are the facts? Yet there are many zealots who seem utterly unconcerned about facts or about their own lack of knowledge of facts.

397024_4268935677955_1569853995_nThere are people who have never fired a shot in their life who do not hesitate to declare how many bullets should be the limit to put into a firearm’s clip or magazine. Some say ten bullets but New York state‘s recent gun control law specifies seven.

Virtually all gun control advocates say that 30 bullets in a magazine is far too many for self-defense or hunting — even if they have never gone hunting and never had to defend themselves with a gun. This uninformed and self-righteous dogmatism is what makes the gun control debate so futile and so polarizing.

Anyone who faces three home invaders, jeopardizing himself or his family, might find 30 bullets barely adequate. After all, not every bullet hits, even at close range, and not every hit incapacitates. You can get killed by a wounded man.

disarmThese plain life-and-death realities have been ignored for years by people who go ballistic when they hear about how many shots were fired by the police in some encounter with a criminal. As someone who once taught pistol shooting in the Marine Corps, I am not the least bit surprised by the number of shots fired. I have seen people miss a stationary target at close range, even in the safety and calm of a pistol range.

We cannot expect everybody to know that. But we can expect them to know that they don’t know — and to stop spouting off about life-and-death issues when they don’t have the facts.

The central question as to whether gun control laws save lives or cost lives has generated many factual studies over the years. But these studies have been like the proverbial tree that falls in an empty forest, and has been heard by no one — certainly not by zealots who have made up their minds and don’t want to be confused by the facts.

9lhvviMost factual studies show no reduction in gun crimes, including murder, under gun control laws. A significant number of studies show higher rates of murder and other gun crimes under gun control laws.

How can this be? It seems obvious to some gun control zealots that, if no one had guns, there would be fewer armed robberies and fewer people shot to death.

But nothing is easier than to disarm peaceful, law-abiding people. And nothing is harder than to disarm people who are neither — especially in a country with hundreds of millions of guns already out there, that are not going to rust away for centuries.

When it was legal to buy a shotgun in London in the middle of the 20th century, there were very few armed robberies there. But, after British gun control zealots managed over the years to disarm virtually the entire law-abiding population, armed robberies became literally a hundred times more common. And murder rates rose.

One can cherry-pick the factual studies, or cite some studies that have subsequently been discredited, but the great bulk of the studies show that gun control laws do not in fact control guns. On net balance, they do not save lives but cost lives.

Gun control laws allow some people to vent their emotions, politicians to grandstand and self-righteous people to “make a statement” — but all at the cost of other people’s lives.

 

Civil War’s A-Brewin’ – Matt Barber

Civil War’s A-Brewin’ – Matt Barber.

AR-15-300x176A pretty, young, auburn-haired woman – mid-20s – drove down a lonely country road somewhere in Oklahoma. Appearing in her rearview mirror, at the back windshield, were two menacing orbs of light floating amid ashen dusk. The guttural roar of a souped-up big block shook the tiny Volkswagen Rabbit as a van-load of inbred thugs lurched left and drew alongside her. A ponytailed passenger taunted inaudibly and blew foul kisses between crude hand gestures. He pointed for her to pull over as the van repeatedly swerved dangerously close.

Inside the car a man, asleep in the reclining passenger seat, was startled awake by the commotion. He rose and darted his head about, calmly assessing the situation. This only spurred the evil-bent goons. As they ramped-up efforts to run the car off the road, the man reached in the glove box, withdrew a military-grade, semi-automatic handgun – an “assault weapon,” if you will – and, with intentionality and great theatre, leaned across his young bride, pointing the gun out the open bay and directly between dirt bag’s booze-flushed eyes.

Van vanished amid a plume of gray smoke as wheels locked, tires screeched and “assault vehicle” fishtailed – jerking to a halt with taillights aglow skyward from the ditch.

bringyoursNot a shot was fired.

Back at the couple’s rural farmhouse, two boys – boys who would not be orphaned that night – played. We most likely played – my brother Pete and I – with assault rifles fashioned from sticks. I always love to hear Dad retell the story. He does it with an ornery, satisfied grin. “No one’s taking my guns,” he’ll say.

This might be a good time for me to add that no one’s taking my guns either. Period. And if Dianne Feinstein orders me from her lofty perch on the left-coast to retroactively register them with some federal autocracy, I think I might just forget I even have them. Tens of millions of law-abiding, God-fearing Americans just like me and Dad, I suspect, feel the same way.

I love guns. Grew up with ‘em. As a former police officer with 12 years in the U.S. military, I know how to use them, too – use them well. I plan to buy more – a bunch more. In fact, who’s to say I don’t already have a veritable arsenal?

Point is, tain’t Big Brother Barack’s nor any other candy-keistered-liberal-cream-puff’s bloody business whether I do or not.

armedSee, the left’s totalitarian brand of “gun control” has nothing to do with controlling guns – or bad guys. Rather, it has everything to do with controlling – disarming – the law-abiding masses. It’s not about protecting the innocents. It’s about rendering the innocents defenseless.

Clichés become clichés for a reason, and the old cliché, “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns,” rings as true today as it did whenever it was that some homespun fellow coined it.

I was disgusted – physically sickened, in fact – when Barack Obama, president of these Divided States of America, shamelessly exploited the Sandy Hook memorial service to lay the groundwork for his unconstitutional gun-confiscation scheme. It was slimy to the extreme.

youactuallyI guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. That’s what liberals do. Every time some evil nutjob – pumped full of psychotropic drugs by NEA members who don’t want to deal with them – shoots-up the place, the left’s collective mouth begins to water.

“Now, finally, now!” they say, rubbing together soft hands that have never felt the surprising weight of a Sig Sauer 45. “This time we have the political momentum for sweeping gun control. This time the American people will roll over and let us trample the Second Amendment beneath jackbooted executive order or congressional fiat.”

“Let no good crisis go to waste,” right, Rahm?

Well, not so fast, cupcake. As the U.S. Constitution guarantees – and as the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed – “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

It ain’t, “should not be infringed,” or “shall finally be infringed once ‘progressives’ have assumed total dominance.”

No, “shall not” means shall not.

There’s only one way to take my guns, slick, and that’s through a constitutional amendment – an amendment that will never happen – ever. Try it any other way and we have a problem.

And this whole “assault weapons ban” angle? Sensationalist propaganda. I prefer to call them “defense weapons.” Contrary to left-wing revisionist pabulum, the Second Amendment’s not about squirrel hunting.

gunfree (2)Notice a trend here? What do Sandy Hook Elementary, Aurora Colorado’s Century 16 theatre and Columbine have in common? They’re all “gun free zones.”

Places you don’t see mass murder and mayhem? Well, there’s a reason bad guys largely avoid shooting-up gun shows, ranges, households with signs that say: “This home insured by Smith & Wesson” and Texas in general. It’s because they know – even while thick-skulled liberals don’t – that, as recently noted by the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

Oh, that rather than “gun free zone,” Sandy Hook had a sign reading: “Staff heavily armed and trained. Any attempts to harm those herein will be met with deadly force.” Might some of those beautiful babies have still died if the P.E. coach and four MP5-bearing teachers had ended the bloodshed soon after it began? Perhaps. But how many precious lives could have been saved?

9lhvviNo, you won’t disarm me. You’re not going to neuter my household and tear away my ability to defend my wife and precious babies like Dad did all those years ago.

I really, really hope this president and his authoritarian cohorts in Congress will slow down, take a deep breath and realize that, right now, they’re playing a very dangerous game of chicken. If they try what I think they might, but hope they don’t, I fear this nation – already on the precipice of widespread civil unrest and economic disaster – might finally spiral into to utter chaos, into a second civil war.

But then again, that may be exactly what they have in mind.

NAPOLITANO: The right to shoot tyrants, not deer – Washington Times

NAPOLITANO: The right to shoot tyrants, not deer – Washington Times.

The Second Amendment is the guarantee of freedom

By Andrew P. Napolitano

9lhvviThe right of the people to keep and bear arms is an extension of the natural right to self-defense and a hallmark of personal sovereignty. It is specifically insulated from governmental interference by the Constitution and has historically been the linchpin of resistance to tyranny. Yet the progressives in both political parties stand ready to use the coercive power of the government to interfere with the exercise of that right by law-abiding persons because of the gross abuse of that right by some crazies in our midst.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, he was marrying the nation at its birth to the ancient principles of the natural law that have animated the Judeo-Christian tradition in the West. Those principles have operated as a brake on all governments that recognize them by enunciating the concept of natural rights.

As we have been created in the image and likeness of God the Father, we are perfectly free just as He is. Thus, the natural law teaches that our freedoms are pre-political and come from our humanity and not from the government. As our humanity is ultimately divine in origin, the government, even by majority vote, cannot morally take natural rights away from us. A natural right is an area of individual human behavior — like thought, speech, worship, travel, self-defense, privacy, ownership and use of property, consensual personal intimacy — immune from government interference and for the exercise of which we don’t need the government’s permission.

The essence of humanity is freedom. Government — whether voted in peacefully or thrust upon us by force — is essentially the negation of freedom. Throughout the history of the world, people have achieved freedom when those in power have begrudgingly given it up. From the assassination of Julius Caesar to King John’s forced signing of the Magna Carta, from the English Civil War to the triumph of the allies at the end of World War II, from the fall of communism to the Arab Spring, governments have permitted so-called nobles and everyday folk to exercise more personal freedom as a result of their demands for it and their fighting for it. This constitutes power permitting liberty.

evil1The American experience was the opposite. Here, each human being is sovereign, as the colonists were after the Revolution. Here, the delegation to the government of some sovereignty — the personal dominion over self — by each American permitted the government to have limited power in order to safeguard the liberties we retained. Stated differently, Americans gave up some limited personal freedom to the new government so it could have the authority and resources to protect the freedoms we retained. Individuals are sovereign in America, not the government. This constitutes liberty permitting power.

Yet we did not give up any natural rights; rather, we retained them. It is the choice of every individual whether to give them up. Neither our neighbors nor the government can make those choices for us, because we are all without the moral or legal authority to interfere with anyone else’s natural rights. Since the government derives all of its powers from the consent of the governed, and since we each lack the power to interfere with the natural rights of another, how could the government lawfully have that power? It doesn’t. Were this not so, our rights would not be natural; they would be subject to the government’s whims.

To assure that no government would infringe the natural rights of anyone here, the Founders incorporated Jefferson’s thesis underlying the Declaration into the Constitution and, with respect to self-defense, into the Second Amendment. As recently as two years ago, the Supreme Court recognized this when it held that the right to keep and bear arms in one’s home is a pre-political individual right that only sovereign Americans can surrender and that the government cannot take from us, absent our individual waiver.

There have been practical historical reasons for the near universal historical acceptance of the individual possession of this right. The dictators and monsters of the 20th century — from Stalin to Hitler, from Castro to Pol Pot, from Mao to Assad — have disarmed their people. Only because some of those people resisted the disarming were all eventually enabled to fight the dictators for freedom. Sometimes they lost. Sometimes they won.

The principal reason the colonists won the American Revolution is that they possessed weapons equivalent in power and precision to those of the British government. If the colonists had been limited to crossbows that they had registered with the king’s government in London, while the British troops used gunpowder when they fought us here, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would have been captured and hanged.

We also defeated the king’s soldiers because they didn’t know who among us was armed, because there was no requirement of a permission slip from the government in order to exercise the right to self-defense. (Imagine the howls of protest if permission were required as a precondition to exercising the freedom of speech.) Today, the limitations on the power and precision of the guns we can lawfully own not only violate our natural right to self-defense and our personal sovereignties, they assure that a tyrant can more easily disarm and overcome us.

bretterbringThe historical reality of the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms is not that it protects the right to shoot deer. It protects the right to shoot tyrants, and it protects the right to shoot at them effectively, with the same instruments they would use upon us. If the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto had had the firepower and ammunition that the Nazis had, some of Poland might have stayed free and more persons would have survived the Holocaust.

Most people in government reject natural rights and personal sovereignty. Most people in government believe that the exercise of everyone’s rights is subject to the will of those in the government. Most people in government believe that they can write any law and regulate any behavior, not subject to the natural law, not subject to the sovereignty of individuals, not cognizant of history’s tyrants, but subject only to what they can get away with.

Did you empower the government to impair the freedom of us all because of the mania and terror of a few?

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. He is author of “It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom” (Thomas Nelson, 2011).

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