Is This A New Tactic To Stifle The Second Amendment? | Absolute Rights

Is This A New Tactic To Stifle The Second Amendment? | Absolute Rights.

Posted by: Jon Dougherty July 7, 2014

By Keven Card

We’ve witnessed the IRS targeting of groups at odds politically with the big government agenda of this administration and their allies in Congress. We’ve seen the EPA target the coal industry for discriminatory regulations with the intent of pushing and entire industry out of business. We’ve watched as the U.S. attorney general’s office targeted an American guitar company for using wood they legally purchased. And we believe that in every one of these instances, the government bureaucracy acted for purely political purposes. We’ve even heard the president of the United States state plainly that he’s willing to act administratively to achieve his goals.

So when I heard the story of a Houston-area gun shop owner who suddenly had his loan called in by the bank I have to admit my ears perked. But in this case I remain cautious about jumping to any conclusions. My first thought was the business was mismanaged and the bank was simply foreclosing on a bad client, which turns out not to be true. That’s when the story got interesting.

The owner Jeremy Alcede has been known for irritating the left with the sign just outside his Katy gun shop with statements like “I like my guns like Obama likes his voters undocumented.” This certainly hasn’t won him any fans from the gun control crowd or for that matter, any of the left’s special interest groups.

His new sign says “Obama and Icon Bank Trying To End Us On July 1^st” because Alcede says, though he’s been in good standing with the bank and has never missed a payment on his loan, the board of directors decided not to renew the loan. On the Tactical Firearms website he claims the bank told them “government does not support loans to the gun, alcohol or hotel industries.”

In the Tactical Firearms case there is another possible explanation too. A member of the board, Mark Evans, is the owner of a new gun shop in Houston, creating a potential conflict of interest. This could explain the vote to call in his loan. But if that’s true, it doesn’t reflect well on Icon Bank, not if that’s how they treat customers in good standing anyway. For this case I’m in the wait for more facts and see what shakes out.

But this isn’t the first time a gun shop has made this claim. According to the Washington Times many gun shops and other business owners have complained about new financial and banking regulations that have unfairly labeled their businesses as high risk and had their loans denied or otherwise restricted.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, posted a report called The Legal Limit Report 4 which outlined 76 “lawless” actions of the Obama administration. Listed at number eight was “Operation Choke Point.” Cruz’s report explains:

Government agencies are engaging in “Operation Choke Point,” where the government asks banks to “choke off” access to financial services for customers engaging in conduct the Administration does not like—such as ‘ammunition sales.

As we’ve seen many times before with the Obama Administration, when they can’t get what they want through the political process, they seem to use administrative measures to accomplish the same goal.

This, then, raises a question: Is what’s happening with Tactical Firearms part of a nationwide effort aimed at enacting a version of gun control without congressional approval? Given the other exposed scandals that demonstrate this administration’s willingness to strong-arm political opponents and citizens, it seems highly likely that it could be true.

By simple use of deductive reasoning we can reach some conclusions. The housing crisis was used to create the need for the federal government to step in and bail out many banks and financial institutions. This prompted a political response and Congress passed Dodd-Frank, the financial reform package, which the president hurriedly signed into law in 2010.

This law has led to more stringent regulations on an already burdened industry. Operation Choke Point demonstrates that federal government agencies have gained significant influence on these industries and their decisions, through Dodd-Frank. Given that they could easily encourage (by that I mean through use of force) certain behavior from that industry like restricting loans to unfavorable businesses.

How does that lead to gun control?

Indirect control of guns and ammunition sales, that’s how. By restricting loans to gun shops and ammunition resellers, you dry up their inventory. Without the banks loaning money to this industry they can’t buy bulk inventory; that will cause supply to fall well short of demand, dramatically increasing prices. That pushes the price point higher, and the higher the price, the less people can afford to buy. Through this method of gun control, only the companies that are debt-free will survive the crunch, which serves to further reduce the number of businesses that can operate.

Yes it’ll hurt the economy and put people out of work, but this president and his allies in Washington don’t seemed concerned about jobs as much as they are the fundamental transformation of America.

In a press briefing on June 10,2014, one of the Obama Administrations principle press secretaries, Josh Earnest said unequivocally, “The president’s goal is to look for opportunities to act administratively, unilaterally using his executive authority to try to make our communities safer.” In other words, he’ll use administrative actions to enact some level of gun control.

And he just may have a shot at it by hiding behind the robust regulatory environment in Washington to accomplish that goal. It’ll take an honest media and a boisterous populace to expose this Chicago style political thuggery, or a massive change of the guard in Washington, of which neither is highly probable. What is certain is the political machine in Washington has every intention of trying to thwart the Second Amendment more than they ever have before.

So for those of us who are strong advocates of the Second Amendment, hold on to your hats and stock up on your supplies because you don’t know when the next crisis that leads to another power grab, by this government, will happen. But, my guess is it’ll happen sooner rather than later.

Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns? – Thomas Sowell

Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns? – Thomas Sowell 

The 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.

There 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.

These 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.

Most 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.

Related articles

• Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns? – Thomas Sowell (conservativeread.com)
• Do gun control laws control guns? (wnd.com)
• Thomas Sowell – Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns? (mypoliticalmusings.wordpress.com)
• City By City Assault On Our Rights (chasvoice.blogspot.com)
• The great gun control fallacy | Thomas Sowell (guardian.co.uk)
• Gun Control Laws to Blame For California’s Rise in Crime (godfatherpolitics.com)

 

A Marine’s letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein – Tea Party Nation

A Marine’s letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein – Tea Party Nation.

Jack E. Kemp

From Armed Forces Tea Party:

QUESTION OF THE DAY – Do You agree with this Marine?
(Whether you agree or not please keep the language of your post respectful.)

Senator Dianne Feinstein,

I will not register my weapons should this bill be passed, as I do not believe it is the government’s right to know what I own. Nor do I think it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me by a group of people who enjoy armed protection yet decry me having the same a crime. You ma’am have overstepped a line that is not your domain. I am a Marine Corps Veteran of 8 years, and I will not have some woman who proclaims the evil of an inanimate object, yet carries one, tell me I may not have one.

I am not your subject. I am the man who keeps you free. I am not your servant. I am the person whom you serve. I am not your peasant. I am the flesh and blood of America.
I am the man who fought for my country. I am the man who learned. I am an American. You will not tell me that I must register my semi-automatic AR-15 because of the actions of some evil man.

I will not be disarmed to suit the fear that has been established by the media and your misinformation campaign against the American public.

We, the people, deserve better than you.

Respectfully Submitted,
Joshua Boston
Cpl, United States Marine Corps
2004-2012

Related articles

• A Marine responds to Dianne Feinstein’s gun ban (thedaleygator.wordpress.com)
• Tyrannical Witch Dianne Feinstein Declares War On America! (dprogram.net)
• NRA-ILA Breaks Down the Feinstein Frontal Attack on Your RKBA (ammoland.com)
• Critics Slam Sen. Feinstein’s “Assault Weapons” Ban, Gun Registry (conservativeread.com)
• Petition: Try Dianne Feinstein For Treason (sgtreport.com)
• Flashback: How Diane Feinstein’s Husband Cashed in On Her Connections (nalert.blogspot.com)

 

When Gun Control Satire Becomes Reality – Daniel J. Mitchell – Townhall Finance Conservative Columnists and Financial Commentary

When Gun Control Satire Becomes Reality – Daniel J. Mitchell – Townhall Finance .

Daniel J. Mitchell

Back in my less sophisticated days (shocking as it may seem, I wasn’t always the mature, statesmanlike figure I am today), I sometimes resorted to silly arguments when debating gun control, such as, “does this mean you want to ban knives since they also can be used to kill people?”

Smarter opponents would scoff and accuse me of knocking down straw men, assuming a non-existent slippery slope, or engaging in reductio ad absurdum.

I wasn’t even sure what the last one meant, but I secretly felt chagrined because I also thought the argument was nonsense. But it’s not like we had the Internet back in those days so I could quickly peruse the writings of John Lott or David Kopel.

Well, I no longer need to feel shame. It turns out that my straw man came to life and he’s sliding down a slope into a big pool of whatever that reductio thing is.

I kid you not. There’s a supposedly civilized nation that is seriously talking about banning long kitchen knives.

I’ll give you a couple of hints to help you figure out what country is considering this bizarre policy.

• It’s the country that wanted to prevent children from watching Olympic shooting events.
• It’s the country that arrested a man for finding a gun in his yard and turning it over to the police.
• It’s the country that imposed a prohibition on the use of starting pistols at races lest children get frightened by the noise.

Yes, I’m talking about our friends in the United Kingdom.

They make some decent movies and they have cute accents, but they seem totally clueless about how to fight crime and the notion of individual rights appears to be a totally alien concept.

So the nation that once ruled half the world actually has contemplated whether to ban certain kitchen knives. Here are some details from a 2005 BBC report.

A&E doctors are calling for a ban on long pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths from stabbing. …The research is published in the British Medical Journal. The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all. …The researchers say legislation to ban the sale of long pointed knives would be a key step in the fight against violent crime. …Home Office spokesperson said there were already extensive restrictions in place to control the sale and possession of knives. “The law already prohibits the possession of offensive weapons in a public place, and the possession of knives in public without good reason or lawful authority, with the exception of a folding pocket knife with a blade not exceeding three inches. … A spokesperson for the Association of Chief Police Officers said: “ACPO supports any move to reduce the number of knife related incidents, however, it is important to consider the practicalities of enforcing such changes.”

Given my low opinion of and low expectations for Britain’s political class, I’m impressed that pocket knives are still legal. It’s probably just a matter of time before than changes. After that, the next step will be fingernail clippers.

And I’m glad that the ACPO person warned that there might be problems enforcing such a silly law.

But I fully expect to see that foolish proposal get enacted at some point. After all, this is the country where a women who was being threatened by thugs got in trouble with the police for brandishing a knife in her own home.

Related articles

• doctors are calling for a ban on long pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths from stabbing. (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Gun Control: Does It Work To Reduce Crime? (thebrennerbrief.com)
• When They Came For Guns , I Did Not Speak … (youviewedblog.wordpress.com)
• UK Doctors are calling for a ban on pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths. (forum.prisonplanet.com)
• UK Considers Banning Kitchen Knives (godfatherpolitics.com)

 

Guns Save Lives – Wayne Allyn Root – Townhall.com

Guns Save Lives – Wayne Allyn Root – Townhall.com.

Why do liberal politicians and the biased liberal mainstream media (meaning pretty much all media in America but FNC) always come to the wrong conclusion, and usually come up with the wrong solution, in response to every crisis? As an example, we don’t have a “fiscal cliff” crisis because of a tax problem in America. What we have is a spending problem- Obama is the biggest spender of any politician in world history.

The same story holds true with the gun control issue spurred by the tragic Newtown school shooting. The liberal politicians and media are using Rahm Emanuel’s famous saying, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” They are trying to turn a terrible tragedy into a gun problem. Their solution is to try to demonize and ban guns. But the Newtown tragedy wasn’t a gun problem, it was a mental illness problem.

Thank goodness the American public has more common sense than the politicians and media big shots. The latest Rasmussen poll is out following the Newtown tragedy. While 27% think stricter gun control laws are the solution, and 15% want limits on violent movies and video games, a dominant 48% believe the answer is more action to treat mental health issues.

It is obvious that many Americans feel in their gut what the statistics I’m about to share with you prove– that guns do much more than kill (in the wrong hands). More often than not, they save lives and prevent violence.

Here are a few proven facts that are too often missing from the gun debate (Thanks to Gun Owners of America and ZeroHedge.com for these statistics):

Based on a 2000 study, Americans use guns to defend themselves from crime and violence 989,883 times annually. Banning guns would leave about 1,000,000 Americans defenseless from criminals who have no problem acquiring guns illegally.

A nationwide survey of almost 5000 households found that over a five-year period 3.5% of households had a member who used a gun to protect themselves, their family, or their property. This also adds up to about the same 1,000,000 incidents annually.

The Clinton Justice Department identified 1.5 million cases per year of citizens using guns to defend themselves.

Another survey found that Americans use guns to frighten intruders away from a home break-in about 500,000 times annually.

Armed citizens shoot criminals more than twice as often as police each year (1527 to 606).

Each year about 200,000 women use a gun to defend themselves from a sexual crime or abuse.

The Carter Justice Department found that of more than 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. But when a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually successful.

Now that we’ve polled the citizens, how about we see what the felons have to say:

A survey of male felons in 11 state prisons across the USA found that 34% had been scared off, wounded or captured by an armed victim of their crime.

40% of felons made a decision not to commit a crime because they feared the potential victim had a gun.

69% of felons knew other fellow criminals who had been scared off or captured by an armed victim.

57% of felons polled agreed that “criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police.”

Statistical comparisons with other countries show that burglars in the United States are far less apt to enter an occupied home than their foreign counterparts who live in countries where fewer civilians own firearms.

These facts (and many more too voluminous to show here) prove that guns- in the right hands- defend citizens, families and children. In short, guns save lives.

But for me, it’s always been a personal and emotional argument, even more than a factual one. I’m a proud Jewish American. Over six million of my fellow Jews were enslaved, starved, tortured, and then slaughtered by Adolph Hitler. Before it could happen, in 1938, Hitler banned gun ownership for Jews.

That act on November 11, 1938 (one day after the infamous Kristallnacht) was the beginning of the end for Germany’s Jews. Millions of Jews were left defenseless from that day forward. Just like the criminals in the studies above, who were far less likely to break into a home or attack a victim, if they feared the victim was armed, Hitler only started his murderous genocide after first ensuring his victims were disarmed, defenseless, and helpless.

Will a conservative NRA (National Rifle Association) and JPFO (Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership) member like me support reasonable gun control? Of course. Should we ensure that mentally ill people cannot purchase guns? Of course. Should we enforce current gun laws? Of course.Should we do more to ensure that all gun owners are licensed, trained, responsible and mentally competent? Of course. Should we take lessons from Israel’s gun laws that require strict mental evaluation and examinations, as well as rigorous training? Absolutely.

But should we move to ban guns, thereby leaving the law-abiding citizens defenseless and helpless? Never. Not in America.

Should government and law enforcement be the only ones legally able to carry guns? Never. Not in America.

Should government be allowed to take away guns from honest, law-abiding homeowners, business owners, and citizens like me? Only when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

Thomas Jefferson put it best:

“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

Related articles

• What happens when they take your Guns away…….. A short History Lesson (twighlightslastgleaming.wordpress.com)
• NRA saves lives as Democrats call for murder (examiner.com)

Invincible Ignorance – Thomas Sowell – Townhall.com

Invincible Ignorance – Thomas Sowell – Townhall.com.

By Thomas Sowell

Must every tragic mass shooting bring out the shrill ignorance of “gun control” advocates?

The key fallacy of so-called gun control laws is that such laws do not in fact control guns. They simply disarm law-abiding citizens, while people bent on violence find firearms readily available.

If gun control zealots had any respect for facts, they would have discovered this long ago, because there have been too many factual studies over the years to leave any serious doubt about gun control laws being not merely futile but counterproductive.

Places and times with the strongest gun control laws have often been places and times with high murder rates. Washington, D.C., is a classic example, but just one among many.

When it comes to the rate of gun ownership, that is higher in rural areas than in urban areas, but the murder rate is higher in urban areas. The rate of gun ownership is higher among whites than among blacks, but the murder rate is higher among blacks. For the country as a whole, hand gun ownership doubled in the late 20th century, while the murder rate went down.

The few counter-examples offered by gun control zealots do not stand up under scrutiny. Perhaps their strongest talking point is that Britain has stronger gun control laws than the United States and lower murder rates.

But, if you look back through history, you will find that Britain has had a lower murder rate than the United States for more than two centuries– and, for most of that time, the British had no more stringent gun control laws than the United States. Indeed, neither country had stringent gun control for most of that time.

In the middle of the 20th century, you could buy a shotgun in London with no questions asked. New York, which at that time had had the stringent Sullivan Law restricting gun ownership since 1911, still had several times the gun murder rate of London, as well as several times the London murder rate with other weapons.

Neither guns nor gun control was not the reason for the difference in murder rates. People were the difference.

Yet many of the most zealous advocates of gun control laws, on both sides of the Atlantic, have also been advocates of leniency toward criminals.

In Britain, such people have been so successful that legal gun ownership has been reduced almost to the vanishing point, while even most convicted felons in Britain are not put behind bars. The crime rate, including the rate of crimes committed with guns, is far higher in Britain now than it was back in the days when there were few restrictions on Britons buying firearms.

In 1954, there were only a dozen armed robberies in London but, by the 1990s– after decades of ever tightening gun ownership restrictions– there were more than a hundred times as many armed robberies.

Gun control zealots’ choice of Britain for comparison with the United States has been wholly tendentious, not only because it ignored the history of the two countries, but also because it ignored other countries with stronger gun control laws than the United States, such as Russia, Brazil and Mexico. All of these countries have higher murder rates than the United States.

You could compare other sets of countries and get similar results. Gun ownership has been three times as high in Switzerland as in Germany, but the Swiss have had lower murder rates. Other countries with high rates of gun ownership and low murder rates include Israel, New Zealand, and Finland.

Guns are not the problem. People are the problem– including people who are determined to push gun control laws, either in ignorance of the facts or in defiance of the facts.

There is innocent ignorance and there is invincible, dogmatic and self-righteous ignorance. Every tragic mass shooting seems to bring out examples of both among gun control advocates.

Some years back, there was a professor whose advocacy of gun control led him to produce a “study” that became so discredited that he resigned from his university. This column predicted at the time that this discredited study would continue to be cited by gun control advocates. But I had no idea that this would happen the very next week in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Related articles

• Mexico Shows That Tight Gun Control Laws Don’t Guarantee Compliance (reason.com)
• Gun Owners of America: Bob Costas Digs Himself in Deeper on the O’Reilly Factor Talking About Gun Control (thelonestarwatchdog.com)
• City By City Assault On Our Rights (chasvoice.blogspot.com)
• Gun Control Zealots’ Invincible Ignorance (thenewamerican.com)
• Gun Control: Why are so many politicians in Favor of Disarming the American Public? (offgridsurvival.com)
• Is Gun Control Helping or Hurting Europe? (maddmedic.wordpress.com)

 

Dear News Media, you suck

Dear News Media,

You suck. Whatever happened to journalism? Fact finding? Truth before reporting? You’re nothing more than sleazy lawyers hanging out in hospital parking lots looking for unsuspecting clients. I stopped watching your sensationalist ‘news’ a long time ago and I refuse to start again until you grow the fuck up.

Dear Law Enforcement officials, you’re stronger than they are. Don’t cave into the news media and government officials when they beg and threaten you for inaccurate crumbs to feed to the tabloid media machine. Just say no.

Dear Law Enforcement and First Responders, we love you. We’re so sorry that you have to see such terrible things. We hope our love and support is enough to get you through each day. There is no one we trust more than you.

Dear Mr. President, don’t tell the people that we will do everything we can so that this terrible tragedy doesn’t happen again. You can’t prevent them. No one can. If someone wants to harm others they will. It’s not pretty but it’s the truth.

Dear Families in Newtown, we are all thinking of you. We are all sending our love and support. We are so sorry. We know it can never be enough.

Dear America, nothing is black and white. You should know that by now. It’s not something we can fix by saying if we take away A then B will never happen. Life doesn’t work that way.

Stop trying to place blame everywhere except where it belongs.

It’s not non-religious people vs. religious people. It’s not gun owners vs. non-gun owners. It’s not Democrats vs. Republicans.

It’s just people. We need to care more. We need to pay more attention to our kids. We need to help each other.

And not just when tragedy strikes.

I’m sure my words aren’t new. I’m sure my words will anger some. But, they are my words and I will stand by them.

My heart breaks for these children. The same age as my own son. I had the luxury of waking him for school this morning. I didn’t want to let him out of my sight and I cried after I put him on the bus. If you knew me, you would know that was rare.

My comfort is this, for every [insert deviant type here] out there, who wants to harm others to fill whatever hole they have in their lives, there are thousands of good people doing the right thing for others without wanting a thing in return.

Maybe one day the news media will report those stories.

This was blogged by my daughter. She makes me proud!

Related articles

• Dear Media, Back The F*** Off Newtown (zephoria.org)
• Morgan Freeman Blames “Sensationalist Media” for Connecticut Shooting, Coverage of National Tragedies (thehollywoodgossip.com)
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Inside the Beltway: Libertarians question gun-free zones – Washington Times

Inside the Beltway: Libertarians question gun-free zones – Washington Times.

By Jennifer Harper – The Washington Times

“We’ve created a ‘gun-free zone,’ a killing zone, for the sickest criminals on the face of the Earth,” says R. Lee Wrights, vice chairman of the Libertarian Party, in the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., killings. “And we’ve made the children of this country the victims.”

The 1990 Federal Gun Free Schools Zone Act, which prohibits carrying firearms on school grounds in most cases, “criminalizes the right to self-defense in places filled with the most vulnerable citizens,” Mr. Wrights says. He argues that would-be shooters would be deterred by “merely the knowledge” that armed people could be present in a potential target area. “They’re not going to walk into a police station, and why not? Because that’s where the guns are,” Mr. Wrights observes, adding that after 9/11, Congress allowed firearms in airline cockpits.

“It’s time to take the same approach with teachers, school administrators, and security guards, who should be allowed to carry the tools necessary to protect the students in their care,” Mr. Wrights adds, insisting that gun-free zone policies should be re-examined.

“We must stop blinding ourselves to the obvious: Most of these mass killings are happening at schools where self-defense is prohibited,” says Carla Howell, executive director of the Libertarian Party. “Gun prohibition sets the stage for the slaughter of innocent children. We must repeal these anti-self-defense laws now to minimize the likelihood they will occur in the future, and to limit the damage done when they do.”

THE NEWTOWN-VIDEO GAME CONNECTION

Some continue to ponder the influence of graphically violent video games and movies following Newtown. “The violence in the entertainment culture — particularly, with the extraordinary realism to video games, movies now, et cetera — does cause vulnerable young men to be more violent. It doesn’t make everybody more violent, but it’s a causative factor in some cases. We ought to ask the entertainment community, what are you going to do to tone that down?” Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Independent, told Fox News Sunday.

He suggested more scrutiny from Capitol Hill policymakers. “In our society, you always try to do it voluntarily. But I think we’ve come to a point where you’ve got to say, if not, maybe there’s some things we can do to tone it down,” Mr. Lieberman said.

THE NEWTOWN-FAITH CONNECTION

Former presidential hopeful and Fox News host Mike Huckabee had another explanation.

“We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?” Mr. Huckabee asked.

“Because we’ve made schools a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability. That we’re not just going to have be accountable to the police if they catch us, but one day we stand before, you know, a holy God in judgment. If we don’t believe that, then we don’t fear that,” Mr. Huckabee told Fox Business Network anchor Neil Cavuto.

DISAGREEMENT CULTURE

“The public broadly perceives that Americans themselves are divided over core values. Nearly seven in 10 Americans say the country is divided when it comes to the most important values, while 29 percent believe Americans are largely in agreement and united,” says Gallup analyst Lydia Saad.

New findings reveal that 80 percent of Republicans cite this divide, along with 63 percent of Democrats.

“The difficulty President Obama and Congress are having in coming to agreement on important issues may, therefore, not be unique to Washington; rather, it may generally reflect the way things are — or at least are perceived to be — in the country more broadly. Whether that is a bad thing, or the natural result of the United States’ large size, diversity, and freedoms that allow political arguments to go on unfettered, is a separate issue,” Ms. Saad notes.

THE DEMOCRACY RACE

A new rating of the most “democratic” nations on the planet places the U.S. in 15th place in a list of 104 countries. The Vienna-based Democracy Ranking Assoc. offers an annual assessment of the “quality” of democracy among the populations, taking into account such factors as political rights, civil liberty, press freedom, corruption, political stability, “gender gap” issues and myriad socioeconomic indicators.

The top 10 nations on the list are Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand, Germany, Ireland and Austria.

“The United States dropped from ranking position 14 to 15, but improved in scores from 78.3 to 78.5, with gains in politics, environment, health, and knowledge, but losses in economy and gender,” the report said.

Canada, Belgium, Britain and Australia outrank the U.S. The nations with the lowest rankings are Guinea-Bissau, Togo, Libya, Syria and in last place, Yemen. See the findings here: http://www.democracyranking.org

POLL DU JOUR

• 61 percent of U.S. voters are concerned that Obama administration policies “will move the country toward socialism”; 89 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of Democrats agree.

• 49 percent of voters overall say the economy will be better in the next year; 20 percent of Republicans and 79 percent of Democrats agree.

• 42 percent of voters overall expect President Obama to be considered a great or good president; 7 percent of Republicans and 77 percent of Democrats agree.

• 38 percent overall expect Mr. Obama to be considered below average, or “one of the worst presidents”; 73 percent of Republicans and 5 percent of Democrats agree.

• 42 percent overall say that 2012 was a “good” year; 28 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of Democrats agree.

• 41 percent say 2012 was a “bad” year; 57 percent of Republicans and 25 percent of Democrats agree.

Source: A Fox news survey of 1,012 registered U.S. voters conducted Dec. 9-11.

• Weary sighs, hopeful accolades to jharper@washingtontimes.com.

CNN Anchor: It Doesn’t Matter That Gun Violence is Down – Katie Pavlich

CNN Anchor: It Doesn’t Matter That Gun Violence is Down – Katie Pavlich.

If you weren’t quite sure what the “unbiased” opinion about gun control from so-called objective journalists was, you’ll know now. This morning on CNN, anchor Don Lemon said it doesn’t matter that gun crime has been consistently going down since the 1990s as gun control has decreased. FBI crime statistics prove this fact year after year. 

It doesn’t matter if gun violence is down. 20 children are dead here and 6 adults are dead, and the mother of a person who was not mentally — who is mentally challenged in some way is dead. so to say that gun violence is down — we need to talk about mental health, yes. mental health is a secondary issue. We need to get guns and bullets and automatic weapons off the streets. They should only be available to police officers and to hunt al Qaeda and the Taliban and not hunt children.

Lemon is correct, 20 children are dead and their parents have been living a nightmare since they were killed last week, however, the way to react to the situation is not by turning sane gun owners, including semi-automatic gun owners, into criminals. There are about 60 million gun owners in the United States, many of them own semi-automatic handguns and rifles and have zero interest in hunting children as Lemon suggested. Also, automatic weapons are already off the streets.

After the Giffords shooting, a Pew poll showed 58 percent of Americans said the horrific incident was carried out by a troubled indiviual. This case is no different.

In the wake of the Tucson shooting in January 2011, there was no significant change in public views on the issue of gun control and gun rights.

Currently, 49% of Americans say it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns, while 46% say it is more important to control gun ownership. In September 2010, 50% prioritized gun control, 46% gun rights. In this regard, there is no sign that the longer trend toward an emphasis on gun owners’ rights has abated.

Perhaps one reason that attitudes remained stable was how few saw the events in Tucson as a sign of broader social problems. Most (58%) Americans say things like this are just the isolated acts of troubled individuals. Only about half as many (31%) saw the shooting in Tucson as a reflection of broader problems in American society.

Once again we’re seeing how out of touch the media is with the rest of America and not surprisingly, they’re wearing their agenda right on their sleeve.

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Australia Warns America: Don’t Let Them Take Your Guns! : Freedom Outpost

Australia Warns America: Don’t Let Them Take Your Guns! : Freedom Outpost.

by Lorri Anderson

Government officials and citizens in Australia speak out to warn America “Don’t Let Them Take Your Guns!” According to reports when the Gun Ban went into effect in Australia the crime rate spiraled out of control. The police officers are overwhelmed and are unable to protect the citizens due to so much crime.

When the forced gun ban (buy back program) went into effect law abiding citizens had to turn in their semi automatic firearms, pump action rifles, and shotguns or face going to jail. Six hundred forty thousand conventional firearms were taken out of the hands of law abiding citizens, confiscated and destroyed. Law abiding citizens followed the law and turned in their weapons. Citizens were promised safety in return for turning in their guns. Does any of this sound familiar, like UN Gun Treaty perhaps?

Since the gun ban in Australia, armed robberies are up 69%, assaults with guns up 28%, gun murders increased 19%, and home invasions jumped 21%. More proof that not only does gun control not work, it makes it safer for the criminals at large. In their words

“The cost of lost liberty can be measured in the loss of life”

Andy Dunn from the South Australian Police Association states “The bad guys are happy to break into somebody’s house. They are not frightened to break into somebody’s house while their at home.” He also states “It is very bad right now. It has never been worse.” The police can’t protect the civilians now, because they are undermanned and their morale has never been lower according to reports.

Wake up America! To those Anti-gun activists, you need to realize this is going to affect you also. Wake up before it is too late. Will the United States listen to the warning Australia is sending us? Will it make a difference? I truly hope so. I would like to thank the Australians for taking the time to warn us about the effects of gun-control in their country. Although many of us know what affect gun control has on our nation, many do not and have been fooled by the smooth talking politicians. Others seem to be in the mind set that it doesn’t affect them. Without our right to bear arms, our right to protect ourselves, our family, and our home will be gone. Thus allowing the Constitution to be destroyed by politicians for the sake of their agenda.

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