A Geek With Guns

No sooner did several Democrats introduce a bill (named after Trayvon Martin of course, can’t let that crisis go to waste) to repeal stand your ground laws federally it has been rescinded:

Democrats backed off of their effort Tuesday to offer a “Trayvon amendment” to pressure states to drop their stand-your-ground laws after learning it was likely to be ruled out of order under the evening’s rules for debate on the House floor.

Rep. Keith Ellison, Minnesota Democrat, said he will still try to force a debate at a more “appropriate” time in the future, saying action is demanded by the case of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager who police said was shot dead in a street encounter with a neighborhood watch volunteer.

The Ellison amendment would have docked federal criminal justice grants to states that have stand-your-ground laws, which allow residents to use deadly force to respond to an attack without first having to retreat.

No debate is needed, stand your ground laws are basic common sense. Why should I be forced to face possible prison time because some punk decided to attack me outside of my home? Why should I be subjected to possible criminal charges because some schmuck fabricated a way I could have fled a location where I was attacked? Why should be I prohibited the right to self-defense in a life threatening situation?

I’m not at all surprised that an idiot like Ellison (why do these idiots have to be from my state) introduced a bill that would further disarm individuals and benefit violent criminals. Let’s face it, Ellison isn’t concerned about stand your ground laws. The Trayvon Martin case is the perfect platform for one to boost their political career. Public opinion has ruled Zimmerman guilty or murdering Martin so any politicians who can successfully exploit the tragedy is looking to get a little boost at the polls. This is pure exploitation plain and simple.

Via Shall Not Be Questioned I learned that the 10^th Circuit Court upheld the prohibition on illegal aliens owning firearms.

There isn’t much to say about this ruling beyond the fact it’s bullshit. Once again I travel astray from the common path many gun rights actives follow since I don’t believe any right is something granted by the state. If you are a human being you are a self-owner and as a self-owner you have a right to trade your labor for whatever mechanization you desire and defend yourself. This necessarily means you have a right to purchase a firearm and use it for your own protection regardless of your status as a citizen. In fact allowing the state to rule on rights is always dangerous because it sets a precedence that they hold domain over determine what that right entails and they will always rule in favor of themselves.

For some odd reason many gun rights activists hold the idea that illegal aliens should be prohibited from owning and carrying firearms. I find this strange because many of these very same gun rights activists claim gun ownership is a natural right. Let’s take a look at what a natural right is:

Natural rights are rights not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable. In contrast, legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by the law of a particular political and legal system, and therefore relative to specific cultures and governments.

Natural rights, of which I would argue only one exists, are inalienable. The one inalienable right individuals hold is the right of self-ownership. One cannot trade ownership of self to another as ownership because one cannot grant control of themselves to others. Even in a state of slavery you have free will and may refuse to obey your master or even go so far as to rebel. As you hold exclusive ownership over yourself you have a right to defend yourself and use the product of your labor as you choose.

If you believe gun ownership can be restricted by the state in any way then you believe it is a legal right. I personally believe the right of gun ownership is nothing more than an extension of self-ownership since you trade your labor for the firearm. Because of this I don’t believe anybody can be prohibited from owning a firearm. Those who agree with this court decision must also agree that gun ownership isn’t a natural right but a privilege bestowed by the state.

Even though, according to some gun control advocates, gun ownership is down the number of carry permits being issued in Hennepin County are way up:

Applications for gun permits were up 54 percent from last year over the first four months of 2012, according to a report released Monday by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office.

Officials said the sheriff’s office has received 1,875 applications for permits to carry a gun over the first four months of the year. Over the same time last year, there were 1,220 applications that were received, an increase of 54 percent.

Last year was the second-busiest for new gun permit applications since the permit law took effect in 2003. Officials said renewal applications account for about 20 percent of total applications, and renewals are required every five years.

A 54 percent increase? That’s pretty good, especially when only 20 percent of the applications were for renewals.

Some good news has come out of Florida, the state’s governor has decided not to heed the call of Tampa’s dictator so the area surrounding the Republican National Convention (RNC) will not be a gun-free zone:

Florida Governor Rick Scott has shot down a request by Tampa’s mayor to allow local authorities to ban guns from the city’s downtown during the Republican National Convention in August.

Citing Second Amendment protections in the U.S. Constitution, Scott told Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn that conventions and guns have co-existed since the nation’s birth and would continue to do so during the four-day event beginning August 27.

“It is unclear how disarming law abiding citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would flout the law,” the Republican governor said in a letter on Tuesday.

Good on Rick Scott. If this RNC is anything like the RNC that took place four years ago in St. Paul there will be armed thugs marching down the streets smashing peoples’ property… and there will probably be other people besides those state agents present as well. Last election’s RNC was a fiasco and I know several people who were arrested, a handful more who were actually shot by fucking rubber shotgun rounds, and more yet that were pepper sprayed for the criminal act of nothing. I really don’t know how one would survive near the RNC without a firearm at their side.

To those of you who have been telling us to support Romney to protect the rights of American gun owners let me just say… you’ve been suckered:

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee had a private breakfast with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg Tuesday morning at the the headquarters of the billionaire mayor’s philanthropic foundation. Romney’s campaign did not inform the press that the meeting would occur, although later confirmed that the men had met.

[...]

According to two people with knowledge of the Bloomberg meeting, cited by the New York Times, the pair discussed the economy, immigration, education and gun control over coffee and juice.

Romney is already having secret meetings with the biggest opponent of gun rights in this country, likely seeking an endorsement. As the head of Mayors Against All Illegal Guns I’m sure Bloomberg could be persuaded to endorse Romney if Romney promises gun control measures.

If you’re a gun owner and supporting Romney you’re making a sucker’s deal. He’ll get all the benefits (a National Rifle Association endorsement, campaign contributions from gun owners, votes, etc.) and we’ll get shafted. But the best part is that gun owners will have actively helped bring on their own destruction. I guess the state is great at hypocrites of people. When it comes to gun rights I think we’re basically screwed this election cycle (unless Paul manages to get the nomination) and the best we can hope for inaction on behalf of the president or a strong pro-gun majority in Congress.

A hat tip to Uncle for the story.

If you don’t like something that’s legal the first thing you must do is label it a loophole. Don’t like the fact that a company is using the tax code as written? Claim that company is exploiting a tax code loophole. Don’t like individuals owning legally allowed firearms? As Uncle points out you must merely those individuals are exploiting a loophole:

California has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. But one wouldn’t know that going to the firing range these days. AR-15s and AK-47s are the must-have guns of choice. How can that be?

Every time California tightens up the assault weapons ban, the gun industry finds a way around it. The latest example involves a tiny device.

[...]

That’s because the most popular guns at the range these days are semi-automatic rifles. In a state with some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, how is it these military-style guns are legal?

Brian Normandy is an instructor at Jackson Arms. “As long as we don’t have a detachable magazine in it, it’s actually a legal firearm,” Normandy said.

Other states allow people to use their finger to pop out the magazine and quickly reload. It is called a detachable magazine, which is illegal in California.

The intent is to slow down the process of reloading the weapon. But many target shooters don’t like the reloading hassle. “For me to use this on the range, I would have to open up the receiver and top load it,” said Normandy.

To get around this, gun manufacturers are selling firearms to Californians with what is called a “bullet button.”

The user uses the tip of a bullet to release the empty magazine and pop in a new one. The button doesn’t work with one’s finger, so the magazine is considered “fixed.”

What? People owning firearms that are legal under California law? They must be exploiting a loophole! Wow… that sounds incredibly stupid when I type it out. When you think about it the people crying out against this “bullet button loophole” are really saying, “These people own something I don’t approve of and it’s entirely legal! I don’t like how the law is written therefore they must be exploiting a loophole!” It’s almost like claiming somebody is exploiting a loophole is a loophole in of itself. In fact I think I’m going to start calling this the loophole loophole.

This does demonstrate the fact that gun control advocates will never be satisfied. No matter how many hoops we jump through, not matter how cumbersome we make firearms to use, no matter how many days we make people wait to purchase a firearm the anti-gunners will never be happy. We can’t negotiate with these people because they only want one thing: a complete abolition of firearm ownership. There is no meeting these people halfway so we shouldn’t even consider doing so. In their eyes the only common sense gun control laws are blanket prohibitions. Why should be placate them? I say we give them a big middle finger and refuse to implement any of their beloved gun control laws. They won many victories in the ’90′s and kept coming back for more and we finally pushed back. Unfortunately many gun owners now believe we’re at a point where we can stop pushing, I say we keep pushing until every single gun control law currently on the books is entirely overturned. Every. Last. One.

A man with a carry permit in Utah managed to subdue a violent individual who had stabbed two bystanders:

A man stabbed two people at the Smith’s Marketplace grocery store in downtown Salt Lake City before being subdued by a bystander.

[...]

Police say a bystander with a concealed carry permit witnessed the attack and stepped in to keep it from escalating.

“(The bystander) was suspicious of what might be going on, and when he saw the stabbing, he just drew his pistol and challenged the individual,” which caused the alleged attacker to lie down on the ground, said Salt Lake City Police Lt. Brian Purvis.

By the time police officers arrived on the scene, the man was subdued and is now in custody.

According to gun control advocates this kind of situation should never happen. First they believe those of us who carry firearms are bloody thirsty monsters who are merely looking for an excuse to murder. In reality most of us are actually very peaceful and prefer to avoid violence. In this case a man carrying a gun was able to defuse the situation without the need for actually violence, presentation of the firearm alone was enough to make the stabber think twice about continuing his violent endeavor.

Second, proponents of gun control say only the police are qualified to carry firearm. What happens when the police aren’t there? The story doesn’t say how long it took for police to arrive but it was long enough for two people to get stabbed and another person to intervene and defuse the situation. Had that permit holder not been at the store it’s likely more people would have been stabbed. When a situation involving violence arises the most critical thing to be done is ending the situation as quickly as possible. The longer a violent individual is allowed to continue the more victims he or she can rack up.

Disarming individuals only makes it easier for the bad guys to reign supreme.

Apparently the mayor of Tampa isn’t happy about Florida’s preemption laws that prohibit local municipalities from overriding state gun laws:

Frustrated by a Florida law that blocks all local regulation of guns, Mayor Bob Buckhorn expects to reach out to Gov. Rick Scott for help keeping concealed firearms away from protests during the Republican National Convention.

The 2011 state law pre-empts the ability of cities and counties to pass any laws regulating firearms or ammunition.

So while Tampa plans to ban a wide range of weapons (clubs, switchblades, Mace) and things that could be used as weapons (chains, glass bottles, water pistols) outside the convention, it cannot prohibit guns carried with a concealed weapons permit.

If ever a place existed where you would want a firearm it would be the Republican National Conventions (RNC). The RNC will be one of the very few locations that will have armed mobs both inside and outside of the building (honestly, I’m more fearful of the armed mob inside the RNC). What will be interesting is seeing if the newly passed law that makes it illegal to “knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions” anywhere the Secret Service is guarding people. At this point all the candidates have Secret Service protection, well except Ron Paul:

So the new law may certainly be enforced at the RNC. I’m guessing this year’s RNC will mirror 2008′s RNC, in which most of St. Paul was turned into more of a police state than it normally is (they had barbed wire and everything).

I doubt anybody is surprised about this but everybody’s favorite hater of individual liberty has blocked the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2012, oh and she’s citing the Trayvon Martin case because she likes to take entirely unrelated events and use them as justification for preventing individuals from having rights:

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Tuesday placed a hold on two controversial pieces of legislation that would force states that allow the concealed carrying of guns to recognize each other’s permits.

Feinstein informed party leadership that she would oppose the quick passage of two concealed carry reciprocity bills that critics argue would cause a “race to the bottom” in terms of concealed weapon law in the United States. The senator cited the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager killed in Florida, as one of the reasons she was applying the legislative brakes.

“Besides putting domestic violence victims in danger, the concealed carry reciprocity bills would also create potentially life threatening situations for law enforcement officers,” Feinstein wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

“In recent weeks, our nation has witnessed tragic gun violence in Sanford, Florida and in Oakland, California, which is only a short drive from my home. Notably, George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, had been issued a concealed carry permit under Florida law, even though he had previously been subject to a court order for domestic abuse of his ex-fiancée. Congress should heed the warnings of law enforcement and not force states to recognize the permits issued to individuals by other states.”

I’m a logical human being which is probably why I’m unable to understand Feinstein’s justification. How would the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act put domestic violence victims in danger or create life threatening situations for law enforcement officers? I’ll also hand her some exploitations of the tragedies bonus points for weaseling the Martin case into her statement.

Nowhere in the bill’s text is there any loosening of restrictions on those involved in domestic violence cases. Obviously this is par for the course when Feinstein is playing but she could at least try to give a sensible justification for hating individual rights. I’m also not sure how the bill would create a life threatening situation for police officers. How many permit holders have murdered police officers? I’m guessing the number hovers somewhere around zero. If somebody has so much disregard for life that they’re willing to murder another human being they certainly aren’t going to give two shits about laws prohibiting them from carrying firearms.

Furthermore Feinstein seems to believe that the lives of police officers are more valuable that you or mine. She doesn’t believe the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act could create life threatening situations for regular individuals, no, only for police officers.

As a voluntaryist I’ve explained my support for the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act. It really boils down to the fact that the state can legitimately own property so any restriction they put on our right as self-owners is unjust, immoral, and unacceptable. No state has the right to prohibit me from carrying a gun, only rightful property owners can do that and only while I’m on their property. Carrying a firearm isn’t a violent act yet the state often reactions to people peacefully carrying firearms with violence. Feinstein would prefer the state continue to insert violence into an otherwise non-violence situation. It’s actually rather sickening when you realize how much politician love violence.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre. While many people have been using this anniversary to push a gun control agenda the truth is the amount of people killed by the shooter could have been reduced greatly if only students and faculty were allowed to carry on campus:

Speaking for myself, I would give anything if someone on campus; a professor, one of the trained military or guardsman taking classes or another student could have saved my daughter by shooting Cho before he killed our loved ones. Because professors, staff and students are precluded from protecting themselves on campus, Cho, a student at Virginia Tech himself, was able to simply walk on campus and go on a killing rampage with no worry that anyone would stop him.

What enabled the killer to walk around the campus and murder random individuals wasn’t a lack of gun control laws, it was to presences of them. Serial killers like Cho select gun-free zones for a reason, they can be reasonably sure that they won’t encounter any resistance and therefore hold all of the power. For many of these killers their real desire is power over others and killing unarmed individuals gives a person a feeling of power.

When the state prohibits you from carrying a firearm they are stripping you of your ability to defend yourself. No free society should ever find it acceptable to use the threat of violence (if you carry a gun you will be kidnapped and tossed into a cage) to prevent others from defending themselves. It’s ridiculous. The very fact that nonviolent individuals wanting nothing more than the ability to defend themselves are subjected to the threat of violence by the state should be appalling to everybody.

Although the Virginia Tech massacre couldn’t have been prevented entirely the number killed could have been greatly reduced. Instead society allowed the gun control advocates to get their way and it has cost lives. We should all remember the aftermath of Virginia Tech and vow to fight for individuals’ right to self-defense.